bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Chronology of the Waverley Novels: The Evidence of the Manuscripts
Authors: Mayo Robert D.
Published: February 2007

The attack on the accepted chronology of the Waverley Novels began in 1932, the year of the Scott centennial. In a letter to the Edinburgh Scotsman, Dame Una Pope-Hennessy, who had just published a successful biography, launched an assault on what she considered the most vulnerable work in the canon from the point of view of chronology, St. Ronan's Weil. Universally accepted as the eighteenth member of the series, this novel seemed to Dame Una, “after careful consideration and re-reading”, far more likely to be the first in time of composition, and because of its suggestive allusions to the period of Scott's courtship, she expressed the belief that “the major portion” must have been written, not in 1823, but in 1797–98—twenty-five years before it was actually sent to press, and sixteen years before the completion of Waverley (1814), Scott's celebrated first novel.
The Poetical Character of Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (1797-1848)
Authors: Silz Walter
Published: February 2007

The marked loneliness of Annette von Droste-Hülshoff's literary career and position must impress even a casual observer. Not that she lacked affinities with the literature of her time. It is easy to point out Romantic elements in her: her cult of the past, particularly the legends and ancient customs of her homeland; her predilection for “die Nacht-seite der Natur”, the weird, the supernatural; her occasional irony; her conviction that “Sehnsucht” is the true source of poetic inspiration. It is easy, on the other hand, to point out in her work the emergent Realism which was to succeed Romanticism (though there is more of it already present in Romanticism than is generally recognized). In conscious opposition to “einer gewissen romantischen Schule”, Annette insisted “dass ich nur im Naturgetreuen, durch Poésie veredelt, etwas leisten kann”, thus defining herself as a Poetic Realist in the very heyday of Young Germany.
The Influence of London on The Dynasts
Authors: Sherman George Witter
Published: February 2007

Such appraisals as Samuel C. Chew's, that Hardy knew the Southern Counties as Gilbert White knew Selborne or Arnold Bennett the Five Towns, require no affidavits. But Mrs. Hardy's assertions that he had a knowledge of the city “like a born Londoner”, “as only a young man can get it”, and that there is more autobiography in a hundred lines of his poetry than in all his novels—such statements warrant more study than they have hitherto received.
Le Langage De Giraudoux
Authors: McDonald Ruth Elizabeth
Published: February 2007

J'aime beaucoup les premières phrases de chapitre qui vous donnent par leur tenue une pleine satisfaction de vous-même, vous délivrant en une seconde de toute appréhension d'unanimisme, de passéisme, de populisme, et habillent les personnages pour les vraies tragédies du cœur,—la première phrase de ce chapitre, par exemple. La voici, ample et réelle: Nancy Rolla, adorablement coiffée par Rose Desca, ses jambes croisées mettant en valeur de minuscules souliers en serpent de Perugia, un rouge Antoine spécial et des yeux violets composant sur son visage mat une alliance de couleurs qu'aucun pavillon national jamais ne réalisera, dans le fond de sa Bugatti, et tout en contemplant un magnifique ciel signé lui aussi, attendait Maléna que le chauffeur était monté prévenir, et se demandait pourquoi sa jeune amie l'avait convoquée si tôt—-des aiguilles de diamant marquaient dix heures à sa montre de rubis,—dans ce matin de printemps débutant dont les premiers effluves caressaient, sur une gorge ravissante, les revers et les fronces du manteau de marocain noir livré la veille par Chanel … Au moins l'on sait, avec une pareille phrase, où l'on est, dans quelle époque, quelle humeur, et la littérature atteint une vérité encore supérieure aux vérités que lui procurent les écoles ci-dessus nommées : celle du chromo.
The Dignity of Facts
Authors: Morley S. Griswold
Published: February 2007

Edward Simmons, a painter of the last generation whose anecdotes are more genial than his murals, tells this story about Paul Verlaine. He was, says Simmons, a plain, hairy, dirty figure who frequented a Parisian café where Simmons foregathered with his fellow art students. You would not look twice at the ugly, disorderly being unless you chanced to notice his eyes. If he looked at you, you knew you were in the presence of your better. One night Simmons had a dispute with a French friend as to what was the meaning of courage. One argued that it is an admirable quality, the other that it is mere stupidity and vanity. At the height of the discussion Verlaine came in and was appealed to for a decision. He first demanded beer and then listened carefully to both sides. Looking at Simmons, he said: “I decide for the young American.” “But why?” asked the Frenchman. “Because you are right and he is right; you are wrong and he is wrong. But he believes what he says.” Whatever you may think of the forthcoming argument, please consider that I believe what I shall say. If belief is the touchstone of persuasion, as Verlaine seems to have asserted, I may find responsive ears. But remember that the other side could be right too.
The Basis of Literary History
Authors: Fife Robert Herndon
Published: February 2007

The Younger Pliny, in closing the letter which gives the famous description of his Tuscan villa, makes the following wise observation, which I quote in Saintsbury's rendering: “I think it is the first duty of a writer to read his own title and constantly ask himself what he sat down to write, and to be sure, if he sticks to his subject, he will never be too long, but will be hopelessly so if he drags in other matters.” This warning is pertinent here because of the somewhat inflated title of my very modest contribution as announced in the MLA Program, and I feel that I should forecast in a few words what I propose to offer.
History and Criticism: A Problematic Relationship
Authors: Wimsatt W. K.
Published: February 2007

The Topic which I am undertaking to discuss—that of the relation between history and literary criticism—is one which today apparently invites the polemic style. I wish, however, to forego that style and at the same time to refrain from the special defence of, or attack upon, any critic or historian or any school of critics or historians. What I have in mind is the delineation of a certain issue which arises between literary criticism and historical scholarship. This issue I look upon as something unavoidably problematic, part of a troublesome opposition which runs through all our experience—between the particular and the universal, between the contingent and what is in any sense necessary, probable, or ideal, between what merely was and what in any way is. We may think Aristotle's statement that poetry is a more serious and a more philosophic thing than history only a rude beginning of theory (unhappily antithetical), but it is a beginning of something which can scarcely be left alone. The problematic relation between history and criticism has always existed. It may have been adjusted during one long epoch of our tradition, the classical, by a certain neglect of the claims of history. The modern advance of historical techniques and consequent sharpening of historical conscience have, however, sufficiently reasserted the problem and sufficiently increased its difficulty.
Social Usefulness as a Criterion for Research
Authors: Koller Kathrine
Published: February 2007

Sing Me a song of social significance.“ So went the refrain in one of the musical numbers of a revue produced during the 30's, by the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union. It has been a national theme song ever since. Only an intellectual ostrich refuses to face the social awareness which is demanded of the individual today. High school students are being educated more intensely than ever for citizenship; college graduates are soberly urged in all public addresses to assume their responsibilities as leaders in society. The international situation, so charged with serious trouble, is a constant reminder that no man is an island unto himself. He learns slowly and painfully that he must accept great obligations outside his town, his state, and his nation, or perish. Problems of crime, juvenile delinquency, public health, old age, mental hygiene, and underprivileged families are as old as the human race. During the last twenty years, people have attacked them with such scientific knowledge and training as they possess and with a determination never before manifested. The social sciences, as well as the biological and physical sciences, are daily making practical contributions to society's needs.
The Formation of the American Humanist
Authors: Spitzer Leo
Published: February 2007

It Happens occasionally that, inside or outside of my university, I am asked about possible replacements of emeriti in the humanities and when, as is quite frequently the case, I have to report that I have no suggestion to make, I meet with the surprised reaction: “How is that possible? There must exist among 150 million Americans at least one promising young man who one day may become what his predecessor was!” And often some promising young man on whose record achievements are still to be inscribed is indeed appointed by the faculties, with the result that after a few years his record is still pure and the faculty decides to accept him as a hope of the past. This question: why do we not find more easily today adequate successors to the world-renowned pleiad of American-born humanistic scholars we had in the previous generation, the group of Armstrong, Blondheim, Elliott Ford, Grandgent, Lang, Marden, Nitze, Northup, to mention only the medieval Romance field—this serious question I shall attempt to discuss, well aware that my audience may find answers different from my own, but confident also that I have carefully weighed the pros and cons of my opinions in the fourteen years of my American career.
Personnel Survey of the Modern Language Association Membership
Authors: Wellemeyer J. F.
Published: February 2007

THE American Council of Learned Societies and the Modern Language Association of America conducted a joint survey of personnel in the modern language field during the summer of 1950. The survey was an experimental effort to obtain quantitative information on the characteristics of specialists in the field, and was intended to disclose the practicability of the method as well as to furnish the needed information. Members' response to the inquiry was very good, and the tabulated returns accounted for 48 percent of the membership. Details of the questionnaire and processing procedure are appended. The following represents the results of our first effort to obtain information of this kind in one of the humanistic disciplines.
The Theme of the Hunt in Rimbaud: La Chasse Spirituelle
Authors: Smith Madeleine M.
Published: February 2007

Much of the richness, as well as the fascination, of Rimbaud's art is due to the incongruities with which it is studded. These incongruities indicate a boyish sense of humor noticeable even in his treatment of serious subjects, imparting to them a certain cocasserie—a tough and sardonic humor indeed for a boy, but still a distinctive quality, savored by many. Like Hamlet, Arthur Rimbaud was given to madness, half feigned, half tragically-true, and his peevish jokes are of the same kind as those of that other embittered youth. These surprises also serve to color his descriptive poems, in verse and in prose, and in fact they may be thought to arise necessarily in the poetic process consciously cultivated by Rimbaud the voyant, who was not afraid to force his senses out of focus as a means of gaining access to the paradise of pure truth.
G. H. Lewes's Criticism of the Drama
Authors: Greenhut Morris
Published: February 2007

In discussing the important English dramatic critics during the first half of the nineteenth century (Leigh Hunt, Hazlitt, John Forster, and George Henry Lewes), William Archer concluded that “Lewes alone has anything of note to say upon the principles of dramatic composition, as a living art”, that “Lewes was probably the most highly-trained thinker who ever applied himself to the study of theatrical art in England.” He pointed out that Lewes not only had a “special and personal interest in the art of the playwright which his predecessors lacked” but also had “much more attractive matter for discussion” because the “modern drama, the drama as we know it to-day, was just coming into existence, or rather was just making its existence felt in England.” Consequently it was

a happy chance … that in the four years of Lewes's critical campaign [1850–54] such an unusual, and probably unprecedented, number of the greatest dramas in the world should have passed over the London stage. … Thus he gives us, as it were, an unsystematic survey of the drama of the world from Sophocles to Scribe.
Polarity in Goethe's Faust
Authors: Cardinal Clive H.
Published: February 2007

Already at an early stage in his life, when the Urfaust was being conceived, did Goethe sense the dynamic essence of the universe. He was deeply aware of the fact that the whole of existence, both in its physical and spiritual manifestations, is in a constant state of flux, with conflicting forces acting upon each other, eventually weaving themselves into a harmonious whole. This vast dynamic urge extends far beyond the biological into the very essence of the entire physical universe to the point where even matter itself is energy. His conviction became strengthened when he later took up the study of the natural sciences, and it played a most basic rôle in his view of life as an old man. Out of this idea of existence as ceaseless activity, which found varied poetic expression in his works, emerged a second concept equally important to an understanding of his philosophy: the concept of the polarity of conflicting antagonistic forces in nature, the name for which he took from the polarity of magnetism. Having accepted the fact that the nature of matter is force, he advanced to the idea that this force never expresses itself in a single phenomenon, but in two diagrammatically opposed entities or forces. Proceeding from the same point of departure they divide, repulse each other, finally to attract and unite again.
Is The “Prelude in the Theatre” A Prelude to Faust?
Authors: Seidlin Oskar
Published: February 2007

Everyone knows that “The Prelude in the Theatre” belongs to Faust; that it has introduced the so-called First Part of the tragedy ever since the earliest publication of the great play in 1808; that nowhere in Goethe's written or oral statements can the slightest indication be detected from which we may infer that this prelude had not been from the very beginning in the very spot where it is found today? All this is unquestionably true; and yet, without any claim to final conclusiveness, I should like to consider the possibility whether or not, within the organic structure of Goethe's works, the Prelude in the Theatre may have grown on a branch which was not the one that produced Faust.
Elihu Hubbard Smith and The New York Friendly Club, 1795–1798
Authors: Cronin James E.
Published: February 2007

In the year 1798 even an ardent Federalist could be vexed at the grossly inaccurate picture of America to be found in British periodicals. One young Federalist who was more annoyed than most was Elihu Hubbard Smith, a New York physician and literary man and erstwhile Hartford Wit. On his own initiative, Smith wrote a series of brief biographies of the Wits which he sent to John Aikin, editor of the Monthly Magazine and British Register. In an accompanying letter he pointed out to Aikin that his magazine not only ignorantly misrepresented America to the British public but also taught many young Americans to see their country in a false and unfavorable light. He offered the biographical sketches as a step toward correcting the situation and also proposed that he organize his friends into a corps of correspondents to ensure Mr. Aikin's progressive enlightenment. Of these friends he wrote:

There exists in this city, a small association of men, who are connected by mutual esteem, & habits of unrestricted communication. They are of different professions and occupation; of various religious or moral opinions; & tho' they coincide in the great outlines of political faith, they estimate very variously many of the political transactions of the men who have, from time to time directed the councils of the nation. This diversity of sentiment, however, as it has never affected their friendship, has made them more active in investigation; & tho' they may have formed different judgments concerning facts, has led them to a general concurrence in the facts themselves.
Milton's Sonnet XX
Authors: Neiman Fraser
Published: February 2007

If it were critically sound to interpret a verse or lines of verse apart from their context, lines 13–14 of Milton's Sonnet XX, “Lawrence of vertuous Father”, might present an unfortunate ambiguity; for if the verses,

He who of those delights can judge, and spare

To interpose them oft, is not unwise,

are examined alone, “spare” may seem to mean either “refrain” or “afford.” Both meanings have in fact been urged; Thomas Keightley and David Masson represent the opposed positions. The former wrote, “spare, sc. time.—interpose, i.e. place them in the intervals of his serious occupations.” Masson commented:

“spare to interpose them oft:” interpreted by Mr. Keightley to mean “spare time to interpose them oft”: but surely rather the opposite—-“refrain from interposing them oft.” Parcere in Latin with a verb following had this sense of “refraining from”, and “spare” in English was used in the same way.
Three Attitudes Toward Astrology: Rabelais, Montaigne, and Pontus de Tyard
Authors: Lapp John C.
Published: February 2007

Burckhardt has remarked that during the Renaissance culture and enlightenment were almost powerless against astrology, kept alive as it was by the ardent imagination of the people, and their passionate wish to penetrate the future. But what he calls the “delusion” of astral influence charmed even the cultured and enlightened, and for rather more complex reasons than he suggests. The modern scholar, in analyzing Renaissance trends, tends to denounce the mind that surrenders to such influences in a rationalist atmosphere. A belief in the occult powers of the stars over Man did not, however, necessarily betray intellectual backwardness, nor was disbelief a proof of great enlightenment. Astrology, though often tolerated by princes of the Church, generally incurred the censure of theologians, and such a fatalistic belief, denying free will and granting powers of revelation to stars named for pagan dieties, appeared to the clerical mind as an incitement to idolatry. In many cases, then, the opponents of the art were conformists, not rebels—nor were they immune to superstition. Even so formidable an enemy of the stars as Pico della Mirandola toyed with magic and the cabala, and often directed his attack at science in general. On the other hand, such a champion of astrology as Mellin de Saint-Gelays argued that Man should remain unhindered in his desire to fathom the mysterious forces of the universe. If man remains earthbound, never lifting eyes or mind heavenward, wrote Mellin, he will sink to a level beneath all earthly creatures instead of becoming their master. For the French poet, prediction by the stars is not the chief purpose of the true astrologer, but a mere accessory of his earthly and heavenly researches. Such a defense of astrology as this stems from a reluctance to forbid any phase of Man's activity in the search for truth, an attitude which, though uncritical, remains consistent with the rationalistic spirit.
Chaucer's Shipman and the Wine
Authors: Stobie Margaret R.
Published: February 2007

The meaning of the two lines in the Prologue that refer to the Shipman's yearly trips to Bordeaux with the wine fleet—

Ful many a draughte of wyn had he ydrawe

Fro Burdeux ward, whil that the chapman sleepe

—has long been a source of uneasiness to students of Chaucer, an uneasiness which arises in large part from the tone of the rest of the portrait. Since we are told that this man of Dartmouth who sailed the Maudeleyne was without peer as a seaman and without mercy as a pirate, we expect greater knavery than a purely superficial reading of the lines indicates—that the Shipman drank some of his cargo at night. The desire for an interpretation appropriate to the Shipman's general nature led Skeat so far as to suggest that he was a smuggler as well as a pirate: “Very many a draught of wine had be drawn (stolen or carried off from Bordeaux, cask and all) while the chapman (merchant or supercargo to whom the wines belonged) was asleep.” While most of the more recent editors take it for granted that the Shipman's thieving had to do with the legitimate cargo which he had on board, their uncertainty as to its significance is evident in such a gloss as “The shipman stole much of the wine which he was carrying for a merchant; he extracted, in other words, some of the cargo.” The disparity here between the “much” of the first clause and the “some” of the last one is a nice example of the persistent hesitance about Chaucer's meaning.
The Etymology of Hispanic Terco
Authors: Malkiel Yakov
Published: February 2007

Two indispensable prerequisites for successful research in Romance etymology are sustained attention and patience. The worker is at liberty to select problems that suit his personal taste, to assemble a wealth of pertinent data, to examine solutions proposed in earlier inquiries, to cherish the idea of having found the clue to issues previously deemed insoluble. Yet this preparatory work, no matter how meticulously planned and conscientiously carried out, may not yield immediate results: the easily accessible data not infrequently form a vicious circle, the explanations of pioneer workers more often than not serve to confuse rather than to enlighten the present day explorer. With his entire apparatus of research ready for action at a moment's notice, the etymologist, in a state of protracted suspense, must withstand the temptation of prematurely declaring his work concluded. Patiently, humbly, yet with unfailing alertness, he must await the moment of great satisfaction when a chance find (perhaps a passage in a not readily available book or a record in a new dialect glossary) may supply the one unexpected form, usually a precious relic, which helps him to break the vicious circle and step out into the open. This newly discovered form will prove a priceless aid in the reconstruction of the bridge between Latin and Romance; not one of those hazardous suspension bridges on which some nineteenth century etymologists were fond of performing their acrobatics, but a solid, pleasant bridge, allowing for comfortable walking and an enjoyable view of the surrounding landscape. The history of Spanish terco and its cognates is apt to show how radically such a casual find can advance our knowledge.
Arthurian Names: Arthur
Authors: Nitze William A.
Published: February 2007

As Heinrich Zimmer—GGA (1890), p. 818, n. 1—saw correctly, the name Arthur is the regular derivative of the Lat. Artorius in Brythonic. Thurneysen—ZCPh, xx (1933), 136—remarks: “Zimmer hatte gesehen, dass Arthur die regelmässige britannische Entwicklung von lat. (Artor oder) Artorius sein kann”, the long Lat. o becoming u in Celtic.
A Passage to India: Analysis and Revaluation
Authors: White Gertrude M.
Published: February 2007

A Passage to India, apparently the last, and certainly the best of E. M. Forster's novels, was published twenty-nine years ago, in, 1924. It was accorded instant recognition, as a fine novel and as a perceptive and sympathetic treatment of the problem of “Anglo-India,” The years that followed saw the book established as a modern classic. It has reached a wide audience in the Everyman, Modern Library, and Penguin editions, and has challenged as well the attention of able critics. But, though the novel has received its just dues in many ways, there remains one aspect—and, I think, a fundamental one—still unexplored. It is acknowledged on all sides that thought is the most important element in Forster's novels; yet the dialectical pattern of A Passage to India has never, to my knowledge, been fully and specifically recognised. This omission has resulted not only in a certain incompleteness in critical accounts of the book, but in not a little confusion and obscurity as well.
Another Light on the Writing of Modern Painters
Authors: Burd Van Akin
Published: February 2007

An unpublished diary which Ruskin kept during the summer of 1842 when he was conceiving the plan of Modern Pointers furnishes new information on the development of his mind at that time. Writing of this year in Praeterita, Raskin was obliged to rely on a memory weakened by age and disease. “To my sorrow, and supreme surprise,” he noted in his autobiography which he had begun in 1885, “I find no diary whatever of the feelings or discoveries of this year.” He apparently had forgotten that in 1872 he had given such a diary as a Christmas present to his American friend, Charles Eliot Norton. This important manuscript, which remained in the Norton family until 1936 and was then donated to the Yale University Library as a gift of Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Whitredge, seems to have been unknown to Ruskin's editors and succeeding students of his ideas. As reliable and recent a work as Derrick Leon's biography of Ruskin makes no mention of it and follows instead the account of the events of 1842 offered in Praeterita. A comparison of the manuscript with Praeterita shows that Ruskin's memory had dramatized this year of his youth in a way that misrepresented the state of mind in which Modern Painters was begun.
The Meaning of Endymion
Authors: Wigod Jacob D.
Published: February 2007

Newell Ford has recently sent several bombshells into the ranks of Keatsians by utterly rejecting allegorical interpretation of Endymion. His accomplice, out of the past, is Amy Lowell, but all of the real ammunition belongs to Ford. With admirable persistence and patience he has brought heavy critical guns to bear on the allegorical fortress and has finally demolished it, as he believes, in the name of truth. The time has come, surely, to make a stand against this total destruction and reconsider the question, “Is Endymion an allegory?”
The Place of the “Eternal-Womanly” in Goethe's Faust Drama
Authors: Jantz Harold
Published: February 2007

Of all the “winged words” of Goethe's Faust those of its closing lines,

Das Ewig-Weibliche

Zieht uns hinan,

have probably flown farthest, and they have always been impressive and memorable. On the other hand, one cannot help feeling that the standard interpretation of them does not do justice to their lofty position in the ultimate summary statement of the drama. The commentaries almost invariably relate these lines to the last scene only, that of Faust's salvation and elevation, rather than to the drama as a whole.
Literary Backgrounds to Book Four of the Dunciad
Authors: Williams Aubrey
Published: February 2007

Writing of the Dunciad in the year 1745, a rather obscure biographer and critic of Alexander Pope said: “As the Scenery of this Poem changes, and new Characters appear, the ingenious Author has follow'd the dramatick Rule, of shewing the Humour of each Character the stronger, by shewing a contrast Character to it.” Then, speaking more particularly of Dunciad Four, the same writer continues: “The last Scene of the Poem (to keep to my dramatick Parallel) which is to produce the Catastrophe, ends with great Propriety. The Stage is full of all the Goddess's [i.e., the Goddess of Dulness] Votaries, whom she receives with Pleasure. . . .”
Touchstone: Critic in Motley
Authors: Goldsmith Robert Hillis
Published: February 2007

A spirit of self-mockery and light, ironical humor is best suited to satire on literary forms and fashions. One feels that Peele's OldWives Tale would have been immeasurably improved as parody had there been a motley fool lurking in the shadow of a great oak, waiting to guide us through the enchanted forest. One of the virtues of Shakespeare's As You Like It is that it has just such a wise fool. Jaques, in commending Touchstone to the Duke, gloats over his discovery, “He's as good at anything, and yet a fool” (v.iv.109). This is as far as Jaques may go in magnanimity. Earlier in the play, Rosalind hails the jester as “Nature's natural the cutter-off of Nature's wit” (I.ii.52). And Celia welcomes him with even less grace, for, says she, “always the dulness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits” (I.ii.58). Except for the Duke, whose penetrating comments on the witty fool are well known, the noble characters in the play seem to regard Touchstone as a natural or dull fool who sometimes serves to sharpen the wits of his betters.
The Nun's Priest in the Canterbury Tales
Authors: Lumiansky R. M.
Published: February 2007

Among the best liked and most widely known sections of The Canterbury Tales is the Nun's Priest's story of the regal Chanticleer and the lovely Dame Pertelote. For a long time critics have realized that this tale skilfully reflects facets of its teller's character, but only recently have detailed attempts been made to suggest just what sort of person Chaucer intended his audience to visualize as the Nun's Priest. Since Chaucer did not include in the General Prologue a portrait of this Pilgrim, whatever view one takes of the Nun's Priest must be based on the comments to and about him by the Host (VII.2810-15, 3447-60), on his own short comment to the Host (VII.2816-17), on the Narrator's brief remark about him (VI.2818-20), and on the superb tale which he relates to the company. This is to say that any acceptable portrait of Chaucer's Nun's Priest must of necessity derive primarily from the personal interplay during the Canterbury pilgrimage.
Sens de La Nausée
Authors: Champigny Robert
Published: February 2007

On sait que Sartre a placé son activité littéraire sous le signe de l'ethique. Il ne maintient que la poésie dans le domaine purement esthétique. Cette profession de foi n'a toutefois eu lieu qu'au lendemain de la guerre. Elle laisse derrière elle un premier groupe d'œuvres. Maintenant que ce premier stade de l'œuvre de Sartre est clos, on peut revenir sur l'étude des morceaux dont il se compose sans risquer les jugements prématurés que certains appliquent à la seconde phase, ou qu'on appliqua jadis à la première phase. C'est à l'examen de La Nausée que nous reviendrons dans cet article.
Hawthorne and Melville: The Unpardonable Sin
Authors: Miller James E.
Published: February 2007

The Scarlet Letter explores the effects, on the transgressors, of three distinct types of sin—the revealed sin of Hester, the concealed sin of Dimmesdale, and the unpardonable sin of Chillingworth. The complexity of these effects is suggested when Hester, outwardly penitent, exclaims to Dimmesdale that their deed had a consecration of its own, or when Dimmesdale, spiritually tormented by his hidden guilt, finds his power for good in the community increased as a result of his transgression, or when Chillingworth becomes, through his demonic pursuit of revenge, the greatest sinner of them all, and is assigned, finally, to eternal damnation in Hawthorne's special hell reserved for those of his villains who commit the sin for which there is no forgiveness.
The Matrimonial Theme of Defoe's Roxana
Authors: Peterson Spiro
Published: February 2007

Defoe's The Fortunate Mistress (1724) has always had less popular appeal than Moll Flanders. To what extent this unpopularity is the result of the complexities in its theme cannot easily be determined. In a significant comment on this theme Roxana declares: “The opposite Circumstances of a Wife and Whore, are such, and so many, and I have since seen the Difference with such Eyes, as I could dwell upon the Subject a great-while, but my Business is History.” In a series of interrelated episodes the history itself presents sharply contrasted matrimonial circumstances. Both the character of Defoe's realism and his social vision are illuminated by an investigation of the pertinent backgrounds. In his last great novel he explored a subject increasingly important to a society middle-class in its moral and literary values. He drew materials for the dramatization of this matrimonial theme from his varied careers as journalist, moralist, and novelist.
Shakespeare's Second Richard
Authors: Bogard Travis
Published: February 2007

A writer is moulded out of faults, and the greatest become much more the better for having had the courage to be a little bad. All writers experiment in some degree with technique, but not many, after their apprenticeship has been served, appear willing to desert the manner in which one achievement has been attained for another, untried, yet potentially permitting fuller and more complex expressiveness. Even less frequently does an established writer change the manner of expression midway in the work, destroying the unity of effect by radical alterations in technique while the work is in progress. In a novel or poem, at least, the new manner is not likely to emerge unexpectedly; a work written for publication can be withheld until its parts are integrated. A dramatist, however—especially one working in close conjunction with a voracious theatre—may not have such an opportunity. Deadlines render revisions luxuries and make beneficial experimentation a catch-as-catch-can matter. Under such circumstances, discoveries that cannot be ignored are likely to be dangerous to both the art and the commerce of the theatre.
Chrétien's Symbolism and Cathedral Art
Authors: Klenke M. Amelia
Published: February 2007

Few important literary passages have resisted clarification more persistently than the procession of the Holy Grail in Chretien's Perceval. Let us review his version very briefly.

Hunting in the forest one spring morning, Perceval encounters a troop of King Arthur's knights who inflame him with a desire for knighthood. Against his mother's wishes, for Perceval's father and brothers have all fallen in combat, the lad sets out for the court of King Arthur. Here he is taken for a fool. But he slays the Red Knight who had ridden off with the king's cup and dons the armor of his dead victim. Sojourning at the castle of an elderly knight, Gornemant, he is instructed in the use of arms and is advised to desist from asking questions and from quoting his mother at every turn. At Belrepaire, he is welcomed by Gornemant's niece, Blancheflor. His relations with her remain chaste, an important circumstance in Chrétien's development of the story. After overcoming her enemies in single combat, he travels on until, he reaches the fabulous Grail Castle of the lame Fisher King. His host, who had previously been maimed by a lance, cannot rise to welcome him, but Perceval is urged to take his place beside him. There soon ensues the strange and celebrated procession of the Holy Grail.
Technique, Symbol, and Theme in Heartbreak House
Authors: McDowell Fredekick P. W.
Published: February 2007

Heartbreak house, begun in 1913 and completed In 1916, is one of Bernard Shaw's most provocative plays and merits fuller aesthetic analysis than his critics have yet given it. Distinctive both for its architectonic firmness and its elusive symbolism, Heartbreak House is one of Shaw's major accomplishments as artist. It summarizes, furthermore, the themes and attitudes of his previous work, in particular the ideas broached in “The Revolutionist's Handbook” appended to Man and Superman (1903). It also holds in embryo Shaw's departures in doctrine and technique in the plays beginning with The Apple Cart (1929).
Henry James's What Maisie Knew: A Comparison with the Plans in The Notebooks
Authors: Worden Ward S.
Published: February 2007

It has been observed that Henry James's prefaces for the New York Edition arc often unreliable as guides to the finished stories because they are so concerned with the germinations of his ideas. The very emphasis upon beginnings is presumably James's way of insisting upon the distance and the labor between the germ and the maturity of a work, a point which he explicitly invites us to ponder in the Preface to The Wings of the Dove:

... some acute mind ought surely to have worked out by this time the “law” of the degree in which the artist's energy fairly depends upon his fallibility. How much and how often, and in what connexions and with what almost infinite variety, must he be a dupe, that of his prime object, to be at all measurably a master, that of his actual substitute for it-or in other words at all appreciably to exist? He places, after an earnest survey, the piers of his bridge-he has at least sounded deep enough, heaven knows, for their brave position; yet the bridge spans the stream, after the fact, in apparently complete independence of these properties, the principal grace of the original design.
Wordsworth's “Inscrutable Workmanship” and the Emblems of Reality
Authors: Baird James R.
Published: February 2007

In a familiar passage from a letter to W. S. Landor, Wordsworth exposed, as I see it, the central purpose of his art: “Even in poetry it it the imaginative only ... that which is conversant (with), or turns upon infinity, that powerfully affects me.” “Things,” he said, had to be lost in each other and limita to vanish; otherwise he was indifferent. The argument of this essay is intended to suggest an approach to Wordsworth at the poetic level of infinity. This is the realm of pure universals, the insight of poetry which reveals a state of being independent of sensuous limitations. In the sense of Hegel it is the level of reality, possessing a wholly independent being, as opposed to that of appearance, depending wholly in its existence upon the senses. The exact nature of reality remains, of course, a question for pure philosophy; and it is probable that the discipline of philosophy rather than that of literary criticism must judge finally the dialectic of poetry concerned with infinity. Yet the highest attainment of the fine arts is clearly an act of turning upon the infinite, an invocation in the observer or the listener of a sense of endlessness. Medium, form, and technique are the approaches to the ultimate experience inherent in a particular work. As artistic acts from the world of appearance, they may be analyzed and defined by the particular critical disciplines concerned with them. At the end of these functions lies the problem of philosophy. What is the nature of the wholly independent being which all great art attains? Wordsworth implies in his statement to Landor that awareness of the infinite is the final objective of poetry. My purpose is to investigate the method of Wordsworth's thought at the threshold of this objective rather than to define philosophically what the sense of infinity, in itself, contains. It seems clear that nothing more need be said upon the imaginative process as this is explored in Wordsworth's Prefaces or interpreted by his critics.
On the Structure of the URFAUST
Authors: Browning R. M.
Published: February 2007

Erich Schmidt's thrilling discovery of the proto-form of Goethe's Faust came at a fateful hour. In the year 1887 the mechanistic evolutionism of the natural sciences still reigned almost unchallenged even in the field of literary criticism, which on the academic level at least was mainly philological in nature with occasional purple patches of “appreciation.” The philologist, regarding the Urfaust as a sort of “missing link,” pounced upon it and, in order to make it fit his hypotheses, tore it to pieces. The result was the famous “shred theory” of its genesis, the Fetzentheorie advanced by some of scholarship's most respected names— most notably perhaps, certainly most influentially, by Gustav Roethe, first chairman of the Goethe-Gesellschaft and disciple of Wilhelm Scherer. Even before the discovery of the Urfaust Scherer had of course made far-reaching conjectures regarding the original form and order of composition of Faust.In an essay first published in 1920 Roethe succeeded in reducing the Urfaust to no less than forty-one “shreds,” each of which, according to him, could have been written “at one sitting” (p. 676). Roethe's concept of the work is well summed up in the following words (p. 654): “Goethe, especially in his youth, was inclined to seize first upon that which he felt a strong urge to give form to and more than once he left it up to a later redaction whether the precious ‘patches’ (‘Fetzen‘) were to be sewn into a garment or not. The Urfaust, now, I regard as a provisional collection and redaction of such patches.” This might have been a harmless enough sort of game had not the players taken it upon themselves to cry down all attempts at esthetic interpretation which did not subscribe to their conjectures. Thus Roethe (p. 643) dismisses J. Minor's (not entirely consistent) effort to read the Urfaust as a work in its own right as unsuccessful because Minor slights problems of genesis. The idea that there might be some organic relationship between form and content seems to fill Roethe with a sense of the absurd—this approach he calls “a great, even mystic, overbending of the bow” (p. 677). No, for him the Urfaust remains “a tack, filled with little scraps of paper,” such as it had come down in legend, thanks to A. W. Schlegel.
Edmund Burks and the Two Annual Registers
Authors: Sarason Bertram D.
Published: February 2007

All of Burke's major biographers have said that he edited Dodsley's Annual Register and wrote its famous Historical Article from 1758 to at least twenty-five years beyond that time. Such statements have been made without the support of an iota of evidence. As a result Burke's share in the Annual Register still remains to be determined. The subject has held the interest of contemporary scholars. Donald Cross Bryant in his account of Burke's literary friendships devotes a separate chapter to the problem. The most recent study of Burke, Thomas A. Copeland's Our Eminent Friend Edmund Burke (New Haven, 1949), contains two such chapters. The matter receives special consideration in Sir Philip Magnus' life of Burke, the latest biography as of today. Burke's other biographers were also interested in his editorship. Macknight observed that “the value ... of the Annual Registers to one who should undertake to write Burke's political history, cannot be exaggerated” (I, XI). Robert Murray says, “It is a valuable source of information on the growth of his thought from 1758 to 1791” (p. 83).
Traditional Symbolism in Crime and Punishment
Authors: Gibian George
Published: February 2007

It may seem paradoxical to claim that critics have not sufficiently concerned themselves with Dostoevsky's attack against rationalism in Crime and Punishment; yet this aspect of the novel has frequently failed to receive adequate attention, not because it has been overlooked, but because often it has been immediately noticed, perfunctorily mentioned, and then put out of mind as something obvious. Few writers have examined the consequence of the anti-rationalistic tenor of the novel: the extent to which it is paralleled by the structural devices incorporated in the work.
George Eliot, George Henry Lewes, and the Novel
Authors: Kaminsky Alice R.
Published: February 2007

George Eliot's biographers and critics are generally aware of the important role George Henry Lewes played as her literary adviser. They describe how he helped her to develop her literary powers by means of his affection and sympathy. But the real extent of Lewes' influence in this connection has not been determined.
On Liberty in the Poetry of Wordsworth
Authors: Woodring Carl R.
Published: February 2007

Wordsworth's love of freedom and independence is an ingredient in nearly all his best poetry. In his passages of highest elevation, when the language becomes richly connotative and evocative, the individual at the center stands untrammeled in the open air. Merely to take the subject of liberty was not, of course, to eliminate the chance of mediocre verse—Wordsworth forced undistinguished rimes on liberty as on other subjects—but on this subject, inevitably frequent, and with this impulse, present in all the happiest moments of his life, he achieved his furthest creative reaches. Without any effort to review or to discuss the chronological development of his ideas on political liberty, or to examine his political or social views at all, the following pages attempt to cast some light on the way ideas and feelings of personal liberty operate in Wordsworth's poems. The first section treats these ideas and feelings necessarily with some reference to chronological changes and to inter-weavings with love of political liberty; but the emphasis, as in Section ri on the range and variety of Wordsworth's libertarian imagery, is on his continuing interest in individual freedom.
Herder and India: The Genesis of a Mythical Image
Authors: Willson Leslie
Published: February 2007

The lines above, where Herder refers to the chief figures in the play Sakuntala, by the Sanskrit dramatist Kalidasa, identify India as a holy land for which he yearns. These lines might serve as a motto to characterize his attitude toward India, an attitude of extreme reverence and adulation which resulted finally in the formulation of a mythical image. The term “mythical image” implies an imaginative conception of India, and one can trace the development of such an image in the fancy of Herder.
The Voice of the Redeemer in Paradise Lost
Authors: Summers Joseph H.
Published: February 2007

After the initial intoxication, the Fall of Man is delineated in Paradise Lost largely in terms of the charges and counter-charges, the fear and hatred, the self-aggrandizement and the isolation of Adam and Eve. Only after Adam's most bitter denunciation of Eve is the direction changed with Eve's famous “Forsake me not thus, Adam … ”(x.914–936). Eve's speech is the turning point, for it is here that one of the guilty pair first attempts to take upon herself the burden of guilt, shows love and asks for love. The direction once taken, Adam is moved to similar affection, and the resulting reconciliation between man and woman is the inevitable prologue and type of the ensuing reconciliation between man and God.
The Birth of the Modern French Epic: Ronsard's Independence of Jean Lemaire's Homeric Historiography
Authors: Silver Isidore
Published: February 2007

In their ingratitude toward their predecessors, Ronsard and Du Bellay did not hesitate to ridicule unfairly the achievements of the French poets of earlier generations, even in the act of despoiling them of some of their finest treasures. This is amply illustrated in the remarkable assertion of Claude Binet, the first biographer of Ronsard, who describes the adolescent poet as “ayant tousjours en main quelque Poëte Franĉois … et principalement, comme luy mesmes m'a maintesfois raconté, un Jean Lemaire de Belges … et un Clement Marot, lesquels il a depuis appelé [sic] … les immondices, dont il tiroit de belles limures d'or.” Nevertheless, the influence of Lemaire's “rubbish” is plainly visible in Ronsard's writing from the beginning of his career, particularly in the numerous passages in which he anticipates the Franciade, as well as in the epic itself. “Ronsard, enthousiasmé par la lecture du principal ouvrage de J. Lemaire de Belges, les Illustrations de Gaule, avait jeté son dévolu sur un … sujet, qu'il croyait essentiellement national, mais qui n'était qu'une légende, inventée au VIIe siècle …” (Laum., XVI, In trod. pp. v-vi). This was the legend of the descent of the French from Francus-Astyanax, son of Hector, the Trojan hero of the Iliad.
The Meaning of Eorlscipe in Beowulf
Authors: Sutherland Raymond Carter
Published: February 2007

Old english eorlscipe, commonly considered to mean “nobility, rank; heroic deed(s),” appears to have a specialized meaning in Beowulf, particularly in combination with œfnan. It is usually translated “heroic deeds,” but this essay argues that eorlscipe never has this meaning in Beowulf. It has a highly technical and official (governmental) meaning.