bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Reader's Attitude in Paradise Regained
Authors: Hyman Lawrence W.
Published: February 2007

The inability of readers to identify themselves with the hero of Paradise Regained, far from being an obstacle to the success of the poem, is an essential part of the central conflict within the poem. For Christ, although created as both God and man, moves closer to the divine as the action of the poem progresses. In doing so, Christ renounces the hope of redeeming this world in human or secular terms. He must do this to fulfill his role as the Son of God; but the reader regrets this necessity. Consequently there is a tension throughout the poem between the divine and the human nature of Christ. The reader is asked to accept the uncomfortable fact that Christ's redemption of the world must be made in divine not in human terms. To gain eternal life for us He must die to the life of this world. The truth of this Christian paradox is assumed by Milton; but Milton recognizes that this Christian truth conflicts with our human desires for a victory within this world. And it is this conflict between the divine and the human that provides the emotional center of the poem.
Charles Lamb, Shakespeare, and Early Nineteenth-Century Theater
Authors: Ades John I.
Published: February 2007

Lamb's Shakespearean criticism unfortunately survives as an injunction not to perform the plays. This is an oversimplification of a carefully reasoned critical opinion. An assessment of all of his Shakespearean criticism demonstrates that it is derived from an awareness of the limitations of the London theater of Lamb's time and of its audience, and by extension, of the limitations inherent in transforming any script into performance. Relying on clumsy scenery in enormous theaters, having to please an audience that did not easily distinguish between art and life, allowing star-system actors to employ melodramatic techniques (e.g., exploiting a certain comic self-dramatization inherent in some Shakespearean heroes and villains), working from freely cut or “improved” texts of Shakespeare's plays–all helped convince Lamb (1) that “the plays are made another thing by being [thus] acted,” and (2) that no foreseeable production could extract all the imaginative richness available to a reader of an uncut text.
A Commentary on “John Crowe Ransom's Poetic Revisions”
Authors: Meyers Walter E. , Woods Samuel H. , Mann David
Published: February 2007

ON A recent exam, I gave my students the following problem:
Of the two passages below, the first describes the opening of the gates of Hell; the second, the opening of the gates of Heaven. Point out how the sounds help to indicate the manner of the opening of each.
On a sudden op'n fly,
With impetuous recoil and jarring sound,
Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder.
Heaven op'n'd wide
Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound
On golden hinges moving.
Achilles' Shield: Some Observations on Pope's Iliad
Authors: Farnham Fern
Published: February 2007

A study of Pope's treatment of the passage in the Iliad known as the Shield of Achilles provides insights into his working methods, his place in the quarrel between Ancients and Moderns, and his attitude toward and appreciation of Homer. Our understanding of the published text can be enhanced by some knowledge of the manuscript revisions of the passage, including Pope's own sketch of the Shield, by an examination of Vleughels Shield of Achilles which Pope ultimately chose to illustrate his text, by a consideration of his notes with their extensive debt to, as well as departures from, the notes of Madame Dacier, and finally by a study of Pope's essay, “Observations on the Shield of Achilles.” This essay is shown to be only partially the work of Pope, the first two parts having been lifted, with inadequate acknowledgment, from two French defenders of Homer, André Dacier and Jean Boivin. The third and original part of Pope's essay points directly to the critical principles, with their emphasis on pictorial presentation, which guided him throughout his translation of Homer. Pope's view of the Shield passage, when contrasted with ancient allegorical interpretations or modern mythopoeic ones, reveals both his limitations and his success as a leader of his age in a critical and philosophical reaffirmation of the epic tradition.
The Comic Conclusion in Jane Austen's Novels
Authors: Brown Lloyd W.
Published: February 2007

The conclusions of Jane Austen's novels are invariably ironic devices for the final summary of themes and characters. This role is illuminated by three main elements of all the conclusions. First, the novelist parodies the predictability of sentimental “happy endings” in much popular fiction. This accounts for the exaggerated self-consciousness with which she approaches the mechanics of concluding her own narratives, a self-consciousness that seems on the surface to contradict Jane Austen's well-known dislike of unrealistic plots. Second, she subverts the canons of poetic justice that are integral to most happy endings: instead of allocating “rewards” and punishment in accordance with ideal conventions, Jane Austen exposes the prevailing social norms that frequently undermine and replace traditional ideals. Finally, she replaces the arbitrary endings of poetic justice with the logical evolution of character and theme. Each character “punishes” or “rewards” himself, in keeping with his frequently unreliable sense of right and wrong. These features are particularly useful in a much-needed revaluation of Mansfield Park, for they demonstrate that it is not the didactic work described in traditional criticism. Thus Jane Austen's comic conclusion is a consistent device for the realistic, rather than didactic, analysis of character and society.
The Spanish Debate Over Idealism and Realism Before the Impact of Zola's Naturalism
Authors: Davis Gifford
Published: February 2007

In the middle 1870's a polemic concern in the daily and periodical press over idealism and realism anticipates Spain's later reception of naturalism, and reveals the general affiliations of Valera's art for art's sake and of Alarcón's moralism. Earlier hostility to French influence now permeates neo-Kantian concern for the relative merits of the good (idealism), the true (realism), and the beautiful (art for art's sake). Philosophical and literary debate is twisted by the quarrel of liberals and neo-Catholics. Much writing was stimulated by the debates in the Ateneo in 1875 and 1876 over the effects of realism in the theater. Many intellectuals took part, including Revilla and Valera. The summary position is one of essential idealism ready to compromise to meet the scientific age. The polemic of Navarrete and Vidart over Pepita Jiménez (1874) is an early manifestation of this debate, and the quarrel of the liberals and neo-Catholics over Alarcón s reception to the Academy (1877) reduces the polemic to bitter argumentum ad hominem. One of the early reports of Zola's naturalistic writings (also in 1877) shows that the “cuestión palpitante” was an immediate and intensified continuation of the debate.
Implicitness in Narrative Fiction
Authors: Champigny Robert
Published: February 2007

From the cognitive statement that it was raining, we infer that the street got wet. In fiction, we cannot infer that the street got wet (nor that it did not): we cannot make the implicit explicit by applying causal laws. Historical events are implicitly posited in relation to the here and now. Fictional events are not. Thus, the implicit meaning of tenses changes when we turn from history to fiction. In both cases (causality and temporality), a gain in esthetic resonance can correspond to a loss in cognitive reference.
The Literary Views of Gottfried Von Strassburg
Authors: H. Jackson W. T.
Published: February 2007

Gottfried von Strassburg, in his Tristan, substitutes for a description of the knighting of his hero a digression on certain contemporary authors, both of romances and lyrics. This digression has often been called “Gottfried's literary criticism,” but in fact it is a discussion of the various means of literary expression which were available to him for telling the story of a hero whom he believed to be unique and hence set apart from the knights of courtly romance. Gottfried examines both the visual (romance) and aural (lyric) types in a very specific order and finds both wanting, although he sees more potential in musical than in purely verbal forms of poetry. He decide? that the romance, in spite of its deficiencies, is the best available type but only with the proviso that the reader look beneath the surface and not be deceived by the form into thinking that Tristan was a “normal” courtly hero. The literary digression thus proves to be no digression but an integral part of the work, since Gottfried regards it as impossible to think of any story without considering the means by which it is told.
Virgil, Dryden, Gay, and Matters Trivial
Authors: Sherbo Arthur
Published: February 2007

Recent criticism of John Gay's poetry has largely continued to slight its merit or to misread it. Trivia has been especially mishandled, the chief critical faults being the tendency on the part of some to take the poem too seriously and to overlook a number of aspects that reinforce its mock-georgic nature. Gay was completely aware of what he was doing at all times in Trivia, and it is only when one reads the poem closely, with Dryden's translation of Virgil in mind, that a great deal of what he was indeed doing is clearly revealed. Not only did Gay go to Dryden's Virgil for particular phrases: “certain signs” of the weather, the “spoils” of Russia's “bear,” “callow care,” and a number of others, but he also used single words in the unusual senses Dryden had already employed: “infest” to mean “attack,” “contagion” to mean “fire,” “laborious” to mean “undergoing trouble and hardship,” as well as others. There is a whole vocabulary, available in Dryden's Virgil, to which he could have helped himself, in addition to those borrowings that can be demonstrated. A number of passages in Trivia also take their point of departure from Dryden's Virgil. When one adds an occasional clear echo of the Bible or Milton, all intended to enhance the mock-dignity of his poem, there can be no doubt of Gay's poetic competence.
Gertrude Stein at Marienbad
Authors: Purdy Strother B.
Published: February 2007

There is a strong parallel, in form and in theoretical basis, between the writing of Gertrude Stein and Alain Robbe-Grillet's film L'Année dernière à Marienbad. The power and depth of the film demonstrate that Gertrude Stein's theory failed only because it was applied in the wrong medium; Robbe-Grillet's combination of images with words brings out its full artistic possibilities. That his work should so re-create hers, bringing out its latent value, is more fortuitous than a matter of conscious influence, but both artists spring to some extent from common modern tendencies in art and literature. Robbe-Grillet's critical essays share many conceptions with Gertrude Stein's, and would have led to an art as impenetrable as hers if he had followed his own prescriptions closely, but his repetition of word patterns accompanied by image patterns gives Marienbad that which Tender Buttons and A Novel of Thank You lack. Marienbad rises to the level of metaphor, and gives a dramatic meaning to the art without time, without plot, without character, and without outcome, that Gertrude Stein put forward in the early twentieth century.
The Texas, Language Program
Authors: Haden Ernest F.
Published: February 2007

For the last ten years, the elementary courses (first two semesters) in foreign languages at the University of Texas have comprised five contact hours per week. They carry four semester hours credit in accordance with the well-known formula, 1 hour/week: 1 semester hour credit; 2 laboratory hours/week: 1 semester hour credit. Coincidentally, beginning in 1946, drill sessions were provided, in French and Spanish, for oral-aural practice outside of class. The oral-aural emphasis became then the established procedure. When, in 1952, the three departments of foreign languages (Germanic, Romance, Slavic) moved into their new building, Batts Hall, the new facilities made possible further development.
Putting it on Paper
Authors: Silver Henry M.
Published: February 2007

The following article, written at the suggestion of the editor of PMLA∗ confines itself almost wholly to the mechanics of manuscript preparation and to the handling of proofs. It is addressed to those scholars who, from time to time, submit their writings to learned journals. It has been read by, and corrected by, editors both of other journals and of university presses.

Scholarly editors seem not infrequently to be harassed by the very people who should be their pride and joy, the apples of their editorial eyes—their contributors. And this is strange, because, much as the editor needs his contributors, the more do the contributors need him.
Languages in the New Key
Authors: Andersson Theodore
Published: February 2007

It Has Been a rare privilege this afternoon to hear these excellent papers describing widely divergent linguistic situations in neighbor nations stretching from the South Seas to the Canadian Rockies in the Far Northwest. The distinguished speakers have given our own Program a new perspective; and their contributions are a generous response to an FL Communiqué which we sent last August to some 160 persons in thirty-five countries, in an effort to tell our foreign colleagues the story of what is happening to languages in the United States. Our situation is of course different from any of those described, but this very diversity can suggest to us valuable lessons.
Time Will Away
Authors: Kimball LeRoy E.
Published: February 2007

The title of these remarks would imply a “swan song,” which they are, but perhaps the content should have some such title as “Three Good Men in the Same Boat.”

The Modern Language Association is now seventy-one years old. During approximately one-half of those years—since 1920, to be exact—we have been exceedingly fortunate in having in succession three scholarly executives who have given the major portion of their waking hours to their work as Secretary and Editor: Carleton Brown (1920–34), Percy Long (1935–47), and William R. Parker, who since October 1947 has been Secretary and since 1948 Editor of PMLA.
The Princeton Language Program
Authors: MacAllister A. T.
Published: February 2007

If I undertake to describe the language program of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Princeton (as distinguished from work in non-European languages done there under other auspices) it is not in the belief that it embodies anything revolutionary or radically different in organization from that of any similar institution. If there is any virtue in such a description it lies rather in our having been able, with only a moderate degree of additional expense and dislocation, to adapt the traditional pattern to meet a reasonable modern standard.
The FL Program, 1952–58: Report and Evaluation
Authors: Mildenberger Kenneth W.
Published: February 2007

Some fifteen months have passed since I last reported directly to you on the progress of the Foreign Language Program at our unseasonable September meeting in Wisconsin. At that time I had been Director of the FL Program just one month, after five years as a staff member. Today I report again, although extraordinary circumstances have persuaded me to vacate the directorship, temporarily at least. I am called upon for an evaluation of the FL Program from its inception in 1952 to the present. Lest you think a post-mortem is implied, I hasten to state emphatically that the FL Program is a continuing and organic function of the MLA, indeed, of the entire profession of teachers of modern foreign languages, and, I venture to add, of all elements in American society with an interest in strengthening education.
Foreign Language Entrance and Degree Requirements for the B.S. Degree
Authors: Wolfe Warren J.
Published: February 2007

It has now been six years since the publication, by Professor William R. Parker, of the survey, “Foreign Language Entrance and Degree Requirements for the B.A. Degree” (PMLA, September 1953). The statistics gathered at that time have been frequently revised, the fifth revision having appeared in the September 1957 Supplement to PMLA. The findings published in that study have given teachers and administrators a clear picture of the national pattern of foreign language requirements for the B.A. degree.
Two Approaches to Languages
Authors: Myers L. M.
Published: February 2007

We all know that linguist has lately become a magic word. Men who used to be merely English or Spanish professors find that when they are called by this term they are welcomed almost as equals by ecologists and astrophysicists; and scientifically trained administrators on public platforms, anxious to show the breadth of their interests but not feeling quite up to coming out in favor of poetry, are happy to be able to bow in the direction of departments that once seemed hopeless. For the first time within living memory there is even a good deal of money and patronage available for language students—as long as they are labeled linguists.
The Teaching Machine and the Teaching of Languages: A Report on Tomorrow
Authors: Morton F. Rand
Published: February 2007

The title suggests a number of paradoxes. The concept of the “teaching machine” represents, on the one hand, one of the most revolutionary and challenging concepts facing teachers and educators today and, at the same time, looks back to one of the oldest basic psychological concepts of learning within the history of educational theory. Socrates' instruction of the slave boy in the Meno is perfect and persuasive illustration of the system of question-response basic to the efficacy of the modern teaching machine. Socrates, as we know, sought to persuade Meno that the slave boy's knowledge of a mathematical fact came not from teaching, but from questioning, and ultimately from recovery of innate knowledge.
Does Everybody There Speak English?
Authors: Sollenberger Howard E.
Published: February 2007

It is a pleasure to meet with the professional group that is involved in the most basic and important human cultural activity. Language was a human invention—perhaps the most important of all time. It is not only the principal means of communication within a linguistic or cultural group, but also the means by which each culture is transmitted from one generation to the next. As such it has been a major if not essential factor in the advancement of human civilization.
“To Bite the Dust” and Symbolical Lay Communion
Authors: Ford J. D. M.
Published: February 2007

The Spanish scholar, Ramón Menéndez Pidal, who has of late been engaged in the work of resurrecting Spanish epic matter of the Middle Ages, has several times called attention to a curious form of lay communion recorded in certain traditions examined by him. Thus, in the tragic account of the seven Infantes of Lara which we find in the chronicle called the Estoria de los Godos, it is stated that the seven brothers, before beginning their last sad battle, “gave communion and confessed all their sins, one to another” (comulgaron e confesaron todos sus pecados unos á otros). On this passage Menéndez Pidal comments as follows (Leyenda de los Infantes de Lara, Madrid, 1896, p. 36): “This sort of priestly function, which, in default of clergy, relatives exercised one for another, was a very orthodox doctrine for the minstrels (juglares), and it even existed as a real custom during the Middle Ages.” He cites the noted instance in the chanson de geste Aliscans, according to which Count William not only heard the confession of his dying nephew, Vivian, but also gave him by way of communion some “pain benoït,” which the Count is said to have brought with him in his scrip (vv. 826 ff.). For other Old French examples of this lay administration of the most august of sacraments, Menéndez Pidal refers to Leon Gautier, La chevalerie (Paris, 1890, pp. 44 ff.), where, in fact, no few are mentioned, in all of which, however, the species of the communion is symbolical, being either grass or leaves.
XIX.—The Dragon and His Lair in Beowulf
Authors: Lawrence William Witherle
Published: February 2007

Rather less attention has been paid to the later portion of Beowulf than to the earlier adventures; Grendel and his dam have, as it were, been more beloved of the commentators than has the dragon. There is every reason, however, why the fight with the dragon should receive careful attention. It is, despite some damaged and illegible passages, of great poetic beauty, with a dignity and a brooding atmosphere of impending fate which are quite its own. And it stands greatly in need of critical as well as of appreciative examination; for there is much which presents difficulty in the interpretation of the text, and in larger problems for the solution of which textual study is necessary.
L'Imagination Flamande Dans L'Ecole Symbolique Française
Authors: Carnoy Albert
Published: February 2007

Sous l'influence du déterminisme de Comte et des theories de Taine sur la race, le milieu et le moment, la critique littéraire de la seconde partie du 19e siècle exagéra l'importance de l'élément collectif ou national dans la production des æuvres d'art et ne mit pas suffisamment en évidence l'influence essentielle du talent individuel. Depuis vingt ans environ, une forte reaction contre ces théories nous a fait oublier systématiquement l'élément racique pour insister exclusivement sur la personnalité des auteurs. On s'est plu à étudier les moindres détails de l'existenee des écrivains, de leur enfance, de leur vie privée. On a même affecté d'ignorer—ou à peu près—l'influence du milieu, du goût de l'époque, des tendances existant chez les auteurs contemporains, etc., éléments qui nécessairement guident l'inspiration des artistes les plus indépendants.
XXII. The Grateful Lion
Authors: Brodeur Arthur Gilchrist
Published: February 2007

I have recently expressed the opinion that the story of Androcles and the Lion, a tour de force by Apion the Egyptian, was suggested to its author by an actual occurrence in the amphitheatre at Rome; and that Apion supplied both motivation and decorative incident out of his own fertile fancy, much as a journalist of our own time would elaborate a column sensation out of a small nucleus of fact.
XXV. The Secret of Love's Labour's Lost
Authors: Gray Austin K.
Published: February 2007

[In the following paper, for reasons of brevity, a working hypothesis has been presented in narrative form: wherever a definite statement of historical fact has been made in support of a literary theory, the authority has been given in the footnotes. The article aims at elucidating certain problems in Love's Labour's Lost by correlating them with certain matters of historical fact which took place in and about the year 1591. The following points constitute problems in Love's Labour's Lost: (a) date of composition and first performance; (b) The unexpected dénoûment in the postponed marriages; (c) The choice of names for the leading male characters, Navarre, Berowne, etc.; (d) The curious emphasis laid upon the killing of the deer by the Princess; (e) The similarity of the Pageant scene at the close of the play to the Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe in The Midsummer Night's Dream; (f) The satire on Euphuism and Sonnets and other courtly affectations; (g) The unique observance by Shakespeare of the unities of time and place. The ensuing narrative has been evolved by applying to these problems the following matters of historical fact: (a) Burleigh's attempts, 1589–94, to force Southampton into marriage with his grand-daughter, Elizabeth de Vere, and Southampton's successful evasion of his betrothal; (b) Southampton's flight to France, 1591, to take part in the war in Normandy; (c) The Royal Progress, 1591, to Portsmouth and certain incidents in the entertainment of the Queen at Cowdray House.]
Did Shakespeare Know Leo African Us?
Authors: Whitney Lois
Published: February 2007

Is Othello a puppet, an Englishman, or a Moor? No less estimable a Shakespeare scholar than Professor Stoll has pointed out what he has called the “great heap of contradictions” in the character of Othello and has come to the conclusion that Shakespeare is merely following a dramatic jealousy tradition in the play of Othello—that he “but leans on the convention of slander and ‘diabolical soliciting’… . Only, in order to expedite matters, Shakespeare leans hard, and Othello presents little or no resistance to temptation, is eager, excited, is, for all his protestations of faith, won over in a trice.” One cannot help feeling, according to Stoll, that Othello is “wrenched and altered” by the dramatist in the temptation scene. A. C. Bradley, on the other hand, whose opinions I cite as typical of the opposite point of view, insists that “any man situated as Othello was, would have been disturbed by Iago's communications, and I add that many men would have been made wildly jealous.” Othello, in other words, is behaving like a normal human being of our own race. Bradley repudiates the “mistaken view” that Othello “retains beneath the surface the savage passions of his Moorish blood.” His nationality is incidental, and “in regard to the essentials of his character it is not important.” He even goes so far as to say that “if anyone had told Shakespeare that no Englishman would have acted like the Moor, and had congratulated him on the accuracy of his racial psychology, I am sure he would have laughed.”
Miracles of Our Lady in Middle English Verse
Authors: Tryon Ruth Wilson
Published: February 2007

In the following pages are presented hitherto unprinted texts of the Miracles of Our Lady in Middle English Verse, together with some discussion of the groups in which they appear, with particular regard to their relationship to the principal Latin collections of Miracles of the B. V. In considering the antecedents and the existing relationships of the Middle English versions, one must take as a starting point the results achieved by Mussafia and Ward in their monumental studies of the Legends of the Virgin, which deal especially with the Latin collections, from which presumably the English texts derive, either directly or indirectly. Though the researches of these scholars have been constantly drawn upon in discussing the materials here assembled, it has not seemed necessary in every case to trouble the reader by citing page references to their works, since the material contained in them is so systematically arranged that it is easily accessible. In citing MSS. containing English texts of the Miracles, I have availed myself of the MS descriptions contained in Carleton Brown's Register of Middle English Religious and Didactic Verse.
Theodor Fontane as a Critic of the Novel
Authors: Shears Lambert A.
Published: February 2007

Fontane confessed on several occasions to a feeling of uneasiness in the presence of scholars, for he was always aware of the irregularity and meagerness of his education and of the consequent gaps in his knowledge. Nor did he believe that he deserved an eminent position as a critic. On the other hand, his long experience as journalist and as successful novelist, together with his wide acquaintance with European literature, make the critical utterances of the mature author particularly significant. But few of the scattered critiques which appeared in various journals, especially the Vossische Zeitung, during the author's lifetime, have been brought together in the posthumous volume of the collected works, under the title Literarische Studien and Eindrücke. However, these essays, with the valuable material found in the poet's correspondence, enable one to form a very fair opinion of Fontane's conception of the novel.
XII. Muret and the History of “Attic” Prose
Authors: Croll Morris W.
Published: February 2007

It is doubtful whether any other great literary reputation of the Renaissance has survived in so ambiguous and confused a state as that of Marc-Antoine Muret, recognized in his own time and ever since as the best writer of Latin prose in the second half of the sixteenth century. The most important event in the history of literary ideas during that period was the controversy concerning the imitation of Cicero; and in that controversy and the various conflicts connected with it Muret was more or less engaged at all periods of his career. Yet modern literary history tells us nothing intelligible of his part in it; or, to speak more exactly, it records two conflicting statements. On the one hand, he appears as the associate of Bembo, Sadoleto, Longueil in the stricter sect of the Ciceronians, a more accomplished, and not less devoted, imitator of the master. This is certainly the commoner view among those who have any acquaintance with his name; for generations he has been held up to the admiration even of school-children as the modern Cicero. How confusing it is then to find that he also holds a conspicuous place in the sketches—few and inadequate—of the movement of opposition that finally triumphed at the end of his century over the great rhetorical scheme of education. From his letters and orations one or two passages have been cited which outdo the sarcasm of Erasmus' Ciceronianas and display a latitude of classical taste which even a modern critic cannot regard without dubiety.
XV. Lessing's Set of Horses Identified
Authors: Decker W. C.
Published: February 2007

In the article on the life of Henry Mackenzie in Lives of Eminent Scotchmen is contained the statement that he translated, together with two or three other dramatic pieces from the German, Lessing's Set of Horses. A search for these translations disclosed that they appeared anonymously in 1792 under the title Dramatic Pieces from the German. The little volume contains a translation of Goethe's Die Geschwister, Gesner's The Conversations of a Father with his Children, and Emdorff's Set of Horses. It is evident that the statement ascribing the Set of Horses to Lessing is inaccurate. A colleague, who has investigated Mackenzie's life and works, has assured me that Mackenzie frequently makes incorrect statements concerning his own writings so that it is very difficult to ascertain the actual facts concerning them.
The Relation of Occleve's Lerne to Dye to its Source
Authors: Kurtz Benjamin P.
Published: February 2007

Occleve's Lerne to Dye has been spoken of as “a really fine Ars Sciendi Mori, the most dignified, and the most poetical, thing that Occleve has left us.” It may be worth while to determine how much of this praise should be given to Occleve as translator and amplifier, how much to his original, an eloquent and famous chapter in Henry Suso's Horologium.
Shelley's Debt to Leigh Hunt and the Examiner
Authors: Graham Walter
Published: February 2007

Of Leigh Hunt's service to Shelley no adequate study has been made. We naturally look for it in Dowden's Life of Shelley (1886) or in Dr. Miller's Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley and Keats (N. Y., 1910). Unfortunately, both of these works contain serious misstatements regarding the Examiner, and Dowden's Life, also, is apparently responsible for the mistaken notion that John Wilson deserves the chief place among Shelley's contemporaries for publicly recognizing his genius. Yet a review of the criticism which appeared during Shelley's lifetime shows that Wilson's appreciation (and that of most other critics, for that matter) was confined to vague and unimportant assertions of Shelley's “genius,” offset by disapprobation of his views on almost every subject he wrote about. Early extravagant views expressed by the poet, although modified later, were not forgotten by adherents of the Establishment and the Crown. His published opinions and the rumors regarding his conduct interfered with general approval of his work as a poet. Leigh Hunt soon saw that the attacks on Shelley were induced chiefly by his misunderstood philosophy and the scandalous stories circulated about his conduct, and accordingly set about explaining his theories and defending his life. But in this effort to defend and interpret Shelley, Hunt in his generation stood practically alone, at least as far as the organs of criticism were concerned.1
Two Early Reviews of Keats's First Volume
Authors: Cornelius Roberta D.
Published: February 2007

It has been the accepted opinion that Keats's first volume received very little attention at the time of its publication in 1817. This is no doubt due to the fact that until recently the only review known was that by Leigh Hunt published in three parts in the Examiner for June 1, July 6, and July 13, 1817. In 1917, Sir Sidney Colvin1 brought to light two others, namely that in the September issue of the Eclectic Review and that in Constable's Scots and Edinburgh Magazine for October, 1817. It has been my good fortune to discover two additional reviews which seem to have been overlooked by students of Keats, although they are apparently the earliest published.
II. Chaucer and Religious Reform
Authors: Maxfield Ezra Kempton
Published: February 2007

On the 28th of December 1384, John Wyclif died of apoplexy while hearing mass in his own church at Lutterworth. He had braved papal displeasure and had survived the hatred of his enemies among local ecclesiastics. Supported by public approval, defended by noble friends—notable among them being John of Gaunt—he had passed through life serenely until his death. His body remained buried in consecrated ground for forty-four years. On May 4, 1415 the Council of Constance decreed that his bones should be disinterred, burned, and the ashes cast into Swift Creek. This sentence was delayed, however, until 1428. Up to 1413, at least, the world had heard relatively little about Wyclif's heresy. By this time papal vengeance was aroused by the alleged dissent of Wyclif's disciple in Bohemia. Perhaps Wyclif became the victim of the circumstance that required authority for action against John Huss. Until Huss' sources were condemned, his enemies had very little evidence upon which to bring him into prominence at Rome as a dangerous man.
IV. Chaucer and Aldgate
Authors: Kuhl Ernest P.
Published: February 2007

Though we are particularly fortunate in knowing a good deal about the life of Chaucer, nevertheless some of the facts are not wholly intelligible. More and more, however, as “men observingly distil them out,” various cruxes are being disposed of. One of the most important of these perplexing problems, which if solved will clear up much besides, is the poet's sudden loss of Aldgate in 1386. This year was a crucial one in the poet's career: for the political happenings at that time—not only were national issues at stake, but London was passing through its most critical period in history—seriously affected Chaucer's welfare. There is, also, a possibility that the poet's sudden misfortune at that time is reflected in some of his poems.
Drayton and the Voyagers
Authors: Cawley Robert Ralston
Published: February 2007

Few poets typify Elizabethan patriotism so completely as Michael Drayton. His most ambitious poem, Polyolbion, is a fond effort to record the chorographic intricacies of his beloved isle. But he does more than that: he often transfers his interest from landscape to human beings. Thus in the Nineteenth Song he passes easily from rivers to men, paying his homage to those responsible for English prestige at sea. The rivers Orwell and Stour reach an agreement:

(156-162) And lastly they agreeThat since the Britans hence their first discoveries made,And that into the East they first were taught to trade,Besides, of all the Roads, and Havens of the East,This Harbour where they meet is reckoned for the best.Our voyages by sea and brave discoveries known,Their argument they make, and thus they sing their own.
The Wager in Cymbeline
Authors: Lawrence William Witherle
Published: February 2007

“Why,” said la Beale Isoud,…. “ye may not be called a
good knight, but if ye make a quarrel for a lady.”

Morte Darthur, x, lvi.

It has long been the fashion, when Cymbeline has been under discussion, to cite Dr. Johnson's famous criticism, and indeed one feels a whimsical joy in setting down so delightful a bit of square-toed dogmatism. “This play has many just sentiments, some natural dialogues, and some pleasing scenes, but they are obtained at the expense of much incongruity. To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the conduct, the confusion of the names and manners of different times, and the impossibility of the events in any system of life, were to waste criticism upon unresisting imbecility, upon faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation.” The really significant thing, however, which makes this opinion worth repeating, is that so many of the best modern critics have expressed substantial agreement with it. Sir Walter Raleigh thinks that “Johnson speaks truly and moderately,” and Dr. H. H. Furness said, “Ay, Dr. Johnson was right in his estimate of this play of Cymbeline,—the sweetest, tenderest, profoundest of almost all the immortal galaxy.” Most writers, while not agreeing directly with Johnson, have taken a half-puzzled, half-apologetic attitude; they have obviously felt what Dr. Furness calls “deterioration” here, after the splendid achievement of the great tragedies and the Roman plays.
XXIV.—A French Desert Island Novel of 1708
Authors: Atkinson Geoffroy
Published: February 2007

Desert islands and shipwrecked crews are apparently very old themes in French prose fiction. There is a desert island episode in Les Amours de Clidamant et de Marilinde, a sentimental novel of 1603. The shipwreck of a Portuguese merchantman is the prelude to L'Isle des hermaphrodites, a satirical work of 1605. Accounts of such adventures in the “true voyage” literature of the first half of the 17th century in France are numerous. To cite only some works which went through several editions in this period, the Voyages of Jean Mocquet contains the story of a lone European on an unknown shore. Repeated editions in French translation of Garcilaso's Historia de los Incas contain the better known Serrano desert island story, while two editions of the Voyages du sieur Vincent Le Blanc furnish other material of like nature.
XXVII.—English Songs on the Night Visit
Authors: Baskervill Charles Read
Published: February 2007

Traces of the aube in English and Scottish literature are to be found in a few titles and a few fragments or adaptations of the type. But the aube, which deals with the parting of lovers at dawn, seems to me to represent only one group in a large body of songs that picture the various phases of a lover's secret visit to his lady at night. No such number of these related songs, either medieval or modern, is to be found in England as on the Continent, but enough material survives in one form or another to suggest their main conventions.
How Poetic is Shelley's Poetry?: (A Centenary View)
Authors: Elliott G. R.
Published: February 2007

Poor Shelley's after-fame is now almost as fluctuant as that scene of his ending, just a hundred years ago, when the waves bore him “darkly, fearfully, afar” (July 8, 1822). The centenary of his death finds his status as a poet involved in peculiar uncertainty. Writers who have agreed fairly well on other matters have differed widely in their evaluations of Shelley's style, particularly as compared with the styles of Wordsworth, Byron, and Keats. And almost any company of immediate poetry-lovers—I mean, those who maintain a healthy distrust of professional critics and a warm faith in their own predilections—can wax uncommonly disputatious if one of their number affirms that Shelley was a very real poet, or a very unreal one. Apparently his art is quite singular in its capacity to captivate and to repel. It so repelled Matthew Arnold that it appeared to him a maze which wise men should rather walk around than penetrate. Though he surveyed it tellingly, he never passed right through it with his hand on an unbroken clue; nor have his followers done so. Critics of another type have yielded themselves so fully to the poet's fascinating meanders that eventually they could not emerge, with undimmed vision, into the open country beyond. In short, it has proved very difficult to bring the captivating and the repellent qualities of Shelley's work under a single impartial scrutiny. But at least it should be clear that such a scrutiny should now confine itself to Shelley's poems, submerging all other sources of impression. Extensive enquiry into the poet's life, theories, and affiliations was called for by the singular nature of his case. But this enquiry has become entangled, rather obscuringly, with the question which in the end must stand alone: How poetic is Shelley's poetry?
The Songs in Lyly's Plays
Authors: Moore John Robert
Published: February 2007

Lyly's authorship of the songs in his plays was challenged two decades ago by Dr. Greg, who presented apparently decisive evidence that they are post-Lylian. Since then, however, the question has been re-opened by Mr. Lawrence's interesting discussion—recently accepted as convincing by Dr. Reed—which casts doubt on Dr. Greg's implied attribution of some or all of the songs to Dekker, and re-affirms Lyly's claims.
Shakespeare's Richard II and the Essex Conspiracy
Authors: Albright EM
Published: February 2007

The critics have emphasized the “romantic” aspects of Shakespeare's work to such an extent as almost to ignore any possible connection of his plays with the people of his day and the problems that occupied their minds. His characters are treated as sheer creations who live in a sort of vacuum. But there are numerous indications that Shakespeare was not utterly detached from the life that was going on about him.
New Allusions to a Game at Chesse
Authors: Wagner Bernard M.
Published: February 2007

It is well known that the performance in August, 1624 of Thomas Middleton's allegorical play A Game at Chesse, dealing with the Spanish marriage, caused a furore in London theatrical circles, and that the king (then on a progress), learning of it through the Spanish ambassador, ordered its suppression. No attempt, however, has been made to collect the references which this public satire would naturally occasion in the news-letters and private correspondence of the day. Of the allusions given below from these sources, five (nos. 1, 5, 8, 13, 14) have not been noticed before by students of the drama and two (nos. 3, 7), although previously known, are given accurately for the first time. Nos. 2, 6, 9-12, although they have already been correctly printed, are here summarized (within brackets) for the convenience of the reader and included in the series, in proper chronological sequence.
XXIV. Sainte-Beuve and Pope
Authors: MacClintock Lander
Published: February 2007

It was late in life that Sainte-Beuve wrote to a correspondent:

Je suis resté, malgré tout, de l'école d'Horace, du chantre de la forêt de Windsor, et même en n'y mettant plus de tout de passion, je reste obstiné par ce côté de mon esprit et dans ce for intérieur de mon sentiment.

This declaration is often cited as a sort of summary and synthesis of his critical theory and experience, witnessing his fixed and final preference for the Classical manner, a preference which he promptly and constantly declared after his conclusive break with the Romantics in 1838. The interest of the scholar is immediately aroused by two things in the passage: the fact that he calls the group or roll of writers whom he indicates a “school”; and more especially by the names he singles out as representing the “school” to which he declares his allegiance— Horace and Pope.
Perolopez Ranjel, Farca a Honor & Reuerencia del Glorioso Nascimiento (Early Sixteenth Century)
Authors: Gillet Joseph E.
Published: February 2007

This play was unknown to Moratín. When it was examined by Ticknor, it was part of a volume belonging to M. Ternaux-Compans, which contained, besides, the anonymous Farça a manera de tragedia, Güete's Tesorina and Vidriana, the Radiana of Ortiz, Villalón's Tragedia de Mirrha (Medina del Campo, 1536) and the anonymous Jacinta. La Barrera's notice, probably borrowed from Ticknor, states—I believe wrongly, if I have correctly understood Ticknor—that the play was in a collection with other farces, “dos de ellas impresas en 1536.”

Taken together, the descriptions of Salvá, who has given a summary of the play and reproduced 146 lines, and of Heredia, who gave an exact reproduction of the title-page, are satisfactory. Kohler, who does not seem to have known of Salvá's extracts, speaks of the piece as though it were lost and reproduces La Barrera's notice. From Ternaux-Compans the only known copy passed, now separately bound, through Salva to the Madrid Biblioteca Nacional, where it is now preserved under the signature R.3658.
Milton and Servetus: A Study in the Sources of Milton's Theology
Authors: Larson Martin A.
Published: February 2007

That Milton's theology is remarkable for its independence has often been noted. Although he has something in common with the Fathers, with the Greek philosophers, with the Renaissance metaphysicians, with the Protestant reformers, and with the chief heretical sects of the Reformation, nevertheless, among them all we can nowhere find a parallel for his system; we cannot even find all the elements of which it is composed, nor, indeed, its chief conceptions.
E. Th. A. Hoffmann's Reception in England
Authors: Gudde Erwin G.
Published: February 2007

Of all German romanticists few have been so widely read and none so extensively imitated as E. Th. A. Hoffmann. He was in France the most popular of all foreign novelists, and exerted a strong and lasting influence upon French writers of the nineteenth century. His popularity and influence in his fatherland has been by no means so steady as in France. To be sure, at the time of his death in 1822, his books were the best sellers in Germany. But he soon lost favor with German readers, partly because the majority of literary men were hostile to him. Still worse did he fare in England, where he became known much earlier than in France, but never succeeded in gaining the favor of critics or public.
L'Ingénu de Voltaire; Quelques Influences
Authors: Rovillain Eugène E.
Published: February 2007

Parmi les romans philosophiques de Voltaire, l'Ingénu est intéressant à plus d'un titre. Il exprime les idées de l'auteur, mais, et sauf erreur de notre part, il éclaire aussi d'une vive lueur l'état d'esprit de l'écrivain. Puisqu'il est admis de nos jours que le succès de la Profession de foi du vicaire savoyard inspira le Sermon des Cinquante, pourquoi l'Ingénu ne serait-il pas une conséquence nécessaire du triomphe de la doctrine naturiste de J. J. Rousseau? La renommée grandissante de ce dernier ne blessait-elle pas l'ombrageux patriarche qui voyait, avec douleur, l'influence de son rival contrebalancer fortement la sienne? En effet, d'une discussion plutôt académique et littéraire sur la nature du sauvage et du civilisé, Rousseau sut tirer des conclusions aussi pratiques qu'angoissantes pour l'humanité. Entraîné par l'éloquence enflammée du philosophe, le public s'enthousiasma et discuta cette question avec passion. Voltaire, dont le génie a surtout été d'expliquer et de suivre son siècle alors même qu'il paraissait le précéder, se rendit compte de ce nouveau désir créé par l'intérêt général. La mode en étant à l'homme de la nature, il écrivit l'Ingénu, livre d'actualité s'il en fût. Le civilisé qu'était Voltaire ne pouvait guère prendre ce sujet bien au sérieux, mais enfin, et c'est ce qui lui importait, il restait dans le goût du jour.
Some Sources of Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer
Authors: Ingalls Gertrude Van Arsdale
Published: February 2007

Among nineteenth century critics it was the fashion to consider Oliver Goldsmith one of the most original of writers; and The Vicar and She Stoops to Conquer were always cited as examples of that originality. Modern scholarship, which has destroyed so many of the traditions concerning Goldsmith, has thus far left these two works intact.