bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Notes on the Sources and the Autograph Manuscript of Lope De Vega's El Prīncipe Despeñado
Authors: Hoge Henry W.
Published: February 2007

The autograph MS. of El principe despenado was signed in Madrid November 27, 1602.1 Noteworthy features of the MS. are the great amount of marginal annotation to be found thereon, and the numerous passages which have been boxed off or otherwise marked for omission. Such indications almost certainly do not proceed from the pen of Lope, but are rather the rehearsal notations of some autor who wished to abbreviate the play, omit certain characters from the cast, or otherwise adapt it for presentation on the stage. In no case does the cancellation of a passage give evidence of being prompted by aesthetic motives. In all, some thirty-one passages have been bracketed, comprising 332 verses. It is not usual to find such extensive tampering in Lope's autograph comedias; there is an equal abundance, however, in the autograph of El cuerdo loco, which Lope wrote in the same year as the Principe despenado and which, as we shall see, very probably figured with it in the repertory of the Pedro de Valdés-Antonio de Granados troupe.2
Characterization in Malory's Tale of Arthur and Lucius
Authors: Dichmann Mary E.
Published: February 2007

One of the most important recent publications in the field of late mediaeval literature is Eugène Vinaver's edition of The Works of Sir Thomas Malory,1 which has made available a more accurate text for the study of Malory's writings than any scholar has previously had at his disposal. As Vinaver points out in the Preface to this work (i, vi), his edition, which is based on the recently discovered Winchester MS.,2 is much closer to what Malory actually wrote than is Caxton's emended version, and consequently invalidates many conjectures made by those who have known Malory only as he is presented by Caxton. A careful examination of this MS. and a painstaking comparison of it with the sources on which Malory drew have caused Vinaver to reverse several opinions that he previously supported by cogent argument3 and have led him to two general conclusions: (1) that Malory's writings should not be regarded as a unified account of the rise and fall of King Arthur and the Round Table, but rather as eight separate romances whose subjects were drawn independently from the Arthurian cycle (I, XXIX-XXXV) and (2) that the order of composition of the tales was not in the sequence presented by both Caxton and the Winchester MS., since evidence shows (I, XXV-XL) that the story of the war with Rome, which Vinaver calls the Tale of the Noble King Arthur and the Emperor Lucius (Caxton Book v), was written before the Tale of King Arthur (Caxton Books I, II, III, and IV).4
The Analogues of Chaucer's Prioress' Tale: The Relation of Group C to Group A
Authors: Statler Margaret H.
Published: February 2007

With no immediate source of Chaucer's Prioress' Tale yet brought to light, postulations about the nature of this source, such as may be tentatively formulated from a study of the thirty-two available analogues of the miracle, have been made in order to estimate the extent and artistry of Chaucer's contribution to this tale of the little clergeon. Carleton Brown in his admirable studies published in 1910 and 1941 traced the development of the legend from what he considered the most primitive stage through Chaucer's story and the analogues which resemble it most closely. For this purpose Brown divided the thirty-three versions into three groups, A, B, and C, each of which represents a distinct form of the miracle and a distinct pattern of events.
Form, Texture, and Meaning in Chaucer's Knight's Tale
Authors: Muscatine Charles
Published: February 2007

Despite the fact that the interpretive literature on Chaucer's Knight's Tale is extensive, the poem has remained one of the most baffling of the Canterbury Tales. It has resisted satisfactory interpretation where poems of much more complicated structure—as the Merchant's Tale—and much more varied style—as the Nun's Priest's Tale—-have yielded brilliant results to criticism. The critics of the past fifty years have lacked neither learning nor ingenuity, but somehow their interpretations remain marked by a characteristic indecisiveness—made particularly evident where equally acute analyses produce conflicting and contradictory results—and by a simplicity that does not do justice to the poem and its five hundred years of popularity. It is possible that this critical unsuccess is owing to an error of perspective, that the poem has been generally examined and evaluated in the light of assumptions which are not central to its method. It is the purpose of the present essay to establish this as more than a possibility, and to suggest a viewpoint from which the poem may be seen to have a coherence and fullness of meaning which the traditional critics have hardly touched upon.
Toward a Theory of Romanticism
Authors: Peckham Morse
Published: February 2007

Can We Hope for a theory of romanticism? The answer, I believe, is, Yes. But before proceeding further, I must make quite clear what it is that I propose to discuss.
An Intellectual Affinity: Bergson and Valéry
Authors: O'Neill James C.
Published: February 2007

It is undeniable that Valéry's works, both prose and poetry, have philosophical and metaphysical implications, albeit without such intentions. Students of Valéry have felt impelled to develop these implications and to describe the poet as everything from an anti-philosopher to a philosopher-in-spite-of-himself.1 It is also undeniable that Valéry, in his comments on philosophy, has damned it with faint praise indeed. He has pleaded ignorance of philosophy, expressed disdain for its objectives and methods, asserted that he has no philosophy worthy of the name, denied the possibility of philosophical poetry in our time (both in general and with respect to his own work), and refused for himself the name or the quality of philosopher.
Stefan George and the Theatre
Authors: Goldsmith Ulrich K.
Published: February 2007

Although Stefan George's unyielding protest against the contemporary theatre lasted from the time of his graduation from the Ludwig-Georg Gymnasium in Darmstadt (1888) until his death, his hopes for its reform and his gradual disillusionment are generally little known, since his sphere of influence was restricted to the realm of lyrical poetry. This limitation was apparently both natural and logical for George, whose peculiar genius was that of the lyricist. But it was not entirely voluntary at first, for in his formative years he had been fascinated by the world of the theatre.
Chaucer's Final -E
Authors: Donaldson E. Talbot
Published: February 2007

In an article published in this periodical Professor James G. Southworth has reopened the question of the pronunciation or non-pronunciation of Chaucer's unstressed -e in rhyme, and has come to the conclusion that this -e was not sounded in Chaucer's time, and should not now be sounded by readers of his poetry. With Professor Southworth's conclusion many students of Chaucer will undoubtedly sympathize. The modern ear is trained to hear poetry read for the sense as dictated by the syntax, and without regard for any claims that the individual line may have to being treated as a vocal unit distinct from its neighbors. Such a reading is often made difficult by the sounding of the final -e, which tends to prolong the pause. Yet despite the attractiveness of Professor Southworth's argument there are several aspects of it that should, in view of the importance of the subject, be examined in detail before we altogether abandon the -e in rhyme. To make such an examination is the purpose of this paper.
Émile Montégut as a Critic of American Literature
Authors: Virtanen Reino
Published: February 2007

Although Emile Montégut's work on American writers has been given some attention, there has been little attempt to assess the validity and significance of his criticism. It is an interesting fact that American literature received its first extensive treatment in France not from an admirer of American democracy, but from a political conservative, an opponent of the French Revolution. A modest and retiring person, who saw only grounds for pessimism in the political trends of the nineteenth century, who felt a nostalgic longing for a supposedly more stable and well-ordered past, who feared the progress and consequences of industrialism, Montégut might seem the least likely of critics to judge American literature rightly and with sympathetic understanding. Yet his writing on English literature is of recognized merit, he has been highly praised by men like Victor Giraud and George Saintsbury, and his complete Shakespeare is one of the major French translations of the poet. When such a writer devotes more than a score of articles to American literature and life (1847–76), his contribution can scarcely be overlooked.
Loris—Die Frühen Essays Des Jungen Hofmannsthal
Authors: Cohn Hilde D.
Published: February 2007

In den Jahren 1891–97 veröffentlichte Hofmannsthal in Wiener Zeitungen und Zeitschriften eine Reine von Essays über die Literatur, die Kunst, und das Theater seiner Zeit. Erst 1930, ein Jahr nach dem Tode des Dichters, erschienen diese Aufsätze gesammelt unter dem Titel Loris, dem Pseudonym des jungen Hofmannsthal. Die meisten von ihnen beschäftigen sich mit einzelnen Persönlichkeiten—Barres, Amiel, Pater, Swinburne, Ibsen, Bahr, Stefan George, Eleonora Duse—aber es sind auch solche darunter, die allgemeine Problème zum Thema haben, wie der Vortrag über Poésie und Leben, order der Bericht über die Mozartfeier in Salzburg.
Synge's Unfinished Deirdre
Authors: Greene David H.
Published: February 2007

One of the greatest difficulties which faced the dramatists of the Irish Renaissance was how to write heroic plays in peasant dialect. Although the language of the Irish countryman was ideal for the little farces which mirrored the living Ireland, it turned out to be the severest of limitations when used to exploit the ancient Ireland of the sagas. “But Grania is a King's daughter”, protested George Moore when Yeats insisted that Diarmuid and Grania be written in peasant dialect. And if we are to believe the story that Moore tells in Hail and Farewell, Yeats even went so far as to ask Moore, who knew not a word of dialect, to write the play in French. Lady Gregory would then turn it into English, an Irish translator would render it in Irish, and Lady Gregory would then turn the Irish literally into English. Although Yeats never got a peasant Grania from Moore, he very nearly realized his ideal when he induced Synge, the acknowledged master of peasant dialect, to attempt a peasant Deirdre. Synge, like Moore, might well have protested against the difficult task his master had set him. “I am not sure whether I shall be able to make a satisfactory play out of it”, he wrote to an American friend. But he plunged on, creating his Deirdre in the image of a Wicklow peasant girl. We can surmise that she gave him considerable trouble, for he rewrote the play more than fifteen times, working on it more energetically than on any other of his plays. We have Moore's testimony that Synge finally began to feel that peasant speech was impossible and started to weed it out of his play. However, the mass of MSS which represent Synge's work on the play up to his death indicate that no such weeding process had begun.
Wycherley and Calderon: A Source for Love in a Wood
Authors: Rundle James Urvin
Published: February 2007

Interesting light is thrown on the apprenticeship of William Wycherley as a dramatist by examination of his earliest play, Love in a Wood, against its Spanish source. For the intrigue involving Ranger, Lydia, Christina, and Vincent, Wycherley used Calderon's Mañanas de abril y mayo. The Spanish play runs as follows:

Returning to Madrid from refuge after killing a rival for the affections of Ana, Juan hides at the house of his friend Pedro, a near neighbor of Ana. Pedro tells Juan of how Ana has grieved in solitude during his absence. But Juan is not sure she had not favored his rival—indeed, it is to make certain of her attitude that he has risked the law and the slain man's relatives in returning.
The Richelieu-Corneille Rapport
Authors: Klenke M. Amelia
Published: February 2007

When the Cid appeared on the boards of the Marais, it was a success both universal and instantaneous—a success beyond anything its author had dreamed of. Day after day the theater was crowded with the best people of the Court and the city. We are told that receipts of the play were greater than that of ten of the best plays of other leading dramatists. Pellisson in his Histoire de l'Académie Française published sixteen years later tells us:

Il est malaisé de s'imaginer avec quelle approbation cette pièce fut reçue de la Cour et du public. On ne se pouvoit lasser de la voir, on n'entendoit autre chose dans les compagnies, chacun en savoit quelque partie par cceur, on la faisoit apprendre aux enfants, et, en plusieurs endroits de la France, il étoit passé en proverbe de dire: Cela est beau comme le Cid.
The Date of Emerson's Terminus
Authors: Strauch Carl F.
Published: February 2007

Whether scholars and anthologists have assigned a precise date of composition to Terminus or not, the general impression has been that Emerson wrote the poem upon approaching old age. Dr. Edward Waldo Emerson implied that it was written in the 'sixties:

In the month of December, 1866, I, returning from six months on a Western railroad, met my father in New York just setting out for his winter's journey to the West, and we spent the night together at the St. Denis Hotel. He read me some poems that he was soon to publish in his new volume, May Day, and among them Terminus. I was startled, for he, looking so healthy, so full of life and young in spirit, was reading his deliberate acknowledgment of failing forces and his trusting and serene acquiescence.
Flaubert's Itinerary in Greece
Authors: Bart B. F.
Published: February 2007

In the various studies of French Hellenism, attention has rarely been directed thus far to determining with exact precision where French travellers went in Greece.1 And yet their itineraries are often very revealing. This is particularly true of Gustave Flaubert. From his itinerary, not only may we know what he saw and what he chose to omit, but also we may divine the reasons for his choices. Their implications will allow us to establish one more facet of his place in nineteenth-century French Hellenism. Further, but within this broad framework, a closer study of the specific problems of his trip through the Pass of Thermopylæ and of his difficulties with its topography will permit us to begin evaluating his approach to the problems of Greek archæology, upon whose resolution so much of modern Hellenism has depended. In his life and works, Hellenism occupied an important place. From the first version of the Education sentimentale begun in 1843 to the final version of the Tentation de saint Antoine published in 1874, passages in his works frequently center about it; and his esthetics are profoundly imbued with the implications and conclusions which he drew, over the years, from his intimate study of ancient Greece. As one part of the total definition of his place in the movement, I am presenting here his itinerary, based upon the confusing data which he has left us,2 and, as a sample of his archaeological efforts, I am offering an elucidation of his complex notes on the Pass of Thermopylæ.
Coleridge's Use of Wordsworth's Juvenilia
Authors: Smyser Jane Worthington
Published: February 2007

In his edition of The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Ernest DeSelincourt published for the first time over thirty poems of Wordsworth's juvenilia.1 Among these he discovered three poems previously thought to be the work of Coleridge and long published under his name. In The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,2 these poems are entitled “Lewti, or the Circassian Love-Chaunt” (I, 253), “Inscription for a Seat by the Road Side” (I, 349), and “Alcaeus to Sappho” (I, 353). Since the publication of Wordsworth's juvenilia, I have found three more poems in the works of Coleridge which DeSelincourt failed to note as also originally belonging to Wordsworth: “To Lesbia” (I, 60), “The Death of the Starling” (I, 61), and “Morienti Superstes” (I, 62); besides these, a conjecture may be made as to the authorship of a fourth, “Moriens Superstiti” (I, 61), for it is paired with a poem clearly belonging to Wordsworth.
The Sources of Massinger's Emperour of the East
Authors: Phialas Peter G.
Published: February 2007

An inquiry into the sources of Massinger's tragicomedy The Emperour of the East (1632) is made difficult by the abundance and variety of historical literature which contains the principal elements of the plot. On the one hand, the ready availability of the story in Byzantine chronicles has led students of Massinger to search for the sources exclusively in the histories; on the other, the variety in the content of these has made selection virtually impossible, for though many of the histories provide long accounts of the story of Theodosius and Eudoxia, none contains all the details which Massinger introduced in his tragicomedy. As a result, various scholars have proposed interesting, though unsatisfactory, combinations. Langbaine refers his reader to no fewer than five histories; Coxeter, the first editor of the plays, selects the first two of the sources cited by Langbaine, namely Socrates and Theodoret, but he admits that there may be others; Mason, the next editor, repeats Coxe-ter's note; and Gifford in his standard edition is even more vague than his predecessors. But to balance his inconclusive remarks he appends a note provided by his friend Dr. Ireland offering as the main sources Cedrenus and Theophanes, principally because they include the quarrel of Theodosius and Eudoxia; and a second note, this one by Gilchrist, another literary friend, who hazards the opinion that Massinger based his plot on two passages in the Anatomy of Melancholy, in which Burton relates briefly the marriage of Eudoxia and the famous episode with the apple. All of these are unacceptable, however, as both singly and in their sum they leave out of account significant details present in the play. A more satisfactory study of the sources was produced in 1897 by Emil Koeppel, whose conclusions were confirmed three years later by Wolfgang von Wurzbach.
Montaigne and La Boétie in the Chapter on Friendship
Authors: Kurz Harry
Published: February 2007

The problem we are proposing to discuss is the result of a peculiar carelessness of Montaigne in his chapter on Friendship in his Essais, Book I, 28. He begins by noting that a painter,1 commissioned by him to decorate some of the large panels of his study with pictures, daubs fanciful designs, “crotesques”, around the central pieces. So, remarks Montaigne, his thoughts here are mere figures without any other purpose than to enshrine a great piece composed by his friend, Etienne de la Boétie. This gem is a little essay called by its author Discours de la servitude volontaire, but soon renamed Le contr'un by those who read it. Montaigne then relates that it was written by La Boétie in his early youth (later specified as eighteen) and circulated among appreciative readers who relished its spirited defence of liberty against tyrants. Hence the name of Contr'un. Montaigne insists that it is beautifully composed and if its author had lived and undertaken a long work of reflection, he would have created something memorable that would have made him comparable to authors of antiquity. But this Discours and a Commentary on the Edict of January2 are all he has available now, since he has already published all the other MSS left him by his friend's bequest.3 Montaigne admits that he has a special fondness for the Contr'un because it furnished the means of their first awareness of each other even before they met, thus opening the door to the perfect friendship between them. This relationship was so extraordinary that its like will not be seen more than once in three centuries.
Form and Content in the Development of the Italian Renaissance Ode
Authors: Williamson Edward
Published: February 2007

It is generally recognized that during the central third of the sixteenth century there occurred a shift of thought so considerable as to place Ariosto and Tasso in two separate moments of intellectual history. The critical activity of the period was focussed upon the elaboration of Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetic into a complex system of regulations; its poetic activity was characterized by the emergence of forms patterned on classical models. The most striking of these, because the most divergent from previous forms, is the ode.
Chaucer's Prose Rhythms
Authors: Schlauch Margaret
Published: February 2007

Experimentation in prose rhythms is generally conceded to be a sign of mature literary art. It can not, in fact, be conceived to occur unless craftsmen in letters have become so far aware of their aesthetic medium—its physical basis and its principles—that they wish to subject it to deliberately planned tests for effect. The obvious meters of verse require much less awareness. Prose experiments appear characteristically within and just after periods of great artistic productivity, when a galaxy of creative writers has engendered the requisite literary self-consciousness. Such a period was surely the fourteenth century in England, and it should be a matter of no surprise if therefore several prose writers of the time adopted an attitude of experimentation.
James Joyce: A Partial Explanation
Authors: Kelly Robert Glynn
Published: February 2007

Everyone has a different explanation for James Joyce. Thornton Wilder says he is a man divided between a violent love and a violent hate, “a love that cannot integrate its hate” and “a hate that cannot integrate its love”, a love and a hate for the land and the people he left but was unable ever to forget. Harry Levin, insofar as he attempts at all to explain, places great emphasis on Joyce's youthful theory of the development of the arts as a progress from the lyric, through the epic, to the dramatic. Barry Bymo agrees with the importance of this literary theory and suggests that Joyce's problem was the incompatibility between his artistic program and his own capabilities. Gorman, offering us his idol, does not explain Joyce at all except in terms of his high integrity, superb intellect, and remarkable fortitude—an explanation based for the most part on Joyce's own declarations to these effects. And Gogarty, antipathetic, seemingly resentful, attributes Joyce's development to the inherent arrogance which led him to reject his religion but never released him from fears of the consequences of this rejection. Gogarty therefore singles out as the crucial trauma from which Joyce never recovered and toward which he never ceased to react, the sermon on Damnation, Hell, and Eternity which he heard at Belvedere College when he was eleven years old.
A Competition for Eternity: Yeats's Revision of His Later Poems
Authors: Witt Marion
Published: February 2007

Lady Gregory recorded in her journal in 1925 that Yeats, scorning what he believed to be excessive praise of certain nineteenth and twentieth century poets, said, “These critics ought to think more of the writing. They have given up God, they shouldn't give up perfection.” “Well”, Lady Gregory added, “he practises what he preaches; is working over those old poems as if for a competition for eternity.”1 Various critics have noted the results of Yeats's competition for eternity in his repeated and elaborate revisions of his early poems; but it has not been demonstrated that he continued to the end of his life to revise almost all his work, new poems as well as old, for successive printings, nor has any study been made of the nature and purposes of Yeats's revisions of the great poems of his last thirty years.
Gottfried Keller und Goethe
Authors: Ermatinger Von Emil
Published: February 2007

Persönlichkeiten der Geschichte mit einander zu vergleichen, könnte als ein schon methodologisch verfehltes Unterfangen bezeichnet werden, da ja jede geschichtliche Erscheinung als Individuum ein Einmaliges und Besonderes darstellt. Und doch schließt der Begriff Individuum Verwandtschaft oder Gleichgerichtetheit in Wesentlichem und Unwesentlichem nicht aus. Eine Vergleichung kann daher als gegenseitige Aufhellung oder auch Beleuchtung des einem aus dem andern neue Gesichtspunkte der Charakteristik aufzeigen, vorausgesetzt, daß zur Vergleichung ein gemeinsamer psychologischer oder geistiger Grund und Boden vorhanden ist. In diesem Sinne mag der nachfolgende Versuch aufgefaßt werden. Wenn dabei in unserer Fragestellung der Name Keller dem Goethes vorangeht, so wird damit natürlich nicht eine Wertordnung ausgedrückt, sondern eine Messung des späteren Dichters an dem sozusagen absoluten Maßstab des früheren.
Prometheus Bound and Prometheus Unbound
Authors: Weaver Bennett
Published: February 2007

Shelley's Prometheus Unbound in many ways might be considered the most significant and characteristic of his works. Yet in this drama the poet himself has pointed out his indebtedness to the Prometheus Bound of Æschylus. Able scholars, in turn, have examined the relationship between the English and the Greek plays. Over half a century ago Vera D. Scudder published her study, and in 1908 Richard Ackermann brought out his critical commentary. Among others, W. J. Alexander and A. M. D. Hughes, in editing their selections from the poems of Shelley, noted the parallels between his work and that of Æschylus. In more recent times, Carl Grabo has gone beyond the study of Greek-English parallels, and Newman Ivey White in the notable twenty-second chapter of his Shelley has enriched our understanding of Prometheus Unbound. Still one may hope by concentrating on the problem to give fuller meaning to the action of the mind of Æschylus upon that of Shelley as together they face tyranny and pain.
Johnson's Conception of the Beautiful, the Pathetic, and the Sublime
Authors: Hagstrum J. H.
Published: February 2007

The words beautiful, pathetic, sublime, and their synonyms appear often in Samuel Johnson's discussions of literary pleasure. Although I do not know that all three are ever used together in one sentence, the sublime and the pathetic, on the one hand, and the sublime and the beautiful, on the other, are among Johnson's most frequently recurring doublets. Each word becomes an important term of aesthetic meaning, clearly distinguished from the others; each expands under the pressure of contemporary theory; each is complicated and enriched by the vigorous personality of its user; and each is used as a tool of practical criticism to help account for the distinguishing excellence of a great English poet. For Johnson, Pope exemplified the beautiful, Shakespeare the pathetic, and Milton the sublime.
The Orpheus Image in Lycidas
Authors: Mayerson Caroline W.
Published: February 2007

Tillyard's interpretation of Lycidas as a tragic conflict between man's ego and his sense of finitude, resolved through a sublimation of the individual's fears and hopes in the aspirations of his group, has gained wide acceptance. Yet Tillyard, in focusing attention on the theme and its relationship to biographical data, has tended to minimize the pastoral and occasional aspects of the poem. On the other hand, the traditional over-emphasis on these aspects has long resulted in an evaluation of Lycidas as largely an allegory of college life and friendship or as a a supremely skillful exercise in a now archaic genre. Neither approach has included more than cursory consideration of Milton's imagery. This essay proposes that our understanding of Lycidas may be enriched by combining an historical and æsthetic point of view in a study of the relationship of the imagery of the poem to its other constituents. The essay will be particularly concerned with testing the hypothesis that the allusion to Orpheus in lines 56–63 is an important functional image through which Milton defined and developed his theme.
The Development of Latin Hiatus Groups in the Romance Languages
Authors: Meadows Gail Keith
Published: February 2007

During the past fifty or sixty years in the history of Romance linguistics, the erratic development of vowels in hiatus has constituted an ever recurring problem. Scholars have been little preotcupied with the subject except in so far as it touches the history of the number words (CL dŭo) and the possessive adjectives and pronouns (CL měus, tŭus, sŭus). A study of the latter led d'Ovidio to give the first account of any extent of the development of vowels in hiatus in a Romance tongue; he limited his study to Italian. At about the same time, Karl Brugmann was investigating the mode of development of vowels in hiatus in Latin and Greek. Although he was able to establish a fairly clear system of development for the forms in the ancient languages, further studies in Romance linguistics failed to clarify the issue for the modern languages. In 1893, Menger attempted to answer, at least tentatively, some of the outstanding questions incidental to the problem and cleared the atmosphere somewhat; his treatment was, however, primarily a development of the possessive pronoun and was limited to Italian. The work of scholars such as Meyer-Lubke led to mere tabulation of forms; other treatments have considered at most a set group of words, like the possessive pronouns, in the various languages or have dealt only with the multitude of dialectal forms in an area geographically restricted. In short, the development of vowels in hiatus in the whole of the Romance territory has never been the object of a comprehensive study.
Was Sir Richard Steele a Freemason?
Authors: Blanchard Rae
Published: February 2007

The list of eighteenth-century celebrities who were freemasons is an impressive one with the names on it of Chesterfield, Gibbon, Burke, Boswell, Burns, Mozart, Paine, Washington, Franklin, and scores of other major and minor lights in the earlier as well as the later years of the century. It is rather surprising, therefore, in view of what we know of the temperament, ideas, and career of Sir Richard Steele not to find his name there also. But although the question of his membership has often been raised, no special effort has ever been made to answer it with certainty either in the affirmative or the negative. I have gone into the subject not so much with the purpose of proving that he was or was not a freemason as with the hope of opening up approaches leading to new facts about his life. It has been an interesting pursuit which, though not yielding any documentary proof in the way of lodge minutes or membership lists, has led me to the conclusion that in all probability Steele was a freemason. This summary of my study may lead someone to suggest methods of carrying the investigation further. Possibly it may serve also to call attention to a subject which appears to have had but little study, freemasonry as a social force in the England of George the First.
Proust Et Baudelaire
Authors: Galand René
Published: February 2007

Ces lignes de Valéry Larbaud proposent à la critique une tâche considérable, utile assurément, mais des plus délicates. Nulle question en effet n'a soulevé plus de controverses que la notion d'influence en littérature. Or, de tous les noms que cite Larbaud, celui de Baudelaire est l'un des plus fréquemment mentionnés par Proust, qui a également consacré un article à l'auteur des Fleurs du Mal. Il est donc légitime de penser qu'une étude de cette nature pourrait jeter un jour supplémentaire, non seulement sur la personnalité et sur l'œuvre de Proust, mais encore sur celles de Baudelaire lui-même. De nombreuses questions se présentent immédiatement à l'esprit: Proust a-t-il fait à Baudelaire des emprunts directs? A-t-il trouvé chez lui des vues sur le monde et sur l'art semblables à ses propres conceptions? Baudelaire est-il à l'origine de l'esthétique proustienne? L'auteur du Temps retrouvé n'a-t-il au contraire tiré de l'œuvre de son prédécesseur qu'un encouragement à la dépasser et à affirmer son originalité propre? S'est-il borné notamment à juger que certaines audaces de Baudelaire justifiaient les siennes? Sans prétendre apporter une solution à tous ces problèmes, l'on peut examiner les analogies existant entre la vie et le caractère des deux hommes et étudier, d'après les textes, ce qui, dans l'œuvre de Baudelaire, semble avoir plus particulièrement attiré l'attention de Proust. Peut-être alors sera-t-on mieux en mesure de préciser la nature de l'influence du poète sur le romancier.
Structure and Prosodic Pattern in Shelley's Lyrics
Authors: Havens Raymond D.
Published: February 2007

The Lyric, it has been generally thought, is of all poetic genres the most spontaneous and artless, which may explain why relatively little attention has been paid to its art. Unity, it is agreed, is essential; yet, aside from references to the unifying function of the refrain, attention has been centered almost exclusively upon unity of idea or prose sense. As to the part played by style, diction, prosody, imagery, and rhetorical devices in achieving unity and conveying what the writer had to express, little is said in discussions of this or, indeed, of other kinds of poetry. It may, therefore, be illuminating to examine a number of well-known lyrics to see if all are formless cris du cœur or if some reveal structure as well as emotion, and if repetition, parallelism, correspondences in meter or language, and other devices, prosodie or rhetorical, seem to be used for the sake of unifying the piece and of expressing its “meaning.” Shelley's songs are admirably suited to this purpose since they are numerous, varied, and familiar, and since they are generally regarded, by admirers and detractors alike, as approaching the beau ideal of the lyric: spontaneous, formless, and vague.
Some New Sources of Johnson's Lives
Authors: Hart Edward
Published: February 2007

John Nichols, as printer of the Works of the English Poets, was frequently asked by Samuel Johnson to supply material while the biographical prefaces were being composed. Boswell (friend of Nichols and fellow member with him of Johnson's Essex-Head Club) recorded the fact that Nichols did supply Johnson with material for the Lives. Boswell introduced, with the following statement, a few of the thirty-one letters from Johnson to Nichols: “That he, however, had a good deal of trouble, and some anxiety in carrying on the work, we see from a series of letters to Mr. Nichols the printer, whose variety of literary inquiry and obliging disposition, rendered him very useful to Johnson.”
Addison's Cato and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Authors: Halsband Robert
Published: February 2007

Joseph Addison's Cato is the most important English verse drama of the eighteenth century; Allardyce Nicoll calls it “a landmark in the history of tragedy.” In addition, it is of great political interest, for its production in the turbulent year before the death of Queen Anne made it the rallying piece for Whigs and Tories, both of whom enrolled its propaganda on their side. Hence any document which throws new light on its composition is significant for that reason alone. That Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wrote a critique of Cato before it was produced, and that Addison followed several of her suggestions for improving his tragedy add to the importance of such a discovery. As a letter-writer Lady Mary has a secure reputation, but her brilliant, aggressive intellect impelled her to take a far more active and varied part in the literary scene of her time than has previously been realized. In her serving as play-doctor for such an influential drama as Cato we have further evidence of her versatility.
Sir Thomas Elyot and the Integrity of the Two Gentlemen of Verona
Authors: Sargent Ralph M.
Published: February 2007

Dr. Johnson said of The Two Gentlemen of Verona: “When 1 read this play I cannot but think that I discover both in the serious and ludicrous scenes, the language and sentiments of Shakespear.” But this play has since fared ill with the critics. Ignored by Coleridge, it was passed off noncommitally by Hazlitt with a few quotations from Speed and Julia. The depreciation of the play for various kinds and degrees of ineptness and obtuseness by such observers as Dowden, Chambers, G. P. Baker, Quiller-Couch, Dover Wilson, Tannenbaum, Charlton, and Van Doren, has tended to obscure its true import. Even the well-intentioned defenses of W. W. Lawrence, Alvin Shaler, and S. A. Small have not been able to reinstate Two Gentlemen into a position of genuine significance in Shakespeare's development.
The Search for a Dramatic Formula for the Auto Sacramental
Authors: Wardropper Bruce W.
Published: February 2007

The Corpus Christi play in sixteenth-century Spain evolved as it did because poets were consciously searching for a dramatic formula which should be appropriate to a sacramental play. The idea of a sacramental play, an auto sacramental, was new at that time. A sacramental drama had never before been attempted, either in Spain or elsewhere. Corpus Christi was celebrated, in. Spain as in Europe at large, with performances of mystery-type plays derived from the tropes of the liturgy. The earliest Corpus plays in Spain were Nativity plays which dramatists scarcely troubled to adapt. As the problem of making the Christmas play appropriate to Corpus Christi forced itself on the attention of dramatists a new idea of religious drama emerged.
The Seven Deadly Sins and the Devil's Court in the Trinity College Cambridge French Text of the Ancrene Riwle
Authors: Trethewey W. H.
Published: February 2007

Definite Progress in Ancrene Riwle studies has been achieved in recent years. Work on the diplomatic editions of the ME MSS. has been steadily proceeding and these texts will shortly begin to appear in print. The year 1944 was marked by the appearance of the Latin version edited by Charlotte D'Evelyn, and also by the publication of the late J. A- Herbert's edition of the French version preserved in British Museum MS. Cotton Vitellius F vii. This edition, the product of patient and exacting labor devoted to deciphering a MS. long considered hopelessly illegible through damage in the Cottonian fire, a labor carried to completion despite failing health, amidst the dislocation, privation, and distress of total war, constitutes for those who knew Herbert a fitting memorial to his long career of expert and meticulous scholarship. A second French version of the Ancrene Riwle, forming part of the collection of religious tracts contained in Trinity College Cambridge MS. 883 (R.14.7), had been discovered by Miss Hope Emily Allen in 1936, and described by her in relation to its general characteristics in 1940, when she conjectured that it would prove to be distinct from the Vitellius French version and an independent translation from an English original. The text of the Ancrene Riwle portion of this version is still unprinted except for the short passages cited for illustration by-Miss Allen, and consequently most scholars of Middle English have had little opportunity to form an opinion of the nature and interest of its text. Since the diplomatic editions of all the Ancrene Riwle MSS under way for the EETS naturally proceed slowly, although a promising start has already been made, it seems advisable to offer now some evidence as to the textual problems raised by this second French version whose text, although cut up and expanded for use in the “Compilation”, appears likely to prove very valuable for the study of the interrelationships of the various Ancrene Riwle texts. It is here proposed to offer for the consideration of Ancrene Riwle scholars a representative specimen of the Trinity French Text in order to prepare the way for the diplomatic edition to follow later. The passage chosen corresponds to that printed in 1920 by Joseph Hall from two Cambridge MSS., Corpus Christi College 402 and Caius College 234, with textual comments and accompanied by variants from all the MSS then known. This is the passage in which the Seven Deadly Sins are represented allegorically as animals, and in which is described the Devil's Court where each type of sinner is assigned his appropriate position and function.
The Symbolic Structure of La Chanson de Roland
Authors: Woods William S.
Published: February 2007

Critics and scholars have for years been aware that one of the characteristic devices of the author of the Chanson de Roland is his use of a three-fold rhythm in the development of the story. By this term they have meant that the usual practice of coincidence of episode with strophe, or laisse, is not observed. Instead of using one laisse for one incident or unit of an incident, as was customary in epic style, the author employs occasionally what is called laisses similaires, or strophes where the action or incident is repeated in a second or sometimes a third strophe with a slightly different wording. Anyone who has read the Chanson de Roland will have noticed these repetitive stanzas and most commentators of the poem have called attention to them. Not a few scholars have gone into the history of this device, but its aesthetic purpose has been glossed over in rather general terms.
The Formal Artistry of Lavengro-Romany Rye
Authors: Tilford John E.
Published: February 2007

With a few exceptions, reviewers in 1851 found little formal unity in George Borrow's Lavengro, but rather thought it a series of slightly interrelated sketches coming to an abrupt, inconclusive end. As they read a work not yet completed, however, their estimate is understandable, for The Romany Rye, comprising about the last third of the entire story, did not appear till 1857. Later critics, even with the complete Lavengro-Romany Rye before them, have paid little or no attention to its form. Their tendency has been to characterize the work, along with Borrow's other books, as generally “episodic” and “picaresque.” Remarks such as these are typical: “[Borrow's] books are planless, as picaresque books are apt to be”; “Borrow … possessed no idea of construction”; and “Lavengro is no more than a collection of incidents and dialogues.” A recent and distinguished literary history describes Borrow's major works as “episodic, inchoate, and inconsequential” and “strange, untidy, racy.” Edd Winfield Parks is unusual among critics in that he recognizes the “creative” and “conscious artist” in Borrow, yet he says: “Here [in Borrow's works] is no structural art, no objectified form; it is not as an artist that Borrow must be judged.”
Salas Barbadillo's Don Diego de Noche
Authors: Peyton Myron A.
Published: February 2007

Alonso Gerónimo de Salas Barbadillo, keen wit and talented writer, began his literary career in the early years of the seventeenth century and pursued it until his death in 1635. Personal friend of Cervantes and Lope de Vega, he was an esteemed associate of the many writers residing in Madrid. Staunchly individualistic, he was at the same time very much a part of his social and literary milieu. Posterity relegates him to the lesser ranks of those who wrought creatively in the seventeenth century; nevertheless, he has been receiving his due increasingly in the last half-century in studies and editions.
Thomas More and Communism
Authors: Surtz Edward L.
Published: February 2007

There can be no doubt that Raphael Hythloday, like the Utopians, is persuaded that communism is the solution for the social, economic, and political evils of the early sixteenth century. But what is the real attitude of Thomas More himself toward communism? Which of the following does the author of Utopia consider communism to be: a practical remedy? an impossible vision? an unattainable, but desirable, ideal? No definite answer can be given until one has reviewed, at least cursorily, the historical background to the views of the Renaissance toward communism.
The Revival of Metaphysical Poetry, 1872-1912
Authors: Duncan Joseph E.
Published: February 2007

A great deal of attention has been given to the surge of critical interest in metaphysical poetry that followed the publication of Herbert Grierson's edition of John Donne's poems in 1912. Theodore Spencer and Mark Van Doren, for instance, have examined the revival of the seventeenth-century metaphysical poets from 1912 to 1938. The achievement of these and of other recent critics has tended to obscure the earlier phase of the metaphysical revival. It has been assumed frequently that the revival began with Grierson's edition and that current theories about the sensibility reflected in metaphysical poetry were first presented in some essays by T. S. Eliot that appeared in the early 1920's. In reality, however, Grierson's edition and the reviews that acclaimed it marked the end of the first stage of the metaphysical revival. His edition was no doubt in part the cause of the enthusiasm about Donne that reached a scholarly climax in 1931 with the observance of the tercentenary of the poet's death. It was also the result of the increased interest in Donne's poetry and personality that began during the later decades of the nineteenth century. Similarly, Eliot's essays were not so much a new note as a sensitive formulation of ideas that had become familiar by 1912.
Manuel González Prada: Peruvian Judge of Spain
Authors: Mead Robert G.
Published: February 2007

It is no exaggeration to say that in the mind of a large number of Spanish American intellectuals during the nineteenth century Spain symbolized the origin of many of the cultural, social, and political ills which afflicted the Iberian New World. And this in spite of the admitted influence of the advocates of Spain and the defenders of her official policies, neither of whom have ever been lacking in Spanish America. From the earliest stages of the Conquest the criollo (Spanish American Creole) and mestizo were treated as the inferiors of the native-born Span-iards, or peninsulares, and felt themselves to be different from the Iberian conquistador. In the course of time this feeling of social separatism deepened. In addition to the Indian and Creole uprisings against the peninsulares, which persisted sporadically throughout the Colonial period and frequently were motivated more by political convenience than by ideological differences, another type of rebellion developed during the latter part of the eighteenth and the early years of the nineteenth centuries. And it was the latter—promoted in its intellectual aspects by such figures as Rodríguez, Miranda, Nariño, and Bello—in which were established the ideological bases of the liberation carried out by San Martín, Bolívar, and the Mexican patriots.
A Neglected Phase of the Aesthetic Movement: English Parnassianism
Authors: Robinson James K.
Published: February 2007

In an Epilogue to the Queen, with which Tennyson closed his Library Edition of 1873, the Laureate noted, among many threats to the “mightiest of all people under heaven,” the danger to art from “poisonous honey stol'n from France,” Readers from queen to commoner could nod their heads in pious agreement, for they shared Tennyson's Gallophobia. Deeply distressed that Swinburne should have contributed a sonnet in praise of Mademoiselle de Maupin to Le Tombeau de Gautier (1873), he could only regard those who sipped such honey as un-British to the core. Tennyson was not thinking of his contemporaries, Thackeray and Arnold, who, though they may not have seen France whole, at least had left it steadily. Rather, he reserved his strictures for those later Victorians who seemed willing, even eager, to embrace French culture, though the fruit of that embrace might be lubricity and aestheticism.