One day, in the darkest period of the Inquisition, Christ came back to Earth (so Ivan Karamzov begins his parable in Dostoyevsky's novel); but the Cardinal Inquisitor had Him imprisoned because His return was disturbing the order established by the Church. Sixteen hundred years earlier, when Christ had first come, He had refused to enslave the will of men; although by miracle, power, and authority He could have established himself beyond dispute (and Satan had tempted Him to do so), He chose to leave men free to decide what is good and what evil. But can man bear the torment of having to make such a decision? Did Christ not ask too much of man? Dostoyevsky's Great Inquisitor thought so, and therefore he and the Church substituted obedience for freedom; they lifted from man the terrible burden of free choice, they made the decision for man so that he merely needed to submit to rule and law. They, the Cardinal Inquisitor and the Church, took upon themselves the curse of knowledge; they suffered and were unhappy so that millions might be happy and relieved of the necessity of choice. Man dreads freedom and is eager to exchange it for certainty and security, so the Cardinal Inquisitor informed Christ; and Christ listened and understood how heavy was the burden of freedom which the Great Inquisitor took upon himself. Christ understood, we may assume, when he approached the old man in silence and kissed him, even though this kiss was the only answer that Christian love, humility, and forgiveness could give.

On a convenu, par un noble euphémisme, d'appeler la parole versifiée “le langage des dieux.” Mais il n'y a guère que les poètes qui prennent parfois cette expression usée au sérieux. Pour bien ces gens elle reste un simple cliché: l'expérience qu'elle recouvre est absente, nul rapport ne s'établit entre la source invisible du monde et les formes créées de l'apparence. Mais le poète est conscient au plus haut point des relations qui unissent la vie spirituelle au langage chargé de la transposer dans l'univers sensible. Comme l'a chanté Rilke dans les Sonnets à Orphée:

Est-il bien d'ici? Non, des deux
royaumes surgit sa vaste nature.
Plus savamment pliera les ramures des saules
qui des saules apprit à sonder les racines.

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.

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.

In the study of American culture one of the most significant figures to examine may well be the American popular novelist—the writer who appeals to the trade instead of the class market. He is also one of the most neglected. In spite of the approval with which he is read by the public, he is usually either castigated or dismissed by the strictly literary critic. And with justice, from the point of view of belles-lettres. Yet when this novelist has been dead long enough he is apt to emerge even in the learned journals. The scholar of the future may then leaf through an annotated article on “Primitivism in a Forgotten ‘Western’ Writer, Zane Grey” or “Theological Patterns in the Fiction of Lloyd Douglas.” The place of the popular novelist, the people's novelist if you will, in the study of American culture over and above literary history is also apt to become officially more important with the passage of time. The longer such a novelist has been dead, the better it seems is his claim to attention in, for example, courses in American civilization.

From the number of articles on Dante and the frequency of American printings of the Divine Comedy in translation, it appears that even before 1850 Dante had a larger American public than might be supposed. At the mid-century Emerson remarked in his comments on Margaret Fuller's interest in Dante: “An edition of Cary's translation, reprinted in Boston, many years ago, was rapidly sold; and, for the last twenty years, all studious youths and maidens have been reading the Inferno.” Melville was one of these studious readers. He purchased a copy of Cary in 1848, and in works after this date made frequent reference to “that infernalest of infernos, The Inferno”, especially in Pierre. The hero of the novel is a devoted reader of Dante—“you always loved Dante”, says Millthorpe to Pierre (p. 441)—and about one half of it, Books ii to ix, pivots on references to the Inferno, which in a powerfully symbolical manner underscore the pervasive tragic gloom and develop on an emotive level the hero's reactions to the existence of evil. Relying on some knowledge of the Inferno on the reader's part, Melville adopts the technique of literary allusion and quotation functioning in place of formal exposition, the literary reference itself becoming contextually an expository symbol of the hero's internal states and of the ubiquity and universality of evil. Melville adopts this technique in other works, but never so extensively as in Pierre, nor so effectively at crucial moments in the development of character and theme.

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.

The verse-epistle comprising all but a few sentences of the letter which Keats wrote to John Hamilton Reynolds on March 25, 1818, is a mixture of half-morbid jocularity and half-cynical seriousness. In lines 67–85 Keats tries to explain his strange mood by declaring that he feels the obligation to “philosophize” in poetry, does not yet “dare” to do so, fears that he never will be able to do so, and does not really wish to do so because “It spoils the singing of the Nightingale.” This conflict between “sensation” and “thought” is an old story to students of Keats. It has never been sufficiently emphasized, however, that in the concluding verse-paragraph what really “spoils the singing of the Nightingale” turns out to be not moral philosophy, but natural philosophy of so pessimistic a kind that it forbids any hope of harmonizing the sensuous love of beauty with a helpfully benevolistic view of the universe.

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.

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.

Bernhard Suphan selber hat einmal bemerkt, dass “Herder in Luthers Schriften bewandert war wie wenige” Menschen des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts und dass “keiner von den klassischen Zeitgenossen die Grösse des Reformators in so vollen Tönen und zu alien Zeiten gerühmt hat wie er.” Dies wichtige Gesamturteil, dem auch Rudolf Haym nicht widerspricht, weist auf den beträchtlichen Umfang der herderschen Lutherkenntnisse wie auch auf den hohen Grad seiner Lutheranerken-nung hin, insofern manche andere Deutsche der Herderzeit, vor allem Hamann und Lessing, ebenfalls über ein beachtliches Lutherwissen verfügten und den Reformater gehörig lobten. Ist Klopstocks Lutherinteresse vorwiegend sprachlich-künstlerisch, Goethes und Schillers trotz mancher Feinheit und Prägnanz doch mehr peripherisch als zentral, so ist die Lutherkenntnis Hamanns, Herders und Lessings erheblich umfassender. Bei allem Gemeinsamen nun in dem Lutherbilde der drei Letztgenannten bestehen aber auch zwischen ihnen wesentliche Unterschiede in ihrer Stellung zu Luther, Unterschiede, die sich bis in den Kern ihrer verschiedenen Persönlichkeiten erstrecken. In Herders Verhältnis zu Luther lassen sich im allgemeinen drei Hauptepochen unterscheiden, die Rigaer, die Bückeburger und die Weimarer, von denen die letzte wegen ihrer Länge wie auch wegen ihrer Reichhaltigkeit in zwei Unterteile zerfällt, die Jahrzehnte von 1776 bis 1786 und, nach einem mehr als fünfjährigen Schweigen über Luther, von 1792 bis zu Herders Tod. Innerhalb dieser einzelnen Epochen jedoch wird die Darstellung nicht streng chronologisch verfahren, sondern, ohne Ansprüche auf Vollständigkeit bei der Masse des Materials, nur das Wesentliche mehr systematisch als historisch vorzulegen sich bemühen. Allein Hauptgesichtspunkte und Hauptentwicklungslinien können im Rahmen dieses Aufsatzes berücksichtigt werden.

It has been made increasingly evident by critics in recent years that the drowning of Edward King was the occasion, rather than the subject, of Lycidas. Milton's concern was generally with the life, death, and resurrection of the dedicated poet, and specifically with his own situation at the time. From this premise it follows that there are no digressions in the poem and that the form and traditions of pastoral elegy are entirely appropriate to its intentions.

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.

Although Romeo and Juliet is one of the most popular and best-loved of all Shakespeare's plays, rivaled only by Hamlet, those best qualified to evaluate Shakespeare's works usually speak of it condescendingly as a nice but immature play on the theme of young love. The apologetic attitude of these critics is based upon two incorrect assumptions. Perceiving within the tragedy no intellectual framework, they have concluded that it has no central unifying theme; disturbed by the presence of various apparently discordant elements, especially in technique, they have sought to account for (or excuse) these on the basis of the author's immaturity at the time the play was written. Dowden calls this play “the work of the artist's adolescence”, and Grant White, going far in this direction, attributes certain of the most controversial passages to a period earlier by several years than the rest of the play.

The New Variorum Coriolanus offers ample evidence that criticism of this play has spent its force upon two sources of conflict: the relationship between plebs and patricians and the relationship between Coriolanus and his mother. These approaches have led to interesting speculation as to Shakespeare's own point of view. But the fact remains to be reckoned with that the two disastrous relationships which most have excited critics are also exciting in North's Plutarch and that Shakespeare's most important departures from his source are in another direction. In this paper I hope to show that Shakespeare drew principally upon the military situation of his own era and country in reshaping the Plutarchan story. In this reshaping, Coriolanus emerges as a soldier whose life comprises two significantly related phases: the soldier at war and the soldier in civil life. The Roman general's difficulty in adjusting himself to a non-military career is of central importance because Shakespeare gave this problem a greater prominence and more clearly defined statement than did Plutarch. Nevertheless, Coriolanus' rôle in warfare is, in Shakespeare's design, basic to an understanding of his rôle in peace. What is more, the complexity of the former rôle has been underestimated by critics, most of whom esteem him an excellent warrior.

“Com neer, thou preest, come hyder, thou sir John!
Telle us swich thyng as may oure hertes glade.
Be blithe, though thou ryde upon a jade.
What thogh thyn hors be bothe foul and lene?
If he wol serve thee, rekke nat a bene.
Looke that thyn herte be murie everemo.”
“Yis, sir”, quod he, “yis, Hoost, so moot I go,
But I be myrie, ywis I wol be blamed.”
—Prologue, Nun's Priest's Tale
“But by my trouthe, if thou were seculer,
Thou woldest ben a trede‐foul aright.
For if thou have corage as thou hast myght,
Thee were nede of hennes, as I wene,
Ya, moo than seven tymes seventene.
See, whiche braunes hath this gentil preest,
So gret a nekke, and swich a large breest!
He loketh as a sperhauk with his yen;
Him nedeth nat his colour for to dyen
With brasile, ne with greyn of Portyngale.
Now, sire, faire falle yow for youre tale!”
—Epilogue, Nun's Priest's Tale
The literary pastime of finding real-life models for characters in literature is a fascinating one. In proportion as the vital statistics of the object of the literary manhunt recede in time, the fascination grows. Something akin to the possession of occult powers is felt by the literary detective who can, from a foothold in the twentieth century, reach back three, four, or five hundred years and “get his man.” Admittedly there is a real value in this kind of scholarly effort, but there is also a very real danger. The danger arises from the pleasurable self-hypnosis that often accompanies these ventures. In this state of quasi-suspended judgment, we are not always responsible for our conclusions. It is my desire to examine the results of one of these ostensibly successful manhunts in an effort to suggest that the “culprit” was not actually apprehended after all.

The unfortunate pronouncements of Menéndez y Pelayo have condemned the poetry of the early Spanish cancioneros to undeserved neglect. A revision is in order, for the subject has importance for both Spanish and comparative literature. This poetry is not a mere jumble of far-fetched superficialities. Progressively purged of license and adapted to Christian courtship and marriage, it yet preserves in fairly definite shape the traditional pattern of courtly love. It is necessary to apply to Spanish cancionero poetry concepts that have been worked out for other European literatures.

Gautier has been known to scholarship only as the author of two romances, the Eracle (of 6,593 verses) and the Ille et Galeron (of 6,592). In the prologues and epilogues to these works he mentions a number of illustrious patrons and sheds some light, though a rather dim one, on his own personality. From what he says there, it is possible to date the two romances approximately, so that we know the years of his adult life. The poet claims friendship with Count Baudouin of Hainaut, identified as Baudouin V, brother-in-law and successor of Philip of Flanders; Count Thibaut of Blois, grand seneschal of Louis VII of France; Marie de Champagne, daughter of Louis and Eleanor of Aquitaine and sister-in-law of Thibaut; and Beatrice of Burgundy, second wife of Frederick Barbarossa, emperor of Germany. Anyone familiar with the political friendships and enmities of the time will wonder at the wide acquaintance and patronage Gautier claims.