WE venture to affirm that PMLA should reflect the most distinguished American scholarship in modern languages and literatures. In our opinion it should not be a place for beginners to try their wings, unless those wings are used for sure and significant flight; and it should not be a place for established scholars to publish their incidental efforts, unless those efforts compare in excellence and value with the efforts of younger men. As the official Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, PMLA should publish to the learned world the most important work of members of the Association—that, and nothing less.

The word verbal as it appears in the title of this essay looks in two directions or has two antitheses. In combination with the word style it designates a level of meaning distinct from the substantial, and especially from the stated part of substantial meaning. At the same time, verbal implies that the level of stylistic meaning is something different from what is expressed by the medium of any other art, and that the discussion will avoid such metaphors as “verbal painting” and “verbal music”—or if it employs them briefly, will do so in full overtness.

The close relationship between the spirit and disease in the work of Thomas Mann is well known. Disease, far from being only a medical phenomenon, appears under certain conditions as a spiritual or, better, spiritualizing force which urges man, and above all the artist of genius, to overcome the limitations of common health and to raise himself to a new level of artistic experience and expression inaccessible to healthy-mediocrity. Mann never ignored the element of danger which is present in this adventurous contact with the ambiguity of life, hidden in disease. Following the romantic tradition, however, he shows such a high esteem for the productive impulse of illness that its perils are overshadowed by the positive value it has in the field of thought and art. In certain cases disease is supposed to serve the development of individual culture and literary genius. It may help to bring about another type of man, as superior to the average as the average man is to the animal, a type who represents a higher embodiment of the humanistic ideal.

S'il est un esprit universel parmi les écrivains français d'aujourd'hui, et qui ait consacré sa vie à la recherche de lui-même, et à travers lui à la recherche de la nature humaine de tous les temps et de tous les pays, c'est bien André Gide. Il ne s'est jamais reconnu d'autre obligation que d'être lui-même, entièrement, complètement, sans affectation, sans réticence non plus. Ses livres, à quelque genre qu'ils appartiennent, romans, récits, mémoires, uvres dramatiques, études littéraires, sont autant d'essais de psychologie, intime et générale à la fois. A ses yeux, ce n'est pas par époques, par patries, par classes sociales, par écoles littéraires, par confessions religieuses ou philosophiques, que se distinguent et se groupent profondément les hommes, mais par familles de corps et d'esprits, par affinités instinctives encore plus qu'électives. Aucune place, semble-t-il, dans sa conception de la vie comme dans l'ensemble de son uvre, pour le milieu, le moment, l'hérédité, chers à Taine et à ses disciples. Bien au contraire, l'acte révélateur de la personnalité de chacun, l'acte gratuit, jaillit, éruption imprévisible, du plus secret de nous-même. Par sa critique de la notion d'influence en matière d'art, par sa négation d'une immuable et universelle essence humaine dont nous ne serions les uns et les autres, que des manifestations particulières plus ou moins semblables, André Gide apparaît à juste titre comme un précurseur du surréalisme, de l'existentialisme, des systèmes qui proclament l'indépendance complète de l'homme, et particulièrement de l'écrivain créateur. N'est-il pas ridicule de prétendre associer l'individualiste le plus forcené, l'être le plus protéiforme de notre temps, à une quelconque fraction de la France ou même de la planète? Qui ne se rappelle, au surplus, la boutade fameuse de l'article de L'Ermitage: “Né à Paris, d'un père Uzétien et d'une mère Normande, où voulez-vous, Monsieur Barrés, que je m'enracine?

Die Jahrhundertwende ist die Spätzeit der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft und ihrer Dichtung. Immer mehr lösen sich die sozialen, geistigen und ethischen Formen auf, denen der Mensch vergangener Epochen eingegliedert war. “In solchen Zeitaltern vereinsamt der geistig Schaffende auf eine eigentümliche Art.” Der Künstler sieht sich der Hülle einer schützenden Tradition beraubt, unter der er seine Werke gestalten könnte. Es erwacht in ihm die Sehnsucht nach einer neuen Daseinsform. Typisch für das fin-de-siècle war diese gemeinsame Not und Sehnsucht, und daß es sonst so wenig Gemeinsames hatte. So geschah es, daß gerade die bedeutendsten Männer der Jahrhundertwende, Nietzsche, George, Hofmannsthal, Rilke oder Dehmel, zu Suchern und “Pilgern” wurden. Doch auch in den Reihen der kleineren Geister verbreitete sich eine angstvolle Unruhe, bis es schließlich kurz vor dem Kriege zu einem allgemeinen, verzweifelten Aufbruch kam. In der Literaturgeschichte pflegt man diese Bewegung als Expressionismus zu bezeichnen.

At the risk of setting up further waves of what Joyce calls the “true scholastic stink” I feel it necessary to add a few more observations to the many already made on the philosophic clarifications of his own aesthetic position that Gerard Manley Hopkins found in Duns Scotus. The attention of critics is becoming more and more absorbed in studying the poetic process itself, the poet's perception of complexity and coherence, and his attempt to express them in terms of aesthetic structure. For such a study Hopkins offers rich materials. His own critical acumen forced him early to coin new terms, “inscape” and “instress”, in order to express more accurately the nature of poetic insight and response. It is apparent, therefore, that the more we can find out about inscape and instress, the more fully we shall grasp the nature of Hopkins' poetic experience, and ultimately the quality of the poems to which it gave rise. It is this purpose which justifies further explorations into fourteenth-century philosophic subtleties.

Among the jewel-like enigmas that are Mallarmé‘s sonnets, one that deserves, that even seems to demand, extensive commentary is the one which for convenience I call the “ptyx” sonnet, that little untitled masterpiece whose first verse runs: “Ses purs ongles très haut dédiant leur onyx.” In and of itself this sonnet immediately suggests numerous problems. One's inclination to study it is increased by the fact that more material for study is available here than in the case of most of Mallarmé‘s poems; not only do we have an early version of the sonnet, but also, in the poet's correspondence, there are several at times cryptic references to it. All this calls for commentary.

It does not seem that Dickens' use of point of view has attracted much attention. The general limits of the subject have been fixed, but what lies between them has seldom been considered. Those limits are pretty-well determined by his dates. Like most other predecessors of George Eliot, Dickens is pre-eminently an objective novelist: hardly to be surpassed in the external treatment of his characters, but quite inadequate when he deals with their inner lives. George Eliot herself has stated this view as well as anyone.

We have one great novelist who is gifted with the utmost power of rendering the external traits of our town population; and if he could give us their psychological character—their conceptions of life, and their emotions—with the same truth as their idiom and manners, his books would be the greatest contribution Art has ever made to the awakening of social sympathies. But… he scarcely ever passes from the humorous and external to the emotional and tragic, without becoming as transcendent in his unreality as he was a moment before in his artistic truthfulness.

Essays (Edinburgh—London: Blackwood, 1885), p. 194 (from the essay “Natural History of German Life”).

We can posit, without much initial discussion, at least three requisites to any serious critical study of Hawthorne's writings: we must identify his symbols as such, define the nature of his symbols, and examine their consequences for the total meaning of his works. In some cases, Hawthorne's symbols are painfully superficial; “Little Daffydown-dilly” is a first-rate example. In other cases, they can be got at only by considerable digging. And in still others—I suggest “The White Old Maid” as an instance—they are either not present, or else are so hidden as to cause us to suspect that they may never be satisfactorily brought out.

Critics have advanced various interpretations of Hawthorne's attitude toward the problems of sin and the Fall of Man. Opinions have varied widely, from Randall Stewart's statement that Hawthorne believed in the educative value of sin and in the idea of the Fortunate Fall,1 to Austin Warren's opposite opinion that for Hawthorne sin is “not educative but warping”, that Hawthorne speculates on the problem of the Fall but refuses to believe it fortunate.2 Certainly both men are right in believing that the problems of the Fall and of sin are important concerns to Hawthorne, but it is my belief that Stewart stops short of the central theme in terms of which Hawthorne's works take on added meaning.3 And Warren, in stating, for example, that Hawthorne is speaking for himself in Kenyon and Hilda in The Marble Faun,4 leaves unresolved the conflict between the ways of life of the two couples. In the light of his interpretation, the romance falls apart at the end, the theme which Hawthorne seems to have been developing suddenly denied in the closing passages. It is my contention that these and other difficulties can be obviated if we examine Hawthorne's characters in terms of what F. O. Matthiessen calls the psychology of the head and heart.5

There has long been rather general agreement, especially among American critics, that Victor Hugo was devoid of a sense of humor. For example, in 1869, J. Burroughs commented in a review of The Man Who Laughs: “Most American readers … will feel the want of humor more than anything else.”1 If a book by Hugo dealing with laughter fell ignominiously below the proud American standard of humor, it is not surprising to find T. S. Perry criticizing such “wild novels” as BugJargal and Han d'Islande for being “without a trace of humor.”2 More modern American critics usually continue in the same vein. Rather typical is the comment of C. H. C. Wright, who declares that “Hugo was quite without a sense of humor.”3 Even Elliott M. Grant, one of the leading contemporary defenders of Hugo, can argue in extenuation of the poet-novelist-dramatist's alleged lack of written humor only that his conversation was sometimes witty.4 In general, critics seem to reason a priori that the supremely egotistic disciple of the melancholy Chateaubriand could not possibly have become a humorist.

A number of years ago Norman Foerster wrote these words: “Tinlern Abbey is great aesthetically, as we have come increasingly to see; it is aesthetically vital but unsound; in sum, this poem is a superb expression of unwisdom.”1 The sentence reveals the sturdy dualism which might be expected from one who had studied under Irving Babbitt. Perhaps Tinlern Abbey is pronounced “unsound” because it expresses an almost monistic view of human nature: the poet's sensation, feeling, thought, moral awareness, and mystical insight seem to have developed one into the other without a struggle; the lower faculties are not sternly kept in their place by the higher; all commingle almost as equals in the powerful solvent of Wordsworth's memory. If on the one hand acts of kindness are traditionally praised as the best portion of a good man's life, and if mystical vision is acknowledged to possess an aspect more sublime, yet the balance is redressed when “nature and the language of the sense” are praised as the anchor of our purest thoughts, the guardian of our heart, and the soul of all our moral being. The poem is in many ways a romantic's “song of innocence” rather than a humanist's “song of experience.”

The story of the introduction of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's dramatic masterpieces to the American theatre is itself an American Revolutionary drama. When once the materials widespread over many years and places are duly assembled and ordered, the resultant outline of events unfolds like the scenario of an arresting chronicle play. The dramatic factors of time, place, and action become clear and colorful. The action develops against dramatic backgrounds—the American Revolution, the birth of the American Republic. The scene shifts from the American mainland to the British West Indies, and back to focal points of the American scene. The plot thickens as theatrical enterprise encounters various forces of moral and political hostility to the theatre. The time of the action prolongs over years, until the progressive campaigns of American theatrical managers, despite sundry temporary local reverses, attain conclusive victory. Within this larger framework of American theatrical venture and warfare, Sheridan's dramatic work may well illustrate “the play within the play.”

Visitors to Westminster Abbey may remember the memorial statue to David Garrick with its inscription:

To paint fair nature by divine command,
Her magic pencil in his glowing hand,
A Shakespeare rose: then to expand his fame
Wide o'er this breathing world, a Garrick came.
Tho' sunk in death the forms the poet drew,
The actor's genius bade them breathe anew;
Though like the bard himself, in night they lay
Immortal Garrick call'd them back to day;
And till Eternity with power sublime
Shall mark the mortal hour of hoary Time
Shakespeare and Garrick like twin stars shall shine
And earth irradiate with a beam divine.

The period between the Restoration and the first half of the eighteenth century in England is marked by the development of a religious spirit typified by reaction to Puritanical dogmatism. Affecting all levels of society, the new spirit encouraged inquiry into the theological assumptions of divine existence. The resultant liberal speculation was in sharp contrast to the close-minded “enthusiasm and superstition” which the neo-classicists commonly associated with the Age of Crom-well.1 With the new and rigorous trend toward open-minded inquiry came a resurgence of rationality and a rejection, in whole or in part, of all tenets of divine existence not founded upon demonstrable evidence. Theological discussion became fundamental; its method of investigation, like that of modern science, was based upon factual premises.

One need not choose between Satan's being a tragic hero or an absurd villain. Either extreme stamps us as a more restricted moralist than Milton the poet. For then we are less able than Milton to admit the test of contradiction into the moral universe of our art. If Satan is a tragic hero, it is because we are not honestly willing to test good by evil. If Satan is merely an absurd villain, it is because we wish to ground our art upon too narrow a certainty; it is because we prefer the idea, and the confirmation of our certainty, to the more comprehensive, and therefore more daring, exploration of human experience—the submitting of an idea to a dramatic structure. If Satan is merely absurd, then we are not willing, though Milton is, to test evil by good.

Of commentaries upon Donne's prosody there would seem to be no end and of final agreement upon the details of his metrics there would seem to be no hope. Nevertheless, in still another attempt to probe Donne's technical mystery, it may be useful to recall the rather large area of agreement in principle which can now be assumed as undebatable. As opposed to Dryden's implication of a lack of metrical skill the modern student may be certain with Gosse that “what there was to know about prosody was … perfectly known to Donne.” Most careful readers, too, will accept the essential Tightness of Saintsbury's generalization that Donne's poetic manner is not of one piece. Fletcher Melton's thesis-arsis variation principle remains significantly valid despite the injudicious lengths to which it was pushed. Mario Praz has stressed the contrast between the “traditionally poetical and the normally prosiac” in Donne's poetry, and Sir Herbert Grierson has pointed out that historically the “poetic rhetoric” of Donne was continued with characteristic originality by Dryden. Arnold Stein, the most recent contributor to the literature of Donnean prosody, has written with graphic illumination of Donne's use of stress-shift and of his matching of feminine with masculine rime.1Concerning elision in Donne's poetry Stein has commented at some length:

The history of Hellenism in the French Renaissance includes not only the leading intellectual figures of France, but also the record of an heroic and idealistic enterprise, embarked upon with courage and enthusiasm, carried on with tenacity, and brought to a brilliant and successful conclusion in the numerous editions of the Greek classics which appeared from 1507 to the end of the century. Ample testimony is available concerning the modest beginnings from the time when Robert Gaguin and Jacques Lefèvre d'Etaples acquired a smattering of Greek from Gregorio Tifernas during his short stay in France in 1456, to the period of official recognition of Greek studies by the founding of the College royal in 1530.

The poems of Humfrey Newton, printed herewith for the first time from his commonplace book (the Capesthorne MS., now Bodleian MS. Lat. misc. c 66), have lain disregarded for over four hundred years, known only in manuscript to his immediate descendants and to an occasional antiquary. Humfrey Newton is no more than a minor poet, but he is important for three reasons. Any writer about whom there exist biographical data is a welcome addition to the limited roster of known authors of the late fifteenth century. Secondly, Newton uses many Cheshire words, and his texts provide a large secondary source of dialect and provincial words, and examples of usages earlier than those hitherto recorded. Finally, Newton's original poems and those well-known texts he copied are an indication of the literary interests of the provincial reading public of about 1500.