After pointing out to Dante the bodies of Judas, Brutus, and Cassius hanging from the mouths of Lucifer, Virgil gives his disciple to understand that it is time for them to make their way out of Hell:

Scholars are generally agreed that the three main extant manuscripts of the Libro de buen amor represent two redactions of the poem: MSS.G and T are derived from the original version of 1330, and MS.S from the author's revised version of 1343. Evidently the revision effected in 1343 consisted of adding considerable material to the original version and eliminating a lesser amount. However, because the extant MSS are incomplete, it is impossible to ascertain precisely what material was eliminated and what was added in the revision. This revised text of 1343 can indeed be established with almost complete accuracy by taking the whole of S and supplying the contents of pages torn out of S or its ancestors, by means of G and T, which fortunately preserve substantially all the missing material. But unfortunately this procedure cannot be reversed to establish the contents of the 1330 version. To be sure, the lacunae in G-T can be identified, partly by the examination of the MSS and partly by comparison with S; and in certain cases, where material identifiable as a fraction of an episode is wanting, we can safely restore the gap with the text of S. But this procedure is not reliable where there is a major lacuna in G–T. One of these is the gap from st. 139b to st.329. In this paper I hope to shed possible light on the problem by putting forth the hypothesis that, where this gap occurs in MS.G, eleven stanzas from S (140–150) could not have figured in the 1330 version, but are rather an interpolation of the 1343 revision.

Modern criticism has given increasing recognition to the functional, as distinguished from the decorative, aspect of rhetorical figures in the poetry of the English Renaissance. The continuance of this emphasis is particularly appropriate to Spenser's pastoral, Colin Clouts Come Home Againe (1595), where the relevance of the figures to the larger considerations of style—indeed, to the total discourse—is so cardinal. The importance of the figures is enhanced by the natural use of rhetorical arts by characters, set in a kind of mise en scène, whose suasory speeches largely comprise the poem. Stress of the functional side of the rhetorical elements in the poem need not deny or denigrate the role of the figures in conferring upon the verse an aura of conspicuous beauty. The office of the figures in this respect is simply another manifestation of the same taste for elegance which reflected itself in Renaissance dress, manners, ceremonial processions, and décor. The beautifying characteristics of the numerous word orders, comprised of tropes and schemes, were recognized and frankly accepted by literati of the Tudor period. In their eyes, figures possessed value as ornament by reason of their constituting departures from everyday speech patterns. The idea is conventionally phrased by Abraham Fraunce, whom many believe to be the Corydon praised in lines 383–384 of the poem: “A figure is a certeine decking of speach, whereby the vsual and simple fashion thereof is altered and changed to that which is more elegant and conceipted.”

Ronsard's last considered observation on . the relationship between philosophy and lyric poetry in the preface to the Odes (1587) is implicitly a reaffirmation of Du Bellay's confidence in the philosophic capacities of the French language,1 though expressed in a less exuberant manner: “Tu dois sçavoir que toute sorte de Poesie a l'argument propre & convenable à son subject: ... la Lyrique, l'amour, le vin, les banquets dissolus, les danses, masques, chevaux victorieux, escrime, joustes & tournois, & peu souvent quelque argument de Philosophie” (i, 59). This retrospective program, if one may be forgiven the incongruity of the phrase, had been abundantly realized by Ronsard, in so far as “quelque argument de Philosophie” was concerned, and not only in his lyric poetry. For a moment, it is true, in a variant of 1578 of the ode Du retour de Maclou de la Haie (1550), the poet utters a gay disapproval of philosophers: “Les Philosophes je n'appreuve” (i, 208). But it is clear that Ronsard's intention is to celebrate the return of his friend with brimming cup, and the apparent condemnation of philosophers is nothing more than a warning to the enemies of good wine that their presence at the festivities would be superfluous. In the following edition, that of 1584, “Les Philosophes” became “Ces vieux Medecins.”

Shakespeare's selectivity in adapting a novella from Giraldi Cinthio's De Gli Hecatommithi into his own Othello has long been apparent; students of Shakespeare's play have stressed his transformation of the source by speeding up the action, condensing the plot, reassessing the characterization, and transfiguring the commonplace attitudes toward an interracial marriage presented in the source into a tragedy of love. But no one has demonstrated how a close comparison of single words and phrases in Othello and in the novella can help us to understand how the transformation took place, how words and phrases such as vedere cogl' occhi, vendetta, satio, and la giustizia divina are translated imaginatively into the thematic imagery of ocular proof, the configuration of revenge, satisfaction, and satiation, and the movement from justice to mercy which Desdemona offers to Othello. Clearly, such a comparison of the play and its source affords a critical perspective upon the verbal drama especially. But studies of the imagery in Othello neglect its source entirely, and source studies, merely footnoting the verbal parallels as they appear, seem to maintain the critical view that marvels how Shakespeare could have created so much out of so little. It is as if Shakespeare's characteristic ingredient, the poetic interplay of words and images in the verbal fund of his drama, had no parallel in the verbal fund of his source.

Upon the basis of evidence never sufficiently examined, a number of statements concerning the seventeenth-century publication history of John Denham's Coopers Hill have acquired wide and authoritative circulation, and all the circumstantiality of established fact. Three chief of these statements, closely interrelated, are to be the subject of this discussion. The first of these is that all the editions of Coopers Hill prior to that of 1655 are “piracies.” The second, a corollary to the first, is that the edition of 1655 constitutes the “first authorized edition” of the poem. The third, somewhat independent of the other two, is to the effect that two editions of the poem—both “pirated”—have certainly been lost. Implicit in evidence equally cogent, however, is the assumption of a third lost edition, the authorization of which is never discussed. The purpose of this investigation is to scrutinize the evidence upon which these commonplace assertions are based, to show how far each is from being demonstrably true, and to advance arguments to prove that all three are false.

Hooker's eloquent and persuasive argument that Annus Mirabilis was written as an antidote to several poisonous tracts of the time has been accepted by nearly all of Dryden's critics, but I believe that he has underestimated Dryden by calling the poem “simple and lucid” (p. 49). Simple Dryden rarely was, and if we find the poem lucid, it may be because we overlook an intricate, yet unified system of alchemical and astrological metaphors. As the practice of alchemy and its peculiar jargon has lapsed into obscurity, so have Dryden's allusions to it. Though the explicit reference to “Chymick flame” in stanza 293 has been noticed, it is thought to be an isolated allusion with no relation to the frequent images of the phoenix, the apostrophe to the King, the mention of Jove, the allusion to the New Jerusalem, and, most significantly, to the fact that the poem's entire action concerns either fire or water.

Della cruscanism has been primarily associated in literary history with a rash of bad taste which broke out in English poetry between 1787 and 1791 and for which Robert Merry was held responsible. It took its name from the pseudonym “Della Crusca” which Merry used in a poetical correspondence carried on in the World between 1787 and 1789 with Mrs. Hannah Cowley, who signed herself “Anna Matilda,” and other ladies. It was a compound of amorous superlatives, dithyrambic apostrophes, pretentious ornament overflowing in flowery epithets, and a heady romanticism completely lacking the comparatively disciplined artistry which Byron and Shelley were later to achieve in Romantic poetry dealing with similar themes. This flood of bombastic sentiment was stemmed in England by William Gifford, whose satirical onslaughts in the Baviad (1791) and the Maeviad (1795) have left Merry branded as a mere poetaster ever since.

One of the most impressive features of Anna Karenina is the way in which Tolstoy draws the reader's imagination beyond the literal level of the narrative into generalizations that seem mythical in a manner difficult to articulate. With Dostoevsky or Melville, one sees immediately a propensity for exploiting the symbolic value of things. With Tolstoy, things try, as it were, to resist conversion: they strive to maintain their “thingness” as empirical entities. A character in Dostoevsky is usually only half man; the other half is Christ or Satan. Moby Dick is obviously only half whale; the other half is Evil or some principle of Nature. But Anna Karenina is emphatically Anna Karenina. Like almost all of Tolstoy's characters, she has a proficiency in the husbandry of identity; she jealously hoards her own unique reality, so that it becomes difficult to say of her that she is a “type” of nineteenth-century Russian lady or a “symbol” of modern woman or an “archetypical” Eve or Lilith.

Critics have always been struck by the death scene that concludes The Turn of the Screw and, being struck, have given us a variety of interpretations—psychological, religious, poetic; but they have never accounted for the improbability that Miles—whose good health and sound heart are never questioned in the tale—should die of heart failure. In James's other stories concluding with the death of a young boy (“The Pupil” and “The Author of Beltraffio”) we are prepared by earlier accounts of the boy's health to accept his final death. Not so with Miles. We are not even prepared to find him bewildered and demoralized by the series of embarrassing questions put to him by his governess: Miles is presented as remarkably well-poised for a ten-year-old.

Sowohl in der Literatur über Klopstock als auch in der Literatur über Stefan George wird heute immer wieder darauf hingewiesen, daß Klopstock Stefan George und seinem Kreis weit mehr als ein durch Schule und Universität überlieferter Name war. Klopstock gehörte zu den dichterischen Vorgängern Georges, zu den anerkannten Kultgestalten des Kreises, denen George sich in seinem eigenen künstlerischen Wirken verpflichtet fühlte und deren Bedeutung für die deutsche Dichtung er hervorhob. Norbert von Hellingrath bleibt das Verdienst, als erster Literarhistoriker auch die innere Verwandtschaft Georgescher und Klopstockscher Dichtung erkannt und formuliert zu haben. In dieser Erkenntnis folgten ihm Hans Gerhard, Claude David, Karl August Schleiden, Jean Murat, Eric A. Blackall und Paul Gerhard Klussmann. Diese Arbeit konzentriert sich im folgenden insbesondere auf das Phänomen, daß von einem Dichter des 20. Jahrhunderts und seinem Kreis ein deutscher Dichter des 18. Jahrhunderts wieder in seiner besonderen Bedeutung betont und gewürdigt wurde, und sie soll sich Einzelheiten zuwenden, die es rechtfertigen, eine innere Beziehung Georges zu Klopstock anzunehmen.

Thomas mann began his career under the influence of naturalism. While naturalistic tendencies are apparent in all of his writings, there exists at the same time another tendency, counteracting the danger of one-sidedness inherent in a strictly naturalistic approach to reality. The aesthetically refined world of Der kleine Herr Friedemann, which collapses when confronted with real life and the visionary experiences found in Gladius Dei and Der Kleiderschrank are indications that Mann's broader scope was present in the early stories. Tristan displays both naturalistic and visionary aesthetic tendencies. In Buddenbrooks, it is religion, including Tony's family worship, which balances the naturalistic trend apparent in the style as well as in the concept of biological decadence. In Der Tod in Venedig, myth is used with extraordinary effectiveness to complement naturalism.

Although Azorín is characteristically self-renovating and experimental, his boldest innovations occurred mainly from 1926 to 1931. This period has been variously classified as his second or third, but for clarity I shall call it his experimental period. It includes the bulk of his plays (from Judit and Old Spain!, 1926, to Cervantes, o La casa encantada, 1931), three novels (El caballero inactual [title changed from Félix Vargas], 1928, El libro de Levante [first called Superrealismo], 1929, and Pueblo, 1930), a collection of short stories, Blanco en azul (1929), a book of criticism, Andando y pensando (1929), and many stories and essays written contemporaneously with these works, though published later.

Although a good deal has been written about L'Etranger in the light of Camus's philosophic insights in Le Mythe de Sisyphe, the verbal similarities between these two works have been used only sporadically in interpreting the novel. Carl Viggiani, whose essay on L'Etranger appears to have dealt most fully with the symbolic undercurrent of the novel and Meursault's relation to Sisyphus has concentrated almost solely on detached archetypal motifs while largely neglecting any sort of progressive or “novelistic” development of the protagonist as he moves from his mother's funeral to his final jail cell. I propose to demonstrate such a consistent development by viewing Meursault's adventure as a parable of mental awakening or coming to consciousness which corresponds in detailed thematic and imagistic ways to the adventure of the mind in Le Mythe de Sisyphe.

Anabase was the first of Saint-John Perse's poems to be widely translated into other languages, as well as the first to receive widespread critical attention. Yet, despite several recent attempts at detailed exegesis, the poem remains baffling in many of its details and even in some of its more general implications. Close scrutiny of the text of the poem is, of course, the most natural and legitimate way of coming to grips with its meaning, but the more recent commentaries on Anabase too often prove that close textual examination alone is not an adequate safeguard against runaway interpretation. The present study, therefore, seeks to supplement close scrutiny of the text with references to other of Saint-John Perse's writings, especially to certain of his pronouncements on the nature of poetry in general and, most particularly, to his declaration of intent in writing Anabase.

To one who has been revelling in and singing the German mastersongs for more than fifty years—I bought my copy of Peters' still unsurpassed Liederkranz in Leipzig in 1905—Professor Jack Stein's derogatory remarks must evoke first a certain sense of outrage and then pity: sincere pity that a man who knows the Lied so well (and you observe that we can hardly talk about it without using the German word as a technical term) has got so little pleasure out of it. Pleasure? No, joy, grief, exhilaration, ecstasy! To me it has always been one of the glories of European culture that this one people could produce, from Haydn on through Richard Strauss, including a number of composers whom Mr. Stein chose not to mention—Beethoven, Cornelius, Franz, Jensen, Liszt, Loewe, Mendelssohn, Weber—such a body of inspired song as no other nation can even approach.