Contemporary usage of the term “picaresque” has blunted its usefulness as a literary concept. What once referred to the historically identifiable genre of la novela picaresca in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature is now applied whenever something “episodic” tied together by an “antihero” needs a label. One way to reconcile these extremes is to approach the problem from the wider perspective of narrative types in general: a modal approach, which can account both for a specific kind of narrative whose exclusive preoccupation is an exploration of the fictional world of the picaresque and for a primitive fictional possibility which may be part of much fiction outside that genre. The modal perspective leads next to generic awareness, which yields the strict attributes of the genre—the “total picaresque fictional situation”—some of which are: (1) dominance of the picaresque mode, (2) panoramic structure, (3) first-person point of view, (4) the picaro figure, (5) the picaro-landscape relationship, (6) a gallery of human types, (7) parody, and (8) certain basic themes and motifs.

Thomas Thorpe's brief greeting to “Mr. W. H.” in the 1609 Quarto of Shakespeares Sonnets has been one of the great conundrums of modern literary studies. But it is not Thorpe's only such greeting to survive. His remaining epistles, taken together with the dedications in many other English books of the period, suggest that, unless Thorpe was here forsaking the conventions that elsewhere governed his and his contemporaries' practice, scholars have been wrong about “the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets,” wrong about “Mr. W. H.,” and wrong about “our ever-living poet” and the “eternity” he “promised.” But in this they are not alone. The original compositor also got something wrong. If the evidence of other Renaissance epistles is to be trusted, the mysterious and celebrated “Mr. W. H.” is a misprint.

Cultural theorists interrogating the appropriation of 9/11 through nationalist, capitalist, and media forces have tended to deauthorize the general public's embodied and affective responses to that event. Instead of disavowing claims of mourning unsupported by geographic proximity or material connection, this essay situates such responses in contemporary screen culture to consider how the shifting grounds of materiality complicate the experience of bodily location at every level from the perceptual to the political. Using photographs, fiction, museum exhibits, and survivor accounts, the essay explores how the transformed relation between subjects and objects defines our apprehension of 9/11 in material, technological, and phenomenological terms. The complex dynamics of perception and embodiment unveiled through these representations suggest the need to rethink categories of experience and affect to accommodate new paradigms of proximity and connectedness increasingly liberated from the measures of geography and the borders of the body.

Though at present it is critically unfashionable to view the early Auden as part of a literary group, during the thirties Auden and a number of his friends considered themselves intimately bound by personal, literary, and political ties. The notion of a group plays an extraordinarily important role in Auden’s early poetry. The underlying sociopolitical structure of The Orators is that of the group—much of its considerable obscurity is attributable to this fact and to the related circumstance that its primary audience was the Auden group. Two keys to understanding The Orators, namely its foundation on the psychological “theories” of Homer Lane and on the anthropological research of John Layard, were provided only years later by Auden’s friends, Isherwood and Spender. Moreover, its emphasis on groups has an important political significance which has often led to its being considered a quasi-Fascist work, not least by Auden himself.

Semiotic theory during the 1980s and early 1990s in the former Soviet Union departs significantly from earlier, structuralist models. Central to this new declination is Yury Lotman's theory of the semiosphere, a metaphor that, in its spatialization of meaning, draws on Vernadsky's concept of the biosphere and Bakhtin's idea of the logosphere. This article evaluates the semiosphere from historical, comparative, and feminist critical perspectives. The historical perspective situates Lotman's theory within the Russian organicist philosophical tradition (including Vernadsky and Bakhtin), and the comparative considers Russian theory as a counterpart to Western models of signification. The feminist critique is motivated by the fact that, in relying on metaphors borrowed from reproductive biology, organicist theory participates in a theoretical discourse that has perpetuated stereotyped categories based on gender differences. (AM)

Metro manila in 2006 is a labyrinthine, megalopolitan fortress of foreclosure. Almost all the main arteries of the metropolis have become virtually enclosed corridors of free-flowing vehicular traffic, without regulated crossings where pedestrians and cross-street flow might momentarily interrupt the stream of hundreds of thousands of cars, buses, and trucks careening down these roads every day. With the help of numerous “flyovers,” or overpasses, and underpasses built by the metropolitan government over the last decade and a half, these ten-lane roads have become highways that coast and tunnel through the thick of the city, connecting the scattered, archipelagic commercial centers and gated communities where the upper-class and upwardly mobile sectors work, live, shop, and socialize.

Our concept of racial formation was advanced in 1986 as a critique of prevailing notions of race in the social sciences. We challenged approaches that treated race as epiphenomenal to supposedly more fundamental axes of stratification and difference: ethnicity, class, and nation. But we were disappointed—depressed, in fact—by the reception our analysis received. Some years would pass before our approach was seriously taken up by sociologists, political scientists, and other social science scholars. What kept our spirits buoyed during this period was the surprising discovery that our work was resonating with scholars in other disciplines, most notably in history, law, and literary studies. We learned much and greatly profited from these newfound colleagues' engagement with our work, from the ways they creatively extended our concept of racial formation, and from their advancement of new ways to think about the ongoing evolution of racism and its multiple dimensions.

Der Vorgang, wie in Deutschland die neue Richtung in unserer Disziplin und in den anderen Geisteswissenschaften sich gegen den Positivismus durchgesetzt hat, ist zu bekannt, um hier noch einmal erzählt werden zu müssen. Er ist ein Stück der Geschichte des modernen Geisteslebens … ein, wie ich glaube, im Ganzen abgeschlossenes Stück. Ich darf nur daran erinnern, wie es begann. Im Kampf gegen die Vorherrschaft der Naturwissenschaften und ihre Methoden wurde der Begriff der Geisteswissenschaft bestimmter als zuvor herausgebildet. Seit Wilhelm Dilthey versteht man unter Geisteswissenschaften das Ensemble der Disziplinen, welche “die geschichtlich-gesellschaftliche Wirklichkeit zu ihrem Gegenstand haben,” die Wissenschaften vom Menschen. Man kann diese Entwicklung als Teil eines neuen Idealismus begreifen, wie er allgemein um die Jahrhundertwende in den Künsten und Wissenschaften hervortrat. Aber man muß betonen, daß der “Geist,” von dem hier die Rede war, keine metaphysischen Qualitäten besaß und nichts zu tun hatte mit der objektiven Weltvernunft, dem absoluten Geist Hegels. Die Denkweise, die jetzt herrschte, war eine Philosophie des Lebens. Der Begriff des Lebens war hier der oberste, der fundamentale Begriff. Der Geist schafft kein Leben, er gestaltet und reflektiert, versteht es nur. “Aus dem, was gelebt, geschaut wird, stammen alle Auslegungen” (Dilthey, Schriften, viii, 229). Dichtung, lehrte Dilthey, ist ein Organ des Lebensverständnisses … eines Verstehens, das tiefer, der Unergründlichkeit des Lebens angemessener ist als rationales Forschen und Erklären. Den einzelnen Akt, in dem das geschieht, nannte Dilthey “Erlebnis”—ein konzentrierter Akt, der von der “Totalität des Seelenlebens,” vom “ganzen Gemüt” (v, 172) getragen wird. Diltheys Lehre war ein Protest gegen die Versuche einer neuen Aufklärung, das individuelle Leben und seine geistigen Schöpfungen als gesetzmäßigen Ablauf aufzufassen. Das menschliche Individuum erscheint als zu komplex und zu geheimnisvoll in seiner Totalität. Hier handelt es sich nicht um Gleichförmigkeit und regelmäßige Wiederkehr, sondern um konkrete Besonderheit, um ein unerschöpflich Neues. Eben darin hat das Individuum seinen eigentümlichen Wert. “Individuum est ineffabile.” Die Geisteswissenschaften, welche die Werke und Aeußerungen des Menschen zum Gegenstand haben, müssen andere Kategorien der Interpretation anwenden, als die Naturwissenschaften. Seelisch-geistige Zusammenhänge und Einheiten kann man nur verstehen, nicht kausal erklären und analytisch auseinanderlegen. Das gilt auch für die Phaenomene der Kunst. Das Interesse verschiebt sich nun vom psychologischen Prozess der Entstehung auf den weltanschaulichen Gehalt des Werkes und auf seinen Charakter als Ausdruck einer individuellen Erfahrung. Die alte Wahrheit trat wieder hervor, daß ein Dichtwerk kein Kompositum ist. Man sah, daß es sich nicht ableiten ließ aus einzelnen Eindrücken und Erinnerungen, aus der Bekanntschaft mit Büchern und fremden Dichtungen. An die Stelle des kausalen Zusammenhangs setzte Dilthey den Begriff der Struktur. Darunter verstand er die innere “Gliederung eines Ganzen,” eine im Wechsel der Gehalte “permanente Form.” Dieser unter der Wirkung der Erfahrungen “erworbene Zusammenhang” des inneren Lebens gibt der individuellen Seele und ihren künstlerischen Aeußerungen ihre charakteristische Einheit.

One type of organization favored by the Beowulf poet is an ABC … X … CBA design capable of indefinite expansion. Ring composition of this type serves as a way of building up short verse paragraphs, as in Homer. It also underlies the composition of whole episodes. In addition, the entire narrative of Beowulf is knit together by an elaborate set of thematic parallels and verbal echoes ranged in pairs about a midpoint of mythic intensity, the fight with Grendel’s dam on the floor of the monsters’ pool. The consistency with which thesis is answered by antithesis in the design of Beowulf seems to be a special characteristic of the poet’s style and way of viewing the world. Seldom are events seen as isolated, without antecedents or consequences. Often joy is answered by sorrow in a network of reversals that undercuts any confidence in the permanence of earthly success.

In Heart of Darkness Conrad explicitly selected two criteria—efficiency and the “idea” of the civilizing mission—to judge imperialism. Although he himself did not ultimately espouse these values (which social Darwinists used to justify European expansion), he chose them because they were popular and well-suited to condemning the peculiar exploitation of the Congo by King Leopold ii. Unlike capital rich imperialism, which could seek long-term development, Leopold’s capital-poor imperialism resulted in hasty exploitation of surface resources through forced labor. Conrad’s story powerfully illustrated the special inefficiency and cruelty of such exploitation. As in his other colonial novels, Conrad went on to imply a further judgment against all types of imperialism, even England’s, because of their complicity, belligerence, and arrogant disruption of indigenous cultures.

For me, entering this profession involved the broader context of native american and indigenous studies as well as native American literary studies. My scholarship, pedagogy, and professional connections have relied on a synergy between texts as Native authors have crafted them and the social, political, and experiential contexts from which those authors and their texts emerged. Though plenty of work in Native literary studies does not draw on the broader field of Native studies, my own approach has most often placed me firmly in the overlapping space between the two.

Since the mid-1980s, lyric has been stigmatized by its association with the New Criticism. This circumstance raises the question whether an ideology can be assigned to a text on the basis of the text's identification with a particular genre or school of critical thought. Observing several recent critical constructions of the ideology of lyric, both hostile and sympathetic, I argue that the act of identifying lyric as either an oppositional genre or a reactionary one encourages oversimplification of the term's history and criticism and desensitizes readers to the ideological diversity of texts identified as lyrical.

In focusing the novel Beloved on Sethe's forced infanticide, Toni Morrison places social and familial trauma at the center of American discourses on race. This emphasis opposes two forms of the denial of trauma that have characterized American politics since the late 1960s—neoconservative denial of the continuing effects of institutional racism and the New Left and black-nationalist denial of violence within African American communities. Beloved invokes an essentially liberal position of the sort that culminated and largely ended in the Moynihan report of 1965. But Morrison corrects the errors of this form of liberalism by insisting on the agency and autonomy of African American culture and on the positive roles of women.

Poets writing in English frequently use the simple present form of action verbs where the progressive form would be more natural in speech. Probably they do so in order to take advantage of overtones resident in the simple form, overtones that permit a physical action to seem timeless yet permanent, pastlike yet edging toward the future, repeatable yet provisional, urgent yet distant, ceremonious and archaic. Never quite a stage direction, and different in feeling even from temporally unlocated past tense verbs, the action verb cast in the lyric present tense serves every epoch of English literary history differently but is always expressive of the poets' deepest perceptions and fears. An appendix reports and comments on an extensive survey of the frequency with which British and American poets have used progressive forms.

Theoretical accounts of the “postmodern” have recently invoked the aesthetic category of the sublime, but without attending to the rhetorical complexities that the category names and conceals. This essay opens by considering disturbances legible in Fredric Jameson's proposal of a postmodern sublime, then goes on to consider narratives by Thomas Pynchon that interrogate and allegorize the burdens of such a proposition. From the early short stories to V. and Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon's texts develop increasingly complex stagings of the sublime, putting into question the psychological and epistemological consolations that these scenarios exist to afford.

The october 1999 job list prepared by the society for cinema studies has just appeared: fifty-one teaching positions involving film. What does it mean that only ten of these are situated in designated film programs, while thirty-six are hosted by departments of literature, primarily English? It means, among other things, that departments of literature are redefining and deregulating themselves. They may have cautiously welcomed film for a half century but hardly at this scale: fifty-one open positions suggest hundreds of positions permanently in place and thousands of students studying this subject each year. The confidence the humanities shows in this field is shared by most of my students, who are younger than cinema studies and must sense it to be, if not august, at least well established, rather as English seemed when I majored in it and assumed it to be as old as England. However, any census of course catalogs reveals cinema's uncertain location and function from campus to campus, posing questions of general expectations and standards—indeed, putting in question the definition of cinema studies. Evidently universities want to offer film. Bravo! But in what manner and for what purpose? What “qualifies” the hundreds of applicants applying for these fifty-one positions? Where did they gain their expertise or self-confidence?

In the introduction to a 2002 special issue of diacritics on ethics and interdisciplinarity, mark sanders asks us to consider, “What points of contact, if any, are there between the current investment in ethics in literary theory, and the elaboration of ethics in contemporary philosophy?” (3). Yet the question behind this question—the one that motivates his selection of essays for the issue—is why literary critics and theorists have drawn their ideas about ethics from Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Alain Badiou but have felt little or no need to consult past or present moral philosophers. As Sanders goes on to note, while “in North America and the Anglophone world generally, the tendency in ethics has been to bring moral reflection to bear on questions in political theory,” there “has been relatively little attention among literary theorists to developments in disciplinary philosophy” (4).

Literary criticism thrives on the distinction between first and second reading, on what is often parsed as absorptive reading versus critical reading, belletristic versus analytic reading. It sets itself against the idea that a irst reading of a text might be the one in which we have “seen [it] well”-on the assumption that critical insight is belated (Emerson 476). “As scholars, we read lengthy texts [such as novels] sequentially; then, in order to write, we inevitably reread recursively,” which has the efect, as the critic Michaela Bronstein goes on to observe, of producing conlicted conceptions of the novel as either “a static object (a form) or an experience in time” (77). One goal of literary criticism would appear to be to keep readers from lingering in that temporal and immersive irst reading in order to arrive at an assessment of the total work. First reading and critique are viewed as largely anathema; second thoughts inspire us to relinquish irst impressions, in a process of questioning and revision infused with a spirit of skepticism and doubt. here is an air of supersession- something vanguardist-about critique, but as Bronstein also points out, “the purpose of rereading need not be to revise the irst reading from an analytic distance. . . . Close reading [can use] the recursive process of analysis to approach, rather than to erase, sequential reading” (78). I take Bronstein's projection of a literary criticism that accounts for rather than dismisses the absorptive aspects of irst reading as an accurate description of Rita Felski's project in The Limits of Critique, a manifesto that calls on literature scholars to recommit to “care or concern for [aesthetic] phenomena” (107). Felski makes the case for a pragmatist phenomenology and calls her method for its achievement “postcritique,” a mode of reading that declines to unmask, demystify, interrogate, subvert, or expose the literary text (the habit of generations of recent critics). Postcritique means to expand the uses of literature beyond that of marking an absence or an insufficiency, returning readers to the values that drew them to the literary work of art in the first place (“aesthetic pleasure, increased selfunderstanding, moral relection, perceptual reinvigoration, ecstatic self- loss, emotional consolation, or heightened sensation” [188]).