PMLA: Volume 96 - | Cambridge Core

Truth and Calliope: Ezra Pound's Malatesta
Michael F. Harper
Published online by Cambridge University Press:

23 October 2020, pp. 86-103
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Among critics who accept the Aristotelian distinction between “poetry” and “history,” those who recognize that Pound's Cantos aspires to “history” generally consider it bad history and “impure” poetry; critics who value it as poetry usually dismiss its claim to history. But Pound's aesthetic recognizes no essential difference between poetry and history; a poem, for him, is a report of its author's experience, and by reading historical documents as attentively as poetry, one can penetrate to the reality behind them, too. A good literary critic is therefore the best historian. The Malatesta Cantos show this theory in action; Pound's Sigismundo, derived from a critical reading of primary sources, seems more plausible than the one found in most secondary sources. These cantos show that Pound's attempts at writing history should be taken more seriously than they have been and that his achievement as an epic poet should be reevaluated.

The Character in the Veil: Imagery of the Surface in the Gothic Novel
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Published online by Cambridge University Press:

23 October 2020, pp. 255-270
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Traditional criticism of the Gothic novel, following a topography of the self derived from Freud, has linked sexuality with depth, repression with surface. Gothic convention, however, especially as Ann Radcliffe and M. G. Lewis use it, links surfaces with sexuality and contagion. The Gothic view of character is a social one, and it is concerned with writing and reference. The tracing and retracing of quasi-linguistic markings on surfaces establish personal identity, but only from outside, ex post facto, and through a draining tension between the code and its material support. The repetitious, fixating process of ocular confrontation by which characters recognize themselves and one another is like the process by which readers recognize thematic conventions.

Procedures for Organizing Meetings for the MLA Convention and Policies for MLA Divisions and Discussion Groups
Published online by Cambridge University Press:

23 October 2020, pp. 513-524
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