The present article is in part a corollary to an earlier one on Populism and a further chapter in an exploration into that complex movement in the contemporary French novel which is in revolt against nineteenth-century individualism and all the involved subjectivisms, the affected preciosity and even the dishevelled formlessness of the “littérature snob.” The branch of the movement I propose to discuss is sometimes referred to by critics as a new classicism, and though the term is misleading it can stand. Jules Romains himself expresses the sense of cleavage between two literatures when he says: Je crois … qu'un peu partout une certaine période de littérature coupée du réel, tournée avec trop de complaisance vers l‘étude d‘états dâmes fragiles, infiniment particuliers et périssables est en train de se clore.

There have been sporadic attempts to determine the number of situations which artists may exploit in literature, especially dramatic literature; but, so far as I know, there has been no signal effort on the part of scholars to come to grips with the subject. Apart from determining the exact number of situations, it is of importance that we come to some agreement regarding the term situation and its function in literary art. I shall attempt here to discuss: earlier efforts at definition and analysis, the nature of situation, the exact number of situations, and examples in literature.

Die 1934 im Schlussband von Georges Gesamt-Ausgabe der Werke veröffentlichten fremdsprachigen Gedichte enthalten außer den beiden in der von George selbst gebildeten “lingua romana” verfaßten Gedichten und zwei englischen Sonetten auch drei französische Gedichte, “Frauenlob,” “Proverbes” und “D'Une Veillée,” die hier einer näheren Betrachtung unterzogen werden sollen. Das einzige von diesen Gedichten, das vor dem Herauskommen des Schlussbandes schon im Druck erschienen war, ist “Proverbes,” während die von George selbst verfaßten deutschen Übertragungen bereits in den Blättern für die Kunst veröffentlicht worden waren. Daß George aber mehr, als auch im Schlussband zum Abdruck kam, in französischer Sprache dichtete, kann aus der Bemerkung im Anhang zu den Büchern in der Gesamt-Ausgabe geschlossen werden: “Beim ersten druck aus den ‘Sagen’ in den Bl.f.d.K.I.F.4 B. fand sich die Bemerkung 'zuerst französisch gedichtet, dann vom Verfasser selbst übertragen.' Die im nachtrag des 'Jahr der Seele' erwähnten: Pendant que ta mère sind indessen die einzig gedruckten französischen verse.” Die Annahme wird noch bestärkt durch C. A. Klein, der im Anschluß an Georges Dichtungen in der “lingua romana” berichtet: “Auch dichtete er vorläufig in anderen Sprachen, besonders der französischen, wie nach ihm Rainer Maria Rilke.” Da George die deutschen Übertragungen seiner französischen Gedichte auch in seine Werke aufnahm, den “Frauenlob” in die Sagen und Sänge, die “Sprüche an die Geladenen in T …” und die “Nachtwachen” in Das Jahr der Seele, die französischen Originale aber erst jetzt alle durch das Erscheinen des Schlussbandes der Gesamt-Ausgabe allgemein bekannt wurden, so ist es erst jetzt in vollem Umfang möglich, die französischen und deutschen Fassungen miteinander zu vergleichen.

In American poetry written since the World War one of the most significant new developments is now seen to be the fascination which animal life holds for the poet. In American periodicals during the last fifteen years, 236 writers have been publishing earnest and philosophical poems about animals. In 1933 and 1934 the newest poets—Frederick Prokosch, Frances Frost, Marie Welch, Audrey Wurdemann, Joseph Auslander, Laura Benét, and above all Robert Tristram Coffin—were writing of little else. And practically every one in the older groups, whether traditional or radical, simple or esoteric, has written occasional poems about them. Notably Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elinor Wylie, Hart Crane, Robinson Jeffers, Padriac Colum, and D. H. Lawrence have dealt with the subject repeatedly.

(Read under the title “Main Types of Literaturwissenschaft: A Critical Survey and a New Approach,” at the Fifty-first Annual Meeting, in Philadelphia, 1934. —Ed.) A MODERN humanism would be a mode of life controlled by an active aspiration to adjust present conditions to the highest interests and values of personality. It would be three-fold, involving (1) the physical-biological organism, (2) the powers finding expression in letters and the arts, and (3) the social, ethical, religious, political and economic beliefs, theories, interests, and circumstances by which personality is affected. The principle of integral unity—which is the central theme of this essay and the ultimate measure of the reality, validity, and value pertaining to the ideal of humanity here projected—demands an unremitting endeavor to combine and harmonize those three main parts of personal being. Culture is an ultimate personal unity of values.

It has been stated repeatedly by Professor James L. Barker of the University of Utah that in French the breath stream is interrupted in certain cases after the production of a sound and that the position for the following sound is taken in silence during the interruption. The cases mentioned specifically in which such interruptions occur are the transitions from consonant to vowel, from vowel to consonant, and from consonant to consonant.

In the Transactions of the London Philological Society, for 1909, J. Hodgkin printed an article of great importance for lexicography. He there assembled and studied all the known copies of the list of phrases which appears in the Book of St. Albans (1486) under the heading: “The Compaynys of beestys and fowlys.” This, he believed, was an accidentally imperfect title: he thought that the latest editions of the work, which added the words with others, gave the intention of the series, which was, he decided, best described by the title, “Proper Terms,” which he found in B. Mus. Eg. MS. 1995, a copy dated by him c. 1452. Previously, the list was taken as giving “technical” terms for companies.

Miss Eleanor Kellogg in her interesting article, “Bishop Brunton and the Rat Parliament,” (PMLA, l, 57–68) has made some errors in her chronological arrangement of Bishop Brunton's sermons which should be corrected, though they do not affect her main contentions.