Felix Holt, A Radical is today cursorily dismissed by students of George Eliot's works as her one unsuccessful venture in fiction on the position of the laborer in society. Actually, although the novel is somewhat dull in plot, it was by no means unsuccessful in its own time, nor was it George Eliot's only novelistic attempt to discuss industrial issues.

Scholars have identified very few proverbs and proverbial phrases in Browning's poetry. He is credited with only one by Apperson, five by Smith, three by Hodell, ten by Cook, and three by Birrell. Of these twenty-one proverbs the foregoing scholars cite sixteen as occurring in The Ring and the Book. Investigation, however, reveals that seventeen of them and ninety-five additional ones are found in that poem. Listed in the order of their appearance in The Ring and the Book, with their occurrences in Browning's other poems indicated, these one hundred twelve proverbs are:

Stung to the quick. 653.19; 831.67; Touched to the quick. 837.75; Incident of the French Camp, 333.38; Balaustion's Adventure, 565.39; Vexed to the quick. Sordello, 106.86; pierce to the quick. Pippa Passes, 185.43; cf. Apperson 642; Smith 138.

Students of Emerson, as well as those who have followed the reception of Shakespeare in America, have been disturbed over the words in the essay “Shakspeare; or, the Poet” from Representative Men in which Emerson seems finally to condemn Shakespeare as a “master of revels to mankind” who, after all, shared “the halfness and imperfection of humanity.” Thus Emerson's criticism, it has been said, is “deficient in sympathy,” and “the key to all he has said and written is to be found in the fact that his point of view is not that of the acceptor, the creator,—Shakespeare's point of view, but that of the refiner and selector, the priest's point of view.”

The literary work of Hutton (1826–97) went into almost total eclipse soon after the author's death in the last years of the nineteenth century. Students of the poets or novelists about whom Hutton wrote have usually, it is true, read some of his work—and in doing so have usually found something worthy of quotation. Occasionally, too, a scholar mentions Hutton with some of the high praise he deserves. But apart from specialists and historians of literature, Hutton's work has been almost totally neglected. The main reason for the neglect is probably that Hutton was too much of his age. His writing undeniably exposes to the first view a number of those Victorian characteristics against which the twentieth century has reacted with intense dislike. Hutton sometimes prettifies life; he sometimes gives the impression of bringing all life and literature to the arbitrament of narrow moral standards; and sometimes he is guilty of Victorian complacency—a fault no one in our day has been willing to condone. Yet the Victorian characteristics of Hutton's essays are not more than a superficial reflection of the climate of the age, and do small injury to the substance of his criticism. Since the Victorianisms are in manner rather than matter, and also since we are at present in the process of reacting against the very reaction against Victorianism, it is not unreasonable to expect that Hutton will take his place, before long, among the considerable literary figures of the nineteenth century. As for his controversial writing, though one cannot expect widespread interest in a “dated” controversy, one can expect that credit will eventually be given Hutton for the historical importance of his contribution to the main intellectual conflict of his period. The present article will examine Hutton's rôle in the controversy over science and religion, and his essays in literary criticism, and will attempt, in so doing, to form some estimate of the values and the limitations of these two main divisions of his work.

One of the topics most often discussed by critics of Poe has been his exceptional power of “analysis” or “abstract reason.” It is not necessary to do more than remind the student of the persistence of such terms. The most careful writers have employed them. And these terms, if they refer to anything at all more specific than general power of intellect, must refer to an analytic as opposed to a creative power, to a power of solving puzzles, of reasoning from known premises to testable conclusions, where truth is different from error. One of Poe's claims to this power I have scrutinized in a previous article, and it is my purpose now to do the same to another and bolder, the short story called “The Mystery of Marie Roget.”

Although a great deal has been written on the relation between Nietzsche and Wagner, no detailed study has been made hitherto of the period indicated in the title of this paper. And even here a comprehensive treatment of the relation is not attempted. Only one phase of it is considered. The question proposed is: What was Nietzsche's opinion of Wagner's music-dramas when he wrote the final version of Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik? A chronological survey of Nietzche's notes, letters, and shorter essays of the period has been made, as far as they bear on the nature of tragedy in general and more specifically on its relation to music. His ideas are discussed in their development and in their relation to the theories of Wagner and of Schopenhauer on music and poetry, in the hope that at least a few of the lines in the vexed and vexing Nietzsche–Wagner record may be deciphered more clearly.

Elinor Wylie's closest literary kinship, which began in early childhood and lasted throughout her lifetime, developing as an obsession in her life and work, was Percy Bysshe Shelley. The best and the greater part of her prose and poetry reflect his subtle influence. Seven of her eleven essays and sketches in Fugitive Prose are a key to her sources and methods in regard to Shelley. In her four novels there is a progression of interest in the same poet: Jennifer Lorn contains a background resembling that of the Shelley family; The Venetian Glass Nephew stems from some of Shelley's thought and the philosophy of his age; The Orphan Angel brings Shelley to life again; and Mr. Hodge and Mr. Hazard is a composite picture of Shelley and Elinor Wylie. Of her four volumes of verse, the last two books Trivial Breath and Angels and Earthly Creatures, which contain her finest poetry, also show an increasing preoccupation with Shelley himself and with his thought. For the purposes of this paper I shall limit my study to a detailed examination of the two novels and the poems concerned directly with Shelley.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the controversy over the possibility and desirability of a national American literature had diminished to a somewhat feeble reiteration of old pros and cons. Moreover, Whitman's vigorous renewal of the demand for a distinctly national literature in his 1855 Preface to Leaves of Grass went virtually unnoticed by reason of his own obscurity and the disruption of national unity by sectional disputes. In the upsurge of nationalistic optimism following the Civil War, however, in the promises afforded by a strong and humanitarian Union, the sentiment for a literature distinct through its expression of the new national idealism was both widespread and ardent. But this post-war literary nationalism was short-lived. Before the skeptical attacks of many literary critics and the rising materialism of the Gilded Age, hope for a national literature once more gave way to indifference or despair. If the controversy was to be revived, some new literary stimulus, some new mode or approach toward the achievement of an American literature would have to be forthcoming. Such a stimulus was provided in the rise of realism. The conflict between the new realism and the old romanticism in the 1870's and 1880's is a well-known chapter in the history of American criticism, but the relationship of this new realism to the production of a national literature as it was viewed in the two decades before Whitman's death has not received adequate attention.

It should not be inappropriate to compare two contemporary novels of approximately the following description: One novel relates the disillusions of a young provincial in Paris, the other the disillusions of a small-town man in Munich. The two novels center around the historic period of 1848. The two heroes have literary and artistic gifts, but prove more or less failures. Each of the two young men becomes interested in four women and each is incapable of making a definite choice for himself. Each fights a duel, exactly in the middle of the novel, and nobody knows exactly why. The two novels give practically complete life-stories of the extravagant heroes, and give into the bargain a full—if sometimes disguised—account of the authors' views on painting, literature, philosophy, religion, and politics.

Trop personnel! Bon Dieu! On ne saurait être trop personnel … Ce que nous cherchons dans une œuvre, c'est un homme.“ So, in 1864, did young Émile Zola first justify the intensely personal note that he was later to strike so often in his novels. Many of his characters—Sandoz, Claude, Pascal Rougon, Mathieu Froment—testify that the doctrine of impersonality in art was not for him, that he did not hesitate to call upon his own memories in the composition of his figures. In the present study I shall attempt to show that Lazare Chanteau of La Joie de vivre also may claim a place in this gallery of self-portraits, that Zola consciously formed him in his own image and likeness.

Much criticism has been made of Paul Hervieu, and all too frequently, it would seem, his drama has been labelled as thesis plays. Too often, such opinions are based upon little more than a familiarity with certain of his plays (Les Tenailles, La Loi de l'Homme, Le Réveil, etc. which, detached from his work as a whole and read without consideration of the author's fundamental concept of man as a social creature, do seem strongly to bear the imprint of social reform. However, to many, such classifications, even for the plays mentioned above, will appear entirely unwarranted when the plays are studied in the light of what one inevitably comes to feel—after studying the man and his whole work—are the author's essential and sincere beliefs concerning man and his behavior in society. Unlike some writers of his own period who professed a similar faith and who unquestionably were impelled primarily by the desire for social reform, Hervieu sincerely believes that man's own nature stands as an insurmountable barrier to reform. Such a conviction could never become a welcomed guest in the mind of one who so earnestly longed for a more optimistic view of life; and, in my opinion, it is this unwelcomed conviction that leads him at all times to emphasize the tragedies of life in a manner that to some has suggested reform. If we understand him, however, he is primarily concerned with the tragedy in each case; and he offers no suggestions or corrections, because reform is untenable in his belief.

Few periods have been more important in the history of Dutch art and letters than the decade between 1880 and 1890. Those years saw the rise of the painters of the “Hague school”—Josef Israëls, Blommers, the Maris brothers—and a reorientation of Dutch art toward the realism of the masters of the seventeenth century. A literary renaissance of some importance accompanied this artistic revolution. Dutch authors turned more and more from the insipid idealism of earlier days toward a new realism, strongly reminiscent of that prevailing in France. Balzac, Flaubert, Maupassant, the Goncourt brothers, Zola—these were the idols of the new school. The naturalistic doctrines of Zola carried an especial appeal to the young critics and novelists, and a small but vocal group of imitators carried his banner in Holland during the years 1880–90.

Mlerch a traité de l'inversion absolue (c'est à dire de celle qui n'est pas conditionnée par un adverbe en tête de phrase) en français moderne dans sa Historische Syntax des Französischen,iii, 427 seq. et dans son article sur l'inversion paru dans Mélanges Bally (1939), p. 364 seq. Je résume en les combinant les deux rédactions. Le type arriva le général (sans pronom personnel il, “voilant” l'inversion, et sans adverbe: alors arriva le général) est similaire au type de phrase optative périsse le traître. La phrase enunciative ne connaît ce type-là en français moderne qu'avec des verbes de mouvement, alors que l'ancien et le moyen français étendaient la construction à beaucoup d'autres verbes. Exemples: … venait ensuite une façon de sac dans la célèbre description, par Flaubert, de la casquette de l'ignoble mari de Mme Bovary; entre Henri, sort Germaine, sonne l'Angélus dans des indications de scène de pièces de théâtre; arriva le général, survient une difficulté, s'approche un confrère, vint à passer un canot …, me vint tout de suite à l'esprit l'idée que …, les précédait immédiatement un monsieur en redingote, reste à savoir si …, n'importe; dans le style judiciaire: seront punis d'une amende … ceux qui …, et, par extension, ont collaboré à ce volume (suivent les noms); dans les proverbes: rira bien qui rira le dernier. Du même ordre est l'inversion après des conjonctions ne l'entraînant pas d'ordinaire, comme et et mais: et suivait le récit d'un accident;… mais voyage avec nous “le fils Mélèze,” et celle qui se trouve depuis le symbolisme dans les incidentes sitôt que s'accentue la diction: si plonge … Dans l'onde … Ta jubilation nue; enfin après seul prédicatif: seuls peuvent coexister avec lui mon travail et ton amitié. M.Lerchnote que le français moderne connaît ce type d'expression seulement avec un nom (arriva le général, non *arriva-t-il), alors que l'allemand peut dire dans la langue “écrite” aussi bien Kam einmal ein Bäuerlein que Lief er schnell es nah zu seh'n, et que le tour français en question est “archaïque” et “limité à la langue écrite.”

Toute sa vie, Mallarmé poursuit un idéal illusoire. Créer un œuvre parfait qui sera l'étude de l'homme et de l'univers, voilà son rêve. L'idée de ce travail gigantesque s'est brusquement présentée à lui, comme une sorte de révélation fulgurante. A partir de ce moment, le projet du “Grand Œuvre” domine de plus en plus la vie du poète, au point de se transformer en véritable obsession. Mallarmé lui-même n'ignore pas le progrès funeste de ce rêve qui va gâter sa vie. Dans ses lettres intimes, il parle très franchement à ses amis de son travail. Parfois il veut partager avec eux toute la joie que lui cause la révélation de l'idéal; parfois il analyse avec tristesse l'impuissance totale où aboutissent ses efforts.