Novalis' fragment Die Lehrlinge zu Sais displays in its composition a degree of purpose and coherence with which it has never been credited. A close examination of the text reveals a carefully constructed schema that unites the seemingly disparate elements of speculation and poetry into a meaningful and uniform statement on the relationship between man and nature. In the first section, entitled “Der Lehrling,” Novalis defines the ego's binary direction into an outer realm and an inner realm as the dual approach to the reality of nature; he outlines these dialectically opposed paths according to a pattern of alternate juxtaposition that reflects their opposite trends while it allows, at the same time, for their fundamental unity by linking one alternative to the other. The initial object of Novalis' exposition in the second section, called “Die Natur,” is the range of man's power of knowledge; he employs its various aspects as points of perspective from which nature may be examined, a fact that becomes fully obvious only after the underlying pattern of composition has been recognized as one that follows Kant's systematization of the human intellect, in particular his system for the categories of understanding.

The image of collapse or implosion which dominates Reverdy's poetry and haunts the climactic section of La Nausée is glossed in the concluding pages of Sartre's novel and in various parts of Camus's Le Mythe de Sisyphe. All three men focus on the experience of the absurd, on the malaise that accompanies the fleeting awareness of the contingency of all things, a feeling that is often triggered by the perception of abrupt decline or dissolution. This existentialist malaise or nausea, which terrifies Sartre's hero Roquentin, is in fact the very stuff of Reverdy's poetry and as such it demoralizes his readers. At the same time, however, Reverdy's poetry is deeply satisfying. Its ultimate appeal can perhaps best be understood in the light of Roquentin's final decision to face up to his nausea and to purify it in a lasting form such as a work of literature. It is precisely this solution to the problem of the absurd that Reveredy had intuited at the beginning of his career in 1915. Indeed, his life's work as a poet amounts to a sustained effort to confront the absurd and neutralize it in poetic form.

Studying the structure of Platero y Yo makes explicit the organization and arrangement of expressive material as a unified whole. Why does Platero begin the way it does and why does it end the way it does? What are the inner principle or principles that tie together the various lyric chapters into a poetic unity? Several key patterns of imagery and events provide clues to the structure and meaning of Platero: the butterfly imagery which presides over the beginning and the ending of the work, occurrences of gratuitous bloodletting in the season of spring, the almost imperceptible disappearance of conditioned violence in the season of winter, the death of Platero in the month of February, the juxtaposition of life and death, violence and harmony throughout the entire work. All of these patterns and events are endowed with full symbolic significance by the seasonal cycle and by the theme of death and rebirth as a process of metamorphosis.

Hermann Broch's lofty conception of the artist as seer and prophet led him to sketch out new paths for the future, absolute values for a “new society.” Thus, the theme of salvation plays a key role in his works, from the first novel in 1932 to the last completed in 1950. Broch's conception of salvation connotes not only the saving of man from the spiritual consequences of sin, but also from existential anguish. Broch presents a number of solutions, often embodied in archetypal savior figures, for the plight of modern society; they range from vast mystical visions (in Der Tod des Vergil) to utopian plans in the empirical realm. A central theme in Broch's novels is that salvation can be achieved through attainment of ultimate knowledge which emerges from Dionysiac depths but which must be structured by reason. In the ethical aspect of Broch's treatment of the salvation theme, one can discern a possible trend in the later works toward a strict form of moral activism and humanitarianism.

While it has recently been established (thanks to the records of the Bibliothèque du Roi, now the Bibliotheque Nationale) that Diderot read a major treatise by Roger de Piles, the influential seventeenth-century art critic and theorist, as early as 1748, the nature and extent of Diderot's indebtedness to his predecessor have not yet been fully explored. Internal evidence, as well as direct and indirect references, reveal the impact of Roger de Piles on Diderot's ideas concerning composition, design, and color. Roger de Piles was the first French art critic to take an uninhibited delight in light and color and to attempt to render, through a bold use of concrete and technical terms, the freshness and vividness of his impressions. In this respect, too, he is an important precursor of Diderot, for the latter frequently borrowed especially apt expressions and images from the writings of Roger de Piles. Articles in the Encyclopedia devoted to the fine arts also confirm the high esteem in which de Piles was held by eighteenth-century artists and connoisseurs. Diderot and his contemporaries recognized above all de Piles's expertise in practical matters concerning the artist's craft. Even though Diderot departs from de Piles in his preoccupation with the moral message of a work of art, he shares with his predecessor a spontaneous appreciation of the exuberant forms, the animated scenes, the down-to-earth realism that characterize the Dutch and Flemish schools of painting. The sketch, as an art form more revelatory of a painter's inner spirit and genius than the more finished product, was the subject of several key remarks by de Piles which Diderot, in turn, amplified and developed in his critical essays. And it was in the writings of de Piles that Diderot found some of his most telling arguments against artificiality and mannerism in art and against an unquestioning adherence to doctrine and dogma. (In French)

Despite the often praised realism of Rómulo Gallegos' major novel, some of its episodes are not very plausible, due not so much to an overriding allegorical symbolism as to still another narrative plane that has generally been neglected by criticism, that of folk mythology. Doña Bárbara is a legendary character introduced in a ritual style reminiscent of fairy tales. The entire novel is a retelling of a fairy tale, with Doña Bárbara as the evil sorceress, Marisela as the Sleeping Beauty, and Luzardo as Prince Charming. Doña Bárbara is called the “devourer of men,” an epithet that equates her with the flat grassland over which she reigns and identifies her as a type of nymph or siren who entices and destroys men. Inspired by both the European and American Indian legends, Gallegos endowed her with traits of European witches, as well as those typical of Indian shamans, especially nagualism. Thus, events hard to believe on the psychological plane of the narrative, such as the swift change in the character of the protagonist, appear logical on the mythical level, which is as important to the understanding of the novel as those of psychological realism and allegory. (In Spanish)

Coriolanus is one of the several plays in which Shakespeare explores the ways in which man's presentation of himself balances precariously on the seesaw of tragic and comic modes. Coriolanus, by the very intensity with which he asserts masculine independence from circumstance, binds himself to maintain a public and self-image of an almost Godlike warrior, but his uncontrollable need to maintain this image denies its truth. From this paradox emerge the opposite views of Coriolanus presented in the play: Roman patriot and traitor, man of ultimate modesty and braggart, most manly of warriors and boy. Furthermore, the play shows us how all these straining oppositions rise from his denial of that human tenderness in himself that is barely manifested by his love of Virgilia. Having denied his inner feeling, he must model himself on external expectations, thereby rendering his actions and reactions predictable. This predictability makes it possible for others to manipulate Coriolanus. We are, therefore, forced to see him in the coloring of a Bergsonian automaton, even though the grandeur of his stance and the consequences of it make this perception tragically painful.

Given Stendhal's known liberal opinions, his admiration for Napoleon has always appeared paradoxical. Through a detailed examination of the two works most fully representing Stendhal's thoughts on Napoleon, an attempt is made to resolve the paradox. To do full justice to the complexity of the author's attitudes, what he found to blame is first contrasted with what he praised. The admiration for the man of destiny contrasts with the dislike of the statesman, extraordinary qualities of character are set against weaknesses. Beyond the description of the man, Stendhal discerns general historical laws operating in Napoleon's career. The course of events from rise to prominence through imperial power and progressive decline embodies a lesson for mankind. Despotism promotes a state of national demoralization and, therefore, prepares its own defeat. Such a judgment derives from the historiography of Enlightenment liberalism. The contrast between Stendhal's attitude toward Danton and Napoleon confirms that this is the tradition to which Stendhal belongs. As a utilitarian Stendhal nevertheless concludes that Napoleon's impact on European history was not wholly negative, since it led to a greater sum of happiness. As a liberal he affirms that lasting happiness within a state is only possible with constitutional government.

Artegall's limitations and those of his Legend are largely inherent in the nature of justice. The subject of justice leads to the dream of a Golden Age in Book v, but it leads also to the presence of historical allegory, often a painful reminder of Elizabethan shortcomings. Artegall's experiences in Book v reflect both the historic and the symbolic poles in the poem; hence they mirror a strain and a more general duality in the techniques and concerns of the Book. From the beginning of Book v, Artegall is divided against himself. With two exceptions, brief moments of unified identity found in his meetings with Arthur and Britomart, Artegall has always a choice between being Justice, a virtue and an abstraction, and being a Knight, a virtuous man and a human being. (JHA)

Numerous writings (especially by Morris W. Croll and George Williamson) have propounded the theory that a late sixteenth-century revival of Stoicism marked English thought and prose styles, replacing Cicero in popularity, that such Stoicism came to a climax in the period from about 1580 to 1630, and that Stoicism waned thereafter in the seventeenth century. The theory is disproved by the pattern of English publication of Stoic and neo-Stoic writers, and Cicero between 1530 and 1700. The important Stoic writers were more popular in the Restoration than before and little popular in the period from 1580 to 1630. Scholars of English literature have been misled by possible continental developments behind which England lagged and by insufficient exactness in understanding classical writers and thought. Seneca's style is said to be Asiatic rather than Attic, and Cicero is Stoic in such works as De Officiis. This one Ciceronian work was more popular in England than the total canon of Seneca. The evidence shows that an altogether new account is required for the history of neo-Stoicism in English thought and prose style, as well as of the development of English prose styles.

Comparison of the Geographic Distribution of Membership in the Association 1969 and 1970, with a Comparison of the 1970 Membership to the Total College and University Enrollments by State and Region

The five-act structure of Hamlet is modeled on the memento mori- timor mortis lyric as it is practiced in the English tradition from 1483 to 1600. Furthermore, the crucial fifth act opens with a set piece in the genre, taking as its point of departure Thomas Lord Vaux's “I Loathe That I Did Love.” But, as in other matters, Shakespeare's wide reading in the genre is evident in the set piece since it incorporates elements not found in Vaux's poem. Recognition of the eschatological concerns that are an inescapable part of the memento mori tradition helps us to see Hamlet's delays as an overwhelming concern for the plight of his soul.

By the vagueness of his injunction, the ghost in effect leaves up to Hamlet a choice among available sanctions for revenge. Two such alternatives—unlimited ill will and the code of honor—are eventually discredited in the eyes of the audience, the one by being repellently embodied in Pyrrhus, the other by being set in opposition to the law of nature and (through a parallel with suicide) to conscience and Christian doctrine. Though Hamlet never abandons his commitment to unlimited retribution, he manages to palliate it by appealing from conscience and charity, first to the code of honor, and then, having come to think of himself as a doomed scourge of God, to divine command as a fiat superseding moral reason. These appeals lead up to Hamlet's ultimate reconciliation of conscience with divine fiat, and mark a steady spiritual decline from which he is rescued, through no merit of his own, by the brief madness of his final burst of anger.

Milton uses the contrast between “plain” or “unpoetic” speech and “ornate” or “obviously poetic” speech as an important resource for presenting to the reader of Paradise Lost the difference between perfection and imper fection, innocence and corruption. The poem associates rhetoric, oratory, and most ornamental verbal contrivances with Satan and the fallen angels, and the contrast between their style and the bare and unemotional dialogue in Heaven is intended to make the reader suspect the arts of language as devices for concealing or manipulating the truth instead of stating or revealing it. The speeches of the unfallen Adam and Eve treat words as a set of counters for the truths of the created universe, but after the fall they, like the fallen angels, use language in ways which imply that its correspondence to the “truths” of the universe is a matter for speculation. When Adam and Eve are reconciled with each other and to God, their speeches contain striking reminders of the style of the Son in Book in. Of course, all the effects of Paradise Lost, both plain and ornate, are artful, but the criticism of reliance on persuasive and immediately appealing styles implied by the structure of the poem may help to explain Milton's deliberate forgoing of such effects in Books xi and xii and in Paradise Regain'd.