With the recent publication of such books as Richard Southern's The Medieval Theatre in the Round (London, 1957) and Glynne Wickham's Early English Stages 1300 to 1600, Vol. i (London, 1959), the medieval English drama has come to be examined with much greater emphasis on the circumstances of its performance. While the Wakefield cycle has not been of focal interest to these studies, it has nevertheless attracted renewed attention as a dramatic work. Of special concern to students of the Wakefield plays is Martial Rose's introduction to his recently published modernized edition of the cycle. Mr. Rose sets forth the interesting theory that the Wakefield plays were not enacted processionally on pageant wagons as is generally believed, but rather that they were performed “in one fixed locality, on a multiple stage, and in the round.” This hypothesis, supported as it is by a very convincing body of arguments, is likely to have a far-reaching effect on Wakefield criticism. At the very least, it chalenges a number of widely-held opinions concerning the dramatic experience which the performance of the cycle provided. As a case in point, I should like here to focus on the Annunciation pageant and to demonstrate that, in an enlarged setting, its dramatic action becomes even more successful than it has hitherto been regarded. First, however, it will be necessary to review the “fixed-stage” theory and to examine its bearing on Wakefield criticism in general.

Engaging contemporaneous ideas about how environmental factors could alter the surface of the human body, Samson Occom and Phillis Wheatley use language emphasizing the ostensible malleability of physical characteristics—what I call a symbolics of metamorphosis—to depict the formation of racial identities. For Occom, the beliefs his Anglo- and Native American contemporaries held about the status of the “red” Indian enable him to challenge colonial society's contradictory Christian epistemology in his 1772 A Sermon, Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul, an Indian. In her 1773 Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, Wheatley fuses ancient mythological beliefs and natural-historical axioms about the production of poetic genius and dark skin to characterize the black poet as an inevitable outcome rather than an anomalous exception. Drawing on the late-eighteenth-century notion of transformable race, this essay posits a historically specific model of critical race theory for interpreting early American literatures.

Throughout his prose works Milton shows familiarity with the theological literature of his time. In particular, he shows, by citation and reference, that he used on occasion, especially in the divorce pamphlets, certain commentaries on Genesis written in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He mentions by name the commentaries of four authors: John Calvin, Paulus Fagius, Andreus Rivetus,and David Pareus. Because he knew their other theological works, he may also have been familiar with the commentaries on Genesis of Wolfgang Musculus, Peter Martyr (Pietro Martiro Vermigli), and Hieronymus Zanchius. He almost certainly knew the commentaries on the Old Testament, including Genesis, of Hugo Grotius and John Diodati.

In two passages of his recent book on Thomas Wolfe (1947), Herbert J. Muller has briefly, but incisively, dealt with the time concepts of Wolfe and Proust. He points out that while both writers depended upon sensory impressions to recall the past, Wolfe lacked the keen subjective analysis of Proust and stayed closer to the actual experience that produced his memories. Wolfe's interest was in fixity and change as they are in real life, while Proust “aspired to the realm of Essence or Being, where change is mere appearance” (p. 75). It is important, I believe, that these distinctions be made, for Wolfe, unlike Proust, was no philosopher and would without question have been confused by an array of Bergsonian metaphysics. While outwardly the time concepts of Wolfe and of Proust seem somewhat alike, a closer examination reveals that these concepts are in many respects different. But no distinctions were made, for instance, by Mary M. Colum in her article on “Literature of Today and Tomorrow” (Scribner's, Dec. 1936, p. 102), which stated that Wolfe's work might well be described as “Remembrance of Things Past”—that “like Proust he tells us of his struggles with Time elements.” And Joseph Warren Beach, in American Fiction 1920–1940 (1941), while acknowledging that Wolfe could not have accepted fully the implications of Proust's theories, found that Wolfe and Proust had had a common psychological experience. “It is found in the recall by means of present sensations or impressions of closely similar impressions received in extreme youth” (p. 192).

In a recent note on The Double Marriage I suggested that the plot of this tragedy was derived from two declamations (Numbers 48 and 64) in The Orator (1596), Lazarus Pyott's translation of the Epitomes De Cent Histoires Tragicques (Paris, 1581) by Alexandre van den Busche, called Le Sylvain.11 was even tempted by the notion that the form of this collection of speeches influenced Fletcher's dramatic methods. Each “declamation” begins with a brief summary of the circumstances leading up to some extraordinary situation; then follow the speeches of two characters who present exactly opposite views in a formal debate. The emphasis of the book falls, as the title itself indicates, on these speeches. In a foreword to the reader (Sig. A4) Pyott says of them: “In these thou maiest learne Rhethoricke to inforce a good cause, and art to impugne an ill.” The dazzling improbability of The Orator's situations, the irreconcilable oppositions of the chief characters, and the concern with oratorical eloquence correspond so closely with the dramatic technique of the “Beaumont and Fletcher” plays that it would have been easy to imagine Fletcher and his collaborators discovering here the formula which was to be the basis of their success. There was only one inconvenience—a fatal one—to this theory: I had no evidence that Fletcher was familiar with The Orator when he was working with Beaumont on Philaster, The Maid's Tragedy, and A King and No King, in which the “Beaumont and Fletcher” genre takes its characteristic shape.

Dans la ière scène du iiiême acte de l'Etourdi, le rusé valet Mascarille se demande s'il doit continuer à intriguer pour son maître Lélie, qui, par ses “étourderies,” fait échouer à chaque fois ses ingénieuses combinaisons, et il prononce le monologue suivant:

The biblical book of Ruth is a succinct, intricate love story powered by five intense dialogues. It is a story about language and literature as well as about love. The characters find all three as generously available as the grains of barley on which Boaz and Ruth pledge their troth. Boaz, Ruth, and Naomi draw on a rich common store of literary allusions and laws derived from Hebrew literary tradition to create a happy ending for the sterile stories of their individual pasts. The liberties they take with known biblical and Hebraic law have long puzzled scholars trying to place the story in its precise historical or cultural context. But I argue that the book was never intended to represent a time and place, that it celebrates the creative improvisations religious rules are meant to inspire in any time or place.

The concentration of allegory in the air in the Middle Ages was heavy. Readers and hearers were exposed to it from various sources, and many probably followed simple allegories on the literal and on the figurative levels as naturally as we understand editorial cartoons. An audience at a morality play followed the physical actions and the speeches of actors, knowing that the characters were personifications of virtues and vices, and other abstractions. No one expected such characters as Lechery, Pride, Gluttony, or Good Deeds, Goods, Kindred, and the like, to be rounded human beings. Homiletic allegories and spiritual and moral interpretations of scriptural texts were heard from the pulpit; no doubt, most of the congregation got the point. A deeper meaning than the literal sense on the surface was sought in poems which were true allegories, such as The Romance of the Rose, Piers Plowman, and The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, and it was taken for granted that it would be found. The author usually made sure that his primary intention, the allegorical thrust of the work, was rather evident. Modern readers may interpret minor details or symbols in different ways, but there is seldom room for disagreement on main points.

Il existe une tradition theologique—peu connue aujourd'hui—d'après laquelle la lune est un des symboles de l'Eglise Catholique. Nous nous proposons de faire appel à cette tradition pour expliquer certains textes du XVIe siècle qui sont restés généralement obscurs ou qui le sont devenus, car il est probable que les allusions qui s'y trouvent étaient facilement comprises des contemporains.

Es Gehörte von je zu den Lieblingsthemen der deutschen Ästhetik, die verschiedenen Dichtungsgattungen miteinander zu vergleichen und gegeneinander abzugrenzen. Dabei wurde die Lyrik gewöhnlich als rein subjektive Kunstform gegenüber der gemischten Epik und der gänzlich objektiven Dramatik bezeichnet. Die Begriffe der Subjektivität und Objektivität erschienen als die geeignetste Grundlage für den Aufbau der vergleichenden Gattungspoetik. Dabei ist gleich hier zu fragen, in welchem Sinne sie in diesem Zusammenhang zu verstehen sind, um von vornherein Mißverständnissen vorzubeugen. Denn jede starke Dichtung, so kann eingewendet werden, ist, gleichgültig, welcher Gattung sie angehören mag, gewissermaßen immer subjektiv, erfüllt von dem individuellen künstlerischen Temperament des Schöpfers, das sich selbst in dem naturalistischsten Werk, sofern es wirklich Kunstwerk ist, kundgibt und daher sogar in Zolas Definition des Kunstwerks: “Une œuvre d'art est un coin de la nature vu à travers un tempérament” seinen gebührenden Platz erhält. Diese künstlerische Subjektivität ist allen Gattungen immanent, kann also in der Gattungspoetik nicht gemeint sein. Diese hat vielmehr bei der vergleichenden Betrachtung die rein menschliche Subjektivität im Auge, das Mehr oder Weniger an persönlichem Erlebnisgehalt. Von diesem Standpunkt gesehen erscheint die künstlerische Subjektivität, d. h. die individuelle Prägung, die Form-, die Gestaltgebung, als das Objektive. Als subjektive Gattung wird daher die betrachtet, welche persönliche Erlebnisse des Dichters umfassend, unmittelbar und ohne starke Umformung zum Ausdruck bringt, als objektive diejenige, in der das individuelle Erleben zurücktritt oder völlig umgeformt wird, da der Dichter sich in erster Linie den Forderungen der Form der Gattung fügen muß. Oder: Eine Gattung ist subjektiv, wenn ihr Wesen und damit ihr künstlerischer Wert vorwiegend auf dem subjektiven Erlebnisgehalt beruht, sie ist dagegen objektiv, wenn die künstlerische Wirkung vor allem von der Form abhängt.

In discussing the important English dramatic critics during the first half of the nineteenth century (Leigh Hunt, Hazlitt, John Forster, and George Henry Lewes), William Archer concluded that “Lewes alone has anything of note to say upon the principles of dramatic composition, as a living art”, that “Lewes was probably the most highly-trained thinker who ever applied himself to the study of theatrical art in England.” He pointed out that Lewes not only had a “special and personal interest in the art of the playwright which his predecessors lacked” but also had “much more attractive matter for discussion” because the “modern drama, the drama as we know it to-day, was just coming into existence, or rather was just making its existence felt in England.” Consequently it was

In her excellent John Florio, Miss Yates writes (p. 189): “Florio's Worlde of Wordes is an important landmark in the history of Italian scholarship in England.” And, a little further on (p. 190), she continues: “To modern students of the sixteenth century, both Italian and English, it is invaluable…. The number, variety, and picturesqueness of the English equivalents which Florio manages to collect for each Italian word are remarkable.” This is by no means exaggerated praise. A few hours' study of the Italian-English dictionary should indeed convince one of the essential correctness of Miss Yates's evaluation.

The focus of My Antonia is controlled by Jim Burden's attempt to invest the memories of his youth in the image of Antonia. Jim gives us first an extended portrait of the Nebraska prairies, of the Shimerdas' struggle for survival, and of an Antonia who grows muscular under the strain of work. An idyllic quality pervades the narrative, a sense of happiness remembered. Incidents of bitterness and violence are muted by a style which sacrifices immediacy to the afterglow of remembrance. At the midpoint of the novel, Lena Lingrad, enticing, sensually eloquent, poses a challenge to Jim and his memories. A latter-day enchantress, Lena inspires irresponsibility, forgetfulness, and dream. But Jim's narrative is dedicated to showing the value of memory in and for the present; he identifies Antonia with the prairie and clusters its meanings around her. When, after years have passed, he returns to Nebraska and sees Antonia's large, joyous, and vibrant family, the past and the present finally merge for him in a dynamic new image of happiness. Antonia comes to be Jim's personal symbol of the value of human experience. The novel first validates his memory, then transfigures it into something fertile, fresh, and living.

After Foscolo's arrival in England in 1817 he was soon made welcome at Holland House, the palatial home of Lord Holland—a home distinguished by the generous kindliness of its master and by the richness of its library. Among the residents of the great establishment were two Italians with whom Foscolo became well acquainted: Serafino Buonaiuti, a factotum who assisted in the library, and Giuseppe Binda, a protégé who at times, at least, rendered secretarial service.

To live in a day when conceptions of poetry were undergoing rapid change was for Samuel Taylor Coleridge both an advantage and a misfortune. Perhaps his own work, which greatly advanced the change, gained a significance it could not have had in any other period. Yet by the same token, it was generally unappreciated by his contemporaries, inclined as they were to the old, narrow views of what constituted poetic merit. Lack of adequate criticism throughout almost the whole of Coleridge's lifetime is thus not difficult to explain. Nor is it a matter of mystery that two of his young disciples, John Sterling and Henry Nelson Coleridge, appear to have been, before his death in 1834, the only critics who approached his poetry with the same sympathetic effort at understanding that Coleridge himself employed when he criticised the work of others.