In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche holds that conscious art, in which symbols of truth are deliberately created, does not supersede myth but functions, rather, as its destiny and revealed essence. At its later stages, where it becomes fully itself, myth is closely related to artistic illusion in an eighteenth-century sense, illusion to which we submit while recognizing its illusoriness; myth is a constantly renewed creative effort by which we protect ourselves against the unacceptable truth of the utter emptiness of existence, a truth we also tacitly acknowledge precisely by striving against it. Only on this basis is it possible to understand both the reciprocity of Apollonian and Dionysian and Nietzsche’s conception of the role of his own work in the historical development of Socratic culture.

So now the pictures will continue to “assault” us—as many Americans are bound to feel. Will people get used to them? Some Americans are already saying that they have seen “enough.”

When The ABU Ghraib Prison torture scandal began to circulate throughout The MASS media in Spring 2004, most pundits and commentators neglected to note how those images hauntingly paralleled the 9/11 attacks, insofar as each event's widespread publicity—replayed and reposted images of physical and psychological destruction—participated in the very unmaking that the perpetrators intended. In other words, just as the terrorist act on the Twin Towers was an act of both material and symbolic destruction that required media representation of the planes hitting the towers, mass media's recirculation of visual images of naked and dominated Iraqi men completed the act that Charles Graner and other United States military police had begun. Though the disturbing video representation of the 9/11 attacks rapidly disappeared from television, the Abu Ghraib photos persisted far longer (see York). The rapid disappearance of video of the planes striking the buildings suggests its traumatic power for Americans. But why would the Abu Ghraib photos be less disturbing than those of the attacks of September 11, 2001—given what they say about United States conduct in the war? In this essay, I consider the Abu Ghraib effect in the wider context of imperial imaging of the other. Second, I analyze artistic and literary responses (including Fernando Botero's Abu Ghraib paintings, Daniel Heyman's etchings, and an anthology of poems on torture) that attempt to re-present Abu Ghraib and make visible the invisible of that torture. Third, I sketch out how Arab American poets have played (and can continue to play) a critical role in the conversation about the effects of United States policies in the Middle East. Finally, I share my own poetic project, a long poem called “–u –r—” that attempts to make audible the muted voices of the tortured Iraqis at Abu Ghraib.

At first glance Franklin's little story, An Arabian Tale, appears to be one of the most insignificant and inconsequential of his writings. Economically composed in fewer than three hundred words, it scarcely covers a page in any printed text. But despite the simplicity and brevity of the tale, and the lack of any literary values of plot, suspense, or climax —it is, indeed, hardly a “tale” at all—it is surprising that the piece has been so consistently neglected, for it is of vital importance to the history of Franklin's thought.

Of all the literary terms in common use, the word “essay” has perhaps the widest field and the most indeterminate content. Since the form to which it applies has taken on a fresh character in the hands of almost all its chief exponents, it has become in practice the designation for any piece of prose of moderate length, and has consequently embraced a bewilderingly various subject-matter. Moreover, the essayists themselves are by no means all of a piece. Bacon and Lamb, for instance, have little in common; and the type of ‘essayist’ represented by Macaulay and Carlyle has little in common with either. As a result of this wide extension, studies of the essay either include so much as to be very indefinite, or else are based on partial views, the upshot, in either case, becoming sufficiently vague. At the same time, the word “essay” goes on being used, and collections, of curiously assorted content, go on being made; and it therefore seems worth while to pass in review the different types represented in actual practice, in order to see just how much continuity is discernible among them.

The view that the first three pieces in the Exeter Book really constitute a single poem was first put forward in 1853 by Franz Dietrich who, as a convenient designation for the texts which he had thus joined together, called them der Crist, a title which was adopted by Grein in 1857 in his Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie and has been employed by subsequent scholars generally.

Some doubt has always been felt regarding the textual purity of the printed sermons of Bishop Hugh Latimer. The recent discovery of two hitherto unnoticed mid-sixteenth century manuscripts, each of a famous sermon, provides the first opportunity to test the printed versions. One of these, MS. Corpus Christi College Cambridge 104, fols. 339-360, is a Latin translation of the first sermon preached by Latimer before Edward VI in 1549; the other, MS. Sloane 1460, is an English version of the last sermon (two parts), preached by Latimer before Edward VI in 1550.

In October, 1805, in his twentieth year, John Wilson, gentleman commoner of Oxford, purchased some ground on Lake Windermere. Here it was that, after his brilliant graduation in March, 1807, the winner of the first Newdigate prize settled in his cottage of Elleray. Through diffidence he had been unwilling to intrude upon Wordsworth during his early visits to the Lake District; but by 1808 he had made the acquaintance of the poet and his family, and for the next few years he was on most intimate terms with them, as the letters of Dorothy Wordsworth show. Naturally, too, he became acquainted with the other members of the “Lake School.” De Quincey first saw “Wilson of Elleray” at the dances held at Low Brathay, home of Charles Lloyd, and was introduced to his lifelong friend by Wordsworth at Allan Bank, “at the latter end of 1808,” at a time when both De Quincey and Coleridge were on a visit to Wordsworth, the introduction taking place in a room used as a study by Coleridge. Southey likewise dined in Wilson's company at Lloyd's, and breakfasted with him at Keswick shortly after, but whereas Wilson always felt warm regard for the laureate, the latter could not recover from his abhorrence when he learned of the younger man's passion for cockfighting. “I could not tolerate his manner of life enough to accept the advances which he made towards an intimacy,” writes Southey, with entirely unnecessary indignation, in 1819. Precisely when Coleridge met his fellow-laker is uncertain. We know that Coleridge invited Eliza Nevins, Wilson, and Mrs. Wilson to Grasmere in September, 1808, and that, together with the Wordsworths and De Quincey, he paid Wilson a visit at Christmas, 1809, during which, Dorothy Wordsworth informs us, “we enjoyed ourselves very much, in a pleasant mixture of merriment and thoughtful discourse.” We know that in the seventeenth number of Coleridge's The Friend, on December 14, 1809, appeared that splendid tribute to Wordsworth, the letter of Mathetes, joint production of Wilson and his friend, Alexander Blair.

Mourning becomes electra began for Eugene O'Neill with a question. In his very first note for the play, he asked himself: “Is it possible to get modern psychological approximation of Greek sense of fate into such a play, which an intelligent audience of today, possessed of no belief in gods or supernatural retribution, could accept and be moved by?” Three years later, when he started sustained work on Mourning Becomes Electra, O'Neill had found his answer; he had discovered a modern equivalent for the Greek idea of fate. Since he went on to use this “psychological fate” as a formula for designing plot and characters, a clear definition of it will illuminate both the structure and meaning of Mourning Becomes Electra.

On a monday morning in February 1843, Eduard Mörike enjoyed a unique musical experience, significant alike for its evocation of past memories and its foreshadowing of subsequent literary creation. He was at the home of David Friedrich Strauß in Sontheim, on the edge of Heilbronn. Strauß and another of Mörike's boyhood friends, the composer Friedrich Kauffmann, had surprised Mörike in Cleversulzbach the preceding Saturday and taken him to meet Strauß's bride, the former operatic mezzo-soprano Agnes Schebest. The sensational career which Agnes had sacrificed for marriage to Mörike's friend, reports of her beauty and “demonic charm,” rumors concerning her personal life in the past, and indications of Strauß's restlessness in marriage had made Mörike look forward to this introduction for some months with tense anticipation. But the first twenty-four hours of the visit had now passed happily, rich in the spontaneous sociability and informal musical enjoyment that Mörike so passionately loved. Just a few minutes earlier the unexpected arrival of Klärchen Mörike in a peasant costume had completely mystified all of the company but her brother.

In September 1995, corresponding in the hebrew calendar to the month of ELuL 5755, Jerusalem celebrated its three-thousandth anniversary, dating from King David's conquest of the Jebusite city. Of those three millennia of recorded history, the Israelites dominated the region for only six centuries; although many physical and textual reminders of ancient Jerusalem attest to its status as the center of the Hebrew political and religious imagination, the city remains the most contested site on the global map.

A common assumption about the humanities used to be that they were always the same: both their subject matter and the ways of studying them were invariable. “The proper study of mankind is man” was an evident enough truth, and when one got down to the study, one found oneself at best working over again “what oft was thought but ne'er so well express'd.”

One of the most interesting subjects of study to the concientious teacher is that of methods of instruction. It is indispensable to his success that he should be familiar with all existing methods, so that he may intelligently choose that one, or that combination, which is best suited to his peculiar conditions. Generally the age of the pupils, the time allotted for instruction in Modern Languages, and the place these occupy in the curriculum—by which I mean the object of studying them—are beyond our control. Modern Languages are studied, for example,

1. 1. As an accomplishment.

2. 2. Because other schools offer them, and with no special ulterior object, or with a vague idea of some intellectual benefit.

3. 3. To serve the purposes of a summer trip abroad.

4. 4. As a means of improvement in the use of one's native tongue.

5. 5. For general culture obtainable by reading foreign literature.

6. 6. For philological research or amusement.

7. 7. For acquiring the ability to consult foreign scientific and technical publications.

8. 8. For business correspondence.

9. 9. Because business, family, or friendly relations bring with them personal intercourse with foreigners.

10. 10. To teach them.

Trotz einer umfangreichen, kritischen Literatur bedarf die Ent-stehungsgeschichte von G. E. Lessings beiden letzten und zugleich reifsten Prosaschriften, der Freimaurergespräche und der Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts, noch immer in wesentlichen Einzelheiten der Klarung. Dies trifft auch auf die jüngste zusammenfassende Darstellung der vorliegenden Problème zu, wie sie W. v. Olshausen in den Einleitungen zu seiner Ausgabe sowie in den Anmerkungsbänden zu Lessings Werken (bei Bong) geboten hat. Gerade die dort zu Tage tretenden Unzuläng-lichkeiten und Irrtümer geben Anlaß, den einzelnen Ueberlieferungen über den Werdegang beider Werke erneut nachzugehen, ohne jedoch dabei zu übersehen, daß manches jetzt für die hier folgenden Untersuchungen benutzte Material zur Zeit der Abfassung oder beim Ab-schluß von Olshausens Erläuterungen vielleicht noch unbekannt war, während anderes zweifellos erst später veröffentlicht wurde. Andrerseits wird ein fur aile Mal auf Olshausens leicht zugänglichen und teil-weise sehr wertvollen Kommentàr zu verweisen sein, dessen Kenntnis schon darum auch für unsere Erörterungen vorausgesetzt wird, um unnotige Wiederholungen zu vermeiden. Außerdem ist gleich zu Beginn noch einmal an die oft betonten äußerlichen Gemeinsamkeiten der zwei Bekenntnisschriften zu erinnern: beide wurden iiber mehrere Jahre (1777 bezw. 1778–80) als Fragmente und anonym herausgegeben.

No humanist of comparable influence upon Renaissance learning has been so little known and so long ignored as Joannes Susenbrotus. In addition to two fairly popular Latin grammars, Susenbrotus compiled a definitive treatise on the figures of speech, the Epitome Troporum ac Schematum, which during the century following its first appearance in 1541 was the most frequently printed and widely used work of its kind. As T. W. Baldwin has amply established in William Shakspere's Smalle Latine & Lesse Greeke, in the second half of the 16th century this Epitome generally became the standard work from which English schoolboys—including most probably Shakespeare himself—learned their precepts for eloquence. The influence of the Epitome, moreover, extended far beyond the limits of the Latin curriculum and penetrated yet more deeply into the cultural life of England through various English adaptations. On the continent, in German-speaking areas particularly, the influence of Susenbrotus was no less extensive, but even there his fame did not endure. Despite his considerable contribution to sixteenth-century learning and the wide fame of his Epitome, no encyclopedic or biographical work of the present century so much as mentions his name. The most complete account of Susenbrotus' career, in fact, is a five-page study which appeared more than half a century ago in an obscure diocesan publication—a study still of value, though limited in range and inaccurate in some of its conclusions. There is distinct justification, then, for a detailed study of a man whose importance modern scholarship is only just beginning to recognize.

It does not seem that Dickens' use of point of view has attracted much attention. The general limits of the subject have been fixed, but what lies between them has seldom been considered. Those limits are pretty-well determined by his dates. Like most other predecessors of George Eliot, Dickens is pre-eminently an objective novelist: hardly to be surpassed in the external treatment of his characters, but quite inadequate when he deals with their inner lives. George Eliot herself has stated this view as well as anyone.

We have one great novelist who is gifted with the utmost power of rendering the external traits of our town population; and if he could give us their psychological character—their conceptions of life, and their emotions—with the same truth as their idiom and manners, his books would be the greatest contribution Art has ever made to the awakening of social sympathies. But… he scarcely ever passes from the humorous and external to the emotional and tragic, without becoming as transcendent in his unreality as he was a moment before in his artistic truthfulness.

Essays (Edinburgh—London: Blackwood, 1885), p. 194 (from the essay “Natural History of German Life”).

A set of major old-master paintings looted from Spanish Royal Collections, including important canvases by Velázquez (fig. 1), Correggio, and others, was discovered in Joseph Bonaparte's baggage, abandoned along with the rest of his property as he fled from the Battle of Vitoria, which ended his tumultuous five-year reign as king of Spain in 1813. Years later the duke of Wellington offered to return the collection to the restored monarch. But Ferdinand VII—who owed his throne to the duke's victories—refused to take it. What in its day would have been called the return to legitimacy, the restoration of the Bourbon line after the defeat of Napoléon, did not result in the restitution of Napoleonic loot. The works remain at Apsley House, the duke's home in London, where they have been on display in the Waterloo Gallery since 1819, a usurper's booty transformed by its history into an emblem of royal generosity, gratitude, and military prowess (fig. 2). The collection is now part of the museum officially established at the duke's residence in 1947, following another European military cataclysm in which Britain prevailed.

M. Pauphilet, dans son article “Sur la Chanson de Roland” (Rom. LIX, 176) a montré l'origine toute littéraire, nullement historique, du personnage de l'ami “sage” et mesuré du turbulent et vaillant Roland: ce n'est que le poète Turoldus qui a pu être amené à créer ce contre-type de Roland;

L'enthousiasme orgueilleux de Roland, la sagesse d'Olivier, ce contraste est la plus immortelle beauté du poème, ou pour mieux dire, il est l'essence même de l'episode de Roncevaux; la première mention d'Olivier auprès de Roland présuppose le poème, et la tombe d'Olivier à Blaye est un monument à la gloire du poète créateur.

Among the jewel-like enigmas that are Mallarmé‘s sonnets, one that deserves, that even seems to demand, extensive commentary is the one which for convenience I call the “ptyx” sonnet, that little untitled masterpiece whose first verse runs: “Ses purs ongles très haut dédiant leur onyx.” In and of itself this sonnet immediately suggests numerous problems. One's inclination to study it is increased by the fact that more material for study is available here than in the case of most of Mallarmé‘s poems; not only do we have an early version of the sonnet, but also, in the poet's correspondence, there are several at times cryptic references to it. All this calls for commentary.

This treatise, which contains the earliest notice of Arthur, deserves a place in the history of literature as foundation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae.