The tree beset by natural forces, the embrace of elm and vine, and the antithesis of mulberry and almond are related figures which Spanish sonneteers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries frequently used when structuring agudezas por semejanza. The extent to which these stock figures are revitalized in unique poetic artifacts reveals each poet s ability to work within the limitations of an aesthetics of invention through imitation. Moreover, to follow the varying fortunes of these topoi is to assess the efficacy of the modes of correlation (simile, allegory, adequate symbol, or objective correlative); to witness the interplay of the Petrarchan and emblematic traditions; to note the variations on a theme exploited first by the erotic poets, later by the moralists; and to highlight the shift of emphasis from the discursive to the pictorial which marks the transition from the aesthetics of the Renaissance to that of the Baroque. Finally, the precise delineation of the specific context or whole, of which each sonnet is an integral part, permits a more comprehensive exegesis of that sonnet's alma de sutileza, for Gracian the essence of the craft and criticism of poetry.

Manhattan Transfer, John Dos Passos' first important study of urbanindustrial life, owes much to the machine-oriented aesthetic of Italian futurism and other modernistic movements in the visual arts. Utilizing techniques and modes of perception indigenous to the machine age, Dos Passos' sought to express the spirit, rhythms, and structure of modern reality in such a way as to evoke in the reader a sense of involvement and participation in the problems of contemporary society. In its visual directness and sensory immediacy, Manhattan Transfer suggests the influence of photography and the “lively arts” of film and vaudeville. In its overall pattern of compositional contrasts and oppositions, the novel resembles abstract painting and the montage structure of the motion picture. Basic to Dos Passos' outlook is a synoptic or visual concept of reality as a network of dynamically interacting parts. Only by viewing his world as a “system” in which nothing is fully comprehensible in isolation can man realize himself as a responsible individual and direct the energies of the machine toward socially desirable ends.

Two early Gide plays, Saül and Le Roi Candaule, represent a revolt against the realistic and naturalistic theater of the nineteenth century, yet they cannot be completely classified as symbolist because of Gide's insistence on the importance of psychologically particularized characters. Character is a major consideration that determines the dramatic quality, the structure, and the techniques of the plays. Saul, which bears many superficial resemblances to Shakespeare's plays, is completely dominated by the figure of the King. The play's structure reminds one of a fugue; it is more an intellectual artifice than a dramatic development. In Le Roi Candaule, as in Saül, the title figure is completely dominant to the point that other characters seem mere puppets. In each play the action hinges on a voluntary self-destructive decision made by the protagonist. But the dramatic effects are due largely to Gide's interesting, yet not always masterful, use of theatrical tricks. In spite of their obvious flaws, these plays deserve consideration as forerunners in the twentieth-century French trend toward using theater as theater to express meaningful ideas about the nature of man.

Critical and historical investigations of eighteenth-century French literature have been hampered by inadequate and often irrelevant schemes of periodization. If, as has been claimed, the secular division itself is arbitrary and does not respect the realities of literary production, other principles of division, such as literary generations, have not seemed more realistic. As for the contested attempt to equate the eighteenth century with the Enlightenment, its effect on literary studies has been to stress unduly the literature of ideas, especially as produced by the outstanding philosophes. Attempts to elaborate a rationale for a rococo-style periodization have raised more problems than they have solved, and may lead to unproductive theoretical bickering. Logically, it is only a systematic survey of the literature itself in the light of literary tradition that will yield truly literary periodizations, and it is only when these have been achieved that we can meaningfully investigate literature's relationships with other aspects of what might as well be called, with due reservations, the eighteenth century.

Dream, which is itself disguise, paradoxically becomes the most pertinent and complex comment on the many disguises of The BlithedaleRomance and on its structurally unconvincing elements. Classically functioning both as revelation and wish-fulfillment, Miles Coverdale's central dream tells the perceptive reader what he already knows. This dream, and two framing briefer dream references, unearth disguise more accurately than Miles's consciously prying self can do. Through Miles, Hawthorne wryly portrays the limited success of the (minor?) artist's effort to “lawfully dream awake.”

IN A la recherche du temps perdu Marcel Proust often portrays Albertine through imagery perceived by the narrator, Marcel. The loved object, Albertine, is predominantly a projection of Marcel's desires. The images through which he sees her communicate his emotional experience—happiness, jealousy, passion, suffering, and indifference—with Albertine. Springing from the depths of his consciousness, they are outpourings of lyricism. Consequently, the mood which sustains them cannot last for a long period of time. When these images, which are interspersed throughout the novel, are isolated and then juxtaposed, they form a lyrical poem.

An analysis of Les Caves in terms of Le Rire reveals the nature of Gidian comedy, at the same time establishing an affinity between Bergson and Gide. Bergson's thesis is that comedy springs from the conflict between mechanical and living, body and soul, inanimate and animate. Even wordplay and farce find a place in this context. The presentation of comedy requires detachment on the part of the author, an effect which Gide successfully achieves in this novel. Comedy criticises hypocrisy, whether it be social or individual. Gide criticises forms of hypocrisy arising from inadequate awareness of immediate exigencies. Amédée, central to the theme of comic conflict, is central to the action and structure of Les Caves. Anthime reveals the aspirations of the soul in comic conflict with the limitations of the body. Protos manipulates social groups and individuals mechanically but cannot escape the consequences of the game he has initiated. Lafcadio, desiring spontaneity, in conflict with the logical Julius, lives out an inconsequential dream. For both authors the contradictions of the world of dreams reveal parallels with the world of comedy.

Simple structural analysis applied to passages cited from the works of André Breton elucidates the reasons for his condemnation of the statement La marquise sortit à cinq heures (see his Manifeste du surréalisme, 1924) as non-poetic. This study demonstrates the opposition existing between the above-mentioned realist sentence, essentially non-subjective (third-person subject), non-actual (past tense predicate), contextual (context can be supposed), and prosaic (lack of imagery), and on the other hand a theoretic surrealist sentence, essentially subjective (first-person subject), actual (present tense predicate), and non-contextual, producing a shock-image. In reality, Breton's surrealistic phrase does not always contain all of these qualities at once. However, in contrast to the condemned phrase which contains none at all, it does always manifest at least one of these characteristics, the most important having reference to the evocative power of the shock-image. A final comparison with a sentence quoted from Robbe-Grillet, the theoretician of the “nouveau roman”, proves that even though it may appear objective, the surrealist phrase is really not so. In conclusion, the four characteristics of the ideal surrealist sentence—subjectivity, actuality, non-contextuality, and ability to produce shock-images—create a poetics of discontinuity opposed to the classical art of narration as found traditionally in the novel. (In French)

In the middle 1870's a polemic concern in the daily and periodical press over idealism and realism anticipates Spain's later reception of naturalism, and reveals the general affiliations of Valera's art for art's sake and of Alarcón's moralism. Earlier hostility to French influence now permeates neo-Kantian concern for the relative merits of the good (idealism), the true (realism), and the beautiful (art for art's sake). Philosophical and literary debate is twisted by the quarrel of liberals and neo-Catholics. Much writing was stimulated by the debates in the Ateneo in 1875 and 1876 over the effects of realism in the theater. Many intellectuals took part, including Revilla and Valera. The summary position is one of essential idealism ready to compromise to meet the scientific age. The polemic of Navarrete and Vidart over Pepita Jiménez (1874) is an early manifestation of this debate, and the quarrel of the liberals and neo-Catholics over Alarcón s reception to the Academy (1877) reduces the polemic to bitter argumentum ad hominem. One of the early reports of Zola's naturalistic writings (also in 1877) shows that the “cuestión palpitante” was an immediate and intensified continuation of the debate.