Classical Legend Research Articles

Language, Friendship, and God: Jesuit Appropriation of Classical Legends for Evangelical Use in Late Ming China

Abstract Western Classicism came to Ming China through various channels including re-interpretations of “Aesop and His Tongues,” “Damon and Pythias,” and “The Sword of Damocles.” This paper traces ideas in these legends to sources in the Christian Bible and its related texts, and demonstrates how Jesuits recast these stories as vehicles for evangelizing Ming-dynasty intellectuals, with an obvious, ethical comparison of them with traditional Chinese texts.

The Classical Tale from the Markandeya Purana (Ritudwaj and Madalasha)

This paper sheds light on the intriguing ancient love story of Ritudwaj and Maladsha that is recounted in the Markandeya Purana, this paper investigates the classical account of the Purana. The Eastern world today is more familiar with Western classical love stories like Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Wuthering Heights, and Gone with the Wind, But Eastern readers have forgotten their classical legends. Ritudwaj and Madalasha's profound love is depicted in this undersea fantasy tale that delves into the classic love tale. This Pauranic tale is lovelier than Snow White or Cinderella. The researcher wishes to draw attention to the fact that our Puranas and other religious texts contain such beautiful love stories lost within the pages of such texts. This research aims to a) Highlight the ancient classical tale from Markandeya Purana. b) To open a venue for further research on such tales. The methodology used is exploratory based on the qualitative approach. This research is based on content study.

How Do Traditional Stories Work in the Process of Solving Unconscious, Interpersonal and Cultural Conflict? A Contribution to Narrative Ethics

Fairy tales, narratives and proverbs are cultural carriers of tradition, development pattern and values. Even if they are the same over a long time, they gain their own new meaning in new situations. Creation myths, classical legends or the repeated basic patterns and archetypes of fairy tales and children’s songs are collective models of understanding. The great psychotherapeutic themes of self-employment, conscience formation, the triangulation conflict, or the threshold situation can be found in them. Narratives used in therapy and counseling depict social norms by which readers or listeners can measure their own belief; on the other hand, they question norms, especially by exaggerating them, and invite people to question their own. The dilemma of the inner conflict, the ‘am-bi-valence’ in value conflicts, the tragedy of experience can often become more understandable in a story than in logical explanations. The patient – therapist – history triangle provides a further dimension of transmission, relieves the dual relationship in its interrelationship, allows both to look together at something third. In literature research the background of narrative therapy is compared with the experiences.

The “Coming” Epic of Freedom: Reading Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri as a Mythopoesis in Opposition to Sovereign Control

There is a general trend among Western critics, and scholars influenced by the West, to stereotype Third World Literatures, particularly those from India, either as the voice of national consolidation or as providing the emancipated West with the required dose of mysticism and spiritualism. Sri Aurobindo’s works have fallen within either of these two categories. As a result, much of the aesthetic autonomy of his writings have been ignored. This article focuses on the unique quality of Sri Aurobindo’s works, with particular reference to his epic poem Savitri, and shows how he recreates indigenous and classical Indian legends, myths and symbols to subvert sovereign control initiated by the West. Savitri emerges as the representative epic for a new nation that has much more to offer to the future generations apart from the intangible ideas of mysticism and spiritualism. By reinforcing the concept of Shakti and the Mother as the primal Universal Consciousness the mythopoesis in Savitri stands in opposition to the anthropocentric and the anthropogenic machines of sovereignty, both ancient and modern. It establishes the fact that in the human resides the divine and that divinity is a kind of life that can be lived on this earth.

Imagining the Pagan in Late Medieval England by Sarah Salih

Reviewed by: Imagining the Pagan in Late Medieval England by Sarah Salih Gabriel Ford Sarah Salih. Imagining the Pagan in Late Medieval England. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2019. Pp. 220. $99.00. Sarah Salih's Imagining the Pagan in Late Medieval England draws together a range of materials to examine problems of representation, materiality, [End Page 441] and biblical iconoclasm in fifteenth-century England. Methodologically, Salih builds on Bruno Latour's work in actor-network theory, especially his On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods, as well as Caroline Walker Bynum's and Michael Camille's research into the functions of medieval material objects, to explore tensions between Christianity and what she calls "paganity." As Salih's argument unfolds, cities and idols become particularly fraught and mutually interdependent sites for these tensions. Specifically, cities are what medieval English Christians inherit from the past, and idols are what they overthrow in the past. In plumbing the paradoxes embedded in these Christian material inheritances, Imagining the Pagan in Late Medieval England illuminates a variety of Middle English texts while also providing a useful theoretical framework for those working on myths of urban foundation, medieval classicism, hagiography, travel literature, iconophilia, and iconoclasm within and beyond fifteenth-century England. The introduction is the only one of the major sections that does not specifically organize itself around analyses of cities and idols. Instead, it establishes the framework for "paganity" as a site of inquiry. She uses this term to distinguish the largely imaginary cultural interlocutor that late medieval Christianity sustains for itself in its received historiography and sacred tradition (3 n. 12) from the historical practices that Christians might have described as "pagan." This imagined historical "paganity" is Salih's key interest here, not least because, as she observes, "There were no actual pagans in late medieval England" (2). Salih adapts Sylvia Tomasch's concept of the "virtual Jew" to theorize a "virtual pagan," a figure that allows her to discuss how literally absent pagans function in the imaginations of fifteenth-century English Christians. These virtual pagans acquire their cultural prominence from their presence at national, ethnic, or urban points of origin. Pagan Trojans founded both Rome and Britain, to give two examples to which Salih often returns. Appropriately, these legendary founders persist in the medieval imagination with a set of characteristic traits or topoi: "The pagans of classical legend are socially magnificent, technologically adept, founders of nations, cities and social order, but later degenerate into the sadistic but inept rulers and patriarchs of hagiographic encounters" (24). The positive traits keep the pagans continually before late medieval English Christians as exemplars, while the historiographic arc of their achievement and decline structures Christian society's account of its own superseding of these societies. This arc, from the founding of cities to their [End Page 442] conversion to Christianity and then to their persistence under Christian control, provides the basic structure of Salih's argument. The first chapter after this introduction, entitled "Origins: Building Cities, Making Idols," examines pagans as builders and thus as founders of built urban landscapes. Analyses of Lydgate's Troy Book bookend this chapter, and scholars interested in Lydgate's classical romances in particular will likely find this chapter of most interest. In Salih's analysis, Lydgate participates in a tradition of appropriating Troy for, and distinguishing Troy from, Britain and its cities. Central to this distinction is the function of the idol, and this chapter takes a wide chronological and temporal sweep to situate the idol theoretically, historically, and corporeally. It presents patristic and medieval Christian accounts of the idol as dead matter potentially animated by the worship of its devotees and—sometimes—the spirit of demons. Salih reads this Christian idol theory alongside the modern thinkers—Latour, Bynum, and Camille again, but also prominently Sara Ahmed and Bill Brown—finding rich dialogue in their discussions of objects, materiality, and idols. Grounding its discussion in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Wisdom, the chapter locates the beginnings of idolatry in a father's veneration of a vicarious object that stands in for his deceased son. This conflation of absent body and ambiguous idol sets the idol up as a...

In Search of the Authorial Self

Branwell Bronte’s childhood is a remarkable story of imaginative excess and misdirected creativity. His early experiments with miniature magazines and miniscule script suggest the limited world of the child, yet the paracosmic world he and his sisters created is one of vast proportion, with grandiose ideas that both empower and hinder the development of the young writer.
 Only a year younger than his sister Charlotte, Branwell was both partner and often leader in the creation of events in the prolific writing project associated with their invented world of Glass Town and Angria. This creative enterprise facilitated Branwell’s experimentation as editor, journalist, historian, poet and novelist, but it also enabled him to mask in bravado and hyperbole (and to avoid addressing) his lack of confidence and helped to legitimise, to himself at least, a false view of his position in the world.
 This article finds an explanation for Branwell’s eccentric behaviour and increasing inability to distinguish himself from his creation, Northangerland, in a consideration of the paracosm and, in particular, of the developmental problems associated with the idea of “being in a world of one’s own” that can develop from long involvement in an imaginative world (Cohen and MacKeith 1). Evidence suggests that Branwell found it hard to cope with ordinary life and the expectations placed upon him as an only boy. Nevertheless, Branwell’s early magazines, poetry and histories also suggest a playful, agile young mind stimulated by stories he has read, by classical legends of discovery, by war and politics, by the reading of newspapers and magazines—a mind keen to engage with the world despite his youth. Thus Glass Town and Angria also allowed Branwell to exercise power and channel his creative agency.

Hawksmoor's Vision of Wray Wood, Castle Howard

AbstractDespite an extensive literature on Castle Howard and its innovative landscape, few details have been known about the important naturalistic garden at Wray Wood. This article identifies four drawings attributed to Nicholas Hawksmoor as designs for the wood's rockwork and watercourses. Although these features have long since disappeared, building records, letters and visitor accounts confirm their existence and show that Hawksmoor was also involved in the display of the sculpture and fountains, with subjects drawn from classical myths and legends. His later designs for the two temples on the east wall of the wood further illustrate his personal vision of the woodland garden and of the sources that inspired its mythological theme. This article draws together all the evidence relating to the wood and considers it in the context of innovative European garden design and its transfer to England in the first years of the eighteenth century. The wood has usually been attributed in more or less equal measure to Hawksmoor, Vanbrugh and their patron Lord Carlisle, but the evidence indicates that it was Hawksmoor who took the lead in carrying out Carlisle's wishes.

Geomorphology of the São Pedro ridge and Lower Piracicaba River region, southeastern Brazil

ABSTRACTThis work presents a new geomorphological map (1:50,000) of the São Pedro region in southeastern Brazil. It incorporates new information about landform development and updates the classical legend of the Recherche Coopérative Sur Programme 77 that supported the previous map drawn in 1978. According to the new map and associated papers, tectonic structures have controlled the orientation of the streams that have dissected the regional landforms, especially during wetter periods. Under dry conditions, the planing process caused faster escarpment retreat of the São Pedro ridge and gave rise to a glacis and its Pleistocene colluvial sandy cover. The escarpment, glacis, and other regions were dissected during subsequent wet periods, forming the upper Quaternary main fluvial terraced levels of the Piracicaba and Tietê rivers. Finally, this geomorphological arrangement was disturbed by the reactivation of old structures in the current tectonic environment.

Ukiran Bali dalam Kreasi Gitar Elektrik

Abstrak Bali kaya akan ragam hias seni ukir, sehingga menginspirasi untuk diterapkan pada pembuatan produk gitar elektrik. Gitar elektrik dipilih karena badan gitar terbuat dari kayu solid, sehingga ornamen lebih mudah diterapkan serta tidak berpengaruh terhadap resonansi nada. Tujuan penciptaan seni ini adalah untuk menerapkan seni ukir Bali pada produk gitar elektrik. Metode yang digunakan yaitu pengumpulan data, pengembangan ide, perancangan ukiran dan perwujudan produk jadi. Tema penciptaan yang diwujudkan menjadi produk yaitu: (1) legenda klasik Bali, (2) keindahan alam Bali, (3) keagamaan di Bali dan (4) serba-serbi Bali. Hasil survei terhadap 100 orang konsumen selama 6 bulan menunjukkan hasil bahwa tema yang disukai: legenda klasik Bali 45%, keindahan alam Bali 25%, serba-serbi Bali 19% dan keagamaan di Bali 11%. Kata kunci: ukiran Bali, gitar elektrik ukir Abstract Bali has rich decorative carvings which inspire people to apply them on the manufacture of electric guitars. Electric guitar has been chosen as the research object because of its solid wood body, so that the ornaments are easier to apply and do not affect the resonant tones. The purpose of the creation of this art is to apply the Bali product carving on electric guitar. The method used is data collection, development of ideas, carving design, and the realization of finished products. The creation theme realize into products, namely: (1) Bali c lassical legend, (2) Bali natural beauty, (3) Religious sites in Bali, and (4) Sundries of Bali. Surveys results of 100 consumers during in 6 months, shows that the preferred themes are: 45% of Bali classical legend, 25% of Bali natural beauty, 19% of Sundries of Bali, and 11% of Bali spiritualism. Keywords: Balinese carving, electric guitar carving

Charles Gleyre's ‘Les Romains’: Classics and nationalism in Swiss art

AbstractThis article looks at an example of how classical antiquity was used by a nineteenth‐century Swiss painter and explores the national dimension of one of his works. Through an examination of the painting, Les Romains passant sous le joug, its Swiss artist Charles Gleyre and his commission from the canton of Vaud, it will elaborate an example of how a classical legend was transformed in an artistic representation of the nation.

“An infant of the house of York”: Medea and Absyrtus in Shakespeare’s First Tetralogy

“An infant of the house of York”: Medea and Absyrtus in Shakespeare’s First Tetralogy Katherine Heavey (bio) This essay explores Shakespeare’s use of the classical legend of Medea in 2 Henry VI and shows how the remainder of the first tetralogy is haunted by her first crime, the killing of her young brother Absyrtus.1 The mutilated body of Absyrtus held a particular interest for classically-minded English writers of the early modern period; in 2 Henry VI it is invoked by the Lancastrian Young Clifford as he swears revenge on the house of York for the death of his father.2 I will show how Shakespeare augments and sensationalizes chronicle history by absorbing this notorious and popular story into his history plays, and will argue that the Lancastrian nobleman’s brief classical reference signifies more than might first appear. By invoking this myth, Shakespeare registers anxiety about the irreversible damage done by civil war. Moreover, the story demonstrates Clifford’s bloody intentions toward Yorkist bodies, but also forecasts his own fate, because of his misunderstanding of what it means to use Medea as an example. Inga-Stina Ewbank posits that, although Shakespeare does not explicitly return to the Absyrtus story after 2 Henry VI, the bloody classical legend “continues, as it were, underground to enrich the texture of the episodes of 2 and 3 Henry VI which are consequent on this scene.”3 In my discussion of 3 Henry VI and Richard III, I will show how the latter two plays in the tetralogy are haunted by Clifford’s reference to Medea and Absyrtus. Having explicitly compared himself to the child-killer in 2 Henry VI, Clifford realizes his own Medea-like potential in 3 Henry VI, when he slaughters the Earl of Rutland, young son of the Duke of [End Page 233] York. The cruel death of this child and the memory of the classical myth of fratricide that underpins it are a means for Shakespeare to complexify not only Clifford’s character, but also those of other historical figures who find themselves pulled into Clifford’s reimagining of the Absyrtus story: Margaret, York, and even the future Richard III, who is unexpectedly affected by his brother’s fate. As 2 Henry VI moves to its conclusion, Clifford discovers the body of his father, Lord Clifford, who has been slain in battle by the Duke of York. Declaring “York not our old men spares; / No more will I their babes” (5.3.51–52), a raging Clifford compares himself to Medea and Aeneas, both familiar figures from Roman mythology: Henceforth I will not have to do with pity. Meet I an infant of the house of York, Into as many gobbets will I cut it As wild Medea young Absyrtus did. In cruelty will I seek out my fame. Come, thou new ruin of old Clifford’s house, He takes his father’s body up on his back As did Aeneas old Anchises bear, So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders. But then Aeneas bare a living load, Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine. (5.3.56–65)4 For Clifford’s hyperbolic swearing, Shakespeare turned to Medea as she was reconceived by the first Elizabethan translators of Ovid and Seneca. He refers to the part of the myth that sees her kill and dismember her young brother to distract her father, King Aeëtes, who is pursuing her as she elopes from Colchis with Jason.5 The fullest classical description of the fratricide is given in Ovid’s Tristia (translated by Thomas Churchyard in 1572). Churchyard’s translation of book 3, elegy 9 recounts the Argonauts’ escape, and Medea’s desperate act: When ha[s]ting ships with spee[d]y pace to draw more neare she spide, By craft we must my father flee, (we are betrayd) she cride. Whyle she for counsell paused then, and looked round about, In sight at last her brother sawe, amids her deepest doubt. Whom when she spide, forthwith she sayd: I dare us well assure. My br[o]thers death the cause shalbe, our safety to procure. [End Page 234] Hee all unwares and...

Playing at crusading: cultural memory and its (re)creation in Jean Bodel's Jeu de St Nicolas

This article is an analysis of the text of a play written by Jean Bodel, c.1200 (surviving in a manuscript of c.1288), in which the late classical legend of St Nicolas is updated within the context of the crusades. After a massacre of a Christian army, a statue of St Nicolas is charged with the protection of an African king's treasure, and when he ultimately proves successful, the pagan king and his followers convert to Christianity, abandoning their statue of Tervagant. The article explores the ways in which memories of crusade wars, both accurate and mythologised, can be traced in the writing of the play and thus how its construction, performance, copying and preservation can be seen as contributing to the further reconstruction, preservation and circulation of those memories. The play can be seen as a vital step in the process of ‘social memory’.

The Cutman: Boxing, the Male Body and the Wound

‘A cutman kneels beside the fighter … [he] works quickly… He knows the fighter wants to be anywhere but here, seen like this. It’s more than blood pouring onto the canvas. It’s pride, ego, hope. The cutman’s job is to keep these things out of the puddle forming between them’ (Jones 2008). Boxing is arguably one of the most visually arresting of sports, its history punctuated with intense, expressive images. This paper examines one category of boxing picture, the photograph of the wounded boxer with a cut, open and bleeding, above his eye. As in the classical legend of the warrior Achilles, the cut above the eye is the boxer’s deadly weakness, the single point of vulnerability in the otherwise ideal, hardened masculine body. The cut, with its spongy tissue and flowing blood, opens up the otherwise contained and contoured body, it represents a soft, feminised man, rather than the male body as metal tool. These themes recall Klaus Theweleit’s ‘Male Fantasies’ (1987), a psychoanalytic account of the violence of the German Freikorps as they fought the revolutionary German working class. Using diaries and letters written by the troops, Theweleit examines their language and imagery and sets out their hatred of women’s sexual bodies, their dread of loss of self and fixed boundaries and of being engulfed and annihilated by the formlessness of the red masses. Drawing on these arguments and the aesthetics of the ideal male body, it is possible to argue that the fascination of the image of the bleeding cut above the boxer’s eye, is as a sign of the beginning of the unravelling of the male warrior body ego and its dissolution into soft, formless matter. Analysing the photographic image of the boxer’s cut face and the aesthetic and bodily traditions on which it draws, this paper concludes that an interdisciplinary methodology, based on art history and the philosophy of sport, can tell us much about the cultural meanings of the athletic male body.

“To Late for to Crie”: Female Desire, Fabliau Politics, and Classical Legend in Chaucer's Reeve's Tale

This article proposes that Chaucer's Reeve's Tale is a fusion of classical legend plot with fabliau setting and characters. This fusion helps Chaucer push the fabliau beyond its own limits, allowing the Reeve's Tale to reveal late medieval culture's conflicting attitudes towards female desire and masculine control and thus to interrogate more fully the gender politics of the Knight's classical romance. The article argues that because the Reeve's Tale revises many of the traditional features of medieval obscene discourse — features that the Miller's Tale embodies — it is a crucial part of Chaucer's meditation on issues of gender and genre in Fragment One.

Bibliography of Classical Folklore Scholarship: Myths, Legends, and Popular Beliefs of Ancient Greece and Rome

Introduction Ancient Greek and Roman literature contains rich troves of and beliefs, many of which have counterparts in modern legends. For a number of reasons, today's are generally unaware that valuable primary source material from antiquity exists in English translation (for a wide selection of Greek and Latin literature in translation, see the Loeb Classical Library volumes in any good library). Classical scholars have published numerous of legends, myths and from antiquity, yet their work remains generally unknown to scholars. And for their part, most classicists have no idea that analogues of what they consider to be tales confined to the ancient Greco-Roman world still circulate today. Both disciplines would reap benefits if they renewed their acquaintance. (The estrangement between classics and since the 1920s is discussed in William Hansen's insightful essay of 1997, Mythology and Folktale Typology: Chronicle of a Failed Scholarly Revolution, in Journal of Folklore Research 34; see also the interview in Folklore Forum 29 [1998]:91-108, esp. 101-3). The lack of communication between classicists and is manifested in the dearth of classical examples in motif indexes and reflected in the lack of classical scholarship in the most up-to-date bibliographies. In Contemporary Legend: A Folklore Bibliography (New York: Garland, 1993), for example, Gillian Bennett and Paul Smith annotated 1,116 publications from ten countries and in eight languages, drawing together international legends from a very wide range of material ... in many different sorts of communication-modes and over a surprisingly long time-span. The compilers expressed surprise that analogues of :modern legends existed long ago as the sixteenth century (p. xvii). As a classical folklorist, I was dismayed to find only three entries representing legends from antiquity in the Contemporary Legend Bibliography. Those three--Raymond Himelick's 1946 note on the Poisoned Dress in ancient Greek legend, Bill Ellis's 1983 article on the ancient Roman roots of the Blood Libel legend, and my 1991 note on classical Greek parallels of a Gulf War legend--were published in journals, which accounts for their inclusion. When I contacted Bennett and Smith about classical folklore's regrettably low profile, they, encouraged me to gather this list of classical legend publications of interest to the folklore/contemporary legend community. This bibliography of classical scholarship is not intended to be exhaustive, of course, but it does demonstrate the wide variety of sources and commentaries available on ancient myth and lore. I hope that this list will encourage a new and creative dialogue between those who study legends and beliefs that were current in the ancient world and those who investigate recurrent legends of the present day. Traditionally, most ancient folk material has appeared in publications directed toward antiquarians. In 1994, however, John Miles Foley noted a burgeoning of scholarly activity in ancient Greek studies with direct relevance for folklorists in his review essay of six exemplary classical books for the Journal of American Folklore. A small group of scholars who define themselves as classical are making an effort to communicate with colleagues in by publishing their findings in folklore-oriented journals as well as classical venues. Classical goes by many aliases: literature, oral tales, folk tale, myth, novel, paradoxography, and recurrent, international, or migratory legends. The problem of clear terminology--whether contemporary can refer to tales that circulated in past societies--is unresolved. The difficulty of identifying a recognised field of classical legend is compounded by the negative perceptions of popular folklore among traditional classicists and ancient historians, many of whom would be surprised to find themselves cited here. …

Classical Myths and Legends in the Middle Ages and Renaissance:

Classical Myths and Legends in the Middle Ages and Renaissance:

"Hortus Temporum": Beginning the Middle High German "Rolandslied"

Referring to classical legends which present the prelogical experience of a people who had just risen out of the Neolithic R. R. Bolgar remarks that the last analysis these overtly expressed conceptions are of less importance than the information we derive incidentally from the manner in which they are presented. The obvious content of literature is less significant than the of thought and language employed by its authors.l This observation applies equally well to an epic like the Middle High German Rolandslied. Sparked by the fascination of the German lay nobility for its own heroic legends, the cleric-poet Konrad's version of Roland's death and Charlemagne's victory over the pagans (written ca. 1170) reflects in its mechanism the shift from oral (prelogical) to literate incorporation of that history.2 Edward Said comments that there are two primitive states. One is the stability of preliterate society, the other the moment at which writing begins to be learned-in fine, the and the beginning.3 If not at a zero-point Origin still shrouded in Neolithic mist, the Rolandslied may be said, with qualification, to stand at the inception of a cultural transformation in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in

King Sivi and doctor Silva

The classical legend of ca. 500 BC about Buddha who in his former life as King Sivi wished to give a part of his body to the first one who asked for it, lies at the root of the success story of the indefatigable Dr Silva of Colombo, who succeeded through the oldest known story about donation of organs to make Sri Lanka the 'world champion' in eye donation. The legend is quoted in this article, followed by a short introduction of Dr Hudson Silva and his remarkable activities.

Mythology and misogyny: the social discourse of nineteenth-century British classical-subject painting

19th century British classical subject or mythological paintings have traditionally been viewed as little more than decorative canvases. In this work, the author claims these paintings are something more - an integral part of a broad-based value system that reinforced patriarchal dominance by inculcating misogynistic and gynophobic attitudes among the broad public. Kestner examines the work of many major artists - Leighton, Burne-Jones, Poynter, Moore, Waterhouse, and Alma-Tadema, as well as that of lesser known figures. He contends that these painters deployed classical legends to reinforce a legal, medical, educational, religious, and marital fabric that supported all the prerogatives of patriarchal power. Early in the book, Kestner uses the evidence of archaeology, sociology, politics, medicine, and law to reveal the function of myth in classical-subject art. Particularly powerful, he finds, are ideas that define men as heroic figures and females as helpless victims - often of despair or madness - concepts that permeated the codes of 19th century society.

Colorado: A Literary Chronicle by W. Storrs Lee

70 Western American Literature tone, explores man’s pretenses, his options, and his often belated regret at having chosen wrongly. Theseus is a modern version of the classical legend in which Carballido's hero makes his own decisions, often vain or cruel ones, rather than submitting to fate or the gods. Along with the problem of fantasy versus reality, Carballido seems ex­ tremely concerned with man’s options and his responsibility in choosing wisely. In his more realistic works, the setting is Mexico, and he frequently employs Mexican motifs and mythology (a case in point being the appear­ ance of the mythical Aztec “Nahual” in The Intermediate Zone). This back­ ground adds interest and color to his plays, but is not essential to his message. Carballido’s successful treatment of universal rather than purely social themes makes his dramatic work innovative and provocative. M a r io n F. H o d a pp, Colorado State University Colorado: A Literary Chronicle. By W. Storrs Lee. (New York: Funk & Wagnals, 1970. 485 pages, $10.00.) A travel agent’s itinerary, a Baedeker, or a motel guide limits the de­ mand upon a reader to position or direction; a book purporting to be a “literary chronicle” should do more Explicit in the definition of literary is a relationship to “men of litters” ; in chronicle, to detailed, continuous history. Colorado: A Literary Chronicle is neither a treasury of literary ex­ cerpts nor a true chronicle of Colorado. The purpose of the book is ob­ tuse: to inform, to entertain, to “educate”? If it is to inform, the book attempts too much too sketchily; if to entertain, too much is too serious; if to educate, it fails in elucidation and full documentation. Perhaps what it does best is to acquaint one with the past of Colorado. Without index or bibliography, but with a list of “key dates” in the end pages, the book comprises ninety-three two-to-eight-page “chapters,” each opening with informal introductory paragraphs by the author, and run­ ning a loosely chronological course from 1266 A. D. to 1963, from Francisco Vasques de Coronado, 1541, to Neil Morgan, 1963. Exemplary excerpts from men who have praised, damned, described, fictionalized or versified, oversold or undersold Colorado preserve flash impressions, written about or in Colo­ rado, from Spanish conquistadores, explorers, trappers, military men or their wives, waggoneers, travelers and tourists, newspaper men, missionaries, priests, doctors, keepers of journals, and professional writers. Only a handful of great writers is here, represented generally not for their literary greatness but for context in Mr. Lee’s chronological treatment. Had Cooper or Irving camped at the foot of Pike’s or Long’s Peaks, the reader would benefit from a Colorado Natty or a Cripple Creek Astor. The book provides no map or detail for the non-Coloradoan who would question allusions to Manitou, Cache La Poudre, Middle Park, Trapper’s Lake, or the distance between the Arkansas, the Red (Colorado), and Rio Grande rivers. Reviews 71 Each chapter represents a different writer but for one Beckwourth, a mulatto who wrote knowledeably about selling liquor to the Indians and testified in the Senate investigation into the Sand Creek Massacre in hear­ ings at Fort Lyon and Denver in 1867. The selections can be said to divide into three kinds of writing despite the author’s concern with historical con­ tinuity: Epochal passages include those of the free trapper and the fur trade; glimpses of life on the trail and in the fort, particularly the “castle” of Bent’s; Dodge’s description of the medicine dance; Young’s “Central City's Day of Judgment” ; and a condensed fragment from Mari Sandoz’ The Cattle­ men. Personal experiences highlighted are a young military bride’s inter­ lude at Bent’s Fort; Edwin James’ 1820 ascent of Pike’s Peak and Isabella Lucy Bird’s 1873 climb of Long’s; William Ashley’s 1825 Colorado Christmas; Pattie’s river-narrative, edited by Timothy Flint; and Jack Dempsey’s poignant exposé of growing up poor in Manassa. Curious remnants are, first, one of language, Jacob Fowler’s “Three Up a Tree,” an illiteracy which demands not only the glossary provided but...