Convicted Men Research Articles

Pierre’s Progeny: O’Neill and the Melville Revival

PIERRE'S PROGENY: O'NEILL AND THE MELVILLE REVIVAL * JOYCE DEVEAU KENNEDY Mount Saint Vincent University W h e n in 1851-52 Melville was composing his bitter autobiographical novel Pierre, he could hardly have guessed, given the public's cool reception of Moby Dick, that his extravagant new novel might one day serve as inspiration for America's greatest dramatist. Yet Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra is a belated tribute not only to "the man who lived among cannibals," in its use of Typee, but more so to the legacy of Pierre. The roots of Melville's influence on O'Neill may lie in the New England Puritan heritage they shared,1 but their affinities go much deeper than that. Those who like to read meaning into coincidence may think it eventful that O'Neill was born 16 October 1888 in New York City just a few blocks from where on 16 November Melville was to begin his last novel, Billy Budd. Three years later Melville was dead. Not for almost three decades, until the scholars celebrating Melville's centenary discovered the contemporary appeal of psychological and rebellious novels such as Moby Dick, Pierre, and Mardi, would Melville receive the attention he deserved. Certainly, it was not coinci­ dence that at the same time O'Neill was producing his first full-length play, Beyond the Horizon, on Broadway. One might say the two matured (in the tastes of the literary public) at precisely the same time and for the same reason: both were searching out the darkest corners of the human spirit - especially as manifested in the sexual repressiveness of a Puritan and capitalist American society. O'Neill often talked about the European influences on his work - Nietzsche, Freud, Strindberg, and Conrad among others - but for some reason (perhaps he did not consider Americans properly avant garde), he was silent about influences closer to home. When he wrote in his Electra "Work Diary" that the "New England background" was the "best possible dramatically for Greek plot of crime and retribution, chain of fate - Puritan conviction of man born to sin and punishment-Orestes' furies within him, his conscience-etc." (p 531),2 he was not stating an absolute truth. Faulkner, for instance, has used Mississippi to the same end, and just as successfully. No. What O'Neill's statement proves is that he found in New England, and in her writers, though he is not quick to acknowledge the latter fact, material for his finest plays. This essay will try to English Studies in Can ad a, h i, 1 , Spring 1977 104 show the influence of only one New England writer,3 Herman Melville, on the most ambitious of those plays - Mourning Becomes Electra.4 One critic has said, "it is Melville ... to whom O'Neill has the most affinities,"5 and although the evidence is only circumstantial (i.e., O'Neill did not own a copy of Pierre and no record has been found of his mentioning it),6 I think it was from Melville's Pierre that O'Neill borrowed ideas when he got bogged down in trying to find the right vehicle for his "Greek" drama. Most earlier critics could not have seen that, for they were prepared to meet O'Neill on the terms he had defined for them and thus to see the play as a modern Oresteia. J.W. Krutch's Introduction to Nine Plays compared O'Neill to Aeschylus and Shakespeare in his tragic conceptions, if not in his language. A.H. Nethercot surveys the reviews of the play that dealt with O'Neill's Freudian manhandling of the House of Atreus.7 Typical was John Corbin, "O'Neill and Aeschylus": "The normal human horror at incest becomes an interestingly Freudian libido. The upstanding manhood of Orestes, his hard fought battle for spiritual release, becomes a weak-kneed and neurotic pes­ simism ending in suicide ... Far from murdering his mother [Orin] is warmly Freudian toward her" (s r l , 30 April 1932). Doris Alexander believes that the relationships between O'Neill's characters are very much like those described in a book written by two of O'Neill's...

Felix Fleischner, M.D., F.F.R. (Hon.)

With the sudden death of Felix Fleischner at the age of 76 the world of radiology has lost a great leader and pioneer, a man of brilliant intellect, strong convictions and courage, whose scientific contributions will always remain an inspiration to coming generations. Dr. Fleischner was born in Vienna, graduated in 1919, and after some years on the staff of the Clinic in Internal Medicine he came under the spell of great pioneers in radiology, such as Haudek, Holzknecht and Kienbock, in whose traditions he continued with zest and vigour.

Aksjologiczna treść pojęcia sprawiedliwości w poglądach Karola Marksa

The article presents an attempt to reconstruct the axiological contents of Marx’s –concept of justice In the broadest terms, the axiological content of Marx’s concept of justice consists, in the author’s opinion, in the eternal conviction of man that it is just to render unto man what is rightfully due to him, while to deprive man of his due rights is a wrong. Accordingly, every man, by reason of his work or merits, rightly deserves the use and enjoyment of the material goods he has produced, or of the good reputation he has won, etc. That formulation, however, does not exhaust the full sense of Marx’s idea of ‚justice’. Man in his capacity as a human being rightfully deserves over and above all that, a chance to draw on the full stock of human achievement, in order to develop and satisfy his manifold needs, inclinations and talents.

Church and State in Russian History

N the early sixteenth century an acute struggle was going on within the ranks of the Orthodox Church in Muscovy. The immediate issue was the question of church land possession. Like the Western church during the Middle Ages, the Russian Church had accumulated, in the course of the previous centuries of its etistence, enormous wealth in land which for the most part belonged to the monasteries. It was against this state of affairs that a small but determined group of church reformers raised the voice of protest. Known as the Elders,' the protestants were grouped around the hermitage of Sorsk, a center of ascetic monas ticism, highly respected for the purity of life and the devotional zeal of its members. They had for leader a remarkable man-Nilus of Sorsk, himself an ascetic and a mystic, a man of deep convictions and of a great strength of character. The Trans-Volga Elders, who also were referred to as the noncovetous monks, loudly called upon the church to give up its worldly possessions in order to achieve the Christian ideal of poverty and humility. In their eyes, a truly monastic life and management of big land estates were fundament, ally incompatible. On the other side stood the so-called Josephites, by far the larger of the two groups, and one that enjoyed the support of the church hierarchy. To them the material wealth of the church was one of the indispensable conditions for the proper performance of its functions. The head of this faction, Joseph of Volokolamsk (hence the name of the Josephites) was the abbot of one of the richest and most influential monasteries in Muscovy. Throughout the sixteenth century this monastery played the part of a nursery of bishops,' and many of the most prominent hierarchs of the period had received their training there. Profoundly different from Nilus of Sorsk in character and outlook, Joseph too was a remarkable man, in his own

The Conservative World of Mr. Justice Sutherland, 1883–1910

The Supreme Court of the United States was dominated for almost two decades by the philosophy of Mr. Justice Sutherland. Even prior to becoming an Associate Justice, October 2, 1922, he had been a figure of national prominence for over twenty years, serving one term as congressman, 1898–1900, and two terms as senator, 1905–1917. His retirement, January 16 of this year, closes the more active phases of a long career in public service. Throughout he has shown himself a man of firm convictions and pronounced views, whether expressed on the floors of Congress, in public addresses, or in Supreme Court opinions. Yet little, almost nothing, has been published on his life, thought, and work, as was contemporaneously done with respect to Justices Holmes and Brandeis.This neglect of judicial biography has been noticed by Dean Charles E. Clarke of the Yale Law School. Writing in the Nation of June 12, 1937, he observed: “Many of the books which needed to be written on judicial supremacy have now been completed.

The Docility of the Fighter

IN SPEAKING with thoughtful men concerning the present war, one hears of the place which fighting holds in human nature. War it is said is bred into men, never to be removed, part of their blood and bone and marrow. And such a creed is widespread, in books and in the living words of those who are far from cynical. Among my neighbors are men of outlook and generous impulse, yet one of them believes that human nature is essentially homicidal, and that any who are unwilling to accept war, which is the expression of this nature, must seek an abode upon some other planet. Another friend, holding with Hobbes that the compelling power of life is selfishness, believes that nations, driven as they forever are by this spirit, can be met and held only by force of arms. War, then, must be looked upon leniently, even in our abhorrence, as the appropriate utterance of an instinct whose fibres reach into the very heart and are not to be touched by drug or surgery. Such are the convictions of men versed in the world's life, candid, willing to face unflattering truth, asking that in equal candor we judge the conduct of nations by the grim standard of reality. One might give even a juster view of the springs of human conduct without changing their conclusion, save to strengthen it. For fighting is indeed an instinct bred in by milleniums of savage ancestry and by an endless brute inheritance beyond, and it is still sustained in many ways. Not only is the fighting-spirit seconded by greed, but often no external object of desire-no ponderable good to be gained-is in mind, and men fight in a red and improvident anger, as well as from the sheer lust of conflict, feeling toward their destructive effort something of an artist's love of art for art's sake. Sober human nature

Practical Manual of Diseases of Women and Uterine Therapeutics.

This is one of the best manuals of gynecology in the English language; concise, clear and complete. This edition is largely re-written, re-arranged and newly illustrated. There is a large increase in matter and in the illustrations, and many additions have been made in the pathologic and surgical portions. The chapters on diseases of the mammary gland have been omitted, and new chapters on uterine reflexes, sutures and ligatures, surgical fibromata, affections of the Fallopian tubes, tubal pregnancy and ovarian affections, have been added. The author is a man of positive convictions, and he does not hesitate to express his views frankly. His chapter on massage is a refreshing one in these days of namby-pamby, hesitating literature. To McNaughton-Jones a spade<i>is</i>a spade, and not an uncertain " agricultural implement."