English-speaking World Research Articles

Not wholly belonging: British planning’s uncertain European connections

ABSTRACT This article takes a long view of British planning’s connections with continental Europe, locating Brexit within historic uncertainties about the country’s international outlook, interests and position. In 1948, Churchill portrayed Britain at the intersection of three ‘great circles’: the British Empire, the wider English-speaking world (principally the USA) and Europe. This notion is drawn on to show how the strong earlier European links of British planning were seriously disrupted or severed by twentieth-century wars. These drew both country and planning approach closer to its ‘distant friends’ within the other ‘great circles’. As former imperial ties faded and the USA relationship became less special, Britain looked again to Europe but without shedding these habitual links. Even after Britain joined the European Communities in 1973, its strongest international planning connections remained with the USA and its former Empire and Dominions. In the 1990s, the EU promoted spatial planning but Britain remained largely aloof until the ‘New Labour’ governments of 1997–2010. Yet growing Euroscepticism saw this relative enthusiasm fade, with Brexit reviving uncertainties, now about whether EU approaches should be jettisoned and a more deregulated planning system created. The article predicts (or at least hopes) that current anti-Europe thinking will itself fade.

Power, Privilege And Sex Education in Irish Schools, 1922-67: An Overview

An overview of the thinking that led us to write our most recent book, Piety and Privilege. Catholic Secondary Schooling in Ireland and the Theocratic State, 1922-67, constitutes the substance of this paper. Our central argument is that during the period 1922-1967, the Church, unhindered by the State, promoted within secondary schools, practices aimed at “the salvation of souls” and at the reproduction of a loyal middle class and clerics. The State supported that arrangement with the Church also acting on its behalf in aiming to produce a literate and numerate citizenry, in pursuing nation building, and in ensuring the preparation of an adequate number of secondary school graduates to address the needs of the public service and the professions. This situation proved attractive to successive governments, partly because the great majority of the nation’s politicians and public servants were themselves loyal middle-class Catholics. In addition, the teaching religious played a crucial role in the State’s project of harnessing schools as part of its Gaelic nation-building project. This paper considers what we deem to be three distinctive aspects of our work. First, we detail how it is a contribution not just to the history of education in Ireland but also to the broader field of the history of Catholic Church and State relations in education in the English-speaking world for the period examined. Secondly, we deliberate on the research approach we adopted in generating our exposition. Thirdly, we outline our consideration of three aspects of the process of education in Catholic schools that have been neglected in many accounts to date, namely, the manner in which privilege, piety, and sex education were approached. Keywords: Ireland, secondary schooling. piety, privilege, sex education

Semantics and Creation of Eponyms in the English-Speaking World

The relevance of the topic of the article is determined by the importance of researching derivational processes in the modern English-speaking world, in particular using the example of eponyms, with the aim of tracking the transition of proper names to common names, creating occasional vocabulary and its unification and codification at the national or international level. The purpose of the article is the structural-linguistic analysis of eponymous units with regard to the sphere of everyday life in different contexts (medical, political, social), the study of various derivational models functioning in the English-speaking environment. The main method is a comparative study of various productive word-forming classes on the example of the development of the English language system, a historical-typological study of the mechanisms of adding elements to its derivational composition. This article reveals the main word-formation models that are most characteristic for the formation of eponymous vocabulary (conversion, suffixation, composition, blending, acronymization), analyzes the metaphorical and metonymic features of figurative reinterpretation during the transition of a linguistic unit from the composition of its own vocabulary to general use, points out the grammatical nature of eponyms (noun, adjective, verb, adverb), highlights productive suffix morphemes, indicates the linguistic potential of various means of word formation, the main lexical-semantic transformations as a result of the implementation of derivational models, and special attention is paid to suffixation as the main way of forming new eponyms. The materials presented in this paper will further help in the study of various language systems in view of the derivational, lexical-grammatical, structural features of a separate national language, the study of global influences on the linguistic culture of creating occasional vocabulary and its standardization and codification in the national language space.

Le puritanisme vu de l’extérieur

Puritanism has, rightly, been seen as a primarily English phenomenon. But puritan ideas can also be studied in very different contexts, as they spread throughout the English-speaking religious world. This article seeks to “decentre” puritanism by examining it from the perspective of the other two national churches in Britain and Ireland – those in Scotland and Ireland. Taking Patrick Collinson’s definition of puritanism—that it was not something definable in itself, but rather it was one half of a stressful relationship – it is shown that in both Ireland and Scotland, puritanism only came into existence when it was attacked by the English monarch and by those who saw puritanism in terms of its English manifestation. Until well into the seventeenth century, puritanism in both Ireland and Scotland was just a largely unnoticed part of a broadly reformed church. Only with the extension of royal power in the course of the first half of the seventeenth century, and the subsequent determination of King Charles I and Archbishop William Laud to bring the three Churches into closer conformity, did puritanism become a major issue in Ireland and Scotland.

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies in Slovenia between Socialism and Post-socialism

This article compares the socialist and post-socialist reception of William Golding’s classic novel Lord of the Flies (1954) in Slovenian serial publications. Taking the socio-political context into consideration, the reasons for the differences in responses to the novel at different periods of Slovenia’s history are addressed. Furthermore, the Slovenian reception of Lord of the Flies is compared to the contemporary reception (in both ‘mainstream’ and socialist publications) in the English-speaking world.

Unmasking the Twitter Discourses on Masks During the COVID-19 Pandemic: User Cluster-Based BERT Topic Modeling Approach.

The COVID-19 pandemic has spotlighted the politicization of public health issues. A public health monitoring tool must be equipped to reveal a public health measure's political context and guide better interventions. In its current form, infoveillance tends to neglect identity and interest-based users, hence being limited in exposing how public health discourse varies by different political groups. Adopting an algorithmic tool to classify users and their short social media texts might remedy that limitation. We aimed to implement a new computational framework to investigate discourses and temporal changes in topics unique to different user clusters. The framework was developed to contextualize how web-based public health discourse varies by identity and interest-based user clusters. We used masks and mask wearing during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in the English-speaking world as a case study to illustrate the application of the framework. We first clustered Twitter users based on their identities and interests as expressed through Twitter bio pages. Exploratory text network analysis reveals salient political, social, and professional identities of various user clusters. It then uses BERT Topic modeling to identify topics by the user clusters. It reveals how web-based discourse has shifted over time and varied by 4 user clusters: conservative, progressive, general public, and public health professionals. This study demonstrated the importance of a priori user classification and longitudinal topical trends in understanding the political context of web-based public health discourse. The framework reveals that the political groups and the general public focused on the science of mask wearing and the partisan politics of mask policies. A populist discourse that pits citizens against elites and institutions was identified in some tweets. Politicians (such as Donald Trump) and geopolitical tensions with China were found to drive the discourse. It also shows limited participation of public health professionals compared with other users. We conclude by discussing the importance of a priori user classification in analyzing web-based discourse and illustrating the fit of BERT Topic modeling in identifying contextualized topics in short social media texts.

Translation Effects: Language, Time, and Community in Medieval England by Mary Kate Hurley

Reviewed by: Translation Effects: Language, Time, and Community in Medieval England by Mary Kate Hurley Stephen Harris mary kate hurley, Translation Effects: Language, Time, and Community in Medieval England. Interventions: New Studies in Medieval Culture. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2021. Pp. 226. isbn: 978-0-8142-1471-8. $99.95. A challenge faced by any book on a broad theme like translation is to quarry a small number of texts for something widely applicable. The challenge is made more difficult if one's aim is to reveal 'community,' which has to be abstracted from dozens of familial, tribal, ethnic, legal, religious, and linguistic groupings across centuries, evinced (in Britain) in at least four languages, and encrypted within conventions of genre. The challenge seems to me insurmountable except as a thought-experiment, itself much complicated by addressing readers who entertain modern prejudices, expectations, and unfamiliarity with source material. In that view, Translation Effects is an instructive thought experiment. Mary Kate Hurley interprets a variety of medieval translations in order to propose their 'imagined political, cultural, and linguistic communities' (p. 1). These imagined communities are the 'translation effects' of her title. Hurley's first chapter discusses the Old English (OE) translation of Paulus Orosius' History Against the Pagans, written in Latin. Hurley focuses on a handful of instances when the OE translator writes, 'Orosius said.' This phrase, Hurley claims, 'constructs an audience located in two distinct times: the fifth-century Roman world … and the ninth-century Old English-speaking world' (p. 27). A subtle effect on a reader of the OE Orosius, this trans-temporal community exemplifies Hurley's 'translation effect.' The second chapter concerns the Catholic abbot Ælfric of Eynsham, who around the year 1000 recorded a set of saints' lives in OE. By translating some local lives from Latin, especially that of Saint Oswald, King of England, Ælfric creates a 'protonationalist' tradition around which an Anglo-Saxon community can form (p. 70). In Chapter Three, Hurley adopts a trope from Christine Schott: the 'community of the page,' which comprises readers, scribes, and glossators of a manuscript. The post-Conquest glossator known as the Tremulous Hand of Worcester returned often to a manuscript and therefore had a 'multitemporal relationship' to it (p. 98). In another manuscript, an illustrator has marked Latin phrases with red ink, while another marked OE sentences with red ink, thereby indicating 'the multilinguality of the text' (p. 102). Scribes are aware of translations and have methods to help future readers (p. 108). Thus, the manuscript invites readers who are multilingual and who can add information to what they find there. Chapter Four concerns the story of Constance as retold by Nicholas Trevet, John Gower, and Geoffrey Chaucer. The three authors are 'united by their temporally heterogeneous portrayals of an emerging sense of "Engelond"' (p. 128). My knowledge of these authors is too limited to be able to assess the success of Hurley's argument. The last chapter concerns Beowulf. In it, Hurley explores moments in the poem 'in which the process of community formation and dissolution is worked out through the telling and retelling of stories' (p. 154). It is a terrific meditation on how the poem portrays the vicissitudes of human community. This chapter reveals a critic who has thought deeply and well about this poem. [End Page 152] Hurley contributes to a scholarly conversation about English identity that focuses on idealized communities as a source of political and social aspiration. For decades scholars have tried to isolate sources of ethnic and national identity in the early medieval world and to weigh both their credibility and their effects. A common assumption in this conversation is that stories, especially historical ones, bore a 'kernel of identity' (in Herwig Wolfram's phrase) around which communities could—but not necessarily did—form. Readers can entertain ideas they never act on. And stories of identity are always provisional, a point Hurley illustrates extremely well in her final chapter. The contributing role of stories to a shared potential identity opened the door to literary critics. Critics, this reviewer among them, mined literary texts for ideals of community. I'm not sure that the effort yielded much that was useful to...

Colin Barr. Ireland’s Empire: The Roman Catholic Church in the English-Speaking World, 1829–1914.

Throughout much of the English-speaking world, for most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the words “Irish” and “Catholic” were practically synonymous, and yet historians have lacked a clear answer as to why this was. While most Irish Protestants migrants—beyond the “Scotch-Irish” of the southern United States—evolved from being “Irish” and “Protestant” to merely “Canadian” or “Australian,” Irish Catholics maintained a strong dual identity. Many theories have sought to explain the phenomenon. Some say it lies in the timing or sheer numbers of those Irish Catholics who migrated abroad. Others have suggested it was their shared sense of oppression that kept them together. Still others point to the role of political leaders in binding them as a constituency. There is undoubtedly some truth to all these theories, yet none have been articulated in a single argument supported by primary source evidence. In his excellent new book, Ireland’s Empire: The Roman Catholic Church in the English-Speaking World, 1829–1914, Colin Barr offers one, clear answer: the Roman Catholic Church itself. In Catholic communities all over the world, Irish bishops, priests, and nuns built what Barr calls a “Hiberno-Roman” institution, which “emphasized loyalty to both the papacy and to Ireland, encouraged Irish symbolism and Roman devotions, and insisted on communal cohesion and social separation, especially in education and matrimony” (18). In what Barr admits is a very top-down approach to understanding religion and identity, the book argues that the church’s hierarchy created a sociotheological framework for understanding the world, which ensured that the twin identities of “Irish” and “Catholic” were nurtured and protected with iron discipline.

Österreichische Zeitgeschichte—Zeitgeschichte in Österreich: Eine Standortbestimmung in Zeiten des Umbruchs ed. by Marcus Gräser and Dirk Rupnow

Reviewed by: Österreichische Zeitgeschichte—Zeitgeschichte in Österreich: Eine Standortbestimmung in Zeiten des Umbruchs ed. by Marcus Gräser and Dirk Rupnow Tim Corbett Marcus Gräser and Dirk Rupnow, eds., Österreichische Zeitgeschichte—Zeitgeschichte in Österreich: Eine Standortbestimmung in Zeiten des Umbruchs. Vienna: Böhlau, 2021. 872 pp. It is difficult in such a brief review to do justice to an almost nine-hundred-page volume showcasing the work of forty-six individual scholars. Yet the very size of the volume and the breadth of topics addressed therein already speaks to the vibrancy of the field of Austrian contemporary history, which here seems to be consensually defined as reaching from 1918 and the dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy into the present day. As illustrated in an amusing quote by the pioneering historian Erika Weinzierl, this means that the field in its most contemporary forms comes up "hart an der Grenze zum Journalismus" (cited in Marcus Gräser's contribution, 53). The volume is divided into three thematic categories. "Epochen und Zäsuren" covers historical eras from the First Republic through to Austria in its European Union years. "Felder und Themen" addresses issues within contemporary history as varied as gender, postcolonialism, and sports. And lastly, "Verhältnisse" explores the entanglement of the field with other areas of inquiry such as the economy, environment, politics, culture, and law, as well as with non-university institutions like archives and museums. Readers in search of a comprehensive history of Austria from World War I to the present will be disappointed, for this is not a work of history per se but rather an overview of actors, approaches, and points of discussion underlying the development of the field since its inception in the 1950s and 1960s and the appertaining bodies of historiography. As such, this volume will be most [End Page 95] useful as a reference work for scholars and students working in contemporary Austrian history and related fields and could be viewed as something of a primer on related discourses. Indeed, the self-reflexivity of the volume is one of its most laudable features—given that history as a discipline in this respect can be notoriously stuffy in comparison to other fields in the humanities, as evinced for example in the almost neurotic avoidance of the first-person pronoun in historiographic writing (as though this obviated the subjectivity of the historian as an individual researcher and author). The contributors to this volume are for the most part refreshingly self-aware of their place within a sociopolitical continuum conditioned not only by their own ideological leanings but also personal networks, funding landscapes, and institutional entanglements. Perhaps the most interesting finding in this respect is the relative absence of controversy in this field over the decades, a curiosity explained by various authors through the close personal relationships underlying this comparatively small discipline on the one hand and the postwar schism between left-and right-wing narratives (commonly called Koalitionsgeschichtsschreibung) on the other (see especially the introduction, 15–16, and the somewhat anecdotal reflections of the historian emeritus Helmut Konrad, 30–31, to whose life work this volume is essentially dedicated). Another conspicuous facet of this monumental work is its near-exclusive focus on the inner-Austrian, German-language dimension of the field. The authors appear to have been selected exclusively from inner-Austrian contexts and the historiographies addressed focus predominantly on inner-Austrian research—a reference in the introduction (12) to the large number of German nationals in the field (including the two editors) notwithstanding. This appears strange considering the significant number of individuals and institutions outside Austria, especially in the English-speaking world, specializing in modern Austrian history, culture, and society, including a number of leading publications such as this very journal (despite its traditional focus on literary scholarship, JAS does regularly touch on key issues in contemporary Austrian history, too). This struck me especially with regard to my own area of specialization, namely modern Jewish history in Austria. Following decades of silence and erasure in the aftermath of the Holocaust, scholarly interest in Jewish Austrian history was reignited in the 1980s by a range of English-language scholars such as Marsha Rozenblit, George Berkley, Robert...

David Marsh. Giannozzo Manetti: The Life of a Florentine Humanist.

The Italian magistrate and scholar Giannozzo Manetti (1396–1459) was celebrated by his peers as one of the most significant intellectuals of his time. He belonged to the circle of major Renaissance humanists such as Leonardo Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini, Francesco Filelfo, and Lorenzo Valla. However, despite his contemporary reputation, and despite the long-lasting success of his treatise De dignitate et excellentia hominis [On the Dignity and Excellence of Man], completed in 1453 and embraced as a programmatic manifesto of Renaissance humanism, most of Manetti’s extensive literary work has been covered by the veil of oblivion. There is no doubt of the renewed interest in Manetti among Renaissance scholars today, as recent editions and translations of his work and the publication of a series of scholarly studies demonstrate. Nevertheless, a comprehensive intellectual biography of Manetti’s life and work has so far been missing, at least in the English-speaking world. David Marsh’s Giannozzo Manetti: The Life of a Florentine Humanist is, for that reason, a most welcome contribution.

Olanda

Polish literature in English translation has been experiencing a golden age since the turn of the last century. Around 2000, there began a veritable explosion of new translations appearing on the English-language market. This includes works by older authors such as Gombrowicz and Pankowski, post-communist authors such as Tokarczuk and Stasiuk, and even new millennium authors like Masłowska and now Rafał Wojasińśki. Charles S. Kraszewski's translation of Wojasiński's Olanda presents the Anglophone world a work that is both complex and yet approachable at the same time: a joy to read and a challenge to analyze. Though a work of prose, its language is highly poetic, but a poetry that never falls into esotericism. With Olanda, Wojasiński performs a sleight of hand, making readers believe that he has presented us a collection of disparate tales in different genres; by the end, however, they are revealed to be a single, uniform story.In the presence of such an excellent critical introduction as translator Kraszewski provides to start the book, a review seems rather superfluous. Indeed, his essay, entitled “Scattered Bones Beneath the Juniper Tree,” makes the reviewer's job nearly impossible as his analysis, while perhaps not completely comprehensive, certainly illuminates the text in superbly insightful ways. The analytical channels Kraszewski follows in his examination mainly explore the metaphysical themes of the book. He argues for a universalist reading of Olanda, stating at one point, “Anybody might act a certain way in a given situation; in this way, Rafał Wojasiński superimposes our own faces on those of his ghostly characters” (p. 16). Kraszewski sees in Olanda a reflection of the wider world and, ultimately the entirety of human existence. In his analysis, for example, he brilliantly uses a song by the rock band Typefighter to support this notion of the universal aspect of Wojasiński's work. Though I am uncertain of his classification of the band as “grunge,” I am wholly convinced of his analysis.The book is nominally a collection, made up of the novella Olanda, several short stories—one an epistolary story in diary form—and finally the radio play “Old Man Kalina” from 2018. Except for “Old Man Kalina,” however, the anthological quality of the text is ultimately illusory. The six short stories that follow Olanda continually lead the reader back to the novella. One of the most important themes that connects the pieces is the long shadow of history that haunts the narrative. Specters of the various tragedies of twentieth-century Poland create a dark frame for the story(ies) that keeps the work grounded in the material while at the same time engaging in its philosophical meditations on the human condition. He describes furniture as “post-German” (p. 39)—meaning post-occupation—recalls a memory of listening to a speech by Gierek on the radio (p. 55), and at one point asks, “What was God thinking, when they were gassing children in the death camps?” (p. 108). As with much of Polish literature, it is difficult, if not impossible, to step out of history.Though the short stories are important to a complete analysis of the “collection,” the titular novella that opens the book is certainly the centerpiece. The narrative mainly consists of a monologue, the narrator speaking to the character Olanda, who has no real lines. The only seeming exception to this occurs when the narrator asks Olanda to read to him from his great-grandfather's notebook—a kind of found text within the story—which ends with the words “vale,” a nod to Don Quixote, the original experimental text. Of course, these words are not Olanda's own, but as readers we are supposed to assume she is speaking them.Olanda subverts the Aristotelian “beginning-middle-end” model of narrative, relying instead on a Deleuzian rhizomatic approach. Each chapter is given neither any numerical designation nor individual title. Instead, the title of every chapter is simply “The Next Chapter.” The reader then, if it weren't for pagination, would never truly know where within the narrative they are reading. Every “Next Chapter” could be the first, last, or indeed a middle chapter of the story. I challenge readers to read the piece “rhizomatically,” picking each “Next Chapter” randomly, including where they begin and end the story. The supposed ending of the novella, an ending only in the sense that it is the final chapter as far as page order is concerned, actually forces the reader to circle back to the “middle” of the text. The “final” lines of the text read: Count MarekI've bestowed that title upon myself, because I feel I have the right to. (p. 80)This leads the reader to the end of the narrator's great-grandfather's notebook which reads: Count R.I've bestowed the title of count upon myself. Considering the wealth I've accumulated, the manor, the lands I've won, I deserve it. (p. 47)The text then becomes a circle infinitely collapsing back on itself.The epistle that ends the original Polish text, “Hiacynt,” is particularly interesting. It is the diary of one Stanisław Hiacynt, as we learn at the end, with each section demarcated by a day of the week. The month and days of the month, however, are missing. For those readers who are cursed with memory two authors instantly come to mind when tackling this story; Nietzsche and Gombrowicz. The daily entries, sometimes as short as a sentence or two and rarely longer than a paragraph, recall Nietzsche's “philosophizing with a hammer” aphorisms; their tone is often equally dark. In Polish literature, the diary, of course, evokes the figure of Gombrowicz, the master of the genre. His three-volume diary remains the model for such texts. The last entry of Stanisław Hiacynt's diary seems to imply a kind of homage to Gombrowicz. In Volume 1 of Gombrowicz's diary, he famously opens with “Monday Me Tuesday Me,” and so on. Wojasiński turns this around a bit, as Hiacynt's final entry for Sunday reads, “My name is Stanisław Hiacynt. My name is Stanisław Hiacynt. [. . .] My name is Stanisław Hiacynt” (p.117). This simple sentence is repeated ten times in two paragraphs. The repetition represents a kind of neurotic need to shore up the narrator's identity and sense of self. However, if such repetition is indeed so necessary, it ends up revealing the actual instability of that selfhood.As the original Polish text has garnered Wojasińśki no small amount of praise in Poland—winning the Marek Nowakowski Literary Award in 2019—this translation is sure to do the same throughout the English-speaking world. It is both formally complex while remaining eminently readable. Any course on modern Polish literature would do well to include Olanda.

Translating (or not) a South American Philosopher

Abstract This study will consider translation as a tool to transfer ideas from Latin America to North America (and the rest of the English-speaking world). It will do so by exploring some of the paratextual strategies that have been employed in transmitting the ideas of Latin American philosophers to the English-speaking world. Specifically, it will rely on a case study, namely, the translation into English of the works of José Enrique Rodó, an important South American philosopher from the early twentieth century. The paper will outline Rodó’s work as translated into English, focusing not on the quality of the translated texts themselves but rather on what the translations were expected to do. As a way to understand their expected functions, the present study will describe the paratextual apparatuses that surround the translations. Such an analysis will rely on Gérard Genette’s work on paratexts to draw conclusions regarding the role of translation in the flow of ideas from the Global South to the Global North.

Adaptinking Tristram, or the Wunderkammer in the Flesh

The recent trend of literary tattoos, particularly popular in the English-speaking world, represents a new way of disseminating writers’ portraits, emblematic motifs, and textual fragments, on the body and online. Laurence Sterne’s already highly visual, highly quotable work is no exception. Based on a surprising encounter, this essay takes its cue from Tristram Shandy as an aesthetic object and explores how human skin can read like a blank page on which to reinscribe Sternean ink and its endless mobility.

Top Graduate Zhang Xie: The Earliest Extant Chinese Southern Play

Top Graduate Zhang Xie: The Earliest Extant Chinese Southern Play, translated and introduced by Regina S. Llamas, is another English translation of nanxi 南戲, or Southern Play, after The Lute: Kao Ming's P'i-p'a chi (1980). Unlike zaju 雜劇, or Yuan drama, and chuanqi 傳奇, or Ming drama, which have had a good number of English translations of their representative works and studies of their famous playwrights, such as Guan Hanqing 關漢卿 (ca. 1241–1320), Wang Shifu 王實甫 (ca. 1250–1337), Tang Xianzu 湯顯祖 (1550–1616), and Li Yu 李漁 (1611–1680), nanxi is much less known and studied in the English-speaking world. The term nanxi may surface as the predecessor of chuanqi in general histories of Chinese drama, or may be mentioned in discussions of Gao Ming's 高明 (ca. 1305–ca. 1371) Pipa ji 琵琶記;1 however, the scarceness of translated nanxi texts makes its thematic focuses, artistic forms, and dramatic conventions rather obscure to English readers. With the publication of Top Graduate, an effort to fill this gap has been made thanks to Llamas, who not only translated this fifty-three-act-long play but also provided an extensive scholarly introduction that deals with most of the important issues related to nanxi and the play in question.Top Graduate is a typical nanxi that deals with an ungrateful civil service examination passer betraying his virtuous wife, who shared his hard lot before his career success. The play starts with the male protagonist, Zhang Xie 張協, a young scholar of humble origins from Chengdu 成都 Prefecture of Sichuan 四川 Province, leaving home and traveling to the imperial capital for the examination by trekking through rugged hills and unruly waters. Zhang loses his money and is beaten black-and-blue when a bandit robs him at Wuji 五磯 Mountain. Guided by the mountain god, Zhang seeks shelter in the mountain temple, where he meets a poor lass named Wang, who nurses him to recovery. In a moment of gratefulness Zhang marries Wang, but he regrets doing so immediately after he recovers and decides to continue his pursuit of officialdom through examination. For now Poorlass Wang has become an encumbrance on his way to power and social ascendancy. After Zhang Xie passes the most advanced level of the examination as a top graduate (zhuangyuan 狀元), he is offered the hand of Military Commissioner Wang Deyong's 王德用 daughter, Shenghua 勝花, for marriage, but his careless refusal of this marriage causes Shenghua's death and turns the military commissioner into his adversary. Zhang also drives away Poorlass Wang, who followed him to the capital for a reunion, and he even attempts to kill her on the route to his new official post. Coincidently, Poorlass Wang is saved by the military commissioner and his wife, who then adopt her as their daughter. In an attempt to make peace with the military commissioner Wang, Zhang Xie proposes to Wang's adoptive daughter, who turns out to be none other than his “husk wife” (zaokangqi 糟糠妻), Poorlass Wang. When the curtain falls, the story seems to end “happily,” for the male and female protagonists are reunited, the adversity between Zhang Xie and the military commissioner is resolved, and the woe of losing a daughter is mitigated by adopting another. However, rather than satisfied and persuaded, the reader is left with unsettled feelings and critical questions with the denouement. For instance, why is the ungrateful and heartless Zhang Xie not punished? What is the point of having Poorlass Wang remarry Zhang Xie, who even intended to kill her? What kinds of messages are delivered in such a story? And how is poetic justice carried out with a finale of a “grand happy reunion”? Conveniently, the translator provides some of the answers in her informative introduction.The subject of the ungrateful scholar occupies a large portion of the nanxi repertoire. In providing a historical context of Top Graduate in the introduction, Llamas indicates that the motif of the ungrateful scholar “was subsumed under the large category of marriage, which takes up one-third of the totality of extant nanxi plays, but the theme of the ungrateful scholar play prevails in popularity” (28). Revolving on the tension between career ambition and virtue, Top Graduate contains the main themes of the ungrateful scholar play. For one, a scholar's success in the examination hall does not reflect his moral integrity; on the contrary, the temptation of utilitarian gains such as status, power, and wealth may lead him astray, trampling ethical codes. Also, in the name of observing filial piety and bringing honor and prosperity to his family, a career pursuer often ends up abandoning his loved ones, pushing them to poverty or even death. Top Candidate features most of the same topics of the ungrateful scholar, and “yet these are woven through different developing lines” (38) that lead to a relatively happy ending rather than the severe punishment of the ungrateful scholar by divine power or a vengeful female (wife or lover) that one finds in other similar plays, particularly the very early ones.The reader of this translation is provided with two explanations for this difference. First, the treatment of synectics is at work in these plays, in that “the plays are not specific critiques of individual figures—in which scholars stand for a failed education system, and female characters stand for orthodox moral values” (29). The failure of the education system is broadly defined here; it includes not only the fact that the examination's only criterion of excellence is the knowledge of the Confucian texts (not the demonstration of his true ability and virtue), but also the problem that the moral downfall of the scholar can be caused by contradictory moral messages and corrupt bureaucracy. A scholar may feel compelled to get on the career path for the filial duty of “elevating the family's status” (gai menlü 改門閭), which ironically would make him deviate from the famous Confucian remark of “a son should not travel far when his parents are still alive” (fumu zai, bu yuanyou 父母在，不遠遊), neglecting his responsibility of providing and caring for his aged parents and family. The moment the scholar passes highly in the examination and steps through the door to the bureaucracy, he becomes a “good catch” in the eyes of high-ranking official families and their daughters and, more often than not, is forced to marry a daughter of nobility, abandoning his poor and virtuous wife. When the system is broken in multiple aspects and dimensions, anyone could be easily trapped in it. If Zhang Xie is portrayed as a more willing player of this failed system, Cai Yong 蔡邕 from Gao Ming's Pipa ji is depicted as an unwilling and unwitting one whose wrongdoings are all either unintentional or circumstantial. The ungrateful scholar cannot be excused and certainly should be chastised, but revenge aimed at one individual may not change the system, and the function of such a character is served when he guides the reader and audience to the failure of the system.The translator's second explanation for Top Graduate's rather moderate ending is the work of retribution (or requital) in the play. In premodern China, the belief in retribution was based on “the theory of the existence of a close relationship between heavenly and human actions.” “The retribution attitude consisted in expecting propitious and unpropitious events in relation to previous conduct, in expecting punishment or reward in the present life and after death (i.e. in the underworld and/or in successive reincarnations.”2 This belief was present in every aspect of Chinese society and, of course, was also reflected in Chinese literature, particularly in vernacular fiction and drama. For the ungrateful scholar play in nanxi, retribution serves as an underscored integral principle at work for dramatic development and moral caution. As explained by Llamas in her introduction, if some earlier nanxi punish the ungrateful scholar, Top Graduate rewards the virtuous wife: Poorlass Wang miraculously survives poverty, abandonment, and even attempted murder, and her former status of a gentry lady and her affluent lifestyle are returned to her when she is adopted into the military commissioner's family. She is even given a chance to pardon her husband, Zhang Xie, who repays her kindness with ingratitude. On the one hand, as the metonymic figure of “orthodox moral values” and the embodiment of heavenly retribution, her character delivers the message of “requiting injury with kindness”3 and forgiveness, while on the other hand, by praising and rewarding her, the play censures and reproves Zhang Xie, although indirectly and without severe consequences.In addition to the play's subject matter and its denouement, the eighty-eight-page-long introduction also deals with other aspects of Top Graduate, including its dating, authorship, prologues, and dramatic structure: scenes, roles, comedy, and music. This not only is a thorough and informative study of Top Graduate but also contributes valuable research on nanxi.A ten-page extensive and meticulous discussion is dedicated to the dating of the play. Llamas's translation is based on the play's edition included in the Yongle dadian 永樂大典 (Yongle Collectanea, 1408). As the earliest extant nanxi play, the dating of Top Graduate is entangled with the debate of nanxi's inception, traced back to the mid-sixteenth century, that has drawn much scholarly attention. There are two main theories regarding the appearance of nanxi, and one dates it in either the late Northern Song or mid-Southern Song dynasty, whereas the other dates it in the Yuan dynasty. The famous Ming litterateurs Wang Shizhen 王世貞 (1526–1590) and Xu Wei 徐渭 (1521–1593) supported the Song dates, and the modern scholar Qian Nanyang 錢南揚 (1899–1987) seconded this viewpoint with some internal evidence from the text of Top Graduate. The proponents of a Yuan date, including the Japanese scholar Aoki Masaru 青木正兒 (1887–1964) and the Korean scholar Yang Hoi-seok 梁會錫, “have based their research mostly on the discussion of the tune titles and possible dates of composition” (12–16). The tunes from Top Graduate “appear in six southern formularies from the Ming to the Qing” (14), including the reputable Huizuan yuanpu nanqu jiugong zhengshi 彙纂元譜南曲九宮正始 (Compilations of Yuan Formulary of the Correct Original Nine Southern Modes) by Xu Qingqing 徐慶卿 (1574–1636) and Niu Shaoya 鈕少雅 (1563–1661), who dated Top Graduate to the Yuan dynasty. However, to Llamas, the dating of Top Graduate as the determinate play for the inception of nanxi “is largely built on incidental and conjectural evidence” (17), as the previous studies overlooked the process of creation or “the inherent protean nature of the theater and the mutability of its dramatic texts” (11). As evidenced by Zang Maoxun's 臧懋循 (1550–1620) editorial effort of canonizing Yuan zaju, Llamas adds, “We would have to take into account an established tradition of revision, adaptation, and expansion of earlier stories to new genres, as well as the inherent instability of dramatic texts prone to practice of rewriting and revision” (16).As informed by the translator, very little information is available about the author of Top Graduate, Nine Mountain Society (Jiushan Shuhui 九山書會). Shuhui, a kind of writing guild consisting of literati and artists of low social standing in the Song and Yuan dynasties, claimed authorship for some early Chinese dramas. Generally, only scanty references to such groups of writers can be found in plays and Song dynasty memoirs. However, in Top Graduate, the author has a distinct presence not only in the two prologues but also in some acts of the play. The authorial voice (delivered by both mo 末 and sheng 生 roles) in the prologues “describes a troupe in an urban competition, promoting an original spectacle that promises, above all else, to make them [the audience] laugh and keep them entertained” (23). There are also self-referential allusions and/or messages in the play proper that indicate the author either “had a clear understanding of the form” (1) of nanxi or attempted embedding “the name of the member of the writing society responsible for the play” (18).In the remaining part of the introductory discussion, the reader is provided with some specific features of Top Graduate. For instance, the play's text in the Yongle Collectanea was “not divided into acts,” and it was only done so “according to the entrance and exit of roles” by Qian Nanyang more than five hundred years later (43). Unlike zaju and chuanqi, the play as an archetypal nanxi lacks keys and modes (gongdiao 宮調), which may mean “a freedom from the normative strictures these keys and modes seem to have involved” (84–85). The play is uniquely introduced with two prologues by both mo and sheng roles, and the first prologue contains a short piece of All Keys (zhugongdiao 諸宮調), a form of chantefable popular in the Song, Jin, and Yuan times. The plot development follows the two parallel threads of Zhang Xie and Poorlass Wang, juxtaposed with each other; and humor and comic routine, as requisite of Southern plays, are significantly present in the play and “inherent to its structure” (62). In addition, Llamas's in-depth discussion on roles in relation to Top Graduate in particular and to the classical Chinese drama in general will be very helpful to her readers. Llamas indicates there are seven roles (sheng, dan 旦, jing 淨, mo, chou 丑, wai 外, and tie 貼)4 in Top Graduate, and among them “the sheng as the main male role appears for the first time in this play” (54). Characters are always introduced by their role type, and cross-gender performance is common in that “actors can play both male and female roles” (57). Three role types—jing, chou, and mo—play comic routines in the play: while a jing or chou cracks a joke, the mo responds and caps it, and the mo also “constantly reminds the crowd of the comic role's ill-judged and foolish actions” (66). Moreover, one finds Llamas's explanation on the relation of actors, roles, and characters quite illuminating, as it states that “roles mediate between the actor and the character the actor plays,” and “the relationship between the actor and the role is one of skill: it refers to the sets of competences an actor needs to represent a certain character (or groups of characters with the same traits) on stage,” while “the relationship between the role and the character, in contrast, is determined by how the role makes use of this set of acquired skills to present the character (or type's) temperament” (59).Llamas has done a wonderful job of translating the Chinese play text into English. Although Top Graduate is written in standard vernacular, not in local dialect (Wenzhou 溫州 dialect in this case), the play contains a large portion of colloquial expressions that are rather obscure to a modern translator. As the earliest extant nanxi play, Top Graduate is close to the folk tradition in aesthetics and language; thus, the choice of the language register in English should be able to reflect these features. Llamas's translation is clear, smooth, and readable, providing her readers with a pleasant and enjoyable reading experience. In addition to the translated play text and the introduction, the book includes some other paratexts, such as “Dramatis Personae,” “Synopsis of Acts,” “Roles in Acts,” and annotations/notes that are also helpful for reading and understanding the play. If the translated play text attracts both general readers and students of Chinese literature, the introduction mainly targets the latter. The introduction, to be a little nitpicky, is long-winded and overly ambitious to include all of the important aspects of Top Graduate and nanxi. A reader could easily be put off by such a long scholarly deliberation before reading the play proper. A possible alternative to this is to only deal with the play's subject matter and its artistic treatments in the introduction and then place the other scholarly discussions, such as the debates on dating and authorship and the investigation of generic conventions such as roles and music, in appendices after the play text.

Shaw the Fighter (Bernard Shaw and the Censors. Fights and Failures, Stage and Screen)

The subtitle of Bernard Dukore’s latest book, Bernard Shaw and the Censors, points to its astonishingly comprehensive scope. Shaw’s skirmishes with censors and the impact of censorship on his plays are its leitmotif, but along the way Dukore has also provided an overview of print, stage, and film censorship that opens with Pope Paul IV’s Index of Prohibited Books of 1559 and closes with the Theatres Act of 1968, which abolished stage censorship in the United Kingdom—and which received the Royal Assent, he observes, on Shaw’s birthday. Throughout, Shaw’s clashes with various individuals and organizations are examined within their socio-politico-cultural context. A tall order masterfully executed.“This book,” writes Dukore, “is . . . primarily about Shaw the Fighter,” one who, in his valiant campaigns against censorship, “sometimes won but usually did not.” Which is not surprising, given the power and influence wielded by his adversaries, among them the Lord Chamberlain (Shaw dubbed him “the Malvolio of St James’s Palace”) and his Examiner of Plays (“the most powerful man in England or America”), Catholic Action (whose objections prevented Twentieth Century Fox from filming Shaw’s 1934 screenplay of Saint Joan), and the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, founded in 1873 by the morally upright (and clearly uptight) Anthony Comstock, America’s first federally appointed censor. His name entered the language in 1905 when Shaw coined the word “Comstockery,” defined by Merriam-Webster as “1. strict censorship of materials considered obscene” and “2. censorious opposition to alleged immorality (as in literature).” Comstock is responsible for alerting the police to Arnold Daly’s October 1905 New York production of Mrs Warren’s Profession (“which he neither read nor saw,” notes Dukore), which was shut down after a single performance.It may be no exaggeration to state that almost all of Shaw’s censorship issues stemmed from his plays’ “alleged immorality.” However, as Shaw wrote in 1891 in his Quintessence of Ibsenism, “Immorality does not necessary imply mischievous conduct: it implies conduct . . . which does not conform to current ideals.” Commenting on this passage, Dukore reminds us that “Shaw’s admission that Ibsen’s plays were immoral was and would continue to be unfortunate, therefore bound to fail, since what registered more on many of his readers . . . was the adjective rather than his definition of immorality.” Hence Shaw’s protracted confrontations with, for example, Edward F. Smyth Pigott, Examiner of Plays from 1874 to 1895 (“a walking compendium of vulgar insular prejudice”), and his successor, former bank manager George Alexander Redford, who, wrote Shaw, “is not appointed to make the theatre moral, but solely to prevent its having any effect on public opinion.” In his 1898 Preface to Plays Pleasant, Shaw excoriated the Examiner of Plays “who robs, insults, and suppresses me.” One should note, however, that the actions of the Examiner of Plays, writes Dukore (quoting Samuel Hynes), “‘angered only a minority of intellectuals’ but were approved by the majority of the upper and middle classes.”Dukore describes at length how Pigott, Redford, and assorted other expurgators set to work suppressing, among other plays, Mrs Warren’s Profession (for prostitution, procuring, and possible incest) and The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet (for promiscuity and blasphemy). Even film versions of Shaw’s works were either prevented from reaching thecinema—Shaw’s own screen adaptation of Saint Joan was never filmed—or, if they did, were severely cut by the Hollywood censors, as with Pygmalion and Major Barbara: the latter’s 7 April 1941 London world première was 121 minutes long, while its New York’s 14 May première lasted 115 minutes. The film, writes Dukore, was then “mutilated throughout the English-speaking world,” with further cuts made when it went to British provincial cinemas. Shaw called this “sabotage.”In his perennial struggle to defend himself against charges of “alleged immorality,” Shaw’s greatest adversary was, in a word, legislation. Dukore outlines the provisions of the Licensing Act of 1737—which gave control of the stage to an official of the Royal Household, who appointed two Examiners of Plays, who in turn proposed whether the Lord Chamberlain should license them—and those of the even more pernicious Theatre Regulation Act of 1843, which, writes Dukore, “authorized the Examiner of Plays to ban . . . performances of a play which might contain anything immoral or improper; indecent in costume, dance or gesture; offensive to living persons; or capable of producing riots or breaches of the peace.” It would take 125 years for the Act to be rescinded, when it was repealed by the Theatres Act of 1968.Challenging these legal restrictions were two parliamentary committees on stage censorship, the proceedings of which are detailed by Dukore. One was the 1892 Select Committee of the House of Commons (Shaw was not invited to testify), in which Pigott protested the use of the term “censor” as evoking “the Star Chamber and the Inquisition” (Shaw may not have disagreed!). The other was the 1909 Joint Select Committee of the House of Lords and the House of Commons (Shaw’s statement was rejected). In the latter, those in favor of censorship included actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, William S. Gilbert (of Mikado fame) and Henry Irving’s manager Bram Stoker (of Dracula fame). Opposed were J. M. Barrie, Israel Zangwill, William Archer, Harley Granville Barker, and Shaw, the latter arguing (in his rejected statement) that “Whatever is contrary to established manners and customs is immoral,” and that “every advance in thought and conduct is by definition immoral until it has converted the majority.” Moreover, although “morality is extremely valuable to society,” it “is not dependent on censorship for protection. It is already powerfully fortified by the magistracy and the whole body of law. . . . It is immorality, not morality, that needs protection: it is morality, not immorality, that needs restraint.” Shaw went on at some length in that contentious vein.Shaw continued to bemoan the nefarious effects of censorship well into his nineties. “I was branded as a pornographic author and suffered heavy loss and discredit in consequence,” he wrote in The Times on 7 April 1949; and in his preface to Farfetched Fables (dated “1948–9”), he summed up his many fights and failures over a very long career: “As a playwright I was held up as an irreligious pornographer, and as a public enemy, not to say a thoroughpaced cad, for many years by an irresponsible censorship which could not be challenged in parliament or elsewhere.”Thanks to Dukore (and contra GBS), we now have a detailed record of Shaw’s many challenges to that “irresponsible censorship.” Like Dukore’s Crimes and Punishments and Bernard Shaw (2017), Bernard Shaw and the Censors is a volume in Palgrave Macmillan’s ongoing “Bernard Shaw and His Contemporaries” series. Thoroughly researched and scrupulously annotated, it joins Bernard Dukore’s many other Shaw monographs—which explore facets ranging from screenplays and cinema to dramaturgy and dramatic criticism—all of them distinguished and indispensable contributions to Shaw scholarship.

Small Words, Big Picture

This study attempts to analyse the stylistic and cultural role of diminutives using examples from the short story collection The Last Wish by A. Sapkowski. With the rising popularity of the computer game series as well as the Netflix series based on The Witcher Saga, so rose the interest of the English-speaking world in the Slavic culture. The role of diminutives can present a serious linguistic and cultural barrier for any translator as they may or may not be present in the translator’s native tongue. Translating a text to a language in which diminutives play a significantly smaller role than in the original requires not only a robust lexical knowledge, but also the ability to express each of the four distinct functions of diminutives in an appropriate manner. The method chosen for this study involves compiling all the diminutives and hypocorisms from a given short story and comparing them with corresponding phrases chosen by the translator, as well as evaluating the techniques used and providing alternatives where applicable. The authors believe that a close look at the translation of diminutives will allow the public to fully appreciate the depth and nuance of meaning characterising the work steeped in Polish and Slavic tradition to such extent. 

Norms, language-specific meanings and schemas. A Coserian perspective on contemporary concepts in linguistics

Eugenio Coseriu’s (1921–2002) seminal contributions to linguistic theory went largely unnoticed in mainstream linguistic research in the English-speaking world. This paper discusses three concepts that have loomed large in present-day linguistics and were already addressed in the work of Coseriu. The paper focuses on the question whether Coseriu’s contributions might be a stepping stone to establishing synergies with current strands of linguistic research, also with a view to determining the topicality of Coseriu’s approach to concepts that are at the centre of ongoing discussion. The three concepts dealt with in the paper are: 1) Coseriu’s well-established theory of language norms against the backdrop of the (Neo-)Gricean pragmatic theory of generalised conversational implicatures and default inferences; 2) Coseriu’s detailed exposition of schematic meanings in syntax and word formation as compared to cognitive approaches within the frameworks of Construction Grammar and Construction Morphology; 3) Coseriu’s elaborate account of general language-specific meanings (G. “Bedeutungen”, Fr. “signifiés”, Sp. “significados”) in light of recent developments in psycholinguistic research which focuses on the role of semantic underspecification in meaning representations. The paper argues that Coseriu’s work has the potential to offer solutions for a number of as yet unresolved issues in the study of pragmatics, syntax, word formation and semantics.

Special tactical police’ experience and perception of their use of force: Evidence from the Chinese SWAT police

Abstract Despite an increasing amount of literature on police use of force, special tactical police—the specialists in the infliction of force within police forces—remains understudied, especially outside of the English-speaking world. Based on 23 semi-structured interviews and 22 days of ethnographic observation, this exploratory study aims to understand how special tactical police officers in China experience and perceive their own use of force. What are the common situations giving rise to their use of force and how do they process the moral repugnance of having to inflict force on people? Amongst others, this study found that moral ambivalence is not uncommon, especially among those routinely deployed to crowd-control situations. Two ‘coping’ mechanisms were identified via which experienced officers managed to integrate conflicting moral perspectives: by holding up faith in the decision-making at higher levels and the ‘larger collective good’ served by their use of force, or by dismissing their personal perspectives as irrelevant and ‘disengaged’ from the moral deliberation process. Implications were discussed.

Chinese universities’ experience of social education, 1912–1949

During the Republican era, when China faced internal and external difficulties and was impoverished, social education was considered crucial to revive and strengthen the country. After social education was introduced to China from the West, many universities participated in social education and became the main promoters and implementers of social education, giving it localized characteristics. Thus far, there remains a void in the social education of Chinese universities in the English-speaking world. The present study explores the historical motivations for universities in the Republic of China (ROC) to join the wave of social education development from 1912 to 1949. Herein, Yenching University, Jiangsu Provincial College of Education, National Sun Yat-Sen University, and National North-West United University were selected for case studies to demonstrate the methods and achievements of social work, literacy, political, and life education through the establishment of rural experimental areas. The “university experimental area” model of education created by universities differs from other models and reflects a close relationship between the university and the state and society. This model makes up for the shortage of foreignization, aristocracy, and urbanization of school education within the specific time and space. Moreover, the model enriches the connotation of “ education throughout society”. In addition, the social education experiences of universities in ROC provide a valuable solution for exploring rural education, rural renewal, social construction, and national governance. Furthermore, it is one of the historical preludes of China’s rural revitalization strategy in the new era as well as a practical reference for countries in the world with similar problems.

Some Would Call This Living

This anthology of thirty shorter works by Herman Bang, conceived in response to the unjust neglect of his œuvre in the English-speaking world, aims to remedy this neglect by offering a representative selection of stories (thirteen), journalistic and autobiographical writings (sixteen), as well as a portrait of the internationally famous late nineteenth-century French actress Sarah Bernhardt.Poul Houe's introduction informs about these works and their author within the context of what has become known as the Modern Breakthrough in Scandinavia, initiated by the Danish critic Georg Brandes in 1871.The title chosen for this anthology not only alludes to Herman Bang's work; it also triggers a thought process in the readers about the situations Bang confronts them with. Bang's insight into the human character, his fine sense for the balance of tragic and comic aspects of the human condition and of social reality as he encountered them at home and abroad, often find expression in perceptive images. These are captured very well, maintaining their effect in the translation. Occasionally, one could make a case for a different choice in translating, as for instance, in the story “Irene Holm,” concerning the clothing of the title character. In the translation, she is wearing “a leather beret” (p. 127), which should rather be “a fur beret” (Skindbaret), in keeping with her style of clothing, as she has a “coat with fur trimmings” (p. 127).The translations reveal Bang's mastery in portraying the tension between quiet suffering and a character's remarkable resilience in holding on to a place in society with a modicum of dignity, or the intense but futile effort that leads other characters to capitulate when faced with reality. Bang's passion for the theater, visible in his narrative, is rendered into English with the liveliness of the Danish original, doing justice to Bang's psychological insight that can voice itself tongue-in-cheek or in outright satirical imagery, particularly in the banquet scenes of his stories. Examples, such as “A Lovely Day” and “The Ravens,” provide an impression of the range Bang covers in this regard, and of the subtle, contrasting undercurrents he lets shine through the open gaiety and performance of his characters. Such qualities are a challenging task for the translator, further augmented when Bang blends genres by including poems and songs. A case in point is the story “A Tale of Happiness.” Here, the translator, Charlotte Barslund, found elegant solutions suitable to the time and spirit of the original. The chosen substitution of the refrain in the song “Daisy Bell” for the Danish original's nursery rhyme “Hønsefødder og Gulerødder” especially reflects how the choice accounts for the complexity that needs to be conveyed by the song in view of its significance for the story. Whereas the two-stanza nursery rhyme of the original contains a variation in point of view—the first stanza expresses a marriage proposal by the woman, here sung by Frøken Alice, the second by the man, here sung by Axel Berner—the one-stanza refrain of “Daisy Bell,” by contrast, is a man's proposal. However, in the translation of Bang's story, it is sung first by Frøken Alice and, in response, repeated by Axel Berner, who thereby accepts the proposal and also makes it his own. From the same decade, both “Daisy Bell” (1892) and Bang's story (1898) not only capture the same joyful spirit but also point to changing times. Just as Frøken Alice, like a refreshing breeze, livens up the entrenched hierarchical structure in her father's mansion and, undeterred, turns the house into the place for an impromptu festive ball that includes the domestic staff as guests and sets the scene for her engagement, the “bicycle built for two” becomes the symbol of a modern, modest but less conventional way of life.That Herman Bang saw his times at the threshold to a socially more just and more humane society that, in order to be achieved, required individual effort and concerted action, is evident from his journalistic and autobiographical works. His articles, primarily from his work for the Copenhagen daily Nationaltidende, but also from other venues, show Bang's broad range of subjects. Work on these articles constituted an invaluable learning experience for him, providing insights that informed his fictional works. With a focus on the close proximity of wealth and utter misery, of upper and lower classes in the city, Bang immersed himself in situations, at times extreme, in order to create awareness among his readers of untenable social conditions, bringing them face-to-face with graphic depictions of the daily reality of the poor who live in dark, unheated, damp, and crowded quarters without proper clothing and on the brink of starvation (“Visiting the Poor before Christmas”). At the same time, he reported on an individual's commitment to remedy such situations, making clear that more comprehensive efforts on the part of society are needed (“The House with the Happy Faces”). Bang did not shy away from taking personal risks, for instance, when he volunteered in the 1884 fire that destroyed Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen. While describing the danger from within and outside the burning building, the collective rescue efforts and powerlessness, he also took note of the horrifying beauty of the flames (“The Fire”).Bang's journalism and autobiographical writings include a breadth of subject matter and a multitude of perspectives that draw a complex picture of his times, be it the rise of the modern department store with its implications for commerce and changing conditions for workers (“‘Magasin du Nord’”); the range of people from different classes and nations on board an emigrant ship bound for New York and their prospects for a sometimes rather uncertain future (“On ‘Thingvalla’”); the intensity of the Atlantic crossing in a snowstorm (“By Ship across the Atlantic”); or the satirical depiction of the Prussian rulers, especially Prince Wilhelm (who, a few years later, became Emperor Wilhelm II), which led to Bang being followed by the secret police across various German-speaking states, as well as to further articles in which he reported on his experiences with the authorities that deserve the term “Kafkaesque” (“Letter from Herman Bang”; “Expelled from Germany”). The anthology concludes with Herman Bang's impressions of America written after his arrival in New York and a few days before he died in Utah on his train journey to San Francisco. In connection with the piece on “‘Magasin du Nord,’” it would have been instructive to include Bang's article on the situation of the seamstresses (“Syerskernes Fest”).Overall, it is evident that much care was taken to achieve a thoughtfully balanced volume that benefitted from the cooperation with The Danish Bang Society and The Danish Society for Language and Literature. The pieces from the various genres complement each other to form a representative introduction to Herman Bang's works. They show his commitment throughout his production—a commitment to penetrate the surface of society and focus on the many facets of life, on the underreported and underestimated, and on the often harshly neglected members of society, whose plight he reveals or sharply accentuates, at times through another person's friendly gesture or an act of kindness.The notes for the various pieces provide useful information about sources, local settings, historical characters, and places, as well as translations of the foreign-language phrases Bang intersperses at times. Among the notes, some minor oversights can be noted. In the text of the story “Her Highness,” the mention that Maria Carolina might as well be sent to Eisenstein at this time (p. 95), does not so much point to a town but rather it implies the Foundation for Unmarried Women into which she later moves. The note for page 95 (found on p. 435) would have benefitted from a cross-reference to the note for page 121 (found on p. 436), to clarify the early hint that signifies how Maria Carolina's value is assessed and foreshadows the later development. Incidentally, the same Foundation is the central location in another of Bang's stories, “Otto Heinrich,” which is not part of this volume. Regarding “A Lovely Day: A Tale from a Corner of Life,” the note for page 156: “lustiges Nest” (found on p. 438), refers to the small town, not to the present company as a “merry gathering,” strictly speaking. However, insofar as the party guests are representatives of the town assembled for the guest of honor, the reference does include them. In the note for page 159 (found on p. 438) about the Princess Trubetzkoy, the reference to the story's small-town location should be Finland, not Denmark. For better orientation in “A Tale of Happiness,” it would have been helpful to include in the note for Eremitage races (note for p. 226 on p. 440) that the forest park of Dyrehaven is located at the northern edge of Copenhagen.Herman Bang, the perceptive observer of the theater of life, witnessed it with a twinkle in one eye and a tear in the other and portrayed it with that delicate balance between comic and tragic aspects in the lives of his characters. To transfer Bang's art in spirit, style, and atmosphere into English and convey the sentiment and mentality of time and place with the appropriate linguistic nuances for a particular social setting is no small challenge, but which, in this selection of his works, has been met with remarkable commitment and execution.The anthology is a welcome introduction to an author's works that in many ways resonate with our times. A desirable follow-up would be more new translations of his novels.