Issues Of Genre Research Articles

Plotting History: The Russian Historical Novel in the Imperial Age by Dan Ungurianu (review)

REVIEWS 533 attributes toLermontov's post-romanticism can be discerned in aspects of our own postmodern condition (the book's final sub-section is indeed entided Tost-Romanticism in Postmodern Perspective'). Perhaps it is this factor that has brought Lermontov so visibly to the attention ofRussianists of late, although scholars such as Vladimir Golstein (Lermontov's Narratives of Heroism, Evanston, IL, 1999) and David Powelstock [Becoming Mikhail Lermontov:The Ironies ofRomantic Individualism in Nicholas Ps Russia, Evanston, IL, 2005) have preferred issues of self-presentation and the relationship between author and text to the issues of genre, typology and period that engage Allen's attention. In fact, throughout A Fallen Idol isStill a God,Allen frequendy focuses in detail on thework of previous critics.Yet this is not (merely) about demonstrating her familiaritywith existing traditions of scholarship and establishing the originality of her own approach. Rather, she mines the work of others ? whether in agreement or disagreement ? in order to demonstrate not somuch themultiplicity of interpretations that any literarywork necessarily invites, but rather the very ambivalence (and what she also terms anomie) that is integral to Lermontov's oeuvre. Just as Allen facilitates the reader's grasp of existing scholarship, she also defdy situates Lermontov more generally within the contexts of European Romanticism, something thatwill make her book ofparticular interest to comparativists (and not just in the field ofRussian studies). At just over 200 pages, this is not an especially long book, but it is as multifaceted and thought-provoking as many more extended works (and thus reveals a perhaps accidental affinitywith Lermontov's own writing). Written with clarity and grace, and including Russian poetic texts in both translation and the original, A Fallen Idol isStill a God testifies,notwithstanding our own postmodern anxieties about the value of culture and the judgement of taste, to why we continue to care about reading. Wadham College, Oxford Philip Ross Bullock Ungurianu, Dan. Plotting History: The Russian HistoHcal Novel in theImperialAge. The University ofWisconsin Press, Madison, WI and London, 2007. xii + 335 pp. Illustrations. Appendices. Notes. Works cited. Index. $65.00. An exceedingly well-produced and richly informative study of an aspect of the pre-revolutionary Russian novel that has received litde specific attention in previous works on the subject, Dan Ungurianu's PlottingHistory can be regarded as masterly. It is not, stricdy speaking, a chronological study, as ismade clear in the Introduction. It centres on the 'change of literary and cultural paradigms' discernible in the periods of romanticism, realism and earlymodernism, arguably because 'each of these periods produced its own distinct type of historical novel, defined primarily by itscontemporary context rather than by the inertia of or polemic against the genre's tradition' (p. 9). This approach, however contentious, is largely justified by the succeeding chapters. 534 SEER, 88, 3, JULY 20I0 Beginning in the 1830s and 1840s, historical novels (exact definition of the genre is impossible) were churned out. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, for instance, advertised a samovar-propelled machine for theirmass production. Walter Scott was themodel even ifhis influencewas disputed or his reputed impar tiality not emulated, as Professor Ungurianu discusses in dealing with the varied works ofLazhechnikov, Polevoi, Zagoskin and Bulgarin. Chapter three offersan admirable outline of the attitudes of authors in the age ofRomanti cism to such issues as nationalism or the role of the peasantry. But what sparked Professor Ungurianu's interest in the historical novel as a subject for study is soon revealed inhis enthusiastic review ofThe Captain'sDaughter, along with Taras Bulba, the classic works thathave most conspicuously survived from the past. Pushkin's treatment of history is examined in exemplary detail. Naturally theTolstoyan contribution to the subject has to have a central place. IfA. K. Tolstoi's Prince Serebryanyis described as 'arguably Russia's finest romantic historical novel' (p. 99), then L. N. Tolstoi's 'book' is treated quite justifiably as a new kind of historical novel, whose novelty isbest under stood by the negative reactions to it.One such reaction was that ofAvraam Norov, a young officer in 1812 at Borodino (at the remarkably young age of 17, it seems!), who claimed thatWar andPeace contained lapses, but this study insists that 'nowhere [...] can one find...

Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, 1750–1850 (review)

Reviewed by: Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, 1750–1850 Roxanne Eberle Devoney Looser , Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, 1750–1850. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. 252 pp. In Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, Devoney Looser suggests that examining the late careers of British women writers is a necessarily "compensatory gesture" for nineteenth-century critics who have focused upon issues of gender and genre without paying adequate attention to the significance of aging, particularly given the notably long lives of many of their literary subjects. As she trenchantly observes, "We have, for more than a century, comprehended the late lives of early modern British women writers too rosily, too darkly, or more often, not at all" (178). Looser unapologetically identifies the source of such misrepresentation and neglect as "ageism, whether malignant or benign" (168), and identifies some of the larger repercussions of disregarding the total arc of a literary career. Close analysis of the lives and works of nineteenth-century women writers reveals fissures — or perhaps more accurately bridges — between literary periods constructed around the lives and careers of male writers. The careers of many women writers are often incommensurable with standard literary periodizations, as critics such as Susan Staves, Anne Mellor, and Isobel Armstrong have also noted. Maria Edgeworth and Frances Burney, often identified as "eighteenth-century writers," both lived and published into the Victorian period, and it would have been impossible for Austen to have acted upon Virginia Woolf's injunction to pay homage at Burney's grave, since she died nearly two decades before her "predecessor." While the fact of the nineteenth-century [End Page 414] woman writer's longevity has been noted, Looser's book makes a truly original contribution to a comparative study of several different women writers. Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain is written as a goad to other critics. Looser tends to ask questions rather than answer them, inviting her readers to follow avenues of study towards which she directs them. The exploratory nature of her critical methodology is evident throughout the volume: she examines the differences between the careers of several writers rather than construct a single unifying narrative. Indeed, she frequently refers to the chapters as "case studies," and she explores diverse perspectives on women writers and old age. As Looser notes, there was no single model for the aging professional woman writer in the nineteenth century, since it was only in mid-century that such a group came to be known: "These long-lived writers negotiated the literary marketplace early in their lives, during a time when women authors achieved greater visibility and, for some, greater respectability. Then, in their later years . . . these authors encountered a new set of complicated prejudices for which they were largely unprepared" (1). As Looser goes on to demonstrate, women writers chose various paths as they sought to sustain their cultural authority as authors, shape their posthumous reputations, or simply make enough money to guarantee themselves a relatively comfortable old age. Steadfastly committed to her contention that there is no single story to be told about old age and women writers, Looser synthesizes a variety of primary and secondary sources in order to construct a picture of the conflicting attitudes towards aging, gender, and authorship at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. She describes the multiple ways in which women writers responded to the range of unattractive representations of them in their culture, where they appear as rouged and bitter crones, benevolent and bespectacled wise women, or, more commonly perhaps, anachronistic nonentities. Much of the success of the Introduction, which is both compelling and persuasive, lies in its inclusion of a large group of women writers, ranging from Charlotte Lennox (whose prosperous career did not protect her from an impoverished old age) to Joanna Baillie (who publicly renounced writing for philanthropy) to Lady Morgan (who concealed her true age and refused to abandon an image of sexual desirability well into her eighties). The sweeping survey in the Introduction usefully situates the more detailed case studies that follow. In the first chapter of the volume, Looser contrasts...

On the Borders of the Page, on the Borders of Genre: Artificial Paratexts in Golden Age Detective Fiction

While the footnote in fiction has been explored in relation to specific agendas in different historical eras, 1 in relation to generic use, it has primarily been exam- ined as prefiguring or as one of the tropes of postmodernism. By examining the footnote in fiction in relation to issues of genre, we can explore the correlative sta- bility between the boundaries of the page and the boundaries of generic form. In the detective fiction genre, and particularly in the Golden Age clue-puzzle, 2 the foot- note in fiction specifically questions the role of genre in defining the boundaries be- tween our appreciation of reality and fiction, as can particularly be seen in the works of pseudonymous detective novelists S. S. Van Dine, Carter Dickson, and Ed- mund Crispin. The pseudonymous authorship of these detective series calls atten- tion not only to the notes' role in the fiction but also to the role of pseudonyms as fictional creations. Whereas in late twentieth-century literature attention to textual- ity is often assumed to undermine the realistic narrative frame, in the Golden Age detective novels the footnotes in the fiction reveal that acknowledged textuality can establish the realistic narrative frame while the notion of genre undermines it. Golden Age detective fiction is generally recognized for its clue-puzzle struc- ture, particularly as popular Golden Age authors like Van Dine propose that the de- tective novel is a complicated and extended puzzle cast in fictional (Detective Story 5). 3 Because the form foregrounds the puzzle element, the genre has developed rules of fair play that are meant to enable the reader equal oppor-

"Let's get those Winchesters pregnant": Male pregnancy in "Supernatural" fan fiction

This article investigates mpreg slash fiction—same-sex relationships featuring male pregnancy—based on the television series Supernatural, looking at issues of gender and genre. It has been argued that slash writing is a highly subversive and resisting activity, appropriating someone else's characters and rewriting the romance script to suit different tastes than those prescribed by patriarchy. Yet fan fic texts are very diverse and it is difficult, if not impossible, to draw any general conclusions from them. The theme of male pregnancy has the potential to produce narratives that challenge our notions of gender, identity, sexual and social practices, as well as parenthood. Although the fan fiction I have analyzed all deals with these notions in various ways, the focus lies elsewhere. The authors of the texts focus more on exploring Sam and Dean as fathers and homemakers, on writing about family life, with all its traditional trappings. When the authors bring pregnancy into the equation, they draw on narrative and social conventions that follow this experience, resulting in conventional stories set in a very unconventional universe.

Hagiography and Community Formation: The Case of a Lost Community of Sixteenth-Century Vrindavan

This paper studies the link between hagiography and religious community formation, analysing how sectarian communities are 'imagined' in hagiography. The immediate purpose of this article is to look at hagiographies about the sixteenth-century Harirā mV yās to investigate why no sect formed around him, but how he instead came to be claimed by different sectarian groups. The more general relevance of this article lies in its methodology of how to read hagiographies as a literature subject to issues of genre, form and redaction criticism, and intertextuality, and in tracing how religious communities can be constructed and how they fail.

The ardiyyahs of Ibn al-Mu‘tazz: Breakthrough into Lyricism

AbstractThis study presents an analytical review of the genre of the “hunt-poem” (ardiyyah) at the hand of the ‘Abbāsid poet Ibn al-Mu‘tazz (d. 296/908). It is in this period that the genre of the ardiyyah reaches its second apogee after the great pioneering Abū Nuwās. After dealing with issues of genre and prosody (rajaz versus the qaīdah meters), the study focuses its critical attention on Ibn al-Mu‘tazz’s overcoming of the strictly formulaic opening lyrical phrasing of the majority of the ardiyyahs, especially as the genre was formalized by Abū Nuwās. It is in overcoming the limitations of the formulaism of Abū Nuwās, which does not do justice to the genre’s lyrical promise, that Ibn al-Mu‘tazz achieves his breakthrough into lyricism and a reinvigoration of the genre. Through a close reading and translation of the Arabic texts, the study presents a careful identification of the variants of lyricism in Ibn al-Mu‘tazz’s repertory of the ardiyyah genre.

Romantic Prose Fiction by Gerald Gillespie , Manfred Engel , Bernard Dieterle (review)

320 Reviews The letters tellthestory of howRuskin gradually madeovertherunning, management , and evenownership of Brantwood toJoannaand herhusband Arthur Severn. 'Letters from Ruskin toJoanhaveonlypreviously beenpublished as excerpts and are not generally availableforresearch'(p. 4). The editorsof theLibraryEditionof Ruskin's works included onlya handful of theseletters, and theyfailedto keepthe idiolect, perhaps outofconcern for Ruskin's reputation. Thisreviewer, likeDickinson, finds theletters endearing rather thanembarrassing. Forinstance, Ruskin writes that he'wants hisdimatotakecareofhismoney for him' (p.215).He asks Joannato'please[. . .] beginkeeping mypockywocky money fornext year'(p.217).In Letter 210hesigns off: 'Me's oospoo oldDonie- ' (p.223).In Letter 206heshows hispoeticside: Ohdima,ifI only could build 00a palace with diamond windows andgolden doors, andput on a story [sic] every birth day, asthe shells dointhe sea,andfill itwith music like the seashells. and have my dimatosing tomeupatthe top. (p.218) Ruskin asks Joanna:'fot soodvehavedonetounderstand eachovyifvee'dnevy learnt babytawk?' (p.214). With its'Idiolectical Glossary' anda Chronology, this volume ofletters maybe seen tocontribute towhatone maycallRuskin's 'autobiography', including comments on painting, onfigures, someofthem public ones,andontheevents ofhisownlife. Rachel Dickinson has therefore performed an unusual,useful, and interesting service. The letters shedlighton Ruskin's ownpersonality and psychology, and on howhe saw himself. He insisted that noneofhisletters toJoannabe destroyed, which suggests that he mayhaveconsidered themtobe a partof his'autobiography', tocomplement or supplement whatDickinson describes as the'crafted andcensored' Praeterita. King'sCollege London WilliamGoldman Romantic Prose Fiction. EditedbyGerald Gillespie,ManfredEngel, and Bernard Dieterle. A Comparative History of Literatures in EuropeanLanguages,23. Amsterdam andPhiladelphia: Benjamins. 2007.xxi+ 733pp.€198.00; US$297.00. isbn:978-90-272-3456-8. Collections ofessays dealing with European Romantic culture facesomething ofa challenge :thetopicisdifficult tomap,thedatesoftheso-called 'period'aredisputed and inconstant flux, andthe'movement' continually crosses linguistic, generic, anddisciplinary borders. Asa result, suchvolumes canfallintooneoftwotraps: either they seek toencompass broader trends andendup lacking inclosetextual readings, orthey are sosharply focused that they maybe oflimited appealtomoregeneral readers. Atover 700pages,this volume ofthirty-six essays, together with an Introduction andConclusion ,is morethancomprehensive and makesa goodattempt at circumventing such pitfalls. The fact that thecollection belongs toanintegrated sub-series - theothers are dedicated toRomantic irony, drama, poetry, andnon-fictional prose- helpstoensure that nosingle volume takes ontoomuch. The collection openswith lengthy editorial deliberations, which track thegenesis of theprojectthatgave riseto thevolumeand also,moreusefully, offer conceptual YES, 40.1 & 2, 2010 321 reflections on thesub-series, theposition of thevolumewithin it,and therationale behindthebook'sinternal organization. The essaysare dividedintothreesections, dealing with Romantic prosethemes, thebroadnotion ofparadigms (including representative texts, issues ofgenre, andnarrative technique), andthelaternineteenthand twentieth-century reception of Romantic proseanditsinfluence on laterthought and writing. Throughout thesesections thediscussions traverse the Romanticproseof Germany, France, andEngland, although they alsochart thelegacy left bythis writing inScandinavia, Spain,LatinAmerica, andJapan.Similarly diverse isthetreatment of other mediaanddiscourses, or, more precisely, their intersection with thegenres, themes, andtechniques ofprose, suchas MihálySzegedy-Maszák's study ofrepresentations of the'sister arts'ofmusic andpainting inRomantic prose.Setagainst this richbackdrop are theessaysone might expect, although theyremainessential: thereare thematic contributions, suchas Gerhart Hoffmeister's analysis of howinternational Romantic prosetreats explicitly (Victor Hugo)andimplicitly (Goethe) theprogression andfailure of theFrench Revolution; and MonikaSchmitz-Emans's discussion of theirrational realms of madnessand dream,whichshowshowRomantic prosedealingwithsuch issues laidthefoundations ofkeyaspects of modern thought andwriting, suchas the rejection of'anysuperior levelofreasoning from which onecoulddistinguish between truth andlies'(p.165). Therearegeneric studies, suchasManfred Engel'sremarkably clearandlinear study ofthelabyrinthine genre oftheBildungsroman, andalsolessobvious discussions, suchas GeraldGillespie's treatment ofthecrime novel:whilecrime inliterature was'nothing new',Romantic proseinSpain,England, andelsewhere becametheforum for'a new genre inwhich crime fighters andcrime solvers werecentral' (p.345).Thevolume's third section is particularly illuminating, as shownbyElaineMartin's study of cinematic makesand re-makes of Romantic literary works, and Takayuki Yokota-Murakami's discussion of thecomplex reception and influence of EuropeanRomantic writing in Japan,characterized bybothenthusiasm andrejection, as thatnation openeditself to Western culture inthecourseofthenineteenth century. Sucha wideandinternational focus tiesinwiththeeditors' aims.AstheConclusion states, thevolume doesnotseek toimply that readings ofRomanticism as expressions ofnational experience arewholly irrelevant orevenspurious; rather, itsintention isto'explore strands ofliterary experiencethat often werecommon ona larger regional scale'(p.700). The texts arelucid, readable, andcontain valuablecontributions that simultaneously offer anoverview oftheir material, drawtogether important threads ofscholarship, and re-frame discussions infresh contexts. SabineRossbach, forexample, offers a fascinating sweepof the notionof 'mirroring' in English,GermanRomanticand postRomantic proseembracing E. T. A. Hoffman, Coleridge, and Poe: whilst...

American Jewish Poetry, Familiar and Strange: A Review

American Poetry, Familiar and Strange: A Review Singing in Strange Land: A -American Poetics, by Maeera Y Shreiber. Stanford University Press, 2007. 287 pp. $24.95. Those of us who write as poets commonly have reason to notice that critics and teachers of Jewish Literature typically neglect poetry. What, we often think, are we chopped liver? For Maeera Shreiber, this marginalization is no accident. As she sees it, elided status of poetry (as against narrative) parallels that of Jew-in-exile, women within Judaism, and sacred in secular world, and for parallel reason: poetry is disruptive, subversive, troubled and troublesome. Where fiction gives us tale of tribe, poetry is (she quotes poet-critic Charles Bernstein) agent of turbulent thought (p. 2). In this long-awaited, powerful and layered study, she is herself such an agent. Shreiber is both an acute close reader of poems and theorist fascinated by questions of tradition and modernity, of individual versus identity, and of place of poetry in history. She is also feminist. Structuring her work less on individual poets than on interlocking issues of genre (psalm, lyric, lamentation, elegy, prayer, as they play out in contemporary esthetics) and gender (looking at ancient and modern configurations of masculinity and femininity), Shreiber makes an amazing and persuasive case not only for seeing exile and alienation as crucial marks of poem, hence book's title taken from 137th psalm, but for connecting this motif with the emergence of Shekhinah as shaping esthetic force speaking to and for a culture in flux (p. 25). Among early delights of this book is an account of rabbinic disapproval of poetry in late ancient and medieval world. Arabic-inflected meters? Not kosher! But this is not simply an ancient problem, for debates over purity versus contamination (alca assimilation) and religion versus culture, ethnicity and secularism continue to rock world, and continue to be reflected in its poetry. And poetry continues to engage in shaping culture. Demonstrating complexities, ambiguities, and discontinuities of American poetry is major aspect of Shreiber's work. Thus she pairs very different poets Emma Lazarus, author of socially conscious poem at base of Statue of Liberty, and Jacqueline Osherow, author of witty theological-midrashic poem in Paradise. Both poems negotiate ethnic borders; Lazarus' of Exiles is an avatar of Shekhinah while Osherow boldly posits feminized Moses and an embodied God replacing disembodied voice (p. 32) of Scripture and rabbinic dogma. Another pairing is that of Charles Reznikoff and Allen Ginsberg as poets of maternal Muse. Following superb examination of various versions of maternal in Henry Roth's CaU it Sleep, film The Jazz Singer, and Cynthia Ozick's story Virility, Shreiber demonstrates how figure of Mother in ReznikofF and Ginsberg in a world of boundless violence (p. 73), is simultaneously foundational and demonic, rejected and inspirational, personal and collective, sacrificial victim and cultural critic-and how both these poets in shadow of Mother overturn traditional liturgy in their treatment of Kaddish prayer. Other pairings follow, each thematically/generically bound. How to re-imagine history is issue when Shreiber looks at Louis Zukowski and George Oppen as they challenge modernist ferishizing of (classical. Christian) past-Zukowski turning to maternal story and possibility of future, Oppen's counternarrative (p. 127) negotiating the relation of individual to collective (p. 132), which for Jew involves tension between choosing and being chosen. Lamentation, with its biblical models in 137th psalm and Book of Lamentations, undergirds Shreiber's discussion of two firmly secular poets, Adrienne Rich and Irena Klepfisz. …

“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.

Photographs on the Walls of the House of Fiction

This essay considers the history of photography in fiction, concentrating on issues of genre. Starting with a survey of nineteenth-century novels which included physical photographs, the essay moves to twentieth-century novels, discussing ways in which the generic rules of written narratives influence the relationship between word and image and the fictiveness of photographs within novels. Unlike earlier writers, who used photographs for illustration of place, postmodern novelists frequently use photographs as documentation, both in support of and in opposition to the written narrative. The last section of the essay uses W. G. Sebald's The Emigrants, an especially complicated novel which combines fiction and nonfiction, biography and autobiography, as a case study.

Reviewing Recent Research on the Wisdom Literature

This article outlines some of the main interests of scholars of the biblical wisdom literature (Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes) in the last twenty years. It looks in general terms at the interest in the wider Ancient Near Eastern world and how that has influenced wisdom studies, at literary issues, at wisdom's theological themes, at feminist study of wisdom literature and at the history of interpretation. It also looks more specifically at interest in pedagogic concerns and social context in Proverbs, at genre issues in Job and at authorship issues in Ecclesiastes.

The dit amoureux An Essay on The Kingis Quair and The Testament of Cresseid

Although less pervasive in Scotland than in England, and with major Scottish writing coming under a strong English influence, French maintained its presence and its seminal impact on literature in the Scots vernacular, in both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This is especially true for what is, arguably, the most important single genre in late medieval Scotland, high courtly narrative — what C. S. Lewis called the allegory of love. Late medieval Scottish poetry can benefit from renewed scrutiny in light of the analogous French tradition of the dit amoureux (tale of love).In this article, I hope to situate Scottish books in a larger intertextual context, one that is international and European. Instead of the microanalysis of Scots texts and their French sources, this essay is concerned primarily with the broader issues of genre, mode, structure, and style. The first two major tales of love in the grand manner in Scots are The Kingis Quair, attributed to James Stewart (King James I), and The Testament of Cresseid by Robert Henryson. These two poems relate to Chaucer, of course, but also to well-known works by Guillaume de Machaut, Jean Froissart, and, in Henryson’s case, Alain Chartier. They are admirable test cases demonstrating how greater attention to the French can help situate James’s and Henryson’s texts in their cultural milieu and also help account for their extraordinary complexity and maturity as works of art.

Narrative, interaction, or both

These comments focus on issues of genre in transcription formats. Bucholtz's paper takes conversation to be the a priori organizational genre of everyday talk, following a long line of interactional and conversational studies. Narrative, however, could as well be seen as an a priori genre for the organization of interaction, and many instances of talk would reflect polygeneric blending. This form of blending should be reflected in transcription practices, so that we can do justice to variation in talk by means of variation in transcription procedures.

Kierkegaard and Genre

Noting the apparent chaos of Søren Kierkegaard's writing, the essay shows that Kierkegaard did, nevertheless, have a highly self-conscious relation to issues of genre, which was a central concern in the aesthetic theory of his critical role model, J. L. Heiberg. Salient features of Heiberg's aesthetics are discussed and their echoes in Kierkegaard's writing illustrated. Kierkegaard is also aware that Heiberg's schema of genres breaks down in the face of modernity and such modern art forms as the novel. Here Mikhail Bakhtin (a reader of Kierkegaard) can help us see a carnivalistic transgression of classical genre definitions at work in Kierkegaard's writing. This, in turn, can be shown to relate to Kierkegaard's fundamental religious concerns and to reflect the carnivalesque destabilization of social, cultural, and artistic forms enacted in the paradoxical figure of the God-man.

Comparing typefaces for airport signs

This study combined three research methodologies to inform the choice of a typeface for signs at London’s Heathrow Airport. The methodologies were legibility testing, qualitative consumer research, and expert review. The study showed that, contrary to a number of expert predictions, the serifed typeface performed as well as the sans serif in legibility testing. Character width was a more significant factor in legibility, with condensed sans serif performing relatively poorly. The use of multiple methodologies led to a richer basis for decision-making: the qualitative research revealed clear genre expectations among airport users for sans serif signs; the expert reviewers raised a range of additional issues of genre, culture and context.

Commemorating Pushkin: Russia's Myth of a National Poet by Stephanie Sandler

MLR, I02.I, 2007 295 His discussion of theplay as not somuch a history but ametahistory, a kind of fusion of the concerns ofRacine and Shakespeare, is especially rewarding. Equally, Clayton correctly reveals that issues of genre are vital to a full interpretation of theplay. Chap ters 6 and 7 aremodels of detailed textual analysis and are supremely illuminating. The whole work, in fact, isan excellent blend of scholarly research and detailed study of the text; throughout it iswritten in a lively,engaging, and eminently crisp style. While Clayton isquite right to claim that many ofhis findings run against 'received wisdom', he also treads some familiar ground, as in his coverage of the Soviet uses and abuses ofPushkin, and Pushkin's relationshipwith theDecembrists, forexample. Even here, though, Clayton infuses new life into these old stories, aswhen he shows intelligent discrimination inhis account of Soviet critics, treatingGukovsky, for in stance, with the respect he deserves (p. 22); or when he deals well with the precise nature of Shakespeare's influence on Pushkin. The work does, however, have certainweaknesses. For a book of this importance the introduction, at just threepages, is fartoobrief.An importantprecursor, Sumarokov's Dimitrii theImpostor (I 77 1), isnot evenmentioned. For thepresent reviewer there is too little said about Marina, or about gender more generally: indeed, gender as such isnot discussed. Ultimately, the book raises a key conundrum but fails to resolve it. While most of Pushkin's major works were to set the agenda for the development of Russian literature formany decades after his death, Boris was, as itwere, almost without issue. IfBoris Godunov is as important awork as Clayton frequently claims it is,why has itnever been successfully staged? These reservations should not detract, however, from the great achievement that this book undoubtedly is. While itdoes offer a very full account of the play, it also suggests many potentially fruitfulareas for future research. Clayton iscertainly to be warmly congratulated forhaving written a very important book. KEELE UNIVERSITY JOE ANDREW CommemoratingPushkin: Russia's MythofaNationalPoet. By STEPHANIE SANDLER. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 2004. 406 pp. C34. ISBN 978-o 8047-3448-6. Stephanie Sandler's chosen topic isboth ambitious and wide-ranging, but is conse quently one that is likely to appeal to a broad readership. Commemorating Pushkin aims to chronicle Russia's changing relationship with Pushkin, fromhis death to the present day, and particularly theways inwhich different images ofPushkin have been created and fostered throughmediums such as poetry, literature, theatre, and film. In tackling such a broad theme, Sandler freely acknowledges that her contribution does not aim to be definitive, but is rather 'part of ongoing work thatwill continue formany years to come' (p. I3). The book provides a broad overview of the topic in question, alongside richly detailed case studies of various works and institutions inspired by Pushkin. However, Sandler's overall argument isnot always easy to follow as the case studies, while critical and revealing, are often not intimately linked to the wider context and the book also lacks a unifying conclusion. However, on thewhole Commemorating Pushkin is ameticulous and well-researched work, and one thatpro vides numerous fresh insights into the historical and contemporary importance of Pushkin inRussian cultural life. The book comprises seven chapters, each focusing on a differentaspect ofPushkin' s commemorative history. The firstexamines the immediate reaction to Pushkin's death, through analysis of the poetic eulogies written by Vasily Zhukovsky, Mikhail Lermontov, and Evdokia Rostpochina. These tributes arewritten from theviewpoint 296 Reviews of people who actually knew and loved Pushkin, and thus provide an interesting con trast to later case studies, which all arise frommore 'artificial' and distant memories of thepoet. Chapter 2 considers themuseums which memorialize Pushkin, with par ticular emphasis on those atBoldino andMikhailovskoe. Sandler looks at theways in which artefacts and Pushkinian lyrics are used tobring visitors closer to the 'spirit' of Pushkin, and thus facilitate theact of remembrance. Chapter 3 focuses on anniversary commemorations, although itprovides a rather distorted view by focusing only on Soviet and post-Soviet events. Sandler examines theways inwhich Pushkin's image was used to foster a sense of national identity,as the organizers of each celebration sought tomould Pushkin into a rolemodel...

BUSY LIVES

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Quotations from the Descartes–Elisabeth correspondence are from John J. Blom's translation of Descartes: His Moral Philosophy and Psychology ( 1978 Descartes , René . 1978 . Descartes: His moral philosophy and psychology . Translated and introduced by John J. Blom . Hassocks : Harvester Press . [Google Scholar] ). For biographical information on Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, I am indebted to the excellent biography of her mother by Carola Oman (1938 Oman, Carola. 1938. Elizabeth of Bohemia, London: Hodder & Stoughton. [Google Scholar]). For additional biographical sources on Elisabeth, see Beatrice Zedler (1989 Zedler, Beatrice. 1989. Three princesses. Hypatia, 4(1): 28–63. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 2. For a discussion of the philosophical merit of Elisabeth's specific objections to Descartes's treatment of mind–body interaction, see Daniel Garber (1983 Garber , Daniel . 1983 . Understanding interaction: What Descartes should have told Elisabeth . Southern Journal of Philosophy 21 ( Supplement ). [Google Scholar]). 3. When all Descartes's works are taken into account, however, there are good grounds (despite his reputation as a dualist) to see him as taking very seriously the ramifications of embodiment for human thinking. For such a reading, see Amélie Rorty's excellent ‘Descartes on Thinking with the Body’ (1992 Rorty , Amélie . 1992 . Descartes on thinking with the body . In The Cambridge companion to Descartes , edited by John Cottingham . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 4. Thomas Wartenberg (1999 Wartenberg , Thomas . 1999 . Descartes's mood: The question of feminism in the correspondence with Elisabeth . In Feminist interpretations of René Descartes , edited by Susan Bordo . University Park : Pennsylvania State University Press . [Google Scholar]) has explored, more fully than I can here, the bearing of the correspondence on issues of the gendered ‘contextualization’ of philosophy. 5. The ethical implications of Elisabeth's responses to Descartes, which I do not develop here, have been discussed by Andrea Nye (1996 Nye , Andrea . 1996 . Polity and prudence: The ethics of Elisabeth, Princess Palatine . In Hypatia's daughters , edited by Linda Lopez McAlister . Bloomington : Indiana University Press . [Google Scholar]). 6. Descartes (1991 Descartes , René . 1991 . The philosophical writings of Descartes . Vol. 3. Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), pp. 383–4. 7. A full evaluation of the philosophical importance of Elisabeth's responses to Descartes would, of course, need to address the relevance of the fact that she produced no philosophical treatise of her own. For an illuminating discussion of issues of genre in relation to the correspondence, see Lisa Shapiro (1999 Shapiro , Lisa . 1999 . Princess Elisabeth and Descartes: The union of soul and body and the practice of philosophy . British Journal for the History of Philosophy 7 ( 3 ): 503 – 20 . Reprinted in Genevieve Lloyd, ed., Feminism and history of philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002: 182–203 .[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]).

Theatrical Wonder, Amazement, and the Construction of Spiritual Agency in Paradise Lost

Theatrical Wonder, Amazement, and the Construction of Spiritual Agency in Paradise Lost Elizabeth Bradburn Criticism that addresses the presence of theatrical language and imagery in Milton's later poems is usually one of two types. The first type considers the ways in which the later poems incorporate dramatic conventions and criticize or redefine particular theatrical genres. Issues of genre are especially relevant to Samson Agonistes, a tragedy "never intended"for the stage.1 Essays byD. M. Rosenberg,John D. Cox, and Peggy Samuels all explain ways in which Samson engages with the dramatic conventions of the Restoration and especially the work of Dryden.An alternative path is followed by Elizabeth Sauer, who looks at Samson specifically as a closet drama and examines the ways in which Milton's play criticizes theatricality in general.2 ParadiseLostand ParadiseRegainedrequire alternative approaches, since they are not dramatic in form. Nevertheless, critics have argued persuasivelythat each engages with theatrical genres. In the case ofParadiseRegained , Steven Zwicker has emphasized its pairing with Samson, showing how Milton uses dramatic technique in Paradise Regained to correct Dryden's conception ofheroic drama. Regarding Paradise Lost, Barbara Lewalskis classic study ofliterary forms in the epic takes tragedy as one ofthose literary forms and analyzes the dramatic structure of Books 9 and 10,which follow first Aristotelian and then Christian paradigms of tragedy. Her reading counters that of Richard S. Ide, who sees Books 9 and 10 as shaped by the conventions ofElizabethan tragicomedy . Finally,John Demaray's Milton's TheatricalEpicshows how much of the imagery in ParadiseLostcomes from the English masquing stage.3 77 78Comparative Drama The second type of criticism that deals with theater in Milton's late poems tends to consider theater as a trope. For example, David Loewenstein's Milton and the Drama ofHistoryshows how Milton conceptualized history as a form of theater. Milton incorporated the metaphor ofdrama into his prose writings and later poems as a way oflinking literature with history.A second notable example is HistoricizingMilton,by Laura Lunger Knoppers, which argues that Milton criticized the English monarchy for its manipulative histrionics while also figuring his own political and authorial agency through the metaphor ofthe stage.4 This essay offers a different perspective on theatricality in Paradise Lost, and argues that Milton's literary imagination was also stimulated byhis conception ofthe emotional responses oftheatrical audiences. He systematically incorporated into the poetic language ofhis epic a pair of words, wonderand amazement, that link these emotional responses to a rich philosophical history and ultimately to Milton's sense that spiritual agency is as much a form ofresponse as it is a form ofperformance. I do not base this claim on any assumptions about Milton's actual experience with theater. Certainlyhe was interested in theatrical literary forms; he wrote a masque, and sketched out several ideas for stage tragedies , one ofwhich, entitled"Adam Unparadiz'd," eventually became his epic poem. As Zwicker points out, these sketches speak to "a vivid theatrical imagination."5 The extent ofMilton's own experience as a playgoer is not known. In 1992, the historian Herbert Berry argued that John Milton, Sr., became a trustee of Blackfriars Playhouse in 1620, and may well have had the privilege ofattending that theater, with his family, free of charge.6 This is only speculation, however, and a more recent article by T. H. Howard-Hill tries to lay to rest the idea that Milton had much interest in the English stage, either literarily or as an audience member.7 Nevertheless, the preface to Samson Agonistes suggests that the experience of emotionally responding to drama interested Milton. There he writes that tragedy is the"gravest, moralest, and most profitable ofall other Poems: therefore said by Aristotle to be of power by raising pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like passions."8 For Milton, the emotional response generated by tragic drama is the defining andjustifying feature ofthe genre,a testimonyto its moral seriousness .The importance ofthis concept is underscored bythe final lines of the drama itself: Elizabeth Bradburn79 His [God's] servants he with new acquisi Of true experience from this great event With peace and consolation hath dismisi, And calm ofmind...

The Marriage of Artist Novel and Bildungsroman: Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, A Paradigm in Disguise

Goethe described the fruitful years from 1794, when he found Schiller's friendship and completed Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, in metaphors of creativity, insight and abundance: ‘ein neuer Fruhling’ and ‘ein unaufhaltsames Fortschreiten philosophischer Ausbildung und asthetischer Tatigkeit’. Yet since the mid-twentieth century what has been called Goethe's ‘prototypischer Bildungsroman’ and its central concept have come under attack. The more the novel's structure and the symbolism of the hero's relationships to all other characters were disregarded, the more Wilhelm's identity became ambiguous. Since the issue of genre is a major key to understanding the novel, Goethe's poetological and morphological principles are examined to make sense of the ‘Masken’ the author employs both to hide and to reveal Wilhelm's identity as a creative and self-reflexive poet. The first part of the ‘Lehrbrief,’ which deals with art and the artist as well as the mature Wilhelm's inheritance of his grandfather's art collection, receive focused attention. The hero's healing process from personal trauma, and his ultimate discovery of the solid foundation for his ‘produktive Einbildungskraft’ are tied to his poetic ‘Doppelganger’, Mignon and the Harpist, and further to Shakespeare's Hamlet, the Tower, the picture of the sick prince, and to Natalie. The new interpretation of these interconnections reveals that with this novel Goethe produced nothing less than the paradigmatic ‘Bildungsroman eines Dichters’. In the colourful figures that enter into or leave the hero's life, Goethe symbolises the increasingly demanding challenges his Wilhelm Meister has to confront and comprehend in order to master his vibrant imagination.

GENRE AND PERSUASION IN RELIGIOUS ETHICS An Introduction

Issues of genre and persuasion are central to ethical thought and practice. Until recently, there has been an asymmetry between religious ethics and moral philosophy in regard to these issues. Renewed attention to these issues in moral philosophy creates a new context for their consideration in religious ethics—one in which the relation of religious ethics and moral philosophy is less determinate than it has been in previous discussions. The four essays that comprise this Focus Section reflect this new context while also making new contributions to perennial concerns of genre in ethical thought and practice.