John Masefield Research Articles

Water as a Commodity based on Epic “Manas”: A Semiotic Perspective

This paper explores the role of water as a commodity in Kyrgyzstan from a semiotic perspective, drawing parallels between the historic Silk Road and contemporary debates surrounding water resources. It analyzes the semiotics of water, examining its representation, interpretation, and symbolic significance in the context of regional cooperation and resource management. By applying semiotic frameworks to understand the complexities of water governance, this study sheds light on the socio-political dynamics shaping water policies in Central Asia. The concept of the Great Silk Road holds immense historical and cultural significance as a symbol of connectivity and exchange between East and West. The semiotic analysis encompasses a variety of sources, including visual representations of the Silk Road's logo and imagery, along with literary works like John Masefield's poem “Cargoes” and the epic Manas. Through a comparison of the traded goods on the Silk Road in the West and the Silk Road in the East, this study reveals the similarities and differences in the portrayal of goods, the evolution of trade, and the cultural interactions facilitated by this ancient trade network. By shedding light on the semiotic dimensions of the Great Silk Road, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of its historical and cultural significance, enriching our comprehension of this remarkable historical phenomenon.

Beyond the Horizon

Beyond the Horizon

Love of Nature and Women in John Masefield's "Beauty” and Goran’s “Women and Beauty"

This research is a comparative study entitled Love of Nature and Women in John Masefield’s “Beauty” and Goran’s “Women and Beauty.” Textual and analytical approaches are used to analyze the poems to highlight the differences and similarities between the two poems. The analysis compares and contrasts both poems by each topic of discussion, including the theme and the rhyme pattern. This paper finds that although both Masefield and Goran come from different cultures and periods, the earlier from the romantic era while the latter is a modern poet, their poems agree in expressing the beauty of nature. However, the poems then state that the beauty of nature is nothing compared to the beauty of their beloved ones. The analysis also explores the different portrayals of nature that the poets depict and the rhyme pattern they prefer. This study then shows that the same issue can always come from works from a very different time and culture.

Childhood, Loss and Art in Masefield’s Harker Novels

During the interwar years, John Masefield wrote three novels featuring a male protagonist with the surname “Harker” struggling against an adversary called Abner Brown. The first of these novels was written for an adult audience, the remaining two for children. The chronological sequence of these three novels and the relationship between their characters is far from clear, although the recurrence of names and places gives the impression that they should be read in connection with one another. In the present study, I will argue that the trilogy, whose settings correspond to specific periods of the author’s own life, can be read as a tripartite reflection on childhood, loss and the redeeming power of art

Letters of Jack B. Yeats to Joseph Hone, 1921–1955

Letters of Jack B. Yeats to Joseph Hone, 1921–1955 Steven Hrdlicka Jack B. Yeats wrote more than fifty letters to Joseph Hone over a period of thirty-four years which now reside in the Yeats Family Correspondence Collection at the University of Kansas Kenneth Spencer Research Library. These letters, and other materials, are part of the extensive P. S. O'Hegarty collection that KU acquired from O'Hegarty's wife, Mina, in 1955. Yeats's letters to Hone, as yet unpublished, contain the Irish painter's thoughts on a number of important issues, some of the most attractive of which are his numerous casual observations on art, painting, and philosophy, of great interest if only because the artist spoke so little about art during his life. Aside from a lecture Yeats gave on painting at the Irish Race Congress held in Paris in January 1922 (which was printed later that year as Modern Aspects of Irish Art and has been out of print since), these letters contain some of the painter's only surviving thoughts upon his craft, and in many ways both confirm and add depth to the observations he gave in the formal lecture.1 Yeats's reflections in the letters on painting, art in general, and Ireland are important to consider alongside the comments Thomas MacGreevy advanced in Jack B. Yeats: An Appreciation and Interpretation, published in 1945.2 The letters in the collection from 1921 contain many of the painting topics that Yeats would raise in the lecture he gave about a year later. Yet there is much more of interest in the letters: the painter's insights into society, art, and politics frequently intertwine with his personality as well as his painting theory. One early example is his criticism of a play by his good friend John Masefield, demonstrating the characteristic casual philosophical depth with which Yeats often wrote.3 [End Page 111] Aside from all of this, perhaps the most important material in the letters for Yeats scholars has to do with the addressee Joseph Hone. Hone was a prolific author who wrote numerous articles on the subjects of politics, literature, and philosophy for the New Statesman, London Mercury, and the Dublin Magazine between 1907 and 1953. He authored a number of books beginning in the 1930s, such as one coauthored with Mario Rossi on Bishop George Berkeley's philosophy (1931, featuring an introduction by W. B. Yeats); The Life of George Moore (1936); the first biography of W. B. Yeats, W. B. Yeats 1865–1939 (1942); and the first edition of a collection of John Butler Yeats's letters (1944). In addition, Hone was a translator of German and Italian (he published a translation of Daniel Halévy's Life of Friedrich Nietzsche). He also cofounded, with James Starkey, in 1905 Maunsel & Co., which would publish many important authors of the Irish Literary Renaissance, such as J. M. Synge, Lady Gregory, Æ (George Russell), Stephen Gwynn, and of course W. B. Yeats.4 In fact, as R. F. Foster points out, W. B. Yeats's desire to have his works published by an Irish publisher led him to woo A. H. Bullen as a backer to get the company started.5 Hone certainly helped thrust W. B. Yeats forward, and this is particularly evident in the short literary biography he published in 1915 entitled William Butler Yeats: The Poet in Contemporary Ireland.6 In addition to the material on painting noted above, the letters Jack B. Yeats wrote to Joseph Hone contain much information regarding family matters, such as the circumstances surrounding W. B. Yeats's death, as well as some back and forth about what should not be included in the 1944 edition of John Butler Yeats's letters. Finally, there are also numerous letters that discuss prominent literary figures and politics; it is no secret that Jack Yeats had personal acquaintance with a number of important writers such as Samuel Beckett and George Bernard Shaw. It is clear that on some occasions Jack Yeats seeks to suppress certain information that Hone would have known due to his closeness both to W. B. and John Butler Yeats. While Hone was editing a...

Reflection on two poems: Aleixandre` s "Mar del Paraíso" and Masefield` s "Sea Fever"

In this article we analyze the presence of the sea in both poems "Mar del Paraíso" (Sea of Paradise) by the Chilena poet Vicente Aleixandre, and "Sea Fever" by the English poet John Masefield.

“I have been in an earthquake”: Epistemic upheaval in Richard Hughes’ A High Wind in Jamaica

Published in 1929, Richard Hughes’ A High Wind in Jamaica was praised by reviewers and critics across the spectrum of the British and American literary scenes (among them Rebecca West, Ford Madox Ford, Vita Sackville-West, Cyril Connelly, John Masefield, Hugh Walpole, and Arnold Bennett). At the same time, its readers were generally shocked by its portrait of child psychology (“the mind of the child”). While several critics applauded its realism, the record of its reception suggests that it induced — what one critic referred to as — “a sort of mental panic”. This article considers aspects of Hughes’ “new psychology”, which derived largely from the writings of Freud and the Freudians. Reading the novel and Freud in counterpoint, the argument concludes that — while Hughes constructs A High Wind in Jamaica as a rejoinder to the ideological logic of the imperial romance — in inscribing Freudian “primitivism” it reiterates colonial assumptions about “civilization”.

More Letters by John Millington Synge

In May 1905 John Millington Synge received a request from C.P. Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian, to tour the Congested Districts in the west of Ireland, and send his observations as a series of personal letters to the paper. Doubtless urged by their common friend John Masefield, Scott suggested that Jack Butler Yeats might join the playwright as illustrator. Four letters from Synge to Scott concerning the arrangements were not included in The Collected Letters of John Millington Synge when first published in 1968–9. This omission is finally repaired here.

The Secret Adoptee's Cookbook

The Secret Adoptee's Cookbook

Performing Greek drama in Oxford and on tour with the Balliol Players

Performing Greek Drama in Oxford traces enduring connections between antiquity and dramatic performance in modern Oxford, discussing landmark events from the 16th century to the 1970s. This performance history of classical texts, especially those by the Greek dramatists, illuminates contemporary responses to debates on such matters as the position of women students, the dangers perceived to be associated with undergraduate acting and the position of classics within the curriculum at the University of Oxford. The book consistently engages with the history of theatrical performance of ancient plays beyond Oxford, for example, John Masefield’s Boars Hill Players, Penelope Wheeler’s Greek plays at the Front, and the link with the London stage through companies touring to Oxford, such as that led by Sybil Thorndike. Many of these engagements with Greek drama were facilitated by the connection with the classical scholar Gilbert Murray, who plays a central part in the history. The final chapters tell the story of the Balliol Players, a group of students who, fired by the post-war missionary enthusiasm of the early 1920s and supported by the elderly Thomas Hardy, determined to take Greek plays in translation to school and public audiences in the south and west of England in their summer vacations. Born from a socially idealistic impulse, the tradition lasted for over five decades, during which time these summer tours evolved from earnest productions of tragedy to satirical and irreverent re-writings of Aristophanes, typical of the spirit of the 1960s.

“The days that make us happy, make us wise” (John Masefield)

The purpose of the present study was to explore the temporal associations between subjective well-being (SWB) and psychological well-being (PWB) across 4 years. A cross-lagged analysis of 2 waves of data was conducted using a Japanese sample (N = 657). The results concerning the auto-regressive effects indicated high stability over time for both of the variables. The cross-lagged effect of PWB on SWB was significant, suggesting that PWB predicts increases in SWB over time. However, SWB did not predict subsequent levels of PWB.

Austin Harrison and the English review

Political and literary journalist Austin Harrison became editor of the in 1910. While holding that chair, he expanded the publication's literary scope by publishing articles on such issues as woman suffrage, parliamentary reform, the German threat, and Irish home rule. But although he edited the Review far longer than its celebrated founder, Ford Madox Ford, history has long confined him to the shadows of not only his predecessor but also his father, the English Positivist Harrison.This first scholarly assessment of Harrison's tenure at the from 1910 to 1923 shows him courting controversy, establishing reputations, winning and losing authors, and pushing the limits of the publishable as he made his Adult the most consistently intelligent and challenging monthly of its day. Martha Vogeler offers a compelling personal and family narrative and a new perspective on British literary culture and political journalism in the years just before, during, and after the First World War.Vogeler provides a revealing account of Harrison the editor - his writings and opinions, his public life and relations - as she also traces the complex relationship between a son and his famous father. Balancing a scholar's attention to detail and a fine writer's eye for style, she relates Harrison's improbable friendships with the notorious Frank Harris and the outrageous Aleister Crowley. And she has mined Harrison's correspondence to lend insight into the careers of such writers as Ford Madox Ford, D. H. Lawrence, H. G. Wells, Joseph Conrad, John Masefield, Bernard Shaw, Arnold Bennett, and Marie Stopes. Other figures such as George Gissing, Bertrand Russell, Lord Northcliffe, and important Irish revolutionaries appear in new contexts.Ranging widely across literature, foreign relations, national politics, the women's movement, censorship, and sexuality, Vogeler captures the themes of Harrison's era. She describes his transformation from Germanophobe before and during World War I to an outspoken critic of the punitive measures against Germany in the Treaty of Versailles. She explores the ambiguities in his engagement with modernist aesthetics and in his attempt to escape the shadow of his father while benefiting from his family's wealth and connections. Vogeler's assessment of Harrison's books further sharpens our understanding of his ideas about Germany, women, education, and Victorian family life - notably his underappreciated tribute/rebuke to his father, Frederic Harrison: Thoughts and Memories. This account of Austin Harrison's career allows us to observe a journalist making his way in a highly competitive world and opens up a new window on Britain in the era of the Great War.

The Reeve's Tale: Version Prepared for Recitation at the 'Summer Diversions' Oxford: 1939

The Reeve's TaleVersion Prepared for Recitation at the 'Summer Diversions' Oxford: 1939 J.R.R. Tolkien [Editors' note: In August 1938, Tolkien took part in the Oxford "Summer Diversions" organized by John Masefield and Nevill Coghill. He impersonated Chaucer and recited, from memory, "The Nun's Priest's Tale." In the following year, on 28 July 1939, Tolkien returned with a similar performance of a slightly abridged version of "The Reeve's Tale." For this occasion a pamphlet was issued, containing Tolkien's prefatory remarks and his version of "The Reeve's Tale." Although prepared for a general audience, it nevertheless was compiled with Tolkien's usual care and skill, and Tolkien Studies is pleased to reprint the text of this rare pamphlet as a companion to his scholarly essay on the same subject. Tolkien later noted that "The recitation [in] 1939 of Reeve's Tale was swamped by war and though successful was not noticed."] Among Chaucer's pilgrims was a reeve, Oswold of Baldeswell in Norfolk. The miller had told a story to the discredit of an Osney carpenter and Oxford clerks, and Oswold, who practised the craft of carpentry, was offended. In this tale he has his revenge, matching the miller's story with one to the discredit of a Trumpington miller and clerks of Cambridge. The story is comic enough even out of this setting, but it fits the supposed narrator unusually well. Nonetheless, 'broad' as it is, it probably fits the actual author, Chaucer himself, well enough to justify the representation of him as telling it in person. Apart from its merits as a comic tale of 'lewed folk,' this piece has a special interest. Chaucer seems to have taken unusual pains with it. He gave new life to the fabliau, the plot of which he borrowed, with the English local colour that he devised; and he introduced the new joke of comic dialect. This does not seem to have been attempted in English literature before Chaucer, and has seldom been more successful since. Even in the usual printed texts of Chaucer the northern dialectal character of the speeches of Alain and John is plain. But a comparison of various manuscripts seems to show that actually Chaucer himself went [End Page 173] further: the clerks' talk, as he wrote it, was probably very nearly correct and pure northern dialect, derived (as usual with Chaucer) from books as well as from observation. A remarkable feat at the time. But Chaucer was evidently interested in such things, and had given considerable thought to the linguistic situation in his day. It may be observed that he presents us with an East-Anglian reeve, who is amusing southern, and largely London, folk with imitations of northern speech brought southward by the attraction of the universities. This is a picture in little of the origins of literary and London English. East-Anglia played an important part in transmitting to the capital northerly features of language—such as ill, their and the inflexion in brings, which are in this tale used as dialectalisms, but have since become familiar. The East-Anglian reeve is a symbol of this process, and at the same time in real contemporary life a not unlikely person to have negotiated the dialect in such a tale. The whole thing is very ingenious. The dialect is. of course, meant primarily to be funny. Chaucer relied for his principal effect on the long ā, preserved in the north in many words where the south had changed to ō: as in haam, bānes, naa, for 'home, bones, no.' But in these short speeches there are many minor points of form and vocabulary which are finer than was necessary for the easy laugh, and show that Chaucer had a personal interest in linguistic detail. For instance: the phrase dreven til hething is typically northern in the form dreven for driven; in the use of driven for put in this expression; in the substitution of til for to; and in the use of the Scandinavian word hething, 'mockery.' Other marked dialectalisms are slik 'such,' imell 'among,' bōs 'behoves.' Chaucer makes the Reeve disclaim any accurate knowledge of the locality—it...

ADAPTIVE ROLES OF PROGRAMMED CELL DEATH DURING NERVOUS SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT

The programmed cell death (PCD) of developing cells is considered an essential adaptive process that evolved to serve diverse roles. We review the putative adaptive functions of PCD in the animal kingdom with a major focus on PCD in the developing nervous system. Considerable evidence is consistent with the role of PCD in events ranging from neurulation and synaptogenesis to the elimination of adult-generated CNS cells. The remarkable recent progress in our understanding of the genetic regulation of PCD has made it possible to perturb (inhibit) PCD and determine the possible repercussions for nervous system development and function. Although still in their infancy, these studies have so far revealed few striking behavioral or functional phenotypes.

"Blasts of Language": Changes in Oral Poetics in Britain since 1965

"Blasts of Language": Changes in Oral Poetics in Britain since 1965 Nicky Marsh University of Southampton Centre for Contemporary Writing Peter Middleton University of Southampton Centre for Contemporary Writing Victoria Sheppard University of Southampton Centre for Contemporary Writing In 1943 George Orwell described the situation of poetry in terms almost unimaginable 60 years later: "many people who write verse have never even considered the idea of reading it aloud" (1994:240). He knew what he was talking about because he was trying to persuade poets to contribute to a wartime broadcasting experiment that aimed to win the minds of intellectuals in India by making a poetry magazine available on the radio. He also felt that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) had done little in this area in Britain. Although the BBC would go on to make poetry broadcasting a significant but small part of its programming, their initiative would remain of limited importance to poets, as would the production of LP and later tape and CD recordings. What did change was the growth of live performance by poets who would willingly read aloud; over the next few decades speaking poetry aloud would become central to most poets' reputation and reception. Today all but a very few dissenters read their work aloud, some are more performers than writers, and for many poets performance is an integral part of their writing career—compositionally, socially, and not least financially. One arts organizer goes so far as to say that "more poets read more often than at any time since the troubadours" (Robinson 2002:7). The situation has reached the point where the refusal to read aloud can become as distinctive as the elective anonymity of a novelist like Thomas Pynchon. Oral performance is for many poets the primary activity: they were first excited by live performance, they have learned to compose for performance, and their readership has been shaped by performance. What Andy Croft says about Middlesborough—"almost all the most distinguished poets of our time have read in Middlesborough during the last fifteen years" (quoted in ibid.:43)—could be said about many cities and towns. The poet Basil Bunting, whose career as a poet stalled during the 1950s after an early success in the '30s, was a beneficiary of the development of the new [End Page 44] performance culture, as a bibliography of his performances illustrates. 1 Nor was it for lack of broadcasting—he did have two BBC readings in 1954 and 1957. The complete absence of live public readings was the problem. Only after he began to read at the Morden Tower series in Newcastle curated by Tom Pickard was his reputation re-established. Live public readings were essential to the building and maintenance of this reputation. In a prior sketch of the history of this transformation of the reception of poetry, we have suggested that the contemporary poetry reading emerged from the demise of private reading circles and the use of poetry as a primary text for elocutionary training (Middleton 2005). Most readers of poetry in the nineteenth century would have heard poems read aloud by friends and family, and by the author only if they had a personal friendship. Many such readers, if they came from middle and upper-class backgrounds, would also have learned to speak poetry aloud as one of the various regimes of elocution that were supposed to be an asset to social and public life, as well as to clarity of thought and its expression. The formation of poetry choirs by John Masefield, Elsie Fogarty, and others in the 1920s and early 1930s was arguably a decadent extravagance at a moment when the social structures that had made possible this wide circulation of the aural values of poetry were no longer viable. Changes in leisure brought about by the mobility of the car and the new entertainment technologies had put an end to the reading circles and the interest in elocution. Masefield tacitly...

John Masefield, The "Great Auk" of English Literature: A Bibliography (review)

John Masefield, The "Great Auk" of English Literature: A Bibliography (review)

John Masefield, the "Great Auk" of English Literature: A Bibliography. Philip W. Errington

Previous articleNext article No AccessBOOK REVIEWSJohn Masefield, the "Great Auk" of English Literature: A Bibliography. Philip W. Errington Steven Escar SmithSteven Escar Smith Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America Volume 99, Number 4DECEMBER 2005 Published for the Bibliographical Society of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/pbsa.99.4.24296081 Views: 2Total views on this site COPYRIGHT © 2005 THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICAPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Review: John Masefield: The ‘Great Auk’ of English Literature. A Bibliography

John Masefield: The ‘Great Auk’ of English Literature. A Bibliography By Philip W. Errington . London : The British Library ; New Castle, DE : Oak Knoll Press . 2004. xiv + 907. £65 . ISBN 0 7123 4863 8 (UK); 1 58456 144 0 (USA)

The African Writers Series--Celebrating Forty Years of Publishing Distinction

First, let me put my presentation 1 within the larger context of Heinemann's publishing history. Heinemann has had a long history, one that goes back to 1890, of giving world writers a voice. Besides publishing periodicals and journals, Heinemann also published British authors such as John Galsworthy, Somerset Maugham, and John Masefield in addition to publishing non-English European literature in translation. Bjornson and Ibsen, Gerhart Hauptmann, George Brandes, Guy de Maupassant, and Gabriele d'Annunzio were all given voice in places other than their home countries and linguistic regions by the imprint.

Portier, Richet, and the discovery of anaphylaxis: A centennial

Portier, Richet, and the discovery of anaphylaxis: A centennial