Literary Contacts Research Articles

The Literary Contacts between the Writing without Title on the Origin of the World (CG II,5 and XIII,2) and Eugnostos the Blessed (CG III,3 and V,1)

The Literary Contacts between the Writing without Title on the Origin of the World (CG II,5 and XIII,2) and Eugnostos the Blessed (CG III,3 and V,1)

The Millets and the Ottoman Language: The Contribution of Ottoman Greeks to Ottoman Letters (19th-20th Centuries)

When one considers the relations between Greeks and Turks during the Ottoman period, one is surprised to see how little evidence there is of literary contact. The impact of the Turkish language on the vernacular language of the subject population is well documented. But at a higher level, one has the impression that the two communities lived in almost complete ignorance of each other's cultural traditions, literature, and literary language. Indeed, there is hardly a single recorded instance of a member of one community using the literary language of the other as a medium of literary expression.1 Admittedly, the literary languages of the two communities-on

Literary Contacts and Where to Find Them: On Arabic Literary Models in Medieval Jewish Literature

Literary Contacts and Where to Find Them: On Arabic Literary Models in Medieval Jewish Literature

Reflections on cross-cultural literary contact: The reception of American critical discourse in Taiwan in the 1970s

This paper examines the phenomenon of cross-cultural theory transmissions, with particular reference to the reception of American critical theory in Taiwan since the late 1960s. Rather than being an empiricistic narrative, the paper has several meta-critical tasks to perform. It reviews the present status of ‘Third World’ area studies by questioning their blurring of systems as well as ignoring the functions of linguistic and scriptorial coding. It further examines some available communication models, discusses the functions of coding in intra-system and transcoding in inter-systems, and, finally, gives a meta-critical account of Taiwan's reception of American critical theory and practice in the last two decades. The paper therefore has its socio-political situatedness. It is intended as a critique of the subservient status accorded to literature in a ‘developing’ society, such as Taiwan, where economic and technological modernization is always on top of state technocrats' agenda. While modernization in Taiwan is primarily modeled on the United States, literary studies have unwittingly followed suit, observing the laws of anachronism and availability, which characterize cross-cultural literary reception.

Cynewulf's traditions about the apostles inFates of the Apostles

After almost a century of discussion of the traditions about the apostles in Cynewulf's poem it is somewhat surprising to find that some simple literary contacts have been ignored. This is true of the latest edition of the poem and of the more recent book,Sources and Analogues of Old English Poetry. In an earlier edition G. P. Krapp had chosen Bede'sMartyrologyas a source forFates, but, since Dom Quentin's detailed work on historical martyrologies has excised the accretions which that martyrology has accumulated, the authentic Bede can now be left out of the discussion. In modern times it seems that two lists of apostles which preface the Hieronymian Martyrology in eighth-century manuscripts are regarded as analogues or contributory sources. These are theNotitia de locis Apostolorum (Notit.), a list of the apostles’ resting-places, in the Echternach manuscript, and theBreviarium Apostolorum (Brev.), in other manuscripts. The two tracts entitledDe Ortu et Obitu Patrumin Migne's Patrologia Latina, the one normally assigned to Isidore of Seville(IO)and the other now regarded as an anonymous Hiberno-Latin tract(HLO)from the eighth century, and both including the apostles, have been considered by previous scholars. All these four works are early enough to have been consulted by Cynewulf, who is thought to have been writing in the ninth century, but none of them individually nor all of them collectively could have provided Cynewulf with all his factual details: none of them reports that James Zebedaei died ‘mid Iudeum’ (35 a) (although this fact could be assumed fromBrev., IOandHLO, which state that he was killed by Herod), that Philip preached in Asia (38a), that Thomas raised Gad, the king's brother, from death and that he himself was killed by a sword (54–60), that Matthew preached in Ethiopia (64) and that a named king ‘Irtacus’ (68a) ordered him to be slain ‘wæpnum’ (69b), that Simon and Thaddeus (or Jude) went together to Persia (76b) and that they died on the same day (‘him wearð bam samod / an endedæg‘, 78b–9a). These details are all lacking inHLO, which has the least differences from Cynewulf's poem. Each of the other texts individually has other differences,Notit. having the greatest number. These abbreviated accounts, of course, merely transmit traditions about the apostles, and so it is clear that Cynewulf used different traditions for at least Philip, Thomas, Matthew and the pair Simon and Thaddeus, who are linked by Cynewulf, whereas in the other texts either they are separated or Thaddeus is not mentioned. It is possible that a curious assumption of ‘short poem, short source’ has prevented scholars from being alert to the significance of a clear clue which has long been available. In Brooks's edition we read that ‘the resurrection of Gad… is not mentioned in Bede'sMartyrology, nor in theBreviarium; hence neither of these can be the sole source of the poem. A full account is given in the Apocryphal Acts of Thomas’, in other words, in the full story of Thomas'sPassio. I hope to demonstrate that almost all the details about the apostles in the poem came immediately from the full stories of theVitaeorPassioneswhich are still extant. In my opinion it is unnecessary to consider the possibility of an abbreviated intermediary, since, as a religious of his period Cynewulf would have heard stories of the saints, including the apostles, on their feast-days, and, as we know, he had access to written accounts for two pieces for such festivals, a story of theInventio Crucisfor his poemEleneand aVita S. Julianaefor his poem under her name. He would have been remarkably inattentive, not to say undevout, if he had not recalled the few details about individual apostles from such hearing or reading.

Review Notices : Literary Contacts between Russia and the West since the Fourteenth Century By P. N. Berkov. London: Variorum Reprints. 1973. 488 pp

Review Notices : Literary Contacts between Russia and the West since the Fourteenth Century By P. N. Berkov. London: Variorum Reprints. 1973. 488 pp

The Literature of the Peoples of the USSR and Problems of International Literary Contacts

I think it is sincerely to be regretted that the attention of literature students studying the facts of international literary exchange from the standpoint of comparative literature has virtually not been attracted at all by so distinctive and interesting a new phenomenon in the world literary process as the literature of the peoples of the USSR. As far as I can remember, neither in individual books nor in periodicals published beyond the boundaries of the USSR and devoted to the comparative study of literatures has the question yet been put as to what the literature of the peoples of the USSR i s, and whether it is of practical and theoretical interest for the study of the world literary process.

A Common Ancestry: Literature in Australia and Canada

Even the most diligent search will yield only a few documents that could be used to illustrate directly the cultural relations between Australia and Canada. Writers in the two countries have, for instance, lived and worked in almost complete ignorance of each other. Only two minor exceptions come to mind, and in each case it is a matter of a general interest in the other country rather than of any specific interest in its literature. Gilbert Parker, who was, for a short time during the nineties, a journalist in Australia, collected his articles under the title Round the Compass in Australia. It is a good travel book, based on solid information and firsthand knowledge, and written in a vigorous and incisive style. Parker's book is balanced on the Australian side by A. G. Stephens' A Queenslander's Travel Notes, a fugitive production much less significant than Round the Compass in Australia, although Stephens, the most influential of the Australian literary critics, is a more important literary figure than Parker. Stephens' book, with its brief and melancholy coda on Canada, follows the pattern of the nineteenth-century traveller's report on his American tour. The book, like Parker's, came out in the nineties, and its comments—sharply critical and often openly contemptuous—are to be read in the light of the depression both political and cultural which, at that time, afflicted Canada. Since there have been almost no direct literary contacts between the countries, it would be logical to expect no popular acceptance by the one country of the other's literature. That is in fact largely the case, although here Canada fares rather better: she has been more successful in producing the international best-seller; that strangely assorted trio, Leacock, Service, and de la Roche, are perhaps just as well known in Sydney and Adelaide as they are in Toronto or, enjoying the same kind of reputation in Canada.

William of Saint-Thierry and the Author of the Summa Sententiarum

WILLIAM OF SAINT-THIERKY AND THE AUTHOR OF THE SUMMA SENTEMlARbM Literary and Doctrinal Relations Among the authors of the first half of the twelfth century William of Saint- Thierry is certainly one of the better known; at least the principal circumstances and dates associated with his life can without too great difficulty be reconstructed. Born at Liège, he at first became monk of the monastery of the Benedictines of St. Nazaire at Reims. In 1119, he was elected abbot of St. Thierry near that same town. In 1135 he joined the Cistercians of Signy in the Diocese of Reims, - a retirement undertaken against the advice of his friend St. Bernard, — where he died toward the year 1148. Of his many works, all written with a good deal of personal unction, but one shall hold our interest here, namely his Liber de sacramento altaris.2 On the personal testimony of the author,3 this tract on the eucharist appeared a little after his letter remonstrating Rupert of Deutz for some less correct expressions used by the latter in his be of fir i ? ^. ! Since Rupert died probably in 1129, and most certainly before 1134, the work of William dates from the time whenhewas still abbotof St. Thierry (1119-1135). A. Wilmart places it in the year 1128. 6 Notwithstanding the fact that the LiI^ r .Ip sacramenta altaris passes for one of the most important tracts of the epoch, until now it does not seem to have provoked any 1.On the life and works of William of Saint-Thierry see J. de Ghellinck, L'F.ssor de la litt érature latine au XIf siècle, Bruxelles 1946, t. I, p. 186-18". 2.PL 180, 343-366. 3.Liber de sacrant, ait., Prol. (PL 180, 343-344 D): "Cum nuper, te ipsa exigente, cuidani fratri breviter de sacramentis scripsissem..." 4.PL 180, 341-344. 5.Cf. A. Manser in Lexikon für Theol. und kirche, IX, 15. 6.La série et la date des ouvrages de Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, j'iri Archives de la France iiionustique (Revue Ma'uillon), XIV, 1924, 15~'-167. 241 242WILLUM OF SAINT-THIERRY particularly attentive study. Having sounded it here and there from different points of view, we are led to the conviction that a literal and doctrinal examination would be truly worthwhile for abetter knowledge of the history of theology before Peter Lombard. By way of proof we present here the results of a comparative enquiry made into the tract of William and some chapters of the Summa Sententiarum. The Summa, due probably to Otho of Lucques, appeared some ten or twelve years after the tract of William, toward 1140. Between these two almost contemporary writings then, there exist some acute doctrinal and literary contacts. This in itself has its importance. On the one hand, it permits us to augment the list of sources, so difficult of recovery, of the Summa Sententiarum; we have there an advantageous result in view of the considerable influence exercised by this writing on the theology of the twelfth century and especially on Peter Lombard. On the other hand, the dependence of the Summa upon William of St. Thierry furnishes precious information for the genesis and evolution of certain doctrines pertaining to the eucharist and as yet but insufficiently known. 1. Literary Borrowings The Liber de sacramento altaris of William of St. Thierry has furnished the Summa Sententiarum a discreet but nonetheless real contribution. All the borrowings occur, as one would expect, in the section where the Summ. a treats of the eucharist, viz. in chapters 2 to 9 of the VIth tractatus. 7 In line with his usual manner, Otho of Lucques did not proceed with massive borrowings. In a general way, he contented himself with being inspired by the text and the ideas of his model. Here and there however he inserted either entire phrases or turns of expressions taken textually from the tract of William. Since these latter borrowings are the most valuable in pointing out the literary dependence, a list is here dressed of them with the corresponding texts from the Liber de sacramento altaris. Summa Sententiarum, tr. VILiber de sacramento...

George Ticknor and Ludwig Tieck

Concerning Ludwig Tieck's relations to Americans, Köpke, in his biography of Tieck, merely says: “Von Nordamerikanern lernte er [sc. Tieck] den Theologen Robinson und den Literarhistoriker Ticknor kennen.” Viewed in the light of other sources, however, the relations of Tieck to George Ticknor, the American historian and student of literature, deserve more than this passing comment and indeed form an interesting chapter in the history of German-American literary contacts.