Literary Merit Research Articles

Reception Theory: A Critical Introduction (review)

Reviews139 political responsibility. A tantalizing glimpse of the social context of Nietzsche's work is provided in a long and fascinating footnote on his interest in the work of two leading physicists, Friedrich Mohr and J. Robert Myer. Sadly Nietzsche could not find even among scientists diat sense of a shared vision for which he yearned. After eagerly studying their views on the conservation of energy he concluded that they were metaphysically confused. Fortunately Ofelia Schutte is not, and her delightfully lucid study is a pleasure to read. University of WarwickGodfrey Carr Reception Theory: A Critical Introduction, by Robert C. Holub; xiv & 189 pp. London: Methuen, 1984, $8.95 paper. This is die first general presentation in English of German "reception theory." Like many of die volumes in Mediuen's excellent "New Accents" series, this one offers both a clear, nontechnical exposition and a critical perspective that makes it well worth reading even for those already familiar with its subject. The author has also provided a very useful annotated bibliography. Holub wisely chooses to focus his discussion on the scholars associated with the University of Constance and with the Poetik und Hermeneutik research group, and to distinguish diem from the American "reader-response" critics to whom they have often been radier hastily assimUated. In a chapter on "precursors and influences," Holub shows how reception theory drew on Russian formalism, Prague structuralism, Ingarden's phenomenology, Gadamer's hermeneutics, and "the sociology ofliterature" — none of which played an important role in the development of American reader-response criticism (except perhaps in Jonathan Culler's Structuralist Poetics, where Prague structuralism is heavily mediated by recent French dieory and by Chomsky's linguistics). Holub is particularly good on writers like Tynianov, Mukarovsky, and Ingarden, all of whom are much better known in Germany dian in Anglophone countries. The core of Holub's book is a long chapter on "the two major theorists" — Hans-Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser. He notes that "although bodi have been concerned with a reconstitution ofliterary theory by drawing attention away from die author and the text and refocusing it on the text-reader relationship, their respective methods of approaching this shift have diverged sharply" (p. 82). Jauss's turn toward reception was connected with his effort to revitalize literary history, while Iser has been concerned primarily widi the phenomenology of reading. Holub's effort (in chapter four) to situate Jauss's and Iser's work with respect to diat ofother recent scholars is useful but perhaps a bit uneven. The discussion of the ways in which two of Jauss's students, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and 140Philosophy and Literature Karlheinz Stierle, have developed his dieories is valuable, as is the extended analysis of the debate between East German Marxist critics and their Constance counterparts. But I wonder whether "empirical" research into literary reception merits the amount of space Holub gives it — as he himself repeatedly points out, this line of research has thus far succeeded only in offering extremely doubtful "proofs" of what would be obvious to any moderately intelligent observer. While Holub's presentation of reception uieory is sympathetic, he retains a healthy critical distance from his subject. He notes that Jauss seems never to have been able wholly to escape the contradiction between his claim to provide an objective historical basis for literary scholarship and the relativism inherent in his Gadamerian hermeneutics. And he points out diat Iser gets into similar difficulties when he wants to limit the ways readers can construe texts by insisting diat diey are controlled, at some level, by objective features of die text (i.e., ones that are directly perceived, independendy ofany interpretive assumptions ). He also suggests diat in the end, despite its revolutionary aims, reception theory may be engaged in rebuilding the liberal humanist premises that postmodernist thinkers like Derrida and Foucault have been busy dismantling. As Holub notes, German reception theory progressed in the 1970s in relative isolation from the critical developments in France diat exerted a crucial influence on American critics. This is changing; in dieir latest essays, the leading figures in reception theory have begun to confront die issues raised by recent French and American theory. Holub's book should...

THIRD LANGUAGE UNDERGRADUATE LITERATURE STUDY: A PIPEDREAM?

The study of literature has for many years been (still is?) the Cinderella in the syllabusses of those departments that teach African (Bantu) languages as third or foreign languages. The view is put forward here that should a student major in an African (Bantu) language, albeit in a third language environment, he should at undergraduate level be exposed to the variety of genres present in his target language. The texts should not only be read, but also measured against accepted literary principles in order to establish if they have literary merit.

Blackmailing Amazons and Dutch pigs: A Consideration of Epic and Folktale Motifs in Persian Historiography

Iran's rich repertoire of narrative literature of oral origin, ranging from single-scene situation comedy through fairytale to the lengthy heroic epic, can certainly be appreciated for its intrinsic literary merits and entertainment value. Both compilers and patrons, however, of what are in effect folktale collections, have from ancient times adopted a utilitarian attitude to their material, a classic instance being the political science course that King Dabshalim (or Devasarma) took from Professor Bidpai in the form of animal fables. In one form or another, the practical autocrat and his obliging philosopher have continued to vet Persian literature through the centuries, insisting that myth and folktale be used as parables to leaven works ostensibly of devotional or moral instruction (as of Rumi or Sa'di) or of historical narrative.

Pynchon on Household: Reworking the Traditional Spy Novel

A possible influence on the creation of the Victorian explorer Hugh Godolphin, "F.R.G.S.," who appears in V., may be found in a character with the same unusual surname in Geoffrey Household's spy-thriller, Fellow Passenger. Of minimal literary merit, and far less exciting than other Household classics of the thriller genre, Fellow Passenger is a boring book by a notoriously uneven writer. Yet besides the character named Godolphin, it contains the seeds of a number of complex themes which subsequently flourish in the far richer imagination of Thomas Pynchon, who read Household as a teenager. I want to explore the relationships between V. and Household's book in order to demonstrate how Pynchon transforms the materials from a lowly potboiler into a serious work of art, and I want to focus finally on the metamorphosis of the Godolphin we see as a fatuous romantic escapist in Fellow Passenger, to the prophet of the twentieth century's Impulse toward destruction and doom we find in V. But first it will be necessary to give a brief summary of Household's novel, since it is likely to be far less familiar to readers than V.

The Literary Debate Over "the Indian" in the Nineteenth Century

In recent years, substantial critical attention has focused on vogue of the in American literature during first half of nineteenth century.l Scholars have found this literature interesting, not primarily for its literary merits (outside of Cooper and a few others), nor as a source of information on Native American life and character, but rather for what it reveals about white American culture of time and underlying values and ideas which gave rise to and supported white attitudes toward Indian. Thus, one finds studies with titles like The Savages of America: A Study of Indian and American Mind; Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of American Frontier; Ignoble Savage: American Literary Racism, 1790-1890; and Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building. All of these works draw upon literature about Indian in important ways to help support an analysis of white American culture and national character. 2 An accurate and convincing analysis depends at least partly upon a complete survey and a balanced interpretation of literature; one that is sensitive to literary and cultural contexts in which it was produced. But most current studies of period, as one might deduce from titles listed here, lay undue stress on literature hostile to Indian. They suggest that small

Scientific Basis of Water Resource Management

The least that one can say about the report is that it is very enjoyable reading. Every chapter has been carefully written, and the literary merit of some chapters is outstanding (particularly those by Klemes, ‘Empirical and Causal Models in Hydrology,’ and by Baker, ‘Geology, Determinism, and Risk Assessment’). The best that one can say about the report is that it does meet its stated objectives of (1) evaluation of the adequacy of present hydrologic knowledge and of the appropriateness of present research programs to provide information for decision making and (2) description of the impact of hydrologic knowledge on the planning and management of water resources. The worst that one can say about the report is that it is not particularly original and that there are few really fresh new arguments developed in it. One notable exception is provided in Chapter 11, by Matalas, Landwehr, and Wolman, which challenges the traditional (implicit) assumption that ‘human activity is an external perturbation of the hydrologic cycle.’ Though not the explicit intent of chapter 4, by Bredehoeft, Papadopulos, and Cooper, with the explosion of the water‐budget myth in groundwater, this chapter illustrates clearly the profound interaction of man (through wells) in the hydrologic cycle, a situation that cannot be comprehended from a study of the system free from human influence.

Translation of Latin

To Editor.— While reading editorial on paleopathology by Eve Cockburn, MA, and Theodore A. Reyman, MD (1982;248:472), I was surprised to find that motto of Paleopathology Association— mortui viventes docent —was inaccurately translated into English as dead are our teachers. While I am aware of current attitude in some academic circles of attempting to make classical languages more relevant by permitting looser and more colloquial translations from classics into English, I can see no justification for doing so in this instance. The literal translation, dead teach living, while being more linguistically accurate also has literary merit of preserving paradoxical quality present in original tongue. Since one of aims of paleopathology is the clarification of cultural and medical history, I hope that I can support endeavors of Paleopathology Association by providing this clarification of

Horror on the Grand Tour

product of a system for ordering knowledge of the foreign which was subject to historical change. Transformations in the procedures for describing and commenting on works of art as objects of the traveller's attention have therefore been largely ignored. Many such transformations nevertheless took place over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: new theoretical options became available, strategies which had previously played an important role in commentary on art were rejected or excluded, and the boundaries defining those empowered to utter this commentary shifted considerably. This reluctance to situate accounts of art in Italy within the context of a discourse of European travel is evident in the comments of literary critics as well as in those of art historians, and in both cases is partly due to a preoccupation with assessing the merits of particular travel books, rather than examining the common determinants of the whole range of utterances about art in Italy possible at any given period. The historial specificity of the writings is obscured both by assessments of the adequacy of language to its objects which invoke twentieth-century expectations in the guise of absolute criteria of judgment, and by appeals to concepts of 'literary merit', for which absolute, a-historical status is also claimed. Such distributions of praise and censure frequently pose a continuity between the qualities identified in the text and the abilities of the author, as a means of reinforcing distinctions between individual writings. Taste and the Antique, for example, by Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, removes one travel book from its discursive context by the declaration that 'the visual appetite and discrimination of the Richardsons are quite exceptional' (1982, p.45). Herbert Barrows' introduction to Hester Piozzi's Observations and reflections made in the course of a journey through France, Italy and Germany expresses its appeal to exceptional abilities even more directly: 'It is a better book than many of its contemporaries simply because it is by her' (1967, p.xiv). This article; in contrast, is concerned with analysing certain historical changes discernible in utterances which order knowledge of the foreign; it is not concerned with judging the merits of the works in which these utterances appear. The passages considered here are taken from works which follow the literary forms of several different genres: guide books and treatises on art as well as narratives of journeys. These passages are all analysed, however, as part of a discourse in which the objects of commentary are delimited by the practice of travel on the Grand Tour, and in which the subject speaks with an authority based on a claim to personal experience of travel. This authority may assume an important role even in writings which do not explicitly proclaim a co cern with travel on the title page: in William Aglionby's Painting Illustrated in Three Diallogues, for example, information about the history of painting is proffered by a 'Traveller', returned from Italy. Though concerned with the formation of certain concepts in the course of the eighteenth century, the present survey analyses these concepts as the products of sp cific orderings of language, and not as abstract enti ies to be defined in isolation from their linguistic context, as in a 'history of ideas' or a 'a history of taste'. The theories and arguments which are discussed here, moreover, are considered as strategies with precise rhetorical functions within the discourse of European travel, rather than generalized patterns of thought to be abstracted from it.

Wasted Heritage and Waste Heritage: The Critical Disregard of an Important Canadian Novel

This paper deals with the critical response to Waste Heritage, Irene Baird’s 1939 novel about social unrest in western Canada. The paper argues that Waste Heritage is an example of a category of fiction which can loosely be called "the novel of engagement," a category which is a dominant form of twentieth-century fiction, but which is also part of the mainstream of the western literary tradition. The paper goes on to argue that Waste Heritage has been ignored because of a "category mistake" in Canadian criticism which labelled such novels ’’social propaganda’’ and refused to consider them on their literary merits. The paper concludes with an analysis of those merits in Waste Heritage.

'The Lament for The South': Yu Hsin's 'Ai Chiang-nan fu'

The Ai Chiang-nan fu by the sixth-century poet Yu Hsin is one of the most famous and difficult of all Chinese medieval poems. It relates in a highly allegorical and elliptical manner the fall of the Liang dynasty, which the poet served. The poem belongs to the genre of the fu; rhapsodical, elegiac works written in an irregular metre. It is, however not at all typical of the genre, which is more often associated with descriptions of hunting parks, sacrifices, plants and birds. The poem thus deserves study both for its literary merits and for its uniqueness. Dr Graham provides a translation of the poem with a very detailed literary and historical commentary. Most previous studies of the fu have concentrated on the Han period but Dr Graham offers an extended discussion in any language of the genre in the period of the six dynasties (222 589). The book also includes an introduction to the history of the period.

Gower and Shakespeare in Pericles

TN THIS ESSAY I WISH TO PROPOSE an entirely new approach to Pericles which larises from the conviction that critics have not yet grasped the play's highly unusual character and technique. Because large parts of the play, particularly its first two acts, seem to critical readers so obviously defective and crude, both in style and in dramaturgy, we may be surprised by the evidence that in Shakespeare's own time and for a generation after, the play was highly popular. First Quarto of 1609 speaks of it as The late, And much admired Play . . .diuers and sundry times acted by his Maiesties seruants, at the Globe on the Banck-side. Other references from the time tell us of large crowds flocking to see it, and of both the Venetian and French ambassadors watching an early performance. Between 1610 and 1631 it was revived several times, not only at the Globe, but on one occasion at Whitehall before distinguished guests; it was also performed by a traveling company in the country. Moreover, the Quarto text was reprinted no less than five times, thus confirming the unusual interest in the play. By 1635, the date of the Sixth Quarto, very few other plays had appeared as often in print. We know, of course, that in Shakespeare's time other plays of little dramatic subtlety and of far less literary merit than the best scenes in Pericles could produce a great stir. Yet it does seem strange, especially in view of the play's fate on the stage from Dryden's time to the 1920s and even later, that a work which appears so dismally written and undramatic in its first two acts could experience such a success on stage, and that there was so much demand for it by readers. But what should surprise us most is that after producers hardly ever risked staging the play for centuries, and then only in major adaptations, several impressive revivals of it during the past thirty years have demonstrated that Pericles can hold modern audiences throughout-and more, that watching it can be an enchanting experience. If these audiences had been prepared simply to accept, for better or worse, the opening parts for the sake of the Shakespearean scenes in the later acts, we could understand this response quite easily. But the audiences were those that go to Stratford-upon-Avon and Stratford, Ontario, or the summer festival at Ashland, Oregon, and their like. A large proportion of them did not know the play or any criticism of it before seeing it. They

Time and Technique in Gulliver's Third Voyage

Since marjorie hope nicolson's epochal essay Scientific Background of Swift's Voyage to Laputa, satire of Part III of Gulliver's Travels has been understood as directed against researches ofThe Royal Society.1 In a recent essay David Renaker has extended Nicolson thesis by arguing persuasively distinction between episodes on Laputa and in Lagado are directed against Cartesians in France and Newtonians in England respectively, thereby explaining obvious distinction in text and lending a greater sense of unity to Travels as a whole by echoing earlier pairing of Blefuscu and Lilliput.2 These clarifications of historical context to which Swift is respond- ing provoke much greater interest by providing modern readers some sense of poignancy ofthe satire as was felt by Swift's contemporaries. However, view that in interest and literary merit falls short of first two on ground it is marked by multiplicity of themes .. . (and) is episodic in character may now deserve rethinking.3 The difficulty in obtaining an appro- priate relation between technological power and conditions of concrete human well being in latter decades of twentieth century is likely to lend greater interest to text, for interest is historical in a profound sense. Recon- sideration may even lend a sense of urgency to Swift's understanding of phenomenon of scientific knowledge. The question ofliterary merit would be set in a new light if were possible to discover unity in multiplicity of themes and order in those random episodes. If one could show Part III were not completely lacking in the philosophic intuition of voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag or in die power of violent and savage attacks upon mankind in Voyage to Houyhnhms — even more significantly, if one could show Swift's intuitive grasp of destiny oftechnological culture were so radical as not to be fully accessible until destiny had worked itself out, then what has been universally regarded as weakest part of Travels, perhaps con- structed in haste, certainly lacking in equal brilliance, might be seen as more worthy of its context and a greater credit to its age.

Sir Henry Herbert: The Master of the Revels as Man of Letters

Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels for more than fifty years during the seventeenth century, has been known in literary history chiefly because of his activity as licenser of plays. The excerpts from his Office Book, first transcribed and set forth by Edmond Malone, have been published since his time, most significantly by George Chalmers, Peter Cunningham, Halliwell-Phillipps, F. G. Fleay, Albert Feuillerat, Joseph Quincy Adams, and W. J. Lawrence.' Sir Henry has served generations of his royal masters and students of the drama commendably; but his very service as Master of the Revels has heretofore placed well in the background his own writings, public and private, whether in print or in manuscript. Every student of English literature knows something of the literary merits of Sir Henry's brothers, Edward, the first Lord Herbert of Chirbury and Castle Island, poet and philosopher, and George, Cambridge fellow and rector of Bemerton, the author of the greatest English devotional verse. Students of the seventeenth century may know that two other Herbert brothers were also writers in some degree, although the extent of their work has not yet been determined.2 To the best of my knowledge, however, no one has heretofore considered any of the writings of Sir Henry Herbert not related to the Office of the Revels. It is my purpose therefore to focus attention on the public and the private writings of Sir Henry Herbert apart from his official tasks and to describe the scope of his writing. Before proceeding, however, I should like to say something of his life that will show other sides of that familiar functionary, the Master of the Revels, as a man of his own family, his own time, and his own concerns. Henry Herbert, the sixth son of Magdalene and Richard Herbert, was their eighth child, following George and before Frances and the posthumous son Thomas. He was baptized at the church of St. Nicholas, Montgomery, on July 7, 1594, and for some years thereafter probably shared most of the experiences of his brother George, who was about fifteen months older. Their brother Edward, whose Life includes brief sketches of all the nine other Herberts, says that Henry, after he had been brought up in Learning as the other Brothers were, was sent by his Friends into France, where he attained the Language of that Country in much perfection.3 Before Henry set out for France to attain the French language in much perfection, however, it is likely that he and George together studied French with a tutor (modern languages at the time not being a part of the curriculum of the grammar schools) and that in the course of their studies they utilized Randle

The Isle of Ladies or The Isle of Pleasaunce ed. by Anthony Jenkins

REVIEWS Chaucer would never have intended to show a return journey on the Canterbury pilgrimage, and that therefore the Tales is substantially finished. The literary idea of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, as distinct from the real experience, did not involve a return journey; pilgrimage was conceived and written about as a one-way journey to a destination. No pilgrimage narrative written before the late fifteenth century re­ counts the return. Consequently Howard can claim here that Chaucer's idea of The Canterbury Tales is in one of its facets an idea of genre. One may cavil at the inclusiveness of Howard's generic category, which appears to define genre by subject matter; some may dispute the proprie­ ty of joining non-fictionalpilgrimagenarratives with fictional stories, of rememberedsightsand marvels in the Holy Land with remembered tales told on the road to Canterbury; those with even modest anxieties about influence may prefer more evidence that Chaucer had read any pilgrim­ age narratives besides Mandeville's. But even dissenters must agree that Howard's book does Chaucer studies a service by focusing attention on the genre of The Canterbury Tales, and by opening a debate that should provide us with new generic measures of Chaucer's achievement. PENN R. SZIT1YA Georgetown University ANTHONYJENKINS, ed., The Isle ofLadies or The Isle ofPleasaunce. Garland Medieval Texts, Number 2. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1980. Pp. 193. $20.00. This book contains a new edition of the text of The Isle ofLadies (about 70 pages), together with an introduction, notes, and glossary. It is most welcome to have a new edition of this poem: the only other 'modern' text was produced by Jane B. Scherzer in 1903, and is not available in some major libraries. Professor Jenkins has made a new transcription of the poem from the earliest manuscript (Longleat 256), and has provided variant readings from B.L. Addit. 10303 and Speght's Chaucer of 1598. If he had done no more than this he would have deserved our gratitude: the poem badly needs more discussion and Professor Jenkins has now given us the necessary starting point. I have not been able to check the 165 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER accuracy of his transcription, but a check on the variants from Speght revealed no mistakes. The poem is a love-allegory, and a curious one. The sixteenth-century editors called it Chaucer's Dream, and Speght maintained that it de­ scribed the courtship of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster. Critics for the last hundred years have spent their energies on trying to find another couple at a later date who would fit the circumstances described in the poem, or with trying to isolate other features which would provide us with clues to the date and provenance of the work. It survives only in late and somewhat corrupt copies, and any linguistic clues to its date are obscured by the process of transmission. Professor Jenkins tackles all these problems in his edition. He takes his text from the oldest manuscript, emends it sparingly, provides substantive variants from the other witnesses, and adds a lengthy intro­ duction and some notes. His main interest, however, is in the literary merits and context ofthe work: the bulk of the introduction and many of the notes discuss the poet's style and felicities of expression, and the poem's place in the development of late medieval allegory. But it is very hard to keep such questions separate from the problems of text and date, and some of Professor Jenkins's discussions reveal the difficulty. For instance, page 15 of the introduction is devoted to the poet's use of pronouns: Professor Jenkins argues that a "distinct clue" to the date of the poem lies in his handling of the second person pronouns. The poet of The Isle of Ladies preserves the distinction between the second person singular and plural very carefully-but then the same distinction is observed in The Court of Sapience, Morte Darthur, and The Pastime of Pleasure. He argues, in addition, that the poet carefully distinguishes between the nominative and accusative forms of these pronouns (ye/you and thou/thee...

American travelers in Holland through two centuries

T have been coming to Holland from the United States since long before KLM carried them to Schiphol in jumbo jets, hundreds at a time, to explore a bit of Amsterdam and then journey on to other lands. Most were tourists, but some were people with business in the Netherlands—merchants and managers, diplomats, of course, and students, artists, and scholars. Some deeply admired what they saw, some held their noses, literally or figuratively, and most suffered some baffledom and boredom. Only a very few among them left a record of their impressions in print, but their number is still big enough so that we can venture to take what they wrote as characteristic of what the others, less literate and less articulate, felt and thought. Few, very few of these accounts have inherent literary merit. Herman Melville left only sketchy notes and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had a tortured stay, during which his letters discuss only professional matters and finally the death of his wife after miscarriage. But we do have the letters of William Cullen Bryant, original not in what they say but in their prose style, precise but not precious. Most of the visitors were just tourists, who went dutifully where the guidebooks told them to go. They were seldom adventurous. They are of interest to us not for the unexpected insight, the fresh understanding, the intense personalism and personality of a Huizinga in America, but for what they reveal about the travelers themselves as well as about Holland. Let us not fool ourselves, however. The triteness of phrase that we meet so of ten in these accounts comes not just out of commitment to the obvious but also from recourse to guidebooks. Until the midnineteenth century these were the handbooks for travelers put out by John Murray of London; then they became the ubiquitous Baedekers. Yet we may assume that the tourists who set down reports of their

Moral Autonomy Still Refuted

If an argument is put forward as formally valid, critics should discuss that very argument and not variants upon it. But the critics of the counterexample to the 'moral autonomy' doctrine that I recently published1 have transgressed against this principle. Hurka thinks he can appeal against what I, the author of the example, make Uncle Dewi say to what Uncle Dewi must surely have meant;2 but since Uncle Dewi is a mere figure in a logical example, this is as comical as Sir David Ross's view that the Mikkalos of Aristotle's logical example may well have been a real person, but need not have been musical, as Aristotle makes him out to be.3 Borowski transgresses rather more seriously. He maintains that he will not be 'doing violence to the logical as opposed to the literary merit of Geach's example' if he replaces my premise:

Beaumarchais and Voltaire's Samson

Beaumarchais and Voltaire's Samson M. ELIZABETH C. BARTLET The acclaim accorded Voltaire in the late ancien regime was little short of veneration. Beaumarchais had hoped to capitalize on this situation when he decided to publish Voltaire's Oeuvres —the Kehl edition.1 He took great pride in citing the difficulties he overcame to produce an edi­ tion of the highest technical achievement.2 Even when the enterprise proved to be a financial disaster, Beaumarchais considered this "immense et belle collection des chefs-d'oeuvres"3 an homage worthy of the "plus beau genie de la litterature frangaise."4 Beaumarchais's admiration of Voltaire also took another form. More than a century ago Querard mentioned that in June 1782 he presented to the Academie Royale de Musique (the Paris Opera) a revised version of Voltaire's Samson, a libretto originally written for Jean-Philippe Rameau fifty years before.5 Later Desnoiresterres discovered two documents at the Archives Nationales to support Querard's contention, although he did not attempt to trace the history of the Beaumarchais arrangement.6 None­ theless, subsequent Beaumarchais scholars, even those writing on his in­ terest in music, have ignored it or mistakenly referred to it merely as a project not completed.7 Up till now no one has succeeded in finding a copy.8 Before turning our attention directly to the latter problem, we must examine the information that the Archives yield; this proves to be more extensive than Desnoiresterres indicated. And in order to assess the docu­ ments it is first necessary to understand the current administrative proce­ dures regarding the acceptance of new works at the Opera. The obstacle course set for would-be authors of operas was long and difficult.9 In the early 1780s the librettist first submitted a copy of his poem to the secretary of the Opera committee (formed of the chief admin­ 33 34 / BARTLET istrative officers, representatives of the singers and orchestra, and others connected with the theater). Shortly afterwards at their invitation he read it at one of their meetings. If approved, the libretto was enregistre; that is, the date of its acceptance was noted, as sometimes precedence later deter­ mined which one among completed works of otherwise equal merit would be given its premiere first (although the principle was even less rig­ idly applied at the Opera than at other theaters such as the Comedie Fran-£aise). Usually only once the text was approved would a composer begin serious work. If the libretto were rejected — and most were — there was no point in wasting time setting it, for the Opera had a monopoly on serious operas in France and prided itself, rightly or wrongly, on producing works of literary merit. But acceptance at this point was no guarantee that the work would ultimately be performed; it merely granted the right to proceed to the next step.10 The Opera was the Academie Royale de Musique, a royal institution with a substantial state subsidy. The libretto then went to the surinten­ dant du spectacle, Denis-Pierre-Jean Papillon de La Ferte,11 and finally to the minister of the maison du roi, Amelot. Either could examine it himself or have it read by others. Their approbation was not automatic; both government officials had an effective power of veto, although it was so seldom used that the Opera committee and authors alike tended to treat submission to higher levels as a mere formality — sometimes with unfortu­ nate consequences. After the music was finished, it was subjected to a similar examination. First a subcommittee of musicians studied the composers autograph score,12 and if it passed their inspection, parts for principal scenes were copied, rehearsed by a few soloists accompanied by strings, and per­ formed for the whole committee. On acceptance and with the approval of the surintendant du spectacle and the minister, the Opera's copyist pre­ pared the entire score and a full set of parts. Finally, perhaps years later, rehearsals as preparation for performance began, scenery and costumes were done, ballets were written and choreographed, and so on. At any stage, opposition of either government official (and the withholding of the necessary funds) could put an...

Dialogue in Xenophon's Hellenica

The use of dialogue in Xenophon's Hellenica is a phenomenon that needs explanation. Among previous historians, Herodotus had used it frequently but Thucydides hardly at all. In Xenophon's own time, Ctesias had used it but not the author of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia nor Ephorus to any great extent, as far as we can tell. Theopompus had plagiarized one of the Hellenica dialogues as well as adding others of his own. Generally, dialogue occurred less frequently in history writing than the set speech.Yet there have been no serious studies of dialogue in the Hellenica, and where opinions are expressed they often vary. Sordi considered that the purpose of dialogue was decorative and agreed with the estimates of ancient critics about the liveliness of the conversations. Breitenbach also thought they had literary merit but suggested that their purpose was moral and didactic. Henry agreed that their purpose was didactic but thought them flat and lifeless and lacking in literary merit. Bruce thought their purpose was to illustrate personality.These differences of opinion should be settled. Moreover, Sordi's view that the content, style and purpose of dialogue is quite different from that of the set speech, and that this reflects a difference of genre within the Hellenica, dialogue being typical of memoir and the set speech of ‘serious’ history, cannot go unchallenged. Herodotus used dialogue in what was clearly not memoir. Further, there has been no serious attempt to place dialogue in the Hellenica in the tradition of dialogue writing in history or to examine its relationship to dramatic dialogue or the philosophical dialogue. This needs to be attempted. Such are the aims of this paper.

Double the Vision: a Reading of Euripides'Electra

Controversy about the evaluation of Euripides'Electrastill rages as fiercely as empty tigers or the roaring sea. ‘Euripides’ play is a singular instance of poetical – or rather unpoetical – obliquity … perhaps of all Euripides' extant plays the very vilest'; ‘as a drama of character,Electrais supreme … in its own genre, this is undoubtedly Euripides' masterpiece'; it contains ‘a power of sympathy and analysis unrivalled in ancient drama’; its characters are ‘involved in a persisting interpenetration of merit and status which accords some measure of tonal unity to this indifferent play.’ When a play earns judgements as contradictory and incompatible as these, one important stimulus to the verdicts is usually the critic's subjectively emotional response to a play whose views about society and society's values are provocative; more reliable (because less subjective) criteria of literary merit, such as the interplay of plot, character, structure, imagery, and ideas, are then subordinated or comparatively neglected as elements in the evaluation. Euripides'Electrais just such a play. It attacks, both openly and implicitly, some of the traditional values still held by many Athenians in 413 B.C., the probable date of the play's production, with a commitment that has engaged a great deal of scholarly attention. The techniques which Euripides deploys in his attack, however, have not been adequately studied. They provide the rationale, as well as the title, of this paper. Before the ‘double vision’ can be explained, however, it will be as well to outline briefly those traditional values subjected to the Euripidean vitriol.

Shoddy and Pernicious Books and Youthful Purity: Literary and Moral Censorship, Then and Now

Though some librarians and teachers believe censorship is a recent phenomenon, it has been a part of librarians' lives for more than a century. Indeed, many late-nineteenth-century librarians regarded themselves primarily as censors, duty-bound to protect the young from shoddy and pernicious books, especially fiction. Some librarians and teachers today carry on this censorial tradition by circulating or teaching only works of high literary merit or the proper moral content. Those censoring on literary grounds often provide only subjective criteria, justifying censorship by their own personal tastes. Those censoring on moral grounds often provide no better criteria, justifying censorship by their own personal morality. Librarians and teachers have no right to impose personal literary or moral standards on the public, young or old. They have a duty to provide materials of all sorts to allow clients and students to search through and seek out ideas.