Metonymic Function Research Articles

Syntactic Variations in Referential Metonymy

AbstractThis paper explores the syntactic variations of concord in sentences involving referential metonymy in English. Apart from the standard type in which syntactic agreement is shown between the metonymic NP and the verbs or pronouns that follow, this article also discusses and summarizes other types where there are various degrees of disagreement. Moreover, this paper formalizes the principles of Ruiz de Mendoza and Díez (2004) by introducing the metonymic function, and proposes simplification of these principles based on the notion of metonymy as a contingency. Finally, this paper discusses other possible factors – both contextual and non‐contextual – that may lead to these syntactic variations.

Scribal Memory and Metonymy in Iron Age Judah with Some Discussion of Deuteronomy and the Lachish Letters

Drawing from recent work in media studies as applied to the ancient world, I will argue that all epigraphic evidence and all literary texts that may have their roots in Iron Age Judah must be understood as having a metonymic function because the ancients understood written texts as simple representations of broader messages that had been or would have been delivered in some oral form. I will illustrate this assertion by discussing representations of epigraphic materials in Deuteronomy (phylacteries, mezuzot, stelae), text-critical variants in the manuscript evidence of Deuteronomy, and the Lachish letters. I will conclude that the Lachish letters did not necessarily contain the full messages, and the courier of the ostraca would deliver a more elaborate oral communication. This metonymic function of documentary literature may have contributed to the development of the collective scribal memory that preserves the fullness of the traditional literary texts, a fullness that no one manuscript could possibly preserve since the traditional literature was transmitted with textual fluidity so that it existed in textual plurality.

Transimperial Rhythms

In an effort to expand the fields of literary, cultural, and ethnic studies, the collection of articles herein focuses upon an often-overlooked set of imperial relations between Britain and Latin America in the nineteenth century. The most common and central theme for the style of scholarship represented would be ‘transimperial’. A touchstone for this model is described through the example of Joseph Conrad’s ‘Author’s Note’ to the 1917 edition of Nostromo (1904). A close reading of the note demonstrates how time serves a metonymic function for British narratives set in South America, notably the relationship of the past to the present and the socioeconomic implications of that correlation on a Latin state. By tracking significant, yet typically ignored, cultural productions ranging from periodicals, social clubs, political groups, and fine art, all four authors (Keith Clavin, Jessie Reeder, Luz Ramirez, and Omar Miranda) demonstrate a dedication to the deep study of the transimperial.

Hubristic Hydraulics: Water, Dictatorship, and Modernity in the Dominican Republic

In this article, I focus on how water operated as symbolic capital during the notoriously repressive dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo (1930–61) in the Dominican Republic. Under his regime, alongside an apex of territorial control and modern aesthetics came a nadir of political freedoms. During Trujillo's tenure, water took on important symbolic and material dimensions as a conduit for authoritarianism: it served as a tool to bind together dictatorial power and spatial order through a mode of territorial and urban design rooted in hubristic hydraulics. With hubristic hydraulics I refer to the strategic ways that water flow was harnessed through infrastructure and choreographed through landscape and monumental architecture to embody and lionize the dictator's power. Channeled into reflecting pools, nationwide irrigation works, and monumental fountains, water functioned at the juncture of aesthetics and politics as an important tool in the modernization of urban space and the territory at large. Water was a strategic resource that enabled Trujillo to be cast as the “arquitecto de la patria nueva” (the architect of a new fatherland), and the ways it was made to flow through modern architecture and infrastructure offer an illuminating means to expose the entanglement of territorial control, urban modernity, and authoritarian politics.

The ambiguities of money-making

PurposeIndie developers are part of the creative fringe of the video game industry, fashioning an identity for themselves as a community committed to the development of video games as a cultural expression and art form. In playing this role, money-making is ambiguous inasmuch as economic return is honorable if such interests remain unarticulated and execute minimal influence on the development work process, while the possibility of producing a successful commercial video game is simultaneously one of the primary motivations for new industry entrants. The paper aims to discuss this issue.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reports on the empirical material drawn from a study of indie video game developers in Sweden, a leading country for video game development.FindingsTo reconcile tensions between video game development in terms of being both cultural/and artistic production and business activity, easily compromising the perceived authenticity of the subject in the eyes of audiences (e.g. hardcore gamers), indie developers distinguish between monetary motives ex ante and compensation ex post the release of the game. Indie developers thus emphasize the metonymic function of money as this not only indicates economic value and currency but also denotes a number of business practices that indie developers have otherwise avoided in their career planning as they believe these practices would restrain their creativity and skills.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the scholarship on video game development, the literature on creative industries, and the economic sociology literature examining the social meaning of money and how social norms and values are manifested in professional ideologies and practices.

Metonymic Pole of Sufi Prose Language with Emphasis on Shams-e- Tabrizi’s Essays

Among extant books of Sufis prose, the prose of Maqalat-e Shams-e Tabrizi has high and particular qualities. Its special language and the sensitivity that Shams shows in every point of his Maqalat regarding language makes us observe the dialectic between structure and meaning of language which is the results of forming a progressive prose compared to the prose of his contemporaries. Among the different functions of Shams’ language, metonymic function of prose has a special importance in Maqalat. Therefore, in order to discuss the form of Maqalat, in this article the metonymic language function is discussed, and in this way the theory of Roman Jakobson about metaphoric and metonymic pole of language has been used very much. Jakobson by accepting the theory of Saussure about the arbitrary aspects of language and also admitting two axes of replacing and companionship in language, adds that metonymy is formed by the relationship of proximity and companionship of words, but metaphor from the relationship of similarity in the replacement axis in language. By studying Maqalat we may conclude that its prose has used metonymy to present particular and special concepts.

The Anatomy of a Whale: Transatlantic Audiences and “the Good Bishop” Jebb in Moby-Dick

In Chapter 83 of Moby-Dick, “Jonah Historically Regarded,” Melville refers to “the Good Bishop” John Jebb, a popular Anglo-Irish religious scholar well known in both Britain and America. This essay traces the rise of Bishop Jebb’s transatlantic reputation and recovers the cultural significance of his scholarly contributions to biblical apologetics, specifically with regard to the historical authenticity of the story of Jonah and the Whale. Within Melville’s chapter, Bishop Jebb’s name performs a metonymic function evoking a complex matrix of key theological and scientific theories that reveal the tension among the epistemologies of philosophy, scientific rationalism, and religious apologetics. Thus, from this fleeting, unexplained reference to “the Good Bishop,” Melville appears to suggest an interpretive key for his massive narrative: that experiential knowledge trumps both scientific reasoning and religious faith.

Religious Memetics

Recently leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS/Mormon) faith have called upon members to “sweep the earth” with positive religious messages through social media. This digital moment in Mormonism exemplifies the interrelation and concomitant tension between everyday lived religion, technology, and religious institutions. While studies on digital religion have emphasized the push of participatory culture into everyday lived religion, this research on religious memes contributes to an emergent vein of digital religion scholarship focused on institutional authority. In our analysis of the “doubt your doubts” meme and antimemes we theorize religious memetics as a space for the reconnection of the everydayness of religious practice, which boils down meaningful moments of faith into facile, nonthreatening avenues for sharing religion. While this is beneficial for institutions, the reflexive and metonymic function of religious memes ruptures routine, offering participants momentary pauses from the demands of orthodox religious life.

Uso de secuencias de película para ilustrar noticias por los servicios informativos de una emisora de televisión regional

A quantitative and thematic study of the use of film sequences in television news editing has been performed. Only cases where films illustrate news pieces about non-cinema related topics were taken into consideration. The basic legal aspects about the use of these sequences are mentioned. The study results can help in the decision-making process about tasks related to the analysis of trailers and electronic press kits. In recent years, there has been a steady increase in the use of film clips in the news, especially on issues of “Society” (40% of total). The results show that 20% of the use is as a metonymic function (when one element is replaced for another with which it has a close relationship, causal, spatial or temporal, and the pictures do not show the narrative element but something that is part of it, such as replacing an author for his work) and 80% environmental or illustrative (supporting the information offered). When extracts do not exceed 20 seconds, may be used without legal permission, what is known as a fair use chrestomathy.

The Flight of the Nightingale: From Romans to Romantics

This paper evaluates the resilience of the myth of Philomela and the symbol of the nightingale in poetic tradition from Ovid’s Metamorphoses to the early Romantic poetry of Keats, Wordsworth, and Coleridge. Poets have long depended upon natural life to demonstrate characteristics of human emotion and activity, for animal species remain similar generation by generation, but simultaneously act autonomously. The myth of Philomela’s metamorphosis into a nightingale draws upon the natural characteristics of the bird, and to reference it implies very specific connotations. By explicating the primary source poetry, I draw immediate connections between references to the myth while in order to highlight the prevailing variations in metonymic function. Using critical commentary of classical scholars of Ovid and poetic scholars of the Romantics, I utilize the shift of the nightingale from Ovid’s bird of repressed grief to the Romantic’s one of natural joy. With the shift, I seek to extrapolate two understandings from the nightingale’s mythological symbolism. Why use the nightingale as a symbol, and what can differences in the perception of the nightingale from the Romans to the Romantics tell us about their respective views of nature? Incorporating the conversation of gender differences and rape, I acknowledge the male dominance of the myth as well the symbolism of song and speech in conveying message, stemming from Philomela’s loss of her tongue. Bridging the gap between the Greek myth, the Roman story, and the Romantic reinterpretation, the common metaphor of the nightingale is a common ground for reading the natural perception of nature through poetry.

The Metonymic Functions of the Verb fa?ala in the Holy Qur’an

This study builds on an observation that the verb fa?ala in Arabic, which means ‘do’, is essentially metonymic; it can refer to any transitive or intransitive verb in the language. This referential function is paradigmatic in nature and has been mentioned by classical Arab grammarians, hence their choice of this verb as the template or pattern on which all action verbs are formulated and modulated. The study proceeds from this basic observation to propose another type of referential function of the verb fa?ala, which is syntagmatic in nature: the cohesive function. Taking the Holy Qur’an as the corpus for this study, both functions of the verb are investigated in this study. A statistical analysis is carried out to identify all the occurrences of the verb fa?ala and its derivatives in the Holy Qur’an within their textual contexts, usually the verse. A textual analysis of each of these occurrences is, then, carried out to reveal the metonymic function of the verb fa?ala in all these instances. The study shows that within the general metonymic referential function of the verb fa?ala two basic sub-functions can be identified. The first is plain reference and the second is euphemistic reference. The findings of this study show that the plain reference function only accounts for about 37% of the total occurrences, while the euphemistic reference accounts for about 63% of the total Holy Qur’an corpus. These findings are significant because no previous study has addressed this textual aspect of the verb fa?ala in the Holy Qur’an, not even classical and contemporary exegetes. This study is also significant to linguistic and figurative studies of the Holy Qur’an, Holy Qur’an corpus studies and textual and pragmatic analysis of the Holy Qur’an.

The Metonymic Functions of the Verb fa?ala in the Holy Qur’an

This study builds on an observation that the verb fa?ala in Arabic, which means ‘do’, is essentially metonymic; it can refer to any transitive or intransitive verb in the language. This referential function is paradigmatic in nature and has been mentioned by classical Arab grammarians, hence their choice of this verb as the template or pattern on which all action verbs are formulated and modulated. The study proceeds from this basic observation to propose another type of referential function of the verb fa?ala, which is syntagmatic in nature: the cohesive function. Taking the Holy Qur’an as the corpus for this study, both functions of the verb are investigated in this study. A statistical analysis is carried out to identify all the occurrences of the verb fa?ala and its derivatives in the Holy Qur’an within their textual contexts, usually the verse. A textual analysis of each of these occurrences is, then, carried out to reveal the metonymic function of the verb fa?ala in all these instances. The study shows that within the general metonymic referential function of the verb fa?ala two basic sub-functions can be identified. The first is plain reference and the second is euphemistic reference. The findings of this study show that the plain reference function only accounts for about 37% of the total occurrences, while the euphemistic reference accounts for about 63% of the total Holy Qur’an corpus. These findings are significant because no previous study has addressed this textual aspect of the verb fa?ala in the Holy Qur’an, not even classical and contemporary exegetes. This study is also significant to linguistic and figurative studies of the Holy Qur’an, Holy Qur’an corpus studies and textual and pragmatic analysis of the Holy Qur’an.

L'Esprit de l'escalier ou Les Degrés du savoir (review)

Reviewed by: L'Esprit de l'escalier ou Les Degrés du savoir Deborah Houk Schocket Mahieu, Raymond . L'Esprit de l'escalier ou Les Degrés du savoir. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010. Pp. 164. ISBN: 978-90-420-2983-5 What can a reader of nineteenth-century novels learn by paying careful attention to scenes involving staircases—whether barely evoked in passing or described at length? Raymond Mahieu's readings show that this often overlooked piece of architecture can reveal quite a lot about the situation of the characters who mount and descend their steps: "Plus on lira de scènes d'escalier, plus il faudra s'en convaincre: entre les degrés et le savoir se constate une étrange solidarité" (7). Mahieu showcases the centrality of knowledge in his clever title, a play on the French expression "avoir l'esprit de l'escalier" for someone who, incapable of thinking of a quick rejoinder, only comes up with a reply when descending the stairs, once it is too late. Emeritus Professor Mahieu brings his extensive knowledge of the nineteenth-century novel to bear on his vast corpus of texts, both canonical and largely forgotten. The authors who figure most prominently in his study include Balzac, Stendhal, Sand, Hugo, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Zola, Vigny, the Goncourt brothers, Maupassant, and Huysmans, although it is more an overall appreciation of the signification of staircases rather than an in depth knowledge of any particular writer or novel that one gains from reading L'Esprit de l'escalier. Mahieu's ability to evoke connections between disparate texts as he seamlessly flows from one example to the next is truly impressive, for the organization of this book presents a structural challenge of its own. With examples that rarely extend for more than a few paragraphs, it can be hard for the reader to keep track of Mahieu's developing arguments, although he helpfully relies on quotes from the novels themselves (some from a few lines to others as long as a third to half a page) to provide grounding for his readers. The book is organized into chapters based on such concepts as whether the staircase in question is interior or exterior, in a single-family dwelling or an apartment building, as a point that connects oppositional high and low spaces, by what the novel's characters do on the staircase (whether they are alone or cross paths, ascend or descend), and by whether the knowledge in question is connected to shadows and obscurity or light and mastery of their situation. Each of the six chapters contains numerous subheadings to account for all of the different variables Mahieu discovered. The author's analysis of the signifying function of a dwelling's front steps in his [End Page 168] first chapter provides an example of the kind of information a reader can learn when paying careful attention to a novel's staircases. Over the course of four pages and with examples taken from Balzac, Daudet, Zola, Duranty, Barbey d'Aurevilly, and Musset, Mahieu evokes the front stoop's metonymic function: it is in a position to communicate information not only about the building, but about its occupants as well (17). For example, in Duranty's Le Malheur d'Henriette Gérard, the front steps hold a dual function as a barrier between public and private spaces. Not only is a suitor who is deemed socially inferior by the family blocked there from entering the home, but also the heroine's experiences on this staircase evoke her feelings of imprisonment: "lors d'une tentative avortée de fugue, elle s'y immobilise, et au moment du départ et à celui du retour,—comme si le lieu participait de la nature implacablement captatrice de la demeure" (18-19). Mahieu further shows how the signification of staircases is enhanced when the reader compares all of the different scenes involving staircases throughout a novel. The penultimate chapter, "Lumières," focuses particularly on the implications of characters' ascending versus descending movement on a staircase. Examples taken from multiple texts by Balzac, but also Reybaud, Stendhal, and Barbey d'Aurevilly, lead Mahieu to characterize the common point of the characters' advertures when they...

La práctica artística en contextos de dramas sociales

Using various examples of contemporary installation art, this essay explores questions of social practices, liminality, absence, and mourning. Borrowing theories from Didi-Huberman, Victor Turner, Jesús Martín-Barbero, Giorgio Agamben, and others, the author discusses the role of imágenes de crisis created by artists such as Doris Salcedo, Erika Diettes, Teresa Margolles, and Ambra Polidori in providing a site for mourning within a setting of extreme social conflict and disintegration. In places where disappearance is the norm, things like clothing and personal belongings perform a metonymic function in conveying the agonistic relation between image and absence. Turner’s notions of social drama and liminality, in particular, provide a paradigm that allows us to reevaluate the relationship that forms among rite, culture, and art during times of intense social disequilibrium. (JEB, article in Spanish)

Early childhood education and adult‐oriented advertising discourse

Much of the advertising content children see is adult‐oriented. However, research has focused on commercials designed for child audiences. Also, whether advertising is commercially successful or not, it constitutes a ‘form of acculturation’. However, research is mainly focused on perception of the commercial dimension of advertising, and does not treat advertisements as an integrated discourse. This paper investigates, through a semiological perspective, firstly the ability of a pre‐school child to perceive advertisements for adults as an integrated discourse (perception of the conative function of the images, perception of the metonymic function of the images, perception of the sender of the advertising message, etc.), and secondly the child’s emotional involvement in this discourse. Our sample consists of 96 children, aged four to six from different kindergartens of Greece. Our findings are discussed on the basis of the goals of Media Education. La recherche sur la publicité concerne celle qui est conçue pour les enfants alors que ce que voient les enfants est destiné, la plupart du temps, aux adultes. Que la publicité soit efficace sur le plan commercial ou non, elle constitue une ‘forme d’acculturation’, or la recherche porte principalement sur la perception de sa dimension commerciale et ne considère pas la publicité comme discours intégré. Cette étude porte, dans une perspective sémiologique, tout d’abord sur la capacité des enfants d’âge préscolaire à percevoir la publicité pour adultes comme discours intégré (perception de la fonction conative et métonymique des images, perception de l’expéditeur du message publicitaire, etc…), et ensuite sur l’implication émotionnelle de l’enfant dans ce discourse. Notre échantillon comprend 96 enfants âgés de quatre à six ans, provenant de différentes écoles maternelles de Grèce. Nous analysons les résultats sur la base des objectifs de l’ éducation aux média. Die meisten Werbungsinhalte, die Kinder sehen, orientieren sich an Erwachsenen. Dennoch konzentrieren sich Forschungsarbeiten auf Werbung für das Kinderpublikum. Unabhängig davon ob die Werbung erfolgreich ist oder nicht, stellt sie eine ‘Form von Kulturerwerb’ dar. Die Forschungsarbeiten konzentrieren sich hauptsächlich auf die Erfassung der kommerziellen Dimension der Werbung und behandeln sie nicht als einen integrierten Diskurs. Diese Arbeit erforscht aus einer semiologischen Perspektive zum einen die Fähigkeit des Vorschulkindes, die Werbung für Erwachsene als einen integrierten Diskurs zu erfassen (Erfassung der Absichten, die mit den Bildern verknüpft sind und dessen, wofür sie stehen, Erfassung des Absenders der Werbemitteilung etc.) und zum anderen die emotionale Beteiligung des Kindes an diesem Diskurs. Unsere Untersuchungsgruppe waren 96 Kinder im Alter von vier bis sechs Jahren aus verschiedenen Kindergärten Griechenlands. Unsere Ergebnisse werden im Rahmen der Ziele für die Medienerziehung diskutiert. Gran parte del contenido publicitario que ven los niños está orientado a los adultos. No obstante, la investigación se ha centrado en anuncios diseñados para públicos infantiles. Asimismo, y con independencia de su éxito comercial, la publicidad constituye una ‘forma de aculturación’, pero la investigación se centra principalmente en la percepción de la dimensión comercial de la publicidad, sin tratar los anuncios como un discurso integrado. Desde una perspectiva semiológica, este trabajo investiga tanto la capacidad de un niño en edad preescolar para percibir anuncios para adultos como un discurso integrado (percepción de la función conativa de las imágenes, percepción de la función metonímica de las imágenes, percepción del emisor del mensaje publicitario, etc.) como la implicación emocional del niño en el discurso. Nuestra muestra consta de 96 niños con edades de cuatro a seis años de distintos jardines de infancia de Grecia. Nuestras conclusiones se razonan sobre la base de los objetivos de Media Education.

Une souffrance qui ne passe pas.

An Enduring Suffering. Changes in the Female Body and the Creation of a Pharmaceuticals Industry Imaginary. The article discusses the findings of a survey concerning the psychodynamics of work which was undertaken among employees in the pharmaceuticals industry. The survey sought to probe the psychological effects following from the closing-down of their company. The evocation of the bodies of their female fellowemployees who had suffered certain masculinising modifications, and of the premature death which was the fate of some, played a central role in the evocation of the current suffering of those who had earlier been their colleagues. The placenta, the scientific material with which they worked, thus became collated with the anxiety-laden fantasies of the two woman researchers. The author of the article therefore addresses the status of the researcher’s body in the interpretation of her findings, and the place of fantasy, and the creation of an imaginary, in a protocol of research and action involving the socialisation of an actual trauma in a milieu where cases of the contamination of bodies are both secret and random. Gender mutation thus fulfils a metonymic function, insofar as it is the sole visible manifestation of the violation, whether real or imagined, of bodily integrity.

The Entertaining Mr. Orton: How Joe Orton's Plays Can Outgrow the ‘Swinging Sixties’

This re-examination of the plays of 1960s farceur Joe Orton reveals that his plays can survive the passage of time as well as cultural displacement. Orton's skill lies in using the medium of the theatre to create a liminal situation, whereby all the signs and subtexts can crystallize into accessible images, which are explored here from a semiotic perspective. Orton's scrupulous understanding of genre and plot construction enables him to pay lip-service to a specific genre, as he simultaneously mocks modern realistic theatre conventions; the one-room settings are examined for their metonymic function, and the props and costume are considered from the semiotic perspective of vectorization. This fresh approach to Joe Orton elucidates how the plays have their own intrinsic dramatic merit, independent of their original 1960s context: Orton plays games with his audiences, and game-playing is a universal pastime.

Jane Austen's Clothing: Things, Property, and Materialism in Her Novels

Jane Austen's Clothing: Things, Property, and Materialism in Her Novels JAMES THOMPSON On a visit to London in 1813, Jane Austen wrote her sister that she saw "a small portrait of Mrs. Bingley, excessively like her. I went in hopes of seeing one of her Sister, but there was no Mrs. Darcy . . . Mrs. Bingley's is exactly herself, size, shaped face, features and sweetness; there was never a greater likeness. She is dressed in a white gown with green ornaments, which convinces me of what I had always supposed, that green was a favorite colour with her. I dare say Mrs. D. will be in Yellow" (24 May 1813, Letters, pp. 309-10).1 That none of these details of appearance, taste, and dress appears in Pride and Prejudice supports what R. W. Chapman observes of Austen: "she knows all of the details, and gives us very few of them."2 Her novels give us few specifics of clothing, even while her letters, as one reader complains, "deal wearisomely with details of dress."3 We weary easily of such details because we are accustomed to read Austen, and novels in general, by moving from objects to values, interpreting the objects portrayed as a foundation on which is constructed elaborate social and ethical systems. This easy move from materialism to idealism, how­ ever, tends to obscure the real pressures of material life, pressures which qualify, if not undercut, the more obvious morals exemplified in Austen s novels. Morals are so obvious to us because our traditional approval of didacticism of course foregrounds morality. This examination of how Austen clothes her characters will, I hope, provide some insight into how 217 218 / THOMPSON she constructs her fiction; the clear lesson that an interest in clothing is vain and frivolous is called into question by a myriad of social and eco­ nomic demands on women. Austens central subject, emotional change, is reached by transcending both of these sets of concerns. We may begin by observing that articles of clothing are not introduced gratuitously. Even the most casual reference can be said to help set the scene, as when Catherine Moreland's haste to get dressed is overcome by her curiosity in an old chest: "At length, however, having slipped one arm into her gown, her toilette seemed so nearly finished, that the impatience of her curiosity might safely be indulged" (NA, p. 164). More commonly, specific items of dress are mentioned that others may comment on them, as with Elizabeth Bennet's "dirty stockings" which provoke various and telling reactions at Netherfield (PP, p. 36). Similarly, we find out what Willoughby wears when we are told that Marianne "soon found out that of all manly dresses a shooting-jacket was the most becoming" (SS, p. 43). This specific item of clothing reveals Mariannes thinly veiled attraction to Willoughby's person, and further, a shooting-jacket, with its associa­ tion of youth and sport, contrasts favorably with Colonel Brandon's flan­ nel waistcoat, with its associations of age and infirmity (SS, p. 38). Particu­ lar stockings, jackets, and waistcoats, then, are brought to our attention in order to reveal attitudes and assumptions of the characters; like physical objects in general, as Joel Weinsheimer notes, they "are primarily for the purpose of characterization."4 Beyond this metonymic function, clothing tends to fade into the vague description of "fashionable" or "elegant," and we are told almost nothing of what these terms signify.5 When we are told, elegance tends to slip into over-elegance and vulgarity, and fashion into precipitous, irrational change, as in Sanditon, where Mr. Parker calls to his wife: "Look my dear Mary— Look at William Heeley's windows. — Blue Shoes & Nankin Boots!—Who wd have expected such a sight at a Shoemaker's in old Sanditon!—This is new within the Month. There was no blue Shoe when we passed this way a month ago. — Glorious indeed!—Well, I think I have done some­ thing in my Day" (p. 383). Whenever Austen narrates so particular an interest in dress as this, our suspicions are aroused, for those who think so much of small matters tend to think improperly of great matters...