Passionate Nature Research Articles

SLUMMING WITH THE NEW WOMAN: FIN-DE-SIÈCLE SEXUAL INVERSION, REFORM WORK AND SISTERHOOD IN RHODA BROUGHTON'S DEAR FAUSTINA

In Dear Faustina (1897), Rhoda Broughton positions the New Woman as a morbid and immoral sexual predator, who permanently taints Victorian middleclass sisterhood by transgressively merging the roles of lover and sister, and whose victims can only be truly rescued from the New Woman's degenerate sexuality by the heteronormative institution of marriage and reform work modeled on the middle-class home. This anti-New Woman novels explores late-Victorian anxieties about women's increasing involvement in the public sphere through reform work and concerns over the passionate nature of women's relationships with other women in the organizations they formed to do philanthropic work. Acknowledging the compelling nature of reform work for middle-class women and yet also highlighting danger of the class and sexual boundary crossing encouraged by such work, Broughton seeks to provide a new model of heterosexual marriage that allows women to do social reform work within a semi-private, domestic, and paternalistic model.

Red Serge and Polar Bear Pants: The Biography of Harry Stallworthy, RCMP (review)

Reviewed by: Red Serge and Polar Bear Pants: The Biography of Harry Stallworthy, RCMP C.M. Sawchuk Red Serge and Polar Bear Pants: The Biography of Harry Stallworthy, RCMP. William Barr. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2004. Pp. 400, illus., b&w, $34.95 Although the annals of exemplary northern Canadians boast several members of the RCMP – F.J. Fitzgerald, Sam Steele, and J.D. Moodie come to mind – William Barr seeks now to add Harry Stallworthy's name to that list. A professor emeritus of geography at the University of Saskatchewan, Barr has, in his past publications, brought attention to northern explorers who have been undeservedly forgotten. In recent years, he has translated exploration accounts out of the French and German originals. Now a body of English sources forms the basis for this original narrative about Stallworthy's life. Stallworthy is an engaging subject both symbolically and personally. In the early twentieth century the federal government depended upon RCMP constables in the Northern Service to exemplify Canadian sovereignty in far-flung regions. Stallworthy occupied Bache Peninsula, on Ellesmere Island's eastern coast, at a crucial time in Canadian-Norwegian territorial negotiations. Because of the continuous presence of Stallworthy and other officers from 1922 onward, Norway withdrew its claim to those lands in 1930. William Morrison, in his introduction, makes a pertinent historical connection by noting that Canadian sovereignty in the North will be contested once more because of rising global temperatures. [End Page 158] The particulars of Stallworthy's career from 1913 to 1946 not only provide exciting reading, but also demonstrate the range of capabilities of a gifted RCMP officer. Undoubtedly Stallworthy's most important work occurred in the North. From 1930–2 he aided in the search for the German biologist Hans Krüger, who had disappeared west of Bache Peninsula in the spring of 1930. One of Stallworthy's sledge patrols comprised 65 days of winter travel over an estimated 2,250 kilometres – a staggering feat by any standard. Stallworthy also guided the Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition through the same territory in 1934–5. The leader of that expedition, Edward Shackleton (son of the famous Ernest), later admitted that 'had it not been for Sergeant Stallworthy, our difficulties would have been so increased that it is probable we should have had very little success' (270). Aside from Ellesmere, Stallworthy enjoyed postings at Dawson, Moncton, Ottawa, Stony Rapids, Fort Smith, and Thorold, among other places. His varied experiences are representative of the challenges that RCMP officers faced in adapting themselves to different regions, and illustrate the widely diverse nation these men served. The book achieves most in emphasizing Stallworthy's complex personality. Barr's access to Stallworthy's correspondence with his brother, Bill, and the diaries of his wife, Hilda, bestows a very human character upon a man who could have been portrayed as superhuman. Throughout, Barr sprinkles evidence of Stallworthy's roguishness – an 'illegal possession of alcohol' citation that dogged his career, attempts to work personal traplines against Force regulations and smuggle the furs south, and a fight with his Ellesmere co-worker that knocked out some of the latter's teeth. Nor does Barr hesitate to describe the physical ailments that plagued Stallworthy his whole life. Such information enhances, not detracts, from the virtues that such a man would be expected to display – his calm yet passionate nature, his affection for the Inughuit of Greenland and their lifestyle, and his love for Hilda despite their long separations. Barr is to be applauded for this well-balanced portrayal. Red Serge and Polar Bear Pants is one of Barr's most accessible books to date: It is a coherent narrative with quotations from primary sources interspersed. The author's smooth and polished prose contrasts with the staccato, jerky rhythm of Stallworthy's, and mutes the latter's voice somewhat. Yet Stallworthy is often quoted at great length, and certainly enough to establish his unique character. When Stallworthy's life intersects with important events, Barr gives adequate background information without detracting from his subject's primacy. This reviewer appreciated most that, when the primary sources failed to provide information, Barr [End Page 159] admitted it candidly. He...

Clifford’s Principle and James’s Options

In this paper I discuss William J. Clifford’s principle, “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence” and an objection to it based on William James’s contention that “Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds.” I argue that on one central way of understanding the key terms, there are no genuine options that cannot be decided on intellectual grounds. I also argue that there is another way to understand the terms so that there are cases of the sort James describes, but then, as an objection to Clifford, the argument is needlessly complex, invoking concepts such as genuine options and intellectual undecidability, that play no crucial role.

The Melancholy of the Philosopher: Hume and Spinoza on Emotions and Wisdom

Spinoza and Hume each exemplify a specifically modern view of the classical idea that the practice of philosophy leads to the moderation of man’s passionate nature. Both integrate this conception of ‘doing philosophy’ as a search for wisdom into a science which is in harmony with a modern ateleological worldview. But they diverge fundamentally when they spell out how exactly philosophy can lead to wisdom and in what this wisdom consists. In his Ethics Spinoza presents the study of the relation between God and man, passion and virtue, following the more geometrico method, as a form of medicina mentis. The new philosophy which investigates human actions and desires as though it was concerned with “lines, planes and solids” (E 3, intro) thus leads to nothing less than the liberation of man from his enslavement to the emotions. True philosophy forms the way to freedom and virtue or, more precisely, Spinoza sees the unfolding of this (striving for) wisdom as identical with virtue. It may be very hard to achieve this perfection of reason in practice, but for Spinoza the intrinsic interwoveness of knowledge and virtue is indisputable. Insofar as wisdom merges, in its utter perfection, with the Amor Dei intellectualis, it even transcends human finitude and becomes a form of salvation (Beatitudo). A century after Spinoza Hume is less optimistic about this idea of philosophy understood as a medicina mentis. In the famous conclusion to Book I of his Treatise, having established the antimetaphysical framework of the science of human nature, he indicates how the desire for knowledge can lead to a deep

Garret (ed.), An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections

Garret (ed.), <i>An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections</i>

Guest Editorial: The Resistance to Belief

William James's essay “The Will to Believe” proposed that we are sometimes justified, even obligated, to believe from our strong emotional or passional nature that something is true, even though there may not be total logical, evidential proof—which he also wrote is not to be found in this world. This essay explores situations, using a recent dear-death experience (NDE) example, in which there are reasonable evidence and logic, and yet belief seems to be withheld. I postulate and discuss nonrational influences producing resistance to belief, including the fear of being in error, the fear of rejection from the scientific community, irrational requirements of logicality, avoidance of consequences, and paradigm fixation. I also discuss issues in philosophy of science and epistemology in regard to proof.

Dreaming with His Eyes Open: A Life of Diego Rivera

This engrossing biography of Diego Rivera, the brilliant Mexican artist and revolutionary, captures the explosively passionate nature that made Rivera one of the twentieth-century's most gifted and controversial painters.

The Portraits of Madame de Pompadour: Celebrating the Femme Savante

This engrossing biography of Diego Rivera, the brilliant Mexican artist and revolutionary, captures the explosively passionate nature that made Rivera one of the twentieth-century's most gifted and controversial painters.

The young John Muir: an environmental biography

As a founder of the Sierra Club and a promoter of the national parks, as a passionate nature writer and as a principle figure of the environmental movement, John Muir stands as a powerful symbol of connection with the natural world. But how did Muir's relationships with nature begin? In this book, Steven J. Holmes offers an interpretation of Muir's formative years, one that reveals the agony as well as the of his earliest experiences of nature. From his childhood in Scotland and Wisconsin through young adulthood in the Midwest and Canada, Muir struggled - often without success - to find a place for himself both in nature and in society. Far from granting comfort, the natural world confronted the young Muir with a full range of practical, emotional and religious conflicts. Only with the help of his family, religion, and the power of nature itself could Muir, in his late 20s, find a welcoming vision of nature as home.

Speculative Fiction and Black Lesbians

W H H EN IRISH WRITER Sheridan Le Fanu published his vampire story Carmilla in 1871, he could hardly have known he had created a classic lesbian tale in the genre of speculative fiction. In fact, neither the word lesbian nor the term speculative fiction was likely to have crossed his mind. As Dennis Altman discusses very articulately in his book The Homosexualization of America, the realization of a lesbian (or gay) group identity occurred historically only in the presence of a complex set of circumstances. The social upheaval of war, the development of technology, and the creation of municipal centers all helped to create the possibility of a lesbian or gay identity, as differentiated from individual homosexual acts. Altman suggests that such self-definition was only possible under the particular social formations of urbanization and industrialization (1982, 48). In his drawing room Le Fanu might have used any one of several Victorian terms for women who love women-Sapphists and inverts among them. But it is more likely he used none at all when in decent company or when thinking of the central relationship of Carmilla. The story is about an isolated young girl who becomes enchanted by another girl, one who visits the first girl in her dreams and who turns out to be a vampire. The affection between the two is passionate and loyal until the vampire's destruction. Carmilla seamlessly weaves together the poignancy of the relationship between adolescent girls and the mythology of vampires. The obsessive nature of youthful passion seems naturally wedded to the grand passions of an immortal. The phrase speculative fiction is used here to encompass the broad range of writing that includes science fiction and fantasy. Speculative fiction writers are as varied as writers in any genre: H. G. Wells, Stephen King, Anne Rice, Guy de Maupassant, Ursula Le Guin, and Edgar Allan Poe are a few. But what is essential is that all such writers speculate a

Reformation Attitudes toward Allegory and the Song of Songs

Common generalizations about Reformation attitudes toward allegory are based on polemical denunciations by reformers of medieval “dialectical” exegesis. But Reformation definitions of the senses of Scripture are basically in accord with the definitions of medieval theologians. The reformers' attempts to draw a radical distinction between typology and allegory never succeeded and Reformation commentaries continued to allegorize, as demonstrated in the numerous Protestant commentaries on the Song of Songs. The crucial difference between medieval and Protestant spirituality in the Song commentaries lies not in their attitude toward allegory but in their conception of the nuptial metaphor, wherein human love symbolizes the love between God and man. Some Protestant commentators deny there is any reference to carnal love at all; those that do not, regard the metaphor as too dangerous for explication. Generally, they see that the aptness of the metaphor lies in the moral, domestic virtues of the marriage contract. In contrast, the mystical tradition of the Song, epitomized in Bernard, sees that the metaphor's aptness lies precisely in the passionate nature of the sexual union: it is the union of two in one flesh that is the most perfect symbol of the love of God.

Schiller's Mortimer and the Gods of Italy

LITTLE has been said about Mortimer, in Schiller's Maria Stuart, save to define him either as representative of the Stuart cause, or as the lively proof of Maria's abiding erotic attractions. I But against this first definition it can be said that Mortimer does not, after all, conform to a 'type', for it can hardly be typical of an adherent of Mary's cause that he should have been converted to Catholicism by the impact of Italian art or that he should aspire to be the Queen's lover: these traits seem individual rather than typical. Of the second definition it must be said that the peculiar nature of Mortimer's passion for Maria must cast a dubious light on those attractions which it is claimed he demonstrates, and that such implications demand, at least, careful examination.2 A more serious objection is that neither definition accords to this character of Schiller's own invention any place in the new thematic purpose behind his extensive remodelling of historical fact. I will attempt here to elucidate Mortimer's place in Schiller's unfolding of his dramatic theme in Maria Stuart. Mortimer's mechanical function, acknowledgedly, is to set in motion the plot to free Maria from her English captivity, and in this role to form a physical link between the antagonists, between Fotheringhay and Westminster, between Maria and Elisabeth. His dramatic function-and this is less well acknowledged-is to point to the problematic situation of each Queen, each required by

Milton and Self-Knowledge

Milton's notion of self-knowledge places him in the Socratic-Christian tradition which distinguishes between man's rational part, or self-like-God, and his passional nature, the aspect of self most easily subverted by Satan. Only the self-knowing man, by introspection and by seeing the reflection of self in the mirror of the world's stage, achieves a harmony between the two aspects of self. Milton's concept of self-examination, apparent in his prose and verse, is symbolically represented in Paradise Lost. The world of Adam-Eve mirrors both God's realm of pure truth and reason and Satan's realm of unreason and unrestrained passion. These realms represent those aspects of self that man must necessarily discover within. The Fall is inevitable and irrevocable in the creation of self: in Adam's discovery of his obligation to know himself “aright,” he understands that his rational self-like-God must rule the darker passionate self. Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes also represent man as achieving self-knowledge by the twofold means of introspection and viewing the reflection of himself in the external world.

I. Cicero and Roman Politics

Mommsen, as Warde Fowler wrote, ‘had a strange, passionate nature which never loved or hated men or things by halves, and was too apt to judge them from feeling and prejudice’; in his History of Rome ‘the force of his convictions was equalled by the strength of his language; the audacity of some of his judgements of men and institutions almost paralysed criticism, and we have only in recent years begun to shake ourselves free from the spell he laid upon us’. Nowhere of course is this truer than in his demolition of Cicero—like so many memorable and famous pieces of writing astonishingly brief when one goes back to look at it. But though still usually regarded as the villain (or the hero) of the anti-Ciceronian movement, he did not begin it all.

Heinrich Von Kleist’s Penthesilea: Amazon or Bluestocking

Heinrich Von Kleist’s Penthesilea: Amazon or Bluestocking Herman Salinger One readily accepted view of Kleist’s Penthesilea as a dramatis persona and as a human being is that she has a highly sexed and deeply passionate nature, capable of a wide swing of emotions from love to hate. This is not an unusual scope. But her particular char­ acteristic is the rapidity of the swing, a change so rapid that it seems to include a combination of the extremes and to encompass both of them in the form of a neurotic and self-defeating Hassliebe. That such a knot of emotions must unavoidably end in tragedy is the only feature of this drama which may be called crystal-clear. What Stefan Zweig, forty years ago, wrote of Kleist’s outer and inner self may equally be applied to his heroine: “ ein ganzes Schlangennest von Dämonien brütete unter dem kühlen, verdeckten, undurchdringlichen Fels seiner äussern Starre, und eine hitzte sich an der andern.” 1 It is legitimate to apply these words to Penthesilea’s mask and demon for the simple reason that this is whence, in part, they come. Zweig and others have drawn Kleist’s portrait partially or even largely from the creatures of his creativity. Thus the creator is both judged by and confused with his creation. It becomes difficult or impossible to extricate the one image from the other. In this way, Penthesilea has come to be considered a self-portrait of and by Heinrich von Kleist, consciously executed as such. The basis for this certainly lies in Kleist’s often quoted words about “ all the pain and splendor of [his] soul” (“ der ganze Schmerz . . . und Glanz meiner Seele” ). I submit that Kleist was talking about the entire play and not merely the main character when he expressed the feeling that his innermost being had been pressed into the work; the play is a play of opposites and a split in Kleist’s personality finds expression in the deep contradictions that arise between the personae or masks of the drama, every bit as convincingly as this same split is revealed and reflected within any one personality of the drama, notably that of the heroine. “Achill und Penthesilea,” to quote Friedrich Gundolf, “jedes ist Kleist und beide zusammen sind Kleist, die beiden Pole einer einzigen Spannung. . . . Beide gehören zusammen und sind als ein Paar konzipiert worden. . . . Beide sind Mann und Weib in einem . . . wie in jeder vollen Menschenseele sich beide geschlechtigen Sonderun­ gen verbinden.” 2 However this may be, Penthesilea herself may be viewed as a complex, duplex personality, highly sexed and deeply passionate on 49 the one side (i.e., supremely well endowed for love) and yet equally capable of a destructive hate, adding up to a totality of ambivalence and ambiguity.3 Moreover, this view is based on and would be im­ possible without one act: Penthesilea’s mutilation of the love-object himself, namely Achilles. Both logical and psychological explanations may be offered for this drastic dramatic transformation from love and desire to hate and savage loathing: explanations too complicated for resume here. Commentators may seek some explanation in the mind of Kleist at the conscious level but the temptation has been to seek it far more deeply, in the hidden layers of the psyche. Such excursions into depth psychology are hazardous, yet often rewarding. If we could only find some simple explanation! But a simple way out of a com­ plex problem is often a delusion because it is often predicated on oversimplification. To say that Penthesilea is outraged because she cannot possess the love of a great hero, of a man who will stand up and really offer heroic opposition and not yield to her, a woman, because he is scheming to outwit and then possess her : this explanation may be too simple to satisfy our sophisticated and scholarly minds and yet be very near the basic truth. Yet even this explication leaves unex­ plained the violence of Penthesilea’s emotions and the violent outlet given them. Does such action lie in her nature, within a consistent line of characterization? Or is it to be found in that demonic...

The Statues from Cerigotto

I. The bronze Hermes recovered from the wreck off Cerigotto is one of those works which must be judged from internal evidence alone: no reference to it has as yet been found in the ancient authors, we have no hint as to the city from which it originally came, no inscription to give us a clue to the name of the artist.It is at once apparent that the style shows no trace of severity, much less of archaism. It is therefore by some considered to be a work of the 4th century. The figure is rather above life size; it represents a young man, nude, resting the main weight of the body on the left leg while his right is slightly bent: there is however no forward motion suggested, the Hermes is standing with a somewhat languid grace. The right arm is raised and is extended half outwards, half sideways, while the head is also turned a little towards the right, thus displaying the muscles of the neck (see J.H.S. vol. XXIII. Pl. IX.) The left hand may have held a caduceus, which would dispel any doubt as to identification, but apart from such an attribute the whole character and treatment of the face seem to suggest a God and not a human athlete. The indications of a violent and passionate nature which Scopas used with such effect are smoothed over or fined away, while in the features and expression the intellectual rather than the animal side of human nature is emphasised.