Satirical Tone Research Articles

Annibal Caro's After-Dinner Speech (1536) and the Question of Titian as Vesalius's Illustrator*

Putative textual proof for Titian's central involvement in producing illustrations for Vesalius's anatomy book "De fabrica" (1543) requires reexamination. On the basis of orthographic, literary, and historical evidence, a phrase in Annibal Caro's after-dinner speech, here dated to 1536, is shown instead to refer ironically to a surgeon's notorious execution in 1517. "Anatomia" was a word in the satirical as well as the medical lexicon. It is important to understand the satirical tone of Caro's speech about a priapic statuette. Delivered during Carnival to the Roman Academy of Virtue, the speech respects neither antiquities nor artists like Michelangelo in its obscene humor.

La 'meravigliosa' Roma di Gogol': la città , gli artisti, la vita culturale nella prima metà dell'Ottocento by Rita Giuliani (review)

REVIEWS 539 several depictions of death), Andreev (who has been called 'the Russian Swedenborg' but, unlike his father Leonid, scarcely belongs in the canon of Russian literature)and Lindenberg(who left Russia when he was sixteen and wrote, apparentlyexclusively,in German).Much more damaging to Kasack's argument is his failure to make any distinction between different kinds of writing:memoirs, letters,poetry and fiction are all cited at length and treated alike. Moreover they are normally taken au pied de la lettreas representing the writer'spersonal experience. Thus he can claim that Sluchevskii's'very concrete pictures'of death as a part of life are 'basedon personalexperiences' (P.322) and complain that (G. Ivanov's)'Lines such as "I rememberyou, my grave, my distant fatherland, where the waters thunder" (I92I) are taken by many readers not so literally as they are meant' (p. 232). Slips are more common than one might expect: for instance, it is not to Aglaia but to Adelaida that Myshkin recommends that she should paint the face of a man about to be executed (p. 99); and Andrei Bolkonskiidoes not die 'before the eyes of his wife and sister'(p. I54). All in all, as befits the author of the renowned Dictionagy of Twentieth-Centugy RussianLiterature, Kasack has made a careful, if incomplete, collection of appositematerials;but his argumentseems to me both tendentiousand faulty, and the purely literarycriticismis, of course, sparse. Department of Central, Eastern andNorthern European Studies C.J. G. TURNER University ofBritishColumbia Giuliani, Rita. La 'meravigliosa' Romadi Gogol': la citta,gli artisti,la vitaculturale nellaprimametadell'Ottocento. Edizioni Studium, Rome, 2002. 286 pp. ?23.50. THE Italian scholar Rita Giuliani has published a new book in Italian, in which her great love for Russian authors is combined with a remarkable knowledge of Rome. ProfessorGiuliani, of 'La Sapienza' Universityin Rome, has devoted much attention over the years to Russo-Italianculturalrelations and the image of Rome in Russian art and literature. She is the author of Obraz Rimav russkoi literature (200I), Vittoria Caldoni Lapchenko (I995) and several articles on Russian artists and intellectualsliving in Rome during the nineteenth century,as well as major studiesof Leonid Andreev (I977) and Mikhail Bulgakov(I98I). Giulianiis also the main editorof all the posthumouspublications of Angelo Maria Ripellino, poet and great scholar of Russian literature, who introduced her to the joys of Slavonic literatures. In her new book Giuliani sets out to shed new light on the many years that Gogol' spent in the Italian capital, on his active participationin the city's intellectualand artistic life, on the role played by the city in his literaryproduction, and on the work that he dedicated to the eternal city, 'Rome: A Fragment'. Incidentally,this neglected and almost forgotten work by Gogol' has recently reappeared in Italianbookshopsin a new editionwith parallelRussianand Italiantexts. Rita Giuliani wrote the introduction and meticulously edited it for the Venetian publisherMarsilio. 540 SEER, 84, 3, JULY 2006 The shortstory'Rome', which firstappearedin print in 1842 in thejournal Moskvitianin (edited by Mikhail Pogodin), was the result of several revisions, having also undergone two changes of title, and remained unfinished. It narratesthe story of a Roman aristocrat,who travelsto Paristo gain a more progressiveand enlightened education, and later returnsto his hometown on his father'sdeath, to find that his opinion on Rome has changed completely. Having previously dismissed it as a backward and dull seat of conservatism where nothing ever happens, the protagonist now looks at Rome with new eyes and begins to appreciate it for its extraordinarilyunspoiled beauty and the authenticityof its inhabitants,even more strikingafter his experiences of the hollow sophistication and the excesses of Paris. This work stands out among the rest of Gogol"s output and seems to contravene many of the author'stypical narrativetechniques, a reason perhapswhy so many scholars have disregarded it. First, Gogol"s usual satirical tone is absent, the main character is simply referred to as 'the prince' and neither his features nor his clothes are described.All that wealth of detailed descriptionsthat Gogol' usuallylavisheson his charactersare here reservedfor the city, the landscapes and the feelingsof the main character,who, unlikethe restof Gogol 'sfamous characters, undergoes a clear development and a sort of spiritual...

Destruksie ten minste tien maal beklemtoon – ’n interpretasie van 'Kraak die aardbol langs ’n naat' van Wilma Stockenström

Destruction at least ten times emphasized – an interpretation of 'Kraak die aardbol langs ’n naat' ('Cracking the earth along the seam') by Wilma Stockenström In this article the value of syntactical analysis in the interpretation of a poem is investigated from the premise that emphasis can be effected inter alia in the following ways: (a) by contravening certain rules that apply in standard language usage in order to compose grammatical sentences, b) the exploitation of parallel syntactical structures, and c) the relationship between sentence unit and line, and line and/or stanza. These theoretical points of departure form the basis of the syntactical analysis of “Kraak die aardbol langs ’n naat” (Wilma Stockenström), in which there are numerous deviations from the expected, normal and usual ways of constructing sentences. It is by these means that the semantic values gain prominence: the attention is drawn to the deviating behaviour of mankind continuing to destruct the earth until nothing remains. It is evident that the repeated use of irony and the satirical tone of this poem also contribute to persuade the reader to behave in a way opposite to that depicted in the poem. In this way the value of a syntactical analysis of this poem is illustrated. By uncovering the micro-structures (syntactical units) within the (macro-) structure (the poem), underlying patterns and the place of humanity in the universe can be better understood. In this way the analysis of this poem is then linked to the field of ecocriticism.

Ο αγαπητικός της βοσκοπούλας (review)

Reviews 149 the underworld, whereas in the café aman songs objective terms are sometimes used. Women, in the few Piraeus songs in which they appear, are either satirized or idealized as fantasies, whereas they not only appear frequently in the café aman songs but also take an active part in the life of the τεκÎ-Ï‚ and even speak about smoking themselves. The conclusion that the Piraeus-style χασικλίδικα are the songs that were really composed by members of the συνάφι, and that men like Markos, BatÃ-s, and Artemis were really doing what they wrote about comes as no great surprise—after all, there are witnesses still alive who watched them doing it! To have it corroborated by a careful scrutiny of the texts is reassuring in a field where speculation, misinformation, and rancor have too often dominated. I would have liked to see a little more of the authors' own conclusions about the genre. The book is a modest one, as I said, but not fainthearted; the fact that it was written in Greek is a courageous step in itself. Gail Holst-WARHArT Cornell University Alekos Geladas. ΑλÎ-κος Γελάδας, O αγαπητικός της βοσκοποϕλας. Edited by Minas Alexiadis. Athens: Kardamitsas. 1990. Pp. 222. Minas Alexiadis's critical edition of Alekos Geladas's play TL· Beloved of the Shepherdess (ca. 1910) is a useful contribution to the study of early twentiethcentury Greek dramatic literature and theater. The book has an introduction (13-37), the edited text of the play (43-182), a commentary (185-190), a bibliography (193-197), a glossary (200-208), a table of all the proper names and place names mentioned in the play (209—211), an index, and an appendix consisting of four photocopied pages, the first two reproducing part of a typewritten copy (from Spyros Kavvadias's personal collection) of Geladas's manuscript (in Maria Zouglas's personal collection), and the last two pages reproducing part of a truncated handwritten copy of Geladas's manuscript that begins with the last six verses of the third act. Alexiadis adds this play of 2419 couplets to a list of thirty-two "homiletic" skits on record to date, and to a shorter list of seven published homiletic skits such as Hχϕυσαυγή (1893; 427 couplets), O κϕίνος (1934; 287 couplets), and H χϕυσομαλλοϕσα (1961; 385 couplets). Homiletic skits, which dramatized love stories, were outdoor, populist, amateur, improvised performances in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Alexiadis thinks that Geladas's play continues into the twentieth century the oral tradition of Greek theater on the island of Zakynthos. For him, a play qualifies as a homiletic skit if (a) it tells a love story (b) in a satirical tone (c) using fifteen-syllable couplets and (d) it was performed during Greek carnival time in February. According to these four criteria, Alexiadis also classifies Dimitrios Gouzelis's adaptation, O Χάσης 150 Reviews (1795; 1933 couplets), and Nikos Karatzas's ethography, Κακάβα (1834; 369 verses) as homiletic skits. However, the fact that Geladas's play is an adaptation invalidates Alexiadis's claim that it is part of the oral tradition in Greek theater. On the contrary, The Beloved of the Shepherdess testifies to εξωζακυνδινή (nonZakynthian ) influence and confirms the end of the oral tradition in Zakynthos in the twentieth century. O αγαπητικός της βοσκοποϕλας by Geladas (18711941 ) is based on an earlier play of the same name by Dimitris Koromilas (1850-1898) that was performed in 1891 and published in 1903. This one had five acts, 27 characters, and 2159 blank verses. Alexiadis correctly argues that, between 1910 and 1930, Geladas closely adapted Koromilas's play, transforming it into a six-act play with 13 characters speaking in 15-syllable couplets. Geladas also added a prelude and a character (Komikos), who, along with Chrones, voices the play's satirical tone. But Alexiadis's estimated dates indicate that Geladas's play was based more on Koromilas's 1903 published text than on his version's 1891 performance. If this is true, Geladas's adaptation is a variant of the written tradition of Greek theater, not of the oral tradition. Geladas borrowed the "homiletic" form from earlier centuries; however, he gave his play a more progressive social content than Koromilas gave the earlier version. In Geladas's prelude, a ten-year-old...

Narrative Voice and the "Feminine" Novelist: Dinah Mulock and George Eliot

NARRATIVE VOICE AND THE "FEMININE" NOVELIST: DINAH MULOCK AND GEORGE ELIOT J. Russell Perktn Saint Mary's University Altiiough novels were certainly being read and even written by die socially privUeged—Scott being the standard example—the novel at tile beginning of the nineteenth century was a literary genre of relatively lowly status. However, it is a commonplace of literary history that by the end of the century the novel had become the dominant literary form, and also that it had stratified into clearly defined subgenres, including the "highbrow" or "highculture " novel, which claimed first and foremost to be a work of art.1 Furthermore, as feminist literary historians have shown, the novel in the latter part of the eighteenth century was a form more associated with women than with men, but as it became more prestigious the occupation of writing fiction was "invaded" by male practitioners. This process has recently been documented in considerable detail by the sociological investigations of Gaye Tuchman and Nina Fortin's Edging Women Out.2 My purpose here is to investigate one aspect of these changes in the cultural status of fiction writing, namely the way mat some women writers in the nineteenth century, of whom George Eliot is my representative example, were able to resist the process of being marginalized and to establish themselves, against the odds, as legitimate literary artists. For the purpose of contrast I will look at the work of Dinah Maria Mulock (also known as Mrs. Craik), with whom Eliot was compared early in her career.3 Mulock is an example of a woman who, in spite of a promising beginning as a writer, was "edged out" of the field, and who dierefore was unable to achieve recognition as a serious writer. I will focus on the narrative voice of these writers, paying attention to the way that narrative voice implies particular kinds of readers as well as a particular kind of implied author. My argument is that the values shared by diese textual constructs correspond to the ideology of specific social groups. I will Victorian Review 18.1 (Summer 1992) J. Russell Perkin25 document diese values through attention to both the novels of Mulock and Eliot and to the contemporary reception of these works. In Fiction and the Reading Public (1932), Q. D. Leavis analyzed die way tiiat a relatively homogeneous bourgeois sphere of fiction production and reception broke up into different sectors, and she lamented this process of stratification as the loss of a kind of unified sensibility, making use of die typical narrative of fall from unity into heterogeneity favoured by die critics associated with Scrutiny. Leavis describes the emergence of the "middlebrow" novelist, who provided no intellectual challenge to readers, and die "highbrow" novelist, who wrote over most readers' heads, for a smaU élite (169). Her study identifies a recognizable cultural change, but the rather moralistic nature of her argument lessens its force as a contribution to the history of this change. A clearer account of the formation of the high-culture novel might be provided by taking the example of George Eliot and looking at her work in relation to the literary institutions of her time. Although Eliot enjoyed popular success, she also set her own fiction apart from that of other novelists, and saw it as something possessing a more transcendent value. She is, for example, far more comfortable with the Romantic vocabulary of artistic inspiration than are writers like Dickens, Thackeray, or Trollope, and she saw the occupation of author in Romantic terms as a calling or vocation. As N. N. Feltes observes, the concept of "vocation" is the ideological form of die process of monopolization of status and work privileges which defines professionalization (42-43).4 As Eliot wrote her novels, a new élite was being formed in England, an élite of wealth and professional skill which consolidated its position by appropriating the cultural symbols of the previous aristocratic élite (for a description of this social transformation see Harold Perkin 428-37). In an analogous manner, Eliot appropriates the classical learning, die reflective commentary, and the ironical or satirical tone associated with a particular, largely masculine tradition of fiction and puts...