Secular Poetry Research Articles

An Eleventh‐Century Poetic Divination from St. Sophia's, Novgorod

This article publishes for the first time a graffito inscription in St Sophia’s Cathedral, Novgorod. The graffito has been preserved in a plaster impression and dates to the third quarter of the eleventh century. It is unique in content and form: a divination made by one Iakov Noga, who refers to himself as “the ravens’ priest.” There are many examples of the worship of ravens as prophetic birds in Old Russian and Scandinavian culture, and there is a close parallel for the expression “ravens’ priest” (hrafnblóts goða “priest of raven sacrifice”) in one of the verse passages in the “Saga of Hallfred the Troublesome Poet.” The text of the Novgorod graffito is poetic in nature, making use of assonance and alliteration as well as of elements of rhyme. It is of considerable interest as an example of the secular poetry of Rus′ and as striking evidence of the syncretism of medieval East Slavic religious culture.

My tongue shall speak: the voices of the psalms

AbstractThis article examines the poetics of voice in early modern psalm translation. Translations always complicate poetic voice, since in these poems one must, somehow, hear both the voice of the original poet and the voice of translator. The voices of the psalms are further complicated when they are read or sung by Christians, either individually or collectively. Writers since the patristic period have encouraged Christians to speak the psalms as if the words are one's own, but how does this happen? Whose voices do we hear in congregational singing? Are God's, David's, the translator's, and the singer's voices blended in harmonious polyphony? Or can they sometimes clash or drown each other out? Thinking about voice is important for understanding how the psalms are written, read, sung, and ventriloquized by early modern Christians, but thinking about the psalms will have implications for the study of secular poetry as well, especially in translation.

The Rosary and the Rose: Clergymen as Creators of Secular Poetry and Music in Early-modern Balkans

This paper deals with the involvement of Greek clergy in secular poetry and music in early-modern Balkans. This trend began in late-16th century, and involved the production of large anthologies and treatises on Ottoman music. This paper offers insights into the motives of those clergymen, the reception of their works by laymen and clerics, and the reaction of the official church.

Rabbinic Excerpts in Medieval Karaite Literature, Vol. 1 : Philological and Linguistic Studies; Rabbinic Excerpts in Medieval Karaite Literature, Vol. 2 : A Critical Annotated Scientific Edition of the Texts; Asceticism, Eschatology, Opposition to Philosophy: The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Salmon ben Yeroham on Qohelet (Ecclesiastes); Poetry and Memory in Karaite Prayer: The Secular Poetry of the Karaite Poet

Rabbinic Excerpts in Medieval Karaite Literature, <i>Vol. 1</i> : Philological and Linguistic Studies; Rabbinic Excerpts in Medieval Karaite Literature, <i>Vol. 2</i> : A Critical Annotated Scientific Edition of the Texts; Asceticism, Eschatology, Opposition to Philosophy: The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Salmon ben Yeroham on Qohelet (Ecclesiastes); Poetry and Memory in Karaite Prayer: The Secular Poetry of the Karaite Poet

Karaite Exegesis in Medieval Jerusalem: The Judeo-Arabic Pentateuch Commentary of Yūsuf ibn Nūḥ and Abū al-Faraj Hārūn; Yefet ben ‘Eli’s Commentary on Hosea: Annotated Edition, Hebrew Translation and Introduction; Verbal Morphology in the Karaite Treatise on Hebrew Grammar Kitāb al-̔uqūd fī taṣārīf al-luġa al-̔ibrāniyya; Bibliographia Karaitica: An Annotated Bibliography of Karaites and Karaism; Medieval Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Egypt: The

Karaite Exegesis in Medieval Jerusalem: The Judeo-Arabic Pentateuch Commentary of Yūsuf ibn Nūḥ and Abū al-Faraj Hārūn; Yefet ben ‘Eli’s Commentary on Hosea: Annotated Edition, Hebrew Translation and Introduction; Verbal Morphology in the Karaite Treatise on Hebrew Grammar Kitāb al-̔uqūd fī taṣārīf al-luġa al-̔ibrāniyya; Bibliographia Karaitica: An Annotated Bibliography of Karaites and Karaism; Medieval Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Egypt: The

Sanctuary in the wilderness: a critical introduction to American Hebrew poetry

The effort to create a serious Hebrew literature in the United States in the years around World War I is one of the best kept secrets of American Jewish history. Hebrew had been revived as a modern literary language in nineteenth-century Russia and then taken to Palestine as part of the Zionist revolution. But the overwhelming majority of Jewish emigrants from Eastern Europe settled in America, and a passionate kernel among them believed that Hebrew provided the vehicle for modernizing the Jewish people while maintaining their connection to Zion. These American Hebraists created schools, journals, newspapers, and, most of all, a high literary culture focused on producing poetry. Sanctuary in the Wilderness is a critical introduction to American Hebrew poetry, focusing on a dozen key poets. This secular poetry began with a preoccupation with the situation of the individual in a disenchanted world and then moved outward to engage American vistas and Jewish fate and hope in midcentury. American Hebrew poets hoped to be read in both Palestine and America, but were disappointed on both scores. Several moved to Israel and connected with the vital literary scene there, but most stayed and persisted in the cause of American Hebraism.

“Yours, for the cause”: The &lt;em&gt;Christian Recorder&lt;/em&gt; Writings of Lizzie Hart

Lizzie Hart was neither a major presence in the Black press or Black literature nor a central figure in early feminism. (1) She never achieved national prominence and perhaps never aspired to it. Her whole (re)discovered oeuvre--fourteen publications in 1864-1865 in the African Methodist Episcopal Church's flagship newspaper, the Christian Recorder--will probably never be referred to as an important find within the process of recovering early African American literature. Even among nineteenth-century Black women periodical authors like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Jennie Carter, and Ida B. Wells--much less in the wider field of nineteenth-century women involved in journalism and literature--her career seems minor. And yet her Recorder work, reprinted here in its entirety for the first time since its original publication, is notable both in and of itself and as an example of the riches scholars might find if they turn to women who wrote for the early Black press. What we know of Hart's biography can be summarized briefly. Jane Elizabeth Hart, born in late 1837 to free African American parents Cupid and Judith Hart, grew up along with two brothers and a sister in and around Russellville, a small city in Logan County, Kentucky. (2) Cupid Hart, a carpenter, moved the family to Warren County, Ohio, in the 1850s; though the Harts lived in several locations in the area--Roachester, Morrowtown (sometimes simply listed as Morrow), and Lebanon--they and their descendents remained in Ohio for the next several decades. The Harts prospered there, edged toward the middling classes, and, by 1870, had raised enough capital to purchase their own home. The family attended the local African Methodist Episcopal Church. They may have been involved in its founding in 1858, and they attended services in the neat little brick meeting-house the congregation built in 1861 and the History of Warren County noted some twenty-one years later (Beers 500). They seem to have placed immense value on both faith and literacy: While censuses prior to 1880 list Cupid Hart as illiterate and the 1870 census notes Judith Hart as being able to read but not write, all post-1850 censuses list their children as literate. Lizzie Hart first subscribed to the Christian Recorder in April 1863 via her minister, the young William Hunter, a graduate of Wilberforce University. Hart's $2.25 would have purchased a full year of the four-page weekly. In making that commitment, Hart was following the pattern of a growing number of A. M. E. Church members across the nation: looking to her minister and her church as sources of educational and cultural literacy and as conduits to early Afro-Protestant print culture. Hart also chose to subscribe at a germinal moment in Black periodical culture. While several Black newspapers entered American public spaces after the initial publication of Freedom's Journal in 1827, few were able to sustain publication, in part due to continuing struggles for funds and support. After working with Bishop Daniel Payne to successfully birth the similarly short lived A. M. E. Church magazine the Repository of Religion and Literature in the late 1850s, Elisha Weaver answered the national church hierarchy's call to resurrect the Christian Recorder, which had been sporadically published in the 1850s and was essentially defunct by 1860. The version of the newspaper he began publishing in 1861 did not miss an issue again for decades--long after Weaver was forced from the editorial chair in 1868--and became one of the longest running and most important early Black periodicals. Through tireless advocacy--including especially the building of a network of local ministers and contributors like William Hunter and Lizzie Hart--Weaver expanded the paper's circulation to reach not only readers across the North (from Maine to Kansas and even to California) but also those among the newly freed in the South. As could be expected, he published copious theological and church-related tracts--from sermons to devotional poetry to reports of church meetings--but also offered a rich range of political and social commentary, national news, children's stories, more secular poetry, occasional fiction, and multi-generic letters from across the country. …

Reflections on contemporary business ethics and the ancient wisdom of Kalidasa

In the past two decades, multinational corporations have relied on laws, codes of ethics and in-house awareness programmes for managers to deal with the problems of corporate social responsibility and business ethics. The current global financial crisis and other corporate scandals have exposed the limited utility of these approaches and the glaring need for innovative solutions to the perennial problems of moral philosophy. This paper argues that the secular poetry of the renowned Sanskrit poet Kalidasa can motivate employees and managers to bring about a personal and organisational transformation required for solving the mounting problems of business ethics. Selected verses and aphorisms from two epic poems of Kalidasa – RaghuvaMsha and KumarasaMbhavaM – are examined and interpreted with proper context for their inspirational wisdom and its relevance to ethical behaviour in contemporary global business management.

Arabic, Persian and Turkic Manuscripts from Hajji-Tarkhan (Astrakhan)

In his paper Ilya Zaytsev gives a paleographic description of eight Arabic, Persian and Turkic manuscripts originating from Astrakhan in the very end of the eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries. Their repertoire falls in line with other areas in Muslim borderlands of Europe as it concerns division of religious and secular disciplines, and language usage. The Arabic language dominates in Qur'anic and other religious sciences, Farsi prevails in works of a wide thematic range from ethics to epistolary genre, while Turkic is used in secular poetry and history. Thematically Astrakhan's collections seemed to be closer to those of Kazan.

Politics and the ‘Heauenly Sonnets’: George Wither's Religious Verse, 1619-1625

In the last years of his reign, James I experienced an unprecedented level of opposition to his government of England. Whilst the king remained committed to negotiating a Spanish bride for his son and refused to intervene to assist Protestants internationally, his subjects protested, railed and implored against royal policy. The bold and controversial satires of the poet George Wither are often employed by historians as examples of this political opposition. However, assigning Wither to the role of outspoken satirist in the early 1620s relies on neglecting his religious verse as irrelevant and at times contradictory to the ideology perceived in his secular poetry. This article seeks to restore the political value in Wither's religious verse and to demonstrate the consistency of purpose that can be identified throughout his works. Wither's biblical translations and spiritual compositions continued to uphold the Protestant, humanist ideals of his satires and functioned specifically to promote interest in the Protestant cause on the continent. This development of a more complete picture of Wither contributes towards a more nuanced understanding of the diverse and intricate nature of early Stuart political thought.

Christina Rossetti, John Keble, and the Divine Gaze

Although William Michael claimed that his sister thought nothing of Keble as a poet, marginalia in Christina Rossetti's copy of The Christian Year (1827) show Keble's influence on her developing religious voice and vision. (1) Recent scholarship has examined Rossetti's indebtedness Keble and the Tractarian tradition: Diane D'Amico and David Kent's review, and the Tractarians, (2) traces contributions by Raymond Chapman, G. B. Tennyson, Linda Marshall, Antony Harrison, Mary Arseneau, Lorraine Kooistra, and others who have explored the connections between Rossetti and the Oxford Movement. Nevertheless, in reading Rossetti's poems in tandem with Keble's St. Peter's Day, from The Christian Year, we notice the poetic and theological distinctiveness of Rossetti's devotional poetics. Whereas Keble emphasizes Peter's prerogative and power of apostolic responsibility transmitted from Christ's divine commission, (3) Rossetti emphasizes individual penitence and humility inspired by Peter's denial of knowing Christ, and Christ's movement in subsequently and at him. Rossetti transfigures the Divine Look, which appears in three stanzas in St. Peter's Day, into a moment of sustained encounter: a gaze. (4) She connects her poems through the gesture of and looking, which becomes, in analogical terms, an outward physical sign of an inner spiritual conviction of repentance. Just as Rossetti's gesture of taking her heart in her hand and offering it her Creator in Twice (I take my heart in my hand--/ All that I have I bring [ll. 41, 45]) (5) is powerful in its simplicity, here the elaboration of an ordinary gesture of turning and looking (6) defines the Rossettian theme of penitence, with the recognition of repentance opening up the possibility of spiritual renewal and transformation as demonstrated by a renovation of the heart. Rossetti's sacred poetry offers a sense of renewed possibility for the individual--a sense of affection and comfort that her secular poetry rarely grants. In Rossetti's religious poetics, comfort and hope originate from both gazing upon the Divine and the Divine gaze. Here gazing is different from merely looking. Although the King James Bible (7) translators use to and to interchangeably (look refers the Hebrew ra'ah ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) as in man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart in 1 Samuel 16.7b and also refers the Greek emblepo [[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]] as in And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter in Luke 22.61a), in the English language a implies a seeing that is usually less lengthy and intense than a gaze: direct one's attention a subject (look) differs from directing one's attention a subject with studious and fastidious attention (gaze). (8) Rossetti transforms the look that appears in Keble's poem a gaze underscore the relationship between seer and seen. Keble's objective for The Christian Year was assist readers in bringing their thoughts and feelings into more entire unison (9) with those in the Book of Common Prayer. Hence Keble's St. Peter's unsurprisingly derives from passages commemorating Peter's Day in The Book of Common Prayer. The Collect (a short prayer comprising an invocation, petition, and conclusion) begins with a supplication God, who had commanded feed His flock, make ... / all Bishops and Pastors diligently preach thy holy Word, and the people obediently follow the same. (10) The next section, For the Epistle, is taken from the description of being released from prison by an angel in Acts 12. The final section is Matthew 16, which narrates Peter's recognition of Jesus as the Christ and Jesus' giving him the name Simon Peter, the rock upon which He will build His Church and whom He will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven (p. …

German Literature of the Eighteenth Century: The Enlightenment and Sensibility

The Enlightenment was based on the use of reason, common sense, and natural law, and was paralleled by an emphasis on feelings and the emotions in religious, especially Pietist circles. Progressive thinkers in England, France, and later in Germany began to assail the absolutism of the state and the orthodoxy of the Church; in Germany the line led from Leibniz, Thomasius, and Wolff to Lessing and Kant, and eventually to the rise of an educated upper middle class. Literary developments encompassed the emergence of a national theater, literature, and a common literary language. This became possible in part because of advances in literacy and education, especially among bourgeois women, and the reorganization of book production and the book market.This major new reference work provides a fresh look at the major literary figures, works, and cultural developments from around 1700 up to the late Enlightenment. They trace the 18th-century literary revival in German-speaking countries: from occasional and learned literature under the influence of French Neoclassicism to the establishment of a new German drama, religious epic and secular poetry, and the sentimentalist novel of self-fashioning.The volume includes the new, stimulating works of women, a chapter on music and literature, chapters on literary developments in Switzerland and in Austria, and a chapter on reactions to the Enlightenment from the 19th century to the present. The recent revaluing of cultural and social phenomena affecting literary texts informs the presentations in the individual chapters and allows for the inclusion of hitherto neglected but important texts such as essays, travelogues, philosophical texts, and letters. Contributors include: Kai Hammermeister, Katherine Goodman, Helga Brandes, Rosmarie Zeller, Kevin Hilliard, Francis Lamport, Sarah Colvin, Anna Richards, Franz M. Eybl, W. Daniel Wilson, Robert Holub. Barbara Becker-Cantarino is Research Professor in German at the Ohio State University.

Zwischen den Sprachen: Modelle transkultureller Literatur bei Christian Levin Sander und Adam Oehlenschläger by Andreas Blödorn

604 Reviews these expectations. Rory McTurk has assembled an impressive range of scholars to contribute to this project, including, unusually for an English-language venture, a good number of Icelanders, whose perspectives are particularly valuable. As might be predicted, the thirty-two short contributions (each coming in at around seventeen pages) will appeal differently to the various constituencies. Orri Vesteinsson's chapter on archaeology, for example, presupposes a readership which has some acquaintance with thehypothetical social structure ofCommonwealth Ice land. Terry Gunnell's account of the Poetic Edda gives a thorough account of the manuscript, its contents, and the problems of dating the poems, leaving little space fornew views about thecollection. This is tobe regretted,especially since summaries of theEdda's contents appear a couple of other times elsewhere in the book. Those scholars who were assigned such vast topics as the family sagas (Vesteinn Olason), skaldic verse (Diana Whaley), or romance (JiirgGlauser) are remarkably successful in keeping a balance between descriptive generalities, critical re-evaluations, and in Whaley's case providing a thoroughgoing demonstration of thenature and peculiari ties of skaldic verse. The section on runes is admirably illustrated, and gives a clear account of the links between poetry and runic texts, though an illustration of the runic alphabet would have been useful forneophytes. Guovarour Mar Gunnlaugs son' s introduction to manuscripts and palaeography isalso well illustrated and bound to be useful for novices inmanuscript studies. Sections on latermedieval writing (Matthew Driscoll on the lygisogurand Shaun Hughes on late secular poetry) intro duce lesswell-known works with persuasive cases for theirvalue. Other contributors take theopportunity to offersummaries of theirown recentwork: Gisli Sigurbsson's discussion oforality summarizes his latestbook, Armann Jakobsson' saccount of royal biographies depends heavily on his own articles. For the initiate and literary-minded reader, the greatest pleasure is derived from two types of contribution: thosewhich bring us up to date with recent thinking on history,archaeology, and laws, inways which will inform thinkingabout sagas of every subgenre, and thosewhich address broader cultural themes, such as the role ofwomen, and the compulsion of the Scandinavian peoples to travel across the known world. Judith Jesch's travel section reads as freshly conceived, pulling together historical, runic, and legal evidence and literary treatments in an exemplary way. JudyQuinn's chapter on women eschews the temptation to summarize recent debates or rehearse the usual stereotypes by offering snapshots of women in different genres, showing how distinctively theymove through the texts,embodying both the desires and the fears of differentkinds ofmen. The contributors were strictly limited in the amount of bibliography they could provide, a restriction ignored by some but not others. Nevertheless, the suggestions forfurther reading offera good starting-point for those who wish to investigate the topic in greater depth. The Companion is a remarkable achievement and a valuable resource; it is, however, to be regretted that it is so prohibitively priced thatmost readers will be likely to encounter itonly in a library. ST JOHN'SCOLLEGE,OXFORD CAROLYNELARRINGTON Zwischen den Sprachen: Modelle transkulturellerLiteratur beiChristian Levin Sander und Adam Oehlenschlager. By ANDREAS BLODORN. (Palaestra, 322) Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 2004. 426 pp. E69. ISBN 978-3-525-20595-2. Denmark in the early nineteenth century provides an interesting and in several ways unusual instance of political and linguistic tensions within a nation state which it tookmany years and considerable violence to sort out. Yet its major early nineteenth centurywriter,Adam Oehlenschlager, once much admired, demonstrated that itwas MLR, I02.2, 2007 605 possible tobe acclaimed as a poet and playwright both inDanish and German, the first language ofmany of his compatriots, and indeed ofhis ownmother, aswell as ofDen mark's politically divided but linguistically united and culturally dominant neighbour to the south. Oehlenschliger's mastery of both languages and his championship of a new Scandinavian cultural model arewell known, whereas the lifeand work of his older contemporary, Christian Levin Sander (I756-I8I9), are less familiar. Andreas Bl6dorn makes every effort to do this fascinating topic justice. The facts and figures he provides e.g. the dates of every performance of the plays of both authors at theRoyal Theatre, Copenhagen, between I796 and I822, alongside those of themost popular plays performed there...

Adventures in Domesticity: Gender and Colonial Adulteration in Eighteenth-Century British Literature by Sharon Harrow

MLR, I02. I, 2007 2I3 In a labyrinth, one 'crosses' many paths and, as the speaker has already told us, all of those paths entail suffering.The suffering suggested by 'crosses' is diametrically opposed to the joy implied by 'kiss': in this instance of syneciosis, suffering in love is cross-coupled with the joy one should feel in love. (p. I2 I) The strength ofBennett's book lies in detailed analysis, though readers may some times tend to feel that she labours the point, or cloaks an already clear effect in rhetorical verbiage. Though some of her readings are debatable, the parallels with male poets and the discussion of the relationship between sacred and secular poetry reveal useful insights.The book iswell furnishedwith scholarly and informativenotes but lacks the reader-friendly provision of a bibliography. Bennett's approach provides an invaluable complement to the broader perspec tive taken by a previous researcher,Elaine V. Beilen (Redeeming Eve: Women Writers of theEnglish Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, I987)), who not only looks at additional writers but also considers more work by the three poets discussed here. An advantage of Bennett's microscopy is that it resembles how the poets would have been read in their own lifetimes. Itmarks progress towards what Bennett states as her final aim, 'both to broaden and narrow the context inwhich some earlymodern women's poetry is read [. . .] tobring intoplay an alternative (and perhaps traditional) approach to the textual analysis, historical synthesis and literary interpretation' (p. 255). UNIVERSITY OF ROEHAMPTON PAT PINSENT Adventures inDomesticity: Gender and Colonial Adulteration inEighteenth-Century British Literature. By SHARONHARROW. New York: AMS Press. 2004. vii+ 265 pp. $72.50. ISBN 978-o-404-63545-9. The titleof thisbook, Adventures inDomesticity, points to the paradox which it in vestigates. After all, thewhole point of successful domesticity, it isusually assumed, is that there should be no adventures in itssphere. The domestic is the launching-pad foradventures, and the haven towhich the exhausted adventurer returns.This is a simplified version ofwhat ismeant by saying that the domestic is the private realm to be contrasted with the public, and usually also the female in contrast with the male. On theback of this contrast has been erected the assumption that the domestic is outside politics. Sharon Harrow's book is a contribution to the large number of recent studies debunking this view. Her area of investigation isBritish literature of the eighteenth century, and the im pact on theconcept of thedomestic made by overseas ventures and adventures-trade, travel, the founding of colonies, and the running of slave plantations. All these tend to put theirprojectors intomorally tempting situations abroad, be theypolitical, com mercial, or sexual. The issues raised are thebehaviour of thewhite man abroad and thebourgeois fear thathewould behave with the freedom from sanction usually asso ciated with thearistocratic libertine. In the sexual sphere such aman might throw the guilt on to theblack woman, the 'cultural other'. The result is the increasing stress by theend of thecentury on thedomestic purity of thewhite female, leftdefending values which are not attributed to either theblack woman or, inmany cases, thewhite man. This book traces the impact of colonial excess on the idealogy of the domestic and its representative, thewhite woman at home. It does this inchapters on Defoe's Captain Singleton, Richard Cumberland's play The West Indian, Anna Maria Falcon bridge's Narrative of Two Voyages to the River Sierra Leone in theYears I79I-I792, and two great canonical texts, Mansfield Park and Frankenstein. It isnoticeable that, 2I4 Reviews written in theUnited States, itgives most of its attention to theCaribbean. From the British perspective the eighteenth century was as much concerned with India, and, asWilliam Dalrymple has recently shown (WhiteMughals: Love and Betrayal inEighteenth-Century India (London: HarperCollins, 2002)), there the concept of a shared domesticity between white and black on foreign soil was more likely than in a context where relationships were grievously distorted by slavery.The theme of the book, however, isconcerned not somuch with what happens abroad aswith its impact back inBritain. The dilemma for those at home was tobalance the the desirability of money from abroad with the debauched values of thosewho obtained it.As Harrow...

Women's Minyan at the Western Wall

Women's Minyan at the Western Wall Joanne Seltzer (bio) they say sweet voices can seduce even God we say God responds to the message not the pitch they say their belief is protected by the Torah we say every passage has a touch of ambiguity [End Page 121] they say go home, yentas, attend your families we say yes after prayer Joanne Seltzer Joanne Seltzer's grandparents were Orthodox, but her parents belonged to the melting-pot generation. She is now at home in an egalitarian Conservative congregation where, in 2000, she and ten adult classmates became bar and bat mitzvah. Joanne writes both spiritual and secular poetry and is widely published. Copyright © 2006 Bridges Association

Ten Poems of Mato Kosyk (1853–1940) Translated and Introduced

Mato Kosyk, the foremost Lower Sorbian (Lower Wendish) poet, was born in 1853 in Werben, fifty miles south-east of Berlin. Despite the limits of his literary inheritance (mainly devotional texts and folklore) he began in his mid twenties to produce secular lyric poetry in profusion. At the age of thirty he emigrated to the USA, where he became a Lutheran pastor, but his poetic activity was interrupted only by his death in 1940. The ten poems of which translations are appended to the article span a period of over fifty years and reflect various chapters in the poet's life story. An unusual feature is the juxtaposition of Sorbian and American themes.

The Tenth Woman

The Tenth Woman Joanne Seltzer (bio) I am the tenth woman. I count. You can count on me for evening minyan. In skullcap and prayer shawl I count life's blessings: I count matriarchs I count mitzvoth I count the seasons of change. When I am no more count to ten, then say the Mourner's Kaddish that discounts death. Joanne Seltzer Joanne Seltzer's grandparents were Orthodox, but her parents belonged to the melting-pot generation. She is now at home in an egalitarian Conservative congregation where, in 2000, she and ten adult classmates became bar and bat mitzvah. Joanne writes both spiritual and secular poetry and is widely published. Copyright © 2006 Bridges Association

On the Chinese Concept of “Wild Words and Fancy Language” and its Interpretation in Japan

The Japanese concept of the term “kyōgen kigo” or “kyōgen kigyo”, which in English means “wild words and fancy language”, has influenced Japanese literary thought to a considerable degree. The originally Buddhist term that became popular in China and then in Japan was coined by the Tang dynasty’s poet Bai Juyi, who first spoke disapprovingly and then contemptuously about novels or any kind of fiction from both the Buddhist and the Confucian standpoints. This article is a discussion of the metamorphosis in the meaning of this term “kyōgen kigo” in Japan.By kyōgen kigo Bai Juyi meant to criticize secular poetry, particularly for its unforgivable vanity hidden beneath cascades of elaborate words. In Japan waka poetry remained untainted by such pretensions, and the effect of waka verses on its readers has been said to be similar to the effect that dhāranī, the mystic verses of India, have on their reader. However, in other Japanese literature, kyōgen kigo flourishes were abundant and expanded from literature to music and to the arts in general. In the course of time the conflict between the duties of Buddhism and the pleasure derived from art was transformed into a justification of the latter and even into promotion of art as a means to religious fulfilment. This paper follows the shift in the connotations of kyōgen kigo in Japan,as represented in Buddhist-influenced medieval literature that in spite of the religious moralizing also reflects kyōgen kigo flourishes.

A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature ed. by Phillip Pulsiano, Elaine Treharne, and: Satan Unbound: The Devil in Old English Narrative Literature by Peter Dendle (review)

MLR, 99.2, 2004 449 A Companion toAnglo-Saxon Literature. Ed. by Phillip Pulsiano and Elaine Tre? harne. (Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture) Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell. 2001. xviii + 529pp. ?80; $124.95. ISBN 0-631-20904-2. Satan Unbound: The Devil in Old English Narrative Literature. By Peter Dendle. Toronto, Buffalo, NY, and London: University of Toronto Press. 2001. xiii + 196 pp. $50; ?30 (pbk $22.95; ?12). ISBN 0-8020-4839-0 (pbk 0-8020-83962 ). Two books, two indices as to the health of a discipline: in a sense, the books under review represent different ends of Anglo-Saxon studies. The Companion is selfconsciously oriented to teaching, to introducing the neophyte and non-specialist to the best the field currently offers,rather than breaking new ground as a primary goal. As a scholarly monograph (an endangered species, given the state of university presses), Satan Unbound represents what new questions and answers the field is producing. The Blackwell Companions focus on 'orientingthe beginning student in new fields of study and providing the experienced undergraduate and new graduate student with current and new directions, as pioneered and developed by leading scholars in the field'. In Anglo-Saxon studies, this type of introduction/summation/state-of-the-field project is currently a growth area: M. Lapidge and M. Godden, The Cambridge Com? panion to Old English Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); H. Aertsen and R. Bremmer, Companion to Old English Poetry (Amsterdam: VU Univer? sity Press, 1994); R. Bjork and J.Niles, A 'Beowulf' Handbook (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997); M. Lapidge and others, The Blackwell Encyclopedia ofAngloSaxon England (Oxfordand Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1999); M. Alexander, A History ofOld English Literature (Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2002); R. Liuzza, Old English Literature: Critical Essays (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002); A. Orchard , A Critical Companion to 'Beowulf (Woodbridge, Suffolk, and Rochester, NY: Brewer, 2003); R. Fulk and C. Cain, A History of Old English Literature (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003); P. Baker, Introduction to Old English (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003); the ongoing series of classic reprinted essays, 'Basic Readings in Anglo-Saxon England' (7 vols to date, New York: Garland and Routledge, 1994-2002). In Chapter 1 the editors of the Companion explain that 'A volume such as this is designed to inform and stimulate' (p. 9). Every one of the twenty-seven chapters in this volume informs with absolutely up-to-date surveys ofthe field; however, not all of the essays stimulate. Rather than rehearse the titles and contents ofthe various essays, I will concentrate here on overall impressions. In general, the Companion places what had been considered 'non-canonical' texts over the traditionally 'canonical'. What this means is prose over verse, extending even beyond prose authors such as i^lfric and Wulfstan to scientific and legal texts and other relatively neglected forms. Even when poetry makes an appearance, as a general rule one is more likely to find a contributor reaching fora riddle or maxim as an illustration rather than a passage fromBeowulf or the elegies or the Dream oftheRood. Is this a good thing ?On the one hand the picture of the Anglo-Saxon textual world presented here is undeniably broader and more com? plex than heretofore, with chapters, for example, on 'Legal and Documentary Writ? ings' and 'Prayers, Glosses and Glossaries', among others. On the other hand, in 529 pages there is really no sustained discussion ofBeowulf', the most extensive being Fred Robinson's four pages of well-chosen comments inhis chapter ('Secular Poetry'). To be sure, one can go to many places for good introductions to the poem, but it does feel as if the Companion moves too overwhelmingly far away from what generations of reader have feltto be the most compelling specimens of Anglo-Saxon literature. In another sign of the volume's salutary engagement with the field's most productive research in recent years, manuscript context is given pride of place throughout. Most contributors place their subjects fullywithin the context of manuscript produc- 45 o Reviews tion and dissemination; no fewer than four essays in Part I ('Contexts and Perspec? tives') address the role of manuscripts in Anglo-Saxon literary culture...

The Implicit Religion of Love

Love is not merely the highest goal of the world religions but also is an implicit religion in its own right. This is demonstrated through an examination of the theme of love in a range of secular literature, poetry, prose and commentary from ancient and modern sources. Often at odds with overt religious mores, love seems an ameliorating and transforming human experience.