Vision Of Evil Research Articles

Literary Britten: Words and Music in Benjamin Britten's Vocal Works ed. by Kate Kennedy

Reviewed by: Literary Britten: Words and Music in Benjamin Britten's Vocal Works ed. by Kate Kennedy Kevin Salfen Literary Britten: Words and Music in Benjamin Britten's Vocal Works. Edited by Kate Kennedy. (Aldeburgh Studies in Music, no. 13.) Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 2018. [xx, 405 p. ISBN 9781783272853 (hardcover), $99; ISBN 9781787442566 (e-book), price varies.] Illustrations, music examples, list of contributors, bibliography, index. In her brief introduction to Literary Britten—a collection of eighteen essays by prominent Britten scholars as well as academics whose careers have not been devoted to the erstwhile Baron of Aldeburgh—Kate Kennedy explains that "this book has chosen to move away from the theoretical debates concerning the relationship between words and music" (p. 5) and that it hangs together as "a snapshot of the lively diversity of current thinking on Britten" (p. 7). It may also point to a chameleonic quality in the composer, some capacity of his work to permit starkly contrasting views. Kennedy describes Britten as "one of the most literary composers" (p. 8), although what evidence supports this comparative assertion, echoed in the blurb on the back cover, never makes an appearance. More literary than who? we are left to wonder. And why does it matter if Britten wins this contest? Does being "most literary" make him top boy or enough of a brainbox to boost his canonical status, to give him a slab in the Westminster of the imagination? These are lines of thinking that the volume's editor and writers generally do not pick up: to explore what being "literary" meant in and beyond Britten's creative life and evolving circle of collaborators, and [End Page 123] what significance that should have for a twenty-first-century academic readership. Throughout the volume, the editor has used a light hand, letting writers be who they will be, which is why the argument for a "literary Britten" can never coalesce. Nominally divided into two major sections—"Perspectives" and "Studies," with one focused on broad issues and the other on specific works—"slippage" between these modes abounds, which further blurs the book's overarching focus. The architecture merely provides a place to put things, and so, as with many essay collections trailing the composer's centenary in 2013, Literary Britten's success depends not on the structure of the volume or on its editor but on the writer of each chapter. The first goes to Mervyn Cooke, who summarizes Britten's relationships with his librettists, observing along the way that Britten initially worked with fiercely independent ones (W. H. Auden, Montagu Slater, E. M. Forster) and gradually shifted to ones who were more "practical"—malleable, one might say (Myfanwy Piper, William Plomer). Although there is little new information here, Cooke's narrative has authority and serves as an effective entrée to the field because of his special place in the history of Britten studies. In "Britten, Auden and the 1930s," John Fuller draws on a lifelong history of reading and listening to give a rich sense of Auden's significance for the composer, though the finest quality of the chapter might be that it embodies an erudition and facility with unexpected connections that approximate Auden's, a kind of anachronistic example of what being "literary" might look like in Britten and Auden's circle of the 1930s. The third chapter marks a noticeable shift toward smaller claims, smaller gains. Nicholas Clark, as librarian with the Britten–Pears Foundation and series editor for Aldeburgh Studies in Music, has, like Cooke, earned a broad brush, and he does make some expansive claims: he proposes a view of evil in the operas Turn of the Screw and Owen Wingrave to compare with Henry James's "vision of evil," a distillation aided by consideration of James's oneact play "The Saloon." Clark also suggests an important point about "being literary": it permits, perhaps demands, the fruitful interplay of texts, which in turn necessitates that the scholar do more than say "x short story begat y opera." When we consider such textcomplexes, we begin to piece together the rich life of the mind that a volume called Literary Britten might have aspired to depict. Kate...

Melville's Intervisionary Network: Balzac, Hawthorne, and Realism in the American Renaissance, by John Haydock

<i>Melville's Intervisionary Network: Balzac, Hawthorne, and Realism in the American Renaissance</i>, by John Haydock

The Vision of Evil in Richard III: Repetition and Being stuck, Nothingness and Ineffectiveness

This paper is designed to study the vision of evil in Richard III. The play dramatizes the final demonic phase of civil war, depicting the desperate way the old world ends. In the demonic phase of history, Richard appears as a remainder of radical negativity of old world, which still haunts the present world. In the process of usurping the crown, he repeats and accumulates internecine feud inexorably. The incessant murders he has committed seem to be the very form in which old order survives and haunts the present. Thus, the play suggests the vision of evil as being stuck for all eternity with an abyss and unable to disappear, unable to come to an end, and doomed to eternal repetition. The play also suggests that this vision of evil is no more than that of nothingness and ineffectiveness. At the end, when Richard is defeated by Richmond who represents officially good and divine justice, this vicious cycle of evil is closed. And the play can reach its proper ideological resolution for Tudor myth. But Shakespeare’s stance seems to be divided between sanguine view of Tudor myth and cynical view of it.

Melville's Vision of Evil

(2003). Melville's Vision of Evil. The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal: Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 14-56.

Traversing the Inferno: A New Direction for Business Ethics

Abstract:The discipline of business ethics traditionally has paid too much attention to articulating and applying the moral law and has devoted too little thinking to the nature and consequences of evil for our souls. For purposes of this discussion, I shall limit myself to Dante’s vision of evil as a diminution of human being. On his journey through hell, Dante encounters the shades—people who, through their own actions, have rendered themselves less than fully human. This paper concentrates especially on the various types of fraud and their psychic effects as portrayed by Dante in his book Inferno.

Arthur Miller's Neglected Article on the Nazi War Criminals’ Trials: A Vision of Evil

Research Article| October 01 1985 Arthur Miller's Neglected Article on the Nazi War Criminals’ Trials: A Vision of Evil ROBERT LEE FELDMAN ROBERT LEE FELDMAN Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Resources for American Literary Study (1985) 15 (2): 187–196. https://doi.org/10.2307/26366667 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation ROBERT LEE FELDMAN; Arthur Miller's Neglected Article on the Nazi War Criminals’ Trials: A Vision of Evil. Resources for American Literary Study 1 October 1985; 15 (2): 187–196. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/26366667 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressResources for American Literary Study Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 1988, Resources for American Literary Study, Inc.1988Resources for American Literary Study, Inc. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Arthur Miller's Neglected Article on the Nazi War Criminals’ Trials: A Vision of Evil

Arthur Miller's Neglected Article on the Nazi War Criminals’ Trials: A Vision of Evil

Designed Horror: James's Vision of Evil in The Turn of the Screw

Designed Horror: James's Vision of Evil in The Turn of the Screw

Designed Horror: James's Vision of Evil in The Turn of the Screw

N R Y J A M E S 's tale of the supernatural U has been the subject of intense critical attention ever since it was written. As all students of the story know, the presence of ghosts in it has presented a serious challenge to modern orthodoxy, but perhaps we are now less exercised by this aspect of the story. As a result, the narrative and aesthetic implications of the ghosts are not much considered. Explications of the story continue to appear with some frequency, but most of these are addressed to the status and assertions of the main narrator: for example, H. Robert Huntley's diagnosis of hysteria in the governess, Howard Faulkner's questioning of the fictionality of her narrative, or Linda S. Kauffman's argument that the governess's narrative is an extended love letter to the absent master. Two other more subtle approaches, those of Christine Brooke-Rose and Marcia M. Eaton, take for granted the ambiguity of the story (are the ghosts real or not?) and study the narrative strategies which sustain the double meaning.' What the ghosts themselves may mean, if

A Romantic Ironist's Vision of Evil: Robert Cormier's After the First Death

A ROMANTIC IRONIST'S VISION OF EVIL: ROBERT CORMIER'S AFTER THE FIRST DEATH Millicent Lenz What is the truth about Robert Cormier, the controversial writer whose artistic power is universally acknowledged, yet whose vision of the world seems schizophrenically split: "savage" in his novels, "gentle and warm" in his short stories? Cormier himself, asked how he views the world, has pointed to some of his writings as "very optimistic, warm," "positive," and has said, "I don't think The Chocolate War is representative of my work. I think someone should be judged by his total output." This seems a fair enough request; the "world view" of any writer must be evaluated by looking at his whole production. Such a comprehensive and definitive evaluation is beyond the scope of this brief paper. It may be possible, however, to resolve some of the confusions and contradictions surrounding the world view in Cormier's work by closely scrutinizing his own statements about himself as an artist: by looking closely at, first, his romantic view of the writing process, his insistence upon truthfulness to his artistic vision, and then by investigating his use of the technique of irony to achieve his most dramatic effects. His most recent novel, After the First Death, will be used as a case in point to demonstrate how his ironic technique "works." Cormier's own comments on his writing process clearly characterize him as a romantic artist. His inspiration begins always, he tells us, with an "emotion," and he proceeds to get its "impact" down on paper. The sequence of creation is invariably the same: the emotion he desires to create gives rise to character; character suggests plot. The goal is always to communicate the emotion he wants the reader to feel: "? sacrifice everything to that.'" This requirement explains his use of "'any word, any unpretty image, to communicate that emotion.'" Clarity, precision of effect, is what he aims for. This romantic approach to the creative process strongly suggests Wordsworth's "emotion recollected in tranquillity" and also conjures up recollections of Edgar Allan Poe' s concept of the genesis of a "tale": A skillful literary artist ... having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents — he then combines such, events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. Everything, Poe continues, must work towards "the one pre-established design." Cormier's pre-established design, the emotional effect, relates to his predilection for adolescent protagonists, for as he has observed, their emotional lives are more intense and vivid, '"far more exciting, more excruciating, more intriguing than mine,'" and the vivid intensity of their experiences awakens within him '"memories of my own. '" The invention of the emotion itself may be spurred by incidents so seemingly insignificant that none but the gifted novelist would give them a second thought: when his son, a freshman trying out for the football team, came home '"with two shopping bags of chocolates to sell,'" Cormier's imagination asked "'What if ...,'" evoking the sinister possibilities inherent in this everyday event, and '"a novel was born.'" Cormier is also a romantic in his view of art as a process of discovery. "'... one of the jays of sitting down at the typewriter is finding out what's going to happen.'" He sees his whole writing career as "a process of growth and learning,"- and he immensely enjoys the "dialogue" he carries on with his young readers. Cormier is moreover a writer committed to expressing his vision of life as a quest for truth. He has spoken of the need for any story or novel to be "written honestly and without regard for a specific audience" (thus his refusal to delete the ambiguous and the puzzling and the evil from his novelistic world, for to do so would be to '"write down'" to his readers). The "shocks of recognition" he wishes to elicit depend upon holding fast to his own perceptions of truth. He will not compromise for the sake of happy endings, for as he insists, As long as what I write is true and believable, why should I have to create happy endings? My...

"Henry James's 'General Vision of Evil' in The Turn of the Screw"

"Henry James's 'General Vision of Evil' in The Turn of the Screw"

Roger Casement and the Congo

Roger Casement's role as Irish patriot has obscured his role as Congo reformer. Travelling in the interior of the Congo in 1903 as British consul, Casement gathered evidence that enabled the British government to attack the Congo State on grounds of maladministration. He did not however regard mere diplomatic action as sufficient to redress the wrongs of King Leopold's rubber trade. Convinced that only a humanitarian crusade could abolish the evils of the Leopoldian regime, Casement inspired E. D. Morel to found the Congo Reform Association. Through his dual capacity of civil servant and humanitarian, he attempted, in his own words, to choke off King Leopold ‘as a “helldog” is choked off’. His apocalyptic vision of evil in the Congo may have been exaggerated, but his influence was of the first magnitude in bringing about Belgium's annexation of the Congo in 1908.

F. M. Dostoevsky and D. H. Lawrence: Their vision of evil

F. M. Dostoevsky and D. H. Lawrence: Their vision of evil

The Ambassadors: Strether's Vision of Evil

The Ambassadors: Strether's Vision of Evil

The Ambassadors: Strether's Vision of Evil

IN The Ambassadors JAMES fully achieves what he had approached in many of his earlier works: the identification of action with vision. Although the protagonist, Lambert Strether, is one of James's spectator heroes, he does not have the same kind of serious deficiency that holds Ralph Touchett back from life or that is equivalent to the intellectual pride in the narrator of The Sacred Fount. In the person of Strether vision is action; it represents a full participation in experience. It is dynamic, dramatic, and personal. James traces the development of Strether's understanding of a particular Parisian social group. Before Strether Chad, he discovers the beauty of Paris: its cultural, aesthetic, and architectural richness, which indicates a way of life more satisfying than that of Woollett. Even before he meets Chad, his prejudices against Paris begin to be modified, and after he meets Chad they all but vanish. James dramatizes Strether's awakening in visual terms. Strether sees truth: in the architecture of Chad's home and in Chad's appearance in a theater box. Each successive impression forces Strether to shift his moral position, to consider the relation of the new impression to his duty to Mrs. Newsome; by seeing one thing differently he is made to see other things differently. Midway in the novel Strether, in the process of comparing the life of his new Parisian friends to his own starved past and equally bleak future, reveals to Little Bilham the startling influence of Paris on him. In his advice to Bilham to live, Strether shows his realization of

Pope's Social Satire: Belles-Lettres and Business

The modern redemption of the Dunciad has been in part a demonstration that the poem deals with extant dunceness more than with forgotten dunces. By way of extending the demonstration, I wish to show how luminously Pope associates the spread of bad books with the dynamics of a commercialized society. While dealing of course with other problems too, the Dunciad and its pendants treat a notable aspect of the issue which pervades and unifies most of his mature satire—the antinomy of mercenary and humane values. Repeatedly between 1728 and 1743 Pope contemplates the predicament of a nation that is “sunk in lucre's sordid charms” and of men who are “alike in nothing but one lust of gold.” He protests the corrupt practices of politicians like Walpole, the extravagance of aristocrats like Timon, and the acquisitive enterprise of business men like Balaam. As far afield as the great Parisian banquet of the Dunciad (iv.549-564) Maynard Mack has sensitively detected Pope's animus toward a “money culture.” Since it underlies his general outlook of gloom, this animus is even behind the sighs for a “sinking land” which appear briefly amid the spacious optimism of the Essay on Man (iv.265-266). A similarity between two of Pope's finest symbols marks the special place of the Dunciad within his vision of evil: in the Epilogue to the Satires the goddess Vice rules an avaricious world by means of “golden chains” (i.147-148, 161-162); and Dulness, the deity of the Dunciad, fixes society to a bimetallic standard of “lead and gold” (iv.13-16).