Younger Cousin Research Articles

Beyond Canterbury: Chaucer, Humanism, and Literature by Raymond P. Tripp, Jr.

REVIEWS universe on both the frame-tale level and within the tales themselves, narrated in the third person. The interplay between the two narrative levels becomes his dialectical critique of the courtly ideal. In The Canter­ bury Tales he has "thematicized" and "problematized" this conceptual universe (p. 256). The author does not put these terms in quotes. Schaefer concludes her discussion of The Canterbury Tales by applying an unexceptionable reading of the artistic ambivalence of The Knight's Tale to her main thesis. A good example of the level of abstraction at which she can operate is found on pp. 362-63. There Peter Elbow's 1972 Chaucer Review article is quoted: "The contrast between the knight and his squire is like that between Theseus and the two young cousins." But Schaefer wants this comparison to read differently: the Knight is to be compared to Palamon and Arcite, and the Squire to Theseus. Why? "For the Knight and Palamon and Arcite, war and love are depicted as senseless self-service, while the Squire and Theseus are two variants on the same theme." This is simply not true for the Knight in the General Prologue, and it misses completely the likeness in tone between Theseus and the Knight as narrator. Similarly, in the preceding chapter she underplays the sense of forward development and enlargement in Troilus, preferring instead to emphasize Adrienne Lockhart's notion of semantic degeneration, since it better fits her thesis about the insufficiency of the courtly·universe. The text of the book, in photo-offset typescript, is relatively free of errors. Two typos, both in English, occur on pp. 318n and 392; in the table of contents, under section I.3.2, "Ausbildung" should read "Abschliessung"; p. 306, the "3. Prosa des III. Buchs" (of Boethius) should read "6. Prosa"; on pp. 321 and 393, change the incorrect paging of Roy Pearcy's 1973 Chaucer Review article on the Franklin to "33-59." HOWELL CHICKERING Amherst College RAYMOND P. TRIPP, JR. Beyond Canterbury: Chaucer, Humanism, and Literature. Church Stretton, Shropshire: Onny Press, Ltd., 1977. Pp. 239. $7. That this book is "not a regular academic study of Chaucer and poetry," as its author warns, becomes apparent when one calculates that 211 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER two-thirds of it does not discuss any of Chaucer's verses, while the part that does, deals only with The Book ofthe Duchess and The Knight's Tale. It must be as our author approvingly quotes Thoreau: "If you are ac­ quainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications." The principle depends upon a position, one that is outside, or above, or beyond: meta-critical. Within, we are but illustrations of a late and rather debased phase in the history of consciousness, and most of us are Humanists. Except for Tripp. He stands by himself, proposing, he says, "Some Really New Views on Chaucer." He will not tell us how he has been delivered from Humanism, when the rest of us have not, but here is his book if we wish to dissociate ourselves from "personality" and "attain a new literalness." By stepping outside (extra-Humanism), we can attain certainty of description, rather than "asymptotic approximations." The book is written for non-Humanists, whoever and wherever they are, but Tripp imagines "a curious humanist looking over my shoulder" (p. 2). Humanism "may be described as an emotionally inflated, man­ centered, phenomenally oriented relativism" (p. 60). The term is closer to Heidegger's critique of Western thought than, say, to Petrarch, Erasmus, or Colet, but from as remote a perspective as Tripp attains, they-and we-swim in the same current of increasing self­ consciousness and aestheticism. Tripp's book is divided into six sections and an Epilogue, called chapters, with many separately titled sub-sections; each paragraph is numbered. The allusion to rational philosophy rather than impressionis­ tic criticism is deliberate: the meta-humanist must not compete with, or depend upon, "literature," for "its function . . . is not to extend literature by means of the mirror-image admiration called criticism, but rather to terminate literary history." The "termination" comes from the transcending intelligence, which "will...

Hawthorne's Polar Explorations: "Young Goodman Brown" and "My Kinsman, Major Molineux"

T_ _HE MISADVENTURES of Young Goodman Brown and Major Molineux's youthful cousin Robin have in recent years been as extensively interpreted as any of Hawthorne's shorter works. Since both tales are ambiguous and puzzling in the characteristic fashion of the best Hawthorne stories, it is not surprising that they have elicited attention from a variety of critical perspectives. Their imagery, symbols, cultural milieus, historical backgrounds, psychoanalytic implications, and mythic patterns have all been so thoroughly examined that we know as much about the individual tales as we can rightly expect from the application of the critical intelligence. Nevertheless, all this critical acumen and industry has allowed one curious lacuna to remain. Although alone among Hawthorne's tales these two are so closely parallel in form and manner as to be properly considered companion-pieces, there has been no investigation of this fact. Passing comments there are aplenty, but curiosity apparently has stopped there. It may be that the close similarities in structures, characterization, theme, and imagery have been considered too apparent and obvious even to the casual reader, or it may be that these parallels have been assigned to coincidence. But the obvious in Hawthorne, as in James, is often only a surface which disguises, like Poe's purloined letter, matter of more than passing moment. The meaning of the scarlet letter and the golden bowl is quite obvious, but no serious reader would stop his consideration at the mere fact of adultery. Coincidence, on the other hand, while possible, is hardly

Familial carriers and meningococcal meningitis.

INTEREST in meningococcal disease was reawakened by the demonstration in 1963 of sulfonamide resistance in a significant number of strains of the causative organisms.1 Military surveys, in both epidemic and nonepidemic periods,2 3 4 5 6 have been abundant, but there have been few attempts to study the meningococcus in civilian populations. When performed, such investigations have generally focused on the immediate families of patients. They have not defined the relation of isolated cases both to the microcommunity in which they occurred and to the larger urban population.7 8 9 10 11 12 13 The admission to the hospital of 3 young first cousins with meningococcal meningitis during a six-month . . .

Love and the "Causa Secreta" in the Tales of Machado de Assis

IT HASBEEN observed that Machado de Assis' fiction reveals the author's preoccupation with the theme of true love versus self-love.' One can add, however, that excluding perhaps Memorial de Aires,2 his last novel, true love generally appears in his works as a device concealing an ulterior motive deeply rooted in self-love. This motive Machado himself has called the causa secreta, or the ugly side of human beings, which his fictional characters try to conceal behind a mask of selfless humanity.3 Machado's denial of true love, furthermore, can be observed in his short stories as well as his novels, and even in those early tales commonly taken as emotional, sentimental stories supposedly aimed at the immature, love-starved reader who delights in the triumph of true love. These earlier tales, assigned to his so-called romantic period, seem to be filled with sentimental cliches very much in keeping with the literary conventions of the times.4 As one looks more closely, however, at the stories in Contos fluiminenses and Hist6rias da meia noite, his first collections, one finds paradoxes and ironies that should dispel the notion that these early tales among Machado's works are uncharacteristically romantic, hence inferior to his later production. The mating game is depicted, to be sure, but as an ironical battle of wits, and a strenuous one at that, at the conclusion of which it is uncertain whether the winner really enjoys the spoils or merely gets stuck with them. In these tales Machado seems to be asking: Who is to tell what lies hidden behind people's actions even when they seem most sincere? What guarantees that love can reform self-centered people? Self-centered love appears in a number of these early stories in the form of greed, vanity, pride, jealousy, envy, lust or any combin tion of these. In Frei selfish parents destroy their son's life out of greed a d pride. Simio's parents, wishing their son to marry a wealthy heiress, more likely for a financial gain of their own than for their son's welfare, deceive Simao by telling him that Helena, the destitute orphan girl with whom he is in love, has died. Machado describes Simio's parents in a way that leaves no doubt as to their charac er: Os referidos pais eram de um egoismo descomunal. Davam de boa vontad o pao da subsistencia a Helena; mas 1 casar o filho com a pobre 6rfa e o que ndo podiam consentir (pp. 153-154). This egoism ventually kills Simao, who after he has become a Benedictine monk discovers that Helena is alive and married to a peasant. Soon after, he goes out of his mind and dies. Greed is again encountered as a manifestation of self-love in Soares. Here Luis is portrayed as an irrespo sible individual incapable of loving anyon but himself, yet he almost succeeds in persuading his beautiful young cousin Adelaide that he is in love with her. This occurs when he discovers that she is to inherit a large sum of money which is to rescue him from financial difficulties. Fortunately, the girl learns of Luis Soares' scheme in time to prevent an unhappy marriage. In O segredo de Augusta, the causa secreta is envy on the part of a parent, who should be the last person to be suspected. Augusta is envious of her daughter Adelaide's youth and beauty, which she conceals behind a mask of motherly zeal.

Presentation of the John Howland Medal and Award of the American Pediatric Society to Dr. Ethel C. Dunham.

Dr. Darrow, members and guests of the American Pediatric Society: It has been both pleasure and privilege to prepare this citation for Dr. Ethel Collins Dunham, Howland Medalist of 1957. What manner of person do we honor? All biographical notes are charged with interest, and particularly so are these. Dr. Dunham was born in Hartford, Conn., to descendants of English immigrants who had come to America before 1640. Her family was active in business, and in a book about her forebears written for distribution to the young folk of the family, one may read of a father and mother never heard to speak angrily to each other, of a mother who painted, of manners and ethics taught by example, of only rare and mild punishment for misdemeanors. Every Saturday during the winter, an aunt conducted at her home a working group at which the young cousins, boys and girls, made