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The Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature Volume 5

The Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature Edited by Herbert Grabes • Hans-Jürgen Diller Hartwig Isernhagen Volume 5

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Walter de Gruyter • Berlin • New York 1987

Notice to Contributors T h e editors invite submission of manuscripts (in English) appropriate to the aims indicated in the Preface to Volume 1 (1983). The journal does not pay contributors; each author will receive 50 offprints of the article. Articles submitted for consideration may be sent either directly to one of the editors or to an advisor. T o facilitate correspondence, they should be sent in duplicate. T h e mode of presentation should be that laid down in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers: Revised Edition, ed. Joseph Gibaldi and Walter S. Achtert (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1984). A list of Works Cited (including publishers) should be provided; all matter should be double-spaced; notes (in the form of endnotes) should be restricted to material that cannot easily be incorporated into the main text.

Prof. Herbert Grabes Institut f ü r Anglistik und Amerikanistik Justus-LiebigUniversität Otto-Behaghel-Str. 10 D-6300 Gießen

Editors Prof. Hans-Jürgen Diller Englisches Seminar Ruhr-Universität Bochum Universitätsstr. 150 D-4630 Bochum

Prof. Hartwig Isernhagen Englisches Seminar Universität Basel Nadelberg 6 CH-4051 Basel

Advisory Board P. G. Bouce (University of Paris III), Malcolm Bradbury (University of East Anglia), Hans Bungert (University of Regensburg), Avrom Fleishman (Johns Hopkins University), Wolfgang Iser (University of Konstanz), Murray Krieger (University of California/Irvine), Giorgio Melchiori (University of Rome), Przemystaw Mroczkowski (Jagellonian University of Cracow), John Spencer (University of Leeds), Albert E. Stone (University of Iowa), Arne Zettersten (University of Copenhagen)

ISSN 0723-0338 ISBN 3-11-011498-4 Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin ISBN 0-89-925474-8 Walter de Gruyter, Inc., New York

Re: C o p y i n g in the U S A A u t h o r i z a t i o n t o p h o t o c o p y items for internal or personal use, o r the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by Walter de Gruyter & C o . • Berlin • New York for libraries and o t h e r users registered with the C o p y r i g h t Clearance C e n t e r ( C C C ) Transactional Reporting Service, provided that the base fee of $ 0 2 . 0 0 per copy is paid directly t o C C C , 21 Congress St., Salem, M A 01970. 0723-0338/88/$2.00 © by Walter de Gruyter & C o . • Berlin • New York © 1988 by Verlag Walter de Gruyter & C o . - Printed in G e r m a n y - All rights reserved, including those of translations into foreign languages. N o part this journal m a y be reproduced in any f o r m - by p h o t o p r i n t , microfilm or any o t h e r m e a n s - n o r transmitted n o r translated into a m a c h i n e language w i t h o u t permission f r o m the publisher. Typesetting and printing: Kupijai & Prochnow, Berlin. Binding: Liideritz & Bauer, Berlin

Contents

M A R I A M . FLYNN

Wisdom and "Ri3te Cunde": An Examination of the Satiric Subtlety of The Owl and the Nightingale

1

KARL REICHL

Popular Poetry and Courtly Lyric: The Middle English Pastourelle

33

IRENA JANICKA-SWIDERSKA

The Dance in Elizabethan and Stuart Drama

63

ROBERT WEIMANN

Discourse, ideology and the crisis of authority in post-Reformation England

109

W O L F G A N G LOTTES

"When the Sword came back from sea" — Aspects of Medievalism in Pre-Raphaelite Literature

141

H . FOLTINEK

The Other Hero of Martin Chuzzlewit: The Function of Tom Pinch in the Narrative and Thematic Structure of the Novel

171

A V R O M FLEISHMAN

The ABC of Historical Criticism

205

BERND ENGLER

William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! Five Decades of Critical Reception

221

RÜDIGER IMHOF

Contemporary Metafiction: The Phenomenon and the Efforts to Explain It

271

MARIA M. FLYNN

Wisdom and "Ri3te Cunde": An Examination of the Satiric Subtlety of The Owl and the Nightingale

I. INTRODUCTION The Owl and the Nightingale is a medieval English debate poem written by an unknown author at an unspecified date. Scholars understandably offer speculations concerning both of these unknowns, speculations which have been summed up adequately by Eric Gerald Stanley in his introduction to an edition of the text which he completed in I960.1 While acknowledging that there are those who disagree, Stanley prefers to date the poem between 1189 and 1216 and, of three possible candidates, to credit its authorship to an unknown poet-friend of the Nicholas of Guildford who figures as the judge in the poem. Though this work is classified as a debate poem, a genre probably traceable to classical pastoral argument poems and characterized by an altercation between two opponents who quite often represent allegorical abstractions, it has puzzled critics on this point, too. 2 The reason for this is that the avian debaters in the poem function well neither as mere birds nor as strictly allegorical figures. They are either more than or less than they should be for a satisfactory interpretation of the poem as a debate. Moreover, debate poems generally work toward a didactic end, with a judge deciding between the two sides.3 But the poet never allows The Owl and the Nightingale to reach a resolution: the argument never goes before the judge. As a result, there are those who interpret the poem in favor of the Owl, others who favor the Nightingale, and still others who declare a draw.

(19-22). Subsequent line references are from this edition. Hanford (19-20) discusses possible sources for the debate genre. For a representative list of debate-poems and their outcomes see H u m e 39. Stanley (26), drawing on German secondary sources, mentions two debates in which judgemental closure is absent.

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There is so much to ponder critically and interpretively, in fact, that often the poet's skill as a poet is taken for granted, or at least left unmentioned. Fortunately, Stanley is not guilty of this omission. While noting the scansion problems exhibited in the almost 1800 octosyllabic lines, he defends the poet and praises him as one who knew when to be mechanical in his "counting and weighing of syllables" and when to vitalize his work by varying the rhythm (37). Stanley extends his discussion to cover rhyme and alliteration, and concludes: . . . O & N has qualities which are lacking in longer ME verse until Chaucer's time. Among the greatest of these qualities is this, that the poet gives the impression of true ease in writing. It is a studied virtue, and one would give much to know who were his masters, and what was the nature of his training (40).

Perhaps the critics' tacit acceptance of the poet's skill shows an agreement among them on this one aspect of the work at least. And yet there is another point of agreement. The light-hearted, frivolous style of the poem precludes boredom. The situation, the combatants, the topics debated and the temper in which the debate takes place combine to fill the poem with humorous incongruities and thoroughly tangled philosophical brambles. The debate is observed by a human narrator who, while wandering the countryside in mid-summer, hears the birds in a certain secluded spot, "In one sujDe dijele hale" (line 2). Drawing nearer, he sees a nightingale among the blossoming branches of a thicket, secure and protected from the fearful talons of an owl who is roosting nearby in the dead, ivy-covered tree in which she nests. The argument begins as the Nightingale becomes aware of the Owl. She ceases her lovely singing, which the appreciative narrator compares to the sounds "Of harpe & pipe" (line 22), and starts to berate the Owl scornfully for her loathsomeness and ugly hooting, claiming that the Owl's presence keeps her from singing. The Owl listens to her until evening and then can keep quiet no longer. Kathryn Hume, in The Owl and the Nightingale: The Poem and Its Critics, divides the debate into four sections (86-97). The birds initially argue about who sings better, who is prettier, whether frogs or spiders are the more acceptable food, and whether owlets can avoid fouling their nests. Each bird does her share of bragging and degrading in her attempt to belittle the other, and each realizes that their differences will not be resolved by talk. In her frustration the Owl even tries clumsily to deceive the Nightingale into leaving her secure hedge so that the argument might be ended with beak and talon. Realizing that they have reached a stalemate, the Nightingale suggests they

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seek a judge to decide the matter. Nicholas of Guildford is chosen and the Owl agrees to go before him. This, according to Hume, ends round one. The journey to Nicholas is delayed, however, as the clever Nightingale provokes the argument again. She is shrewd. Quite likely she never even intended to go, but merely sought a scheme that would calm the more physically powerful Owl. In any event, she begins namecalling again and, as Hume points out, the debate progresses from the natural or physical to the moral realm (90). No longer is the Owl just loathsome: she is wicked. Why else would she love the darkness? (Neither the Owl nor the Nightingale sees the incongruity here.) As the Owl takes her turn, she discredits the Nightingale for singing only in lecherous anticipation of the breeding season: For o f golnesse is al J51 song, A n a3en Jjet Jdu w i t teme i>u art wel m o d i & wel breme. (lines 498-500)

Although the Nightingale tries to avoid this morally weighted accusation, the Owl insists that she answer. Hume divides the poem again at this point. Round three, according to Hume, moves to a "quasi-theological" level (92). The Owl, without waiting for the Nightingale's answer, claims that she is important to man and his search for salvation because she keeps the church free of mice. Not to be outdone, the Nightingale points out that she teaches the clergy how to sing. The argument continues in this vein—the bird's importance to man—until, as a defense against the Nightingale's mirth at the thought of her being killed and used as a scarecrow, the Owl notes proudly that even in death she is useful to man, a fact which she states with definite Christian overtones: .. ich do heom god / An for heom ich chadde mi blod" (lines 1615-16). However, when the Owl finishes making this claim, the Nightingale promptly declares herself the winner of the debate because the Owl is bragging about what the Nightingale has been hinting at all along, that the only good owl is a dead one. The Nightingale's refusal to debate any longer marks, in Hume's opinion, the beginning of the fourth section, or conclusion, of the poem (97). The critic notes also that this section is similar to the first in that the Owl repeats her physical threats and that the original plan to let Nicholas decide the question, urged this time by a wren who enters the squabble on behalf of the Nightingale, is acknowledged and put into motion. Their decision to go to Nicholas for judgement works throughout to unify the poem and give it direction. It has the reader constantly weighing and sorting the birds' arguments, not to mention sifting their logic, while

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being thankful, at least on first reading, that he does not have to sit in Nicholas' seat. At times, even, the arguments get so tedious—or merely "trivial" (Hume 87)—that the average reader wants to cage both birds and seek out Nicholas himself. But if the reader depends on finding a solution at the end, he puts the poem down disappointed. This particular Middle English poet, whoever he may have been, had something other than a simple, pat answer in mind. Just what his purpose was and what Nicholas' verdict would have been have puzzled critics for years. And yet, no one doubts that the answers are skillfully written into the poem and that each critical attempt adds to the understanding and appreciation of this medieval literary tangle.

II. THE RATIONALE FOR RE-EVALUATION The Owl and the Nightingale is a study in contrasts. The two birds are quite obviously different. One is generally accepted as ugly and graceless and the other as lovely and beneficent. One haunts the night, the other enchants it. One's strength is physical and the other's phrenic. One has traditionally been associated with wisdom and restraint, the other with carefree abandon. And it is such differences as these on which most critics focus. There are those who insist, with varying degrees of vehemence and for a potpourri of reasons, that the poet intends to exalt the Owl and disparage the Nightingale.4 There are also those, though few, who claim the author's purpose to be the commendation of the Nightingale and the denigration of the Owl, again for assorted reasons.5 Few of these critics agree, let alone applaud each other for their endeavors. As a result, the poem, though acclaimed as valuable and worthy, remains a mystery to those seeking to understand it via the available criticism. Further, efforts to predict the verdict of the good judge Nicholas of Guildford are bound to be inconclusive, to say the least. Probing the mystery therefore necessitates a new approach, a re-evaluation of several of the less obvious or infrequently discussed facets of the poem as well as of the generally accepted idea that it was written as a plea for the preferment of Nicholas of Guildford. 4

5

Ten Brink 215; Peterson 26; Spearing 66; Carson 100 (by implication); Shippey 54-55; and Robertson, "Historical Criticism" 16. Atkins lviii; Owst 22 (by implication); and the author of the Encyclopaedia Britannica article on 0 £ r N(1983 ed.).

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First of all, the simple allegorical reading which has been so avidly sought—i.e., that the birds represent opposing sides of an historical argument, one of which is to be judged superior—necessarily involves overlooking, even ignoring, the satirical aspect of the poem by which the poet makes both birds look ridiculous. Satire, though noted by some, is rarely dealt with by critics, possibly because satire and simple allegory are, in this case, irreconcilable. The difficulty is that with the traditional debate format one participant usually wins, whether by judge's decision or by default. But the author of this poem denies both birds that privilege, and his means of doing so is satire. W P. Ker discusses this poem to show that "before the French language had given way to English as the proper speech . . . there was some talent in English authors . . . for satire" (133). He notes that The Owl and the Nightingale is "the most contrary to all preconceived opinion, among the medieval English books"; but then, passing up the opportunity to point out the poem's satiric subtleties, he follows preconceived opinion and decides that this must be a traditional, easily defined allegory: "It is Art against Philosophy; the Poet meeting the strong though not silent Thinker, who tells him of the Immensities and Infinities" (134-35). The Owl does that? No. The Owl is the confused creature who, in her first major rebuttal of the Nightingale's silly charges, boasts that she never argues with fools (lines 287-98). One can almost hear the poet chuckling, not just about the Owl but also about the critic led not by his intuitive sense of the work but by tradition. The purpose of satire is to improve the human condition by warning the reader against such debilitating madness as the Owl's blind pride. Satire is an important element of The Owl and the Nightingale and needs to be reckoned as such because the author of this poem does not desire imitation of the birds but, rather, identification with them and an understanding of the solution to their lack of character. If the satiric factor in the poem has been largely ignored, the plea-for-preferment theory has found broad acceptance.6 But this idea, that Nicholas of Guildford wrote the poem to convince his superiors to offer him an additional office, must be disregarded for at least two reasons. One problem is that the poem is not written in Latin, the language of the Church, or in French, the language of the court, but in English, considered at least through 6

This theory is hinted at by Courthope (134-35) and Hinckley ("Date, Author, and Sources" 339). First to develop it, however, is Kathryn Huganir, The Owl and the Nightingale: Sources, Date, Author (1931,1966), cited also by Lumiansky (417).

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the latter half of the eleventh century to be a 'Vernacular sub-culture" (Shepherd 93), "the language of a conquered race, beneath the notice of its rulers" (Appleby 18). Who, then, might have been the intended audience for such a request written in English? But then, there is another problem with this theory: the practice of multiple livings was not considered an honorable one, basically because it was easily corrupted by favoritism on the one hand and by greed on the other. In fact, this was one inconsistency which Henry II demanded that Thomas á Becket correct in his own private situation—one of the few royal demands to which the Archbishop did yield, implying that he considered this to be a legitimate grievance (Pain 86). It seems quite out of character for a man of presumable integrity like Nicholas to desire this type of worldly advancement. Thus, these questions of audience and purpose need to be re-evaluated with due regard to the use of the vernacular. Spearing claims that this poem "was written to be read aloud to a communal audience of listeners" (16). And Shepherd suggests that it was merely an example of logic and debate written for the Master's pupils, with no didactic purpose inherent in the work (9092). Both of these seem closer to the author's intention than a request for a second living, though the use of English by a schoolmaster would need a stronger defense than has been given it, and the suggestion that there is no didactic purpose in this poem would have to be reconciled with the author's use of satire. But, without a doubt, more needs to be said about this facet of the poem. To reiterate: the critics have focused on the more obvious contrasts between the birds. However, the poet actually establishes more comparisons between them than contrasts. Consider, for example, that each party takes a subjective view of her own worth, praising herself and rudely insulting the other. The entire argument is the result of emotional reaction on the part of the Nightingale, who imagines an insult from the Owl, who, in turn, does her part as she stews and sulks until Ho ne mi3te no leng bileue, Vor hire horte was so gret f>at wel ne3 hire fnast atschet... (lines 42-44)

D. W. Robertson, in A Preface to Chaucer, lists the stages in the traditional progression from innocence to sin as being from "suggestion" (via perception), through "pleasurable thought," to reason's "consent" to the resulting overt action, which is the sin itself (73). Again, both birds behave alike, following provocation with desire for revenge and the revenge itself. The poet

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makes this quite clear in the description of the Owl (above) and in the choice and repetition of his verbs immediately preceding the Nightingale's first outburst: t>e Ni3htingale hi isej, & he bihold & ouersej, & i>ujte wel wl of (jare Hule, For me hi halt lodlich & fule. (lines 29-32, emphasis added) These lines occur at the very beginning of this quarrel as the poet indicates to his audience the real nature of the squabble and the unpleasant similarities of the contestants, who quarrel bitterly and nastily for supremacy and employ trickery and namecalling rather than honesty in their strife.7 Neither stands to gain anything substantial by winning the debate. And, in fact, except as an expression of their own personal pride, their struggle is pointless. An indisputable awareness begins to.distil out of a consideration of these similarities: the realization that neither of these creatures is worthy of imitation, regardless of the symbolic import that critics may read into her character. In the early stages this situation is funny but, while the outcome is positive, the poem becomes tedious and even rather tragic in a jovial way as the argument progresses. The poet, wanting his audience to realize the unworthiness of the protagonists, labors good-naturedly toward a goal other than a decision favoring one of the birds. The poem is, however, still a study in opposites; but the solution to the enigma rests in discovering that within it there are several contrasts working together, most notably one between the birds' actual behavior and philosophically and socially ideal behavior. One final item usually overlooked or at least taken too much for granted is that a debate between Owl and Nightingale in terms of personal worth demands that one consider the Great Chain of Being concept as a backdrop for the resulting drama. Of course, it was this view that gave rise to the fruitless question of the birds' relative worth, with the very obviousness of this question leading critics to assume, first, that The Owl and the Nightingale fell conveniently into the popular debate mode of the Latin literature of the day (Hanford 137), and, second, that a viable allegorical solution to the poet's puzzle could be found. Hume discusses at length the failure of allegorical readings (51-82), the list of which, to date, includes "pleasure and asceticism" (Ten Brink 215), "old religious poetry" and "new love-poetry" (Atkins Iviii), Gee (6) notes the importance of similarity between the birds, but only in the final sequence of argument concerning wives and lovers.

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"the strict monastic party" and "secular, and even regular, clergy" (Courthope 134), "preaching . . . gentler themes . . . a n d . . . thunder[ing] of sin and Judgement and the Wrath to come" (Owst 22), two types of music (Colgrave 1), and the Henry II / Thomas a Becket confrontation (Baldwin 207). But the difficulty with all these readings can be easily illustrated simply by trying to reconcile them with the Owl's statement, confused though it may be, condoning the neglected wife's adultery. Me hire mai so ofte misbeode f>at heo do wule hire ahene neode. La, Godd hit wot! heo nah iweld, f>a[h] heo hine makie kukeweld. (lines 1541-44)

If a simple allegory is going to work, it must work at this point, too, and neither asceticism nor strict religiosity, whether in living, preaching or singing, is going to dismiss adultery on the basis of its being someone else's fault, as the Owl does here. So, again, because of the failure of the allegorical readings to stand up under close scrutiny, understanding this poem requires a different approach. But, fortunately, just as the idea of the Great Chain of Being cannot be confined to the establishment of a system of binomial nomenclature, The Owl and the Nightingale need not be confined to allegory. And just as there are other ladders to climb in the hierarchy of hierarchies, there are other contrasts in this poem. The most important part of the puzzle is finding the one in which the author is most interested. Undoubtedly, all the clues needed are to be found within the poem, and it is equally likely that they have already been found by the critics who have pondered it. But the pieces have to work together; no one piece can dominate the scene, but must be fitted into the total picture. The poet was deliberate in his craft, and solving his medieval puzzle with twentieth-century minds demands a similar deliberateness—and a peculiar delight in solving puzzles.

III. IN DEFENSE OF SATIRE More so than for other literary artists (because of the necessity of the mode to be indirect, to say one thing and mean another), fascination with the peculiar beauty of puzzles is characteristic of those who write satire (Highet 242). An author of satire must also be driven by a strong impulse to "ridicule folly"

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with the intention of correcting it (Highet 241). This impulse is expressed in a range of tonalities, from bitter invective to light-hearted good humor (Worchester 35). In the case of The Owl and the Nightingale, the author is voicing not anger or disgust, but rather "condescending amusement" (Highet 238), which places this work at the light-hearted end of the scale. Satire is not a new label for this poem. Ker is possibly the first to apply it, and, undoubtedly he does so due to his awareness that among the twelfthcentury Latin debates "many... are in the vein of satire.. " 8 These, of course, must have been among the models employed, consciously or not, by the poet, whose erudition, both in scope and depth, remains unquestioned. Even earlier an editor makes the statement that "arch h u m o r . . . is indeed the making of the poem" (Wells li). Arch humor does not equal satire, it is true, but roguishness, mischief, and irony are certainly implied—all characteristic of any attempt to ridicule good-naturedly and indirectly. Also, there are two other early statements linking The Owl and the Nightingale to satire by implication: one by another editor, who notes that "much of [twelfth-century English literature] . . . was concerned with satire" (Atkins xx); and the other by a critic, who calls The Owl and the Nightingale "a curious anticipation of the line of thought followed by Jean de Meung, in his satirical addition to the Romance of the Rose" (Courthope 136). These, together with other quite direct statements—that the poet is "a witty satirist" (Hinckley, "Date of O & N" 256); that "he is writing poetry and satire" (Hinckley, "Science and Folklore" 314); that this "flyting match" is characterized by "satiric h u m o u r . . . often of a savage kind" (Speirs 46)—dispel the idea that to label The Owl and the Nightingale a satire is "modish" and must be done with apology (Hume 101). It is enlightened, rather, and should be well defended as such.9 There are two arguments to the contrary, however, and these must be dealt with. One is that the poem lacks a unity in its attack necessary to satire and is therefore comedy instead. And the other is that "a philosophical impartiality [between the birds] is maintained throughout" (Cazamian 60). This latter argument is simply based on a misunderstanding of the author's intent. Both birds bear the brunt of his attack; his philosophical impartiality therefore puts them both on the same low level. But the first can be answered 8

»

Hanford 137. This article seems to illustrate the school of thought which necessitated the simple allegorical readings for which 0 & N critics have so often striven. Hieatt (159-60) takes note of the satire but fails to defend it, as does Baldwin (207). And while Hume (101 ff.) applies herself diligently to a discussion of satire in the poem, she fails to prove conclusively that it actually exists.

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only by examining the rendering of the poem, by tracing the clues that reveal the author's design and purpose. This will determine whether his objection to the behavior he is ridiculing is disjointed or unified, comic or satiric (Worchester 37). Quite obvious, even on an initial reading, is the abundant use of proverbs or maxims. In fact, one critic has noted that The Owl and the Nightingale "may be treated as a monument of gnomic literature" (Hinckley, "Date, Author, & Sources" 343). Establishing the effect these sayings have on the presentation of the poem, then, should be a vital step in discovering the author1s purpose.10 Critics have questioned the sources and the poet's accuracy in transcribing these gems of wisdom, but the use to which they have been put in the poem has been viewed either as just a part of the debate scheme (Stanley 34) or as "furnish[ing the author with] examples of skillful narration... of direct, forcible and picturesque language... [and] especially . . . comic power" (Hinckley, "Date, Author, & Sources" 351). The proverbs, then, add interest, depth, and authority to the poem. But though Hinckley refers to their "comic power," he fails to elaborate on this point. If he had, he might have revealed an important clue, a definite lopsidedness in the monument: when a proverb is cited in this poem it is usually in some satiric way misapplied or misquoted. For example, the Nightingale cites "£>e wise" saying, "Wei fi3t ]jat wel fli3t" (line 176). With dignity, she then interprets this maxim, suggesting that they seek an impartial judgement for their quarrel "Vor suiche wordes bof> unwerste" (178). She is truly speaking with wisdom; but when the time comes to avoid the conflict by putting her plan into action, she instead begins the petty quarrelling again (215-18). In reality, her wisdom is only foolish pretense. Along the same lines, the Owl claims the authority of King Alfred, saying "Loke f>at Jju ne bo Jjare i>ar chauling bof> & cheste 3are; Let sottes chide & uor{) go!" (295-97)

She then proudly notes that she is wise enough to take this advice herself, Alfred having also said, "Pat wit £e fiile hauef> imene, / Ne cumej) he neuer from him cleine" (301-2). However, as was suggested earlier, Mrs. Owl is engaged in arguing with a fool and thereby ironically implicates herself as well. Gee (4-5) offers the only useful evaluation of the effect of the proverbs on the poem. But she misses their satirical function, noting only irony in the Owl's declaration that she does not argue with fools.

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Just past the middle of the poem the Nightingale is defending her failure to sing her song and share Christ's love with those who live in the northern regions. She quotes—or, rather, misquotes—the Apostle Paul's letter to the Galatians, saying £>at man shal erien an sowe t>ar he wenjj after sum god mowe, For he is wod J)at sowef) his sed Par neuer gras ne spring ne bled. (1039-42)

The Nightingale claims to be compelled by Scripture to choose where she spreads her goodness in accordance with the response she thinks she will receive. However, Paul was calling for a widespread sowing of "good," even with no assurance of harvest (Gal. 6:7,10). Again the Nightingale unwittingly exposes herself, since those who hear only what they want to hear and repeat it or use it accordingly are interested, not in truth, but in the appearance of truth, not in wisdom, but in the pretense to wisdom. Several of these maxims occur in statements made by the shrewd narrator, who pretends to side with the Nightingale and to take this entire quarrel very seriously, but who consistently says things to allow the alert reader to realize he does not share either of the birds' sense of urgency. For example, he quotes a proverb mistakenly attributed to Alfred and repeated twice in the same speech: "Wone {?e bale is aire hecst / Ponne is f>e bote aire necst" (687-88, 699-700). The dire calamity to which he is applying this dictum occurs when the Nightingale feels the Owl justified in condemning her for having only one talent. The Nightingale is mentally scrabbling, not for true rebuttal, but for a believable lie, "f>e bote aire necst." The narrator forewarns readers of his ironic purpose by naming the wrong source, a mistake probably as obvious to the poet's intended audience as quoting Shakespeare and attributing the quotation to the Bible would be to select audiences today. He then overstates the situation with his proverb and exaggerates it by repeating himself. The end result is further disparity between the restrained wisdom of the aphorism and the unbridled foolishness of the argument, with the narrator, poker-faced, still seeming to sympathize with the Nightingale, but having revealed, and not for the first time, the twinkle in his eye. A few of the proverbs in The Owl and the Nightingale do not fit readily into this scheme: for example, the one about fouling one's own nest, or the one about the addled egg (99-100, 129-38); but they still work within the poem, since both birds reveal themselves as addled eggs trying to be noble and fouling their own nests with their contentious natures. The satiric fiinc-

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tion these sayings perform is of considerable value to the solver of the poetic enigma. They illuminate the pretense of the quarrellers and, more importandy, they offer perhaps the most obvious clue to the primary dichotomy in the poem: rational and irrational behavior. Another recurrent element in the poem is the pious air these birds assume. Though perhaps not so important to the author's purpose as their pretense to wisdom, it is still a fitting object of satiric attack (Kernan, Plot 84). First to establish herself as an example of religious rectitude is the Owl, who claims to sing only at the proper canonical hours, giving the impression that she considers her function priestly (lines 323-30). Further, she punctuates this speech with a brief homily on the unending abundance of "Godes riche" (355-62). Taken out of context, the little sermon accurately describes God's goodness, but since it is spoken by one who brags ungraciously of the worth of her singing, who condemns mercilessly the Nightingale's song, and who preaches proudly of the necessity of moderation in all things (and one must assume this means quarrelling as well), its truth loses its clarity.11 After all, among the most abundant commodities in God's kingdom are grace, mercy and humility. Mrs. Owl has certainly not taken anything from God's overflowing basket lately. Not content with singing and preaching, the Owl next adds comforting the suffering to her list of priestly functions (535-40); moreover, she loves the church and "cleanses" it of mice—a statement cringingly reminiscent of Christ's own cleansing of the temple (609-10). She remarks later that she loves her own home so well that she would refuse any other dwelling, a remark innocent enough on the surface except that this word for dwelling, "wnienge," is the word "woning," used only one other time and interpreted by critics as meaning not just a place to live but an income (614,1760). Further, since she claims she would refuse ("wernen") another such dwelling, it could be inferred that she is presuming she might be offered one—as if she were clergy. Not to be outdone, the Nightingale comes up with a priestly function of her own: her song helps those who sing in church to sing more joyfully, warns men to be good, and bids them seek the eternal song of heaven, a claim she is willing to risk before the Pope himself (73 5-46). She is blustering at this point, seeking the believable lie mentioned earlier; but this approaches blasphemy. Owl has accused her of singing only out of lust (498-500), to which she gives tacit agreement, in accord with the narrator's implication that the 11

See specifically lines 321-22, 33M0, 341-48.

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Owl has spoken truly.12 Yet here she is claiming that her song—which she appears to agree has sexual overtones—will lead men to heaven. Against a capable debater her pretense would be immediately exposed; but Owl's only rebuttal is that she herself offers the only appropriate warning to sinnersweeping and repentance (873-74). There is little added to this thread of the argument until the Nightingale offers her thoughts on the Seven Deadly Sins. This occurs during a speech in which she accuses the Owl of witchcraft (1298 ff.). She notes: Par flesch drahef) men to drunnesse & to wrouehede & to golnesse, f>e gost misdej) j3urch nijje and onde, & seo£>J)e mid murhfje of monne shonde, An 3eone{> after more & more An lutel rehjj of milce & ore, An sti3{s on he£> ¡>ur£> modinesse An ouerhohed {>anne lasse. (1399-1406)

She then decides for the Owl that sins of the spirit are worse than sins of the flesh—according to Stanley, an unconventional medieval conclusion (146, 1410n). Stanley does cite Atkins, who notes a similar stance in the Ancrene Riwle; but the stance is only superficially similar: whereas the Nightingale claims that the magnitude of the guilt involved in sins of the spirit is greater, in the Ancrene Riwle it is only the danger of unknowingly committing such sin that is greater. The Nightingale goes on to say that one may accuse someone of sexual sin while harboring the greater sin of "modinesse" within himself. A careful reader will sense the irony here. Nightingale could be referring obliquely to Owl. Yet she also casts doubt on herself, since she is not exemplifying modesty or humility, either. And what of the other six sins? Just how innocent of them are these two pretenders to piety? While a definite conviction of "drunnesse" may not be possible, and while neither bird "3eonef> after more & more" in terms of material possessions, nevertheless, "wrouehede," pleasure in speculating about matters of "golnesse," "nijje and onde," and "mur^e of monne shonde" are sins of which they are unmistakably guilty. And it would not be difficult to imagine them guilty of the other two as well, since they in no way embody moderation, however much they may pretend to. Lines 667-68. It is true that the narrator"s comments are weighted—but it must be assumed that on the surface everything slants the same way, while it is the undercurrent of irony that rectifies the situation. This is a surface statement.

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But the culmination of this pretense to piety comes when the Owl hints that her murder by hateful men is a sacrifice parallel to Christ's crucifixion (1615-16). Granted, there are some parallels—hanging on a branch or tree (Nightingale herself calls it a "rodde," adding her own bit of implication to this correspondence13), bleeding, dying, and benefitting mankind—but such a comparison is not to be boasted of. According to legend, Peter requested to be crucified upside down because he was not worthy to die as Christ had; yet, here is this Owl claiming superiority over the Nightingale on the basis of these similarities. But worst of all is the insinuation that somehow this selfcentered Owl could love mankind enough to willingly and meekly sacrifice herself: "An for heom ich chadde mi blod." The irony is deep-seated and deliberate. Any reader still sympathetic to the Owl must question her reliability at this point. Surely her empty-headed vanity betrays her. A third recurrent clue, with its corresponding undertone of irony, manifests itself in the bird's repeated reference to "ri3te cunde" or rightful nature. This sequence begins with the first word of the argument as the Nightingale calls the Owl "Vnwi3t", and continues with her peevishly asking the Owl "Why do you not go eat frogs as is '¡sine cunde & fjine ri3te"' (33, 88). The Nightingale then tells the story of the owlet and the falcon, where the mystified falcon declares "Ov nas neuer icunde fiarto", i.e., to foul the nest (114). Later, after the argument begins in earnest, she associates the Owl with the "unwi3tis" (218) and the "ungode" (245) who love darkness, "so dof> fiat bojD of {jine cunde" (251), an accusation which the Owl counters by proudly defending her nature and her true associates, the hawks: "Hit is min hi3te, hit is mi wwne / t>at ich me dra3e to mine cunde" (272-73). This sequence of references ends here, only to be picked up seven hundred lines later as the Nightingale takes her turn at defending her "ri3te stede" (966) which, she declares, is behind the bower "!>ar lauerd liggef) & lauedi" (959). She explains why she should act according to her nature, irrespective of whether the lord's bedroom is next to the privy, by using the example of the wise man who remains on "f>e ri3tte strete" (962) rather than abandon his course to avoid the muddy places. And the final appearance of this idea comes just prior to the Seven Deadly Sins speech, when the Nightingale declares that "f>e holi rode" becomes angry with those who so corrupt "f>e rihte ikunde" (1382-83). The specific issue at stake here is sexual love, but the word "ikunde" is so inclusive that the reader senses the author's intentions to be much broader.

Lines 1123,1646; a connection made originally by Baldwin (213-14).

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Ironically, though the birds obviously consider acting according to one's nature to be ideal behavior, shame at their own natures, prejudice against that of some, and pretense toward others' motivate their entire disagreement. Nightingale's initial pretentious complaint is based solely on prejudice against Owl's singing—as though the Owl had any choice in matters of pitch, timbre and melody. But the Owl, like a child who has yet to discover the honor of being a unique creature, responds with her own prejudice and pretense. So the argument gets started, and continues because neither is willing to allow herself or her opponent the right to act according to "ri3te cunde." Instead of being honest and humble about their own contributions—singing and killing mice—they try to make them more important than they really are. They think of themselves as being on a level higher than those who seem to be culturally deprived—the men of the North and the Irish priests, for example. And, seeking to imitate the best of mankind, they fail miserably, whether it is quoting his wisdom, practicing his theology, or debating as in his court of law. Defensiveness, prejudice, and pretense provide the humor in The Owl and the Nightingale; but also, in ironic tension with the concept of "ri3te cunde," they "inject tragic feeling into [its] comedy" (Worchester 139). The birds' only hope lies with Nicholas in Portesham. A literary work must fulfill certain criteria before it can be labeled satire, but its requirements are essentially as follows: an ideal relationship "involving reciprocal respect, duty, and responsibility" is broken yet championed by the author, who establishes in a unified fashion an ironic comparison between the ideal and the actual relationship, using rhetorical devices to exalt the one and ridicule the other in order to convince his audience to choose to live in accord with the ideal.14 The Owl and the Nightingale satisfies these requirements, with the unified focus on the author's didactic purpose being the pivotal point between comedy and satire. The poet's skillful scattering of quotations from popular wisdom to illuminate the pretentiousness of the birds; the many claims to religiosity they make and then fail to validate with their actions; the emphasis they place on the importance of acting according to one's rightful nature while pretending to be what they are not: all this establishes the unity of attack so necessary to distinguish between the two media and defend the claim of satire. If these lines of thought were devoid of their corresponding reminders of the broken ideal, there would be no purPaulson (25) supplies the direct quotation. The composite definition finds its sources in Keman (Plot 81,84-90), Highet (233,243), Kernan (Cankered Muse 10,41-42), Paulson (15, 25), and Worchester (13,15, 37, 38, 81).

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pose to this poem other than comic amusement. But the poet's irony is too deliberate, too well planned, to be dismissed. This work deserves to be included among the great satires in English literature, if not with the greatest, both because of its worth and because of its lack of precedent.

IV THE QUESTION OF AUDIENCE AND PURPOSE RE-OPENED Basic to the medieval outlook and, consequently, inseparable from the poem is the belief that the world is a creation characterized by diversity and that this diversity can be neatly catalogued, a process limited only by the examiner's ability to penetrate to the specifics of a given category. Medieval English thought is unified by a firm faith in this orderliness of the Creation, though it is "more often hinted at or taken for granted than set forth" (Tillyard 26). This faith includes the belief that God is the source and maintainer of order, and the understanding that authority is the result of a God-ordained position in the hierarchy. The Owl and the Nightingale reinforces this system of values based on an objectively ordered universe. It satirizes those who would subjectively stratify the system and foolishly base value on personal preference and force of personality. But, at the same time, the poet reminds his audience that emotions are to be governed, irrationality to be curbed, carnality to be disciplined, and the worth of each individual to be affirmed regardless of the lowness of his station or the baseness of his task. Within the last twenty years, five critics have recognized the importance of satire to the understanding of The Owl and the Nightingale. John Gardner, in 1966, describes the poem's humor as burlesque, noting that "it presents, centrally, a comic view of man, whose concern is too often—and all too understandably—not with truth but with winning" (12). Anne Baldwin, in 1967, states that the poem's "unifying factor is satire on Henry II" (207), but her purpose is to establish allegorical correspondences between the Nightingale and Henry II and the Owl and Thomas a Becket, and so she lets the satirical properties of the poem go unregarded. Constance Hieatt, in 1968, cites Gardner, agreeing that the poem is "a burlesque, a parody of a debate" (159). However, having suggested that "the whole situation is absurd, and reflects on the absurdity, irrationality, and rationalizing of mankind," she states that "it is more than [burlesque], for it is not just a parody of the form but a satire

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on human nature" (159). Hieatt also contends, though, that there is no didacticism in the poem (156), a position inconsistent with satire as a mode. In 1975, Kathryn Hume, in her comprehensive study of the various critical analyses of the poem, argues for her own understanding of it as "burlesquesatire": I p r o p o s e that the birds serve as vehicles for satire, that the referential equivalent is m e n quarrelling, a n d that the satiric object is h u m a n contentiousness. . . . [The birds'] role is to rouse a m u s e m e n t and c o n t e m p t in the audience and direct those feelings toward the referential object (102).

And, most recendy, in an important article published in 1980, John Conlee concludes that the birds "satirize . . . the foibles of man," and lists these quite accurately as being "his envy, his hypersensitivity, his hypocrisy, and his selfdelusion" (64). These readings are sound so far as they go, with the exception of Anne Baldwin's failure to reckon with the similarities between the birds. But they limit the poem too much. Evidence points to more than a mock-debate for enjoyment only. The only occasion on which rules of debate are referred to is when the Owl claims her turn to accuse her opponent—which, in conjunction with the few other legal terms scattered throughout the poem, is secondary to the pretentious behavior it illustrates.15 And to say that the poem is not didactic, only frivolous, is to disregard what most critics have sensed in it but have been unable fully to define—a constant reminder of a broken, yet mendable, ideal. The limitations of historically allegorical readings such as Baldwin's have been indicated previously, not to discredit them but to say that, while all of them add legitimate depth and dimension to the poem, none can be said to be the central issue. And while Hume and Conlee approach the author's level of thought, they too stop short, with Hume overlooking the other sins of the protagonists as she focuses on their contentiousness and Conlee recognizing the scope of the poet's satire without seeing his remedy as well. However, before examining this point any further, it seems wise to determine, if possible, the author's intended audience, so that his purpose in writing the poem may be defined as clearly as possible. As was noted earlier, a reevaluation of this question is necessary because no plea for preferment would have been written in the vernacular during the late twelfth century and, further, because a man espousing the orderly objectivity that the poem 15

Lines 549-55. For further discussion, see Witt 282-92.

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recommends would not have sought an extra living. Baldwin notes that such a request "flaunted [sic] the law" and therefore is not the central purpose of the poem (225-26). She is, in turn, forcefully, though mistakenly, refuted by Hume: The pluralism charge looks more damning to us from our modern perspective, . . . Though [it] was disapproved by those concerned with ecclesiastical theory, it was to be decades before the rank and file would be made to look on it as reprehensible (71-72).

But there are two problems with Hume's argument. First, she is including the author of the poem among the "rank and file"—which betrays a degree of haste and confusion on her part. While his clerical status may not be noteworthy, his scholarship certainly is. And, second, she fails to consider the Goliard poets and their satiric comments on this very subject.16 The evident popularity of their work makes it safe to assume that they voiced the sentiments of many people, those in positions of importance and the "rank and file" as well (Previte-Orton 2). However, in order to prove conclusively the error in thinking that The Owl and the Nightingale is a plea for preferment, evidence from the poem itself must be examined, i.e., the Wren, whose statements provide the fuel for this theory, must be discredited as a reliable voice for the author. Though appearing to be an unsuspicious character, the Wren is in reality dubious and problematical. The bird is acclaimed because of her royal heritage. However, the species had acquired its legendary kingship dishonorably and no one actually takes it seriously, including the narrator, who says "t>e Wranne was wel wis iholde" (line 1723), implying a discrepancy between what was thought and what actually was. Further, the narrator makes it quite clear that her "wisdom" is not natural to her, For {)e3 heo nere ibred a wolde, Ho was ito3en among man^enne An hire wisdom brohte Jjenne. (1724-26)

a situation that brings quickly to mind the author"s repeated satiric references to those who abandon their "ri3te cunde." That the wren of legend displays cleverness no one doubts. As the story goes, in a contest to see who could fly highest, the wren won by hiding beneath the eagle's wing, only to emerge as the eagle began his descent. However, though there is no specific evidence to '«

Whicher 5-6; Previte-Orton 7.

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this effect in the poem, the author probably maintains that the wren should not be given ascendancy over the eagle, who attains the height of his flight not through trickery, but through perseverance and the wise management of his strength. Ultimately, the designation of king appears to be more a nickname than a title, more condescension than coronation. 17 But the Wren takes her title seriously. When read with this in mind, her speeches reveal her to be spoiled and conceited, expecting to be acknowledged and obeyed by the other birds. If the Owl and the Nightingale are like two siblings revelling in argument, the Wren is like the older sister, dramatically acting the part of Mother, squawking to highlight her assumed authority and threatening imminent wrath to those who do not behave: "Hunke schal itide harm & schonde / 3ef 3e dof> grijjbruche on his londe" (1733-34). She then demands that they go to Nicholas to settle their argument. This egotistic attitude of hers helps explain the Nightingale's surprising response: '"Ich an wel,' cwad f>e Ni3tegale, / 'Ah, Wranne, najDt for J^ire tale" (173940). Instead of being polite, fawning or even defensive, as might be expected of her in the face of authority, she is insolent and resentful: "I'll do it, but not because of you, Wren." It is impossible to imagine her saying that to either Nicholas or the falcons she speaks of so respectfully. In fact, she recognizes in the pretentious Wren a character no better than she, so she offers her no deference. The Wren's next speech begins with an arrogant squawk over the Nightingale's ignorance of Nicholas' place of residence.18 Then follows her discourse on the Master's great ability and shameful lack of recognition, which gives rise to the plea-for-preferment theory. But the Wren is not dependable. True, she restates the need for Nicholas' judgement; but there is no real basis for reading her remarks as conciliatory. In fact, it is quite certain that she provokes resentment in the Owl just as she does in the Nightingale. "Certes," cwaf) Jse Hule, "f>at is sod, i>eos riche men wel muche misdod E>at letejj f)ane gode mon, E»at of so feole fringe con, An 3iuefi rente wel misliche,

17 18

Stanley (167), paraphrasing Aristotle, refers to this designation as a nickname. This is feigned ignorance (see Peterson 25-26, and Hume 50, note 11, referring to Carson 102), and as such reveals the Nightingale's insolence turned into ridicule. The joke is on the Wren, who is thinking too highly of herself and her morsel of knowledge concerning Nicholas.

20

Maria M. Flynn An o f him letef> wel lihtliche; Wid heore cunne heo beof> mildre An 3eue{) rente litle childre: Swo heore wit he demjD a dwole, i>at euer abid Maistre Nichole. Ah ute we f>ah to him fare, For {jar is unker dom al 3are." (1769-80)

The Owl has already voiced her contempt for wrens in line 564, and Stanley corroborates this tradition of ill-will between the species, citing both Pliny and Aristotle, the latter specifically for his observation that wrens have a notable preference for the taste of owl eggs (167). Further, this Wren enters the debate on behalf of the Nightingale (1717-19). The original audience would have expected disagreement here. Having missed these clues, however, any reader, medieval or modern, should read with suspicion the word "wit" in line 1777 (cited above). The Owl is being sarcastic. Anyone giving livings to children does not display "wit" but, rather, lack of it. The whole speech, in fact, should be read as sarcasm on the part of the Owl. The repetitive, singsong quality of lines 1771-74 should be taken as ridicule. (Again the picture of the quarrelling siblings and their older sister helps.) Further, the immediate silence of the talkative Wren should indicate that the Owl scores her points. The first point scored is that these same "riche men" are those who "nurtured" the Wren and shared their "wisdom" with her, and the second is that which she makes in lines 1777-78. These lines have apparently never been translated satisfactorily. Wells (cited by Atkins 150-51) translates it without reference to preferment: "So they condemn their intelligence [as] in error (foolish) and this M. Nicholas ever endures." Atkins (151) modifies Wells' solution citing Hall for the changes in word order: "Thus their good sense will convict them of error, in that M. Nicholas still suffers neglect."19 This includes a strong implication, in view of Atkins's introductory remarks (xlii), that preferment is the issue. And Stanley, citing Hall for the "Thus . . . in that" (f>at) construction, specifies that for which Nicholas waits: "abid, Svaits' i.e. for preferment" (158, 1777f.n). But none of these make sense in the context of the Owl's speech. "Thus" indicates that what follows is a result of what goes before, but there is no such connection. Giving incumbencies to little children is no cause for 19

20

Brian Stone (243) shows his dependence on Atkins for his modern verse translation: "Their sense should tell them they were wrong, / Neglecting Nicholas so long." Cited also by Kincaid (6).

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their reason to tell them they are wrong in making Nicholas wait. And the editorial addition of preferment at this point is based upon the Wren's previous speech and on a misunderstanding of the Owls' relationship with the Wren. With the exception of Wells, as the editors read it, "ftat" serves as a conjunction; but if it is allowed to function as a pronoun relative to "wit," and with due regard to the ambiguity of that word, the rendering would then be: "Thus their good sense, which Master Nicholas ever endures, convicts them of error." The result is that the Owl's speech becomes an ironic rebuke because the Wren pretends to be so knowledgeable but fails to see the truth about Nicholas: that he is not interested in the worldly pastime of grappling for extra livings. As has been shown, there is evidence that the Owl herself would be so inclined; but she refuses to believe that Nicholas, whom she sees as "him ripe & fastrede, / Ne lust him nu to none unrede," could be guilty of such greed (211-12). If he were, he would be no better than she, and in her view he would have no right to judge this dispute. On the basis of her unnatural nurturing and the doubtful sincerity of her conciliatory stance as evidenced by her failure to elicit a respectful response from either the Owl or the Nightingale, the Wren must be read, not as a voice for the author, but as another object of his satiric attack. The two quarrellers do respond to her appearance by setting off on the road to Portesham, but that results more from what they see of themselves in her than from the respect they have for her authority. And the arm-in-arm unity with which they depart alone, without her company, indicates further their mutual disdain for the Wren (1790). Ultimately, then, the statement in question concerning Nicholas' need for a second living becomes a reflection on the Wren rather than being the author's estimate of Nicholas' situation. And the questions of who the initial reader of this poem was and what motivated the poet to write it are again open. It is unlikely that any specific answer to the question of audience will ever be found; but some statements can be made to focus speculation, in order that this particular question may enhance the reading of the poem rather than detract from it. To begin with, the intended reader was probably a close friend of the author, or at least the author's social equal. If he had been writing up or down the social scale, his choice of language would have aimed to impress. But he apparently did not have to pass that kind of test with his intended audience. Only if he did not fear rejection could he, without embarrassment, choose to write in English (PrevitéOrton 7).

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Further, there is the possibility that English was used as a linguistic disguise. For example, disapproval ofboth Henry II and Thomas a Becket for the turmoil their quarrel caused would not be a loudly voiced sentiment, yet such an opinion could be extrapolated from The Owl and the Nightingale. Anne Baldwin makes several intriguing observations along these lines. But the safest and most logical explanation seems to be that this author whiled away many enjoyable hours writing a poem in English, employing all he knew of technical skill, current events, humanity and integrity, in order to give a few equally enjoyable hours of reading to an appreciative friend. Enjoyment was not his only aim, though he never forced his point of view, either. He merely held out the broken, yet mendable, ideal for his own benefit as well as for that of his intended reader and others who might chance to read or hear his work. In this light, the so-called plea for preferment looks more like an inside joke, a humorous reference to an earlier discussion or event, but not the specific motivation for a poem that became popular enough to leave to the ages two manuscripts, each pointing to a third which itself was probably not the original (Wilson 152).20 Such popularity is not only a credit to its style, technique and wisdom, but also to the enthusiasm of its first recipient.21

V.

THE SIN DEFINED

The first reader of The Owl and the Nightingale knew what the poet was for and what he was against. He read the work, grasped readily the various clues to its meaning and marvelled at the fresh intricacy with which ideas were woven together. And modern readers can read it this way as well, by realizing that the poet's artistic motivation is to create an enigma which will alert the reader's reasoning powers, thereby causing him to strive for the reward of understanding (Robertson, Preface 15 f., 136). He sets the stage with both birds following the traditional progression into sin. The ensuing chaos is then to be expected (Tillyard 20). But the chaotic elements also serve to define that sin, and since the reader, drawn by the cryptic, satiric quality of the poem, is encouraged to grow in character by avoiding that same sin, unraveling these elements is his primary task. Once a fulfilling explanation of the For a discussion of the poet's education, see Murphy 198-230. "Athena," Encyclopaedia Britannica: Micropaedia, 1983 ed.

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birds' sin is reached the poet's puzzle has been solved and the reader has been "moved," not in the sense that Romantic literature moves its audience, but in the medieval sense, "in the direction of virtue" (Robertson, Preface 79). Pretense is part of their sin, certainly, as are anger and contentiousness. But this poet's philosophical motivation, it must be remembered, is the Great Chain of Being, where chaos is caused only by order being scrambled or inverted; so these should be seen as symptomatic of a greater flaw. Further, it is not a question of biological order. The two birds are arguing, not for supremacy, but for the total destruction of whatever reputation for good the other might have (Kincaid 94). The symptoms—contention, foolishness, and pretense—point to behavior and, in turn, to the questions of what is, and what should be, governing that behavior. Passion unquestionably rules the scene created by the poet, but he also constantly reminds his audience that passion is to be governed by reason. The sequence of references to rightful nature is just one of the clues and images he incorporates throughout to serve this purpose. A further example of the poet's structuring of ideas can be found in the frequency with which the word "red" and all its various forms are used. This keeps good advice and wise counsel (as well as their negatives) foremost in the audience's mind and, at the same time, contrasts them with the birds' continued failure to go to Nicholas for resolution. That failure indicates their active choice of passion over reason and thus full accountability for their sin. In one notable passage the Nightingale quotes a significant proverb: Vor sof) hit is f>at seide Alured: "Ne mai no strengjje a3en red." Oft spet wel a lute liste Par muche strengjje sholde miste: (761-64) The birds' misuse of their authorities has been demonstrated, but a new clue is offered here. The Nightingale is comparing the Owl's physical power with her own "wisdom." The juxtaposition in the passage of wisdom ("red") and cunning ("liste") is deliberate. One is a heavenly virtue, the other an earthly offense; one benefits the created world, the other oneself; one exists in the realm of reason, the other in the realm of passion. The Nightingale, however, mistakenly equates the two and in so doing reveals her own selfish choice. The poem makes no explicit reference to the traditional wisdom of owls. This is in itself unsurprising; but, in light of the contrast between strength and wisdom noted above, the poet's omission begins to seem as deliberate as the inclusion of the wisdom/cunning dichotomy. He might very well haye

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known that in Greek mythology owls were associated with the goddess Athena. She was goddess of wisdom, it is true, but she was first the goddess of war. Her aegis has been described as bearing reference to "the qualities that led to victory," namely, "fear, strife, defense and assault, but not reason or prudence," attributes which she assumed later as counsellor to the king.22 As with the Nightingale, the author portrays the Owl as choosing the lower realm of her nature, the physical, rather than the intellectual.23 But, as with Athena, both birds move toward wisdom in this poem, as their arm-in-arm exit in the direction of Portesham symbolizes.24 So many times throughout this poem the poet includes images which he expects his readers to relate to the necessity of reason controlling the flesh. For example, the Nightingale boasts of the woodland's reaction to her return in spring. t>e lilie mid hire faire wlite Wolcumejj me—Jjat f>u hit w[i]te!— Bid m e mid hire faire bio Pat ich shulle to hire fio. Pe rose also, mid hire rude Pat cumef) ut of fie J j o r n e w o d e , Bit m e Jjat ich shulle singe Vor hire luue one skentinge. (439-46)

The Nightingale is proud of the privilege of submitting her will to the rose and lily, although, because of her philosophically higher nature, it is instead their responsibility to submit to her, and her duty in turn to accept their submission, not as a source of pride, but as a matter of course. This situation deliberately echoes the courtly lover's wooing of the rose in the Romance of the Rose, with the same implication of the inversion of natural order. Also, the Nightingale includes in her discussion of strength and wisdom another traditional image for reason curbing passion.

"Athena," Encyclopaedia Britannica: Micropaedia, 1983 ed. There is a section (lines 1187 ff.) where the Owl brags of her knowledge of certain things. But, while knowledge is superior to cunning, it is still a level below wisdom (Robertson, Preface 8). Kincaid suggests "the progression from the woods to the justice and wisdom of mankind" (44), the "theme of disparity moving toward unity" (47), the "movement from isolation to community" (107), and the "strongly-felt underlay of movement through time" (130). Although the movement through time may not be so strongly felt, these are important observations.

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An hors is strengur fian a mon, An hit dej) {sat m o n hit hot, An, forfjan fiat hit n o wit not, N e mai his strenjje hit ishilde Pat hit nabu3{3 pe lutle childe. (773, 779-82)

Of course, the Nightingale twists this around to meet her immediate forensic needs, again confusing cunning with wisdom; but the image is a familiar one, and in the medieval audience's understanding reflects negatively on both birds' passionate temperaments. 25 The poet places another of these images within the Owl's version of the Knight and the Nightingale story. Liim & grine & wel eiwat Sette & \edc f>e for to lacche. E>u come sone to J)an hacche, E>u were inume in one grine... (1056-59)

Robertson states that "the figure of the bird-snare is a very old one" and cites Odo of Cluny, who lived at the turn of the tenth century: And just as bait draws flying birds to the snare, Wicked appetite draws those moved by its sweetness. Fixed in the lime, they cannot stretch their wings; They lack devotion to virtue and the wings to fly. Hunger for a little morsel makes them hungry forever 26 .

It is important to note that the Owl poet's use of this figure is within a fictional setting and therefore serves as a warning rather than constituting an inevitable finality. One critic has pointed out that satirists incorporate into the heart of their work a vision of the final consequences of the human frailty with which they are concerned (Paulson 9-10). Hume, citing this study, identifies this element in The Owl and the Nightingale as being the quartering of the Nightingale and the crucifixion of the Owl (109-10). The subtle motif of the bird-snare, then, lies near the center of the poet's thought.

25

26

Robertson (Preface 254) cites Gregory the Great for this "very old and very common" correspondence. Gregory says: "Indeed the horse is the body of any holy soul, which it knows how to restrain from illicit action with the bridle of continence and to release in the exercise of good works with the spur of charity." Robertson (Preface 94) citing Odo of Cluny, Occupatio 3.83741.

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Maria M. Flynn

And, further into the poem, the Nightingale belittles the Owl's relationship with humankind, saying: "Wane {DU hauest a ni3t igrad / M e n bo]3 of J?e wel sore ofdrad" (1149-50). The Nightingale blames the Owl for this, when, in truth, the fault resides in the irrationality or superstitiousness of those who fear her. O n the continent this motif had taken o n symbolic force. The façade of Notre D a m e in Paris, which was begun in 1163, portrays the "spiritually weak warrior" as one who fears the hooting of an owl (Robertson, Preface 130, fig. 56). This figure, representing man's error in allowing his lower nature to overrule his higher, proved popular enough to be found also o n the façade of the cathedral at Amiens, a structure built in the thirteenth century (Robertson, Preface 130, fig. 56). 27 This idea would not have had m u c h difficulty finding its way into English thought as well during this period. 28 These motifs or images each spark a reminder for the reader. But just as the poet repeatedly uses the word "red" and the idea of "ri3te cunde" to unify this poem, he also weaves a continuum of femininity into its fabric to corroborate his theme. The most notable factor, of course, is that the birds are female. Stanley speaks of "grammatical gender" (105,9 f.n) and H u m e of "linguistic . . . gender" (65, note 4), cautioning against a too definite stance o n this point; but few scholars would disagree that, in all probability, both the Owl and the Nightingale are female. Further, Hinckley calls this a "curious fact," since only male nightingales sing and the Owl is portrayed as physically strong and intimidating (Hinckley, "Science and Folklore" 312). Moreover, both birds picture themselves in masculine roles. They pretend to be advocates in a court of law; Owl claims to sing at canonical hours and Nightingale assumes the role of priest as she curses the Owl for using witchcraft; the Nightingale thinks of herself as a courtly lover while the Owl sees herself as the sacrificial lamb. 29 The masculine tradition of these roles continued until w o m e n were accepted in the roles of lawyer and lover in the twentieth century. The others are, to date, still limited to men. In the ever-clarifying purpose of this poem, then, it seems safe to assume that the femininity of the protagonists was a deliberate choice meant to highlight the pretense, the penchant for what is fleshly and irrational in these birds. Both the Owl and the Nightingale champion women lovers, another element in this continuum of femininity. It is difficult at first for modern

27 28 29

Figs. 37 and 39 also relate to the idea of irrational fear. See Lerer's discussion of the ape image, which also supports this idea (102-05). Lines 549-55; 323-30; 1169-74; 4 3 9 ^ 6 ; 1615-17.

Wisdom and "RÍ3te Cunde"

27

readers to understand the discrepancy in this, but the fact is that the feminine is considered to be the lower level of human nature by this poet. And none of the women described by these birds does anything to discredit that belief. The Nightingale chooses to defend the maiden who indulges in unsanctioned love because, she rationalizes, in her case it is only foolishness. Her youth somehow lessens her sin; moreover, she can diffuse her guilt by taking holy vows or by discreedy marrying her lover.30 The Owl chooses to defend the matron whose husband mistreats her. She needs to be defended, certainly, for his treatment of her is shameful; but the Owl's solution to her problem is to excuse her sexual indiscretions and pray for a better lover, a solution totally void of any real understanding of the situation.31 The Owl also speaks highly of the faithful woman whose husband is travelling abroad.32 This woman is killing herself with grief, but her grief is an irrational pretense. Her husband is upright and of good faith, seeking to better her life and his, and she sits at home feeling sorry for herself because his duty takes him away.33 Stanley notes that this picture of the pining wife is "a stock topic of medieval literature" (151,1586n), but to the CW-poet this grief is selfish and serves no purpose. 34 There comes a time when one has to grow up, wipe away the tears, and make the most of an unpleasant situation. This woman mistakes lamentation for love. The birds, by defending the feminine tactics they attribute to these women, reveal their own foolish ploys. They make excuses; they hope exclusively for earthly pleasures; they wallow in their despair. But this is not heavenly behavior. These methods bear no resemblance to wisdom, and the poet expects his readers to realize as much, and to seek higher things for themselves. The Owl and the Nightingale, written deliberately and precisely by a man who continually strives to grow in judgement and vision, demands the same approach from its readers. The poet makes shrewd use of his sources and his social and historical surroundings, mixing in enough detail in each instance so 31 32

33 34

Lines 1466,1433,1428,1429-30. Lines 1515 ff„ 1543-44,1567-70. Stanley (149, 1521n) reads this as one story, one woman, one husband. However, lines 1571-74 offer a clear break from the preceeding mistreated-wife segment, and lines 1575-77 introduce the segment on the rightly treated wife. Central to this reading is the translation of line 1578: "Any good wife acts accordingly" (emphasis added). Lines 1585 ff„ 1575-77,1584. Robertson ("Historical Criticism" 13) points out that proper behavior in this situation would be to "hasten to the Church" and pray for "the gift of consolation." His source is Bede's commentary on the fifth chapter of James.

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Maria M. Flynn

to support his purpose while withholding much more information in order to maintain the breadth and universality he intends for his work. It is this technique that makes his theme so difficult to isolate. But when the birds are identified as the offenders in the poem and the nature of their offense exposed, each element in the poem, each tiny piece in this medieval puzzle, becomes a strategic addition, reflecting negatively on the irrational type of behavior represented by the birds, positively on their decision to seek rational judgement from Nicholas of Guildford, or both. The poet never condemns the choice of the senses over the intellect. He merely ridicules it as a bad choice and advocates a change. With the Owl and the Nightingale, the ideal relationship between reason and the senses has been inverted. Peace has been broken, but it can be mended. Primary evidence of this in the poem is the life of Nicholas as described by the birds. The Owl describes this maturation process specifically: 'Ich granti wel fiat he us deme, Vor f>e3 he were wile breme, & lof him were ni3tingale & oj)er wijte gente & smale, Ich wot he is nu sujie acoled; Nis he vor f>e no3t afoled, i>at he for f>ine olde luue Me adun legge, & £>e buue. Ne schaltu neure so him queme i>at he for fje fals dom deme. He is him ripe & fastrede, Ne lust him nu to none unrede: Nu him ne lust na more pleie, He wile gon a n^te weie.' (201-14)

Living with the senses characterizes immaturity, a situation to be expected in the cycle of human life but not maintained throughout. Eventually, and essentially by choice, the immature attain maturity by allowing the intellect to govern the passions. The poet spotlights Nicholas of Guildford and the birds' comradely exit at dawn to illustrate that what is out of order can be corrected, that what is broken can be mended. 35 And if it is not, he offers haunting pictures of the extremes to which irrationality can lead: the grue-

35

Robertson ("Historical Criticism" 13) says, "If we consult Gregory, we find that the dawn is a sign of the light of God's justice."

Wisdom and "Ri3te Cunde"

29

somely unreasonable quartering of one whose only fault was giving melody to the night and, by implication, the irrational, guilt-ridden crucifixion of Christ whose only crime was illuminating that guilt with his innocence.

WORKS CITED Appleby, John T. Henry II: The Vanquished King. London: Bell, 1962. Atkins, J. W. H., ed. The Owl and the Nightingale. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1922. "Athena," Encyclopaedia Britannica: Micropaedia, 1983 ed. Baldwin, Anne W. "Henry II and The Owl and the Nightingale." JEGP 66 (1967): 207-229. Carson, Mother Angela. "Rhetorical Structure in The Owl and the Nightingale." Speculum 42 (1967): 92-103. Cazamian, Louis. The Development of English Humor. 1930-52. Rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1965. Colgrave, Bertram. "The Owl and the Nightingale and the 'good man from Rome'." English Language Notes 4 (1966): 1-4. Conlee, John W. "The Owl and the Nightingale and Latin Debate Tradition." The Comparatist: Journal of the Southern Comparative Literature Association 4 (1980): 57-67. Courthope, William John. A History of English Poetry. Vol. 1 of 6.1895-1910. Rpt. London: Macmillan, 1926. Gardner, John. "The Owl and the Nightingale: A Burlesque." Papers on Language and Literature 2 (1966): 3-12. Gee, Elizabeth. "The Function of Proverbial Material in The Owl and the Nightingale." Parergon: Bulletin of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Renaissance Studies 24 (1979): 3-8. Hanford, J. H. "Classical Ecologue and Medieval Debate." Romantic Review 2 (1911): 16-31,129-143. Hieatt, Constance. "The Subject of the Mock Debate between the Owl and the Nightingale." Studia Neophilologica 40 (1968): 155-160. Highet, Gilbert. The Anatomy of Satire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1962. Hinckley, Henry Barrett. "The Date of The Owl and the Nightingale." Modern Philology 17 (1919): 247-258. - . "The Date, Author, and Sources of The Owl and the Nightingale." PMLA 44 (1929): 329-359. - . "Science and Folklore in The Owl and the Nightingale." PMLA 47 (1932): 303-314. Hume, Kathryn. The Owl and the Nightingale: The Poem and Its Critics. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1975.

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Ker, W. P. Medieval English Literature. 1912. London: Oxford UP, 1962. Kernan, Alvin B. The Cankered Muse: Satire of the English Renaissance. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1959. - . The Plot of Satire. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1965. Kincaid, Suzanne Moss. "The Art of The Owl and the Nightingale." Diss. Western Reserve U, 1966. Lerer, Seth. "The Owl, the Nightingale, and the Apes." English Studies 64 (1983): 102-5. Lumiansky, R. M. "Concerning The Owl and the Nightingale." Philological Quarterly 32 (1953): 411417. Murphy, James J. "Rhetoric and Dialectic in The Owl and the Nightingale." Ed. J. J. Murray. Medieval Eloquence: Studies in the Theory and Practice of Medieval Rhetoric. Berkeley: U of California P, 1978.198-230. "The Owl and the Nightingale." Encyclopaedia Britannica: Micropaedia. 1983 ed. Owst, Gerald Robert. Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England. 1933. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1961. Pain, Nesta. The King and Becket. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966. Paulson, Ronald. The Fictions of Satire. Baltimore, M D : Johns Hopkins, 1967. Peterson, Douglas L. "The Owl and the Nightingale and Christian Dialectic."//: G T ^ (1956): 13-26. Previte-Orton, C. W. Political Satire in English Poetry. 1910. New York: Russell & Russell, 1968. Robertson, Durante Waite, Jr. A Preface to Chaucer: Studies in Medieval Perspectives. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1962. —. "Historical Criticism." English Institute Essays 1950. New York: Columbia UP, 1951. Rpt. in Robertson, Essays in Medieval Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1980. 3-31. Shepherd, G. T. "Early Micfdle English Literature." The Middle Ages. Ed. Whitney F. Bolton. London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1970. Vol. 1 of History of Literature in the English Language. 9 of 11 vols, published. 1969-75. Shippey, Thomas A. "Listening to the Nightingale." Comparative Literature 22 (1970): 46-60. Spearing, A. C. Criticism and Medieval Poetiy. London: Edward Arnold, 1964. Speirs, John. "A Survey of Medieval Verse." The Age of Chaucer. Ed. Boris Ford. 1954. Rpt. Baltimore, M D : Penguin Books, 1959. Vol. 1 of The Pelican Guide to English Literature. 1 vols. 1957-62. Stanley, Eric Gerald, ed. The Owl and the Nightingale. 1960. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1972. Stone, Brian, trans. The Owl and the Nightingale, Cleanness, St. Erkenwald. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1971.

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Ten Brink, Bernhard. Early English Literature (to Wiclif). Trans. Horace M. Kennedy. New York: Henry Holt, 1883. Tillyard, E. M. W The Elizabethan World Picture. 1943. New York: Vintage Books, n.d. Wells, John Edwin, ed. The Owl and the Nightingale. Boston: Heath, 1907. Whicher, George F. The Goliard Poets: Medieval Latin Songs and Satires. 1949. New York: New Directions, 1965. Wilson, R. M. Early Middle English Literature. 1939. London: Methuen, 1968. Witt, Michael A. "The Owl and the Nightingale and English Law Court Procedure of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries." Chaucer Review 16 (1982): 282-92. Worchester, David. The Art of Satire. 1940. New York: Russell & Russell, 1960.

KARL REICHL

Popular Poetry and Courtly Lyric: The Middle English Pastourelle*

When in the prologue to The Legend of Good Women Cupid accuses the dreamer-poet of treason to the cause of Love, Alceste defends the poet by enumerating some of his works in praise of love, among them "many an ympne for your halydayes, / That highten balades, roundeles, vyrelayes" {Legend of Good Women G.410-1). Only a few of these "songs and lecherous lays", as Chaucer calls them in his retractation (Canterbury Tales 1.1086), have come down to us. As so often in medieval literature the modern critic is left to imagine how the gaps in the transmission of poetry caused by the ravages of time and the iconoclastic zeal of post-medieval England were once filled. With Chaucer this is no difficult task. It is possible that some of the French poems preserved in one of the manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania (French 15) are by Chaucer, or rather "young Chaucer" as their recent editor suggests (Wimsatt 3). But even if the attribution of these ballades and chants royaux to Chaucer must remain doubtful, the lyrics are certainly 'Chaucerian' in the sense that they are typical of the courtly love poetry prevalent in 14th century France, model and paradigm for the English love poetry in the courtly mode in the later 14th and 15th centuries. Although the map of the English lyric in the later Middle Ages shows some white patches, the territory as a whole is charted quite well and we are unlikely to lose our way in the unexplored areas.1 Not so for the early secular lyric in medieval England, the love poetry of the 13th and the first half of the 14th centuries. The scarcity of surviving poems is a well-known fact. The number of love lyrics that have come down to us is surprisingly small, not only when compared to the rich Troubadour Paper read at the Thirteenth Triennial Conference of the International Association of University Professors of English at the University of York, 31st August-6th September 1986. For late Middle English lyric poetry in the courtly mode see especially Stevens Music and Poetry, Robbins, and Boffey; on the French background see Poirion.

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Karl Reichl

and Trouvère repertoire, but also when compared to the lyric traditions of Southern and Central Europe in the Middle Ages. Were it not for the love lyrics preserved in the Harley MS (BL Harley 2253), we might even be led to believe that there was no English love poetry to speak of before the second half of the 14th century. The 'Harley Lyrics' come as a surprise. Accomplished, though idiosyncratic, they present a challenge to the critic, by their uniqueness and isolation in default of a recognizable early Middle English lyric tradition. While it is comparatively uncontroversial to read Chaucer's ballades against the background of the contemporary French lyric, it is uncertain which context we should infer for a better understanding of the love lyrics in the Harley MS. George Kane maintains in his "Short Essay on the Middle English Secular Lyric" that "there was in England during the Middle Ages no 'poetic tradition' of the kind which existed here from the sixteenth century onwards" (120). Does this imply that there was no tradition at all of the secular lyric in 13th and early 14th century England? Are the few English love lyrics preserved from this time merely exercices de style, isolated and rootless ad hoc imitations of foreign models? The answer to this question is not only of historical interest, it is also of aesthetic import. Traditional and conventional poetry like the medieval lyric presupposes for its understanding a knowledge of the underlying code. This is of course true of all traditional and tradition-orientated poetry (and, in a general sense, indeed of all poetry), but the risk of misunderstanding is particularly high in the case of a poem that by its very conventionality is not only text but also gloss, a poem that continues a tradition—and comments on it, that meets specific expectations of genre—and modifies them, becoming itself the point of reference for a continuing poiesis. This interplay of traditionality and 'intertextuality' (Culler 139) is particularly characteristic of those lyric genres that both use and refer to specific conventions. One of these genres is the pastourelle, a genre also represented in Middle English lyric poetry. Irrespective of one's answer to the question of how and where the pastourelle originated, there can be no doubt that both the Provençal and the French pastourelle are an essentially non-courtly type of poem, which is, however, almost paradoxically characterized by its explicit and implicit references to the courtly love lyric. The non-courtly side is most clearly seen in plot and style: In the 'classical pastourelle' the poet-speaker (or knight-speaker) meets, in rural surroundings, a maiden, most typically a shepherdess, whom he tries to seduce, with varying degrees of

Popular Poetry and Courtly Lyric

35

success.2 Stylistically, fais' amor is reflected in the colloquial tone and the song-like quality, especially of the French pastourelle. Many pastourelles are refrain-poems, and their music is definitely in the popular style. Nevertheless, the pastourelle is not a popular lyric in the sense that dance-songs or the more archaic chansons defemme of the Iberian peninsula might be called popular. There is a deliberate contrast in the pastourelle between the worlds o f f o l i e and corteisie, which are playfully and sometimes satirically set off against one another by the protagonists and their behaviour, as well as by the witticisms on both sides of the debate. This play with conventions and lyric modes is a sign of a highly self-conscious poetical style, more typical of the courtly than of the popular lyric. Three pastourelles in Middle English have come down to us from the 13 th and early 14th centuries. A short refrain-poem (Index 360) is preserved in MS Hale 135 in Lincoln's Inn, written on the fly-leaf of a legal MS (Henry de Bracton's De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae). A second poem is found in a MS now preserved in the College ofArms (Arundel 27; Index 371). It is jotted down, together with other verses, in the free space left on the last folio (f. 13 0") of the romance of Guy of Warwick (in French). Finally, there is a pastourelle in the Harley MS, "In a fryth as Y con fare fremede" 'The Meeting in the Wood' as it is called in Brook's edition after Bôddeker's 'Begegnung im Walde' (Index 1449). But there must have been more. The most convincing evidence for the popularity of the pastourelle in medieval England comes from religious imitations. Due to the clerical domination of written literature in England, it is these rather than their secular models that have come down to us. The Harley MS contains two poems on the Virgin with the speaker riding out "the other day" to seek amusement in conformity to the usual chanson d'aventure opening (Index 2359,359; edited in Brook 60-2,65-6). These are only a small fraction of a number of religious chansons d'aventure in Middle English, composed in the manner of Gautier de Coincy's pastourelles religieuses (Sandison 125-39). The only Anglo-Norman pastourelle extant (MS Douce 137, f. Ill*)—a macaronic poem cleverly incorporating in cento-like fashion lines from various Latin sequences—is typically also found as a chanson pieuse with the Virgin having "cler le vis et le cors gent".3 The chanson de malmariée, a lyric genre 2

3

Earlier research on the French and Provençal pastourelle is summarized by Zink; on the French pastourelle see also Bee 1.119-36. The most recent edition of French pastourelles is by Rivière; the most complete edition ofProvençal pastourelles is still the one by Audiau. See Sandison 20-1; Raynaud No. 1368; cf. Jeanroy 489-91; Raby History 2.336-7.

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Karl Reichl

closely allied to and not always clearly distinguishable from the pastourelle, is attested by the religious contrafacta in the Red Book of Ossoiy (14th c.), where No. 17 "Succurre, mater Christi" is headed by one stanza of its secular model: Alas, hou shold y syng? Yloren is my playing. H o u shold y wi|j {sat olde man To-leuen and let my lemman, Swettist o f al f>inge.

And No. 18 "Jesu, lux vera seculi" has for its refrain a similar heading in French: Harrow, ieo su trahy, Par fol amour de mal amy. 4

Other forms closely related to the pastourelle are also found in medieval England, most notably the contrasto in the Harley poem "De clerico et puella" {Index 2236; Brook 62-3). This term is used by Alfred Jeanroy for the 'contentious aspect' of the pastourelle, after the famous love-debate by the Sicilian poet Cielo d'Alcamo of the first half of the 13 th century (Jeanroy 13 f.). Finally, a number of pastourelle-like poems and songs from the late Middle Ages have been preserved, such as the delightful Tudor song "Hey, troly loly lo, maid, whither go you?" in Henry VIII's MS, a vaquieira according to the Old Provençal Leys d'Amors.5 We can therefore conclude with Frank Kermode in the introduction to his edition of English pastoral poetry: "... in English disappointingly few [pastourelles] survive, but there were probably large numbers of them, and their influence can be seen in much popular poetry of the Elizabethan and later periods, down to the present time" (33). Stating that these poems are part of a tradition and that this tradition must have been richer and more diverse than is commonly assumed does not yet make them easily understandable. Interpretation is made difficult by a number of problems raised by these poems, some of them typical of the early Middle English lyric as a whole, some specific to the genre of the pastourelle, others to the individual texts. Stemmler Latin Hymns 111; compare Wilson 182. For the late pastourelles in English see the list in Sandison 130-5; for "Hey, troly loly lo" see Stevens Music at the Court of Henry VIII95-8.

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O f the three Middle English pastourelles the p o e m preserved in the Lincoln's Inn M S is closest in style and form to the French tradition. T h e speaker o f the p o e m overhears a "litel m a i " in a "sweet arbor", who complains o f love-longing, caused, as the speaker finds out o n questioning her, by the unfaithfulness o f her lover: [ N o u sprinkes] J>e sprai, A1 for loue icche am so seek fiat slepen I ne mai.

5

10

Als I me rode Jais endre dai O mi [pleyinge] Seih I hwar a litel mai Bigan to singge: "pe clot him clingge! Wai es him i louue-[longin]ge Sal libben ai! Nou sprznkes [pe sprai, Al for loue icche am so seek J>at slepen I ne mai."]

15

20

Son icche herde pat mirie note, pider I drogh. I fonde hire [in] an herber swote Vnder a bogh, With ioie inogh. Son I asked: "pou mirie mai, Hwi sinkes tou ai: 'Nou sprznkes pe sprai, [Al for loue icche am so seek pat slepen I ne mai'?"]

25

30

pan answerde pat maiden swote Midde wordes fewe: "Mi lemman me haues bi-hot O f louue trewe. He chaunges a-newe. Yiif I mai, it shal him rewe Bi pis dai!

38

Karl Reichl N o w sprmkes [f>e sprai, Al for loue icche am so seek f)at slepen I ne mai."]6

The poem is fragmentary; as it stands it lacks the seduction-motif, characteristic of the pastourelle. Comparable French poems continue, however, in pastourelle-fashion by the speaker's proffering his "comfort", to be accepted or refused by the girl. There is in fact one French pastourelle which is so close to the English text that it might have conceivably served as its model:

5

Au douz mois de mai joli Joer m'en alai. Une pastore oi Qui crioit: "Ahai! Laisse que ferai? Se j'ai perdu m o n ami. James n'amerai H o m e de cuer gay.

10

15

6

Quant la pastore entendi, Cele part tornai. Ele avoit le cuer marri, Si la conforta [i] E li demandai Pourqu'ele disoit ensi: "Jamais n'amerai [Home de cuer gay."]

Lincoln's Inn MS Hale 135, f. 137y (beginning of 14th c.). I have transcribed the poem again from the MS, incorporating various emendations from previous editions; for these see Index 360; for the MS see Ker Medieval Manuscripts 132-3 and Greene 313.—Illegible or cut-offparts of the texts are added in brackets (lines 1,5,9,16) and the refrains have been completed where the MS has only etc. (lines 11-13,22-3,31-3). In line 4 the MS reads pis ertdre dai als i me rode, in line 8 clingges, in line 15yider, and in line 2 9 p i i f . Punctuation and capitalization are editorial.

Popular Poetry and Courtly Lyric

20

39

La pastore respowdi: "Je le vos dirai: Robiws a d'autrui de mi Pris chapel de glai. Si grant duel en ai Que, s'il me met en obli, James [n'amerai Home de cuer gay."]

25

30

"Bele, puis qu'A est ensi, Vostre ami serai. A Robin avez failli." Tantost l'embracai, Tel don li donai Qu 'owques puis ne dit ensi: "James [n'amerai Home de cuer gay."]

35

40

La pastore ot cuer joli, Mignotot e gay, E mout me plot e abelit Ce que fait li ai. Douce la trovai. Adonq«es me dit ensi: "Je vos amerai Touz jors de cuer vrai!"7

[In the sweet month of merry May / 1 went to enjoy myself. / 1 heard a shepherdess / who shouted: "Ah! / Poor me, what shall I do? I have lost my friend. / Never again will I love / a man with a merry heart." /—When I heard the shepherdess, / I went towards her. / She had a troubled heart / and I comforted her, / asking her / why she had said : "Never again..." /—The shepherdess answered: / "I will tell you: Robin has accepted 7

This parallel to the Middle English poem has already been pointed out by Sandison 47-8. The French pastourelle is here transcribed from MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 846 (Chansonnier Cangé; end of 13th c.), f. ll v -12 r , with the usual normalization of u/v and i / j , editorial punctuation and the completion of the refrain in lines 16,23-4, and 31-2. In line 12 the MS reads conforta, in line 27 a Robin is repeated. See also Beck2.27; Rivière 2.30-2; Raynaud No. 1050.

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from another than myself / a wreath of iris. / This has caused me such great sorrow, / that, should he forget me, / 1 will never again..." /—"Pretty one, if this is so, / then I will be your friend. / You have lost Robin." And then I embraced her, / 1 gave her such a gift, / that she did not say any more: / "Never a g a i n . . / — T h e shepherdess had a merry heart, / she was gentle and joyful, / and I was pleased and happy / with what I had done to her. / 1 found her sweet. / She said to me then: / "I will love you / always with a true heart!"]

What is of interest here is not only the close verbal correspondence between the English and the French text (in the second stanza the version of the Berne MS is even closer; see Rivière), but also the fact that the French pastourelle, transcribed from the Chansonnier Cangé, is there preserved with its melody. Was the English pastourelle also a song and could it have been sung to the same melody? The French poem has an identical rhyme-pattern for each stanza (ababba BB), with the a-lines comprising 7 syllables and the blines 5 syllables. Both the alternation between 7 and 5-syllable lines and the rhyme-scheme are imitated in the English poem, where, however, the rhymes vary from stanza to stanza (line 19 is irregular). Furthermore, the English pastourelle has 7 lines per stanza against 6 in the French poem and a 3-line refrain against a 2-line refrain. This makes it difficult to mechanically use the melody of the Chansonnier Cangé for the Middle English poem. Adaptations would have had to be made, but these are conceivable, given the musical structure of the pas tourelle-avec-des-refrains. A stanza, consisting of a repeated first part (apafi) and a through-composed second part (yó) is combined with a refrain (EZ), where both the through-composed part of the stanza and the refrain are basically expandable, thus accommodating a longer stanza and a longer refrain.8 It seems highly probable then that the pastourelle in the Lincoln's Inn MS is a song, sung to a melody of the same type as the one transmitted for the French pastourelle quoted above. The relationship between word and music in the Middle English pastourelles is just one of many problems which render their interpretation difficult. The interplay between a courtly and a noncourtly mode, both in the early Middle English love lyric as a group and in the genre of the pastourelle in particular, constitutes another problematic area. Despite the obvious echoes from Troubadour and Trouvère poetry in the love lyrics of the Harley MS, their naivete, popular quaintness or, in the words of Peter Dronke, "underlying innocence" (Lyric 144) has often been O n the music of the pastourelle, and in particular the pastourelle-avec-des-refrains, Gerold 126-33; Pascale; Stevens Words and Music 471-6.

see

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commented upon. Does it make sense to bring in the term 'courtly5 at all, when discussing early Middle English poetry? George Kane, in the essay referred to already, emphatically denies its applicability to Middle English verse (117-8). Can there be a tension of the 'courtl/ and the 'non-courtly* in the Middle English pastourelle? And is not the whole controversy about the courtly or non-courtly nature of the pastourelle mistaken, a quibble over a meaningless dichotomy? Notwithstanding the formidable ramifications of these problems, there are some fixed points. Thus it is accepted by most critics that the first vernacular pastourelle extant, Marcabru's "L'autrier jost'una sebissa" (from the first half of the 12 th c.) is non-courtly in the sense that it treats o f f a i s ' amor, but that the whole point of the poem is the contrast between different conceptions of love, between the world of the vilana and the senhers, worlds that should be kept separate, because, as the girl says: .. segon dreitura Cerca fols sa follatura, Cortes cortez' aventura, E • il vilans ab la vilana." (lines 79-81)

["according to what is right, the fool seeks his folly and the courtly man courtly adventure, and the peasant man goes with the peasant woman" (Topsfield 90; cf. Kôhler 283).] There is a certain satirical element present in this pastourelle, as indeed in the pastourelle as a genre. W. T. H. Jackson (162) has drawn attention in particular to the ironic undertones of a pastourelle by Walter of Châtillon (second half of the 12th c.), where the girl met by the speaker is quite inappropriately dressed in "a kerchief skilfully embellished and with many-coloured stripes, hanging down from her head, and a coat dyed with Tyrian purple and decorated with embroidery": Clamis multiphario Nitens artificio Dependebat vertice Cotulata vario. Vestis erat Tyrio Colorata murice Opere plumario.

(Raby Medieval Latin Verse 279)

It is precisely this mal-séance which is characteristic of the Arundel pastourelle. Here the speaker meets a richly dressed maiden, damsel-like

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engrossed in a book while walking along, who skilfully—and scornfully— wards off his attempts to win her over. Normally the girl wears a simple and often coarse dress, like Marcabru's pastora. Indeed one of the bribes of the speaker consists quite often (as in the Harley pastourelle) in offering expensive clothes. There is a marked contrast here between the appearance of the young lady—more Dame Richesse than Nutbrown Maid—and the erotic innuendos of her language, as when she tells the speaker that he "must be a bolder bird, billing (pecking) on the bough" if he wants to win her love, an erotic image elaborated in the pastourelle-ballad "The Crow and the Pie" ("for now the pye hathe peckyd you"): 9 As I stod on a day me-self vnder a tre:

5

10

15

20

I met in a morueing a may in a medewe, A semilier to min sithi saw I ner non. Of a blak bornet al was hir wede, P«rfiled wi/> pellour doun to £>e toon, A red hod on hir heued, shragid al of shridis, Wip a riche riban gold-be-gon. pat birde bad on hir bok eu^re as he yede, Was non wip hir but hirselue alon. yffip a cri {jan sche me sey. Schi wold a-wrenchin awey but for I was so neye. I sayd to pat semly pat Christ should hir saue, For {>e fairest may Jiat I euer met. "Sir, God yef J>e grace god happis to haue And J)i lyging of loue," {5us she me gret. pat I mit becuw hir man I began to craue, For noting in hirde fondin wold I let. Sche bar me fast on hond pat I began to raue And bad me fond ferper a fol forto fechi. "War o tier, f>u spellis al pi speche, f)u findis hir nout hire, fie sot pat f>u sechi" For me Jsothe hir so fair, hir wil wold I tast And I freyned hir of loue, persA she lowe:

»

Child 2.478-9 (No. Ill); from MS Rawlinson C.813 (SC12653), a MS from the first half o f the 16th c., containing also other pastourelle-like poems; see Chambers, Sidgwick 64-7.

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30

43

"O Sire," she sayd, "hirt yow for non hast! If it be your wille, ye an sayd iwnowe. It is no mister your word forto wast, per most a balder brid billin on f>e bow! I wend be your semlant a chose you for chast! It is non ned to makint so tow! War o tier, wet ye wat I rede? Wend fort per ye wenin better for to spede!"10

The p o e m is textually somewhat uneven, probably due to its transmission. The first line is clearly set off from the individual stanzas in the MS and is apparendy meant as a kind o f title (or possibly refrain?). Each stanza has ten lines, on the rhyme-scheme ababababcc (with slight irregularities). Most lines show alliteration. The stress-pattern o f the line seems to gravitate towards four stressed syllables, but many lines have more stressed syllables, especially the last line o f each stanza. The language o f the p o e m is straightforward, showing a number o f colloquialisms in the speech of the girl." The structural principle o f the pastourelle is clearly one o f contrast. Although the girl is a shepherdess (hirde, line 17), she is nevertheless gaudily decked out in the latest fashion: "Of black fine cloth was her dress, / Lined with fur down to her toes, / A red hood on her head, / Trimmed with jagged College of Arms MS Arundel 27, f. 130v (beginning of 14th c.). For previous editions (based on Frederick Madden's faulty transcription) see Index 371; for the MS see Ewert l.ix-x. Punctuation and capitalization are editorial. In line 18 me is inserted above the line. The poem is written continuously, with the first line and every stanza, however, written separately and preceded by a paragraph-mark. There are three lines of French verse (in different ink and by a different scribe) at the top of the page (beg. "Issy comencent le pruessezs Guy") and two crossed-out lines in the Middle English text, one between riche and riban, line 7 (in French, barely legible), and one between the first and second stanza (in Latin: "Domine, domine, quam admirabile est nomen tuum in universa terra"). The same scribe has written another English poem on f. 130r (beg. "A leuedy ad my loue leyt", Index 60), preceded by three lines of Latin verse (beg. "Post binos unus, post tres"; see Walther No. 14309). For line 15 pi lygingofloue see MED s.v. Ring(e) ger. (1), sense 1 (d), "lying" in the sense of "making love". For line 18 bar mefast on bond see Robinson's note on line B1 620 of The Man of Law's Tale (695); here the sense is probably "countered my arguments", "teased me". For lines 20,30 War o rier, "look out behind", compare warderere in line A 4101 of The Reeve's Tale; from Anglo-Norman *ware derere (see Davies et al. 166); here with o (from on) rier instead of de rier, derere. For line 29 to makint (= makin it) so tow see Robinson's note on line 2.1025 of Troilus and Criseyde (820).

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edges / And a gold-embroidered costly ribbon" (lines 4-7).12 For all her finery and book-reading, the girl shows no mincing refinement in her lively retorts. She counters the politeness of the knight (he is twice addressed as "Sir") with wishing him the enjoyment of sexual love (line 15)—with someone else, who would be foolish enough to accept his love (fol, sot). For the speaker*s attempt to seek her love (line 23) she finds only contemptuous laughter. As in the Provençal and French pastourelle, there is a dramatic clash of wills between senhers and vilana, as well as a bantering tone, which imbues the poem with an atmosphere of amour fol. The most controversial of the three early Middle English pastourelles is the poem in the Harley MS, "In a fiyht as Y con fare fremede". Arthur K. Moore characterizes it in his study of the secular lyric in Middle English as "clumsy beside the really good pastourelles, in both conception and execution. Moreover, the composer has carried metrical effects much too far..." (60). Part of this alleged clumsiness is however due to the textual obscurity of the poem and its mutilated form. The poem bristles with textual cruxes, so much so that in some interpretations the girl withstands the speaker's advances to the end, while in others it is she who suggests in lines 41 to 42: "The best counsel that I know for us / Is that you take me and I leap towards you." Before discussing the literary merits of this pastourelle, it is therefore necessary to clarify some of the textual problems of the poem. Given the obscurity of a number of lexical items in the text (several words are hapax legorrtena) and the possibility of missing lines, if not of a whole stanza, no definite conclusions can be reached. The following text, incorporating both emendations and editorial options of previous editions and discussions of the poem, reflects my reading of the Harley pastourelle: 1

5

12

In a fryht as Y con fare fremede, Y founde a wel feyr fenge to fere. Heo glystnede ase gold when hit glemede, Nes ner gome so gladly on gere. Y wolde wyte in world who hire kenede, f>is burde bryht, 3ef hire wil were.

Bomet in line 4 means according to the MED "a brown woolen cloth of fine quality" ; see MED s.v. bumet n. (1) & adj. Shragidalofshridis (=shredis) in line 6 could simply mean "in tatters"; compare Morte Artbure, line 3473 : "Many schredys and schragges at his skyrttes hynges" (Bjòrkman 102). Here the expression probably means fashionable fringes.

Popular Poetry and Courtly Lyric H e o me bed go m y gates, lest hire gremede, N e kepte heo non henyng here.

2

10

T h e r e }jou me nou, hendest in helde, N a u y f>e none harmes to he{je! Casten Y wol f>e from cares ant kelde, Comeliche Y wol f)e nou clejse!"

3

15

"Clones Y haue o n forte caste, Such as Y may weore wijs wynne. Betere is were {junne boute laste

20

{sen syde robes ant synke in-to synne! Haue 3e or wyl, 3e waxe£> vnwraste, Afterward or {jonk be[{j] Jjynne. Betre is make forewardes faste, {sen afterward to mene ant mynne!"

4

25

" O f munnyng ne munte fjou namore, O f menske f>ou were wurf>e, by my myht! Y take an h o n d to holde \>at Y höre O f al pat Y {se haue byhyht. W h y ys Jse IoJd to leuen o n m y lore Lengore {jen m y loue were on {je lyht? An-o{jer myhte 3erne J?e so 3ore, p a t nolde {je noht rede so ryht."

5

30

"Such reed m e myhte spaclyche reowe, When al m y ro were me atraht! Sone {jo[u] woldest vachen an newe

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46

35

Ant take an-ofjer wi]>inne ny3e naht. Penne mihti h[o]ngren on heowe, In vch an hyrd ben hated ant forhaht, Ant ben ycayred from alle pat Y kneowe, Ant bede cleuyen {ser Y hade claht!"

6

40

"Betere is taken a comeliche yclope, In armes to cusse ant to cluppe, ¡sen a wrecche ywedded so wrof>e, ¡Dah he [{j]e slowe, ne myht[u] him asluppe! f>e beste red pat Y con to vs bo^e: Jaat JDOU me take ant Y Jje toward huppe! pah Y swore by treujje ant o{je, {sat God hajj shaped mey non at-luppe."

7 45

"Mid shupping ne mey hit me ashunche, Nes Y neuer wycche ne wyle. Ych am a maide, fiat me ofjjunche! Luef me were gome boute gyle!"13

The interpretation of the poem hinges on one's interpretation of stanza 6. W h o is the speaker of this stanza? Is it the girl, who all of a sudden gives 13

BL MS Harley 2253, f. 66v-67r; see the facsimile edited by Ker. Punctuation and capitalization are editorial. The scribe writes the first person singular nominative of the personal pronoun generally asy, often fairly close to the following word, so that expressions like ywedded (line 39) oryswore (line 43) are ambiguous, interpretable as Y wedded and Y swore or as part participles.—In line 11 the MS has deleted cc before kelde, in line 18 be, in line 31 po, in line 33 hengren. In line 40 the MS reads me slowe ne mihti; for this emendation see below. In line 46 the e of nes is written indistinctly like an o.—Bennett and Smithers (116-7) emend be in line 18 to bep and ofpunche in line 47 to ofpunchep\ in the former case the thorn might be missing because of the following thorn, in the latter case the MS form can be interpreted as a subjunctive; see Sisam 117 "that I may regret!" Line 37yclope is here interpreted as a past participle (Bennett and Smithers emend toycloped); it could also be interpreted with Brook and others asy elope, "in clothes", although the scribe prefers writing in for the preposition (butjyn occurs for instance in the following poem, "A wayle whyt ase whalles bon" line 11).

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up her restistance and urges the knight to "take her", or is it the man, who advances his final arguments to win her over? Both views can be defended. There is even a third view, namely that the first half of the stanza is spoken by the girl and the second by the man. A clue is possibly afforded by stanza 7. The last stanza must be spoken by the girl, so much at least is clear. As in stanzas 2, 3 , 4 and 5 (stanza 6 might be an exception, see below), a word of the previous stanza is taken up again in the manner of coblas capfinidas, a stylistic device also found in other Harley lyrics: shupping (line 45) harks back to shaped (line 44), just as Yhere takes up here (lines 9,8), dopes clepe (lines 13,12), munnyngmynne (lines 21,20) and reed rede (lines 29,28). This in itself suggests a change of speaker, as well as a change of point of view, similar to stanzas 1 to 5. Secondly, the last stanza does not give the impression that the girl is over-enthusiastic about accepting the knight's love. She would like to have a "man without guile", or possibly, with gome as "game", a "love-play without deceit" (Dronke "Review" 150). That means that she is apparently not very happy with the "best counsel" of lines 41-2. She is also displeased with being a maiden (line 47), implying by this that she does not want to be a feyrfenge (line 2) for the man. Unfortunately, line 45 is unclear. Ashunche is a hapax legomenon; there is a verb schunchen, meaning "shy", "blench" or, used transitively, "scare away", "cause to start aside"; it is probably etymologically related to Middle High German schiuhen, which has the additional meaning "avoid".14 Shupping could either go back to Old English scyppan, "create", "shape", or, for its meaning, to Old English scypian, "take shape". The word is either glossed as "decree" (from scyppan) or as "taking shape", "shape-shifting" (from scypian, having formally converged with scyppan; compare pyncan/pencan > think; see Bennett, Smithers 325). Me is also ambiguous; it could be "me" or the weakened form of man, "one" (Bennett, Smithers 325). We thus get for the first two lines of the last stanza the following translations: By [invoking God's] decree it [the argumentation] cannot make me / one scared, / 1 was never witch nor sorceress [who might have reason to be afraid of God's wrath]; or:

See d'Ardenne 164. The Middle High German cognate is interesting in that it provides the meaning "avoid", necessary for one reading of the line in question; see Lexer s.v. schiuhen,

schiuwen,

schüen.

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By shape-shifting it [God's decree, fate] cannot avoid me/one [i. e. I/one cannot avoid it] / 1 was never witch nor sorceress [who can transform themselves] ,15

The mention of "witch and sorceress" makes the second alternative more attractive; but owing to the textual opacity of line 45 the first alternative cannot be ruled out. In either case the last words of the previous stanza seem to be taken up in a contentious spirit, even if the girl's words in stanza 7 do not add up to a point-blank refusal (as argued by Stemmler Liebesgedichte 150), but more likely to a somewhat fatalistic acceptance of a deceitful lover (or love-play). Saying that the last words of stanza 6 must be spoken by the man, does not mean that the whole stanza need be spoken by him. Peter Dronke has proposed a different solution: "The sixth stanza cannot, I think, be spoken entirely by the girl (Brook), nor entirely by the man (Stemmler): the first four lines are hers, and he replies in the second four" (Dronke "Review" 150). The fact that up to stanza 6 every stanza was spoken by a different dramatis persona speaks (apart from the arguments advanced already) against an attribution of the whole stanza to the girl; a change of speakers from the girl in stanza 5 to the man in stanza 6 would certainly be more in line with the pattern of this type of poem. Furthermore, the girl's change of heart comes far too suddenly, especially when considering the intensity of her arguments in the previous stanza. There could, of course, be a stanza missing between 5 and 6, in which the knight succeeds in convincing the girl. This is not an altogether fanciful hypothesis in view of the very loose concatenatio between stanzas 5 and 6 (the alliteration is taken over, but there are no verbal parallels, unless one takes claht from clechen, "grasp", and cluppe, "embrace", for such a parallel; see Anderson 258). Before, however, resorting to such a drastic hypothesis, it seems preferable to try to make sense of the poem as we have it. Whether spoken by the man or by the girl, the first lines of stanza 6 allude certainly to the state of being unhappily married to a vilain, the central motif of the chanson de mal mariée.16 If the man is speaking, then line 40 as it stands in the MS ("t>ah he 15

16

For the various translations of these lines see Stemmler Liebesgedichte 150; Dronke "Review" 150; Bennett, Smithers 325; Sisam 117. Ifywedded is read as Ywedded, this part of the stanza must of course be spoken by the girl; see Sisam 117: "than that I wedded some wretch so unhappily". Both from the point of view of word-order and syntactic parallelism, the more conservative interpretation ("Better it is to take an elegantly clothed [man]... than a churl [to whom one is] married so unhappily") seems preferable.

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me slowe, ne mihti him asluppe") must refer to the motif of the knight threatened with a beating. In two pastourelles by Thibaut de Champagne (12011253), for instance, the knight runs away from the approaching shepherds, with the girl calling after him in scorn: "Chevalier sont trop hardi" (Bartsch 234). It seems nevertheless strange that the man should refer to his own beating (or even killing), if he does not run away in time. More convincing is either an attribution of these lines to the girl or, as Rosemary Woolf has suggested (57), an emendation of me to pe and mihti to mihtu. I have chosen the latter alternative on the basis of the following considerations: (1) that the girl speaks stanza 7, but not the second half of stanza 6; (2) that, if she spoke the first half of stanza 6, her sudden change of mind cannot be explained; and (3) that the knight (who will then have to speak stanza 6) will hardly refer to his own cowardice when trying to seduce the girl. None of these premisses is provable, and I for one would be quite happy to reconsider the casting of parts—if the "missing stanza" was found! There is one more textual oddity in the poem, and here I think our text has a lacuna. Moore, in the study already quoted, has criticized the lack of detail when the poet-knight promises presents to the girl in the second stanza. To this criticism one might reply that stanza 2 is almost certainly 4 lines short (2 lines in the MS), lines which very likely elaborated on the clothes promised. It would be very unusual for a poem with equally long stanzas to have a shorter stanza in the middle (as distinct from a shorter stanza at the end). As the first two lines of stanza 2 are, however, linked to the previous stanza and the last two to the following stanza, the missing lines must have been in the middle of the stanza.17 It is, however, not only the textual cruces of this poem which impede its understanding. Moore's negative view of the poem stems from his critical approach. He sees the early Middle English secular lyric as a basically misguided imitation of French (or Provençal) poetry. Only occasionally is such an imitation "not wholly unsuccessful" (69; referring to The Fair Maid of Ribblesdale). Praise is bestowed unreservedly only when a poem, like De Clerico et Puella, "escapes the conventions of French lyric" (70-1). More recent criticism of the secular Middle English lyric has corrected Moore's somewhat sweeping appraisal. Following Leo Spitzer's explication de texte, a number of critics have underlined the artistic accomplishment of the Middle English

I agree in this point with Gibson's analysis, referred to and criticized by Stemmler Liebesgedichte 149.

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lyric, concentrating mainly on the infratextual patterning of the poems.18 This emphasis on the verbal artistry of the medieval lyric is characteristic of current criticism also in other literatures, as can be seen by the various essays on the Medieval Latin, Provençal, French and Middle High German lyrics edited by W.T H.Jackson under the tide The Interpretation of Medieval Lyric Poetry. The structural traits of medieval French love poetry are well-known through the work of scholars like Roger Dragonetti or Paul Zumthor. 19 For the Middle English lyric a sketch of a 'poetic grammar1 has been attempted by Raymond Oliver in his book Poems Without Names. On the whole, however, it is only the religious Middle English lyric and later poetry that have received detailed critical attention in recent years. George Kane's dictum that the "secular lyrics are among the worst served by medievalists of the writings from the Middle English period" (110) is unfortunately still valid for the early Middle English lyric. If one wants to do justice to a poem like the Harley pastourelle, such a 'poetic grammar' is indispensable. It has to rely heavily on the analysis of French poetry, most notably P. Zumthor's Langue et Techniques Poétiques à l'Epoque Romane. Zumthor has shown convincingly how these lyrics consist of interlocking micro- and macrostructural patterns. Lexemes (termes-clés) and collocations express motifs in a quasi-formulaic way; these are in turn organized into registres, configurations of particular motifs with well-defined stylistic traits. It is characteristic of the Middle English pastourelles, also the Harley poem, that they conform to the structure established for the French lyric by Zumthor, reading almost like sequences of Proppian functions. What is perhaps surprising, and certainly noteworthy, is that the correspondence between the French and the English pastourelle is not only found on the content level (the knight riding out, his meeting a girl, her beauty etc.), but also on the expression level, in the motifs as defined by Zumthor, i. e. the linguistic realization of thematic elements as expressions formulaires. Zumthor underlines the preference for particular lexico-syntactic structures—like trovai... pasture—, fixed epithets for the girl (cortoise, gentil etc.) and particular semantic fields for the setting of the poem (boix, arbres, ramée etc.) (145 ff.). All of these are matched in the English poems, where we find the lexico-syntactic patterns {met... a may, founde... a fenge), the epithets

18 19

See Spitzer; Stemmler "Alysoun Dronke Lyric; Reiss. See Dragonetti; Zumthor Langue-, Zumthor Essai 189 ff.

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{mirie, semli, feyr, fairest, bryht) and the 'arboreal' champ sémantique (fryht, under a tre, under a bogh). Deviations from the quasi-formulaic pattern like the stress on the man's point of view by calling the girl a prey ifenge) in line 2 of the Harley pastourelle or the simile of the "glistening gold" in line 3 can also be found in the French tradition. In an anonymous pastourelle with music from the 13th c. the gentilpastorele tells the chevalier to seek his prey in a higher social sphere ("prendre voulez proie"), while the shepherdess in the Lais de la pastorele has hair shining more brightly than pure gold ("et ses cheveus ressenbloient/ plus cleirs que nul or fin").20 Quite unlike anything found in the French pastourelles is the moralizing tone of the girl's replies: "It is better to wear thin [clothes] without blemish / Than flowing robes and fall into sin" (lines 15-6). This has been variously remarked on and seen in connection with the equally 'serious' Anglo-Norman pastourelle referred to already (see Moore 61; Stemmler Liebesgedichte 152-4). There are, however, comparable Provençal pastourelles. In a vaquieira by Joan Esteve (dated 1288) the girl's most powerful argument is: Memento mori!(Audiau 94), and the toza in a poem by Guilhem d'Autpolh (ca. 1270) even quotes a preacher as her authority for similar reasons: Qu'ieu non ai cura D'amie ses dreitura, O n peccatz s'atura D e mala vertut; Que fraire Johans ditz fort Que deliegz engenra m o r t . . .

[I do not care / For a friend without faith, / In whom sin is coupled with vice; / . . . / since Friar Johan speaks true / That pleasure engendres death... ] (Audiau 121). Joseph Anglade has maintained that the "préoccupations morales" in these pastourelles are a sign of their time, the late 13 th century (236-7). The gaiety of the French pastourelles as exemplified in the Lincoln's Inn poem or the derisive, colloquial tone of the Arundel pastourelle has given

20

The first quotation is found in Rivière 2.108, line 32; see line 30 (Raynaud No. 292). See also Rosenberg, Tischler 49-51. The second quotation is found in Rivière 2.150, lines 18-9 (Raynaud No. 1695). For the "shining beauty" of the beloved in the chanson courtoise see Dragonetti 267 ff.

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way to a serious pleading and remonstrating, culminating in the evocation of the life of an outcast in lines 33 to 36, reminiscent in their intensity of the Old English Wife's Lament: "Then I might suffer from hunger [even] in my family, / 1 will be hated and repudiated by each household, / Driven from all whom I know / And told to stick to [the man] I had clung to." (See Bennett, Smithers 324-5 for this translation.) These lines certainly suggest a native tradition of women's song behind them, and they are not, as the late Provençal pastourelles Anglade discusses, a sign of'decadence' but rather a sign of the re-casting of a foreign model in a native mould. The most distinctive feature of this re-modelling is, on the formal level, the use of alliteration. The Harley pastourelle shares this stylistic trait with a number of other Harley poems; alliteration is also found in the Arundel pastourelle, though to a lesser degree.21 The interpretation of this style is controversial. Kane termed the more heavily alliterative style typical of these poems 'the early decorated style' of the English lyric (118-9). For Moore, as we have seen, "the composer has carried metrical effects much too far." It is difficult to arrive at an unbiased appraisal of the aesthetic value of this style in the Harley pastourelle. Is the use of alliteration part of a native tradition, possibly connected to the flourishing of alliterative poetry in the latter half of the 14th century? Or does this style represent a (more or less isolated) attempt at exploiting alliteration for rhetorical purposes, a kind of native ornatus difficilis (Stemmler Liebesgedichte 61)? A brief look at the uses of alliteration in the Harley pastourelle reveals a surprising variety. We find heavily alliterating lines with a rich sonority and an almost mannered elaboration, where the lexis conveys the impression of a deliberate écart from everyday speech (as in lines 33 to 36 translated above). But we also find alliteration between more common words, alliterative collocations that go almost unnoticed as such (burde bryht, line 6, hendest in helde, line 9, bond... holde, line 23, rede so ryht, line 28 etc.). While many of these alliterative phrases are non-formulaic, some are formulas or quasi-formulaic expressions, i.e. more or less fixed collocations of alliterating lexemes. A formulaic phrase is eusse and cluppe, line 38, with an extraordinarily wide currency in medieval English literature, from the Old English elegies to La3amon, the tail-rhyme romances and Chaucer (compare Oakden 2.274; Stemmler Liebesgedichte 93). The "glistening gleaming gold" of line 3 is a For a discussion of alliteration in the Harley Lyrics see Stemmler Liebesgedichte 64-98; Fifield; Osberg. For pertinent criticism of t h e theory of a Celtic influence o n the metrics of the Harley Lyrics see Fulton, especially 244-5. See also Diller 62-9.

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quasi-formulaic expression, found in a wide range of texts, most notably in Pearl: As glysnande golde {3at man con shere, So schon fiat schene anvnder schore.22 Wycche ne wyle in line 46 has a parallel in Cleanness, line 1577, Wychez and walky ries; it is formulaic in Old English: the concordance of Old English texts records no less than seven instances, both from legal and homiletic works.23 These examples suggest that there must have been a well-established tradition of alliteration (if not alliterative poetry) from which the poet could draw. As a rhetorical device alliteration gives the poem, especially in the 'early decorated' passages, a certain stylistic elevation, which contrasts with its contents, centred on amourfol or niedere Minne; it gives, in other words, the kind of tension so characteristic of the early Provençal pastourelle. I do not mean to maintain that this stylistic tension is a tension between a courtly and a popular lyric mode, although it might be legitimate to associate an alliterative style both with a courtly mode and an aristocratic milieu, as for instance in the case of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (see e.g. Salter 150, 233 ff.). If there was a feudal society with an interest in love casuistry in the North-West Midlands in the later 14th century, it is not very far-fetched to infer a similar audience for the Harley pastourelle a generation or so earlier, especially as the poem must, on linguistic grounds, have originated in the same area.24 Nevertheless, a sociological placing in context must, for lack of further evidence, remain speculative. As Douglas Gray has recently remarked, the Harley Lyrics "are as remarkable a testimony to the vigour of local literary culture as are the poems of the Gawain manuscript. Whether they represent a taste that is more than local is uncertain," and he goes on to say that a tradition of the courtly lyric developed only at the end of the 14th century (Bennett 405). What we know about the social context of 13th 22 23

24

Lines 165-6; see also line 213; Andrew, Waldron 62, 64. Compare Oakden 2.284. See Healey, Venetzky s.v. wigleran, wigleras. Compare Oakden 2.232. This 'repetitive word-pair" is also discussed by Koskenniemi (158). Poppy Holden has drawn my attention to the line "I'm na a witch, or wile warlock" in the ballad The Lass of Koch Royal (Child No. 76, see 2.220), a line which almost certainly continues the Old English formula, although wile in Scottish means "vile". In particular the rhyme-word hepe (line 10) points to the North-West Midlands rather than the Central West Midlands (the dialect area typical of the Harley Lyrics in their MS form); see Bennett, Smithers 316; MED s.v. h'ethen v. Compare also Serjeantson 324 (Harley Lyrics), 327-8 (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight)-, Samuels.

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century lyric poetry points to the activity of the clergy (in all its variety), although some MSS were certainly destined for private households (see Frankis). A case could, indeed, be made for a 'goliardic' milieu of the Middle English pastourelle. Is not the seducer of the other pastourelle-like poem in the Harley MS, De Clerico et Puella, as its title indicates a clericus? We have also seen that the damsel-shepherdess of the Arundel pastourelle resembles Walter of Châtillon's Glycerium; there are other Medieval Latin pastourelles testifying to the popularity of this genre among the clerici (vagantes) of the 13 th century.25 Even the 'high style' of alliteration could be interpreted as bookish rather than aristocratic, given the importance of a monastic tradition of alliterative verse in the shaping of the 'alliterative revival' (Pearsall). The Middle English pastourelle must, however, have had a wide currency outside clerical circles. This can be inferred by its later development in England.26 Late pastourelles like "Hey troly loly lo, maid, whither go you?", mentioned already, and burlesque transformations of the genre, verging on the obscene, as exemplified by one of the poems in the Bannatyne MS (written in 1568) presuppose a vigorous native tradition ("In somer quhen floris will smell", Ritchie 3.26-7). Such a tradition is also implied by William Dunbar's parodistic chanson d'aventure The Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo, in which the world of amour courtois is satirically contrasted with amour fol,—m alliterative lines.27 That the conventions offin'amors were well-known in early medieval England, is abundantly proved by the Harley Lyrics themselves (see Stemmler Liebesgedichte), even if there are no traces of a closely-knit aristocratic literary coterie such as is found in Southern France. As to the pastourelle, the self-conscious art of Provençal pastourelles like Marcabru's "L'autrier jost'una sebissa" already seems to be a special development from the 'classic pastourelle' as represented by the French pastourelle. It is in Northern France that the genre has been most popular, and it is possible that it is there that the genre originated, even if Marcabru's is the earliest pastourelle and Cercamon (beginning of the 12th c.) is said to have compos-

The best examples of Medieval Latin pastourelles, apart from Walter of Châtillon's pastourelles (see Raby Medieval Latin Verse 278-82), are found in the Codex Buranus: No. 79,157,158; see also the macaronic poems No. 184,185 (Hilka, Schumann, Bischoff); see Jones 137-65. The medieval background to Renaissance pastoral poetry is discussed in Cooper 47 ff. See Scott 179-211; compare also Pearcy; Bitterling.

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ed "pastoretas a la usanza antiga" (Boutière, Schutz 80). The French pastourelle is a celebration of non-courtly love, which refers to the conventions offin'amor, but in a vaguer and less rigorous fashion than in most Troubadour pastourelles. The popular tone prevails over the clever play with lyric modes. Most French pastourelles are anonymous, and their refrains point to a genuine popular lyric tradition. The lack of an elaborately codified courtly foil also characterizes the Middle English pastourelle, in common with most other non-French/Provençal imitations and transformations of this genre. A further characteristic the Middle English poems share with the other 'marginal traditions', setting them off from the French/Provençal core, is their incorporation of native elements. It is the latter which has given rise to the 'problem of the pastourelle' in non-French/Provençal literatures, such as for instance the Middle High German lyric. The French scholar A. Moret has emphatically denied the very existence of a Middle High German pastourelle—calling it a mythe (Moret)— while P.Wapnewski, and more recendy S. Brinkmann, have shown that the difference between the French and the German pastourelle is not one of genre, but due to a native development, based on indigenous lyric traditions. The same can be said about Italy and the Iberian Peninsula. While Guido Cavalcanti's poem "In un boschetto trova' pasturella" (ed. Favati 305-8) is clearly a—brilliant—variation on the established theme of the French pastourelle (see the discussion in Dronke Rise 1.155-6, Lyric 202), the famous Contraste by Cielo d'Alcamo is 'problematic' precisely because the French tradition has been combined with a fondo volgare of "pure Sicilian" (Pagliaro 202). There is an even stronger native element present in the Spanish transformations of the genre, from the canticas de serrana of the Arcipreste de Hita (14th c.) to the serranillas of the Marqués de Santillana (1398-1458).28 Perhaps the most interesting parallels to the Middle English poems are the eight pastourelles extant in the corpus of Galician-Portuguese lyric poetry.29 As is the case with the English poems, these lyrics are fairly close imitations of the French (and Provençal) pastourelle, mirroring their models in composition and structure, as well as in the expressionsformulaires of the 28 29

See Le Gentil "A propos"; Le Gentil Poésie Lyrique 1.521-91. For the Portuguese pastourelles see Pimpâo 90-1; for the texts see Machado, Machado 3.50-4 (Dom Denis "Hunha pastor se queixaua"), 130-2 (Dom Denis "Hunha pastor ben Talhada"), 154-6 (Dom Denis "Vi oi eu cantar d amor"), 350-1 (Joâo d'Aboim "Caualgaua noutro dia"), 4.200-2 (Ayras Nunes "Oy og eu hua pastor cantar"), 340-2 (Joâo Ayras "Pelo souto de Crexente"), 5.139-42 (Pedro Amigo de Sevilha "Quand eu hun dia"), 375-6 (Lourenço Jograr "Très moças cantauan d amor").

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various motifs. But there are also idiosyncrasies: the fainting girl with the parrot (one of the pastourelles by Dom Denis of the 13 th c.) or the promise to follow the poet-speaker after the completion of a pilgrimage to Compostela (by Pedro Amigo of the second half of the 13 th c.). Despite their reference to the courtly cantiga de amor, these pastourelles also exhibit a native popular tradition, the tradition that formed the cantigas de amigo, the parallelistic women's songs. Ramón Menéndez Pidal quotes the refrain from one of the Portuguese pastourelles (by Airas Nunes of the 13th c.) to show the traditional undercurrent of these lyrics (209): Pela ribeira do rio Cantand' ia la virgo D'amor: Quen amores ha Como dormirá? Ai bela frol!

[Along the bank of the river/The girl was walking, singing / Of love: / The one who is in love,/How can he (she) sleep?/O, beautiful flower!] "A1 for loue icche am so seek/J^at slepen I ne mai", the girl sang in the refrain of the Lincoln's Inn pastourelle. Despite its closeness to the French pastourelle quoted, even this simplest of all early Middle English pastourelles has an archaic ring. There is a faint echo of the Wife's Lament in lines 9-10 of the poem ("Wai es him i loue-longinge / Sal libben ai!"): of langojje

Wa bió {jam fje sceal léofes ábldan. (Leslie 48)

It might be coincidence that the Old English lines translate almost literally into the Middle English lines; but it is one more indication that the isolation of the three early Middle English pastourelles extant is more apparent than real, that it is due to a scarcity of transmitted texts and not to the lack ofa tradition. In this only imperfecdy recorded tradition Romance and native elements combine to form a pattern which shows, despite the "underlying innocence" of the Middle English lyric, a certain amount of complexity and ingenuity.

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WORKS CITED Anderson, J.J. "Two Difficulties in The Meeting in the Wood." Medium JEvum 49 (1980): 258-9. Andrew, Malcolm, and Ronald Waldron, eds. The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. York Medieval Texts, second series. London: Arnold, 1978. Anglade, Joseph. Le Troubadour Guiraut Riquier. Etude sur la Décadence de l'Ancienne Poésie Provençale. Thèse. Bordeaux: Feret et Fils, 1905. Audiau, Jean, ed. La Pastourelle dans la Poésie Occitane du Moyen-Age. Paris: De Boccard, 1923. Bartsch, Karl, ed. Romances et Pastourelles Françaises des XIIe et XIII' Siècles: Altfranzösische Romanzen und Pastourellen. Leipzig: Vogel, 1870. Bec, Pierre. La Lyrique Française au Moyen-Age (XIIe-XIIT Siècles): Contribution à une Typologie des Genres Poétiques Médiévaux. Etudes et Textes. 2 vols. Paris: Picard, 1977-78. Beck, Jean, ed. Les Chansonniers des Troubadours et des Trouvères Publiés en Facsimile et Transcrits en Notation Moderne: I. Reproduction Phototypique du Chansonnier Cangé (Paris, Bibl. Nat., Ms. Français No 846). II. Transcription des Chansons du Chansonnier Cangé. Notes et Commentaires. 2 vols. Paris: Champion, 1927. Bennett, J. A.W. Middle English Literature. Ed. and completed by Douglas Gray. The Oxford History of English Literature 1.2. Oxford: Clarendon, 1986. Bennett J . A. W., and G.V. Smithers, eds. Early Middle English Verse and Prose. With a Glossary by Norman Davis. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1968. Bitterling, Klaus. "The Tretisofthe TuaMariit Wemenandthe Wedo: Some Comments on Words, Imagery, and Genre." Scottish Language and Literature, Medieval and Renaissance: Fourth International Conference 1984—Proceedings—. Ed. Dietrich Strauss and Horst W. Drescher. Frankfurt a.M.: Lang, 1986. 337-58. Björkman, Erik, ed. Morte Arthure. Alt- und mittelenglische Texte 9. Heidelberg: Winter, 1915. Böddeker, Karl, ed. Altenglische Dichtungen des MS. Harl. 2253. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1878. BofFey, Julia. Manuscripts of English Courtly Love Lyrics. Manuscript Studies 1. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 1986. Boutière Jean, A.-H. Schutz, eds. Biographies des Troubadours. Contributions in Languages and Literature. Romance Language Series 3. Columbus, O H : Ohio State U, 1950. Brinkmann, Sabine. "Mittelhochdeutsche Pastourellendichtung." Der deutsche Minnesang: Aufsätze zu seiner Erforschung. Ed. Hans Fromm. 2 vols. Wege der Forschung 15, 608. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1972-1985. 2.401-32.

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Brook, G. L., ed. The Harley Lyrics: The Middle English Lyrics of MS. Harley 2253. 3rd ed. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1964. Cavalcanti, Guido. Le Rime. Ed. Guido Favati. Documenti di Filologie 1. Milano: Ricciardi, 1957. Chambers, E. K., and Frank Sidgwick, eds. Early English Lyrics: Amorous, Divine, Moral and Trivial. London: Bullen, 1907. Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. F. N. Robinson. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton, 1957. Child, Francis James, ed. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. 5 vols. Boston: Houghton, 1882-98. Cooper, Helen. Pastoral: Mediaeval into Renaissance. Ipswich: Brewer; Totowa: Rowman & Littlefield, 1977. Culler, Jonathan. Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975. D'Ardenne, S. R.T. O., tA.pe Liflade ant te Passiun ofSeinte Iuliene. EETS 248. London: Oxford UP, 1961. Davis, Norman, et al., comp. A Chaucer Glossary. Oxford: Clarendon, 1979. Diller, Hans-Jürgen. Metrik und Verslehre. Studienreihe Englisch 18. Düsseldorf: Bagel; Bern: Francke, 1978. Dragonetti, Roger: La Technique Poétique des Trouvères dans la Chanson Courtoise: Contribution à l'Étude de la Rhétorique Médiévale. Rijksuniversiteit de Gent, Werken uitgegeven door de Faculteit van de Letteren en Wijsbegeerte 127. Brugge: "De Tempel," 1960. Dronke, Peter. Rev.of"Die englischen Liebesgedichte des MS. Harley 2253," by Theo Stemmler. Medium JEvum 32 (1963): 146-50. —. Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love-Lyric. I. Problems and Interpretations. II. Medieval Latin Love-Poetry. 2 vols. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1968. —. The Medieval Lyric. London: Hutchinson, 1968. Ewert, A., ed. Gui de Warewic. Classiques Français du Moyen Age, 74, 75. 2 vols. Paris: Champion, 1933. Fifield, M.J. "Alliteration in the Middle English Lyric." Diss. U of Illinois, 1960. Frankis, John. "The Social Context of Vernacular Writing in Thirteenth Century England: the Evidence of the Manuscripts." Thirteenth Century England. I. Ed. P. R. Cross and S. D. Lloyd. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 1986. 175-84. Fulton, Helen. "The Theory of Celtic Influence on the Harley Lyrics." Modern Philology 82 (1984-5): 239-54. Gérold, Théodore. La Musique du Moyen Age. Classiques Français du Moyen Age 73. Paris: Champion, 1932. Greene, Richard Leighton, ed. The Early English Carols. 2nd ed., revised and enlarged. Oxford: Clarendon, 1977.

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Healey, Antonette di Paolo, and Richard L. Venetzky, comps. A Microfiche Concordance to Old English. Toronto: Centre for Medieval Studies, 1980. Hilka, A., O. Schumann, B. Bischoff, eds., C. Fischer, H. Kuhn, transis. Carmina Burana: Die Lieder der Benediktbeurer Handschrift. Zürich, München: Artemis, 1974. Index: Brown, Carleton, and Rosseil Hope Robbins. The Index of Middle English Verse. New York: Columbia UP, 1943. Cutler, John L. Supplement to the Index of Middle English Verse. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1965. Jackson, W.T. H. "The Medieval Pastourelle as a Satirical Genre." Philological Quarterly 31 (1952): 156-70. —. ed. The Interpretation of Medieval Lyric Poetry. New York: Columbia UP, 1980. Jeanroy, Alfred. Les Origines de la Poésie Lyrique en France au Moyen-Age: Etudes de Littérature Française et Comparée. Paris: Hachette, 1889. Jones, William Powell. The Pastourelle: A Study of the Origins and Tradition of a Lyric Type. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1931. Kane, George. "A Short Essay on the Middle English Secular Lyric." NM 73 (1972): 110-21.

Ker, N. R. Facsimile of British Museum MS. Harley 2253. EETS 255. London: Oxford UP, 1965. —. Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries. I. London. Oxford: Clarendon, 1969. Kermode, Frank, ed. English Pastoral Poetry: From the Beginnings to Marvell. London: Harrap, 1952. Köhler, Erich. "La Pastourelle dans la Poésie des Troubadours." Etudes de Langue et de Littérature du Moyen Age, Offertes à Félix Lecoy. Paris: Champion, 1973.279-92. Koskenniemi, Inna. Repetitive Word Pairs in Old and Early Middle English Prose. Annales Universitatis Turkuensis, Ser. B, 107. Turku: Turun Yliopisto, 1968. Le Gentil, Pierre. La Poésie Lyrique Espagnole et Portugaise à la Fin du Moyen Age. I. Les Thèmes et les Genres. II. Les Formes. 2 vols. Rennes: Plihon, 1949-52. —. "A propos des Cánticas de lArchiprêtre de Hita." Wort und Text: Festschriftfür Fritz Schalk. Ed. Harri Meier and Hans Sckommodau. Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann, 1963.133-41. Leslie, R. F., ed. Three Old English Elegies: The Wife's Lament, The Husband's Message, The Ruin. Corrected ed. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1966. Lexer, Matthias. Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch. 3 vols. Leipzig: Hirzel, 1869-78. Machado, Elza Paxeco, and José Pedro Machado, eds. Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional, Antigo Colocci-Brancuti. 8 vols. Lisboa: "Revista de Portugal," 1949-64. MED: Kurath, Hans, Sherman M. Kuhn, Robert E. Lewis, John Reidy et al., eds. Middle English Dictionary. 1- Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1956.

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Menéndez Pidal, Ramón. "Sobre Primitiva Lirica Española." Cultura Neolatina 3 (1943): 203-13. Moore, Arthur K. The Secular Lyric in Middle English. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1951. Moret, André. "Le Mythe de la Pastourelle Allemande." Études Germaniques 3 (1948): 187-93. Oakden, J. P. Alliterative Poetry in Middle English. 2 vols. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1930-35. Oliver, Raymond. Poems Without Names: The English Lyric 1200-1500. Berkeley: U of California P, 1970. Osberg, Richard H. "Alliterative Technique in the Lyrics of MS Harley 2253." Modern Philology 82 (1984-5): 125-55. Pagliaro, Antonino. Poesia Giullaresca e Poesia Popolare. Biblioteca di Cultura Moderna 525. Bari: Laterza, 1958. Pascale, Michelangelo. "Le Musiche nelle Pastourelles Francesi del XII e XIII Secolo. Le Varianti Melodiche nella Tradizione Manoscritta." Università degli Studi di Perugia 13 (1976): 575-631. Pearcy, RoyJ. "The Genre of William Dunbar's Tretis of the TuaMariit Wemen and the Wedo." Speculum 55 (1980): 58-74. Pearsall, Derek. "The Alliterative Revival: Origins and Social Backgrounds." Middle English Alliterative Poetry and its Literary Background: Seven Essays. Ed. David Lawton. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 1982. 34-53. Pimpäo, Alvaro J. da Costa. Historia da Literatura Portuguesa: Idade Media. 2nd ed. Coimbra: Atlântida, 1959. Poirion, Daniel. Le Poete et le Prince: L'Évolution du Lyrisme Courtois de Guillaume de Machaut à Charles d'Orléans. Thèse. Grenoble: Université de Grenoble, 1965. Raby, F.J. E. A History of Secular Latin Poetry in the Middle Ages. 2nd ed. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1957. —, ed. The Oxford Book of Medieval Latin Verse. Oxford: Clarendon, 1959. Raynaud, Gaston. G. Raynauds Bibliographie des altfranzösischen Liedes. Rev. and completed by Hans Spanke. Leiden: Brill, 1955. Reiss, Edmund. The Art of the Middle English Lyric: Essays in Criticism. Athens, Georgia: U of Georgia P, 1972. Ritchie, W. Tod, ed. The Bannatyne Manuscript, Writtin in Tyme of Pest 1568. STS. 4 vols. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1928-34. Rivière,Jean-Claude, ed. Pastourelles. Textes Littéraires Français, 213,220,232,3 vols. Genève: Droz, 1974-6. Robbins, Rossell Hope. "The Middle English Court Love Lyric." Jackson, Interpretation 205-32. Rosenberg, Samuel N., and Hans Tischler, eds. Chanter M'Estuet: Songs of the Trouvères. London: Faber & Faber, 1981.

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Salter, Elizabeth. "The Alliterative Revival." Modern Philology 64 (1966-7): 146-50, 233-7. Samuels, M. L. "The Dialect of the Scribe of the Harley Lyrics." Poetica (Tokyo) 19 (1984): 3947. Sandison, Helen Estabrook. The "Chanson d'Aventure" in Middle English. Bryn Mawr College Monographs 12. Bryn Mawr: Bryn Mawr College, 1913. Scott, Tom. Dunbar: A Critical Exposition of the Poems. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1966. Serjeantson, Mary S. "The Dialects of the West Midlands in Middle English." R. E. S. 3 (1927): 54-67,186-203, 319-31. Sisam, Celia and Kenneth, eds. The Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse. Oxford: Clarendon, 1970. Spitzer, Leo. "Explication de Texte Applied to Three Great Middle English Poems." Archivum Linguisticum 3 (1951): 1-22,157-65. Stemmler, Theo. "Die englischen Liebesgedichte des MS. Harley 2253." Diss. U of Bonn, 1962. —. "An Interpretation of Alysoun." Chaucer and Middle English Studies in Honour of Rossell Hope Rabbins. Ed. Beryl Rowland. London: Allen, 1974. 111-8. —, ed. The Latin Hymns of Richard Ledrede. Poetria Mediaevalis 1. Mannheim: U of Mannheim, 1975. Stevens, John. Music and Poetry in the Early Tudor Court. London: Methuen, 1961. —, ed. Music at the Court of Henry Vili. Musica Britannica 18.2nd rev. ed. London: Stainer & Bell, 1969. —. Words and Music in the Middle Ages: Song, Narrative, Dance and Drama, 10501350. Cambridge Studies in Music. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986. Topsfield, L.T. Troubadours and Love. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1975. Walther, Hans. Initia Carminum ac Versuum Medii Aevi Posterioris Latinorum. Alphabetisches Verzeichnis der Versanfänge mittellateinischer Dichtungen. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht, 1959. Wapnewski, Peter. "Walthers Lied von der Traumliebe (74,20) und die deutschsprachige Pastourelle." Euphorion 51 (1957): 131-50. Wilson, R. M. The Lost Literature of Medieval England. 2nd ed. London: Methuen, 1970. Wimsatt, James I. Chaucer and the Poems of 'Ch' in University of Pennsylvania MS French 15. Chaucer Studies 9. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 1982. Woolf, Rosemary. "The Construction of In a FiyhtAs Y Con Fare Fremede." Medium JEvum 38 (1969): 55-9. Zink, Michel. La Pastourelle: Poesie et Folklore au Moyen Age. Paris: Bordas, 1972. Zumthor, Paul. Langue et Techniques Poétiques à l'Époque Romane (XT-XIIf Siècles). Paris: Klincksieck, 1963. —. Essai de Poétique Médiévale. Paris: Seuil, 1972.

IRENA JANICKA-SWIDERSKA

The Dance in Elizabethan and Stuart Drama

The purpose of the following study is to discuss the functions of dance in drama during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I until the closing of the theatres. It is generally known that song and dance were used after the performance of a play 1 ; sometimes music and dancing were introduced between the acts (Brissenden, Shakespeare 15). My concern is not with that kind of dance, on the contrary, I will only deal with the dance which functions as a symbol being integrated with the metaphoric vision of the play. One has also to bear in mind that instrumental music accompanied the dance. It is essential, above all, to remember that the dramatic text is fully realized only on the stage. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to analyze the working of the dance image, be it a stage or verbal image, in the theatrical vision which is formed by literary as well as by extra-literary means. Although I have worked on the role of dance in Elizabethan drama for a number of years there is still room left for further research and supplements. It has so happened that Alan Brissenden and I have done research along the same lines for some time expressing similar ideas and he has published more. His book on Shakespeare and the Dance and his article, "Jacobean Tragedy and the Dance" are not to be omitted in a study on the given subject.2 While Brissenden in his book is to a great extent concerned with what dances were danced and how they were danced during a performance, apart, of course, from analyzing their meaning in the plays, my analysis is limited to tracing their symbolic or allegorical function as stage or verbal images, in the 1

2

See "Dances" and "Platter* in Shakespeare Companion. For instance, mention is made there of Dr Thomas Platter's account of the dance he had seen after the performance of Julius Caesar. The dance has nothing to do with the play as such. My article, "The Dance in Elizabethan Drama. Part I" which I have used in this study came out after the publication of Brissenden's book in the same year. While my second article, "The Dance in Jacobean Drama," was still being printed—it came out only in 1984—Alan Brissenden, whom I met earlier (1983) in Oxford, very kindly sent me his article on "Jacobean Tragedy and the Dance." In this study I would like to do him justice by referring especially to his article, which was printed earlier.

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metaphoric vision of the play. Brissenden in his book has discussed chronologically all the dances in Shakespeare's plays within the three genres, and some dances in some Jacobean plays in his article. I have chosen only some plays by Shakespeare and more by other playwrights of the Stuart period being concerned with the meaning and function of the dance image as a whole in the drama of that period. Accordingly, I have found that they may be divided into several groups according to their thematic function and to the mode within which they operate. This enabled me, I hope, to arrive sometimes at more essential conclusions. It also seems to me that I have to a great extent investigated the symbolic verbal imagery which may play an important role in the metaphoric texture of the play. I have also drawn parallels with dance images from earlier plays. Finally, I have discussed some plays in the light of the Dance of Death motif, which was hitherto unpublished. The present study, which includes two of my articles printed earlier, will deal with the following kinds of dances: 1. the dance of lovers in the romantic mode; 2. the dance expressing divine love; 3. the dance of witches; 4. the Dance of Death in some Elizabethan and Stuart plays; 5. the dance of revengers; 6. the dance of sinners in the satiric mode; 7. the dance in which the satiric and romantic modes fuse; 8. the dance in The Broken Heart. Before I go on to discuss the function of the given dances I should like to make some introductory remarks about the popularity of dance in Elizabethan society, the 16th century works dealing with the dances, the connections between the dances expressing harmony and love and the contemporary views on "the music of spheres". In various records concerning the life of Henry VIII mention is made that the king was very fond of pageants, masques, and dances and that he even "danced to his own compositions" (Rust 43). But it was during the reign of Queen Elizabeth that "social dancing established itself as an important part of court life and court functions" (Rust 48). Not only the Queen herself but the whole nation seemed to enjoy dancing to such an extent that they were referred to as the "dancing English" (Rust 49). Instructions circulated as to how to dance particular dances. Robert Copelande's short explanation on the Basse Dance was the earliest one on dance in England (publ. in 1521) (Rust 40 f.). An important manual on dancing was Orchesographie by Thoinot Arbeau (publ. in 1588). There developed the institution of dancing schools and private dancing masters (Rust 49; Brissenden, Shakespeare 10). The chief dances practiced by the upper classes were: the basse dance, replaced by the pavane later on (solemn, graceful), the galliard and La Volta which Queen Elizabeth delighted in, the courantoe, the brawl, and the

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allemande. At the end of the century country dances were introduced at the court. 3 Baldassare Castiglione in his prose dialogue II Cortegiano (1528) which was translated into English in 1561, and the English educationalists, Sir Thomas Elyot and Roger Ascham, tutor to Queen Elizabeth, praise dancing as a pastime fit for a gentleman (Brissenden, Shakespeare 7 f.). It is the former who devotes considerable time to dancing in his Boke named the Governour (1531). He traces its origin to ancient mythology and finds that Plato's interpreters used the term dance in reference to the movements of planets (Elyot 73), a concept corresponding to the medieval and Elizabethan notion of the "music of the spheres". The writer praises dancing, thinking that the dance of man and woman expresses the harmony and unity of the qualities of both partners (77). He also finds that dancing may express symbolically the idea of virtue, especially prudence and, accordingly, he analyzes the steps and changes in the basse dance as symbols of the "branches" ofprudence (78-88). From what he writes, one may already deduce that dance was meant to express the idea of harmony, of unity, and such was exactly its symbolism in the Renaissance masque, though I will not deal with it here. It is there that dance expresses a harmonious state of existence, a heightened image of life beyond the common reality, inhabited by Virtues and Deities, relating to Neo-Platonic views. This idea corresponded to the contemporary notion of the "music of the spheres", of order and harmony in the universe performing a continuous dance, the origin ofwhich has been traced to Egyptian religious dances, to Pythagorean views, to Plato and Lucian (Kinney and Kinney 4; Rust 48).

I. THE DANCE OF LOVERS The dance of the people was related by contemporaries to the cosmic dance as was microcosm to macrocosm. Sir John Davies, in his poem Orchestra (1596) deals with the idea that music and dance indicate order and harmony in the universe as a result of the intervention of Love (Penguin Book of English Verse 42). Thus love is the principle that unifies the elements bringing order and harmony, the expression ofwhich is the dance of the universe. This symbolic function of dance, when related to the human world, seems to be implied in some of Shakespeare's romantic comedies. Much Ado About 3

Rust 47. As to the kinds of dances, see Rust 39-54, as well as Dolmetsch 82 fF.

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Nothing and As You Like It end with a dance, most probably a pavane, which is a confirmation of the romantic mode, of the happy union of lovers. In the latter play the Duke Senior says before the dance begins: Proceed, proceed: we will begin these rites, As we do trust they'll end, in true delights. (AYL 5.4.197 f.)

The dance then works here as a ritual ceremony testifying an inflated image of life; its measures shifting the characters to mystic dimensions, as it were, beyond the common reality. In A Midsummer Night's Dream the dance of the elves and their song at the end of the play remind us, moreover, of the native pagan tradition, of magic ritual dances at marriage feasts, which are to bring fertility, love and happiness into the lives of the married couple (Rust 12 f.). The magic wishes of the dancing elves—in the play—out of which there emerges an ideal vision of life, also refer to the offspring: To the best bride-bed will we, Which by us shall blessed be; And the issue there create Ever shall be fortunate. So shall all the couples three Ever true in loving be; (5.2.33-38)

In Love's Labour's Lost, on the other hand, a dance is anticipated but it does not take place. It is when Rosaline, disguised as the Princess, asks for music to let the guests dance. But suddenly she changes her mind and gives a contrary order: Not yet! no dance! thus change I like the moon. (5.2.213)

implying what later Berowne admits openly: "Jack hath not Jill" (5.2.870)

There is no love sensu stricto and no happy ending, and so the characters are not given the chance to dance. It seems then that Shakespeare plays very subdy with the image of dance here, reminding us of its symbolic meaning and then dispensing with it and thus reinforcing the idea of unattained happiness. Though the motif of dance, discussed so far, does not bear on the plot of the play, yet it enriches its vision and stresses its romantic mode bringing to our minds a heightened image of life. Similarly, the dance in Act 2 Scene 1 of Much Ado About Nothing as well as in some other plays does not play any

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structural role, it only reinforces the holiday mood brought about by the battles of wits and it is incorporated into the vision of life at court. Thus I do not agree with Brissenden's idea that it is integrated with the action of the play in the sense that after the words of Don Pedro to Hero "Lady, will you walk about with your friend?" (line 85) the characters both speak and dance a pavane (Brissenden, Shakespeare 49 f.). "Walk about" means there "to promenade with a partner during a masquerade" while to walk means "to go aside, to withdraw" (Onions 244). According to the stage directions, only after the dialogues of the given pairs is music heard (after line 148), and then the dance takes place in the form of a dumb show. As a result, the conversation and "promenading"—each pair could come in turn to the front of the stage—are a kind of test between the characters for the actual dance. It is also worth noting that it was usually a pavane that began a sequence of dances during a feast, and neither the contents of the dialogues nor the speakers' jocular mood and battle of wits at this stage would match its solemn tune. The dance seems then to be separated from the speeches of the characters and the action of the play, being rather a relief from it. On the other hand, in the tragedy Romeo andJuliet and the chronicle play, Henry VIII, the dance forms a suitable background and, at the same time, is integrated with the rise of the protagonist's feelings of love. It is while she is dancing that Romeo, who has come masked to the house of his parent's enemy, espies Juliet and falls in love with her at first sight. He watches her while she dances and it is then that she appears to him as "the true beauty" he has never seen before. In Henry V7//the dance of the king with Anne Boleyn (1.4.76) also becomes a significant prelude to his attraction to her, which finally leads to a divorce from Katharine and marriage to her. In both plays the dance may be viewed as a background against which the protagonist's thoughts and feelings are displayed, yet at the same time it is integrated with and becomes part of the first movement of the plot. And in both the plays the image of ideal female beauty and man's infatuation with it are dramatized with the help of dance. In The Winter's Tale dance seems to serve more obviously a dramatic purpose. Before Florizel dances with Perdita he says to her: . . . But come; our dance, I pray. Your hand, my Perdita: so turtles pair That never mean to part. (4.3.153-4)

Their dance expresses the unity and happiness of lovers and they form a central image against the background of the dancing shepherds and shep-

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herdesses (after line 165). The pastoral and romantic modes inherent in that image are dramatically contrasted with the ensuing anger o f Florizel's father who has come disguised and who learns that his son wants to marry the girl without letting him know about it. His presence before and during the dance, at which he himself and Camillo become onlookers, arouses suspense and gives foreboding o f the oncoming events. Thus the dance o f the lovers, indicating the theme o f love, is juxtaposed with the counterpoint theme formed by Polixenes's motives, by his desire to destroy that love. As a result, dramatic conflict and tension are brought about. A purely visual contrast o f a theatrical kind is also created. This is when the guests, Polixenes and Camillo, and the Shepherd, are looking at Florizel and Perdita. Accordingly, the characters are divided into two groups: the audience, as it were, and those who dance and are watched.

II. T H E D A N C E O F DIVINE L O V E Another function o f the Elizabethan dance is to bring out a moral purpose. Shakespeare has also used the dance pattern to express a heightened image o f life in the religious sphere. The division o f love into its two kinds, the earthly and the divine, the latter having been propagated by the Neo-Platonists, is dramatized in Henry VIII through the experience o f the two wives o f the king. In Act 4 Scene 2 the dance works as a symbolic stage image to stress the idea o f divine love and spiritual glory as opposed to earthly love, success and power. In the preceding scene the coronation o f Anne Boleyn takes place. She wins the hearts o f the people who admire her beauty, royal behaviour, and piety. They not only accept her as the queen but are also overjoyed at her success. Thus Anne has the love o f her husband, her people, and royal splendour. Scene 2 shows Katharine, Henry's first wife. She is awaiting her death and in a dream she sees messengers o f God, angels, with "golden vizards" on their faces and garlands on their heads, dancing in a masque-like scene. 4 They have brought a garland for her as a token o f her moral victory. They dance with the spare garland and at certain "changes" two dancers hold the garland over Katharine's head. The emblematic scene expresses the glorificaBrissenden suggests that they dance a pavane (Shakespeare

105).

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tion of Katharine's spiritual life. Thus the theme of worldly and spiritual victory emerges from the lives of the two queens. Shakespeare was undoubtedly influenced by the use, before him, of dumbshow in drama when he worked out the emblematic scene in this play.5 In a 16th century morality play, Like Will to Like, the virtuous protagonist, Virtuous Life, is, like Katharine, rewarded for his moral life. He is asked to sit down in a chair and receives a crown and a sword as tokens of his spiritual victory from Honour. Then all God's messengers, God's Promise, Honour, and Virtuous Living sing a song full of adoration of God. The dance is missing here and the characters talk, but in both plays the virtuous protagonists are rewarded by receiving or seeing tokens of their love of God. 6 Speech and song are replaced in Henry VIII by a dance which significantly transforms Katharine's earthly status into a heavenly one, signalling mystic dimensions, a mystic reality. The dance may also be used as an image of ideal life on the political plane, as is the case in A Game at Chess by Th. Middleton. It is at the same time, however, integrated with the satiric approach to political matters, hence I will discuss the play after having analyzed the satiric functioning of the dance pattern.

III. THE DANCE OF WITCHES So far, I have dealt with the dance indicating a heightened image of life, that of love, harmony and goodness. On the other hand, there are the dances that project evil, hatred, and the vicious state of man. The witches' dance in Macbeth in Act 4 Scene 1, after line 132, may even pass unnoticed by the reader, yet visually it performs a rather important function, expressing the idea of evil and thus reinforcing the moral issue of the play. In the light of contemporary beliefs, the existence of witches and their alliance with evil was undeniable. It seems probable that by changing Holinshed's "goddesses of destinie, or else some nymphs or feiries" into witches (the language and the place speak for themselves), Shakespeare bore in mind James I's work on Daemono5

6

The d u m b show was used, for instance, in Gorboduc(See Elizabethan Plays 77). It is also to be found in Pericles (see Janicka 111-121). In Appius and Virginia the allegorical dumb show is quite impressive (Janicka 116). Happé 350; see Janicka 120. In the case of Katherine, she is only shown the garland.

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logie, in which witches and witchcraft are discussed (Tragedies 550; see Holinshed's Chronicle 211; Scot 23). He, most likely, drew his inspiration to write a play on Scottish history, linking the past with the present, from the accession of a Scottish king to the English throne. It is worth mentioning that about three years later, Ben Jonson wrote The Masque of Queenes with the excellent antimasque in which witches are the main characters. He also seems to have taken James I's interests into account. In the antimasque the witches dance and Ben Jonson remarks in the stage-directions that it is "an vsuall^ ceremony at theyr Convents or meetings", referring the reader—wrongly—to James I's Daemonologie1. The scenery there symbolizes hell, from which the witches appear to the accompaniment of infernal music. A remark is made that "all Euills are (morally) sayd to come from Hell" (Jonson, Works 7: 282 f.). In Macbeth, the moral fall of the protagonist is strictly connected with the witches' influence on him, reminding us of the activities of vices as tempters in the moralities. In the first scene of Act 4 the scenery helps to bring out symbolic implications. While Macbeth's Porter has compared himself to the devil's Porter implying the links between the castle and hell, here the actual presence of witches in a dark cavern in which a cauldron is boiling, reminds the audience of hell in a visual way, as was illustrated in medieval and sixteenth century art or as presented on stage. The witches themselves equate the contents of the cauldron with "hell-broth". Accordingly, the appearance of Macbeth there and his growing awareness of having been entrapped by the witches, after he has seen the show of kings followed by Banquo's ghost, receive a symbolic meaning. In this context the grotesque dance of the witches becomes a ritual enactment of the presence of evil, of demonism. Moreover, the witches seem to have full knowledge of Macbeth's inner life and of his real fate; they only pretend to be ignorant of it. When they say—in chorusShow his eyes, and grieve his heart; (4.1.110)

it seems clear that they know what Macbeth will see. If this is so, the clash between the protagonist's inner state-his amazement-when he has seen the show of kings and the surprise of the First Witch at his behaviour: . . . but why Stands Macbeth thus amazedly? (126)

7

Works 7: 283, line 43 f.; note d: see Complete Masques 526, note 8.

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as well as her trifling words, seems to be telling. This would correspond to the illusions the witches have helped to create for Macbeth, illustrated by their: "Fair is foul, and foul is fail" (1.1.11). As a result, the words "great king," "kindly say," "welcome pay," used by the First Witch, would sound ironic (4.1.131). It is suggested by her that the dance should cheer Macbeth up. Instead, however, he curses them all after they have vanished. Thus, if we accept the view of the witches' knowledge of their role in the temptation of Macbeth and of his fate, a more profound meaning will be asigned to the dance itself. The witches mock at Macbeth, while they pretend to give him homage. And having made him their victim, in their triumphal and sacrificial dance, they offer him to the powers they serve. The boiling cauldron becomes the symbol of Macbeth's goal, the dance, moreover, sinister mockery. And it is in this spirit that the last words of the First Witch may be understood: That this great king may kindly say, Our duties did his welcome pay. (4.1.131 f.)

In this way the grotesque dance of the witches would signify the apex of their activities, forming an integral link with the plot, and making the theme of the moral fall of Macbeth and the triumph of evil manifest in an emblematic way. Apart from contemporary beliefs in witches and their ritual performances, a link may be drawn with some moralities, especially with Like Will to Like, where the alliance of man with evil is expressed through a dance. In one of the scenes the vicious man, Tom Collier, dances with the Devil and the Vice, Nicol Newfangle (Happé 328, after line 176). The dance works as an emblematic stage image illustrating the alliance of man with evil. While here, it seems, the comic grotesque dominates, in the case of the witches in Macbeth, the grim grotesque overshadows the comic. The latter may easily, now and then, however, arise on account of the incongruous gestures and movements of the witches during their dance, depending on the performance. The dance of the elves in A Midsummer Night's Dream—together with their song—and that of the witches recall the magic ritual dances of folk culture. At the same time they are the key stage symbols of the two plays expressing the victory of love and good wishes, the affirmation of life and the future of man, on the one hand, and on the other, the victory of evil, the negation of happiness, indicating a most gloomy vision of man's destiny.

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IV. T H E D A N C E O F D E A T H A N D S O M E E L I Z A B E T H A N A N D STUART PLAYS In this part of my study, I will analyze certain scenes from selected plays in the light of the Dance of Death. This medieval theme also deflates the image of life showing man as a sinner whose body after death is "the food ofworms". It strongly influenced a number of medieval and Renaissance writers. It also sometimes helped to enrich the metaphoric vision of the plays and has affected playwrights until now. A survey of the views on the origin and the meaning of the Dance of Death and an endeavour to justify the subject I have chosen for study, will precede the analysis of the plays. a. Although any discussion on the Dance of Death starts with a reference to the fifteenth century (1424) mural paintings on the walls of the cloisters of the Innocents in Paris—destroyed in the 17th century (Chaney 7)—and to Paris as the home of the Dance of Death, yet, at the same time, there is a strong belief among critics that the subject derived from drama or from the mimed sermon (Chaney 3; see also Clark, Hans Holbein 7). In Normandy a play was performed at the end of the 14 th century which may be linked with the theme under discussion (Clark, Middle Ages 93). It is worth mentioning that until the end of the 15 th century Death was represented by dead figures in the plastic arts. The skeleton appeared in these only in the 16th century, as shown in Holbein's illustrations. That is why it is sometimes thought that, in reference to the mural paintings of the Innocents in Paris, the dead figures are the counterparts of the living and not the representation of Death (Clark, Middle Ages 105 f.). The Dance of Death is a West European phenomenon though some of its features may be traced to Egyptian culture (Lydgate 126). The 12th century poem Vado Mori is regarded as a possible source of the dialogue between Death or the dead and the living. From the social point of view, the Dance of Death should be linked with both the Black Death and the gradual collapse of the feudal system (Lydgate 126 f.). People must have enjoyed the levelling of the social ranks in the "Dance" and it gave them some satisfaction in the times of plagues. This, perhaps, made the artist show the grinning face, the satiric, mocking, even exultant attitude towards his victims of the messenger of God, who treated Pope, king, and pauper in the same way.

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As for the dance itself, J. Clark and W Stammler refer to the superstitions concerning the dead dancing in churchyards and the dances of fairies who "lure mortals to their doom" (Clark, Hans Holbein 7; see Stammler 9; Warren XV), as the possible sources of the "dance" as such. The dance of the dead in a round is mentioned in a Dutch poem based on a 14th century French poem (Warren XV). The Dance ofDeath in a round as illustrated in the Douce Print 6.4 (fig. 1), is a departure from the usual presentation of the Dance ofDeath in medieval art, namely as a "linear", processional dance. It thus signals the possibility of linking the Dance ofDeath with the literary motif of the dead dancing in a round, and with folklore. Its origin—in connection with the Death motif—should be especially looked for, however, in the dancing-mania among folk in the 14th and 15th centuries. On account of the Black Death people were encouraged to dance to overcome their fright and low spirits. Dance was regarded as remedial (Warren XIII f.) and sometimes it may have taken the form of a ritual. The stability of society, however, was shaken by the effects of the Black Death. In Germany homeless people were reported to wander in "bands", being exposed to hunger and mental exhaustion. In this context it is easy to understand the growth of dancing-mania. The so-called St. Vitus' dance, spreading especially in Germany, is supposed to have resulted only in individual cases from organic nervous disorder, and most often it was mass hysteria and revelry. There are accounts of mass dances in Germany which lasted for a long time (Warren XIII; Rust 19-27). The dance of the dancers of Colbek in Handlyng Synne—it lasted a whole year, based on the Manuel des Pechies by William of Wadington (13 th century), is a peculiar phenomenon of the Middle Ages which was integrally linked with both the contemporary social and economic conditions of the society and which was related to the dances of magic and religious worship in primitive cultures. These group-mass-dances often ended in riotous behaviour and they also took place in churchyards. It is assumed, therefore, that the clergy, condemning such dances, found an antidote by using the dance-pattern for a moral purpose (Warren XIII). It is hinted at that the mendicant orders who revolutionized the sermon in the 13th century by introducing realism and dramatic elements were very often concerned with the theme of death and thus initiated its dramatization. It was achieved by the use of dialogue and dance (Owst 531; Clark, Middle Ages 95). In this way they purified an artform which, according to many ecclesiastics, had been profaned. There is, at any rate, an account of a sermon during which the preacher produced a skull, trying in this way to make people reflect on death and impress them in a visual

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way (Clark, Middle Ages 94). The next step would be to make the object, signifying the dead person, speak and move. And, according to Clark, many versions of the Dance of Death are "typical Franciscan sermons in miniature" (104 f.). The sermon on death as well as the motif of the Dance of Death were an expression of contemporary times and they formed an integral part of the general climate then, that of the horror of the Black Death, of the plagues; they fitted into the social and visual landscape in which the numerous funerals, the charnel-houses full of bones and skulls, the heaps of corpses waiting to be buried during the plague, so often dominated the other, festive side of life. People were horrified by the idea of death but they were also used to the sight of it. The best example was the cemetery of the Innocents, where the people entertained themselves, went for walks, met their lovers, and bought wares laid out by merchants in the arches of the cloisters surrounding the cemetery (Chaney 4 f.). It was there—on the walls—that the paintings presenting the motif of the Dance of Death could be examined by the passers-by (fig. 2). By the allegorical motif, the Dance of Death, we understand a dance to which Death has invited or rather forced the living to take part, as is expressed in art and literature. Thus people of various social ranks are led by the personification of death (or by the dead) to a dance, that is to death. The paintings (woodcuts, drawings) are supplemented by verses below them (or above and below). Holbein's engravings are the greatest achievement in the art of illustrating the Dance of Death in the 16 th century. It is owing to him, scholars believe, that the following generations of artists and writers were inspired by that motif. It must be stressed, however, that he departed from the idea of the dance of the whole humanity by presenting a "series of isolated groups", by portraying "individual men and women" (Clark, Hans Holbein 26 f.). Just as in the crucifixion scene of the mystery plays, so also in the Dance of Death, the "Gothic" style takes the upper hand. The tragic aspect of death is incongruously deflated by means of the facial expressions and manual gestures of Death. Even the horrified faces ofpeople forced to that "dance" seem ridiculous and rather make us perceive the satiric aim of the artist than sympathize with the victims who are unprepared for death. In England, it was John Lydgate who wrote verses for the mural paintings, illustrating the Dance of Death, of the cloisters at St. Paul's in London. His The Daunce ofMachabree (143 3), as he himself admits, is an adaptation of the verses from the Innocents in Paris (Clark, Hans Holbein 8), which

Fig. 1.

Douce Print 6.4, in the New Bodleian Library, Courtesy of the Bodleian Library

Fig. 2.

See Chaney

Fig. 6.

Fig. 7.

MS Arundel 83, fol. 127, in the British Museum. Courtesy of the British Museum.

Douce Portfolio 142, leaf 462, in the New Bodleian Library. Courtesy of the Bodleian Library

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appeared about nine years earlier. Unfortunately, the cloisters in London were destroyed already in 1549, but for over a century the paintings were on show to passers by (8). They are mentioned by St. Thomas More (More 77). Those in Paris were destroyed in the 17th century (Chaney 7). There existed mural paintings of the Dance of Death in the Guild Chapel of Stratfordupon-Avon and in 1563, under the supervision o f j o h n Shakespeare, William Shakespeare's father, who acted as chamberlain then, the frescoes were "overlaid with whitewash"8. When William was a boy he could have heard about them from his father. J. Clark enumerates the places in which the motif was presented in England (a.o. in Windsor) and he also stresses that the subject was illustrated in many Dominican and Franciscan convents in Europe (Clark, Middle Ages 7-21,104). It is worth mentioning that Hans Holbein the Younger was court painter to Henry VIII and spent the rest of his life in England. It is most probable that he used the Dance of Death theme in his works for Whitehall, as has been conjectured, but above all, he revived the medieval theme, which had been introduced by John Lydgate, through his famous wood engravings, Les Simulachres ...; through him they must have become known to many people, especially to Henry VIII and the courtiers. While examining books of prayers of the Elizabethan period one may come across two such books kept in the Bodleian Library; one was printed by John Daye in London in 1578 (Tanner 285), the other by Richard Yardley and Peter Short in 1590, London (Douce BB 224) (Chew 228). In both appear the same illustrations of the Dance of Death on the margins of the pages (fig. 3). They are thus one of the proofs of the existence of the medieval motif in plastic arts in that period. It belonged to a popular heritage, familiar to both educated and simple people in England.

b. It is hardly possible to demonstrate any direct and explicit links between the Dance of Death motif and Elizabethan and Stuart drama, except for the Revenger's tragedy. Yet, on the other hand, one would be disturbed, I suppose, with the view that the medieval motif had definitely no effect on the creative imagination of the contemporary playwright, especially as it 8

Puddephat 29. I should like to express here my cordial thanks to the Curator of the Bodleian Library who was kind enough to draw my attention to this article.

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belonged to a popular heritage. It seems that the Dance of Death was partly dispensed with and that partly those who worked on the theme of death were still influenced by it. Thus the playwrights of the late 16th and first part of the 17th century did not use the allegorical character of Death any more, and man stopped being mute and passive in relation to it. The contemporary dimensions of realism, the secularizing tendencies, and humanism in general must have been at work here. Man was shifted to the central position and the dead man or skeleton representing Death has dwindled to "a skull" and/ or has been fragmented and expanded into many bones, skulls in a cemetery or charnel-house, forming a baroque landscape in poetry and drama. Accordingly, Death does not appear any longer on the stage to take man to "a dance" as it has done in The Pride ofLife, The Castle ofPerseverance and Everyman. It does not address his mute victim to teach him mockingly about his sinful state and about the equality of people in the face of death, as has been the case (indirectly) in The Pride of Life (Happé 45, lines 55 f.; see Farnham 182) or (direcdy) in Everyman (Adams 290, lines 125 f.), and above all, in the Dance of Death verses, for instance in these from the Ellesmere MS: Dethe spareth not / low ne hye degre Popes, kynges / ne worthi Emperowrs. (Warren 2, lines 9 f.)

Instead man, reversing the situation, takes up the skull and speaks to the dead on the seventeenth century stage. While the medieval Death voiced the ideas of Church, here man speaks for himself and for the dead, bringing to mind their life gone by. Even though the changes show a great departure from the Dance of Death motif, they still remind us of it, being a reworking of an old device rather than an entirely original presentation of the motif of death. Accordingly, I will analyze certain scenes of chosen plays in the light of the Dance of Death: Hamlet, The Revenger's Tragedy, The Atheist's Tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi. Hamlet (5.1.) Hamlet may be defined as a play about death. Hamlet's concern with the killing of his uncle, his sad reflections on death "that undiscovered country", are integrated with the reports on or representation on the stage of various kinds of deaths that men fall victim to. This procession of the people who have unexpectedly lost their lives (Hamlet's father, Polonius, Ophelia, etc.) forms a certain rhythm in the play, reminding us somehow of the procès-

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sional Dance of Death. It is also striking that Hamlet walks about the stage in black robes for most of the time, stressing the idea of death, and also reminding us of Death in terms of a stage emblem when, for instance, he stands behind Claudius praying, and is nearly ready to take his life. The grave-diggers' scene in this play is undoubtedly most essential to the theme of death and it seems that certain devices used there may be interpreted in the light of the Dance of Death. The scene starts prelude-like with the burlesque remarks of the grave-digger and his boy 9 and with their jokes about Ophelia's burial. It is ironically pointed out that the nobility may be favoured even at burial as Ophelia committed suicide and yet is given a Christian burial. One may wonder, however, whether the idea of inequality has not been subtly counterpointed by the word "even" in "Even-Christian", thus echoing the medieval concept of equality of all Christians in the face of death. It is obvious that the tragic aspect of death has been grotesquely deflated in the Dance of Death motif by the appearance and behaviour of the animated skeleton. Its facial expressions, as shown in medieval and 16th century art, are grinning, mocking, exultant, its gestures are dance-like, which has a "macabre" effect, and its attitude towards the victims is also expressed through its language permeated with satire, mockery, macabre humour. Shakespeare uses a similar deflation in respect to the theme of death, in the face of the tragic death of Ophelia, through the jokes of the grave-digger and his boy, in order to introduce some relief as well as to extend the theme on a different plane. In an analogous way, he deflates the tragic treatment of crime in Macbeth by adapting the motif of the hell-porter and the hell scenery of the mystery plays to introduce relief and simultaneously to create an impressive metaphoric vision. When we analyze the graveyard scene in Hamlet we find that there is more than just the theme of equality in the face of death or the grotesque lowering of the theme of death that remind us of the Dance of Death pattern. There is also the bone and worm imagery evoked in Hamlet's words as in the following: Why, e'en so, and now my Lady Worm's; chapless, and knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade. Here's fine revolution, an we had According to Emrys Jones, there is only one grave-digger, the other Fool is his servantboy. He stressed it during a talk in Oxford, July 1983.

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which recalls the worm imagery in the sermons and the Dance of Death verses, as for instance: That wormes fode / is fyne o f owre lyuynge. (Warren 74, line 640)

The verbal imagery of this kind is integrated with the stage imagery forming the scenery. It is worthwhile mentioning here that according to R. Eisler the word "macabre" or "macabre" derives from Hebrew or Aramean and not from Arabic, "meqaber" meaning grave-digger (200, 224). Thus the "danse macabre" would mean the dance of grave-diggers (meqabrey-methim). He traces the custom to "the funeral pantomime of the Jewish and Syrian fossores," undertakers, (224). He also writes that the danse macabre "is a 'ludicrous ceremony instituted by the clergy"' because the meqabrey of the Syrians, the fossores of the Latins were one of the lower orders of the clergy (224). He also points out that in the editions of the Dance of Death by Guyot Marchant of Paris the woodcuts present the dead with the shovel and pickaxe (217-223) (fig. 2). One may wonder whether the Dance of Death motif was not a burlesque of the serious Jewish ceremonies. Perhaps then the jokes of the Fools in Hamlet echo some customs, known to Shakespeare, which are related to the Dance of Death motif. 10 Finally, another device used by Shakespeare in this scene is Hamlet's address to the skulls, in which he revives the dead by imagining how they would speak and act, as in the following: Or o f a courtier, which could say, 'Good morrow, sweet lord! H o w dost thou, good lord?' This might be my lord Such-a-one, that praised my Lord Such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it, . . . (5.1.84-87)

When he takes up Yorick's skull, he directly addresses him and gives him orders as if he were alive (199-201). All these examples seem to be related to the G. Kastner contends that Shakespeare was influenced by the wall paintings in the Guild Chapel in Stratford-upon-Avon, which is discernible in Hamlet (Kastner 105, note 1) as in: Eisler 207, note 140. He could not have been influenced by them directly, however, as he was only one year old when the paintings were whitewashed. He could only have heard about them from his father (see Puddephat 29).

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medieval motif in art of the Three Queens/Kings Alive and Dead (fig. 6), and, less directly perhaps, to that of the Dance of Death. The poem The Three Pollis by Henryson, the Scottish poet, in which three skulls address the living telling them about the passing of human life is directly linked with that heritage and it brings it home in poetry. The device with the skull, used by Shakespeare to point out the juxtaposition of life and death, is a variation of the same theme belonging to the same cultural tradition. It is also worth stressing that, as in the Dance of Death motif, where Death invariably enters at the moment man is experiencing life at its best, doing the most trivial, momentary things, here too, but with a greater dramatic and poetic insight, the dialectic between life and its trifling aspects and death with its horrid effects is presented in a rather light vein. Besides, in spite of the distance and the basic reflective, elegiac tone the hero assumes, the effect is grotesque when the skull is addressed, since it is approached as a living person and asked to act. The semi-jocular tone assumed at times by Hamlet, comes closer to that used by the grave-digger a little earlier, and it also serves as a counterpoint to the serious elegiac utterings used by him elsewhere. The dirge of the Clown accompanying Hamlet's reflections helps to build up a polyphony on the same subject. The image of Death as one who "steals in" and seizes man as depicted in the woodcuts illustrating the Dance of Death might be the source of the second stanza of the lyric: But age, with his stealing steps, H a t h clawM m e in his clutch, (73 f.)

The ideas of the passing away of life, of rottenness, of the decayed flesh in the ground eaten by worms are strengthened by the scenery, the cemetery, the skulls, the requisites of human existence (fig. 3), and they evoke a gloomy, sad moon. The visual and the verbal play the part of a general "requiem" in which the song of the boy Clown functions like a musical accompaniment to the speeches of Hamlet. At the same time they lend perspective to the main theme of the scene, death, and to the key-image, the coffin with Ophelia's body and the funeral procession. Though the grotesque style of the Dance of Death seems to be recalled here through the remarks and jokes of the Clowns, of Hamlet, through the image of Death, as well as through the stage-imagery, a new mood and a new dimension have taken the upper hand, forming part of the tragic style. This is owing to the sublime mood accompanying the funeral procession and burial

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of Ophelia which is presented realistically. "Nunc" human life as such, is given its importance, its dignity, its fame and beauty, even at the moment of death, expressing thus the spirit of the Renaissance (Spencer 36,40,42,56 f.). The Revenger's Tragedy In The Revenger's Tragedy the theme of death pervades the whole play by means of stage- and verbal imagery. The links with the Dance of Death motif have been dealt with by a number of critics.11 In the beginning of the play Vindice, like Hamlet, holds a skull and speaks to it. The scenery, however, is not the graveyard, and the skull he addresses is that of his dead mistress, which seems to be more macabre than Hamlet's address to Yorick. Besides, Vindice, dressed in a black robe, evokes the image of the dancing skeleton from the Dance of Death when, looking at the skull in "dim torchlight", he says: ...— be merry, merry, A d v a n c e thee, o h t h o u terror t o fat folks To have their costly three-piled flesh w o r n o f f As bare as this— . . . n

The grinning facial expression of the skeleton in dance-like postures is brought to mind. Yet a modification of the medieval motif takes place as Death is identified with Revenge here (Tourneur XIX) and is thus integrated with the theme of revenge in the play. The skull of the dead mistress constantly signals in the play the life gone by, and thus it is in the tradition of the medieval concept of the juxtaposition of the living and the dead. Moreover, Vindice seems to be quite used to the skull, he carries it about, and sometimes treats it as a living person. It goes without saying then that the play reflects an aspect of contemporary life as has been succintly defined by Lynn White in the following words: "The age of the Renaissance was an epoch not only of human tragedy but also of widespread mental derangement accentuated by tragedy. Yet we must remember that the first, fairly mild, evidences of socially manifested necrophilia emerge about 1225" (31). The Dance of Death motif seems to reflect a kind of enjoyment of corpses by the artist. Something like the enjoyment of the skull by Vindice who carries it about S. Schoenbaum has written an excellent study on the subject in "The Revenger's Tragedy: Jacobean Dance of Death". See also Brissenden, "Jacobean Tragedy" 251-54. Tourneur, Revenger's Tragedy, 1.1.44-47. In the introduction Brian Gibbons aptly discusses the theme of death and the Dance of Death (XXVIII f.).

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recalls the attitudes of both the artists working with the Dance of Death motif and those who responded to it. The feat of the grotesquely bizarre and unreal takes place in Act 3, Scene 5, where again the skull becomes a scenic object being opposed to the hovering image of the past life of the lady it now recalls. Vindice delivers another monologue reflecting sadly that the skull he is now holding is the only remnant of a woman's life. The following words indicating the decay of man's body after death: ...; see, ladies, with false forms You deceive men but cannot deceive worms. (Tourneur 3.5.96 f.)

recall the worm imagery used in sermons and the Dance of Death motif, for instance in the words in Tanner 285 (fig. 4 bottom right), and the macabre humour recalls that of Death. The climax of the grotesque vision takes place in the next part of the scene, in which the skull has a structural function. It is used to counterfeit a living woman. Vindice, introducing to the lecherous Duke the skull "dressed in tires" as the promised mistress, brings about grotesque effects and this may amuse the audience for a while until it turns out that the device has been used to poison the Duke by making him kiss the skull. Finally, Vindice and Hippolito turn out to be appalling sadists when they inflict terrible tortures on their victim. It is worth noting that with reference to the French theatre Gustave Cohen writes that tortures and executions "lasted even longer on the stage than in actuality" in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries (White 32; cf. Cohen, Gustave 148, 267, 275). The skull then has been used as a means to carry out revenge through tortures and death; it also inexorably horrified the reader (audience) and at the same time it amused them, just as the medieval motif did. The last scene of the play, in which a masque dance is performed, presents yet another movement in the treatment of the Dance of Death towards a new formula, while remaining linked to Vindice's soliloquy at the beginning of the play. I will discuss it, however, in the following section dealing with dances of revengers. The Atheist's Tragedy Scene 3 of Act 4 of The Atheist's Tragedy seems to operate rather as an impromptu on the Dance of Death motif, but I think it is worthwhile analyzing it. The scenery presents a graveyard as in the grave-diggers' scene in Hamlet. Also, Charlemont's monologue at the beginning of the scene resembles

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that of Hamlet in so far as it deals with death. Charlemont, however, is not afraid of the unknown life after death. He praises man's state after death, ignoring the physical process of decay. The apparently paradoxical argumentation is based on a deeply ironical philosophy of life. The subtext evolves the image of man who has stopped fighting, being fatigued and weary of life. Such an attitude towards death is certainly not to be found in the Dance of Death motif. The following stages of the scene form a series of stage-images which invariably point to the opposition between life and death as in the Dance of Death. The playwright all the time very skilfully keeps the reader on the alert by introducing unexpected turns in the action and juxtaposing contrastive styles. Thus Charlemont, when attacked by Borachio—a moment later—is instantly able to move from a reflective mood to an active state in order to defend his life, and in the duel unexpectedly kills the villain. Then he proves to be quite practical though not heroic when he decides to escape. The following episode, an enactment of debauchery presented in a burlesque way, shows, this time, a quick shift from the serious to the low comic. The graveyard thus becomes a scene epitomizing life in which crime and debauchery parade among the dead. The world becomes topsy-turvy and the grotesque effect and macabre humour are reinforced by the lecher's desire to hide his activities under the guise of a ghost; by Charlemont's decision to hide in the charnel-house among skulls and by the later episodic scene in which he and his beloved lie down there using skulls for pillows. The tensions emerge from the juxtaposition of the living and the dead, which expresses the antithetic themes of life and death. The latter is formed by visual effects and verbal means (fig. 5). Apart from Charlemont's monologue, the characters' thoughts repeatedly point to and are absorbed by the idea of death so that the impressions the audience receives revolve poignantly round the "memento mori" theme. Castabella, for instance, wishes the grave might open and her ...body Were bound to the dead carcass of a man Forever, . . . (4.3.171-173)13

rather than become a mistress of D'Amville. Languebeau, seeking Soquette, mistakes the body of the dead Borachio for hers, as the former lies in the same place she had been before. He begins to make love to it, until he finds As to the influence of the morality tradition on the play see Tourneur, The Atheist's Tragedy XXIV-XXX.

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out that it is "masculine gender" (line 210) and a corpse. The motif of the lecher and his mistress introduces the spirit of revelry and topsyturvydom in a rather "gothic" mode to my mind, the harbinger of death being signalled by visual means. But obviously one might detect the "carpe diem" theme and trace the relation of sex and death to ancient sources.14 The deflation of the death theme, however, seems to be rather in tone with the Dance of Death motif in view of the particular macabre grotesque style used here. It seems that it rather brings out the Baroque features of the play. The skeletons, the skulls, behind which death sneers, are constandy in the minds of the characters, as if the charnel-house, the graves, the whole graveyard, were a projection of man's thoughts, and as if the dead were partners of the living, forming definitely an essential part of the landscape of the world. Even D'Amville's conscience seems to awake in the company of the dead. He addresses, for instance, a skull which seems to exercise hypnotic force on him: Why dost thou stare upon me? Thou art not the skull of him I murdered, (lines 212 f.)

He gets frightened and confused and behaves like a man who is invited by the medieval Death to a dance, anticipating death and punishment: Black Beelzebub And all his hell-hounds come to apprehend me? (line 254)

The reader/audience is again made to reflect on the antithesis between the dead and the living, when D'Amville finds the two lovers, Charlemont and Castabella, asleep among the skeletons and skulls in the charnel-house. Their beauty, youth, and life grotesquely clash with the background, reminding us of man's lot. The scene, both thematically and structurally, seems to be indebted to the medieval motif in which the dead are opposed to the living as in the Three Queens/Kings Alive and Dead in plastic arts (fig. 6). Thus all the sections of Scene 3 of Act 4 show that the theme of life and death, treated in a variety of ways and strengthened by the theatrical imagery, may be analyzed in the light of the Dance of Death and related themes.

Prof. Witold Ostrowski has kindly reminded me of the coexistence of sex and death already in the story of the "Ephesian Matron" in the Banquet ofTrimalchio by Petronius Arbiter.

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The Duchess of Malfi The Duchess of Malfi15 in particular reminds us of the medieval theme although, as in the other plays, it is considerably modified. It is in the subtext again that some verbal images and, perhaps, some stage-images signal the Dance of Death, thus enriching the metaphoric texture (Ekeblad 259). Already in A. 2, Sc. 1 Bosola uses the traditional imagery of the sermon and the Dance of Death verses, when he sketches a gloomy vision of man's life: But in our own flesh, though we bear diseases Though we are eaten up of lice and worms; And though continually we bear about us A rotten and dead body, we delight To hide it in rich tisue: . . . (73-79)

The two dimensions, the "now" and the "after" have been integrated into one image. While in Tourneur's The Atheist's Tragedy the themes of life and death have been worked out by creating visual similes (e.g. lovers sleeping among skulls), here the image has been formed in terms of a metaphor unifying the two ideas, life and death, in a surrealistic vision of man who, paradoxically enough, is already viewed as dead during his life. The stress is put on the future death which is hidden under our present "clothes" (body). The subtext of Sc. 2 of A. 4 evokes the theme of the Dance of Death with even greater force than that discussed so far. The words of the first Madman "Doomsday not come yet?" (line 73) sound like an overture to a greater musical theme. Later, the image describing hell as "a mere glass house, where the devils are continually blowing up women's souls on hollow irons, and the fire never goes out" (78-81), which reminds us of the motifs forming Bosch's vision of hell, reinforces this impression and anticipates future events. Next, the grotesque dance of the madmen, like most of the preceding dialogue, epitomizes the present, the earthly, topsy-turvy existence, and it apparently operates as a counterpoint theme of death. 16 Simultaneously, however, it is integrated with the theme of death, embodying mental death (madness) and the theme of hell evoked by the verbal image. 15 16

All the references in the text to The Duchess of Malfi will be to Stuart Plays. Inga-Stina Ekeblad in an illuminating way discusses the dance of madmen in terms of an antimasque (see "The Impure Art of John Webster" 259 f., 264; Brissenden, "Jacobean Tragedy" 254).

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The dance of madmen is as grotesque as is the medieval Dance of Death; and while Death leads people to a dance, that is to death, here it is Bosola, who, though unseen, directs the dance of madmen. The latter are to create a hell for the Duchess by means of their activities, they are meant to drive her to despair, to madness, a death already in this life. The relation between the dance of the madmen and Bosola, the inventor of the tortures, becomes more palpable when he appears directly after the dance, which in itself is telling, and announces death to the Duchess. Thus he plays the same role here as does Death in the medieval motif. It seems undeniable that Webster composed the scene as a variant of the late medieval motif. The visual modification here is that Bosola is disguised as an old man, which was the conventional outward appearance of the personification of time in the plastic arts as well as in masques. At the same time, however, it is essential to notice that usually Time is shown with its attributes and one of them, the scythe, indicates that he has taken over the function of Death, who often carries the same attribute. 17 Thus Bosola's "I am come to make thy tomb" (4.2.126) is a reworking of the conventional words of his prototype. The "memento mori" ofA. 2. sc. 1 here sounds powerfully again when Bosola strikes the note of contemptus mundi, building images clustering round the theme of bodily decay: Thou art a box o f worm-seed, at best a salvatory o f green mummy. What's this flesh? A little crudded milk, fantastical puff paste. Our bodies are weaker than those paper prisons boys use to keep flies in; more contemptible, since ours is to preserve earthworms . . . (4.2.132-138)

The allusions to the dead body and to the process of its decay in earth repeat the same ideas quoted earlier, and though it is Renaissance language, yet the idea is typically medieval, reminding us, for instance of the Dance of Death verse from the Landsdowne MS: . . . what is 3owre nature Mete vnto wormes . . . (Warren 74, lines 635 f.) 1 8

The subtextual link between Bosola and Death is present all the time in this " 18

See Ekeblad 259; Chew, figs. 11, 15, 17, 18; Gilbert, Symbolic Persons 233; JanickaSwiderska, Pride of Life 107 f. In The Pride of Life there is a similar passage (see Happé 60, lines 443 f.).

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scene, and it is especially so when he contemptuously speaks about life, the soul in a cage (body), the, only apparently, good reputation of the Duchess, and finally when he announces to her that he is a tomb-maker and has come to make her a tomb. The climax of the scene draws near with the entrance of the executioners who carry a coffin, cords and a bell. The quiet acceptance of her lot by the Duchess and her belief that she will find happiness after death seems to be a modified version of Everyman's acceptance of his lot and his preparation for death. While the morality protagonist, however, is made to adhere to the religious ritual through the prayer to God and the receiving of the last Sacrament, a very general, almost secular, tone pervades the words of the Duchess in the last moments of her life. She speaks of heaven, strongly believing that she will find "such excellent company" (line 227) there (i.e. her husband and children). Bosola even then behaves like the medieval personification of death speaking of punishment, admonishing and trying to frighten, while his victim challenges and outdistances the medieval character invited to "a dance" whose teeth often chatter with fright on being confronted by Death. She boldly meets her death, she calls on it, "Come, violent death" (249). She paves the way for Strindberg's and later for Tennessee Williams's heroines or John Whiting's characters, when with utmost intensity she experiences her being at the edge of life and when she mystically perceives the unknown regions: . . . Tell my brothers That I perceive death, now I am well awake,

... (238f.) But still the deep structure brings out the source which illumines and extends the dramatic texture. Like the people who are led by Death to a dance, so the Duchess is led by Bosola, who performs the part of Death in the play, to death. The dance of madmen is the image which explains the relation between Bosola and Duchess and at the same time it helps to create the links with the Dance of Death motif. But the last words are the Duchess's and not Bosola's. By an act ofwill she does not join the madmen's dance, she does not yield to the hell of the "nunc". And, overcoming the medieval horror of death, she triumphs in envisaging the dance of life, as it were, with the "excellent company", after death. V. T H E D A N C E O F R E V E N G E R S In some seventeenth century revenge tragedies there appear ritual dances of revengers at the end of plays which reflect the destructive forces of man being

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guided by hatred. Just like the witches' dance in Macbeth, they demonstrate a deflated image of life and they play a structural function by leading to catastrophe. Earlier, Thomas Kyd used the play-within-the play for the dénouement of the theme of revenge, a device which was undoubtedly the result of how deeply the idea of theatre affected the minds of the playwrights. It thus allowed them to portray real murders in scenes that were supposed to present dramatic illusion. Under the influence of the masque, in turn, some playwrights modified the Kydian device by using a masque-dance, which is an integral part of the masque, for the same purpose. Thomas Middleton, on the other hand, in his Women Beware Women dispensed with the dance when revenge is enacted during the performance of the masque. In the Malcontent, again, the masquers appear as revengers, yet their dance serves an entirely different purpose. It is only after the dance that they unmasque and, changing their roles of lovers into those of revengers, point their pistols at Mendoza. This is accompanied by yet another unexpected turn in the action when, though expressing contempt for him, the masquers let Mendoza live. The decision to give up revenge links the play with the Christian codes of forgiveness and humanistic culture—perhaps through Giraldi in this case (Marston, Malcontent XXVII f., XXVIII note 1)—projecting it as a unique phenomenon among revenge plays. Perhaps the earliest English play in which the revengers perform a masque-dance, being strictly integrated with the theme of revenge, is Antonio's Revenge by J. Marston. But even as early as in the Crucifixion scene in a mystery cycle, the Ludus Coventriae, triumph and revenge was strongly expressed by the Jews who danced round the cross (Block 297, lines 753 ff.). In Antonio's Revenge the concept ofthe masque with its essential element, the dance of the masquers, is used to serve as a cover for the revengers to bring about the murder of Piero, the main villain of the play. The stage image of the dance is preceded by the verbal image created by Antonio, the main revenger and leader of the conspirators who have appeared at court masked, apparently to celebrate Piero's marriage. It is when hearing from his mother about Piero's son's body being ready for a dish—a device used in Titus Andronicus and earlier in its source, Thy es tes—that Antonio exclaims in an aside: Then will I dance and whirl about the air. Methinks I am all soul, all heart, all spirit. N o w murder shall receive his ample merit. (Marston, Antonio's Revenge 5.3.47-49)

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The exultation of Antonio enables him mentally to transcend the limits within which man lives; he has conquered the material existence, as it were, turning into a dancing spirit of revenge. His words, then, illumine the character of the dancers and the actual meaning of the masque-dance—performed against a musical background—which immediately follows. Moreover, the appearance of Andrugio's ghost during the dance and his words: Here will I sit, spectator of revenge, And glad my ghost in anguish of my foe. (5.3.53 f.)

function as another spodight directed on the dance, imbuing it with special meaning. In this context, the contemporary audience could not have received the masque dance as a neutral theatrical sign. The Elizabethan stage in general, though basically neutral, was often transformed metaphorically into a battlefield or any other place through the magic of the word, so also here the Jacobean masque dance was transformed metaphorically into and was received as a ritual dance of revengers preparing for the enactment of revenge itself (Brissenden, "Jacobean Tragedy" 251). The dance which has become stylized here nevertheless recalls the pagan ritual dances in primitive cultures. Also the triumph of the executioners after the dance, their inflicting bestial tortures on Piero, seems to come close to the reactions of savage man or the primitive torturers of Christ in Mystery plays rather than to the behaviour of Renaissance man. It also grotesquely clashes with the religious mood into which Antonio unexpectedly plunges after the murder, as he thinks of purging hearts of hatred and is mourning his Nellida. J. Huizinga's description of late medieval man, his sudden shifts from savage emotions to great piety, is extremely fitting here (10). One may also get the impression that the ritual dance and the killing belong, as it were, to the sphere of revelry after which the human mind seeks order and decorum. The dance keeps the audience in suspense by creating a specific tension and atmosphere. It also creates dramatic irony as Piero, like Mendoza in The Malcontent, suspects nothing about the dancers and merrily invites them to the dance. The intrinsic value of the dance, however, lies in its visual meaning: it operates as a key stage symbol bringing out the theme of the play and is used not only as a device for its own sake, but it also links together the preceding events with the dénouement of the play. In The Revenger's Tragedy, which I have already analyzed with regard to the Dance of Death motif, the ritual character of the dance of revengers at the end of the play is also undeniable. This is prepared for by ritualistic elements earlier in the play contained in the verbal and stage imagery. Thus in Act 1

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Scene 4, Antonio, a nobleman, is shown revealing the dead body o f his wife to some lords whom he tells about her suicide as a result of her having been raped during a masque. 19 The response o f the listeners is immediate. The swearing of an oath in chorus and the drawing o f the swords by the group of people to take revenge make for an impressive ritual stage-image. Since the Dance o f Death motif has been dramatically integrated with that o f revenge—I have mentioned it earlier—the stage and verbal image of the skull being most essential for the vision o f the play 20 functions in a new way, as it does not only remind the reader/audience o f death, but it also, or especially, accounts for the revenge (the skull of the dead mistress), and points at what the revengers will do to their victims. Thus it also becomes a ritual emblem of revenge in the play. And while Antonio swears revenge with others, Vindice does the same alone at the beginning o f the play when, transforming the Dance o f Death motif into that o f revenge he "visualises Revenge leading in the grinning, dancing skeletons to thrust his enemies into the cauldron o f hell fire" (Tourneur, Revenger's Tragedy XIX). Thus the verbal image of the Dance o f Revenge becomes the key emblem stressing visually what Vindice has stated a few lines earlier (1.1.3940), and paving the way to the actual dance o f revengers at the end o f the play. The circumstances in which the two masque dances are performed are integrally connected with the designs of Vindice, on the one hand, and of other revengers (the Duchess's sons and the bastard) on the other. Both groups decide to use the masque as a cover for their murder and apparently to celebrate Lussurioso's coronation. The second group o f masquers does not know, however, about the first one. The first masque is "masquerading as the second" (Brissenden, "Jacobean Tragedy" 253). The splendour and solemnity which accompanies the coronation, as in the Malcontent and Antonio's Revenge, is ironically juxtaposed with what happens within the banquet scene. The theme o f appearance and reality, which operates throughout the play (Brissenden, "Jacobean Tragedy" 252), is succincdy brought out in the scene when the masquers appear and dance. The irony works here not only in the sense that Lussurioso does not suspect anything, while the reader/audience knows what is going to happen. It is also built up on Lussurioso's thoughts who remembers his brothers, and, watchAlan Brissenden rightly observes that the rape during the masque "is a particularly savage inversion of the revels." ("Jacobean Tragedy" 254). Alan Brissenden rather stresses the role o f the imagery o f disguises and coverings, finding that "the idea of the deceiving mask . . . is fundamental to the whole action." (252).

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ing the masquers dance, imagines them dancing in hell, which means that he will soon have them murdered. He does not know that it is exactly what the masquers imagine him doing and hope it will happen in a few moments. The wishful thinking on the part of Lussurioso, and the realization of that wishful thinking on the part of the revengers are expressed by the verbal and stageimages of dance respectively. The drawings of the swords after the dance or still within it, and the killing of the Duke and his lords at the table shifts the event beyond the pastime. Thus life and the masque illusion have blended and overlapped within the theatrical reality. The dance then plays a thematic as well as a structural function carrying the action on to its denouement. The second dance executed by the second group of revengers, who also intend to kill Lussurioso, performs only a perfunctory role. It is very short and ends abruptly. Yet both dances stress the divergence between appearance and reality as well as the gloomy, dismal and macabre nature of life. They are the finale of a play which began with the image of the skull and the verbal image of the Dance of Death identified with Revenge; the first masque dance is its scenic realization, as the part of Death/Revenge is carried out by revengers. Thus the evolution of the religious medieval concept of the Dance of Death into the secular motif of the Dance of Revenge has taken place in The Revenger's Tragedy under the impact of the Renaissance tragedy of revenge. G. Chapman, in his The Revenge ofBussy D'Ambois also used the device of the dance to strengthen the idea of revenge. It takes place in Act 5, Scene 5, after the death of Montsurry. Against a musical accompaniment, the ghosts of people led by Bussy dance about his dead body. The dance marks the triumph of the dead over the murderer. It plays, however, only an episodic role, though it links the preceding events with the news that follows concerning the slaying of the Guise. In Love's Sacrifice by John Ford, another revenge play of the Caroline period, the cause of revenge in the subplot is rather trivial and yet it leads to murder. The masque dance, as in the Revenger's Tragedy, serves as a medium to realize the revenge. The betrayed and disillusioned mistresses of the wanton courtier Ferentes appear as masquers in an antimasque at court, disguised in "odd shapes" and being accompanied by three male masquers, Ferentes among them. First the male and female dancers dance separately, then together. Finally: .. Ferentes is closed in,... The women join hands and dance round Ferentes with divers complimental offers of courtship; at length they suddenly fall upon him and stab him; he falls, and they run out at several doors. The music ceases." (Ford 3.4, p. 311)

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The theme of appearance and reality, operating all the time in the play, emerges with full force during the dance—as in the plays discussed above—in reference to the stage-audience and Ferentes. The dance in this play most overtly proves its ritual character and it also operates as a stage symbol, signifying revenge. The joining of hands by the female revengers, who then dance in a circle round Ferentes, expresses their union in their menacing attitude towards their victim and signals his impending doom, though they apparently pay him compliments. The dance brings about dramatic ironies, as it is meant to entertain the guest, the Abbot, and a real tragedy takes place. Moreover, as in Antonio's Revenge and The Revenger's Tragedy, it has a structural function; by means of the dance the subplot reaches its solution. The Revenge theme in the main plot ending in murder is thus reinforced by the subplot which repeats the same idea in a different context. Since the masque dances were meant to express harmony, a heightened image of life, the use of them in order to take revenge the more deeply brings out irony (Brissenden, "Jacobean Tragedy" 254).

VI. THE DANCE OF SINNERS Another mode in which dance functions in Elizabethan drama, is satire. Dance was used in the moralities in a satiric mode to show characters and life in a deflated way. In Wisdom (ab. 1460) and Mankind (ab. 1475) dances are executed to express the theme ofvice or the vicious state of man. 21 In Like Will to Like (1568) there is the dance ofTom Collier with the Devil and Viceas mentioned earlier—and later, that of Hans who is drunk (Happe 328,339). In both cases the dances are meant to signify the vicious state of man. In The Tide Taryeth No Man (1576) the Vice, Courage assumes the role of the musician when he says that the sinners will "evermore dance after Corages pype" (Riihl 30, line 851). Thus sinners are imagined as dancers who dance to the tune played by the Vice; this image signifies their yielding to vice. Ben Jonson has made use of the dance not only in the masques—in this case, antimasques—but also in his plays. In Cynthia's Revels the vicious courtiers, disguised as virtues, appear in two masques and they dance three dances (5.10). The masques serve as stage emblems illustrating the theme of appear21

Wisdom, Sc. 3 after line 711, after lines 737 and 763. Mankind, Sc. 1 after line 81. Both plays in: Macro Plays.

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ance and reality and of folly. The dances, which in the masque proper bring out the ideal image of life, heightened to mythic or religious dimensions, help here to burlesque the masque values since vicious courtiers are disguised as virtues (see Gilbert, Function of Masque). They stress the disparity between the apparent order and harmony brought about by the masque dances and the actual disorder at the court resulting from the folly of Cynthia's (Elizabeth's) courtiers. Thus the masques function as antimasques. The motif of the dance is also used in The Staple ofNews, which, among others, bears a strong imprint of the masque and antimasque patterns. The themes of appearance and reality and of folly, which as a rule dominate the vision ofjonson's plays, emerge here especially in the main plot dealing with the adoration of money. Money is personified by the character Pecunia, the central figure in the dance. Her chief lovers are the prodigal, Pennyboy junior, and the covetous man, Pennyboy senior. The desire for money has been worked out in sexual terms. Before the function of the motif of dance and its sources are analyzed, it will be worthwhile discussing briefly the sources of the character of Pecunia. The personification of money has a long tradition in classical and later in medieval and Renaissance literature (Yunck 12,123-132). The feminine variant of the personification of money might be traced back in English literature to Langland's Lady Meed who stood for reward and bribery and who in either case was associated with money or its equivalent. In the moralities, Lechery was a female character and it is in The Trial of Treasure that the personification of riches is a woman called Treasure whose lover is Lust. She makes him lustful through his relation with her. Accordingly, the allegorical theme of the desire for money is shifted onto a sexual plane and money is personified here by a woman. In this way, Jonson may have used The Trial of Treasure as one of the sources of The Staple ofNews. Also his character, Argurion in Cynthia 's Revels, who is wooed by the lover, Asotus, anticipates that of Pecunia in The Staple. The image of the dance in Scene 2 Act 4 performs an important function in the antimasque pattern of The Staple of News (Jonson, Works, vol. 6). While Nicholas sings "the madrigal" composed by Madrigal, the poetaster, in adoration of Pecunia, Pennyboy Canter satirizes the adorers of Pecunia in a mocking vein. The motif of dance stresses their being infatuated by their lust for Pecunia: ... Look, look, how all their eyes Dance i' their heads obserue scatter^ with lust!

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At sight o' their braue Idoll\ how they are tickl'd, With a light ay re! The bawdy Saraband). They are a kind of dancing engines all! And set, by nature, thus, to runne alone To euery sound! . . . Here, in a chamber, of most subtill feet! And make their legs in tune, passing the streetes! (4.2.130-39)

First, their eyes are described as dancing in their heads, out of desire for Pecunia. Then, they are called "dancing engines", which indicates their state: they are as if hypnotized and, in a trance, they are automatically drawn to their goddess. Finally, Pennyboy Canter makes reference to their "mak(ing) their legs in tune". In all probability then, the characters including Pecunia, made some movements, which resulted in a dance of a limited kind. The comments of Pennyboy Canter, the Satirist, who watches the dance of "the bewitched" stress its grotesque, antimasque character. His remarks imply that the actors should use mechanical gestures imitating puppets to become engine-like. In this way their dehumanization would be fully expressed. The medieval concept of the Dance of Death in art and literature, which continued to exist in the Renaissance (Clark, Middle Ages 2) centres on the allegorical dance. There, also, a certain dehumanization ofman is shown, for the representatives of mankind who parade in dance with Death point to the idea of the mechanistic course of man's life. The dance signifies the mechanism in which men like automata are led into inevitable death. Similarly, Peter Bruegel the Elder expressed the idea of a mechanistic universe in his paintings, as did some sixteenth century philosophers in their writings (Benesch 113). Jonson uses the same device on another plane. The allegorical dance in The Staple points to the influence of vice on man. The lovers of money become engine-like, being driven into a mechanism run by Money. As a result they are grotesquely comic. Another source which may have affected Jonson more strongly, as it did the writer of The Praise of Folly, is the sottie. There, we have Mère Sotte, the mother of fools who compete for her hand and surround her on stage (Welsford 228). Man is ridiculed there by showing his attraction to the World as the characters are attracted to Pecunia. In a drawing that reflects the theme of the sotties there is a dance of fools who perform their occupations in a circle,

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the World in the middle (fig. 7).22 This should also be classified as a stage emblem dramatizing the idea of the fools of the World. Man is shown as dehumanized by becoming a slave of the World. The scene anticipates the one in The Staple with the Dance of Pecunia. I agree with Enid Welsford when she says that to "the child of the Renaissance man was essentially great... To the medieval thinker, man was essentially vain,..." (242). Thus fool literature is closely linked with the medieval spirit. The Dance of Death, and the Dance of the World express the medieval tendency to stress the vanity of this world. The Dance of Pecunia in The Staple embodies the same idea of vanity and Pecunia might be regarded as a variety or offshoot of the famous Mère Sotte or World. Pecunia is surrounded by fools who perform their activities when they actualize their desire for money by adoring her and showing how they are overcome in will and mind by their vice. In this way the dance performs both a thematic and structural function. It, moreover, brings about the climax of the main plot: the fools' plunging into the "lust" for money, which dehumanizes them.

VII. THE DANCE IN THE ROMANTIC AND SATIRIC MODES There are plays in which the dances perform an ambiguous function in that they bring out two different modes, the romantic and the satiric. Thus two visions of life, the heightened and lowered clash with one another. In A Game at Chess, The Malcontent, and The Insatiate Countess the dances operate within the two modes playing at the same time a structural function and giving special colour to the vision. The concept of "the music of the spheres" of the universe performing a harmonious dance, is latent not only in the dances expressing harmony in love in some romantic plays, but also in the dance-like movements of the characters who enact an ideal political state of affairs in A Game at Chess by Th. Middleton. The play, a political allegory, introduces English statesmen— The White House—playing with, and being associated with the white chess figures; they are virtuous and cooperate mutually. They are opposed by the 22

Its theme may be linked with the motif of a sottie discussed by E. Welsford, where la Mère Sotte leads the fools to the World who is to give them employment. As a result each of the fools performs his job (225).

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Black House associated with the black chess figures. They represent the Spaniards, being vicious and bringing about disorder in their society. According to J. W. Harper the whole play should be perceived in the form of dance, as the white and black figures "are performing different sorts of dance." (Middleton XXII). He also stresses that the "stage directions suggest that the play made use of the music and formalized movement of the masque to an unusual degree" (XXII). Certainly, the words of Error in the Induction describing how the chess pieces move—"Observe, as in a dance, they glide away" (line 76)—are illuminating. But then the stylized, rhythmical, dance-like movement of the characters, would stress their artificial, unreal character and would signal the allegorical dimension of the play. If both parties moved in the same way, however, it would be a mistake to associate the automatism of gestures and movements with satire; this would be the case only if it were confined to the Spaniards who are corrupt intriguers and against whom the thrust of criticism is directed. In that case a parallel might be drawn with the dance of Pecunia in Jonson's The Staple of News, performed two years later, where those who are in love with money dance round the allegorical character as if hypnotized ("dancing engines"). Similarly, in The Game at Chess the moral standard of the two societies might be signified not only by the differentiation of colours (black and white costumes), but also by the way they move, all of which recalls the theatrical conventions of medieval religious drama. The biting political satire directed against the Spaniards and the grotesqueness of some characters remind us of the Aristophanic comedy. Yet the use of the masque and the dance within it in Act 5 Scene 1 bear close links with the Renaissance masque. It has been arranged by the Black House to glorify the arrival of the White Knight which alludes to Prince Charles' visit to Madrid in 1623 to become engaged to the Infanta Maria (Middleton XIII, 76 note). The masque is executed by means of scenery (an altar), song, and dance. The song stresses the love of the Black House towards the White Knight and the statues' dance is meant to express that love in visual form (Middleton 5.1.45 fF.). Apparendy then the dance should work as a masquedance being integrated with the theme of love. The audience/reader is well aware, however, that the Spaniards only pretend to love the Prince. As a result, the dance brings out the motif of appearance and reality, as do the masque dances in Cynthia's Revels, and it rather works as an antimasque under the cover of a masque. Th. Middleton has gone further than the writer of beast fable or Aristophanes {Birds, Frogs) by making actors represent chess pieces which in turn

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stand for human beings. A parallel may be drawn—to some extent—with an engraving by Peter Bruegel the Elder in which coffers fight with moneyboxes, an allegory of the relentless, cruel laws governing the world of the Antwerp financiers (see Menzel 59, plate 42). In The Game at Chess the two kinds of "dances" or dance-like movements are, to my mind, comparable with the masque and antimasque dances. It is the English who enact a kind of political Utopia, where harmony, order, and virtue rule. The dance-image in J. Marston's play, The Malcontent, also brings out the romantic mode, being fused, however, with satire and the macabre tragic tone. The dance takes place close to the end of the play, introducing three variants of love, and it is integrally intertwined with the plot as the action moves on within the dance (see Brissenden, "Jacobean Tragedy" 251). Technically then it would be executed as Brissenden would have the scene of Much Ado discussed earlier. It seems, however, that it was Marston who initiated the special technique of not only giving the illusion of simultaneous talks between several pairs of characters during the dance, which is indicated in the text, but also of making the action move on during the dance pattern. It is worthwhile, however, dwelling first on the function of a danceimage and music evoked verbally in two earlier scenes (4.2, 3) in relation to Aurelia and Pietro. There, Aurelia—an unfaithful wife of the Duke of Genoa (an usurper), mistress of Mendoza and his co-plotter against her husband's life—expresses her desire to dance, though she is aware of the impending doom of Pietro, and maybe, even suspects he has just been killed. And while the tension and nervousness accelerates at the court due to the rapid sequence of questions concerning the absence of her husband, Aurelia's reiterated calling for music in order to dance serves as a counterpoint-the actor's crescendo pitch ofvoice should be taken into account. Even when she hears that the duke is dead she still—in a stubborn way—calls for music, upon which Malevole ironically remarks "Is't music?" (4.3.3) alluding undoubtedly to the concept of "the music of the spheres." Aurelia shocks the audience by her inhuman indifference, her cruelty towards her husband. But she seems in this way to suppress her human feelings and remorses as Lady Macbeth does. In any case, the juxtaposition of the two motifs, that of dance, in terms of pastime, and of death, the apparent indifference of Aurelia, her curt orders for music running parallel to the acceleration of suspense, due to the absence of the duke all these undoubtedly pave the way to the dance-

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scene in The Broken Heart, constructed in a similar counterpointed way.23 One is also reminded of the function of music, evoking the mood of pastime and serving structurally as a counterpoint to the motif of murder, in The Revenger's Tragedy (3.5.). Similarly to Aurelia, the Duchess in the latter play asks for music in terms of pastime, after having confessed her hatred towards her husband. And, without her knowledge the Duke is killed, while music, denoting banqueting, is played. In all the three cases, the extra-literary means, the dance-image and music as in The Malcontent or music itself, are an essential structural component in the counterpoint and they help to intensify the momentary vision of man's life at the edge ofhis being, showing its complexity and mystery, its dialectic, and bringing about dramatic irony. The dance proper at the end of The Malcontent, which I am going to analyze now, is a masque-dance used as a cover by the victims of the villainous usurpur, Mendoza, under which they penetrate the court, apparendy to take revenge. But the dramatic action that goes on within the dance deals with love and thus it supersedes the theme of evil and revenge. The tensions brought about by the two antithetic themes also work visually, as there is a division of the characters into two groups. Mendoza and his courtiers become the audience who watch, while the masquers dance with the ladies, two of which, Maria and Aurelia, are also Mendoza's victims. In this way the dance is set in perspective through the onlookers and is given depth in visual terms, becoming the focal point on the stage. The same effect is achieved by similar means in Romeo and Juliet (1.5.44-56) and The Winter's Tale (4.3.163 ff.) as discussed earlier. The apparent pastime mood created by the dance is only experienced by the onlookers on the stage. It is a cover under which life is shown in a dramatic way. First, neither of the wives knows that she is dancing with her husband, as the latter are masked, and both wives are in a tragic mood for various reasons. Maria, the wife of Altofronto, is prepared to die since she is being tormented by Mendoza, the present ruler, who wants to force her into marriage. Thus a dialectic of opposed ideas, feelings and styles is expressed when Altofronto, inviting his wife to dance and expressing his feelings of loveYes, more loved than our breath, With you I'll dance. (Marston, Malcontent 5.4.67 f.) Brissenden agrees with Hazlitt as regards Marston's influence on Ford in the use of the dance patterns in The Broken Heart (see Hazlitt 6:270-272, quoted in Brissenden, "Jacobean Tragedy" 261, note 19).

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is answered with a mixture of tones, quasi jocular, ironic, mocking and heroic, since Maria thinks only of death, reminding the audience of the medieval motif of the Dance of Death: Why, then you dance with death, But come sir, I was ne'er more apt to mirth, Death gives eternity a glorious breath, O, to die honoured, who would fear to die! (68-71)

She not only anticipates the words of the Duchess of Malfi, but also her heroic posture by longing to die, being even apt to be merry at the moment of death, and, above all, finding that one is honoured by one's death. The adoration of Maria by her husband grotesquely clashes with her own persistence in thinking and speaking about death which, to her, approaches her relentlessly—she means to commit suicide. The two dancers live then in two different worlds and the two styles of expression bring about jarring, incongruous notes. Moreover, Maria is not able to comprehend that what she sees is not the true reality, that the stranger who dances with her is her husband. In the subtextual layer then, in the beginning, the pair dances two different dances: Maria's is the dance of death, which she enacts as a kind of ritual preparation for her own death. Malevole, on the other hand, dances in a rapture of happiness being again together with his wife, confessing his love to her and preparing to reveal his identity to her. The playwright, giving the illusion of simultaneous conversation of the dancing pairs, leaves the two dancers alone for a while, making them probably dance aside or to the back of the stage and introducing the dialogue of the second pair, Pietro and Aurelia, who come to the foreground. Shakespeare used the same technique in Much Ado and earlier in Love's Labour's Lost (5.2.) without, however, integrating it with the dancepattern. The process of the inner transformation of Aurelia, wife of Pietro, is not shown within the scope of the play. When she reappears in her "mourning habit" at court after having been expelled from it by her treacherous lover, Mendoza, she is a different person, being entirely broken down. Like Maria— though for different reasons—she thinks and speaks of death when invited by her disguised husband to dance. Pietro is undoubtedly touched by her looks and words of death as he says "poor loved soul". Compassion and forgiveness make way for his feeling of love, which he may have tried to suppress until now. Thus in the beginning, Aurelia's dance, similarly to that of Maria's, is orchestrated as a counterpoint to that of her husband.

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The motif of the forgiving husband humanizes the play in a unique way, endowing it, to my mind, with greater insight into problems of love than many other Elizabethan plays. Pietro's behaviour places him at an infinite distance from Othello's revenge on his wife and even from the kind husband's forgiveness in A Woman Killed with Kindness, where the repentant wife is left in seclusion. His humanity and forgiving love in respect to his wife, which accords with both Christian ideals and humanistic culture, give him an unusual place in Elizabethan drama. Harris finds that in The Malcontent Marston "reminds one more closely of Giraldi than of any English contemporary dramatist in his treatment of tyranny and infidelity" (Marston, Malcontent XXVII). According to R. Home, Giraldi's aim was to awake "compassion rather than terror" in the audience (Home 155 ; qtd. in Marston, Malcontent XXVII f., XXVIII note 1), and Marston seems to have been guided by the same principle. Moreover, he portrays ideal love expressed through fidelity in marriage (Maria) as in some heroines of Giraldi (Marston, Malcontent XXVIII). The love patterns brought about by the two pairs of dancers are antithetically juxtaposed with one more variant of love or rather desire for love of a strictly sensual kind. It is Ferneze's desire for sexual pleasure and fulfilment with which he tempts his partner Bianca during their dance. It thus forms still another counterpoint to the love confirmed by spiritual experience of the other dancers. A lighter, satiric mode is opposed here to the romantic one. Formally, the sequences of dialogues of the three pairs are composed in such a way as to give the illusion of simultaneous staging. The dance-image then, formed by the three dancing pairs, introduces external movement not only through measures and rhythmic bodily movements of the dancers but also through the shifts from one unfinished sequence of conversation to the next one. The inner dynamism of the dance, however, is based on its thematic and structural function, the latter bringing about the dénouement of the love-plots through the recognition scene within it. Maria is overwhelmed by admiration and happiness when she recognizes her husband. As a result, their dance in its final stage becomes a stage emblem of love, recalling the Neo-Platonic concept of love and of "the music of the spheres," though, unlike those in any romantic comedy of Shakespeare—except, perhaps for Helena in All's Well that Ends Well—the lovers here are married people and they have undergone severe tests. Pietro's dance is the dance of forgiveness and love. Aurelia, on the other hand, must have suffered and repented enough to be able to receive his for-

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giveness, be grateful and return spiritually to him. It is during the dance, it seems, after the recognition has taken place, that they accept each other and reunite. Thus the dance of the two pairs should not be viewed as only the background of a drama of souls; it is organically integrated with what has been going on, and in its final stage, it becomes a visual image of love, expressing, on the one hand, heroic constancy in love and mutual adoration, on the other, forgiving and grateful love, respectively. The idea of menace and revenge, however, counterpointing that of love, continually hovers over the scene. It brings about high tension as well as dramatic irony; Mendoza is completely unaware of what is going on, that the masquers—who have pistols under their robes—are his enemies who he believes to have been murdered. The dance with the recognition scene within it leads to the next solution on the political plane, which I have already discussed earlier. In a later play by J. Marston, The Insatiate Countess (1610-1613), the dance also plays an important structural function giving also the illusion of simultaneous staging of several actions.24 But while in The Malcontent it leads to a dénouement of the action, here it accounts for its development. The quick marriage ceremony of Isabella, the countess of Swevia (Savoy) with Roberto, Count of Cypres, is followed by a masque. The masquers "deliver the shields to the severall mistresses," but strangely enough, the husbands of Thais and Abigail who are among them do not hand in their shields to their wives, but to the wives of their enemies: Rogero to Abigail and Claridiana to Thais. Moreover, the count of Massina gives his shield to Isabella. After the meaning of the emblematic inscriptions on the shields has been explained, the masquers invite the respective ladies to a dance. Here, as well as in The Malcontent, the audience overhears scraps of conversation carried on in succession by the dancing pairs. They seem at times shorter and are broken off more rapidly than, for instance, in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (2.1). As a result, the effect of simultaneous conversation of the pairs is superimposed by the abruptness with which the dialogues of each pair are interrupted while the dancing pairs come in succession to the front of the stage and then move on to the back. During the first part of the dance, called the "first change" three pairs are shown conversing, while Isabella and her partner are silent, which should A. Brissenden in his article "The Jacobean Tragedy" in a general way mentions the role of the dance as regards plot and character (251). As to the kind of dance danced there, he suggests the pavane (261).

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draw the attention of the audience, and not the reader, as there is no stage-direction about it. That is why, perhaps, when Isabella expresses her sudden love for her partner during "the second change," the audience would not be surprised by it, having been focused on the stage-image of the beautiful pair drawn to each other in a harmonious dance. The reader, on the other hand, may altogether miss the idea the audience gets from the stage-image. Marston's endeavour to integrate it with the romantic concept of love seems to be best expressed in the words of Massina, when he, being enchanted by Isabella, refers to the music and the dance of the spheres: The Spheres ne'r danc'd unto a better tune. Sound musicke there. (Marston, Plays, vol. 3: 2.1, p. 23)

However, we are aware all the time of the ironic implications, since Isabella has already married someone else on the same day, and it seemed she was in love. While during the first part of the dance (first change) this pair silendy dances, the other three pairs carry on a conversation. Mendoza makes love to a widow, lady Lentulus, in a very robust way, with sexual allusions. So do the husbands of Thais and Abigail. All the three female characters pretend to acquiesce to a secret love-making and within the game of love they fix appointments with the zealous masquers, who wish to combine pleasure and revenge on their enemy. As we shall see later, those characters form a comic subplot, in which unfaithful husbands are cheated by their faithful wives who ridicule them. Isabella, on the other hand, becomes unfaithful to her husband. A psychological change takes place in her during the dance, the changes of which symbolize her internal change. She realizes she is in love with the man with whom she dances although she does not know him. The relationship between Isabella and the other ladies reminds us of that between Beatrice Joanna, the main character, and Isabella from the subplot in The Changeling, in respect to the juxtaposition of the serious and comic plots as well as of the themes of the faithful and unfaithful woman. The language of the game of love of the three pairs is opposed to the lofty and passionate speech of Isabella's delivered during the dance. But one realizes very soon that Isabella's love is only sensual desire and so it does not differ at all from the lustful desires of the husbands or Mendoza. The dance then serves as a medium to show the characters and their behaviour and its structural role is to advance the action of both the main plot and the subplots.

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VIII. THE BROKEN HEART John Ford's tragedy The Broken Heart is a landmark in the use of dance, being antithetically juxtaposed with the inner state of the protagonist. Ford was not concerned with the moral pattern while using the dance but with psychological problems. He used the motif of dance to indicate the discrepancy between the heroine's outward behaviour and her inner state. Other themes are also strictly connected with that motif, namely the disparity between external reality as such and the inner life of man, as well as that of appearance and reality. Ford stuck to the purity of the tragic style when he used the motif of the dance and he also integrated it with the plot of the play being influenced by J. Marston's Malcontent in his use of the dance pattern as discussed earlier. The dance in The Broken Heart takes place in Scene 2 of Act 5 (Stuart Plays), at the royal court. The king's daughter, Calantha, who is engaged to Ithocles, expects her bridegroom to appear at any moment. In the meantime, she takes part in the court dance during which she is told, in succession, about the deaths of her father, of Penthea, Ithocles' sister, and finally of her bridegroom, Ithocles. To the amazement of courtiers she continues her dance as if nothing has happened and each time, after she hears the given news, she calls for the next "change." She seems to be completely unmoved by the deaths of the people who should be closest to her heart and is thought of as if made of stone, as having "a masculine spirit." She seemingly yields to the rhythmic measures of the dance, and the clash between her indifferent behaviour and the way the courtiers think she should react to the news brings about their amazement, resulting in suspense and dramatic tension. The visual image of the dancing Calantha and the amazed courtiers who stand by looking at her, makes for a highly theatrical effect on account of the division of the characters into the actress—as we shall learn later-and the audience. 25 Her behaviour, moreover, brings about an atmosphere of mystery. It is only after Calantha's confession that we may fill in the gap and, in flashback, fully understand the meaning of the scene. It turns out that her dance has been a façade behind which she suffered the agony of a "broken heart." During the mourning ceremony in the temple, before she dies, she makes her confession: Brian Morris writes about the division of the audience into stage audience and that in the theatre (XXV).

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. . . O my lords, I but deceived your eyes with antic gesture, When one news straight came huddling o n another O f death, and death, and death. Still I danced forward; But it struck home, and here, and in an instant. (5.3.67-76)

The dance in this play functions as a slice of life in terms of court pastime; but its meaning is also methaphorical, signifying life in general, with its rhythmical, indifferent, mechanical course, which strangely clashes with Calantha's inner world. While life, like dance, exists in terms of measures which correspond to heart-beats, stressing the passing of time, the tragic news made Calantha's life end in a psychological sense, though her actual death came a little later. In this way, Ford makes the reader or audience reflect on and revalue the preceding scene with the dance in order to see it in a different perspective. Then, yet another tension is actualized and experienced. It emerges from the antithesis between the flow of the measures of the dance, stressing the passing of time, and the psychic standstill of Calantha's heart; between the dance embodying the mechanical course of external reality and human suffering. Besides, what was in the foreground in the preceding scene, namely the ball and the dancing pairs, has been overshadowed, after the confession, by what was mysterious and hidden from us: by Calantha's inner life. The dance then also intensifies the dichotomy between appearance and reality, as well as that between life and death. It is not to be related to the Elizabethan concept of the "music of the spheres" nor to the Dance of Death motif. The technique of projecting minor themes to the foreground and of shifting the main subject to the background is characteristic of Baroque painters (Wolfflin 90-92) and it reminds us, to some extent, of Ford's manipulating the motif of dance—signifying external reality—and juxtaposing it with Calantha's suffering. In the play, the hidden, spiritual spheres are the main subject, and they are powerful by their silence. Calantha's behaviour on hearing the tragic news is strikingly different from that of the conventional heroine of romances. Shakespeare's Cressida wants to imitate a romantic heroine (Campbell 214) when she despairs on account of her leaving Troy, saying that she will: Tear my bright hair, and scratch my praised cheeks, Crack my clear voice with sobs, and break my heart With sounding Troilus. I will not g o from Troy. (4.2.110-112)

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The grace, dignity and reserve of Webster's heroines when they are at the edge of their being receive their ultimate expression in Ford's heroine. The stage-image of the dancing Calantha who enacts indifference though her heart is broken becomes a symbol of the new code of behaviour of aristocratic ladies, in Ford's times and for the following generations.

* X *

The dances analyzed, as has been shown, have often a rather specific thematic and structural function and they help creating a special mood in the play. They have become moveable stage-emblems intensifying the meaning of the play and thus enriching its vision by extra-literary means. The verbal dance imagery also enriches the metaphoric texture. Some dances bring out the theme of love and harmony in terms of secular and divine love as well as in political matters. Many other dances represent the other side of life, that of evil, hatred and revenge in the tragic mode or folly in the satiric mode. In some cases the dances contain a dialectic between the two opposing visions, the two opposing modes, the romantic and the satiric. Under the cover of a masque antimasque themes are sometimes used, stressing ironically the dichotomy between appearance and reality.26 The theatrical vision of some plays seems to have been enriched by the Dance of Death motif in terms of language, theme and structure, though most often the links are rather to be found in the subtext. The Revenger's Tragedy and The Duchess of Malfi in particular show the evolution of that motif in English Renaissance drama. The motif of the Dance of Death links the Elizabethan tragedy with both the medieval dramatic conventions and with some modern plays. In particular, the two plays mentioned above pave the way for Strindberg's modern formula of the medieval motif in his The Dance of Death. There, both protagonists play a psychological 'Dance of Death' and 'Dance of Revenge' to each other and both envisage death as salvation, having created a hell for each other in their life. The skull, the decayed body, worms, the charnel-house, the cemetery, all these images, appearing in the tragedies discussed and recalling the Dance of Death motif and related themes, also form a landscape typical of Baroque "

See Gilbert (211-230), Janicka (207-210, 220), and Brissenden ("Jacobean Tragedy" 240).

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poetry (see Cohen, J. M. 30-50). And the sudden shifts of temper, of mood, point to what is changeable, evanescent, not permanent in human nature. The element of evanescence is typical of Baroque art. The motif of the Dance of Death also stresses the ephemeral side of life. It seems then that it helps to bring out the Baroque features of Elizabethan or Stuart tragedy even though it is traceable mainly in the subtext. The dances have become a medium to shed light on the characters and to carry on the action. One may also see that playwrights were sometimes fond of working out the end of the play by means of the dance pattern. Moreover, the dance could contribute to creating depth in the inner vision of the play, by assisting in the counterpointing of themes and ideas and by creating dramatic irony, just, as, in the visual sense, the dancers in those plays who are watched by the stage-audience are set in perspective, if the arrangement is appropriate, which reminds us of the use of perspective in Baroque art. The ritual character of some dances reflects the tendency of the playwrights of the period to show life in a ritual way, which in turn reflects the culture of the period during which ritual, being rooted in primitive heritage, still played an essential part in the social life of man.

WORKS CITED Adams, Joseph Quincy, ed. Chief Pre-Shakespearean Dramas. Boston: Houghton, 1924. Benesch, Otto. The Art of the Renaissance in Northern Europe. London: Phaidon, 1965. Block, K. S., ed. Ludus Coventriae or The Plaie called Corpus Christi. EETS, ES 120. London: Oxford UP, 1930. Brissenden, Alan. "Jacobean Tragedy and the Dance." Huntington Library Quarterly 44 (1981): 249-62. —. Shakespeare and the Dance. London: Macmillan, 1981. Campbell, Oscar James. Comicall Satyre and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. San Marino, C A : Huntington, 1938. Chaney, Edward Frank, ed. La Danse Macabre. Manchester: U o f Manchester, 1945. Chew, Samuel Claggett. The Pilgrimage of Life. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1962. Clark, James Midgley. The Dance of Death in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Glasgow: Jackson, 1950. —, ed. and trans. The Dance of Death by Hans Holbein. London: Phaidon, 1947.

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Cohen, Gustave. Histoire de la mise en scène dans le théâtre religieux français du moyen-âge. Paris: Champion, 1926. Cohen, John Michael. The Baroque Lyric. London: Hutchinson, 1963. Dolmetsch, Mabel. Dances of England and Francefrom 1450 to 1600. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1949. Eisler, Robert. "Danse Macabre". Traditio 6 (1948): 187-225. Ekeblad, Inga-Stina. "The 'Impure Art' o f j o h n Webster". RES, NS 9 (1958): 253-267. Elizabethan Plays. Ed. Arthur H. Nethercot, Charles Read Baskervill, V. B. Heltzel. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. Stuart Plays. Ed. Arthur H. Nethercot, Charles Read Baskervill, V. B. Heltzel. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. Elyot, Sir Thomas. The Book Named the Governor. [New Edition], Everyman's Library No. 227. London: Dent, 1962. Farnham, Willard Edward. The Medieval Heritage of Elizabethan Tragedy. Oxford: Blackwell, 1963. John Ford. Five Plays. Ed. Henry Havelock Ellis. New York: Hill & Wang, 1957. Gilbert, Allan H. The Symbolic Persons in the Masques of Ben Jonson. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1948. - . "The Function of the Masques in Cynthia's Revels." PQ22 (1943): 211-30. Happé, Peter, ed. Tudor Interludes. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972. Hazlitt, William. The Complete Works of William Hazlitt. Ed. Percival Presland Howe. 21 vols. London: Dent, 1930-34. Holinshed's Chronicle. Ed. Allardyce Nicoli and Josephine Nicoli. London: Dent, 1963. Home, Philip Russell. The Tragedies of Giambattista Cinthio Giraldi. London: Oxford UP, 1962. Huizinga, Johan. The Waning of the Middle Ages. New York: Anchor, 1954. Janicka, Irena. The Popular Theatrical Tradition and Ben Jonson. Lodz, 1972. Janicka-Swiderska, Irena. "The Dance in Elizabethan Drama". Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Litteraria 3 (1981): 103-19. —. "The Pride of Life, Everyman i The Sun's Darling: temat zycia i smierci oraz przemijania." Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Litteraria 2 (1982): —. "The Dance in Jacobean Drama." Litterae et Lingua: In honorem Premilai Mroczkowski. Ed. Jan Nowakowski. Cracow: PAN, 1984. Jonson, Ben. The Works of BenJonson. Ed. Charles Harold Herford, Percy and Evelyn Simpson. 11 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1925-52. —. The Complete Masques. Ed. Stephen Orgel. New Haven, London: Yale UP, 1969. Kastner, Jean Georges. Les danses des morts. Paris: Brandus, 1852. Kinney, Troy, and M. West Kinney. The Dance. New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1936.

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Lydgate, John. The Danse Macabre. With an introduction by Eleanor Prescott Hammond. in: Hammond, Eleanor Prescott (Ed.): English Verse between Chaucer and Surrey. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1927. The Macro Plays. Ed. Mark Eccles, EETS 262. London: Oxford UP, 1969. Marston, John. The Plays ofJohn Marston. Ed. Henry Harvey Wood. 3 vols. Edinburgh: Oliver and Bayd, 1934-39. —. Antonio's Revenge. Ed. G. K. Hunter. London: Arnold, 1966. —. The Malcontent. Ed. Bernard Harris. London: Benn, 1967. Menzel, Gerhard W , ed. Pieter Bruegel der Ältere. Zürich: Stauffacher, 1970. Middleton, Thomas. A Game at Chess. Ed. J. W. Harper. London: Benn, 1966. More, Sir Thomas. The Workes of Sir Thomas More, Knyght; written in the Englishe Tonge. London 1557, 2 vols. fol. Morris, Brian. Introduction. The Broken Heart, by John Ford. London: Benn, 1965. Onions, Charles Talbut. A Shakespeare Glossary. Oxford: Clarendon, 1963. Owst, Gerald Robert. Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1933. The Penguin Book of English Verse. Ed. John Hayward. London: Penguin, 1965. Puddephat, W. "The Mural Paintings of the Dance of Death in the Guild Chapel of Stratford-upon-Avon." Birmingham Archeological Society Transactions and Proceedings. Vol. 76. Oxford, 1960 (for 1958). Rust, Frances. Dance in Society. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969. Schoenbaum, Samuel. "The Revenger's Tragedy: Jacobean Dance of Death." MLQ15 (1954): 201-207. Scot, R. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. Introduced by Hugh Ross Williamson. Arundel: Centaur, 1964. A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964. Ed. Frank Ernest Halliday. Aylesbury: Penguin, 1964. Shakespeare, William. The Comedies of Shakespeare. Ed. W J . Craig. 13 th ed. London: Oxford UP, 1962. —. The Tragedies of Shakespeare. Ed. W J. Craig. 13 th edition. London: Oxford UP, 1958. —. The Histories and Poems of Shakespeare. 13 th edition. London: Oxford UP, 1958. Spencer, Theodore. Death and Elizabethan Tragedy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1936. Stammler, Wolfgang. Der Totentanz; Entstehung und Deutung. Munich: Hanser, 1948. Tourneur, Cyril. The Revenger's Tragedy. Ed. Brian Gibbons. London: Benn, 1967. —. The Atheist's Tragedy. Ed. Brian Morris and Roma Gill. London: Benn, 1976. Wapull, George. The Tyde taryeth no Man. London: Jackson, 1576.

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Warren, Florence, ed., and Beatrice White, intr. The Dance of Death from MSS. Ellesmere 26 / A 13 andB. M. Lansdowne 699. EETS, OS 181. London: Oxford UP, 1931. Welsford, Enid. The Fool: His Social and Literary History. London: Faber & Faber, 1935. White, Lynn. "Death and the Devil." The Darker Vision of the Renaissance. Ed. Robert S. Kinsman. Berkeley: U of California P, 1974. 2546. Wölfflin, Heinrich. Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe. 6th edition. Munich: Bruckmann, 1923. Yunck J o h n Adam. The Lineage of Lady Meed. Notre Dame, IN: U of Notre Dame P, 1963.

ROBERT WEIMANN

Discourse, ideology and the crisis of authority in post-Reformation England*

For the understanding of English Renaissance literature, and in particular of Elizabethan drama, the contribution made by the Reformation in England, Germany and throughout Europe has not yet been fully appreciated. During the 16th century the after-effects of the English Reformation become the catalyst of a flourishing national culture, in which Protestantism and Renaissance Humanism merge in a strange alliance. Unlike strife-ridden Germany, the Protestant movement stands under the sign of a jealously watchful, yet always centralized absolutism under which the English Reformation although it begins very slowly and is then for the most part checked - in retrospect makes an outstanding contribution to the early classical heyday of English national culture. The importance of this contribution in cultural and aesthetic terms, its manifold and finely drawn contours, have only recendy become the focus for research;1 but its full significance for literary history can scarcely be estimated without first taking a closer look at the historical setting of the Reformation in the discourse of 16th century English society. *

1

Preliminary Note: The present article is part of a larger study which will be published in German under the title Shakespeare und die Macht der Mimesis. Autorität und Repräsentation im Elisabethanischen Theater, Berlin (GDR): Aufbau Verlag, 1988. Cf. Lewalski, Weiner. Rasmussen (99 f.) comments: "The English Reformation initiated a profound cultural revolution in the midst ofwhich, beginning in the late 1570s, came the flowering of the English literary renaissance [...] Was there more than an accidental relationship between the two historical movements?" This question cannot find a satisfactory answer so long as the gap remains which exists between the History-of-Ideas approach represented by Rasmussen and those scholars who view our period from the angle of the social history of communication. Even Elizabeth L. Eisenstein has not been able to bridge that gap, although she magnificently prepares the ground on which the thesis of the printing press as praeparatio evangelica can be built (1:370-375). In comparison to her book the present article is only a very modest first attempt to view language, ideology, form and function/communication with reference to the special problem which is to be the subject of the book mentioned in the Preliminary Note.

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The following essay puts forward the theory that it was in the aftermath of the English Reformation that a crisis of authority of unknown proportions became apparent; that in this connection many impulses which Karl Marx described as 'naturwüchsig' i.e. politically and intellectually unreflected, were replaced by ideologically motivated behaviour; that the spread of discursive skills and activities associated with this made political, cultural and especially theatrical processes accessible to incomparably larger numbers of people; and that, finally, in such circumstances, theatrical discourse (even more so than that of politics or religion) was able to produce new, more comprehensive and representative forms and functions. From its historiographical premises, this thesis assumes that the social and historical foundations of the Elizabethan theatre go further into the history and aftermath of the Reformation than was thought in the past.2 Up to now the historical roots for this theatre had been sought in the main only in the economic and social history of the late 16th century. In addition to this still central placing, the middle of the century and the time immediately prior to that seems to have been an exceptionally momentous historical period, in which essential assumptions and conditions for the theatrical discourse of the Shakespearean era saw the light of day.

I It was precisely at this juncture that the decisive course was set for the political, religious and social life of Shakespeare's time. As recent historical research suggests, the traditional break of 1485 (at the beginning of Tudor rule) is only partially suitable to demarcate the point of radical change which characterized the whole century, whereas only "the fourth decade of the 16th century" may be seen as "the indisputable climax of the whole process of radical change of the early middle class" (Mothes 253). In this decade the real forces and the decisive effects of political and social change are formed in England: the emergence of a new aristocracy, a definite change in the class basis of the Crown, the redistribution of land and wealth following the dissolution of the monasteries and the enclosures, and Parliament gaining imporIn this my approach is akin to recent studies in the field of literary history which view the Elizabethan theatre in connection with the historical process of the entire 16th century; cf., e.g., E. Jones, esp. 7 f., 31,266.

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tance as an advocate and ally of anticlerical policy. And there was more: the decisive step towards political unity and central administration forced by Thomas Cromwell's new concept of the state as a sovereign imperial authority in temporalibus, with absolute rule by the "one supreme head and king", but yet in conjunction with the whole nation personified in the king-inparliament. Whether these "changes are crowded together so thickly and so deliberately that only the term 'revolution' can describe what happened" 3 or not: the fact remains that basic premises for the Shakespearean era are shaped at a point in time when the English Reformation, together with the royal supremacy, is creating conditions which are to determine the political and religious life and thinking of the future. For this fact alone Shakespearean scholars should at least pay heed to those historians who pose the "question of an early middle class revolution in England during the first half of the 16th century" 4 and who make the "problems of the relation of Reformation and revolution in England" (Hill, Puritanism 32-49, 56, 323 ff.) the departure point for a new look at the whole century. This is not the place to go into detail on the new questions in the historiography of the 16th century in England, bearing in mind that the problems of the division into periods do little to help us understand the relation of authority and representation in contemporary discourse. Of greater importance is the fact that the English Reformation was bound up with economic and political conditions under which the traditional medieval relations of power, discourse, thinking and action underwent fundamental changes, were in part even revolutionized. While elementary facts of life in church, state, industry and family were set in motion, the structure of human relationships changed. In the wake of the Reformation, loyalty towards a person, family, or dynasty, which had been accepted as a given duty, was replaced by an entirely new, ideological element which had to be thrashed out in discourse. This ideological element became particularly important as a motivat3

4

Elton, Tudor Revolution 427. In his later book, Reform and Reformation, Elton shifts the phase of revolution away from the year 1485, reducing the stature of Henry VIII and the role of the monarchy in general in favour of social forces pressing from below. In this shift the paramount contribution of Thomas Cromwell remains practically unaffected. Cf. also Elton's Policy and Police. The theory of a Tudor revolution from above, which Elton retains throughout his work, has not gone uncontested; it was flatly rejected by Williams and Harriss. In his reply to them Elton insists on the importance of the changes which took place above all in the 1530s, but concedes: "I would today attempt to set the 'revolution' more subtly in a sea of continuity." ("The Tudor Revolution: A Reply" 26). Schilfert 255. Mothes builds on Schilfert.

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ing force in political thought and action. It is the middle of the century that represents, as Wallace MacCaffrey writes, "a fundamental turning-point", a "profound transformation in the whole nature of English politics", which in the end was connected with the "intrusion of religious ideology into politics" (MacCaffrey 4,9,11). Whereas in feudal times direct, naturally developed relations had determined most people's thinking and behaviour, now ideas, convictions, abstract principles—all conveyed through discourse—became the social link and political driving force of larger groups of people. For the first time in their history, with the emergence of Protestantism, people outside and beneath the ruling class were being motivated ideologically by entering into discursive exchanges on the subject of their religion. These people were confronted with different, indeed diverging claims on their loyalty, with the contradiction, perhaps even the choice, between more or less conflicting authorities. In previous centuries this had been the prerogative only of the ruling class; but now, with the beginnings of a book market and increasing literacy, more and more people found themselves involved and taking part in processes of communications determined by values, where they had to decide not only on religious but also on political and intellectual questions pertaining to their own lives. These were situations in which the relation between the textual document (in the form of Bible texts in the vernacular, sermons, pamphlets etc.) and its effect, or the response to it, allowed much greater scope for individual views and interpretations. As never before people were now in the position of having to make their own judgments on truth and untruth, on the correct or incorrect meaning of the Scriptures, in the absence of the accepted universal church authority to which they had long been accustomed. The emergence of modern ideology and the disruption of an all-embracing system of authority which was accepted for good, coincided with the thrust in population growth and a wave of rising prices and heavier burdens on the shoulders of the peasants. Estate owners raised rents and taxes to meet their own rising costs; and that was not all: they drove out tenants and vassals of long standing from the land they had cultivated and enclosed it all, transforming it into pasture to produce profitable sheep's wool. In this situation, in which the reformation of the Church coincided with the original accumulation of capital,5 there was wide-spread peasant revolt in England in 5

Cf. Chapter 24 of Das Kapital, Marx/Engels, Werke Vol. 23, 741-91. The importance of these changes for the history of the theatre is discussed in my dissertation, Drama und Wirklichkeit, 13-60.

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which the leaders appeared "more self-conscious than ever before, and to some extent articulate" (Cornwall 4). "It was", as an historian of these revolts writes, "as though in breaking with Rome and implementing radical changes in the structure of the Church, Henry VIII had, however unwittingly, unloosed a host of disruptive forces whose existence was not realised."« In these peasant uprisings the political dynamite of the Reformation was immediately revealed and so was the Janus face in the legitimation of social interests through the abstract, religious and ultimately ideological pattern of discourse. The reasons for the protests in the East and the uprisings in the South West were basically the same or at any rate comparable; in both areas they were directed against enclosures, increased taxes and burdens on farmers. But the ideological operation of social action was of such a kind that the ways of legitimizing and representing these actions in one area were diametrically opposed to those of the other. The peasants in East Anglia hoisted their flags under the sign of radical Protestantism, while their brothers in Cornwall and Devon did likewise under the sign of restaurative Catholicism. Thus in the year 1549, exactly fifteen years before Shakespeare's birth, the whole land was stirred by a large but ambivalent wave of protest, which particularly in the East and South West developed into a massive threat for Somerset's Protectorate. As had happened in the Pilgrimage of Grace (1536), tens of thousands rose up against the authority of their rulers; the common man armed himself in resistance against a ruling upper class which—in his eyes—had lost its old legitimacy following the dissolution of monasteries, enclosures and exorbitant rents. Whereas, however, in the thirties the landed gentry were still wavering, and conservative elements of the aristocracy seemed prepared to enter the field against Thomas Cromwell and the Protestant faction led by him at court, ten years later, in the year of protest 1549, the situation had changed radically: in Cornwall only two nobles had joined the protest; in East Anglia a wealthy Protestant farmer by the name of Robert Kett had headed a movement against the gentlemen supporting enclosures, and his followers attributed slogans of social revolution to the Reformation— but not in the South West. Their claims contained an echo of the Ten Articles

6

Cornwall 3. Cf. Ferguson, esp. Chapter VI, 134-61, where "the rapid growth of public discussion" is richly and convincingly documented and its "revolutionary significance" recognized (134).

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of German Peasants.7 A large army besieged Norwich, at that time the second most important city on the island and gained sympathy from the ranks of the poor people and craftsmen. The rebels' camp was dominated—just as it was exactly one hundred years later—by revolutionary discipline and evangelical piousness. Once again—as in the German Peasant War—Protestantism and the interests of the common man seemed indivisible.8 Following the popular reformist revolt in the valley of Dusinberre, which ended as bloodily as the restaurative uprising in the South West, neither the old faith nor the evangelical search for a plebeian Protestant answer to original accumulation could assert themselves. The country remained as before in a situation of transition and indecisiveness, which corresponded to the precarious state of the Reformation movement in mid-century. At this point the step from Reformation to the peak of national culture hardly seemed conceivable. However, having once detached ourselves from the overhasty judgment of earlier German literary historians ("the Reformation produced . . . no new secular culture") (Stammler 277), we must explore afresh that very process of secularisation and ideologization of discourse in England which began in full in those years. In Germany Luther's struggle led objectively to increased autarchy among the territorial princes; in England, the turbulent years under the Protectorate and then under Mary came to an end with the final supremacy of the Crown as Head of the Anglican Church. The "great image of authority" now seemed more firmly installed than ever: following the crisis of the universal church, church and state were now united as never before. In the union of political power and ecclesiastical supremacy, the basis of absolute power —represented now in one person—had been broadened. The great crisis of authority of the feudal church and the general loss of clerical power had endowed a national and secular successor institution with an increased claim to representation in the political sphere—just as it had made the issue of representation in the theatre more complex and comprehensive.

7

T h e 29 d e m a n d s are printed in Bindoff, Ket's Rebellion 63-66. W h a t A. G. Dickens says in a different context applies here as well: "that n o t h i n g could be m u c h m o r e international in character t h a n the f o u n d a t i o n s of the English Reformation." ("Ambivalent" 56) Cf. also Dickens, Reformation and Society 101-04.

8

Cf. Bindoff, Ket's Rebellion 67: "The rebels [ . . . ] were largely satisfied with the pace a n d direction of current religious reforms."

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II Although the rulers had prevented armed protest and later, in the eighties and nineties, the breakthrough of radical Protestantism in the church, yet the Reformation, originally begun by the second Tudor ruler himself, very soon followed its own momentum against which royal control was powerless. In conjunction with the printing press and the revolution in the authorisation of vernacular texts, the Reformation helped to produce just those conditions which introduced a dynamic factor into the discourse of the 16th century. This becomes clear as soon as we begin to trace the crisis of authority in postReformation discourse right up to the decade in which Marlowe and Shakespeare began to write for the popular Renaissance theatre. The fact that the problem of authority is articulated again and again especially by the greater dramatist 9 must be viewed in its full historical context, in which—in addition to other social and historical processes—post-Reformation "debate and discord" (below p. 118) is of far-reaching, even outstanding significance. In particular there may well be a connection as yet not ascertained between the changed awareness of authority and the fuller representation of social interests in discourse - a connection which found its liveliest expression and most effective mass echo in Shakespeare's theatre. If, like Joel Hurstfield, we see the Reformation as "in the profoundest sense a crisis of authority" (Hurstfield et al. 1), then its course in England must have been particularly shattering for authority. Its hesitant and autocratic beginning as well as its progress, marked as it was by setbacks and sudden changes, were bound to hinder any appeal to an unquestionably given system of authority—and for this very reason there was untold scope for the most widely differing discursive activities motivated by different points of interest. A feeling of disorientation surely burdened many souls; this must have been particularly strong in the second half of the century, when the confusion of conflicting objectives in theology and church policy reached its climax. This penetrated deep into the daily behaviour patterns and habits of the people. Let us take a look at the development of "a child born in 1533, the year when Elizabeth was b o r n , . . . if his family was conformist" such a child had "subscribed to five different versions of the Christian religion by the time that he was twenty-six" (Hurstfield, "Elizabethan People" 39).

9

Cf. "the demigod Authority" (MM I ii 120); "Bifold authority" (TC V ii 144), and also "base authority from others' books" (LLL I i 87).

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It was no coincidence that English Protestantism was associated with a wave of anti-clericalism which had always been present and which swelled massively in the course of the 16th century. Like other transcripts, the Essex archives made available by E. E. Emmison form probably only the tip of the iceberg.10 The servants of the church had changed their faith too often; they were considered corrupt, lazy, bent on their own interests and they were the butt of slander and derision and even had stones thrown at them in public: "What is more houted at, scoffed and scorned in Englande now then a religious man in his wede?" asked Thomas Stapleton in 1565. "The people . . . have conceived an heathenish contempt of Religion, and a disdaynefiill loathing of the ministers thereof," wrote Bishop Cooper. 11 The English Reformation, decreed from above, was in its beginning devoid of that rousing, mobilizing power which in Germany filled the hearts of the people with a kind of fervour that continued to be felt in German pietism. It must be conceded, of course, that from the 15 th century Lollard heretics had fostered the spiritualization of faith (which externally corresponded with a strong anticlericalism). It was no coincidence that Protestantism succeeded in putting down roots in the economically advanced East and South East of the country, where the Lollards had already quietly done the groundwork. As A. G. Dickens has shown so impressively, a "gradual merging of the new Protestant faction with the old Lollard cause" came about, thus helping to create the "ambivalence" of the English Reformation: only because of this did the contradiction between "State Reformation" and the "popular Reformation" become a constituent element in the overall issue in the sense that—unlike Germany—the break between power and discourse remained always potentially deep and far-reaching. Among other things this meant that the popular

10

11

Emmison, Morals, mentions "strong anticlerical feelings," so that one can truly say that the Elizabethan clergy received "from the laity an abundant offering of slander and hostility" (112 f.). Emmison is certainly right to stress that we must beware of gathering from these instances "an exaggerated impression of discontent or disorder" (Disorder 65), but his claim that Essex was unique for "this persistent pestilence of treasonable talk" appears unwarranted as long as we accept the analysis of the records by their Victorian editors as inexhaustive. Cp. for instance Emmison's reference to the mere "six Middlesex charges in the whole reign" (viii) with John Cordy Jeaffreson's statement in his edition of the Middlesex County Records: "Having given the abundant evidence, I have foreborn to render it superabundant by needless examples" (1:1). Cooper 198; cf. also the section headed "The Swelling Tide ofAnticlericalism" in Greaves 98-104.

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Reformation followed the scenario of state rule and power to a very limited extent only and thus remained fairly unaffected by the curbing of the reformatory process by the ageing Henry, under Mary and by Archbishop Whitgift.12 Of course, that did not mean that there were no important links between state church policy and popular Protestantism. On the contrary, this held good for Thomas Cromwell's placing of the vernacular version of the Great Bible in English parish churches (1539); for the abolition of the chantries (1549), connected as they were with the Catholic cult of the saints and the requiem mass; and finally, for Thomas Cranmer's Catechism of 1549, which was soon followed by Martin Bucer's second Book of Common Prayer (1552). These were integral and irreversible measures which left their mark on the overall process of the English Reformation in such a way that they helped to set free discursive activity in a direction that was more strongly self-determined and more related to the parish. Seen as a whole, however, the Protestant doctrine was received very differently and sometimes with extreme hesitation in all the different corners of England. In the North, the half-heartedness of the Protestant spirit of Reformation seemed particularly characteristic: there, under Edward VI, who was a minor (1547-1553), "the Edwardian Reformation was almost entirely destructive; the old Church was damaged but Protestantism was not enforced" (Haigh 157). This situation was considerably worsened by the decidedly Protestant Protectorate of Somerset and the subsequent succession to the throne of a Catholic queen. Throughout the liturgy and in questions of faith there were uncertainties which penetrated right into the process of the new institutionalization and touched on that very sensitive area where the Lollard legacy and state regulations, Protestant inwardness and ecclesiastical power clashed. As Ralph Houlbrooke suggested in a recent survey of church jurisdiction of that period, the church was "never again" in the position to win back the "moral authority, which it had lost during the Reformation and the years of neglect under Elizabeth"—especially as the ecclesiastical courts came out of the Reformation "severely weakened" and thereafter were restricted in their jurisdiction. 13 The further progress of the Reformation as a whole—and the six years of counter-Reformation under the Catholic Mary Tudor (1553-1559)—were ill suited to weaken the Lollard-Protestant undercurrent or even to calm down the well-attested anti-clericalism of the time. On the contrary, under the two 12

is

Dickens, "Ambivalent" 50; cf. also Dickens, English Reformation 31-37. Houlbrooke 221, 266, 269; cf. also Greaves 676, 679.

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patrons of the underage Edward, the clergy had become "a sort of civil service for religious matters" (Bindoff, Tudor England 162). Whereas Henry had always resisted the powers of the radical Reformation, Somerset, and particularly the ruthless Northumberland, raised anti-clericalism almost to a state doctrine for their own self-enrichment: they began to pluck the power and land of the bishops like the feathers of a fattened goose. The bishops were forced to carry out the orders of the Lord Protector; if they refused, they were either dismissed or threatened with punishment. The result was a further loss of authority, an irretrievable loss of power and influence by the church. With this in mind, we can say of the time of the Protectors that "the events of 1547 to 1553 had unleashed forces which could never again be wholly brought under control" (Parker 125).

Ill In order to study the conditions of legitimization and the crisis in authorization more closely, let us glance at an official text in which the crisis manifests itself in statu nascendi. In the proceedings of Henry VIII's last parliament (1545/46), recorded by Joseph Hall, the sick and ageing king expresses his concern to his secular and clerical subjects about one particular matter, which is "certainly a mistake and not at all in order" and which he expects "with all his fervour" will be dealt with: instead of harmony and benevolence "discord and dissension beareth rule in every place" (Hall 2:356). The dilemma Henry complains of comes to a dimax in the outburst of conflicting interests and meanings within post-Reformation discourse, in the loss of an unquestioned authority in spiritual things, so that—as the king complains—one side begins to curse the other as "heretics and anabaptists", while the other side, in its turn, derides its opposers as "papists, hypocrites and pharisees". The "wound" thus inflicted on the state is caused by the fact that clerical authority is appropriated in unheard-of ways and then attacked again (and thus expropriated in effect): I see and here daily that you of the Clergy preache one against another, teache one contrary to another, inveigh one against another without Charity or discreción. Some be to styff in their old Mumpsimus, other be to busy and curious, in their newe Sumpsimus. Thus all men almoste be in variety and discord . . . alas how can the pore soules live in concord when you preachers sow emonges them in your sermons, debate and discord? (Hall 2: 356).

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Thus, very soon after the Henrician Reformation, discourse appears in continual conflict between highly diverging positions: some are 'rigid in their old Mumpsimus', the others 'busy and inquisitive in their new Sumpsimus'. In the end the Reformation has changed the function of discourse itself: from being a vessel of Catholic harmony it has become a medium of evangelical discord. The language of the sermon has become the language of argument: the priests themselves sow the seeds of'debate and discord': now writing and thinking are dominated by a lack of agreement and Variety" in their interpretations and interests. At this point the language of the king makes a positive and forward-looking attempt to authorize a church conciliation, as a kind of via media out of the opposition of extremes. Thus, the contradiction between "Sumpsimus" and "Mumpsimus" is in the full sense of the word an integral testimony of how a breaking up of discursive practices can be, as it were, made good and offset by the use of onomatopoeia. (According to the Oxford English Dictionary both these concepts—for which we have verification only since 1517!—stem from the mouth of an illiterate priest of the old faith, who when celebrating mass justified his gibberish with the following words: "I will not change my old mumpsimus [my mumbling] for your new sumpsimus [a perfect indicative form of sumere = to take]. Since that time "Mumpsimus" has been acknowledged as the embodiment of a "bigoted opponent of reform", as a sign for an action which "obstinately adheres to old ways, in spite of the clearest evidence that they are wrong".)14 Whereas Henry recommends the Lordes spiritual "to preach honestly and truly the word of God" (that is, to base their discourse on the authority of the Bible alone) his admonition to the secular lords is no less instructive: instead of picking on the bishops, priests and preachers, a well-founded objection to incorrect religious teaching should be made to the Privy Council or to the King himself, as only he could act as God's representative and servant: and bee not Judges your selfes, of your awne phantasticall opinions, and vain exposicions, for in suche high causes ye maie lightly erre. And al though you be permitted to reade holy scripture, and to have the word of God in your mother tongue, you must understande that it is licensed you so to do, onely to informe your awne conscience, and to instruct your children and famely, and not to dispute and make scripture, a railyng and tauntyng stocke, against Priestes and Preachers (as many light persones do) (Hall 2: 357). 14

The OED traces "mumpsimus" back to R. Pace, "De fructu" (1517); the earliest occurrence after that is—characteristically—in Tyndale (1530).

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Thus, the secular lords should abstain from making a religious judgment as their own 'incredible opinions and conceited interpretations' can so easily mislead. And although they are now allowed to read the word of God in their mother tongue, this reading matter may only be used to enrich "your awne conscience" and the education of children, thus remaining within the family. The monarch wishes public discourse to remain unaffected by it. Henry's attempt to resolve the new contradictions between power, authority, and discourse of the clergy by reference to the "true" word, is an attempt to fight the symptoms of the disease with its own causes: just as the demand for "truth" evades the criteria of evangelical exegesis, the restriction to the private sphere overlooks the political consequences of the individual "conscience". Instead of polemical songs (which were the natural product of the Reformation) the Church was to hymn unisono the praises of royal supremacy. The impossible expectation is laid before Parliament in the hope that thus the inflammatory material can be defused in the streets and marketplaces: I am very sory to knowe and here, how unreverently that moste precious juel the worde of God is disputed, rymed, sung and jangeled in every Alehouse and Taverne, contrary to the true meaninge and doctrine of the same. And yet I am even as much sory, that the readers of the same, folowe it in doynge so fayntlye and coldly: for of thys I am sure, that Charitie was never so faint emongest you, and verteous and Godly livyng was never lesse used, nor God him self emongest Christians, was never lesse reverenced, honored or served. (Hall 2: 357).

Here at last one effect of the Reformation which is only rarely documented—its impact on the growth of popular discursive activities—is made public. The Reformation appears as a highly stimulating arena for vernacular discourse: how the Word is now 'debated, rhymed, sung and distorted' in all the alehouses and taverns! 'The most priceless jewel, the word of God' (that is, the highest authority) has to relinquish its claim to one single 'true meaning and interpretation'! The "true meaninge" of evangelism must indeed take harm if the word of God is exposed to the irreverence and manifold interpretations of the street. As the king explains, the new vernacular arena for receiving and interpreting the Bible, has been turned into a place of scepticism, where belief in the "true meaninge" of the Word lives on "so fayndye and coldly" that the new head of the church has the impression that God "was never lesse reverenced". Henry could not have expressed the historical relation between the vernacular adoption of the Bible, loss of church authority and the advance of discursive activity and variety of representation more fittingly. By referring to

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the reformed clergy, the ruling aristocracy and the ordinary classes, he presented—from his own view—an amazingly comprehensive picture of the state of discourse which had changed and expanded considerably in the wake of the Reformation. Noticing "debate and discord" among the clergy, "phantasticall opinions, and vain expositions" among the ruling aristocracy, but quarrelsomeness and irreverence among the ordinary people, he named that legacy which was handed down to posterity well beyond Shakespeare's time both as the prerogative and as the dynamite of the Reformation: it was the urge and the necessity to negotiate vital interests ideologically, to shift the appropriation of power and property from the use of violence and tradition to the medium of discourse, not accepting the reasons for religious and intellectual authority as prescribed, but to influence and justify them ideologically in one's own conduct and existence, through one's own discursive activity. As never before in the Catholicism of the Middle Ages, the word of the Holy Scriptures was adapted to the needs of diverging interests and used to serve earthly ends. Christopher Sutton reduced it to the profound formula "Religion is become nothing lesse then Religion, to wit, a matter of meere talk: such politizing is there on all parts, as a man cannot tell, who is who." 15 The new, more strongly self-determined purpose of religion could really be ascertained by only talking, by "debate" and "variety" in discourse: the correlation between religious belief, politizing and personal being was determined less by the bonds of blood and allegiance, but by philosophy, by discovering the world and the self in discourse. Therefore it was more difficult for one person to tell who the other was. The answer to the question "who is who" had become abstract. Hence it was that action and existence of the individual, once they were motivated politically, by abstract ideas, became less predetermined by accustomed links with nature and connections of direct dependence. Thus "politizing" pushed religion into discourse, discourse into the function of ideology and—as Christopher Sutton noted—if necessary it changed social identity or at least weakened it. (The consequences for representation will concern us later: there was now a wider gap between what a human being did and wanted in reality and what he represented by his speech and thinking. This could be compared with the problematic nature of political representation which now emerged: unlike the ties of feudal tenure with their comprehensive, not merely economic dependency relationships, the new bourgeois principle of representation bore, from its very beginning, the Janus face of ideology—uniting elements of self-determination and heter15

Christopher Sutton, Disce vivere (London 1604), sig. A6v, quoted from Greaves 3.

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onomy, embracing, among those representing and those represented, both the identity of interests and their non-identity. Now that the religious word-not to mention the effects of ecclesiastical activities-had become the instrument of a new kind of "politizing", discourse had taken on a much broader spectrum of historical functions. At the very moment when the threshold between church and state, religion and ideology was lowered and the former monopoly of the clergy was broken in many ways, discourse achieved a far greater potential to represent vastly differing interests. The word, highly privileged so far, lent a voice to many activities which hitherto had remained unexpressed; appropriated for diverse popular interests, it now became effective in entertainment outside the Church, and in song and rhyme (and theatre) it gave increased playful expression to life's social activities. Thus an irreversible process had been introduced: a change in the relation between "debate" and authority, between "meere talke" and consciousness had begun to the effect that authority and consciousness were less simply predetermined. Authority now stood not only at the beginning but appeared increasingly at the end, as a product of discursive activity. Whereas the contemporary crisis of authority resulted in a totally new variety of discursive activities and objectives, the new state of communication and ideology now emerging was beneficial to everything but the overcoming of the crisis of authority.

IV It was in this situation that Elizabeth (1559-1603), on ascending the throne, saw herself confronted by a flood of "debate and discord" which stirred emotions at a time when Reformation and Counter-Reformation were already in conflict. Both movements "synchronized in England and reached their climax together as mutually exacerbating forces" (Collinson, Movement 14). More than before, the new régime was therefore involved in a war on two fronts against papal reaction and radical Reformation; at the same time, it also intended to deal with the corruption of the Church. In such circumstances the via media propagated in the Elizabethan setdement sought to bring about a regeneration of secular and ecclesiastical authority by referring to the national mission of the highest dignitary of both state and church, i.e. the Queen herself. Apart from Richard Hooker's great work, in which divine and natural justice, Thomist and political-constitutional thinking merge in a

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strange Janus-like image of the transitional period, the real impulse of renewal remained for the most part a pragmatical one: the effective unifying element was a patriotically inspired moderate Protestantism, which was to draw its real attraction from triumphs without and conciliation within the country. But when these conditions became unsettled, the question of the origins of ecclesiastical and political authority became more acute than ever before. For the time being, however, Elizabeth was able to reinforce the legacy of the state Reformation in the national and dynastic interests. Secular and ecclesiastical power now supported each other in mutual interaction and strengthened each other in their absolutistic tendencies. This had, of course, been the very aim of her father's claim to the position of "supreme heade and sovereigne lord": his "high aucthority" which had emerged from the victory of the medieval split between secular and ecclesiastical power had to be reaffirmed over and over again as a point of national unification. Then it appeared that the concentration of all political and religious, state and church authority in one office and one person could once again delay the process of its disintegration. Despite her imposing success, Elizabeth was faced with an almost impossible task, if she wanted to achieve real uniformity: having, after all, received the sceptre of supremacy under the sign of the victorious Reformation, she had now to curb the Protestant authorization of discourse. She had been Queen for hardly a decade, when in 1566 the first split took place in London between the higher clergy appointed by the state and nonconformist preachers. Shortly afterwards the radical wing of the Reformation took up the attack: under John Field, their indefatigable organizer, and Thomas Cartwright, the leading figure in Cambridge, the Puritans of the 70s joined forces under the battlecry of "a further Reformation",16 introduced a Presbyterian form of religious self-administration—the so-called classis—and as early as 1572 turned to Parliament with two Admonitions. The strategy of the permanent Reformation (Hooker called it "the stratagem of Reformation for ever after" [2: 327 f.]) had created its first institutional apparatus outside the officially controlled state church. These Evangelists (professors of the Gospel) apparently only followed the principle of seeking the truth by Cf. Collinson, Movement, who interprets the call for "a further reformation" as "the logical completion of the process of reconstituting the national Church" (12), the corollary of which is that "Puritanism was to take root within the established Church and within its beneficed ministry, not to any significant extent outside it" (59).

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"meere talke"—that is, by discussion; in reality they were, as Richard Cosin wrote, "scalding hotte in desire for innovation, which they falsely call reformation" (1). Faced with this development which—as we shall see—was further aggravated and made public by Martin Marprelate's attack on the episcopal office, Elizabeth found herself forced to act promptly. She charged Edmund Grindal, her Archbishop, with the task of restricting the preaching of the Word of God: for each county three or four licensed preachers were considered adequate, the rest were told to keep quiet and, above all, no layman was to be allowed to speak in matters of church or state. It would suffice if the homilies were read on Sundays, as these were compulsory sermons prescribed by the state and with set texts, especially if they were directed at "disobedience": the Queen would be more than content if these were to ring out every week for all to hear as the trumpets of social and religious unity.17 This was an intervention of absolutistic power to snuff out self-authorized, Protestant discourse before it flared up. But the Queen was so inextricably entangled in the nets of the Reformation that, for the first and only time, she found herself sharply contradicted by her own Archbishop: basing his remarks on the authority of the Bible, the intrepid churchman dared to remind the ruling Queen that "the Gospel of Christ should be plentifully preached", that it was not the sacraments but "the public and continual preaching of God's word" alone that was beneficial to the spiritual salvation of the soul. This could not be achieved by the homilies-, in fact the Queen was entreated, "when you deal in matters of faith and religion... you would not use to pronounce so resolutely and peremptorily, quasi ex auctoritate, as ye may do in civil and extern matters".18 This confrontation between the authority of absolutist power and the Protestant power of the Scriptures (as religious authority) was lesson enough: the Archbishop was put under house arrest for months, but the Queen gave up a claim which—instead of solving the problems—would have produced a deeper crisis of authority and would possibly have driven a wedge between Crown and Church which might have proved irreparable. The outcome was again a compromise even if the mild Grindal was very soon followed by the 17

18

Cf. Collinson, Grindal 240-48. Grindal's famous letter is also printed in full in Strype 558 ff. Cf. Hill, "Grindal to Laud" 69: "These prophesyings, household religion, repetition of sermons [and other religious exercises] came near to forming Independent congregations within the state church of a sort which the Cromwellian church was later to embrace." Collinson, Grindal24; cf. also Rowse 271 f. For the following cf. Knappen 257.

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stricter Whitgift as Archbishop. Notwithstanding the fact that the Elizabethan alliance between political power and religious institution was thus lastingly strengthened, the Crown hesitated in enforcing a really strict uniformity. Puritan opposition was, it is true, effectively repelled in the 90s, but the state church was not granted a constitution or a definition of its external form or its inner structure.19 "It was not the interest or wish of Court, Council, or Commons to allow the Church they had 'amended' to develop its organization or to gain a basis for independent action. Let it remain as amorphous, as vague, as harmless as possible, consistently with such decent conformity to the rules of State as any branch of civil service would demand" (Social England 3: 434). This astounding failure to effectively define the respective positions only served to speed up that development by which the decline of authority in church matters coincided with a suddenly increased need of representation of worldly interests. If the Crown wanted to oppose this dangerous tendency (for it led directly to the explosion of discourse in the early years of the Revolution), then it had to encroach upon the basic positions of a Reformation on whose premises the Elizabethan régime had been established. Too deeply rooted was the Protestant hope "that an open Bible and free discussion would rapidly bring all men to the same conclusions. The one thing immediately necessary was to abolish the Roman system: the new system could be left in vagueness till a general conviction of true religion had come about" (Allen 179). As long as the monarchy's political interest in uniformity and the Protestants' hope for evangelical unity permitted a link, the crisis of authority and the gaps in authorization could still be covered over by the prevailing national sentiment. These gaps deserve our special attention insofar as they offered scope to the most diverse discursive activities and interests. This phenomenon can only be discussed in concrete terms, with reference to the problem of authority in specific texts. In view of the ever-increasing variety of literary forms of expression (from the sermon and the pamphlet to tales, travel descriptions, narrative fiction, poetry, etc.) we have to limit the illustration of the conflictridden basis for legitimation of post-Reformation discourse to one example only. For this we choose the representation of the collapse ofauthority under the impact of radical Protestantism itself. The crisis of authority reaches its really scandalous form when revolutionary events in Germany are represent19

Cf. Allen 180: "The Elizabethan Church had no defined constitution, form or character."

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ed as ominous warnings of a "Conspiracie" (Richard Cosin) against the truce of the Tudors,20 thus offering a theme for a highly topical tract. The description of the Anabaptists in Thomas Nashe's Jack Wilton is a locus classicus. In this experimental prose narrative, the concurrence of social change and radical Reformation is presented as a problem of political and spiritual authority of the first order: two diametrically opposed forms of legitimation come into conflict; the ruling authority of state and church is challenged by a new, subversive form of the authorization of discourse. This challenge is described grotesquely as a strangely exaggerated form of emotion, indeed obsession in the self-authorization of Protestant prayer. A peculiar paradox arises by which "the lawfullness of the authoritie they oppose themselves against" is regarded as "sufficiently proved" or only mentioned briefly, whereas the radical Protestant alternative, that is the challenge of this authority in the discourse of the radical Reformation, becomes the effective subject of satire. It is said of the German Anabaptists (among them are ranked "John Leiden and all the crue of Chipperdolings und Muncers") that "inspiration" was their battlecry and true basis for authority; the revolutionary plebeians believed that "they knew as much of Gods minde as richer men"; for just that reason their dialogue with God was such a wild, raging, passionate prayer "to his face". The "Violence of long babling praiers" (Nashe 285-89) noted by Nashe deserves our special attention, because this "violence" goes along with the spiritualized, dialogistic power of a strange mimesis. Through this dialogistic, immediate-to-God form of prayer, the old prescribed contents of political and spiritual authority are obliterated or displaced; the "violence" of this kind of discourse reaches its climax in a speech act of enthusiastic performance, which replaces all presupposed forms of priestly mediation by a far less prearranged dialogue with God. Just because Nashe undermines this form of dialogue in the rhetoric of his own language, he can combine the anti-puritanical tract and the historiography of the uprising in Miinster with the (fictitious) report about Jack Wilton's journeys: "the particular truth of things", as the "trueth of a foolish world", is taken up in the "fained Image of Poetrie" 21 and thus gains in power thanks to a new, comprehensive mode of mimesis. 20

21

Apart from Cosin's pamphlet, I find the parallels with the history of the revolution in Germany most consistently developed by Ormerod. Ormerod discusses the problem of authority on several occasions (9,14 fF., 26,46,63 of the British Library copy), criticizing the fact that butchers, cooks, tailors, and blacksmiths think they are fit to interpret the Bible for themselves: "[...] doe all speake with tongues? do all interprete?" (70). Cf. my article "Fabula and Historici".

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Where this does not happen, where the discourse is devoid of fiction and the organized power of mimesis, the authority as described in the text is much more sharply specified in an ideological sense. As with Richard Cosin in his Conspiracie for Pretended Reformation (1592) the authority of office clashes with the (counter-)authority of inspiration, whereby—paradoxically— the radical spirit of the Reformation asserts its legitimation in an older irrationalism. Once again the English crisis of authority is described in the historiographic reflection of German history: The Bishoppe o f Munster demaunded o f the King by what authoritie he tooke upon him to rule in that Citie? W h o asked the sayde Bishoppe again, by what authoritie he the sayd Bishoppe claymed any power there? W h e n he answered, that he had it by meanes of election o f the Chapter, and by consent of the people, the King replying, sayde, that himselfe had this authoritie from God (Cosin 95).

"That the common people have an especiall authoritie in determining and establishing of Church causes" (Cosin 96), was the most controversial and pugnacious position, because the free discourse of radical Protestantism now took on an institutionalisation which—as Richard Hooker wrote— sought "farther to erect a popular authority of elders". This democratic authority was for the most part in England of presbyterian provenance; but it was also said to apply to the really revolutionary Anabaptists, who received stimulus from "Thomas Muncer", with his "opinion of equalitie of authoritie and dignitie"22 of all believers. As Nashe thought, they bore resemblance to those "fanatical fantastiques, Schismatiques, heretiques, or malecontended treasonable conspirators" in England whose discourse was so incomprehensible, so unrestrained, so violent, because it did not bow down to the power of the prevailing conditions of authority. Once again it was the principle of inspiration, especially a self-determined "maner of praying", which made the authorization of religious discourse by bishops and priests superfluous, with the result that the great authority of the church was removed from communication with God—"as it were speaking to God face to face".23 Once again the extreme performance in the mimesis of dialogue acts as an anti-representational mechanism of exclusion; it testifies to the 'close contact-to-God' character of Protestant legitimation, which shines through the hostile description of vehement prayer dialogues: "They pray, they howle, they expostulate with 22 23

Cosin 83 (wrongly paginated as 53). Cosin 6. This refers to William Hackett's "maner of praying."

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God . . . and use such unspeakable vehemence" says Nashe, who also claims knowledge of "their vehement outcries and clamours" (285, 289). In contrast to this there is a marked weakness in the self-portrayal of the ruling authority. One cannot but be amazed by the admission to the limits of the idea of authority as defined by the state church, which Bishop Thomas Cooper stresses in comparison with the intensity of radical "inspiration": in An Admonition to the People of England (1589) the Bishop writes that "these men, in rebuking [worldly] ambition, reach at an higher authoritie and power, then any bishop in England hath or will use" (118 £). The Bishop knows about the strength of the inspiration by the pure word of God and he suspects the relative weakness of legitimation, which arises for the prelate from the sheer power of his office in the state church (an office that had lost its old princely autarchy and juridical independence following the Reformation). The defensive air and the weakness of the concept of authority within the state church have many and varied reasons which range from the foundation charter of the Reformation to the ideological pragmatism of the Elizabethan reign. A glance at the text drawn up by Thomas Cromwell which justifies the break from Rome and thus the sovereignty of absolutist "high aucthority" for the decisive Reformation Parliament (1529-153 6), shows us all too clearly that the foundations of royal supremacy were precarious right from the beginning: its authorization is effected with the claim that "in dyvers sundry old authentike storyes and cronicles it is manifestlie declared and expressed that this realme of England is an Impier [sc. Empire]" in which "the king of England and no one else h e l d . . . authority, prerogative and jurisdiction" (Lehmberg 164). This law (Act in Restraint of Appeals) was authorized—as the cornerstone of the secession from Rome—by an "authority" which was as "vague"24 as could be in order to comply with Thomas Cromwell's strategy and tactics and his conception of a national state ruled by a monarch. The same pragmatic basis for the concept of authority runs through the state church discourse of the entire Elizabethan settlement. Leaving Richard Hooker aside once again, the ruling theologians are content with an authorization of the via media which is derived from the mere negation of the Catholic and Puritan ideas of authority as both equally extreme and reprehensible. An example of this is offered by Richard Bancroft, at that time the right hand of Archbishop Whitgift, in a text which is worth quoting as a final illus24

Lacey 135 : "The authority for this massive statement was vague"—although this was "the cornerstone of the edifice" which was to legitimize the entire Reformation.

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tration: in his Sermon Preached at Paules Crosse (1588) the manner and effect of the Catholic and Puritan authorizations of discourse are made to contrast with the position of the state church. Whereas Cosin had reduced the contrast between the old-church and the Puritan concept of authority to a theological justification of diverging aspirations to power, Bancroft sees it as the cultural and political formula of antagonistic discourse. On the one side are the "false prophets" of Rome: The Popish fals prophets will suffer the people to trie nothing, but do teach them wholie to depende upon them . . . they forbid them the reading o f the scripture . . . they labour with all their might to bind us to the fathers, to the councels, and to the church o f Rome, protesting verie deeply, that we must admit o f no other sence o f any place o f the scriptures, than the Romish church shall be pleased to deliver unto us (Bancroft 33 ff.).

Once again the old-church authority is found at the beginning of the exegesis: the "meaning" of discourse, the Biblical "sence" is "delivered" through the religious institution. Diametrically opposed to this is the opposite extreme of radical Protestant self-authorization: Another sort o f prophets there are, (you may in mine opinion call them false prophets) who would have the people to be alwaies seeking and searching: and those men (as well themselves as their followers) can never finde wherupon to rest. N o w they are caried hither, now thither. They are alwaies learning (as the apostle saith) but do never attaine to the truth... They wring and wrest the Scriptures according as they f a n c i e . . . that it hath ever been noted as a right property of heretikes and schismatikes, alwaies to be beating this into their followers heads: search, examine, trie and seeke: bringing them thereby into a great uncertainty . . . (Bancroft 38 f.).

Thus the greater indeterminacy in the interpretation and authorization of the Word is reduced to the concise formula of'searching, examining and trying': in contrast to the old Church, which postulated that the meaning of the text was already settled, the radical Protestants were highly self-determined in their appropriation of the text: they incessantly sought and searched for its true meaning that would be pleasing unto God. Bancroft, however, dismisses both procedures; he builds up the two extremes—in an excellent comparison—only to sanction the state church compromise of the via media out of their very negation: "the meane therefore betwixt both these extremities of trieng nothing and curious trieng of all things, I hold to be the best" (41).

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That was indeed the radical middle way; but it did not help to take either religious and theological or political and state authority out of the area of uncertainty. The "lawful authoritie which is united unto hir crowne" 25 defended by Bancroft only strengthened the link between state and church; it corresponded to historical conditions of transition and the balance of classes, and in such circumstances served vital needs of the rulers, as well as the unity of the national state and its economy. At best the deeper contradictions in the relationship between the absolutist exercise of power and discursive exegesis were covered up, but in no way eliminated.

V If, in the end, we put the impulse of the Reformation into the expanding and secularizing context of Elizabethan discourse it becomes clear at once that the great crisis of authority of the time—in the same way as the increase in discursive activity connected with it—was powerfully stimulated by the Reformation, but in no way can it be defined only within the limits of its aftereffects. During the further course of the 16th century it becomes increasingly clear that the legacy of the Reformation reflects the same socio-historical and institutional conditions (and reacts to these as well) which also account for the far-reaching changes in the forms of discourse. Reducing this change to a (necessarily simplified) formula, it may be said that—in the wake of extended literacy and increased printing—conditions of communication and distribution of texts are revolutionized at a point in time when discourse itself enters the era of conflicting ideological purposes and functions. This revolution in communication and in the formation of ideology affects large areas of Europe; it was therefore by no means confined to England and other Protestant countries. Only in this broader context does the crisis of authority, which had escalated radically during the Reformation, reach its full dimensions. Having been forcefully stimulated by the Reformation, authority without and within the text becomes a problem at the very point where it is called to the service of rival ideologies: as when it is used to justify conditions in reading and writing which have not evolved naturally, that is, are not predetermined by unquestioned norms and unchanging institutions, by the hierarchy of class, 25

Bancroft 80. The problem of authority is Bancroft's main theme: cf. 45,59,68,71,74,82, 89, 94, 97, et passim.

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by ties ofblood or vassalage. The point is reached where modern-age authority has to justify itself again and again beyond all traditional or old-church legitimations already in existence: as an ideological agency for political interests and literary representation, which now through the spreading of such ideas (as a result of literacy, the printing ofbooks and the market) itselfbecomes a power factor that is for or against existing conditions. That is to say: discourse itself contributes to the shaping ofsociety to a far greater extent than before and does so over and above the given circumstances. In other words: discourse becomes a factor in the authorization of heterogeneous thinking and behaviour; it serves as an instrument for appropriating or expropriating natural and social conditions. Whereas the authorization of individual interests leads to greater assimilation of the world in the written word (by presenting new subjects, topics, interests), the new conditions of circulation and exchange can gready increase the appropriation of texts in the world. 26 This is admittedly only a rough sketch of the connection between broader communication and increased production of ideology. Looking now beyond the Reformation, we are struck by the changed processes of production and exchange, within which an increasing number of texts was produced, authorized, circulated and received. The new perspectives opened up by Elizabeth L. Eisenstein on the revolutionary consequences of printing must be seen in conjunction with the knowledge of increasing literacy and the resulting "revolution in the education system" (Lawrence Stone) of the late 16th century.27 Here as elsewhere, a vigorous impetus had been given by the Reformation with popularized Bible reading, but this was soon absorbed in an expanded and secularized context and—helped along largely by printing—the social scope for discursive activities of all kinds was gready enlarged. The dissolution of the monastries and the chantries (1547) resulted in the destruction of numerous educational institutions; but in the interests of its new diplomatic and bureaucratic activities, the monarchy was intent on making up lost ground through new foundations which in many cases were privately financed.28 In the 40s and 50s—as a "major change initiated at the I am here continuing and expanding questions which I posed in my Realismus in der Renaissance. Cf. Stone, who also recognizes the connection with the "widespread public participation in significant intellectual debate on every front" which began after 1590 (80). Cressy regards above all the years between 1560 and 1580 as an "educational revolution" (168). Ferguson, on the other hand, stresses the lasting influence of the previous decades:"[...] how the crises of the thirties and forties stimulated discussion of all sorts" (136). Cf. Davies 270, 326. See also the groundbreaking work of Simon.

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Reformation"29—a multitude of elementary and grammar schools came into being, often under the local authority of the towns, country towns and larger villages. These were educational institutions to which Shakespeare owed his knowledge of Plautus und Plutarch, and Christopher Marlowe his entry into university. On such a basis there was the beginning ofa boom in education in the sixties which eighty years later, at the beginning of the Civil War, was to result in more than half of all male inhabitants of London being able to read and write. This was "a quantitative change of such proportions that it can only be described as a revolution" (Stone 68). At this point the stimulus to education given by the Reformation was related to various social needs; in fact this connection had from the very beginning been conveyed by the teachings of humanism. As L. B. Wright and H. S. Bennett have pointed out, the urge to read and write was in many cases motivated by practical everyday needs of housekeeping, advancement, and business (cf. Cressy 7). The fostering of literary education by the humanists had of course served the furthering of classical studies for a long time and had also indirectly worked in advance of the Reformation: at the end of the 15 th century already, Colet in Oxford had interpreted the epistles of St. Paul, rejecting all scholastic speculation. Tyndale, Barnes and Coverdale in Cambridge soon sympathized with Luther. In Cardinal College founded by Wolsey, a school came into being of Protestant-minded humanists, men like Edward Fox, Thomas Starkey and Richard Morison, whose humanistic work was closely connected with the extension of the ideological basis of Tudor absolutism (cf. Zeeveld). Even if—and one only has to think of More and Fisher—the question of the Reformation produced far-reaching divisions in English humanism, yet its national orientation, which was at the same time practical and pragmatic, remained of great social consequence. Educational policy came to the fore: "the pedagogical plans and principles of the humanists were widely introduced in the new or reorganized schools" (Caspari 17). Yet within the national absolutist reorganisation, the question of authority was raised as a topic—and later as a problem—in humanistic discourse. The commitment of English humanists for the new national state and for the Erasmianphilosophia Cbristi, as verified by researchers such as W. G. Zeeveld and J. K. McConica, did not exclude certain divisions (as for example between the radical Protestant John Rastell and the Jesuit Jasper Heywood)— despite quite considerable continuity over and above the case of Fisher and More. But these divisions concerned precisely the relation of the humanists «

Simon 291; see further 165-287.

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to absolutist supremacy as the highest authority in both politics and religion. On the one hand this resulted in a shifting of the problem of authority to the conflict of opinions among the humanists; on the other hand a new heterogeneous degree of ideological functions was transferred to the pro-absolutist strategy of representation in humanistic discourse. Especially at the moment when, against a background of improved dissemination made possible by the progress of printing, this discourse gave up the use of Latin and—with the help of Cromwell's "propaganda industry" (McConica)—reached greater numbers of people through the use of the vernacular, its potential had increased enormously and had certainly changed. 30 Now that these pro-Reformation texts on the one hand crusaded against the writings of the counter-Reformation and on the other against the ideas of the radical Reformation, they served not only the authorization of a universal commonweal comprising all estates of the nation, but at the same time and with emphasis that of the national monarchy and its claim to supremacy over the church. Thus from the crisis of legitimation of the Catholic world of the Middle Ages, a new national state "cult of authority" 31 was born which immediately began to make use of all instruments of political power (from the burning of heretics to censorship).32 Humanists like Fox, Starkey and Morison placed their discourse exclusively in the political service of the new national absolutist authority. But there were also those whose relationship to power was characterized by critical distance rather than support of the national consensus; their texts were bound to contain far greater breaches between the representation and that which was represented. An example of such a potentially subversive strategy

30

31

32

Cf. Eisenstein, esp. 132 f., 147 f., 416-18 etpassim. See, in particular, her apt comment on this new kind of ideology production which transcended regional and social boundaries: "[...] even while local ties were loosened, links to larger collective units were being forged. Printed materials encouraged silent adherence to causes whose advocates could not be found in any one parish and who addressed an invisible public from afar. New forms of group identity began to compete with an older, more localized nexus of loyalties." (132) On "the achievement of Cromwell's propaganda industry" cf. McConica 152 f., 194 f. Loades 166 fF. Cf. his entire Chapter VI: "Thomas Cromwell and the Crisis of Authority" (156-86). O n the problem of representation under the conditions of censorship cf. now Patterson, who points to the social ties between "authors and authorities" and to the internalized "Hermeneutics of Censorship" (44-119). For Shakespeare and censorship compare Heinemann.

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of representation can be found in Erasmus's The Praise of Folly.33 The same could be said ofthe greatest work of English humanism, Thomas More's Utopia. Both texts were written in Latin; at the moment when they were translated into the vernacular and duplicated in print, the political effect of their ambivalent strategy of representation was greatly heightened. The Praise of Folly appeared in English already in 1549, Utopia followed in 1551, Vives' book of wisdom appeared in the same year and Xenophon's Cyropaedia in 1553. At the same time, older English writers such as Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, even Langland's Pierce Plowman (1550), appeared in print. The distributionofthese and other works in print testified not only to a significant growth of discursive ability and activity over and above a smaller circle of humanist models; new scope for representation was instituted in which the relationship of political authority and literary self-authorization was seen to be incomparably more complex. If we bear in mind that a good part of translation activity stemmed from Protestant impulse (Eleanor Rosenberg: "deeply tinged by the Reformation" [152]), that translators of a later period such as Arthur Golding, James Samforde and George Gascoigne devoted themselves to Puritan publications, that is, they contributed to bringing "complex theological questions to public attention" (Simon 279), then the fluid boundary between Reformation and Renaissance in England can no longer be seen in terms of any homogeneous strategy of representation. The social and ideological aims of exchange and duplication were already too highly differentiated and y e t over and above corporate boundaries—referred to a national ensemble of heterogeneous interests. From publications of political theology to lengthy translations of classical, humanistic and biblical texts, the conditions were created by which, in the late 70s, English finally triumphed over Latin. The "triumph of the English language" (R. E Jones 211) was the victory of literacy, the institutionalization of printing, the beginning of means of circulation and communication aimed at a large, national lay public of readers. This is not the place to praise the leap in quality in the writing of English which characterizes the movement of discourse from the "Drab Age" to the "Golden Period".34 Leaving impressions aside, we must content ourselves with the supposition that the texts of writers like Spenser, Hooker and Shakespeare are unthinkable without a highly complex set of social forces appropriating the vernacular and subordinating it to the most 33 34

An analysis of this will be contained in the larger work of which this essay is to form a part. On this way of subdividing the 16th century cf. Lewis.

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various forms of articulation and legitimation. Even if the Anglican clergy continued to "comfort, exhort, and admonish every man to read the Bible in Latin or English, as the very word of God and the spiritual food of man's soul",35 at this time discourse exhausted itself less and less in its Protestant religious functions. What had originally been aspired to in spreading the holy Scriptures was now of benefit in dealing with much printed material. More than listening to a sermon, picking up stories and anecdotes, songs and ballads, the literature now made accessible in print opened the way for a new and consequential handling of the text. If, as recent research suggests, the Reformation left behind the legacy of "Protestant Poetics" (cf. n. 1) to form the early peak of national English literature, then a certain strategy of appropriation was connected with it. The reception of texts in the postReformation period showed a lasting, repeatable and enquiring manner of internalizing the word: with the help of the written and printed text one could "go back over difficult passages, compare texts and glosses, and find one's own way about the scriptures" (Cressy 5). However, the written language, now so much more accessible, still stood alongside but also behind the spoken word, which did not flag in the vitality of its social function but rather engraved it deeply in the writing of a variety of printed texts. For this reason an overall judgment on the standard of discursive activity in post-Reformation England can set the abilities of writing and the possibility to read printed material very high without, however, overestimating its contribution to the beginnings of the Elizabethan theatre. The authorization of discourse had been put on a new basis thanks to printing and marketing; parallel to this, oral culture continued as before and this was very important for the production and above all the reception of theatrical discourse. This was the tradition of the Protestant sermon, the verbal reciting of stories, anecdotes, proverbial wisdom and jokes—and the use of language connected with this could still offer (if required) "a sufficient range of information and diversion" (Cressy 14). The advent of the theatre meant that this barely surviving culture of oral exchange was offered a repeatable method of lasting duplication for large numbers of people which otherwise could only be realized by the printed word. For this reason the mutual penetration of oral and written forms and functions of discourse has to be considered if the problem of authority after the Reformation is to be adequately expressed. The theatre stood at the intersection of a whole variety of functions served by pamphlets, poems, tales, prose, translations, sermons, ballads and anec35

Quoted from Cressy 3.

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dotes. Only after an analysis of the process of appropriating this whole range of functions can the conditions for theatrical discourse be adequately assessed in reference to all the written and oral modes of exchange. The highly complex interrelationship of theatrical and other types of discourse must be well and truly observed, if the increased accessibility of intellectual authority and its greater freedom in choosing its own ends are after all to be regarded as a form of ideological production and reception. The entire change in the conditions of communication and distribution of post-Reformation discourse remains incomprehensible (and incompletely described) as long as the increasing role of ideology is not included in the overall picture. Richard Bancroft's formula of 'seeking, examining, trying' characterized more than only one use of discursive activity. It stood for a radical Protestant attitude which now offered a new set of values for the production and reception of non-religious texts. Thus the Reformation in its more radical wing here again pointed the way. Now that the traditional connection between discursive activity and social function, between language, signification and class interests was no longer taken for granted, the corporate context of discourse gave way to a new, less defined and apparently universal principle of representation on a more nationally comprehensive scale. In this way the ideological function of linguistic utterances was not dispelled but rather raised to a problem. Ideology—and in particular the ideology of seeking, examining and trying which was so critical of authority— now entered the various worldly forms and purposes of discourse all the more easily because—as in The Praise of Folly or King Lear—these had been so readily universalized in terms of some general humanity of feeling and suffering. In the wake ofthis great crisis ofauthority, a separation ofpolitical power and discursive authority had been prepared which was to present innumerable problems to successive strategies of representation in the following centuries. No wonder then that in the Elizabethan theatre the problem was expressed by such authors who—excluded from the system of aristocratic patronage—were dependent on their works to survive. That was the case with Robert Greene, tormented as he was, who ascribed the following hopeful words to his model Chaucer: "Poets wits are free, and their words ought to be without checke".36 Here we have the beginning of that later claim to autonomy which gauged the relation of art and authority by the contrast 36

For this cf. my introductory chapters in Realismus in der Renaissance 67-182.

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between discourse and suppression: "art tongue-tied by authority".37 That was not Shakespeare's last word, but it was a necessary step away from the constraints of authority and the threat of censorship in post-Reformation England under the much-acclaimed Queen Elizabeth I. Translated by FRANCES WESSELS.

W O R K S CITED Allen J . W. A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century. London: Methuen, 1928. Bancroft, Richard. A Sermon Preached at Paules Crosse the 9. ofFebruarie, Anno 1588. (Huntington Library Copy) London 1588. Bennett, H. S. English Books and Readers, 1558 to 1603. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1965. Bindoff, Stanley Thomas. Ket's Rebellion 1549. General Series G. 12. London: Historical Association, 1949. —. Tudor England. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955. Caspari, Fritz. Humanism and the Social Order in Tudor England. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1954. Collinson, Patrick. Archbishop Grindal, 1519-1583: The Struggle for a Reformed Church. Berkeley: U of California P, 1979. —. The Elizabethan Puritan Movement. London: Cape, 1967. Cooper, Thomas. An Admonition of the People of England (1589) repr. London 1847. Cornwall, Julian. Revolt of the Peasantry 1549. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977. Cosin, Richard. Conspiracie for Pretended Reformation: viz. Presbyteriall Discipline. Harvard College Library copy. London 1592. Cressy, David. Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1980. Davies, Clifford Stephen Lloyd. Peace, Print and Protestantism. Frogmore, St Albans: Paladin, 1977. Dickens, Arthur Geoffrey. "The Ambivalent English Reformation." Background to the English Renaissance. Ed. Joseph B. Trapp London: Gray-Mills Publishing, 1974. 37 38

Quoted from Miller 86. Shakespeare, Sonnet 66, line 9.

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—. The English Reformation. London: Batsford, 1964. —. Reformation and Society in Sixteenth-Century Europe. London: Thames & Huston, 1966. Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Europe. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1979. Elton, Geoffrey Rudolph. Policy and Police. The Enforcement of the Reformation in the Age of Thomas Cromwell. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1972. —. Reform and Reformation, 1509-1588. London: Arnold, 1977. - . "The Tudor Revolution: A Reply." Past and Present 29 (1964). 2649. —. The Tudor Revolution in Government. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1969. Emmison, Frederick George. Elizabethan Life: Disorder. Mainly from Essex Sessions and Assize Records. Chelmsford: Essex County Council, 1973. —. Elizabethan Life: Morals and the Church Courts. Mainly from Essex ArchidiaconalRecords. Chelmsford: Record Office, 1973. Ferguson, Arthur B. The Articulate Citizen and the English Renaissance. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1965. Greaves, Richard L. Society and Religion in Elizabethan England. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1981. Haigh, Christopher. Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire. London: Cambridge UP, 1975. Hall, Edward. The Triumphant Reigne of Henry VIII. Intr. by Charles Whibley. London: Jack, 1904. Heinemann, Margot. "Shakespeare und die Zensur: Sir Thomas More und Richard II." Shakespeare Jahrbuch 121 (1985). 77-88. Hill, Christopher. "From Grindal to Laud." The Collected Essays. Vol. 2: Religion and Politics in 17th Century England. Brighton, 1986. —. Puritanism and Revolution. London: Seeker & Warburg, 1958. Hooker, Richard. The Works of Richard Hooker. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1850. Houlbrooke, Ralph. Church Courts and the People during the English Reformation 1520-1570. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1979. Hurstfield, Joel. "The Elizabethan People in the Age of Shakespeare." Shakespeare's World. Ed. James Sutherland and Joel Hurstfield. London: Arnold, 1964. —, et al., eds. The Reformation Crisis. London: Arnold, 1965. James, Mervyn Evans. Family, Lineage, and Civil Society, Politics and Mentality in the Durham Region, 1500-1640. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1974. Jeaffreson, John Cordy, ed. Middlesex County Records. London 1886. Jones, Emrys. The Origins of Shakespeare. Oxford: Clarendon, 1977. Jones, Richard Foster. The Triumph of the English Language. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1953. Knappen, M. M. Tudor Puritanism. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1939.

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Lacey, Robert. The Life and Times of Henry VIII. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972. Lehmberg, Stanford Eugene. The Reformation Parliament. 1529-1536. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1970. Lewalski, Barbara Kiefer. Protestant Poetics and the Seventeenth Century Religious Lyric. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1979. Lewis, C. S. English Literature in Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama. Oxford: Clarendon, 1959. Loades, David Michael. Politics and the Nation 1450-1660: Obedience, Resistance and Public Order. London: Fontana, 1974. MacCaffrey, Wallace. The Shaping of the Elizabethan Regime. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1968. McConica, James Kelsey. English Humanists and Reformation Politics under Henry VIII and Edward VI. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965. Marx, Karl. Das Kapital. Vol. 1 MEW 23. Berlin (GDR): Dietz, 1972. —, and Friedrich Engels. Die deutsche Ideologie. I. Feuerbach. MEW 3. Berlin (GDR): Dietz, 1969. Miller, Edwin Haviland. The Professional Writer in Elizabethan England: A Study of Nondramatic Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1959. Mothes, Gerlinde. "Zur Frage einer frühbürgerlichen Revolution in England in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts." Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der HumboldtUniversität. Gesellschaftswissenschaftliche Reihe 33/3 (1984). Nashe, Thomas. The Unfortunate Traveller. Or, The Life of Jacke Wilton. London 1594. Shorter Novels: Elizabethan. Everyman's Library 824. London: Dent, 1960. Ormerod, Oliver. The Picture ofa Puritane: or, A Relation of the Opinions, Qualities, and Practices of The Anabaptists in Germanie, and of the Puritanes in England. Newly corrected and enlarged. British Library copy. London 1605. Parker, T. M. The English Reformation to 1558. London: Oxford UP, 1966. Patterson, Annabel. Censorship and Interpretation: The Conditions of Writing and Reading in Early Modern England. Madison, WI, 1984. Rasmussen, Carl J. "The Poetics of Protestantism and the English Literary Renaissance." The Sixteenth Century Journal 11 (1980). 99-102. Rosenberg, Eleanor. Leicester: Patron of Letters. New York: Columbia UP, 1955. Rowse, A. L. The England of Elizabeth: The Structure of Society. London: Macmillan, 1950. Schilfert, Gerhard. "Zur Problematik des Verhältnisses von Reformation und Revolution im England des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts." Reform, Reformation, Revolution. Ed. Siegfried Hoyer. Leipzig: 1980. 255. Simon, Joan. Education and Society in Tudor England. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1967. Social England. Ed. H. D. Traill and S. S. Mann. 6 vols. London: Cassell, 19024.

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Stammler, Wolfgang. Von der Mystik zum Barock. Stuttgart, 1927. Stone, Lawrence. "The Educational Revolution in England, 1560-1640." Past and Present 28 (1964). 41-80. Strype, John. The History of the Life and Acts of... Edmund Grindal. Oxford 1821. Weimann, Robert. Drama und Wirklichkeit in der Shakespearezeit. Diss. Halle: Niemeyer, 1958. —. "Fabula and Historia : The Crisis of the 'Universall Consideration' in The Unfortunate Traveller!' Representation 8 (Fall 1984). 13-29. —, ed. Realismus in der Renaissance. Aneignung der Welt in erzählender Prosa. Berlin (GDR): Aufbau, 1977. Weiner, Andrew D. Sir Philip Sidney and the Poetics of Protestantism: A Study of Contexts. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1978. Williams, Penry and G. L. Harriss. "A Revolution in Tudor History?" Past and Present 25 (1963). 3-58. Wright, Louis B. Middle-Class Culture in Elizabethan England. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1935. Zeeveld, William Gordon. Foundations of Tudor Policy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1948.

WOLFGANG LOTTES

"When the Sword came back from sea" Aspects of Medievalism in Pre-Raphaelite Literature

I When in the autumn of1848 seven young English artists and art lovers (William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel and William Michael Rossetti, Frederic George Stephens, James Collinson, Thomas Woolner) joined forces they called their association 'Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood' (P.R.B.), thus indicating the sources from which the inspiration for their works should come: in radical antagonism to the established standards of the Royal Academy that were based exclusively upon the appreciation of painting from the High Renaissance onward, the seven rebels and some supporters decided to follow the example of the "direct and heartfelt" art of the Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance.1 Most modern observers may find it difficult to discover parallels between the pictures of the English 'PreRaphaelites' and those early paintings that go beyond some isolated thematic and stylistic reminiscences, the majority of contemporary criticism, however, seems to have adopted the historical perspective chosen by the avantgarde group. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's first P.R.B. painting The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1848-49) was evaluated on these terms in the Athenaeum: "The sincerity and earnestness of the picture remind us forcibly of the feeling with which the early Florentine monastic painters wrought" (no. 1119,1849:362), and the Art-Journal considered John Everett Millais' P.R.B. début Lorenzo and Isabella (1848-49) "a pure aspiration in the feeling of the early Florentine school" (vol. 11, 1849:171). During the years following, when the initial approval of the reviewers turned into violent attacks against the irreverent innovators of taste, the verdicts changed to "unintelligent imitation of the mere technicalities of old Art" {Athenaeum, no. 1173,1850:424), "monkish

For a detailed discussion of the aims of the Brotherhood and of medievalism in PreRaphaelite art see Lottes, "Wie ein goldener Traum".

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follies" {Times, 7.5.1851:8), "miserable asceticism of the darkest monastic ages" (Wornum 271). The later development of the Pre-Raphaelite movement shows quite clearly that its medievalist tendencies, as far as they were much in evidence at all, were deeply rooted in literature, which in the long run gave more important impulses than medieval art. It was not so much Giotto, Orcagna, van Eyck or Diirer that lastingly stimulated visions of an enchanting past but Dante and Chaucer, Froissart and Malory, Legenda Aurea and Gesta Romanorum, folk-tales and collections of popular ballads such as Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, the Gothic novels of Clara Reeve, M. G. Lewis, and Maturin, the historical novels of Walter Scott and his followers, and the romances of Keats, Browning, and Tennyson. While Ford Madox Brown, one of the most prominent friends of the P.R.B., William Michael Rossetti, and William Morris also took an interest in non-fictional literature on the Middle Ages, "books which convey a certain modicum of positive information, biographic or other" (W. M. Rossetti, Reminiscences 1:31), Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his disciples Arthur Hughes and Edward Burne-Jones wholeheartedly preferred reading that presented a poetical picture of the Middle Ages and thereby fed their creative imagination, according to D. G. Rossetti's maxim: "A picture is a painted poem" (Carr 59). Although historical subjects were sometimes treated—Wickliffe reading His Translation of the Bible to John of Gaunt by Madox Brown, Henry VI at Towton by William Dyce, The Princes in the Tower by Millais2—the medievalism of Pre-Raphaelite art mainly relied on figures and episodes taken from literature, some of which became leitmotifs for the work of the movement. Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristram and Iseult, Paolo and Francesca represent both the attraction and the hazard of forbidden love, the doom of fateful passion that violates moral and social law. With Vivien mastering Merlin and La Belle Dame Sans Merci the femme fatale appears as the destructive element and at the same time the victim of her own power. The Lady of Shalott fails in her attempt to break the taboo inflicted upon her and to find a new life outside her world of shadows; Mariana remains prisoner to her own frustration without any sign of hope. All these types that demonstrate the union of love and death, the tension between restrictive conditions and the yearning for liberation, radiate an ambivalent fascination; in Galahad, the 'miles Christianus', and the nun waiting for her heavenly bridegroom at St. Agnes' Eve, Pre-Raphaelite It should be mentioned that the latter two subjects became popular not as illustrations of history but as illustrations of literature (Shakespeare).

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art presents two contrasting prototypes whose striving after perfection and divine grace is finally rewarded. It was not some kind of moral judgment, however, that provoked the Pre-Raphaelites' interest in these literary exponents of the Middle Ages but their rich aesthetic and emotional potential that the artists tried to sound in pictures of widely different conceptions using medieval atmosphere and scenery with varying intensity.

II The Pre-Raphaelites' literary approach to the Middle Ages was by no means restricted to extensive reading and the pictorial interpretation of pertinent texts but beyond that manifested itself in editing and translating activities and, above all, in the composition of medievalizing poetry and prose. Among the numerous scholarly societies that were founded in the course of the nineteenth century in order to preserve the national cultural heritage, the Early English Text Society launched by Frederick James Furnivall in 1864 and supported from the beginning by Tennyson and Ruskin gained a prominent position. At Furnivall's request his friend William Michael Rossetti, himself a member of the society, wrote the annotations for the verse catalogue The Stacyons of Rome (c. 1440-45), "being a list of the indulgences to be gained, and relics to be visited, in various Roman churches" (W M. Rossetti, Reminiscences 2: 398), contained in the volume Political, Religious, and Love Poems, from the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lambeth MS. No. 306, and Other Sources, EETS, vol. 15,1866, and vol. 25,1867; in 1869 W. M. Rossetti published the original text and his own translation of Bonvesin da la Riva's treatise De le Zinquanta Cortexie da Tavola (c. 1290) together with supplementary material under the title Italian Courtesy-Books: Fra Bonvicino da Riva's Fifty Courtesiesfor the Table (Italian and English) with other Translations and Elucidations (contained in the volume Accounts of Early Italian, German & French Books, on Courtesy, Manners, and Cookery, EETS, Extra Series, vol. VIII). For Furnivall's Chaucer Society founded in 1868 William Michael provided the synoptic edition of Chaucer's Troylus and Cryseyde (from the Harl. MS. 3943) compared with Boccaccio's Filostrato (1875-83), with his own Boccaccio translation,

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In 1865 W. M. Rossetti published his blank verse translation (begun about 1852) of Dante's Inferno that was "to give a direct literal and unmodified rendering of what Dante said" (Reminiscences 2: 308) and thus be more exact than the existing English versions; the fragment of his Purgatorio translation remained unprinted, in 1910 Dante and His Convito: A Study with Translations appeared. William Michael's sister Maria Francesca, who in 1873 entered the Anglican sisterhood at All Saints' Home, Margaret Street, made her contribution to the Dante cult of the Rossetti family with A Shadow of Dante: Being an Essay towards studying Himself, His World, and His Pilgrimage (1871), a study that examined the Italian poet chiefly under devotional aspects. Dante Gabriel paid homage to his famous name-sake through many paintings and drawings, a terza rima translation of the Paolo and Francesca episode, and the not very convincing poem Dante at Verona. Most remarkable is his translation of the Vita Nuova (published in 1861 in The Early Italian Poetsfrom Ciullo d'Alcamo to Dante Alighieri (1100-1200-1300) in the Original Metres, Together with Dante's Vita Nuova), the first complete English rendering of that work, an achievement that had already met with Tennyson's approval when he saw the manuscript in 1850. Coventry Patmore praised The Early Italian Poets (revised edition, 1874 [1873], under the title Dante and His Circle): "It seems to me to be the first time that a translator has proved himself, by his translations alone, to be zgreat poet" (W. M. Rossetti, "Memoir" 215). The Athenaeum was also favourably impressed: The author has followed the original with becoming fidelity.... the a u t h o r . . . has produced a handsome, an original and a very interesting volume, which will always give him an honourable position among the cultivators o f Dante lore (no. 1791,1862:254),

and the Italian writer Carlo Placci applauded it in 1882: The collection o f the Poets of Italy of the first centuries is a work undoubtedly extraordinary. The diverse styles, the opposite turns of sentiment, the various and complicated forms, the difficult allegories, the intricate rhymes, all is rendered in a surprising way; and the very spirit of our language seems reflected, with all its poetry and its pictorial aspect, in these translations. (W. M. Rossetti, "Memoir" 106)

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In fact, Rossetti aimed at a poetical adaptation rather than a literal translation. Apart from its undoubtable literary quality, the anthology was a pioneering work as English readers were offered for the first time a broad crosssection of Italian poetry of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that included not only such well-known names as St. Francis of Assisi, Emperor Friedrich II, Guido Guinizelli, Jacopo da Lentino, Dante, Guido Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoia, but also many authors of lesser fame. D. G. Rossetti's Poems of 1870 contained translations of three poems by François Villon, who was shortly after taken up by Swinburne, and of two anonymous French medieval poems, and in a manuscript kept at the Duke University Library, Durham, North Carolina, a few lines of a projected translation of the Roman de la Rose are preserved. William Sharp commented: "It is impossible not to regret that he did not do for the early poetic literature of France that which he did so ably for Italy" (305). Even before Dante Gabriel turned to ancient Italian and French poetry he had shown an interest in Middle High German literature; as early as 1845 he translated the first five aventiuren of the Nibelungenlied ("This mighty old poem seized hold upon him with a vice-like clench," W. M. Rossetti, "Memoir" 104), and in 1846 he composed an English paraphrase of Hartmann von Aue's Der arme Heinricb (Henry the Leper, printed in Collected Works, 1886, and as a bibliophile edition, 1905). In his capacity as founder and manager of the Kelmscott Press William Morris had ample opportunities to promote medieval literature. His most outstanding editions were the five Caxton reprints (1892-93) and the splendid illustrated Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1896), "undoubtedly... one of the great books of the world" (Henderson 348). Though Morris himself also translated four of the Nouvelles Françoises en prose de XIII. siècle (Kelmscott Press, 1893-94) and the poem L'Ordene de Chevalerie by Hugues de Tabarie (Kelmscott Press, 1892-93) and co-operated with Alfred John Wyatt in The Tale of Beowulf (Kelmscott Press, 1895) he had a preference for translating Norse sagas, an enterprise he eagerly pursued together with his friend and teacher in Icelandic Eirikr Magniisson from 1868 onward. Magniisson reports: O w i n g b o t h t o other literary occupations and t o pressure o f business engagements Morris decided f r o m the beginning to leave alone the irksome task o f taking regular grammatical e x e r c i s e s . . . . I therefore did m y best t o bring h o m e to h i m , as we went o n translating, the etymology, the grammar, a n d the peculiarities o f the syntax. O u r m e t h o d o f work was this : We went together over the day's task as carefully as the eager-mindedness o f the pupil to acquire the story w o u l d allow. I afterwards wrote out at h o m e a literal translation o f it a n d h a n d e d it to

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him at our next lesson. With this before him Morris wrote down at his leisure his own version in his own style, which ultimately did service as printer's copy when the Saga was published. . . . From the beginning Morris was strongly impressed by the simple dignity of style ofthe Icelandic saga. . . . This dignity of style cannot be reached by the Romance element in English. If it is to be reached at all—and then only approximately—it must be by means of the Teutonic element in our speech—the nearest akin to the Icelandic. . . . Only when approached from this point of view can a fair and sober estimate of Morris's saga style be obtained. It is not 'pseudo-Middle-English', as some critics have thought. It is his own, the result of an endeavour by a scholar and a man of genius to bring about such harmony between the Teutonic element in English and the language of the Icelandic saga as the not very abundant means at his command would allow. (Morris, Works 7: XVII f.) The first fruits of their collaboration were The Saga of Gunnlaug the WormTongue and Rafn the Skald in the January number of the Fortnightly Review, 1869, and in the same year Grettis Saga: The Story of Grettir the Strong. There followed several other saga translations, and the last one, The Saga of Hen Thorir (1891), was included in the Saga Library edited for Bernard Quaritch by Morris and Magnusson until 1895.

Ill The original literary work of the Pre-Raphaelites was strongly inspired by the Middle Ages, and in their religious poetry and their ballads and romances this influence shows consistent parallels with the impact of that period on the movement's artistic production, especially since two key figures—Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris—distinguished themselves in either field. The Marian themes of D. G. Rossetti's first RR.B. paintings, the prefigurative symbolism and mystical mood of his early religious pictures recur in the poem Ave (written between 1845 and 1848; title of the first version: Mater Pulchrae Delectionis). It starts with an invocation in which a tenet o f medieval mariology is taken up for its concetto quality (Honnighausen 46): Now sitting fourth beside the Three, Thyself a woman-Trinity,— Being a daughter born to God, Mother of Christ from stall to rood, And wife unto the Holy Ghost. (D. G. Rossetti, Poetical Works 244)

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After that the poem moves from the domestic idyll at Nazareth, which is, however, overshadowed by dire presentiments—just as in the paintings The Girlhood of Mary Virgin and The Passover in the Holy Family (1855-56) and the sonnets Rossetti composed for them—: Nay, but I think the whisper crept Like growth through childhood. Work and play, Things common to the course of day, Awed thee with meanings unfulfill'd, (245)

to the situation, mixed of sorrow and hope, after Christ's death that is depicted in the watercolour Mary in the House of St. John (1858-59) and to the moment of Mary's death: That day when Michael came to break From the tir*d spirit, like a veil, Its covenant with Gabriel Endured at length unto the end, (246)

and finally leads back to a hymn and petitionary prayer to the Virgin crowned in heaven, the style of which is reminiscent of the 'metaphysical poetry" of the seventeenth century. In The Blessed Damozel (begun in 1847, first published in The Germ, 1850, revised several times) Rossetti reversed the constellation of Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven (1845) and had as his central figure the mistress received among the saints of heaven and still longing for her earth-bound lover. The peculiar combination of religious and erotic mysticism, of spiritual fulfilment and unquenchable sensuality that sets the tone of Rossetti's romance reflects the influence of Dante's Vita Nuova and canzoni and sonnets by early Italian writers. Through an extravagance of symbolic imagery and suggestive sound effects the Pre-Raphaelite author created a vaguely legendary medievalizing atmosphere of strong aesthetic appeal. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's literary treatment of sacred subjects reveals the same tendency as his religious pictures: he was interested not in doctrines of faith but in the aesthetic components of Christian tradition—just like the hero of his tale Hand and Soul (printed in The Germ, January 1850), the fictitious dugento painter Chiaro dell'Erma, who at work always had "a feeling of worship and service" (26) and was inspired by "a small consecrated image of St. Mary Virgin wrought out of silver, before which stood always, in summertime, a glass containing a lily and a rose" (25), and sometimes, in the ecstacy of prayer, it had even seemed to him to behold that day when his mistress—his mystical lady... —even she, his own gracious and

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but in the end came to realize: "much of that reverence which he had mistaken for faith had been no more than the worship of beauty" (26). Quite orthodox in his religious views is James Collinson's prefigurative poem The Child Jesus, A Record typical of the five Sorrowful Mysteries that opened the second number of The Germ (February 1850) and was hailed as "a very first-rate affair" by the effusive Dante Gabriel Rossetti (.Letters 1:44). As in the paintings The Youth of Our Lord (1847) by John Rogers Herbert and Christ in the House of His Parents (1849-50) by Millais, some occurrences from Christ's childhood that were unimportant in themselves are presented as anticipations of his passion: I. the Child Jesus grieves at observing a justfledged white dove being killed by a hawk (The Agony in the Garden), II. the Child Jesus takes pity on a young donkey that is whipped by merciless drovers (The Scourging), III. the Child Jesus is playfully crowned with a wreath of hawthorn blossoms and presented with a reed by other children (The Crowning with Thorns; this scene is also the theme of Collinson's Nazarene-style frontispiece to the second number of The Germ), IV. the Child Jesus wants to help his foster-father Joseph to carry a load of wood (Jesus Carrying His Cross), V. the Child Jesus goes with his mother to see his pet lamb in the pasture and on their way back Mary talks about a recent nightmare in which she saw such a snow-white lamb perish in a pit filled with briars and thorns: For many cruel thorns had torn its head And bleeding feet; and one had pierced its side, From which flowed blood and water (Collinson 56)

{The Crucifixion). The obtrusive montage of sentimental idyll and rather forced passion analogies reveals Collinson's lack ofpoetical talent as much as the general deficiencies of the Victorian revival of medieval typology, in which one of the dominant features of late Romanticism in England, the almost desperate searching for spiritual coherence, becomes most tellingly evident. (Honnighausen 50) In the large lyrical ceuvre of Christina Georgina Rossetti typological allusions are comparatively rare; in Good Friday (1862), for example, Christ appears as a second, mightier Moses, who is asked to strike petrified Man in order to draw from him the healing tears of remorse. Very often, however, Christina, one of the most sensitive English authors of sacred poetry, used

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familiar biblical animal and plant symbolism, such as the rose, the lily or the dove from Canticles, and described the creation as the sign language of God's revelation, according to the old idea of the Book of Nature (to which Dante Gabriel referred in his sonnet St. Luke the Painter): But not alone the fairest flowers: The merest grass Along the roadside where we pass, Lichen and moss and sturdy weed, Tell o f His love w h o sends the dew, The rain and sunshine too, To nourish one small seed.

(Consider the Lilies of the Field, 1853; Works 156) With St. Elizabeth of Hungary (1852) the poetess gave a verse comment on James Collinson's painting An Incident in the Life of Queen Elizabeth ofHungary (1850-51), the theme of which was quite in keeping with her own striving for an ascetic life: A fair virgin undefiled, Knelt she at her Saviour's feet: While she laid her royal crown, Thinking it too mean a thing For a solemn offering, Careless on the cushions down. (150)

Within the V£z7(1861; original title: One Day) seems to verbalize the characteristic iconography of the religious art of the Pre-Raphaelites and their medieval models: She holds a lily in her hand, Where long ranks o f Angels stand: A silver lily for her wand. All her hair falls sweeping down, Her hair that is a golden brown, A crown beneath her golden crown. Blooms a rose-bush at her knee, Good to smell and good to see: It bears a rose for her, for me (234).

Unlike Christina Rossetti, who was a firm Anglican and would not indulge in Mariolatry, Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore, a close friend and

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supporter of the Pre-Raphaelites who became a Roman-Catholic in 1864, paid homage to the Blessed Virgin with ecstatic fervour. He praised her with conceits deeply rooted in the tradition of medieval and 'metaphysical' poetry and invoked her as "a heaven-caress'd and happier Eve" (The Contract; Works 317), My Mother and God's; Fountain o f miracle! Thou Speaker o f all wisdom in a Word, Thy Lord! Life's cradle and death's tomb! Knot o f the cord Which binds together all and all unto their Lord

{The Child's Purchase; Works 355 ff., "certainly the most ambitious if not the most perfect of his Odes" (Patmore, Memoirs 1:250), in The Unknown Eros, and other Odes, 1878). IV To a greater extent than in their religious poetry the literary medievalism of the Pre-Raphaelites manifests itself in their numerous ballads and romances, with which they continued the revival of these traditional genres that had already been successfully exploited by authors of the Romantic and Victorian periods such as Coleridge, Keats, and Tennyson. In his review of D. G. Rossetti's poems in The Fortnightly Review of1870 Swinburne defined the difference between ballad and romance: The highest form o f ballad... must condense the large loose fluency o f romantic tale-telling into tight and intense brevity; it must give as in summary the result and extract o f events and emotions, without the exhibition o f their gradual change and growth which a romance o f the older type or the newer must lay open to us in order. (Essays 85)

Although Dante Gabriel Rossetti's juvenile exercises that resulted from his enthusiasm for tales of chivalry and Gothic novels hardly possess any artistic merit they deserve some attention as the first indications of a lasting predilection: Roderick and Rosalba, a Story of the Round Table (1840); Sir Hugh the Heron, a Legendary Tale in Four Parts (1840-41):

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The story is substantially that o f a knight who quits England for a foreign war, leaving his betrothed to the care of his cousin. While abroad, he discovers, by a vision in a magic mirror, that the cousin has betrayed his trust, and is offering violence to the lady. The knight hastens home, slays the aggressor, and recovers his bride. The ballad is versified with ease and correctness, in three or four different metres, and is not wholly destitute o f spirit in its boyish way (W.M.Rossetti, "Memoir" 84);

William and Marie (1843), a ballad in twenty-six stanzas on the lines of Scottish folk-ballads and Gottfried August Biirger's famous Lenore, "narrates how a wicked Knight slew a virtuous one's lady-love, and got killed by an avenging flash of lightning" (W. M. Rossetti, "Memoir" 85); Sorrentino (begun in 1843, abandoned later), designed under the influence of Byron and F. A. M. Retzsch's popular illustrations for Goethe's Faust, "a prose romance on diabolism,... in which the Devil, as principal character, thwarts the course of true love" (W. M. Rossetti, "Memoir" 103). The devil also figures prominently in the grotesquely macabre Ballad of Jan van Hunks (begun and nearly finished in 1846 but actually completed shortly before Rossetti's death, in 1882; first printed in The English Review, January 1909) based upon a story in the anthology Tales of Chivaliy (c. 1835-40): A conceited Dutchman loses a smoking contest with the devil and as a punishment is horribly mutilated and used as the devil's own tobacco-pipe in hell. To compete with his brother, William Michael Rossetti in 1840 began Raimond and Matilda, "a 'romance of chivalry'" (W. M. Rossetti, Reminiscences 1:33) and in 1843 Ulfred the Saxon, a Tale of the Conquest that contained a rather fanciful description of the battle of Hastings: I was a partisan, not o f the Saxons, but of the Normans; and Ulfred was intended for a character more or less bad. I rather piqued myself upon concocting a name which does not exist—Ulfred; sufficiently Saxon-seeming to suggest "Alfred", but with something o f an ungainly twang about it. (W. M. Rossetti, Reminiscences 1:34)

While William Michael soon abandoned that kind of literary activity Dante Gabriel continued to be fascinated by it. On 18 September 1849 he wrote to his brother: I have done but little in any way, having wasted several days at the [British] Museum, where I have been reading up all manner o f old romaunts, to pitch upon stunning words for poetry. I have found several, and also derived much enjoyment from the things themselves, some o f which are tremendously fine. I have copied out an exquisite little ballad, quoted in the preface to one o f the collections.

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I bought the other day... a translation, in two volumes, of the Gesta Romanorum—a. book I had long wished to possess. I was however rather disappointed, having expected to find lots of glorious stories for poems. Four or five good ones there are; one of which (which I have entitled The Scrip and Staff) I have considerably altered, and enclose for your opinion. (Letters 1:55 f.)

In 1851-52 Dante Gabriel composed his poem The Staff and Scrip that appeared in the December issue of The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856, edited by Morris and Burne-Jones. The main source of this poem is Gesta Romanorum (No. 25), but there the treacherous lady throws away the staff and scrip of the noble stranger that gave his life for her and his country instead of keeping these relics for ever in her bedchamber. Rossetti's faithful queen is borrowed from the old English tale The Bloody Shirt: Of a Knight who restored a Princess to her Kingdom, and of her Gratitude to Him, in which it is the bloody shirt of the slain knight that has to be preserved. With its abrupt opening and the dramatic, compact dialogue Rossetti's poem in the first stanzas strikes the tone of the traditional folk-ballad; as it goes on, however, a stilted lyrical diction prevails and creates a pseudo-medieval atmosphere whose esoteric artificiality has much in common with Rossetti's own watercolours of the eighteen-fifties (e.g. The Blue Closet, The Tune of Seven Towers, The Wedding of St. George and the Princess Sabra, all 1857): The Queen sat idle by her loom: She heard the arras stir, And looked up sadly: through the room The sweetness sickened her Of musk and myrrh. Her women, standing two and two, In silence combed the fleece. The Pilgrim said, "Peace be with you, Lady;" and bent his knees She answered, "Peace." (Poetical Works 75 f.)

The midsummer oppressiveness of the bridal chamber in The Bride's Prelude (begun in 1848 under the title Bride-Chamber Talk; unfinished, published as a fragment in the Poems of 1881) corresponds to the claustrophobic aura of the crammed interiors in the watercolours and pen-and-ink drawings of medieval subjects. With the gloomy mood of the pictorial representations of sinful love affairs in Arthur's Tomb (1854-55) or Sir Launcelot in the Queen's Chamber (1857) can be compared the long and self-tormenting autobiographical account of the bride Aloyse, in which she reveals to her sister and

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bridesmaid Amelotte that her bridegroom Urscelyn, a distant relative, once seduced her, then deserted her and her family in times of distress, and only now, after her recovery of the family's possessions, has come back to marry her. The profusion of optical and acoustic details describing the locale produces very much the same effect of an almost intoxicating sensuousness as does the accumulation of detail in the pictures: Within the window's heaped recess The light was counterchanged In blent reflexes manifold From perfume-caskets o f wrought gold And gems the bride's hair could not hold All thrust together: and with these A slim-curved lute, which now, At Amelotte's sudden passing there, Was swept in somewise unaware, And shook to music the close air

{Poetical Works 35).

The power of atmosphere and emotion is more important than any sense of historic authenticity: Apart from the Old French names there is little effort to locate the action in place and time, and the background o f feudal war and revenge is conveyed in confused glimpses through Aloyse's agonized recollections. (Stevenson 60)

The motifs of the jilted lady and of concealed guilt are also prominent in Rose Mary (1871; enlarged by the 'Beryl Songs' in 1880), "the longest poem in the middle ground between folk ballads and medieval romances" (Stevenson 61), but there the intricate plot, "too complicated for a ballad proper" (Megroz 265), in addition involves the activities of supernatural forces. Once more the broad description of emotional relations and aesthetic arrangements (especially of the chapel in which the magic beryl is kept "described with weird imaginative richness"; Sharp 373) outweigh any definite sense of period. In Sister Helen (1851; first published in The DiisseldorfArtists'Album, 1854, then in 1857; revised, with new psychological accentuation, 1869-70; substantially enlarged, 1881) Rossetti had already combined the subject of the unfaithful lover with the doings of witchcraft: Through her knowledge of black magic—she slowly melts his waxen image—Helen is able to inflict illness and death upon the treacherous man. The poet made considerable use of the stylistic means of the traditional ballad: the opening in mediis rebus, the continuous dialogue form, the multiple refrain, the 'incremental repeti-

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tion' of the errands of the brothers and finally the father of the doomed man—in the 1881 version the plea of his newly-wed wife is added—, who all attempt in vain to appease the infuriated Helen. O n the other hand, the complex stanza structure, the elaborate end-refrain that varies from one stanza to the next and makes comments in the manner of the chorus in Greek tragedy, and the occasionally very subtle poetic diction are inconsistent with the economy in thought and language of the old folk-ballad. Rossetti's closest approach to this genre was Stratton Water (1854; revised in 1869) where he applied most of the standard features just mentioned and additionally used the typical ballad (Chevy Chase) stanza and a simpler, slightly archaic language with some Scotticisms and also dispensed with too individual delineation of character; the happy ending, however, with its burlesque note—the pregnant Janet is rescued from drowning by Lord Sands, the father of her child—does not quite harmonize with the ominous beginning and the conventions of such a theme. Troy Town and Eden Bower (both 1869), two variations of the femme fatale motif, are, in spite of their refrains, in no way connected with either the ballad tradition or medieval romance. The two late poems The White Ship and The King's Tragedy attempt to revive that variety of the folk-ballad that deals with historical events. In The White Ship (1877-80) Berold, the butcher of Rouen, being the sole survivor narrates the wreck of the 'White Ship' in the Channel in 1120 when William, the son of King Henry I, and his retinue perished. About his diligent research of sources the author wrote to Jane Morris in 1880: I send y o u the ballad at last. You will remember every incident as being exact, and I have managed to realize that all is in one or another chronicle, even to the little boy at the end. (Letters 4 :1809)

In The King's Tragedy (1878-81) it is the protagonist Catherine Douglas ('Kate Barlass') herself that in retrospection tells about her heroic but futile enterprise to barricade the door of the Scottish Kingjames I's chamber against the assailing conspirators in 1437. Rossetti's inspiration for this poem were William Bell Scott's frescoes (1865-68) illustrating King James's Chaucerian romance The Kingis Quair, which he admired at Penkill Casde in the summer of1869, and their literary source, from which he borrowed some stanzas for his own work though with some metrical modifications that shocked Bell Scott. The two chronicle ballads again differ from the concise traditional folk-ballad in their lengthiness and love of detail and confirm Rossetti's tendency to adapt the old ballad and romance genres to his own individual artistic sensibility through psychological sidelights and aesthetic refinement.

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His sister Christina Rossetti succeeded surprisingly well in striking the true note of the folk-ballad. Lovefrom the North (1856, original title: In the Days ofthe Sea-Kings) taking up the motif of the bride who is claimed by another man during her wedding ceremony (traditional prototype: Katharine Jaffray), Maude Clare (1858) with the motif of the jilted woman who turns up as uninvited guest at her lover's wedding (prototype: Lord Thomas and Fair Annet), Sister Maude (c. 1860) and Noble Sisters (1860) with the motif of the two sisters one of whom betrays and defeats the secret love of the other (prototype: The Twa Sisters), The Poor Ghost (1863) and The Ghost's Petition (1864, original title: The Return) with the motif of the revenant who cannot rest in his grave because of the excessive mourning and weeping of his beloved (prototype: The Unquiet Grave)—all these congenially reproduce the rhythm, syntax, phraseology, and above all the concentrated, often elliptic narrative style of the traditional ballad. In some of her other poems, which do not imitate the ballad pattern, Christina preserved the genuine character of folkpoetry, as in the light-hearted Maiden-Song (1863), in which three sisters find husbands for themselves, Meggan a herdsman from the valley, May a shepherd from the mountains, and Margaret the fairest of them the king of the country, "a kind of cross between the tone of a fairy-tale and that of a nurserysong, each of them sweetened into poetry—... deservedly something of a favourite with its authoress" (W. M. Rossetti; in C. G. Rossetti 461 f.). Thematic and atmospheric affinities with fairy-tales also mark some of the longer, more complex verse romances, such as Goblin Market (1859) or The Prince's Progress (1861-65). The ballads of William Allingham, another poet linked with the PreRaphaelite circle (in Poems, 1850; Day and Night Songs, 1854; The Music Master, a Love Story. And Two Series of Day and Night Songs, 1855), reflect his familiarity with the folklore of his native Ireland; they authentically draw on the magical world-picture and the exuberant imagination of Celtic tales and the lyrical intensity and melancholy mood of Irish songs. In 1864 appeared Allingham's popular anthology The Ballad Book: A Selection ofthe Choicest British Ballads. William Bell Scott, the Scottish writer and artist who had associated with the Pre-Raphaelites since the early days of the Brotherhood, paid homage to the folk-ballad with one of his first important paintings, The Old English Ballad Singer (1842), which figured as a heading to the preface of Samuel Carter Hall's famous collection The Book of British Ballads (1842). Among his further pictorial tributes to the genre Bell Scott's murals at Wellington Hall, Northumberland (1866-68), illustrating Chevy Chase deserve mentioning.

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With his own ballads and romances, which appeared in The Edinburgh University Souvenir of1853 and in the anthologies Poems (1854) and Poems: Ballads, Studiesfrom Nature, Sonnets, etc. (1875), he proved himself to be a rather crude imitator who lacked both profound understanding of the spirit and language of the old folk-poetry and the ability to find new forms of creative development. His ostentatiously archaizing diction that does not gloss over the want of substance was already criticized by the Athenaeum in 1855: "He delights too much in archaisms; and seems to imagine that the beauty of medieval poetry is to be obtained by the mere reproduction of medieval language." (no. 1426,1855 : 229) How effectively archaisms can be occasionally employed to provide some flavour of'olden times', William Morris showed in The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems (1858; reprinted as fifth edition of the Kelmscott Press in 1892), "an altogether extraordinary book" (Morris, Letters XXVIII) that may be called the climax of Pre-Raphaelite medievalism in literature. In 1855 Morris had already surprised his Oxford friends with The Willow and the Red Cliff, "a thing entirely n e w : . . . perfectly original, whatever its value, and sounding truly striking and beautiful, extremely decisive and powerful in execution" (Richard Watson Dixon; in Mackail 1:54). For all its conventional rhymes and luxurious imagery this early poem that retells the old ballad story of the deserted woman who overwhelmed with grief commits suicide, in some passages attains the intensity of mood and the impressive force of rhythm that are characteristic of Morris: And as she sits there without a moan With her hand clasped round her knee, The shadows go over her sitting alone, And the shadows go over the sea, And the clouds go over the face of the moon That looketh down on the sea: They will close around her very soon, That you cannot tell where she be. (Works 21: XXXI)

In the same year the author wrote the poem Blanche, in which the mystical forest scenery, the mysterious dream, and the vision of the lovers' union in paradise that suggests the influence of Rossetti's Blessed Damozel blend into a powerful poetical atmosphere. More poems in a similar vein followed; four of those that were published in The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine in 1856 were included in The Defence of Guenevere. The first four works in this anthology (The Defence of Guenevere, King Arthur's Tomb, Sir Galahad: A

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Christmas Mystery; and The Chapel in Lyoness) took their material from Malory's Morte Darthur, another group to which, among others, Sir Peter Harpdon's End, Concerning Geffray Teste Noire, The Eve of Crecy, and The Haystack in the Floods belong, was inspired by Froissart's description of the Hundred Years' War, and the third category consists of "poems of a wholly unbased and fantastic romance" (Mackail 1:137), such as The Sailing of the Sword, The Blue Closet, The Tune of Seven Towers, Two Red Roses across the Moon. C o m m o n to all these thirty ballads and romances is the brilliant combination of realistic, sensuous detail and symbolical implication, of precise diction and poetical sign-language, which results in a compelling aura that makes the reader somehow participate in the emotions displayed and eyewitness the historical milieu without any doubts about its authenticity: In Morris's poems symbols and reality are interpenetrated as in all the greatest poetry. The images o f emotion are physical, and the description is full o f symbolic suggestion. The bright colours, the heraldry, the counting o f numbers, the parts o f armour, the details of dress and architecture, add up to make the feverish tense atmosphere of'The Defence o f Guenevere', of'Sir Peter Harpdon's End' as a prisoner o f the French, and o f the trapped lovers in 'The Haystack in the Floods'. The words are plain, but in their stiff, crabbed, broken-backed lines they become oddly evocative. (Thompson 165)

In contrast with Malory's comparatively factual narrative Morris's poems The Defence of Guenevere and Arthur's Tomb follow the example of Browning's dramatic monologues and delineate complex emotional states, "tormented and awry with passion" (Walter Pater; in Faulkner 80), the historical distance of which is nevertheless brought home to the reader by means of a highly stylized language and the carefully worked-out arrangement of medieval accessories. Sir Galahad intensifies the psychological dimension of the questing knight as compared with Tennyson's purely idealistic view (Morris commented: "Tennyson's Sir Galahad is rather a mild youth", Mackail 1:47): U p o n me, half-shut eyes upon the ground, I thought: O Galahad! the days go by, Stop and cast up now that which you have found, So sorely you have wrought and painfully. Night after night your horse treads down alone The sere damp fern, night after night you sit Holding the bridle like a man o f stone, Dismal, unfriended, what thing comes o f it?

(Works 1: 24)

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but on the other hand takes on the ritual character of a miracle play through the appearance and speech of God, the presence of three angels "in white, with scarlet wings" and four mysterious ladies "in gowns of red and green" (Works 1: 28) who arm the valiant knight. The Chapel in Lyoness presents another compound of emotional and decorative elements. It was exactly the fusion of these components that prompted one of the first reviewers of the volume, the librarian Richard Garnett, to draw a parallel between some of Morris's poems and Dante Gabriel Rossetti's pictures in The Literary Gazette of1858: for example, 'Golden Wings,'... seems to conduct us through a long gallery of Mr. Rossetti's works, with all their richness of colouring, depth of pathos, poetical but eccentric conception, and loving elaboration of every minute detail, (in Faulkner 35)

As Rossetti did in his watercolours, Morris arrayed details that were seemingly without function but through their aesthetic fascination and enigmatic suggestiveness constitute a general effect of hypnotic intensity: There I pluck'd a faint wild rose, Hard by where the linden grows, Sighing over silver rows Of the lilies tall. I laid the flower across his mouth; The sparkling drops seem'd good for drouth; He smiled, turn'd round towards the south, Held up a golden tress. {The Chapel in Lyoness, Works 1: 32) Gold wings across the sea! Grey light from tree to tree, Gold hair beside my knee, I pray thee come to me, Gold wings! The water slips, The red-bill'd moorhen dips. Sweet kisses on red lips; Alas! the red rust grips, And the blood-red dagger rips, Yet, O knight, come to me! (iGolden Wings, Works 1:119)

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"At times the poetry is so odd that it comes close to nonsense; yet it grips the imagination, matter absorbed into metaphor until it becomes magic" (Thompson 167). While the Malory adaptations and the romances "taken straight out of dreamland" (Mackail 1: 137) can in some way be associated with Rossetti's poetry and paintings, Morris's treatment of Froissart's subjects is markedly individual. With the chronicler's detachment and the visual clarity of medieval manuscript illuminations the author described the late medieval decadence of chivalry, "barbarous tortures, cold-blooded treachery, and implacable vindictiveness" (Stevenson 145). With a start Up Godmar rose, thrust them apart; From Robert's throat he loosed the bands O f silk and mail; with empty hands Held out, she stood and gazed, and saw The long bright blade without a flaw Glide out from Godmar*s sheath, his hand In Robert's hair; she saw him bend Back Robert's head; she saw him send The thin steel down; the blow told well, Right backward the knight Robert fell, And moaned as dogs do, being half dead, Unwitting as I deem: so then Godmar turn'd grinning to his men, W h o ran, some five or six, and beat His head to pieces at their feet. (The Haystack in the Floods, Works 1:128)

The drastic realism of such scenes has an irresistable grip on the reader: One is struck by the fierce vigour, the harsh and passionate quality which is only emphasized by the occasional roughness and clumsiness of the verse. All these blood feuds, foul deeds and anguish are far from the visions o f a sentimental dreamer: it is like stepping back into another age. (Morris, Letters XXVIII)

Morris dared to write about that aspect of the Middle Ages that Victorian nostalgia often preferred to overlook in favour of raving about chivalrous manners, aesthetic glamour, and 'Early Christian Art' just as the Athenaeum critic sarcastically pointed out in his review of Ruskin's Edinburgh Lectures in 1854:

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We always thought... that the Middle Ages were those days when a French mob roasted a knight on his own spit and made his wife and servants eat of the flesh, when fathers stabbed their sons like Froissart's patron, or brothers their own mother's child, like Peter the Cruel, and knightly licentiousness subverted knightly honour; but we find that our memory has misled us. It was, we find, an Apostolic time, when even upholstery was Christian—when pages learnt, not wantonness, but to take Christ for their captain—when men spent a profitable lifetime in ornamenting a Bible they never read instead of being poisoned with nitric acid and nasty tables—when men were serious and thoughtful, and good workmen, and never cut their fingers with their own chisels, joinedjack Straw, or headed the White Hoods, (no. 1387,1854: 652) The great variety of forms presented in The Defence of Guenevere includes dramatic monologues, miniature plays with dialogue structure and stage directions, narrative and lyrical poems, and also some imitations of the traditional ballad. In Shameful Death, one of the grim Froissartian stories of revenge and violent death, the heavy cadences and hammering repetitions have the true ring of the tragical folk-ballads: He did not die in the night, He did not die in the day, But in the morning twilight His spirit pass'd away, When neither sun nor moon was bright, And the trees were merely grey. (Works 1: 92) Through its subject (a married man falls in love abroad and takes back his new sweetheart but finally stays with his faithful wife; prototype: Fair Annie) and its slightly archaic, stylized diction Welland River also breathes the authentic spirit of folk-poetry. The Sailing ofthe Sword makes use of the conventions of the genre, such as refrain and 'incremental repetition' but also adds some aesthetic touches that are, however, calculated more carefully than in Rossetti's works so that they do not actually break the unity of the impression: The hot sun bit the garden-beds When the Sword came back from sea; Beneath an apple-tree our heads Stretched out toward the sea: Grey gleam'd the thirsty castle-leads, When the Sword came back from Sea. (Works 1:103)

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Two Red Roses across the Moon possesses a specific melodious charm with which the strongly pictorial description of the battle as an opposition of colours blends particularly well. Thus Morris proved that he could both successfully imitate the genre and individually and convincingly modify it. Neither his vaguely medievalizing prose romances published in The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine (e.g. Gertha's Lovers, SvendandHis Brethren, Lindenberg Pool) nor his later verse romances match the vividness and concentration of the Defence of Guenevere poems. In the epic range, a projected Arthurian cycle came to nothing—only the fragment The Maying of Guenevere exists—, Morris turned to classical themes instead and treated them under the guise of medieval romances—The Life and Death of Jason (1867; Kelmscott Press edition, 1895) and The Earthly Paradise (1868-70; Kelmscott Press, 1896-97)-, a practice which in English literature was authorized by Chaucer: Troy is to his imagination a town exactly like Bruges or Chartres: spired and gabled, red-roofed, filled (like the city o f King Aetes in "The Life and Death o f Jason") with towers and swinging bells. The Trojan princes go out, like knights in Froissart, to tilt at the barriers. (Mackail 1:173)

These long verse epics that consist of ever so many easy-flowing lines again fail to radiate the morning freshness of his earlier poetical vision of the Middle Ages, in spite of his hunting for authoritative sources. For The Earthly Paradise, the structure of which was modelled on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, he used among others Gesta Romanorum, William ofMalmesbury's De Gestis Regum Anglorum, John Mandeville's Travels, the French chanson de geste Ogier le Danoys (Morris possessed a copy of the Paris edition of 1583), Benjamin Thorpe's Northern Mythology (1851), and Laxdaela Saga. Under the growing influence of Old Norse literature, which increased after his travels to Iceland in 1871 and 1873, Morris not only wrote translations and shorter adaptations but also composed his own alliterative epic, "the work... he held most highly and wished to be remembered by" (Morris, Works 12: XXIII), The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs (1876), which George Bernard Shaw called "the greatest epic since Homer" (Morris, Works 26: XXXVII). Algernon Charles Swinburne joined the Pre-Raphaelite artists who were engaged in decorating the newly-built Union Debating Hall at Oxford in 1857, adopted their general enthusiasm for the Middle Ages and especially their Malory cult, and for his poems of the years 1857-60 {Queen Yseult and others) he oriented himself on the example of Morris, whose evening recitals of his own works made a deep impression on the sensitive student. His play

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Rosamond (1857-60) took up one of the favourite subjects of Pre-Raphaelite art, the unhappy fate of the mistress of King Henry II, Fair Rosamund, who was tracked down in her Woodstock maze and poisoned by Eleanor, the king's jealous wife; Arthur Hughes, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Edward Burne-Jones, all being fond of "old, unhappy, far-off things" (Wordsworth 77), illustrated the tragic love story in several paintings and drawings. In Swinburne's closet drama, "affectionately inscribed to Dante Gabriel Rossetti" (Tragedies 1: dedication page), the plot is of secondary importance in comparison with the highly sensualized atmosphere and the psychological refinement. Swinburne's Poems and Ballads of1866 contain some poems that have thematic or formal connections with medieval literature: Laus Veneris, like Morris's The Hill of Venus a treatment of the Tannhauser motif, A Christmas Carol, a hymn on the Madonna inspired by Rossetti's watercolour (1857-58) of the same name, The Masque of Queen Bersabe: A Miracle-Play, and the legend St. Dorothy, a Chaucerian pastiche. Malory provided the subjects for the verse romances Tristram ofLyonesse (1869-82), a powerful glorification of passionate love, and The Tale of Balen (1895-96). His special liking for folk-ballads led the author to compile a manuscript volume (about 1861; published by William A. Maclnnes as part of his Ballads ofthe English Border in 1925) for which he relied on anthologies by Percy, Walter Scott, Motherwell, Peter Buchan, and Frances James Child {English and Scottish Ballads, 1857-59) and from them tried to 'reconstruct' twenty-five traditional ballads in model versions: his choice of ballads leans heavily to stories of violent romantic tragedy.. .Within his brief compass of twenty-five ballads, Swinburne manages to include twenty murders (four of them infanticides), seven violent deaths (by drowning, burning, and hanging), one suicide, thirteen seductions or rapes (three of them incestuous), and six child-births, all illegitimate. (Ehrenpreis 565)

Swinburne's own ballads also prefer such gruesome topics: Duriesdyke (c. 1859; first printed in Posthumous Poems, 1917) narrates the story of Burd Maisry who sits on the beach waiting for the return of her lover and gives birth to a child while she must watch the wreck of his approaching ship; The King's Daughter (in Poems and Ballads, 1866) suggests the incestuous love of royal siblings; The Bloody Son (1866) follows a Finnish version of the Edward theme; in The Bride's Tragedy (in Poems and Ballads, Third Series, 1889) Young Willie rescues his sweetheart from the tyranny of the "fause faint lord of the south seabord" {Poems 3:276) but drowns together with her in a river; The Brothers (in Astrophel and Other Poems, 1894) tells of fratricide and late

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penance; The Witch-Mother (1889) describes the horrible revenge of a deserted woman: she murders her own children and serves them to their father on the occasion of his new wedding banquet: Says, "Eat your fill o f your flesh, my lord, And drink your fill o f your wine; For a' thing's yours and only yours That has been yours and mine." He struck her head frae her fair body, And dead for grief he fell: And there were twae mair sangs in heaven, And twae mair sauls in hell. {Poems 3: 275)

Owing to his intense, sympathetic studies of folk-literature and his linguistic instinct, the poet succeeded with great virtuosity in reproducing the mentality and style of the traditional ballad; his use of the refrain and the questionand-answer structure is masterly. Like Morris, he sometimes modified the genre through well-placed decorative effects and lyrical intensification. In the preface to the 1904 edition of his collected works Swinburne underlined the importance which his ballads had for his ceuvre: It is only in our native northern form of narrative poetry, o n the old and unrivalled model o f the English ballad, that I can claim to have done any work o f the kind worth reference. (Poems 1: XVIII)

V It remained for the amazingly versatile William Morris to add some more colours to the palette of Pre-Rephaelite medievalism in literature. In his socialist magazine The Commonweal founded in 1885 he published in 1886/ 87 A Dream of John Ball (reprinted 1892 by the Kelmscott Press), a dream vision in prose, in which the author sees himself transferred to late-fourteenth century Kent where he meets the leaders of the peasants' revolt of 1381, especially the excommunicated priest John Ball. The vividness and freshness of the description of medieval atmosphere, in this case of village life, is reminiscent of The Defence of Guenevere, but now Morris superimposed his political didacticism: following the track of William Cobbett, who is mentioned in the first chapter, and Carlyle (Past and Present, 1843), he

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pictured certain aspects o f the Middle Ages as a pattern for the present. The strong sense o f solidarity o f the Kentish rebels—"fellowship is heaven, and lack o f fellowship is hell: fellowship is life, and lack o f fellowship is death" (Works 16: 230), preaches John Ball at the market-cross—and their resolute protest against the beginning suppression o f the common people by the rich and mighty— When Adam delved and Eve span, W h o was then the gentleman? (Works 16: 228)

reads the motto on the banner of the peasants (illustrated by Burne-Jones in the editions of1888 and 1892)—were meant to encourage nineteenth-century reformers. In his dialogue with John Ball, Morris outlines the historical development towards the modern system o f capitalism and industrialization—a topic he also discussed frequently in his lectures on art and society— and as his listener shows his dismay at this prospect o f even worse slavery, he closes on an optimistic note: John Ball, be of good cheer; for once more thou knowest, as I know, that the Fellowship o f Men shall endure, however many tribulations it may have to wear through. . . . men shall be determined to be free; . . . men shall have the fruits o f the earth and the fruits o f their toil thereon, without money and without price. The time shall come, John Ball, when that dream o f thine that this shall one day be, shall be a thing that men shall talk of soberly, and as a thing soon to come

about {Works 16: 284 f.).

Morris used Froissart as his primary source though he did not pedantically stick to historical facts: "in the romance the facts could be judiciously introduced against an imaginary setting... It was, after all, the ideal behind the revolt that concerned Morris most" (Grennan 80). Another parable in which he made the past serve as a mirror for the present is the short tale A King's Lesson (published as An Old Story Retold in The Commonweal, 1886, and reprinted together with John Ball by the Kelmscott Press, 1892) based on an anecdote involving the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus. The reflections o f the king who has himself experienced the toils o f farm-work and the exploitation o f the people but is bound to keep silent in order to secure his crown, are meant as an appeal to Morris's own time: I thought, were I thou or such as thou [ = workmen], then would I take in my hand a sword or a spear, or were it only a hedge-stake, and bid others do the like, and forth would we go; and since we would be so many, and with nought to lose save a miserable life, we would do battle and prevail, and make an end o f the craft

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of kings and of lords and of usurers, and there should be but one craft in the world, to wit, to work merrily for ourselves and to live merrily thereby. {Works 16, 296 f.) An idealistic view of the Middle Ages as a period free from decadence and corruption supplies the conception of the model state in News from Nowhere; or, An Epoch of Rest: Being Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance (published in The Commonweal, 1890; reprinted by the Kelmscott Press in 1892, one year before the Kelmscott edition of Thomas More's Utopia translated by Ralph Robinson, 1551). After an evening debate at the Hammersmith Socialist League the narrator falls asleep and is projected into the England of the twenty-first century in which Morris's dream of a communist society has come true: All men and women are equal and free, content and team-spirited; they no longer work under the dictates of production and consumption but simply enjoy useful and creative activities. With surprise and pleasure the time-traveller realizes on his journey through London that the ugly monuments of the industrial age have all disappeared: "The soap-works with their smoke-vomiting chimneys were gone; the engineer's works gone; the lead works gone" (Works 16: 8), the houses look to him ... so like mediaeval houses... that I fairly felt as if I were alive in the fourteenth century; a sensation helped out by the costume of the people..., in whose dress was nothing "modern". (Works 16: 23) The interior of Westminster Abbey rises again in its old dignity, "after the great clearance, . . . of the beastly monuments to fools and knaves, which once blocked it up" (Works 16:32); the neo-Gothic Houses of Parliament no longer needed in its original function has survived at the request of "a queer antiquarian society" (Works 16: 32) and is now used "for a sort of subsidiary market, and a storage place for manure" (Works 16: 32). The new buildings are all both beautiful and functional, and so is the furniture and the fittings of the household. "Like the mediaevals, we like everything trim and clean, and orderly and bright" (Works 16: 73), the narrator is told by a wise old man. In cheerful company he takes part in a leisurely boat-trip up the river Thames where the eye constandy rests on idyllic pastoral scenery, unspoilt landscape and charming country towns, each being "lifted out of its nineteenth-century degradation" (Works 16:185). Finally the party arrives at Morris's own Kelmscott Manor, this many-gabled old house built by the simple country-folk of the long-past times, regardless of all the turmoil that was going on in cities and courts,

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... lovely still amidst all the beauty which these latter days have created; (Works 16: 201)

and at the homely church of the village, a simple little building with one little aisle divided from the nave by three round arches, a chancel, and a rather roomy transept for so small a building, the windows mostly of the graceful Oxfordshire fourteenth century type. (Works

16: 208) After the sudden awakening in depressing nineteenth-century Hammersmith, the only comfort that remains is the firm belief that some day the dream vision will become reality if men are prepared to "build up little by little the new day of fellowship, and rest, and happiness" (Works 16: 211). In contrast with such examples of "medievalism with a purpose", (Grennan 20) "romance with revolutionary overtones" (Grennan 77) that can be compared with his programmatic lectures and theoretical essays, Morris's late prose romances published between 1888 and 1897 were "gothic fancies of his old age, created for his own pleasure" (Thompson 159). There the Middle Ages were no longer exploited for propaganda but once more inspired the imagination of the poet as "idle singer of an empty day" (Morris, Works 3:1) as he had defined himself in the preface to The Earthly Paradise: Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time, Why should I strive to set the crooked straight? (Works 3 :1)

The titles alone, such as The Wood beyond the World (1894, Kelmscott Press), or The Water of the Wondrous Isles (1897, Kelmscott Press), evoke the fantasy world of part of his early work: There is the same romantic vision of human life on the borders of Fairyland, the swift-drawn scenes of the story's setting, there is the wonder-wood and the waste land, peopled with unknown beings who work weal or woe upon the human folk; the beautiful lady in an atmosphere of enchantment, the young man or maiden going out on a quest or in search of adventure. (May Morris; in Works 17: XVII)

Even if the broad style of narration is often on the verge of verbosity, if the heavily archaizing vocabulary has the flavour of mannerism, the fascination of these romances that were highly praised by William Butler Yeats is undeniable. Their historical associations extend from the age of the tribal migrations to the end of the Middle Ages, their geographical settings shift between Italy and Iceland, their atmosphere assimilates the literary influence of

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medieval romances, Germanic myths, and ancient chronicles, and from all this emerges a many-faceted panorama of an escapist, poetical, vaguely medieval dream world: "These romances are the record of a lifetime of reading and imaginative thought." (Grennan 107)

VI A summary appraisal of Pre-Raphaelite medievalism will have to make allowance for the general reservations about any kind of historicism. The usual objections referring to mere imitation and anachronism certainly cannot be disregarded, on the other hand a wide-spread retrospection in taste is always deeply rooted in and determined by the political and intellectual conditions of the present: for the production of an image the mirror foil is at least as important as the mirrored object. The rapid advancement of mechanization, the predominance of utilitarian concepts, and the collapse of established social and ethical systems made Victorian England the ideal soil for the romantic yearning after a period when an order of fixed values seemed to secure man's position in a large natural, civic, and metaphysical context and at the same time the forces of the irrational and fantastic were apparently given full play. What is it that the medievalizing literature of the Pre-Raphaelites contributed to the Victorian eagerness to hark back to medieval tradition? In comparison with the movement's artistic achievement there is one marked difference. While the first paintings and drawings of the P.R.B. thoroughly broke with academic conventions, endeavoured to follow the art of the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, and thus really represent an avantgarde, in the literary field all the ingredients of medievalism were already available. Notions of typology and religious analogies that recalled medieval theories of correspondence had enjoyed ever greater popularity since John Keble's famous anthology The Christian Year (1827) and the rise of the Oxford Movement. The fondness for folk-ballads that had been stimulated by Thomas Percy's collection Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) soon led to many imitations of the genre, which ranged from forgeries such as Chatterton's 'Rowley Poems' to genuine literary masterpieces such as Keats's La Belle Dame sans Merci (1819). It has already been pointed out that the way for the didactic component of the Medieval Revival in the literary work of William Morris had been paved, among others, by the writings of William

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C o b b e t t and Carlyle's Past and Present. Even the brutally realistic passages of Morris's Froissart reminiscences have their prototypes in the historical novel. O u t of the existing store of forms, subjects, and ideas relating to the Middle Ages each of the Pre-Raphaelite authors individually chose one or more aspects which he found most intriguing, without ever aspiring to giving a comprehensive portrayal of the period. A m o n g t h e m it is certainly William Morris w h o best demonstrates the range and the inconsistencies ofVictorian medievalism. Apart f r o m his meritorious efforts to make accessible important texts of medieval literature, in his original literary œuvre he hovered between nostalgia and Utopia, looking u p o n the Middle Ages sometimes as a mysterious world of enchanting beauty and strange savageness and sometimes as a pattern for his own socialist ideology. T h o u g h neither he nor the other Pre-Raphaelites may claim to be innovators in literary medievalism, some of their works can in quality well compete with earlier documents along the same lines: Morris's News from Nowhere takes a prominent place a m o n g Utopian novels of all ages, and his and Swinburne's ballads are convincing through their subtle understanding of the spirit and language of the ancient genre. W h e n the adoption of traditional sources distinctly combines with nineteenth-century aestheticist sensibility, as in many of Rossetti's poems, the results are literary compounds of intense fascination, which frequently, however, cannot avoid a smell of precious platitudes. O n the whole, the impact of Pre-Raphaelite medievalism in literature appears to be more limited than in art. Characteristically, the striking ideas of aesthetic reform that Ruskin and Morris developed out of their view of the Middle Ages were almost exclusively aimed at the fine arts. There the orientation by the Middle Ages could in a late phase, together with influences of a different kind, provide some basic impulses that would lead as far as Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts Movement. The literary medievalism of the PreRaphaelites, on the other hand, remained an episode.

WORKS CITED The Art-Journal. 11 (1849). The Athenaeum. Journal of Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts. 1119 (1849); 1173 (1850); 1387 (1854); 1426 (1855); 1791 (1862). Carr, Joseph William Comyns. Coasting Bohemia. London: Macmillan, 1914.

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Collinson, James. "The Child Jesus, A Record Typical of the Five Sorrowful Mysteries". The Germ: Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art. Ed. William Michael Rossetti. (London, 1901; first ed. 1850); facs. repr. New York: AMS P, 1965. 49-57. Ehrenpreis, Anne Henry. "Swinburne's Edition of Popular Ballads". PMLA 78 (1963): 559-571. Faulkner, Peter, ed. William Morris: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973. Grennan, Margaret Rose. William Morris: Medievalist and Revolutionary. New York: Russell & Russell, 1970. Henderson, Philip. William Morris: His Life, Work and Friends. London: Thames & Hudson, 1967. Hönnighausen, Lothar. Präraphaeliten und Fin de Siècle: Symbolistische Tendenzen in der englischen Spätromantik. München: Fink, 1971. Lottes, Wolfgang. "Wie ein goldener Traum"—Die Rezeption des Mittelalters in der Kunst der Präraffaeliten. München: Fink, 1984. Mackail, John William. The Life of William Morris. 2 vols. London: Longmans, 1912. Mégroz, Rodolphe L. Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Painter Poet of Heaven in Earth. London: Faber & Gwyer, 1928. Morris, William. The Letters of William Morris to His Family and Friends. Ed. Philip Henderson. London: Longmans, 1950. —. The Collected Works. Ed. May Morris. 26 vols. London: Longmans, 1910-15; vols. 25, 26: Oxford: Blackwell, 1936. Patmore, Coventry K. D. Memoirs and Correspondence. Ed. Basil Champneys. 2 vols. London: Bell, 1900. —. Poems. Ed. Basil Champneys. London: Bell, 1928. Rossetti, Christina Georgina. The Poetical Works, With Memoir and Notes. Ed. W. M. Rossetti. London: Macmillan, 1906. Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. "Hand and Soul". The Germ: Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art. Ed. W M . Rossetti. (London, 1901; first ed. 1850); facs. repr. New York: AMS P, 1965. 23-33. —. Letters. Ed. Oswald Doughty and John Robert Wahl. 4 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965-67. - . The Poetical Works. Ed. W. M. Rossetti. London: Ellis, 1907. Rossetti, William Michael. "Memoir of Dante Gabriel Rossetti". Dante Gabriel Rossetti: His Family-Letters. With a Memoir. Ed. W M. Rossetti. 2 vols. 1: London: Ellis, 1895. —. Some Reminiscences. 2 vols. London: Brown, Langham & Co., 1906. Sharp, William. Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Record and a Study. London: Macmillan, 1882.

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Stevenson, Lionel. The Pre-Raphaelite Poets. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1973. Swinburne, Algernon Charles. Essays and Studies. London: Chatto & Windus, 1876. —. The Poems. 6 vols. London: Chatto & Windus, 1904. —. The Tragedies. 5 vols. London: Chatto & Windus, 1905-06. Thompson, Paul. The Work of William Morris. London: Heinemann, 1967. The Times. 1.5.1851. Wordsworth, William. "The Solitary Reaper". The Poetical Works. Ed. Ernest de Selincourt and Helen Darbishire. vol. 3. Oxford: Clarendon, 1946. 77. Wornum, Ralph Nicholson. "Modern Moves in Art. 'Christian Architecture.' 'Young England.' " Art-Journal 12 (1850): 269-271.

H. FOLTINEK

The Other Hero of Martin Chuzzlewit: The Function of Tom Pinch in the Narrative and Thematic Structure of the Novel

In his recent comprehensive assessment of Martin Chuzzlewit Sylvere Monod dedicates an entire chapter to the characters ofTom and Ruth Pinch, whom twentieth century readers have found difficult to appreciate. The suggestive heading of the section, 'The Salt of Pinch' seems aptly chosen; for though the figures themselves may no longer correspond to the general taste, their pervasive and conspicuous influence over the incidents and experiences related can hardly be questioned. Tom Pinch in particular, as Monod concedes, fulfils an important function in the novel as the embodiment of an altruism that contrasts with the domineering self-love of the Chuzzlewits. Any attempt to devalue the character can only reveal that it is too firmly embedded in the structure of the narrative to be magisterially dispensed with. At the same time, few modern critics have been entirely at ease with this fictional person. Despite his inoffensive simplicity, which is in fact continually emphasised in the text, Pinch seems to defy ready-made classifications. For want of a better label, the figure has been assigned to the group of imbeciles and friendly lunatics1 so frequently encountered in Dickens, deplored as a sentimental aberration or reduced to a mere cipher that helps to link the different plot lines but is ill fitted to serve as a metaphor of constant virtue. Generally, Tom Pinch is placed among the less colourful of the minor characters which the author's creative touch for once failed to animate into a larger-than-life presence. And yet such responses might be due to a lack of perceptiveness which the author himself seems to have anticipated. In the words of one of Tom's closest associates in the novel, it "is much easier to slight than to appreciate In an earlier book publication Monod defines Tom Pinch as "a poor half-witted youth" (Dickens the Novelist 212).

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Tom Pinch."2 The observation has to be heeded. For it concerns a literary figure to which Dickens felt inordinately drawn and which in turn seems to have affected the contemporary audience to a remarkable extent.3 While historical evidence of such a kind might be dismissed as further proof of the purely sentimental appeal of the design, the frequency and quantity of references to Tom Pinch in the text can hardly be discounted. The character may be difficult to accommodate but cannot be discredited like an undesirable claimant. On the other hand, Tom's case has been advocated with some zeal by a minority of critics who tend to offset possible artistic flaws in the semiotic model by an emphasis on its structural and thematic relevance. This approach is most clearly represented by Jerry C. Beasle/s pointed statement that Tom Pinch, "while he may not be the novel's finest achievement, nevertheless stands at its moral and structural center, and is therefore in a certain respect its most important character" (77). In contrast to such reasoning Monod's elegant differentiation between a majority opinion that considers the introduction of Pinch detrimental to the text and ardent "Pinchophiles" who profess to draw enjoyment from the fictional presence (Chuzzlewit 132) must appear as an unwarranted simplification. Yet there is no denying that readers who express interest in the figure will never be at a loss to account for its recurrent appearance in the narrative. Let me state at this point that I do not profess to "Pinchophilia", though I admit to having become engrossed by a literary device that has been capable of eliciting such diverse reactions over a considerable period of time. I would, however, submit that little is to be gained in this context from investigations into changing standards of taste or the psychology of moral judgements. Such research, while valuable for reception studies, may even mislead the critic into concentrating on issues that are only of peripheral importance to an evaluation of Martin Chuzzlewit. Nevertheless, the controversial creation is surely worthy of further exploration. The very fact that scholars have been hard put to define the different codes which constitute the fictional personality under discussion argues for additional and more comprehensive enquiries. While the role of Tom Pinch as an element of contrast has been dealt with to some extent,4 much remains to be ascertained about the charac2

3 4

Dickens. Martin Chuzzlewit. Ed. Margaret Cardwell. Oxford: Clarendon, 1982. 735. All quotations are taken from this edition. Subsequent page references appear in brackets after the quotation. See Letters. Vols 3 and 4: passim. Cf. Michael Steig and J. C. Beasley.

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ter's multiform integration into the narrative design that we are meant to comprehend as a panorama of social and asocial behaviour.5 Above all, a close analysis of its station and place among the various characters through which the incidents of the novel are advanced should shed light on several aspects of the narrative structure that have hitherto received insufficient attention. In the following pages I shall approach the text through this ostensibly simple and yet elusive figure, which will be found to relate to a greater variety of structural and thematic components than has so far been realised. In concentrating on a fictional identity which profoundly engaged the author's attention throughout the composition of Martin Chuzzlewit, I also hope to gain some insights into the creative process in which the narrative took shape. This should prove of some importance as the novel is thought to embody a first attempt to introduce coherence into the teeming fictional material that issued from Dickens's mind (Tillotson 159-62). In short, my aim is not to extol Dickens's character drawing on the basis of a paradigmatic case, but to contribute to an understanding of his imaginative vision and literary craftsmanship. It is invariably the case that the quality of a literary character is established by its first appearance in the narrative. No matter whether the initial impression is subsequently confirmed, modified or even reversed, the introductory phase must count as the basis to which all later manifestations relate. It is not by chance that Tom Pinch is introduced as an inmate of Seth Pecksniffs house on which the narrator lavishes considerable attention in the opening chapters of the novel. Despite the detailed descriptions and extensive commentary, the architect's estate does not emerge as a static environment but is shown at a moment of crisis from which the ensuing action receives its initial impulse. Pecksniffhas turned against the present resident pupil and decided to accommodate a cousin ofwhom much may be expected. The undesirable John Westlock, who has seen through Pecksniffs façade, is to be exchanged for Martin Chuzzlewit, a young man of excessive selfesteem who may accordingly prove gullible. Characteristically, Tom Pinch is reluctant to join forces against Westlock, but makes an attempt to mediate between the hostile parties, to both ofwhich he feels bound in loyalty. To the departing lodger, because he regards him as a close friend; to Pecksniff, because he feels permanendy indebted to him. In his naive view the difference between the two can only have arisen from an unfortunate misunder-

5

Cf. Forster 1: 296, Letters 3: 378 n.

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standing. It will take a profoundly unsettling experience to open Tom's eyes to Pecksniffs falsehood. At this early stage Pinch is still unable to see through Pecksniffs hypocritical claims, whereas the other has an intuitive grasp of his vassal's ingenuousness and knows how to appeal to his modesty, his sense of justice, and his aversion to strife. John Forster may have been the first to observe that Tom Pinch acts as his master's foil in the initial situation: T h e art with which that delightful character is placed at M r P e c k s n i f f s elbow at the beginning o f the story, a n d the help he gives to set fairly afloat the falsehood he innocently believes, contribute to an excellent m a n a g e m e n t o f this part o f the design (1: 296).

This comes close to a structuralist definition of the relationship between two opposing figures. The character of the hypocrite is established through the object which it affects. Tom's deference to Pecksniff confirms the power the latter exerts on his environment. Conversely, the sweet-tempered forbearance of the former throws Pecksniffs extreme egoism into sharp relief. The device of characterisation through contrast is continually employed throughout the novel. It appears very prominently when the initial situation is repeated in the abrupt expulsion of the new pupil, Martin Chuzzlewit. Once more Pecksniff pretends to have been grievously disappointed with a human being, again his opponent rejects the accusation, and again Tom's sense of loyalty is severely strained. His generous nature urges him to assist the weaker party, while his deference to his master pulls him in the opposite direction. It is noticeable that the meek Tom Pinch is put to the test in more than one way during this altercation. For even he cannot be blind to Martin's overbearing self-centredness or overlook Pecksniffs cruelty. Yet once more harmony is restored through the withdrawal of the undesirable inmate and the house made ready to receive a new victim. But this time a variation of the motif is preferred. Not another pupil but a man of great age has responded to the bait. Old Martin Chuzzlewit, the hero's misanthropical grandfather, has appealed to his cousin Pecksniff for support and is cordially welcomed since his wealth is believed to be immense. The exceptional situation calls for extreme unctuousness and servility on Pecksniffs part. It soon appears that his exertions have not been in vain: the dotard increasingly submits to his directions. But here a complication arises through old Chuzzlewit's companion, a young woman whom Pecksniff knows to be engaged to young Martin Chuzzlewit. In the meantime the disgraced grandson has left for the United

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States to try his fortunes in a different world and is unlikely to return in the near future. The old man puts infinite trust in his attendant but does not seem to be concerned for her well-being. Mary Graham may still be expected to benefit from the Chuzzlewit inheritance, yet this is by no means her only attraction in the eyes of Pecksniff. Like his literary ancestor, the English Tartuffe is susceptible to the fair sex to the extent of putting the result of his unswerving labours at risk. His courtship deprives him of the support of his closest associates and might even have alienated Old Chuzzlewit, if the latter had not apprehended the intrigues from the very beginning. For the time being, the hypocrite's standing is not endangered through his imprudence, though his fortunes may be said to decline from this point on. Paradoxically, not the master, but the dependant has to suffer under the influence of female beauty. Tom Pinch has admired Mary from first sight, but has suppressed his feelings in view of her attachment to Martin. He still cannot help dreaming of her though, as he uneasily acknowledges to himself (395). Whether the object of his regard remains ignorant ofTom's love is one of the many issues concerning an exceptionally indistinct heroine which Dickens leaves to the reader's discretion. When she turns to Tom for help against the unwelcome suitor, his indignation proves too strong to allow his devotion to his patron to continue. Whereas he formerly sought for excuses to exonerate Pecksniffs conduct, he is now moved to oppose him with all the energy he can muster. We may wonder at this point whether a meek person like Pinch is likely to turn into an active agent with such abruptness. Yet as so often with Dickens, intricacies of the plot conceal improbabilities of behaviour. In any case, the initiative is at once assumed by the wary oppressor. Once again the Pharisee purges himself of an associate, denouncing the vileness of mankind with his wonted volubility. Undoubtedly, the villain appears at his worst at this climactic moment, which, conversely, marks a turning point in the career of Pinch. It is significant that master and dependant should be placed in close juxtaposition before their ways separate. In their infatuation with Mary Graham both are motivated by the same instinct, which in each case contradicts habitual standards of conduct. As so often happens, the similarity of the predicament emphasises the profound difference between the two personalities involved, which from now on can no longer be reconciled. This is borne out by the consequences of the conflict. Like his former idol, Tom is moved to act imprudently through his attachment; unlike him he is devoid of scheming, and heedlessly impairs his fortunes in the eyes of the world. But contrary to

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Pecksniffs intentions much happiness arises from his forwardness as Tom's selfless bearing is eventually acknowledged. In the dramatic confrontation between the two men Pecksniff betrays a limited knowledge of human nature after all. Intuitively certain that Tom will not contradict his charges, he yet fails to comprehend the satisfaction which the former derives from a situation in which he can openly affirm a love interest that he would hardly have dared to disclose otherwise. Despite his pious protestations, Pecksniff is completely incapable of grasping the pleasures of unrequited passion, let alone the delicacy of sublimated devotion. Tom, on the other hand, preserves his integrity though his eyes are opened to the baseness of his former idol. Thus the similarity of their condition helps to set the two figures, who may from now on be regarded as opponents, further apart. It is obvious that the former relationship must terminate at this point. The underling has seen through Pecksniffs machinations and is thus finally enabled to break his bondage. Liberated from the oppressor, Tom Pinch can divest himself of all feelings of obligation and insufficiency that have hampered him so far. He will have to rely on his own resources from now on, but has found the self-assurance to fend for himself. The process of individuation is completed. Whereas most of Dickens's heroes, Martin Chuzzlewit among them, become mature through prolonged suffering, Tom Pinch achieves self-fulfilment once his independence has been gained. This is already proved by the circumstances of his departure, which the formerly ineffectual and timid man handles with some dexterity. At the same time, Dickens is careful to delay Tom's full realisation that he is about to start a new life. Two days and two nights have to pass before he is allowed to leave Salisbury and his past existence behind him. Once on his way, his spirits rise to unwonted heights at the "novelty and splendour of his situation" (557). Critics of the novel often seem oblivious of the device whereby the animated coach tour to London is mediated through the observations of the traveller.6 Catalogue passages of this type occur frequently in Dickens's novels (Martin Chuzzlewit contains at least one other significant example, namely Montague Tigg's journey to Wiltshire), but it would be wrong to conclude that the author was merely yielding to a personal preference in this respect. Just as an earlier description of Tom's perambulations through the old cathedral city reflected eagerness combined with timidity, the liveliness with which the 6

See, however, McCarthy 639. The often cited panorama from the top of Todgers's (131-2), on the other hand, is experienced by an impersonal spectator.

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impressions of the tour follow one another serves to show how a liberated mind will respond to new experiences. Pecksniffs drudge has discarded his old self by the time he arrives in London. This is soon proved in a second confrontation where Tom Pinch assumes once more the role of the protector. Another distressed maiden, this time his own sister, has been insulted by an overbearing superior and Tom is immediately prompted to take up her cause with unexpected rhetorical powers. The former weakling is now capable of holding his own in a heated argument, which he concludes with dignity. Moreover, he by no means sinks into his former passivity once the affair is settled, but manages the task of setting up house for his sister and himself with remarkable decisiveness. And yet the transformation into a resolute and articulate man has not altered Tom's personality as a whole. Despite the newly gained firmness and sense of purpose his outward behaviour is still determined by self-effacing modesty and kindhearted forbearance. Having set himself up in London, Tom's next concern must be to find suitable employment. Whereas his former self seemed in constant need of guidance and encouragement, the transformed personality may be expected to rise to the challenge and to accomplish the requirement promptly. There is after all no reason why a reliable and industrious young man of some experience should not have gained work in early nineteenth-century London. Character, probity, dedication—Tom seems to possess whatever a business house might have deemed essential in its staff. His school education and extensive reading would have undoubtedly counted as important assets. In addition, Tom must have gained a fair grounding in the architect's trade, having served Pecksniff over a period of many years; but contrary to expectation, nothing is made of his professional skill. This is the point where Pecksniffs calling has to be considered. If we accept the narrator's suggestions, the professional claims of the deceiver are as false as his moral pretensions. As he is mainly engaged in commercial affairs of various sorts, Pecksniffs architectural interests merely extend to the exploitation of pupils, who enter his house in the hope of receiving expert tuition but are invariably disappointed in their expectations. We are even told that the architect "had never designed or built anything" (12), but was held in high esteem nevertheless. His later presence at a public function where the foundation stone of a school is laid, is apparently based on fraudulent machinations. This is at least the avowed opinion of Martin Chuzzlewit, who secretly observes the ceremony and declares the design adopted to be his own—an assumption which is not expressly confirmed by the narrator;

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we have, however, been advised on an earlier occasion that Pecksniffis in the habit of appropriating the work of his students, earning "substantial rewards" (88) in this way. Under these circumstances it is up to the reader to decide which of the two parties is to be credited with the design. Pecksniff we know to be a fraud who would hardly stop at plagiarism; Martin, on the other hand, can certainly not be regarded as an accomplished architect. He is, after all, introduced as a mere dilettante who has decided to submit to professional training.7 In fact, a "natural taste" (97) seems to be his only qualification on entering Pecksniffs house, from which he is expelled just a few days later. During the short period in which Martin might engage in architectural studies he does indeed occupy himself with designing the said grammar school, for which entries have been invited, but that is all the practice he ever gains. That Tom kindly approves his work may count for something, but this can hardly amount to a qualification. On Pecksniffs return, which terminates Martin's brief apprenticeship, the project is said to be nearly completed. This would leave the master ample opportunity to make use of the drafts for his own purpose, if such sketches were all that was needed to excel in a public competition. All things considered, one can't help wondering at Martin's talent, though we may marvel even more at his self-assurance, which is amply shown by his later practice of passing himself off as a qualified architect. Yet all such endeavours remain unsuccessful. The city of Eden, whose builder he hopes to become, remains a mere project. While this disappointment may be seen as part of the shattering American experience in which the hero's character is so severely tested, it comes somewhat as a surprise that nothing should be made of his alleged architectural skill when Pecksniffs victims are rewarded for their trials in the final winding-up. Having been restored to his grandfather's loving care, the hero is allowed to marry the long-suffering heroine, whose steadfastness has been similarly tested, and to live happily on the large family estate which from now on will not be contested any longer. The idyllic life of a man of wealth is obviously thought preferable to the precarious career of an architect. Once more the reader may ask himself if Martin could really have possessed the bold invention and fluent draughtsmanship that he felt so certain of in the beginning. One can understand why critics should have regarded Pecksniffs profession as a purely symbolic medium without attaching much signifiM o n o d considers Martin's as well as Pecksniffs claims to be entirely unfounded (Chuzzlewit 86).

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cance to its contemporary context. There is no denying that architecture pervades the novel in the form of a comprehensive metaphor, as Alan R. Burke has shown in his inclusive study ofthe "architectural city" in Martin Chuzzlewit as a "unifying image of hypocrisy generated by self-love" (16). The various designs harboured by the egoists are indeed like dubious projects which come to nothing; yet the house which Pecksniff built falls to pieces in a metaphorical way only. While our understanding of the narrative is widened by such readings, the realistic aspect of the action must not be lost sight of. There is ample evidence that Dickens's creative achievement cannot be reduced to symbolic visions, just as it has proved impossible to exclude the elements of romance from the wide range of his observations on men and manners. "Why did Dickens choose architecture for Pecksniffs profession?" (82) queries Joseph H. Gardner in a recent study in which striking parallels between the views of the great Victorian architect A.W N. Pugin and the numerous references to the art of designing contained in the text and in the original illustrations by H. K. Browne ("Phiz") are revealed. The question remains largely unanswered, although the contemporary interest in designing and building is copiously demonstrated in the article. Further light might perhaps have been shed on the issue if the actual status of the profession had been considered at some length. As Margaret Cardwell has pointed out in her notes to the World's Classics edition of the novel (735; cf. Kaye passim), there was still hardly any distinction made between the work of civil engineers and that of architects in the early nineteenth century. In addition, members of the profession were often selftaught, while others learnt the trade as apprentices to an established practitioner, attended lectures at the Royal Academy or studied abroad. But change was on the way. In 1828 the newly established 'Institution of Civil Engineers' gained its charter and the year 1835 saw the foundation of the 'Royal Institute of British Architects', which had been set up to keep tradesmen and amateurs from posing as architects (Crook 69). In the following decades the standard of the professions involved rose significantly. In the early days of Queen Victoria's reign, in which the novel is set, different practices seem to have prevailed side by side, which made for considerable uncertainty and furthered malpractices. Considering the volume of building which went on at the time, this must be regarded as a period of high aspirations and solid craftsmanship alternating.with unjustified claims and bungled planning. All these aspects of the trade are indirectly treated in the novel.

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Having established the contemporary context, we are in a better position to assess the relevance of the architectural profession to the narrative. There could hardly have been a better way of describing mountebank pretensions and sham gentility than by having Pecksniff set up as an architect who fixes an impressive plate on his door and fills his house with drafts and the tools of the trade without engaging in any serious design work. The impressive equipment only serves to convince would-be students that they have entrusted themselves to an expert who holds exalted notions of the art of building. It is noticeable that Pecksniff is wont to refer to "pupils" whenever such aspirants are mentioned. His arrangements seem to involve considerable financial advantages for him, but hardly amount to a commitment that might be defined in terms of a contract. Evading the regulations that bind the tradesman, the hypocrite is equally unconcerned about the obligations of the teacher to his charges. Posing as a votary to an arcane science Pecksniff obviously regards himself as free from such secular concerns. Making use of the ambivalent station of the architect prevailing at the time, he has found himself a convenient pitch from which his stratagems can be pursued without risk. But what of his disciples? Judging by the example ofjohn Westlock, the master is wont to take them under his wing at an early age when the inadequacy of the tuition might not be noticed. The mature learner would have amply paid for his youthful ignorance by the time he left the house. As the charms of Pecksniffs daughters would hardly detain him at this stage, the arrangement might now be severed without regret on the tutor's part. It is significant that Martin Chuzzlewit's enrolment at the little academy should prove the exception in this respect. Unlike his predecessors, he commences his studies at a mature age, which would have precluded the possibility of an apprenticeship altogether, without evincing particular concern about the quality of the tuition that he is to receive. There is no doubt that he is to some extent deceived by his cousin at the beginning of their acquaintance. Conversely, he is clearly determined to steer his own course, before the other's policy is fully revealed to him. In fact the liberal practices of the time are reflected in a similar way in his own conduct. As Martin is set to build his fortunes through qualifications of his own making, he might well beat Pecksniff at his own game if his stay with him was not cut short. That he should encourage the two daughters' advances in spite of his engagement to Mary Graham completes the picture. "The new pupil" has made up his mind to accomplish much in the world, as he confides to Tom Pinch, and seems to be anything but scrupulous about the means he will employ to this end. Pecksniffs later

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accusations are justly rejected as slanderous attacks, but contain a kernel of truth all the same. This is not to suggest that the hero, even in his early, unreformed state, bears more than a superficial resemblance to the pattern of references that the reader concretises as Seth Pecksniff. Martin Chuzzlewit has after all every intention of progressing through industry and hard labour. Proudly devoted to superior notions, he will never knowingly impair another man's fortune to further his own cause. The ambitious youth and the hardened opportunist may even be seen as opposites whose basic qualities contradict one another, though the former seems also affected by self-love and self-righteousness. But even in this respect an important difference in outlook can be observed, which augurs well for the hero's development. Whereas Martin is apt to overestimate his merits in fanciful pipe-dreams only, Pecksniff has absorbed his own pretensions to the extent of believing them himself; he can no longer distinguish between truth and falsehood. Self-centred entrepreneurs of this type will often establish themselves in a sphere which is free from fixed norms and binding regulations. The as yet not established calling of the architect and the diverse ways in which it was practised in the early nineteenth century would have been singularly suited to egocentric ambition and ruthless self-seeking. It must have seemed very plausible to Dickens's contemporaries that Martin Chuzzlewit should have embraced it so eagerly or that a person like Pecksniff should have been able to use it so successfully for his fraudulent undertakings. The comprehensive metaphor of architecture through which folly and vice are expressed in the novel is deeply rooted in reality. But Pecksniff and Martin are not the only followers of the vocation, and this returns us to Tom Pinch, who does not endeavour to apply for professional work when he is looking for employment in London. If we remember how avidly Martin advertises his slight acquaintance with architecture in America, Tom's failure to make capital out of his proven skill must seem all the more striking. That he has mastered the technicalities of the art, whether through practice or through reading, is beyond doubt. His unending duties in Pecksniffs house also involve the obligations of a demonstrator or assistant tutor, and there are various other references to his professional knowledge. On a later occasion when brother and sister are depicted in one of the scenes of genuine domestic felicity that are exclusively reserved for them in the narrative, Ruth alludes jokingly to his qualifications as a "civil engineer and land surveyor" (601), but the hint is not taken up. Strangely enough, Tom is unheedfiil of the remark, though he is busy composing a letter of applica-

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tion that is to gain him employment. It is up to the reader to decide whether he is still restrained by his former modesty or fearful of being tainted by the corrupt ways of an unscrupulous trade. What occupation he may have in mind and what his chances of obtaining it might have been is never disclosed, for at this crucial moment Providence intervenes heavily in the person of Old Martin Chuzzlewit, the hero's grandfather, who has observed Tom's virtues from afar and will secretly support him from now on. The situation is by no means infrequent in Dickens's novels. When the hero's fortunes have sunk to their lowest, a generous benefactor, who often seeks to hide his identity, is brought in to provide for him in his distress. The motif can be treated in diverse ways. In some cases, as with the Cheeryble brothers in Nicholas Nickleby, the helper is virtually a projection of the destitute person's most ardent wishes. Conversely, the aid bestowed may exert a harmful influence on the receiver. The problematic relationship between benefactor and protégé becomes especially relevant in the later novels. But it is only in Great Expectations that the unsettling effect of unearned riches on the immature mind is fully considered. As Harry Stone has argued (91-93), Old Chuzzlewit acts the role of the fairy godfather or benevolent enchanter in the novel under discussion, who tests the hearts of men in various disguises. Thus he plays the dotard to Pecksniff to probe the hypocrite's falsehood, as he himself discloses in the scene of judgement. Tom Pinch's merits, on the other hand, are tried through a set assignment in the shape of a jumbled accumulation of books. Only when the magic library has been put in order will the trial have reached its end. But Stone's interpretation leans too far into the sphere of romance. To suggest that Tom has to be specially rewarded for his labours means to misconstrue the order of events. Moreover, it would be quite wrong to speak of a "task" here, as Tom finds the work most congenial. In addition, he is regularly compensated for the services rendered. His conditions are in fact not so different from the actual terms of employment that would have come into effect in such a case. Nevertheless, there is an air of the unreal about the occupation in a remote set of chambers in the Temple, which would utterly disconcert a more inquisitive person. Why Old Chuzzlewit should have chosen such a peculiar way of providing for a deserving young man is never satisfactorily explained. The paternal foresight of the patriarch, who acts the father to several orphans in the narrative, is implicitly accepted. As twentieth-century employment schemes have shown, the basic arrangement by which the receiver is obliged to work for the assistance offered may be sound enough, yet it seems singularly inadequate in the case of a person of excellent charac-

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ter and some proven ability, who should surely be encouraged to apply himself to more meaningful obligations. There is not the slightest suggestion that the assignment might lead to a better or at least more permanent post, and yet Tom Pinch is quite satisfied with a makeshift job which at best amounts to a form of occupational therapy only and which a more demanding person might find deeply frustrating. What seems more bewildering even is that his sister should be equally contented about the precarious arrangement although she must be aware that it can in no way provide for the future. The paternal benefactor seems to be capable of looking after present needs only; or has the enchanter decided that happiness is only to be found by living from hand to mouth? Does an individual whose "honor a n d . . . manly faith" (804) are specially pointed out not merit better treatment? This is a question which even the conclusive denouement, in which the fortunes of one and all are settled, leaves unanswered. The last chapters in particular make it perfectly clear that Old Chuzzlewit is not as omniscient as Harry Stone assumes. He could not have foreseen that Ruth is to marry the affluentJohn Westlock, who will pursue his old profession somewhere in the country, and that Tom is to live with them, making himself useful all round and radiating happiness as a benign bachelor uncle whom children will flock to. Assuming Westlock's calling to be that of an architect—for what other training could he have gained under Pecksniffs roof?—Tom would thus have returned to his previous commitment, and once more in a subordinate position only. As Old Chuzzlewit is certainly not responsible for this final placement, we can only conclude that Tom's creator deemed it right that his favourite should not be allowed to set up as his own master. Once more we have been served with an example indicating that happiness may be found in patient self-abnegation and quiet domesticity. But is this the ineluctable outcome which could have been anticipated in any way? Again we are moving on familiar ground. Tom's idyllic retirement is quite similar to the fate of the faithful Newman Noggs in Nicholas Nickleby or to the situation of the once powerful Paul Dombey, who is content to reside with his daughter, where "ambitious projects trouble him no more" (829). But the comparison is hardly valid after all, for Noggs is but a broken man and Dombey has sought shelter after a terrible downfall. Tom Pinch represents a different case altogether. Like them he has borne his share of suffering, but he is still young and might have been expected to improve his standing once he left the old bondage behind. This after all is what the reader has been led to believe all along. Yet Tom never gets another chance to assert himself. Having been launched into the teeming life of the metropolis,

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which would offer untold opportunities to an able person, he is abruptly spirited away to a secluded play-room where the outside world can tempt him no more. Once the door of the dusty library has closed on him, Tom Pinch returns to his former ways again, drudging away as if he was still under his oppressor. Not Pecksniffs tyranny but Old Chuzzlewit's well-meaning assistance sets the mark on him that will ever separate him from the active life of men. 8 Of all the major characters in the novel Tom is the only one who is not permitted to achieve an independent existence. Needless to say, Old Chuzzlewit cannot be held accountable for this unexpected development. He has acted according to character, in other words like an authoritarian patriarch and yet with the best intentions. No word of explanation can therefore be expected from him. Like the other figures he cannot step back from the scene and survey the final outcome dispassionately as an unconcerned observer might do. The organisation of the authorial novel precludes detached statements from the actants. Barring such disclosures it would be up to the narrating voice to offer explanatory or even critical comment to the reader, whom the unexpected turns in the action may have left bemused. Yet the narrator remains completely silent on this point. The absence of any such reflections need not indicate that the author was unaware of the merits of an alternative plot-line which would have allowed his favourite figure a more adequate share in the final reckoning. To assume that Dickens knew of the basic inconsistency of the denouement does, on the other hand, not necessarily imply that he found himself incapable of composing a different version of the crucial passages in which Tom's fate is determined. Undoubtedly, the creative process from which a narrative text of such length arises will comprehend a wide range of imagined eventualities admitting of coundess consequences. Every narrative discourse might thus be seen as the result of numerous choices in the course of which alternative versions are rejected. While it is perfectly legitimate to argue for or against the ending ofa narrative, the complexity of the references from which a specific solution derives must always be borne in mind. This would go some way towards explaining the incidence of gaps and inconsistencies in a novel; it does, however, hardly help us to understand Dickens's failure to pronounce on an unexpected turn of events in the narrative flow. 8

Beasle/s view that "the intervention of old Martin Chuzzlewit in Tom Pinch's life in no way undermines the novel's affirmation of Tom's new wisdom and stature" (84) seems to me unsupported.

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This is not to say that the authorial silence cannot be accounted for. It is possible that Dickens deemed it unnecessary to insert explanatory information. Alternatively, he may have been unwilling to engage in critical comment on a closely visualised sequence of events that involved him profoundly. Narrative comment is after all not as frequent in his works as a first reading might seem to indicate, and there is yet another possible explanation for its absence in Martin Chuzzlewit. Let us assume that Dickens was fully aware that Tom Pinch's failure to forge his own fortune would startle the more discerning of his readers, but felt disinclined to counsel them since an explicit word of comment would have required an analysis of his artistic and private motives that he was unwilling to undertake. If this was the case, an author as deeply committed to his literary creations as he was would surely have found another, less discursive way of justifying an ending that to him seemed still more satisfactory than all other possible solutions. To what extent this was in fact realised will be considered later. But the issue can only be approached when our analysis of Tom's progress has been completed. As will be shown, the professional sphere is not the only field where his development is stunted. As has been pointed out already, Tom Pinch is introduced as an unpretentious person whose outward deficiencies hide a noble soul. He is an awkward figure beset by feelings of inferiority and therefore wont to approach his fellow-men submissively. A childlike naivety makes him credulous to the extent ofworshipping the hypocritical Pecksniff as a model ofvirtue and wisdom. Restrained by extreme modesty, he does not seem capable of asserting himself, although occasional references to his quiet pride, magnanimity and intellectual ability make it seem probable that he will eventually outgrow his weakness and stand up to his oppressors. The occasion arises when Mary Graham appeals to him for protection against Pecksniff, whose subsequent attacks offend his sense of honour and justice. In this extreme situation where his entire moral nature is put to the test, Tom's mild forbearance changes intofirmnessand he appears as a resolute man who will not yield to intimidation. The climactic scene has been anticipated in a previous altercation between Tom and Jonas Chuzzlewit, in which the latter finds to his surprise that the miserable underling can well hold his ground. Having been prompted to lift a hand against the aggressor, the architect's assistant immediately relapses into his former meekness, but an advance towards self-realisation has been made nevertheless. Significantly, a slighting allusion to Mary has incited Tom to action, just as Pecksniffs insolent behaviour towards the girl raises his spirits before the decisive

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confrontation that is to terminate his servitude with him. The two encounters demonstrate unmistakably that Tom is not only possessed of manly virtues but also endowed with a passionate nature. He has so far been characterised as a warm-hearted person who would be found sensitive to a woman's needs. His chivalrous engagement at this point shows him capable of ardent emotions that might arouse admiration. At the same time, there is little indication that the lovable figure will take an active share in the several plots contained in the novel, whereas its thematic function as an embodiment of selfless devotion has already become apparent in the introductory phase. From the very beginning Tom has been described as a person that will inspire feelings of friendship and compassion in the other sex only. He is very popular in the village, but does not seem to arouse any specific interest among the women. As the narrator bluntly states, some girls of the community altogether drop their restraint on meeting him, since he is clearly a harmless fellow (65). Martin Chuzzlewit is even more outspoken when he describes Tom to his sweetheart Mary Graham as a somewhat comical figure who may be confided in without the slightest misgivings: "The very first time you talk to Pinch, you'll feel at once, that there is no more occasion for any embarrassment or hesitation in talking to him, than if he were an old woman" (241). Martin's disregard for his loyal friend, whom he knows to be deeply in love with Mary, is symptomatic of extreme selfishness. Like the arrogant seducer Steerforth in David Copperfteld, he is evidently convinced that a simple ungainly man can have no claim on an attractive woman. In reducing Tom to the status of a tender-hearted eunuch, on the other hand, he only gives voice to the general opinion, though in an especially heartless way. Martin's high-handed treatment of Tom offers yet another example of his excessive self-esteem, which is bound to be crushed when his hopes for advancement in the New World come to nothing. During his sufferings in the American wilderness the hero is severely tried and undergoes a change of heart that turns him into a less egocentric and altogether maturer person, who is more worthy of the woman he so carelessly entrusted to his rival. As only his professional ambitions have been frustrated, the main love-plot can be happily concluded as soon as Old Chuzzlewit decides to drop his pretended opposition. So extreme has Martin's self-regard been that feelings of doubt can only arise in him when his moral growth is reaching completion. Having learnt to view Tom with different eyes, he does evince symptoms of jealousy after all, but by this time the trial period is coming to a close and his errings no longer matter. It is perhaps worth pointing out that Martin does not release Mary's "proud young beauty" (805) from his embrace while

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emphatically extending the other hand to Tom in the final scene of reconciliation. And yet this exceptionally wooden heroine has never shown the slightest sign that she might waver in her attachment to the not so deserving lover. As regards her selfless admirer, she has certainly never expressed any concern for his feelings that would exceed the rules of courtesy. On the basis of the text we cannot even be sure that Mary has taken note of Tom's "secret heart" (395), as his silent devotion is termed by the narrator. Despite its coy overtones the expression is apt enough since the emotional engagement escapes the notice of nearly all other characters, including the old enchanter Chuzzlewit. Paradoxically, it is an outsider like Jonas Chuzzlewit who instinctively hits upon Tom's affection in intending to slight him. The only figure truly able to appreciate his feelings is, after all, his sister. In her regard for her brother's happiness, Ruth may be expected to urge his interests with some fervour. Fully convinced of his superiority, she is unwilling to take a disinterested view of the affair let alone accept his resignation. It is in accordance with Tom's complex function in the novel that he should find words of guidance in this context to reconcile Ruth to his own case, which she eventually admits to be hopeless. What seems even more striking in this connection is, however, that she should not try to console her brother with commonplace hopes for the future that are usually expressed in such a situation. Unlike many of Dickens's heroes, Tom, it seems, can love but once. This is an aspect of his character to be borne in mind when Tom Pinch's other relationships with the opposite sex are considered. But can we speak of further relations in the case of this single-minded devotee? Students of Martin Chuzzlewit have so far largely ignored the issue, although the question is not so easily settled. The difficulty arises from the character's loosely defined position within the pattern of social differentiations. His role, on the other hand, is not really ambivalent. It is basically the traditional part of the good-natured man who is entirely forgetful of his own interest in order to further the happiness of others. As has been mentioned, he is introduced as a meek drudge who inspires feelings of friendly sympathy only among the opposite sex. Though he develops into a resolute person in the course of an unsettling experience, it soon becomes apparent that the strong feelings he has displayed will remain focussed on the heroine, who is evidently reserved for the main character. As the embodiment of selflessness he can hardly be expected to pursue an active interest in Mary, let alone in another partner of his choosing. There remains still the possibility that he might chivalrously take care of a woman in need of male support. As a brief survey of the female figures and their corresponding partners shows, there may be

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indeed some good reason why the good-natured man should be thus employed. It is always helfpful to commence the analysis of a novel by Charles Dickens with its ending. In Martin Chuzzlewit this is initiated in the last-buttwo chapters, and not only the hero and the heroine, but several analogous or contrasted figures are assigned to presumptive spouses. Martin, who has repented of his egoism, can now be safely entrusted with the long-suffering heroine. John Westlock, altogether a more agreeable choice, goes to Tom's sister. Mark Tapley, who has accompanied Martin to America, represents a different case. Strong-minded, but largely unselfish and full ofjoie de vivre, he has been motivated by a desire to serve in his wanderings with the hero. He too has left: a woman behind in the shape of a well-endowed widow several years older than himself, who seemed only too ready to install him as her husband. This would have been too commonplace a career for an adventurous young man and may have prompted his departure in the first place. But he has been allowed brief play only by the novelist. Having done his turn with his master, Mark is mated with the widow, who has patiently waited for his return. Mark is back to where he started without having undergone a significant change of heart.9 As so often, the comic subplot adds a touch of realism to the high romance which it echoes. This still leaves two female characters unaccounted for. As was to be expected, neither of Pecksniffs daughters has made a happy choice in her partner. In the opening chapters Cherry and Merry are introduced together with their father and shown to be his equals in selfishness and falsehood. As marriage can be nothing but a means of attaining wealth and dominance for them, they are constantly on the look-out for well-placed bachelors. Hence their spontaneous attachment to Martin Chuzzlewit, who is thought likely to succeed to his grandfather's property when he enters Pecksniffs house as a pupil. By the time the young man's precarious situation is disclosed, one of the daugthers has after all found an eligible suitor in her cousin Jonas Chuzzlewit. Merry, the younger and prettier one of the two, takes considerable pride in having triumphed over her sister, who in turn shows much chagrin at the match. So great is Cherry's resentment, that Jonas' chastisement through Tom Pinch causes her extreme pleasure. As the narrator is at pains to point out, her satisfaction at the humiliation does not alter her indifference to Unlike Tom, Mark Tapley fills the part of the comic servant throughout the novel. Steven Marcus's attempts to raise the figure to the relevance of a spokesman on Protestant ethics would overstrain the character concept (260-1).

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Tom, but there is no doubt that she has begun to see the despised underling in a new light. The incident even bears some resemblance to a vividly imagined scene in Great Expectations, ch. 11, where little Pip, who is horrified to have defeated Herbert Pocket in a fist-fight, discovers to his amazement that the outcome of the conflict visibly pleases Estella. There is little explanation offered as to why Tom Pinch should have been scorned by the Pecksniff sisters. His modesty together with the inferior place he occupies in the household must count as a sufficient reason. On the other hand, subordinates do occasionally aim at their masters' daughters in Dickens's novels. The example of David Copperfield comes to mind, whose self-assurance is such that Mr Spenlow's remonstrances against his secret wooing of Dora strike him as unfair. The unexpected hindrance might be regarded as providential, as the young man's choice is undoubtedly very unwise, but Dickens is not going to let his protagonist off the hook so easily. To provide a sufficient dose of suffering, Fate intervenes, ostensibly on his behalf, thus allowing him to build his misfortune through his own endeavours. Spenlow's sudden death puts an end to all social ambitions he claimed to nourish, and the lover gains his child-bride through sheer persistence. Yet misery is soon to follow culminating in her death. A sadder and a maturer man, David has finally become worthy of Agnes Wickfield, who has firmly resisted the approaches of the scheming Uriah Heep over the years. Even as a distant narrator David Copperfield seems totally unaware of the analogy of his erstwhile love-making to Dora and Uriah's unsolicited advances towards his master's daughter. It has to be conceded, though, that the similarity of their aspirations is somewhat blurred by the pointed contrast between David's intellectual flexibility and his antagonist's dogged single-mindedness. The two men are, of course, also differentiated by nuances of class, which in fact always matter far more to Dickens than is usually acknowledged. But David Copperfield's social rank and the implications of a first-person narrator's restricted viewpoint are not our immediate concern. More relevant in. this connection is another, hitherto unnoticed parallel between the two novels, that relates Tom Pinch to Uriah Heep. The tatter's terms with the lawyer Wickfield are not so different from Tom's subordinate placement in the architect's house. Leaving the contrary personalities of the two figures aside, their respective situations will appear analogous in many ways. Both stem from a common, even humble background, as not only Uriah is at some pains to point out. While Tom's education must have been superior to the other's charity schooling, both have come to occupy a station which

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combines the duties of the apprentice with the responsibilities of an assistant. A factotum has every chance to make himself indispensable or to surrender to exploitation, and this is precisely where the similarity between the two ends. While Heep is eventually enabled to set up as Wickfield's partner, Tom would never dream of raising himself to his master's level. Conversely, an intimately placed subordinate might think of gaining promotion through marriage, as Uriah has long perceived, whereas the very thought would undoubtedly strike terror through Tom's heart. And yet Uriah's aspirations derive from an analogous station in life. Without going to the extremes of the other's dubious practices, Tom could presumably establish a firm foothold in his master's affairs, if he was impelled by the brash self-interest that appears so prominently in all the Chuzzlewits. Needless to say, the occasion never arises, though the ending of the novel sees Tom comfortably situated, whereas the architect and his elder daughter, who has been jilted by her flaneé, have been reduced to the state of paupers. As her conduct has been selfish and cruel throughout, Cherry's wretched existence is conceived as a well-deserved punishment, which her single state is obviously meant to aggravate. In her sister's case, on the other hand, marriage has acted as a fit retribution for past offences. Merry, who meant to rule, is mentally broken through brutal treatment at the hands of a malevolent husband. Imprisoned in a dark and oppressive dwelling, she seeks every opportunity to escape into more congenial company. Small wonder that she should see Tom Pinch with different eyes when their acquaintance is renewed. Soon alerted, the distrustful Jonas Chuzzlewit puts a blunt construction on their meetings. Injustice and bullying always incite Tom to gallant behaviour, but the matter is abruptly solved through Jonas' downfall. He dies by his own hand, leaving a destitute widow behind who ought to be provided for, as she has suffered deeply and is thought to have reformed. In his role as a final arbiter Old Chuzzlewit promises to find a peaceful refuge where Merry may recuperate at leisure. This is the point where Tom might take his chance as minor characters in fiction are often required to do, but the opportunity passes by unheeded. The architect's daughter is dismissed into an uncertain future and Tom Pinch is left to himself to gain happiness as a celibate. Has the old enchanter been nodding? The conventional reader, who may have expected every figure in the comprehensive pattern to receive its proper allocation in the final reckoning, might regard the outcome as flawed until he reaches the last pages, which are exclusively devoted to Tom. As so often in the conclusion of a novel by Charles Dickens, several years are assumed to have passed by, affecting the fortunes of the leading

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figures in the expected ways. At this point the narrator might use his traditional privileges to offer last glimpses of the various characters in ennobled or dejected conditions. But contrary to the usual practice they appear only as reflections in the transcendent consciousness of one select personality; and the elect visionary is not identical with the hero or with his grandfather, who might have seemed fairly suitable for this part. The final apotheosis of Tom Pinch through which the narrative is wound up could only have centred on a single existence that is related to all the other persons and yet distanced from their individual concerns. It is not by chance that Tom is once more emphatically moved into the foreground. We know for certain that the epilogue to the novel was not hastily added but in fact carefully planned by the author. In a letter to his illustrator, H. K. Browne ("Phiz"), written several days before the actual composition, in which a first impression of the scene is sketched, Dickens shows himself fully aware of the significance of the unconventional conclusion: I have a notion of finishing the book, with an apostrophe to Tom Pinch, playing the organ. I shall break off the last Chapter suddenly, and find Tom at his organ, a few years afterwards. And instead of saying what became of the people, as usual, I shall suppose it to be all expressed in the sounds; making the last swell o f the Instrument a kind o f expression of Tom's heart. Tom has remained a single man, and lives with his sister and John Westlock who are married—Martin and Mary are married—Tom is a godfather of course—Old Martin is dead, and has left him some money—Tom has had an organ fitted in his chamber, and often sits alone, playing it; when o f course the old times rise up before him. So the Frontispiece is Tom at his organ with a pensive face; and any little indications of his history rising out of it, and floating about it, that you please; Tom as interesting and amiable as possible. (Letters 4: 140)

The word-picture requires little comment as it closely corresponds to the later text. Here certain overtones are added, however, which could hardly be conveyed in a brief outline. Tom's love of music, from which the scene takes its inspiration, is described several times in the novel. It is his mainspring and his consolation, a window to a higher sphere to which earthbound man may only aspire. It enhances, but can also alter an individual's course of life, as Tom learns when his performance on the village organ wins him the attention of Mary Graham, from which great suffering but also happiness is to follow. Dickens himself was not especially gifted for music, but quite able to assess its magical powers. The motif of the dedicated music-lover occurs several times in his work. When the old clerk Morfin in Dombey and Son wishes

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to withdraw from the oppressive obligations of his employment he takes up his violoncello and is soon oblivious of all everyday cares.10 In the emblematic conclusion to Martin Chuzzlewit music gains a higher meaning still. As the diverse elements of the plot are metaphorically represented through variations that emanate from Tom's fingers, the entire narrative dissolves into a creative act originating from his imaginative mind. We have so far restricted ourselves to the more palpable functions of the figure of Tom Pinch. The good-natured man serves as a figure of contrast by which the Chuzzlewits and their adherents, who dominate the various strands of the plot, are measured. As the initial agent of an independent action-sequence he is temporarily raised to the rank of a major character, but recedes again before a more potent impulse. Once more the structural arrangement shifts into a different pattern: in the last sections of the novel the simple-hearted drudge comes to occupy a central place to which even the hero defers, but is increasingly excluded from the leading events. Tom Pinch does not participate in the apprehension of the murderer Jonas Chuzzlewit and acts as a mere observer in the scene of judgement where Pecksniffs pretensions are shattered. Yet all and everybody gather round him when retribution has taken its course: And Martin took him by the hand, and Mary too, and John, his old friend, stoutly too; and Mark, and Mrs. Lupin, and his sister, little R u t h . . . (805)

The metaphorical import of the tableau requires little comment. The importance of the character derives from its relationship to the other figures of the novel rather than from its intermittent agency in the plot. Conversely, Tom's presence is always vividly conveyed. It finds direct expression in the frequently evoked attitudes and viewpoints that are ascribed to him. As the embodiment of innate goodness that vicious self-love may restrain but never completely suppress, the figure is at times enlisted to enliven the narrator's commentary or called on as a dialectic respondent when the critical observer needs the resonance of a well-meaning foil. Already in the early chapters, recourse is sometimes had to Tom's ingenuous but telling reflections to underpin the thematic structure of the novel. As the action progresses these disclosures gain in variety in accordance with his intellectual and emotional emancipation. The narrator's occasional apostrophes of Tom Pinch, of 10

Dombey and Son. Chs. 13,53. Even the untalented teacher Mr. Meli seems to derive considerable pleasure from his flute-playing as little David Copperfield observes with interest. David Copperfield. Ch. 5.

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which the closing passage offers an especially impressive example, have been censured as patronising,11 but should rather be understood as a device for activating a character that is meant to serve as a distinct consciousness in the narrative. Though his share in the plot is comparatively small, Tom Pinch may nevertheless be viewed as the central figure of the novel. At the same time the concluding apotheosis indicates clearly that his function as a centre of awareness is not confined to the moral sphere only. The benign influence exerted by the figure on its surroundings could in fact be compared to a germinal force from which the narrative as such arises. In one of his few comments on the composition of Martin Chuzzlewit Dickens speaks expressly of "selfishness" as a mere "setting"12 against which pure goodness is meant to shine in all its brightness. If we set store by the authorial intention, benevolence rather than self-love ought to be seen as the activating factor behind the multiple action. In the closing allegorical picture Tom appears not only as the personification of kind-heartedness but also as an emblem for the creative impulse from which the fictitious artefact originates. As his fingers play the different melodies he asserts himself as their inspiration and as the controlling agent that combines them into a multiform whole. The imaginative energy of the character is demonstrated throughout the narrative. Tom is occasionally employed as an observer to animate a description to which special relevance pertains. As an earlier reference has shown, he becomes the perspective through which the impressions of a coach journey are mediated. His is the spirit from which the details of a shopping tour receive their fanciful animation, and he again lends emotional overtones to a bustling riverscape (599, 622-23). It might be objected at this point that other figures of the novel at times assume a similar function, or that Tom Pinch is by no means always present in the narration. For instance, in the American interlude that takes Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley across the ocean, the action proceeds entirely without his assistance. It would be specious to argue that the character was only hidden from view in these parts, where several pointed references (the tips of the iceberg?) are indeed made to Tom, or that it was possessed of sufi' 12

See Dabney 46, Miller 139. In a letter to Lady Holland the author extols Tom and Ruth Pinch as "the greatest favorites I have ever h a d . . . I hope you perceive... how the selfishness of the book is the setting for these little sparklers; and how their influence is intended to refine and improve the rest." (Letters 4:145).

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ficient consequence to cast a prominent shadow over every scene and incident in the novel. Whatever significance may be ascribed to the literary figure, no analysis can afford to divest Tom Pinch of his mild and self-depreciative nature. Though goodness is comprehended as a pervasive influence it will never assert itself in strident tones. Conversely, the character's most engaging human qualities will not suffice to explain Tom's idiosyncratic standing among the rest of the dramatis personae, none of which could have been drawn upon for the final allegory. And there is another, weightier instance in the text where Tom Pinch seems to step outside the narrative frame altogether as if he was at liberty to observe its workings from an exclusive vantage-point. This structural break occurs in the fiftieth chapter, which introduces us once more to a domestic scene featuring Tom and Ruth Pinch. The atmosphere is subdued rather than cheerful this time, however; Ruth has discovered Tom's secret attachment to Mary Graham and wishes that she could speak to him about his emotional involvement. Quite aware that the subject is an extremely delicate one, she is uncertain how to take the matter up. The tension is eventually broken by the dramatic entry of Martin Chuzzlewit, who proceeds to charge Tom with disloyalty and gross selfishness. In his passionate outburst Martin will not heed the other man's emphatic denials let alone explain himself more explicitly. The accusations are in fact so vaguely framed that the actual reason for his indignation never becomes known. Chapter 52 briefly mentions that Martin saw Tom enter the Temple without adding a word about possible conclusions that could have been drawn. Did he associate the location with his grandfather, imagining that the other had supplanted him as the old man's favourite? Could Martin conceivably have thought that his friend was on his way to a furtive meeting with Mary? The reader is not even told whether the visitor's excitement is caused by jealousy, envy or disillusionment, for the theatrical confrontation ends as abruptly as it has commenced. Having delivered his cryptic charges, Martin solemnly quits the scene, leaving Tom in complete dismay about the unfathomable defamation he has suffered from an entirely unexpected quarter. Though Martin makes a gesture of apologizing to Tom on a later occasion, the accusation is never satisfactorily accounted for. Yet the resulting gap in the narration can hardly be filled by the reader, who is in any case hard put to keep abreast of the fast-moving action in the concluding chapters. As Old Chuzzlewit descends on London to mete out justice, the trap has closed on his nephew Jonas, who must be convicted first before the humiliation of Pecksniff and the union of the lovers can take place as planned. To maintain

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suspense these events have to follow one another in quick succession, to which end two different time schemes are resorted to by the author. It would take too much space to unravel the correlation between the various intrigues at this point. Some incongruities certainly remain unresolved. Suffice it to say that Martin's intrusion into Tom's domestic haven is effected without any reference to the preceding or simultaneously occurring main action. The confrontation proceeds seemingly in isolation and should for this reason better be treated as an episode that has little bearing on the plot as such. Alternatively, it might be regarded as a parable on account of its moral application. The truly altruistic man, as represented by Tom, appears as a poor guardian of his interests, whereas selfishness will ever be blind to its own failings. Martin's self-righteous denunciation remains impervious to the mild protestations of the truly injured party. As the parable amounts to a juxtaposition of two different individualities, it will also offer some further characterization of the two figures involved. Despite his reformation brought about by intense suffering, Young Chuzzlewit cannot entirely rid himself of a tendency towards self-assertion, whereas Tom will always maintain a disinterested benevolence, no matter what construction is placed upon his conduct by an uncomprehending environment. Their penultimate confrontation points to an issue that may have occupied the author's mind during the composition of the novel. Martin Chuzzlewit is ostensibly meant to expose the vice of selfishness, as it appears in a number of individualized figures that are all affected by the ultimate triumph of goodness. While the main offenders receive severe punishment, the less serious cases, among whom the old and the young Martin Chuzzlewit must both be included, are allowed to purge themselves of their excessive self-love. As the narrative is still determined by the tradition of the novel of adventure, it is consistent with its moral pattern that the main figure should even be rewarded for the trials he has suffered. Conversely, the introduction of a selfless person who nevertheless fails to obtain an adequate recompense is not so easy to account for.13 Young Martin would evidently be unable to understand the apparent anomaly, because he cannot comprehend the possibility of complete self-denial. If all the figures through which the moral theme is acted out were treated according to their deserts, Tom Pinch would emerge as the exemplary personality who might claim the bigMany critics have found Dickens's failure to reward Tom for his selfless conduct difficult to comprehend. Beasley argues in terms of an "unwitting contradiction" (87). See also Dabney (48-9).

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gest share of the stakes. These deliberations may help to explain the tenor of Young Chuzzlewit's accusations, which can be regarded as a reflection of his own uncertainty. If we consider the indictment abstractly, Martin's protest relates to his specific role in the narrative. The hero thinks himself in danger of being ousted by a rival who has far advanced in status during his own absence from the scene of action. As the episode is not continued, Martin's protest at his feared dethronement points to a mere possibility which is abandoned as quickly as it has arisen. It is not to be imagined that the conventional hero could surrender his privileges, nor would the good-natured man aspire to his superior rank. N o structural changes are therefore required and the narration can pass on to more urgent matters. As stated above, Martin's intervention is never explained. The narrator does not even add a word of comment after the confrontation has been succeeded by a scene of harmony in which brother and sister avow their mutual affection. This is an opportune moment to turn to Tom's hidden attachment. Martin's unjustified expostulations have activated Ruth's concern for her brother's well-being, which, in her view, can only be guaranteed if Mary Graham agrees to become his wife. At this juncture some authoritative guidance is clearly needed, for not only the sympathetic sister but also the reader will have to be assured that the righteous man will not sink into despair when the less deserving are seen to prosper in the world. The instruction is indeed provided, yet it does not come from the narrator but from Tom Pinch himself. Despite his personal involvement the latter becomes the mouthpiece of philosophical reflections that exceed the range of his usual observations. In uttering these thoughts Tom steps out of his role, assuming the part of an omniscient commentator, the only source from which counsel of such consequence might be expected. Part of the message which is thus inserted concerns the nature of human happiness. Ruth is wrong to hold that satisfaction can only be attained through the fulfilment of private ambitions. While the ennobling influence of high aspirations cannot be doubted, it is the actual conditions of the individual's existence that have to be heeded if peace of mind is to prevail. In accepting the unavoidable stoically, man becomes aware of the favourable aspects of his predicament, from which constant encouragement may be drawn. Reconciled to the defects of his personal fortune, he comes to appreciate its attributes as privileges. The key to happiness is thus found in contentment. While this piece of ethical optimism is to some extent at least in line with Tom's modest nature and professed mode of conduct, the aesthetic notions that he elaborates seem somewhat out of character. Though the good-

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natured man may be trusted to be free from frustration there is little doubt that his often remarked love of music and books acts as a compensation for balked desires. A shy man who turns to imaginative literature for consolation would surely be inclined to cherish its escapist implications. Yet the sublimating aspect of fiction is expressly rejected by Tom when he advances his ethical doctrines: romance has a harmful influence since it tempts men to regard the constraints of life as accidental obstacles, while they must be patiently and cheerfully endured. Though these references to literature are obviously meant as illustrations of an individual attitude to life, their general implication can hardly be dismissed. Dickens would certainly have known that Tom Pinch is arguing in favour of a consistent realism that went beyond his own literary practices (Stang 22-28; 155-59). The speaker is quite explicit about the patent contrast between the actualities of life and the deceitful conventions of fiction: .. there is a much higher justice than poetical justice," declares Tom with some rigour, "and it does not order events upon the same principle" (763). If this maxim were to be applied to an analysis of Martin Chuzzlewit, the plot of the novel would admit of one inference only: Tom and the hero pertain to two contrary spheres or systems determined by different aesthetic norms. Although a secret benefactor intervenes on behalf of the former, his career may be said to move along the lines of realistic representation. Conversely, Martin's "life and adventures", as the traditional tide labels his pursuits, disappointments, and eventual triumph, belong to the realm of romance where the law of probability is often strained to reward the hero for the hardships he has so nobly borne. It has been suggested that Tom may be regarded as a moral consciousness that complements the narrator's reflections. At this point, where the action is temporarily interrupted, he moves outside the narrative frame altogether, commenting on its modes and restrictions from the vantage-point of an elevated spectator. Cast as the good-natured man, Tom acts a significant part in a world largely determined by folly and vice. Changing into a detached observer he contributes insights that would ordinarily surpass his limited horizon. In this particular instance his view may even transcend the narrator's superior vision. No other character in the novel, certainly not Old Chuzzlewit, who remains fallible even as a final arbiter, attains a similar level of disinterested thought. Transformations in perspective and stature of such a degree seem possible with Tom Pinch only. This is not to say that the figure is inconsistently drawn. Though it is difficult to reconcile the digression on poetic justice with earlier passages, also attributed to him, that record the homespun thoughts ofa simple person, the

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apparent contradiction is still in keeping with the potential of the character as suggested in the text. Meek and self-deprecating to a fault, Tom may still be incited to resolute actions. Despite his intellectual leanings, he appears thoroughly ingenuous, at times childlike, a saintly fool perhaps, who will yet argue firmly and precisely when his convictions are challenged. His conduct under stress bespeaks a delicate sensibility coupled with vigorous mental resources. Tom will rise to any occasion, and this might help to explain why he is frequently plunged into trying situations. We need not assume that Dickens had deliberately opted for disparate qualities of mind and behaviour that might yet be integrated into a coherent design. The initial concept required a simple yet noble-minded person to throw the selfishness of the Chuzzlewits into relief. The character must be gifted and yet humble: outwardly unprepossessing and awkward, Tom is morally and intellectually their superior and thus capable of establishing himself in a higher station. But the figure must remain within the circle of relations and associations from which it derives. Tom's progress is therefore brought to a halt through an unexpected intervention. Debarred from independent activity he is once more reduced to a subordinate part and will from now on mainly be drawn upon to provide or elicit extra comment. There is no further need to elaborate on the qualities of mind and soul that make Tom Pinch serve to complement the narrator. As a second consciousness in the narrative the character must be cast in a comprehensive mould to accommodate diverse thoughts and feelings; that is to say, reflections that presuppose an uncommitted observer who is not subject to the social restrictions that bind one and all. Whereas the other figures are fixed in their respective stations, Pecksniffs drudge, opponent, and eventual patron is socially mobile and hence capable of manifold associations. But there is another side to this state of affairs. The character's classlessness need not be seen in entirely positive terms, as if lack of rank raised the figure above the social hierarchy implicit in every novel of Charles Dickens. From an early nineteenth-century angle this indeterminate station might even have counted as a failure rather than as a blessing. Tom Pinch is debarred from asserting himself in any capacity because he cannot be placed with certainty. Every contact, every chance encounter demonstrates a lack of social identity, and his own awareness of the anomaly contributes no less to his ungainly deportment than his physical inadequacy. Pecksniff, who has a fine nose for his fellow-men's failings, is entirely conversant with Tom's selfconsciousness. It is evident that he makes good use of the other's uncertain status. O n introducing Martin Chuzzlewit to his household the hypocrite

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overwhelms Tom with affectionate compliments, which the simple soul takes to be genuine, while they are obviously meant to emphasise the distance between them. Martin is in fact presently informed that Thomas is "a little apt to forget his position" (84). But what is the exact position of Tom Pinch? Even a self-assured person like Martin is liable to err in this respect, as their first encounter amply demonstrates. The meeting occurs at an inn in Salisbury where Pinch is waiting for the new pupil's arrival. As one would expect, his bearing is too modest to strike the newcomer in anyway and some time passes before the two men realise their respective identities. The moment of recognition is framed by a ritual of gestures and stock phrases that offer Martin sufficient opportunity to place his new acquaintance. As his subsequent behaviour indicates, he regards the other as his inferior, though he will not treat him as a servant. Members of that social stratum seem to defer to Tom, yet it is obvious that they are moved by sympathy rather than by respect. Mark Tapley, who represents the serving class in the novel, will always throw in the syllable "sir" when addressing him and expects to be called "Mark" in return. Their difference in rank is so obvious that Tom even counsels the other on his personal affairs as he himself submits to being advised by his betters. Yet the two characters are not in effect juxtaposed, since Mark Tapley is destined to attach himself to the hero. The reader might well ask why Tom and Martin have to become so intimately acquainted, if the latter is to emigrate to America in the company of a tapster from the village inn whom he has hardly seen before. But Tom is too close to Martin in social terms to attend him as a servant, and a servant is exactly what is needed at this point. The self-indulgent, fanciful adventurer must be supported, and offset, by a practically minded and somewhat coarse follower on his Quixotic undertakings. (Even the kindhearted Pickwick needs a Sam Weller on his peregrinations.) There is, conversely, not the slightest reason why Tom should require a similar attendant on what is also a journey into the unknown. Unlike Martin, who comes to cherish Mark in his extremity, the good-natured man does not have to be brought low but is rather meant to assert himself. A suitable occasion arises when he finds another harassed maiden, and his own sister to boot, in need of protection. As we have observed, trying situations always provoke Tom to resolute action. Censuring her employer in sharp terms, he behaves entirely as the other man's equal. His bearing is not so different from the proud conduct of a Nicholas Nickleby, who will always insist on the privileges of a gentleman even in his encounters with members of the nobility.

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Ruth's occupation requires some comment in this connection. While governesses would have enjoyed a somewhat higher station than servants at that time, they were at best condescendingly treated (Williams 10-11). The domestic staff tended to view them contemptuously, as Tom learns to his dismay. Intellectual accomplishments count for little, unless backed by material assets. Brother and sister are in fact similarly placed until they break their bondage and set up house on their own. It is not irrelevant that John Westlock should meet Ruth, whom he later marries, on a similar footing. But then he is the only upper-middle-class figure who will treat Tom as his equal, although he, too, is aware of the other's background. The introductory chapter of Martin Chuzzlewit has often been the subject of adverse criticism.14 Its main point that selfishness is a universal failing might have been stated in a conciser and more telling way, it has been argued. But it is not by chance that the novel should open with an introduction in which the genealogy of the Chuzzlewits is satirised at some length. As the following presentation shows, the narrator's ironical standpoint is by no means shared by the present members of the dynasty, even though they may at times view their family scornfully. Tom's case is an entirely different one. As the grandson of an ordinary housekeeper who lost his parents in infancy he would have found it difficult to ascend to a social level adequate to his abilities in early nineteenth-century England. Though Tom's grandmother is said to have spared no effort to turn him into a gentleman, neither his schooling nor the place she procured for him at the architect's have evidently sufficed to set him up in the world. Contrary to John Westlock's remonstrances, Pecksniffs ruthless exploitation may have been the consequence rather than the cause of Tom's poor standing, which again contributes to, but does not derive from his self-effacing modesty. There is no doubt that Tom Pinch, like Joe Gargery in Great Expectations, is meant to embody the idea of the natural, the genuine gentleman whom only superficial or tainted minds fail to appreciate, but this purely ethical concept would have little influence on his actual station. It certainly does not affect the social hierarchy of the novel under discussion. Dickens's underlings may on rare occasions demand to be treated according to their deserts, but will hardly strive to attain a higher rank. The Dickensian hero, on the other hand, has little difficulty in exchanging his restrained cirumstances for the exalted state to which his parentage entitles him. Needless to say, this Edwin B. Benjamin speaks of the "puerile irony of the opening chapter" (40-41). Cf. Dierks 122.

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paradigm is not always strictly followed. Pip Pirrip comes to mind in this connection, whose life-long aspiration to become a gentleman is to some extent fulfilled; but only through strenuous application and at a tremendous personal sacrifice. In the moral world of Charles Dickens heedless ambition will always end in disappointment and self-reproach. Conversely, Tom Pinch is never meant to undergo the unsettling experience of profound remorse, though he has to bear his share of suffering. His rank, as distinct from his condition in life, does not alter decisively in the course of the narrative. He starts out as a poor drudge, is briefly allowed to set up a petit-bourgeois household and ends as a contented pensioner who lives with his well-to-do relatives. From a social, let alone practical point of view his ultimate situation is not so different from that of Chuffey, the retired clerk at Chuzzlewit and Son, who leads a precarious existence despite his old master's provisions. But then the Biedermeier idyll to which Tom so cheerfully retires carries Elysian overtones for Dickens. After this sociological digression we are better able to consider the position of Tom Pinch, which—as must have become clear by now—cannot be defined in exact terms. Tom is basically a classless person who remains socially undistinguished and thus free from the privileges or obligations that traditionally attach to literary figures whose standing is firmly defined. In the absence of further external evidence15 it would be mere conjecture to assume that Charles Dickens changed his intentions about the character as the novel progressed. Unlike his own Martin Chuzzlewit, who thinks himself in danger of losing the leading part in the penultimate stage of the narrative, he would have known that the concept of the underprivileged, yet unassertive and kind-hearted individual could never fill the role of the traditional hero. There is little doubt, on the other hand, that these attributes heighten Tom's significance, thus enabling the author to employ the figure as a supplementary commentator. On the strength of these considerations Tom's failure to achieve a livelihood of his own making does indeed not require explicit comment by the narrator. Towards the end of the narrative the undemanding celibate even appears as the reformer of the Chuzzlewit world, which comes to appreciate the values of genuine humanity through his moral example.

Some pertinent though inconclusive side light on this issue is provided by the following remark in a letter of Dickens written when the composition of Martin Chuzzlewit was in progress: "As to the way in which these characters [probably Tom and Pecksniff] have opened out, that is, to me, one of the most surprising processes of the mind in this sort of invention." (Letters 3: 441).

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Having attempted an outline of Martin Chuzzlewit, Harland S. Nelson concedes that his summary fails to do justice to the "importance" of Tom Pinch (211). The function of the figure in the novel is evidently too diverse and too complex to be defined within narrow limits. As we have seen, the character cannot be eradicated from the intricate plot, though its contribution to the progress of events may be comparatively small. There is conversely no doubt about its profound significance on a thematic level. The unselfish and guileless Tom Pinch acts as a moral consciousness throughout the narrative. The manifold views and reflections ascribed to the innocent observer and the context to which they relate permit us to consider him as a centre of awareness which may even transcend the narrative frame. Charles Dickens knew better than to adopt a condescending attitude to Tom, which Dabney Ross (46) and J. Hillis Miller have suggested. While the twentieth-century reader may have some initial difficulties in appreciating the final passages of the text, there appears not the slightest symptom of "uneasiness" (Miller 139) on Dickens's part when he bids farewell to his acknowledged favourite. The last scene of the novel must count as a parting tribute to a character that has absorbed a large share of the author's attention and compassion: Tom Pinch is here addressed as the creative impulse from which the entire fiction derives. Not self-love but pure selflessness appears at this stage to have been the guiding principle behind the composition. But we might also read the allegorical description as a veiled statement, indicating a personal view of the busy commercialised world in which the writer had distinguished himself so prominendy. Free from ambition, self-regard, and envy Tom Pinch may impersonate the hidden yearnings of Charles Dickens, whose life, unlike that of his favourite, was never to become "tranquil, calm, and happy" (831).

WORKS CITED Beasley, Jerry C. "The Role of Tom Pinch in Martin Chuzzlewit." Ariel 5 (1974): 7789. Benjamin, Edwin B. "The Structure of Martin Chuzzlewit." Philological Quarterly 34 (1955): 39-47. Burke, Alan R. "The House of Chuzzlewit and the Architectural City." Dickens Studies Annual 3 (1972): 1440. Cardwell, Margaret, ed. Martin Chuzzlewit. By Charles Dickens. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1984.

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Crook, J. Mordaunt. "The Pre-Victorian Architect: Professionalism and Patronage." Architectural History 12 (1969): 62-78. Dabney, Ross H. Love and Property in the Novels of Dickens. London: Chatto & Windus, 1967. Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. Ed. Alan Horsman. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974. —. Martin Chuzzlewit. Ed. Margaret Cardwell. Oxford: Clarendon, 1982. —. The Letters of Charles Dickens. Pilgrim Ed. Vol. 3,1842-43.Ed. Madeline House, Graham Storey, Kathleen Tillotson. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1974; vol. 4,1844-46. Ed. Kathleen Tillotson. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1977. Dierks, Karin. Handlungsstrukturen im Werk von Charles Dickens. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982. Forster, John. The Life of Charles Dickens. 2 vols. London: Dent, 1927. Gardner, Joseph H. "Pecksniffs Profession: Boz, Phiz, and Pugin." Dickensian 72 (1976): 75-86. Kaye, Barrington. The Development of the Architectural Profession in England: A Sociological Study. London: Allen & Unwin, 1960. McCarthy, Patrick J. "The Language of Martin Chuzzlewit." SEL 20 (1980): 637-49. Marcus, Steven. Dickens: From Pickwick to Dombey. London: Chatto & Windus, 1965. Miller, J. Hillis. "Martin Chuzzlewit." Dickens: Modern Judgements. Ed. A. E. Dyson. London: Macmillan, 1968: 118-57. Monod, Sylvere. Dickens the Novelist. Norman: Oklahoma UP, 1968. —. Martin Chuzzlewit. London: Allen & Unwin, 1985. Nelson, Harland S. Charles Dickens. Boston: Twayne, 1981. Stang, Richard. The Theory of the Novel in England, 1850-1870. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959. Steig, Michael. "Martin Chuzzlewit: Pinch and Pecksniff." Studies in the Novel 1 (1969): 181-87. Stone, Harry. Dickens and the Invisible World: Fairy Tales, Fantasy, and NovelMaking. London: Macmillan, 1979. Tillotson, Kathleen. Novels of the Eigh teen-Forties. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1954. Williams, Merryn. Women in the English Novel, 1800-1900. London: Macmillan, 1984.

AVROM FLEISHMAN

The ABC of Historical Criticism

If one were to speculate about the possible relations between a literary work and a historical society, one might quickly conjure up three broad alternatives: (A) literary works are part of the cultural activity of society, they are stamped with the stylistic traits and other individuating features of their surroundings, and thus they are good indices—mirrors or reflections, in the familiar metaphor—of the historical state of things; (B) literary works are produced by and are a direct response to the ideas and events of their world and therefore have something to say about the ideologies of their time—indeed, they are an expression of ideology but can also become a critique of and an alternative to it; and finally (C), literary works have nothing to do with the major institutions of society, since they exist in a tradition with its own line of historical development, or because they are, like all art-works, purely esthetic objects with their own non-referential mode of existence. These three ways of thinking about literature and society may be called the historicist, the dialectical and the formalist, respectively, but I'll sometimes call them A, B, and C for short. Even in this attempt at a neutral description of these three modes of thought, one may detect traces of my own leanings for and against each of them. Avoiding polemics if possible, one might nag these formulas a bit to see what can be garnered for critical practice—learning, perhaps, how to draw upon these alternatives when we go about our business ofwriting and teaching. This essay will run through A, B and C three times:firstvery generally, to recall the ways in which they crop up in the critical literature; then somewhat monitorily, to see whether they have some common tendencies that we may gain from or guard against; and again, illustratively, as they function in some recent historical applications of literary interests. We may then be in a better position to decide, not which of these approaches to elevate as our standard, but how to employ each or all of them for insight into literature and into society as well. Thefirstofour alternatives has an origin more diffuse than any summary can suggest, for it derives from that branching intellectual growth ofthe nine-

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teenth century called historicism. Given the premises that any human act or idea is connected with a variety of others in some historical situation, that each is distinguishable from all others by its function or import at an unrepeatable historical moment, and that the constant change of all things human is best discussed in units of national or period history, it was a short step to the esthetic theories of the turn-of-the-century that extended these principles to art history and eventually to the institutionalization of literary studies throughout most of this century. If, as was said, every age has its art, and if every work is the special flower of its day in the sun, then the historian of art or literature should be able not only to explain and validate the individual work but also show how it typifies or expresses its society at a specific historical moment. Beginning perhaps in the field of art history with Alois Riegl in the late nineteenth century, and extending to the anthropological and historical studies of the twentieth that focus on an individual tribe or subnational grouping, the quest has been for the distinctive forms of thought or expression that characterize each social unit.1 And literary scholars are still devoted to such collective entities as the literature of the Beat Generation, or of the Third World, or of the Women's Movement. The appeal of the historicist enterprise lies so deep for many of us that it may be suspect of harboring some of the absolute pre-suppositions of our own culture—although its working principles have long been subjected to intense debate. Despite its commonsensical soundness, this A-view has certain predictable weaknesses that show up in our performance as historians and critics. It seems to authorize a conventional way of employing literature as a symptomatic index or social document: the easy assumption that Bleak House, for example, provides an accurate picture of nineteenth-century British legal institutions, or that Middlemarch is a vivid portrait of English provincial life. The former notion has been tested and scotched, while the latter still goes largely unquestioned; yet I have never seen a sustained scrutiny of Middlemarch's realism based on independent historical evidence. Still, many a critic goes on assuming, with the simple faith that novice historians maintain, that "realistic" fiction, if not other genres, provides an image of society—Forster's India, for instance, or Lawrence's Midlands—that can be taken as an authoritative guide.

The emergence of structuralism in literary studies (especially narratology) stands as a significant counter-trend to individuating, context-oriented explanations—just as it does in anthropology.

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The B way of thinking is best known as Marxism or some variant of i t Frankfurt, Paris or California varieties. The dialectical position on the relation between social and esthetic phenomena begins with the famous words of Marx's preface to his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859): "The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness."2 The most interesting ambiguity in this classic formula of the superstructure and the base may lie in the word "correspond" (from entsprecheri)\ it is an ambiguity opening up two distinct practices in applying the formula. 3 The economic base determines the institutional superstructure, but social consciousness corresponds to or with the base: either in the sense of point-to-point homology, or in the root sense of correspondence—speaking to answering each other, as in letter-writing. The latter sense encourages give and take, challenge and response, between social consciousness and what it's conscious of, so that the relation may be termed dialectical. When writers, in their class and other historical circumstances, portray what goes on in their world they don't passively reproduce those conditions but react with and modify them—and the product of this interaction may lead people to know, act upon and change their circumstances. The enduring value of the B-formula for the literary critic lies in its implicit drama of social and conceptual interaction. As a New Critic with sociological interests, Kenneth Burke, showed in his "dramatistic" account of the interplay between language and communal situations, literature is a dialectical process in which people rhetorically regulate conflicts in behalf of specific goals or broader reconciliations.4 Not all Marxists are similarly prepared to employ dialectical thinking in their critical practice, although their philosophical position would seem to require it of them. As I shall shortly suggest, the lures of mechanical materialism are as much a threat to Marxism in this sphere today as they were to the socialist movement in Marx's time. The third or C-term of our prima facie alternatives lumps together several variants of the idea that art is autonomous, that it cannot be insightfully (Marx 1,503). For an enlightening discussion of this preface and the "introduction" with which it is sometimes confused, see Demetz 67 f. See Williams, esp. 75-82, for important distinctions in the application of this and other Marxian key-words. The dialectical character of Burke's criticism has been recognized in a recent Marxist study: Jameson 81 f. A general renewal of the critic's influence is under way with the publication of White/Brose.

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studied in relation to society. One basis of this view is that literary and other artistic symbols are non-referential, of another nature or mode of existence than socially communicative signs. This distinction was once drawn in terms derived from the Symbolistes, who juxtaposed the pragmatic or kinetic operation of non-literary and the evocative or esthetic character of literary language; more recently it has been drawn in deconstructive terms, which assign a special undecidability to literary texts within the universally arbitrary, but usually functional linguistic codes that operate elsewhere in society. Another, more historical account of autonomy argues that every art, medium or genre has its own tradition, its own internal development, and that the weight of previous practice, whether as norm or differentiation point, makes a more powerful causal determinant than any contemporary influence from society. At an extreme pitch, the C-position inverts the superstructure and base relation and posits the determinative power of the arts, echoing Shelley's dictum that "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of mankind," and even—following Wilde's claim that nature copies art and not the other way round—suggesting that society acts out the artist's vision of it, or that it should do so. The extreme positions in this spectrum of formalist articulations are rarely maintained in critical practice. But other expressions of literary autonomy have become favored for plausible ends: genre theory, as a kind of holding action to retain history without submitting to the relation between literature and society; or the ludic view of art as play, offering a guilt-free mode of response to the significant but non-signifying pleasures of the text. It is not enough to set these currents down to latter-day impulses toward art for art's sake; we shall have to speak further of literature's curious relation to society in the semiology of Roland Barthes. Thus far I've been speaking as though these three ways of thinking are neatly separable or mutually exclusive. Yet in the throes of critical practice, theoretical margins come to be worn down and underlying connections revealed. The Marxian reading of literature as a dialectical response to social forces may be theoretically at odds with the historicist view of art-works as indexical indicators of society, yet who has not detected traces of passive reflection in many a Marxist study? Similarly, the C-mode, while seeming to detach literature from the world, has sometimes made it out as a fertile reprocessor of the surrounding social codes. What becomes evident at these junctures is the shared habits of mind that seem to operate independently of explicit theoretical positions—whether we lay these mental traits at the doorstep of broad cultural trends or of common psychic peculiarities. One such

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habit of mind is the tendency toward determinism embodied in a variety of expressions of what may be called literary mechanism—the view that it isn't the mind of an individual writer, consciously or even unconsciously creating a work of art, that we're to deal with, but some kind of impersonal social process in which he serves only as an instrument, locus or medium. 5 Given this widely distributed viewpoint, each of the positions we've discussed will be found to have its stronger and its weaker forms, which one might locate on a scale ranking the degree to which the view assigns an active or a passive role to the writer's creativity or production. It is perhaps a sign of the ideological conditioning processes of our own period that leading practitioners of these three critical approaches exhibit a marked tendency to move from the strong to the weak form of their respective positions. The strong form of A takes off from the role of the writer as an ideological spokesman. For this enterprise, it is not sufficient that the content of his work be seen as a mirror of the times; it is also stressed that he takes a stand on the issues of the day, invariably in line with one of the contending ideological movements—thus he can be labelled "conservative," "liberal" or by some other partisan term. In this more intensive view of literature's representativeness, something like a dialectical relation is implied, for the work is representative not in the sense of being a typical sample but in the more active sense of representing a point of view, taking a stance among the camps in a given "war of ideas." Yet this A position does not easily accommodate the dialectical dynamics traced within the work of art by the more competent Marxian critics. A leading current practitioner of strong-A is Marilyn Butler, who in a series of studies of Jane Austen, Maria Edgeworth and T. L. Peacock has shed new light on their thorough involvement with the intellectual issues of their time. In her summary work on the Romantic period, Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries, Butler describes the historical position of the writer with characteristic force: "authors are not the solitaries of the Romantic myth, but citizens. . . . Though writers are gifted with tongues to articulate the Spirit of the Age, they are also moulded by the age. .. .The great writings of the early nineteenth century are not merely pieces of historical evidence, fossils in the ground, but living texts that we too are engaged with." (Butler 9 f.) Her characteristic way of proceeding with poetic texts may be seen in her dealings The critique of literary, along with other, forms of mechanistic thinking—from Engels to Popper—has not advanced far enough to take up its most striking recent reappearance in the death- (or murder-) of-the-author doctrines of Foucault, Kristeva and others.

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with Keats's two Hyperion poems; after quoting at some length a letter in which Keats espouses his solidarity with "the present struggle in England of the people," (151) she sets out the anti-Lakist, classicist (in her system, a progressive tendency), anti-Coleridgian content of the poems, rising to this striking generalization: "Keats's larger intention in both 'Hyperions' . . . is broadly to represent historical change as the liberal habitually sees it: continuous, inevitable, and on the most universal level grand, for it is Progress— the survival of the fittest, the best, the most beautiful and the quintessentially human." (153) Having reached this pitch, we are cautiously led down from it by the critic's honest concessions: Keats's tone is "by no means as optimistic as Shelley's," "the reader enters sympathetically into the experience of the fallen gods" (my emphasis), the goddess who speaks high wisdom "conveys anything but the calm tranquillity of the commonest classical stereotype." (153) Having wisely mitigated the stridency of her earlier claims— having gone as far as this way of thinking will allow in the direction of grasping Keats's tragic sense of life—Butler comes to grant that Keats and others in his camp developed a "complex, often pessimistic portrayal of change." (154) The rationale for treating him as a liberal prophet of evolutionary progress— the "survival of the fittest," no less—is then gracefully subsumed under a loftier view of the artist's vocation: "It is not the business of literature in the last resort to do the work of the political propagandist; both Shelley and Keats became conscious of having moved beyond didacticism." (154) One cannot do justice to the fullness of Butler's argument in reaching this pass, but it must be noted that at times her portrayal of the Romantic writers' position in the war of ideas comes perilously close to making them passive conduits for those ideas: "The writer takes in words, thoughts and structures from a babel around him, and his text is a giving back into the same discussion. . . . A book is made by its public, the readers it literally finds and the people in the author's mind's eye. . . . [these works] had no first author" (9 f.). The rhetoric here exemplifies what Pope called the art of sinking—willful bathos by those who know better—and signals that even the strongest Athinking may weaken creativity to a passive "giving back" or input-output economy. Corresponding to the slippage occurring within A, the B approach also has its stronger and weaker vessels. The strong form of B is what I have outlined as the dialectical; for it, the writer is no mere conduit for ideology but stands in a much more complex relation to it. I quote a fine recent formulation of the view, that of Pierre Macherey:

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The spontaneous ideology in which men live... is not simply reflected by the mirror of the book: ideology is broken, and turned inside out in so far as it is transformed in the text from being a state of consciousness. Art, or at least literature, ... establishes myth and illusion as visible objects.... A work is established against an ideology as much as it is from an ideology. Implicitly, the work contributes to an exposure of ideology, or at least to a definition of it; thus the absurdity of all attempts to "demystify" literary works, which are defined precisely by their enterprise of démystification. (Macherey 132 f.) Yet this challenging view of literature's relation to society, as it actively works upon the raw material of ideology, can break down into a weaker form in the same text. Macherey wishes to "defeat the interpretive fallacy" of organicist criticism in favor of the new critical norms o f polysemy, decenteredness and—echoing the phenomenologists—"gaps" in the text. In order to do so, he mounts an attack on what used to be called the "intentional fallacy," the favorite target o f the New Criticism: The necessity of the work is founded on the multiplicity of its meanings; to explain the work is to recognise and differentiate the principle of this diversity. The postulated unity of the work which, more or less explicitly, has always haunted the enterprise of criticism, must now be denounced: the work is not created by an intention (objective or subjective); it is produced under determinate conditions. (78) Here we find an instance o f theoretical overkill: in order to decry textual unity, Macherey finds he must kill off the author as creator and subsume him under the processes o f production, "under determinate conditions." Despite his throwing out the baby with the bath, what we find in this Marxist critic's interesting readings o f Tolstoy, Balzac and Jules Verne is sufficient motivational conflict within the author himself to account for the polysemy and gaps in his texts. We need not leap to an external causal nexus to account for the semiotic variety and dialectical complexity o f certain texts. They are amply accounted for by the ambivalent relationships and unconscious roles played out by many authors in relation to their family, their class, and even their own ideological commitments. Fortunately, Macherey avoids the next, fatal step in such thinking, where the urge to deny volition to human agents leads to a mechanistic (or is it animistic?) ascription of independent agency to objects—the so-called "productivity of the text" where the machine works all by itself. It is perhaps surprising that the C-mode of criticism also has its strong and weak forms of relating literature to society, given its ostensible divorce of

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the two into autonomous realms. But divorce may work a lot like marriage, if it must continually be reaffirmed to retain its force. We may think of Roland Bardies' formalist leanings—his grand displays of contempt for the mimetic dimension of literature and his encouragement of a purely esthetic jouissance, without pragmatic interests—as being compensated by an inveterate curiosity about the semantic activities of his contemporaries. Barthes was as much a student of social codes as of hermetic texts (like Balzac's novella S/Z) and attended with enthusiasm to cultural phenomena ranging from magazine personal notices to high-fashion advertising. The linkage between the social and the literary comes about when the signs of the times flow into the text, and among Barthes' approved syllabus in fiction-criticism is a "referential code" composed of elements of the culture on which the text draws. As one generally sympathetic commentator assesses it, "This is perhaps the most unsatisfactory of all the codes, for while it is possible to go through the text, as Barthes does, picking out all specific references to cultural objects ([e.g.] she was like a Greek statue) and stereotyped knowledge (e.g. proverbs), these are far from being the only manifestations of'an anonymous, collective voice, whose origin is human wisdom.'" 6 This latter formula, the "anonymous, collective voice," is Barthes' startlingly mythical way of speaking about society as a system of semiotic systems, a Babel of traditional, institutional and other specialized lexicons, competing, intersecting and generally making for a buzzing, booming confusion that nonetheless bespeaks some vast and vague identity. These words are my own attempt to render the impression of culture that Barthes generates, for he never, that I am aware, delivered a coherent theory of culture as a whole beyond this image of a kind of super-personal ventriloquist, mouthing all the word-chains of civilization.7 It is the absence of an adequate concept—or even myth—of society as symbolic process that limits Barthes' many keen insights into the prevailing cultural codes and the play of those codes in literature.8 Without purporting to have discovered a key to Barthes, one may speculate that this lacuna in his semiology—the absence of a theory of society, while engaged in the analysis of social codes—is connected to a similar and

6 7

8

Culler, Structuralist Poetics 203; see also Culler, Roland Barthes 81 ff. Mikhail Bakhtin's account of cultural meaning systems and their dynamics is—despite similar traces of mystical invocation of a collective mind—far more plausible. For the later Barthes' view that literary and cultural codes are to be "disparaged as stereotypes," that "language is fascist," and of Marxism, along with other former neighbors, "as so many policemen," see Lavers 201, 212, 215.

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explicit exclusion in his esthetics: the omission of a role for the writer, in favor of a theory of writing. Both gaps open in the same direction: toward an automatic production of signs, absent the creative power of historical men and women, whether in social interaction or in lonely artistry. Formalism, which may initially incline to protect art and the artist from the slings and arrows of bourgeois or mass society, may come in the end to surrender them to the impersonal productive systems of the social mechanism. What begins as strong-C, for all its claims of independent significance and value for literary texts, may lapse into resembling those lowly proponents of passive indexicality and determinate production, weak-A and weaker B. These speculations must remain merely speculative, as I wish to proceed to some instances of the historical treatment of literature that may prove instructive for critical methodology. Although I've maintained the pleasant fiction of neat divisibility between A, B and C—even while showing or trying to show that they turn into versions of each other in their weaker articulations—I wish to shift perspective now and see how they intersect in practice. In the hands of unaligned, working historians using literary data for illustration and insight into their chosen historical subjects, these three approaches can come into simultaneous application—even, at times, interesting interaction. Since what we find in the historical field is a busy mutability between these apparendy distinct positions, literary critics might consider the practical spoils to be drawn off from so fertile a congeries, for the historical reading of literary works. A recent cultural history, Philippe Aries' The Hour of Our Death provides a striking example by using fictional works in all three of the modes we have been tracing. This study of Western funerary practices and attitudes toward death and dying, from the Middle Ages to the present, is one of the outstanding successes of the annates school's approach to historiography. Combining the annalist's devotion to the study of daily life, beyond the official story of political and military events, with a moralist's concern for the decline of human dignity as a concomitant of the increasing power of technology and the secularization of culture, Aries weaves a rich tapestry of personal and social behavior over the centuries. At a number of points he tellingly quotes literary works, and I shall focus on his use of Tolstoy's novella, "The Death of Ivan Ilyich." To review Aries' thesis, in order to show Tolstoy's usefulness to it: this neo-conservative historian sets up the Middle Ages as a time of cultural integration, under the aegis of the Church, in which death was a public and ritualized activity, assuaging the pain and grief of the dying and the survivors in a

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process he calls "tamed death" (Aries 5ff.).The Renaissance and its aftermath considerably complicated the paraphernalia of death and its significances in the phenomenon of "death untamed": "the subtle distancing of a death that is nevertheless still close" (322). By the Romantic era, death becomes spectacle, almost theater, and Aries calls it "the age of the beautiful death." But in the later nineteenth century, even the sentimental spectacle is covered up, until in our time we have the medicalization and hospitalization of dying which Aries calls "death denied." To convey his indignation at these broad historical changes, I quote: The social group had been stricken by death, and it had reacted collectively, starting with the immediate family and extending to a wider circle o f relatives and acquaintances. Not only did everyone die in public like Louis XIV, but the death o f each person was a public event that moved, literally and figuratively, society as a whole. . . . All the changes that have modified attitudes toward death in the past thousand years have not altered this fundamental image, this permanent relation between death and society. . . . In the course o f the twentieth century an absolutely new type o f dying has made an appearance in some of the most industrialized, urbanized, and technologically advanced areas o f the Western world—and this is probably only the first stage. . . . Except for the death of statesmen, society has banished death. In the towns, there is no way o f knowing that something has happened; the old black and silver hearse has become an ordinary grey limousine, indistinguishable from the flow of traffic. (559 f.)

"The Death of Ivan Ilyich" enters Aries' narrative at an early stage to illustrate a number of features in the medieval way of dying. First, Aries contrasts the attitudes and actions of the modern bureaucrat and his upper-class family with those of his peasant servant. Ivan Ilyich is supported, emotionally and physically, by the healthy peasant Gerasim and is touched by his devotion. When thanked profusely, Gerasim replies, says Aries, "as Rohalt had answered Queen Blanchefleur [in the Romance of Tristan and Yseult], 'We all die. Why not take a little trouble?'" (21). "It was Tolstoy's genius to have rediscovered" such survivals of the medieval attitude to death in the Russian peasantry. Aries quotes Tolstoy's questions during his own deathagony: "What about the muzhiks? How do the muzhiks die?"; and he answers the question, too: "The answer is that the muzhiks died like Roland, or the young woman of Spoleto, or the monk of Narbonne," medieval figures previously described (10). Here a fictional work is employed by a historian in a genuinely dialectical way: he cites the novella not as a mere reflection of funerary practices or social attitudes, but as an expression of Tolstoy's cri-

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tique of modern mores, which led him to erect a suppressed social class as the bearer of a superior attitude to life and death. Aries joins (although he would be distressed to hear it) a line of Marxian critics of Tolstoy, from Lenin to Lukacs, who despite their antipathies to his religiosity enlist the aristocrat as a spokesman of the subsequent peasant revolution. Moreover, this historian has further dealings with Tolstoy's novella. Citing the minute description of the stages of Ivan Ilyich's sickness, treatment, family reactions, etc., Aries seizes on the novelistic details as indicative of broad social transformations. Using phrases like "as we see from a story in Tolstoy" and "here we enter a new world" (561, 563), Aries uses the fiction to paint a vivid picture of the modern sensibility. Pointing out a number of characteristic modern practices in the story, he describes them as "the concealment of death by illness [which he calls the "medicalization of death"] and the establishment of the lie around the dying man"—i.e., the hypocritical and self-deluding "denial of death" (568). Here the annalist historian performs very much as do most historians who take up literary works for pungent illustrations of what they know to be the case on other evidence. For Aries at this point, the story is a useful summary of widespread behavior, and even a subtle index to transitional compromises that the late-nineteenth century was inclined to make between traditional and modern rituals. As he sums up the dying man's last stages: "In the late nineteenth century a compromise was struck between the public death of the past and the hidden death of the future, a compromise... that is rather well illustrated by the death of Ivan Ilyich" (573). And we get a check-list of events in Tolstoy's closing pages, categorized as belonging either to the "tamed death" or "denied death" syndromes. If this were not enough to draw from a sixty-page story, Aries finds one more feature of the fiction that opens another line of inquiry, which, unfortunately, he does not pursue very far. Aries finds the novella not only accurately reflecting and dialectically responding to social phenomena but also taking its place in another cultural institution, the tradition of realist fiction. This autonomous tradition stretches not only back but forward: Tolstoy's novella is found to have widespread influence in twentieth-century literature and other manifestations of the cultural code as it portrays death and dying. The feature of "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" that stimulates this discussion of its literary connections and its influence on cultural codes appears not only in the death of Ivan but also in that of Emma Bovary. In these fictions, Aries writes, "death is dirty.... The agony of Emma Bovary is described in merciless detail, but it is brief. The illness of Ivan Ilyich, however, is long, and

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the odors and the nature of the treatments make it disgusting a n d . . . indecent, improper" (568). Thus we have "the dirty death," which Ariès traces on to the war-novels of the first great modern holocaust, and then to Sartre and Genêt. This sally by a social historian into literary history is less tendentious than his next step, which is to contrast Tolstoy's "dirty death" with the fin-desiècle avoidance of the ugly by a silent or "modest death." This evasion is seen in Maeterlinck, in Debussy, and also—a surprise!—in one ofAriès antagonists among the contemporary French pundits whom Ariès politely calls "the agnostic intellectuals of today" (572). Singling out one of them, who has written on death, he writes: "We also find in [Vladimir] Jankélévitch the now commonplace idea of the indecency of death, which we first met in Tolstoy" (5 71). This is surely getting maximum mileage out of fiction, turning it from a reflective mirror of social behavior and a dialectical critique into a brick-bat to be hurled at antagonists in the local wars of an intellectual coterie. And it is not merely to regard the fiction as autonomous within a literary tradition of its own, but to suggest a reverse determination—that art predicts social attitudes and behavior—which Oscar Wilde would have found dear to his heart. There are, of course, special factors in both the individual historian and his intellectual milieu which go to account for these varied ways of approaching a work of fiction as an historical resource. Yet Ariès variability may be more widespread than his intellectual position—or than the unusual subject of his book and Tolstoy's story—might suggest. Other recent historical works, by their practice, indicate a tendency toward pluralism in studies which relate literature to society. Take the case of another historian, Carl Schorske, movingly set out in an autobiographical passage in the introduction to his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna. Schorske describes his intellectual roots in the progressive tradition of American historians and philosophers (who were still within the A camp), but he belonged to the generation of the 'thirties and was touched by Bthinking. Yet the difference may not have been so great as believed: the Marxian current of that time "retained its predecessor's confidence in the progress of society and the use of ideas both to explain and to spur that progress" (Schorske XIX)—a neat restatement of the dialectical way of thinking we've been tracing. In teaching intellectual history, however, Schorske discovered that in the later nineteenth century "European high culture entered a whirl of infinite innovation, with each field proclaiming independence of the whole, each part in turn falling into parts" (XIX)—the classic pattern of autonomist or C-thinking, here ascribed to the cultural object of study rather than to the mode of studying it. There followed, for Schorske, a weakening not only of

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dialectical relationships but even of the historian's A-type correlations: "The many categories devised to define or govern any one of the trends in postNietzschean culture . . . [did not allow] any convincing dialectical integration into the historical process as previously understood. Every search for a plausible equivalent for the twentieth century... seemed doomed to founder on the heterogeneity of the cultural substance it was supposed to cover" (XIX).

Moreover, the situation of modern scholarship seemed to be changing in the same direction as that of the culture as a whole: "scholarship in the 1950's was turning away from history as its basis for self-understanding. At the same time, in a parallel movement, the several academic disciples redefined their intellectual functions in ways that weakened their social relatedness." (XX) Citing the New Criticism in literary studies, behaviorism in political science, mathematical-model theory in economics, and the analytic school in philosophy, Schorske reflects that "the autonomous analytic methods of the several disciplines" dispelled his idea that "a historian could find... a satisfactory general characterization of modern high culture." (XXI) But these sophisticated autonomous systems also "posed to the intellectual historian a challenge he could no longer ignore with impunity." (XXI) Not only did the autonomous lines of development in each of the arts and intellectual systems disabuse Schorske of weak A- and B-thinking ("Historians had been too long content to use the artifacts of high culture as mere illustrative reflections of political or social developments, or to relativize them to ideology" [XXI]). It also led him to a profound insight into the distinguishing features of modern culture itself, and with it a sense of the historian's appropriate tactics in addressing himself to it: As long as both the makers of culture and the scholars who interpreted them conceived of their functions as acquiring meaning from a historical trajectory of socially shared values, the historian's procedure had some legitimacy. ... But now that new internal methods of analysis in the humanistic disciplines disclosed in works of art, literature, and thought autonomous characteristics of structure and style, the historian could ignore them only at the risk of misreading the historical meaning of his material. (XXI) [My italics]

The lesson of these autonomous systems is, then, not a non-historical but an historicist one. Though their method and conclusions may be interpretable only within the context of each system, they also provide the data for any sound account of modern culture. Indeed, only in self-reflexive nuances of thought and expression is the distinctive character of the object of

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study, modern culture, to be found. You can only be a cultural historian, it seems, by respecting—and learning enough to grasp—the highly technical apparatus of each of these refined (some would say over-refined) systemsliterary criticism not the least among them. Here is a thinker, trained to detect neat homologies between cultural and other social phenomena, who has become aware of another homology, between the autonomist impulses governing the actual operations of modern culture's practitioners and the appropriate behavior of anyone who would study those operations. From this insight follows a sentence modestly put forward in this intellectual autobiography, but of a wide application that might lead us to call it Schorske's law: "The weaker the social consciousness of [the] creator, the greater the need for specialized internal analysis on the part of his social-historical interpreter." (XXI) To be a conscientious historian or historical critic, then, is to vary one's methods with the object of enquiry, to develop a somewhat different methodology for differing periods of historical and critical investigation. When dealing with modernist works in relation to modern society, it is the autonomist way of thinking that is put to the test—and Schorske's own extended discussion of poets like Hugo von Hofmannstahl, painters like Gustav Klimt, musicians like Arnold Schoenberg, and architects like Otto Wagner stands as a model of close critical analysis in a cultural setting which reveals much about the total society. For earlier periods, when the artist's social bond was stronger and the strength of his discomfort with it correspondingly great, dialectical oppositions may come more quickly to hand, although never—let us hope—in ignorance of the specifics of the medium or of the artist's individual development. Critical pluralism has never had a good press, since its most explicit proponents have tried to uphold it by an ecumenical anti-dogmatism that seems to rest its case on good manners, not good methodology. Meanwhile, the antitheoretical practitioners of pluralism simply go on with what to many of them is a practical bricolage—doing a good job on the material with whatever means lie ready to hand. In the cases of historical criticism examined here, we may see more clearly that pluralism is not merely a matter of taste or tactics but is dictated by the nature of the subject-matter—which calls upon us to be not merely permissive but adaptive. As the historical subject varies, and as the relation of the artist to his society differs from age to age, it is only good methodology to vary the analytic tools and their mode of application. This suggests not so much a different brand of criticism for different periods as a willingness to use all three ways of thinking in literary criticism—indeed, sometimes using them all at once. The loading of three historical approaches

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onto a short fiction like "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" would not at all be out of place in the treatment of certain modern writers—one thinks first of Proust and Joyce, who haven't fully enjoyed them severally, let alone together. There may be times when the internal analysis of highly autonomous works may serve as the keenest indicator of the bearing of those texts on the workings of society—a point when formalism is the best historicism. What I'm urging, then, is not a pluralism as between socially oriented criticism and such other interests as the psychology of the author or the stylistics of the text, but a synthetic approach within historical criticism itself.

W O R K S CITED Ariès, Philippe. The Hour of Our Death. Trans. Helen Weaver. New York: Vintage, 1982. Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination. Trans. M. Holquist and C. Emerson. Austin: Texas UP, 1981. Butler, Marilyn. Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries: English Literature and its Background 1760-1830. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1981. Culler, Jonathan. Roland Barthes. New York: Oxford UP, 1983. —. Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Study of Literature. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1975. Demetz, Peter. Marx, Engels and the Poets: Origins of Marxist Literary Criticism. Trans. J. L. Sammons. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1967. Jameson, Frederic. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1981. Lavers, Annette. Roland Barthes: Structuralism and After. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1982. Macherey, Pierre. A Theory of Literary Production. Trans. Geoffrey Wall. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978. Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels. Selected Works. Moscow: Progress, 1969. Schorske, Carl E. Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture. New York: Vintage, 1980. White, Hayden and Margaret Brose, eds. Representing Kenneth Burke. Selected Papers from the English Institute, NS, no. 6. Baltimore: Hopkins UP, 1982. Williams, Raymond. Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1977.

BERND ENGLER

William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! Five Decades of Critical Reception

As the "New Critical" books o n Faulkner pile up, they seem to offer less and less significant illumination.

When, in 1973, the prominent literary critic and Faulkner authority Hyatt H. Waggoner made this statement about an emerging tendency in Faulkner research, he was referring to the New Criticism,1 which, after more than a decade of trying to achieve an understanding of Faulkner's work by including in its analyses considerations of the artistic form as an expressive means, would eventually find itselfrepeating its own results. Yet, in his description of the situation, Waggoner not only characterized the state of Faulkner criticism up to 1973, but also foresaw a trend in its future development: the rapidly growing number of publications does not represent a corresponding increase in significant knowledge. Since the Seventies, Faulkner criticism has been marked by an unwillingness to examine and assimilate pre-existent scholarly findings. The critics' seeming refusal to work with an insurmountable plethora of studies may be nothing more than an expression of their all too understandable helplessness: The disquieting consequence of this situation, however, is that answers to problems of interpretation are often sought in the rendering of subjective readings rather than in critical discussion. Thus, this new tendency only increases the gap between the overwhelming wealth of information and the possibility of assimilating it in a meaningful way. Although the retreat of criticism into the realm of subjective reading has since found legitimation in an approach which originates in Susan Sontag's influential study Against Interpretation and therefore appears to be critically

See Waggoner, Review 471. All page references in abbreviated form, both in the text and in notes, are to the bibliography at the end of this study. The year of publication is added when it is important for the chronology of critical response.

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well considered,2 this unwillingness to review a personal reading through comparison with others often leads us to wonder whether the interpreter has simply not bothered to occupy himself with what has already been achieved. If traditional hermeneutic movements often led scholars to superfluous repetition of already defined positions with only minimal shifts of emphasis, the/i the literary criticism prompted by Sontag's analysis forfeits any claim to represent a serious critical effort if it merely reduplicates oft-repeated interpretations or promotes those badly in need of revision, while at the same time ascribing to them the status of genuine and essentially new ideas, the implicit claim being that they represent significant first-hand knowledge based on an immediate emotional response to the text. In the face of this situation, one thing is especially lacking: an assessment and outline of the main achievements of Faulkner scholarship which clearly identifies the emphases and tendencies of research. With an author like William Faulkner this sort of venture is, however, hardly realizable, because purely bibliographical entries alone already fill hundreds of pages, and because every attempt to describe Faulkner criticism in general will necessarily have to suppress the fine yet essential differentiations among the individual works of his multifarious œuvre. Given the fact that a great many articles repeat the same basic critical positions with only a minimal shift of emphasis, we here refer to some tides in footnotes only, in order to avoid unnecessary repetition. It is not our goal to furnish a comprehensive annotated bibliography. Titles that are of little importance for the overall development of Faulkner scholarship are briefly mentioned or omitted. Above all, our objective is to elaborate the contours of Faulkner criticism and to examine fundamental directions in research in terms of the results they yield.3

2

3

Since the Seventies a great many analyses of Absalom, Absalom! have been based on Susan Sontag's theory, without, however, acknowledging their dependence. Only Arnold L. Weinstein explicitly points out Sontag's influence on his own approach by quoting some of the already classical formulations from Against Interpretation: "Like the fumes of the automobile and of heavy industry which befoul the urban atmosphere, the effusion of interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities. In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon a r t — To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world—in order to set up a shadow world of'meanings'" (Sontag 17; Weinstein 22). Likewise excluded from this review are analyses of Absalom, Absalom! in unpublished dissertations and literary histories.

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Let us begin with a brief outline of the most important tendencies in Absalom, Absalom! criticism. The Forties and particularly the Fifties saw the first attempts at an understanding of the thematic and structural complexities of the text and the clarification of basic critical positions. The next two decades concentrated primarily on specialized studies which treated in detail the subjects of various earlier analyses. These studies can be grouped into three major schools of interpretation which developed almost exactly parallel to one another. The three schools have a common point of departure in the central question of the status that might be assigned to the statements of each of the four narrators, Miss Rosa Coldfield, Mr. Compson, Quentin Compson, and Shreve (Shrevlin) McCannon. One common question receives, however, three very different answers. Two of the schools start with the premise that it is the last version of the story of Thomas Sutpen and his children that is authoritative: namely, the story as told by Quentin and Shreve. One of these two schools bases this authoritativeness on passages which, through detective-like examination of the text, attribute to Quentin an apparently objective knowledge of otherwise hidden facts and their mysterious interrelations. The second school believes that it is the visionary-imaginative quality in Quentin's and Shreve's reconstruction of the events which alone authenticates their account. The third school basically rejects this "success of imagination" theory and, emphasizing the failure of imagination, understands Absalom, Absalom! as an open work of art. This school more or less consequendy describes Faulkner's narrative as consisting exclusively of subjective reports—i.e., as a variety of versions, each unable to "create" definitive meaning for anyone but the respective individual narrator, each unable to present a clear and authoritative picture of historical reality. The literary criticism of the late Seventies and the early Eighties saw the appearance, especially with respect to monographs, of the previously mentioned tendency among scholars to write more and more interpretations without really providing new insights, failing as they did to take into account pre-existing interpretations. This means a step backward for the overall state of Faulkner criticism. Even the few papers which further the state of research by concentrating on narrative or epistemological components of the text often take up aspects of earlier analyses without—perhaps unwittingly—making specific reference to possible sources. The result is unnecessary duplication of scholarly contributions. This survey assumes that the reader is acquainted with both the content and structure of Faulkner's novel Absalom, Absalom!. As this review is con-

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cerned only with the evaluation o f critical contributions to the interpretation o f Absalom, Absalom!, the scope o f our assessments o f book-length studies dealing with additional texts or Faulkner's work in general will be limited to the respective chapters.

I. T H E B E G I N N I N G S O F ABSALOM,

ABSALOM!

CRITICISM

Faulkner's greatest risk, Absalom, Absalom! is never likely to be read widely; it is for aficionados willing to satisfy the large and sometimes excessive demands it makes upon attention. Wild, twisted and occasionally absurd, the novel has, nonetheless, the fearful impressiveness which comes when a writer has driven his vision to an extreme. Irving Howe 4 T h e history o f literary criticism is to a certain extent a history o f misinterpretations. Criticism cannot possibly h o p e to pass definitive judgment o n its object, literature, for to pass such a judgment would require an objectivity which it cannot achieve. J u s t as the ambiguities in the text lead to a variety o f possible readings, the subjective process o f reading itself produces a spectrum o f interpretations as diverse as the intellectual dispositions o f the readers. So, when Irving H o w e , m u c h like the early reviewers o f Absalom, Absalom!, expressed his critical opinion o f Faulkner's novel, 5 he erred in his judgment just as the m o s t respected literary critic o f the eighteenth century, Samuel J o h n s o n , had once done when he issued a hasty verdict o n Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy with the dismissive " N o t h i n g o d d will d o l o n g " (Boswell 1: 618). Howe's statement is correct only insofar as the formulation o f his idea that the b o o k will not be "widely" read is a relative one. We may, however, safely say that the number o f aficionados has long since exceeded his expectations. Fifty years after its original publication, Absalom, Absalom! is considered one o f William Faulkner"s m o s t significant novels; in fact, it represents a unique achievement in American literature, equalled in twentieth-century

« 5

Howe 172. To be fair to Howe, we should, however, add that he opposed those critics who attacked the structural complexities o f Absalom, Absalom! on the basis of a "manifest absence o f purpose" by emphasizing its "structural perfection" (Howe 164).

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Absalom!

English-language literature, so some critics maintain,6 only by James Joyce's Ulysses (1921). Like The Sound and the Fury (1929) and most of Faulkner's other works, Absalom, Absalom! originally reached a rather limited audience and found scant critical esteem.7 The few critics who were aware of Faulkner^s work showed little sympathy for formal innovation and believed that a few references to naturalism and nihilism would suffice to define the tendencies and concerns of his œuvre adequately.8 Thanks to Malcolm Cowley's publication of The Portable Faulkner in 1946, Faulkner finally became accessible and known to a larger public at a time when the author had already reached— perhaps even surpassed—the zenith of his literary career. The texts which Cowley chose, and his arrangement of the anthology, highlighted some of the most important aspects of Faulkner's Southern cosmos, the imaginary Yoknapatawpha Country, and exalted the author as a chronicler of the South and its myths. Yet Cowley's anthology was also taken as issuing a critical dictate on what should be considered Faulkner's most significant works and major concerns, a dictate which was almost blindly accepted and which proved to be decisive for the interpretation of Faulkner's artistic achievement and significance until well into the Seventies. The conferment of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950 made Faulkner an internationally recognized author. His acceptance speech occasioned a lasting reorientation of the henceforth intensified critical interest in the content of his work, for the author had presented in his address a moral challenge 6

Cf. Hugh M. Ruppersburg's statement: " A b s a l o m , Absalom!

(1936) marks Faulkner's

most intricate, convoluted, and artistic exploration into the potentials o f narrative form. No novel in the American literature can match its achievement. . . . Among Faulkner's contemporaries, only Joyce, on the eastern side o f the Atlantic, attempted an equivalent feat in his much different novel Ulysses (1922)" (Ruppersburg 81). Ursula Brumm took a similar stand by concluding: " N o other novel except for Joyce's Ulysses so radically and at the same time to such advantage abolishes the novelist's traditional regard for the reader . . . " (Brumm, "Rebirth o f Dixie" 226). See also Cleanth Brooks's assessment o f Absalom! 7

as "the greatest o f Faulkner's novels" (Brooks, Yoknapatawpha

Paradoxically, only Faulkner's sex-and-crime thriller Sanctuary popular. Negative assessments of Absalom,

Absalom!

Absalom,

Country 295).

became immediately

may be found in Clifton Fadiman's

review o f the novel in terms of an "Anti-Narrative, a set of complex devices used to keep the story from being told," in Bernard De Voto's discussion o f Faulkner's style as bad writing, in Oscar Cargill's verdict culminating in the exclamation: "a dull book, dull, dull, dull" (381), or in Malcolm Cowley's reading o f the novel as an artistic "failure" (Cowley, "Poe in Mississippi" 207). 8

Interpretations which qualify Faulkner's œuvre as an expression o f a naturalistic view o f the world often repeat Harry Hartwick's judgment on the writer's "Cult o f Cruelty" (160-66).

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to future writers which seemed to contain an explicit statement of his own philosophy of life. Faulkner's emphasis on the "old verities and truths of the heart" was interpreted as an acknowledgement of his belief in a new humanism, and his plea for "love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice" understandably served the post-war generation as a creed which they hoped to find expressed in the author's work.9 Instead of seeing Faulkner as a representative of a pessimistic-naturalistic view of the world, readers suddenly began to regard his "moral vision" as a central characteristic of his novels and stories. It is open to question, however, whether Faulkner's affirmation of mankind and its inexhaustible ability not only to preserve its physical existence, but also to continually assert its humanity, can be understood as a formulation of the writer's aesthetic programme. Compared to the substantially more complex intentions suggested by his short stories and novels, the values expressed in the acceptance speech clearly appear to be retrospective projections of meaning which have more to do with the feeling of hopelessness that arose after the Second World War than with the expressive potential of the fictional texts. It is precisely where Faulkner's work presents optimistic formulations comparable to those in the speech of acceptance—for example, in the story "The Bear" (1942, contained in the novel/series of short stories Go Down, Moses)—that one can only claim to find a clear affirmation of these values by ignoring the complexity of the text. For all its romanticizing transfiguration of the Old South into a myth, "The Bear" is also an account of the painful loss of erstwhile ideals. Once we have recognized, however, that component of the text which is critical of myths, we are then able to perceive the story's pessimistic relativizing of moral values. This is particularly evident at the end of the story, which culminates in ambiguous images of hopelessness and loss of meaning. Malcolm Cowley's reading of Faulkner's work as a chronicle of Southern history and the later emphasis on Christian-ethical content occasioned by the Nobel Prize address were the two essential interpretive models which '

Already in 1939, George M. O'Donnell had characterized Faulkner as "a traditional moralist, in the best sense" (285). In his review of Faulkner research, FrederickJ. Hoffman drew attention to the fact that after Faulkner's Nobel Prize address critics primarily focused on the "question of Faulkner's Christian morality" as it could be found in texts such as Light in August, The Sound and the Fury or section 4 of "The Bear" (Hoffman and Vickery, "Three Decades" 32-37). After John W. Hunt's study (1965) this critical tradition was again formulated by Lyall H. Powers as late as 1980. Like his predecessors, Powers failed to take into account the fact that the message of the fictional texts differs greatly from that of Faulkner's Stockholm speech.

William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!

Ill

determined the nature of Faulkner criticism—including that of Absalom, Absalom!—in the Fifties and early Sixties.10 In contrast to current scholarship, critics first saw in Thomas Sutpen the central figure of the novel. 11 The way he was presented offered the possibility of a synthesis of those two interpretations which read Absalom, Absalom! either as a historical novel about the Old South or as a didactic novel propagating Christian ethics. In the failure of Sutpen's ruthless monomaniacal striving to found a dynasty and to achieve a life-long goal of domination and wealth, values such as "love" and "compassion" could be rendered palpable and became part of an ethical message; in Sutpen's rise and fall, and particularly in the renunciation of his partnegro son Charles Bon, 12 the history of the South seemed to be clearly exemplified. In keeping with the general tenor of Faulkner criticism, Walter Sullivan saw in Sutpen's life "a complete statement of Southern ambition, execution and success, guilt, doom and destruction" (560), and even Olga W. Vickery, a well-known expert on Faulkner, confirmed this explanation by describing Sutpen as the very "mirror image of the South" (93).13 10

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Among the critics of these two decades who treated Absalom, Absalom! as a chronicle of Southern history are Cyrille Arnavon, Joshua McClennen, and David H. Stewart. Despite its title, Arnavon's "Absalon, Absalon!et l'histoire" is, however, only marginally concerned with Faulkner's treatment of history. It concentrates on literary influences ranging from gothicism and the "roman noir anglais" to fin-de-siecle aestheticism, influences which merge into "le dolorisme de Faulkner" (490) and may ultimately be linked to the social structure and situation of the South. McClennen's "Reconsideration" broadly misreads the novel, as it sees Absalom, Absalom! AS an expression of Faulkner's racism and erroneous view of Southern history. For interpretations which deal with Southern history as represented in Thomas Sutpen, and for opposing views, see notes 13-14 below; for criticism dealing with Faulkner*s treatment of racial issues see section VI below and note 50. See, for example, Ralph Behrens' study, which makes Sutpen's career the "thematic center" of the novel. Although some critics rightly objected to the assumption that Charles Bon is Sutpen's part-negro son, most scholars, even today, treat Sutpen's parentship as if it were proven "fact". For necessary qualifications, see esp. pages 232 and 240 of this review article. For similar positions see Lind 887 f.; Howe 161; Hoffman, FrederickJ. 74-79; Meindl 125; Adams 173 f. As early as 1951, however, Cleanth Brooks criticized classifications which treated Sutpen as a representative Southerner. For Brooks, Sutpen has traits of a Yankee and might be grouped with the Snopeses of his other novels. See also Melvin Backman's interesting study with its revision of stereotypical interpretations which read Absalom, Absalom! as a novel about the decline of the Old South. Like Brooks before him, Backman focuses on the Yankee aspects of Sutpen's character. In a similar though ideologically biased vein, Carolyn Porter argues that "Sutpen embodies that paternalism embraced by Andrew Jackson in the service of capitalist expansion ..." (234). Whether Faulkner intended to portray Sutpen as a capitalist entrepreneur and his careerand design as "amirror of the contradictions inherent in a capitalist society" (238) is, however, a debatable point.

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Early research on Absalom, Absalom! was, however, not as uniform as this schematization might lead one to believe. It produced a variety of interesting analyses upon which a great many articles, written and published in the Sixties and early Seventies, only expanded without really providing new interpretations. Already in 1951, in his study '"Strange Gods' in Jefferson, Mississippi: Analysis of Absalom, Absalom!" William R. Poirier formulated his criticism of the interpretive tradition ushered in by Cowley,14 and three years later, in her thoughtful study "The Design and Meaning of Absalom, Absalom!" Use Dusoir Lind wrote an analysis of the novel based on a differentiation of the perspectives of the individual narrators which widely influenced later Faulkner scholars, as it took into account the differing personal prejudices and epistemological paradigms of the four narrators.15 In his highly esteemed monograph, William Faulkner: FromJefferson to the World, Hyatt H. Waggoner ushered an important new question into the literary arena— namely, that of historical reality and its fictional constitution in the process of narration. Waggoner also pointed out Quentin's prominent rôle as mediator and possessor of a consciousness often considered central to an understanding of the novel.16 The Fifties provided significant impulses for further interpretations of Faulkner's work, but this should not blind us to the fact that the majority of these positions have been the object of extensive revision; today they often are of interest only for historians of the critical reception of Faulkner's work. The monographs of Irving Howe (1951), William Van O'Connor (1954), and Irving Malin (1957) primarily aim at acquainting the reader with Faulkner's œuvre; yet they oversimplify and suffer from a series of methodological 14

15

16

"Perhaps Malcolm Cowley is right and the Sutpen story represents for Quentin the essence of the Deep South. But Absalom, Absalom! is not primarily about the South or about a doomed family as a symbol of the South. It is a novel about the meaning of history for Quentin Compson" (Poirier). The interpretive paradigm of reading Absalom, Absalom! as a historical novel about the decline of the South has proved to be one of the most durable critical stands. It may be hoped that this position has lost its strong impact on scholars after years of controversy and after Martin Christadler1s recent though by no means outdated statement that "Absalom, Absalom! is not a historical novel about the history of the South" (51, my translation), but about the different modes of approaching and transcribing historical consciousness. Christadler, however, falls back on positions of the Sixties when, for example, he treats the dates of the genealogy and chronology as a factual basis which is even regarded as being authenticated by its author. Lind is not completely free of misreadings as she sees e.g. Sutpen as the "very incarnation of the Old South" (908). Waggoner's study and its impact on Faulkner criticism are discussed in section III below.

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weaknesses—for example, by identifying the points of view and judgments of the four narrating characters or of the frame narrator with those of the author. 17 As do most of the later studies, those from the Fifties begin with the assumption that the essential facts about Thomas Sutpen and his children can be reconstructed and authenticated from the four narratives (especially from those of Quentin and Shreve), from the quasi-omniscient comments of an external frame narrator, and ultimately from the chronology and genealogy of the appendix. Olga Vickery's outstanding study of Faulkner's novels is, among the analyses from the Fifties, the only one to recognize, albeit in a rudimentary fashion, the hypothetical nature of the "facts" which Quentin allegedly elicited: Quentin adds the "fact" o f Eulalia Bon's Negro blood, and at this point, everything appears to fall into a logical and convincing pattern. But even this final revelation is open to question. There is n o doubt that Quentin himself is convinced o f the truth o f his interpretation, but so is Miss Rosa o f the truth of her "demonizing". (85)

But Vickery fails to draw the correct conclusions from this observation and treats these hypotheses as absolute facts in the rest of her argument (esp. pages 96-99).18 Lind, in the previously mentioned essay (1955), provided nuances of interpretation which were particularly fruitful for research in the Sixties and Seventies. The subjectivism which, she pointed out, was predominant in the various narratives became an essential part of almost every later study. Especially with regard to Rosa Coldfield and Mr. Compson, these differentiations were confirmed and expanded upon in detailed studies of the text. Rosa's strongly emotion-laden, teleological view of the world based on Old Testament ideas of revenge, her demonizing of Thomas Sutpen, and Mr. CompSimilar weaknesses are also evident in later introductions to Faulkner's work by Thompson (1963), Longley (1963), Volpe (1964), Millgate (1966), Leary (1973). Millgate's chapter on Absalom, Absalom! is, however, stimulating when he treats the process of the novel's composition and thematic parallels to Pylon. Vickery's inconsistency shows the critic's determination to keep hold at least of those few facts which the novel seems to establish unequivocally. In this she is followed by Thompson (1963), Volpe (1964), Hunt (1965), Millgate (1966), Adams (1968), Minter (1969), Leary (1973), Kinney (1978), Kartiganer, Fragile Thread (1979), Friedman (1984), Parker, Robert Dale (1985), and many other critics.

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son's pessimistic conception of the world in terms of Greek tragedy became generally accepted critical opinions. 19 Within this framework, further differentiations arose most often in the characterization of Quentin's and Shreve's narratives. As a result of selective reading, Shreve—to give an example of extreme positions—was defined on the one hand as a historian with a strict scholarly-logical orientation,20 and on the other as a romantic with a bent towards melodrama and exaggeration. 21 A number of studies expanded upon Lind's conception by claiming to recognize conventional forms of discourse and topoi of literary genres in the four attempts to reconstruct Sutpen's story. Vickery found prototypes for the accounts of Rosa, Mr. Compson, and Quentin and Shreve in gothic novels, 22 Greek tragedy, and romantic love stories respectively. Robert M.

19

20

21

22

Exceptions are, for example: Ursula Brumm, who treats Mr. Compson as a reliable, objective narrator and historian (Brumm, "Geschichte" 36-38); and, based on a similar misreading of the text, Richard Gray, who talks about Miss Rosa's Northern abolitionist "antislavery" position as opposed to Mr. Compson's glorification and mystification of the Old South. For new findings and new accents in the discussion of the four differing narratives see my comments on Evan Watkins, Egan, Matthews, and Jones (section VI below). Cf. Hugh Holman (549) or Cleanth Brooks, who characterizes Shreve as being "basically rational, skeptical" (Yoknapatawpha Country 313). This interpretation prevails in studies such as Vickery's (90 f.), Rosenzweig's (139), and Ruppersburg's (97 ff.). Faulkner's use of gothic elements and the novel's gothic atmosphere had already been treated in Malcolm Cowley's early review article of Absalom, Absalom!, "Poe in Mississippi" (1936), and in his "William Faulkner's Legend of the South" (esp. 348 fi), in Edgar Whan's study, "Absalom, Absalom! as Gothic Myth," in Howe's monograph William Faulkner, and in Lind's important analysis of the "Design and Meaning ofAbsalom, Absalom!r Vickery's elaboration on gothic elements in her seminal study of1959 helped to establish a critical consensus about the subject (see, e.g., Millgate). In the long run, however, the discussion of the novel's gothicism also generated a set of stereotypes which lacked discrimination with respect both to the implications of the literary term and to its possible application to the text. As early as 1951 Brooks ("Definition of Innocence" 544), however, warned the critics not to read Absalom, Absalom! as a „Gothic sauce to spice up our preconceptions about the history of American society," and in 1971 Max Putzel justly demanded a more critical application of the concept in his essay "What Is Gothic about Absalom, Absalom!}." In 1979 Elizabeth Kerr provided a comprehensive study of gothic aspects in Faulkner's ceuvre. Her monograph William Faulkner's Gothic Domain contains an excellent review of previous criticism on the subject (e.g., by Cowley, Lind, Vickery, Millgate, Levins) and treats at length all major aspects, such as gothic atmosphere and character. Although the use of gothic elements in Absalom, Absalom! is not restricted to specific narratives and permeates, as it were, the whole novel, one misses the necessary focus on the distinct overbalance of the gothic view in Rosa's reconstruction. Moreover, it

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Slabey suggested other differentiations by describing Rosa's version as a chivalric romance or fairy tale. Lynn Gartrell Levins drew a distinction between Quentin's and Shreve's account and exposed the "tall tale" nature of Shreve's reconstruction.23

II. ABSALOM,

ABSALOM!

AS DETECTIVE STORY24

Although the critical efforts of the Sixties produced a series of interesting studies which brought with them much-needed revision of the various stereotypical explanations of the novel, they also caused a serious limitation in the possible range of critical approaches which hindered new impulses and resulted in a phase of critical stagnation. The detachment afforded by time now allows us to look back on the arguments of that era as a rather ineffectual scholarly exercise which achieved, if nothing else, at least a discriminating discussion of the readers' controversy over the "facts" which may or may not be contained in the four narrative attempts. Even a reader who does not expect to find in the fictionally constructed reality of a novel a reality similar to that in which he lives; even a reader who, instead of seeking references to "this our world", accepts the autonomous import and existence of a literary work of art: even such a reader will hardly be able to relinquish his expectation and desire to find coherence at least within the fiction. A reader schooled in conventional literature will react with irritation and resignation to a series of irresolvable contradictions which represent the gradual yet steady collapse of a consistent and comprehensible fictional world in Absalom, Absalom!. might be interesting to consider questions such as why the gothic repertoire is used as the dominant, though implicitly criticized, paradigm in the treatment of the South and what this tells us about Faulkner's judgment on stereotypical versions of Southern life and history. With respect to her classification Levins ("Four Narrative Perspectives"; with some additions concerning Greek myths rpt. in Levins, Faulkner's Heroic Design) seems to claim originality, as she refers neither to Vickery nor to Slabey as a possible source. Vickery's study is, however, too prominent a piece of Faulkner criticism to escape one's notice easiiyFollowing Conrad Aiken's judgment, "[that] we are engaged in the fascinating sport of trying to separate truth from legend" (140), Cleanth Brooks was one of the first critics to interpret Absalom, Absalom! is a "magnificent detective story" (Yoknapatawpha Country, 315). Cf. also Brumm, "Geschichte" 30, and Holman's analysis in his essay "Absalom, Absalom!-. The Historian as Detective."

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The vehemence with which the discussion of facts and fictions in Faulkner's novel has taken place indicates that scholars have persistently expected to find in fiction an analogy to the way in which everyday reality allows us to impose order and meaning on events. Critics have been unwilling to dispense with a concept of consistent "truth" which relies on accepted criteria ofprobability. The critics' search for authenticated facts which would provide a common basis for the four narrators' and our own attempts at reconstruction became a sort of puzzle or game whose goal it was to figure out who learned what from whom, when, how, and with what degree of reliability. Just as each of the four narrators was sometimes forced to play the role of detective in search of the "true" story of Thomas Sutpen, the reader too became a detective on a higher level; for not only was he faced with the task of discovering the truth about the fate of Thomas Sutpen and his family—he had also to examine the reliability of each narrator's approach to the problem. Considering the number of internal contradictions and nebulous passages with which Absalom, Absalom! confronts the reader, it should come as no surprise that critics have repeatedly deemed it necessary to confirm the narrative reconstructions with the aid of circumstantial evidence in the text and even to propose new explanations based on this evidence. One particular problem, to name but a single example, is the question: how or from whom did Quentin learn of Bon's true identity? If, as is generally assumed, the version of the story drafted by Quentin and Shreve in chapter 8 is the one which comes closest to historical truth, then one would have to assume that Quentin, unlike the other narrators, has at his disposal some authenticated source of information upon which he bases his reconstruction. However, since Absalom, Absalom! only offers a variety of contradictory explanations without explicitly confirming any one version (as the reader might wish), it is no wonder that for more than twenty years now criticism has occupied itself with this question, partly with sagacious, partly with abstruse arguments, yet without arriving at definitive answers. Cleanth Brooks, one of the most knowledgeable Faulkner interpreters, took it upon himself to explain, among other things, the "true" story upon which the novel is based, a (fictive) reality which he believed to exist beyond, or behind, the novel. Brooks successfully exposed a number of decisive errors in previous readings of Absalom, Absalom!,15 but he unfortunately With respect to the question whether Thomas Sutpen "dismissed" his first wife because he learned of her part-negro origin orpossibly for other reasons, Absalom, Absalom! does not really offer any definite answers. Brooks ("Narrative Structure") admits that Sutpen's

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became the victim of his own interpretive premises, for he refused to recognize the text's openness and contradictoriness as something which the author had carefully and consciously constructed. Since his first Faulkner monograph in 1963, Brooks has never tired of proving that Quentin obtained the decisive information about Bon's identity during his conversation with Henry Sutpen in 1909: indeed, from a conversation with a dying man which, according to Brooks himself, is only partially related in chapter 9 (see esp. Brooks, Yoknapatawpha Country 314-17 and 436-41). In an article from 1975 Brooks pursues this line of argument ad absurdum when he arrives at the conclusion that Henry must have given Quentin the necessary information merely because he might have had enough time to do so, an assumption which Brooks proves by comparing the length of time that the complete conversation (according to the time references in the context) may have lasted, with the length of time needed to read the conversation as it is rendered in the novel. The former time span being greater than the latter, Brooks assumes that the crucial exchange took place during the unreported lapse. However, Brooks overestimates the value of his argument when he believes that hypotheses are adequately verified by the mere fact that their prerequisites remain unchallenged. Undeniably selective readings have led other scholars as well to rather questionable interpretations which propose other characters (for example, Clytie or even Jim Bond) as sources of ultimately valid truth by relying, as does Brooks, more on a seeming lack of contradiction than on textual proof for justification.26 In spite of the absence of definitive results after more than twenty years of detective-like text analysis, scholars have unflaggingly insisted on the theo-

"

statement "I found that she was not and could never be, through no fault of her own, adjunctive or incremental to the design which I had in mind, so I provided for her and put her aside" (AA 240) might also suggest other motives, and Schoenberg, in view of Jim Bond's idiocy, may not be altogether incorrect in suggesting that Sutpen could well have found out that his wife was tainted with a hereditary weakness of mind. All these hypotheses become dubious, however, when we have to acknowledge that Sutpen never refers to his wife or child by name and that the "fact" of Sutpen's and Charles Bon's kinship is but a construction based on Quentin's allegedly superior knowledge. Cf. Longley 215; Hagan, esp. 218; Langford; Parker 323-26; Ostendorf268 ff.; Rollyson, "Recreation of the Past" 370; Peter Brooks, esp. 257-59; Pikoulis 108-11; Taylor 99-117 (ch. 8: "Clyde's Secret"); Schmidtberger 262. Cleanth Brooks's version is taken up, for example, by Millgate and by Minter 214. In contrast to these attempts, see Hagopian's interesting suggestion of nonverbal communication between Clytie and Quentin which affords Quentin's insights only the quality of speculation (Hagopian, "Black Insight").

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ry that the novel would surrender its secrets to rational discrimination, if only some uncontradicted messages could be filtered out of the almost impenetrable texture of inconsistencies which is the text. This situation is indicative of the methodological assumptions of scholarship and of the preconceived notions concerning literary theory which inform the detectivist approach. But literature is in no way obliged to provide a work of art which represents a conclusive fictional totality congruent with reality; literature need not necessarily meet the expectations of a broad readership. In contrast to the idea that the very lack of decisive answers to the puzzles in the text makes even more intensive studies necessary, we might conclude that the strategy of the text is to disorient the reader, and that the novel uses a technique of "deliberately withheld meaning, of progressive and partial and delayed disclosure," as Conrad Aiken had pointed out in his 1939 essay, "William Faulkner: The Novel as Form" (138). Although the "detectives" never discovered what they were looking for, the efforts of the literary critics who concentrated on finding the true story behind the various subjective versions were not without results. As opposed to those approaches to the text which content themselves with rendering the impressions of a subjective reading or which naively assume that the contradictions between the various narrations are irrelevant to an understanding of the novel,27 the attempt to find a decisive, authoritative version of the story has, through its very failure, at least led us to see clearly the essentially indeterminable nature of an authentic reconstruction.

III. ABSALOM, ABSALOM! AND TRUTH IN IMAGINATION The second dominant critical tendency of the Sixties and Seventies also gave in to the need for that sort of conventional fictional coherence which Ihab Hassan has referred to as the "tyranny ofwholes" (56). This "success of imagination" school, as it might be called, considered Quentin's and Shreve's attempt at reconstruction to be the authoritative one which would serve as a key to unlock the secrets of the others. Although this approach has certain similarities to the interpretation of the novel as an extraordinary puzzle, the Ruppersburg calls this approach, in opposition to that of detectivist readings, an "impressionist" one (81 f.).

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critics of this second school tended to accept the Quentin/Shreve version on the sheer strength of its imaginative force and evocativeness. Waggoner's monograph, William Faulkner: From Jefferson to the World, served as the intellectual point of departure for all those critics who believe in the "truth of fiction," a concept they often only loosely define. According to this theory, Quentin and Shreve, primarily because of the imaginative nature of their reconstruction, are able to fill in the missing links of the story and to create a coherent version of the contradictory historical data which have left the other narrators baffled. Although Waggoner retracts the idea of the novel's poetic nature, 28 a concept he had introduced at the very beginning of his chapter on Absalom, Absalom!, he relies implicitly on poetic norms throughout his analysis of the novel: The story they [Quentin and Shreve] finally put together is a product of their imagination working as best it can toward truth with the over-abundant, conflicting, and enigmatic material at hand. [...] Then the fragments begin to fall into place for us and at last they cohere in a story possessing an immediacy, a distinctness o f outline, and an evocativeness almost unparalleled in modern fiction. (152)

The necessary leap from a jumble of historical facts to actual understanding which Waggoner perceives in Quentin's and Shreve's reconstruction in chapter 8 is based on his high esteem for artistic imagination and for the evocative force of lyricism and imagery. But Waggoner fails to recognize that these qualities are less predominant in Quentin's and Shreve's account than, for example, in Miss Rosa's rhapsodic, nostalgic vision of her "summer of wistaria" in chapter 5 (cf. Brooks, "Poetry of Rosa Canfield"). Quentin's and Shreve's version may be coherent within the framework of its own fictional construction, but, as the frame narrator unmistakably suggests in his qualificatory interjections, 29 this fact still does not allow us to 28

29

"But Absalom cannot be completely understood in terms of this analogy with a lyric poem" (150). As early as 1936 critics referred to this seeming analogy with poetry. In his review of the novel, "Poe in Mississippi," Cowley commented on Faulkner's "wild lyrical style" (205), and Troy, in his essay with the suggestive title "The Poetry of Doom" aptly observed "[that] through the uniformity of his image-laden and mournfully cadenced style Mr. Faulkner gives most reason for being considered as a poet rather than as a novelist..." (196). Cf., for example, the following passages:"... the two of them creating between them, out of the rag-tag and bob-ends of old tales and talking, people who perhaps had never existed at all anywhere..." (AA 303);"... it was not the talking alone which did it, performed and accomplished the overpassing, but some happy marriage of speaking and hearing

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say with any certainty that their version is essentially any closer to the truth than are the others. Waggoner and his followers gloss over this observation by arguing for the "lifelikeness" of Quentin's and Shreve's imaginative attempt to reconstruct Sutpen's story: All their reconstructions are prefaced by "as if," spoken or unspoken. Yet for the reader there is more lifelikeness in what Quentin and Shreve partly imagine than in what is "known". [...] (152)

But if the quality of an artistic-imaginative attempt in the youths' account were as sweeping and palpable as Waggoner suggests, then the entire school of detectivist criticism would never have existed at all. In the meantime, Absalom, Absalom! research has taken new directions which lead us to believe that all those textual elements which contradict the idea of a decisive and accurate imaginative reconstruction by emphasizing the fictional character of Quentin's and Shreve's version remain, in the mind of the attentive reader, at least disquieting experiences. Waggoner's theory of poetic imagination as a means of obtaining a comprehensive and adequate view of reality was taken up by a great many scholars in spite of these objections. A number of interpretations are based on the idea that it is through "sympathizing and intuition that Quentin and Shreve transform the raw historical material into poetry, i.e. into a higher form of truth." 30 Paul Rosenzweig sees in an imaginative reconstruction the only possibility to transcend the solipsistic limitations of human understanding: The self becomes both an inhibiting and enhancing factor in the attempt to discover the truth about an outside objective reality. And it is the imagination which is the crucial factor, converting the solipsistic projections o f one's self into an escape from the small circle o f the ego. (143)

30

wherein each before the demand, the requirement, forgave condoned and forgot the faulting of the other—faulting! both in the creation of this shade whom they discussed (rather, existed in) and in the hearing and sifting and discarding thefalse and conserving what seemed true, orfit the preconceived..(A A 316, italics mine). For this characteristic formulation see Brumm, "Geschichte" 47 (my translation). Waggoner's notion of a leap of the imagination into the realm of "higher" truth is taken up, for example, by Minter 209; Kartiganer 98 f.; and Uroff443. The adaptability of Waggoner's approach to quite contradictory critical stands becomes obvious in interpretations such as Rollyson's ("Novel as Historiography") and Weinstein's. While Rollyson, expanding on Waggoner, contrasts the "deeper understanding" of Shreve's and Quentin's Bergsonian intuition with the distorted view of Miss Rosa's "dream world" Weinstein perceives in Rosa's irrationalism a "homage to pure sentience" (140), an assertion of "the primacy of the affective over the rational" (142) which anticipates Quentin's and Shreve's search for truth in their "act of love."

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In spite of the almost unquestioning belief in the validity of Waggoner's theory upon which numerous critics have based their own interpretations, one still wonders whether an emphasis on the achievement of the human imagination should be regarded as a programmatic formulation of Faulkner's credo, or whether this analysis is rather the product of a set of expectations on the part of readers who cannot accept the structural openness of this work of art. Allan Chavkin pushed Waggoner's theory to an extreme in his essay "The Imagination as the Alternative to Sutpen's Design."31 According to Chavkin, the novel would be easily understandable if readers only recognized that its theme and structure result from Faulkner's "allegiance to the most fundamental of all romantic concepts—the renovating power of the imagination with its heightened moments of illumination in a world of suffering and death" (116). When Chavkin then concludes, from his analysis of a rather limited selection of (Wordsworthian) "spots of time" in Absalom, Absalom!, that the novel is "an elaborate meditation that celebrates the ability of the imagination to understand a complex reality" (125), he robs the text of that disquieting complexity which arises not only from the narrators' self-reflexive comments on the process of their narration, but also from the complete failure of that "marriage of minds" (AA 316) which becomes evident at the beginning of the last chapter of Absalom, Absalom!, immediately after the end of Quentin's and Shreve's imaginative attempt at reconstruction. Waggoner's contention that Quentin's and Shreve's method of getting to know the truth is analogous to modern forms of historiography32 has repeatedly induced critics to claim historical authenticity for the reconstruc31

32

Chavkin completely misjudges the situation of criticism when he claims that "critics rarely stress Faulkner's faith in the imagination... and often interpret the novel as a work of negation" (117, note 2). Chavkin produces his most obvious misinterpretation in his analysis of the third "spot of time" when he reads Quentin's retrospection on the events at Sutpen's Hundred in September 1909 solely as a product of the youth's imagination. Waggoner refers to historians such as Carl Becker, James Harvey Robinson, and Herbert Butterfield, who oppose concepts of "scientific" history (Waggoner 168); cf. also Roilyson's reference to Butterfield and his attributing of a "higher synthesis to Quentin's and Shreve's version" (Rollyson, "Novel as Historiography" 51) and Henderson's reference to F. H. Bradley and R. G. Collingwood (247). See, as well, Rollyson's revised version in his valuable Uses ofthe Past in the Novels of William Faulkner (1984). Waggoner's more recent article "The Historical Novel and the Southern Past: The Case of Absalom, Absalomr does not add substantially new insights to the positions he had already taken up in his seminal study of 1959.

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tions of the two young men. Thus, for example, Patricia Tobin even succeeds in attributing the quality of "ideal historians of the Sutpen story" (265) to Quentin and Shreve, although she is well aware that "Faulkner [or, rather, the frame narrator] explicitly disqualifies their rational approach when he says that 'that best of ratiocination . . . after all was a good deal like Sutpen's morality and Miss Coldfield's demonizing"' (266). As a consequence, she treats their seeming knowledge of Bon's identity, which is only based on imaginative conjecture, as being founded in fact. Waggoner's, Tobin's, and others' discussion of the "modern historiographicaP method of Absalom, Absalom! (iils, however, with respect to two essential points. First, these critics do not take into account the fact that Quentin and Shreve, for reasons of personal inclination and their romantic tendencies, do freely revise "historical" data, handed down by tradition, which might well be true (Bon's injury during the war, for instance), and that these revisions would arouse even "idealist" historians' suspicions that intentional historical forgery had taken place. Secondly, they do not draw the proper conclusions from the theory they depend on. If they assert the hypothesis that "history is not 'out there' but is a function of the consciousness of the historian" (see Henderson 247), they should also concede that all reconstruction is but subjective conjecture, exhibiting only the prejudices of its author.

IV. ABSALOM, ABSALOM! AS AN OPEN WORK OF ART AND THE "TYRANNY OF WHOLES" Up to this point we have outlined two main trends in Absalom, Absalom! scholarship: one interprets the novel as a detective story, the other as Faulkner's affirmation of the imagination as the primary means of fathoming reality. Yet these approaches have not been able to solve the problems which arise from the intended structural complexity and inconsistency of the text. When Conrad Aiken characterized the novel's "elaborate method of deliberately withheld meaning (138), its not so much refusing as holding back intelligibility, he unwittingly founded an interpretive approach which detected the novel's message in the very refusal to provide an ultimately valid picture of reality. In his interesting, but—especially as far as Absalom, Absalom! is concerned—all too brief study, Questfor Failure, Walter J. Slatoff characterized the novel's structural openness (something previously criticized as a sign of

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deficient literary craftsmanship) as a "record o f the artist's struggle with his materials, rather than the record o f his victory over his materials" (253), and even as a "deliberate quest for failure" (264). Discussing the conclusion o f Absalom, Absalom!, SlatofF made the apt observation: It is difficult to conceive o f an " e n d i n g " that w o u l d provide less ordering a n d resolution. [ . . . ] It is an intense a n d p o w e r f u l e n d i n g a n d a p r o p e r o n e t o seal o f f a n d preserve the bewildering s u s p e n s i o n o f elements the b o o k has presented.

(201) Slatoff avoided, however, commenting positively on the expressive intentions o f this "bewildering suspension." In the final chapter o f his study he suggests that Faulkner's work expresses the artist's experience o f an inconsistent reality, of a fragmented world which lacks any aspect o f a meaningful totality. Yet he also makes it clear that this explanation contradicts his own aesthetic norm o f closed forms. Although Slatoff avoids implications o f artistic failure, he concedes that the writer's "deliberate quest for failure" may justify the readers irritations and concurrent negative judgments: [Faulkner] has seen c o m p l e x i t y a n d inconclusiveness a n d b a f f l i n g relationships as b o t h m e a n s a n d e n d a n d has w e l c o m e d t h e m t o o easily. [ . . . ] I a m n o t quarreling with the use o f [his] techniques or with deliberate disorder as such. W h a t troubles m e is the a m o u n t o f s u c h disorder in Faulkner's work a n d his degree o f reliance u p o n it [ . . . ] . (264 f.)

Although SlatofPs study provided useful new impulses for the understanding o f Faulkner's work, it has never really had a lasting effect on Faulkner criticism. While the assumed authoritativeness o f Quentin's and Shreve's reconstruction led some interpreters to believe that Absalom, Absalom! is a closed work o f art, those critics who saw no closure, considering Quentin's and Shreve's narrative just as confusing and prejudiced as those of Rosa or Mr. C o m p s o n , often took up a position no less ambivalent than SlatofFs. Even James Guetti, who formulated what is more or less the antithesis to Waggoner's argument and emphasized that Faulkner's novel represents not the triumph but the failure o f imagination, fell back all too quickly upon stereotypical interpretations, as did J o h n W. Hunt and Richard R Adams after him. These critics do indeed realize [that] instead o f a n answer t o what we h a d a s s u m e d was a p u z z l e , we e n c o u n t e r in Q u e n t i n ' s narrative the indication that the p u z z l e itself m a y n o t be real, that the g a p between experience a n d m e a n i n g in this n o v e l m u s t r e m a i n unbridgeable [ . . . ] (Guetti 83);

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and [that] the version of Sutpen's story constructed by Quentin and Shreve is only another formula, albeit a good one [...] (Adams 193).

But these realizations are of no consequence whatsoever if these same critics continue to attribute facticity to the young men's hypotheses despite a lack of objective proof. For example, these critics continue to accept as fact the idea that Bon is Sutpen's part-negro son, although the only information we have about his race and background comes from Quentin's and Shreve's conjectures. 33 Adams even establishes evidence for the "fact" of Bon's negro origin in a "whole tissue of hypothetical reasoning" (199), and Hunt goes so far as to conclude from the failure of the various narrative attempts at explanation that Faulkner implicitly (ex negativo, as it were) gave precedence to a Christian concept of reality. Such dubious argumentation represents not so much a meaningful solution to dilemmas of interpretation, but rather a surrender to the "tyranny of wholes" of traditional literary criticism. All these analyses received scant critical acceptance. Not only were they unable to offer new insights for the explanation of the novel, they were also unconvincing, for they were based on the inconsistencies that we have just mentioned. In his attempt to elucidate the subjective elements in Quentin's and Shreve's treatment of the story, Thomas Daniel Young quite correctly commented on this aspect of Absalom, Absalom! criticism as late as 1979: Despite the fact, too, that Faulkner exerts considerable artistic energy in pointing out that Shreve McCannon and Quentin are both unreliable narrators, their version is usually considered the reliable one [...]. The credibility o f Shreve and Quentin to most readers is not diminished by Quentin's deep emotional involvement in the tale he is telling or by Shreve's insatiable desire to make every detail o f the story he creates (with Quentin's urging) fit neatly into a preconceived pattern. (82) 33

Aaron Steinberg is correct in his assumption that "it can never be clearly established that Bon was part Negro" (61); yet he claims that the dialogue between Thomas Sutpen and his son Henry at a meeting during the war can be seen as an explicit statement of the fact, only to discredit later both Henry, the source of Quentin's "knowledge," and Quentin himself as unreliable mediators. Steinberg does not take into account the fact that the dialogue itself is the product of Quentin's and Shreve's imaginative attempt at making sense of the contradictory or illogical facets of the Sutpen story.

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But in his argument Young felt it necessary to refer back to Quentin's "disturbing and destroying experiences" (83) in The Sound and the Fury in order to explain Quentin's bias with respect to his own unresolved incest complex. Just as Melvin E. Bradford and Estella Schoenberg had done in their studies of the genealogy of the Quentin figure and of the QuentinShreve configuration from Faulkner's early prose on, Young believes in the "identity" of some of Faulkner's fictional figures; he explains Quentin's behavior in Absalom, Absalom! exclusively through the events of The Sound and the Fury, and he explains Quentin's attempted suicide in the latter novel solely in terms of the failed attempt at resolution of his psychic conflicts in the former. But Faulkner purposely avoided establishing clear correlations between the Quentin ofAbsalom, Absalom!and the Quentin of The Sound and the Fury. After all, Quentin's sister Caddy is not mentioned even once in Absalom, Absalom!, and conspicuous inconsistencies between the two novels have been demonstrated (see, e.g., Schoenberg 78-79). This alone should make critics more cautious in their interpreting Absalom, Absalom! primarily as a continuation of The Sound and the Fury.34 Donald M. Kartiganer's monograph, The Fragile Thread: The Meaning of Form in Faulkner's Novels, demonstrates an awareness of the problems of open structure and the withholding of definitive solutions that makes it one of the few studies which could provide important new impulses for research on Absalom, Absalom!. In the preface to his study, Kartiganer rightly observes that one principal reason for the breakdown of literary criticism with respect to Faulkner's work lies in the fact that fragmentation continues to be regarded as an aesthetic flaw. This prejudice has led critics either to reject Faulkner's oeuvre, or timorously to seek or construct principles of unity which may not exist in the literary text. In keeping with deconstructivist theory, Kartiganer defines his goal as an attempt to describe the work of art not so

Psychoanalytical interpretations of The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom!, such as Irwin's (see section V below), perceive close connections between the two novels. Psychoanalytically oriented critics may, however, analyse the fact that Caddy Compson is not even mentioned once in Absalom, Absalom! as a symptom of a particularly strong relationship, for concealment may reveal the repression of disturbing (incestuous) impulses. In 1985 Patrick Samway added a new facet to the treatment of The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! as "intertexts" (Samway, passim). His close study of the "Mr. Compson" figures of both novels demonstrates that Absalom, Absalom! should not be interpreted as a continuation of the former novel.

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much as a product, but rather as an "emerging form." 3 5 He nicely defines his intention; but unfortunately he then goes on to work in a very different direction. Much in the tradition o f Lind, he describes the different versions o f the Sutpen story and comes to some interesting interpretive stances, but he goes wrong when even he abandons the idea o f openness in the novel to insist upon a sense of closure, for he ultimately assigns authority to Quentin's and Shreve's construction (admittedly with extravagant and sharp-witted argumentation). The breakdown of the young men's attempt to find a version o f the truth which might ultimately satisfy their notion o f probability, a breakdown already evident at the beginning o f chapter 9, is presented as a tragic development; but Kartiganer does not see in this course o f events any reason to question the earlier segments of their version. 3 6 Some years earlier, Berndt Ostendorf similarly lessened the critical claim o f his promising study on Absalom, Absalom/, which initially committed itself to interpreting the novel as a "work in progress," as a narrative about epistemological scepticism, the unreliability of human perception, and the questioning of the methods and claims o f historiography (250 f.). In the course o f his analysis Ostendorf suddenly abandons these assumptions and— taking sides with Cleanth Brooks and his focus on Henry as the informant o f Quentin—joins the detectivists' discussion on who told Quentin about Bon's true identity (268 ff.; for first indications o f this "shift," see 261 f.).

35

This aspect had been treated as early as 1953 by Jean Pouillon in his "A propos d 'Absalon! Absalon/," which explains the novel's obscurity as an important contribution to its meaning. Pouillon comes to the conclusion that the novel is about the problems and limitations o f the creative imagination: "Tout le roman n'est rien d'autre que cet effort douloureux d'imagination. . . . le roman s'écrit sous nos yeux, il faut y voir, non une histoire inventée, mais l'invention m ê m e de l'histoire. O n ne comprend rien si l'on ne donne aux complications du récit qu'une valeur e s t h é t i q u e . . . . En ce sens, Absalon! Absalon! est le roman du roman, le roman de l'imagination créatrice" (749).

36

Despite his preface, Kartiganer even adds another discriminating, but nevertheless rather superfluous detectivist reading to the debate Cleanth Brooks had initiated. See esp. Kartiganer 99-101. The fact that, in spite o f the theoretical orientation o f his study, Kartiganer fails to detect the novel's ultimate openness may depend on the date o f the conception o f his chapter on Absalom, Absalom! (most o f the chapter's material had been presented in articles which date from 1964/65 and 1971). Kartiganer does not take into account the fact that the novel itself lacks the verification o f those conjectures which, only when regarded as fact, solve the mysteries o f the story. Although an early conception o f his interpretation o f Absalom, Absalom! might explain some "prejudices" which contradict Kartiganer's theoretical premises, it does not excuse the lack o f revision on the basis o f then current trends in research.

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Even as late as 1982 Laura E. Donaldson, in an article on the "Process of Traditioning in Absalom, Absalom!" falls victim to the predominance of the interpretive paradigm concerning the (seeming) objectivity of Quentin's and Shreve's constructions. Although her interpretation of the novel as a study in the "method and elements of the traditioning process" (177) acknowledges the fact that Quentin's and Shreve's version, "like the others, possesses no factual basis" (189) or that "truth within tradition denies its participants an easy access to its dimensions [... and] forces the perceiver to admit that reality is polymorphous, illogical, fragmented, chaotic and myriad-faceted" (191), she is somehow paradoxically drawn to the conclusion that "Bon is actually Thomas Sutpen's son, and Judith's half-brother" (188). In Kartiganer's, Ostendorfs, and Donaldson's studies we see the very gradual, rather hesitant development of a school of interpretation which endeavours to accept Absalom, Absalom! as an open work of art, but, clinging to the traditional notion ofart as a closed form, fails to come up to its own objective.37 Of all the studies belonging to this third school only one is absolutely convincing. Duncan Aswell's perceptive analysis from 1968, "The Puzzling Design ofAbsalom, Absalom!" however, has never received the recognition it deserves. Aswell consistendy avoids treating hypotheses as facts; he makes it clear that every statement about Bon's identity is nothing more than a supposition on Quentin's part. With the observation that the four narrators' attempts represent "of necessity falsification, not a method of getting at the facts but a means of satisfying the [narrators'] innate human desire for logic and coherence" (75), Aswell assumes the clearest counter-position to that tradition which, following in Waggoner's footsteps, considered the imagination a medium for discovering the truth. Arguing against the detectivist critics as well, Aswell successfully indicates and questions popular misinterpretations, even with respect to the chronology and genealogy which Faulkner included in the novel. He disputes the validity of that evidence to which critics had so often referred in order to prove the facticity of Quentin's and Shreve's hypotheses; the chronology and genealogy had long been understood as an authenticated basis for the novel, the story behind the reconstructions, as it were.38 The same problems also characterize most studies that have appeared during the last few years, such as Friedman's, Parker's, and Montauzon's monographs from 1984-85 (see my concluding remarks section VI below). This misreading found its most characteristic expression in Levins' study: "By including at the end of the novel the chronological list of biographical information, the author makes it evident that the Sutpen story did 'happen' that the events of his life have behind them the firm foundation of fact" ("Four Narrative Perspectives" 35).

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In opposition to this view, Bernard De Voto had suggested in his review of the newly published novel that readers orient themselves by looking at the appendix before reading the text.39 Michael Millgate saw "no reason to doubt its reliability as evidence" (324), and Brooks, who tracked down several inconsistencies between the novel and its appendix, suggested, with great confidence in the accuracy of his explanation of the "actual" facts, that later publishers of Absalom, Absalom! correct the apparent errors (of the author or the publisher) in the appendix (Brooks, Yoknapatawpha Country 424). Even as late as 1984, Alan W. Friedman criticized the genealogy and chronology as being based on erroneous data: [...] the cited "facts" clash startlingly with what has been revealed in the text—so that this account proves least acceptable of all. It serves, consequently, to remind us that, when Quentin and Shreve give freest rein to their fancy, the characters and scenes they imagine are reliably represented [...]. (73)

Aswell saw it differently. For him the idea of an "authentic" appendix to Absalom, Absalom! represented the greatest possible contradiction to the novel's structure and narrative strategy: The fact is, of course, that a reliable and objective timeschedule would run counter to all the intentions of the novel. It would suggest that some kind of logical, rigid pattern that makes absolute sense can be imposed upon human experience and that an ordering o f events in the form of a timetable will actually tell us something about the lives whose dates it records. (81)

When, at the beginning of his study, Aswell unassumingly expressed the notion that his efforts would also serve to support an already generally accepted interpretation and to further develop it with certain new observations concerning the appendix, he did not realize that his critical opinions were hardly shared by other scholars. Despite the fact that Aswell pointed the way, criticism would hardly advance in this direction in the following years. It was not until twelve years later that Aswell's argument was taken up again—indeed, without reference to his article—in Susan Resneck Parr's study "The Fourteenth Image of the Blackbird: Another Look at Truth in Absalom, Absalom!. Although Parr, without acknowledging her source, merely expands on Aswell's article, she succeeds in rather decisively buttressing his .. Mr. Faulkner has included not only an appendix of short biographies which make clear all the relationships, but also a chronological chart which summarizes the story. If you study both of them before beginning the book, you will have no trouble." Quoted from Bassett 199.

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position on the genealogy and chronology. While Aswell did not clarify whether the erroneous indications in the appendix were the author's or the publisher's errata, Parr substantiates the thesis that Faulkner purposely created the discrepancies; she does this by pointing to similar incongruities between the text and the genealogy in The Sound and the Fury. Malcolm Cowley had once pointed out these inconsistencies to the author, but Faulkner refused to correct them and emphasized that the chronicler of the appendix, much like a town historian, would only have known "what the town could have told him" (Cowley, Faulkner-Cowley 44). Parr quite correctly derives a conclusion from this situation: The point here is that in both novels Faulkner's appended genealogies are themselves part of the larger narrative structure. In each instance, they provide one more example of an unreliable narrator's version of events and not details with "auctorial sanction" as Brooks [ Yoknapatawpha Country 424-426] asserts about

the genealogy in Absalom, Absalom!. (156) With reference to the question ofwhat is regarded as fact, what as fiction, in the various reconstructions, Parr comments at the end of her essay: Moreover, if the novel is to be done justice, it must be seen as the dramatization of perhaps the only "fact" that Faulkner ever consistently embraces in his fiction, "that no one individual can look at truth" [Gwynn/Blotner, 273] but rather, as

Shreve put it," You cannot know... whether what you see is what you are looking at or what you are believing' [AA, 314].40

V. STUDIES OF SPECIAL ASPECTS If we try to sum up the development of Absalom, Absalom! criticism in the Sixties and early Seventies, we see a shift of emphasis among the three major schools. A clear tendency to recognize the limitations and shortcomings of Brooks's tradition of detectivist criticism has developed along with a tendency to question those studies which, following in Waggoner's footsteps, consider imagination a guarantee of truth in Quentin's and Shreve's version. 40

In Parr's argument problems arise, however, when she treats Shreve as Faulkner's mouthpiece, and when she makes Shreve a sceptic by omitting the essential word "yet" in her quotation from Absalom, Absalom!. Parr thus transforms a statement about a temporary lack of knowledge into one about the very impossibility of ever knowing.

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Since the mid-Seventies the only interpretations to gain favour have been those which, at least partly, regard Absalom, Absalom! as the conscious realization of an open work of art. Among those contributions which do not belong to any of the three schools and which concentrate on special aspects of the novel, those by Brylowski, Hodgson, Levin, Reed, Irwin, and Wittenberg deserve particular attention. Walter Brylowski's study, Faulkner's Olympian Laugh: Myth in the Novels, seems the provisional conclusion of a series of studies dealing with the use of mythological and biblical allusions.41 Under such aspects as mythological analogy, mythical action and theme, mythical consciousness (this especially with respect to Miss Rosa's and Mr. Compson's models of reality), and historical myths (e.g. the Old South), Brylowski treats the central mythical-mythological aspects of the novel in such detail that future scholars have little hope of achieving anything original in this area. Only the function of the title and its allusion to the second Book of Samuel is not adequately explained. One of the current explanations is based on King David's lament, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" (2 Sam. 18:33). This interpretation compares David's recognition of his previously repudiated son Absalom with Sutpen's refusal to identify himself as Charles Bon's father. With respect to the possible family constellation in Faulkner's text, Bon is analogous with Absalom; but actually, according to the biblical plot and character constellation, Bon would have to be identified with Amnon, since, like Bon, Amnon was killed by his brother Absalom (Henry) for his incest with Tamar

Cf. Lind's references to the Oedipus trilogy which "might have served as a general guide in the drafting of the plot" (Lind 889 f.) or Bjork's discussion of Faulkner's allusions to the Atreus/Agamemnon myth and the Bible as a means of creating a "measuring rod" against which "he can assess the value of the central character of his novel, Colonel Sutpen" (Bjòrk 202). Faulkner's allusions to the Atreus myth are also dealt with by Thompson (64) and Levins (Faulkner's Heroic Design 54) and allusions to the Oedipus myth by Levins (Faulkner's Heroic Design 47-50). Kartiganer's comparison of Sutpen with the figure of the god-king of various tribal myths added some interesting new aspects to the analysis of "The Role of Myth in Absalom, Absalom!" On the analogy with the Bible, see Rousseaux 123; Malin (ch. 5: "Faulkner and the Bible") 65-78; Bjòrk 199-202; Brylowski 17 f.; Levins, Faulkner's Heroic Design 37 f.; Rose; Schrank 651-53; Hagopian, "Biblical Background"; Ross, "David Story"; and Blake. Kartiganer's identification of Charles Bon as a "kind of Christ himself ("Role of Myth" 364) is, however, not really substantiated by the text.

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(Judith).42 The contradictions between these two explanations might lead us to believe that the choice of this tide is yet another attempt to mislead the reader, especially since Bon's identity cannot be unquestionably determined. In his essay "Logical Sequence and Continuity: Some Observations on the Typographical and Structural Consistency of Absalom, Absalom!" John A. Hodgson adopts an interesting point of view which provides new material for the interpretation of the novel. His explanation of the function of the typographical variations sums up the state of research and points out the resulting complex narrative perspective which is suggested by the use of italics, particularly in chapter 5. Hodgson's interpretation concerning the inverted chronology of chapters 2 through 4 (in the order 2 — 4 — 3) may be problematical,43 but we can be thankful for some important new ideas—for example his suggestion that chapter 5 represents Rosa's version as it is fragmented and mirrored in Quentin's consciousness. Characteristic of the present situation in Faulkner research, although especially open to question, are the arguments to be found in David Levin's and Joseph W. Reed's interpretations of Absalom, Absalom!. Levin bases his analysis on the notion that the "happy marriage of speaking and hearing" experienced by the two young narrators may be seen as the key to a correct understanding of the novel. With this as a point of departure, he suggests a reading which, following the young men's model, ignores the "false" aspects of the various reconstructions and considers only those which are "true": [...] so the reader should recognize what is valuable in all the accounts and should condone and forget what is false. (13 8)44

However, Levin fails to provide the necessary criteria with which the reader might distinguish truth from falsehood without stumbling into an ineffectual detectivist puzzle. If Faulkner, however, had intended a form of reception in which the reader was supposed to solve, as it were "impressionistically", the mysteries of the text, then the obviously complex structure of Absalom, Absalom! would not have been necessary at all.

42

43

44

In his study "Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! and the David Story" Stephen M. Ross also draws the reader's attention to the analogy between the "Saul/David/Jonathan triad" in 1 Samuel and the Thomas Sutpen/Bon/Henry relationship (145 ff.). Somewhat forced is Ross's attempt to extend this analogy to the "Mr. Compson/Quentin/Shreve triad." See also Rollyson's reasons for a different "chronology" (3 - 2 - 4) in Rollyson, Uses of the Past 35. Cf. note 29 with the relevant quotation from Absalom, Absalom! (page 316).

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Joseph W. Reed's analysis does provide worthwhile insights into the novel's disorienting structure, yet it falls victim to a great many glib conclusions: [The novel] is a much o f a muchness, too much book for its length. It continually goes too far, throws the reader back upon his own control and order to try to resolve its paradoxes poetically. (145) Faulkner is having some ghost-story fun: suspense that is itself suspended improves even conventional suspense. But this sort o f fun recurs again and again [...]. (149) [The novel's] imperfections and blunt oversimplifications are everywhere apparent [...]. (175)

While Reed fixes his attention almost exclusively on the "artist as carpenter" theory which he develops in the introduction to his monograph, John T. Irwin is guilty of considerably narrowing the interpretive perspective in his study Doubling and Incest / Repetition and Revenge: A Speculative Reading of Faulkner. Irwin actually believes that his psychoanalytical interpretation of The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! breaks important new ground for scholarship; thus, like Reed before him, he does not bother to acquaint himself with the existing secondary literature. To develop his thesis, Irwin competently presents the relevant theories of Sigmund Freud, Ernest Jones, Otto Rank, and others, but such verbal displays lend his analysis only a superficial gloss of intelligibility; his argumentation remains unconvincing. However central the Oedipal situation and the incest conflict may be for Quentin in The Sound and the Fury, the application of these arguments to Absalom, Absalom! seems to a great extent contrived. Certainly, Quentin's concern with the story of Sutpen and his descendants can be understood as an attempt to overcome, through a narrative projection on Henry, a conflict which he was not able to resolve in The Sound and the Fury: namely, his inability to cope with his incestuous impulses and to take revenge on Dalton Ames, the man who had seduced his sister Caddy. But this interpretation presupposes that Quentin is the central narrative figure around which all the other narrators simply revolve. A number of scholars have criticized this position, for Quentin only infrequently assumes the role of narrator, and when he does (in chapter 7, for instance) he only relates stories which he heard from his father or grandfather. 45 45

See Brooks's list of hypotheses and their authors in Brooks, Yoknapatawpha Country 432-36. Cf. also Stonum 143; E. Watkins; and Matthews. A stimulating new evaluation of Mr. Compson's prominent role as narrator and the decisive impact of his version is provided by Schultz (1982).

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Furthermore, Irwin suppresses many aspects of the novel which contradict his interpretation, and at decisive moments he gets tangled in inconsistencies which make his theses appear rather questionable. One example: within his argument that Quentin merely projects his own incestuous impulses on Bon (30-31), Irwin also treats Bon's identity (as Sutpen's son and Judith's brother) as a projection on the part of Quentin. The other narrators have not been able to determine the nature of the conflict between Henry and Bon, and thus it is only as a result of Quentin's personal background (particularly his repressed incestuous desire for Caddy) that Bon's conflict comes to be based on an incestuous relationship. But in another context Irwin treats Bon's kinship to the Sutpens as a fact, for this version fits better into another of his theories—relevant at that point in the study—that Quentin wants, as it were narratively, to "dethrone" his father through his superiority with regard to his knowledge of the hidden truth (119). Irwin does not seem to notice that Shreve is actually the person who most questions Mr. Compson's postulations; nor does he seem to realize that the notion of Bon's murder being based on Henry's fear of incest is finally superseded by Quentin's idea that the object of Henry's fear was actually miscegenation. Irwin also ignores the fact that Mr. Compson had already introduced the incest motive in chapter 4.46 Irwin's interpretation does provide some interesting insights into specific moments of the text, but it fails to shed any light on the more important aspects of structural complexity in the novel. With respect to Absalom, Absalom!, Irwin's reading is indeed nothing more than "a speculative reading of Faulkner." While Irwin at least limits his psychoanalytical interpretations to the characters in the text and their conflicts, Judith Bryant Wittenberg, in her study Faulkner: The Transfiguration of Biography, overextends this method by applying such observations to Faulkner's biography: text analysis serves not only as a "psychoanalysis" of the Active characters, but also as a psychoanalysis of the author. There is no doubt that the creation of literary texts can serve compensatory functions for the author, whose experience is artistically refashioned to appear in modified form as literature; but it is more than questionable whether an author's biography can be objectified as blatandy as Wittenberg suggests:

46

Cf. Montauzon's objections to Irwin as quoted in footnote 61 below. Other Freudian interpretations are provided by Charles D. Peavy ("Faulkner's Quentin Compson") and François Pitavy.

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Wittenberg ignores the fact that Bon's identity is in no way clearly defined in the text, just as she fails to see that the consequent application of the incest problem through the equation of author and fictional figure (she introduces the "person of Quentin-Faulkner," 152) would necessarily have to ascribe to Faulkner an incestuous relationship to an (indeed non-existent) sister as well as homosexual ties (in the constellation Bon/Henry or QuentinFaulkner/Shreve) to one of his brothers. The majority of the studies from the Sixties and early Seventies tend to be more or less happy paraphrases of the text with commentary added, but they all too often contain elements of misinterpretation, especially concerning the assumption of what can be considered a "historical fact." Yet there do exist some interpretations which provide important and useful insights and which still are well worth reading, such as the chapters concerning Absalom, Absalom! in the publications of Brooks, Backman, Millgate, and Adams, as well as Swiggart's interesting analysis of the novel as "Puritan Tragedy."47

47

With respect to Absalom, Absalom! Hoffman, Frederick J., Thompson, Volpe, Hunt, Straumann (whose study was the first book-length analysis introducing Faulkner's work to a German readership), Minter, and Leary provide no substantially new insights. In his review article on William Faulkner, James B. Meriwether recommends Robert Knox's unpublished dissertation (Harvard 1959) as (in 1974) "the most comprehensive study of most aspects of the novel" (in Bryer247). Unfortunately I have been unable to see Knox's study as it is hardly obtainable outside the U.S. With respect to genre and/or Fryean concepts and universal literary patterns, Faulkner's novels have been subjected to exhaustive but somewhat superfluous classification, which has not furthered a better understanding of the structural and thematic complexities of Absalom, Absalom!. Cf., for example, studies by Sullivan, Paterson, and Justus, as well as Sewall's discussion of the novel in his The Vision of Tragedy.

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VI. NEW TENDENCIES IN ABSALOM,

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CRITICISM

Since the mid-Seventies a great many articles and an extraordinary number of Faulkner monographs have appeared. To varying degrees these articles neglect consideration of existing scholarly contributions. Even those authors who make occasional reference to the state of Faulkner criticism seem to be going through the motions of scholarly discourse rather than furthering the state of critical discussion. Reed's self-confident, explicit renunciation of secondary literature at least led him to an original misinterpretation. John Pikoulis, in his study from 1982, The Art of William Faulkner, makes numerous references to critical debates; but these references do little more than provide a semblance of scholarship, for they are indeed of little import for the content of his study. Pikoulis' lack of sufficient knowledge of more recent tendencies in Faulkner research and his dependence on the critical positions of the Fifties give the impression that his study was published after a delay of twenty years (cf. Wagner). Reed's and Pikoulis' articles are extreme cases. The other monographs from this period may not proceed with such unabashed self-assurance, yet they too are informed by an unfortunate deficiency in dealing (or not dealing) with the most important research tendencies. Even when the studies promise new methodological insights, as in Arthur F. Kinney's and Donald M. Kartiganer's interpretations, they often fall prey to both generally accepted and previously criticized misunderstandings. Although Kinney's monograph Faulkner's Narrative Poetics: Style as Vision offers a worthwhile analysis of Absalom, Absalom! and arrives at accurate theses, its failure to consider recent contributions leads to an equation of fact and fiction which one might rather expect to find in an article from the early Seventies. Nevertheless, Kinney has much to say on questions of style,48 and his discussion of the readers' participation in the text, of what

Problems of style have been discussed by many critics. After early complaints about Faulkner's "perverse" manceuvrings with syntax and his disregard of grammar, Conrad Aiken (1939) and Warren Beck (1941) pointed out the significance of stylistic features and the interrelation of style and structure. Besides Karl E. Zink's and Harry T. Antrim's general studies one should add some specific analyses of Absalom, Absalom/which are worth consulting, such as Robert H. Zoellner's, Frank Baldanza's and John Stark's articles, and the Absalom, Absalom! chapters of Guetti's and Kinney's monographs. See also Ross's comments on the novel's "overvoice" ("Evocation of Voice") and its oratory style ("Oratory and the Dialogical").

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he calls "constitutive consciousness", is lucid and convincing, and figures as an important contribution to that field of research. To a certain extent Hugh M. Ruppersburg's New-Critical analysis, Voice and Eye in Faulkner's Fiction, suffers from the weaknesses described above. Ruppersburg's long chapter on Absalom, Absalom!provides the reader with many stimulating insights into questions of structure and is especially useful for its discriminating discussion of the "Detective" and "Impressionist schools of criticism" (81); but, as did Lewis, Kartiganer, and Powers49 before, and Friedman and Parker after him, Ruppersburg often replaces critical argument with extensive paraphrases of the text and unfortunately lessens the value of his study by combining old misconceptions with his interesting and provocative new insights. One specialized area of research is the study of Faulkner's attitude towards racial questions. Considering the narrowly defined object of such scholarship, one might expect more detailed knowledge of the state of research from studies in this area,50 yet this knowledge is seldom evident. After Charles D. Peavy's methodologically insufficient study Go Slow Now: Faulkner and the Race Question,"51 in 1981 Lee Jenkins sparked lasting new interest in Faulkner's treatment of racial problems with his book Faulkner and Black-White Relations: A Psychoanalytic Approach. The book, however, makes a methodological claim which it redeems at the very best with clicheridden formulations of Freudian-psychoanalytical vocabulary. John V. Hagopian, himself well aware of the critical discussion of the racial issues in Faulkner's work, (cf. Hagopian, "Black Insight") correctly assesses Jenkins' study in his review: "Jenkins has failed to consult the enormous body of liter49

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In his study Powers completely ignores the fact that Faulkner scholarship repeatedly questioned the optimistic rhetoric of the Nobel Prize speech. Unlike many studies that touch only marginally on the topic of race and/or racism in Absalom, Absalom! (such as Arnavon's, McClennen's, or Stewart's articles) Melvin Seidell's analysis of "Faulkner's Ambiguous Negro" may be regarded as an important contribution to the question of Faulkner's uses of racial issues. Seiden convincingly suggests that Faulkner ironically undercuts racism in his novel and elaborates on the enigmatic quality of Charles Bon's blackness. Nilon's thesis, that in contrast to social and economic differentiations racial origin plays only a minor role in the stratification of society (e.g., the "Poor Whites"), is rarely considered by later critics. Peavy's method of basing his reading of Faulkner on statements which seem to express the author's racism is rather dubious, as Peavy does not concern himself with the context in which they were made. Peavy's most obvious misreading, with respect to Absalom, Absalom!, is his identification of Shreve's opinions on miscegenation with Faulkner's.

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ature on the subject," he "is not only wrong in his basic thesis; his bookis full of errors and contradictions" (Hagopian, Review 136). Four studies dealing with the racial question appeared in 1983. Since O'Connor's view that Absalom, Absalom! is also a "story of miscegenation" (95), little has changed in the critical questions posed concerning this problem. Walter Taylor, Eric J. Sundquist, Thadious M. Davis, and Erskine Peters begin, as do most others, with the dubious assumption that Bon's identity as Sutpen's part-negro son has been clearly established in the text. Those who consider the miscegenation theme to be of central importance build their interpretations primarily around the conflict between Charles Bon and Henry Sutpen, while largely neglecting such interesting aspects as Rosa's, Judith's, or even Clytie's racism and the peculiar biography of Bon's son, Charles Etienne. Other possible racial aspects have been completely ignored. For example, ifwe assume that Bon's identity, and therefore the miscegenation conflict as well, is essentially based on Quentin's and Shreve's conjectures in chapter 8, then we really have to ask ourselves what led the young men to choose, from among all possible causes, miscegenation as the motivation for Bon's murder. 52 What does this express about the two young men? Does not Quentin's and Shreve's (re)construction of the conflict between Bon and Henry most clearly show the persistence of (not only Southern) prejudices? The most important recent critical ideas are to be found in short articles published in scholarly journals, where we see basic critical tendencies emerging in two main areas. One area of interest is the revision of the thesis, hardly challenged since it was first posited in the Fifties, that the novel reaches a high point in chapters 7 and 8 (Shreve's and Quentin's reconstruction), while Rosa's and Mr. Compson's versions are seen either as a negative foil or as preparation for the imaginative conclusion arrived at by the two young men. 53 Cf. the different paradigms of plausibility: Mr. Compson's notion of imminent bigamy, or Quentin's and Shreve's concept of impending incest. See, for example, Millgate 153 f.; Vickery's reservations with respect to Rosa's narration, 87 f.; and Irwin 26. Among the few critics of the Sixties who took a more discriminating stand was Peper, with his interesting study on degrees and stages of literary consciousness of reality. Besides his detailed analysis of questions of narrative structure in Absalom, Absalom!, Peper treats the novel as an example of a tendency in modern literature to present reality as mirrored by, as it were, a pre-rational level of prehension which dominates especially Miss Rosa's "körpernahes Bewußtsein" ('sensory stage of consciousness'). The novel's overbalance of discontinuous narration can be interpreted as Faulkner's attempt

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In "The Fiction of Interpretation," Evan Watkins criticizes the frequent underestimation of the novel's dynamic stratification. The pointed formulation of his position—"for too long, critics o i Absalom, Absalom! let Shreve McCannon do their reading" (124)—makes it clear that his major concern is to emphasize the essential importance of Rosa's and Mr. Compson's narratives in contributing to the complexity of the novel. The unreliability of their versions in no way implies the success and authenticity of the young men's reconstruction. Watkins defines Mr. Compson's and Rosa's narratives as convincing representations of these narrators' personal tragedies.54 John T. Matthews pursues a similar argument when he contrasts the reconstruction of the Sutpen tragedy to the tragic biographies of the four narrators as revealed through the act of narration. Miss Rosa is seen as trying to resolve her psychic conflicts which are based on Sutpen's insult; Mr. Compson's interest in Sutpen as a heroic creator is compensation for the loss of effectiveness and meaning in his own life; and Quentin uses the narration in order to objectify his problematical relationship to his father. Unfortunately, Matthews' study tends to rely on unnecessary deconstructivist vocabulary, popular psychology, and misunderstandings concerning Bon's identity. Much in the same vein, Philip J. Egan analyses stylistic differences and particular methods of structuring within the narratives, and he endeavours to introduce some refinement into the generalizations of Vickery and Slabey concerning analogies with literary genres.55 Suzanne W.Jones's article "Absalom, Absalom! and the Custom of Storytelling: A Reflection of Southern Social and Literary History" again takes up the question of the different modes of narration in the novel and their significance for an implicit characterization of the four narrators. Jones's judicious and carefully argued interpretation shows that the various modes of telling Sutpen's story reflect the social codes and sensibilities of the narrators' respective societies. Thus, Rosa's fantasies exemplify the illusions and aspira-

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at transcribing the minimal degree of structuring experience achieved on this pre-rational level. Although Peper rightly comments on the hypothetical nature of Quentin's and Shreve's version, he treats their interpretation o f Bon's identity as fact. Note, however, Lind's early hint at this aspect of "self-dramatization" ("Through their acts of narration, the narrators reveal themselves" 892). See also Schultz's re-evaluation of Mr. Compson's role as narrator. See section I above (closing paragraphs). For valuable comments on how Mr. Compson's, Quentin's, and Shreve's biases shape their perspectives, see also Matthews, Kartiganer, Ruppersburg, and Jones.

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tions of a specific social class in a frontier community struggling for refinement and a code of gentility and moral respectability; her demonizing of Sutpen and his family is not only to be seen as her idiosyncratic manner of reacting to the humiliations she has incurred, but it also resembles the then common forms of treating the "disturbing" phenomena of racial or social "inferiority." Jones regards the "critical awareness that Mr. Compson exhibits in his storytelling" as "analogous to that of the few Southern authors writing at the turn of the century who [...] were able to view their society ironically" (Jones, 93). Mr. Compson probes behind traditional Southern myths. His sense of aesthetic refinement and his pseudo-scientific spirit, as well as his fascination with luxurious decadence and his fin-de-siecle melancholy and detachment from social affairs, reflect the preoccupations of Southern aristocracy at the turn of the century. Quentin is seen as an "example of the modern Southern dialectician, filled with inner tensions," as the "representative of the new generation of Southern storytellers, writing between the World Wars, who instead of blaming the North for Southern defeat and humiliation, began examining the South" (102). Although Jones presents more traditional views with respect to Quentin (especially when she discusses the narrative expressions of his psychological dilemma), and although Shreve's characterization as a "detached outsider" and "the reader's surrogate" (111) may well be questioned, her study is an important contribution to an understanding of the narrative voices of Absalom, Absalom!. An effort to provide necessary differentiations is also visible in the reopening of the discussion of point of view.56 In the face of so many unsatisfactory critical results,57 Forrer righdy noted in 1976 that "the importance of the narrator has virtually gone unnoticed in the critical literature" (30). Only one later study provided hope of redress, Thomas E. Connolly's "Point of View in Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!" but this essay is not free from misinterpretations (especially with regard to chapter 8). It lacks the sort of precise differentiations which Michaela Ulich had achieved earlier in her study Perspektive und Erzahlstruktur in William Faulkners Romanen, which—as it was published in German—did not have any impact on Faulkner criticism. Point of view and related aspects of structure have been treated in detail by many critics. Besides such early analysis as A. C. Hoffman's (1953) and Douglas M. Thomas's (1953), Arthur L. Scott's discussion of the shifts of perspective in terms of cubistic techniques and calculated disorientation, and J. R. Raper's treatment of montage techniques are especially useful. John Hagan ("Effect ofTimelessness") comments on structure and point of view with reference to thematic repetitions and Bergson's concept of time. Cf. the identification of author and narrator by critics such as Volpe (189)and Adams (193).

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The second area of interest to gain favour in the past few years is the treatment of the novel as a study in narratology and/or epistemology. Although a number of critics hope to find new impulses for the interpretation of Faulkner's work in these aspects, and although they point out the close relationship between the complex polyphony of divergent narratives and questions concerning epistemology in Absalom, Absalom!, most of them do not go beyond the (re)formulation of pre-existing critical positions. 58 In his essay, "The Narrative Frames in Absalom, Absalom!: Faulkner's Involuted Commentary on Art" Paul Rosenzweig takes up Waggoner's thesis in his evaluation of the imagination as a primary means of recognition. But he does so on a level of reflection not achieved in his model, for he even takes into account the fact that imagination itself is based on, and expresses, subjective paradigms. James H. Matlack, Claudia Brodsky, and Peter Brooks take a step in the right direction, Absalom, Absalom! being viewed "not so much [as] a book about a story as about story telling itself' (Matlack 343). While Brooks disqualifies his observations on the subject of "Incredulous Narration" by falling back on the traditional erroneous equation of fact and fiction, Brodsky develops several important new aspects. Especially with regard to Miss Rosa's narrative in chapter 5, she draws our attention to the imagination's ability to create reality, and, with respect to modes of perception, she sees a development from investigation to imagination in the course of the novel: "Imagination replaces vision; it composes reality" (248). But like Waggoner, who had used the idea of "lifelikeness," Brodsky undermines her argument about the authenticity of Quentin's and Shreve's imaginative conception of reality with an unfortunate reference to the "vividness of narration" and its "effect of authenticity." She then continues to follow in Waggoner's footsteps when she finally sees realized in the novel the triumph of imagination: The dynamics of involvement, interpretation and subjective imagination have created an immediate voice of past reality, in whose narration Charles' ultimate secret is told. (255) Brodsky reaches a conclusion which, though hardly convincing, is at least consistent with her argument: she sees in the breakdown of imagination 58

For example, Sonja Basic's not at all startlingly new argument in her essay on "Faulkner's Narrative Discourse: Mediation and Mimesis," in which she contrasts the more mimetic The Sound and the Fury and its focus on the act of showing with the antimimetic Absalom, Absalom!, "which bares its devices of telling" (316) and thus becomes a novel "about how a story cpmes into existence" (318).

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in chapter 9 not so much an act of disorientation as an appeal to the reader to achieve his own imaginative completion of the novel: W h e n the novel's final narrators refuse to see further, the new activity evoked involves our own vision, our own interpretation. The novel turns outward, bearing its painful conclusion to us; the ultimate dynamic o f mutual, polyphonic narration rests uneasily with its audience. For if not only the characters but the narrators themselves depend upon communication for their humanity, will we not grant them the life o f our own mind's involvement once their communication ends? (258 f.)

Matlack's essay, "The Voices of Time: Narrative Structure in Absalom, Absalom!" reaches convincing conclusions of particular interest to those concerned with metafiction and theories of reception. With regard to the force of the various narrators' self-reflexive comments on the process of narration, the novel is explained both as an "analysis of oral narration" (343 and passim) and as a "commentary upon art itselP (348) (see also Rio-Jelliffe). The unresolved contradictions between the narratives makes of its reader a "full collaborator with Faulkner in creating and defining the world of his noveP (348) and even a "co-creator" of the work of art.59 J. Hillis Miller's analysis, "The Two Relativisms: Point of View and Indeterminacy in the Novel Absalom, Absalom!" considers Mr. Compson's comment on the breakdown of his attempted explanation in terms of a chemical formula (in chapter 4 of the novel)—a key passage, for it represents the failure of text production (the creation of a coherendy decipherable and meaningful text; the formula) as well as the failure of text reception (coherent deciphering). For Miller, "Absalom, Absalom! is a novel about the failure of narration, the failure of human intentions in history, and the failure of reading to lead to clear understanding" (157). Enlisting sophisticated arguments Miller explains the cause of this failure as follows: Faulkner's attempt to unite "constative" and "performative" narration in the text must, by the very nature of these concepts, be unsuccessful. "Constative" narration (i.e., narration which—in the traditional mode of narrating in a realistic/mimetic manner— 59

In a similar way Porter (ch. 8: "The Reified Reader") argues that in Absalom, Absalom! Faulkner forces the reader to share actively the burden of narrative construction. In contrast to most critics Porter acknowledges that "it is not sufficient to assert that [Quentin and Shreve] succeed [in their recreation of the past] because they use their imaginations more energetically than Rosa or Mr. Compson" (242). Cf. also Guerard's reading of Absalom, Absalom! as impressionist art, and especially Kinney's discussion of what he calls "constitutive consciousness" (Kinney, passim).

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tries to present an image of what might be called "consensus reality") is constantly counteracted and subverted by elements of "performative" narration, with its emphasis on the fictional and hypothetical character of all forms of representing reality. Thus the reader fails in his attempts at a clear-cut text reception and interpretation because the realistic and anti-realistic tendencies of the novel are fundamentally incompatible; that which admits to being pure fiction cannot be an acutal fact at the same time. No interpretive scheme exists which could simultaneously embrace both "realities." A few recent studies focus on a new aspect of the wide field of research concerned with narratological and epistemological problems. They treat questions of the reader's response to the enigmatic text and of its "epistolarity" from the vantage-point of the inclusion of written documents and the presentation of acts of reading within the course of the novel. These acts of reading and the difficulties of understanding they project may be seen as paradigmatic fictional representations of the problems which the reader might encounter in his own reading of the novel. James G. Watson's '"But Damn Letters Anyway': Letters and Fictions" offers a valuable survey of Faulkner's feelings about letters and the use of letters in his fictions, but it does not treat Absalom, Absalom! in sufficient detail. David Krause's "Reading Bon's Letter and Faulkner's Absalom, AbsalomP' may be considered the most important contribution to issues of epistolarity.60 Krause analyses scenes which show characters reading letters or other documents, and comes to the conclusion that these passages may be interpreted as "meditations on the problems of reading" (225), on problems of communication in general, or as self-conscious commentaries on our own reading of the novel. Mr. Compson's failure to read Bon's letter in a satisfactory way may thus be regarded as a symbolic representation of the reader's failure to come to terms with the novel. Olga Scherer's contribution to the Second International Faulkner Colloquium in 1982, "A Polyphonic Insert: Charles's Letter to Judith," deals less effectively than Krause with this topic. Scherer comments on the ambiguity and incompleteness of Bon's letter, but she mars her conclusions by basing her argument on the false assumption that Mr. Compson's rendering of Judith's remarks on the significance of the letter/of letters

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Cf. also Krause's earlier version of this inquiry "Reading Shreve's Letters and Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!. Questions dealt with by Krause ("Reading Bon's Letters."), especially the significance of Bon's letter, have been touched on by E. Muhlenfeld, and later by Ikuko Fujihira in an essay which primarily focuses on the interesting aspect of Faulkner's treatment of distrust in speech and language.

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actually conveys Judith's own opinions rather than his melancholy-tinged conjectures on how she might have justified giving the letter away to a stranger. We will conclude this report with a brief discussion of three booklength studies on Faulkner. Robert Dale Parker's analysis of Absalom, Absalom! in his 1985 monograph Faulkner and the Novelistic Imagination promises to add substantial new insights to the discussion of the relationship between the narratological and epistemological questions the novel poses. Yet, to a large extent, it falls back on old misconceptions and misreadings. Parker bases his analyses on the theoretical premise that Faulkner's novels "tend to be about the difficulty of understanding itself, and about the problems engendered by that difficulty, for both the characters and the readers" (10). This premise could furnish an excellent point of departure for a reading ofAbsalom, Absalom! as a paradigm of Faulkner's art of "calculated withholdings" and "uncertainties" which make the process of reading "an interaction between expectation and the violation of expectation, between expectation and surprise" (7). In his introductory chapter, Parker correctly differentiates between tactical and epistemological uncertainties: i.e., uncertainties that are based either on considerations of narrative strategies such as suspense or surprise, or on a radical epistemological questioning of the human ability to know any truths; but, apparently unwilling to grasp the possible implications of his own approach, Parker chooses to "emphasize not the uncertainty but instead the certainty that finally shocks us by being so outrageously specific" (22). His chapter "Something Happening: Absalom, Absalom! and Imagination" focuses on Quentin's meeting with Henry in September 1909, elaborating on the false assumption that this meeting is the "novel's center" (132 f., 138) and that Quentin learned all those answers which could solve the mysteries of the fate of the Sutpens during a conversation which—for tactical reasons—is only partially rendered in the concluding chapter of the novel. Similarly, Alan W. Friedman's study of the previous year suffers from the uncritical repetition of traditional misreadings. Although Friedman's chapter on Absalom, Absalom! seems to belong to recent trends in criticism, since he claims that the novel is about the "failure to tell [a] tale, the failure of all tale-telling" (54) and that Sutpen's life "is not so much told as withheld, suspended, deflected, denied" (55), his argument actually originates in the critical trends of the 1960s and 1970s and betrays a serious lack of knowledge of more recent scholarly analyses.

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Despite its length and various superfluous repetitions of its theoretical presuppositions, Christine de Montauzon's study on Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! and Interpretability may be regarded both as the highlight of critical investigations of the novel during the first half of this decade and as a paradigm of the state of Faulkner criticism in general. Montauzon bases her inquiry on the observation that"Absalom defeats every attempt at assimilation [i.e., incorporation of new heterogeneous elements into an already established interpretive scheme] and gives birth to an endless series of potential accommodations [i.e., realignment of the interpretive scheme] which ultimately fail to contain the implications of the text and never seem to encompass the horizons opened by the novel" (xi). As a result of the fact that the novel itself, by its very nature, does not really offer a conclusive meaning (interpretation, hence becoming merely an attempt at approaching an unequivocal explanation) Montauzon tries "to show how Absalom responds to and ultimately defeats any and all critical efforts at interpretive closure" (xiii). After explaining the theoretical background of her analyses—especially Jean Piaget's theories as presented in his L'Equilibration des structures cognitives (Paris, 1975)—she concentrates on various interpretive schemes such as elementary patterns ofplausibility and verisimilitude (e.g., psychological assimilation) or historical/cultural and artistic assimilations such as may be found in interpretations which treat Absalom, Absalom! as a representation of the myth of the Old South or as an example of tragedy, epic, and so forth. Montauzon then tries to explain why the novel "resists recognizability" (i.e., a satisfactory total assimilation) by concentrating on various paradigmatic aspects. Her chapter on "Style and Interpretation" examines disorganization at the syntactic level as well as semantic indeterminacy and paradox, and adds much to the discussion of Faulkner* style. Her chapters on the "mythical dead-end" (5), "psychoanalytic reduction" (6), and structural analyses show that neither mythical nor structural patterns, nor interpretations based on the tenets of psychoanalysis, have been able to reduce the novel's openness and fill the (productive) gap left by the absence of one definite meaning.61 In her discussion of the limitations of the psychoanalytical method, Montauzon treats Irwin's study Doubling and Incest in great detail and raises valuable objections to his theory of an incestuous relationship between Bon and Judith, and Quentin and Caddy: "Incest is not disguised in the text: it is even talked about openly. It cannot be considered as submitted to censorship and psychic displacement; hence it does not fit the Freudian pattern adequately" (191). For further reservations, see my discussion of Irwin's book, section V above.

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Despite her own theory of the novel's openness and its rejection of totalizing assimilations, Montauzon is much less successful whenever she abandons the critical discussion of interpretive approaches and touches on her own, never explicitly stated interpretation of Absalom, Absalom!. Although one might wish that the study were more comprehensive in its review of interpretive approaches and critical positions, 62 its most serious flaw originates in its failure to address recent trends in the discussion of the novel. A study that comes to the conclusion that the novel is an open work of art "about fiction-making or truth-seeking" (287) cannot neglect the many critical endeavors centering on the narratological and epistemological problems of the text. Neither should it subvert its own premise of absolute openness by submitting to the "tyranny of wholes" as easily as many critics have done— though with less critical claim (or pretension), less theoretical background, and less provocative and thoughtful research to draw on—before her.63 In falling prey to the "tyranny of wholes" despite its professed objective of demonstrating a poetics of the open work of art, Montauzon's study becomes a paradigm of the present state of research on Absalom, Absalom!; it thus maps out at least some of the territory that criticism will have to recover or survey anew in the future. Yet, besides the "accommodation" of new critical theories as an indispensable requirement of any further interpretive progress, this progress, paradoxically, will also depend on a more thorough "assimilation" of the insights of past generations of critics.64

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In spite of her lengthy though often incorrect bibliography Montauzon does not cover more than some 20 % o f the whole body of criticism on Absalom, Absalom!. Thus, her presentation of critical approaches leads to oversimplifications and misconceptions. Within certain fields of research Faulkner criticism is more discriminating and contradictory than the study seems to assume. See section IV above (introductory paragraphs). For example, Montauzon, like most critics before her, takes Shreve's and Quentin's conjecture that Bon is Sutpen's son as given fact, and does not recognize the real problems of the novel's confusing points of view. I am grateful to Gordon Coller and Sterling Giles for their attentive reading of this review article and for many valuable suggestions.

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WORKS CITED Adams, Richard P. Faulkner: Myth and Motion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1968. Aiken, Conrad. "William Faulkner: The Novel as Form." The Atlantic Monthly 164 (November 1939): 650-54. Rpt. in Hoffman and Vickery, Three Decades 135-42. Antrim, Harry T. "Faulkner's Suspended Style." University of Kansas City Review 32 (Winter 1965): 122-28. Arnavon, Cyrille. "Absalon! Absalon! et l'histoire." Revue des Lettres Modernes 5 (Winter 1958/59): 474-94. Aswell, Duncan. "The Puzzling Design of Absalom, AbsalomF Kenyon Review 30 (Winter 1968): 67-84. Backman, Melvin. "Sutpen and the South: A Study of Absalom, AbsalomF PMLA 80 (December 1965): 596-604. Rpt. in Backman, Major Years 88-112. —. Faulkner: The Major Years: A Critical Study. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1966. Baldanza, Frank. "Faulkner and Stein: A Study in Stylistic Intransigence." The Georgia Review 13 (Fall 1959): 274-86. Basic, Sonja. "Faulkner's Narrative Discourse: Mediation and Mimesis." Fowler and Abadie, New Directions 302-21. Bassett, John, ed. William Faulkner: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975. Beck, Warren. "William Faulkner's Style." American Prefaces 6 (Spring 1941): 195-211. Rpt. in Hoffman and Vickery, Three Decades 142-56. Behrens, Ralph. "Collapse ofDynasty: The Thematic Center ofAbsalom, AbsalomF PMLA 89 Qanuary 1974): 24-33. Bjork, Lennart. "Ancient Myths and the Moral Framework of Faulkner's Absalom, AbsalomF American Literature 35 (May 1963): 196-204. Blake, Nancy. "Creation and Procreation: The Voice and the Name, or Biblical Intertextuality in Absalom, AbsalomF Gresset and Polk 128-43. Boswell, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson. 2 vols. London: Dent, 1976. Bradford, Melvin E. "Brother, Son, and Heir: The Structural Focus of Faulkner's Absalom, AbsalomF Sewanee Review 78 (Winter 1970): 76-98. Brodsky, Claudia. "The Working of Narrative in Absalom, Absalom!'. A Textual Analysis." Amerikastudien/American Studies 23 (1978): 240-59. Brooks, Cleanth. "Absalom, Absalom!: The Definition of Innocence." Sewanee Review 59 (Fall 1951): 543-58. —. William Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha Country. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1963. - . "The Poetry of Miss Rosa Canfield (sic.)." Shenandoah 21 (Spring 1970): 199-206. - . "On Absalom, AbsalomF Mosaic 7 (Fall 1973): 159-83. —. "The Narrative Structure of Absalom, AbsalomF The Georgia Review 29 (1975): 366-94. Rpt. in Brooks, Yoknapatawpha and Beyond 301-28.

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—. William Faulkner: Towards Yoknapatawpha and Beyond. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1978. Brooks, Peter. "Incredulous Narration: Absalom, Absalom? Comparative Literature 34 (1982): 247-68. Brumm, Ursula. "Geschichte als Geschehen und Erfahrung: Eine Analyse von William Faulkners Absalom, AbsalomF Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 204 (1968): 26-50. Rpt. in Der amerikanische Roman im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Ed. Edgar Lohner. Berlin: Schmidt, 1974, 258-74. Trans, as "Thoughts on History and the Novel." Comparative Literature Studies 6 (September 1969): 317-30. —, "William Faulkner and the Rebirth of Dixie." American Literature Since 1900. Ed. Marcus Cunliffe. London: Sphere Books, 1975, 214-41. Brylowski, Walter. Faulkner's Olympian Laugh: Myth in the Novels. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1968. Cargill, Oscar. "The Primitivists." Intellectual America. New York: Macmillan, 1941, 370-86. Chavkin, Allan. "The Imagination as the Alternative to Sutpen's Design." Arizona Quarterly 37 (1981): 116-26. Christadler, Martin. "William Faulkners Absalom, Absalom! (1936): Geschichte, Bewußtsein und Transzendenz - Das Ende des historischen Romans." anglistik & englischunterricht 24 (1984): 51-66. {Der historische Roman II: 20. Jahrhundert. Eds. R. Borgmeier and B. Reitz). Connolly, Thomas E. "Point of View in Faulkner's Absalom, AbsalomF Modern Fiction Studies 27 (1981/82): 255-72. Cowley, Malcolm. "Poe in Mississippi." New Republic 89 (November 4,1936): 22 (Review of Absalom, Absalom!). Rpt. in Bassett 205-7. —. "William Faulkner's Legend of the South." Sewanee Review 53 (Summer 1945): 343-61. - , ed. The Portable Faulkner. New York: Viking, 1946, rev. ed. 1967. —, ed. The Faulkner-Cowley File: Letters and Memories, 1944-1962. New York: Viking, 1966. Davis, Thadious M. Faulkner's 'Negro': Art and the Southern Context. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1983. De Voto, Bernard. "Witchcraft in Mississippi." Saturday Review of Literature 15 (October 31,1936): 34,14. Rpt. in Basset 198-204. Donaldson, Laura E. "The Perpetual Conversation: The Process of Traditioning in Absalom, AbsalomF Modernist Studies in Literature and Culture 1920-1940 4 (1982): 174-94. Egan, Philip J. "Embedded Story Structures in Absalom, AbsalomF American Literature 55 (1985): 199-214.

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Fadiman, Clifton. "Faulkner, Extra-Special, Double-Distilled." New Yorker 12 (October 31,1936): 62-64. Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom! New York: Modern Library, 1951 (facsimile reprint of the first edition; abbreviated: AA). Forrer, Richard. "Absalom, Absalom!: Story-Telling as a Mode of Transcendence." Southern Literary Journal 9 (Fall 1976): 22^16. Fowler, Doreen and Ann J. Abadie, eds. Fifty Years ofYoknapatawpba (Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha, 1979). Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1980. —, eds. New Directions in Faulkner Studies (Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha, 1983). Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1984. Friedman, Alan W William Faulkner. New York: Ungar, 1984. Fujihira, Ikuko. "From Voice to Silence: Writing in Absalom, AbsalomF Studies in English Literature 59 (1984): 75-91. Goldman, Arnold, ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of Absalom, Absalom! Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1971. Gray, Richard. "The Meanings of History: William Faulkner's Absalom, AbsalomF Dutch Quarterly Review of Anglo-American Letters 3 (1973): 97-110. Gresset, Michel and Noel Polk, eds. Intertextuality in Faulkner (Papers Delivered at the Second International Faulkner Colloquium, Held in Paris, April 24,1982). Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1985. Guerard, Albert J. "Absalom, Absalom!: The Novel as Impressionist Art." The Triumph of the Novel: Dickens, Dostoevsky, Faulkner. New York: Oxford UP, 1976, 303-39. Guetti, James. "Absalom, Absalom!: The Extended Simile." The Limits of Metaphor: A Study of Melville, Conrad, and Faulkner. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1967, 69108. Rpt. in Goldman 76-100. Gwynn, Frederick L. and Joseph L. Blotner, eds. Faulkner in the University: Class Conferences at the University of Virginia, 1957-1958. Charlottesville: U ofVirginia P, 1959. Hagan, John. "Fact and Fancy in Absalom, Absalomr College English 24 (1962-63): 215-18. —. "Déjà vu and the Effect of Timelessness in Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom F Bucknell Review 11 (March 1963): 31-52. Hagopian, John V. "The Biblical Background of Faulkner's Absalom, AbsalomF CEA Critic 36 (January 1974): 22-24. - . "Black Insight in Absalom, Absalom!" Faulkner Studies 1 (1980): 29-36. —. Review of Lee Jenkins, Faulkner and Black-White Relations. American Literature 54 (1984): 135-37. Harrington, Evans and Ann J. Abadie, eds. Faulkner, Modernism, and Film. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1979.

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Hartwick, Harry. The Foreground of American Fiction. New York: American Book, 1934. Studies 22 Hassan, Ihab. "The Critic as Innovator." Amerikastudien/American (1977): 47-63. Henderson, Harry B., III. "The Historical Imagination in the Twentieth Century." Versions of the Past. New York: Oxford UP, 1974, 232-69. Hodgson, John A. "'Logical Sequence and Continuity': Some Observations on the Typographical and Structural Consistency of Absalom, AbsalomF American Literature 43 (1971): 97-107. Hoffman, A. C. "Point of View in Absalom, Absalom!" University of Kansas City Review 19 (Summer 1953): 233-39. Hoffman, Frederick J. William Faulkner. New York: Twayne, 1961. Hoffman, Frederick J. and Olga W Vickery, eds. William Faulkner: Two Decades of Criticism. East Lansing: Michigan State UP, 1951. —, eds. William Faulkner: Three Decades of Criticism. East Lansing: Michigan State UP, 1960. Holman, C. Hugh. "Absalom, Absalom!-. The Historian as Detective." Sewanee Review 79 (Autumn 1971): 542-53. Howe, Irving. William Faulkner: A Critical Study. New York: Random House, 1952, Rpt. New York: Vintage, 1962. Hunt, John W. William Faulkner: Art in TheologicalTension. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UP, 1965. Irwin, John T. Doubling and Incest/Repetition and Revenge: A Speculative Reading of Faulkner. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 1975. Jenkins, Lee. Faulkner and Black-White Relations: A Psychoanalytic Approach. New York: Columbia UP, 1981. Jones, Suzanne W. "Absalom, Absalom! and the Custom of Storytelling: A Reflection of Southern Social and Literary History." Southern Studies 21 (Spring 1985): 82-112. Justus, James H. "The Epic Design of Absalom, AbsalomTexas Studies in Literature and Language 4 (Summer 1962): 157-76. Kartiganer, Donald M. "The Role of Myth in Absalom, Absalom/" Modern Fiction Studies 9 (Winter 1964): 357-69. —. "Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!'. The Discovery of Values." American Literature 37 (November 1965): 291-306. —. "Process and Product: A Study in Modern Literary Form, Part II." Massachusetts Review 12 (Autumn 1971): 789-816. —. The Fragile Thread: The MeaningofForm in Faulkner's Novels. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1979. Kerr, Elizabeth M. William Faulkner's Gothic Domain. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat P, 1979.

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Kinney, Arthur F. Faulkner's Narrative Poetics: Style as Vision. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1978. Knox, Robert. "William Faulkner's Absalom, AbsalomF Unpubl. Diss., Harvard University, 1959. Krause, David. "Reading Shreve's Letters and Faulkner's Absalom, AbsalomF Studies in American Fiction 11 (1983): 153-69. - . "Reading Bon's Letter and Faulkner's Absalom, AbsalomF PMLA 99 (1984): 22541. Langford, Gerald. Faulkner's Revision of Absalom, Absalom!.- A Collation of the Manuscript and. the Published Book. Austin: U of Texas P, 1971. Leary, Lewis. William Faulkner of Yoknapatawpha County. New York: Crowell, 1973. Levin, David. "Absalom, Absalom!: The Problem of Re-creating History." In Defense of Historical Literature: Essays on American History, Autobiography, Drama, and Fiction. New York: Hill & Wang, 1967,118-39. Levins, Lynn Gartrell. "The Four Narrative Perspectives in Absalom, AbsalomF PMLA 85 (January 1970): 3547. —. Faulkner's Heroic Design: The Yoknapatawpha Novels. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1976. Lind, Ilse Dusoir. "The Design and Meaning of Absalom, AbsalomF PMLA 70 (December 1955): 887-912. Rpt. in Hoffman and Vickery, Three Decades 278304. Longley, John Lewis, Jr. The Tragic Mask: A Study of Faulkner's Heroes. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1963. McClennen, Joshua."Absalom, Absalom! and the Meaning of History." Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters 42 (1956): 357-69. Malin, Irving. William Faulkner: An Interpretation. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1957. Matlack, James H. "The Voices of Time: Narrative Structure in Absalom, AbsalomF Southern Review 15 (April 1979): 333-54. Matthews, John T. "The Marriage of Speaking and Hearing in Absalom, AbsalomF Journal of English Literary History 47 (1980): 575-94. Rpt. in Matthews, Play 11561. —. The Play of Faulkner's Language. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1982. Meindl, Dieter. Bewußtsein als Schicksal: Zu Struktur und Entwicklung von Faülkners Generationenromanen. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1974. Meriwether, James B. "William Faulkner." Sixteen Modern American Authors: A Survey ofResearch and Criticism. Ed. J. R. Bryer. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1974 (first ed. 1969), 223-75. Miller, J. Hillis. "The Two Relativisms: Point ofView and Indeterminacy in the Novel Absalom, AbsalomF Relativism in the Arts. Ed. Betty Jean Craige. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1983,148-70.

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Millgate, Michael. The Achievement of William Faulkner. New York: Random House, 1966. Minter, David L. The Interpreted Design as Structural Principle in American Prose. New Haven: Yale UP, 1969. Montauzon, Christine de. Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! and Interpretability: The Inexplicable Unseen. New York: Lang, 1985. Muhlenfeld, Elisabeth. "'We have waited long enough': Judith Sutpen and Charles Bon." The Southern Review 14 (1978): 66-88. Nilon, Charles H. Faulkner and the Negro. New York: Citadel P, 1965. O'Connor, William Van. The Tangled Fire of William Faulkner. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1954. O'Donnell, George M. "Faulkner's Mythology." Kenyon Review 1 (Summer 1939): 285-99. Rpt. in Hoffman and Vickery, Three Decades 82-93. Ostendorf, Bernd. "Faulkner: Absalom, AbsalomF Der amerikanische Roman von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. Ed. Hans-Joachim Lang. Düsseldorf: Bagel, 1972, 249-75. Parker, Hershel. "What Quentin Saw 'Out There'." Mississippi Quarterly 27 (Summer 1974): 323-26. Parker, Robert Dale. Faulkner and the Novelistic Imagination. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1985. Parr, Susan Resneck. "The Fourteenth Image of the Blackbird : Another Look at Truth in Absalom, Absalom.1" Arizona Quarterly 35 (Summer 1979): 153-64. Paterson, John. "Hardy, Faulkner, and the Prosaics of Tragedy." The Centennial Review 5 (Spring 1961): 156-75. Rpt. in Goldman 32^1. Peavy, Charles D. Go Slow Now: Faulkner and the Race Question. Eugene: U of Oregon P, 1971. —. "'If I'd Just Had a Mother": Faulkner's Quentin Compson." Literature and Psychology 23.3 (1973): 114-21. Peper, Jürgen. Bewußtseinslagen des Erzählens und erzählte Wirklichkeiten. Leiden: Brill, 1966. Peters, Erskine. William Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha World and Black Being. Darby, PA: Norwood, 1983. Pikoulis, John. The Art of William Faulkner. Totowa: Barnes & Noble, 1982. Pitavy, François L. "Quentin Compson, ou le regard du poète." Sud 14 (1975): 62-80. Poirier, William R. "'Strange Gods' in Jefferson, Mississippi: Analysis of Absalom, AbsalomF Hoffman and Vickery, Two Decades 217-43. Rpt. in Goldman 12-31. Porter, Carolyn. Seeing and Being: The Plight of the Participant Observer in Emerson, fames, Adams, and Faulkner. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 1981. Pouillon, Jean. "A propos d'Absalon! AbsalonF Les Temps Modernes 9 (October 1953): 742-52.

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Powers, Lyall H. Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha Comedy. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1980. Putzel, Max. "What Is Gothic about Absalom, AbsalomR" The Southern Literary Journal 4 (Fall 1971): 3-19. Raper, J. R. "Meaning Called to Life: Alogical Structure in Absalom, Southern Humanities Review 5 (Winter 1971): 9-23.

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Reed, Joseph W„ Jr. Faulkner's Narrative. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1973. Rio-Jelliffe, R. "Absalom, Absalom! as Self-Reflexive Novel." Journal of Narrative Technique 11 (1981): 75-90. Rollyson, Carl E., Jr. "The Recreation of the Past in Absalom, AbsalomF Mississippi Quarterly 29 (Summer 1976): 361-74. —. "Absalom, Absalom!-. The Novel as Historiography." Literature and History 5 (1977): 42-54. —. Uses ofthe Past in the Novels of William Faulkner. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research P, 1984. Rose, Maxine. "From Genesis to Revelation: The Grand Design of William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom? Studies in American Fiction 8 (1980): 219-28. Rosenzweig, Paul. "The Narrative Frames in Absalom, Absalom!-. Faulkner's Involuted Commentary on Art." Arizona Quarterly 35 (Summer 1979): 135-52. Ross, Stephen M. "Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!and the David Story: A Speculative Contemplation." The David Myth in Western Literature. Ed. Raymond-Jean Froutain and Jan Wojcik. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue UP, 1980,136-53. —. "The Evocation of Voice in Absalom, AbsalomF Essays in Literature 8 (Fall 1981): 135-50. —. "Oratory and the Dialogical in Absalom, Absalom!" Gresset and Polk 73-86. Rousseaux, André. "L'enfer de Faulkner." Littérature du vingtième siècle. Paris: Albin Michel, 1955,115-33. Ruppersburg, Hugh M. Voice and Eye in Faulkner's Fiction. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1983. Samway, Patrick, S. J. "Searching for Jason Richmond Compson: A Question of Echolalia and the Problem of Palimpsest." Gresset and Polk 178-209. Scherer, Olga. "A Polyphonic Insert: Charles's Letter to Judith." Gresset and Polk 16877. Schmidtberger, Loren F. "Absalom, Absalom!: What Clytie Knew." Mississippi Quarterly 35 (Summer 1982): 255-63. Schoenberg, Estella. Old Tales and Talking: Quentin Compson in William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! and Related Works. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1977. Schrank, Bernice. "Patterns of Reversal in Absalom, Absalomr Dalhousie Review 54 (1974/75): 648-66.

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Schultz, William J. "Just Like Father: Mr. Compson as Cavalier Romancer in Absalom, AbsalomT Kansas Quarterly 14 (Spring 1982): 115-23. Scott, Arthur L. "The Myriad Perspectives of Absalom, AbsalomF American Quarterly 6 (Fall 1954): 210-20. Seiden, Melvin. "Faulkner's Ambiguous Negro." Massachusetts Review 4 (Summer 1963): 675-90. Sewall, Richard B. The Vision of Tragedy. New Haven: Yale UP, 1959 (2nd. ed. 1980). Slabey, Robert M. "Faulkner's 'Waste Land' Vision in Absalom, AbsalomF Mississippi Quarterly 14 (Summer 1961): 153-61. Slatoff, Walter J. Questfor Failure: A Study of William Faulkner. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1960. Sontag, Susan. Against Interpretation. New York: Laurel, 1970. Stark, John. "The Implications for Stylistics of Strawson's 'On Referring,' with Absalom, Absalom! as an Example." Language and Style 6 (Fall 1973): 273-80. Steinberg, Aaron. "Absalom, Absalom!: The Irretrievable Bon." College Language Association Journal 9 (September 1965): 61-67. Stewart, David H. "Absalom Reconsidered." University of Texas Quarterly 30 (October 1960): 31-44. Stonum, Gary L. Faulkner's Career: An Internal Literary History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1979. Straumann, Heinrich. William Faulkner. Frankfurt: Athenäum, 1968. Sundquist, Eric J. Faulkner: The House Divided. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 1983. Sullivan, Walter. "The Tragic Design of Absalom, AbsalomF South Atlantic Quarterly 50 (October 1951): 552-66. Swiggart, Peter. The Art of Faulkner's Novels. Austin: U of Texas P, 1962. Taylor, Walter. Faulkner's Search for a South. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1983. Thomas, Douglas M. "Memory-Narrative in Absalom, AbsalomF Faulkner Studies 2 (Summer 1953): 19-22. Thompson, Lawrance. William Faulkner: An Introduction and Interpretation. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1963. Tobin, Patricia. "The Time of Myth and History in Absalom, AbsalomF American Literature 45 (1973/74): 252-70. Troy, William. "The Poetry of Doom." The Nation 143 (October 31,1936): 524-25 (Review of Absalom, Absahmt). Rpt. in Bassett 195-97. Ulich, Michaela. Perspektive und Erzählstruktur in William Faulkners Romanen von The Sound and the Fury bis Intruder in the Dust. Heidelberg: Winter, 1972. Uroff, Margaret Dickie. "The Fictions of Absalom, AbsalomF Studies in the Novel II (1979): 431-45.

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Vickery, Olga W. The Novels of William Faulkner: A Critical Interpretation. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1959. Volpe, Edmond L. A Reader's Guide to William Faulkner. New York: Noonday, 1964. Waegner, Cathy. Recollection and Discovery: The Rhetoric of Character in William Faulkner's Novels. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1983. Waggoner, Hyatt H. William Faulkner: From Jefferson to the World. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1959. —. "The Historical Novel and the Southern Past: The Case of Absalom, AbsalomF Southern Literary Journal 2 (Spring 1970): 69-85. —. Review ofJoseph W. Reed, Jr. Faulkner's Narrative. American Literature 45 (1973/ 74): 471-72. Wagner, Linda W. Review of John Pikoulis, The Art of William Faulkner. Studies in American Fiction 12 (1984): 24445. Watkins, Evan. "The Fiction of Interpretation: Faulkner's Absalom, AbsalomF The Critical Act: Criticism and Community. New Haven: Yale UP, 1978,188-212. Watkins, Floyd. "What Happens in Absalom, AbsalomR" Modern Fiction Studies 13 (Spring 1967): 79-87. Watson, James G. "'But Damn Letters Anyway': Letters and Fictions." Fowler and Abadie, New Directions 228-53. Weinstein, Arnold L. Vision and Response in Modem Fiction. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1974. Whan, Edgar W "Absalom, Absalom!as Gothic Myth." Perspective 3 (Autumn 1950): 192-201. Williams, J. Gary. "Quentin Finally Sees Miss Rosa." Criticism 21 (1979): 331-46. Wittenberg, Judith Bryant. Faulkner: The Transfiguration of Biography. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1979. Young, Thomas Daniel. "Narration as Creative Act: The Role of Quentin Compson in Absalom, AbsalomF Harrington and Abadie 82-102. Zink, Karl E. "William Faulkner: Form as Experience." South Atlantic Quarterly 53 (1954): 384-403. Zoellner, Robert H. "Faulkner's Prose Style in Absalom, AbsalomF American Literature 30 (Winter 1959): 486-502.

RUDIGERIMHOF

Contemporary Metafiction: The Phenomenon and the Efforts to Explain It

Not so long ago, publishers would not have given two hoots for a book on metafiction, the most blatant reason being that metafiction, even though it began to run rampant from the 1950s onward, has never managed to attract the attention of a reading public wide enough to promise commercial profit (McCaffery, Metafictional Muse 3f.). Even up to the present day, where the self-conscious tendency in literature has become something of a fad, this self-exploratory class of narrative discourse, consisting as it does quite frequendy of texts exasperatingly onerous and irksome to read, has by and large remained the property and playing-field of a relatively small band of doggedly determined aficionados and cognoscenti. And yet, quite recently, Methuen & Co. brought out two studies (Hutcheon; Waugh) within a few weeks. Oxford University Press had, shortly before, already accepted into their programme a Norwegian study, originally published in 1981 (Christensen). These were, of course, not the first to tackle the phenomenon of metafiction. Their proximate appearance, however, would seem to herald that, as Robert Zimmermann so sapiendy sang, the times—they are a-changing. And it is indeed high time that a conspicuous trend in the fiction after World War II met with an appropriate critical appreciation—a more appropriate appreciation than the one offered by the initial studies, for instance those by R. Scholes, D. H. Lowenkron, I. Hassan, T Tanner, S. G. Kellman, or M. A. Rose.1 Metafiction is an important literary form deserving of our attention, if only for the reason that it represents experiment in the art of narrative. Without experiment there would be no development, neither in this nor in any of the other arts. "... what appeared to be needed," writes Linda Hutcheon in justification of her approach, and quite righdy, too, "was rather Scholes, "Metafiction"; Scholes, Fabulation and Metafiction-, Lowenkron; Hassan, Radical Innocence, Hassan, Dismemberment of Orpheus; Hassan, Paracriticism\ Tanner; Kellman; Rose.

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more analytic and descriptive work on the texts themselves and on the effects they are having, or ought to have been having, on literary criticism" (Hutcheon 4). Reviewing D.M. Thomas's recent fiction, Swallow, which appears to be metafictional in kind, D.J. Enright writes in conclusion: "The book is light reading, excessively dependent on private jokes... Anyone who takes it more seriously, whether admiringly or otherwise, is a chump or an academic critic" (New York Review 47). Enright is being silly here; but his response is incontestably representative of a large number of readers who seem to share the view expressed in John Barth's story "Tide": "Oh God comma I abhor self-consciousness" {Lost in the Funhouse 116).

I. A SURVEY OF PRINCIPAL STUDIES O N METAFICTION A survey of the principal studies on metafiction, whether books or articles, should perhaps start with Richard Gilman's The Confusion ofRealms, if only because among the fiction writers treated in separate chapters are two metafictionists: Donald Barthelme and William H. Gass. Admittedly, Gilman at no time refers to the kind of narrative discourse under consideration here, but nonetheless he perceptively notes in Barthelme's and Gass's writings thematic as well as structural tendencies that have come to be regarded as poetological characteristics of metafiction. Thus he points out the use of parody in Snow White for the purpose of undermining "the donnees of the fairy story", of preventing it "from retracting its classic parabola" (47). Or of Gass's Omensetter's Luck he writes: "What Gass has written is a work of the imagination and the mind whose study is the mind and imagination themselves as they grant us the instrument of knowing..." (79). The first major attempt to come to terms with fiction that investigates its own processes was made by Robert Scholes, initially in an article and subsequently in a number of book-length studies, the most recent being Fabulation and Metafiction. One must hasten to add that prior to Scholes's efforts, there had been individual studies of the metafictional qualities in the works of some twentieth-century novelists. Thus, for instance, Manfred Smuda and others had suggested that the most adequate way of approaching Bekkett's idiosyncratic narratives was to assess them as quintessential metafictions. Scholes, though, treated what was—and in certain quarters still is— regarded as a postmodern literary form in generic terms. In his article "Metafiction", he tried to explain "the nature of contemporary experimental

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fiction" by four directions in literary criticism. These he classified as formal, structural, behavioural, and philosophical (100), and he linked the various manifestations of metafiction to them, finding Barth's fiction mainly formal, Barthelme's behavioural, etc. What he failed to do, however, was to give an explicit definition of metafiction. In a later article, he described metafiction, or "self-reflective fiction", as he also terms it, as "a fiction which, if it is 'about' anything, is about the possibilities and impossibilities of fiction itselP (Scholes, "Fictional Criticism" 237), a rather sweeping and imprecise definition, to say the least. The entire concept put forward by Scholes is somewhat awry, for instance inasmuch as it makes him contend that Barth is a writer of modern allegories. Such a classification, though, misses the essential point about Barth's alleged allegories, namely that Barth does not write allegories, modern allegories, in the old, conventional style, but allegories which flaunt the conditioning power of allegories in order to liberate the reader from their constraining influences. Charles Harris's Contemporary American Novelists ofthe Absurd is quite informative as to the four novelists it concentrates on: Vonnegut, Jr., Pynchon, Heller, and Barth. Its most prominent tenets are, however, somewhat misguided. For if, as Harris repeatedly emphasises in the introductory chapter, the absurdist novelists strive towards expressing "the artificiality of art", then what they are writing is metafiction rather than absurdist fiction. The concept of the novel of the absurd is meaningful only on condition that the writers grouped under the heading concern themselves with the absurdity of the human condition and not with parodying conventions and forms of narrative texts in order to lay bare their exhausted nature. Even though covering the metafictional writings of such authors as Barth, Elkin, Pynchon, or Vonnegut, Jr., Beyond the Waste Land by Raymond M. Olderman considers them as cases in point for the belief "that traditional devices of romance are now being employed as a way of capturing the absurdity of ordinary life" (6). Olderman unequivocally states: My primary intention is to describe the world vision of the novelists of the sixties and how that vision has been embodied. What I have been calling the "image of the waste land" is meant to connote those characteristics of The Waste Land (combining the metaphor of a waste land with the myth of the Fisher King and the Questing Knight) which have intruded upon the modern consciousness and found expression in the modern novel. (lOf.)

The Literature of Exhaustion. Borges, Nabokov, and Barth by John O. Stark examines a special subcategory of metafiction, namely the Barthian

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"literature of exhaustion" as represented by the works of the three fictionists mentioned in its title. Many of Stark's findings are highly rewarding, although the notion of the literature of exhaustion is more restrictive than that of metafiction. The fictions of such writers as Muriel Spark, John Fowles, Lawrence Durrell, Robert Coover, William H. Gass, Raymond Federman, even Nabokov himself can only with difficulty be regarded as exponents of the literature of exhaustion. Robert Alter's Partial Magic: The Novel as a Self-Conscious Genre must certainly be counted among the more lucid books on self-conscious fiction. Alter's approach is pre-eminently diachronic. Thus while he is tremendously illuminating on Cervantes, Diderot, Sterne, and Nabokov, Alter treats the post-war practitioners only in a cursory manner. Raymond Federman's collection of articles by diverse hands, Surfiction. Fiction Now... and Tomorrow, offers a plethora of ideas—pertinent, platitudinous, intelligent, innovative, insipid and inane—on all manner of experimental fiction, not only on 'surfiction'; it is no doubt indispensable reading for everyone interested in contemporary forms of narrative discourse (see Edler). Jerome Klinkowitz's Literary Disruptions. The Making of Post-Contemporary American Fiction is, all in all, a disappointing book, disrupted as it is by the author's mistaking the art of interpreting literature for a jejune recapitulation of plots, events, and personal statements by the fictionists discussed. There is in addition to the first and last chapter, which yield some useful insights into the general situation of fiction writing between 1967 and 1974, only one section where Klinkowitz deviates from his unrewarding practice: when he deals with Raymond Federman his comments are exceptionally instructive; this is especially evident if one compares them with the planless covering of Barthelme's fictions. There are, moreover, two aspects which are totally dissatisfactory. One has to do with the notion of'post-contemporary" literature, and the other with the concept of 'disruptive' fiction. Nowhere does it really become clear what post-contemporary fiction is meant to be. Likewise the concept of disruptive fiction remains teasingly vague. The narratives of the writers who are said to represent this 'school' are so very different in thematic as well as comportional respects that one has difficulty in seeing how they should form one type of narration. Klinkowitz's The Life of Fiction is quite an unusual—perhaps one could call it a weird—study of what Klinkowitz terms 'superfiction' i.e. fiction written by Sorrentino, Sukenick, H.S. Thompson, Barthelme, Clarence Major, and Steve Katz. The book is unusual as a piece of literary criticism since, by

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presenting in collage fashion all sorts of materials—comments by Klinkowitz, graphics by Roy R. Behrens, reviews, excerpts from fiction, remarks and statements hard to identify as to who made them—it appears to intentionally mimic the compositional strategies responsible for the idiosyncratic design of Barthelme's and Sukenick's pieces. The Life of Fiction contains useful insight, supposedly. If only one knew how to read the book! The greater part of D.H. Lowenkron's article "The MetanoveP is devoted to explaining this sort of fiction (incorrectly described as "involving a novel about a novel" (349)) by drawing on what are deemed "precursors", such as the framed tale, the play-within-the-play, the painting-within-thepainting, epistolary novels and diaries, novels about artists, multiple narration, and to charting the "intellectual climate" that has given rise to it. Manfred Pütz defines the aim of his study The Stoiy of Identity in the following terms: The book intends to show that an intense preoccupation with the identity question forms the substance of some of the most remarkable works of the sixties. (1)

He outlines the development of the story of identity thus: . . . subject matter and thematic concerns are transposed from the problems of fictional character to the problems of the character of fiction and from there to the problems of the reader's attitude toward and participation in the act of fictional communication. (1)

Pütz grounds his endeavours in structuralist theory. Structuralism has come under attack recently for obscuring the object under consideration by what is felt to be an unwarranted over-complexity in theoretical argumentation, which, in turn, is aggravated by an incomprehensibly esoteric terminology. The introductory chapters in Pütz's study provide evidence of the difficulty inherent in structuralism. Pütz's explanation of a number of structuralist poetics of fiction together with the attempt to find a common denominator in them is likely to confuse the reader rather than enlighten and prepare him for what the study is about to offer. Moreover, Pütz's "features of the recurrent patterns of what we call the basic identity story" (10) could all be deduced from a given body without the structuralist claptrap. Pütz sees the popularity of fabulation and self-conscious fiction as "a movement towards the establishment of a 'new romance' under contemporary conditions" (21). While the observation is no doubt acute, it is nonetheless too narrow in its endeavour to account for present-day metafiction. To explain this type of

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narration as a quest for identification aiming at questioning "whether imaginative creations can help to identify viable forms of self-definition" (25) may be sufficient for Piitz's purpose, but it is certainly not so for a poetological consideration of metafiction. Among the more recent fully-fledged attempts at coming to grips with metafiction is Margaret A. Rose's Parody/Meta-Fiction. The declared aim of the investigation is to outline the possible forms and functions taken by meta-fictional parody, and to point to its role both in transforming literary history, and in attacking the epistemological presuppositions and expectations of the reader . . . (185)

The result, alas, is a muddled, unreadable, almost insufferable book. Rose's ideas are often annoyingly one-sided and, at times, curiously misguided. One reason for this severe drawback is that the author has chosen to disregard a number of valuable studies that predate hers. For instance, in chapter 1, which purports to discuss "ways of defining parody", one looks in vain for a consideration of Wolfgang Karrer's comprehensive and perspicacious thesis, Parodie, Travestie, Pastiche. To be true, Rose draws on Karrer's findings in chapter 2, which aims at "Distinguishing Parody from Related Forms"—such as burlesque, irony, pastiche, satire—but she does so, unfortunately, in too perfunctorily a manner. Her own efforts at definition, therefore, yield unsatisfying, baffling, and occasionally nonsensical results. The difference between satire and parody, for instance, is said to be of the following kind: whereas the satirist may use parody as a means—among others—to attain his envisaged critical goal, the parodist may resort to satire for his purposes. Perhaps the most crucial shortcoming of Parody/Meta-Fiction is its questionable aim to work out "a theory of parody as a form of meta-fiction" (59). Following the arguments, one cannot help feeling that the narrative genre of metafiction is considered to be identical with parody, or vice versa, and this despite the apparent disclaimer: "It is not suggested... that all meta-fiction is parodistic" (66). As a result of the book's muddled style, some arguments strike one as hopelessly incomprehensible. There is scarcely a sentence in which the word 'also' does not appear in some nonsensical place. Like Rose's investigation, Robert Burden's article "The Novel Interrogates Itself: Parody as Self-Consciousness in Contemporary English Fiction" and his bookJohn Fowles—John Hawkes—Claude Simon. Problems of Selfand Form in the Post-Modernist Novel are ill-suited to pronounce on the poetics of metafiction because of an inordinate concentration on the element of parody.

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Christopher Butler, in After the Wake, argues the case for regarding postmodernism not as a mere, possibly decadent, development of modernism— as Frank Kermode and others have it—but as an artistic movement possessed of clearly definable characteristics, with the self-reflexive quality of the works being the most outstanding one. According to Butler, the 1950s saw a confirmation of this new postmodern epoch, for instance in the rise to prominence of Ionesco and Beckett, in the music of Boulez, Henze, Stockhausen, and in the New York School of abstract expressionistic painting. Although treating in some depth only the French nouveau roman as well as Beckett's and Burrough's fictions, After the Wake has a wealth of memorable things to say about the postmodern novel as being "a dramatization of the phenomenology of the creative process" (41). It is of exceptional merit for the attempt at "wechselseitige Erhellung der Künste". Steven G. Kellman's The Self-Begetting Novel is a rewarding book to read, but its interest covers only a sub-category of metafiction. Besides, Kellman's focus rests mainly on French texts, as he considers the origin of the self-begetting novel to be in French philosophy, epistemology and poetological thinking. American and British examples are dealt with in a rather cursory manner. Wolfgang Theile's Immanente Poetik des Romans pursues primarily the historical development of the proclivity in fiction towards immanent poetological reflection. With the notable exception ofWilliam Faulkner and Uwe Johnson and three Latin-American writers, viz. Asturias, Cortázar, and García Márquez, Theile concentrates on French writers, from Scarron, via Diderot, Lesage, Chateaubriand and Gide, to Pinget, Robbe-Grillet and Butor. Inger Christensen, in The Meaning of Metafiction, defines metafiction as "fiction whose primary concern is to express the novelist's vision of experience by exploring the process of its making" (11). This may not be a very satisfactory definition, yet in approaching selected novels by Sterne, Nabokov, Barth, and Beckett and by concentrating in each case on the conception of what he terms: "narrator—narrative—narratee", Christensen manages to submit many interesting findings. Moreover, in choosing to adopt a diachronic approach he is able to maintain that, contrary to a widely held belief, metafiction is not a modern, or postmodern, phenomenon. In the long run, though, Christensen's concentration on "narrator—narrative—narratee" turns out to be too parochial to do full justice to metafiction as a literary class, if only he fails to take into account significant poetological features, such as the use of parody, of myth and familiar stories, of the 'Chinese-box' pattern of composition, and others. However, in spite of its shortcomings, Christensen's is a very sound study.

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Alan Wilde's book Horizons of Assent, though dealing in the final chapter quite informatively with such writers—he terms them 'surfictionists'—as Barthelme, Sukenick, Gass, and Coover, is only of tangential import in the present context. Instead of concerning himself with the whys and hows of metafiction, Wilde seeks to consider the phenomenon of modernism (the early and late varieties) and postmodernism by investigating the evolution of the principle of irony, with irony constituting not a literary strategy but a mode of consciousness. Larry McCaffery's The Metafictional Muse represents an admirable achievement and may well turn out to be the standard work on Coover, Barthelme, and Gass. It accounts for metafiction's essential nature in an excellent fashion. Most valuable is McCaffery's suggestion that metafictions are concerned not only with literary fictions, their strategies and relationship to so-called reality, but also with the urge, or need, inherent in mankind to create fictions of all descriptions in order to come to grips with the world— the human urge to storify reality. The latter point is worked out competently in connection with Gass's œuvre. Bernd Schäbler's mammoth literary-critical study (it comprises 851 pages) seeks to account for the metafictional tendency in post-war American fiction by evaluating it in the context of European modernism. There can be no question that the arguments submitted in it are immensely learned, showing its author to be splendiferously versed in a wide area of critical theory. And yet at least two objections must be raised against it. One is whether it is necessary to present the reader with a three-hundred-page recapitulation of such a wide variety of different theories of modernism before the phenomenon under scrutiny is turned to, if, second objection, modernist notions and literary procedures can at best only account for the massive occurence of self-reflexiveness in post-war literature, but not explain the literary genre. One may have qualms, in the face of the plethora of theoretical views covered by Schäbler, about pointing out that one view is sorely missing. And yet, it is a pity that Umberto Eco's study Opera aperta (1962,1967) was neglected. For among other things, Eco's concept of the 'open' work of art could have prevented the belief, voiced by Schäbler, that all metafictions are "nicht zu einem einheitlichen Sinnzusammenhang geordnet und können auch vom Rezipienten nicht 'auf einen Blick' erfaßt bzw. auf einen Sinn, eine Bedeutung, einen 'Kern' reduziert werden" (47). At the same time, the misguided notion that all metafictions are constructed according to the collage principle could also have been avoided. This is clearly not the case, as the fictions of Barth, Nabokov, Borges et al. sufficiently prove. To do the author justice,

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those metafictions he explicates in greater detail, for instance Federman's Take It or Leave It, Sorrentino's Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things, Sukenick's Out and The Death of the Novel are cases which substantiate Schabler's ideas. These do not, however, represent post-war American metafiction at large, only one particular variant. Much of what Schabler argues in the first three hundred or so pages is intended to explain why the novel after 1910 has to be viewed as an 'open' work of art, as distinct from the pre-1910 novel—Schabler calls it the 'traditional' novel—which is regarded as a homogenous, 'closed' work of literature. A modern work of art, or literature, is apostrophied as "nicht-organisch"; in it, all the constitutive parts are not "notwendig aufeinander bezogen" having instead been assembled "at random" in collage fashion. The question is: can all this be true? What of a novel such as Ulysses? Are the individual parts that go to make up the narrative not related—oh so cunningly—to one another? Of course they are, not however so much in a sequential, as in a spatial manner, as Schabler, drawing on Joseph Frank's influential article, notes elsewhere. Schabler refers to Kurt Schwitters's visual collages in substantiation of his conviction that modernist pieces of art are governed by the "Prinzip 'ZufalF". Now, Schwitters may well have happened upon the materials he used for his 'Merz-Bilder'. Though why he put a particular nail, or some other item, precisely where we find it is a totally different kettle of fish. The choice may not have been a conscious one, but there is after all the unconscious sense of order to be reckoned with.2 As if to disprove his own ideas, Schabler quotes Schwitters as denoting his activity in putting together his collages in these terms: "Wahl, Verteilung und Entformung der Materialien", and the artist goes on to note that he regarded himself as a "gestaltend eingreifender Kiinstler" (286). How could he be that if the principle governing his work is "ZufalP? Schabler seems to argue in favour of differentiating between what he terms "metafictionists"—i.e. Coover, Sukenick, Barthelme, Federman, Brautigan—, who are said to be grounded in the so-called antimimetic, non-representational traditions of "die Moderne" and such writers as Barth, Beckett, Borges, and Nabokov, who—it is suggested—go back to the self-reflexive and parodic tradition whose prime representatives are Cervantes and Sterne (362 f.). To differentiate thus does not make much sense. The point is that Federman's metafictions are not so greatly different from Barth's. Nor are Gass's from Nabokov's, at any rate not as regards their primary artistic goal, 2

Cf. Anthony Burgess's opinion on arbitrariness in art (Coale 443 f.).

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namely to flaunt a fiction as artifice and to lay bare the conventions ofwriting and reading a narrative. All these writers belong in one tradition, the tradition of Cervantes, Sterne, Diderot, Gide, Beckett, Borges, Flann O'Brien. Where they differ is in the means by which they pursue this artistic aim. Sukenick, Federman, and Barthelme may have been inspired by French strategies of narrative discourse more than by those of seventeenth-century Spanish fiction, or the eighteenth-century English novel. That, however, does not make them into different metafictionists. Moreover, it is simply not true that Gass, for one, was so greatly influenced, in what he is doing, by antimimetic tendencies in modern painting and art. If one follows Gass's admission ("Philosophy and the Form of Fiction"), he, like most other contemporary American metafictionists (Klinkowitz, Reconsideration 31), was, in a considerable measure, influenced by Flann O'Brien. And Flann, or to give him his real name: Brian O'Nolan, was, as far as we know, not in the least writing under the impact of antimimetic tendencies in modern art. Linda Hutcheon, in Narcissistic Narrative, differentiates four types of metafiction. There are, basically, texts that are "diegetically self-conscious while others demonstrate primarily an awareness of their linguistic constitution". In the first case, the text presents itself as narrative; in the second, as language. Furthermore, there seem to be two possible varieties of each of these modes, namely overt and covert forms. The attempts at self-reflexiveness, or narcissism, by such writers as Proust, Pirandello, O'Brien, and Gide were fundamentally directed at thematising the writing process and its product. The more recent narcissistic texts are to be considered as a development of this thematic interest by broadening it to include "a parallel process of equal importance to the text's actualization—that of reading" (27). Some difficulty in accepting Hutcheon's propositions arises with regard to, above all, the differentiation between overt and covert forms of narrative narcissism. "Overtly narcissistic novels place fictionality, structure, or language at their content's core", writes Hutcheon. There is little to disagree with here. But what of the covert varieties, where, it is argued, "the self-reflection is implicit; that is to say, it is structuralized, internalized with the text" (31); where the role the reader has to play in concretising a text is "actualized", instead of being "thematized" (34) as in overt narcissism? How can anything be actualised without its being thematised, or without its attaining thematic significance? There are, Hutcheon goes on to point out, four distinct classes of covert narcissism: "the detective story", "fantasy", "game structure", and "the erotic". Let us consider two examples. The detective-story type is represented for Hutcheon by John Fowles's story "Enigma". The point about this

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story, however, is that in it Fowles openly parodies the conventions of the detective story and, what is more, has Mike, the police detective, and Isobel discuss the case he is trying to solve with reference to how such cases would be solved in an Agatha Christie whodunnit. The erotic variety of covertly narcissistic narrative is said to be founded in the belief that all fictional texts attempt to tantalise and seduce the reader and that there is an "essentially erotic relationship of text and reader or of writer and reader". Hutcheon claims as an example of this mode Gass's Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife, where "Gass compares the loneliness of writing to that of sexual encounter". The rub is, though, that Gass effects the comparison overtly, and he does not so much compare the loneliness of writing, but the loneliness of being read as a literary text, as literary language—"These words are all I am", the titular lady states at one point. What is, among other things, noteworthy about Hutcheon's approach is that it puts paid to a rather ill-founded criticism which has been launched against metafiction for allegedly wallowing in solipsism and being 'unrealistic'. Hutcheon persuasively argues that metafiction is largely a mimesis of process (5), the process of writing and reading fiction. Reading and writing belong to life as much als Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown. Metafiction explicitly calls into action, in both author and reader, the human imaginative act. But whether this should be reason enough for asserting that metafiction should be regarded as an integral part of the mimetic genre of the novel is an altogether different matter. In order to substantiate her claim, Hutcheon argues that both Plato and Aristode included the diegetic in their concept of mimesis. Hence in her opinion, what metafiction advocates is "the return of diegesis to mimesis" (47), and what it attempts to debunk is the far too narrow understanding of mimesis as denoting only nineteenth-century realism. This may all make sense—to some. In my copy of Aristode's Poetics, any remark to the effect that Aristotle meant the objective of mimesis to include the diegetic is missing. The concept of dvqyqaiq is employed in the sense of narratio and refers to a manner of linguistic presentation which the playwright as well as the actor should be able to master; but there is no indication that it is ever meant to become the subject matter of the mimetic process. Significandy, Hutcheon nowhere quotes Aristotle on that score. As is known, Aristode uses mimesis to denote the imitation of human beings in action in such a manner that the spectator (of a tragedy, say) can identify with the characters portrayed for the purpose of being cleansed of certain emotional shortcomings. This aim (catharsis) would seriously be impaired if the identification were destroyed, which in turn would be the direct result of

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imitating human beings who are disclosed as mere puppets by letting the strings become visible, more even, by directing the spotlights at the works. All in all, though, Narcissistic Narrative represents a remarkable achievement. Its breadth of reference is stupendous—Hutcheon claims to have consulted English, French, Italian, Spanish-American and German primary texts. (As for German texts, this reader failed to turn any up.) Hutcheon deals with the function(s) of parody, of the mirroring device (novelwithin-the-novel); she offers a finely perceptive interpretation of The French Lieutenant's Woman (the only point to quarrel with is that Hutcheon refers to two endings, when the book has three, if not four); she explains the four covert forms of diegetic narcissism and expounds why one of metafiction's primary thematic concerns is with throwing into relief the fact that literature, all literature, is language which creates its own objects—autonomous worlds; and she discusses metafiction's thematization of the role and activity of the reader. Coming to Patricia Waugh's book, Metafiction, after reading Hutcheon is like coming from an expertly arranged five-course dinner to an overflowing buffet that has all the necessary dishes but fails to guide the partaker as to the order in which the culinary riches should best be savoured. Many ofWaugh's arguments are left curiously dangling in the air, as it were, so that instead of the author herself offering guidance the reader frequently has to draw the necessary conclusions. Waugh sees eye to eye with Hutcheon on the point that "in showing us how literary fiction creates its imaginary worlds, metafiction helps us to understand how the reality we live day by day is similarly constructed, similarly 'written"' (Waugh 18). Moreover, her definition of metafiction is quite comparable to Hutcheon's: . . . fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality. (2)

Otherwise, though, her approach is far more narrow, at times indefensibly narrow. Witness for instance her notion that "metafiction explicitly lays bare the conventions of realism" (18). Waugh avoids Hutcheon's questionable differentiation between overt and covert self-reflection, but she comes up with a suggestion concerning certain varieties of metafiction which is no less questionable. The term, she contends, covers a wide range of fiction: at one end of the spectrum there are those novels which take fictionality as a theme to be explored; at the centre are those texts "that manifest the symptoms of

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formal and ontological insecurity but allow their deconstruction to be finally recontextualised or 'naturalised' and given a total interpretation" (whatever that is meant to mean); and at the furthest extreme there can be placed those fictions "that, in rejecting realism more thoroughly, posit the world as a fabrication of competing semiotic systems which never correspond to material conditions" (18 f.). How all this may be reconciled with her own definition of metafiction—as a kind of fiction that draws attention to its status as artefactis something of a riddle. Waugh discusses a large number of different issues, such as the use of frames and frame-break; the role of play, or game-devices; the notion of reality as a construct, drawing on dominant objectives of contemporary critical as well as philosophical thought; and the significance of parody, about which she manages to submit quite useful ideas. One chapter is headed "Are novelists liars?" and in it Waugh considers the question of whether fiction, novels, literature can tell the truth; and she goes a long way to proffer an answer in the negative. Hutcheon devotes little more than a page to the same issue to persuasively show that the referents of literary language are fictive, literature being auto-representational (cf. Eco). All it can do is create "worlds as real as but other than the world that is. Or was", as Fowles puts it. The textual examples discussed or listed by Waugh provoke the somewhat uneasy feeling that she considers most, if not all, so-called postmodernist fictions to be metafictional in kind, no doubt an untenable generalization. For instance, Malcolm Bradbury's The History Man is decidedly not metafictional, in spite of the author's allowing himself a walk-on part in it, Alfred Hitchcock fashion. Further, she refers to Barthelme's idiosyncratic collages (informed by the technique of offering objets trouves) as metafictions. Some of them may be metafictional, the majority of them, however, are not, any more than most of Brautigan's writings. A case could well be made for their representing a different class of experimental texts, a class also comprising the fictions of Ann Quin, Gabriel Josipovici, Alan Burns, Christine Brooke-Rose and others. Since the point is made so often by Waugh, one may be tempted to assume that writers create metafictions for just one reason, namely "that 'history' like 'fiction' is provisional, continually reconstructed . . . " Surely this cannot be true. A major flaw of Metafiction is that its author is quite undecided as to what the metafictional fuss is all about and hence has difficulty in explaining it. This is, to a large extent, a direct consequence of her neglecting a major thematic preoccupation of metafiction, viz. that it is not only con-

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cerned with the creative process (as Waugh's study suggests), but equally so with the essential nature of the reading process. Most recently, Hartwig Isernhagen has sought to explain what he terms "metaization" as being "actuated by a profound sense of the inherent guilt of language". "Simultaneously", he goes on to assert, "it seems to constitute an attempt to transcend that guilt" (Isernhagen 37). One may be disinclined to accept the term 'metaization', notwithstanding the knowledge that it is always enjoyable to coin new terms. For the point is: what good is there in doing so if these new terms only complicate matters instead of making them easier? Isernhagen tries to account for the tendency of what others have chosen simply to call 'self-reflexiveness' not only in literature, but in criticism as well, citing for the latter class the studies oflhab Hassan. Now, it would be putting it too strongly so say that the type of criticism practised by Hassan is rather too eccentric, but there is good reason to suppose that only few find any sense in it. In all, Isernhagen's is an insufficiently thought-out attempt to explain self-reflexiveness; it is, moreover, marred by its attempt to camouflage its half-bakedness with the help of a high-falutin terminology, as if Isernhagen, like Mrs Slipslop, were a "mighty affecter of hard words".3

II. WHAT METAFICTION IS "'Metafiction'... is fiction about fiction—that is, fiction that includes within itself a commentary on its own narrative and/or linguistic identity." Thus Linda Hutcheon in her simple, succinct, but nonetheless quite handy definition (1). One could be a little more elaborate and submit that the term 'metafiction' designates a type of fiction that concerns itself with the problems of, as well as stipulations for, writing fiction. This type of fiction, crudely put, treats of how fictions are 'made'; it is a class of self-conscious (Kellman), selfreflexive 4 narrative that narrates about narration; it investigates the quintessential nature of literary art as it throws light on the process of "imagination imagining itself imagine" (Gass, Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife). A main the3

4

Charles Newman's study may contain useful comment on the subject of contemporary metafiction. The present author was unable to judge, as he could not, in the time available, obtain a copy of the book. Cf. Sukenick, "Fictions in the Seventies"; Sukenick, "New Tradition"; Sukenick, "Thirteen Digressions"; Sukenick, "Twelve Digressions"; Sukenick, "Death of the Novel".

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matic concern of metafiction is with flaunting, with laying bare, what the Russian formalist Victor Shklovsky, in his famous essay on Tristram Shandy of 1921, called "laying bare the literary process" (pri'em): the techniques and conventions of the narrative discourse are turned into the subject-matter of the fictionmaking process. Metafictionists, deliberately and purposely, disclose what conventional writers of fiction endeavour, by every means at their disposal, to cover up, namely the artificial nature of all narratives (Imhof, "Minimal Fiction" 159 ff.; Contemporary Metafiction). When Thomas Mann was accused, by those who had read Buddenbrooks as a naturalistic or realistic novel, of plagiarising from life, he gave as a defence: "When I have made a sentence out of something, what has that something to do with the sentence?" Realistic fiction, the novel as understood in its most essential and widely accepted sense, strives towards establishing the connection between the sentence (read: text) and the 'something' it is made of, customarily taken to be reality. Metafiction, instead of seeking to establish such a connection, aspires towards exploring and explaining the relationship between literature and life, art and reality. At the same time, it focusses on the making of the 'sentence' the literary work of art. Furthermore, what most of the studies to date have regrettably failed to take into account, 5 metafiction, through making them into a thematic issue, throws into sharp relief the imaginative efforts that are necessary for the reader to undertake in order that a piece of fiction, of literature, may come into being. Metafiction, thus, concerns itself with exploring and flaunting not only the process of writing, but likewise the process of reading fiction. Wolfgang Iser, for one, has pointed out that it is a poetological characteristic of most, if not all, literary texts to lay bare its fictional stature, its nature as artifice (Iser, "Akte des Fingierens"). That may be so. At any rate, let us assume it were; for after all this is not the place to try and refute Isers hypothesis. Some texts, though, do so covertly, anti-novels and many specimens of the nouveau roman\ others do so overtly, such as metafictions; and yet another group does not do it at all. Where, one may ask, in a novel such as Robinson Crusoe is the fictional nature of the whole account flaunted? But to come back—one of the principal features of a good deal of the fiction written since World War II has been that it, like no other fiction before,

Exceptions are the studies by Linda Hutcheon, Larry McCaffery, and Rudiger Imhof.

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either covertly or overtly professes to be ludic in kind. 6 A writer such as Joyce did so covertly, and so does his disciple Anthony Burgess, at least to a great extent. Metafictionists such as Nabokov and others do so overtly. The aim is to play freely with the conventions of the narrative discourse, with the linguistic constituents of a text—for instance in the form of the Nabokovian predilection for alliterative constructions—and also, not forgetting, with the expectations of the reader in order to bring to the fore the ontological status of all fiction as artifice, as text, whose creation as well as reception is governed by, or obeys, man-made conventions. Stanley Fogel has advanced a definition that is quite comprehensive. M e t a f i c t i o n [he maintains] entails an exploration o f the theory o f fiction t h r o u g h fiction itself. Writers o f m e t a f i c t i o n . . . scrutinize all facets o f the literary construct, language, the c o n v e n t i o n s o f p l o t and character, the relation o f the artist t o his art and to his reader. (Fogel)

Inger Christensen has criticised Fogel's definition for leaving out what to him "is an essential aspect of metafiction—the novelist's message" (Christensen 10). To make up for the deficiency of Fogel's generic specification, Christensen himself defines metafiction thus: "In this study metafiction is regarded as fiction whose primary concern is to express the novelist's vision of experience by exploring the process of its own making" (Christensen 11). The notion of fiction as an exploration of the process of experience may not immediately be intelligible. Yet by concentrating on selected novels by Sterne, Nabokov, Barth, and Beckett, Christensen manages to make apparent what he means by it. For example, in the case of Tristram Shandy, he particularises this 'message' as "the problem of human intercourse in its ethical and aesthetic consequences" (15). Yet what his as well as Fogel's definitions principally fail to point out is that metafiction is not only an exploration of fiction in the process of being written, but that it throws equally into relief the mental operations necessary 6

Detweiler; Edler; Schábler passim; Hutchinson. Hutchinson's study is noteworthy in connection with a consideration of metafiction, or self-conscious fiction, if only because it stresses the ineluctable reliance of metafiction on play and games. Cf. Hutchinson's definition of a literary game "as any playful, self-conscious and extended means by which an author stimulates his readers to deduce or to speculate..." (14); and . . the techniques needed to erect game structures must largely be self-conscious..." (15). Hutchinson also makes the point that it is the game element in a metafiction "that breaks away from the norm of realistic w r i t i n g . . . (or, if all the elements of a text are playful, then the text as a whole breaks with the norm of realistic discourse)" (13).

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for the reader to undertake in order to concretise the narrative text. Metafiction also investigates the need in man to create fictions. Although not in the appropriate detail, Robert Alter seems to take this fact into account when he notes that metafiction, or "the self-conscious novel" in his terminology, is a novel that "systematically flaunts its own condition as artifice and that by so doing probes into the problematic relationship between real-seeming artifice and reality" (Alter, Partial Magic x.). For one of the major issues of metafiction is the relationship between art and reality. To elaborate on these aspects, in baring its fictional and linguistic systems to the reader's view, metafiction transforms the process of making, of poiesis, into part of the prodesse and delectare of the reading process. There is no accounting for pleasure: those who are not prepared to savour this kind of pleasure and tend to shirk the instruction may as well leave metafiction alone. According to Larry McCaffery, metafictions are "fictions which examine fictional systems, how they are created, and the way in which reality is transformed by and filtered through narrative assumptions and conventions" (Metafictional Muse 5). The term, for McCaffery, denotes two related forms: "first, that type of fiction which either directly examines its own construction as it proceeds or which comments or speculates about the forms and language of previous fiction," and, second, a more general category "which seeks to examine how all fictional systems operate, their methodology, the sources of their appeal, and the dangers of their being dogmatized" (16 f.). It is an intensely self-reflexive variety of narrative discourse, whose intense self-reflexiveness is, as Mas'ud Zavarzadeh has cogently pointed out, "caused by the fact that the only certain reality for the metafictionist is the reality of his own discourse" (39). Zavarzadeh's opinion is representative of the popular conviction that contemporary metafiction is a result of the writer's turning away in horror from the unfathomable mess that is twentieth-century reality, a reality which, according to Philip Roth (esp. 34), permanently outdoes the inventive, imaginary resources of the novelist, and which for various reasons is unknowable and, in its quiddity, indescribable, hence the proposition, as submitted by Nabokov, that reality is a concept which should only be used in double quotes. The issue involved is of course more complex than suggested here. It will have to be considered again later on in the discussion ofmetafiction's relationship to reality and realistic fiction. As for McCaffery's suggestion, this introduces quite a noteworthy aspect in its insistence that, contrary to common belief, metafiction does not

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simply mean a solipsistic fooling around with the literary process, but that it implies an exploration of how man perceives what we have come to agree to refer to as reality by transforming it by, and filtering it through, narrative assumptions and conventions. Metafiction, thus, does not only lay bare the whys and hows of narrative systems, but likewise exposes how non-narrative fictional systems—those, say, that form constitutive parts of everyday reality, are everyday reality—operate in order to effect a liberation from their appeal and "the dangers of their being dogmatized". Meta-approaches, as again McCaffery righdy notes, are increasingly influencing nearly all of today's major art forms. Moreover, a "metasensibility" is evolving into the characteristic sensibility of our age, the inevitable product of our heightened awareness of the subjectivity and artifice in our systems (McCaffery 225). .. our contemporary sensibility," writes McCaffery, "is saturated not only with self-consciousness, but also with the realization that concepts such as play, game, fiction-making, artifice, and subjectivity lie at the very centre ofwhat makes human beings civilized" (225). Metafictions, in thematising such concepts, are also about how man storifies reality. By quite frequently featuring characters who feel themselves victimised by a repressive social order to such an extent that their lives become meaningless and who, in response to this powerful sense of personal isolation and victimization, decide to create and invent systems of meaning—for instance in the form of fictions within fictions, e.g. Billy Pilgrim's Tralfamador, Stencil's quest, Henry Waugh's baseball games, or those by Nabokov's, Sukenick's, Federman's, or Gass's narrators—metafictions deal with the human need for fictions. They concern themselves with the anthropological question of why we rely on fictions for our sustenance. The answers they proffer are fairly similar to the ideas advanced by Wolfgang Iser for example. Iser notes: "Fiktionen gelten als Erfindungen, die es ermöglichen, das, was ist, zu überschreiten" (Iser, "Anglistik" 301). Fictions, Iser goes on to maintain, represent ways of generating worlds' ("Weisen der Weltherstellung") which are paradigmatically realised in literature, since there they are freed from the pragmatics that govern the figures of life (302). Free of all pragmatic constraints, literary fictions playfully organise what Iser terms 'the imaginary' ("das Imaginäre") in ever different ways, thus portraying what is, while at the same time opening up possibilities of transcending the confines of reality. Fictions make feasible "das angstfreie Verfugen über Unverfugbares" (302 f.). Whereas Iser has considered these matters in theoretical terms, metafictionists, such as Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., William H. Gass, and others, have made them into a major subject-matter of their narratives, Pyn-

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chon for instance by presenting paranoid protagonists engaged in interminable series of plotting and in the fabricating of fictions,7 and Gass, in such stories as "Mrs. Mean" "Icicles" and "In the Heart of the Heart of the Country", by depicting characters who try to come to grips with the reality of their lives through storifying it.8 Man's overriding need for fictions is due partly to human nature and partly to the nature of the universe: we can never objectively know the world; instead we inhabit a world of fictions and are constantly constrained to develop myriad metaphors and subjective systems to help us organise our experience, so that we can come to terms with the world. These fictional systems are useful in that they generate meaning. By focussing on the creative process itself, metafictionists seek to illumine how man defines himself and his responses to the world (McCaffery 8f.). As McCaffery has pertinendy shown, the view of the fiction-making process is heavily dependent upon the view of man-as-metaphor-maker, which has been developed in so many fields of study since the Kantian revolution in philosophy, more specifically since Kant's suggestion that subjective elements enter into all human operations and that perhaps our sense data were from the outset primarily symbols, the outcome of a synthesis between matter and subjectively provided form. Since its thematic focus is so often on the fiction-making process, this variety of narrative discourse makes the point about the subjective nature of all systems (McCaffery 5). By throwing light on its own ontological status as a fictional product, as artifice, a metafictional narrative discloses the nature of reality and the perception of reality, a reality which has customarily—but falsely, oh so falsely!—been looked upon as a finite, verifiable, unequivocal entity. To be more detailed, the metanovel is almost identical to what David Lodge has called the "problematic novel", when he writes: To the novel, the non-fictional novel, and the fabulation, we must add a fourth category: the novel which exploits more than one o f these modes without fully committing itself to any, the novel-about-itself, the trick novel, the game-novel, the puzzle-novel... This kind o f novel, which I shall call the 'problematic novel' . . . Mr Scholes's fabulators, for instance, play tricks o n their readers, expose their fictive machinery, dally with aesthetic paradoxes, in order to shed the restricting conventions o f realism, to give themselves freedom to invent and manipulate. In the kind of novel I am thinking of, however, the reality principle is never 7 8

Cf. the chapter on Pynchon in Bernd Schabler's study. Cf. the chapter on Gass in Lany McCaffery's study (Metafictional Muse).

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Lodge appears to have given a reasonably correct description of the kind of fiction under consideration. But apart from accounting for the metanovel's tendency to exploit all possible generic principles, the definition suffers from an impermissible juggling of terms. Despite his comparison of the 'problematic novel' (why problematic?) with Robert Scholes's Tabulators' which establishes some points of correspondence between metafiction and Tabulation' the two species would better be kept apart. Whereas metafiction may betray an interest in the preoccupation of the Tabulator' and employ his devices, there are essentially divergent characteristics on the strength of which the two categories should be differentiated. For, after all, Scholes has defined Tabulation' in these terms: Fabulation, then, means a return to a more verbal kind o f fiction. It also means a return to a more fictional kind. By this I mean a less realistic and more artistic kind o f narrative: more shapely, more evocative; more concerned with ideas and ideals, less concerned with things. (Scholes, The Tabulators 12)

Significantly enough, Scholes refers to a "more artistic kind of narrative" and not to a more artifical kind of narrative. A failure to differentiate the two modes sufficiently also mars the otherwise excellent study by Manfred Piitz, The Story of Identity. Scholes's most recent investigation of Tabulation' and metafiction {Fabulation and Metafiction) adds little to the views expounded in The Tabulators', it is basically no more than a second edition of the earlier book, with the original chapters rearranged and a few new ones added, ofwhich some purport to be about metafiction and self-reflexive fiction whereas in fact they are a series of reviews Scholes wrote in the early seventies prefaced with superfluous theoretical comments. As yet "another word in our jargon-ridden lexicon of guttural angst and sibilant ennuis" (23), James Rother has suggested the term 'parafiction'. Yet sadly, in so many words and with the help of a plethora of witticism, he does not succeed in defining what he means the term to denote, since ever so often he gets carried away by the presumed ingenuity of his own argument. Rother

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argues that 'metafiction' is an appropriate term, as 'meta' suggests "sharing", or, by way of analogy with 'metaphysics' "transcendence"; but more normally, he maintains, it connotes "change of place, order, condition, or nature". Consequently, he sees fit to introduce 'parafiction', because 'para' distinctly suggests that which lies '"along side of, 'b/, or 'beyond'"; and many of its English derivatives are said to lend substance to the ulterior mechanics of the new marginalism in our literature: parable, paradox, parallelism (33 f.). It is unclear what dictionary Rother consulted for his differentiation of terms. The O.E.D. defines 'meta' as "behind, after (metaphysics), beyond (metacarpus), of a higher or second-order kin (metalanguage)", whereas 'para' is defined as connoting "(1) beside (parabola, paramilitary, parathyroid)-, (2) beyond (paradox,paranormal)". The term 'metafiction' it must be insisted, is more to the point, if only for the plain reason that metafiction in relation to fiction serves a purpose comparable to that fulfilled by metalanguage to language. Metalanguage is a language by means of which one speaks about language. Metafiction is a mode of fiction which 'speaks' about fiction. Yet another label has been introduced by Jean E. Kennard. Kennard distinguished two forms of fantasy fiction, one employing the techniques of Joyce, and the other those of Beckett. The former is the "novel of nightmare", which is said to "offer answers to the post-existential dilemma, or rather denying its existence" and to be based on the belief that "the world has order" (Kennard 13). The latter is termed the "novel of number", whose "most significant characteristic is that it is anti-literature, anti-myth, destructive of form" (12). The novelists o f n u m b e r . . . deliberately draw our attention to the fact that we are reading and, beyond this, to the fact that they are creating, not describing, a reality. (13)

The second concept could be of interest, as it seems to imply the same thematic and structural concerns as those of metafiction. Yet whereas the idea of the "novel of nightmare" may be acceptable, the notion of the "novel of number" has to be viewed with certain reservations. Two may suffice. It is doubtful whether the view is tenable that the novels of Barth, Purdy, and Vonnegut, Jr., which are said to represent this type, are indeed "a dramatization of the post-existential view of the human condition" (12). What is definitely untenable is the assertion concerning the anti-myth character of these works. Barth, for one, has drawn heavily on "an older tradition of fantasy, that of myth" (14), and he would therefore have to be grouped among the

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novelists of nightmare, in connection with whom Kennard employs the above statement. Charles Russell differentiates between two kinds of contemporary literature: One emphasizes the epistemological dimension of the art-work. It studies the relationship o f the individual to the environment. Properly speaking, it offers not a study o f the world, but of how experience is filtered through consciousness. [For instance, Pynchon, Kosinsky, Brautigan, Sukenick, and Barthelme] The other direction . . . focusses more intently on the prescriptive structure o f language, particularly o f literary language. [For instance Barth, Nabokov, Coover, and Gass] (352)

This differentiation is ill-founded, at least as regards Russell's first 'direction'. Most fictions have been concerned with "how experience is filtered through consciousness", especially so since Henry James, but, of course, also before James's time. The term 'metafiction' would appear to be more meaningful than Guerard's "anti-realist fiction" (49). For one, the concept advocated by Guerard is not precise enough; it lumps together modes of experimental fiction, such as Tabulation' and metafiction, which were best kept apart. On the one hand, Guerard argues, anti-realist fiction seeks to "re-imagine the world or create a new one", which is to say it fabulates; and on the other, he acknowledges that many of his anti-realist works are works written in the involuted Nabokov style, which means they are metafictions. Also, Guerard's argument is too rambling, too unorganised to qualify as the true 'rhetoric' it purports to be. What at best emerges from the forty-two pages as 'rhetorical' conventions of anti-realist fiction are these: a radical departure from 'real reality5 and the standard novel-form, a re-invention of the world, and experiment in "complex impressionistic and involuted form" (49). But then these three criteria are applicable to very different modes of fiction. According to Mas'ud Zavarzadeh, 'metafiction' and 'surfiction' (a term coined by Raymond Federman, Surfiction) are not to be taken as synonymous terms. Instead, they denote different subcategories of what Zavarzadeh calls "transfiction". Transfiction is, together with the non-fictional novel, a class of post-modernist—or following Zavarzadeh's terminology 'supramodernist'—narratives which, in paying tribute to the twentieth-century epistemological dilemma that the world is chaotic and indescribable, refuses to neutralise the contingent nature of reality by transforming it into a safe zone of unified meaning. It is constructed upon the principle of laying bare

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literary devices: "unmasking narrative conventions and turning them into counterconventions in order to shatter the illusion of reality which is the aesthetic foundation of the totalizing [i.e. the conventional] novel" (38). While metafiction, for Zavarzadeh, is a kind of fiction which turns in upon itself, transforming the process of writing into the subject of writing, surfiction is said to share many of metafiction's counter-techniques, but, at the same time, it is alleged to "prefer to move out of the aesthetically incestuous world of metafiction and directly engage the reality outside . . . the fictional discourse" (40). The differentiation does not seem to be of much cognitive value, especially since what Zavarzadeh's notion of surfiction is really intended to accommodate remains somewhat hazy. He names Steve Katz, Gilbert Sorrentino, Ronald Sukenick, Raymond Federman and Ishamel Reed as representatives of surfiction. But the works of these writers are divided from each other by such implacable differences that it is totally unwarrantable to group them together. Moreover, Zavarzadeh's interpretation of the concept of surfiction is questionable, as is his differentiation of the two modes. Federman himself has stated: . . . for me, the only fiction that still means something today is that kind of fiction that tries to explore the possibilities of fiction; the kind of fiction that challenges the tradition that governs it; the kind of fiction that constantly renews our faith in man's imagination and not in man's distorted sense of reality—that reveals man's irrationality rather than man's rationality. This I call SURFICTION. (Federman, Surfiction 7)

This is precisely what most other critics have taken the term 'metafiction' to denote. Federman may call it 'surfiction'; but in doing so he is just introducing yet another unnecessary term into the confusing nomenclature of literary criticism. Some may want to stress that a good many metafictions, especially those featuring a novel- or story-writing protagonist—^/ Swim-Two-Birds for example—are nothing else but Kiinstlerromane.9 However, Kiinstlerromane are not necessarily metanovels, any more than metanovels are readily to be classed as Kiinstlerromane. Inger Christensen has tried to differentiate the Such a view has been expressed by Annegret Maack, in her book-length study (Maack 19, 44-67); where she tries to make the point that the 'problematic novel' represents a development of the Kunstlerroman. The view is not unproblematic, as becomes evident when she lists Anthony Burgess's Enderby-novels, Beard's Roman Women, and Earthly Powers as cases in point. They are, however, not 'problematic novels' at all.

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two by contrasting Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance with Barth's The Floating Opera (Christensen 12), arguing that the difference is not to be sought in the fact that in a Kunstlerroman (exceptions proving the rule) there is no exploring of the process of its own becoming. (There may be some examples of the twentieth-century Kunstlerroman form where exactly this would be the case—for instance Proust's A la recherche—but, generally speaking, Christensen's diagnosis would seem to be a pertinent one.) Steven Kellman's notion of "the self-begetting novel" covers only part ofwhat metafiction is about. The self-begetting novel, according to Kellman, projects the illusion o f art creating itself... it is an account, usually first person, of the development o f a character to the point at which he is able to take up his pen and compose the novel we have just finished (Kellman 3).

While the definition requires self-consciousness on the part of the narrator/ protagonist, it restricts the fictions belonging to the category to those specimens of the Kunstlerroman-type of self-conscious fiction featuring a writer who, having lived through a series of experiences, decides to relate his life, or part of it, in the form of a novel. Such works as Proust's A la recherche, Sartre's La nausee, Butor's La modification, or Claude Mauriac's La Marquise sortit a cinq hemes fall into the category of the self-begetting novel, while the novels by writers such as Federman, Sukenick, Sorrentino, or Fowles, which are clearly metafictional in intent, do not, or so it must seem, since Kellman does not include them in his discussion. John Fletcher and Malcolm Bradbury use the term "the introverted novel" in connection with the works of such writers as Nabokov, Spark, and Grass, arguing that by the turn of the century the novel seems to have had no other way to go and therefore "it turned in upon itselP. Realising that the novelistic 'introversion' is not solely confined to the twentieth century, but was in fact prefigured in the eighteenth century, Fletcher and Bradbury distinguish between "narrative introversion" which characterises the twentiethcentury novel, and "the mode of self-conscious narration", which belongs to the eighteenth century. Thus a novel like Tristram Shandy seeks to draw attention to "the autonomy of the narrator", while the later techniques draw attention to "the autonomy of the fictive structure itself' (394 f.). These are rum arguments, for Tristram Shandy throws into sharp relief not only the autonomy of the narrator, but that of the narrative as well and to the same degree. There are, in fact, more similarities between eighteenth-century and twentieth-century metafiction than differences, so that Inger Christensen is right in claiming that "the expressions 'the introverted novel' and 'the self-

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conscious mode' seem equally applicable to Tristram Shandy as to Molloy" (Christensen 10). O n e last term is worth considering: anti-roman or 'anti-novel'. The expression was coined by Sartre to describe Nathalie Sarraute's first novel Portrait d'un inconnu (Mercier 10). M. H. Abrams defines this class of fiction as being deliberately constructed in a negative fashion, relying for its effect on omitting or annihilating traditional elements of the novel, and on playing against the expectations established in the reader by the novelistic methods and conventions of the past. (Abrams 144 'novel')

If one accepts Abrams's notion, a metanovel would have to be differentiated from an anti-novel. The two modes have certainly some characteristics in common. The primary concern of both types is a debunking of established principles of writing fiction, together with an attempt to overcome, against the background of accepted codes, their deficiencies and to lay out new methods. An anti-novel, it is true, complies largely with the demands of M. H. Abrams in that "it is deliberately constructed in a negative fashion ..." In debunking established conventions, the author of an anti-novel produces another novel which, by virtue of its anti-character, may point to a new way of conceiving a work of fiction. But he, generally, undertakes this task covertly. The difference between a metafiction and an anti-novel, then, lies in the fact that the former reflects the conditions of writing and reading novels consciously and overtly, whereas the latter treats of these matters covertly. Apart from that, it would seem to be true to contend, as William H. Gass has done, that "many of the so-called anti-novels are really metanovels", even though Gass's concept of metafiction—i.e. a class of fiction "in which the forms of fiction serve as the material upon which further forms can be imposed" (Gass, Facts 25)—is truly too ambivalent to be useful. It is helpful to remind oneself of the difference between metafiction and anti-novel, since quite often the terms and concepts are used in an unpardonably indiscriminate manner, for example in J. T. Shipley's Dictionary of World Literary Terms, where Tristram Shandy is referred to as an example of the anti-novel, which is explained as a "protest against the conventions of novelistic forms" (quoted in Christensen 9). Each and every experimental fiction represents a protest against the conventions of novelistic forms. In that sense, each and every experimental fiction is an anti-fiction. Yet there are overt and there are covert protests.

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III. METAFICTION VERSUS REALISTIC FICTION: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LITERATURE AND LIFE Metafiction is in a considerable measure concerned with the relationship between literature and life. It explores the creative process, demonstrates what it can creatively bring forth, and tests that something against the figures of life. In a way, metafictions are offered—or so the writer-protagonist in William Golding's The Paper Men phrases it—"as a counterbalance to the prisoner's habit of scrawling lies on paper into a shape that the weak-minded have taken as guide, comforter and friend, allegedly, often to their own cost" (47). This frequently involves a reckoning up with the artistic pretensions of realistic fiction, or the Great Tradition of the realistic novel. Among contemporary practitioners there appears to be a distinct preference for disrupting the realistic way of composing fiction and for undermining the realist's claim to mimesis. The point is to demonstrate that art, literature, is essentially non-representional and autoreflexive (Ecopassim, Mukarovsky passim). Realistic fiction does not truly recreate reality, these writers aim to teach their readers; it does not present a slice of life, but an illusion, a fiction, an artefact. The novel, ofwhatever provenance, is habitually deemed to be concerned with imitating life,10 whether that be in the form of eighteenth-century 'histories' the many different kinds of nineteenth-century fiction, or a work by Virginia Woolf or William Faulkner. Yet one may recall Beckett's dictum that telling stories is telling lies, reiterated on numerous occasions by other metafictionists, including B. S. Johnson in Albert Angelo.n Metafictionists seem to abhor the idea of emulating reality; they cry out in disgust, perhaps in more sophisticated terms than the narrator in Johnson's Albert Angelo: "—fuck all this lying look what I am really trying to write about is writing" (167). Perhaps no other contemporary writer has more intriguingly and clearly exemplified the appropriateness of Beckett's belief that telling stories is telling lies than Beckett himself, for example in Molloy. Part II starts offwith the narrator, Jacques Moran, asserting: "It is midnight. The rain is beating on the windows" (99). At the end of his report, Moran repeats the initial two sentences: "It is midnight. The rain is beating on the windows" (189). However, he The classical notion is of course "ars imitatur naturam in sua operationewhich is to say that art does not really reproduce nature, but nature's modus operandi, thus creating something that is equivalent to nature; cf. Eco 358. Johnson, Albert Angelo. See also Parrinder 45 f.

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adds two further statements which are in patent contradiction to these two sentences: "It was not midnight. It was not raining" (189), thus casting doubt on the authenticity of his entire account. For if his first remarks are nothing but lies, why should his story detailing his quest for Molloy be true? Similarly, Claude Mauriac's novel La Marquise sortit a cinq heures begins: "The marquise went out at five o'clock", and concludes with the retraction: "The marquise did not go out at five o'clock". The interest of metafiction in realism is above all directed at analysing the true relationship between fiction, art, and life. The notion that fiction, in particular the naturalistic or realistic novel, mirrors, or represents, life is revealed as a case of pathetic fallacy. Instead of entering into a contest with the realist, metafictionists try to stress, by dint of their works, that art can never become a true copy of reality, or as Barth has put it: A different way to come to terms with the discrepancy between art and the Real Thing is to affirm the artificial element in art (you can't get rid of it anyhow), and make the artifice part of your point instead ofworking for higher and higher fi... That would be my way. (Enck 6)

Reality and fiction are found to be two entirely different entities. Besides the seemingly purposeful and consistent, but actually chaotic, reality of everyday life, there exists a second, infinitely variable 'poetic' reality, which* is constituted through a search for sense, through the perceptive operations of the human mind. Raymond Federman, Beckett scholar and himself author of mindstartling metafictions, has asserted: Fiction cannot be reality, or a representation of reality, or an imitation, or even a recreation of reality, it can only be a reality... To create fiction is, in fact, a way to abolish reality, and especially to abolish the notion that reality is truth, (qtd in: Pütz 19)

The narrator Van Veen, in Nabokov's metafictional "family chronicle" Ada, maintains: "... the confusion of two realities, one in single, the other in double quotes, was a symptom of impending insanity" (182). Metafiction works against such a confusion, the confusion of the 'reality' which is art—the reality in single quotes because, according to Nabokov, it is the only one that can claim to be 'real'—and the "reality" that is normally associated with the term, but is in fact a figment of the imagination and therefore has to have double quotes. In his essay on "Mimesis and the Motive for Fiction", Robert Alter has strongly argued against the view that metafiction, or self-conscious fiction, is

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anti-mimetic. Distinguishing the realistic novel and the self-conscious novel as the two fundamentally different classes to have emerged in the history of fiction, different since the former seeks to maintain a relatively consistent illusion of reality, while the latter sets out to destroy this illusion deliberately, Alter finds these two classes equally dependent on mimesis. In regard to realistic fiction, the dependence is only too apparent. As for the self-conscious novel, he holds: The self-conscious novel... was never meant to be an abandonment of mimesis, but rather an enormous complication and sophistication of it: mimesis is enacted as its problematics are explored. (239)

To lend substantiation to his contention, Alter argues the case of Tristram Shandy and Nabokov's Transparent Things, which betrays its metafictional intention by its very title. The multiplication of circumstances and the excess of coincidence which govern Tristram Shandy flaunt and flout pattern-making, or plot-making, in fiction. As we read the book, we see potential relationships everywhere; any element in the account can coincide with any other. Transparent Things is a demonstration of the extent to which a novelist can explore the possibilities of turning information into form. 12 As the narrator asserts: "It teems with transparent people and processes, into which and through which we might sink with an angel's or author's delight" (Nabokov, Transparent Things 48). That Sterne was ultimately after a sophistication of mimesis is, for Alter, proved by the "popularity [of Tristram Shandy] throughout the age of realism of the nineteenth century" (240). Of Transparent Things, he writes: "... the self-conscious ploys have the double effect... of laying bare the artifice and at the same time using the artifice to create a heightened sense of mimesis" (241). Though intriguing on first consideration, Alter's argument is not fully convincing, involving as it does a distortion of the term 'mimesis' as well as a failure to take sufficiently into account the attitude of the metafictionist towards mimesis. In the case of Tristram Shandy, it is true that the popularity the novel enjoyed in the "age of realism" stemmed from the Victorians' decision to read it as a piece of mimetic fiction. This circumstance, rather than corroborating Alter's contention about the mimetic endeavours of metafiction, points to a profound misunderstanding on the part of the Victorian readers. For Sterne appears to have striven not so much towards representing reality in the realist manner, but towards demonstrating the impossibility of For a detailed discussion of this aspect, see Rosenblum.

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capturing the life and times of his main character through mimesis, as when he has Tristram confess that, no matter how hard he tries, he will never be able to put down in words what he experiences, since he grows older more quickly than he can write. The self-conscious ploys in Transparent Things may indeed have the double effect Alter speaks of, but Nabokov5s attitude toward mimesis, like Sterne's, is fundamentally different from the realist's. Whereas the realist, from Defoe onwards to the present, has employed conventions of fiction to sustain mimesis without disruption, Nabokov and the other metafictionists have created a heightened sense of mimesis preeminently in order to lay bare its inadequacy as an artistic approach. When Alter maintains that in Transparent Things "mimesis . . . is focusssed not on an object, or kind of person but on a set of cognitive processes" (242), he falls victim to distorting the term unduly. 13 For 'mimesis' to Aristotle, if the customary reading of the Poetics is correct, seems indeed to be referring to people and their deeds and actions. It is surely rather capricious to interpret Aristotle's remarks about mimesis, and likewise the notion of mimesis usually derived from these remarks, as including the imitation, through certain textual strategies, of the various cognitive processes involved in the reading of a literary text. One way of differentiating metafiction and traditional fiction would be to suggest that in the latter there is an author (of extra-literary ontological status) who invents a narrator to whom he assigns the task of relating a story that is, generally, addressed to a reader who like the author has his place outside the story. Sometimes the narrator may also direct his story at a different class of reader, an implied reader (Preston; and esp. Iser, Der implizite Leser), who is part of the fictional world. The elements of traditional fiction would thus involve the following: authoi^narrator—story—(implied reader)—actual reader. Now, what happens in metafiction is the intrusion of the author into the fictional fabric. One critic has termed this kind of intrusion "the entering of the frame" (Pearce, "Enter the Frame"). This is of course not to say that the extra-literary author steps into the fictional world. Instead he invents, in addition to the narrator, a persona whom Nabokov has called "an anthropomorphic deity impersonated by me", someone like the author-figure who, at the end of Bend Sinister, stretches himself and gets up "from among the chaos of written and unwritten pages, to investigate the sudden twang that something had made in striking the wire netting of [his] window" (200). This Hutcheon has advanced similar ideas, which shall be of concern later, when discussing Hutcheon's study.

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is a persona who finds his counterpart in the implied reader-figure. By comparison, the elements that go into the making of a metafiction are these: actual author—implied author—narrator (who may be identical with the implied author-persona)—story—implied reader—actual reader. If, for the moment, one decides to refrain from arguing with the metafictionists about whether their assault on the realist tradition is always successful and, above all, meaningful, one may nonetheless want to know more precisely why there is such a concentrated dislike of the realist and his brand of fiction. This loathing they share of course with the practitioners of other avantgarde forms of art and literature. On the whole, metafictionists have made no bones about possible reasons for their attitude. One is, as Ronald Sukenick has argued, because the novel as a literary form is, by and large and in some quarters exclusively, associated with realism: It's a question of breaking down the conventions of realism. It's just that the novel has been identified with realism for so long, you know, so when you say the novel you think of the realistic novel (Bellamy 57).

Another reason is grounded in the more hostile conviction according to which realism and, more specifically, the realistic novel marks a stage in the history of literature where the evolution of narrative prose took a turn for the worse. As far as artistic stature is concerned, realism is considered to be despicably guilty of epistemological wrong-headedness as well as of creative shortcomings and inadequacies, in brief: it is seen as a mediocre form of literature. John Barth sees it as "a kind of aberration in the history of literature" (Bellamy 4). With onslaughts like Barth's, one cannot help feeling that realism is often a mere scapegoat, necessary to justify one's own artistic efforts, to excuse carefully concealed deficiencies and highlight one's own presumed achievement. Two things are worth bearing in mind. First, many of these polemical statements are supposedly made tongue-in-cheek, and some are simply too nonsensical to be meant seriously, as for instance Sukenick's inveighing against the traditional novel, which leads him in "The Death of the Novel" to a no-meaning, no-form, no-nothing theory of fiction, or Barth's, in Chimera, which results in the belief that the novel will eventually eschew even language. And second, the target of criticism is not so much nineteenth-century but twentieth-century realism, not the Victorian tradition—although the bulk of Victorian fiction would warrant the assault—but those works which, epigonally, make use of nineteenth-century conventions for the expression of twentieth-century ideas.

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Yet the ineluctable question cannot be suppressed: how, despite the assertion that metafiction has no patience for reality, does it relate to reality after all? A writer can hardly go on writing about writing without somehow commenting on the reality which is the process of writing. John Barth's story "Petition" (Lost in the Funhouse) provides an interesting answer. It is about incompatible Siamese twins. The 'petitioning' brother is an intelligent, almost mandarin, figure, who seeks 'disjunction' from the coarse, brutish, appetitive brother, to whose back he is stuck. "He's incoherent but vocal; I'm articulate but mute" (68). The incoherent brother may be taken as a metaphor for life, in his headlong energy, constantly shrugging off the attempts of language for which the articulate brother stands. Language would be happy to pursue its inclination to ponder its elegant patterning in pure detachment from the soiling contact of reality (cf. Tanner 254). But no matter whether the twins are disjoined or not, they are still brothers and are related. Metafiction, in a large measure, has no other pretension than to be simply play, in the sense in which all art is play.14 Now, games are artificial constructs; they are governed by rules which are internal to the games themselves (and indeed are the games) and which have no necessary connections to the external world; they are hermetic products of the imagination. Fictions constitute separate ontological entities; they are, like every work of art, autoreflexive. (Cf. Eco 73; Iser, Akt des Lesens 105) What they express is essentially directed not to some other ontological entity—reality—but to themselves, to their own nature. Metafiction, like all literature, constitutes what has been called a 'poetic reality', one that is not given, does not exist 'out there' but is helped into being through the artist's creative efforts. Metafictions create what Nabokov, in Ada, has his main characters, Van Veen and Ada, call "our terrible Antiterra" (338), as opposed to "Terra, the Fair", that which is normally referred to as 'reality5. Or take Eben's view in Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor, according to which the flights of imagination are not to be regarded as imitations of, but alternatives to, the existing world.15 Since the literary revolution in the eighteenth century the claim has existed that the artistic creativity (or poiesis) bring forth, in what the 'maker" produces as his work, something that is more than merely another, possibly more beautiful, natura\ it should force into existence a different, hitherto unrealised, world. Goethe observed in 1809, 14

15

This is Ortega y Gasset's opinion as expressed in The Dehumanization of Art, see Bradbury and McFarlane 28. Cf. Inger Christensen's finely perceptive analysis of The Sot-Weed Factor (78 ff.).

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when addressing Duke Reinhard, "Das Gedicht behauptet sein Recht wie das Geschehen". It is no doubt preposterous, even blasphemous, to line him up with Goethe, but Nabokov's Charles Kinbote, in one of his comments on John Shade's poem "Pale Fire", expresses a similar conviction, and more outspokenly, too: "'reality' is neither the subject nor the object of true art which creates its own special reality having nothing to do with the average 'reality' perceived by the communal eye" (Nabokov, Pale Fire 106). Kinbote may be insane, yet there is truth in his contention. And Nabokov goes even so far as to assert that the only reality is the reality of the imagination. This belief has been of incontestable significance at least since Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu. A la recherche represents a vast group of modern narratives in which the quest for truth is answered by the discovery that truth is to be found only in the reality of the artistic activity, much in the sense in which "the real thing" in Henry James's story of the same title is that which is imagined by the artist, created by the transfiguring powers of art, by "the sublime economy of art" (Preface to The Spoils ofPoynton). Metafictionists believe the same, hence their concentration on, and preoccupation with, analysing the creative act and the world of imagination. It is the only world that possesses durability and stability, because—in the words of Joyce Gary's supreme artistfigure, Gulley Jimson—"the world of imagination is the world of eternity" (Cary 283). Richard Poirier has, In A World Elsewhere, voiced the opinion: The idea that through language it is possible to create environments radically different from those supported by economic, political, and social systems is one o f the sustaining myths of literature (5).

It may be a myth, but then myths express archetypal meanings, or truth. But to forgo bootless controversy, one may perhaps suggest in regard to the relationship between reality and art that the world of imagination and the 'real' world we inhabit stand to one another in what has been called "wechselseitige Horizonthaftigkeit" (Stierle 378; see also Iser, Akt des Lesens 88, 132). This is to say that the world of imagination serves as a 'horizon' for the world as perceived by the communal eye, and vice versa. Or as Nabokov, on the strength of his concepts of "Antiterra" and "Terra" in Ada, has observed, the worlds of fiction and reality should be seen as possibilities in the mind of the perceiver, be he a character in a fiction or a 'real' character in "Terra, the Fair". There are certainly problems involved in this suggestion; for instance metafictionists, Nabokov for one, deny that literature can reflect life. And yet literature is neither produced nor set in limbo; it is surely part of what is nor-

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mally understood as reality,16 but, and here metafiction finds one of its expressive as well as thematic goals, it represents only itself, not something other than itself. For the metafictionist, the only certain reality is the reality of his discourse; his discourse is in the form of a process, a process in a twofold sense: between words on a page resulting in a formation of textual units, and between a text and a reader through which a literary work of art is brought into its own. Metafiction's supreme artistic goal is to make the reader become aware of this process. Since Wilhelm Worringer's seminal doctoral dissertation, Abstraction and Empathy, 'non-naturalism'—and metafiction belongs to this class of a r t has come to be viewed as an artistic expression of the relationship between man and the cosmos as one of disharmony and disequilibrium, whereas naturalism, in the Greek and the classical period, or from the Renaissance to the close of the nineteenth century, has been created by cultures characterised by a belief in an equilibrium between man and the universe. The twentieth century has variously been apostrophied as having placed man in confrontation with the universe, where—to adopt Camus's simile—he asks the universe to yield its meaning but is met with silence. The world is felt by metafictionists—but also by writers of other kinds of literature, most notably by the so-called absurdists (cf. Harris 17-32)—to be out of harmony, chaotic, absurd. There has been much ado in the literary criticism of the last four decades about the 'crisis of language' about "silence and the poet", to employ the title of one of George Steiner's essays, in Language and Silence. The common tendency is to suggest that silence plays such a prominent role in postmodern literature because the postmodern writer is forced to acknowledge the fact that language has been totally exhausted as a medium of expression. This may be true. And yet why, if this be true, do writers rely on writing such tomes in order to tell the reader that language is of no use any more? And, furthermore, what is often overlooked, perhaps never sufficiently taken into account, is that reality, or—in Ionesco's terminology— "the living truth", with which all true art is concerned, is no longer conveyable,17 is essentially chaotic, disjointed, out of harmony, and any form of art that attempts to mirror the world in terms of linguistic constructs relying 16

17

Cf. Eco 217 ff., where he argues: "Der eigentliche Inhalt des Kunstwerks wird damit seine Art, die Welt zu sehen und zu beurteilen, ausgedrückt in seinem Gestaltungsmodus, und auf dieser Ebene muß dann auch die Untersuchung der Beziehung zwischen Kunst und Welt geführt werden .. Cf. here Steiner's argument (74 f.).

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on a logical concatenation of events must necessarily be insincere. As Alvin J. Seltzer, one representative of a host of like-minded critics, has pointed out: . . . most contemporary novelists (whether they delight in or despair o f their view) see life a s . . . an interesting but ultimately meaningless jumble o f phenomena which simultaneously tempt and thwart our efforts to structure impressions into meaningful patterns (2).

B. S. Johnson, for instance, has observed: Life does not tell stories. Life ist chaotic; it leaves myriads o f ends untied. Writers can extract a story from life only by strict close selection, and this must mean falsification (Aren't You Rather Young 14).

Man is thought to have been forced into the position occupied by John Gardner's Grendel, who reflects: "I understood that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears" (12). As the Dragon teaches Grendel, reality cannot be known and therefore cannot be represented by art. Of the Shaper, who may be seen as a personification of the archetypal artist, the Dragon goes on to say that he provides an illusion o f reality—puts together all [the] facts with a gluey whine o f connectedness. Mere tripe, believe me. Mere sleight-of-wits. He knows n o more than they [i.e. the c o m m o n people for w h o m he shapes his songs] do about total reality—less, if anything . . . (17)

Metafictionists strive to avoid the realist's sleight-of-hand. If they choose, together with exposing the cheap artistic trickery of the realist, to reflect the chaos of life, they set out to accomplish this task in the only legitimate manner possible: to reflect the chaos by means of chaos. Contrary to the opinion widely held among both writers and critics that this is a phenomenon characteristic of the twentieth century, it is a creative wish that was operative as early as the seventeenth century. For as Wolfgang Theile has shown, the impossibility of coming to terms with the incoherent nature of reality compelled a writer such as Paul Scarron, in Le roman comique (1651/57), to present a seemingly chaotic vision of life shot through with poetological reflections on the novelistic procedure adopted for the presentation (Theile 18f.). Whereas traditional fiction endeavours to capture the world in—to use a catchphrase—Henry James's "house of fiction" (Preface to The Portrait of a Lady) as an appropriate method of recreating, in a well-structured, finely crafted 'house' the ordered principles of life, metafiction, laughing at the nonsensical, absurd, chaotic nature of reality, attempts to construct Borge-

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sian labyrinths and Barthian fiinhouses (Cf. Schòpp 142). Quite a few writers of metafìction would seem to subscribe to the conviction voiced by the narrator in Raymond Federman's Take It or Leave It: . . . I don't give a damn about T H E ORDER OF THINGS because me, I do not relate, I do not narrate, I do not recite in order to create order, rather not! O n the contrary what I do has to do with the problem o f reading and writing. And not L'ECRITURE! 18

Writing about writing, if that is a major concern of the metafictionist, is in a sense a consequent outcome of a particular tendency in the literature of the last hundred years. As Marianne Kesting has shown (26ff.), since the middle of the last century there have appeared in literature inactive principal characters who demonstratively withdraw into the privacy of their own four walls, or, even, their own minds. The novel, and also drama, has increasingly replaced the conventional 'hero' by what has come to be known as the 'antihero'. This development begins roughly with Frédéric Moreau, in Flaubert's L'Education sentimentale, and counts among its other instances such personae as the one in Dostoevsky's Notesfrom Underground, where the term 'antihero' is used probably for the first time, or Melville's Bartleby of "Bartleby the Scrivener", who, "oblivious to everything but his own peculiar business", meets the affairs and demands of the world with a repetitive, mild "I would prefer not to", and takes shelter in the "cool tranquility of a snug retreat" (71, 60). One noteworthy group of anti-heroes withdraw to their desks to write, as for instance the writer in André Gide's Paludes. They do so because they feel nauseated by the inevitable triviality in which the bustling confusion that is their environment exhausts itself. Asked why he has retired to his desk, Gide's character explains: "I don't know—possibly to act". Writing has become the only meaningful activity; it is a sort of writing that, within the pages of a book, attempts to establish a meaning which the world cannot give. The process of fiction-making becomes the only diagnosable reality. But this kind of withdrawal on the part of the anti-hero does not, paradoxically, lead to a complete exclusion of reality in favour of a solipsistic exploration of a mind and its imaginative efforts; rather it effects a fathoming of reality just the same. One of the main tenets of Sensualism is "nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu", or as Locke phrased it in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding: "There appear not to be any ideas in the 18

Federman, Take It or Leave It ch. 20. Page reference cannot be given as the book does not possess pagination.

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mind before the senses have conveyed any in" (Qtd. in: Resting 33). If there is really nothing in the mind that is not always present in the external world of experience, a retreat into the world of one's mind and imagination does not mean an absolute separation from the external world. Instead, a particular mind, by exploring its own working processes as well as their creations, betrays what sort of relicts of experience, what possibilities of diagnosing reality it encompasses. Metafiction pursues the same objectives as René Magritte's metapictures, such as his minutely and deceptively realistic painting of a pipe, "La trahison des images" (1929), which bears the inscription "Ceci n e s t pas une pipe". Magritte thematises the aesthetic problems of the relationship between reality and art. The pipe is not a real pipe, only flat canvas on which, by means of paint, the illusion is generated that the perceiver thinks he is seeing a real pipe. The fallacy of mistaking art for reality is also the thematic idea informing Magritte's 'picture-paintings', as they have come to be called, for instance "Le Soir qui tombe" (1964), "La belle captive" (1931), "La condition humaine" (1933), "Les Promenades d'Euclide" (1955). These, generally, show a landscape, and in the foreground there is a painting on an easel which diligently renders that part of the scenery it is hiding from view. The picturepaintings simulate an identical likeness between reality and its artistic duplicate; however they do so in order to lay bare the fictionality of realistic art, of the whole painting as well as of the painting within the painting. W h a t the painting on the easel presents only appears to be congruent with what it is hiding, but it can never be that detail of reality. To call into question, to have a "subversive effect" (René Magritte's term) on the way art is habitually taken in, to rouse consciousness—these are some of the aims the Surrealists entrusted their art with. These are also the goals of the metafictionists; they want to 'irritate' the customary approach to fiction. Magritte's meta-pictures and picture-paintings harbour still another implication. Indisputably, they show up the artificial nature of the paintingwithin-the-painting. At the same time they leave no doubt that the landscape in which the easel is placed, as for instance in "La condition humaine", is in no way more 'real' it having likewise been painted by Magritte on a flat canvas. This landscape can be regarded as representing reality in general, the reality which the painting-within-the-painting seeks to represent. But, so Magritte is telling the viewer, it too is a fiction, a product of the artist's sleightof-hand. The situation is similar in metafiction. The issue is very nearly identical. Jorge Luis Borges has credited it with an ontological dimension. The novel-within-the-novel device and certain self-reflexive strategies disclose

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the artificial nature of the narrative in which they figure. Borges has maintained: "Every novel is an ideal plane inserted into the realm of reality" (Borges 229). And this realm of reality, if one brings Magritte's point to bear here, may easily be nothing but another fiction at one remove, as Borges has concluded his observations on self-reflexiveness in literature: ... if the characters of a fictional work can be readers or spectators, we, its readers or spectators, can be fictitious. In 1883, Carlyle observed that the history of the universe is an infinite sacred book that all men write and read and try to understand, and in which they are also written. (23)

IV. THE MAIN COMPOSITIONAL MEANS OF METAFICTION Metafiction's most conspicuous and salient feature, which distinguishes it from all other forms of experimental fiction, is the self-conscious narrator 19 who, having 'entered the frame' (Pearce, "Enter the Frame" 71-82), comments freely on what he is doing while he is spinning his yarn. In him, almost all of the thematic preoccupations and structural components converge; in him, they have their origin. If no other textual principle is employed to hold a metafiction together, the consciousness of the self-aware narrator serves this purpose. Tristram Shandy's consciousness, if cluttered, is a case in point. The self-conscious narrator can do one of two things; he can either relate the entire fiction or only part of it. In the first case, he features as an identified, or unidentified, authorial voice that has, as it were, no higher and mightier narratorial authority above him, who recognisably manipulates him, as for instance in William H. Gass's Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife, where the titular lady ruminates on sundry aspects of fiction writing and fiction reading. In the second, the self-aware narrator is discovered as a character who, in the context of the fiction he figures in, is engaged in the writing of a fiction or simply in the telling of a story. Here the narrator is clearly dissociated from a superior authorial voice which provides a frame-story for the narrator's inchoate fiction and who recognisably pulls his strings. The latter case results in the well-known 'Chinese-box' structure of the book-within19

See here Booth; Burden, "The Novel Interrogates ItselP; Alter, Partial Magic. Cf. also Stanzel 447, where Stanzel narrows the reference of the term, as given by Booth, to designate the narratorial stance realised in Tristram Shandy.

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the-book type. The 'Chinese-box' idea can stop at a small variety of'boxes', as in O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds-, or it can be developed to extremes, as in some of Barth's fictions, for instance in "Menelaiad", where Barth builds up an almost absurdly intricate pattern of stories-within-the-story, whose compositional principle he discloses to the reader through a varying number of brackets and quotation marks, with the pattern encompassing such textual gimmicks as "('(("Me too."))')" (145). The self-conscious narrator in the role of a fiction writer within a fiction is a most popular device; it has, in fact, been used so abundantly that Gilbert Sorrentino, in his 'Chinese-box' novel Mulligan Stew, can have his fictitious novelist, Antony Lamont, declare: "The idea of a novel about a writer writing a novel is truly old hat" (Sorrentino 224). The frequency with which the 'Chinese-box' pattern occurs in contemporary metafiction has induced D. H. Lowenkron to advance this definition: A metanovel is a work in which an inner fiction, narrated by an inner persona, is intercalated in an outer one. The inner novelist perceives while he is perceived, creates while he is created, and has free will while he is determined. (343)

The definition may hold for a fiction such as Federman's Double or Nothing, which pretends to be the story about a rather stubborn and determined middle-aged man [who] decided to record..., exactly as it happened..., the story of another m a n . . . , who had decided to lock himself in a room..., in New York City, for a year..., to write the story of another person . . . who after the war . . . had come to America... from France . . . (0)

Generally, though, it is a definition far too restrictive to accommodate the various manifestations of metafiction. Another prominent method employed by metafictionists to throw into relief the artifice-nature of their narratives is to treat a chosen mode of fiction in a parodic vein. This conspicuous propensity for parody has misled some critics20 to contend that metafiction is identical with, or a sub-class of, parodic fiction. There can be no gainsaying that parody is of considerable allure to the metafictionist. B. S. Johnson's novel Christie Malry's Own DoubleEntry is a parody of the Lucky-Jim type of the 'angry-young-men' novel. Or Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor and Johnson's Travelling People read in large parts as send-ups of the eighteenth-century picaresque novel. Barth has remarked in an interview about The Sot-Weed Factor. 20

Rose; Burden, "The Novel Interrogates Itself'; Burden, John Fowles.

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Another of the things I wanted to do in that novel was to see if I could make up a plot more complicated than the plot in TomJones, and wrap up all the loose ends without missing one. Whatever the merits and demerits of the n o v e l . . . I think it does have a better plot, not in the sense of human value, but in the sense simply of baroque complications neatly sewed up (McKenzie 137).

Barth's story "Lost in the Funhouse" can, on one semantic level, be assessed as a parody of the initiation story. Of the issues taken up by Barth, one is concerned with the artistic aspects ofwriting an initiation story, and another with the question of the relevance of such stories. Fairly early on, the narrator asks himself, and of course the reader, too: "Is anything more tiresome, in fiction, than the problems of sensitive adolescents?" (Barth, Lost in the Funhouse 95) Donald Barthelme's Snow White is, most accessibly, a parodic treatment of the German fairy tale of the same title. John Hawkes's The Lime Twig, through purposely disrupting the expectations connected with the genre, is a parody of the detective novel and the thriller, most blatantly of the soporific nature of the stereotype plot-sequence in a narrative of this description (Cf. Burden, John Fowles 286 ff.) John Gardner's Grendel attains parodic stature by inverting pre-existing literary works and figures. In almost all of Richard Brautigan's fictions, there is at work a turning inside out of the thematic as well as structural conventions of the pastoral romance. Exemplarily achieved in Trout Fishing in America, Brautigan's purpose is to flaunt the non-relevance for the present time of the myth of a rural, pastoral America, as epitomised for instance in the motif of trout fishing. (Cf. Pütz 105-29; see also Mellard 155-68) The master parodist among twentieth-century metafictionists is, beyond doubt, Vladimir Nabokov. In a sense, almost all of his book-length fictions, and also some of his stories, are parodies of narrative modes. The Eye parodies the nineteenth-century romantic tale, while Laughter in the Dark is a cold mocking of the conventions of the love-triangle. Despair is a burlesque reworking of the cheap mystery' or a Doppelgänger story. The Gift parodies the major nineteenth-century Russian writers. Invitation to a Beheading and Bend Sinister are mock anti-utopian novels. Pnin masquerades as an 'academic novel' and turns out to be an burlesque of the fictional biography. Lolita, finally, is a burlesque of the confessional mode, a literary diary, the Romantic novel that chronicles the effects of a debilitating love, and the Doppelgänger tale; it is also a parody of psycho-analytical literature. (Cf. Grabes, Fictitious Biographies 39) A parody is most successful if it manages to poke fun and to offer constructive criticism at the same time. Metafiction levels its derisive laughter pre-eminently at two aspects of preceding narrative modes. There is, first, the

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exhaustive nature of the conventions pertaining to these modes. The use of parody in metafiction—but also of parody in other kinds of experimental fiction—derives, to a major degree, from a distrust of, and embarrassment at, realising the staleness of inherited rules and strategies (Cf. Guerard 17 f.). With 'the literature of exhaustion', John Barth ("Literature of Exhaustion") has introduced an attractive epithet for the scapegoat of metafiction's parodic treatment; it is, ironically, an epithet which, from indiscriminate application, is itself becoming exhausted. The second target at which metafiction aims its derisive laughter has to do with the artistic pretensions of those modes of fiction which it treats in parodic terms. Metafiction seeks to demonstrate that the claims made by a particular narrative genre with regard to how it is able to capture reality are fraudulent. The relevance of these two objects of laughter notwithstanding, poking fun should not be an end in itself of a parody. It will degenerate into barbed witticism, if it stops at ridiculing. This is the danger inherent in the parodic mode, which its practitioners must permanently guard against, or also their efforts will merely yield, as Earl Rovit has put it, bewildering playthings in which [the] . . . obsessive order operates on the principles of a Rube Goldberg machine, each part frenetically fulfilling its own function, while the function of the total machine is one of self-enclosed uselessness (80).

Parody has of course always been a significant element in the shaping of a novel. At its most convincing, the parodic novel will transcend its initial aim of caricatured imitation via constructive criticism to the presentation of alternatives. In the twentieth-century parody novel, and not infrequently in metafiction, it has, to worrying proportions, become an empty vessel, a cosmetic design, decorative, playful, ultimately turning upon itself in bitterness (Rovit 80).

Parody must, as the narrator in Nabokov's The Real Life of Sebastian Knight suggests, become "a kind of springboard for leaping into the highest region of serious emotion" (85). One such concern for Nabokov is to demonstrate the power of imagination. Indubitably, metafiction can only be an artistic success if it manages to offer constructive criticism and propose ways of overcoming the limitations of conventional fiction. Four of these ways recommend themselves to be singled out. First, a number of writers have found it a challenge, after exposing the staleness of a given genre, to enter into artistic competition with it. For instance, Barth wrote The Sot-Weed Factor partly to out-Fielding the intri-

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cacies of plot in Tom Jones. As for the second way, when Ambrose, in the title story of Lost in the Funhouse, has accepted his vocation to become an artist, he is faced with the decision out of what sort of material he can, in fact, construct his funhouses, so that his successors will find it tempting to try and find their way through them. Ambrose the artist, representing Barth the fictionist, knowing about the staleness of the traditional devices and having exposed their used-up forces, significantly enough resorts to relating ancient myths. The recourse to the earliest forms of fiction stems from two considerations: the belief that in order to resuscitate fiction, one has to go back to the very roots of fiction, start from scratch, develop the art of telling stories anew and try to avoid the mistakes made by the first line of story-tellers; and the conviction that, because every story worth the telling has already been told, there can only be a re-telling of the old, familiar tales, but from vantage-points that are new and contemporary and therefore will invest the tales with fresh insight. The latter tendency is observable in such fictions as Gardner's Grendel, Barthelme's Snow White, John Seelye's The true adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Coover's Pricksongs Descants (quite a telling tide, as these contemporary versions often represent descants), or Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber. What has further convinced metafictionists of the necessity to turn back to older subject-matters, especially to myths, is the entirely fictional quality of myths. If a fiction quite intentionally discloses itself to be nothing but a fiction and if it wants to stay true to its nature, the only story it can possibly relate must, of necessity, be about personae and incidents that are also completely fictitious. Myths, legends, and fairy tales offer both. The third alternative metafictionists have advanced is bound up with new theories of fiction, which many of them have openly promulgated in their works. Earlier practitioners, like Cervantes and Sterne, refrained from expressing complete clear-cut theories within the pages of their novels, and instead restricted their occasional theoretical observations to a few aspects, while the overall notion informing the novel was left merely to shine through the construction. But at least since Andre Gide's The Counterfeiters, writers have freely incorporated whole treatises into their fictions. O'Brien, in At Swim-Two-Birds, B. S.Johnson, in Travelling People,John Barth, in Chimera, Ronald Sukenick, in "The Death of the Novel", William H. Gass, in Willie Masters'Lonesome Wife, Raymond Federman, in Double or Nothing and Take It or Leave It, and Gilbert Sorrentino, in Mulligan Stew, and many others have all proffered ideas which present alternatives to existing practices of writing fiction. Invariably, the pieces accommodating these ideas are used as a testing ground for them.

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Fourthly, and lastly, writers of metafiction have aimed at liberating the reader from the confines and compulsions particular conventional modes of fiction exercise over him on the strength of specific compositional strategies. William Gass has dealt with this matter paradigmatically in Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife. From the point of view of fiction itself, a work being read in the customary manner is equated with being made love to by an unresponsive lover, one who puts "his penis in a plastic bag" and "afterwards [carries] his seed off safely in a sack" (fourth section). Instead the reader is requested to participate not as a mere consumer, adopting a passive attitude, but as an active, creative partner who is indispensable in bringing to life a literary work of art. It is, arguably, not correct to suggest that what has come to be called "Rezeptionsásthetik" or "rezeptionsásthetisch-orientierte Literaturwissenschaft" is primarily responsible for sharpening the idea in the minds of contemporary critics that the ontological stature of literary texts is a result of the receptive process. It is not correct because the concept existed earlier according to which a book is nothing but dead letters which can only come alive when read, when the ideas denoted by the letters on the pages are concretised in imaginative processes. The whole idea, inadequately summarised here perhaps, has for long been an explicit issue in metafiction, for example in Alasdair Gray's fantastic novel Lanark. Towards the conclusion of his maddening experiences in an incomprehensibly nightmarish world, the eponymous hero finds himself in a situation where he confronts his own author. This persona draws Lanark into a discussion of various matters that have a bearing on Lanark's story, such as what other works of literature it is indebted to or in what way the narrative is going to proceed. They also touch on aspects not only relevant to Lanark, but to all fiction. One of these precisely concerns the notion that a novel is only print unless it is read. The author asks Lanark what the taste of the soup in his mouth is constituted of, to which he replies: "Atoms". "No" retorts the author, "Print", and he goes on to explain: Some worlds are made of atoms but yours is made of tiny marks marching in neat lines, like armies of insects, across pages and pages and pages of white paper. I say these lines are marching, but that is a metaphor. They are perfectly still. They are lifeless. How can they reproduce the movement and noises of the battle of Borodino, the white whale ramming the ship, the fallen angels on the flaming lake? (Gray 485)

Lanark, "impatiently", answers correctly: "By being read", to which the author can only remark: "Exactly" and point out the fundamental depen-

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dence of a character in a fiction, but also of the author-persona in a fiction, on the reader: Your survival as a character and mine as an author depends on us seducing a living soul into our printed world and trapping it here long enough for us to steal the imaginative energy which gives us life. (485).

Thus primary among the textual means by dint of which metafiction pursues its thematic goals are these: the self-conscious narrator, parody, intercalated theories of fiction, the retelling of myths and familiar stories (Stevick), the 'Chinese-box' pattern of composition, 21 various manifestations of self-reflexiveness and self-reflection (Hansen), and, not forgetting, two further devices that could be termed 'learned wit' and 'Sternesque jokes'. The use of 'learned wit' for instance in the form of the Hamlet discussion in Bend Sinister or much of Pale Fire, serves to underscore the fact that fiction is play, that art consists of free-wheeling irrelevancies (compared to the pragmatics of so-called reality), but also to offer a critique of theorising. 'Sternesque jokes'—for example footnotes in a fictional text, lists, inventories, conversations with implied readers, and most prominendy experiments in typography—fulfil various thematic purposes, most notably that of intensifying reader participation by disrupting the habitual reading process and of throwing into sharp relief the material nature of language as the stuff that fictions are made of.22 Thus, for example, in Walter Abish's fiction Alphabetical Africa, the first chapter contains only words that begin with an 'a' the second adding words which begin with a 'b' the third words starting with a 'c', and so on until in the last chapter of Part I all the letters of the alphabet are covered. From this point onwards, in Part II, the procedure is reversed (Cf. Pearce, Novel in Motion 121-23). For such Formalists as Juriy Tynjanov and Victor Shklovsky, evolution in literature fundamentally consists in a 'replacement' of systems, of genres and compositional principles. When a given genre has come to be accepted, its conventions and sujets are employed in an automatised manner. The automatization will be viewed as a form of exhaustion and will provoke parody which will either stop at poking fun at the staleness of the genre or transcend its artistic limitations by exploring new strategies of composition. Further, the process of automatization will lead to the exploitation of the generic techniques for subliterary purposes. Structural patterns different 21 22

Cf. Lowenkron; Pearce, "Enter the Frame"; Rubin. Cf. Imhof, Contemporary Metafiction, the chapter on reader participation. See also the studies by McCaffery (Metafictional Muse), Waugh, and Maack.

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from those pertaining to the genre are introduced which are initially experienced as violations' of the normative poetics and are the result of'fortuitous mistakes' or a deliberate use of older principles in a new way. Next the structural methods will, as a rule, owing to what Tynjanov terms the "imperialism of the literary constructional principles", expand and gain in prominence and dominance, until they have replaced the older ones, which is precisely when they embark on their decline, as they, too, will ineluctably fall prey to the process of automatization. The experimental novel is concerned predominantly with infringing poetic rules hitherto regarded as valid. To some extent, metafiction is interested in parody as a manner of flaunting the exhaustive nature of a given genre; it too relies on the violation' of rules, but rules that are ofwider historical range and implications. If experimental fiction demands a change in the literary practice, so does metafiction. According to the Formalist concepts, experiments occur quite frequently, and the label experimental fiction', to have any critical value, would always have to be specified in terms of what exactly it strives to change or replace. For it can only have a comparatively narrow reference to the mode of fiction it seeks to transcend by offering new techniques and/or subject-matter. Metafiction has not occurred as frequently and is not as narrowly referential. In its concentrated form, metafiction is a phenomenon of the twentieth century, where it finds its artistic, cultural and socio-economic contexts.23 Metafiction, then, is a specific form of experimental fiction, as is, for example, the nouveau. roman, or as was the 'lyrical novel' when Virginia Woolf wrote The Waves to transcend the narrative practice of an Arnold Bennett. Metafiction belongs to a special category of 'ludic' or playful, fiction. Robert Detweiler, in his splendid article "Games and Play in Modern American Fiction", distinguishes three types of game-fiction which he relates to the three main features of game and play as discovered by theoreticians of the phenomena: mimesis, alea, and agon. Playing a game with an established symbol system produces the fictional mimesis, a work modelled upon historical, typical, or conceivable life situations, such as Robert Coover's The Universal Baseball Association, which focusses on a real game. Playing a game with one's own imagination produces the fictional alea, a work in which the author exercises his ingenuity by inventing intricate imaginary games, as in Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America. If the author plays a game with the reader, if the work presents a contest between author and material, or text and 23

Cf. Imhof, Contemporary Metafiction, and Schabler, where these contexts are defined.

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reader, the work, the composition of the work, and the reception of the work are a form of agon. Metafiction is a kind of alea-cutn-agon, with the principles of agon clearly dominating the exercising of the author's own ingenuity. Finally Herbert Grabes's comment on the nature of fiction is illuminating inasmuch as it takes fully into account the relationship between fiction and reality. To explain the true nature of this relationship is, as suggested earlier on, one of the major concerns of the metafictionist: Als eigentlicher Ort der Fiktion darf genau genommen nur das Spiel gelten. Indem es nur ein Spiel ist, negiert es den eindeutigen Bezug zur Realität. Zugleich aber muß man es ernst nehmen, solange man spielt. Der Umgang mit Fiktionen ist also durchaus anspruchsvoll; er erfordert eine Einstellung, die das Paradoxe nicht scheut, ohne die ratio zu eliminieren (Grabes, "Fiktion—Realismus—Ästhetik" 69).

V. METAFICTION, THE LITERARY TRADITION, AND THE CONTEXT OF CULTURE Metafiction has variously been apostrophied as a postmodern, or postmodernist, phenomenon. 24 One critic even contends that it represents a postcontemporary form of literature, whatever post-contemporary may mean (Klinkowitz). There are of course those who do not believe in the existence of postmodernism, noting—as Anthony Burgess has done: . . . We've got a long way to go, I mean with modernism. We've got a hell of a long way to go with modernism. Some people think Finnegans Wake is the end o f modernism... I've lived with it since the '30s. I understand it. I know what it's doing, but I can't pick up all the references. W h e n we understand that, then that may be the end o f the [sic] modernism. I think we're still in the modernist phase... We're only at the beginning o f learning what music and literature can do together. We're still in the modernist period (Coale 444).

Consequently, these have tried to explain metafiction as a modernist phenomenon. This is not the place to enter into a discussion of what modernism is (Kermode) or was.25 Nor is it possible to review the numerous ideas about 24

25

The studies by Ihab Hassan cited above; Fiedler; Kostelanetz, New American Arts 194236; Kostelanetz, Twenties in the Sixties; Sontag. Beebe; Adams: esp. 22; Levin.

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modernism or postmodernism. Such a review has already been undertaken by Schábler at an impressive length of some three hundred pages (29-329). Besides, it is ultimately of less significance whether metafiction is a manifestation of modernism, or postmodernism, than whether it does n o t belong in a m u c h older literary tradition. The arguments in favour of seeing metafiction as a modernist, or postmodernist, literary class have been based o n a wide variety of different considerations. By sketching the "intellectual climate" out of which the twentieth-century metanovel may have evolved, Lowenkron seeks to account for it. Yet the factors he singles out are responsible for experimental fiction other than metafiction. Bergsonian and Jamesian views of time, together with changing ideas about "representation" "relativity", and "the cogito" it would seem, brought forth types of fiction as practised by Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, and James Joyce. Metafiction, even as defined by Lowenkron himself, existed without these constituents of the intellectual climate. N o r is it really true to say that the metanovel is "a type of novel which mirrors our post-Freudian increase in self-awareness" (Lowenkron 344). This explanation may probably account for the concentration of metafiction in our century; in other respects it is practically meaningless, as metafiction was also written at times when there was n o "post-Freudian increase in self-awareness". A stimulating and, ultimately perhaps, pertinent suggestion concerning the epistemological foundation of metafiction has been advanced by J. E. Kennard. Discussing the post-existentialist roots of her two categories of fantasy fiction (17-38), especially the significance Sartre and C a m u s ascribed to the absurd, Kennard argues that both Sartre and C a m u s regarded fictionwriting as an authentic m e t h o d of dealing with the absurdity of existence: Man needs to feel that his life has order and meaning; the production of a novel, which claims to be no more than an illusion, can fulfill this need. It is not surprising, then, that in an atmosphere so permeated with the post-existentialist sensibility a dominant theme of the contemporary novel should be the writing of novels. (37) To corroborate her view, Kennard goes o n to quote Howard M. Harper, Jr., w h o says in a recent article o n contemporary fiction: " W h e n subjectivity itself becomes the subject, the writer himself becomes the only real character and his own feelings and actions the only valid plot" (37). W h a t may withhold one from embracing the explanation whole-heartedly is the indisputable fact that the novel-about-the-novel was written long before either Sartre or C a m u s propagated their existentialist beliefs, that, in other words, the

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explanation is, regrettably, fraught with a lack of historical perspective. One would sooner place the appearance of post-existentialist metafiction in the more general context of recent developments in the arts, where, without an indication that Existentialism was responsible, the thematization of the medium in question has been a conspicuous trend. Further, one would want to object to Kennard's conviction that the aim of destroying the illusion of the novel by pointing out its illusory nature is "to bring about in [the reader] the experience of the absurd" (82). Self-consciousness in fiction is also considered by some an effective remedy against the problem of the "brutalization and devaluation of the word" als George Steiner has termed it (46)—that problem which is purported to be one of the most malignant diseases of our age and which ranks as one of the greatest commonplaces in books on contemporary literature. One may have difficulties in coming to terms with the paradoxical implication of the idea that language is no longer suited as a medium for transporting information. Why should a writer pick up his pen if language truly failed to express what he wants to express? Untroubled by the implication, Larry McCaffery has suggested three courses open for the writer faced with the dilemma: he may choose the Beckettian suicidal rhetoric of silence; he may attempt to revitalise the word and replenish the power and poetry of language; or the writer may a d o p t the strategy o f self-consciously incorporating the decayed, brutalized elements into his own particular i d i o m a n d make the new i d i o m part

of his point (McCaffery, " Snow W h i t e " 20).

But what would be the point of such a writer's point? If the brutalization and devaluation of language is an established fact, why hammer home the obvious, and self-consciously at that? McCaffery's explanation may account for the presence of self-conscious moments in fiction, but not for the artistic necessity of this presence. Elsewhere, McCaffery has argued differently by placing contemporary metafiction in opposition to the realist tradition. In the realist tradition, the world can, in accordance with the philosophical tenets and assumptions during the age of reason, objectively be known and described by means of narrative constructs that operate upon cause and effect, have a sequential stringency governed by causality. This ontological optimism about man's ability to solve the puzzle of the universe reached its peak in the nineteenth century, as witness the historiographic approaches of Ranke, Taine, and Comte, the linguistic investigations of Humboldt and Schleicher, Freudian psychoana-

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lysis, the theory and practice of the great nineteenth-century realistic, or naturalistic, novelists, such as Stendhal, Zola, Eliot, and Tolstoy (McCaffery, MetafictionalMuse 10). This has all greatly been changed: by the demolition of faith in rational, empirical investigation, the frank acknowledgement of the subjective nature of our mental operations and their relationship to the world, and the very injection of the concept of relativity, even indeterminacy in the very fabric of the universe itself (11). Think of what effect Ernst Mach had when he shook physics with his denial that science could tell us anything about the world, or of Einstein's complete overthrow of our belief in the universe as a static, mechanistic entity. The situation of man, as it emerges from historiography, anthropology, psychology, linguistics and other disciplines is that of man locked within his own forms, languages, and fictions which he creates and manipulates as useful aids. McCaffery's is a view which is quite prominent in the criticism of contemporary metafiction (e.g. Zavarzadeh 16-28); it helps explain the allure metafiction has exercised over post-war writers. An interesting development of how fiction became "surfiction" has been charted by Richard Pearce ("Enter the Frame"). He suggests that the "frame"—meaning the 'objective' standpoint from which a novel used to be narrated—has entered the work itself, in other words: this standpoint becomes difficult to maintain since the narrator is no longer able to provide the reader with a clear picture in which all the individual parts coalesce, for he no longer encloses the subject within the frame of his visual imagination. Instead, the reader is offered "an erratic image where the narrator, the subject, and the medium are brought into the same imaginative field of interaction" (72). Using James's The Turn of the Screw, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!, and Beckett's trilogy as representative stages in the development, Pearce shows how point-of-view—in the sense it has in conventional fiction: that central intelligence which holds the particulars delineated together—is gradually forced to surrender to its impotence. Pointof-view was first superseded by a number of vantage points, where the implausability ofwhat was related is invested with plausibility (James); then a casting of doubt even on that main frame of intelligence was effected (Conrad); next, one frame was replaced by a multitude of frames, thus placing the emphasis not so much on what is told, but how it is told; finally, there is Bekkett, where the how is identical with the what. What Pearce has thus charted is the thematic development of the novel to the thematising of its own medium. Miklos Szabolcsi, adopting a sociological approach for his definition of the avant-garde, has argued that a common basis for metafiction and related

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experimental ways of artistic expression is the dissolution of the relationship between the writer, or artist, and the public (54). Generally speaking, the artist can no longer see the function, aim, meaning, and place of his work; consequently, he has to find new ways and means; he wants to bring about a radical reform in art, or, if necessary, in society as well (54 f.). Avant-garde art, therefore, is characterised by a feverish quest for the new and striking, and a hatred of everything that is outdated, retrograde, fossilised or conservative. Avant-garde art seems to be called into existence out of a world view according to which the universe is experienced as incoherent, disjointed, chaotic. In such times, there seem to be two options open to the artist; he may either, if he wishes to capture such a disjointed world, reflect it by giving a disjointed, fragmented effect to his work; or he may decide that, in the face of the impossibility to know the world, there is no point in his trying and representing it through his craft; he will instead concentrate on what he can know, which is his art. This is another popular view, whose popularity was already commented on earlier within these pages. The context in which metafiction belongs may also be defined by what, in the wake ofviews voiced by such critics as Leslie Fiedler, Richard Poirier, or Susan Sontag and Ihab Hassan, has come to be termed the 'new sensibility" of postmodernism. This allegedly 'new5 sensibility manifests itself in a variety of ways: in the refusal to take art seriously; the use of art itself as a vehicle for exploring its traditional pretensions and for showing the vulnerability of the dominant academic tradition of analytic and interpretive criticism; and in a generally less scholarly rationalistic mode of consciousness, one that is more congenial to myth, tribal ritual, and visionary experience. But as Gerald Graff has demonstrated, the advocates of this 'new5 sensibility have fallen prey to a profound misconception, for the 'new* sensibility is really only a development via modernism of ideas inherent in Romantic theories of literature (Cf. Graff). Another way of accounting for the proper context of metafiction is to suggest that metafiction, being a form of concrete fiction, belongs together with concrete painting and poetry as well as musique concrete (Cf. Imhof, Contemporary Metafiction 24-35). Concrete painting and poetry like musique concrete have likewise liberated themselves from the concern with reality. Concrete painting evolved at a time when, in addition to the philosophical and epistemological considerations mentioned, it was felt that the camera could do much better what painting had been concerned with for so long, namely to represent external objects. Mimetic art was replaced by generic art (cf. Schmidt 24), an art form which explores the possibilities to create,

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without regard to everyday reality, optical objects for which there are no counterparts in the natural or technical world. Concrete painting—one may think of the work of Piet Mondrian—achieved this by concentrating on the constants of the pictorial means of creation, which are, as far as content is concerned, no longer interpretable: lines, angles, primary colours; or, in other words, it concentrated on those means with the help of which preceding artists had aimed at imitating reality. In a concrete painting, lines, colours, and so on exist in concreto, they do not purport to be anything other than themselves. A concrete painting is identical with what it shows; its semantics have no correlative (Schmidt 29 f.). Beckett found an identical artistic zeal informing Joyce's "Work in Progress", which was to become Finnegans Wake, where, according to Beckett, "form is content, content is form" (Beckett, "Dante ..." 14). A similar concept of the function of painting is responsible for a subcategory of concrete painting, action painting, where the emphasis does not rest on the picture (in the traditional sense), rests not so much on what is painted as on the act of painting itself. Concrete poetry works analogously to concrete art. Metafiction is concrete fiction; it does not so much pretend to tell a story, if to tell a true story is the principal concern of conventional fiction. Instead, it flaunts those means by which conventional fiction aims at telling its tales. The characteristic artistic preoccupation in painting since Cézanne and, more importantly, since Cubism, has, as it were, extended its influence to narrative prose as well. In both provinces, the interest has shifted from the traditional subject-matter, which was reality, to the artistic means through which this subject-matter used to be expressed; the narrative conventions have become the aesthetic objective of writing. What is common to almost all the attempts to explain metafiction as either a modernist or a postmodernist form of fiction, of which some have been recapitulated here, is that, as was previously suggested, they may succeed in accounting for the concentrated occurrence of this variety of narrative discourse in the decades after World War II, but, this aspect apart, they cannot poetologically encompass it in its entirety. To do so in an appropriate manner, another, infinitely longer and older tradition has to be focussed on. In his essay "Wozu Dichter?", Heidegger observes: "Darum miissen 'Dichter in diirftiger Zeit' das Wesen der Dichtung eigens dichten". It would be far beyond the scope of this article to show why Heidegger believes that in 'miserable times' poets have to write about the quiddity of'poesie'. Nor is it possible to conjecture as to what he considers 'miserable times'. But no matter— ours seems to be a miserable time, judging from the great many texts, fic-

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tional and otherwise, in which writers, particularly after the sixties, have applied themselves to treating of the essence of literature. Metafiction has incontestably played an extraordinarily conspicuous part in the literature of recent decades. The books and studies under review here bear ample testimony to this fact. Often, though, in the face of the prominence of metafiction after World War II, critics tend to forget that this class of fiction is as old as Cervantes, and that it was Cervantes and after him Sterne and others who anticipated a good deal of what contemporary metafictionists are now repeating ad nauseam.26 If one accepts that the overriding interest of the metafictionist is to flaunt the artifice-nature of his verbal construct and to make the reader realise by what strategies he is deceived into mistaking art for reality, then all this can be found in Don Quixote. One example may suffice. Master Pedro's puppetshow, involving the play-within-the-play tradition, counterpoints Don Quixote's general inclination to turn reality into fiction by transforming the illusion of metatheatre into reality (Cf. Lowenkron 349). The Don falls dire victim to the old fallacy of confusing art with reality. Watching Pedro's performance, in which a number of fugitives are portrayed in distress, the Don, as self-appointed redresser ofwrongs and injuries, feels it incumbent upon himself to intervene. So, without much ado, he unsheathes his sword and rains blows upon the puppet-heathenry, beheading some and maiming a good many others. To Pedro's protest: "Stop, your worship!... Reflect, Don Quixote, that these are not real Moors you're upsetting, demolishing and murdering, but only little pasteboard figures" (Cervantes 642), the knight can only reply: "I assure you . . . that all that has passed here seemed to me a real occurrence". In the end, Don Quixote is painfully forced to realise that a puppet-show is not reality: Pedro demands compensation for the damage the Don has wrought upon his puppets, and the Don has to pay, but in real reals. As early as Don Quixote, there is a dramatization of the antagonism between the two fundamentally different notions of the purpose of art, of which one has incomparably longer held sway over the forms of artistic creation, while the other has been confined to exercising its influence only occasionally in the history of the arts, though in the twentieth century to a hitherto unprecedented extent. Cervantes's most telling stroke of genius, as Gillian Beer has ob-

26

Cf. the studies by Christensen, Hutcheon, Imhof, and Waugh.

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served, 27 was to embody in his two principal characters, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, the two perennial and universal impulses of art, especially of fiction. The Knight of the Sad Countenance, barber's basin on his head, represents the imagination cut loose from the world of sense and observation, aspiring towards the ideal. This way leads, if not to madness, to the noble simplification and suggestiveness of myth. Sancho Panza is preoccupied with registering the everyday signs and accepting their authority. Both impulses are necessary to each other; they interpret the world for each other; they illustrate the interdependence of the impulse to imitate and the impulse to idealise. Whereas Sancho is the patron saint of the realist, Quixote, in his inability to come to grips with the world and his obsession with the ideal, is the godfather of the metafictionist. This is not, as opponents would have it, because writing metafiction resembles a quixotic assault on a windmill, but because metafictionists aspire towards an ideal kind of fiction that lays open its true, fictive character and strive, quite frequendy, to embellish their works with the universal suggestiveness of myth. Don Quixote possibly marks the beginning of metafiction. The next important representative was Laurence Sterne. Tristram Shandy contains an overwhelming number of the textual strategies, typographical—one may think of Federman's indulgence in typographical masturbation—or otherwise, and thematic concerns that feature prominently in contemporary metafiction. Far too few critics have realised this—as Burgess has pithily put it: If we read enough in the past, we find that all these new things have been done. Tristram Shandy. I started rereading it recently, and, of course, it goes far beyond anything we do ... (Coale 452). The tradition is long and includes many writers, among them Scarron, Diderot, Heine, Gide, and Flann O'Brien. Heine wrote of Jean Paul: "Lorenz [sic] Sterne zeigt sich dem Publikum ganz entkleidet, er ist ganz nackt; Jean Paul hingegen hat nur Locher in der Hose" (306). Owing to a lack of historical perspective, a good many critics of metafiction have failed to notice that a surprising number of contemporary practitioners are no more than followers of Sterne and that there are too many Jean Pauls among them with holes in their pants (Imhof, Contemporary Metafiction,passim-, Christensen 9 if. and 27

Beer 41 f. See also Sarduy, who argues that the origin of the techniques ofwhatJohn Barth calls the 'postmodernism' of García Márquez, for instance, lies in the Spanish tradition of the baroque.

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ch. 1). It is quite an astonishing fact that hardly had the novel emerged as a full-blown literary form in England (if we agree for the moment that the English novel originated in the eighteenth century), than attempts were made to thematise its conventions, to lay bare its procedure. Occasionally, the beginning of this flaunting process is assumed to have been as early as with Fielding's 'histories'. Dieter Mehl, for instance, notes an attempt on Fielding's part to create a 'distance' between "Erfahrung und Illusion", by means of, inter alia, the chapter headings (Mehl 123). There are, too, the prefatory chapters in Tom Jones which could be said to effect a disruption of the illusion-generating process. Yet, there is one noteworthy difference between Fielding and Sterne that would make it appear sensible to place Sterne, rather than Fielding, at the start of the tradition in England. Whereas in Tristram Shandy the deliberations on the problems of, and stipulations for, writing fiction are integral parts of the fiction-making process, in Joseph Andrews or Tom Jones they are not; there they are in the form of essayistic prefatory comments that, as a rule, are carefully separated from the narrative proper. Furthermore, where Sterne sought to debunk mimesis, Fielding endeavoured to enforce it in order the better to pillory all manners of affectation in man. Richardson found the books that go to make up Tristram Shandy "execrable" (Letter to MarkHildesley; qtd. in: Howes 128) and expressed the view that the novel had "not intrinsic merit sufficient to prevent its sinking, when no longer upheld by the short-lived breath of fashion" (129); and Dr Johnson is quoted as having said in a conversation of 20 March 1776: "Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last" (219). But it did, or rather it has lasted until today, als contemporary metafiction amply testifies.

WORKS CITED Abrains, M. H. A Glossary ojLiterary Terms. 3rd. ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1971. Adams, Robert Martin. "What Was Modernism?" The Hudson Review 31 (Spring 1978): 19-31. Alter, Robert. "Mimesis and the Motive for Fiction." TriQuarterly 42 (Spring 1978): 228-50. —. Partial Magic: The Novel as Self-Conscious Genre. Berkeley: U of California P, 1975.

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Barth, John. "The Literature of Exhaustion." The American Novel since World War II. Ed. Marcus Klein. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publ, 1969. 267-79. —. Lost in the Funhouse. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972. Beckett, Samuel. "Dante . . . Bruno. Vico . . . Joyce." Our Exagmination Round his Factificationfor Incamination of Work in Progress. S. Beckett et al. London: Faber, 1961.1-22. - . Mo Hoy. London: Calder, 1971. Beebe, Maurice. "Introduction: What Modernism Was."Journal ofModern Literature 3, 5 (July 1974): 1175-87.

Beer, Gillian. Romance. London: Methuen, 1970. Bellamy, J. D., ed. The New Fiction. Interviews with Innovative American Writers. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1974. Booth, Wayne C. "The Self-Conscious Narrator in Comic Fiction before Tristram Shandy." PMLA 67 (March 1952): 163-85. Borges, Jorge Luis. "Partial Magic in the Quixote." Labyrinths. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976. 228-31. Bradbury, Malcolm, and James McFarlane. "The Name and Nature of Modernism." Modernism 1890-1930. Ed. M. Bradbury and J. McFarlane. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976. 19-56. Burden, Robert. John Fowles.John Hawkes. Claude Simon. Problems of Self and Form in the Post-Modernist Novel. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1980. —. "The Novel Interrogates Itself: Parody as Self-Consciousness in Contemporary English Fiction." The Contemporary English Novel. Ed. Malcolm Bradbury and David Palmer. London: Arnold, 1979. 133-55. Butler, Christopher. After The Wake: An Essay on the Contemporary Avant-Garde. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1980. Cary, Joyce. The Horse's Mouth. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979. Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. Don Quixote. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977. Christensen, Inger. The Meaning ofMetafiction. A Critical Study ofSelected Novels by Sterne, Nabokov, Barth, and Beckett. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1981. Coale, Samuel. "An Interview with Anthony Burgess." Modern Fiction Studies 27 (1981): 429-52. Detweiler, Robert. "Games and Play in Modern American Fiction." Contemporary Literature 17 (1976): 44-62. Eco, Umberto. Das offene Kunstwerk. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1977. Edler, Doris. "Surfiction: Plunging into the Surface." Boundary 2, 5 (Fall 1976): 15366. Enck, John J. "John Barth: An Interview." Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature 6,1 (1965): 3-14. Federman, Raymond. Double or Nothing. Chicago: Swallow, 1975. —, ed. Surfiction. Fiction Now ... and Tomorrow. Chicago: Swallow, 1975.

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—. Take It or Leave It. New York: Fiction Collective, 1976. Fiedler, Leslie. "Cross the Border—Close that Gap: Post-Modernism." American Literature since 1900. Ed. Marcus Cunliffe. London: Sphere Books, 1975. 344-66. Fletcher, John, and Malcolm Bradbury. "The Introverted Novel." Modernism 18901930. Ed. M. Bradbury and J. McFarlane. 394-415. Fogel, Stanley. "'All the Little Typtopies': Notes on Language Theory in the Contemporary Experimental Novel." Modern Fiction Studies 20,3 (Autumn 1974): 32836. Frank, Joseph. "Spatial Form in Modern Literature." The Widening Gyre: Crisis and Mastery in Modern Literature. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1963. 3-62. Gardner, John. Grendel. London: Picador, 1973. Gass, William H. Fiction and the Figures of Life. New York: Random House, 1972. - . Willie Masters'Lonesome Wife. New York: Knopf, 1971. Gilman, Richard. The Confusion of Realms. New York: Random House, 1969. Golding, William. The Paper Men. London: Faber, 1985. Grabes, Herbert. "Fiktion - Realismus - Ästhetik. Woran erkennt der Leser Literatur?" Text - Leser - Bedeutung. Untersuchungen zur Interaktion von Text und Leser. Großen-Linden: Hoffmann, 1977. 61-81. —. Ficitious Biographies: Vladimir Nabokov's English Novels. The Hague: Mouton, 1977. Graff, Gerald. "The Myth of the Postmodernist Breakthrough." TriQuarterly 26 (Winter 1973): 383-417. Gray, Alasdair. Lanark. Edinburgh: Canongate, 1981. Guerard, Albert J. "Notes on the Rhetoric of Anti-Realist Fiction." TriQuarterly 30 (Spring 1974): 3-50. Hansen, Arien J. "The Dice of God: Einstein, Heisenberg, and Robert Coover." Novel 10 (1976): 49-58. Harris, Charles. Contemporary Novelists of the Absurd. New Haven, CT: New College and UP, 1972. Hassan, Ihab. Paracriticisms: Seven Speculations of the Times. Urbana, IL: U of Illinois P, 1975. —. Radical Innocence: Studies in the Contemporary American Novel. New York: Harper & Row, 1965. —. The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Towards a Postmodern Literature. New York: Oxford UP, 1978. Heine, Heinrich. Die romantische Schule. Bk. III. Heines Werke. Vol. IV. Ed. Helmut Holtzhauer. Berlin (GDR): Aufbau, 1981. Howes, Alan B., ed. Sterne. The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974. Hutcheon, Linda. Narcissistic Narrative. The Metafictional Paradox. London: Methuen, 1984.

326

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Hutchinson, Peter. Games Authors Play. London: Methuen, 1983. Imhof, Rüdiger. Contemporary Metafiction. A Poetological Study of Metafiction in English since 1939. Heidelberg: Winter, 1986. —. "Minimal Fiction, or The Question of Scale." anglistik & englischunterricht 23 (1984): 159-68. Iser, Wolfgang. "Akte des Fingierens oder Was ist das Fiktive am fiktionalen Text?" Funktionen des Fiktiven. Ed. W Iser and D. Heinrich. Munich: Fink, 1983.121-51. —. "Anglistik. Eine Universitätsdisziplin ohne Forschungsparadigma?" Poética 16 (1984): 276-306. —. Der Akt des Lesens. Munich: Fink, 1976. —. Der implizite Leser. Kommunikationsformen des Romans von Bunyan bis Beckett. Munich: Fink, 1972. Isernhagen, Hartwig. "Power and Freedom: The Pragmatics of 'Metaization'."/^/ - buch für Amerikastudien 30,1 (1985): 37-45. James, Henry. Preface to The Portrait of a Lady. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979. - . Preface to The Spoils ofPoynton. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1982. Johnson, Bryan Stanley. Albert Angelo. London: Constable, 1964. -.Aren't You Rather Young to Be Writing Your Memoirs?. London: Hutchinson, 1973. Karrer, Wolfgang. Parodie, Travestie, Pastiche. Munich: Fink, 1977. Kellman, Steven G. The Self-Begetting Novel. London: Macmillan, 1980. Kennard, Jean E. Number and Nightmare. Forms of Fantasy in Contemporary Fiction. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1975. Kermode, Frank. "The Modern." Frank Kermode. Modern Essays. London: Fontana, 1971. 39-70. Resting, Marianne. "Die Realität der Fiktion: Samuel Becketts Recherche des Bewußtseins und seiner Hervorbringung." Das Werk von Samuel Beckett. Ed. Hans Mayer and Uwe Johnson. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1975. 26-39. Klinkowitz, Jerome. Literary Disruptions. The Making of a Post-Contemporary Fiction. 2nd ed. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1980. —. "Reconsideration: At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien." The New Republic. 16 & 23 August 1975: 31. - . The Life of Fiction. 2nd ed. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1980. Kostelanetz, Richard, ed. The New American Arts. New York: Collier, 1967. —. Twenties in the Sixties: Previously Uncollected Critical Essays. Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 1979. Levin, Harry. "What was Modernism?" Harry Levin. Refractions: Essays on Contemporary Literature. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1966. 271-295. Lodge, David. The Novelist at the Crossroads. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971. Lowenkron, D. H. "Metafiction." College English 38 (1976): 343-355. Maack, Annegret. Der experimentelle englische Roman der Gegenwart. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1984.174-189.

Contemporary Metafìction

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McCaffery, Larry. "Barthelme's Snow White. The Aesthetics of Trash." Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 16, 3 (1977): 19-32. —. The Metafictional Muse. The Works of Robert Coover, Donald Barthelme, and William H. Gass. Pittsburgh, PA: U of Pittsburgh P, 1982. McKenzie, James. "Pole-Vaulting in Top Hats: A Public Conversation with John Barth, William H. Gass, and Ishmael Reed." Modern Fiction Studies 22 (1976): 131-151. Mehl, Dieter. Der englische Roman bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts. Düsseldorf: Bagel, 1977. Mellard, James M. The Exploded Form. The Modernist Novel in America. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1980. Melville, Herman. "Bartleby the Scrivener." Billy Bud, Sailor & Other Stories. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979. 57-100. Mercier, Vivian. The New Novel. From Queneau to Finget. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1971. Mukarovsky, Jan. Kapitel aus der Ästhetik. 3rd ed. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1978. Nabokov, Vladimir. Ada, or Ador. A Family Chronicle. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1980. —. Bend Sinister. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981. —. Pale Fire. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981. —. The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1960. —. Transparent Things. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981. The New York Review of Books. 22 Nov. 1984: 47. Newman, Charles. The Postmodern Aura. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1985. Olderman, Raymond M. Beyond the Waste Land. A Study of the American Novel in the Nineteen-Sixtees. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1972. Parrinder, Patrick. "Pilgrim's Progress: The Novels of B. S. Johnson (1933-1973)." Critical Quarterly 29, 2 (Summer 1977): 45-59. Pearce, Richard. "Enter the Frame." TriQuarterly 30 (Spring 1974): 71-82. -. The Novel in Motion. Columbus, OH: Ohio State UP, 1983. Poirier, Richard. A World Elsewhere: The Place of Style in American Fiction. New York: Oxford UP, 1966. Preston, John. The Created Self: The Reader's Role in Eighteenth-Century Fiction. London: Heinemann, 1970. Pütz, Manfred. The Story of Identity. American Fiction of the Sixties. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1979. Rose, Margaret A. Parody/Meta-Fiction. London: Croom Helm, 1979. Rosenblum, Michael. "Finding What the Sailor Has Hidden: Narrative Patternmaking in Transparent Things." Contemporary Literature 19, 2 (1978): 219-32. Roth, Philip. "Writing American Fiction." The Novel Today. Contemporary Writers on Modern Fiction. Ed. Malcolm Bradbury. Glasgow: Fontana, 1977. 32-47.

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Rother, James. "Parafiction: The Adjacent Universe of Barth, Barthelme, Pynchon, and Nabokov." Boundary 2, 5 (Fall 1976): 21-43. Rovit, Earl. "The Novel of Parody. John Barth." Critique. Studies in Modern Fiction 6, 2 (Fall 1963): 77-85. Rubin, D. Louis, Jr. The Teller in the Tale. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1967. Russell, Charles. "The Vault of Language: Self-Reflective Artifice in Contemporary American Fiction." Modern Fiction Studies 20, 3 (Autumn 1974): 349-58. Sarduy, Severo. "El barroco y el neobarroco." America Latina en su Literatura. Ed. César Fernández Moreno. 6th ed. Paris: Unesco, 1979. 167-84. Schäbler, Bernd. Amerikanische Metafiction im Kontext der europäischen Moderne. Gießen: Hoffmann, 1983. Schmidt, Siegfried J. Ästhetische Prozesse. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1971. Schopp, Joseph C. "'It's these interruptions that make it a story" oder: Von den Unmöglichkeiten fiktionalen Erzählens im Neuen Roman." Arcadia 11 (1976): 139-49. Scholes, Robert. Fabulation and Metafiction. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1979. - . The Fabulators. New York: Oxford UP, 1967. - . "The Fictional Criticism of the Future." TriQuarterly 34, 4 (Fall 1975): 23347. - . "Metafiction." Iowa Review 1 (1970): 100-15. Seltzer, Alvin J. Chaos in the Novel/ The Novel in Chaos. New York: Schocken, 1974. Smuda, Manfred. Becketts Prosa als Metasprache. Munich: Fink, 1970. Sontag, Susan. Against Interpretation. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1967. Sorrentino, Gilbert. Mulligan Stew. London: Boyars, 1980. Stanzel, Franz. "Tom Jones und Tristram Shandy. Ein Vergleich als Vorstudie zu einer Typologie des Romans." Henry Fielding und der englische Roman des 18. Jahrhunderts. Ed. Wolfgang Iser. Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchgesellschaft, 1972. 437-73. Stark, John O. The Literature of Exhaustion. Borges, Nabokov, and Barth. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1974. Steiner, George. Language and Silence. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979. Stevick, Philip. "Scheherazade runs out of plot, goes on talking; the king, puzzled, listens: An Essay on New Fiction." TriQuarterly 26 (Winter 1973): 332-62. Stierle, Karlheinz. Text als Handlung - Perspektiven einer systematischen Literaturwissenschaft. Munich: Fink, 1975. Sukenick, Ronald. The Death of the Novel and Other Stories. New York: Dial P, 1969. —. "Fiction in the Seventies: Ten Digressions to Ten Digressions." Studies in American Fiction 5 (1977): 99-108. - . "The New Tradition." Partisan Review 39 (1972): 580-88. - . "Thirteen Digressions." Partisan Review 43 (1976): 90-101. —. "Twelve Digressions Toward a Study of Composition." New Literary History 6 (Winter 1975): 429-37.

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Szabolcsi, Miklös. "Avant-garde, Neo-avant-garde, Modernism: Questions and Suggestions." New Literary History 3 (Autumn 1971): 49-70. Tanner, Tony. City of Words: American Fiction 1950-70. London: Cape, 1971. Theile, Wolfgang. Immanente Poetik des Romans. Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchgesellschaft, 1980. Waugh, Patricia .Metafiction. The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. New York: Methuen, 1984. Wilde, Alan. Horizons of Assent. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1981. Zavarzadeh, Mas'ud. The Mythopoetic Reality: The Postwar American Nonfictional Novel. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1976.

Just published: Christoph Bode

Ästhetik der Ambiguität Zu Funktion und Bedeutung von Mehrdeutigkeit in der Literatur der Moderne

[= The Aesthetics of Ambiguity: character and function of ambiguity in modernist literature.] Ca. 500 Seiten. Kart. ca. DM 96.Sea. US-$ 60.-. ISBN3-484-22043-0 (Konzepte der Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft. Vol. 43) An attempt to account for the conspicuously high degree of ambiguity in modernist literature, this study sets forth a comprehensive theory of literary ambiguity. Critically surveying numerous approaches to the subject and covering a vast field of recent literary theory, the book identifies the phenomenon in question as an unavoidable spin-off effect of a superordinate evolution towards higher auto-referentiality discernible in all the arts. The effect, however, is especially characteristic of literature, due to the specific features of its •always already meaningful material, namely language. The author convincingly urges the necessity of a fundamental paradigmatic change in the analysis of post-mimetic literature.

Heimo Ertl

»Dignity in Simplicity« »

Studien zur Prosaliteratur des englischen Methodismus im 18. Jahrhundert

[- »Dignity in Simplicity«. Studies on the prose literature of English Methodism in the 18th century.] Ca. 320 Seiten. Ln. ca. DM 106.-/ca. US-S 62.-. ISBN3-484-42127-4 (Buchreihe der Anglia. Vol. 27) The printing press played an important role in the development of 18th century Methodism in England. Sermons, diaries and journals, Lives and magazines were published by leading Methodists and helped to spread the tenets of Methodism nationwide. The impact of these publications, however, was not limited to the improvement of moral life of religious edification. With their -plain style., Methodist authors and editors also set an example for using a diction which was distinguished by both .dignity, and 'Simplicity.. Prominent Methodists like John Wesley and George Whitefield and the editorial policy of Methodist Weeklies and monthly magazines encouraged their followers and readers to write likewise.. This study concentrates on the characteristics of Methodist diction as employed in their sermons, magazines and autobiographical literature and on the effect this exemplary diction had on laypreachers, writers of diaries and on contributors to -The Weekly History«, »The Gospel Magazine- and -The Arminian Magazine- between 1735 and 1792.

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