DOCSLIB.ORG

Connotations 19.1-3 (2009/2010): 1-5

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Connotations 19.1-3 (2009/2010): 1-5 Connotations A Journal for Critical Debate Volume 19 (2009/2010) Numbers 1-3 Waxmann Münster / New York Connotations - A Journal for Critical Debate by the Connotations Society is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Connotations: A Journal for Critical Debate Published by Connotations: Society for Critical Debate EDITORS Inge Leimberg (Münster), Matthias Bauer (Tübingen), Burkhard Niederhoff (Bochum) and Angelika Zirker (Tübingen) Secretary: Uli Fries Editorial Assistants: Martina Bross and Lena Moser EDITORIAL ADDRESS Professor Matthias Bauer, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Department of English, Wilhelmstr. 50, 72074 Tübingen, Germany Email: [email protected] http://www.connotations.de EDITORIAL BOARD M. H. Abrams, Cornell University Åke Bergvall, University of Karlstad Christiane Bimberg, Universität Dortmund John Russell Brown, Middlesex University Ursula Brumm, Freie Universität Berlin Paul Budra, Simon Fraser University Lothar erný, Fachhochschule Köln Eleanor Cook, University of Toronto Elizabeth Story Donno, The Huntington Library William E. Engel, The University of the South Bernd Engler, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen A. C. Hamilton, Queen’s University, Ontario John P. Hermann, University of Alabama John Hollander, Yale University Lothar Hönnighausen, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn Arthur F. Kinney, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Frances M. Malpezzi, Arkansas State University J. Hillis Miller, University of California, Irvine Martin Procházka, Charles University, Prague Dale B. J. Randall, Duke University Alan Rudrum, Simon Fraser University John M. Steadman, The Huntington Library Michael Steppat, Universität Bayreuth Leona Toker, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem John Whalen-Bridge, National University of Singapore Joseph Wiesenfarth, University of Wisconsin-Madison Waxmann Münster / New York Connotations wants to encourage scholarly communication in the field of English Literature (from the Middle English period to the present), as well as American and other Literatures in English. It focuses on the semantic and stylistic energy of the language of literature in a historical perspective and aims to represent different approaches. Each issue consists of articles and a forum for discussion. The forum presents, for instance, research in progress, critical hypotheses, responses to articles published in Connotations and elsewhere, as well as to recent books. As a rule, contributions will be published within five months after submission so that discussion can begin without delay. Articles and responses should be forwarded to the editors. Articles should not exceed 12,000 words and follow the MLA Handbook. Responses should be limited to 4,000 words. All contributions should be submitted by e-mail; they should be in English and must be proofread before submission. Connotations is published three times a year. Private subscribers are welcome to join the Connotations Society for Critical Debate. Members receive the journal as well as invitations to the Connotations symposia. The suggested annual fee is € 40; reduced rate (e.g. for students) € 20. Please write to: Connotations, Professor Matthias Bauer, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Department of English, Wilhelmstr. 50, 72074 Tübingen, Germany. Email: [email protected]. Libraries and other institutional subscribers write to: Waxmann Verlag, Steinfurter Str. 555, 48159 Münster, Germany; or: Waxmann Publishing Co., P.O. Box 1318, New York, NY 10028, U.S.A. Email: connotations@ waxmann.com. Annual subscriptions are in Europe €40, in the U.S. and all other countries $ 60, including postage. A selection of articles and responses is freely available on the internet (http://www.connotations.de). © Waxmann Verlag GmbH, Münster/New York 2010 (Unless indicated otherwise in individual articles) All Rights Reserved Printed in Germany ISSN 0939-5482 Connotations is a member of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals. Contributions are indexed, for example, in the MLA Bibliography, the World Shakespeare Bibliography and the IBZ/IBR. Connotations A Journal for Critical Debate Volume 19 (2009/2010) Numbers 1-3 Responses to “Restored From Death” Response to Åke Bergvall’s “Resurrection as Blasphemy in Canto 5 of Edmund Spenser’s ‘The Legend of Holiness’” MATTHEW A. FIKE 1 An Answer to Matthew A. Fike ÅKE BERGVALL 6 A Response to Margret Fetzer’s “Donne’s Sermons as Re-enactments of the Word” EDMUND MILLER 9 Donne’s Sermons as Re-enactments of the Word: A Response to Margret Fetzer ANITA GILMAN SHERMAN 14 Reanimation or Reversibility in “Valerius: The Reanimated Roman”: A Response to Elena Anastasaki GRAHAM ALLEN 21 A Letter in Response to Leona Toker JOHN R. REED 34 Reanimation, Regeneration, Re-evaluation: Rereading Our Mutual Friend EFRAIM SICHER 36 Lowell’s Tropes of Falling, Rising, Standing: A Response to Frank J. Kearful HENRY HART 45 Truths of Storytelling: A Response to Burkhard Niederhoff JANICE FIAMENGO 53 A Response to “The Return of the Dead in Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing and Alias Grace” ELEONORA RAO 68 Should We Believe Her? Margaret Atwood and Uncertainty: A Response to Burkhard Niederhoff MARGARET ROGERSON 79 The Psychoanalytic Theme in Margaret Atwood’s Fiction: A Response to Burkhard Niederhoff FIONA TOLAN 92 A Response to Burkhard Niederhoff’s “The Return of the Dead in Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing and Alias Grace” SHARON R. WILSON 107 Surfacing from Six Feet Under: A Response to Burkhard Niederhoff LORRAINE YORK 119 Ghosts, Knowledge and Truth in Atwood: A Reader’s Guide to Six Responses BURKHARD NIEDERHOFF 126 About Lew Welch ARAM SAROYAN 136 Written Sounds and Spoken Letters: Orality and Literacy in Toni Morrison’s Beloved BÄRBEL HÖTTGES 147 Other ARTICLES and RESPONSES ... To Say Nothing of Frogs and Angels: A Response to Tom MacFaul BRUCE BOEHRER 161 More Hot Air: A Large and Serious Response to Tom MacFaul THOMAS HERRON 165 From Scotland to the Holy Land: Renegotiating Scottish Identity in the Pilgrim Narrative of William Lithgow HOLLY FAITH NELSON and SHARON ALKER 176 The Rape of the Lock and the Origins of Game Theory SEAN R. SILVER 203 A Question of Competence: The Card Game in Pope’s The Rape of the Lock. A Response to Oliver R. Baker KATHRYN WALLS 229 On Superstition and Prejudice in the Beginning of Silas Marner JOHN H. MAZAHERI 238 “Mundane Things”: Response to Neil Browne MICHAEL ANESKO 259 New Money, Slightly Older Money & “Democratic” Writing: A Response to Neil Browne ANDREW MADIGAN 263 The Perception of Relations: An Answer to Andrew Madigan and Michael Anesko NEIL BROWNE 271 Self, World and the Art of Faith-Healing in the Age of Trauma: A Response to Susan Ang’s Reading of English Music SUSAN ONEGA 276 Connotations Vol. 19.1-3 (2009/2010) A Response to Åke Bergvall’s “Resurrection as Blasphemy in Canto 5 of Edmund Spenser’s ‘The Legend of Holiness’”* MATTHEW A. FIKE Åke Bergvall clearly sets out his purpose in two statements early in his article. First, “I shall argue that Duessa’s act of salvation is blas- phemous and (consequently) ineffectual” (1-2). Second, “[t]he conten- tion of this paper is that Duessa and her ‘mother’ Night, even as they bring linguistic confusion and stage a blasphemous mock-imitation of Christ’s harrowing of hell, may be suffering the same fate” (2). The final phrase may mean “willing evil but working good” (2), but this may not be entirely clear. The key concept, then, is blasphemy, which Bergvall, following An- dreea-Tereza Nitisor, claims to be “‘textual’ and ‘linguistic.’” “That linguistic profanation,” writes Bergvall, “can be felt in the semantic confusion of canto 5,” and so forth (2). The nexus of blasphemy, lin- guistic profanation, and semantic confusion is a bit shaky, but Bergvall offers a capable and sensitive close reading of canto 5, with an emphasis on the multiple readings that arise from ambiguous statements such as Duessa’s “Thine the shield, and I, and all” (I.5.11). Bergvall writes: “In fact, there is no conclusive evidence which of the two knights Duessa is actually addressing, or indeed, if she is rather hedging her bets” (5; emphasis added). But the uncertainty here is the key point—the lack of evidence is evidence. As stated in my book, Spenser’s Underworld in the 1590 Faerie Queene, “the remark may be *Reference: Åke Bergvall, “Resurrection as Blasphemy in Canto 5 of Edmund Spenser’s ‘The Legend of Holiness,’” Connotations 16.1-3 (2006/2007): 1-10. For the original article as well as all contributions to this debate, please check the Connotations website at <http://www.connotations.de/debbergvall 01613.htm>. 2 MATTHEW A. FIKE addressed to either Redcrosse or Sans Joy (she is covering her bases)” (42; emphasis added). The ambiguity is purposeful, as the author later seems to agree: “indeed, she seems more than happy to exchange lovers depending on their luck in the jousts” (5). Duessa’s falseness is another nicely developed feature of Bergvall’s article, but he is at his best in delivering insights on blasphemy, nar- rowly defined. His point about “Messianic delight at seeing the new- born Savior in chapter 3 of the Gospel of Luke” in connection with Night’s mention of the “child, whom I haue longd to see” (I.5.27) is a very good reading (8). So is the insight, borrowed from A. C. Hamil- ton’s note, that “some” in stanza 26 may refer to Christ as well as others. At these two points, the article delivers on the notion of blas- phemy in its first statement of purpose. But there is a disconnection between the author’s stated goal and what he actually achieves insofar as the true interest here—namely, confusion, developed often as falseness—is rarely blasphemous. The article’s second statement of purpose, which concerns the har- rowing of hell, is somewhat at odds with Bergvall’s assertion in para- graph 2 that his “contribution” is not source study. Demonstrating that canto 5 includes blasphemy requires reference to sources, as with the passage from Luke and the traditional understanding of Christ’s harrowing of hell, which the Bible originates, the Fathers confirm, and texts like Langland’s Piers Plowman dramatize.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • This Is the File GUTINDEX.ALL Updated to July 5, 2013
    This is the file GUTINDEX.ALL Updated to July 5, 2013 -=] INTRODUCTION [=- This catalog is a plain text compilation of our eBook files, as follows: GUTINDEX.2013 is a plain text listing of eBooks posted to the Project Gutenberg collection between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2013 with eBook numbers starting at 41750. GUTINDEX.2012 is a plain text listing of eBooks posted to the Project Gutenberg collection between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2012 with eBook numbers starting at 38460 and ending with 41749. GUTINDEX.2011 is a plain text listing of eBooks posted to the Project Gutenberg collection between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2011 with eBook numbers starting at 34807 and ending with 38459. GUTINDEX.2010 is a plain text listing of eBooks posted to the Project Gutenberg collection between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2010 with eBook numbers starting at 30822 and ending with 34806. GUTINDEX.2009 is a plain text listing of eBooks posted to the Project Gutenberg collection between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2009 with eBook numbers starting at 27681 and ending with 30821. GUTINDEX.2008 is a plain text listing of eBooks posted to the Project Gutenberg collection between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2008 with eBook numbers starting at 24098 and ending with 27680. GUTINDEX.2007 is a plain text listing of eBooks posted to the Project Gutenberg collection between January 1, 2007 and December 31, 2007 with eBook numbers starting at 20240 and ending with 24097. GUTINDEX.2006 is a plain text listing of eBooks posted to the Project Gutenberg collection between January 1, 2006 and December 31, 2006 with eBook numbers starting at 17438 and ending with 20239.
    [Show full text]
  • Eighteenth-Century Satires of Science and Social Innovation
    Burlesque Natural Philosophers: Eighteenth-Century Satires of Science and Social Innovation by Matthew Risling A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy Department of English University of Toronto © Copyright by Matthew Risling 2017 Burlesque Natural Philosophers: Eighteenth-Century Satires of Science and Social Innovation Matthew Risling Doctorate of Philosophy Department of English University of Toronto 2017 Abstract This dissertation examines the socio-political underpinnings of the satires about science that proliferated in British literature from 1660 to 1800. Most scholarship on the topic assumes that frequent literary assaults reflected a prevailing scepticism about science, and this assumption continues to prejudice analyses of satires like The Virtuoso (1676), Blazing World (1668), and the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus (pub.1741). However, science was widely embraced as a reliable mode of investigation, and people were generally enthusiastic about it. Why then are there so many farcical natural philosophers in eighteenth century literature and so few respectable ones? I argue that the satirical virtuoso served as a focal point for new forms of social conflict. His zeal for scientific innovation registered broader, often unacknowledged, anxieties about England’s emerging cultural of innovation. Thus, burlesque natural philosophers, who strive to topple traditional hierarchies of knowledge, serve as proxies for the dynamic middle orders, who were seen to threaten traditional social hierarchies. The dissertation is composed of five case studies focusing on different moments of intersection between science and social hierarchies. The first study is of Margaret Cavendish, whose !ii fantastical travelogue Blazing World and its companion treatise on Experimental Natural Philosophy (1668) articulate the perceived link between epistemic and political revolution in a manner that most eighteenth-century satires merely imply.
    [Show full text]
  • "Rank Corpuscles": Soil and Identity in Eighteenth-Century Representations" (2014)
    Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository January 2015 "Rank Corpuscles": Soil and Identity in Eighteenth- Century Representations Nina Patricia Budabin McQuown The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Alison Conway The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in English A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Nina Patricia Budabin McQuown 2014 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Budabin McQuown, Nina Patricia, ""Rank Corpuscles": Soil and Identity in Eighteenth-Century Representations" (2014). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 2625. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/2625 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. “RANK CORPUSCLES”: SOIL AND IDENTITY IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REPRESENTATIONS (Thesis format: Monograph) by Nina Budabin McQuown Graduate Program in English A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada © Nina Budabin McQuown 2014 Abstract In this dissertation, I analyze scenes of encounter between human beings and human dust in eighteenth-century texts. Ploughmen exhume bones and armor in the arable, consumers taste other people’s excrement in their vegetables, and improvers lime the soil to break down ancient corpses. In process, I find that eighteenth-century British authors recognized the soil as an agent of continuity, with the capacity to preserve, mobilize, and disseminate the material constituents of identity from one body into another.
    [Show full text]
  • Romantic Ekphrasis and the Intellectual Culture of Sensibility
    Romantic Ekphrasis and the Intellectual Culture of Sensibility by Jennifer Emily O’Kell A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate English Department University of Toronto © Copyright by Jennifer Emily O’Kell (2016) Romantic Ekphrasis and the Intellectual Culture of Sensibility Jennifer Emily O’Kell Doctor of Philosophy Graduate English Department University of Toronto 2016 Abstract This thesis examines the intersection of poetry about art, the culture of sensibility, and eighteenth-century aesthetic thought in Romantic literature. These converging discourses allowed poets to suggest insights into the necessary conditions of sympathetic exchange, and the limits of what sympathy can accomplish. This thesis proposes ambitious changes to our understanding of Romantic ekphrasis in order to offer a subtle but crucial change to our understanding of the culture of sensibility. It considers a broad range of Romantic ekphrases – some well-known poems by Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley, and some largely unstudied poems by Cowper, Mary Russell Mitford, Henry Hart Milman, Barry Cornwall, and others – reading these texts against multiple historical contexts. One of these contexts is the eighteenth-century idea that the visual arts represent only a single, “pregnant” moment, whereas literature represents successions of events. Moral philosophy and the philosophy of the sister arts are bound up with one another throughout the eighteenth century; David Hume’s formulation of sympathy as instinctive and visual comes to be associated with painting and sculpture, while Adam Smith’s formulation of it as an imagined reconstruction comes to be associated with literature. Another key context is the ekphrastic tradition, especially its understudied eighteenth-century portion.
    [Show full text]
  • How Milton's Rhythms Work
    How Milton’s Rhythms Work Michael Taylor Senior Honors Thesis: Stanford University Department of English Advised by Professor Blair Hoxby Second Reader: Professor Roland Greene May 15, 2015 Acknowledgments The person who most influenced the contents of this thesis told me her favorite dedication was John Steinbeck’s at the opening of East of Eden. In it, Steinbeck talks of his work as of a small wooden box. He tells his friend Pat that “nearly everything I have is in it, and it is not full.” This page is to acknowledge two things: first, that the box of this thesis is far from full, no matter how much I have put into it. And second, that much of what has found its way into this box would have fallen astray, were it not for the people who have supported me in various ways, both throughout my life and throughout the past year. First of all, I owe a special kind of respect and thanks to my advisor, Blair Hoxby. Not only has he read many more pages than appear in this thesis, and not only has he read many more pages than I could have expected even the most engaged advisor to read; he has also done this with a patience and care for which I have a deep, deep gratitude. I also want to thank Erik Johnson, my graduate mentor, for his part in this project. Theses are like boxes in many ways, but one way in which theses are very different is that they have due dates. Thank you, Erik, for providing valuable feedback, for sharing your considerable expertise with someone who needed it, and, most of all, for keeping me on track.
    [Show full text]
  • The Rape of the Lock and the Origins of Game Theory*1
    Connotations Vol. 19.1-3 (2009/2010) The Rape of the Lock and the Origins of Game Theory*1 SEAN R. SILVER When I teach Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, I generally spend an entire class on the game of cards. Early in the third canto the Baron and Belinda sit down to a game of ombre; what occurs over the “ver- dant field” (iii.52) of the card-table, described in the half-serious, half- teasing idiom of the mock-epic, forms the central set-piece of the poem. I find that students respond to the game best when they can see it—when the rudimentary rules are explained, and the students can see the game as it unfolds. To this end, I have experimented with a PowerPoint presentation which restages the game of ombre as though it were conducted at an online gambling website, which I call www.rotlombre.net. The point is to streamline the rules of the game, to make it look more like a game that they know, Hearts or Texas Hold-’em, for instance. I aim, that is, to emphasize the social relations which the game itself organizes. The payoff moment—at least in terms of the pacing of the lecture—is the last, deciding trick, when the Baron leads with the ace of hearts. Belinda slaps down her “unseen [King],” which “falls like thunder on the prostrate ace” (iii.95-98; Figure 1). Students, freed from thinking about the rules of play (is this “codille” or “vole”?) are prepared to discuss the sexual politics at play, the Baron’s sad—and losing card—crushed by Belinda’s gesture of mas- culine majesty.
    [Show full text]
  • Alexander Pope and His Patrons
    Alexander Pope and his Patrons Trea Mary Liddy Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University College London University of London September 2000 ProQuest Number: U643920 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest U643920 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Abstract This thesis is an examination of Alexander Pope’s relationships with his patrons, the primary purpose of which is to discover the ways in which patronage mattered to him. Much of the thesis is a study of Pope’s relationships with two particular patrons: Richard Boyle, 3'"^ Earl of Burlington (1695-1753) and Allen Bathurst, T* Baron and later 1®‘ Earl Bathurst (1684-1775). It argues that these two were his most important patrons. Taking Pope’s relationships with these two men as case studies, it examines his claim that his relationships with his patrons were governed not only by need but by friendship. Chapter 1, ‘Living “among the Great”: the Historical Background to Pope’s Relationships with his Patrons’, consists of six sections.
    [Show full text]
  • Xerox University Microfilms
    INFORMATION TO USERS This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the original submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insure you complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photographer suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You will find a good image of the page in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being photographed the photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again — beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4. The majority of users indicate that the textual content is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be made from "photographs" if essential to the understanding of the dissertation.
    [Show full text]
  • Subjects at Sea Final
    DISCLAIMER: This document does not meet current format guidelines Graduate School at the The University of Texas at Austin. of the It has been published for informational use only. Copyright by Alexis Alida Harasemovitch-Truax 2016 The Dissertation Committee for Alexis Alida Harasemovitch-Truax Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Subjects at Sea: Navigating Power in the British Mediterranean, 1661- 1783 Committee: Philippa Levine, Supervisor Julie Hardwick Tillman Nechtman Robert A. Olwell James M. Vaughn Subjects at Sea: Navigating Power in the British Mediterranean 1661- 1783 by Alexis Harasemovitch-Truax, B.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2016 Subjects at Sea: Navigating Power in the British Mediterranean, 1661- 1783 Alexis Alida Harasemovitch-Truax, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2016 Supervisor: Philippa Levine In 1608 an English court ruled that those born within the King’s domain were English subjects. Subjects had obligations to the Crown, but they also received certain rights and privileges. On land they were protected by the common law and could petition the King. At sea, treaties kept them safe from the “Barbary pirates”—privateers that captured ships and ransomed or enslaved their sailors. During wartime, British subjects could privateer themselves, with a commission to plunder the ships of England’s enemies. What would “British subject” come to mean as the King’s domains expanded across the seas? Even as the British began to embark on the territorial conquests that would subject people on the other side of the globe to British rule, Britain was already cultivating a maritime empire of diverse subjects right in the heart of Europe.
    [Show full text]