EXPLORATIONS in RENAISSANCE CULTURE Volume X, 1984

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EXPLORATIONS IN RENAISSANCE CULTURE Volume X, 1984

Editor

Albert W. Fields

Associate Editors

Dorthy H. Brown Gloria K. Fiero Robert F. Schmalz

Assistant Editors

Katherine A. Holman Jeffrey S. Kilgore Sami Lee Webb

SCRCOFFICERS, 1984-85

Paul S. Parrish Texas A & M University President Gloria K. Fiero University of Southwestern Louisiana Vice-President Donald R. Dickson Texas A & M University Secretary-Treasurer

EIRC, an interdisciplinary journal, is published annually by the Levy Humanities Series and the South-Central Renaissance Confer ence, an affiliate of the Renaissance Society of America. Contributors must be members of the SCRC. Subscriptions to EIRC are included in members' annual SCRC dues. Library subscriptions and single copies are $5. Back issues are available. The editors follow the cur rent edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers. Correspondence con cerning editorial matters should be addressed to the Editor, EIRe, Box 44691, USL Station, Lafayette, LA 70504. Subscriptions should be placed with the Managing Editor, EIRC, Box 44691, USL Sta tion, Lafayette, LA 70504. Preface

Over the past decade, Memphis State University and The Univer sity ofSouthern Mississippi have generously subsidized Explorations in Renaissance Culture, and the editors of EIRChave established its reputation as an interdisciplinary journal of substantial scholarship. With this issue, The Levy Humanities Series and The University of Southwestern Louisiana assurne responsibility for the publication of Explorations in Renaissance Culture. The South-Central Renais sance Conference will continue to retain autonomy over content and editorial practice of EIRC. The aim of the present editors of EIRC is to continue the tradition established by their predecessors. In ensuing years, The Levy Humanities Se ries will publish addi tional issues under the generic title Explorations. The new issues will be, as Explorations in Renaissance Culture continues to be, interdis ciplinary in the humanities. Plans are presently under way to publish in 1986 an issue entitled Explorations: The Age oE Enlightenment. For these additional issues, solicitation of articles will be interna tional, and occasional prizes on given subjects may be offered. The Levy Humanities Series continues the critical tradition of Lionel Trilling; psychoanalytical themes and perspectives, as the fol lowing, are thus necessary considerations: man as an individual with a psychologicallife and development that cannot be ignored; man as an ethical creature inescapably concerned with the moral imperatives of society; man as a "being" whose dialectic with hirnself and his cul ture informs art and literature. The principal publications ofThe Levy Humanities Se ries for pre vious years are the separately bound volumes of the Flora Levy Lec tures. These include the lectures of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Robert Coles, Walker Percy, Shirley Ann Grau, and Sophia Freud Lowens tein. This year's lecture by Bruno Bettelheim is forthcoming. The cover of each of these works is a reproduction of a commissioned por trait interpretation by the internationally renowned artist George Rodrigue. The South-Central Renaissance Conference and the editors of Ex plorations in Renaissance Culture are grateful to the administration of the University of Southwestern Louisiana, the USL Foundation, and the Levy Humanities Series-particularly Professor Maurice duQuesnay-for their support of this publication.

AlbertW. Fields