1 PLURAL SPACES, FICTIONAL MYSTERIES B.A.S. vol. XXV, 2019 2 A Journal of Romanian Society of English and American Studies Editor HORTENSIA PÂRLOG Executive Editors PIA BRÎNZEU MIRCEA MIHĂIEŞ LOREDANA PUNGĂ Advisory Board ŞTEFAN AVĂDANEI University of Iaşi ANDREI AVRAM University of Bucharest ALEXANDRA CORNILESCU University of Bucharest MARCEL CORNIS-POPE Virginia Commonwealth University RODICA DIMITRIU University of Iaşi LUMINIŢA FRENŢIU University of Timişoara FERNANDO GALVÁN University of Alcala UAH, Madrid MARTA GIBINSKA Jagiellonian University, Krakow MAURIZIO GOTTI University of Bergamo J. LACHLAN MACKENZIE Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam ŞTEFAN OLTEAN University of Cluj-Napoca ISTVAN D. RACZ University of Debrecen VIRGIL STANCIU University of Cluj-Napoca STEPHEN TAPSCOTT MIT, Cambridge, MA Publisher THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE, UNIVERSITY OF TIMIŞOARA The language of the journal is English. Contributions from both Romania and abroad are welcome. Articles for publication should be sent to Prof. Hortensia Pârlog, Department of English Language and Literature, 4, Bd. Vasile Pârvan, 300223, Timişoara, Romania. They should be supplied both as a hard copy and electronically at [email protected] © British and American Studies, vol. XXV, 2019 BAS. British and American Studies is indexed in the following data bases: ISSN 1224-3086 e-ISSN 2457-7715 Publisher MARILENA BRÂNDA Cover Design DAN URSACHI Cover llustration IOSIF STROIA Layout DORIN DAVIDEANU Editura Universităţii de Vest Str. Paris, nr. 1, 300003, Timişoara E-mail: [email protected]; Tel.: +40 - 256 592 681 3 PLURAL SPACES, FICTIONAL MYSTERIES CONTENTS PLURAL SPACES, FICTIONAL MYSTERIES Olena Lilova Allegoric Imagery in English Early Tudor Drama / 9 Juan de Dios Torralbo Caballero “I Found Pen, Ink and Paper […] I Kept Things Very Exact”. Genreness in Robinson Crusoe / 15 Elisabetta Marino An “Allopathic Pill” for a Diseased Society: The Heavenly Twins (1893) by Sarah Grand / 25 Simona Catrinel Avarvarei Behind the Wall of Silence: the Journey Nicoleta Rodica Dominte of Empowerment of the Other Voice from the Intricate Friezes of the Victorian Female Narrative to the Lofty Pillars of the Law / 33 Codrin Liviu Cuţitaru Charles Dickens’s Great(est) Expectation: the Death of the Author / 45 Carla Fusco Some Things are Better Left Unsaid: The Dark Clue or the Perilous Path of a Neo-Victorian Novel / 55 Selin Yurdakul The Other Side of the Coin: the Otherness of Bertha / Antoinette Mason in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea / 63 Octavian More Island Solitudes – Selfhood and Otherness in the Poetry of Matthew Arnold and Thomas Hardy / 71 Michel Prum The Victorian Machine as the Threatening Other in Samuel Butler‘s Erewhon (1872) / 81 Fred Erisman An Old Captivity: Nevil Shute’s Requiem for the Golden Age of Aviation / 87 B.A.S. vol. XXV, 2019 4 Armela Panajoti “The Lure of the Island”: the Workings of Power in Golding’s Lord of the Flies / 97 Andreea Daniela Ţacu Dark Humour and Social Satire in Jonathan Coe’s What a Carve Up! / 107 Veronica Pacheco Costa Images of Poverty in British Suffragist Theatre / 115 Corina Földi Reflections of Englishness and National Identity in Julian Barnes’ England England: a Case of Broken Mirrors / 123 EXPLORING WORLDS, IDENTITIES, AND GENRES Ileana Şora Dimitriu Utopia and Dystopia: ‘A Brave New World’ and the Case of JM Coetzee / 133 Eleonora Ravizza Exploring Otherness in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace. Ethical and Epistemological Reflections on Historiographic Metafiction / 143 Vesna Tripković-Samardžić The Glass Menagerie (1950): A Genre Adaptation / 153 Andreea Paris-Popa The Madmen of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and their Blakean Roots / 161 Cristina Chevereşan Self-Erasure and Self-Construal in Philip Roth’s The Human Stain / 173 Gabriela Glăvan The Wrath of Merry Levov: Mother/Daughter Chaos in Philip Roth’s American Pastoral / 181 Alexandru Budac Sensous Jockeys and Suicidal Drivers: the Equine Motif in Three Novels by John Hawkes / 189 Tamara Jovović Rethinking Race: Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and God Help the Child / 199 Felix Nicolau Re-enacting Les Paradies Artificiels by Re-mythologizing Inspiration / 205 5 PLURAL SPACES, FICTIONAL MYSTERIES ISOLATED WORDS, TEXTS, AND PARATEXTS Hans Sauer Aspects of Old English Word-Formation: Compounds in the OE Elegies and the Capitula of Theodulf / 215 Andreea Csillag Metaphors and Metonymies of the English and Russian Concepts of Fear in Context / 237 Dana Percec They Do it with Nursery Rhymes.The Loredana Pungă Mystery of Intertextuality in Agatha Christie’s Detective Fiction from a Literary Critic’s and a Translator’s Perspective / 247 Marina Alonso Gómez The Paratexts of the Second Translation into Spanish of E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India / 257 Mihăiţă Horezeanu The Gaps that Speak for Themselves or How to Create a Cloze (T)… / 265 Žana Knežević The Impact of Mother Tongue on Teaching English Grammar and Vocabulary / 273 NOTES ON THE AUTHORS / 279 B.A.S. vol. XXV, 2019 6 7 PLURAL SPACES, FICTIONAL MYSTERIES PLURAL SPACES, FICTIONAL MYSTERIES B.A.S. vol. XXV, 2019 8 9 PLURAL SPACES, FICTIONAL MYSTERIES АLLEGORIC IMAGERY IN ENGLISH EARLY TUDOR DRAMA OLENA LILOVA University “Mediterranean”, Podgorica Abstract: The paper deals with the role and content of allegorism in the plays of early Tudor dramatists (John Skelton, John Heywood and Nicholas Udall). In the English drama of the first half of the 16th c., allegorical characters are mainly correlated with the ethical canons of Christianity, though reference to the cultural heritage of classical antiquity is made evident in them, too. What distinguishes allegoric characters in early Tudor plays from medieval allegory is their reference to topical subjects. Keywords: allegory, classical heritage, early Tudor drama, legitimacy of power, Renaissance, Tudor dynasty 1. Introduction. The role of allegory in English medieval drama The theocentric drama of the Middle Ages was based on the allegoric imagery that implied rendering abstract (mainly Biblical) ideas and concepts through concrete, objective, and sensuous images. By means of allegoric imagery, medieval drama was talking to its viewers about timeless notions, such as life in God, eternal truth, sin, salvation, etc. The morality play, as one of the brightest manifestations of this kind of drama in medieval England, used allegoric images to disclose to the audience the main goals of human existence as well as the basic perils that a human being may come across in his/her earthly life. The figures of Vices and Virtues appeared on stage to carry on their constant fight for the main character’s soul (usually named Everyone or Mankind, or simply Man, etc.). With time, these allegorical characters, Vices in particular (e.g. Sloth, Avarice, Pride), got really recognizable to and popular with viewers. If a stout character appeared on the stage, with a slice of cheese and a bottle of wine in his hands, with pockets full of food, eating and drinking when a battle was just about to start, one could easily recognize the Vice figure of Glotony (Medwall 1980: 2276). This is how Henry Medwall represents this character in his morality play Nature (written in the late 1490s). This corporeal, fleshly representation of abstract ideas (quite often qualities and traits of human nature) in allegorical drama contributed a lot to its “iconographic dimension” (Walker 1991: 12), thus determining its ability to render knowledge about Christian ethical norms through very vivid physical images (“tableaux vivants”). 2. Transformations of the allegoric content in the early Tudor plays This artistic principle of dramatic representation remains extremely popular in English theatrical practices up to the New Age. At the same time, the nature of allegoric images is undergoing some crucial transformations caused by the cultural B.A.S. vol. XXV, 2019 10 shifts that mark the passage from the Middle Ages to the New Time – this intermediary and amazingly prolific period in the history of the European culture, called Renaissance. But before outlining the essence of these changes in the representation of allegoric images, let us look at one example from the play Magnyfycence by John Skelton, written in the years 1519-1520. Skelton was an outstanding poet and playwright, who belonged to the first generation of English men of letters, serving as courtiers at the royal courts of the Tudor monarchs Henry VII, Henry VIII, Queens Mary I and Elizabeth I. One of the characters belonging to the group of Vices in this play is named “Counterfeit Countenance” (or “false, pretended look”). His garment has many layers, allowing him to take off some of his clothes in the course of the performance, turn them inside out and put on again, thus illustrating the concept that he embodies – “everyone pretends to be someone else and you can never know what they really are”: Counterfet prechynge, and byleve the contrary; Counterfet conscyence, pevysse pope holy; Counterfet sadness, with delynge full madly; Counterfet holynes is called ypocrysy; Counterfet reason is not worth a flye; Conterfet wysdome and workes of foly; Counterfet Countenaunce every man dothe occupy (lines 466-472). In this way, the allegorical Vice-character conveys the idea of falsehood and pretence. It is remarkable that such figures were usually endowed with astonishing artistic energy and charisma. It not only originated in the characters’ vivid iconography, appearance and outfit, but it also resulted from their acquired features of real prototypes – English statesmen and courtiers of the day. As scholars of English drama assume, the plot of Skelton’s play is based on some real-life events, with the negative characters of the interlude being counterparts of the members of the Privy Council that was with much scandal dismissed on a charge of embezzlement in May 1519. The Council’s responsibilities were handed over to another state body, while the councillors themselves were expelled. King Henry VIII found himself in the centre of the political scandal caused by the mean advisors usurping his authority in the country.