The landscape description of the New World that begins Chateaubriand's Atala has suffered from misguided criticism. Hostile critics have approached it “scientifically,” denying the authenticity of its details; admirers have rarely offered more than a theory of exoticism. Neither of these approaches uncovers the governing analogy that shaped the landscape details: the setting of Atala as an approximate paradise. The New World is “le nouvel Éden,” adapted to a tradition of garden paradises, particularly that of Milton's Paradise Lost. While recalling its mythical model, however, the features of Chateaubriand's landscape simultaneously and ironically suggest a fallen condition by presenting dualities in a state of tension. This ambivalence sets up a double relationship to the paradisiacal theme treated in the novel. The terrestrial paradise is recalled as the appropriate setting for another Fall. The conflicting properties of the symbolic locale do not achieve the expected synthesis and the story of the ill-fated lovers parallels the mythical Fall analogue. The emphasis then shifts to the celestial paradise, the religious (and Romantic) reconciliation of opposites. This remains tentative, however, for the final image of the novel is of the “new Eden” deprived of its sacred context rife with dualities.

The nairator in Chaucer's poetry, a pose which is neither completely separate from nor identical with the poet himself, develops stylistically as he declines intellectually from the dream vision poems to the Canterbury Tales (1369-87). In the early works he is neither naive nor sophisticated, but represents a type we know in legal terms as the “reasonable man” who personifies the social-moral norms of society in an unemotional, unintellectual, and unimaginative fashion. This character “Geffrey” seems dull-witted and absurd only in contrast to the unusual situations or irrational and autocratic individuals he confronts. His “reasonable” perception is on a lower, second, level to their sophisticated first, an ironic structure which foreshadows that of Jane Austen. In the Canterbury Tales, the pilgrim “Chaucer” drops to the lowest, or third, level; he is an uncomprehending caricature who “agrees” with the first-level ironist, but who misunderstands his irony. Herry Bailly usually acts the part of the prosaic “reasonable man,” but the poet raises the reader-listener to his own highest (first) level of perception. Thus Chaucer's degradation of his own pose brings about a progressive and significant intensification of his humor.

Saint-Exupéry, whether by artistic design or by stylistic spontaneity, wreathes the pilot, the generic hero of his four novels, Courrier Sud, Vol de nuit, Terre des hommes, Pilote de guerre, in an aura of such hyperbole that the reader, raised on the banalities of the “nouveau roman,” might find such exaggeration naive if not ludicrous. Yet the legend of the Saint-Exupéryian hero is not cased in a rigid matrix. In these four works—the first two fiction, the others essentially true narrative—the imagery that forms the substance of the myth of the pilot undergoes a subtle transformation: legendary, mythological, and mystical in Courrier Sud, it is subtly and successively altered. In the final pages of Pilate de guerre the metamorphcsis is complete, the myth is dissipated in a profession of fraternal faith, and, through its hero, man is seen in his true perspective, more realistic but no less heroic.

A study of Ezra Pound's translations of Guido Cavalcanti's Rime shows Pound's lifelong interest in the work of the Italian poet. A further tracing of Cavalcanti's rhetoric in the Cantos shows that Pound employed Cavalcanti in a twofold way: he related him to Neoplatonic philosophers through his use of light imagery, and he also treated him as an Aristotelian empiricist. He thus made Cavalcanti serve two apparently divergent aims, just as Pound's own work may do. Although the modern poet's philosophic understanding of Cavalcanti is open to controversy, his poetic uses have accounted for some of the finest passages of the twentieth-century epic.

Changes in his expressed ideology subjected the works of Louis-Ferdinand Céline to criteria that were not all literary. Brasillach and Ezra Pound reversed themselves in the assessment of his production; so did liberal and leftist critics. Now, thirteen years after Céline's death, one can attempt a more complete and balanced approach to his works. It must be objective and use a formal angle: statistical analysis along a linguistic and structural line. A study of the vocabulary, syntax, and architecture of Céline's nine novels reveals a continuous evolution. Some changes fall into almost perfectly regular patterns: the fragmented sentence grows to macromolecular agglomerates. In Nord 14 lines are organized in one sentence, while in Voyage they are divided into 17. The overall analysis points up four different periods which do not reflect any ideological changes. Thus, the Celinian novels must be treated as a whole: considered separately, their significance is impaired. (In French)

Milton scholars have long been aware of inconsistencies in Milton's views regarding the Old Testament and the Jews. He shows, concurrently, “powerful judaistic motifs” and “anti-judaistic motifs.” He advocated liberty of conscience but was silent during the debate on the Readmission of the Jews. Milton's views may have evolved or changed but he was doctrinally consistent. He dichotomized the Old Testament constellation of personae and concepts into “Judaic” motifs which he rejected and “Hebraic” motifs which he adopted. He took Paul's antithesis of the Law (the Flesh) and the Gospel (the Spirit) and applied it within the Hebrew Bible itself. The “Judaic” complex is that which is human, relevant to the Jews as a people inclined to servitude, and the “external” aspect of the Mosaic Law, also a form of bondage. The “Hebraic” complex is divine, universal, and the “internal” Scripture, equated with freedom and. ultimately, Christian Liberty. The “Hebraic” motif supplies a continuity for the Scriptures. The dichotomy accords with Milton's philosophy (Plato's and Aristotle's dualisms) and with his methodology of structural and imagistic contrasts. The dichotomy explains the presence of “judaistic” and “anti-judaistic” motifs as well as his “reluctance” to grant the Jews freedom of worship.

Julien Green's locating numerous fictional works (novels, stories, one play) in America has not been considered particularly significant, as these works share with those set in France common themes, moods, and character types which seem to transcend the specific national settings. In those works set in America there is, however, an unusually close relationship between the personal tragedies and the national milieu, certain problems of American life seeming to engender the dilemmas that lead the characters to tragic outcomes. Yet these circumstances are not so typically “American” as suggestive of problems the French novelist himself, born in France of American parents, encountered during the three crucial years he reluctantly spent in America following World War t. His lengthy Journal and some recent autobiographical works reveal that the principal dilemmas that torment his American characters relate to those which the unusual circumstances of his double nationality created for him: problems centering about the matters of national belonging and personal morality (relative to American puritanism). Green's American heroes are primarily transformations of himself, created partly to purge himself of his own tragic inclinations, partly to recapture a period of his life which, though fundamentally painful, had overtones of sweetness because of his first sexual awakening.

The image projected in the reader's mind by an author's description offers a basis for comparison with the visual arts. Art historical criteria are applied to equivalent descriptions—a portrait, an architectural complex, and a scene involving motion—in the Perceval of Chrestien de Troyes and the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach. Chrestien's traditional rhetorical portrait of Blancheflor is a still, frontal, symmetrical image; his description of chastel merveile gives meticulous surface detail but instead of a logical spatial connection the parts are simply juxtaposed in the plane; Gavain's fight with the lion shows no real motion but breaks down into a series of still vignettes which represent rather than show the action. On the other hand, Wolfram's portrait of Condwiramurs is glimpsed from various angles and distances as she moves through space; Schastel Marveile is vaguely described but spatially self-consistent; motion in Gawan's lion fight is continuous in both space and time. Thus Chrestien's descriptions relate to the dominant tradition of medieval art which shows figures and objects in characteristic poses or arrangements outlined in the plane, Wolfram's to that uncommon strain which attempts to cope with natural relationships, particularly those of volumes in space.

The question of the extent to which Fielding's works present a consistent view of human nature may in part be answered by a study of his frequent use of educational theory. Fielding was familiar with the major issues and theories treated in the educational literature of his day and also recognized that various theories of education found their basis in various theories of human nature, the raw material with which education deals. In The Fathers, one of Fielding's lesser-known plays, he seems to assume that education is allpowerful in forming character, but in Joseph Andrews the entire question of education and human nature is treated with ironic ambivalence. In Tom Jones education is irrelevant to character development, and the Nightingale episode reads like a specific reversal of the theme of The Fathers. In the course of these three works Fielding apparently reverses his position, beginning with the assumption that human nature may be defined as a tabula rasa and concluding that human character is predetermined. In Amelia Fielding compromises between these extremes in a manner reminiscent of Locke's position in his Some Thoughts concerning Education.

Common generalizations about Reformation attitudes toward allegory are based on polemical denunciations by reformers of medieval “dialectical” exegesis. But Reformation definitions of the senses of Scripture are basically in accord with the definitions of medieval theologians. The reformers' attempts to draw a radical distinction between typology and allegory never succeeded and Reformation commentaries continued to allegorize, as demonstrated in the numerous Protestant commentaries on the Song of Songs. The crucial difference between medieval and Protestant spirituality in the Song commentaries lies not in their attitude toward allegory but in their conception of the nuptial metaphor, wherein human love symbolizes the love between God and man. Some Protestant commentators deny there is any reference to carnal love at all; those that do not, regard the metaphor as too dangerous for explication. Generally, they see that the aptness of the metaphor lies in the moral, domestic virtues of the marriage contract. In contrast, the mystical tradition of the Song, epitomized in Bernard, sees that the metaphor's aptness lies precisely in the passionate nature of the sexual union: it is the union of two in one flesh that is the most perfect symbol of the love of God.

One of Molière's early plays, Dom Garcie de Navarre ou le prince jaloux (staged in 1661), was an adaptation of a tragicomedy by Giacinto Andrea Cicognini, Le Gelosie fortunate def principe Rodrigo (1654). Although Molière's work failed, it contained characters, themes, and speeches he revived in his later comedies, especially in Le Misanthrope (1666), where the fourth act contained about ninety lines from two climactic scenes in Dom Garcie de Navarre, confrontations between the jealous hero and the innocent heroine. Moliere profited, however, not only from the text of his own earlier play but also from memories of Le Gelosie fortunate, which presented a striking combination of violent emotional conflicts and frequent humorous interludes. It probably inspired some of the excesses of Alceste—his irrational suspicions and vehement language. The Italian source contributed also to the conception and configuration of characters around Alceste, particularly the affectionate and sensible relationship ofEliante and Philinte.

Although twentieth-century Formalist criticism has concentrated upon stylistic analysis of “The Overcoat” and its skaz narrative technique, no previous study has focused directly upon another aspect of skaz—the influence of the narrator on the structure of the story and the pathetic passages. This aspect is essential to reconcile the juxtaposition of humor and pathos. The narrator, a creator of fiction, constructs a plot based on a moral principle: excessive self-confidence receives retribution. As evidenced in his tendency to satirize, the narrator is as guilty of this same self-confidence as his characters. Fearing similar retribution, he rejects responsibility for his satiric creation by limiting his omniscient point of view and placing the blame for negative portrayals on his objective depiction of reality. In true skaz style his own attitude, expressed in plot, point of view, and his own pathetic passage, is superimposed oh his characters, resulting in the first most quoted passage and in minor variations of it.