2013.12 Journal of Literature and Art Studies

Journal of Literature and Art Studies
Volume 3, Number 12, December 2013 (Serial Number 25)
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Publication Information: Journal of Literature and Art Studies is published monthly in hard copy (ISSN 2159-5836) and online (ISSN 2159-5844) by David Publishing Company located at 16710 East Johnson Drive, City of Industry, CA 91745, USA Aims and Scope: Journal of Literature and Art Studies, a monthly professional academic journal, covers all sorts of researches on literature studies, art theory, appreciation of arts, culture and history of arts and other latest findings and achievements from experts and scholars all over the world. Editorial Board Members: Eric J. Abbey, Oakland Community College, USA Andrea Greenbaum, Barry University, USA Carolina Conte, Jacksonville University, USA Maya Zalbidea Paniagua, Universidad La Salle, Madrid, Spain Mary Harden, Western Oregon University, USA Lisa Socrates, University of London, United Kingdom Herman Jiesamfoek, City University of New York, USA Maria OConnell, Texas Tech University, USA Manuscripts and correspondence are invited for publication. You can submit your papers via Web Submission, or E-mail to literature.art@davidpublishing.org, art.literature@yahoo.com. Submission guidelines and Web Submission system are available at http://www.davidpublishing.org, www.davidpublishing.com. Editorial Office: 16710 East Johnson Drive, City of Industry, CA 91745, USA Tel: 1-323-984-7526, 323-410-1082 Fax: 1-323-984-7374, 323-908-0457 E-mail: literature.art@davidpublishing.org, art.literature@yahoo.com Copyright2013 by David Publishing Company and individual contributors. All rights reserved. David Publishing Company holds the exclusive copyright of all the contents of this journal. In accordance with the international convention, no part of this journal may be reproduced or transmitted by any media or publishing organs (including various websites) without the written permission of the copyright holder. Otherwise, any conduct would be considered as the violation of the copyright. The contents of this journal are available for any citation, however, all the citations should be clearly indicated with the title of this journal, serial number and the name of the author. Abstracted/Indexed in: Database of EBSCO, Massachusetts, USA Chinese Database of CEPS, Airiti Inc. & OCLC Chinese Scientific Journals Database, VIP Corporation, Chongqing, P.R.C. Ulrichs Periodicals Directory LLBA Database of ProQuest Summon Serials Solutions Google Scholar Subscription Information: Price (per year): Print $420 Online $300 Print and Online $560 David Publishing Company 16710 East Johnson Drive, City of Industry, CA 91745, USA Tel: 1-323-984-7526, 323-410-1082. Fax: 1-323-984-7374, 323-908-0457 E-mail: order@davidpublishing.com
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Journal of Literature and Art Studies

Volume 3, Number 12, December 2013 (Serial Number 25)
Contents
Literature Studies
The Construction of New Woman in Chen Hengzhes Autobiography Tieniu Cheng The Shroud and the Trope: Representations of Discourse and of the Feminine in Homers Odyssey Alexandre Veloso de Abreu 757 739
Art Studies
The Art Hero Made InternationalBenjamin West Constructs Wolfes Death on the Plains of Abraham Lloyd James Bennett Muse Turned Femme Fatale in D. G. Rossettis Painting and Poetry Pritha Kundu 772 765
Special Research
The Image of an Addressee in Translational Discourse: Exemplified by the Texts Translated From Slovenian Language Irina Shchukina Reflections on the Body in Clive Barkers The Body Politic Folio Jessica Strengthening and Restoration of Historical StructuresMirahor Ilyas Beg Mosque in Kora 809 Enea Mustafaraj, Yavuz Yardm 799 787
Journal of Literature and Art Studies, ISSN 2159-5836 December 2013, Vol. 3, No. 12, 739-756
DA VID
PUBLISHING
The Construction of New Woman in Chen Hengzhes Autobiography

Tieniu Cheng
Savannah State University, Savannah, USA
This essay examines the autobiography of Chen Hengzhe (1890-1976) (see Appendix), a relatively less studied woman writer, historian, and critic in modern China. Through the study in four aspects, namely, the pursuit of modern education, simple appearance, great leaders, and the ambassadors of culture, the authors research indicates that Chens construction of new woman has been influenced by complex historical and cultural forces such as the Chinese traditional culture, Western culture, and the iconoclastic spirit of the New Culture Movement. Meanwhile, Chens gender consciousness is also an important element. Moreover, Chens pioneering standing and her own experiences of studying abroad makes her take the lead in conceiving womens leadership and their roles in global culture communications. In the late Qing and the early Republic, traditional values and norms of womanhood were severely challenged. Chens construction of new woman is her conscious effort to define a new womanhood and is an integral part of the ongoing exploration of Chinese women for modern womanhood. Through the examination of Chens new woman, this paper seeks to enrich our understanding of the complexity of modern Chinese womens exploration of modern womanhood. Keywords: new woman, culture and politics, modern China, womanhood, autobiography, Chen Hengzhe
Introduction
In the late Qing and the early Republic, traditional values and norms of womanhood were severely challenged. Facing the unprecedented task of constructing modern womanhood, many pioneers made great efforts to explore the features of new woman and Chen Hengzhe was one of them. Chen Hengzhe (1890-1976) (see Appendix), best known in Western-language sources as Sophia H. Chen Zen, was a pioneering woman writer, historian, and critic in modern China. Chen achieved quite a few the first in modern Chinese history. She was among the first group of female students who were sent to study in the United States by the Chinese government in 1914. She became the first female professor at Peking University in 1920. She was the first woman writer who published a vernacular short story in 1917. Chen described and commented on modern womanhood in her works such as essays, short stories, poems, and autobiography. Chens daughter, historian E-tu Zen Sun
Acknowledgments: First and foremost, the author owes the greatest debt to Professor Hu Ying, her advisor, for her instruction, guidance, and inspiration during the authors Ph. D. study at the University of California, Irvine and the years after that. The author is also grateful to Professor Martin W. Huang and Professor Bert M. Scruggs for their valuable comments on her dissertation and research. Tieniu Cheng, Ph. D., assistant professor, Department of Liberal Arts, Savannah State University.
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THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY
(1993) remarks, In the early Republican period, her (my mother) ideas of women was very orignial and full of insightful viewpoints (p. 3). However, Chens ideas of modern womanhood have not been adequatetely studied. In the paper, the author chooses to explore Chens ideas of new woman through studying a relatively less studied literary text, that is, her autobiography.
Chen Hengzhe and Her Autobiography

Chen was born in a scholar-official family in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province (see Appendix). Many of her male ancestors or elders were outstanding scholars and officials. Her grandfather Chen Zhongying (see Appendix) and her father, Chen Tao (see Appendix) were magistrates and well-known scholars and poets1. Remarkably, many women in Chens family were well educated and talented. Her grandmother was an artist. Her mother, Zhuang Yaofu (see Appendix), was a renowned painter in Changzhou. Chen received good education in Chinese history and literature from her parents and was introduced to the newly imported Western learning by her maternal uncle, Zhuang Sijian (see Appendix). She was sent to a medical school in Shanghai in 19042. In 1914 she passed the examination of the Tsing Hua College and was sent to study in the US on Boxer Indemnity Scholarship. In 1915 Chen entered Vassar Collage, majoring in Western history. In 1919, she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received her B.A. (Bachelor of Arts) in history from Vassar College. Then she continued her graduate study at the University of Chicago. She started to write essays and literary works for Liumei xuesheng jibao (American educated Chinese students quarterly paper) (see Appendix) in 1915. Chen met Ren Hongjun (see Appendix) (1886-1961) and Hu Shi (see Appendix) (1891-1962), who were editors of the journal. When Hu Shi advocated the vernacular and literary reform around 1916, most Chinese students in the US were strongly opposed to the reform. Only Chen gave him moral supports. Later Hu Shi called her the earliest comrade of the new literature. In 1917, Chens vernacular short story, Yiri (One day) (see Appendix), was published in this journal and was one of the earliest vernacular short stories in modern China3. Chen received her M.A. in history from the University of Chicago in 1920. She returned to China in the same year and became the first female professor at National Peking University. Chen actively participated in the New Culture Movement and published a few vernacular poems, short stories, and essays. In post-May Fourth periods, Chen broadened her writings to social criticism and historical studies. Chen acted as the editor of Symposium on Chinese Culture, which was published by the China Council of the I. P. R (Institute of Pacific Relations) in 1931. Chen married Ren Hongjun in 19204. After 1949, Chen lived in Shanghai and passed away in 1976. Despite Chens singular achievements, her writings and thoughts have not been extensively explored in
For more information about Chens grandfather, father, and uncles, see Biographical Dictionary of Republican China (1967), Vol. 1, p. 184. 2 Chen studied in the medical school for three years. During this time, her father arranged a betrothal for her. Resisting the arranged marriage at a time when it was hardly ever heard of, Chen left home alone in a miserable situation. Fortunately, she was taken in by her aunt, Chen Deyi, and stayed with her for several years. Since her father did not provide her enough financial support, Chen once had to act as a tutor for two children of a rich lady. For more details, see Chen (1935-1936), pp. 133-153; see also Boorman and Howard (1967), p. 184. 3 Lu Xuns Kuangren riji (The diary of the Mad Man) (see Appendix) was published in New Youth in 1918 Chens Yiri was one year earlier than Lu Xuns short story. 4 The couple had two daughters and one son, who also received their higher education in the United States.
1
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mainstream of Chinese studies. In the English-language study, Chens literary works have been examined mainly by three scholars, namely, Michel Hockx, Janet Ng, and Jing Wang5. Hockx compares Lu Xuns The Diary of a Madman (see Appendix) with Chens narrative poem Renjia shuowo fale chi (People say that I am crazy) (see Appendix). Ng studies Chens short story One Day. Jing Wangs dissertation has been the only one that examines Chens autobiography so far 6 . Wang briefly examines Chens autobiography and makes a few insightful observations7. Chen wrote her autobiography, Autobiography of a Chinese Young Girl, in English and published it between 1935 and 19368. Chens autobiography narrates important experiences in her early life and highlights her struggle for modern education. It ends with her departure for the US in 1914. Closely, examining the content and writing strategies, we can see that far more than a simple narrative of her early life, the text challenges traditional gender roles and gendered literary conventions. Meanwhile, Chen endeavors to construct characteristics of new woman. In the period from the late Qing to the early Republic, Chinese society underwent profound changes. The old notions of womanhood were largely challenged. Some women began to seek modern womanhood, which had no precedent in Chinese history. This paper examines a relatively little studied autobiography by Chen Hengzhe. Through studying four aspects of Chens construction of new woman, namely, the pursuit of modern education, simple appearance, great leaders, and the ambassadors of culture, this paper seeks to contribute to a more complex picture of the construction of new woman in modern China. Before the author proceeds with the four aspects in question, she needs to set Chens autobiography in the global culture landscape of the 1930s. In the foreword Chen (1935-1936) writes:
My purpose in writing this book is twofold. In the first place, so much interest in [is] being taken recently by the English-reading public in the Chinese life and Chinese culture and so many books have been written on these topics, that many of my good friends in America and Europe have expressed the wish that we Chinese might also write something about our own country and our own people, . (p. iii) Using horizontal reading strategy, Hockx insightfully shows a mutual affinity of the two works. Ng argues that through using the strategy of aurality, Chen challenges the gendered literary conventions and releases her writing from the limitation of the gendered ideology. Since 2010, Denise Gimpel published several essays about Chen Hengzhe. Most of them are on Chens historical studies. One essay, Writing from In-Between: The Transformative Space of Chen Hengzhes Fiction, examines Chens literary works. However, Chens autobiography was not examined in this essay. 6 In the English-language study on modern Chinese literature and culture, very few researches have been conducted on womens autobiographies. Moreover, among them Chens autobiography has been largely neglected. As for the few studies on modern Chinese womens autobiography, Yi-tsi Feuerwerkers essay Women as Writers in the 1920s and 1930s has been regarded as a pioneering study on womens autobiographical writings. Although Feuerwerker examines quite a few autobiographies of women intellectuals, Chen Hengzhes autobiography is not even mentioned. Janet Ng conducts an insightful and rather comprehensive study on autobiographies of the early twentieth century. However, she discusses Chens short story, One Day rather than Chens autobiography. Amy D. Dooling devotes a chapter of her book, Womens Literary Feminism in Twentieth Century China, to the autobiographies of modern women intellectuals. Dooling successfully brings some less-known writers and their autobiographies to academic attention. However, Chen Hengzhe is still not mentioned. In her book devoted exclusively to autobiographical practice of women writers, Lingzhen Wang examines how women from Qiu Jin to Wang Anyi have articulated their specific historical situations through autobiographical writing. However, she also does not include Chen Hengzhe in her research. 7 Due to the limited space of about ten pages in Wangs dissertation, many aspects and features of Chens autobiography have not been adequately studied. 8 The book itself does not provide the date of publication. The date of Chens foreword is September 1935. The original copy of the autobiography the author reads is collected in the East Asian library of University of Chicago. On the upper right hand corner of the front cover a stamp mark February 28, 1936 can be seen rather clearly. This stamp mark indicates the date when the East Asian library received the book. Therefore, my estimate is that Chens autobiography was published between September 1935 and February 1936.
5
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THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY The background against which Chen wrote her autobiography was a worldwide interest in China and
Chinese culture around the 1930s. Chen herself does not explain the recent interest of the West in China9. However, if we examine the issue against the global cultural environment of the 1930s, two books need to be mentioned. Pearl S. Buck, a renowned American writer, published her highly successful book, The Good Earth, in 193010. In August 1935, Lin Yutang (1895-1976), a renowned Chinese scholar and writer, published his popular book My Country and My People (1935). Noticeably, Buck wrote an introduction for Lins book and provided important information about the recent interest of the West in China. She explains that due to reasons such as the World War I, the depression, the breakdown of prosperity, certain Western persons envy the simplicity and security of Chinas pattern of life and admire her arts and philosophy (Lin, 1935, pp. viii-xi). Chen and Buck were friends as they both taught in the School of Humanities at National Southeastern University in Nanjing in the early 1920s. Moreover, Chen wrote a book review of Bucks The Good Earth in 1931. Since both Lin and Chen were European-American returned students, they were in the same intellectual circle. Lins book was first published in August 1935 while Chens book was published between September 1935 and February 1936. Considering the intellectual communications among the three writers and the closeness of the publication date of the two books, the recent interest in China that Buck elaborates can be regarded as the same one that Chen mentions in her autobiography. Moreover, the intended audience of Chens autobiography needs to be discussed. In the foregoing quotation, Chen mentions so much interest in [is] being taken recently by the English-reading public in the Chinese life and Chinese culture and Many of my good friends in American and Europe have expressed the wish. Meanwhile, after elaborating the purposes of writing her autobiography, Chen (1935-1936) summarizes, These then are the chief purposes of this humble volume: to furnish Chinas friends with some reading matter which could at least claim to be genuine and sincere (p. vi). Obviously, Chens autobiography was partly motivated by the urge of her foreign friends. Accordingly, the intended audiences were the English-reading public in general and Chens foreign friends in particular.
The Pursuit of Modern Education

In Chens autobiography, one of the most important characteristics of new woman is the pursuit of modern education, that is, modern women should attend a modern school and ultimately travel to study abroad. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the traditional ethical teachings that restricted womens access to education were challenged. For example, the leading reformer Liang Qichao (1873-1929) (see Appendix) (1989a) criticized the long-standing view against womens learning, only women who lacked talent were virtuous (p. 39). Targeting these teachings, reformers and open-minded intellectuals advocated womens education. Echoing the call of these intellectuals, Chens autobiography centers on her struggle for modern education to fulfill her academic ambition. When Chen was about ten or eleven years old, two elements entered her life and gradually shaped her destiny in the future, namely, the influence of Liang Qichao and Zhuang Sijian, her maternal uncle. Zhuang was well versed in Chinese classical studies. In addition, when he was a magistrate in
9
To the authors research so far, Chen did not explain the recent interest in China and mention the related books in her autobiography as well as in her essays. 10 She won Pulitzer Prize in 1935 and Nobel Prize in 1938.
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Guangxi and Guangdong, he had personal contact with foreigners such as the French and the American and was brought face to face with the foreign culture, which greatly impressed him and won his hearty admiration (Chen, 1935-1936, pp. 59-61). Zhuang told Chen some tales about the foreigners and foreign cultures. For example, a famous medical school and a hospital founded by the Americans in Canton. He also urged Chen to go to the medical school. Gradually, her uncles stimulating tales and suggestion shaped Chens vague desire to experience the unknown into one clear goal: going to a newly established modern school. Besides the influence of her uncle, Chen notes, one of these elements was the inspiring voices of the late Liang Chi-chao, one of Chinas greatest scholars, then at the height of his popularity with intellectual China (Chen, 1935-1936, p. 48). Through reading Liangs journals, Chen got to know Western persons such as Joan of Arc; Western historical events such as England struggle for constitution and other aspects of Western culture. Moreover, in 1897, Liang wrote an essay to introduce Kang Aide, an American educated woman doctor11. Liang stressed what differentiated Ms. Kang, a new woman, from ordinary Chinese women was that she went through the education system of the US and received the higher education there12. In the early twentieth century, the American educated women doctors enjoyed a celebrity-like status and were often invited to appear at graduation ceremonies of girls schools. To the young audiences, they symbolized an inspiring new ideal (Ye, 2001, p. 123). Influenced by Liang and the women doctors, Chen gradually found the direction of her life, namely, to attend Western style schools and ultimately to travel to study abroad. In order to fulfill her dream of going to school, Chen left home for Canton to attend the medical school when she was thirteen years old. However, since she was far below the age standard of the school, she was declined admission. Thus, her uncle taught her by himself. He not only introduced some Western learning to her, but also taught her Chinese calligraphy and poetry13. However, Chens goal was to attend a modern school rather than obtaining knowledge through the tutoring in the household. Upon Chens request, her uncle sent her to Shanghai and Chen studied for three years in a medical school newly established by a Chinese official. In the second half of the text, Chen repeatedly emphasizes that her goal is not just go to any modern school, but to travel abroad to study Western culture. For example, when the Revolution broke out in 1911, some girls enlisted in the army and asked Chen to join them, but Chen opposed. She explains, For I had now focused my ambition to intellectual achievements, and my only wish was to get a chance to go abroad to study the Western life and culture at first hand (Chen, 1935-1936, p. 53). In 1914, Chen read in newspaper that an examination would be held for girls by the Tsing Hua College and winners would be sent to study in the US on fellowship. Chen was delighted, Suppose I should win the scholarship! Would not then all the world open before me, like the dawn after darkness (Chen, 1935-1936, p. 181).
11 According to Weili Ye, Kang Aide was among the first cohorts of American-educated Chinese women who received their degree in Medicine. For details, see Ye (2001), pp. 119-129. 12 In Liangs essay, there is a long conditional sentence, If Ms. Kang had not lost her parents when she was a child and had no means of self-support; if she had not been adopted by Gertrude Howe and taken to the US; if she had not studied at the University of Michigan, she would be of no difference to the mediocre common Chinese women. For details, see Liang Qichao, Ji Jiangxi Kang nshi (the biography of Ms. Kang in Jiangxi Province), Yinbinshi heji: Wenji (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1936), Vol. 1, p. 120; reprint (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1989), Vol. 1, p. 120. 13 For details, see Chen (1935-1936), p. 81. Similar description can be seen in Chens essay in Chinese Wo youshi qiuxue de jingguo (My childhood pursuit of education), which was collected in The Essays of Hengzhe.
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THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY From the examples, especially from the words such as my only wish, and all the world open before me,
we can see the significance of studying abroad to Chen. Moreover, the significance is stressed through the depiction of her two trips setting out from Shanghai. Chen describes her feelings and thoughts when she was on a steamship sailing to the US in 1914:
I was again with the open sky and the limitless water, as I had been when I set out to seek my destiny sailing in a small steamer towards Canton many years ago. But this time, my sky was no longer so dim, nor was my sea still an unchartered [uncharted] expanse of water; for I was under good financial care and capable guidance, besides knowing something definitely of what I was going to encounter. (Chen, 1935-1936, p. 189)
In this paragraph, Chen mentions her departure from Shanghai to attend the medical school in Canton in 1903. If we compare the descriptions of the two departures, we can understand better the great significance of study abroad to Chens life and her construction of new woman.
The sky was so wide, the sea was so boundless, that they seemed to symbolize the future that was before me. I was free, free as the bird of the air, free as fish in the deep sea, free as the open sky and the vast expanse of water themselves. But the open sky was also an unknown heaven, and the vast expense of water an unchartered [uncharted] sea! (Chen, 1935-1936, p. 76)
On both departures Chens feelings are seemingly similar yet essentially different. The depiction of the departures is carefully constructed. The images of sky, sea, and water are used in both scenes of departures. In general, these images symbolize freedom, boundlessness, and a promising future in Chinese culture. Through using these images, Chen indicates that both trips give her a chance to explore the boundless world and fulfill her dreams. However, on her first trip the sky was an unknown heaven. This contrasts with my sky was no longer so dim on her second trip. Similarly, the vast expense of water an unchartered [uncharted] sea contrasts with nor was my sea still an unchartered [uncharted] expanse of water (Chen, 1935-1936, p. 189). The contrastive words suggest that Chen has a negative and uncertain sense for her first trip while a positive and confident sense for her second trip. We may wonder what makes such difference. The writer herself provides an explanation, for I was under good financial care and capable guidance, besides knowing something definitely of what I was going to encounter (Chen, 1935-1936, p. 189). Chen (1935-1936) implies that on her first trip she was not under good financial care and capable guidance, not knowing what she was going to encounter. To some extent, Chens explanation is at odds with some facts. Chens uncle was a magistrate in Canton and Chen knew that she would stay with her uncles family and then attend the medical school. Chen lived in her uncles house for one year, under the guidance of her uncle and loving care of her aunt, having no worry about financial problem. On the contrary, when she left Shanghai for the US, she almost did not know anyone in the US and almost had no idea of the American ways of living. She was supposed to be a totally stranger to the US, a country, which was unknown to her. The different significance of the two trips and the writers self-explanation needs to be closely examined. First, the destinations of the two trips were different. The destination of her first trip was Canton. Even though she would attend a modern school there, it was still in China. Attending a modern school in China was only a transitional point of Chens pursuit of modern education. However, the destination of her second trip was the US. As the author mentioned earlier, studying in the US was an inspiring new ideal in early twentieth century; Second, in the description of her second trip, Chen expresses striking sureness of her adventure and future in the US.
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This sureness might be affected by the characteristics of the genre of autobiography. Autobiography is a retrospective prose narrative produced by a real person concerning his own experience (Lejeune, 1982, p. 193). It is important to distinguish the present writing self and the past written self14. According to this, when Chen was writing the autobiography, she was different from the girl who took the trip in 1914. Around 1935, Chen had already completed her higher education in the US for fifteen years and had taught at several universities in China as a professor. At this time, studying in the US was a lived experience rather than an unknown path or adventure. In other words, she had already known the outcome of the adventure, which she took about 20 years ago. This might be one of the reasons why she wrote about her second trip with such certainty. Moreover, an autobiography is not merely a self-narrative written by a person in retrospect. As Georges Gusdorf (1980) points out, Every autobiography is a work of art and at the same time a work of enlightenment (p. 42). Accordingly, an author of an autobiography may think that his/her life story has exemplary significance. In the foreword, Chen states, My early life might be taken as a kind of specimen, revealing both the heartaches and joys of a life that has struggled in that perilous current of water (Chen, 1935-1936, p. vi). Chens autobiography was published in Peiping. Although the intended readers stated in the foreword were her foreign friends and Western reading public, the actual readers might include Chinese youth who were able to read in English. Like most autobiographers, Chen endeavored to use her own life story as an example to edify and encourage her readers, especially, young women who were struggling with the oppression of the patriarchal society and searching for a way of success and independence. In modern China, traveling abroad to receive Western education was regarded as the highest level of education. Through textually stressing the certainty and confidence she felt for her trip to the US, Chen aims to confirm readers that traveling to study in the US is a feasible and successful path. Moreover, as one of the early generation of American-educated women, Chen tries to show that her experience of study in the US is an indispensable factor for her success in career and for establishing her as a new woman. Therefore, the pursuit of higher education in a Western country is an important feature in the construction of new woman.
Powderless, Ringless, and Decoration-less

Furong (the appearance of a woman) has always been regarded as an important component of womanhood. To beautify her appearance through ways such as powdering her face and wearing pretty clothes has been regarded quite conventional for a woman. However, in her construction of new woman Chen highly advocates simple appearance. The description of her dislike of make-ups and fashions can be seen throughout Chens autobiography. For example, Chen has a rich cousin, Wei. Almost everybody in his family dresses fashionably, especially the women. Whenever the Wei women visit Chen at the medical school, she feels terribly embarrassed:
For with their heavy powder and strong rouge, with their small feet, and with the rich jewelry and clothing that they bedecked themselves with, they often made me feel ashamed of being the possessor of such relatives before my young companions, who were just as unreasonably intolerant as I was of this mode of life. (Chen, 1935-1936, p. 107)
This mode of life refers to the life style of some women who tend to over-decorate themselves. As for the
14
For more details, see Olney (1980), p. 18.
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reasons of it, the reformers argued that the traditional ethical teachings restricted womens access to learning and thereby consigned them to superficial and idle lives. Women thus became mere playthings preoccupied with making up their faces, binding their feet, and piercing their ears (Judge, 2002, pp. 161-162). Meanwhile, to some feminists, the primary reason that stimulates women to be keen on fashions and wearing make-ups is to gain mens favor and affection. Targeting these unpleasant attributes of women and the patriarchal discourse on womens appearance, Chen advocates simple appearance. Among the luxuriously dressed Wei women, there is an exception, namely, the mother of cousin Wei. She is the only person in the household that Chen really respects, for she still led a simple life amidst the display of costly jewels and fashionable dresses of her offering [offspring] (Chen, 1935-1936, p. 102). Besides this, Chen also depicts the simplicity of her own image in the medical school:
I was too serious-minded for my age, behaved rather country-like and spoke the Changchow dialect which, though akin to the Shanghai dialect, was thought to be funny by people in Shanghai. In addition, I was also a poor student, wearing shabby clothing, and paid absolutely no attention to my appearance. (Chen, 1935-1936, p. 108)
Unlike the overly decorated Wei women, Chen wears shabby clothing and pays no attention to her appearance. In contrast, Chen not only reiterates her advocacy for simplicity, but also emphasizes one attribute that Wei women lacka serious mind and knowledge of serious affairs. Chen represents the new woman who has a serious mind, broad knowledge, and a simple appearance. In fact, it is the attribute that determines the subjectivity and agency of a woman and distinguishes a new woman from the common women in that period. Simple appearance is illustrated further in Chens narrative of two episodes during her trip from Shanghai to Chengdu (see Appendix) in 1907. In one episode, Chen took a sedan-chair from Wanxian (see Appendix) to Chengdu and occasionally stopped to have lunch in lunch-rooms on the way. Chen (1935-1936) writes:
Every time I entered such a room, I would be followed and then surrounded by a troop of women and girls from the vicinity, and looking at my natural feet, my ringless ears, my powderless face, and decoration-less garment, they would shake their heads and whisper: A girl-student from down-the-river or A foreign girl. Some of the bolder souls would venture to come near me, and feel my hands and garment. So she is a lady! But why in such garment and with such big feet, and not even a particle of powder on her face? (p. 130)
In this rather dramatic scene, what are highlighted are Chens ringless ears, powderless face, decoration-less garment, and natural feet. Noticeably, Chen creates three words with suffix less to stage the image of new woman, who forms a sharp contrast to women who were preoccupied with powdering their faces, piercing their ears, and dressing fashionably. Moreover, the three words with suffix less, a wise verbal strategy, not only highlights simplicity as an ideal attribute of new woman, but also reveals Chens challenge to gendered literary conventions in the depiction of women. Another important feature of new woman is natural feet. Chen was taking an upstream boat on the Yangzi River from Yichang (see Appendix) to Wanxian. Since the rapids with their whirlpools were most treacherous, sometimes passengers had to leave the boat and walk on the rocky shore by the rapids while the boat was hauled through the rapids. It was rather tough for other women but not for Chen (1935-1936):
As I was natural footed, I enjoyed very much walking over the wet slippery rocky shores, and amused myself by the astonishments I caused in the natives, who began to call me a foreign girl, or the girl-student from down-the-river,
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which meant as much to the people in Szechuan at that time as the girl comrade from Soviet Russia would mean to a puritanical minister in America. (p. 124)
Chens feet were bound when she was seven. Through her persistent resistance, she finally unbound her feet . Words such as enjoyed very much walking and amused myself by the astonishments I caused not only show Chens physical and psychological feelings, but also subtly convey a sense of self-satisfaction and superiority. This bespeaks that the image of the new woman is highly self-consciously constructed. What is noteworthy is how Chen textually presents the new woman. She designs two dramatic scenes to stage new woman among traditional women. Words such as followed by and surrounded by and a troop of convey the publicity new women received. Similarly, words such as bolder souls and venture to come near suggest that the new woman was so unusual that she caused respect and even awe among the natives, who seemed to treat her as a different kind of human being. Through stressing the attitude of the natives to her, the presentation of the new woman effectively draws the attention of the local people and the intended readers. Moreover, words such as the girl comrade from Soviet Russia and a puritanical minister in America indicate that Chen consciously addresses to the intended audience of her autobiography and tries to connect the situation in Chinese society with the knowledge of the English reading public. In the transitional period between the late Qing and the Republic, traditional notions of womens appearance were challenged. Some women tried to explore appearance for modern women. Qiu Jin (see Appendix) (1875-1907), a feminist and martyr, once took a picture on which she dressed as a man in Western clothes and wore a mans hat. On another photo, she wore the costume of Japanese women. Shortly after 1911, some women adopted the dress of either Western ladies, who represented the advanced model, or men, as the dominant social category in Chinese society (Croll, 1978, p. 74). As for the reason of the womens behaviors, Croll (1978) observes:
In the absence of a well-developed ideology and organization there seems to have been a tendency for women to think that if they adopted the symbols of these two reference groups they would also acquire their status in society. (p. 74)
15
Drawing on Crolls remarks, some early feminists attempted to acquire the advanced status of Western ladies and the dominant social status of men through wearing their clothes. This was their way to seek womens modern appearance and to challenge traditional womanhood. Chens advocacy of simple appearance, especially the wisely created three words with suffix less, indicates her challenge to traditional womanhood. However, unlike Qiu Jin and some of Chens contemporary feminists who dressed as men or foreign ladies, Chen shows almost no interest in either adopting the costume of foreign ladies or attire of men to acquire the modern status. She wore simple, even occasionally shabby clothes. However, no matter how simple and shabby they were, they were still womens clothes. Chens idea of simple appearance still keeps clear distinction between men and women, not blurring the gender boundary. Moreover, unlike some foreign-educated Chinese women who
Leading reformer Kang Youwei (1858-1927) founded the first Chinese-initiated anti-footbinding society in 1887 and Liang Qichao organized an association to abolish footbinding in 1897. Thus, the Natural Feet Movement quickly spread over China. The major purpose of reformers call for anti-footbinding was connected to the reformers broad agenda of the national strengthening. For Chen, her motivation of anti-footbinding was out of a girls personal and physical feelings and concerns rather than the idea of national strengthening and the influence of the Natural Feet Movement. For details about how Chen resists footbinding, see Chen (1935-1936), p. 12.
15
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tended to wear Western style clothes, Chen seems to stick to Chinese clothes. For example, on almost all of Chens photos available at present, even those she took while she was in the US, she wore Qipao (see Appendix), the typical dress for Chinese women in the Republic period. To Chen, foreign ladies clothes and mens attire may not rightly indicate the appearance of modern Chinese women. Instead, she advocates simple, Chinese, yet feminine features. Meanwhile, Chen highly values the pursuit of modern education and learning. This is another reason why she advocates simple appearance, because Chen thinks that womens preoccupation with making-ups and decorations is the impediment to their study and learning. Women should pay less attention to their appearance, so they can have more time, energy, and will to obtain the knowledge of culture, which is exactly the essence of modern womanhood.
Great Leaders in China

Besides emphasizing the pursuit of education and simple appearance, Chen regards womens social roles as an indispensable feature of new woman. This feature is elaborated mainly through the description of her paternal aunt, Chen Deyi (see Appendix). Chen Deyi grew up and educated in an official-scholar family. She was a poet, calligraphist and was also good at medicine16. In common sense, Chen Deyi was a typical cain (talented women) (see Appendix). However, Chens description of the spiritual and physical features of Chen Deyi is quite against literary conventions. She was a strong woman of steel character, and could not weep even if her heart was broken (Chen, 1935-1936, p. 147). As she was an unusually tall and big woman, she impressed me with the bearing and dignity almost of a queen (Chen, 1935-1936, p. 144). In Chinese culture, the word steel has rich symbolic meaning and gender connotation and is often used to depict the strong character of a man. On the contrary, to weep is a typical feminine feature. Words such as unusually tall and big are rarely used to depict an elite woman. Actually, they are often used to describe a man or a rough woman from lower social strata. As an active participant of the New Culture Movement, Chen was deeply influenced by the iconoclastic spirit of the time. She consciously uses the words conventionally used to depict a man to describe Chen Deyi. Therefore, the spiritual and physical characteristic of Chen Deyi is largely different from that of common elite women. Through this verbal strategy, Chen not only challenges the traditional literary convention and gender expectation, but also rewrites the traditional image of elite women, who are submissive, sentimental, and physically weak. Recent scholarship notes that in the discourse of leading reformers, the learning and talent of elite women was trifling, frivolous, and feminine17. For example, Hu Ying (2001) points out:
For Liang, the woman poet represents more than herself or women writers as a group; she becomes a stand-in for bad poets in general or, even more abstractly, for the lyrical tradition as a whole, here represented as sentimental and flaccidthe cain as metonym of a feminized cultural tradition, leading to the emasculation of the national fiber. (p. 202)
Although Chen shows great admiration to Liang Qichao, her gender consciousness makes her sensitive to
16
For details, see Chen (1935-1936), p. 143. Similar description of Chen Deyi can be seen in Chens essay in Chinese, Jinian yiwei lao gumu (In memory of an old aunt), which is collected in The Essays of Hengzhe. 17 For details, see Hu (2001), Naming the First New Woman; Judge (2002), Reforming the Feminine: Female Literary and the Legacy of 1898; Qian (2003), Revitalizing the Xianyuan (Worthy Ladies) Tradition: Women in the 1898 Reforms.
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the undertone of masculine authority in Liangs gendered discourse on talented women. Hence, in a potentially subversive way Chen presents Chen Deyi, a talented woman whose interest in poetry is rather different from that depicted in Liangs essay. Chen Deyi was a poet. However, rather than interested in sentimental and feminine poems, she had great admiration for Tang poet, Du Fu. One of her favorite poems was Du Fus My Thatched Roof is Ruined by the Autumn Wind. On an excursion to the Little West Lake with Chen, she recited to Chen the famous lines of this poem: Would that I had a spacious mansion of ten thousand rooms, And shelter all the poor scholars under heaven and make them happy! (Chen, 1935-1936, pp. 146-147). Then she explained to Chen that this was exact the great wish of her life:
Dont you know, Ah-hua, this has been my wish since I was married to the Chao family? I have wished all my life that I might shelter the poor scholars in our spacious mansion and let them ramble in our park. (Chen, 1935-1936, p. 147)
Obviously, she not only had great interest in Dus poems, but also had similar ambition to that of Du. In Chinese history, Du Fu (see Appendix) was famous for his sense of social responsibility and concern for the hardships of common people. His poems almost had nothing to do with trifling emotions and feminine sense. Accordingly, Chen Deyis admiration for Du shows her taste in poetry and sense of social responsibility. Through this case Chen subtly challenges leading reformers indictment of cain: women may not just have interest in sentimental and feminine poems and indulge in personal emotions. Through this case, Chen indicates that women and men would be equal in character, will power, knowledge, and social ambition. However, Chen does not simply erase the gender difference and reverse the masculine/feminine roles. During the Revolution of 1911, some women enlisted in the army to fight for the Republic cause. Some even organized themselves into fighting companies with such names as the Womens National Army, the Womens Suicide Squad18. Through entering a conventionally masculine sphere, which had denied the access of women, women pioneers tried to serve the nation while exploring the social roles of modern women. Some of Chens acquaintances joined the Womens Dare-to-die bands or the Girls Northern Punitive Expedition and asked Chen to join them, saying that it was the best chance to show ones patriotism. Although Chen supported the Republican revolution, she declined to join the army. She explains:
I had become convinced that the role of a warrior was most unfit for a woman. It would make her harsh and vulgar, and it was a wasteful and destructive role at best. For I had now focused my ambition to intellectual achievements (Chen, 1935-1936, p. 53)
Chen criticizes the radical behavior of some women, for it violates the usual female virtues and turns womens usual feminine features such as gentleness, modesty, and refined into boldness, roughness, and vulgarity. Moreover, to be a warrior is not a good social role for a woman and a way to serve the nation. As for the outcome of the women soldiers, Chen narrates, Quite a few of these would-be soldiers fount it impossible to lift a gun, not to say using it; and many of them wept like a child because of this physical weakness (Chen, 1935-1936, p. 175). To Chen, the role of a warrior neglects the gender difference and the specific physical
18
For more details, see Croll (1978), pp. 63-64.
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features of women. To the opposite of this, Chen advocates intellectual achievements. From this we can infer that in Chens view, to obtain knowledge and make intellectual achievements is the suitable social role for women. From Chen Deyis case and Chens attitudes toward women warriors, we can see that on the one hand Chen challenges literary conventions and old notions of womanhood, on the other hand she holds certain traditional view about feminine virtues. To some extent, this complexity is due to the intellectual origin and family background of Chen. Born in a scholar-official family, Chen grew up in a rich atmosphere of scholarship and culture. Chen writes in details how she was exposed to and nurtured in traditional Chinese high culture. For example, when she was a child, her parents took turns to teach her sisters and her classic Chinese and poetry19. When she stayed with her uncle in Canton, he taught her the art of calligraphy and poetry (Chen, 1935-1936, p. 81). Chen also studied calligraphy with her aunt, Chen Deyi. Noticeably, Chen (1935-1936) particularly emphasizes a female culture tradition of her family, which started by her great-grandmother.
This lady deserves the gratitude of her offspring for having started a family tradition under which almost every woman, born in or married into the Chen family, has been more or less artistic or literary or both, either by natural inclination or by force of environment. Thus, my grandmother was an artist, and my mother still enjoys a reputation as one of the leading woman painters of the Chinese school. All my aunts, both on my mothers side and my fathers, are no exception to this rule; and many of them have distinguished themselves in the fields of painting, poetry, or calligraphy. This then was the cultural background of my family, a background which was by no means unusual in provinces such as Chekiang and Kiangsu. (pp. 5-6)
The female culture of Chens family can be regarded as part of the elite womens (cain) culture prominent in the High Qing period in the Yangzi delta20. This female culture included poetry, painting, and calligraphy, which were main components of the traditional intellectual culture. Words with complimentary connotation such as enjoy a reputation and leading demonstrate Chens great respect for this female culture. To some extent, the deep influence of traditional Chinese culture, especially the culture of elite women, shaped Chens understanding of femininity and her strong intellectual tendency. Therefore, she feels the role of women warrior, which lacks the gentleness and refinement of the elite women, harsh and vulgar. Meanwhile, her intellectual tendency makes her put intellectual achievements above anything else. Therefore, Chen stresses that women would be equals of men mainly within the spiritual, cultural, and intellectual domain. On the basis of the description of Chen Deyis knowledge, social ambition, spiritual and physical features, Chen (1935-1936) conceives further the leadership of Chinese women:
Even now, I could not think of her in terms of other than that of a great leader; and if she had been born forty or even thirty years later, she would have proved, with this remarkable personality and those knowledge and talent of hers, what climax a Chinese woman was capable of climbing in the matter of career and leadership. (p. 144)
From if she had been born forty or even thirty years later we can see that Chen refers to women of her
19
20
For details, see Chen (1935-1936), pp. 35-36. For details, see Mann (1997), Precious Records: Women in Chinas Long Eighteenth Century; Dorothy Ko (1994), Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China.
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own generation, namely, new woman, for Chen Deyi was about forty years older than Chen. To be great leaders will be one of the social roles for new woman. This vision poses serious challenges to male superiority and gender division of labor in the Confucian teachings and the traditional ideological mechanism in Chinese society. For example, according to the Confucian classic, The Book of Rites (n.d.), women should have no public influence or knowledge of affairs outside the home21 (Croll, 1978, p. 15). Due to this, in pre-modern China women were denied the access to the civil service examination and other ways to participate in almost all of the government or local public affairs or administrations, let alone to be leaders. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some male and female pioneers began to advocate womens independence, rights, and the gender equality. For example, Qiu Jin started the Chinese Womens Journal in 1906 and published a few articles, which called for the change of womens dependent and secluded role as well as their participation in public affairs22. Shortly after the Revolution of 1911, some women began to pursue womens rights to vote and be voted as representatives to the new National and Provincial Assemblies. Noticeably, while these pioneers were advocating the gender equality and womens rights to participate in public affairs, Chen had already begun to conceive the leadership of Chinese women in their career and public affairs and regard this as the higher-level attribute of new woman. In this regard, Chen takes a lead among her contemporary intellectuals.
The Ambassadors of Culture

Besides womens role as great leaders in China, Chens construction of new woman extends to the highest level: The role that Chinese women will play in international communications and interactions. In 1914 Chen passed the examination of the Tsing Hua College and was sent to study in the US. Chen describes her experience of setting out from Shanghai with over one hundred male and female students on August 15, 1914. In fact, it is in this description that the construction of new woman reaches its climax.
The steamship sailed from Shanghai on August the 15th, just after a series of declaration of war had been made by one European state against another; so that by the time we were on the Pacific Ocean, the whole European world was already on fire. It was significant that just as the world was waiting to be effected by the changes to be brought about by this tremendous armed conflict, China was also preparing for a fundamental change in her national life through the sending of her young girls by the government for the first time. For these young girls were not sent abroad to make military or political contacts with the western countries, as many young men as well as special commissioners had been sent for previously; but they were asked to study the cultural side of the western nations. (Chen, 1935-1936, p. 188)
World War I (WWI) broke out on July 28, 1914 and most of the European countries got involved into it. The war lasted for about four years and caused about 300,000 casualties and enormous loss of property. Moreover, it left deep trauma on people in the world. It was only seventeen days between the outbreak of WWI and the day on which the Chinese students set off. Choosing WWI as the historical background of her narrative is by no means just for the closeness of dates of the two incidents. It can be read as one of Chens writing strategies. When the Chinese students were on the Pacific Ocean, the whole European world was already on fire.
21 22
For more details, see Croll (1978), chapter 2. For more details, see Croll (1978), pp. 67-68.
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Accordingly, there is a contrast of peace and war between the Pacific Ocean and the Europe. Following this, the text draws attention to two contrastive changes: one is the negative change that the tremendous armed conflict would bring about to the world; another is the positive change that sending young girls to study abroad would bring about in Chinas national life. Noticeably, Chen makes significant distinction in terms of gender and purpose between the people sent to Western countries: previously the government sent young men to make military or political contacts with the Western countries; now the government is sending young girls to study the Western culture. From this we can possibly figure out two sets of parallel sequences: the first set, the Pacific Ocean/peace sent young girls to Western countries/study Western culture/fundamental and positive change; the second set, the Europe/war sent young men to Western countries/make military or political contacts. Obviously, the purpose of sending the young men abroad was not to study Western culture. Actually, the complicated political and military relations and conflicts among Western countries were the major reasons for WWI. Hence, the text implies that the military and political contacts made by the men could only bring negative changes such as wars. In the two sets of sequences, we can also see a sequence of opposites, like peace/war, young women/young men, study culture/make political and military contacts. Interestingly, the pairs of opposites correspond textually to the opposition between men and women as well as politics and culture. Thus, Chen draws a distinction among the things in terms of women and culture versus men and politics, connecting positive and constructive things to women and culture while connecting negative and destructive ones to men and politics. In general, men have dominated the political domain at all times and in all lands. Through presenting the contrastive sequences, Chen subtly casts doubt on and challenges the authority and actions of men in the political domain. Chen (1935-1936) also describes in an imaginative way the significance of sending young girls to study the Western culture and the role they will play in international communications:
From this emphasis on cultural connections, beautiful personal friendships sprang up. The result was that the seed for an intangible yet strong alliance was sown, not on the soil of the war-creating political spheres, but right within the hearts of the peoples. (p. 188)
In the two foregoing quotations, several pairs of contrastive words deserve close examination: cultural connections versus military and political contacts, beautiful personal friendships and an intangible yet strong alliance versus tremendous armed conflict, the soil of the war-creating political spheres versus the hearts of the peoples, girl students versus young men and special commissioners. These pairs of contrastive things also textually correspond to the opposition between the male and female realms as well as politics and culture. Significantly, Chen connects beautiful and positive things to culture and women while connecting destructive and negative things to politics and men. It is through the marked contrasts that Chen constructs new woman on the highest level. Chinese women can not only act as leaders in China, but also assume ambassadors of culture on the international stage. Through cultural communications they will build friendships and strong alliance between China and Western countries. Therefore, they will bring a fundamental change in Chinese national life and peace on a global scale. Meanwhile, through the contrasts the text forcefully reiterates the superior position of women and culture.
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Chen makes a gender distinction between men and women with regard to the purpose for which they were sent abroad. It might be easier to see that her narrative is meticulously constructed if we view it against the historical background of Chinese students sent to Europe and the US from the late Qing to the early Republican period. The Qing government started sending students to the US23 and Europe24 as early as 1872, but a large number of students had not been sent abroad until the early twentieth century. In 1908 the U.S. Congress passed a bill to return a portion of the Boxer Indemnity to China as funding for Chinese students to study in the US. In August 1908 the first examination was held to select excellent students to study in the US and 47 male students were sent to the US. From 1908 to 1937, a certain number of students were sent to the US each year25. In fact, vast majority of the students chose science, technology, and social science as their majors rather than military and political science26. Since 1914 Tsing Hua College sent ten female students to the US every other year and Chen was among the first group. While Chen was in the US, she got to know some male students. Almost none of them were studying military and political science. For example, Hu Shi, her best friend, studied Philosophy and Ren Hongjun studied Chemistry27. As a historian, Chen not only had good knowledge of the historical facts about Chinese students in the US, but also had personal experiences. It seems that she consciously overlooks certain historical facts so as to textually construct an imaginative opposition between the male and female students. This imaginative opposition and the textually presented superiority of women and culture demonstrate Chens feminist consciousness. It challenges the superiority of men in traditional Chinese society. Noticeably, through stressing the opposition between culture and politics, Chen also criticizes politics and political sphere. Chens attitude toward politics seems quite unusual in the context of Chinese feminist movement from the 1910s to 1920s. Feminists such as Tang Junying began to organize womens associations to demand womens suffrage after 1911. As Elisabeth Croll (1978) observes, This was seen to be a prerequisite to the entrance of women into public life, and it was the acquisition of public and political roles which constituted emancipation at this time (p. 74). As some feminists were making efforts to enter the political sphere, Chen showed almost no interest in it. Moreover, she even negated the politics and political sphere. To Chen, modern women can serve the nation and make contributions to international communications through the way of culture rather than politics. Several factors might account for Chens attitude toward politics. First, as the author mentioned earlier, Chen was deeply influenced by the culture of elite women. As Joan Judge points out, in pre-modern China female culture had been admired as a haven independent from the heartless male intellectual world and distant from politics28. Due to this, Chen tends to highly advocate culture while keeping
After the military defeats in the Second Opium War (1856-1860), in order to save the national crisis and meet the pressing need for professionals in modern military, science, and technology, the Qing government started to send about 120 boys to the US from 1872 to 1875. However, all of them were withdrawn to China in 1881 due to many reasons. Most of them had not finished their college education by then. 24 Most of the students sent to Europe were selected from students in several navy institutes or newly established schools. 25 According to historical record, the number of students varied each year. 26 For example, Zhu Kezhen (see Appendix) (1890-1974) recalls, Among the seventy people of our group, around seventy percent of us majored in natural science, technology, and agriculture. it was true not only in our group, but also true for almost all of the Chinese students sent to the US on Boxer Indemnity Fellowship (Li, 2006, p. 245). 27 Ren Hongjun got his M.S. in Chemistry from Columbia University. 28 Joan Judge makes an observation in her study of female literacy. For details, see Judge (2002), p. 169.
23
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away from politics. Second, this might be related to Chens experiences of study in the US. For Chinese students who studied in the US from the 1910s to 1920s, Hsia observes that they were attracted to the intellectual and literary currents of the time: the imagist school of poetry, the pragmatic thinking of Dewey and Russell, and the Humanism of Babbitt and More29. These might strengthen Chens preference for intellectual and cultural aspects. After Chen returned to China, she became an important, if not the only female member in the Anglo-American returned students group led by Hu Shi. This liberal group was known for its lack of political affiliation and its interests in scholarship and criticism30.
Conclusions
During the transitional period of late Qing and the Republic, traditional values and norms of womanhood were severely challenged. Chinese women were facing the unprecedented task of constructing modern womanhood. Many pioneers in their own ways made attempts to define new womanhood. This paper examines in four aspects how Chen Hengzhe constructs new woman in her autobiography. It might be safe to say that Chens new woman has been influenced by complex historical and cultural forces. As Ye (2001) convincingly argues, Chen and the generation of American-educated Chinese intellectuals were systematically educated in the West yet still sufficiently rooted in the cultural heritage of China (p. 6). Besides, the culture of elite women and the iconoclastic spirit of the New Culture Movement also greatly influenced Chens new woman. Chens pioneering standing as an early American-educated woman and the first female professor at Peking University makes her has broad experiences and perspectives notably different from her contemporary women. This may account for why Chen takes the lead in conceiving womens leadership and their roles in global cultural communications. Chen came from an upper class gentry-official family, which provided her with the opportunity to receive good education in Chinese learning and some imported Western learning. To some extent, all these contributed to her success in wining the Boxer Indemnity scholarship to receive higher education in the US, which was largely unavailable to the majority of Chinese women at that time. Therefore, the new woman in Chens construction may not represent the new woman in the minds of women of different intellectual and social origins. Moreover, as Chen stresses womens knowledge of culture rather than political involvement, her ideas about new woman were somewhat marginalized among the politically oriented images of new woman in modern China. However, Chens construction of new woman was her conscious attempt to define a new womanhood, which was an unprecedented task for Chinese women in the early twentieth century. It is an integral part of the ongoing exploration of Chinese women for modern womanhood. Through the examination of Chens new woman, this paper seeks to enrich our understanding of the complexity of modern Chinese womens exploration of modern womanhood.
29 30
For details, see Hsia (1961), p. 23. For details, see Hsia (1961), p. 15.
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CHEN Heng-zhe CHEN Tao CHEN Zhong-ying Chengdu DU Fu Hanlin Yuan HU Shi Kuangren riji LIANG Qichao LIN Yintang Liumei xuesheng jibao Qipao QIU Jin REN Hong-jun Renjia shuowo fale chi Wanxian Yichang Yi ri ZHUANG Si-jian ZHUANG Yao-fu ZHU ke-zhen
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The Shroud and the Trope: Representations of Discourse and of the Feminine in Homers Odyssey
Alexandre Veloso de Abreu
Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Understanding that Homers Odyssey (1998) has a feminine perspective, this paper intends to explore the Greek epic placing queen Penelope as the protagonist, observing, mainly, the narratological shifts in the story grammar, duration and character elaboration. This study also uses Paul Ricoeurs The Rule of Metaphor (2008) to analyze the episode of the shroud in Homers Odyssey. Ricoeur sees metaphor in three distinct levels: the level of lexis where he bases himself in the works of Aristotle; the level of phrase in which he recurs to the structuralist linguistician mile Benveniste; and the metaphor in the level of discourse, when Ricoeur himself devises an elaborate study of the figure of speech. Penelopes weaving can be understood as a representation of discourse and of the feminine. Such analogy transcends the stereotype she is often given and defines a new role for the character in the epic. Keywords: narratology, genre, feminine, Penelope, classical literature
Introduction
If we acknowledge John Finleys (1978) explanation in Homers Odyssey that Penelope is the central figure of home; she both kept it in existence and makes it recoverable and that the main theme of the epic is not the nostos like Aristotle believed but life brought home, therefore finally shared (p. 4), we can understand why the same Finley considers that the Odysseia could also be called Penelopeia. Other Hellenists such as Bentley (1838) observe that, due to the themes, the Iliad (1998) was intended for a male audience and the Odyssey for a female one. Butler (1900) goes further: Heclaims that Nausicaa, the pheacian princess, would be, in fact, the one who tells us the story of Odysseus, because of the strong feminine appeal contained in the narrative. Using narratology, it is possible to explore such considerations. According to Page (2006) in her study entitled: Literary and Linguistic Approaches to Feminist Narratology, it is possible to reframe the description of male and female plots through the lens of narrativity (p. 25). Narrativity is a narratological concept that deals specifically with narrative construction. It concentrates on progression of narrative, from its beginning to its end and how aspects such as time, space, conflict, duration, and character elaboration are presented. In a way, it is what makes a text, a narrative. Monica Fludernik (2009) clarifies that traditionally, narrativity is defined in terms of plot, the minimal definition being: the presence of at least two actions or events in chronological order which stand in some kind of relation to one another (p. 150).
Alexandre Veloso de Abreu, Ph. D., Department of Linguistics and Literature, Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais.
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REPRESENTATIONS OF DISCOURSE AND OF THE FEMININE IN HOMERS ODYSSEY Various strategies intensify the narrativity of a story. More traditional ones such as fables and epics tend to
have a more linear chronology and progression action, therefore a more complex narrativity. The more the narrative subverts canonical elements of narrative such as time, space and duration, the less narrativity it contains. Nonetheless, one should not confuse narrativity with complexity. As a matter of fact, novels with low narrativity tend to demonstrate high complexity in style. Let us focus on some of these aspects understanding Penelope as the protagonist.
Adventures in the Megron

Penelope definitely plays a fundamental role as a character in Homers Odyssey. We can even perceive the entire development of the narrative focusing Penelope as the dramatis persona. To understand the condition of Penelopes protagonism a parallel will be made with the actions executed by her husband, essential figure of the epic. Every great deed performed by Odysseus has an equivalent one executed by Penelope. We can say that if Penelope is not the dramatis persona herself, she at least shares the same level of protagonism of the Greek hero. It is true that Penelopes dislocation is restricted to the Megron, which in a Proppian perspective would already unable the queen to be the protagonist, for she must initiate a voyage that would suppose leaving the realm of Ithaca, but I will consider the palace as a major adventure place, where the mobilization of the character requires a full detachment of the concept of the Megron. A household does not have to be necessarily a space of passivity and recollection. We will notice that Penelope becomes restricted to the gynoecium after the suitors take over the Herkeios and other major chambers of the palace. Nonetheless, her cunning strategies allow the queen to be an active character. The focus of this action will be on the shroud mainly, although we do understand that Penelope parallels Odysseus protagonism in various episodes. The table that follows compares the events that each character goes through, clarifying their equal importance in the epic (see Table 1). Table 1 The Two Protagonists of the Odyssey
Odysseus Actions Ciconians (oikos) Lotophagous e Laestrygonians Odysseus deceives the Cyclopes Circe Nekeuia Sirens(song) Scylla and Charybdis (ordeal) Cattle of the Sun Calypso
Penelopes Actions Suitors (oikos) Telemacusin Pylosand Sparta Penelope deceives the suitors Antinous Dream with the geese Phemius singer (song) Bow contest (ordeal) Slave girls Eurymachus
Odysseus attack to the Ciconians makes him lose many men and a considerable amount of his war prizes.
REPRESENTATIONS OF DISCOURSE AND OF THE FEMININE IN HOMERS ODYSSEY
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The suitors drain the kings property while waiting for Penelopes decision. The adventures of Odysseus with the Lotophagous and Lestrygonians remind us of Penelopes worries when Telemacus is abroad at Pylos and Sparta. Odysseus in courted by Circe and Calypso while Antinous and Eurymachus seem to be the most articulated suitors. Odysseus visits the ghosts from the underworld facing a katabasis and Penelope confronts her internal fears dreaming about the massacre of her pet geese. The Sirens songs are of grief as well as the songs of the singer Phemius in the palace of Ithaca. Scylla and Charybdis synthesize Odysseus ordeals and the bow contest in Book XX Penelopes ones. All Odysseus soldiers die after their excessive behavior concerning the cattle of the Sun and many slave girls lose their lives after betraying the queen. Penelope performs intense actions but the one involving the shroud enhances her abilities with discourse and will be considered her major heroic trait.
The Shroud and the Trope

Penelopes shroud is perhaps the most enigmatic object in Homers Odyssey. In the primeval stage of writing, copyist wrote their texts on cloths, hence the Latin word textere to describe something registered on texture. From such lexicon derived the radical form text-, present in various Western languages, usually describing the act of writing itself. The fact that the product was literally written on a texture, and this texture was a confection, contributed to the close relation between discourse and weaving. In Penelopes etymological background we see the radical which is the Greek term for shuttle, bobbin or distaff, as well as thread, wool or, even, fabric, cloth. Such devices were very common in Mycenaean Greece and are frequently described in Homeric narratives. Jenny Strauss Clay reminds us that the Ancient Greek names have a very literal meaning. Considering this assumption, we would have something like: action-of-the-thread or weaving-of-the-distaff as the meaning of Penelope. Although this a considered etymology, the most common one points out that Penelope derives from 1, a type of wild duck; quite plausible if we consider that the queen of Ithaca is the daughter of the naiad Periboea. Penelopes name already shows the many nuances of the tropos in the story and we can observe that metaphors are figures of speech immensely exploited in Greek Epics. Understanding the complexity of the metaphor as a narrative strategy, the author recurs to Paul Ricoeurs acclaimed The Rule of Metaphor (2008) to analyze the resourcefulness of the Homeric metaphor in the verses of the Odyssey, concentrating specifically on Penelope as a major representation of discourse and of the feminine. Ricoeur sees metaphor in three distinct levels. First, he analyzes it in the works of Aristotle, mainly Poetics, to study the figure of speech in its lexis, a word level; Second, the structuralist linguistician mile Benveniste is contemplated to illustrate the metaphor in its phrasal level. Ricouer concludes his study presenting the metaphor in a discourse level, its most complex and complete manifestation. According to Ricoeur, Aristotle considers the metaphor as a transposition of a name to another name via analogy. Within the metaphor we face the intricate concepts of displacement, extension and substitution of the name. The major goal of this strategy would be persuasion, mainly in oral discourse and in tragic poetry.
Didymus Chalcenterus reminds us that Penelopes original name was Ameirace, Arnacia, Arnaeaor Nauplia. Her parents rejected her and tossed her into the sea, where she drifted for days. She was aided by seabirds, hence the new name associated with ducks. This association still causes ambiguity.There is exuberance in theduck, as well as some sloppiness, a factor that helps to confirm a more enigmatic Penelope.
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REPRESENTATIONS OF DISCOURSE AND OF THE FEMININE IN HOMERS ODYSSEY We can observe the use of metaphors in Penelopes action in the Odyssey, described here by the suitor
Antinous:
( Book II, 1996, pp. v, 93-95) she set up a great loom in the royal halls and she began to weave, and the weaving finespun, the yarns endless, and she would lead us on.
The second verse literally says: lifting a great loom. The vertical threads of the loom are called or and are woven by the distaff, in greek or . Through a bobbin, the or (Greek for fabric), is made2. We can observe that the radical - is also in the lexis , meaning to narrate or tell. In a way it is almost compelling to associate thread and story since both share the Greek radical, but the lexicon guides us to a more intricate relation, the fact that Penelope is stalling the suitors through the weaving and unweaving of her shroud. The importance of the ruse of the web is evident. If we consider that Odysseus was gone ten years fighting in the war and took ten more to come back, the queens plan to stall the suitors should have lasted at least four years, time necessary to maintain Ithaca in its amorphic state until the original king was back. In a way Penelopes action is similar to the one performed by the epic singer, even though she is weaving on texture, something that would remind us more of written discourse. Nonetheless, Penelope can undo her story and reinvent another one, just like the exercise performed by the oral singer. To weave and to narrate have the same implication. The warp and weft of the shroud deceived the suitors like the discourse in a fictional narrative, a simulacrum that can become as sublime as its idea. The ability of weaving and manipulating discourse is Penelopes heroic talent. She is, as her husband, a polytrpos, a person with discursive tricks. Allegorically speaking the shroud can be considered a representation of written discourse, subtly woven to dialectally postpone the intention of the suitors. It reminds Odysseus deceiving the Cyclops. The hero tricks Polyphemus with a lexical/semantical pun, taking advantage of the monsters barbarism calling himself Nobody (). Penelope also deceives the suitors with a representation of discourse, a texture that does not exist in fact. A texture that will not be seen, it is a shroud promised for Laertes but its completion was never the intention. Thats the story, the fabulation. Deceived by the weaving and unweaving of the , the suitors never notice that the real nature of discourse is to be rewritten or reinvented3. The reviving and the erasing of the tropos illustrate that discourse can never be narrated or interpreted the same way. It is observed that Penelope transcends the divine act of the Muses and of the Morai. The daughters of
The frame of the loom was not placed, as in modern looms, in a horizontal position, but stood upright. The threads of the warp hung perpendicularly down, and were drawn tight by weights at their lower ends. To set up the beam and so begin the web is or . In weaving, the weaver passed from one side to other before the loom , as he carried the shuttle , on which was wound the thread of the woof, through warp, and then drove woof home with a blow of the . In general we have weavers beam, loom, warp, web, woven stuff for the meaning of (Autenrieth). 3 The shroud was undone during the night. Curious is that the suitors did not have access to gynoecium. Probably Penelope was aware that some of her maids sided with them, hence the fact that she actually had to weave the shroud she promised to Laertes. Nonetheless the dialectical purpose withstands for the maids reported to the suitors what Penelope was weaving.
2
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Memory do not register their songs; they rely on the singer to tell them, while the Fates weave the story of every being but cannot unweave their doing. Penelope demiurgically remakes what she weaves, narrates and unfolds her story magically. This magic is, in fact, what maintains Ithaca in lethargy so Odysseus can reclaim it. Probably the shroud had a theme. We can infer that by the scene containing Helens weaving in the Iliad. Usually the shroud contained an illustrated theme related to heroic deeds. Although it is not mentioned in the verses of the Odyssey, we can speculate about it. Being a present for Laertes, the web could have pictured his accomplishment in the Argonautica. Another possibility, the most accurate one, is that the queen was retelling the voyage of Odysseus himself. Both of them are metatextual, but if we understand that the shrouds theme is the voyage of Odysseus, Penelope is, together with the singer, participating of the entire retelling of the narrative. She does, though, undo what she is weaving, having to weave other versions, somewhat her actions are even more sophisticated than the ones performed by the singer. Metaphorically the texture executes the same act as the oral performance. What was woven would overcome memory, since it could be undone. Many studies focus on Penelopes discursive ambiguity. Katz (1991) reveals an accented dissimulation of the character as does Felson-Rubin (1997), although more nuanced. The last author uses the Baktinian dialogic model of literary studies to carefully look at Penelopes interaction with other characters and verify her boldness. Clayton (2004) emphasizes the queens use of weaving to demonstrate her cleverness, while Papadopoulou-Belmedi (1994) takes the strategy of unraveling the shroud as a representation of the ambiguity of action through an endless reconfiguration of the shroud, there by Penelope is metaphorically remaking her own story. Penelope is shown here as cunning and dubious, but not in any way indeterminate. As for Heitman in Taking Her Seriously: Penelope and the Plot of Homers Odyssey (2005), Penelope is seen as an independent thinker always maintaining her integrity, although the character does apply her tricks enhancing her indeterminate nature. All of the studies mentioned here examine the acts of Penelope in a metaphorical sense. In Ricoeurs conception, it would be considered a metaphor in its discursive level. The philosopher understands that Language has infinite resources that enhance discourse in creative ways. The elaboration of metaphors and creation of narratives are genuine ways of vivid discourse confection. The major debate in The Rule of Metaphor, centers itself in the linguistic productive imagination that generates and regenerates meaning through the power of metaphoricity to state things in new ways (Dauenhauer & Pellauer, 2011). Ricoeur (2008) points out that new metaphors, ones that werent reduced to commonplace, see referents in a new perspective. Metaphors transform language and are not only rhetorical ornaments. It is understood that the figure of language has a genuine cognitive importance and isuntranslatable without remainder into literal language (idem). The same happens to narratives and the act of narrating itself, where literature can take meaning to another level. Apparently the shroud takes a larger dimension, standing for the expression and voice of Penelope, if taken in the perspective suggested by Ricoeur. The entire epic is an elaborate texture of the queen making a stand in the gynoecium, confirming her heroic status in the narrative. Since the beginning Odysseus is aided by the goddess Athena. This is not hard to understand in a metaphorical sense. The goddess of wisdom would obviously be inclined to help the most intelligent hero. In a way, all his cleverness is Athena manifesting her designated attributes. The same occurs with Penelope. It is
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known that Athena is the deity that protects the weavers and craftsmen. Therefore, Penelope is also blessed by the goddess4. The act of weaving, an exclusive womans act in Ancient Greece, refers to the ability of Penelope to fabulate. The ability to master threads is equivalent to the one of mastering discourse. Allegorically the shroud is a representation of argumentation, dissimulation and misleading. It is understood that Penelope transcends the Muses and the Fates, memory, and destiny, since she dominatesthe thread in its completion, the crux inepic narrative. Threads confection nets, the original act of entangling; weaving is the act of plotting, making points.Allegorizing the action of weaving via Penelope and associating it with speech and discourse is a discursive metaphor, considered by Ricoeur as a powerful tool in literature. To elaborate on the importance of metaphor in the narrative of the Odyssey, two incidental stories are analyzed. Willcock (1998) usually understood these stories as mythological paradigms that associated the content of the story to something meaningful in the main narrative. These examples were inserted in a cyclical form linking the metadiegetical text with the main structure of the epic. Willcock himself devised some schematics, developing circular diagrams to illustrate his point. Two paradigms involving Penelope are quite meaningful. The first one to be considered is retold by Penelope herself, while she is explaining her suffering to a disguised Odysseus. The queen of Ithaca elaborates on the myth of Aedona, having the suffering of a woman and mother as a main theme. It is a myth of origin, explaining the existence of the nightingale and how its song is associated with sadness. The daughter of Pandareus is envious of her sister in law Niobe, for she had had vast offspring while she bore an only child. Aedona devises a plan to kill Niobes first born,Amareus. This hbris makes her assassin her own son Itylus by mistake. After the excess, she prays to the gods to end her pain. She is then transformed in a nightingale, a bird that sings, according to the Greeks, the name of Itylus himself (It!It!). In fact, the Greek word for nightingale is adon. The figure follows (see Figure 1):
aas for myself, though some god has sent me pain that knows its bounds aSo y wavering heart goes shuttling, back and forth
banxieties swarming piercingI may go mad with grief
b in grief for Itylus, her beloved boy
cmyth of aedon Figure 1. Paradigma 1.
4 Athena is the patroness of the skill in weaving. While Hephaestus is concerned with the technai of men, Athena is associated with the craft in the life of women. Ovids Metamorphoses contains a story that vividly shows the goddess performing this function, when she severely punishes the Lydian Arachne for having claimed that she was a better weaver than the diva herself. This myth metaphorically illustrates the use of weaving as an expression of feminine intellectual performance and how the power of the gods cannot be contested.
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Penelope begins describing how the sorrow of her husbands absence afflicts her. Such pain provokes her weeping, the element that links the main narrative to the story. The cry of Aedona is sad and varied, very similar to the crying done by Penelope. Weeping is the key word to leave the paradigm and come back to the homilia, the moment that Penelope in conversing with Odysseus. The myth is a metaphorical description of the queens feeling at the moment and helps Odysseus understand the suffering Penelope has been through. Another significant story is the myth involving the adultery of Aphrodite and Ares. The blind singer Demodocus tells us this adventure but, metaphorically, the example is associated with Penelopes fidelity. Again a figure is shown (see Figure 2):
athe bard struck up an irresistible song athat was the song the famous harper sang
btill our Father pays my bride-gifts back in full
bnow theres an offer I really cant refuse!
cmyth of aphrodite and ares Figure 2. Paradigma 2.
The myth retold by Demodocus is immediately associated with the plotline of the entire Odyssey. It is interesting to see a story that tells one of the most remarking cases of adultery in Greek Mythology being addressed to Odysseus. It is an allusion or a prolepsis to the greatest of challenges that is yet to come. More than regaining his kingdom dwells the fact if his most beloved wife remained faithful all these years. The myth also enhanced Penelopes perseverance and how her integrity is one of her most celebrated traits. The actions of Aphrodite have a consequence and the paradigm illustrates how this can be disastrous if an ethos is not followed. The story is a reminder of the delicate situation Odysseus may be facing at Ithaca. Penelopes condition appears in both these paradigms. The sad condition of Aedon confirms her depression and the story containing Aphrodite and Ares celebrates one of the most valued traits of the demigod: fidelity. Smaller units of the story metaphorically translate the major theme of the epic narrative. The story grammar of the Odyssey can be perfectly understood as the maintenance of Ithaca as a realm belonging to the Laertiades and issues including Penelope are major issues for the development of the story. Penelopes trope is what narrates the Odyssey, understood as a story about a great return, an epic of recognition. Odysseus says it himself:
(Book IX, 1996, pp. v, 34-36) Mine is a rugged land but good for raising sons And I myself, I know no sweeter sight on earth Than a mans own native country.
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REPRESENTATIONS OF DISCOURSE AND OF THE FEMININE IN HOMERS ODYSSEY We are aware that the hero only has a home to call his own because of his wifes actions, metaphorically
weaving her husbands return to his identity and being the major theme of one of the most celebrated canons of Western literature.
Conclusions
Hopelessly, the herostruggles justto understandthat itisimpossible tofully know everything and that you must go through an intense adventure to notice so. As for Penelope, her anagnrisis had already been accomplished and she ensures this by mastering the thread. The Odyssey is introduced mentioning the house of Mycenae and of Ithaca. The attitude queen Clytemnestra and her lover Aegistus had is brought to light by Zeus himself. Helens sister confirms her tragic destiny by killing her husband with her lover and triggering fate to a sad disclosure: being killed by her own son, Orestes. On the other hand, Penelope unweaves, unravels, deconstructs, and disconcerts her mantle, avoiding a tragic end. She is the Ur-weaver of an irresolvable narrative that will originate a genre of dialogism and polyphony. Betrayedby one of themaids, she eventually had to end her story, but her original intent was always to weave and unravel her thread again and again.
References
Aristteles. (1993). Potica (Poetics). (Eudoro de Souza, Trans.). So Paulo: Ars Potica. Autenrieth, G. (2000). A Homeric dictionary for schools and colleges. (R. P. Keep, Trans.). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Bentley, R. (1838). Collected works. London: F. Macpherson. Butler, S. (1900). The Odyssey rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original. London: A.C. Fifield. Clay, J. S. (1996). The wrath of Athena: Gods and men in the Odyssey. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Clayton, B. (2004). A penelopean poetics: Reweaving the feminine in Homers Odyssey. Lanham: Lexington. Dauenhauer, B., Pellauer, D., & Ricoeur, P. (2011). The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Summer Edition). E. N. Zalta (Ed.). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entries/ricoeur/ Felson-Rubin, N. (1997). Regarding Penelope: From character to poetics. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Finley, J. H. Jr. (1978). Homers Odyssey. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Fludernik, M. (2009). An introduction to narratology. (P. H. Greenfield, Trans.). London: Routledge. Graves, R. (1992). The Greek myths (4th ed.). New York: Penguin Classics. Heitman, R. (2005). Taking her seriously: Penelope and the plot of Homers Odyssey. Ann Arbor: Michigan. Heubeck, A., & Hoekstra, A. (1990). A commentary on Homers Odyssey (Volume II, Books IX-XVI). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Heubeck, A., West, S., & Hainsworth, J. B. (1990). A commentary on Homers Odyssey (Volume II, Books IX-XVI). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Homer. (1996). The Odyssey. (R. Fagles, Trans.). London: Penguin Group. Katz, M. A. (1991). Penelopes renown: Meaning and indeterminacy in the Odyssey. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Page, R. E. (2006). Literary and linguistic approaches to feminist narratology. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Papadopoulou-Belmehdi, I. (1994). Le chant de Pnlope: PotiquedutissagefminindanslOdysse (Penelopes song: Poetics of the feminine weaving in the Odyssey). Paris: Belin. Ricoeur, P. (2008). The rule of metaphor: Multidisciplinary studies of the creation of meaning in language. (R. Czerny, Trans.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Russo, J., Fernandez-galiano, M., & Heubeck, A. (1990). A commentary on Homers Odyssey (Volume III, Books XVII-XXIV). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Stanford, W. B. (1996a). Odyssey of Homer I-XII. London: Bristol Classical Press. Stanford, W. B. (1996b). Odyssey of Homer XIII-XXIV. London: Bristol Classical Press. Willcock, M. M. (1998). A companion to the Iliad. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
DA VID
PUBLISHING
The Art Hero Made InternationalBenjamin West Constructs Wolfes Death on the Plains of Abraham
Lloyd James Bennett
Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, Canada
Globalization is a topic much discussed today with the explosion of cell phones and instant messaging. This exchange of information causes the art historian to ponder the speed with which ideas spread in past centuries. The eighteenth was a century of colonial expansion made possible through the ships that sailed the great oceans. Sea travel between Europe and North America drastically increased the spread of populations and their ideas between the old and new world. A good way to trace the exchange of ideas in picture painting in the eighteenth century would be to follow an artist like Benjamin West from his Quaker background in Pennsylvania to the center of the neoclassical style in Rome and a prolific career in London at the Royal Academy. Wests travels and career offer an example of how an American pursued the artistic style of contemporary Rome to make images of North American history from a base in England. It was globalization eighteenth-century-style made possible by an ambitious artist connecting across the sea-lanes of international travel. Keywords: painting, history, globalization, neoclassicism, eighteenth century, West, Wolfe Wolfe must not die like a common soldier under a bush. To move the mind there should be a spectacle presented to raise & warm the mind & all shd be proportional to the highest idea conceived of the Hero. A mere matter of fact will never produce the effect.1
Introduction
The 18th century was a period of extensive trade and immigration between Europe and North America made possible by sea travel. This contact not only influenced the amount of trade goods between the old and new worlds but it facilitated the exchange of cultural ideas. The last half of the century saw the emergent of the neoclassical style in art and architecture, having its origins in Rome, expanded to other European countries and North America. The style was in part a reaction to the frivolous rococo, which, when associated with the French court, put art on a hedonist track that lacked the morality that the neoclassicists in Rome wished to see in art. Benjamin West, growing up in Quaker Pennsylvania, readily adopted this art style that had at its center morality and the idea of self-sacrifice. Using Wests biography by John Galt, the author will examine the youth and travels of the painter to Rome for confirmation of the neoclassical style brought to fruition in London at the Royal Academy. It will be in his history paintings of North America that West
Lloyd James Bennett, Ph. D., associate professor, Department of Visual and Performing Arts, Thompson Rivers University. University of Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, Walker Papers, Box 24, Walker to Borden, 15 April 1918. The painting was acquired for the Canadian War Memorials Fund as a gift to Canada from the Duke of Westminster.
1
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THE ART HERO MADE INTERNATIONAL
would spread his view of the sacrificing hero with his revolutionary painting The Death of Wolfe of 1770. There is seeded in the biographic material of American expatriate painter Benjamin West a natural pride in those things North American, which the artist would bring to the forefront of history painting at the Royal Academy, London in the mid-eighteenth century. The story of the artist first seeing the Apollo Belvedere (Roman marble copy of a Greek original, late fourth century B.C.) with Cardinal Albani in Rome has been repeated several times: When the keeper threw open the doors, the Artist felt himself surprised with a sudden recollection altogether from the gratification which he had expected. My God, how like a young Mohawk warrior! (Galt, 1816, pp. 105-106; Staley, 1989, p. 16; Flexner, 1967, p. 21). Wests reference point for nobility in stature of the antique god was Pennsylvania and when he blurted out his first impression he was recounting his home state and had to explain to the assembled Italians that he was not comparing the statue to a savage but to the nobility of the North American native. It might be a trivial misunderstanding but it marks a literal account where an artist referenced a non-European type as a model for great art. West would take the lead in bringing histories like The Death of Wolfe (1770) to the noble tradition of history painting.
John Galts Biography

John Galt published his biography of Benjamin West in two volumes (1816 & 1820) and claimed that the artist had read and approved the manuscript2 (Galt, 1816, p. 13). Galts account focused on the early years of the artist life where we read that Benjamin West was born at Springfield, Chester County, Pennsylvania in 1738 of Quaker parents. The boy showed an interest in the study of nature and learned from the local Indians who taught him how to make paint:
In the course of the summer a party of Indians came to pay their annual visit to Springfield, and being amused with the sketches of birds and flowers which Benjamin sowed them, they taught him to prepare the red and yellow colours with which they painted their ornaments. The Indians also taught him to be an expert archer. practice at shooting birds for their plumage would look well in a picture. (Galt, 1816, p. 18)
Soon friends of the West family began noticing the young artists work and encouraged him with gifts of paints and engravings for study. When the schoolmaster observed Wests absenteeism, his mother became appeased in her anger with the sight of her sons artwork (Galt, 1816, p. 23). Upon moving to Philadelphia, West encountered a series of influential men who would help shape the artists career. The first of these appeared to be the artist William Williams who introduced West to books on painting by Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy and Jonathan Richardson3 (Galt, 1816, p. 28). Galt tells us that these books would have been conversational points for the young artist to advance his ideas on painting. The gunsmith William Henry read to West the account of the Death of Socrates, from an English translation of Plutarch4 (Helmbold, 1939, p. 369), that would have further advanced this inculcation to noble history. West
2
West scholar Annette Wickham goes as far as to suggest it had been ghost written by Galt for the artist. See Royal Academy of Arts, RA Collections, Benjamin West PRA History Painter to the King (accessed October 3, 2012). 3 Benjamin West American painter at the english court, These books were du Fresnoys De arte graphica, in the translation of 1695 by John Dryden and probably Richardsons Accounts of Sins of the Saints, Bas-Reliefs, Drawings and Pictures in Italy of 1722. 4 The passage reads, Do you mix a cup of poison? Did you not present this to Socrates also? And cheerfully and calmly, without trembling or changing either colour or posture, he drained it with great cheerfulness; and as he died the living esteemed him happy, believing that not even in Hades would he be without same god-given portion.
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would make a painting of the subject of Greek tragedy (c. 1756) which set him on a path as a history painter of the noblest subjects attracting much attention (Galt, 1816, p. 37; Staley, 1989, p. 14). The picture indicated that West was already learned in the classical composition of European art. Socrates is placed off centre in the design balanced by an armored soldier who remains transfixed by what he is witnessing. A man wearing a toga who has just handed the cup of hemlock to Socrates marks the central axis of the room. Above, large round arches frame the figure groups on either side as they respond to the scene over a stone floor marked with perspective lines. The picture has much of the absorption of secondary figures of Leonardo da Vincis work and has the stage-like feel of Nicholas Poussins painting from the seventeenth century; West could have seen the styles of these artists through book engravings5. Indeed, the eighteenth century had sufficient trade and immigration to make the dissemination of books and images readily available to North America viewers who might ponder the Mediterranean hero Socrates as he comes sacrificing in his antique toga. Galts narrative continues with an account of Reverend William Smith, the Provost of the College of Philadelphia, who admires the Socrates and gives West a sketch on the taste and character of the spirit of antiquity (Galt, 1816, p. 38; Staley, 1989, p. 14). The biographers words are close to Joshua Reynolds, the first president of the London Royal Academy and future friend of West, in that they sing the praises of antique art. Reynolds wrote in his third discourse that we must have recourse to the ancients as instructors (Reynolds, 1891, p. 92), which Galt appears to be recording from the lips of West himself who recalls an appropriate story with Reverend Smith to carry the message. Indeed the biography remains an account the artist wished to give in terms of childhood anecdotes and promotion of artistic talent. In this the artistic genius, that Reynolds so admired in antique artist Phidias, runs from Galts pen with unabashed celebration. Consider these lines after the sermon by John Williamson:
At the conclusion of this address, the women rose and kissed the young Artist, and the men, one by one, laid their hands on his head and prayed that the Lord might verify in his life the value of the gift which had induced them, in despite of their religious tenets, to allow him to cultivate the faculties of his genius. That he was authorized by his friends and his religion, to cultivate the art by which he attained such distinctions, not for his own sake, but as an instrument chosen by Providence to disseminate the arts of peace in the world. (Galt, 1816, pp. 56-57)
The fact that West could recount such a moment to his biographer suggests that he proceeded in his career with a consciousness of a divine gift for art from his youth or that he embellished the story with hindsight towards a philosophy that paralleled his co-founding of the London academy with the intent to shape the world (Rather, 2004, pp. 324-345)6. He had global ambition7 was the way West commentator Loyd Grossman put ithe was to take on big things that would translate across a great ocean.
Italian Experience
The literature and engravings that came into Wests view in America set an appetite for great stories where
The source for West painting The Death of Socrates comes from an engraving in Charles Rollins Ancient History (1730-1738). 6 Rather makes the point that while there were earlier biographies on West these focused on his British interests because the artist was seeking to to facilitate his identification as head of the English school of painting and become the president of the Royal Academy. 7 Royal Academy of Arts, RA Collections, Benjamin West PRA History Painter to the King (accessed Oct. 3, 2012).
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heroes sacrificed for truth and the common good. This philosophy had had taken root in the second half of the eighteenth century in Rome and became known as neoclassical revival. West anxious to move his painting along in this direction of principled art had to travel to Italy to complete his self-taught education. After a brief attempt at portrait painting in New York, the aspiring artist landed in Leghorn on 16 June 1760 (Galt, 1816, pp. 81-84; Staley, 1989, p. 16). Galt tells us that it was not long before West was in Rome, the shrine of antiquity (Galt, 1816, p. 97). Here West made the rounds of Roman monuments such as the previously mentioned Apollo and a statue ascribed to Phidias, on the Monte Cavallo (Galt, 1816, p. 107). The North American connection was brought home again in the pages that follow in Galts memoir where human connectedness was attempted:
Of all the monuments of ancient art in Rome, the Obelisk brought from Egypt, in the reign of Augustus, interested his curiosity the most. The hieroglyphics appeared to resemble so exactly the figures in Wampum belts of the Indians that it occurred to him, if even the mysteries of Egypt were to be interpreted, it might be by the aborigines of America. (Galt, 1816, p. 132)
While these antique monuments were picked out for praise, West concluded that Rome had fallen to disease and that the moral energy [of the city] was subsiding (Galt, 1816, p. 146). In this position of the neoclassical attitude West would have been adopting the approach of artists like Gavin Hamilton and Rachael Mengs8, who were based in Rome to revive the earlier classical style to invigorate art to return to its position of influence and morality. This would be the lesson of the eternal city for the American artist West as he made his way North.
London Career
After a brief tour of French collections that West condemned for corrupt taste (Galt, 1816, p. 155), the artist arrived in England in August 1763 with lodgings at Covent Garden. Throughout his travels West had used introductory letters and the assistance of men of influence to move his career along and this proved most fortuitous in London. In Venice the artist had met Richard Dalton, who was the librarian to King George III, and from this contact West was able to secure his first commission from the King9 (Staley, 1989, p. 17; Weintraub & Ploog, 1987, pp. 33, 49). Royal patronage would mark Wests career in England as he would paint several pictures for George III and be appointed Historical Painter to the King (Staley, 1989, p. 16). The English were far behind the French who had mastered the use of art to promote the reign of the monarch. The French Academy was founded in the 17th century with the primary purpose of promoting family rule of Louis XIII and his successor Louis XIV with history painting. King George III saw in West a man with the abilities to produce British history in the Grand Manner of European painting. The road to Wests acceptance as a history painter was once again lined with supporters who were anxious to help the expatriate American. Galt tells that Lord Rockingham had offered the artist 700 a year to paint historical subjects for his mansion in Yorkshire (Galt, 1816, p. 9). One of Wests most influential supporters the Archbishop of York took a lead in suggesting historical titles to the artist such as the Tacitus story of Agrippina returning the ashes of Germanicus.
Galt writes that West met Mengs at Cardinal Albanis villa and suggested the artist should visit Florence, Bologna, Parma, Venice, see p. 122. 9 The painting was Cymon and Iphigenia and was painted in Rome in 1763. A sepia drawing of the subject signed by West in 1788 exists in a private collection.
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Not to be left out of suggestions for history painting, the King suggested West paint the departure of Regulus from Rome. However, the painting to bring the most attention to the history painter West was a contemporary scene from the colonies, The Death of Wolfe, painted in 1770, caused a sensation before and after its exhibition at Pall Mall. By all accounts The Death of Wolfe brought international attention to the artist from Pennsylvania. During the eighteenth century Britain was the chief exporter of engravings and Wests picture, engraved by William Woolett, became an enormous world success bringing in 15,000. The interest in the picture in London came from the recognition that the British global empire was being created and that the people back home had a mania for news about this expansion10 (Grossman, 2012). This interest in overseas expansion can be seen in the 1768 publication of the Scenographia Americana produced by a group of London publishers of a series of 28 scenes of North America. All of the images were drawn by British officers such as Capt. Hervey Smyth, Wolfes Aid de Camp, and show the British fleet in picturesque settings such Louisbourg and Quebec City. The engravings showed not only the might of the British forces but also what the places looked like during the Seven Years War (Crowley, 2006; British Officers, 1768). The conclusion to this journey with the troops would be Wests painting of the death of the British commander that awaited the visitor to the 1771 exhibition of the Royal Academy exhibition. There were some who criticized the artist for creating an ennobled scene for the death of the young commander. West had also included portraits of officers around Wolfe, but none of these would have been present at the place where the commander died. When questioned on these points of accuracy West alluded to the necessity to elevate the death of a hero:
It must exhibit the event in a way to excite awe & veneration & that which may be required to give superior interest to the representation must be introduced, all that can show the importance of the Hero. Wolfe must not die like a common soldier under a [b]ush. To move the mind there should be a spectacle presented to raise & warm the mind & all shd. be proportional to the highest idea conceived of the Hero. A mere matter of fact will never produce the effect.
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In this West was following the classical model of idealizing the hero as he saw in The Apollo Belvedere and works by Phidias. Now The hero of Quebec would forever die a noble death sacrificing for the British Empire. In the pyramidal composition and stage-like setting the painter had in fact capture the gravitas of a European history painting in all manners save for one. The players on the stage above the St. Lawrence River were not in antique clothinga point that would bring the artist much controversy and attention. According to Galt, the King heard of the painting of Wolfe in progress and despaired that the figures would not follow the formula for history painting by having the figures in togas.
The King mentioned that he heard much of the picture, but he was informed that the dignity of the subject had been impaired by the latter circumstance observing that it was very ridiculous to exhibit heroes in coats, breeches, and cockd hats. (Galt, 1816, p. 47)
Royal Academy president Joshua Reynolds was called in for an opinion and the artist proceeded to make his case for contemporary clothing:
10 11
Royal Academy of Arts, RA Collections, Benjamin West PRA History Painter to the King. Walker Papers, Box 24, Walker to Borden, April 15, 1918.
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I began by remarking that the event intended to be commemorated took place on the 13th of September, 1758, in a region of the world unknown to the Greeks and Romans, and at a period of time when no such nations, not heroes in their costumes, any longer existed. The subject I have to represent is the conquest of a great province of America by the British troops. It is a topic that history will proudly record, and the same truth that guides the pen of the historian should govern the pencil of the artist. (Galt, 1816, p. 48)
Reynolds was convinced by the argument and proclaimed that this picture will not only become one of the most popular, but occasion a revolution in the art (Galt, 1816, p. 49). With this support from the president of the Royal Academy, West had changed history painting to include contemporary military uniforms while bringing in North America into the genre of history painting. Uniforms aside, the picture was pure in its classical ideals of showing Wolfe and his attendants in a pyramidal construction below the Union Jack. There were some such as actor David Garrick who thought the attitude all wrong and, with the assistance of visitors to the Pall Mall, produced what he thought a real rapture felt by the dying general when he heard the cry They run, they run (Whitley, 1928, p. 282). Perhaps Garrick was reaching for a theatrical moment not considered by the artist who has Wolfe adopt the look of a pieta as suggested by art historians, who thought the death a religious one that promoted the general to the pantheon of the gods, at least the English gods (Shama, 1990, pp. 14-56; Vaughan, 1978, p. 59). Indeed the death scene is a fiction, Wolfe died off of the battlefield in his tent, constructed to elicit sympathy for the young commander whose position is supported by those friends and officers who witness his death, all absorbed in the sacrifice like a religious scene. The central group is framed by the knelling Mohawk who ponders the death of the commander and a hatless, red-coated grenadier who wrings his hands in anticipation of death. These repoussoirs represent old and new world intereststhe Georgian military in a distant land and the local native musing over imperial adventure. The native figure was criticized for accuracy of costume (no moccasins) and accuracy of being at this battle (McNairn, 1997, p. 137). It was, however, part of the artists mission to depict North America and its inhabitants in this new approach to history painting in contemporary clothing as a spiritual sacrifice. The link between the spiritual and the empire would not have been wasted on those who saw the British expansion around the world as a moral imperative from the Quakers of New England to the settlers in colonial Canada who flew the flag of the mother country.
Colonial Trade
It would be the globalization of the eighteenth century that saw expatriate artist Benjamin West from Pennsylvania carries with him his Quaker beliefs back to the country of his parents origin to make a history painting on North American conquest. The middle decades of the eighteenth century were focused on exchange with the colonies that included as one historian put it: nails, axes, firearms, buckets, coaches, clocks, saddles, handkerchiefs, buttons, cordage and a thousand other things (Davis, 1969, p. 106). This growth reached its peak during the Seven Years War (ended with Treaty of Paris 1763) where overseas garrisons required goods that set trade routes from Britain. New World contact opened the door for not only exchange of goods but also decimated the philosophies and art styles contained in books that expanded European traditions. This interest in a contemporary hero found its greatest effect not in private collections, but in the reproduction market pioneered by William Hogarth who reproduced his paintings in print form for the mass market. This greatly extended the field of influence an old master or contemporary artist might assume with is art.
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As for the reputation of Benjamin West, it continued to grow based upon the popularity of his picture of Wolfe reaching mass appeal with William Woolletts engravings. In fact the two had become so financially linked that when Woolett died, a public committee formed in 1781 raised funds for a memorial to be placed in Westminster Abbey. West, then president of the Royal Academy, attempted to get an inscription commenting on The Death of Wolfe included in the plaque but was overturned by the committee (McNairn, 1997, p. 151). After his achievement in England, West turned to his supporters once again to promote his artistic success. His mentor Reverend Smith had been to London and would on returning to Pennsylvania promote the American as a great success overseas. This shift to discuss West as an American artist was, as Susan Rather writes, an attempt to earn a prominent place in American art history as a mentor (Rather, 2004, p. 341) by supporting his biographer Galt to play up the formative years of the artists life. If Reynolds could not be dislodged from the title of father of British painting, West could rightfully claim that title for himself in his native country made all the more possible by the flow of information between nations that had been established in the eighteenth century.
Conclusions
It is an interesting note that when Wolfes body arrive at Spithead, 17 November 1759, the sculptor Joseph Wilton was dispatched by the Duke of Richmond to record the face of the deceased. In his book Behold the Hero (1997), Alan McNairn described Wiltons marble bust of the commander as a Roman general, with some concession to contemporary fashion and symbolism such as the gorget, wolf-head epaulettes (a visual pun), and the lion of England in relief on the antique breastplate (McNairn, 1997, p. 62). The sculpture was acquired by the National Gallery of Canada in 1975 and is exhibited beside Wests original painting The Death of Wolfe, part of Lord Beaverbrooks War Memorials Collection from the First World War. Wiltons bust makes the final allusion to the art hero made international as belonging to the legends of antiquity that West sought to promote in his painting without the Roman dress.
References
British Officers. (1768). Scenographia Americana: Or, a collection of views in North America and the West Indies. London: John Bowles, Robert Sayer, Thomas Jefferys, Henry Parker. Crowley, J. E. (2006). Scenographia Americana (1768): A transnational landscape for early America. Common-Place, 6(2). Retrieved from http: //www.common-place.org Davis, R. (1969). English foreign trade, 1700-1774. In W. E. Minchinton (Ed.), The growth of english overseas trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (p. 106). London: Methuen. Flexner, J. T. (1967). Americas old masters. New York: Dover. Galt, J. (1960). The life of Benjamin West 1816-1820. Gainesville: Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints. McNairn, A. (1997). Behold the hero: General Wolfe & the arts in the eighteenth century. Liverpool: Liverpool University press. Plutarch (1939). Moralia (Vol. VI). (W. C. Helmbold, Trans.). London: William Heinemann. Rather, S. (2004). John Galt, and the biography of 1816. The Art Bulletin, 86(2), 324-345. Reynolds, J. (1891). Sir Joshua Reynolds discourses. Chicago: A. C. Mc Clurg and Co.. Shama, S. (1990). The many deaths of general Wolfe. Granta, 32, 14-56. Staley, A. (1989). Benjamin West: American painter at the english court. Baltimore: The Baltimore Museum of Art. Vaughan, W. (1978). Romantic art. New York and Toronto: Oxford University Press. Weintraub, S., & Ploog, R. (1987). Benjamin West drawings from the historical society of Pennsylvania. University Park, Pennsylvania: Museum of Art. Whitley, W. T. (1928). Artists and their friends in England 1700-1799 (Vol. I). London and Boston: The Medici Society.
DA VID
PUBLISHING
Muse Turned Femme Fatale in D. G. Rossettis Painting and Poetry

Pritha Kundu
Junior Research Fellow, Calcutta, India
In many of D. G. Rossettis paintings, Elizabeth Siddal appears as a model. In real life, they formed a married couple, and the relatonship was not as idealistic as it might have been, between a muse-figure and an artist. After Elizabeths death, Rossetti seemed to have been preoccupied with the Lilith theme in his painting and poetry, and somehow he could not free himself from the haunting memory of the wronged wife, the muse. This often found manifestation in his portrayal of the femme fatale images. Applying psychoanalysis to art-criticism and literary appreciation, this paper is an attempt to explore the relationship between a model and an artist, which both psychologically and aesthetically, seemed to be working beyond the formers death. Through a detailed analysis of the Lilith image in D. G. Rossettis art, this paper has shown the coplexities of the artists agony and anxiety over the image of a muse, a homely belovedturned into a threatening femme fatale, now distant, unknown, frightening yet fascinating, and mystified by death. Keywords: D. G. Rossetti, Lady Lilith, Elizabeth Siddal, femme fatale, pre-Raphaelite art
Introduction
In pre-Raphaelite art, the portrayal of the female figure combines sensuality with poetic idealism, fantasy with corporeality. The iconography of the female body represented by male art, in general, is broadly of two kinds: it is either idealized or demonized, or, in other words, muse on the one hand, and femme fatale on the other. In psychological terms of gender and representation, it can be seen as a form of male anxiety with the female other, which needs to be pushed into the binary structure of perception. However, binaries are not free from the possibilities of challenge, coming from a different level of reality which tends to collapse the oppositions: one kind of iconography seems to merge into another. With this point in mind, one may proceed to explore an intriguing aspect in D. G. Rossetti1s art, involving his personal and psychological engagements with his muse, wife, modelElizabeth Siddal.
D. G. Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal: The Relationship

Elizabeth Eleanor Siddals face looks out from some of the most famous paintings of the Victorian Age; she is Millais Ophelia and Rossettis Beatrice. Siddal has most often been identified as the principle model and muse
Pritha Kundu, Junior Research Fellow, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences. All references to Rossetti within the text are to be understood as D. G. Rossetti, if not mentioned otherwise (W. M. Rossetti and C. G. Rossetti, for example).
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of the pre-Raphaelite art movement of the mid-nineteenth century. An idealistic approach, though it may be too simplistic, will find it apparent that Rossetti had placed her on a pedestal; she was someone to be loved from afar, idealised and admired as an artistic muse and not merely as a woman of flesh and blood. His sister Christina Rossetti (n.d.) alludes to this artist-muse relationship in her poem In an Artists Studio:
One face looks out from all his canvasses, One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans; We found her hidden just behind those screens, That mirror gave back all her loveliness. A queen in opal or in ruby dress, A nameless girl in freshest summer greens, A saint, an angelevery canvass means The same one meaning, neither more nor less. He feeds upon her face by day and night, And she with true kind eyes looks back on him Fair as the moon and joyful as the light: Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.
In reality, however, everything in the relationship between Rossetti and Siddal was not so ideal, pure and beatific. Rossettis marriage with Elizabeth was fated to last two years. Even before their marriage and during the courtship, they have endured separations, tensions and misunderstandings several times, and reconciliations as well. Their individual share of responsibility for this problematic relationship has already been a debated issue. Some would blame Rossettis whims and involvement with other women, others would criticize Elizabeth for her manipulative nature and self-pitying obsession with illness and opium. Such arguments have a danger of being partial, especially where the question of gender-sympathy comes in. This is evident from the reaction of another artist-couple who visited Elizabeth, distraught, caught in a world of depression, grief and addiction, after the loss of her baby. Lucinda Hawksley (2004) describes this period in Lizzie Siddal: The Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel, in deeply emotional details. Elizabeth Siddal, in her grief, became a pathetic figure, sitting in the drawing room for hours without moving her position, just staring silently into the fire. She refused to take any food, and became increasingly emaciated. Once Edward Burne-Jones and his pregnant wife Georgiana came to visit the Rossettis, and found Elizabeth alone, staring at the empty cradle, which she would rock tenderly from side to side as if soothing her child to sleep. As the door was opened by the visitors, she looked up and told them to be quiet so as not to wake the baby. The pregnant Mrs. Burne-Jones found this heart-rending, while her husband thought it over-dramatic and ridiculous. On February 10, 1862, Elizabeth, Rossetti, and their friend, the poet Swinburne dined together. Later that evening, Rossetti had an engagement at Working Mens College. When he returned, she was in a coma due to an overdose of laudanum. Doctors were summoned, but nothing could be done. Elizabeth passed away in the early hours of February 11, 1862. It remained a mystery whether she took an overdose of the drug, on purpose, to commit suicide, or she was totally out of her sense and was not aware of the danger of taking a heavy quantity of it. Without going into the sensational discussion regarding the death or suicide, this paper will now concentrate on the impact of the tragedy, trying to explore how the haunting reminiscences of the dead muse-wife-beloved changed into a personification of fear, agony and mystery, a kind of Femme Fatale, in Rossettis imagination .There was, of course, an apparently idealized side to his tribute to his dead wife, along with a tough
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of elegiac irony. He immortalised her in his painting Beata Beatrix, where Elizabeth-Beatrice was sitting with closed eyes and a dove puts a poppy flower in her hands. Opium is derived from poppies; the dove delivered to her the very source of the ingredient that killed her. A drowsy Beatrice, however, was not Rossettis sole vision of the dead Elizabeth; it was rather in a much more subtle, complex and darker way that Rossetti struggled with his wounded ego, to come to terms with himself and a state of fear, insecurity and depression that he was thrown into both as man and artist. In 1863, Rossetti began painting his first version of Lady Lilith, a picture which he expected to be his best picture hitherto (W. M. Rossetti, 1895, ii, p. 188). He referred to this painting as the Toilette picture in his letters to his mother, highlighting its emphasis on adornment and the central figures location within an intimate boudoir-like setting (W. M. Rossetti, 1895, ii, p. 188). Although Lilith, in the apocryphal version of the Biblical sense, is not a lady as we are expected to understand the term in the Victorian context, Rossetti deliberately entitled it Lady Lilith, forcing the audience to focus on her sensuality and womanhood, attributing to her marital status and the authority of a mistress. A married womans matured sexuality and power of being a woman, through her experienced and non-virginal body have long been a threat to manhood in the West, and thus the threatening figure of the phallic mother has gained its powerful position in culture. Lady Lilith is one of the many mirror pictures completed by Rossetti during this period. Others include Fazios Mistress, Woman Combing Her Hair, and Morning Music, paintings that centralise a female figure rapt in contemplation of her own beauty. Lady Lilith represents a paradox since she can be viewed as both an excessively sexualized object as well as an empowered woman. Rossetti paints Lady Lilith in an ambiguous setting which appears to be neither indoors or outdoors. At first glance, the lady seems to be reflecting on her appearance as she sits in a relaxed pose in the intimate setting of her boudoir. The reflection of the candles indicates that the mirror in the top left corner is indeed a mirror and not a window to the outside world. Interestingly, the mirror also reflects a woody landscape instead of the expected reflections of bedroom articles. The flowers which surround Lady Lilith add to the ambiguity of the setting, for a keen observer is likely to discover poppy flowers among them. With its obvious association with narcotic power, and with its tragic impact on Elizabeths life, the poppies become pregnant with symbolic dynamics working at a deeper psychological level for the artist himself. The painting focuses on the ladys seductive charm. Her loose, flowing hair and off-shoulder clothing emphasise her voluptuous, overtly sexual figure. Her revealing attire and loose-fitting corsetry may be taken as symbolic of her refusal to fit into socially inhibiting roles and constraints for women. Although her physical appearance and posture seems to be inviting the attention of the male viewer, her facial expression is so self-absorbed in its own grace and dignity that it strikes an expression of cold indifference to the male gaze. The figure of Lilith thus challenges and resists the feminine role of being-looked-at-ness destabilizing the gendered notion of Laura Mulveys theory of gaze. Lady Lilith does not engage the viewer in any eye contact, but instead toys with her hair and delights in her own reflection. Thus, she enjoys her sexuality for herself, not for a male viewer. Lady Liliths self-absorbed gaze both parallels male voyeurism and reverses it. Unlike female subjects such as D. G. Rossettis Blessed Damozel who looks longingly from heaven down on her lover and Millaiss Mariana who continually pines for her beloved at the window, Lady Lilith is completely satisfied with herself. In contrast to the tenderness and submissiveness expressed by many of Rossettis other fair ladies, Lady Liliths expression exudes
MUSE TURNED FEMME FATALE IN ROSSETTIS PAINTING AND POETRY haughtiness and deviousness which would be more likely to inspire fear rather than desire in the male viewer.
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Bullen (1998) argues that these mirror works of Rossetti opened the way for a whole series of paintings in the 1860s of narcissistic female figures, each with potentially fatal characteristics (p. 123). A brief glance at the background images of this painting gives the illusion that Lilith is seated in the interior space of her boudoir. Actually however, the setting is an ambiguous realm of pure artifice (Bullen, 1998, p. 136). Although a chair, mirror, and other interior objects are located in the background, this room is simultaneously teaming with flowers. Cold, white rosessymbols of sterile passionenvelop the top right of the painting and spread out across the line of Liliths hair. Poppiessymbols of drug, delirium and deathare also present. The space is at once realistic, illusory and mythic. As both an interior boudoir space and a sheltered exterior alcove, this background space of Lady Lilith graphically illustrates the double-meaning behind bower which Rossetti would later explore in his poem Eden Bower. Another mysterious object in the painting is the magical mirror in the top left. This mirror shows the reflection of the candles in front of it, indicating that it is indeed a mirror and not a window into some other world. Yet, the majority of the reflection reveals a magical woodland landscape. In his essay The Mirrors Secret, J. Hillis Miller (1991) indicates that this image speaks to the persistent castrating nightmares symbolised in the poem The Orchard Pit (p. 334). There is much indication, as will be considered later in this paper, that The Orchard Pit indeed draws on the Lilith theme, echoing many of the themes present in Eden Bower (Bullen, 1998, p. 125). Seeing this woodland reflection as a view into the world of The Orchard Pit, therefore, successfully links together this painting and various Rossetti poems which explore the theme of Lilith. Any interpretation of a mirror-image, in the post-Lacan scenario, obviously resorts to a psychoanalytic approach, focusing on the mirror stage. The child at this stage identifies with its ideal imagean ideal I reflected in the mirror, which constitutes for him a gestalt or whole. At the same time, the egos dependence on the mother-figure is established, in order to achieve that wholeness. In Rossettis painting , the mirror is in Liliths control: it faces her, held in her own hand, and the viewer, or the artist can see only the back of it. Thus, if a perfect image of herself, in the mirror gives Lilith her wholeness and self-content dignity, the back of the mirror, presented to the artist symbolises a collapse of any possibility of constituting wholeness for him. Hence his sense of insecurity and fragmentation. On a personal level, the painting mirrors several things. As Miller (1991) suggests in his article, The Mirrors Secret: Dante Gabriel Rossettis Double Work of Art, the painting mirrors also Rosseettis feelings about Fanny Cornforth (p. 333). However, Cornforth the living model is not alone; a shadow of the dead Elizabeth can also be felt, the particulars of which will be discussed later. Moreover, Rossettis insecurity as poet and artist, after Elizabeths death (which led him to her exhumation) seems more significant in the light of this mirror-mystery. The absence or loss of the former muse to depend upon, might have added to his feeling of not being whole any longer. Liliths own appearance in this painting establishes her as the embodiment of carnal loveliness (Waugh, 1991, p. 134). The painting was thus described by Marillier (1899):
She is the incarnation of the world and the flesh, with all sorts of latent suggestions of the third element. A beautiful woman, splendidly and voluptuously formed, is leaning back on a couch combing her long fair hair, while with cold dispassionateness she surveys her features in a hand mirror. She is not only the Lilith of Adam, the Lilith who in Eden
Bower makes that weird compact with the serpent, but the Lilith of all time; lovely but loveless. (p. 132)
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MUSE TURNED FEMME FATALE IN ROSSETTIS PAINTING AND POETRY Besides, what is perhaps most visually striking about the picture is Liliths clothing, clothes that look as if
they are soon to be removed (Marsh, 1985, p. 235). Her body, barely able to be contained by the clothing, invites the viewer to read Lilith as sensual and beautiful. Yet, at the same time, that body of Lilith is not to be enjoyed by the otherthe male desire; it is rather to be asserted for its own selfhood. By othering the concept of male desire for and authority over the female body, Lilith becomes radical in her assertion of selfhood and womanhood. It is not only the nonchalant and revealing nature of Liliths attire that draws attention to her image as a sexualised being. There are other things which cannot be seen in the painting, and therefore the impact of that absence is also much important. According to Bullen (1998), Liliths sexual power and control over her own body is all the more prominently suggested by the absence of corsetry, tight-lacing, and other marks of bourgeois moral rectitude (p. 141). It is a gesture of utter self-sufficiency of the body itself, its being there is all, there is no further need to decorate her presence by ornamentation. Bullen (1998) also cites an anonymous source on the subject, saying that the corset is an ever-present monitor individually bidding its wearer to exercise self-restraint: it is evidence of a well-disciplined mind and well-regulated feelings (p. 142). With her hair loose and corset absent, this Lilith is assuredly a symbol of open sexuality, which at the same time bears a dignity rigid enough to ignore any male approach towards itself. Rossetti (1870) himself sensed what his painting is becoming, and asserted the view that this representation was divergent from earlier portrayals of Lilith. In 1870, he wrote about this picture: Lady [Lilith] represents a Modern Lilith combing out her abundant golden hair and gazing on herself in the glass with that self-absorption by whose strange fascination such natures draw others within their own circle (Rossetti, 1886, pp. ii, 850, D. G. Rossettis emphasis). As indicated in this description, Rossetti was aware that this picture presented a Modern Lilith, one who differed from the Pre-Biblical Lilith of the Talmudic lore, and he apparently designed it to do just so. In The Pre-Raphaelite Body, Bullen (1998) elaborated on the meaning of this transformation, stating:
The threat posed by Lilith in the literary and mythological accounts is translated by Rossetti into this act of contemplation [her gaze into the mirror], and that danger is given an added edge by the contemporaneity of the figure: she is a Modern Lilith. She has stepped out of the past and into the nineteenth century. She is to be found in the modern upper-class Victorian boudoir or bedroom, and is as potent an influence over the nineteenth-century male mind as she was over the ancient male mind. (p. 136)
Liliths role, therefore, is just as powerful as it ever was. The result of this portrayal is to bring her from the mythical past into what was, for Rossetti, a realistic present. However, if Rossettis earlier sketches and portraits of Elizabeth and Lady Lilith are placed side by side, one may realize what modern means: it may be the artists modern or new or present vision of an earlier memorythat of a face and a being, whom he wanted to see, in her lifetime, not as herself, but as she feels his dream. Liliths seductive beauty is one of the essential elements of this painting, extolled especially by the erotic entrapment of her beautiful hair. It is this object which plays the primary role in the picture, occupying the center space and being held out by Lilith to show its full extent and beauty (see Figure 1). This focus on the hair harkens back to earlier portrayals of Lilith, including the hair imagery of Goethe that so highly influenced Rossetti, and foreshadows the emphasis which Rossetti will place on Liliths castrating, cutting golden hair in his poem entitled Lilith (Bullen, 1998, p. 130). In Rossettis poem, a deep sense of insecurity is involved in the male
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viewers (or the poets) contemplation over Liliths hair. From a personal, psychoanalytic consideration, one may be tempted to think of Elizabeth Siddals hair, long and rich in quantity, coppery-golden, which was reported to have filled her coffin. In many of his earlier portraits and sketches of Elizabeth, her hair is given much importance (see Figure 2). If Rossettis fascination with Elizabeths hair can thus be read from his paintings for which she was the model, it can also be assumed that the mental image of the dead muses hair played some influence, at least subconsciously, while he was painting Liliths hair. Interestingly, the womans hair in the painting, Lady Lilith and that of Elizabeth in another painting, the image of which is given below side by side with Lilith for comparison are almost similar, except in colour and curls. In close examination, some other similarities (if not exact sameness ) can also be found between these two paintings: the noses, off-shouder gowns, the curve of the lips and the position of the fingers of the right hand, one holding a flower and the other, a comb. The metaphor of womens hair has always been potent, but, during the Victorian period, this was especially so. In her article on The Power of Womens Hair in the Victorian Imagination, Gitter (1984) states: The more abundant the hair, the more potent the sexual invitation implied in its display. For folk, literary and psychoanalytic traditions agree that the luxuriance of the hair is an index of vigorous sexuality, even of wantonness (p. 938). Thus, Liliths excessive hair indicates an excess of sexuality. The manner in which she holds it out, purportedly to comb it, serves to openly display her sexuality on the canvas. It is the first and last impression that a viewer will receive. As noted earlier, Goethes influence on this painting is direct. Rossettis watercolour of Lady Lilith is often accompanied by the epigraph from Goethe which Rossetti translated in 1866. An alternate translation of that passage further illuminates the correlation between this painting and Goethes portrayal of Lilith. Pointing to Lilith, Mephistopheles cautions Faust:
Adams first wife is she. Beware the lure within her lovely tresses, The splendid sole adornment of her hair! When she succeeds therewith a youth to snare, Not soon again she frees him from her jesses. (Goethe, 1828-1829, Faust I, pp. 4208-4211)
This threatening sense of entrapment seems to emanate from Rossettis picture, for the beautiful Lady Lilith does not appear to be inviting the audience or any other to watch her. Instead, she holds a look of self satisfaction. Although not directly recognised by earlier critics, this aspect gives ample opportunity for feminist interpretation. Expounding on the voluptuousness of Liliths self-absorption and haughtiness indicated in Liliths gaze, Jane Ussher, in her 1997 book Fantasies of Femininity: Reframing the Boundaries of Sex, states:
Lady Lilith stands as a classic example of the artistic representation of this passionate, fearful woman. It is a painting of a beautiful, almost haughty woman whose hand toys with her luxurious long hair as she gazes unsmiling at her own reflection in a mirror. She is engaged and satisfied with herself, not with any male voyeur. She is sexual, dangerously seductive, and does not give the appearance of an acquiescent femininity which will be easily satisfied Fear of and desire for woman is incarnated in one painting. She is both sexual and selfish, gazing upon herself with satisfaction, symbolising her rejection of man. (p. 96)
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Figure 1. Portrait of Elizabeth Siddal. Source: Adapted from http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/29/2939/44YRD00Z/posters/dante-gabriel-rossetti-portrait-of-elizabeth-si ddal.jpg, 1860.
Figure 2. Lady Lilith. Source: Adapted from http://www.geocities.jp/weathercock8926/images/lilith.jpg, 1873.
This relatively recent criticism points clearly to Rossettis role in opening the mythical figure of Lilith to feminist interpretation. Resisting male voyeurism, she delights in the pleasure of looking at herself. Much like Keats La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Lilith has a beauty without tenderness or sympathy for others, she is lovely but loveless (Marillier, 1889, p. 132). She does not look back at the spectator to engage in any sympathetic eye-contact, but looks only at herself. Her passive self-absorption and simultaneous lack of submissive acceptance of a male voyeur results in a threat to masculinity. This passive threat is markedly different from the active and aggressive threat posed by Lilith the succubus or Lilith the child-slaying witch, marking a transformation from these earlier images of Lilith as actively aggressive and unjustifiably evil. This self-involvement likewise symbolises a rejection of man, a rejection of the roles of wife and submissive, sexualized other which are so often given to women. It is for this reasonnot any inherent wickednessthat Lilith is labeled a witch. Ussher (1997) explains, She is a witch who is cruel and castrating, because she is powerful and strong (p. 96, emphasis added). Readers of Rossetti will note that it is this
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storythe story of the powerful and strong womanwhich is further drawn upon in the poem Lilith, written to accompany this painting. Finally, Lady Lilith serves to problematise the nature of masculine desire by raising questions about the relationship between subject and object and threatening the identity of the male subject. Although some recent feminist criticism has stressed the absence of agency in Rossettis female figures, it has failed to recognize the degree to which these figures, especially Lilith, are empowered (as cited in Bullen, 1998, p. 147). Bullen (1998) states: Within that discourse on masculinity the female is envisaged as significantly, if damagingly, empowered. Lady Liliths self-contained indifference offers an unanswerable challenge to the male psyche (p. 148). By resisting compliance with the male gaze, Lilith, therefore, threatens the identity of the male voyeur. Representing beauty gazing at itself, Lilith arouses desire in men but also threatens them with her power. She is an unobtainable beauty filled with power. While this combination makes her irresistible, it also leads to the capture, castration, and death of any male who enters her private space. In the light of the exhumation of Elizabeths grave by Rossettis order, this theme of symbolic and psychological desire, descent, capture and death becomes important, demanding a willing suspension of disbelief. After Elizabeths death, the bereaved Rossetti plunged a manuscript of poetry he was working on into her coffin. Some years later, by 1869, Rossettis career suffered a gradual decline, he was involved in an illicit affair with Jane Morris, and in order to retrieved his buried manuscript, probably with the hope of having his fame restored, he finally ordered the exhumation of his wifes coffin. Rossetti was not present when her coffin was exhumed in the dead of night. It was said that the manuscript was found with worm-holes, though not irrecoverably damaged, while Elizabeths body was perfectly preserved, her hair as coppery-red as ever; waist-long when she had died, it had continued growing till it nearly filled the coffin. The poems were published but did not do well commercially or critically. One cannot be sure of Rossettis mental dilemma prior to the decision of the exhumation, perhaps the thought of dishonouring his dead wifes grave appealed to him less than his renewed interest in the manuscript, and thought of publication. However, after it was done, Rossetti, was haunted by a guilty conscience: he never could overcome the fact that he had ordered the exhumation. Now addicted to laudanum himself, he had several attacks of illness, he attempted suicide in 1872 but survived. He died twenty years later, a wasted version of his former self. In Freudian terms, the nature of Rossettis desire to retrieve the manuscript, even at the cost of having the dead Elizabeth exhumed, is a regressive and forced descent into the darkness that separates life and death. His male ego as artist and poet sought to break into the private space allotted to Elizabeth by death. At an unconscious level, he seemed to have given little respect to the possible (mis)use of Elizabeths memory just as he used her body and beauty or his art, when she was alive. His attempt to exercise the same authority over her memory, after death drew consequences on him, in the form of guilt, obsession, addiction and ultimately, death. Marillierhas noted some interesting points in regarding the history of the final version of the painting. In Dante Gabriel Rossetti: An Illustrated Memorial of his Life and Art (1899), he writes: Lilith (Marilliers Italics), though dated 1864, was not finished completely until 1866 or 1867. It was commissioned by Mr. F. R. Leyland, who, unwisely as the event turned out, let Rossetti have it back in 1873, after one of his illnesses, when he became seized with a sort of mania for altering his work. The face, which had first been painted
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from Mrs. Schott, was entirely redrawn from a different model, and with anything but satisfactory results, although he himself was not displeased with the work which had been done upon it. (p. 134)
This account tends to trigger ones psychological curiosity. Rossettis maniac zeal for altering the work, redrawing the face (compare Figures 2 and 3), using a new model can be seen as his desperate effort to come to terms with some intriguing image stored in his troubled psyche, an image which called for some alteration, especially after two incidentsElizabeths exhumation, and Rossettis own illness (possibly the aftershock of his attempted suicide in 1872).
Ut Pictura Poesis: The Sonnet Accompanying the Painting

The sonnet titled Lilith written to accompany the painting Lady Lilith carries this psycho-analytic interpretation further. First published in 1868 in Swinburnes pamphlet-review, Notes on the Royal Academy Exhibition, the sonnet reappeared alongside Rossettis painting Sibylla Palmifera and the sonnet Souls Beauty, which was written for it. In 1870, both of these poems were published among the Sonnets for Pictures section of Rossettis poems. By 1881, however, in order to contrast the two as representatives of fleshly and spiritual beauty, and Rossetti transferred them to The House of Life. The Lilith sonnet was then renamed Bodys Beauty in order to highlight the binary between it and Souls Beauty, and the two were placed sequentially in The House of Life (sonnets number 77 and 78, as cited in Collected Works, 1886). The sonnet is quoted below:
Of Adams first wife, Lilith, it is told (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve) That, ere the snakes her sweet tongue deceive, And her enchanted hair was the first gold. And still she sits, young while the earth is old, And subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright net she can weave, Till heart and body and life are in its hold. The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare? Lo! As that youths eyes burned at thine, so went Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent, And round his heart one strangling golden hair. (Collected Works, 1886, p. 216)
The myth of Lilith as Femme Fatale is evident, but what is more interesting, is the uncanny suggesting in the lineAnd still she sits, young while the earth is old. By the time, Rossetti was growing middle-aged, with his declined genius, while time could not touch Elizabeth any more. When her grave was exhumed, the bodys condition, so far preserved without decay, became even more telling. Again, her long hair, which almost filled the coffin, proved to be an obsession with Rossetti, only its colour changed in his haunted imagination from reddish to gold. The symbolism of the hair, read in the light of the Rossettis intriguing private and inner life, offers much complexity. Liliths golden hair echoes the bright hair of which Goethe wrote in Faust and Rossetti painted in Lady Lilith. Although it is used as an instrument of death in the end, its physical beauty is what Rossetti first draws attention to, describing it as the first gold (line 4). Yet it is the spell cast by her entrapping hair which
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eventually penetrates, emasculates, and kills the youth of this poem. It may seem rather disturbing repeatedly to draw upon the poets personal or psychological concerns into the understanding of his work, yet in the context of the present study, the description and depiction of Such analogies can be explored further: The supposed allegory of killing the youth under Liliths spell may be interpreted the as death of Rossettis youthful glory as artist, which flourished when he had Elizabeth as his model and muse-figure, whom later he wronged; now she is separated by the mystery of the other world, and her memory continuing to cast an ominous spell over Rossettis life and art. At a deep psychological level at least, the earlier image of the mentor-beloved-muse somehow turned threatening to the poets guilty existence. Subtly of herself contemplative, a phrase echoing Paters famous description of the Mona Lisa, highlights Liliths voluptuous attitude of self-applause, an attitude which is so visually apparent in Rossettis painting. As in her picture, Lilith is placed among the rose and poppy, symbolising sterile love and sleep/death, images which add to her representation as an attractive and desirable, yet deadly, woman. Looking back at the painting while reading the poem, in an effort to find a shadow of Elizabeth in both, this phrase can be read with an added significance. In some of Rossettis earlier paintings for which Elizabeth posed as model, this self-contemplative attitude is also evident. Regina Cordium, for instance, bears striking similarities with Lilith (see Figures 3 & 4): Both figures have untied hair, though different in colour, both put on a contemplative look, wearing supposedly off-shoulder garments. Even the curves of the lips are similar. The difference is that, whereas Elizabeth, even in contemplation, presents her face to the viewer, though avoiding direct eye-contact, Lilith is completely self-contemplative.
Figure 3. Lady Lilith. Source: Adapted from http://www.whimzical.com/Art/Rossetti/LadyLilith.jpg, 1864-1867.
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Figure 4. Regina Cordium. Source: Adapted from http://www.saleoilpaintings.com/paintings-image/ dante-gabriel-rossetti/dante-gabriel-rossetti-regina-cordium.jpg, 1960.
In Regina Cordium, the contemplative look in Elizabeths eyes, as it seems, is not for herself: rather her contemplation is of the image she was to represent according to the artists demand. It is for Rossetti the painter. Now, in the Lilith-image, Elizabeth is not present in person as a model, but a sense of her absent presence, which seemed to be haunting Rossettis creative tension, becomes subtle and contemplative of herself defying the artists demand and need which could bind her in her lifetime. In terms of the explicit allusions, however, the Lilith portrayed in this sonnet is undoubtedly the first wife of Adam, for Rossetti told this to his readers outright, setting this knowledge off in quotes as if to inform an audience whom he did not think would be familiar with the legend. Her existence as the first wife is highlighted in the description of her hair as the first gold and in the revelation that she can deceive even before the snake, representing Satan (or possibly Lilith herself) during the Fall. The emphasis on the snake in this poem is severe. Not only is it introduced early in the sonnet, but his/her image is invoked again through the alliteration present in lines 10-11. The pronouns his and her can be used interchangeably here because the poem does not make clear whether Rossetti intends for the snake and Lilith to be seen as one or as separate entities. In either case, the soft-shed kisses of Lilith do seem to draw upon Keats image of Lamia, the snake-woman. While the cause of the male characters death is Liliths one strangling golden hair, this hair can also be seen as a metaphor for the coiling body of a snake. The extensive snake imagery in the poem can also be read as an indication of Liliths powerful sexuality, as Marsh (1985) indicated when she stated, the sexual qualities of her nature are barely concealed beneath the insistent Freudian imagery (p. 235). This is one reading of the snake imagery which is certainly insisting on the theme of sexuality present in Rossettis other portrayals of Lilith, while at the same time not prohibiting others from reading the snake as an actual character. However, the tendency of some readers may naturally resort to interpret the serpent more as a symbolic character than an actual one.
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The Lilith Image Recurring in Other Works: Muse Turned Femme Fatale
Regarding the fact that this poem was first published only one year prior to Eden Bower, one might expect that Rossetti would have told similar versions of the Lilith legend in these two poems. Under this assumption, one could easily make the point that Lilith portrays the figure of the Femme fatale as becoming incarnated in the snake in order to cause Adams demise, much as is told in the ballad of Eden Bower. The narrative concern in the longer poem Eden Bower is more explicitly pre-Biblical or Apocryphal, and thus an elaborate discussion of it will be beyond the specific concern of this paper. With the thematic similarities in mind, it will be enough to say that the character of the unidentified youth in the Lilith-poem (line 12), can easily identified with Adam. If seen as Adam, the second stanza of this sonnet seems to play out the demise of Adam, at Liliths hand. Lines 10 and 11, therefore, would indicate that Lilith is incarnated in the body of the snake. Line 12 would then regress to the past tense and explain how that youths eyes burned at thine, indicating the simultaneous lust and anger Adam felt when Lilith refused to lie beneath him. Then, Lilith would have sent her spell through him, possibly referring to the way in which she became incarnated as the snake in order to deceive Adam and Eve, causing their Fall from the pre-lapsarian stage of life. Finally, the figure of Adam is left with his straight neck bent, defeated, lifeless, and dead. Much like Keats La Belle Dame sans Merci, Lilith can be read as a caution for men against all womankind in their elemental essence or form. It warns that any woman so beautiful as Lilith, so self-contented and powerful, possesses an uncanny power to cause a mans death. The image of castration in line 13she left his straight neck bentresults directly from her spell, her excessive beauty, her voluptuous body, her long, flowing hair. Thus, while the experience of being in love with Lilith, of loving her physically, may surpass any other mortal experiencemuch like the experience of loving the femme fatale of Keats La Belleit will ultimately result in symbolic castration through the loss of power or, even, literal death. While Liliths only explicit appearances are in the poems Lilith and Eden Bower, images of her arise in a number of other poems by Rossetti, including A Sea-Spell and The Orchard Pit. Considered minor poems, they have received very little attention. Evelyn Waugh thinks, it is kinder to the memory of the artist to say nothing. It is the work of a prematurely faltering mind and hand (Waugh, 1991, p. 211). Yet, with the purpose of finding Elizabeths shadow in Rossettis widowed art, it is not difficult to discover allusions to Lilith, in the sonnet A Sea-Spell. Imagery in this sonnet directly relates this Siren-figure to Lilith, making the poem worthy of consideration here. The sonnet reads:
Her lute hangs shadowed in the apple-tree While flashing fingers weave the sweet-strung spell Between its chords; and as the wild notes swell, The sea-bird for those branches leaves the sea. But to what sound her listening ear stoops she? She sinks into her spell: and when full soon Her lips move and she soars into her song, What creatures of the midmost main shall throng In furrowed self-clouds to the summoning rune, Till he, the fated mariner, hears her cry, And up her rock, bare-breasted, comes to die? (Collected Works, p. 361)
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MUSE TURNED FEMME FATALE IN ROSSETTIS PAINTING AND POETRY As evidenced above, both specific Lilith-imagery and Lilith-related themes are present in this sonnet. The poem begins with an immediate reference to Lilith, specifically Rossettis Lilith, with the line: Her lute
hangs shadowed in the apple-tree (line 1). This image is reminiscent of Liliths supposed tempting of Eve under the apple tree in the garden of Eden. The second line borrows imagery directly from Lilith. The corresponding lines of Lilith, for example, are:
And subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright net she can weave, Till heart and body and life are in its hold. (lines 6-8)
It is this same story which is told in A Sea-Spell. The character is a beautiful Siren who weaves her magic into a spell that will ensnare and kill men (Sea-Spell, line 2; Lilith, line 13). In both poems, the male figures succumb to the Sirens charms, causing their own demise. Like Lilith and La Belle, the power of this unnamed Siren is far-reaching and monumental. Able to lure all the creatures of the midmost main, she performs on a natural level the sort of seduction Rossettis other women do on a human level. Herein lies her primary difference. Unlike Liliths seduction of the unnamed, universalised youth, this woman seduces a fated mariner, one who acts more as a symbol of the natural world than of the world of mankind. Although certainly not representing Lilith alone, the siren of A Sea-Spell nevertheless reflects the themes and issues raised by Rossetti in Lilith and Eden Bower. She is beautiful, seductive, and deadlydesirable and fearedall characteristics which, in Rossettis world, depict the magnificent and eternal femme fatale. The Orchard Pit also makes allusion to Lilith. In theme, it contains many of the same ideas as The Sea Spell, and some have suggested that The Orchard Pit plays a similar complementary role toward The Sea Spell as Eden Bower did towards Lilith. All four of these poems, therefore, can be seen as complements of one another. The Orchard Pit begins with an image of the apple-tree which links this unnamed femme fatale to Lilith:
Piled deep below the screening apple-branch They lie with bitter apples in their hands; And some are only ancient bones that blanch, And some had ships that last years wind did launch, And some were yesterday the lords of lands. (Collected Works, 1886, p. 377)
The images in stanza one serve the same purpose as Keats recollection of the many powerful menkings, princes, and warriorswho succumbed to La Belle. As in Keats poem, this unnamed woman has power over the wealthy elite, the lords of lands, as well as the lowly unknown men of the past, ancient bones that blanch (lines 5, 3). Furthermore, these ancient bones could also refer to the bones of the first man: Adam. Stanza three connects this figure to Lilithand all other femme fatalesby describing her body in terms of simultaneous passion and pain, life and death:
This in my dream is shown me, and her hair Crosses my lips and draws my burning breath; Her songs spreads golden wings upon the air, Lifes eyes are gleaming from her forehead fair, And from her breast the ravishing eyes of Death. (Collected Works, Vol. i, 1886, p. 377)
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Her hair, highlighted for the reader by the enjambment of line eleven, draws burning breath from the narrators lips in line twelve, indicating feverous passion. Again, Rossettis preoccupation with Elizabeths hair casts a shadow over an otherwise plain interpretation of the poem. She also has two sets of eyes: one of Life and one of Death. Interestingly, the eyes of Life are located on the fair forehead while the ravishing eyes of Death are located on her breasts, an obviously far more sexualised location . In the last stanza, a modern reader may find a Freudian juxtaposition of Eros and Thanatos, which seems to reinforce Rossettis relationship with Elizabeth as an underlying force behind the composition of the poem:
My love I call her, and she loves me well But I love her as in the maelstorms cup The whirled stone loves the leaf inseparable That clings to it round all the circling swell And that the same last eddy swallows up. (Collected Works, Vol. i, 1886, p. 377)
While this Lilith-figure causes the death of innumerable men, true to the spirit of Pre-Raphaelitism, Rossetti does not pass judgment on her. She is not painted as a vicious, dreadful witch but as a beautiful temptress whose beauty inevitablythough not necessarily purposefullykills anyone who get too close. After taking of her apples, these men are no longer able to live in the world, for they have experienced the ultimate in pleasure and love. By granting her magic hour of ease (line 9), therefore, this Lilith-figure is giving these men the only experience that is left after perfect love, that is, death.
Conclusions
This strange overlapping of Eros and Thanatos is a theme common in all these works discussed above, and by categorising them as Rossettis widowed art, the assumption of his being haunted by Elizabeths memory, gains a strength of interpretation. The image of Siddal is generally seen as tragic and pathetic: To feminists she represents a woman twice wronged, in life and in death, a woman forced to live in the shadow of her male peers, a girl who gives her love and dedication but sees that love returned only to her idealised self: Not as she is, but as she fills his dream. Once she becomes a real person and her beauty fades, she is emotionally abandoned by her lover who chooses to seek out newer, younger, and possibly less demanding companions. However, it cannot be ignored that her death created a liberation for her, a freedom from that idealised self which she had to represent for her artist at work, and a sense of loss, despair, insecurity and fear for Rosseetti. The image of the dead muse-wife continued irritate his dark fears and desires. The mystery of death and its dark and uncanny aspect seemed to have cast a defamiliarising hue over the image of Elizabeth preserved in his mind, and turned the muse to femme fatale. Elizabeth Siddals memory took its revenge, by becoming an ambiguous presence over Rossettis widowed art.
References
Bullen, J. B. (1998). The pre-Raphaelite body: Fear and desire in painting, poetry and criticism. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gitter, E. G. (1984). The Power of womens hair in the Victorian imagination. PMLA, 99(5), 936-954. Goethe, J. W. V. (1828-1829). Faust, Part I. (B. Taylor, Trans.). Penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication (2013). Retrieved from http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/goethe/goethe-faust.pdf Hawksley, L. (2004). Lizzie Siddal: Tragedy of a pre-Raphaelite supermodel. London: Andr Deutsch. Marillier, H. C. (1899). Dante Gabriel Rossetti: An illustrated memorial of his life and art. London: George Bell and Sons.
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Marsh, J. (1985). The preRaphaelite sisterhood. New York: St. Martins. Miller, J. H. (1991). The mirrors secret: Dante Gabriel Rossettis double work of art. Victorian Poetry, 29, 333349. Rossetti, C. G. (n.d.). In an artists studio. Retrieved from http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/crossetti/bl-crossetti-inart.htm Rossetti, D. G. (1860). Portrait of Elizabeth Siddal. Retrieved from http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/29/2939/44YRD00Z/posters/dante-gabriel-rossetti-portrait-of-elizabe th-siddal.jpg Rossetti, D. G. (1860). Regina Cordium. Retrieved from http://www.saleoilpaintings.com/paintings-image/dante-gabriel-rossetti/dante-gabriel-rossetti-regina-cordium.jpg Rossetti, D. G. (1864-1867). Lady Lilith (earlier version). Retrieved from http://www.whimzical.com/Art/Rossetti/LadyLilith.jpg Rossetti, D. G. (1873). Lady Lilith (final version). Retrieved from http://www.geocities.jp/weathercock8926/images/lilith.jpg Rossetti, D. G. (1886). The collected works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Vol. 1). W. M. Rossetti, (Ed.). London: Ellis and Scrutton. Rossetti, W. M. (Ed.). (1895). Dante Gabriel Rossetti: His family letters, with a memoir (Vols. 2). London: Ellis and Elvey. Ussher, J. (1997). Fantasies of femininity: Reframing the boundaries of sex. London: Penguin Books. Waugh, E. (1991). Rossetti: His life and work. London: Methuen.
DA VID
PUBLISHING
The Image of an Addressee in Translational Discourse: Exemplified by the Texts Translated From Slovenian Language
Irina Shchukina
Perm State National Research University, Perm, Russia
Translational discourse requires at least three participants, therefore it is suggested to consider the universal model of the picture of the world, according to which it is much easier for a translator to combine the pictures of the world of an addressee and an author. An addressee is a mental image existing in the mind of an addresser during the creative process. Having defined its parameters, a translator has an opportunity to deliver the thought of an addresser to an addressee as accurately as possible and to select the means of expression that are clear to an addressee. The type of an addressee correlates with the relation to the new. Keywords: cognitive linguistics, target text, the language picture of the world, discourse, addresser, addressee, the levels of the structure of the language world picture
Introduction
The paper deals with the mechanism of recreating an addressees image which exists in the (sub)consciousness of the author of a literary work while text creating and of selecting linguistic means aimed at the actualization of a particular segment of reality connection performed by a translator. We believe that resolving this issue is fairly significant for translation during the selection of lexical and syntactical means. The mindsetto translate a text to make it clear for everyoneimpoverishes artistic value of a literary work, reduces the range of opportunities, and redirects the addressness of a text. Translational discourse presupposes multi-vector nonlinear connection authortexttranslatorreader which can be represented with the following scheme (see Figure 1):
s Rs Tt Rf
Figure 1. The model of interaction between author and reader (addresseraddressee) in translational discourse. Irina Shchukina, associate professor, Department of Russian Language and Stylistics, Perm State National Research University.
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THE IMAGE OF AN ADDRESSEE IN TRANSLATIONAL DISCOURSE Where A is an author, Tsa source text, Rsa reader of a source text, Ta translator, Tta target text,
Rfa foreign reader. We suppose that the set of assumptions of an addressees personality that the author has correlates fairly with the structure of the picture of the world which most often is mutual for them (which, by the way, predetermines trusting mode of a text), and therefore can easily be singled out in a literary text. It is caused by the fact that the mechanism of forming the image of an addressee in authors consciousness presupposes appealing to different components of the picture of the world as long as personality or a literary image is the set of connections with reality. Considering this set in the aspect of the structure of the world picture enables us to form a paradigm of relations addresseeaddresser and to define a translators position in this paradigm. The opposition ourtheir which is intended to be the basis of primary conflict in a work of literature functions in short prose in a special waymost often such opposition appears within an individual as confrontation of two principles known from the antique tragedy. A translator should often decide who is our and who is their in a characters and authors consciousness, and who is their in a foreign audience. The work has been carried out with the cognitive-stylistic analysis also comprising comparative method. Discourse is understood in the article as the set of actualized connections of consciousness with reality, it is dynamic and being a potential base for creating a textits final static result and supreme manifestation of discourse. It is a text in particular where actualized links between an addressee, an author of a text, and the world become apparent. The situation with the translated text is even more complicated: The connection of a reading person with an authors world and their text becomes actualized through another set of connections: the ones of a translator with an authors text, their intentions and the vector of addressness, i.e., the connection with a potential reader whom a translator chooses willingly or not. It is translating from one language to another that brings up the problem of an addressee since exactly the addressness of a text predetermines precisely, as we have already mentioned, both the tone of a literary work created on the basis of a source text and the choice of means of expression. The task performed by translators from Slovenian to Russian language is made more complicated by the fact that their audience is not only not homogeneous, but disastrously heterogeneous. In the article The upper and lower parts of Russian culture: The ethnic basis of Russian culture, Trubetzkoy (2007) talks about the co-existence of two obligatory parts of national culture within the same society:
Any differentiated culture comprises inevitably two obligatory parts which could be called figuratively the upper and the lower parts of the construction of this culture. By the lower part we mean the collection of cultural values that meet the needs of most large strata of the national whole, the so-called masses. Since these values are created by these masses themselves, they are relatively elementary and do not bear the deep imprint of individual creativity. When some values penetrate into the lower parts from the upper ones, they inevitably become slightly depersonalized and simplified as because of this migration they adapt to the general context of other values of exceptionally lower origin. (p. 178)
It should be noted that, due to the long period of forming the whole nation, this gap between the upper and lower parts of Slovenian culture is less apparent, also, perhaps, because the nation of the Slovenes is not numerous. But the difference in Russian culture is very substantial. In contrast to the lower:
The values of the upper collection are created either by the dominant parts of the national whole or for these parts,
THE IMAGE OF AN ADDRESSEE IN TRANSLATIONAL DISCOURSE
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and always meet more sophisticated needs, more demanding tastes. As a result, they are always relatively more difficult and less elementary than the values of the lower collection. (Trubetzkoy, 2007, p. 179)
Does it follow from the above-said that the upper and lower parts of Russian culture have absolutely contrary values? Is it possible to oppose them?
The Universal Structure of the Picture of the World1 of Russians and Slovenians
The very distinction between the upper and the lower parts of culture suggests the idea of existence of some construct that reflects the state of a national world picture. Let us imagine that the picture of the world has a clear structure. Its foundation includes basic understanding of environment, typical of all representatives of any national world picture. The set of a persons relations with reality presupposes the existence of an important componenttheir physiological parameters:
Concrete human (private-human and common-human) [emphasis addedI. Sch.] personality is not solely a mental phenomenon. A person has both spirit and flesh and is revealed not only in the spiritual, but also in the sphere of the flesh The synthetic study aimed at two aspects of the same personality as the psychophysical whole at once is possible too. Moreover, a person actually exists in a particular physical environment, and relations established between this environment and person are really close. (Trubetzkoy, 2007, p. 154)
The degree of difficulty of the task that translators face becomes clear during structuring the picture of the world.
Universal Structure of a National Picture of the World

Having classified people as representatives of nature, we note that they are set apart from inanimate nature by characteristics common with all animals: procreation, the law of self-preservation, and the desire for pleasure. What distinguishes a human being from animals is the attitude to fire, conscious attitude to work, and the availability of the instrument of storage and reproduction of information about the world accumulated by this collective (language). These are two general human levels (see Figure 2).
IWw Education Religious Gender Civilization Geographical level General human level Figure 2. The picture of the world.
Shchukina (2009), pp. 386-389; Shchukina (2011), pp. 6-27.
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THE IMAGE OF AN ADDRESSEE IN TRANSLATIONAL DISCOURSE Geographical level states the dependence of a persons worldview on a place of living. People have got their
own way of looking at the world and of perceiving it depending on their habitatsin the mountains, near the sea, in the vast steppe, and in the forest area. Here we mean not only relief, but also a climate zone where people live. Obviously it is important to state the peculiarity of this level of the world perception by the consciousness of the Slovenians in comparison with the Russians. Russia and its vast distances provide its residents with more traditional world-outlook. A person either lives in a forest, or in a steppe, or in the mountains, or near the sea. That is why everything in another country (see stranger) even at the verbal level is strange, unusual, causing bewilderment and therefore condemnation Russian consciousness (Fasmer, 1987)2. It is all absolutely different with the Slovenes, although, opposing themselves to others during the search for self-identity, they fall into one of the traps of the ones own-others issue too (Shlibar, 2004, pp. 164-174). The moderate-sized territory of this country has a lot of climate zones, and the sea, the mountains, and the forest have all mixed up in the minds of Slovenian citizens. What is more, the local dialects, that make the young people smile, are not taken as something marginal, as evidenced by the overall love for the film Petelinji zajtrk by Mark Nabernik, where characters speak the dialect of Prekmurje which is clear to a person from Ljubljana as much as it is clear to a foreigner who has learned literary Slovenian. In the XIX century Morgan (1935) and Engels (1986) defined the term civilization as the stage of development of human society, which came after savagery and barbarism, and was characterized by the order of the social system, the emergence of classes, state, and private property. According to Toynbee (2001), who wrote about local civilizations as various cultural and historical systems and determined them as dynamic formations of evolutionary type, let us name a few civilizations coexisting in the modern world, such as European (Europe, North America, Australia, Asia partly), Far Eastern (Japan, China, Vietnam, Thailand, etc.), American Indian (Venezuela, Chile, Mexico, etc.), Indian (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, partly some of African states) and others. This approach allows us to talk about one more levelthe level of civilization. Please note that Slovenia and Russia belong to the same European civilization. It is not accidental that many idioms, most often derived from Latin, have the same meaning in Russian and Slovenian languages, and are common to the Slovenes and Russians: kitajski ceremonial (standing on ceremony), Ne uganjaj ceremonij (lets avoid ceremonies), Veno mesto (the Eternal City), Vse poti vodijo v Rim (all roads lead to Rome). The European civilization has also got the names of scholars and historical figures in its scientific and political archives unknown to representatives of other civilizations3. Certainly one of the most significant components of the picture of the world is religious worldview. Despite the fact that the Russians and Slovenes are both Christians, the denominations that are dominant in Russia and Slovenia have different approaches to the role of a human being in the world. The Catholic Slovenians believe that a fishing rod should be given to a needy person so that they could catch a fish, while the Orthodox Russians are sure that the responsibility for their lives is as follows: On God, the president, the governor, the deputy, the
Translators note. The Russian word (country) which derives etymologically from (foreigner, stranger) has got the same root as the word (strange). 3 For example, the theorem on the equality of the square of the hypotenuse to the sum of the squares of two other sides is associated by Europeans with Pythagoras, but not in the Far East where this theorem had been proved by an unknown Chinese mathematician two thousand years before Pythagoras.
2
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chief, and therefore they should solve the fishing problem. This idea may be illustrated by the recent events in Orthodox Greece where citizens believed that the EU was obliged to provide them with a decent standard of living. On the contrary, the Catholic Slovenes had been participating in demonstrations for several months until they achieved the resignation of the corrupt minister, from their point of view. This state of affairs has obviously been caused by the Eastern Christianity lack of interest in the analysis of not only domestic, but also existential issues, faith issues, and simply theological problems. This is what Zhivov (2013) writes on this subject in his recent interview:
The main thing that the Rus had not inherited from Byzantium was Byzantine secular culture which, generally speaking, was the continuation of the Late Antique culture In order to understand patristic texts, it was necessary to speak the language of Greek philosophy and to have certain philosophical knowledge that the Byzantine school taught, but which the Eastern Slavs did not have4.
On the contrary,
Throughout the early middle ages, the Western Church had a vested interest not only in missionary work, but also in educating barbarians who attacked it. The Church sought to convert at least some of those barbarians to the Romans. That created canals, and a thin stream of Christian scholarship was handed down from generation to generation, from Antiquity to the middle ages5.
Gender stereotypes as sociocultural constructs act as cognitive schemes that govern the processes of processing of incoming information so that we begin to perceive and interpret it according to our ideas of gender (Rezvushkina, 2002, p. 187). Society is involved in the maintenance or destruction (the same-sex marriages law) of the prevailing stereotypes. Women in Russia (which has been developing by leaps and bounds through revolutions and having a longstanding desire to jump the gun) who used to strove for freedom and equality tend to give up their gains now, which is also typical of a national picture of the world: As we know, ideas become obsolete quickly in Russian society (Prokhorov & Sternin, 2007, p. 115). The social role of a woman in Slovenia is more traditional than in Russia despite the fact that the Prime Minister Janez Jana has been replaced by Alenka Bratuek (Ule, 2011a, pp. 112-123; 2011b, pp. 75-86)6. Sociolinguists pay special attention to the stratum of education in their studies. The Austrian Empress Maria Theresa established compulsory primary education for her nationals almost 300 years ago. Eighty years ago the Russians were obsessed with total literacy too. These figures might have no special meaning for the course of human development, but they are fairly significant for forming a national picture of the world. In the early 20th century Anton Ashkerts wrote: nae ljudstvo je v kulturnem razvoju in sploni omiki najmanj za tristo let pred ruskim (Akerc, 1903, p. 728)7. A hundred years has passed and a lot has changed, but a national picture of the world changes more slowly. Today the Slovenes say proudly about themselves that every second person has got higher education, while in Russia even a complete secondary education is not compulsory. But a paradox
4 5
Its not Byzantiums fault (Private correspondent). 19. 04. 2013. Its not Byzantiums fault (Private correspondent). 19. 04. 2013. 6 There is a constantly updated tradition of gender discrimination while applying for different education directions, as well as men-orientation of science and technology education. It is evident from the content of textbooks, the choice of examples, methods of teaching, and general atmosphere of a classroom. 7 Our (Slovenian) people have gone ahead of the Russian people in the cultural development and education for three hundred years.
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should be noted. Apparently it is the gap between the lower and the upper parts of culture that has enabled Russians to create masterpieces of great literature, which the more educated Slovenian people have not got yet. The top of the notional structure of the world picture is individual worldview. It is important to note that the previous levels have already done their job and formed basic world-image in an individuals consciousness indifferently to any individual approach. While considering an individual picture of the world, in addition to the listed parameters, we should also remember the physiology of a person, their temperament, what kind of family they grew up, what talents they have, and how they have been applied. This level includes the entire range of relationships with the world that differentiates people from each other. Due to the peculiar historical development Russians were divided into two unequal parts that Trubetzkoy (2007) classified notionally as the upper and lower parts of Russian culture. They are people with diametrically opposed attitudes to the world, and therefore the addressees of a literary work should be presented by two different types (Lurie, 2002). It is not accidental that inconsistency, unpredictability, and the polarity of opinions are thought to be the Russians characteristics. We think that the criteria for a particular level of culture could be the attitude to something newknowledge, place, culture, person, and viewpoint, i.e., something that has been absent in the worldview or has not been discovered. Usually everything new is interesting for the representative of the upper part of Russian culture, they learn and develop it enthusiastically, enriching their own vision of the world (actually this is the reason why we have got that great literature that flawlessly combines the European literary psychologism and the eastern pursuit of the ideal), they are constantly on the way of self-improvement. Let us define it as type A. Type B is often a representative of the lower parts of the culture, who was educated as needed (even has got higher education), who is convinced that the best events have already happened and will never happen again, whom everything new irritates and causes aggression, and who seeks to preserve traditions (see Figure 3).
Type A adressee: Type B Everything new is under suspect, it irritates them. Tries to preserve traditions. Figure 3. Types of an addressee of an artwork. Interested in everything new. Tries to improve their own life and personality.
Despite the fact that Luries observation confirms Trubetzkoys idea of the existence of two different parts of Russian culture, it is impossible to oppose two pictures of the world since, as we can see, the upper picture of the world includes all elements typical of the lower part which enabled translators of the previous decades to avoid the hard work of guessing who a literary work was addressed to. One could appeal to the basic components of a national picture of the worldand the problem was solved. However, if we examine the structure of the Slovenian picture of the world, we can determine easily that a Slovenian author is likely to write for a reader who in Russian environment is an addressee of type A, and therefore, defining an addressee is a much more difficult task than it seemed before.
Translation and the Structure of the Picture of the World

We will try to recreate the personality of an addressee using contextual analysis with the help of the picture of the world structure in a little novella The Crab by the Slovenian author Andrej Brvar (2004) (see Table 1).
THE IMAGE OF AN ADDRESSEE IN TRANSLATIONAL DISCOURSE Table 1 The Correspondence of Parts of the Source and Translated Texts
\sente.-/nce Andrej Brvar. Rakovica. Z enakomernimi zamahi plavutk sem se poasi, kot bi se zbujal iz sanj, dvigal ob strmi skalnati obali, skoz 1 zelenkasto modrino, ki je poasi zmanjevala pritisk, vse bolj nemirna, vse bolj svetla, vse bolj topla. 2 Malo pod ivosrebrno bleavo sem jo zagledal. 3 Imeti jo, imeti! 4 Me je popadla nenadna, neprimagliva elja. Poivala je pred razpoko, sredi ovalnego stekla maske, nenavadno velika v svojem temno zelenem, 5 bolj irokem kot dolgem kou, in si s karjami trebila zobce. 6 Imeti jo, imeti! 7 Pokazati jo drugim! Zgrabil sem skalnati okruek, zael sem toli po trdi, spredaj malo zaokroeni lupine, opletala je s karjami, ih iztezala v obrambi, razpirala klee, skuala je zadenjsko zaplavati v razpoko, se reiti, zbeati, ampak udarci so jo zmeraj znova z 8 nezmanjanim besom dohitevali, dokler se ni iz zmede muljastega oblaka skotalila v globino, v oblaku pa so se vrtinile odtrgane hodilke in desne, moneje karje, in klee na njihovem koncu so se e zmeraj odpirale in zapirale, odpirale in zapirale 9 Tistega dne si nisem upal ve v morje. Veter je vse bolj naraal in valovi so vse bolj buali, 10 vse bolj renali, renali in razkrivali dolge, koniaste, bele zobe. 11
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Andrej Brvar It was like with even flaps of fins I was rising slowly from the sleep, climbing the steepness of the rocky shore, through the greenish blue that was slowly lessening the pressure, more and more restless, lighter and lighter, warmer and warmer. I saw it under a slightly mercurial shine. Get it, get it! A sudden, irresistible desire seized me. He was resting in front of a crevice, through the oval glass mask, excessively large in his dark-green rather wider than longer duct, and was cleaning his barbs with his pincers. Get it, get it! Show it to others! I grabbed a rock debris and began to hammer the firm testa, slightly rounded ahead, he swayed his pincers, stretched them out for defense, moved them apart, he moved back trying to swim into the crevice, trying to escape, to run away, but every time my stabs that I delivered with an increasing frenzy overtook him, until in the disconcert of the little cloud of silt he slid down into the deep, and there were torn away feet, turning, and the strong right pincer left in the muddy water, and the scissors at the edge of the pincer still convulsively opened and shut, opened and shut The wind was growing more and more, and the billows were stooping more and more, roaring more, growling, baring long cone-shaped monstrous white teeth. I have never dared to enter the sea again since that day.
The first sentence is addressed to a person living near the sea or with diving experience. The details of rising from the deep prompt a reader to feel the sensation of such rising again. with even flaps; I was rising slowly from the sleep; climbing; through the greenish blue; slowly lessening the pressure, more and more restless, lighter and lighter, warmer and warmer (Brvar, 2004, p. 24). At the same time we realize that this person is not on tour. He is not admired by what he seesit is his natural environment. He describes only his state which is certainly very pleasant and close to the state after visiting a bathhouse of Russian people. The character is tired of pressure and thus is a little bit slow waiting for longed-for rest. Everything around him changes slowly: was rising slowly, slowly lessening the pressure. The refrain repetition of the forms of comparative degree (more and more restless, lighter and lighter, warmer and warmer) also emphasizes the slowness of the changes and the characters absorption into his feelings rather than contemplating the environment: Now, that isthe warms stones on the shore, the opportunity to luxuriate and relax under the southern sun. It will be clear from the following passage which shows that the character tries to get the object of hunting deliberately. This fragment appeals to the segment of consciousness formed by the geographical level of the picture of the world. The mercurial shine in the second sentence (Malo pod ivosrebrno bleavo sem jo zagledal) demonstrates theatre device which forms the proper stage behaviour of actors in Stanislavskis system: seeevaluatedecideanswer. An object should stand out from others somehow to be seen, and in this case the
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mercurial shine helps to do so. The impulse to careful examination and subsequent evaluation is the followingthe object is unusually large, it would be good to show it to others (to boast of). The decision is to get it at any price. This device of text developing refers to the level of education or an individual picture of the world. The author believes that his addressee will appreciate such almost cinematic chain of actions that is necessary for him to create tension in the short prose closeness which is comparable only to the tension of Hemingways (2011) novel The Old Man and the Sea or a hunting scene in War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (1991). The third sentence is the immediate decisionImeti jo, imeti! Let us note that the Slovenian word for crab rakovicais of feminine gender. And this sentence contains the feeling which has been already formed at the two levels of the picture of the world structure: the biologicalthe character is a hunting animal, a predatorand the gender level as in Russian it would sound in a sexual way , ! (to have her, have her). The word (have)8 and the feminine gender of the word denoting the object of desire refer to heterosexual relationships. The Russian version is , ! (get it, get it!). The translator, who obviously is a woman, has paid attention to the discrepancy between grammatical gender in Russian and Slovenian languages and changed the sexual connotation of the sentence into a hint of the characters passion for hunting. But since such passion is typical of men rather than women, the text suggests that the image is developed not only at the biological level, but also the gender one. If we pay our attention to the gender stereotypes, we will see that a woman, wife, and mother who forms the emotional beginning of her children, is not very emotional as a Christian ideal. Such phrases as unrestrained passion and irresistible desire describe traditionally the behaviour of a non-Christian woman of exceptional type, for example, Carmen, whose feeling do not last long. It is another thing when it comes to men. Phrases such as he had a secret passion, hunting was his passion do not surprise anyone. That is why the forth sentence which contains the phrase a sudden, irresistible desire is certainly addressed to a man, i.e., is formed by the consciousness at the gender level. The seventh sentence is similar with the forth. Here the triumphant finale of possessing a trophy is imagined as showing it to others, i.e., being a winner, being victorious, which also reveals the desire that has been called irresistible in the previous passage. Competitiveness is more typical of men than women. That is why the text primarily appeals to them and thus is gender again. The sentence describing the hunting is the longest and the most intense, as they say, in one breath. It is understandable as in one sentence the main conflict of the text arises, develops, and settles down. Let us compare this sentence with the passage describing the hunting in Tolstoys War and Peace (see Table 2). The tension of the texts is created by both authors with a big number of verbs and gerunds describing rash actions. See Tolstoy: (came [a third voice]), (straining and curving), (caught up), (pushed ahead), (put on speed), (knocked it off), (put on speed), (sinking), (muddying), (rolled over), (surrounded). There are 74 words in the fragment of Russian text, and 16 per cent of them (12 words) are verbs and gerunds. Four words of them mean the high-intensity activity or have connotations ( (put on speed), (knocked it off), (put on speed), (rolled over). Brvar: (grabbed), (began to hammer), (swayed),
8
The phrase that is translated into Russian as to love sounds as rad imeti in Slovenian.
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(stretched out), (moved apart), (moved back trying), (swim), (escape), (run away), (delivered), (overtook), (slid down), (were left), , (opened and shut, opened and shut). There are 79 words in the passage of the Slovenian text and its Russian version, and 21.5% of them (17 words) are verbs and gerunds. Here the high intensity of actions is created by five verbs: (grabbed), (hammer), (swayed), (run away), (delivered), (overtook). Table 2 Ways of Explication of Action in Tolstoys and Brvars Passages
The hunting episode in Tolstoys War and Peace Andrej BrvarThe Crab Rugay, Rugayushka! Thats it, come on! came a third I grabbed a rock debris and began to hammer the firm testa, slightly voice just then, and Uncles red borzoi, straining and rounded ahead, he swayed his pincers, stretched them out for defense, curving its back, caught up with the two foremost borzois, moved them apart, he moved back trying to swim into the crevice, pushed ahead of them regardless of the terrible strain, put trying to escape, to run away, but every time my stabs that I delivered on speed close to the hare, knocked it off the balk onto the with an increasing frenzy overtook him, until in the disconcert of the ryefield, again put on speed still more viciously, sinking to little cloud of silt he slid down into the deep, and there were torn away his knees in the muddy field, and all one could see was feet, turning, and the strong right pincer left in the muddy water, and the how, muddying his back, he rolled over with the hare. A scissors at the edge of the pincer still convulsively opened and shut, opened and shut10 ring of borzois surrounded him9.
As we can see, Brvars text is more intense than Tolstoys, although it contains only five more verbs and gerunds. This tension is apparently achieved not only by using a bigger amount of verbs (the percentage difference is more illustrative: 21.5% vs. 16%), but also by using one more device. Brvar makes us feel sympathy both towards the prey (the victim) and the hunter, opposing the animal nature and the spiritual in the mind of an addressee. He refers us to the animal state of our consciousness writing about the hunter: (A sudden, irresistible desire seized me4), grabbed a rock debris, with an increasing frenzy. (Tolstoy stops at this animal state describing though not a man-hunter, but a hunting dog). We understand him as animals. Everyone has had such irresistible desire at least once in their life, so the verbs of actions aimed at satisfying this desire (grabbed, began to hammer, delivered, overtook) are clear to us. But the author tells us about the victim appealing to our human, even Christian capacity for compassion: for defense, swim into the crevice, escape, run away, the disconcert, torn away feet and the strong right pincer, convulsively opened and shut, opened and shut. This life rhythm of the lifeless creature puts the character back into a human state capable of compassion. We know that religion teaches us to empathize and help the needy. In this fragment the author certainly appeals to the opposed levels of the picture of the worldbiological and religious. This sentence also demonstrates the peculiarities of language that are known only to the residents of sea territories or biologists. Both of the Slovenian words karje and klee presented in the source text (but
Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude. ! ! ! - , , , , , - , , , , , , , , . . 10 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .
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translated into Russian and English with one word and pincer, respectively) denote different parts of prehensile limbs of crab. The definig dictionary of Slovenian language Slovenski pravopis (Baez, 1962) published by Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti determines the word karje as rakove karje, while klee is explained only as a tool and a gorge between rocks. This allows us to suppose that the word klee is a localism not presented in literary Slovenian. It means that the author believes that readers know this word, i.e., they live near the sea and know localisms denoting parts of crabs pincers. This authors move takes us back to the geographical level of consciousness of an addressee. The two last sentences could certainly be attributed to the religious level. The sentence Tistega dne si nisem upal ve v morje (I have never dared to enter the sea again since that day) is not the last one in the source text, but it contains the authors reflection over what has been done. So what has happened? The hunter has won his prey. It is true that he has had to hurt the animal, but why would the hunter avoid coming to the place of the battle or feel like a criminal? Is it possible that the hunter is disappointed because it is not that pleasant to show the damaged trophy? No, he is not a hunter now, but a killer, and the author reveals his repentance with this phrase and hopes that an addressee understands his intention. It means that this statement should refer us to the religious level of the picture of the world which is responsible for developing moral foundations of an individual and society. The authors intention is almost explicated. The text will not be understood unless an addressee has got a set of moral rules. The author emphasises the religious aspect: the whole nature resentsVeter je vse bolj naraal in valovi so vse bolj buali, vse bolj renali, renali in razkrivali dolge, koniaste, bele zobe. This sentence shows the authors and the characters attitude to the act of hunting-killing. The nature rejects him, and this is a punishment for the killing. The author actualizes the characters connections with the external world by creating a literary image. By putting it into the centre of discourse, he tries to establish such connections with an addressee too and to arouse the same feelings, desires, and memories of their experiences. He appeals to the different levels of an addressees consciousness: biological (a hunting man, a predator), gender (the excitement of the winner, with a hint of sexual desire), religious (the repentance of the killing, supported with the anger of the nature), and geographical. The only detail that could be attributed to the level of civilization is probably the diving mask that the character wears if we take into account that young outcasts dive looking for pearls in the Indian Ocean still without aqualungs. The device of text developing (close to cinematography) which indicates the humanities education or high standard of living (an individual picture of the world) should be attributed to the level of education. It is interesting that most often the author appeals to the gender level (four sentences), to the geographical level (three sentences), three sentences tooto the religious, twoto the biological, onethe level of education, onethe level of civilization. Our analysis enables us to determine quite accurately the supposed personality of an addressee: It is a man, the sanguine-choleric person, who lives near the sea, has higher (possibly humanities or biology) education, and is a probable lover of intellectual entertainment. However, we have not examined the individual picture of the world that could have edited this image, and as for the inner conflict, it has been represented so masterfully that it could expand the circle of addressees.
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Conclusions
In summary, the set of assumptions of an addressees personality, that an author has, correlates fairly with the structure of the world picture which most often is mutual for them (unless the genre of a literary work presupposes the opposite), and can easily be singled out in a literary text. (1) The mechanism of forming an addressees image in an authors consciousness presupposes appealing to different components of the set of connections with reality. (2) The opposition ones ownothers which usually becomes the basis of main conflict in a work of literature functions in short prose in a special wayas confrontation of two principles within an individual (the animal nature and the spiritual, duty and love, etc.). (3) By simplifying a text, which allows to expand the range of addressees, a translator impoverishes the literary world, making the set of feelings more standard than an author intended (rakovicacrab, karje, kleepincer). (4) By expanding the range of addressees, the translator readdresses the text to representatives of all culture levels, like popular Russian writers have been doing (Valentin Pikul, Alexandra Marinina, Daria Doncova, etc.). (5) The issues of whether it meets the demands of representatives of the upper level of culture or not and what it gives to representatives of the lower are the issues beyond the scope of our research.
References
Akerc, A. (1903). Dva izleta na Rusko; crtice s potovanja (Two trips to Russia; Travelers notes). Lubljana: Ljubljanski zvon (Ljubljana bell). Baez, A., & Kolarich, R., et al. (Eds.). (1962). Slovenian orthography (The edition of The Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts). Ljubljana: State Publishing House of Slovenia. Brvar, A. (2004). Naplavine (The Surf). Ljubljana: Beletrina. Engels, F. (1986). The origin of the family, private property and the state (Vol. 3) (K. Marx, & F. Engels Selected Works). Moscow: Politizdat. Fasmer, M. (1987). Etymological dictionary of Russian language (Vol. 3). Moscow: Progress. Hemingway, E. (2011). The old man and the sea. Moscow: Astrel. Kubryakova, E. S. (2000). On the notions of discourse and discourse analysis in modern linguistics. Discourse, Speech, Speech Behaviour: Functional and Structural Aspects (Collection of reviews). Moscow. Lurie S. V. (2002). Searching for Russian national character. Retrieved from http://www.strana-oz.ru/2002/3/v-poiskah-russkogo-nacionalnogo-harakter Mechkovskaya, N. B. (2000). Social linguistics. Moscow: Grand. Morgan, L. G. (1935). Ancient society, or researches in the lines of human progress from savagery through barbarism to civilization. Leningrad: The Institute of the Peoples of the North CEC of USSR. Prokhorov, Y. E., & Sternin, I. A. (2007). The Russians: Communicative behavior. Moscow: Nauka. Ratbil, T. B. (2006). The human factor in language: Linguistic pragmatics and the speech act theory. Nizhny Novgorod: Publishing house of the University of Nizhny Novgorod. Rezvushkina, T. (2002). The use of the semantic differential in the study of gender stereotypes. Gender Studies in Central Asia (pp. 187-193). Almaty: Institute of Development of Kazakhstan. ukina, I. (2011). Ruska televizija leta 2010 skozi prizmo nacionalna identitete (The Russian television in 2010, through the prism of national identity). Ars & Humanitas, 5(1), 40-55. Sedov, K. F. (2009). Linguistics. Speech studies. Genre studies. Genres of Speech. No. 6, 32. Saratov: Publishing House of State University of Saratov. Shchukina, I. (2011). Russian television through the prism of the national picture of the world. Journalism and Russian Speech Culture (pp. 6-27). No. 4. Moscow: Publishing house of Moscow State University.
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Shchukina, I. K. (2009). Vpraanju o nacionalni sliki sveta (On the national picture of the world). Zbornik 12 mednarodne multikonference informa-cijska drubaIS (The proceedings of The 12th International Multiconference Information Society). Ljubljana, Slovenia: Institut Joef Stefan (Lubljana: the Institute of Joseph Stefan), 386-389. Shlibar, N. (2004). Blind spots in the perception of another. Philological Notes, 3, Perm-Ljubljana, 164-174. Tolstoy, L. (1991). War and peace (Vol. 2, p. 196). Moscow: Prosveshchenie. Toynbee, A. (2001). A study of history. Moscow: Rolf. Trubetzkoy, N. S. (2007). The legacy of Genghis Khan. Moscow: Eksmo. Ule, M. (2011a). The changes of students position in modern European society. Perm University Bulletin. Philosophy. Psychology. Sociology, 2(6), 112-123. Ule, M. (2011b). The changes of the process of growing up and gender stereotypes. Perm University Bulletin. Philosophy. Psychology. Sociology, 4(8), 75-86. Zhivov, V. M. (2013). Its not Byzantiums fault (Private correspondent).
D
Folio Jessica
DA VID
PUBLISHING
Reflections on the Body in Clive Barkers The Body Politic
University of Reunion Island, Reunion Island, France
The article aims at deciphering Clive Barkers multilayered short story The Body Politic inserted in the 4th book of Books of Blood (1984-1985). In this work, the British author presents the human body as literally a book which has to be opened, rediscovered; it is a terra incognita marked by the resurgence of repressed elements or by the sense of urgency of applying a new significance to this locus. The notion of rewriting is a leitmotiv in The Body Politic as Barker seems to redefine not merely the organic political metaphor but drapes this imagery with Gothic, biblical or psychoanalytic veils. Julia Kristevas Powers of Horror (1982) is a cornerstone to apprehend the depiction of the body as the ultimate unknown. The narrative traps the reader into the paradoxical hypnotic delights of the Otherized, abjectified body. Keywords: Clive Barker, the body, political philosophy, the Gothic, the bible, abjection, identity
Introduction
The British writer Clive Barker is widely known for the cinematographic interpretations made out of his short stories composing his Books of Blood collection (1984-1985): Rawhead Rex (1986), Candyman (1992), Lord of Illusions (1995) or The Midnight Meat Train (2008). The expression body horror is a beacon enlightening his work: the horror caused for the reader by a body made into a monstrous, gaping wound. The reflection intends to consider the depiction of the body as an undefinable and incomplete locus to consider the elements making it unproportionate, ungendered, a very affirmation of the negation of our stability in knowledge. Clive Barkers Books of Blood set of intricate and disruptive short stories are weaved with the red thread of corporeal materiality. Indeed, the six books enhance the theme of the body draped with the veil of fragmentation, dismemberment or dislocation. In The Body Politic, which is included in the 4th book, Barker magnifies the paradigm of the body and its progressive annihilation. The narrative stages an improbable situation: the rebellion of hands against the human body, in other words, the rebellion of the body against itself. The dissidence is launched by Charlie Georges hands, depicted right from the beginning as conspiring at night:
Whenever he woke, Charlie Georges hands stood still. () Theyd wait then; until his eyes had flickered closed and his breathing become regular as clockwork, and they were certain he was sound asleep. Only then, when they knew consciousness was gone, would they dare to begin their secret lives again. (Barker, 1988, p. 1)
This quotation already highlights various crucial dichotomies between appearances and reality, manifest and latent, known and unknown elements or unity and separation. The exploration of the bodily theme by the British author raises manifold issues. The title of the story per
Folio Jessica, Ph. D., English Department, University of Reunion Island.
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REFLECTIONS ON THE BODY IN CLIVE BARKERS THE BODY POLITIC
se is an invitation to embark on an ideological journey as the reader is aware that the concept of the body politic has been tackled by theoreticians of political philosophy1 (Strauss, 1959, p. 12). The notion of rewriting, remolding of traditional themes permeates the text and is also developed throughout a reference to the Gothic novel along with a stress on religious connotations, both tainted with a subversive hue. The tearing apart of the body is at the core of the narrative and is accompanied with an upsurge of fluid loss creating among the characters a mingling of the seemingly disconnected feelings of attraction and repulsion. Kristevas analysis of abjection emerges, as an analytical tool, then obsessively lingers on the surface of the text and accounts for our ultimate psychoanalytic angle of approach in our quest for deciphering Barkers multilayered narrative. Each problematic blooming in Barkers work serves his redefinition of the body as a source of the unknown, of indeterminacy and sheds light on a questioning of identity itself.
A Political Interpretation
In its simplest terms, the expression the body politic metaphorically refers to a nation likened to the human body. Kantorowicz (1957) developed the Kings visible and invisible bodies2 and showed that beyond his physical and mortal body, the king was a body politic. The expression the body politic evolved from a monarchial viewpoint to the embodiment of the people of a politically organized nation, the people being seen as one entity. Analyzing Barkers story in the light of every theoretician is here impossible. Our modest enterprise will mainly be threefold and will start by casting a Machiavellian light on the narrative to open the path to a critical reading. Machiavelli links the political status to the existence of a living organism composed of governing humors3, desires, which ensure its state of balance. The body politic also implies an idea of revolt when those humors are in conflict. The revolt is presented as regenerative by Machiavel, as a necessary process for the body politic to come back at its beginning and to start anew: not completely a return backward but an alteration towards the prior time and a way not only to recapture the anterior state, but to improve the beginning further by returning to it, in a sort of differential return to its origin4. Machiavelli praises the alterations of Republics, for the renovation of institutions is a condition for a longer life; the capacity of renewal through a return to the beginning is an indicator of the power of a regime. Considering the element of rebellion, it has to be stated that Barkers narrative is replete with revolutionary lexicon. Here are three instances: slowly, cautiously, it seems Charlies hands creep up out of the warmth of the bed and into the open air. () They clasp each other in greeting, like comrade-in-arms (Barker, 1988, pp. 1-2).
Political philosophy is the attempt truly to know both the nature of political things and the right, or the good, political order. (Strauss, 1959, p. 12). Barker certainly has in mind the theories of Plato in The Republic (380 B.C.), Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics (350 B.C.) or Politics (350 B.C.), Thomas More in Utopia (1516), Machiavelli in Discourses on Livy (1531) or The Prince (1532), Francis Bacons reflections on the perfect Republic in The New Atlantis (1624), Thomas Hobbes in The Leviathan (1651), Spinozas defense of democracy in Theologico-Political Treatise (1670) or Rousseau in The Social Contract (1762). The author suggests the reading of D. G. Hale. The Body Politic: A political Metaphor In Renaissance English Literature (1971) or the critical overview of political philosophy for example in Strausss and Cropseys History of Political Philosophy (1987). 2 The state is seen as an exroissance of the Kings body. 3 This organic analogy was the cornerstone of the theoretical discourse of Renaissance politics. 4 This is the authors translation from the French: pas tout fait un retour en arrire mais une altration vers le temps davant et une faon non seulement de retrouver ltat antrieur, mais encore damliorer le commencement en revenant lui en une sorte de retour diffrentiel lorigine. The image is that of a repeating cycle. Machiavelli gives the example of Rome that finds a new life and virtue for itself after its defeat facing the Gauls.
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The revolution had begun (Barker, 1988, p. 12). It was the sole proof of life after the body: and somehow it must communicate that joyous fact to a many fellow slaves as it could. Very soon, the days of servitude would be over once and for all (Barker, 1988, p. 13). The hands are first presented as apparently complying with Georges will like slaves to their master whereas in reality they prepare for their freedom. Charlie progressively loses all control over his hands which, in a climatic moment, kill his wife while he is asleep. The revolution is launched by Charlies left hand and the plotting done at night is an indicator that hands are entities of free will whose humors are no longer in accordance with the rest of the body. Following Machiavels theory, the hands are choleric and their desire for freedom disrupts the sovereign body. The hands are driven by the sole desire of being cut free from the rest of the body perceived as a tyrant who has to be dethroned. The use of force is justified to ruin the previous laws. As all city dwellers hands cut themselves free, they form a new nation to overthrow the former existing order of the body5. They perceive their rebellion as regenerative, as a purgation of the former body politic leading to the establishment of a better, fairer order, an improvement of the anterior state. Nevertheless, irony stems out for, when they are free, the hands seem to set up a new form of tyranny to which the human body is now subjected. They overthrow a dictatorship to establish another improbable regime led by Charlie Georges right hand. Their cruelty echoes Machiavellis vision that a prince had to use cruel means to establish his absolute power6. The rebellion engenders a vicious circle encompassing the body and its limbs. If political stability implies forbidding the hegemony of a value upon others, it is not achieved in Barkers text. The rebellion of the limbs does not offer a more stable political state but the death or the loss of rationality among the various characters who helplessly witness their hands take their autonomy. People are depicted as lunatics mutilating themselves: they were in frenzies of self-mutilation, most of them already maimed beyond hope of mending. () Knives taken to wrists and forearm; blood in the air like rain (Barker, 1988, p. 16). A character named Lillian has her own hands blind her, depriving her of two senses: sight and touch. In Barkers world, the rebellion of the hands is presented as the beginning of the era of the superiority of the limbs over the body itself. Barkers new body politic parallels Rousseaus vision of a moral and collective body composed of as many members as voices in the assembly giving to the body its unity, its common self 7. As a body, we incorporate every member as an indivisible part of the whole (Rousseau, 1978, p. 61). The hands are clearly gathered in one united nation. Just as Rousseau saw the body politic of the government as ineluctably being in conflict with the body of the sovereign, the hands take their independence from the body. Yet, in Barkers world, the situation is more than conflicting; the new nation set up by the hands is driven by the violent
5
In the emphasized gathering of hands, one recognizes the notion coined by Aristotle that Man is by nature a political animal in the sense that, like some animal species, human beings gather in groups and make an effort to live together. This is the case of the hands. For Aristotle, Man is a rational and moral animal. Here, however, if the hands behave as political animals gifted with reason, they are deprived of any morality. 6 Machiavelli justifies the intelligent use of force in the reknown 15th chapter of The Prince (1532): Concerning Things for which Men, and Especially Princes, are Praised or Blamed. 7 In place of the individual person of each contracting party, this act of association creates an artifical and collective body composed of as many members as there are voters in the assembly, and by this same act that body acquires its unity, its common ego, its life and its will. The public persona thus formed by the union of all other persons was once called the city, and is now known as the republic or the body politic. In its passive role it is called the state, when it plays an active role it is the sovereign (Rousseau, 1978, pp. 61-62).
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destruction of the sovereign body they are normally coerced to. Rousseau (1978) asserts that only in civil society can men experience freedom at its fullest. The social contract he depicts is necessary for Mans passage from a narrow stupid animal in the state of nature to a creature of intelligence and a man (p. 65) in a political society. Barker seems to reverse Rousseaus vision. In a way, the severing of the hands illustrates their desire for freedom and their willingness to return to a state of nature independent from the body. For the hands, it is not conceivable to be ruled and free at the same time. Their behavior corresponds to the Roussean (1978) state of possession based on force, opposed to that of property (by definition, rightful possession) [which] comes into being only when law comes into being. The hands are in a state of natural liberty (p. 65) as they are bound to an absence of limits. Their gathering in a nation of hands is not achieved through a contract or the formulation of any laws but through the perception of the leader as the Messiah integrated from hands to hands in an instinctive way. The human body is no longer a unified persona because the rebellion of its very limbs destroys any rational landmarks. Man is no longer master of himself. The human body becomes an alien entity, losing its identity, while the hands, on the opposite, affirm their identity with official names as it is signaled by the use of the capital letters: Right and Left. The new created nation is in fact a totalitarian state headed by Right with the other hands enslaved to its will which aims at destroying the human body. Barkers vision echoes Claude Leforts analysis of the organized totalitarian system as requiring an Other, the malefic Other, i.e., a representation of the enemy (Lefort, 1981). The relationship between the people as the one and the Other is defined as prophylactic, meaning that the enemy is viewed as a waste, a parasite to be eliminated. In Barkers story, the body is the malefic other left to decay by the hands. Barker seems to partake in the theory which views fragmentation not as a sign of a discarded whole but as revealing the importance of each unit of the body. In the article The dismembered body: Bodily fragmentation as a metaphor for political renewal, Guldin (2002) rightly recalls Bakhtins approach to the grotesque and the organic metaphor of late medieval society:
The single organs, especially the belly, but also the nose, the female breasts and the sexual organs claim their independence trying to break away from the unity of the body. In this world turned upside-down the lower half of the body comes into its own right again symbolizing through this a rejection of the political and ideological hegemony of the ruling classes. (p. 224)
The imagery of dismemberment echoes the need for change in society. The single parts are not considered as lesser organs, at the very image of the hands in Barkers story. They are the precursors of the rebellion of the limbs since at the very end, a pair of legs appears to their owner, moving on their own, happy to be free. Barker envisions uncommon parts of the body (hands or legs) as setting themselves free. The rebellion affects both the upper and lower parts of the body and aims at overthrowing the hegemonic body. The political approach to The Body Politic has the reader envision convergences and divergences with theories of political philosophy. The ubiquitous use of hands is an auxiliary in the notion of rewriting which is the cornerstone of his work and which is also significant in Barkers use of literary and biblical references.
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An Intertextual Interpretation
Barker seems to gothicize8 the metaphor of the body politic. The body is monstrosized with the emphasis laid on corporeal dismemberment, defilement and the alienation of identity. Barker transposes the pursuit of the innocent heroine by a treacherous villain in the maze-like corridors of a gothic castle or abbey into a gloomy city where people are grotesquely9 chased by hands. The city itself is a locus of confinement where the only way-out is death. The morbid, aggressive, transgressive sexuality which suffuses Gothic tales is displaced in Barkers narrative; the assaults on the bodies by the hands can indeed be perceived in a sexual perspective. The death of the female character, Lillian, is characterized by violence, lust, domination, pleasure for the assailant and horror for the victim. They were massed like crabs at the fish-mongers, glistening backs pressed close to each other, legs flicking and clicking as they gathered in ranks. () they began to advance upon her. () there were hands aplenty to catch her (Barker, 1988, p. 21). Her intimacy is baffled by the compact cohort of hands; the tension revolving around the physical contact is slowly built up when her body is objectified, used and thrown away like a puppet: as they tipped her outraged body into a ditch, her wig () came off (Barker, 1988, p. 21). The adjective outraged emphasizes the theory of her abused body but the latter is grotesquified by the mentioning of the wig. The hands are likened to a deus-ex-machina pulling the strings of human life in a merciless manner. The monstrosization of the body is additionally enlightened by the blurring of the frontier between rationality and irrationality along with the carnivalesque atmosphere omnipresent in the text. Barker assembles the tragic topic of the annihilated body with a ludicrous objectification of that body. The shattering of corporeal unity explains the instability running through the veins of the narrative. The multiplicity of meanings surging from the text transforms it into a palimpsest concealing different layers of interpretations. The reader cannot but notice that the text is replete with parodical biblical references. Right is grotesquely presented as the new Messiah: Charlie wanted to run, but his right hand was having none of it. These were its disciples, gathered here in such abundance, and they awaited its parables and its prophecies (Barker, 1988, p. 30). Right gives a mission to Left: I am the Messiah. Without me there will be nowhere to go. You must raise an army, then come and fetch me (Barker, 1988, p. 3). Left is freed with a kitchen knife and leads other rebellious human hands in waiting for the arrival of the Messiah. Right is a parodic Messiah, advocating rebellion and dismemberment, destruction of the human body as opposed to love, peace and reconciliation. Left is empowered with the mission of spreading the desacralized holy word to the disciples, i.e., the other hands. The feeling of freedom felt by Left is exhilarating and assimilated to a resurrection: it was like birth into another world (Barker, 1988, p. 13). However, the separation from the human body does not equal the ascension to a quasi holy state but a puzzling redefinition of the body. Exploring further explore forward the biblical undertones, the rebellion of the hands against the body is a reminder of the Jews revolt against the King of Egypt; in Barkers text, the body is the king that has to be destroyed. Consequently, the hands journey through town and their gathering in a hospital to await their messiah
8
Theories on the Gothic novel abound. Maurice Lvy for instance historicized the originally English 17th century literary movement in Le roman gothique anglais: 1764-1824 (1995). He clarifies the recurrent tropes of this movement: a fascination for death, bodily decay, ruins, confinement, morbid sexuality, transgression, excess, a questioning of identity, madness or dreams. 9 The grotesque is perceived perceive the grotesque in the Bakhtinian sense of the carnivalesque liberation of repressed elements and reversal of values. In Rabelais and his World, Bakhtin showed the importance of the tradition of the grotesque in medieval era and its link to the body seen in a hyperbolic way. The grotesque was regenerative mainly through laughing.
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grotesquify the biblical episode of the crossing of the Sinai desert to the Promised Land by the Hebrews and makes Left a Moses figure. Taken to a hospital after the severing of Left, Charlie is hypnotically led to an old, dilapidated part of the hospital to attend the reunion of all free hands gathered in the branches of a tree. The hands were everywhere, it seemed: hundreds of them, chattering away like a manual parliament as they debated their tactics (Barker, 1988, p. 30). The confused, chaotic atmosphere prevailing at that moment likens the tree to a new tower of Babel, tower characterized in the bible as the metropolis of confusion. In keeping with the inordinate, destructive ambition of men to supplant God causing the blurring of language as Gods punishment, Barker highlights the ideas of the hands crushing ambition, the loss of unity of the body and the absence of a human form of language. The decayed tree in the abandoned garden is also viewed as a parodic tree of knowledge: the tree had borne two amazing kinds of fruit (Barker, 1988, p. 30): a dead surgeon and the hands. The discovery of the forbidden fruit goes well beyond the result of Adams and Eves discovery of their nudity; here it leads to murder. If the separation from the body is perceived by the hands as a rebirth, the new nation they mean to create parodies any similarities to the biblical birth of Adam and Eve. Indeed, as Eve was created from Adams hips, the hands literally come out of the human body but of their own will. Their sins of revenge, murder and lust for dominion are all directed towards the body. The new nation is a patchwork of hands, at the very image of Barkers story and its combining of possible interpretations. The postmodern quality of Barkers text is highlighted by this notion of patchwork and by the absence of a unique meaning of the text10. The human body itself is revealed as suffering from the postmodern condition: the disintegration and deconstruction of social or spatial references, of identity and the absence of unity. The essence of the body is redefined since common theories are no longer valid. The upstaging of a new order by the hands implies the collapse of former meanings and the construction of new meanings and new interpretations. The death of the psychiatrist, Dr Jeudwine, blatantly seals the destruction of a previous analytic order and signals the psychoanalytic challenge that the rebellion of the hands constitute.
A Psychoanalytic Interpretation
The symbolic role played by the hands is pointed out by the psychiatrist, Dr. Jeudwine. Charlies hands rebellious scheme is made during his sleep, when they knew consciousness was gone (Barker, 1988, p. 1): It refers to the moment when the repressed desires are not curbed by the censorship agency, the superego, and can be let loose11. Jeudwine explains Charlies sense of loss of control by the theory of the return of the repressed. Jeudwine stresses Charlies incomplete mourning process for his fathers death which occurred during his childhood. After the funeral, Charlie suffered from nightmares; he imagined for months his fathers hands hitting on the coffin to be let free. The hands stand for symbols of the paternal power (Barker, 1988, p. 5); in that case, they are interpreted as a displaced phallic power, a reminder of the law of the father. The rebellious hands
We keep in mind Lyotards The Postmodern Condition (1979). Lyotard stressed the absence of one precise meaning, one truth as opposed to the case of modern metanarratives. In postmodern works, the descriptive or narrative elements are no longer stable and the range of their interpretation is wide. In Of Grammatology (1967), Derrida criticizes the notion of logocentrism: a form of rationalism that presupposes a presence, an idea, a meaning behind language and texts. Deconstruction implies that this logocentrism no longer applies; language, writing are submitted to instability. 11 Freud has a ternary vision of human psyche. The Id corresponds to the instincts and operates on the pleasure principle. The Ego operates on the reality principle. The Superego controls the Ids impulses.
10
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attempt at taking control over the human body can be analyzed as a sign of their will to be the new domineering, partriarchal force. The action of severing which resembles a castrative act is not a reducing act but is presented as a necessary step to leave the Imaginary state and reach the Symbolic12. For Jeudwine, the non-closure on a traumatic childhood event would account for the return of the repressed, that is Charlies obsession with hands. However, as events progress, Dr Jeudwine eventually accepts that the psychoanalytic theory does not apply in the occurring circumstances. When he sees two hands rolling Charlies cats head in his patients house, his sanity and beliefs in prior well-established knowledge are demolished. This is at the image of what Barker does in his narrative; our supposedly mastered landmarks are shattered by the collapse of what is a constituent of our essence, the body. Jeudwines belief in Freuds theory is annihilated: who would put their faith in the efficacy of Freud and the Holy Writ of Reason? (Barker, 1988, p. 23). Even here, the parodic tone emerges as the fundamental Freudian theories used to explain the wanderings of the psyche no longer have a solid ground and are sprinkled with a biblical reference. It is when Jeudwine states the blurring of limits between rationality and irrationality, when he declares the invalidity of his reasonable explanations that he is overcome and is suffocated by his own hands. Jeudwines attempt at asserting meaning to the empowerment of the hands, at inserting the unsayable in the logos (speech), fails, hence his deadly silence. The processes of guilt or repression turn into a void and it is the very absence of meaning which becomes the new order. A manifest fact remains merely a fact and there lingers no latent analyzable elements. This magnification of an absence of meanings, of blanks signals the body politic as a postmodern microcosm, a locus of instability, of incompleteness. The blatant reality of the body and the impossibility to comprehend it is horrifying. This void which cannot be grasped by the logos is qualified as the horror (Barker, 1988, p. 30). Barker even denies any significance to the tragic outcome of the story. Charlie sacrifices himself by jumping from the roof of the hospital he has been admitted in so that all the gathered hands die by following their Messiah. For Charlie, death is the only way-out since cohabitation is impossible. It was another being, to which he, by some unfortunate quirk of anatomy, was attached. He would be delighted to be rid of it (Barker, 1988, p. 29). There is no redemption in Charlies act as the idea of sacrifice normally implies, but simply a search for liberation. There was no significance to be discovered in it, merely the paraphernalia of a minor apocalypse (Barker, 1988, p. 32). The tem paraphernalia tones down the disappearance of the rebellious hands and the significance that it could vehicle. The term apocalypse itself which refers to the destruction of a world and the birth of a new one is degraded by Barker with the use of the adjective minor. This collapse in meanings enlightens the questioning of the body and its inherent unity transgressed in the narrative. The text is replete with mutilated bodies, leaking wounds and bodily fluids. The emphasis on blood, wounds, mutilation highlights the monstrosization and the abjection of the body by its very limbs. The body is made Other by itself; it engenders repulsion and fascination13. The depiction of the body echoes Kristevas theory on the powers of abjection as similarities to her approach exist in Barkers text and serve his purpose of the
12
Lacan tried to uncover processes of the unconscious through language and its associations. If the Imaginary is related to identifications, the Symbolic is marked by language. 13 The characters in the story undergo a quasi hypnotic revulsion when they realize their total absence of control over their own bodies.
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remolding of the body. In her theory, Kristeva focuses on the mother-child relationship. The child has to abject the mother to establish the boundary between the self and the other, to leave the semiotic stage (union with the mother) and enter the symbolic stage. The feminine is perceived as Other and the construction of the monstrous feminine constitutes the basis for the passage from maternal authority to the law of the father. The abjection process is classified under three categories: food (vomit, the skin of the surface of milk), bodily waste (excrement-urine, feces-severed body, corpses) and the feminine (menstrual blood, lactation). The corpse is an example of the abject for it draws me towards a place where meaning collapses (Kristeva, 1982, p. 2); it is an element that we recognize but which is also other. In Barkers narrative, the effect is magnified with the omnipresence of dead bodies and the severed hands have the same impact as the corpse; the body becomes an unknown known. In Barkers story, the abject appears not as an expression of the monstrous feminine but of the monstrous body. In Barkers paradigm of excess, the bond between the child and the mother seems to be replaced by a link between the hands and the body. The latter can indeed be perceived as a motherly agency, breathing life into the hands. The hands rebel against the body: they literally spit it out by cutting themselves free, letting the original bodies empty themselves from their blood. Though the blood flowing out of the mutilated bodies is no menstrual blood or maternal milk, it is still a mark of abjection by the hands of the Otherized body. The hands appear to break the link that confined them in the semiotic to reach a form of symbolic independence; the term form is used since they blindly follow Right and do not have a unique will. The abject is to be identified with what threatens life, and it must, therefore, be radically excluded from the place of the living subject. The abject, in other words, is all that the subject excludes in order to be what it is, to have the identity that it does (Schneider, 2004, p. 177). If the hands have their own identity, this questions the notion of identity itself. Barker suggests a new type of entity, literally a blank, a vision of a future without the body (Barker, 1988, p. 23). The rebellion of the limbs seems endless for, at the very end, a pair of legs appears to their owner, moving on their own: how long before the next uprising? Minutes? Years? (Barker, 1988, p. 33). The construction of the new self would be reached through separateness with the body itself when the body should be the sine qua non basis of any existing being. The drawings below originating from the author have a clarifying intent (see Figure 1):
A] The maternal = the body The child = the hands
Abjection process
The hands: as free entities B] The body = self and oppressor Abjected by the hands, then by the legs
Other = rest of the body
Hands and legs = separate selves
Figure 1. The stages of abjection.
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In Barkers text, the inherent link between each organ and the absence of scission are cast aside. The author provocatively stages a body-dominated society replaced by a limb-dominated society nevertheless driven by a unity of actions and effects. The status of the body is transcended and a dismembered self-literally a living oxymoronis created. Barker undermines the humanist notion of Man as a coherent and continuous [body] (Hutcheon, 1988, p. 177). His redefining perspective stages the body as a living expression of the ultimate unfamiliar familiar14. It holds the same petrifying effect as Medusas mask, being an auxiliary of the terrifying horror of what which is absolutely other, unspeakable-pure chaos (Vernant, 1991, p. 196). The readers cannot but empathize with the characters since they are led to reflect on the disintegration of their own bodies. Barker unveils the medusean pattern pervasively inscribed in the body and by so doing, he ensures an abreactic experience to his readers as well as the enduring success of his work.
Conclusions
The paper aims at deciphering Clive Barkers multilayered short story The Body Politic inserted in the 4th book of Books of Blood. In this work, the British author presents the human body as literally a book which has to be opened, rediscovered; it is a terra incognita marked by the resurgence of repressed elements or by the sense of urgency of applying a new significance to this locus. The notion of rewriting is a leitmotiv in The Body Politic as Barker seems to redefine not merely the organic political metaphor but drapes this imagery with Gothic, biblical or psychoanalytic veils. Julia Kristevas Powers of Horror (1982) is a cornerstone to apprehend the depiction of the body as the ultimate unknown. The narrative traps the reader into the paradoxical hypnotic delights of the Otherized, abjectified body.
References
Barker, C. (1988). Books of blood: Second omnibus (pp. 1-33). London: Warner Books. Derrida, J. (1976). Of grammatology. London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Freud, S. (1919). The uncanny. (D. McLintock, Trans.). New York: Penguin. Guldin. (2002). The dismembered body: Bodily fragmentation as a metaphor for political renewal. Retrieved from www.scielo.br/pdf/physis/v12n2/a03v12n2.pdf Hutcheon, L. (1988). A poetics of postmodernism. New York: Routledge. Kantorowicz, E. (1957). The kings two bodies: A study in mediaeval political theology. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kristeva, J. (1982). Powers of horror: An essay on abjection. New York: Columbia University Press. Laplanche, J., & Pontalis, J. B. (1974). The language of psychoanalysis. (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). New York: Norton. Lefort, C. (1994). Linvention dmocratique: Les limites de la domination totalitaire (The democratic invention: The limits of totalitarian domination). Paris: Fayard. Levy, M. (1995). Le roman gothique anglais: 1764-1824 (The English gothic novel: 1764-1824). Paris: Albin Michel. Lyotard, J. F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Machiavelli, N. (1532). The prince. S. J. Milner, (Ed.). Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co.. Rousseau, J. J. (1762). The social contract. (M. Cranston, Trans.). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Schneider, S. J. (Ed.). (2004). Horror film and psychoanalysis: Freuds worst nightmare. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sfez, G. (2000). Le corps politique (The body Politic). Retrieved from www.ac-nice.fr/massena/clubs/philo/pdf/corpspolitique.pdf
14 We refer to Freuds notion of the uncanny defined as: that species of the frightening that goes back to what was once well known and had long been familiar (Freud, p. 150). Several issues are here at stake: A compulsion to repeat as well as the return of the commonly known that had been repressed. It is that repression that explains why the familiar has turned into the unfamiliar. The body is a supposedly mastered entity but Barkers transformation of the latter into an absolute other broadens the scale of our unconscious fears.
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Strauss, L. (1959). What is political philosophy? and other studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Vernant, J. P. (1991). Mortals and immortals: Collected essays. F. I. Zeitlin, (Ed.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
DA VID
PUBLISHING
Strengthening and Restoration of Historical Structures Mirahor Ilyas Beg Mosque in Kora
Enea Mustafaraj
Epoka University, Tirana, Albania
Yavuz Yardm
Epoka University, Tirana, Albania
The Mirahor Ilyas Beg Mosque, built in 1496 in Kora, is one of a few Ottoman mosques still existing in Albania and the only Ottoman monument in the city. The mosque was built using cut stone and brick. It has a strong image; a cubic mass rising over a square plan. Inside there are found pictures of the mosque in the past and different famous mosques. During its existence, it was damaged from many earthquakes occurring at this area. Due to amortization, the mosques structural properties were weakened and architectural values were dimmed. Proper strengthening methods need to be applied, not only to improve structural conditions, but also to preserve architectural features of the mosque. In this paper assessment of existing conditions of the structure is carried out. Based on the obtained results, solutions for the structural problems are investigated. As for restoration, the repair methods to be applied were examined taking into consideration at what extent the historical values of the building will be preserved. The proposed strengthening methods are the ones which would affect the least the mosques historical values. Keywords: heritage, masonry buildings, structural assessment, mosque retrofit, restoration
Introduction
History The Mirahor Ilyas Beg Mosque, built in 1496 in Kora, is one of a few Ottoman mosques still existing in Albania and the only Ottoman monument in the city of Kora (see Figure 1), it is located near the city center. This mosque has a significant importance for the city of Kora as it is strongly associated with the development of the city as an urban center. The mosque holds the name of its founder, Mirahor Ilyas Beg. Architectural Features The mosque of Mirahor Ilyas Beg has a strong image; a cubic mass rising over a square plan. It consists of two parts: the prayer hall having a square schemed plan of 11.75 m long and the last prayer hall having a rectangular schemed plan with three piers (see Figure 2).
Acknowledgements: The authors wish to thank AST-Ahmet Soner Toana Bureau of Architecture, Ankara, for providing useful architectural data of the mosque. Enea Mustafaraj, MSc, Department of Civil Engineering, Epoka University. Yavuz Yardm, Ph. D., associate professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Epoka University.
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STRENGTHENING AND RESTORATION OF HISTORICAL STRUCTURES The transition from the cubic mass to the dome in this building is done by using pendentives which are
divided into 10 melon ribs. The triangular shoulders are covered by leaden plates and they prepare the octagonal drum for the dome. The main dome raises 14.6 meters above the ground. It has a semicircular shape and is covered with a leaden layer. The main dome and three semi domes which cover the last prayer hall constitute the main roofing system of the mosque.
Figure 1. Mirahor Ilyas Beg Mosque in Kora.
Figure 2. Plan view of the mosque.
STRENGTHENING AND RESTORATION OF HISTORICAL STRUCTURES
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Neatly cut stone and bricks are used for building of the mosque. Every stone is surrounded by two layers of horizontal and vertical bricks. The pendentives and the dome are constructed with bricks. Pointed Ottoman arches made of bricks span the distance between the columns. The interior of the mosque is painted in white. There are paintings of famous mosques. There is a big lantern hanged at the dome. The pendentives are adorned with stalactite decorations (see Figure 3).
Figure 3. Interior of the mosque.
Existing Damage/Problems
During its existence, Mirahor Ilyas Beg mosque was damaged from many earthquakes occurring at this area. The most severe earthquake recorded in this region was the one of 1960, which almost destroyed the entire minaret. Due to amortization, the mosques structural properties were weakened and architectural values were dimmed. In order to point out the structural problems, vulnerability assessment of the mosque was carried out. The methodology used for this assessment was based on visible symptoms that loads and stresses have caused throughout the structure. Degrees of the distresses severity were stated based on possible causes, location and extent of the cracks. The aim was to improve the existing capacity of the structure not only for static, but also possible earthquake loads. Soil condition and environmental effects were also taken into account in order to have a realistic solution. Based on careful inspection of every single element, it was decided that immediate action needed to be taken in order to improve performance under existing load conditions. Moreover, Kora is found in a highly earthquake active region (Aliaj, Adams et al., 2004). Some of the structural problems are listed below. Dome and Pendentives Dome structural conditions seem adequate to carry static load. However, structural cracks are seen throughout it. Improper connection of the lanterns hanged at the top of the ceiling after the dome was built, has caused extra distresses at the very top causing cracks around it. Other structural cracks may have been caused by earthquake loads. Improper isolation system of the roof has caused moisture problems and spall of plaster (see Figure 4). The pendentives and arches suffer from the same problems. Thrust coming from these loads has exceeded
812
the pendentive load carrying capacity. Propagation of these cracks is seen until the bottom of the load bearing walls. Due to inadequate isolation, spall of plaster is seen too.
Figure 4. Cracks on the dome and spall of plaster.
Load Bearing Walls In the load bearing walls, there have been observed serious structural cracks. The causes of those cracks are excessive stress concentrations such as: compressive stress caused by vertical load (static); shear stress caused by lateral load (earthquake); and propagation of cracks due to successive earthquakes and amortization during centuries. Propagation of structural cracks from the pendentives to the bottom of the wall is observed in some places. Spall of plaster due to improper isolation is seen. In load bearing walls containing openings, a different crack pattern is observed. As the maximum stresses are located at the edges of these openings, every window is cracked at the bottom corners of its frame. The cracks propagate diagonally from top windows to the lower windows in the same way. It is very dangerous for the stability of the wall (see Figure 5).
Strengthening Methods
It is crucial to recognize that strengthening and repairing of a structure are more complex than construction due to unknown factors such as continuity, load path, material properties, and locations of previous interventions which increase the complexity of the work. Moreover, Kora is found in the most active seismic zone in Albania with a rate density of 11.4 (Aliaj,
STRENGTHENING AND RESTORATION OF HISTORICAL STRUCTURES Adams et al., 2004). Therefore, strengthening of the structure is needed to be done accordingly.
813
Figure 5. Cracks on the load bearing walls in the south facade of the mosque.
The proposed strengthening methods aim to preserve the mosques architectural and historical values. Non-structural cracks less than 10 mm should be filled with lime mortar injection (see Figure 6). These cracks will be sealed preventing water from penetrating inside of the wall and damaging plaster. This procedure leaves no trace as it is applied inside the wall. Thus, it has no effect on architectural features of the mosque. It is widely used in restoration projects for historical constructions (e.g., Outeiro Church, Portugal). Structural cracks wider than 10 mm should be repaired using longitudinal FRP bars (see Figure 7). This technique would provide the load bearing walls with better resistance against tensile stresses, higher shear capacity and more ductility. The dome is of a high importance. It encloses the maximum volume with a minimum of surface area and distributes loads to support through a doubly curved plane. Dome is to be designed to resist compressive and circumferential tensile stresses. For this reason it should be strengthened using FRP laminates along its surface. Fiber Reinforced Polymers (FRP) provides a variety of usages and good solutions for structural problems. For example, St. Fermo Church in Verona, Italy, was strengthened by using FRP laminates. Moreover, external and internal steel plate rings should be tied at the bottom of the dome (see Figure 8). The same procedure was applied in the leaning tower of Pisa. Pre-stressing rings were placed all along the tower.
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Figure 6. Strengthening by grout or epoxy injection in (a) cracks (b) weak walls.
FRP longitudinal bars
Section A-A
Figure7. FRP reinforcement in the load bearing wall.
Detail
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Figure 8. Strengthening with internal and external rings.
Restoration
The restoration project consists of bringing the state of the structure at a condition as it was built in 1496. This process would bring back the historical and architectural values of the mosque. As mentioned above, structural problems were found and would be solved by different methods. Moreover, esthetical interventions should be made as the mosques elements and materials architectural values are dimmed. Interventions Again Humidity Humidity problems would be solved by creating a new ground water drainage system. It would cover the entire perimeter of the mosque, and would remove all surface and excess water away from the mosque (see Figure 9). Even though the leaden cap of the roof was recently replaced (in 2008), water leakage is seen in the dome which has caused spall of plaster and damage of paint and calligraphic ornaments on it. It is suggested that the layer of lead is removed, the roof to be properly isolated and then leaden cap to be put back in place.
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Figure 9. Proposed interventions.
Conservation and Restoration of Rocks Missing stones in the main facades will be replaced with new ones which would be prepared using the powder of the original stone bonded with hydraulic lime repairing mortar. It will be completed in accordance with original details. Earlier interventions made to repair the stones by cement added mortar will be removed without damaging the original material (see Figure 10). Conservation and Restoration of Render There will be a complete observation of the areas of the walls which have gaps, swelled and cracked areas.
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Lime mortar will be used to fill small gaps. In order to preserve the actual conditions of the render in the interior of the mosque, one tone lighter colors and motives completion strategies will be used using reversible paint (aquarelle, gouache paint) for decorations at areas that are filled.
Figure 10. Proposed interventions.
Conservation of Timber Elements From the documents in the archives, it is seen that the used timber in the mosque is original. For this reason it has great values and is to be conserved. The damaged varnish and paste layers above the entrance gate (see Figure 1), will be cleaned. Areas where there are mass losses will be filled with the same type of timber. Then, all timber elements will be varnished with a water based timber protection layer. Deformation of the timber ceiling will be fixed by dismantling all the timber elements, replacing the damaged ones, cleaning the ones that can be reused and fixing again.
Conclusions
In this paper, structural assessment of Mirahor Ilyas Beg mosque was presented. Even though cracks are present in many places of the mosque, the assessment results have shown that Mirahor Ilyas Beg mosques structural conditions, seem adequate to carry static loads. From this point of view, it can be stated that the current condition does not endanger the overall stability of the mosque. However, since Kora is found in the most active seismic zone in Albania, special care should be taken in
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order to immediately repair the problems stated above. By this way, structural stability and dynamic performance of the mosque would improve under the effect of any earthquake loads. As for restoration, the suggested strengthening and repair methods mentioned above, are the ones which would affect the least mosques historical values and which would enhance its architectural values.
References
Aliaj, Sh., Adams, J., Halchuk, S., Sulstarova, E., Peci, V., & Muco, B. (2004). Probabilistic seismic hazard maps for Albania. 13th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering Canada. Glkan, P., & Wasti, S. T. (2009). Seismic assessment and rehabilitation of historic structures. Structural Longevity, 1(2), 111-134. Hafez, K., Yasin, M. F., & Bayraktar, A. (2010). Analysis and strengthening methods for historical masonry structures. 1st International Conference on Seismology and Earthquake Engineering. Hrasnica, M., Zlatar, M., Kulukcija, S., Humo, M., & Madzarevic, M. (2010). Seismic strengthening and repair of typical stone masonry historical buildings in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 8th International Masonry Conference in Dresden. International Association for Earthquake Engineering. (1980). Guidelines for Earthquake Resistant Non-Engineered Construction, Revised edition of Basic concept of Seismic codes Volume I part 2, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur Kanpur, India. Islam, R. (2008). Inventory of FRP strengthening methods in masonry structures (MSc Thesis, Technical University of Catalunya). Kaya, S. M. (2009). Inventory of repair and strengthening methods with iron and steel (MSc Thesis, Technical University of Catalunya). Keypour, H., Fahjan, Y. M., & Bayraktar, A. (2007). Analysis and strengthening methods for historical masonry structures. 5th International Conference on Seismology and Earthquake Engineering, Teheran, Iran. Lourenco, P. B. (2005). Assessment, diagnosis and strengthening of Outeiro Church, Portugal. Construction and Building Materials, 19, 634645. Manahasa, E. (2005). The existing mosques built during the Ottoman Empire period in Albania (MSc Thesis, Istanbul Technical University). Mazzolani, F. M., Sendova, V. I., & Gavrilovic, P. (2009). Design by testing of seismic restoration of Mustafa Pasha Mosque in Skopje. International Conference on Protection of Historical Buildings; PROHITECH 09,169-176. Menegotto, M., & Monti, G. (2005). Strengthening concrete and masonry with FRP: A new code of practice in Italy. Conference AMCM 05, Gliwice, Poland. Mustafaraj, E. (2012). A case study on structural assessment of Ottoman Mosques in Albania (MSc thesis, Epoka University).

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Journal of Literature and Art Studies

Volume 3, Number 12, December 2013 (Serial Number 25)

David Publishing Company www.davidpublishing.com

David Publishing Company www.davidpublishing.com

Journal of Literature and Art Studies

The Construction of New Woman in Chen Hengzhes Autobiography

THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Chen Hengzhe and Her Autobiography

THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY

The Pursuit of Modern Education

THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY

THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Powderless, Ringless, and Decoration-less

For more details, see Olney (1980), p. 18.

THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY

THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY

THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Great Leaders in China

THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY

For more details, see Croll (1978), pp. 63-64.

THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY

THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY

The Ambassadors of Culture

THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY

THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY

THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY

THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY

THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW WOMAN IN CHEN HENGZHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Adventures in the Megron

REPRESENTATIONS OF DISCOURSE AND OF THE FEMININE IN HOMERS ODYSSEY

The Shroud and the Trope

REPRESENTATIONS OF DISCOURSE AND OF THE FEMININE IN HOMERS ODYSSEY

REPRESENTATIONS OF DISCOURSE AND OF THE FEMININE IN HOMERS ODYSSEY

banxieties swarming piercingI may go mad with grief

b in grief for Itylus, her beloved boy

cmyth of aedon Figure 1. Paradigma 1.

REPRESENTATIONS OF DISCOURSE AND OF THE FEMININE IN HOMERS ODYSSEY

btill our Father pays my bride-gifts back in full

bnow theres an offer I really cant refuse!

cmyth of aphrodite and ares Figure 2. Paradigma 2.

THE ART HERO MADE INTERNATIONAL

John Galts Biography

THE ART HERO MADE INTERNATIONAL

THE ART HERO MADE INTERNATIONAL

THE ART HERO MADE INTERNATIONAL

THE ART HERO MADE INTERNATIONAL

THE ART HERO MADE INTERNATIONAL

Muse Turned Femme Fatale in D. G. Rossettis Painting and Poetry

D. G. Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal: The Relationship

MUSE TURNED FEMME FATALE IN ROSSETTIS PAINTING AND POETRY

MUSE TURNED FEMME FATALE IN ROSSETTIS PAINTING AND POETRY

MUSE TURNED FEMME FATALE IN ROSSETTIS PAINTING AND POETRY

MUSE TURNED FEMME FATALE IN ROSSETTIS PAINTING AND POETRY

Figure 2. Lady Lilith. Source: Adapted from http://www.geocities.jp/weathercock8926/images/lilith.jpg, 1873.

MUSE TURNED FEMME FATALE IN ROSSETTIS PAINTING AND POETRY

MUSE TURNED FEMME FATALE IN ROSSETTIS PAINTING AND POETRY

Ut Pictura Poesis: The Sonnet Accompanying the Painting

MUSE TURNED FEMME FATALE IN ROSSETTIS PAINTING AND POETRY

Figure 3. Lady Lilith. Source: Adapted from http://www.whimzical.com/Art/Rossetti/LadyLilith.jpg, 1864-1867.

MUSE TURNED FEMME FATALE IN ROSSETTIS PAINTING AND POETRY

Figure 4. Regina Cordium. Source: Adapted from http://www.saleoilpaintings.com/paintings-image/ dante-gabriel-rossetti/dante-gabriel-rossetti-regina-cordium.jpg, 1960.

MUSE TURNED FEMME FATALE IN ROSSETTIS PAINTING AND POETRY

MUSE TURNED FEMME FATALE IN ROSSETTIS PAINTING AND POETRY