Abstracts

Source: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 100, No. 1 (Jan., 2005), pp. 278-280
Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3738144
Accessed: 02-11-2015 20:23 UTC

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abstracts
Lemuel Self-Translated; or, Being an Ass in Houyhnhnmland
by Michael J.Franklin
This article addresses Part iv of Gulliver's Travels as a critique of representation, ex?
ploring Gulliverian and Houyhnhnm theories of classification.Gulliver's realization that he
does in factbelong to the same species as the Yahoo is contrastedwith the remarkablelack of
species-cognition displayed by the Houyhnhnm towardstheirclose relatives,the asses. Gul?
liver,on the otherhand, displays his close relationshipwiththe asinine as he adapts the classical
metamorphicarchetypeof man as ass by psychologicallytranslatinghimselfinto Houyhnhnm.
The onomastics and paronomasia of the name Lemuel are developed into an examination of
hybridity as applicable to Gulliver, Swift,and genre.
by John Pikoulis
Reading and Writing in Persuasion
Persuasion belongs to the fermentof change that created a reading revolution at the end of
the eighteenthcentury.The novel encodes the secular,heuristicmode itnurturedin specificacts
of reading and writing, beginning with Sir Walter's reliance on the Baronetage in Chapter i
and Anne's embrace of readerly virtues at Lyme Regis, especially her discussion of reading
tastes with Benwick. The climax occurs when Frederick Wentworthhimselfturns writer in
circumstancesthat encourage us to see the novel as a Romantic text tracingthe growthof its
heroine's mind.
Reading (and) the Late Poems of Sylvia Plath by Paul Mitchell
This article offersa reading of Sylvia Plath's late poems by utilizing the psycholinguistic
paradigms ofJulia Kristeva and Jacques Lacan. It explores the methodsby which the poems
seek to exploit textualspace (silence) in order to suggest an experience that exists beyond the
Symbolic. Following Kristeva, I argue this to be a jouissance of a particularlyunspeakable
kind. I suggest that,ratherthan seekingto erase silence by providinga definitecriticalposition,
the readermustembrace the poems' silence and, in thisway,have access to thatwhich is beyond
language?the poem's unspoken truth.
'Un grand coup de pied dans le chateau de cubes': Formal Experimentation in Marie
Darrieussecq's Bref sejour chez les vivants by Shirley Jordan
The article examine's Marie Darrieussecq's novel Bref sejour chez les vivants as an ex?
perimental work which deliberately places itself in significantrelationshipto the writingof
Virginia Woolf and James Joyce. It is especially concerned with the novel's innovativeap?
proach to stream-of-consciousness techniques and to one of the most significantthemes of
the late twentiethcentury,repressed trauma. It also explores time, structure,suspense, and
implied readingpatternsin the novel, and examines the significanceof Darrieussecq's focus on
recentresearchin neuropsychology and neurobiology concerningthe human brain.
From Romance to L'Amour, roman: Camille Laurens's Rewriting of the Family
Novel by Sarah Capitanio
Transmission, textual and sexual, is central to Camille Laurens's work,both in the kaleidoscope of literaryquotations and interconnectionsof common French words at the heart of
her non-fictionaltexts,and in the interweavingof relationswithinher fictionalfamilyhistories.
Romance(1992), partofthe nouveau-romanstyle 'A-Z' tetralogy,and UAmour, roman(2003), in
the autofiction genre,are particularlyimportantin thisregard.This articleexplores Laurens's
partial rewriting in autofictionalmode of the earlier,ludic family romance and reflectsboth
on the concomitantshiftin familialand authorial identitiesand on the role played thereinby
communicationand language.

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ABSTRACTS

279

An Unknown Episode of Burchiello's Reception in the Early Cinquecento: Florence,

Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 2725, fols 8or-i3iv by Michelangelo Zaccarello
In presentingan unknown manuscript collection of earlysixteenth-century
comic poems, this
articleoffersa briefaccount ofBurchiello's literary reception in the firsthalfofthe century.
Shortly before a new breed of comic poets, led by Francesco Berni, elaborated an updated
approach to the Sonetti del Burchiello(adapted to an earlier Tuscan realistic tradition and
to the practical needs of courtly patronage), the anonymous author produced over a hundred
sonnets that strictlyfollow his model's style, often resultingin a patchworkof Burchiellan
quotations.
Chimeras of Progress, Mir ages of Modernity: Abel Posse's El inquietante dia de la
vida by Kerstin Bowsher
This article interpretsPosse's novel as an interrogationof notions of progress associated with
the European project of modernity and the Argentine programme of post-independence
nation formation. References to Mann, Rilke, and Rimbaud elucidate Posse's portrayalof
death and disease as barriers to the realization of social improvement,and his vision of
modernity's repressive strategies. In addition, the paper examines Posse's treatmentof the
civilization/barbarism dichotomythroughthe lens of Kusch's work. The barbarism of the
gaucho undermines the liberal vision of the nation. The article concludes that the novel renders the idea of modernityas progress problematic.
Josep Maria Junoy's Four- and Five-Line Poems in El Dia: A Meditation on the Haiku
by Jordi Mas Lopez
In 1920, a Catalan poet who had become well known because of his Cubist calligrammes,Josep
Maria Junoy, published Amour et pays age, a volume writtenin the Japanese haiku form,
which had become verypopular in France during the precedingyears. But already in the news?
paper El Dia he had published several poems made up of fouror fivelines, some of which were
repeated. This articleanalyses themas a meditationon the haiku formand as a guide to reading
the haiku of Amour et paysage.
Schiller and the Mannheim National Theatre by Lesley Sharpe
This article analyses Friedrich Schiller's unhappy relationshipwith the Mannheim Na?
tional Theatre from 1783 to 1784. It investigatesthe influenceson and the development of
the repertoireat the theatre,including the rise of Musiktheater during the 1770s, in order
to demonstratethe extent to which the theatre's style and direction ran counter to Schiller's
own dramatic instincts. It explores the effortshe made to meet the theatre's requirements,
forexample by emphasizing his debt to Lessing, and the reasons forhis rivalrywith August
Wilhelm Iffland.
Bertolt Brecht's Furcht und Elend des III. Reiches and the Moscow 'Realism'
Controversy by John J. White
This article offersa detailed analysis of individual scenes in Furcht und Elend des III.
Reiches by Brecht, considered in the contextof the criticaldebates about Realism conducted
in the exile journals Das Wortand InternationaleLiteraturin the Soviet Union in the late 1930s.
While Lukacs and his clique welcomed the work as a collection of one-act plays in the styleof
Socialist Realism, Brechtconceived it as a piece ofEpic Theatre consistingofa highlystruc?
tured montage of interconnectingscenes with only a superficialresemblanceto Socialist Realist
drama. Techniques of defamiliarization (Verfremdung) are also shown to play a major role
in presentinga critical,oftensatirical,pictureof German behaviour duringthe Third Reich.

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280

ABSTRACTS

The Poetics of Legend: The Paradigmatic Approach to Legend in Danilo Kis's

A Tomb for Boris Davidovich
by Vladimir Zoric
This article discusses the structuralrole of legendary paradigms in three of the stories in
Danilo Kis's collectionA Tomb for Boris Davidovich. In 'The Mechanical Lions' legend is
conceived as a tool ofthe implied prosecutor, who opposes the argumentsofthe protagonists'
freewill to those of preordination. In 'Dogs and Books' and 'A Tomb for Boris Davidovich'
legend changes its role and the myth of cyclical time is invoked as an explanatory tool,
connectingdiverse historicalpersecutionsinto a single,deterministvision of history.However,
the narratorsubvertsthis pessimistic mythas make-believe,a mere consequence of the transformative device which is used to enhance it.

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