By his detailed account of his journey through Hell, Dante invited close attention from his readers. Factual-minded ones of a mathematical bias have become fascinated with the working out of the details as in a puzzle. In their zeal they have made diagrams to illustrate their views, such as appear in Giovanni Agnelli's Topo-Cronografia del Viaggio Dantesco. These and other charts have been widely circulated. For instance, Dinsmore's Aids to the Study of Dante gives those of Il Duca Michelangelo Caetani di Sermoneta. Having seen such diagrams from our earliest knowledge of Dante, we take them for granted as showing his plan of the lower world. Even Croce, in La Poesia di Dante, admits some use in making charts of the physical topography of the poem, on the ground that “quella struttura Dante la volle ed esegui, ed esiste nel suo libro” (p. 61). If it is in the book, it should be made clear. But what if it is not?

Professor Tatlock's analysis of the date at which the Knight's Tale was adapted for its place in the Canterbury collection and the amount of alteration which Chaucer effected when placing it there has been accepted by all scholars who have concerned themselves with Chaucerian chronology. Tatlock suggested that the second paragraph and the last line of the Tale (i.e., lines 875–892 and 3108) were inserted to fit the story into its context, but maintained that elsewhere he found “not the least indication of adaptation or alteration.” Then he concluded—because of the belief that the General Prologue was composed in 1387—that the Knight's Tale was put into its present position “about 1388–90.” So widely accepted has Tatlock's theory become that in their editions of Chaucer both Professor Manly and Professor Robinson record it as a common belief that the “Palamon and Arcite” (mentioned in the Prologue to the LGW) is substantially the same as the Knight's Tale as we now have it. I wish to present some evidence, however, which suggests that the Knight's Tale was revised for the Canterbury collection not earlier than the middle of 1390, and to suggest that there was more revision made in the poem than has heretofore been supposed.

No less a scholar than Jacob Grimm over a century ago called attention to the inherent value of the German Weistiimer, particularly as outstanding monuments of old local laws. Two decades later, F. I. Mone in a study of these documents emphasized their great age and their connections with the provisions of the Roman law. While these Weistümer (also known as Banntaiding, Ehehafttaiding, Fischtaiding etc.) are common to most parts of the German-speaking territory, relatively only a few of those once extant have come down to us; of these the greatest number by far were originally written in Austria and the Alpine provinces. For this reason the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien set itself the task of publishing all the available local laws for the districts of Salzburg, Tyrol, Styria, Carinthia, Upper and Lower Austria. From the point of view of date, the earliest of these belong to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, though no more than a handful of them have survived. The number of extant Weistümer increases greatly in the fifteenth century, achieves its greatest total in the following century and then gradually declines, till after 1800 the Weistümer disappear entirely.

The story of the deposition and death of Mac Con is told in The Battle of Mag Mucrama, §§59–77 of Stokes' edition, RC 13, 460–467, and there is an account of his death in the “historical” tract in Laud 610, edited by Meyer, Fianaigecht 28 (RIA Todd Lecture Series xvi, 1910). There is an independent story in YBL, which is here edited for the first time, and may represent one of the sources upon which the author of The Battle of Mag Mucrama has drawn. He did not merely copy it, for his text varies considerably in vocabulary, and by omission and addition. Yet the two texts are closely related, and Stokes' edition, referred to in the notes as L, has been of great value to me in reading and interpreting the text presented here. According to this text Mac Con was king of Ireland for thirty years, and this is also the tradition of the tract in Laud. In L he reigns for seven years (§59), but the alternative tradition is recorded in §77. In the LL text of the Battle of Crinna the period is twenty-seven years, LL fcs. 328 f 16 (O'Grady, Silva Gadelicaii, 491). The Annals of Tigernach say: Ailii aiunt Lugaid Mac Con post hoc bellum regnase [annis xviii] uel xxx ut alii aiunt, RC 17, 11. The source of the words in square brackets in Stokes' edition is not stated. It would be necessary to examine unpublished historical poems, genealogies, and regnal lists in order to trace the origin of these conflicting numbers. Confusion often arises from the use of Roman numerals in manuscripts.

Adequate attention has never been paid to the fifteenth-century lying-song which advises us to trust women when nettles bear roses and other wild impossibilities come to pass. There are three manuscript versions:

• A. Bodl. 29734 (Eng. poet. e. 1—second half XV cent.), f. 43b;

• B. Balliol Oxf. 354 (Hill's Commonplace Book—first half XVI cent.), f. 250b;

• C. BM Printed Book IB 55242 (MS. notes in Trevisa's Bartholomeus Anglicus, de Worde, 1495), ff. 477b–478b.

II Allusions to, and imitations of, the non-lyric poets of greece

Numerous allusions to Homer and to the other non-lyric poets of Hellas are to be found throughout the works of Du Bellay.

It has long been recognized that Spenser made numerous borrowings from the Revelation of St. John in Book i of the Faerie Queene. The Variorum edition conveniently lists those observed by Upton and other commentators. In a recent study, Mrs. Josephine Waters Bennett has suggested that the Revelation not only furnished Spenser with particular passages but largely determined the structure of Book I. Her important contribution is not the discovery of new borrowings, though she observes several, but her exposition of the Revelation from the Protestant point of view. From several English commentaries and from glosses in the Geneva Bible, she shows that the latter half of the Revelation was interpreted in the sixteenth century as an allegory of the Protestant conflict with the Roman church, and concludes that this fact has an important bearing on Book I, which is now generally believed to involve a similar allegory.

The rarity of manuscript versions of Lovelace's poems gives considerable significance to the discovery of an early text of the Sonnet beginning, “When I by thy faire shape did sweare.” The lyric was set to music by William Lawes, and is found on folio 2056 (meaning 256) of John Gamble's manuscript collection of songs in the New York City Public Library. The text has never been printed nor collated in print; and the variants reveal that Lovelace was not—as his editors and critics have maintained—careless in revision.

So reactionary was Lord Liverpool, whose Cabinet was formed in 1812 and lasted until 1827, that a French critic remarked that had Lord Liverpool been present on the first day of creation he would have cried out, “Mon Dieu, conservons le chaos.” Though this remark was aimed at one man, quite as appropriately it could have been directed at most of the gentlemen of the periodical press between 1798 and 1820; for this period, like many another era in time of national crisis, made literary criticism the handmaiden of politics, religion, and morality. During few periods have the review and literary departments of the magazines been so full of banal religious and political cant as during the first two decades of the nineteenth century. The ink might scarcely have been dry on Lyrical Ballads and the Preface, but so disturbed was the national state that everything conspired to bring about a thoroughly uncritical outlook and to make the age a most unpropitious one for launching a new literary system. In this short study the fortunes of Wordsworth and the “new poets” cannot be examined, but some of the forces of reaction with which they had to contend, at least as reflected in the periodicals, can be made clear.

Als ich im vergangenen Sommer Karl Vietor für die freundliche Zusendung des Sonderdrucks seiner gehaltvollen Arbeit über “Goethes Gedicht auf Schillers Schädel” im Märzheft von PMLA meinen Dank aussprach, verhehlte ich nicht, daß die Begründung seiner Hypothese von Zugehörigkeit und Sinn des dem Gedicht im Druck der “Wanderjahre” von 1829 hinzugefügten Vermerks “Ist fortzusetzen” mich nicht überzeugt hätte. Als er daraufhin mir vorschlug, mich an einem für das Juniheft 1945 der PMLA geplanten Symposium zu beteiligen, für das die Herren Feise und Mautner Beiträge zugesagt hätten und fùr das er selbst einen weitern Nachtrag zu seinem Aufsatz in Aussicht stelle, nahm ich diesen Vorschlag gern an. Damals wußte ich nicht, daß er u.a. vorhatte, die Hypothese, daß der Vermerk sich auf den Roman beziehen könne, als “erledigt” abzulehnen, noch wußte er, daß ich an dieser Interpretation festhielt und mich dafür einzusetzen gewillt war. Als ich mich dann im Oktober bei PMLA erkundigte, bis wann mein Manuskript würde müssen eingesandt werden, erfuhr ich, daß die betreffenden Arbeiten bereits im Dezemberheft erscheinen würden und schon im Druck wären. Dieses zur Erklärung, weshalb die folgenden Ausführungen erst jetzt als verspätete Nachzügler erscheinen.

Das “Ist fortzusetzen,” den Terzinen auf Schillers Reliquien beim ersten Abdruck in der A.l.H. unmittelbar angefügt, kann nach dem Augenschein nur auf das Gedicht bezogen werden. Wer das tut, stellt keine Hypothese auf; sondern hält sich an einen Tatbestand, den er nach der Lage der Dinge als Aeußerung von Goethes Willen zu verstehen ein klares Recht hat. Der äußere Befund gibt so wenig den Grund zu einer andern Auffassung her wie das gesamte dokumentarische Material. Weder in Goethes Briefen noch in denen der Mitarbeiter an der A.l.H., weder in irgendeiner schriftlichen oder mündlichen Aeußerung des Dichters, seinen Aufzeichnungen oder Tagebüchern ist von diesem Zusatz direkt oder indirekt die Rede. Das ist einigermaßen merkwürdig, vielleicht aber so zu erklären, daß Goethe den Mitarbeitern darüber mündliche Erklärungen gegeben hat. Die Vermutung, daß es mit dem Zusatz eine vom Augenschein abweichende Bewandtnis haben möge, ist reine Philologen-Spekulation. Sie ist veranlaßt durch das Bedenken, daß ein in sich abgeschlossenes Gedicht nicht fortgesetzt zu werden pflegt, und durch die Erwägung, daß die “Wanderjahre,” an deren Schluß (in der zweiten Fassung von 1829) das Gedicht gestellt wurde, eher hätten fortgesetzt werden können oder sollen.

In Sainte-Beuve's Volupté the hero, Amaury, upon sighting the shores of the New World at the end of his voyage from France, asks this rhetorical question: “Est-il vrai qu tu contiennes, ainsi qu'on en vient de toutes parts à le murmurer, la forme materielle que doivent revêtir les sociétés humaines à leur terme de perfection?” Volupté appeared in 1835 at a time when many French people were asking themselves this very question, when travelers by the thousands were crossing the Atlantic to have a look at this new democracy, which might possibly prove to be an antidote to “le mal europeen.” It was the time, in Robert Mahieu's phrase, of the “Third Discovery of America.” The enthusiasm for liberty which fifty years earlier had sent so many young French aristocrats to fight in Washington's army had somewhat changed its character and France, plagued by internal strife and reaction, was endeavoring to discover the answer to her problems in a knowledge of the young American republic.

Bergson est mort le 4 janvier 1941, dans une période qui comptera parmi les plus tragiques qu'ait traversées la France. Dans sa patrie opprimée peu de voix ont eu le courage de s‘élever pour remettre en lumière l'action extraordinaire exercee par le bergsonisme sur les destinées de la philosophic et de la littérature françaises. De cette action, l‘étude présente n'exposera nécessairement qu'un aspect, d'ailleurs assez méconnu, qui concerne Paul Claudel et plus particulièrement son Art poétique.

This bibliographical essay brings together for the first time all evaluations of Housman's poetry and poetic-theory 1920-1945. It effects a twofold end: (1) historical—a survey of Housman estimates by scholar-critics and by poet-critics; (2) critical—a survey of all critical ideas and problems of contemporary criticism as focussed upon a poet of the preceding age.

C'est une étrange destinée que celle de la renommée littéraire de Maurice Baring en France. Diplomate, voyageur, journaliste, poète, essayiste et, à ses heures, l'un des interprètes les plus pénétrants de l'âme et de la littérature russes dans les années qui précédèrent la Grande Guerre, c'est surtout par son œuvre tardive de romancier qu'il a conquis les suffrages du public cultivé en France. Des critiques aussi autorisés que Charles du Bos, Edmond Jaloux, Gabriel Marcel et André Maurois ont parlé de ses romans où apparemment rien ne se passe, et où la peinture d'une société mondaine et désœuvrée sert souvent de cadre à de délicates analyses de sentiment qui se résolvent presque toujours en crises religieuses, en des termes qui conviendraient plutôt à Henry James, à Tourgueniev, voire même à Tolstoï. Or, chose singulère, si les personnages de Baring sont presque toujours des Anglais fidèles aux traditions et aux Conventions de leur pays et de leur milieu, si, dans l'expression de leurs sentiments, ils ne se départent jamais de cette réserve, de cette pudeur, qui est un des traits de l'âme anglaise, ils semblent voués par leur destinee (qui n'est souvent que la fantaisie de l'auteur), à se mouvoir dans une ambiance saturée de culture européenne et, à certains égards, française. Les paysages familiers de la vie et de la culture françaises parmi lesquels l'auteur les fait évoluer, les réminiscences littéraires et artistiques qu'il met dans leur bouche, nous rappellent constamment que nous avons affaire à un esprit très averti des choses françaises, à un ami de la France et, osons le dire, à un écrivain dont le talent et même le style, pour s'être profondément trempés aux sources de la clarté et de la sagesse françaises, en ont tiré ce goût pour la limpidité de l'expression, qui n'en recèle pas moins les profondeurs, comme aussi cet indéfinissable partum de latinité qui se dégage de toute son ceuvre et lui donne un charme particulier. Etudier donc le rôle que la culture française a joué dans la formation de son talent, et son attitude envers les choses françaises en général, c'est éclairer un aspect peu connu de son œuvre abondante et variée, et c'est aussi montrer que ce fin lettré, ce voyageur infatigable qui a promené sa curiosité dans tous les pays et toutes les litteratures, ce “divin amateur,” comme l'a appelé un de ses amis, occupe, avec Edmund Gosse, Lytton Strachey, Hilaire Belloc et G. K. Chesterton, une place à part parmi les hommes de lettres anglais qui ont parlé avec le plus de pénétration et de Sympathie de certains aspects essentiels de la littérature et du génie français.

In two earlier papers I have analyzed Whitman and a number of German authors with regard to the form and function of enumerative style. It appeared that the latter tends to express a sense of ontological oneness—and the more so, the wider the range of assorted items. Even the most heterogeneous things can be brought together meaningfully in serial juxtaposition if they are viewed as manifestations, as emanations of a single all-pervading cosmic principle. This was expressed by the term “conjunctive enumeration.”

“Dichten heisst, hinter Worten das Urwort erklingen lassen.”

These words of Gerhardt Hauptmann are quoted by C. G. Jung in his essay “On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetic Art,” as illustration of the poet's sense of tapping a deeper level of the psyche than that which is called into play in everyday thought and action. This lower level of psychic activity (Jung explains), that of the collective or racial unconscious, contains the inherited potentiality of mental images that are the psychic counterpart of the instincts. “In itself the collective unconscious cannot be said to exist at all; that is to say, it is nothing but a possibility, that possibility in fact which from primordial time has been handed down to us in the definite form of mnemic images, or expressed in anatomical formations in the very structure of the brain. It does not yield innate ideas, but inborn possibilities of ideas, which also set definite bounds to the most daring phantasy. It provides categories of phantasy-activity, ideas a priori as it were, the existence of which cannot be ascertained except by experience.” This theory is not peculiar to Jung, being in fact rather prevalent in our time. “I began certain studies and experiences,” says Yeats, describing his activities in the year 1887, “that were to convince me that images well up before the mind's eye from a deeper source than conscious or subconscious memory.” Jung, however, has given the idea its scientific formulation. For these ideas a priori of the collective unconscious, Jung employs the term “primordial image,” borrowed from Jacob Burckhardt, or “archetype” as used by St. Augustine. The peculiar gift of the poet, or of the artist in any field, is his ability to make contact with the deeper level of the psyche and to present in his work one of these primordial images. The particular image that is chosen will depend on the unconscious need of the poet and of the society for which he writes. “Therein lies the social importance of art; it is constantly at work educating the spirit of the age, since it brings to birth those forms in which the age is most lacking. Recoiling from the unsatisfying present the yearning of the artist reaches out to that primordial image in the unconscious which is best fitted to compensate the insufficiency and onesidedness of the spirit of the age. The artist seizes this image, and in the work of raising it from deepest unconsciousness he brings it into relation with conscious values, thereby transforming its shape, until it can be accepted by his contemporaries according to their powers.” In this view the artist is the cultural leader indispensable to any social change. “What was the significance of realism and naturalism to their age? What was the meaning of romanticism, or Hellenism? They were tendencies of art which brought to the surface that unconscious element of which the contemporary mental atmosphere had most need. The artist as educator of his time—much could be said about that today.”

The use of curious languages, for the purpose of lending occasional relief from the commonplace idiom of the mother tongue, has been a familiar literary device since the Middle Ages. These linguistic oddities, meeting on the common ground of variety and novelty for the reader, have served diverse purposes: to speak in jargon, cant, or other special language (e.g. préciosité) to a limited group of the initiated, to provide humor, realism, local color or exotic flavor, and to display various kinds and degrees of linguistic virtuosity.

In a number of mediaeval texts we find the word paire in expressions where the precise meaning is uncertain. The editors or translators of these texts have, either through ignorance or through indifference, frequently treated the expression in an off-hand manner. Two previous articles have attempted explanations of the word paire. It is my intention to point out inadequacies in these articles, and to examine further material in support of a more precise conclusion.

It is well known that Hone's Table Book of 1827 contains a number of contributions from Charles Lamb, including his Garrick Extracts. It is not so well known, however, that dates assigned by editors to these pieces do not conform to the general policy of dating Lamb's work according to the time of publication. Some of these articles are dated merely by the year; some have been dated by month—incorrectly in two cases; and one or two according to the time of composition. This unsatisfactory solution of a difficulty arises from the fact that the weekly numbers of the Table Book are not dated and are not easily distinguishable from each other. I have not seen any attempt to assign dates to them, but after a careful analysis I have found it possible to do so. As a result, dates previously assigned to Lamb's work in this publication can now be corrected and perfected.