A discussion of the significance of the letters AOI in the Chanson de Roland should properly begin perhaps with a description of the appearance of these letters in the Bodleian manuscript, Digby 23, of Oxford, the only manuscript in which they occur. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way of determining with certainty whether these mysterious letters were invariably written by the hand (or hands) responsible for copying the text of the poem. Sometimes no differences of transcription can be perceived between a line of the poem and the AOI that accompanies it. Occasionally, however, slight variations in the forms of the letters, in the alignment, in the color of the ink, or in the thickness of the strokes would seem to indicate that the AOI was written some time after the verse beside which it stands had been penned. In the latter case, it may be that the scribe waited only until he had copied a whole page—or several pages—of text before adding the letters; it may be, on the contrary, that he waited longer, or that some other person interested in the interpretation of the poem put them there. Certain it is, at any event, that the letters occur at variable intervals: some pages are without them, some present but a single instance, others contain a relatively large number of examples.

Chaucer scholars have long wondered why the scene of the Pardoner's Tale was laid in Flanders. Since the Pardoner treats two themes, the evils of drinking and of cupidity, why has the poet localized such a story in this vicinity? Was it for artistic reasons, was it because of a lost original, or did he have an ulterior motive? Certain facts connected with fourteenth-century Flanders tend strongly to justify Chaucer's choice; in fact, to make his selection seem a deliberate one. Not only was Flanders notorious for these two evils—Professor Manly has already pointed out the aptness of localizing the drinking theme there—but England in the 1380's and 90's might well have profited politically and economically by a glance at her unfortunate neighbor across the Channel.

It is well known to students of the Italian Renaissance that the regained supremacy of the vernacular in the latter half of the fifteenth century, first in Tuscany and then in other parts of the peninsula, did much to stimulate the revival in the study of Dante. The haughty contempt, implicit or explicit, that many of the early humanists felt for the Divina Commedia then gave way to enthusiastic efforts at text interpretation and æsthetic appreciation on the part of poets, artists, and scholars. Nor was this renewed interest in Dante confined to Italy; indeed, the Divina Commedia was much studied even beyond the Alps, where it was edited and translated several times.

Renaissance students know the story told by Pasquier concerning a gathering of legal notables and their friends during the Grands Jours at Poitiers, wherein one day a keen observer espied a flea proceeding across the bosom of the erudite but engaging Catherine. Straightway the muses of the assembled guests were set to work, the result being a quantity of facetious or merely ingenious verses on the subject of the venturesome flea and its fair prey. If, as we realize, the aesthetic quality of the product is dubious and the literary interest from that point of view scant, the milieu deserves better at our hands. It is the purpose of this study to present this milieu and to bring out its significance, which is real, for we have here no accidental or inconsequential gathering, but a true salon in the sixteenth century meaning of that term, italianate in origins and character, parallel to many of its more highly praised contemporaries, and as important as they in the evolution of social form in the century to come.

Recently the old question of the quarto-folio relationship of the York and Lancaster plays has come to the fore again—this time in exhaustive studies made by Mr. Alexander and Miss Doran in favor of the theory that the Quartos, the Contention and the True Tragedy, are pirated or reported versions of the Folio plays—2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI respectively—following rather than preceding 2 and 3 Henry VI. They hold that the Contention and the True Tragedy were written by actors who had played in 2 and 3 Henry VI and written from memory with the possible aid of a few scattered, isolated manuscript or printed parts. Rather am I in accord with the position taken by Professor Tucker Brooke in 1912, namely, that there is a lost text from which the Contention and the True Tragedy, the Whole Contention, and the Folio all came separately or independently. I am not sure that Professor Brooke now holds exactly this position, since his review of Alexander's study contains some qualifications, but I believe it is right, and submit here my evidence for so believing.

Critics have generally agreed that of all of Shakespeare's sonnets cvii offers the most hope for dating by internal evidence. It runs:

Not mine own fears, nor the propehtic soul

Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,

Can yet the lease of my true love control,

Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.

The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,

And the sad augurs mock their own presage;

Incertainties now crown themselves assured,

And peace proclaims olives of endless age.

Now with the drops of this most balmy time

My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes, Since spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme,

While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes;

And thou in this shall find thy monument,

When tyrants crests and tombs of brass are spent.

The present study purposes to establish a direct relationship between the comic underplot in Twelfth Night and the Jonsonian comic method as first developed in Every Man in His Humour and Every Man out of His Humour. Shakespeare's name appears first in the list of actors for the former play in the Jonson Folio (1616). This is almost the only indubitable instance of Shakespeare's acting, attested by written evidence on the authority of Jonson rather than based on tradition or hearsay. His thorough familiarity with this play is, consequently, a certainty, and the production of Every Man out of His Humour by his company in the following year is sufficient evidence that his knowledge of both plays was intimate and detailed.

Many scholars have found in Hamlet's soliloquy beginning “To be, or not to be” the crux of the drama. Those who, like the Romantic critics, have interpreted the play as a struggle between Hamlet's determination to avenge his father and his inhibiting propensity to over-subtle philosophizing have felt that here, more clearly than anywhere else, he is exposing his malady: over-delicate sensibility and a love of intellectual hair-splitting which absorb energy that should have gone into decisive action. Such critics point for further confirmation to the soliloquy at the end of Act ii, in which Hamlet contrasts his own lethargy (in language far from lethargic) with the deep histrionic passion of the player who has just recited for him, and to the later soliloquy (iv. iv), in which he certainly does quite roundly chide himself for procrastination, while he confesses to have had “cause, and will, and strength, and means, / To do't.”

In an interesting article on the ending of Shakespeare's comedies, Alwin Thaler tries to refute the opinion of the majority of critics that the last scene in The Two Gentlemen of Verona is “blind or incomprehensible.” Granted that Shakespeare purposely subordinated everything to the highly convention theme of friendship, before final judgment can be passed on the general fitness of the ending of the Two Gentlemen, one ought to consider carefully the requirements of romantic love in the play. The friendship theme, though greatly emphasised, is, after all, only a strong framework to motivate the love story.

What was Shakespeare's conception of Hamlet? That is the question. It is one which inevitably resolves itself into a reconstruction of the materials at his disposal, the dramatic problems with which he had to deal, and the means whereby he sought to satisfy contemporary dramatic taste. For such a reconstruction modern scholarship provides abundant information about both the theatrical practices and intellectual interests of the time and Shakespeare's habits as a craftsman. In particular should be noted his exceptional preoccupation with character portrayal and the scrupulous motivation of action; his conformity with changing theatrical fashion, yet at the same time his reluctance to pioneer in experiment; his sensitive, if sketchy, acquaintance with matters of contemporary interest; and his success as a skilled and inspired adapter rather than as an innovator. In the application of this knowledge two principles are fundamental. First, Hamlet must not be viewed in isolation, but in close conjunction with the theatrical environment which produced it. Second, Shakespeare must be recognized as primarily a practical playwright, a business man of the theater with obligations to fulfill, specific theatrical conditions to meet, and an audience to divert. For the rest, it is a pleasant exercise for the recreative imagination to try to think oneself into Shakespeare's mind, to face the problem of Hamlet as he faced it, and to trace the solution as he must have found it.

For over thirty years students of the drama have apparently accepted Miss P. G. Wiggin's monograph, An Inquiry into the Middleton-Rowley Plays, as a statement of the individual shares of Thomas Middleton and William Rowley in writing A Fair Quarrel, The Changeling, and The Spanish Gipsy. Though Miss Wiggin considered styles and methods of writing, she differentiated between the contributions of the two authors, whose names appear on the title pages, principally by means of verse tests. In each of the plays Miss Wiggin assigns the opening and closing scenes to both authors, the main plot to Middleton, and the minor action to Rowley. Curiously enough, however, the minor action of each play seems to me to present striking similarities to Middleton's dramatic method in his comedies of London life.

Dr. Robert Stanley Forsythe in his The Relation of Shirley's Plays to the Elizabethan Drama, has shown the debt of Shirley to the plays of 1590–1648 for typical scenes and characters; but the various sources from which Shirley drew his plots have remained comparatively uninvestigated, and his habits of work have, consequently, not been sufficiently revealed. Since a union of the knowledge of the analogues already possessed with that of the actual sources would explain to a great degree Shirley's mechanics of composition, it is the purpose of this paper to examine the sources for St. Patrick for Ireland (published 1640) and the uses which the poet made of them.

The history of the early eighteenth-century stage, although recently favored by the attention of numerous scholars, still suffers from lack of contemporary data of a reliable nature. The period is a difficult one; for it is a period where uncertainty and intricacy abound. Everything seems in an uncrystallized condition; and drama, court, and society present varied and varying modes. In many ways it is a pioneer age; in many ways it mirrors the brilliance of future achievement. No attempt is made here, however, either to explain, criticize, or defend the early years of the century, but merely to offer certain facts taken from indisputable sources. As the newspaper is the medium of this information, a brief account of contemporary journalism is prefaced.

The Day of Judgement“ was in 1775 added to the Swift canon without question, by inclusion in a supplement to the Dean's works, and its authorship has apparently never been doubted. In the following paragraphs it will be shown that the poem was accepted on insufficient grounds, but that it is authentic. The poem is generally supposed to have been first printed in the Earl of Chesterfield's Letters to his Son (7 April, 1774), its authenticity guaranteed by an accompanying letter in which the earl wrote that he had the original in Swift's own handwriting. As a matter of fact, the poem was first published in the St. James's Chronicle (12 April, 1774) in a letter from an anonymous contributor, and apparently from this source transferred through the Monthly Review (July, 1774) to the fourth edition of Chesterfield's Letters (29 October, 1774). From the Letters, apparently, it was incorporated into the collection of Swift (1775), and thus into the Swift canon. The anonymity of the original source raises doubts concerning the poem's authenticity. From these doubts two references to the poem (both by Lord Chesterfield), one of which could not have been available to a literary forger, clear ”The Day of Judgement.“

Richardson, writer and printer of the eighteenth century, the center of a circle of admiring ladies, began his career (as is well known) in an inconspicuous manner by preparing love-letters for enamoured young women. Finding himself successful in this delicate mission, he responded to a demand for a volume called Familiar Letters, models for all occasions. But, being innoculated by the moral virus of the eighteenth century, he sensed the shallowness of these epistles and decided that they should contain moral as well as literary examples. His first book, Pamela, was a group of letters instructing a maidservant in manners and morals. But neither Richardson nor the women who were his constant critics were satisfied until he had prepared a volume of letters instructing a “lady.” This lady, called Clarissa, was created as an “examplar to her sex.” These two books were so popular, and the demand for an example of conduct for the perfect gentleman was so great that Richardson next wrote Charles Grandison. Since fiction without a moral purpose was disapproved by the eighteenth century, Richardson makes it clear that one should not look “upon the story as the sole end but as a vehicle to the instruction.” It is obvious that Richardson's first aim was to instruct in manners and morals; his secondary aim, begun as a writer of Familiar Letters, was to make model letters for all who needed instruction. There is no evidence that he abandoned this latter purpose; he simply subordinated it to a loftier one.

A study of the writings of Mme de Staël shows an interrelation between their strength and weakness. The source of both the good and the bad is largely to be found in the influence of conversation, although the author's inborn characteristics and considerable knowledge derived from books should be sufficiently emphasized. There was a feeling on the part of both the enemies and the friends of Mme de Staël that she was the epitome of the age. This belief indicates that her writings were close to the large circle from which she drew inspiration and the ideas which influenced her own and succeeding periods.

Few lines written by Coleridge are more familiar than those near the end of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner:

He prayeth best, who loveth best

All things, both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.

Zwischen der Verschmelzung einer körperlich engeren und fassbaren, konkreten Naturgestalt mit menschlicher Form oder menschlichem Geist in Goethes Irrlichtern und Schlange und der einer mehr abstrakten physikalischen Eigenschaft in Freyas Galvanismus steht die Gestalt des Naturdämons, der ein grösseres landschaftliches Phänomen in menschliche Form verdichtet, in Tiecks Frau vom Runenberg. In der Bestimmtheit ihrer Gestaltung, in der Furchtbarkeit ihrer Dämonie nimmt sie wiederum eine Mittelstellung ein etwa zwischen dem Strom in Goethes Märchen und den Naturdämonen des naiveren Volksmärchens.

No podrá apreciar en su totalidad el valor de los Episodios de la primera serie quien desconozca la historia de Espana durante los primeros años del siglo XIX, corno tampoco quien mantenga prejuicios sociales, políticos o religiosos. Este breve artículo no es mas que una somera introducción a los estudios que ya hemos hecho anteriormente. En ellos cotejamos siete Episodios Nacionales (Trafalgar, La corte de Carlos IV, El 19 de marzo y el 2 de mayo, Bailén, Zaragoza, Gerona, y Cádiz) con los relatos que sobre los mismos asuntos tratados por Galdós hemos hallado en periódicos, gacetas, revistas, crónicas, folletos, misceláneas, … y en las historias de Marliani, Ferrer de Couto, Alcalá Galiano, el conde de Toreno, Argüelles, Alcaide Ibieca, el general Foy, Manuel Godoy, Gómez de Arteche, Amador de los Ríos, Muñoz Maldonado, Minali, Horozco, Napier, Adolfo de Castro, y otros. Tratamos de hacer ver en esta introducción el rumbo que sigue el pensamiento galdosiano, bien cuando ensalza a los héroes y heroínas de la patria, o cuando nos descubre los orígenes de la decadencia, o bien cuando impugna a los traidores o nos revela las intrigas del enemigo. Interpretatión muy personal de la historia española es la suya, pero de más trascendencia que la hecha por los historiadores de profesión, porque él con su buen sentido naturalista ha logrado descubrir minuciosidades que le han guiado a interpretarla más cabalmente que aquéllos.

Although Aldous Huxley's personality as a writer is individual enough to defy classification, it is easier to understand some aspects of his work if he is treated in connection with the movement of reaction against Victorianism. This reaction had already passed through two successive phases when he joined it. During the nineties it was the school of Oscar Wilde which protested against the unadventurous, hypocritical, and smug spirit pervading the poetry of the Victorians and held up its own conception of art for art's sake. The narrowness and also the dangers of this “decadent” doctrine (which was inspired by the French Parnassians and Symbolists) were realized already before the close of the century by a few young writers who in their works endowed life with a deeper meaning. This new phase in the gradual separation from the Victorian ideals begins with the social satires of Bernard Shaw, receives greater strength through the addition of the continental influence of Ibsen, Tolstoy, and Nietzsche, and, finally, derives its strongest impulse from the then dominant force in Western culture, science. Literature is invaded by a host of new facts, methods, and points of view, due to the recent development of such sciences as biology, psychology, and sociology. The traditional literary moulds proved too narrow, and the looser, bolder forms of such writers as Balzac, Zola, and Dostoievsky were taken as models. This movement reached its climax in such novelists as Galsworthy, H. G. Wells, and Aldous Huxley.