The following article, written at the suggestion of the editor of PMLA∗ confines itself almost wholly to the mechanics of manuscript preparation and to the handling of proofs. It is addressed to those scholars who, from time to time, submit their writings to learned journals. It has been read by, and corrected by, editors both of other journals and of university presses.

Scholarly editors seem not infrequently to be harassed by the very people who should be their pride and joy, the apples of their editorial eyes—their contributors. And this is strange, because, much as the editor needs his contributors, the more do the contributors need him.

With the recent publication of such books as Richard Southern's The Medieval Theatre in the Round (London, 1957) and Glynne Wickham's Early English Stages 1300 to 1600, Vol. i (London, 1959), the medieval English drama has come to be examined with much greater emphasis on the circumstances of its performance. While the Wakefield cycle has not been of focal interest to these studies, it has nevertheless attracted renewed attention as a dramatic work. Of special concern to students of the Wakefield plays is Martial Rose's introduction to his recently published modernized edition of the cycle. Mr. Rose sets forth the interesting theory that the Wakefield plays were not enacted processionally on pageant wagons as is generally believed, but rather that they were performed “in one fixed locality, on a multiple stage, and in the round.” This hypothesis, supported as it is by a very convincing body of arguments, is likely to have a far-reaching effect on Wakefield criticism. At the very least, it chalenges a number of widely-held opinions concerning the dramatic experience which the performance of the cycle provided. As a case in point, I should like here to focus on the Annunciation pageant and to demonstrate that, in an enlarged setting, its dramatic action becomes even more successful than it has hitherto been regarded. First, however, it will be necessary to review the “fixed-stage” theory and to examine its bearing on Wakefield criticism in general.

After the death of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1834, while Hazlitt, DeQuincey, Cottle, and Allsop were publishing unwise and sometimes unfounded accounts of his life, Henry Nelson Coleridge, the poet's nephew and Sara Coleridge's husband, thought that some effort should be made to prepare an authentic biography. His additions to the Biographia Literaria and his Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge show how well he succeeded.

The words beautiful, pathetic, sublime, and their synonyms appear often in Samuel Johnson's discussions of literary pleasure. Although I do not know that all three are ever used together in one sentence, the sublime and the pathetic, on the one hand, and the sublime and the beautiful, on the other, are among Johnson's most frequently recurring doublets. Each word becomes an important term of aesthetic meaning, clearly distinguished from the others; each expands under the pressure of contemporary theory; each is complicated and enriched by the vigorous personality of its user; and each is used as a tool of practical criticism to help account for the distinguishing excellence of a great English poet. For Johnson, Pope exemplified the beautiful, Shakespeare the pathetic, and Milton the sublime.

Suggestions Concerning the Source of the Poet's Doctrines and the Nature of His Mystical Experience

“. . . . his eyes

Have read the book of wisdom in the sun,

And after dark deciphered it on earth“—E. A. Robinson

To Call Wordsworth a great philosopher would, I suppose, if we put the word to its customary use, be extravagant. For he left the world no synthesis of doctrine that could be called his own. And yet his philosophy is a fascinating study, for although many may have understood with greater acuteness the numerous doctrines that appear in his poems, none could feel with an intensity greater than his, their human significance and value. Wordsworth's interests led him to demand more of philosophy than do most reflective men ; besides seeking a criterion of the good and probing into the problem of human freedom, he looked for an explanation of his own strange communion with Nature. Thus his philosophical life, proving as it did the source of some of the finest metaphysical and religious poetry in literature, was a deep and a rich one. It led him to absorb the teachings of many thinkers and to incorporate their doctrines in his poems.

Recent research into the sources of the philosophical ideas incorporated by Spenser in the Faerie Queene necessitates the re-raising of an old question, never satisfactorily answered: Did Spenser read Bruno? The external evidence—Bruno's residence in England during the years 1583-5, the London publication of his Italian works, the dedication of his Spaccio and his De gl' Heroici Furori to Sir Philip Sidney—has long rendered the supposition initially attractive. Moreover the community of Neoplatonic elements in Bruno and Spenser, together with a certain affinity between the theme of the cantos of Mutability and Bruno's Spaccio, added color to the hypothesis. But in the absence of more specific documentation the suggestion of Bruno's influence upon Spenser has properly retained the status of a mere possibility. It is the primary purpose of this paper to adduce certain further considerations which in my opinion lend a considerable weight of probability to an affirmative answer to the question. Secondarily, my object is to conduct a pacific polemic against Mr. Greenlaw's thesis that certain portions of the Faerie Queene are animated by a spirit of Lucretian scepticism at odds with that Christianized Neoplatonism which has commonly been recognized as Spenser's sole philosophy. My contention is that to a right reading there exists no such antithesis as that which Mr. Greenlaw finds between the main tenor of Spenser's philosophy and the philosophical implications of the passages in question, and that a means of reconciling their apparent incompatibility and saving Spenser from a charge of inconsistency too gross even for poetic license to condone, is the postulate of a Bruno influence.

The Corpus Christi play in sixteenth-century Spain evolved as it did because poets were consciously searching for a dramatic formula which should be appropriate to a sacramental play. The idea of a sacramental play, an auto sacramental, was new at that time. A sacramental drama had never before been attempted, either in Spain or elsewhere. Corpus Christi was celebrated, in. Spain as in Europe at large, with performances of mystery-type plays derived from the tropes of the liturgy. The earliest Corpus plays in Spain were Nativity plays which dramatists scarcely troubled to adapt. As the problem of making the Christmas play appropriate to Corpus Christi forced itself on the attention of dramatists a new idea of religious drama emerged.

The conclusions of Jane Austen's novels are invariably ironic devices for the final summary of themes and characters. This role is illuminated by three main elements of all the conclusions. First, the novelist parodies the predictability of sentimental “happy endings” in much popular fiction. This accounts for the exaggerated self-consciousness with which she approaches the mechanics of concluding her own narratives, a self-consciousness that seems on the surface to contradict Jane Austen's well-known dislike of unrealistic plots. Second, she subverts the canons of poetic justice that are integral to most happy endings: instead of allocating “rewards” and punishment in accordance with ideal conventions, Jane Austen exposes the prevailing social norms that frequently undermine and replace traditional ideals. Finally, she replaces the arbitrary endings of poetic justice with the logical evolution of character and theme. Each character “punishes” or “rewards” himself, in keeping with his frequently unreliable sense of right and wrong. These features are particularly useful in a much-needed revaluation of Mansfield Park, for they demonstrate that it is not the didactic work described in traditional criticism. Thus Jane Austen's comic conclusion is a consistent device for the realistic, rather than didactic, analysis of character and society.

The two following essays are separate studies joined by a common source. The unpublished Tennyson poems, Hail, Briton! and Tithon, are taken from the Heath MS. at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England.

John Moore Heath was a college friend of Tennyson, a member, like him, of the Cambridge Apostles group. During the years of his closest friendship with Tennyson, 1883–35, Heath was an assistant tutor of Trinity College. The two men met there and corresponded often; at the same time they were both associated with other members of the old Cambridge group. Like most of these literati of the 1830's, Heath kept a Commonplace Book in which he laboriously and faithfully copied out the work of his friends, Arthur Hallam, Richard Trench, William Donne, Frederick, Septimus, Edward, and Alfred Tennyson. The flyleaf of his MS book Heath inscribed with the date September 24, 1832, clearly the } time at which he began to record the poetry. The Tennyson entries, however, he certainly made later, most of them in 1833, probably all within the limit 1835.

At a meeting held on 26 April 1886, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Johns Hopkins University, Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, Professor of Greek, spoke some words that have with slight variations been more recently applied to the study of modern languages, and indeed to other disciplines. Gildersleeve said in part:

Smollett's use of life and scenes in the British navy in the early 1740's in his first novel has long been recognized as an original and important contribution to the materials of English fiction. Chapters 24–38 of Roderick Random with their abundant detail, revealing so graphically the brutalities, disease, and official incompetence involved in the conduct of naval affairs in the expedition to Carthagena 1740–41, have not only impressed Smollett's critics but have offered a firm point of departure for the conjectures of his biographers. Yet although these chapters are successful as realistic art, and suggestive in their biographical implications, there always arises the difficult question of how much of this vivid writing is historical fact and how much is fiction. This question must be the concern of critics in determining Smollett's method in the selection of his materials, and it is central to his biography.

The following edition of the De Ortu Waluuanii is based on an exact transcript of the Cottonian ms. (only with resolution of the usual contractions) which was made for me by Mr. D. T. B. Wood, of the Department of Manuscripts of the British Museum, during the months of August and September, 1897. I have endeavored to print the Latin text as it appears in this transcript with as little change as possible. It has occasionally been necessary, however, to supply words omitted in the ms., yet obviously required by the sense, and wherever this has been done the inserted words will be found enclosed in brackets. In the case of corrupt or simply misspelt forms I have placed the ms. readings at the bottom of the page and incorporated the emended forms (italicized) into the text. Only in the case of the words sublimis and pugna and their derivatives I have retained the consistent spellings of the ms.— sullimis, pungna, and the like.

Ces lignes de Valéry Larbaud proposent à la critique une tâche considérable, utile assurément, mais des plus délicates. Nulle question en effet n'a soulevé plus de controverses que la notion d'influence en littérature. Or, de tous les noms que cite Larbaud, celui de Baudelaire est l'un des plus fréquemment mentionnés par Proust, qui a également consacré un article à l'auteur des Fleurs du Mal. Il est donc légitime de penser qu'une étude de cette nature pourrait jeter un jour supplémentaire, non seulement sur la personnalité et sur l'œuvre de Proust, mais encore sur celles de Baudelaire lui-même. De nombreuses questions se présentent immédiatement à l'esprit: Proust a-t-il fait à Baudelaire des emprunts directs? A-t-il trouvé chez lui des vues sur le monde et sur l'art semblables à ses propres conceptions? Baudelaire est-il à l'origine de l'esthétique proustienne? L'auteur du Temps retrouvé n'a-t-il au contraire tiré de l'œuvre de son prédécesseur qu'un encouragement à la dépasser et à affirmer son originalité propre? S'est-il borné notamment à juger que certaines audaces de Baudelaire justifiaient les siennes? Sans prétendre apporter une solution à tous ces problèmes, l'on peut examiner les analogies existant entre la vie et le caractère des deux hommes et étudier, d'après les textes, ce qui, dans l'œuvre de Baudelaire, semble avoir plus particulièrement attiré l'attention de Proust. Peut-être alors sera-t-on mieux en mesure de préciser la nature de l'influence du poète sur le romancier.

The paramount influence of French learning in England after the Conquest is well known. Under Edward the Confessor many of the most important church positions in England had been filled by foreigners. Although most of the foreign prelates were expelled by Earl Godwin, after the accession of William there was an immediate and general occupation by the invaders of all high offices of church and state. Freeman (Norman Conquest, vol. III.) remarks that when, near the end of his reign, “William gathered his Witan to his great Gemot at Salisbury, there was not a single English earl and only one English bishop to answer his summons.” That under these circumstances French culture and French learning must have dominated in England, is obvious.

Renaissance English casuistry, the branch of moral philosophy that applies general principles to particular cases, supplies a significant context for Milton’s Samson Agonistes. In subject matter, structure, and language, Milton’s tragedy resembles the prose cases of conscience in which casuists showed how to overcome doubt and despair and gain peaceful consciences by resolving difficult moral problems. Such casuistical concepts as the supremacy of the individual conscience, the relevance of circumstances to moral law, and the role of reason in resolving doubt illuminate the conflicting moral judgments that form the dramatic texture of Samson Agonistes. Samson learns how to judge his own actions in particular circumstances, and by doing so, learns to repent of his past sin, overcome his sense of powerlessness, and act with a clear conscience. The drama goes beyond conventional casuistry in its uncompromising assertion of the supremacy of the individual conscience and its unflinching recognition of the tragic limits of human power.

An unpublished diary which Ruskin kept during the summer of 1842 when he was conceiving the plan of Modern Pointers furnishes new information on the development of his mind at that time. Writing of this year in Praeterita, Raskin was obliged to rely on a memory weakened by age and disease. “To my sorrow, and supreme surprise,” he noted in his autobiography which he had begun in 1885, “I find no diary whatever of the feelings or discoveries of this year.” He apparently had forgotten that in 1872 he had given such a diary as a Christmas present to his American friend, Charles Eliot Norton. This important manuscript, which remained in the Norton family until 1936 and was then donated to the Yale University Library as a gift of Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Whitredge, seems to have been unknown to Ruskin's editors and succeeding students of his ideas. As reliable and recent a work as Derrick Leon's biography of Ruskin makes no mention of it and follows instead the account of the events of 1842 offered in Praeterita. A comparison of the manuscript with Praeterita shows that Ruskin's memory had dramatized this year of his youth in a way that misrepresented the state of mind in which Modern Painters was begun.

It has been repeatedly pointed out that Shaftesbury derived many, if not the most, of his philosophical ideas from his immediate and more remote predecessors. Nevertheless, the recognition of this fact does not detract from the originality and power of Shaftesbury himself. The ideas gleaned from a wide reading and companionship passed through the medium of his keen and generous mind and emerged a new intellectual compound.

In seiner Auswahl aus den hochdeutschen Dichtern des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1820) hat Lachmann die methodische Textkritik deutscher Werke des Mittelalters begründet. Er forderte, von Benecke angeregt und durch textkritische Arbeit an klassischen Autoren geschult, daβ man zuerst auf Grund des gesamten erhaltenen Materials die echteste Überlieferung bestimme (recensio) und darauf dann eine systematische, nach dem Wert der einzelnen Handschriften abwägende Konjekturalkritik aufbaue (emendatio). Die sprachliche Form aber suchte er durch eingehende Reimstudien zu regeln,—doch war es bedenklich, daβ er sich dabei fast ausschlieβlich auf oberdeutsche, speziell alemannische Handschriften berief und auf eine möglichst altertümliche Rechtschreibung ausging.