This study explores the theater actually known and frequented by Dickens in order to show in terms of concrete structural analysis of his novels the nature of the predominantly "dramatic" or "theatrical" quality of his genius. Author William F. Axton finds that the three principal dramatic modes or "voices" that were characteristically Victorian were burlesquerie, grotesquerie, and the melodramatic, and that the novelist's vision of the world around him was drawn from ways of seeing transformed from those elements in the popular playhouse of his day -- as revealed in the structure and theme of Sketches by Boz, Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, and other novels. The last half of the study analyzes representative passages from the novels to illustrate the way in which the principal modes of nineteenth-century theatrical style are transmuted into the three important "voices" of the novelist's prose style. The first two voices -- the burlesque and the grotesque -- are identified by their exploitation of the stylistic features of farce, extravaganza, and harlequinade, of incongruous likeness and deliberate confusion between realms. The melodramatic voice, on the other hand, seeks to exploit in prose the musically rhythmic and poetic resources of the theater for the purpose of atmosphere, moral commentary, and structural unity.

Distinguishing figural or typological allegory -- a method adapted from the Christian exegesis of the Old Testament -- from the broader Hellenistic concept of allegory, this book examines its use in representative poems of early Hispanic literature. The author focuses on the thematic and structural employment of this originally nonliterary device and comments on the literary problems it posed and the artistic effects which were achieved by it. The development of this particular allegorical method in medieval Hispanic literature -- works in Spanish, Portuguese, Galician, and Catalan -- he shows, was fully equal to that found in the medieval Latin, Italian, and English literatures, and an understanding of its use serves to clarify the interpretation of many individual poems.

Cincinnati in the 1870's was the largest inland city in the nation. Much of its prosperity and growth it owed to the commerce which floated along its Ohio River boundary on the way between Pittsburgh and New Orleans. This traffic also sustained a unique African American culture -- saloonkeepers, boardinghouse operators, entertainers, and women who served the steamboat hands between trips. Into this great western metropolis came young Lafcadio Hearn, who after several tentative starts became a newspaper reporter first for the Enquirer and then for the Commercial. Drawn to the Ohio River by his interest in the unusual, Hearn found beneath the rough surface of levee life a kind of cosmopolitan tolerance which emphasized the essential humanity of the community.Hearn's twelve sketches -- here reprinted as a unit for the first time -- are perceptive and sympathetic, yet not highly subjective and romanticized. Collectively they form an important comprehensive picture of African American life in a border city just after the Civil War. Among the earliest of his writings, they also foreshadow the course Hearn's life was to take in New Orleans, the West Indies, and finally Japan.

Chateaubriand's Travels in America, presented here in its first modern translation, was a reflection of the attitudes of his epoch toward the New World. And at the same time, because of his enormous literary reputation, it has continued to be a major source of European impressions about America. The America portrayed by Chateaubriand was much more a product of his reading and his imagination than of his actual visit. (His supposed itinerary included a trip up the Hudson to Albany, a visit to Niagara Falls via the Mohawk Trail, a trip down the Mississippi to the Natchez country, and even a visit to the Carolinas and the southern tip of Florida). Though the Frenchman of the nineteenth century could have obtained a much truer picture of America in any number of realistic works, he still chose the poetic evocation of Chateaubriand because he shared the same temperament, the same prejudices, and the same particular view of the world.

The great beef-cattle industry of the American West was not born full grown beyond the Mississippi. It had its antecedents in the upper South, the Midwest, and the Ohio Valley, where many Texas cattlemen learned their trade. In this book Mr. Henlein tells the story of the cattle kingdom of the Ohio Valley -- a kingdom which encompassed the Bluegrass region in Kentucky and the valleys of the Scioto, Miami, Wabash, and Sangamon in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.The book begins with the settlement of the Ohio Valley, by emigration from the South and East, in the latter part of the eighteenth century; it ends with the westward movement of the cattlemen, this time to Missouri and the plains, toward the end of the nineteenth century. Mr. Henlein describes the intricate pattern of agricultural activities which grew into a successful system of producing and marketing cattle; the energetic upbreeding and extensive importations which created the great blooded herds of the Ohio Valley; and the relations of the cattlemen with the major cattle markets.An interesting part of this story is the chapter which tells how the cattlemen of the Ohio Valley, between 1805 and 1855, drove their fat cattle over the mountains to the eastern markets, and how these long drives, like the more famous Texas drives of a later day, disappeared with the advent of the railroads. This well-documented study is an important contribution to the history of American agriculture.

Puritan American writers faced a dilemma: they had an obligation to use language as a celebration of divine artistry, but they could not allow their writing to become an iconic graven image of authorial self-idolatry. In this study William Scheick explores one way in which William Bradford, Nathaniel Ward, Anne Bradstreet, Urian Oakes, Edward Taylor, and Jonathan Edwards mediated these conflicting imperatives. They did so, he argues, by creating moments in their works when they and their audience could hesitate and contemplate the central paradox of language: its capacity to intimate both concealed authorial pride and latent deific design. These ambiguous occasions served Puritan writers as places where the threat of divine wrath and the promise of divine mercy intersected in unresolved tension.By the nineteenth century the heritage of this Christlike mingling of temporal connotation and eternal denotation had mutated. A peculiar late eighteenth-century narrative by Nathan Fiske and a short story by Edward Bellamy both suggest that the binary nature of language exploited by their Puritan ancestors was still a vital authorial concern; but neither of these writers affirms the presence of an eternal denotative signification hidden within the conflicting historical contexts of their apparently allegorical language. For them, appreciation of the mystery of a divine revelation possibly concealed in words yielded to puzzlement over language itself, specifically over the inadequacy of language to signify more than its own instability of design.This book is a tightly focused study of an important aspect of Puritan American writers' use of language by one of the leading scholars in the field of early American literature.

Di'bil b. 'Alī (765--860) was regarded by his contemporaries as one of the best satirists in the school of Arabic poets which flourished during the early 'Abbāsid age. Leon Zolondek has collected, translated, and annotated 229 fragments of Di'bil's verse and has assembled materials for a reconstruction of his long-lost yet widely quoted Book of the Poets. Arabic texts of the poems and of the citations of Book of the Poets are included.

In this second of two volumes, Carl B. Cone demonstrates once again that only through a study of Edmund Burke's active political life can one understand his thought. To Burke's important practical contributions to the art of government made prior to 1782 (Volume I, The Age of the American Revolution) must now be added the extension of his thought to new problems of empire and finally, in more theoretical directions, to the French Revolution, which Burke saw as the greatest crisis in the history of the Christian community. Mr. Cone frankly acknowledges the flexibility of view Burke displayed while active in politics, but he also reveals Burke's basic continuity of principle. His career as a public man was a quest for justice and good order in the affairs of men. Each of the great problems he encountered served to develop in him the belief that the duty of the statesman was to bring his society into harmony with the moral order of the universe.Burke was absorbed in four great causes after 1782. One was domestic the constitutional and social order of England. Burke championed the independence of parliament, the supremacy of the House of Commons, and the aristocratic political system against those who asserted the prerogative powers of the crown or the necessity for parliamentary reform. As before 1782, he continued to advocate party as the instrument for giving effect to the constitutional principles that would preserve the liberties of Englishmen.For the people of the British Empire too, Burke sought justice. With America gone, he turned his attention to the administration of India. Deeply entangled with domestic politics, the impeachment of Warren Hastings, governor general of India, for abuse of his office engrossed Burke through almost all of the last fifteen years of his life. Mr. Cone's account of the impeachment is the fullest that any student of Burke has published.Another great imperial problem, justice for the people of Ireland, also runs through the entire period 1782--1797. As during the American Revolution, Burke desired to preserve the unity of the British Empire and the integrity of the protectionist commercial system, and so he approached the Irish problem with the conviction that justice could be attained within the superintending authority of the imperial government.The crisis of the French Revolution dominates the last half of the book. Because it was based upon principles of man and society, the Revolution forced Burke, as no earlier crisis had done, to give the fullest expression to his philosophy in one of the great political documents of the world. Mr. Cone presents here a discerning analysis both of the nature of Burke's opposition to the basic ideas of the Enlightenment and an exposition of the historical-legal principle which had emerged in Burke's own thought from the experience of a full life.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the war between Iran and Iraq underline the grim thesis of this book. Howard Bucknell argues that our dependence upon foreign oil poses an unequaled threat not only to our security as a nation but also to the fabric of our society. He issues a call for confronting this imminent crisis, for conservation and for the urgent development of new sources of energy.

England trembled in 1792. In May, George III issued a proclamation warning his subjects of "diverse wicked and seditious writings" then being circulated which might "excite tumult and disorder." The response to this proclamation -- an unprecedented expression of loyalty to crown and constitution -- marked the beginnings of a movement that was to influence British political life well into the nineteenth century. For King, Constitution, and Country is the first full-scale exploration of the nature and origins of this loyalist movement.The British government had genuine cause for concern. While France was convulsed by revolution across the Channel, the writings of Tom Paine and the actions of organized English radicals seemed designed to import that revolution to England. The formation of loyal associations throughout the country indicated that the overwhelming majority of Englishmen opposed such aims, and their public declarations of loyalty strengthened the hand of government in suppressing dissent, real or imagined. When war with France was declared in 1793, the loyalists, already organized, continued to provide social stability, as well as money and men -- the volunteer corps -- to defend their country.Until now historians have concentrated on the radical side of this struggle. Robert R. Dozier's detailed study -- based on sources as diverse as the private papers of government officials, provincial newspapers, and the declarations of radical and loyal societies throughout England -- now makes possible a balanced view of this chaotic period. Mr. Dozier shows that the English loyalists rejected the French Revolution on social as well as political grounds, and argues persuasively that their words and actions enabled England to escape the legacy of revolution that was to plague the Continent throughout the following century.This important book reveals much about the character of the English people, the structure of English political society, the nature of England's unwritten constitution, and the breadth of English liberties.

Finley Peter Dunne, American journalist and humorist, is justly famous for his creation of Mr. Dooley, the Chicago Irish barkeep whose weekly commentary on national politics, war, and human nature kept Americans chuckling over their newspapers for nearly two decades at the beginning of this century. Largely forgotten in the files of Chicago newspapers, however, are over 300 Mr. Dooley columns written in the 1890s before national syndication made his name a household word. Charles Fanning offers here the first critical examination of these early Dooley pieces, which, far better than the later ones, reveal the depth and development of the character and his creator.Dunne created in Mr. Dooley a vehicle for expressing his criticism of Chicago's corruption despite the conservatism of most of his publishers. Dishonest officials who could not be safely attacked in plain English could be roasted with impunity in the "pure Roscommon brogue" of a fictional comic Irishman. In addition, Dunne painted, through the observations of his comic persona, a vivid and often poignant portrait of the daily life of Chicago's working-class Irish community and the impact of assimilation into American life. He also offered cogent views of American urban political life, already dominated by the Irish as firmly in Chicago as in other large American cities, and of the tragicomic phenomenon of Irish nationalism.Mr. Fanning's penetrating examination of these early Dooley pieces clearly establishes Dunne as far more than a mere humorist. Behind Mr. Dooley's marvelously comic pose and ironic tone lies a wealth of material germane to the social and literary history of turn-of-the century America.

In this report of the proceedings of the Fifth Symposium prominent world physicists give an account of the status of the understanding of nuclear structure in the mass region from A=20 to A=60.Ten invited papers cover various aspects of nuclear structure from both the theoretical and the experimental points of view. Additionally, four short papers presenting formal comments are included, along with the edited discussions following the readings of the papers. Two topics are treated in particular: the long-awaited application of polarized beams to the study of nuclear structure is reviewed, with results from Stanford University; and a technique is described, that makes it possible for the first time to observe directly the decay of nuclear states.

The farm family is a unique institution, perhaps the last remnant, in an increasingly complex world, of a simpler social order in which economic and domestic activities were inextricably bound together. In the past few years, however, American agriculture has suffered huge losses, and family farmers have seen their way of life threatened by economic forces beyond their control. At a time when agriculture is at a crossroads, this study provides a needed historical perspective on the problems family farmers have faced since the turn of the century. For analysis Mark Friedberger has chosen two areas where agriculture retains major importance in the local economy -- Iowa and California's Central Valley. Within these two geographic areas he examines farm families with regard to their farming methods, land tenure, inheritance practices, use of credit, and community relations. These aspects are then compared to assess change in rural society and to discern trends in the future of family farming.Despite the shocks endured by family farmers at various times in this century, Friedberger finds that some families have remained remarkably resilient. These families evinced a strong commitment to their way of life. They sought to own their land; they maintained inheritance from one generation to the next; they were generally conservative in using credit; and they preferred to diversify their enterprises. These practices served them well in good times and in bad.Innovative in its use of a combination of documentary sources, quantitative methods, and direct observation, this study makes an important contribution to the history of American agriculture and of American society.

Since its establishment in 1965 the National Endowment for the Humanities has distributed many millions of dollars in grants. Has the money been well spent? What impact have the Endowment's programs had on the academic community, the schools, and the public at large? In this first book-length study of the Endowment, Stephen Miller offers a trenchant analysis of the agency's origins, its accomplishments, and the criticisms leveled against it. In the political maneuvering that led to its establishment, Miller sees a basic misunderstanding between those in academia who lobbied for NEH and those in Congress who were its most enthusiastic supporters. The inevitable result was a confused mandate that has made the work of the Endowment and the policies of its four chairmen the focus of congressional and public criticism.One group of critics has found NEH too elitist -- awarding too many grants to scholars at a few major universities. Others have regarded it as too populist -- expending too much on organizations that have little to do with the humanities. Still others regard its programs as simply a waste of the taxpayers' money.Excellence and Equity explores the continuing political controversy surrounding NEH and its chairmen and assesses in detail its impact on the humanities in four major program areas: research, teaching, preservation, and public programs. The book concludes with recommendations for restructuring the Endowment, for revising its review procedures, and for improving the process by which its chairman is selected. Only through such changes, Miller argues, can we hope to foster humanistic scholarship in the coming decades.

Noting the variety of methods by which the concept of economic capacity is measured and the different ways that the concept is defined, Richard E. Gift seeks here to develop a conceptual framework within which a meaningful interpretation of these many definitions and measures of productive capacity can be made.Gift's method is to show the common structure that is shared by all capacity concepts and arguments. This structure consists of a list of variables that must always be considered when assessing the economic capacity of productive equipment. He then shows that the problems which arise in comparing capacities for different dates can be expressed in the form of a few simple generalizations. His third step is to illustrate specific problems. Finally, he sets out to develop a test for the logical completeness of any argument about capacity.

Here is a unique view of life as experienced by a young Eskimo. The autobiography was written by a youth in his early twenties who relates the details of his boyhood life, recalling the feelings accompanying his experiences.In addition to allowing Nathan simply to relate his story thereby illustrating the uniqueness of an individual life, Mr. Hughes sets the autobiography in a broader context, which illustrates the major trends in sociocultural changes in a small and isolated corner of the world. Not only were different answers required in this new evolving world, but different questions were being asked -- not how to hunt, but whether to hunt. Not how to train the body, but for what? It is in this kind of world that we see the struggles, the defeats, and the victories of a boy seeking to find his identity and place in life.