After experimenting with a new dramatic form, often called Shakespeare's romances, in Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare created an original romance world in The Tempest, for which he did not even seem to use any particular sources except some topical references and Montaigne's essay "Of Cannibals." The general romance elements and atmosphere are in the play, but the structure is unique. The purpose of the present paper is to study how Shakespeare contrived to build up a romance world and what meaning is derived from the unique structure. The singularity of the protagonist's characteristics is worth attention. Prospero is the director of his magic world. Although his white magic is powerful enough to control natural phenomena, he is never identified as God or Destiny. His human vulnerability is carefully emphasized. He reached the island by "providence divine" and has caused the storm under the favour of "bountiful Fortune." Ariel's help is indispensable to realize his magic; Caliban's constant threat can never be got rid of. Prospero's severe attitude toward them is, in a sense, a sign of the artist's anxiety that his work might collapse. Prospero's magic is not only a convenient means of introducing supernatural elements and creating the rich and strange atmosphere of the romance world, but it also introduces the theme of "art": the art that can even control natuer and give eternity to the result of its work, but is by no means almighty because of the human limitations. The Tempest presents the last phase of Prospero's tragi-comedy, and at the same time it is the magic world controlled by Prospero. Prospero is like the director of the play and manipulates all that happens in his magic world. Although there are many plays-within-the-play in Shakespeare's works, there is nothing like The Tempest, where the entire play is directed by the hero himself. The focus on the "present" and the setting of the solitary island as well as the magician protagonist are appropriate choices for this unique structure. The constant suggestion of three different view-points-that of the director, on-lookers, and the persons involved in the scene-is another device for making the audience aware of the structure. This structural device helps to build up the image that life is like a drama. The parallel development of the three stories in Prospero's scheme-Alonso's, Caliban's, and Miranda and Ferdinand's-also needs consideration. The three groups are presented in contrast in a certain rhythm and produce a pageant kind of pleasure. This well-balanced structure increases the sense of artificiality and suggests that there is a manipulator behind the scenes. Another effect is the temporal and spatial dilation of the story of the play. Although the action of the play is limited to the "present", there is not only an explanation of Prospero's tragic past in his story to Miranda, but there is also a constant reminder of it in the very existence of Antonio's rebellion. The fact that Antonio is forgiven unrepentant suggests the possibility of his new rebellion in the future. The past and future are flashed back and forward through the action of the play. The effect agrees with the characteristic feeling of a romance that the story goes on endlessly. This feeling as well as the existence of Caliban's rebellion, a baser replica of Antonio's, helps to suggest that what is presented on the stage is a fable of human reality. In Act V reconciliation is the only means to bring on to the stage all the characters, both good and evil, repentant and unrepentant. Most of the characters reach better understanding of themselves, but the evil characters are neither purged nor removed from the stage. After Prospero's famous speech expressing the vanity of

(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

View full abstract

Modern society with its materialist standard of values is now plunging back into the chaos from where it was supposed to have emerged. The materialist civilization has now brought to light its own irrationalities and contradictions, which will prove to be fatal to mankind, if they are left unchecked. From behind its neon-sign brightness a shadow of negative nihilism is looming so overwhelmingly that most of us are in great anxiety about the future of mankind. We are beginning to suspect that this threatening shadow might betray the true character of our civilization, that it might be self-destructive. However, while deeply concerned about the phenomenal aspect of social miseries, we still remain unaware of their spiritual connotations in relation to ourselves, for we take it for granted that they came from the outside. Our spiritual crisis lies in the ever-growing neutralization of human relationships in society. It has its root in our unrestricted self-complacency. Human consciousness is by nature self-complacent, that is, self-centred or self-attached. We are attached to ourselves like a spoilt son, or we spoil ourselves like an indulgent mother. That is what Blake calls 'Maternal Humanity'. It is a spoilt-child mentality which is domineered by a kind of possessive false maternity, false because it is essentially different from true maternity that sets an example of selfless love by its self-devoting, self-annihilating acts. It is a mentality in which paternal severity to oneself remains shadowy, 'silent and invisible', on account of the exclusive mother-child relationship. That is the inherent structure of human consciousness, root of all misery. If there are any authentic possibilities within us, they will be realized only when we expose ourselves constantly to a critique of self-satisfaction. However, the problem is that we have now lost sight of the critique which we saw embodied in religion. As a result, that individual mentality was left to prevail without check so widely that it has come to constitute a kind of climate of opinion in society. It is a spoilt-child society, or we might say a foundling society, for the critical principle of self-satisfaction which is its true parents seems nowhere to be seen. Self-complacency has extended even to the world of ethical and religious values, and is changing it into another hot-house for that mentality. It is most dangerous for humanity, for religion is the only exhaustive critique of self-satisfaction. If religion should cease to be that, it would cease to mean anything for us. And that would lead to mental suicide of mankind. On this point Blake is prophetic. Like other romantic poets, his concern is 'transformation', that is, to transform the cold, inanimate world into a world full of light and life. But he is radically different from them in his severest view of human consciousness, that is, of his own selfhood. He is well aware that the dualism of subject and object created by the discriminative faculty of consciousness implies in itself discrimination against other beings, that our consciousness itself constitutes unauthentic selfhood as self-love. And his greatness lies in his conviction that poetic vision is possible only through self-annihilation, and that 'transformation' is, first of all, the problem of self-transformation, which will ultimately result in the transformation of society. Blake's ontological approach to Reality is really suggestive about the problem of the reinstatement of religion as the one critique of self-satisfaction as well as about the relationship of religion and art.

View full abstract

Sister Carrie is one of the most naturalistic works among Dreiser's six novels. But it contains some anti-naturalistic elements; and we make a discovery of a meaning as a literary work in their rebellion against the apparent world which is subject to the "chemical" determinism. Christopher G. Katope tells us that Sister Carrie gives consistent shape to H. Sepencer's principles and is based on rather strict naturalism. Louis Auchincloss recognizes it as "a perfect determinist work". We should naturally consider it to be very naturalistic and leave no room for doubt on it. But it seems to me that they insist on naturalism in the work too much to give thought to anti-naturalistic elements. At the back of the apparent and naturalistic development, namely, in the latent world, in Sister Carrie lurks an anti-naturalistic stream. That is, the development implies a double-meaning. As Charles Walcutt and Miacheael Millgate point out, Dreiser reveals a stream of the human spirit of rebellion against the "chemical" determinism in the work. It originates in Carrie's innate and merciful quality. Carrie's actions are due, on the one side, to "chemism", but on the other side, due to her innocence and mercy. And also, her actions are rebellions against "conventional morals" in the capitalistic world; though they seem to be "chemico-physical", they are the process in pursuit of an ideal, or beauty, too. We find a great significance where the two streams get entangled. The apparent world which controls Sister Carrie is that of hedonism in Chicago and New York where material civilization flourishes abnormally. Characters are a "wisp", a "craft", a "vessel" and so on that are tossed about by the delicate atmosphere of a city. Having an insight into the law of the survival of the fittest in the under-current of the various phenomena of the capitalistic mechanism, he searches for its source concealed from view and originates his own principle which he calls "chemism" afterwards. It is a kind of starting action based on instincts and "tropisms". In his case inherent desires are the fundamental workings to act necessarily in concert with both the interior innate operations and some exterior stimuli. Man cannot behave himself for the mark decided by his own free-will, but he can only act in accordance with "chemism". In particular, insisting that man is much more influenced by the exterior, Dreiser puts emphasis upon inhuman powers in the outside. "Chemism" is inevitable for men, so we may conclude that Sister Carrie is under the control of "chemical" determinism. Considering that inherent capacity responds to stimuli from both the inside and the outside, we may call "chemical" determinism to be "biological and social determinism". But we don't consider the world of Sister Carrie to be that of "chemical" determinism from beginning to end. The stream against it is latent in it, too. Dreiser doesn't simply depict life as it is in the work, but there he puts in some rebellions faintly. Pursuing the source of humanity or new morals in the cosmos, the latent world denies the inequalities to which capitalism gives rise and is in expectation of the harmony with the cosmos and the new world of socialism. Though Sister Carrie is Dreiser's virgin work, it has the sign of the Providence of the universe and Communism that he clearly responds to in his later years. And a kind of altruism is thought necessary through sympathies for the oppressed. In denial of egotims, a new human relation is looked for. Through the revival of human conscious action, Dreiser draws a dividing line between good and evil; accordingly, he shows us how to live as human beings. The interest in the "Creative Force" of the

(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

View full abstract

This thesis aims to analyze the literary world of William Faulkner in terms of the voices and legends in Yoknapatawpha County, the writer's fictitious county in Mississippi, and tries to find what it is that makes his works so exuberant and captivating. The constant voices of the multitude, the 15,611 inhabitants of Yoknapatawpha County, permeate Faulkner's novels, making space alive, thick and opaque, and loading time with the guilts and sorrows of history. The voices can be classified into two kinds: those of rumours and those telling legendary tales. Both play some important roles. The voices of rumours inform the reader of the occurrence and progress of events, or exert their collective power of convention or prejudice on the hero and decide his destiny. These voices reveal the profiles of the groups and classes that compose the society, and their role may correspond to that of the chorus in Greek drama. The voices telling legendary tales render some essential effects to Faulkner's world. For example, when the old Southern ladies evoke the glory and sorrow of by-gone times by narrating legends, their voices are those of priests celebrating a mass for the repose of the souls of their ancestors. The young heroes listen to these legends to discover the truth about life. Faulkner's moral issues take a dramatic turn when the voices spreading rumours or spinning legendary tales are juxtaposed with the voice of an individual man. In their efforts to claim the innocence of the negroes who are in danger of being lynched, Hawkshow in "Dry September" and Charles in Intruder in the Dust face the almost irresistible power of prejudice in the general consensus of opinion. The voices narrating legends in Absalom, Absalom! and in "The Bear" meet the sharp inquiring voices of the imaginative young heroes whose purpose is to find the reality of life and whose pursuit of it eventually leads to the discovery of evil. In the process of this analysis I have been concerned with a problem which is still somewhat unsettled and bewildering. The problem is the writer's delicate balance between his assertion of hopes for the future of mankind and the overwhelming despair which casts its gloomy shadow over his works. The voices of opposite natures attract my attention when I grope for a solution to this vexing question. They are the howling sounds of the idiots and the deep singing voices of the pious and enduring negroes, both of which penetrate the hearts of Faulkner's young heroes after their initiation into the meaning of life. Finally, I want to emphasize the significance of the aesthetic effects of Faulkner's art, and the rare success of the simultaneity of the heroes' ethical realization and the aesthetic climax of such a work as Absalom, Absalom!. William Faulkner's belief in man's immortality seems to originate in the two constituents of his genius: his faith in the verities of the heart and his intuitive poetic grasp of the absolute character of aesthetic truth even over the passage of time.

View full abstract

In Iris Murdock's novel, A Severed Head, Chaps. 14 and 10, there occur the following sentences: She stared back evenly, unsmiling, but with a candour and a presence more telling than any smile. I gave her back a steady unsmiling stare, and felt pleasure at the idea of surprising her, rewarding her, with my better love. The comparison clearly indicates that the nominal construction, give a stare, and the full verb, stare, are in the 'associative' relationship, or the relationship of opposition, mutually exclusive in a given context. Thus the opposition between the nominal construction, consisting of give (have, make, take, etc.) +a noun, and the full verb, is indeed one of the verbal selective categories, and a speaker or writer is to make a 'binary choice' between the two possible expressions. With an adequate periphrasis, as is often pointed out, the nominal construction is able to meet any situation and is often observed to its advantage in present-day English. In his stimulating System der neuenglischen Syntax Max Deutschbein maintains that a tendency toward 'nominale Ausdruckweise' of English makes itself strongly felt in the sixteenth century, in contrast to Middle English whose 'innere Sprachform' is entirely 'zustandlich' and therewith 'verbal'. However, the analytic construction, which dates from Old English, is not of infrequent occurrence in Middle English and it performs its meaningful function, opposed to the full verb, as is shown by the quotations from Thomas Malory's The Book of Sir Tristram de Lyones: ...and ever that knyght made a dolefull complaynte as evir made knyght, and allways he complayned of La Beale Isode, the quene of Cornwayle...(X, 14.) '... so that ye woll kepe my counceyle and lette no creature have knowlech that I shall juste but yourself and suche as ye woll to kepe youre counceyle, my poure person shall [I] jouparte there for youre sake, that peradventure sir Palomydes shall know whan that I com.' (VIII, 9.) though in the case of the combination, make mencion, for instance, the corresponding full verb is really non-existent, thereby the construction being neutralized, so to speak. Apparently the employment of the nominal construction in Middle English is greatly affected by the corresponding French idiomatic usage and a number of constructions are in fact the mere 'calques' of French phrases. Despite Deutschbein's assertion, the nominal construction is thus significantly employed in Middle English, and in the modern period it is often used in preference to the full verb, since the construction is in accordance with the tendency of Modern English to place an operator before the word of higher semantic import.

View full abstract

When we compare (1) John will finish his work with (2) John will finish his work by seven, we find that, though in both sentences the verbs are in the non-perfect form, sentence (2) has practically the same 'perfective' meaning as that of (3) John will have finished his work by seven, while sentence (1) has no such meaning. This means that the by-phrase expressing time has a special function to 'perfectivize' the meaning of a sentence like (2) where the verb is in the non-perfect form. The purpose of this paper is to show how this special semantic function of the by-phrase expressing time can be formalized within the framework of transformational generative grammar. In the first section we discuss in more detail this 'perfectivizing' function of the phrase in question. In the second section two ways are proposed for handling this function of the by-phrase within the framework of trans-formational generative grammar. One is to handle it solely within the semantic component, without any syntactical discussion of the deep structure of the sentence containing the by-phrase. The other is to regard this by-phrasal function as a syntactical problem and treat it syntactically, discussing fully the deep structure of the by-phrasal sentence. In the third section we examine whether the first way proposed is adequate for the treatment of the by-phrasal function. After the examination it is found to be inadequate. So the second alternative is tried in the following sections. In the fourth section we compare the by-phrasal sentence with the sentence containing the verb in the perfect form as to their syntactical behaviors. The comparison shows that there is enough similarity between their syntactical behaviors to enable us to postulate the same deep structure for the former as that of the latter; in other words, to assume that the deep structure of the by-phrasal sentence contains `deep perfect' as one of its constituents. In the fifth section we discuss of what type the deep structure of the by-phrasal sentence should be. After such discussion, we come to the conclusion that it should be a deep structure of the complex sentence type consisting of a matrix sentence and an embedded sentence. To take sentence (2) as an example, the deep structure of the by-phrasal sentence can be shown in the following way: [[it + [John will finish his work]_S]_<NP> + [[Present + will + Perfect]_<AUX> + [happen]_V + [by seven]_<Time Adv>]_<VP>]_S (which would be transformed into the surface structure It will have happened by seven that he will finish his work if the obligatory transformation alone were applied to it). Thus, as a solution for the problem of the 'perfectivizing' function of the by-phrase expressing time, we propose to posit 'deep perfect' in the deep structure of the by-phrasal sentence.

View full abstract