Papers on Language & Literature articles from January 1996

Papers on Language & Literature archives from January 1996

Browning's "My Last Duchess": paragon and parergon. (poet Robert Browning)
January 1, 1996... There is here a problem of framing, of bordering and delimitation, whose analysis must be very finely detailed if it wishes to ascertain the effects of fiction. - Jacques Derrida, "Le facteur de la verite" If we are to approach a text, it...

The ambiguous reversal of Dylan Thomas's "In Country Sleep."
January 1, 1996... Among the relatively few father-daughter poems in the "canon," Dylan Thomas's "In Country Sleep" is striking for its frank portrayal of a caring though conflicted state of fatherhood. Other poems belonging to this diverse lyric sub-genre, such...

Prodigal sons and daughters: transgression and forgiveness in "The Merchant of Venice." (a play by William Shakespeare)
January 1, 1996... The word "prodigal" appears more often in The Merchant of Venice than in any other play of Shakespeare's, yet the relevance to the play of the parable of the Prodigal Son has excited little critical attention.(1) Not only is Bassanio called...

Ben Jonson and the 'Traditio Basiorum': Catullan imitation in 'The Forrest' 5 and 6.
January 1, 1996... Ben Jonson's first two lyrics to Celia (The Forrest 5, 6), among the most renowned and often-anthologized things he ever wrote, famously combine the classical tradition with the world of seventeenth-century England. As Sara van den Berg has...

Fluid disjunction in Paul Muldoon's "Immram" and "The More a Man Has the More a Man Wants."
January 1, 1996... Over the past twenty years Paul Muldoon has taken his place as one of the more important current poets. Although his work is still most often considered in the context of Irish literature in general and Ulster poetry in particular, he has long...