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Bradomín And The Ironies Of Evil: A Reconsideration Of Sonata De Primavera, Sumner M. Greenfield

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Of the four novels that form Valle-Inclán's tetralogy of seasonal Sonatas, the most problematical and dissonant is the springtime segment, which is the third in the order of composition. Valle-Inclán uncharacteristically subordinates seasonal esthetics in favor of a peculiarly ironic manipulation of the theme of conflict between good and evil set in an Italian context redolent of the Renaissance and rife with religious fanaticism. The ingrained theatricality of the young Marqués de Bradomín leads him to affect the pose of a "devilish" don Juan in order to break down the defenses of a young would-be nun who seems destined …

The Immoralist And The Rhetoric Of First-Person Narration, John T. Booker

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Gide's The Immoralist, a short first-person novel written at the beginning of the century, has long been seen as an early example of the unreliable narrator. More recently, critical attention has focused on the tensions set up in the work between the carefully drawn formal structure of the narrative and the claim of Michel, the narrator, to tell his story in a direct and simple manner. Of more general interest, however, is the way Michel's narration provides insight into important developments that have taken place in the first-person novel itself in the twentieth century. Cast initially in a very …

Fernando Arrabal's "Ars Amandi": The Theme Of Love In Selected Plays, Peter L. Podol

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

The evolution in Arrabal's treatment of the theme of love reflects both the development and enrichment of his dramatic techniques and the resolution of his own deep-seated psychological conflicts. Arrabal's theater utilizes his concept of dramatic ceremony to project his intense desire for personal, political and artistic liberation. Psychological and social forces combine to frustrate the fulfillment of love in his early theater (Fando and Lis, 1956) but ultimately love functions to obviate both internal and external constraints. Sexual union, which receives its most rapturous affirmation in Arrabal's plays written during the late 1960's (The Law of …

Approaches To The Cataract: Butor's Niagara, Elinor S. Miller

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Michel Butor's 6 810 000 litres d'eau par seconde bears certain similarities to each of his earlier stereophonic works, but is much more than a reworking of established techniques. Generally thought to be difficult, as indicated by the title, which arouses interest without revealing the subject matter, the work has a complex and masterful structure. Against a background of gradually accelerated time, emphasized by appropriate sound effects, an Announcer leads a tour of Niagara Falls. Alphabetically identified characters play out predictable roles as newlyweds, second honeymooners, and the lonely ones. A Reader recites throughout Chateaubriand's classic description of the Falls, …

Vicente Aleixandre And The Solidarity Of The Cosmos, Carl W. Cobb

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Vicente Aleixandre and the Solidarity of the Cosmos

Robbe-Grillet's Métaphoricité Fantôme, Thomas D. O'Donnell

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Alain Robbe-Grillet made his initial reputation among French writers not only through his controversial first novels, but also through a number of essays published collectively under the title of Pour un Nouveau Roman. In these essays, Robbe-Grillet pronounced an absolute condemnation of metaphor in the novel; this condemnation has since been prominently featured in theoretical arguments focusing on "zero-degree" writing. However, Robbe-Grillet has since written fictions which are hardly consistent with his earlier doctrine, and Topologie d'une cité fantôme appears, if anything, to embrace metaphor, and thus to point to a new direction in Robbe-Grillet's work, a direction closer …

The Theory And Practice Of Apolitical Literature: Die Kolonne, 1929-1932, Joseph P. Dolan

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

The apolitical attitudes that made inner emigration possible were well established in Germany in the decade preceding 1933. Three main ideas from the tradition of "inwardness" were used to justify the exclusion of politics from literature: the timelessness of the inner life, the notion of the genius as hero of society, and the religious function of art. These ideas were propagated especially by the Dresden literary journal, Die Kolonne (1929-1932), to which such leading poets as Günter Eich, Peter Huchel, and Elisabeth Langgässer contributed. Literature of the period reveals a preference for the themes of nature and of myth, insofar …

The Function Of Love In Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle, John Schillinger

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, like Boris Pasternak before him, insists upon the primacy of life over any socio-political system. To lead truly meaningful lives, his characters must comprehend that they are responsible for their own actions; that they are engaged in an existential struggle which pits individual freedom against the will of authority.

In The First Circle, this struggle is clearly reflected in the theme of love which, when analyzed in terms of the suppression or triumph of its four basic elements (sex, eros, philia, and agape), offers a convincing allegory of man's existential self-definition by free choice.

Points South: Ambrose Bierce, Jorge Luis Borges, And The Fantastic, Howard M. Fraser

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

The debt of Borges's "A Secret Miracle" to Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" both in theme and technique has been noted in recent criticism. However, a careful study of the two works reveals striking differences, particularly with respect to the treatment of time. Based on Todorov's study of the fantastic, this article attempts to show how Bierce's influence on Borges parallels the general development of psychological realism and its transformation into surrealism. While it is true that the allusive qualities of Borges' work recall thematic and technical aspects of Bierce, nonetheless the American Hispanophile is a precursor …

Proust-Envy: Fiction And Autobiography In The Works Of Iurii Olesha, Elizabeth Klosty Beaujour

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Iurii Olesha's works present us with a series of episodes for a fictional autobiography: the self-portrait of the artist as failure. Already early in his career, Olesha was committed to the achievement of success through the creation and manipulation of images of failure. These images are also dominant in his last work No Day Without a Line, which this article analyzes. Olesha declares in No Day that he wishes to "go backwards through life the way Marcel Proust succeeded in doing in his time." There are interesting similarities between the two writers, particularly the fact that A la Recherche du …

Anti-Structuralist Structures: The Avant-Garde Struggles Of French Fiction, Roland A. Champagne

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

A reassessment of French literary "structuralism" is timely in order to understand the development of avant-garde fiction. Piaget's parameters of wholeness, self-regulation, and transformation for a "structure" are useful critical tools in appreciating the relationships of avant-garde writers, texts, and readers to one another during the 1950's and 1960's in France. However, the writers and texts of that literary avant-garde refused to be congealed into a specific movement called "structuralism." Instead, they continually realized new forms to lead their readers away from the static artistic labels or "myths" which the representatives of French society consistently sought to impose. Those new …