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  1. clash between the beauty-loving Renaissance and the he [Spenser] was quickly swept overboard because of moral Reformation. In the light of the medieval reli-his inability to write like Donne, Eliot, and Allen gious tradition examined by Tuve, Guyon destroys Tate’ (1968:2). His extended interpretation of Book the Bower because he ‘looks at the kind of complete II, The Allegorical Temper (1957), followed by essays seduction which means the final death of the soul’ on the other books, traces the changing psycholo-(31). gical or psychic development of the poem’s major If the New Critics of the 1930s to the early 1950s characters by ‘reading the poem as a poem’ (9) rather had been interested in Spenser (few were), they than as a historical document. My own book, The would not have considered his intention in writing Structure of Allegory in ‘The Faerie Queene’ (1961a), The Faerie Queene because that topic had been dis-which I regard now as the work of a historical critic missed as a fallacy. For Wimsatt and Beardsley partly rehabilitated by myth and archetypal criticism, 1954:5 (first proclaimed in 1946), ‘The poem is not examines the poem’s structure through its patterns the critic’s own and not the author’s (it is detached of imagery, an interest shared with Alastair Fowler, from the author at birth and goes about the world Spenser and the Numbers of Time (1964), and by beyond his power to intend about it or control it)’. Kathleen Williams, Spenser’s ‘Faerie Queene’: The So much for any poet’s intention, conscious or World of Glass (1966). unconscious, realized or not. Not that it would have In any history of modern Spenser criticism – for a mattered much, for the arbiter of taste at that time, general account, see Hadfield 1996b – Berger may T.S. Eliot, had asked rhetorically: ‘who, except schol-serve as a key transitional figure. In a retrospective ars, and except the eccentric few who are born with glance at his essays on Spenser written from 1958 to a sympathy for such work, or others who have delib-1987, he acknowledges that ‘I still consider myself erately studied themselves into the right apprecia-a New Critic, even an old-fashioned one’ who tion, can now read through the whole of The Faerie has been ‘reconstructed’ by New Historicism Queene with delight?’ (1932:443). In Two Letters, (1989:208). In Berger 1988:453–56, he offers a per-Spenser acknowledges that the gods had given him sonal account of his change, admitting that as a New the gift to delight but never to be useful (Dii mihi, Critic he had been interested ‘in exploring complex dulce diu dederant: verùm vtile numquam), though representations of ethico-psychological patterns’ he wishes they had; and, in the Letter to Raleigh, he apart from ‘the institutional structures and discourses recognizes that the general end of his poem could be that give them historical specificity’. Even so, he had achieved only through fiction, which ‘the most part allowed that earlier historical study, which had been of men delight to read, rather for variety of matter, concerned with ‘historical specificity’, was ‘solid and then for profite of the ensample’ (10). As a conse-important’. For the New Historicist Louis Adrian quence, he addresses his readers not by teaching them Montrose, however, earlier historical scholarship didactically but rather through delight. It follows that ‘merely impoverished the text’ (Berger 1988:8), and if his poem does not delight, it remains a closed book. he is almost as harsh towards Berger himself, com-Several critics who first flourished in the 1950s and plaining that his writings ‘have tended to avoid direct 1960s responded initially to Spenser’s words and confrontations of sociopolitical issues’, though he imagery rather than to his ideas, thought, or histor-blames ‘the absence of a historically specific socio-ical context. One is Donald Cheney, who, in Spenser’s political dimension’ on the time they were written – Image of Nature (1966), read The Faerie Queene a time when ‘the sociopolitical study of Spenser was ‘under the intensive scrutiny which has been applied epitomized by the pursuit of topical identifications or in recent decades to metaphysical lyrics’, seeking the cataloguing of commonplaces’ (7). In contrast, out ‘ironic, discordant impulses’, ‘rapidly shifting the New Historicism, of which he is the most elo-allusions’, and the poet’s ‘constant insistence upon quent theorist, sees a work embedded – i.e. intrins-the ambiguity of his images’ (7, 17, 20). Another is ically, inextricably fixed – not in history generally, Paul Alpers, whose The Poetry of ‘The Faerie Queene’ and certainly not in ‘cosmic politics’ that Thomas (1967) demonstrated that individual stanzas of the Greene 1963:406 claims to be the concern of all epics, poem may be subjected to very intense scrutiny. A but in a historically specific sociopolitical context. third, the most influential of all, is Harry Berger, Jr, (For further comments on their clash, see Hamilton

    2014

    2014
  2. The three concerns itemised above – the continuing row over Britain’s contribution to the budget, enlargement and institutional reform – were inevitably linked. Early attempts to find a formula for resolving the budget issue were dogged by failure to recognise the need for a permanent solution rather than a temporary ‘fix’. The latter approach ensured that an increasingly irritable Margaret Thatcher was institutionally locked in to raising the issue at successive summits. Consequent explosions of ill temper did nothing to help the Community in its search for solutions to other problems, which included applications for membership from Portugal and Spain. At the end of the 1970s there were applications for membership on the table from three Mediterranean countries – Greece, Portugal and Spain. Although the subject matter of the negotiations was largely economic, particularly disparities between the three applicants and existing members, the major determinants of the new enlargements were political. Greece had been the earliest European associate of the Community, but the development of a closer relationship was put on hold after a military coup overthrew the elected government. The reestablishment of a democratic regime gave the new Greek government critical bargaining power in its bid to join, despite all the economic problems. Whatever their reservations on the readiness of the Greek economy for full membership, member states could hardly fail to offer support to the political aspirations of the new government. The second enlargement – to ten members – took place in January 1981. Negotiations were rather more protracted with Portugal and Spain. Again there were major economic problems and some member states, particularly France, expressed reservations. However, both countries had been ruled by arbitrary, neo-fascist regimes until the mid 1970s. In the last analysis the establishment of democratic regimes gave their new governments exactly the same political key to membership as Greece, but the economic issues still required resolution. The third major internal issue confronting the Community was institutional reform. This was a perennial, but the more pressing in view of continued enlargements. The crux of the problem related to voting in the Council of Ministers. Whatever view may be taken of the impact of de Gaulle and the so-called Luxembourg compromise, it is possible to argue that in a Community of only six members, voting methods were not that important. In effect, arguments about the right to national veto could be subsumed within the dynamics of a small, cosy club. This is hardly a view which could be taken of a putative Community of twelve. Further enlargement necessitated a behavioural change

    2006

    2006

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