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Showing papers in "Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory in 1988"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Pym's description of the nesting habits of the albatrosses and penguins he encounters on Desolation Island is one of the most famous passages from The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym.
Abstract: There is probably no serious reader of The Narrative ofA. Gordon Pym who hasn't felt somewhat puzzled by Pym's lengthy description, in Chapter 14, of the nesting habits of the albatrosses and penguins he encounters on Desolation Island. The usual explanation of this passage is that it forms part of a larger description of the flora and fauna peculiar to the island, that Poe has culled the details from narratives of voyages to the region (almost certainly from Benjamin Morrell's A Narrative of Four Voyages), and that its inclusion is meant to give a greater air of authenticity, of convincing local color, to Pym's account. What puzzles the reader, what makes this local-color explanation less than satisfying, is the length and level of detail of the passage. The account of the visit to Desolation Island takes up six pages in the Harrison edition, and three and a half of these are devoted to the nesting habits of the birds. Poe is, of course, essentially an artist of the short form—a writer of short stories, poems, and essays—and economy of means remains his watchword, even in a longer work of fiction like Pym. Any knowledgeable reader of Poe senses that the passage in question is simply too long and too detailed to be just a bit of startling local color meant to make the narrative more authentic. Clearly something else is going on here. Recall that in describing the various species of birds on Desolation Island Pym is particularly struck by the fact that though \"the albatross is one of the largest and fiercest of South Sea birds,\" there exists \"between this bird and the penguin the most singular friendship.\" This

19 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Crane as mentioned in this paper turned in tupenny fury upon the high, tranquil sky and would have like to have splashed it with a derisive paint, and was bitter that among all men, he should be the only one sufficiently wise to understand these things.
Abstract: Nature was miraculously skilful in concocting excuses, he thought, with a heavy, theatrical contempt. It could deck a hideous creature in enticing apparel. When he saw how she, as a woman beckons, had cozened him out of his home and hoodwinked him into holding a rifle, he went into a rage. He turned in tupenny fury upon the high, tranquil sky. He would have like to have splashed it with a derisive paint. And he was bitter that among all men, he should be the only one sufficiently wise to understand these things. Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (Staííman edition, ch. 10)

11 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For instance, Modernism refers to the equivocal and irreducible relation between the two worlds as discussed by the authors, i.e., the lack that ties any mediation to a dreamed-of immediacy.
Abstract: ODERNiSM is a word of great currency, almost literally a figure „of exchange. But the word itself is hardly definite for being so in vogue, so significant. So obviously figurai and in circulation. It is not, quite clearly, quite clear or transparent; nor is it a proper name for either some historical period or some identifiable or unique style. At the same time an historical and an ahistorical category, it refers (a term of equal indeterminacy) to the equivocal and irreducible relation between the two—that is, to what is often today called \"desire\" or the lack that ties any mediation to a dreamed-of immediacy, the temporal or sensuous to the transcendental or supersensuous, act to idea, and perhaps even literature to philosophy. Modernism is another name for some moment of transition, or for the unnameable and uncanny, an

2 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Lincollet as discussed by the authors attacks the problem of late Jacksonian politics, as he hews at the coils of compromise that encumber its transactions, and he refers to the entire history of Jacksonian compromise, to the work of his great Whig forebears, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.
Abstract: How does Abraham Lincoln get out of Jacksonian discourse? What does he undo, what does he unsay? There are telling revisionary instances in the Speech at Peoria (1854), the Springfield House Divided Speech (1858), and the Address at Cooper Institute (i860), as Lincoln attacks the problem of late Jacksonian politics, as he hews at the coils of compromise that encumber its transactions—instances that mark the phases of his forthcoming. \"Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and be-labored—contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong,\" Lincoln tells his enthused Unionist audience at the Cooper Institute. He addresses specifically Stephen Douglas's policy of 'popular sovereignty,' which allows each new territory to decide whether it will admit or exclude slavery, but he refers as well, by implication, to the entire history of Jacksonian compromise, to the work of his great Whig forebears, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. Such compromise formulas, Lincoln now declares, are \"vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man,\" and he shows their contradiction, shows what such thinking must say: \"such as a policy of 'don't care' on a question about which all true men

1 citations