Recent Books in the Field of Medieval Languages and Literatures

This article examines the contradictions underlying the Falangist feminine ideal as it oscillated between demure/traditional and enterprising/modern in the rhetoric of the Sección Femenina. As the author demonstrates, the peculiarity of the Sección Femenina—which acted as the dominant cultural filter for women's familial, social, and political obligations at the time—stems from its leaders' at once-dominated (vis-à-vis the state) and dominant (vis-à-vis the female constituents) position in the cultural, social, national, and political landscape of post-civil war Spain. Although the retrograde ways of the Sección Femenina, whose statutes and rhetoric drew on the nineteenth-century bourgeois discourse of different and complementary gender relations, have elicited numerous studies, this article examines the use of this familiar and unthreatening (to the regime) model of female formation as the legitimating basis of its unconventional praxis.     

Recent Books in the Field of Mediaeval Literature

In the Cantigas de Santa María, King Alfonso X unveils an intricate cultural, political, and economic system that defines the relationship between Christian society and religious minorities. This article illustrates that the Cantigas must be understood as an ideological instrument of cultural codification that reaffirms the established Christian social order in relation to three principal groups: heretics, Jews, and Muslims.     

Some Significant Recent Books in the Field of Mediaeval Literature

Although much has been written about André Breton’s concept of the Surrealist image, the present article examines a number of aspects that have so far escaped notice. In particular, it examines several antecedents of Pierre Reverdy’s theory of the image and compares the latter to that developed in the Manifeste du surréalisme. A close reading of the manifesto reveals the presence of a previously unknown model used by Breton in formulating his theory.     

Recent Books in the Field of German Language and Literature

Ernst Beutler, ed. Briefe aus dem Elternhaus. Zürich / Stuttgart, Artemis, Verlag, 1959. Pp. 800. DM 27.80.

Max Brod. Verzweiflung und Erlösung im Werk Franz Kafkas. Frankfurt, S. Fischer, 1959. Pp. 88. DM 5. 80.

Franz Dornseiff. Der deutsche Wortschatz nach Sachgruppen. 5th edition. Berlin, Walter de Gruyter &; Co., 1959. Pp. 1088. DM 38. 00.

Norbert Fürst. Grillparzer auf der Bühne. Wien / Müchen, Manutiuspresse, 1958. Pp. 267.

Ernst Grumach (ed. ). Beiträge zur Goetheforschung. Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1959. Pp. 289. DM 32.

Richard Hamann und Jost Hermand. Naturalismus (Deutsche Kunst und Kultur von der Gründerzeit bis zum Expressionismus, Bd. II). Berlin, Akademic - Verlag, 1959. Pp. 336. DM 24.

Rudolf Hemmerle. Franz Kafka: Eine Bibliographie. MUnchen, Robert Lerche Verlag, 1958. Pp. 138. DM 9.

Walter Hinck. Die Dramaturgie des späiten Brecht (Palaestra, Bd. 229). Göttingen, Vandenhoeck &; Ruprecht, 1959. Pp. 172. DM 18.

Ernst Jünger. Jahre der Okkupation. Stuttgart, Ernst Klett Verlag, 1958. Pp. 310. DM 17. 80.

Hermann Kunisch. Eckhart-Tauler-Seuse. Ein Textbuch aus der altdeutschen Mystik. Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1958. Pp. 152. DM 2. 20.

Nikolaus Lenau. Sämtliche Werke-Briefe. Edited by Hermann Engelhard. Stuttgart, Cotta, 1959. Pp. 1152. DM 28.

Otto Mann. Poetik der Tragödie. Bern, Francke, 1958. Pp. 344. S. Fr. 39.50.

Walter Muschg. Die Zerstörung der deutschen Literatur. 3rd ed. Bern, Francke, 1958. Pp. 347. S. Fr. 18. 50.

Urban Roedl. Adalbert Stifter. Geschichte seines Lebens. Bern, Francke, 1958. Pp. 400. S. Fr. 23. 50.

Franz Anselm Schmitt. Stoff- und Motivgeschichte der deutschen Literatur. Berlin, Walter de Gruyter &; Co., 1959. Pp. 226.

Karl ViZtor. Deutsches Dichten und Denken von der Aufklärung bis zum Realismus. 3rd ed. Berlin, Walter de Gruyter &; Co., 1958. (Sammlung Gbchen, B. 1096). Pp. 159. DM 3. 60.

Klaus Wagenbach. Franz Kafka. Eine Biographie seiner Jugend. Bern, Francke, 1958. Pp. 345.

Hans-Heinrich Wängler. Atlas deutscher Sprachlaute. Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1958. Pp. 40. Pp. 40. DM 29.

Franz Werfel. Die Dramen. (2 vols.). Frankfurt, S. Fischer, 1959. Pp. 1080. DM 48.     

Recent Books in the Field of Classical Languages and Literatures

Abstract

Brigitte Cazelles. The Unholy Grail: A Social Reading of Chrétien de Troyes's Conte du Graal. Stanford University Press, 1996. 325 pp.

William W. Kibler, ed. The Lancelot-Grail Cycle: Text and Transformations. University of Texas Press, 1994. vii + 247 pp. $37.50.

Richard G. Hodgson. Falsehood Disguised. Unmasking the Truth in La Rochefoucauld. (Purdue Studies in Romance Literature, 7) West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1995. 175 pp.

Doris Y. Kadish and Françoise Massardier-Kenney, eds. Translating Slavery: Gender and Race in French Women's Writing, 1783-1823 (Translation Studies, 2). Kent, Ohio, and London: Kent State University Press, 1994. 346 pp.

Jean-Xavier Ridon. Henri Michaux, J. M. G. Le Clézio: l'exil des mots. Paris: Éditions Kimé, 1995. 146 pp. 130F.

Raylene L. Ramsay. The French New Autobiographies: Sanaute, Duras, and Robbe-Grillet (Crosscurrents: Comparative Studies in European Literature and Philosophy) Gainesville, Florida.: University Press of Florida, 1996. 263 pp.

C. Christopher Soufas. Audience and Authority in the Modernist Theater of Federico García Lorca. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1996. xvi + 191 pp.

Suzanne S. Hintz, ed. Essays in Honor of Josep M. Solà-Solé: Linguistic and Literary Relations of Catalan and Castilian. (Catalan Studies, 23) New York: Peter Lang, 1996. 334 pp.

Karen Pinkus. Bodily Regimes: Italian Advertising under Fascism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995. XV + 268 pp.     

Recent Books in the Field of Romance Languages and Literatures

Mercedes Agulló y Cobo. La Poesía española en 1961. (Cuadernos Bibliográficos, VII). Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Madrid, 1963, Pp. 62.

Frederick B. Arlz. From the Renaissance to Romanticism. Trends in Style in Art, Literature, and Music, 1300–1830. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1962, Pp. x, 311.

Theodore Besterman. Studies on Voltaire and the 18th Century. Geneva: Institut et Musée Voltaire, 1962. Pp. 263.

Germaine Brée. Gide. Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1963. Pp. 302.

Lucile Kathryn Delano. Spain, Reality and Legend. Rock Hill, South Carolina: Winthrop College, 1964, Pp. 145. $1.50.

Wallace Fowlie. A Reading of Proust. New York: Doubleday &; Co., 1964. Pp. 307.

Edward Inman Fox. Azorín as a Literatury Critic. New York: Hispanic Institute in the United States, 1962. Pp. 176.

Rinaldo Froldi. Il Teatro valenzano e l'origine della commedia baroca. (Istituto di letteratura Spagnola e ispano-Americana della Università di Pisa). Pisa: Editrice Tecnico-Scientifica, 1962. Pp. 112.

Peter Gay. The Party of Humanity. Essays in the French Enlightenment. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964. Pp. 290.

Herbert S. Gershman, Kernan B. Whitworth, Jr. Anthology of Critical Prefaces to the Nineteenth-Century French Novel. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1962. Pp. vii, 233.

J. D. Hubert. Molière and the Comedy of Intellect. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962. Pp. xvi, 275.

Willis Knapp Jones, ed. Spanish-American Literature in Translation. New York: Ungar, 1963. Pp. xxi, 469.

Maxim Newmark. Dictionary of Spanish Literature. Paterson, New Jersey: Littlefield, Adams and Company, 1963. Pp. 352.

Muriel Rukeyser, ed. and translator. Selected Poems of Octavio Paz. Bloomington, Indiana: University of Indiana Press, 1964. Pp. 171.

Nilida Salvador. Revistas argentinas de vanguardia (1920–1930). Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, 1962. Pp. 109.

Baltasar Samper. Investigación folklórica en México. I. México: Departamento de Bellas Artes, 1962. Pp. 653.

Friedrich Soleürr. Miguel de Unamuno. Dichterphilosoph des tragischen Lebensgefuhls. Bern and München: Francke Verlag, 1962. Pp. 169.

Francis Steegmuller. Apollinaire. New York: Farrar, Straus and Co., 1963. Pp. 365.

Phillip A. Wadsworth. Tristan l'Hermite: Poésies, choisies et annotées. Paris: Seghers, 1962. Pp. 150.     

The Economic Degeneration of Masculinity in Rafael Chirbes's En la orilla

Rafael Chirbes's En la orilla has been proclaimed as “la novela de la crisis,” and it has garnered an impressive amount of distinction in the short length of time since its publication in May 2013. It was voted the 2013 novel of the year by readers of El País, and in January 2014 it won the Premio Francisco Umbral, as well as reaching its fifth edition. Unsparingly critical, En la orilla forms an integral part of the cultural requestioning of social values in the wake of the Spanish crisis, “la literatura de la crisis,” which stresses the human and material consequences of the suspension of human values stemming from the social endorsement of market imperialism. En la orilla thematizes the corrosion of moral character during Spain's economic boom, in its multiple forms, such as selfishness, disregard for the elderly, and arrant mercenariness, while also fictionalizing neoliberal Spain's exclusion of immigrants and the poor. Integral to Chiribes's historically contextualized critique of the recession, and the object of my study, is a perceptive vision of the historical degeneration of masculinity from the Second Republic, 1931–1936, to the present day. This article will first provide a brief overview of “la literatura de la crisis,” while the second part illumines the economic and ideological distortion of the father–son relationship in this novel.