Book Reviews

John W. Baldwin. Aristocratic Life in Medieval France: the Romances of Jean Renart and Gerbert de Montreuil, 1190-1230. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. xvii + 359 pp.

Daniel J. Sherman. The Construction of Memory in Interwar France. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999. xvii + 414 pp.

C. Brian Morris. Son of Andalusia: The Lyrical Landscapes of Federico García Lorca. Vanderbilt University Press, 1997. xiv + 486 pp. $39.95.

Ramón F. Llorens and Jesús Pérez Magallón, eds. Luz vital. Estudios de cultura hispánica en memoria de Victor Ouimette. McGill University and Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo, 1999. 227 pp.

Robert Vilain. The Poetry of Hugo von Hofmannsthal and French Symbolism. Oxford Modern Languages and Literature Monographs. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000. xii + 376 pp. $85.00.

Janet Pérez. Camilo José Cela Revisited: The Later Novels. New York: Twayne Publishers, 2000. 189 pp.

Catherine G. Bellver. Absence and Presence: Spanish Women Poets of the Twenties and Thirties. Bucknell University Press, 2001. x + 294 pp. $46.50.

Allen Thiher. Fiction Rivals Science: The French Novel From Balzac to Proust. Columbia and London: Universiry of Missouri Press, 2001. 215 pp. $37.50.

Michael R. Finn. Proust: The Body and Literary Form. Cambridge University Press, 1999. xiii + 210 pp.

Melveena McKendrick. Playing the King: Lope de Vega and the Limits of Conformity. London: Tamesis, 2000. 230 pp. $75.00.

Willard Bohn. Modern Visual Poetry. University of Delaware Press, Associated University Presses, 2001. 321 pp. $47.50     

Faces and Facets of the Kantosou Kou Xat – The Lao “National Liberation Struggle” in State Commemoration and Historiography

Contemporary Lao history and politics are characterised by an ambivalent ideological hybrid of cultural heritage protection and revolutionary glorification. Even though Buddhism and its related ritual practices appear to have regained considerable ground in official nation-building strategies, the “national liberation struggle” (Lao: kantosou kou xat) continues to constitute a key element of the national discourse as represented by official historiography and state iconography. In fact, the revival of royal-Buddhist images is linked to the “struggle”, since past kings of the Lao Buddhist kingdom of Lane Xang are at present re-interpreted as proto-national patriotic fighters on behalf of the so-called “Lao multi-ethnic people”.

This paper argues that the different aspects of official Lao history and memory politics are directed towards the twin goals of ideological nation building and the self-legitimisation of the present regime. Heroic kings such as Anouvong and Setthathilat are highlighted as ancestors of Kaysone Phomvihane and other revolutionaries of the twentieth century within a genealogy of national heroes. Besides discussing present historiographical narratives of the Lao “struggle”, this paper explores material and performative aspects of state commemoration, in particular with regard to national lieux de mémoire and public events.     

Beyond the Fringe: Transfer-Printed Ceramics and the Internationalization of Celtic Myth

During the Romantic period of the nineteenth century, a wholesale invention of cultural myth and tradition took place in what we now think of as the industrialized West. One of the more interesting aspects of this invention of tradition was the development of the mythic Celtic past in Western Europe, particularly Scotland and Wales. This reinvention of the past is reflected in aspects of material culture, including contemporary transfer-print patterns, many of which contain scenes based on the themes of the mythic past. This paper surveys some of the more common Scottish- and Welsh-related patterns and attempts to place them in their appropriate cultural and historical context as well as demonstrating how they reflect certain cultural trends of the period. Some of the broader issues and implications surrounding these patterns, especially regarding their use as a vehicle for disseminating an ideological perspective internationally, are also examined.     

秦简《归妹》卦辞与"嫦娥奔月"神话

王家台秦简《归妹》卦残辞,经与传本和张衡《灵宪》所引古本《归妹》缀合,得以恢复原貌。它说明秦简、传本和古本《归藏》的内容基本相同。以往“嫦娥奔月”神话最早见于《淮南子》,秦简《归妹》的发现把这个故事产生的年代提前到战国早中期。“嫦娥奔月”神话源于殷墟卜辞的月神“西母”,是从《山海经》“帝俊妻常羲生月十有二”的月母“常羲”演变而来。这个神话的原型并未涉及到天神羿,所谓“羿请不死之药于西王母”和“嫦娥,羿妻也”,当是两汉时人撮合的结果。“嫦娥”所窃的“不死之药”,就是“可令人飞行长生”的蟾蜍。她“奔月”的真正目的,就是能使月亮不断地“死而复生”。这就是“嫦娥奔月”后变为“蟾蜍”的根本原因。     

Coming to Terms with Violence: Sacrifice,collective memory and reconciliation in inter-war Finland

This article connects notions of collective memory to the notion of cultural memory. Special interest is given to the role of national myths and other cultural reservoirs in organizing Finnish collective memories during the period from the Civil War of 1918 until the beginning of the Second World War. First the author seeks to uncover the ways both sides of the conflict utilized cultural reservoirs in their memory cultures. Then the author looks into ways in which the Social Democrats especially tried in the late 1930s to transform divisive and even traumatic experiences resulting from the Civil War into socially productive narratives. The transformation of the memory of the internal and reciprocal violence into unifying self-sacrifices proved to be the most crucial act in Finnish memory culture during the first half of the 20th century. This interpretation dates the first acts of public reconciliation to the late 1930s, or the time before the Winter War.     

20世纪九十年代以来《庄子》神话研究综述简

《庄子》中存在着大量的神话材料,自王国维开启以神话眼光看《庄子》的先河后,鲁迅、郎擎霄、闻一多、茅盾、顾颉刚等许多学者开始关注《庄子》与神话的关系,并取得了一定的成绩。进入新时期后,对《庄子》神话的研究进入了一个更深更全面的阶段,鉴于此,有必要对研究成果进行一番梳理,有利于推动《庄子》神话研究的发展。《庄子》神话研究成果主要集中在神话与寓言研究、神话原型和意象研究、神话思维研究、神仙思想研究。     

Political myth and sacrifice*

This article examines the relationship between political myth and sacrifice. In recent years, as a result of theoretical advances as well as practical concern to understand the rapidly changing landscape of contemporary politics, the phenomenon of political myth has attracted increasing scholarly attention. This has led to a refined and robust theory of political myth, with a sharp analytical edge and relevant practical applications. The relationship between political myth and sacrifice, however, has not been convincingly addressed so far. Gathering insights from the works of Hannah Arendt and Hans Blumenberg, it is argued here that while political myths succeed in providing guidance and orientation to people in a world that is significant to them, they may also involve a loss of sense of reality and produce a dangerous logic of sacrifice.