AmericanBritishCanadianStudies23 PDF

AMERICAN, BRITISH AND CANADIAN STUDIES
Volume Twenty-three
LUCIAN BLAGA
UNIVERSITY PRESS
December 2014
American, British and Canadian Studies, the Journal of the Academic

Anglophone Society of Romania, appears biannually. It is a peer-reviewed
journal that sets out to explore the intersections of culture, technology and the
human sciences in the age of electronic information. It publishes work by
scholars of any nationality on Anglophone Studies, Comparative Literary and
Cultural Studies, Postcolonial Theory, Social and Political Science,
Anthropology, Area Studies, Multimedia and Digital Arts and related subjects.
Articles addressing influential crosscurrents in current academic thinking are
particularly welcome. ABC Studies also publishes book reviews and review
essays, interviews, conference reports, notes and comments.
Contributors need not be members of the Academic Anglophone Society of
Romania. Decisions on articles submitted are normally made within two months
and accepted contributions published within three months. Articles published in
ABC Studies are abstracted and indexed on the journals official website. Detailed
guidelines for submission are given on the journals official website
http://abcjournal.ulbsibiu.ro/. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their
references. Contributions can include: articles, in-depth interviews with both
established and emerging thinkers and writers, notes on groundbreaking research,
and reviews of recently published fiction and critical works.
The Academic Anglophone Society of Romania was founded in 1997 to promote

shape-changing research across conventional boundaries in English Studies
within Romania. It welcomes applications for membership from scholars
interested in any aspect of academic scholarship in English and the humanities.
Enquiries concerning current subscription rates and applications for membership
should be addressed to Dr Ana-Karina Schneider, Department of AngloAmerican and German Studies, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Bulevardul
Victoriei 5-7, 550024 Sibiu, Romania, or at aasr@ulbsibiu.ro.
The Academic Anglophone Society of Romania

Lucian Blaga University Press 2014
Bulevardul Victoriei 5-7
550024 Sibiu
ROMANIA
aasr@ulbsibiu.ro
http://abcjournal.ulbsibiu.ro/
Printed in Romania by Lucian Blaga University Press, Sibiu
Contents
De interpretatione recta...: Early Modern Theories of

Translation
OANA-ALIS ZAHARIA
Talk of contracts: Gift-giving vs. Reciprocity in James

Joyces A Mother
CAMELIA RAGHINARU
25
Lacan Frames Scorseses Paintings in The Age of Innocence

PAULA ANCA FARCA
40
Seeing the Novel, Reading the Film: Unveiling Masculinity,

Englishness and Power Struggle in Arthur Conan Doyles
The Hound of the Baskervilles
IRINA I. SIMONOVA STROUT
60
Performing Arabness in Arab American Stand-up Comedy

YASSER FOUAD SELIM
77
American Art Criticism between the Cultural and the

Ideological (I)
GABRIEL C. GHERASIM
93
Canadas Evolving Crown: From a British Crown to a

Crown of Maples
SCOTT NICHOLAS ROMANIUK and JOSHUA K. WASYLCIW
108
Book Reviews
126
Tina Managhan, Gender, Agency and War: The Maternalized Body in US

Foreign Policy
SCOTT NICHOLAS ROMANIUK
127
Amin Ghaziani, There Goes the Gayborhood?

ADRIANA NEAGU
131
Dennis Gruending, Pulpit and Politics: Competing Religious Ideologies in

Canadian Public Life
136
Notes on Contributors
140
Call for Submissions, ABC 24: Changing Screen Cultures:

New Archaeologies, Ecologies, Topologies
144
Call for Membership
148
De interpretatione recta...
De interpretatione recta...:
Early Modern Theories of Translation
OANA-ALIS ZAHARIA
Dimitrie Cantemir University, Bucharest
Abstract
Translation has been essential to the development of languages and
cultures throughout the centuries, particularly in the early modern period
when it became a cornerstone of the process of transition from Latin to
vernacular productions, in such countries as France, Italy, England and
Spain. This process was accompanied by a growing interest in defining
the rules and features of the practice of translation. The present article
aims to examine the principles that underlay the highly intertextual early
modern translation theory by considering its classical sources and
development. It focuses on subjects that were constantly reiterated in any
discussion about translation: the debate concerning the best methods of
translation, the sense-for-sense/ word-for-word dichotomy a topos that
can be traced to the discourse on translation initiated by Cicero and
Horace and was further developed by the Church fathers, notably St.
Jerome, and eventually inherited by both medieval and Renaissance
translators. Furthermore, it looks at the differences and continuities that
characterise the medieval and Renaissance discourses on translation with
a focus on the transition from the medieval, free manner of translation to
the humanist, philological one.
Keywords: translation studies, early modern theory of translation,
classical translation theory, literal/ word-for-word translation, sense-forsense translation, medieval vs. humanist translation
Translation represented a vital and central contribution to the evolution of

all great cultural movements of early modern Europe, particularly in the
Renaissance when, with the advent of printing, an unprecedented flurry of
translation activity furthered the cultural exchange of ideas among
American, British and Canadian Studies / 6
European nations. The two major intellectual forces of the period,

Humanism with the Italian-inspired revival of classical texts and the
Reformation with its various European ramifications and investment in
Bible translation, promoted and mobilized translation (Delabastita 47).
The emergence and development of vernacular literatures from the tenth
century onwards across Europe involved the translation, adaptation and
absorption of works produced in other cultural contexts, especially the
newly rediscovered texts of the Greek and Latin Antiquity. Having these
texts in the vernacular encouraged the growth of national literatures and
the development of a national identity. Since the Middle Ages writers and
translators emphasised the didactic and moral purpose of translation into
the vernacular, its pre-eminent role in the dissemination of knowledge
which was underlined by its power to grant access to formerly privileged
and restricted information. Starting with the second half of the sixteenth
century, the educational role of translation began to be gradually
supplemented by another function which seemed equally significant,
namely the instrumental part that translation played in the formation of a
national language and identity. Like their medieval predecessors,
Renaissance translators emphasised the significant role of translations in
spreading understanding and knowledge among common people.
As is well known, Latin was until well into the sixteenth century the
main intellectual means of communication, performing the role of lingua
franca within the European context. However, the development of
printing at the end of the fifteenth century brought about the emergence of
a new audience which was not necessarily literate in Latin, by widening
and facilitating access to all types of texts. Consequently, in the sixteenth
century, translation became a universal, transcultural phenomenon; the
translation of the Bible into the vernacular and translations from the
classics began to be accompanied by translations of major works of
vernacular literature (Ariostos Orlando Furioso, Cervantes Don
Quixote), of various political treatises (Innocent Gentillets AntiMachiavel, Jean Bodins Six Books of the Commonwealth, Justus
Lipsiuss Sixe Bookes of Politickes or Civil Doctrine) and of
contemporary historical works (Francesco Guicciardinis History of Italy,
Machiavellis The Prince and History of Florence). This diversification of
7 De interpretatione recta...
translation is indicative of the interest expressed by such European nations

as France, Italy, Spain and England for the literature, culture and history
of their neighbours. The translation of these various types of texts into the
vernacular is significant as it shows that there were works that appealed
across cultural boundaries in spite of the clashes that these often
competing nations had in the political and cultural fields, in the early
modern period.
This article sets out to investigate the heavily intertextual
environment that led to the development of the early modern European
translation discourse by examining the fundamental principles that
underlay the early modern theories of translation of French, Italian,
Spanish and English writers and translators. By surveying some of the
most influential theories of translation from the Antiquity to the
Renaissance I aim to highlight the manner in which certain ideas about
translation inherited from the Greek and Latin Antiquity were
appropriated, adapted and transmitted throughout the centuries by means
of the theoretical discourses of these European writers and translators.
Consequently, I focus on what I have identified to be some of the
recurrent topics in the early modern discourse on translation: the debate
concerning the best way to translate a text from one language into another
and the confrontation regarding the distinction between the ad
verbum/word-for-word mode of translation and the ad sensum/sense-forsense alternative of rendering a text into a different language. These issues
were either formulated along specific theoretical lines in treatises on the
art of translating or developed in the translators more or less authoritative
prefatorial comments.
Literal versus Rhetorical Translation: From the Latin

Antiquity to the Middle Ages
In order to enhance our understanding of the circumstances that led to the
development of the fundamental principles the word-for-word versus
sense-for-sense method of translation and the characteristics of a good
translation that underlay early modern thinking about translation we
have to follow a historical line that goes back to the Greek and Latin
Antiquity, when some of the earliest pronouncements on translation were

issued. The word-for-word/ sense-for-sense topos can be traced, as has
been noted by various translation scholars, to the classical discourse on
translation initiated by Cicero and Horace and was further developed by
the Church fathers, notably St. Jerome; this discourse has been carried
over through the Middle Ages into the Renaissance.
Ciceros most famous statement on the difference between
translating ut interpres and translating ut orator was to become the
cornerstone of any debate about translation from the Antiquity onwards.
Ciceros most frequently quoted comments on translation occur in De
optimo genere oratorum (The Best Kind of Orator), a treatise meant as an
introduction to his non-extant translation of two speeches by Demosthenes
and by his rival Aeschines. In this text, Cicero argues in favour of a sensefor-sense translation, highlighting the opposition between the two possible
ways of translating as an interpreter and as an orator:
And I did not translate as an interpreter, but as an orator, keeping the same
ideas and the forms, or as one might say, the figures of thought, but in
language which conforms to our usage. And in so doing, I did not hold
necessary to render word for word, but I preserved the general style and
force of the language. For I did not think I ought to count them out to the
reader like coins, but to pay them by weight as it were. (Cicero 9)
To translate as an interpreter means, therefore, to gloss word for

word, to render the text with utter fidelity, without paying special
attention to its rhetorical features, while to translate as an orator
involves not merely conveying but persuading the reader as to what he
[the translator-orator] believes the original means (Lloyd-Jones 39); it
exercises the productive power of rhetoric (Copeland 2). According to
Rita Copeland, Ciceros emphasis on the importance of a sense-for-sense,
rhetorical translation should be linked to his endeavour to assert Latins
linguistic and philosophical independence from its Greek sources (47).
Thus, in his De finibus bonorum et malorum, Cicero maintains that when
translating Greek philosophical terms into Latin he preserved the meaning
of the source text, but added to it his own criticism and arrangement:
And supposing that for our part we do not fill the office of a mere
translator, but, while preserving the doctrines of our chosen authorities,
add thereto our own criticism and our own arrangement: what ground have
these objectors for ranking the writings of Greece above compositions that
are once brilliant in style and no mere translations from Greek originals?
Perhaps they will rejoin that the subject has been dealt with by the Greeks
already. But then what reason have they for reading the multitude of Greek
authors either that one has to read? . . . If Greek writers find Greek readers
when presenting the same subjects in a differing setting, why should not
Romans be read by Romans? (Cicero 7-9)
The aim of rhetorical translation is, therefore, to re-create and

subsequently substitute the Latin text for the Greek one. Augmenting and
challenging the Greek source are thus turned into imperatives of the
translation project, into important elements in the process of
appropriating and displacing the authority of the original so as to invent a
model of Atticism within Latinitas (Copeland 47). The strategy of
appropriating the source text in order to displace it will be later applied by
medieval and Renaissance translators to the rendition of Latin texts into
vernaculars. Thus, in England, the ambition to conquer Latin literature
and culture and to replace Latin with English in a process similar to the
appropriation and displacement of the Greek culture and language by
Latin authors becomes increasingly explicit in the sixteenth century. In the
preface to his translation of Plinys History of the World, Philemon
Holland reprimands all those critics of translation into the vernacular for
considering their native country and mother tongue inferior to Latin:
Certes, such Moral, or critics as these, besides their blind and erroneous
opinion, think not so honourably of their native country and mother tongue
as they ought: who, if they were so well affected that way as they should
be, would wish rather, and endeavour by all means to triumph now over
the Romans in subduing their literature under the dent of the English pen,
in requitall for the conquest sometime over this Island, achieved by the
edge of their sword. (Holland 23)
Furthermore, he highlights the real chances for such a victory to occur by

arguing that in Plinys times Latin was a language as common and natural
to the people of Italy as English was at that moment. If the Romans could
manage to cultivate their language so as to become as elegant and rich as

Greek, then English could also reach the same heights (Holland 23).
Another Ciceronian quotation that will be invoked by later
generations of translators in order to argue for free translation and
imitation as methods to coin new words and enrich the language comes
from De oratore (On the Orator):
I decided to take speeches written in Greek by great orators and to
translate them freely, and I obtained the following results: by giving a
Latin form to the text I had read I could not only make use of the best
expressions in common usage with us, but I could also coin new
expressions, analogous to those used in Greek, and they were no less well
received by our people as long as they seemed appropriate. (47)
Ciceros promotion of a sense-for-sense method of translation was later

echoed in Horaces Ars Poetica (18 B.C.), a poem devised in the form of
an epistle of advice on the pursuit of literature, whose brief references to
the art of translation (e.g. nec verbo verbum curabis reddere fidus
interpres) became in the following eras an authoritative, frequently
quoted landmark of translation theory. Commenting on the difficulty of
treating common and familiar material appropriately, Horace offers some
useful advice on these matters:
It is hard to treat in your own way what is common: and you are doing
better in spinning into acts a song of Troy than if, for the first time, you
were giving the world a theme unknown and unsung. In ground open to
all you will win private rights, if you do not linger along the easy and
open pathway, if you do not seek to render word for word as a slavish
translator, and if in your copying you do not leap into the narrow well,
out of which either shame or the laws of your task will keep you from
stirring or not. (Horace 461)
The meaning of these lines from Ars Poetica came to be understood in a

variety of ways and served different theoretical purposes in different
cultural contexts (Copeland 45-55). Depending on the interpretation one
provided, Horaces comments were used either to support the cause of
rhetorical translation or to defend an ad-verbum fidelity to the original.
One popular interpretation of Horaces quote is provided by Saint
Jerome who was the author of the Vulgate Latin translation of the Bible
and one of the most important mediators of the Roman writers legacy to
the Christian Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In his Letter 57, To
Pammachius, On the Best Method of Translating, St. Jerome invoked the
authority of both Cicero and Horace to advocate a sense-for-sense method
of translation in the case of non-scriptural texts:
For I myself not only admit but freely proclaim that in translating from the
Greek (except in the case of the holy scriptures where even the order of the
words is a mystery) I render sense for sense and not word for word. . . .
Horace too, an acute and learned writer, in his Art of Poetry gives the
same advice to the skilled translator: And care not with over anxious
thought / To render word for word. (St. Jerome 5)
Like Cicero, St. Jerome equated literalism with utter clumsiness and
claimed that a word-for-word translation rendered the meaning of the text
obscure and betrayed the original:
It is difficult in following lines laid down by others not sometimes to
diverge from them, and it is hard to preserve in a translation the charm of
expressions which in another language are most felicitous. . . . If I render
word for word, the result will sound uncouth, and if compelled by
necessity I alter anything in the order or wording, I shall seem to have
departed from the function of a translator. . . . If any one imagines that
translation does not impair the charm of style, let him render Homer word
for word into Latin . . . and the result will be that the order of the words
will seem ridiculous and the most eloquent of poets scarcely articulate. (5)
Rita Copeland notices the possible allusion to Horaces dictum, It is hard

to treat in your own way what is common, in the first part of this
quotation. She further notices that Jerome practically inverts the Horatian
principle of licensed transgression (in order to win rights over public
property, you have to be different and not linger on the trodden path,
therefore not to try to render word for word), offering instead a principle
of conformity and fidelity (in order not to diverge from your
predecessors path you have to translate sense for sense and not word for
word which would impair the meaning of the text): the difficulty of
achieving difference becomes, in Jerome, the difficulty of conserving
likeness (Copeland 48).
In the late Middle Ages, St. Jeromes authoritative statements in

favour of a sense-for-sense policy of translation were invoked even in the
context of biblical translation although Jerome himself advocated the
strictest literalism when he discussed the translation of the Bible. As
Copeland points out, the General Prologue to the Wycliffite Bible . . .
uses Hieronymian arguments against literalism as part of a larger effort to
ensure the openness of the sacred text, to protect its meaning from the
interference of verbal clutter (51). The Wycliffite Bibles use of Jeromes
pronouncements on translation is a significant example of the manner in
which theories of translation were constantly appropriated or
misappropriated, adapted, recontextualised and put to different uses from
the ones of their original context.
A similar example is Boethius appropriation and interpretation of
Horaces fidus interpres. In his introduction to the second edition of the
Commentary on Porphyrys Isagoge, he inverted the common
understanding of the famous Horatian quotation, turning Horace into an
advocate of literalism. Not only did he invoke Horaces authority in
support of word-for-word translation, but, as Copeland argues, he also
transferred Jeromes project for the literal translation of the Bible to the
translation of philosophy (52). Commenting on his manner of translating,
Boethius contended that in those texts which further knowledge of things,
one should translate word for word so that the reader should have access
to the uncorrupted truth of the text (in Weissbort & Eysteinsson 33).
Copeland is again helpful in understanding Boethiuss twofold
inversion of the terms of the translation equation: according to her, he
turned both Jeromes and Ciceros dicta on their head. Whereas Jerome
contended that a literal translation clouded and hindered the meaning of
the text, Boethius maintained the opposite, namely that the uncorrupted
truth of the text could not be preserved unless the text was translated
respecting the exact order of the words (Copeland 53). While Cicero
advocated the sense-for-sense rhetorical translation as a means of
supplanting and gaining independence from the Greek culture, Boethius
claimed that what was needed to replace the Greek philosophical texts
was precisely a literal translation of these texts. By literally translating
them, one could indeed lose the power of eloquence, the sparkling style,
but one secured the true meaning of the text; consequently, Greek
originals would no longer be necessary.
All these theoretical assumptions about the best manner of
translating were inherited, though sometimes in an altered and
recontextualized form, by both medieval and Renaissance translators who
founded their own arguments about the art of translation upon the
theoretical precedents of Cicero, Horace, St. Jerome and Boethius.
Medieval vs. Humanist Theories of Translation

The Latin writers legacy was transmitted to the Middle Ages and
subsequently to the Renaissance, where it served as a model for the
ideological confrontation between Latinity and vernacularity and also as a
medium for the transmission of the sense-for-sense/ word-for-word
debate. Theo Hermans defines literalism as the hard core of the medieval
regime (Hermans 1992: 99), but also as the law of translation in the
sixteenth century, the innermost core and unattainable ideal of the
sixteenth-century translator (Hermans 1997: 14). Nevertheless, he also
acknowledges that towards the middle of the century the word-for-word
principle started to lose ground as the duty of the translator under the
pressure exerted by vernacular translators, who became more aware of the
grammatical and ideological differences between languages, and by the
Humanist-inspired translators, such as Jacques Amyot and Thomas Elyot,
who redefined the field of translation with their insistence on style and
rhetorical propriety (Hermans 1997: 35-36).
Some recent studies on medieval translation have placed the
emergence and development of medieval theories of translation within the
rhetorical context of the medieval commentary and exegesis. They
revealed how medieval academic traditions informed the growth of the
literary vernaculars as self-conscious rivals to Latinity, and to each other,
in the last two centuries of the medieval period. Copeland underscores the
importance of rhetoric and hermeneutics in the processes of cultural
translation and their role as models for the relation between translation
and original and for the assimilation of a source text through exegetic
paraphrase. Thus, she contends that vernacular poets such as Chaucer,
Gower and Dante produced literary works shaped on the model of

classical authors and used both rhetorical and hermeneutic modes in order
to alternate the roles of poetic inventors and exegetes in their attempt to
displace the cultural authority of the Latin source and replace it with their
own. These texts used the techniques of exegetical translation to produce,
not a supplement to the original, but a vernacular substitute for that
original (Copeland 179). On the other hand, critics such as Nicholas
Watson argue for the existence of less aggressive accounts of the
relationship between medieval translation and original texts, suggesting a
different approach to the study of medieval theories of translation;
namely, the study of the vernacular lexis of translation itself, as this is
deployed in the translators prologues which introduce so many texts
written in the period (75).
Notwithstanding the theoretical approach adopted, the conclusions
of these studies are rather similar: most medieval translators of secular
works styled themselves as innovators, poetic inventors, and amenders. A
typical example of this attitude is most interestingly expressed in John
Lydgates Prologue to his Fall of Princes (c.1431-1438), a rendering of
Boccaccios De Casibus Virorum Illustrium into English that used as an
intermediary the expanded French version of Laurent de Premierfaits Des
cas des nobles hommes et femmes (1409). As Watson points out, Lydgate
inherited from Laurent a pattern for his own translation method, a model
that manifestly endorsed translatorial inventiveness, envisaging
translators as craftsmen and potters who were responsible for
chaunging and turning the form as well as the language of their originals,
in pursuit of a renovation of the source material (Watson 84). In order to
attain these aims medieval translators added and omitted material at will,
using their sources as means to a new ideological end which could be
reached by the rhetorical means of inventio: they transfer past works to
the medieval present by rewriting, thus adapting the knowledge and
wisdom of the past to contemporary conditions (Summerfield & Allen
332-333).
The medieval theory and practice of translation came under scrutiny
and began to be questioned in the Renaissance when the first attempts at
establishing a humanist theory of translation were registered in Italy at the
end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth century
(Morini 8). One of the key texts of the new humanistic learning, published
in the 1420s, was Leonardo Brunis treatise De interpretatione recta, The
Right Way to Translate, which has been considered the first substantial
theoretical statement on translation since St. Jeromes letter to
Pammachius (Copenhaver 82). Bruni was the author of a popular Latin
history of Florence and of the biographies in Latin of Cicero and Aristotle.
He was also the translator into Latin of the Greek works of Plato,
Aristotle, Plutarch, Demosthenes and schines (Burke online).
Driven by the fact that he had been reprimanded for having
criticized the mistakes made by the previous translators of Aristotles
Nicomachean Ethics, Bruni drew a detailed list of the requirements and
qualities of a good translator. Stating that the first condition of a good
translation was that what is written in one language should be well
translated into another (82), Bruni emphasised the importance of
possessing thorough knowledge of the source and target languages and
revealed the methods for attaining such a high level of knowledge.
According to Bruni, a worthy translator must thoroughly read and
assimilate the works of all great philosophers, orators and poets; he has to
internalise them in order to be able to transform himself into the original
author with all his mind, will, and soul (83-84). Moreover, he has to have
a firm grasp of the target language too and be able to dominate it and
hold it entirely into his power (83). Furthermore, the translator should
possess a good ear so that he may be able to identify the harmony and
elegance of the text. Since all good writers combine what they want to
say about things with the art of writing itself, a good translator has to be
prepared to serve both masters (84). As Massimiliano Morini has noted,
the novelty of Brunis treatise resides in the fact that he demanded for
secular translation the same high standards that were commonly reserved
for the translation of the Bible (9).
Unlike previous translators, Bruni attached special importance to
the translators responsibility towards his readers and towards the author
of the original, which is why he felt entitled to censure and reprimand
those translators who made themselves guilty of countless and
unforgivable blunders (84). Given that each writer uses his particular
figures of speech, a good translator has to conform to the authors manner

of writing, since the most important rule of translation is to keep to the
shape of the original text as closely as possible so that understanding
does not lose the words any more than the words themselves lose
brilliance and craftsmanship (Bruni 85). Although the translator has to
preserve everything, including all the features of a text written in a
copious and ornate style, Bruni maintains that in order to keep the very
essence of the text intact the translator has to modify the original text (8485). Morini elucidates this apparent inconsistence in Brunis theory: in
spite of the translators total identification with the original author, the
source text has to be redressed into the target text by a careful reworking
of rhetorical structure and effects (Morini 10). These ideas are clearly
informed by Ciceros understanding of translation and his insistence on
the merits of rhetorical translation.
Nevertheless, Bruni and most of the humanists following in his
footsteps add a further dimension to the requirements of classical
rhetorical translation: that of philology. Brunis attempt to systematize
the relationship between rhetoric and philological translation (Norton 39)
was his response to the rediscovery of Ciceros Brutus and De Oratore in
northern Italy, a few years before the publication of his essay. Brunis
seminal ideas were subsequently spread and rewritten first in France,
Spain and Germany and much later in England by means of the literary
activity and cultural influence of such humanist thinkers as Erasmus,
Etienne Dolet, Juan Luis Vives, and John Christopherson.
Erasmus seems to echo Bruni when he emphasises the importance
of possessing a thorough knowledge of the two languages by
accumulating an abundance of material (Erasmus 60) at the beginning of
a letter addressed to William Warham in 1506. He claims that a worthy
translator has to be an exceptional craftsman who must be in possession
of a piercing eye that is always wakeful (60). However, Erasmuss
translator-craftsman is utterly different from Lydgates medieval
translator-potter/ craftsman who could inventively modify the text
according to his own will. Erasmuss translator is very scrupulous and
renders the text literally, particularly when it comes to translating the
classics. Writing about his translation of two tragedies by Euripides,
Erasmus states that he aimed to translate them verse for verse, almost
word for word (60), trying to preserve both the shape and the style of the
Greek poems. Maintaining that in translating the classics I do not
completely approve of that freedom Cicero allows himself and others to
excess, Erasmus strikingly echoes Boethiuss defence of literal
translation: the latter had argued that he preferred to sin through
excessive scrupulousness rather than through excessive license (60).
Juan Luis Vivess Versions or Translations (1531) is informed by
both Ciceros and Leonardo Brunis theories of translation. Vives
addresses several important and recurrent translation issues. First, he
distinguishes between three types of translation and discusses their
particularities: one in which only the sense is rendered, another in which
only the phrasing and the diction are considered, and finally a third in
which both the matter and the words are important, in which words bring
power and elegance to the senses (Vives 50). These three categories
seem to correspondent to the different types of texts translated, although
the categorization of the latter is rather vague. According to Vives, when
translating texts like the speeches of Demosthenes and Cicero, the
translator should attend to the dispositio of the text and the figures of
speech. Noting the inexorable linguistic and stylistic difference between
one language and another, Vives argues, following Cicero and quoting
Quintilian, that, in the case of texts written with only the sense in mind,
the translator should render the text freely and should be allowed to
omit or to add in order to improve the clarity of meaning (50).
Vives also echoes Luthers recently published Open Letter on
Translation (1530)1 which had stressed the idiomatic nature of language
and argued that one should translate as the usage dictated if that helped
the clear representation of meaning:
It is impossible to express the figures of speech and patterns characteristic
of one language in another, even less so when they are idiomatic, and I fail
to see what purpose would be served in admitting solecisms and
barbarisms with the sole aim of representing the sense with as many words
as are used in the original, the way some translations of Aristotle or Holy
Writ have been made. (51)
Nevertheless, he concedes, there are translations of the sense, such as the

Holy Bible or Aristotles works, which, being very complex and difficult
to understand, should be rendered word for word so that each reader
should be left to judge by himself (51).
There are two more significant issues that Vives discusses in his
essay. He takes over and reworks Brunis idea about the responsibility of
the translator towards his reader and the original author and emphasises
the importance of possessing not only a good command of the source
language but also thorough knowledge of the contents of the text.
Eventually, Vives elaborates on the advantage of imitating and borrowing
figures of speech and style, advocating the use of the language of the
original as a sort of matrix that could help one coin new words and
enrich the language of ones nation (51). Vivess extremely intertextual
essay had in turn a great impact on the seminal writings of the French
poet, translator and literary theorist, Joachim du Bellay.
In France, some of the most notable early modern ideas on
translation were articulated in the works of Etienne Dolet and Joachim du
Bellay. All of them drew heavily on their predecessors. Of these, Etienne
Dolet, characterised by James S. Holmes as not only translations theorist
but also its martyr (73), was found guilty of heresy for erroneously
translating a passage from Plato, hanged and burned at the stake in 1546.
Nonetheless, as Kenneth Lloyd-Jones shows, his formulations of the
principles of good translation, outlined in his treatise La manire de bien
traduire dune langue en aultre (1540), represent on the one hand, the
most elaborate reworking of Brunis translation theory, and on the other
hand, his response to Erasmus ideas on language, imitative writing,
interpretation, and translation (51). Dolet had engaged in a polemic with
Erasmus over the latters Ciceronianus or, a Dialogue on the Best Style of
Speaking (1528), a text in which Erasmus made a strong case against
those humanists who had come to look upon Cicero as the exclusive
model for all Latin composition. These Ciceronians used only the words
and constructions found in the writings of their classical master and
employ any kind of circumlocution to achieve their target (Izora &
Monroe 8). Erasmuss fundamental argument against Ciceronians was
informed by the Christian discourse of the day and claimed that to
express the mysteries and truths of Christianity while limiting oneself to

the language of pagan Latinity is, of necessity, to fall into the promotion
of pagan values oneself (Lloyd-Jones 43). Dolet, the student of Simon de
Villeneuve one of Europes most accomplished Ciceronians must have
embarked on this polemic with a mixture of genuine conviction and barefaced opportunism, as a means of making a name for himself (LloydJones 46).
In La manire de bien traduire, Dolet lists five points for good
translation which, despite their considerable and acknowledged debt to
Cicero, rely heavily on Leonardo Brunis De interpretatione recta:
In the first place, the translator must understand perfectly the sense and
matter of the author he is translating, for having this understanding he will
never be obscure in his translations . . . . The second thing that is required
in translating is that the translators have perfect knowledge of the language
of the author he is translating, and be likewise excellent in the language
into which he is going to translate. . . . Bethink you that every language
has its own properties, turns of phrase, expressions, subtleties, and
vehemences that are peculiar to it. . . . The third point is that in translating
one must not be servile to the point of rendering word for word. (Dolet 74)
These first two points represent a reworking of Brunis ideas and reiterate
his insistence on the fact that translators should have perfect knowledge of
the two languages they are using and also understand thoroughly the
meaning and content of the work they are translating. The third point
places Dolet in the camp of those who favoured a sense-for-sense manner
of translation and evokes Horaces characterization of those who translate
word for word as being slavish translators. The fourth point recalls
Luthers and Vivess emphasis on the use of common language and
avoidance of adopting Latin words foolishly or out of reprehensible
curiousness (75). According to Dolet, the import of new words from
Latin and Greek, which are much richer than vernacular languages such as
French, Italian, Spanish or English, should take place only out of sheer
necessity. Still, the best practice remains to follow the common
language (75). The fifth and final rule invokes once more the authority of
Ciceros writings and refers to the observation of elocutio, that is, a
joining and arranging of terms with such sweetness that not alone the soul
is pleased, but also the ear is delighted and never hurt by such harmony of
language (75). Therefore, in order to serve the target language as
devotedly as possible, one has to combine intellectual competence with an
acute awareness of the manner in which the text is translated.
Joachim Du Bellays highly influential Dfense et illustration de la
langue franaise (1549), the manifesto of the famous literary group La
Pliade, constitutes in its turn the adaptation and appropriation of the
discourses on translation of its predecessors, notably Cicero, Bruni, Vives
and Dolet. Remarking on the poor state of the French language by
comparison to the copiousness and richness of Greek and Latin, Du Bellay
pleads for the paramount importance of cultivating the French language
which had been improperly tended to by his ancestors (in Weissbort &
Eysteinsson 77). Stating that translation, although a laudable thing in
itself, is not sufficient to raise the French vernacular to the heights and
elegance of more famous languages, Du Bellay suggests that the Roman
process of appropriating the Greek language and culture by means of
imitation should also be followed by the French men of letters (in
Weissbort & Eysteinsson 78-79). Being an extremely demanding goal, the
process of borrowing and imitating the Greek and Latin language should
be undertaken solely by skilful writers and translators who are able to
follow well the excellent qualities of a good author (79). Echoing both
Bruni and Vives, Du Bellay contends that in order to accomplish this aim
one has to transform oneself so as to penetrate to the secret, innermost
part of an author (in Weissbort & Eysteinsson 79). His insistence on the
attention that should be paid to what and how is being imitated echoes
once more Vives and Dolet, both of whom urged translators not to imitate
foolishly and hastily but responsibly.
All these principles of the humanist translation made their way into
England towards the beginning of the sixteenth century. The influential
presence of two of the most distinguished humanists Erasmus and Juan
Luis Vives2 in the English cultural milieu may have facilitated the
introduction of the humanist translation theories into England. Two of the
leading English translators into Latin, Laurence Humphrey and John
Christopherson, expressed their views on translation in theoretical terms
that were considerably informed by the translation discourse of the earlier
humanists, Vives in particular, as well as by the writings of Cicero and St.

Jerome.
Laurence Humphreys Interpretatio Linguarum, seu de ratione
convertendi et explicandi autores tam sacros quam prophanos, libri tres
(i.e. The Translation of Languages, or On the logic of converting/
translating and explaining authors, sacred as well as profane, three books)
published in Basel, in 1559, and dedicated to Sir Thomas Wroth, has been
characterised as the fullest statement of translation principles from a
sixteenth-century Englishman (Cummings 274). In this treatise
Humphrey reworks Vivess classification of the three possible methods of
translation and ranges each type of translation on an evaluation scale.
Thus, purely literal translation is ranked as the lowest type, closely
followed by overly free translations; the ideal third type which represents
the middle way between these two extremes, a via media that is both
faithful and elegant, is placed at the top of the scale (Binns 219).
Humphrey also touches upon the issues of poetical imitation and
Ciceronianism and argues in favour of a vernacular meaning-for-meaning
translation of the Bible. Similarly, in the dedication to Sir Anthony Cave,
prefaced to his translation of the Disputatio contra Marcionistas
(attributed to Origen), Humphrey echoes Cicero, particularly his statement
that he did not count the words of his translation like coins, but paid them
by weight:
I translated the work from the Greek from a manuscript codex of Froben,
rendering the meaning not the words, having regard not to the number of
words but to their weight, everywhere taking precautions to the best of my
ability that the meaning of the Greek should not be overthrown, as usually
happens, and perish in translation. (in Weissbort & Eysteinsson 103)
Humphreys views on translation were also shared by John

Christopherson, another prolific English translator into Latin, whose
translations of Greek authors were gathered under the title Historia
ecclesiastica scriptores greci and printed in Louvain in 1569 (Binns 218221). In his introductory Prooemium interpretis which is actually a
miniature treatise on the Art of Translation (Binns 218), Christopherson
argues that when translating from Greek into Latin he attempted both to
express faithfully the meaning of the text and to render its forms of speech
and harmony by imitating them so that the text should not be greatly
different from the source text (in Weissbort & Eysteinsson 103). The
four rules laid down by Christopherson echo the requirements made by
the earlier Italian and French humanists with their emphasis on rendering
the sense as well as the rhetorical features of the text. In order to support
his defence of the sense-for-sense translation in the case of texts other
than the Scriptures, where the order of the words should be kept due to the
sacredness of the text, Christopherson invokes St. Jeromes authority:
For although in translating the Scriptures the order of the words should be
retained, as St Jerome says, because it is a mystery: yet in the translation
of other Greek writings, on the same authority of Jerome (when he cites
and imitates Cicero), we should translate not word for word, but meaning
for meaning. (in Weissbort & Eysteinsson 103)
The right way to translate, the sense-for-sense/ word-for word

dichotomy as well as the preoccupation with the enriching of the language
were matters of great interest not only to Christopherson and Humphrey
but to most sixteenth-century translators into English, i.e. George
Chapman, John Florio, Thomas Hoby, Arthur Golding, Nicholas Grimald.
Although their vocabulary and discourse were vaguer and less welldefined than that of their Italian, Spanish and French contemporaries, the
ideas discussed were indebted to the same theoretical sources as the ones
invoked by their foreign fellow translators and scholars. Consequently,
their statements on the issue of translation testify as well to the heavy
intertextuality that characterises the early modern web of texts and
discourses on the theory and practice of translation.
Notes:
1
Defending his translation of the Bible, Luther makes a strong case for using the
natural and popular language of the common people in translations:
For one need not ask the letters of the Latin language how one ought to
speak German, the way these asses do, rather one should ask the mother in
her house, the children in the streets, the common man in the marketplace,
about it and see by their mouths how they speak, and translate
accordingly: then they understand it well and recognize that one is

speaking German to them. (Martin Luther, Open Letter on Translation
(1530), qtd. in Weissbort & Eysteinsson 61)
2
Vives was tutor to Mary, princess of Wales, from 1523 and he lectured at
Oxford until 1527.
Works Cited
Binns, J.W. Intellectual Culture in Elizabethan and Jacobean England: The Latin
Writings of the Age. Leeds: Cairns, 1990. Print.
Bruni, Leonardo. On the Correct Way to Translate. Translation/History/
Culture: A Sourcebook. Ed. Andr Lefevere. London: Routledge, 1992.
81-85. Print.
Burke, Edmund. Leonardo Bruni. The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. New
York: Appleton, 1908: n.p. Web. 12 Nov. 2014.
Burke, Peter, and Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia, eds. Cultural Translation in Early
Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print.
Cicero, Tullius. De finibus bonorum et malorum. Trans. H. Rackham. London:
Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1914. Print.
- - -. De Oratore. Translation/History/Culture: A Sourcebook. Ed. Andr
Lefevere. London: Routledge, 1992. 46. Print.
Copeland, Rita. Rhetoric, Hermeneutics and Translation in the Middle Ages.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. Print.
Copenhaver, Brian P. Translation, Terminology and Style in Philosophical
Discourse. The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. 6th ed.
Eds. Charles B. Schmitt and Quentin Skinner. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
2003. 75-110. Print.
Cummings, Robert. Recent Studies in English Translation, c. 1520-c. 1590.
English Literary Renaissance 37:2. English Literary Renaissance, 2007.
274-316. Print.
Delabastita, Dirk. If I know the letters and the language: Translation as a
Dramatic Device in Shakespeares Plays. Shakespeare and the Language
of Translation. Ed. Ton Hoenselaars. London: Thomson, 2004. 31-52.
Print.
Dolet, Etienne. The Way to Translate Well from One Language to Another.
Translation Theory and Practice: A Historical Reader. Eds. Daniel
Weissbort and Astradur Eysteinsson. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. 73-77.
Print.
Erasmus, Desiderius. Letter to WilliamWarham. Translation/History/Culture:
A Sourcebook. Ed. Andr Lefevere. London: Routledge, 1992. 60. Print.
Hermans, Theo. Renaissance Translation between Literalism and Imitation.
Geschichte, System, Literarische bersetzung / Histories, Systems,
Literary Translations. Ed. Harald Kittel. Berlin: Schmidt, 1992. 95-116.
Print.

- - -. The Task of The Translator in the European Renaissance: Explorations in a
Discursive Field. Translating Literature. Ed. Susan Bassnett. Cambridge:
Brewer, 1997. 14-40. Print.
Holland, Philemon. The Preface to the Reader. Translation/History/Culture: A
Sourcebook. Ed. Andr Lefevere. London: Routledge, 1992. 22-24. Print.
Horace. Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica. Trans. H. Rushton Fairclough.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1926. Print.
Izora, Scott, and Paul Monroe. Introduction. Ciceronianus: or, A dialogue on
the best style of speaking. By Erasmus. Ed. and trans. Scott Izora and Paul
Monroe. New York: Columbia U, 1908. 5-16. Print.
Lefevere, Andr, ed. Translation/History/Culture: A Sourcebook. London:
Routledge, 1992. Print.
Lloyd-Jones, Kenneth. Erasmus, Dolet and the Politics of Translation. The
Politics of Translation in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Ottawa: U
of Ottawa P, 2001. 37-56. Print.
Morini, Massimiliano. Tudor Translation in Theory and Practice. Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2006. Print.
Norton, G. P. The Ideology and Language of Translation in Renaissance France.
Geneva: Droz, 1984. Print.
Robinson, Douglas, ed. Western Translation Theory: From Herodotus to
Nietzsche. Manchester: St. Jerome, 1997. Print.
St. Jerome. Letter 57, to Pammachius on the Best Method of Translating.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Vol. 6. Trans. W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis
and W.G. Martley. Ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Buffalo, NY:
Christian Literature, 1893. Rev. and ed. Kevin Knight. New Advent. 2009.
Web. 15 Sept. 2014.
Summerfield, Thea, and Rosamund Allen. Chronicles and Historical
Narratives. The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English, vol.1:
To 1550. Ed. Roger Ellis. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. 332-63. Print.
Vives, Juan Luis. Versions or Translations. Translation/History/Culture: A
Sourcebook. Ed. Andr Lefevere. London: Routledge, 1992. 50-52. Print.
Watson, Nicholas. Theories of Translation. The Oxford History of Literary
Translation in English, vol.1: To 1550. Ed. Roger Ellis. New York:
Oxford UP, 2008. 71-92. Print.
Weissbort, Daniel, and Astradur Eysteinsson, eds. Translation: Theory and
Practice: A Historical Reader. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. Print.
25 Talk of contracts
Talk of contracts: Gift-giving vs. Reciprocity in

James Joyces A Mother
CAMELIA RAGHINARU
Concordia University, Irvine
Abstract
This essay measures the extent to which gift-giving fails in an economy of
reciprocity. Reading James Joyces story A Mother in terms of
Derridas notion of the gift as absolute loss, I consider the implications
of an economy of loss for Joyces notion of sacrifice. Thus, I argue that
the absence of an economy of sacrifice integrating absolute loss
engenders the zero-sum game at the heart of Dubliners. I depart from
other readings of the short story in the context of an economy based on the
ideal of balanced reciprocity, since these versions deny the pure gratuity
of gift in its connotations of sacrifice and loss. While such theories form a
good starting point for analyzing the moral economy of Dubliners, they
tend to overlook the fact that the only means to counteract the paralysis
resulting from reciprocity is through the suspension of the economy of
exchange.
Keywords: Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death, exchange, reciprocity,
paralysis, loss, profit, James Joyce, Dubliners, gift, class, usury
The intersection between economics and religion, class, nationalism,

eroticism, and romance foregrounds the issue of exchange in James
Joyces Dubliners. The social, the erotic and the sacred are measured by
their cash exchange value and figure in terms of an obvious absence that
of the gift. Using Jacques Derridas concept of absolute loss as outlined
in The Gift of Death, I propose a reading of Joyces story A Mother as
the expression of a zero-sum game resulting from the act of exchange,
once the illusion of reciprocity is stripped away.
Before we turn to Derridas aporetic notion of the gift, let us first

review briefly the plot of A Mother. The overly-ambitious Mrs Kearney
invests her considerable gifts of persuasion and organization in controlling
the musical career of her daughter Kathleen in order to compensate for a
marriage devoid of passion and romantic appeal. When Mr Holohan, the
organizer of a series of concerts promoting the agenda of the Irish Revival
movement (under the aegis of the Eire Abu Society) invites Kathleen to
participate as a concert pianist, Mrs Kearney agrees on her daughters
behalf and engages in a verbal contract with the organizer, according to
which her daughter is to be paid eight shillings for each concert
performance running from Wednesday to Saturday. The first nights are
financial failures, and the Eire Abu Society decides to recoup its losses
through a special gala night reserved for Saturday. This plan entails the
cancelation of one of the lesser concerts and therefore cuts into the
payment promised to Kathleen during the initial stages of organization.
During the intermission, Mrs Kearney engages in a heated dispute with
the management demanding the full payment of the agreed-upon sum. The
directors fail to comply with her demands, even though Mrs Kearney
threatens to withdraw Kathleen from the stage. In the end, her strategies of
negotiation under duress end in Mrs Kearneys humiliation and a
substantial threat to Kathleens future musical career in Dublin. The
concert resumes without Kathleen, as she is readily substituted by a fellow
performer.
Derridas aporetic economy of the gift (or sacrifice) integrates loss
as its necessary component. Drawing attention to the inevitable break with
exchange demanded by an economy of absolute loss, which also
involves the break with symmetry and reciprocity, Derridas position
turns from the parity of an eye for an eye to that of turning the other
cheek (102). This new kind of reciprocity interrupts the parity and
symmetry. Instead of paying back, one is to offer the other cheek. The
distinction between paying back and offering is pivotal to Derridas
argument. Maintaining the eye for an eye exchange blocks the two
economic parties in an endlessly repetitive cycle. The repetition, however,
is a mere simulacrum of pure reciprocity, which proves practically
impossible. Thus, argues Derrida, [s]uch an economic calculation
integrates absolute loss. It breaks with exchange, symmetry, or

reciprocity. It is true that absolute subjectivity has brought with it
calculation and a limitless raising of the stakes within the terms of an
economy of sacrifice, but this is sacrifice understood as commerce
occurring within finite bounds (102). Repetition is a type of reciprocity
folding back upon itself, sterilely, rather than unfolding itself toward the
other, making itself a gift. The fundamental aim of the economy of
exchange is profit, not mere recirculation of capital in symmetrical
exchange. Profit on one side, however, presupposes loss on the other. In a
predictable sequence, pluses and minuses cancel each other out
successively. The grid that structures the economic inner workings of
Dublin keeps a type of regularity uninterrupted by that other type of loss
incurred through offering intentional, sacrificial loss that offers itself as
gain to the other, and in turn, through a counter-intuitive form of
symmetry, becomes gain for the offering party as well. The absence of the
gift structures the gnomonic world of Dubliners. To decipher the missing
part of this perfectly regulated grid one must interrupt the circular logic
and mechanical function of the strict economy of exchange.
The tension between economies of exchange and economies of the
gift structure the narrative tension in A Mother. On the one hand, Mrs
Kearney has the chance to engage in the redemptive economy of the gift
in its multiple aspects of sacrifice agape, work for pure enjoyment,
loss, and absence thus negating paralysis and positing itself as a
presence at the crossroads of sacrifice and loss. Given the impossibility of
the pure gift (as well as pure exchange), one must consider the extent to
which Mrs Kearneys giving can even begin to be termed a gift, given that
her involvement in the artistic project is already posited as work in
Derridas theory of the gift, and thus already teleological, driven by a
calculable goal. The final verbal duel between Mrs Kearney and Mr
Holohan in which, as critic Brandon Kershner points out, the latter
appropriates the formers words, while Mrs Kearneys last word becomes
Mr Holohans last word, signifies the perfect loss-loss closure of the
reciprocity of exchange cycle (128).
Avoiding exchange in giving implies the understanding of the idea
of sacrifice as work a laboring type of agape. For Dennis Keenan, agape
is work for nothing, work that unworks itself in the very performance of
the work. It is work that interrupts itself in the very working of the work
(129). However, agape is also spontaneous enjoyment of the work without
expectation of a reward (130). If spontaneous enjoyment is one of the
prerequisites of the gift, Mrs Kearneys positing the gift in contractual
terms kills the enjoyment. Enjoyment, as well as gift and sacrifice, is a
form of absence. Contract is a kind of presence the illusion of a
presence, in fact, given that return is not possible.
As Robert Bernasconi notes in The Logic of the Gift, for Derrida
what defines the gift is its difference from the object of exchange (256),
while for Levinas, gift is defined in terms of work, and work as departure
with no return (258). In opposition to Derridas notion, pure
expenditure or loss is not to be equated with gift as work, because the
goal of good works is to acquire merit. Good works oriented toward a
specific goal amount to work losing its absolute goodness. Gift, for
Levinas and Derrida, is gift only insofar as it is an interruption of order. In
this vein, Bernasconi talks about the interruptive logic of the gift:
Exchange, circulation and rationality are interrupted by the gift (259). A
gift without obligation or duty is differentiated from exchange the pure
morality that exceeds all calculation.
In reading A Mother as a break in the system of giving, one notes
that Mrs Kearneys giving is inscribed in a contractual, restricted
economy, centered around scarcity, in Georges Batailles terms, in which
lavish expenditure of time, energy and money is made with the
expectation of symbolic profit in return. Thus, the utilitarian end becomes
a mark of status, class and power, since power is exercised by the classes
that expend (120). On a scale of nobility of spending, gift giving ranks
high because it seeks to name a certain transgression of the limits of
economic reason itself (Shershow 83).
As a means of pointing out the different forms of giving
hypostasized by Mrs Kearneys investment, it might help to read the story
in four different stages. At only one of these stages does investment have
the potential (though it remains a missed opportunity) to be sacrificial, and
thus truly a gift. The first stage of the story focuses on the restricted
economy of exchange in the name of profit. Although the story forms a
circle encompassing all three types of economy, in the end it closes,

ironically, on an inverted circularity, when Mrs Kearneys mentality of
exchange is met with the same treatment from Mr Holohan, thus receiving
the exact retribution she was inadvertently looking for. Profit/exchangerelated images abound, particularly as the narration seems to ventriloquize
Mrs Kearneys own voice: she is determined to take advantage of her
daughters name (Joyce 137); she is involved heart and soul (Joyce
138) in the enterprise, but her subsequently drawing a contract ironically
subverts the emotional dimension of the matter and designates it as a
purely financial affair; she engages in an array of efforts barely masking
their nature as investments. For example, Kathleens dress that costs a
pretty penny is the mark of an occasion when a little expense is
justifiable (Joyce 138) in terms of the forecasted profit. Thus, this first
stage ends with the narrators voice in dialogical interplay with Mrs
Kearneys voice, letting us know that she forgot nothing and, thanks to
her everything that was to be done was done (Joyce 139).
The next stage, presented from outside Mrs Kearneys perspective
and from within Mr Holohans, seems dominated by a general economy of
consumption and calculated loss. Profit is secondary to the enterprise as
seen through the artistes and the organizers eyes, and the main motive
seems to be artistic and nationalistic, as well as entertainment and art for
arts sake, with reimbursement of cost sought for only in terms of
covering expenses. Images and recurrent diction pointing to a lack of
efficiency in terms of profit abound, as seen, again, from Mrs Kearneys
profit-oriented point of view. As Kershner points out, the womans
judgments and sensibilities have become unobtrusively involved in the
narration (128), which now bears the unmistakable mark of her
consciousness (126). Amid the idle young men standing in the vestibule,
to entertain and be entertained by the unfolding scandal, Mrs Kearney
insists on perceiving the situation in terms of profit hunting Mr Holohan
down, reiterating the terms of the contract and setting herself completely
at odds with the general expenditure of laughter, good will, and
carelessness marking the assumption of deliberately, or indifferently,
incurred loss. In this atmosphere of staged carelessness, Mrs Kearney
strategically enacts the most pertinent economic move in her economical
mentality that of restricted supply or resources, to increase their value

and extract the guarantee of profit i.e., by forbidding Kathleen to
proceed with the plan to perform her part until her contract is fully carried
out.
The next part moves into the domain of the economy of nonexchange and sacrifice, where the two types of economy of scarcity or
surplus, of profit or loss are set against each other by an explicit
antagonism manifested in the open hostilities between Mr Holohan and
Mrs Kearney. The former has recourse to techniques of evasion (he
pretends to be in a hurry [Joyce 141]) and Mrs Kearney is now beginning
to be alarmed (Joyce141) and to badger both Mr Holohan and Mr
Fitzpatrick.
Finally, in the last part of the story, dissonant view points on the
concert begin to converge and Mrs Kearney seems to be getting what she
has been pursuing all along: complete circularity as retribution,
however, rather than reward. Once Mr OMadden Burke states, I agree
with Miss Beirne. Pay her nothing (Joyce 148), both parties converge
into carrying out the inevitable consequences of exchange. Actions,
gestures, and speech begin to mirror each other in a carefully calculated
symmetry: I never thought you would treat us this way, says Mr
Holohan to Mrs Kearney. And what way did you treat me? retorts Mrs
Kearney. I am not done with you yet, Mrs Kearney says. But Im done
with you, Mr Holohan retorts. Kershner mentions that besides the
mimicry of the linguistic quid pro quo, another type of retribution is at
play in the dialogue between Mrs Kearney and Mr Holohan (127). Up to
this point, running as an undercurrent in the narrative, social class as
illustrated in a focus on accents and dictions has underscored a game of
social power and powerlessness, in which Mrs Kearney seems to have
maintained the upper hand through her claim to an upper-middle-class
position displayed by the proper accent and manners a position which
displaced Mr Holohan and Mr Fitzpatrick on the equivalent grounds of
lacking the aforementioned distinctions. During the final verbal exchange,
however, Mrs Kearney commits a faux pas that reveals her upper-middleclass mannerism as a disguise [for] a lower-middle-class soul, as
Kershner notes (127). Her blunder is to think in terms of profit and
contracts in the midst of what should have been a purely aesthetic

endeavor; but also to impersonate Holohan in a mockingly aggressive act
of linguistic appropriation (128). The blunder shifts the balance of
power, and Holohan is emboldened to accuse Mrs Kearney of falling short
of her status of a lady. The shift in power is finalized when the talk of
contracts is relegated to the same plane as the socio-linguistic blunder, as
if to say that the failure to be a lady and the profit-driven mentality both
belong to a mercantile, anti-artistic, vulgar, lower-middle-class mind
frame. Kershner points out an even more subtle and important distinction:
the two economies at play have no choice but to come in conflict, because
the most serious contradiction, the one underlined by Mrs Kearney, is
that between the concert seen as a profit-making endeavor . . . and the
concert as a social ritual presenting art for arts sake, in which members of
the privileged class mutually support and applaud one anothers
performances out of a disinterested appreciation of an aesthetic
undertaking (125). For in Dubliners we are presented primarily with the
petty bourgeois, who function by the logic of capitalism and classism and
who, in their acceptance of the ideology of British capitalism, are
accomplices in their own domination and that of Irelands lower classes.
Keith Booker argues that the problem is in the meanness at the heart of
the capitalistic exchange, and not in poverty and capitalistic oppression.
Indeed, material poverty is diminished in contrast to spiritual poverty and
meanness (142).
Joyces world in both Dubliners and Ulysses rests on an enormous
system of reciprocal debts, as Mark Osteen notes (158). In an interesting
biographical turn, Osteen links the economics of Dubliners to Joyces
purported desire to revive certain characters in Ulysses in order to pay his
grudge debts (158). The critic seems to imply that these debts settle not
merely literary, but also deeply personal accounts with Joyces own Irish
past. Thus, in an intertextual dialogue between Grace in Dubliners and
the Hades episode in Ulysses, Joyce uses literary metempsychosis to
permit his characters to reenact or repay their moral and financial debts.
Some are given (qualified) grace; others seem damned by an author who,
like Shakespeare, carries a memory in his wallet and always pays his
grudge debts (158). The intertextual dialogue brings up an interesting
point regarding this literary economy of exchange: Is this economy driven

by a principle of reciprocity, or charity and sacrifice? Is Joyce willing to
forgive the pettiness of his misers, and thus absolve them once in a while
of their sins, or does he feel compelled to reduce them to their lowest
moral common denominator and, in so doing, to make himself complicit
in their class domination struggle and food-chain politics? Or does he, in a
more Derridean fashion, break the parity of exchange to offer grace? Does
he integrate absolute loss in his economy of moral payback? This
intertextual analysis not being the issue at hand, suffice it to emphasize for
the sake of the present argument that the missing part of the characters
lives (in Grace, but throughout Dubliners) is rendered visible in their
economic problems. The root of their problems, however, is not merely
economic. The acerbic quid pro quo that governs all human exchanges in
Dubliners leads to bitterness, poverty, and meanness. Underlying the
network of debts and grudges which structures this world is the inability,
inherent in resentful human beings, to take the risk of throwing
possessions, interests, and petty concerns to the wind, not because they
can afford it, but precisely when they cannot sacrificially, gratuitously,
resulting in, and aiming for, absolute loss (as an instance of the gift).
The inability to incur loss through the offering of the gift breeds
resentment, which in turn, feeds, and is fed upon, by the economy of
exchange.
Further probing into the economic conditions of Dublin reveals that
exchange objectifies human interaction, but also becomes the angle from
which we can best understand the social life of the city. If Dubliners
represents Joyces attempt to write a chapter in the moral history of
Ireland, to this end, in portraying the moral economy that shaped
Dubliners, Joyce takes the role of a moral arbiter, a Cosmic
Economist who administers a moral economy of grace and redemption
. . . completing his moral history by documenting the economic conditions
of his city, according to Osteen (157). Appropriating Osteens idea of a
moral economy, I argue that the absence of an economy of sacrifice
integrating absolute loss engenders the paralysis at the heart of Dublin.
However, Osteens approach to economy and sacrifice turns contrary to
the Derridean approach. The former critics position is based on the two
variants of the exchange continuum: the ideal of pure charity (which is,
however, merely generalized reciprocity and gift exchange) and the
pragmatic medium of balanced reciprocity, in which each party gets equal
value from the other through the negative extreme of economic
exploitation (158). Neither of these variants implies the pure gratuity of
gift in its connotations of sacrifice or loss. Loss recalls the motif of
absence or interruption of the geometrical regularity of the gnomon,
indicating that the only means to counteract the paralysis resulting from
reciprocity is through the suspension of the exchange economy.
The paralysis at the core of Dublin is tightly connected not only to a
system of credit but to its inability to forego the strict equivalence of debt
and payment and thus to incur conscious and intentional loss that breaks
the equivalence. In A Mother, not just Mrs Kearney, but everyone else
functions by this strict equivalence of debt and payment that results in a
zero-sum game, the trope of which is the contract. The written contract is
an illusory attempt to contain the uncontrollable shiftiness of postagreement negotiations inherent in oral contracts. Joyce condemns usury
in Dubliners precisely because he is aware of the ills of a system of
exchange based on debtorship. Financial creditorship is a form of
incubism, in Osteens words, where the oppressive conditions of
debtorship end in obligation and poverty (158).
In a Bakhtinian reading of the story, Kershner draws attention to
Mrs Kearneys nominalism. For her, the language of the contract must be
the guarantor of its reality (129). She adheres to the illusion that the
reality outside her careful arrangements will be constrained by her staunch
belief in linguistic literalism (129) and its magical power to contain the
slipperiness of its own signifiers. (After all, the contract as we know it, not
having access to its exact wording, stipulates that Kathleen must play the
accompaniment for four concerts, and does not anticipate, through a
special clause, the consequences of one of the four concerts suspension.)
When spoken contracts enter into conflict with unspoken assumptions,
reciprocity results in the economic impossibility of a norm set up in order
to be breached. Mrs Kearneys view of the explicit contract is not
immediately obvious to everyone. For example, when presented with the
case, Mr Fitzpatrick did not catch the point at issue very quickly (Joyce
141). However, the competing unspoken contract according to which Mrs

Kearney must sustain a carefully balanced poise between enforcing a
business agreement and behaving like a lady is tacitly enforced by all
parties. Even Mrs Kearney has to concede, grudgingly, that social status
takes precedence over money. Thus, she knew it would not be ladylike to
do that [namely, to play the wrong accent/class card against Mr
Fitzpatrick]: so she was silent (Joyce 141).
However, reciprocity is not in competition only with external
forces, but also with itself, and in a losing game at that, judging by Mrs
Kearneys futile efforts. The first verb that introduces her in the story
indicates her main preoccupation, namely, to arrange, to fit, to plan for
all parts to match equally in a perfect, unbroken symmetry: but in the end
it was Mrs Kearney who arranged everything (Joyce 136, italics mine).
And so she strives to do: She arranges. She draws imaginary, chilly
circles of her accomplishments (Joyce 136). She anticipates the reaction
of her supposed audience and tries to outsmart it through timely liaisons,
such as with Mr Kearney against Mr Holohan. She keeps the balance of
her marriage as well, having married a husband who would wear better
than a romantic person (Joyce 137). In her economy, people and events
must be accounted for in terms of pluses and minuses, in a system in
which nothing goes to waste: the vacation to Skerries is milked for all its
social worth, one Irish picture postcard is matched with another, and
Kathleens Irish name must be equally [taken] advantage of (Joyce
137).
The aim of Mrs Kearneys existence is to draw up contracts and
enforce them, whether through advising or dissuading. To say about Mrs
Kearney that She forgot nothing and, thanks to her, everything that was
to be done was done (Joyce 139) is to acknowledge something more than
her ability as a skilled arranger. It is to recognize that she takes charge
of a well-oiled machine of symmetries and balances of her own design, as
impersonal and implacable in its work, once turned on, as Mr Fitzpatricks
white vacant face (Joyce 139). Mrs Kearneys frustration stems from
the fact that everyone else functions by a similar economy as hers, in as
perfectly drawn a grid. All sorts of plus/minus symmetries cancel
themselves out. During the concert, the artists that sing badly are
countered by the ones that sing well, and in the end the audience is
content. The verbal exchange between Mrs Kearney and Mr Holohan is
perfectly symmetrical, and so is the outcome. The lady gets the exact
payment for her daughters efforts (the equivalent of the two concerts for
which Kathleen played the accompaniment) and the gentleman gets public
approval for the way he has handled the matter, along with the satisfaction
of having won the case against an obstreperous woman. The rule
governing this world is expressed by the baritone, who remarks that he
can be at peace with all men once he has been paid his money (Joyce
147).
If in Dubliners all exchange depends on a psychic balance sheet,
the subjects constant negotiation between sacrifice and gain (Mickalites
123), this same exchange also works out a simulacrum of community
constructed on a system of mutual dependency. As previously shown, Mrs
Kearney is not the only one who operates in contractual terms. The entire
community is structured around the notion of perfect symmetrical
exchange. However, a community structured on exchange propagates a
model that legitimizes competition and, ultimately, domination.
Therefore, domination, along with the impossibility of perfect reciprocity
in exchange prevents the formation of a healthy community. And even
though reciprocity dictates a balanced exchange according to which each
party should receive an equal value, in practice this difficult ideal
becomes a norm that puts a strain on social behavior. As a mother, then,
Mrs Kearneys mission is to ensure a zero balance of her world, which
rests upon respecting the letter of the contract. Ironically, of course, she
does it at the expense of her daughters musical career. That reciprocity
does not fulfill its promise but, even worse, results in perpetual loss,
frustration, and deprivation, is simply in accord with the human condition
in a Dublin susceptible to decay, loss and deprivation.
Reciprocity as norm is reminiscent of Derridas aversion toward a
preconceived program or set of rules that undermine the unrequitability of
the gift. Reciprocity as the aim of exchange, similarly, paralyzes the event
of the gift, precisely because it tends to behave according to
predetermined rules and expectations, leaving no room for the event to
arrive, to come to pass: The moment the gift, however generous it be, is
infected with the slightest hint of calculation, the moment it takes account
of knowledge or recognition, it falls within the ambit of an economy: it
exchanges, in short it gives counterfeit money, since it gives in exchange
for payment (112). This is yet another reason for which Mr Kearney,
who has abstract value as male and is presented as an institution, large,
secure and fixed (Joyce 141), is rendered absolutely ineffectual. Mrs
Kearney attempts to totalize the unexpected, to leave no room for the
event of the gift to take place. This constant need to institutionalize human
connections by forcing them into a quid pro quo relationship results in the
perverse characteristic of Joyces Dublin: balanced reciprocity seldom
occurs, and gift-giving itself is subject to distortions by inequalities of
power. To break the paralyzing symmetry of exchange, the system must
suspend the straight-jacket circularity of payback, of giving and giving
back, of the one lent for every one borrowed, of that hateful form of
circulation that involves reprisal, vengeance, returning blow for blow,
settling scores (Osteen 102). Derridas economy of the gift that integrates
absolute loss is the equivalent of Montaignes economy of absolute
friendship that [loses] with truth, for it leaves nothing that is ones own,
given that economic bonds are undesirable in human interaction
(Montaigne qtd. in Epstein 252). In friendship, Montaigne argues, there is
no exchange of currency or goods because true friends cannot lend or
give anything to one another (Epstein 253). And if there is a kind of
giving, it is a giving that doesnt take away, but gives (Epstein 253), so
that it would be the giver who is obliged to the receiver for the gift of
receiving.
If the object/gift is the trace of the benevolent intention behind the
gift (the intention itself amounting to the gift), then Mrs Kearney is not
making a gift of her services at all, because her intention is not to give, but
to receive. In this case, the contract is, in extremis, undermined by the fact
that she is offering an empty gift, emptied of its beneficent intention. She
is offering a commodity in a competitive exchange game, in a struggle
between the defeated and the victorious (150), so that she ends up being
more a usurer than a donor, where the usurer is defined as a false donor,
a simulated benefactor, who acts as if he is giving, even though he
calculates and anticipates a return (149). As a false donor, Mrs Kearney
treads the fine line between donor and usurer. She pretends she sacrifices
a little extra out of generosity, while all the time calculating, at the back of
her mind, the extent to which her generosity will increase the return.
Ultimately, there is no intentionality of pure giving and more tragically
even, there is no space for the concretization of that intentionality either.
That intention never existed in the first place.1
Mrs. Kearneys innovation (or rather, perversity) is to have made
the intention itself into a commodity and to give it a computable,
calculable value. Jean-Joseph Goux defines intention as good will, an
invisible meaning concerning the soul (155). It is also interesting to note
the way Mrs Kearney is caught up in the materiality of beneficence, in the
fact that the gift represents the material sign of the intention. Trapped in
the sign and unable to get to the signified she cannot reach beyond the
material aspect of generosity. The material aspect of the intention, devoid
of sacrifice, is mere commodity, perfectly fitted to be quantified into the
logic of the market, or the usurer, and the exchange mechanism; the
excess of the intention, the soul of the gift, the signified, would upset the
reciprocity and would make return perfect circularity and symmetry
impossible, because there would never be a perfect return for the bodiless,
soul-like intention. The object-gift without the intention becomes, thus,
computable, and perfectly fit for exchange. When Mrs Kearney invests in
additional services and goods beyond the stipulation of the contract,
apparently out of beneficence, she has already calculated both the value of
the material gift/investment and that of her intention, of her volunteering
to go beyond the contract. Thus she takes no chances, and she ensures the
full length of her return. Having gone beyond the letter of the contract,
having sacrificed, she is going to get the return stipulated in the
contract, at the least, along with the satisfaction of putting her contractor
in debt; at the most, she will enjoy social recognition in addition to the
financial rewards. If there is an incalculable for Mrs Kearney, it is not the
incalculable that comes from the gift, loss, generosity, but from the
potential surplus, the surprise return that might exceed the expected return
and thus pleasantly thwart her initial calculations. In this case, Mrs
Kearney turns the Derridean incalculable on its head. The surplus,
unexpected gain becomes the site of perverse eventfulness of inverse
generosity. Mrs Kearney, however, has made the wrong bet, and she ends
up incurring both spiritual and material loss from the symmetric
exchange.
Finally, what she has completely missed is not her return, not even
the satisfaction of having made a gift, incurred a loss, feeling beneficent
or generous but something much more extensive that goes beyond her
and Kathleen and accounts for the paralysis: the encounter with the other.
Essentially paradoxical, the gifts only raison dtre is its orientation
toward the other. If gratitude mostly occurs on the level of the good will
(bona voluntas) as is generated from a well-disposed soul, then it is no
longer possible to lose . . . in an exchange of gifts (Goux 156). Giving
that is expected to return upon itself and its donor, circumscribed into a
mechanism of exchange, misses the relationship with the other and
ultimately the encounter with the self, which is only possible through
mediation. Moreover, Mrs Kearney is not paralyzed first and foremost in
her relationship with the others, alienated from her daughter and husband
as well as the rest of the artists but in her relationship with, and
understanding of, herself. Perhaps that accounts for her and her worlds
paralysis and inhibition: one can only give what one has oneself and
yet one cannot acquire ones self without the intermediation of otherness.
Because she does not have a self, Mrs Kearney is unable to give; because
she is unable to give, Mrs Kearney does not have a self. The ability to
give is thus akin to the desire for the other.
Note:
1
In Violence Slavoj Zizek talks about the catch of envy/resentment that not
only endorses the zero-sum game principle where my victory equals the others
loss (88-89) but it also implies a gap between the two, which is not a positive
gap (we can all win with no losers at all), but a negative one. If one has to choose
between ones gain and ones opponents loss, one prefers the opponents loss,
even if the loss is universal. It is as if the opponents eventual gain cancels out
ones own success. Zizeks illustration of the Slovene peasant who chooses the
option of resentment and personal loss, if it also involves the loss of his neighbor,
resembles the resolution of the contractual exchange between Mrs Kearney and
Mr Holohan, in which the former prefers to incur loss rather than allow for the
inequality of gain. In a more radical sense, in Violence Zizek discusses the
phenomenon in which the loss is absolute both to others and to self. Referring to
Higgs field, Zizek explains:
There are, however, phenomena which compel us to posit the hypothesis
that there has to be something (some substance) that we cannot take away
from a given system without RAISING that systems energy this
something is called the Higgs field: once this field appears in a vessel
that has been pumped empty and whose temperature has been lowered as
much as possible, its energy will be further lowered. The something
which thus appears is a something that contains less energy than nothing.
In short, sometimes zero is not the cheapest state of a system, so that,
paradoxically, nothing costs more than something. (213)
Works Cited
Bataille, Georges. Visions of Excess. Ed. and trans. Allan Stoekl. Minneapolis: U
of Minnesota P, 1985. Print.
Bernasconi, Robert. What Goes Around Comes Around: Derrida and Levinas on
the Economy of the Gift and the Gift of Genealogy. The Logic of the Gift.
Toward an Ethic of Generosity. Ed. Alan D. Schrift. New York:
Booker, Keith. Ulysses, Capitalism and Colonialism: Reading Joyce after the
Cold War. Connecticut: Greenwood P, 2000. Print.
Derrida, Jacques. The Gift of Death. Trans. David Wills. Chicago: U Chicago P,
1995. Print.
Epstein, Nancy. Montaignes Essays. Metaphors of Capital and Exchange. The
New Economic Criticism. Ed. Martha Woodmansee and Mark Osteen.
New York: Routledge, 1999. Print.
Goux, Jean-Joseph. Seneca against Derrida: Gift and Alterity. The Enigma of
Gift and Sacrifice. Ed. E. Wyschogrod, J. Goux, and E. Boynton. New
York: Fordham UP, 2002. Print.
Joyce, James. A Mother. Dubliners. New York: Penguin, 1996. 136-149. Print.
Keenan, Dennis. The Question of Sacrifice. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2005.
Print.
Kershner, Brandon. Joyce, Bakhtin, and Popular Literature. Chapel Hill: U of
North Carolina P, 1989. Print.
Mickalites, Carey. Dubliners IOU: The Aesthetics of Exchange in After the
Race and Two Gallants.Journal of Modern Literature 30.2 (2007):
121-38. U of Florida. MLA International Bibliography. Print.
Osteen, Mark. The Economy of Ulysses. New York: Syracuse UP, 1995. Print.
Shershow, Scott Cutler. The Work & the Gift. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2005.
Print.
Zizek, Slavoj. Violence. New York: Picador, 2008. Print.
Lacan Frames Scorseses Paintings
40
Lacan Frames Scorseses Paintings in The Age of Innocence

PAULA ANCA FARCA
Colorado School of Mines
Abstract
This article, which brings together film, psychoanalysis, literature, and art,
focuses on the role of paintings in Martin Scorseses The Age of
Innocence (1993). Scorsese conveys the imprisonment of New York
aristocrats within the framework of social conventions and their evasions
of social restrictions through his employment of paintings. Because the
protagonists emotions are not revealed often, the director communicates
their dramas and actions with the help of the paintings they own or appear
next to. The paintings operate as Jacques Lacans Other, an entity that
watches over the characters to make sure they conform to its selfperpetuating rules. Scorseses use of paintings shows that the characters
perform for the Other and seek to maintain the status quo. While most
characters perform within a Lacanian symbolic order, their different
responses to a variety of paintings underscore the flexibility of the
symbolic order.
Keywords: Martin Scorsese, Jacques Lacan, Edith Wharton, The Age of
Innocence, adaptation, the Other, symbolic order, gaze, paintings,
performance, desire
A proliferation of contemporary literary adaptations during the 1990s

suggests the directors interest in representing the past in innovative and
unconventional fashions. While retaining the subtleties of their analogous
literary texts, films such as Orlando (Sally Potter, 1992), The Piano (Jane
Campion, 1993), The Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1993), La Reine
Margot (Patrice Chreau, 1994), The Portrait of a Lady (Jane Campion,
1996), and House of Mirth (Terence Davies, 2000) also offer challenging
takes on these well-known literary texts. While narrative mimesis remains
the privileged means of rendering literary texts in cinema, contemporary
41 Lacan Frames Scorseses Paintings
adaptations do not replicate their intertexts, but engage them in productive

rewritings.
In his adaptation, Martin Scorsese tried to preserve the zest of Edith
Whartons 1920 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel which got its title from the
painting The Age of Innocence by Joshua Reynolds. Both the novel and
the film focus on a love story prevented by the strict social rules of 1870
aristocratic New York. Scorsese conveys the characters imprisonment
within the framework of social conventions and their evasions of social
restrictions through his employment of paintings. In an interview with
Gavin Smith, Scorsese argues that the paintings of the film transmit
certain messages to their viewers: Paintings were so important . . . if you
keep looking at the painting, you notice more things and it tells a story, it
tells a way of life (218). Because the characters emotions are kept
private, the director communicates their dramas, actions, performances,
and social affiliations through the paintings they own, admire, or appear
next to. Although for the most part, the paintings allude to rigid societal
conventions and their followers, they also underscore some of the
characters nonconformity. The solemn portraits hung in majestic rooms
operate as Jacques Lacans Other, an entity that watches over the
characters to make sure they conform to its self-perpetuating rules. The
Other does not refer to the other person, but to the origin of the symbolic
order, language, and law that particularize each subject. For instance, May
Welland (Winona Ryder) performs in front of paintings and, because she
follows the rules of the Other, she herself becomes a painting.1 Her
husband, Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis), attempts imaginary
identifications through paintings/ mirrors, yet finds himself anchored in
the symbolic order.
The performances of the characters in The Age of Innocence are not
directed to anybody in particular; these characters do not perform for each
other. Instead, Scorseses use of paintings demonstrates that their
performances, meant to ensure them a more comfortable place in society,
are for the Other. While most of the characters perform within a Lacanian
symbolic order, their different responses to a variety of paintings
underscore the flexibility of the symbolic order. The end of the film also
adds a temporal dimension to Lacans symbolic order and emphasizes its
significant change over the years. Archers son shows that the social
etiquette in his symbolic order differs from his fathers, who remains
frozen in his, a detail which indicates a historically-layered symbolic
order.
For Lacan, the mirror stage represents a fundamental moment in the
structure of subjectivity and the formation of the ego. The idealized image
in the mirror of the child, source of further identifications, produces a
contrast with his fragmented and uncoordinated body. The complete,
unified, and, more importantly, illusionary specular image triggers a
quixotic quest for an unattainable goal. Understanding that he cannot
reconcile the fragmented image with the unified one, the subject realizes
he is split. The symbolic dimension follows the mirror stage and refers to
the childs connection to language. After the moment of jubilation, the
child turns his head to the big Other, the adult (possibly the mother), and
asks her to acknowledge the image in the mirror. The Father, the symbol
of authority, blocks the childs free access to the mother and lays down
the law through language. This interdiction does not refer only to mothers;
in The Age of Innocence, for instance, the societal rules interdict the love
between Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Newland Archer because
he is engaged and she is his fiances cousin.
While the symbolic order is the realm of language and law, it also
encompasses the Other, a Lacanian concept that is difficult to define, yet
significant to the subjects entire life and development under the symbolic
order and, in this case, to Scorseses use of paintings. The Other
transcends the otherness of the imaginary and the mirror stage because it
resists identification. Instead, the Other represents the symbolic order and
becomes the site where speech occurs: the Other must first of all be
considered a locus, the locus in which speech is constituted (Psychoses
274). The subject has to learn from scratch the speech and law of the
Other when he enters the symbolic world; during this learning process, the
subject is shaped by the rules of the Other. A short comparison between
Archer and Beaufort reveals how the rules of the Other influence the
subject(s). While Archer belongs to an old family of gentlemen and
aristocrats, Beaufort only passes as a gentleman because he climbs the
social ladder through his intrepid business flair. Although the film does
not deal with these two mens upbringing, their different attitudes vis vis
conformity to social etiquettes uncover their association with different
families of the Other.
Although Lacan posits that the Other . . . is already there (Four
Fundamental Concepts 130), the Other loses its meaning and function if
the subject is absent. For instance, the Other without a subject is like a
theater stage with no actors. The subject personalizes the Other and makes
it present and active. Out of all the signifiers from the chain of signifiers,
only those significant to a subject will constitute the Other. The subject
could select his own group of the Other. In the film, Regina Beaufort
marries a rich businessman who is not an aristocrat; by accepting this new
social position, she changes both her chain of signifiers and her
husbands. When Regina Beaufort asks Mrs. Mingott to use her influence
and save Julius Beauforts honor, the matriarch refuses: But my name,
Auntie. My names Regina Townsend. And I [Mrs. Mingott] said, Your
name was Beaufort when he covered you with jewels, and its got to stay
Beaufort now that hes covered you with shame (The Age of Innocence).
Clearly, Regina chose to belong to a category of the Other different from
her familys. Scorsese neither introduces nor describes the historical
lineage of families such as Townsend or Beaufort; these families function
as a historical system that perpetuates itself and enforces rules and laws
even when the Other is absent or, as Lacan would say, inexistent.
Lacan writes a whole chapter on pictures in his study The Four
Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis, a chapter which could explain
Scorseses use of paintings in his film and the subjects who gaze at them.
While the subject gazes at a painting, the painting gazes back at the
subject. Thus, the self-reflexive qualities of the gaze place viewers under
scrutiny as well. Because the objects or the subjects of the gaze return the
gaze, viewers become conscious of their own active contribution to what
they see. They look back at what they have seen, accept their role as
viewers, and place themselves and the object of their gaze on display. The
paintings that Scorsese chose to depict allude to a certain order, the
symbolic order in Lacanian terms, which they impose on the viewers
through their gaze. Thus, the Other represented in some of the paintings
from The Age of Innocence does not remain an inert Other or a set of
rigorous symbolic rules that wait for a subject to follow them, but it
becomes an active entity. Whereas this fluid entity imposes a set of rules,
its gaze also supervises that these rules are obeyed by the viewers. In this
way, the paintings stand both as the law and as law enforcers.
Other critics who have analyzed the role of painting in film such as
Brigitte Peucker and Angela Dalle Vacche have explored connections
between film and art. Examining film against its rival arts like painting
and literature, Peucker focuses on the human body, one fragmented by
close-ups to the extent to which the film itself becomes a fissured text
[that] brings with it an underlying fear of castration and of death (4).
Dalle Vacche contends that intertextuality and borrowing images from art
history function in two ways: either film is plagued by a cultural
inferiority complex and therefore obsessively cites other art forms, or it is
self-confident enough to move beyond this state of dependency and arrive
at the point where it can teach something new to art historians (3). I hope
to prove that the paintings in The Age of Innocence achieve the latter of
Dalle Vacches predictions. Not only do the paintings Scorsese uses or
borrows from Whartons novel reveal the intricate rules of New York
aristocracy, but they also guide its owners or viewers into following these
strict rules. Thus, the paintings become texts open to interpretation, and, at
the same time provide contexts in which viewers understand certain
characters and their relationships with New York society.
The paintings represent a medium which immortalizes the societal
rules of the Other for the subjects who have to obey them. The film
emphasizes different sets of paintings present in various New York
households and associates them with different characters who follow the
rules of the Other to a greater or lesser extent. New York aristocrats,
whose houses abound in family portraits, are more likely to reinforce old
rules and traditions; conversely, those households with more modern art
apply the rules of the Other more loosely. In many respects, the Other
resembles a script that guides the acts of performers such as Ellen, May,
and Newland. Ellen understands that New York society accepts her only if
she changes her performance to fit the New York elite Other; her
endeavor to renounce her independent way of living and the paintings on
her walls eventually fails. On the other hand, Mays performance vis vis
the script is consummate so that she becomes the script. Her framed photo
that shows her shooting with a bow and arrow and her hands modeled in
Paris dominate the Archers living room and dictate her rules over the
years. However, Newlands conflict revolves around his desperate
attempts to see himself as a whole in the mirror, an ideal possible only
with Ellens help, or to adhere to traditional rules. Although he cares
immensely about paintings, his performance does not escape the
conventions put forth in most of the paintings from New York households.
Interestingly, at the end of the film and after Mays performance and
death, Scorsese chooses different paintings for Archer and rearranges the
pieces of furniture in his house to suggest that the symbolic order of old
New York is alterable in time and susceptible to modification.
Nevertheless, old New Yorkers like Newland cannot adapt to a new set of
rules that, for example, his son Ted sets forth and remain frozen into
their adopted symbolic order.
Scorsese underlines the obsessive presence of the Other through
portraits that dominate the majority of the scenes with Archer at the
beginning of the film. Archer becomes more dignified in rooms with
portraits on walls because social etiquette and the inquisitorial gaze of the
Other require appropriate conduct. Whenever Scorsese places Archer
outside portraits and rigid rules namely, in scenes where Ellen Olenska is
present as well, he moves and speaks more freely and naturally because he
tries to find himself as a whole. His alienation and sense of estrangement
disappear when Ellen accompanies him.
When gentlemen, such as fellow lawyers or New York aristocrats,
accompany Archer, his behavior vis vis societal rules is impeccable. In
these situations, Scorsese shows Archer in drawing rooms, libraries, and
offices with many portraits of serious men and women who gaze gravely
at him. The room where Newland, Mrs. Archer, Janey, and Mr. Sillerton
Jackson dine is full of framed portraits of the Archer family ancestors on
the wall; the men and women in the portraits gaze suspiciously at the
people sitting at the table as if checking them out. Scorsese adds another
frame to the characters sitting at the table to suggest their imprisonment in
their own world and their incapacity to get out of the rules of the Other;
each character is framed by two candlesticks that delineate the space
where the characters can move. By suggesting the characters

transformation into paintings, Scorsese emphasizes their response and
obedience to the Other. The paintings in van der Luydens drawing room
also allude to the characters metamorphoses into paintings. When
Newland and his mother go to the van der Luydens and ask them to save
Madame Olenskas honor, Scorsese shows a white wall with portraits of
women against which Henry and Louisa van der Luyden sit with looks of
frozen gentleness. Their posture, language, and paintings suggest that they
will support Ellen only if she behaves or resembles the women in these
paintings. Henry offers his help because as long as a member of a wellknown family is backed by that family, it should be considered final (The
Age of Innocence). If Ellen conforms to the rules of the Other, then she
will belong to the New York aristocracy.
Although they belong to New York aristocracy, Julius and Regina
Beaufort are often the focus of vicious gossip. Their household, shown in
detail because they host the well-known annual ball, represents an
intriguing combination between tradition and modernity. Some of the
portraits allude to Regina and her old family, while more daring paintings
point to Julius and his mysterious affairs. The ballroom scene immediately
following the opera scene, which opens the film, abounds in paintings and
mirrors that reflect, depict, and multiply the conventions of the New York
society and create a strong sense of the characters imprisonment
(Pizzello 40). Beln Vidal Villasur argues that the paintings in this scene
cancel out the idea of the original when they absorb this original and
produce culturally coded reflections (Classic Adaptations 11). The
idea of the original is also cancelled by the doubling effect between the
New York aristocrats and the characters in the paintings. The similarities
between the content of the paintings and the positions of the guests at the
ball suggest the conformity of the New York society to the unwritten yet
prevalent rules of the Other.
The camera first shows a huge ornately-framed portrait of Regina
Beaufort and then moves to Regina herself, who stands in front of the
painting and greets her guests. Since Reginas portrait is the first painting
he showed in direct relation to its flesh and blood correspondent, Scorsese
underscores the direct connection between the paintings and the
characters. Several other paintings point to the similarity or, in some

cases, the exactness between the movements, positions, and actions of the
New Yorkers and the characters in the paintings. For instance, one
painting depicts waltzing couples in a ballroom and a group of young
women on a couch, a situation that corresponds to Scorseses arrangement
of his characters. In other cases, the voiceover links members of the New
York society to paintings. When the voiceover contends that the harmony
of this world is so precarious that it could be shattered by a whisper
(The Age of Innocence), the camera pans on a painting with two men in a
crowd whispering presumably about the woman standing next to them.
The copies of the gentlemen in the painting, possibly Lawrence Lefferts
and Old Mr. Sillerton Jackson, ruin Madame Olenskas reputation with
such whispers. Lefferts reflection is seen in the mirror along with the
circling movements of the dancers; the painting next to the mirror also
renders lively dancers at a ball. Putting the dancers in the painting with the
real dancers reflected in the mirror on the same wall, Scorsese suggests
that New Yorkers both imitate the paintings or became paintings
themselves. The voiceover explains Lefferts insistence on details, rules,
and form at the expense of content: [Lefferts] was the foremost authority
on form in New York. On the question of pumps versus patent-leather
Oxfords, his authority had never been disputed (The Age of Innocence).
While in the opera scene Scorsese links the New York spectators
with the opera performance on the stage, he also insists on the
continuation of performance from the opera house to the ball to
underscore that New York aristocrats base their lives on public
appearances and performances for the Other. The orchestra, the dancers,
and the other guests at the ball perform for the Other by complying with
the rules imposed by the paintings. Paired up dancers come toward the
camera keeping a certain rhythm which represents the strict rhythm of this
society. The same sense of rhythm, order, and discipline dominates their
dance in the crane shot that closes the ballroom scene. The only one who
disrupts the dancers cadence and their symmetrical rotation is Julius
Beaufort, a controversial personage who does not fit within this
community of the Other. Scorsese has him walk in slow motion among
the dancing couples to underscore his unconventionality and connects the
lack of symmetry created by his appearance with his disobeying of rules:

Now Julius Beauforts secret was the way he carried things off. He could
arrive casually at his own party as if he were another guest . . . Beaufort
was intrepid in his business but in his personal affairs absolutely
audacious (The Age of Innocence). Beauforts intentional disruption of
New Yorks symmetries reveals his disobeying of rigid rules. Archer, on
the other hand, performs his obeying of tradition; he admires silently
Bouguereaus nude that Beaufort exhibited audaciously in plain sight, but
acts according to the rules that the other paintings impose: Archer
enjoyed such challenges to convention. He questioned conformity in
private, but in public he upheld family and tradition (The Age of
Innocence). May and Newland eventually join the waltzing couples and
follow their rhythm to show that they conform to the rules of the New
York elite.
Another set of paintings that deserve attention are found in the
house of Mrs. Mingott, the matriarch of New York. She lives in a large
house of controversial pale cream-colored stone, in an accessible
wilderness near the Central Park (The Age of Innocence) in which she
assembled both conventional and modern objects and paintings.
Interestingly, Scorsese first emphasizes Mrs. Mingotts more traditional
paintings and portraits, while the voiceover explains her role in May and
Newlands engagement and future marriage. However, in anticipation of
Ellens arrival to her grandmothers house, the director focuses on more
intriguing paintings. Villasur argues that during this required betrothal
visit, Newland gets relegated to a marginal position in the first part of the
scene, the main axis of action taking place between the two women and
the ring (Textures of the Image 58). Newland indeed remains in a corner
of a room while May, Mrs. Welland, and Mrs. Mingott discuss all the
details of the engagement and prospective wedding. The position of May
and her mother facing Mrs. Mingott, who sits with several dogs on her
lap, and with their back to a portrait of the matriarch, again accompanied
by dogs, suggests that they are constrained to apply the rules of the Other
as far as marriage goes. According to unwritten New York rules that do
not favor long engagements, Mrs. Mingott decides to advance the date of
marriage even though Mrs. Welland does not approve.
While Mrs. Mingotts portrait is linked to more rigid rules, some of

her paintings (especially those outside of her drawing room that are
somewhat hidden from the eyes of formal guests) are more daring. The
variety of her paintings marks the difference between Mrs. Mingotts
conservative relatives, like May and Mrs. Welland, and her liberal ones,
like Ellen and her parents. The camera moves up the stairs past a gallery
of framed paintings depicting landscapes that explain Mrs. Mingotts, and
later Ellens, appeal for wilderness and natural environments. The
voiceover also remarks on the foreignness of her furniture and paintings
that show scenes from French fiction with women and their lovers. The
presentation of the last painting, John Vanderlyns Death of Jane McCrea,
is accompanied by the voiceovers ironical comment: For now she [Mrs.
Mingott] was content simply for life and passion to flow northward to her
door and to anticipate eagerly the union of Newland Archer with her
granddaughter May. In them, two of New Yorks best families would
finally and momentously be joined (The Age of Innocence). Vanderlyns
painting that depicts a violent scene from the 1777 Revolutionary War
with a white woman killed by two Native Americans also links May and
Newlands marriage to violence; the woman that the two patriarchal New
York families kill is supposedly Ellen so that the union between May
and Newland can move forward. Ironically, the camera moves from this
painting to Ellen and Beaufort who just arrived in Mrs. Mingotts drawing
room.
While the houses owned by rich New Yorkers mirror their wealth
and social status, Madame Olenskas Bohemian house differs greatly from
the mansions full of sober paintings; her house also differs from Mrs.
Mingotts house which gives an impression of secure wealth and power.
Ellen moves into an odd, little house (The Age of Innocence) located in
an unfashionable part of the city. Ellens unconventionality is evident in
the manner she decorates her house, the foreign books she owns, and her
variety of bold paintings. She brings Impressionistic artwork from Europe,
which New York considers unusual, and Oriental objects that are too
exotic and undecipherable for conventional American standards. Her
house is much barer than the rest of the mansions where the
agglomeration of pieces of furniture, paintings, and mirrors obstruct the

characters freedom of mobility and their personal freedom.
Scorsese shows Ellen Olenskas freedom and different taste with a
contrast to May. The van der Luydens dinner in honor of Countess
Olenska ends with a close-up on Mays face and Louisas words: I think
Ive never seen May looking lovelier. The Duke thinks her the
handsomest woman in the room (The Age of Innocence). From the closeup on Mays stereotypical Victorian beauty, the camera moves on the
painting with a faceless woman with a parasol, where the absence of
physical beauty and even traits, alludes to a world different from Mays.
This painting, located in Ellens house, introduces viewers into the dcor
of her house and her sophisticated personality. Ellen is painted with her
parasol but no physical traits by the artist in Boston Park, which also links
this painting to the one in her house. Both faceless women symbolize
Ellen who does not gaze obsessively at the viewers as other women do in
portraits. The form and subject matter of the second painting Archer sees
in Ellens house is equally unsettling in the intensity of its mood. The
painting that stretches horizontally defying any shape or content of the
paintings seen thus far depicts the opposition between civilization and
wilderness. The camera moves from the left, that is from the portrayal of
several villas, to the right, namely to fields and the desert, to suggest a
removal from civilized society and a return to a more liberating natural
environment. Ellens other paintings depicting little girls, sketches of
women, or exotic landscapes offer other adventurous challenges. The
asymmetrical curtains, small slender tables, the Japanese mask, and the
small vases with flowers suggest choices and adventures along a warm,
cozy, and welcoming house.
Because Ellens house does not resemble the sobriety of the other
New York mansions, the paintings in her house also look different. Her
pictorial appearances are faceless (Scorsese does not include a portrait of
Ellen in the same fashion he does with May, Regina Beaufort, and Mrs.
Mingott). Whether Ellens pictorial homologues point to her directly (in
the painting from Boston) or indirectly (in the paintings that only allude to
her), she remains faceless. Her facelessness and resistance to conform to
the rules of the Other, rules emphasized by the films numerous portraits,
link Ellen to the mirror stage. Scorseses depiction of her invites Archer to
investigate her face to face (like in the mirror) as if to recognize his Ideal-I
and identify with her. Both in Boston and at her house, Ellen appears right
after Archer scrutinizes her faceless paintings to participate in his
moments of happiness. Scorsese shows the jubilation associated to the
mirror stage, namely, the subjects feeling of whole constituted from all
the fragmented parts, with scenes where Archer venerates Ellen. Archer
kisses her hand, leg, neck, shoe, glove, or umbrella as if trying to arrange
together her body in one whole piece. Moreover, his love and euphoria at
the sight of Ellens body or its substitutes speak about his jubilatory
moment.2
Lacans mirror stage presupposes this moment of jubilation when
the Ideal-I is formed in the mirror; the subject and his reversed totalizing
image in the mirror lead to jubilation. A reversed image in Newlands
mirror (at least from a gender perspective) is Ellen. Scorsese punctuates
further this moment of jubilation by placing Newland and Ellen in the
center of the frame, silencing the voiceover and sometimes the music, and
isolating them from the other members of society. In doing that, Scorsese
creates a mirror stage effect as he underscores Archers and Olenksas
presence on the screen as subject and his own image. Their rendezvous
usually take place in rooms or open spaces that do not contain somber
portraits present in Mrs. Archers, van der Luydens, and Letterblairs
houses or anything else that may remind them of the Other. Isolating
Archer and Ellen on screen from the rest of New York society at the opera
or presenting them in enclosed spaces such as the carriage, Scorsese
emphasizes Archers moment of jubilation at his identification with his
ideal-I, Olenska. In the second scene at the opera, Scorsese uses lightening
to set them apart from the other spectators in the opera booth who remain
in darkness. The lovers enjoy these moments of privacy Scorsese provides
that are also moments of happiness and jubilation for Newland. Ellens
energetic and lively personality has a benefic effect on Archer who is
more relaxed and jocular around her.
The end of the film, however, finds Archer contemplating Ellens
windows thirty years after the symbolic order and the Other took over the
idealization of his mirror stage. When the promise of a mirror stage or
Ideal-I reenactment occurs, Archer returns to a more comfortable

symbolic order. The suns reflections on the glass at Olenskas Parisian
apartment, which stings Archers eyes, triggers a mirror stage with an
ideal image of Ellen at the wooden pier where she does turn her head and
smiles at him.3 Yet, his life with May under the eyes of the Other teaches
him to reject Ellen just as his peers did before. Archer is no longer the
young man enjoying the challenges to conformity, but an oldfashioned New Yorker (The Age of Innocence). That Archer acts in
conformity with the demands of the symbolic order is also reinforced by
his behavior vis vis his object of desire. Desire always entails the desire
for something else (crits 158) because our desire for what we already
have is impossible. Archers desire implies his lack of the object of his
desire, Ellen Olenska.
Lacan suggests that the symbolic order, the order imposed by the
Other, is already established and the subject has to comply with it and
perform accordingly. This means that the aristocracy already follows the
rules of the Old New York that have been established for centuries. Yet
the film goes a step further to suggest that May does not undermine
Newlands performance and his failed stratagems to elope with Ellen, but
that she connects to Newlands group of the Other. Associating herself
with Newlands community of the Other, May performs the entity which
establishes the evolution of Newlands performance. Mays performance
is most notable because she does not perform for another person directly.
Instead, her performance includes her in the set of the norms that Newland
sees as the Other. Hence, her performance dominates Newland without
being directly oriented toward him. Scorsese shows her performance and
connection to the Other in at least two ways: through her relations to
different families and their unwritten rules and through the paintings
associated with her. First, May manipulates Archer who lobbies for the
advancement of their marriage date to influential New York families.
Secondly, and more importantly, Scorsese indicates that, like Regina
Beaufort and Mrs. Mingott, May herself becomes a portrait an entity
that gazes back at the viewers to make sure they follow the rules. May
imitates the model imposed by Mrs. Archer and Newland whose house
abounds in portraits of ancestors and ultimately becomes a portrait herself.
Mays performance is noticed from the beginning of the film which

not surprisingly starts with a performance at the opera. Hearing Leffertss
and Jacksons wicked comments about Countess Olenskas reputation,
Archer joins the opera booth, where the Welland and Mingott families are
assembled, to show his support and appreciation for May and Ellen. In
other words, his engagement with May already makes him responsible for
all the members of her family. Furthermore, Scorsese connects characters
with performance to emphasize the pretentiousness of 1870 New York.
Although Scorsese does not show any paintings in the opera scene, he
introduces viewers into the ceremonious and conventional atmosphere of
the performative Old New York. The background of the opening credits
shows flower buds of various colors blossoming rapidly an image that
suggests the laconic duration of the age of innocence due to the withering
of flowers and peoples characters. That flowers symbolize people and
especially women is made clear by the soprano with a blonde wig who is
picking up a yellow daisy and by May who is holding a bouquet of her
favorite flowers, lilies-of-the-valley. Since Scorsese chooses to introduce
both the soprano and May through flowers, the implication is that both are
performers. The camera pans and dissolves through a series of close-ups
on details of the 1870 New York opera clothes and accessories such as
flowers, jewelry on necks and wrists, tiaras, high collars, mens cufflinks,
and flowing ties. Scorsese suggests that May belongs to this community
because the camera focuses on Mays bouquet first and then on her dress
and face.
Newland Archer also becomes part of this subtle and ironical world
of flowers and performances because he, too, is introduced by a close-up
on the artificial gardenia at his pocket-handkerchief, which underscores
his connection to Old New Yorks traditions. Archers gestures also
betray his dependence on women and their performances. Scorsese shows
him twice taking flowers from May at the ball, where they announce their
engagement, and from his daughters wedding bouquet. On both these
conventional occasions, Archer supports the institution of marriage and
the women who participate in the process of making it possible. Flowers
represent both mens conformity to tradition (they offer flowers because
they respect and admire womens beauty and propriety) and womens
performativity (flowers are nonessential but desirable accessories

contributing to an effect or result).
Some of Mays performances take place behind the scenes, an
important detail both in the film and Whartons novel. Mays telegram
that informs Ellen about the Welland and Mingott families decision to
advance the wedding date shatters the dreams of her fianc, Newland,
who wants to release himself from his engagement and consume his affair
with Ellen. The close-up on Newlands face with his disappointed and
awry look and teary eyes dissolves into an upside down mirror of May in
her wedding dress, a corrected image of May reflected into the lens of the
camera, a still image of May posing in an artificial setting of a photo
studio, then multiplied into several replica images in the three mirrors of
the studio. The photographer, impersonated by Martin Scorsese himself,
immortalizes Mays stereotypical poses of Victorian femininity that
become paintings in her own house. Mays various representations in this
sequence point to her elusive personality and her increasing power and
Newlands lack of ability to read her (Lukas). Newland waits in a
corner of the studio and watches Mays silent performance; he does not
participate at the photo shooting and seems absent to the spectacle of his
own marriage. On her wedding day, May becomes a portrait herself that
she puts in the drawing room next to Archers important familial portraits.
May, thus, gets married with Newland, which implies a triumph
over her cousin, Ellen. Her victory is rendered through the tiger
symbolism at Olenskas house and the photo studio scene. The Fernard
Khnopff painting in Ellens living room, where Archer declares his love
for the first time, depicts a tigress with a female head next to a male bust;
the tiger represents Ellens sophistication, elegance, and bohemianism. At
the same time, the painting alludes to the physical incompatibility
between the two lovers because of their affiliation to different species.
The painting does not depict their human bodies as wholes (the tigress has
only a human head and the mans body is not entirely shown), which
makes their connection to the idealization of the mirror stage impossible.
Scorsese explores further the lovers incompatibility in his rendering of a
dead tiger on the floor. The skin of the tiger, where Newland kisses
Ellens shoe, alludes to the futility and termination of their affair.
Ironically, in the photo studio scene that follows Newlands love

declaration, May stands on a tiger skin and assumes the victors position
over her prey, Ellen Olenska.
Scorsese depicts Newlands and Mays European honeymoon
primarily through paintings and postcards that occupy the whole screen to
suggest the characters conventionality and lack of freedom. The
newlyweds become stereotypical personages in paintings that render
familiar places; although the paintings and postcards often do not include
May and Newland, the implication is that they behave according to the
rules prescribed by these visual texts. The voiceover explains that their
conformist honeymoon follows the expected trajectory of any rich
American couple: They traveled to the expected places which May had
never seen. In London, Archer ordered his clothes, and they went to the
National Gallery, and sometimes to the theater . . . . In Paris, she ordered
her clothes . . . . They visited the Tuileries (The Age of Innocence).
Scorsese shows an old postcard with nineteenth-century London followed
by another one with Londoners in high hats and long dresses enjoying
their walks in the city; Newland and May adopt the English fashion and
customs ad literam. The Parisian postcards describing the city and its
elegant flneurs also summarize Mays and Newlands activities and dress
code. Reiterating Mrs. Mingotts gesture, May has her hands modeled in
marble at the sculptor Rochs studio and then displays them in her house;
now she can have both eyes and hands on Newland. The lavish
honeymoon saga ends with Mays control over Newlands desires and
freedoms. After she convinces Newland in the carriage not to invite a
charming Frenchman to dinner, the voiceover stresses out that Mays
pressure was already wearing down the very roughness he most wanted to
keep (The Age of Innocence). As the camera focuses on the newlyweds
in the carriage, a black screen surrounds the couple covering more and
more of the field of view until it takes over the whole frame. The closing
of the frame symbolizes that May closes all of Newlands options and
possibilities of his escape from this traditional marriage.
The third scene at the opera, where May wears her wedding dress,
also marks her consummate performance. As Margaret sings the same aria
from Faust and picks up a daisy, the camera looks down on May from
above and focuses on her dress; the voiceover explains that It was the
custom, in old New York, for brides to appear in their wedding dress
during the first year or two of marriage. But May had not worn her
bridal satin until this evening (The Age of Innocence). May wears her
wedding dress on this particular evening because she marries Archer for
the second time; at the opera, she celebrates her pregnancy and her victory
over Ellen Olenska. May subverts the patriarchal order by applying and
respecting the patriarchal rules and values; dressed as a bride, she
blackmails Archer and Ellen with her pregnancy. Although Mays dress is
altered by time and her soon-to-be pregnant figure, it represents
conventionality and commitment two values that patriarchy cherishes.
Miming conventionality, May disrupts it and becomes unconventional.
Villasur points out that Mays wedding dress is an impossible symbol in
itself: As a marker both of virginity and of Mays status as a newly
married woman, the bridal satin reveals the contradictory construction of
the female body in the Victorian society (Textures 86). Her white dress
becomes a symbol whose meaning is arbitrary; Mays unreadability and
whiteness stand for the literal signifier of the blankness her body and dress
deliver.
When Ellen leaves, Newland becomes aware of Mays performance
and of her connection to the community of the Other. Acting in
accordance with New Yorks conventions concerning marriage, May
wants Newland to choose between her and his mistress. This choice calls
to mind the example Lacan gives, which undermines the subjects
choices: Your money or your life! If I choose money, I lose both. If I
choose life, I have life without the money, namely a life deprived of
something (Four Fundamental Concepts 212). Choosing a life deprived
of love, Newland feels alienated and lonely. Interpreting Lacans
sentence, Paul Verhaeghe argues that the subject is divided between the
necessary loss of its own being on the one hand and the ever alienating
meaning in the Other on the other hand (176). Choosing the Other, the
result will be an ever more clear delineation of this loss (Verhaeghe
176).
After it becomes clear that Newland cannot join Ellen in Europe,
Scorsese depicts his life under the symbolic order and the gaze of the
Other. The camera pans slowly around the Newlands drawing room
showing each portrait, piece of furniture, or home decoration. The focus
on Mays photo in her archery costume and the marble sculpture of her
hands signal her presence in the room and in Newlands life even after her
death. A new generation is born in this very room, which relates directly
or more loosely to May and Newlands rules. Their son, Theodore, is
baptized in their drawing room under the gazes of his family members and
of the family portraits, while their daughter, Mary, announces her
engagement in this room. Mary follows more closely the rules of the
Other and marries the dullest and most reliable of Larry Lefferts many
sons. Ted, on the other hand, defies the rules of the Other in his family
and gets engaged with Julius Beauforts and Annie Rings daughter,
Annie, whose relatives were the favorite subjects of gossip in Old New
York.
As an architect, Ted redecorates the Archers drawing room and
replaces many of the family portraits and the furniture with more modern
furnishings. He also offers his father the unique chance to rebuild his life
by inviting him to Paris and to Madame Olenskas apartment. All these
changes demonstrate that Ted Archer adheres to another community of the
Other, different from his parents. His progressive way of life also
underscores the flexibility of the symbolic order which changes along
with its signifiers. While his son disregards old traditions, Newland
remains anchored in a rigid symbolic order that reinforces Mays
community of the Other. Like May, whose world of her youth had fallen
into pieces and rebuilt itself, Newland remains an old-fashioned
gentleman who is unable to embrace the worlds rebuilding. Responding
to his community of the Other, he chooses not to visit Madame Olenska.
Like many of the contemporary adaptations, Martin Scorseses The
Age of Innocence renders and intensifies the subtleties of its source text,
Edith Whartons 1920 novel. Scorseses visual adaptation of Old New
York aristocracy reveals his insistence on form and dcor; he envelops the
rapports between characters into rigorous etiquettes, opulent dinners,
luxurious furniture, and paintings. Scorseses use of paintings illuminates
the characters relations to the rules of their society; each New York
family owns a different set of paintings through which they impose certain
guidelines. Thus, the characters perform naturally these rules imposed by

a system that perpetuated itself for decades. The film does not show the
characters performing for each other, but for another entity that Lacan
defines best as the Other. New York aristocrats performance of
conventions dictates the destiny of the protagonists. May Welland imitates
patriarchy for the purpose of subverting it; her performance guarantees her
the place and role of the dutiful wife in Archers community of the Other.
Archer, on the other hand, renounces the idealizations and jubilations that
Ellen promises, in order to join the societal conventions of Old New York.
Several further investigations merit critical attention. Analyses of other
aspects of the mise-en-scne such as furniture and home decorations also
reveal the characters imprisonment in their world. Moreover, a look into
the absentees of the film such as Annie Ring (Beauforts mistress) and her
daughter, Newlands father, Mays father, and Ellens husband would
strengthen this societys connections to the rules of the Other.
Notes:
1
George Castellitto believes that some of the paintings that depict women,
actually serve to highlight the control that the women in the film either exert or
to which they succumb (26).
2
Kathy Hadley argues for Newlands blindness and inability to cope with reality
and contends that while he becomes obsessed with Ellens story, he has almost
no curiosity about his wifes (267).
3
The static shot of Ellens silhouette against a glorious sunset, luminous water,
golden lighthouse, and passing ship fuses actual perception with visual
convention; the frame itself turns into a canvas (Villasur, Classic Adaptations
12). Thus, Ellen is not going to turn around because Newland wants to preserve
her fictional, static image.
Works Cited
Castellitto, George. Imagism and Martin Scorsese: Images Suspended and
Extended. Literature Film Quarterly 26 (1998): 23-30. Print.
Hadley, Kathy Miller. Ironic Structure and Untold Stories in The Age of
Innocence. Studies in the Novel 2 (1991): 262-72. Print.
Lacan, Jacques. The Psychoses 1955-1956: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book
III. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Trans. Russell Grigg. New York: Norton,
1993. Print.

- - -. crits: A Selection. Trans. Bruce Fink. New York: Norton, 2002. Print.
- - -. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis. London: Hogarth P,
1977. Print.
Lukas, Karli. Creative Visions: (De)Constructing The Beautiful in Scorseses
The Age of Innocence. Senses of Cinema 25 (2003): n. p. Print.
Peucker, Brigitte. Incorporating Images: Film and the Rival Arts. Princeton:
Princeton UP, 1995. Print.
Pizzello, Stephen. Cinematic Invention Heralds The Age of Innocence.
American Cinematographer 74 (1993): 35-45. Print.
Smith, Gavin. Martin Scorsese Interviewed. Martin Scorsese: Interviews. Ed.
Peter Brunette. Jackson: U of Mississippi P, 1999. 200-19. Print.
The Age of Innocence. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Perf. Daniel-Day Lewis, Michelle
Pfeiffer, and Winona Ryder. Columbia Pictures, 1993. Film.
Vacche, Angela Dalle. Cinema and Painting: How Art Is Used in Film. Austin: U
of Texas P, 1996. Print.
Verhaeghe, Paul. Causation and Destitution of a Pre-ontological Non-entity: On
the Lacanian Subject. Key Concepts of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. Ed.
Dany Nobus. New York: Other, 1998. 164-89. Print.
Villasur, Beln Vidal. Classic Adaptations, Modern Reinventions: Reading the
Image in the Contemporary Literary Film. Screen 43 (2002): 5-18. Print.
- - -. Textures of the Image: Rewriting the American Novel in the Contemporary
Film Adaptation. Valencia: Biblioteca Javier Coy dstudies nord
americans, 2002. Print.
Seeing the Novel, Reading the Film
60
Seeing the Novel, Reading the Film: Unveiling Masculinity,

Englishness and Power Struggle in Arthur Conan Doyles
The Hound of the Baskervilles
IRINA I. SIMONOVA STROUT
The University of Tulsa
Abstract
Masculinity as a notion encompasses a number of identities, including
psychic and social ones. During the late Victorian and early Edwardian
period, masculinity as a construct underwent many changes, which
affected notions of work, property ownership, sexuality, as well as power
struggle with men-rivals and women. The concept of manliness became
a new moral code as well as a social imperative. Embracing this ideal was
a challenging and testing experience for many men as they negotiated
power, privilege and status in both the private and the public spheres of
life. The Edwardian age, a transitional time in British history, became
preoccupied with the consequences of the Boer Wars, gender formation,
imperial policy, economic changes and many other factors. This article
explores the paradigms of English masculinity and the construction of
male identity as a cultural signifier in Arthur Conan Doyles novel The
Hound of the Baskervilles and its Russian film adaptation by Igor
Maslennikov. Doyle contextualizes multiple facets of masculinity from
the normative to the transgressive, from the private to the public, as well
as from the effeminate to the manly as his characters are affected by the
anxieties and tensions of their society. After an in-depth analysis of
manhood in the novel, the focus of the article shifts to Maslennikovs
adaptation and its cinematic use of the literary text, as the film
interrogates masculine codes of behavior, relationships with women and
the male power struggle represented in the novel. The film becomes a
visual interpretation and a powerful enhancement of the narratives
tensions and concerns.
61 Seeing the Novel, Reading the Film
Keywords: Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Igor

Maslennikov, masculinity, manhood, anxiety, identity, film adaptation,
power, gender, behavior
The definition of masculinity as a construct changes over time, depending

on social expectations, ruling ideologies, religious beliefs, and many other
factors. Masculinity is not defined by specific behavior or actions; it is a
construction of power structures in social and cultural discourses. Richard
Dyer once stated, masculinity is a bit like air you breathe it in all the
time, but you arent aware of it much (28). However, masculinity is not a
natural process but a cultural construct, embracing a range of categories of
the masculine. The traditional models of masculinity create characteristics
that are seen as primarily male characteristics. Among these traits are the
endurance of pain or loss, daring and violence, an achievement of power
or status at any cost and a suppression of emotions. In their lifetimes
individual men undergo tests of manhood and have to accept and/or reject
the societal demands imposed on them to locate their own notions of
masculinity their social compromises. For these men, manhood is a
pose that is deeply conflicted, pressured, and forced; a mask of
omnipotence and almost obsessive independence, notes David Gilmore
(209). A man often becomes estranged from a collective identity and
suffers in solitude to achieve his own masculine identity. For many men,
such experiences amounted to conflict, challenge and exertion,
according to John Tosh (111).
The aim of this article is to explore the tensions of English
masculine identity in The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan
Doyle and its Russian film adaptation by Igor Maslennikov, in which men
often feel entrapped by emotional, social and psychological roles imposed
upon them during times of economic depression, imperialism and foreign
competition. Men are never at ease with changing concepts of masculinity
and neither are Doyles characters. A novel as a linguistic source deals
with the representations of masculinity, while a film, as a visual medium
becomes a transposition or translation from one set of conventions for
representing the world to another, suggests Michael Klein in his
Introduction: Film and Literature (in Klein & Parker 3). Maslennikovs
adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles examines and externalizes

concepts tackled in the literary text such as Englishness, control over self
and Other, manliness and power struggle.
In nineteenth-century England, masculinity embraced a variety of
components, including race, class, and gender. The concept of
manliness, essential to the Victorians, underwent some changes: To the
early Victorian it represented a concern with a successful transition from
Christian immaturity to maturity, demonstrated by earnestness,
selflessness and integrity; to the late Victorian it stood for neo-Spartan
virility as exemplified by stoicism, hardiness and endurance, explains
J.A. Mangan (1). For many men it was a necessary code of conduct to
define and shape ones identity and ones role in the changing world of
late nineteenth century England. The shift during the 1880-1920 period, as
Raymond Williams suggests, encompasses the vision of Englishness:
what it was to be English . . . was defined within very hard trainings,
increasingly standardized and masculine institutions (263). The
unpopular Boer Wars of 1899-1902, fears of race degeneration, atavism
and criminality, the changing roles of women were among the many
concerns of the Edwardians.
In late Victorian and early Edwardian culture, Englishness itself
was identified with masculinity and manliness and as such it became an
important marker of literature. Fiction of this period addressed the
paradigms of English masculinity and its modeling. The combination of
virility, manliness and social respectability is explored throughout the
works of many writers of the period. Men continue to find themselves
trapped by the construct of a gentleman: a strict doctrine of male virtue
placed tremendous pressure on men, who represented in a sense the
purveyors of patriarchal respectability, as Annette Federico notes (56).
Englishness as an identity is based upon the ideal of the gentleman and
male characters of this period comply with this ideal. In the world of a
rising middle class, imperial conquests, shifting gender roles and
economic changes, it was getting harder for men to achieve the ideal of
being gentlemen. The shift in the ideology of the gentleman leads to the
overall instability in the ideology of masculinity, according to Karen
Waters, as men try to resist past expectations and find a more modern
masculine identity (3). In the personal drama of many men, the social
drama of the age becomes illuminated in many works of fiction.
Arthur Conan Doyles The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901-02)
questions the codes of masculinity and English identity not only through
the characters of Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. John Watson,
but also through Sir Henry Baskerville, Jack Stapleton, Selden and other
characters. The inheritance of the Baskervilles estate is at the center of
the male power struggle. Unlike in the Victorian age, in the early
Edwardian period mens conduct was no longer governed by the
importance of ones rank, as the hereditary rank system gave way to one
in which economic factors were prevalent. Economic, social and political
changes determined status and authority codes for many men. When Sir
Charles Baskerville dies in the moors, not only is the inheritance of the
Baskerville Hall is at stake, but also the concept of the gentleman. The
estate goes to the young Sir Henry Baskerville, the Baronet, who arrives
from farming in Canada: there was something in his steady eye and the
quiet assurance of his bearing which indicated the gentleman (31, my
emphasis). The gentleman is a contested form of masculinity, and the
ideologies of chivalry and of the gentleman, negotiated in everything
from Idylls of the King to Great Expectations, contributed to the formation
of manliness, notes Joseph Kestner in Sherlocks Men (16). Aside from
the social component, more importantly, a gentleman remains a moral
ideal open to all who prove themselves worthy, suggests James Adams
(42). The Edwardian gentleman is defined not by birth but by conduct, it
is essential to separate a true gentleman from someone who just plays the
role of a gentleman (such as Stapleton in Doyles novel). A gentleman
commits to a life of work, displays devotion to a code of duty, to ones
family and country, and exhibits self-discipline and self-consciousness.
Seen at first as a foreigner, Sir Henry, nevertheless, is a gentleman who
possesses physical fortitude and moral integrity.
The Hound of the Baskervilles constitutes, according to Joseph
Kestner, a distillation of the Edwardian mind by demonstrating the
effects of the history of masculinity persisting to the modern age, from Sir
Hugo Baskerville to his descendant Sir Henry (Sherlocks Men 130). The
young Baronet is a thoroughly English man, a descendant of that long
line of high-blooded, fiery, and masterful men. There were pride, valor,
and strength in his thick brows, his sensitive nostrils, and his large hazel
eyes. . . . [he] was at least a comrade for whom one might venture to take
a risk with the certainty that he would bravely share it (Doyle 55-56). Sir
Henry possesses not only physical self-reliance but also moral integrity,
comradeship and bravery. Sir Henry indeed exemplifies the familiar
concept of manliness, including discipline, duty to England and Empire,
physical prowess and stamina, generosity of spirit and overall selfimprovement.
In the novel, Sir Henry is presented as a mature, strong, industrious
and brave man, very different from the double-faced Jack Stapleton, the
son of Rodger Baskerville, Sir Charless brother, a small, slim, cleanshaven, prim-faced man, flaxen-haired and lean-jawed (Doyle 64). He is
described by Watson as a naturalist, a creature of infinite patience and
craft, with a smiling face and a murderous heart (Doyle 19, 124).
Stapleton possesses secrets and undergoes a number of metamorphoses
similar to the butterflies he collects: after returning to England, he
acquires a new identity, changes his name to Vandeleur and becomes an
entomologist. His dark past fits his ancestors: Sir Hugo imprisons a
woman for his own pleasure and is later destroyed by the Hound.
Significantly, an animal in turn becomes a manifestation of human
aggression and violence. Critic Paul Ferguson suggests that Stapleton is
the reincarnation of the dead Sir Hugo down to the physical
resemblance (28). The villain Stapleton indeed becomes Hugo
Baskervilles throwback . . . both physical and spiritual (Doyle 138).
His atrocious crimes include murder, burglary and even incest. By
contrast, Sir Henry plans to modernize Baskerville Hall, bringing a row
of electric lamps and using the innovative power of Swan and Edison
(Doyle 58). He is the possibility for the amoral and villainous
Baskervilles to correct their defective predispositions to criminality, abuse
of authority and aberrant sexuality, suggests Joseph Kestner (Sherlocks
Men 123). Sir Henry as the heir is capable not only of modernizing the
estate but also of restoring Baskerville Hall to its moral stability and social
progress.
Conan Doyle complicates the construction of masculinity with the

possibility of atavism in the novel. There is an anxiety about the atavistic
reversion of manhood1 that threatens normative masculinity represented
by Sir Henry. Stapleton, an aristocratic descendant, is juxtaposed to
Selden, a murderer and escaped convict. Seldens physical description
associates him with degeneration: an evil yellow face, a terrible animal
face, all seamed and scored with vile passions. Foul with mire, with a
bristling beard, and hung with matted hair, it might well have belonged to
one of those old savages who dwelt in the burrows on the hillsides
(Doyle 96). He is indeed a representation of primitive, prehistoric men,
capable of committing crimes of peculiar ferocity and . . . wanton
brutality (Doyle 57). The landscape in the novel too has traces of
evolutionary atavism, reminding one of the times when prehistoric man
lived thickly on the moor (Doyle 69). The travel through the savage
moor becomes the regressive journey backward through time, notes Nils
Clausson (72). Selden is the living proof of atavism, which produces a
psychological and moral reversion, according to Lawrence Frank, while
Stapleton, in his primitive regression to crime, exhibits the perversion of
normative masculinity in the novel (343).
Doubles function as a metaphor for the anxiety and disorientation
concerning masculinity in The Hound of the Baskervilles. Selden is
mistaken for Sir Henry while wearing Sir Henrys old clothes. It is
revealed that Sir Henrys youth is connected to Seldens story. Dr. Watson
notes Sir Henrys acute focus on the land of his family and realization of
their dark and crime-ridden past: Baskerville sat for a long time, his eyes
fixed upon it, and I read upon his eager face how much it meant to him,
this first sight of that strange spot where the men of his blood had . . . left
their mark so deep (Doyle 55). Sir Henry and Selden are both connected
to criminality when Stapleton, a criminal, is revealed to be Sir Henrys
cousin. The two men are also linked to the moor; however, the only man
who has knowledge of the moor is Sherlock Holmes, according to
Ferguson (26). Dr. Watson mistakes Holmes for a man on the moor:
you actually thought that I [Holmes] was the criminal? (Doyle 122).
Sherlock Holmes exhibits the superiority of knowledge by his ability to
impersonate his adversaries, yet here the boundaries between the criminal
and the detective remain blurry. Following Sir Henry, a disguised

Stapleton pretends to be Holmes. As Ferguson notes, Holmes is the
champion of rationality, Stapleton, embodies the irrational, or the
perversion of the rational faculty (30). Holmes and Stapleton thus
become two manifestations of a complex, mysterious human nature that
may elude explanation, according to Frank (341). These two men are
skillful masters of metamorphosis and the imagery of nets unites them as
cunning and clever detectives; yet it is Holmes, the voice of science and
reason, who is able to keep [his] hands upon all the strings (Doyle 163)
and follow the threads to solve Stapletons crimes.
The foggy landscape of the desolate, lifeless moor reinforces the
ambiguity of the reversed masculinity in the novel. Dr. Watson sees it as
an ocean of evolution out of which all forms of life emerged. He
nonetheless senses the desolation and disorientation of the culture as
[l]ife has become like that great Grimpen Mire, with little green patches
everywhere into which one may sink and with no guide to point the track
(Doyle 73); for men like Watson, the mire is a dangerous and hostile
territory. Stapleton, on the contrary, thinks of the moor not as a
treacherous but a wonderful place, . . . so vast, and so barren, and, so
mysterious, once again underscoring the presence of atavism within
himself (Doyle 67). However, not only can the dangerous mire hide
secrets but it also swallows Stapleton who as a naturalist is aligned with
the moor. Stapletons body is never found on the moors as even nature
rejects the sense of closure: we were never destined to know . . . .
Somewhere in the heart of the great Grimpen Mire, down in the foul slime
of the huge morass which had sucked him in, this cold and cruel-hearted
man is for ever buried (Doyle 154). Yet as Joseph Kestner explains, the
threat posed by Stapletons anarchic masculinity . . . is not expunged
from the universe (Detective 40). Stapleton is a constant reminder of the
transgressive manhood, criminality and the possibility of moral
degeneration. His mysterious fate underscores the anxieties felt by so
many Edwardians. Holmes, a man of acuteness and intelligence, becomes
the guide who has to clear out the instability and ambiguity of the culture:
We hold several threads in our hands, and the odds are that one or other
of them guides us to the truth (Doyle 45). The order of male power is re-
established when Sir Henry inherits the estate; however, his nervous
breakdown forces him to take a long journey . . . for the restoration of his
shattered nerves (Doyle 156). The status of an aristocrat cannot protect
Sir Henry and free him completely from the errors of his ancestors;
however, the hope of the young aristocracy restoring the stability of
masculinity, social order and English identity glimmers at the end of the
novel.
Women complicate the construction of masculinity in the novel;
they become simultaneously victimized and destructive. Sir Charles is
attacked and killed by the Hound when he goes to meet a woman. Mrs.
Barrymore, a heavy, solid person, . . . [with] . . . traces of . . . some deep
sorrow [that] gnaws . . . at her heart (Doyle 80), is related to the criminal
Selden. She almost kills Sir Henry when her brother dressed in Sir
Henrys clothes is attacked on the moor. Another woman, Miss Stapleton,
known as Beryl Garcia, is controlled by her husband Stapleton with no
reference to the ladys own wishes (Doyle 88). Dr. Watson immediately
sees her as exotic; therefore, as a foreign Other, she cannot be trusted:
she was darker than any brunette . . . in England. . . . There is something
tropical and exotic about her (Doyle 70, 76). Even when Beryl tries to
save Sir Henry, she is in turn, as Doyle puts it, tied up by her husband
(164). Finally, Laura Lyons, a woman of equivocal reputation (Doyle
106), is persecuted by the ruthless husband she cannot free herself from;
later she becomes Stapletons mistress as he promises her help but in fact
has lied to [her] in every conceivable way (Doyle 142). She may hold
the power of words being a typist but she becomes a tool in [a mans]
hands (Doyle 142). Female characters reveal the power of male
authority: they suffer physical and emotional abuse from men and at the
same time threaten and destabilize codes of masculinity. Women, with
their potential for being transgressive and dangerous, add to the anxieties
felt by men. Men dominate the narrative in The Hound of the Baskervilles
and function better without the company of women.
The narrative structure itself suggests the construction of masculine
identity in the novel. In a first person narrative, Dr. Watson frames the
story by retelling the events of first seven chapters (with other stories in
them) as well as including his letters to Holmes and diary notes. It is
essential that Dr. Watson exhibits masculine control over the narrative as
well as Holmes (Doyle 38); he becomes a man of action when he writes:
it would be indeed a triumph for me if I could run him to earth where my
master had failed. . . . I swore that it should not be through lack of energy
or perseverance that I should miss the chance which Fortune had thrown
in my way (Doyle 114-118). Watson may often be baffled by Holmess
deduction method, however, in this novel it is Watson who conducts the
investigation and Holmes intentionally yields the stage to Watson and
withdraws behind the scenes, according to James and John Kissane
(358). Nonetheless, the power game is temporary and when Holmes
reappears in Chapter 12, his explanation of the events leaves Watson raw
over the deception Holmes uses on him (Doyle 123). Holmess method
of solving crimes is based on codes of class, gender and ethnicity,
according to Rosemary Jahn, as he reinforces these codes and restores the
order (686).
The two men embody different masculinities (didactic, logical
Holmes versus simple, honest Watson) and become rivals in the
detective game. The detective game is a military campaign for Sherlock
Holmes, as Sir Henry sees him; he is a general who is planning a battle
(Doyle 139). Despite being born to be a man of action . . . to do
something energetic, Dr. Watson is not luminous but a conductor of
light, without being a genius he can stimulate intelligence in others
(Doyle 132, 6). Chapter 15 containing Holmess recounting of the events
once again highlights a striking difference in the two men and their
detective methods. The supernatural presence of the Hound complicates
the rational explanation of events; the mysterious Hound is the symbol of
the family curse, the animal becomes the supernatural creation of a human
master. Sherlock Holmes expunges the curse and restores reason; he
weighed every particle of evidence, constructed alternative theories,
balanced one against the other and made up his mind as to which points
were essential and which immaterial (Doyle 27). Holmess power of
observation reveals the obvious things which nobody by any chance ever
observes (Doyle 28). A master of disguise, the detective nonetheless
needs facts, and not legends or rumors (Doyle 132). Holmes saves Sir
Henry and in a sense England; Sir Henry becomes the new hope for the
Baskervilles to protect and safeguard the British masculinity of the 1900s.
The Hound of the Baskervilles success attracted numerous film and
television adaptations. The debate whether adaptation is indeed a process
of creating something new or whether it is an inferior imitation of the
existent form continues and it often takes the reductive form of the
statement, The movie simply was not as good as the book. Often films
do not convey the moral or aesthetic ideas of the novel; however, instead
of talking about loss in translation from novel to film, one should
consider what is gained in the process of adaptation as it is important to
differentiate between different media and modes of expression.
Adaptation is an extensive cinematic transposition of a particular
work or works and has to be studied not only as a product on its own but
also as a process of creation and reception, explains Linda Hutcheon (xiv,
7). John Ellis sees adaptations as works that prolong the pleasure of the
original work and repeat the production of a memory (4-5); adaptation
trades upon the memory of the novel, whether a memory from reading
or a general knowledge of the work (3). To make a successful adaptation a
director must make the text his/her own. Successful adaptations force
readers to rethink how a text operates contextually and theoretically.
There is also a dichotomous thinking that presumes a bitter rivalry
between film and literature, since film is often seen as a result of
anxiety of influence, where the adaptation becomes the Oedipal son
who slays the source-text as the Father, states Robert Stam in his
Introduction to Literature and Film (in Stam & Raengo 4). Some of the
grounds for hostility towards adaptations include the historical priority
of literature to film and the specific priority of novels to their
adaptations (Stam in Stam & Raengo 4). All films (not only adaptations
or remakes) are mediated through intertextuality and many adaptations
reveal that all of art is derivative on some level.
Stam goes on to foreground the extent to which the cinematic
adaptation of a novel is done though various filters, such as studio style,
ideological fashion, political and economic constraints, auteuristic
predilections, charismatic stars, cultural values (in Stam & Raengo 46).
The linguistic energy of literature is turned into the performative energy
of adaptation. Adaptation thus becomes an interpretation of a filmmakers

reaction to the text and the use of sound and image relevant to the text.
The most successful adaptations do so by interpreting and exploiting the
source text; the directors own vision allows the film to be a separate
entity, with a life of its own, according to Linda Cahir (97). Looking at
both film and novel, the goal of a scholar is not to privilege one over the
other but to study them inter-relationally. Cahir points out four qualities,
which determine the overall success of a film adaptation: the film should
communicate the integral ideas of the source text; the film should exhibit
a collaboration of filmmaking skills; the adaptation should explore the
source work but remain an aesthetic product; lastly, the cinematic
production cannot be too self-governing or independent of the source
text (99).
The Hound of the Baskervilles has been among the favorites of all
Holmes-Watson stories for readers and viewers alike. One of the
successful foreign productions of The Hound is a 1981 Russian film by
Igor Maslennikov, starring Vasily Livanov (Sherlock Holmes) and Vitalii
Solomin (Dr. Watson). Due to the films immediate success in Russia, a
permanent set was built in St. Petersburg. Five films were made during the
period of 1979 to 1986, and The Hound was made early on with the
scenery shots filmed in Russia. In one of the interviews, Vasily Livanov
reflects on the films success: The Conan Doyle stories had been made
into many films before us, but, as I see it, our characters are remarkable in
being very human and convincing. This is probably why the British
recognized our film to be the best European version of its kind (Livanov
n.p.). The popularity of the Russian adaptation is explained by the Russian
fascination with the Edwardian period, English identity and the concept of
the androcentric detective who interrogates the culture and its
expectations. Director Igor Maslennikov offers his perspective on the
appeal of the Sherlock Holmes films in Russia: Anyone who goes to him
feels secure. He is reliable. He is the personification of gentlemanly
behavior. Audiences are always in need of someone with those qualities
(qtd. in Haining 89). In the film, Holmes exemplifies the Russian love and
perception of Sherlock Holmes, who proves the incapability of the
Scotland Yards police to solve the crime and address the moral issues.
Livanov plays the role of Holmes whom he envisioned as the perfect

English gentleman (qtd. in Haining 89). He embodies intellect and
intuition and controls the social order in the film.
The period film succeeds in capturing the Edwardian atmosphere of
uncertainty in the film through its dialogues, period costumes and
elaborate sets. Of the latter, the Baker Street room is gloomy, as are other
interiors, which reflect the interplay of light and darkness. The interior of
the Baker street rooms shift to a flight of steps leading to a railed gallery
with Holmes and Watsons respective bedroom doors. However, the
buildings on Baker Street are too ornate for the London of the period due
to St. Petersburgs neoclassical and rococo architectural style. The film
opens with a few flashbacks revealing the details of Sir Hugos death
followed by Dr. Mortimers account of the Hound as the protagonists take
on the investigation of the mysterious events. Despite a few plot
deviations from the novel, the film is visually powerful, paying close
attention to details as it captures the instability and anxieties of Edwardian
culture. Sir Henrys nervous breakdown at the end coincides with the
breakdown in transmission of patriarchal power and despite the lingering
hope for recovery, masculine identity remains problematic.
Location shooting, through the use of fog and various camera
angles, succeeds in underlining the Gothic gloom of the moors and
uncertainty of the bleak future; the fog surrounding the hearth fire of the
Baskervilles manor suggests the chaos in the Edwardian culture. There are
multiple shots of the Steppes at night as the moors to reinforce their evil
and dangerous nature. The film successfully captures the essence of the
mysterious Hound as Holmes ponders the implications of human origins,
race degeneration and the possibility of the extinction of the human
species. As he gazes over the landscape, Holmes embodies the paradox
of the human situation: joined to the world of animals and savage
prehistoric people, yet possessed of intellectual capacities that elevate him
above his ancestors, in both the novel and the film (Frank 346). With his
insight and logic, Holmes remains the only man who knows the moors
hidden danger in the film (it happens in a scene when he is reunited with
Watson who earlier mistakes him for a criminal).
Similarly to the novel, male characters are intentionally

interconnected in the film; Selden is linked to Sir Henry (Nikita
Mikhalkov) and Stapleton (Oleg Yankovsky) to Holmes in order to reveal
the figurative depths of self associated with a primitive past ha[ve]
never disappeared, according to Frank (360). The Mire is presented in
the film in Darwinian terms: The moon shone on it, and it looked like a
great shimmering icefield, with the heads of the distant tors as rocks borne
upon its surface (Doyle 147), reinforcing the locale of disorientation and
uncertainty as the desolate moor with its primitive huts and graves
becomes the battlefield of the forces of good and evil. The future of the
Edwardian age is unpredictable and the effective use of foggy landscape
in the film reinforces it.
Casting and acting capture the contrast of masculinities in the film.
Oleg Yankovsky as Stapleton is a cunning, scheming man, his dark
secrets are stapled beneath the proper appearance of a gentleman. Nikita
Mikhalkovs Sir Henry, on the other hand, is very much Russian in
manner: he provides a temporary comedic relief carrying a banjo and a
saddle, or displaying distaste for the traditional English breakfast of
oatmeal; he becomes the Russian parody of the American cowboy. Sir
Henry is portrayed as a newcomer, whose life is untouched by the reign
of terror in the district (Doyle 24) yet his fate is connected to the
Baskervilles. As Dr. Mortimer reminds us, the prosperity of the poor,
bleak countryside depends upon [Sir Henrys] presence (Doyle 26) and
the task of rejuvenating the Hall as well as England belongs to Sir Henry.
There is an unmistakable chemistry rather than rivalry between
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in the film. The voice tones and body
language signify friendship and mutual respect. Despite Vasily Livanovs
being rather short and slight for a Holmes, he carries off the character
with aplomb (Livanov and Solomin n.p.). His rational nature and an
ability to observe every detail are interrupted by occasional outbursts of
humor and activity. Livanov wears glasses when reading, his personal
addition to the Holmes figure. A few reviewers noted that Livanov is
saddled with the deerstalker/cape combo on almost every exterior scene
(Livanov and Solomin n.p.), which enhances his image as a clever
detective. Vitalii Solomin as Dr. Watson is a strong young man as
portrayed by Doyle. He embodies the neat, disciplined and sensible man

in his carefully ironed tweed suit. Watson is the foil to the Holmes
character in the film. He is often in the dark, waiting to be enlightened by
the brighter Holmes. He walks with a no-nonsense military posture that
is tempered by an air of concern that one might expect from a physician
(Livanov and Solomin n.p.). Solomin adds a warmer personal touch to
the character and is often described by film critics as one of the very best
Watsons to ever appear on-screen. Despite a few plot deviations, the film
reflects the key concerns for the Edwardians: criminality and justice,
primordial sin and the future of English identity are not lost in
translation but are metamorphosed in the visual medium. The fate of
England remains in the hands of Sir Henry and it is up to him to ensure
the safety of his ancestral estate and his country.
Arthur Conan Doyle clearly interrogates masculine identity,
Englishness, gender differences and male power struggle. Doyle is
preoccupied with the question where and how men are placed on the scale
of masculinity. Imperial conquests, the rise of Germany and America,
shifting gender roles destabilize legal, sexual and social affiliations for
men. The Hound of the Baskervilles questions masculinity in a period
when the voice of the masculine ruling class was particularly dominant
in the culture. . . . In the Edwardian period Englishness was closely
associated with masculinity, and manliness was seen as a dominant
characteristic of English literature, according to Anthea Trodd (6-8). The
codes of masculinity and English identity are explored in Doyles novel,
from Sir Hugo Baskerville to his heir Sir Henry as well as Sherlock
Holmes and Dr. Watson. All men feel the pressures of turbulent times and
become more affected by its passage: the mystery behind the Hound as
well as Stapletons identity reinforces the disorientation and tension men
experience during this period. Sir Henry, who inherits Baskerville Hall, is
a man of moral integrity and reason; he embodies the hope to re-establish
a solid male paradigm as a model of English identity and manhood.
Many scholars would agree that a literary work is authentic and
distinct, whose molecular equilibrium is affected when you tamper with
its form, as Andre Bazin puts it (19). The cinematic adaptations aim,
Bazin continues, is to simplify and condense a work from which it
basically wishes to retain the main characters and situations (25). A

successful adaptation preserves the aesthetic value of a literary work; it
does not eliminate but rather reinforces the novels integrity. Literature
has been made more accessible through adaptation, though audience
reception is not a criterion of cultural and aesthetic value. Nineteenth
century novelists established the supremacy of form, inventing characters
and situations; yet it is a works narrative style that creates the character
and imposes him/her on the public consciousness. Therefore, novels are
mythmakers (23). The adaptations aim is to simplify and condense a
work from which it basically wishes to retain the main characters and
situations.
Both Arthur Conan Doyles novel and Igor Maslennikovs film
adaptation become, as Robert Stam sets forth, communicative utterances,
socially situated and historically shaped (in Stam & Raengo 10).
Multicultural as well as historical representations of masculinity and
identity affect the adaptation of the text and are subject to the directors
preconceived notions. Yet as Joseph Conrad reminds us, the art of writing
is to make us see, perceive and understand; combined with the
adequacy of vision and talent of a filmmaker, it reinforces the quality
of an adaptation from literature to film, states Michael Klein (in Klein &
Parker 12). In a way an adaptation becomes another text, forming part of
a broad discursive continuum (Stam in Stam & Raengo 10). The Russian
film adaptation of Doyle is overall successful: in its interpretations of the
source text, the film reinforces the representations of masculinity and
expands readers understanding of the internal conflict which male
characters face and struggle with in their relationships with male rivals as
well as women, as Great Britain transitions into the new era. The desire
for self-fulfillment, the need to find a place in a social niche and adapt to
social changes, and the wish to reinvent their identity preoccupy these
timeless characters that continue to fascinate readers, viewers and
filmmakers alike.
Note:
1
There is a link of criminality with atavistic behavior, which poses a threat to

normative masculinity; for more see Joseph Kestners chapter The Edwardian
Holmes in Sherlocks Men: Masculinity, Conan Doyle, and Cultural History

(122-124).
Works Cited
Adams, James Eli. Dandies and Desert Saints: Styles of Victorian Masculinity.
Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1995. Print.
Bazin, Andre. Adaptation, or the Cinema as Digest. Film Adaptation. Ed.
James Naremore. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2000. 19-28. Print.
Cahir, Linda C. Literature into Film: Theory and Practical Approaches.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006. Print.
Clausson, Nils. Degeneration, Fin-de-Sicle Gothic, and the Science of
Detection: Arthur Conan Doyles The Hound of the Baskervilles and the
Emergence of the Modern Detective Story. Journal of Narrative Theory
35:1 (Winter 2005): 60-87. Print.
Doyle, Conan Arthur. The Hound of the Baskervilles. London: Penguin, 2001.
Print.
Dyer, Richard. Male Sexuality and the Media. Sexuality of Men. Eds. A.
Metcalf and M. Humphries. London: Pluto, 1985. 28-43. Print.
Ellis, John. The Literary Adaptation: An Introduction. Screen 23.1 (1982): 3-5.
Print.
Federico, Annette. Masculine Identity in Hardy and Gissing. London: Associated
UP, 1991. Print.
Ferguson, Paul. Narrative Vision in The Hound of the Baskervilles. Clues 1
(Fall/Winter 1980): 24-30. Print.
Frank, Lawrence. The Hound of the Baskervilles, the Man on the Tor, and a
Metaphor for the Mind. Nineteenth-Century Literature 54.3 (Dec. 1999):
336-72. Print.
Gilmore, David D. Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity.
New Haven: Yale UP, 1990. Print.
Haining, Peter. The Television Sherlock Holmes. London: Virgin, 1994. Print.
Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.
Jahn, Rosemary. Detecting Social Order. New York: Twayne, 1995.
Kestner, Joseph. The Edwardian Detective, 1901-15. Vermont: Ashgate, 2000.
Print.
- - -. Sherlocks Men: Masculinity, Conan Doyle, and Cultural History. Vermont:
Ashgate, 1997. Print.
Kissane, James, and John Kissane. Sherlock Holmes and the Ritual of Reason.
Nineteenth-Century Fiction. 17.4 (Mar. 1963): 353-62. Print.
Klein, Michael, and Gillian Parker. The English Novel and the Movies. New
York: Ungar, 1981. Print.
Livanov, Vasily. Interview. Lifestyle: A Russia Journal Publication 2.45 (24 Jan.
2000), n. p. Web. 1 Oct. 2014.

Mangan, James A., and James Walvin, eds. Manliness and Morality: MiddleClass Masculinity in Britain and America, 1800-1940. New York: St.
Martins, 1987. Print.
Stam, Robert, and Alessandra Raengo, eds. Literature and Film. A Guide to the
Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005.
Print.
Tosh, John. A Mans Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian
England. New Haven: Yale UP, 1999. Print.
Trodd, Anthea. A Readers Guide to Edwardian Literature. Calgary, Canada: U
of Calgary P, 1991. Print.
Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin: The Russian Sherlock Holmes and Doctor
Watson. 2010. Web. 1 Oct. 2014.
Waters, Karen. The Perfect Gentleman: Masculine Control in Victorian Mens
Fiction, 1870-1901. New York: Lang, 1997. Print.
Williams, Raymond. Politics and Letters. London: New Left, 1979. Print.
77 Performing Arabness
Performing Arabness in Arab American Stand-up Comedy

YASSER FOUAD SELIM
Sohag University
Abstract
This article deals with the dramatic art of stand-up comedy. It locates
Arab American stand-up comedy within a broader American humorous
tradition and investigates the way Arab American performers use this art
to negotiate and (re)construct their identity. The main question in this
article is the way Arab American stand-up comedians define their
relationship to the Arab and the western worlds in the process of
establishing their Arab American identity. Three humor theories the
relief theory, the incongruity theory, and the superiority theory are
deployed in the study to examine the representation of Arabness in
selected Arab American performances. The study argues that Arab
American comics minstrelize their own diasporic origin through
reinscribing a range of orientalizing practices in order to claim their
Americanness.
Keywords: Arab American, stand-up comedy, Maysoon Zayid, Ahmed
Ahmed, Dean Obeidallah, Aron Kader, humor, identity
The art of stand-up comedy is one of the most scholarly marginalized

theatrical forms. There is very little academic and scholarly attention
given to the study and analysis of stand-up comedy despite its old history
and present popularity. Arab American stand-up comedy is the most
marginalized in the tradition. This article is an attempt to fill a gap in the
study of stand-up comedy in general and the criticism of Arab American
artistic expression in particular. The article starts with defining stand-up
comedy and tracing its historical connection to the negotiation and
projection of ethnicity. The study, then, deploys three humor theories: the
relief theory, the incongruity theory, and the superiority theory, with a
view to examining the performance of Arabness in selected Arab

American stand-up routines. Performances of four Arab American standup comedians Ahmed Ahmed, Dean Obeidallah, Maysoon Zayid, and
Aron Kader are selected to explain how the Arab American identity is
negotiated and construed in relation to Arabness and Americanness. The
analysis is based on transcriptions of performances posted on YouTube.
Stand-up comedy is a kind of dramatic performance that takes place
on a stage where a performer gives improvised or scripted humorous
monologues before live audiences. Stand-up comedy is often shortened to
stand-up. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, stand-up is
a monologue of jokes, gags, or satirical comments delivered usually
while standing alone on a stage or in front of a camera. Categorizing
stand-up under a literary genre, Ian Brodie calls it a verbal play . . . [that]
utilises humour (154). American professor Laurence E. Mintz gives a
more comprehensive definition of the term in his insightful article Standup Comedy as Social and Cultural Meditation. He explains:
A strict limiting definition of stand-up comedy would describe an
encounter between a single, standing performer behaving comically and/or
saying funny things directly to an audience, unsupported by very much in
the way of costume, prop, setting, or dramatic device. Yet stand-up
comedy arts roots are . . . entwined with rites, rituals, and dramatic
experiences that are richer, more complex than this simple definition can
embrace. (71)
In his PhD dissertation Laughter in Revolt: Race, Ethnicity, and

Identity in the Construction of Stand-up Comedy, Mathew Daube defines
stand-up comedy as a dramatic work in which the number of players is
reduced to one, who performs his or her own character, complete with
name and life history (5). It could be argued that stand-up comedy is a
play in which the comedian is the writer, actor, and character of his or her
own dramatic performance. It could also be argued that stand-up is more
authentic than any other form of theatrical performance because it offers
on-stage autobiographical oral narratives that question identity and culture
of both the self and the other. Juan Sjobohm affirms that a comedian
performing the repertoire of another comedian is uncommon, if not
existent, in the context of stand-up because using somebody elses stories
in stand-up comedy is considered plagiarism (5). Stand-up is unique in

offering acerbic social and cultural critique of the self and the other and at
the same time it escapes the censor through its comic license. In standup comedy, performers and producers can approve the show on the basis
that it is just a joke, as Paul McIlvenny, Sari Mettovaara, and Ritva
Tapio remark:
One reason for the critical place of humour in western societies, and
maybe in all human societies is that it escapes the censor, thus allowing a
dangerous use and abuse of convention. But the danger can be diffused
because the humorous mode separated from the realm of serious discourse
enables performers to deny the import of a humorous remark by claiming
it was only a joke. (227)
Mintz proclaims that stand-up comedy, although undervalued by

critics and researchers when compared to humorous and serious literature,
is the oldest, most universal, basic, and deeply significant form of
humorous expression (71). He traces the art to the Middle Ages jester
and clown performances which took the form of donning colorful clothes
and performing humorous actions with a variety of acrobatics, comedy,
music, and magic to entertain the king and the nobility. However, the
closest art to modern day stand-up comedy could be seen in nineteenthcentury minstrelsy. From the early years of the 1800s until the few
decades following the Civil War, blackface minstrelsy was very popular
in the U.S. White performers used to don black faces to entertain white
audiences through mocking black people and staging stereotypical
negative images of the African American culture. Jerry Zolten, associate
professor of Communication Arts & Sciences and American Studies at
Penn State Altoona, says, Minstrelsy was . . . a source for much of the
stereotype that still lingers today about African Americans, a group more
maligned in the name of entertainment than any other (qtd. in Parker). In
these minstrel shows, white performers employed what was called a
stump speech in which they stood atop a tree stump and parodied black
people vernacular while giving commentary on social and political taboos.
By the late 19th century, the minstrel shows gave place to the art of
vaudeville which was less concerned with racial satire. The vaudevilles
did not target the vilification of races. They were more about laughing at
peoples differences. The art was called polite vaudeville or refined

vaudeville because its main target was to provide a respectable and
decent entertainment that families could patronize without damage to their
reputations (Cullen 18). The advent of the Roaring 1920s and the
invention of the radio and microphones provided vaudeville artists with
unprecedented opportunities to broadcast their humor and reach out to
American automobiles and houses. Zoltan explains that the patriotism
spirit during the war pushed the American comedians further to center
their monologues on poking fun at what we [Americans] as a society
could all laugh at together rather than mocking and laughing at one
another (qtd. in Parker).
After the war was over and amidst the Civil Rights period, when the
relationship between the ethnic individuals heritage and Americanness
was of high concern, a number of comedians started questioning
American social, religious, ethnic, and political norms. Mathew Daube
argues that comedians like Lenny Bruce, David Gregory, Bill Cosby, and
Richard Pryor were the vanguard of those who altered the older
traditions of comic joke-telling into an extended direct conversation with
the audience, creating a space of extraordinary intimacy (1). Daubes
selection of Jewish and African American artists to study the construction
of stand-up comedy in the U.S. proves his argument that stand-ups style
and subject are intractably linked to issues of race, ethnicity and the
production of identity. Arising in the midst of the Civil Rights era, the
form lent itself to racial and ethnic minorities who queried the evolving
relationship between the individual and the society-as-a-whole (1).
In his Stand-up Comedy in Theory, or, Abjection in America, the
first study of stand-up comedy as a form of art, John Limon states that in
the 1950s and 1960s, the profession was dominated by Jewish, male,
heterosexual comedians and that it paradoxically lent itself recently to
female, homosexual, black, Christianizing comedians (6). I suspect
Limon would have made mention of Arab American stand-up comedy if
he had written his book after 2001. Arab American literature and arts have
often been ignored in the American literary and artistic scenes, and standup comedy is no exception. After September 11, 2001, Arab Americans
discovered the value of the humorous art of stand-up in tackling issues of
race, ethnicity, and identity. If early American stand-up comedy rose out
of the Civil Rights era and the minorities quest for recognition in
America, Arab American stand-up comedy appeared after the traumatic
experience of 9/11 to question the Arab American identity and its location
within the American mosaic.
The question of defining the Arab-American identity in relation to
the Arab and American parts that precede and follow the hyphen is what
is going to be investigated in the remainder of this article. The three
theories of humor utilized in this analysis the relief theory, the
incongruity theory and the superiority theory are often regarded to be
the basic and central theories that explicate the function and mechanism of
humor. Although there are tens of studies that validate or refute these
different theories against one another, the three hypotheses are more
compatible than different and can be safely deployed simultaneously to
explain one humorous expression.
According to the relief theory, one of the major functions of humor
is to reduce stress. In The Physiology of Laughter, Herbert Spencer
argues that laughter is a physiological process in which quasi-convulsive
contractions of the muscles result from an uncontrolled discharge of
energy (7566). Humor, according to Spencer, is a way through which
nerve centers of tension discharge themselves. This relief aspect of humor
is highlighted by many philosophers, physiologists and psychologists
including Alexander Bain (The Emotion and the Will 1859), Anthony
Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury (An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and
Humour 1971), and Sigmund Freud (Humour 1927). Freud is often
regarded as making the strongest statement about humor from a
psychological perspective. He argues that humor has a rebellious (163)
nature in the way it challenges negative energy and helps overcome
distress and socio-cultural restrictions. He concludes:
The grandeur in it [humour] clearly lies in the triumph of narcissism, the
victorious assertion of the egos invulnerability. The ego refuses to be
distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to
suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external
world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it
to gain pleasure. This last feature is a quite essential element of humour.
(162)
The post-9/11 trauma of Arab Americans was very distressing.

Arab Americans had to confront their stigmatization and the accusations
of being culturally different and dangerous. They soon rediscovered standup comedy and the ability of humor to alleviate dejection and relieve
tension and stress. In 2003, the Arab American Comedy Festival was
founded by Arab American comedians Dean Obeidallah and Maysoon
Zayid to build resilience after 9/11 and to reclaim the Arab American
identity through performing ethnicity in front of a good number of Arab
and Caucasian American audiences attracted to the performances.
Commenting on the mission of the Arab American Comedy Festival,
Obeidallah says, We choose to foster understanding, dispel stereotypes,
make people understand who we are a little, and define us in a much more
accurate way (Aita). The Egyptian American comedian Ronnie Khalil
adds, After 9/11, there was a lot of negative portrayal of our community
in the media. There is still a limited view of who Arabs are, but at least
now people are willing to learn more about us (Salama).
In their stand-up comedy, Arab American comedians turn their
distress into humor by mocking their own afflictions. The satisfaction and
pleasure found in their performances are not only felt by them but by the
audience as well. Freud argues that one way the humorous process takes
place is when a single person adopts a humorous attitude while another
person derives pleasure from it as a spectator. He mentions the example of
a criminal who remarks, as he is going to the gallows on Monday, Well,
the weeks beginning nicely (161). While the humor gives sort of
satisfaction to the criminal, it also gives the listener the same sense of
humorous pleasure. Both the criminal and the listener overcome the stress
created by the execution moment and experience relaxation and relief.
Freud elaborates this gallows humor by saying:
He [the spectator] sees this other person in a situation which leads the
listener to expect that the other will produce the signs of an affect that he
will get angry, complain, express pain, be frightened or horrified or
perhaps even in despair; and the onlooker or listener is prepared to follow
his lead and to call up the same emotional impulses in himself. But this
emotional expectancy is disappointed; the other person expresses no
affect, but makes a jest. The expenditure on feeling that is economized
turns into humorous pleasure in the listener. (161-162)
In stand-up comedy, sharing initial despair and finally experiencing

humorous pleasure create unity and understating between the performer
and the audience. In the case of Arab American stand-up, the performer is
the stereotyped and the spectator is the stereotyper. The stand-up humor
reorders the relationship between them and creates a sense of camaraderie,
instead of prejudice, which is one of the basic functions of humor as stated
by Mintz: The structure of jokes tends to be subversive; in other words,
jokes tear down, distort, misrepresent, and reorder usual patterns of
expression and perception (73).
Lets take one of Ahmed Ahmeds performances as an example of
this tension relief function of humor. Ahmed Ahmed, an Egyptian
American comedian, is one of the most recognized Arab American standup artists. He is famous for commencing his performances with a
statement of his everlasting, unusual problem: My name is Ahmed
Ahmed, and I cant fly anywhere (Stand-up Comedy). Due to the level
of security clearance he must pass, Ahmed jokes that he always has to
arrive at the airport ninety minutes before the flight wearing a g-string.
The fact that Ahmed Ahmed goes through strict security clearance before
he travels is never humorous. However, it is made funny by the performer
in order to discharge the negative energy of being othered and to replace
this negative energy with pleasant emotions. Fastening his seat belt and
getting ready for taking off, somebody approached him and pulled him off
the plane. The two American guys sitting next to him exclaimed, I
thought he was a Mexican! We were sitting next to al Qaeda the whole
time! Ahmed answered them in an American accent, Ill be right back,
bitch, just save my seat. Ill be right back. Its Bullshit! (Stand-up
Comedy). The punch line of the joke is that the passengers took Ahmed
as a terrorist, but he proved them through his American English that he
was an innocent American. The despair and anguish over his mistreatment
at the airport are mocked and the anger turns into humorous pleasure. This
pleasure or gallows humor, to use Freuds words, is shared by Ahmed
Ahmed and the audiences and creates a sense of understanding between
them. Laughter creates codes of agreement and reception between the
comedian and the audience, as incisively explained by Jack G. Shaheen,

the author of Reel Bad Arabs:
Historically, humor has always been used to put people at ease and sort of
open themselves up to receiving messages that make them aware of their
prejudices without offending them . . . . Its a wonderful way to help
shatter stereotypes because with true laughter, particularly in open-minded
people, comes real renewal and enlightenment. (qtd. in Marks)
The mechanism of humor in Ahmed Ahmeds performance, as well

as in most of the Arab American stand-up comics routines, derives from
an incongruity between what is expected and what is real. The passengers
expected Ahmed to be a Mexican and once he was pulled off the plane,
they thought he was an Arab terrorist. His answer in American slang
suddenly transformed him from a dangerous passenger into an innocent
Arab American, which creates humor. The contrast in the situation creates
absurdity, and frustration is found to be pleasant when the serious is made
trivial. Immanuel Kant explains that incongruity creates humor when a
tense expectation is suddenly transformed into nothing (203). It is an
intellectual recognition of the incongruity between what is expected and
what is real. The basic incongruity in Arab American stand-up comedy, in
general, is the intellectual recognition of the difference between the
expected Arab American and the staged one. The Arab American, who is
expected to be a threatening anomalous figure belonging to an alien Arab
culture, is actualized on the stage as a funny American speaking unbroken
English. In his book The Phantoms in the Brain, V.S. Ramachandran
points out that the main purpose of laughter might be to allow the
individual to alert others in the social group (usually kin) that the detected
anomaly is trivial, nothing to worry about. The laughing person in effect
announces her discovery that there has been a false alarm; that the rest of
you chaps need not waste your precious energy and resources responding
to a spurious threat (206).
Moreover, the performances help in creating a sense of unity
between the Arab American performer and the spectator. What is very
striking in this incongruity is that the trivial anomaly presented by the
Arab American performers is the Arab part of the hyphen. In Ahmed
Ahmeds performance about the airport check, the joke derives not only
from the realization that Ahmed is an American citizen but also from the
recognition that he is distant from the Arab stereotype. In this
performance, Ahmed is in effect saying, I am not a terrorist Arab; I am an
innocent Arab American, which makes me more in accord with America
than with my Arab origins. His marginalization is presented as rooted in
his Arabness, a defect he needs to uproot in order to create a unique Arab
American identity that is closer to the Western than the Arab. Mintzs
description of the function of stand-up comedy helps to explain this point:
Traditionally, the comedian is defective in some way, but his natural
weaknesses generate pity, and more important, exemption from the
expectation of normal behavior. He is thus presented to his audience as
marginal. Because he is physically and mentally incapable of proper
action, we forgive and even bless his mistakes. (74)
The weak or defective part in the Arab American character, as presented

in this particular performance by Ahmed, is the Arab origin. It creates the
Arab American marginality and accounts for his pathetic situation within
the American social and cultural structure. Ridiculing such a part is a way
to reject it and show superiority of the self over it. It is the mistake which,
when forgiven by western audiences, might reconstruct the Arab
American identity and make it part of the American mosaic.
Actually, most of the humor in the Arab American stand-up
performances is based on the superiority theory which proposes that
humor is generated at the cost of ridiculing an inferior other in an attempt
to show superiority over it. In his Poetics, Aristotle notes that comedy . .
. is an imitation of characters of a lower type. . . . It consists in some
defect of ugliness which is not painful or destructive. To take an obvious
example, the comic mask is ugly and distorted, but does not imply pain
(Butcher 21). Aristotle thinks that we laugh at ugliness because it erects
our beauty when compared to it. The inferiority of the ridiculed ugly
object instigates malicious enjoyment and joy. English philosopher
Thomas Hobbes explains the same idea of the feelings of joy at realizing
the inferiority of others in his seventeenth century book Leviathan.
Hobbes argues that sudden glory is the passion which maketh those
Grimaces called LAUGHTER; and is caused either by some sudden act of

their own that pleaseth them; or by the apprehension of some deformed
thing in another, by comparison whereof they suddenly applaud
themselves (34). The superiority theory is supported by some other
writers like C.R. Gruner (The Game of Humor 1997), Albert Rapp (The
Origins of Wit and Humor 1951), and Konrad Lorenz (On Aggression
1963).
This superiority aspect of humor is provided also by Richard D.
Alexander in his article Ostracism and Indirect Reciprocity: The
Reproductive Significance of Humor. Alexander argues that humor is
hypothesized to be a social activity that alters the status of the humorist
positively and that of the object or victim negatively. He states that
humor has an ostracizing function that gives superiority of the humorist
over the humorized. Some of the benefits of telling jokes, according to
Alexanders hypothesis, are the following:
1. Elevating of ones own status in relation to
a. Part of the group (audience)
b. All of the group (audience)
c. One or more third parties not present
2. Lowering of someone elses (the victims) status in relation to ones
self
a. The victim is the only individual present
b. The victim is not the only one present
c. The victim is not present.
3. Reinforcing (maintaining) a presumably favorable status relationship
with
a. Part of the group (audience)
b. All of the group (audience)
c. One or more third parties not present. (258)
In most of the Arab American stand-up comedies, social ostracism

is directed towards ones ancestral roots. The Arab is victimized, while
the Arab Americans status is elevated and a sense of camaraderie
relationship is formed and reinforced between the Arab American
comedian and the mainstream audiences. This social ostracism is
expressed in different ways by the Arab American stand-up comedians.
Verbal scorning of Arabness, ridiculing Arab traditions and values,
violating Arab cultural and religious taboos, looking at Arabs with a
tourist gaze and creating a dichotomy of funny Arab Americans versus

stupid Arab terrorists are all examples of the different techniques used
by Arab American stand-up comedians to distance themselves from their
Arab origin and to ostracize Arabness.
In an interview, Dean Obeidallah, one of the founders of the Arab
American Comedy Festival, says, Jokes about Arabs being late, or
smoking cigarettes, or fighting over the check like these typical Arab
things get the biggest laughs in the show (Amos). Arab names become
again a source of humor when Obeidallah translates his Arabic surname
into Servant of Allah, which makes his situation even worse: How hard
would it be for me to make airline flights reservation for the rest of my
life using that name? Hi, two tickets to Miami please. My name? Servant
of Allah. Hang on, let me transfer you to someone who can help you.
Hello, FBI? (Amos). The joke again is misreading Obeidallah as an
Arab and the laughter is created because of the fact that he is not, but
unwillingly inherited an Arab name which is humorously ridiculed by
him. Similarly, the source of Maysoon Zayids punch lines is her parents
whom she presents stereotypically in one of her performances. Zayids
father looks like Saddam Hussein, a typical Arab dictator for most
Americans, and her mother looks like Haifa Wehbe, a famous Arab singer
known for her sex appeal and exotic shows. Zayid presents herself as a
funny Arab American stand-up comedian who is making fun of terrorist
Arab men and exotic sexually provocative Arab women (Maysoon
Zayid). In another performance, she compares the modern view of
femininity and sexuality that she shares with her American peers with the
Arab view of sexuality. She says, You know, I am thirty years old and I
am single, right, which is not a big deal because, like I said, it is like sex
in the city. Whoo, I am so cool! Here is the problem, in Arab use I am
actually 67 (2008 New York Arab American Comedy Festival). The
punch line of Zayids joke reiterates the stereotype of the patriarchal Arab
world that looks at women as sex objects who become useless once they
are older than thirty. Zayid sides with the American view of sexuality and
ridicules the Arab culture, and in so doing presents herself and her Arab
American identity as more American than Arab.
Aron Kader, a Palestinian American stand-up comedian, not only

reiterates a stereotype of the stupid Arab when he narrates the story of his
trip to Amman to visit his cousin who always curses America in a funny
Middle Eastern accent, but he also mocks religion to distance himself
from that stupid Arab. He says:
(In an American accent) Well . . . you know . . . aaaaaa . . . I was over
there after 9/11 and I was driving a cousin in Amman, Jordan . . . right . . .
and I am driving around with my cousin who was like bitching and
moaning about America . . . right . . . (He converts his English into a
middle eastern accent) you son of a bitch America . . . America think you
so strong and powerful, so big and strong. Arabs love the cuss in English.
They cuss their heads off in English. They wont do it in Arabic cuz then
God could hear them . . . you know. (Aron Kader in Axis of Evil)
Dean Obeidallah also refers to religion when he imagines an Arab

vampire who is afraid of pork rather than a cross: How about an Arab
Vampire? Instead of being afraid of a cross, hes afraid of pork. You hold
it up. Haram. Bacon. Haram (Amos).
In Ahmeds stand-up comedy routine about one of his visits to
Dubai, religion is also a source of ridicule and laughter. Dubai, for
Ahmed, is weird and schizophrenic cuz youll walk down to the beach
and see a Muslim woman wearing hijab then youll see European men in
Speedos. Youll see a mosque and right across the street from the mosque
theres a night club! So right around 8 oclock every night all you hear is
. . . [Ahmed makes the sounds of call to prayer and a club beat] (Ahmed
Ahmed). In an American context, this would be explained as
multiculturalism, but in Dubai it is described as schizophrenia.
Ahmed presents himself as an American tourist confused about where to
go: Should he pray in the mosque or drink in the club bar? He asks for
Gods help in words that violate a religious taboo, Please God, help with
your Arabic accent! Please. In Ahmeds view, Muslims in Dubai are
hypocrites: Its like you know you are a Muslim when you drink,
gamble, have sex, but you wont eat pork! Thats the weirdest thing, you
wont eat pork. Religion also receives a share of ridicule connected to
terrorism in Ahmeds performance. The Arab world is presented to be full
of terrorist groups who compete for members. Organizations like Islamic
Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al-Qaeda have recruiters lined in front of

mosques tempting Muslims to join them:
I think they have recruiters. These guys sitting outside of the mosque
going up to these little Muslim boys, Come here, come here, come here. I
want to talk to you, come here. Dont go to al-Qaeda, they are shit. Come
to the Islamic brotherhood. Why, you ask? Well, they only promise you 72
virgins. We will give you 72 virgins, one whore . . . and a goat! (Ahmed
Ahmed)
This kind of comedy is not self-deprecatory as many magazines

reviewers claim; it rather creates a dichotomy between the bad Arab and
the friendly Arab American. The Arab world is presented to be an other
for the Arab American performer. Ahmed creates this dichotomy when he
compares himself with a terrorist who has the same name, but lives in the
Middle East and speaks English with a Middle Eastern accent:
I googled my name and it matches the name of a guy in the Middle East
whos a terrorist. I think hes in the Middle East googling me, going,
[converts his English into an Arab accent] Theres this guy in America,
man.
[Laughter]
People go up to him, Hey man, youre so funny. Tell me a joke.
Im not a comedian! Im a terrorist! Want me to prove it to you?
Ill blow myself up right now, I swear! (Ahmed Ahmed)
Every time he imitates an Arab, Ahmed changes his American English

into broken English and starts his sentences with ehhhhhhh to stress the
difference between himself and Arabs:
I watch a lot of the news, man. I love watching the Middle Eastern people
on the news talk about whats going on in the Middle East cuz all Middle
Eastern people always start each sentence with, ehhhh ehhhh, the damn
United States of America, they come into our country and they bomb our
. . . ehhhhhh. (Ahmed Ahmed)
Even governors in the Middle East speak English with funny Arab
accents. Ahmed refers to the man who runs the city of Dubai as amir.
Although in Dubai he is referred to as a governor or a sheikh, the title
amir sounds more Hollywoodish and exotic. The amir of Dubai is very
proud of his seven-star hotel one of a kind in the world but when
asked by critics about the institition which awarded the hotel seven stars,
he answered stupidly in an Arab accent, Ehhhh, I gave it seven stars,
ehhhh (Ahmed Ahmed).
In performing their ethnicity, one may conclude, Arab American
stand-up comedians try to carve an Arab American identity which is
devoid of the western stereotypes of Arabs. However, in doing so, they do
not demolish the stereotype but rather make it exclusively valid for Arabs
who are made to be distant and different from Arab Americans. The
comic license of stand-up comedy is used to reduce the impact of the Arab
heritage on the Arab American identity, providing a new answer to the
whos who question and re-mapping the relationship between the Arab,
the American, and the Arab American. It is sort of identity alteration that
dissociates them from their Arab diasporic origin and brings them closer
to America. Instead of professing a hybrid identity and adopting a
discourse that challenges a common culture which defines Arab America
orientalistically, Arab Americans stage minstrelsy and, instead of being
whites in black faces lampooning black people, they show Arab faces on
stage lampooning Arab culture. In short, they verify their Arab American
identity through disparaging their Arabness.
Works Cited
Ahmed Ahmed. YouTube, 19 Sept. 2010. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.
Aita, Judy. Arab American Comics Use Laughter to Build Bridges: Fourth
Annual New York Comedy Festival Enjoys Success. Allied Media Corp.
Multicultural Communication, 20 Nov. 2006. Web. 10 Mar. 2013.
Alexander, Richard D. Ostracism and Indirect Reciprocity: The Reproductive
Significance of Humor. Ethology and Sociobiology 7 (1986): 253-270.
Print.
Amos, Deborah. But Seriously Folks, The Arab World is a Funny Place.
NPR.org, 5 May 2011. Web. 22 May 2013.
Aron Kader in Axis of Evil (Part1). YouTube, 8 July 2009. Web. 20 Dec. 2013.
Brodie, Ian. Stand-up Comedy as a Genre of Intimacy. Ethnologies 30.2
(2008): 153-80. Print.
Butcher, S. H., ed. The Poetics of Aristotle. New York: MacMillan, 1902. Print.
Cullen, Frank, Florence Hackman, and Donald McNeilly. Vaudeville, Old and
New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America. Vol. 1. New
York: Routledge, 2006. Print.
Daube, Mathew. Laughter in Revolt: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity in the
Construction of Stand-Up Comedy. Diss. Stanford University, 2009.
PQDT Open. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
Freud, Sigmund. Humor. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological
Works of Sigmund Freud XXI. Trans. J. Strachey, et al. London: Hogarth
P, 1961. 160-66. Print.
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan or the Matter, Forme, & Power of a Commonwealth
Ecclesiasticall and Civill. Ed. A.R. Waller. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
1904. Print.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment. Trans. Werner S. Pluhar. Indiana: Hacket,
1987. Print.
Limon, John. Stand-up Comedy in Theory, or, Abjection in America. Durham:
Duke UP, 2000. Print.
Marks, Alexandra. Get Your Arab On: Comedians Chip Away at Ethnic
Fears. The Christian Science Monitor 14 Nov. 2006. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.
Maysoon Zayid Performs at ATFP Fifth Annual Gala. YouTube. ATFP, 26 Oct.
2010. Web. 15 Feb. 2014.
McIlvenny, Paul, Sari Mettovaara, and Ritva Tapio. I Really Wanna Make You
Laugh: Stand-Up Comedy and Audience Response. Folia, Fennistica and
Linguistica: Proceedings of the Annual Finnish Linguistics Symposium.
Ed. Matti K. Suojanen and Auli Kulkki-Nieminen. Tampere University
Finnish and General Linguistics Department Publications, 1993. 225-47.
Print.
Mintz, Lawrence E. Stand-up Comedy as Social and Cultural Meditation.
American Quarterly 37.1 (1985): 71-80. Print.
2008 New York Arab American Comedy Festival Stand Up Preview. YouTube,
22 Dec. 2007. Web. 23 Nov. 2013.
Parker, Bethany. Probing Question: What are the Roots of Stand-up Comedy?
Penn State 12 Sept. 2008. Web. 17 Dec. 2013.
Ramachandran, V.S, and Sandra Blakeslee. Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the
Mysteries of the Human Mind. New York: Harper, 1999. Print.
Salama, Vivian. Stand-up Diplomacy. Forward Magazine 1 Feb. 2008. Web.
20 Dec. 2013.
Sjobohm, Juan. Stand-Up Comedy around the World: Americanization and the
Role of Globalized Media. Malm University Electronic Publishing.
Malm hgskola/Konst, kultur, kommunikation, K3, 2008. Web. 18 Oct.
2013.
Spencer, Herbert. The Physiology of Laughter. The Bibliophile Library of
Literature, Art, and Rare Manuscripts-History, Biography, Science,
Poetry, Fiction, and Rare and Little-known Literature from the Archives of
the Great Libraries of the World. Vol XXII. Ed. Nathan Haskell Dole,
Forrest Morgan, and Caroline Ticknor. New York: International
Bibliophile Society, 1904. 7561-72. Print.

Stand-up. Merriam Webster. An Encyclopedia Britannica Company. 11 Oct.
2013. Web. 5 Jan. 2013.
Stand-Up Comedy: Arab American Comedians in New York (Legendado).
ajmantube.com, 7 June 2012. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
93 American Art Criticism
American Art Criticism between

the Cultural and the Ideological (I)
GABRIEL C. GHERASIM
Babes-Bolyai University
Abstract
Starting from the presupposition that art and art criticism in the United
States of America are closely linked and that the very meanings and
receptions of art works have been reflected by various writings in the field
of art criticism, this first part of a comprehensive study on the topic
attempts, on the one hand, to divide the historical evolution of American
fine arts and art criticism into several distinct periods, and on the other, to
evaluate the major directions of art criticism by considering its historical
periods as being markedly ideological or cultural, as the case may be.
Thus, considering the approximately 150 years of historical
accomplishments of art criticism in the United States, I will argue that the
starting point of American art criticism is visibly cultural, while the next
two periods are characterised by ideological art criticism, noting that the
ideological orientation differs in the two time frames. The fourth moment
in the evolution of art criticism marks the revival of the cultural, so that,
within the fifth, the postmodern art criticism could no longer grasp a clear
distinction between the cultural and the ideological. The present article
will focus on the first two important orientations in art criticism in the
United States, 1865-1900 and 1908-1940, respectively; a future study will
consider the remaining three periods, following this historicist approach of
art criticism in the United States.
Keywords: American art criticism, cultural art criticism, ideological art
criticism, temporal periodisation of art criticism
Preliminaries
A profound understanding of American art is not possible without
highlighting those specific features of art criticism that become a
necessary complement of art philosophies articulated in the United States

of America. As instantiated primarily within the limits of reportage or
newspaper chronicle, art criticism is synonymous with a specific language
dedicated to diverse aesthetic experiences: in Kantian terms, the aesthetic
experience becomes a condition for the possibility of formulating
clarifying reflections regarding the nature of the object of such an
experience according to intellectual intuition. Although not always
manifested as the theorising of an aesthetic experience proper, art
criticism has been, more often than not, the preliminary act of thoroughly
formulated aesthetics. This does not mean that all art critics were also art
philosophers; rather, it means that a significant proportion of art thinking
in the United States was fuelled by the interest, passion and understanding
for the diversity of aesthetic experiences.1 On the other hand, it is no less
true that artists themselves felt the need to critically evaluate either their
own works or the works of other artists: therefore, it is legitimate for one
to wonder whether the art critic is, in light of these considerations, an
artist himself. Far from undermining or competing with artistic creation
and production, art criticism remains relevant for a series of ingenious
ways of translating an artists intentions and the meaning of his art
through an act of interpretation. In other words, although they are not
naturally or not necessarily inseparable, art and art criticism do not
mutually exclude each other, but rather function organically, the former
representing the grounds for professionalised art criticism, while the latter
contributes to the clarification of artistic goals, thus enabling the
communication between artist and viewer.2
The tradition of American art criticism, which goes back over a
hundred years, is characterised by a series of defining, paradigmatic
moments that have shaped its destiny as a type of approach connected to
arts. In my view, early American art criticism, in the first two stages,
according to the four-part division below, was shaped by two predominant
types of orientations: a culturally-driven understanding of the arts in most
of the American art criticism in the period 1865-1900 and a distinct
ideological shaping of its meanings and purposes between 1908 and 1940.
On the one hand, what I would term cultural can be considered a
positive endeavour in the sense of attaching to art criticism the power of
explaining the diversity of artistic manifestations in terms of cultural

emancipation, education and progress. According to this interpretation,
cultural art criticism explains artistic manifestations as being both
generated by cultural premises and generating cultural effects. On the
other, what I would term ideological art criticism is consistent with
ideological art in the sense that the meanings of artistic works aim both to
revisit, criticise and transform art traditions of the past and to state
something relevant about certain states of things outside art (i.e., primarily
social and political statements). The tradition of American art criticism
was consolidated as a result of such critical contributions, so that its
important role in arguing for the authenticity and specificity of American
art can be easily exemplified. In what follows, I have divided it into four
historical periods, plus a coda which interrogates the future of art criticism
in the postmodern context of post-historical and pluralist arts. The present
article, which constitutes the first part of my study on the tradition of art
criticism in the United States analyzes and considers in retrospect the first
two salient orientations. A second part will be added in a future issue of
this journal in order to reflect upon the other major periods and
characteristics of American art criticism.
Any retrospective of American art criticism that aims to highlight
the crucial moments of its evolution, as well as its directions and specific
interests, should include a process of careful selection of those
contributions that best comprise the thematic aims and the conceptual
resources which have consecrated its remarkably distinct approaches. The
considerable number of publications dedicated to the analysis of the
diversity of art productions in America could raise problems when one
tries to figure out the cardinal moments that have shaped American art
criticism. One of the publications that paid special attention to art
phenomena as early as 1865, The Nation, is representative in this respect
for two essential reasons: on the one hand, the uninterrupted consistency
and continuity with which the publication recorded the artistic facts and
manifestations are illustrative of the possibility of deciphering the major
aesthetic facts and themes in which the US public has been interested; on
the other hand, the fact that such analyses were delivered by the most
authorised voices in the field of aesthetics in any given moment of the
time period mentioned is a mark of the publications prestige, as well of

the manifest interest in relevant aesthetic facts.3
The Temporal Division of American Art Criticism between

the Cultural and the Ideological
The American art criticism is a measuring tool whose acute sensitivity for
the progress and evolution of the artistic consciousness in the United
States can be put to good use for a deeper understanding of the history of
artistic currents in this space, probably in a more categorical manner than
the theoretical conceptualisations of American philosophies of art.
Consequently, the clarification of the nature and peculiarities of aesthetic
experience in American culture determines a subsequent commitment to
the systematic reflection in the field of aesthetics a reason why art
criticism remains probably the most efficient means of clarifying the
availability of artistic facts for comprehensive conceptualisations and
theoretical reflections. This being the case, art criticism runs parallel to
the historical destiny of American art, so that, in my view, the following
significant critical paradigms are fully coherent with the historical path of
American art:
i) The critical paradigm of 1865-1900 highlights the tensions between the
academic classicism, then at the climax of its presence, and the
romanticism, realism and post-impressionism specific to the most
authentic artistic endeavours of the period in question. The period after
1880 also marks the hesitant debut of ideological art; in this context, the
tensions generated by the antagonisms existing among the various artistic
trends are reducible to the opposition between academism and preRaphaelitism.4 But the characteristics of this period are broadly cultural:
the affirmation of the creative and individualist potential of the American
artist, the emergence of a certain consciousness of socio-historical
emancipation through art, as well as the manifestation of moralising
attitudes in understanding the act of creation and the aesthetic experience,
are all marks of the preeminent cultural role attributed to fine arts.
ii) The art criticism between 1908 and 1940 is the natural expression of
the affirmation of American art as a particular, original and specific
phenomenon. The most profound expression of the manifestation of a

specifically American artistic consciousness has its origins in the context
of two fundamental artistic events at the beginning of the 20th century: the
famous Exhibition of the Eight in 1908 and later, in 1913, the Armory
Show will shape the nationalistic, antirealist, economist, machinist,
populist and individualist tendencies, all of these features revealing
profound ideological connotations. This is the period when the American
artists effectively commit themselves to the path of original creation,
assuming both the overcoming and the departure from the canonical
tradition of western art. The American artist displays the conspicuous
awareness of an individuating aesthetic experience, alleging his creativity
in the context of a specifically American way of life and denying his
status as an epigone.
iii) The art criticism between 1940 and 1960 is almost entirely dedicated
to the reflections on the undeniable originality and the theoretical and
stylistic peculiarities that define the only true original American current,
one that is unprecedented in any other space and time: the Abstract
Expressionism. Unlike the previous period, the fundamental feature of
abstractionism is to be found in its apolitical, yet purely ideological,
significance, so that the art of abstract expressionism was critically
appraised using a more profound conceptual framework which was
supposed to explain the conflict between the formalist and the
experientialist interpretations formulated in relation to the very nature and
meaning of abstract expressionism.
iv) The art criticism between 1960 and 1980 signals both a deep crisis of
creativity and an unprecedented explosion of consumer art: the
dissemination of the work of art and the cultural implications of its
reproductive possibilities, the impact of technologies and the meanings of
mass art are now critical reflections focused on understanding a major
cultural shift in the United States.
v) Finally, art criticism after 1980 records the difficulties of understanding
and assimilating postmodern art in the context of undermining the
traditional aesthetic canon. A pluralist theoretical vision, indecisively
oscillating between the (multi)cultural and the ideological, accompanies in
terms of explanation and interpretation the diverse manifestations in the
field of contemporary arts. The emphasis lies on the refusal of any

narrative about art discourses, so that art criticism becomes markedly selfreflexive, multicultural and relativistic.
Each of the periods that make up this historical development is
matched by a series of notable critical contributions whose defining ideas
will be discussed in the following sections and in the second part of this
study.
The Beginnings: Cultural Art Criticism in the United States,

1865-1900
The starting point of the professional and coherent American art criticism
is recorded around the year 1865, when a major event shook the New
York public opinion, thus drawing attention to the art phenomenon: on
July 13, 1865, the most important American museum, whose patron was
P.T. Barnum, burned to the ground, an event which prompted, two months
later, the critical intervention of the museum patron concerning the
institutional and cultural mission of the new museum project that Barnum
intended to build. His intention was that of founding an art institution
whose outright aim was that of contributing to the education of the public
at large, in a context in which the artists were stating their freedom of
expression and a wide range of artistic productions were being exhibited.
The role of the new museum was that of contributing to the cultural
emancipation of the American nation while at the same time avoiding the
display of vulgar artistic creations that lack educational value (Barnum 710).
Thus, during its inception, American art criticism drew attention to
the presence of institutions popularising artistic creations, considering that
the interest for art in the USA recorded a significant increase after 1870,
when both private and public institutions dedicated to the preservation of
art works emerged, namely the foundation of the New York Metropolitan
Museum of Art and of the National Design Academy in New York. The
effectiveness of the academic criteria for evaluating art productions on the
American soil would give birth to a wide-scale dispute regarding the
legitimacy of the normative and cognitive criteria that include an artistic

production in the art-world conventions of the time.
American art criticism was overwhelmingly influenced, in the last
decades of the 19th century, by the aesthetic considerations of the British
art philosopher John Ruskin. For instance, the public controversy between
two reputable American art critics concerning Ruskins aesthetics is the
expression of a more profound dissent between the supporters of
innovative and anti-canonical art (who were labelled at the time as preRaphaelites) and their conservative detractors.5 Also, the trial brought by
James McNeil Whistler against John Ruskin on account of a review that
was highly critical towards the American painter intensified the dispute
between the innovators and the traditionalists. The publication by Henry
James of two articles concerning this dispute was aimed at denouncing the
radicalism of Ruskins critical tone as well as the eccentricity of
Whistlers creations; according to James, art criticism should find the
right expression through which to state the necessity of art for life,
avoiding artificial and gratuitous dissensions. Art criticism should remain
profoundly realistic, attached to the traditional cultural and moral values,
and moderate in denouncing the excesses of the new art (James 24-28).6
Although, beginning with 1880, the American artists became more
confident regarding the potential and the resources of American art, a
marked cosmopolitanism would define the American exhibitions and
salons of the time; in this respect, art criticism was a bifocal one,
highlighting at the same time both the merits of the American artists and
the perennial values of Western art. Bernard Berenson promoted, from a
critical point of view, the values of the Italian Renaissance art, while at
the same time playing the role of mentor for some passionate American
art collectors of the time, a fact that had a precise significance with regard
to the impact of the artistic productions on the manifest commercial
tendencies within a market of art products that, at the time, had become an
undeniable reality that had been denounced more than once (Meyer 65,
79).7
To conclude with, the American art criticism between 1865 and
1905 oscillated between deference for traditionalism and cultural and
emancipating humanism; the progressive tendencies of the age, which
praised the role of pre-Raphaelitism in defining a new path for the

American art, remained moderate, especially as a result of the respect with
which the American art criticism regarded the remarkable achievements
of the classical masters; consequently, the American art would win ground
as long as the creative innovation would have learned the lesson of
Western art.8
The First Ideological Turn of American Art Criticism, 19081940

The progressive orientation in the American art criticism would make its
presence felt in the first decade of the 20th century, when a series of
artistic manifestations aimed at a change of paradigm as far as the
understanding of the arts and the authentic aesthetic experience are
concerned. Especially during 1908 and 1940, ideological art achieved
notoriety in the context of the emergence of some features characteristic
to American art that was under the influence of marked nationalist,
individualist or technological elements. Additionally, politics insinuated
itself for the first time in the message that art aimed to transmit, this fact
indicating a commitment of the artists and art critics to explain the avatars
of art in the context of the decisive political events that prompted a
reconsideration of the role of art and artists in the contemporary world.
The catalyst for the change in the criticist paradigm of art was first
anticipated by the organisation of an exhibition in 1908 that would
exclusively promote the most prominent American artists of the time: met
with hostility by the art critics, the exhibition paved the way for
interrogations regarding the near future of American art (McLanatham
184-186).9 But the cataclysm that would forever change the old art
criticism came with the organisation, in 1913, of the famous Armory
Show. The American art criticism drew attention to this event, labelling it
as an antirealist and anti-naturalist orientation bordering on ignorance as
self-affirmation and on aberration (Cox, International Art, 109-110;
Mather Jr., Old and New Art, 110-112).
The 1913 exhibition put forward the shift from the cultural
provincialism of the American art prior to 1900 towards an internationalist
and cosmopolitan vision, as well as the necessity for reconsidering the

traditional aesthetic categories as far as the evaluation of new art was
concerned. Frank Mather Jr., who had initially denounced the way in
which contemporary artists abdicated before an ideological fanaticism that
subverted beauty and judgment based on taste, would reconsider his
position by stating that the means of expression of the new art refused the
compromises of the austere, fastidious traditional art, becoming a cry
whose significance required an audience who was able to understand its
message (The Armory Exhibition, 112-116). Understanding the spirit of
the American avant-garde art would imply: comprehending the sources
that formed its inspiration, exercising the intellectual facilities and
abandoning the idea according to which art is intelligible as an expression
of beauty (i.e., aisthesis), highlighting discovery and invention to the
detriment of expressiveness or accuracy of representation.10
The period of American art criticism after 1930 was deeply marked
by the personality of Paul Rosenfeld. His contributions brought him closer
to the formulation of a comprehensive aesthetic definition of the
significance of art: the inter-war art managed to intensify, orient and
humanise, possessing virtues and aesthetic properties, as well as practical
value; its mission was that of shocking the public and shaking realities,
having a profoundly ecumenic role with regard to lifes meanings. The
radicalism of the new art was manifest in the novelty of its forms of
expression and illumination of the present (Rosenfeld 155-156).
The American art criticism between 1908 and 1940 also highlighted
the relationship of art to the political, on the one hand, or to the scientific
and technological innovations, on the other: for instance, an event with
profound political connotations, which was highly reported at the time,
was the elimination of Diego Riveras work, representing a portrait of
Lenin, from New Yorks Rockefeller Centre (Marshall 176-177).11
Additionally, the wide-scale use of technology in art implied a change that
could be assimilated to a revolutionary approach in aesthetics in the sense
in which art works had aesthetic connotations that were situated beyond
their understanding as means or instruments (Brenner 179-181).
Coda
Art criticism is, first and foremost, a type of narrative that translates
notable artistic events in a chronicle, reportage or short story; as such,
while not altogether lacking in theoretical value, art criticism can be
considered only the launching pad or the starting point for some
comprehensive theoretical reflections. The periodisation of American art
criticism used as a methodological guide is, in its turn, a theoretical
exercise applied to American art criticism. What remains to be done is to
provide a satisfying justification for the reasons underlying both the limits
of the time periods and my option for paradigmatic shifts in the focus on
American art criticism from the cultural to the ideological and vice-versa,
up to the point when, after 1980, these two dimensions characteristic of
American art criticism seem to become indistinguishable. This study has
dealt with American art criticism in the period 1865-1940; another one
will continue with the assessment of art criticism in the United States after
1940. Before providing arguments for the labels of cultural and
ideological attributed to each period in the evolution of American art
criticism, a distinction between the two concepts is needed.
I use the term cultural to denote a type of art criticism whose
goals are: aesthetic education in a broader sense, promotion of art for
large audiences, art patronage and artistic manifestations to popularise
arts, emphasis on the artists socio-professional status, as well as the status
of art as a cultural fact, the revealing of the correlations between artistic
productions and the dominant cultural trend of a certain period in the
evolution of art. By contrast, the ideological expression in art brings
forth not only relations between art and something outside its scope, but
rather a concern of art to become autonomous, to purify itself of the
content of its very object: for instance, the artistic avant-gardes at the
beginning of the 20th century put forward rather an ideological distance
from traditional art than an aesthetic view reacting to the social, economic
and historical events of the time (especially World War I).
Evidently, this distinction between cultural and ideological is one
deliberately oversimplifying, which means that each period in the
evolution of American art criticism draws preeminent attention to either
the ideological or the cultural. Consequently, none of these periods could

be described in absolute terms as purely ideological or purely cultural.
What remains specific for each of these periods is, therefore, the more
visible ideological or cultural character. On the other hand, one and the
same feature noted by American art criticism as belonging to two different
periods in the evolution of art criticism can take on, as the case may be,
the epithet of cultural or ideological; for instance, the experientialism
specific to abstract expressionism between 1940 and 1960 has a rather
ideological meaning, while the experientialism of pop art after 1960 is
predominantly cultural. But on the cultural and ideological meanings of
art criticism in the United States after 1940, I will dedicate another study.
Finally, what might be understood as a historicist exercise in art
criticism in America is not consistent with the dialectic, which posits a
permanent gap between subject and object within all our thoughts as well
as in reality itself (Jameson 296), but rather with the sublimation of
reality and its boundless diversity. Such an approach might be, after all, a
way of understanding the world, beyond fashionable objections
denouncing the mystification of reality and reductionism.
Notes:
1
It is common knowledge today that important American art philosophers also

delved into art criticism: Clement Greenberg, Arthur Danto, David Carrier, Noel
Carroll or Richard Shusterman, among others, brought their remarkable
contribution to art criticism. In their turn, the exceptions to this rule are also
notable: although Nelson Goodman formulated an art philosophy that had a
profound influence on American aesthetics, he did not deal with art criticism.
Within the limits of the present study, I make a distinction between
professionalized art criticism and art philosophies in America.
2
I will not insist here upon the complexity of possible relations between art and
art criticism, because this issue falls outside the scope of the present study.
However, arguing that The claim that the critic has become obsolete because art
had become critical makes as much sense as saying that the artist is obsolete if
criticism is written artistically (McEvilley qtd. in Hafif 130) is tantamount to
supporting the reductionist argument that at least one of these two endeavours can
be integrally replaced by the other. Actually, the relation between art and art
criticism is a complex and nuanced one: see, in this respect, Donald Kuspits
work, The Critic Is Artist: The Intentionality of Art.
Recently, the attempt to bring together in one volume the most significant
contributions in American art criticism has been materialized in a critical
anthology entitled Brushes with History. Writing on Art from The Nation 18652001, edited by Peter G. Meyer. At any rate, the tradition of art criticism in The
Nation has brought remarkable contributions, from Russell Sturgis and Clarence
Cook, Kenyon Cox and William Coffin, Bernard Berenson and Frank Mather,
Paul Rosenfeld and Anita Brenner to Clement Greenberg, Harold Rosenberg,
Fairfield Porter, Max Kozloff, John Berger, Lawrence Alloway and Arthur Danto.
4
Arthur Danto synthetically expresses the tension between the aesthetic canon
defended by American artists and the new Pre-Raphaelite current in American art
that insisted on the necessary presence of a new artistic consciousness, which
would eventually influence the avant-garde movements. It goes without saying
that the American pre-Raphaelitism in the second half of the 19th century was a
collective epithet recurrent in the context of a new way of understanding and
practicing art in general: The art world, as we know it today, emerged in
Victorian times, and much of it was the product of the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood, which more or less invented the idea of the hot artist, the art
movement, the breakthrough, the press release, the manifesto, the buzz of
sensational openings and the idea that art must be set upon a new path. It was
they who realized how important the support of a major critic could be in getting
their work talked about and acquired (Danto xxii).
5
The above-mentioned dispute between one of the pioneers of American art
criticism, Russell Sturgis, and W. J. Stillman was hosted by The Nation: the
former praised Ruskins writings, stating that good art should not be judged in
terms of whether or not it belongs to a traditional canon, but in agreement to the
authenticity of art for life; Stillman was opposed to the expressionist aesthetics of
the British art philosopher, arguing that he missed the meanings of genuine art.
Thus, the controversy between Sturgis and Stillman boiled down to the opposition
between expressivist and representationalist orientations of modern art
philosophies; at the end of the 19th century, art as mimetic representation was still
a canon of artistic expression that American Pre-Raphaelitism sought to disprove.
Stillman, the defendant of representationalism in art, thus denounced Ruskins
writings as dispersive, analytic, iconoclastic (22). As far as the PreRaphaelitism of the new orientation in American art is concerned, another
important art critic of the period, Kenyon Cox, wrote: He [Raphael our note]
became the law giver, the founder of classicism, the formulator of the academic
ideal . . . . As long as the academic ideal retained any validity, his supremacy
endured, and it was only with the definitive turning of modern art into the paths
of romanticism and naturalism that revolt became possible (Artist and Public
100), while Elizabeth Robins Pennell (the first woman who was turned art
criticism into a profession in America between 1890 and 1918) argued that What
is important in this very rapid sketch is to point out the part the Pre-Raphaelites
played in the revolt against Victorian vulgarity. For theirs was a revolt as truly as
the romantic movement, some twenty years earlier, had been in France. Ruskin,
the prophet, Madox Brown, the master, and Rossetti, Millais, and Holman Hunt,
the brave crusaders, . . . proclaiming . . . belief in the Gospel of Individuality in

preference to old outworn Academical dogma (N. N. Pennells pen name 7273).
6
Henry Jamess career as a critic and his aesthetic views are analysed by
Crunden, 57-80.
7
Frank Jewett Mather Jr., one of the most passionate collectors of art works, a
representative figure of American art criticism at the beginning of the 20th
century, deplored the unhinged commercialism of art works, highlighting the
contrast between the value of the art works sold and their unjustified prices; the
explanation for this difference was, on the one hand, the irrational and uneducated
enthusiasm of art collectors, and on the other, their crass indifference towards the
more profound cultural values of art works beyond their commercial evaluation.
Art criticism needed to separate the commercial value of art works from their
cognitive and educational attributes that should be made visible to a wider
audience (Art Prices and Art Values 86-88, The Artist in Our World 88-90).
8
Progressive criticism in the USA was overshadowed by the respect for the past
achievements of western art tradition, so that there were not radical progressives
in American art criticism; one could consider P.T. Barnum, Russell Sturgis or
Bernard Berenson as moderate progressives. Kenyon Cox was the supporter of
traditionalism in American art criticism, while Frank Mather Jr. or Henry James
could be considered humanists, from the point of view of their plea for the
educational and cultural values of art manifestations. (H. Wayne Morgan,
Keepers of Culture: The Art-Thought of Kenyon Cox, Royal Cortissoz, and Frank
Jewett Mather Jr.).
9
According to most art critics, the Exhibition of the Eight was a manifestation
that transgressed the limits of vulgarity or an attempt to forcibly aestheticise the
ugly, which is why this group was also known as the Ash Can School.
10
Art is not a mystery, never has been, and never will be. It is one with the laws
of nature and of science . . . . That should be, and is, it seems to me, the special
and peculiar office of modern art: to arrive at a species of purism, native to
ourselves, in our own concentrated period, to produce the newness or the
nowness of individual experience (Hartley 126-127). In his book, Struggle
over the Modern: Purity and Experience in American Art Criticism 1900-1960,
Dennis Raverty wrote: The Armory Show was so threatening to the critical
establishment because it posited a progressive, open-ended alternative to both the
conservative and liberal determinists of the time . . . . Within the new model, the
moderns were no longer marginal eccentrics, but pivotal players, and the
trajectory traced by their position not only implied a new direction for the
development of American art in the 20th century, it essentially negated the
premises of both the classical formalist conservatives and the organicist liberals
that dominated the pre-Armory Show critical debate (25-26). In the period
before the 1913 exhibition, the criticist conflict between conservatives and
liberals opposed Kenyon Cox to Royal Cortissoz; the conservatives argued for the
universality of the ideal of beauty and of perfect forms, while the liberals
supported free expression and individualism, cultural relativism and nationalism;
it is important to highlight that the American avant-garde exhibitions of 1908 and

1913 were followed by the emergence of a generation of progressive critics like
Marsden Hartley, Lewis Gannett or Thomas Craven. Generally speaking, they
argued in favour of adopting new forms of artistic expression, while at the same
time refusing the conception on art as representation, imitation or reproduction.
11
This event would lead to a polemic between the artist Diego Rivera and the
well-known patron of arts Nelson Rockefeller; the subtext of this dispute was the
ideological conflict between Soviet Bolshevism and American industrial
capitalism.
Works Cited
Barnum, P.T. Mr. Barnum on Museums. Brushes with History. Writing on Art
from The Nation 1865-2001. Ed. Peter G. Meyer. New York: Nation,
2001. 7-10. Print.
Berger, John. The Cultural Snob. There Is No Highbrow Art. Brushes with
History. Writing on Art from The Nation 1865-2001. Ed. Peter G. Meyer.
New York: Nation, 2001. 256-61. Print.
Brenner, Anita. Frontiers of Machine Art. Brushes with History. Writing on Art
2001. 179-81. Print.
Cox, Kenyon. The International Art Exhibition. Brushes with History. Writing
on Art from The Nation 1865-2001. Ed. Peter G. Meyer. New York:
Nation, 2001. 109-10. Print.
- - -. Artist and Public and Other Essays on Art Subjects. New York: Scribner,
1914. Print.
Crunden, Robert M. American Salons: Encounters with European Modernism
1885-1917. New York: Oxford UP, 1993. Print.
Danto, Arthur. Introduction. Brushes with History. Writing on Art from The
Nation 1865-2001. Ed. Peter G. Meyer. New York: Nation, 2001. xxixxviii. Print.
Hafif, Marcia. The Critic Is (?) Artist. M/E/A/N/I/N/G. An Anthology of Artists
Writings, Theory, and Criticism. Ed. Susan Bee and Mira Schor. Durham:
Duke UP, 2000. 127-30. Print.
Hartley, Marsden. Dissertation on Modern Painting. Brushes with History.
Writing on Art from The Nation 1865-2001. Ed. Peter G. Meyer. New
York: Nation, 2001. 126-28. Print.
James, Henry. The Ruskin/ Whistler Trial Part I, II. Brushes with History.
Jameson, Fredric. The Ideologies of Theory. London: Verso, 2008. Print.
Kuspit, Donald. The Critic Is Artist: The Intentionality of Art. Ann Arbor: UMI,
1984. Print.

Marshall, Margaret. Off with His Head (Editorial). Brushes with History.
Mather Jr., Frank J. Art Prices and Art Values. Brushes with History. Writing
on Art from The Nation 1865-2001. Ed. Peter G. Meyer. New York:
Nation, 2001. 86-88. Print.
- - -. Old and New Art. Brushes with History. Writing on Art from The Nation
1865-2001. Ed. Peter G. Meyer. New York: Nation, 2001. 110-12. Print.
- - -. The Artist in Our World. Brushes with History. Writing on Art from The
Nation 1865-2001. Ed. Peter G. Meyer. New York: Nation, 2001. 88-90.
Print.
- - -. The Armory Exhibition. Brushes with History. Writing on Art from The
Print.
McLanathan, Richard. Art in America. A Brief History. London: Thames, 1973.
Print.
Meyer, Peter G., ed. Brushes with History. Writing on Art from The Nation 18652001. New York: Nation, 2001. Print.
Morgan, H. Wayne. Keepers of Culture: The Art-Thought of Kenyon Cox, Royal
Cortissoz, and Frank Jewett Mather Jr. Ohio: Kent State UP, 1989. Print.
N. N. Art in the Victorian Era. Brushes with History. Writing on Art from The
Print.
Raverty, Dennis. Struggle over the Modern: Purity and Experience in American
Art Criticism 1900-1960. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2005. Print.
Rosenfeld, Paul. Bread Lines and a Museum. Brushes with History. Writing on
Art from The Nation 1865-2001. Ed. Peter G. Meyer. New York: Nation,
2001. 155-56. Print.
Stillman, W. J. Ruskin and His Writings. Brushes with History. Writing on Art
2001. 20-23. Print.
Canadas Evolving Crown
108
Canadas Evolving Crown: From a British Crown

to a Crown of Maples
University of Trento
and
JOSHUA K. WASYLCIW
University of Calgary
Abstract
This article examines how instruments have changed the Crown of
Canada from 1867 through to the present, how this change has been
effected, and the extent to which the Canadian Crown is distinct from the
British Crown. The main part of this article focuses on the manner in
which law, politics, and policy (both Canadian and non-Canadian) have
evolved a British Imperial institution since the process by which the
federal Dominion of Canada was formed nearly 150 years ago through to
a nation uniquely Canadian as it exists today. The evolution of the
Canadian Crown has taken place through approximately fifteen discrete
events since the time of Canadian confederation on July 1, 1867. These
fifteen events are loosely categorized into three discrete periods: The
Imperial Crown (1867-1930), A Shared Crown (1931-1981), and The
Canadian Crown (1982-present).
Keywords: Imperial, the London Conference, the Nickle Resolution, the
British North America Act, Queen Victoria, Sovereignty, the Statute of
Westminster
109 Canadas Evolving Crown
Introduction
Of Canadian legal and governmental institutions, the Crown sits atop all,
unifying them by means of a single institution. This Crown has remained
both a symbol of strength and a connection to Canadas historical roots.
The roots of the Crown run deep and can be traced as far back as the
sixteenth century, when the kings of France first established the Crown in
Canada in Nouvelle-France. Both French and British kings and queens
have continuously reigned over Canada since 1534 approximately half a
millennium contributing to what has become known as one of the
worlds oldest monarchies. Remarkably, however, Canadian scholars, like
many Canadians, seldom concern themselves with the Crown as an
important institution. While it remains omnipresent in Canadian society,
and given recent renewed interest in the institution, it is hardly ever seen,
heard, or studied. How have legal instruments changed the Crown in
Canada from 1867 through to the present? How has this change been
effected? How truly Canadian is the Canadian Crown? How is it distinct
from the British Crown? This article traces the evolution of the Canadian
Crown through approximately fifteen discrete events that have taken place
since the time of Confederation on July 1, 1867. These fifteen events are
loosely categorized into three discrete periods: The Imperial Crown
(1867-1930), A Shared Crown (1931-1981), and The Canadian Crown
(1982-Present). We focus on aspects of law, politics, and policy (both
Canadian and non-Canadian) that have facilitated the evolution of the
Crown from a British Imperial institution to one that is distinctly
Canadian.
The Imperial Crown (1867-1930)

On the heels of the Charlottetown and Quebec Conferences of 1864, the
Fathers of Canadian Confederation traveled to London (Great Britain) in
1866 to form a country.1 They brought with them the 72 resolutions
adopted at the Quebec Conference two years previously. In discussion
with the Imperial Government, they held the final of a series of
conferences, the London Conference of 1867 (see Tidridge).2 Following
this conference and its finalization of the particulars of what the Canadian
state would soon look like, Queen Victoria gave royal assent to the British
North America Act (1867). Having obtained a constitution that was not
unlike that of Great Britain (Tidridge 42), Sir John A. MacDonald (18671873, 1878-1891) (often referred to as The Father of Canada) reportedly
stated to his Queen that he intended to declare in the most solemn and
emphatic manner our resolve to be under the sovereignty of Your Majesty
and your family, forever (emphasis added) (Tidridge 42).
After the London Conference came to a close and numerous
delegates returned to Canada, the Imperial Crown (through the Imperial
Parliament) continued to rule the Empire as a single unit. The Crown of
Great Britain was understood to be the same Crown as that of Canada, and
as that of the other realms. However, in 1892 the Canadian case of
Liquidators of the Maritime Bank of Canada v. the Receiver General of
New Brunswick began to erode the understanding of the Imperial Crown
as a unitary institution (see Maritime Bank of Canada [Liquidators of] v.
New Brunswick [Receiver-General]). In Liquidators, the priority of the
Provincial Government over simple contract creditors was at issue
(Maritime Bank of Canada [Liquidators of] v. New Brunswick [ReceiverGeneral] 1). Maritime Bank was winding up business and the salient
question was posed: Was the provincial government entitled to payment
in full by preference over the noteholders (sic) of the bank, and if not, was
the provincial government entitled to payment in full over the other
depositors and simple contract creditors of the bank? (Maritime Bank of
Canada [Liquidators of] v. New Brunswick [Receiver-General] 1). As the
prerogative of the Crown was involved, a secondary question arose: Was
provincial property and revenue vested in the Crown-in-Right of Canada,
or in the Crown-in-Right of New Brunswick? (Maritime Bank of Canada
[Liquidators of] v. New Brunswick [Receiver-General] 5). After lengthy
litigation, the matter found itself before the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council in London, and their Lordships eventually ruled that the
property was vested in the Crown-in-Right of New Brunswick (Maritime
Bank of Canada [Liquidators of] v. New Brunswick [Receiver-General]
8). In addition to being a significant case because it recognized that the
Crown was not a unitary instrument, the case also remains important
today because it helps to clarify the relationship between provinces and

the federal government within Canada. As each province and the federal
government were recognized as possessing a separate Crown in their own
right after this ruling, provinces were no longer seen as subservient to the
federal government in matters between them. Indeed, in Liquidators,
Their Lordships affirmed:
[t]he act of the Governor-General and his Council in making the
appointment [of a Lieutenant Governor] is, within the meaning of the
statute, the act of the Crown; and a Lieutenant-Governor, when appointed,
is as much the representative of Her Majesty for all purposes of Provincial
Government, as the Governor-General himself is, for all purposes of
Dominion Government. (Maritime Bank of Canada [Liquidators of] v.
New Brunswick [Receiver-General] 4)
While Liquidators abolished the unitary nature of the Crown, it did

not go as far as to alter the understanding of the Crown being a
British/Imperial institution. As late as 1917, Canadians continued to
receive hereditary honors such as hereditary-peerage appointments, titles
of nobility, and orders of chivalry from the British Crown (McCreery 3437). Until 1917,3 the British Crown, as the fount of Canadian honor (fons
honorum), continued to bestow British honors upon deserving Canadians.
However, in 1917 dissatisfaction with the British appointment process
saw Member of Parliament (MP) William Nickle (sic) put forward the
Nickle Resolution (passed by the House of Commons [hereafter the
Commons] in 1919) (McCreery 34-37). This resolution requested that the
Crown cease bestowing British honors upon Canadians. Although the
resolution succeeded in the lower House, as this resolution touched on
matters relating to the Royal Prerogative, its successful passage of the
Senate was seen as an impossibility. As a result, the Nickle Resolution
never became Canadian law (McCreery 34-37). Nonetheless, the
resolution established a policy in Canada that eventually led to the
creation of a Canadian honors system, bestowed by a Canadian Crown, in
1967 (McCreery 34-38).
The Commons continued to govern under the authority of the
Imperial Crown, although it was a segmented Crown. Under the Imperial
Crown, the Commons in Canada, in 1926, witnessed its most serious
constitutional crisis in Canadian history. The King-Byng-Thing (also

referred to as the King-Byng Affair), as it was later termed, involved a
dispute between then-Governor General of Canada (hereafter Governor
General) The Lord Byng of Vimy (1921-1926) and long-serving Liberal
Prime Minister (PM) William Lyon Mackenzie King (1935-1948)
(MacKinnon 127-132). King, having recently won an election with fewer
seats than his chief opponent (the Conservative Party of Canada [hereafter
the Conservatives]), was governing4 with the support of a third of his
party in the Commons (the Progressive Party of Canada) (MacKinnon
127-132). Kings government soon fell on a motion of non-confidence.
Following the defeat, King requested of The Lord Byng of Vimy the
dissolution of Parliament and that he call another election. Having
recently been through an election, and with another party in the Commons
able to form a minority government (the Conservatives), the Governor
General denied Kings request. Desperate to maintain power, King (a
staunch Canadian nationalist) appealed to Byng to consult the Imperial
Government, the Colonial Office, and through them, both the Imperial
Crown for guidance on what to do in the situation (MacKinnon 127-132).
Byng refused Kings request for dissolution, and by doing so helped to
redefine the role of the office of the Canadian vice-regal representative
(MacKinnon 127-132). Although the Imperial Crown still provided the
legal basis of governance in Canada, Byngs refusal to acquiesce in
Kings request further saw the development of a distinction between the
institutions of the British Crown and the Canadian Crown. Following
this refusal, the Conservatives were permitted to attempt the formation of
government but failed.5 Byng dissolved Parliament soon after the failure.
After the King-Byng controversy, King sought to formerly redefine
(indeed better define) the role of the Governor General. In 1926, the
seventh Imperial Conference (October 19 to November 22) was called and
hosted by King George V in London (Smith 28, 41, and 44). Leaders6 of
the dominions from across the British Empire (hereafter the Empire)
gathered to discuss the relationship of the Commonwealth realms (the
independent states7 within the Empire) with Great Britain. At the
conference it was decided that each of the states within the Empire would
hold equal status and that no independent state would be subservient to
Great Britain (Smith 44). The recognition that independent states were
equal in status to Great Britain reaffirmed the understanding (as
demonstrated by Byng) of what the relationship between Canada and
Great Britain was earlier that year. However, it is possible that he was
actually following convention as to the power of dissolution (McWhinney
15-16). When the conference came to an end the Balfour Declaration of
1926 was issued. In this seminal document, Lord Balfour famously
summarized the agreement of the Conference, stating that
[the Commonwealth realms] are autonomous Communities within the
British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in
any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a
common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the
British Commonwealth of Nations. (McWhinney 3)
This underlined a logical progression in the development of the

understanding of the evolving Canadian Crown with respect to Canadas
fast-ebbing constitutional subservience to the Crown of Great Britain.
Unanimously approved by all of the Imperial PMs at the conference, the
declaration showed that although all realms within the Empire shared the
same Imperial Crown, it was from that point considered a segmented
Crown (as shown previously in Liquidators). Accordingly, it was seen that
each segment of the single Imperial Crown could function autonomously
from the others. While the autonomous nature of the Imperial Crown in
Canada was visibly strengthened by the events of 1926, the Imperial
Parliament, recognizing this change, did not pass a single piece of
legislation. In fact, the equality of the Crown in each of the realms of the
Empire would have to wait another five years to be legislatively
enshrined.
A Shared Crown (1931-1981)

If the period 1867-1930 can be characterized as that of the Imperial
Crown, the following period necessarily must be characterized as that of a
shared Crown. Following the Imperial Parliaments passage of the Statute
of Westminster in 1931, the ideas that were generated at the Imperial
Conference in 1926 and drafted into the Balfour Declaration were carved
into law (Boyce 26-28). With the passing of this statute, Westminster
Parliament specifically renounced any legislative authority over the affairs
of independent states within the Empire, except as specifically provided
for in other statutes (i.e., certain changes to the British North America
[BNA] Act of 1867 still required the assent of Parliament in London)
(Boyce 26-28). Thus, while the Statute of Westminster did not cut all ties
between the Canadian Crown and the British Crown, it did mark the end
of the Imperial Crown within the realms. Replacing the Imperial Crown
was the idea that the Crown was an institution equally shared between the
Commonwealth realms of the Empire; no single state was seen as
subordinate to any other (including Great Britain) (Boyce 26-28). While
this idea was not a novel one (it was found in the Balfour report), the
importance of the Statute of Westminster was that it enshrined the idea
into legislation and marked the effective legislative independence of the
countries involved. The statute effectively established the benchmark for
the relationship between the Commonwealth realms and the Crown; it
continues to govern this relationship today.
Subsequent to the passing of the Statute of Westminster, King
Edward VIII abdicated the throne before he produced an heir; in turn,
British statutes such as the Act of Settlement in 1701 resulted in King
Edwards brother (Prince Albert, Duke of York) becoming King George
VI. At his Coronation in 1937, he became the first Sovereign to be asked
if he would govern the realms with respect to their particular laws and
customs (Tidridge 48). Two years afterward, George embarked on an
extensive tour of Canada, including a brief stop in the United States (US),
which marked the first time that a reigning Sovereign visited the US.8 In
accordance with the Balfour Declaration and the Statute of Westminster,
King George was styled King of Canada during his stay; in this
capacity, he addressed Canadian Parliament, gave Royal Assent to
legislation, and accepted the credentials of the new US ambassador to
Canada (Tidridge 48-49). In further demonstration of the principles of
equality among the independent states, which were part of the Empire, in
the middle of his Canadian tour the King briefly visited the US as King of
Canada, not of Great Britain (Tidridge 48-49). This further marked the
evolution of the Crown from an Imperial one to one shared among

independent states.
A decade after King Georges coronation, Canadian Parliament
passed the Canadian Citizenship Act in 1946 (see Canadian Citizenship
Act). The Act did not affect the legal status of the Crown in Canada;
however, it was largely a symbolic step further in the Canadianization of
the Crown. Prior to this act, Canadians were British Subjects, with
subject connoting allegiance and loyalty to the Sovereign. The
Citizenship Act replaced the term British Subject with Canadian
Citizen (see Canadian Citizenship Act). It declared that, [a] person, born
after the commencement of this Act, is a natural-born Canadian citizen
(Canadian Citizenship Act 4-6). While this did not affect Canadians in
practical terms, the change was yet another step in the evolution of a
Canadian identity distinct from that of British identity (see Knowles). The
Act, however, distinctly maintained allegiance to the King in its Oath of
Allegiance, which read, I, A. B., swear that I will be faithful and bear
true allegiance to his Majesty King George the Sixth, his Heirs and
Successors, according to law, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of
Canada and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen (Canadian Citizenship
Act).
One of the most significant events in the evolutionary history of the
Crown of Canada occurred around the same time, when the King issued in
1947 the Letters Patent Constituting the Office of Governor General of
Canada (see Letters Patent Constituting the Office of Governor General of
Canada). While the BNA Act established the office of the Governor
General, it did so in a very restricted way. Many of the executive powers
exercised by the Governor General today (though not precluding the
monarch from doing so) remained solely in the Kings authority before
1947 (Smith & Jackson 31-36). In 1947, Canadian Parliament became
concerned as to what would happen to the office of the Governor General
in the event of regency (Smith & Jackson 38-39). As the King still
possessed many different powers that only he could exercise, there was
uncertainty how the Crown in Canada would function if the King became
incapacitated in some way, was captured, or was too young to govern on
his own (Smith & Jackson 38-39). To avoid complex legislation (in both
Canada and Great Britain) to establish a Canadian equivalent to a

Regency Act, the decision to permit most of the executive powers of the
King to be exercised by the Governor General was made (Smith &
Jackson 31-36). The Letters Patent declared, [w]e do hereby authorize
and empower Our Governor General, with the advice of Our Privy
Council for Canada or of any members thereof or individually, as the case
requires, to exercise all powers and authorities lawfully belonging to Us in
respect of Canada (Letters Patent Constituting the Office of Governor
General of Canada 2).
Altering the Letters Patent was one of the few restrictions that the
Governor General would have on his powers (Smith & Jackson 42-44). As
Letters Patent form part of the Royal Prerogative and are a unique form of
authority, only the Sovereign can revoke, alter, or amend this legal
instrument (Smith & Jackson 42-44). While the visibility and prestige of
the office of Governor General were dramatically increased with the
issuing of the Letters Patent, the Governor General exercised power on
behalf of the King the letters Patent did not impact the identity of
Canadas head of state or the Sovereign. Even so, and even though the
initial concern which prompted issuing of the Letters Patent focused on
how Canada would function in the event of a regency, there remains
significant confusion regarding precisely what this legal instrument
achieved politically. In fact, the uncertainty over this issue is so
widespread that upon leaving office in 2005, former-Governor General
Adrienne Clarkson (1999-2005) stated:
There is much misunderstanding about the authority of the Governor
General. Even many politicians dont seem to know that the final authority
of the state was transferred from the monarch to the Governor General in
the Letters Patent of 1947, thereby making Canadas government
independent of Great Britain. (Smith & Jackson 32)
This is nonsense on Clarksons part. In 2009, long after Clarkson left

office she again demonstrated her misunderstanding of the Letters Patent.
She did so by referring to herself as head of state. Similarly in the final
days of Michalle Jean as Governor General (2005-2010), she stated that
[f]rom 1947, with what we call the letters patent, the sovereign conferred
the responsibility of the head of state and all of the responsibilities are
those of the head of state (Smith & Jackson 32). Both Clarkson and Jean
failed to grasp the essence of the Letters Patent. They showed the
understanding that they transferred the office of head of state from the
office of the King, to the office of the Governor General. To be sure,
this was anything but the case. After 1947, the King continued to be the
head of state, while the powers of head of state were simply exercised by
the Governor General. No change was made to Canadas head of state.
While both of these events were rather embarrassing, neither were
they the least bit surprising as the former governments wanted to lead
people to believe that the Governor General was the head of state. In time,
they sought to ease Canada out of what they considered its colonial past.
However, there remained mistakes that PM Stephen Harper (2006present) was obliged to deny categorically, including the incorrectness of
the remarks made by the Governors General. He stated emphatically that
Queen Elizabeth and not Clarkson nor Jean were Canadas heads of state
during their respective tenures (Smith & Jackson 32). While these
incidents demonstrate the extent to which the Letters Patent have been
grossly misconstrued, they also help to underscore what they did not do.
With the Letters Patent, King George did not issue a blanket abdication
of the Sovereigns role in the Canadian state nor did he limit the Royal
Prerogative in Canada (Smith & Jackson 32). Rather, the Letters Patent
merely delegated authority from one institution (the King) to a
subordinate body (the Governor General). Just as legislatures have passed
enabling legislation delegating regulatory making power to third parties,
and then later revoked this power, the Letters Patent issued by the King
only permitted the delegation of some aspects of his authority to the
Governor General. While it is important to note that the Letters Patent did
not remove the Crown from the head of King George and place it on the
head of The Viscount Alexander (Governor General during that time), it is
similarly important to recognize that it did vastly expand the office of the
Governor General in very practical terms (Smith & Jackson 35-36).
Following the issuance of the Letters Patent, the Governor General was
able to exercise nearly all of the day-to-day powers of the Crown clear
across Canada. As a result of this development, the Governor General was
also able to function in almost all areas without approval from the
reigning Sovereign.
In 1952, Vincent Massey was appointed as the first Canadian-born
Governor General and served until 1959 (Monet 85). His appointment
marked a momentous step in the evolutionary path of the Canadian
Crown, which all subsequent appointees would mirror. Prior to his
appointment, Canadas Governor Generals were British. Despite their
background, nearly all became thoroughly imbued with the juvenescent
spirit of Canada as a young country and contributed significantly to the
development of Canadas national identity as well as its various
institutions of nationhood (Monet 85). During the same year as Masseys
appointment, King George VI died suddenly. In the wake of his death,
Princess Elizabeth (his eldest daughter) became Queen Elizabeth II. While
accession to the throne is automatic and does not require an act of
Parliament, the government traditionally issues a Proclamation9 regarding
the accession. The Queens accession led to Canadas Parliament passing
the Royal Style and Titles Act. These instruments made The Queen the
first monarch to be distinctly identified as the Sovereign of Canada,
officially labelling her Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace
of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and
Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith
(Royal Style and Titles Act 2). As a development in the evolution of the
Canadian Crown, passage of this act was similar in intent to Canadas
formal declaration of war against Nazi Germany on September 10, 1939.10
In both circumstances, Canada previously relied on Imperial Parliament to
act on its behalf. However, by 1939, and again legislatively in 1953,
Canada eventually matured to a point as a country where its political
leadership felt obligated to assume the role of issuing the
proclamation/declaration on its own. As a result of Canadian Parliament
identifying The Queen as Canadas reigning Sovereign and Great Britain
declaring her Britains reigning Queen, the two countries (acting together)
showed the practical effect of both a long evolutionary process and the
passage of the Statute of Westminster. Canada was no longer the
possession of an Imperial Crown, but an equal realm of a shared Crown.
This became true of the other Realms as well.
A Canadian Crown (1982-present)

The shared Crown became a distinctly Canadian Crown in April 1982,
when in Ottawa, The Queen proclaimed the Constitution Act (Constitution
Act, 1982). In effect, Canada was already a fully developed and
independent country by this time. Canadian Parliament, however, was still
required to ask Parliament of Great Britain to amend certain parts of its
written Constitution even though in practice British Parliament was
rubber-stamping any such requests for decades without even the faintest
hint of inquiry or question. Processes leading to specific constitutional
change (patriation) were still desired in Canada. After extensive
negotiations conducted over several years, nine of the ten provinces
agreed on the form of the new Constitution Act and, of equal importance,
on how future amendments to the act would be made (Noonan 11-17).
While patriation was indeed important to Canadas national identity, its
practice was also a cardinal stride in completing the evolution of the
Shared Crown into a Canadian Crown. A new corporate sole was born;
the Canadian and British heads of state were formally two distinct and
separate bodies, although embodied in the same person (see Lagasse &
Bowden).11 The Constitution Act was largely a Canadian-made statute
that embodied what Parliament of Canada desired. A significant feature of
the Act was that it cast the Crown in its central place within the Canadian
constitutional framework. The Act then crystallized the Crown by holding
that it could be abolished or altered only through unanimous consent of
Parliament of Canada and the ten provincial legislatures. In addition to the
enactment of this legislation, which demonstrated that Canadians wanted
to remain a constitutional monarchy, it formally established the Canadian
Crown as an institution distinct from the British Crown. That the person
wearing the crown happened to be the same in each case was completely
irrelevant. Of considerable importance, however, was the fact that the
Canadian Crown existed on its own from that point forward. No longer
was there need for the impression that Canadians and Britons were
sharing a single and segmented Crown.
The next twenty-five years saw a diminishment in the prestige of

the Canadian Crown and reduced appreciation for its importance in the
processes of Canadian political, judicial, and legislative institutions. Part
of this shift away from recognizing the Crowns centrality in Canadian
public life was undoubtedly a conscious choice on the part of Canadians
who were fascinated by the revelations of damning scandals within the
private lives of members of the Royal Family throughout the 1990s.
Insouciance toward the Crown also developed unconsciously during this
time since the Canadian Government quietly went about removing
portraits of The Queen from schools, post offices, hospitals, and other
public buildings and areas in accordance with new, though unwritten,
government policy. From 1982 to 2008, Canadians saw very little of the
Crown as an institution visibly exercising any actual role, other than when
the office of the Governor General was portrayed in negative ways in
order for politicians to score easy political points. A prime example of this
was when PM Paul Martin (2003-06) scapegoated Adrienne Clarkson who
was left to defend herself following revelations of a hefty and expensive
travel history. Instead, during a period of roughly 25 years, the Crown
essentially became a euphemism for a nice lady who dressed in large
garden hats and wore decorative white gloves, while smiling and waving
during the occasional walkabout but little else. Increasingly, Canadians
questioned the role of the Crown and wondered whether having a Crown
was necessary at all (Smith & Jackson 205-209). While governments
across Canada continued sponsoring and paying for events, such as the
Golden Jubilee in 2002, little emphasis was placed on the Crown as an
important institution or as a vital constitutional and legal issue.
Then, in November of 2008, a sequence of events was set in motion
following the economic crisis of 2007-2008, which led to the prorogation
dispute of 2008 and eventually saw the Canadian Crown use one of its
rarely used reserve powers (Lordon 16, and 61-105). After Harpers
minority Conservative government presented the Commons with a fiscal
update, talks among the other parties in the Commons began forming a
coalition, defeating the Government in a confidence motion and then
appealed to the Governor General to give the coalition a chance to form a
government without an intervening election (Lordon 87). With the
expectation that he would be defeated by the coalition, Harper asked Jean

to prorogue Parliament (with the effect of delaying the confidence motion)
until the following year. He hoped that during the prorogation the
coalition would fall apart and his Government would survive. Upon
asking Jean to prorogue Parliament, the Governor General consulted with
constitutional experts (including Peter Hogg) to understand her role and
options. As the media focused attention upon the issue, Canadians once
again realized that the Crown could potentially play a role of some
significance within the governance of Canada (Lordon 94-95). While Jean
eventually granted the Harpers request, to the elation of some and the
dismay of others, it was since reported that Harper considered bypassing
the Governor General and directly asking The Queen to intervene if Jean
decided differently (Ibbitson). While the event was settled in cordially, the
prorogation of 2008 marked another step in the quiet evolution of the
Canadian Crown. Where the Crown was thought of as a relic of history
kept around only as a bridge to Canadas past before the dispute occurred,
the dispute itself marked one of the rare moments in which a separate and
independent Canadian Crown performed a substantive function and solved
a Canadian problem.
The latest significant step12 in the Canadian Crowns long
evolutionary journey was set in motion in October 2011 at the
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Australia
(Bloxham & Kirkup). After the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of
Cambridge earlier that year, it seemed likely that a child would soon be
born who one day would inherit the throne. As a result, during the
CHOGM, the heads of government of the sixteen Commonwealth realms
that share Queen Elizabeth as a head of state, unanimously agreed to end
the centuries old practice of male primogeniture with regard to the Crown
and succession. No longer would the sons of the monarch who were born
after the daughters take precedence in the line of succession; the first-born
child, whether male or female, would then become the heir apparent to the
Throne. The Realms also committed to end the existing prejudice against
members of the Royal Family marrying a Roman Catholic (Bloxham &
Kirkup). This prohibition, dating back to the Act of Settlement in 1701,
was a remaining vestige of an era when Protestant-Catholic conflict in
England recently plunged the country into civil war and there was desire
to prevent the protestant throne (held by King William III and II, and
Queen Mary II) from falling back into the hands of a Catholic monarch
(Act of Settlement). While these changes to Crown succession are
significant in their own right, they also represent the true Canadian-ness of
the Canadian Crown as the Canadian values of prohibition against
discrimination on the basis of gender and religion permeated the
institution of the Crown of Canada. With this change, the Canadian
Crown embodies some of the values dearest to Canadian identity. After
the CHOGM, the Government of Canada introduced Bill C-53 to the
Commons. This bill, which became known as the Succession to the
Throne Act, was introduced in 2013, and assented to that same year. It
formally adopted the agreement made at the CHOGM, which legally
replaced male primogeniture with equal primogeniture.
Conclusion
Of all the Canadian institutions that contribute to Canadian identity across
time and geography, perhaps none have been as constant as the Crown.
From 1867 through to the present day, the Crown has been an everpresent institution from which authority flows to the judiciary, the
legislative bodies, and the executive government. While the presence of
the Crown has been constant, manifestation of the institution has evolved
greatly since Confederation. Though initially the Crown was a unitary
British Crown, worn by a British monarch, legislation, jurisprudence,
government policy, multilateral relations, conferences, declarations, and
the emergence of a Canadian identity have all slowly transformed the
Crown into a distinctly Canadian institution. As this article has shown, the
evolutionary process was certainly not one of simplicity. Rather, it was
fraught with intrigue and at times pure chance. The process of change,
moreover, did not occur quickly; nor did it always occur consciously. As
this article demonstrates, the evolution of the Canadian Crown can be
traced through approximately fifteen events that took place throughout
Canadas history. These fifteen events have loosely been categorized into
three separate periods with each forming the structure of this article: The
Imperial Crown (1867-1930), A Shared Crown (1931-1981), and A

Canadian Crown (1982-present). Throughout these events, the Canadian
Crown was slowly transformed from a British Crown into a veritable
Crown of Maples.
Notes:
1
Those attending in London included Sir Adams George Archibald (Nova

Scotia), Sir George-tienne Cartier (Qubec), Charles Fisher (New Brunswick),
Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt (Qubec), William Alexander Henry (Nova Scotia),
Sir William Pearce Howland (Ontario), John Mercer Johnson (New Brunswick),
Sir Hector-Louis Langevin (Qubec), Sir John A. Macdonald (Ontario), Jonathan
McCully (Nova Scotia), William McDougal (Ontario), Peter Mitchell (New
Brunswick), John William Ritchie (Nova Scotia), Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley
(New Brunswick), Sir Charles Tupper (Nova Scotia), and Robert Duncan Wilmot
(New Brunswick).
2
Note that there is some disagreement on the name of this conference. As the
conference began in the last days of 1866 but carried well into 1867, some
scholars refer to this conference as the London Conference of 1866 and others of
1867. This causes some confusion as a second, and wholly separate London
Conference of 1867 took place between European nations regarding the political
situation in Northern Europe at the time.
3
Canadians continued to receive armorial bearings from the Garter Principal
King of Arms (the heraldic authority with jurisdiction over England, Wales, and
Northern Ireland) and from the Court of The Lord Lyon (the heraldic authority
with jurisdiction over Scotland) until the patriation of Canadian Heraldry in 1988
following the creation of the Canadian Heraldic Authority when Her Majesty The
Queen issued a letters patent and created the Canadian Heraldic Authority.
4
This agreement with the third party was, strictly speaking, not a coalition
government. The third party was not given any seats in cabinet.
5
To successfully form a government in a situation such as this, a secondary party
must immediately pass a confidence motion, which the Conservatives failed to
do. Their failure to pass a confidence motion resulted in a cabinet never being
sworn in and thus a government never forming.
6
Primary leaders included Stanley Baldwin (PM of Great Britain [Chairman]),
Stanley Bruce (PM of Australia), William Lyon Mackenzie King (PM of
Canada), The Earl of Birkenhead (Secretary of State [India]), W. T. Cosgrave
(President of the Irish Free State), Walter Stanley Monroe (PM of
Newfoundland), Gordon Coates (PM of New Zealand), and J. B. M. Hertzog (PM
of South Africa).
7
Independent States is a term used loosely throughout this article to denote a
status of independence greater than that held by the remaining colonies of the
Empire, which had not yet reached statehood, but the phrase is not meant to
connote independence from the Empire in a manner similar to the US in 1776.
Sovereigns visited Canada prior to their ascension to the throne prior to this
though, including King George who entered into Canada as Prince Albert.
9
Note that the Proclamation is only a pleasant custom. It has nothing to do with
the Act, which is legislative (and important), and follows months later.
10
With the aim of asserting Canadas independence from the UK, which was
already established through the Statute of Westminster (1931), a formal
declaration of war as sought by means of the approval of the Federal Parliament
during the initial week of September 1939.
11
Lagasse and Bowdens Royal Succession and the Canadian Crown as a
Corporation Sole: A Critique of Canadas Succession to the Throne Act, 2013
(2014) 23 Constitutional Forum Constitutionnel 17 offers an outstanding
discussion on the Crown as a corporation sole (a legal incorporated office which
may only be occupied by a sole individual). This discussion is helpful for
understanding how one person (Her Majesty) may occupy two distinct, but
similar, offices concurrently.
12
Note that this is the last step, which directly affected the legal nature of the
Crown in Canada. Since Stephen Harper became Prime Minister of Canada in
2006, a renaissance of sorts occurred in Canada regarding the Canadian
Monarchy. Two branches of the armed forces have seen their Royal moniker
returned, Canadian embassies throughout the world must now displace a portrait
of Her Majesty the Queen, government buildings across Canada have seen similar
portraits reappearing, and invitations to members of the Royal family to visit
Canada have become more common. While this resurgence in loyalty to the
institution is welcome by this author, these events do not directly affect the nature
of the Crown as a legal institution in Canada, and thus an exploration of them
here is omitted for brevity.
Works Cited
Bloxham, Andy, and James Kirkup. Centuries-Old Rule of Primogeniture in
Royal Family Scrapped. The Telegraph 28 Oct. 2011. Web. 27 June
2014.
Bousfield, Arthur, and Garry Toffoli. Royal Observations: Canadians and
Royalty. Toronto: Dundurn P, 1991. Print.
Boyce, Peter. The Queens Other Realms: The Crown and Its Legacy in
Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Sydney: Federation P, 2008. Print.
Constitution Act, 1982 (UK), 1982, c 11, Schedule B. 17 Apr. 1985. Print.
Government of Canada. Letters Patent Constituting the Office of Governor
General of Canada, (1947) C Gaz II, 1. 1980. Print.
Government of Canada. Parliament of Canada. Canadian Citizenship Act and
Current Issues. 1980. Print.
Government of Canada. Parliament of Canada. Citizenship Act R.S.C., 1985, c.
C-29. 1985. Print.

Ibbitson, John. Stephen Harper Pondered Appeal to Queen Over Prorogation.
The Globe and Mail 30 Sept. 2010. Wed. 25 June 2014.
Knowles, Valerie. Forging Our Legacy: Canadian Citizenship and Immigration,
1900-1977. Ottawa: Public Works and Government Services Canada.
2000. Print.
Lagasse, Phillipe, and James W. J. Bowden. Royal Succession and the Canadian
Crown as a Corporation Sole: A Critique of Canadas Succession to the
Throne Act, 2013. Constitutional Forum Constitutionnel 23.1 (April
2014): 17-26. Print.
Lordon, Paul. Crown Law. Markham: Butterworths, 1991. Print.
MacKinnon, Frank. The Crown in Canada. Calgary: Glenbow-Alberta Institute,
1976. Print.
Maritime Bank of Canada (Liquidators of) v. New Brunswick (Receiver-General).
[1892] JCJ No 1, [1892] AC 437. Print.
McCreery, Christopher. On Her Majestys Service: Royal Honours and
Recognition in Canada. Toronto: Dundurn P, 2008. Print.
McWhinney, Edward. Fixed Election Dates and the Governor Generals Power
to Grant Dissolution. Canadian Parliamentary Review 31.1 (2008): 1516. Print.
Monet, Jacques. The Canadian Crown. Toronto: Clarke, 1979. Print.
Munro, Kenneth. The Canadian Crown: The Role of the Governor General.
LawNow Mag. 1 Nov. 2009. Web. 10 June 2014.
Noonan, Peter W. The Crown and Constitutional Law in Canada. Calgary:
Sripnoon, 1998. Print.
Parliament of the United Kingdom. British Nationality Act 1981, c.61. Nov. 1981.
Print.
Royal Style and Titles Act. RSC 1985, c R-12. Print.
Smith, David E. The Invisible Crown: The First Principle of Canadian
Government. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1995. Print.
Smith, Jennifer, and D. Michael Jackson, eds. The Evolving Canadian Crown.
Kingston: McGill-Queens UP, 2012. Print.
Succession to the Throne Act. SC 2013, c-6. Print.
Tidridge, Nathan. Canadas Constitutional Monarchy: An Introduction to Our
Form of Government. Toronto: Dundurn, 2011. Print.
United Kingdom. Parliament of England. Act of Settlement 1701 12 and 13 Will
III, c.2. 1700. Print.
Reviews
126
Reviews
127 Reviews
Tina Managhan, Gender, Agency and War: The Maternalized Body

in US Foreign Policy. London and New York: Routledge, 2012
($145.00 hardcover). Pp. 184. ISBN: 978-0-415-78195-4.
In this creative and thoughtful book, Tina Managhan examines

militarization and resistance through the mark of motherhood in the
context of US foreign policy. The discipline of International Relations
(IR) provides an important platform for engaging with these key issues
and for drawing scholarly attention to marginalized events and
marginalized interpretations, and to what Managhan refers to as the
maternalized body. She reads the discipline in a way that sets her analysis
beyond conventional qualitative scholarship. While many scientific
studies depend on traditional approaches to understanding the political
and social, Managhan inverts the site of IR such that rather than it being
that which impacts bodies or that which bodies effect, she sees IR
directly through bodies as both object and event (2). Objects and events
become compelling instantiations of larger matters such as politics,
power, and structure. Motherhood is taken to be a discursive practice
retaining multidimensional meaning in both its tenuous claims to
singularity and its moments of dispersal and practice (3). The result is an
interesting relationship where practice is informed by meaning and
meaning is informed by practice.
Managhan pursues a how possible approach with the intention of
avoiding what she describes as the limitations of a positivist
methodology, and follows a unique path to make women strange (5).
How did women come to be in and through maternalization? This is the
predominant question. She examines the female body and the conditions
that have enabled it to become intelligible. Meeting the discursive settings
of her research approach, Managhan studies the female body in the
historical context of the modern state and in contemporary social-cultural
texts (newspapers, film, mothering manuals, womens magazines, and
scholarly literature), language (more broadly), and everyday discursive
practices (5). Her overall strategy for integrating different components of
her study encompasses United States foreign policy in three distinct
circumstances: the anti-nuclear movement that took place during the

1980s, the first Gulf War during the early-1990s, and the 2003 US-led
invasion of Iraq. A striking feature of this book is its research design. The
reader will be quick to notice Managhans approach: tracing specific
processes through which female bodies emerge as gendered, raced, and
classed.
Another interesting trait is the authors treatment of women as
creations and creators, instantiations of that which is typically understood
as the unit of creation. Thus Managhan sees the female body as bodily
in order to abstract but not divide the body as subject: Signs emitted,
expressiveness, space occupied and contested, dreams, desires, and the
nebulous terrain of conscience and emotion produce Foucauldian (and
postmodern feminist) imagery of the body politic (5). A deficiency in
contemporary IR literature rests on the basic treatment of the body.
Distancing her study from this regrettable representativeness, the body is
contextualized in extreme but fruitful ways. Acknowledging the body and
womans desires and needs, unruliness, arousals, and agency as instances
of power that crystallize conditions around people, communities, and
societies, and processes that promote, limit, and assign meaning to
articulations of the state (8), Managhan brings together a solid
theoretical base for her subsequent empirical study. She employs an
alternative framework for mapping power that facilitates further mapping
of women as the primary subject of this book. In doing so, recognizable
subjects doing recognizable things are sketched an ambitious
undertaking given that actual bodies cannot be so easily traced, as she
contends (19). Nonetheless, this provides a vantage point from which to
productively (re-)map power. The author states, as the bodies and
experiences that undermine the coherence of our categories are brought
into view, discussions must begin anew about the ways in which we
understand and re-map the relations of power (46).
Throughout the complex discussions Managhan presents in the
pages of this book, one might be reminded of other scholarship that tends
to draw heavily on instances of body and space particularly in the post9/11 period. That the maternalized body assumes a central place in both
US foreign policy and scholarly work devoted to it is suggested, most
notably, in the title of this book. In the second chapter, Managhan
examines the 1980s anti-nuclear movement. In doing so, she provides
129 Reviews
readers with instances that pre-date the 9/11 era although the distance
between these periods is exceptionally slim. There is an advantage to this
temporal proximity since all three circumstances are linked conceptually
and thematically. What is enticing about including this period is its
relationship with but incompatibility with actual war conditions (that is,
this period deals with potential lead-ups to and preparations for nuclear
war). The three foreign policy circumstances suggest a rather determined
equality with studies focusing on contemporary instances of US state
behavior, foreign policy, and interaction in world politics. Going
temporally deeper into the practice of American foreign policy would
build much more historical attention to the subject of womens bodies.
Managhan indirectly defends the position that her research takes when
speaking of the historical dimension. To look at woman as a figure and
something that potentially impacts the events that surround her requires
symbolic and metaphorical attention. This is precisely what is achieved
when Managhan re-reads the protesting female body (57). Examples of
such readings can undoubtedly be found in other periods but her review of
the 1980s serves a qualified function.
The third chapter, entitled (M)others, biopolitics and the Gulf
War, carries a pervading Foucauldian theme. This chapter presents a
stark disconnect between US foreign policy and its representation of
Americans, specifically of the female carrying the burdens of motherhood
as natural nurturer. Americans enacted, states Managhan, a
reinvigorated militarism that was told as a story about a nation that stood
firmly behind its troops (74). This chapter provocatively discusses the
context of motherhood: the transition to sensitive motherhood and its
relationship with the rise of US militarism during the time of the first Gulf
War. The late-1980s and the period of the Gulf War during the early1990s show continuity in the discourse of motherhood, which Managhan
describes as having stayed largely intact (88). The dawn of the age of an
intense and profitable cultural figure the so-called supermom
became an intricate aspect of the discourse of the modern liberal state.
Managhan revisits assumptions that are formative of her analysis earlier in
this book while engaging with the loss of citizen-subjects that the US
could not quite stomach during the course of operations in Iraq since 2003
(105). Grievances over dead soldiers in much larger (almost
unquantifiable) numbers remain a sinister feature of the most recent war
in Iraq. The very sensitive issue of loss, which can assume many forms,
has lasting effects on social structures. Thus a complex interplay between
presence and absence, states Managhan, illustrates the imperative to
support the troops functioned within the psychic life of the nation (107).
Managhan concludes by noting that the change of discursive events
and the emotional approach to conflict sanctioned by US foreign policy
retain strong normative grounding. These shifts were not accidental.
Managhans conclusion is positive for revealing the agential quality and
potential of those often considered merely existing within interminable
structure(s). But this conclusion presents numerous beginnings. Having
collapsed boundaries found between sovereign power and the maternal
body, Managhan has begun to address the interaction of domestic
conditions and performative forces at the level of the nation state; yet,
examinations of these specific foreign policy circumstances alone cannot
serve as the only means of illustrating how the maternal body has
strengthened or weakened American sovereignty. Dichotomizing
understandings of the relationship between the female body and the realm
of IR as well as that same body and the military state is productively
unsettling. This quality, in combination with the intriguing research
approach that informs this work, makes Gender, Agency and War an
essential read for interdisciplinary researchers, particularly those operating
within the fields of IR, feminist studies, and domestic and international
norms.
131 Reviews
Amin Ghaziani, There Goes the Gayborhood? Princeton and

Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2014 (24.95 cloth). Pp. 349.
ISBN 978-0-691-15879-2.
Predictably, after several decades of intense problematisation,

defamiliarisation, indeed of unrelenting interrogation, the term culture is
beginning to show signs of semantic satiation. The extent to which this
lapse of meaning is reflective of the excess critical value ascribed to
culture across several decades of proliferative discourse on it, or the result
of an inevitable paradigmatic shift will depend on the various uses to
which new literacies and knowledge formations will put it. At this stage of
enquiry, suffice it to note that increasingly, in our culturally liberated age,
culture is losing its conceptual meaning, our uneasy perception of it
being an indication of the mental fatigue nearly half a century of cultural
emancipation has induced in us. A third industrial revolution is now
replacing the cultural revolution of the latter half of the twentieth century,
one that seems to point to a post-cultural sensibility less than keen on
debating cultural difference or the importance of it for that matter. Despite
forming the object of an as yet busy agenda, in the age of threedimensional printing and of the internet of things, culture is finally being
taken for granted, its status no longer questioned, its contentious nature or
core values, laid to rest. Defamiliarised by several waves of critical
thinking, subject to the tribulations and challenges of digitisation, culture
is eventually taking the global turn. With its staple subjects nationhood,
race, gender and ethnicity no longer a site of resistance, cultural studies
seems to find itself in dire need of rerouting (Wilson et al).
At the heart of cultural enquiry queer studies is no exception to this
turn in global sensibility. In this timely study of gay identity and urban
space, sociologist Amin Ghaziani addresses the dramatically changing
landscape of gay cultures in the US, touching upon the defining factors
involved in the new knowledge and culture formations at work in
globality. Looking at the decline of gay neighbourhoods and their
diminished cultural relevance, Ghaziani explores the newly configured
dynamics characterising gay cultures today against the backdrop of the
neo-nomadism of the global condition (DAndrea). In so doing,

Ghaziani responds to a growing current of opinion proclaiming gay
cultures as redundant or pass. Taking a balanced view, he approaches the
phenomenon in relation to defining factors of the condition of globality,
such as cosmopolitanism, cultural hypermobility, and the new forms of
sociality characteristic of the so-called post-identitarian age. While
sounding a positive, confident note on its continuing relevance,
Ghazianis reading of iconic sites of gay male culture such as San
Franciscos historic gay village betrays a sense of nostalgia at
gaybourhoods inevitable loss of its subversive potential by virtue of the
success of gay rights movements:
If gayborhoods first formed through a politics of liberation, how will they
morph in our modern era one that some people call post-gay a time
that is defined by unprecedented societal acceptance of homosexuality? If
these areas once promised safe spaces for sexual minorities, what will
happen to them as the world becomes safer and as being gay or lesbian
becomes more normal? Will gayborhoods die, a victim of their own
success, or can they still survive as vibrant cultural enclaves? Does this
rise-and-fall narrative even apply to gay neighbourhoods? Or can we
unearth a more subtle and nuanced reality to explain what is happening
today and to predict what might become of them in the future? (Ghaziani
6)
In answer to the above questions, Ghaziani adopts a wide-reaching,

diachronic perspective on the rise of gay neighbourhoods in the USA, one
informed by the analysis of an impressive indeed overwhelming range of
statistical data, in support of his findings the author making use of a great
deal of census data, from opinion polls to censuses of national gay and
lesbian population. Current topographies of gay identity and the new
horizon of sexual liberation are thus brought to the fore and appraised in
light of the old activism of the sexual era and the expression of
difference the likes of the Castro District in San Francisco has stood for.
In the age of same-sex marriages, homophobia as well as conventional
notions of masculinity are outmoded, Ghaziani emphasises, hence the
need to consider gay identity and its unique cultures in terms of global
mobility and the new demographic trends to which it has given rise. Gay
neighbourhoods call for an integrative redefinition against the enabling
133 Reviews
condition of interconnectivity and social blending, which is one of the

chief objectives of There Goes the Gayborhood? As well as departures in
the condition of homosexuality and the centrality of social context to it,
Ghaziani makes a crucial point about the centrality of sexuality to human
existence and to definitions of self:
Sexuality has always been an important part of human life and our ideas
about it are constantly evolving, of course but the recent post-gay shift
has been nothing short of startling. Those who consider themselves postgay profess that their sexual orientation does not form the core of how
they define themselves, and they prefer to hang out with their straight
friends as much as with those who are gay. Actually, they generally do not
even distinguish their friends by their sexual orientation. This is not to say
that people no longer claim a gay, lesbian, or bisexual identity for
themselves they do because sexual orientation is still a part of who we
are after all, because heterosexuality is still culturally compulsory, and
because sexual inequalities persist. Post-gays do not pretend that the world
is a perfect place. But with public acceptance of homosexuality and samesex relationships at an all-time high, it is much easier for some sexual
minorities to move into the mainstream, to participate in its most
foundational institutions, like marriage or the military, and to blend into
the prizes, multicultural mosaic in a way that renders them no different
from heterosexuals. (9-10)
Although it does not set out to examine the cultures of resistance, past and
present, underlying gaybourhood certainly not in a manner evocative of
profiling the rockers, the hipppies, the punk, ravers or youth movements,
past and present the study does shed light on the various tight if indirect
articulations between old youth and the next youth, canonical and
liberated masculinity, forms of oppression and countercultural
emancipation. In this respect, it is one of the great merits of Ghazianis
book to reposit the question of transnational countercultures as fading
away in the twenty-first century. Urban change, Ghaziani stresses, is
inevitable, which does not prevent the reality of a vibrant queer culture
from continuing to manifest itself:
Everyday life in gay neighbourhoods moves in multiple directions; the
perspectives of one person will contradict what someone else says. We
will never be able to learn anything from this social noise if we simply ask

whether gay neighbourhoods are changing. Of course they are. Every
neighbourhood will change at some point. Though cities are built of bricks
and concrete, they nonetheless are living, breathing, organic entities that
are perpetually shifting, even if those changes are not always evident to us.
Gayborhoods certainly are not an exception to this most basic of urban
insights. We therefore need to ask more penetrating questions. Who wants
to live in a gayborhood? And who rejects them? What can their diverging
preferences teach us about sexuality, especially its unique relationship
with an otherwise common process of urban change? (6)
Another perceptive statement the study makes in response to

whither the state-of-the gay (7) regards the as yet unresolved tension
Ghazianis enquiry lays bare between genuine global postmetropolitanism and the cultural geographies of globality, the rapport
between regional locality and cultural location and the factitious nature of
so-called post-gay, post-identitarian categories. It is shallow and
prescriptive for gay America to be pronounced dead on the grounds of
its gay communities having allegedly joined the mainstream, Ghaziani
argues. The fact that shifts in urban community style no longer result in
the privileging of heterosexuality, he shows, does not corroborate theories
of the actual desegregation of gay neighbourhoods:
A common conclusion that many members of the media, activists, some
scholars, and everyday people alike make today is that gayborhoods are
potentially imperiled and pass for gays, as we just heard, yet
suddenly desirable for straights. To me, this implies that the resonance of
their streets is changing, and that they now mean different things for
different groups of people. Therefore, the heart of the matter what these
places mean, for whom, and why so many of us are troubled, or not, by all
these crisscrossing developments transcends dollars and cents. Economic
arguments ignore what I think is a crucial fact about the relationship
between sexuality and the city: gayborhoods, to echo the elegant words of
geographers Mickey Lauria and Lawrence Knopp, are a spatial response
to a historically specific form of oppression. They are transforming in
unique ways as the long arc of the temporal universe bends toward justice.
(8)
In this highly topical well researched work, Ghaziani contributes a

broad, cross-disciplinary investigation as well as an in-depth treatment of
135 Reviews
the future of gaybourhood in urban America, reflecting authoritatively on

the new cultural archipelagos of gay enclaves and cisgender identity. In
this, the book represents a joint contribution to cultural and urban studies
that helps rethink the homosexual as a cultural category in culture
memory, raising awareness of the significance of spatial expressions of
sexuality in our dealings with culture.
ADRIANA NEAGU,
Babe-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
Works Cited
DAndrea, Anthony. Global Nomads: Techno and New Age as Transnational
Countercultures in Ibiza and Goa. London: Routledge, 2007. Print.
Ghaziani, Amin. There Goes the Gayborhood? Princeton: Princeton UP, 2014.
Print.
Wilson, Janet, Cristina andru, and Sarah Lawson Welsh, eds. Rerouting the
Postcolonial: New Directions for the New Millennium. London:
Dennis Gruending, Pulpit and Politics: Competing Religious

Ideologies in Canadian Public Life. Calgary: Kingsley, 2011
($22.00 CAD paperback). Pp. 256. ISBN: 978-1-926832-07-4.
In Pulpit and Politics, Dennis Gruending examines the increasing

influence of religious conservatives within the Canadian public sphere
through questions of how and why. With a timeframe loosely spanning the
period when John A. Macdonald was in office to Canadas involvement in
the United Nations-sanctioned mission in Afghanistan, Gruending argues
that competition between religious progressives and conservatives has
gained momentum and will continue to do so in the future. What
Gruending describes as a disparaging progression is based on political
ideology and tactics deeply rooted in Canadas pre- and postconfederation history. Stephen Harpers conservative majority victory in
2011 has since provided an impeccable canvas on which one can easily
study an enhanced political rivalry across Canada surrounding struggles to
voice political opinion and increase the recognition of a wide array of
issues. Political opinion alone does not define the entire situation.
According to Gruending, [w]e cherish our reputation as a peaceable
kingdom, but we are not immune to religious fundamentalism, even
extremism (x).
The contents of this book and its important analyses are the product
of a genealogical approach to history. Through this method, the author
shows that what has been a part of Canadas political history shares a
direct relationship and is therefore highly relevant to the here and now.
Abstractions of religion and religious convictions beyond what may be
understood as blurred political agendas reveal a great deal about
overlapping social, cultural, economic, political, and anthropological
conditions pertaining to Canada and its growing (and indeed diverse)
populations. Historical analysis brings to the fore under-observed or
overlooked presences that have effectively projected their influence.
There has been an abiding chasm among Protestants, reasons
Gruending, since the early years of the twentieth century, and it
continues to this day. Mainline Protestants came to embrace modernism
137 Reviews
and liberal ideas for example, and attempt to reconcile Christianity with
the rationalist and scientific thought that arose from the Enlightenment
(xiv).
Gruending begins with an exploration of the major fault line (i.e.,
religions denomination) in Canadian society dating as far back as the
Northwest Rebellion (xii). The following decades ushered in a wave of
Protestants and eventually peoples of multiple faiths. Faith and the
perception of religious necessity, that is the need to have religion and
politics intersect in order to have religious factors such as communities
support political life, were an overwhelming determinant of policy and
social interaction as a relatively small Canadian society underwent
colossal change. It is precisely through this process of tracing the
emergence of religious groups and voices that Gruending presents the
contemporary position of religion, public interest, domestic and foreign
policy, social (including political) hierarchies, and moral politics on
Canadas civic stage. The story is one without any determinable ending.
As Gruending states, there is no way to predict with any certainty which
faction will exert the greater political influence (xviii).
In each chapter, the author presents rich examples or condensed
cases regarding religious tensions set against situations that have afflicted
the country and its regions over time. The chapters are organized by
events that take the reader well beyond the national borders of Canada. It
would be difficult to write a book on the religious ideologies that
permeate Canadian public life (including its very active political sides)
without addressing social, religious, and politics currents circulating
beyond Canadas borders. This should be the case with any book
addressing the relationship between politics and religion in any other
country, especially due to the bridging attributes of different immigrating
ethnic groups and settled Diasporas. Thus the author has paid necessary
attention to what is happening in Canada and further abroad. Having
compiled these studies, Gruending has nicely connected them to broader
frameworks and reveals conflicting loyalties and religious friction as both
initiative and response in Canadian life. Canadians have astutely observed
edicts from the highest religious orders related to different religious
denominations, but in many ways this frustrated day-to-day practices of
Canadians in (other) societal facets:

Pronouncements from the Pope and Canadas bishops often leave their
readers bewildered and even angry. Pope Benedict XVI is a conservative
man but his social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (In Charity and Truth)
left free-market fundamentalists sputtering with rage. The Pope may have
been expected to laud free markets but he refused to do that. He talked
about the need to redistribute wealth, about the common good, and
solidarity with the poor. He called upon big business to change its
predatory ways and said the market must not become a place where the
strong subdue the weak. (124)
Gruendings research does not mirror the findings of other research on the
subject of religion and politics with regard to Canada and its communities.
This observation comes not as a disappointment but rather a refreshing
and heuristically candid reflection of the drastic changes that have taken
place in Canada over recent years. Accordingly, much of the previous
research on these topics is shown to have become relatively outdated, as
political movements and activities to remedy Canadian public disunion
have gone unfulfilled or turned out to be half-baked policies and
enterprises to begin with. The greatest point of praise is therefore the
authors call for attention to inter-religious dialogue, respect, and
tolerance, which, he argues, are more important today than ever, within
countries and among them (225).
What comes as a slight disenchantment about this book is how it
comes across as a collection of blog entries. This should be apparent given
that the author writes a national award-winning blog that carries the same
name as this book. Nonetheless, the contents of this book are directly
related to the authors personal history and attachment to Canadas Prairie
Provinces (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta), and beyond, which are
part-and-parcel to the value of this online writings. Gruending was born in
St. Benedict, Saskatchewan. As an adult he immersed himself in matters
of both religion and politics. In 1997, Gruending put in his bid for the
New Democratic Party (NDP) as a candidate in the federal election (222)
but lost to the Reform Party candidate. He was also engaged in activities
in Canadas capital city, serving as director of information for the
Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops/ Confrence des vques
catholiques du Canada (CCCB/CECC) for four years prior to running in
the federal election of 1997 (223). Indeed, his experience takes him well
beyond Canadas Prairie region, and much of his personal experience and
interest resonates in his work.
139 Reviews
There is little doubt that Gruendings Pulpits and Politics

contributes significantly to the current understanding of the competition
between religious groups in Canada for political power. Gruendings
writing is clear and addresses pressing issues with precision and first-hand
experience. This is a quality piece of work that would be beneficial to
both undergraduate and graduate students, and practitioners in numerous
fields. It is particularly appropriate for a general readership with interests
in religion and politics, and their relationship with issues of equality, the
environment, gun control, human rights, justice, peace, social welfare,
business, and much more.
Notes on Contributors
Paula Anca FARCA teaches American literature, womens literature, film

studies, academic publishing, and first-year writing at Colorado School of
Mines, US. Along with numerous articles, Dr. Farca has published Identity in
Place: Contemporary Indigenous Fiction by Women Writers in the United
States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (2011), co-authored a textbook
and co-edited an anthology. She is currently editing Energy in Literature:
Essays on Energy and Its Social and Environmental Implications in twentieth
and Twenty-First Century Literary Texts.
Email: pfarca@mines.edu
Gabriel C. GHERASIM has taught in the American Studies programme of
Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj Napoca, Romania, since 2009. He holds a PhD
in philosophy, an MA in cultural studies and a BA in political sciences. His
fields of research include transatlantic political ideologies, the philosophy of
pragmatism and analytic philosophy, art and aesthetics in the United States.
In 2012, he published two books on the analytical philosophy and aesthetics
of Arthur C. Danto. He is a member of the Romanian Association of
American Studies and executive editor of the Romanian Journal of American
Studies.
Email: ggherasim@euro.ubbcluj.ro
Adriana NEAGU is Associate Professor of Anglo-American Studies at
Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, the Department of Applied Modern
Languages. She is the author of Sublimating the Postmodern Discourse:
toward a Post-Postmodern Fiction in the Writings of Paul Auster and Peter
Ackroyd (2001), In the Future Perfect: the Rise and Fall of Postmodernism
(2001), and of numerous critical and cultural theory articles. Dr Neagu has
been the recipient of several pre- and postdoctoral research awards. Previous
academic affiliations include an Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellowship
at the University of Edinburgh and visiting positions at Oxford University,
University of Bergen, University of East Anglia, and University of London.
Her teaching areas are diverse, combining literary-linguistic and cultural
studies disciplines. Her main specialism is in modernist and postmodernist
discourse, global theory, the poetics of translation and conference interpreting
pedagogy. Dr Neagu has been Advisory Editor and, since 2004, Editor-inChief of American, British and Canadian Studies, the journal of the
Academic Anglophone Society of Romania.
Email: adriananeagu@lett.ubbcluj.ro
141 American, British and Canadian Studies
Camelia RAGHINARU completed her Bachelor of Arts in Romanian and

English literature from Universitatea Transilvania in June 1999; her Master of
Arts in English from the University of Central Arkansas in May 2005; and her
PhD in English from the University of Florida in May 2012. Her doctoral
dissertation addressed the influence of Walter Benjamin and messianic
theology in its secularized form on British modernist literature. She currently
teaches literature at Concordia University, Irvine. Her publications include
articles on D.H. Lawrence (in Studies in the Novel), James Joyce (in Forum
http://www.forumjournal.org/site/issue/15/camelia-raghinaru), Virginia
Woolf (forthcoming in Modernists in the Shadow of War: The Centenary
Collection) and Joseph Conrad (forthcoming in Critical Approaches to
Joseph Conrad), as well as book reviews and shorter pieces in the James
Joyce Literary Review and the Romanian literary journal Vatra.
Email: camelia.raghinaru@cui.edu
Scott Nicholas ROMANIUK is a provisional PhD candidate in International
Studies at the University of Trento (Italy) and currently serves as a researcher
with the International Association of Political Science Students (IAPSS),
Academic Think Tank, Nijmegen, Netherlands. He is the author and editor of
several books and numerous articles on military and strategic studies, and
international security and politics. He holds a BA in History, and German
Language and Literature from the University of Alberta, Certificates in
Terrorism Studies (University of St. Andrews), Understanding Terrorism and
the Terrorist Threat (University of Maryland), Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Comparing Theory and Practice (Leiden University), Conditions of
War and Peace (University of Tokyo), an MRes in Political Research from
the University of Aberdeen, and an MA in Military Studies (with a
concentration in Joint Warfare [Army, Navy, Air, and Special Forces]) from
American Military University. His research foci include Terrorism and
Political Violence, Radicalization and Deradicalization, and Irregular and
Asymmetric Warfare including Guerilla Warfare, Insurgency,
Counterinsurgency (COIN), and Counterterrorism (CT).
Email: scott.romaniuk@unitn.it
Yasser Fouad SELIM is an assistant professor at the Department of English,
Faculty of Arts, Sohag University, Egypt. He is also an assistant professor of
English literature and chair of the Department of English at Al Buraimi
University College, Oman (on secondment). Dr. Selim received his PhD from
Sohag University, Egypt, in joint supervision with the University of
California, Los Angeles. He was a visiting scholar at the University of
California, Los Angeles, between 2005 and 2007. Dr Selims research
interests include the interaction, clashes, and dialogue between Western and
Eastern cultures and the formation of identity within the contexts of politics,
racialization, and ethnicization in America. He is the editor of Who Defines

Me: Negotiating Identity in Language and Literature (2014).
Email: yasserdob@yahoo.com
Irina I. Simonova STROUT received a Baccalaureate degree in Languages
and Linguistics from the Moscow State Linguistic University in 1999 in
Moscow, Russia. Prior to her studies at the University of Tulsa and duties as a
teaching assistant, she worked with multiple international concerns in the
areas of business, aerospace and travel in Moscow, Russia, as an interpreter.
Having received MA (2003) and PhD in English from The University of
Tulsa (2009) with the aid of a Bellwether Fellowship, Dr Strout received a
teaching Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma,
USA. Her research and teaching interests include Victorian and 19th century
Russian fiction, with sub-emphasis in gender and war studies as well as film.
Dr Strout teaches a variety of English courses at the University of Tulsa, in
developmental writing, first-year composition, technical writing and
literature-based composition.
Email: strout@xtremeinet.net
Joshua WASYLCIW holds a BA (Hons) in Political Science from the
University of Alberta. In completing his undergrad degree, Joshua wrote a
thesis titled Pontifex Maximus which explored the Holy See in the context
of a state, and its role in international relations. He is currently reading law at
the University of Calgary where he expects to receive his juris doctor (JD) in
April of 2015, with an emphasis on public international law.
Email: wasylciw@gmail.com
Oana-Alis ZAHARIA is Lecturer in English at the Faculty of Foreign
Languages and Literatures, Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University,
Bucharest. Her subjects of interest are Shakespeare and Early Modern
literature and culture, literary translation, translation studies and
intertextuality. She has published articles on translations and adaptations in/of
Shakespeares plays in scholarly journals such as the Yearbook of the Spanish
and Portuguese Society for English Renaissance Studies, University of
Bucharest Review, American, British and Canadian Studies, Gender Studies
etc. She has also contributed to a number of volumes on Shakespeare and
translation: Shakespeare, Translation and the European Dimension (coeditor), Inhospitable Translations: Fidelities, Betrayals, Rewritings. Dr
Zaharia has annually attended prestigious conferences in the field such as The
International Shakespeare Conference, The European Shakespeare
Conference, The European Society for the Study of English Conference. She
has been a member of several research projects: In(hospitable)Translations:
Shakespeare adapted (2008), the national research project, The European
Dimension of Shakespearean Translations: Romanian Perspectives,
ID_1978/2008 (2008-2011), and e-Shakespeare: recuperarea digitala a

traducerilor romanesti, no. 777/2012 (2012-2013). She is a member of the
European Society for the Study of English (ESSE), The International
Shakespeare Association (ISA) and The European Shakespeare Research
Association (ESRA).
Email: oanaalispopescu@yahoo.com
Call for Submissions American, British and Canadian Studies
American, British and Canadian Studies, the Journal of the Academic

Anglophone Society of Romania, invites submissions for a special issue
on Changing Screen Cultures: New Archaeologies, Ecologies, Topologies.
The special issue will explore patterns of continuity and change in
Anglophone screen culture after the year 2000 within a wide spatial and
conceptual frame. While we will consider essays that seek to contribute
reconceptualisations of established categories and genres, we are
particularly keen on poetico-critical writings that address new departures,
innovative styles, and experimental waves in the practice of film and
television, from documentary film to the emergent genre of quality TV.
We are especially looking for original critical essays that capture the
essence of new film poetics in its manifold articulations with the virtual
and physical environment. Theoretical pieces addressing the distribution
of spaces, screens and senses across local and global media ecologies are
of immediate interest.
Possible topics include but are not limited to:
Site-specificity, landscape and creative geographies (James
Benning, Nina Danino, Patrick Keiller, etc.).
City Symphonies and the Archive (Los Angeles Plays Itself, Of
Time and the City, The Memories of Angels, The City of the Future,
My Winnipeg, Rick Prelingers Lost Landscapes project, etc.).
Environmental cinema (Night Moves, DamNation, Leviathan,
FrackNation, Petropolis, Shored Up, etc.).
Artist Cinema and Media Archaeology (Tacita Dean, Stan Douglas,
Douglas Gordon, Ken Jacobs, etc.).
Chronotopes of contemporary television (Treme, Mad Men,
Bowardwalk Empire, True Detective, The Knick, Orange Is the New
Black, House of Cards, etc.).
Cinema and Photography (Cindy Bernard, Gregory Crewdson,
Willie Doherty, Jeff Wall, etc.).
American minimalist cinema (Kelly Reichardt, Alexander Payne,
Daniel Patrick Carbone, Josephine Decker, etc.).
New developments in experimental cinema.

Cinema, Place and Philosophy (Walden/Cavell/Upstream Color;
Baudrillard/Monument Valley; Transcendentalism/Terrence
Malick/General Orders no. 9, etc.).
Cinema in the Expanded Field/Expanded Cinema (Cinema in the
gallery, museum and online).
Film festivals and regionalism (Sundance, Tribeca).
American Crime Scenes (Urbicide, Detroit ruin porn, When the
Levee Breaks, Taxi to the Dark Side, 12 Years a Slave, There Will Be
Blood, No Country for Old Men, Twentynine Palms, Gerry, etc.).
Guest Editors: Asbjrn S. Grnstad, University of Bergen
Henrik Gustafsson, University of Troms
Submission deadline: 15 March 2015.
Submissions to Changing Screen Cultures: New Archaeologies,
Ecologies, Topologies should be sent to:
asbjorn.gronstad@infomedia.uib.no and copied to
abc.journal@ulbsibiu.ro.
American, British and Canadian Studies appears biannually in June and
December. It is a peer-reviewed journal that sets out to explore the
intersections of culture, technology and the human sciences in the age of
electronic information. It publishes work by scholars of any nationality on
Anglophone Studies, Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies,
Postcolonial Theory, Social and Political Science, Anthropology, Area
Studies, Multimedia and Digital Arts and related subjects. Articles
addressing influential crosscurrents in current academic thinking are
particularly welcomed. ABC Studies also publishes book reviews and
review essays, interviews, work-in-progress, conference reports, research
projects outlines, notes and comments, and, annually, a list of theses on
topics related to Anglophone Studies completed at Romanian Universities.
To maintain an ongoing dialogue with our readers, we alternate
commissioned themed issues, where papers are actively commissioned by
the special issue editor, with issues featuring unsolicited submissions that
address themes of immediate interest to us.
Calls for papers inviting submissions to the non-commissioned issues are

announced via the journals web pages and in the journal itself. Our
primary goal is to bring together in trans-cultural dialogue scholars
conducting advanced research in the theoretical humanities. As well as
offering innovative approaches to influential crosscurrents in current
thinking, the journal seeks to contribute fresh angles to the academic
subject of English and promote groundbreaking research across
conventional boundaries. Within the proposed range of diversity, our
major scope is to provide close examinations and lucid analyses of the
role and future of the academic institutions at the cutting edge of hightech. To respond to the increasing demands of acceleration in the
twenty-first century, an electronic edition of the journal is now being
made available, offering full access to subscribers, and free access to the
tables of contents, abstracts and reviews to non-subscribers. Articles
published in ABC Studies are abstracted and indexed on the journals
website. Detailed guidelines for submission are given on the journals
website http://abcjournal.ulbsibiu.ro/. Contributions can include:
articles, in-depth interviews with both established and emerging thinkers
and writers, notes on groundbreaking research, and reviews of recently
published fiction and critical works. Tables of contents and sample full
text articles can be viewed without a subscription and our search feature is
publicly available.
Guidelines for Contributors

ABC Studies seeks quality submissions of work in the entire spectrum of
the humanities. The review process is blind: articles are sent out to subject
specialists for reviewing anonymously and we leave it up to the reviewers
to choose whether or not to reveal themselves to you. Decisions on
articles submitted are normally made within two months. You are strongly
encouraged to submit exciting and broad-ranging original articles that
have not been published elsewhere, nor are currently under review in any
other refereed journal. We regret we are unable to accept multiple
submissions. You may submit papers that have been presented in
conferences only if the papers have been thoroughly revised or extended
to engage a theme that fits the ABC Studies profile. A chief objective of
the journal is to minimise the time for paper processing and to expedite
printing; therefore, electronic submission of articles in final form is
strongly recommended. Please email your contribution to
abc.journal@ulbsibiu.ro before the closing date. Alternatively,
manuscripts can be submitted via the Scipio platform (http://scipio.ro).
The first page of the manuscript should carry the title, names of authors,
institutional affiliations, a brief but detailed 200-word abstract, and ten
key words/concepts. The normal word-limit for articles is 7500 words
including notes. Please include a brief 200-word biography for our
Notes on Contributors along with contact information. For detailed
instructions for preparing your contribution and a sense of format, topics
of interest to us and targeted audience, you may wish to consult the
journals previous issues and style files at http://abcjournal.ulbsibiu.ro.
Only articles styled in compliance with the latest (7th) edition of the
MLA Handbook and our Submission Guidelines posted on the
journal websites will be considered. Please email us if you have any
queries. Questions about content should be directed to
adriananeagu@lett.ubbcluj.ro.
Deadlines for Submissions: ABC Studies is published biannually in
December and June. The deadlines for submission of contributions are
September 15 for the winter edition (expected publication: December
15) and March 15 for the summer edition (expected publication: June
15).
Special Issues
Suggestions for special issues are welcome. To propose a special issue, a
two-page proposal should be submitted to Adriana Neagu, Advisory
Editor, containing the following information: title; purpose; scope; a list
of prospective contributors; time-table (submission and review deadlines,
intended publication date); and guest editor's address, phone, fax, and email address. Once approved, the guest editor will be fully responsible for
the special issue and should follow the normal review procedure of this
journal. Simple proposals of theme(s) without guest-editing commitment
are also welcome and will be given due consideration. Please attach these
to your contributions and email to adriananeagu@lett.ubbcluj.ro.
Call for Membership
The Academic Anglophone Society of Romania invites new memberships

from scholars of English of various specialisms. AASR was set up in 1997
to function as a specialist interest group for Romanian academics involved
in English Studies. Since then, the Society has organised several major
international conferences, has published the American, British and
Canadian Studies Journal quarterly and biannually, and initiated a series
of long-term multidisciplinary projects. The primary mission of the
Society is to promote excellence in the discipline through shape-changing
research and networking. In recent years, AASR has extended its range of
activities into new bibliographic and networking fields, among these, the
building of an Electronic Mailbase. Newsletters providing information of
worldwide events in the field as well as relevant new publications are
available to AASR members. Scholars need not be Romanian nationals or
working in Romania to be eligible for full membership. Overseas
members share all the benefits of Romanian members. For terms and
conditions, membership fees, and further particulars on how to become an
affiliate member, please contact Dr Ana-Karina Schneider, AASR
Secretary, at karina.schneider@ulbsibiu.ro or aasr@ulbsibiu.ro.

AmericanBritishCanadianStudies23 PDF

Enviado por

Dados do documento

Descrição original:

Título original

Direitos autorais

Formatos disponíveis

Compartilhar este documento

Compartilhar ou incorporar documento

Opções de compartilhamento

Você considera este documento útil?

Este conteúdo é inapropriado?

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

AmericanBritishCanadianStudies23 PDF

Enviado por

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

AMERICAN, BRITISH AND CANADIAN STUDIES

American, British and Canadian Studies, the Journal of the Academic

The Academic Anglophone Society of Romania was founded in 1997 to promote

The Academic Anglophone Society of Romania

Printed in Romania by Lucian Blaga University Press, Sibiu

De interpretatione recta...: Early Modern Theories of

Talk of contracts: Gift-giving vs. Reciprocity in James

Lacan Frames Scorseses Paintings in The Age of Innocence

Seeing the Novel, Reading the Film: Unveiling Masculinity,

Performing Arabness in Arab American Stand-up Comedy

American Art Criticism between the Cultural and the

Canadas Evolving Crown: From a British Crown to a

Tina Managhan, Gender, Agency and War: The Maternalized Body in US

Amin Ghaziani, There Goes the Gayborhood?

Dennis Gruending, Pulpit and Politics: Competing Religious Ideologies in

Call for Submissions, ABC 24: Changing Screen Cultures:

Call for Membership

Translation represented a vital and central contribution to the evolution of

American, British and Canadian Studies / 6

European nations. The two major intellectual forces of the period,

translation is indicative of the interest expressed by such European nations

Literal versus Rhetorical Translation: From the Latin

American, British and Canadian Studies / 8

Antiquity, when some of the earliest pronouncements on translation were

To translate as an interpreter means, therefore, to gloss word for

The aim of rhetorical translation is, therefore, to re-create and

Furthermore, he highlights the real chances for such a victory to occur by

American, British and Canadian Studies / 10

manage to cultivate their language so as to become as elegant and rich as

Ciceros promotion of a sense-for-sense method of translation was later

The meaning of these lines from Ars Poetica came to be understood in a

Rita Copeland notices the possible allusion to Horaces dictum, It is hard

American, British and Canadian Studies / 12

In the late Middle Ages, St. Jeromes authoritative statements in

Medieval vs. Humanist Theories of Translation

American, British and Canadian Studies / 14

Gower and Dante produced literary works shaped on the model of

American, British and Canadian Studies / 16

figures of speech, a good translator has to conform to the authors manner

American, British and Canadian Studies / 18

Nevertheless, he concedes, there are translations of the sense, such as the

express the mysteries and truths of Christianity while limiting oneself to

American, British and Canadian Studies / 20

humanists, Vives in particular, as well as by the writings of Cicero and St.

Humphreys views on translation were also shared by John

American, British and Canadian Studies / 22

The right way to translate, the sense-for-sense/ word-for word

accordingly: then they understand it well and recognize that one is

American, British and Canadian Studies / 24

Talk of contracts: Gift-giving vs. Reciprocity in

The intersection between economics and religion, class, nationalism,

American, British and Canadian Studies / 26

Before we turn to Derridas aporetic notion of the gift, let us first

integrates absolute loss. It breaks with exchange, symmetry, or

American, British and Canadian Studies / 28

circle encompassing all three types of economy, in the end it closes,

American, British and Canadian Studies / 30

mentality that of restricted supply or resources, to increase their value

contracts in the midst of what should have been a purely aesthetic

American, British and Canadian Studies / 32

point regarding this literary economy of exchange: Is this economy driven

American, British and Canadian Studies / 34