Meetings

MEETINGS Thursday, October 16 8:00 p.m. Poetry Reading(Broadway Arms) Presiding: Ken McCullough, Montana State University Secretary: Robert W. Mikkelsen, Weber State College Poets : Leslie Silko, University of New Mexico Abelardo Delgado, University of Utah Joanna Cattonar William Matthews, University of Colorado Charles Wright, Boise State College Mary Crow, Colorado State University Friday, October 17 9:00-10:30 a.m. English 3: Literature After 1800(Broadway Arms) Presiding: Richard S. Cammarota, USAF Academy Secretary: Marjorie J. Lightfoot, Arizona State University Hugh Witemeyer, University of New Mexico, "English and Italian Portraiture in Daniel Deronda." George Eliot regularly describes her English characters in terms of the English portrait tradition and her Jewish characters in terms of Italian, especially Venetian, painting. Gwendolen self-consciously imitates the saints and heroines of eighteenth -century "fancy" painting, whereas Daniel unconsciously imi52ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW tates several of Titian's subjects, including Christ in The Tribute Money. Madelon E. Heatherington, Montana State University, "Microcosm and Imagery in The Nigger of the 'Narcissus.' " The microcosmic Part I of The Nigger of the "Narcissus" foreshadows all the devices Conrad used to realize this general principle: "My task ... is, before all, to make you see." These interrelated devices, particularly imagery, are examined as focussing on Jimmy, supra-microcosmically "the centre of the ship's collective psychology" (Conrad). Richard Brown, University of Nevada at Reno, "Shelley's Earth Mothers: Development of a Theme in Prometheus Unbound, Adonais, and The Triumph of Life." The figure of the earth is critical in several poems from Shelley's maturity. Typically, she is either subservient to man's perceptions, and therefore redeemable, or is possessed of a nature untransformable by man's spiritual hunger. Earth's possibilities thus define the terms of Shelly's apocalypses, and provide a helpful way of talking about the range of the poet's thought. James R. Aubrey, USAF Academy, "The Role of the Tarot in John Fowles' The Magus." The novel's broken pattern of allusions to Tarot cards reflects the inadequacies of such systems for explaining man's place in the cosmos. The Magus invites both the narrator and the reader to become magicians who manipulate such illusions instead of being deceived by false perceptions of order. Foreign Languages 1 : French Literature Before 1800 (Holiday) Presiding: Alice Madeleine Laborde, University of California at Irvine Secretary: Ingeborg M. Kohn, University of Arizona Charles A. Weingarten, Pennsylvania State University at WilkesBarre , "L'homme et la bête dans Le Roman de Renart." L'œuvre dépasse le cadre de la morale traditionelle et du divertissement pour enCONVENTION ISSUE53 fant sage . . . rites sexuels, tortures renouvelées, souffrances et faiblesses, créent une cascade de bestialité d'où l'homme éternel émerge pour nous rappeler que rien n' a changé depuis le Moyen-Age. Maria Ruegg, Univernty of California at Irvine, "Rabelais, FauxMonnayeur : Inflation and Devaluation of the Sign." This paper attempts to apply analytical methods of post-structuralist criticism and communication theory to a reading of two Rabelaisian texts: The Prologue to Gargantua, and the Prologue to the Tiers Livre. It argues that these texts propose a theory of communication which radically calls into question traditional paradigms of interpretation. Claude K. Abraham, Univernty of Florida at Gainesville, "Cornelian Anti-Heroes in the School of Eros." A look at the main characters of Corneille's early comedies reveals that all is fair in the war of love, and that générosité had not yet entrenched itself. Magriet B. Lacy, North Dakota State University at Fargo, "Remarks on Marivaux's Attitude towards Language and Style." The theme of the mask and Marivaux's obsession with the lack of sincerity in human behavior are well known moral aspects of his work, but one finds similar feelings in his defense of "natural style" as exemplified in a littleknown theoretical text entitled Sur la clarité du discours. Linguistics 1: English(Empire) Presiding: Marian Novak, Washington State University Secretary: Betty Lou DuBois, New Mexico State University Betty Lou DuBois and Isabel M. Crouch, New Mexico State University , "Methodology in Sociolinguistics: Being, in Part, a Reply to Robin Lakoff's 'Language and the Woman's Place.' " The authors claim that introspection cum unsystematic, unverifiable observation...