Twilight of Dawn: Studies in English Literature in Transition ed. by O. M. Brack, Jr. (review)

Book Reviews79 "popular elements" that Bakhtin had previously distinguished, Berrong provides convincing examples to trace this progressive exclusion; for instance, he points out in Gargantua significant differences in the views on the acceptability of dirt and excrement, on leisure and laziness, on social structure and hierarchy , in the use of banquet imagery, and in the treatment of disease and sex. In this light, Theleme is no longer unfitting with Rabelais' imagery and style but appears to be "a very logical conclusion to the systematic exclusion of popular culture that goes on before and during Gargantua" (38). To strengthen his argument, Berrong examines Rabelais' rapidly changing attitude toward popular culture in the light of contemporary historical and cultural changes: the strong influence of the Catholic church which disapproved of the licentiousness and pagan beliefs perpetuated by popular culture , the increasing desire to purify the mores on the part of the humanists, and the growing threat of social upheaval from the lower class after 1500. However, he concludes that Rabelais' sudden change toward popular culture may be better explained by the crucial changes which occurred in the author's life, such as his sudden entrance in the world of the politically and socially powerful, his journey to Italy, his discovery of Ariosto and Castiglione, etc. Then, to our surprise, Berrong traces, in a somewhat repetitive manner, the exclusion and the rejection of popular culture in the Third and Fourth Books. This part, not announced in the subtitle, "Popular Culture in Gargantua and Pantagruel," could have been more successfully handled if it had been juxtaposed with the earlier textual analysis. In the final section of the book, Berrong adopts Clark's and Holquist's argument to unveil the ideological framework that informed Bakhtin's interpretation. Although this reader does not disagree with this argument, she feels somewhat uneasy with this section, perhaps because it stresses a point that has, by now, been made repeatedly. This slim volume is very readable and the author has done an excellent job of placing Rabelais in a broad historical perspective. Although Berrong explains his decision to give the quotations in English to cater to the readers without French language fluency, he leaves the majority of serious Rabelais scholars in need of the original text nearby. Why not include the key original texts? On the whole Rabelais and Bakhtin is a valuable contribution to sixteenth-century studies that informed students of French literature should have on their shelves. COLETTE H. WINN Washington University in St. Louis O. M. BRACK, JR., ed. Twilight of Dawn: Studies in English Literature in Transition. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1987. 245 p. This generally excellent collection of essays is a tribute to the late Helmut E. Gerber, the founding editor of the journal English Literature in Transition 1880-1920. The collection's contributors were his associates. Indeed, most of them still serve on the staff of ELT or on its board of editorial advisors. As a result, the book's modus operandi seems to differ in no significant way from the journal's, save for the fact that the book's scholarly works were apparently not solicited from outside the ELT network. In a few cases, this seems 80Rocky Mountain Review unfortunate. However, by and large, the articles in this volume maintain unimpeachable standards of quality which greatly serve its ceremonial purpose . Among the book's most absorbing and thoroughly researched works are its fairly evenly distributed biographical studies. The first of these, Stanley Weintraub 's highly wrought summation of the litigious birth and evolution of Whistler 's The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, raises expectations successively satisfied by Harold Orel, David Eakin, Pierre Coustillas, and Alan Johnson, who meticulously sort through existing evidence, both published and unpublished , in order to reconstruct the biographical segments each has submitted. Of the latter works — respectively, on Hardy's "obsessive" legal interests, on the tragic relationship between Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, on the tribulations of Morley Roberts' fictionalized biography of GLssing, and on the progress and literary intentions of Symons' unpublished Memoirs — the contributions of Orel, Coustillas, and Johnson are the most significant for bringing real news to this collection. The only fault worth...