Meetings

MEETINGS Thursday, October 1 7 8:00 p.m. Poetry Reading(Garden Room - Mezzanine) Chairperson : Kenneth Brewer, Utah State University Vice-Chairperson : Ken McCullough, Montana State University These poets represent the exciting diversity evident in modern poetry: from traditional to open forms; from the prose-poem development to the art of translating; from historical allegory to quiet confessional. Ken McCullough, Montana State University Charles Wright, Boise State College David Lee, Southern Utah State College Karen Bogen, San Francisco State University Jaime Cantarovici, Utah State University Robert W. Mikkelsen, Weber State College Mary Crow, Colorado State University Bert Almon, University of Alberta Friday, October 1 8 9:00-10:30 English 2: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Literature (Large Ballroom - Mezzanine) Chairperson : Scott Rice, San Jose State University Vice-Chairperson : Eugene Cunnar, New Mexico State University Bud Korkpwsfy, Texas Tech University, "Genre and Satiric Strategy in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy." Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, often construed as a psychological treatise, an intellectual farrago, a hobby-horsical diversion from religious duties, and a melancholy man's attempt at self-cure, has a satirical objective that has been relatively ignored. Burton devised an "anatomy" of madness in order to diagnose religious extremists — to Burton, Jesuits and Puritans — as madmen in his Third Partition. This satirical objective , die structure, and the digressive strategy Burton employed, were in keeping with Burton's choice of genre, Menippean satire; Burton's connection with Menippism has been noted by Northrop Frye, but Frye has proposed 78 Section Meetings79 that Burton's book belongs to an "anatomy" genre — a proposition diat is rendered very doubtful on both structural and diematic grounds, by an examination of the literary history of the "anatomy" rubric. Jeffrey R. Smitten, Texas Tech University, "A Sentimental Journey and the Language of Gesture." Sterne's descriptions of gesture and physiognomy in A Sentimental Journey need to be understood in die light of the esthetic tradition concerning the affective power of gesture and physiognomy. Through such analysis two significant features of the novel emerge. First, we can see how Sterne exploits and manipulates this tradition to achieve surprising and complex emotional effects. Second, diese effects suggest something of the esthetic integrity of the novel. It does not seem to be designed to chastise Yorick in the almost fussy way some critics have described, but designed to evoke, through its emotional effects, the complexity of the human condition — the network of cross-purposes which makes up motivation and circumstances. Peter Thorpe, University of Colorado at Denver, "Samuel Johnson as a Comic Figure in Boswell's Life of Johnson." Though Johnson is rightly studied as a great mind and a serious literary figure, modern scholarship hasn't paid enough attention to his comical side. The whole truth about Johnson involves not only his seriousness but also the fact that he could be laughed at. This paper uses several standard dieories of comedy to illuminate Dr. Johnson as a comic figure. In doing so, it is not trying to bring discredit on him but rather to get at the whole man. William E. McCarron, USAF Academy, "Browne's Hydriotaphia and The Garden of Cyrus: A Study in Contrast!' A study of the subject matter, vocabulary, and image patterns of Hydriotaphia reveals that this treatise represents imperfect human reason's speculation on earthly knowledge alone. The Garden of Cyrus, on the other hand, is an ordered and symbolic study of human reason in the service of a deep religious faith. Browne's twin treatises are contrasted as the complete to the incomplete. The imperfect pyramid figure (A) is the central symbol of Hydriotaphia while the more perfect quincunx figure (X) is the central symbol of The Garden of Cyrus. Paul A. Trout, Montana State University, "Samuel Butler and the Roncrucian Reformation of the Puritans." Samuel Butler, in both Hudibras and in the character entitled die "Hermetic Philosopher," advances an intriguing and perhaps quite viable hypothesis regarding the intellectual origin of Puritanism's revolutionary quest for a "godly-thorough Reformation." The intellectual roots of the Puritan revolution, Buder insinuates, lie in the movement known as Rosicrucianism, a theomagical world view espousing a millenarian dream of world reformation. This reading of Buder...