Archives: Articles


Robert Lance Snyder – “An Unparalleled Plethora of Idiocy”: Len Deighton’s Political Skepticism in The Ipcress File

“An Unparalleled Plethora of Idiocy”: Len Deighton’s Political Skepticism in The Ipcress File Robert Lance Snyder Published in Connotations Vol. 26 (2016/17) Abstract As an espionage thriller The Ipcress File (1962) conveys a profound skepticism about all political ideologies regnant during the Cold War. Len Deighton exposes not only the […]

Gary Totten – Edith Wharton’s Geographical Imagination: A Response to Judith P. Saunders

Edith Wharton’s Geographical Imagination: A Response to Judith P. Saunders Gary Totten Published in Connotations Vol. 26 (2016/17) Judith Saunders’s article, “Wharton’s Hudson River Bracketed and Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’: Re-Creating Xanadu in an American Landscape,” is a thoughtful study of Wharton’s literary influences and their effects on her geographical imagination […]

Ralph Grunewald – Poetics of Injustice: The Case of Two Mockingbirds

Poetics of Injustice: The Case of Two Mockingbirds Ralph Grunewald Published in Connotations Vol. 26 (2016/17) Abstract This article is based on the understanding that in law questions of guilt are often reduced and simplified, whereas literary texts can provide a more encompassing picture of a person’s blameworthiness. That leads […]

Thomas Kullmann – Is Timon Mad? An Answer to Beatrix Hesse

Is Timon Mad? An Answer to Beatrix Hesse Thomas Kullmann Published in Connotations Vol. 26 (2016/17) In her response to Maurice Charney’s and my own interpretations of Nabokov’s Pale Fire, Beatrix Hesse comments on the supposed similarity between Shakespeare’s Timon and Nabokov’s Charles Kinbote. While I do not wish to […]

Jane Hedley – Black Ekphrasis? A Response to Carl Plasa

Black Ekphrasis? A Response to Carl Plasa Jane Hedley Published in Connotations Vol. 26 (2016/17) In “Ekphrastic Poetry and the Middle Passage,” Carl Plasa re-purposes Adrienne Rich’s assertion that for writers who are women, “entering an old text from a new direction” is “not just ‘a chapter in cultural history’ […]

Donald Cheney – The Mysterious Genesis of Paradise Lost

The Mysterious Genesis of Paradise Lost Donald Cheney Published in Connotations Vol. 9.1 (1999/2000) A poem or any other product of mental labor (such as this essay) naturally lends itself to procreative metaphors. It seems to have dwelled—or to give promise of being about to have dwelled—within us for months, […]

Margaret Toth – Authorship, Gender, and the Modern Muse in Edith Wharton’s Vance Weston Novels: A Response to Judith P. Saunders

Authorship, Gender, and the Modern Muse in Edith Wharton’s Vance Weston Novels: A Response to Judith P. Saunders Margaret Toth Published in Connotations Vol. 26 (2016/17) Edith Wharton’s last two completed novels, Hudson River Bracketed (1929) and The Gods Arrive (1932), together trace the life of aspiring writer Vance Weston […]

Christine Evain – Beyond the “Chorus Line”: A Response to Susanne Jung

Beyond the “Chorus Line”: A Response to Susanne Jung Christine Evain Published in Connotations Vol. 25.2 (2015/16) Abstract Christine Evain’s reply to Susanne Jung’s article on how Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad incorporates several genre stylistically (published in Connotations 24.1) further highlights the unusual form chosen for the subject matter. This […]