Dedman College

Was the Pearl-poet a realist or a nominalist? Attempting to answer such a question not only allows us to consider this unidentified author in light of one of the major debates of his era but also provides interesting insights into the relationship between philosophy and poetry. While scholars have discussed Chaucer and other medieval poets in light of realism and nominalism for some time, it appears that there has been little examination of the Pearl manuscript in this context. Therefore, I propose to examine Pearl in the terms of realism and nominalism, posit the Pearl-poet's approximate position within that debate, and consider the import of this position.
Evidence which indicates that the Pearl-poet was acutely aware of the nominalism versus realism debate and which suggests that he may have been consciously alluding to it in the poem can be found in the following: the imagery and resulting symbolism that both set the scene for the narrative and provide a fair amount of subject matter for the discourse between the dreamer and the maiden, the poet's employment of parables and his use of John's Apocalypse as his text, and even the formal aspect of concatenation and subtle references to Aristotle's forms. Of course, the inconsistency and ambiguity of certain images, the fact that most of the narrative is set in a dream, and the obvious differences between poetry and philosophy make it difficult to label the Pearl-poet a nominalist or a realist even as they lead the reader to other conclusions.

"As one progresses from The Clerk's Tale through Fragments IV and V of the Ellesmere manuscript, it becomes clear that there are some interesting parallels between The Clerk's Tale and The Franklin's Tale which cause them to mirror each other quite oddly at times. (For instance, the Clerk's prologue begins with a reference to sophistry and the Franklin's with a reference to rhetoric.) Chaucer criticism often involves the comparison of two or more tales and/or Chaucer's use of certain techniques in multiple tales, but, while these two tales seem ripe for such considerations, there is a relative lack of scholarship examining each of them in relation to the other.
Therefore, this paper will consider the contrasting ways in which allusion is utilized in each of the tales (specifically the relative sentence and solas of said allusions), the divergent and extreme ways in which the Clerk and Franklin end their tales, and the possible conclusions that can or should be drawn from these considerations. Namely, I propose to compare, first, the numerous and artfully-placed allusions of The Clerk's Tale to the singular and exhaustive collection of allusions found in The Franklin's Tale known as Dorigen's complaint and, second, the glosses which end The Clerk's Tale to the question which ends The Franklin's Tale. Finally, I propose to relate these comparisons to the questions raised by The Canterbury Tales as a whole: those of sentence and solas as well as substaunce and auctorite."

Sonnet 6 is a particularly interesting sonnet because it examines many of the overall themes of Shakespeare's Sonnets and foreshadows many of the Speaker's forthcoming concerns: beauty, the seasons, finances, posterity, and death. As one of the 'procreation sonnets,' Sonnet 6 presents procreation as a distillation of beauty even as it looks forward to the idea of the 're-creation sonnets' by offering distillation as an alternative means of preserving beauty. More subtle is the Speaker's assertion that even abstinence is a sexual act, that human sexuality cannot be avoided completely, and that, if only after death, the human body will engender an heir even if said heir is a parasite: namely, the worms of the final line. With this image of the worms, Sonnet 6 resonates with Sonnet 146 in the 'Dark Lady' subsequence, revealing a possible unity of what are sometimes seen as disparate sections of the sequence. In Sonnet 6, the Speaker tells the Fair Youth (and the reader) that summer must come to an end and one should be prepared for winter, that it is not wrong for one to loan one's beauty to another in order to disseminate that beauty, and that, however grotesque and disconcerting such a notion is, the ultimate (final) sex act occurs after death. All of these images, poetic moments, and resonances with other sonnets make Sonnet 6 an ideal sonnet to enter as a door into the sequence as a whole, and by passing through this door the reader may be able to consider the Speaker's argument(s) in such a way as to better understand him, his 'dramatis personae,' and the poetic enterprise of the sequence.

The Prologue to Jonson's Volpone claims that the play was written "According to the palates of the season" (3), but what exactly is it about Volpone that is seasonable? Perhaps the answer can be found in the Argument: "Volpone, childless, rich, feigns sick, despairs, / Offers his state to hopes of several heirs" (1-2). Thus, if the Argument can be taken seriously, the play is about inheritance, and, in light of the prominence of royal and aristocratic succession during this time, surely the play’s portrayal of inheritance is what is seasonable about it. If so, it is interesting that Volpone fails to produce an heir by the end of his play. Thus, a careful examination of the depiction of inheritance (or the lack thereof) in Volpone allows one to understand a great deal about Jonson's relationship to his period and what may have been for him, and other playwrights of the period, an important literary project: commenting on the slow transition from aristocracy to meritocracy, from feudalism to capitalism. By means of such commentary, Jonson seems to be doing one of his favorite things: satirizing the foibles of his age.
The characters who most clearly express these foibles are Volpone, a gentleman who tries to increase his inherited wealth by means of a travesty of venture capitalism and thievery, and his favorite servant, Mosca, who aids and encourages Volpone in his underhanded schemes. In the midst of this travesty, Mosca uses his cunning and artistic skill to manipulate not only Volpone's victims, but also Volpone himself, revealing the precariousness of the relationship between the aristocracy and the working class.

There are a number of obvious allusions to Chaucer's Troilus in Ben Jonson's play The New Inn. Lovel makes a passing reference to "reverend Chaucer," the Host (a title which itself may be a reference to Chaucer's other major work, The Canterbury Tales), refers to Pandarus and Cressid, etc. What critics have not seemed to realize is that these allusions may provide Jonson's audience with a way to understand this under-appreciated play.
I propose that viewing The New Inn in light of its allusions to Chaucer's Troilus allows the audience to see certain correspondences, or even parallels, between various characters in The New Inn and characters from Troilus that suggest Jonson, rather than turning to a more Shakespearean view of love in his later work, actually satirizes love in The New Inn, as he was wont to do in his earlier works. That said, these allusions make Jonson's critique of love much more serious and complex than his earlier mockery of love (or at least romantic comedy).

The anonymous, Middle­English poem Patience begins with the statement, "Pacience is a poynt" (1), or, 'patience is a virtue.' The poet then equates patience with longsuffering, and longsuffering
with the Beatitudes of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, recounted in the Book of Matthew. From this sermon, the poet derives a peculiar list of virtues (Poverty, Pity, Penance, Meekness, Mercy, Cleanness, Peace, and, finally, Patience), all of which he personifies as women. He then focuses on the virtue of patience, using the story of Jonah as an exemplum.

Both because of evidence in the poem and because the poet clearly was influenced (at least indirectly) by Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and the 14th­century debate between realists and nominalists, it seems that in Patience he suggests that Christian Virtues are like Platonic Forms. Thus, the Platonism of Patience both connects it to the other poems of the unique manuscript in which it has been preserved (which, in their own ways, are all indebted to the Platonic tradition) and provides an interesting insight into one medieval understanding of virtue.

The second fitt of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight begins with the changing of the seasons, and the poet tells us that "Þe forme to þe fynisment foldez ful selden" (499). The poet suggests that things do not happen the way we expect--even the way they have been destined--yet he goes on to describe an entirely predictable passing of the seasons (500 ff.). What could he mean, then, by saying that the 'finishment' of something rarely matches its form? One possible answer to this question is that the poet is thinking in philosophical terms, particularly in the Platonic terms of 'being' and 'becoming'. If so, the poet suggests that although there are certain patterns for how things work, and things fulfill those patterns to some degree ('finish their forms', more or less), the completion or perfection ('finishment', to use the poet's term) of that form or pattern will necessarily be imperfect, inexact.
The way in which the poet presents the passing of the seasons invites us to read the entire poem in terms of being and becoming, of form and finishment. If we accept that the Gawain-poet is thinking in the terms of being and becoming throughout SGGK, these terms can help us decipher the myriad signs that he presents to his audience throughout the poem. Four signs are particularly interesting in light of these terms: the pentangle, the girdle, the image of Mary, and the crown of thorns. An examination of these signs in the terms of being and becoming reveals that the Gawain-poet is interested in the relationship between things in the mutable, earthly world and the immutable, heavenly world.

As this conference has recognized in its theme, medieval studies are often interdisciplinary, and I wonder if this interdisciplinarity stems from the unity and order of the medieval imagination, an order that arguably arises out of the medieval education system that was based on the study of the liberal arts. Of course, the theme of this conference also recognizes the modern demand that education be relevant, that modern students not be encumbered by the very sorts of studies that the medieval education system saw as freeing (the liberal arts). It is this tension between the modern and the medieval views of education that I would like to consider. Indeed, I think a medieval education can and should have a place in the modern university, that studying the liberal arts is still capable of (perhaps even necessary for) freeing an individual both to contemplate the highest things and to engage fruitfully in the most practical of matters.

To this end, I would like to consider three topics: the relevance of the liberal arts, the teaching of the liberal arts in the modern university, and the liberal nature of medieval studies. I have personal experience with all of these topics, which I would like to draw upon in this essay: the first, because my wife and I have owned and operated a tutoring center for going on four years (the success of which I attribute in no small part to my own liberal education); the second, because I have taught courses in the liberal arts at two area universities; and the third, because I have taught medieval texts at those same universities. I see a connection between all of these things. Medieval studies necessitates at least some familiarity with the liberal arts, which themselves, I will argue, prepare students for the workforce as well as any other degree plan, making medieval studies, precisely because of their interdisciplinarity, relevant even to non-academic careers.

MATT BRUMIT is a student of Literature in the Institute of Philosophic Studies at the University of Dallas, where he teaches as an Adjunct Instructor of English. He holds a master's degree from the University of Dallas and a bachelor's degree from Southern Methodist University. His primary research interest is the status of language in medieval poetry.

What is the Relationship between the Liberal Arts, a Liberal Education, and Liberal Studies? The medieval university, following the lead of scholars from late antiquity and the early Middle Ages (such as Isidore of Seville), identified seven disciplines as "the liberal arts," which were divided into two groups: the trivium, which included grammar, logic, and rhetoric; and the quadrivium, which included arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Today, though, few people would define a "liberal education" as an education in only these seven arts--and, indeed, might not even deem all of these arts as necessarily requisite for a liberal education. Moreover, it is almost inconceivable that anyone today would limit "liberal studies" to studies in the seven liberal arts. Therefore, it is necessary--or at least useful--to consider the relationship between the liberal arts, a liberal education, and liberal studies.

By considering books on the liberal arts such as Isidore of Seville's Etymologies and Sister Miriam Joseph's The Trivium alongside books on higher education such as John Henry Newman's The Idea of a University, Eva Brann's Paradoxes of Education in a Republic, and Martha Nussbaum's Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, and by considering the ways in which the very universities represented at this conference approach the liberal arts, liberal education, and/or liberal studies, I hope to clarify for both myself and others what exactly the relationship between these terms is and how we should use them most effectively.

About two years ago, I wrote an essay on H.D.'s Trilogy wherein I more or less grappled with the odd ways in which H.D. uses religious imagery (mostly Christian) in an attempt to come to terms with her rather secular modern culture. Shortly thereafter, it was suggested to me that one of my footnotes to that essay was immediately more valuable than the essay itself, so I have been meaning to expand that footnote into an essay in its own right and would like to begin that process by composing a presentation of my research that builds upon that initial footnote. In short, the dates of composition that conclude the final two poems of Trilogy (Tribute to the Angels and The Flowering of the Rod), poems which are apocalyptic in nature and both allude to and quote explicitly John's Apocalypse (the Book of Revelation), either correspond with or immediately follow dates upon which selections from the Book of Revelation would have been read in Anglican services across London, where H.D. was living when she composed the poems in 1944. Moreover, the Beinecke Library has in its collection of H.D.'s papers a copy of The Book of Common Prayer (in an edition that was published in the 1940s) that was owned by her and from which she at some point—probably when she had her mental breakdown in 1946—ripped out her personal bookplate (an action which I understand indicates that the book was meaningful to her).

What I propose, then, is to present at the conference the status of my ongoing research, which I hope will demonstrate that there are significant correspondences between the biblical allusions in the final two poems of Trilogy and the Anglican lectionary for both Sundays and weekdays. Thus far, I am confident that H.D. could have heard in an Anglican church various readings from the Book of Revelation on five out of the six Sundays before she began writing Tribute to the Angels and that she may have been reminded of both the Book of Revelation and her own poem Tribute to the Angels on the three Sundays before she began The Flowering of the Rod. What I would like to consider over the next few months is whether (and, if so, the extent to which) the other readings on those dates (especially those taken from the gospels) are also alluded to in these poems. Ultimately, if this research continues to be fruitful, I would like to visit the Beinecke to examine H.D.'s copy of The Book of Common Prayer (as well as her other papers housed there) in order to see what evidence I might find therein to support my research still further.

In an ongoing research project wherein I am considering the platonism of medieval literature, I have identified four platonic themes that are common in authors from Macrobius and Boethius to the Pearl ­Poet and Chaucer: the question of universals, the relation between body and soul, the unity of Virtue, and Being and becoming. At this conference, I would like to discuss the role of these four themes in Chaucer's Friar's Tale , a tale that fits well the conference theme since it ends with the damnation of it's main character ­­and an unusual damnation at that, for the Summoner is alive when the fiend drags him to hell!

We see the question of universals at work when the fiend explains to the Summoner that for an oath to be effective the words and "entente" (1556) of the one swearing the oath must be in concert (1555­8). But the relationship between words and their meaning is lurking in the background of this tale from the very beginning. Indeed, as other critics have argued, it seems that Chaucer is considering the contemporary debate between realism and nominalism in this tale. (There are even a couple delightful puns that point to Scotus and Ockham.)

Then we come to the relation between body and soul. One very obvious way in which the Summoner and the fiend are not alike is that the Summoner is confined to a human body while the fiend is not, and this distinction, greatly elaborated upon in the tale, not only sheds light on Chaucer's view of the relations between body and soul but also relates back to the question of universals in interesting ways, suggesting that Chaucer sees a connection between the relation between body and soul and the relation between word and meaning.

Because there are effectively no virtues (moral or Christian, at least) exemplified in this tale, one probably would not expect to see Chaucer thinking about the unity of Virtue in it, yet there are two ways in which we can see that the idea of the unity of Virtue has influenced Chaucer in this tale: he particularly presents us with what we might call the (dis)unity of vice, and he more generally uses pleonasm and accumulatio to group words together in ways that reveal to us relationships between various groups of things that are so close as to be almost unities.

Finally, we come to Being and becoming by recognizing the problems that swearing false oaths and the role of "entente" in the status of language pose for those considering the question of universals, problems that lead one to seek solutions in terms of Being and becoming; thus, we see in Chaucer's Friar's Tale how all of these platonic ideas are interrelated.

The anonymous poems of MS Cotton Nero A.x (Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, and SGGK) demonstrate the extent to which platonic themes could be employed and demonstrated by medieval poets in that they represent various genres of medieval literature (dream-vision, sermon, biblical paraphrase, and Arthurian romance, respectively) and foreground a range of platonic themes (the question of universals, the relation between body and soul, the unity of Virtue, and Being and becoming, also respectively). Places and spaces are important in all of these poems, but in Cleanness we find particularly important the stark division between Heaven and Earth reminiscent of platonism, a division that complicates the relation between body and soul. In the platonic tradition, Earth and the body are heavy and dirty while Heaven and the soul are light and clean, the earthly body a prison for the heavenly soul—but earthly things are nevertheless reflections of heavenly things and even participate in their heavenly Forms. Similarly, in Cleanness, we see that God's court is clean, and only clean things can enter it (12-50); that those initially invited to the wedding are focused on earthly things rather than heavenly ones (51-72); that the man improperly dressed is thrown out because he has not adhered to the proper form of things, because his clothes are in some sense unclean (133-160)—but we also see that the kingdom of Heaven is like the wedding, the earthly parable a reflection of heavenly truth (161-192). Thus, in Cleanness we see a poetic enactment of the platonic division between body and soul, Earth and Heaven, but we also see this division mitigated, as in both pagan and Christian platonism through participation, and as in Christian platonism through the Incarnation and the sacraments as well.

For this panel, I would like to consider the consequences of understanding the university as a corporation. To do so, I would begin in a rather medieval manner, by considering the words 'university' and 'corporation' themselves. The first suggests a body, the second a turn in a single direction; the first an entity wherein there is ultimately only one individual (though it may be composed of many 'individual' parts), the second wherein many individuals (for a set period of time, at least) turn and look in the same direction—and thereby hope to comprehend something universal. Building upon this etymological beginning, I would then consider the denotations and connotations of these words relative to the medieval and the postmodern eras. Today's corporation is more like Hobbes' image of Leviathan than St. Paul's image of the Church as Body (an image of the Body that would have been well ­recognized in Christian Medieval Europe). Consequently, the idea of a 'body' of people was no doubt more positively construed in the popular medieval imagination than is the idea of the corporation in our own popular imagination. Nevertheless, the word 'university'—not the word 'corporation'—was used in the Middle Ages to refer to the place where "intellectual exchange and dissent" occurred. And perhaps it is this "dissent" wherein the difference between 'university' and 'corporation' lies, for the first thrives on it, and the second falls by it.

The word "forme(s)" appears some ten times in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales , but what does this term mean to Chaucer? I would like to suggest that when Chaucer (like his contemporary, the Pearl-­poet) uses the word "forme" (and its derivatives), he is likely thinking about that word's usage as a philosophical term related to the question of universals, involving the status of language and its ability to describe the form of a thing. Indeed, in the Squire's Tale , wherein Chaucer uses the word "forme" more than in any other of his Tales, it first appears as a reference to language (100). In his other work, Chaucer also uses this word in ways that suggest an awareness of its philosophical import. The word and its derivatives appear almost thirty times in Boece , suggesting that Chaucer's understanding of universals is largely Boethian, and they appear over fifteen times in Troilus , which Chaucer dedicates to (along with "moral Gower" [5.1856]) "philosophical Strode" (5.1857), who was himself notably interested in the question of universals. By looking at Chaucer's use of the word "forme" throughout his corpus—and by considering the forms his poetry takes—in light of this word's philosophical import, I propose we can gain insights into Chaucer's understanding of poetry, language, and reality.

At this conference I would like to consider how Chaucer imagines (quite literally) the place of poetry in The House of Fame , where I understand him to be suggesting that a work of literature, once composed (or at least shared, publicized, made famous in some way), has its truest being in some place outside the poet, the written page or the spoken word, and the mind of its audience(s). My understanding of this aspect of The House of Fame has been influenced by the platonic tradition (broadly speaking), especially as expressed by Chaucer's beloved Boethius but also by his predecessors Macrobius, Augustine, Cicero, and Plato himself. Indeed, I see The House of Fame as engaging the platonic theory of universals and its notion of being and becoming as it contemplates the place of poetry, where poetry resides. To understand Chaucer's ideas here in the context of his other work, I would also like to consider briefly The Nun's Priest's Tale (which cites Macrobius) and Troilus (the end of which similarly engages the platonic notion of being and becoming). And to understand Chaucer's ideas in the context of medieval poetry more generally, I would like to consider how his ideas relate to similar ideas in the works of the Pearl -poet (and perhaps Dante, himself cited in The House of Fame).

Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda aurea records, among other things, the martyrdoms of numerous saints. Jacobus describes how many of these saints are miraculously healed of wounds before they are ultimately killed, presumably both to reveal God's favor of saints and to alleviate the saints' pain vicariously (as well as the uneasiness of the audience). Of course, God's healing of the saints' wounds is at odds with what the saints desire and the compiler and audience know is eminent—death, which is the only way the saints can win the crown of martyrdom. In this essay, I propose to examine the contradictory nature of the healing of saints' bodies in Legenda aurea. In what percentage of the saint's lives presented in Legenda aurea is the saint killed? In what percentage of those is the saint wounded prior to his or her death? In what percentage of those is the saint healed of those wounds? Discovering the prevalence of healed wounds within Legenda aurea may enable us to determine how important this aspect of martyrdom was to the compiler. Then, by examining the individual instances in which wounds are healed, comparing and contrasting them with each other, we may be able to understand the compiler's reasons for including these acts of healing in his collection. Selections from Legenda aurea will be compared to other examples of saint's lives in order to determine to what extent the role of God's healing is unique to Jacobus or common to the genre.

In 1968, Joseph I. Fradin proposed that Conrad compares the character Stevie to the saint who is his apparent namesake. Over forty years later, it seems that no other critic has ventured to publish further insights into Conrad’s allusions to St. Stephen in The Secret Agent, including the obvious shared name, the poignant depictions of Stevie's almost supernatural empathy, and the easily-overlooked fact that St. Stephen's church incites Stevie's action in the pivotal cab-ride passage. This lack of scholarship is unfortunate, because a proper understanding of Stevie's relationship to St. Stephen provides the reader with insights into Conrad's perceptions of humanity, divinity, and saintliness. Furthermore, if taken seriously, Conrad's allusions to St. Stephen offer an alternative to a pessimistic or nihilistic reading of The Secret Agent, provide a source of light in this dark novel, and may redeem at least one of the novel's many fallen characters. Thus, though Fradin ultimately concludes that Conrad’s generally ironic tone in The Secret Agent "spares no one" (1420)--and therefore that Conrad presents a "sardonic pessimism in The Secret Agent" (1422)--this paper will examine how Conrad’s allusions to St. Stephen, by emphasizing the humanity of a character that is literally and figuratively dehumanized throughout the novel and elevating him to a privileged position among the characters of the novel, reveal both that the least of humans are still valuable--even saintly--and that, for Conrad, the most remarkable aspects of saints' lives are their strictly human actions.

An effort with the goal of discovering single-dose, long-lasting (> 6 months) injectable contraceptives began using levonorgestrel (LNG)-17-β esters linked to a sulfonamide function purposed as human carbonic anhydrase II (hCA 2) ligands. One single analog from this first series showed noticeably superior anti-ovulatory activity in murine models, and a subsequent structure-activity relationship (SAR, the relationship between a compound's molecular structure and its biological activity) study based on this compound identified a LNG-phenoxyacetic acid ester analog exhibiting longer anti-ovulatory properties using the murine model at 2 and 4 mg dose than medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA). The same ester function linked to etonogestrel (ENG) furnished a compound which inhibited ovulation at 2 mg for 60 days, the longest duration of all compounds tested at these doses. By comparison, MPA at the same dose inhibited ovulation for 32 days.