The western is the most popular and enduring of Hollywood forms. It is one embodiment of a traditional theme in American culture: the West as both Garden of natural dignity and innocence and also as treacherous Desert resisting the gradual sweep of agrarian progress and community values. Westerns have in common: a) history, America's past; b)…

Evaluates President Nixon's speech of November 3, 1969 in literary terms-as an example of the genre known as the quest story. (AN)

A manuscript dated 1651 and now housed at the National Library in Florence, Italy, suggests that the document may be the first Italian adaptation of the Spanish drama, "El burlador de Sevilla y Convidado de Piedra" ("The Deceiver of Seville"). The Spanish tragedy, written in 1630 by Gabriel Tellez, known as Tirso de Molina,…

A concept of the masses, or populace, conveyed a positive connotation in both Biblical and Renaissance literature. During Spain's Golden Age (seventeenth century) writers, especially didactic dramatists, tended to register negative and prejudiced attitudes toward the common folk and to regard them as "masa inculta" or uncultured masses. Primarily,…

Discusses how the color white represents disaster for Richard Wright's hero, Bigger Thomas, in Native Son." (SW)

Potebnja studied folklore in Russian literature through linguistic psychology, while Vesselovsky urged a scientific approach to studying literature. (DS)

Surveys innovative styles, original perspectives, and individual characteristics of Spanish novelists Ferlosio, Fernandez Santos, Matute, Albala, Goytisolo, Martin Santos, Pinilla, Solis, Castresana, Bunuel, Rojas and Aldecoa. (DS)

Issue devoted to the teaching of foreign literatures. (DS)