José Manuel LOSADA GOYA
Poetic Image and Tradition in Western European Modernism: Pound, Lorca, Claudel
Abstract: José Manuel Losada's article, "Poetic Image and Tradition in Western European Modernism: Pound, Lorca, Claudel," investigates aspects of poetic imagery in modernism. The analysis of the changes brought about by modern poetry involves just as much the study of content as it does of form. In the very beginning of modernity, the poet feels the necessity to invent another tradition, distinct in spatial-temporal parameters and in rhetorical procedures. In the article, attention is paid to both the re-modification of the phonological figures (especially in rhyme and rhythm) and the restructuring of lexical levels (especially in metaphor and metonymy). A discussion of Pound's, Lorca's, and Claudel's texts allows for the evaluation of the way in which tradition is assimilated by modernist currents.

Babis DERMITZAKIS
Some Observations about the Suicide of the Adulteress in the Modern Novel
Abstract: Babis Dermitzakis discusses in his article, "Some Observations about the Suicide of the Adulteress in the Modern Novel," that in three major male-authored European novels -- Madam Bovary, Anna Karenina, and Thérèse Raquin -- the protagonists are wives who commit adultery that ends in suicide. In contrast, texts by women authors of the period show no similar description and perception of adultery by women. Dermitzakis suspects that the male writers did not simply fictionalize a specific social behavior or condition; rather, they likely imported their own prejudices about female adultery -- and more generally about female sensuality -- into their writing. Biographical evidence of the three authors appears to support such a hypothesis.

James GIFFORD
Reading Orientalism and the Crisis of Epistemology in the Novels of Lawrence Durrell
Abstract: In his article, "Reading Orientalism and the Crisis of Epistemology in the Novels of Lawrence Durrell," James Gifford argues that Edward Said's Orientalism has had a far reaching impact on the study of literature as well as in Comparative Literature, especially in works which depict the "Eastern Other." However, a question arises in those texts which have completed the philosophical motion from existentialism to epistemological skepticism such as the novels of Lawrence Durrell. For example, in The Avignon Quintet a provisional and even counterfactual form of knowledge becomes central and obvious to the reader. Subsequently, knowledge of the Other becomes deflated, and a poor means of defining. The Other -- all that is not the Self -- becomes universalized as the text reveals that (mis)perceptions of the Other are more of a reflection of the Self than they are a truthful depiction of any absolute reality. Acknowledgment of the artifice of art leads to a surrendering of the artist's power to communicate any body of knowledge. In Monsieur, Durrell's forceful realization of the fiction of his work, and constant dissolution of any knowledge it may be communicating is a potential confounding of the knowledge/power relationship in the East/West or Other/Self dialectic. As these theoretical elements serve an important role in Comparative Literature, a further redefining of them in general would be of value to their use in more specific circumstances.

Roumiana DELTCHEVA
East Central Europe as a Politically Correct Scapegoat: The Case of Bulgaria
Abstract: Roumiana Deltcheva's article, "East Central Europe as a Politically Correct Scapegoat: The Case of Bulgaria," analyzes the mechanisms of image construction of East Central Europe in the West, taking Bulgaria as a case study as seen in literary and filmic texts. A historical overview of literary and theoretical texts which deal with the cultural semiosphere of Bulgaria is presented to demonstrate that contrary to widely held perceptions in North American "politically correct" scholarship, Europe is not a homogeneous cultural unity. In fact, a clear centre/periphery situation is established and delineated along the geographical axis West/East. In the post-communist period, preconceived notions from earlier times continue to dominate, sustained by the dominant cultural discourses in East Central Europe.

Emily RAVENWOOD
The Innocence of Children: Effects of Vulgarity in South Park
Abstract: Emily Ravenwood's article, "The Innocence of Children: Effects of Vulgarity in South Park," examines the way in which the appropriation of low culture into high art can operate to simultaneously raise and lower the cultural capital of the art in question. Usually, in definitions of high and low art vulgarity is understood as a negative representation. This dismissal is rooted in the linguistic and political relationship between vulgarity and perceived "lower class" realities. In the context of artistic representation, however, vulgarity can be a powerful weapon to enforce attention and awareness of foreign realities in a middle class audience. Authors of works deemed high art, such as Rabelais and Swift, freely use it so. A current example, which is in transition, or perhaps in suspension between high and low, is the television cartoon series South Park. The series provides for an excellent opportunity to examine the particular workings of vulgarity and to re-examine definitions of high and low art. The connection between the two categories and forms of artistic expression lies in the desire of those who define popularity to partake of the unpopular. South Park takes advantage of this connection. In the final analysis, however, South Park may have defeated its own aspirations to high art by appealing too much to the source of its vulgar and popular images, namely children.

Book Review Articles

Pablo ZAMBRANO
Comparative Literature in Spain Today:
A Review Article of New Work by Romero, Vega and Carbonell, and Guillén