08/03/2025:

Othello in the South Seas: Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Beach of Falesá” as Shakespearean Rewriting

Lucio De Capitani, Connotations, Vol. 34: 208-236.

Abstract

This article reads Robert Louis Stevenson’s Pacific novella “The Beach of Falesá” (1892) as a rewriting of Shakespeare’s Othello⁠. There are, in fact, several clues that Stevenson had Othello in mind while travelling in the Pacific, and while working on “Falesá” specifically: once the two texts are compared, a set of structural parallels and thematic convergences appears. While “Falesá” is not strictly speaking an adaptation of Othello, it is, however, an early case of “writing back” to Shakespeare’s text, anticipating the work of several postcolonial and feminist authors. In a first step, I will explore which clues invite this reading to begin with, while also showing that Stevenson’s engagement with Shakespeare is connected to his interest in realism. Secondly, I am going to stress several convergences between the character relations in Othello and those in “Falesá,” detailing how Stevenson translates the character dynamics of Othello into the South Seas, initially focusing on Othello/Wiltshire and Iago/Case. Finally, I will discuss how and why Stevenson, in a few deliberate deviations from Othello, subverts Shakespeare’s tale, with a special focus on Uma and Desdemona.

08/06/2025:

One More Time: Stevenson’s “Across the Plains” and the Genre of Trans-American Travel

Caroline McCracken-Flesher, Connotations, Vol. 34: 189-207.

Abstract

In 1879 Robert Louis Stevenson set out from Scotland and then travelled across America on the emigrant train. The narrative of his sea voyage troubled the sensibilities of his friends and father and was withdrawn from publication; the narrative of his transcontinental travels was published first in serial and then book form. This article considers Stevenson’s account of his American journey in the context of earlier and later emigration narratives. It pursues issues of space, place and progress, and of time as its perception shifts through experience. Stevenson’s journey activates not the “to” of historic travel or the “through” of the modern railroad; “Across the Plains” dwells, to the point of insistence, on the person traveling “in.” Given the complex publication history of Stevenson’s American travels, citations reference both the first publication of “Across the Plains” (as an article in two issues of Longman’s Magazine, 1883) and also Julia Reid’s The Amateur Emigrant, which brings together Stevenson’s sea and land voyages, and uses the manuscript for its copy text (Edinburgh UP, 2018).

07/20/2025:

Stevenson and Traditions of Satire

Linda Simonis, Connotations, Vol. 34: 170-188.

Abstract

Stevenson is not usually considered a satirical writer. The following article seeks to explore this hitherto neglected aspect of Stevenson’s work. By drawing on two short stories which remained unpublished during his lifetime, “Diogenes in London” and “The Scientific Ape,” I will examine how Stevenson uses satirical techniques to shed critical light on current issues of contemporary nineteenth-century culture and science. Stevenson’s recourse to satire is closely linked with intertextuality: in adopting the satirical mode, the author often refers to earlier satiric texts and thereby inscribes himself into the tradition. The stories discussed here appear to be particularly indebted to Jonathan Swift’s writings from which Stevenson borrows both technical devices and literary motifs. In “Diogenes in London,” Stevenson explores the critical potential of an imaginary confrontation of the ancient philosopher with modern urban life: Diogenes serves as a critical observer and a satirical persona whose perspective unmasks the lack of concern for the individual prevalent in modern society. In a similar vein, in the fable “The Scientific Ape” the narrator adopts the view-point of a group of apes to intervene in the ongoing debates on the topical issue of vivisection. At the same time, the story ironically undermines and subverts the assumption of man’s superiority over animals propagated in the course of the vulgarisation of Darwinism.

07/07/2025:

Courting the Bourgeois: Stevenson, Baudelaire, and Writing as a Profession

Katherine Ashley, Connotations, Vol. 34: 153-169.

Abstract

Stevenson’s sedulous aping of Charles Baudelaire, the painter of modern life and godfather of French style, is most evident in the prose poems that he wrote in 1875 after reading Baudelaire’s posthumously published Petits poèmes en prose (1869). This is not the only connection between Stevenson and Baudelaire, however: their common approach to writing as a career is less studied but no less revealing of intertextual connections. Whereas their prose poems are illustrative of stylistic and aesthetic refinement and experimentation, Stevenson’s and Baudelaire’s writings on art as a profession grapple with the changes underway in the nineteenth-century publishing world, where aesthetics and economics sat uneasily side by side, and authors attempted to maintain artistic integrity while contending with pressure to sell books and earn a living. This paper compares Stevenson’s “Letter to a Young Gentleman Who Proposes to Embrace the Career of Art” (1888), “On the Choice of a Profession” (1915) and “The Profession of Letters” (1881) with Baudelaire’s earlier “Comment on paie ses dettes quand on a du génie” (1845) and “Conseils aux jeunes littérateurs” (1846). These essays on writing as a career are informed by a practical understanding of the complex relationship between art, money and work in the capitalist marketplace, where financial independence was seen as a prerequisite for publishing texts that had artistic value, and where appealing to bourgeois tastes was often associated with forsaking artistic integrity.

07/07/2025:

“Scott’s Voyage in the Lighthouse Yacht” and Intertextual Transmission

Lesley Graham, Connotations, Vol. 34: 134-152.

Abstract

This article takes as its point of departure a short note by Robert Louis Stevenson written as an introduction to his grandfather Robert Stevenson’s account of a trip taken in 1814 to inspect various Scottish lighthouses in the company of Walter Scott. The note, published in Scribner’s Magazine in 1893, is entitled “Scott’s Voyage in the Lighthouse Yacht.” Stevenson uses various source documents related to the trip in the lighthouse yacht written at different times. Together these documents form a complex intertextual network reflecting various points of view and purposes. They include the central document, Robert Louis Stevenson’s introduction to his grandfather’s account of the trip that focuses on Walter Scott; Scott’s written account of the trip which had appeared in J. G. Lockhart’s biography in 1837; and a wide variety of related texts. We are clearly dealing with an organic ensemble constructed not only to illuminate and memorialize the record of the Stevenson family of lighthouse builders but also to preserve the account of the state of early nineteenth-century Scotland described in the texts, thus ensuring that knowledge of the past lives and achievements of the family and of contemporary Scottish society would be preserved and transmitted.

04/12/2025:

Chance, Choice, Evolutionary Canonicity, and the Anthologist’s Dilemma: A Response to William E. Engel¹

Barbara M. Benedict, Connotations, Vol. 34: 122-133.

Abstract

This response takes issue with Professor Engel’s contention that literary anthologists choose texts that perforce provide readers with a literary canon. By examining the British literary miscellanies of the long eighteenth century, I argue instead that the notion of a canon of literary works of consistent quality does not usefully apply to collections of works before the nineteenth century or after the twentieth. Rather, early-modern literary collections supply readers with topicality, variety, and novelty in the form of ephemeral miscellanies, while twenty-first century collections feature texts by new and marginalized authors. In both cases, too, serendipity and various conditions of production and readership complicate the anthologists’ power of choice and limit the texts available for a canon.

04/11/2025:

Dickens's Reality Show: Chromophobia in American Notes

Francesca Orestano, Connotations, Vol. 34: 109-121.

Abstract

This article originates from the Dickens Seminar, traditionally a feature of the biennial ESSE—European Society for the Study of English—Conference, which was held in 2022 at the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany. The Dickens Seminar, jointly chaired by Matthias Bauer, Angelika Zirker (both Tübingen University), and Nathalie Vanfasse (Aix-Marseille University) focused on “Dickens and / in Colour.” Hence the notion of chromophobia deployed in this article, a notion applied to a Dickensian text in which colour and its uses play a paramount role of remarkable importance. The text is American Notes: For General Circulation (1842), generally considered a travelogue, an account of Charles Dickens’s experiences when travelling across the United States. As a travelogue, American Notes should obey the laws of descriptive realism, but a close analysis of the text suggests that Dickens places a special emphasis on the use of colour which tends to create descriptive effects that bypass the accuracy of realistic description. Colours in the United States are either heightened to a maximum degree of saturation, or diluted to a wholly discoloured state. The transition between colour and non-colour is best described by David Batchelor in his study of chromophobia, a notion which illuminates the discursive meanings embedded in the Dickensian text, helping unveil his strategy of conveying disappointment and disgust for things American.

04/08/2025:

Familiar Studies: Stevenson's Multiple Voices

Richard Dury, Connotations, Vol. 34: 96-108.

Abstract

Stevenson’s ten essays collected in Familiar Studies (1882) differ stylistically from other contemporary studies of history, literary criticism, and literary history. They lack the single, authoritative, and impersonal voice that readers would expect of such methodical examinations of a restricted topic. The adjective in the title, on which Stevenson insisted, shows they are a hybrid combination of formal study and Stevenson’s familiar (or personal) essays. These essays are clearly organized and based on documentary evidence (three of them have scholarly footnotes), yet are written in an informal style with traces of the writer’s distinct personality: he allows himself essayistic digressions and uses language that draws attention to itself and typically uses extended meanings of words that involve the reader in an intuitive search for meaning. This style of variety, surprise, and foregrounding of the writer can be seen not only in all of Stevenson’s works but also in his letters and conversations. His “discontinuity of discourse,” even in these formal studies, can be seen as a way of reflecting a reality that is constantly changing, in opposition to the fixed beliefs of his authoritarian father. It is also a performance designed to give pleasure to the reader.

04/05/2025:

Intertextual Stevenson: A Brief Introduction

Lena Linne and Burkhard Niederhoff, Connotations, Vol. 34: 90-95.

Abstract

The writings of Robert Louis Stevenson have been extensively adapted and rewritten, in particular The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. However, Stevenson also imitated and transformed the works of others, as he admits very frankly in his essays and prefaces. He describes his literary apprenticeship as an exercise in imitation and pastiche, and he points out the sources that he used in such works as Treasure Island and The Master of Ballantrae. The pervasive intertextuality of Stevenson’s writings may be related to his aestheticism, the view that a literary text is based on other literary texts and structural principles much more than on reality and experience.

04/02/2025:

Medieval Jane Austen: A Response to Fritz Kemmler

Roger E. Moore, Connotations, Vol. 34: 81-89.

Abstract

In this essay, I respond to Fritz Kemmler’s provocative suggestion that Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is indebted to medieval Christian traditions of moral instruction, particularly the seven deadly sins and their corresponding virtues. A growing number of scholars have recently begun to acknowledge Austen’s engagement with the medieval past, and I interpret Kemmler’s work as an important contribution to this scholarly trend. My response to Kemmler is two-fold. First, I propose that we identify specific survivals of the medieval paradigm of sin and virtue in the eighteenth century and suggest Samuel Johnson, one of Austen’s favorite writers, as someone who extends and develops it. Second, I maintain that acknowledging Austen’s acquaintance with medieval moral traditions may help us understand the religious dynamics of her other novels, particularly Sense and Sensibility, where a conversion from pride to humility is central to the work.