Reading (on) the Tram Benito Perez Galdós' 'La novela en el tranvía'

This article examines the representation of the experience of public transportation in Benito Perez Galdos's 'La novela en el tranvia', a short story published just months after the inauguration of the first tram line in Madrid in 1871. The first half of the essay explores the different ways in which omnibus and tram travel were represented in nineteenth-century literature and examines how Galdos draws on these conventions in representing the experience of public transportation in the story. The second part of the article examines the importance of this new space in Galdos's treatment of the narrator's quixotism: what happens when the Don Quixote plot is re-enacted on a streetcar

Petrarchism and perspectivism in Garcilaso's sonnets (1, 10, 18, 22)

Recent scholarship on Garcilaso de la Vega has contested the traditional view of his poetry as natural, transparent, and authentic and drawn attention to its intertextual and metatextual sophistication. This article seeks to contribute to this revision by examining an aspect of his Petrarchism that has generally been overlooked: its complex reflection upon perspective and the way one's viewpoint colours one's perception of reality. The analysis focuses on four well-known sonnets (I, X , XVIII, and XXII), which exemplify Garcilaso's fascination with temporal, spatial, and interpretative perspectives

Tram flanerie : streetcar impressions of nineteenth-century Madrid

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Floridas señas: Góngora and the Petrarchan tradition

This essay examines the use of the Petrarchan motif of the generative footsteps'the magical ability of the beloved to make flowers bloom wherever she stepsin three sonnets by the Golden-Age Spanish poet Luis de Gongora: Al tramontar del sol, la ninfa mia' (1582), Tres veces de Aquilon el soplo airado' (1582) and Los blancos lilios que de ciento en ciento' (1609). Through close readings, it examines how the image serves as a metatextual symbol in the three poems. Where the motif often functions in Petrarch to evoke an ideal of spontaneous and unmediated creation, Gongora's sonnets reflect upon imitation and influence, drawing attention to the insuperable gap between a poem and its source, arguing for the superiority of imitation over mimesis and representing literature as an endless accumulation of glosses

Pointed poetry: agudeza and petrarchism in Góngora’s late sonnets

Studies of Gongora's Petrarchism have generally focused on his early work: particularly the sonnets of the 1580s. At the end of his career, however, Gongora revisited the Petrarchan mode of his first period in a series of sonnets. In this article, I explore this return to Petrarchism and the attitude of the mature poet toward the Petrarchan tradition. The essay focuses on three late sonnets which share a series of characteristics: 'Al tronco Filis de un laurel sagrado' (1621), 'Prision de nacar era articulado' (1620), and 'Peinaba al sol Belisa sus cabellos' (1620). In these poems, we will see how Gongora criticizes a careless and exaggerated Petrarchism and insists on the importance of agudeza (wit) in lyric poetry

'Ave (aunque muda yo)': the image of the nightingale in Góngora's love sonnets

The nightingale is one of the most metatextual symbols in poetry, but its meaning varies considerably from one context to another. In the works of some poets, the bird is a figure of orality, a symbol of virtuosity in singing. In others, however, it is a metaphor for writing. In classical mythology, the nightingale is the metamorphosis of Philomela, who after being raped and having her tongue cut out by Tereus, reveals what has happened to her by weaving a tapestry with images of Tereus's transgression. The bird is thus associated with silent signs that resemble those of a text. This essay examines the representation of the nightingale in three sonnets by the Baroque poet Luis de Gongora, and contrasts his use of the image with that of Garcilaso de la Vega. Whereas Garcilaso represents the nightingale as an ideal of perfect singing and as a natural analogue of the poet, Gongora emphasizes its writerly nature and creates a more complicated relationship between the lyric voice and the bird

Adultery and the Rumor Mill: les bourgeois de Molinchart and El gran galeoto

This article seeks to challenge interpretations of the adultery plot as a subversive current in nineteenth-century literature by examining two texts that are often dismissed by contemporary critics: Les bourgeois de Molinchart (1854), a novel by the French writer Champfleury (the pseudonym of Jules Husson), and El gran Galeoto (1881), a play by the Spanish playwright Jos, Echegaray. In each of these works, the rumor of the adultery precedes and to a large extent precipitates the infidelity at the end of the work. In committing adultery, therefore, the protagonists are not rising up against social norms so much as capitulating to the expectations of society, enacting a plot that has been projected upon them. The essay compares and contrasts the treatment of the rumor mill in the two works and examines the literary strategies that the writers use to undercut a transgressive reading of the infidelity plot

Defining myocardial tissue abnormalities in end-stage renal failure with cardiac magnetic resonance imaging using native T1 mapping

Noninvasive quantification of myocardial fibrosis in end-stage renal disease is challenging. Gadolinium contrast agents previously used for cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are contraindicated because of an association with nephrogenic systemic fibrosis. In other populations, increased myocardial native T1 times on cardiac MRI have been shown to be a surrogate marker of myocardial fibrosis. We applied this method to 33 incident hemodialysis patients and 28 age- and sex-matched healthy volunteers who underwent MRI at 3.0T. Native T1 relaxation times and feature tracking–derived global longitudinal strain as potential markers of fibrosis were compared and associated with cardiac biomarkers. Left ventricular mass indices were higher in the hemodialysis than the control group. Global, Septal and midseptal T1 times were all significantly higher in the hemodialysis group (global T1 hemodialysis 1171 ± 27 ms vs. 1154 ± 32 ms; septal T1 hemodialysis 1184 ± 29 ms vs. 1163 ± 30 ms; and midseptal T1 hemodialysis 1184 ± 34 ms vs. 1161 ± 29 ms). In the hemodialysis group, T1 times correlated with left ventricular mass indices. Septal T1 times correlated with troponin and electrocardiogram-corrected QT interval. The peak global longitudinal strain was significantly reduced in the hemodialysis group (hemodialysis -17.7±5.3% vs. -21.8±6.2%). For hemodialysis patients, the peak global longitudinal strain significantly correlated with left ventricular mass indices (R = 0.426), and a trend was seen for correlation with galectin-3, a biomarker of cardiac fibrosis. Thus, cardiac tissue properties of hemodialysis patients consistent with myocardial fibrosis can be determined noninvasively and associated with multiple structural and functional abnormalities

The 2018 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: shaping the health of nations for centuries to come

The Lancet Countdown: tracking progress on health and climate change was established to provide an independent, global monitoring system dedicated to tracking the health dimensions of the impacts of, and the response to, climate change. The Lancet Countdown tracks 41 indicators across five domains: climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerability; adaptation, planning, and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; finance and economics; and public and political engagement. This report is the product of a collaboration of 27 leading academic institutions, the UN, and intergovernmental agencies from every continent. The report draws on world-class expertise from climate scientists, ecologists, mathematicians, geographers, engineers, energy, food, livestock, and transport experts, economists, social and political scientists, public health professionals, and. doctors. The Lancet Countdown’s work builds on decades of research in this field, and was first proposed in the 2015 Lancet Commission on health and climate change,1 which documented the human impacts of climate change and provided ten global recommendations to respond to this public health emergency and secure the public health benefits available (panel 1)