'Translated Verse': Milton's Latin Poetry in the Long Eighteenth Century

This chapter assesses ways in which the emergence in the long eighteenth century of a cluster of verse translations of Milton’s Poemata engendered an intellectual discourse and debate on translation itself, not dissimilar to the magazine warfare of the day. It argues that poetical renderings of Milton’s Latin verse, and the biographical and literary contexts in which they appeared, facilitated the interrogation of key issues that are still being debated by modern translation theorists: the nature and function of translation; the viability of rendering a source text in a target language that is also in this instance a poetic language; the potential ‘fetters’ which, in Drydenesque terms, might constrain ‘the verbal copier’; or by contrast the quasi-liberating fluency, the ‘fluent strategy’, attendant upon recourse to verse as translational medium; canonicity, amplification and omission; the much-debated issue of authorial equivalence, evinced here, it is suggested, by the editorial showcasing of the translator; and not least, the perennial question of translation as reading and critical interpretation. In short, verse renderings of Milton’s Latin poetry and the debates that they engendered assume a not inconsequential place in the history of translation theory, which, as Venuti notes, is forever concerned with ‘the changing relationships between the relative autonomy of the translated text and two other categories: equivalence and function.’

.

Marvell's Latin Poetry and the Art of Punning

This chapter analyses Marvell’s linguistic ingenuity as exemplified by his Latin poetic corpus. Here, it is argued, a pseudo Lucretian sensitivity to the parallelism between the structure of Latin words and the structure of the world co-exists with a linguistic methodology that is essentially Marinesque. Close examination of the Latin poems as a whole assesses the nature and significance of etymological play, paronomasia, puns on juxtaposed Latin words, on place names, and on personal names. It is suggested that such devices demonstrate ways in which the neo-Latin poetic text can serve both as a linguistic microcosm of the literary contexts in which they are employed, and as a re-invention of the artifice, extravagant conceits, and baroque wit of Marinism. The result is a neo-Latin ‘echoing song’ that is both intra- and intertextual. Through bilingual punning and phonological wit Marvell plays with a classical language only to demonstrate its transformative potential. The chapter concludes by offering a new reading of Hortus in relation to the garden sections of Marino’s L’Adone, in which an extravagantly luscious setting confounds the senses and is mirrored linguistically by word-clusters and labyrinthine punning.

Maria Victoria Atencia: Legend of Myself

In this collection of 65 short poems, Roberta Quance exemplifies the range, vitality and mysticism of work by one of Spain’s foremost, if controversial, contemporary female poets, drawing on the contents of a number of Spanish collections.

Five authors reply

We read with interest the comments offered by Drs. Hughes and Bradley (1) on our systematic review (2). Four single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), rs9332739 and rs547154 in the complement component 2 gene (C2) and rs4151667 and rs641153 in the complement factor B gene (CFB), were pooled. Hughes and Bradley point out that we omitted the most common variant, rs12614. In fact, rs12614 is in high linkage disequilibrium (LD) with rs641153, which was included, and the major allele of both of these SNPs is in the range of 90% (population code, CEU, in the International HapMap Project (http://hapmap.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/)). Moreover, our review was initiated in September 2010, at which point only 4 studies had published associations with rs12614, whereas 14 studies (n = 11,378) were available for rs641153. While it is true that both SNPs are better analyzed as a haplotype, these data were simply not available for pooling.
Hughes and Bradley also point out that we obtained and pooled new data that were not previously published. While it is recommended that contact with authors be completed as part of a comprehensive meta-analysis, we acknowledge that these additional data were not previously published and peer reviewed and, hence, do not have the same level of transparency. However, given that sample collections often increase over time and that the instrumentation for genotyping is continually improving, we thought that it would be advantageous to use the most recent information; this is a subjective decision.
We also agree that the allele frequencies given by Kaur et al. (3) were exactly opposite to those expected and were suggestive of strand flipping. However, we specifically queried this with the lead author on 2 separate occasions and were assured it was not.
Hughes and Bradley do make an interesting suggestion that SNPs in high LD should be used as a gauge of genotyping quality in HuGE reviews. This is an interesting idea but difficult to put into practice as the r2 parameter they propose as a measure of LD has some unusual properties. Although r2 is a measure of LD, it is also linked to the allele frequency; even small differences in allele frequencies between 2 linked SNPs can reduce the r2 dramatically. Wray (4) explored these effects and found that, at a baseline allele frequency of 10%, even a difference in allele frequency between 2 SNPs as small as 2% can drop the r2 value below 0.8. This degree of allele frequency difference is consistent with what could be expected for sampling error. Furthermore, when we look at 2 linked dialleleic SNPs, giving 4 possible haplotypes, the absence of 1 haplotype dramatically reduces r2, despite the 2 loci being in high LD as measured by D'. In fact, this is the situation for rs12614 and rs641153, where the low frequency of 1 haplotype means that the r2 is 0.01 but the D' is 1.
Hughes and Bradley also suggest consideration of genotype call rate restrictions as an inclusion criterion for metaanalysis. This would be more appropriate when focusing on genetic variants per se, as considered within the context of a genome-wide association study or other specific genetic analysis where large numbers of SNPs are evaluated (5).
The concerns raised by Hughes and Bradley reflect the limited ability of a meta-analysis based on summary data to tease out inconsistencies best identified at the individual level. We agree that SNPs in LD should be evaluated, but this will not necessarily be straightforward. A move to make genetic data sets publicly available, as in the Database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ gap), is a step in the right direction for greater transparency.

Retinal vascular geometry predicts incident renal dysfunction in young people with type 1 diabetes

OBJECTIVE - To examine the relationship between retinal vascular geometry parameters and development of incident renal dysfunction in young people with type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS - This was a prospective cohort study of 511 adolescents with type 1 diabetes of at least 2 years duration, with normal albumin excretion rate (AER) and no retinopathy at baseline while attending an Australian tertiary-care hospital. AER was quantified using three overnight, timed urine specimen collections and early renal dysfunction was defined as AER >7.5 µg/min. Retinal vascular geometry (including length-to-diameter ratio [LDR] and simple tortuosity [ST]) was quantified from baseline retinal photographs. Generalized estimating equations were used to examine the relationship between incident renal dysfunction and baseline venular LDR and ST, adjusting for age, diabetes duration, glycated hemoglobin (A1C), blood pressure (BP), BMI, and cholesterol. RESULTS - Diabetes duration at baseline was 4.8 (IQR 3.3-7.5) years. After amedian 3.7 (2.3-5.7) years follow-up, 34% of participants developed incident renal dysfunction. In multivariate analysis, higher retinal venular LDR (odds ratio 1.7, 95% CI 1.2-2.4; quartile 4 vs. 1-3) and lower venular ST (1.6, 1.1-2.2; quartile 1 vs. 2-4) predicted incident renal dysfunction. CONCLUSIONS - Retinal venular geometry independently predicted incident renal dysfunction in young people with type 1 diabetes. These noninvasive retinal measures may help to elucidate early mechanistic pathways for microvascular complications. Retinal venular geometry may be a useful tool to identify individuals at high risk of renal disease early in the course of diabetes. © 2012 by the American Diabetes Association.

Energy expenditure during activity in the American lobster Homarus americanus:Correlations with body acceleration

How animals manage time and expend energy has implications for survivorship. Being able to measure key metabolic costs of animals under natural conditions is therefore an important tool in behavioral ecology. One method for estimating activity-specific metabolic rate is via derived measures of acceleration, often 'overall dynamic body acceleration' (ODBA), recorded by an instrumented acceleration logger. ODBA has been shown to correlate well with rate of oxygen consumption (V ?o) in a range of species during activity in the laboratory. This study devised a method for attaching acceleration loggers to decapod crustaceans and then correlated ODBA against concurrent respirometry readings to assess accelerometry as a proxy for activity-specific energy expenditure in a model species, the American lobster Homarus americanus. Where the instrumented animals exhibited a sufficient range of activity levels, positive linear relationships were found between V ?o and ODBA over 20min periods at a range of ambient temperatures (6, 13 and 20°C). Mixed effect linear models based on these data and morphometrics provided reasonably strong predictive power for estimating activity-specific V ?o from ODBA. These V ?o-ODBA calibrations demonstrate the potential of accelerometry as an effective predictor of behavior-specific metabolic rate of crustaceans in the wild during periods of activity. © 2013 Elsevier Inc.

AcT-2: A Novel Myotropic and Antimicrobial Type 2 Tryptophyllin from the Skin Secretion of the Central American Red-Eyed Leaf Frog, Agalychnis callidryas

Tryptophyllins are a diverse family of amphibian peptides originally found in extracts of phyllomedusine frog skin by chemical means. Their biological activities remain obscure. Here we describe the isolation and preliminary pharmacological characterization of a novel type 2 tryptophyllin, named AcT-2, from the skin secretion of the red-eyed leaf frog, Agalychnis callidryas. The peptide was initially identified during smooth muscle pharmacological screening of skin secretion HPLC fractions and the unique primary structure—GMRPPWF-NH2—was established by both Edman degradation and electrospray MS/MS fragmentation sequencing. A. cDNA encoding the biosynthetic precursor of AcT-2 was successfully cloned from a skin secretion-derived cDNA library by means of RACE PCR and this contained an open-reading frame consisting of 62 amino acid residues with a single AcT-2 encoding sequence located towards the C-terminus. A synthetic replicate of AcT-2 was found to relax arterial smooth muscle (EC50 = 5.1 nM) and to contract rat urinary bladder smooth muscle (EC50 = 9.3 μM). The peptide could also inhibit the growth of the microorganisms, Staphylococcus aureus, (MIC = 256 mg/L) Escherichia coli (MIC = 512 mg/L), and Candida albicans (128 mg/L). AcT-2 is thus the first amphibian skin tryptophyllin found to possess both myotropic and antimicrobial activities.

The Potency of Pastoral in Hispanic Baroque poetry

This monograph demonstrates that aesthetic and ontological anxieties continue to find diverse expression within the contrived textual artifice of the bucolic space. Drawing upon expansive definitions of the Hispanic literary Baroque, (Beverley, 1980, 2008, Echevarría 1993, Ross 1993, Chemris 2008 , Egido 2009 ) the study analyses the pastoral verse of representative poets of the period to demonstrate that they re-enter an Arcadia that has been defamiliarized but is nonetheless inexorably connected to the classical origins of the mode. Pastoral, in common with other literary forms, is subject to a process of re-evaluation which was latent in its classical legacy. Within the intricacies of this literary construct, surface artistry sustains an effect of artless innocence that is vibrantly contested across the secular, sacred, parodic and colonial text.