We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
Georgian studies are evidence of the originality of Georgian national science and, therefore, one of the most important identifiers of Georgian identity. The development of scientific research clearly reflects the dynamics of the process. The history of Georgian literary studies, as well as the history of Georgian studies in other humanitarian areas, invariably confirms it’s goal to serve the interests of the country: on the one hand, to be a measure and indicator of Georgian identity, and on the other hand, to demonstrate the involvement of Georgian culture and national studies in world cultural processes and scholarly dialogue. The history of literary studies, like the history of humanitarian researches in general, vividly reflects different epochs, standards, compromises and contradictions. Academic research never stands stagnant, but develops in accordance with the development of the context and time. I’m more that sure, that the standard of modern literary studies is undoubtedly defined by interdisciplinary and inter-institutional researches. The best confirmation of this historical flexibility of literary studies is the first half of the 20th century, when the changes in the field led to an excessive variety, abundance and diversity of literary-theoretical schools. A multi-interpretive space was created, the methodological foundation of which was interdisciplinary studies for the simple reason that each theoretical school had an interdisciplinary character. The necessary conditions and space for multicultural and comparative studies were created; however, the academic circles of the Soviet countries had a limited access to this process. Soviet science and, of course, first of all, literary studies as one of the leading branches of humanitarian thought, were enclosed in a rigid ideological framework by the Soviet regime. Although individual scholars and critics were able to express the innovative opinion, it was not enough to develop interdisciplinary and multicultural studies widely. Today, when the post-Soviet Georgian literary studies has overcome the most difficult stages, and assimilated to the maximum with Western the literary studies, the time has come to develop interdisciplinary and inter-institutional researches. “Pure literary studies”, in an unmixed way, – it is a Yesterday. Today it’s crucial to improve interdisciplinary and inter-sectorial communications and collaboration, which, in itself, implies inter-institutional collaboration. The Institute of Georgian Literature is starting to move to this new platform and calls on other Georgian scholars to join this initiative.
More...
James Joyce regarded Goethe as being in the great writers’ “Holy Trinity” along with Dante and Shakespeare. However, his attitude towards the great German author seems to be ambivalent. He once noted that Ulysses (than in the planning stages) would depict an “Irish Faust”. Later, in 1915, Joyce’s attitude seems to have changed – he refers to Goethe as “un noioso funzionario” – as a figure of bourgeois conformity. He told Frank Budgen that Faust was an inadequate model for his new hero: “Far from being a complete man, he isn’t a man at all. Is he an old man or a young man? Where are his home and family? We don’t know. And he can’t be complete because he is never alone. Mephistopheles is always hanging round him at his side or heels”. Compared to other great literary figures like Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe appears to play a relatively small role in Joyce’s work. Some critics point out that while there are passing references to Goethe in Joyce’s fiction and private correspondence, none of Goethe’s specific works seem to have served as important models or inspirations for any of Joyce’s, and little of Joyce’s technique as a writer seems especially similar to Goethe’s. However, I would argue, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses provide enough material for a more systematic comparative study. Richard Ellmann argues that Joyce’s “connections with Goethe in Ulysses are less overt than the connections with Homer. They are, however, deeply ingrained.” Ellmann was by no means the first to highlight the potential in this particular line of critical inquiry. In the very year in which Ulysses was published John Middleton Murry described “Circe”-Nighttown episode as a kind of ‘Walpurgisnacht’ of Joyce’s protagonists. This astute observation seemingly found approval with the author himself, as Stuart Gilbert, whom Joyce assisted in writing the first full-length study of Ulysses, attempts to illustrate Murry’s parallel there in some detail.
More...
In oral histories important place is occupied by folklore genres such as legends, oral traditions, proverbs, aphorisms, traditional sayings, anecdotes, explanations, charms and so on-that are very popular among contemporary population who reveal great interest to them up today. During the research of the proverbs and traditional sayings we confront with certain problems as their allegorical meaning is not connected to a certain fact, accordingly for making sense of them it is necessary to investigate them in the context. Such opportunity was given in the oral histories. The topic of investigation of proverbs and traditional sayings became our aim during fieldwork when we discovered that population used it wide scale, especially aged people. Later when we started the study of the theoretical material on this topic we discovered that the problem was brought forward still in 1957 by folklorist Pikria Zandukeli. She marked that during fieldwork in Upper Imereti she could not find a narrator who managed to make a list of proverbs alike samples of other genres, though she had a chance to collect them when the narrator used them during narration for strengthening the facts throughout story telling. Hence it is clear that people used proverbs and traditional sayings for confirming and turning stronger their opinion in the context (Zandukeli 1964: 148-149). If we look through the history of inestigation of proverbs we can discover diversity of researches. In 1953 prof. M. Chikovani in old Georgian literature discovered that the word “Proverb” was used in the meaning of “a short story” too. Parnaoz Ertelishvili took attention to the figurative meaning of proverbs (1957). On the problem of proverb a broad investigation was made by prof. Ksenia sikharulidze (1960 ).
More...
The work is devoted to the structural- narratological research of free verse in the texsts of Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) and Besik Kharanauli (1939-...). A large part of the work of the two mentioned poets is genre-wise (in this case, the genre is understood as an internal literary context) free verse, which shows the following main characteristics: it does not have a metric, rhyme appears sporadically, the lines are unordered. The history of free verse begins with the French Symbolists of the nineteenth century, spreads to the United States and is revealed in the poetry of Walt Whitman. At the beginning of the twentieth century, modernists, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and other authors often wrote free verse. In this regard, Paolo Iashvili’s “Europe”, Galaktion Tabidze’s “Rustle of Curtains” and later Shota Chantladze’s poetry are noteworthy works in Georgian literature. It seems that in the first half of the 20th century Georgian authors did not/could not sympathize with this genre, because it was subject to a kind of censorship (it was considered a western, bourgeois manifestation). In 1977-1978 a newspaper polemic was held between Shota Nishnianidze and Mamuka Tsiklauri on the issue of whether free verse was poetry or not. However, the main thing is that the authors did not give up on this genre.
More...
The study aims to analyse Georgian literature from the 16th to 18th centuries in comparison with contemporary European literary tendencies using modern literary methodologies. The 16th to 18th centuries were a crucial and special period in European art as this period is characterised by significant discoveries during the scientific revolution, leading to the disappearance of established aesthetic principles and the emergence of new ways of artistic expression. Baroque, encompassing architecture, sculpture, music, painting, theatre, and literature, was a cultural and art movement that reflected a reaction against humanism and the Renaissance. The movement emphasized dramatic, eclectic, and dynamic motion. Baroque is one of the most significant period of the development of European culture as it laid the foundation of the principles of modernism. Modernism itself is often mentioned as Neo-baroque in literary criticism. In Georgian literary studies, the term “Georgian Baroque” was first mentioned in the 1970s by Giorgi Gachechiladze, who identified Baroque tendencies in Georgian literature.
More...
The scientific letter presents a review of the book Literary Genres (volume one), which was prepared on the basis of the Department of Literary Theory and Comparative Studies of the Shota Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature and the Educational-Scientific Institute of Theoretical and Comparative Literary Studies of TSU and which covers works dedicated literary genres. Articles of all the authors are studied and discussed in detail in the letter. The presented review book consists of two parts: the first part includes «epos and epic genres» and the second part covers «drama and dramatic genres». The book also includes a guide to classic literature; Don Quixote, the first modern novel - and one of the best! 2018 publication (author: Ana Puchao de Lesia Vicente Perez de Leon) translated from English by Irma Ratiani. The evolution and changing characteristics of genres in culture, their restudying and rethinking of this entire heritage, its content and meaning analysis, are facing new challenges. This is the first collection that brings together works on the epos and great epic genres.
More...
The article proposes, through an extensive analysis of two novels written by Nicolae Breban, to identify the manner that the great contemporary novelist employs in order to distance himself from the traditional Realistic novel formula. This distancing takes place at the level of the Narrator, the central and supporting characters, the plot line and it’s deep structure. Some key scenes lead to the idea that the storyteller aims – and succeeds in a very personal way – to put on hold the social, characterological and psychological patterns from the established Novel armoury.
More...
Starting from Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimension model, the present article focuses on the uncertainty avoidance parameter and aims to point out how the attitude towards ambiguity and uncertainty reflects in Romanian proverbs. Proverbs, maxims, aphorisms are considered to be commonplaces/ topoi or preconstructed implicatures, ideas and arguments considered to be well-known and widely agreed upon. Preconstructed implicatures interfere with stereotypes, thus offering a valuable corpus, a discursive collection which can serve to answer questions addressed by cultural studies and related fields of research. The present article aims to point out the low tolerance of Romanian culture when confronted with uncertainty and ambiguity as it reflects in a series of dicursive and cultural patterns.
More...
From the two volumes of literary memoirs signed by Mircea Șerbănescu, our approach aims to question the mechanisms that underlie the trinomial identity – space – imaginary generator of a narrative discourse both evocative and recuperative.Witness to most of the events recounted, the writer recovers from the inside, through his essential, often inedited moments, nearly 100 years of the literary history of Banat, a marginal perimeter strongly felt as a central European space. Imagining his narrative discourse on others in relation to his own memories, the writer offers complex narrative formulas which come to illustrate the impact of memory in the definition of a cultural identity.
More...
The author announces the elaboration of a scientific edition of Anghel Dumbrăveanu's Writings with texts published in literature revues issued in Timisoara that were not yet included in his published books. The two columns he kept writing over time, Remember and Correspondence, are discussed in detail. Anghel Dumbrăveanu is known foremost as a poet, so this edition in preparation aims to make him known also as a writer of non-poetical texts.
More...
The literature of the Romanian national minority created in the period after the end of World War II is a reflection of the social and historical conditions in Serbia. The poetry and prose written in the mid-twentieth century indicate certain problems of crucial importance for this ethnic community, and one of them is undoubtedly the issue of the status of women. In this paper, we will become familiar with the work of one of the most important Serbo-Romanian poets from Vojvodina, Florica Ştefan, and through selected examples of poetry, we will find out why her verses hold an important place in both Serbian and Romanian literature.
More...
The novel Buburuza focuses on revealing the expressions loneliness can have. The main character is Vasilica Buburuz, who since her childhood is faced with a locomotor disability, those around her being distant towards her. Liliana Corobca's characters face difficult situations to overcome. This work follows the evolution of the female character in a context where the isolation and ignorance of others accentuates loneliness, the female character being unable to escape the marginality imposed by others. Vasilica feels abandoned in a world from which she is excluded, because the reactions of others reinforce her marginalisation due to her inability to move. Therefore, the novel presents the confession of the female character who, since childhood, has experienced the feeling of loneliness, which has become more acute since inter-human relationships have become more difficult to build.
More...
The present study continues some of my previous researches (ILIE, 2020; ILIE, 2020, p. 131-162; ILIE, 2022 etc.), interested in the reflection in the feminine diary of a certain type of existential trauma - the one caused by being diagnosed with a disease perceived as lethal (RUPPERT, 2012, p. 125) and, as an immediate consequence of it, the terrible fight with the disease crowned, unofficially, as the Emperor of All Maladies (MUKHERJEE, 2010). After a recapitulation of what may constitute the proximate genre, and the specific differences in terms of the representation of cancer in such a discourse, my paper analyzes one of the most powerful confessions of crisis that has seen the light of day in the last decade, "The Return from Hell. Diary" by Camelia Răileanu. From my point of view, along with "The Story of a Struggle" by Sorana Gurian, "A Different Kind of Diary. Out of Time" by Matei Călinescu and "In Search of the Found Body. An Ego-Analysis of the Hospital" by Vintilă Mihăilescu, this absolutely disturbing diary is the (Romanian) aesthetic spearhead of the confessive subgenre motivated by the unequal struggle with a disease considered incurable and articulated around identity and existential themes perceived as radical.
More...
The present study refers to Romanian literature written by Bessarabian authors exiled during the Stalinist deportations, but also later, due to ideological disobedience. The article is also about the uprooting of the population and the exodus in the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union because of the economic and social crises. The texts referred to reflect the major convulsions and turmoil to which the individual is subjected in the search for identity.
More...ÎNCEPUTURILE AVENTURII LUI E. A. POE ÎN LIMBA ROMÂNĂ
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the complex literary personalities of the world, a distinct, original voice, with multiple echoes in the works of writers from various corners of the planet. He also strongly influenced the writings of Romanian authors, some of whom were strong and authentic enough not to be mere imitators. The American author became known mainly through translations, the French ones playing an essential role. In the second part of the nineteenth century, E. A. Poe was read by important names of the Romanian literature, and his writings, at first the prose in particular, were translated and reproduced in various publications. The present study gathers the results of intense research to present, in as much detail as possible, the first appearances of the American writer's works in the Romanian language and the influences that emerged from this process.
More...
This research looks into the fictional world of Kent Haruf’s novel Our Souls at Night, to analyze a late-blooming love between two seniors, against the background of a prejudiced small-town community. The introduction explains the notions present in the title, making the relevant distinctions between the terms used – moral(s), morale – announcing the focus on what is implied by their meanings, namely personal and collective outlooks that have to do with morality and the protagonists’ individual attitudes and emotions, in order to understand thoroughly their life choices. To this end, we start from the elements that point to the contractual approach to their agreement at the very start, work out the reactions of the community and what triggers them, reach, with the analysis, the mature portion of their relationship and self-fulfillment, and then plunge into family histories to see under what sign they have made their decisions – as there is an initial decision and then a subsequent contrasting one that baffles our expectations and contradicts what they have managed to show and build until then. The approach is identity studies and the lens of psychology, with resort to concepts from intercultural studies (developed by Hofstede, Minkov, Trompenaars, Hampden-Turner and Schein).
More...
The medical element has been a cardinal feature of Sylvia Plath’s oeuvre, present in all areas of her work, from poetry to prose and correspondence, feeding on her vast experience as a psychiatric patient. The Bell Jar (1963) her only novel, published under pseudonym shortly before her death in February 1963, details her experience as a patient in one of America’s most renowned psychiatric hospitals, McLean, situated near Boston. Moreover, her relationship with her doctors, especially her GP in London, Dr. John Horder, and Dr. Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse, the psychiatrist who treated her at McLean, proved essential in the maelstrom of events that culminated in her suicide at age 30. I intend to discuss some relevant medical aspects in the writer’s final year of life and in some writings from that interval.
More...
The paper aims to present Václav Havel as a concrete poet. Since he used in his visual poems powerful and sometimes contrasting themes like “war”, “peace”, “barrier”, “words”, “humane”, etc., we chose three calligrames from the book titled Antikódy (Anticodes) to analyze. Specifically, we interpret the visual representation of the subject matters, taking into account the shape, typography, visual impact, symbolism, and the poet’s internal triggers. Although Havel’s visual poetry has not gained international visibility and popularity like his prose, we strongly believe the ones we have analyzed are eloquent examples of dignity, morality, courage and compassion for the human beings. Last but not least, these visual compositions can be considered the testimonial of the experiences and actions which he undertook to condemn the atrocities of communism in his country and the international armed conflicts.
More...
This approach presents an exercise for developing the plurilingual and pluricultural repertoire of foreign students learning Romanian as second language, speakers of Arabic, Bengali, Persian, Turkish or Turkmen. The methodological premises are provided by etymology studies, but also by the suggestions from the Complementary Volume with New Descriptors from 2020, which develop the descriptors from the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages from 2001. The exercise aims to raise awareness of the existence of a common lexical fund of terms referring to various accommodation spaces, which entered the Romanian language mainly through the Turkish language, but with more distant origins in Arabic or Persian. Subsequently, the research followed the etymologies of these words and the evolution of their semantics, in a process of linguistic and intercultural mediation.
More...