"Ikaromenippos" – starożytny dialog o locie na Księżyc i do niebiańskiej siedziby bogów

Author(s): Dominika Budzanowska-Weglenda / Language(s): Polish / Publication Year: 0

Dominika Budzanowska-Weglenda’s chapter proposes an analysis of the Ikaromenippos or Voyage in Space, which is one of dialogues of Lucian of Samosata and probably the first literary description of the human trip to the Moon. The main character takes on this journey because of his aversion to philosophy. Lucian’s Ikaromenippos is a fantastic dialogue: a philosopher, probably the cynic, and satirist Menippus of Gadara, flies here “through the stars”. He takes two wings of large birds: the wing of the vulture and the wing of the eagle, and performs an incredible feat, worthy of Icarus: he reaches the Moon (from where he looks at the people and their actions on Earth), and then flies to Heaven—to the gods, “in upper Zeus’ rooms”. The story of Menippus’journey is like a swift current of the river, full of jocular tone, with a fantastic plot. But it clearly carries a deeper message: it expresses criticism of human attitudes and actions (adulteries, murders, conspiracies, perjury, betrayals among the closest to ones, war, courtship, piracy), meanness, false and mercenary piety, especially when stigmatizing bad behavior of philosophers, without sparing the representatives of any philosophical school. According to Lucian’s narrative, philosophers are lazy, quarrelsome, bloated, angry, grotesque, tumultuous, surly, unworthy people. The author reinforces the accusations of philosophers with the deity’s words, as the goddess of the Moon, Selene, having been encountered by the traveler, complains about them as well. She believes that philosophers are impostors, leading a shameful nightlife behind the scenes: they commit adultery, steal, and commit any other evil deeds. Ikaromenippos belongs to Lucian’s satirical works featuring reflective comedy. Correspondingly, Lucian postulates the liberation from the practical cognitive pressure of the logical rules and from the philosophical logic of cognition of the universe.

"Koralina" Neila Gaimana w realizacjach teatru lalek w Polsce

Author(s): Maria Janus / Language(s): Polish / Publication Year: 0

Maria Janus focuses on theatrical adaptations of Neil Gaiman’s "Coraline" in Polish puppet theatre. The analysed performances were directed by Włodzimierz Fełenczak in Teatr Miniatura in Gdańsk with a stage design by Mikołaj Malesza (opening 2009) and in the Białostocki Teatr Lalek with a stage design by Joanna Braun (opening 2011) and directed by Karolina Maciejaszek in Teatr Pinokio in Łódź with a stage design by Anna Chadaj (opening 2013). In addition, the Author discusses the performance of Rozalinda, written and directed by Krystyna Jakóbczyk in the Teatr Dzieci Zagłębia in Będzin (opening 2012), which was inspired by Gaiman’s novel. Janus presents this performance in the context of copyrights and difficulties of obtaining licenses for use of texts written by popular authors (especially from the Anglo-Saxon region). The author compares the adaptations of Neil Gaiman’s novel written by Fełenczak, Maciejaszek and the translation of the novel’s narration by Jakóbczyk (theatrical situations and visual narration vs. the narration performed live on-stage). Maria Janus also highlights theatrical references from the novel considering meta-theatrical elements that enhance the performance. Janus compares theatrical media used in performances from Gdańsk, Białystok and Łódź with special consideration to the stage design and puppetry techniques. In the second part, the author focuses on the popularity of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline among theatrical directors despite little interest in horror fiction. Puppet theatres in Poland do not produce performances based on modern epic literature, especially those nbased on fantasy. Classical fairy-tales and modern dramaturgy containing fairy-tale motives are still more popular. Furthermore, Janus reflects on the possibility of a change of the herein discussed situation. She further refers to the arguments of Bruno Bettelheim, Stanisław Grzelecki and Katarzyna Slany considering young spectator benefits from the contact with theatrical representation of youth horror literature.

(BE)SMISAO VREMENA U ODABRANIM DJELIMA WILLIAMA FAULKNERA I MEŠE SELIMOVIĆA

Author(s): Selma Raljevic / Language(s): Bosnian / Issue: 2/2014

The purpose of this paper is to compare the modern concept of time by “placing” William Faulkner’s (1897-1962) novels: The Sound and the Fury (1929), Light in August (1932), Absalom, Absalom! (1936), Go Down, Moses (1942), and Meša Selimović’s (1910-1982) prose works: Death and the Dervish (Derviš i smrt, 1966), The Fortress (Tvrđava, 1970), The Island (Ostrvo, 1974) and Memories (Sjećanja, 1976). The aim of this paper is to compare the perception of time in the selected prose of these two writers within the context of the sum of combined intelligences. The topic will be explored by applying the thoughts of Einstein, Nietzsche, Bergson, Eliade, Freud and Jung. In their modern literary works, both Faulkner and Selimović transpose time into space, and time/space becomes a major player in their works. Accordingly, special attention will be given to the perception and (non)sense of time and space in their modern prose.

(Не)могућности књижевности и културе у доба кризе

Author(s): Sladana Rakic / Language(s): Serbian / Issue: 48/2012

(РА)СТВАРАЊЕ PERSONAE DRAMATIS У МАГБЕТУ ЕЖЕНА ЈОНЕСКА

Author(s): Katarina Z. Milic / Language(s): Serbian / Issue: 57/2015

Dans ce travail nous offrons les résultats de l’analyse des concepts dramatiques contemporains par rapport au théâtre dit traditionnel, et nous prêtons attention surtout au statut du personnage dramatique, vu que celui-ci est l’un des éléments inévitables dans la structure dramatique. Notre but est de présenter des tendences singulières du théâtre de l’absurde (le degré zéro du théâtre), et plus particulièrement la création des personnages dramatiques en tant que des figures disséminatives, mais aussi d’indiquer leur rôle dans le théâtre contemporain et leur rapport avec les contraintes structurales de celui-ci.

`СМИСАО ЗА ИСТОРИЈУ` И `ЖИВА ТРАДИЦИЈА` У ЕЛИОТОВОЈ ПУСТОЈ ЗЕМЉИ И ПОЕЗИЈИ ШЕЈМУСА ХИНИЈА

Author(s): Ana S. Živkovic / Language(s): Serbian / Issue: 54/2014

Comparing the poem Wasteland by Thomas Eliot to the Irish Nobel-prize winner Saemus Heaney’s collection of poetry Bogland, the paper underscores the similarities and differences aiming to prove that almost identical “sense of history’ is present in the poetry of both poets. Eliot views the “sense of history’ as the ability to recognize the same situations and patterns not only in the past, but in the present and future, bringing time into a whole, not chronological, but cyclic. “Living tradition’ is the tradition of stopping and continuing, basing the existence in the past and surviving in the present. The research includes the incongruities of Eliot’s theoretical considerations about tradition and practical realizations of those ideas in poetry, and we conclude that, according to the poet, tradition is not everything written since Homer until today, but only those works that possess the “sense of history’. The important myths (mermaid myth, Holy Grail myth, Narcissus myth) remind us that the 20th century man is not free from the primeval striving towards the spiritual and physical healing, as well as the eternal craving to divulge one’s own being completely. Civilization and capitalist tradition have distanced contemporary man from nature and sexual emotion, and directed him towards profit and material production. Despite Eliot’s declaring as a royalist and follower of catholic tradition, his poetry as well as Heaney’s is predominated by the influence of humanistic tradition based on the conflict of different cultural concepts, on the archetypes of light and darkness, heavens and the underworld.

A Butlerian Reading of Ernest Hemingway’s Personality and his Work

Author(s): Golbarg Khorsand,Parvin Ghasem / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

This study aims at analyzing Hemingway’s selected novels and short stories in order to identify possible shared masochistic symptoms. The overriding questions concerning this paper will center on the multiple ways in which Hemingway’s sexual fluidity contributes to formation of masochistic behavior in his writings and also the degree to which masochistic properties contributed to the aesthetic and literary values of his fiction. This paper concentrates on the specific elements of masochism which pertain to the texts most, including symbiosis/separation dichotomy (closely related to the theme of humiliation), fetishism, pain, violence and death. The author wishes to unveil the oft-hidden submissive and feminine characteristics of the masculine characters which are not few in Hemingway’s writings.

A clean, well-lighted writing

Author(s): Irina Simanschi / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2017

Interpreting Hemingway’s works is mostly focused on the intermingling of the recurring themes, on the (in)explicable achievements of the troubled (fe)male characters, and yet it is the shaping of the discourse which stands for Hemingway’s hallmark. Reverting to the carefully planned withdrawal of strategic elements of the writing contributes to the complexity of the text, which to a great extent depends on the reader so as to be given hermeneutical value. The display of the clear language is nothing but a straightforward wrapping of internal progressive actions beneath the text, which both vertically and horizontally challenges the reader and the entire narrative act.

A Kynical View on Corporeality: Jeanette Winterson’s Non-Philosophy in WRITTEN ON THE BODY

Author(s): Cristina Diamant / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2018

Science-fiction writers tend to side either with the flesh, holding that “all is body/matter,” or with the machine, believing that “all is mind,” and these two divergent perspectives translate into either a protectionist or an accelerationist attitude. They can, however, be seen as interpenetrating agencements (Charles T. Wolfe), as is the case of Donna Haraway’s “cyborg” as an emerging political form, especially in feminist science-fiction works. Jeanette Winterson’s novels may seem to slowly turn away from the flesh since Written on the Body, from Gut Symmetries to The PowerBook and The Stone Gods. The present paper aims to suggest that what Written on the Body expresses is the heightening of kynicism (Peter Sloterdijk) towards both the flesh and the machine, all while rejecting cynical reason. The novel offers the reader an ec-static understanding of desire and loss, as well as the possibility of spiritual rather than spiritualist sans-philosophie (François Laruelle).

A Network of Themes: A Qualitative Approach to Gerhard Richter's TEXT

Author(s): Narvika Bovcon,Aleš Vaupotic / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

Gerhard Richter's books Text – a collection of painter's verbal statements about his artistic method – and Atlas – 783 sheets with images, mainly photographs and visual notations – are two archives that complement the understanding of his diverse artistic practice. The paper presents a textual model that experimentally simulates a possible ordering principle for archives. Richter's statements in the book Text are cut up and used as short quotations. Those that relate to multiple aspects of the painter's oeuvre are identified as hubs in the semantic network. The hubs are organized paratactically, as an array of different themes. The paper presents a methodological hypothesis and an experimental model that aim to connect the research of real networks with the paradigms of humanistic interpretation. We have to bear in mind that the network is a result of the researcher's interpretative approach, which is added to the initial archive included in the book Text. The breaking up of Richter's poetics into atoms of quotations is an experimental proposal of a new textuality in art history and humanities, which has its own history. In comparison to digital archives with complex interfaces that often tend to obscure the content, the elements in our experiment appear as specific configurations of the semantic network and are presented in a limited number of linear texts. The method of listing of quotations gathers the fragments into a potential “whole”, i.e. a narrativized gateway to an archive according to the researcher's interpretation.

A propos de l’ouvrage de : Stoyan Atanassov. De la littérature à la vie. Moyen âge, Temps modernes.

Author(s): Dina Mantcheva / Language(s): French / Issue: 1/2018

A propos de l’ouvrage de : Stoyan Atanassov De la littérature à la vie. Moyen âge, Temps modernes. Sofia, Colibri, 2016. [От литературата към живота. Средновековие, Ново време./ From Literature to Life. Middle Ages, Early Modern Period]

A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma: Deception, Truth and Modernism

Author(s): Roland Boer / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2016

This article deals with the widespread assumption that a significant collection of texts known as the Bible is inherently ‘deceptive’. That is, the Bible does not – it is assumed – say what was ‘really’ going on in the ancient world. The truth, therefore, must be found by going behind or beneath the text (the spatial metaphors should be noted). Here the real story may found, through archaeology or reading the text against itself. This approach may be described as a modernist ‘depth model’, in which the surface attempts to conceal the truth, while the truth itself must be found by going around the surface text. This remains a dominant approach in biblical criticism. However, it cannot be understood without earlier and indeed, in some quarters, current assumptions concerning the realist nature of the text. In this case, the text reflects in a reasonably trustworthy fashion the context of the text, if not the ideological assumptions and positions of the putative authors. Modernist ‘depth models’ may then be seen as attempts to respond to realist assumptions. A third moment is what could be called postmodern: in this case, the distance between surface and depth is challenged, so that the various possibilities become equal contestants for the dominant position. This entails a shift away from the assumption of a singular truth of the text, characteristic of both realist and modernist assumptions, to the understanding of multiple truth claims – not as relative but as absolutes that permit other absolutes. The argument emphasises that these approaches should be seen as dialectically related to one another, rather that mutually exclusive approaches.

A Tale within a Tale: Mise en Abyme Adaptations of the Twenty-first Century

Author(s): Željka Flegar / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2017

In accord with the promise made by Henry Jenkins that “old and new media will interact in ever more complex ways” (Convergence Culture 6), this research observes metamodern fairy tale adaptations of the twenty-first century in light of Christina Bacchilega’s construct of the fairy-tale web and Henry Jenkins’ theory of convergence culture and transmedia storytelling. The research will address the growing trend of embedding “wonder tale” collections within the context of a larger narrative as an artefact of significance, power, and material value. Although original tales with known authorship, these fairy tale adaptations are appended to the mythology and culture of the fantastic secondary worlds. Such texts tend to be parodic, subversive, and even carnivalesque (Bakhtin; Stephens), providing a commentary on the culture of their origin, as well as our own. By blending cultures, styles, and formats, mise en abyme wonder tales also result in the empowerment of specifically marginalised groups. Generally defined as spin-offs that are otherwise a part of a complex inter- and hypertextual web, these fairy tale collections constitute a metafictional body of knowledge and wisdom. In the digital era much focus is placed on multimodal, hypertextual, and transmedia narratives with a significant influence of fandom on the production of such literary works. The study will focus on the popular examples of such practice, J.K. Rowling’s Tales of Beedle the Bard (2007/2008) and Ransom Riggs’ Tales of the Peculiar (2016), in order to define mise en abyme fairy tale adaptations, as well as to discuss their cultural significance and function.

A Trans(l)atlantic Transfer of Cultural Values: Constructing a Canada-Related Cultural Reader Series for the Secondary English Classroom in Central Europe

Author(s): Mátyás Bánhegyi,Judit Nagy / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2014

The ‘Canada in the English Classroom’ joint research team of the University of Colongne and Károli Gáspár University of the Hungarian Reformed Church has been producing a cultural reader series to enhance the dissemination of up-to-date and engaging cultural information on Canada through general English language classes for the secondary school age group in Central Europe. The cultural reader series is seen as a means of facilitating cultural discourse and cross-cultural learning, also advocated in Canadian contexts by Berrell and Gloet (1999). Using Kramsch’s (1991) and Damen’s (2003) theories, the readers have been devised so that more abstract and/or lesser-known Canadian cultural aspects can be brought closer to the target group through English as a foreign language. To realize this objective in an effective way in the English classroom, Gochenour and Janeway’s (1993) model of culture learning has been observed, which advocates the gradual involvement of students in culture-related issues: starting from observation of culture moving towards genuine communication about culture. After introducing the cultural reader series project briefly, the paper will discuss the theoretical background behind the series and the project activities leading up to the preparation and compilation of its completed volumes. As a next step, an overview of the content of these volumes and the accompanying teacher’s notes will be presented. This will be followed by a sample unit demonstration of how the series achieves the goals that research has targeted.

Abode of the soul of humans, animals and objects in Mongolian folk belief

Author(s): Alice Sárközi / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2008

The soul of man resides in different parts of the body on each day of the month. The concerned body part should be handled with care, as if it is hurt, it causes extreme harm. The yurt, just like animals, also has a soul. The paper presents five small hand-books — from the collection of the Oriental Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, from the St. Petersburg Oriental Collection of the Russian Academy and from private possession — indicating the abode of the soul in humans, the yurt and animals.

Adaptare și imitație în romanele "No Time Like the Present", de Nadine Gordimer și „Vremea Minunilor", de Cătălin Dorian Florescu

Author(s): Simina Timofte / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 1/2018

In a series of lectures in 1994, Nadine Gordimer remarks the different status of Africa which is no longer at the edge of the empire, but on the contrary, in the center of it. In this respect, post-apartheid Africa has rebuilt its national identity on the background of global events that write universal history, offering citizens the chance to escape their country's constraints and bring important key elements in the globalization process.Thus, replacing apartheid themes in a new country is an extreme taskby the applicant. Some of the favourite subjects of the "old guard" are the following: the importance of multiculturalism in post-apartheid South Africa, the writer's status, vulgarisation of violence due to mass-media, reconciliation with a violent past and their economic and cultural implications, the fight against AIDS, sexual emancipation, globalization and loss of cultural and national identity, uprooting, migration and economic exile which replaced major pre-existing concerns about violence, racial and gender discrimination, the relationship between literature and politics, or the role of ethics in literature.The same situation can be applied to eastern countries. Even though they were not "postcolonial" in the classical sense of the term, applicable to the former British, French, Spanish, Portuguese or Dutch colonies, the "post-communist transition" through which they passed included the disarmament of a certain political and economic "occupation".People had to adapt to the new order, to the new reality, which was a complex process, a difficult one, that implied, many times, exile.Therefore, the purpose of my argument is to present what consequences can occur at the psychological level because of the attempt of adaptation of the characters to the new social and political order, by imitation, postcolonial and post-communist context. And here comes the question: does imitation facilitate adaptation? Although the logical answer would be yes, we will notice, by discussing the two texts, exactly the opposite.

Adapting the Adapted: The Black Rapist Myth in E.R. Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes and Its Film Adaptations

Author(s): Biljana Oklopcic / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2017

Whether in art or science, adaptation does not refer to something original but to a mutated and permutated version of a pre-existing original. In literature, adaptation occurs first when real-life stories are adapted into fiction; these fictions then often undergo a second technological adaptation as literary works are adapted into theatrical productions for stage or film. This paper explores one such doubled adaptation; it examines how the black rapist myth, which grew out of the social and cultural realities of the Jim Crow South, was transformed in E.R. Burroughs’ portrayal of Terkoz in the popular adventure novel, Tarzan of the Apes (1914), and then how this fiction was adapted into multiple and varied films between 1918 and 2016.

ADLÎ DÎVÂNI VE AHMET PAŞA DÎVÂNI’NIN ANLAM DÜNYASI BAKIMINDAN KARŞILAŞTIRILMASI

Author(s): Yakup Yesilyaprak / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 36/2017

Almost everybody who is interested in literature and poetry has an idea in terms of rating a poet as a good poet or a bad poet in his mind. However, the same is not the case according to what criteria this rating is performed. If there are no criteria and concrete references in the mind of the person in terms of a rating or evaluation, the rating or evaluation in question will be unhealthy. This also indicates that the person does not have the necessary consciousness and accumulation of knowledge when evaluating a literary work. Because, if the person regards a literary text as superior to another literary text based on some criteria, his criteria or provision, which is the result of these criteria, even if they are wrong, can provide important data concerning the nature of the text. In this study, the criteria and concrete references that distinguish a literary text from another literary text, or a poet from another poet were put forward specific to the case of the divans of Adli (Adlî) and Ahmet Pasha. The aim, however, was both to demonstrate the role of the method of comparison in achieving the true character of a literary work, and to encourage people to turn to concrete references when two poets or literary works are compared or evaluated. The reason behind the selection of Ahmet Pasha and Adli as poets was to believe that it was necessary to compare Ahmet Pasha – being considered by many researchers to be the best poet of his time and the founder of the classical Turkish poetry, but not much concrete data have been presented to support this – and Adlî – relatively having remained in the shadows – based on concrete data. Accordingly, it was one of the most important goals of this study to suggest criteria to consider when a poem is said to be good or bad. In this direction, the materials that the poets possessed and the way they used these materials constituted the basic action points of this study.

Aesop for Schoolchildren (1804)

Author(s): Matija Antun Relkovic / Language(s): English,Croatian / Issue: 1/2017

Matija Antun Relković (1732–1798) was a Croatian writer in the period of Enlightenment. This issue of Dusty Covers presents all the woodcuts and vignettes from Relković’s book which are reprinted in their respective textual contexts. The book Esopove fabule za slavonsku u skullu hodechju dicu sastavljene [Aesop’s Fables, Composed for Slavonic School-going Children] was published in Osijek, six years after Relković’s death. It covers 144 octavo pages which contain one hundred fables, the cover illustration, 22 woodcuts, and ten vignettes.

African Woman Rises from the Ashes: Alice Walker’s Mimicry of Classic Ethnography in Possessing the Secret of Joy

Author(s): Zohreh Ramin,Farshid Nowrouzi Roshnavand / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

Before the advent of deconstructive schools of thought in the second half of the twentieth century, anthropology and ethnography were hailed as scientific disciplines whose major consideration was to provide an objective analysis of other cultures. However, the launch of such critical approaches as postcolonialism, feminism, and postmodernism has nullified the two disciplines’ claim to scientificity and objectivity by laying bare their sexist, racist backdrop. In the postist zeitgeist, new ethnographies have been promoted in an attempt to disrupt the hierarchical relationship between the researcher and the studied subject of classic ethnography through including first-hand marginalized voices. Moreover, they blur the long-held generic boundaries between science and fiction via establishing the “ethnographic novel” as a medium that committedly voices the subalterns. Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992) is one of these new ethnographic novels which has as its protagonist an oppressed African woman. What makes Walker’s work distinct and notable is that the feminist writer subversively employs the conventional mode of ethnographic writing to stand up to African patriarchy and its horrific ritual of female circumcision.