Fantastyczny tygiel

Synkretyzm gatunkowy i kulturowy w cyklu "Rzeki Londynu" Bena Aaronovitcha

Author(s): Sylwia Borowska-Szerszun / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The chapter, by Sylwia Borowska-Szerszun, explores generic and cultural syncretism in Ben Aaronovitch’s cycle Rivers of London. Having defined urban fantasy, the author proceeds to place emphasis on the overwhelming heterogeneity adapted within the genre, which suggests its openness to various influences, transformations and modifications. In this particular case the elements of urban fantasy and the criminal novel have been successfully incorporated to create a harmonious whole. The cycle also relies on a hybrid ethnic identity of the protagonist and his dialogic relationship with a more experienced wizard, a representative of the former imperial order, to suggest that peaceful cooperation is possible despite differences in ethnic, social and class background. Examining the vision of a city as a melting pot, the author argues that the fantastic level of the text has been construed as just one more component of a multicultural London in which different cultures, nationalities and religions meet. The cycle breaks the predominance of whiteness in the fantasy genre, and introduces instead social and cultural diversity, which reveals the potential of urban fantasy to deal with difficult issues of our times and provide a valid commentary about contemporary reality.

"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.

Ofiara czy drapieżca? Kobieta-potwór w wybranych powieściach Aleksieja Szołochowa

Author(s): Anna N. Wilk / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Anna N. Wilk’s chapter delivers an analysis of novels by Alexei Sholokhov (Tyelo and Podval ) as an example of an updated vision of the dark side of femininity. Over the centuries, women have been accused of having magical abilities. Consequently, their physicality have been viewed as arousing both desire and fear of death, or loss of control over one’s life. Different varieties of female monsters survived in cultures aroundthe world as the antithesis of the usual “human” women, such as, for example, demonic lovers or vindictive, malicious ghosts. Despite the development of civilization and social changes leading to the empowerment of women in family, social, and professional life, the aforementioned concerns are still haunting the collective imagination. In Sholokhov’s novels, “women-monsters” focus their attacks on men, exhibiting outrageous brutality and sadism. Wilk’s analysis allows to demonstrate that the fear of the negative femininity is still an actual, timeless trope in popular culture.

Gotyckie figuracje Innego a problem winy, przemocy i braku solidarności w powieści "Przeklęci" Joyce Carol Oates

Author(s): Magdalena Łachacz / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

In the chapter, Magdalena Łachacz proposes an in-depth analysis of the spectral characters of the child/woman and the bridegroom. These ghostly spectres make abrupt appearances at critical moments of the narrative set in the the Princeton community during the cusp year of 1905 into 1906 following traumatic and haunting events. The objectice of the introduction chapter is to place the novel within the confines of the American gothic genre with typical gothic motives. This particular genre delivers a disturbing experience with the dark and obscure aspects of American history with particular interest in the institution of slavery and its problems of racial and sexual abuse. In relation to the aesthetics of the American gothic, it is conceivable to associate the specters in Oates’ novel with the demonic protagonists of Charles Brockden Brown’s and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s fictional works—both pivotal writers of the genre. Hence there exists the possibility of looking at the spectre as the representation of the “Other” in typical American gothic oeuvres. Furthermore, one can perceive the relationship between the experiences of the “otherness” and the problem of guilt suffered by the protagonists of the privileged social class. Consequently, the scope of the analysis finds itself engrossed on the issue of the traumatic repressed experiences that may return by republication of postmodern slave narratives. Therefore, the question of language becomes imminent for the gothic-like representation of the figure of the “Other” in Oates’s novel. Nevertheless the text is permeated by cognitive pessimism. “The Accursed” seem to establish, thanks to the gothic convention, an idiosyncratic language capable of expressing the terror of the violent experiences within a community environment where there is a lack of solidarity with the victims. In effect, Oates’s novel can be approached as a step towards the aesthetic characterization of the “Other” in the recounting of the “unspoken crime” which remains the spectre that continues to haunt contemporary American culture.

Минко Николов и Франц Кафка

Author(s): Mladen Vlashki / Language(s): Bulgarian Publication Year: 0

Minko Nikolov is the first literary scientist and critic in the Republic of Bulgaria to have studied Kafka’s work. The present article is a reconstruction of his sources and choices of interpretation. Furthermore, it supports the idea of revealing „how things are done“. During the stay of Minkov in East-Berlin in 1956-1958 he changes his dogmatic Marxist position and orientates his arguments in interpreting Kafka towards the work of the Austrian Marxist Ernst Fischer. After 1962 he starts correspondence with him and evaluates his works as much needed for the Bulgarian intellectuals in connection to the overcoming of the Stalinist spirit in the Bulgarian culture of the 1960s. In this way Minko Nikolov, by meeting Kafka, sets sail on the road of literature dissidence, which for him ends with suicide in 1966, and for Fischer – with a stigmatization as a renegade personally from Brezhnev and exclusion from the communist party.

Dekolonizacija pisanjem kroz metodološke leće Linde Tuhiwai Smith

Author(s): Dina Glavan / Language(s): Croatian Publication Year: 0

The subject of this paper is the concept of decolonization and its elaboration through the methodology of Linda Tuhiwai Smith. Smith quotes 25 »Indigenous Projects« as 25 different ways through which decolonization can be achieved. By placing the whole process somewhere between personal and political, the work of decolonization is approached through the display of postcolonial literature by choosing writing as the release medium. As demonstrated by the development of writing as a decolonizing tool of Dalit or »the untouchables« through the prism of the caste system of India, the paper shows the mapping of individual male and female voices that re–create their history and identity through short stories, poetry, novels, essays. In conclusion, the paper tries to give a feminist perspective of the subject by focusing on women’s writing.

Edebiyat ve Posthümanizm

Author(s): Sümeyra Buran / Language(s): Turkish Publication Year: 0

Çevre ve teknolojideki değişimler, insanlık ve doğa tarihini her dönemde etkilemiştir. Günümüzde ise bu değişimler giderek hızlanmakta ve doğa, insan ve teknolojinin farklı seviyelerde iç içe geçtiği bir kırılma dönemi yaşanmaktadır. Teknobilimsel kültürlerin çoğalması, küresel ekonomik zorluklar, çevresel tahribatın ve doğal felaketlerin artması, dijitalleşmenin yayılması, insan ve insan olmayan varlıklar arasındaki geleneksel sınırların teknolojik, biyolojik ve çevresel düzeylerde aşınması ve bulanıklaşması, insanlık ve insanlığın içinde yaşadığı çevre için alternatif fikirler ve düşünceler arayışına yol açmaktadır. Dijital yaşam tarzları, sanal gerçeklik teknolojileri, sanallaşma gibi teknobilimsel, kültürel ve sosyal eksenlerdeki hızlı gelişmeler insanlığın yaşam serüvenini yeniden şekillendirmektedir. Posthümanizm, tam da bu çoklu gelişmeler sonucunda doğan, insanlığın yaşam biçimlerini, çevre ve doğa ile ilişkilerini yeniden düzenlemesi gerektiğini öngören bir paradigma değişikliğidir. Posthümanizm, tüm bu dönüşümlerin bir yansıması olarak geçmiş, bugün ve gelecek arasındaki bağları irdeler; bu bağlamda insan, insandışı, insanötesi ve insanüstü alternatif senaryolara dayanan araştırmalara odaklanır.

Gaston Bachelard a francuskie środowisko naukowe i intelektualne

Author(s): Teresa Castelão-Lawless / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Pojęcie czasu u Gastona Bachelarda

Author(s): Stéphane Partiot / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Odnos središta i periferije u oblikovanju književnoga kanona: hrvatsko-poljski književnopovijesni primjeri

Author(s): Tea Rogić Musa / Language(s): Croatian Publication Year: 0

Using the examples from Romanticism and Moderna period, this paper will examine the opposition centre-periphery regarding the role of the ideology of pan-Slavic reciprocity in the field of Polish-Croatian literary ties. Next, we will describe the process of attribution within literary and cultural history in which a series of so-called great authors have arisen, and to which their communities (Polish and Croatian) attribute central aesthetic and ideological roles. Further, starting from the assumption that the Polish and Croatian cultural communities used their literary canon to legitimise their own artistic and social inclinations, we shall attempt to determine the universalistic characteristics that allowed the Polish literary canon to become a desirable alternative and a source of homogenizing poetics that enabled the aesthetic synchrony of Croatian literature with a European paradigm in two literary periods – Romanticism and its younger relative, Moderna.

CONCEPTUL „SPIRITUS LOCI” REFLECTAT ÎN LITERATURĂ

Author(s): Elena Negoiță / Language(s): Romanian Publication Year: 0

Since the oldest of times, people have tried to comprehend the environment,in all its aspects: sky, soil, water, natural phenomena and animals. The human beingrealized that it cannot compete with the power of the universe. Unable to conquer itsforces, energies, beasts, elements, mankind wanted to tame them. Or at least to findsome explanations for them, in order to possess knowledge on how to avoid them.The human race tried to grasp the enigma of lightning and thunder peal, the mysteryof earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, it tried to decipher the secrets of the worldthat’s invisible to the human eye, to unravel the riddles of metaphysics. An elementof the intangible that caught the attention of the human societies is genius loci/spiritus loci. Over the past centuries, the Latin expression “genius of the place/ spiritof the place” has earned various acceptances.Regardless of the multiple meanings of the phrase, “genius loci” alwaysinteracted with people that attempted to peacefully communicate with the telluricenergy. This mutual conditioning is found in multiple literary works, from variouscontinents. The writers of the magic realism illustrated the human being’sdependence over a certain place, but also the human’s mark over a terrestrialsurface.

Жан Оризе - Азбука на междувремието

Author(s): Sonya Aleksandrova / Language(s): Bulgarian Publication Year: 0

The current text presents Jean Orizet’s point of view toward the basic concept of his works for “entretemps”. The specific understanding of this concept allows transitions across different by nationality creators and works, which are individually utilized so as to serve as an alphabet for the new creation. Their insertion in the author’s text is regarded here as building elements without which “the awakening” of the subjective voice would not be possible. The artistic parameters of the selected “stories from entretemps” allows for the building of a “concentric-circular work with quotations, echoing and references, leaning towards universal human union”.

Figura drugog kao otvoreni projekat, na primeru albanskih autora iz Albanije i sa Kosova

Author(s): Saša Ćirić / Language(s): Serbian Publication Year: 0

This article offers a comparative analysis of literary works of authors from Albania and Kosovo translated into Serbian in the period after 2000. It detects the notions of the figure of the other by making recourse to cultural and political references to the conflict situations found in these books. The article is divided into sections according to the literary genres of the analysed books (novels, short fiction, poetry, drama) and the region that the authors refer to (Albania and Kosovo). The crucial distinction between the authors from Albania and Kosovo is the domination of political other for the former in comparison to the ethnic other for the latter. The authors from Albania are preoccupied by the phenomenon of auto-isolationistic Albanian totalitarianism, while the authors from Kosovo are obsessed by the trauma of Serbian-Albanian war 1998-1999 war at Kosovo. Serbian-Albanian relations are presented as relations of collective distance and deep mistrust, with no examples of achieved interethnic friendship or love affairs. Another feature characteristics for the works of the authors analysed in this article is the resistance to the political authoritarianism and patriarchal conservatism in the form of a satire, as well as examples of religious tolerance and rejecting revanchism.

Književnost kao ratni diskurs Albanski i srpski pisci u „ratu rečima“

Author(s): Anton Berishaj / Language(s): Serbian Publication Year: 0

This essay offers theoretical and explanatory model of the literary war discourse, which is described thorough its three seminal features: 1. Literary war discourse is a discourse that by necessity creates special referential relations with a particular contexts, that is with the real and symbolic power, politics and its actors, by way of replicating textual functions into context and particular rhetorical and semantic strategies, and thus by establishing a specific model of communication; 2. Literary war discourse is pervasive – in itself, under “its aegis”, it can encompass particular discourses – theoretical, religious, scientific, legal, politico-historical etc. Literary war discourse, as the war discourse in general, appears as overarching discourse, aiming (and to the large extend succeeding) to reach even to the infinitesimal point of communicational space – and one which rules this space excluding the Other from it, depriving the Other actors and Different discursive action (that would enable for the projection and creation of different political decisions) from their space; 3. Literary war discourse is a cannibalistic discourse – discourse that symbolically eats its “subject”, as well as other texts and discursive subjects whose decisions do not belong to the field of war discourse, by creating a pervasive referential framework (Goodman, 1978), always, of course, taken in the relations and functional proportions under 1 and 2. The real “subject” of this discourse is the destruction of Other, devouring the life of Others and finding jouissance and eros (Barthes, 1975) in that “devouring”.

SROVNÁNÍ POSTAV ZE SLOVANSKÝCH MÝTŮ A LEGEND S IDENTICKÝMI POSTAVAMI V LITERATUŘE FANTASY

Author(s): Lucie Fiurášková / Language(s): Czech Publication Year: 0

This article deals with characters from Slavonic, predominantly Czech, legends that occur in texts of contemporary fantasy writers. The comparision is made between individual characters and their actions in legends and in contemporary texts. The similarities and differences between them are, subsequently, laid out. The changes characters have to undergo in order to become fantasy heroes and modern versions of themselves are mapped out as well.

FROM TANGO TO ROCK ‘N’ ROLL. A COMPARATIVE STUDY IN TWO DISSIDENT DRAMAS

Author(s): Katarzyna Jaworska / Language(s): Czech Publication Year: 0

This paper aims to examine Sławomir Mrożek’s Tango and Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll. Both plays explore the concept of intelligentsia, its role and condition in a postmodern society. Although these plays were written at different periods, they have the same motives of rebellion and conformity. Both texts challenge the conventions of bourgeois drama. Both plays convey an ideological message by criticizing totalitarianism and its influence on society and an individual. Furthermore, popular culture and music that are present in both plays reflect the social and cultural changes of 20th century. Tango and Rock ‘n’ Roll became symbols of a certain culture and ideology. The comparative study of the two plays is aimed at examining such their similarities as, for example, the rise and fall of communist regime in Central Europe.

THE INTENTIONALITY OF THE IMAGINATION IN ST. TERESA OF ÁVILA

Author(s): Silvia Brodňanová / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

This paper pretends to make a brief incursion into the teachings of Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) about the imagination throughout her four main writings: The Life, The Way of Perfection, The Interior Castle and The Book of the Foundations. Firstly, it offers a terminological clarification. Secondly, it presents the Teresian semantics of the terms.

« Barbe Bleue » d'Amélie Nothomb - avatars et perspectives

Author(s): Elena Simina Bădărău / Language(s): French Publication Year: 0

"Blue Beard" by Amélie Nothomb illustrates from the very beginning certain elements of intertextuality and seeks to enrich the famous story of Charles Perrault through an insolit perspective and innovative style, dynamic dialogues and powerful characters showing extreme passions. One can identify here the phenomenology of the mystery referring to a secret chamber, associated with inexpressible things, whose indiscretion becomes overwhelming. Stepping through the door (“l’entr-ouvert”) - unavoidable and terrifying place, means beyond doubt changing the characters’s lives. Our study mainly refers to a comparative analysis which focuses both on the metamorphosis of the story into a novel and the avatars of the latter one along the process of narration or adaptation from Blue Beard myth in a modern context, in short, the premises of an original writing, surprising and profound at the same time.

Le modèle français dans la culture roumaine au XIXe siècle – la formation de la jeune génération

Author(s): Dana Damian / Language(s): French Publication Year: 0

During the 19th century, the French model exerted a decisive influence on the modernizing Romanian social, intellectual and cultural life, integrating mentalities of Western Europe different from the Eastern “models” - Turkish, Greek, Russian - until then. French influence reached its peak and manifested itself in almost all areas of social and cultural life. The Romanians found in French culture and spirituality a source of inspiration, a model, a training base. Through French influence, Romanian culture crosses the threshold to modernity. One can observe the readiness of the Romanians to push the door of the West, an action capable of triggering a series of visible and irreversible acts for the creation of the modern state.

Българо-кипърски връзки в областта на литературата

Author(s): Boryana Manolova / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Publication Year: 0

This report examines the Bulgarian-Cypriot relations in the field of literature. For this purpose, various articles, books and interviews with well-known researchers of Cypriot literature have been studied. Some accents and events from the history that have a direct impact on the literary relations between Cyprus and Bulgaria are considered. The research of the Bulgarian-Cypriot relations in the field of literature unfolds the chronology of their origin, their development during some of the more significant historical periods, as well as the interaction of the Bulgarian and Cypriot literature to the present day. Some similar characteristics between Bulgarian and Cypriot literature are indicated. Researchers of Cypriot literature, considered in this article, outline the origin and development of the connections of Cypriot literature and its interaction with Bulgarian literature. In addition they reveal the way in which Cypriot literature is popularized in Bulgaria, as well as the popularization of Bulgarian literature in Cyprus.