POPULISM IN CONTEMPORARY THEATRE

Author(s): Christine HAMON-SIRÉJOLS / Language(s): English Issue: 03/2020

If the choice of plays such as Ubu Roi or Macbeth was not rare in productions denouncing dictatorship in Latin America or in some communist countries during the seventies and eighties of the 20th century, we can notice that during the last five years several classical texts have been chosen through Europe to speak about religious pressure and political hypocrisy (Tartuffe) or populist tendencies (Coriolanus). Some of them were theatre plays, some were novels (The Trial by Franz Kafka staged by Krystian Lupa), some productions strictly followed the text, others widely adapted it (The Curse by Stanisław Wyspiański, staged by Oliver Frljić). I would like to examine a few examples of these performances and question their impact on theatre and society.

ЗА НЯКОИ ИМЕНА И ПРОЗВИЩА В БЪЛГАРСКАТА И В АНГЛИЙСКАТА ЛИТЕРАТУРА

Author(s): Ivanka Sakareva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2021

National internationalism in late 19th-century utopias by Mór Jókai, Edward Bellamy, and William Morris

Author(s): Sándor Hites / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

The paper looks at two major representatives of fin-de-siècle utopian fiction, Edward Bellamy’s 1888 Looking Backward 2000–1887, William Morris’s 1890 News from Nowhere, and an earlier work by the Hungarian novelist Mór Jókai, The Novel of the Century to Come (A jövőszázad regénye, 1872–1874). I examine their various strategies regarding the spatial and historical aspects of utopian transformation as well as their respective positions toward the relationof commerce and community. On the whole, I suggest that the pattern of nationally informed or biased internationalism that seems to underlie all three novels might be traced back to the enlightened concept of patriotic cosmopolitanism.

Ágnes Györke – Imola Bülgözdi (eds.): Geographies of Affect in Contemporary Literature and Visual Culture: Central Europe and the West

Author(s): Rana Yürüker / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

Dignity, healing, and virtue: Bioethical concerns in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never let me go

Author(s): Ivan Lacko / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2024

The article aims to examine bioethical concerns presented in Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel Never Let Me Go, focusing on the lives of cloned beings who become organ donors for non-cloned humans. The analysis addresses such ethical implications of cloning and organ donation as dignity, healing, care, and virtue. Through the lens of utilitarian and virtue ethics, the analysis focuses on the novel’s portrayal of these characters, examining how these models function in the narrative and enhance its literary effect. Ishiguro’s text highlights some of the bioethical concerns surrounding clone characters in fiction. The novel questions whether clone characters are part of a social transformation or if they are part of the existing distinction between nature and artifact. The bioethical understanding of human dignity is emphasized, as it is intrinsic to every human being.

THE RECEPTION OF WILLIAM BLAKE’S WORK BY THE EYES OF A ROMANIAN POST-1989 LITERARY CRITIC

Author(s): Paul-Cristian Albu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 38/2024

Through this short article, we are interested in observing how Romanian literary critic plans to interpret William Blake's work in a Romanian context. This writer manages to express his objectivity when speaking of the reception of William Blake’s work in the current Romanian context. We are astonished to see this writer's analytical thinking, mathematical precision, and how this writer compounds his structural work. By reading his book, we can observe the differences in interpretation in a heteroclite literary context, Romanian vs English.

Terror, Literature, History: Michel Foucault and Ann Radcliffe

Author(s): Josef Fulka / Language(s): English Issue: 70/2024

The object of the present study is a particular literary reference that repeatedly appears in Michel Foucault’s work — a reference to the work of Ann Radcliffe. We present a close study of the passages where Foucault, in one way or another, deals with Ann Radcliffe’s novels (or novels that he believed to be written by Radcliffe), and attempt to show that Foucault’s interest in the “literature of terror” is not at all accidental. For Foucault, Gothic fiction is a literary “embodiment” of the historical transition from classicism to modernity.

The Politics of Ambiguity in Historical Fiction Writing

Author(s): Călina Părău / Language(s): English Issue: Suppl. 1/2023

This paper tries to analyze the role of ambiguity and uncertainty in representations of the past and their effect upon processes of meaning production. It asks how fiction writing responds to the idea of the cultural appropriation of the sufferings of the other, and what collective trauma means from the perspective of culturally non-defined constellations of remembrance. I will analyze ambiguity in relation to the poetics of intersections, distances and traces which are shaped by the constant negotiation between unifying, totalizing strategies of remembrance confronted with perceptions of marginal, fragmentary cultural remembrance. Our discontinuous planetary community also sees itself through the ways in which it defines the relationship between personal and collective spaces of historical consciousness, or between the ephemeral and the memorable. Thus, I will rely on a brief analysis of Colum McCann’s novels in order to investigate the way in which contemporary literature reflects the interplay between memories of the forgotten and the historical self. In trying to represent historical moments through multiple temporalities, his novels create dissonant possibilities of perceiving the inclusiveness and exclusiveness of the individual on a global, historical stage.

World-wide conflicts, insular solutions: Universalizing government, language and race in H. G. Wells’s A Modern Utopia and Kang Youwei’s The Great Unity

Author(s): Johannes D. Kaminski / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2024

In H. G. Wells’ s and Kang Youwei’ s early 20th century utopias, World Governments take center stage by proposing global political orders to prevent large-scale wars. Both texts propose not only the centralization of military and juridical power, but also the homogenization of culture and language as well as race. Despite both texts’ ostentatious cosmopolitanism, however, their visions are compromised by their (Anglo- and Sinocentric) ethnocentrism and racism. In light of the complex narrative forms of both texts, this article proposes an alternative to judging them by today’s liberal values. Their sprawling form requires a consideration of their full heterogeneity, including Wells’ s use of narrative irony and Kang’ s intergalactic vision of cosmic citizenship.

Okoliš, kasnoosmanska Bosna i engleska putopisna literatura: selektivna bibliografija radova

Author(s): Lamija Ljuša / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 61/2024

Razvoj povijesti okoliša kao znanstvenog područja posljednjih decenija izuzetno se brzo razvija i u sve većem je fokusu zanimanja istraživača. Radi se o perspektivi povijesti „koja teži razumijevanju života, rada i mišljenja ljudskih bića u odnosu na ostalu prirodu kroz promjene koje donosi vrijeme.“ Kako je u fokusu ove znanstvene discipline stalna interakcija između ljudi i prirode, aktuelnom je čini nagomilavanje problema u vezi sa okolišem, globalne klimatske promjene i radikalne promjene okoliša uzrokovane upravo ljudskim faktorom, ali i obrnuto, utjecaj okolišnih faktora na ljudsku povijest.

C.S. LEWIS’ THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS. THE NOVEL AND ITS DRAMATIZATION

Author(s): Miruna Ciocoi-Pop / Language(s): English Issue: 39/2024

The history of literature shows that the text is almost always adaptable to stage. A perfect example in this sense is the epistolary novel. Its form needs next to no adaptation when rendered on stage. The following article focuses on C.S. Lewis’ famous epistolary novel, The Screwtape Letters, on its belletristic qualities and the features that are ideal instruments for a theatrical adaptation.

Representations of Endurance, Solidarity and Empathy

Author(s): / Language(s): English Issue: 29/2024

Representations of Endurance, Solidarity and Empathy. We live in a world of high connectivity on multiple levels, making communication and cooperation of central importance to communities across the globe. Unfortunately, recent history has made us witnesses to a heavily unstable political, social and economic climate, in a European and international context. In the light of the most recent events in the global and European history, coping with crises on multiple levels has become crucial. The impact of societal changes accompanied by the dramatic implications of war have brought about significant mutations in the world. The troubled state of nations involved in or threatened by war or natural calamity rests on tension, a feeling of discontent and fear which, in turn, can generate suffering, fragmentation, and even chaos.

Incredulity toward Heroism: Ackroyd as a Gallant Storyteller against the Heroic Tradition

Author(s): Nazan Yıldız / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2023

Heroism as an unremitting subject conquers and even haunts literature as well as history. Historical and fictitious heroes are guiding spirits of human beings regardless of time and geography. Historians and writers have so sternly adhered to the ideals of heroism that this fascination has been transformed into hero worship dating back to antiquity, bringing heroism to the forefront as a metanarrative in history and literature. Particularly contributing to the undying predicament of literature caught between the ideal and the real, causes of heroism have been largely left unquestioned putting heroes in the shoes of a messiah. Peter Ackroyd (1949-), renowned for his historiographic metafictions fashioned within postmodernism, dares to challenge this unimpeached -ism in The Fall of Troy (2006). In the novel, Ackroyd rewrites the history of Troy and introduces an eccentric half-real hero, Heinrich Obermann, against celebrated heroes of history and literature. Accordingly, this paper reads heroism as a metanarrative and delineates how Ackroyd sketches an atypical hero by acting contrary to traditional heroism and heroic literary tradition in his vibrant postmodern parody, The Fall of Troy.

ШЕКСПИР И ИНТЕРМЕДИЈАЛНОСТ НА ПРИМЕРУ ТЕЛЕВИЗИЈСКЕ СЕРИЈЕ ПРАЋКЕ И СТРЕЛЕ

Author(s): Ana M. Andrejević / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 29/2024

Shakespeare’s works have historically been associated with elite culture, yet their adaptation and integration into popular culture remain pertinent. His narratives hold such significance in global culture that they spontaneously generate numerous adaptations and sequels through the ‘snowball effect’, as defined by Ryan, both within the same medium and across different media. In the initial stages of adapting Shakespeare’s plays, the adaptations were intermedial. However, starting from the Romantic era, they also underwent reshaping in other media, utilising remediation for the purposes of modernisation and contextualisation. In today’s electronic and new media era, Shakespeare’s plays undergo a transformation across diverse media platforms, where familiar contents are transposed in various ways. Many intermedial and transmedial adaptations borrow recognisable topoi, characters, or plots, creating new narratives that often lack artistic depth. Conversely, the Canadian television series Slings and Arrows distinguishes itself by emphasising the enduring artistic value of Shakespeare’s narrative across every medium. Spanning three seasons, the series portrays the challenges of a fictional theatre company as it prepares to produce three of Shakespeare’s plays: Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear. Within this context, we witness the process of remediation, which involves the integration of one media form into another. By presenting the fundamental characteristics of theatre and highlighting its artistic nature, the series Slings and Arrows becomes both an instructive and entertaining media format. This paper aims to explain the method and level of success of the remediation process within the context of Shakespeare’s authentic narrative. The research method draws upon Bolter and Grusin’s theory of remediation in conjunction with Ryan’s and Jenkins’ concepts of intermediality and transmediality

Poetic/Rhetorical Ethos and the Performative Power of Words in the “French” Books of The Prelude

Author(s): Catherine Bois / Language(s): English Issue: 68/2024

Wordsworth attended revolutionary debates in Paris in 1791. As a young republican he felt unskilled in public speaking. When he later sympathized with Tory principles he extolled Burke’s oratorical genius. However, he never disowned his early use of ideologically loaded words like “liberty.” Wordsworth’s poetic ethos is related to collaboration with the reader. Classical argumentation is a feature of his work, but his verse rhetoric favours the performative power of words. The notion of verbal effectiveness percolates through the sensualist reflection on language from Burke to Condillac and the Idéologues. It was also sustained by the reassessment of style in eighteenth century belletrism and rhetoric of communication. Romantic appraisal of ethos undercuts Aristotle’s ideal of the orator’s control over speech, which depends on a measure of balance between ethos, logos and pathos. Unlike Burke’s Ciceronian rhetoric and neoclassical poetics in Reflections on the Revolution in France, Wordsworth’s periodic syntax in Books 9-11 of The Prelude is energized by words geared to deliberative-cum poetic persuasion. Verbal echoes disseminate memorializing effects through such heterodox spots of time as the “hunger-bitten girl” episode. Ethos permeates the poetic persona and his practice of language indiscriminately, infusing words with an unprecedented combination of ethical and ideological ambiguity.

Blake’s Public Addresses

Author(s): David Duff / Language(s): English Issue: 68/2024

Blake never delivered a public speech but he produced several written addresses “To the Public.” These include his prospectus of 1793 listing for sale his “illuminated books;” the advertising material he created for his 1809 exhibition and his engraving of Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims; and his unpublished “Public Address” (c.1810), which expands his Chaucer prospectuses into an artistic mission statement. This article explains how prospectus-writing taught Blake the language of proclamation that became a key part of his creative repertoire. This shaped not only his promotional writings but also literary works like The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Jerusalem, discussed briefly here. The article ends by suggesting that Blake’s transformation of this now largely forgotten genre mirrors that of other Romantic writers, notably Wordsworth, whose “Prospectus” to The Recluse Blake copied out by hand. His development of the “public address” element of the prospectus is also a powerful example of the revaluation of public utterance which this special issue explores.

Retributivism Gone Mad: Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure

Author(s): David A.J. Richards / Language(s): English Issue: 15/2024

Measure for Measure is ostensibly a comedy (no one dies, and the main penalties at the play’s end are, hilariously, requiring marriage), but it is a much darker comedy than any other Shakespeare wrote written after Hamlet, retaining features of that play’s moral nihilism. Its nihilism takes the form of a criticism of the claims of strong retributivism as a basis for criminal justice, namely, that it is necessary and sufficient for punishment that there be a moral wrong, and the nature of punishment is to be determined by the nature of the wrong (thus, death for killing). The play focusses on the criminalisation of two forms of consensual sex: the commercial sex business of Mistress Overdone and Pompey, her servant, and the non-commercial loving sex of Claudio with Juliet, now pregnant, who shortly intend to marry. The play questions the first comically, the second tragically. The article explores the play’s indictment of strong retributivism, and charts a path to an alternative, namely, restorative justice.

“The Sense of Death is Most in Apprehension” Law and Death in Augustine, Donne and Measure for Measure

Author(s): Terry Reilly / Language(s): English Issue: 15/2024

Early modern English law recognised two forms of death that are mostly unfamiliar to modern culture – civiliten mortuus, a term in Civil Law to indicate that a criminal convicted of a capital crime was considered dead at the time of conviction, not when he was executed, and mortuus saeculo, referring to the form of “secular death” which occurred when a man or woman entered a religious order, such as a convent or monastery (Clarkson and Warren: 261). After developing legal and literary contexts about the contemporary discourse concerning death, using legal cases and selected works of Augustine and John Donne this paper examines representations of these legal definitions of death in Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure.

The Ambiguity of Milk: Lactation and Maternal Identity in Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Author(s): Hanna Gęba / Language(s): English Issue: 15/2024

This article discusses the motif of lactation in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Breastfeeding was an ambiguous phenomenon for Shakespeare’s contemporaries – it meant both an absolute power over the nursing child and an act of self-sacrifice, often out of love. It is no coincidence that Lady Macbeth admits she “had given suck” and that in her monologue directed to “spirits” she asks them to “take her milk for gall” to do dark deeds. The article’s main methodological contexts are the medical knowledge and superstitions about breastfeeding in Early Modern England and sexual difference feminism as it is understood in the works of Elizabeth Grosz and Rosi Braidotti. The argument for such a combination is the non-dichotomic perception of the mind and body relationship in both Shakespeare’s times and these scholars’ theories. By closely examining the motif of lactation we can better understand how Shakespeare depicts motherhood and how he constructs maternal figures in the Scottish Tragedy.

Czy milkną muzy, gdy grają armaty? Perspektywa antropologiczna w romansie Adam i Ewa Sergiusza Piaseckiego

Author(s): Jakub Horbacz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 15/2024

The article is a reading of the work by Sergiusz Piasecki (1899–1964) Adam and Ewa by approaching love in confrontation with the system from an anthropological perspective. Piasecki’s tragic romance is subjected to a critical sketch in a research approach to the affective turn, placing in the center the feelings and emotions of the main characters, as well as the author of the text himself. Piasecki’s words become a determinant about two great loves – Adam’s for Eve and the author’s love for Vilnius and the Vilnius region. For the proper reception of the work, the chosen practice of close reading remains important – focused reading, emphasizing what is detailed, the elements of articulating love and describing the system, as well as specific parts of the work. The whole thing is an attempt at an answer to the question whether the muses fall silent when cannons play in understanding whether love ultimately kills war and the political system. The verification of the meanings hidden in the romance Adam i Ewa does not avoid confrontation with historical and philosophical contexts, thus building a colorful portrait of the Polish, especially Vilnius, socio-political situation in 1939 and the outbreak of World War II, at the intersection of feelings and the system.