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.
Book review: Miłosz wciałowzięty (rec. Stanley Bill, Czesław Miłosz’s Faith in the Flesh: Body, Belief and Human Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021)
More...
The expression “the history of oral literature” contains certain aporias that are rarely encountered in other expressions where “history” is one of the elements. These aporias are evident in two connections: the one that links history with oral literature, and the one manifest in the term “oral literature”. The latter was previously addressed by W. Ong (1982), while the former primarily pertains to the fact that true history of oral literature is elusive. The resolution of the latter issue revolves around our ability to date it. The only chronologically accessible aspect in the context of oral literature is its recorded form. Thus, every history of oral literature is essentially a history of records and their context, to the extent that the context of the record is attainable. This paper explores the concept of literary history that Maja Bošković-Stulli implicitly or explicitly established in her work Usmena književnost (Oral Literature) (History of Croatian Literature, vol. 1) and the way that this history aligns with her ideas about the literary-historical basis of oral literature.
More...
The paper focuses on the question of the semantic aspects and the meta-metrical function of verse in some of the most important contemporary Italian handbooks of prosody and relevant theoretical texts in the period that covers the renewal of prosody and versification studies in Italy in the 1970s, the journal Metrica and handbooks of prosody published in the 1990s, and contemporary works of scholars of prosody and stylistics of the so-called Gruppo Padovano, under the direction of Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo, and the journal Stilistica e metrica italiana. By offering an overview and comparison of various theoretical views and analysing their assumptions and implications, the paper concludes that since the mid-1980s the Italian theory of versification also recognizes, although indirectly and under different terms, the metametrical function of verse forms, despite its still predominantly linguistic orientation. Such change is attributed to the adoption of the diachronic approach, the inclusion of 20th-century poetry in the theory of versification, and especially to a closer nexus between prosody and literary history detectable since the mid-1980s, as well as to the study of verse forms (be they typical or atypical) in their historical context.
More...
The article analyzes Pushkin’s myth as presented in T. Tolstaya’s "The Slynx" (2000), its structure, main components, character specifics, intertextual connections to Russian classics and the author’s own works. The novel enhances the literary tradition of the 20th century and establishes a new artistic paradigm that complements and reinterprets the entire Pushkin mythology. The essential foundations of the Pushkin myth in Tolstaya’s texts were the culture of the Silver Age and Russian traditionalism, which showed interest in the archaic. The author adeptly blends factual and non-factual elements of the poet’s biography, including lines from his texts and allusions, and Pushkin becomes the central reference point justifying the post-apocalyptic city-world. This is achieved by analogy with the Book of Genesis and resembles a primer filled with puppet figures and farce. Despite the various artistic depictions of the poet’s ironic and trickster-like qualities, the image still maintains a sense of mystery that harkens back to ancient times. In the novel, the image of the poet serves as the foundation of the world, representing a sacred point with multiple layers of meaning that ultimately shape the course of history and culture. In her work, T. Tolstaya excludes subjective evaluations and focuses on the archaic need for oral tradition. She conveys the voices of poets by rising above written symbolism, images, and texts.
More...
Review of: Ivo Runtić (ur. i prev.), Antologija njemačkoga pjesništva, priredio Marijan Bobinac, Zagreb: ArTresor naklada, 2021, 407 str.
More...
Review of: Milka Car, (Post-)Imperiale Lektüren: August Šenoas Texte im nationalen und (post-)imperialen Kontext, Wien: Praesens Verlag, 2021, 187 str.
More...
Review of: Tin Lemac, O pjesmi pjesmom (Metadiskurzivne relacije u poeziji), Zagreb: Edicije Božičević, 2023, 148 str.
More...
During and after the Second World War, over 50,000 Estonians were sent to Soviet prison and forced labour camps. Within these camps, some of the repressed Estonians developed their own subculture – prison camp poetry, secretly written on sheets of paper and also memorised. The poems examined in the article were composed predominantly during the latter half of the 1940s and the 1950s, within various prison camps situated in the Karaganda Region, the Kazakh ASSR (Spassky), the Komi ASSR (Vorkuta, Intalag, and Ukhta), Mordovia (Dubravslag), the Gorki Oblast (Unzhlag) and the far northern camps of Kolyma and Krasnoyarsk Krai (Norilsk). The focus of this article is on the emotional depth of these poems and how they encapsulate feelings of fear and fearlessness, despair and hope, anger and sorrow, vengefulness and loathing. The article demonstrates how not succumbing to fear became a survival strategy within a regime of terror for Estonian Gulag poets, and how poetry provided diverse avenues for exploring this approach. Fear was transformed in various ways: Artur Alliksaar’s poetry confronts the possibility of cataclysm with beauty, while the lyrical selves of Valve Pillesaar, Leenart Üllaste, and Helmut Joonuks chose to shut down their minds. Venda Sõelsepp and Annus Rävälä, on the other hand, replaces his fear with sarcasm, while Enno Piir and Enn Uibo’s poems call for terror to be turned against the system itself.
More...
We propose to examine how lyric poetry was used as a politic tool by French kings of the Renaissance period (1515–1589). In France, the building of a specific identity starts with François IOrdonnance de Villers-Cotterêts (1539): all official documents previously in Latin, had now to be in French. The second act was Defence et Illustration de la langue française published by Joachim du Bellay in 1549 ruling on the use of vernacular language in lyrical poetry. Both events gave impetus to the unification of the language, not only in official documents but also in everyday life. As each province had its own idioms, the proposal was ambitious. We focus on Ronsard, the most representative poet of the catholic party during the civil wars of religion, which begin in 1562. In 1566 Ronsard begins his politic career with Les Hymnes, a long poem that celebrates on the catholic dynasty of the Valois family. Agrippa d’Aubigné, as a protestant poet, appreciate the poem enough to recommend it to everybody – lyric poetry rising above religious opinion. After the death of Henri II,Ronsard became a sort of diarist of Catherine de Medici’s politics, as expressed in his Discours des misères de ce temps 1562 and Continuation du discours des misères de ce temps. These texts, which justify the catholic positions of the queen, were published in 10-page booklets to be accessible to the population. The protestants poet including Chandieu, gave a violent answer to these one sided catholic texts. For all the Calvinist, mass is a disgusting ‘théophagie’. During her regency, Catherine de Medici organised a two-year (1562– 1564) visit around the kingdom with her son, Charles IX, in order for people to meet their king. This would be today a sort of ‘enterprise of communication’. It was never done before. Ronsard was required, as a spokesman, to follow the huge royal caravan, contributing to the development of words and new forms of lyric poetry. He wrote various entertainments according to the occasion or place of performance, later collected in Elegies, Mascarades et Bergeries, published by Buon in 1566. After the court returned to Fontainebleau and Paris, Ronsard continued La Franciade, a text he began in 1549. He was also required to manage the reception of Polish ambassadors who came to Tuileries and Fontainebleau to fetch the duke of Alençon (the future king Henri III of France) as new elected polish king. The official artist Antoine Caron has left paintings and drawings of these entertainments. Ronsard’s politic works in connection with the poets of the period change not only the language but also the way of thinking as it was the first step to centralism, which was the aims of the French kings. The same phenomenon took place in the nineteenth century, after the French Revolution in 1789, when poets were needed to bring the people together during a period of inspiration that drew them away from violence. They built a new image of the Renaissance, mixing history and imagination. In 1851, Les Châtiments, in which the poem titled “Le manteau Imperial” (1853) is one of the most ferocious, Victor Hugo protested against “le coup d’état” of Napoléon III. This text denied that Napoleon III was the fair successor of Napoleon I. To place France in context in the history of humanity, Hugo published La Légende des siècles (1859), a long text in alexandrine form which recalled the theme of Franciade: both texts aim to enshrine the history of the French kingdom. In Estonia, when Estonians needed to assert the history of their origins, the same phenomenon took place in 1857 with Kreutzwald’s Kalevipoeg. Lyric poetry is used in tension periods to claim a strong, original and uniform voice in the face of difficulties. In France, in the sixteenth century, lyric poetry was at the origin of a new way of life.
More...
The problem discussed in the article is the emergence of the autonomous literary system on the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, a former Portuguese slave emporium, as well as coffee and cocoa producing colony. Several concurrent narrations concerning the emergence of the Santomense literary system are presented. One of them accentuates the groundbreaking role of a particular institution, Casa dos Estudantes do Império; other narrations inscribe the literature of the tiny archipelago in a larger system of Portuguese-speaking literature (Lusophony). The author of the present article postulates a radical enlargement of the chronological and cultural perspective, including the legacy of the Angolars (rebellious slaves) and their collective awareness in the genesis of the local literary tradition, in parity with such elements as the legacy of the Portuguese colonizers and free Creole social groups (Forros). It could be a way of overcoming the Eurocentric “chronopolitics” that remained valid also in the postcolonial studies, associating the decolonial processes, on the one hand, with the metropolis as a place where the decolonial thought took shape, and on the other, with the chronology, rhythms, and trends of its literary evolution.
More...
The article aims to show that the close connection between culture and humanism, vividly reflected by Vydūnas in his tragedy Pasaulio gaisras („The Fire of the World“) (1922-1928), is a continuation of the tradition of German cultural humanism and not Vedantism. The article begins with a brief discussion of the development of Western humanism, touching on the themes of hospitality, Christian humanism and holiness. The tragedy is remarkable for its parallels with Johann Gottfried Herder's concept of humanism, especially his letters in defense of humanism, Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität (1797). The analysis of the tragedy allows us to say that in the tragedy "Pasaulio gaisras" Vydūnas, similarly to Herder, questions the problem of culture and humanism in the context of war, giving the woman the most important role of educator of humanism and peacemaker. The themes of hospitality, Christian love and cultural missionaryism reflect not only the Western origins of Vydūnas' humanism, but also its critique. Vydūnas shows that highly cultured German officers who graduated from the military academy lacked common sense and empathy. Vydūnas, like Herder, criticises educated but unspiritual people who are detached from practical, everyday "human affairs" and who can only judge a given situation according to the rigid letter of the law and not based on objective, complex reality. Vydūnas shows that a person's detachment from reality inevitably threatens to lead back to barbarism. Vydūnas entrusts the education of future generations to women who, being more closely connected to the domestic environment, are grounded in reality, have preserved their own individuality and are therefore able to appreciate the individuality of others. Vydūnas' humanism is the ability of an individual to learn about the environment and oneself, to develop in cooperation with others, and to be guided by good examples of national and global culture. Only a person who realises oneself and cultivates one's spirit rises to universal human values: wisdom, freedom, justice, virtue. The death of Magė, the protagonist of the tragedy, in her native house, set on fire by the enemy Germans, is like the sacrifice of the first Christian martyrs for the renewal of society.
More...
The article deals with the issues of the functioning of the religious style as one of the varieties of modern Ukrainian literary language. It has a long history, centuries-old traditions and distinct communicative-pragmatic features. In the conditions of statelessness, despite the declared separation of religion and politics, the church has long been an object of manipulation and prohibition by the totalitarian regime. Since the proclamation of Ukraine's independence, religious style has been one of the most relevant areas of Ukrainian linguistics. The general Slavic context testifies to its organic development in accordance with the challenges of the world, and the national challenges provoke a psycho-linguistic Christian understanding of war as one of the most complex threats to the democratic structure of social life.
More...
In the following pages, we present the results of a survey organized by the editors of the journal Svět literatury / World of Literature on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the renewal of the study of comparative literature at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague. The reason for this commemoration was not so much the celebration of the anniversary as the need to look back at the changes in the field both in our local conditions and especially in the international context, and to reflect on its current situation. As some of the responses point out, comparative literature is not a well-known discipline, and this is especially true in the Czech Republic.
More...
Question 1: How do you perceive the current role of comparative literature in the humanities, or in the public sphere? Question 2: What do you consider as the major changes in the themes and approaches of comparative literature over the last thirty years, and which of the current themes and approaches seem crucial to you? Question 3: What role does the place where you live/teach and your cultural formation play in your approach and your view of comparative literature?
More...
The article analyses the importance of female solidarity and support while accentuating the need for ‚sisterhood‘, which is viewed as the main incentive to various ways of feminist struggle, especially to the development of the female self. While relying on feminist theory, the article focuses on the relationship between female characters in the novel Psi, who, in different, often subtle ways, lead to the revelation of the self and prove that in taking care of the other we find the basis for both individual and social change. This is why the article also aims to show that literature — just as any form of art — expands one‘s views and encourages readers to explore and establish their own personality. Furthermore, while relying on Rita Felski‘s theory of familiarity, passion and inspiration in the approach to a literary text, it shows that emotions can be part of the feminist response to the world of conflict and power, and that books and their analysis can give insight into the possibility of change of our own thoughts and relations to the self and the other.
More...
Review of: Roman Pavić, Villefranche, Fraktura, Zaprešić, 2024-
More...
Review of: Jasna Baštić, Odlazak u noć, Jesenski i Turk, Zagreb, 2023.
More...
Review of: Dražen Katunarić, Što mi je šaputao Zeus?, HDP, Zagreb, 2023.
More...
This article analyses little-known short stories of modern Ukrainian writers Valerian Pidmohylny and Mykhailo Yatskiv in the context of the 20th century existentialism. It can be considered as a cultural phenomenon which combines philosophy with literature. Pidmohylny’s short stories were significantly influenced primarily by the ideas of the European philosophers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Therefore, we can search for similar motives in the works of Pidmohylny and the existentialists, which developed under the influence of the ideas of Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. Also, the authors consider Yatskiv’s short stories through the prism of the core concepts of existentialism, namely, fate and death. Pidmohylny and Yatskiv can be assigned to existential writers on the basis of retrospective analysis of the themes of their short stories and the thematic areas of 20th century existentialism
More...
