The Presence of the Past: History and Imagination in Uday Prakāśs’ Vāren hesṭiṅgs kā sāḍ̃

Author(s): Veronica Ghirardi / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

The paper aims at discussing the role and meaning of history in a Hindi short story by Uday Prakāś, Vāren hesṭiṅgs kā sā̃ḍ (“Warren Hastings’ Bull”, 1996). Based on the historical figure of Warren Hastings, this work of fiction intermingles fantasy and facts, imagination and history. Significantly, Uday Prakāś warns his readers about this matter right at the beginning of the narrative: if readers look for history in his short story, they will be left “with a heap of sand in their hands”. This and similar statements immediately give rise to other crucial questions, i.e. what exactly is the history that the readers expect to find in the story? What are the strategies adopted by the author while addressing the subject of history? What is the role and meaning of the past in a postcolonial and progressively postmodern reality like that of India at the dawn of the new millennium? By focusing on some ‘dark areas’ of Warren Hastings’ private life, Uday Prakāś not only offers an unusual perspective from which to view the figure of the British Governor but also engages his readers in an explicit reflection on the meaning and the presence of the past in our own reality. A short story (kahanī), based on a two hundred-and-fifty-years old tale (kathā), becomes a powerful instrument for criticizing the anomalies of the contemporary world.

“Helpless Indian”: The Sacred Cow as the Symbol of Hindu-Muslim Unity in a Late Nineteenth-Century Hindi Novel

Author(s): Justyna Wiśniewska-Singh / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

In the colonial North India of the late 19th century, the cow emerged as a powerful symbol of imagining the nation. The present paper explores how the image of the sacred cow was reinterpreted in the new sociopolitical context and subsequently employed in the Hindi novel, the development of which coincided with massive campaigns for cow protection. To this end, I study one of the earliest Hindi novels, Nissahāy hindū, written by Rādhākr̥ṣṇadās in 1881 and published in 1890. The novel can be read as a documentary evidence of polemics surrounding the process of identity formation and circumstances attending it, as articulated in the Hindi vernacular during the last decades of the 19th century. The agitation for cow protection is the novel’s leitmotif revolving around the theme of Hindu-Muslim unity, framed in an original and unconventional way. It introduces the bold idea of a Muslim agitating for cow protection and sacrificing himself for the movement. The analysis of the novel, alongside Bhāratendu Hariścandra’s seminal speech of 1884, reveals growing concerns regarding the Hindu-Muslim-British relations at the time of momentous religious, social and economic changes.

Memory and Reflective Nostalgia in "To the Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf and "The Go-Between" by L. P. Hartley

Author(s): Sylwia Janina Wojciechowska / Language(s): English Issue: 14(43)/2021

The mode of nostalgia for past happiness is central in contemporary accounts of earlier epochs, and it becomes particularly visible in British prose fiction set in the first half of the twentieth century. I argue that in such accounts memories and recollections are shaped by the mode of nostalgia. This paper focuses on the aspects of reflective nostalgia as recently theorized by Svetlana Boym. It opens with a short introduction into the history of nostalgia and the experience of war for generating a nostalgic longing for the past. It also elaborates on the etymological issues and implications suggested by concepts of nostos [the return] and algos [pain]. I would argue that memories featured in British twentieth-century prose fiction are influenced by the workings of nostalgia which may be either idealizing or imbued with pain and sorrow. Consequently, I claim that the focus placed on the act of nostos promotes the interplay of nostalgia and the pastoral mode; by contrast, the expression of algos rather selects the elegiac mode. Thus, the paper seeks to prove that the different foci of nostalgia influence the modality of the twentieth-century prose fiction, as exemplified in “To the Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf and “The Go-Between” by L. P. Hartley.

Obserwator i jego pozycja w opowiadaniu Tadeusza Borowskiego „Odwiedziny”

Author(s): Łukasz Wnuk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 28/2019

The article is an analysis of Tadeusz Borowski’s short story Odwiedziny (‘The visit’). It focuses on linguistic and narrative devices through which the speaker influences the recipient’s perception, and so shapes the reading of his work. The first part is introductory, it presents the goals of the paper. The next part recalls the most important existing interpretations, both of Borowski’s literary output as a whole, and of the text at hand. They form the starting point to an analysis of the position of the character-narrator with regard to the events he is describing, and to the relation between the author, the narrator, and the main character of the story. These considerations constitute the third part of the present paper. It begins with a citation of the full text of the story, and is followed by the main argument announced in the title which refers to Ronald Langacker’s cognitive grammar and takes into special consideration such notions as scene, current discourse space, and vantage point. The closing part of the paper contains conclusions, contrasted with the theses put forward in the context of Borowski’s work, as well as suggestions of possible directions of further analysis of the story within the framework of cognitive linguistics.

Wychowanie mężczyzn (Taʾdib al-redżāl): przekład z perskiego z komentarzem tłumacza

Author(s): Piotr Bachtin / Language(s): English,Polish Issue: 3/2021

This paper contains a translation, from Persian into Polish, of Taʾdib al-Rejāl or The Education of Men − a satirical treatise written probably in 1886/1887 by an anonymous woman associated with the Iranian Qajar dynasty – complemented with the translator’s commentary interpreting the text as evidence of the socio-cultural changes in the late Qajar era as well as the prelude of the discourse of modernity and women’s liberation movement in Iran.

Powieść mashupowa jako współczesny kulturowo- literacki miszmasz, czyli dlaczego wiktoriańskie powieści nawiedziły zombie, wilkołaki i wampiry

Author(s): Katarzyna Szeremeta / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2020

The following article aims to expound the phenomenon of parodical genre of literary mashups (or novels-as-mashups). This recent pop-cultural trend, initiated by Seth Grahame-Smith and Quirk Classics’ series Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, has witnessed numerous followers and generated a new type of projected reader. This controversial, verging on plagiarism collaborative endeavour pairs contemporary writers and the authors of (mainly Victorian) classics. However, the latter’s participation is of posthumous nature. The following literary and cultural phenomenon has large intermedial potential, since several mashups have recently welcomed film adaptations. The main objective is to discuss the definition and typology of mashups, the origins of this pop-cultural phenomenon, its genological hybridity, commercial success, projected readers’ competences as well as ensuing nostalgic and ironic implications of literary mashups.

Mój rok 1968

Author(s): Mariusz Klapper / Language(s): Polish Issue: 52/2018

Marzec i maj 1968 we Wrocławiu

Author(s): Michał Siciński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 52/2018

Wielojęzyczność w literaturze dokumentu osobistego: funkcje wykładników transkodowych

Author(s): Elżbieta Sękowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 32/2021

The article is dedicated to semantic functions of transcode markers in Polish émigré literature. Two diaries, written respectively by Gustaw Herling-Grudziński and Jan Lechoń, constitute the exemplification material. The diary genre, similarly to letters and memoirs, lends itself to introducing this kind of markers. Their presence reflects the multilingual competence of the author, as well as his mental, social, and psychological experience. The second language enables broadening the referential space of the first language and conveying emotions. The strategy of code switching depends on the motivation and goal of writing a given text. In Herling-Grudziński’s Journal Written by Night, foreign words from different languages abound. They fulfill several functions in the text, namely: metalinguistic, index and stylistic function. Their presence is justified by the content and by the role adopted by the author – the one of an interpreter of the political and social reality. The Diary by Lechoń is different in terms of types of predominant functions which can be distinguished in his text. Besides commenting on the émigré life, the author focuses on his emotions and experiences. Therefore, index and metalinguistic functions turn out to be the most important. Pointing out different strategies of introducing transcode markers in a text by its author is fundamental for the research on bilingualism in émigré writing.

“Wonder Boys” Book vs Movie Comparison: Do Wonder Boys Wander Through Joys?

Author(s): Teodora Leon / Language(s): English Issue: 1-2/2021

Comparisons between books and movies tend to instigate intense conversations. Adapting a film is no simple task, but contrasting the two products can also be an erratic process, regardless of how much one tries to gather all of their ideas together. A mere observation can bring about diverse opinions or daring suggestions on how readers / viewers would have portrayed a certain scene or a small but crucial detail. In the end, it comes down to the charm of taking on the active role of a “critic” and analyzing the choices that were made alongside possible alternatives. The respective article will talk about how the novel “Wonder Boys”, written by Michael Chabon, came to be interpreted in a different medium, as a comedy-drama film from 2000, directed by Curtis Hanson. “Wonder Boys” may be perceived as a world of freedom from various outlooks. In 1995, Chabon – already ahead of his time – produced a small universe in his novel, where his characters could express themselves candidly. In 2000, Hanson went from being a reader to an avid interpreter and creator of his own “Wonder Boys”. Up until today, fortunate people, who come across the book and the film, can spot the director’s ingenious approach, accompanied by his constant loyalty to the writer’s concepts. We are dealing with a piece of work which should be discussed more frequently in classrooms or university lectures, due to its representative teacher-student bonding, the twisted realistic world – in which troubled individuals can still become inspirations for others – and its quality to be replicated in such inventive ways.

Is the Future Soviet? USSR-2061 and the Reality of Utopia

Author(s): Roman Privalov / Language(s): English Issue: 41/2021

USSR-2061 is a Russian futuristic online project that imagines a new USSR a century after Gagarin’s journey into space. This article connects the project to Soviet space utopianism and the nostalgia that followed it, while seeing USSR-2061 and its artefacts in the light of utopian studies. In particular, the project’s hesitation with regard to utopianism and its thirst for realism are situated within a classical utopian problem of how to achieve real, not only imaginary, transformations. Such realism generally coincides with Levitas’ (2013) framework of utopia as a method, and, as the analysis shows, it hinders the construction of “an image of a future” at which the project aims. Instead, the resulting narratives and visions commonly overlap with the official Russian political discourse that makes use of Soviet nostalgia, or fall into retrofuturistic replications of commonly satirized Soviet discourses. However, a different way of constructing utopia is also present in USSR-2061, even if it is never highlighted. To make utopia possible in anti-utopian times, one might need to rethink its place of possibility or topos. Theoretically, such an alternative is presented in connection to Latour’s (2017) Terrestrial, a place with agency that in utopian terms presupposes a transgression of the boundary between the real and imaginary, the political and cultural. In the same line, the paper argues that USSR-2061 might attempt the construction of a new utopia through rethinking space. This might be fostered through the inclusion of cosmist ideas such as those of Vladimir Vernadsky and Alexander Chizhevsky, whose intersections with Latourian framework have previously been observed.

Transformative Voyages: The Boat and the Ship in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle

Author(s): Gabriela Debita / Language(s): English Issue: 11/2021

In her Earthsea cycle, Ursula K. Le Guin explores the finer nuances of itinerant heterotopias and the transitions and transformations they enable. Drawing mostly on Michel Foucault’s heterotopia of the boat/ship, but also on Margaret Cohen’s chronotope of the ship, this paper distinguishes between these two variations in Le Guin’s series. The fragile boats in which the young wizard Ged crosses the world of Earthsea and his own tormented mindscapes, in search of the shadow born of his reckless mishandling of magic, is a metaphor for the self, and the voyage is one of self-discovery and of passing from adolescence to maturity. By contrast, the majestic ship in which King Lebannen and his companions sail to parlay with the dragons represents a microcosm of Earthsea’s cultures and a union of previously disparate elements: a coming together which foreshadows the subsequent healing of an ancient rift. Thus, the different uses of the same heterotopic space in the first and last book of the series point to a shift in Le Guin’s focus, from the personal to the political, from magic to secular power, and from knowledge of the self to knowledge of the world.

Intertextuality and Spatiotemporal Agency in Butor’s La Modification

Author(s): Erfan Fatehi / Language(s): English Issue: 11/2021

Michel Butor’s body of work has always defied the classic literary classification, which is the main reason why he is often, against his own accord, associated with the Nouveau Roman movement. His magnum opus, La Modification (1957) is the epitome of the time-space collateral where the linear time is deconstructed and is led towards being spatial. This paper intends to analyse the spatial and temporal semiotic world that the author creates by mean of intertexts and workings of time and memory, and therefore provides a better understanding of the work. Intertextuality is the main meaning making mechanism that Butor relies upon and the takeaway from this study, thus, can be summarized in a six-pronged model with regard to the references made to art and architecture in Paris and Rome throughout the novel. Time in the narrative of the work starts with the looming clock in the train station and slowly transforms from linear to a multi-layered form. Butor tamers with the concept of time, which only develops within the central character’s mind, throughout the novel with the technique of time-montage. Considering which, the eidetic image of time in the novel is investigated in this study and the eleven strata of time which the narration of the work is constructed on is enumerated.

The Delusion of the Dream in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer

Author(s): Alicia Josey / Language(s): English Issue: 11/2021

The Lockless estate in Ta-Nehisi Coates' fantasy neo-slave narrative The Water Dancer mirrors the United States in terms of their treatment of race. Both Coates's two autobiographical works introduce the concept of family, from his childhood and from his young fatherhood, which highlights the lack of healthy familial relationships in The Water Dancer. The Walkers bastardize fatherhood and brotherhood with the protagonist, Hiram, who constantly vies for their affection despite their unequal relationship. Looking at the novel through a CRT lens allows us to break down this relationship. The Dream of hope, of race relations and treatment getting better in every single way throughout history is often weaponized by the dominant culture in order to force forgiveness, as well as a gruesome idea of family, and drive out the memory of the past.

Асацыятыўна-сэнсавае поле аповесцi Янкi Брыля “Муштук i папка”

Author(s): Tamara Tarasawa / Language(s): Belarusian Issue: 13/2021

The article deals with text associations on the example of the story “Mushtuk I Papka” by Y. Bryl. The study of the mechanism of associative links contributes to an in-depth understanding of ideological and thematic content of the story, its artistic imagery, the writer’s thesaurus, the peculiarities of the author’s style and worldview. The associative and semantic field of the story “Mushtuk I Papka” by Y. Bryl includes vocabulary, intertext, the author’s reminiscences, lyrical tone, plot-compositional structure of the text, and the author’s conceptual sphere. The fundamental role of associativity is to provide comprehensive perception and understanding of the story.

Мастацкая аксiясфера “Палескай хронiкi” Iвана Мележа

Author(s): Wanda Barouka / Language(s): Belarusian Issue: 13/2021

The article examines the artistic axiosphere of “Chronicle of Palesie” by I. Melezh. The artistic axiosphere is a totality of artistic qualities of the work which are recognized as valuable and significant by both the writer and the readers. They include the subject and the perspective of the image, subject matter, life persuasiveness, humanistic orientation, polemic attitude to traditional aesthetic conventions and artistic experiment. The artistic axiosphere of “Chronicle of Palesie” is dynamic and subjective, which ensures the work dialogue with time and with various generations of professional and amateur readers.

Эга-дакумент як камунiкатыўная падзея ў лiтаратурным працэсе (на прыкладзе аўтабiяграфiчнай аповесцi Алеся Адамовiча “Vixi”)

Author(s): Wolga Gubskaja / Language(s): Belarusian Issue: 13/2021

The article uses narrative techniques to explore the role of a fact in literary works. A. Adamovich’s autobiographical novel “Vixi” that serves as illustrative material has been analyzed. The purpose of the article is to examine a literary work at several textual levels: “event – naration – discourse”, “events in the novel – historical context (internal and external chronotope)”, the relationship of “author – narator – reader”. It is argued that the fact in the process of a narrative story cannot remain unchanged – a subjective interpretation of the writer expressed by narrator’s words changes it explicitly. It is emphasized that the fact can be used as a trigger for deploying the main action or changing the style of writing. For A. Adamovich self-reflection as the way of understanding reality is a means to create the world model which represents clear polarization.

«Овеществление» как циклообразующая константа в «Пестрых сказках» князя В. Ф. Одоевского

Author(s): Yuliya N. Sytina / Language(s): Russian Issue: 3/2021

Motley Tales (1833) is one of the completed cycles by V. F. Odoevsky. The writer wished to create a number of cycles, but did not complete a significant number. The article substantiates the importance of viewing Motley Tales as an aesthetically integrated whole due to the order of their arrangement, and common themes and motifs, and despite their “motley” nature. The author discusses the diversity of subject matter in fairy tales, but focuses on only one motif — that of “objectification”. It is important for the entire corpus of work by Odoevsky. The author substantiates the cyclical nature of this motif in the Motley Tales. The term “objectification” is understood in the article in accordance with the concept put forth by M. M. Bakhtin. This scientist called “objectification” of various transformations of a person into an object, or the reduction of a person to an object. The “objectification” motif will be vital for F. M. Dostoevsky, and will already emerge in N. V. Gogol’s work, but even before that — in V. F. Odoevsky’s Motley Tales. “Objectification” is immediately mentioned in the prefaces by the publisher and the writer. Subsequently, this motif manifests itself in all the fairy tales, whose characters are either inclined to objectify others, or are themselves subjected to objectification. Sometimes they do not notice it or even find pleasure in it, yet at other times they recognize their position with horror. The motif of revival is also present in the cycle: a person throws the death veil off his soul, while objects proclaim their humanity. On the whole, however, the deadness of the world in Motley Tales remains unresolved. Inert captivity fetters objects and people who are increasingly more immersed in everyday life. At the same time, the bleak state of the ethically tense world of characters is overcome in its own way in the cycle’s aesthetic reality. Awareness of materiality, its humorous play upon it, conviction in the inexhaustibility of the eternal poetry of being, open up a scintillating opportunity for the resurrection of “living life.”

Writing Animality in Yoko Tawada’s "Memoirs of a Polar Bear"

Author(s): Jamie Johnson / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

Yoko Tawada, an author writing in both Japanese and German, is what critics call an exophonic writer, that is, a writer who uses a language other than one’s mother tongue for creative purposes. Writing from a foreign point of view is part of Tawada’s interest in acquiring perceptions of otherness both linguistically and culturally. We might apply Tawada’s exophonic writing when entering animal worlds by creating what Frederike Middelhoff terms ‘literary auto-zoographies’. Tawada’s novel Memoirs of a Polar Bear contains three generations of polar bear narratives: two circus performers and one zoo inhabitant. The text takes a postmodern metafictional approach to problems that arise in speaking for the animal other, a subject under much discussion in Animal Studies scholarship today. My article examines each of the three characters and their corresponding narrative modes. First, the grandmother polar bear writes a first-person autobiography of her life as a performer; in doing so, Tawada combines fiction and nonfiction to deconstruct the bear character’s identity thus resulting in what might be called a more authentic animal autobiography. Second, the article focuses on Tawada’s fascination with translation through the human-animal shared spaces between Tosca (the daughter of the unnamed grandmother polar bear character) and her human trainer. Lastly, the article examines the grandson, Knut, as an example of the current humanimal subject of ecopoetics with an emphasis on Knut as an environmental figure.

Animality and Textual Experimentalism in João Guimarães Rosa’s "My Uncle, the Jaguar"

Author(s): Ana Carolina Torquato / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

This article analyses how form and content are intertwined in the story My Uncle, the Jaguar (1961) by Brazilian writer João Guimarães Rosa. In the first part, I use the fourteenth episode of Ulysses (1920), ‘Oxen of the Sun’, as an example of how language and form can convey ideas. The next section deals with Rosa’s efforts to create a character-narrator who seems to be on the verge of becoming-animal. The character’s transformation into a jaguar-like being is ambiguous, seeming to be both psychological and behavioural. In this sense, there is no evidence whether his metamorphosis is physical. However, the language of the narrative conveys his transformation, transcending him from Portuguese to Tupi-Guarani, to an animal snarling onomatopoeic language. To support my argument, I use a theoretical framework derived from Animal Studies and Anthropological Studies as a means of giving a better explanation of the variable cultural background concerning human-animal relationships.