Iredyński redivivus
Text is a book review of "Gra w butelkę. Biografia Ireneusza Iredyńskiego" of Małgorzata Raducha.
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Text is a book review of "Gra w butelkę. Biografia Ireneusza Iredyńskiego" of Małgorzata Raducha.
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In the spirit of recent literary studies (animal studies) the article reflects on the theme of dog understood as a figure of thought. A dog with its behavioral properties refers to the phenomena of postmodern culture: sensuality, flanderization, mobility. At the same time as a sign of culture, subjected to relative social reading, the dog appears as a figure of the philosopher - a cynic, as indicated by its root: cynism Exposed by philological tools, the pun of kynos - kenosis combines the ethical attitude of cynics with the Christian process of stripping, exposing humility identified with the chastity. This in turn, in the biblical tradition is often equated with the dog. The dog turns out to be a cultural denominator of cynics and Christians.
More...Przypisy do "Księgi blasku"
"Book of Light" is a mystic commentary to Torah, specifically Song of Songs and "Book of Ruth". Metaphors of “light” and „radiance” express belief that language has epiphanic qualities and can be used to show metaphysical sense of being. In Western tradition, this bond between language and reality is being doubted. Unbalanced relation between thought and reality causes lack of trust for human speech. Reality can never measure up to the desires expressed in texts of culture, while idealistic dreams of social justice might never become reality. Is it possible to simultaneously believe in lack of connection between reality and language, and the epiphanic character of the latter?
More...Opowiadanie "Familie Salzmann. Erzählung aus unserer Mitte"
The paper presents Erich Hackl's story "Familie Salzmann. Erzählung aus unserer Mitte" in the context of the new culture of remembrance (Aleida Assmann). The author represents the literature of facts and it is his consequent work devoted to the subject matter of the Nazi crime. The mechanisms of fascism have been presented here on an example of three generations of a German-Austrian family to prove that a history that has not been worked through can reoccur. This work confirms an ethnic turn in the remembrance culture as it changes the whole victim-torturer perspective. Hackl's literary style is characterized by historical criticism and a sovereign writing method. His style is laconic, void of any pathos, but still very intriguing.
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Over the past 20 years or more, the reading audience among teenagers and young adults in Romania has known different trends, and the apparition of the young adult genre in our country has been brought into the attention of publishing houses and critics. Young adult literature, as its name suggests, is targeted for a young audience with the age between 15 and 24 (as UNESCO defines youth), and it is a separate category from children’s literature. Young adult novels first came into existence in the US in the middle of the 20th century and the genre has been a top selling category. Thus, the genre is analyzed by the American critics ever since. Moreover, some of the contributing factors to the success of young adult novels are the creation of literary awards aimed at young adult authors (for example the Michael L. Pritz award meant for the best young adult novel judged on literary merit since 2000) or the successful film adaptations. There are many subgenres of young adult in English literature, the most popular being fantasy, romance, realistic fiction, or dystopias. Along with the translation of young adult novels, such as Harry Potter, The Hunger Games or Twilight phenomenon, the young adult genre is treated as a different genre by some of the publishing houses in Romania. We consider that translating young adult literature as seen in the American literature critic has shaped the apparition of the genre in our literature. The precursors of the autochthon young adult genre could be considered Cireșarii by Constantin Chiriță, or Toate pânzele sus by Radu Tudoran, but since the apparition of these adventure books, the young adult genre has come a long way: punklit, chicklit or fantasy are popular subgenres for our national young adult audience. For instance, Romanian writers such as Cristina Nemerovschi or Irina Binder became very popular among its targeted audience.
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The following pages include a testimony of Matei Vişniec on the occasion of the writer’s participation in the European Day of Languages, on 26 September 2020, as a guest of the Romanian Language and Literature discipline of the University of Pisa. His discourse contributed to the more general reflection, shared by various linguistic and literary disciplines of the Department of Philology, Literature and Linguistics (FiLeLi), on which the event focused, in a transversal and interdisciplinary perspective: the literary bilingualism and multilingualism of writers who have suffered the rigors of political power – censorship and the most diverse forms of uprooting and estrangement, triggered by the tragedies of the twentieth century, such as the holocaust, the totalitarianisms of Central and Eastern Europe, Nazism, fascism, etc.The 2019 edition was very successful, since the European Commission was the protagonist in Pisa. In 2020, among the seven protagonists of the initiative there were present leading contemporary writers, bilingual and plurilingual, together with many scholars. The Romanian French writer expressed his capacity as a witness and a privileged interlocutor in contemporary Romanian culture with the purpose of illustrating the theme of the event, as well as of testifying, in the first part, to his experience as a young writer at the time of censorship and his fascination when confronted with two languages that seduce him and by which he feels seduced. In the second part, the poet reserved an extraordinary performance for the participants, reciting his renowned poem Corabia (The ship), a poetic text with an evident political substratum. The above-mentioned literary pièce contributed, as the author himself recounts, to the interdiction of the famous “Cenaclul del Luni” (“The Monday Literary Circle”), in which the so-called ‘80s Generation, including our writer, had launched themselves. Vișniec reflected on the relationship that a bilingual writer establishes with his mother tongue and with both languages – that of his writing and that of his existence. He characterized the idioms in which he expresses himself in a contrastive approach, revealing the care for poetry, the semantic and stylistic richness above all the results present in his self-translations into Romanian, and, in a more general meaning, the act of translation, in which poetry must remain an essential element also of his theatre.
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In this article, which is a derivative work of a chapter of my master’s degree thesis, I’ll focus on the peculiarity of Matei Vișniec’s poetic: the bilingualism, an action that impose itself because of the exile’s phenomenon that saw many of the finest writers in the communist Romania flee the country due to the oppressive regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. In that regard, we’ll see how the French “contamination” has influenced not only the theatre’s language, but also its core, its soul, its interests. I hope therefore to prove that the bilingualism doesn’t operate only on a physical (and mental) writing ground, but also on an “intentional” semiotic level; we could possibly say that it works on the entire “communication level”.
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The Croatian writer Dubravka Ugrešić portrays in both her novels, ”The Ministry of Pain” and ”The Museum on Unconditional Surrender”, character prototypes who lose their identity once they experience life in exile. They struggle to recover the lost identity by going back into the past where they can find the memories which are related to their homeland. The exiles undergo a process which is being influenced by yugo-nostalgy, the longing for a territory which does not exist anymore, Yugoslavia, and by the events that they have to deal with in the present, because an outlaw is „în același timp aici și acolo, nici aici, nici acolo, prezent și absent, de două ori prezent și de două ori absent”1. (Jankélévitch 1998: 253). The exiles are physically absent from their homeland, but mentally they are more present than ever, because their attention is focused upon reclaiming the space they have left behind. Regarding the connection between them and the adoptive country, we can say that the exiles are physically present, but mentally they are fervently looking for their lost identity and for that place called home, which seems to be farther and farther away with each day that passes by. Due to their need to get back at least a tiny part from their homeland, the exiles live in a “third space” (Rutherford 1990: 211). This concept refers to a hybrid dimension in which are combined elements from the spaces in which the characters have lived. Nostalgy is an essential theme that dominates both novels, The Ministry of Pain and The Museum of Unconditional Surrender, because it has got the role to illustrate two symbolic concepts: time of nostalgy and space of nostalgy. Leaving their homeland behind with the intention of saving in their memory a specific time and specific place, which are associated to Yugoslavia, marks the compromise which leads to yugo-nostalgy. As time goes by, the exiles realize that between them there is a conexion, because they try to build „imaginary homelands” (Rushdie 2008: 18), with the help of the memories from the period during which they have lived in Yugoslavia. In The Ministry of Pain, the characters build a mental homeland, which they perceive it as a tee that has the power to give them back at least a tiny part from the balance they lost when they abandoned Yugoslavia. Through the memories they manage to collect in the raffia bag which has got red, white and blue stripes, the same colours which could be found on the Yugoslavian flag, the exiles build a fragile imaginary homeland. In The Museum of Unconditional Surrender, we can easily perceive the writerʼs interest for objects and photographs of specific moments which are related to their native country, that can establish the connection with the past, because of their endurance over time. Another specific theme that appears in both novels is the exilesʼ identity, which becomes uncertain in the moment in which they get in contact with an unknown territory.
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This present paper is a fragment of a more elaborated study which treats the poetic work of Adrian Păunescu, which is still an unexploited field, although full of resources. The skepticism with which it is viewed, due to the political regime in which the author created, still left enough room for interpretation. Through this paper we tried to detach from the preconceived ideas on this subject and to look critically, from a stylistic point of view, at some of his writings, those that fit into the lyrical genre and into the theme of love. Our research began with the documentation of the author's biography, then with his bibliography, and finally with the related critical references. Being not only a complex personality, but also a prolific writer, the sources, both primary and secondary, are quite extensive. We aim to interpret a big part of his poetry through primordial elements and get some conclusions.
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Following in the footsteps of authors such as David Damrosch, Pascale Casanova and Franco Moretti who discuss the idea of word literature, this paper tries to present succinctly the position of Romanian literature in the world literary space according to the Grenwich literary meridian. The problem that arises is how we export and especially what we export so that we become visible and at the same time intelligible to foreigners, how we relate to the norms of the international literary community so that we are visible on the map of international literature. The general considerations on this subject will be used to capture the reception of the translations of Dan Lungu’s novels, the works considered being Chicken heaven (2004) and I’m an old commie! (2007).
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This approach seeks to link the particularities of Macedonski’s descriptions to those of Mannerism. Always poetic and carefully processed, the description often becomes a diary of the senses in Macedonski’s writing, turning the most mundane moments or images into an event. Macedonski’s ingenuity is characterized by its cinematic perspective, technique of detail, contradictory structures, preciousness or artificiality. Macedonski gives dynamism to lifeless spaces, almost an existence of its own, misunderstood and mysterious whose palpitations only he can feel, while natural spaces are filled with artificiality, by association with precious stones and metals, polishing them as perfect, unalterable images, prototypes of an ideal world. Macedonski’s sensibility vibrates with everything that singularizes and catches the eye, refusing the exact reality in favour of a poetic structure that cultivates a scenic, aestheticizing, dual, extremely refined vision.
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The affirmation of “superpersonal intelligence” in the world, through exceptional individuals, represents the humanizing force of a modern universe unstable to the point of anguish and disintegration, where all historically accumulated values are put under the sign of doubt. To trust in the manifestation of ahistorical “superpersonal intelligence” through the historical action of exceptional personalities offers to the modern existence the only possible meaning to support, both philosophically and socially. Camil Petrescu's opinion is by no means isolated, but takes forms deeply related to great philosophers (Husserl, Heidegger, Cioran, Sartre) and novelists of the XX-th century (Th. Mann, H. Hesse, A. Malraux, Huxley, Proust, Knut Hamsun, E. Sábato etc.). In my study, I analyze Camil Petrescu's vision on the aesthetics of the novel, in order to highlight the deep connection of his thinking with the philosophy of the era.
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The study of the vocabulary items appropriated by female characters with self-aggressive tendencies deserves much more attention than it is currently given for several reasons that we consider fundamental. The first is that the predilection towards self-aggression and the intention of self-annihilation as a being – an integral part of society – can be anticipated through the prism of several key words and expressions that fit the specific manifestation of suicidal behaviour. The relationship between the vocabulary of literary female hypostases and their outcome is a very close one, with the lexicon occupying a special place in the externalisation of the frustrations and motivations underlying self-suppression. The analysis of the vocabulary of various female characters in established works of world literature highlights a series of dissatisfactions on various levels (family, social, professional, etc.), as well as several unsatisfied desires and unfulfilled aspirations, perceived as failures, which in fact give rise to the opportunity to curtail their existence. Suicide thus emerges as a result of more or less vocal lamentations, which gradually and subtly slip the idea of death into the intimacy of the work, but culminate, in the end, in an aggressive exposition of the intention to cease to be. Therefore, in the present study, we will try to capture the manner in which the female characters under analysis tried to reveal the reasons behind the decision to commit suicide long before resorting to the extreme gesture.
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The spectacular evolution of the novel, which currently places it at the top of the hierarchy of genres, certainly has several explanations. Initially ignored and considered a literary byproduct unworthy of a place in the hierarchy of genres and species proposed by earlier poetics, the novel managed both to enjoy its freedom (in order to build its audience) and to adhere to certain rules (when the moment required it). Ultimately, step by step, as literature evolved, the novel constructed its legitimacy and earned the right to penetrate the literary canon, ultimately coming to dominate it today. How did it reach this position? In this article, I will attempt to answer this question, approaching the issue from different perspectives.
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Junji Ito is one of the most famous mangakas. His 1998-1999 work Uzumaki is a prime example of how mangas integrate symbols (such as that of the spiral) and narratives from literature and collective memory, creating complex stories. Manga, just like graphic novels, have suffered from the stigma of being considered not as “serious” as the more established genres, thus they have not been as much the object of academic research. In the following article, I show, through a descriptive and thematic analysis, that there are in fact a lot of intricacies when it comes to a work such as Uzumaki, and that the author manages to create a story as compelling as that of any well-written novel.
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In 2007, the poet Serban Foarta published two books in collaboration with Romelo Percolovici and Ion Barbu, both visual artists. These books highlight the remarkable dialogue between poetry and image, so much so that their analysis becomes a pretext for engaging with the forms, the functions, and the limitations of graphic novels.
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This approach tries to emphasize the similarities and differences between the poetics of Surrealism and that of the new Romanian avant-garde of the late sixties called “structural onirism”. The two leaders of this group, the poet Leonid Dimov and the novelist Dumitru Țepeneag, produced a series of literary manifestos in a few literary magazines of the time, in which they tried to build a coherent and original aesthetic program. The main ideas were the rational structure of the new literature and its dream-like atmosphere produced by a deliberate technique, characteristics which placed it in the category defined by Angelo Guglielmi in the late fifties as “experimentalism”. However, the dark dreamy atmosphere, the “convulsive beauty”, the programmatic incoherence of the narration in order to create the dream-like effect, the incompatibility of the associations, etc. are features that still link this new literature to older Surrealism.
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Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf is more than a schizophrenic novel, it can be considered a very long fairytale that presents the human path to self-knowledge and the passage to timelessness through the individuation process and archetypes. Hesse shows that the classic double is just a simplified myth, that the human being consists of a great variety of selves, not only of two. He is also bringing out the importance of playfulness as modus vivendi.
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This report addresses the issues of subject-time correlations in the diagnosis of the epoch at the beginning of the twentieth century that was made by Robert Musil’s novel “The Man Without Qualities”. Phenomena of acceleration and delay, perspectives and structures of experiencing time are addressed. Relativization of the frontiers of time and the subject’s boundaries manifest themselves as the Musil’s perception of an allocentric experience of an overall presence in the world.
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The proposed article examines the use of female pen names in contemporary Slovak literature. The object of the analysis are some of the books by the experimental authors Michal Habaj and Peter Macsovszky, published under the names Anna Snegina and Petra Malúchová. The paper focuses on the ways of constructing the category of the self by and in the books ‘Pas de deux’, ‘Poems from the Inheritance’ and the ‘Twilight of Chastity’. Other authorial strategies marking the experimental nature of the works written after 1989 are also commented on. A brief overview of the uses of female pen names in Slovak literature is also given, with an emphasis on the function of the literary mystification and the different stylizations of the lyrical subject. The main question posed is about the reasons for choosing this way of creating the authorial personality and the impact the knowledge of this mystification has on the reader.
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