“THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS”: GHETTO TRAGEDIES: THE USES OF CHRISTIANITY IN ISRAEL ZANGWILL’S FICTION

1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 219-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meri-Jane Rochelson
Keyword(s):  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Melting Pot ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
The World ◽  
Israel Zangwill ◽  
Territorial Organization ◽  
Jewish Immigrants ◽  
Literary Output ◽  
Feminist Movements ◽  
The Universe

AT THE END of the Victorian era and in the first decades of the twentieth century, Israel Zangwill was a well-known name in Europe, America, and even the Middle East. The enormous success of his 1892 novel Children of the Ghetto had made Zangwill the spokesperson for English Jewry throughout the world, as he revealed and explained an alien community to its non-Jewish neighbors and made the universe of the Jewish immigrants more intelligible to their acculturated coreligionists. An early Zionist, Zangwill met with Theodore Herzl in London and attended the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897; he continued to participate in the movement until 1905, when he formed his own nationalist group, the Jewish Territorial Organization (ITO). He became active in the pacifist and feminist movements of the early 1900s, and his literary output of that period for the most part reflects those interests, although he still explored issues of Jewish identity in numerous short stories and the highly popular play The Melting Pot (1908). In all, Zangwill published eight novels, nine collections of short fiction, eleven plays, and a volume of poetry, writing on both Jewish and more general themes; and (with the exception of some of his later thesis drama) his work was for the most part both popular and acclaimed. During the later 1880s and 1890s Zangwill was a prolific journalist, publishing columns on literature and current topics not only in the Jewish Standard, but also in the comic paper Puck (later Ariel, which he also edited), the Critic, and the Pall Mall Magazine. In short, he was very much a turn-of-the-century literary personality, esteemed as one of their own by his Jewish readers, but also prominent in the more general transatlantic literary milieu.

scholarly journals The ancient poet and philosopher in M. Arnold’s dramatic poem “Empedocles on Etna”

2020 ◽  
pp. 18-25
Author(s):  
Natalia I. Sokolova
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greece ◽  
The State ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Predominant Role ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain ◽  
The Universe

„Empedocles on Etna”, called by Arnold „dramatic poem”, was not meant to be staged. In a work with three actors (Empedocles, his pupil Pausanias and the poet Callicles) there is almost no action, the predominant role is given to the monologues of the famous philosopher. The article analyzes the image of the main character of the poem. The state of the man of transition era in Ancient Greece, suffering from disappointments, doubts, loneliness, Arnold considered consonant with modernity. Lonely, disillusioned in the world Empedocles is contrasted in the poem with Callicles, who joyfully accepts life. Episodes of Ancient Greece mythology are interwoven into the text of the poem, contributing to the understanding of the image of Empedocles, the nature of the relationship between the characters. Empedocles’ monologues touch upon the problems relevant to the Victorian era, connected with the new attitude to the universe, to nature, to the problems of faith. Empedocles with his “congestion of the brain” is close to the author (according to Arnold himself). Thus, without deviating from the facts of the biography of the ancient poet and philosopher, Arnold, in essence, creates a portrait of his contemporary.

Zangwill, Israel (1864–1926)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Greenberg
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
The Novel ◽  
American Jewish Community ◽  
Arab Population ◽  
Melting Pot ◽  
Israel Zangwill ◽  
Territorial Organization ◽  
The Creation ◽  
American Jewish

Israel Zangwill was a British-Jewish author, journalist, and activist. Among his best-known literary works are the novel The Children of the Ghetto (1892), and the melodrama ‘The Melting Pot’ (1908). In Jewish political circles, Zangwill was well known both for his role in the Zionist movement and as the founder of the Jewish Territorial Organization (ITO). Like other modern Jewish thinkers, Zangwill pursued a Jewish identity that balanced tradition and assimilation. Initially attracted to the Zionism of Theodore Herzl, Zangwill later founded the ITO, which sought a Jewish home in any plausible location as a result of the Kishinev pogroms of 1903, Britain’s subsequent offer of an autonomous Jewish home in Africa (the Uganda Plan), and Herzl’s death in 1904. But Zangwill also argued that the growing importance of the American Jewish community should become a cultural centre of Jewish life by means of the creation of a vibrant, evolutionary, Jewish religion and culture, uniting Jewish history with American creativity. Zangwill eventually abandoned both Zionism and American idealism as solutions. In a 1923 address to the American Jewish Congress, which alienated many listeners, he pronounced political Zionism dead, arguing that the restrictions of the Balfour Declaration and the demographic superiority of the Arab population would doom the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine — a prediction that resonates today. Zangwill also criticized the American Jewish community for its failure to demand social justice in the political arena. After 1923, Zangwill was a marginal figure in Jewish discourse, though today there is renewed scholarly interest in his work.

‘A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust’: The World and Self in Thomas Hardy's Poems

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Monika Szuba
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Phenomenological Philosophy ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Recurrent Theme ◽  
Body Subject

The essay discusses selected poems from Thomas Hardy's vast body of poetry, focusing on representations of the self and the world. Employing Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concepts such as the body-subject, wild being, flesh, and reversibility, the essay offers an analysis of Hardy's poems in the light of phenomenological philosophy. It argues that far from demonstrating ‘cosmic indifference’, Hardy's poetry offers a sympathetic vision of interrelations governing the universe. The attunement with voices of the Earth foregrounded in the poems enables the self's entanglement in the flesh of the world, a chiasmatic intertwining of beings inserted between the leaves of the world. The relation of the self with the world is established through the act of perception, mainly visual and aural, when the body becomes intertwined with the world, thus resulting in a powerful welding. Such moments of vision are brief and elusive, which enhances a sense of transitoriness, and, yet, they are also timeless as the self becomes immersed in the experience. As time is a recurrent theme in Hardy's poetry, this essay discusses it in the context of dwelling, the provisionality of which is demonstrated in the prevalent sense of temporality, marked by seasons and birdsong, which underline the rhythms of the world.

Imaginings

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-30
Author(s):  
Kelly James Clark
Keyword(s):  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Intellectual Humility ◽  
First Order ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Empirically Supported ◽  
Group Violence ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe

In Branden Thornhill-Miller and Peter Millican’s challenging and provocative essay, we hear a considerably longer, more scholarly and less melodic rendition of John Lennon’s catchy tune—without religion, or at least without first-order supernaturalisms (the kinds of religion we find in the world), there’d be significantly less intra-group violence. First-order supernaturalist beliefs, as defined by Thornhill-Miller and Peter Millican (hereafter M&M), are “beliefs that claim unique authority for some particular religious tradition in preference to all others” (3). According to M&M, first-order supernaturalist beliefs are exclusivist, dogmatic, empirically unsupported, and irrational. Moreover, again according to M&M, we have perfectly natural explanations of the causes that underlie such beliefs (they seem to conceive of such natural explanations as debunking explanations). They then make a case for second-order supernaturalism, “which maintains that the universe in general, and the religious sensitivities of humanity in particular, have been formed by supernatural powers working through natural processes” (3). Second-order supernaturalism is a kind of theism, more closely akin to deism than, say, Christianity or Buddhism. It is, as such, universal (according to contemporary psychology of religion), empirically supported (according to philosophy in the form of the Fine-Tuning Argument), and beneficial (and so justified pragmatically). With respect to its pragmatic value, second-order supernaturalism, according to M&M, gets the good(s) of religion (cooperation, trust, etc) without its bad(s) (conflict and violence). Second-order supernaturalism is thus rational (and possibly true) and inconducive to violence. In this paper, I will examine just one small but important part of M&M’s argument: the claim that (first-order) religion is a primary motivator of violence and that its elimination would eliminate or curtail a great deal of violence in the world. Imagine, they say, no religion, too.Janusz Salamon offers a friendly extension or clarification of M&M’s second-order theism, one that I think, with emendations, has promise. He argues that the core of first-order religions, the belief that Ultimate Reality is the Ultimate Good (agatheism), is rational (agreeing that their particular claims are not) and, if widely conceded and endorsed by adherents of first-order religions, would reduce conflict in the world.While I favor the virtue of intellectual humility endorsed in both papers, I will argue contra M&M that (a) belief in first-order religion is not a primary motivator of conflict and violence (and so eliminating first-order religion won’t reduce violence). Second, partly contra Salamon, who I think is half right (but not half wrong), I will argue that (b) the religious resources for compassion can and should come from within both the particular (often exclusivist) and the universal (agatheistic) aspects of religious beliefs. Finally, I will argue that (c) both are guilty, as I am, of the philosopher’s obsession with belief. 

PERCEPTION AND INTERPRETATION OF CREATIVITY OF ALISHER NAVOI IN FRENCH ORIENTAL STUDIES

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 40-50
Author(s):  
Mukhammadjon Holbekov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The World ◽  
Oriental Studies ◽  
Short Time ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Precious Stones

The great Uzbek poet Alisher Navoi(1441-1501), during his lifetime, was widely known not only in his homeland, but also far beyond its borders. A contemporary and biographer of Navoi, the famous historian Hondemir, of course, not without some hyperbole, wrote: "He (Navoi -M.Kh.) in a short time took the cane of primacy from his peers; the fame of his talents spread to all ends of the world, and the stories of the firmness of his noble mind from mouth to mouth were innumerable.The pearls of his poetry adorned the leaves of the Book of Fates, the precious stones of his poetry filled the shells of the universe with pearls of beauty

A book of protection: Hoja Ahmad Yassawi's "Devoni Hikmat"

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-160
Author(s):  
Khurshida Salimovna Safarova ◽  
Shakhnoza Islomovna Vosiyeva
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Universe

Every great fiction book is a book that portrays the uniqueness of the universe and man, the difficulty of breaking that bond, or the weakening of its bond and the increase in human. The creation of such a book is beyond the reach of all creators, and not all works can illuminate the cultural, spiritual and moral status of any nation in the world by unraveling the underlying foundations of humanity. With the birth of Hoja Ahmad Yassawi's “Devoni Hikmat”, the Turkic nations were recognized as a nation with its own book of teaching, literally, the encyclopedia of enlightenment, truth and spirituality.

Causality Then and Now

1993 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-177
Author(s):  
Karen Harding
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Mechanical Model ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Way

Ate appearances deceiving? Do objects behave the way they do becauseGod wills it? Ate objects impetmanent and do they only exist becausethey ate continuously created by God? According to a1 Ghazlli, theanswers to all of these questions ate yes. Objects that appear to bepermanent are not. Those relationships commonly tefemed to as causalare a result of God’s habits rather than because one event inevitably leadsto another. God creates everything in the universe continuously; if Heceased to create it, it would no longer exist.These ideas seem oddly naive and unscientific to people living in thetwentieth century. They seem at odds with the common conception of thephysical world. Common sense says that the universe is made of tealobjects that persist in time. Furthermore, the behavior of these objects isreasonable, logical, and predictable. The belief that the univetse is understandablevia logic and reason harkens back to Newton’s mechanical viewof the universe and has provided one of the basic underpinnings ofscience for centuries. Although most people believe that the world is accutatelydescribed by this sort of mechanical model, the appropriatenessof such a model has been called into question by recent scientificadvances, and in particular, by quantum theory. This theory implies thatthe physical world is actually very different from what a mechanicalmodel would predit.Quantum theory seeks to explain the nature of physical entities andthe way that they interact. It atose in the early part of the twentieth centuryin response to new scientific data that could not be incorporated successfullyinto the ptevailing mechanical view of the universe. Due largely ...

The Writings of Skryabin

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Nicholls ◽  
Michael Pushkin ◽  
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Creative Activity ◽  
Creative Play ◽  
Religious Feeling ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Section Viii ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Final Text ◽  
Life Work

An introduction by Boris de Schloezer gives the genesis of the final text in the section, the Preliminary Action, and explains its relation to Skryabin’s projected life-work, the Mystery. Section I: an effusion of Orthodox religious feeling from teenage years. Sections II-VII: Around 1900, an expression of rejection of God in the face of disillusion is followed by the text of the choral finale of the First Symphony, declaring faith in the power of art. An unfinished opera libretto, symbolic in narrative, expressing belief in Art’s power to seduce and persuade. Three notebooks develop a world view in which the world is the result of the self’s creative activity. The creation of art and of the universe are identical. There is a higher self, identical with divinity. Forgetfulness of individuality leads to freedom and universal consciousness. Section VIII: The literary poem written during the composition of the symphonic Poem of Ecstasy summarises the scenario developed in the notebooks. Life starts with the desire to create, delight in creative play meets opposition, the creative goal is achieved and disappointment sets in. The process is repeated until it is realized that the struggle is itself joyful and self-affirmation is achieved. Section IX: The text of the Preliminary Action is symbolic in structure. Primal Male and Female Principles emerge; the Female is identified with Death. Life arises from the union of energies. Struggle and bloodshed follow. The conclusion is an impulse towards unification, the synthesis of experience and dematerialisation. Both the complete first draft and the incomplete revision are included.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianfranco Pacchioni
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Radical Transformation

About 10,000 years ago, at the beginning of the agriculturalrevolution, on the whole earth lived between 5 and 8 million hunter-gatherers, all belonging to the Homo sapiens species. Five thousand years later, freed from the primary needs for survival, some belonging to that species enjoyed the privilege of devoting themselves to philosophical speculation and the search for transcendental truths. It was only in the past two hundred years, however, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, that reaping nature’s secrets and answering fundamental questions posed by the Universe have become for many full-time activities, on the way to becoming a real profession. Today the number of scientists across the globe has reached and exceeded 10 million, that is, more than the whole human race 10,000 years ago. If growth continues at the current rate, in 2050 we will have 35 million people committed full-time to scientific research. With what consequences, it remains to be understood. For almost forty years I myself have been concerned with science in a continuing, direct, and passionate way. Today I perceive, along with many colleagues, especially of my generation, that things are evolving and have changed deeply, in ways unimaginable until a few years ago and, in some respects, not without danger. What has happened in the world of science in recent decades is more than likely a mirror of a similar and equally radical transformation taking place in modern society, particularly with the advent ...

Presocratic Theology

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. M. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Opposite Direction ◽  
Greek Thought ◽  
The World ◽  
Causal Sequence ◽  
The Universe

If in the context of early and classical Greek thought, the term “theology” is taken to mean “of God/gods/the gods and his/their putative relationship, causal and directive, to the world and its operations, and to ourselves within that world,” or something of that order, the first ascription of such a notion to a Presocratic philosopher is to be found in Aristotle's comment that “Thales thought that all things are full of gods”. The Presocratic period ends with no neat causal sequence. If one train of thinking was moving in the direction of a divinely guided, teleologically explicable universe, another was moving in exactly the opposite direction. For the atomists Democritus and Leucippus, the ever-changing universe is an infinity of space in which, across eternity, chance agglomerations of ever-moving atoms produce and will forever go on producing those contents of the universe that we call realities, from gazelles to galaxies.

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