Lessons in French

2021 ◽  
pp. 74-99
Author(s):  
Alison Rice

None of the writers in my study can call French, without hesitation and qualification, a mother tongue. Some of them didn’t start studying the language until they arrived in Paris in their twenties and grappled with learning a new form of expression at a relatively late age. When they recall their initial exposure to this foreign tongue, they describe a fascinating apprenticeship involving dictionaries and renowned works of French literature, and they often shed light on the distinction between oral and written competence in their experience. It is crucial to note that even those authors who have long been fluent in French underscore their non-native relationship to it. Chapter 3 addresses the approaches of these worldwide women writers to French and examines their inventive literary publications in this tongue. It is sensitive to the history of this language and its inextricable connection to a colonial past that many of these writers experienced or became aware of in their homeland. It also focuses on the reality that, for almost all of these authors, this is not the only tongue with which they are familiar. For multilingual individuals, selecting French as their language of literary creation is often the result of a conscious choice motivated by a particular affinity. What comes through in their reflections is most often a passion for this language and a confirmation of the freedom it affords them, as well as an affirmation of its inimitable music that makes it especially well-suited for creative compositions.

Author(s):  
Elena Lombardi

The literature of the Italian Due- and Trecento frequently calls into play the figure of a woman reader. From Guittone d’Arezzo’s piercing critic, the ‘villainous woman’, to the mysterious Lady who bids Guido Cavalcanti to write his grand philosophical song, to Dante’s female co-editors in the Vita Nova and his great characters of female readers, such as Francesca and Beatrice in the Comedy, all the way to Boccaccio’s overtly female audience, this particular sort of interlocutor appears to be central to the construct of textuality and the construction of literary authority in these times. The aim of this book is to shed light on this figure by contextualizing her within the history of female literacy, the material culture of the book, and the ways in which writers and poets of earlier traditions (in particular Occitan and French) imagined her. Its argument is that these figures of women readers are not mere veneers between a male author and a ‘real’ male readership, but that, although fictional, they bring several advantages to their vernacular authors, such as orality, the mother tongue, the recollection of the delights of early education, literality, freedom in interpretation, absence of teleology, the beauties of ornamentation and amplification, a reduced preoccupation with the fixity of the text, the pleasure of making mistakes, dialogue with the other, the extension of desire, original simplicity, and new and more flexible forms of authority.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Pasquale Orchard

<p>As a young singer, it is inevitable that one is bombarded with the history of singing. ​Not only are we asked to listen to vocalists of previous ages, but we are also encouraged to analyse their methods and scrutinise their seminal performances in order to better identify the strengths of each singer​. Curious about the extent to which the lauded seventeenth and eighteenth-century ​bel canto vocal techniques hold relevance to contemporary classical singing and newer compositions, my research focused on whether these well-tried techniques are transferable. While the application of ​bel canto principles to the ​bel canto repertoire are clearly pertinent, my investigation concentrated on the feasibility and applicability of transferring these vocal techniques to modern repertoire, specifically songs and arias written in English, my mother tongue. This exegesis details my exploration of the application of such techniques to these two different sets of repertoire, and aims to shed light on the experience of the process of applying the ​bel canto ​principles to such works, and the potential benefits afforded by the practice of them.</p>


1999 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 335-346
Author(s):  
GISÈLE SAPIRO

Martyn Cornick, The Nouvelle Revue Française under Jean Paulhan 1925–1940 (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1995), 224 pp., Fl. 65, $40.50, ISBN 9-051-83767-6.Nicholas Hewitt, Literature and the Right in Postwar France: The Story of the ‘Hussards’ (Oxford and Washington, DC: Berg Publishers, 1996), 218 pp. (hb.), £34.95, ISBN 1-859-73029-9.Denis Hollier, Absent Without Leave: French Literature under the Threat of War, trans. Catherine Porter (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1997), 256 pp. (pb.), £18.50, ISBN 0-674-21271-1.Jeffrey Mehlman, Geneologies of the Text: Literature, Psychoanalysis, and Politics in Modern France (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 262 pp., hardcover, ISBN 0-521-47213-X.Jennifer E. Milligan, The Forgotten Generation: French Women Writers of the Inter-War Period (New York and Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1996), 236 pp. (pb.), £14.99, ISBN 1-859-73118-X.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Pasquale Orchard

<p>As a young singer, it is inevitable that one is bombarded with the history of singing. ​Not only are we asked to listen to vocalists of previous ages, but we are also encouraged to analyse their methods and scrutinise their seminal performances in order to better identify the strengths of each singer​. Curious about the extent to which the lauded seventeenth and eighteenth-century ​bel canto vocal techniques hold relevance to contemporary classical singing and newer compositions, my research focused on whether these well-tried techniques are transferable. While the application of ​bel canto principles to the ​bel canto repertoire are clearly pertinent, my investigation concentrated on the feasibility and applicability of transferring these vocal techniques to modern repertoire, specifically songs and arias written in English, my mother tongue. This exegesis details my exploration of the application of such techniques to these two different sets of repertoire, and aims to shed light on the experience of the process of applying the ​bel canto ​principles to such works, and the potential benefits afforded by the practice of them.</p>


Crisis ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Hallensleben ◽  
Lena Spangenberg ◽  
Thomas Forkmann ◽  
Dajana Rath ◽  
Ulrich Hegerl ◽  
...  

Abstract. Background: Although the fluctuating nature of suicidal ideation (SI) has been described previously, longitudinal studies investigating the dynamics of SI are scarce. Aim: To demonstrate the fluctuation of SI across 6 days and up to 60 measurement points using smartphone-based ecological momentary assessments (EMA). Method: Twenty inpatients with unipolar depression and current and/or lifetime suicidal ideation rated their momentary SI 10 times per day over a 6-day period. Mean squared successive difference (MSSD) was calculated as a measure of variability. Correlations of MSSD with severity of depression, number of previous depressive episodes, and history of suicidal behavior were examined. Results: Individual trajectories of SI are shown to illustrate fluctuation. MSSD values ranged from 0.2 to 21.7. No significant correlations of MSSD with several clinical parameters were found, but there are hints of associations between fluctuation of SI and severity of depression and suicidality. Limitations: Main limitation of this study is the small sample size leading to low power and probably missing potential effects. Further research with larger samples is necessary to shed light on the dynamics of SI. Conclusion: The results illustrate the dynamic nature and the diversity of trajectories of SI across 6 days in psychiatric inpatients with unipolar depression. Prediction of the fluctuation of SI might be of high clinical relevance. Further research using EMA and sophisticated analyses with larger samples is necessary to shed light on the dynamics of SI.


2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
YAEL DARR

This article describes a crucial and fundamental stage in the transformation of Hebrew children's literature, during the late 1930s and 1940s, from a single channel of expression to a multi-layered polyphony of models and voices. It claims that for the first time in the history of Hebrew children's literature there took place a doctrinal confrontation between two groups of taste-makers. The article outlines the pedagogical and ideological designs of traditionalist Zionist educators, and suggests how these were challenged by a group of prominent writers of adult poetry, members of the Modernist movement. These writers, it is argued, advocated autonomous literary creation, and insisted on a high level of literary quality. Their intervention not only dramatically changed the repertoire of Hebrew children's literature, but also the rules of literary discourse. The article suggests that, through the Modernists’ polemical efforts, Hebrew children's literature was able to free itself from its position as an apparatus controlled by the political-educational system and to become a dynamic and multi-layered field.


Moreana ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 42 (Number 164) (4) ◽  
pp. 187-206
Author(s):  
Clare M. Murphy

The Thomas More Society of Buenos Aires begins or ends almost all its events by reciting in both English and Spanish a prayer written by More in the margins of his Book of Hours probably while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London. After a short history of what is called Thomas More’s Prayer Book, the author studies the prayer as a poem written in the form of a psalm according to the structure of Hebrew poetry, and looks at the poem’s content as a psalm of lament.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Editors of the JIOWS

The editors are proud to present the first issue of the fourth volume of the Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies. This issue contains three articles, by James Francis Warren (Murdoch University), Kelsey McFaul (University of California, Santa Cruz), and Marek Pawelczak (University of Warsaw), respectively. Warren’s and McFaul’s articles take different approaches to the growing body of work that discusses pirates in the Indian Ocean World, past and present. Warren’s article is historical, exploring the life and times of Julano Taupan in the nineteenth-century Philippines. He invites us to question the meaning of the word ‘pirate’ and the several ways in which Taupan’s life has been interpreted by different European colonists and by anti-colonial movements from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. McFaul’s article, meanwhile, takes a literary approach to discuss the much more recent phenomenon of Somali Piracy, which reached its apex in the last decade. Its contribution is to analyse the works of authors based in the region, challenging paradigms that have mostly been developed from analysis of works written in the West. Finally, Pawelczak’s article is a legal history of British jurisdiction in mid-late nineteenth-century Zanzibar. It examines one of the facets that underpinned European influence in the western Indian Ocean World before the establishment of colonial rule. In sum, this issue uses two key threads to shed light on the complex relationships between European and other Western powers and the Indian Ocean World.


2008 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-114
Author(s):  
Pieter-Jan Van Bosstraeten

Op 11 oktober 1978 splitste de Belgische Socialistische Partij zich als laatste van de drie unitaire partijen op in twee autonome partijen. Langs Franstalige zijde werd éénzijdig de Parti Socialiste opgericht, twee jaar later volgde de Socialistische Partij. De splitsing vormde het eindpunt van een lange en bewogen geschiedenis van de socialistische eenheidspartij.Ondanks het feit dat heel wat auteurs reeds een licht hebben geworpen op de belangrijkste gebeurtenis uit de na-oorlogse geschiedenis van de BSP, is het antwoord op de vraag naar de oorzaken van de splitsing vrij eenduidig. Overwegend wordt aangenomen dat de splitsing van de BSP het gevolg is van een moeilijke samenwerking in het kader van het communautaire dossier. Andere oorzaken worden amper aangehaald, of onvoldoende verduidelijkt. Tevens wordt slechts het politiek-tactische aspect van het communautaire dossier uitvoerig besproken. In de bestaande literatuur wordt zo goed als nergens dieper ingegaan op de inhoudelijke elementen die binnen de partij problemen teweegbrachten.Onderzoek van twee cruciale documenten heeft de mogelijkheid geboden het verhaal van de splitsing beter te reconstrueren. Daarbij is gebleken dat de splitsing van de partij in een ruimer kader dient te worden geïnterpreteerd dan het communautaire dossier. Aan de splitsing van de partij ging een lang proces van autonomisering en vleugelvorming vooraf. Bovendien werd aangetoond dat de problematiek inzake het Egmont-Stuyvenbergpact niet de enige directe oorzaak vormde voor de splitsing van de partij, in de periode 1977-1978. Enkele andere oorzaken hebben daartoe eveneens bijgedragen.________The division of the Belgian Socialist Party. Two explanatory documentsOn 11 October 1978 the Belgian Socialist Party divided into two autonomous parties, the last of the three unitary parties to do so. First the French speaking section unilaterally founded the ‘Parti Socialiste’, two years later the ‘Socialistische Partij’ followed. The division constituted the termination of the long and eventful history of the socialist unitary party.In spite of the fact that many authors have already shed light on the most important event from the post-war history of the BSP, the answer to the question about the causes for the division are fairly unequivocal. The majority of opinions favour the view that the division of the BSP was the consequence of the difficulty of collaborating within the framework of the community dossier. Other causes are hardly cited, or insufficiently elucidated. Moreover only the politico-tactical aspect of the community dossier is discussed in detail. The existing literature hardly ever carries out a more thorough examination of the intrinsic elements that caused problems within the party.The investigation of the two crucial documents has offered the opportunity to provide a better reconstruction of the division. This showed that the division of the party should be interpreted within a larger framework than the community dossier alone. A long process of autonomisation and the formation of political wings preceded the division of the party. It also demonstrated that the issues concerning the Egmont-Stuyvenberg pact were not the only direct cause for the division of the party, during the period 1977-1978. There were several other causes that also contributed to this division.


This collection of essays examines the various ways in which the Homeric epics have been responded to, reworked, and rewritten by women writers of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Beginning in 1914 with the First World War, it charts this understudied strand of the history of Homeric reception over the subsequent century up to the present day, analysing the extraordinary responses to both the Odyssey and the Iliad by women from around the world. The backgrounds of these authors and the genres they employ—memoir, poetry, children’s literature, rap, novels—testify not only to the plasticity of Homeric epic, but also to the widening social classes to whom Homer appeals, and it is unsurprising to see the myriad ways in which women writers across the globe have played their part in the story of Homer’s afterlife. From surrealism to successive waves of feminism to creative futures, Homer’s footprint can be seen in a multitude of different literary and political movements, and the essays in this volume bring an array of critical approaches to bear on the work of authors ranging from H.D. and Simone Weil to Christa Wolf, Margaret Atwood, and Kate Tempest. Students and scholars of classics—as well as those in the fields of translation studies, comparative literature, and women’s writing—will find much to interest them, while the volume’s concluding reflections by Emily Wilson on her new translation of the Odyssey are an apt reminder to all of just how open a text can be, and of how great a difference can be made by a woman’s voice.


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