Pygmalion or the Poetics of Fiction

2021 ◽  
pp. 64-101
Author(s):  
Gianpiero Rosati
Keyword(s):  
Literary Text ◽  
Creative Power ◽  
European Culture ◽  
The Relationship

The story of Pygmalion, the artist who carves a statue of a perfect woman with whom he falls in love, and thanks to Venus sees her transforming into a living woman, celebrates the triumph of the artistic illusionism, and has become for European culture a symbol of the creative power of art. The myth, which has many analogies with that of Narcissus (Pygmalion falls in love with a work that is a projection of himself), explores the relationship between art and nature, a theme at the heart of Ovid’s innovative anti-mimetic poetics. For him art is independent of reality, not its mirror: it is a model for nature (the poem everywhere thematizes viewing, and appeals to artworks) and its space is fiction. Similarly, every literary text is made up of other texts: literature has in intertextuality its very essence and condition of existence.

STUDYING THE HISTORY OF THE BALKANS / SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE: RESEARCH TASKS AND PROBLEM FORMULATION

2021 ◽  
pp. 7-21
Author(s):  
Sergei Romanenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Problem Formulation ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
European Culture ◽  
South Eastern Europe ◽  
The Relationship

The new issue of the journal «Current Problems of Europe» opens with the problem-oriented article, dedicated to the analysis of the state of the Balkans / South-Eastern Europe region and its development in 2000-2020. The author gives a systemic description of the processes taking place in the intra-national and international intra-regional political, social and economic development of the countries of the region, and the problems generated by them. The changes are associated with a difficult transition phase, experienced by the states of the region, for the most part belonging to the post-socialist world (Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania). The exceptions are Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, however, these three states are also going through a difficult period in their history, associated with new problems both in interstate relations within this triangle, and in relations with NATO and the EU, as well as with Russia. The article discusses the specifics of translating the terms «people» and «national» into Russian, as well as the toponym Kosovo (Serb.) / Kosova (Alb.), and ethnonyms «Bošnjak» and «bosanac». The first part of the issue contains articles devoted to general problems of regional studies: the relationship between the terms Eastern Europe, Central Europe, South-Eastern Europe, Balkans, Western Balkans; comparative and political science subjects; the role of the European Union and China in the development of the region; the relationship of national Serbian, post-Yugoslavian and European culture and intellectual heritage as well. The second part of the issue examines the relations of the Balkan states with the states of Central and Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Romania, Belarus), as well as the specifics of their development in the post-socialist period. Thus, there is the possibility of a multilateral - historical, political and cultural, as well as comparative analysis of the development of this complex region, which is of great importance for international relations worldwide.

scholarly journals الإبداعات المغربية باللغات الأجنبية بين سلطة اللغة وسلطة الهوية: قراءة تراتبية

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (80) ◽  
pp. 142-111
Author(s):  
فؤاد بوعلي
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial Studies ◽  
Cultural Alienation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Creative Writings ◽  
The Relationship

أثارت الكتابة الإبداعية باللغات الأجنبية العديد من المواقف المتعارضة في الحقلين: الأكاديمي، والثقافي. فقد عرف تاريخ المغرب الحديث سجالاً قوياً بخصوص هوية الكتابات الإبداعية باللغات الأجنبية، بين مَن يرى فيها استلاباً ثقافياً، ومَن يرفض ربط الجنسية الأدبية بالانتماء اللغوي، بل وربطها بالمتخيّل الجماعي أكثر من أيّ شيء آخر، ثمّ بالمنتوج الأدبي بوصفه تجسيداً لهذا المتخيّل. فالتعبير عن الذات بلغة أجنبية يطرح للنقاش مفاهيم، مثل: الهوية الثقافية، والسلطة، والخصوصية، والعلاقة بالآخر. وباستخدام القراءة التراتبية التي ظهرت في الدراسات بعد الكولونيالية أمكننا إثبات التلازم بين استعمال اللغة الفرنسية في الإبداع ومسار الفرنكفونية بوصفها إيديولوجيا استعماريةً تفرض لغتها على الشعوب والفضاءات الذيلية. The debate over literary writing in a foreign language has instigated a lot of dichotomous points of view in Moroccan academic and cultural circles. History of modern Morocco has witnessed strong ongoing debates about the identity of creative writings in foreign language. There are those who would consider such writings as cultural alienation. Contrary to that, there are those who refuse to link literary text to language belonging, and link it instead to the collective imaginary and to the literary product as a manifestation of this imaginary. In fact, expressing the self by using a foreign language puts into question notions such as cultural identity, authority, nation-building, and otherness. By applying the theory of hierarchical reading which appeared in the post colonial studies, we have established the relationship between using French in creative writings and La Francophonie as a colonial ideology imposed on people and annexed spaces.

The Literary Artwork between Word and Concept

2019 ◽  
pp. 115-130
Author(s):  
Gerhard Richter
Keyword(s):  
Literary Text ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Philosophical Interpretation ◽  
Figurative Speech ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Speculative Thought ◽  
Recent Interpretation ◽  
The Way

This chapter investigates another set of problems with which the uncoercive gaze must contend when it fastens upon a work: the relationship of speculative thought to the work of art and the ways in which the chasm between literal and figurative speech bears upon that relationship. One of the themes that a reading of Kafka’s The Trial should emphasize is the way in which a literary text both calls for philosophical interpretation and resists such interpretation at the same time. One problem that arises out of this constellation concerns the question of the relationship between the literal and the figurative nature of a text’s rhetorical operations. If Kafka’s novel, by causing the relation between the literal and the figural to enter a space of indeterminacy, enacts a situation in which, as Adorno characterizes it, “a sickness means everything [eine Krankheit alles Bedeuten],” no reading of Kafka—at least no reading informed by the sensibilities of the uncoercive gaze—can afford to ignore the precise conceptual terms of this sickness. Finally, to cast Adorno’s reflections on Kafka into sharper relief, the chapter also considers them in relation to Giorgio Agamben’s recent interpretation of The Trial as Kafka’s commentary on the imbrication of law and slander.

‘Peace and Tranquillity’

2020 ◽  
pp. 59-97
Author(s):  
D.H. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Water Policy ◽  
Blue Water ◽  
British America ◽  
European Culture ◽  
British Foreign Policy ◽  
Grand Alliance ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter recounts the gestation of English and British foreign policy into two competing strategies between 1689 and 1739: the interventionist continentalism of the Court Whigs and the blue-water policy of the Tory and Country Whig factions, each of which was accompanied by a distinctive attitude towards the relationship between British and European culture. It shows how, in parallel with the consolidation of Court Whig supremacy in England, continentalism had triumphed in British America by the end of the Wars of the Grand Alliance (1689–1714) and continued to hold sway throughout the interwar years 1714–39.

An equal music, an alien world: postcolonial literature and the representation of European culture

2005 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-113
Author(s):  
SILVIA ALBERTAZZI
Keyword(s):  
Classical Music ◽  
Postcolonial Literature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fictional World ◽  
European Literature ◽  
Cultural Myths ◽  
European Culture ◽  
The Relationship

The Postcolonial representation of European culture can alter our (European) perspectives on Western arts. The case of the novel An Equal Music by the Indian writer Vikram Seth is particularly interesting. Although set in Europe (between London, Vienna and Venice) and dealing with European characters, situations, landscapes, and cultural myths, the book offers a peculiarly Postcolonial reading of our classical music. Therefore, by applying Said's contrapuntal analysis to Postcolonial writing, I deal with ‘What the Postcolonial means for us’, taking into account, besides European Literature and Postcolonialism, also the relationship between European music and the Postcolonial sensibility, using Said's and Kundera's essays as keys to Seth's musical and fictional world.

La puissance du don. Le don comme centre de la relation de l’homme avec Dieu, dans les discours édifiants de Kierkegaard, à la lumière de l’herméneutique du don de Jean Paul II

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrzej Słowikowski
Keyword(s):  
Human Existence ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Creative Power ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
Individual Character ◽  
God's Word ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Epistle Of James ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis paper is an attempt to read Kierkegaard’s upbuilding discourses centred around the theme “Every Good and Perfect Gift is From Above” in the perspective of hermeneutics of the gift presented by John Paul II in his book Man and Woman He Created Them. The authors analyze two completely different biblical themes-the Pope examines the issue of corporeality of the first people on the basis of Genesis, whereas Kierkegaard studies the creative power of God’s word in human existence, focusing on a passage from the Epistle of James. They show that the relationship between human beings and God, despite its individual character, may come into being only through the involvement of another person. The center of this meeting of two people in God is the already mentioned gift, understood here, in the highest sense, as a gift of love in which both parties are giving and receiving at the same time. The convergence of conclusions of both authors shows the anthropological coherence of the message of the Holy Scripture and gives rise to reflections on the essence of humanity.

scholarly journals An exploration of place and its representations: an intertextual/ dialogical reading of the photographs of AB Ovenstone and the novel Gillespie by John MacDougall Hay.

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay Fiona Blair
Keyword(s):  
Literary Text ◽  
Landscape Painting ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Shipping Company ◽  
Private Collection ◽  
Semiotic Approach ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Relationship

“An intertextual/ dialogical reading of place through photography and fiction” The article is an exploration of place and its representations based on the intertextual reading of a series of photographs (1880-82) of Tarbert, Loch Fyne by Andrew Begbie Ovenstone (1851-1935) and the dialogical reading of a novel, Gillespie (1914), by John MacDougall Hay (1881-1919) which is set in Tarbert. The proposed article is inspired by a sense that a semiotic approach to the subject will reveal far more than has been discovered within the tradition of hermeneutics and patrimony and that much will be gained by a study of the contrast between written and visual signifiers. The article raises questions about the (unexamined) coded readings of place especially in relation to the photograph, and the lack of an adequately theorized tradition for the novel. The literary text is well known - if not well understood - but the images are from a rare, unpublished, private collection of photographs from Scotland, India and the furthest reaches of Empire (Ovenstone was the Atlantic Freight Manager of Anchor Line Ltd, the Glasgow shipping company). The paper emphasizes the need for the use of codes to decipher the texts. When we “read” the photographs we need to be aware of the intertextual relationship between the photograph and the landscape painting tradition as well as the common practice of the created tableau – there is then overlaid upon the image the sense of a set of conventions, a system which operates much like a language. We are able to discover through the notion of the “long quotation from appearances” the potential for more complex “synchronic” readings. Likewise, in the case of Gillespie, the novel operates within a genre which determines a “reading”. When we are aware of a code, we become aware of the way that Hay manoeuvres adroitly to thwart the reader’s best efforts to settle upon a preferred reading – especially one shaped by an authoritative narrator - which thereby allows for the genuine experience of “heteroglossia” to emerge. The notion of truth in Gillespie is interrogated in the light of Heidegger’s essay “The Origins of a Work of Art” in order that the relationship between representation and reality be clarified.

scholarly journals Evolving Lattices for Analyzing Behavioral Dynamics of Characters in Literary Text

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 502-509
Author(s):  
Eugene S Kitamura ◽  
Yukio-Pegio Gunji
Keyword(s):  
Rough Set ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Rough Set Theory ◽  
Window Size ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Equivalence Relations ◽  
Behavior Dynamics ◽  
Behavioral Dynamics ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Double Approximation

This paper is about an application of rough set derived lattices in order to analyze the dynamics of literary text. Due to the double approximation nature of rough set theory, a pseudo-closure obtained from two different equivalence relations allows us to form arbitrary lattices. Moreover, such double approximations with different equivalence relations permit us to obtain lattice fixed points based on two interpretations. The two interpretations used for literary text analysis are subjects and their attributes. The attributes chosen for this application are verbs. The progression of a story is defined by the sequence of verbs (or event occurrences). By fixing a window size and sliding the window down the story steps, we obtain a lattice representing the relationship between subjects and their attributes within that window frame. The resulting lattice provides information such as complementarity (lattice complement existence rate) and distributivity (lattice complement possession rate). These measurements depend on the overlap and the lack of overlap among the attributes of characters. As the story develops and new character and attributes are provided as the source of lattices, one can observe its evolution. In fact, a dramatic change in the behavior dynamics in a scene is reflected in the particular shifts in the character-attribute relationship. This method lets us quantify the developments of character behavioral dynamics in a story.

scholarly journals Reflection of Cultural Identity in the Latest Diary Fragments of Alfonsas Nyka-Niliūnas (2009–2012) and Essay Book “Levels of Life” by Julian Barnes

2019 ◽  
pp. 99-109
Author(s):  
Aurelija Mykolaitytė
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Julian Barnes ◽  
European Culture ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
French Culture ◽  
Cultural Texts ◽  
Inner World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Essential Support

The article compares the following two texts: the latest dairy fragments of Alfonsas Nyka-Niliūnas (2014) and the essay book “Levels of Life” by Julian Barnes. Both writers aim to reveal personal experiences through cultural texts: the relationship with the Other enables us to identify ourselves and helps to describe our inner world. The article focuses on how the memory is created and what is the most important in culture for both writers. Several meaningful aspects are emphasized by both writers: they both raise existential questions, search for possible answers in culture, as well as search for links with a particular place and focus on art. The study has revealed that that culture, especially classic European culture, is an essential support that allows us to reflect our being. Special attention is paid to French culture, which could be perceived as a benchmark for the European mentality. Although the books refer to different cultural sources, they both focus on a great respect of the art of the word as capable of preserving memory.

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