Iraq

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haytham Bahoora
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Social Realism ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
The Novel ◽  
War In Iraq ◽  
Critical Social

This chapter examines the development of the novel in Iraq. It first considers the beginnings of prose narrative in Iraq, using the intermingling of the short story and the novel, particularly in the first half of the twentieth century, as a framework for reassessing the formal qualities of the Arabic novel. It then turns to romantic and historical novels published in the 1920s, as well as novels dealing with social issues like poverty and the condition of peasants in the countryside. It discusses the narrative emergence of the bourgeois intellectual’s self-awareness and interiority in Iraqi fiction, especially the novella; works that continued the expression of a critical social realism in the Iraqi novelistic tradition and the appearance of modernist aesthetics; and narratives that addressed dictatorship and war in Iraq. The chapter concludes with an overview of the novel genre in Iraq after 2003.

Syria

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexa Firat
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Significant Influence ◽  
Social Realism ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Women's Issues ◽  
Literary Movement ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
New Generation

This chapter examines the origins of the novel genre in Syria. Approximately eighteen novels by “Syrians” were published between 1865 and the 1930s, but only a limited number would have a significant influence in subsequent decades. In the 1930s, literary histories described an emerging “new generation” and the beginnings of a modern literary movement in the novel and the short story, and during the 1950s the practice of novel writing took on a truly meaningful proportion in Syria. This chapter also considers the role played by women writers and women’s issues in the development of the Syrian novel, works that showed tendencies of romanticism and social realism, contemporary historical novels, and the emergence of experimental novels and new narrative modes dealing with the Syrian experience.

scholarly journals A new myth regarding the Great Trek: Reinvention of identity in Die pad na skuilhoek [The path toSkuilhoek] by Hans du Plessis.

Literator ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlies Taljard
Keyword(s):  
Social Issues ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Myth ◽  
The Way

This article aims to illustrate how Hans du Plessis, in his novel Die pad na Skuilhoek [The path to Skuilhoek] (a place of shelter), subverts the way in which history had been presented in historical novels in the past by addressing social issues that contemporary readers find relevant. The first part of the article deals with the social codes that shape the identities of the main characters and how these identities are relevant in terms of the social framework within which the novel is received. In the second place the focus will shift towards Du Plessis’s representation of cultural and national identities. The question: ‘Who were the Afrikaners at the time of the Great Trek?’ will be answered with reference to these identities. In conclusion it will be pointed out how Du Plessis avoids dated practices of historical interpretation by choosing ecocrticism as the ideological framework for his novel and is, in this way, constructing a new social myth about the Great Trek.

Jovita Gonzalez Stakes a Claim in Tejas History

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen R. Roybal
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Race Relations ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Historical Novel ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Master's Thesis ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

This chapter examines the short story, "Shades of the Tenth Muses," the novel, Caballero: A Historical Novel, and a master's thesis – each narrative written by Tejana folklorist and author, Jovita González – to reveal how she contributed to an alternative archive about the Texas/Mexico borderlands. As a member of the Texas folklore society, González participated alongside what were considered prominent Texas folklorists and historians (mainly Anglo males) of the twentieth century, in an effort to (re)tell her own version of Tejano history. The chapter argues that González uses her literary and academic work to create an alternative archive about gender and race relations along the Texas/Mexico border in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her work contributes to an ever-growing body of Chicana/o work that recuperates Mexicana/o cultural memory.

The Warden

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Trollope
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Jane Austen ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Inappropriate Use ◽  
Love Story ◽  
The Press

‘You might pass Eleanor Harding in the street without notice, but you could hardly pass an evening with her and not lose your heart.’ John Bold has lost his heart to Eleanor Harding but he is a political radical who has launched a campaign against the management of the charity of which her father is the Warden. How can this tangle be resolved? In the novel which is Trollope's first acknowledged masterpiece, the emotional drama is staged against the background of two major contemporary social issues: the inappropriate use of charitable funds and the irresponsible exercise of the power of the press. A witty love story, in the Jane Austen tradition, this is also an unusually subtle example of ‘Condition of England’ fiction, combining its charming portrayal of life in an English cathedral close with a serious engagement in larger social and political issues. The Warden is the first of the six books which form Trollope's Barsetshire series of novels. This edition also includes ‘The Two Heroines of Plumplington’ - the short story which Trollope added, just before his death, to provide a final episode in the annals of Barsetshire.

scholarly journals Recovering a “Lost Europe”: The De-Centering of Master Narratives in Eyvind Johnson’s Natten är här

Humanities ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
Elliott J. Brandsma
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Short Fiction ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Master Narratives ◽  
Short Story Collection ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
The Face

A socially-engaged literary Modernist, whose writings possess an incisive skepticism toward political power, Eyvind Johnson (1900–1976) was a working-class autodidact who became a prominent voice in Swedish letters during the twentieth century. His historical novels have attracted the most critical attention to date, but his short fiction from the 1920s reveals a young author increasingly suspicious of what postmodern theorist Jean-Francois Lyotard would later call master narratives—totalizing views of historical events that serve a political or universalized function. In “Kort Besök” (A Short Visit), “Det Förlorade Europa,” (The Lost Europe) and “En Man i Etolien” (A Man in Aetolia), from his 1932 short story collection Natten är här (The Night Has Come), Johnson’s characters resist and subvert various master narratives, maintaining their dignity and individuality in the face of destructive political, military or nationalistic agendas. Although his formal experimentation, introspective storytelling and narrative irresolution firmly situate him in the Modernist literary tradition, Johnson’s disruption of grand narratives about historical events in these stories previews postmodernity, with its radical interrogation of language’s subjugating power, suggesting a new avenue for evaluating and apprehending his literary innovations. Short fiction, thus, offers an accessible entryway into the complex art of Eyvind Johnson, whose intricate novels about centuries past have long resisted casual readership.

Re-enter Jessie, 1911–1912

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Sexual Partner ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Continue Work ◽  
Seriously Ill

Jessie’s criticism was crucial to Paul Morel’s transformation into one of the great novels of the twentieth century. She advised Lawrence to stay much closer to actuality, and in particular to include the death of his elder brother Ernest (William in the novel) which had been omitted from the second draft. This plot element is subtle, poignant and thematically resonant, since William's death is imbricated with his inability to choose a suitable sexual partner and by extension with his relationship to his mother. Jessie showed acute critical judgement about the potential of the biographical material and the appropriate style for tackling it. She also had a more personal motive: she hoped that by writing this story 'Lawrence might free himself from his strange obsession with his mother.’ Lawrence agreed to her plan and asked her to write some reminiscences of their times together. But he had barely begun rewriting the novel before he fell seriously ill with pneumonia. He did not continue work on the novel while ill, but he did write a short story, the first version of 'The Shades of Spring', in which he re-imagined his relationship with Jessie.

scholarly journals Individuation in The Seventh Day of Creation: A Jungian Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Step Process ◽  
Jungian Analysis ◽  
Psychological Analysis ◽  
Individuation Process ◽  
Self Discovery

Jung's individuation process is associated with the shadow, anima, self, sage, and persona archetypes, during which the protagonist achieves self-discovery and self-awareness. Abdel Khaliq al-Rikabi’s The Seventh Day of Creation is one of the most popular Arabic novels in the twentieth century which has postmodern techniques including polyphony and time travel to present two main distinct narratives. If these intertwined narratives are considered separately, one can detect therein the archetypes informing Jung's idea of individuation. Most notably, the function of these archetypes in advancing the author's goal, which is a kind of self-discovery and creation of the novel, could be recognized in the novel’s first narrative, namely, Kitab al-Kotob (Sirah al-Zatiyeh). The psychological analysis of this narrative shows that the author encounters unconscious archetypal elements such as shadow, anima, and sage; toward the end of the process of individuation, he becomes aware of how the form and content of the narrative are created. The first story is Sirah al-Zatiyeh which presents the process of self-discovery of the author himself, undergoes the process of individuation in order to collect the manuscripts of Rawouq. In a three-step process, the novel’s protagonist sets out on a symbolic journey to know himself and achieve self-discovery, after encountering the archetypes of the shadow (Badr and the poet), the anima (Warqa), and the sage (Shabib).

Arrows in Flight

2020 ◽  
pp. 252-268
Author(s):  
Heather Ingman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
Sean O'faolain

This chapter explores why the three twentieth-century writers who arguably did most to establish the short story as the quintessential Irish literary form—Frank O’Connor, Seán O’Faoláin, and Mary Lavin—fell short in the novel form. All three writers excelled in the shorter format, devoting meticulous care to their craft and revising and reshaping their stories many times, sometimes even after publication. Furthermore, O’Connor and O’Faoláin wrote influential critical studies of the modern short story, and Lavin was a perceptive arbiter of its aesthetic value and potential. As novelists, however, all three published works that, in the view of critics and also the writers themselves, were failures. The chapter critically examines the reasons that underpin such judgements.

scholarly journals The female image in Ukrainian historical prose at the beginning of the XXI century

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 39-44
Author(s):  
Lyudmyla Kulishenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Family Values ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Left Bank ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Special Value ◽  
The City ◽  
Second World

The article explores the feminine images of Martha from D. Hnatko’s novel «The Impious Soul» and Irena from N. Gurnitskaya’s novel «The Рurple Colour of Eternity» against the background of historical events. The actions in D. Hnatko’s novel take place at the beginning of the eighteenth century in the Left Bank Ukraine – in Poltava, in the city of Baturin, in Kiev. The author highlights the events related to the Baturyn tragedy and the Battle of Poltava. In the novel by N. Gurnitskaya the events covering all the twentieth century are reproduced as well as the modern time, namely pre-war pre-Soviet Lviv, Lviv during the Second World War, modern Lviv and Kiev with events on the Maidan. The author notes that the work is dedicated to her grandmother's sister, Anna Lozynsky (Burdan), and to all families who were repressed by the Stalinist regime. Against the background of these dramatic events for Ukraine, the complicated life of the main characters of the novels is shown. Martha's hardships are losing children, disappointment in love, feeling sick for the fate of sisters, mental anguish over hatred of her father, contemplating the terrible destruction of Baturin, perceiving war as a divorce, rescuing beloved man. The main meaning of life for Martha was love. Irenа studied in a private women’s gymnasium, loved to draw and had many plans, but fate prepared for the test: the loss of first love, the troubled times of the Soviets in Lviv, the arrest of beloved husband, the inhuman tortures of the Stalinist, burial of the eldest daughter and unsuccessful search for the younger daughter. Irena had a good family, a caring husband and children, but because of obstacles she could not achieve the desired happiness. These complicated destinies of Martha and Irena intertwined with those of other Ukrainians and are the expressions of the sufferings that have befallen these generations in different historical periods. The image of Martha shows the transition from a patriarchal representation of a woman to a strong-willed woman who defies social norms in the struggle for her feminine happiness. Martha is the prototype of Irena, which is the result of the evolution of the role of women in society. Martha has a rebellious temper, and therefore strives to choose her own destiny, even though she sees her happiness in love and motherhood. Irena is socially active, responsible for her life, unbreakable in all circumstances of life. Martha and Irena are found to embody the images of «woman-mother» and «beloved woman», since their existential need is precisely family values. This component forms a special spiritual atmosphere in the novels and presents the mentality of the Ukrainian people. Historical novels are an artistic reflection of the past, and they also enable to get acquainted with some tragic pages of the Ukrainian history. Therefore, they have their special value on the way to developing self-awareness of the Ukrainian nation.

Coda: The Rosetta Stone

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Schotter
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Digital Code ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Rosetta Stone ◽  
The World ◽  
Western Imagination ◽  
Origin Point

Hieroglyphs have persisted for so long in the Western imagination because of the malleability of their metaphorical meanings. Emblems of readability and unreadability, universality and difference, writing and film, writing and digital media, hieroglyphs serve to encompass many of the central tensions in understandings of race, nation, language and media in the twentieth century. For Pound and Lindsay, they served as inspirations for a more direct and universal form of writing; for Woolf, as a way of treating the new medium of film and our perceptions of the world as a kind of language. For Conrad and Welles, they embodied the hybridity of writing or the images of film; for al-Hakim and Mahfouz, the persistence of links between ancient Pharaonic civilisation and a newly independent Egypt. For Joyce, hieroglyphs symbolised the origin point for the world’s cultures and nations; for Pynchon, the connection between digital code and the novel. In their modernist interpretations and applications, hieroglyphs bring together writing and new media technologies, language and the material world, and all the nations and languages of the globe....

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