The Lure of Boccaccio’s Medievalism in D. G. Rossetti, William Morris, and Algernon Swinburne

2020 ◽  
pp. 248-270
Author(s):  
Eleonora Sasso
Keyword(s):  
William Morris ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Erotic Love ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Earthly Paradise

This chapter takes as its starting point Erich Auerbach’s notion of creatural medievalism based on materiality and carnality, i.e. ‘the mixture of the sublime with the low’ (284), as well as Bolter and Grusin’s logic of remediation and George Lakoff’s theory of conceptual metaphors, and uses these theoretical frameworks to advance a new reading of D. G. Rossetti’s double works of art (‘Bocca baciata’, 1859, ‘Fiammetta’, 1868, ‘A Vision of Fiammetta’, 1878), William Morris’s The Earthly Paradise (1868), and Algernon Swinburne’s poems (‘The Two Dreams’, 1858, and ‘The Complaint of Lisa’, 1870), one which sees them as excellent models to investigate their indebtedness to Boccaccio’s The Amorous Vision (1342), Decameron (1349) and Rime (1350–69). In their carnal adaptations of Italian medievalism, Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne seem to exalt Boccaccio’s vision of erotic love as embodied by a Neapolitan lady, the princess Maria, whom Boccaccio was to immortalize under the name of Fiammetta.

Criss-Cross: Identity and Transformation in Re-reading Billy Elliot

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 536-551
Author(s):  
Jacqui Miller
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Central Character ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Liberal Politics ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Opening Up

Billy Elliot (2000) has been widely recognised as an important British film of the post-Thatcher period. It has been analysed using multiple disciplinary methodologies, but almost always from the theoretical frameworks of class and gender/sexuality. The film has sometimes been used not so much as a focus of analysis itself but as a conduit for exploring issues such as class deprivation or neo-liberal politics and economics. Such studies tend to use the film's perceived shortcomings as a starting point to critique society's wider failings to interrogate constructions of gender and sexuality. This article argues that an examination of the identity formation of some of the film's subsidiary characters shows how fluidity and transformation are key to the film's opening up of a jouissance which is enabled by but goes beyond its central character.

scholarly journals THE TURN OF THE SCREW: HENRY JAMES AS AN AUTHOR AND A CRITIC

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-67
Author(s):  
M.B. Rarenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Henry James ◽  
William James ◽  
Absolute Truth ◽  
The Core ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World ◽  
New Type ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
The Absolute

The article considers the story by Henry James (1843 – 1916) «The Turn of the Screw» (1898 – first edition, 1908 – second edition) in connection with the emergence of a new type of narrator in the writer's late prose. The worldview and creative method of H. James are formed under the influence of the philosophy of pragmatism, which became widespread at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries thanks to the works of the writer's elder brother, the philosopher William James (1842 – 1910). The core of pragmatism is the pluralistic concept of William James based on the assumption that knowledge can be realized from very limited, incomplete, and inadequate «points of view» and this leads to the statement that the absolute truth is essentially unknowable. The epistemological statements of William James's theory is that the content of knowledge is entirely determined by the installation of consciousness, and the content of the truth in this case depends on the goals and experience of the human, i.e. the central starting point is the consciousness of the person. Henry James not only creates works of art, but also sets out in detail the principles of his work both on the pages of fiction works of small and large prose, putting them in the mouths of their characters – representatives of the world of art, and in the prefaces to his works of fiction, as well as in critical works.

The Germs of a Genre: The Germ and the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine

2018 ◽  
pp. 16-35
Author(s):  
Koenraad Claes
Keyword(s):  
Christina Rossetti ◽  
William Morris ◽  
Conceptual Integration ◽  
Dante Gabriel Rossetti ◽  
Working Definition ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Printed Text ◽  
Fine Printing

This chapter offers a working definition for the little magazine genre, explained as dependent on the peculiar position these publications occupied in the wider periodical marketplace. It then looks at two titles that have been suggested as the starting point for this genre: the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’s journal The Germ (1850—e.g. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, William Holman Hunt), and the closely linked Oxford and Cambridge Magazine (1856—e.g. William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones) that anticipates the message of the Arts & Crafts Movement, in which several contributors would be involved. Finally, the early tendencies in these journals towards a conceptual integration of their contents and the formal / material aspects of the printed text is related to the mid- to late-Victorian ‘Revival of Fine Printing’, which is argued to develop alongside the little magazine genre.

Art works, ontology of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Currie
Keyword(s):  
Standard View ◽  
Nelson Goodman ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Art Works ◽  
Musical Scores ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
History Of ◽  
Physical Objects ◽  
Ontology Of Art

In trying to decide what kinds of thing art works are, the most natural starting point is the hypothesis that they are physical objects. This is plausible only for certain works, such as paintings and sculptures; in such cases we say that the work is a certain marked canvas or piece of stone. Even for these apparently favourable cases, though, there is a metaphysical objection to this proposal: that works and the physical objects identified with them do not possess the same properties and so cannot be identical. There is also an aesthetic objection: that the plausibility of the thesis for painting and sculpture rests on the false view that the authentic object made by the artist possesses aesthetically relevant features which no copy could possibly exemplify. Once it is acknowledged that paintings and sculptures are, in principle, reproducible in the way that novels and musical scores are, the motivation for thinking of the authentic canvas or stone as the work itself collapses. For literary and musical works, the standard view is that they are structures: structures of word-types in the literary case and of sound-types in the musical case. This structuralist view is opposed by contextualism, which asserts that the identity conditions for works must take into account historical features involving their origin and modes of production. Contextualists claim that works with the same structure might have different historical features and ought, therefore, to count as distinct works. Nelson Goodman (1981) has proposed that we divide works into autographic and allographic kinds; for autographic works, such as paintings, genuineness is determined partly by history of production: for allographic works, such as novels, it is determined in some other way. Our examination of the hypothesis that certain works are physical objects and our discussion of the structuralist/contextualist controversy will indicate grounds for thinking that Goodman’s distinction does not provide an acceptable categorization of works. A wholly successful ontology of art works would tell us what things are art works and what things are not; failing that, it would give us identity conditions for them, enabling us to say under what conditions this work and that are the same work. Since the complexity of the issues to be discussed quickly ramifies, it will be appropriate after a certain point to consider only the question of identity conditions. For simplicity, this entry concentrates on works of art that exemplify written literature, scored music and the plastic and pictorial arts.

Human Nature in International Relations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Jacobi
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Political Anthropology ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Starting Point

“Human nature” is not a notion that has originated from theories of world politics. On the contrary, it represents one of the oldest points of reference in various cultural traditions of thought. An aspect, however, that makes the current status of the human in international relations (IR) interesting is the fact that since the 1980s, the discipline has undergone a rigorous and critical examination of its core terminologies. Above all, this effort has led scholars to become aware of the concurrent appropriations of their terms: once as scientific concepts and once as ontological facts. However, while various aspects of the human have always found their way into the theorization of world politics, so far the actual impact of the equally diverse “models of man” on the latter has hardly been subjected to systematic consideration. Observing “human nature” not only as a “naturally given fact” but also as an observational concept connects IR with the broader literatures on how the (political) world may be interpreted and analyzed. The proposition to begin a reappraisal of “human nature’s” framing effects on the basis of the distinction of anthropological and post-anthropological approaches (Human Beings in International Relations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015) calls upon IR scholars to appreciate what happens when they study world politics through a lens that either places the human at the center of its observations or one that opts to decenter it to different extents. A reflection on the distinction of an international political anthropology and an international political post-anthropology as a starting point for theory building then not only draws attention to what is included and excluded in regard to the human when studying world politics. It moreover exposes how different views on the (post)human come to shape different theoretical architectures. What is more, it also reveals that such foundations do not run parallel to the classical IR heuristic of distinct paradigms. A closer look at their post-human foundations then shows how much these schools of thought, once conceived as highly coherent, have now been differentiated internally. The said absence of a systematic debate on the status of the human in the IR theories also poses a challenge to this article. Not only is the human still rarely reflected upon as a theoretical core concept; at the same time, parallel debates exist that are guided less by theoretical frameworks but rather by the problems that arise from specific ideas about the post-human. In this sense, this article also pursues a dual strategy: on the one hand, the listing either of obvious or subtle uses of post-human views by various theoretical traditions, and on the other hand, the identification of specific core problems that have formed in the wake of specific angles on the post-human. Since inquiries into the post-human also include an intersection of IR theories with other scientific literatures, the article also features text references that will help readers find their way into the state of the art of those important adjacent debates.

Trends and Developments in the Literature on Community Libraries in Africa

Libri ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Espen Stranger-Johannessen
Keyword(s):  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Community Support ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Community Libraries

AbstractCommunity libraries in Africa are growing in number, and are increasingly subject to academic research. The literature on community libraries spans 30 years, and this review shows how there has been a shift from conceptual to empirical publications. The early, conceptual literature stressed that community libraries should be by and for the community, support development, actively reach out, and provide relevant materials. These publications can to some extent be seen as reactions to the colonial legacy that national library services carried on after independence. The empirical research was analyzed using Kuhlthau’s (1999) framework for school libraries as a starting point. The major function of this framework is to provide a meta-analysis of the research, and further to relate this meta-analysis to the larger context in which this research is situated. The empirical literature reported mainly on student use. Much of the literature addressed lower-level issues, skills and outcomes, such as materials offered or borrowed, increased reading, and change in attitudes. However, limited attention was given to utilisation as an outcome. Attempts to find a causal relationship between library use and improved grades have been inconclusive. A major limitation of this framework is that it does not address the community aspect of these libraries that the empirical literature emphasized. This dual aspect of community libraries merits further exploration, and there is a need to develop theoretical frameworks that fit better with the realities of African communities and their libraries. There is also need for more research comparing community libraries across countries as well as within countries. The scholarly significance of this study is that is provides a comprehensive, critical review of the literature on community libraries in Africa and identifies caveats in the research literature. This will support future research on community libraries in Africa, an under-researched area.

Socially mediated authenticity

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 258-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dawn R. Gilpin ◽  
Edward T. Palazzolo ◽  
Nicholas Brody
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Essential Components

PurposeUse of digital media channels is growing in public communication. Given the importance of public trust in government figures and agencies, combined with the risk and fear of misrepresentation inherent in online interaction, it is important to develop theoretical frameworks for investigating the ways in which authenticity is constructed in online public affairs communication. The purpose of this paper is to produce a preliminary model of authenticity in online communication, with particular emphasis on public institutions.Design/methodology/approachThe paper first develops a theoretical model of authenticity from existing literature in various disciplines. It then uses that model to explore a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the comments on the US State Department blog, DipNote, from its inception to the end of the Bush Administration.FindingsDespite limited interactions between DipNote authors and commenters, the types and quantity of responses to posts indicate a desire by some readers to discuss the topics raised in the blog space. These responses also suggest that at least some commenters find that the blog meets their criteria for authenticity to the extent necessary to engage in community‐type interaction within its virtual boundaries. A functional‐structural analysis of the blog responses supports the essential components of the theoretical model proposed, which suggests that DipNote presents a mixed form of authenticity.Originality/valueAuthenticity is particularly important in the public sphere, and public institutions are increasingly engaging with social media as a means of connecting with constituencies. This paper proposes a starting‐point for theory development regarding this significant emerging area of communication.

scholarly journals The Lives of Women in Plutarch’s Lives

Literatūra ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 31-48
Author(s):  
Nijolė Juchnevičienė
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Criticism ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Erotic Love ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Political World ◽  
Expert Opinions ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Feminine Sexuality ◽  
Marital Love ◽  
Vast Range

 Plutarch’s works often serve as a starting point for feminist criticism – the writer is called both a feminist who surpassed his times and a spokesperson for the traditional patriarchal society who sees women as passive and inferior to men. Others are certain that Plutarch hates women and atributes all possible character flaws to them. According to some, Plutarch despises educated women, yet others, contrarily, state that he enjoyed the company of educated women no less than that of educated men. Such a vast range of different expert opinions may be due to Plutarch’s vast literary legacy as well as the peculiarity of his way of thinking and his “generic sensibility”: the tendency to change his approach in consideration of different generic demands. Nevertheless, it is impossible to disagree that Plutarch did write the lives of men, and not of women. However, in the remaining Lives of famous Greeks and Romans, we meet plenty of women whose acts and moral principles may serve as examples not only for women, but also for men. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that Plutarch, despite of sometimes relying on stereotypes, regards women according to the same ethical principles as he applies to men. Plutarch depicts women not as passive and submissive, but as autonomous and mature characters who are active not only in their private world, but in the political world too. They overstep the traditional social boundaries of the stereotype “feminine matrix.” He accentuates two of women’s social roles that, according to his judgement, are of the greatest importance: motherhood and partnership. In Plutarch’s narrative, women are associated with love – the selfless motherly love, or marital love based on the community of thoughts and feelings. Plutarch draws attention not to the physical beauty of women, which is traditionally related to feminine sexuality in masculine psychology, but to the integrity of their characters. Love between a husband and wife, based not only on eros, but on devotion and friendship, is the primary representation of erotic love in his Lives.

Talking About Greek Tragedy

Ramus ◽  
1972 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
James McCaughey
Keyword(s):  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
Study Word ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Word Images ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Way

Greek plays were made in the theatre. We must watch our language when we talk about them, for we too are in the theatre. Most of us receive our critical training with works of art that are constructed and exist on the written page. We study word generating word, images interacting. And when we apply these techniques to plays we learn much; the way a playwright uses language, all the hidden things that make a play what it is. And some plays, an Ajax, or a Trojan Women, read so well that we are tempted to forget, or at least disregard that they were not in the first place made for reading. Not that the words are unimportant, but they point beyond themselves to realization in performance. They are as blueprints to a finished building.This does not mean that the critic must spend his time filling the gap between text and production. He will too soon find himself lost in speculation or tangled in archaeological problems. Rather, whatever we say of the words of a play must be conditioned by the fact that they are words for the theatre. A play cannot be something that it could not be on the stage. A sense of what it was in performance is at the same time the starting point and the final criterion of our criticism.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document