Cynic and Lyric Balanced

2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-58
Author(s):  
James Brophy
Keyword(s):  
War Poetry ◽  
Love Lyric

The war poet Keith Douglas wrote in 1943 that he sought a “balanced style” where “cynic and lyric” might meet. In focusing on a set of four poems that he had written in May and June of that year—“Vergissmeinnicht,” “Aristocrats,” “How to Kill,” and “Enfidaville”—I propose that the cynic and lyric met for Douglas as two forms of special knowing, the “combat gnosticism” of war poetry, and a parallel gnosticism in love lyric. Each proposes that a special experience can utterly transform a subject: the soldier’s kind of knowing transformed by battle experience, and the lover’s by the experience of a beloved’s body. Douglas’s poetry arrives at the balancing of cynic and lyric, then, by confusing and conflating these special gnostic conditions, and its resonant image is the battlefield corpse conflated with the lover in repose.

«The Forties, Fateful…» in David Samoylov’s Poetry: a Lingvo-stylistic Analysis of Three Poems about War (To the 100th Anniversary of the Birth)

2020 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 63-69
Author(s):  
E. A. Frolova
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
100Th Anniversary ◽  
Stylistic Analysis ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Creative Activity ◽  
War Poetry ◽  
Artistic Manner ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Linguistic Means

The article presents an analysis of three poems about war («The Tale of Our Lady and Russian Soldiers» («Slovo o Bogoroditse i Russkih Soldatah»), «The Attack» («Ataka»), «The Forties» («Sorokovye»)) written by D. Samoylov in different periods of his creative activity. On the basis of the existing research of the creative work of the famous poet of the 20th century, a multilevel characteristic of his war lyrics is given. The aim of the article is to characterize the specific features of the poetic language of such an original author by means of a lingvo-stylistic analysis of D. Samoilov’s poems, to reveal the richness and diversity of his artistic manner. The following research methods were used: analytical reading, comparative analysis, ontological method, a multilevel analysis of poetry. The author accentuates reminiscences in D. Samoilov’s war poetry, the contrast and contrast means, repetition as an artistic device, paronomasia in the stylistic mixture of linguistic means belonging to different levels. A multidimensional poet’s approach to the theme of the war is the conclusion of the article.

The Pragmatics of Romance in the First World War' Poetry

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinan Kadhim Isma'eel ◽  
Rufaidah Kamal Abdulmajeed
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
War Poetry ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

The Motif of Sacrifice in the Literature and Culture of the Second World War

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Rawlinson
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
First World War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
World War ◽  
War Poetry ◽  
Anglophone Literature ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World

This chapter explores how Anglophone literature and culture envisioned and questioned an economy of sacrificial exchange, particularly its symbolic aspect, as driving the compulsions entangled in the Second World War. After considering how Elizabeth Bowen’s short stories cast light on the Home Front rhetorics of sacrifice and reconstruction, it looks at how poets Robert Graves, Keith Douglas, and Alun Lewis reflect on First World War poetry of sacrifice. With reference to René Girard’s and Carl von Clausewitz’s writings on war, I take up Elaine Cobley’s assertion about the differing valencies of the First and Second World Wars, arguing that the contrast is better seen in terms of sacrificial economy. I develop that argument with reference to examples from Second World War literature depicting sacrificial exchange (while often harking back to the First World War), including Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour Trilogy (1952–61), and William Wharton’s memoir Shrapnel (2012).

Louisa Stuart Costello and Women's War Poetry

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 178-182
Author(s):  
Clare Broome Saunders
Keyword(s):  
War Poetry

scholarly journals A Classical Source for Petrarch’s Conceit of the Binding Knot of Hair: Apuleius’s Metamorphoses

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilla Caporicci
Keyword(s):  
Classical Source ◽  
Renaissance Poetry ◽  
Vernacular Poetry ◽  
Love Lyric

AbstractThe conceit of the beloved’s hair ensnaring and binding the poet’s heart and soul is common in Renaissance poetry and particularly widespread in the tradition of Petrarchan love lyric. The topos can be traced back to Petrarch’s canzoniere, or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, in which Laura’s golden hair is often described in terms of knots and laces tying both the poet’s heart and soul. No classical antecedent has previously been identified for the image. In this study, I propose a possible classical source for the characteristic Petrarchan motif of Laura’s binding hair knot: Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, a manuscript of which the poet owned and which he read and annotated several times. In particular, I show how passages such as Lucius’s celebration of the beauty of women’s hair (Metamorphoses, II.8–9), and especially his declaration of love to Photis, an oath he takes on ʻthat sweet knot of your hair with which you have bound my spiritʼ (ibid., III.23), can be convincingly regarded as a source for Petrarch’s conceit. In addition to the value inherent in the detection of a new source for an influential Petrarchan topos, the present study may have some further implications. It could offer novel arguments for the dating of a series of Petrarchan poems, and it could foster a potentially fruitful reappraisal of the influence of Apuleius’s work on Petrarch’s vernacular poetry.

scholarly journals Aristotle My Beloved: Poetry, Diagnosis, and the Dreams of Julius Caesar Scaliger*

2007 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 819-851 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristine Louise Haugen
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Love Poetry ◽  
Love Lyric

AbstractNotoriously Aristotelian in his poetic theory, linguistics, and natural philosophy, Julius Caesar Scaliger (1484–1558) also reimagined the lost love poetry that Aristotle himself was said to have written. Scaliger'sNew Epigramsof 1533 combine a distinctively humanist view of Aristotle as an elegant polymath with a sustained experiment in refashioning the Petrarchan love lyric. Most visibly in poems about dreams and dreaming, Scaliger educes his speaker's erotic despair from philosophical problems in contemporary Aristotelian accounts of the soul, knowledge, and personal identity. The strange but compelling texts that result form a crossroads for Scaliger's own identities as physician, philosopher, and poet.

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