scholarly journals J. BRODSKY’S ENGLISH POETRY IN ENGLISH CRITICS

Author(s):  
Алёна Владимировна Кузуб

Введение. Рассматриваются высказывания в адрес оригинальной англоязычной поэзии И. Бродского, сделанные англоязычными критиками, поэтами и переводчиками. Все высказывания разделены на группы согласно географической, лингвистической и профессиональной принадлежности их авторов. Большинство характеристик в адрес английских стихов Бродского носят ситуативный, несистемный характер, представляя собой разрозненные высказывания. Объединяет их то, что многие даже самые ярые сторонники английской поэзии Бродского вынуждены отмечать некоторые шероховатости использования им языка, стилистические несуразицы и излишнюю «русскость» английских стихов поэта. Цель статьи – систематизация и критическая оценка подобных высказываний, носящих ситуативный и несистемный характер. Материал и методы. В качестве материала исследования выступили высказывания зарубежных исследователей и поэтов, касающиеся оригинального англоязычного поэтического творчества Бродского, встречающиеся в многочисленных интервью и книгах, посвященных жизни и творчеству поэта. Предметом исследования становится рецепция англоязычных стихотворений Бродского носителями языка. Были использованы методы фронтального анализа и контент-анализа, сравнительный метод. Результаты и обсуждение. Английские стихотворения Бродского до сих пор являются малоизученными, исследователи обходят стороной этот важный пласт творчества поэта, который, однако, может помочь достроить картину эстетического мышления автора до ее логической завершенности. В то время как исследователи традиционно концентрируются на русской поэзии, англоязычной прозе и (авто)переводах Бродского, в фокус данной статьи попадает англоязычная оригинальная поэзия автора – феномен, нуждающийся в более глубоком осмыслении. В работе классифицируются причины обращения Бродского к английскому языку, которые можно разделить на три группы: эстетические, утилитарные, лингвистические. Отношение Бродского к своим английским стихотворениям было непростым. Создание оригинальных поэтических текстов на английском для него было сродни так называемой игре в стихосложение с использованием иного лингвистического инструментария. Он видел в английском стихосложении возможность рифмовать краткосложные лексемы английского языка в различных комбинациях, использовать невозможные в русском языке ритмико-синтаксические структуры, экспериментировать с просодией. Одна из самых больших претензий к английским поэтическим текстам Бродского – некорректное использование им английских идиоматических единиц. По мнению даже большинства доброжелательных критиков, английская идиоматика стихов Бродского бывала проблематична. Многие отмечают взаимопроникаемость и взаимообусловленность русского и английского языков в поэтическом творчестве Бродского. Некоторые находят подобное явление неприемлемым, другие считают это уникальным стилем поэтики двуязычного автора. Заключение. Сделан вывод о том, что Бродский являлся носителем двух национально-языковых культур и литератур: русской и английской. При всем разночтении мнений критиков и поэтов, подавляющее большинство из них касаются исключительно лингвистического уровня оригинальных англоязычных стихотворений Бродского, ни один из критиков или высказывающихся по этому вопросу поэтов не обращается к эстетическому уровню анализа английских стихов автора. Будущее исследование предполагает ответить на вопрос: остается ли мироощущение Бродского русским и в его английской поэзии или оно меняется вслед за языком? Introduction. The article focuses on different statements concerning Joseph Brodsky’s original English poetry made by English and American critics, poets and translators. Aim and objectives. The paper aims to classify, systematize and critically value those statements, which can be described as occasional and unsystematic. Material and methods. The research is based on statements concerning Brodsky’s original English poetical works made by foreign English-speaking philologists, critics and poets. All the statements are found in variety of different interviews and books dedicated to Brodsky’s life and work. The methods used in the research are as follows: frontal analysis and content analysis, comparative method. Results and discussion. Brodsky’s English verses are yet to be studied as for researchers neglect such an important component of Brodsky’s works, which however is to help construct the whole picture of one’s esthetic thinking to its logical whole. As long as philologists traditionally concentrate on Brodsky’s Russian verses, English essays and (self) translations, this paper addresses Brodsky’s original English poetry as a phenomenon craving for deeper scientific understanding. The article brings the light on the reasons determined Brodsky’s turn toward English which can be divided into three groups: esthetic, utilitarian and linguistic ones. Brodsky’s attitude towards his own English verses was complicated. Creating original English poetical texts was like so-called play in versification and prosody with the using of new linguistic tools. He admitted in English prosody ability of rhyming short English lexical elements in broad variety of possible combinations, using impossible in Russian rhythmical and syntactic structures, experimenting with prosody. The paper provides review of statements addressing Brodsky’s original English poetry. All the statements are divided into groups according to geographical, linguistic and professional areas of the authors they were made by. The majority of studying statements are occasional and unsystematic, united however with some same features. Even supporters of Brodsky’s English poetry were forced to mention a bunch of imperfections in Brodsky’s English, stylistic mistakes and too Russian being of his English verses. One of the main grievance about Brodsky’s English verses is his incorrect using of English idiomatic elements. Many underline interferential and interconditional nature of English and Russian languages in Brodsky’s verses. Some consider this feature to be unacceptable, others as a unique style of bilingual author. Conclusion. Finally the article concludes that Joseph Brodsky was a two-cultured and two-language representative: Russian and English. Despite all the deviation in opinion of critics, poets and translators, the majority of them focus solemnly on linguistic level of Brodsky’s English verses. It’s worth noticing the lack of esthetic interpretation of Brodsky’s English poetry. The upcoming research can provide an answer to a question: does Brodsky’s world view remain the same in his English poetry or did it change subsequent to the language?

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Salvador Alarcón-Hermosilla

Abstract The aim of this paper is to take a close look at John McGahern’s mind style through the language of the heroine Elizabeth Reegan and other characters, in his 1963 novel The Barracks. Specifically, attention will be drawn to how the linguistic choices shape the figurative language to cast the author’s controversial views on the religion-pervaded puritan Irish society that he knew so well. This will be done from two different perspectives. One perspective is through the breast cancer afflicted heroine, who asserts herself as a free thinker and a woman of science, in a society where priests have a strong influence at all social levels, and most women settle for housekeeping. The other is also through Elizabeth, together with other minor characters, who dare question some of the basic well-established ideological assumptions, in a series of examples where the author skilfully raises two parallel dichotomies, namely, FAITH versus REASON, and DARKNESS versus LIGHT. At a linguistic level, the present analysis relies on precepts from Frame Semantics, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and Cognitive Grammar. These insights prove a most useful method of approach to a narrative text while unearthing the author’s ideological world view.


1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 443-462
Author(s):  
Dorothy Mermin

The idea of a literary canon is inextricably connected in English-speaking countries with the Arnolds: Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby, who was credited with revivifying the classical curriculum while recreating the great public schools, and his eldest son, Matthew, the most influential nineteenth-century spokesman for the moral, spiritual, social, and cultural efficacy of a canon widened to include English poetry and available, at least in theory, to every literate English person. Like his father, Matthew Arnold was a professional educator: he earned his living as an inspector of schools, mostly elementary schools for the poor. For both Arnolds, the canon is the curriculum at the heart of the pedagogical enterprise; and the grand, almost mystical power they attached to it spilled over onto the pedagogue. Their professional careers entailed considerable sacrifice of worldly ambition, but the power of pedagogy as they conceived it became their object and their reward.


1972 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clive Dewey

To a degree exceptional even in that age of historical recovery and sociological discovery, awareness of the village community was a creation of the later nineteenth century. With due allowance for the contribution of the German historical school, it was—within the English-speaking world—an Anglo-Indian creation. In England, save for a handful of ‘survivals’, the village community was a purely historical phenomenon, studied by historians; but in India it was an omnipresent reality, utilized by revenue officials in assessing and collecting the land revenue. From the efforts of these groups—historians and revenue officials—to comprehend substantially similar institutions two intellectual traditions derived. Originating in complete independence of one another, both traditions converged in the third quarter of the nineteenth century for a brief, intense, period of cross-fertilization—only to separate as totally again. What made their convergence possible was the rising popularity of evolution and ‘comparative method’—which insisted on the essential identity of the defunct English village community and the living Indian village, separate in space and time, but co-existent in the same phase of social evolution. Then disillusion with unilinear evolutionary schemes and the exhaustion of comparative method—its apparent inability to produce any fresh discovery—drove them apart.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (17/18) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arne Merilai

Teesid: Artikkel defineerib maailmakirjanduse professor Jüri Talveti komparativistlikku meetodit nii maamesilase metafoori kui ka tema poolt tutvustatud mõistete edaphos (’pind’) ja episteme (’teadmine’) kaudu. Võrdleva kirjandusteadlase ülesanne on kahesuunaline: tutvustada eesti kirjandust maailmas ja vahendada mujal loodut meie kultuurile. Kuigi õpetlaste teoreetiline metasüsteem ja mõistevõrk – episteme – võib areneda väga keeruliseks, peab see alati juurduma edaphos’es kui toitvas pinnases, mille loovad sõnakunstiteosed ja rahvuslikud kirjanduslood. Avardades võrdlevat edaphos’t, aktiveerime ja rikastame ka maailma episteme’t. The article aims at defining the comparative method of Jüri Talvet, professor of comparative literature. This can be carried out by an application of Talvet’s own metaphor for himself – a bumble bee, or via two concepts elaborated by him – edaphos (base) and episteme (knowledge). The bumble bee, by nature more reclusive and peaceful but somehow more attractive looks than a regular bee flies out from its modest sod nest across blooming meadows, disseminating homely pollen among the leaves of grass of the wide world. Then it faithfully returns with nourishing nectar that feeds its family. As chairman of the Estonian Comparative Literature Association, and founder and editor-in-chief of the comparative literature journal Interlitteraria, Talvet has written: “Its purpose is to channel new literary-philosophical ideas from the international area to Estonia and, at the same time, to spread knowledge about Estonian literary and philosophical studies outside Estonia, as well as to let the wider world have some idea of Estonian literature itself which, because of the language barrier, has belonged traditionally to the majority of “silent” literatures of the world, unjustly ignored by the area of the dominant Western languages.” Yet, no matter how complex our theoretical meta-systems and conceptual framework – episteme – might develop, it always needs to be firmly based on edaphos as its foundation, that is, on works of literature and national literary histories. By extending the comparative edaphos, we also enrich the world’s episteme. It is therefore not surprising that, as a scholar with extensive knowledge of world literature, Talvet has great affinity for tellurism, an aesthetic concept used in Hispanic cultures that is largely unknown to the English-speaking world. 


2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-39
Author(s):  
Steve Fuller

This introduction to the Socrates Tenured symposium reflects on the history of philosophy’s institutionalization as a specialized academic discipline, noting its relative recency in the English-speaking world. Despite occasionally paying lip service to its German idealist origins, philosophy in the United States is best understood as an extension of the Neo-Kantian world-view which came to dominate German academic life after Hegel’s death. Socrates Tenured aims to buck this trend toward philosophy’s academic specialization by a strategy that bears interesting comparison with the anti-professionalism of Robert Maynard Hutchins at the University of Chicago.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Parvin Safari ◽  
Seyyed Ayatollah Razmjoo

Globalization as an increasingly influencing force has led English language to become the lingua franca of the world. However, the global spread of English is considered as linguistic and cultural imperialism of English speaking countries to exert their dominance, power, culture, ideology and language over the periphery countries. The devastating consequence of this hegemony, according to Canagarajah (2005) can be putting learners in danger of losing their languages, cultures, and identities, giving rise to the devaluation of their local knowledge and cultures. Here, the researchers administ interview to explore thirty-seven experienced Iranian EFL teachers’ (18males/19females) perceptions on English globalization and its hegemony, who were selected based on purposive sampling. The researchers’ adoption of Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) constant comparative method revealed that although Iranian English teachers admitted globalization as an inevitable reality and English language as a tool in the service of globalization to smooth communication among people, they took up a counter-hegemonic stance and resistance towards the values associated with its use. They also suggested some anti-hegemonic strategies to de-colonize the power, culture, values, and ideologies of the West which tries to marginalize other countries and people.


2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-306
Author(s):  
Aviya Hacohen ◽  
Mostafa Qtit

The theoretical literature on the mass/count distinction in Palestinian-Arabic (PA) is extremely scarce, and the psycholinguistic perspective has never been explored. In this paper, we report results from an experiment exploring the mass/count distinction in 48 (aged 6;6–17;04) young and adult speakers of PA. Using an adaptation of Barner & Snedeker’s (2005) Quantity-Judgment task, we show that while PA-speaking adults are essentially identical to English-speaking adults, PA-speaking children behave dramatically different from both adult PA speakers and from English-acquiring children. We suggest that these results may reflect a process of language change currently taking place in PA. We further propose two possible sources for the process. The first involves the fact that the grammaticization of mass/count in PA is rather marginal, as indicated by the relative paucity of syntactic structures encoding the distinction. Alternatively, our data may reflect a change process involving a relaxation of obligatory number-marking in cardinality contexts. Finally, we outline a research-program aimed to test these hypotheses.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-64
Author(s):  
Anastasia V. Sycheva

The article deals with the problem of preserving the rhyme traditional for Russian poetry in translations into English. A brief analysis of Russian and foreign linguists’ works on the theory and practice of poetic translation shows that rhyme in English poetry does not play such a significant role as it does in Russian poetry. Opinions of English-speaking readers coincide with the opinion of translators. However, adequate versions of Russian poems in English with preservation of rhymes of original verses are the preferred type of poetic translation. The article deals with the problem of preserving the rhyme, characteristic of Russian poetry, in translations into English. The purpose of this scientific research is to conduct a brief analysis of the works of Russian and foreign linguists on the theory and practice of poetic translation to reveal the role and significance of the category of rhyme in English and Russian poetry. The author pays special attention to the opinion of translators of Russian poetry into English and English-speaking readers of translated Russian lyrics in the context of preserving rhyme or deviation from it. As a result of the conducted research, the author comes to the conclusion that rhyme does not play such a significant role for foreign linguists and translators as it does for their Russian-speaking counterparts. A more attractive form of poetry for them is vers libre. Consequently, the issues of rhyme reproduction for English translators are not of paramount importance. The main emphasis is on the meaning of the translated text, not its form. Opinions of English-speaking readers coincide with the opinion of translators. In addition, the article presents summary information of the conducted comparative linguistic analysis of 275 poems by B. Okudzhava and their originals. The analysis shows that in percentage terms the number of rhymed translations from the total number of translated texts is about 40%. However, the overwhelming number of English translations of poems Okudzhava - about 60% - belongs to unrhymed translations. Nevertheless, the author of the article emphasizes the need to preserve rhyme in translations as an integral part of the Russian classical verse and believes that adequate versions of Russian poems in English with preservation of original rhyme are the preferred type of poetic translation.


1988 ◽  
Vol 4 (16) ◽  
pp. 330-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Versényi

The quasi-theatrical kinds of performance-ritual which existed in pre-Columbian Latin America have been little investigated, and are almost entirely neglected by English-speaking theatre scholars. In NTQ 8, Robert Potter looked at ways in which the missionaries who followed in the wake of the Spanish conquistadores tried to adapt Aztec rituals to their own proselytizing purposes: and here, Adam Versényi, in the first of a series of articles on early Latin American performance, provides an overview of the ways in which the great pre-Columbian civilizations embraced performance into their often-unfamiliar world view – suggesting that in some cases the cosmogony expressed through the dramatic rituals made them particularly ill-equipped to confront the ‘otherness’ of the invading Spaniards. Adam Versényi is currently preparing a study which parallels recent developments in Liberation Theology and Liberation Theatre in Latin America.


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