scholarly journals Joyce Carol Oates’s Carthage as a Modern Troilus and Cressida Story

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Dominika Ruszkiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Iraq War ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Troilus And Criseyde ◽  
Trojan War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Troilus And Cressida ◽  
The One ◽  
Chivalric Romances

Both Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and Joyce Carol Oates’s Carthage are set in times of war, the Trojan War and the Iraq War, respectively, and both are associated with love on the one hand, and loss on the other. In fact, Carthage contains many echoes of the past, with the main characters of the novel, Juliet and Cressida Mayfield, bringing connotations with Chaucer’s and Shakespeare’s works, their father compared to an old Roman general, and Corporal Brett Kincaid likened to the hero of chivalric romances. The aim of this article is to argue that Oates’s Carthage may be seen as a modern Troilus and Cressida story in that it presents aspects of medieval reality in a modern guise, with the most poignant and recurrent association being that between the “war on terror” and medieval crusades and the emotion dominating the characters’ reactions being rage, an emotion which occurs in relation to the fires of passion and war in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, and Joyce Carol Oates’s Carthage.

Camus's Absurd and the World of Melville's Confidence-Man

PMLA ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-27
Author(s):  
Leon F. Seltzer
Keyword(s):  
Careful Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
Confidence Man ◽  
Ugly Duckling ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

In recent years, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, a difficult work and for long an unjustly neglected one, has begun to command increasingly greater critical attention and esteem. As more than one contemporary writer has noted, the verdict of the late Richard Chase in 1949, that the novel represents Melville's “second best achievement,” has served to prompt many to undertake a second reading (or at least a first) of the book. Before this time, the novel had traditionally been the one Melville readers have shied away from—as overly discursive, too rambling altogether, on the one hand, or as an unfortunate outgrowth of the author's morbidity on the other. Elizabeth Foster, in the admirably comprehensive introduction to her valuable edition of The Confidence-Man (1954), systematically traces the history of the book's reputation and observes that even with the Melville renaissance of the twenties, the work stands as the last piece of the author's fiction to be redeemed. Only lately, she comments, has it ceased to be regarded as “the ugly duckling” of Melville's creations. But recognition does not imply agreement, and it should not be thought that in the past fifteen years critics have reached any sort of unanimity on the novel's content. Since Mr. Chase's study, which approached the puzzling work as a satire on the American spirit—or, more specifically, as an attack on the liberalism of the day—and which speculated upon the novel's controlling folk and mythic figures, other critics, by now ready to assume that the book repaid careful analysis, have read the work in a variety of ways. It has been treated, among other things, as a religious allegory, as a philosophic satire on optimism, and as a Shandian comedy. One critic has conveniently summarized the prevailing situation by remarking that “the literary, philosophical, and cultural materials in this book are fused in so enigmatic a fashion that its interpreters have differed as to what the book is really about.”

scholarly journals Poetic Frameworks and Narrative Procedures of Bosnia and Herzegovina Novels about Kulin Ban

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4(17)) ◽  
pp. 57-72
Author(s):  
Melida Travančić
Keyword(s):  
Past History ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Figures ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

This paperwork presents the literary constructions of Kulin Ban's personality in contemporary Bosnian literature on the example of three novels: Zlatko Topčić Kulin (1994), Mirsad Sinanović Kulin (2007), and Irfan Hrozović Sokolarov sonnet (2016). The themes of these novels are real historical events and historical figures, and we try to present the way(s) of narration and shape the image of the past and the way the past-history-literature triangle works. Documentary discourse is often involved in the relationship between faction and fiction in the novel. Yet, as can be seen from all three novels, it is a subjective discourse on the perception of Kulin Ban today and the period of his reign, a period that could be characterized as a mimetic time in which great, sudden, and radical changes take place. If the poetic extremes of postmodernist prose are on the one hand flirting with trivia, and on the other sophisticated meta- and intertextual prose, then the Bosnian-Herzegovinian romance of the personality of Kulina Ban fully confirms just such a range of stylistic-narrative tendencies of narrative texts of today's era.

scholarly journals “When Night Passes” and “When Day Breaks” – Between the Past and the Present. Borderlines of Holocaust in Filip David’s Works

2017 ◽  
pp. 75-96
Author(s):  
Sabina Giergiel ◽  
Katarzyna Taczyńska
Keyword(s):  
Primary Objective ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The One

When Night Passes and When Day Breaks – Between the Past and the Present. Borderlines of Holocaust in Filip David’s WorksThe primary objective of the text is the analysis of Filip David's latest work. The Serbian writer is the author of the novel House of Memories and Oblivions (Kuća sećanja i zaborava, 2014), award for Best Novel of the Year by the NIN weekly (Nedeljne Informativne Novine). On the one hand, the output of this Serbian novelist is of interest to us as a continuation and representation of the contemporary discourse on the Holocaust in Serbia. On the other – we look at the literary realization of the Holocaust topic. The fortunes of the main characters in the novel (children who survived Holocaust) serve as the cases on which we present where the author draws the borderline of the ever-present Holocaust in their lives; how much and in what way the past affects their present; where the borderline of memory, forgetting and oblivion is. Kad padne noć i Kad svane dan - między przeszłością a teraźniejszością. Granice Holocaustu w twórczości Filipa DavidaPodstawowym celem tekstu jest analiza najnowszej tworczości Filipa Davida, autora nagrodzonej Nagrodą Tygodnika NIN („Nedeljne Informativne Novine") powieści Dom pamięci i zapomnienia (2014, Kuća sećanja i zabovrava). Z jednej strony twórczość serbskiego prozaika interesować nas będzie jako kontynuacja i reprezentacja współczesnego dyskursu na temat Holokaustu w Serbii. Z drugiej zaś – przyjrzymy się jego literackiej realizacji. Na przykładzie losów głównych bohaterów powieści (dzieci, które przeżyły Zagładę) pokażemy, gdzie przebiega rysowana przez autora granica istnienia Shoah w ich życiu. Na ile i w jaki sposób przeszłość wpływa na ich teraźniejszość, gdzie przebiega granica pamięci, niepamięci i zapomnienia oraz w jakim stopniu ich życie definiuje rozdzielenie rzeczywistości od fikcji.

scholarly journals Тема старости в романе Гайто Газданова „Ночные дороги”

2017 ◽  
Vol 163 ◽  
pp. 203-212
Author(s):  
Maria Giej
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Elderly Woman ◽  
Meaning Of Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Past ◽  
Individual Traits ◽  
The One ◽  
Emigre Writers

A theme of old age in the novel Night Roads  by Gaito Gazdanov In his literary works, Gaito Gazdanov — arepresentative of ayounger generation of the first wave of Russian émigré writers — has made frequent references to the theme of old age. Very often he analyzed the old age in the context of the meaning of life and death. His novel “Night Roads” is essential in this respect as the theme of old age and the attitude thereto is presented against the backdrop of the experiences of an owner of acafe, aprostitute Raldi and an elderly cab driver. The protagonists possess specific individual traits precisely described by the narrator. The theme of old age provides, first and foremost, an opportunity to discuss the meaning of life and death, to present the dichotomy between limitations, senselessness of human existence, on the one hand, and experiencing the beauty of nature, music etc., on the other. This provides an opportunity to recollect the past, notably the young age. This resembles ahymn to life. The story starts with adescription of alife of an elderly woman on awheelchair and finishes with adescription of anewborn infant: this way the young new life supersedes the old, and life goes on as before.Temat starości w powieści Gajto Gazdanowa Nocne drogiDo tematu starości niejednokrotnie zwracał się w swojej twórczości przedstawiciel młodszego pokolenia pierwszej fali emigracji rosyjskiej, Gajto Gazdanow, najczęściej rozpatrując starość w kontekście sensu życia i śmierci. Ważna w tym zakresie jest powieść Nocne drogi, w której temat starości i stosunek do niej zostały zrealizowane głównie w historii właścicielki kawiarni, historii prostytutki Raldi, staruszka-kierowcy itd. Wszyscy bohaterowie mają cechy indywidualne, precyzyjnie uchwycone i wyrażone przez narratora.Temat starości dla Gazdanowa to przede wszystkim możliwość rozważania o sensie życia i śmierci, pokazania kontrastu pomiędzy ograniczonością, bezsensem istnienia i przeżywaniem w tym życiu piękna przyrody, muzyki, możliwość powrotu we wspomnieniach do minionej epoki, do młodości. Jest to swego rodzaju hymn życia. Powieść zaczyna się od opisu staruszki na wózku inwalidzkim, znajdującej się na granicy życia i śmierci, a kończy narodzinami dziecka: starość stare ustępuje miejsce młodemu nowemu, a życie trwa dalej.

De representatie van het verleden

1970 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 39-53
Author(s):  
Sarah Pardon
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
Political Support ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Formal Organization ◽  
Historical Experience ◽  
Affective Tone ◽  
The Past ◽  
The One

In this article I want to analyse how Charlotte Smith’s novel Desmond (1792) mediates historicaldistance, i.e. how the novel engages with the past and how this engagement effectsa particular historical experience of the represented event. Smith's novel gives rise to anideological tension due to its confirmation of domestic tyranny, on the one hand, and itsstrong political support of the ideals of the French Revolution, on the other hand. I relatethis tension to the ways in which the novel constructs historical distance. Methodologically,I rely on the theoretical reflections on historical distance by the Canadian historianMark Salber Phillips. According to Phillips, historical distance is a rhetorical effect thatcan be studied from the text’s formal organization, its affective tone, and its ideologicalprogramme. This leads to a conceptual understanding of how a text represents a particularhistorical event.

Elementy poetyki ludowej w powieści Rzeczy uprzyjemniające. Utopia T. Bołdak-Janowskiej

2020 ◽  
pp. 182-197
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Goral
Keyword(s):  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
The One ◽  
Cultural Features

The aim of the article is to analyse the elements of folk poetics in the novel Pleasant things. Utopia by T. Bołdak-Janowska. The category of folklore is understood in a rather narrow way, and at the same time it is most often used in critical and literary works as meaning a set of cultural features (customs and rituals, beliefs and rituals, symbols, beliefs and stereotypes) whose carrier is the rural folk. The analysis covers such elements of the work as place, plot, heroes, folk system of values, folk rituals, customs, and symbols. The description is conducted based on the analysis of source material as well as selected works in the field of literary text analysis and ethnolinguistics. The analysis shows that folk poetics was creatively associated with the elements of fairy tales and fantasy in the studied work, and its role consists of – on the one hand – presenting the folk world represented and – on the other – presenting a message about the meaning of human existence.

TARP DVIEJŲ KOLONŲ: XVIII A. PABAIGOS – XIX A. PRADŽIOS VILNIAUS MASONŲ KASDIENYBĖ SIMBOLIKOJE

2018 ◽  
pp. 144-163
Author(s):  
Daiva Milinkevičiūtė
Keyword(s):  
Daily Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Daily Routine ◽  
The Past ◽  
Secular World ◽  
National Characteristics ◽  
Conservative Christian ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Craft Guilds

The Age of Enlightenment is defined as the period when the universal ideas of progress, deism, humanism, naturalism and others were materialized and became a golden age for freemasons. It is wrong to assume that old and conservative Christian ideas were rejected. Conversely, freemasons put them into new general shapes and expressed them with the help of symbols in their daily routine. Symbols of freemasons had close ties with the past and gave them, on the one hand, a visible instrument, such as rituals and ideas to sense the transcendental, and on the other, intense gnostic aspirations. Freemasons put in a great amount of effort to improve themselves and to create their identity with the help of myths and symbols. It traces its origins to the biblical builders of King Solomon’s Temple, the posterity of the Templar Knights, and associations of the medieval craft guilds, which were also symbolical and became their link not only to each other but also to the secular world. In this work we analysed codified masonic symbols used in their rituals. The subject of our research is the universal Masonic idea and its aspects through the symbols in the daily life of the freemasons in Vilnius. Thanks to freemasons’ signets, we could find continuity, reception, and transformation of universal masonic ideas in the Lithuanian freemasonry and national characteristics of lodges. Taking everything into account, our article shows how the universal idea of freemasonry spread among Lithuanian freemasonry, and which forms and meanings it incorporated in its symbols. The objective of this research is to find a universal Masonic idea throughout their visual and oral symbols and see its impact on the daily life of the masons in Vilnius. Keywords: Freemasonry, Bible, lodge, symbols, rituals, freemasons’ signets.

“Ambiguist” Statesmanship

Worldview ◽  
1960 ◽  
Vol 3 (9) ◽  
pp. 7-8
Author(s):  
Will Herberg
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Fixed Points ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Actual Situation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mixed Feelings ◽  
Rational Mind ◽  
The One

John Courtney Murray's writing cannot fail to be profound and instructive, and I have profited greatly from it in the course of the past decade. But I must confess that his article, "Morality and Foreign Policy" (Worldview, May), leaves me in a strange confusion of mixed feelings. On the one hand, I can sympathize with what I might call the historical intention of the natural law philosophy he espouses, which I take to be the effort to establish enduring structures of meaning and value to serve as fixed points of moral decision in the complexities of the actual situation. On the other hand, I am rather put off by the calm assurance he exhibits when he deals with these matters, as though everything were at bottom unequivocally rational and unequivocally accessible to the rational mind. And I am really distressed at what seems to 3ie to be his woefully inadequate appreciation of the position of the "ambiguists," among whom I cannot deny I count myself.

Benson and Miller in Perspective

1979 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 242-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Kuklick
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Applied Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Stock Of Knowledge

Despite differences in coloration Miller and Benson are birds of a feather. Although he is no Pollyanna, Miller believes that there has been a modest and decent series of advances in the social sciences and that the most conscientious, diligent, and intelligent researchers will continue to add to this stock of knowledge. Benson is much more pessimistic about the achievements of yesterday and today but, in turn, offers us the hope of a far brighter tomorrow. Miller explains Benson’s hyperbolic views about the past and future by distinguishing between pure and applied science and by pointing out Benson’s naivete about politics: the itch to understand the world is different from the one to make it better; and, Miller says, because Benson sees that we have not made things better, he should not assume we do not know more about them; Benson ought to realize, Miller adds, that the way politicians translate basic social knowledge into social policy need not bring about rational or desirable results. On the other side, Benson sees more clearly than Miller that the development of science has always been intimately intertwined with the control of the environment and the amelioration of the human estate.

The Origins of Domestic Sheep and Goats: a Reconsideration in the Light of the Fossil Evidence

1969 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 368-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Payne
Keyword(s):  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Present Situation ◽  
Wild Relatives ◽  
The Other ◽  
Domestic Sheep ◽  
Sheep And Goats ◽  
Animal Domestication ◽  
The Past ◽  
The One ◽  
And Control

In recent discussions of the origins and process of animal domestication (Reed, 1961, Zeuner, 1963), both authors rely on two kinds of evidence: on the one hand, the present distributions and characteristics of the different breeds of whatever animal is being discussed, together with its feral and wild relatives, and, on the other hand, the past record, given by literary and pictorial sources and the bones from archaeological and geological sites. Increased recognition of the limitations of the past record, whether in the accuracy of the information it appears to give (as in the case of pictorial sources), or in the certainty of the deductions we are at present capable of drawing from it (this applies especially to the osteological record), has led these authors to argue mainly from the present situation, using the past record to confirm or amplify the existing picture.Arguing from the present, many hypotheses about the origins and process of domestication are available. The only test we have, when attempting to choose between these, lies in the direct evidence of the past record. The past record, it is freely admitted, is very fragmentary: the information provided by the present situation is more exact, ranges over a much wider field, and is more open to test and control. Nevertheless, the past record, however imperfect it is, is the only direct evidence we have about the process of domestication.

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