scholarly journals Postmodern Absurdist Critique of Julian Barnes’s The Only Story

2021 ◽  
Vol VI (II) ◽  
pp. 94-100
Author(s):  
Arshad Nawaz ◽  
Muhammad Ijaz ◽  
Khalid Mehmood Anjum
Keyword(s):  
Research Paper ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Novel ◽  
American Philosophical Association ◽  
Postmodern Fiction ◽  
Postmodern Novel

This research paper endeavors to examine the postmodern absurdism as a literary sub genre in postmodern fiction. It delves deep into the concept of absurdism by concentrating upon the characteristics that distinguish it as a postmodern sub genre. Through the analysis of the postmodern novel, The Only Story (2018), this research paper illustrates how the characteristics of absurdism haven impact upon a postmodern society characterized by boredom, meaninglessness, futility, and confusion. It also highlights how different characters, events, and places have been portrayed in the novel to depict the absurdity of human existence. The theoretical paradigm of the research is based upon Thomas Nagel’s Essay “The Absurd” which is about postmodern space of absurdism and was presented in the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division. The study limelight's how the absurd occurrences and bizarre characters found in the researcher's primary text depict the complexity of the postmodern absurd world in both literal and metaphoric dimensions.

Analytical Study of Violence Theme in Victoria Schwab’s This Savage Song

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Study ◽  
Research Paper ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Vicious Cycle ◽  
Aggressive Approach ◽  
Research Article ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
The Right

This research article focuses on the theme of violence and its representation by the characters of the novel “This Savage Song” by Victoria Schwab. How violence is transmitted through genes to next generations and to what extent socio- psycho factors are involved in it, has also been discussed. Similarly, in what manner violent events and deeds by the parents affect the psychology of children and how it inculcates aggressive behaviour in their minds has been studied. What role is played by the parents in grooming the personality of children and ultimately their decisions to choose the right or wrong way has been argued. In the light of the theory of Judith Harris, this research paper highlights all the phenomena involved: How the social hierarchy controls the behaviour. In addition, the aggressive approach of the people in their lives has been analyzed in the light of the study of second theorist Thomas W Blume. As the novel is a unique representation of supernatural characters, the monsters, which are the products of some cruel deeds, this research paper brings out different dimensions of human sufferings with respect to these supernatural beings. Moreover, the researcher also discusses that, in what manner the curse of violence creates an inevitable vicious cycle of cruel monsters that makes the life of the characters turbulent and miserable.

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.

scholarly journals The Concept of Victorianism in A. S. Byatt’s “Posession”

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Victorian Novel ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
English Novel ◽  
The Past ◽  
Russian Literary ◽  
Postmodern Novel ◽  
Current Research Interest

The late 1990s – early 2000s was a time of numerous projects dedicated to the Victorian age and the Victorian novel as a specific phenomenon that inspires the modern novel development. The English postmodern novel with its typical narrative, time transferal to Victorian England, weaving of time layers, invokes current research interest. The relevance of this study is caused by considerable interest of researchers in the Victorian era heritage and by need of a comprehensive study of Victorian linguoculture and its implementation in the modern English novel. The Victorian text influences a new genre of the novel that reflects the gravity of modern English prose to the traditional literature of Victorian era, assumed to be particularly important in this context. The analysis of A. S. Byatt’s “Possession” in the Russian literary criticism was made only by O. A. Tolstykh; in the Ukrainian science, this work was investigated by O. Boynitska in the context of searching the past, so this subject is not investigated enough, and in our opinion is new and relevant, especially from the perspective of the “Victorian era” concept embodied in the novel. The aim of the paper is to analyze the “Victorian era” concept peculiarities in the intercultural context, on the basis of A. S. Byatt’s “Possession” as a Victorian novel. The paper takes into account the reproduction of concepts of Marriage, Home, Family, Freedom, Life, as components of “Victorian era.” The Victorian family is often represented through the place of their dwelling; therefore, the great Victorians’ works are overwhelmed by interior descriptions (Dombey’s house, Miss Havisham’s home, Mr. Rochester’s Castle). However, in “Possession,” there is an obvious contrast of Victorian buildings to the same structures in the XX century: the past prime – the modern decline. All the secrets and delusions hidden behind the facades of supposedly respectable buildings result in distorting facts and, to some extent, to violating the rights of ownership to the memories of the past. This gives another meaning to the title of the novel – “possession,” that is ownership, possession of letters, memory, truth.

scholarly journals Una mirada a la parodia desde el formalismo ruso: "Tristram Shandy" de Laurence Sterne

2011 ◽  
pp. 299
Author(s):  
María Djurdjevic
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Laurence Sterne ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Cultural Tradition ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Russian Formalism ◽  
Tristram Shandy ◽  
Postmodern Novel ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Aesthetic

El artículo aborda la revolucionaria lectura de la novela Tristram Shandy (1767) de L. Sterne por los formalistas rusos (Shklovski), que subrayó la importancia de los aspectos formal y paródico de esa obra, calificada también como la primera novela postmoderna. No obstante, la parodia como herramienta de reflexión metaliteraria está en uso desde la antigüedad griega. Se aborda paralelamente el hito principal de la teoría literaria y cultural rusa –la reconexión con la tradición filosófica premoderna– que ilustra que toda labor hermenéutica depende de las normas estéticas de la tradición cultural desde la cual se estudia.The article tackles a revolutionary reading of the Laurence Sterne’s novel Tristram Shandy (1767) by Russian Formalism (V. Shklovsky, 1921), focused on the importance of its formal and parodic aspects. The novel has also been assessed as the first postmodern novel in history. But the parody is being used as a tool for metaliterary thinking from the times of the Ancient Greece. Thus, this text also tackles the principal milestone of the Russian Literature and Cultural Theory –its reconnecting with the pre- Modern philosophical tradition– illustrating how our hermeneutic work depends on the aesthetic norms of the cultural tradition we belong to.

scholarly journals Interpretations of Emanuel Swedenborg’s image of the afterlife in the novel Oneiron by Laura Lindstedt

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiina Mahlamäki ◽  
Tomas Mansikka
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Postmodern Novel ◽  
Western Esotericism ◽  
The Relationship

This article discusses the relationship between Western esotericism and literature. As an example of a secular author who uses and benefits from esoteric texts, ideas and thoughts as resources in creating a literary artwork, the article analyses Laura Lindstedt’s novel Oneiron. A Fantasy About the Seconds After Death (2015). It contextualises the novel within the frames of Western esotericism and literature, focusing on Emanuel Swedenborg’s impact on discourses of the afterlife in literature. Laura Lindstedt’s postmodern novel indicates various ways that esoteric ideas, themes, and texts can work as resources for authors of fiction in twenty-first century Finland. Since the late eighteenth century Swedenborg’s influence has been evident in literature and among artists, especially in providing resources for other-worldly imagery. Oneiron proves that the ideas of Swedenborg are still part of the memory of Western culture and literature.

scholarly journals TEORI DIALOGISME BAKHTIN DAN KONSEP-KONSEP METODOLOGISNYA

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 235
Author(s):  
Fadlil Munawwar Manshur
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Universe

This paper discusses the theory advanced by Bakhtin about dialogism and methodological concepts. This theory to formulate the concept of human existence on the other, which is based on the idea that humans judge him from the viewpoint of others. Humans understand the moments of consciousness and take it into account through the eyes of others. According to this theory, the essence of human life is a dialogue. The Method of heteroglossia talks about signs in the universe of individuals because of the word "heteros" means "other" or different, while "glossia" means the tongue or language. In this method mentioned that people are saying needs to be heard, and the author also has the same rights that words need to be heard. A word is born from dialogue to address the problems of life. On the other hand, Bakhtin sees carnival method has spawned a new literary genre, the polyphonic novel. The polyphonic novel is a novel that is characterized by a plurality of voice or consciousness, and the voices or the overall awareness dialogical. Polyphonic essentially a "new theory of authorial viewpoint". Polyphonic appear in fiction when the position of the author freely allowed to interact with the characters. The characters in the novel are freely polyphonic appear to argue with each other and even with the author.

scholarly journals The role of spatial images in R.D. Harris’s novel “Pompeii”

2020 ◽  
pp. 56-67
Author(s):  
E.V. Somova ◽  
E.B. Schemeleva
Keyword(s):  
Historical Novel ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Postmodern Literature ◽  
The Real ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
Semantic Fields ◽  
New Material ◽  
Postmodern Novel ◽  
The Mind

The article focuses on the novel “Pompeii” by Robert Dennis Harris which has been little studied in Russia and presents a new material for further research. The purpose of the research is to identify the originality of spatial images in the novel of the British writer. Basing on the comparative historical and analytical methods, the authors of the article explore the main principles of creating historical narration and the specifics of R.D. Harris’s work with historiographical sources while creating a historical epoch; they identify the features of W. Scott and E.G. Bulver-Lytton. Within the context of the study of the originality of spatial topoi in “Pompeii” the authors use extensively the concept of “topoekphrasis”, introduced by O.A. Kling. It distinguishes the place setting as a protagonist who influences greatly the course of events. While analyzing, the authors make the following conclusions about the national condition of the scene given by using ekphrasis and the correlation of the myth with the actual realities in the modern cultural system which indicate the stereotypical thinking of a person in the postmodern society: the myth of Adam and Eve who found themselves in Paradise, associated in the mind of a European with Capri which represents “unearthly” life; the expansion of the semantic fields after reading the myth of Sodom and Gomorrah which describes the destruction of two biblical cities and is brought closer in the novel to the events associated with the real tragedy in Pompeii, undoubtedly show the similarity of its plot resolution with the modern eschatological myth of the Apocalypse, which tells us about the inevitable death of civilization. The analysis of the mythological paradigm of R.D. Harris’s novel "Pompeii", organized by combination of ekphrasis and topoi, discloses the transformation of the postmodernist writer’s worldview, creating a new metaphysical reality in the historical novel. In addition to the real spatial topoi of the ancient world (forum, aqueduct, temple), the postmodern novel reveals mythological images: a labyrinth associated with the ancient Greek story of Theseus; the underground world of the dead, linked to the myth of Charon. The artistic understanding of the historical process by R.D. Harris allows us to identify the originality of the writer’s historical concept in the context of postmodern literature.

scholarly journals A prímszámok könyve

2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatrix Visy
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Prime Numbers ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Novel ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
Definition Of

The self-definition of Szilárd Borbély’s only novel – limited fiction based on biographical elements – makes biographical and referential readings possible, thus we can interpret the text as the novel of 20th century poverty and traumatised childhood. However, the aspects of interpretation are concerned with the methods of fiction, the existential and metaphysical questions of the book: the child narrator’s tone offers the vision of a childhood rolling in an eternal present. This, together with the amnesia that interweaves the whole text, suggests a hopeless state of being. The feelings of otherness and solitariness, the signs of the absurdity of waiting for a Messiah and the representation of misery expand to an antrophological stance. New meanings can be attributed to the image of desperate human existence by the motif of prime numbers. The novels of Péter Esterházy, Sándor Tar and Tibor Noé Kiss are also discussed in connection with the representation of poverty and teodicea.

scholarly journals The Postmodern Analysis of Marry Me : A Romance in Terms of Form

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-37
Author(s):  
Narges Zarei
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
John Updike ◽  
Reality Effect ◽  
Moral Lesson ◽  
Postmodern Novel ◽  
First Time ◽  
Textual Research ◽  
Literary Devices ◽  
Northrop Frye ◽  
Day By Day

This article is a qualitative one and the researcher by depicting one novel of John Updike: Marry Me, published for the first time in 1976, attests that romances at present are not written to cultivate imagination but they are created in order to embellish reality with fantasy, to reconcile imagination with objective presentation of reality. This is done by the artist to attain the reality effect, an effect that ends and culminates in a moral lesson. Updike in day by day record of the life of the Americans in his novel tries to create an effect that is permanent.  The objective of romance and realism differ.  This is what makes Marry Me, a problematic case.  The organizing principle of romance is not objective social reality but the use of literary devices.  The presence of these opposing factors in one novel makes it an excellent example of postmodern novel. It is said that romance and realism often are juxtaposed and yet they are not separable.  In other words, they overlap.  So, it is hard to consider any border for them. Although Updike uses many realistic details, there are some scenes of fantasy and idealism where the elements of romance are eminent. Perchance, the novel has the three main elements of romance including love, adventure, and quest while Updike does not use them in a normal and habitual way. Although there are many admiring romance critics and thinkers, the present writer mostly employs the theories of Northrop Frye, Richard Chase, Pamela Regis, Diane Elam, Kimberly A. Freeman, Heidi Hansson, and Judie Newman whose approaches to romance and postmodern romance are apparently applicable to prove that Marry Me is a postmodern romance. This textual research focuses on discussing different theories on postmodernism and romance separately and casting a debate on postmodern romance elements illustrated by parody, pastiche, intertextuality, self-reflexivity, irony, and imitation; and applying them to Marry Me in order to claim that Marry Me is a postmodern romance.

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