scholarly journals A Literary Interpretation of Blood Symbolism in Ifá Divination Poetry

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1.2) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Oluwabunmi Tope Bernard
Keyword(s):  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Literary Interpretation ◽  
Southwestern Nigeria

Tis study undertakes a literary analysis of blood as a symbol as contained in the Ifá divination poetry among the Yorùbá of Southwestern Nigeria, which the researcher has collected through personal observations, consultations, and interviews with Ifá priests. Using Ricoeur’s hermeneutics theory of interpretation, the findings show that the selected Ifá divination poems present the symbolic interpretations of blood in Ifá corpus as it is entrenched in the Yorùbá psychology, sexuality, religiosity, worldview, identity and kinship. The paper presents that blood is multifaceted among the Yorùbá.

scholarly journals Problem solved? Absurdist humour and incongruity-resolution

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Olivier Couder
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Schema Theory ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Literary Interpretation ◽  
Traditional Classification ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Universe

Abstract This article explores the role absurdist humour fulfils in the narrative structure of novels as well as its impact on the process of literary interpretation. Tracing the historical and philosophical roots of absurdist humour, the article emphasises the importance of the concept of incongruity. It then critically evaluates current and influential cognitive and linguistic theories of humour, specifically incongruity-resolution theories and their purported suitability for literary analysis. Drawing on schema-theory, the article examines a passage from Douglas Adams’s The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980; henceforth The Restaurant) and illustrates why literary humour cannot be analysed in the same manner as short, often specifically designed, joke texts as is common practice in most humour research. Subsequently, the traditional classification of absurdist humour as a type of humour where resolution cannot be achieved is also challenged as the analysis reveals how absurdist humour is part and parcel of the narrative structure of The Restaurant and how the incongruity is resolved at the moment of literary interpretation.

scholarly journals Eloquent Silences in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies ◽  
Rawiya Kouachi
Keyword(s):  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Literary Study ◽  
Literary Interpretation ◽  
Modern Life ◽  
Waiting For Godot

This paper analyzes Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1954) and Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter (2003) by focusing on their affinities and differences. It is an analytical literary study from a linguistic standpoint using Kenny’s (2011) ideas. In addition to focusing on differences, the aim of this study is to scrutinize silence and its different meanings inasmuch as silence is a distinctive feature that groups and differentiates both plays. The study sheds light on a different aspect of research. Hence, besides focusing on interpreting speeches, this paper analyzes silences in both plays. It vindicates that silences are as important in literary interpretation as speeches. While Beckett’s silences indicate the void of modern life, Pinter’s silences convey threats and violence. Albeit much attention is given to verbal utterances and silences are generally neglected in terms of literary analysis, they are a sine qua non in terms of understanding Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter and most importantly understanding the different languages of silence that greatly contribute to the whole meaning of both plays. Consequently, silences deserve much attention in literary interpretation as speeches and they are highly eloquent.

Resonance in Dhvani Aesthetics and the Deleuzian Logic of Sensation

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-44
Author(s):  
Srajana Kaikini
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Visual Art ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Literary Interpretation ◽  
Sanskrit Poetics ◽  
Comparative Framework ◽  
Time Image

This paper undertakes an intersectional reading of visual art through theories of literary interpretation in Sanskrit poetics in close reading with Deleuze's notions of sensation. The concept of Dhvani – the Indian theory of suggestion which can be translated as resonance, as explored in the Rasa – Dhvani aesthetics offers key insights into understanding the mode in which sensation as discussed by Deleuze operates throughout his reflections on Francis Bacon's and Cézanne's works. The paper constructs a comparative framework to review modern and classical art history, mainly in the medium of painting, through an understanding of the concept of Dhvani, and charts a course of reinterpreting and examining possible points of concurrence and departure with respect to the Deleuzian logic of sensation and his notions of time-image and perception. The author thereby aims to move art interpretation's paradigm towards a non-linguistic sensory paradigm of experience. The focus of the paper is to break the moulds of normative theory-making which guide ideal conditions of ‘understanding art’ and look into alternative modes of experiencing the ‘vocabulary’ of art through trans-disciplinary intersections, in this case the disciplines being those of visual art, literature and phenomenology.

The Healing Magic of Joy: Understanding Magic as a Metaphor for Positive Emotion in The Secret Garden

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-141
Author(s):  
Margrete Lamond
Keyword(s):  
Positive Affect ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Positive Emotion ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Affective Content ◽  
The Secret Garden ◽  
Biological Nature

Literary analysis tends to be conceptual and top-down driven. Data-driven analysis, although it belongs more to the domain of scientific method, can nevertheless sometimes reveal elements of narrative that conceptual readings may fall short of identifying. In critiques of Burnett's The Secret Garden, the children's return to health is generally understood to be the result of their interactions with nature. Some readings add the power of storytelling as a healing force in the novel. Burnett's concept of magic has tended to be treated with uneasy abstractions, and the influence of affect on health remains open for further investigation. This article bases its argument on data-driven analysis that charts how affective content in the novel occurs in conjunction with references to magic. It identifies the narrative significance of negative allusions to nature and how concepts of magic occur alongside representations of positive affect, and suggests that the magic of healing in The Secret Garden is not the transforming power of biological nature, nor the transforming power of storytelling, but the transforming power of surprise, wonder and happiness in conjunction with all these factors. Positive affect represents the essence of what Burnett means by magic.

A Christmas Carol: Disability Conceptualised through Empathy and the Philosophy of ‘Technologically Useful Bodies’

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-191
Author(s):  
Ester Vidović
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Models ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Victorian Britain ◽  
Image Schemas ◽  
Victorian Period ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
Linguistic Approach

The article explores how two cultural models which were dominant in Great Britain during the Victorian era – the model based on the philosophy of ‘technologically useful bodies’ and the Christian model of empathy – were connected with the understanding of disability. Both cultural models are metaphorically constituted and based on the ‘container’ and ‘up and down’ image schemas respectively. 1 The intersubjective character of cultural models is foregrounded, in particular, in the context of conceiving of abstract concepts such as emotions and attitudes. The issue of disability is addressed from a cognitive linguistic approach to literary analysis while studying the reflections of the two cultural models on the portrayal of the main characters of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. The studied cultural models appeared to be relatively stable, while their evaluative aspects proved to be subject to historical change. The article provides incentives for further study which could include research on the connectedness between, on one hand, empathy with fictional characters roused by reading Dickens's works and influenced by cultural models dominant during the Victorian period in Britain and, on the other hand, the contemporaries’ actual actions taken to ameliorate the social position of the disabled in Victorian Britain.

A Complete Replica of Contemporary Indian Society in the Fictional Works of Chetan Bhagat: A Detailed Literary Analysis of his Five Point Someone, One Night @ the Call Center and The Three Mistake of My

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Vikram Patel
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Call Center ◽  
English Literature ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Indian English ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Middle Class Family ◽  
Fiction Writers

hetan Bhagat is one of the most influential fiction writers of contemporary Indian English literature. Postmodern subjects like youth aspirations, love, sex, marriage, urban middle class sensibilities, and issues related to corruption, politics, education and their impact on the contemporary Indian society are recurrently reflected thematic concerns in his fictions. In all his fictions, he has mostly depicted the contemporary urban social milieu of Indian society. Though the fictions of Chetan Bhagat are romantic in nature, contemporary Indian society and its major issues are the chief of the concerns of all his fictions. He has focused on the contemporary issues of middle class family in his fictional works. All of the chief protagonists of his works are sensitive youth and they do not compromise with the prevalent situations of society. Most of the characters are like caricatures that represent one or the other vice or virtue of the contemporary Indian society. The author has a mastery to convince the reader about the prevalent condition of society so that one can easily reproduce in mind, a clear cut image of contemporary Indian society. The present article is a sincere endeavor to present the detailed literary analysis of the select fictions of Chetan Bhagat keeping in mind how the contemporary Indian society has been replicated in the fictions.

The place of the plant world in the worldview system of transoxiana sufism in 16th century

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (Extra-A) ◽  
pp. 157-161
Author(s):  
Lutfullo Eshonovich Ismoilov ◽  
Ramil Tagirovich Yuzmukhametov ◽  
Markhabo Tukhtasunovna Rajabova
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Method ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Main Method ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
The World ◽  
Lives Of The Saints

The article considers the topic of the Plant World in the Sufi writings of the 16th century Transoxiana, based on the material of manakibs, i. e. the so-called Lives of the Saints. The significance and relevance of the topic is due to the need to study the issues of semantic interpretation of the concept of plant and plant world in Sufi writings. Hence, the purpose of this article is to disclose the diverse meanings of the concept of the “World of Plants” contained in the 16th-century Transoxiana manakibs of such authors as Abdurakhman Jami, Abu-l Baka b. Khodzha Bakha-ud-din, Khusein Serakhsi. The main method in the study of this issue is the historical and comparative method, and the method of literary analysis, which allows you to create a holistic understanding of the symbolism of the Plant World in Sufi writings of Transoxiana of the 16th century.      

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