Coda: ‘There is no end to machinery’

2020 ◽  
pp. 185-196
Author(s):  
Gerard Lee McKeever
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
German Literature ◽  
Thomas Carlyle ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Dialectical Tension ◽  
Edinburgh Review ◽  
The Times

Following a brief summary of the preceding arguments in the book, the coda turns to a trilogy of essays by Thomas Carlyle written in the final years of the 1820s – ‘State of German Literature’ (1827), ‘Burns’ (1828) and ‘Signs of the Times’ (1829). These works postulate a Britain riven between the inhuman mores of Enlightenment and a degraded popular culture, looking to ideal truth (‘pure light’) and its secular expression in poetry as a means of salvation. ‘Signs of the Times’, notably, was published in the last issue of the Edinburgh Review edited by Francis Jeffrey and provides a subversive counterpoint to and unravelling of the journal’s Whig ideology. Taking up a critique of the Scottish Enlightenment that had been made by John Gibson Lockhart in Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk (1819) and in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Carlyle attempts to recover a sense of ideal truth from what he viewed as a culture of dry rationalism. Improvement, in this account, had suffocated Scotland. Carlyle’s analysis of what he calls the ‘mechanical’ and the ‘dynamical’ in opposition to one another (rather than dialectical tension) effectively performs an elision of Enlightenment and Romanticism. This provides a counterpoint for the book’s very different reading of literary texts that are adapting cultures of improvement within a set of changing historical circumstances.

scholarly journals The Gulag of Poets: The Experience of Exile, Forced Labour Camps, and Wandering in the USSR in the Works of Polish-Yiddish Writers (1939–1949)

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 141-162
Author(s):  
Magdalena Ruta
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Holocaust Literature ◽  
Psychological Burden ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Jewish Refugees ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Times ◽  
Literary Output

The literary output of the Polish-Yiddish writers who survived WWII in the Soviet Union is mostly a literary mirror of the times of exile and wartime wandering. The two major themes that reverberate through these writings are: the refugees’ reflection on their stay in the USSR, and the Holocaust of Polish Jews. After the war, some of them described that period in their memoirs and autobiographical fiction, however, due to censorship, such accounts could only be published abroad, following the authors’ emigration from Poland. These writings significantly complement the texts produced during the war, offering plentiful details about life in Poland’s Eastern borderlands under Soviet rule as it was perceived by the refugees, or about the fate of specific persons in the subsequent wartime years. This literature, written in – and about – exile is not only an account of what was happening to Polish-Jewish refugees in the USSR, but also a testimony to their coping with an enormous psychological burden caused by the awareness (or the lack thereof) of the fate of Jews under Nazi German occupation. What emerges from all the literary texts published in post-war Poland, even despite the cuts and omissions caused by (self)-censorship, is an image of a postwar Jewish community affected by deep trauma, hurt and – so it seems – split into two groups: survivors in the East (vicarious witnesses), and survivors in Nazi-occupied Poland (direct victim witnesses). The article discusses on samples the necessity of extending and broadening of that image by adding to the reflection on Holocaust literature (which has been underway for many years) the reflection on the accounts of the experience of exile, Soviet forced labour camps, and wandering in the USSR contained in the entire corpus of literary works and memoirs written by Polish-Yiddish writers.

Conclusion: The Ends of Romanticism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoe Beenstock ◽  
Zoe Beenstock
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Thomas Carlyle ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Romantic Era ◽  
Social Totality ◽  
Modern Self

This conclusion proposes understanding Romanticism through a model of internal conflict instead of discrete distinctions of genre and political orientation, which have traditionally served as Romanticism’s defining categories. In replacing Aristotle with Rousseau modern culture moves to a socially contingent model of polity in which a newly-minted individualism contends with its own contingent social grounding. In Sartor Resartus Thomas Carlyle suggests that the Romantic era has come to an end. Sartor Resartus repeats the imagery of Frankenstein, relating monstrosity to empiricism and accusing the Scottish Enlightenment of excessive materialism. Carlyle reclaims Rousseau as an anti-empiricist who recognizes socialization as a fundamentally unhappy development that can barely contain the inherently violent forces of human nature. The post-Romantic modern self as articulated by Carlyle is defined by its exile from social totality, and by an account of human beings as inherently antisocial.

1944-1958

2020 ◽  
pp. 207-278
Author(s):  
Marcel Reich-Ranicki
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
German Literature ◽  
Bertolt Brecht ◽  
Literary Critic ◽  
The West ◽  
German Culture ◽  
Anna Seghers ◽  
The Times ◽  
Foreign Ministry

This part recounts how, after they were liberated by the Russians, the author and his wife made their way to Warsaw. He then joined the Communist Party and began working for the Foreign Ministry. But since he did not adhere to the strict policies of the Communist Party, he was eventually imprisoned and dismissed from the party. This dismissal led to his work as a journalist and his return to German culture, and it enabled him to turn his love for German culture into a profession. From 1950 to 1958, he became the foremost Polish literary critic of German literature from the East and the West, and he befriended some of the most important writers and critics of the times, such as Anna Seghers, Bertolt Brecht, Hans Mayer, Siegfried Lenz, Heinrich Böll, and many of the members of the famous Group 47.

‘Sparks of Meaning’: Comics, Music and Alan Moore

2015 ◽  
Vol 140 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-162
Author(s):  
Tim Summers
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Comic Books ◽  
Musical Theatre ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Musical Culture ◽  
Alan Moore ◽  
V For Vendetta

ABSTRACTComics have become a significant part of modern popular culture. This article examines the ways in which music is involved with comics, and develops methods for analysing musical moments in comic books. The output of the writer Alan Moore (b. 1953) is used as the domain for examining music and comics. This popular author's works are notable for their sophisticated use of music and their interaction with wider musical culture. Using case studies from the comic books V for Vendetta (1982–9), Watchmen (1986–7) and the second and third volumes of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2002–12), the article demonstrates that the comic can be a musically significant medium (even to the point of becoming a piece of virtual musical theatre), and argues that music in comics serves to encourage readers to engage in hermeneutic criticism of musical and musical-literary texts.

scholarly journals Violencia sexual y grupos juveniles en el arzobispado de Toledo durante el siglo XVII : los casos de La Estrella de la Jara

1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Martínez Gil
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Young People ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Unusual Case ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Cultura Popular ◽  
The Times

Ante los tribunales episcopales de la España moderna pasó una variada gama de causas civiles y criminales que iluminan aspectos inéditos de la cultura popular, los comportamientos y mentalidades de la época. El Archivo Diocesano de Toledo guarda innumerables procesos, todavía sin catalogar, relativos a conductas de religiosos y seglares que causaban escándalo público pero que no eran competencia de la Inquisición por no atentar contra los principios de la fe. Un caso insólito, al menos en relación con el resto de las causas, sobre unas violaciones colectivas cometidas en 1625 por los mozos solteros del pueblecito toledano de La Estrella, jurisdicción de Talavera de la Reina, sirve al autor para reflexionar sobre el uso de la violencia sexual y las formas juveniles de sociabilidad y diversión en la España rural del Antiguo Régimen.The episcopal tribunals of 17th century Spain have witnessed a wide range of civil and criminal cases which highiight unpublished aspects of thíe popular culture, behavioural pattems and mentality typical of the times. Innumerable triáis may still be found uncategorized in ttie Diocesan Archives in Toledo, triáis which relate to the conduct oflaymen as well as churchmen who causad public outcry but were not placed under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition so as not to commit any outrage against the principies of the faith. The writer highiights one unusual case, at least compared to the rest, which deals with a couple of collective rapes commited in 1625, by unmarried youths in the Toledan village of La Estrella, in the territory of Talavera de la Reina, in order to reflect upon the use of sexual violence and the forms of sociability and amusement employed by young people in rural Spain from the 16th to the 18th centuries.

scholarly journals Seiten aufschlagen. Saiten anschlagen

2021 ◽  
pp. 11-24
Author(s):  
Heidi Lexe
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Film Music ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Strict Sense ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
Wird Eine ◽  
Storage Media ◽  
Literary Devices

Artikelbeginn:[English title and abstract below] Zu den bitteren Erfahrungen einer Corona-Erkrankung kann der Verlust des Geschmackssinns gehören. Es hat sich jedoch gezeigt, dass Menschen auch aufgrund vorangegangener Geschmackserfahrungen schmecken können. Kann der Geschmack eines Gerichts im Gehirn erinnernd abgerufen werden, ist es also möglich zu schmecken, obwohl der Geschmackssinn (temporär) verloren gegangen ist? Ein solches Aufrufen sinnlicher Erfahrungen ist integrativer Bestandteil rezeptionsästhetischer Lektüreaspekte und kann die Bereiche aller Sinneskanäle umfassen: Wird eine innerdiegetische Saite angeschlagen, überträgt sich der Klang aufgrund von Erfahrungswerten in unsere Wahrnehmung. Open the Book, Strike Up the MusicForms and Functions of a Literary Soundtrack This article is based on the premise that literary texts exhibit a diversity of sounds that are not audible in the strict sense of the word. Instead, the literary sound experience is delegated to readers’ imaginations. It is only during the reading process that, depending on the readers’ experiences, sounds can be made ›audible.‹ Within the text, sounds are evoked by different literary devices. These include the use of literary soundtracks, which are generated when individual (pop) songs are quoted or alluded to in the text or the paratext. They also encompass references to band names, song titles or lyrics, or to sound storage media and their specific characteristics or to objects of everyday and popular culture (e.g. T-shirts). For the text analysis, a tool from the field of film music studies is employed: Georg Maas’s differentiation between a tectonic, a syntactic, a semantic and a mediating function of film music is used to discriminate between the diverse functions of pop music literary soundtracks. Thus, a theory that spans different media is deployed across another media boundary in order to illustrate the role of pop music in contemporary literary texts for young adults.

scholarly journals Gonzo, Ironic Nostalgia, Magical Realism, or, How to Re-Narrate Traumatic Transnational Borderland Stories. Examples from the Twenty-First Century Polish(-German) Literature

2019 ◽  
pp. 63-80
Author(s):  
Magdalena Baran-Szołtys
Keyword(s):  
Magical Realism ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
German Literature ◽  
First Century ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Alternative Futures ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Political Borders ◽  
New Generation

This paper focuses on the former Austrian crown land of Galicia and Lodomeria and its return in literary texts of a new generation that can recall it only from collective and family memory. Spaces like Galicia are situated in shifting political borders and often marked by (fragmented) memories connected to traumas caused by migration, forced resettlements, expulsions, or violence. The rediscovery of these spaces, often from nostalgia for a lost home and bygone times, is the starting point of many narratives of the postmemory generations in contemporary literature. Authors use new rhetorical strategies when dealing with adversarial nationalistic and traumatic topics: ironic nostalgia, gonzo, and magical realism. These narratives do not verify “truths,” instead they play with different myths, possibilities, and “alternative futures.” The analysis includes Tomasz Różycki’s Dwanaście stacji (2004), Sabrina Janesch’s Katzenberge (2010), and Ziemowit Szczerek’s Przyjdzie Mordor i nas zje (2013).

Signs of the Times

Prospects ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 187-197
Author(s):  
V. P. Bynack
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
American Culture ◽  
The Self ◽  
Rapid Succession ◽  
American Scholar ◽  
Linguistic Model ◽  
The World ◽  
The Times ◽  
Fredric Jameson

The topic “Criticism, Biography, and Popular Culture” raises issues that epitomize current intellectual possibilities and problems. As Emerson said of his own time in “The American Scholar,” this is a moment when “the old and the new stand side by side and admit of being compared; when the energies of men are being searched by fear and hope.… This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.” If anyone's “energies” are being “searched by fear and hope” today, it's because we face a similar situation. The two preceding essays brought to bear in rapid succession two historically different models of how the world works. These models, which I will follow Fredric Jameson in calling the “organic” model of the nineteenth century and the “linguistic” model of the twentieth, imply two different versions of the character and status of language, two different versions of what literature is, two different versions of what the self is, and two different versions of what we could mean by saying that we use these things to study American “culture.”

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