Laziness in American Literature: The Inaugural Moment

Author(s):  
Zuzanna Ladyga

The chapter serves as a historical prelude to chapters on modernism and postmodernism, by providing a historical context for how the trope of laziness evolved in American literature prior to the 20th century. First, it looks at how the motif of laziness functioned in early Puritan literature, how this function was broadened in 18th-century secular and religious didactic literature, and how it eventually developed into an aesthetic device in the Early Republic, when the new trope of laziness combined high Romantic aesthetics of the pastoral with unrefined motifs of vagabondage and delinquency, and in this way addresses the culture’s desire for freedom from the norm of collective labour and from patterns of inclusion and exclusion within the consensual networks of social participation. Second, the chapter explores the difference between the familiar Romantic topos of idleness, which has no subversive potential with respect to ethical normativity and the topos of laziness, which does. Walt Whitman’s trope of loafing is reread here via the Cynical tradition of performative indomitability as parrhēsia, or speaking truth to power. Herman Melville’s experiments with haptic poetics of laziness in Typee are interpreted as a critique of Romantic moralism and the emerging ethico-aesthetic norm of productivity.

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
Yeni Mulyani Supriatin

Penelitian ini bertujuan mengungkap peristiwa Perang Bubat yang terjadi pada abad ke-14 atau tahun 1357 M dan resepsi sastranya. Masalah yang dibahas adalah bagaimana latar belakang terjadinya Perang Bubat, reaksi, dan tanggapannya. Teori yang digunakan adalah resepsi sastra. Metode untuk pengumpulan data adalah kualitatif dengan menerapkan prinsip resepsi sastra. Hasil penelitian menggambarkan bahwa terjadinya Perang Bubat adalah Raja Sunda tidak tunduk pada kehendak Gajah Mada dan Gajah Mada ingin menyatukan Nusantara. Resepsi sastra terhadap Perang Bubat dapat dikelompokkan menjadi 3, yaitu resepsi dari aspek kesejarahannya, resepsi pengaruhnya terhadap penciptaan karya baru, dan resepsi terhadap struktur sastra.  Simpulan penelitian ini adalah peristiwa Bubat diresepsi setelah dua abad berlalu, yaitu pada abad ke-16  dan peristiwa tersebut diresepsi ulang pada abad ke-20-an. Hasil resepsi sastra  dari abad ke-18 sampai dengan abad ke-20 cukup beragam. Keberagaman resepsi itu menunjukkan bahwa terdapat perbedaan horizon harapan pembaca.  This study aims to reveal the events of the Bubat War that occurred in the 14th century or the year 1357 AD and literary receptions that emerged after the incident occurred. The issue discussed is how the background of the Bubat War and the reactions and responses to the event through literary receptions. The theory used in analyzing data is literary receptions. The method used for data collection is qualitative by applying the principle of literary receptions. The results of this study illustrate that the background of the Bubat War have two versions and both controversial, the first version because the King of Sunda entourage do not obey to the will of Gajah Mada, on the other hand, the second version is that Gajah Mada tactics in unifying the archipelago while the Kingdom of Sunda is a state that has not been submitted. Literary receptions to the War of Bubat can be grouped into three, they are the reception of its historical aspect, the reception of its influence on the creation of new works, and the reception of the literary structure. The conclusion of this research is  Bubat event was perceived after two centuries passed, in the 16th century and the event was redrawn in the 20th century. Results of literary receptions in the 18th century until the 20th century quite diverse. The diversity of the receptions shows the difference in the horizon of readers' expectations.    


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 37-50
Author(s):  
Aleksey B Muradov ◽  
Ksenia A Shergova

The focal point of the analysis are Tatiana Lioznovas TV-series 17 Moments of Spring. This notable Great Patriotic War movie presents a protagonist that partakes spring 1945 events not as a historical, distanced personality but as a contemporary of the time of the release. This statement is supported with three-layered analysis of the character presentation. The initial layer of analysis implies that Stierlitz character (a Soviet spy, acting deep undercover within the highest ranks of Nazi Germany) develops an idealized presentation of an intelligence officer as in earlier Soviet films. The character does not provide a viewer with the option of self-identification, becoming an archetype - this conversion allocates the story to an epic space, not a historical context. Considering Stierlitz character as a super-spy, a loner implies a second layer of interpretation: a contest-comparison with the most known espionage character of the 20th century, James Bond. Meanwhile the creator shape Stierlitz rather pretentious anti-Bond, they use numerous specific tools to accentuate the difference. Among those we point a time theme that plays an important part in storytelling and general film design (time is present in the series title, it repeatedly returns in soundtrack, and notoriously present in the characters persistent slowness). A few other details involve a third layer of the characters interpretation: Stierlitz embodies contemporary image of a 1960-1970s Soviet technical intelligentsia - in terms of the release a hero of our time. Multilayered interpretation of the Stierlitz character provides 17 Moments of Spring a very specific place in the history of Soviet television and film production. Tatiana Lioznova used a number of creative methods that allowed her to bridge 1945 events with her contemporaries and to significantly contribute into the Soviet archetypal construction.


2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-36
Author(s):  
А. Г. БОДРОВА

The paper considers travelogues of Yugoslav female writers Alma Karlin, Jelena Dimitrijević, Isidora Sekulić, Marica Gregorič Stepančič, Marica Strnad, Luiza Pesjak. These texts created in the first half of the 20th century in Serbian, Slovenian and German are on the periphery of the literary field and, with rare exceptions, do not belong to the canon. The most famous of these authors are Sekulić from Serbia and the German-speaking writer Karlin from Slovenia. Recently, the work of Dimitrijević has also become an object of attention of researchers. Other travelogues writers are almost forgotten. Identity problems, especially national ones, are a constant component of the travelogue genre. During a journey, the author directs his attention to “other / alien” peoples and cultures that can be called foreign to the perceiving consciousness. However, when one perceives the “other”, one inevitably turns to one's “own”, one's own identity. The concept of “own - other / alien”, on which the dialogical philosophy is based (M. Buber, G. Marcel, M. Bakhtin, E. Levinas), implies an understanding of the cultural “own” against the background of the “alien” and at the same time culturally “alien” on the background of “own”. Women's travel has a special status in culture. Even in the first half of the 20th century the woman was given space at home. Going on a journey, especially unaccompanied, was at least unusual for a woman. According to Simone de Beauvoir, a woman in society is “different / other”. Therefore, women's travelogues can be defined as the look of the “other” on the “other / alien”. In this paper, particular attention is paid to the interrelationship of gender, national identities and their conditioning with a cultural and historical context. At the beginning of the 20th century in the Balkans, national identity continues actively to develop and the process of women's emancipation is intensifying. Therefore, the combination of gender and national issues for Yugoslavian female travelogues of this period is especially relevant. Dimitrijević's travelogue Seven Seas and Three Oceans demonstrates this relationship most vividly: “We Serbian women are no less patriotic than Egyptian women... Haven't Serbian women most of the merit that the big Yugoslavia originated from small Serbia?” As a result of this study, the specificity of the national and gender identity constructs in the first half of the 20th century in the analyzed texts is revealed. For this period one can note, on the one hand, the preservation of national and gender boundaries, often supported by stereotypes, on the other hand, there are obvious tendencies towards the erosion of the established gender and national constructs, the mobility of models of gender and national identification as well, largely due to the sociohistorical processes of the time.


Author(s):  
Vera V. Serdechnaia ◽  

The article is devoted to the analysis of the concept of literary romanticism. The research aims at a refinement of the “romanticism” concept in relation to the history of the literary process. The main research methods include conceptual analysis, textual analysis, comparative historical research. The author analyzes the semantic genesis of the term “romanticism”, various interpretations of the concept, compares the definitions of different periods and cultures. The main results of the study are as follows. The history of the term “romanticism” shows a change in a number of definitions for the same concept in relation to the same literary phenomena. By the end of the 20th century, realizing the existence of significant contradictions in the content of the term “romanticism”, researchers often come to abandon it. At the same time, the steady use of the term “romanticism” testifies to the subject-conceptual component that exists in it, which does not lose its relevance, but just needs a theoretical refinement. Conclusion: one have to revise an approach to romanticism as a theoretical concept, based on the change in the concept of an individual in Europe at the end of the 18th century. It is the newly discovered freedom of an individual predetermines the rethinking for the image of the author as a creator and determines the artistic features of literary romanticism.


Author(s):  
Natalya M. Kireeva ◽  
◽  
Maria M. Kaspina ◽  

The article focuses on legends about miracles in Judaism. Particular attention is paid to miracles in the context of the early Biblical period of the prophets and modern Hasidism; similarities in motives and plots are found between the narratives of different times. The authors analyze in detail two 20th-century plots about miracles related to Chaim Zanvl Abramovich, known as the Ribnitzer Rebbe (1902–1995). The miracles that are told about him have many parallels with the legends about miracles performed by the founder of the Hasidic movement, Israel Baal Shem Tov (BeShT), who lived in the middle of the 18th century. The article reveals a connection between the Biblical and Hasidic miracle stories not only at the level of how the miracle is functioning in Jewish culture in general.


1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain Provan

It is well known that the seeds from which the modern discipline of OT theology grew are already found in 17th and 18th century discussion of the relationship between Bible and Church, which tended to drive a wedge between the two, regarding canon in historical rather than theological terms; stressing the difference between what is transient and particular in the Bible and what is universal and of abiding significance; and placing the task of deciding which is which upon the shoulders of the individual reader rather than upon the church. Free investigation of the Bible, unfettered by church tradition and theology, was to be the way ahead. OT theology finds its roots more particularly in the 18th century discussion of the nature of and the relationship between Biblical Theology and Dogmatic Theology, and in particular in Gabler's classic theoreticalstatementof their nature and relationship. The first book which may strictly be called an OT theology appeared in 1796: an historical discussion of the ideas to be found in the OT, with an emphasis on their probable origin and the stages through which Hebrew religious thought had passed, compared and contrasted with the beliefs of other ancient peoples, and evaluated from the point of view of rationalistic religion. Here we find the unreserved acceptance of Gabler's principle that OT theology must in the first instance be a descriptive and historical discipline, freed from dogmatic constraints and resistant to the premature merging of OT and NT — a principle which in the succeeding century was accepted by writers across the whole theological spectrum, including those of orthodox and conservative inclination.


2021 ◽  
Vol 133 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-27
Author(s):  
Sara Matrisciano ◽  
Franz Rainer

All major Romance languages have patterns of the type jaune paille for expressing shades of colour represented by some prototypical object. The first constituent of this pattern is a colour term, while the second one designates a prototypical representative of the colour shade. The present paper starts with a short discussion of the controversial grammatical status of this pattern and its constituents. Its main aim, however, concerns the origin and diffusion of this pattern. We have not found hard and fast evidence that Medieval Italian pigment compounds of the type verderame influenced the rise of the jaune paille pattern, which first appears in French in the 16th century. This pattern continued to be a minority solution during the 17th century, but established itself during the 18th century. In the 19th century, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese adopted the pattern jaune paille, while it did not reach Catalan and Romanian before the 20th century.


2021 ◽  

The best accounts of Hindu religious beliefs and practices to reach Europe before 1800 came overwhelmingly from the pens of missionaries. There are several reasons why this was so. Their missionary task obviously motivated them to attempt to understand Hindu religion even if they ultimately rejected it as a false religion. Beyond this, missionaries were more likely than other Europeans, such as travelers or colonial officials, to spend the bulk of their lives, often several decades, in India. They were more likely to be well-educated, to learn Indian languages, and, especially, to read Indian literature. Although many remained in European coastal enclaves, in the early period they were also much more likely than other Europeans to spend extended periods beyond the colonial frontier, living and working in the hinterland. They were also usually required to give an account of their activities to their superiors in Europe. Their letters and reports are also more likely than those produced by independent travelers (although not colonial officials) to have survived by being preserved in European archives. Although missionary scholarship has continued into the 20th century and even beyond, it was gradually eclipsed by colonial and later professional scholarship from the end of the 18th century. The emphasis here will be on works emerging from the earlier period. Scholarship on missionaries has, until quite recently, been very largely the domain of historians of mission, many of whom were missionaries themselves. This has begun to change as the value of missionary accounts have been more widely recognized, and there has been a welcome shift from the often frankly hagiographic character of earlier secondary scholarship.


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