scholarly journals Ein Literarisches Kuckucksei: Der Essay

Literator ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 52-70
Author(s):  
J. D.C. Potgieter
Keyword(s):  
General Trend ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Mixed Genre

Due to mainly a lack of sufficient research - especially previous to Montaigne (1533-1592) and Bacon (1561-1626), the apparent innovators of the literary form of the Essay - quite a few misconceptions regarding this literary genre still prevail.Not only is the Essay as such often confused with the essay qua “Aufsatz” , but also because of its typical characteristics of “playing” with fact(s) in the literary arena, the literary Essay is blindly branded as a "mixed-genre", a label which is also attributed to its mosaic-like form. Contrary to the general trend, this study concerns the Essay as an “independent" Hterary prose-genre, with its own characteristics.

Leonardo’s Profezia: Moral Writings of a Hybrid Kind

2012 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-100
Author(s):  
Filomena Calabrese
Keyword(s):  
Da Vinci ◽  
Leonardo Da Vinci ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Main Subject ◽  
Moral Statement ◽  
Mixed Genre

In the period 1490-99, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) wrote nearly three hundred literary writings that were later compiled by scholars into four primary collections: the Bestiario, Favole, Facezie, and Profezia. This article takes Leonardo’s Profezia as its main subject in order to give due recognition to the generic nature of this collection. Specifically, it examines the texts in the Profezia as examples of mixed genre in an attempt to demonstrate how ethos, context, and generic convention yield to the greater moral statement made by Leonardo in the writings themselves. Unlike Leonardo’s other three literary collections, which subscribe to an easily identifiable literary genre, the Profezia texts are hybrid writings that enjoin its readers to consider instead why and how the mixture of forms might be a necessary means of expression to convey a truth and reality.

Introducing the Prose Poem

Prose Poetry ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 3-27
Author(s):  
Paul Hetherington ◽  
Cassandra Atherton
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
English Language ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Prose Poetry ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Prose Poem ◽  
Nineteenth Century France ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Observation ◽  
Intense Emotion

This chapter traces prose poetry's development in nineteenth-century France and its early reception and subsequent critical views about the form. The prose poem in English is now established as an important literary form in many countries at a time when the composition and publication of poetry is thriving. However, while poetry generally continues to be recognized as a literary genre highly suited to expressing intense emotion, grappling with the ineffable and the intimate, and while lineated lyric poetry is widely admired for its rhythms and musicality, the main scholarship written about English-language prose poetry to date defines the form as problematic, paradoxical, ambiguous, unresolved, or contradictory. The common observation that the term “prose poetry” appears to contain a contradiction is not surprising given that poetry and prose are often understood to be fundamentally different kinds of writing. The chapter then defines the prose poem's main features and discusses the challenge prose poetry presents to established ideas of literary genre.

scholarly journals Bliss beyond All Limit: On the Apabhraṃśa Dohā in Tantric Buddhist Texts

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 927
Author(s):  
Jackson Barkley Stephenson
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Similar Function ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Hindi Language ◽  
Buddhist Ritual

The Apabhraṃśa dohā is a literary medium from Indian antiquity, with early examples appearing in Kālidāsa’s plays around the 5th century and continuing in later Hindi-language Jain and Bhakti works in the early modern period. However, it was within Tantric Buddhist texts and traditions that the dohā truly came into its own as a literary genre. Particularly within the “Yoginī Tantra” strata of the Tantric Buddhist canon, Apabhraṃśa dohās appear in notable and formulaic ways, used within ritual contexts and other significant junctures, signaling the underexamined use of this literary form and its language of composition. This paper examines the use of dohās attributed to the mahāsiddha Saraha as they are used in the Hevajra Tantra, the Buddhakapāla Tantra, and some associated texts. In doing so, this paper demonstrates that as a literary genre, Apabhraṃśa dohās perform a similar function to mantras and dhāraṇīs, but are unique in their attention to phonology and discursive meaning. By examining the uses of these dohās during particular moments of Tantric Buddhist ritual syntax, this paper will then reflect on the later trajectory of these verses after the death of institutional Buddhism in India, and the reasons for their survival.

Mikrostāsta jēdziens mūsdienu literatūrā

2020 ◽  
pp. 299-310
Author(s):  
Agata Babina
Keyword(s):  
Spanish Literature ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Literary Fiction ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Literary Critic ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Flash Fiction ◽  
Contemporary Spanish Literature ◽  
The University ◽  
Insight Into

The glorious, overwrought, and ambitious modernism of the early 20th century has gradually been replaced by minimalism in art, architecture and other cultural expressions. In such a changing environment, minimalism trends also appear in the literature. Turning to the analysis of literary fiction over the last hundred years, critics of Romanic and Anglo-Saxon literature have come to the conclusion of the emergence of a new literary genre. In Anglo-Saxon literature, among many other names of this genre, the most recognizable name is flash fiction, while in Spanish, the term microrrelato has been established in the last decade. However, in Latvian literature, the characteristics of the genre correspond to minimas written by Aivars Eipurs. The paper aims to provide insight into the development and textual characteristics of flash fiction and to seek its equivalents in the literature of different Western nations. The study looks at the concept of flash fiction and its synonyms in English, Spanish, French, Russian, and Polish languages, includes definitions of flash fiction as an independent literary genre of a variety of authors and sets out the key features and examples. In addition to the concept of flash fiction, it includes concepts of intertextuality and ellipsis, which, along with humor and metafiction, are essential linguistic elements of flash fiction. Flash fiction merges different genres and their patterns into a new literary form consisting of certain linguistic, syntactical, and pragmatic texting techniques. In building the theoretical base of the study, the emphasis was placed on the critics of contemporary Spanish literature less known in Latvia, such as professor Irene Andrés-Suárez (b. 1948) of the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland), Argentinian writer and literary critic David Lagmanovich (1927–2010) and Mexican literary critic Lauro Zavala (b. 1954). Examples of the genre are mostly referred to by Hispanic authors.

“Observe, Write!”

2020 ◽  
pp. 49-70
Author(s):  
Arne Höcker
Keyword(s):  
Literary Form ◽  
Institutional Framework ◽  
Literary Discourse ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Empirical Psychology ◽  
Fictional Narrative ◽  
Karl Philipp Moritz ◽  
Psychological Knowledge ◽  
Psychological Novel

This chapter examines how Karl Philipp Moritz invoked the psychological productivity of novelistic storytelling in publishing the “psychological novel” Anton Reiser (1785–1790) as part of his project of empirical psychology or Erfahrungsseelenkunde. This use of fictional narrative for the representation of dispassionate observation, and the choice of engaging a literary genre for the production of psychological knowledge assigned irreducible cognitive qualities to literature. Anton Reiser is not only another case of Moritz's extensive psychological project but also a paradigmatic case for the importance of literary form in the observation and recording of psychic phenomena. The institutional framework of the novel is not just the Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde, but literary discourse as an epistemological rather than aesthetic enterprise. Ultimately, Anton Reiser is a literary exercise in establishing a perspective from which self-observation becomes possible.

Die Macht des Exempels: Alexander der Grosse in den Reden des Libanios

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-160
Author(s):  
Grammatiki A. Karla
Keyword(s):  
Special Interest ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Negative Image ◽  
Rhetorical Strategy ◽  
First Case ◽  
Rhetorical Function ◽  
The Individual

This paper focuses on the use of the “exemplum” of Alexander in seven Imperial speeches by Libanius (4th c. AD). These are studied and analysed under both a macro- and a micro-perspective: in the first case, the analysis highlights the individual historical examples, their rhetorical function and their literary form. These aspects are subsequently discussed with respect to the specific literary genre, the position of exempla within the speech structure, as well as their aims and impact. Of special interest are the different ways in which Libanius uses the sometimes positive and sometimes negative image of Alexander in order to reinforce his argumentation and to guide his rhetorical strategy in specific pathways.

“What Would Jesus Do?”: Practical Christianity, Social Gospel Realism, and the Homiletic Novel

PMLA ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 121 (3) ◽  
pp. 641-661 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory S. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Progressive Era ◽  
Urban Poverty ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
Social Intervention ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Literary Realism ◽  
Human Suffering ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Interpretive Practices

This essay makes the historical case for an unrecognized genre of fiction–the homiletic novel. Drawing on traditional Protestant interpretive practices, Social Gospel authors fused forms of spiritual identification rooted in Protestant homiletic exercises (catechisms, interactive allegories, conversion dramas) with practical Christianity's emerging ethic of social intervention, attaching older modes of readerly identification to new sites of literary culture. Homiletic novels democratized pastoral guidance and legitimized fiction as a repository of ethical experience. Through interactive fictions offering virtual models of spiritual agency in the material world, evangelicals prepared for real forays into urban poverty to intervene in human suffering. The homiletic novel became the most popular literary form of the Progressive Era and continues to flourish in the present–day American political, cultural, and religious environment. In tracing its rise and pervasive influence, this study revises conventional histories of literary genre by suggesting an alternative origin for American literary realism. (GSJ)

Russifying the Radīf: Lyric Translatability and the Russo-Persian Ghazal

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-284
Author(s):  
Rebecca Ruth Gould
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Russian Literature ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Cultural Translation ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
Romantic Poet ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Hybrid Genre

Building on Earl Miner's insight that the lyric is a ‘foundation genre’ of world literature, this article develops this idea in the context of thinking about lyric translatability. I do this by examining the Russo-Persian lyric, a hybrid literary genre that developed within Russian literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Radically unlike its classical Persian prototype, the Russo-Persian ghazal is a case study in lyric translatability. I explore the development of this hybrid genre from its appropriation by the Russian Romantic poet Afanasy Fet (d. 1890) to its influence on Sergei Esenin's Persian Motifs (1925), a text that adds a new dimension to the Russian-Persian encounter. Moving beyond historicist treatments that focus solely on direct impact or empirical encounters, this exploration of the Russo-Persian lyric traces the movement of literary form as a process of cultural translation that sometimes misunderstands the original, but which also transforms it, generating new literary form for a receptive audience. Broadly, this research sheds light on how the ghazal and its adaptations modifies and extends our understanding of lyric form, and on what is and is not translated through the lyric genre.

An Introduction to the Sagas of Icelanders

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Phelpstead
Keyword(s):  
Queer Theory ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Literary Study ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Rich Variety ◽  
History Of

An Introduction to the Sagas of Icelanders provides new perspectives on a unique medieval literary genre: the Sagas of Icelanders (also known in English as Family Sagas). The book deepens our understanding both of the Old Norse-Icelandic texts and of our responses to them by attending to the ways in which the texts work as narratives of identity. It offers a fresh account of the sagas by relating them to questions addressed by postcolonial studies, feminist and queer theory, and ecocriticism, approaches that are currently more familiar in other areas of literary study than in the study of Old Norse-Icelandic literature. The book begins by examining what an Icelandic saga is, and then goes on to discuss the origins of the genre, describing its historical contexts and arguing that a rich variety of oral and written source traditions combined to produce a new literary form. The book then examines issues of national, religious, and legal identity, gender and sexuality, and the relations between human beings, nature, and the supernatural. Readings of selected individual sagas show how the various source traditions and thematic concerns of the genre interact in the most widely read and admired sagas. A brief history of the translation of the sagas into English shows how consistently translation has been inspired by, and undertaken in accordance with, beliefs about identity. The book’s conclusion draws together the preceding chapters by underlining how they have presented the sagas of Icelanders as narrative explorations of identity and alterity.

scholarly journals The Gospel as Literary Genre and Form of Language

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 441-458
Author(s):  
Pasquale Basta
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Popular Literature ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Mixed Genre

The studies on the literary genre “gospel” are often compared with the so-called Greco-Roman bíoi and popular literature. The points of contact are numerous and undeniable. As well as the differences and peculiarities of the gospels, whose link with the Hebrew Bible is a unicum to be taken into account. In particular, the typology, with its network of references, makes the canonical gospels a text proceeding through continuous phenomena of association and repetition with the ancient Scriptures. As result, the nar­rative takes on particular tones insofar as it indulges little in the chronicle, concentrating rather on the richness of meaning hidden in entire story of Christ. Consequently, the gos­pels are evidence of a mixed genre, having some characteristics of the Greco-Roman bíoi and contemporary popular Lives, together with constant re-elaboration of OT elements re-read and applied in a typological key. And it could not be otherwise because the events and the protagonist of the gospels perfectly intersect the horizontal and vertical dimensions of a story merging with the eternal.  

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