Tabloul prozei contemporane și valențele realismului în Istoria literaturii române contemporane: 1990-2020 de Mihai Iovănel

Transilvania ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 115-122
Author(s):  
Victor Cobuz
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Contemporary Fiction ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
Main Interest ◽  
The Third ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
History Of ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
Romanian Literature

In an era in which literary histories are written by collective of academics trying to transcend the national paradigm in which these works were once wrote, The History of Contemporary Romanian Literature: 1990-2020 by Mihai Iovănel is an intellectual effort that may seem obsolete. Nevertheless, Mihai Iovănel’s book proposes new ways of understanding the contemporary Romanian literary field that were not taken into consideration by previous similar critical endeavours. This paper aims to investigate how The History of Contemporary Romanian Literature constructs an overview of the Romanian fiction wrote in the last three decades and the critical approaches deployed for this purpose. The main interest of this article will be how does Mihai Iovănel discusses Romanian contemporary fiction and how does he instrumentalizes the concept of realism. We will look more closely at the third part of the book, “The Evolution of Fiction,” but the discussion will not omit the relation of this chapter with others. The paper will concentrate on the concepts put forward by Mihai Iovănel to systematize the complex subfield of contemporary Romanian fiction, like capitalist realism, the famous term coined by Mark Fisher. Also, we will try to see how The History of Contemporary Romanian Literature relate to previous literary histories or books of literary criticism that resembles Mihai Iovănel’s work in some respects or that have similar goals but different methods.

Primul mythos de stânga al literaturii române contemporane

Transilvania ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 139-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radu Vancu
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Ideological Bias ◽  
History Of ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
Romanian Literature

Mihai Iovănel’s History of Contemporary Romanian Literature: 1990-2020 is the first leftist major narrative of Romanian literature – and the shockwaves it generated were due even more to this firm ideological option (the first such one in the history of major Romanian literary histories) than to its literary content proper. The present article aims at asserting the main three accomplishments and shortcomings generated by this ideological option – namely that: i) it succeeds in coalescing the first coherent narrative of the last three decades of Romanian literature; ii) it sometimes turns from an ideological option into an ideological bias – and modifies the factuality of Romanian literature, eliminating important writers, exaggerating the qualities of some other ones, searching to distribute merits (to leftist writers) and punishments (to right-wing ones) according with their political option, and not with their literary qualifications; iii) it is an impressive stylistic achievement in itself, even though quite ironically its author disregards the virtues of aestheticism.

scholarly journals The Evantropian Project: Revitalising Critical Approaches to Young Adult Literature

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-193
Author(s):  
Robert Gadowski
Keyword(s):  
Young Adult ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Young Adult Literature ◽  
Critical Power ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
The Third ◽  
Average Reader ◽  
Critical Approaches

Anna Bugajska’s recent book Engineering Youth: The Evantropian Project in Young Adult Dystopias (2019) is an important and thought-provoking inquiry into the field of young adult literary criticism. While for the average reader, young adult narratives may be associated with juvenile tales created with an intent to provide escapist entertainment, a true connoisseur of youth literature is well aware of an immense didactic potential of this genre. Bugajska certainly belongs to the latter category as she diligently engages with young adult dystopias to highlight the immense critical power of these texts. In the following review article, the author of the paper is going to offer a brief commentary on the critical perspective that Bugajska employs to explore the notion of evantropia. The first section of this review discusses Bugajska’s volume as a part of utopian intellectual tradition, the second section postulates that ideas presented in Engineering Youth enrich literary criticism in the field of speculative fiction and children’s and young adult literature, the third section briefly discusses the layout of the volume and the content of each chapter, the fourth section presents an overview of selected core ideas that Bugajska presents in her work and in the last section the author of the paper offers his final thoughts on Engineering Youth.

The Challenges of Writing a National Literary History in the Era of Transnationalism: Insights from a Peripheral Literary Space

Transilvania ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 14-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Snejana Ung
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Literary History ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Literary Historiography ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
Romanian Literature ◽  
Literary System

It goes without saying that during the nineteenth and twentieth century literary historiography tries to define national identities. However, a methodological and paradigm shift occur at the beginning of the twenty-first century when, under the auspices of globalization and the emergence of world literature and transnational literary studies, literary historiography is re-thought as a collective and transnational project. Yet, the asymmetry of the world literary system affects literary historiography too. When it comes to this scholarly genre, the asymmetry is most visible in the fact that in the era of transnationalism, national histories are still written at the periphery. Given the aforementioned observation, this paper a) looks into the challenges of writing literary history in Romania in the age of world literature and transnational studies, and b) tries to explain why a national literary history is still needed and how it can change the way we think about Romanian literature. The starting point of this inquiry is represented by the publication of Mihai Iovănel’s Istoria literaturii române contemporane: 1990-2020 [History of Contemporary Romanian Literature: 1990-2020]. In the context of the ‘transnational turn’ in literary studies, the attempt to write relevant national histories in a peripheral literary space such as Romania is faced, in my view, with two major challenges: 1) the fact that transnationalism manifests itself differently at the periphery and 2) the tradition of Romanian literary criticism and history. The former refers to the fact that unlike central literatures, where transnationalism is shaped to a large extent by migrant writers (those who enter these literatures), in Romanian literature it comprises exiled or migrant writers (those who left Romania and not vice versa) and, to a lesser extent, the literatures written by ethnic minorities. A comparative approach can cast light on this difference. For example, while the thirteenth volume of The Oxford English Literary History is dedicated entirely to migrant and bicultural writers, transnational histories concerning the peripheries, such as History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe, focus on multiple literary spaces and therefore have a different approach to dealing with transnationalism. The latter challenge is represented, as shown by Iovănel, by the long-lasting tradition of the “principle of aesthetic autonomism”, which persists even in post-communist Romania. In this regard, this paper aims to show that Iovănel’s History… overcomes the above-mentioned hindrances of literary criticism and succeeds in offering an image of Romanian literature not as confined to its national boundaries but as part of the world literary system. Along with other significant scholarly works on Romanian literature as and in world literature, this project is a significant step towards re-thinking Romanian literature as a “literature of the world” (Terian 2015).

scholarly journals Modernity, (Post)modernism and New Horizons of Postcolonial Studies. The Role and Direction of Caribbean Writing and Criticism in the Twenty-first Century

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-38
Author(s):  
Izabella Penier
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Contemporary Fiction ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
New Horizons ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Post Modernism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Strategic Goals ◽  
The Caribbean

My article will take issue with some of the scholarship on current and prospective configurations of the Caribbean and, in more general terms, postcolonial literary criticism. It will give an account of the turn-of-the century debates about literary value and critical practice and analyze how contemporary fiction by Caribbean female writers responds to the socioeconomic reality that came into being with the rise of globalization and neo-liberalism. I will use David Scott’s thought provoking study-Refashioning Futures: Criticism after Postcoloniality (1999)-to outline the history of the Caribbean literary discourse and to try to rethink the strategic goals of postcolonial criticism.

scholarly journals PROBLEMS OF NARTOLOGY AND OSSETIAN LITERATURE IN THE SCIENTIFIC HERITAGE OF T.A. GURIEV

Kavkaz-forum ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 5-25
Author(s):  
Р.Н. АБИСАЛОВА
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Literary Critic ◽  
Evolutionary Processes ◽  
Scientific Heritage ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of

Объектом внимания в статье становится научно-публицистическое наследие выдающегося осетинского ученого, доктора филологических наук, профессора, лауреата нескольких престижных премий Тамерлана Александровича Гуриева. В статье исследуются проблемы осетинской нартологии, литературоведения, теории и практики художественного перевода. Объектом анализа в статье стали такие работы Гуриева, как «К проблеме генезиса осетинских нартовских имен», «Антропонимия осетинского нартовского эпоса», «Проблемы Нартиады», «Наследие скифов и алан», «Кто есть кто в аланской Нартиаде». В них освящаются особенности мотивов, сюжетов нартовского эпоса, их вариативность, связь с мировыми эпосами, образы героев, их характеры, мотивации поступков, эволюционные процессы их развития. Второй аспект содержания предлагаемой работы – проблема творчества К.Х. Хетагурова в научно-публицистическом наследии Т.А. Гуриева. В статье также анализируется та сторона Гуриева-литературоведа, которая связана с его талантом полемиста, способного отстаивать собственный взгляд на некоторые произведения Коста Хетагурова. Автор на основе глубокого понимания специфики басенного жанра, истории его формирования и развития убедительно опровергает мнение тех, кто считал басни Коста лишь переводами произведений его предшественников-баснописцев. Т.А. Гуриев, сопоставляя тексты басен К.Л. Хетагурова и И.А. Крылова, доказательно приходит к выводу, что великий осетинский поэт не прибегал к переводам уже известных басен, что его басни, если даже они основаны на мировых сюжетах, оригинальны, самобытны и глубоко национальны. Третий аспект научного наследия Т.А. Гуриева, нашедший отражение в настоящей работе, связан с анализом работ ученого, посвященных теории и практике художественного перевода. The object of attention in the article is that part of the scientific and journalistic heritage of the outstanding Ossetian scientist, doctor of philological sciences, professor, laureate of several prestigious prizes Tamerlan Alexandrovich Guriev. The article examines the problems of Ossetian nartology, literary criticism, theory and practice of literary translation. The object of analysis in the article was such works by Guriev as “On the problem of the genesis of Ossetian Nart names”, “Anthroponymy of the Ossetian Nart epic”, “Problems of Nartiada”, “The heritage of the Scythians and Alans”, “Who is who in the Alan Nartiada”. They sanctify the features of motives, plots of the Nart epic, their variability, connection with world epics, images of heroes, their characters, motivations of actions, evolutionary processes of their development. The second aspect of the content of the proposed work is the problem of K.Kh. Khetagurov in the scientific and journalistic heritage T.A. Guriev. The article also analyzes the side of Guriev as a literary critic, which is associated with his talent as a polemicist, able to defend his own view of some of the works of Kosta Khetagurov. The author, on the basis of a deep understanding of the specifics of the fable genre, the history of its formation and development, convincingly refutes the opinion of those who considered Costa's fables only translations of the works of his predecessors, fabulists. T.A. Guriev, comparing the texts of the fables of K.L. Khetagurov and I.A. Krylova, conclusively comes to the conclusion that the great Ossetian poet did not resort to translations of already known fables, that his fables, even if they are based on world plots, are original, distinctive and deeply national. The third aspect of the scientific heritage of T.A. Guriev, reflected in this work, is associated with an analysis of the scientist's works devoted to the theory and practice of literary translation.

The New Lyric Studies of the 21th Century: The Aesthetic and the Social in Poetry Criticism

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 401-413
Author(s):  
Valeria Odnoral ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Contemporary Poetry ◽  
Poetic Form ◽  
Speaking Up ◽  
The Social ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Right

The article considers the problem of correlation of aesthetic form and social content in contemporary poetry through the prism of contemporary poetry criticism, in particular, the New Lyric Studies of 2008 (M. Perloff, Y. Prins, R. Terada, V. Jackson, etc.). A representation of the lyrics as a genre of poetry, in which historically structured subjectivism and identity of author are interrelated with poetic writing, is at the center of the New Lyric Studies. In this context the lyrics is relative and volatile but also is the closest genre to the poetic nature, that allows to merge an autonomous entity of poetry with ‘agendas’ in the poem, which were difficult to connect in either too formal or too contextual critical approaches to the poetry in the 20th century. This became possible in the conditions of New Lyric critics speaking up against a substitution of poetry and literary criticism for historical, anthropological and cultural criticism because of the high popularity of cultural studies in the 1990s and the ensuing incorporation of interdisciplinarity in literary studies. Despite the objective of New Lyric critics to revitalize a theoretical study of poetry in the spirit of academic criticism of the New Criticism, the modifications in the methods for producing, existence and broadcasting of poetry and therefore in poetry of the last 50 years, poetry itself prevented the New Lyric from becoming the regressive movement. Some representatives of the New Lyric Studies subsequently expressed the need to study poetry in terms of new historical poetics and to create different methods capable to analyze the relations between culture and poetic form – between the social and the aesthetic. Having considered advantages and limitations of the New Lyric studies in the context of contemporary poetry discourse, reflecting not only the nature of contemporary criticism, but also perhaps the history of poetry criticism of 20-21th centuries, which is the dynamical coexistence and the mutual succession of different movements, the author draws a conclusion that this movement defines the right vector for the reconciliation of the long-standing struggle of formalism and contextualism in the poetry criticism as well as social and aesthetic components which poetic work includes.

scholarly journals ‘De vraag is deze: waarom is een akademisch neerlandicus zulk een heel ander mens dan een nederlands letterkundige?’

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marieke Winkler
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Philosophical Argument ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
The Public ◽  
Academic Position ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

Abstract The interrelation of public and academic literary criticism often leads to controversy within the literary field, especially when writers obtain an academic position. As Jo Tollebeek showed in Mannen van karakter (2011) and Nico Laan in Het belang van smaak (1996), the competition between the academic and public discourse on literature is inherent to the history of literary studies. What are the criteria for distinguishing public and academic criticism?This question is examined for the period 1925-1935 by taking the professorship of the poet and critic Albert Verwey (1865-1937) as a case study. Verwey legitimated his academic position by referring to Shelley and the concept of ‘imagination’ as a special source of knowledge. By doing so he presented an artistic and philosophical argument for appointing a poet as a professor of literature. Additionally, ten years later, Verwey revealed that he accepted the position in order to change the way literature was represented by traditional historiography. How did the activities of the poet, critic and academic relate to each other? How did Verwey position himself within, or in between, the academic and the public discourse on literature? And why does Verweys positioning problematize the relation between academic and non-academic literary criticism?

scholarly journals The Sovietization of Creative Writing in Romania. The Role of the Mihai Eminescu School of Literature and Literary Criticism (1950–1955)

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-59
Author(s):  
Imre József Balázs
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
Social Origin ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Personal Level ◽  
Personal Accounts

Abstract Within the paradigm of socialist realism, one of the means of introducing new models of producing literature in Romania and other neighbouring countries was the Soviet idea and practice of literary training. In the Romanian context, the Mihai Eminescu School of Literature and Literary Criticism from Bucharest was intended to produce the new, young generation of writers that would articulate the new system of values. Reports about the School show that the social origin of the students was carefully monitorized, and ethnic diversity also played a role in the process of the sovietization of the whole Romanian literary field. The personal level of experiencing the cultural and political practice of the School shows the possibilities and also the limitations of the project. The paper examines the history of the School through official party documents and also personal accounts, in order to analyze the particular strategies and also the difficulties of adapting certain Soviet institutional models within the Romanian context.

scholarly journals Teorier om det tragiske: med særligt henblik på det moderne tragiske og med udblik til Blichers »Hosekræmmeren«

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (108) ◽  
pp. 128-159
Author(s):  
Claus Esmann Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Short Story ◽  
German Idealism ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
Third Line ◽  
A Current

Theories of the Tragic – with Special Reference to the Modern Tragic and with a View to »The Hosier and His Daughter« (»Hosekræmmeren«) by St. St. Blicher:The term ‘tragic’ is often used in descriptions and analyses of modern (here: post-classical) literature. Yet, only rarely is this use sound and critically based. The purpose of the present article is to introduce the reader to the theory of the tragic – with a particular focus on possible definitions of the modern tragic.In the article, three phases of theoretical history are identified: 1) a genre-based, normative-poetological phase (classic and classicism), 2) a philosophical phase (German idealism and post-idealism), and 3) a current, more pluralistic phase (crosscutting literary criticism, aesthetics, and the history of ideas). The article’s general approach to the theories is, however, systematic rather than historical. A Nietzschean and a Hegelian line are being sketched out and contrasted, the former as a metaphysically (vertical) and the latter as a historically (horizontal) oriented theory of tragedy. The third line in the theoretical history is that of psychoanalysis.At the end of the article – using the short story »The Hosier and His Daughter« (»Hosekræmmeren«) by St. St. Blicher as an example – it is shown how the different approaches are able to throw light on a modern prose text. It is suggested that, having become a problematic genre with the breakdown of classicism, tragedy lives on as a modus within other genres, such as the short story and the novel.

Systemic Reading in Literary Historiography: Politicisation and Instrumentalization of the Autonomy of the Aesthetic as a Strategy of Repositioning During the 90s

Transilvania ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 52-60
Author(s):  
Ioana Moroșan
Keyword(s):  
Field Theory ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
Literary Historiography ◽  
Implicit Biases ◽  
History Of ◽  
Romanian Literature ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Project History

The present paper proposes to follow the evolution of the principle of the autonomy of the aesthetic during the 90’s, with a special focus on the discrepancy between its discourse and its practice, in contrast to its instantiation as a systemically challenging discourse before ’89. Starting from Mihai Iovănel’s recent landmark literary historiographical project History of Contemporary Romanian Literature: 1990-2020, put in conjunction with Gisèle Sapiro’s research on the relative nature of the autonomy in the field theory, the present study aims to show how inside of the Romanian literary field, the concept of autonomy was always instrumentalised towards certain political and ideological interests. These implicit biases are revealed as the actual function of the autonomist discourse via the contextualizing and sociological analyses performed by Iovănel which makes manifest the extra-literary facts surrounding the events within the field. Such an understanding of the autonomy of the aesthetic is also informed by Gisele Sapiro’s theoretical contributions, thus revealing the relative nature of the autonomy and its political and ideological function within the local literary field.

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