scholarly journals Liturgical Mystery in Zviad Gamsakhurdia's Poetry

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luiza Khachapuridze ◽  
Teona Khupenia
Keyword(s):  
Poetic Form ◽  
Prodigal Son ◽  
Religious Consciousness ◽  
The Way

For today's Georgian society, the attitude of Zviad Gamsakhurdia to true Orthodox faith is less well known. He not only showed to the Georgian nation the way to gain state independence but he restored the Religious consciousness to Georgian people and Inspired by the spirit of Christianity. All his works are full of orthodox spirit. He creates new poetic phrases, which are more intensely melodic liturgica than just poetry. While his contemporaries avoid mentioning religion, he creates musical prayers: to Saint George, to Saint Nino , prayers for the nation… He writes the poems under the titles: Proscomidia, Easter, Melkesidek – King of Salim, Betania, Prodigal son. Z. Gamsakhurdia not only dedicates poetic prayers to his devout saints but he also gives the poetic form to the Holy liturgy. The poems are proof of this: "Epiphany", "For Manana". As for the poem "Father", he resembles the prayer of the Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane.

The Work of the Words

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-98
Author(s):  
Megan Kaes Long
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Poetic Form ◽  
Text Setting ◽  
Tonal Language ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Organizational Framework ◽  
Musical Systems ◽  
Regular Text ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Way

Composers of homophonic partsongs developed formulaic text-setting schemas that translated poetic meter into musical meter: line lengths determine phrase lengths, poetic accents establish musical accents, and poetic form controls cadences and formal boundaries. Consequently, text-setting establishes an increasingly deep mensural hierarchy. At the same time, schematic text-setting codifies an organizational framework that parallels the way the mind constructs musical meter. According to dynamic attending theory, listener attention peaks in response to environmental regularities; this theory suggests that regular metrical frameworks like those in homophonic partsongs facilitate tonal expectation by drawing listener attention toward metrically accented harmonic events. Regular text-setting contributes to musical meter in a period when mensural structures are giving way to metrical ones. A new metrical style and a new tonal language emerge in tandem in the early seventeenth century, and the balletto repertoire highlights the close relationship between these evolving musical systems.

The “Underworld Vision” of the Ninevite intellectual milieu

Iraq ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 67-76
Author(s):  
Mehmet-Ali Ataç
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Religious Consciousness ◽  
Intellectual Elite ◽  
Mystical Tradition ◽  
Level Of Consciousness ◽  
Intellectual Milieu ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Superior Level ◽  
The Way

The Assyrian Netherworld is often depicted in literature as a grim “hell” whose residents are clad like birds, deprived of light, and have soil and clay as their food and sustenance. It is the land of no return, erṣet la târi, “the house which none who enters ever leaves”, reached by a “path that allows no journey back”. In addition to such a dreary “hell,” however, the Assyrian Netherworld should also be understood in its capacity as a locus of initiation to which the hero or the spiritual adept is able to pay a visit while still alive without being permanently engulfed by it, and as a result attains a superior level of consciousness, perhaps even immortality.This paper focuses on such initiatic aspects of the Netherworld. Especially two poems composed in the Standard Babylonian dialect of Akkadian, the Standard Babylonian Version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, a work long ingrained in the Mesopotamian religious consciousness, and the poem known as the Underworld Vision of an Assyrian Prince, may be thought to shed light on this more covert perception of the Netherworld. Further, since both of these works come from “libraries” in Nineveh, they may after all be thought to reflect the way the Ninevite intellectual elite themselves perceived the Netherworld. This “Underworld Vision” of the Ninevite scholarly milieu is by no means confined to contemporary literature; it is also visible in the royal palaces of Nineveh through representations of gate-guardians, Mischwesen, that belong to that very Netherworld. Nor is this “Underworld Vision” exclusive to the Ninevite elite alone, as it is one which the latter inherited from a long-standing Mesopotamian mystical tradition. Here, however, I shall try to present a glimpse of this Netherworld from a Ninevite perspective.

Ron Padgett’s Inner-Outer Spaces

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasmine Shamma
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Poetic Form ◽  
Spatial Poetics ◽  
The Way

This chapter examines a range of poems by Ron Padgett which muse on lived-in spaces. Accordingly, this chapter illuminates the “nuts and bolts” of Padgett’s poems through close readings, coupling formal criticism with “gossip” of interview material to pursue more decisive statements regarding the distinct ways in which this form is unique in the way that it registers sought or actual lived in space. This becomes particularly possible within this close examination of Padgett’s poetry. As Padgett utilizes a particularly supple sense of poetic form, exhibiting a control on the page that reflects a control of thought, over and above the rigid limitations of urban space and structures of inherited form, he constructs metaphors that pursue the explosion of structural constraints. This chapter resists shying away from the ramifications of such explosions, ending this study of spatial poetics in the contemporary moment.

Cross-Colonial Poetics: Souffles-Anfas and the Figure of Palestine

PMLA ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 128 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivia C. Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Literature ◽  
Poetic Form ◽  
Cultural Autonomy ◽  
Abdelkebir Khatibi ◽  
Point Of Reference ◽  
The Way

From the mid-1960s onward, Moroccan, Algerian, and Tunisian writers have turned to the question of Palestine as a model of political and aesthetic innovation. Taking the Moroccan cultural journal Souffles-Anfas as an early, paradigmatic example of the literary turn to Palestine in the Maghreb, I argue that writers such as Abdellatif Laâbi and Abdelkebir Khatibi used Palestine as a springboard for “cultural decolonization,” reactivating global anticolonial discourses in order to articulate a relational, cross-colonial Maghrebi identity. Focusing on discussions of language, poetic form, and cultural autonomy, I show that Palestine served as a point of reference in debates on postcolonial Maghrebi culture. Without muting the ethical pitfalls inherent in representing a heterogeneous anticolonial struggle in a postcolonial context, I take this example of cross-colonial poetics as an invitation to rethink along multidirectional, transnational lines the way we approach Maghrebi and, more generally, postcolonial literature and culture.

scholarly journals Religion and Socialism

1910 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-247
Author(s):  
Vida D. Scudder
Keyword(s):  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Religious Consciousness ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Cooperative Commonwealth ◽  
The Way

That a coöperative commonwealth is on the way, it would be rash to assert; but that forces tending in such a direction are gathering strength is even more evident in England and on the continent of Europe than with us. While discussions of socialist theory on economic and political lines increase and multiply another line of thought suggests itself to people preëminently interested in the spiritual rather than in the economic conditions of the race. Supposing a socialist organization of society realized, what would be the reaction on the ethical and religious consciousness,—on creed, on worship, on conduct?It is the purpose of this paper to suggest a few points on the second of these themes,—the probable future of religion under socialism. The subject is less remote from present interests than appears: hypothetical though it be, the attitude of many people toward socialism itself will depend on their conclusions on this point.

scholarly journals Woord en beeld

2021 ◽  
pp. 159-195
Author(s):  
Margriet Gosker
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Prodigal Son ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Bible Stories ◽  
The Way

As an ecumenical theologian I studied all my life the words of the Holy Scriptures. I am also interested in images, strengthening the power of expression of words and the Word, and the other way around. In our present time the culture of images seems to be more and more important. One image can tell you more in a minute than many words can do. The Bible is interpreted by many interpreters and preachers in books, sermons and meditations. How can images interpret these Bible Stories? It is a challenge to show the correlation between the words of the Bible and its images. In this essay, I focus on the parable of the prodigal son. It shows three personalities: the father and his two sons. This raises the question: what about the mother? What is the interference between this story and the way individual artists managed to shape it in paint, pencil, stone, woodcut, and other materials? The youngest son is a spoiler. His life is adventure and pleasure and he has no limits. The eldest son is responsible and obedient, but he also has his dark side. Both of them could be a question to us. With whom could we identify ourselves? Some artists in their finest imagination did not stick to the story and made images of the mother or even of a prodigal daughter.

scholarly journals Theology as a Sacrament of Hope

Lumen et Vita ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Blume
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Good News ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Poetic Form ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
The Tempest ◽  
Dramatic Structure ◽  
Ordinary Time ◽  
The Way

In his exegesis of the Transfiguration, Thomas Aquinas says that the vision of divine glory was given to Peter, James, and John in order to prepare them for Christ’s imminent Passion and Resurrection (Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, Q.45). The brilliance of Christ’s face shining like the sun (cf. Mt. 17:2) strengthened the apostles so that they would not lose heart during the darkness that would come, but would wait for Christ’s splendor to be revealed again after the Resurrection. The entire mystery is an icon of hope, for it shows that visions of glory are always given as part of a journey towards their fulfillment. “It is good for us to be here,” Peter recognized, but the apostles were not brought up to the mountain to remain there. The revelation sent them back down the mountain to fare forward in hope. In this paper, I would like to suggest that the work of theology is meant to share in the mystery of the Transfiguration, and thus cultivate the virtue of hope. In this task, theology can learn from literature, for the way of revealing is as important as the message to be revealed. I would like to propose Shakespeare’s The Tempest as a model. In its dramatic structure and wonder-inspiring poetic form, The Tempest participates in the mystery of the Transfiguration, sending the audience away from the strange island refreshed and reoriented, set on the way with Prospero towards freedom. The play challenges theology to present the Good News of the Gospel in a way that makes the glory of the Lord visible by the radiance of its form, and interrupts into ordinary time, like the storm with which The Tempest begins, so that the revelation is not an end in itself.  If theology is able to set human beings on a journey by cultivating patience and wonder in the very way it reveals, then it will effect the mysteries that it signifies, and truly impart Christian hope.

On Joan Retallack’s Memnoir: Investigating ‘the Experience of Experiencing’

2020 ◽  
pp. 145-162
Author(s):  
Erica Kaufman
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Work ◽  
First Person ◽  
Poetic Form ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Critical Experiment ◽  
New Form ◽  
The Way ◽  
Formal Features

This chapter reads Joan Retallack's Memnoir (2004) as an antidote to the limitations associated with generic memoir. Formal features such as the sparse us of the 'I' and Retallack's use of the page as a unit yields kaufman's comparison between Retallack's work and Dewey's observation that 'experience is omnipresent and ever important.' The poetic form offers a new form of memoir for Retallack, one that calls into question the project of recollecting one's past. Reconceiving the memoir as 'mindful' rather than 'memory', kaufman's close analysis blended with critical experiment reveals new forms of attention to the experimental work. This chapter scrutinises the way in which Retallack's work 'complicates the first person persona and offers an intervention into new forms of memoir that demand a panoply of forms of attention from the reader.

scholarly journals Some Remarks on the Ambiguous Portrayal of Olaf Haraldsson in Snorri Sturluson’s Narrative

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 11-26
Author(s):  
Maciej Lubik
Keyword(s):  
Prodigal Son ◽  
Brown Hair ◽  
Patron Saints ◽  
The Way

Olaf Haraldsson (Saint Olaf) made history as a king and missionary but also as one of the forefathers and patron saints of Christian Norway. His achievements have perpetuated in the folk memory of the Scandinavian peoples, making him the Eternal King of Norway (Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae) and the most distinguished figure among those Norwegian rulers whose reigns are recorded in sagas. Nevertheless, Olaf, though a saint, is depicted as a bellicose, harsh, and severely punishing ruler – a picture that seems to diverge significantly from the model of a gentle, merciful, and saintly king, widespread in the European hagiographic tradition. That twofold nature of Olaf is described in Snorri Sturluson’s narrative, as indicated earlier by Carl Phelpstead. The present study refers to the findings of that scholar and emphasizes two interrelated facets of Olaf’s picture in Snorri’s narrative: his childhood and his appearance. In the former case, Olaf is shown as a naughty child, disrespecting his stepfather, which corresponds to the posterior episode of Olaf’s return to Norway, depicted as a paraphrase of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Snorri provides a picture of a young man who, unlike the prodigal son, fails to change his faulty nature, and that in turn influences the way he rules. In the latter case, while depicting Olaf’s appearance, Snorri seems to present his looks only partially. Although Olaf is handsome, well-built, and his face and hair have a fair shade, he is short, has a flushed face and brown hair. In this way, Snorri departs from the model of a tall ruler with a fair complexion and blond hair. However, if we take into account the older Legendary Saga, it seems that Snorri in both cases follows solutions that are deeply rooted in the oral and written tradition, and which are supposed to reflect the ambiguity characterizing the memories of Olaf kept by the peoples of Scandinavia in the generations living after his death.

‘The Right Scale of that Balance’

2019 ◽  
pp. 45-61
Author(s):  
Michael O'Neill
Keyword(s):  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Poetic Form ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Unique Role ◽  
Narrative Poetry ◽  
Prometheus Unbound ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Way

This chapter outlines the unique role that Spenser and Milton played in influencing Shelley’s development as a poet. Shelley responds to, builds upon, and at times revises the artistic achievements of Spenser and Milton to create his own notion of art. The chapter explores Spenser’s capacity for contradiction and identifies the ways in which The Faerie Queen and other Spenserian works have an affinity with Shelley’s interest in the interplay between opposing ideas or forces. This examination of Shelley’s receptive and reformative relationship with Spencer traces the ways in which Shelley borrows—sometimes directly and sometimes in a modified fashion—the Spenserian stanza, exploiting its intricate poetic form and its capacity for variance. It shows that Spenser’s belief is not completely rejected by Shelley, but rather modified or revised: Spenser’s ‘Heavenlie’ beauty becomes Shelley’s ‘Intellectual’ beauty, for example. The second half of the chapter explores Shelley’s inheritance from and revision of Milton, how Shelley uses echo and allusion to recreate Miltonic effects, and how he gives those deliberately Miltonic effects his own uniquely Shelleyan inflection. It outlines how Shelley is attuned to Milton’s capacity for ambiguity of perspective in Paradise Lost and how Shelley imbues characters, such as Demogorgon in Prometheus Unbound, with ambiguity. It also brings out Shelley’s use of forms he inherits from Milton, such as the way in which he employs tragedy to challenge moral values. This discussion is related to the larger question of the manner in which Shelley explores and revitalizes literary genres often associated with Spenser and Milton, such as the lyrical drama and narrative poetry.

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