scholarly journals Discursive Heterogeneity in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 92
Author(s):  
Daniel Tia
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Literary Discourse ◽  
Upward Communication ◽  
Double Period ◽  
Methodological Tool ◽  
The Aesthetic

Various critics are interested in the aesthetic scope of literary discourse; those who are truly inscribed in that perspective, adopt varied approaches. Accordingly, countless meanings are given to the same literary texts. What is termed “discursive heterogeneity” in the current study is purely ideological and is about the implicit views entertained by colonists during and after colonial period, which are symbolically romanticized by African American writers as illustrated by Ernest J. Gaines in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (Note 1). That novel is a symbolic instance in which a double period, marked by distinctive ideological discourses, intertwine in a unified and dynamic way, thus creating a narrative harmony. The former differs from the latter by its unilateral characteristics, which imposes an exclusive submission upon Blacks and the latter is opposed to the former by its controversial ambivalence, granting restricted liberties to Blacks. Practically, Blacks are free without actually being free. A close glance at the type of communication prevailing between white colonists and black folks before the Proclamation of Freedom helps to discover its unilateralism (downward communication) and the post-Proclamation one is bi-dimensional (downward and upward communication). But between both preceding periods, there is the Proclamation of Freedom, whose message is more constraining and transcendental in the narrative universe. So, to learn more about that “discursive heterogeneity” and bring out its related meanings, this study leans on narrative semiotics. That methodological tool examines the discursive clues; particular attention is paid to Blacks’ evolution from the period before the Proclamation of Freedom up to the prevailing era after the Emancipation.

The Literary Ellington

2002 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brent Hayes Edwards
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Creative Process ◽  
American History ◽  
African American History ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Music And Literature ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Duke Ellington ◽  
Compositional Technique ◽  
Formal Relationship

The literary plays an indispensable role in the creative process and compositional technique of the great jazz composer and orchestra leader Duke Ellington. It is well known that he based a number of his pieces on literary sources and that many of his larger works in particular rely on narrative written by Ellington and/or his collaborator Billy Strayhorn, whether it was programmatic, recitative, or lyric. In all his music, Ellington was concerned with ''telling tales'' in language, not only in sounds - or more precisely, in both: composing in ways that combined words and music. This imperative is evidenced in the pieces Ellington called ''parallels,'' a word he chose in particular to highlight the formal relationship between music and literature. In some, such as the ''Shakespearean Suite'' known as ''Such Sweet Thunder,'' he used various structural approaches and instrumental techniques to achieve portraiture through the interrelationship between the musical and the literary. In other pieces, such as ''My People'' and especially ''Black, Brown and Beige,'' Ellington attempted to integrate literary texts into his music in a manner that is not programmatic. The longer pieces demonstrate that for Ellington's aesthetic, the representation of African American history necessitated a mixed, multimedia form.

Working-Class Writing and the Use Value of the Literary

PMLA ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 127 (4) ◽  
pp. 932-938 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonali Perera
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Use Value ◽  
Aesthetics And Politics ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Greenwich Meridian ◽  
Country Culture ◽  
The Aesthetic

Formal preoccupations, which is to say specifically literary concerns, appear in small literatures only in a second phase, when an initial stock of literary resources has been accumulated and the first international artists find themselves in a position to challenge the aesthetic assumptions associated with realism and to exploit the revolutionary advances achieved at the Greenwich meridian.—Pascale Casanova, The World Republic of Letters“In our country culture has become so complex, this complexity is reflected in our literature. It takes a certain level of education to understand our novelists. The ordinary man cannot understand them …” … And she reeled off a list of authors, smiling smugly. It never occurred to her that these authors had ceased to be of any value whatsoever to their society—or was it really true that an extreme height of culture and the incomprehensible went hand in hand?—Bessie Head, A Question of Power (first ellipsis in orig.)ON WHAT BASIS ARE SELECT TRADITIONS OF LITERARY INTERNATIONALISM RECOGNIZED AS WORLD LITERATURE AND OTHERS DEEMED MERELY historical, relics of nostalgic Marxism or of resolved debates on aesthetics and politics? According to recent influential formulations, world literature is writing that in original or translated form circulates outside the author's country of origin. But what of traditions of literary internationalism, like those of working-class writing, that reverse and displace practical, utilitarian propositions to ask, instead, in more abstract terms, what is the use value of the literary? Bessie Head's A Question of Power poses a challenge to practical definitions. What of literary texts that have global currency but aren't of “any value whatsoever to their society”?

scholarly journals Existential Sentences as a Characteristic Syntactic Feature of I. A. Bunin’s Poetic Texts

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4 (202)) ◽  
pp. 256-272
Author(s):  
Olga A. Selemeneva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Literary Texts ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Surrounding World ◽  
Traditional Structure ◽  
Lyrical Poetry ◽  
Poetic Text ◽  
Existential Sentences ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Poetic Texts ◽  
Main Components

In this article, existential sentences are examined as a syntactic dominant of I. A. Bunin’s lyrical poetry. The interest in the originality of the syntax of Nobel laureate’s literary texts is due to the lack of research on this issue, linguists’ focus on the aesthetic salience of the vocabulary, its expressive properties and combination potential, as well as stylistic figures and tropes. Meanwhile, it is the writer’s selection of specific syntactic structures for the implementation of the idea, the representation of key ideas and concepts that reflect his personality and the peculiarities of his perception of the surrounding world. The author refers to Bunin’s poems from 1886–1917 and 1918–1953 published in Bunin’s collected works in 9 volumes. In the writer’s poetic oeuvre, existential sentences are regularly used. Despite the traditional structure that underlies them and is represented by three meanings (‘the object of being’, ‘being’, and ‘area of being’), the richness of the lexical content of each of the main components stands out. As a result, existential sentences become a universal form used to represent completely different situations in the author’s individual worldview: the existence of natural objects in space, meteorological phenomena, events, time periods, artifacts, etc.; physical states of the surrounding world; psychological states of the subject. Acting as a semantic core of a poetic text, existential sentences do not have a fixed place in it, and are used as a lyrical beginning, an interposed element, or an ending in its structure. In each position, their use is conceptually significant. It is established that the peculiarity of existential sentences in Bunin’s lyrical poetry is their syntactic unconditionality (attachment to three registers of speech, i.e. reproductive, informative, and generative) and polyfunctionality (performing the pictorial, characterising and concluding, and generalising functions).

Proletarian Modernism: Film, Literature, Theory

PMLA ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 134 (5) ◽  
pp. 1056-1075
Author(s):  
Benjamin Kohlmann
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Alternative Route ◽  
Modernist Literature ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Literature Theory ◽  
Opening Up

This article identifies a body of work—films, literary texts, and theories of the aesthetic—that can help us reopen the question of what it means for an artwork to project a vision of classlessness. The article begins by focusing on early-twentieth-century proletarian modernism, in particular in the cinematic work of Sergey Eisenstein and in British literary works that repurposed Woolfian and Joycean styles during the later interwar years. Proletarian modernism, I argue, highlights an alternative route taken by modernist literature and art: unlike the late modernists feted in much recent scholarship, proletarian modernists aimed to retool modernism, opening up new and global political futures for it rather than anticipating its end. The article concludes by showing that the cultural genealogy of proletarian modernism mapped out here doubles as a prehistory of contemporary aesthetic theory: it enables us to recognize the significant political and theoretical erasures that structure recent accounts of art's democratic potential.

Nigeria and the World

2018 ◽  
pp. 698-713
Author(s):  
Oliver Coates
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
The World ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
General Strike

The years 1914–60 witnessed an acceleration and intensification of contacts between Nigerians and the wider world. While some impacts are familiar—global depression of the 1930s, two World Wars, and the emergence of anticolonial nationalism after 1945—other relationships remain obscure. This chapter outlines key developments in Nigerian politics during the colonial period and identifies key political actors. It demonstrates the recurrent importance of Nigerian connections overseas and elsewhere in Africa. Whether as soldiers, Islamic scholars, or nationalist politicians, these international links provided a vital conduit for new ideas, languages, and relationships. A burgeoning trade union movement (after the 1945 General Strike), the critical influence of African-American politics, and renewed contact with the wider Islamic world are key themes. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Northern Nigerians who traveled abroad for the hajj and as students of Islamic history, theology, and the Arabic language.

scholarly journals The Poetic of Colors in Qassim Haddad’s Texts (Oh Coal, My Master: Van Gogh’s Notes): شعريّة اللون في نص قاسم حدّاد (أيّها الفحم يا سيدي: دفاتر فنسنت فان غوخ)

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amirah Ali Abdullah Al-Zahrani
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Approach ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Poetic Language ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Artistic Style ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Figurative Expressions ◽  
Poetic Style

This study presents a critical approach to the poetic aspects of Qassim Haddad’s texts (Oh coal, my master) in his rewritings of Van Gogh's life. The importance of the study lies in the new experience of the text as Qassim has provided a distinguished artistic style where he presented the biography of the Dutch artist based on the heterobiography logic. He explored the artist’s paintings which reflected his attitudes towards life and art and invested in the content of his massages. The attractiveness of this topic is the reason for conducting the study as the poet Qassim Hadadd was able to explore deeply Van Gogh's ideas and consequently presented to us a biography of an exceedingly beautiful poetic style that presented his reading of the paintings and messages. Furthermore, texts are written in an elegant poetic language and are rich in color interpretations. The study adopts the Artistic Analytical approach that analyzed the figurative expressions of colors that have poetic connotations different from their denotative meanings which led to appreciate the aesthetic aspects of such literary texts.

scholarly journals AESTHETIC INSTRUMENTATION FOR FORMING IMAGINED COMMUNITIES: THE PHENOMENON OF THE NATIONAL ANTHEM

2021 ◽  
pp. 212-231
Author(s):  
O.Y. Khoroshylov
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Method ◽  
Social Engineering ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Anthem ◽  
Critical Content ◽  
Building Process ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Right

The article is devoted to the study of the experience of using aesthetic tools in the formation of national groups. The object of the research is the state anthems, as a concentrated manifestation of the self-interpretation of the political community. The methodology of this article is based on constructivism, which interprets nations as imaginary communities and focuses the attention of the researcher on the practice of using soft technologies of collective integration. It`s addressed to the problem of using literary texts in the processes of collective integration made it possible to include not only representatives of political, but also creative elites in the list of subjects of social engineering. It has been proved that the political significance of the national anthem is manifested through "texts` violence". It`s the ability of the ruling circles to transmit group values to the subordinate array, which is achieved due to the legislative consolidation of a generally binding status for a certain text and due to the aesthetic impact on the consciousness of members of the community. The research methodology is presented by the using the procedures of the comparative method. It was carried out in such clusters as: justification of the right to exist (source of legitimation), "We are the image" of the commonality, common heroes, imaginary geography. It was achieved the identification of statistical patterns and features of the studied text arrays with analytical procedures for critical content analysis of the national anthems of European states. The results of the study confirmed the effectiveness of the procedures and tools of social engineering as one of the scenarios for the creation of national collectives in the European cultural area, substantiated the expediency of using the approved methodology to identify the cultural means of the nation-building process within the borders of Europe, and revealed the prospects of its application in relation to countries of the non-European cultural area.

scholarly journals Linguistic and Cultural Studies: The Quest for New Ideas

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 35-45
Author(s):  
Vitalii Kononenko
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Literary Discourse ◽  
Cultural Tradition ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
New Ideas

The article highlights the principles of researching into text from the interdisciplinarylinguistic and cultural perspective. Cognitological analysis of linguistic and extralinguistic culturalmeanings reveals that there exist of specific linguistic and aesthetic formations best presentedthrough the ‘language – culture – identity’ triad. One of the components of literary discourse ismonocultural layer, which secures the continuity of national cultural tradition; researching into it,one should take into account mental and historical, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic and otherfactors. Linguistic and aesthetic analysis helps to establish the system of linguistic and culturalmeans (metaphorization, imagery, verbal symbols, linguistic conceptualization, connotativemeanings), which reveals its potential in literary texts. The lingual identity as a general notionalcategory shows its nationally-oriented characteristics through the dichotomies of ‘addresseraddressee’ , ‘author-reader’, ‘narrator-narratee’ and is presented in the author’s idiolect

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