New sources of life: William Butler Yeats’s “The Gyres”, “Lapis Lazuli” and “Imitated From the Japanese”

Proglas ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yarmila Daskalova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nobel Prize ◽  
William Butler Yeats ◽  
Logical Consequence ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Self ◽  
Royal Swedish Academy ◽  
Self Image ◽  
Lapis Lazuli ◽  
The Human Condition

The Irish poet William Butler Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923 by the Royal Swedish Academy “for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation”1. The article focuses specifically on three poems from Yeats’s “modernist” period which he included in the cycle New Poems (1938): “The Gyres”, “Lapis Lazuli” and “Imitated from the Japanese”. These later writings emerge as a logical consequence of his previous engagement with philosophy and occultism, mythology and history, art and reality. Yeats’s strenuous efforts to forge mythopoeic stereotypes seem to transcend mere personal versions of myth in an attempt to discover deeper levels of meaning, and to complete the self-image he developed throughout his life. In his later works he managed to make meaningful pronouncements on key moral and philosophical issues relating to the human condition.

Prologue

2020 ◽  
pp. 3-10
Author(s):  
Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Self ◽  
Objective Truth ◽  
The World ◽  
Subjective Truth ◽  
The Human Condition

Introduces some of the central ideas of existentialism—including subjective truth, finitude, being-in-the-world, facticity, transcendence, inwardness, and the self as becoming—as relevant to an individual living in the contemporary moment. Highlights existentialist concern both for human individuality and for commonly-shared features of the human condition. Emphasizes existentialist attention both to the despairing aspects of human life and to the affirmation of existence as worthy of wonder. Introduces a few key thinkers—Kierkegaard, Marcel, Heidegger, Sartre, Nietzsche—while also indicating the diversity of existentialism to be emphasized throughout the book. Addresses what existentialism may have to offer in the context of contemporary challenges to objective truth and communal forms of meaning.

scholarly journals Le problème de l’identité culturelle dans les romans Tout s’effondre de Chinua Achebe et Un nom pour un autre de Jhumpa Lahiri

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 243-260
Author(s):  
Nadejda Ivanova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Condition ◽  
The Self ◽  
Close Connection ◽  
Cultural Conflict ◽  
Chinua Achebe ◽  
Native Community ◽  
Jhumpa Lahiri ◽  
Things Fall Apart ◽  
The Human Condition

The novels Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri approach an acute and sensitive problem of the effects of colonization and of the self-exiled emigrant man. Each of the protagonists of these two novels expresses an upheaval, an inner cultural conflict. It turns out that their destiny is in a close connection with their images and emotional valences, strongly fed by a collective imaginary, by the deep reality of collective life. Thus, adherence and communication with the archetypal resources of the native community, with the essential that precedes the human condition, proves to be a vital necessity, of overwhelming importance for our protagonists.

Neuroscience Fiction as Eidolá: Social Reflection and Neuroethical Obligations in Depictions of Neuroscience in Film

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 292-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
RACHEL WURZMAN ◽  
DAVID YADEN ◽  
JAMES GIORDANO
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Self ◽  
Reciprocal Effects ◽  
Actual Process ◽  
Sociocultural Context ◽  
Cultural Events ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
The Human Condition

Abstract:Neuroscience and neurotechnology are increasingly being employed to assess and alter cognition, emotions, and behaviors, and the knowledge and implications of neuroscience have the potential to radically affect, if not redefine, notions of what constitutes humanity, the human condition, and the “self.” Such capability renders neuroscience a compelling theme that is becoming ubiquitous in literary and cinematic fiction. Such neuro-SciFi (or “NeuroS/F”) may be seen as eidolá: a created likeness that can either accurately—or superficially, in a limited way—represent that which it depicts. Such eidolá assume discursive properties implicitly, as emotionally salient references for responding to cultural events and technological objects reminiscent of fictional portrayal; and explicitly, through characters and plots that consider the influence of neurotechnological advances from various perspectives. We argue that in this way, neuroS/F eidolá serve as allegorical discourse on sociopolitical or cultural phenomena, have power to restructure technological constructs, and thereby alter the trajectory of technological development. This fosters neuroethical responsibility for monitoring neuroS/F eidolá and the sociocultural context from which—and into which—the ideas of eidolá are projected. We propose three approaches to this: evaluating reciprocal effects of imaginary depictions on real-world neurotechnological development; tracking changing sociocultural expectations of neuroscience and its uses; and analyzing the actual process of social interpretation of neuroscience to reveal shifts in heuristics, ideas, and attitudes. Neuroethicists are further obliged to engage with other discourse actors about neuroS/F interpretations to ensure that meanings assigned to neuroscientific advances are well communicated and more fully appreciated.

“Livity” and the Hermeneutics of the Self

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 195-219
Author(s):  
Leslie R. James ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Self ◽  
Life World ◽  
Social Death ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The Human Condition

This paper explores the concept of “livity,” the ground of Rastafari subjectivity. In its multifaceted nuances, “livity” represents the Rastafari invention of a religious tradition and discourse, whose ethos was fundamentally sacred, signified the immanence of the Absolute in dialectic with the Rastafari worldview and life world. Innovatively, the Rastafari coined the term “livity” to a discourse to combat despair, damnation, social death, and the existential chaos-monde they referred to as Babylon. In the process, the Rastafari reclaimed their power to name their world. The Rastafari neologism “livity” articulated a mysticism, alternative spatial visions, and a positive technology of the self that revalorized blackness, explored, and interrogated profound dimensions of the human condition, from within the Jamaican context, that inevitably brought them into conflict with the local colonial authorities and implicitly shifted the model of social relations between the master and slave.

Popeye and the American Dream

Prospects ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 549-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Gowans
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
New World ◽  
American Dream ◽  
James Fenimore Cooper ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
American Novel ◽  
Common Concern ◽  
Self Image ◽  
American Adam ◽  
The Human Condition

It was alfred frankenstein, I believe, who first observed that the characteristic subjects of painters like William Sidney Mount and George Caleb Bingham were visual counterparts of that “American Adam in Eden” theme, which many historians of literature had identified as “the central myth in the American novel since 1830”. Man unspoiled, in a new relationship to nature, is their common concern. As David W. Noble has written in The Eternal Adam and the New World Garden:The American novelist then, beginning with James Fenimore Cooper, cannot write within the traditional conventions of his European contemporaries. He is precluded by his nation's romantic self-image from being an analyst of social and individual comedy or tragedy. Our novelist must be a metaphysician and theologian. He must always begin with the question: is it possible that Americans are exempt from the human condition? Is it possible that men in the new world have escaped from the need to live within community, within a framework of institutions and traditions—have escaped even from the need to live within a mortal body, or a soul that is divided against itself? Can nature indeed redeem man, heal his spiritual division, and lift him above the constraints of social class?

scholarly journals Self Writing and World Mapping in Tim Bowling’s 'Downriver Drift' (2000) and 'The Paperboy’s Winter' (2003)

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 33-43
Author(s):  
Leonor María Martínez Serrano
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Place ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Self ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Surrounding World ◽  
Non Fiction ◽  
Creative Non Fiction ◽  
The Human Condition

Widely acclaimed as one of the best living Canadian authors, Tim Bowling has cultivated several literary genres with great talent and verbal craftsmanship. He has published twelve poetry collections to date, two works of creative non-fiction, and five novels, including Downriver Drift (2000), The Paperboy’s Winter (2003), The Bone Sharps (2007), The Tinsmith (2012) and The Heavy Bear (2017). This article explores the epistemological power of Bowling’s fiction as a mode of knowing the self and the nonhuman environment. More specifically, bearing in mind fundamental ecocritical tenets, it analyses how his two earliest novels, Downriver Drift and The Paperboy’s Winter, evoke notions of dwelling and a compelling sense of place, as the natural environment in them is much more than mere backdrop to the narratives unfolding in their respective plots. Written in elegantly wrought language rich in poetic resonance, Bowling’s novels remind their readership that fiction is a powerful tool to investigate the human condition and our surrounding world, where the human and the nonhuman coexist on democratic terms.

Conditions for Creativity in Conversation

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-30
Author(s):  
John A. Pauley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Ecology ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Self ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Literary Art ◽  
Contemporary United States ◽  
The Human Condition

Abstract This essay begins by demonstrating how conversations can end before they have a chance to authentically begin. Conversations are stultified by patterns in the human ecology. The first pattern identified is “self-obliviousness” in conversation. “Self-obliviousness” is then tied to patterns of both radical self-assurance and self-diminishment. The underlying idea and argument is that adequate self-awareness is a necessary condition for (authentic) conversation and this condition is only met as human beings recognize their own selves as relational. The argument then turns to remedies to the pattern. Metacognition as exercised in relation to literary art can reveal the conditions for identifying and recognizing the damaging patterns. By the end of the essay the conditions for creativity in conversation are conflated with the formation of empathetic dispositions and these are only possible through understanding the self in equal relation to other selves. The arguments and examples are from contemporary United States Culture, but the damaging patterns can easily be recognized as elements of the human condition generally.

scholarly journals Technological Drive, the Self and the Ethical

MANUSYA ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-49
Author(s):  
Michael Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Technological Innovation ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Self ◽  
Hans Jonas ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Motivating Factor ◽  
Genealogy Of Morals ◽  
Dimensions Of Technology ◽  
The Way ◽  
The Human Condition

I want in this essay to change the way we approach the promise of technology. In bringing out the philosophical substance packed into the highly critical diagnostic portion of Virilio’s work, I focus on Virilio’s observations concerning the human psychological relation to technology. I argue that a form of resentment similar to that found in Nietzsche’s genealogy of morals provides the motivating factor in the push for continual and increasingly rapid technological innovation: technological drive follows from fallen man’s desire to reconcile his mortality. Understanding this drive brings home the direness of the human condition that makes technological promise so attractive and technological resistance so difficult. Given this conundrum, we must articulate an ethic of technological modesty. An ethic of technological modesty encourages (1) the resistance of capricious urges for technological satisfaction and (2) the subjection of technologies to a rigorous phenomenological investigation that weighs their potential benefits and reductions, as well as the conditions that might precipitate and exacerbate these benefits or reductions. This ethical plan pushes Virilio’s phenomenology of the “accident” of technology, and comes in the phenomenological/pragmatic tradition of Hans Jonas’ imperative of responsibility and Don Ihde’s phenomenological investigation of the dimensions of technology that amplify and reduce natural human capacities.

Theology and Psychological Theory: Psychological Implications of Some Modern Theologies

1989 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 342-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barnard Spilka ◽  
Robert A. Bridges
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Cognition ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Human Condition

In a sense, theologies are psychologies. They discuss the human condition, largely in terms of motivation and cognition, and suggest ways of organizing our thinking about human aspirations and goals. These considerations are nowhere more evident than in contemporary process, liberation, and feminist theologies. This article shows parallels among these perspectives relative to modern psychological research and theory, primarily in social psychology and more particularly relative to social cognition theory. The importance of the role of the self and needs for meaning, control, and self-esteem are stressed, indicating that theology can serve as psychological theory and that both psychology and theology might benefit from increased interaction between the disciplines.

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