Reading the Poem ‘in the Very Picture’

Author(s):  
Luca Degl’Innocenti

The international success of the Orlando Furioso would be hard to describe without the accompanying images. Virtually no early modern edition of Ariosto’s poem was published without a visual paratext. The English reception of the Orlando Furioso was no different, as illustrations were a vital component in the first edition of Harington’s translation (1591), whose 46 full-page plates imitated those published in Venice in 1584, with few and yet very significant changes. This essay discusses some new findings about the visual sources of the scenes added to the plate for Book 28, which shed new light on Harington’s approach to the Orlando Furioso and to Italian literature and culture. On the one hand, the picture shows that he knew an edition of the anonymous excerpt of canto 28 which circulated in Italy under the title of Historia del Re di Pavia, thus confirming the prominence and possibly also the priority of that canto in Harington’s work on the poem. On the other hand, some obscene additions aimed at enhancing the visibility of Ariosto’s most lascivious novella in defiance of the Puritan attacks against the Italianate vogue, appear so clearly related to the underground circulation of Aretino’s Sonetti lussuriosi in Elizabethan England as to urge a reconsideration of the balance between moralism and hedonism in Harington’s theory and practice of poetry.

2009 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 117-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. W. Evans

ABSTRACTIn the vibrant current debate about European empires and their ideologies, one basic dichotomy still tends to be overlooked: that between, on the one hand, the plurality of modern empires of colonisation, commerce and settlement; and, on the other, the traditional claim to single and undividedimperiumso long embodied in the Roman Empire and its successor, the Holy Roman Empire, or (First) Reich. This paper examines the tensions between the two, as manifested in the theory and practice of Habsburg imperial rule. The Habsburgs, emperors of the Reich almost continuously through its last centuries, sought to build their own power-base within and beyond it. The first half of the paper examines how by the eighteenth century their ‘Monarchy’, subsisting alongside the Reich, dealt with the associated legacy of empire. After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 the Habsburgs could pursue a free-standing Austrian ‘imperialism’, but it rested on an uneasy combination of old and new elements and was correspondingly vulnerable to challenge from abroad and censure at home. The second half of the article charts this aspect of Habsburg government through an age of international imperialism and its contribution to the collapse of the Dual Monarchy in 1918.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-137
Author(s):  
Marta Olasik

The main objective of this article is to provide a multi-faceted and spatially-sensitive reflection on sex work. Taking as a point of departure subversive feminist politics on the one hand and the much contingent notion of citizenship on the other, I intend to present various forms of prostitution as potentially positive and empowering modes of sexual and emotional auto-creation. Informed by the leading research of the subject, as well as inspired and educated by Australia-based Dr Elizabeth Smith from La Trobe University in Melbourne, who had researched and presented female sex workers as self-caring and subversive subjects who make own choices and derive satisfaction from their occupation, I wish to seek academic justice for all those women (and men or trans people, for that matter) in the sex industry who feel stigmatized by political pressure and ultra-feminist circles across Europe. Translating Dr Smith’s significant research into European (and Polish) social realities would be a valuable contribution to the local discussions on gender and sexuality, and axes they intersect with. More importantly, however, a framework of a conceptual interdisciplinary approach needs to be adopted—one in which a specific queer form of lesbian feminist reflection is combined with human geography, both of which have much to offer to various strands of sociological theory and practice. Therefore, as a queer lesbian scholar based in Poland, I would like to diverge a bit from my usual topic in order to pay an academic and activist tribute to the much neglected strand of sociology of sex work. However, my multi-faceted and interdisciplinary academic activity allows me to combine the matter in question with the field of lesbian studies. Both a female sex worker and a lesbian have been culturally positioned through the lens of what so-called femininity is, without a possibility to establish control over their own subjectivities. Hence, on the one hand the article is going to be an academic re-interpretation of sex work as such, but on the other, methodological possibilities of acknowledging and researching lesbian sex workers will be additionally considered with special attention to feminist epistemologies and praxis. While a sensitivity to a given locality is of utmost importance when dealing with gender and sexuality issues, I would like to suggest a somewhat overall approach to investigating both female empowerment through sex work and lesbian studies inclusive of sex workers. Importantly, the more common understandings of the sex industry need to be de-constructed in order for a diversity of transgressive discourses to emerge.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 101-110
Author(s):  
Mateusz Falkowski

The article is devoted to the famous The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude by Étienne de La Boétie. The author considers the theoretical premises underlying the concept of “voluntary servitude”, juxtaposing them with two modern concepts of will developed by Descartes and Pascal. An important feature of La Boétie’s project is the political and therefore intersubjective – as opposed to the individualistic perspective of Descartes and Pascal – starting point. It is therefore situated against the background of, on the one hand, the historical evolution of early modern states (from feudal monarchies, through so-called Renaissance monarchies up to European absolutisms) and, on the other hand – of the political philosophy of Machiavelli and Hobbes.


2015 ◽  
Vol 95 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 245-255
Author(s):  
Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin

This paper contrasts the very different roles played by the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland, on the one hand, and Turkish-occupied Hungary, on the other, in the movement of early modern religious reform. It suggests that the decision of Propaganda Fide to adopt an episcopal model of organisation in Ireland after 1618, despite the obvious difficulties posed by the Protestant nature of the state, was a crucial aspect of the consolidation of a Catholic confessional identity within the island. The importance of the hierarchy in leadership terms was subsequently demonstrated in the short-lived period of de facto independence during the 1640s and after the repression of the Cromwellian period the episcopal model was successfully revived in the later seventeenth century. The paper also offers a parallel examination of the case of Turkish Hungary, where an effective episcopal model of reform could not be adopted, principally because of the jurisdictional jealousy of the Habsburg Kings of Hungary, who continued to claim rights of nomination to Turkish controlled dioceses but whose nominees were unable to reside in their sees. Consequently, the hierarchy of Turkish-occupied Hungary played little or no role in the movement of Catholic reform, prior to the Habsburg reconquest.


Target ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Venturi

Translations are facts of target cultures, but the perceived status of source texts has a bearing on how these are reflected or refracted in the target language. This proposition is particularly evident in the case of classics: when translators have to work on literary creations occupying a pivotal position in the source/target cultures, they adopt strategies of literalness and ennoblement which betray a quasi-religious awe—on the one hand, a desire to ruffle the surface of the revered original as little as possible; and on the other, a determination to reproduce the supposed ‘classical qualities’ of the classic even when they are not present in the source. In the following article, I examine how the ‘idea of classic’ influences translation theory and practice, substantiating my theoretical observations by looking at Italian translations of English classics. A marked—and historically determined—disparity between source and target readerships, and the translators’ reverence for their prestigious originals, conspire to produce Italian versions which are much more ‘wooden’ and ‘elegant’ than their English counterparts.


Author(s):  
Tatiana A. Bystrova ◽  

The paper examines two key novels by Sandro Veronesi, the modern Italian writer, Calm Chaos (2006) and Colibri (2020). Both novels were awarded Italy’s main literary prize, the Premio Strega, which is a unique precedent. The relevance of the article comes from the high demand for research on contemporary Italian literature on the one hand and from the novelty of the proposed interpretation for the novel Calm Chaos on the other hand. For the first time, the protagonist of Calm Chaos, Pietro Palladini, is presented not as a preacher of eternal values, returning the reader to the theme of knowing oneself and the surrounding world, but as a mad visionary with clear signs of psychopathy and schizophrenia. The analysis of Veronesi’s latest novel Colibri reveals the character’s evolution and the writer’s narrative manner. The theme of psychiatry in the life of a modern person appears to be one of the key ones in Veronesi’s work.


2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 1033-1044
Author(s):  
Sonia Ryang

Based on the articles in this “Global Asias” forum, this essay proposes that in order to build a meaningful bridge between Asian studies and Asian American studies, we must first face what needs to be critically overcome in Asian studies itself: persistent white male domination of the field, on the one hand, and historical role that the United States has played in Asia, on the other. One possibility is to adopt a transnational Asian studies approach, which advocates bringing Asian studies and Asian American studies together while also envisioning radical interdisciplinarity across Asian studies and African American studies, Latino/a studies, and Asian American studies. The key to pursuing such an approach would be to create a teaching and research environment of inclusion and collaboration.


2019 ◽  
pp. 249-260
Author(s):  
Oliver Morgan

This chapter examines the implications the turn-taking approach for our understanding of early modern performance practices. On the one hand, Shakespearean dialogue is full of subtle effects of timing and sequence that would seem to call for careful rehearsal and a detailed knowledge of the script. On the other hand, everything we know about early modern theatre suggests it was performed with minimal rehearsal by actors who did not necessarily know when, or from where, their next cue would arrive. This apparent mismatch I call ‘the performability gap’. The question is how it can be bridged. The explanation provided by Simon Palfrey and Tiffany Stern—that Shakespeare’s plays are designed to make artistic capital from their own under-rehearsal—does not entirely solve the problem. The second half of the chapter speculates about how else we might account for the gap.


1984 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lane

The paper is in four parts. The first outlines the debate that has occurred in the West about whether human rights, and about what human rights, are desirable and possible in socialist states. In the second it is contended that the normative approach to rights in socialist states has been influenced but not determined by the theory and practice of the USSR. Human rights under Marxism–Leninism are ambiguously defined: there is an unresolved tension between individual (and group) rights, on the one hand, and class and collective rights on the other. Socialist states, it is claimed, have different units, types of claims and priorities of rights. In the third section, it is argued that the Soviet model of rights has a particular correspondence with Russian culture. Its impact on other socialist countries (Poland is considered, as an illustration) depends on the internal social structure (the strength of interest groups) and the degree of legitimacy of the state. Finally, some prognostications are offered concerning the dynamics and likely developments of rights claims under socialism.


2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Tyler

This article considers inclusion through the lens of embodied ethics. It does so by connecting feminist writing on recognition, ethics and embodiment to recent examples of political activism as instances of recognition-based organizing. In making these connections, the article draws on insights from Judith Butler’s recent writing on the ethics and politics of assembly in order to rethink how inclusion might be understood and practised. The article has three interrelated aims: (i) to emphasize the importance of a critical reconsideration of the ethics and politics of inclusion given – on the one hand, its positioning as an organizational ‘good’, and on the other, the conditions attached to it; (ii) to develop a critique of inclusion, drawing on insights from recent feminist thinking on relational ethics; and (iii) to connect this theoretical critique of inclusion, reconsidered here through the lens of embodied ethics, to assembly as a form of feminist activism. Each of these aims underpins the theoretical and empirical discussion developed in the article, specifically its focus on the relationship between embodied ethics, the interplay between theory and practice, and a politics of assembly as the basis for a critical reconsideration of inclusion.


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