Leggere il teatro

The theatrical work of Maddalena Mazzocut-Mis, published in the volume Teatro da leggere. Mito e conflitto – with the accompaniment of detailed premises by the author herself – develops in two directions. The first one, looking at the past, leads to the rewriting of works of the literary tradition according to a new point of view. The reworking of famous classical characters relates the distant with the near, allowing us to reflect, among other things, on the function and value of illusions. The second, looking at the present, leads to the presentation of seemingly insignificant characters to highlight the tragic fate of rise and fall or desperate search for a recognized identity.

Ritual, Legend, and Metaphor: Narratives of the Willow in Yuan Zaju

Narratives of willow trees in Yuan zaju 雜劇, or variety play, largely come in three types, namely, the ritual performance of shooting willows; the deliverance of willow spirits by Lü Dongbin, one of the Eight Immortals of Daoism; and the use of the word willow to refer to women. The willow shooting ritual depicted in Yuan zaju was highly reminiscent of the willow shooting ritual popular throughout the Song (960–1279), Liao (916–1125), Jin (1115–1234), and Yuan (1271–1368) dynasties, with its conceptual origins traceable to the ancient shamanic belief in the willow as a sacred tree prevalent among the Khitans and Jurchens who lived in what is now northeastern China. The legend of Lü Dongbin delivering a willow spirit to immortality is a recurring motif in Han Chinese folklore and Daoist hagiography, which also finds expression in the iconic image of Guanyin Pusa or Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara holding a willow branch with which they cure diseases for people and bring fulfillment to their wishes. The frequent use of “willow leaf-shaped eyebrows” (liumei 柳眉) and “willow-like waist” (liuyao 柳腰) in Yuan zaju as metaphorical references to women can be seen as a continuation of the great literary tradition of Shijing 詩經 (The Book of Songs) and also as a dramatic enactment of the fertility cult of the willow and women in Chinese folk religion. Evidence abounds that the narratives about the willow in Yuan zaju were not a new creation but an artistic manifestation of centuries-old folk belief and literary tradition.

Между фактом и фантазией: ранние источники по ойратской исторической диалектологии

The article presents the results of a linguistic analysis of three early sources on Oirat historical dialectology, Rashīd al-Dīn’s Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh (Compendium of Chronicles, completed between 1306 and 1311) and the Mongol chronicles Sir-a tuγuǰi (Yellow History, between 1651 and 1662) and Erdeni tunumal neretü sudur (The Jewel Translucent Sūtra, c. 1607). The author concludes that these sources substantially differ in terms of their linguistic value and reliability. The early historical accounts of Oirat lexical differences, provided by Rashīd al-Dīn and the unknown author of the Sir-a tuγuǰi, are most likely to have been obtained from unreliable external sources and based on hearsay evidence, orally transmitted by non-Oirats, at best, only passingly familiar with the Oirat language and its actual features. Both authors probably heard something about distinctive lexical features of the Oirat dialects of their time, but they hardly had a clear idea of what these features were and how to explain them in an adequate manner. On the contrary, the ‘Oirat fragment’ contained in the Erdeni tunumal neretü sudur seems to be much closer to fact than to fantasy. It presents a deliberate and quite reliable attempt to introduce some features of the Oirat dialects spoken at the turn of the seventeenth century. In the absence of earlier internal evidence of the linguistic differences between the Mongolic languages, this may be the oldest known representation of dialectal data in the Mongolian literary tradition. The evidence is of special importance because it includes morphophonological (an innovative colloquial shape of the clitics ni ~ n̠i < *inu and la ~ =la < *ele) and morphosyntactic (the progressive/durative in ‑nA(y)i), rather than lexical, features, which seem to have been considered Oirat by the early seventeenth-century author(s) of the chronicle. These features look more genuinely Oirat, at least for the early 17th century, although their modern distribution is certainly rather wide and non-specific. It may be assumed that the information on Oirat dialects that the Erdeni tunumal neretü sudur contains may have been obtained from an Oirat, or, at least, from an individual well-versed in the language of the time. Thus, one cannot overestimate the importance of the chronicle as a highly valuable source on historical dialectology of Mongolic languages.

REVOLUTIONARY OR NEW? ROMANTICISM IN K. SIMONOV’s POEM “THE RETURN”

The article presents an analysis of Simonov's poem “The Return” in the aspect of interaction with the literary tradition. In the poem, the motifs and values of revolutionary romanticism, neo-romanticism and romanticism coexist in conflict. Thus, the romantic motif of flight structurally equates the city of childhood with a vulgar reality and calls into question the ideas of camaraderie and labor exploits that are important for Soviet literature. In the story of the hero's brief return to the city of his childhood, a "secondary phase of alienation" (Mann's term) is realized. The myth of the beloved as the embodiment of the heavenly ideal takes on special significance in the poem. The source of certain motifs and images is the romantic tradition as a whole, besides, allusions and quotations referring directly to the works of Byron, Zhukovsky, Pushkin and to the lyrics of Gumilev and Esenin based on the romantic heritage have been identified. The removal of the metaphysical vertical and the courageous optimism of the final part of the poem suggest that it belongs to neo-romanticism. This study allows us to clarify the idea of the aesthetic orientation of Simonov's early work.

Paul Groussac’s Void: The French Writer and the Argentine Tradition

The French-Argentine Paul Groussac embodied a wide range of writerly functions and cultural-political positions within the Argentine cultural field between the 1880s and the 1920s: writer, playwright, chronicler, traveler, literary, art, and music critic, historian, educator, editor, and director of the National Library during 44 years. This essay considers his place in the history of Argentine literature looking at two of the many ways in which he inscribed himself in it. The first takes up the production and reproduction of the ontological privilege of French identity as a form of legitimization for his public—and often polemic—interventions, through which he sought to establish scholarly-disciplinary practices, protocols, and conventions that would articulate an entire critical field around his own authority. The second proposes to think his alternatively weak and strong inscriptions in the literary tradition through his own narrative production: his fiction and dramaturgy, travelogues, and biographical sketches. In other words, this essay situates Groussac in an Argentine literary tradition (conceived as an organic and institutionally sanctioned textual corpus) he believed to have founded and established, a selfrepresentation that led Borges to say that Groussac saw himself as “a missionary of Voltaire among the mulattage.”

Financial Policy of Tiberius Constantinus the Augustus

Introduction. The historical sources did not give the detail description of all the policies of the Byzantine government in the rule of Tiberius Constantinus the August (578–582). Modern historiography usually follows their data without attracting of opportunities, which could be offered by the interdisciplinary methods. As a result, the full-length picture of the reign of Tiberius II has not been made yet. This statement is correct regarding different sectors of the emperor’s policies and his financial policy as well. Methods. Special method of study for such object was approved in earlier author’s publications. It bases on definition of a financial policy in the modern economics and, as consequence, on the use of data which are not mentioned by literary tradition and not noticed by the traditional historiography. As a result, the studying subject gets prodigious volume and versatility. Analysis and results. The analysis of the Tiberius II’s multi-aspect activity through prism of the imperial finance has allowed to see the results of his financial policy in those state life spheres that were not connected with the public finances immediately. In this connection the axiomatic facts and then events have received revaluation; some comparison of expenses and empire incomes was spent; the conclusion on quality of emperor’s political management was drawn. Besides, existence in head of this August of an original conception of the financial policy was ascertained. Its feature was the provision of payments balance in the sphere of foreign policy in every way. This emperor showed his organizing ability through the innovation in redistribution of resources between different state departments. Regular and extraordinary imperial budgets lost former precise frames of their functional activity. But moreover, Tiberius II has not gone into extremes of the private-owner attitude to the state finances. The moderation and rationalism of his financial policy did allow to avoid the full devastation of treasury in the period of his individual reign.

O conto português no século XXI: apontamentos sobre Teatro Vertical de Manuel Alberto Vieira / The Portuguese short-story in the 21st century: notes on Manuel Alberto Vieira’s Teatro Vertical

Resumo: A ficção portuguesa no século XXI parece inclinar-se maioritariamente para as distintas formas que autoriza o romance na pós-modernidade. Por razões de vária ordem, que vão desde a nossa tradição literária à criação de um mercado editorial que fomenta este género, os escritores surgidos após a passagem do milénio e publicados nas grandes casas editoriais portuguesas têm recorrido pouco ao conto. Em contrapartida, o trabalho realizado por editoras independentes tem trazido a lume outros possíveis caminhos para a ficção portuguesa que não desaguam no universo de tendências dominantes do mercado cada vez mais global (carácter mais universal da intriga, inclinação para mobilidade constante das personagens e dos espaços, alusões de natureza livresca, recusa a referências locais ou regionais, etc.). Neste sentido, este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar o contributo de Teatro Vertical, livro de contos de Manuel Alberto Vieira, que em sentido quase oposto às tendências dominantes, permite repensar a potencialidade do conto como género na atualidade, ao mesmo tempo que reconfigura um dos elementos mais problematizados da nossa sociedade: a família. Após uma breve contextualização da subalternização do género na nossa tradição literária, procura analisar-se a estrutura narrativa destes contos – partindo das reflexões de Ricardo Piglia sobre as formas breves –, assim como estudar o modo em que um dos temas dominantes, a família, é evidenciado nas suas complexas mutações através das estruturas mais simples, próprias do conto.Palavras-chave: Manuel Alberto Vieira; conto; narrativa; família; crueldade. Abstract: Portuguese fiction in the 21st century seems to lean mostly towards the different forms that authorize the novel in postmodernity. For various reasons, ranging from our literary tradition to the creation of an editorial market that fosters this genre, writers who emerged after the passing of the millennium and published in the major Portuguese publishing houses have made little use of the short-story. On the other hand, the work carried out by independent publishers has brought to light other paths for Portuguese fiction that do not lead to the universe of dominant trends in the increasingly global market (a more universal character of intrigue, inclination towards constant mobility of characters and spaces, allusions of a bookish nature, refusal of local or regional references, etc.). In this sense, this work intends to analyze the contribution of Teatro Vertical, a short story book by Manuel Alberto Vieira, which, in an almost opposite sense to the dominant trends, allows us to rethink the potential of the literary short-story as a genre today, while reconfiguring one of the elements most problematized in our society: the family. To this end, this work, after a brief contextualization of the subordination of gender in our literary tradition, seeks to analyze the narrative structure of these short-stories - based on Ricardo Piglia’s reflections on short forms - as well as studying the way in which one of the dominant themes, the family, is evidenced in its complex mutations through the simplest structures, typical of the short-story.Keywords: Manuel Alberto Vieira; short story; narrative; family; cruelty.

Conquering Death Through Ritual

Chapter 7 traces the historical development of possession to argue in favor of a literary tradition that undermines the argument that such beliefs were only held by the disempowered. It shows that exorcism and demonic possession have a long history in literary Tantra and therefore must not have been an idea that existed only among the non-elite. The chapter then explores ideas of immortality and the conquering of death in the Sanskrit literary tradition. This sheds light on the corporeal yoga tradition of the Netra Tantra. The first of three chapters on yoga, the Netra Tantra’s sixth chapter offers a detailed description of ritual oblation to escape death. The translated passage offers a look at the natural products offered to the ritual fire. These objects must be protected with enveloping mantras and accompanied by recitation.

Exhaustion and Recycling

This paper examines the works of representative modernist authors who have rewritten the myth of the Danaids in a self-reflective way. They reuse certain elements of the myth in order to address some of the crucial issues of cultural transmission: interpretation, poetic tradition and communication. The argument focuses on the recycling of the myth of the Danaids as a symbol of endless historical-philological (Nietzsche) and psychological (Freud) interpretations, the exhaustion and the reinvention of the classical literary tradition (Babits), and the impossible possibility of mediating the living voice through telephonic communication (Proust).

La lingua tra medicina, linguistica e retorica in Galeno

Starting from Galen’s analysis of the tongue as the organ of speech, this article investigates the views of the physician from Pergamon regarding the language issue in relation to how to communicate the contents of the medical disciplines. Within a controversial context of a dispute with his rival physicians, Galen rejects the proliferation of new definitions or the use of terms in a meaning which was at odds with the tradition without providing a proper explanation. In a well calibrated balance between respect for the use and literary tradition, he gives more importance to communicative clarity, at a time when Greek was subjected to various modifications or distortions.