“Des personnages de si près tenus”, TV Fiction and Moral Consensus

How can we understand the adaptations of literary classics made for French television? We simultaneously analyzed the works and the context in which they were produced in order to relate the moral configurations that emerge in the stories to activities carried out by identifiable members of the production team, in specific, empirically observable circumstances. This empirical approach to the constitution of the moral panorama in which characters evolve rejects the idea of the pure autonomy of ideological contents, suggesting instead a study of the way normative demands and professional ethics are combined in practice, thus combining a sociology of characters and a sociology of professionals and showing how professional priorities influence production choices. This detaches the moral question from the philosophical horizon it is associated with in order to make it an object of empirial study. Adopting this perspective produces unexpected findings. Observation shows that the moral landscape in which characters are located is neither stable, autonomous, transparent, or consensual. It is instead caught up in material logics, constrained by temporal dynamics, and dependent on professional coordination. It is traversed by tensions between professional logics, and logics of regulation.

FUNCTIONS OF REMINISENCES IN CHRISTMAS STORIES OF MODERN RUSSIAN WRITERS (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE WORKS OF Yu. BUIDA AND D. BYKOV)

The Little Match Girl by H.Ch. Andersen is a fairy tale that tells a tragic story about a child's death at Christmas night. Famous Russian authors Yu. Buida and D. Bykov have written stories with the same names (The Little Match Girl and The Little Match Girl Gives a Light). The authors deliberately used these names to show the relation with the famous work. In both stories, the action is set within the timeline defined by the canons of religious calendarial prose. There are miracles in the stories; the Christmas characters are archetypes, as they are kind, merciful and compassionate. The stories written by the contemporary authors are examples of a kind of a palimpsest. They show the socio-historical collisions and moral problems of the post-Soviet time. The article uses the comparative method which allows us to consider the types of characters, to find literary traditions and innovations in the prose of the writers. It is important to take an intertextual approach during (when) examining the stories. It helps identify and analyze how certain motifs and images relate in the 19th century literature and fiction texts of modern writers. This approach reveals the deep connection between the works and the texts of world and Russian literary classics.

Bob Dylan’s Art Concern: Semantic Acoustics of Poetic Texture

The manuscript focuses on the complex of semantic aspects associated with the development and textual evolution of Bob Dylan, the Nobel Prize winner for literature in 2016. The article deals with the semantic acoustics of some famous Bob Dylan’s poetic texts that have become the musical and literary classics of the twentieth century. The splicing edges of Bob Dylan’s poetic texts are distinguished; they have intellectual and sensual, visual and visionary, imaginative and emotional, metaphorical and direct, semantic and acoustic principles. The relationship between the structure and the semantic phonics of some texts is studied. The paper emphasizes on the urgency, acute sociability and ontology, universal philosophy of his poetic texts. There is a neomodern poetic experimentation in some Bob Dylan’s texts, he seems to overcome time limits and, in fact, to combine different historical times, cultural epochs, mental values. The article summarizes that Bob Dylan’s art concern has influenced polyphonically and creatively to the various artistic spheres of the second half of the twentieth century, becoming one of the drivers of world trends in literature, music culture, and cinematography. Methodology. In accordance with the paper purpose the following methods are used: the method of scientific literature analysis, the comparative method, the method of conceptual analysis, the method of sampling texts. An important role also has the descriptive method, which includes generalization, systematization and interpretation of the obtained data. The research also relies on methods of description, comparison, systematization.

To whom and why F. M. Dostoevsky is precious?

The article is devoted to the analysis of F. M. Dostoevsky’s work regarding his 200th anniversary. The author aims to reveal to whom and why the great writer and thinker is precious, and how his work is perceived in Serbia. He tries to evaluate what contributes to and what hinders the comprehension of the F. M. Dostoevsky phenomenon. The author notes that veneration for such a writer can be fully expressed when everyone who has mastered literacy starts reading at least one of his works and feels the field of attraction and repulsion, which does not always correlate with the problem field of scientific F. M. Dostoevsky studies. Unfortunately, the author states that the youth do not initially develop an elementary desire to necessarily be included in the literary classics in such conditions when the entire system of basic education seems to be subordinated to the task of discouraging any desire to read on their own, and even more so to feel and reflect. Interest in «Crime and punishment» is almost impossible to arouse basing on stereotypical comments with a retelling of the plot, some elements of which are included in the tests for the subject devoid of attractiveness. And the plot, moreover, is fully conveyed by the half-page versions of the novel, which are prepared by enterprising interpreters precisely for passing the test as the optimal form of attestation. At the same time, the judgments of foreign writers are used surprisingly widely, and at the same time thoughtlessly – the main thing is that they have an appropriate image. Over time, it becomes more and more obvious that few contemporary writers can compare to F. M. Dostoevsky both in the depth and completeness of ideas about the real life of a Russian person, especially in the scope of its spheres, and in the insight of the analysis of everything that happened and which inevitably followed from what was happening. For a century and a half, F. M. Dostoevsky has remained an unparalleled bearer of the conscience of mankind, a kind of seismograph of the coming upheavals. The author states that in Serbia, the reverent perception of F. M. Dostoevsky, which was formed under the influence of the Russian religious emigration, dominates. A separate topic is also the impressive activity and productivity of the Serbian scientific F. M. Dostoevsky studies. Finally, if all this we project onto the Belarusians, then it would be appropriate to say that F. M. Dostoevsky is the bearer of special patriotism manifested not in superficial pathos, which usually serves either self-praise or complacency, but in soberly analytical and constructive criticism, which presupposes, first of all, self-criticism, as an indispensable component of sound national self-awareness.

Grand Piano-the Audiovisual Hero of the Soviet Cinema Screen

Статья посвящена особым случаям использования фортепиано в советской киномузыке: не только в составе партитуры, но и как непосредственного «участника» экранного действия. Обычно это происходит в фильмах революционной и исторической тематики, а также в экранизациях русской классики. Среди множества картин, где рояль появляется на экране, нужно выделить ряд шедевров, в которых введение его отмечено уникальными решениями. В статье рассмотрены примеры из фильмов «Новый Вавилон» (музыка Д. Шостаковича), «Строгий юноша» (музыка Г. Попова), «Веселые ребята» (музыка И. Дунаевского). The article is devoted to special cases of the use of the piano in Soviet film music: not only as part of the score, but also as a direct “participant” of the screen action. This usually happens in films with revolutionary and historical themes, as well as in film adaptations of Russian literary classics in scenes of home music. However, among the many films where the instrument appears on the screen, it is necessary to note a number of absolute masterpieces in which the use of the piano is marked by unique solutions. The article considers examples of this kind from the films “New Babylon” (music by D. Shostakovich) “A Strict Young Man” (music by G. Popov), “Funny Guys” (music by I. Dunaevsky).

Classics of Children’s Literature: Definitions – Ideologies – Theoretical Concepts

The aim of the paper is to present a discussion on the issue of classicality in relation to children’s literature and in the context of ideology, as well as to formulate a definition of literary classics for young readers based on socio-cultural and not aesthetic criteria. The author refers to representative examples of Polish and English reflection on the issue and, at the end of the article, proposes to define classical works as literary texts that, after many years from their creation, are still subjected to professional and non-professional rereading and various transformations.

Tall Tales for a Mass Audience

In this article we compare Dutch penny prints with Spanish Aleluyas, focusing on three specific functions of this premodern mass medium: popularising and adapting theatre plays; standardising (folk/fairy) tales; adapting and popularising literary classics. Via these functions we address the discrepancies between the two countries considering the materiality of the penny prints, the growth of the production, but also the transition from a predominantly religious, towards a more profane content. Striking was the lack of educative and edifying initiatives in Spain in contrast to the Dutch ideological strategies. We observed some interesting similarities as well. Although in both countries penny prints often conformed to current ideologies and institutions, there were instances in which penny prints and aleluyas were used as instruments of social satire or resistance. A few similar strange twists in the adaptations of literary classics, seem to suggest some form of transnational exchange or at least imitation.

Queer from the Horse’s Mouth

This chapter focuses on two mid-century American screen equines who possess the power of speech: Francis, a patriotic U.S. Army mule serving during WWII, and Mr. Ed, a palomino horse living in the suburbanizing postwar San Fernando Valley. Contextualizing Arthur Lubin’s wildly popular Francis films (1950–1956) and Mr. Ed television series (1961–1966) within the tradition of talking horses in literary classics such as The Iliad and Gulliver’s Travels—and also in relation to mid-twentieth-century American debates around gender—the chapter argues that Francis and Mr. Ed’s ventriloquial voices not only serve as vehicles for a critique of traditional masculinity, but also channel some startlingly queer and post-human interspecies alternatives to human heteronormativity.

From The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter to Princess Kaguya: Metamorphoses of the Tale in Manga and Beyond

There are currently numerous manga adaptations of Japanese literary classics of the Heian period. Many of them have been created for educational purpose. It is debatable, however, whether they truly serve such a purpose. In this paper, I will discuss the case of Taketori monogatari (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, beginning of 10th century). Like all present-day adaptations of ancient texts, manga versions of Taketori monogatari differ significantly from its premodern counterparts. In this paper, I will examine the adaption of the theme, representations of the characters Princess Kaguya (Kaguya-hime) and the bamboo cutter, and manners in which Taketori monogatari metamorphosed into Kaguya-hime over time and when this metamorphosis occurred. Comparing manga representations with premodern versions, I will argue that government-sanctioned textbooks that began to be published in the early twentieth century have played some role in the transformation because they share common characteristics with the modern version Kaguya-hime. In addition, I will compare manga versions to Nara-emaki and Nara-ehon (picture scrolls and picture books produced between the late Muromachi and Edo periods). Comparing these premodern sources with modern manga will help us see some of the differences in the ways the tale has been adapted over the centuries and to consider some of the factors that contributed to new interpretations.