Ranahar: Textuality of History, Culture and Politics

The question of the relation between the history and the literature is a central question of historicism and new historicism. Literature is not possible without the influence of the time; past or present. The depiction of the past is the picture of history in the text, and the portrayal of present becomes the history in the future, hence the literary text is not free from the history in any way. Furthermore, some tests intentionally present the history, not as exactly as the history, but as the interpretation of the history, hence the mode of new historical way of understanding the text. Yogesh Raj's Ranahar provides the lost history of Malla dynasty, primarily the history of the last Malla king, Ranajit. The book is not a pure imagination, neither is it a pure history, but it has the combination of the historical facts and his imagination. Reading this novel, as a fiction, just as pure imagination is an injustice to the veiled part of its history. With the background of the history of Bhaktapur, this article examines the novel Ranahar from historical and new historical perspective on how literature has become a medium to reveal the lost history, the textuality of history.

Pribumi di Mata Kolonial dalam Kumpulan Cerpen Teh dan Pengkhianat Karya Iksaka Banu

This research aims to discuss social and cultural aspects that are closely related to Indonesian history regarding events of colonialism in the collection of short stories entitled Teh dan Pengkhianat by applying new historicism. This is a descriptive qualitative research. The theory used to analyze the relevance of literary works as social documents is from new historicism, Stephen Greenblatt (1980). Besides, the theory used to investigate colonialist perspectives on indigenous peoples is form orientalism, Edward Said (1935). The results of this research are as follows. First, historical representations are marked by fear, restraint, compulsion, and counterforce of indigenous people in the colonial period before and after 1945. Second, social representation is marked by humanity, preparation, and persistence in dealing with the variola virus that occurred in 1644. Third, cultural representations are marked by the hard work of indigenous people for equal rights in clothing style until transportation. Data that demonstrates hard work is the existence (space, process, and object), identity (matching), and unity/multiplicity (merging) of indigenous peoples and colonialists.

REKONSTRUKSI SEJARAH 1998 DALAM PERSPEKTIF NEW HISTORICISM: KAJIAN ATAS NOVEL LAUT BERCERITA KARYA LEILA S. CHUDORI

Teks sastra sebagai produk sejarah dilandasi oleh peristiwa sejarah yang melatarbelakangi kelahirannya. Novel Laut Bercerita karya Leila S. Chudori menghadirkan peristiwa sejarah 1998. Masalah penelitian adalah kekuasaan negara dalam konstruksi peristiwa reformasi 1998, gerakan mahasiswa sebelum dan sesudah tragedi 1998, dan representasi ekonomi dan budaya sebelum dan sesudah tragedi 1998. Tujuan penelitian adalah untuk mendeskripsikan kekuasaan negara dalam konstruksi peristiwa reformasi 1998, gerakan mahasiswa sebelum dan sesudah tragedi 1998, dan representasi ekonomi dan budaya sebelum dan sesudah tragedi 1998. Pendekatan yang digunakan adalah pendekatan new historicism dengan mengaitkan teks sastra dan nonsastra sebagai upaya untuk mengungkap kekuatan sosial, ekonomi, dan politik yang melingkupi karya sasta. Metode yang digunakan adalah pembacaan secara paralel teks sastra dalam novel dan nonsastra pada peristiwa 1998. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa tragedi 1998 digambarkan melalui kekuasaan negara dengan kepemimpinan yang didukung oleh kekuatan militer secara otoriter dan represif. Jika dilihat dari wacana yang berkembang ketika periode sebelum dan sesudah tragedi 1998, terjadi pertarungan kekuasaan yang memicu gerakan mahasiswa. Sementara itu, pada masa pascareformasi kekuasaan Orde Baru tidak lagi memegang kendali Mahasiswa tidak lagi melakukan perlawanan. Kendali kekuasaan pascareformasi menunjukkan perkembangan ekonomi dan budaya yang makin baik.

Wordsworth’s Lucy poems as the Reflections of the French Revolution: A New Historicist Study

The current study takes a New Historic outlook toward William Wordsworth’s the “Lucy Poems” and believes that by a minute scrutiny of these poems we can expose the power structure and the dominant discourses that according to New Historicism have shaped the poet’s character, society and world. Accordingly, the paper suggests that the poet through symbolic and non-symbolic ways has embedded historical and political facts in these poems. To do so, the research will reveal some controversial correspondences among these poems, William Wordsworth’s life and historical facts of the French Revolution. To support this idea, the study will bring quotations not only from modern conspicuous literary critics but also from the poets and Romantic contemporaries to show how the historical and political discourses of the period have greatly influenced both William Wordsworth and even the literature of the whole era, i.e., Romanticism. As a matter of fact, this research intends to connect the “Lucy Poems” to the contemporary historical context and the poet’s ideals of the Revolution in France. The findings, however, reveal that William Wordsworth has been submissive to the historical events of his time.

Literature and History: Study of Nigerian Indigenous Historical Novels

The assumption that history posits itself as a fact, while literature is to be taken as an artistic form, only for entertainment (i.e., the difference between truth and falsehood, reality and illusion) has long been debated by formalists and soclologlsts of literature. In Yoruba society, literature and history are im­portant in explaining the fullness of life and the world around us. It is against this background that this paper examines the relationship between literature and history and how Yoruba novelists use their works as vehicles for the repre­sentation of history. We adopt the theory of New Historicism to analyze T.A.A. Ladele's lgbi Aye n yi and Olu Owolabi's Ote Nibo. Some of the findings reveal that: both Yoruba literature and history are closely related, they are both based on Yoruba experience and Yoruba existence either in the past or present; while Ladele Interprets the history of the dignity and royal glamour of the Yoruba oba in the precolonial era as a form of domination which is often achieved through culturally-orchestrated consent rather than force; Owolabi represents the hlstory of party politics in Yoruba society as fraudulent, deceltful, full of bitterness and violence. The paper concludes that both novelists are subjective in their representation of Yoruba history, but they successfully establfsh the fact that the novel is a repository of history; however, such history is not a mere chronlcle of facts and events, but rather a complex description of human reality and a challenge to the preconceived notions of the societies from which they emerged.

The Yorùbá Social Values in Ọbasá’s Poetry

Among the social values which equip the Yorùbá person are honesty, transparency, accountability, integrity, justice, fair-play, family sense, hard work, and truthfulness. The basic values of the people determine their behavior and what they direct their energy toward. Yorùbá social values have received serious attention from scholars. However, the ideology that inform the social values have not been given a deserved attention. The main aim of this essay is to investigate the Yorùbá social values in Ọbasá’s poetry texts – Àwọn Akéwì I-III (1924, 1934, and 1945). The objective of the study is to examine the ideology which inform the social values, and which construct power. The paper also analyzes the extent to which the poet engages the ideology as exemplified in his poetry texts. In addition, the essay highlights the relevance of Ọbasá’s works to the contemporary Yorùbá society, and the literary devices employed by the poet to put across his message. The study employs descriptive and analytical methods using a New Historicism theory, which calls for a recovery of the ideology that gave birth to a text. The findings of this study reveal the Yorùbá philosophical thoughts on social values, and Obasa ͎’s interrogation of the phil ́ - osophical thoughts, which revere physical strength, wealth, position, children, 88 Saudat Adébísí O͎láyídé Hamzat & Hezekiah Olúfé͎mi Adeodun and knowledge as power. The study concludes that Ọbasá was a versatile and a thorough-bred poet whose poems call attention to the Yorùbá social values, to deconstruct and redefine power in a way that promote development. The study suggests that Ọbasá’s poems be studied holistically, and recommends that the poems should be reprinted and made available for scholarly work in institutions of learning.

The Dialectics of Political Ideology and Power Relations in African Literature: A Reading of Adébáyọ̀ Fálétí’s Baṣọ̀run Gáà

Introduction Ideology underscores how we make sense of history and reality. It is the underlying theory that governs every organized movement, institution, and government. In Politics, ideology superintends the constructs, subversions, moderations, and resistance of power. In Literature, ideology plays even a deluxe role as it is the vehicle that drives political and cultural purposes. A close consideration of the African creative canvass reveals that her imaginative writings are burdened with the ideology of socio-cultural redemption. Although replete with a recasting of themes that stress the subversions and resistance of political and religious power, especially in the continent’s post-colonial space, there is not much thematic commitment among creative writers to the ideology that constructs and moderates power. Using the New Historicism as the theoretical basis, this paper proposes that to understand the logic that has bedeviled post-colonial African governance, there is need to revisit power structures that characterize the continent’s pre-colonial history. It is in this burden that this paper shall attempt to examine the dialectics of political ideology, power relations and the prophetic in Baṣọrun Gáà ̀. The paper also argues that the private anxieties of the playwright, as presented in the play, 160 Lere Adeyemi are prophetic in nature and that Baṣọrun Gáà is weakened by the burdens of ̀ his strength, in other words, blinded by sight.

NEW MATERIALISM: PROJECTIONS INTO LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM

The article considers the recent (re)turn to materiality in philosophy and theory, in particular, such schools as speculative realism and object-oriented philosophy. They offer rethinking of objects and criticism of anthropocentric worldview. The attention to materiality privileges matter, body, and nature. Theorists of New materialism reject the binary oppositions (nature/culture, human/nonhuman, etc.) and insist on intra-action as a new materialist orientation. The author argues that the new materialist critique of conventional critique will be useful for literary theory and criticism. According to Latour, critique should be productive and collaborative. As far as critical judgments rely on thelogic of representation that in its turn is based on similarity, analogy and opposition they restrict the analytic enterprise. Moreover, it is necessary to rethink conventional practices of interpretation and explanation. In this context, K. Barad proposes to substitute these strategies with the practice of ‘diffraction’. In the second part of the article, the author analyzes Graham Harman’s article The Well-Wrought Broken Hammer:Object-Oriented Literary Criticism. We pay attention to Harman’s critique of New Criticism, New Historicism, and Deconstruction in their contrast to object-oriented philosophy. In his analysis of New Criticism, Harman figures out the taxonomic fallacy within this theory. He argues against the idea that only poetry has all the non-prose sense while other disciplines have the literal sense. His second argument against New Criticism problematizes the unity of all the elementsin a literary work. Harman outlines the assumptions of New Historicism and points out that it turns everything into interrelated influences. Instead, he argues that contextuality is not universal. In his criticism of Deconstruction Harman underlines that Derrida wrongly believes that ontological realism automatically entails an epistemological realism. In his turn, Harman insists that the thing is deeper than its interactions are.

COVID-19 Infodemic: A New Historicist Analysis of Atwood’s Oryx and Crake

This research intends to explore the current calamitous situation of Covid-19 in the context of <i>Oryx and Crake</i>, mirroring how Covid-19 and <i>Oryx and Crake</i> are linked through the perception of unification and the consciousness of the world as a whole by holding the entire world hostage. It vigorously examines the disease being presented as a weapon of mass destruction, followed by a conspiracy theory, the reality of the present and fancy of the future, generating a feeling of mingled contradiction, a psychological aspect, and stout human response to the unpredicted as some shared themes between the two. The potential strength of the New Historicism was found applicable in contextualizing COVID-19 and <i>Oryx and Crake</i>, which explore and project forward the biotechnological, social, political, cultural, economic, and climatic givens of the pandemic ridden world. It involves a parallel study of a literary work, interpreting events as the products of time. The textual interpretation was based on observation of historical context to see how following pandemics of the past may allow today’s world to detect the fundamental causes of such diseases. Understanding the pandemic through intellectual history highlighted the consequences of unscrupulous exploitation of bio-engineering threats, a sense of uncertainty, fear, and insecurity, biotech corporations, and marketing genetically engineered life forms.