‘What you thought you have forgotten’: The Mersey Sound Revisited

The Mersey Sound (1967) was the best-selling poetry anthology of the sixties in the UK. Apart from its commercial success, it is also an important document in terms of the study of working-class literary output in this decade. Despite this, its position within the British literary canon has often been neglected in academic realms. It is for this reason that the present article aims to offer an insight into the scholarly importance of thisanthology through offering arguments for its reevaluation. Moreover, in this research its current status will be explored, looking in particular at contemporary literary criticism of working-class mass culture and art. To this end, I will first discuss the main justifications for a reconsideration of the significance of the collection and describe its context and origins. This will be followed by an analysis of the content of the volume and its current relevance. Conclusions drawn from this will include possible reasons for its absence in many academic poetry guides and will also stress the need torecover and reappraise the anthology in future research on working-class British poetry.

Oneiric Fascism. The Political Economy of Fernando Pessoa

Poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935), Portugal's literary glory, is also known to have penned a not inconsiderable corpus of sociological and politological reflections. This essay collates all such original material and glosses it with a view to uncovering Pessoa's religious true colours, and by so doing, goes on to argue that it is no accident, poetics aside, that western cultural intelligentsia finds it expedient to promote the literary output of personages like Pessoa who, in one form or another, preach an ultra-conservative gospel. Though he is not typically recognised as a thinker of the Right at all, the article's thesis is that Pessoa not only cuts a “fascist” figure in the conventional (Leftist) tenor of the epithet, but that the category itself of Fascism ought to be torn off its historical (pro-Liberal) contextualisation and radically reformulated as the default entomological categorisation of modern forms of society, and turned thereby into the norm against which exceptions need be counted, not the other way around. In light of this paradigmatic shift, Pessoa's considerations on selfishness, patriotism, and social dynamics afford an ulterior revelation of the anti-compassionate agenda of a type of System, ours, so keen on promoting thinkers of his ilk.

The Demonstration of Indian Virtues in Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy

Indian literature has provided a platform for the writers to highlight the virtues of human civilization. The diversified attitude of people is emanated with the purpose of reviewing social, political and historical characteristics. Vikram Seth is one of the protuberant novelists of Indian literary consequence. He has exerted on the ideals of human virtues and principles in his colossal expression A Suitable Boy (1993). The novel deals with the post-independent groundswell of cultural India. He has interlaced the epitomes of society, politics and history bearing in mind the rootedness of common folk. The insight of the novel generates a kind of impulse among the bibliophiles with a sequence of queries and assumptions about the animation of social order. It also shed light on the identity, religious and national predicaments which are treated as inherent in India. The novel is an embodiment of satires perceived in the history of Indian humanity. It also embarks on the subjects of Indian National Politics till the period of first post-independent elections. The antagonism between Hindus and Muslims, workers and landlords, liberation of women and academic activities are interwoven in the literary output. Lata, the protagonist has been able to sustain the Indian aesthetics and illustrates the motivation in ascertaining her discrete aspiration. Love is the most important aspiration of human endurance, but it should not be the final optimal. An individual must be prepared to reform his choice and brand life as a meaningful one. Hence, the research paper makes an effort to demonstrate the Indian virtues in Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy within the modern context.

Dodawanie otuchy jako forma wzmocnienia ludzkości nie tylko w czasie pandemii. Międzygeneracyjna transmisja przesłania Wincentego Kadłubka

Offering Reassurance as a Form of Strengthening Humanity Not Only during a Pandemic. The Inter-Generational Transmission of Wincenty Kadłubek’s Message Master Wincenty (ca. 1150–1223), who has been known as Kadłubek since the 15th century, was an unquestionable ally of mankind and especially of Poles. In his work entitled Magistrii Vincentii Chronicon Polonorum he encouraged his readers not to neglect reassurance and to seek it wherever possible. He also advised people to try to enjoy offering reassurance to others and to lead a good life connected with faith in God, which in his belief constitutes the most reliable “safeguard of your happiness”. This article aims to provide answers to several questions (and at the same time to solve a number of related research problems), How does Wincenty perceive reassurance and what significance does he attribute to offering it to other people? What advice does he give on not losing but gaining reassurance and on offering reassurance to others? What factors in his belief constitute stumbling blocks in the process of drawing reassurance for oneself and how to protect oneself against them (i.e., how to prevent their occurrence and how to overcome them)? The use of hermeneutic methods in studying the problems of providing reassurance as a social skill, an element that is very conspicuous in Master Wincenty’s literary output, seems well justified, considering the cognitive and noetic significance of the research subject.

A Mirror of Society: Feminist Advocacy in Emilia Pardo Bazán's Short Stories

<p>This thesis is concerned with the manner in which the fin de siècle Spanish writer Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851–1921) disseminated her feminist views through her short stories published in popular newspapers and journals. As a female writer, she incurred the ire of many of her male contemporaries, challenging them both personally with her feminist views, and professionally, with her erudition and immense literary output. In this thesis I offer firstly an overview of Spanish society during Pardo Bazán’s lifetime with particular reference to the situation of women and go on to outline her life and most significant achievements, literary and otherwise, with a view to contextualising the narrative analysis which follows. Twelve of Pardo Bazán’s selected short stories are analysed in the light of the feminist topics which she addressed in several of her essays and, where possible, I correlate these stories with the relevant essays. In particular, I examine issues of female literacy, legal rights and prostitution, as well as the gendered double standards of the time in the area of religious observance and, in particular, the double moral standard. I also examine stories where women did exercise a degree of agency and act in ways that went against patriarchal standards of behaviour, making life-changing decisions. I argue that in these twelve stories, it is evident that not only is each one able to be read as seemingly conforming with the mores of the patriarchal society, but that each one also has a veiled subtext where the injustices suffered by the female protagonists are made evident. Thus, I show that these stories align with Pardo Bazán’s essays and promote her broader feminist views to the reader willing to consider them.</p>

A Mirror of Society: Feminist Advocacy in Emilia Pardo Bazán's Short Stories

<p>This thesis is concerned with the manner in which the fin de siècle Spanish writer Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851–1921) disseminated her feminist views through her short stories published in popular newspapers and journals. As a female writer, she incurred the ire of many of her male contemporaries, challenging them both personally with her feminist views, and professionally, with her erudition and immense literary output. In this thesis I offer firstly an overview of Spanish society during Pardo Bazán’s lifetime with particular reference to the situation of women and go on to outline her life and most significant achievements, literary and otherwise, with a view to contextualising the narrative analysis which follows. Twelve of Pardo Bazán’s selected short stories are analysed in the light of the feminist topics which she addressed in several of her essays and, where possible, I correlate these stories with the relevant essays. In particular, I examine issues of female literacy, legal rights and prostitution, as well as the gendered double standards of the time in the area of religious observance and, in particular, the double moral standard. I also examine stories where women did exercise a degree of agency and act in ways that went against patriarchal standards of behaviour, making life-changing decisions. I argue that in these twelve stories, it is evident that not only is each one able to be read as seemingly conforming with the mores of the patriarchal society, but that each one also has a veiled subtext where the injustices suffered by the female protagonists are made evident. Thus, I show that these stories align with Pardo Bazán’s essays and promote her broader feminist views to the reader willing to consider them.</p>

Northern Ireland’s Interregnum. Anna Burns’s Depiction of a (Post)-Troubles State of (In)security

This paper aims to present the main contours of Burns’s literary output which, interestingly enough, grows into a personal understanding of the collective mindset of (post)-Troubles Northern Ireland. It is legitimate, I argue, to construe her fiction (No Bones, 2001; Little Constructions, 2007; Milkman, 2018) as a body of work shedding light on certain underlying mechanisms of (post-)sectarian violence. Notwithstanding the lapse of time between 1998 and 2020, the Troubles’ toxic legacy has indeed woven an unbroken thread in the social fabric of the region. My reading of the novelist’s selected works intends to show how the local public have been fed by (or have fed themselves upon) an unjustified—maybe even false—sense of security. Burns, in that regard, has positioned herself amongst the aggregate of writers who feel anxious rather than placated, hence their persistence in returning to the roots of Northern Irish societal divisions. Burns’s writing, in the above context, though immersed in the world of the Troubles, paradoxically communicates “an idiosyncratic spatiotemporality” (Maureen Ruprecht Fadem’s phrase), namely an experience beyond the self-imposing, historical time limits. As such, it gains the ability to provide insightful commentaries on conflict-prone relations, the patterns of which can be repeatedly observed in Northern Ireland’s socio-political milieu. Overall, the main idea here is to discuss and present the narrative realm proposed by Burns as (in)determinate, liminal in terms of time and space, positioning readers between “then” and “now” of the region.

The Collected Works of Charlotte Evans 1841-1882 Introduction and Biography

<p>This thesis provides an introductory view of the life and works of early New Zealand romantic novelist Charlotte Evans 1841-1882. The work is comprised of three separate sections, including two introductions, a biographical essay and footnoting and markup for digitisation. Evans wrote short stories in addition to novels and poetry. I have attempted to create here a useful and informative overview of her two published novels Over the Hills and Far Away: A Story of New Zealand and A Strange Friendship: A Story of New Zealand - each of which were published in 1874. In the biographical essay I include a discussion of Evans’ general works, in particular the collection of poetry published by her husband Eyre Evans in 1917 entitled Poetic Gems of Sacred Thought. An important feature of the thesis has been to establish how Evans’ range of literary output may be cited and contextualised within New Zealand’s literary heritage in more detail than has previously been available. A significant aspect of the research has, in addition, involved examining the social and historical influences surrounding the author, both prior to and at the time of writing. In that respect the discussion has drawn upon available materials, such as book reviews and items published in newspapers. An appendix has been compiled of selected published poetry and articles from the North Otago Times of relevance to the foregoing text discussion. Contemporary photographs of Evans and map material of the ‘Teaneraki’ district are also included. It is hoped that situating the research evidence to specifically New Zealand contexts may provide a basis for positing Evans’ works more fully as New Zealand texts in their overall relation to pioneer period fiction. An important feature of the project has therefore meant developing a foundation of historical work concerning the author, much of which has been sourced from the National Alexander Turnbull Library and recently published family history that draws upon archive material related to the Evans and Lees families. Due reference to a range of recent critical texts has also, it is further hoped, enabled a more in-depth and detailed response to Evans’ contribution to the developing field of New Zealand literature and more specifically, Victorian Studies.</p>

García Márquez and the Global South

Even when its focus is ostensibly local, Gabriel García Márquez’s literary output registers the global forces—and, specifically, the imbalances of economic, political, and cultural power—that condition those local circumstances. These same forces are the dynamics that define the Global South in the present. Following the most recent work in the field, the Global South is here understood not simply as a place name or post–Cold War substitute for the Third World, but as the resistant political imaginary arising from the mutual recognition of shared or analogous circumstances by marginalized or dispossessed groups throughout the world. This article explores the three principal intersections between García Márquez’s work and the Global South understood as a relational and analytical category. First, it outlines the ways in which his work registers global—and, importantly, South-South—circuits of exchange, opening up new comparative itineraries. Second, it elaborates the ways in which these comparative connections build toward a critique of the global system, such that García Márquez provides both the grounds and a model for what this article calls “Global South thinking.” The final section addresses the circulation and influence of García Márquez’s work in the literatures of the Global South. Much of the existing commentary on this topic (his influence on Third World, postcolonial, or even world literature) has focused on magical realism and One Hundred Years of Solitude. But, the article shows, works such as The Autumn of the Patriarch and Chronicle of a Death Foretold have also had a profound influence, on both individual texts and their reception.

The Collected Works of Charlotte Evans 1841-1882 Introduction and Biography

<p>This thesis provides an introductory view of the life and works of early New Zealand romantic novelist Charlotte Evans 1841-1882. The work is comprised of three separate sections, including two introductions, a biographical essay and footnoting and markup for digitisation. Evans wrote short stories in addition to novels and poetry. I have attempted to create here a useful and informative overview of her two published novels Over the Hills and Far Away: A Story of New Zealand and A Strange Friendship: A Story of New Zealand - each of which were published in 1874. In the biographical essay I include a discussion of Evans’ general works, in particular the collection of poetry published by her husband Eyre Evans in 1917 entitled Poetic Gems of Sacred Thought. An important feature of the thesis has been to establish how Evans’ range of literary output may be cited and contextualised within New Zealand’s literary heritage in more detail than has previously been available. A significant aspect of the research has, in addition, involved examining the social and historical influences surrounding the author, both prior to and at the time of writing. In that respect the discussion has drawn upon available materials, such as book reviews and items published in newspapers. An appendix has been compiled of selected published poetry and articles from the North Otago Times of relevance to the foregoing text discussion. Contemporary photographs of Evans and map material of the ‘Teaneraki’ district are also included. It is hoped that situating the research evidence to specifically New Zealand contexts may provide a basis for positing Evans’ works more fully as New Zealand texts in their overall relation to pioneer period fiction. An important feature of the project has therefore meant developing a foundation of historical work concerning the author, much of which has been sourced from the National Alexander Turnbull Library and recently published family history that draws upon archive material related to the Evans and Lees families. Due reference to a range of recent critical texts has also, it is further hoped, enabled a more in-depth and detailed response to Evans’ contribution to the developing field of New Zealand literature and more specifically, Victorian Studies.</p>