Zbrodnicze umysły i muzyczne harmonie. „Tajemnica Edwina Drooda” Charlesa Dickensa jako utwór protodetektywistyczny

The paper analyses the role of music in Dickens’ last, unfinished novel and its relation to the criminal puzzle which — for obvious reason — was left unsolved. Contrary to the traditional cultural associations (harmony, beauty, order), music in The Mystery of Edwin Drood is related to darkness, which shrouds the places where it is performed (the cathedral, Jasper’s room); it also functions as the background of various disharmonies (physical indisposition, quarrel, signs of hatred, fear). The theme of the only two religious songs that are referred to is sin and wickedness. On the one hand, considering the fact that music is John Jasper’s domain, the discordance not only functions as an “ethical metaphor” and externalization of the man’s character, but also points to him as the murderer of his nephew. On the other hand, the aforementioned songs foreground the motif of repentance or turning away from sin, which undermines the ostensibly obvious conclusions concerning Jasper’s guilt. Similarly to the detective novel of the (much later) Golden Age period, the hints prompting the puzzle’s solution are provided here, though they are not univocal, leaving a shadow of doubt as to the guilt of the most obvious suspect. Yet, contrary to the genre conventions, the clues appear mainly on the implied level of communication, available to the implied reader deciphering textual patterns and not merely “observing” the presented reality.

Revising Alfred, Lord Tennyson: A Closer Look at Two Color Line Stories “The Wife of His Youth” and “Cecily’s Dream” by Charles W. Chesnutt

This article explores an African American writer’s revision of a famous English poet Tennyson whose versified medieval portrait of the Arthurian legend appears in Idylls of the King as well as other poems. The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line (1899), a story collection by African American author Charles Chesnutt (1858–1932), addresses parameters contextualized in the aftermath of slavery such as esthetic notions of beauty tied to whiteness and intra-racial inequality. The final failure of two protagonists, a man and a woman, to fulfill their romantic aspirations of whiteness connects the collection’s titular story to “Cecily’s Dream.” In addition to the color-line theme, however, Chesnutt is motivated to refer to the poetry of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), including moments in which chivalric codes of honor, whiteness and flawed courtly love are idealized. Tennyson’s parabolic poems provide Chesnutt’s intertextual scheme to engage the implied reader by renewing, transforming and also subverting the motif of courtly love in these Arthurian idylls.

METAFICTIONAL FEATURES IN MUṢṬAFĀ AL-RĀFI‘Ī’S “RASĀ’IL AL-’AḤZĀN (LETTERS OF SORROWS)” ملامح ميتاقصّيّة في "رسائل الأحزان" لمصطفى الرافعي

This study traces the signs of metawriting or metafiction as a phenomenon in a literary sample written by al-Rāfi‘ī in 1924. More specifically, the study investigates the features of this phenomenon in al-Rāfi‘ī’s book “Rasā’il ’al-’Aḥzān (Letters of Sorrows)”. The study attempts to answer the following questions: How did al-Rāfi‘ī work with metafiction before it appeared as a literary phenomenon at the end of the twentieth century? And how was metafiction reflected in his literary writings? We do indeed find that al-Rāfi‘ī talked about the author, the narrator and the implied author. He also talked about metalanguage and about writing as a craft, discussing its processes, purposes, methodologies and expressive techniques as well as exploring the relationship between the author and the implied reader. All of these are considered metafictional features, thus proving our hypothesis that metafiction as a phenomenon had existed before the end of the twentieth century, and that al-Rāfi‘ī used various metafictional features in his writings. نتتبع في هذه الدراسة إرهاصات لظاهرة الميتاكتابة أو الميتاقص، في نموذج أدبي للرافعي من عام 1924. حيث تستقصي الدراسة ملامح الظاهرة في كتابه "رسالة الأحزان". تحاول الدراسة الإجابة عن السؤال: كيف اشتغل الرافعي بالميتاكتابة قبل أن تكون ظاهرة أدبية كما ظهر في نهاية القرن العشرين؟ وكيف انعكست الميتا كتابة في كتاباته الأدبية؟ نجد أن الرافعي قد تحدّث عن المؤلف والراوي والمؤلف الضمنيّ، وعن الميتالغة وعن الكتابة كصنعة، سيرورتها والغاية منها، منهجيتها وأدواتها التعبيرية، كما تحدث عن علاقة المؤلف بالقارئ الافتراضي المروي له. يعتبر كل ذلك ملامح ميتاقصية، مما يثبت فرضيتنا أن الظاهرة الميتاقصية وجدت قبل نهاية القرن العشرين، وأن الرافعي استخدم بعضا منها. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0880/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Covert Progression in Comics

Readings of covert progression have expanded the study of rhetorical criticism but usually limit themselves to analyzing short stories. By analyzing Frank Miller’s 300, this article extends covert progression to comics, a medium in which language and images crucially interact. In addition, reading 300 for its covert progression also contributes to reassessing a work surrounded by controversies over its quality and ideological bias. The article first discusses the critical background of 300, assesses style—a basic element of covert progression—in comics, and introduces a tool of cultural-semantic analysis necessary to understand 300. The article then reads the overt plot and analyzes the narrator’s voice to assess distances between implied reader/author, narrator, and characters, which previous criticism has established. Next, the article analyzes the covert progression of the story by following the overt plot along the sequence curiosity ! suspense ! surprise and reinterpreting that sequence, analyzing images and combinations of images and language, with an emphasis on stylistic traits. The article closes by discussing the significance of covert progression for 300 and of extending covert progression to the reading of comics.

Resurrecting the “Black Archives”: Revisiting Benedict Wallet Vilakazi with a Focus on the Utility and Meaning of African Languages and Literatures in Higher Education

Although viewed (and dismissed) by many as primarily a tool for communication, language (and literature) cannot be understood only in relation to what it communicates. A study of how it is shaped uncovers the social forces that provide its broad and complex template in the acts of reading and writing. This article focuses on the utility and meaning of African languages and literatures in higher education, with Benedict Wallet Vilakazi’s (1906–1947) poetry at the centre. It argues how, by resurrecting “black archives”, in this article epitomised by revisiting the work of one iconic writer and scholar, Vilakazi, we could give further impetus to the prospect of intellectual efforts in African languages. In this context, the article upholds the value and meaning of this scholar while offering perspectives on the saliency of his work for inter alia the meanings and location of African languages and literatures with regard to epistemic diversity, the “transformation” of curricula, tradition versus modernity, gender, the meaning of identity, and the broader humanist project. In essence, therefore, the article suggests that in an academic context, African languages and literatures require a serious engagement with the “implied reader”, “the native subject” and consequently necessitates greater troubling, unsettling in the way we teach, the way we write, and the way we read. It suggests that acts of rereading (albeit preliminary) are an important intervention in the project of the intellectualisation of our discipline.

Who Can Read Wisdom? The Implied Virtues of the Readers of Wisdom’s Narratives

This article contributes to the attempt to reformulate hermeneutical questions about ‘how to read the Bible’ in terms of theological characterisations of the kind of reader best placed to read the Bible well. It is thus situated amidst renewed interest in the intersection of character ethics and biblical interpretation. It addresses two related issues, before pointing in the direction of a substantive third concern. First, it explores what is at stake in reading wisdom texts as narratives, finding it persuasive to construe wisdom in narrative terms. Secondly, it considers what virtues are presupposed in these narrative constructions. The reading of Job draws us to consider patience; from Proverbs we consider the virtue of perceptiveness; and from Ecclesiastes a virtue of honesty. Thirdly, the larger question of how one might begin to characterise the implied reader of these texts is considered, building on a canonically constructed portrait of the reader informed by the virtues considered.

IMPLIED AUTHOR AND IMPLIED READER IN ROCOCO NOVEL

The article concerns the forms and functions of the implied author and the implied reader in the novels by Lesage, Prevost, Marivaux, Crébillon, Bibiena, Diderot, Defoe, Fielding and Stern. Referring to the narrative on behalf of the hero, which is mainly used in the Rococo novel, as well as the narrative from the author in Fielding's novels equally, although in different ways, complicate the identification of the implied author, whose image is displaced by the explicit narrator. At the same time, there is a process of making the relations with readers intimate, both in the «Appeals to the reader» and in the novels themselves in various forms of appeal to explicit readers – to the community of friends, to a friend, etc. In the Rococo novelistic prose, an «uncertain narrative» is formed, consisting of a chain of stories within one story and a variety of narrators, which reveals the ambiguity of the implied author's statements and descriptions, as well as the breadth and indefiniteness of the reading public that the novelist actually addresses.