An Innovative Teaching Tool: Manga for KOMSAS’ Prose Comprehension

Studying literature encourages thinking both critically and creatively. It helps to understand and interpret life through the lens of prose, poems, essays, and novels. The KOMSAS genre of literary materials require good pedagogical practices to ensure academic success of a student. The pivotal focus of this study is to assess the advantages of using ‘Manga’ as a creative tool to teach KOMSAS or traditional Malay literary prose and to determine its effectiveness on students’ performance. The aim of the study was also to explore the impact of using ‘Manga’ to enhance creativity among students in the classroom where traditional prose comprehension is taught. A quasi-experimental design was chosen as methodology and a study was conducted with high school students of Form Four. The research instrument involved a statistical achievement test. Findings from this research indicated that there were positive changes in the performance of students who used this Manga module. Teaching methods which could stimulate students’ interest in learning were helpful for students. Additionally, this study also found that students’ perception towards the teaching methods used by the teachers influenced their performance The main finding also highlighted students’ increased creativity when ‘Manga’ was used as a pedagogical tool. Teachers and collaborators can use this study as a point of reference when promoting ‘Manga’ as a creative device to teach Malay traditional prose in today’s classroom.

THE EASTERN PHILOSOPHER AND THE WESTERNIZED PROPHET

Gibran Khalil Gibran is one of the few Lebanese authors who has bridged the East and the West and is justifiably considered a citizen of the world. His book of highly estimated prose poems, The Prophet is one of the most widely read books of the 20th century. It reveals Gibran’s philosophy about different aspects of life, mainly the precept in the Gospel of Matthew about the importance of the human sense of mutuality which summarizes a Christian’s duty towards his/her neighbor and states a fundamental ethical principle. In addition to this golden rule, The Prophet reflects Gibran’s beliefs in Christianity. Being a true mirror of the Sufi mysticism of Islam, it also shows his idealistic opinion on pantheism. From this perspective, the research will focus on the combination of his beliefs in Christianity, Islam, and pantheism in The Prophet, as well as his firm conviction in creating the united and unique structure of a Christian-Muslim synthesis which he deeply adhered to.

Prose Poetry

This chapter treats the prose poem as the decadent genre par excellence by focusing on Charles Baudelaire’s Le Spleen de Paris (Paris Spleen, 1869). The prose poem is well suited to the expression of decadent culture because of its formal subversion of conventional poetry, especially as adapted by Baudelaire to articulate “the bump and lurch” of urban experience. J. K. Huysmans certified the decadent credentials of the genre when he described it in À rebours (Against Nature, 1884) as “the osmazome of literature, the essential oil of art,” a literary distillation that makes it “an aesthetic treat to none but the most discerning.” The article analyzes “Any Where Out of the World” and other prose poems in relation to certain poems in Le Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil, 1857), observing no loss of metaphorical power in the more “prosaic” medium despite Baudelaire’s secular and subversive treatment of many of the same poetic material given more elevated, spiritual treatment in the earlier collection.

SOME FEATURES OF UTIZHEV’S POETICINDIVIDUAL AUTHOR’S STYLE

Статья посвящена изучению поэтического наследия – одной из многочисленных граней творчества кабардинского поэта, писателя, драматурга, ученого-лингвиста Бориса Кунеевича Утижева. Актуальность исследования продиктована, с одной стороны, недостаточной разработанностью некоторых жанров (сонет, баллада, стихотворения в прозе) в адыгской (кабардинской) литературе, с другой – необходимостью восполнения существующего пробела в изучении поэтического наследия Б. Утижева. Научная новизна исследования заключается в том, что поэзия указанного автора впервые стала предметом отдельного комплексного изучения в диалектике формы и содержания. В центре исследовательского внимания – лирические стихи и сонеты поэта. Отдельное внимание уделяется новаторскому жанру стихотворений в прозе, выявляется специфика их идейно-тематической и структурно-композиционной организации. Детализированному анализу подвергается единственная баллада «Песнь», дается жанровая характеристика, выявляется степень соответствия произведения заявленному автором жанру. В целом, в статье рассмотрена тематика и проблематика, эстетика и поэтика лирических и лиро-эпических произведений: выявлены основные мотивы, изучен богатый поэтический язык, представлена характеристика индивидуально-авторского стиля Утижева. Определен вклад поэта в эволюцию национальной поэзии. В работе использован ряд научных методов, в числе главных – анализ, описание, а также герменевтический метод. Полученные результаты могут стать подспорьем при изучении истории адыгских (адыгейской, кабардинской, черкесской, черкесского зарубежья) литератур, в более общем плане – литературы народов Северного Кавказа и Российской Федерации, а также при составлении спецкурсов и написании квалификационных и другого рода исследовательских работ. The article is devoted to the study of the poetic heritage of Boris Kuneevich Utizhev, that is one of the many facets of the work of the Kabardian poet, writer, playwright, scientist-linguist. The relevance of the study is dictated, on the one hand, by the insufficient development of some genres (sonnets, ballads, prose poems) in the Adyghe (Kabardian) literature, on the other hand, by the need to fill the existing gap in the study of B. Utizhev's poetic heritage. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that the poetry of this author for the first time became the subject of a separate comprehensive study in the dialectic of form and content. The focus of research is the poet's poems and sonnets. Special attention is paid to the innovative genre of prose poems, the specificity of their ideological-thematic and structural-compositional organization is revealed. The only ballad "Song" is subjected to a detailed analysis, a genre characteristic is given, the degree of conformity of the work to the genre declared by the author is revealed. In general, the article examines the topics and problems, aesthetics and poetics of lyric and lyric-epic works: the main motives are revealed, the rich poetic language is studied, the characteristic of Utizhev’s individual author style is presented. The contribution of the poet to the evolution of national poetry is determined. A number of scientific methods were used in the work, among the main ones - analysis, description, as well as comparative-historical and hermeneutic methods. The results obtained can be helpful in studying the history of the Adyghe (Adyghean, Kabardian, Circassian, Circassian abroad) literatures, more generally – the literature of the peoples of the North Caucasus and the Russian Federation, as well as in the preparation of special courses and writing qualification and other types of research work.

Abraham Sutzkever

Abraham Sutzkever (Yiddish: Avrom Sutskever; Hebrew: Avraham Sutskever) (b. 1913–d. 2010) was a titan of Yiddish literature. Over the course of six decades, he published more than thirty volumes of poetry and prose. He also edited the most important postwar Yiddish journal of arts and letters, Di goldene keyt, from 1949 to 1995. From his youth in Vilna and Siberia to his later years in Tel Aviv, Sutzkever insistently posited the power of poetry to sustain life and culture. His wartime experiences further marked the writer as both poet and hero. During his incarceration in the Vilna Ghetto, he served as a member of the “Paper Brigade,” rescuing the cultural heritage of the Jewish community of the “Jerusalem of Lithuania.” He also took up arms as a partisan fighter in the forests surrounding the city. After the war, he testified in graphic detail at the Nuremberg Tribunals at the request of the Soviet Union. A writer of wide-ranging interests—from the frozen tundra of Omsk to the cafés of Paris, from the cellars of the Vilna Ghetto to the shores of the Red Sea—Sutzkever continually exercised his neologistic skills, poeticizing his present life in conversation with the memories of his past and his cultural ambitions for the future. Some of his most prominent volumes include his first collection, Lider (Poems), published in Warsaw in 1937; his epic poem Sibir (Siberia), illustrated by Marc Chagall and published in Jerusalem in 1953; the series of experimental prose poems of memorialization, Griner akvaryum (Green Aquarium), published in Jerusalem in 1975; and one of his later volumes, Lider fun togbukh (Poems from a Diary), published in Tel Aviv in 1977.

समकालीन नेपाली गद्यकवितामा वर्णविन्यासवक्रता [Characterization in contemporary Nepali prose poetry]

पूर्वीय साहित्यशास्त्रमा आचार्य कुन्तकद्वारा प्रतिपादित वक्रोक्तिसिद्धान्त मूलतः एउटा समन्वयशील सिद्धान्त हो । पूर्ववर्ती आचार्यहरूका मान्यतासमेतलाई समाहित गर्ने गरी प्रस्तुत गर्न खोजिएको यस सिद्धान्तमा कुन्तकले वक्रोक्तिका विभिन्न छ भेद तथा तिनका उपभेदहरूको चर्चा गरेका छन् । यस लेखमा उनले प्रस्तुत गरेका वक्रोक्तिका छ भेदहरूमध्ये वर्णविन्यासवक्रताका आधारमा केही समकालीन नेपाली गद्यकविताहरूको अध्ययन विश्लेषण गरिएको छ । यसका लागि सर्वप्रथम वक्रोक्तिसिद्धान्त र वर्णविन्यासवक्रताका बारेमा सङ्क्षिप्त सैद्धान्तिक चर्चा गरिएको छ । त्यस्तै समकालीन नेपाली गद्यकवितामा वर्णविन्यासवक्रताको प्रगोग कसरी भएको छ भन्ने सन्दर्भलाई स्पष्ट पार्न विभिन्न समकालीन कविका कवितांशलाई उहाहरणका रूपमा प्रस्तुत गरी तिनमा पाइने वर्णविन्यासवक्रताको अध्ययन विश्लेषण गरिएको छ । विक्रम संवत् सत्तरीको दशकयता प्रकाशित कविताहरूमा केन्द्रित यस अध्ययनमा वर्णविन्यासवक्रताका छवटै भेदहरूका आधारमा कविताहरूको विश्लेषण गरिएको छ । प्राथमिक र द्वितीयक दुवै स्रोतका सामग्रीको प्रयोग गरी वर्णनात्मक पद्धतिअनुसार विवेच्य सामग्रीहरूको विश्लेषण गरिएको छ । मूलतः निगमनात्मक पद्धतिमा आधारित यस अध्ययनबाट समकालीन नेपाली गद्यकवितामा पूर्वीय काव्यशास्त्रमा वर्णित वर्णविन्यासवक्रताको सफल र सार्थक प्रयोग पाइने निष्कर्ष निकालिएको छ ।[In Eastern literature, the theory of curvature formulated by Acharya Kuntak is basically a coordinating theory. In this theory, which seeks to incorporate the beliefs of the earlier Acharyas, Kuntak discusses the six distinctions of satire and its variants. In this article, the study analysis of some contemporary Nepali prose poems has been analyzed on the basis of chromaticism out of the six distinctions of irony presented by him. For this, first of all, a brief theoretical discussion has been given about the theory of curvature and chronology. Similarly, in order to clarify the context of how the use of colloquialism has been used in contemporary Nepali prose poetry, various contemporary poetic poems have been presented as examples and the study of colloquialism found in them has been analyzed. This study focuses on the poems published in the seventies of Bikram Samvat and analyzes the poems on the basis of all the six distinctions of chromaticism. The material of both primary and secondary sources has been analyzed according to the descriptive method. Basically, this study based on the deductive method has concluded that the successful and meaningful use of the chromatic descriptions described in Eastern poetry in contemporary Nepali prose poetry has been found.]

Music for Unknown Journeys by Cristian Aliaga

What is the purpose of travel in an age when millions are displaced against their will or have no home to speak of in the first place? How can we travel without being tourists, without erasing the stories of those who live where we visit? These are some of the questions addressed in Cristian Aliaga’s compelling collection of prose poems, Music for Unknown Journeys. This collection contains Aliaga’s “travelling sketches,” in the tradition of Matsuo Bashō, John Berger, or W.G. Sebald. Each prose poem is geographically situated in his travels across Patagonia or his more recent journeys around the edge-lands of Europe. His work is politically acute, exploring struggles over territory, resources, and culture, in the places he visits. There is an intense emotional charge as he records the stories of those who globalization and contemporary capitalism have used and left behind. This volume brings together a generous selection of Aliaga’s prose poems, the majority previously unseen in English, as well as a substantial introduction to the author’s work and its context, both literary and political, by the editor and translator. Cristian Aliaga (b. 1962, Tres Cuervos, Province of Buenos Aires) is one of Argentina’s foremost contemporary poets. His work has been highly praised in the TLS and elsewhere. “No poet has been as intrepid as Aliaga in exploring that outer edge of modern consciousness at which the individual mind and the macroeconomic order meet,” Michael Kerrigan, TLS.

A WELL-TOLD STORY… WILL COVID-19 TEACH US TO LISTEN TO A CITY?

As a result of the pandemic, in March 2020, world museology was cut off from the direct contact with their public. Owing to the introduced regulations, Polish museums were closed down on three occasions (14 March – 4 May 2020, 15 Oct 2020 – 31 Jan 2021, and 20 March – 4 May 2021). When searching for new forms of activity, in 2020, museums made an enormous technological progress, and mastered numerous new competences allowing them to move in cyberspace with ease. The pace at which they introduced various ‘online’ formats is worthy of appreciation. Presently, the time has come to ask whether the effectiveness in reaching the public via such means truly contributed to consolidating a strong bond with them. In order to get the answer to this, it is necessary to critically assess the museum efforts, which will not be possible without researching into the Polish public over that period. Wishing to voice my opinion in the critical discourse on the museums’ activity during the pandemic, I have decided to share my experience from a selected activity of the Museum of Krakow: I have presented the effects of the social Programme titled ‘Stay at Home and Tell Krakow’ (#zostanwdomuiopowiedzkrakow). The Museum created this programme convinced that a city dweller, exposed to the oppression of the pandemic will feel the urge to share his or her experience. Apparently, the appeal made by the Museum of Krakow was eagerly responded to. The Museum received ‘stories’ about the pandemic in different formats: prose, poems, diaries, visual arts, and even musical pieces and artifacts. The results of the ‘Stay at Home and Tell Krakow’ Programme are currently hard to sum up, however, what seems a valuable and worth analysing experience is the focus of residents’ attention on the Museum which they considered an institution trustworthy enough to entrust it their private, often intimate reflections on living through that challenging period.

Del ensayo y el poema en prosa a la narración en Ensayos y poemas de Julio Torri

This article deals with establishing the two generic aspects that determine the texts of Ensayos y poemas, published by Julio Torri in 1917. The article includes the review of the author’s testimonies in the establishment of his selected genre. It proposes a series of characteristics that allow us to analyze the essays and prose poems that make up this volume. From this characterization, it is contrasted with the features of the so-called micro-fiction or sudden fiction, an emerging genre that, in the concern to fix a tradition and a series of textual models, has established this work as inaugural.