Adaptation against Myth: Gary Owen’s Iphigenia in Splott and the Violence of Austerity

This article explores, from the standpoint of socio-political myth-criticism, the processes of revision and adaptation carried out in Gary Owen’s 2015 play Iphigenia in Splott. The play, a dramatic monologue composed in the rhythms of slam poetry, rewrites the classical Greek myth of Iphigenia in order to denounce the profound injustice of the sacrifices demanded by austerity policies in Europe—and more specifically, in Britain—in the recession following the financial crash of 2008. Reassessing contemporary social, economic and political issues that have resulted in the marginalisation and dehumanisation of the British working class, this study probes the dramatic and mythical artefacts in Owen’s harrowing monologue by looking back to Euripides’s Iphigenia in Aulis, the classical play which inspires the title of Owen’s piece and which serves as the mythical and literary background for the story of Effie. The aim is to demonstrate how Owen’s innovative adaptation of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, slurred out in verse, resentful and agonising, speaks out a desperate plea against myth, that is, against a dominant social ethos that legitimises its own violence against the most vulnerable—those who, as in the classical myth, suffer the losses that keep our boats afloat.

Création et expression d’identités « tigrées » au Brésil

"The various cultures that coexist in Brazil have established a specific dialogue between them. The mythical elements present in the imaginary originate from various continents. It is possible to understand these images, their dynamics and their dialogues through a myth-criticism of the media. In this paper, we shall analyze images linked to a specific theme such as hunger, and its various artistic expressions."

INTERTEXTUALITY AS A FACTOR OF THE GENRE SPECIFICITY OF MICHEL TOURNIE’S NOVELS

Purpose. The purpose of the article is to study forms and functions of intertextuality in Michel Tournier’s novels and to determine the connection of this aspect of the author’s poetics with the genre specificity of his works and the influence of a certain type of intertextuality on the formation of genre strategies.Methods. The following research methods are used in the study: genre approach, intertextual analysis, myth criticism, comparative-typological analysis.Results. A review of modern research of the works of Michel Tournier by foreign and domestic scholars is done, and the lack of studies of the author’s intertextual strategies is revealed. The ideological and philosophical character of the writer’s orientation to different sources of intertextual borrowings is emphasized. Forms and types of intertextuality in Tournier’s novels are classified by origin (literary, legendary apocryphal) and by the mode of the author’s attitude to the precedent texts (according to Ya. Polishchuk: mythologization, remythologization, demythologization). The main functions of the intertextuality in the writer’s novels are determined: accumulative-mnemonic (condensation of cultural memory) and generative (embodiment of the author’s fictional concept of the world and man, formation of the genre strategy of the works). The genre features of Tournier’s novels on the basis of the dominant type of intertextuality are revealed. In the novel «Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique», due to the deconstruction (demythologization) of the Enlightenment myth about the predominance of culture over nature, the leading tendency is creation such a specific genre phenomenon as the anti-myth novel. The novel “Gaspard, Melchior Et Balthazar” is characterized by a type of remythologization based on a free but undistorted interpretation of the gospel story of the worship of the Magi. It causes the genre specification of the work as a novel-apocrypha. In the novel “Le Roi des Aulnes”, Tournier uses a number of precedent texts to create a novel-myth about the phenomenon of fascism-“cannibalism” and the idea of phoria (carrying) as a mission to save child in the apocalyptic world.Conclusions. Michel Tournier’s novels are thoroughly intertextual. The author turns to precedent texts of different origins and sources, using them in accordance with his own worldview and philosophical beliefs, creative ideas and genre strategies. Depending on the priority type of intertextuality, specific genre dominants have been identified in the writer’s works. They fit into the general tendency to mythologization (novel-myth, novel-antimyth, novel-apocrypha) and intellectualization of the genre of novel. This trend is determinative both for the work of Michel Tournier and for all the world literature of the XX and XXI centuries.Key words: intertextuality, precedent text, mythologization, mythopoetics, genre, intellectual novel. Мета – визначити форми і функції інтертекстуальності в романах Мішеля Турньє, зв’язок даного аспекту поетики автора з жанровою специфікою творів, вплив певного типу інтертекстуальності на формування жанрової стратегії.Методи дослідження: генологічний підхід, інтертекстуальний аналіз, міфокритичний метод, порівняльно-типологіч-ний аналіз.Результати. Здійснено огляд сучасних досліджень зарубіжних і вітчизняних науковців, присвячених творчості Мішеля Турньє, і встановлено брак студій інтертекстуальних стратегій автора. Акцентовано світоглядно-філософський характер орі-єнтації письменника на різні за походженням джерела інтертекстуальних запозичень. Класифіковано форми і типи інтер-текстуальності в романах Турньє за походженням (літературні, легендарні апокрифічні), за модусом авторського ставлення до прецедентного тексту (згідно з Я. Поліщуком: міфологізація, реміфологізація, деміфологізація). Визначено основні функ-ції інтертексту в романах письменника: акумулятивно-мнемонічну (конденсація культурної пам’яті) і генеративну (втілення авторської художньої концепції світу і людини, формування жанрової стратегії твору). Виявлено жанрові особливості романів Турньє на основі домінантного типу інтертекстуальності. У романі «П’ятниця, або Тихоокеанський лімб» внаслідок деконструкції (деміфологізації) просвітницького міфу про превалювання культури над природою провідною є тенденція до створення такого специфічного жанрового феномену, як роман-антиміф. Для роману «Ґаспар, Мельхіор і Вальтасар» характерний тип реміфологізації, побудований на вільній, але не викривленій інтерпретації євангельського сюжету поклоніння волхвів, що спричиняє жанрову специфікацію твору як роману-апокрифу. У романі «Вільшаний король» Турньє використовує цілу низку прецедентних текстів з метою створення роману-міфу про феномен фашизму-«людожерства» і ствердження ідеї форії (носін-ня) як місії рятування дитини в апокаліптичному світі.Висновки. Романи Мішеля Турньє є наскрізно інтертекстуальними. Автор звертається до різних за походженням та джерелами прецедентних текстів, використовуючи їх відповідно до власних світоглядно-філософських переконань, митецького задуму та жанрової стратегії. Залежно від пріоритетного типу інтертексту у творах письменника виявлено специфічні жанрові домінанти, які вписуються в загальну тенденцію до міфологізування (роман-міф, роман-антиміф, роман-апокриф) та інтелек-туалізації романного жанру. Окреслена тенденція є визначальною як для творчості Мішеля Турньє, так і для всієї новітньої світової літератури.Ключові слова: інтертекстуальність, прецедентний текст, міфологізація, міфопоетика, жанр, інтелектуальний роман.

"At Least I Have the Flowers of Myself": Revisionist Myth-Making in H.D.'s "Eurydice"

Taking its cue from the rediscovery of H.D.’s works initiated in the 1980s, this article aims to advance the efforts destined to recover the modernist poet’s revisionist legacy and, in particular, her revisionary myth-making. To this end, adopting a myth-criticism interpretative approach, I will analyse one of the most relevant examples of H.D.’s work in this respect: her lyric poem “Eurydice” (1925). In particular, I will examine H.D.’s ‘tactics of revisionary mythopoesis’, that is, narrative strategies which distance her poem from the dominant account of the myth and that enable the poet to contest the established classical tradition. The examination will ultimately bring to the surface H.D.’s invaluable contribution to the re-shaping and re-writing of myth from a female perspective and the way in which she created a different, subverted, version of the classical account.

Le paysage thanatique et féminin chez Gustave Moreau. Étude mythocritique de Orphée sur la tombe d’Eurydice

This article proposes to define the thanatic landscape as the manifestation of Hermes-Mercurius archetype within the symbolic universe of Gustave Moreau, specifically on Orphée sur la tombe d’Eurydice (1891) and his preserved writings. This is defined according to the duality that is so present in Moreau’s pictorial and literary work; between the text and the image, the tangible and the spiritual, the sacred and the profane, the masculine and the feminine. How do the human and sepulchral landscape elements, of religious and mythological origin, merge in the imaginary of the decadent literary painter? In response, this study includes a myth criticism approach and aims to apply the archetypal theory to the symbolic hermeneutics of landscape

Religion and Literature: History and Method

Religion and literature is the study of interrelationships between religious or theological traditions and literary traditions, both oral and written, with special attention to religious or theological underpinnings of, influences upon, and reflections in, individual “texts” (oral and written) or authors’ oeuvres. This overview considers the origins and history of, and methods employed in, that scholarly enterprise, focusing upon the dual construals of “literature” in religious studies (as a body of sacred writings and as writing valued for artistic merit); the problematics of defining “religion”; the transformation of theology and literature as a “field” (pioneered by Nathan A. Scott Jr. et al.) to religion and literature; the affiliated fields of myth criticism, and of biblical reception; and the institutionalization, globalization, and future of the study of religion and literature.

The Mythopoetics of Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah

The objective of this paper is to investigate how Chinua Achebe uses myth making as an attempt to address the leadership problem of his country, Nigeria. Many writers have identified leadership as the greatest problem of many countries in Africa. Consequently, Achebe uses symbolism and a language full of violence to portray the levels of corruption and abuse of power in the novel. In this paper, we present a myth criticism of Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah by looking at how the novelist deconstructs Biblical and traditional stories to show that women should be given a greater political role alongside men to chart a new course of development. Achebe’s novel is dominated by the myth of the Pillar of Fire which he takes from the Bible and the Idemili myth which he takes from the traditions of his people. At the end of the deconstruction of these two myths, the only viable alternative left is the all-inclusive group led by the priestess of Idemili and hope is finally enshrined in the baby girl Amaechina.

The Schizomorphism of the world of visions in Bruno Schulz’s prose

In the article, I undertake to interpret Bruno Schulz’s prose using the methodological proposals introduced in the humanities by Gilbert Durand, a French anthropologist of imagination. Based on the implemented research perspective, the aim of the hermeneutics of The Street of Crocodiles and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass was to unveil and discuss the imagined figures which form the anthropological network of meanings. The purpose of the array of anthropological and myth-criticism research tools used for analysing and interpreting the literary works which constitute the core of Polish literature was to define the author as an imagination phenomenon that seems to fill a research gap visible in Polish Schulz studies.