The Wisdom of God as the Eternal Feminine: Dante and V.S. Solovyov on Sophianic Unity

The paper deals with the continuity of ideas concerning the Eternal Feminine and Sophia as the Wisdom of God from the point of view of Dante Alighieri and Vl.S. Solovyov. The analysis focuses not so much on the very notion of Sophia as on the meaning, origins, and contexts of their conception of Sophianic unity. The latter, being an ideal form of reducing a multitude to a unity, is considered as either an alternative or a supplement to the model of totality that reproduces the binary and hierarchical structure which at the social and political level is considered to be the pattern of imperial centralism. The study proceeds from the consequences of Dante’s negation of the difference between the spiritual sense of the Holy Scriptures and the literary sense of secular poetry. It is shown that for Dante it was necessary, first of all, to understand under whose inspiration and guidance he composed his verses, which gave particular importance to the image of a guide in his magnum opus. I show that in this context Dante turned to the intuitive representation of the feminine idea as a guiding principle that was personified by Beatrice, although Dante did not use the term “Sophia” and could not use the term “the Eternal Feminine,” which did not yet exist at the time. The disputes in Dante’s time on the essence of monarchy are considered in connection with his understanding of femininity as the guiding principle of such a unity of humanity that could reject a rigid hierarchy and, thus, free itself from imperial centralism. It is pointed out that the social and political aspects of the all-encompassing Sophia, which also resolves contradictions as a supplement to the intrinsically contradictory Logos, were given great importance in Solovyov’s philosophy. The paper concludes that it was Solovyov, who, having identified Sophia with humanity as a whole, created the presuppositions for a detailed study of the structure of Sophia’s unity. This study ends with a discussion of the validity of the convergence of a non-hierarchical Sophianic unity with the deconstructive strategies of modern philosophy, the aim of which is the elimination of binary oppositions and hierarchies from the gender context.

Błok i Jung: inflacja ego („Wiersze o Przepięknej Pani”)

According to depth psychology, whose pioneer is C.G. Jung, inflation is an emotional state, most often triggered by a dream, manifested by an increase in sexual urge, a feeling of higher energy, power and fascination. Ego inflation can have a dual effect on the individual who experiences it: positive, which is associated with the possibility of establishing contact with archetypes as elements of the collective unconscious, and negative, leading to a sense of possession. In both cases, which often occur together, the key to understanding this unique state of psychic energy is contact with symbols, previously latent in the psychic genotype. In the creative process, as well as in crucial moments of life, the ego acquires the special privilege of insight into the unrecognised realms of the unconscious, which leads to a kind of emotional explosion, a feeling of ecstasy. The ego of the creator, stunned by new possibilities and filled with psychic energy, undergoes excessive growth, “swelling”. Carl Jung calls this state being possessed by the unconscious complex. In the case of Alexander Blok, one can speak of being possessed by the archetype of the Eternal Feminine – Anima, which is proven in the cycle Verses About the Beautiful Lady (1901–1902). The symbol of the Beautiful Lady unites within its archetypal structure various kinds of psychological oppositions (consciousness and unconsciousness, inner woman and inner man, ecstasy and fear). The Beautiful Lady as the numinous element of the poet’s psychic structure acquires the status of an energetic dominant or the centre of the unconscious.

Humanizing Women in Children Fiction: A Deconstructionist Reading of Girard's Girl Mans Up

The present study explores how children fiction nuances the socialization of girls and boys in phallogocentric writings and societies. The teen-protagonists in children fiction highlight the prescribed socialization vis-a-vis the gender binary and contest against the overemphasized concept of girlhood and boyhood. The social prescription of how a girl and boy would behave essentializes their role in traditional patriarchal societies. They grow up as cultural beings and not as individuals. Simone de Beauvoir, a French Feminist Existentialist, jargonizes this socialization as 'the eternal feminine' in order to highlight the nature of gender binary in traditional patriarchal societies. Following this notion of de Beauvoir, this study deconstructs the socialization of children vis-a-vis their relationship with the discursive and non-discursive practices of a given culture. In this regard, this study delimited M-E Girard's Girl Mans Up to deconstruct the concept of 'the eternal feminine' by foregrounding the challenges of a teenage girl that she faces in order to subvert the prescribed gender binary of girlhood and boyhood vis-a-vis a prescribed social hierarchy.

Eliade et l’exemplarité de Kierkegaard dans Gaudeamus

"Eliade and the Exemplarity of Kierkegaard in Gaudeamus. Eliade's relationship with Kierkegaard began in his youth and has been the subject of serious studies. Those studies analyzed and interpreted passages, which were few in number, in which an explicit reference to the Danish thinker appeared in the scholarly production of the Romanian writer in both his Memoirs and Journals. Kierkegaard's underground influence on Eliade's literary work remained to be studied. In our article, we were interested in the strongly autobiographical novel, written in 1928, Gaudeamus, in which alongside an explicit reference to the Danish thinker, were important elements (in terms of structure, characters, thematic, symbolism, etc.) of the aesthetic writings of Kierkegaard that Eliade had discovered shortly before, notably The Seducer’s Diary and In vino veritas. Our interest focused on the reiteration in both the Kierkegaardian and Eliadian works of the myths of Pygmalion and the Eternal Feminine. It thus appeared to us that it was not only, at times of great existential choices, as he himself asserts, that the example of Kierkegaard was decisive, for Eliade, but also on the literary level. Keywords: Mircea Eliade, Gaudeamus, Kierkegaard, The Seducer’s Diary, Pygmalion "

The Feminine Paradigm of Culture in Alice Voinescu’s Conception

"The Feminine Paradigm of Culture in Alice Voinescu’s Conception. Alice Voinescu, the first Romanian woman to obtain a PhD in Philosophy, proposed a female cultural paradigm in the conferences she held between 1933-1943, in the context of the women’s emancipation movement of the interwar period. In her view, the male model of knowledge, based on abstract thinking, must be permanently conjoined with the female one, based on intuition and affect, in a totalizing, modern perspective. The salvation of the “eternal human” through the “eternal feminine”, characterized by respect for tradition and continuity both in culture and in society, represents an alternative for materialistic civilization, which is the outcome of the male cognitive pattern. Keywords: Alice Voinescu, femininity, feminism, spirituality, masculine, culture, generation, new man "

Feminist Voice in Abhi Subedi's Agniko Katha

This article analyzes Abhi Subedi's play, Agniko Katha, from a feminist perspective. Feminist critics blame that the classics of literature are partly responsible for creating and perpetuating the myth about 'eternal feminine.' They claim that there are only two images available for women in patriarchal literature. One is the image of a virtuous passive woman and the other is the promiscuous selfish woman. The author of such literary texts rewards the virtuous woman whereas they punish the promiscuous one. Feminists argue that the underlying message of this method is: if a woman wants to survive in patriarchy she must act feminine. This effects women in their real life situation for they tend to perform feminine gender roles though they are disadvantageous to them. Thus, they protest the stereotype depiction of female characters in literary and other cultural texts. The article argues that Subedi defies the traditional notion of femininity and creates new roles for his female characters. The protagonist of the play denies to play her assigned feminine role and searches for a new role for her. She questions and protests the patriarchal gender roles which are bias against women. Thus, it is relevant to explore the feminist voice in the text. The finding of the article suggests that women, too, have the potentiality to create new roles for themselves and bring change into society.

Simone de Beauvoir, Brigitte Bardot, and Back-Translation: The Trajectory of Beauvoir's Discourse on the ‘Eternal Feminine’

This article traces the translation trajectory of Simone de Beauvoir's essay ‘Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome’. First published in Esquire in 1959, Beauvoir's text was subsequently back-translated into French in 1979, and, most recently, an edited version of the English translation appeared in 2015. Exploring how Beauvoir's philosophical discourse is restored via back-translation, how both her English and French translators play a pivotal role in assimilating her voice for their respective target audiences, and how presumptions about Beauvoir's lost original French text influenced changes made in the edited English version, this article seeks to probe the dynamics of literary back-translations, to consider how they disrupt traditional hierarchies subjugating a translation to its original, and threaten the viability of such a model.

Western Sophiology? The "Eternal Feminine” in the Thought of Henri de Lubac

The study is dedicated to the Mariology and ecclesiology of Henri de Lubac. It analyzes the works in which de Lubac emphasizes the unity of these two fields of theology, referring primarily to the Fathers of the Church and to the thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. This article tries to show that these are not purely historical references, but an expression of de Lubac’s original reflection, which forms a coherent whole. This whole is reconstructed at the end of the article. In consequence, there might be seen a kind of “Western sophiology,” a theological synthesis in which the “feminine element” plays an important role, and the central, rather than peripheral, nature of the truths of faith concerning the Mother of God and the Church becomes visible.

Melodrama, Telenovela, and the New Latin American Women’s Picture

FQ columnist Manuel Betancourt examines how the Latin American tradition of melodrama is being reimagined by contemporary filmmakers in ways that reveal its ongoing relevance. Focusing on four recent films—Los adioses (The Eternal Feminine, dir. Natalia Beristáin, 2017), Amores modernos (Modern Loves, dir. Matías Meyer, 2020), La quietud (The Quietude, dir. Pablo Trapero, 2018), and A vida invisível (Invisible Life, dir. Karim Aïnouz, 2019)—Betancourt suggests that these recent riffs on the genre present fertile ground for narratives about how women’s agency and bodies remain tethered to patriarchal systems. Indeed, melodrama’s status as a gendered genre and association with women and their stories is central to its recuperation and reformulation in the twenty-first century as a means to reckon with national discourses about the family that may feel personal but are inherently political.