The english and american gentlemen in ‘the master−butler dyad’ as portrayed in the novel “the remains of the day” by Кazuo i shiguro

In the focus of the article is a comparative sociolinguistic analysis of the speech and manners of the British and American gentlemen as portrayed in the novel The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. The study enables us to look into the deep-rooted English traditions and values against which the American cultural distinctness is brought to light. The underlying British culture ‘the master – butler dyad’ is a marker of the aristocratic culture and us-them divide. The analysis is based on the selection of culturally marked elements of speech and manners of the English lord and the American gentleman (linguistic and extralinguistic) approached from sociolinguistic, semantic, interpretative and comparative perspectives and aimed at revealing common and culturally specific characteristics. The study has demonstrated that the English lord confides in his butler, his manner of interaction is based on the principle of mutual respect and manifested by his voice, always calm and gentle; he actively participates in making pivotal political decisions; his speech is marked by U-words (‘a chap’, adjectives ‘awfully’, ‘terribly’, ‘jolly’, ‘quite’), borrowings and the phenomena of understatement and overstatement. The American gentleman is portrayed as a businesslike and easy going master with a trusting manner of behavior, at the same time always bantering and humiliating a butler, thus putting him in an awkward situation. He is more generous in money spending; his speech is marked by ‘technical language’. Bantering is seen as a symbol of American culture and a new style of life.

“Una larga escala de jerarquía y diferencia de valor entre hombre y hombre”. Alcance y límites del agonismo político nietzscheano

After reviewing the historical fortune of Nietzsche as a political thinker, it is discussed what aspects of his philosophy can be most useful for the deployment of a pluralist democracy, in the sense of political agonism claimed today by some of his interpreters. But the reasons why an articulation of democracy and aristocratic culture is coagulated in his philosophy are also pointed out. For this, the question of the agon in Nietzsche is approached and its discrepancy with the Schmittian idea of the friend-enemy pair, as distinctive of the essence of the political, is pointed out, thus placing the Nietzschean critique of modernity in perspective.

Slobidski ensembles as centers of aristocratic culture: museificstion aspect

The article considers the issue of formation the aristocratic manor culture and describes the museification features of aristocratic ensembles. It has been found that this topic, despite its popularity in recent years, remains little studied. Especially the issue of museification historical and cultural heritage sites. The paper analyzes different types of sources and literature.The peculiarities of the formation the aristocratic class of Slobodidska Ukraine, who received noble titles only for military service are highlighted. A new class of society tried to imitate the Polish nobility and the Russian nobility, creating their own aristocratic attributes, which did not always have documentary evidence. The role of representatives of the middle nobility, which was actively engaged in culture and education, was determined. It was the local intelligentsia that created a distinctive culture, that absorbed European achievements and local traditions. It is established that the centers of aristocratic culture were country estates, which combined architectural and garden parts. Defined a symbolic aspect of manor culture, which is clearly manifested in the art of park construction. The activity of the local nobility in the creation of architectural structures and English parks in the estates is considered. The article analyzes peculiarities of museification of manor ensembles as complex monuments. The current state of ensemble-type monuments in Kharkov region is characterized. In the article are listed prospects of museification for the tourist development of the region and the revival of historical and cultural heritage.The conclusions provide recommendations on the possibility of modern use of aristocratic ensembles as centers of aristocratic manor culture.

The Colonna, Aristocratic Culture, and the Display of Power in Seventeenth-Century Rome

Patronage of the arts and the sponsorship of events that attracted public attention were essential tools for the Roman elite to negotiate their position within the complex social and political structure of the city. This chapter introduces Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, Maria Mancini, and their cultural milieu in Rome. Their palace in piazza Santi Apostoli became the stage for their support of conversazioni, music-making, and intellectual gatherings. The palace and its collections of paintings, antiquities, arts, and the cycle of frescoes that began to be executed during Lorenzo Onofrio’s life were also essential elements of their self-fashioning and family myth-making.

The Right to Dream: Gender, Modernity, and the Problem of Class in Kate O'Brien's Bourgeois Bildungsromane

Feminist critics have celebrated Kate O'Brien's pioneering approach to gender and sexuality, yet there has been little exploration of her innovations of the coming-of-age narrative. Creating a modern Irish reworking of the Bildungsroman, O'Brien's heroines represent an idealized model of female identity-formation which stands in sharp contrast to the nationalist state's vision of Irish womanhood. Using Franco Moretti's theory of the Bildungsroman, a framing of the genre as a thoroughly ‘modern’ form of the novel, this article applies a critical Marxist lens to O'Brien's output. This reading brings to light the ways in which the limitations of the Bildungsroman work to constrain O'Brien's subversive politics. Their middle-class status remains an integral part of the identity of her heroines, informing the forms of liberation they seek. Fundamentally, O'Brien's idealization of aristocratic culture, elitist exceptionalism and ‘detachment of spirit’ restricts the emancipatory potential of her vision of Irish womanhood.

Shinran (1173–1263)

Shinran lived in thirteenth-century Japan, an age of socio-political turmoil, when the old order represented by imperial rule, aristocratic culture and monastic Buddhism was in the process of internal disintegration, and a vibrant age of military clans, popular culture and new schools of Buddhism, appealing to the disenfranchised, was beginning to emerge. Although Shinran’s name is not found in the historical records of the period, he left many writings, including original works, commentaries, poetry and letters that contain religious and philosophical insights which had a great impact on subsequent Japanese life. His place in history was secured when in 1921 a collection of his wife’s letters, attesting to their relationship over the years, was discovered in the archives of Nishi Hongwanji in Kyoto.

Obcy w kuchni. Jedzenie jako sposób realizacji opozycji „swoje–obce” i „arystokratyczne–plebejskie” w kulturze rosyjskiej do XIX w.

Foreign in the kitchen. Food as a way to implement “familiar–foreign” and “patrician–plebeian” oppositions in Russian culture till 19th centuryThe paper addresses the problem of eating habits as an identification code which defines affiliation to a particular community or a social layer. Till 17th century there was no distinction between aristocratic and plebeian dishes in Old Russian cuisine. 17th century brought differentiation between the diet of aristocracy and lower layers of society. During the reign of Peter the Great selection of dishes as well as the way of their preparation and eating became an identification code denoting belonging to the Western aristocratic culture. At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries the division into aristocratic and plebeian kitchen was established. The changes in Russian cuisine were also related to attitude toward the foreign influences and often were politically motivated. Literary source used in the paper is represented mostly by fragments of the works by Russian writers such as Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Goncharov and Leo Tolstoy. Чужие на кухне. Еда как способ реализации оппозиции «свое–чужое» и «аристократическое–плебейское» в русской культуре до XIX столетияВ настоящей статье еда рассматривается как идентификационный код, определяющий принадлежность к данному общественному слою или группе. В древнерусской кухне не наблюдалось существенной разницы между плебейскими и аристократическими блюдами. Разница стала замечаться лишь только в XVIII столетии при Петре I, когда подбор блюд, способ их приготовления и способ приема пищи стали кодами, посредством которых определялась принадлежность к западной аристократической культуре. Это строгое разделение на «аристократическое» и «плебейское» в русской кухне упрочилось на рубеже XVIII и XIX столетий. Описываемые в статье перемены в русской кухне были связаны с отношением русских к чужим влияниям и довольно часто основывались на политических началах. В качестве иллюстративного литературного материала в статье использованы фрагменты романов Николая Гоголя, Ивана Гончарова и Льва Толстого.

Learning Mingled with Nobility in Shakespeare’s England

Chapter 2.3 analyses the English school of Montaigne in the context of the relationship between Renaissance education and the early modern nobility. The Englished Montaigne––translated by John Florio and dramatized by Samuel Daniel, Ben Jonson, John Marston, and others––was introduced as a critic of the tyranny of custom and as a participant in the aristocratic culture of private learning in the late Elizabethan, early Jacobean noble household. Documents discussed range from the paratexts to Florio’s translation and the English text of ‘Of the institution and education of children’ to James Cleland’s work on the same subject and the famous portrait of Lady Anne Clifford. The chapter ends by offering a new perspective on Shakespeare’s use of Florio’s translation in The Tempest: that we should understand it in relation to Samuel Daniel’s use of similar passages in a play staged for the 1605 royal progress to the University of Oxford: The Queenes Arcadia.