Constructions of Artistic Creativity in the Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Artistic creativity is presently considered to be a multidimensional phenomenon that unfolds over time and is in constant conversation with the social and historical context of the artists, as well as their personal life experiences. This article adopts a narrative perspective and explores Vincent van Gogh’s understanding of the constructs of creativity as reflected in his letters to his brother Theo, friends, and other family members. To inquire into van Gogh’s correspondence, narrative thematic analysis was employed. Findings highlight the artist’s constructs around creativity, which seem to depict elements of both modern and post-modern views of creativity. Major themes include creativity as (a) a developmental, dynamic learning process characterized by dedication and persistence; (b) a relational process in the context of people and nature; (c) an embodied action; (d) an oscillation between asceticism and socio-cultural participation, (e) suffering, and (f) a larger-than-life force. With this study, we join the conversation of scholars around recent developments in the field of creativity, calling for a variety of perspectives and methodological approaches to this complex and multifaceted construct. Moreover, we hope to move beyond the ‘mad genius’ stereotype and myths around psychopathology and artistic creativity, as exemplified in the present analysis of van Gogh’s correspondence.

Der Scheitel der Welt. Aline Valangin und das Onsernonetal

These considerations are devoted to literary pictures of the Onsernone Valley located on the Italian-Swiss border. It was here in the 1930s and 1940s that the Swiss writer Aline Valangin (1889– 1986) created an extraordinary oasis of freedom and peace in her estate in Comologno. She hosted famous figures such as Kurt Tucholsky, Elias Canetti, Ignazio Silone, or Wladimir Vogel, and provided shelter to many politically persecuted artists. The subject of detailed reflection is the question of the perception, experience and acquisition of the Ticino mountains both in works by Valangin and in biographical works about her; with a particular focus on narrative perspective — from the outside and the inside. Eveline Hasler in biographical novel Aline und die Erfindung der Liebe (2000) attempts to (re)construct an image of the Onsernone Valley as a specific “valley of poets”, presenting a subtle analysis of the interaction between the conservative inhabitants of the valley, attached to tradition, and the extravagant artists who found asylum and inspiration in the Ticino Alps. This novel is an example of a modern biography, which is characterized by narrative polyphony; the description of space becomes an important carrier of meanings and collective memory in the author’s concept. Aline Valangin sketches in her novels (Die Bargada, 1943 / Dorf an der Grenze, 1982) and short stories (Tessiner Erzählungen, 2018) an image of Onserone indigenous people’s everyday life in the thirties and forties, full of worries. Her stories include outsiders, misfits, social outcasts, guerrillas, smugglers, and exiles — and they all find haven in the Valley. Valangin’s works are also an important voice in the discussion of the essence of Swiss patriotism not only through strong criticism of Swiss immigration policy during World War II, but also by reflecting on the concept of the border as a place that unexpectedly proves to be a challenge and a particular kind of self-experience in the face of events that are tearing up the current existence.

Wierzchołek świata. Aline Valangin i dolina Onsernone

These considerations are devoted to literary pictures of the Onsernone Valley located on the Italian-Swiss border. It was here in the 1930s and 1940s that the Swiss writer Aline Valangin (1889– 1986) created an extraordinary oasis of freedom and peace in her estate in Comologno. She hosted famous figures such as Kurt Tucholsky, Elias Canetti, Ignazio Silone, or Wladimir Vogel, and provided shelter to many politically persecuted artists. The subject of detailed reflection is the question of the perception, experience and acquisition of the Ticino mountains both in works by Valangin and in biographical works about her; with a particular focus on narrative perspective — from the outside and the inside. Eveline Hasler in biographical novel Aline und die Erfindung der Liebe (2000) attempts to (re)construct an image of the Onsernone Valley as a specific “valley of poets”, presenting a subtle analysis of the interaction between the conservative inhabitants of the valley, attached to tradition, and the extravagant artists who found asylum and inspiration in the Ticino Alps. This novel is an example of a modern biography, which is characterized by narrative polyphony; the description of space becomes an important carrier of meanings and collective memory in the author’s concept. Aline Valangin sketches in her novels (Die Bargada, 1943 / Dorf an der Grenze, 1982) and short stories (Tessiner Erzählungen, 2018) an image of Onserone indigenous people’s everyday life in the thirties and forties, full of worries. Her stories include outsiders, misfits, social outcasts, guerrillas, smugglers, and exiles — and they all find haven in the Valley. Valangin’s works are also an important voice in the discussion of the essence of Swiss patriotism not only through strong criticism of Swiss immigration policy during World War II, but also by reflecting on the concept of the border as a place that unexpectedly proves to be a challenge and a particular kind of self-experience in the face of events that are tearing up the current existence.

NARRATIVE SPECIFICITY OF THE SHORT STORY "HEY YOU, LITTLE BARRELL..." BY V. VYNNYCHENKO

The paper discusses the methodological potential of narratology that extends beyond the boundaries of traditional poetics taking the text of Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s short story "Hey you, little barrell..." as a case study. G. Genette’s definitions of the basic categories of narratology, such as story, discourse, anachronies, narrator’s types and functions, narrative distance and focalization are discussed. First and foremost, categories and paradigms introduced by G. Genette increase the possibilities of literary analysis. For example, there is no concept of a subject of vision (a focalizer) in traditional poetics. The paradigm of narrative perspective (focalization) developed by G. Genette is very important for studies of the narratives, besides, the narrative technique of modernism without this category is incomprehensible at all. Traditional poetics does not pay enough attention to anachrony, considering it together with other "off-plot elements", although analepsis and prolepsis are neither discursive nor descriptive. G. Genette presents detailed classification of analepsises and prolepsises, that determines the functionality of the analysis in context. Secondly, the paper clarifies, that the method of G. Genette’s narratology is not limited to tracing narrative categories as elements – it is also about their constant interrelation, i.e. the narrative model of the stories. Vynnychenko’s short story is analyzed in terms of correlations between telling, showing and talking, as well as displays of character’s discourse and attributive discourse. The artistic viability of anachronies (analepses and prolepses) is examined in the compositional and semantic aspects. The paper focuses on some specific features of Vynnychenko’s narrative style, such as dominance of mimesis over diegesis, as well as narrative distance and the author’s self-elimination by means of focalization (both the internal and external one) that are typical for modernist writing.

Drawing Kafka’s Castle

We investigated the effects of narrative perspective on mental imagery by comparing responses to an English translation of Franz Kafka’s Das Schloß (The Castle) in the published version (narrated in the third person) versus an earlier (first-person) draft. We analysed participants’ pencil drawings of their imaginative experience for presence/absence of specific features (K. and the castle) and for image entropy (a proxy for image unpredictability). We also used word embeddings to perform cluster analysis of participants’ verbal free-response testimony, generating thematic clusters independently of experimenter expectations. We found no effects of text version on feature presence or overall entropy, but an effect on entropy variance, which was higher in the third-person condition. There was also an effect of text version on free responses: Readers of the third-person version were more likely to use words associated with mood and atmosphere. We offer conclusions on “Kafkaesque” aesthetics, cognitive realism, and the future of experimental literary studies.

Text Fragmentation in the novel “Troubled Blood” by Robert Galbraith

The article examines specifics of fragmentation in contemporary works of fiction. Identifying elements that connect heterogeneous episodes or fragments can reshape readers’ experience and serve as a key for interpretation. The analysis of the detective novel “Troubled Blood” by R. Galbraith has demonstrated that fragmentation is realized at different text levels and in different compositional and stylistic forms, namely, within the categories of temporality and locality, in the development of plot lines, within the categories of description and reasoning, in dialogues, polylogues, internal monologues. The category of intertextuality plays a special role in the fragmentation of the novel under study. Non-linear narrative, intended lack of chronological and psychological sequence serve to effectively introduce the main focus of detective fiction – suspense and puzzle-solving; these literary devices also contribute to its unique narrative perspective.

Who Gets to Live the Good Life? Master Narratives, Identity, and Well-Being within a Marginalizing Society

The question of what constitutes “the good life” is incomplete without also addressing the question of who gets to live the good life. Implicit in many discussions of the good life, particularly in American and Western European contexts, is that it is equally available to all members of society, and attainable via malleable dispositions (e.g., changing attitudes, self-relevant beliefs). In this way, the good life is experienced through a highly agentic process of self-discovery and environmental mastery. What is generally lacking in this work is a serious reckoning of how structural factors constrain access to unbounded agency, particularly for those individuals who are marginalized in society due to race, gender, sexuality, and other factors. Moreover, “the good life” fundamentally indexes individuals’ well-being, and thus any claims to the good life will depend on how well-being is defined. Throughout psychology well-being is most commonly defined in terms of positive subjective states (e.g., hedonia, eudaimonia) that again remove any consideration of external criteria or demands. In this paper, we put the preceding together by outlining how a master narrative perspective—which examines the culturally shared stories that guide thoughts, beliefs, values, and behaviors—brings attention to the structural constraints on well-being among individuals in marginalized positions in society. We also propose an alternative conceptualization of the good life, which includes the importance of interpersonal connection between those who share the experience of marginalization.

Testing how different narrative perspectives achieve communication objectives and goals in online natural science videos

Communication of science through online media has become a primary means of disseminating and connecting science with a public audience. However, online media can come in many forms and stories of scientific discovery can be told by many individuals. We tested whether the relationship of a spokesperson to the science story being told (i.e., the narrative perspective) influences how people react and respond to online science media. We created five video stimuli that fell into three treatments: a scientist presenting their own research (male or female), a third-party summarizing research (male or female), and an infographic-like video with no on-screen presenter. Each of these videos presented the same fabricated science story about the discovery of a new ant species (Formicidae). We used Qualtrics to administer and obtain survey responses from 515 participants (~100 per video). Participants were randomly assigned to one of the videos and after viewing the stimulus answered questions assessing their perceptions of the video (trustworthiness and enjoyment), the spokesperson (trustworthiness and competence), scientists in general (competence and warmth), and attitudes towards the research topic and funding. Participants were also asked to recall what they had seen and heard. We determined that when participants watched a video in which a scientist presented their own research, participants perceived the spokesperson as having more expertise than a third-party presenter, and as more trustworthy and having more expertise than the no-spokesperson stimuli. Viewing a scientist presenting their own work also humanized the research, with participants more often including a person in their answer to the recall question. Overall, manipulating the narrative perspective of the source of a single online video communication effort is effective at impacting immediate objective outcomes related to spokesperson perceptions, but whether those objectives can positively influence long-term goals requires more investigation.

Krew i brud. Uwagi na temat estetyki oraz poetyki opisów śmierci w cyklu o wiedźminie Andrzeja Sapkowskiego

Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher series is the first Polish fantasy series that has gained so much popularity. When Sapkowski published his first story — The Witcher — in 1986, fantasy literature wasn’t well-known in Poland. In fact Polish readers, who were interested in fantasy, would mainly know John R.R. Tolkien’s novels like The Hobbit, Or Thete and Back Again, The Lord of the Rings or Silmarillion, all belonging to mythopoeic fantasy. Sapkowski’s story was vastly different from them, because the Polish author referred to sword and sorcery literature, which at that time was little-known in Poland. He created an interesting protagonist and a dark, vicious world, full of violence and graphic descriptions of death. It appears that one of the main factors having an influence on the huge popularity of the series, may be the attempt to shock the reader by using a unique construction of the presented world, which contains a lot of graphic violent imagery. This article presents those methods of description of death and violence in The Witcher series to present why they are so interesting to the readers and what makes them stand out from the rest of similar descriptions in Polish fantasy literature. The analysis is divided into several parts. The first part presents the influence of Sapkowski’s debut story on Polish fantasy literature. The second part contains the analysis of the dynamics of descriptions of death. The third and the fourth focus on showing the individualisation of death in The Witcher series and on detail exposure. The next part presents the narrative treatments used by Sapkowski to increase the impact of the literary images of death, for example changes of a narrative perspective. The last part of the article presents naturalistic elements of the descriptions and explains what functions they perform in the text.