Connecting and Critiquing the Canon

This article discusses the intertextual connections between the young adult novel, Pride by Ibi Zoboi, and the canonical text, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Similarities between the plot and structure of the two texts are discussed along with the differences in themes between the novels. Critical Race Theory is used to help make sense of the differences between the novels and critique the overwhelming whiteness of the canon. Implications for educators who wish to pair the two novels are provided.

A Propos the Failed First Publication of the Russian Translation of Shu Jing

The Book of Historical Documents (Shu jing) is an ancient Chinese written monument, a collection of addresses of the ruler to the subjects and of the subjects to the rulers. The philosophical meaning of Shu jing is that it mentions or refers to the issues of a broad ideological order. These brief references either gave life to philosophical ideas, or later, after appropriate interpretation, were used by the philosophers to authoritatively confirm their thoughts. The first complete Russian translation of Shu jing was done by Archimandrite Daniil (Dmitriy Petrovich Sivillov, 1789-1871) in the early 40s of the 19th century. The translation was undertaken, first and primarily, as a teaching material assigned to students of the Chinese Language Cathedra at the Kazan Imperial University. This cathedra was first one established in Russia and the second one in Europe. Archimandrite Daniel was its first head in 1837-1844. Unfortunately, the translator have never had a chance to publish his work. Sivillov for the first time in Russian and European Sinology used a purely Chinese commented edition of The Book . The canonical text used by Sivillov and later his followers was considered and understood through the prism of modern Neoconfucianism, which, in comparison with ancient and early medieval Confucianism, reinterpreted and significantly enriched the philosophical meaning of the Shu jing . In some points of understanding of the Neoconfucian interpretation of the ancient text, Archimandrite Daniil was not only ahead of, but also more successful than his later colleagues. The text of the previously unpublished Shu jing Chapter III Da Yu mo Russian translation by archimandrite Daniil is attached.

The Problem of Positive and Destructive Freedom: The Interpretation of the Arkady Svidrigailov Image

This article examines the problem of the relationship between freedom and self-will on the example of one of the heroes of Dostoevskys novel Crime and Punishment . Attention is focused not only on the canonical text of the novel, but also on the preparatory materials for it. The task is to identify the connection between the above named problem and the suicide problem of Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov. The thesis is put forward that for Dostoevskys heroes, self-will often becomes a fetter for their own nature and their own passions. With the help of debauchery, Svidrigailov tries to assert himself, giving his soul to the mercy of willfulness. There is a certain pattern in the fact that such a worldview logical chain ends with the tragic act of suicide. Arkady Ivanovich adores comfort, and therefore, in accordance with his own logic, his murder by Dunya, which did not happen, can be considered, among other things, as an attempt of a comfortable method of suicide. In the preparatory materials for the novel, Svidrigailov protests against cowardly meanness and puts suicide above such a humiliating state, although he understands the entire flaw in such a situation. For all the complexities the problem of freedom and self-will - one of the leitmotifs of religious and philosophical themes in the writers work - Dostoevsky does not see its formal, external solution.

A HISTORIAN OF LITERATURE AHAPII SHAMRAI: TEXT, WORK, AND ENVIRONMENT

The paper aims to reconstruct the research activity of the Ukrainian literary scholar Ahapii Pylypovych Shamrai (1896—1952) in the period from 1922 to 1929. For this purpose, the works of the scholar, his personal files, materials from the newspapers and journals of the time, as well as correspondence have been examined. It was necessary to describe A. Shamrai’s postgraduate studies at the Research Department of History of Ukraine (literary and ethnographic section) (1922—1924). Much attention is given to the textbook “Ukrainian Literature. A Brief Survey” (1927, 1928) that was among the first structured presentations of the history of Ukrainian literature. The paper analyzes the perception of the textbook by contemporary readers and outlines the specifics of Shamrai’s sociological method of this period. Considering the research work of A. Shamrai in the context of literary criticism of the 1920s, the author of the paper reconstructs the scholar’s dialogue with M. Zerov and the polemic with “New Generation” magazine. One of the central topics for A. Shamrai in the 1920s is examined in detail: it is his study of H. Kvitka-Osnovianenko’s work. In particular, the discussion between A. Shamrai and Ye. Aizenshtok on the publication of H. Kvitka’s works in 1928 has been highlighted. A. Shamrai’s scholarly concepts of the 1920s characterize him as a textual critic (‘text of the work’, ‘canonical text’) and historian of literature (‘literary fact’, ‘work’, ‘environment’, ‘style’, ‘literary school’, ‘template’, ‘minor writers’, ‘influence’). The category ‘reader’ was also very important for Shamrai’s works of this period. A range of examples shows how Shamrai used the methodology of comparative studies.

Re-writing Myth: An Analysis of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad

: Myths provide a fertile ground for adaptation and appropriation. The preoccupation of writers with the stories and characters from the margins leads to interesting variations of age-old stories. As a consequence, the familiar stories are re-worked and transformed as an act of subversion. The embedded mythical framework in the revised text enriches its meaning infinitely. This paper is an attempt to understand Atwood’s text as trying to fill in some gaps in Homer’s Odyssey. As a feminist writer, Atwood re-visits the canonical text from a new perspective. She attempts “not to pass on a tradition but break its hold over us” (Rich). The re-writing of grand narratives becomes a strategy whereby a shift in power becomes possible. Atwood’s text is subtitled ‘The Story of Penelope and Odysseus’ making the shift quite clear. The narrative voice alternates between Penelope’s disembodied spirit from the underworld and the chorus of her twelve, faithful maids. The Penelopiad, in this way, becomes a polyphonic text where the different voices blend and clash and no final, authoritative meaning is possible. The re-working, thus, becomes an act of liberation.

SOME PROBLEMS IN THE STUDY OF YASAWI HERITAGE

The heritage of Yasawi, the founder of Sufi literature in Turkic literature, is now being studied in detail by experts. Although the history of the Yasawi study is deep, some issues remain unresolved. There is no consensus in science about the year of Yassavi's birth, the subsequent fate of the Yassavi sect, the total amount of wisdom, and what other works he wrote other than Diwani Hikmet. The absence of a manuscript belonging to Yasawi also poses some difficulties in Yasawi studies. In ancient manuscripts, as well as in lithographic books published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the wisdom of Yassavi and his disciples was published, leading scholars to differ. Therefore, one of the most pressing issues today is the collection of the most reliable versions of "Diwani Hikmet" known to science, and the compilation of the canonical text. It is also relevant in revealing the essence of some of the terms found in the Diwani Hikmet. This is because it is impossible to read and understand Sufi works without commentary, which are full of truths and mysteries. One of such terms is the concept of Sufism "Daftarus-sani".

Reclamation of the Narrative for the Silenced Voice in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad

This article analyzes Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, a rewriting of Homeric epic, The Odyssey. Atwood rewrites the story — the saga of gallantry and triumphalism of Odysseus, with narrative shift that brings postmodern irony and parody, self-reflexivity and metafiction, and intertextuality and paratextuality into play. The article tries explore if Atwood’s shifting of narrative orientation of the Homeric epic yields any different and substantial reception and interpretation of the epic in the recent context.Moreover, I demonstrate how Atwood’s reconstruction and subsequently the empowerment of the minor characters unfolds the incompatibilities and discrepancies the official version of Homer’s epic, and brings the marginal voice to the front by granting a variety of narrative access.I argue, giving subject positions to silent agents and using various genres of expression, for instance, history and myth, Atwood, through the deployment of an autodiegetic narrative, brings together gender, genre and language in such a way that results in a decisive shift in conceptualizing the narrative structure for the marginal voice and agency female characters. The article concludes that why rereading of classical and canonical text is crucial to bring the marginals’ claim to a subject position, and produce a different language and literature that allows space for expression subjectivity of characters on the margins

The motif of «dry misfortune» and people's mentality in N. A. Nekrasov's poem «Who is Happy in Russia?»

The article seeks to interpret N. A. Nekrasov's text from a new, modern perspective and to consider whether the poem, an «epic of people's life», meets the criteria of an epic work noted by critics, and to what extent the poet answers the question from the title in the final chapter of his work. The authors compare the «canonical» text of the chapter «The Feast for the Whole World» with the draft notes, variants, and page-by-page corrections, which makes it possible to see how Nekrasov's point of view on the events and the main character, Yakov, changed in one of the important episodes, and what tendencies the poet followed in creating the situation depicted. The article shows that the story of Yakov the Faithful, traditionally perceived as the apex scene of the final chapter, contrasts with the conventional canons of the «peasant epic» in the artistic reality of the poem. The article demonstrates that, in contrast to the stable Christian (Orthodox) tradition, Nekrasov portrays the character's suicide as an act of high vengeance, blessed by God, whereas such behavior cannot be recognized as natural and acceptable to the Russian mentality. The analysis carried out in the article demonstrates the occasional nature of many of the circumstances depicted by the writer, the inconsistency and alogism of Nekrasov's characters and their behavior, the violation of the structural and compositional order of the poem. A number of tendentious factors in the text of the poem, the instability and variability of the writer's approaches help the authors of the article identify and establish the process of reducing the objectivity and epic potential of the work, and propose new strategies for understanding the poem and finding its place among the classical works of Russian literature.

Hermeneutics and Paratext

This paper sets out to analyse the hermeneutical process of highlighting at work in Seamus Heaney’s preface to his 1999 retranslation of Beowulf. My analysis takes into account the generic identity of the preface by considering it as a textual subgenre where the translator becomes a metatranslator in order to voice herself out of invisibility, engaging thereby in a (self-reflexive) hermeneutical analysis and ‘justification’ by commenting on the selection of the text to be translated and her own translation choices. The analysis is carried out with the help of two concepts elaborated by Gadamer: situatedness and self-understanding. These concepts will help show how the Northern Irish poet fuses different horizons in the process of his retranslation. In this essay, I also take into account the specificity of retranslation as a particular instance of hermeneutical activity. To do so, I focus on how Heaney introduces his own rendering of Beowulf, and on how he explains the translational choices and processes he opted for in order to render this canonical text into contemporary language. I argue that the closely related notions of situatedness and self-understanding can help bring to the fore how Heaney establishes an intrinsic link between his own retranslation choices on the one hand and, on the other, his cultural identity and poetics. Taking into consideration the hermeneutical dimension of this preface, it will be argued, gives us valuable insight into the retranslation project of Seamus Heaney. It will show that he does not seek to impose on Beowulf a transcendental truth or to fix it in a definite retranslation and interpretation. Instead, situatedness and self-understanding help shed light on how he engages creatively with the epic Anglo-Saxon poem: at issue is both how his retranslation is situated and grounded in his own subjectivity, and indeed with respect to his existential questions, as well as in a wider socio-cultural context.

Verdeurs: Oscar Wilde, Dorian Gray, and the Colors of Decadence

When Basil Hallward discovers the distorted portrait of Dorian Gray in chapter 13 of Wilde's eponymous novel, he first ascribes the changes to “some wretched mineral poison” in his paints. Although the passage corresponds to the climax of the story, it has rarely been discussed from a chromatic perspective. And yet, color mattered to Wilde as well as to many of his decadent friends. Drawing on the canonical text of The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), which it revisits from a color perspective, this article explores the literary inscription of new, shifting chromatic materialities in order to shed light on what Théophile Gautier, in his seminal 1868 essay on Baudelaire, defined as the decadent “palette”: “veined with the greenness (verdeurs) of decomposition.”