The Translational Turn in Modernism Studies

Author(s): Tamara Brzostowska-Tereszkiewicz / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The recent historiographic and methodological developments show that modernismstudies has undergone all the stages necessary to diagnose a “translational turn” ina given discipline: the expansion of the thematic field of research to encompass the historyand poetics of literary translation, the increasing metaphorisation of the notion of translationin the narratives on intercultural expansion, transmission and transformation of art,and, finally, the methodological refinement (“conceptual leap”) in the course of which thecategory of translation acquired an epistemological value and transdisciplinary application.Abstract: The recent historiographic and methodological developments show that modernism studies has undergone all the stages necessary to diagnose a “translational turn” in a given discipline: the expansion of the thematic field of research to encompass the history and poetics of literary translation, the increasing metaphorisation of the notion of translation in the narratives on intercultural expansion, transmission and transformation of art, and, finally, the methodological refinement (“conceptual leap”) in the course of which the category of translation acquired an epistemological value and transdisciplinary application.

Fantastyczny tygiel

Author(s): Sylwia Borowska-Szerszun / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The chapter, by Sylwia Borowska-Szerszun, explores generic and cultural syncretism in Ben Aaronovitch’s cycle Rivers of London. Having defined urban fantasy, the author proceeds to place emphasis on the overwhelming heterogeneity adapted within the genre, which suggests its openness to various influences, transformations and modifications. In this particular case the elements of urban fantasy and the criminal novel have been successfully incorporated to create a harmonious whole. The cycle also relies on a hybrid ethnic identity of the protagonist and his dialogic relationship with a more experienced wizard, a representative of the former imperial order, to suggest that peaceful cooperation is possible despite differences in ethnic, social and class background. Examining the vision of a city as a melting pot, the author argues that the fantastic level of the text has been construed as just one more component of a multicultural London in which different cultures, nationalities and religions meet. The cycle breaks the predominance of whiteness in the fantasy genre, and introduces instead social and cultural diversity, which reveals the potential of urban fantasy to deal with difficult issues of our times and provide a valid commentary about contemporary reality.

"Ikaromenippos" – starożytny dialog o locie na Księżyc i do niebiańskiej siedziby bogów

Author(s): Dominika Budzanowska-Weglenda / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Dominika Budzanowska-Weglenda’s chapter proposes an analysis of the Ikaromenippos or Voyage in Space, which is one of dialogues of Lucian of Samosata and probably the first literary description of the human trip to the Moon. The main character takes on this journey because of his aversion to philosophy. Lucian’s Ikaromenippos is a fantastic dialogue: a philosopher, probably the cynic, and satirist Menippus of Gadara, flies here “through the stars”. He takes two wings of large birds: the wing of the vulture and the wing of the eagle, and performs an incredible feat, worthy of Icarus: he reaches the Moon (from where he looks at the people and their actions on Earth), and then flies to Heaven—to the gods, “in upper Zeus’ rooms”. The story of Menippus’journey is like a swift current of the river, full of jocular tone, with a fantastic plot. But it clearly carries a deeper message: it expresses criticism of human attitudes and actions (adulteries, murders, conspiracies, perjury, betrayals among the closest to ones, war, courtship, piracy), meanness, false and mercenary piety, especially when stigmatizing bad behavior of philosophers, without sparing the representatives of any philosophical school. According to Lucian’s narrative, philosophers are lazy, quarrelsome, bloated, angry, grotesque, tumultuous, surly, unworthy people. The author reinforces the accusations of philosophers with the deity’s words, as the goddess of the Moon, Selene, having been encountered by the traveler, complains about them as well. She believes that philosophers are impostors, leading a shameful nightlife behind the scenes: they commit adultery, steal, and commit any other evil deeds. Ikaromenippos belongs to Lucian’s satirical works featuring reflective comedy. Correspondingly, Lucian postulates the liberation from the practical cognitive pressure of the logical rules and from the philosophical logic of cognition of the universe.

Ofiara czy drapieżca? Kobieta-potwór w wybranych powieściach Aleksieja Szołochowa

Author(s): Anna N. Wilk / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Anna N. Wilk’s chapter delivers an analysis of novels by Alexei Sholokhov (Tyelo and Podval ) as an example of an updated vision of the dark side of femininity. Over the centuries, women have been accused of having magical abilities. Consequently, their physicality have been viewed as arousing both desire and fear of death, or loss of control over one’s life. Different varieties of female monsters survived in cultures aroundthe world as the antithesis of the usual “human” women, such as, for example, demonic lovers or vindictive, malicious ghosts. Despite the development of civilization and social changes leading to the empowerment of women in family, social, and professional life, the aforementioned concerns are still haunting the collective imagination. In Sholokhov’s novels, “women-monsters” focus their attacks on men, exhibiting outrageous brutality and sadism. Wilk’s analysis allows to demonstrate that the fear of the negative femininity is still an actual, timeless trope in popular culture.

Gotyckie figuracje Innego a problem winy, przemocy i braku solidarności w powieści "Przeklęci" Joyce Carol Oates

Author(s): Magdalena Łachacz / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

In the chapter, Magdalena Łachacz proposes an in-depth analysis of the spectral characters of the child/woman and the bridegroom. These ghostly spectres make abrupt appearances at critical moments of the narrative set in the the Princeton community during the cusp year of 1905 into 1906 following traumatic and haunting events. The objectice of the introduction chapter is to place the novel within the confines of the American gothic genre with typical gothic motives. This particular genre delivers a disturbing experience with the dark and obscure aspects of American history with particular interest in the institution of slavery and its problems of racial and sexual abuse. In relation to the aesthetics of the American gothic, it is conceivable to associate the specters in Oates’ novel with the demonic protagonists of Charles Brockden Brown’s and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s fictional works—both pivotal writers of the genre. Hence there exists the possibility of looking at the spectre as the representation of the “Other” in typical American gothic oeuvres. Furthermore, one can perceive the relationship between the experiences of the “otherness” and the problem of guilt suffered by the protagonists of the privileged social class. Consequently, the scope of the analysis finds itself engrossed on the issue of the traumatic repressed experiences that may return by republication of postmodern slave narratives. Therefore, the question of language becomes imminent for the gothic-like representation of the figure of the “Other” in Oates’s novel. Nevertheless the text is permeated by cognitive pessimism. “The Accursed” seem to establish, thanks to the gothic convention, an idiosyncratic language capable of expressing the terror of the violent experiences within a community environment where there is a lack of solidarity with the victims. In effect, Oates’s novel can be approached as a step towards the aesthetic characterization of the “Other” in the recounting of the “unspoken crime” which remains the spectre that continues to haunt contemporary American culture.

Минко Николов и Франц Кафка

Author(s): Mladen Vlashki / Language(s): Bulgarian Publication Year: 0

Minko Nikolov is the first literary scientist and critic in the Republic of Bulgaria to have studied Kafka’s work. The present article is a reconstruction of his sources and choices of interpretation. Furthermore, it supports the idea of revealing „how things are done“. During the stay of Minkov in East-Berlin in 1956-1958 he changes his dogmatic Marxist position and orientates his arguments in interpreting Kafka towards the work of the Austrian Marxist Ernst Fischer. After 1962 he starts correspondence with him and evaluates his works as much needed for the Bulgarian intellectuals in connection to the overcoming of the Stalinist spirit in the Bulgarian culture of the 1960s. In this way Minko Nikolov, by meeting Kafka, sets sail on the road of literature dissidence, which for him ends with suicide in 1966, and for Fischer – with a stigmatization as a renegade personally from Brezhnev and exclusion from the communist party.

ÖSSZEHASONLÍTÓ IMAGOLÓGIA

Author(s): Sorin Mitu / Language(s): Hungarian Publication Year: 0

Dekolonizacija pisanjem kroz metodološke leće Linde Tuhiwai Smith

Author(s): Dina Glavan / Language(s): Croatian Publication Year: 0

The subject of this paper is the concept of decolonization and its elaboration through the methodology of Linda Tuhiwai Smith. Smith quotes 25 »Indigenous Projects« as 25 different ways through which decolonization can be achieved. By placing the whole process somewhere between personal and political, the work of decolonization is approached through the display of postcolonial literature by choosing writing as the release medium. As demonstrated by the development of writing as a decolonizing tool of Dalit or »the untouchables« through the prism of the caste system of India, the paper shows the mapping of individual male and female voices that re–create their history and identity through short stories, poetry, novels, essays. In conclusion, the paper tries to give a feminist perspective of the subject by focusing on women’s writing.

Poetika historického románu v dílech W. Scotta (Waverley) a A. Jiráska (Temno)

Author(s): Magdaléna Marie Sedláčková / Language(s): Czech Publication Year: 0

In the present study we focus on the concept of the historical novel from the point of view of its poetics in two selected works from British and Czech literature. We deal with this genre type in the context of two perspectives: literary morphology and research of surroundings in these two texts. The main point of the study is an analysis, on one side, of the historical novel as the first work and, on the other hand, already famous historical novel in the true sense of the word. The research is based on a comparison of both texts and partially on the genre methodology. The relevant part is the concept of narrative strategy of the work from the aspect of the author. Another significant component is also depicting of the atmosphere and the capturing of the contemporary moment. A part of the article deals with a historiosophical element.

ЕВРОПЕЙСКИЙ СИМВОЛИЗМ И РЕГРЕССИВНЫЕ КУЛЬТУРНЫЕ МОДЕЛИ

Author(s): Gleb Maslov / Language(s): Russian Publication Year: 0

Symbolism, as part of the Modernism movement that tends to separate itself from the present for the sake of the future, seeks to renovate the culture by going to back the roots. Interestingly, members of the Symbolist Movement in both Russia and Italy expressed great interest in ancient social history and personal biography texts. In their cultural models, which I propose to call regressive, symbolists viewed early periods in history and their culture as the most authentic, sincere and unique. These models can be classified in the following way: regressive (infantile) models of the creative genius nature (Il Fanciullino by Pascoli and Kotik Letaev by Andrei Bely) and regressive models of theater that transforms into the ancient mystery (Vyacheslav Ivanov).

Ф. М. ДОСТОЕВСКОГО «ПРЕСТУПЛЕНИЕ И НАКАЗАНИЕ» И ПОВЕСТИ М. ГОРЬКОГО «ТРОЕ»

Author(s): Galina Prokudina / Language(s): Russian Publication Year: 0

This paper compares three of them, a novella by M. Gorky, and Crime and Punishment, a novel by F. M. Dostoevsky, on several levels: similarities and differences between main characters and their fates and secondary characters and their relationship to the main ones. Two crimes that take place in the texts are analyzed in detail. The motives, the act of the crime itself and its consequences are examined. It is hoped that this detailed analysis proves the existence of a typological and genetic relationship between literary works of F. M. Dostoyevsky and M. Gorky.

IMAGINATIVE CONTEMPLATION IN THE 14TH CENTURY ENGLISH MYSTICISM

Author(s): Lucie Rathouzská / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

In this paper, I focus on imagination in 14th century English mysticism and modern approaches of Richard Rolle’s, Walter Hilton’s, and the unknown author of the Cloud of Unknowing’s concept of imagination. There are several inconsistencies within contemporary approaches to the imagination, affectivity, and bodily metaphors, implying a contradictory appreciation of the three English authors. In this paper, I will discuss criticism of imagination in the mysticism of these three English authors. Moreover, some possible responses will be highlighted.

ENTHRALLED BY MYSTERY. ECKHART, HEIDEGGER AND THE POET MUJICA IN AN INTERDISCIPLINARY DIALOGUE

Author(s): Silvia Julia Campana / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Mysticism and poetry make up an inseparable pairing and, in these times of absence, they reveal the deep desire of man to go beyond the immediate, the existential, the superficial. The Argentine poet Hugo Mujica opens, from his poetic saying, a door towards the abyss and the desert, towards the limit of language and silence. We can glimpse in his poetry Heidegger’s legacy and, together with the philosopher, the Master Eckhart is also dragged from his going to God without god. From the interdisciplinary dialogue between philosophy, theology and poetry, we will approach to decipher this influence that transforms the saying of the poet-philosopher and updates his word in the desert and plunges us into the mystery of the unspeakable.

SILENCE AS A MODALITY OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE IN THE WORK OF SYLVIE GERMAIN

Author(s): Silvia Rybárová / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The article deals with the issue of silence in the thinking and work of the contemporary French author Sylvie Germain. The starting point for deliberation is the author’s essay Acte de silence (2011), in which silence is conceived both as a manifestation of God’s discreet appearance and as an act of humility and patience of man. The presence of silence seems to be a necessary condition for mystical experience. Silence understood in this way is the subject of the analysis in a selected passage from Germain’s novel L’Enfant Méduse (1991), which suggests some specific features of the author’s poetics of the transcendent, also present in her later novel work.

THE POETICS OF RECONCILIATION IN FRENCH LITERARY WORK OF THE 20TH CENTURY. FROM MARIE NOËL TO SYLVIE GERMAIN

Author(s): Václava Bakešová / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Because of the Holocaust, World War II is the focal point for capturing spiritual experience in the 20th-century literature. How did the transformation of French spiritual literature from the poet Marie Noël in the 1st half of the century to the novelist Sylvie Germain at its end come about? Using examples from their work, this paper shows both authors’ sources of inspiration and highlights the means of expressing spirituality of a person going through an inner struggle. Although the authors describe a dark night, both of them they have a desire to overcome it, to reconcile with God, with the world and with themselves.

Le conte, un espace de transgression et de construction de soi

Author(s): Emilia Dolcu / Language(s): French Publication Year: 0

The desire to defy the forbidden is an essential element of the tale; Propp includes it in the initial situation of his narrative scheme. This space of transgression, specific to the tale, I propose to explore through the patterns of the door, the window, the partition, the passage. Along with the timeless, which is the register of all tales, I also examine the effect of the march of time on the message communicated by this type of story. A corpus of a dozen tales, from different backgrounds, will serve as the basis for my study.

СЮЖЕТ ПЕРЕСЕЛЕНИЯ НА ЗЕМЛЮ В ЛИТЕРАТУРЕ ПЕРВОЙ ВОЛНЫ РУССКОЙ ЭМИГРАЦИИ

Author(s): Marina Albertovna Khatyamova / Language(s): Russian Publication Year: 0

The White émigrés writers were concerned with mission to conserve the national culture saw a tragedy of their generation in being isolated from their native land. One of the ways to arrange their Dasein was a Nativist idea of redemption through being closer to land. Mikhail Osorgin and Nina Berberova pertained to different generations of the émigré writers and gave their own variants of the in his cycles of short stories titled Memoirs from a Vegetable Garden and Dweller’s Letters, included in Incidents in the Green World collection (1938), and in his novella A Free Mason (1937), Osorgin, creates his ontological utopia of living in a small cabin. Moreover, he implements it in a life-as-a-work-of-art approach, by moving to a real cabin in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, near Paris and tending to his vegetable plot and garden together with his wife. Existence of both the author and his character, Yegor Tetekhin, comply with the masonic ideal: an eccentric gardener and bibliophile arranges his spiritual existence close to nature, a “cultural home” as an alternative to foreign and destructive forces of civilization. Nina Berberova’s novel The Last Ones and the First Ones (1929), addresses life of ordinary Russians in France, their arrangements for the here-and-now life on land as an opposition to a utopia of return to Russia. The author creates her own myth of saving the unnoticed generation of the Russian emigration and then follows it herself: she moves to the countryside and starts a farmstead. Similarly, Berberova’s characters save themselves from meaninglessness of existence by absorbing themselves in collective agricultural work somewhere in Provence. Family values and domestication of alien space allow the émigrés to gain “aerial roots”, which the author understands in a spiritual way: keeping distinctive internal national identity will allow reconstructing their cultural motherland in the alien land.

J. D. Salinger’in “Çavdar Tarlasında Çocuklar” ile Emrah Serbes’in “Erken Kaybedenler” Romanına Bakış

Author(s): Gürkan Koyuncu,Hikmet Asutay / Language(s): Turkish Publication Year: 0

Gençlik-yazınsal eserlerde birçok alan ve konuların yanı sıra asıl ağırlık konusu ergen kişinin kendi ergenlik dünyası, bunalımları ve bu süreçte yaşadığı çatışma, çelişki ve ikilemlerdir. Tüm bunlar roman türleri içinde polisiye, macera, fantastik, sorun odaklı vb. içinde belli bir takım olay kurguları etrafında yer alır ama başkahraman olan ergen kişinin dünyası içinde metinleştirilir.

La reconstruction de soi, un exercice de lenteur

Author(s): Eleni TATSOPOULOU / Language(s): French Publication Year: 0

This article focuses on the slow procedure of self-reconstruction in George Simenon’s Les Anneaux de Bicêtre (1963) and Jorge Semprun’s L’Évanouissement (1967). In the first novel, René Maugras, a famous fifty-four year old newspaper editor, suffers a stroke; in the second one, Manuel, a twenty-one year old Spanish resistant fighter living in Paris loses consciousness and falls off a train, while at the same time sustains a serious ear injury. In the cases of both protagonists, with respect to the stages of each’s recovery, there seem to be similarities. First, the two respective protagonists regain consciousness through acute sensory awareness of their surroundings. Next, as they need to make time pass during their recuperation period, they try to keep their minds continually preoccupied. Naturally, one of their first thoughts is meditation on their own death or on the concept of death in general. Besides, they reflect on their lives and examine their conscience. Certain revelations about themselves will lead to feelings of guilt and shame. Therefore, it could be inferred that a sudden turn of events, such as an illness or an accident, may slow down the fast-paced routine and make somebody realize through this experience what the true values of life are.

Encre sympathique et Chevreuse de Patrick Modiano ou la lenteur de la mémoire

Author(s): Elena-Brândușa Steiciuc / Language(s): French Publication Year: 0

The two latest novels signed by Patrick Modiano, published în 2019 and 2021 - Encre sympathique and Chevreuse – are built around well-known themes and obsessions of the author: memory/forgetfulness; identity search; teenagers running away, as they don’t have support in life; writing; the photographic art; long flâneries in the urban space, either Parisian or Roman. In these two cases as well, the author uses the thriller formula, which is in fact a pretext which opens the narration. Our aim is to point out how much memory (which is often slow and imperfect) is important in the work of the winner of the Nobel Prize (2014). We also intend to show the way in which, in a very specific manner, writing is connected to identity search (both linguistic and cultural).