The Baroque Crisis of the Third Polish Republic. System Transformation, Sarmatian Traditions and Krzysztof Koehler’s Classicism

從「興」之觀點論船山詩學—附論船山之詩學史觀

Wzgarda godności y czci pragnienie. A Political Moral Fable from the Archive of Simiaon Polacki Wzgarda godnosci y czci pragnienie is a notable text for its adaptation of a Scriptural source to contemporary problems of political reality in the Polish Commonwealth. The Author considers first the adaptation of passages drawn from the Biblical text and analyses how the poet recasts the short narrative, which was probably of oral origin, into a graceful poetic discourse. In the second part the Author shows how the parable of the Olive, the Fig and the Vine has been adapted to the political situation of the Polish Commonwealth, a Republican system where the King was elected by the nobles. It is better to renounce seeking rank and honors in society – the poet concludes – for the sake of a virtous life and the good of men. In the last part of the paper the problem of authorship of the poem is discussed. In Rolland’s opinion it is possible to ascribe the poem to Simiaon Polacki: both style and ideas expressed in the verses easily find analogies with the other well known literary works of the Bielorusian poet.

This essay treats the understanding of poetry, especially lyric poetry, as representation. The theme is developed partly as a historical survey, from the Classical Age to Romanticism and to Modernism, and through the history of aesthetics in Western terms. It offers critical scrutiny with the intention to explore a more justifiable theory of representation. Hopefully it may help to understand lyric poetry in historical contexts from Plato and Aristotle’s imitation theories, to Beardsley’s theory of illocutionary action and New Criticism. It is the image in lyric poetry that accounts for human action’s being represented. Poetic beauty is an illusionary reality, as that in painting, and the role of image has been widely appreciated in producing this beauty as verbal icon. Finally, I mention the connection between Western theorizing of poetry as representation and Chinese poetry and poetics in general. We see the possibility that the importance of lyric poetry as representation can encourage comparative literature and world literature, and a general theory of representation. These might be informative in Chinese literary studies, from a theoretical point of view.

Reviewed by: Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond by Vassiliki Rapti Pierre Taminiaux (bio) Vassiliki Rapti . Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond. Ashgate Studies in Surrealism. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013. Pp. xiv + 193. $99.95. The very notion of a surrealist theater remains today difficult to grasp, even for the most knowledgeable and astute critic. After all, André Breton defined the movement in 1924 in his first Manifesto as a poetic project. Automatism was at the center of its aesthetics: it called for the free expression of the unconscious and of the most hidden human desires and fantasies through the language of poetry. Breton was first and foremost a poet whose main literary references ranged from Nerval to Lautréamont and Rimbaud. The author must therefore play the challenging role of devil's advocate. She does it with both audacity and expertise. Her central argument revolves around the notion of a "ludic theater" dominated by the passion for games and by a playful attitude toward language. Undoubtedly, these characteristics defined in many ways the mindset of the surrealist poet from Robert Desnos to Philippe Soupault. One can think here of the famous Rrose Sélavy. Games underlined the power of chance in the constitution of the poetic imagination and the sense of the fundamental unpredictability of meaning in surrealist literature and art. The author starts by analyzing the presence of theater in André Breton's writings, in particular in his most famous work, Nadja. She addresses the theatrical theme in this largely autobiographical narrative by focusing on the close [End Page 413] relationship between Breton and the actress Blanche Derval, to whom he wrote several letters expressing his personal admiration. A photographic portrait of the actress is indeed included in the book. It refers to her role in a play by Pierre Palau called Les Détraquées, which Breton saw at the Théâtre des deux Masques in Paris in February 1921. It is clear that the book Nadja demonstrates Breton's and the surrealists' interest in popular culture, from B-movies to unsophisticated and sensationalist theatrical performances known in France as "Grand-Guignol" since the end of the nineteenth century. I am not so sure, though, whether these interests truly went beyond a certain perverted attraction for the low life and the social outcasts. In other words, surrealism celebrated underground forms of culture a long time before the Beat generation and the counterculture of the nineteen sixties. The main character of the book, a young woman with supernatural power, is the perfect incarnation of this kind of marginal existence that fascinated Breton and his followers. Moreover, theater only plays a minor role in the development of Nadja's narrative. The book is much more an exploration of both the city of Paris (of Breton's favorite streets, squares, shops, and neighborhoods) and of a personal relationship between the narrator and a young woman who suffers from a lack of psychological balance. Eventually, it turns into an assault against the medical establishment, and particularly, against the psychiatric treatment of so-called mad people which Breton considered profoundly oppressive. Rapti attempts to convince us that Nadja was a comedian in her own way and that the theatrical metaphors about her abound. But Breton actually portrays her first and foremost as an almighty gaze that can see through reality and perceive details that are invisible to others. From this perspective, she is much more of a voyante, in the exact sense given to the word by Rimbaud. She is therefore capable of deciphering the signs of the world around her in order to interpret them in a profoundly poetic manner. The author then moves to the world of Roger Vitrac, who, with Antonin Artaud, founded the Théâtre Alfred Jarry. She studies his performance of Les Mystères de l'Amour in 1927, and a year later, of his own Victor ou les enfants au pouvoir. It is clear that Roger Vitrac was influenced by surrealism and that he shared part of its history. But as the author herself recognizes, a play like Victor ou les enfants au pouvoir belongs much more to the field of bourgeois theater than to that...

This article will focus on Liu Rushi's柳如是 early writing, Wuyin Cao戊寅草 (Writings Written in the Year of Wuyin) through an investigation of the genres she used: shi (poetry), ci (lyric poetry) and fu (rhyme-poetry). The subjects of her poems are multifaceted: bitter feeling, sadness, aspirations for success and other concerns. As for the lyric poetry, Liu uses the poetic genre as a medium to express her innermost personal feelings and intimate love passion. Rhyme-poetry is traditionally a masculine genre monopolized by male writers to express their loyalty, admonitions to the ruler, usually with strong moral implications in it. However, while engaged in writing rhyme-poems, Liu intentionally twisted the generic conventions in ”Ode to the God of Lo River” （男洛神賦） to depict the love affairs between male protagonist and the goddess, and she also used the preface to subvert the conventional use of this genre to offer admonitions to the ruler. This switching of gender position in her writings will be the focus of this paper: how a traditionally male-dominated, male-monopolized genre was used by a female writer to meet her own purpose in her own ways. The various experimentations of twisting conventional uses of genre in effect reveal a deep thinking in Liu Rushi who tried to get out of the boundaries imposed on woman writers in traditional Chinese society.

There is a particular space-time combination in which poetry is meant to find its perfect place, its perfect happening: it’s the meridian moment, the midday spent in a locus amoenus singing and playing along with fellow-poets. It seems to be what Bachtin defines as a cronotope . Anyway, in lyric poetry this time-space reveals itself to be more and more a foundational ideal. In the bucolic world a man has to renounce personal experience, because it is a place full of (re-told) stories but without Story. Lyric poetry, instead, needs existential experience. Even bucolic love is not suffered by the subject as much as elegiac love, it does not possess the same degree of reality. The bucolic midday could be desired and invoked as a utopia of eternal harmony, but it cannot be real in a lyric text. Even when the (young) subject finds himself in the middle of such locus amoenus – as Freud shows in his story – he has to reject the full situational enjoyment and think that behind all that vital splendour there is always the constant menace of time and death. The subject defines himself in the desiring position and he is too attracted and tied to the object to abandon it and turn his mind toward abstraction as a true philosopher would (platonically) do. Finally, the investigation of the topos will lead to a reconsideration of Lacan’s idea of artistic creativity as a sublimation .

Reviewed by: Love Poetry in the Spanish Golden Age: Eros, Eris and Empire by Torres, Isabel Jeremy Paden Torres, Isabel. Love Poetry in the Spanish Golden Age: Eros, Eris and Empire. Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2013. 228pp. Love, competition among poets for fame, temporality and tradition, Classical and Petrarchan intertexts, and the struggle with poetic language for expression: these are the themes that are woven throughout Isabel Torres’s Love Poetry in the Spanish Golden Age: Eros, Eris and Empire. Torres reads love not as a biographical door through which to access the poems, but as “a complex and contestatory signifier” (xii). In this book she proposes to read “Golden Age love poetry as poetry, but produced in response to a very concrete socio-political context – that is, the need to provide a polity in the throes of centralization and imperial expansion with a literary ‘tradition’ as proof of its national make-up” (xi). Which is to say, she reads the poems against the ideological backdrop of traslatio studii as a means of traslatio imperii. And though she is interested in the political and brings it to the fore, she is much more interested in the studii, the learning and erudition of the [End Page 429] poets, and how they transform the Classical and Petrarchan traditions in their own lyric practices. After moving through six chapters, readings dedicated to Garcilaso (two), Herrera (one), Góngora (two), and Quevedo (one), Love Poetry abruptly ends. That is to say, there is no concluding chapter that ties the book together. The choice to dispense with the traditional conclusion is not from a lack of imagination or vision on Torres’s part. Instead, it stems from a commitment to reading, to “lyric poetry, and to poets, individually . . . [and to paying] due regard to ‘the specificity and singularity’ of the textual products of the past” (x). Or as she says a little later on, a traditional conclusion would “[undermine] the book’s commitment to open-endedness, to the premise that poetry thrives on the promise of a reading not yet realised” (xv). Indeed, the strength of Love Poetry is how it weaves together a series of careful readings informed both by the intertextual allusions and references the poet is working with and against and also by the current critical readings of the poets in question. As she explicitly states regarding Garcilaso, her purpose is to “qualify our understanding” (4) of these poets, whether it be Garcilaso’s aesthetic of indirectness, Herrera’s intermediateness, Góngora’s “compulsion to nothingness” (122), or Quevedo’s use of metaphor. Her principal project is to see how the poet struggles with language, the tradition, and the art of expression and figuration to express desire and the self. The Garcilaso chapters deftly move between Garcilaso and his Petrarchan and Classical referents to show how the Spanish poet worked within a poetics of imitatio to carry out a lyric self-fashioning and self-authorization. And, though of the poets in question, he might be the one who seems to most easily believe in the possibility of “infinite renewal” (34), she recognizes in Garcilaso’s poetics a troubling conundrum: how the poet, especially in Eclogue II, realizes that “[i]ndividual and community are interdependent rather than in opposition, yet the success of one is often realised through the sacrifice of the other” (59). Torres does not read Garcilaso according to the harmonizing Neoplatonism that some have seen in him. Instead, she focuses on his ambivalence, eroticism, and his struggle to capture human feeling and reality in language. As such, she notes that Garcilaso’s poetry already contains many of those traits typically associated with the Baroque. Through her careful reading we see how “the vulnerability of the voice, and of the written artefact itself, as it takes shape and is shaped by time are integral to the self-conscious poetics of Garcilaso” (34). Herrera has long been considered simply a transitional figure between the great father of the new Spanish vernacular poetry, Garcilaso, and the rebellious son, Góngora. In Torres’s reading, instead, Herrera is a central and [End Page 430] important figure in Spanish cannon. She begins her revision of Herrera by...

At Dion. 1.13-15, Proteus embodies the close relationship between Nonnus’ poetical project, his stylistic principle of variety (poikilia), and his biographical link with Alexandria.

Partiendo de la premisa que el mundo poético español actual no es un espacio discursivo neutro abierto a toda aproximación textual este estudio traza las estrategias estéticas de dos poetas españoles contemporáneos cuyos nombres similares—Rubén Martín Díaz (1980) y Rubén Martín (1980)—nos obligan a ir más allá de la firma literaria y adentrarnos en las propuestas de escritura que caracterizan su quehacer poético. Aunque la obra de cada poeta establece un diálogo sugerente con muchos de los mismos conceptos—la mirada, el mundo natural, el yo y el lenguaje—su modo de concebir estos conceptos y su interacción compleja es diferente. En el caso de cada poeta se estudian textos ecfrásticos al lado de otros textos que, juntos, ofrecen una visión de la actitud de cada propuesta de escritura hacia el mundo fragmentado en el que vivimos. Esta exploración nos provee una imagen más clara de las posibilidades estéticas de la poesía española actual y su relación con la tradición literaria española. Aunque este trabajo sólo se enfoca en la obra de estos dos poetas también busca situar su obra en el contexto más amplio de la poesía española actual.

Keats is a narrative poet: storytelling is a mode central to the practices and achievements of John Keats. In ＂Sleep and Poetry,＂ he refers to life as ＂The reading of an ever-changing tale＂ (line 91). This line suggests his sense of the centrality of narrative to human experiences. Yet the Keatsian narrative is a medium for Keats to explore the nature and development of his poetic identity. In this context, through the application of the theory of ＂lyric narrative＂- a theory first applied by Keats scholar Judy Little and promoted by narratologist James Phelan: similarities and overlaps found between narrative and lyric poetry, this paper will read ＂Ode to Psyche＂ and ＂Ode to a Nightingale＂ in the light of this theory to discuss Keats's narrative skills in these two lyrics. These two poems are indispensable in examining Keats's poetic identity because each poem presents a different side of Keats. This paper investigates two aspects of ＂Ode to Psyche＂: the figuration of Psyche and Keats as a modern poet. While striving for his poetic identity, the figure of Psyche reflects Keats's anxiety and ambition. Keats's personal and expressive stance shown in celebrating Psyche makes him an unconventional poet. At the same time, he demonstrates his growing consciousness and confidence in his poetic voice as he transforms from a self-doubting poet to one who says, ＂I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired＂ (line 43). In ＂Ode to a Nightingale,＂ the poet- narrator exhibits a differing outlook. Here the narrator's attitude is initially ambivalent while meditating on the nightingale's song. He shifts his stance three times and, at the end of the poem, the narrating poet cannot clearly say whether he prefers the bird's realm to his mundane world or not. Keats's indeterminacy displays an ambivalent poetic identity.

Figurative language is an inseparable element in literary work. It is used in various kind of works, but it is mainly in poetry. The purpose of using figurative language in poetry is to emphasize the meaning that the author tried to express. Other than that, it is also use to beautify the sound of the poetry. Edgar Allan Poe is one of the authors that use various kind of figurative languages in his work. This research mainly focuses on one of his poem, Annabel Lee. The researcher found seven types of figurative languages in the poem as the result of the study. They are ending rhyme, internal rhyme, repetition, hyperbole, metaphor, alliteration, and anaphora.

The focus of this study is the relationship among three different manuscripts (Modena, Bibl. Estense, MS α.R.4.4; Firenze, Bibl. Laurenziana MS Rediano 9; and London, BL, MS Harley, 2253) and the poetry they transmit. The aim of this research is to show the ways that the Bible was used in the transmission of the lyric poetry in the three literatures that they represent: Occitan (primarily through Marcabru’s songs), Italian (through the love poetry of Guittone d’Arezzo), and Middle English (through the Harley love lyrics and the MS.’s primary scribe), in a medieval European context.

Very little that we would regard as lyric poetry has been preserved from the Old English period, though it is inconceivable that songs did not exist. Some of the poetry that comes closest to lyric is found in the group of poems that modern scholars have called the “elegies.” These are fairly short reflective pieces that treat themes of loss, absence, and transience, usually in the male voice and with reference to the communal life of a warrior society. But two of the poems in this group are spoken by women; what these speakers miss is not the comitatus, the band of warriors around a warlord, but the man they love. In these poems, the traditional language of Old English heroic poetry is adapted to a more personal situation. Very likely, too, these two poems, especially Wulf and Eadwacer, are influenced by the language and meter of other, more lyrical, kinds of poetry, now lost. It is not universally accepted that Wulf and Eadwacer and The Wife’s Lament are love poems, although that is the usual interpretation.

O artigo tem por objetivo propor uma leitura interpretativa de A idade do serrote, autobiografia que abarca as memórias da infância e da adolescência de Murilo Mendes, que se fundamente na articulação entre o processo de poetização do texto (tanto no nível formal quanto do conteúdo) e o projeto poético do autor.

Reviewed by: The Melancholy Void: Lyric and Masculinity in the Age of Góngora by Felipe Valencia Andrés Olmedo Orejuela Felipe Valencia, The Melancholy Void: Lyric and Masculinity in the Age of Góngora ( Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021), 335 pp. Lope de Vega (1562–1635), dramatic innovator, prolific poet, author of multiple epics, began a great controversy toward the end of his phenomenally productive career. Criticizing the style of poetry popularized by Luis de Góngora's Soledades (1613–17), Lope ridiculed it in one of the most extended and extraordinary contemplations on poetry in the early modern period. Lope had seen the writing on the wall: soon enough Góngora's imitators were legion, and in his final dramatic work, La Dorotea (1632), Lope himself imitates "the new poetry" in such poems as "A mis soledades voy" and "¡Pobre barquilla mía…!" Contrary to this longstanding crisis in the historiography of Spanish literature, Felipe Valencia's erudite and provocative The Melancholy Void: Lyric and Masculinity in the Age of Góngora tells another story that places Góngora not at the height of stylistic or poetic achievement, but at the crux of a quarrelsome literary competition between prestigious epic and lyric poetry, for which "melancholy is central" (19). Two main observations emerge: first, that the success of epic poetry swayed Spanish writers of lyric in the second half of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, including Alonso de Ercilla, Fernando de Herrera, Miguel de Cervantes, Juan de Arguijo, and Góngora; and second, that theories of melancholy define lyric poetry as masculine by representing erotic love as an illness that exalts the violent and creative capacities of melancholic men who fail to consummate their erotic longings. Valencia's monograph is a first-rate contribution to the study of early modern lyric poetry, especially as it developed in Spain. This study builds upon important works in the field—Leah Middlebrook's Imperial Lyric: New Poetry and New Subjects in Early Modern Spain (2009) and Isabel Torres's Love Poetry in the Spanish Golden Age: Eros, Eris and Empire (2013)—through a novel emphasis on the relationship between epic and lyric, and an examination of the influence of melancholy. Valencia deploys a range of critical approaches, grounding close readings in philology, elucidating cultural developments in medicine, and explicating theories of lyric with clear references to critical theory and historical treatises. The theoretical arguments can be difficult, but specialists and non-specialists alike will discover in this monograph deft discussions of melancholy across historical periods, the development of ancient and modern theories of lyric, and the reception of the classics during the Renaissance. The Melancholy Void consists of an introduction and five chapters. Each chapter is divided into sections that separate its historical, ideological, and theoretical components. The introduction establishes the connection between the arrival of Italianate poetic forms in Spain and accusations of lyric effeminacy. Representations of "the suffering of a beautiful woman"—such as Daphne in Garcilaso de la Vega's sonnet "A Dafne ya los brazos le crecían" (1533) or Dido in his imperial sonnet "Boscán, las armas y el furor de Marte" (1535)—respond to accusations of lyric effeminacy by displaying the creative and violent power of the melancholic and masculine poetic speaker, shifting the focus of the poem [End Page 282] from the experience of the suffering woman to that of the suffering male. Valencia contends that silenced feminine voices, the perspectives of mythical heroes such as Apollo and Orpheus, and the "spoilation of symbolic practices traditionally associated with women and femininity" are masculinist practices through which male artistic prowess is shown (40), transforming women's suffering into great art and tending "to derive aesthetic pleasure from spectacles of female suffering" (14). The masculine speakers of the poems appear as frustrated melancholic lovers. Valencia traces their connection to the gendered theories of melancholy that attribute creativity and violence to frustrated male lovers in works by Marsilio Ficino (1433–99), Alonso de Santa Cruz (d. 1576), Juan Huarte de San Juan (1529–88), and others. Valencia charts the development of this "melancholy and masculinist poetics" (53). Alonso de Ercilla's epic, La Araucana...