Aristocratic Values Research Articles

How and why to compare incomparables: The Great Gatsby and La Règle du jeu

Abstract Comparing The Great Gatsby with any of its adaptations invariably promotes the novel over its derivatives and is far less fertile than putting it alongside Jean Renoir’s La Règle du jeu. During the interwar period, these incomparable masterpieces exhibit strikingly similar plots to address the moral decline of the upper class. Renoir directly borrowed this template from Musset’s 1833 Les Caprices de Marianne, a hallmark of Romanticism. The competing forces of romantic desire, aristocratic values, and aesthetic modernism make these works comparably difficult to classify. The article introduces Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, which had already been compared to The Great Gatsby and was also filmed at the outset of WWII. Watching Welles’ film beside Renoir’s confirms André Bazin’s view that cinema became modern at just this moment, by taking on a role comparable to that commanded by post-WWI American novels like Fitzgerald’s. And examining Renoir beside Fitzgerald highlights the styles and strategies of both masterpieces as they pursued a large public and an authentic social critique. The article concludes by enumerating reasons and ways to compare ‘original’ works that bear similarities, whether mythic and universal or historical and particular.

The Riddle of the Great-souled eiron. Virtue, Deception and Democracy in the Nicomachean Ethics

Abstract Aristotle’s use of the term ‘eironeia’ in the Nicomachean Ethics (NE) appears to be inconsistent: first, he attributes the attitude termed ‘eironeia’ to the great-souled man (megalopsychos), who is defined by his virtuousness, then he classifies ‘eironeia’ as one of the two vices which are central to his account of the virtue of truthfulness. Modern attempts to explain and to solve the “riddle of the great-souled eiron” have not been satisfying. This paper argues that the riddle results from Aristotle trying to reconcile aristocratic values with democratic reality. In the process, some insight will be gained on the concept of the megalopsychos in general, on Aristotle’s notion of the virtue of truthfulness and on his depiction of Socrates. Finally, it is argued that Aristotle’s use of the notion of ‘eironeia’ in the NE bears some resemblance to the use of the notion of ‘irony’ in modern political theory.

Southern Pride as Reflected in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie

This research is mainly intended to reveal the old southern pride reflected in the characteristics of Amanda, a southern lady. In conducting this research, the writer uses qualitative research, in which the data are collected in the form of words and the writer is the key instrument. The data were taken from the work itself and other relevant books supporting the data. In analyzing the data, the writer uses a mimetic approach, which considers that literary work is a reflection and imitation of aspects of the universe. The result of this research shows that in the southern part of America before the Civil War, there was a custom called "southern gentility." This is one of the aristocratic values that consists of the manner of speech, the way of wearing the clothes, and the manner of treating the caller: the way to welcome and praise the gentleman caller, his wealth, and his beauty. This southern gentility represents old southern pride or honor. These values are reflected in Amanda’s attitude as an old southerner. However, a change in period is followed by a change in values; the aristocratic values mentioned above are no longer all relevant to the new South's way of life because they faded away after the Civil War in 1861-1865. Amanda, as an old southerner, has always held these values; however, realizing that they are no longer applicable in the present, she attempts to adapt the new southern values. Yet, she is too late to adjust because her son, who possesses new southern values, refuses to accept her advice, so he runs away.

Protohistoric metal-urn cremation burials (1400–100 BC): a pan-European phenomenon

Archaeologists have long looked to Homeric epic, which describes the collection of heroes’ ashes in metal vessels for interment, as a comparison to high-status burials found in the Greek world and, beyond, in temperate Europe. Rarely, however, has the phenomenon of aristocratic metal-urn cremation burials across Bronze and Iron Age Europe and the Mediterranean been analysed as a single phenomenon. The author presents a continental-scale study based on a corpus of nearly 600 burials, identifying chronological and geographical patterns. The results emphasise how this elite funerary custom drew on and extended a set of shared aristocratic values and practices across Europe and the Mediterranean in the first millennium BC.

Family, Class, Honor, Manhood: Lieutenant Edmond de Lotbinière Joly in India, Paris, and Crimea, 1850–1857

During the relatively short period when he was a junior officer in the British colonial army, Edmond Joly served in the recently annexed Punjab, at the siege of Sebastopol, and in the effort to rescue his regiment in Lucknow where he was mortally wounded at the age of twenty-four. Earlier that same year, the young Canadian had spent four months in Paris immersed in the social whirl of the aristocratic elite. Beyond describing those eventful years in intimate detail, Joly’s hitherto-unexamined personal letters, memoir, and journal reveal that his chief motivation in becoming a soldier and repeatedly risking his life after a rebellious youth was to gain the respect of his demanding father. The themes of emerging manhood and family honor are therefore central to this article, which also provides an intimate example of the clash between traditional aristocratic values and those of the rising middle class in the modernizing Victorian era.

Professional football training for Israeli children since the 2000s

ABSTRACT This article offers a comparison between management systems of children and youth football departments in England and in Israel. Following a series of football disasters, the British authorities were able to reposition football as a game based on aristocratic values like integrity and delicacy and create a well-organised management system. Israeli football, which is particularly inspired by English and European football, struggles to develop similar mechanisms due to a constant state of scarcity. A new programme in Israel, the Shield of Honour, offers a new model that facilitates and motivates football managers and coaches in youth and children departments to adopt more European-like management practices.

Reputation as a common source of cooperation and violent conflict: The case of the noble feud in early modern Germany

Feuding was a near-universal phenomenon, and a classic topic of anthropology and sociology. This article focuses on feuding among nobles in early modern Germany. The German noble feud assumed characteristics that differentiated it from vendetta. It developed into a distinct institution in terms of its legal status, methods and social conditions. It presents a puzzle: most feuds punctuated ongoing relationships between people who were closely related and socially and economically interdependent. Nobles tended to feud against the very people from whose goodwill they had much to gain and from whose enmity much to lose. Examining it from an evolutionary perspective suggests an answer to a problem that traditional historical approaches have not convincingly explained. The article argues that the same dense web of ties that facilitated cooperation between nobles generated violent conflicts between them. Reputation played a crucial role in this environment. Feuds are best seen as mechanisms of costly signaling one's underlying qualities and commitment to aristocratic values.

Fukujamino tumačenje Tokvilovog učenja o naravi aristokratije i demokratije - anticipacija Ničea

In this paper, the author chose Fukuyama's interpretation of Tocqueville's teaching on the nature of aristocracy and democracy as the subject of his research. He took particular note of Fukuyama's observation that Tocqueville, in his thoughts on advantages and shortages of American society, anticipated Nietzsche's teachings on aristocratic morality, wondering about what was lost after the change of government and whether the spirit of time changed. The unequivocal answer of the French historian and politologist was that the former aristocratic values had been lost. There is no more daintiness in behavior or nobility in social relations, nor are there independence and distrustfulness, which Nietzsche desperately needed to shadow the ideal of the overman. Instead of a complete man we meet a partial man, an individual hiding in a community of equal citizens who can save their freedom only by moving and working in a group, masquerading as members of an increasing number of associations that take on the power and responsibility for the individual's existence. Tocqueville finds that in the American civic society the relation of trust - mistrust has turned into the relation of debtor - creditor. He examines in which of all the institutions of American democratic society, which did not originate from the revolution, he could perceive a loss of aristocratic values and examines paradoxical situations where from recently matured democracies a new aristocracy emerges.

“Do You Wish Her to Marry?” Brazilian Women and Professional Diplomacy, 1918–1938

ABSTRACTIn 1918, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs [Itamaraty] hired its first female employee. The organisation would henceforth confront the discussion of the role women in diplomacy. Traditional European aristocratic values had heretofore shaped the Brazilian diplomatic profession, and they relegated women to the role of supporting wives. Countering the status quo, those interested in opening diplomatic positions for women argued that the gendered nature of diplomacy was, in fact, feminine and used the rhetorical strength of traditional values to reframe the career. The transition of the masculinity model associated with the “new” diplomacy and the transnational constitution of the acceptability of female diplomats, however, precluded female activists from strategically using discriminatory gender stereotypes to succeed. Only in 1954, Itamaraty opened careers permanently to women.

Social flux in the Knight’s Tale: Chaucer’s fourteenth-century reworking of a romance

While medieval romance tales often provide an uncomplicated endorsement of the nobility and of aristocratic values, this article analyses how the way in which the romance genre functions in the Knight’s Tale suggests an awareness of the threat posed to the chivalric worldview by socio-economic changes in Chaucer’s society. The article argues that Chaucer employs some significant deviations from traditional romance conventions, and makes key adaptations to his tale from its main source, Boccaccio’s Teseida, in order to engage with a tension between a traditional communal feudal ideology and a newer more individualist and commercial outlook present in Chaucer’s society.

General

General Christopher T. Begg, Bradley C. Gregory, Alan J. Moss, CFC, Frederick E. Greenspahn, William J. Urbrock, Thomas Hieke, and Jaime A. Banister 1296. Nissim Amzallag, "The Serpent as a Symbol of Primeval Yahwism," Sem 58 (2016) 207-36. Beyond its pejorative connotations, the serpent in the Bible is portrayed as the guardian of the sacred domain and its various extensions: the sanctuary, the sources of water, the riches beneath the earth, and the land of Israel. Moreover, the reference to Moses' staff as caduceus alludes to the serpent's involvement in the exercise of divine power. Rather than reflecting a Canaanite influence on Yahwism, the common link of Yhwh and the serpent to the metallurgy traditionally practiced in the south of Canaan is indicative of the essential connection between them. In this regard, then, there is a link between a primordial, Canaanite form of Yahwism and its Israelite extension. Against this background, the removal of the bronze serpent (Nehustan) from the Jerusalem Temple (2 Kgs 18:4) reflects a reform, initiated by King Hezekiah, of Yahwism in its primordial form which led to the rejection of one of its most essential symbols. [Translated from published abstract—C.T.B.] 1297. Idan Breier, "'Who Is This Dog?' The Negative Image of Canines in the Lands of the Bible," ANES 54 (2017) 47-62. This article addresses the special relationship between humans and dogs in the lands of the Bible. While the canine has indeed been "man's best friend" since time immemorial, the dog's negative features also became the source of stock images symbolizing a person of inferior status. This state of affairs is reflected in Sumerian proverbs from the 3rd millennium b.c.e., Mesopotamian mythology, the El-Amarna letters, and biblical literature. Associated as they were with perverted sexual activity, dogs were kept away from temples. Both "dead" and "alive," they came to represent the miserable, pathetic person. [Adapted from author's conclusion, p. 55—C.T.B.] 1298. [Genesis 22; Judges 11, etc.] Evangeli G. Dafni, "Isaak, die Tochter Jephthas und Iphigenie, Menschenopfer im Alten Testament und im Alten Griechenland: Kulturkritische Beobachtungen unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Septuaginta," Septuagint, Sages, and Scripture, 1-30 [see #2008]. The narratives of Abraham's offering of Isaac in Genesis 22, the sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter in Judges 11, and Euripides' tragedy Iphigenie in Aulis reflect an abiding concern with human sacrifice in times of extreme emergency in both ancient Israel and Greece. These three stories show similarities of narrative structure, motifs, and even language, which suggests that during the time of the Hebrew Bible's formation and translation in the LXX there was a mutual interaction between Hebrew and Greek culture that was more extensive than evidenced in the texts which have survived.—B.C.G. 1299. Vittoria Dall'Arellina, "Power of Symbol or Symbols of Power? The 'Long Sword' in the Near East and the Aegean in the Second Millennium BC," ANES 54 (2017) 143-82. A new type of weapon, which would become one of the symbols of an emerging military aristocracy, appears in the cultural landscape of the Near East and the Eastern [End Page 437] Mediterranean of the 2nd millennium b.c. The item in question is the so-called long sword, an object with strong symbolic value that would accompany a warrior even after death; in fact, it is often found as part of the funerary equipment in sumptuous elite tombs from the Southern Caucasus to Greece. Basing herself on a corpus of about 200 swords, originating from the Southern Caucasus, Anatolia, the Levant, and Aegean, the descriptions of which have previously been dispersed in a large number of publications, D'A. presents here various considerations regarding the origins, development, and diffusion of the weapon in question. Furthermore, a study of the context of discovery of the items, as well as the iconographic and—where available—the written sources concerning them allows her to advance some new hypotheses about the symbolic values of the "long sword" and the aristocratic values which it embodied. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 1300. Yitzhaq F...

Euripides and the Politics of Form. By Victoria Wohl. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2015. Pp. [xvi] + 200.

<i>Euripides and the Politics of Form</i>. By Victoria Wohl. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2015. Pp. [xvi] + 200.

"Yo paresciera cobdicioso mercader": Aristocratic Economics in El Abencerraje

Set during the fifteenth-century Christian Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the Moorish novel El Abencerraje articulates a meticulously stratified system of contractual exchanges in which the aristocracy's symbolic economy of honor functions in counterpoint to the warrior economy of kidnapping and ransom, the erotic economy of love, and the mercantile economy of the commercial class. These economic divisions transect both Christian and Muslim spaces, transcending ethnic and religious distinctions and reinforcing a shared aristocratic identity that supplants financial greed and violence along a military border. While this hierarchy of value exists in all three surviving iterations of El Abencerraje , it is particularly developed in the version of the text included in Antonio de Villegas's Inventario , a miscellany published in Medina del Campo in 1565. Medina del Campo was then the site of the most important merchant fair in Castile and the hub of financial activity in the Peninsula, at a time when increasingly globalized commercial and currency exchange markets provided unprecedented opportunities of enrichment to those merchants in a position to profitably exploit them. This economic context, therefore, may have been determinative of some of the distinctive aspects of the Inventario version of the text, which contrasts the financial disinterestedness of its noble Christian protagonist, Rodrigo de Narvaez, with the figure of the greedy merchant. The Inventario variant of El Abencerraje is therefore less a plea for interfaith tolerance than a didactic instrument for inculcating aristocratic values within a socially mobile merchant class with pretensions to nobility.

A Bakhtinian Reading of William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury

This paper tries to analyze the language and the dialogue between characters in William Faulkner’s The Sound and The Fury and its conflict with the reality of the author. The tradition of the Compson family implies duality in this novel. Except Dilsey, the corrupted aristocratic values in the Compson family reflect the author’s “dramatization of what he understood as a reality” (1). Faulkner is aware of the corrupted traditions that the family adopt, yet this awareness failed to convey his real narrative voice. This contradiction identifies “the conflict between the autonomy of the artist and his immersion in the history” (1). This conflict is revealed in Faulkner’s characters in their struggle between order and chaos, and resurrection and renewal. Each one of this family defines the chaos in different way. For instance, Quentin relies on his old tradition to provide order; Jason attempts to use the old tradition for his personal gain; Benjy also attempts to rely on his old traditions, but he becomes upset when he fails in providing this order. The only person who represents the real aim of the author is Dilsey. Dilsey wants to renew the old values by relying on love, faith, and hard work. Yet, Faulkner does not focus on specific perspective. He uses different perspectives and narratives and that creates difficulty in conveying Faulkner’s real voice. The Sound and The Fury may be represented as an important novel in exploring the old Christian traditions and the aristocratic values, the modern society that adopt these values, and the real aim of the author in leaving these values and renew them. The result as Bakhtin argues that basic reality of this conflict could be found in the author’s character rather than the speech and the discourse of the other character. Keywords: William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury, Polyglossia, Heteroglossia, Chronotope, Mikhail Mickheilovich Bakhtin

O monasticismo de Martinho de Tours e as aristocracias na Gália do século IV

RESUMO Sulpício Severo afirma, na sua Vida de Martinho (10.8), que muitos nobres residiam em Marmoutier, o monastério fundado pelo protagonista a pouco mais de 3 quilômetros de Tours. Desde o aparecimento dos comentários de Jacques Fontaine à Vida, na década de 1960, os estudiosos têm se apoiado na afirmação de Sulpício para interpretar questões fundamentais do monasticismo martiniano. Eles supõem que a prática do trabalho manual em Marmoutier fosse determinada por valores aristocráticos e que a manutenção material do monastério dependesse dos recursos dos seus membros mais ricos. O objetivo deste artigo é examinar a confiabilidade da afirmação de Sulpício. Argumento que não há indícios claros que a corroboram e que ela, portanto, deve ser considerada com muita cautela.

Trade and Romance by Michael Murrin (review)

michael murrin, Trade and Romance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. Pp. x, 327. isbn: 978-0-226-07157-2. $45.Michael Murrin's ambitious longue duree study of the romance genre distinguishes itself through an interest in historical geography. Murrin combines literary criticism with a discussion of the spatial configuration of urban environments and physical conditions of travel routes, and he reveals how realities of travel provided the content out of which Western romance fiction emerged. As this book moves across time and space, it reveals a symbiotic relationship between the lived conditions of travel and acts of literary representation (Marco Polo through Milton).This book offers fascinating details in prose accessible to non-academic readers. Broadly tracing the West's fascination with Central and East Asia, the book adopts an innovative structure. Three sections move chronologically through time, each section taking a different culture as its orientation device: first the Mongols, next the Portuguese, and then the English. Throughout these sections, the study pursues intertwining aims. First, it describes the role of 'Farther Asia' in influencing new modes of 'heroic literature' in Western Europe (1). Second, it traces the ever-increasing interest by 'the mercantile class' in aristocratic romance (1). Third, it shows how geography shaped shifting perceptions of the East in romance literature.Murrin's broad arguments about the romance genre's shift from narrow aristocratic values to an increased accommodation of a mercantile ethos are well established (indeed, Murrin's extensive bibliography suggests many others have made similar arguments), but the scope of geographical settings under discussion sets this study apart from others. Part 1 traces the role of Mongol khanates in establishing connectivity across the Eurasian continent from the mid-thirteenth through latefifteenth centuries. The chapters discuss Marco Polo's travels through the lands of Khubilai Khan; narratives about 'Assassins' or Nizari Isma'ilis in Iran; Marco Polo's legacy in Geoffrey Chaucer's Squire's Tale; and the Italian poet Boiardo's treatment of mercantilism and invention of a 'Renaissance version of heroic romance' (2). Part 2 focuses on Portuguese travels throughout Africa, India, China, and Japan. These chapters discuss texts by Portuguese writers who drew from their own knowledge of Vasco da Gama's first voyage. Part 3 turns to texts by early modern English writers. Chapters address the 'double audience' (aristocratic and mercantile) of Spenser's Faerie Queene; representations of Central Asian environments in Marlowe's Tamburlaine; and Milton's Moscovia, a poem that Murrin examines in the context of the Muscovy Company's endeavors in Siberia. …

The Refinement as the Moral Precondition for the Man’s Intellectual Creative Activity (the Historical Aspect)

The paper is devoted to the ethical and cultural facilitation of intellectual creative activities. The methodology basis of the research compiles the differentiated analy- sis of Russian moral culture and axiological analysis of its educational potential. The authors describe the specifics of the system of aristocratic moral qualities and refinement; their main characteristics being observed. The novelty of the approach involves the understanding of the aristocratic moral values as a necessary condition for the productive intellectual and creative activity. The authors investigate the historic origin of the aristocratic moral values, and define the functions and specifics of the Russian type of aristocratic culture; the objective and subjective conditions of its for- mation are highlighted, as well as the integrity of the refinement inherent in people en- gaged in intellectual and creative activities. The authors believe that revival of the refinement, as one of the aspects of the Russian moral culture, depends on both the development of our own nation and the the world society as a whole. Nowadays, when the postindustrial society is giving way to the informational one, the production of information takes the leading part in social life. The information and knowledge, being its unified products, provide new ways for evolving of the phenomenon of refinement. Its pedagogic potential should be imple- mented in the process of education and upbringing.

How to Create the Ideal Son: The unhidden curriculum in pseudo-Plutarch On the Training of Children

This article enquires into the curriculum advocated in the only ancient Greek treatise concerning education that has survived in its entirety, entitled On the Training of Children. The treatise was highly influential in Europe from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, and thus exhibits certain assumptions concerning the purpose of curriculum that lie behind the development of western education and may still be influential today. The inquiry is conducted in three stages: the intended recipients of the curriculum are identified; its elements are enumerated and evaluated; and its aims are inferred from the text. I conclude that the curriculum was intended for wealthy, privileged boys, that philosophy (though not independent theorising) was the most valued subject of study and that the aim of the curriculum was to instil in the recipients aristocratic values and modes of behaviour. Finally, some topics are suggested for reflection, in response to these conclusions, upon existing curricula.

Does Phallic Masculinity Still Matter?: Masculinities in Indonesian Teenlit during the Post-Reformasi Period (1998–2007)

This paper examines the representation of masculinities in commercial or popular Indonesian literature for young people published during the Post- Reformasi period. Within the climate of more open socio-political atmosphere of the period, the teenage literature shows more involvement of young female writers. While the representation of female protagonists indicates more progressive gender roles, the portrayal of male protagonists in teenlit written by female writers reflect more conservative gender perspective. on the other hand, ways of being male in the form of literature written by male authors indicate the stream of masculinity derived from the Javanese aristocratic values ( priyayi). This variant of masculinity, which was promoted actively in the previous regime (the New order regime), shows signs of restraint.

Aleae aut tesserae ? Les significations d’une opposition ludique dans la Rome d’Ammien Marcellin

Many ancient writers have left testimonies about the social significance of Roman leisure. Rather than trying to draw an artificial presentation of the tabula lusoria of Late Antiquity, this paper considers the meaning of an Ammianus Marcellinus’ description of the Roman attraction for the alea. The focus here is on the board games played at Rome at the end of Late Antiquity in order to better understand the text. A first step is to analyze relations between urban society, aristocratic values and gaming practice. A second step consists in clarifying the gaming vocabulary of alea and more precisely the use of the word tessera. The guiding hypothesis is that tessera does not mean just “dice” but also “pawn”, and more generally the instrumentum of the gaming board. As a result, I suggest that Ammianus was not just a malicious observer but a very fine satirist who turned the aristocratic discourse against the nobilitas of Rome.