Characterization Of Protagonist Research Articles

Did the Ancient Greek Novels Have Characters?

Did the Ancient Greek Novels Have Characters?

Medea’s Fractured Self on the Jacobean Stage: Webster’s Duchess of Malfi as a Case Study in Renaissance Readership

The article presents a literary criticism of the book "The Duchess of Malfi," by John Webster. Topics covered include the focus of the literary work on the problems experienced by married peoples. Also mentioned is the effort of the author to complicate the characterization of protagonists in the story.

Binary Opposition, Chronology of Time and Female Identity in William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily

In any work of imaginative literature, binary oppositions, the specifics of time and the characterization of the protagonist play some role, no matter how small and insignificant. Reading Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” in light of the conflicts of the old and the new, the tradition and the traditionless, the chronology of time and its effect on the reader, and the characterization of the female protagonist was indicative of the influence of cultural elements in analyzing the story. While Faulkner was doubtless a major artist in terms of depicting the life of Southerners of the time and changes in the norms and codes of their lifestyle, the reader and the cautious critic also will have a distinct, and often contradictory, interpretation of a given text from the point of view and theoretical perspective that he/she adopts.

Discourse analysis versus philosophic reading of a literary text: The herne's egg, W.B. Yeats

This study explores a unique poetic narrative from two perspectives: a sociolinguistic point of view within the framework of functional discourse analysis and a literary critique through the prism of Indian philosophic ideas in the text. The research method is based on juxtaposing a social-semiotic interpretation and a literary commentary. Firstly, the article applies the Hallidayan model of the dimensions of discourse – field, tenor and mode – to an excerpt from Yeats's poetic drama, as the context of situation. Secondly, the article identifies specific Indian philosophic concepts in the text and establishes how they influence the structure of dramatic verse and the characterization of protagonists. The discussion reveals the extent of complementarity and tension between the two approaches and how they change the reading of the text when open to disparate disciplinary perspectives. Final results signify the potential and applicability of the analytical categories to research across diverse discourses.

CHAEREAS REVISITED. RHETORICAL CONTROL IN CHARITON'S ‘IDEAL’ NOVEL CALLIRHOE

In ancient novel scholarship, the distinction between the ideal Greek novel and its comic–realistic Latin counterpart has been, and still is, highly influential. It originates with R. Heinze’s thesis that Petronius’ Satyricon develops from a literary genre parodying idealistic features in the Greek novels.1 Despite the contributions of scholars warning against applying this dichotomy too rigidly,2 the distinction remains a commonly accepted tool to classify novelistic literature.3 In this paper I will focus on the characterization of the male protagonist in Chariton’s Callirhoe, the oldest of the so-called ideal novels.4 My reading of this character will suggest that Chariton’s position within the ideal genre should be reassessed, and that consequently the overall distinction between ideal and realistic novels is a generalization that does not take into account the actual complexity of one of the oldest representatives of the genre. The distinction between ideal Greek and realistic Latin novelistic literature is largely informed by the divergent depiction of character in both sub-genres. Whereas the Latin novel adopts realistic and sexually explicit character portrayal, scholars have underlined the idealizing aspects in the characterization of protagonists in the Greek novel. Their beauty invests them with a godlike appearance, and their nobility ( ) generates loftiness of character that sharply distinguishes them from other, less noble, characters in the story.5 Scholars have emphasized the unreal atmosphere surrounding this characterization.6 E. Rohde’s view that the protagonists in the Greek novel are ‘seelenlose Gestalten’ and ‘Gliederpuppen’, invested with a ‘leere und 247

The Legacy of the Bestiaries in Chaucer and Henryson

Abstract The influence of bestiaries on Chaucer and Henryson is not an obvious one. Thus, Chaucer avoids explicit allegorizations and merely hints at the allegorical dimension of his animals. Yet, he makes use of the ready symbolism of (bestiary) animals in his similes and characterizations of protagonists. Henryson, on the other hand, applies the technique of allegorical interpretation of animals - a typical feature of the bestiaries -to the protagonists of his Aesopic and Reynardian fables.