Classical Authors Research Articles

The Process of Revisiting the Classics in Matei Vișniec’s Theatre. Or About the Fragility of Seagulls in Canonical Drama

Dramatic rewritings—adaptations, updates, additions and hybridizations of genres—have the role of dynamizing the literary substrate and framework, often configuring a bridge between history events or episodes through which a society passes across eras. Matei Vișniec deconstructs and recomposes Shakespearean or Chekhovian characters, reworks the material of classical authors’ plays in a new form on a seemingly improvised frame, contextualising both hypotext and hypertext. Through these returns, a constant dialogue with memory is operated, with the revitalization and remembrance of important moments in the becoming of a culture, a theatre or an artist. Textual improvisations also show themselves as a way of productive reception. Our analysis1  will focus on texts that go through the process of rewriting the classics of universal literature, from The Chekhov Machinery, to Richard III Will Not Take Place or Scenes from the Life of Meyerhold and Why Hecuba—these are plays that revisit texts and characters, melting them into the mould of the present with tragi-comic, grotesque, derisory accents. In a perspective beyond spatial and temporal landmarks, the playwright creates a palimpsest from fragments about humanity across eras, about the great errors West to East of Europe, and themes that cross literary, theatrical and creative borders.

BETWEEN PRESTIGE AND DEPRAVITY: OBSERVATIONS ON THE EARLY RECEPTION OF DANTE AND BOCCACCHIO IN BULGARIA (1878 – 1918)

The current study focuses on the presence of the Italian classic authors Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio in the period from the National Liberation to the end of World War I. The reception scope after the National Liberation is actually hard to trace and some surprising findings might appear on the horizon, especially regarding the scattered in periodicals texts. The published translated books are not indicative of the reception range during the analyzed period and they constitute only a small part of it. A large number of works by the most popular authors reached the Bulgarian audience through translations published in periodicals, textbooks and anthologies. Moreover, a lot of translated works did not appear in specialized philological publications, but in the literary sections and serials of daily newspapers. As early as the first decade after the Liberation, the classics missing from the Revival catalogue of translated literature started to appear. The Bulgarian reader became acquainted with the sporadic works of authors studied at school like Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Torquato Tasso, Ludovico Ariosto, Carlo Goldoni, Vittorio Alfieri, Giacomo Leopardi and Ugo Foscolo. In the defined period, the classic authors were not among the most influential translated Italian writers for the Bulgarian audience during the epoch. This is evidenced by the limited distribution of Konstantin Velichkov’s translation of Inferno, which managed to attract the interest of only a small circle of intellectuals. A main reception factor is the taste of the reading audience, which predominantly in the postliberation conditions still lacked structured esthetic criteria and preferred more common and comprehensible literature.

Translation and the homosexual canon: Thomas Cannon’s 1749 ‘Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify’d’

Abstract This paper analyses the fragmentary apologia for pederasty by Thomas Cannon. Published in pamphlet form in 1749, it was suppressed and prosecuted, and lost to history until its recent recovery. The recovery of the text is only partial, as it was preserved in quoted excerpts in the wording of the indictment against it. Despite its fragmentary state, it is one of the earliest defences of same-sex love, and classical texts and examples naturally form a major part of its argument. Although Cannon’s treatise is important for the history of sexuality and translation studies, it has received limited attention from classicists, despite containing multiple translations from classical authors, together with Cannon’s editorial comments. This paper explores the contribution of the pamphlet to the history of sexuality, through a focus on Cannon’s translations.

The Structural-Genetic Theory Program as the Fundamental Theory Both of History and of Social Sciences and Humanities

The structural-genetic theory program is an off-spring of Piagetian theory. It has accomplished the task that Piaget had intended to carry out but did not seriously. He wanted to study children to understand better history of mind, science, philosophy, and culture. The new program has shown that world history of culture, society, politics, law, morals, science, philosophy, religion, and arts has gone through the same stages that are known from developmental psychology. Accordingly, psychogenetic advancements have shaped the historical trajectories of these collective systems or societal phenomena. The application of developmental psychology to history sheds also a new light on the rise of modern, industrial society, thus dwarfing competing materialistic, institutional, and economic approaches. It is held that the new program inherits positions provided by Elias, Weber, Wundt, Cassirer, and other classical authors. It cannot only rebuild single humanities and social sciences but can also unify them under one common roof, breaking apart borders previously separating them from each other.1

Третий лишний? Попытки литературной канонизации А.Н. Толстого в 2000–2020-е гг.

In the early 1990s, against the background of the loss of the authority of Soviet culture, the name of Alexey Tolstoy fell out of the core of the national literary canon. There was a consensus regarding the figure of the writer, first of all, as an opportunist who collaborated with the authorities and fulfilled a “social order.” Such assessments often had an emotionally colored character and pushed the discussion about the poetics of Tolstoy’s texts into the background. However, since the beginning of the 2000s, there has been a shift towards a more objective assessment of the writer’s role in the national literary process. Especially the publication of Tolstoy’s biography, written by A.N. Varlamov, has contributed to this course. Since the same period, representatives of various institutes of canonization have actualized the discussion about Tolstoy’s place in the national pantheon of literature. This article examines the mechanisms of the writer’s canonization in the 2000–2020s. The focus of attention, first of all, was on fiction, critical, and media discourses, where there were regular mentions of Tolstoy and references to his literary texts. Despite the intensification of interest in the personality and work of the writer, it is not necessary to assert that his name has entered the core of the national literary canon. It is due to several reasons, in particular, the sharp decline in the authority of Soviet classics after the collapse of the USSR and the absence in modern Russia of systematic attempts by representatives of the major institutions of literary canonization to return Tolstoy’s figure to the national pantheon.

The Nature of War

The traditional definition of war given by classical authors is, that war is a violent conflict between sovereigns. This means that war cannot be outlawed by any higher authority, since the sovereign is the uppermost authority upon the lives of the persons that are subject to them. Only the sovereign has the right and the power to forbid the violent resolution of conflicts among their subjects, and as sovereign they are not subject to any higher worldly power, but only to the power of God. The obligations to God are for the most classical authors not of legal nature but constitute the realm of morality. Thus, the main question for the classical authors on war theory is the clarification of the moral conditions that justify a sovereign to wage war against another sovereign, the so-called theory of just war. Since the classical authors subordinate the concept of war under the concept of justice, the theory of just war includes reflections about the proper means of conducting a war from the point of view of justice. In other words, the theory of just war also formulates criteria for such acts that are considered as war crimes. In this essay I will not challenge the theory of just war itself, but the traditional definition of war in terms of exertion of legitimate violence. My alternative definition will be given in the third section of the essay, and relies on the Platonic concept of peace, and on the Aristotelian concepts of privation and analogy. I think that violence is not a constitutive characteristic of war, but the conceptual, i.e., logical consequence of its definition. In other words, the state of war can be declared and persist without any acts of violence. The use of violence is justified by the manifestation of the state of war.

The structural-genetic theory program as the fundamental theory both of history and of social sciences and humanities

The structural-genetic theory program is an off-spring of Piagetian theory. It has accomplished the task that Piaget had intended to carry out but did not seriously. He wanted to study children to understand better history of mind, science, philosophy, and culture. It is shown that world history of culture, society, politics, law, morals, science, philosophy, religion, and arts has gone through the same stages that are known from developmental psychology. Accordingly, psychogenetic advancements have shaped the historical trajectories of these collective systems or societal phenomena. The application of developmental psychology to history sheds also a new light on the rise of modern, industrial society, thus dwarfing competing materialistic, institutional, and economic approaches. It is held that the new program inherits positions provided by Elias, Weber, Wundt, Cassirer, and other classical authors. It cannot only rebuild single humanities and social sciences but can also unify them under one common roof, breaking apart borders previously separating them from each other.

Owidiusz w "Biesiadzie" Dantego. Kilka uwag o poetyckiej tożsamości Dantego Alighieri

Dante Alighieri was well educated in literature, rhetoric, philosophy and theology. His long reading list could not lack the works of the classical authors, especially the Ovid’s one. The wellknown Florentine demonstrated his extensive knowledge many times in his works, particularly in The Banquet. This work was conceived as his summa philosophiae but from his fifteen planned treatises he wrote only four. Among many works quoted by Dante in his treatises there was also the Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The aim of this paper is the analysis of the quotations and mentions on the Ovid’s poetic work from The Banquet and to define their functions in the Dante’s work.

Materiali per una sociologia dell’amicizia

The excessive individualisation that characterises our age deprives and deforms social relations, and gives rise to painful loneliness and other forms of malaise. The sociological study of friendship, which is unfortunately still underdeveloped, makes it possible to analyse in depth the complexity of contemporary subjectivity and the problems it faces. This essay revisits the contributions of a classical author, Georg Simmel, and two contemporary authors, Birgitta Nedelmann and Francesco Alberoni. The interweaving of their analyses, based on different methodologies, shows how friendship remains a fundamental and indispensable resource for human existence, even in so-called modernity. The analytical elements described here are intended to stimulate further studies towards a more systematic sociology of friendship.

The Enlightened Apology of the Latin Language by Marko Faustin Galjuf from Dubrovnik

In recent Enlightenment studies, a trend can be termed as the “classical turn” because it places a focus on the classical heritage as an integral part of the eighteenth-century culture. Interest in antiquity encompassed Greek and Roman literature, philosophy, and art, and Enlightenment thinkers were particularly fascinated and inspired by the rationalism, humanism, and civic virtues of the ancient world. Archaeological excavations in Italy supported the development of neoclassical style, experiencing a true revival with Rome as its centre. Countless translations of classical authors were in line with “the taste of the time”, and improvisations of poetry from contemporary languages into Latin were especially valued. The Piarist from Dubrovnik, Marko Faustin Galjuf (1765-1834), was one of the most renowned Latin improvisers of his time. He began his teaching career in Rome and later became politically and academically engaged in the pro-French Roman and Ligurian Republics. After the fall of Napoleon’s Empire in 1815, Galjuf fell out of favour due to his past. In 1833, he published an apology for the use of the Latin language titled Essay on the Fortune of the Latin Language (Specimen de fortuna Latinitatis), seeking a way to return to the unforsaken Rome under the rule of Pope Gregory XVI. This paper will explore the Enlightenment socio-cultural context of the creation and arguments of this forgotten but significant piece for the history of cultural patterns of that period. It will be argued that Galjuf’s intention for writing his apology was of an enlightened rather than a conservative nature.

Indonesian Javanese Cosmology and its Transformation in Social Tradition and Built Environment

The research focuses on how the teaching of different faiths was blended into Javanese-Nusantara culture and has created a culture with a peaceful and moderate Islamic image that is different from radical Islam which has generated Is-lamic phobias in many countries. This research examines how Javanese cosmology (syncretism of Hindu - Buddha - Islam) had been translated in social space and built-environment. The second is to describe how the system in Java successfully harmonized different faiths into Javanese culture. This study was a purposeful qualitative study that focused on traditional communities and two prominent existing Kingdoms of Surakarta and Yogyakarta in Java. Observation, in-depth interviews, and reviews on literature and documents of classical authors in Islamic Sufism were conducted to collect and compile data. The results show that the cultural process of Javanese prefers similarities rather than emphasizing differences between faiths. Converting faith from Hindu or Buddha to Islam did not necessarily cause conflicts and hostilities. The study underlined that the Javanese’s understanding of cosmology at the micro and macro level, orientation or qiblah, and spiritual axis found similar mystical knowledge between Islam and the pre-Islam (Hindu-Buddha). This syncretism process created Kejawen culture and moderate Islam in Nusantara. Islam Nusantara is recently used as a paradigm by the largest Islamic organization in Indonesia

From the theory of the firm (1937) to Blue Ocean (2005): the evolution of organizational strategy and the challenges of the digital context

Organizational strategy is very prominent in organizations, and its first studies were carried out at the beginning of the last century. The work was carried out in some contexts, such as firms, the military and governments, but the vast majority was developed from observing companies around the world, which provided the impetus for the construction of theories that are still used today. Over time, several seminal authors have made contributions to the evolution of strategy theory. The aim of this theoretical-conceptual article is to discuss the classic authors whose works on strategy were published between 1937 and 2005. The methodology consisted of documentary reading of the authors' main works and extraction of the main themes covered. The authors were seminal in the evolution of strategy theory, through their contributions and practical applications. This work encourages discussion about the innovative peculiarities of the authors and how they can be seen in a systemic way, as well as enabling these works to be a source of consultation for other researchers and those interested in the proposed theme.

Az anya és a nyelv

Th“e third chapter of Kosztolányi’s volume of short stories is oŸften considered to be a coming of age story, in which the eighteen-year-old protagonist’s train journey symbolizes his transformation from a child into an autonomous and independent subject. My interpretation attempts to undermine this reading through exploring the various roles family relations play in the narrative. Although Esti leaves his biological mother behind in the beginning of his adventure, I argue that his story remains centred around the of image of the mother(s); he is surrounded by mother figures and figurations of maternity. Via presenting the mouth simultaneously as an organ of eating, feeding, speaking, and kissing, Kosztolányi’s writing explores the intimate, corporeal, somatic aspect of language shared by the mother and the child. However, the frequent references to school, classical authors and foreign tongues (Latin, Greek, Italian, French) also display language as an external medium of reading, writing and memorizing. “ese two aspects – in parallel with the biological and metaphorical understandings of motherhood – turn out to be inseparable in Kosztolányi’s work.

“A PICTURE OF MAN” BY A. I. GALICH AND THE PROBLEM OF A “CONTRACTUAL PERSON”

The article discusses the relevance of the creative heritage of A. I. Galich in connection with the crises occurring within the modern scientific community. Using the example of classical authors and modern scientific publications, the author substantiates the need to clarify the essence of man and to build science and education in accordance with the requirements of anthropological meaningfulness, which implies referring to the field of ontology, epistemology and anthropology.

Romantic Poets in Epic Form of Nordic Countries and Estonia’s Classical Dialect Poetry

The recently awakened academic interest in the multilingual character of the written culture of the Baltic region in more distant times calls for fresh attention to and reassessment of the poetry of the ethnic minorities that have inhabited the territory of Estonia. One such minority was the Estonian Swedes who dwelt in western Estonia up to 1944. This paper mainly focuses on the lifecourse, as reflected in his poems, of Estonian Swedish native skald Mats Ekman, who wrote in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since his work and the whole topic of Estonian Swedish culture are largely unknown in Estonia and everywhere else, except for the direct descendants of that minority, the paper offers the necessary background information, while also applying the method of close reading to a few of the author’s poems in the original Swedish dialect and in English. Parallels are drawn with the major classical authors of neighbouring Nordic countries, such as Esaias Tegnér of Sweden and Aleksis Kivi of Finland, authors who can be seen as models not only for Ekman, but also for a number of significant ethnic Estonian poets who wrote in Estonian, such as Juhan Liiv and Ernst Enno.

Management in worker cooperatives: Democracy vs. dissonance, and possible overcoming approaches

Since early 19th century -and practically along with capitalism’s consolidation- cooperativism has been one of the main references in the pursuit of materialization, at the economic-organisational level, of political conquests obtained since the Enlightenment times. In particular, worker cooperatives have evidenced a remarkable resilience in offering a functioning Economic Democracy alternative, based on egalitarian schemes of worker-members’ common ownership. Supposedly, common ownership ensures democratic and participatory management, based on the "one person, one vote" principle. However, implementation of this ideal clashes with a dual and conflicting reality. On one side, the space for governance and strategic delimitation -the general Assembly- assumes democratic and participative dynamics. On the other side, most of the remaining areas of organizational management usually adopt the typical bureaucratic chain of command scheme, as the arrangements in classic authority relations are considered unavoidable elements when it comes to achieving coordination in daily work. Such circumstances lead to the emergence of Cooperative Dissonance, a concept that refers to the dual and contradictory nature of the set of work experiences: from Assembly meetings with democratic equality to everyday work processes with autocracy and inequality in the distribution of decision-making power. Theoretical proposition of this dissonance in worker cooperatives’ management, a review of some of its main manifestations in specialized literature, and an indication of some possible overcoming approaches constitute the main contribution of this article.

Reflection as a Basic Category of a Teacher’s Thinking and Action

Reflection in the work of a teacher is an important issue from the perspectives of linking educational theory and practice, a teacher’s personal and professional development and solving educational problems in multiple contexts. The world besets the modern teacher with new challenges, and (self-)reflection becomes a necessity as well as a difficult intellectual task. This paper focusses on the issue of a teacher’s reflection from the standpoint of linking educational theory and practice and examining the value of their work. Using numerous foreign and Polish publications on the subject, while also referring to classic authors such as Dewey and Schön, the authors analyse the essence of a teacher’s reflection in order to highlight the significance of reflective thinking as a key competence for teachers and educators. In the deliberations in this paper, reflection is the foundation of a teacher’s reflexivity in modern education, and a priority in preparing individuals for the profession. The method of a systematic and critical selected literature review was used. Special attention was paid to reflective thinking as well as the flexibility of educational processes and communicative interaction with educational entities.

Використання прийому «стирання» в молодій американській поезії початку ХХІ ст.: архітектонічно-структурна трансформація сонетного канону

“Erasure” technique has gained particular popularity in young American poetry of the early 21st century. Its use entails partial deletion or discoloration of the earlier text by a famous writer. Only fragments of the precedent text remain, used to subsequently shape a different architectonic and semantic structure. Shakespeare’s sonnets are an attractive object for “erasure”. They are the primary source for “innovations” by the poet and artist Jen Bervin in her book “Nets” (2003), the title of which is “erased” from the very word “sonnets” – “nets”. From partially discolored but readable Shakespeare’s text Bervin handpicks the words, extremely important to generate her new meaning. Architectonically, these words remain in the same places as in Shakespeare’s sonnets. Thus, the canonical sonnet form serves only as a background for laconic modernized expression. By means of “erasure” Bervin bares the Shakespeare’s sonnets’ deep semantic “grid”, actualizing various intertextual nuances. The poetic invariant opens up for new interpretations. Moreover, “erasure” technique has a purely technical component, hence the canonical form of the sonnet is subjected to certain filtering. The author of the new text produces numerous contemporary meanings. Therefore, “erasure” technique becomes an effective means of actualizing precedent texts. Modern reader oftentimes has already lost interest in them, but thanks to the postmodern experiment, expressive and sometimes brilliant new creations appear in the form of text fragments. Gamification, inherent to “erasure”, renews communicative processes, involving the classical author, their text, the experimental author, and their new work, as well as the recipient, also able to find new options for constructing utterances.

Gli studi italiani di lessicografia e la scuola tedesco-danese

AbstractInvestigation about Greek lexicography is very important for the Byzantine culture and for the knowledge of classical authors. The German-Danish school has studied lexicography with a historical view and in particular in the nineteenth century it reconstructed lost lexicons. In contrast, the Italian school had a functionalist and structuralist approach. In recent years, however, scholars have adopted the best aspects of both schools. Indeed, now the method of lexicographic studies is unitary.

The Loneliness of the Untimely Man

Abstract If solitude can be conceived as having a history, Francesco Petrarca can be said to have experienced this state in a way no thinker had done before him. In classical and late antiquity, it was a commonplace that the wise man (and he was always a man) was never less alone than when alone. Because the wise man reads books and perhaps corresponds with other writers of his day, he feels himself to be in the company of those whose works he is studying. In the Renaissance, however, the humanist feels alienated from the time period in which he is living, and he reads to place himself mentally in a time period where he will not feel so alienated. It is in this spirit that Petrarch writes his letters to Cicero and other classical authors, expressing his longing to live in the time of these kindred spirits. For Friedrich Nietzsche, it is precisely because someone like Petrarch felt himself to be so ill at ease in his own era that he was able to transform that era, reviving a culture with which he felt greater affinity. With Nietzsche, the philosopher has become the untimely man, defined by his solitude.