Dramatic Poem Research Articles

Philosophy of Overcoming as a Constant of Creative Thinking of Lesia Ukrainka

The article explores the philosophy of overcoming in the Lesia Ukrainka’s creative work. This constant of the author’s artistic thinking is consistent with the meaning of “existentialist humanism” according to Sartre, who postulates the existence of man in the world, not introversion. The key to understanding the Lesia Ukrainka’s philosophy of overcoming is the poetry “Contra spem spero!” The artistic reception of the author of the myth of Sisyphus agrees with her understanding of Camus, however, unlike the French philosopher, Lesia Ukrainka sees the meaning of life in the movement to goal, creativity. Another cornerstone of Lesia Ukrainka’s philosophy of overcoming is a resistance to national enslavement and spiritual slavery. The writer dedicates a num-ber of dramatic poems on biblical and mythological themes to this topic, in which the existential mode of national enslavement is projected onto the realities of the author’s day. Lesia Ukrainka reflects the overcoming the “existential vacuum” (Frankl) by heroes, their acquisition of harmony with world through death in her dramas “The Noble Woman [boiarynia]”, “The Forest Song [lisova pisnia]”, and “The Blue Rose [blakytna troianda]”. Studying the philosophy of overcoming in the Lesia Ukrainka’s artistic reception ascertains once again that her creative work, philosophic discourse assonant, on one hand, with the Western European thought of the late 19th – early 20th centuries, and, on the other hand, an original phenomenon in the Ukrainian literature of the outlined period due to projection of individual existence of the poetess.

Fiesco's Conspiracy at Genoa by Friedrich Schiller, and: Wallenstein: A Dramatic Poem by Friedrich Schiller, and: Don Carlos: Infante of Spain by Friedrich Schiller, and: Love and Intrigue by Friedrich Schiller, and: Maria Stuart by Friedrich Schiller

Fiesco's Conspiracy at Genoa by Friedrich Schiller, and: Wallenstein: A Dramatic Poem by Friedrich Schiller, and: Don Carlos: Infante of Spain by Friedrich Schiller, and: Love and Intrigue by Friedrich Schiller, and: Maria Stuart by Friedrich Schiller

The specifics of rendering religious vocabulary in Chinese in the translation of Lesya Ukrainka’s poem “Babylonian Captivity”

The dramatic poem “Babylon Captivity” was written on the basis of biblical themes, which were mainly related to the historical vicissitudes of life of the Jewish people. Thus, the drama was saturated with religious vocabulary, as well as many allusions to religion as a cultural phenomenon. In the poem “Babylon Captivity” religious vocabulary is mainly represented by biblical anthroponyms, terms to denote religious phenomena, events and rituals, spiritual concepts, as well as homologous phraseological units. The presence of religious markers in the text gives it a special color that the recipient – the native speaker of the original language – is able not only to feel but also to interpret. In the case of translation, such important layer of vocabulary, even with adequate translation, can be difficult for reception – especially in the case of remotely and ideologically distant cultures, because on the one hand to preserve the tonality of the original, and on the other – to adapt to the recipient’s worldview. It is noteworthy that the primary source for the Chinese translator was the English-language edition “Five Russian plays: with one from Ukrainian” (1916). Thus, the paper first considers and analyzes the process of indirect translation of Lesia Ukrainka’s work. The article pays special attention to the specifics of the Chinese translation of religious vocabulary (biblical, in particular) in Lesia Ukrainka’s poem “Babylon Captivity”, as well as the analysis of religious vocabulary through the prism of culturological comparative studies. Given the specifics of combining translation strategies and transformations, the accent was made on the method of renomination, used by a Chinese translator to replace “foreign” realities of the source text with “own” semantically close (but not identical) ones in the text of translation. Such approach allows not only to reduce information tension, but also to bring the work emotionally closer to the Chinese recipient.

Between Freedom of Spirit and Foundations of Spirituality: Ambivalence of the Image of Artist in the Dramatic Poems by Lesia Ukrainka

Between Freedom of Spirit and Foundations of Spirituality: Ambivalence of the Image of Artist in the Dramatic Poems by Lesia Ukrainka

Psychohistorical Aspects of Image and Symbolic Oppositions in Lesya Ukrainka's Dramatic Poem «Boyarynya»

Psychohistorical Aspects of Image and Symbolic Oppositions in Lesya Ukrainka's Dramatic Poem «Boyarynya»

A Conflict of Substitution of Concepts in the Dramatic Poem "In the Dense Forest" of Lesia Ukrainka (a Projection on Drama of Existentialism)

A Conflict of Substitution of Concepts in the Dramatic Poem "In the Dense Forest" of Lesia Ukrainka (a Projection on Drama of Existentialism)

Imagological Problems in Lesya Ukrainka's Dramatic Poem "Boyarynia"

Imagological Problems in Lesya Ukrainka's Dramatic Poem "Boyarynia"

Some observations on ethnic-ritual elements as a means of national identification of characters in Lesya Ukrainka’s dramatic poem Boyarynya (The Noblewoman)

This article analyzes Lesya Ukrainka’s well-known dramatic poem Boyarynya in an aspect still, unfortunately, little-studied: a comparison of the mental characteristics of Ukrainians and Russians, formed by different conditions of existence and development in the diachrony of the 17th–19th centuries. The purpose of the article: using historical materials, to compare the mental first Ukrainians and Muscovites, to determine the features of interstate relations in the social vertical. First of all, we are talking about the traditions, rituals associated with the awareness of national identity, the importance of the religious component in the national mentality. The political, socio-economic, ideological foundations of the two peoples’ lives are also compared, it is proved that the cardinal difference between them lies in the difference of views on the fundamental foundations of organizing the society, the possibility of self-realization in a society where the individual is respected, on the one hand, and on the other, according to the principle of hierarchization, the absolutization of submission within the social vertical and the submission of all and everything to the supreme power tsarism. This refers to the opposition of democracy and monarchy Lesia Ukrainka vividly embodied in her work. A separate aspect of the study is the information from foreign diplomats and travelers about the state institutions, the life of the Muscovites at the time, which prove the artistic reliability of the Muscovy depicted by the writer in Boyaryna. The artistic techniques and the ways to write out the era in the poem, the images (contrast, speech, nuances of the emotional, color scale) are highlighted in the paper.

The Oral Artist and Oppositional Politics in Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman and Denja Abdullahi’s Mairogo

In the context of modern societies, criticism of political leadership is located within the framework of formalized, democratized organizations, movements, and rights groups. These are modern paradigms within which dissenting factions of society express contradictory perspectives of the policies, actions or inactions of the leadership. This article examines the role of the social critic which oral artists played in traditional African societies in two selected literary works: Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman (1975) (a play) and Denja Abdullahi’s Mairogo (2009) (a dramatic poem). It also investigates how the symbolism-rich oral aesthetics aid the criticism. This essay regards the role of the oral artist in the society as a viable model of opposition which can be synthesized with aspects of the modern model. This would produce an effective medium for the expression of opinions and dissents against constituted authorities in postcolonial African societies. This exploration is crucial as postcolonial African states continue to grapple with the challenges of stabilizing their polity within a western framework which breeds factional rivalries and conflict between competing parties. This article concludes that re-thinking and merging traditional and modern paradigms of opposition discourse is fundamental to postcolonial African states attaining the needed environment crucial to their socio-political and economic development.

Рецепція творчості Лесі Українки в есеїстичному дискурсі Юзефа Лободовського

The article analyzes the literary and critical heritage of the Polish poet, prose writer, translator Jozef Lobodowsky, dedicated to the creative heritage of Lesya Ukrainka. Attention is focused mainly on an essay written back in 1938 to the 25th anniversary of her death. The essay presents the attitude of J. Lobodowsky to the personality of the Ukrainian writer. The Polish researcher examines the artist's work against the background of the era, set new tasks for Ukrainian writers - the withdrawal of literature from the networks of provincialism to the European arena. It was Lesya Ukrainka, according to J. Lobodowsky, who brought Ukraine closer to Europe, including with a whole range of original themes and motives that are rich in her work. The Polish researcher actualizes the main concepts that make up the core of Lesia Ukrainka's artistic world, among which he emphasizes the motive of nostalgia, the motive of national treason. We believe that J. Lobodowsky tends to a national-existential interpretation of the work of the Ukrainian writer. The purpose of research is to analyze the reception of Lesya Ukrainka's creativity in the literary-critical essay of the Polish researcher Jozef Lobodowsky and to define his work in the Lesya Ukrainka's discourse. Results of research. J. Lobodowsky enriched Lesya Ukrainka's discourse with interesting observations based on value paradigms, thanks to which the Ukrainian author managed to create a unique artistic world. The Polish researcher was able to see in the person of Lesya Ukrainka and her work a type of new Ukrainian man, thirsty for freedom, capable of self-sacrifice for the sake of a great idea. It is significant that it was in the artistic visions of the Ukrainian writer J. Lobodowsky that he found those values that were close to him. Lobodowsky's reflections on the artistic world of Lesya Ukrainka are not just an attempt to evaluate her work. Rather, it is an attempt to promote the name of the Ukrainian author and her creative work in Polish society. The significance of J. Lobodowsky's work on Lesya Ukrainka's work lies in the fact that the researcher, unlike Soviet literary critics, was not biased, which allowed him to actualize such problematic nodes of the writer's work that Ukrainian literary-critical thought could not consider under Soviet censorship. Therefore, for a long time Lesya Ukrainka in mainland Soviet Ukraine was a singer of dawn lights, a revolutionary (almost Bolshevik), and her work reached readers in a dosed form, without topics irritating to the vigilant censor. Let us recall at least the banned dramatic poem "Boyarynya", about which J . Lobodovsky wrote in 1938 and which "returned" to the Ukrainian reader in the 90s of the twentieth century after the restoration of Ukrainian independence. As we can see, J. Lobodowsky's national-existential interpretation of Lesya Ukrainka's work prevails. And this is quite natural, because the Polish researcher is close to the Ukrainian problems he was concerned with, trying to intellectually influence the understanding between the two peoples and eliminate the stereotypes about the provinciality of Ukrainian literature that prevailed in Polish society. Of course, one can find common ground in the ideological views of both poets, in the wandering plots inherent in their poetic work, in understanding the importance of translations of works of world literature, which led to the emergence of many interpretations. However, these many kinships highlight the circumstance that unites Lesya Ukrainka and J. Lobodowsky: they contributed to Ukraine's entry into the European cultural paradigm. Ukrainian writer - in the early twentieth century and Polish artist - three decades later, in the prewar decade. Since J. Lobodowsky translated Lesya Ukrainka's poetry, we see the prospect of further research in a detailed analysis of his poetic interpretation of the works of the Ukrainian author.

Problems of theatrical productions of dramatic works by Lesya Ukrainka on the modern Ukrainian stage

The purpose of the article is diagnostics of Lesya Ukrainka’s dramatic works realization prospects in conditions of performing arts visualization as a consistent trend of the national stage development. The study involves analyzing the adequacy of modern means of expressiveness to the peculiarities of the poetess’ dramaturgy. The research methodology is determined by observational, analytical as well as historical, and logical analysis of the realization prospects of Lesya Ukrainka’s dramatic poems on the Ukrainian stage in the context of the exceptional specific weight of a word for understanding the poetic and philosophical content of the poetess’ works. The indicated methodological approach allows analyzing the reasons why some performances already realized are of enormous artistic value (notably, by “Stone Master” (“Kaminny Hospodar”) as well as outlining the prospects of some contemporary theatrical models in this sense. The novelty of the research lies in expanding the conceptions about the relevance of correlation of cardinally “re-equipped” arsenal of the XX1century scenic space multimedia technologies and the system of means of expressiveness of Lesya Ukrainka’s dramas in the context of conveying the content of these works to the audience, as well as in raising the issue of a more careful approach of modern direction to the ways of conveying and revealing the word of the creator relative to the dramatic works of Lesya Ukrainka as an exceptional phenomenon in the world dramaturgy. Conclusion. Lesya Ukrainka’s dramaturgy is in tune with the present time and corresponds to the aesthetic and civil tasks facing our art today. The Ukrainian theater is in urgent need of this dramaturgy. The poetess’s dramaturgy requires a modern but specific philosophic and poetic theater. To make it sound appropriate, it is necessary to be inspired by the Ukrainian art showing piety towards Lesya’s word and having a desire not just to act but to act namely Lesya Ukrainka, and to find the truth about life in her writing. For her plays it is very important to avoid pomposity which is typical of stage directors fascinated by visualization: there should not be any divertissements, any ball scenes except for those which are required by the unraveling of the plot.

Law and religion in “Martian the Lawyer”, the dramatic poem by Lesia Ukrainka

The paper explains the attitudes towards law and religion in Lesia Ukrainka’s dramatic poem “Martian the Lawyer” (1911). The poem depicts the life of early Christians under the Roman law in the third century and obtains new relevance in the context of the movement ‘Law and Literature’, as the focus on law in this oeuvre allows a deeper exploration of its meaning. Law is connected with religion in two ways in the poem: as a part of the civil religion and as a system of prohibitions and punishments within the Christian community. Analysis of the text shows that Martian is a carrier of a sophisticated religious form, which implies the juridical elements codified in early Christianity, as well as a belief in law as the incarnation of the idea of truth and justice. The two antagonistic social and spiritual systems – early Christianity and the Roman law – fuse into one ideology that consumes the life of the protagonist. The difference between the juridical laws, the law of nature, and the commandments of Christian leaders disappears within this religious form. In the house of the hero, only those things that represent time or law remain, such as different types of timepieces and juridical texts; Martian’s home becomes a place for abstract ideas, but not for human beings with their needs and feelings. For the protagonist, there are no conflicts between law and religion, but there is a conflict between early Christianity and the Roman law on the one side and, on the other side, human compassion, which is supposed to be a crucial idea within Christianity but is not practiced in the local Christian community. Because of this conflict, Martian completely loses contact with human feelings and becomes an ideal lawyer, which is beneficial for his Christian community but tragic for himself and his relatives. This development signifies not only a sacrifice but also the full realization of Martian’s talent (Ukrainian: ‘khyst’). In some episodes within other poems by Lesia Ukrainka, law and religion are presented as intertwined or undifferentiated, but in “Martian the Lawyer” the author for the first time elaborates this issue thoroughly and creates an ambivalent and sophisticated dramatic situation.

The ‘One’s own — Alien’ conflict in Lesia Ukrainka’s dramaturgy: ethnic-national and worldview aspects

The paper focuses on the specific features of the ‘One’s own — Alien’ conflict in the dramatic works by Lesia Ukrainka. The majority of her dramas and dramatic poems were written on the basis of foreign cultural phenomena, including the Ancient Greek, Biblical, and other topoi and images. Foreign cultural realities are aimed at the actualization of both the entire context of Ukraine and the writer’s autobiographic discourse in a recipient’s consciousness, forming the imagological paradigms ‘One’s own — Alien,’ ‘Me — Another’. Upon involving the imagological theories, the author of the paper traces the development of dialogue between various cultural realities in Lesia Ukrainka’s dramatic works. This allowed elucidating the peculiarities in the artistic representation of the exotic topoi of different countries as the significant feature of Neoromantic and, in general, Modernist discourses, which were basic for Lesia Ukrainka’s writing. The textual analysis of Lesia Ukrainka’s dramas reveals the specific features of unfolding the ‘One’s own — Alien’ conflict, first of all, on the ethnic-mental level, epitomized in the ‘conquered — conqueror’ collision of the plays “Babylonian Captivity”, “Over the Ruins”, “Orgy” and “Boiarynia”. The other dimension is the worldview and religious level, mostly realized through the collision ‘Antiquity — Christianity’ (“In the Catacombs”, “Rufinus and Priscilla”, “Martian the Lawyer”, and others). It is proved that the ‘One’s own — Alien’ conflict deepens the problems of the works and serves as a way to reveal the essential characteristics of the heroes. The paradigm of the mentioned conflict highlights the borders of the national and personal identities, emphasizes axiological concepts and active ideas, fundamental for Lesia Ukrainka’s dramatic works, such as the tragedy of misunderstanding, the need for constructive dialogue, the necessity of choice, the search for spiritual and national freedom, the meaning of sacrifice, and the role of art.

MAGDALENE, A POEM BY INNOKENTY ANNENSKY: GOSPEL TEXT AT THE CROSSROADS OF LITERARY TRADITIONS

The article offers an interpretation of Innokenty Annensky's poem Magdalene written in 1885, but published only in 1997. This early work of the poet differs significantly from his poetry, known from published collections (Quiet Songs and Cypress Box), which are not characterized by an appeal to biblical images and motifs. In the poem Magdalene Annensky offers his interpretation of the Gospel story, depicting the conflict and struggle between human feelings (Mary Magdalene) and divine vocation (Jesus) in the dialogues between Magdalene and Jesus. Analysis of the structure of the poem allows us to determine the presence of three literary traditions in it: 1) ancient Greek tragedy and the chorus as one of its main actors; 2) a romantic poem about unrequited love (first of all, The Demon by Mikhail Lermontov) and the concept of romantic duality; 3) Faust by Johann Wolfgang Goethe. The combination of antique concepts (fate, destiny, metamorphosis) with the ideas of Christianity, as well as allusions to the works of Russian romantics, allowed the author to combine three aspects in the image of Mary Magdalene: ancient fate (destiny), Christian (Orthodox) holiness and romantic alienation from the world. The combination of these three aspects in the poem by I. Annensky forms a new quality: the romantic poem did not provide for the chorus as a character, and the ancient Greek tragedy did not allow for such lyrical digressions typical for a romantic poem. The Gospel text in the poem by I. Annensky is transformed in line with the three mentioned traditions, and thus the theme “grows” into a dramatic poem.

НЕ ДЕКОДОВАНА ТРАГЕДІЯ НАЦІЇ В ДРАМАТИЧНІЙ ПОЕМІ “КАССАНДРА” ЛЕСІ УКРАЇНКИ

The article highlights Lesya Ukrainka’s authorial interpretation of the ancient Greek plot of the Trojan War through the worldview of the soothsayer Cassandra, which foresaw the tragedy of her hometown, doomed to die by the Achaean invaders. In her dramatic poem, the author did not emphasize battle scenes, but psychological conflicts related to the problem of adequate vision and decoding of reality as it is, and not as it is thought or imagined, so the main character inevitably comes into conflict with others. characters who tend to be manipulated while living in an illusory world, unable to verify the information offered to them by the demagogue and pragmatist Helen, who paralyzes the trust of short-sighted Trojans. Parallels with the Ukrainian reality in which Lesya Ukraine lived and the beginning of the XXI century. – quite obvious. History has taught no one anything. However, the playwright did not fall into didactics and moralization, did not illustrate the past, as contemporaries believed, so she had to explain the essence of the dramatic poem, only showed a script-metaphor not so possible as an inevitable national tragedy, but Ukrainians will trust charming simulacra, not harsh. reality. She proposed a “drama of ideas” inherent in the “new drama”, a tense intellectual agon of the Priam House, developed the plot dynamics on the existential border, which is inherent in her dramatic poems, which failed then and current theaters, because they did not find, mistakenly fitting them into the genre category Lesendrama.

Lesya Ukrainka’s dramatic poem “In the field of blood” as an object of thater interpretation: intermedial analysis

Lesya Ukrainka’s dramatic poem “In the field of blood” as an object of thater interpretation: intermedial analysis

The Bible code in Lesya Ukrainka’s dramatic poem “In the Wilderness”

The Bible code in Lesya Ukrainka’s dramatic poem “In the Wilderness”

Влияние ветхозаветных реминисценций в драматической поэме С.А. Есенина «Пугачёв» на художественно-философскую систему пьесы И.М. Левина «Моисей»

The work examines the plots and images of the Old Testament in the dramatic poem by S.A. Yesenin “Pugachev”. The relevance of the study is determined by the need for both a com-prehensive consideration of possible interpretations of the poem and drawing attention to its crea-tive impact on the literature of the Russian emigration. The aim of the study is to identify in the poem by S.A. Yesenin “Pugachev” of the Old Testament reminiscences and determination of their influence on the religious and philosophical content of the play by I.M. Levin “Moses”. The theo-retical basis of the study is the thesis about the intertextuality of the poem “Pugachev”, put for-ward by N.I. Shubnikova-Guseva. In the course of the study, a comparative analysis of the artistic structures of the poem by S.A. Yesenin “Pugachev” and plays by I.M. Levin “Moses”. Based on the identification of common elements of the compositional organization and poetic language of these works, it is concluded that the play by I.M. Levin is a kind of reception of the biblical reminiscences of “Pugachev” associated with the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. When comparing the text of “Pugachev” with the book of Exodus, the Old Testament subtext is revealed, which became the main unifying factor of the figurative system of the poem. Together with the New Testament motifs of the poem already indicated in Yesenin studies, the Old Testament reminiscences testify to its deep religious and philosophical content.

Do We Need a New Nathan the Wise?

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s “dramatic poem” Nathan the Wise (1779) stood out at the time because it showed a Jew, Nathan, in a good light—a better light than the average Christian. Nathan is presented as a figure of wisdom largely on account of his approach to religious difference, especially among the religions represented by the three main protagonists: the Sultan Saladin (Islam), the Knight Templar (Christianity) and Nathan himself (Judaism). In the context of the conflicts of early modern Europe, his message—on the nature of religious difference and the need for toleration—might well seem to earn him the epithet “wise.” This message, which is also the message of the play as a whole, is reinforced by the fact that it is a Jew who delivers it. But, on closer examination, is he the person that at first sight he appears to be? Furthermore, if he were teleported to the here and now, would his take on difference and toleration have enough heft? The essay interrogates the figure of Nathan and answers both questions in the negative. It argues that we need a new Nathan for our globalised, post-colonial, post-Shoah world: a Nathan who is wise in a different fashion.

Semantic features of anthroponyms in Lina Kostenko’s dramatic poem “Snow in Florence”

Semantic features of anthroponyms in Lina Kostenko’s dramatic poem “Snow in Florence”