Early Writings Research Articles

Henry James and the Quest for the Holy Grail: Victorian Medievalism and Modern Criticism

This article offers two case studies. The first examines James’s encounters with medieval buildings in his early travel writings. The second takes as its starting point James’s involvement in The Quest of the Holy Grail, a text which accompanied an 1895 exhibition of paintings by Edwin Austin Abbey. While James’s knowledge of medieval architectural forms seems both confident and coherent, his awareness of medieval literary forms seems more tentative and even sketchy. Reasons for this disparity are considered, but medieval romance motifs are nevertheless found to inform James’s conception of criticism from the outset of his career.

Poetic Metaphor and Multi-Signification: A Rereading of Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease

ABSTRACT: This article explores the poetic metaphors and multi-signification in Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease . The novel itself has been the focus of several readings, many of which pursue the humanistic and sociological orientations of the text as merely an instrument of communication about the post-independence sociopolitical and cultural realities of Achebe’s society. This manner of reading may be attributed to the birth of African literature and Afrocentrism, which many of the earlier writers, including Achebe, believe was a reaction to the poor Euro-American portrayal of Africa and Africans. But it forecloses the possibility of a grounded analytical methodology capable of opening up multiple possibilities of meanings in the text through the linguistic elements of literature. Relying on Paul Ricoeur’s depth semantic theory, this article explores the poetic metaphors of the text to unveil the multilayered meanings.

The Philosophy of Envy

<i>The Philosophy of Envy</i>

The Romanitas of Macrobius’ banquets

Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, in his Saturnalia, draws upon the Platonic archetype in making overt allusions to the Symposium and yet follows Athenaeus, whose work he seems to know thoroughly, albeit does not acknowledge its influence openly. Besides the Greek paradigms, Macrobius used Roman models, i. e., Cicero’s dialogues, to infuse his literary banquet with Roman flavour. The author of Saturnalia was severely criticised, especially by representatives of the Quellenforschung movement in the second half of the 19th century, for allegedly being a poor plagiarist. His compilatory method is described in this article, and two other plausible Macrobius’ sources are proposed: Juvenal’s Satires and Seneca the Younger’s On Tranquility of the Mind. In Roman History Ammianus Marcellinus depicted the people inhabiting Rome of his times as degenerate parasites hostile to any form of intellectual activity who fritter away time on vulgar entertainment and obsessively overfeed themselves. Many scenes of so-called sober merriment shared by the prominent Roman personages of the IV c. AD were, in all probability, introduced to Saturnalia to counterbalance Ammianus Marcellinus’ harsh criticism of Roman morals. Macrobius’s familiarity with both Juvenal and Seneca manifests itself in the list of similes, yet, as the author of the present article proposes, there are passages in the oeuvre of both writers that may have instilled the vision of frugality typical of Romans in Macrobius’s mind, so that he may have used images borrowed from both earlier writers to Saturnalia.

Poetic Metaphor and Multi-Signification: A Rereading of Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease

ABSTRACT: This article explores the poetic metaphors and multi-signification in Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease . The novel itself has been the focus of several readings, many of which pursue the humanistic and sociological orientations of the text as merely an instrument of communication about the post-independence sociopolitical and cultural realities of Achebe’s society. This manner of reading may be attributed to the birth of African literature and Afrocentrism, which many of the earlier writers, including Achebe, believe was a reaction to the poor Euro-American portrayal of Africa and Africans. But it forecloses the possibility of a grounded analytical methodology capable of opening up multiple possibilities of meanings in the text through the linguistic elements of literature. Relying on Paul Ricoeur’s depth semantic theory, this article explores the poetic metaphors of the text to unveil the multilayered meanings.

How Jewish Orthodoxy Became a State: Isaac Breuer and the Invention of the Statist Theocracy

AbstractThis article traces the incorporation of the modern state and the notion of sovereignty into Jewish Orthodox thought, culminating in the idea that the role of Orthodoxy is to establish a statist theocracy. Unlike narratives that emphasize the continuation of theocratic thought from ancient to modern Judaism on the one hand, and the relationship between religious Zionism and contemporary forms of Jewish theocracy on the other, my research reveals a fundamentally anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox layer in the doctrine of statist theocracy, through a novel reading of the early writings of one of the leaders of Agudath Israel, Isaac Breuer (1883–1946). During the 1920s, Breuer coined terms such as Gottesstaat and Torastaat, which informed broader theocratic discussions into the 1930s. The article examines the intellectual history of this discourse and the grammar of this doctrine, identifying in it ultra-Orthodox reasoning such as an aversion to secularism and modern nationalism, resistance to a redemptive, kookian philosophy of history, and adherence to the “Rule of Torah.”

Kant on the use of poetry for moral culture

While in his early writings Kant offers positive evaluations of fine arts as a suitable means of moral culture, in his texts on critical moral philosophy he considers poetry an obstruction in the formation of moral character. However, in the third Critique and in the Anthropology Kant also speaks of the fine arts as having a special, vivifying, and “strengthening” effect on the human mind, which may be of some relevance to moral education. Kant’s observation here, which gives the impression of an inconsistent (or at least immature) position, demands some scrutiny in order to find an initial, preliminary answer to the question of whether (and to what extent) poetry contributes to moral culture. First, I identify Kant’s comments on poetry and, second, I present his conception of moral culture. This allows me then in the third part to consider the question of the contribution of poetry to moral culture. It becomes clear that poetry may be attributed a useful function within the framework of the Kantian conception regarding almost all aspects of moral culture. In each case, Kant presents a sophisticated position which, although it gives poetry the character of a suitable means of moral culture, is sensitive to potential risks and exaggerated expectations.

Перекодировка, переакцентуация, творческое усвоение (Топос незавершенности открытий предшественников в творчестве русских модернистов)

The article focuses on cultural transfer — i. e. the process of “reformatting,” which ideas, texts and authors inevitably undergo while getting into a foreign context. Based on the analysis of Russian modernist literature, which intensively assimilated the ideas of Western literature, the article shows how major cultural phenomena became a “productive basis” both for literary achievements of equal merit and for “popular,” imitative ones. The paper draws particular attention to the fact that even early writings of some of Western European authors gained more popularity in Russia than in their home countries. However, due to the intensity of literary and social life in Russia in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the readers’ receptivity to literary novelties also enhanced. Russian modernists turned to their European “teachers” in order to resolve new issues, but at the same time they reinterpreted them. The formation of Russian modernist aesthetics went hand in hand with a revision of aesthetic and ideological principles of European authors, and discussions about the ways of further development of Russian literature and the role, which the “transplantation” of the latest achievements of Western culture played in it, generated the basis for the first manifestations of the Russian version of modernist aesthetics.

Kant and the Divine: From Contemplation to Moral Law by Christopher J. Insole

Reviewed by: Kant and the Divine: From Contemplation to Moral Law by Christopher J. Insole Chris L. Firestone Christopher J. Insole. Kant and the Divine: From Contemplation to Moral Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. v + 409. Hardback, $110.00. The extent to which the philosophy of Immanuel Kant converges with or diverges from Christian thought has been a hotly debated topic in recent years. Central to that debate has been the resurgence of interest in Kant's classic Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (henceforth, Religion). The most insightful interpretations and applications of Religion, it seems, have utilized resources from a broad range of Kant's writings, emphasizing his philosophy considered as an integrated whole. Christopher Insole's recent monograph—Kant and the Divine: From Contemplation to Moral Law—attempts to redirect this debate with an argument spanning Kant's precritical and critical periods in performing a deep dive on the topic of freedom. On the face of it, the argument is not purely theological or even religious. It revolves, instead, around a metaphysical analysis of freedom, both as exemplified in Kant's writings and relative to his historical predecessors. Key to Insole's proposal is that Kant's critical notion of freedom evolves into something very different than that of his predecessors (on which his early writings depend) and, in its development, decisively "ruptures" with the Christian tradition. Human freedom, on Insole's analysis of Kant, must be "end-setting" and not constrained or directed by any type of external compulsion. This suggests that God cannot be understood to influence freedom causally, or at least not without human conscious and free consent. Numerous writers have thought they spied Christian connections in Kant's notion of freedom, such as the need for divine forgiveness, and even grace, to avoid the absurdum practicum. Insole resists all such attempts as being foreign to the novelty of the mature Kant's reflections on freedom. No external force can be brought to bear as a determining causal influence on human freedom, presumably because an end set before us from outside undermines our ability to set an end for ourselves. God is at best the "all-knowing distributor of happiness" (321) that makes end-setting and the kingdom of ends worthwhile moral pursuits. Insole's express intention is to "show the significance of Kant's denial that God can be our final cause" and that "his philosophical religiosity, understood on its own terms, and as expressed across his whole oeuvre" shows that "Kant cannot easily be called a Christian thinker" at all (2–4). Extricating Kant from Christianity proves to be a monumental task. Insole uses eighteen chapters and more than four hundred pages to make his case. The argument distinguishes itself from other such attempts in its rigorous analytic approach to unpacking the metaphysical underpinnings of issues supposedly at the root of Kant's philosophical theology. The book presents a cumulative case argument for Kant's supposed break with "the Christian theological tradition as he would have received it" (13). Much rests on whether or not this argument is cogent. Kant, according to Insole, is something akin to a theological Platonist and moral Stoic, who attempts to establish a unique form of "philosophical religiosity" (3 and 156). This makes Kant similar to the likes of Augustine and Ambrose, but different in terms of his theological aspirations. Insole casts Kant not as a pure philosopher seeking to understand philosophy relative to the Christian tradition, but rather as a philosophical [End Page 164] theologian bent on showing human freedom, free end-setting, and an ethical community of end-setters to be the exclusive means for attaining the highest good. Although this may sound Pelagian, Insole insists it is not, because "the Pelagian could still regard God as our final cause and efficient cause" (299). In other words, in Insole's interpretation, Kant is a strict philosophical humanist or what theologians might term a hyper-Pelagian. The difficult details of Insole's arguments are important to consider but not easily dealt with in the space provided here. Early in the book, Insole takes his reader on a metaphysical tour of "Divine Ideas" and "God...

On the order of writing of Wonhyo’s writings

This study aims to formulate a hypothesis about the order of publication of Wonhyo’s writings. I chose the method of using the title and the increase in the number of aspect’s in the first part of Wonhyo’s works. In China, we could see the process of changing the title according to the increase of the number of aspect in some books of Huiyuan or Fazang, and this means the development of the work. Therefore, it proves that the more number of aspect, the more late writings. The purpose of this article is to apply this idea to Wonhyo’s books. This would be meaningful because there has been no such research method so far even if this method finally failed.BR Wonhyo’s writings could be classified in to five groups, A to E, in terms of the form of description. Group A (three types) is presumed to be the early writings, but some documents are not well organized in form and others are doubtful whether Wonhyo authored them. Group B (seven types) includes works in which Wonhyo’s characteristic narrative form is noticeable. Group C (three types) is prefaces contained in the Dongmunseon 東文選. Group D (two types) is not commentary although they are complete works, so a different method is needed. This is why they are excluded from the subject of this study. Group E (seven types) is not commentary and only remain fragments, so it is impossible to analyze by this method. Therefore, this is not included in the subject as well.BR As a result of this research, the production order of Wonhyo’s writings is as follow: Commentary on the Chapter of the Bodhisattva Precepts in the Brahmā’s Net Sūtra 梵網經菩薩戒本私記 → Expository Notes on the Awakening of Faith 大乘起信論別記 → Preface of the Commentary on the Saṃ dhinirmocana Sūtra 解深密經疏序 → Commentary on the Amitâbha Sūtra 阿彌陀經疏 → Commentary on the Sūtra of Immeasurable Life 無量壽經疏 → Commentary on the Awakening of Faith 起信論疏 → Exposition of the Vajrasamādhi Sūtra ⾦剛三昧經論 → Doctrinal Essentials of the Lotus Sūtra 法華宗要 → Doctrinal Essentials of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra 大慧度經宗要 → Doctrinal Essentials of the Sūtra on the Ascension of Maitreya 彌勒上⽣經宗要 → Doctrinal Essentials of the Nirvana Sūtra 涅槃宗要. In addition, the Preface of the Commentary on the Huayan Sūtra of Jin Translation 晉譯華嚴經疏序 is probably before the Doctrinal Essentials of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra, and the Preface of the Commentary on the Sūtra on Primary Activities 本業經疏序 is after the reface of the Commentary on the Saṃ dhinirmocana Sūtra.BR Among them, it is doubted that the author of the Commentary on the Chapter of the Bodhisattva Precepts in the Brahmā’s Net Sūtra is Wonhyo considering its clause name. Then, the order of writing of the Commentary on the Awakening of Faith is a general presumption. Different possibilities such as editing by later generations should be considered since the form of description of the Commentary on the Awakening of Faith is totally different from other writings of Wonhyo. Even though the Commentary on the Awakening of Faith mentioned the System of the Two Hindrances, it has a chance to insert by posterity. The context of the Commentary on the Awakening of Faith and the Expository Notes on the Awakening of Faith, has been a problem for a long time, it is not a simple decision. Next, it has been assumed that the Preface of the Commentary on the Huayan Sūtra of Jin Translation is the last work of Wonhyo, but there is no narrative characteristic of his later work. Lastly, it is assumed that most of Wonhyo’s writings were written before the Critical Discussion of Inference 判比量論 (671), but the grounds are not sufficient.

나혜석의 근대적 ‘자연(自然)’관 연구

This article examines the self-construction logic of the first-generation new women who planned themselves as modern subjects who confront the world through changes in the meaning of the word 'nature' translated in Na Hye-seok's early writings. If Lee Kwang-soo or Choi Nam-seon's 'nature' clearly exists as an object of conquest and overcoming at the opposite point of modern man, Rha Hye-seok's 'nature' exists as a vivid reality in the body of modern man and still dominates it. human destiny. It is a painful awakening to a powerful and incomprehensible object. If the former is a masculine modern experience represented by 'boy' or 'youth', the latter is a feminine modern experience represented by 'wife' or 'mother'.

Seeking the Root and Accepting Branches : the Conflicts and Dilemmas in Ama Ata Aidoo’s Dilemma of a Ghost

Since the middle of the 20th century, the continent of Africa has greeted many “returnees,” the diasporic descendants who moved in or visited in search of their “root.” As the number of returnees increased, marriages between Ghanaians and immigrants increased as well. The Dilemma of a Ghost (1965), written by Ama Ata Aidoo from Ghana, presents one of the rather unsuccessful marriages between a Ghanaian man and an African American woman. This paper analyzes Aidoo’s text based on the social and cultural understanding of Ghanaian society in the 1960s. I draw on early and later writings of W. E. B DuBois’s writing to bring in critical perspectives. Showing how Ato, Eulalie, and Ato’s family deal with the conflicts, Aidoo questions the conceptual “root” of the returnees and the dilemma of both Ghanaians and the diasporic Blacks. Through the portrayal of Ato and Eulalie’s failure to settle in, the play spotlights the easily neglected gap between Africans and diasporic Africans under the vague cover of Black solidarity; further, it suggests a potential solution by letting the uneducated, indigenous, and feminine rather than the empowered masculine elite offer hope by facing and embracing the problems.

The Unknown Christ of Christianity. Scripture and Theology in Panikkar’s Early Writings, written by Enrico Beltramini

The Unknown Christ of Christianity. Scripture and Theology in Panikkar’s Early Writings, written by Enrico Beltramini

“Wie eine Äolsharfe vom Winde berührt” Translation in Walter Benjamin’s Early Writings

The article aims at analysing the concept of translation in Walter Benjamin’s early writings, especially with reference to the essays Über Sprache überhaupt und über die Sprache des Menschen (On Language as Such and on the Language of Man, 1916) and Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers (The Task of the Translator, 1921) but also taking other contemporary writings into consideration. It is shown how the concept of translation, inextricably linked to Benjamin’s reflection on language, draws on the one hand on the hermeneutics of early German Romanticism and on its reflection on translation and on the other is charged with the entire semantics of Jewish messianism, in continuous confluences of which the concepts of pure language (reine Sprache), transformation (Verwandlung), of the unintentional (intentionslos) and the inexpressive (ausdruckslos) are the most evident precipitate.

Social Issues by Tamil Women Poets in their Poems

Poetry is aesthetic, both readers and listeners enjoy its style. Poetry always requires concept, emotion, imagination and form. Through poetry writer can touch people’s emotions. As the culture of the people changes from time to time, poetry also changes accordingly. These changes are always evaluated by the question whether the changes in poetry relates to the present changes that took place in society. Earlier writers had an opinion that poetic richness do not have anything to do with social sentiments and political leanings. First the Vanampaadi poets added about society and miseries happening in the society in their poems. Following this metaphor, simile, allusion and imageries are used in the poetry. Many ideas that have been buried due to various methods of evaluation are now beginning to emerge. Due to this, we are getting a lot of information. This article examines about the social issues that poets have sung in their poems.

Kierkegaard’s Existential Sacrifice

Abstract This paper aims to analyze the notions of sacrifice and existential entrapment in the early writings of Søren Kierkegaard. I look at two female characters that appear in Kierkegaard’s Either/Or – Marie Beaumarchais and Donna Elvira – and I argue that an encounter with a deceptive individual (a seducer) forced these two women to sacrifice their capacity for existential-spiritual growth. Donna Elvira and Marie Beaumarchais remain trapped – as Kierkegaard frames it – within the aesthetic existential sphere. The goal of my paper is twofold: first, I describe in detail the nature of their sacrifice and the reasons for their existential entrapment, and, secondly, I determine whether Kierkegaard believes this to be an existential affliction that affects exclusively women, i.e., whether it is gendered or not.

Tracing the Influence of Simone de Beauvoir in Judith Butler’s Work

Beauvoir’s existentialist ethics relates to and informs eminently contemporary accounts of feminist ethics in the Western continental feminist canon. To date only a few scholars have emphasized this connection. In this work, I show the centrality of Beauvoirian philosophy to contemporary philosophical discussions by elucidating the influence of Beauvoir’s existentialist ethics on Judith Butler’s feminist philosophy. While I acknowledge other possible influences, especially by French philosophers, on Butler’s work, I find it important to emphasize Beauvoir’s contributions as they have not received the attention they deserve. My paper shows how Beauvoir’s account of agency as an ambiguous becoming reverberates in Butler’s theory of gender performativity developed in her early writings. I consider Butler’s theory of gender performativity to have existentialist roots based on the existentialist perception of the subject as a becoming that never coincides with itself. I also discuss how Butler takes on some basic ethical questions which Beauvoir already accentuates in her writings. I focus on three main points of intersection between the two philosophers, which are vulnerability and interconnectedness, violence and inevitability of ethical failure, and finally the ambiguity and opaqueness that come with situated ethics.

Sejarah Penulisan Ilmu Sirah: Analisis Perubahan Paten Dan Landskap Historiografi Islam

Examining the complex nature of Islamic historiography, Robinson adduced the discourse in a tripartite typology of historical works namely as chronography, biography, and prosopography. The formative period of historical writings in the early Islamic era has been one of the interesting topics especially the development of Sirah literature. This paper aims to explore the nature of early Islamic historical writings, analyze the emergence of its literature, and examine the basic pattern of Sirah Nabawiyyah. The present study is qualitative in nature and is one in which the researcher will employ both descriptive and source-critical approaches. The study in its findings confirm that the earliest proponents of the Prophet were principally attempting biography, and were responsible, above all, for the transmission of tradition. They apparently took any narration or anecdote about the Prophet, even, on occasions, contradictory accounts. With its specific patterns, circumlocutions, and diverse emphases, in which no one part is given distinction or importance over another, the Sirah itself contains the totality of what the compilers could gather, as scrupulously as they found possible.

The Great Pyramid at Giza is a 60-degree Pyramid According to Early Authors' Writings

The Great Pyramid at Giza is a 60-degree Pyramid According to Early Authors' Writings

Annalise Grice: D. H. Lawrence and the Literary Marketplace: The Early Writings. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022.

Annalise Grice: D. H. Lawrence and the Literary Marketplace: The Early Writings. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022.