Early Literature Research Articles

Fasting in Early Sufi Literature

Abstract This article offers an analysis of conceptions of fasting in early Islamic spirituality. By drawing on the literature of Sufism, with special attention to the writings of al-Sarrāj (d. 378/988), al-Makkī (d. 386/996), al-Kharkūshī (= Khargūshī; d. 407/1016), al-Hujwīrī (d. ca. 465/1071), al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072) and al-Sīrjānī (d. 470/1077), it thematically outlines (1) the value placed on fasting in early tradition, (2) the dangers believed to lie in the practice, and finally, (3) the need to transcend, in the final scheme of things, any attachment one may form with it, through ‘detachment from detachment’. In the process, the article aims not only to decipher and make sense of the various aphorisms and stories that make up the early literature of taṣawwuf, but also to resolve their apparent contradictions.

불가능한 부활

This paper analyzes how Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge (1944) represents the advent of finance capitalism during the interwar years. Specifically, this paper pays attention to a series of subjectivities featuring the social milieu based on finance capital set loose over the globe. Maugham has been criticized for focusing on the characters’ externals in a conventional fashion. As a result, he has been marginalized from the academic discourse on the early twentieth-century literature dominated by modernist studies. This paper will prove that Maugham’s attention to the externals is part of his literary design for effectively representing characters who embody the uncontrolled and perpetual proliferation of finance capital without an independent and reflective consciousness. In particular, Larry, the novel’s central character, becomes disillusioned with the declining Western civilization and then travels to foreign soils in search of the opportunity to be symbolically reborn. This paper will prove that the novel eventually debunks the fetishistic nature of this imperial search and unveils it as another cultural expression of supranational finance capitalism. Ultimately, this paper aims to contribute to the reevaluation of Maugham’s literary achievement by highlighting his pioneering representation of the post-modern world.

초기불교 문헌에 나타난 자살

Suicide is a serious social problem in modern Korean society. In early Buddhism, including suicide, teachings about death are frequently offered. The agony of death is a typical existential distress, and meditation on death is an important practice. Various suicide cases appear in the scriptures and chapters of early Buddhist literature. Suicide, a type of murder, is seen as an evil act that intentionally cuts the chance of being born as a human being, and the background of suicide is the desire to die, which is the love of non-existence. Usually, humans choose to kill themselves by means of indulgence. However, saints do not commit murder intentionally, nor do they commit suicide. However, there are cases where a monk who suffers from severe illness accidentally commits suicide because he thinks that he has become Arahan, or during the selection process, he commits suicide to be born in heaven as a result of selection. The Buddha only died as Arahan when his life was cut off after committing suicide, and he did not pay for the wrongdoings of suicide. However, various examples of early Buddhist literature show that suicide is prohibited as an evil act because it is a method of murder.

영남지방 초기 국의 등장 배경과 사로국 구조

Through the long-distance trade network and ritual structures of base settlements that were intensively developed in the Yeongnam region in the 2nd century BC, the background of the establishment of the early politics and the method of solidarity were examined. Long-distance trade beyond the Yeongnam region is concentrated in the 2nd century BC, and the bases where foreign trade is active overlap with regions(mainly Daegu, Gyeongsan, and Gyeongju) found in the early days of the clustering of wooden tombs. In some regions, politics that internally united regional units appeared in order to form a socio- economic coalition suitable for logistics distribution, redistribution, cost reduction, and information solidarity amid intensively developed foreign trade in the 2nd century BC. Thus, it is inferred that the clustering of wooden tombs appeared from the time when these early politics reached villages and townships as local political bodies to maintain active foreign trade, iron production, and distribution. In this situation, by linking topographic conditions, traffic routes and literature records, and archaeological data, focusing on Saro-guk, the composition of the euprak and the structure of the country were explained. Around the middle of the 2nd century BC, it is expected that the early Saroguk was established, and it is interpreted that the 6 villages, symbolized as major towns and villages, were united through the conference. Early Saroguk is a device that binds and maintains local communities while showing various forms for each town and village, and the phenomenon of establishing altar-style stone tombs, high- altitude enclosure, standing-ritual structures, and early wooden tombs by base is similar. In addition, the title of ChaChawoong, which was mentioned in early literature records, also weighed on the ideological and religious power base. Given the ritual structure of the settlement base and the power base of the early ruler, it was difficult to sustain the national structure only by pursuing the interests of foreign trade, and it is assumed that even by transforming the traditionally important megalithic monuments and high-altitude enclosure, it led to community cohesion.

Ilaria Ramelli’s History of the ‘Apokatastasis Doctrine’: A Critical Assessment of Evidence from before Origen

Abstract In this article, the treatment of early Christian literature from before Origen in Ilaria Ramelli’s monographs The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis and (co-authored with David Konstan) Terms for Eternity is subject to critique. When Ramelli claims that the early literature shared the idea of temporary punishment after death, thus forming the ‘roots’ of the doctrine of apokatastasis, a clear distinction between early and later concepts and interpretations is missing. The argument that αἰώνιος in eschatological contexts should not mean ‘eternal’, but rather ‘in the world to come’, is untenable, inter alia because this supposed sense of αἰώνιος would duplicate the same information in the phrase ἐν τῷ αἰῶνι τῷ ἐρχομένῳ ζωὴν αἰώνιον (Mark 10:30). The article also demonstrates the incorrectness of Ramelli’s arguments that the texts contain contrasting relations between the words αἰώνιος and ἀΐδιος and κόλασις and τιμωρία, respectively, with only ἀΐδιος indicating a strictly eternal future, and κόλασις a purifying temporary chastisement. These arguments contain a number of methodological errors: the meaning of words is not sought in the contexts in which they are used, and the possibility of stylistic variation is not taken into account.

Covenant and Community in Early Rabbinic Literature

AbstractThis article concerns the role of covenant in early rabbinic literature in relation to biblical and especially Second Temple-era predecessors. The first part establishes that the Qumran sectarians and earlier circles were drawn to the concept of covenant because it represented, especially through the mechanism of covenant renewal, a powerful tool for defining and supporting group identity. The second part shows that for the rabbis, the importance of covenant lay chiefly, instead, in its capacity to conceptualize the notion of Israel as a collective body defined by corporate responsibility. The third part suggests that this novel deployment of covenant arose in part to counter the individuating force of halakah as law, another innovation of the rabbis.

The Tabari’s Tafsir to Surah “Al-Fātiḥa”. Translation from Arabic and Comments. Part 4: Ayyats 6–7

This article concludes a series of publications of the commented translation into Russian of the interpretation to the Surah “al-Fatiha” (No. 1) by the founder of classical Muslim exegesis Muḥammad ibn Jarīr aṭ-Ṭabari (839–923) from the book “Jāmi‘ al-bayān fī ta’wīl al-Qur’ān” (The Comprehensive Exposition of the interpretation of the Qur’ān). This part contains sections devoted to ayats 6–7 of this surah. Based on examples of pre- and early Islamic literature grammatical questions about the case of the word ghayr and the need for the use of the particle lā in these ayats are analyzed here in detail. The Tafsir to this verses also treats the theological problems related to the nature of God’s benefactions and His wrath, continues the controversy with the Qadarites regarding determinism and free will. There are also given here traditions ascribed to the Prophet Muhammad and the “ancient fathers of the Ummah” on the interpretation of these ayats. The conclusion speaks about the inimitability of the Qur’ān on the example of the surah “al-Fatiha”.

The image of the world and man in the works of Wolfgang Borchert’s Draußen vor der Tür (1947) and Heinrich Bölls Wo warst du, Adam? (1951)

This article discusses selected aspects of the creation of the image of the world and man in selected literary works of early post-war literature on the example of the works of the most important representatives of this period – Wolfgang Borchert and Heinrich Böll. The creators of the so-called literature of ruins revealed the experience of total destruction of man as an individual deprived of individuality, emphasized the moral decline of the war and post-war world.

"Beyond ideologies" – some remarks on the existential and ecocritical tone of Alfred Andersch's autobiographical report Die Kirschen der Freiheit (1952)

The article is an attempt to look at the autobiographical text of the leading writer of early German post-war literature and one of the founders of the famous "Group of 47" Alfred Andersch entitled Die Kirschen der Freiheit (1952) from the perspective of the existential philosophy of Jean Paul Sartre and selected aspects of ecocritical thought. The article discusses in detail the existential concept of individual freedom not determined by twentieth-century totalitarian systems and emphasizes its ecocritical sense, i.e. the dimension of humanity in the bosom of nature, the potential of free will and deciding about one's own fate, as well as the role of art as a special means of expression of free man and his relationship to the world.

Early, Rapid or Global? Internationalization Speed and SME’s Performance

The article investigates the impact of three dimensions of the speed of internationalization speed – the entry timing, the initial speed and the pace of international expansion – on the performance of exporting small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). To this purpose, we adopt a mixed-method approach analysing quantitative and qualitative data on Italian-exporting SMEs. The results show that entry timing, which is not relevant per se, moderates the positive impact of the initial speed on SME’s performance. Furthermore, a higher pace of international expansion is negatively related to the performance of SMEs. Building on the early internationalization literature, the study contributes to the existing literature on performance outcomes of the speed of internationalization of SMEs. The study has managerial implications for managers and entrepreneurs who are planning to internationalize.

Jewish Mysticism as a Form of Feminism in Early 20th Century Hungarian Jewish Literature: Anna Lesznai’s Response to Otto Weininger

This article examines Anna Lesznai’s radical imagining of sex and its use for transcendental purposes that heavily rely on Jewish mystical ideas intertwined with Otto Weininger's theory of gender binarism. In her gender theory—part of feminist discourse at the turn of the twentieth century—Lesznai describes female love, using religious language and ideas from Jewish mysticism, especially those resembling Hassidic concepts, and ultimately compares sexual union to yihud- unio mystica with God. Working within the patriarchal understanding of the biological definition of gender and of the concept of "female difference," Lesznai’s feminism rooted in the belief that certain personality traits and skills are inherently gendered, but she reverses the hierarchy by placing women in the position of power, thus turning Jewish mysticism and Weininger’s gender philosophy on its head.

Vita Haroldi and Hamlet—a flight of the imagination

This discursive article was inspired by a reading of Vita Haroldi and in seeing similarities to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In the introduction, I examine the possible links between the medieval survival story Vita Haroldi and Hamlet. Part One explicates three potential approaches to a study of early modern English literature: the traitorous letter trope, the historiography of the death of medieval English kings, and the interest of leading lights in Elizabethan England in Anglo-Saxon law and the church. Part two implements these approaches in a brief reading and interpretation of Hamlet. Both the play Hamlet and the character of Prince Hamlet are situated in a transition from the medieval to the early modern; from a faith-based world to a rational one, from a focus on revenge to one on justice.

Can robotic gastric bypass be considered a valid alternative to laparoscopy? Our early experience and literature review.

Robotic bariatric surgery serves as an alternative to laparoscopy. The technology provides the surgeon with an accurate three-dimensional view, allowing complex maneuvers while maintaining full control of the operating room. We report our experience with this innovative surgery compared with laparoscopy during Roux-en-Y gastric bypass to demonstrate its safety and feasibility. The aim of this study is to evaluate potential differences between the robotic and laparoscopic techniques. Our study retrospectively identified 153 consecutive obese patients who underwent either laparoscopic or robotic gastric bypass (RGB) procedures over a 2-year period at the Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Foggia. Data on demographics, operative time, conversion rate, length of hospital stay, and mortality were collected and compared between two groups of patients: 82 patients who underwent laparoscopic procedures and 71 who underwent robotic procedures. We analyzed 153 patients who underwent gastric bypass with a mean age of 42.58 years, of whom 74 were female; 71 were treated with a robotic approach and 82 with a laparoscopic approach. The mean operative time was 224.75 ± 10.4 min for RGB (including docking time) and 101.22 min for laparoscopic gastric bypass (LGB) (p < 0.05), which is statistically significant. The median length of stay was 4.1 days for the RGB group and 3.9 days for the LGB group (p = 0.89). There is only one conversion to laparoscopy in the RGB group. We observed only one case of postoperative complications, specifically one episode of endoluminal bleeding in the laparoscopic group, which was successfully managed with medical treatment. No mortality was observed in either group. The statistical analysis shows to support the robotic approach that had a lower incidence of complications but a longer operative duration. Based on our experience, the laparoscopic approach remains a technique with more haptic feedback than the robotic approach, making surgeons feel more confident.This study has been registered on ClinicalTrial.gov Protocol Registration and Results System with this ID: NCT05746936 for the Organization UFoggia (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05746936).

Filling in the gaps: early middle English, nationalist philology, and reparative codicology

ABSTRACT Ongoing interventions by antiracist scholars and activists demonstrate the lasting impact that the racist, nationalist, and colonialist foundation of the field has had on modern perceptions of the pre-Conquest English past and those who study it. This article identifies the impact of the same ideologies on the study of early Middle English literatures and its place in canonical accounts. The deployment of medieval English literatures in a teleological effort to establish histories of whiteness and legitimize white colonial superiority. However, close interrogation of the linguistic and literary developments of the period threatened the very structures they were invoked to sustain. Effectively, early Middle English was placed in a medial position that invoked its presence only to deny its importance. This article offers an alternative. Eve Sedgwick's conception of ‘reparative reading’ has resonances with both the material forms in which early Middle English is preserved, and the human experiences that underlie that preservation. Fragmentary lyrics, like the couplet from Poema Morale, provide an example. These snippets point to the presence of a widely circulating ‘cultural repository’ that could negotiate the structures of institutional (primarily Latinate) literacy and opened those frameworks to dynamic participation by a wide range of readers and users.

Tediousness in Coryats Crudities (1611): early modern travel writing, rhetoric, and notions of canonicity

ABSTRACT Despite its increasing prominence in university syllabi and anthologies, travel writing continues to be excluded from the canon of early modern literature. Its exclusion can be attributed to the view, articulated explicitly and implicitly, that its formal and stylistic conventions render it insufficiently ‘literary’. Such assessments reveal a tendency to read early modern travel accounts using aesthetic criteria that are anachronistic, disconnected from the discursive contexts in which these accounts were originally written and read. This article examines one of the genre’s most distinctive features, one which has shaped its relationship to notions of literary value and canonicity: its preoccupation with particulars, something early modern and modern readers alike characterise as ‘tedious’. Focusing on Thomas Coryate’s eponymous Coryats Crudities (1611), it situates the particularity of early modern travel writing within the reconstructed contexts of classical rhetoric, early modern poetics, and travel advice, placing special emphasis on the rhetorical quality of enargeia, or vividness. In addition to offering a fresh assessment of the Crudities and modelling a new approach to the study of travel writing more generally, the article reflects on how we can expand our sense of what early modern literature might be said to comprise.

“Exploring Social Class and Gender Roles in Jane Austen's Novels”

This paper explores the intricate interplay of social class and gender roles in the novels of Jane Austen, a seminal figure in early 19th-century literature. Through her richly developed characters and astute social critiques, Austen illuminates the constraints imposed by class stratification and gender expectations in a rapidly changing England. By examining key works such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility, the paper highlights how Austen navigates the complexities of identity, agency, and societal norms. The analysis reveals that while marriage serves as a critical means of economic security for women, it also underscores the limitations of their choices within a patriarchal framework. Ultimately, Austen’s narratives advocate for personal integrity and emotional authenticity, suggesting that character transcends social boundaries. This study not only reaffirms Austen's relevance in contemporary discussions of class and gender but also invites readers to reflect on the enduring impact of societal structures on individual lives.

Children’s Thoughts on Wonder in Fairy Tales

AbstractFairy tales are a means to introduce the Polish language and social education exercises in Polish kindergartens and schools (early childhood literature education). In their methodological proposals, authors of school handbooks use fairy tales as a medium for teaching moral values. The Goldfish is an example of such an approach (Fałdzińska and Rączyńska, 2017). This article presents the thoughts of children aged six to nine (Polish kindergarten and primary school years one to three) constructed around the fairy tale in question, which, on the one hand, can be understood as a cautionary lesson about the importance of remaining satisfied with one’s station (Tatar 2014), and on the other serves as a meta-tale, exposing a rule of the genre’s poetics (Somoff, 2019). Assuming the role of observer-as-participant, intent on providing interpretations, the author of this study aims to identify children’s categories of wonder occurring in Aleksandr Afanasyev’s The Goldfish (Afanasyev, 1984). It was observed that children reflect on the rules of wonder in fairy tales (as culture-specific texts) and derive social meanings significant from the viewpoint of fairy tale categories. As such, they were not only limited to the lesson of condemning greed, which is often assigned to The Goldfish.

Christ as Charioteer: An Expanded Image in Early Armenian Literature

ABSTRACT Beginning with the perception of God as warrior in the Hebrew Bible, the article explores the image of God as charioteer in a spectrum of theophanic texts, both biblical and parabiblical, underlying Jewish apocalyptic traditions translated into Christian beliefs surrounding the Cross as means of heavenly ascent. Equating the Cross with the tetramorphic chariot-throne of God in Ezekiel’s visions, an interpretive tradition mediated primarily through Syriac Christianity and rooted in the Christology of the New Testament, Armenian interpreters expanded the tradition. A close reading of early Armenian texts conveying the reception and transmission of the imagery of Christ as charioteer shows an expansion to a point of reordering the chariot’s heavenly ascent to earthly descent, a divine visitation to the land of Armenia, thus driving the tradition to a sort of realized eschatology.

Epistemology in AI (Transdisciplinary AI)

A critical look at the evolution of AI strongly shows a sustained but stealth race to replace humans with AI. Early scientific literature and discourse on AI for some reasons (either to allow AI gain entry and acceptability in mainstream scientific and technological arena) vehemently deny this "human replacement agenda". This thinking pattern unknowingly shaped current scientific literature, discourse, general understanding of what AI is and its development and applicability (a reductionist thinking). This limits our understanding in both the beneficial and destructive capabilities of AI. But when considering a TD assessment on the developmental dynamic of AI, one would comfortably say and must be bold to admit, that indeed AI intends replacing humans and is on course for fulfilling this.&#x0D; &#x0D; We see this AI human replacement agenda in intensified R&amp;D efforts dedicated to developing powerful AI system of systems which massively augment human reasoning, most times far better. The inexhaustible list includes the AI replacement of formerly considered human-centric jobs, advanced autonomous weapon systems, killer robots and AI in warfare, intelligent facial recognition, biometric monitoring, integrating AI on biological, nuclear and space-based weapons systems, etc. If this is the direction AI is taking, then a secondary aim would surely arrive at integrating epistemology in AI or "grant spirits" for AI systems. This is because a distinctive characteristic of a human is his spirit and one cannot replace humans with AI without creating proportionate or appropriate spirits for the AI systems. Sooner or later our AI systems would have epistemological functions and possess spirits. The place of the soul for such AI systems would be attained as well. If human knowledge, beliefs, voices, clips and laws can be preserved long after they are gone as is possible in smart digital technologies, then spirit-based AI would indeed cause these humans to live forever. If the feat of a spirit enamored AI is near, then why worry? Indeed when considering that humans possess good and bad spirits (from the epistemology of rational and irrational inertia) then these AI systems would of course have good or bad spirits and be bad or good AI.&#x0D; &#x0D; Would integrating a spirit into a rule-based or machine learning algorithmic structure of an AI system have benefits? Yes!, profound benefits too. A spirit-based AI would of course make possible the "possession of feelings" by AI systems, a feat unattainable in both algorithmic, operational and inferential basis of AI systems today. This inability of AI systems to have feelings has continued to remain a major setback in the acceptability (indeed trust) and utilization of AI. As we agree that the spirit in AI is possible, then overlooking efforts aimed at making this possible or allowing AI to attain this level unhindered (admitting dangers of human involvement in AI) could pose a dangerous threat which can become highly destructive to mankind. This calls for critical supervision (TD-based ethical policing) and the accompanying of the evolution, development and applicability of AI hence venerating the need for human mediation in AI both as a major TD research subject and applicable function.&#x0D; &#x0D; A discussion would be made on my approach which considers the synergy of critical systems heuristics (CSH) and systems engineering (Transdisciplinary Systems Engineering) to create "Transdisciplinary AI" which would formulate methods of integrating "human" epistemology in expert systems. Human epistemology is emphasized because by the maturity of this future nature of AI, there would be terms known as "AI or machine epistemology" or "AI or machine spirits". The investigation begins with creating expert systems (knowledge-based systems) with these functions with plans of moving into robotics and other machine learning arena. Finally, to move the needle on what is considered permissible epistemology or permissible spirit of/in AI is a critical component of the study of human mediation and AI which must be given critical attention. This would be discussed as well.

The Blackout in Stepford and the Shadow of Southern Horror

Abstract: In this essay, I reconsider Ira Levin’s 1972 novel The Step-ford Wives and place it in dialogue with its filmic adaptations, to reflect on how much the films based on Levin’s novel foreclose and marginalize black representation and embodiment that had been centered in the novel. I argue that shifts from the novel The Step-ford Wives to the first film, released in 1975 and directed by Bryan Forbes, erase the black female subjectivity that centrally shapes the novel. Similarly, by implication in the 2004 film The Stepford Wives directed by Frank Oz, blackness is associated with a decaying urban landscape and scapegoated as the corrupting force that would prevent the actualization of an ideal or peaceful home in a predominantly white suburban neighborhood, where escape from blackness and the pathologies associated with it, including crime, are idealized. Black people are the community’s hidden and unspoken fear, a fear that looms (ironically even more than the literal horrors carried out in the town among its white citizenry), linked to auras of blackness classically illustrated within gothic writing. Toni Morrison has famously discussed the Africanist presence that inflects early canonical American literature, even when black bodies are absent and black characters do not materialize within gothic narratives.