Epic Narrative Research Articles

Alla ricerca del popolo perduto. Un tentativo di (de)costruzione del mito della Sacerdotessa della luna

In this paper will be analyzed a close relationship between Priestess of the Moon , a novel by Croatian writer Milena Benini (1966-2020), and the Platonic myth of Atlantis, in light of the power exercised by archaic civilization. This work, as well as the author’s entire production, belongs to the genre that in Slavic cultures is called fantastika , an all-encompassing formula for fantasy, science fiction and horror, although in this regard Benini prefers the label of “speculative fiction”. Benini wrote the first draft of this novel in the early 1990s, in English, and started publishing it on her blog. She published the English version in 2013 and the Croatian ( Svecenica mjeseca ) in 2014. The story, that takes place in an indefinite time and clearly draws on the classical age, is the first act of a trilogy dedicated to a strong-willed woman, the young priestess Kalaide Reolis Kharaonda, endowed with superhuman powers that allow her to communicate with the goddess Matrielen. Kalaide comes into contact with Enaor, whose figure reflects various sources of inspiration: the Illyrian world, the civilization of ancient Greece, the Slavic tradition. Benini is aware of the timelessness of the myth and avoids giving the story and the characters a precise chronological position; she laid the foundations for a wide range of possibilities, prefiguring an open and epic narration, with the evolutionary profile suggested in the foreground by time and space.

The orange entrepreneurship policy in Colombia, new ways of population control

Este artículo de investigación presenta un análisis de la política pública de emprendimiento en Colombia, la cual se ha enfocado durante los últimos años a la economía naranja. Con tal objetivo fueron analizadas leyes, documentos de política pública y mediciones de emprendimiento. Se argumenta que esta política pública no ha arrojado los resultados esperados, pero sí ha sido un elemento importante en la generación de una cultura emprendedora que se enfoca en la construcción del sujeto emprendedor. Se concluye que la cultura del emprendimiento propicia una narrativa épica que representa al emprendedor como héroe particular y paradigmático de su propia trayectoria, al tiempo que proyecta un estereotipo de sujeto hiperindividualista, ajeno a las condiciones materiales e históricas en las que vive.

Taygalı Avcıları, Balıkçıları ve Toplayıcılarının Destanlarında Süt Beyaz Atlar

One of the most interesting of the numerous riddles that Siberian native cultures present for researchers is according to the author, the way in which Taiga hunters, fisherman and wild plant gatherers created their magnificent epics, describing warriors of the steppe, who lived in golden palaces and owned great numbers of people and countless herds of sheep and cattle. On the basis of field data and analysis of dozens of epic narratives of the Taiga Shor people, the author describes the types of horses, coats and their lay classifications. He finds that the Shor language provides as many terms for horse coat color designation as the Teleuts of Bachat and other descendants of the steppe nomadic cattle herders might give. Pondering upon the considerable contradictions between the epic and ethnographic worldviews, the author highlights the importance of the Shor horse breeding and cattle raising terminology research, underscoring a thousand year gap between the epic reality and the ethnographic period when these epic narratives were put down in writing. Keywords: Epic, hero, colors of horses, Turk, Shor, Teleut, Siberia, Altay.

When is a Hat a Mountain? The Material Religion of Gesar Bards’ Hats

Based on interviews performed in Qinghai, this article examines the ritual for creating the “mountain hat” used by bards of Tibet’s Gesar epic in the Yushu and Golok provinces to argue for its importance in constructing local ideas of identity and authority. After introducing a typology of bardic hats, this paper relates the two-week ritual to make a “mountain hat” and analyses how it unites epic narrative, local ideas of place, and the authority of Buddhist institutions into a single, distinctive object used in the performance arena. Utilizing David Morgan’s work on embodiment and identity through the act of seeing, this article argues for the “mountain hat” as a microcosm of a religious imaginary that influences and shapes the viewer’s and the bard’s self-understanding. Additionally, this article considers the interpretation of the “mountain hat” and the religious imaginary it represents in the larger context of contemporary Tibet, where competing forms of economic and cultural authority challenge Tibetans’ experience. Ultimately, this article draws attention to the central role of ritual in constructing the “mountain hat” and imbuing it with the necessary symbolic complexes to become a potent visual object of identity.

Aristotle's Poetics

This paper provides an overview and commentary of Aristotle's theory of poetry, of drama, and of narrative structure, as presented the Poetics. The main emphasis falls on plot structure, but we expound other important subjects dealt with in the work, such as the cognitive origins of literature, the nature of poetry, an incipient theory of media and the analysis of genres, the nature and elements of tragedy, and other subjects such as epic narrative and the structure of critical debates.

ЖАНРОВО-СТИЛЬОВІ ОСОБЛИВОСТІ РОМАНУ-ПОЛАР ЕЛІЗАБЕТ ДЖОРДЖ «ГІРКІ ПЛОДИ СМЕРТІ»

The research endeavors to systematize the typological peculiarities of the woman’s detective prose of Elizabeth George, as well as generalize the specifics of the “crime novel” through the prism of her work “A Banquet of Consequences”. We established that the text of the novel of the American author covers several ordinary “cases”, which are linked in one sequential chain. It also showcases such stylistic know-hows as subjective text organization, “the assimilation of detective narration”, the twins system, many-dimensional characterization of the policewoman (and her complicated relationship with the police authorities), the main heroine’s work-life conflict, epic narration domination, and the description of the by-the-book investigation process. Elizabeth George uses a well-known method of “unfolding” of the detective storyline, where different evident and hidden motives are being revealed and analyzed. The slow-paced exposition gears down the events and creates the effect of the expanded epic narration of the crime novel. At the same time, she tackles both personal and professional conflicts between and within the characters. We learned that the main reason behind the policewoman’s choice of lifestyle is the fact that she is forced to work in the team of the dominant men. Therefore, the heroine’s combines two images, being both an “exploited” member of the police unit and a depressed “disguised” woman. By building the plot and the system of characters of the crime novel, Elizabeth George tries to complete the process of the police officer rediscovering herself as a woman. To bring this idea to life, the author creates the twins system, which, on all structural levels, incorporates one essential element – changing of clothes.

FEATURES OF THE EPIC NARRATIVE IN THE NOVEL «ANNA KARENINA» BY LEO TOLSTOY: FROM AUTHOR TO HERO

The article is devoted to the analysis of the epic nature of the novel «Anna Karenina» by Leo Tolstoy. Artistic concept dedicated to the crisis era of the 1870s as the most important milestone in Russian history, the wide coverage of the events contemporary for the author, the depiction of representatives of different estates - testify to the scale of the creative task. The article examines the originality of Leo Tolstoy’s epic narrative, which is largely determined by the choice of the protagonist. Endowed with a sensitive heart and a troubled conscience, seeking his true destiny, such a man always goes the same path – from egocentrism to understanding of folkish life, realising himself as part of a common «swarm» life. Nikolenka Irteniev, Dmitri Nekhlyudov, Pierre Bezukhov are a complex reflection of Leo Tolstoy himself, each at a certain stage in his spiritual biography. In the gallery of Leo Tolstoy’s heroes, Konstantin Lyovin occupies a special place, since he reflects a writer who is on the verge of a serious worldview revolution. Understanding the biographical and artistic principles in the image of Konstantin Lyovin is given in the context of epistolary and memoir sources in the article. The story of Konstantin Lyovin with his uneasy search for the meaning of life, with religious doubts, embodied the author’s innermost thoughts repeatedly expressed by him in letters to Nikolay Strakhov. Not only the most important page of Leo Tolstoy’s biography is revealed in the fate of Konstantin Lyovin, but the fate of a person of transition time closely related to the life of the country, is planned.

Thomas Tranströmer’s poetic syntax and its Russian translation

The article discusses the syntactic structure of Tomas Tranströmer’s poems that reflects the uniqueness of his poetic worldview and the depth of philosophical meaning. Chains of homogenous parts of the sentence, mostly with conjunctionless coordination, are used to reflect the infinite diversity of the outer world as seen through the poetic vision. In these conjunctionless coordinated chains of nominal parts of the sentence — attributes and objects — commas are used for rythmical and expressive purposes, stressing the semantic significance of every component, and facilitate preserving the alliterative sounding of the poem. By contrast, when objects of the outer world are depicted with a negative value as a chaotic mass, commas between the lexemes that refer to them, are absent. Tranströmer’s poetic syntax is also characterized by a special “density” of relative clauses introduced with the conjunction som, that often expand on the main part in the form of a nominal sentence. They often have a complicated syntactic structure with “cyclic” repetition of the prop-word. Another typical feature of versification in Tranströmer’s works is the use of elaborate syntactic compounds which include various constructions — extended predicative attributes, adverbial constructions with the preposition med, as well as complex objects with an infinitive. A special function in Tranströmer’s syntactic structure is assigned to colons and hyphens. The use of colons makes it possible to express what is only accessible to the poet’s inner vision — what is hidden in the past or the future, seen in a dream, and revealing itself in the distant space. The use of hyphens inside sentences and between them expands the limits of the outer world making its image multidimensional. Translating Tranströmer involves the use of syntactic transformations caused by the typological differences between Swedish and Russian. Lexical substitutions can also be found, including the use of Russian words of a higher register, for example, the translation of the relative pronoun som ‘which’ with the conjunction что meaning ‘which’ but in a higher register and typical of an epic narrative, allows for the preservation of the rythmic structure of the original.

Монголо-ойратское сказание «Урьдын Уланхонгор»: сохранность базовой модели эпического сюжета в разновременных записях

The study of the mechanisms of the epic plot composition, the identification of the patterns of formation of the basic model of the epic is relevant for clarifying many issues: studying the process of preserving or destroying the epic text, determining the nature of contamination, compounds in the epic narrative, for predicting the prospects of epic creativity, the national epic in a multilingual, multicultural environment, in conditions competition of folklore with modern mass culture and information technology. The purpose of the article is to conduct a comparative analysis of two versions of the Mongol-Oirat legend “Urdyn Ulanhongor”, recorded at different times, to identify the basic model of the epic plot, which allows storytellers to structure their narrative, learn and reproduce the epic text from memory. The material for the study was the texts of the Mongol-Oirat epic “Urdyn Ulanhongor”, performed by the Oirat tuulchi C. Baglay in 1940 and published in 1968 in the collection “Zhangaryn tuuls”, as well as recorded 79 years later by the narrator N. Ankhbair in somone Naranbulag of the Ubsnur aimak of Mongolia. Research Methods. The study uses the techniques of various methods (structural-typological, statistical, descriptive), allowing to study the mechanism of structuring the epic narrative and the laws of the epic plot, to convey the specifics of the national epic. In the process of attracting expeditionary material, the information obtained during the “included observation”, questioning and interviewing of the informant was taken into account. Results. The study showed that the storytellers of different years, Ch. Baglay (1940) and N. Ankhbayr (2019) used elements concentrating around the biography of the hero Urdyn Ulanhongor, depicting similar plot situations associated with military conflicts of the protagonist with antagonists (Dolda Hurel Baatar, 16 mangas) . The emergence of new versions of one epic does not break the general structure of the epic plot if it is based on a basic model learned from the narrator of the predecessor within the framework of one (local, national) tradition.

Монголо-ойратское сказание «Урьдын Уланхонгор»: сохранность базовой модели эпического сюжета в разновременных записях

The study of the mechanisms of the epic plot composition, the identification of the patterns of formation of the basic model of the epic is relevant for clarifying many issues: studying the process of preserving or destroying the epic text, determining the nature of contamination, compounds in the epic narrative, for predicting the prospects of epic creativity, the national epic in a multilingual, multicultural environment, in conditions competition of folklore with modern mass culture and information technology. The purpose of the article is to conduct a comparative analysis of two versions of the Mongol-Oirat legend “Urdyn Ulanhongor”, recorded at different times, to identify the basic model of the epic plot, which allows storytellers to structure their narrative, learn and reproduce the epic text from memory. The material for the study was the texts of the Mongol-Oirat epic “Urdyn Ulanhongor”, performed by the Oirat tuulchi C. Baglay in 1940 and published in 1968 in the collection “Zhangaryn tuuls”, as well as recorded 79 years later by the narrator N. Ankhbair in somone Naranbulag of the Ubsnur aimak of Mongolia. Research Methods. The study uses the techniques of various methods (structural-typological, statistical, descriptive), allowing to study the mechanism of structuring the epic narrative and the laws of the epic plot, to convey the specifics of the national epic. In the process of attracting expeditionary material, the information obtained during the “included observation”, questioning and interviewing of the informant was taken into account. Results. The study showed that the storytellers of different years, Ch. Baglay (1940) and N. Ankhbayr (2019) used elements concentrating around the biography of the hero Urdyn Ulanhongor, depicting similar plot situations associated with military conflicts of the protagonist with antagonists (Dolda Hurel Baatar, 16 mangas) . The emergence of new versions of one epic does not break the general structure of the epic plot if it is based on a basic model learned from the narrator of the predecessor within the framework of one (local, national) tradition.

Mont Valérien – epicka pamięć, (nie)pamięć traumy

One may consider the two monuments situated on the hill of Mont Valérien near Paris – Memorial of Fighting France (1960) and Monument to those shot at Mont Valerién (2003) – as material representation of evolution in the social perception of years 1940–1944 taking place in France, which is the main topic of the article. While the first of them symbolizes the epic narrative centered on the Résistance and the cult of heroism, the second one refers to the so far overlooked, traumatic aspects of war and occupation, focusing on the victims.

«Рапсодія», «Скерцо» та «Балада» для фортепіанного квартету Йозефа Маркса: пізньоромантичні принципи формоутворення

У статті розглянуто «Рапсодію», «Скерцо» та «Баладу» для фортепіанного квартету австрійського композитора Йозефа Маркса (1882–1964). Проаналізовані стильові та світоглядні зв’язки даного твору з пізнім романтизмом. Встановлено, що всі три частини утворюють єдиний камерно-інструментальний цикл: об’єднавчими факторами виступають інтонаційно-драматургічні зв’язки, а також прийом синтезування стильових елементів різних музично-історичних епох. Так, в «Рапсодії» перевтілені основні риси симфонічних поем Ф. Ліста, «Скерцо» та «Балада» синтезують елементи романтичного скерцо, бахівської поліфонії та побутової музики Відня. Виявлені риси індивідуального стилю Й. Маркса, серед яких – епічні масштаби композиції, вишукана гармонічна мова, майстерне володіння ансамблевою фактурою.

‘TO HEAVEN ON A HOOK’ (DIO CASS. 60.35.4): ENNIUS, LUCILIUS AND AN INEFFECTUAL COUNCIL OF THE GODS IN AENEID 10

‘The last stanza of Horace's poem’, writes Denis Feeney of Hor. Carm. 3.3, ‘declares virtually outright that he has just been “quoting” epic matter: “desine peruicax | referre sermones deorum et | magna modis tenuare paruis” (70–2)’. A poem that recounts the doings of gods automatically demands comparison with epic, but if the speeches of gods are presented, all the more so. Horace's poem in fact evokes an episode within a specific epic poem, the Council of the Gods that occurred during the first book of Ennius’ Annales. But such divine councils are a ‘stock epic scene’, and rather more than that: they are moments when epic is at its most quintessentially epic. In simple terms, an epic poet ‘may underline the significance and increase the dramatic effect’ of a critical point in the narrative ‘by showing us that it exercised the gods’, and that analysis applies to any divine presence in a poem: if a key impulse of epic is to amplify the significance of human activity, those occasions when higher forces overtly assert their control of human destiny satisfy a number of fundamental preoccupations of the genre. But in the Council of the Gods we have the most developed and impressive realization of this divine concern for mortal existence, as well as a topos that in Rome at least achieved special status within the broader field of divine machinery in epic. That status is perhaps reflected in a tendency discernible in the Roman section of the tradition for such councils to fall early in the epic narrative, as if initiating the epic plot. If so, however, Virgil's Council at Aen. 10.1–117 defies expectation by failing to be convened until the plot of the epic is very far advanced indeed, and even then, as this article will consider, achieving strikingly less than one might expect of a plenary gathering of supernatural powers at an advanced stage in an epic narrative.

Тувинское сказание «Богда Чангар хан» и его константные сегменты в ойратской и калмыцкой версиях героического эпоса «Джангар»

В статье анализируются уровни и степени сходства тувинского сказания «Богда Чаӊгар хаан» (Богда Чангар хан), записанного у сказителя Баяна Балбыра Узуновича (1881–1962), с ойратской и калмыцкой версиями героического эпоса «Джангар». Текст тувинского сказания хранится в фонде Тувинского института гуманитарных и прикладных социально-экономических исследований, текст калмыцкого эпоса рассматривается в версии издания «”Джангар”. Калмыцкий героический эпос» (1978).Рассматриваются сюжетные слагаемые, которые отличаются константностью в эпическом нарративе. Исследование базируется на теории этнопоэтических констант В. М. Гацака и др. научных методах. Особое внимание уделяется мотивам и формулам, типичным для эпоса монгольских народов как в структурно-семантическом плане, так и в своем вербальном воплощении. Этнопоэтические константы рассматриваются разных уровней: сюжет о богатырских действиях; мотивы: весть о противнике, выбор богатыря, отправление в дорогу, расправа с противником и т. д.Отмечается, что тувинское сказание является результатом творчества сказителя, знакомого с ойратской эпической традицией и сумевшего адаптировать «принесенный» сюжет в тувинскую фольклорную среду, сохранив важные для эпического повествования константные сегменты, указывающие на типологическое сходство эпической традиции тюрко-монгольских народов.

A Sogdian Drinking Game at Panjikent

This article reconsiders the religio-ritualistic interpretations of the use of the rhyton within eighth-century CE Sogdiana. Through a close art-historical analysis, it argues that three eighth-century wall paintings from Panjikent illustrate a drinking game. This proposal expands the current breadth of meaning attributed to the imagery decorating Sogdian homes. Not only could the paintings illustrate epic narratives, religious veneration, or moral didacticism, but they could also celebrate conviviality, fun, and humor.

The Heroic Stand of Bernardo (Fierabras and Rodrigo)

This article examines the parallels between the stories of Bernardo del Carpio, Fierabras, and Rodrigo, the young Cid. These warrior heroes have not previously been studied together, since at first glance they appear to have little in common, emerging as they do in different periods and, in the case of Fierabras, belonging to a competing epic tradition while representing another culture and religion altogether. Yet, the initial observation that all they confront the same enemy, the army of Charlemagne (or of the king of France), leads to the discovery of additional and more significant parallels. The subsequent analysis of the common aspects of these three very distinctive and seemingly unrelated epic narratives provides new insights into the nature of the evolution of epic narrative, the transmigration of heroic deeds among divergent protagonists, and the ability of these same deeds to transcend more abstract concerns such as nationality, allegiance, and enmity.

Über Dichter, Proletarier und Apachen

It is somewhat surprising that Walter Benjamin, who has been very much involved with French literature, has shown so little interest in the most prestigious social novelists and in the great social romance cycles. Unlike Lukács, Benjamin evaluates the form of the novel negatively: the novel is not, or no longer, the modern epic. The contemporary novelist differs from the epic narrator in that he has lost the collective dimension. Instead of complaining about this loss, Benjamin accepts it and looks critically for authors and works that experiment new narrative means and at the same time explore new social worlds. But most novels to which Benjamin attributes experimental, or even avant-garde, value have met this challenge the least. They betray their breakthrough either by a purely private social criticism (Julien Green), by a kind of “infantile disease” of commitment (Malraux), or by a mere “cry of indignation” (Céline), which at least has the merit of reintroducing the voice of the Lumpenproletariat into the realm of the novel without mobilizing the “mimicry” of belonging to the proletariat. This essay is part of a larger project on Benjamin and the French intelligentsia of the interwar period.

Über Dichter, Proletarier und Apachen Walter Benjamin über die Sozialliteratur

It is somewhat surprising that Walter Benjamin, who has been very much involved with French literature, has shown so little interest in the most prestigious social novelists and in the great social romance cycles. Unlike Lukács, Benjamin evaluates the form of the novel negatively: the novel is not, or no longer, the modern epic. The contemporary novelist differs from the epic narrator in that he has lost the collective dimension. Instead of complaining about this loss, Benjamin accepts it and looks critically for authors and works that experiment new narrative means and at the same time explore new social worlds. But most novels to which Benjamin attributes experimental, or even avant-garde, value have met this challenge the least. They betray their breakthrough either by a purely private social criticism (Julien Green), by a kind of “infantile disease” of commitment (Malraux), or by a mere “cry of indignation” (Céline), which at least has the merit of reintroducing the voice of the Lumpenproletariat into the realm of the novel without mobilizing the “mimicry” of belonging to the proletariat. This essay is part of a larger project on Benjamin and the French intelligentsia of the interwar period.

The power of the heart that blazes in the world

ABSTRACTThe prominence of Hindu-Buddhist mythology, imagery, and religiosity in Islamic Java has puzzled observers. The shadow play with its Mahābhārata- and Rāmāyaṇa-derived subject matter is a prime example. Another is the late 18th-century ‘renaissance’ of Old Javanese literature in the Islamic kingdom of Surakarta, which produced classics still celebrated today. Beyond a misguided assumption that the Javanese were so strongly disposed to syncretism that blatant doctrinal clashes did not bother their intellectuals, the factors that animated this enterprise remain obscure, despite its critical consequence for the development of Javanese religiosities. I scrutinize several unstudied manuscripts and piece together information from hitherto unconnected scholarship to try to understand these factors, with reference to pressing circumstances, living theories, as well as people who think, feel, and hope. First I examine Javanese theoretical ideas about the relationship between the Hindu-Buddhist and Islamic traditions and the connection between epic narratives and the present and future of Java. Against this background I consider the initiative, in 1778, to reinterpret the ancient epic heritage, beginning with the Arjunawiwāha (composed c. 1030). Focal points of interest in the Islamic hermeneutics of this poem were a quest for inner potency and the resulting external power of violence, knowledge and revelation, and future kingship.

Zeitgeist archaeology: conflict, identity and ideology at Prague Castle, 1918–2018

Abstract