Foreign Literary Research Articles

Renationalizing the Werebear: The Postcolonial Stakes of ‘Lokis’ (Prosper Mérimée, 1869) and Lokis (Janusz Majewski, 1970)

This article addresses the adaptation of the 1869 French novella ‘Lokis’, by Prosper Mérimée, as a feature-length film in Poland in 1970 by Janusz Majewski, from a postcolonial and cognitive cultural perspective. The production marked the story’s hundredth anniversary, but also fell within the so-called ‘Small Stabilization’ under the authoritarian Gomułka regime. A foreign literary adaptation was ‘safe’ material for coded messages, as is typical of Socialist-era Polish cinema as well as of the Gothic. The figure of the werebear can be a foil for discussing defective masculine heroism in a familiar Polish nationalist mode, but also for recuperating a changing concept of Lithuania, where the story is set, as adapted from the pro-Polish, French-origin source material in a self-orientalizing process. This adaptation thus bespeaks a hidden and specifically cultural imperialism. Struggles over the origins, membership, and ownership of Polish culture are visible through certain innovations in Majewski’s work, including both new literary inclusions and the film’s English subtitling. While the film as received in Polish is not an unalloyed national self-projection, on Poland’s part, as a nuance-free historical subject, its packaging for global Anglophone audiences at least tries to suggest otherwise.

Chinese Cognitive Patterns Influence the Reception and Interpretation of Foreign Literary Works

Chinese Cognitive Patterns Influence the Reception and Interpretation of Foreign Literary Works

Strategies for Studying Foreign Literary Works in Chi-nese Language Teaching in Ordinary High Schools

With the deepening development of globalization and the continuous strengthening of cultural exchange, foreign literature has occu-pied an important position in Chinese language teaching in ordinary high schools. This study explores teaching strategies for foreign literary works in ordinary high schools, aiming to enhance students multicultural understanding and humanistic literacy through literary works. The research methods include literature review, teaching experiments, and case analysis, with a focus on diversifed selection of textbooks, inter-active teaching, and student-centered evaluation. The results confrm that these strategies can effectively enhance students learning interest, cross-cultural understanding, and critical thinking, and have positive signifcance for their overall development and response to multicultural social challenges.

Research on Reading Strategies and Teaching of Foreign Literary Works

The reading of foreign literature plays an important role in higher education, but many students encounter difficulties in the process of reading and need effective reading strategies. Combining literature review with empirical research, this paper discusses the reading strategies of foreign literary works, including pre-reading strategies, during-reading strategies and post-reading strategies, and puts forward corresponding practical suggestions. The research shows that effective reading strategies can improve the quality and efficiency of reading, enhance students' interest and ability in reading, and improve their foreign language level and humanistic quality.

The Development of Chinese and Foreign Literary Films – Comparison between China and foreign countries

The Development of Chinese and Foreign Literary Films – Comparison between China and foreign countries

Tamil Esthetic Tradition in a Foreign Genre: A Study of Jeyamohan’s Kaadu (2003)

In the second half of the twentieth century, the early modernist writers in Tamil, whose enthusiasm for the newly imported genre of the novel occupied most of their creative endeavors, felt the need to outgrow the confinements of their own literary tradition. However, after many decades of irreconcilable tensions with tradition, a new generation of novelists, in the last decade of the century, began to reengage with traditional esthetics through the genre of the novel itself. The advent of postmodernism into the Tamil literary scene prepared the ground for this new turn in the esthetics of Tamil writing. This paper argues that the result of this new engagement is a synthesis of traditional esthetic systems and the supposedly foreign literary genre, the novel. The argument is exemplified through a detailed analysis of a Tamil novel titled Kaadu (2003), written by Jeyamohan. Though the novel engages with modern Tamil life, it inherits multiple esthetic frameworks from the extensive Tamil literary tradition, including ancient Sangam poetics, bhakti literature, and different forms of folklore. It strings together these temporally distanced esthetic models on its narrative canvas through a multi-layered narrative structure. The analysis will show how the protagonist Giritharan’s perception of the world is mediated and shaped by different esthetic frameworks and how the novel, through a synthesis of those oppositional frameworks, creates a vision of life that belongs neither to the Tamil tradition nor to the Western esthetic models.

“New Ballet Criticism” (1993–2003) About “Soviet” Ballet: Forms of Cultural Recycling

In post-Soviet Russia ballet criticism, similar to opera criticism, has an almost 30-year-old history, but the period perceived as the brightest and most significant is the first period, spanning the 1990s and the early part of the first decade of the 21st century. For this New Ballet Criticism (as it has been labelled by Vadim Gaevsky), as a part of New Russian Music Criticism (as defined by Olga Manulkina and Pavel Gershenzon), a number of features have become normative: provocative styles and titles, a demythologization of works and of choreographers, the use of comparisons with mass culture in narratives, and ironic subtext. Similar to opera, political discourse has become important in ballet receptions of that time. Reviews of Soviet-era ballet productions (as well as other types of performance) often refer to the main elements of Soviet mass art — Soviet films, as well as symbols of the totalitarian culture, such as sculpture and ideological materials. The styles and headlines exploit numerous Sovietisms that are familiar and recognizable by the audience. Just like in opera reviews, the recent “Soviet” element in ballet receptions is synthesized with Soviet mass culture and fashionable trends in the country via the cult of Western cinema and the influence of domestic and foreign literary, scholarly and epistolary texts. But unlike opera criticism, ballet narratives clearly record the diversity of genres of “Soviet” ballet (ranking Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich among them); ballets since 1961 have been interpreted as a transformation of the “Soviet” element under the influence of George Balanchine’s choreography; the concept of “Soviet choreography” also implies the unreachable, for example, in the embodiment of heroic moods and the creation of mass scenes. Four forms of cultural recycling in ballet receptions are identified: recycling, recycling à la ballet, double recycling and quasi-recycling.

Anti-colonial pathos of Mykola Lazorskyi’s prose

Literature of Ukrainian diaspora is a very rich and diverse phenomenon needing objective, systematic and complete scientific consideration. The purpose of the article is to analyze anti-colonial pathos in the prose of the original Ukrainian writer from Australia Mykola Lazorskyi whose works are visible against the background of the native and foreign literary process of the 20th century and deserve scientific attention. The research is based on the general methods of analysis, synthesis, observation, selection and systematization of the material. The elements of the following methods are used in the article: cultural and historical (helps to highlight the special features of representation of Ukrainian national culture against the background of the anti-colonial struggle of different historical epochs in creative works of Mykola Lazorskyi), hermeneutic (ensures fluent and open interpretation of texts keeping perspective for new explanations), aesthetic (allows analyzing each text as a phenomenon of literature and art), intertextual (links between the writer’s prose and Ukrainian literature, foreign literary and folklore tradition). The works of Mykola Lazorskyi testify that he had delicate involvement into the past historical epochs and was interested in the fates of famous and little known figures who were engaged in the anti-colonial struggle of Ukrainians and served as a model for imitation in the realm of the national resistance and preservation of ethnic identity and national traditions. Mykola Lazorskyi’s prose enriches and widens our idea about the native and the world anti-colonial literature. The writer deals with the problem of multi-century aspiration of our ancestors to exist as a separate nation and gain a victory over aggressive neighbors. The author describes the history of the native land and the anti-colonial struggle of other nations. Russia is a symbol of very disgust and ominous forms of the colonialism in the writer’s works. Mykola Lazorskyi’s anti-colonial historical prose also sounds topically in our days when the Moscow horde wishes to destroy Ukraine and to conquer other European countries. These anti-colonial texts ring as a strict sentence to the last imperial forces on the planet. In perspective it is advisable to turn to Mykola Lazorskyi’s anti-colonial historical prose in comparison with the works of modern writers who represent anti-colonial discourse in Ukrainian and foreign literature of the early 21th century.

Retracted: Comparison and Research on the Applicability of Combining Information of Chinese and Foreign Literary Genres Based on Data Analysis

Retracted: Comparison and Research on the Applicability of Combining Information of Chinese and Foreign Literary Genres Based on Data Analysis

ЕКОКРИТИЧНЕ ПРОЧИТАННЯ ХУДОЖНІХ ТВОРІВ НА УРОКАХ ЗАРУБІЖНОЇ ЛІТЕРАТУРИ

This paper calls for a rapprochement between ecocriticism and school education, especially foreign literary lessons. The principles of ecocritical interpretation as a new tendency in the Ukrainian literary education are considered. Special attention is paid to the categorization of environmental literature. At first, the author focuses on the phenomenon of ecocriticism which appeared in response to the interest of researchers to the new kind of nature literature and to the ways of literary representation of the ecological themes in school. Foreign literary gives a rich material for teachers to represent ecological problems. Arguing for the necessity of bringing theory into school course of foreign literature the paper suggest that green studies needs to be wildly represented at the lessons. Literature and the arts have been drawn to portrayals of physical environments and human-environment interactions. The modern environmentalist movement as it emerged first in the late nineteenth century and, in its more recent incarnation, in the 1960s, gave rise to a rich array of fictional and nonfictional writings concerned with humans’ changing relationship to the natural world. Only since the early 1990s, however, has the long-standing interest of literature studies in these matters generated the initiative most commonly known as «ecocriticism» or «green studies». In such areas as the study of literature, ecocriticism converges with such disciplines in the humanities: environmental anthropology, environmental history, and environmental philosophy. A new wave of ecological researches have been noticed in education sphere. The school course of foreign literature has new line еcological safety and sustainable development», as a transfer «forming in social activity, viability and environmental awareness for saving and defending environment. That’s why teachers can use ecocritical tools for analysis literary works at the lessons. It gives more opportunities for studying and understanding ecological problems by students. Key words: ecocriticism, green studies, foreign literature, environmental imagination, literary theory

Comparison and Research on the Applicability of Combining Information of Chinese and Foreign Literary Genres Based on Data Analysis

Western literature has a later history of factual connection with Chinese literature, and the resources for empirical research are far less abundant than in other Eastern countries. It is also because Western culture is a different cultural system from Eastern and Chinese cultures, which also lends itself to parallel studies that seek common ground in differences and see differences in the same. In this paper, we will mainly compare Chinese and Western literature from the perspective of the lack of factual relationship between Chinese and foreign literature and explore the integration and development of the national traditional literature by combining computer algorithms.

USIS-funded literary translation in Hong Kong in the Cultural Cold War: a study of literary translations in World Today (1949-1952)

ABSTRACT Recent scholarship has witnessed a burgeoning interest in the interwoven relationship between Cold War Studies and Translation Studies. However, Hong Kong during the Cold War remains largely neglected. Hong Kong in the 1950s had a political significance from a temporal and spatial perspective and was the scene where the British colonizer, the United States Information Services (USIS) and Communist China fought a hidden battle. World Today, a less studied but major periodical that was sponsored by the USIS in Hong Kong, was published between 1949 and the 1980s. This paper investigates the literary translations in World Today from 1949 to 1952, and finds that they were part of the US propaganda and cultural war against Communist China. These foreign literary works, chiefly American literature and writings on the US, were characterized by appropriation and mediation through the purposeful selection of translated literary works from the outset and selective manipulation within the text via omissions and alterations thereafter.

Тhe coherence between the novel and short prose of alternative history: segmentation of the meta-genre as the internal architecture of the work

The article is devoted to the comparative analysis of the expression connections of architectonic components in short and novel prose. The purpose of this article is to to demonstrate in a comparative way the concepts of segmentation of the AI ​​meta-genre in T. Fermes' short prose, O. Menshova, V. Kozhelianko in comparison with the works of short prose, the paradigm of views on this concept in different historical and cultural milestones and their extrapolation in contemporary literature. The novelty of the article lies in the fact that Here, for the first time, chronotopic concepts in short prose of the meta-genre of alternative history are considered in comparison with novel prose AI. Research methods are a complex of comparative, descriptive, historical and literary approaches. Conclusions. Based on the study of the modern functioning of genealogy in extensive domestic and foreign literary and literary discourse, it is possible to develop potential of Russian comparative studies: avoiding the danger of falling into the trap of "literary timeless" theoretical analytical principles; in the course of the analysis, it was concluded that, by defining the genre marking of prose, should take into account not only the features of poetics in the context of the four-level structure of prose, but also the temporal the context of the work, its cultural background, literary area or direction. in which the writer analyzes mainly works, and aimed at recipients of a hidden conceptual and symbolic set of the analyzed alternative history meta-genre literature; there is a set of architectonic features of novel prose AI transferred to short form compositions, which is why the chronotope of the latter is subject to modification

Wielka sztuka niewielkiego narodu: Polska na tle kontaktów literackich Chin z Europą Środkowo-Wschodnią

In 2020, Wydawnictwo Akademickie Dialog published the Polish version of Chiny i Europa Środkowo-Wschodnia. Historia kontaktów literackich (China and Central and Eastern Europe. The History of Literary Contacts) by Chinese literary scholars: Ding Chao and Song Binghui. The book is part of the series Historia Kontaktów Literackich między Chinami a Zagranicą (The History of China’s Foreign Literary Contacts) which aims to become a comprehensive description of China’s cultural exchange with other countries. Volume 17 is devoted to China’s relationships with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia. In this group, Poland occupies one of the central positions due to, among other, a high interest in Polish history among Chinese intellectual elite of the early twentieth century and among the reformers of Chinese literature in that period. The article discusses the sources of the popularity of Polish themes in the formative period of modern Chinese literature and the reception of Polish literature in China today. It also attempts to familiarise the readers with the themes studied by the researchers, the goals they set for themselves and the methods they used to achieve them, and presents the benefits of publishing the book in Polish.

Cultural Infiltration of Foreign Literary Works in Senior High School Chinese Textbooks

Foreign literary works are an important part of Chinese textbooks in high schools. However, the exam-oriented education results in a marginalized and unsatisfactory teaching of foreign literary works. Based on the high school Chinese textbook by PEP (People’s Education Press), teaching practices, and requirements of the new curriculum standards, this article analyzes the foreign literary works in the textbook, explores its value and the infiltration of cultural spirit in teaching, discusses the problems in teaching, as well as provides suggestions to them in hope to gain attention in the teaching of foreign literary works, broaden students’ horizons, and cultivate their humanistic spirit.

История развития зарубежной литературной географии

История развития зарубежной литературной географии

The Relationship between Foreign Literary Work Reading and Intercultural Competence of Chinese College Students

This study constructs a scale to investigate Chinese college students' foreign literary work reading situation, and to explore the correlation between foreign literary work reading and six dimensions of intercultural competence. Firstly, the basic situation description of foreign literary work reading and intercultural competence development is conducted by Foreign Literary Work Reading Scale for Chinese College Students and Assessment of Intercultural Competence of Chinese College Students (AIC-CCS), which is proposed by Wu et al (2013) [1]. Then, combined with the Pearson Correlation of SPSS, the correlation analysis is performed and reveals that there is a significant positive relationship between foreign literary work reading and intercultural competence. And it has the greatest effect on knowledge of others, the general effect on intercultural communicative and cognitive skills, and the minimal effect on knowledge of self, attitudes and awareness. This research can provide a theoretical reference for foreign language teaching.

МУЛЬТИКУЛЬТУРНІСТЬ КОНРАДА-ЕМІГРАНТА

The article is devoted to the problem of the multiculturalism by Joseph Conrad, the English writer and the world classic of the 20th century, who, due to the preservation of his Polish national-cultural identity, and by estrangement from this identity in his artistic consciousness, was able to influence the intellectual and artistic atmosphere in England of his times. In this way, the Polish identity became a background for Conrad’s artistic creativity, and at the same time, universal values and criteria were the key to the successful acculturation in English society in its one of the most effective strategies – the integration strategy. In this case Conrad acquired another national-cultural identity, English, – while retaining his native, Polish. Undoubtedly, one of the most important issues touched by almost all researchers is his arrival in English literature, a Pole in origin, who only arrived in England in the twenty-first year, actually emigrating, and for a very short time becaming a venerable writer. It should be noted that, taking into account the peculiarities of English mentality, the task was rather uneasy. All this undoubtedly led to the development of a variety of approaches to understanding the creative personality and rich heritage of Joseph Conrad. Foreign literary and critical academic circles, which introduced the concept of «new English literature» (meaning the post-colonial period), do not take into account such figures of the English literary process as Joseph Conrad, whose work falls out of its chronological framework, and indicates that multicultural literature appeared on the approaches to the twentieth century. However, only nowadays it was possible that such an approach was based on the principles of multiculturalism, that is, the phenomenon justified in the 90s of the XX century, although, as the majority of scholars testify, it existed for a long time in cultural studies, literary criticism, art history and philosophy. We have chosen this approach. The research is devoted to the study of the problems of national-cultural identity by Joseph Conrad, as well as the mechanism of his acculturation in the conditions of emigration.

Translation and Adaptation in Dissemination of Foreign Literary Works: A Case Study of Robinson Crusoe

When investigated in a broader vision, adaptation carried out away from translational act can also contribute to transmission of a foreign text. Based on the presumption that the act of translation moves foreign classics into the periphery of target culture, but far from asserting their finality, the author, supported by the case of Robinson Crusoe, singles out translation (retranslation), and adaptation (adaptive translation and post-translation adaptation) for a study, and attempts to explore how they are related to one another and identify their role in contributing to the transmission of foreign text. It is concluded that besides translation and retranslations, post-translation adaptation contributes more share to transmitting and canonizing a foreign text.

Quality Sells

With the emergence of an international bestseller culture in the first half of the twentieth century, foreign literary works were of increasing importance in domestic conceptions of cultural hierarchies. This was in particular the case in peripheral literary systems, which largely depended on translations of foreign novels to meet the growing demands for literary works in this period. Using the international bestsellers Gone with the Wind (1936) by the American author Margaret Mitchell and Katrina (1936) by the Finnish author Sally Salminen as case studies, this article aims to investigate how such works were adapted, marketed and evaluated in the peripheral Dutch literary field of the late thirties. Analyzing publishers’ production and marketing strategies on the one hand and the evaluating practices of literary reviewers on the other, an overview is presented of the ways in which different aspects of this upcoming international bestseller culture influenced the Dutch literary field, focusing in particular on the incorporation of these international bestsellers into local debates. The concept of middlebrow is used within the framework of Bourdieu’s field theory to study mechanisms of cultural distinction and the attribution of symbolic capital to these foreign works in the context of a national literary field.