Great Lady Research Articles

The Morisot Sisters: The Pioneer Female Impressionist Painters

This paper explores the profound contributions of Edma Morisot, Berthe Morisot, and Marie Bracquemond—three pioneering female Impressionist painters whose artistic achievements are often overlooked within the male-dominated Impressionist movement of the late 19th century. While Impressionism transformed art by emphasizing light, shadow, and the en plein air technique, it marginalized female artists, relegating their work to the fringes of mainstream recognition. Edma and Berthe Morisot, two sisters trained in classical techniques, defied societal expectations and familial pressures to establish a unique artistic voice, portraying intimate scenes of women’s daily lives. Edma’s career was cut short due to marital constraints, while Berthe’s continued until her death, producing notable works such as The Mother and Sister of the Artist and Summer’s Day, which reflect her skill in color palette and composition. Marie Bracquemond celebrated as one of the “three great ladies of Impressionism,” also defied conventions, presenting works like Afternoon Snack despite her husband’s disapproval. This study illuminates how these women navigated gendered restrictions to contribute to Impressionism, challenging patriarchal norms and enriching the movement’s legacy through their nuanced depictions of women’s experiences and intricate brushwork.

Norwid’s drama of “social transfigurations”

The article discusses Norwid’s concept of drama and theatre; notably, he assumes their close relationship with social life and its historical changes. Basing on analyses of meta-dramatic and meta-theatrical statements made by the poet, contained primarily in the essays “Widowiska w ogóle uważane” and “Białe kwiaty” [Performances considered in general; White flowers], in passages from lectures on Słowacki (O Juliuszu Słowackim), and in the introduction to Pierścień Wielkiej-Damy [The Ring of a Great Lady], it is possible to formulate the thesis that Norwid intentionally developed a vision of drama based on the idea of “social transfigurations.”What is more, the character of his dramatic works enables one to interpret his particular theatrical pieces in the light of anthropological and sociological categories of social drama and cultural performance. After all, most of Norwid’s dramatic works depict situations of social change in terms of rites of passage and theatricalized social practices, e.g. social ceremonies or ritualized interactions. As a result, Norwidian drama becomes an artistic representation of forces shaping collective life, a lens facilitating their understanding in the spirit of social anthropology, and an important factor in the formation of man.

Book Review: Review of: “The Great Lady” by Margaret Barker

Book Review: Review of: “The Great Lady” by Margaret Barker

A Goddess and a City or How to Read the Hieroglyphic Luwian Sign MANUS+MANUS

This paper argues that the unusual determinative MANUS+MANUS of the goddess Pahalati in Hama that resisted explanation until now can be understood due to its new attestation in the logographic spelling of a Cilician toponym. It will be shown that an earlier attempt that identified MANUS+MANUS as a variant of MAGNUS, the city as Urušša, and the name of the goddess as a Phoenician-Luwian mixed phrase meaning ‘Great Lady’, is palaeographically, linguistically, and geographically impossible. A clue to the decipherment of MANUS+MANUS is provided by the homo(io)phonous settlement in Cilicia, Pahra-, which explains how the same sign could have been used both as a determinative and as a logogram in accordance with the regular rules of the usage of the determinatives.

There Is a Lot More to Transplantation Surgery Than the Surgery Itself: The "Other" Sir Peter John Morris, AC, FRS.

There Is a Lot More to Transplantation Surgery Than the Surgery Itself: The "Other" Sir Peter John Morris, AC, FRS.

The Crisis of Religious Identity in Sixteenth Century Central Asia: The Centrality of ʿAlidism in the Maẓhar al-ʿAjāʾib

Abstract The present study explores the centrality of ʿAlidism in the religious profile of a Sufi community active in the early sixteenth century in Mawarannahr, which was at the center of the ongoing major religio-political transformations in the aftermath of the decline of the Timurid dynasty. This community was led by a female Sufi master celebrated as Aghā-yi Buzurg (the Great Lady). The misfortunes faced by Aghā-yi Buzurg and her followers during this critical transitional period was related to her group’s upholding the Timurid-era tradition of ʿAlid devotion under the early Shibanid rule. The public proclamation of pro-ʿAlid sentiments in post-Timurid Central Asia became dangerous in the early sixteenth century when the veneration of ʿAlī and his descendants started being associated with sympathies toward the Shiʿi Safavids. It is remarkable that Aghā-yi Buzurg’s public career as a leader of the Sufi community consisting of male and female disciples was not the main factor provoking the attacks against her community, but instead, it was their admiration of ʿAlī and his descendants.

Garden of One's Own

Although the character of the “lady detective” is a staple of the cozy mystery genre, we contend that there are no great lady detectives to rival Holmes or Poirot. This is not because there are no clever or interesting lady detective characters, but rather because the concept of greatness is socially constructed and, like coolness, depends on public acclaim and perception. We explore the mechanics of genre formation, arguing that the very structure of cozy mysteries precludes female greatness. To create a “great” character, the author cannot just endow her with certain attributes; she must actively work to overcome her audience’s tendency to import structures of oppression into the story, and she must wrestle against the conventions of the genre. In doing so, however, authors risk setting their stories in a wholly different genre.

Isabella; or, The Coin Purse

Isabella; or, The Coin Purse Ben Stroud (bio) I The First Time Across the baize-topped table, Lina blushes, and Isabella doesn't understand why until she looks at her cards. She has won. A month of playing vingt-un with Lina, and not once has Isabella won. It is uncomfortable, unfortunate, but soon Isabella has a notion of what she can do. After the fifth hand she proposes, as if idly, two extra hands, and this seems to work. Once these are lost, Lina, like always, rings the silver bell, Giuseppe emerges from the apartment's back rooms with the bowl of pastilles, and over in the other half of the salon, perched on his couch, Lina's brother yawns, interrupting James in whatever subject he has alighted on today. II The Coin Purse She knows what happened. She was holding the coin purse, running her fingers over its silk and wondering: Is he as tall as her? Taller? Is his hair still so fair? Thus distracted, she failed to ask for the extra cards she needed in order to lose. The coin purse arrived a week ago. Its exterior is a paisleyed pink and blue, its interior a mortal red. In the note that accompanied the purse, her son, John, said he'd picked it out because he thought its pattern suited such a great lady as she must be, that he'd saved his sweets money for two months to buy it, and that if ever she came to Lyon, he would kiss her on the cheek and show her his favorite places. [End Page 190] III S When the coin purse arrived, Isabella and James had been in S.—a city of modest size perched upon a foothill of the Apennines—for three weeks. Now they have been here a month. James is nearing the completion of his history of the Dukes of Urbino, the long work he had in mind when, twelve years ago, he came to Cringletie and made his offer. The Prince, Lina's brother, possesses letters he wishes to see; they were written four centuries before to an ancestor of his and Lina's named Ippolito. Every day, James and Isabella go to the Prince and Lina's apartments, but as yet the Prince has not surrendered the letters. More than once, as he and Isabella walk back to their rented palazzo, James has despaired that they are to be stuck in S. for an eternity. Isabella, though, has discovered she does not mind being made to wait. In S., she has found Lina. Since marrying James—or, more correctly, since her flight from Cringletie—she has not had such an intimate, and it is supremely fortunate, finding Lina, for with the purse arriving, unsettling everything, she needs the support of an intimate. IV Lina and the Prince There is an unhealthy look to the Prince. His pallor puts Isabella in mind of dripped wax or the sort of excrescence that might be scraped from a cellar wall, and his hair, while far too thin to be a wig, seems somehow pasted on. Lina, however, is so unlike her brother: fresh, attractive, her hair neat, her liveliness apparent in her shining eyes and the pertness about her mouth. Isabella estimates Lina is a trifle older than herself, perhaps forty, but there is nothing matronly in her, and though she possesses but two dresses, one patterned with lilacs, the other with brown and blue stripes, she wears them with such confidence that one almost cannot tell. The Prince is one of those ten-a-penny princes that litter the Italian peninsula. So James has told Isabella. Lina, then, is a Princess, though [End Page 191] whenever Isabella called her such on their early visits, she shook off the title with an amused frown. "To you, I am Lina." On their first outing, to the Etruscan tomb, she gave Isabella her version of her family's history, charting, with some merriment—for she seemed to delight in mocking her brother's more solemn pretensions—its two-century decline, triggered, according to Lina, when the cardinal who marked the family's apogee died of a...

Kyra Markham: Letters to Louis Sheaffer (1962–63)

Kyra Markham: Letters to Louis Sheaffer (1962–63)

Norwidowski dramat „transfiguracji społecznych”

Artykuł zawiera rozważania na temat Norwidowskiej koncepcji dramatu i teatru, zakładającej ich ścisły związek z życiem społecznym i jego historycznymi przemianami. Analizy wypowiedzi metadramatycznych i metateatralnych poety, czyli przede wszystkim szkicu Widowiska w ogóle uważane, Białych kwiatów, fragmentów wykładów O Juliuszu Słowackim oraz przedmowy do Pierścienia Wielkiej-Damy, dostarczają szeregu argumentów na rzecz tezy o intencjonalnym kształtowaniu przez Norwida dramaturgii osnutej wokół idei „transfiguracji społecznych”. Co więcej, charakter jego dorobku dramatopisarskiego pozwala na zastosowanie w interpretacji poszczególnych dziełantropologiczno-socjologicznych kategorii dramatu społecznego i widowiska kulturowego. Większość utworów dramatycznych Norwida unaocznia bowiem sytuację przemiany społecznej, ujętej w ramy obrzędów przejścia i steatralizowanych praktyk społecznych (społeczne ceremonie, rytuały interakcyjne). Dzięki temu Norwidowski dramat staje się artystyczną reprezentacją sił działających w przestrzeni życia zbiorowego, narzędziem ich rozumienia w duchu antropologii społecznej, a także ważnym czynnikiem formowania człowieka.

Scholarly Position of Hazrat Zenab (R.A.) and her contributions to Islamic Jurisprudence: A research study

Hazrat Zenab is a great lady of Islam. She was the daughter of Abu Salma (R.A.) al-Makhzumi, the great companion of Holy Prophet (peace be upon him). She narrated seven Ahadith directly from Holy Prophet (peace be upon him). Hazrat Zenab (R.A.) quickly grew to become known as an incredible scholar of Madinah, particularly in the field of Fiqh. She was an ardent and zealous student of Islamic jurisprudence. She has not only described Ahadith and reported her observations of events, but also interpreted them. She was ever-ready to guide the common people in religious matters. As a teacher she had a clear and persuasive manner of speech. Hazrat Zenab (R.A.) is a role model for women. She taught Islam too many people. She was an authority on many matters of Islamic Law, especially those concerning women. In this article an effort has been made to describe her services as her life shows to what height Muslim women can rise.

Mrs Dalloway’s Party Poopers: A Quarrel on Cue

Virginia Woolf’s novelMrs Dalloway, published on 14 May 1925, depicts upper-middle-class society in the aftermath of the Great War (1914–18). The significance of fifty years is gathered up through description of a single day.1 In the evening there is an awkward meeting of minds at a party when Professor Brierly and ‘little’ Jim Hutton quarrel over the poet and polemicist John Milton (1608–74).2 This short scene generally escapes attention from Woolf’s editors and critics while the author herself describes it as ‘an attempt at literary criticism’.3 Its interest and its importance justify its inclusion in full: For there was Professor Brierly, who lectured on Milton, talking to little Jim Hutton (who was unable even for a party like this to compass both tie and waistcoat or make his hair lie flat), and even at this distance they were quarrelling, she could see. For Professor Brierly was a very queer fish. With all those degrees, honours, lectureships between him and the scribblers, he suspected instantly an atmosphere not favourable to his queer compound; his prodigious learning and timidity; his wintry charm without cordiality, his innocence blent with snobbery; he quivered if made conscious, by a lady’s unkempt hair, a youth’s boots, of an underworld, very creditable doubtless, of rebels, of ardent young people; of would-be geniuses, and intimated with a little toss of the head, with a sniff – Humph! – the value of moderation; of some slight training in the classics in order to appreciate Milton. Professor Brierly (Clarissa could see) wasn’t hitting it off with little Jim Hutton (who wore red socks, his black being at the laundry) about Milton. She interrupted. She said she loved Bach. So did Hutton. That was the bond between them, and Hutton (a very bad poet) always felt that Mrs Dalloway was far the best of the great ladies who took an interest in art. It was odd how strict she was. About music she was purely impersonal. She was rather a prig. But how charming to look at! She made her house so nice, if it weren’t for her Professors. Clarissa had half a mind to snatch him off and set him down at the piano in the back room. For he played divinely. ‘But the noise!’ she said. ‘The noise!’ ‘The sign of a successful party.’ Nodding urbanely, the Professor stepped delicately off. ‘He knows everything in the whole world about Milton,’ said Clarissa. ‘Does he indeed?’ said Hutton, who would imitate the Professor throughout Hampstead: the Professor on Milton; the Professor on moderation; the Professor stepping delicately off.4

“Conversations are Monologues” Lyricism in Pierścień Wielkiej Damy (“A Ring of a Great Lady”) by Cyprian Norwid

“Conversations are Monologues” Lyricism in Pierścień Wielkiej Damy (“A Ring of a Great Lady”) by Cyprian Norwid

What does Hine-nui-te-pō look like? A case study of oral tradition, myth and literature in Aotearoa New Zealand

This essay concerns Māui’s famous, canonical encounter, known only from Aotearoa (New Zealand), with one of Māori myth’s most important deities: Hine-nui-(i)-te-pō, ‘Great lady of the night’, queen of the underworld and, some would say, goddess of death. In particular, this essay traces Hine-nui-te-pō’s literary afterlife, focusing on formulaic descriptions oft her physiognomy from Te Rangikāheke’s “Tama a Rangi” (an 1849 manuscript) through to Karen Healey’s young-adult novel Guardian of the Dead (2010) and Barry Powell’s World Myth (2014). After introducing Hine-nui-te-pō and her place in Polynesian myth, I detail the textual history of the standard (and, I would argue, now formulaic) description of Hine-nui-te-pō’s physical form, comprising four recurring attributes: (i) eyes of, or like, greenstone (pounamu), (ii) hair of, or like, sea-kelp, (iii) teeth of, or like, obsidian and (iv) a mouth of, or like that of, a barracouta. First, I present a new transcription and translation of the relevant passage of Te Rangikāheke’s “Tama a Rangi”, taken from a facsimile of the manuscript. Then follows an account of the textual history of this passage, through George Grey’s various publications to Agathe Thornton’s 1992 edition and translation. I argue that subsequent editions and translations of this passage subtly misrepresent Te Rangikāheke’s handwritten Māori text. Next, I survey scholarly and literary receptions of this formulaic description, revealing that descriptions of Hine-nui-te-pō derive from, develop and indeed at times depart from Te Rangikāheke’s text; and that Hine-nui-te-pō has over time become a locus of progressive mythopoesis. On the one hand, she is a multiform from whom uniformity across different texts, genres, authors and languages should not be expected. On the other hand, I conclude, it is vital that we not forget Te Rangikāheke’s important but little-known account.

Świat rzeczy w Pierścieniu Wielkiej-Damy

The article focuses on the analysis of the relationship of the title character of Pierścien Wielkiej-Damy [The Ring of a Great Lady] to objects or (commonly understood) things. This analysis allows to formulate the hypothesis that Norwid’s intention was to present the protagonist as a “substantial and complete woman”, as an entirely positive character (in Norwid Studies, the general view on Countess Harrys is rather different).

Świat rzeczy w Pierścieniu Wielkiej-Damy

The article focuses on the analysis of the relationship of the title character of Pierścien Wielkiej-Damy [The Ring of a Great Lady] to objects or (commonly understood) things. This analysis allows to formulate the hypothesis that Norwid’s intention was to present the protagonist as a “substantial and complete woman”, as an entirely positive character (in Norwid Studies, the general view on Countess Harrys is rather different).

Dialektyka przemocy w ofiarniczych tragediach Cypriana Norwida

Wśród badaczy twórczości Cypriana Norwida wciąż żywy wydaje się spór o przynależność autora Pierścienia Wielkiej-Damy do romantyzmu lub modernizmu. Pytanie o nowoczesność Norwidowskiej myśli jest jednocześnie trudnym pytaniem o no­woczesność polskiego romantyzmu. Na ile poeta uwikłany był w artystyczne idee stworzone przez swoich wielkich poprzedników – Mickiewicza, Słowackiego i Krasińskiego – a na ile jego refleksja jest wyjątkowa i przełomowa? W artykule autor postanowił skupić się na ukazaniu późnej Norwidowskiej twórczości dramatycznej jako w pełni podporządkowanej nowoczesnej refleksji, ukazując autora Kleopatry i Cezara jako prekursora koncepcji stworzonych przez tak wybitnych reprezentantów krytyki nowoczesności jak René Girard, Walter Benjamin i Michel Foucault.

„Monologami są rozmowy” . Liryczność w Pierścieniu Wielkiej Damy Cypriana Norwida

“Dialogues are Monologues”. Lyricism in Cyprian Norwid’s The Ring of a Great Lady The article attempts to show how lyricism as an essential component of Cyprian Norwid’s The Ring of a Great Lady affects the artistic shape of the work. This issue is shown by the observation of selected structural elements of the drama, such as time, space and the construction of the main character. In the work the space of the drama and time of the action have been used as metaphors and moved into the sphere of the protagonists’ spiritual experiences. Both time and space planes undergo subjectivism which is the result of lyricism that pervades Norwid’s work. A window – the element of the theatre building plays a prominent role in shaping time and space of the drama. It is a point that links the outside world to a close space of the play which becomes simultaneously extended. The point performs the function of the prism through which this world penetrates the author’s life. In poetical expressions the window also becomes a place of the protagonists’ overcoming time-space limitations. The protagonists’ lyrical monologues, above all Mak-Yks’s monologues, show the evolution of the man’s personality. This character is externally passive, inactive though he exudes the unparalleled inner energy. The lyricism contained in dialogues and monologues, the shaping of a poetic language, its continual tension between expressing his personal experiences and a parallel general reflection initiate a multidimensional, symbolic significance of the drama. The analysis of lyrical fragments also shows that Mak-Yks, likewise Norwid’s other protagonists share a distinctive feature with the author, and the conclusions lead us to reflect that The Ring of a Great Lady is a lyrical drama.

«Un indéfinissable regret». Lionello Sozzi et les ailes de l’âme

This contribution is a tribute in memory of Lionello Sozzi. The A. highlights the European dimension and dramatic-moral tension implied in his critical works, particularly in his writings on Humanism, then goes beyond the dignitas concept to illustrate some moments of Jacques Grévin’s activity – writer, doctor and Protestant. Thus, the core of this essay is a deeper insight into Grévin’s works (from the Gélodacrye to the treaties and scientific translations, such as the works about Ochino, Wier, Nicandro, to the lesser-known texts dedicated to the great ladies, Chants, Pastorales and Tombeaux). The study of the sources, based on meticulous archival researches, leads Rosanna Gorris Camos to, first of all, analyse a matter dear to Lionello Sozzi and which can also be connected to the consciousness of Grévin’s contemporaries (Marot, Dolet, du Bellay): i.e., the exile matter, where the dignitas is transposed into miseria hominis. As the A. shows, the case of Grévin, with his exile in Elizabeth I’s England and in Margaret of France’s Savoy, crystallizes fears and anxieties concerning humankind at the time: the risk is to no longer distinguish «entre le vrai et le faux, mais aussi entre la vraie sagesse et la fausse sagesse, car la sagesse humaine n’est que vanité».

The Pomegranate Lady and Her Sons by Goli Taraghi

eager to break the silence. I always kept it to myself, and it was as if I had built a wall around myself. But at last the wall collapses .” And the painful memories surface: of mass killings, including women and children; beheadings; finding the shallow graves of thousands of fallen young soldiers ; officers without a conscience sending their men into war-crime scenarios; seeing best buddies die; leaving behind lovers and their children when a political settlement was finally reached and they returned home. But what happened in the jungles of Indonesia came home with them, and they would never be the same. More than five thousand did not come home. Speerstra visits those stories, too, of bereaved parents whose grief never went away, or of fiancées who waited in vain. And though there is an inevitable similarity running through these stories, no two are the same. Speerstra’s storytelling powers are fully exercised here by varying the narrative techniques and by letting each subject tell his story in his own unique way. Characteristically, the author allows the stories their emotional dimension. In many of these stories, he listens to the heartbeat of a lost generation; in recording them, he makes sure that the war and its cost are no longer forgotten. Henry J. Baron Calvin College Goli Taraghi. The Pomegranate Lady and Her Sons. Sara Khalili, tr. New York. W. W. Norton. 2015 (©2013). isbn 9780393063332 Goli Taraghi, a renowned Iranian female author, now in her seventies, has lived in Iran, the US, and France and has written and published both before the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and after. Her latest collection, published in English, The Pomegranate Lady and Her Sons, includes ten short stories that cover various moments and eras in the span of her life, taking place in Tehran, Paris, and other cities in between and beyond. These stories seem to be mainly based on either Taraghi’s own life or on other women she has met throughout her life and journeys. Some of her themes include three generations of women, a thief, a ballet class, neighborhood young loves, a coup d’état, grandmothers, the intertwined lives of maids, nannies, and their employers. Of the stories in the collection, only three are primarily about male characters; interestingly , they are entitled “In Another Place,” “The Great Lady of My Soul,” and “The Other One,” and even these are, in one way or another, stories with a female center. Taraghi writes of the world around her, allowing her to indulge herself and her readers in the well-represented familiar world but limiting her ability to take her readers beyond her immediate surroundings , beyond her social class and lifestyle. Her stories are strongest when she delves into (re)creating a world with its events and characters, and when she stays within the bounds of simple storytelling, rather than trying to use intricate plot devices that might be more harmful than helpful to the story. On another note, the stories are not the strongest with regard to rhythm and pacing, tone and voice, as these do not change much from one story to another, from one context to another. Goli Taraghi is a storyteller who reminds you of a grandmother who gathers her grandkids around her at night and tells stories of a life, a life wished for and gone by, struggled for and let go of, remembered and recounted. Her stories are simple and accessible, yet they revive peoples who are not simple and accessible. Her stories are happy, hopeful, and humane while simultaneously sad, dark, and heartbreaking. Without any forced gestures, they invite you to sit, listen, imagine, and think about these lives. It is for these very reasons that Sheniz Janmohamed Firesmoke TSAR This collection of poems from Sheniz Janmohamed spans three poetic forms in its quest to uncover both truths about the soul and the life cycle of fire. Using images of nature and combining them with references to history and the tenets of her cultural heritage to evoke beautiful examinations into life, Janmohamed’s writing is wonderfully complex in its simplicity. C Fong Hsiung Picture Bride TSAR This novel about a Chinese Indian girl forced...