Literary Abilities Research Articles

THE GENESIS, THE IDEALOGICAL AND MYSTICAL ESSENCE AND POETIC OF ALISHER NAVOY'S NAZMUL-JAVAHIR WORK

Currently, significant work is being carried out in our country to study the rich literary and historical heritage left by our ancestors, as well as manuscript sources. A collection of four poems by Alisher Navoi entitled “Nazmul-Javahir” can be called “Poetic Masterpieces” or “Poetic Masterpieces”. These quatrains are dedicated to hadiths - the wise words of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), transmitted by Hazrat Ali and expressed in verse. Alisher Navoi highly appreciated the linguistic and literary abilities of Hazrat Ali. In his work Mahbubul-Kulub (Beloved of Hearts), he mentioned Hazrat Ali in the first category when he spoke about the people of Nazm. This work by Navoi is about education from head to toe. In “Nazmul-javahir” Navoi elu widely propagates the ideas of goodness, humanity, justice, and morality through his conclusions and generalizations based on the experience of village life. He tries to raise people to spiritual heights, gives instructions on what material and spiritual harmony should be.

The Influence of Chinese Online Novels on the Values of Adolescents

Introduction. With the development of the Internet, the popularity of online novels, especially in China, prompts the declining interest in reading paper books. The potential impact of online novels on adolescents has become a matter of public concern. Most studies examine the role of online novels in students’ learning process, as well as the impact on young people’s communication and social interaction. However, so far, the impact of online novels on adolescents’ values and psychology has been understudied despite their critical importance in shaping young peopleʼs identity. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine the influence of online novels on the values and psychology of Chinese secondary school learners. Materials and Methods. To address this challenge, a survey was conducted among students attending Yifu Educational Institution in Nanning, China. Questionnaires developed through the Question Star app were distributed through relevant user groups on social media platforms including WeChat and Tencent QQ. Results. As a result, positive (increased general knowledge and literacy, the opportunity to spend free time productively) and negative (impact on learning and physical health, decreased literary abilities, promotion of tendencies harmful for society) characteristics of the influence of online novels on adolescents were identified. Practical recommendations were formulated aimed at counteracting negative impact of online novels on adolescents such as the need to strengthen the ideological and moral education of students, the necessity to develop national cultural superiority and pride of modern youth, as well as to introduce young people to useful bibliography. Discussion and Conclusion. The results obtained will make a significant contribution to such fields as psychology, sociology and education. Also, the results of the study will serve as a basis for the development of new approaches to combat the negative impact of Internet novels on the values of adolescents. The results of the study may be useful for specialists of educational institutions and all those who care about the upbringing of the younger generation.

PENGGUNAAN GAYA BAHASA DALAM PUISI KARYA SISWA KELAS VIII SMP NEGERI 27 MALANG

Poetry is one of the standards for junior high school (SMP) students' literary abilities. In poetry, there is definitely a language style that functions to beautify the language in poetry. Likewise with poems written by class VIII A students at SMPN 27 Malang. Based on this, the aim of this research is to reveal the use of language styles in students' poetry, so that the types and forms of use of language styles are known and students' abilities in applying diction in poetry. The research used is qualitative. The data sources contained in this research are 34 poems written by students. From the results of the analysis, it was found that sixteen (16) types of language styles were obtained, with a total of 79. The language styles found include: the first is rhetorical reticence with the highest number of occurrences of around 22 data, then followed by the metaphor, hyperbole and personification language styles with 9 data, followed by the anaphora language style with 6 data. There are other language styles such as rhetorical questions and associations with 4 data each, followed by synecdoche pars pro toto and repetition with 3 data. Next there are the language styles of allegory, tautology, synecdoche totem pro parte which both amount to 2 data, then there are also the language styles of epic parable, simile, pleonasm, and alliteration which each have 1 data. The forms of language style units obtained from students' poetry are in the form of word units, sound units and sentence units. Finally, students' ability to apply denotative and connotative meaningful diction in poetry.

عبدالستار دلوی کی "علی سردار جعفری، شخص، شاعر اور ادیب" : ایک تجزیاتی مطالعہ

Abdul Sattar Dalvi enjoys a remarkable position in Urdu language and literature, research and criticism and in translation and linguistics. He devoted all his life to teach in different universities of the world. He is admired due to his intellectual and literary abilities not only in India but in Pakistan also. His literary master piece “Do Zubanain Do Adab (Urdu Hindi kay Tanazur Main)” is a part of the syllabus of Ph.D. Urdu in various universities of Pakistan. Progressive movement produced many sincere, able, intellectual and honest literary personalities e.g., poets, fiction and prose writers and critics. A prominent name among them was Ali Sardar Jafri. Abdul Sattar Dalvi was well aware of the status of his multifaceted personality, understanding his position and status he saved various articles, written an him, from the hands of the time. In this research work he has presented the articles of eminent writers on the personality, poetry and prose of Ali Sardar Jafri as evidence. This research article is an analysis of Abdul Sattar Dalvi’s work on Ali Sardar Jafri.

Russian Literature of the 19th — Early 20th Centuries in the Infosphere of Theological Academies of the Russian Empire

The purpose of the article is an attempt to develop approaches to the reconstruction of the place and role of literature in the intellectual and information sphere of Russian theological academies of the nineteenth — early twentieth centuries. The current publication has been prepared on the basis of sources of various origins: catalogs of libraries of theological academies, periodicals published in the Orthodox theological academies of the Russian Empire (Khristianskoe chtenie (Christian Reading), Trudy Kievskoi Dukhovnoi Akademii (Proceedings of the Kiev Theological Academy), Pravoslavnyi sobesednik (Orthodox Interlocutor), Bogoslovskii vestnik (Theological Bulletin), for instance), Orthodox autobiographies, proceedings of meetings of councils of theological academies, programs of training courses, teaching manuals (textbooks and anthologies), etc. The analysis of those numerous sources shows that the libraries of four Orthodox theological academies of the Russian Empire had large collections of fiction in various languages, including works of Russian literature. Studying Russian literature was also part of a number of training courses. Initially, it was due not so much to the desire to provide students with a versatile education, but to the desire to develop their artistic taste and literary abilities, which was necessary for composing sermons. But later, literature was interpreted as something of powerful influence at a person’s worldview, something that could compete with religion. The study shows that the influence of contemporary Russian literature was constantly increasing, and, by the early twentieth century, the programs of theological educational institutions included studying works by almost all Russian writers. At the same time, not only ‘spiritual’ writings were studied, but also those which were considered ‘harmful’, and the last one got almost a central place in the ecclesiastic periodicals (L.N.Tolstoy).

Talent development of Selma Lagerlöf, an outstanding Swedish writer

The article carries out a biographical study of the childhood and youth of Selma Lagerlöf, with the purpose of determining the conditions that influenced the development of her genius abilities to create fairy tales. Research methods: study, analysis and generalization of special scientific literature in order to identify the state of the researched problem. The biographical study of S. Lagerlöf’s childhood and youth combines environmental and personal approaches. Thus, S. Lagerlöf’s grandmother narratives about hereditary estate were the main factors that influenced the development of imagination and excellent literary abilities of S. Lagerlöf. The girl was very pleased to listen to grandmother’s stories, which were full of legends and secrets. When at the age of three, S. Lagerlöf suffered from paralysis, those stories were exactly the only consolation for her because in these narratives the girl drew strength and inspiration. It is likely that thanks to these legends and stories about the family nest and Sweden as a whole, S. Lagerlöf began to fantasize and create her own stories, which were permeated with love to her native land. It is possible that the grandmother and her stories instilled in the girl faith in miracles, goodness, and fairy tales. After all, regardless of the serious illness, S. Lagerlöf did not lose hope for the best, wisdom, optimism and continued to write her brilliant works, imbued with devotion to her native home. The writer depicted the beauty of the home more than once in her works. S. Lagerlöf created in her works a world full of romance, fabulous adventures, and idleness. The article highlights the features inherent in S. Lagerlöf’s fairy tales. First, the events in the writer’s works happen in places dear to her heart – the city, the country. Secondly, S. Lagerlöf resorted to romantic literary techniques. Thirdly, the writer used a well-known literary device in her fairy tales – personification, that is, animals, birds, insects acquire human features, they behave like people. It was concluded that S. Lagerlöf was a romantic, dreamy person who loved her homeland immensely. The problem outlined in the article is relevant and needs further processing in order for it to be thoroughly completed.

Teaching Free Verse Reading Comprehension for Grade 10 Students Following Competence-based Approach

Reading comprehension is an important competence, not only a learning foundation for Literature or other subjects but also a prerequisite of thinking for each person to discover and manage their life. Teaching reading comprehension is a very important and outstanding requirement in the K-12 education reform at present and in the future. In particular, according to the requirements of the 2018 general education program, Literature needs to focus on developing students' language and literary abilities through reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. In this article, we propose solutions to contribute to improving the quality of teaching free verse reading comprehension for grade 10 students following competence-based approach.

Motivating Literacy and Literary Skills in Students for Remediation: An Innovative and Foregrounding Approach

Purpose: Innovative And Foregrounding Approach to Motivating Literacy and Literary Skills (IFAMLSIS) provides a summary of the writer's foreground approach to motivating students on the core aspects of reading, writing and literary skills spectacled from an innovative skills program. The module, an action research, was developed as part of remediation program for students who lacked the proficiency in English language in the Department of English of the Federal College of Education Kano, Nigeria. The focus of this review is on the fundamental components of reading, writing, and literary abilities as seen through the lens of a novel Foregrounding Approach. It has been developed with purposeful activities that are meant to ground students in the skill of reading and enjoying literary texts, which in turn, are imagined, would change them into competent writers.
 Methodology: The module's operation is based on the collaborative "Think-Pair-Share" model, which allows students to work or navigate through assignments independently at first, then in pairs, groups, or as a class, as well as share ideas and cooperate on tasks and projects.
 Findings: The researcher reveals the several modules created for remediation for students with deficiencies in English language. Each part includes thorough explanations and summaries of the contents of each unit. Also included are suggestions for the implementation of the program as well as its advantages, particularly for ESL students.
 Contribution to theory: Although the module's implementation is still in development, it is anticipated that the results will be favorable. The module will be improved using the results of its pilot testing. The government, the commercial sector, and other stakeholders in higher education are urged to contribute financially to the publication, mass manufacturing, and distribution of the module throughout Nigerian colleges of education and elsewhere.

Талан-доля юних поетів і поеток Полтавщини (про X Полтавський обласний онлайн-конкурс «Авторська збірка поезій школяра», присвячений 2021 року, оголошеному Роком Лесі Українки з нагоди 150-річчя від дня народження

The problem of literary abilities development in pupils of secondary education institutions’ is revealed by participation in the Poltava regional competition «Author's collection of pupils’ poems». Following Article 53 of the Law of Ukraine «On Education», Article 20 of the Law of Ukraine «On Extracurricular Education»and to develop the literary competence of pupils, their abilities and talents, strengthening individual work with them, meeting their interests, spiritual needs and professional needs the definition of the competition is carried out every two years. During 2002–2021, 279 young poets of Poltava region took part in this event in three age categories: 1–4; 5–9; 10–11 grades. Thus, working on this project, we emphasize that some pupils are eager to develop their literary abilities and have limitless possibilities.

Death and Afterlife in the Pages of Gregory of Tours: Religion and Society in Late Antique Gaul by Allen E. Jones

Reviewed by: Death and Afterlife in the Pages of Gregory of Tours: Religion and Society in Late Antique Gaul by Allen E. Jones Kavya Bhat and Maria E. Doerfler Allen E. Jones Death and Afterlife in the Pages of Gregory of Tours: Religion and Society in Late Antique Gaul Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 Pp. 380. $272.00. Gregory of Tours, while historically often dismissed in scholarship as uninteresting or even simplistic, has in recent years enjoyed considerable scholarly attention. Allen E. Jones’s recent monograph, Death and Afterlife in the Pages of Gregory of Tours: Religion and Society in Late Antique Gaul, contributes to this salutary trend. Jones aligns his project with recent reconsiderations of Gregory, focusing particularly on showcasing Gregory as a theologian. In this vein, he offers an original interpretation of Gregory’s motives for writing that attends to religious feeling as a reasonable, indeed essential, category of scholarly engagement. More specifically, Jones aims to interpret Gregory’s corpus as born out of the “gradual process of an individual seeking to give meaning to a lifetime of experiences in Gallic society” (16), and shows how a practical and cohesive theology underpins Gregory’s work. Death, self-consciously anthropomorphized, stays front and center throughout the monograph, providing both the motivation for Gregory’s ideas and the primary context for situating his theologies of the afterlife. The book is divided into two distinct parts. The first of these examines the centrality of pastoral concerns to Gregory’s theological system. Jones attributes these to his early experiences of death, tracing the influences that motivated Gregory’s literary engagement with it beyond his clerical education or his engagement with patristic ideas. The first chapter accordingly argues that Gregory’s responses to and interpretations of his encounters with death during childhood provide the best explanation for his decision to join the clergy. Jones also understands these encounters, which for Gregory included both his own recognition of death close at hand and his observation of others’ reaction to the same experience, to have encouraged the bishop’s lifelong affection for saints and relics, and his finely tuned appreciation for their various powers. Chapter Two focuses on death’s presence in Gregory’s life from the moment he vowed to become a cleric to the moment he became a bishop. Jones here describes death’s impact on Gregory’s familial and social environment and his concomitant theological development. This chapter also includes a fine analysis [End Page 453] of the patristic and scriptural foundations supporting Gregory’s treatment of the sanctity and efficacy of the person and the cult of saints and relics, particularly those of St. Martin. The third chapter centers on the beginning of Gregory’s episcopal career at Tours, including the civil war of 573–577 c.e. Gregory’s experience with death in this period, Jones argues, led the bishop to committing decisively to the prominent pastoral imperative Jones discerns in most of his later writings. More broadly, Jones investigates how specific, practical religious objectives shaped Gregory’s theological ideas, and organized how he communicated them to different audiences. He offers a nuanced and persuasive reading of the death-narratives that populate Gregory’s writings as part of the bishop’s attempt to support the piety and pastoral activity of Gallic Christians at a moment of danger or uncertainty. The book’s second part attempts to read Gregory’s descriptions of the deaths of specific people, whether actual or hypothetical, as evidence for the role that dying and the afterlife played in constructing his theology. Jones here seeks to understand how Gregory’s particular modes of presentation, literary abilities, and exactness of expression served his literary aims. Chapter Four describes Gregory’s narration of the death of various souls in relation to their fate in the afterlife. In his accounts of particular lives and deaths, Jones suggests, Gregory provided clues for deducing the probable afterlives of specific souls. By presenting not just an interpretation but unveiling the very process of interpreting to the reader, Jones argues, Gregory aimed to train his audience in a deductive method they might themselves apply—a narrative pedagogy that in turn furthered a number of...

Ideoloogia tõlketeooria ja tõlkeloo dialoogis / Field of ideology in a dialogue between theory and history of translation

Artikkel on pühendatud tõlketeooriat ja tõlkelugu ühendavale ideoloogia mõistele. Jälgitud on ideoloogia mõistevälja dünaamikat 21. sajandi tõlketeoorias ja tõlkeloos. Vaatluse all on tõlketeaduslikes käsiraamatutes loodud terminiväljade muutumist ideoloogia mõiste hägustumisest uute mõistete juurutamiseni. Artikkel osutab olukorrale tõlketeaduses, kus tõlketeoreetiline kirevus on nii suur, et tõlkeloolastel on raske nii metodoloogilist kui praktilist tuge leida. Samas osutab tõlketeooria areng üldisele mõttelaadi dünaamikale tõlkekultuuriga seoses ja selles toimuvaid protsesse on võimalik tõlkeloo analüüsimeetodite täiustamisel ära kasutada.
 
 If there is a wish to understand translation, it is necessary to consider all its aspects also from the point of view of ideology. The process of translation should be seen as a complex of interlinguistic, intralinguistic, and intersemiotic translations, on the one hand, and as a complex of linguistic, cultural, economic, and ideological activities, on the other hand. Translators work on the boundaries of languages, cultures, and societies, and position themselves between the poles of specificity and adaptation, in accordance with the strategies of their translational behaviour: they either preserve the otherness of the Other (foreignisation) or transform the Other into Self (domestication). By the same token, they cease to be simple mediators for, in a semiotic sense, they are capable of generating new languages to describe a foreign language, text, or culture, and renewing a culture or influencing a culture’s capacity for dialogue with other cultures as well as with itself. In this way, translators work not only with natural languages, but also with metalanguages, languages of description. As mediators between languages, translators are important creators of new metalanguages.
 Different parameters should be observed in the process of translation, among which economic and ideological aspects of translation hold the first place. In turn, these are associated with professional ethics or with the professional ethics of the translator. The practice of translation is even more complex, and the behaviour of translators and the quality of their work do not depend solely on their linguistic or literary abilities. The translator is simultaneously a mediator, a creator, a producer, a manager, a critic, as well as an ideologue. All of these roles constitute various aspects of cultural behaviour and can be correlated with the entire textual corpus of a culture. An actualisation of the various cultural and social roles of the translator reflects the general effort, made in analysis, to reach a complex understanding of the phenomenon of translation in the processes of culture.
 It is difficult to observe the issues of ideology and economics in isolation, since the concept of the market in itself combines both the local and the global aspects. The confluence of the economic and the ideological is especially characteristic of mass literature, and sholars studying the translation of the latter have been exploring, among other things, concepts such as collective translation (team translation), standardisation (of theme, language, style, size, weight), ignoring of authorial idiosyncrasies (the so-called sacredness of the author), commercial calculations (definite market, deadlines, no revision), selection of texts (reusability), the repeated publication of old translations (the recycling strategy), marketing strategies and pseudotranslations.
 The ideological issues arising in translation activities have gained significance both on an empirical and on a theoretical level. The very introduction of an author into a culture is an ideologically and politically coloured act, and the ideological aspect of translation activity is one of the factors involving translation within the process of the culture’s historical autocommunication. All in all, the historical identity of translation cannot be restricted to either the historical existence of translations, or to the history of translation. The history of translation is only one way of observing translation in time, as well as in ideological space. History of translation does have a significant influence on translation studies, but is simultaneously dependent on the latter as well, which is why the category of ideology is of major significance as concerns the notion of translation.

Text messaging often damages our literary abilities: How to fix its Impact?

Text messaging often damages our literary abilities: How to fix its Impact?

Readers, Readers Everywhere, Despite What You Might Think

Readers, Readers Everywhere, Despite What You Might Think Hilary Moss (bio) Beth Barton Schweiger, A Literate South: Reading before Emancipation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019. ix + 288 pp. Figures, notes, and index. $35.00. In 1863, on the eve of Emancipation, less than five percent of black people enslaved in South Carolina could read and write, according to W.E.B. Du Bois.1 Writing in 1935, Du Bois sought to quantify the extent to which antebellum white southerners had curtailed black access to literacy. But settling on hard numbers proved slippery. Two decades earlier, in 1915, historian Carter Wood-son had undertaken a similar endeavor. His estimate—a 90 percent illiteracy rate among enslaved people—proved modestly more optimistic. And yet, Woodson acknowledged, trying to answer such a query with certainty was foolhardy. “[W]e are anxious to know exactly what proportion of the colored population had risen above the plane of illiteracy,” he explained. “Unfortunately this cannot be accurately determined” for many reasons.2 First, Woodson observed, few enslaved people felt comfortable revealing their literary abilities to white people, particularly when “such a disclosure would often cause [them] to be dreadfully punished or sold to some cruel master of the lower South.”3 Second, white people who had traveled throughout the region also left behind conflicting accounts. Abolitionists maintained that white power to withhold black access to literacy remained absolute. And yet, many narratives written by enslaved people included dramatic accounts of learning to read. Even decades after Emancipation, Federal Writers Project interviewers struggled to quantify enslaved black literacy. Ultimately, this cohort settled on an estimate as depressing as that proposed by Du Bois. They also reported that just five percent of their interviewees recalled learning to read before Emancipation.4 Contemporary historians generally accept these bleak estimates. Scholars of African American educational history usually report that just five to ten percent of enslaved people were literate. Regardless of whether one settles at the high or low end of the best-guess spectrum, historians typically agree that definitive answers remain elusive. Among the many challenges of quantification include definition. What, exactly, did it mean to be literate? Did this term refer to reading and writing or just reading? How far must a person advance [End Page 246] to be considered literate? Must one master basic spelling? Be able to write a sentence? A paragraph? Be able to sign her name? And yet, scholars do agree that African Americans’ demonstrable enthusiasm for both self-education and public schooling upon Emancipation attests to their limited access to literary instruction under slavery. As historian Janet Duitsman Cornelius observes, “The tremendous drive by black people to grasp learning once it was legal for them to do so and the numbers of literate former slaves who appeared from the ranks where literacy was supposedly forbidden show how much enslaved African Americans valued the liberating qualities of literacy within the slave community.”5 Likewise and more recently, Christopher Hager, who rejects Cornelius’ decision to connect literacy and liberation, similarly describes enslaved African Americans as “largely illiterate . . . [and] whose every move in such direction was brutally suppressed.”6 Given the longstanding and generally accepted assertion that antebellum white southerners regularly, and at times violently, opposed enslaved blacks’ literacy, Beth Barton Schweiger’s decision to refer to the region as A Literate South appears puzzling, if not paradoxical. Schweiger does not gloss over the brutality of slavery. Nor does she challenge white slaveholders’ desire to curtail black access to literacy. But she does challenge the assumption that the existence of slavery, in and of itself, subverted a desire to read. Yes, Schweiger acknowledges, many white lawmakers, particularly after 1830, did criminalize black education. And yes, some southern states did decline to invest in public schools, particularly when compared to their northern counterparts. And, yes again, most southerners, white as well as white black, resided miles from a printing press or publishing house. And absolutely, many of the black men and women who did become literate did so under the most harrowing circumstances. And yet, print suffused the region. Put succinctly, she asserts, “Print insinuated itself into every life in the nineteenth century. There was simply...

ПСИХОЛОГІЧНІ ОСОБЛИВОСТІ РОЗВИТКУ ЕМПАТІЇ УЧАСНИКІВ ШКІЛЬНИХ ЛІТЕРАТУРНИХ СТУДІЙ

Стаття присвячена аналізу роботи школи з літературно обдарованими дітьми. Розвиток літературних здібностей учнів забезпечується як самим навчальним процесом, так і є можливим в позанавчальний час. З’ясовано, що більшу спрямованість на розвиток творчого потенціалу школярів у літературній діяльності мають різноманітні літературні осередки: шкільні літературні гуртки та факультативи, міські та обласні літературні гуртки та студії. Проаналізовано основні їх завдання та методи роботи з літературно обдарованими дітьми. Основну увагу звернено на проблему розвитку емпатії старшокласників, які займаються літературною діяльністю. Охарактеризовано ранній юнацький вік як сприятливий період для розвитку емпатійності. У статті розкрито сутність таких психологічних категорій, як: «емпатія», «емпатійність», «літературні здібності», «освітнє розвивальне середовище», «літературна студія». Проаналізовано діагностичні можливості методів вивчення емпатії у ранньому юнацькому віці. Констатовано, що ефективність літературної діяльності забезпечується певним емпатійним фоном. Зі свого боку кожен рівень розвитку літературних здібностей має свої переважні форми емпатійного реагування, які забезпечують «продуктивність» цього рівня. Описуються результати емпіричного дослідження особливостей розвитку емпатії старшокласників (її форм та рівнів розвитку, проявів емпатійного реагування до різних об’єктів емпатії), які є учасниками шкільних літературних студій, та тих, які надають перевагу самостійному розвитку своїх літературних здібностей. Емпіричним шляхом з’ясовано, що долучення школярів до літературно-творчого колективу сприяє розвитку їхніх літературних здібностей. Розвиток емпатії у ранньому юнацькому віці дає можливість літературно обдарованим школярам через літературну творчість проявити свою найвищу емпатійність.

Developing a competency-based of language skills and literary abilities in the primary school

The competency-based (CB) 1994 (Supplement 1999) curriculum is a milestone of an efforts to improve the Indonesian education quality. Regarding this matter, this study wanst to reveal the CB development of language skills and literary abilities in the primary school (PS) and the influencing factors. This ethnographic study was carried out in the fifth grade of PS in Surakarta from 2004 to 2015. The phenomenon of literacy learning (LL) in the classroom as a source of evidence was explored through cases, interviewees, archives. The evidence is collected through an observation, question-answer, content analysis. The evidence legality is checked through adding participation, careful observation, triangulation, checking key informant techniques. The data are analyzed using domain analysis, taxonomy, and theme. In conclusion, literary subject is a part of Indonesian language (IL) lessons. Its achievements are integrated through listening, speaking, reading, and writing as well as understanding and using linguistic elements using various forms of literary works (LW). The verball and writing students’ skills of IL can be fostered and developed nicely. However, LL has not optimally introduced students to the various values of LW through literary appreciations, expressions, and creations. These result are influenced by the teachers, students, learning techniques, learning materials, evaluation systems, facilities, environments, and socio-cultural factors.

IS NEOLIBERALISM CONSISTENT WITH INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY? FRIEDMAN, HAYEK AND RAND ON EDUCATION EMPLOYMENT AND EQUALITY

In their writings, Milton Friedman, Friedrich August von Hayek and Ayn Rand have been instrumental in shaping and influencing neoliberalism through their academic and literary abilities. Their opinions on education, employment and inequality have stirred up considerable controversy and have been the focus of many debates. This paper adds to the debate by suggesting that there is an internal inconsistency in the views of neoliberalism as reflected by Friedman, Hayek and Rand. The paper contends that whereas their neoliberal theories promote liberty, the manner in which they conceptualize this term promotes policies that would actually deny the individual freedom of the majority while securing liberty and financial success for the privileged few. The paper focuses on the consequences of neoliberalism on education, and also discusses how it affects employment, inequality and democracy.

Chinese Literary Forms in Heian Japan: Poetics and Practice by Brian Steininger

Reviewed by: Chinese Literary Forms in Heian Japan: Poetics and Practice by Brian Steininger William D. Fleming (bio) Brian Steininger. Chinese Literary Forms in Heian Japan: Poetics and Practice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2017. xii, 293 pp. Hardcover $39.95, ISBN: 978-0-674-97515-6. [End Page 407] Brian Steininger's Chinese Literary Forms in Heian Japan presents a broad overview of the nature and status of writing in literary Sinitic in the mid-Heian period, or from the beginning of the tenth century to the end of the eleventh century. The choice of the term "literary Sinitic" in place of "literary Chinese" or "classical Chinese" is a conscious one, following Victor Mair, and reflects a desire to emphasize the transregional nature of a system of inscription that extended across East Asia and existed apart from the Chinese vernacular. Steininger's exploration of this transregional system in its mid-Heian articulations is guided by a set of interrelated questions. What was the social context for the composition of poetry and parallel prose in literary Sinitic? What were the institutional structures and pedagogical techniques for the acquisition of literacy? How was literary Sinitic experienced aurally? How did writers differentiate "literary" composition from other forms of writing and scribal practice? The first chapter sets the stage for answering these questions by establishing key features of the social world of Heian nobles and officials. Much of the analysis revolves around a reading of the anonymously circulated kana tale Utsuho monogatari (Tale of a Tree Hollow, late tenth century). Of the tale's two main narrative threads, one concerns the efforts of the powerful noble Minamoto no Masayori to maintain status for his lineage through the marriage of his daughter Atemiya, while the other tells the story of Kiyohara no Toshikage, an envoy to the Tang whose literary abilities secure status for his descendants. Steininger reads the first narrative as a caricature of Heian social practice, the second as a fantastic reimagining thereof. While the story of Atemiya satirizes the fraught nature of Heian marriage politics and the pursuit of status through gift exchange, that of Toshikage offers a complementary vision, conjuring an alternate reality where those of lower status are able to succeed on their own merits without the need for elite patronage. Chapter 2 builds on this understanding of the mid-Heian social context to shed light on the largest body of writings left behind by officials: parallel-prose documents in literary Sinitic composed for ritual use, particularly those preserved in the collection Honcho monzui (Literary Essence of This Court, mid-eleventh century). Many of these texts were prepared by talented low-ranking scholars working essentially on commission on behalf of high-status nobles, a situation that allows Steininger to advance a view of literary production as parallel to, or even a form of, reciprocal gift-giving. Shifting the focus from the social context of literary production to the texts themselves, chapter 3 delineates the formal features of bunsho ("patterned writing"), or stylized composition in literary Sinitic, and the discourses that surrounded and shaped it. Two works with long afterlives receive the bulk of attention: the composition manual Sakumon daitai (Essentials of Composition, mid-Heian period)—selections of which are presented as the first of the [End Page 408] monograph's two appendices—and the poetic anthology Wakan roeishu (Collection of Japanese and Chinese Verses for Chanting, c. 1012), especially as read through later commentaries. Specific formal techniques are seen to have particular rhetorical appeal and staying power. Steininger's analysis also highlights the ways that Sakumon daitai and Wakan roeishu commentaries divorce compositions from the context of their production, allowing poems to be repurposed, for example, as calligraphic specimens, rhetorical inspiration, or thematic guides. Untethered from the social moorings illuminated in the opening chapters, language floats free, ready for re-appropriation. In the end, literary meaning and aesthetics are seen not as things that exist a priori—nor is poetry seen as a trace of specific occasions or the individual poet—but as things that are instead always brought into existence anew through social practice. The final two chapters take up the relationship between what Steininger terms "the...

The Social Relationships of Gospel Writers: New Insights from Inscriptions Commending Greek Historiographers

Scholarship traditionally situates the social lives of NT gospel writers exclusively within the Jesus movement and local Christ groups, showing inadequate consideration for how the literary abilities of gospel writers might have provided the basis for social interaction and group formation with Greeks, Romans and Judeans of common occupations and/or cultural interests. In order to provide a fuller portrait of the social and historical setting of gospel literature, this article explores the ranges of social activities practiced, and networks developed, by comparable writers—broadly, Greek historiographers. Data from the epigraphy about the social practices of historiographers help to provide controls for speculations about the setting of NT gospel composition, and raise new questions about this literature possibly emerging from networks and guilds forged between people of similar scribal professions and/or cultural interests that cut through ancient Christianity rather than originating from within the Jesus movement exclusively. Scholarship on the social setting of the Q Gospel (i.e., scribal networks) and the Gospel of Thomas (i.e., philosophical formations) has made arguments in this direction on the basis of other evidence, and that model appears most historically plausible for the narrative gospels, as well.

Polar אם in Oaths and the Question of Literacy in Lachish 3

: In this paper, I argue that polar אם clauses in oaths should not be seen as conditional protases that elide a self-curse, but rather as rhetorical questions. When we apply this line of argumentation to the אם clauses in the oath in Lachish 3 (lines 9–13), the interpretation of the letter shifts from a soldier’s defense of his literary abilities to a straightforward acknowledgement of his inability to make sense of the letter from his superior. My reading of the אם clauses in Lachish 3 (lines 9–13) as a pair of rhetorical questions is based on two general patterns in the Hebrew Bible: the form of double אם clauses and restrictions on the use of .וגם This reading is also supported by the soldier’s use of the idiom to »open his eyes« (lines 4–5), which I argue should be understood on the basis of similar usage in the Hebrew Bible, such as II Reg 6,17.

Truman Capote and the Legacy of In Cold Blood by Ralph F. Voss (review)

Reviewed by: Truman Capote and the Legacy of In Cold Blood by Ralph F. Voss Ross K. Tangedal Truman Capote and the Legacy of In Cold Blood. By Ralph F. Voss. Tuscaloosa, AL: U of Alabama P, 2011. xii + 246 pp. No book-length analysis has emerged regarding Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood until now. Ralph F. Voss, a native Kansan and retired professor of English, takes as his subjects Capote and his 1966 text in Truman Capote and the Legacy of In Cold Blood. Only a high school junior when four Kansans were shotgunned to death in their home, Voss provides an intricate evaluation of this seminal American text and its lasting effects. Rather than focus on one textual or social matter, Voss provides an extensive investigation into the various artistic, social, mythical and historical effects wrought by Capote’s book, resulting in a complete cultural overview. Though Voss cuts a wide swath, his approach allows for students not only of Capote and his text, but readers of any background, to engage with and understand the degree to which In Cold Blood changed the American literary establishment and American culture itself. It is here that Voss makes his mark, as he resurrects Truman Capote and In Cold Blood for a new generation of readers. Much has been written regarding the various stages of Truman Capote’s fascinating career, both socially and artistically. Gerald Clarke’s definitive biography (Capote: A Biography, 1988) covers in detail the peaks and valleys of one of America’s most successful and misunderstood literary artists, as does George Plimpton’s oral biography, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career (1997). Academic scholarship centers squarely on In Cold Blood, the 1966 “nonfiction” account of a quadruple murder in Holcomb, Kansas, with various pieces covering several aspects of the text’s ingenuity. Hailed as the first “nonfiction novel” and predecessor to both New Journalism and the true crime genre, In Cold Blood manages to complicate an array of analytical perspectives, ranging from queer theory to textuality to psychoanalysis. Indeed, the MLA International Bibliography lists seventy-one notes, articles and book chapters regarding the text and its author, with no other major work receiving more than sixteen. Further, while scholars [End Page 259] have ordained the text as Capote’s magnum opus, subsequent film adaptations of the work (and its creation) have permeated the American marketplace, including Richard Brooks’ In Cold Blood (1967), Bennett Miller’s Capote (2005) and Douglas McGrath’s Infamous (2006), again establishing the text as central in both literary and filmic arenas. As a central American text, In Cold Blood has had (and continues to have) a profound effect on the American zeitgeist not only of the 1960s, but on the present day. Voss’s attention to these cultural effects allows for an updated understanding of the text itself, as he dutifully addresses several aspects of In Cold Blood’s infamous existence. His approach, both studied and effective, combines “Capote’s ruinous celebrity, yoked with the resonance of his crime and punishment story, [resulting] in several ongoing cultural legacies.” Voss suggests that not only the text itself, but its varying creative descendants, “bear testimony to the wide cultural influence the book and its creator have had” (15). Such an approach fits the expectancy of In Cold Blood’s first book-length study, as Voss leaves little out in his carefully researched and altogether straight-forward literary/cultural criticism. He is especially successful in condensing the enormous amount of historical information about Capote and his work early on, with excellent chapters on his celebrity, Southern Gothicism, and style. Voss hinges Capote’s legacy on In Cold Blood, the author’s ultimate axis, calling it “the culminating triumph of Truman Capote’s gothic vision, the book that moved him from the secondary ranks among Southern writers of gothic fiction to the front ranks of serious American writers of nonfiction” (49). Here Voss presents his continued paradoxical look into Truman Capote and his work, how one author could both change and be changed by cultural expectancy, literary encumbrance and popular culture itself. From his celebrity and literary abilities came...