Literary Game Research Articles

Los juegos bélicos de Roberto Bolaño

En este trabajo investigaremos la presencia de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, las deformaciones del nazismo y la estrategia bélica como temas obsesivos de Roberto Bolaño desde los principios de su carrera literaria hasta las novelas publicadas tras su muerte. Prestando atención a sus juegos literarios y haciendo un análisis detallado de La literatura nazi en América (1996) y El Tercer Reich (la novela empezada en los años ochenta bajo el título La Estrategia Mediterránea pero publicada en 2010, siete años después del fallecimiento del escritor), consultando los artículos escritos por Roberto Bolaño y sobre él, las entrevistas y otros testimonios disponibles, intentaremos mostrar el impacto de la guerra tanto en su vigor literario como en su vida privada, e identificaremos los juegos de guerra como metáfora de la literatura y la vida del escritor chileno, aficionado a los wargames y propietario de una gran colección de ellos.

El “Retrato de la Lozana Andaluza’’, una novela en clave

The extant copy of the only edition of Retrato de la Lozana Andaluza (Portrait of Lozana: The Lusty Andalusian Woman), discovered in the 19th century, is kept at the Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek. The novel in the form of dialogue, with a prostitute in the leading role, has been widely edited and studied over the past years, but scholars have disagreed on the interpretation of many obscure and incomprehensible passages. This article argues that the novel is a roman a clef, and that its surface of a brothel novel hides a series of pasquinades against the kings, popes, cardinals and rulers that converged in the Italian politics of the late 15th century and the three first decades of the 16th century. The article unveils the identity of some of the novel's characters, and connects the novel with the literary tradition of Lucian's dialogue The Cock and the transmigration of souls, which Erasmists revived. Under this light, it is possible to understand Francisco Delicado's literary game, who transmigrated the soul of the Gran Capitan Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba himself into the Lozana Andaluza to construct his protagonist.Key words: Roman a clef, pasquinade, transmigration of souls, Lucian’s dialogue; Italian politics (1492‒1530), Gran Capitan.

Muñecos históricos sobre la escena literaria. Las tempranas creaciones poéticas sobre la “Historia de Li y Yang”

The article discusses the early poetic creations on the Story of Li and Yang, the romance between Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty and his concubine Yang Guifei. It analyzes the different perspectives on this issue in some works of the three great poets of Tang: Li Bai, Du Fu and Bai Juyi. The transformations of the Story… remind the different facets of the within the system of culture as the semiotician Yuri Lotman defines the cultural object. The puppet serves as a toy, a model and finally as a work of art. Bai Juyi’s creation on the Story ... is crucial because he takes it up and engages it in a literary game, in order to save it from oblivion and give it a new life. Through numerous poems, he manages to recreate the romance in a multifaceted way and trace a path to immortality for its two protagonists.

Literature as Enchantment or the Regained Grandeur of the Novel: An Essay on Salman Rushdie’s NovelThe Enchantress of Florence

AbstractMy essay intends to analyze the dialectic relationship between historical reality and fiction in the novelThe Enchantress of Florenceby Salman Rushdie. I will point out a sophisticated and playful story in which the author interweaves elements of history and literature, a game-story that transcends the canonical limits of postmodernism where the novel has constantly been placed by the critical establishment, and goes back to the beginnings, to the anthropological function of play as an essential human activity that was once defined by Johan Huizinga inHomo Ludens: A Study of the Play-element in Culture. Moreover, my paper will explore how this play becomes Rushdie’s attempt to return to the original function of literature which used to enchant and inform at the same time. Once these roots have been reached, however, and the secondary reality of the literary game is well-established, Rushdie manages to break the barriers between reality and fiction, and through versatile textual mechanisms, to intermingle history and reality in a way that makes them merge. Consequently, he composes a play within fiction that is just as powerful as reality itself and suggests the fact that representation has more ontological consistency than the represented body or event itself. We exist as long as we are written and talked about, and nothing in the order of reality can be as powerful as the reality of language.

MAIS ALÉM DA MEMÓRIA: INTERTEXTUALIDADE EM A COLEÇÃO PARTICULAR DE GEORGES PEREC

Memory when understood as Narrative permeates the reflections from both the fields of history and literariness, precisely for allowing itself to be registered in the investigation of the reconstitution and refiguration of a past time. Under the banner of the literary, memory is even constructed within the boundaries of reality and fiction. In this study, we are going to remark on how Georges Perec (1936-1982) transformed the novel A Gallery Portrait (Un cabinet d'amateur), published in 1979, in a thorough work of artistic documentation without losing, however, its character of playfulness. Perec’s literary output gives way to a discussion on the notion of literary history and questions the limits of the potentiality of literature, creating and recreating the world in unique patterns and instigating the reader to also participate in the productivity that is inherent to the literary game.

Wczesna korespondencja Auzoniusza z Paulinem z Noli

The article is devoted to the four letters written by Ausonius to Paulinus of Nola before the latter left Aquitania in 389 changing his style of life and provo­king the deep crisis of their intimate friendship (Epist. 17-20, ed. R.P.H. Green). Ausonius writes to his pupil, admirer and friend about literary theory and practice, thanks for the gifts and favours, asks for help in an hour of need, sends him new year’s wishes. The exchange of letters provided to the famous befriended poets an opportunity to participate in the jolly literary games and to share mutual respect, admiration and love.

A literatura, o sistema midiático e a emergência do quarto narrador

Parte-se do pressuposto que os processos de enunciação não se estabelecem apenas no âmbito dos dispositivos e seus agentes, como sugeriram, na literatura e no jornalismo, respectivamente, Genette (1988) e Motta (2013). É possível identificá-los também a partir das operações do sistema midiático, que é formado pelos dispositivos jornalísticos (sites, redes sociais, jornais, revistas etc.), quando em rede. Nesta perspectiva, o sistema é detentor de uma voz narrativa; torna-se, assim, um “quarto narrador”, de natureza multifacetada e plurivocal. Por se tratar de um objeto em movimento, que requer, no diálogo com Bergson (2005) e Marcondes Filho (2010), abordagem metodológica adequada, será identificado por meio da análise das marcas enunciativas que produz em seus movimentos. A reflexão será ilustrada por meio da análise de como se deu a repercussão midiática da narrativa literária Game of Thrones – A Guerra dos Tronos, de George Martin. A hipótese é que o quarto narrador, por realizar operações de natureza sistêmica, nos moldes de Luhmann (2009), não apenas reduz a complexidade de seus enunciados como transforma e é transformado nesta operação, reconfigurando toda uma ecologia midiática.

К ВОПРОСУ О ПОСТРОЕНИИ ИМЕНОСЛОВА В ЛИТЕРАТУРЕ РУССКОГО СОВРЕМЕННОГО ФЭНТЕЗИ

Статья посвящена анализу именослова в литературе современного русского фэнтези. Авторы тщательно продумывают систему антропонимов, которые являются одним из основных способов создания фантастического мира. Предмет рассмотрения: славянские имена в цикле романов Марии Семеновой о Волкодаве и именослов в романе Михаила Успенского Там, где нас нет. Сопоставление различий именослова позволяет говорить, что антропонимические предпочтения автора обусловлены жанровой спецификой романов. Большинство имен в произведениях М. Семеновой являются реальными славянскими антропонимами, зафиксированными в словарях. Их функции – обозначить принадлежность персонажа к определенному роду и подчеркнуть характер или другие отличительные особенности героев. Имена в романе М. Успенского создают комический эффект и указывают на наличие литературной игры автора с читателем.

La narrativa transmedia como experiencia de simulación de inteligencia colectiva. El caso de Atrapados

<p>Este artículo describe y analiza la experiencia transmedia del proyecto de investigación “Simulador IC, un escenario transmedial de pruebas para la simulación de inteligencia colectiva”, en el que se exploró la capacidad de cuatro artefactos ficcionales — texto literario, cómic, videojuego y juego de rol—, generados a partir de la transmediación de un texto literario fuente, para desarrollar sensibilidad en la resolución de problemas con características vinculadas a la inteligencia colectiva.</p><p>El método de investigación fue mixto, con un componente principal cualitativo y un componente cuantitativo —metodología observacional—. Al realizarse una medición del gradiente de inteligencia colectiva de los participantes, tras el contacto y la interacción con diversas estrategias de simulación de los problemas —combinación de artefactos, según un diseño experimental específico—, se comprobó que la experiencia transmedia completa, es decir, la interacción con los cuatro artefactos potencia los efectos y beneficios de la simulación con artefactos individuales.</p>

Het gedicht als strategie : Een demonstratie

A strategic reading of a poem has become common ground. Programmatic poems with statements on art and literature are not seldom interpreted as a strategic maneuver of an author trying to position himself and his work. But what if the poem is not overtly programmatic and does not contain any explicit positioning statement? It is argued that exactly this type of ‘regular’ poem can be viewed upon as an strategic author’s act just as well. This is demonstrated by means of three cases. The first case, a famous poem by Willem Kloos, shows that this ‘regular’ poem has strategic aspects due to its particular selection of textual characteristics (Meizoz’s ‘option esthetique’). Case two and three produce two instances of religious poetry (one Roman Catholic, the other Calvinist) in which the authors make textual choices in order to legitimate themselves as poets writing real poetry that is up to the standards of the dominant literary regime while at the same time complying to the norms of their own religious communities. After this, the article harks back to Kloos’ poem in order to add some elements regarding its strategic context: an individual issue of a literary journal as a discurcive place in which the poem is published as a tactical move in a specific literary game. Finally, it is stated that the three cases are intended to demonstrate the way a textual analysis can play a role in research questions regarding institutional contexts.

‘Not only increase but embellish the collection’: Political Satire and Lady Hervey's Imaginary Pictures

Satirical literary portraits and caricatures were a much-loved feature of eighteenth-century cultural life. Women at the early Georgian court created circulating letters and journals that built on the literary games of French salonnières to discuss politics, sexuality, and visual art. One particularly evocative example of this little-known genre is found in a 1729 letter from Lady Hervey to Henrietta Howard, recognised mistress of George II. The letter contains a list of twenty-eight names, each juxtaposed with the name of an imaginary painting. In this article, the first two entries in the list are discussed as political texts, and their social meaning is explored through reference to specific works of art that may have informed their iconographic potential.

Various Horizontal Writings

One among many concrete cases: the 28th of April 2013, during a road trip from the city of Queretaro to the capital, the Mexican writer Jose Luis Zarate and I decided to propose a literary game to ...

Die pseudo-homerische Batrachomyomachia und ihre Transformation im Croacus des Elisius Calentius

The pseudo Homeric mock-epic poem Batrachomyomachia and one of its numerous transformations, the Croacus of the Italian humanist Elisius Calentius, are open to critical, satirical or didactic readings, but they never express these levels explicitly. This does not mean that they should be undervalued as harmless mere literary games: We find strong poetical implications and reflections how modern literature should be. Elisius Calentius merits a new evaluation in the history of the Batrachomyomachia, because his Croacus is unique in preserving this meta-poetic quality of its Greek precedent, changing virtuously the Hellenistic play with Homer into a play with Roman epic poets.

Industria y placer estético en las <em>Novelas ejemplares</em> y <em>El Quijote</em> de Cervantes

In this work I study the use that Cervantes makes of industry or intrigue in some of their Exemplary Novels and the episode of the Camacho’s weddings of the Quijote as a strategy that contributes to the design of the novel as a literary game and to the aesthetic delight purpose of the novel.

The right word in the left place

This work describes a large-scale empirical study that quantifies two aspects of lexical foregrounding in literary texts: the unpredictability (unexpectedness) and constrainedness (irreplaceability) of individual words in context. The data are generated by a Web-based literary game where players guess words in fragments of real texts. The results shed new light on the nature of the distinction between poetry and prose and on the role of formal constraints in poetry. In particular, traditional poetry tends to have higher constrainedness than prose and comparable unpredictability, while avant-garde poetry is characterized by higher unpredictability than prose and comparable constrainedness.

Subversión e intertextualidad en la saga Shrek

The study of the cartoon seems to be increasingly important in determining the construction of literary competence of children and youth. In the present case, we see how the saga of the Shrek films contains a wealth of literary allusions, both related to folk sources, as with other current sources. The combination of references, along with the literary game that is offered, especially through intertextuality, makes Shrek an obligatory reference work.

Playwrights and Literary Games in Seventeenth-Century China: Plays by Tang Xianzu, Mei Dingzuo, Wu Bing, Li Yu, and Kong Shangren (review)

Playwrights and Literary Games in Seventeenth-Century China: Plays by Tang Xianzu, Mei Dingzuo, Wu Bing, Li Yu, and Kong Shangren (review)

Specificity and independence of the literary game

In developing his theory of the “literary field,” Pierre Bourdieu essentially had in mind the case of France from the second half of the nineteenth century, the use of which as a case undoubtedly contributed to his marginalizing numerous aspects of the national microcosm. Among its unstated and unrecognized particular qualities, France is mono-national (rather than multinational) and monolingual (rather than multilingual), and occupies the dominant position in the international Francophone world (much as Germany is at the heart of the German-speaking world). A state, a nation, a language, a territory, a literature — all of these make one unit and prevent one from considering situations more complex or tangled, such as those of many minority literatures. These allow the tackling of issues — among others, problems of their “autonomy” in relation to realities outside of literature such as the political, religious, linguistic, and economic. Rather than imposing constraints on a research agenda, the study of minority literatures allows one to shed light on the complex and contradictory relations between the political (the national, the communal, and sometimes the state), the market, and the literary game.

Playwrights and Literary Games in Seventeenth-Century China: Plays by Tang Xianzu, Mei Dingzuo, Wu Bing, Li Yu, and Kong Shanren. By Jing Shen. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010. xiii, 320 pp. $80.00 (cloth); $80.00 (electronic).

Playwrights and Literary Games in Seventeenth-Century China: Plays by Tang Xianzu, Mei Dingzuo, Wu Bing, Li Yu, and Kong Shanren. By Jing Shen. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010. xiii, 320 pp. $80.00 (cloth); $80.00 (electronic).

Great Expectations as a Pre-Postmodern Rewriting of The Odyssey?

The postmodern age in literature is characterized by, among other things, a tendency to rewrite classic masterpieces. And there have been, indeed, modern rewritings of Dickens’s novels. Great Expectations is a case in point. Yet this literary game did not really start in the postmodern age and I would like to argue here that Great Expectations—written many decades before Joyce’s Ulysses—might be read as a rewriting of The Odyssey. The comparison between Victorian novel and classic epic is suggested by Dickens’s text itself, in a remarkable piece of rhetoric published by Pumblechook in the local paper. If we take The Odyssey as paradigm, of course we notice many differences in Great Expectations, but also striking similarities. This may be an invitation to read Great Expectations not only as a spiritual odyssey for the Victorian Age, but as a pre-postmodern rewriting of one of the oldest literary masterpieces.