Abstract Background Situated within a transcultural framework, this article traces the portrayal of psychiatry and mental health in Egyptian cinema, analysing representations of psychiatric disorders, therapeutic practices, and professional roles. It juxtaposes Egyptian productions with films from Europe, North America, India, and elsewhere to identify convergences and divergences in the cinematic depiction of stigma, illness, and care. Early Egyptian films often relied on sensational or comic tropes that mirrored prevailing social misconceptions; by contrast, more recent titles— Bab el Hadid (Cairo Station), Asef ‘ala el Ez‘ag (Sorry for the Disturbance, 2008), and Al Feel al Azraq (The Blue Elephant)—mark a shift towards psychological realism and empathetic engagement. Literary influences, notably Naguib Mahfouz and Ihsan Abdel Quddous, enrich characterisation and deepen the humanistic portrayal of mental suffering. Methodology This narrative review examines selected Egyptian films produced between 1952 and 2014, alongside key international films, to analyse trends in the depiction of mental illness, stigma, and psychiatric care. Films were included if they centrally portrayed psychiatric disorders, therapeutic practices, or professional roles and were culturally or historically significant. Films where mental illness appeared only incidentally or symbolically were excluded. The analysis identifies convergences and divergences across cinematic traditions, situates representations within cultural and historical contexts, and explores narrative, genre, and thematic patterns. Conclusion Ultimately, Egyptian cinema’s evolving representation of mental health presents opportunities for reducing stigma in the psychiatric social discourse. The review ends by arguing that cinema can serve both as a pedagogical resource for psychiatric education and as a vehicle for public engagement. It calls for closer collaboration among filmmakers, psychiatrists, and educators to enhance mental health literacy, and broaden societal understanding of human suffering and associated mental disorders.

This study explores the multifaceted emergence of guilt in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, analyzing how environmental, psychological, and structural elements converge to shape its portrayal. The milieu-based inauguration of guilt is traced to Poe’s personal experiences—familial loss, emotional instability, alcoholism, and professional hardship—alongside his literary influences from Romantic and Gothic traditions. Character-based guilt is examined through the contrast between the old man’s passive presence and the narrator’s obsessive, erratic behavior, revealing how guilt manifests both symbolically and viscerally. Plot-based guilt is revealed through Poe’s tightly constructed narrative, where pacing, repetition, and causality mirror the narrator’s psychological descent. Together, these dimensions demonstrate that guilt in Poe’s story is not merely thematic but a dynamic force born of personal history, character tension, and narrative design.

Abstract This article critically examines George Woodcock’s travel writings on India between 1961 and 1981, exploring the tensions between his anarchist anti-imperialism and the cultural frameworks inherited from his upbringing in the heart of empire. While Woodcock admired Gandhi and sought to understand India through a lens of philosophical anarchism, his engagement was shaped by elite literary connections and orientalist tropes that complicated his vision. The article traces how Woodcock’s political ideals, literary influences, and charitable efforts intersected with postcolonial realities, revealing the paradoxes of Western radicalism in a decolonizing world. Drawing on archival sources and offering a close reading of his three major texts on India – Faces of India, Kerala: A Portrait of the Malabar Coast , and TheWalls of India – it highlights how Woodcock’s attempts to critique empire often carried unconscious cultural assumptions. Ultimately, it argues that Woodcock’s India writings offer a valuable case study in the complexities of cross-cultural intellectual encounter in the enduring shadows of imperial discourse.

This research examines the representations and influence of Arabic literature in the poetry of Muhammad Iqbal, renowned as the poet of the East. Despite never traveling to Arab lands, Iqbal's profound mastery of the Arabic language and literature profoundly shaped his poetic style, themes, and symbolism. The study employs a literary-analytical approach to identify how Iqbal drew from classical Arabic poetry, Quranic texts, and Arab cultural history. Through close reading of poems such as "The Mosque of Córdoba" and "Khidr-e-Rah," the analysis reveals his extensive use of Arabic vocabulary, adaptation of motifs like ruins and longing (al-atlal), and symbolic references to Arab figures and history. The findings demonstrate that Iqbal creatively reshaped these elements to formulate a modern poetic discourse centered on Islamic revival and civilizational renewal. His work thus serves as a bridge between classical Arabic literary traditions and contemporary Islamic thought. This study highlights the centrality of Arabic heritage in Iqbal's vision and contributes to understanding the intertextual connections within the Islamic literary sphere.

As one of Anton Chekhov's representative early short stories, The Death of a Government Clerk captured the attention of literary circles in both China and Japan during the 1930s and 1940s with its absurd plota death triggered by a single sneeze. Drawing on this period, this paper examines the transmission pathways, character construction, and derivative works of this story in both countries. Research reveals that literary figures in both nations, operating within distinct social contexts and historical frameworks, employed divergent translation practices to construct varied interpretations of the protagonist in The Death of a Government Clerk. In the Chinese literary sphere, through translations by Lu Xun, Mao Dun, and others, the small civil servant was portrayed as a victim of the feudal hierarchical system, serving the causes of enlightenment, revolution, and national salvationhoping to liberate the people from ignorance. Japanese literary circles, through translations by Shiga Naoya and Ibusuki Masaji, viewed the little civil servant as a symbol of modern loneliness, emphasizing its existential absurdity to serve social problem studies and artistic research. Writers from both nations drew upon Chekhov's narrative strategy of anti-climax coupled with mundane details, transforming it respectively into tools for social critique and psychological portrayal. This reveals a cross-cultural reception landscape characterized by common origins, divergent streams.

The ancient East was a focal point for the convergence and interaction of civilizations, making it difficult to precisely determine the achievements of each people. They left behind a rich heritage of literature and science. These heritages were an expression of their visions of the laws of existence and their roles. They also revealed the concerns, ideas, and lifestyles of these peoples across the ages. The intellectual aspect of science and literature constituted one of the cultural components that enriched and were deeply rooted in both Syria and Egypt. Due to commercial and peaceful relations and geographical proximity, language, writing, literature, and other aspects of human history were subject to cultural interaction. The importance of the research comes in an attempt to bridge the gap through studying the intellectual influences between Syria and Egypt in the Middle Bronze Age (2000 - 1500 BC) by identifying the forms of literature that appeared in the Syrian kingdoms and the history of their cultural contact in Egypt, relying on archaeological evidence such as inscriptions that will shed light on the mutual influences in that period. Therefore, during this study, we will present the role of thought that formed the most important pillars of the culture of the ancient East, clarifying the literary influences through the literature of myth, stories and hymns, in addition to the linguistic and written influences, by focusing on essential points that will lead to the interpretation and knowledge of the mutual influences between the two civilizations

The purpose of the study is to explore the distinctiveness of the Spanish folk tradition and its role in shaping Spain’s national consciousness. Spanish folklore, as a result of the interaction of various ethnic groups, not only reflects Spain’s unique multicultural identity but also preserves its national unity. Despite the significant role Spanish folklore has played in the cultural unification of the country, interest in its folk heritage has been uneven and often aligned with the methodologies of other Europeantraditions rather than continuity within the national school. The study of Spanish folklore began in the Middle Ages, emphasizing both the originality of Iberian folk forms and their adherence to the broader Mediterranean mythological tradition. Renaissance proverb collections, the literary influence of the Golden Age, and 19 th -century essays mark the key stages in the development of Spanish folkloristics. In the 20 th century, the works of J. Caro Baroja and G. Díaz Plaja represent the pinnacle of a scholarly approach to studying Spain’s cultural-historical imagery. These works highlight the unique characteristics of Galicia, Andalusia, Castile, Asturias, and other regions, analyzing their mythological worldviews. Folklore texts and festive traditions reflect historical and socio-geographical factors that have shaped the popular worldview. Since the medieval chronicles the Spanish corpus of folklore narratives has developed as a resource reflecting national identity, unified by historical and cultural experience. Among the study’s findings is the conclusion that the Spanish language, in which folklore narratives from various Spanish regions have long been expressed, became a key factor in forming a unified Spanish folkloric worldview, also influencing Latin American traditions. Despite modern tendencies toward regionalism, folk creativity remains a unifying element of multicultural Spain. The study employs historical-cultural and comparative-anthropological approaches. Methods of historical structuralism and comparative mythology are used to identify the cultural dominants of Spain’s regions.

All the Devils Are Here: American Romanticism and Literary Influence

The advent of the Digital Humanities (DH) has precipitated a paradigm shift in the study of culture, moving beyond traditional qualitative analyses to incorporate computational, quantitative, and spatial methods. This transformation is most profound in its reconfiguration of our understanding of the processes of cultural production and reception. This article argues that DH methodologies do not merely offer new tools for answering old questions but fundamentally reshape the questions we can ask about how culture is made and consumed. By leveraging techniques such as distant reading, network analysis, and geospatial mapping, DH challenges monolithic conceptions of the solitary author, revealing culture as a complex, networked system of influence, collaboration, and recombination. Simultaneously, through the analysis of born-digital archives like social media, fan forums, and large-scale text corpora, DH provides unprecedented empirical insights into the dynamics of reception, capturing the agency of audiences in shaping meaning across temporal and spatial boundaries. The article synthesizes key DH scholarship and presents original data analyses, including a network graph of literary influences and a geospatial map of the reception of a canonical text. It concludes by critically reflecting on the methodological challenges and ethical considerations inherent in this digital turn, while positing that the enduring contribution of DH lies in its capacity to foster a more nuanced, evidence-based, and interconnected model of cultural phenomena. This expanded article further contends that this transformation is not merely methodological but also epistemological, forcing a re-interrogation of foundational categories like 'author', 'text', and 'reader'. By examining the interplay between computational models and critical theory, it highlights how DH fosters a reflexive, systems-oriented approach to culture. The discussion also delves deeper into the implications of algorithmic culture and the ethical imperatives of working with born-digital data, arguing that DH's ultimate value lies in its capacity to bridge the historic gap between theoretical claims about cultural systems and empirical, large-scale evidence.

This paper explores Malcolm X’s role as a rhetorician and his influence on the literature of Black Arts Movement. The paper’s aim is to emphasize his exceptional oratory skills. Malcolm X’s speeches, known for their persuasive nature, played a role in galvanizing African American communities and promoting the ideas of self-determination central to the literature of the Black Arts Movement. By focusing on one of his speeches, “The Ballot or the Bullet”, this paper examines the rhetorical strategies that made Malcolm X an influential figure. It demonstrates how his oratory contributed to the emergence of the Black Arts Movement and how his ideas shaped its intellectual and cultural foundations. In sum, the paper argues that Malcolm X’s rhetorical legacy is essential for understanding the development of the Black Arts Movement and its literature.

The article examines about 20 historical and literary sources with information about Abdurrahman Jami, as well as some of the works of the great thinker. In a certain sense, the issue and problem of “Jomi and Uzbek literature” has been revealed. In the studied books, Jami is mentioned not only as a brilliant poet and writer, but also as a literary critic, philosopher, lawyer, sufi, and public figure. The works of poets and writers who came to fiction under the influence of the Navai and Jami schools were examined, and the issue of tradition and literary influence was also highlighted.

Abstract From the large number of quotations that survive in the vast and varied written documents of the Roman imperial period, it is evident that Virgil was the most popular poet, at least in the Latin-speaking western part of the Empire, where he played the same role as Homer in the Greek-speaking East. A notable aspect of Virgil's legacy, however, lies not merely in the sheer volume of quotations and allusions that have survived; rather, it is the remarkable versatility of his written mediums which include inscriptions painted or scratched upon walls, papyri, ostraca, writing tablets, and even scrawls on simple bowls. Furthermore, the scope of Virgil's literary influence extends beyond the confines of the privileged upper classes, as evidenced by his presence in the epitaphs of ordinary people, gladiatorial dressing rooms, or in barracks of distant garrisons. Additionally, his literary contributions have permeated diverse geographical areas, from Hadrian's Wall to Dura-Europos on the Euphrates. The present article explores the potential explanations for the phenomenon of Virgil's ‘ubiquity’.

This research examines William Shakespeare's profound and lasting influence on the English language, analyzing how his literary innovations transformed vocabulary, syntax, and idiomatic expression. Through comprehensive textual analysis of Shakespeare's complete works and comparative linguistic studies, this paper demonstrates that Shakespeare contributed over 1,700 words to the English lexicon while establishing syntactic patterns that continue to influence contemporary usage. The study employs corpus linguistics methodology to quantify Shakespeare's linguistic innovations and traces their evolution through four centuries of English language development. Findings reveal that Shakespeare's influence extends beyond mere vocabulary expansion to encompass fundamental changes in semantic flexibility, metaphorical expression, and grammatical structure. The research contributes to our understanding of how individual literary genius can shape the trajectory of an entire language, with implications for contemporary studies of linguistic change and literary influence.

ABSTRACT Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy came from different backgrounds and lived in different parts of the world, yet Dickens’s literary influence on Russian novelists is immense and Leo Tolstoy’s love of Dickens is undeniable in his letters, memoirs, and diaries. Tolstoy viewed Dickens as a harsh social critic and a champion for the poor, the underprivileged and the oppressed. Both writers are not only known as social commentators but the recorders of many problems of their time: they both strived to attain the ideal of goodness in life and society. The novels of Dickens and Tolstoy differ in style, narratology, purpose, thematical unity, and motifs, yet these writers’ dedication to democracy and humanism is evident in their works. The goal of this article is to trace the influence Charles Dickens had on Leo Tolstoy and identify key references to Dickens in Tolstoy’s own writings that would enhance modern-day scholars’ and readers’ understanding and appreciation of these two timeless novelists.

ABSTRACT In Siblings (2003), the psychoanalyst Juliet Mitchell poses the question of why it is so difficult to decide whether Oedipus had a sister, suggesting that the primary paradigm of psychoanalysis has effectively erased the ‘lateral dimension' of our models of development. This erasure extends to literary influence, too, which tends to be framed in vertical rather than lateral terms. Addressing the omission of siblings from critical enquiry, this article explores what happens if we redistribute attention away from Bloom's ‘priority' to the more inchoate realm of the lateral as it informs the work of Charles Lamb and William Wordsworth. It focuses on the formal, psychological and creative influences of ‘siblinghood’ in the work of two Romantic writers, William Wordsworth and Charles Lamb, looking particularly at sisters.

ABSTRACT This essay reads the familiar concept of literary influence as a fantasy of proximity to those whose beauty resides in their unavailability—in an ease of phrase, grace of thinking, brilliance, music outside the common round and impossible to produce oneself. It is a melancholy irony of literary traditions that they should expand through the attempted retrieval of voices permanently lost. Keston Sutherland writes in Meditations (2024): “It hurt him to have to carry around so much missingness.” The shock in the subtext of reading and mourning is that you are carrying nothing at all.

ABSTRACT The prominent English poet, playwright, and novelist John Masefield has hardly figured at all in discussions of literary influences on Eugene O’Neill’s writing, and yet many points of crossover can be analyzed. Moreover, the very pattern of Masefield’s life and early career can be mapped onto O’Neill’s, suggesting that O’Neill (a decade younger) might have articulated his aesthetic choices in terms of what he knew about this experimental writer. Masefield became famous with his explorations of maritime life, notably in his most famous poem, “Sea-Fever,” which O’Neill respectfully parodied, but he also explored folk tragedy in plays like The Tragedy of Nan, which might have influenced O’Neill’s early naturalism. The impact of Masefield’s thematic novels and his full-length verse plays can also be discerned. Masefield’s twisted version of Francis Thompson’s “The Hound of Heaven,” which O’Neill was known to recite at length, can be seen as an influence on The Emperor Jones.

This article argues that Frame’s anxiety about the influence of her famous literary predecessor Katherine Mansfield, as represented in her posthumously published novel In the Memorial Room , instigated a crisis about writing and authorship. The novel features an anti-imperial “memorialisation satire” on excessive adulation of authorial fame, focused through Frame’s self-deprecating narrator Harry Gill, who undertakes a residency fellowship in Menton in honour of Rose Hurndell (i.e. Mansfield). The article builds on Harold Bloom’s Freudian theories about the anxiety of influence including the concept of misinterpretation which Frame appears to resist. It is informed by Jan Cronin’s (2014) claim that the novel represents Frame’s interest in exploring states of perception and expression, triggered by Gill’s apparent deficiencies of sight and hearing: labelled as “Mr Metonymy”, Gil acts as medium or container for these concerns. In this literal/fabulist response to literary influence, Frame thus expands the author function, notably through Gill’s appreciation of the Menton light and sun when working in the Memorial Room, which I suggest is mediated by Katherine Mansfield’s diaries and their modernist aesthetic response to the Mediterranean landscape. Narrative experimentation, intertextuality and reflection on perceptions of various entities and phenomena enable Frame to accommodate the threat of her precursor through a provisional reshaping of the author presence.

ABSTRACT Recent debates in translation theory have moved beyond hegemonic – and gendered – conceptions of ‘fidelity’ and ‘betrayal’ to consider translation’s transformative, rather than derivative, effects. This essay builds on this body of scholarship to propose translation as a capacious, self-reflexive idiom for articulating literary influence in a multilingual frame. Beginning with the understudied influence of Jorge Luis Borges on Harold Bloom, I then constellate Borges’ translation theories with those of Yasemin Yildiz and Abdelfattah Kilito, before turning to several feminist reflections on the politics of translation. These theorists, I argue, conceive of literary history itself as an ongoing process of translation, contestation, and critique.

Mary Webb, whose novels and poetry portray her native county of Shropshire, was a keen reader of Thomas Hardy. Several biographers and scholars – including Gladys Mary Coles, Andrew Radford and Carol Siegel – have noted Hardy’s influence in her work. However, while these authors have explored aspects such as sexual politics, classical myth, and biographical details, they have focussed less upon Webb’s use and description of landscape, as well as Shropshire mythology and folklore. This article will build upon a small amount of research by these scholars, and not only examine the influence of Hardy’s works in Webb’s own writing but also note how she developed her own style stimulated by Hardian influence. It can be assumed that Webb’s use of local legends, vernacular, and landscape mirrors, to some extent, Hardy’s aesthetic depiction of his native Wessex. Additionally, her use of legend and folk beliefs creates a kind of Gothic rendering of a fictional Shropshire, akin to some of Hardy’s portrayals of Wessex. This article examines Webb’s life and literary influences – particularly Hardy, to whom she dedicated her fourth novel – and, following Coles, considers how her time spent living in the West Country, influenced the creation of her first novel.