Literary Methods Research Articles

Locus of Control : Teori Temuan Penelitian dan Reorientasinya dalam Manajemen Penanganan Kesulitan Belajar Peserta Didik

The purpose of this research is to study the locus of control from the theoretical side, findings of research on locus of control in the context of education and learning and reorient it in management handling student learning difficulties. Using a qualitative, non-interactive approach with literary study methods. Methods of data analysis using meta-analysis with combination of content analysis and trend analysis techniques. The results showed that locus of control is one of the individual personality variables regarding belief in self-control over events experienced in self-determined life (internal locus of control) or controlled by the external locus of control. This theory was first proposed by Rotter which also offer the measurement and grouping instruments through Internal-External Scale. From a research perspective, the locus of control has an influence on the learning achievement of learners. Learners with internal locus of control have a better performance than the external group. Considering the importance of the focus of control in the development of education and learning, reorientation can be done by developing it in the management of learning difficulties. The process includes: identification of cases and problems, diagnosis, prognosis, remedial / referral, and evaluation and follow-up by integrating locus of control system.

Postdigital synchronicity and syntopy: the manipulation of universal codes, and the fully automated avantgarde

In recent years, the use of new (both linguistic and non-linguistic) literary codes has accelerated due to the global technological intermediations between writers, scientists and artists, and to the increase and diversification of human–machine interactions. The new codes emerging from this new set of global interactions are often re-interpretations of literary and artistic methods and devices developed by modern and postmodern avangardist movements; however, they present some new interesting features when expanding through postdigital environments, where a novel universe of data/symbols are manipulated by a variety of human–machine assemblages with different modes of implication in performance-driven collaborative arrangements. This article critically reviews and reflects on literary works entering and exploring this postdigital space by using innovative art/writing codes.

НЕМЕЦКАЯ ПОЭЗИЯ: ЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКИЕ И СТИЛИСТИЧЕСКИЕ ОСОБЕННОСТИ ПЕРЕВОДА НА ЧУВАШСКИЙ ЯЗЫК

Цель. Статья посвящена особенностям перевода немецкой поэзии на чувашский язык. На примере стихотворения Г. Гейне «Lorelei» и его перевода на чувашский язык, выполненном чувашским поэтом Г. Шевкен, проводится сравнительно-сопоставительный анализ перевода и оригинала, определяется качество перевода произведения. Цель исследования заключается в комплексном анализе перевода стихотворения Г. Гейне «Lorelei» на чувашский язык, рассмотрении лингвистических и стилистических особенностей перевода поэзии.Метод или методология проведения работы. Основными методами данной работы являются сопоставительный, лингвистический, описательный, историко-литературный методы исследования.Результаты. В статье проведен сопоставительный лингвистический анализ перевода и оригинала стихотворения Г. Гейне «Lorelei», показано качество перевода произведения.Область применения результатов. Полученные результаты могут найти свое применение в учебных курсах по общему и сравнительному языкознанию, типологии языков, теории художественного перевода, стилистике, а также на практических занятиях по иностранному языку.

'An Aristocracy of Exalted Spirits': The Idea of the Church in Newman's Tamworth Reading Room by David P. Delio

Reviewed by: 'An Aristocracy of Exalted Spirits': The Idea of the Church in Newman's Tamworth Reading Room by David P. Delio David P. Deavel (bio) 'An Aristocracy of Exalted Spirits': The Idea of the Church in Newman's Tamworth Reading Room By David P. Delio. Leominster, Herefordshire, UK: Gracewing Publishing, 2016. Pages: xx + 359. Softcover, £ 17.99. ISBN 9780852448823 "The Tamworth Reading Room," Newman's seven letters to the London Times, written under the pseudonym "Catholicus," in response to a lecture by Sir Robert Peel at a new reading room he helped fund, has drawn comparatively little attention among scholars. A search on the International Centre for Newman Friends' online bibliography yields only four results, one of them being David Delio's doctoral dissertation on which this book is based. One can find a few more results on other databases, including Nina Burgis's 1964 M.A. dissertation, an edition of the letters along with textual and expository commentary. Scholars who have treated it in passing have focused on Newman's literary methods (Burgis), his satire (Ian Ker), his view of science (Stanley Jaki), his political thought (Terence Kenny), his view of education (Jane Rupert), or his view of faith and reason (Keith Beaumont). Most have seen the letters as having only a loose unity at best. If there is a unity, most have seen it as concentrated on the relationship between faith and secular knowledge. Delio's volume, attractively made, though rather inconsistently copy edited (many pages are free of errors; others have three to four misspellings or words elided), aims at both correcting the lack of attention to these letters, which served in many ways as early attempts to get at ideas more fully examined in the Idea and Grammar, and to provide an account of their unity as found in his developing Catholic ecclesiology. Concerning the first goal, Delio, in this first book-length treatment of the letters, provides a great deal of background material about Newman, Peel, and the political and theological histories of the decades before their fateful public collision. Chapter 1 gives alternating histories of the two figures, indicating the trajectory of their careers and what made Newman, an early fan of Peel's, decide that the Tory politician was a danger. Chapter 2 discusses more fully the British educational context of the reading room and Peel's address itself, along with a discussion of other contemporary reactions to it. Chapter 6 discusses the reception of the letters: by the press as a whole, by Peel himself (who responded in speeches both in 1841 and, obliquely, 1849), and by Newman and his Tractarian friends. Chapter 7 details the history of the letters and their ideas in Newman's future writings and indeed in his pastoral ministry in the [End Page 78] Birmingham Oratory. All of this material, along with appendices including biographical entries on the main figures, Peel's address as it was printed in the newspapers, Newman's letters, and various other letters and press reactions to the two, make the book understandable for nonspecialists and even nonacademics, though the book's audience is primarily going to be academic. I was teaching the letters at the time I read the book and found it enormously helpful in giving my students an understanding of the context and importance of the letters. Chapters 3-5 discuss the letters themselves, not only analyzing their content but recounting the history of Newman's dealings with the Times, press reaction, and indeed pushback from Peel's political supporters and crowing from his enemies—emboldened that a conservative newspaper would publish attacks on their man. In all of this discussion, Delio is fair with both Peel and Newman, drawing throughout a rather attractive picture of Peel as a politician while siding intellectually with Newman. Simultaneously, he acknowledges that Newman made mistakes in the text and sometimes disappointing, even "disingenuous" decisions, such as his refraining from naming George Craik in the 1872 edition as the author of the work he mistakenly attributed to Henry Brougham multiple times in the letters (97). Concerning the second goal, namely Delio's contention that the unity in Newman's letters comes from his...

Reshaping the Ear: Honorable Listening and Study of Ecowomanist and Ecofeminist Scholarship for Feminist Discourse

Reshaping the Ear:Honorable Listening and Study of Ecowomanist and Ecofeminist Scholarship for Feminist Discourse Melanie L. Harris (bio) Keyword Alice Walker, Delores S. Williams, ecowomanism, sin of defilement, social justice, women of color I want to enter Laurie Zoloth's "At the Last Well on Earth: Climate Change Is a Feminist Issue" through an ecowomanist analytical lens. Ecowomanism is an approach that centers the voices, theoretical, religious, and ecospiritual activism of women of African descent and other women of color. It uses race-class-gender intersectional analysis to highlight the impact environmental health disparities have on communities of color in the age of climate change. Rather than ignore the plight of thousands upon thousands of African American and Latino/a families living in food deserts and the historical connections this social injustice has to white supremacy and access to land rights and clean water, ecowomanist approaches raise awareness about environmental racism. As I have explained in my previous work, ecowomanist approaches link "a social justice agenda with earth justice recognizing the similar logic of domination at work in parallel oppressions suffered by women of color and the earth."1 Insisting [End Page 158] upon the importance of women of color's voices in an age of climate change, ecowomanism highlights the insights, activism, and writings that many womanist environmental writers have contributed to the environmental movement for decades.2 Ecowomanism attends to both theory and praxis. Emerging from the field of womanist religious thought, it carries a commitment to validate the voices and perspectives of women of African descent and women of color and a deep commitment to justice in multiple forms. The term womanist was coined by literary artist, writer, and activist Alice Walker.3 As such, her work contributes broadly to the fields of womanist theology, womanist biblical hermeneutics, womanist homiletics, womanist ethics, and more. Walker's own environmental activism has inspired millions. Many of her essays including, "The Only Reason You Want to Go to Heaven Is That You Have Been Driven Out of Your Mind (Off Your Land and Out of Your Lover's Arms): Clear Seeing Inherited Religion and Reclaiming the Pagan Self," and "Only Justice Can Stop A Curse," draw connections between the parallel oppressions that women of color have faced historically due to white supremacist and patriarchal notions, and the sufferings of the planet.4 Critical reflection on these connections sets a frame for ecowomanist thought. It is significant that religious scholars, theologians, and ethicists who adopted the term womanist also employed literary methods to enhance their own theological exploration. For example, pioneering womanist ethicist Katie Cannon used literary methods in her work mining ethical codes and mores of African American women by carefully studying the work of Zora Neale Hurston.5 Like Walker, Cannon dives into the black women's literary tradition to set forth ethical systems and approaches that are effective for black women today. Based in part on this precedent, ecowomanism is also interdisciplinary, combining methods from religion, literature, geography, history, and the sciences to help [End Page 159] uncover the ethical mores necessary for developing black women's and women of color's approaches to environmental justice. Ecowomanism also highlights the significance of African, Native American, and indigenous cosmologies for the shaping of ecowomanist ethics. Noting the relationships among spirit, humans, and nature alive in many of these cosmologies, ecowomanism uplifts the religious and ethical mores embedded in these women's theologies that articulate an ethical mandate to care for the earth. In keeping with third-wave womanism, ecowomanism stresses the importance of validating women of color's perspectives on climate change and corrects the myth that feminists and womanists are absent from the discourse. In fact, women of African descent and many women of color have been engaged in the environmental justice movement for decades. Instead of ignoring these voices, ecowomanist discourse centers the voices of women of color and their theoretical, theological, and ethical perspectives on the environment and thus contributes a countermemory that corrects Western theoretical frames in the discourse of religion and ecology. Though not a womanist, Zoloth too seems bothered by theoretical frames that ignore women's voices. Critiquing the impact of modernity...

Redaction Criticism as a Resource for the Bible as "A Site of Struggle"

Though the state, the church, theology, and biblical interpretation have been considered ‘sites of struggle’ by South Africa’s liberation theologies, the Bible has not. This article reappraises the work of South African Black theologian Itumeleng Mosala (thirty years later) and considers his particular understanding of the Bible as a site of struggle, drawing as he does on redaction criticism. The article analyses Mosala’s notion of the ideological dimensions of redaction criticism, clarifies some of the concepts Mosala uses, argues for the role of literary methods in redactional criticism, and advocates for the inclusion of the ‘exploited classes’ in the exegesis as well as the appropriation of biblical texts.

Transcending the limitations of physical form: a case study of the Cang Lang Pavilion in Suzhou, China

This paper attempts to explore the legibility and meanings of traditional Chinese architecture through a specific case study of the Cang Lang Pavilion. The process of architectural creation in pre-modern Chinese society consisted of both physical and literary methods, undertaken by the builders and the literati respectively. The meaning of architecture thus can be formulated independently in text and narrative, thereby instructing daily life. From comparing the social meanings of hall and pavilion, these two structures seem have represented two opposite social dispositions: conformity and dissent. To some extent, the political system, together with social, cultural and intellectual traditions in pre-modern China downplayed the role of architecture in evoking social awareness and promoting various ideologies. However, the literary creation of architecture transcended the limitations of physical form. The legibility of architecture is largely acquired from reading the life and meanings inherent in and beyond physical form.

Purism Children's Literature and Interpretation of 'Dream' - Focus on Kang Socheon’s literature -

This paper sought to review the interpretation of dreams in Kang Socheon’s literature and the limitation. This is a exploration of when the diagram of ‘Kang Socheon Literature = Dream’ began and what that dream signifies. As a result, the ‘dream’ of Kang Socheon has close relationships with the romantic world view, and the internal characteristics has the tendency of corresponding with the purism of the 1960s. One must note that in such views, the principles of innocence of considering the dreams and fantasies of children as important, but viewing them as immature beings were reflected.BRHowever, after the 1990s, Kang Socheon’s ‘dream’ starts to expand the aesthetic fields as literary methods. In the process, In this process, it is thankful that 「Photo Studio Taking Photos of Dreams」 was shed light upon as fantasy story, but by idealizing dream, the problems of misinterpreting the piece. Expanding the meaning to ‘fundamentals of human’ and ‘pure and ideal search for dreams’ without considering the limitations of the literature then was a case in which the internal analysis of the text was led to the jump to the sense of subject. The more serious problem is the distorted interpretation as if the consciousness of the cold war present in Kang Socheon’s literature is a healthy idea of unification.BR With dreams and fantasies in its core, there are not as many people who have constructed the best area as Kang Socheon in our history of children’s literature. The detailed fantasy area and the smooth style is a characteristic of Kang Socheon’s literature and a precious asset of our history of children’s literature. However, excessive attribution of meaning toward ‘dream’ seems to become a repulsive factor in identifying Kang Socheon’s literature. Especially, the works of distinctive anti-communism needs to be reconsidered.

“The European Plot” in the Russian Literary Tradition at the End of the 17th Centur

~ ~ ~ The paper analyses the notes of Boris Petrovich Sheremetev, general field marshal, the diplomat of Peter I era, about his travel to Europe. These notes are a monument of the Russian fiction at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries. The composition allows answering the following questions about the process of a fictionalization of documentary books in Russia in a transition period of developing Russian literature; what new subjects, plots, motives define literary process; how the position of those who made a book monument changed. The author pays special attention to the description of the literary methods used by B.P. Sheremetev. They helped to create a new image of Europe in Russian fiction at the end of the 17th century and presented Russian people a bright and interesting world. The paper is aimed at experts in the field of Medieval studies, the historians of literature who are engaged in studying the problem of forming and developing the genre system in a transition period of Russian literature (the second half of the 17th - the beginning of the 18th century).

Chaos and Cosmos: Literary Roots of Modern Ecology in the British Nineteenth Century by Heidi C. M. Scott

Heidi C. M. Scott. Chaos and Cosmos: Literary Roots of Modern Ecology in the British Nineteenth Century. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press. 2014. Pp. 224. $64.95. Chaos and Cosmos is an authoritative, truly interdisciplinary book that turns the usual impulse of Romantic studies on its head: instead of sketching out a literary ecocriticism, to paraphrase Jonathan Bate's famous phrase, Scott ambitiously sets out to find the origins of contemporary ecological methods in Romantic and Victorian literature. Each of the structures of thought of the book's title is connected both to a nineteenth-century literary genre, and to a practice or principle in the work of modern ecological scientists. Chaos refers both to the formal features of nonlinear prose narrative in Romantic and Victorian speculative fictions by Mary Shelley, Richard Jefferies, and H. G. Wells, and also to the unpredictable and cataclysmic environmental phenomena of our contemporary natural world--which Scott argues would be more accurately charted through narrative ecological modeling. Cosmos, by contrast, is related to a Romantic notion of the mind as natural microcosm in nineteenth-century lyric poetry, and to the experimental model of microcosm that modern ecologists continue to use to study nature's activities in a balanced, controlled form--a scientific procedure that, Scott contends, is inherited from lyrical poetic practices familiar to readers of Wordsworth and Keats. Prose and poetry; cataclysm and balance; Scott brings together these bald dichotomies under the banners of chaos and cosmos to make an argument about the practice of ecological science today, in relation both to its poetic inheritance and its potential narrative future. While these are no doubt heterogeneous ideas yoked together forcefully, nature and art prove to be connected by more than comparison and allusion. Scott argues that the disciplines of contemporary ecology and Romantic literature (and, by implicit extension, literary studies) are mutually discursive: The seed of imagination that would enable a scientist to study a lake as a microcosm at the formal, empirical level was sown by poets of the nineteenth century who consciously drew a sphere around small-scale nature in order to make sense of spots of time and place amid the increasingly chaotic global, industrial modern world (4). With readings of both Romantic and Victorian texts, the book addresses itself to literary scholars, but as inset chapters on Scientific Nonfiction and Today's Scientific Modeling reveal, Scott also intends to reach ecologists an ambition confirmed by her ultimate objective to extrapolate literary methods into ecological science, both by acknowledging the indebtedness of post-Darwinian ecology to poetic microcosm, and by revealing the usefulness of narrative in charting the progress of environmental unpredictability. real goal of the book to extend outside of literary studies can sometimes mean that its tone becomes unevenly empiricist (155)> as Scott strives to make studying the nineteenth century relevant to her implied ecologist reader. A reading of George Eliot's lyric poetry is interrupted by an invective on Disney's Imagineering (137); the final section of the book, a Case Study of Keats, is introduced with the sentence, Detailed data collected from this exemplary poet reveal underlying principles that apply more generally (155). This possibly estranging language is an unavoidable and minor consequence of Scott's admirable cross-disciplinary fluency, and her book's argument will have the reach beyond Romanticism to be both impactful and sustainable in ecological studies. There is no question that this book will impact both Romanticism and literary ecocriticism more generally. Scott's first two chapters, which address anticipations of today's climate change in Romantic and Victorian prose, are wonderfully original. …

Tilbage før syndefaldet? Karen Blixens ”Ringen” og et bud på en ikke helt uskyldsren kontrapunktisk litteraturpædagogik

Some voices in the recent field of literary theory argue that theory itself must be suspended. This is seen for instance in the case of Wendy Steiner, who characterizes the development of competing theories within the field of literature since the emergence of semiology as a ‘scientific parody’. This situation has led her to giving up ‘being a scientist’. The article argues against this retreat from theory. Rather than suspending theory, education in literature must use theories in a contrapuntal praxis of reading. This praxis is demonstrated in a reading of Karen Blixen’s short story, “The Ring”, which includes a discussion of Leif Søndergaard’s interpretations of the short story in K&K 73, 1993 . Even though Søndergaard uses a wide range of literary methods, it turns out that they all rely on a narratological structure in which the female protagonist, Lise, is transformed from innocent girl to a mature woman, who then turns her back on her newly wedded husband. Furthermore, it turns out that the readings in which Søndergaard engages rest on a symbolic reading of a few central places in the text. The article shows how Blixen’s text in itself both contradicts this narratological structure and the interpretation of symbols. On the narratological level there is not a before and after the Fall: Lise has already taken the step from girl to mature woman before the short story even begins. On the other hand, a literal reading of what at first seem to be metaphors and symbols shows that the short story itself dismantles the symbols which at first glance seem to be important. However, this insight is strongly dependent on Søndergaard’s thorough investigation of the text with the methods provided by different theories of literature. A contrapunctual reading would thus firstly follow the paths which seem to be laid out by the text, and secondly show how this interpretation of the text is in itself determined by the methodological approach.

Virginia Woolf and the professions

This book explores Virginia Woolf's engagement with the professions in her life and writing. Woolf underscored the significance of the professions to society, such as the opportunity they provided for a decent income and the usefulness of professional accreditation. However, she also resisted their hierarchical structures and their role in creating an overspecialised and fragmented modernity, which prevented its members from leading whole, fulfilling lives. This book shows how Woolf's writing reshaped the professions so that they could better serve the individual and society, and argues that her search for alternatives to existing professional structures deeply influenced her literary methods and experimentation.

Horrors at Home: From Sensation Scandal to Gothic Melodrama

On the surface Bram Stoker's 1897 Dracula and Mary Cholmondeley's 1899 Red Pottage seem alike only in their fin de siècle publication dates and their popularity with the reading public. Yet Stoker's bloody chronicle of vampire hunting and Cholmondeley's melodramatic domestic tale share a common interest in horror as an affective state and an aesthetic technique. This essay argues that by grafting the affect and imagery of horror onto domestic scenes, Red Pottage, like Dracula, envisions a British society assaulted by a corrupting force that saps its vitality and health. But unlike Dracula, Red Pottage locates that monstrosity not in a foreign threat but in the hypocritical degeneracy of the English church, aristocracy, and most fundamentally, bourgeois matrimony. Breaking with contemporaneous imperial gothic and with the earlier generation of sensation fiction that influenced her work, Cholmondeley shifts the blame for corruption away from both the feminine and the foreign, traditional (and often synergistic) sources of threat. The novel portrays patriarchal marriage as destructive to community and to intellectual attainment for men and women alike. Alternatively, it depicts appealing characters that disrupt the gender binary and remain unmarried, traveling abroad as the story concludes. Red Pottage locates hope for the future beyond the traditional domestic sphere: outside romantic and familial relationships and outside Great Britain itself. By infusing realist representation with the emotional and visceral force of more popular literary modes, it also participates in the nascent renegotiation of literary goals and methods that modernism would carry forward.

Bow to Stern

If brands are narratives, as Stern, Twitchell and many marketing consultants contend, then the tools and techniques of literary criticism can help enhance branding understanding. This article applies the literary methods of Franco Moretti to a multi-storied brand, whose seemingly unfathomable mystique has fascinated consumers for more than a century. Specifically, it interprets RMS Titanic as an encyclopaedic narrative – what Moretti calls a ‘modern epic’ – which melds multiple literary genres, thereby complementing Stern’s classic study of consumer-marketer mythopoeia.

Painting the Novel: The Fine Art of Fiction in Henry James’s Prefaces by Henry James (review)

Reviewed by: Painting the Novel: The Fine Art of Fiction in Henry James’s Prefaces by Henry James Kevin Frazier Henry James. Painting the Novel: The Fine Art of Fiction in Henry James’s Prefaces. Milwaukee: Wiseblood, 2014. 374 pp. $10.00 (paperback). In 1878 Tolstoy wrote a letter to S. A. Rachinsky defending the design of Anna Karenina. Rachinsky had said the novel lacked structure. Tolstoy replied: “On the contrary, I take pride in the architectonics. The vaults are thrown up in such a way that one cannot notice where the link is” (754). From the start of his career to the finish, Tolstoy did his best to hide the considerable craft behind his fiction. Henry James, in contrast, brought his vaults and links to our fullest notice. He didn’t so much pioneer his techniques as he pioneered the sharpening of our regard for them. In particular, of course, the eighteen prefaces that he wrote for the New York Edition of 1907–1909 form one of the most influential descriptions of literary methods in the history of the novel. Most fiction writers, even ones who don’t like James or have never read him, now start from a position of serious and sustained attention to narrative structure and character viewpoint. The prefaces have been critical to developing the intensity of that attention. They’re also responsible for giving the New York Edition much of its full significance and for helping create the framework through which we read nearly everything James wrote. In their impact both on other writers and on the James canon, the prefaces rank among the key achievements in modern literature. Wiseblood Books now offers a new collection of the prefaces, in a low-cost paperback that seems directed mainly at students in creative writing courses. The prefaces have been published separately before, notably by Charles Scribner’s Sons, in the 1934 edition that features the classic R. P. Blackmur introduction. The full text of the Scribner’s edition is available online at the Internet Archive and was reissued in print in 2011 with a new foreword by Colm Tóibín. The Library of America, back in [End Page E-6] 1984, also included all the prefaces in its second volume of James’s literary criticism. More recently, Adrian Dover, on his site The Ladder, has provided an excellent web edition of the prefaces, with links to the novels and stories. The new Wiseblood volume is a welcome addition to these versions, in part because it comes at us with an appealing brashness. The engaging and offbeat introduction by Angela Cybulski considers the prefaces mostly as a source of literary and moral guidance for aspiring authors. Cybulski tells us nothing about the place of the prefaces in James’s career and doesn’t mention the New York Edition even in passing. She cuts the prefaces off from their traditional harbors of biographical information and critical background, sets them adrift on their own merits. In addition, Wiseblood’s textual decisions, such as the change of the New York Edition’s mistaken “Maisie is of 1907” to the correct “Maisie is of 1897,” are made silently, without explanation (169). So is the omission of the most expendable preface, the one for “The Author of Beltraffio” and the other short works in volume 16. Overall, the edition is stripped-down in a way that feels appropriate to James. It mirrors the odd elisions that characterize his fiction, the refusals to provide all the expected details. It also throws into relief the prefaces themselves, divorced from the usual explications, the footnotes and asides on how James has shaped or hidden his private history. Combined with Cybulski’s introduction, the unadorned text suggests a cheerful challenge to academic and biographical interpretations of James, a quiet insistence that the prefaces be taken at their word. This won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it’s good to see an independent literary publisher like Wiseblood offering an idiosyncratic and personal approach to this most idiosyncratic and personal of writers. At the same time, Cybulski catches much of the appeal of the prefaces for novelists. James, she notes, “possesses a charming, even...

Hannah’s “Hard Day” and Hesiod’s “Two Roads”: Poetic Wisdom in Philo’s De ebrietate

In De ebrietate 150, Philo quotes Hesiod’s Works and Days (287, 289-292) in his interpretation of Hannah’s alleged drunkenness in 1 Samuel. These poetic verses contrast the difficulty of the road to virtue with the ease of acquiring wickedness. On Philo’s reading, the misperception of Hannah’s “hard day” by her accuser illustrates the moral lesson of Hesiod, namely, that fools consider virtue to be beyond attainment. In the context of recent interest in the ways in which Philo’s literary methods converge with those of other ancient readers, especially Alexandrian scholars, this study situates Philo’s application of Hesiod’s didactic poetry within its wider history of interpretation. As early as Plato and continuing through Philo’s time, Hesiod’s “two roads” was frequently cited in philosophical discourse and debate. Moreover, analogously to Philo, Alexandrian critics employed this passage in explaining the morality of literary characters. Philo’s use of Hesiod is consistent with this interpretive tradition. At the same time, his originality consists in his creation of a dialogue between Hesiod and biblical narrative in which both voices converge around the same ethical lesson.

Kto ma pamięć podziurawioną?

Henri Raczymow’s term of mémoire trouée – memory with holes – is often understood as a synonym to Marian Hirsch’s “postmemory”. Even though there is a semantic connection between these two concepts, it seems important to point out differences between them. Mémoire trouée concept was presented by Raczymow in 1986 on the Jewish Writers Conference. The essay became a collective voice of Jewish immigrants in France. What is this “hole” in the memory? How did it appear? What are literary methods of description of this void? Most of all, this void has its “double” – emptiness in the “shtetl memory” and emptiness in the “Shoah memory”. The aim of this article is to analyze Raczymow’s essay, especially his conception of “the second generation’s” writing; to interpret voids in the memory in the Jewish experience and literary transposition of mémoire trouée in Raczymow novels.

Epigrammata longiora sine vitio. Egzemplifikacje Jakuba Masena w cyklu Narodzenie Chrystusa

The German Jesuit, Jacob Masen, in his poetics treatise entitled Ars nova argutiarum, in addition to the theoretical content, he presents work he prepared himself illustrating the concepts under discussion. Unlike in the earlier part of the work, in Chapter 8 of his dissertation, he presents elaborate poems. He divides them into two cycles. This article is concerned with epigrams on Christmas, which appear in the collection entitled De Christo nato. Out of this group of nine, seven were translated and analysed, and although they were considered by the author as long, their length did not exceed the commonly accepted length for such type of work. As it turned out, the poems prove in many places the author’s erudition. He uses vivid vocabulary, extraordinary words and words originating from mythology and poetic neologisms. At the same time he introduces a wide range of stylistic devices and figures of speech. By the use of descriptio rerum a partium numeratione his topics are presented in an extremely vivid way. The starting point for his descriptions is often the Child Jesus himself depicted from the perspective of an ordinary observer or a conscious of things theologian. Some other time, the scholar starts from the circumstances of the event (circumstantiae) and on their basis the whole performance is built. All the poems are built based on the theory of sources (fontes) and veins (venae) expounded in the dissertation. These pieces of his work are not so much within the rhetorized poetry as within poetry guided by logic. They do not have particularly distinct argutias but this is also in line with the preliminary assumption made by the poet. On the other hand they all form a sort of itinerarium necessary to understand baroque poetry which often, due to its intricacy, appears to be not much interesting and even worthless. It is enough to analyse just a few epigrams by Masen to see that to find the whole range of ideas and solutions concealed by the poet in his poems unconventional literary methods should be used within his poetry.

The Needle's Eye: Wealth and Western Society from the Late Roman Empire to the Early Middle Ages

This review article discusses Peter Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550AD (pp. xxx + 759, 16 col. plates; Princeton University Press; Princeton, NJ, 2012). Following an overall view of the book (I), this essay makes observations about the handling of late Roman social structures (II), about the implications of the geographical emphases of the book (III) and about the implications of the judgments it offers on the chronology of the transition from late antiquity to the early middle ages (IV). This essay also comments on literary methods and their role in Brown’s exposition (V) and offers a concluding reflection on the kind of historical craftsmanship exemplified by the book (VI).

Overcoming the barriers to information literacy programs

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the process by which an information literacy laboratory became a graduation requirement of the English major at Dickinson College. Design/methodology/approach – A case study with literature review, course description and assessment. Findings – The information literacy program described became compulsory for English majors despite all the common challenges cited in the library literature. It also determines that assessment is the most important factor in building successful information literacy programs. Research limitations/implications – The process by which the information literacy module became a graduation requirement for English majors demanded persistence and patience. Librarians should be prepared to spend several years imitating the model before similar results would emerge. Practical implications – Librarians will be able to model information literacy programs for English/writing programs after Critical Approaches and Literary Methods Lab, and the methodology is transferable to other disciplines. The process allows librarians to indirectly but effectively influence the college/university governance process. Social implications – This case study examines how librarians can have an influence over college/university curricula by forming strategic partnerships and designing practical assessments. Originality/value – Few reports exist in the library literature regarding information literacy programs that have passed through a college/university governance system to become a formal part of the curriculum.