Quality Of Literature Research Articles

The Schnorrer in Israel Zangwill's Work

Abstract This article charts the historical and literary origins of the schnorrer, a Yiddish term for ‘proud beggar’ and a character of Eastern European Jewish culture. It aims to shed light on the schnorrer's entrance as a protagonist in British popular literature in the work of Israel Zangwill, and to show its originality. To do so, it focuses mainly on the novella The King of Schnorrers (1894), in which the schnorrer holds the leading role, and on Children of the Ghetto (1892), in which the schnorrer is a secondary and yet essential character. By locating the schnorrer outside of the Ashkenazi ethno-social context, Zangwill carries out a refashioning of this figure and grounds him in a wider social and literary lineage. He turns him into a literary character who challenges Western capitalist societies, thanks to a multi-layered identity, conflicting contexts and plural literary genres.

«Русская душа» как модус русского менталитета: семантический подход

In the article the concept of "Russian soul" is considered as a modus of Russian mentality. Soul as a personal category in combination with the characteristic "Russian" has subjective qualities. It is shown that the semantic method is an important part of the strategies for studying the mental characteristics of the Russian soul. The method allows us to identify its essential properties through the analysis of words and expressions that have become entrenched in the language of "folk culture" to denote habitualized, familiar behavioral patterns and social practices of the bearers of "Russianness." Semantic groups associated with the concept of "Russian soul" include alternative characteristics inherent in the Russian character, which is explained by its inherent inconsistency. The main ambivalent meanings invested in the expression "Russian soul" are highlighted. It is shown that the main drawback of the semantic approach to the analysis of the Russian mentality and its manifestations is the detachment from reality. Although the semantic method has great potential, it cannot be considered universal and sufficient for revealing the content of mental characteristics by analyzing the conceptual sphere of Russian culture due to its inherent subjective and formal nature. Subjectivity is expressed in the fact that in the process of studying individual meanings and determining the frequency of word use, it is impossible to take into account all terms that are close in meaning, united by a dominant idea, but differ in nuances. The insufficiency of the semantic method for studying the "Russian soul" as a modus of Russian mentality is due to the peculiarities of the use of typification techniques in it and can be compensated for by using a prototypical approach, in which specific subjects – historical figures, literary, mythological, or fairy-tale characters, folk heroes, etc. – act as prototypical bearers of "Russianness," thanks to which a consensus of ideas about the "Russian soul" is formed in the national community, ensuring the "recognition" of its manifestations.

Realism’s Reputations, Financialized Whiteness

This essay uses the legal rearticulation of reputation as white heteropatriarchal property in an “Imperial Jim Crow” United States to piece apart the preoccupation with characters’ reputations in realist fiction. It focuses on two later-nineteenth-century arenas of what property theorist and legal scholar K-Sue Park has called the “generative dynamics” of racial capitalism: new markets in private commercial credit and the socio-legal (re)production of reputation. In so doing, the essay unearths realism’s invisiblized generic presupposition that the idea of reputations that help create modern literary characters are a neutral or self-evident category of experience.

La nobiltà et l'eccellenza delle donne, a treatise in response to I donneschi diffetti in the context of the debate on women

The idea of a woman has been devalued and painted as a filthy, cursed being for generations. Passi’s I donneschi diffetti is set in the context of the misogynist tradition which focuses on proving and arguing why the woman is a being that stands out for her inherent inferiority. Lucrezia Marinella, however, was able to change the misogynistic arguments of Passi and a whole tradition anchored to the Aristotelian thesis. Therefore, the aim of this study is to provide a comparative reading between two Venice-printed books, I donneschi diffetti (1599) by Giuseppe Passi and La nobiltà et l'educazione delle donne, co diffetti et mancamenti de gli huomini (1601) by Passi, Giuseppe (1603). Lucrezia Marinella. The vilification of women, common in literary, philosophical, and theological studies written in earlier centuries to reflect on women's inferiority, is understood from Passi's work, written as a treatise, the discursive genre of misogynist literature par excellence. In contrast to Passi's misogynistic treatise, Lucrezia Marinella's work, which is set in the querelle des femmes context, although also written in the form of a treatise, aims to highlight the superiority of women through the exercise of virtues. Marinella's work, which has the merit of responding to the misogyny of Passi's treatise, surpasses the preceding work in terms of literary quality, where rhetorical resources and exempla abound, based on a detailed argumentation of the merits of women.

La poesía de Quevedo al margen del Parnaso: hacia una edición crítica y anotada de la “musa décima”

AbstractThis article characterises Quevedo's “musa décima”, his poetry not included in the posthumous editions, in order to deepen its features and to consider the future critical edition of the whole. The limits of the corpus are still blurred, due to the abundance of poems of doubtful attribution. After a brief contextualisation in the complex transmission of Golden Age poetry, the catalogue of poems, their textual sources and outstanding literary features are dealt with: jocular matter and antigongorism, burlesque sylvas and poems of praise, which situate the author at the beginning of his career. Unveiling this “peripheral” corpus will have an impact on the “nuclear” poetry of Quevedo.

An Analysis of How the Literary Features of The Teahouse Reflect the Tragic Core of the Play

The Teahouse is a play written by Lao She in 1956, included in the magazine Harvest in July 1957 by Bakin and published in June 1958 by the China Drama Publishing House. The play presents three chaotic historical periods in modern China: the Hundred Days' Reform, the Warlords' War, and the eve of the founding of New China. The play has a high literary status and high literary attainments, and it has become a classic work of contemporary Chinese theatre mainly because of its characteristic dialect language features and special artistic presentation form. The use of language in the original play reflects the regional characteristics, and the portrayal of the characters suggests the tragedy of the historical destiny of the time from the side. The main body of the play, "Yutai Teahouse", serves as a clue to expose how the modern Chinese society is a dark and corrupt world that eats away at all human beings. Moreover, his literary works with its unique style of writing reflects the tragic colour of drama literature, with the tragic fate of the nobody suggesting the tragic colour of the whole era.

SECONDARY CHARACTERS IN A STORY BY GEORGIAN WRITER - GURAM DOCHANASHVILI

In the literary work, next to the main characters there are also literary characters who have a secondary role. However, their role is not often highlighted while analyzing the work. Our goal is to put the shaded characters on the front line and thus demonstrate their great role in the story. In the story of Georgian writer Guram Dochanashvili "A Lad from Tavparavani", there are several secondary characters next to the main ones: Grandpa Giorga, a mother of the lad from Tavparavani, Tebrone and Lame Ephemia. Grandpa Giorga is distinguished in portraying the personality of the main character. If he was not there, the lad would never hear about the woman sitting in a tower across the sea. "A Lad from Tavparavani" has been repeatedly studied by various researchers (N. Gogiashvili, I. Maisuradze, K. Barbakadze, etc.), but the role and place of secondary characters of the work have not been analyzed yet. We think our work is a novelty in this direction.

Archtypology of the Figural Antagonist in Classical Fairy Tales and Other Culture-Forming Stories

The present study focuses on the semiotic profile of a literary character acting as a villain/antagonist (Propp) as one of the central factors of the existential problem situation (the de facto “originator” of problems), which represents a general theme in the folk fairy tales and/or culture-forming stories. The aim of this paper is neither to cover all the principles and manifestations of antagonists exhaustively, nor to present a complete typological description of antagonistic characters, but to cover those basic forms and most frequent or otherwise essential attributes that canonically standardize and significantly universalize the archetype of an antagonist in the selected range of narratives. The issue is approached from the perspective of literary theory (with an emphasis on the morphological, structural, and thematic analysis of the literary characters), and it is materially and argumentatively based on the representative sets of folklore and culture-forming narratives (Aarne-Thompson-Uther’s international catalog of fairy tale types, world myths, canonical texts, etc.), as well as on their national (Slovak) variants.

Stereotipuri legate de rromi în literatura și în societatea română

This article investigates the presence, evolution and influence of stereotypes and prejudices in Romanian literature. Starting from their historical and cultural roots, the study analyses how these concepts are reflected and challenged in literary works. It explores their impact on literary genres, characters and societal evolution, with a focus on the political and social context. The paper reveals how stereotypes and prejudices have shaped the critical and public reception of works and examines how contemporary literature addresses and redefines these concepts. This study makes a significant contribution to understanding the interaction between literature, society and cultural identity in the Romanian context.

Visual presentation of the ethnic image of the Chuvash in cyberspace (using the example of social networks «VKontakte» and «Odnoklassniki»)

The article examines representational practices and mechanisms for the formation of visual images of Chuvash ethnicity in cyberspace. The purpose of this study is to determine the forms and methods of representing ethnicity, mechanisms and means of forming a visual ethnic image of the Chuvash in virtual space using the example of the social networks Odnoklassniki and VKontakte. The research is based on the study of visual content (posts, comments on them, discussions) in groups and on personal pages, materials from a mass survey of users of these social networks. The result of the study was a detailed description of the features of the formation and transmission of visual images of Chuvash ethnicity: visual sources, methods of visualization, functions and demand for visual content. The study showed that the visualization of the ethnic image of the Chuvash in cyberspace occurs through the symbolization of plots of ethnic history, elements of material and spiritual culture, through the use in the process of forming an ethnic image of fairy-tale, mythological, literary and real characters and pages of history, popular forms of representation of folk traditions – costume, national cuisine, holidays and rituals. Visual content is represented by photo and video materials, films, computer graphics, and animation. Visualization of ethnic content contributes to the stereotyping of the features of an ethnic image, acts as a means of constructing an ethnic image, a way of expressing belonging to an ethnic community, transmitting knowledge about the history of the traditional culture of the people, intra-ethnic communication, exchanging information between network users and their integration into the virtual space.

Empathy and Trauma: A Cognitive Approach to Mrs. Dalloway

Abstract: A popular (though not necessarily scientifically validated) theory holds that reading fiction builds empathy. Because literary characters are media representations, limited and defined by point-of-view, diction, and readers’ pre-existing stereotypes, they tend not to elicit empathy in a fair, even manner. This essay will explore such questions as whether certain characteristics elicit greater empathy than others and whether empathy is always genuine or the result of readers’ social pressure to react in a certain manner. To answer these questions, cognitive psychology theories are used to examine how empathy is created—or not created—for literary characters who experience trauma in Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway . This analysis will involve two variables: the mental activity of readers and the mental activity of characters within a fictional text.

THE NARRATIVE IN T. KESKISARJA’S BOOK “THE WAR OF THE HATS”

The research is carried out within the framework of a narratological analysis, the material for which was T. Keskisarja’s military historical monograph “The War of the Hats.” Keskisarja’s work is a historical narrative with literary features. The narrative strategies implemented in the text are considered.The starting point of the research was the juxtaposition of historical and literary narratives, scientific and artistic styles. Keskisarja’s book is dedicated to the Russian-Swedish war of 1741–1743 (known as the War of the Hats), which Sweden began in the hope of regaining the territories lost during the Northern War (1700–1721).The scenes of the past are presented mainly through the decisions of military and civil courts, clergy records, various documents (letters, orders, petitions), historical maps. Keskisarja uses interpretation as the main tool for analyzing archival materials, which makes it possible to reason about human experience.The method used by Keskisarja to present archival data to the 21st-century reader through the prism of a novel with the features of a psychological analysis fully meets the needs of the present time. The fascinating manner of narration, combined with the historian’s professionalism gives the reader a completely adequate idea of the political situation in Europe and the tragic events of the 18th century.Keskisarja uses the expressive means of fiction, inserts a fictional, independent, third-party observer into the historical narrative — a “sentient being” who evaluates events and conducts a dialogue with the reader. Such features of the text under study as dialogicality, anthropocentricity, emotionality, and hybridity are noted. The details of the fates of real people give the narrative volume and expressiveness. The author of the monograph does not “invent” certain events of the described reality — he conjectures and interprets them, trying to discover their meaning, their connection with the past and the future.

The Structure of Description in the Poetry of Saadi Youssef

The study focuses on the poetry of the Iraqi poet Saadi Youssef, highlighting him as a creative and distinguished poet in various aspects. His published poetic works represent the early maturity of a poet capable of encompassing both the objective and artistic dimensions of modern poetry. Saadi Youssef can be described as having a conscious creative ability, with this research examining his descriptive poetry. Notably, the poet is a product of his environment, expressing its conditions and realities. The term "environment" refers to all conditions surrounding and affecting a person. This includes the place, natural phenomena in their colours, forms, living organisms, and inanimate objects, as well as events occurring within human society that change the course of their lives, reflecting the environment and its impact on humans. The motivation for choosing Saadi Youssef's descriptive poetry as the research subject lies in the absence of specialized studies addressing this aspect of his work. Additionally, Saadi Youssef's poetry contains a rich body of descriptive material, alongside the researcher's desire to explore the poetic lexicon of description in his poetry. The aim is to study the pictorial formation of description in Saadi Youssef's work, requiring attention to various historical, psychological, and intellectual aspects of his descriptive poetry, as well as examining the artistic and literary features it contains. Thus, the study adopts an integrative analytical method to analyze the poetic text. The research material comprises the descriptions found in Saadi Youssef's poetry collections, relying on many poems with descriptive nature.

The ways of forming possible worlds of literary text characters: A cognitive linguistic aspect (a study of the novel “Treasure Island” by R.L. Stevenson”)

The article aims to expose various ways along which possible worlds of the characters’ images in the novel “Treasure Island” by R.L. Stevenson are formed. The methodological toolset leveraged in the paper combines the contemporary techniques of cognitive linguistics (namely, semantics of lingual networks) with the basic tenets of the possible worlds theory. The characteristics of the central protagonists of the novel Jim Hawkins and John Silver were analyzed with the help of basic propositional schemas. The characters exist in the novel in several possible worlds which are identified on the basis of the evaluation of the protagonists’ features, the change of the main characters’ location, and the dynamics of their axiology. As the analysis manifested, possible worlds of Jim Hawkins are formed according to the sequential model when the character matures with the unraveling of the plot, transforming from a Child into a Teenager and then into an Adult. A timid and dreamy boy gives way to a somewhat reckless and impulsive youth who finally turns into a courageous man. This maturation enables him to help his friends find the treasure and capture without anybody’s assistance the ship which they use to return home. The image of John Silver has a more complicated architecture since he features in two parallel possible worlds simultaneously as the Ringleader of pirates (nicknamed Barbecue) and Ship’s cook. He shuttles between these two epitomes during the development of the narration trying to achieve his goals. John Silver can wear a disguise of an amiable and hard-working member of the ship’s crew and then suddenly change into a cruel and greedy buccaneer who in cold blood murders people, starts a mutiny, and sticks at nothing to get his share of the treasure. When the mutiny fails, Silver feigns loyalty and obedience by betraying his cronies, but once the ship arrives in England his criminal self surfaces again.

НОВЫЙ ГЕРОЙ В КЫРГЫЗСКОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЕ (ПО РОМАНУ К. ДЖУСУБАЛИЕВА «ХОЛОДНЫЕ СТЕНЫ»)

K. Dzhusubaliev's novel "Cold Walls" (1969) is a pioneering work in Kyrgyz literature, employing the “stream of consciousness” technique and introducing a new type of hero. This article examines Arykov's character and the artistic methods used to reveal his inner world. The author creates a multilayered psychological portrait of a hero living in his memories and reflections, representing a departure from traditional Kyrgyz literary characters. “Cold Walls” significantly influenced the development of Kyrgyz literature by showcasing the potential of modernist techniques and profound psychologism, opening new avenues for portraying the human inner world.

Character as a Web of Words: Towards a Network Theory of Narrative

This study explores an integration of network science and structuralist narratology to advance the analysis of literary characters, moving beyond the conventional methodology that simplistically categorizes characters as mere nodes within a social network. By drawing upon Seymour Chatman’s narrative theory, particularly his view of character as “a paradigm of traits,” I conceptualize characters as networks of words that manifest a constellation of traits. This approach enables a sophisticated examination of character interactions as complex (mis)encounters of words and traits, rather than simple social relationships. This interdisciplinary method broadens the analytical scope beyond mere social interactions, and enhances our understanding of the multifaceted nature of characters and their dynamics in literature. My paper concludes by suggesting that networked understanding of character as a web of words can pave the way for “a unified theory of plot and style,” a significant breakthrough in literary studies as envisioned by Moretti. Building a comprehensive network theory of narrative, I argue, is a significant work that will refine the digital literary studies and revive the structuralist narrative theories.

Unraveling the Mysteries of the Qur'an: Contemporary Challenges in Understanding the Power and Beauty of Qur'anic Language

The Qur'an, the holy book of Muslims, has been a source of wisdom and guidance for centuries. In the contemporary era, the challenge of understanding the power and beauty of Qur'anic language has never been more relevant. This article aims to unravel the mystery surrounding this sacred text, exploring how contemporary challenges arise in trying to understand and appreciate the Qur'an's linguistic uniqueness. This study uses qualitative methods. The qualitative method in this study is used to understand social phenomena in depth and detail. This method focuses more on interpretation and understanding the meaning of the data obtained, rather than measurement and hypothesis testing. The result of this study is the literary quality of the use of language in the Qur'an has a significant role in the spread of Islam among the Arab community in the seventh century, which gave birth to a special interest in the study of the Qur'an. Thus, the uniqueness of the Qur'anic language is known as Qur'anic Uslub or Stylistics. Based on several responses to the Qur'an, it can produce a unique phenomenon called “Quran in everyday life” in contemporary Qur'ānic discourse, reflecting how the Qur'an is responded to and understood beyond its textual meaning, through continuous interaction. Thus, the Qur'ān seems to come alive and merge with everyday life. The divine challenge in the Qur'ān refers to various verses that invite humans to contemplate and understand the signs of God's greatness in His creation. The implication is to encourage people to get closer to God, gain a deeper understanding of God, and take lessons from the signs in the universe. One of the verses that reflects the divine challenge is in Q.S Al-Baqarah verse 164.

Дореволюционные историографические источники об административно-правовой интегра-ции Северного Кавказа к России во второй половине XIX – начале XX вв.

The article examines the legality of using pre-revolutionary authors’ works not only as historical but also as historiographical sources, drawing on materials from Russia’s administrative and legal policy in the North Caucasus in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This approach opens up new avenues for extracting information from previously known scientific works, because, in addition to data on the topic under study, the historiographer considers the au-thor’s personality, level of education, intelligence, literary quality of the text, the goals of the arti-cle or book, the concepts defended, the ideological positions of the publication/publisher’s edito-rial board, and so on. This approach expands the informative significance of the publications un-der study, helps to comprehend their place among other works on the research topic. The article assesses the study’s core concept – “historiographical source” – in regional and all-Russian historiography. The analysis of the potential of the materials presented in pre-revolutionary historiography allows the entire corpus of historiographical sources to be divided into several hierarchical groups: monographs (books), collections of documents, articles summa-rizing works, reviews, obituaries, reference materials, documents of local lore organizations, and so on. This article employs certain categories of historiographical sources. The viewpoint on dividing the pre-revolutionary periodical press into two major trends: of-ficially protected and liberal democratic. The contribution of the most prominent scientists and local historians to the development of a historiographical tradition on the investigated topic is evaluated. Materials from the pre-revolutionary periodical press are revealed, containing infor-mation about the evolution of views and scientific concepts of a number of authors, which deter-mine the sound of the problem under discussion, bear the imprint of time, and allow a closer look at the flavor of the era under study.

Old Frisian Studies in the Seventeenth Century: The Oxford Manuscripts

Abstract The Bodleian library at Oxford is one of the most important repositories of manuscripts and early printed books documenting the study of Old Frisian in the seventeenth century. Together with primary texts, two copies of the incunable print of the Frisian land laws, Codex Aysma and transcripts of the now lost Codex Unia, the collection includes annotations and glossaries by three pioneers of Old Frisian philology: Franciscus Junius (1591–1677), Jan van Vliet (1622–1666) and Thomas Marshall (1621–1685). This contribution explores Junius’s and van Vliet’s appraisal of the Old Frisian texts, their plans for an edition, and their interest in the narrative aspects of texts, such as the Statutes of Magnus and the Book of Rudolf. By analysing van Vliet’s and Junius’s annotations in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS Junius 109 and Marshall 60, it becomes apparent that these seventeenth-century philologists studied Old Frisian texts not only for lexicographical reasons or to compare Frisian with the other Old Germanic languages, but also for their fascinating historical and literary qualities.

Unveiling Translation's Role in Soft Power: The Case of the TEDA Project

Literary translation has been one of the most intriguing fields of study in terms of translation studies. Like other forms of translation, it encompasses not only linguistic transfer but also cultural transfer. Considering that cultural elements and literary features are prominent in literary texts, it is no surprise that literary translation gained significant ground in translation research. Despite the challenges faced in the process of literary translation, its contributions to literature, readers, and intercultural understanding outweigh. Apart from these, translation's role in fostering a country's soft power should not be underestimated. As a resource reflecting a nation's culture with abundant cultural elements, literary translation is one of the most substantial domains of translation that can have a pivotal role in soft power. In parallel with all these contributions of translation, the promotion of literature through translation on a global scale comes into prominence. Promoting literature belonging to less prevalent languages is even more crucial as the authors of such literature need to show more effort to make their voices heard in broader geographies. To fulfill this goal, translation projects that provide such an opportunity for authors play a significant role. From this point of view, this study aims to present a clear framework of literary works translated from Turkish literature into Spanish language within the scope of TEDA project funded by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The literary works translated into Spanish are presented based on elements such as the authors, translators, publishing houses, literary genres, countries, years, and titles of the books in the source language and target language. The results reveal that there is a remarkable amount of effort to make Turkish literature recognized in Spanish-speaking regions; however, there is still a long way to go as the number of translations and diversification in terms of authors, translators, and literary genres are still limited and translations of the book titles sometimes could not avoid stereotypes about Turkish culture.