National Poet Research Articles

Epic Performed: The Poetic Nature of TV Series

Epic Performed: The Poetic Nature of TV Series

An evaluation of Google Translate for Sanskrit to English translation via sentiment and semantic analysis

Google Translate has been prominent for language translation; however, limited work has been done in evaluating the quality of translation when compared to expert translators. Sanskrit, one of the oldest written languages in the world was added to the Google Translate engine in 2022. Sanskrit is known as the mother of North Indian languages such as Hindi, Punjabi, and Bengali. Sanskrit has been used for composing sacred Hindu texts such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. In this study, we present a framework that evaluates Google Translate for Sanskrit using the Bhagavad Gita. We first published a translation of the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit using Google Translate and then compared it with selected prominent translations by experts. Our framework features a BERT-based language model that implements sentiment and semantic analysis. The results indicate that there is a low level of similarity between the Bhagavad Gita by Google Translate and expert translators in terms of sentiment and semantic analyses. We found major inconsistencies in the translation of philosophical terms and metaphors. We further implemented a qualitative evaluation and found that Google Translate was unsuitable for the translation of certain Sanskrit words and phrases due to the poetic nature, contextual significance, metaphor and imagery. The mistranslations are not surprising since the Bhagavad Gita is known as a difficult text not only to translate but also to interpret since it relies on contextual, philosophical and historical information. It is difficult to distinguish different names and philosophical concepts such as karma and dharma without knowing the context and having a background of Hindu philosophy. Our framework lays the foundation for the automatic evaluation of other languages that can be translated by Google Translate.

Поетична метафізика прози Івана Ковача

The article under studies presents the first ever attempt to reveal the basic features of the prose of the prominent Ukrainian poet, prose writer, literary critic, and journalist Ivan Kovaci (born in 1946). It lays particular emphasis on the peculiarities of modeling the chronotope of the prose contained in three books by the writer: “A Sycamore Tree Alone in the Field” (1974), “Chuha” (1976), and “Orange Ballad” (2006). It also analyzes the narrative strategy of the writer’s artistic thinking at the level of lyrical confession of the narrative, investigates its genre specificity and the role of leitmotif detail, as well as traces the synthesis of arts in writer’s creative workshop at the level of coloring, etc. In terms of genre and style features, Ivan Kovaci’s prose is comprised of stories of various types: both lyricized, with a weakened plot, and works that are close to the genre of the classical short story. Their structure is based on an eloquent detail that creates an appropriate emotional coloring. The article claims that prose is an organic and natural part of Ivan Kovacs’s creative activity. Lyricized short stories, etudes, short stories with classical architectonics, a short story-ballad, confessional lyrical prose, together with poetry, create the unity of his artistic world. The peculiarity of the poetic metaphysics of the writer’s prose lies in his peculiar worldview pantheism and subtle sense of beauty. It is essential that the time-space of prose is also close to poetry: it is a “point” chronotope, located at the intersection of the coordinates of the “objective” (given in the narrator’s perception) and subjective-experiential space-time. This feature is especially evident in the story “Chuha”, a kind of mosaic of life. Fictional time and space are subject to mythologization and symbolization, as the lyrical hero is constantly trying to cross the line that separates him from the “golden age” of childhood. Another sign of the poetic nature of the writer’s prose is its deep psychology combined with lyricism. The most eloquent feature of Ivan Kovaci’s style is his special ability to use color. This peculiar synthesis of arts in the writer’s creative palette turned out to be a special, symbolic load of images with a bright coloristic dominant.

Mechanism of Resistance to British Imperialism in the Literature of Kazi Nazrul Islam

Literature has always been an effective medium of presentation. Whenever the groaning sound of people with the increasing tyranny of colonial rule raised high, literature played a pivotal role to draw it in a pragmatically artistic touch. The Bidrohi Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam, National Poet of Bangladesh, made a unique place in the journey of Bengali literature resistance of the early twentieth century. He inextricably applied diverse literary genres and thematic mechanisms of resistance in his literature which undoubtedly bore the motive-inciting words of love and fire against any form of injustice whether of British Empire or societal customs and continued the thread of awakening in the Bengal Renaissance. The Rebel Poet was the figurehead of the allied Hindu-Muslim struggle of undivided India against the imperialistic British rule. However, miserably the discourse on Nazrul Resistance Literature is limited only in Bengali corridors with mere poetic contributions. With this viewpoint, the research delves into exploring the dimensional works of the poet and tries to establish him as a versatile writer of prose and poetry. In addition, the work makes a sincere effort to elucidate various thematic decorations of his literary outcomes and their universal acceptability. Ultimately, Nazrul Studies are yet to be expounded further ahead to bring out more research works on this Bengali poet of love and resistance overlooking the cross-country borders.

The artistic peculiarity of Dia Chianeli's short prose

Dia Chianeli was one of those who contributed to the variety of miniatures. Dia Chianeli published his first literary work in 1890. Since then, he often published samples of his work in the pages of the Georgian periodical press. Collections of his writings were also published during the writer's lifetime.    Dia Chianeli's literary legacy is distinguished by interesting examples of lyrical miniatures. From this point of view, the miniature "Tears of the Soul" is interesting. The work attracts attention with the impression of the subjective feelings of the lyrical hero, which is achieved by the poetic composition and intense expression characteristic of the white poem. The poetic nature of the miniature along with the conveyance of the spiritual feelings of the lyrical hero is determined by the plotless narration, rhythm, dynamics and the refrain characteristic of poetry voiced with high artistic skill.

THE CHARACTER OF THE MOTHERLAND IN THE WORKS OF TUMANYAN AND ISAHAKYAN

The fate of the homeland, its unknown sufferings and the search for happiness have become the focus of the wise thoughts and reflections of H. Tumanyan and Av. Isahakyan, that are suffering and struggling in the people’s sea of sorrow, and have found their permanent place in their prose and verse works. There can be no doubt that their inimitable poetry has reached perfection through mental purification, due to immeasurable desire and efforts to optimistically look at the bright future of the people. The national poets believed that darkness can never last, the vital impulses of rebirth will give desired signals, and in the fight against darkness, light will definitely win. They, who appeared on the border of the old and new worlds and dreamed of becoming the singer of the new life of the motherland, crystallised the wisdom of centuries in their works and, appropriating the spiritual experience of generations, definitely came to the conclusion that the only guarantee of the preservation of the Armenians and the motherland is the oneness of the motherland and the people, their unity. The grief of the Armenians was truly immeasurable, but the pain did not depress them, on the contrary, it obliged them to create the history of the soul of the people who appeared on the edge of the bottomless abyss. To achieve that goal, poets reveal their talent and powerful thinking by intertwining the old and the new, and the depth of their views is immeasurable when they examine the eternal and the modern, illuminating the paths of generations with the light of their soul.

English Brutal Colonisation of the Seven Islands: The Poems of Ossian by James Macpherson

After the failure of the first strike of the 1821 Greek Revolution against the Ottoman Empire, which began in Moldovia in February, it continued in the Peloponnese one month later. The uprising resulted in victory with the formation of the Modern Greek state; its President was Jiannis Capodistria, a Corfiot. Greece was a state born mutilated in 1828 as it excluded: Epiros, Thessalia, Chios Mytilene, Samos, Crete and the Dodecanese Islands under Ottoman rule. The Ionian Islands were under English control, ostensibly known as the ‘British Protectorate’. The second expansion of the Greek state in the nineteenth century was engendered by Radical Ionian Greeks who rebelled against the English who had tyrannised the Seven Islands for almost fifty years until 1864 when they united with Greece. The influence of Celtic literature through the works of The Poems of Ossianby the Scottish antiquarian James Macpherson and Irish Melodies and ‘Imitation of Ossian’ by the Irish scholar Thomas Moore inspired the works of Seven Islands radical intellectuals, which provide a hidden code that coincided with political events at the time to unite the oppressed. The main translator of The Poems of Ossian was Panayiotis Panas, a Kephalonian scholar. He was the successor to Rhigas Velestinlis, the protomartyr of the Greek Revolution and follower of the national poet, the Zakynthian Dionysius Solomos. Panas aimed to unite and spiritually uplift the people by conveying the hope of living under freedom, equality, and fraternity; to live under democracy, without a monarchy. Neglected by the Greek Academy in the twentieth century do these translations of this Celtic literature and its influence remain in obscurity in this century? To what extent did the English have the right legally to gift the Seven Islands to Modern Greece in 1864? Has the sacrifice and patriotism of those who fought for the union of the Seven Islands with Greece been included in the school curriculum. Keywords: Irish melodies, translation, nineteenth century, history, The Mediterranean, The Poems of Ossian and British Colonialism

Literature in the Face of War: ‘Not Our’, ‘Our’, and ‘Everyone’s’ War

Through literary analysis, comparative and memory studies, the article focuses on the works of Lithuanian fiction on the theme of the Great War (1914–1918), which became a prerequisite for the establishment of the Lithuanian nation­state. The aim of the article was to show different attitudes towards the war, convey the develop­ ment of collective consciousness, and present a summary assessment of the war as a spiritual shock and a global event of memory. The works selected for analysis be­ long to the contemporaries of the Great War: the classics of Lithuanian literature who stand out for their artistic maturity in the context of their war­themed works. In the first months of the war, Vaižgantas, one of the leaders of the national revival, published the allegorical story ‘Karo slibinas’ (The Dragon of War) in a periodical. The story conveys the horror and the scale of the war that had engulfed humani­ ty. The war dragon is a mythical animal that resurrects time after time and begins hunting people down without any measure or mercy. People are hypnotised by its power; they voluntarily send their children, brothers, and husbands to the jaws of the dragon.
 Soon after, Antanas Vienuolis’s short stories ‘Didysis karas’ (The Great War), ‘Mirtinai sužeistas’ (Mortally Wounded), and ‘Karžygis’ (A Hero) also appeared in a periodical. In ‘The Great War’, the war appears vile and not ‘great’ at all, destroying peasants’ usual environment and cynically killing those who failed to realise where they were running or why they were at war. In the second short story, the central character suffers a psychological shock because he cannot reconcile his romantic im­ agination of high German culture with the brutal behaviour of the Germans he has to experience when he is suspected of espionage. Disturbed consciousness disrupts the life of the gifted young man. The way the writer conveys the tragedy of the ‘little’ man resonates with the image created in the literature of the Great War.
 A different panoramic and epic picture of the world opens in Maironis’s poem Mūsų vargai (Our Troubles) completed in 1919. The national poet of Lithuania cre­ ates a verse novel about the war in which he highlights its most important events and identifies those that are directly related to Lithuania. In Maironis’s poem, all the suffering, calamities, deaths, expulsion of the peasants to the depths of Russia, and the misery of the prisoners in war camps acquire the meaning of noble suffer­ ing that leads to the final salvation: in the final scene, the main characters celebrate their wedding, and Lithuania becomes an independent state. Thus, the war that was ‘not ours’ turns into ‘our war’ in Maironis’s work. The independence of Lithuania was Maironis’s lifelong dream which he believed in and which he conveyed in his entire work. This poem and especially its final scene in the Vatican, where the Pope blesses the marriage of the main protagonists as well as the young state of Lithuania is a symbolical expression of the spiritual triumph of the poet.
 Still another type of a relationship with war opens up in Vydūnas’s drama Pasaulio gaisras (The World on Fire). This is an analysis of the phenomenon of war on micro and macro levels and a reflection on it in a dramatic form: here, the life­affirming procreative female civilization conflicts with the life­denying, male, killing civiliza­ tion. In this work, Vydūnas’s main idea and his concept of the human in history are most clearly articulated.
 The cruel and alien war in the works of Vaižgantas and Vienuolis undergoes a change in Maironis’s drama, where it is somewhat ‘domesticated’, transformed into ‘our’ war, endured yet meaningful. In Vydūnas’s drama, war is a litmus test revealing human­ ity’s greatest moral flaws but also expressing the noblest feelings at the same time. Until now, Lithuanian literature of the Great War has not been approached as a single phenomenon of memory: this study fills this gap at least partially. Observing Russia’s war against Ukraine, it must be noted that war and literature have been insepara­ ble since the time of Homer, and the nations bordering on Russia in the west have to constantly defend their independence with arms. It seems that humanity is still dealing with the problems of war and peace that were the same a hundred years ago. Much has been achieved in terms of security and stability but not everything: the ideal coexistence of nations on the planet remains a collective desire and ideal.

Women, Poetry and the Voice of a Nation

Anne Varty’s Women, Poetry and the Voice of a Nation is an essential guide for both academics and general readers to four contemporary women poets: Carol Ann Duffy, former Poet Laureate for the UK; Gillian Clarke, former National Poet of Wales; Liz Lochhead, former Scots Makar; and Paula Meehan, former Ireland Chair of Poetry. Rather than constructing a complex theoretical framework, Varty analyzes how such essential elements of poetry as subject matter, thematic concerns, symbols, and language greatly reinvigorate ideas of feminism and nationality. Central to Varty’s argument is that rather than subverting the patriarchal poetic tradition, these four women poets write within the tradition, constantly appropriating what is logocentric and London-centric, fusing the feminine with the masculine, the regional with the national, and the peripheral with the central. Meehan, for example, takes the American male beat poet Gary Snyder as her mentor, using the I Ching, astrology, and The Tibetan Book of the Dead as sources (78). Duffy also acknowledges her indebtedness to male predecessors, as Varty notes: “Robert Browning provides the template for her dramatic monologues, Shakespeare her love sonnets and Larkin her lyric poetry” (128).

Seamus Heaney’s Ecopoetry and Environmental Causes: From Conservation to Climate Change

ABSTRACT Seamus Heaney is viewed as a pre-eminent poet of nature, and is often read through the lens of ecopoetic and ecocritical theories. Yet no earlier scholarship has mentioned his support for conservation. Through research on archives, limited editions and conservation documents, this article shows that Heaney supported high-profile environmental organisations and campaigns, including the Irish Peatland Conservation Council, World Wildlife Fund, the Ulster Trust for Nature Conservation, the RSPB, and a campaign against a new road that threatened a bogland. This article challenges readings of Heaney that proposed that he merely explored a ‘connection’ to nature, and shows that he used writing to protect environments he cared about. Heaney’s modest environmental activities are not without complications. Yet when Heaney uses an early bog-poem to support a later conservation project, or when a campaign aims to save the ecology of ‘Heaney Country’, culture clearly plays a role in environmental engagement.

The Sonnets: Including the Erotic Sonnets, the Crimean Sonnets, and Uncollected Sonnets [Sonety

The Sonnets: Including the Erotic Sonnets, the Crimean Sonnets, and Uncollected Sonnets [Sonety

Finding Bede in the “Lindisfarne” Gospels: Aldred the Scribe and “beda ðe broema boecere”

Finding Bede in the “Lindisfarne” Gospels: Aldred the Scribe and “beda ðe broema boecere”

Cultural Duplicity: The Social Poetic Nature of Folk Songs and Their Discourse

Cultural Duplicity: The Social Poetic Nature of Folk Songs and Their Discourse

Poet Warriors: Graphic and Linguistic Rebellion in Contemporary Native Writing

This essay argues that contemporary Native poets stage rebellion on the pages of their poems through resisting the authority of the English language, of legal documents, and of institutional spaces. It focuses on the writing of contemporary writers Esther Belin (Diné), Layli Long Soldier (Lakota), Nathalie Diaz (Mojave), and Joy Harjo (Muscogee Creek) and also explores the collective publications of Native artists, including the anthologies The Diné Reader and When the Light of the World was Subdued. The essay demonstrates how these writers’ rebellion takes linguistic and symbolic forms as their poems deploy the expressive power of Indigenous languages, as their speakers defy the authority of government documents and institutions, and as their poetic forms articulate deep relationships with their Native lands, languages, and communities.

Mythical images in the works of Zhambyl Zhabaev

The article analyzes the poetic features of the works of the national poet Zhambyl Zhabaev, a mythological analysis is carried out. One of the poets who left a significant legacy in the history of Kazakh literature with his poetic art is Zhambyl Zhabayev. The artistry of the poet's work, patriotism in his poems are still studied in literary studies, folklore studies. However, the mythological motif in the poet's work has not been fully revealed. Mythical images in the works of Zhambyl Zhabaev are distinguished by the richness of poetic colors, juxtaposition and metaphoricity, deepen the mythological consciousness of the people. Each image in his poems is a source of oral literature, a common interest born of a folk dream and fantasy. Therefore, it is necessary to study each of his works in depth, to attach importance to each phenomenon. Currently, the works of many scientists are devoted to the study of certain aspects of oral literature, the nature of mythical monuments. However, there is still no monographic study on the depiction of the motifs of mythical monuments in the works of Zhambyl. In the article, folk poetry is taken as the main source of Zhambyl Zhabayev's creativity, the specific features of the poet in the continuation of the tradition are determined. The interest in mythical concepts in Kazakh oral literature is determined not only by the historicity of the tendencies of its formation, but also by the enormous influence on the spiritual development of national consciousness. In our opinion, the problem of identifying mythical images in the works of Zhambyl Zhabaev is an important topic for a detailed study of the cognitive nature of mythical images of each century. This determines the relevance of this work. Keywords: poem, myth, image, mythology, concept, literature, folklore, worldview, mythological consciousness

Yuliy Meitus's Musical Ballads on Robert Burns's Lyrics as part of Soviet Musical Burnsiana of the 1940–50s

The article examines Yuliy Meitus's musical ballads on Robert Burns's lyrics as part of Soviet musical Burnsiana of the 1940–50s. Up to the present time the names of such Soviet composers as Dmitry Shostakovich, Tikhon Khrennikov, Georgy Sviridov, Yuri Levitin and Edison Denisov embody the perception of the national poet of Scotland's heritage by Soviet composers of the middle of the twentieth century. However, the musical compositions of such prominent Soviet composers as Dmitry Kabalevsky, Lucian Prigozhin and Yuliy Meitus on Samuil Marshak's translations of Robert Burns dating back to the same period have been neglected. The contribution of Yuliy Meitus deserves special attention as he was neither Shostakovich's pupil nor close friend, unlike the majority of the composers mentioned, and his ballads: ‘A small ballad’ on ‘There was a Bonny Lass’, ‘ Macpherson before execution’ after ‘McPherson's Farewell’ and ‘Love’ on ‘A Red, Red Rose’ were composed in less then a month. The aim of the article is to attract the attention of musicologists to encourage analysis of these musical pieces in comparison with other interpretations of the same songs by Robert Burns, e.g. Dmitry Shostakovich's ‘Macpherson before execution’ (‘McPherson's Farewell’), Yuri Levitin's ‘Love’ (‘A Red, Red Rose’) and Edison's Denisov's ‘A small ballad’ (‘There was a Bonny Lass’).

The World He Sought: Nazrul in Coolies and Laborers

Kazi Nazrul Islam, the national poet of Bangladesh, envisioned a future possibility for humankind, a community of care. The dominant socio-economic and political thinking of this century, however, finds his vision and unrealizable dream, especially in the light of the cleavages that wall human groupings from another—ethnicity, gender, geography, language, nationality, race, religion, and social class, among others. The focus of this article is to show that the dream has been informing some of the thinking of the last and present century, from a variety of cultural traditions, and that its policy implications, through a number of forums, including the United Nations, offer a future within which the entire human species, together, and the Earth, can mutually thrive and grow.

Wieniawski’s “Legende” and Enescu’s “The Undead”: a Romantic-Neoclassical Dyad

The present paper examines stylistic change in musical history by comparing the treatment of the same motif, the ill-starred lovers, in a romantic piece, Wieniawski’s Legende, Op. 17, and a post-Wagnerian composition by George Enescu: Strigoii (The Undead) Oratory, setting to music Eminescu’s homonymous legend, which in its turn, draws on Bidu’s Tower legend. Whereas Wieniawski was writing a grieving soul’s complaint in the manner of romantic self-expressionism, Enescu was attached to the national poet, to his people’s ancient past and to folk legends in the spirit of the neoclassical aesthetics of a part, the most prolific one of musical modernism.

Midhat Cemal Kuntay – a man of many parts

Midhat Cemal Kuntay (1885 – 1956) was born in Istanbul and spent most of his life there working as a lawyer and Notary Public. He was also a prolific writer whose life-span was almost equally divided between the late Ottoman and early Republican periods of modern Turkish history. With his background in Arabic, Persian and Turkish in addition to French, he left no area of Turkish literature untouched or unadorned. He wrote poems – mainly with a patriotic viewpoint, two plays, essays, made translations from the French, and even published an outstanding novel called Üç ?stanbul [Three Istanbuls]. He was the author of three major published biographies: those of the important 19th century poet, playwright and novelist Nam?k Kemal, the journalist, writer and activist Ali Suavi, and the national poet Mehmed ‘Âkif. Especially in later life, Midhat Cemal Kuntay was also a regular contributor of articles and columns to daily newspapers.

The Cuban Connection

Below is a quotation from Nicolás Guillén’s Prologue to Sóngoro Cosongo (translated from the original Spanish). Guillén was a political activist and well known on the island as Cuba’s national poet. Sóngoro Cosongo is a book of poems protesting racism and the treatment of blacks as second class citizens. “I should say finally that this is mulatto verse. The same elements are present as in the ethnic composition of Cuba, where we are all a little brown. Does that hurt? I don’t think so. It needs to be said regardless, lest we forget. The African injection in this land runs deep, and so many capillary currents cross and crisscross our well-watered social hydrography that it would take a miniaturist to unravel the hieroglyph. I therefore think that for us, creole poetry would not be complete without the black. The black, in my opinion, brings solid essence to our cocktail. And the two races that surface so distant one from the other on the island, throw out an underwater hook, like the deep tunnels secretly joining two continents. And, the spirit of Cuba is mulatto, and the definitive color will come one day from the spirit to the skin: ‘Cuban color”. “Cuba is an island of illusions”.