Prose Poem Research Articles

Saudi Poetry in Francophone Culture: Reception and Translation Issues

By Saudi poetry, we mean a volume of four poetry collections by four contemporary Saudi poets, namely "Clouds in the Clouds" by the poet Ghassan Al-Khunaizi, "Anxiety of the Dune" by the poet Ahmed Al-Mulla, "A Brief Mythology of Panic" by the poet Saleh Zamanan, and "A Kernel for the Seasons of Absence" by the poet Muhammed Al-Hers. The poems of these collections, which we consider constitute a unified body of poems, are classified as what is known as "prose poems", which represents the first interface for the reception of this poetry in the Francophone culture in terms of genre, form and themes, considering its referential and characteristics in this same culture. This research is not an analysis of the poetry collections separately, nor is it a study of their individual characteristics. It is rather an investigation into the issues of their reception in the Francophone culture, and its probable "effects" that can be manifest in various aspects such as poetic interaction, critical studies, and what they may entail in terms of interpretative translation concerns. Also, this research is not mere opinions and impressions; it is rather a critical study, in which the theoretical and applied aspects are harmonized into a poetic "archeology" with verbal clues, contextual textualities, specific poetic evidence, and translation phenomena. Such digs evolve around the extrapolation of the collections of poetry and the interrogation of the poems, including their diverse poetic characteristics within the limits of interpretation based on evidence and signs. This research is a groundbreaking critical investigation of the proposed volumes for specific purposes, highlighting their salient reception "effects", as such research is almost non-existent, a fact that has triggered our interest to achieve a purpose behind this study, relying on a specific methodological approach. One of this approach’s features is the investigation of "poetic universals" embodied in the steady signs, and the common constants shared by the poetry collections, and how to employ them in a way that helps shed light on the reception of Saudi poetry in the Francophone culture. Based on the above, this study consists of investigations, governed by the logic of gradualism and continuation. We propose to begin with the question of reception and its relationship to this body of poetry, then explore the relationship between the form of these collections’ poems and their reception, then address the "poetic universals" of all forms that affect the reception before ending with an investigation of the translation issues that produces interpretation and decide on reception.

Renewal of Modern Arabic Poetry: The Culture-Creativity Controversy

The present research raises critical issues regarding modern Arabic poetry, wondering about the limits of creativity starting from awareness about poetry writing to its reading prospects. It observes how the Arab poet is torn between focusing on the depth of culture (with what it imposes in terms of conforming to the prevailing poetic model) and between the temptations of creativity, which requires a level audacity and aspiration to different and renewed written models. The research disassembles the structure of poetry as a cultural system rooted in the Arab memory and discusses the question of identity in its relationship to creativity. It stresses the centrality of the traditional Arab poetic model while pointing to attempts at transcending such model. The most prominent of these attempts was that accomplished by the Arab poetic modernity movement in the forties and fifties of the last century (free poetry and prose poem). The research explores the rationale behind this decisive shift in the history of Arabic poetry at the levels of its creative and cultural foundations. In this regard, the research raised the question of leadership, the call for renewal, and defense of the pioneering poets of their innovative achievement against the successive creative booms. The research also discussed the controversy over tradition versus creativity, the question of dialogue in texts, the prospects for critical poetry reading with its scientific and cultural transformations, and the distribution of its theoretical and methodological references between Arab heritage and Western culture.

Contemporary Chinese poetry in English translation: an interview with Nick Admussen

ABSTRACT Nick Admussen is an associate professor of Chinese literature at Asian Studies Department, Cornell University, where his research and translation focus on contemporary Chinese poetry. He is an acclaimed poetry scholar and translator as well as a prolific essayist and poet. In this interview, which took place via email in April – May 2024, Admussen reviews his career path and shares his observations about the study, translation and reception of contemporary Chinese poetry in the West. The conversation focuses on such intriguing topics as Lu Xun’s prose poem collection Yecao野草in English translation, the translating, publishing, and reception of Floral Mutter: Selected Poetry of Ya Shi, Admussen’s theorization about translating contemporary Chinese poetry into English, and the status quo of this Chinese genre in English translation. Informative, insightful, and sometimes inquisitive, it should be of much interest to those pursuing Chinese literature studies and literary translation studies.

M. Ravel’s vocal cycle “Chansons madécasses” and its role in the development of French chamber-vocal music of the first half of the twentieth century

Statement of the problem. Chamber vocal genres attracted Ravel throughout his career, from his first opuses (his first song belongs to Op.4) to his last, which was the vocal cycle “Three Songs of Don Quixote to Dulcinea”. The vocal works fully embody the main features of the composer’s style and creative interests. This sphere of Ravel’s work corresponds to the leading trends in the development of chamber vocal genres in the French culture of the twentieth century. At that time, composers had gravitated toward symbolism, elegance and refinement of music expression, the impressionistic reflection of fleeting moments, elusive images of nature or shades of human feelings. The cycle “Chansons madécasses” (“Madagascar Songs”) attracts primarily by a mixture of colonial themes and exoticism, which is realized in a combination of speech expressiveness and musicality, recitative melody and plastic rhythm. The cycle poses a number of difficult tasks for performers, the solution of which lies in the plane of historical accuracy and technical precision. These aspects are examined in the article. Discussion of the historical, social and textual specifics of music and poetry will help to renew the traditions of the cycle’s performance that were formed in the last century. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the article is to examine Ravel’s vocal cycle “Chansons madécasses” in the context of the development of French chamber music of the first half of the twentieth century, with an emphasis on content and stylistics. Theoretical analysis and systematization of scientific sources on the topic helped to outline certain traditions of musicological presenting the cycle “Chansons madécasses; historical and comparative research methods have made it possible to consider the historical and cultural context of the poetic component of the cycle –“poems in prose” by E. Parny. Holistic and comparative musicological analysis contributed to the coverage of ways of realizing the poetic and musical spaces of the cycle. M. Ravel’s vocal cycle “Chansons madécasses” remains poorly researched in domestic musicology, which determines the scientific novelty of this study. Research results and conclusion. Based on the analysis of M. Ravel’s chamber-vocal cycle, it can be concluded that the composer continues the best traditions of French art with its refined and impressionistic features, while demonstrating an innovative approach to vocal genres. Particularly interesting are his creative searches in recent years, when Ravel reached a new understanding of musical and poetic synthesis. The main features of his chamber music, including vocal cycles, were the daintiness and elegance of the figurative sphere, the refinement of the musical style, the inclination to the recitative manner of vocalization, and elements of sound painting In the cycle “Chansons madécasses” M. Ravel not just embodies the text in music; he tries to make the music itself convey the text. Emotions and conflicts present in the words receive an active dramatic musical embodiment; the erotic play of dynamics and tempos in “Nahandove”, the clash of tonalities in “Aoua!” and the quiet mysterious sounds in “Il est doux” serve as an example of an attempt to achieve a “direct” reproduction of the text in music. Thus, the songs of the cycle “Chansons madécasses” represent the composer’s complex relationship with the very idea of a “voice”. M. Ravel “appropriates” the voice of an exotic “other” in order to address provocative themes that he avoided in the rest of his vocal works; but instead of remaining in this “safe space”, he constantly undermines its stability: avoiding the conventionality of musical exoticism, looking for a strong dramatic support of the text capable of making an impression on the listeners, M. Ravel puts us into a confrontation with the various emotions presented in these songs.

Ella Erskine, Elkin Mathews, and the “Long Aesthetic Century”

ABSTRACT Scholars have used terms such as the “long nineteenth century” to convey the fact that the characteristics, principles, and artistic debates of the Victorian era did not suddenly vanish in 1900, but continued to inform British literature throughout the Edwardian era and into the start of the First World War. From work written by women, in particular, during the first decade of the twentieth century, it is obvious that one of the most significant developments of late-Victorian literature – i.e. the Aesthetic Movement – continued to enjoy an active life. This chapter uses a 1909 volume of prose poems, Shadow-shapes by Ella Erskine, to make that point, while demonstrating the important role played by Elkin Mathews, her publisher, in keeping Aestheticism before the public.

Raftland

‘Raftland’ floats at the spot between short story and prose poem, blurring and bridging the two to encompass an evocative work that addresses and explores plastic pollution in the world’s oceans as well as the far-reaching costs of rising and heating waters. It is a work of assemblages, a poetic piecemeal raft of the comings and goings of a newly flooded society whose degradation of language and livelihoods traces its way back to our current wanton anthropocentrism and consumer capitalism. A dystopic, speculative tale centring on a community forced to inhabit ever-moving raftworlds and continually prove their worth, it is a work that stresses humanity’s catastrophic engagements with the ocean in an effort to prompt renewed vigour towards greater awareness and respectful ontologies to both the planet and its greatest life-giving substance. It is a warning.

Translating oral effects in East Asia: an Edo period version of Romance of the Three Kingdoms

This paper investigates how Konan Bunzan 湖南文山 confronted the issue of oral effects in the 17 th-century translation Tsūzoku sangokushi 通俗三國志 , a widely-read Japanese serialization of Luo Guanzhong’s 羅貫中 14 th-century Romance of the ThreeKingdoms. Despite being a famed written work, belonging to the ‘Four classic Chinese novels’ (si da qishu 四大奇書 ), Luo’s novel contains numerous oral elements which emulate domestic storytelling culture. The fecundity of the text for orality studies is thus apparent. In examining how the oral effects in Luo’s text were changed in translation into Japanese, I first use Idema’s model of the six markers of ‘the storyteller’s manner’ to evaluate how oral effects are mostly lost in translation, paying attention to certain aspects which are omitted over others. Second, I prove that certain oral elements, such as the inclusion of poems in parallel prose into the narrative, undergo less significant changes. Finally, I assess the usefulness of Idema’s framework beyond its original Sinological context, evaluating its applicability to Tsūzoku sangokushi.

Examining Double Colonization and Subalternity in Jamaica Kincaid s Girl through a Postcolonial Feminist Perspective

This article’s focus is Antiguan American writer Jamaica Kincaid’s short story Girl. The story is also known as a poem since it is written in a poetic shape. The story was published by The New York Times for the first time in 1978, and then later it was published in a book named At the Bottom of the River in 1983, alongside many other stories by Kincaid. Girl talks about a relationship between a mother and a daughter in a colonial society. In Girl, readers can see how a mother teaches her daughter about her duties as a woman and a future wife. The piece has always been seen as either a postcolonial or feminist literary piece, rather than being a postcolonial feminist work. However, in this article, I claim that Kincaid’s prose poem is a postcolonial feminist literary work that depicts the struggle of women in the colonized Antiguan society. I focus on postcolonial feminist concepts such as subalterns’ voices and the concept of women’s double colonization by giving related examples from Kincaid’s Girl.

A Transcultural Teacher’s Creative Ecologies: Poetry-ing the Entanglements of Institutional Privilege and Love’s Care in a Melbourne College

This article is a transcultural teacher’s critical autoethnography of entangled privilege and care in a university residential college. Using prose poetry as poetic inquiry, I write the entanglements of institutional privilege and love’s care in a college. I write my pedagogical subjectivity evocatively, where I am interdependent with my creative ecologies of humans and environment. In this article, I first discuss transculturality, creative ecologies, and pedagogical lived experience that inform a poetic inquiry method. I then offer a series of critical autoethnographic prose poems as inquiry into transcultural pedagogy in the college, evoking interconnected privilege and care in the college.

Hanada Seiki’s On the Desert: Comment and Translation

ABSTRACT ‘Sabaku ni tsuite [On the desert]' is one of Hanada Kiyoteru’s – also Hanada Seiki, following the literary pronunciation of his name – most iconic essays from the postwar period. It is one of the first and most evocative explanation of his theory of the ‘unification of opposites as opposites’ and a fascinating promenade through many different fields of knowledge. Published originally in 1948, ‘Sabaku nit suite' is not only an intellectual contribution that offers us an innovative view on materialism but also a cosmological poem in prose, an avant-garde work of art. Here we present a historical and theoretical introduction to this essay as well as its first English translation.

Kratka proza Milene Mohorič od ekspresionistične vizije do realistične podobe življenja

The article treats thematic-stylistic features of the short prose by Milena Mohorič from the interwar period, also revealing her as an author of prose poems. Mohorič was one of the most prominent authors of short prose focusing mainly on the world of bourgeoisie, but also on the rural-peasant environment of Eastern Slovenia. In addition, she wrote several short prose stories for young readers. Five years ago, Mohorič was rescued from more than half a century of oblivion by Lado Kralj and Peter Scherber, who made a selection of her short prose (Short Stories From the 1930s, 2010) and presented her primarily as the author of elegant and exciting middle class prose from the 1930s, written in a realistic style. The present contribution is focused on her literary beginnings, the conclusion being that, at the beginning of her literary career (between 1927 and 1929), she wrote subjective-expressive prose poems in which it is still possible to identify the stylistic sediments of impressionism and expressionism.

«I FEEL UKRAINIAN...»: GENRE-THEMATIC MARKERS OF THE CREATIVE WORK OF VASYL VYSHYVANYI

The present article focuses on creative work of Wilhelm von Habsburg (Vasyl Vyshyvanyi), who perceived Ukraine and the Ukrainian and mentality so deepty that he became a patriot of the country. Vasyl Vyshyvanyi is the author of the poem collection «Mynayut Dni...» (1921) and miniature fragmentary prose published in the magazine «Volya» (1920). The relevance of his work is outlined, as in a difficult time for Ukraine, attention should be paid to little-known figures who shaped Ukrainian history day by day and remained faithful to their cause till the end. The goal of the present work lies in elucidating the genre-thematic markers of Vasyl Vyshyvany's creative work. The article clarifies leading motives of the collection of his poems: the heroic struggle accompanied by the hope for victory, the transience of life and mourning for fallen soldiers, existencialism and the search for homeland, the beauty of Ukrainian song and the nature of Ukraine. Considering Vasyl Vyshyvany's works as representative of the creative work of Sich Riflemen writers, it is suggested to view his poems as songwriting, highlighting some types of literary-origin songs: the call song, lyrical march, elegy song, humorous song, anthem march. The main marker of Vasyl Vyshyvanyi's work is emphasized as a “tragic optimist” (D. Dontsov). This is traced both in poetry and in prose poems. Ukrainian symbols (willow, rocks, mountain song, nightingale, charms of the night), as well as toponyms (Karpathians, Tscheremosch, Chervonohor, Hutsul Region, Pokuttia) abound on the pages of his sparse but so sincere creative heritage, the main marker of which is Ukrainianness.

“Relinquishing the myth of human apartness” in Sara Baume’s Seven Steeples (2022)

It is difficult to categorise Sara Baume’s Seven Steeples from a generic point of view. It is neither a long prose poem, nor an essay, nor a pamphlet. Despite its featuring some of the basic ingredients of the novel genre, such as characters and narration, these elements are reduced to a minimum. The aim of this article is to show that this aesthetic choice is meant to “relinquish the myth of human apartness” to quote from Lawrence Buell, by decentering the narrative and diverting the reader’s attention from the human to the non-human – animals, plants, rocks, but also dust, garbage, rot – which surround the characters and make up the very fabric of their lives, undermined as they are by the same erosion as the other elements on earth, as a consequence of the passing of time. As a result, Baume’s novel seems to echo the ideas of “new materialist” philosophers who have emphasised the intermingling of the human and the non-human.

"A Somewhat Remarkable Letter": Chambers, Poe, Whitman, Thoreau, and the Invention of the Prose Poem in Antebellum America

ABSTRACT: This essay explores the far-reaching influence on antebellum American literature of the January 1845 publication of Robert Chambers's anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation , the first fully articulated exposition of evolutionary theory to appear in English. In Explanations , published in New York in 1846, Chambers replied forcefully to his scientific and theological critics and then correctly claimed that his work represented nothing less than a complete conceptual revolution, not only in science but in our understanding of the nature and purpose of existence itself. Focusing on Poe, Whitman, and Thoreau, this essay argues that Vestiges provided not only essential subject matter for these writers, but also provoked each to develop a productive set of heuristics, or open-ended methods of problem-solving. The revolutionary moment sparked by Vestiges led each to engage in a rethinking of the nature and purpose of literature and to develop stylistic innovations that came to change the direction of American literature itself.

Kiedy wiersz jest prozą (i na odwrót)? O (prozo)wierszu Zbigniewa Herberta Rovigo

The article concerns the relationship between the transcription of a poem and its tonal realisation, using as an example Zbigniew Herbert’s Rovigo. The key question is the situation in which the verse text corresponds to the rhythm of prose (intonational-structural delimitation). Two forms of verse format are distinguished: ‘classical’, acknowledging punctuation marks, and avant-garde, renouncing punctuation marks and, sometimes, capital letters. Consequently, it is possible to use the category of the prose poem understood both as a rhymed prose record in the sense of sound as well as a term describing a type of work in which rhyme delimitation in the phonological sense (rhythm) co-occurs with particles separated on the basis of intonation and syntax. The terminology introduced makes it also possible to consider Zbigniew Herbert as a representative of aesthetic conservative modernism, which combines both conventions of verse writing and uses both regular verse and various varieties of free verse.

THE UZHHOROD PERIOD AS THE PINNACLE OF DMYTRO KREMIN’S CREATIVITY

The paper explores the early (Uzhhorod) period of Dmytro Kremin’s (1953–2019) creative work. He was a prominent Ukrainian poet of the second half of the 20th and early 21st century, a laureate of Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine (2019). In particular, the study deals with the 1974 self-publishing collection of four poems-symphonies and the ‘documentary poem’ “Gerstein’s Memorandum”, which were printed in full and reached a wider readership only in the 2021 edition of the poet’s works. The formal-semantic characteristics of the poetic texts synthesize elements of many avant-garde and modernist artistic trends, such as expressionism, symbolism, neo-baroque, neorealism, imagism, etc. The dominant among them is the poetics of surrealism. Poems-symphonies constructed as an associative combination of poetic visions, bizarre images, motifs, and more, serve as exemplars of non-referential lyrics. The poet spontaneously changes the emotional tempo of narration, combining verses with varying syllable counts, verlibre, syllabic-tonic and tonic poems, and even incorporating prose poems. Additionally, he creates unique rhymes and rhyming schemes, etc. The use of all these techniques led to accusations of ‘incomprehensibility’ against D. Kremin, resulting in a limited circle of enthusiasts who appreciate his lyrical and lyre-epic works. In the early works of Dmytro Kremin, there were no dissident motifs or harsh criticism of the system. Nevertheless, the pathos, mood of the poems, their content and form went beyond commonly accepted norms and testified to complete freedom of creativity. For this reason, the poet faced persecution and left Uzhhorod. He became estranged from his circle of friends and deprived of opportunities to thoroughly fulfil his literary pursuits.
 Based on the analysis and the opinions of the poet’s contemporaries, the author of the paper claims that the Uzhhorod period is the pinnacle achievement of D. Kremin’s creative work. This conclusion is corroborated by self-evaluations of the poet himself.

Culturological approach in studying the works of M. Prishvin in the lessons of Russian (native) literature

The article is devoted to the culturological approach in the study of M. Prishvin’s works in the lessons of Russian (native) literature in the middle classes of secondary schools. In school, the individual works on natural history by M. Prishvin are studied in elementary school and in grades 5-6 of secondary schools; however, in literature lessons, students do not receive a holistic view of the life and work of the outstanding writer-philosopher of the twentieth century; this is evidenced by the analytical review of text-books presented in the article. When studying M. Prishvin’s work, the main focus is on the genre features of individual works included in the school curriculum, the images of characters, national and cultural values, as well as the beauty of Central Russian nature. His major work, studied at school, is the true story “The Sun’s Storehouse”, although the writer’s oeuvre also includes the novels “Koshcheev’s Chain”, “The Sovereign’s Road”, the philosophical story “The Tale of Our Time” and the diaries of 1905-1954. The implementation of the culturological approach in the lessons of literature and Russian (native) literature helps students to consider the writer’s work in the context of Russian culture, to get acquainted with syncretic genres: a fairy tale, a fairy tale novel, a poem in prose, to feel the metaphorical nature M. Prishvin’s prose language. A holistic study of M. Prishvin’s works allows students to identify the relationship of his works with the works of A. Gorky, A. Blok, A. Platonov, as well as with Russian literature of the 19th century. Thus, the use of the culturological approach is necessary for the development of students’ skills of analyzing literary works and for the perception of M. Prishvin in a broad cultural context, it fosters their appreciation of the beauty of nature, love for their Motherland, which begins with the love for one’s native land.

Free Verse and Prose Rhythm

AbstractFree verse and prose rhythms, by definition, do not have metrical organizing schemes, but does this mean that rhythm in free verse or prose poems is like speech or prose rhythm? Taking up these questions debated since the advent of modernist free verse more than one hundred years ago, this essay draws on recent critical literary and linguistic findings to formulate a new method for scanning and comparing rhythm in English-language free verse and prose genres. The comparison of six texts suggests that in poetic free verse or prose texts rhythm constructs information-rich, multilevel, context-specific semantic systems in a way that does not occur in the nonpoetic texts. These results contest persisting prosodic theories that free verse and prose poetry are largely written in prose, and suggest that rhythm is a more important generic marker of the poetic function than lineation is.

G. MUTANOV’S POETRY AS THE UNFADING LIGHT OF A DISTANT STAR

Conceptual analysis refers to the analysis of key words within a specific cognitive domain of the culture being studied. Of particular interest is studying the lexical context and compatibility surrounding the chosen keyword. Other elements within the field are combined in relation to it.While reading the philosophical reasoning of Galym Mutanov, it reminded me of the statements made by I.S. Turgenev in his book “Poems in Prose.” This sparked a desire to compare the philosophical understanding of life between a classic Russian literature figure from the 19th century and a poet from the 21 century.The purpose of this article is to identify the thematic connections in the description of a specific chapter from Galym Mutanov’s book “Shine.” It aims to provide a semantic-syntactic analysis of the analyzed texts, emphasizing the originality of the evidence base and linguistic means used in the book.Analyzing Galym Mutanov’s book “Shining” is challenging not due to its length, but because of the profound philosophical reflections it presents. At the core of Mutanov’s perception of life lies a deep love for life itself, humanity, and the entire world around us. The poetic style employed in his writing showcases a remarkable sense of language.

The Yijing as Inspiration in Raymond Queneau’s Morale Élémentaire III (1975): An Intermingling of the Particular and the Universal

Abstract The third part of Raymond Queneau’s last work (1903–76), Morale élémentaire (Elementary Morality, henceforth EM3), a collection of prose poems published in 1975, is composed of 64 poems like the 64 hexagrams of the Yijing. Having found his notes on Philastre’s translation of the Yijing during the writing of EM3, one can wonder by what mechanisms the Yijing inspired Queneau’s creation. This article shows that EM3 is an intertwining between the particular and the universal. In the autobiographical and particular side of EM3, Queneau integrates his memories, his experiences and references to the news of his time. The universal side of EM3 stands in the impersonal and indefinite style of the elementary wisdom of the Yijing from which Queneau takes up certain precepts and replies to the Kantian question ‘[w]hat should I do?’ with a quest of happiness and self-realisation. The latter lies in Queneau’s description of his quest for writing and of his process of literary creation.