Immanent Poetics Research Articles

Hrišćanska inspiracija u savremenoj srpskoj poeziji

The subject of our research in this paper are aspects of religious spirituality in contemporary Serbian poetry. First, we give an overview of poetic, ideological and cultural characteristics of poetic production in the last three decades, with certain value categorizations. We then direct our attention to the individual poetics of poets born in the seventies and eighties, whose poetry has a proven presence of Christian inspiration. Our goal is to establish a literary-historical and culturally distinct poetic flow and situate it within the History of Modern and Contemporary Serbian literature, predominantly secular. The focus of our analysis is not exclusively quotes, narratives or motifs from the Bible and patristic literature. We examine how Christian (Serbian-Byzantine and Western-Christian) spirituality participates in the formation of an individual poetic view of the world, as well as poetic spirituality that manifests itself through poetic images, expressions and figures. We are interested in the work of the religious consciousness of our poets in shaping their artistic, moral and value attitudes towards the phenomena of our epoch, but also towards the culture to which they belong. Therefore, we analyse the cultural models that these poets embrace in their poetry, as well as the humanistic messages that they place within their immanent poetics. We come to the conclusion that male and female poets, with their poetic and spiritual commitment, have taken the risk of deciding to give up poetry as a form of social engagement, aware in advance of the burden of the alternative and the minority.

Tongues turning to chalk: Scott Walker’s (sonic) geopoetics

ABSTRACT In this article, I explore the geopoetics of Scott Walker’s lyrics and sonics, where the term geopoetics is construed as a concern with the geographical, geological, ecological and cosmological in relation to the aesthetic. I specifically utilise concepts extracted from Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus to form generative alliances with Walker’s work; examining lyrics pertaining to tongues that are becoming chalk and a body that grows calcium planets, with reference to ‘becoming’ as affective exchange and the ‘body without organs’ as process of desire that corresponds to so-called nature. With regards to Walker’s sonics, I suggest that they are non-representational sonic landscapes that can also be interpreted as a mood that constitutes the polyphonic sounding of shifting relations; and discuss their rhythmic qualities that oscillate between chaos and order. Addressing both Walker’s lyrics and sonics, I situate them between the two temporal modes of ‘Chronos’ as conventionally structured, formal time; and ‘Aeon’ as the temporal mode of ‘becoming’. In this manner, I demonstrate that Walker’s (sonic) geopoetics is a poetics of immanence that complexifies crude oppositions between human and non-human, interior and exterior, emotion and affect; recognising its inhuman, world-generating capacities.

Between Non-Fiction and the Literature of the Personal Document: Remarks on the Structure of Gustaw Herling-Grudziński’s Podróż to Burmy (A Journey To Burma)

The Polish version of the article was published in Roczniki Humanistyczne vol. 57, issue 1 (2009).
 This text describes the literary structure (the immanent poetics) of Gustaw Herling-Grudziński’s 1952 diary Podróż do Burmy (A Journey to Burma) to properly situate this work in the domain of non-fiction and to indicate the most important characteristics of the writer’s diarist conception.

Signed: Gombrowicz: “Pupa,” the Western Canon, and the English Translation of "Ferdydurke"

The present paper aims at demonstrating how the initial norms adopted by translators, affecting their operational norms, impact the hermeneutic potential and process of canonization of the target text—or, in other words, how the consistency of Gombrowicz’s philosophy as it is expressed in his works in the Polish language transforms when translated into English. Opening with an overview of the canonization of translated literature and canonical authors’ “signature words,” the paper concentrates on one of landmark Gombrowicz’s terms, the word pupa, and its function in the immanent poetics of the philosopher’s work and in his global vision of the human condition. Against such a backdrop, an analysis of the consequences of the English translator’s choice concerning this term is provided, simultaneously revealing the importance of “signature words” in the process of canonization of a translated text.

The Stylistic Category of Clarity (Σαφήνεια, Explanatio, Perspicuitas, Claritas) in the Eyes of Greek and Roman Writers

The concept of clarity and the closely related idea of colour were of great importance not only for the formulation of classical ideas connected with the theory of beaux arts, but also for the creation of concepts related to the an­cient academic and philosophical discourse, mainly via the use of light/shadow/colour metaphors to express and envisage the problems discussed. These were of special importance for what is commonly referred to as ancient literary aesthet­ics, which is the product of ideas originating in classical philosophical literary theory, practice and critique. It is to this very area of aesthetic and literary mean­ings of clarity that I would like to devote the present paper. However, the bulk of preserved testimonies, both direct (i.e. directly and normatively formulated) and indirect (i.e. resulting from the immanent poetics of the work), as well as the fact that they are multi-layered, compel me to narrow my analysis to the concept of clarity (σαφήνεια, claritas) as a stylistic category in ancient rhetoric and poetics, based exclusively on concepts expressed by classical Greek and Latin authors.

“Your Torah Is My Delight”: Repetition and the Poetics of Immanence in Psalm 119

“Your Torah Is My Delight”: Repetition and the Poetics of Immanence in Psalm 119

“Your Torah Is My Delight”: Repetition and the Poetics of Immanence in Psalm 119

Psalm 119’s massive length and curious constraints—its rigorous acrostic structure and use of one of eight torah terms in nearly every couplet—have long puzzled interpreters. Though the poem dwells on pedagogy, the reader who seeks to learn from the text finds not a structured explication of torah but rather a string of seemingly interchangeable terms (,עדות, משפט, מצות, חוק, דבר, אמרה פקודים, and תורה). Scholars have made several attempts to delineate the boundaries of Ps 119’s concept of torah. However, this search for a substantive definition of torah is misguided because what this text envisions is not sober-minded instruction but delight (שעשועים), to use a term characteristic of the poem. Psalm 119’s repetitions provide a field for playfulness and newness and show that a definition of torah is less important than an account of what torah does. The repetition of the eight terms is to be understood not as a platonic repetition of real and copy but as a repetition of simulacra, in which each individual term is fully an instantiation of torah in its own right. This psalm, in other words, produces a torah that is immanent to the poem. Psalm 119 is a poem of torah whose torah is the poem itself.

The Word as Poet and Poem in the Christian Gospels

Celebrated by Sir Philip Sidney as the author of “divine” narrative art and “heavenly discourse” and deemed by William Blake the incarnation of “the Poetic Genius,” Jesus—not as familiar religious icon, but as a startling creative artist—fashions an expansive range of self-figurations that suggests a metaphysics and poetics of immanence and Becoming that both counters and coincides with the absolute Being of the Father as “I Am.” A liminal presence, in anthropologist Victor Turner’s sense, Jesus as Word provides responsive readers/listeners imaginative transit between ontological realms as they step into his vivid parables and pithy tropes. Both poet and text, Jesus invites us to read him as a kind of subject in process, a perpetually evolving poem that binds heaven and earth within powerful metaphors of identity and change. While the synoptic Gospels’ parables and similitudes highlight Jesus’ role as extraordinary poet, in his Johannine “I am” pronouncements and the theophany of the Son as visible voice that appears to John of Patmos, Jesus takes the form of a sacred poem, beckoning his audience(s), particularly (potential) disciples, toward their own creative, salvific rebirth.

Od Ryby ku Rybaczówkom. Bishop Barańczaka

The article discusses the immanent poetics of Elizabeth Bishop reconstructed the poet and critic Stanislaw Baranczak, the translator of the Polish selection of her 33 wiersze [33 Poems] (1995). The reconstruction produced by Baranczak highlights the resemblance between Bishop’s poetics and his own – poetic constructivism, precision, the mastery of form – therefore confronting his essay on Bishop from 33 wiersze with an interpretative sketch by Andrzej Sosnowski, also a poet, literary critic and Bishop’s translator, seems all the more engaging. For his part, Sosnowski searches Bishop’s poetry for categories akin to the admired poetics of John Ashbery (and also to his own), pointing at her specific phonostylistics and ungraspable flow of meanings. The text is complemented by analyses and interpretations of Bishop's The Fish and At the Fishhouses in the original and Polish translations by Baranczak and Sosnowski.

Immanent poetics by Isidora Sekulic

Poetics denotes everything related to creating or writing works and it is divided into explicit and implicit. The first one is related to scientific discipline and the other to its subject and exists within the literature, in texts that we consider literary, not scientific. The aim of this paper is to consider the immanent poetics of Isidora Sekulic, whose basic principles can be found in the works of 'Travel', 'Chronicle of small-town cemetery', 'Out of the Past', 'Deacon Church of the Virgin.' The research will be necessary, using the plurality method.

<b>Uma poética da imanência: a escrita em Deleuze

Deleuze's philosophy constructs a unique and highly expressive poetics. In fact, it is the result of an intense work in writing, which may not be separated from his philosophy of conceptual creation. Current paper conceptualizes what would be a poetics of immanence in Deleuzes terms, as a contrast to mimetic and representational poetics. The poetics of immanence proposes a mutual presupposition between concepts and affections, or between thought and its expression in words, instead of a transcendent relationship between the two terms. The essay investigates some features of this poetics to demonstrate its pertinence for certain modern and contemporary poetics. Samuel Beckett, one of the most important references to Deleuze, will be highlighted in the paper.

Методологічна вага теорії іманентної інтерпретації Еміля Штайґера – українська монографія про найсуперечливішого зі швейцарських літературознавців ХХ ст.

Review on the Monograph by Oleg Radchenko “The Immanent Poetics of Emil Staiger: Philological and Philosophical Discourses” (Drohobych, 2012).

Кристализација духовног портрета и фрагменти експлицитне поетике Иване Брлић Мажуранић

This paper, by reconstruction of the life and work of Ivana Brlić Mažuranić, identifies numerous intersections and influences, inner connections and recognisable affinities of the Mažuranić family. Following her development and artistic maturation, from her early works to masterpieces that made her known in Europe, the paper analyses essays in which Brlic Mažuranić clearly pointed out her views of creation and art. Lead by the ancient principle of Kalokagathia, where truth, goodness and beauty form an inseparable unity, the famous writer has, in rare passages about the phenomenon of creation, emphasised the profound humanistic spirit as a mainstay of every true artist. That is confirmed by the very work of Ivana Brlić Mažuranić, which overlaps the explicit and the immanent poetics of the author.

Ungastliche Gaben: Die 'Xenien' Goethes und Schillers und ihre literarische Rezeption von 1796 bis in die Gegenwart by Frieder von Ammon

556 Reviews specifics: the 'archaeology of perception' in the Italian travelogue (Irmgard Egger), a comparison between Moritz and Piranesi on the role of perspective (Renata Gam bino), theminimalism of the illustrations in theGotterlehre (Ulrike Miinter) as well as their reception in the early nineteenth century (Gertrud Platz-Horster), history painting as the key to interpretingUber die bildendeNachahmung des Schonen (Clau dia Sedlarz), Die neue Cecilia in itsaesthetic context (Alexander Kosenina), Moritz's ideas on the relationship between pictorial representation and its linguistic descrip tion (Tomishige Yoshio), his conception of allegory (Achim Geisenhansliuke), his reflectionson the aesthetic potential of everyday life(Iwan D'Aprile), his Italienische Sprachlehre (Ute Tintemann), and his Vorlesungen iiberdenStyl (Justus vonHartlieb). The emphasis on aesthetics and related issues validates Moritz as a significant literary figure in his own right.But that significance isnot substantiated here, per haps because, as a discipline develops, it breaks its subject's substance down into ever smaller elements, in this caseMoritz's last four years. Certainly the journey to Italymade a lasting impression, but the life is one thing, thework another, and it needs tobe seen formally,structurally, in itsentirety rather than as a function of bio graphy. The twomost successful contributions to thevolume-on Moritz's interest in language (Adrian Aebi) and on walking along meandering paths and findinghigh vantage-points as a basic figure in Moritz's works (Anthony Krupp)-do illuminate its structure.Otherwise one gleans atmost a few furtherhints on some illuminating primary or archive literature or some further references to the secondary literature: monitor-displays of vital signs but not vitality itself.The book conveys neither the pathos of thework nor the everyday psychopathology ofwhat could be a pathetic, hypochondriac figurewho saw the formal self-sufficiencyof beauty as redemption or compensation. (Significantly, D'Aprile's discussion of 'kleinscheinende Umstinde', the stuffof everyday life, relies on phenomenology rather than psychology.) Instead, contributors vindicate Moritz's language by seeing it as both modern and present day (Yoshio, p. 125) and his theories by stressing their relevance to current aesthetic debates (Geisenhansliike, p. 139), by theircapacity to transcend 'dieGrenzen seiner Zeit' (Gambino, p. 35). But these assertions resemble attempts at artifical resuscita tion.After all, classical works are not limited by time nor do they need history to endorse them. They impose themselves, asMoritz realized, by their aesthetic pre sence; theirvitality, like Moritz's, thriveson our aesthetic (not technical) response. UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER MARTIN L. DAVIES Ungastliche Gaben: Die 'Xenien' Goethes und Schillers und ihre literarischeRezeption von I796 bis indie Gegenwart. By FRIEDER VONAMMON. (Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte, I23) Tiibingen: Niemeyer. 2005. ix+ I47 pp. E74. ISBN 978-3-484-32I23-6. This informative study of theXenien examines Goethe's and Schiller's aggressively provocative epigrammatic poems as an independent, innovative genre. It is in two parts. The firstfocuses on the immanent poetics, structural organization, and seman tic implications of a genre established in the Musen-Almanch auf dasjahr I797. The second probes a selection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century texts continuing the narrow but barbed poetic tradition.The most prominent of these are Ludwig Feuer bach's Theologisch-satirische Xenien (I830), Georg Herwegh's Xenien (I843), Adolf Glassbrenner's and Daniel Sanders's Xenien der Gegenwart (I850), and Johannes Bobrowski's Literarisches Klima: Ganz neueXenien, doppelteAusfuihrung (I 977). In von Ammon's reading theXenien are 'unklassische Klassik'. Although clearly indebted to Martial's Xenia and Apophoreta, theywere calculated from the very be ginning to reach beyond traditional satire, to transgress poetic boundaries, to annoy MLR, 102.2, 2007 557 and irritate. In the literary exchanges of the day theywere designed to serve as un welcome gifts, the author argues, 'ungastliche Gaben', reversing the friendlygifting of theHomeric epic, inwhich xeineia are offered as a sign of friendship and respect. They were also designed tobe forgotten,a one-time disruptive poetic event. But this was not tobe the case. Instead, contemporary responses to thepoems served, among other things, to establish them as a new minor epigrammatic genre within German poetry.Goethe's own Zahme Xenien participated in theproductive reception. Later writers, especially up through the mid-nineteenth century, found good use for thedis tinctivepoetic vehicle. Despite Goethe's and Schiller's...

A Sensible Emptiness: Robert Bly and the Poetics of Immanence

The poetry of Robert Bly probably evokes the phrase image for most readers. Deep images are supposed to tap unconscious sources of energy, and the poetry that uses them is thought to give only a sketchy account of the phenomenal world.' Everyday reality is only a surface; it becomes significant insofar as it is disturbed by dark forces that rise up from below. Bly has often endorsed this way of looking at his work, in part perhaps because to do so frees him from the burdens of a poetic tradition. The context for his poetry is not a genre or a movement among poetic generations; it is a primary truth, known to intuition and expressible in myth. But Bly's poetry does not always comply with the aesthetics of the deep image. There are many lyrics that seem to celebrate pure immediacy for its own sake:

Narrative Theory and Textual Interpretation: Hofmannsthal’s “Sommerreise” as Test Case

The article demonstrates how models and insights developed within structural-semiotic narrative theory can be applied in the historical interpretation of literary texts. The analysis, which is intended here as an example, attends to the relationship between immanent poetics, conception of art and historical consciousness in a text by Hofmannsthal.

ИМАНЕНТНА ПОЕТИКА ХАЗАРСКОГ РЕЧНИКА

У раду се указује на образовне, васпитне и функционалне циљеве изучавања романа Хазарски речник Милорада Павића. Истовремено, испитује се проблем рецепције дела и како је оно утицало на хоризонт очекивања читалачке публике.Да би се проникло у пишчеву поетику, неопходно је образложити њене основне поставке, чија се упоришта налазе у самом делу. Анализом кључних сегмената романа компаративним, структуралистичким, филолошким и текст-методом, долази се до његове иманентне поетике.