Prose Pieces Research Articles

Carolyn Dever. Chains of Love and Beauty: The Diaries of Michael Field

Michael Field, the pseudonymous authorial persona of Katharine Bradley and her niece, lover, and life partner Edith Cooper (they characterized themselves as ‘closer married’ that Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning), was the author of one of the most expansive and, until recently, neglected oeuvres in fin de siècle literature. Their published output included 27 verse dramas, eight volumes of lyric poetry, and a handful of short prose pieces. But arguably their greatest achievement was Works and Days, a 28-volume, 9500-page diary, which primarily covers the years 1888 until Bradley’s death in 1914 (Cooper predeceased her by nine months in 1913). Yet the diary has remained largely inaccessible to most readers. While Bradley and Cooper’s literary executor Thomas Sturge Moore (alongside his son) edited a single volume of selected entries in 1933, and a small selection edited by Ivor Treby was published in 2006, viewing the diary in all its messy magnificence required a visit to the British Library’s Manuscripts Reading Room (or from 2003 access to a microfilm copy and the patience of a saint). Yet from around 2015 onwards, the diaries have been digitized and are in the process of being transcribed, saving the neophyte reader the perils and pleasures of familiarizing themselves with Bradley and Cooper’s orthography. The volumes are a treasure trove: Michael Field encountered just about every important figure in fin de siècle literary London and penned vivid (and often amusingly virulent) pen sketches of Robert Browning, Vernon Lee, Oscar Wilde, Bernard Berenson, among many others. More importantly, Bradley and Cooper wrote beautifully about their love for one another, their creative process, their intellectual development, and the tragedy and beauty that dominated their lives. Despite its richness and value, the diary has yet to receive sustained critical analysis, until now.

Capturing images: Baudelaire’s account of Meryon’s etchings

Letters written over the course of 1859–60 tell of an effort on Charles Baudelaire’s part to republish Charles Meryon’s Vues sur Paris, augmented with descriptive texts by the poet. The collaboration failed and, ever since, readers have wondered what would have come of it. At the same time, Baudelaire was “courting” Victor Hugo, sending him new and not-quite-new poems dedicated to him. At the very end of 1859, Baudelaire includes his Salon description of Meryon’s etchings in a letter to Hugo, one Walter Benjamin qualifies as among Baudelaire’s best prose pieces. Further, Baudelaire cites Hugo in his description of Meryon’s etchings, and declares that the etchings would certainly please him. Was the promise of more texts about the etchings nothing more than the tail end of an effort to please Hugo? Whatever the case, the project’s failure is not simply to be laid to the account of Meryon, afflicted by “délire mélancolique compliqué d’hallucination,” and dying at Charenton the year following Baudelaire’s own death. Baudelaire’s decisions are difficult to understand, and seem as influenced by Hugo as by other considerations. In particular, in his description of Meryon’s etchings, Baudelaire seeks to “inscribe” something on them, much as Hugo sought to inscribe his father’s name in his representation of the Arc de Triomphe. In fact, Baudelaire imposes the story of a dispute between father and son, or more exactly, God and man, on the etchings, a story modeled on his own relations to Hugo. Later accounts of Meryon follow the same pattern, insisting on finding narratives in images that they all acknowledge as monumental. This insistence on finding diachrony in synchronic images is the madness that afflicted Meryon.

Victorian Poetry and the Poetics of the Literary Periodical, by Caley Ehnes

Reviewed by: Victorian Poetry and the Poetics of the Literary Periodical by Caley Ehnes April Patrick (bio) Victorian Poetry and the Poetics of the Literary Periodical, by Caley Ehnes; pp. vi + 238. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018, $105.00, $24.95 paper, $27.95 ebook. In Victorian Poetry and the Poetics of the Literary Periodical, Caley Ehnes focuses on the intersection of two areas of study: Victorian periodicals and Victorian poetry. The monograph responds to calls from scholars in both fields to consider the importance of the poems published in the pages of Victorian periodicals. The most direct of these calls comes from Linda K. Hughes's seminal essay "What the Wellesley Index Left Out: Why Poetry Matters to Periodical Studies" (2007), which disputes the dismissal of poetry in periodicals as filler between pieces of prose. Where Hughes primarily addresses scholars working on Victorian periodicals, Ehnes speaks to poetry specialists, claiming: "the poetry of the periodical press is the poetry of the Victorian period" and thus "periodical poems should matter to all those interested in Victorian poetry whether they care for periodicals or not" (191). The book divides the four chapters by periodical title, grouping three weeklies related to Charles Dickens into the first chapter, pairing two of the most influential shilling monthly magazines into the second, and then separating two important but less-studied magazines into the third and fourth chapters. This structure creates consistency in the periodical contexts within each chapter, allowing Ehnes to present history and scholarship on each periodical and focus analysis on the features of the poetry and trends observed. Chapter 1 defines the inaugural poem as one that appears in the first issue—though not necessarily as the first item—and works to set the tone for a new periodical. In comparing inaugural poems in Household Words (1850–9) and All the Year Round (1859–95), Ehnes finds similarities in the poems' positions within each title's opening issue and theme of "advocat[ing] for greater sympathy between the classes," a mission suggested by Dickens in his own "Preliminary Word" at the outset of Household Words (26). The chapter also demonstrates how Once a Week (1859–80) used its inaugural poem to establish the periodical's treatment of poetry, use of illustration, and "construction of a middle-class identity defined by domesticity" (53). Throughout the chapter, Ehnes balances the introduction of larger claims that set the foundation for the remaining case studies, comparing features of the periodical context and themes of the poems, and performing adept close analyses of the individual poems. In chapter 2, Ehnes considers the first five years of Macmillan's Magazine (1859–1907) and The Cornhill Magazine (1860–1975), shilling monthlies that defined the style of such periodicals in the lives of middle-class families and the literary world. The chapter contrasts the emphasis on poetry in Macmillan's against The Cornhill's focus on literary labor and the role of the professional author. The section on Macmillan's discusses the ways periodical poetry fit into the careers of Alfred Tennyson, Christina Rossetti, and Dinah Mulock Craik, distinguishing between the style of poets who wrote primarily for the periodical press and those for whom such poems were more economically driven. From The Cornhill, Ehnes analyzes poems by Matthew Arnold, Adelaide Anne Proctor, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Owen Meredith, and W. M. W. Call that grapple with "the cost, legacy and responsibility of literary labor" (93). The chapter includes detailed analyses of the formal features of specific poems by each of these contributors along with valuable insights about the larger periodical press, the role of shilling monthlies in establishing middle-class literary tastes, and the poetics of the mid-nineteenth century. [End Page 489] Chapter 3 explores the role of poetry in religious literary periodicals through Good Words (1860–1910)—described as "a conventional literary periodical with a devotional twist"—which follows models established in previous discussions of Once a Week and The Cornhill (112). Here, the inaugural poem builds upon the suggestion in Once a Week that the periodical is central to bringing the family together for communal reading on Sundays. Ehnes argues that periodical poetry in Good Words brings readers...

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS—A DISTRIBUTED SPECIAL ISSUE

In response to the challenges of privatization, austerity, and the complicity of higher education institutions in white supremacy and settler colonialism, how do we assess education’s past and present and look toward equitable futures? Taking up these questions, this distributed special issue will run in the critical dialogues section of Ethnic Studies Review, and will examine abolitionist pedagogy and student labor during the pandemic and beyond.Specifically, it invites contributors to explore and exchange ideas about how to build pedagogies, classrooms, and institutions grounded in radical traditions of feminist, queer, abolitionist, and decolonial world-making. A “distributed special issue,” as we envision it, departs from the traditional style and structure of a special issue, in which editors solicit and select essays published simultaneously as an issue. The essays will be published over the course of two years, so we envision that subsequent essays may respond to ones that follow ours. The purpose of this structure is to promote a dialogic approach to conversation at the intersections of ethnic studies praxis and pedagogical practice.To this end, we encourage contributions that offer experimental, collaborative, creative, and design-based materials including: collaborative writing, annotated syllabi, interviews and dialogues, assignments and assessments, or classroom exercises, in addition to more traditional pieces of argumentative prose or theoretical inquiry. Contributions may be responses to pieces already published in the distributed special issue or may take this call in new directions. To this end, please see the examples of our first two “models in process” within this issue; one from Roopika Risam and a second from Sabina Vaught, Damien Sojoyner, and Connie Wun. We especially welcome submissions from voices on the margins of the higher education system including graduate student instructors or TAs, precarious/adjunct faculty, independent scholars, university staff, librarians, digital specialists, workers, and K–12 educators.Examples of topics that contributors may wish to engage with include, but are not limited to the following:Submissions offering historical or theoretical analysis should be between 3,000 and 5,000 words in length. Creative or design-based submissions should include all relevant materials and be accompanied by a brief designer’s note (500–1,500 words) offering explanatory insight on their design and framing their use with detailed examples and/or instructions. To be considered, please send an abstract of 250 words (or an equivalent overview/representative sample for non-prose submissions) to abolitionist.ped@gmail.com.The distributed issue has a rolling deadline. Authors of accepted submissions will be requested to submit full papers by January 2023 and every three months thereafter.For other author instructions please consult the ESR Author Guidelines.Abstracts will be subject to editorial review by Steven Gotzler, Vineeta Singh, and Roopika Risam. Authors of submissions invited for full papers will have two options for peer review: an open peer review process (where author and reviewers are known to and in dialogue with each other) or a blind peer review process (run through ESR’s standard peer review process with UC Press). We encourage open peer review, but make the blind peer review option for those who prefer it.

Sebald, W. G. (2020). Campo santo. Translated by N. Fyodorova. Moscow: Novoe izdatelstvo. (In Russ.)

The review is concerned with the posthumous collection of Sebald’s hitherto unpublished works: prose pieces about Corsica, initial draft of his publications in periodicals, speech transcripts, and handwritten notes. The main themes are oblivion and memory, a personal relationship with the past, and the ways of fighting non-existence. Sebald addresses the most poignant issues and heart-wrenching traumas, while his stylistic mastery ensures a bitter and sobering but at the same time very enjoyable kind of reading. Sebald’s rational and crystal-clear rgumentation is irresistible. His style may vary depending on the type of writing (prose — scholarly papers — essays), but every piece is perceived as an outcome of his personal suffering. What prompted each of the works in this collection devoted to conquering time and decay through writing was the struggle against oblivion. Only what has been said or written may escape disintegration. Memory alone offers a chance to overcome alienation.

A Story with Characters and Action

A Story with Characters and Action

Exhausted Senses: Between the Eye and the Ear in ‘Long Observation of the Ray’ and ‘The Voice/Verbatim’

Between October 1975 and November 1976, Samuel Beckett began, revised and abandoned a manuscript for a prose piece entitled ‘Long Observation of the Ray’ (at least) twice. After a period of writing for television, Beckett’s next foray into prose resulted in ‘The Voice/Verbatim’, a text that – due to its partial incorporation into Company – resists definition as either draft or abandoned work. This article parses Beckett’s motivations for abandoning (and reabandoning) these pieces and demonstrates that the ‘ray’ and the ‘voice’ partake in a broader conversation in Beckett’s work concerning the visual and the audible. The 1970s, a time of unprecedented modulation between media in Beckett’s writing, see Beckett almost capriciously tailoring images to fit media, or vice versa. His writing desk between 1975 and 1977 was home to ‘ends and odds’ in various media: two stage plays, two TV plays, a litany of poems and prose. Focusing on the writing that immediately preceded his first attempt at ‘Long Observation’, the works that come between its first and second abandonment, and the inception of Beckett’s late prose ‘trilogy’, this article argues that one can witness a negotiation between writing the ‘eye’ and the ‘ear’ as he wrangles with how to put the observations of the ‘ray’ and the overheard ‘voice’ in words. This article contextualises this dynamic within discourses surrounding modernism and the senses, philosophical responses to ‘ocularcentrism’ and the ways in which manuscript research can harmonize with Deleuze’s reading of Beckett’s ‘exhaustive’ language. Alongside this, investigations into Beckett’s late allusions to Dante’s description of Virgil’s hoarse voice or faint appearance and W. B. Yeats’s ‘deepening shades’ reveal this compositional struggle seeping into (or deriving from) Beckett’s reading habits; traversing the ‘ill-heard’ and the ‘ill-seen’, these references encapsulate Beckett’s ongoing struggle to isolate in words the senses of sight and hearing.

Law of the Excluded Middle and Beckett’s Realm of Neitherness

Abstract This study traces the play of thresholds in Beckett’s short text “neither”. Since its publication in 1976, the text has been haunted by its thematic indeterminacy. Originally published as a poem, it was gathered with other pieces of short prose on Beckett’s suggestion when he insisted that it was a short story. The protagonist (though it is too strong a term to be used in the present context) finds themself before the mobile gates of the neitherworld “whose doors once neared gently close/once turned away from gently part again”. Beckett’s text creates a paradigmatic limbo, a non-space tussling with the ghosts of being. The movement is not, as Garin Dowd contends, “from its presence to its absence, from its being to non-being, from its formation to its emptying”; the beingness of being is already reduced to shadows. The reflex of opening and closure, the subject of the text, is further displaced on to the door, effectively quashing the potency of human agency. The door here is the reality of being. The effigy of a person is left stranded on the in-between spaces. This inbetweenness is located on the site of excluded middle—a site considered untenable in the classical logic. Moreover, the study looks at the ontological praxis of this inbetweenness.

Rivalry, Betrayal, and Exclusion: Traumatic Reenactments and Female Peer Relations in Sylvia Plath’s Short Fiction

Although previously the critical interest in Sylvia Plath’s output revolved around her most famous poetic and prose pieces, the beginning of the twenty-first century saw a rise of a new branch of Plath criticism which aims at a more comprehensive perspective on the variety of her artistic and intellectual work. Adopting such an approach, this article examines six of Plath’s short stories with a special emphasis put on female peer relations presented therein. As the analysis reveals, although the stories in question are concerned with various life periods, all of them still follow similar narrative formula which always intertwines the (sub)plots of female peer relations with the themes of rivalry, betrayal and exclusion. Importantly, when read through the prism of contemporary trauma theory, such portrayals of female relations may be interpreted as a series of traumatic reenactments or failed attempts at integrating the original traumatic scenario which introduced the concept of a female as a threatening other.

The Translator of Desires (By Muhyiddin Ibn ?Arabi, [Translator: Michael Sells

Reviewed by: The Translator of Desires by Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Rosabel Ansari (bio) The Translator of Desires Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Michael Sells (Translator) Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation Princeton, NJ—Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2021. xxxviii + 323 Pages. In this book, Michael Sells presents the first complete English translation of Ibn ʿArabī's (d. 1240 CE) collection of sixty-one love poems, Tarjumān al-ashwāq (The Translator of Desires), in over a century. The English translation is provided in a bilingual format side by side with the Arabic text. With an astounding capacity to produce a work that is simultaneously accessible and scholarly, Sells succeeds in catering to both a general and specialist readership. In addition to the translation, Sells provides an engaging introduction, notes to the poems, an array of appendices, a glossary and endnotes. As such, this book provides a first-class entry point into Ibn ʿArabī's poetry that provides the newcomer with all the tools to delve deeply into the poems without being unwieldy. At the same time, its creative translation of Ibn ʿArabī's classical Arabic into fluent, natural English offers pleasurable and stimulating reading for the casual reader or beginning student. The specialist reader of Ibn ʿArabī's poetry, however, will find in Sells' introduction and notes, a profound engagement with Ibn ʿArabī's theory of love in the Tarjumān and its relation to religious ritual, belief and mystical philosophy. Spanning thirty-one pages (pp. xiii–xxxiii), the translator's introduction is a masterful piece of prose that situates the Tarjumān in Ibn ʿArabī's life [End Page 137] and oeuvre. The writing is both captivating and concise. Most striking in the introduction is Sells' discussion of Ibn ʿArabī's "shawq-conditioned human existence." Explaining the Arabic term shawq (pl. ashwāq) ("love, desire, passion, or longing") as "analogous to the classical Greek eros insofar as it was taken as a fundamental driving force within human life, art, and thought" (p. xv), Sells enthrals the reader into joining the lover on a journey in search of the beloved. At times the writing is so concise the reader feels short-changed. For example, the three sentences on the meaning of tarjumān ("translator") on page xv are tantalisingly short. Yet, at the end of the introduction, Sells circles back to this theme telling us that just as the forms of the beloved constantly change in their manifestations, "To be is to be moved from site to site, from word to word, from self to self, ever lost and ever regained-always in translation" (p. xxxiii). Not only gratifying the earlier frustration, the reader cannot help but feel that Sells' introduction is imbued with the philosophy it introduces and analyses. Likewise integrated into this philosophy is Sells' analysis of the Arabic rhetorical feature of iltifāt, a radical shifting in voice that is used extensively in both the Qurʾan and classical poetry. Sells explains clearly the shifts in voice from singular to plural, first to second to third person and male to female, allowing the reader new to this Arabic rhetorical device to understand its context and meaning. He also combines this with a meta-analysis of what iltifāt signifies for Ibn ʿArabī's perspective on love and the world: "ever-repeated acts of reenchantment as the beloved is brought back to the present and the withered world is revived" (p. xxii). Similarly, Sells draws out the connection between the love poetry of the Tarjumān and the mystical philosophy of wahdat al-wujūd (the oneness of being) commonly associated with Ibn ʿArabī, albeit developed by his disciples. On the surface, the relation between the two is not evident. However, Sells signals the connection between the poet-lover's goal of self-annihilation in the beloved and the union with God sought in Islamic mysticism (pp. xxvi–xxvii). Most importantly, there exists a "bittersweet dynamism" in both cases: neither the manifestation of God nor the beloved can last longer than momentarily in the heart of the lover. It can only occur as flashes, never to be possessed. Beyond the treatment of the philosophy of love, another impressive feature...

The Last Will and Testament of Silverdene Emblem O'Neill

“The Last Will and Testament of Silverdene Emblem O'Neill,” performed by Alex Roe, is among the recent offerings from the Metropolitan (Virtual) Playhouse to feature lesser-known works by Eugene O'Neill and the Provincetown Players. This solo performance of a short prose piece embodies the imagined final thoughts and wishes of O'Neill's beloved dog, affectionately called “Blemie,” who passed of old age in 1940.Although O'Neill endows Blemie with the considerate and loving impulses of a canine family member, he crafts a character whose voice and preoccupations are unmistakably O'Neill's. Early in the performance, Blemie notes that he is burying his missive in his master's brain, although “he will not know it is there until after I am dead.” Blemie clearly knows his master well, and he predicts O'Neill's and his wife Carlotta's deep well of loneliness once he passes, even as he works to assuage that loss. The piece is both a mourner's rationalization of loss and a gift to those who love and mourn him. As in his great plays, O'Neill here contemplates the fact that humans live lives of gathering property and possessions, only to find that the most important things we can pass on are the things that dogs leave behind: love and faith.The parallel enactment of Blemie's “last will and testament” and O'Neill's exorcism of his sorrow is detailed, charming, and understated. Roe highlights this parallelism through visual cues, including a Beckettian close-up on his penetrating stare and a black-and-white aesthetic that focuses the viewer's gaze on the actor's face. His evocative vocal and physical choices include a deep sigh that emerges from his nose before he begins to speak and a pronounced clacking of his tongue—a sound no human normally makes but one typical of a dog. This work continues subtly throughout, with Roe's “paw” adjusting an errant ear and his darting sideward glance indicating that something has caught his eye.Blemie's tone is formal; he is well mannered, well bred, and had been distinguished and handsome in his prime. Roe's deep and resonant voice conjures all of these features and smoothly supports O'Neill as he utilizes Blemie's generosity of spirit to plead with Carlotta to adopt another dog. Blemie notes, “Dalmatians, naturally, as everyone knows, are best,” before bequeathing his made-to-order Hermès coat to his imagined successor.Finally, Roe's performance of Blemie evokes another of O'Neill's favorite themes: the contemplation of what lies beyond death. For Blemie, the vision of paradise involves a life of full bladders, with each blissful hour a mealtime. For O'Neill during his years with Blemie, however, this question was a constant source of inspiration. Blemie references his life “on the ranch,” indicating the O'Neills' beautiful Northern California property and residence, Tao House, now the home of the Eugene O'Neill Foundation and a National Historic Site. O'Neill wrote his final and most memorable plays at Tao House, where Blemie is buried. Visitors pause at the memorial and grave to appreciate O'Neill's deep love for his pet, which is beautifully expressed in the rare vision of hope and open adoration in the final lines of the “Last Will and Testament.” Blemie instructs O'Neill and Carlotta to think this as they look at his grave: “Here lies one who loved us, and whom we loved. No matter how deep my sleep, I shall hear you. And not all the power of death can keep my spirit from wagging a grateful tail.”

Walking Memories: From the Red Zone to the City on the Tenth Anniversary of the Canterbury Earthquakes

SummaryThis piece of creative nonfiction prose explores memory, landscape, and materiality in the “Red Zone” of Christchurch (Ōtautahi), New Zealand—a formerly residential area devastated by an earthquake in 2011 and subsequently turned into a public green space. The writing is informed by my intermittent ethnographic fieldwork in Christchurch—a European settler‐colonial city established on Ngāi Tahu (indigenous Māori) lands—which has spanned ten years. In recent trips, influenced by a phenomenological lens and sensory methodologies, I began to incorporate walking into my research practice. The walk described in this piece took place on the tenth anniversary of the deadly quake. It begins at the earthquake memorial site in the middle of the urban center, then moves from the Otakaro River Corridor in the Eastern suburbs back towards the city. The journey enables thinking about ruins, hauntings, and the tension between official and alternative narratives of progress—acknowledging the material agencies of the more‐than‐human world as part of this. I reflect on the accesses granted by walking, connecting grief and trauma to dis/oriented movement, materiality, and texture; considering the possibilities for people to work on, as well as walk on, these collective landscapes of memory.

‘S’ and ‘M’: The Last and Lost Letters Between Ann Quin and Robert Creeley

In her last letter to Robert Creeley, Ann Quin mentions that she has ‘been clearing out a lot of suitcases crammed with letters’. By contrast, Creeley kept this letter and one other inside his own copies of Quin’s novels, Three and Passages, separating them from his main collection of her papers. The filing of Quin’s letter inside Three suggests that the act of retrieving her from an archive could be at odds with her novel’s exploration of a couple’s disastrous attempt to recover ‘a life’ for their missing lodger, ‘S’. Echoing the presentation of ‘S’ in Three, ‘M’ in Creeley’s short prose piece, ‘Mabel’, reiterates Quin’s critique of historical rescue: ‘a sadly endless consequence of [M] shall be trailed through minds of her time like roses’. The echoes between the missing figures in Quin and Creeley’s texts can be read, I argue, as symptoms of the way in which Quin sought to refuse the limited cultural position available to women writers in the 1960s by embracing states of loss and withdrawal.

“An Imaginative Woman” Томаса Гарди как фотоэкфрастический рассказ

The article deals with the short story by the English writer Thomas Hardy An Imaginative Woman (1894), which has not been translated into Russian. The author of the article analyzes this work from the point of view of genre features and classifies it as a piece of photoekphrastic prose. The argument in favor of this categorization is photographic ekphrasis, penetrating into such poetological levels of the story as plot-and-composition, character-related, spatiotemporal, narrative, motive-thematic. The perception of photography had a particular impact on the poetics of ekphrasis in the works of the Victorian era: it was not instantaneously perceived as a new and independent art form. Photo ekphrasis viewed through the prism of the Victorian times allows assuming its genre-forming function. It is not surprising that the mysticism of the photographic is reflected in photoekphrastic prose. According to the plot of the story, a photograph of a poet has an inexplicable impact on Ella Marchmill: looking at the photograph, she falls in love with him and commits adultery with him in her imagination and fantasies. After the suicide of the poet, whom she never met in reality, Ella dies. Having accidentally found the photograph in his house, the husband discovers some similarity between the child and the photographic portrait and kicks the child out of the house. The genre of Victorian short story, ‘open’ and developing, turned out to be the most organic form for photoekphrastic experiments. Thus, the functionality of photo ekphrasis in a short story is very versatile: it creates external and internal eventfulness in the story; reveals the psychology of the characters; serves as an impetus for expanding the historical and cultural context of the Victorian era; acts as a link between two worlds – the real and the ideal, built with the help of the imaginary; embodies the motives of ‘meeting’ and ‘recognizing’, as well as the theme of death and identity (personal, social) of the characters. The participation of photo ekphrasis in the organization of all levels of the artistic system of the story allows us to classify it as the genre ofphotoekphrastic short story.

“THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME”: MYKOLA KHVYLOVYІ’S NON-CLASSIC SHORT STORIES AND THE CANONIC WRITER’S STYLE

The paper analyzes Mykola Khvylovyi’s selected ‘non-classic’ small pieces of prose (“A Happy Secretary”, “The Last Day”). The writer was found to have resorted to a set of literary means and techniques that had previously proven effective in baring his views on the issues of the time. These include various types of stylistic repetition, antithesis, and irony as a way of criticizing ideological differences. A renewed emphasis is placed on the relevance of the colour blue in the writer’s works as one of the means of creating a stylistic contrast between the explicit context and the overtones that lie beneath it. The texts under study centre on the fate of the new Soviet man, diligent, industrious, and submissive, capable of a personal life but doomed to failure because of certain irrevocable obligations. The writer exemplifies the existential dilemmas his characters face by reinforcing the ironic aspects of the discourse. Narratological and architectonic features of the stories have been studied. The various types of chronotope have been distinguished – the everyday life, the socio-historical, and the road chronotope. The holistic view on the problem under study is due to a combination of cultural-historical, semantic-stylistic, comparative-typological, and descriptive-analytical methods. The findings are to prove useful to all those involved in: the study of the Ukrainian writer’s signature world-view; the issue of personality both in Khvylovyi’s fiction and some Ukrainian prose writers of the 20-30s of the twentieth century; the analysis of the Ukrainian literature of the first half of the twentieth century development; the studies on the perception of Khvylovyi’s works by literary critics and scholars; for experts in artistic anthropology and narratological analysis of Khvylovyi’s written works. It will also be relevant in pursuing the studies of both the writer’s late fiction and his mature pieces of work; studying the texts of the latter phase with regard to intertextual interaction (for instance, the short story The Inspector-General, 1929).

陳傅良《春秋》學與古文關係研究

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English. 奠基於學界長久以來經學與文學關係緊密的命題之上，本文所欲解決的問題是，陳傅良《春秋》學世變觀、書法觀與古文關係何在？本文認爲，陳氏世變觀著眼於“事端（始）”“漸”“累”“甚”，書法觀則强調《春秋》、《左傳》之書與不書如何互相發明。陳氏《春秋》學不僅僅用於解經，更廣泛的見用於各體古文，包括序跋、書信、雜記、墓誌銘、祭文、論説等等，以及相應的各種不同人事現象、歷史事件。其以“組絲貫珠”的敘事工夫處理古今事物，或是條理清晰的敘述演變現象與關鍵，抑或是以少總多的見出全幅圖像。最後輔以關鍵論斷，或兼述人情。這展現了陳傅良的經學、史學、文學素養與廣博學識，對於本文更重要的，此學養成就了其兼融敘事、議論、抒情的古文作品。 This paper proposes to study the relationship between Chen Fuliang's (1137 -1203) study of The Spring and Autumn Annals and his classical prose, especially how the former influenced the latter. Chen's main contribution to the study of The Spring and Autumn Annals are: 1 ) studying the changes in the world from a historical perspective and 2) the writing principle of The Spring and Autumn Annals. Chen's view of how the world changes focuses on “inception,” “gradual development,” “accumulation,” and “limits.” His view of the writing principle of The Spring and Autumn Annals stresses the reciprocal relationship between the “classic” and its commentary. Chen Fuliang wrote his classical prose in light of his theory of The Spring and Autumn Annals，as seen in his prefaces, postscripts, letters, miscellaneous notes, epitaphs, sacrificial writing, and treatises. The aesthetic appeal in these classical prose pieces reflects Chen's scholarship.

Scholia to Volume 9—Subscription List

Although in each instance identification remains uncertain, the additional information offered here (*) may eventually lead to a positive identification, or at least a likely one.*p. 293 AUCHMOUTY, MISS (1766)Unidentified. The surname, with multiple variations, has ancient connections with the historic Scottish county of Fife. One possibility would be the Miss Auchmuty whose death is recorded in the London Gazetteer of June 22, 1769): “Tuesday evening died at her house in Park-Place, St. James, Miss Auchmuty, a lady of considerable fortune.”*p. 346 CRAMMMOND, MISS (1769)[A typo in the Florida Sterne for CRAMMOND.] Unidentified. One possibility is a Miss Cramond who later married Hugh Inglis, a “Portugal Merchant of Mile-End” (August 18, 1776), described in the General Evening Post (August 20, 1776) as “a young lady of a large fortune and creole by birth.” Hugh Inglis and Mrs. Inglis subscribed to two sets of Samuel Green’s Sermons and to Helen Maria Williams’s Poems, both published in 1786. Alternatively, Elizabeth Cramond of Langley Lawn, Essex, daughter of Robert (d. 1762); “Miss Cramond” subscribed to Robert Bacon, Miscellaneous Pieces in Verse and Prose in 1790.*p. 485 PINE, ESQ. (1769)Unidentified. To the two suggestions offered, Robert Edge Pine, the painter, and John Pine, an attorney, we might add Simon Pine (d. 1772), brother of Robert Edge Pine and a miniaturist, also from Bath, although living in Dublin, 1762–1771. He exhibited in London in 1768–1771, so may well have been available for solicitation. He subscribed to Charles Bulkley, Oeconomy of the Gospel, (1764), and to James Foster, Discourses on all the principal branches of natural religion and social virtue 1749–1752). As “Sim. Pine, Esq.” he seems to have appeared in the amateur but extraordinarily well-known production of Othello in Drury Lane in 1751, directed by Charles Macklin, s.n., and staged as a showcase for his theatrical students, including Francis, Robert, and Edward Delaval, s.n. Samuel Foote, s.n., another student, was expected to appear but did not. See E. A. Parry, Charles Macklin (London, 1891), 88–89.The habit of passing Christian names through generations is exemplified by the Pine family, where John, Robert, Simon, and Thomas Jr. all subscribed to Joseph Morris, Sermons in 1743; John may well have been the father of the artists Robert Edge and Simon, but they would have been too young in 1743 to be subscribers themselves.*p. 518 MR. SMITH (1766, 1768), —— SMITH (1769)Unidentified. Given the fifteen theatrical personalities possibly subscribing to Sterne, including several attached to Covent Garden, we might suggest William Smith (c. 1730–1819), known as “Gentleman Smith” and associated with Covent Garden from 1753 until a clash with Charles Macklin, s.n., in 1773. John Beard, s.n., and George Colman, s.n., were both managers of Covent Garden during the period in which Smith was part of the company.

„O cierniu który rozdziera nasze oczy usta teraz i w godzinie śmierci”. What and what is it about Matka odchodzi by Tadeusz Różewicza?

The article is an attempt to defi ne the subject and genre of the book Matka odchodzi (2000), ascribed to Tadeusz Różewicz. Its authorship and composition, including the role of photographs, are analysed, as is the effect of transferring previously published poems and prose pieces to a new context. The book might be described as a spiritual autobiography (confession) with elements of witness and of challenge to the reader, as in Małgorzata Czermińska’s work on autobiographical writing; but other possible defi nitions are also considered, including two of Różewicz’s own rather surprising suggestions: a beggar’s threnody, a little book that is a prayer. The Marian piety of Stefania Różewicz is seen to infl uence even unconsciously her supposedly „godless” son’s way of seeing the world.

The Dual Attitude towards the Arab Personality in the Contemporary Hebrew Children's Literature: A Critical Analysis of Ronette Gettleman's 'On Her Way

Having received a noticeable stature in the contemporary Hebrew children’s literature, Ronette Gettleman is one of the most renowned authors who have addressed the issue of hate speech and the culture of peace in contemporary Hebrew children’s literature. Hate speech is considered part of Zionist literature. Gettleman’s story On Her Way is a prominent piece of prose that depicts the Arabs and their image in Israeli children's minds. Hence, the story On Her Way was chosen as an attempt to identify, through selected excerpts from the story, how the Arab person is negatively portrayed in contemporary Hebrew children’s literature. The author, through some Israeli children, expresses the concepts of hostility and hatred in their conscience towards the Arab character. Like other Israeli authors, Gettleman shows that the image of Arabs in Hebrew literature raises fear, anxiety and terror whenever Israeli children hear the word "Arab". It also makes the culture of hatred and hostility a headline for the Israeli child. In contrast, the author highlights the culture of coexistence and peace among some Israeli children towards the Arab character. The story demonstrates that there are some Israeli children who are willing to coexist and live peacefully with Arabs. This story with its focus on both hatred and hostility on the one hand and coexistence and peace, on the other, shows the dual attitude of Israeli children towards Arabs. This is a new trend in contemporary Hebrew children's literature towards the Arab character and its positive outlook. Keywords: Contemporary Hebrew Children’s Literature, Hate speech, Culture of peace, Ronette Gettleman, On Her Way.

The Late Work of Sam Shepard

The Late Work of Sam Shepard