Romantic Literature Research Articles

Assembly and Its Other in German Romantic Literature and Thought: The Inexhaustible Gathering By Robert E.Mottram and Christopher R.Clason (Eds.), Liverpool University Press. 2022. pp. 240. $130.00 (hardcover)

Assembly and Its Other in German Romantic Literature and Thought: The Inexhaustible Gathering By Robert E.Mottram and Christopher R.Clason (Eds.), Liverpool University Press. 2022. pp. 240. $130.00 (hardcover)

Race-Making and Romanticism: Notes on Pedagogy and the Position of Whiteness

Recent discussions often conflate the project of developing an antiracist Romantic studies with the project of discovering an antiracist Romanticism, the elements of which could be culled from its revolutionary texts and radical figurations. This essay considers the risks of this conflation and the critical investments it protects. First, I discuss how and why some scholars are liable to skip over the task of considering the extent of Romanticism’s racism. Next, I relate my experience teaching an upper-level undergraduate course titled “Race-Making and Romanticism,” in which we explored how Romantic literature registered and participated in the early nineteenth-century project of forging whiteness and consolidating logics of anti-Blackness. Finally, I reflect on how my approach to antiracist work is a function of my position as a white cis male, suggesting that those of us in the position of whiteness would do well to consider our attachment to Romantic authors and texts as a structural relation that exceeds the dynamics of identification and disavowal.

The Romantic Self in The Poetry of Piramerd and Mirzada Ashqe

The notion creativity in the Western civilization has a long history. It has influenced various aspects of human life since Greek and Roman times. Western thinkers have significantly contributed to literary growth in art and literature. Western intellectuals have also led literary research and developed theoretical approaches to literature. After their development, the western literary traditions were imported to other countries for various reasons. Thus, the non-Western writers adapted several aspects of Western literary movements including romanticism. Romanticism, a literary and artistic movement that emerged in late 18th-century Europe, opposed the basic tenant of classicism. The movement introduced new literary forms and radical ideas. Influenced by Western romanticism, Kurdish and Persian romantic literature evolved and reached its peak. The term “romantic self” is used to describe how a poet reveals his hidden and spontaneous feelings, desires and anguish using various romantic features. Drawing from American Romanticism, this comparative study explores how both Piramerd and Mirzada Ashqe emphasize the romantic self in their poems. This helps to understand the similarities and differences in the poets’ approaches to the notion of romantic self in their works.

Expression of Romanticism Literary Movement in Samuel Taylor Coleridge s Life and Work

The main purpose of the article is to study the expression of romantism literaru movement in Samuel Taylor’s life and works. Actually, prominent Romantic writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge embodied the fundamental principles of Romanticism in both his writing and personal life. Thus, this abstract looks at how Coleridge's close relationship to nature, his investigations into the paranormal and imagination, and his focus on personal experience and emotion captured the essence of Romanticism. In order to provide light on Coleridge's contributions to Romantic literature, this abstract explores his poetry, prose pieces, and critical essays via literary analysis, biographical research, and historical context study. It also explores Coleridge's persistent influence on English literature and philosophy, emphasizing his significance as a pivotal character of the Romantic age. Romantic literature, which peaked in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, is distinguished by its emphasis on individualism, emotions, imagination, and nature. A well-known member of this movement, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, lived and worked by many of its central ideas. He was well-known for leading an unusual lifestyle and being curious in academia. Coleridge's work was richer because of his travels, problems in his life, and reflection.

Distanțe și interferențe – Ființe umane și animale în literatura română contemporană

Animals have been portrayed in world literature, taking various forms: anthropomorphized, through authors' voices conveying moral messages, or as anchors of vulnerability and power. Animals represent more than a human counterpart, since they appertain to an heterogenous category which is an essential part of the world we all find ourselves in creating a web of interdependent existences. Thus, recent theoretical approaches are divided according to the stringent need to reevaluate the relationships between man and animal. In this paper, I will focus on four studies: in Dominance and Affection (1984), Yi Fu Tuan is stressing the unequal connection between domestic animals and their owner; the vulnerability of humans who become prey for animals is described by Val Plumwood in The Eye of the Crocodile (2012); Matthew Calarco’s approach (2015) is inherited in two concepts – ‘identity’ and ‘difference’, that lead to ‘indistinction’, which proposes a greater degree of acknowledgment of the diversity that defines both human and animal worlds; the human condition is questioned by Roberto Marchesini in Over the Human. Post-humanism and the Concept of Animal Epiphany (2017). Therefore, the aim of the paper is the attempt to investigate whether contemporary Romanian literature can be correlated with an animal-oriented approach, by analyzing prose excerpts of writers such as Mircea Cărtărescu, Florin Lăzărescu, Veronica D. Niculescu, and others.

Hopeless Romantics: Australian Studies in Romanticism

ABSTRACT For most of the twentieth century, Romantic writers were largely ignored by serious Australian scholars even as they were celebrated and imitated outside the academy. This article tracks the belated emergence of Romanticism as a specialist field of study in Australia while providing what is often a counter-narrative about the broader reception of Romantic literature and ideology by the Australian public. In tracing these contrary yet entwined histories, the article shows how Romantic literature has been and remains implicated in the ongoing project of Australian colonization from 1788 to the present. It has been conscripted into the work of establishing a series of penal colonies on stolen Aboriginal land; of valorizing an English-speaking territorialization of that land; of shaping settler subjectivity; and of defining a national identity often vexed in its relationship to anglophone cultural centers. Exploring the ways in which the reception of Romantic culture is diffracted across various Australian sub-cultures, the essay arrives at the field as it exists today: at a critical Australian Romanticism that is, and needs to be, increasingly attentive to the history of the field and its investments in the settler-colonial state.

Tragedy in Romanian Literature: Some Conceptual Delimitations

This article examines the presence and manifestation of tragedy as a literary genre in Romanian literature until the establishment of the communist regime. My analysis begins with an overview of the arguments that various critics, playwrights, and essayists have invoked in trying to explain the alleged absence of tragedy in Romanian culture and continues with a discussion about the errors and confusions inherent to such a position. Starting from these misconceptions, I propose a new definition of tragedy as a dramatic/theatrical genre and then employ that definition in identifying the most important tragedies in Romanian literature from the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. The conclusion of my article, strongly contradicting the dominant idea in the history of Romanian drama studies, is that tragedy not only existed in Romanian literature, but that the genre represented a fundamental coordinate of the Romanian cultural tradition.

Undercurrents of the River Duddon: Human Consciousness versus Nature

This essay examines the relationship between human consciousness and nature in William Wordsworth's "The River Duddon" sonnets. By adapting the method of literary analysis, Wordsworth’s portrayal of the River Duddon serves as a lens through which the boundaries of human understanding are examined, illustrating an unbridgeable gap between human consciousness and nature. After a brief introduction of research background, this essay elaborates on the River Duddon's unattainable origin as cloud’s child in deferral to both antiquity and industry, eco-Gothic wilderness in departure and return pattern, and nonperishable eternity compared with the transience of human. By deconstructing anthropocentric views prevalent in Romantic literature, the research emphasizes the urgent necessity of acknowledging nature's subjectivity and its independent existence beyond human perception. This essay not only revitalizes the poetic landscape of Wordsworth but also advocates for a non-human turn in literary criticism, promoting ecological awareness and respect for nature.

The Relationship Between Roman Law and Roman Literature in The Context of an Axiological Approach

The Relationship Between Roman Law and Roman Literature in The Context of an Axiological Approach

Importing and Writing Tragedy in Nineteenth-Century Romanian Principalities

This article examines the overlooked import and production of tragedy as a literary genre during the long nineteenth-century Romanian literature. It is not that Romanian tragedies had not been written until 1918, but they were not reprinted, and the critics’ interest in these early tragedies diminished considerably over time. Starting from the observation that this poor acknowledgment is a result of a narrow and de-contextualized perspective, one that leaves aside the earlier as well as non-canonical literature, I investigate what and how tragedies were imported as well as written at the time. Whereas the imports were oriented predominantly towards the Romance-speaking countries and cultures – more than towards the Greek Antiquity –, local production explored, as expected, the historical (inter-imperial) past of the Romanian Principalities. More important, however, is the configuration of imports, which can be divided, as I aim to argue, into three categories: the latecomers, the cognates, and the diversifiers. Hence, this taxonomy, along with the local production, cast light on the fact that not only do we have tragedy – translated and local – but also that it was, as most of the cultural production, instrumentalized to promote the national ideals.

Biblical topoi in medieval literature: sources and exemplifications

This article aims to examine the different ways in which the content of the Bible used to be transmitted in the Middle Ages and to provide an overview of the most common biblical topoi used in the medieval culture. We also aim to analyse the books of the Old and New Testaments from which the best-known medieval biblical topoi come and to cite some concrete examples from the medieval Romanian literature.

The Biblical Model of Humble Authority in “The Teachings of Neagoe Basarab to His Son Theodosius”

From a methodological point of view, the present research focuses on the fundamental aspects of Old-Testament monarchic theology, identifying them wherever they stand out in The Teachings of Neagoe Basarab to His Son Theodosius. The aim of this endeavour is threefold: first, to highlight the excellence of biblical values via direct references to the biblical text, mostly to the Old Testament, second, to underline the high leadership principles of the great ruler in question, as well as the responsibility he bears in mind in conveying them to his successor to the throne, and third, the fundamental goal of this research, namely to highlight the coherence, fluency, harmony and axiology of the text’s rhetoric, as an exceptional literary model and treasure of Romanian literature, a testimony and testament, a source and resource for the life of society and the Church over the centuries.

Decoding the relationship between language, entropy, and cognitive functioning: insights from a statistical analysis of Romanian literature

The capacity for effective communication and sharing of ideas has been instrumental in driving the human evolution. The focus of this paper is on exploring the fundamental mathematical framework that underlies natural language, and demonstrating that practical applications can readily uncover theoretical principles like conditional probabilities and informational entropy. This study utilizes a comprehensive Romanian language corpus to conduct a statistical analysis of individual and conditional word probabilities. Additionally, an experimental survey was designed to evaluate the respondents’ subconscious selection of follower words. By comparing the results of the survey with the reference results obtained from the statistical analysis of the representative corpus, significant correlations were discovered between the conditional entropy and the survey participants’ chosen options. The study considers demographic variables such as age, gender, and education level and evaluates their contribution to the results. The paper also proposes several possible directions for future research.

Eugen Simion – opinii privind editarea operei lui Panait Istrati

In the collection entitled Opere fundamentale (Fundamental Works), initiated and coordinated by Eugen Simion for more than two decades, two editions are dedicated to Panait Istrati: the first one, consisting of two volumes, entitled Povestiri, romane (Stories, Novels), published in 2003, was edited by Teodor Vârgolici; the second one, edited by Zamfir Bălan, is intended to have eight volumes, four of which have already been published (literature, I-II, 2019; III-IV, 2021), two are being prepared for print (journalistic writings), while the last two volumes (correspondence) are in progress. The Introduction signed by Eugen Simion (revisited and completed, for the 2019 edition) reiterates – even if the discussion may have seemed completed since the ‘60s – the issue of whether the writer who debuted, in 1924, with Kyra Kyralina in the Rieder collection Contemporary French Writers belongs to the Romanian literature or not. Since, right from his debut, many Romanian critics considered the docker of the Braila Port to be a French writer, Eugen Simion made from the editing of Panait Istrati’s work under the patronage of the Romanian Academy also a form of recognition, from the level of the most prestigious scientific and cultural institution, of Panait Istrati’s belonging to the Romanian literature. The present paper synthetizes the critic opinions of Eugen Simion as he wrote them down in the Introduction and sketches, in a comparative manner, the history of how Panait Istrati’s works were published in Romania, from 1935 till now.

Șerban Cioculescu la Facultatea de Litere și Filosofie a Universității din Iași (25 mai 1946–31 august 1947)

We publish and also comment three documents about the presence of literary critic Șerban Cioculescu as Professor in the Department of Modern Romanian Literature. He was summoned by a commission led by G. Călinescu, whose report was published initially in „Monitorul Oficial” [„Official Gazette”] on the 8th of July 1946. Șerban Cioculescu, in a book entitled Amintiri [Memories, 1981], recalled this episode. But, apart of this, there is a series of episodes which complete the picture. We refer to the juridical and political context. The laws of higher education were adopted during Ion Antonescu’s regime and were elaborated by a group supervised by the Minister of Culture and Cults, Ion Petrovici (1942). Those decision continued to function after the 23rd of August 1944, after Ion Antonescu had been arrested. But, between this date and the 30th of December 1947, when King Mihai I abdicated, the Communist Party expanded its authority and persecuted those who refused to accept the political compromise. Although Șerban Cioculescu would have been nominated as Professor from October the 1st 1946, he lectured in Iassy at the end of winter or in the very first days of sprit 1947. In the summer of 1947, a Govern commission decided that Șerban Cioculescu, among others, would be excluded from the universities on the 1st of September 1947.

Eugen Simion – insigne la reverul operelor literare

This article refers, on the one hand, to the laborious activity of Eugen Simion in the field of criticism and literary history from his debut until 1989, materialized in the series Romanian Writers of Today (1974-1989), and, on the other hand, aims to reveal the passionate manner in which Eugen Simion was involved, from the date mentioned above, in several visionary projects, among which are the facsimilation of Eminescu’s Notebooks, the Chronology of the Romanian Literary Life (1944-2012), the General Dictionary of Romanian Literature (8 vols) and the coordination of the Fundamental Works collection (also known as the Pléiade Collection) from which over 300 volumes appeared. Last but not least, the author of this article extracts from the work of Eugen Simion a series of memorable quotes, which he considers, in a symbolic way, “badges on the lapel of his books”

Eugen Simion entre la critique diurne et la critique nocturne

A critic of European stature, Eugen Simion devoted his life to literature and in particular to the writers of Romania, a country where, to quote Paul Celan, live “men and books”. A task that he accomplished in numerous writings – we list only a few such as Romanian Writers of Today, Critical Fragments – and in the encyclopaedic enterprise of the General Dictionary of Romanian Literature as well as in the creation of the admirable collection Fundamental Works, which is the Romanian equivalent of the Pleiades Library, without forgetting the integral publication of all the manuscripts of Eminescu. Excelling in grasping the profound structure of literary evolution, he also succeeded in focusing his analysis on particular authors who were all allies in his intellectual and spiritual quest.

DE LA ALEKSEI PEȘKOV LA MAKSIM GORKI. METAMORFOZELE UNUI SCRIITOR

In 1932 a number of soviet ideologues, at the behest of Stalin, declared Maxim Gorky the founder of Socialist Realism. Transformed into an ideological brand that endures to this day, the label makes it difficult to clearly delineate the politician from the talented artist in search of a new method of creation in Russian literature. The autobiographical trilogy (My Childhood, In the World and My Universities) is written in the tradition of romantic literature and highlights the national importance of politically committed works. The first part of the trilogy was written in exile. After the defeat of the Revolution of 1905 in which Gorky took an active part, emigration was an acceptable and even profitable option. Recollecting aspects of his childhood was an exercise that Gorky practiced voluntarily and consciously during 1912-1913 in Italy on the island of Capri, working deliberately and attentively after the autobiographical subject was brought up in a discussion with Lenin during the latter's visit to the island. Based on the autobiographical text in the novel My Childhood, our study aims to highlight the process of gradual liberation of the New Man from the Old Order and probe the sources of a new attitude towards the social and moral norms of life.

ANTITEZA „NORD-SUD” ÎN LIRICA LUI FIODOR TIUTCEV

This article delves into the rich and evocative poetry of F.I. Tyutchev, a prominent figure in Russian literature, to explore the recurring theme of the North-South antithesis in his lyrical works. Tyutchev's poetic oeuvre, renowned for its profound symbolism and metaphysical themes, often delves into the dichotomy between the Northern and Southern landscapes. Through a meticulous analysis of selected poems, this study elucidates how Tyutchev's utilization of geographical and climatic oppositions between North and South serves as a metaphorical and ideological vehicle. By examining verses that depict the icy, desolate expanses of the North in stark contrast to the warm, fertile lands of the South, we unravel Tyutchev's complex portrayal of these regions. The North is often associated with isolation, introspection, and melancholy, while the South symbolizes vibrancy, sensuality, and emotional liberation. This article underscores how Tyutchev's lyrical antithesis between North and South encapsulates not only his personal contemplations but also his reflections on the broader cultural context of his time. As we navigate the verses of Tyutchev, we discover a subtle yet profound exploration of the eternal human struggle between opposing forces, a reflection of the turbulent era in which he lived. In sum, this study offers a comprehensive analysis of Tyutchev's poetic exploration of the North-South antithesis, shedding light on the multifaceted dimensions of this thematic dichotomy and its implications for understanding his contribution to Russian Romantic literature and the broader cultural discourse.

Two Samples of Queer Ecology in Romanian Contemporary Literature. From Silenced Witness to Redeemer

This paper will analyse the intersection between two components (queer and ecological) by reviewing two texts, both describing themselves as “ecological queer,” therefore, settling a new paradigm in Romanian literature, aiming beyond the aesthetic sphere. The examples are Copiii ecosistemului (The Children of the Ecosystem) by Ilinca Mănescu and the anthology Luminișuri (Glades), published under Cenaclul X. The main stake of the thesis is to identify and detail the similarities between the two ideologies, as a new phenomenon in Romanian literature and anthropology (as these critical lenses have been used before in world literature). A central convergence comes as a result of capitalism and colonialism, expanding the violence in human and non-human forms. To simplify, the queer community and nature are victims of the same system, which explains the constellation between the two. The interdisciplinary conjunction “ecoqueer” stands against heteronormativity and embraces the diversity of nature, and this article will focus on its development in the Romanian literary space, through the two examples, concerning both poetry and prose. Furthermore, this literary form has been exported from the West to the East-Central European periphery, highlighting Romanian literature’s status as a semi-peripheral literature, but on the other hand benefiting from this import and broadening the progressive ideology in the cultural space.