Satirical Texts Research Articles

La sátira y la invectiva en el diwan de R. Šelomó bar Reubén Bonafed

The aim of this work is to achieve a better understanding of R. Selomoh bar Reuben Bonafed’s diwan and the influences it received especially from literary works of a non-Hebrew origin. This is made through a comparative study between the satirical and invecttive texts written in the classical period of the Hebrew-Spanish literature and those written in Romance language in the 14th and 15th centuries.

Spare the rod: The figure of the dominatrix in the literary canon

The commonly cited maxim, “Spare the rod and spoil the child” is often traced incorrectly back to the biblical book of Proverbs when its point of origin lies instead first in Langland’s Piers Plowman and then, in the highly satirical and sexualized text of Samuel Butler’s Hudibras. Thus, from a religious origin, it has metamorphosed into a woman-man relationship. Indeed to follow the evolution of this phrase is to uncover the extent to which the disciplining impulses of religious rhetoric are eroticized in one Western European literary theme, that of feminine dominance, from the tenth century when the word Dominatrix appeared in the writings of Hroswitha of Gandersheim. The period leading up to the 1650s, when Butler turned the phrase into one line of a heroic iambic couplet in the middle of a stanza on an amorous jaileress, was also a time when medical research on human and animal anatomy and physiology had unravelled the pathways of libido-lifting buttock-beating. Far from demonizing woman the literary image of the whip-wielding mistress did not degrade the female sex but instead apotheosized the dominatrix as a major erotic image of the twentieth century.

Ivan Vladislavić's The exploded view: space and place in transitional South Africa

This essay discusses Ivan Vladislavić's The exploded view as a satirical text about the construction of space in post-1994 South Africa. The text consists of four sections, each of which foregrounds attempts to grapple with and represent various South African spaces, both literal and figurative. The census-taker in section one, the town-planner in section two, the trendy artist in section three and the philosophizing erector of billboards in section four all encounter the unstable quality of the material world which defies their efforts to define and limit it. All of these protagonists struggle to define space and place — whether inner or outer — in ways which bring satisfactory order and meaning to their lives. This essay takes the theoretical position that space is a construct underpinned by social and economic ideologies, and is given significant meaning only by a consciousness of the forces underlying its construction.

Between Berlin and Vienna: Approaches to Austro-German Intellectual History

Austrian authors of the early twentieth century were notoriously uncertain about their identity. The predominant mood of introspection in Viennese literary circles inspired a wealth of writing which deconstructed the stability of the self, while the ethnic confusion of the Habsburg Empire prompted many intellectuals to look towards Berlin for more self-assertive models of identity. The principal interest of Friedrich Rothe’s recent biography of Karl Kraus (1874–1936) lies in the fact that he approaches his subject from a German angle, emphasizing the fascination which the culture of Berlin exerted over the Viennese satirist. Setting chronology aside, Rothe begins by foregrounding the alliance Kraus formed with Brecht and his circle in the late 1920s at the time of the Threepenny Opera. He plausibly links Brecht’s use of spoken song with the presence of music in Kraus’s recitals of literary and satirical texts, ninety of which took place in Berlin between 1918 and 1932. He goes on to suggest that it was Brecht’s enthusiasm for new technologies that prompted Kraus to overcome his scepticism about the medium of radio and become an enthusiastic broadcaster. Politically, too, Rothe discerns a convergence, arguing that Kraus’s disillusionment with the Social Democratic leadership led him in 1929 to align himself with the communists. This reading of Kraus as a modernist with strong left-wing sympathies is supported by further chapters recalling his forays into the cultural politics of european history quarterly 

Exploring the common ground: Sensus communis, humor and the interpretation of comic poetry

Abstract Sensus communis is originally a Roman notion of the shared ‘communal sense’ that facilitates communicative understanding. The most important philosophers of the modern age who have discussed it at length are Giambattista Vico, Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury (as the basis for wit and humor), Immanuel Kant and Hans-Georg Gadamer. The different ways they (and others) have discussed it might help literary scholars to explore the common ground in literary interpretation. Since there is much disagreement on the very notion of sensus communis, this paper takes its cue from Shaftesbury by briefly examining the relation between understanding humor and agreeing on a particular literary interpretation. Its test case is the American writer Ogden Nash and his rather misanthropic view of various others (wives/husbands, children, old people, various animals, etc.) in his comic poetry. The claim is advanced that readers are amused by Nash's poetry because they too harbour misanthropic sentiments and are well aware that it is taboo to let it show. Hence, despite its apparent misanthropy Nash's poetry is based on and most likely strengthens a kind of sensus communis. This paper also argues that the incongruous combination of satirical and literary techniques is crucial for the effect of comic poetry and that incongruities are often unresolved in ironical and satirical texts.

Satire & the Postcolonial Novel. V.S. Naipaul, Chinua Achebe, Salman Rushdie by John Clement Ball

Works Cited Linda Hutcheon and Michael Hutcheon. Opera: The Art of Dying. Cam­ bridge: Harvard UP, 2004. Miller, D. A. Placefor Us: Essay on the Broadway Musical. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1998. Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. 1895. The Complete Illus­ trated Stories, Plays, and Poems of Oscar Wilde. London: Chancellor, 1986. 488-534. Zizek, Slavoj, and Mladen Dolar. Opera’s Second Death. New York and London: Routledge, 2002. John Clement Ball, Satire & the Postcolonial Novel. V.S. Naipaul, Chinua Achebe, Salman Rushdie. London: Routledge, 2003. Pp. 213. Cloth, u.s. $74.95". Satire & the Postcolonial Novel makes an important and highly original con­ tribution to the field of postcolonial studies, for it offers the first sustained critique of satire in comparative postcolonial literature. The two outstand­ ing achievements of Ball’ s study consist in, first, a critical reexamination of satire theories in light of culturally different traditions of writing, and, second, interventive close readings of a wide range of texts by three of the most canonized writers in postcolonial studies: V.S. Naipaul, Chinua Achebe, and Salman Rushdie. Written as a dissertation between 1992 and 1994 and published in Routledge’ s Outstanding Dissertation series, the book includes a new Afterword with updated research material and sets out to theorize “the generic, rhetorical, and political strategies ofsatire”(ix), while interrogating “Western formulations of satire” to outline “their uses and limitations for postcolonial texts” (1). Were it only for its unfailingly selfcritical perspective and its sound research, the study would be worth cel­ ebrating for its scholarly integrity alone. But the study accomplishes more than this. To use Dipesh Chakrabarty’ s apt term, it “provincializes” satire and the practice of literary criticism. In other words, Ball’ s study employs postcolonial literary and non-literary texts not only to write a postcolonial genealogy of satire, but, by conceptualizing satire in terms of hybridity, syncretism, multidirectionality, and anti-colonial dissent, it helps both 222 IHarting destabilize received Western notions of satire and reorient them within a culturally heterogeneous and less Eurocentric field of English studies. In his “Introduction,” Ball argues that satire theory and postcolonial texts rely on and often operate through modes of “oppositionality and referentiality ” (2). The latter term, Ball observes, signifies “a localized cultural grounding responsible for the claims of ‘ difference’” made by postcolonial and satirical texts, while the former broadly designates "resistance, subver­ sion, counter-discourse, contestatory narrative, writing back, and critique” (2). Although Ball’ s insistence on “oppositionality” as the defining feature of postcolonial texts and, specifically, postcolonialism, understood as academic discipline, seems problematic at best, his suggestion to impose restrictions on the “potentially enormous”critical and theoretical embrace” (3) of postcolonialism still proves productive. Following Sylvia Soderlind, Ball considers texts that come from former colonies and engage in an explicit “resistance to the metropolis” as postcolonial, while, along with Donna Bennett, he reserves the term postcolonial for those reading strate­ gies that stress difference rather than similarities and engage in a critique of colonial “dynamics of power” (4). What is of interest in this approach, then, are not so much the particular restrictions—which are contentious today—but, on the one hand, the acknowledgement that postcolonialism is grounded in national discourses of literary criticism and, second, Ball’ s ethical reminder that “postcolonialism should be used selectively, care­ fully and non-hegemonically” (4). This ethical imperative recognizes that neither the postcolonial subject nor satire, understood as a genre that (de)constructs subjectivities, can be given the “status of transparent sign” (5), but must be treated with “a certain suspicion” (5) in order to prevent satire from reinscribing “condescending colonial discourse” (23). Method­ ologically, therefore, Ball advocates an ethics of reading satiric postcolonial texts through a “careful investigation on a case-by-case basis of the gaps that structure their judgments” (23). The first chapter develops the study’ s concept of postcolonial satire. In contrast to those conventional forms of satire that conjure an ideal past against which to measure the flawed present, postcolonial satire refrains from nostalgically evoking an uncontaminated pre-colonial past. Instead, Ball suggests, postcolonial satire takes “imperial intervention”as its master target and counters satire’s detached gaze, namely its capacity of “Othering ” (13) through “satiric...

"Ein jeder folge seiner Phantasie": Zu den Funktionsweisen der Imagination bei der Betrachtung von Kunstwerken im 16. Jahrhundert am Beispiel der Statue des heiligen Georg von Donatello

The writer discusses the role of the imagination in the reception of artworks in the 16th century, using Donatello's statue of St. George (ca. 1415) in Florence (Museo Nazionale del Bargello) as an example. He introduces a treatment of the statue by Francesco Bocchi (1571/84) based on the rhetorical, moral-philosophical, and didactic premises of humanist culture. He then analyzes satirical texts relating to Donatello's work by Anton Francesco Doni and Anton Francesco Grazzini which challenge these humanist premises. He finds that where Bocchi subjects the art viewer's imagination to the rational virtue of wisdom (“prudenza”), Doni and Grazzini champion fantasy, which by its capricious nature is akin to the dream and the joke.

The English Harlequinade and The Satirical Print in the Eighteenth Century: Æsthetic Elaboration and Political Significance

In the satirical texts of the 1720s, the English pantomime and its emblematic figure, Harlequin, pandered to the xenophobic prejudices that stigmatised foreignness and at the same time fuelled the attacks of literary satirists who exposed the degeneracy of the national stage. The print market that was developing around the same period issued a series of satirical engravings that endlessly rework the æsthetic grievances of verbal satire and give concurrently to the figure of Harlequin a political significance. From being the satirical embodiment of a perverted theatrical taste, Harlequin becomes a grotesque metaphor of the figures and fixtures of political life. Alongside the ideological import, these prints reflect the aesthetic elaboration of contemporary graphic satire. While these engravings invite a mode of viewing that moves from the image to the printed word, they translate the stylistic strategies of verbal satire into graphic form and oscillate between the emblematic tradition and the mimetic mode.

Ostpreuβen und Westpreuβen in deutscher und polnischer Sicht. Landeshistorie als beziehungsgeschichtliches Problem by Jörg s> Hackmann (review)

528 SEER, 79, 3, 2001 Complete translationshave been preferred;partial ones are included only if they occur in one of the numerousanthologiesof historicalsources(p. io). The texts have been divided into two groups: 'Narrative and Literary Sources' (pp. 2i-96), and juridical and Epistolary Sources' (pp. 97-225). According to the 'List of Abbreviations' (pp. I I-20), the authors have searched at least I67 works in the form of journals, monographs and multivolume publicationsfor theirentries. The range of the sources covered is comprehensive. The firstpart of the bibliography lists chronicles, historical and epic texts, travel accounts, political, polemical and satirical texts, hagiographical texts and panegyric textsin honourofprinces,didacticandmoraltexts,monasticrules,apocryphal texts, liturgical texts and church services in honour of Russian saints. Its second part contains juridical codes and compilations, statutory charters granted to the Russian church, Lithuanian and Muscovite legislative texts, treaties and testaments, privileges, gifts, instructions, extracts from estate books and accounts, miscellaneous legal documents (including court judgements , complaints and petitions), correspondence and other diplomatic documents, synodical decisions, correspondence and other ecclesiastical documents, privatelegal documents and birch-barkdocuments. The bare titles of many of the entries are followed by additional material, explaining the referencesin the titlesand placing them in context. In some of the more important entries questions of authenticity are raised, doubtful attributionssignalized and crucial errorscorrected. A researcherat the start of his studieswillfindthese necessarilybriefnotes invaluable. A particularly useful feature of the book are the three indexes which conclude it: first,an index of all the personal names in the titles of the texts; then one of all the geographical names in these titles;and finally,a list of the titles themselves, arranged, as in I. U. Budovnits, Slovar' russkoi,ukrainskoi, belorusskoi pis'mennostii literaturydo XVIII veka(Moscow, I962) by genre, e.g. kniga,istoriia,etc. For too long the historian who is not a Slavist has had to make do with translatedsecondary works. Now, in the words of the book's general editor, Vladimir Vodoff, he will be able to 'pass over the heads' of these authorities (p. 9) and consult the primary sources (in translation) for himself. The methodical, detailed and expert work which has made this possible compels admiration. Impel'al College C. L. DRAGE London Hackmann, Jorg. OstpreuJ3en und WestpreuJien in deutscher undpolnischer Sicht. Landeshistorie als beziehungsgeschichtliches Problem. Quellen und Studien des Deutschen Historischen InstitutsWarschau,vol. 3. Harrassowitz,Wiesbaden , I996. vii + 462 pp. PolishSummary.Index. DM 98.oo. THISexcellent and well-researchedbookpresentsthe historyof historiography on Prussia within the highly charged political context of Polish-German relations.By unmaskingthe nationalistand ideologically-burdenedtraditions REVIEWS 529 of history-writing,some of which survivedinto thelate twentiethcentury,Jorg Hackmann follows the appeal first formulated in the I970S by his teacher, Klaus Zernack, at the FreeUniversity of Berlin, to write a critical analysisof the so-calledLandesgeschichte, or regional history,of the lands of East and West Prussia, from the Teutonic Order to the present. This ambitious project proves manageable through the focus on Beziehungsgeschichte, or 'relational history', reflected in a parallel study of Polish, Prussian and German contributionsto the historyof Prussia. From the beginning of the Teutonic Knights' rule over the lands of the Baltic Prussiantribesin the thirteenthcentury,the legal and political statusof the Order was unclear: both Emperor and Pope considered the Knights as representatives of the Holy Roman Empire, whereas the Polish rulers, following Conrad of Mazovia, who had called the Knights for assistance against the pagan Prussian border raiders, stressed that they had never intended these lands to be the Order's or the Empire'sproperty.Thus, when the rule of the Teutonic Knights grew more oppressive, after they had achieved theirgoal of conquering and Christianizingthe Prussians,and when their expansionist designs turned against the newly-founded union between Poland and the LithuanianJagiellonian dynasty, historians from both sides entered a fierce debate about the origin, nature and political status of the Prussianlands. Hackmann shows that, despitelater anachronisticattemptsto reproject ethnic and nationalist arguments, national arguments about the Germanic or Slavonic origin of the settlersand inhabitantsof Prussiaduring the late medieval and earlymodern period were not relevantto the territorial history of Prussia,which split into two parts in I466. The eastern territories remained under the rule of the Order until...

Histoire des Slaves orientaux des origines à 1689. Bibliographie des sources traduites en langues occidentales by A. Berelowitch; M. Cazacu; P. Gonneau (review)

REVIEWS 527 armed forces, taxation and finance. Particularlyas regards the latter two chapters,he fillssome majorgaps in the literatureavailableto students.These are unfashionable subjects among British and, much more, American historiansof Russia. So too is Russian economic history,which is the subject of Dixon's last chapter. This becomes evident when one comparesthe wealth of good, recent English-languageliteraturelisted at the end of the chapteron culture with its paucity where issues of power and, still more, finance and economics are concerned. That does not make these subjects any less crucial to Russia. Western academic economists in the I990S also greatly played down the role of institutions-andof the statein generatingdevelopment andprosperity.Forthis Russians paid a price. It is not in the power of historians directly to inflict damage on a society in the manner of economic advisers to governments. Nevertheless, the Anglo-Americandisdain for the statewhich was part of the heritage of the Reagan-Thatcher era, not to mention many Russians' own distaste for a despotic heritage, have to be tempered by awareness of the state'scrucialand by no means entirelynegative role in the historyof Russia. After these sections, Simon Dixon has broad-rangingchapters on society, culture and ideology. As one would expect given his background,the role of thechurch,theimpactof Orthodoxyon Russianidentities,andtheambiguities of popular religion are particularlywell-handled. He combines a balanced and comprehensive analysisof conflicting interpretationsof Russian cultural and social development with occasional moments of dry humour, and with a well-written narrative and clear conclusions. Students will like this book. Dixon asksa range of penetratingquestions,owns up when there are no clear answers,pays tributeto a range of new approachesand ideas in the literature but is never shy to re-affirmold truths. Thus, to take one example, Simon Dixon discusses sympathetically the range of recent literature which stresses the values and habits that united Russians of all classes in the imperial era. He then neverthelessconfirmsthe realityof a splitbetween elite and masswhich went considerablydeeper than in thericher,core landsof the Europeancontinent.A good many of the cliches about Russianhistoryare, afterall, true. Department ofGovernment DOMINIC LIEVEN London School ofEconomics andPolitical Science Berelowitch, A.,Cazacu,M.,Gonneau,P.Histoire desSlaves orientaux desorigines a i689. Bibliographie dessources traduites en languesoccidentales. Collection historiquede l'Institutd'etudes slaves, 39. CNRS Editions, Paris, I998. 256 pp. Indexes. FF 1452,24. THIsbibliographyof 1228 textsprovidesaccess to the primarysourceson the history of the Eastern Slavs up to I689 for those who lack the necessary knowledge of (Old) Church Slavonic, Old Russian, Old Belarussianand Old Ukrainian.This aim is achieved by listingunder the name of each text firstits chief editions in its original language and then all its translationsinto any of five West European languages: Latin, English, French, German and Italian. 528 SEER, 79, 3, 2001 Complete translationshave been preferred;partial ones are included only if they occur in one of the numerousanthologiesof historicalsources(p. io). The texts have been divided into two groups: 'Narrative and Literary Sources' (pp. 2i-96), and juridical and Epistolary Sources' (pp. 97-225). According to the 'List of Abbreviations' (pp. I I-20), the authors have searched at least I67 works in the form of journals, monographs and multivolume publicationsfor theirentries. The range of the sources covered is comprehensive. The firstpart of the bibliography lists chronicles, historical and epic texts, travel accounts, political, polemical and satirical texts, hagiographical texts and panegyric textsin honourofprinces,didacticandmoraltexts,monasticrules,apocryphal texts, liturgical texts and church services in honour of Russian saints. Its second part contains juridical codes and compilations, statutory charters granted to the Russian church, Lithuanian and Muscovite legislative texts, treaties and testaments, privileges, gifts, instructions, extracts from estate books and accounts, miscellaneous legal documents (including court judgements , complaints and petitions), correspondence and other diplomatic documents, synodical decisions, correspondence and other ecclesiastical documents, privatelegal documents and birch-barkdocuments. The bare titles of many of the entries are followed by additional material, explaining the referencesin the titlesand placing them in context. In some of the more important entries questions of authenticity are raised, doubtful attributionssignalized and crucial errorscorrected. A researcherat the start of his studieswillfindthese necessarilybriefnotes invaluable. A particularly useful feature of the book are the three indexes which conclude it: first,an index of...

The Act of Reading as a Rite of Passage: Iurii Andrukhovych’s Rekreatsii

The late 1980s and early 1990s saw an intensive re-examination and change of long lasting cultural paradigms and value systems in Ukrainian culture. A period of transition and crisis, these years culminated in 1991 with achievement of political independence and constitution of Ukraine as a discrete political, economical and cultural entity. This event was preceded by diverse processes of transformation. One of first social institutions to be affected was literature. The proliferation of dissenting voices that dared to condemn politicization of culture was, perhaps, one of most obvious and certain indications of literary institution's intramural reorganization. Authors such as Oksana Zabuzhko, Iurii Andrukhovych, Viktor Neborak and others, clearly pronounced necessity of re-conceptualizing function of artists in society and declared, in a purely modernist manner, that art should not serve political and social ends. The challenge, as dissenting authors saw it, was to return to literature its normal function. Zabuzhko felicitously phrased it thus: the type [of literature] that could devote itself without any reservations to things 'eternal' (the only thing that ultimately interests art!), to primordial questions of love and death, to essence of being human and to meaning of life.' In this context, publication of Andrukhovych's scandalous novella Rekreats,2 was a daring attempt, a real intellectual challenge. Given historical moment and complex narrative structure of text itself,3 it is hardly surprising that Andrukhovych's work initiated a debate on subject of its literary qualities and cultural value.4 As one critic pointed out, readership at time clearly split into two opposing camps.5 On one hand there were readers, representing predominantly Diaspora, who expressed a clearly negative judgment. In their opinion, novella displayed a lack of national pride and respect for cultural history and literary traditions of Ukraine. They accused Andrukhovych of amorality and antipatriotism. Particularly interesting in this regard are letters to editors of Suchasnist'.6 Those criticizing Andrukhovych's novella used designations such as khaltura7 and ornohrafiia8; novel was described as an abuse [znushchannia] of native language and Shevchenko's word. A reader from Ukraine was even more sarcastic. She defined Andrukhovych's style as pseudo-intellectual toilet pornography [tualetnoporno-psevdo-intelektual'nyi.] 10 On other hand, novella attracted interest of some prominent Ukrainian literary critics who approached it as a highly sophisticated, postcolonial and postmodernist discourse. Not surprisingly, positive readings presented a totally different picture. Andnukhovych was praised for his sober realism and ability to speak boldly, without false patriotic pathos about his society. In Mykola Riabchuk's view, novella was an explicitly satirical text that assumed a playful and carnivalesque stance, and was endowed with a lively plot, realistic characters and a clever denouement. 12 The interpretations of M. Pavlyshyn and Slobodanka M. Vladiv-Glover were in same vein.13 My interest in novella is not inspired by above mentioned discussion. The focus of present analysis is on use of folkloric images, techniques and narrative patterns, and their processing under conditions of contemporary literary experimentation. More specifically, I am interested in semiotic mechanism(s) that govern renascence of national folkloric inventory in discourse of recent Ukrainian prose. I consider, Iurii Andrukhovych's novella Rekreats as an illustration of these mechanisms.14 My study advances idea that, today, centuries-old oral tradition of Ukrainian folklore is questioned and ambivalently re-discovered as part of modem Ukrainian self. It appears that, at present, folkloric texts are denied elevated status of being ultimate embodiments of national psyche. …

Contemporary Russian Satire: A Genre Study

This wide-ranging 1996 study presents an examination of the extraordinary diversity and range of satirical writing in Russian literature and will be of interest not only to Slavicists but also to those interested in genre theory. Through the close analysis of seminal satirical texts written by five Russian and emigre authors in the 1970s and 1980s, Karen Ryan-Hayes demonstrates that formal and thematic parody is pervasive and that it provides additional levels of meaning in contemporary Russian satire. Each work under examination is placed within the wider European literary context as well as within the Russian tradition and is representative of a different sub-genre of satire. The author focuses on a variety of these genres and modes and offers practical criticism on each text. The writers under discussion have enjoyed a positive reception in the West and their works demonstrate the variety and vitality of Russian and Soviet satire.

Authorial intentions in understanding satirical texts

Understanding the point of satire seems to require some assessment of what an author intends to communicate by his or her words. To what extent, though, are ordinary readers aware of authorial intentions when they read stories that appear to be satirical? We investigated this question in four experimental studies. Experiment I showed that readers construct a coherent picture of the author and his or her intentions when they read satirical stories. Experiment 2 uncovered exaggeration and wording as two of the cues to a satirical interpretation of author intent. Experiment 3 demonstrated that what readers know about an author's attitudes and opinions affects how they interpret satire. Together, these data support the idea that readers often draw specific inferences about author intent when they read satirical stories, and that information about an author is used to interpret these texts.

Focusing Attention: Special Issues in German-Language Music Periodicals of the First Half of the Twentieth Century

An important feature of German-language general music periodicals during the first half of the twentieth century is the frequency with which the editors made use of special issues, most often called Sonderhefte. Such special issues served to focus the readers' attention by devoting most, if not all, of the article section of an issue to a specific composer or topic. An editor might have decided to publish a special issue for the following reasons: (i) to commemorate the anniversary of the birth or death of a major figure; (ii) to provide intensive coverage of an important topic or new field of interest; (iii) to survey musical life in a given area or country; or (iv) to introduce a group of young composers whose works were to be presented as part of a festival of contemporary music. In addition to these types of special issues, some journals offered, once a year, a Carnival issue consisting of humouristic or satirical texts.

Un repte per a la lingüística històrica: copsar la llengua parlada del passat

This paper recommends the study of diaries, legal and satirical texts... to attain a picture of the collo­quial language of other periods of time in which there were no literary texts. The author provides transcrip­tions of criminal trials front the Balearic Islands, Valencia, and Catalonia.