Secular Literature Research Articles

Философский диспут vs cостязание в навыках: к методам интерпретации латинской агиографии в древнеисландской «Саге о Клименте»

The Clemens saga is a biography of St. Clement of Rome, compiled in the 1220s from translations of two Latin hagiographical works, the Recogniciones and the Passio Sancti Climentis. The Old Norse author made the translation in accordance with the peculiarities of the “saga” style: he changed the narrative modus, added didactic comments on Latin book culture, and used motifs and elements from Scandinavian folk literature. In addition, the Clemens saga is almost devoid of the philosophical and dogmatic Christian discourses that characterize the Recollections. One of such episodes altered in content is the philosophical contest between Faustinianus and his three sons - Aquila, Nikita and Clement, touching upon important questions of being from a Christian position and refuting epistemological views. In the Clemens saga this plot takes the form of a contest in the Seven Liberal Arts between Faustinianus and Clement, caused by a misunderstanding of the consubstantial nature of the almighty God. Despite the fact that a contest in skills or a duel is a frequent plot in Scandinavian sagas and poetry, comparing their structure and literary motifs with the Clemens saga, we can conclude that the author, interpreting the original, does not rely on examples from his own popular culture. Instead, he turns to Latin secular literature, turning the philosophical disputation into a contest in the Seven Liberal Arts, which are rarely found in the saga corpus. By combining methods of interpretation with reliance on Latin secular and religious or Scandinavian folk literature, the scribe not only influences the structure and style of the text, but also its content.

Schweizerische Drucke in den bürgerlichen frühneuzeitlichen Privatbibliotheken in den Prager Städten

Based on an analysis of the probate inventories of the burghers of the New Town of Prague in the 17th century, the paper identifies religious and secular literature produced by Swiss printers in Prague burgher private libraries and examines its occurrence in the context of the development of a multi-confessional society in Bohemia before the Thirty Years’ War and subsequently in the phase of the recatholization policy towards a mono-confessional Catholic society. The prints of Swiss printers are analysed in the context of their contemporary offer on the Central European book market in Frankfurt a. M., which was mainly imported to Prague by Nuremberg merchants, and also in the context of the local Prague market, which offered titles by Swiss authors in translation. The reception of Swiss printed literature in the Prague towns is compared with the situation in one of the typical royal towns in Bohemia. The role of the Unity of Brothers in the reception of the production of Swiss printers is also taken into account.

დეონტური მოდალური სემანტიკის მქონე ზმნური ფორმების გადმოცემისათვის „ვეფხისტყაოსნის“ ინგლისურ თარგმანებში (მარჯორი უორდროპის, ლინ კოფინისა და დოდონა კიზირიას თარგმანების მიხედვით)

დეონტური მოდალური სემანტიკის მქონე ზმნური ფორმების გადმოცემისათვის „ვეფხისტყაოსნის“ ინგლისურ თარგმანებში (მარჯორი უორდროპის, ლინ კოფინისა და დოდონა კიზირიას თარგმანების მიხედვით)

Joachim Rachel’s Epigrammatum centuria (1648): first renunciation of occasional poetry in premodern Livonia

ABSTRACT In the development of the multilingual secular literature of early modern Livonia, the 1630s and 1640s mark not only the beginning of vernacular poetry in Estonian and Latvian, but also the first attempts to break free from the dominant paradigm of occasional poetry and to write single authored collections on universal topics. Following the classical and humanist tradition, Joachim Rachel’s Epigrammatum centuria (Hundred epigrams) poetized his knowledge and ideas without a link to a public or private event, elevating a collection of short poems in Livonia to the similar level of individual literary achievement as the publication of an epic or chronicle, and the poet to that of an individual author.

Beards and Texts. Images of Masculinity in Medieval German Literature

Beards and Texts. Images of Masculinity in Medieval German Literature

PHILISTINE IN GERMAN LITERATURE: GOETHE AND THE ROMANTICS

The article traces the function of the word philistine in German literature — from Sturm und Drang to Romanticism. Its etymological premises, two biblical variants are touched upon, its statement in secular literature is fixed. The initial use of the word philistine — in the socio-philosophical works — and accompanying, and sometimes preceding it, the corresponding artistic design of the concept is noted. Th e author considers the emergence of the antithesis ‘philistine — genius’ in the aesthetics of Sturm und Drang and the change of Goethe’s Sturmer ideas about philistine to the period of late Romanticism — an unambiguously negative accentuation of the word. Th e use of the word philistine at two stages of Romanticism is analyzed as an indicator of reaction to the innovations of the French Revolution of 1789. Th e meaning of the word among the Jena Romantics is revealed: the definition of a nature devoid of a romantic worldview — and its subsequent reinterpretation in the propaganda lexicon of the Heidelbergers as a statement of the German ‘elect’, which develops into anti-Semitism. Th e actualization and politicization of the concept of philistine in the course of the social movement in Germany on the eve and aft er the revolution of 1848 is noted.

Afterword: Reassessing Arabic in South Asia

In his learned and stimulating article that helps frame the contributions to this roundtable while also outlining directions for future work in this area, Nile Green notes the striking fact that it has been nearly a hundred years since the last substantial English survey of the field was attempted. That was M. G. Zubaid Ahmad's “Contribution of India to Arabic Literature,” completed as a PhD dissertation under the supervision of the noted Orientalist Sir Thomas Arnold (d. 1930) at the School of Oriental Studies (as it was then known), University of London, in 1929. It was subsequently published with a preface by another distinguished Orientalist, Sir Hamilton Gibb (d. 1971), and retains some scholarly interest to this day.1 That interest lies not only in the descriptions of the many Arabic-language works it lists—going well beyond Carl Brockelmann's classic Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur in this respect—but also, in hindsight, in the assumptions that guide Ahmad's work. Ahmad believed there was little in the Arabic literature surveyed that showed any originality, partly because there was not much remaining to be said in fields like Qur'anic exegesis, the reported teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (hadith), or law by the time Indian scholars began engaging seriously with these subjects. It was also partly to do with an intellectual decline well underway by the time relevant areas of inquiry had reached India. The intellectual landscape remained unrelieved whether one looked at religious or secular literature, or even at writings in Persian for that matter: “… in spite of the abundance of Persian literature produced in India, nothing original is found in these contributions.”2

Middle English Manuscripts and Their Legacies: A Volume in Honour of Ian Doyle

Middle English Manuscripts and Their Legacies: A Volume in Honour of Ian Doyle

Ivano Luckevičiaus gudų muziejaus bibliotekos senųjų knygų paveldas / The Heritage of Old Books from in the Library of the Ivan Lutskevich Belarusian Museum

The Ivan Lutskevich Belarusian Museum was established in Vilnius over a century ago, in 1921. It was based on the documentary heritage of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania collected by Ivan Lutskevich (1881–1919), historian, archaelogist and bibliophile, who also was a prominent activist in the Belarusian community in Vilnius. The holdings of the museum also contained various artifacts acquired by Lutskevich in archaeological expeditions and donated to the Belarusian Scientific Society in 1916. The reorganization of Vilnius museums that began in 1939 caused the complete liquidation of the Ivan Lutskevich Belarusian Museum in 1945. At that time print publications and manuscripts from the holdings of the museum were handed over to the then Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. The museum’s library contained over 14 thousand volumes, with the collection of early print books (15th–18th centuries) consisting of about 600 items. The two-part Belarusian-language catalogue compiled in 1943 by the art scholar Vladas Drėma, museum custodian, contains 411 numbered entries for the books passed on to the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. Based on this catalogue, which is now kept in the Library’s Manuscripts Department and on other sources, the article aims to examine the heritage of 15th–18th-century books kept in the Rare Books Department of the Wroblewski Library. The Drėmaʼs catalogue lists the old publications by century: one book from the 15th century, 24 from the 17th century; 293 from the 18th century (several of which might actually belong to the 19th century). There are 411 books in total. At present, we have been able to identify 224 15th–18th-century books (208 titles) that come from library of the Belarusian Museum: eight books from the 15th century, 21 books from the 16th century, 47 from the 17th century, and 144 from the 18th century. These statistical data, however incomplete, show that not all old publications have been described in Drėma’s catalogue. The collection includes rare printing masterpieces such as eight incunabula, the earliest of which is the Czech-language Biblia Bohemica published in Prague in 1488 and Biblia Latina printed in Basel in 1491 (these and other five incunabula are not listed in Drėma’s catalogue). The first entry in the catalogue is Pentecostarion (Триодь цветная), a liturgical book published in Cracow about 1493 by Schweipolt Fiol, pioneer of Cyrillic printing. Other notable entries are printing masterpieces of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania such as Part 4 of Бивлия руска published by Francysk Skaryna in Prague in 1519, the Slavonic grammar by Meletius Smotrytsky published in Vievis at the printing house of the Holy Spirit Brotherhood in 1619, extremely rare publications by the Vilnius Jesuit Academy, Basilian, and other printing houses of those times. The Belarusian Museum’s collection of old books is notable for its linguistic and thematic diversity. Most of the books, about 45 per cent, are in Polish; 25 per cent (53 publications) are in Church Slavonic, Old Slavic and Russian; 15 per cent (30 publications) are in Latin; several publications each are in French (six) and German (two), one incunabulum is in Czech. The content of the books is discussed after dividing them into two groups of equal quantity: religious and secular literature. A list of so-far identified old books is provided at the end of the article. Keywords: Ivan Lutskevich Belarusian Museum; heritage of old books; Vladas Drėma; manuscript catalogue; The Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences; Rare Books Department.

Православная духовная словесность в истории сибирской региональной литературы XVII – начала XX в. и в ретроспективной библиографии

The article raises the question of understanding the place and significance of Orthodox spiritual literature in the history of Siberian literature. In fact, it is solved with regard to the literature of the 17th — first half of the 18th century, as well as Old Believers’ books, which have a rich tradition of study in Siberian medievistics. In the concept of further literary development of Siberia, the second half of the 18th — early 20th century, the development of which was started by the regionalists N.M. Yadrintsev and G.N. Potanin and continued by Soviet literary scholars, the presence of the Orthodox Church in the region was not considered as a significant factor of literary influence. Since the 1990s, a new view of the role of Christian tradition in the development of Russian literature has been formed, and filling the gaps in its study has become an urgent research task. The article presents the results achieved in this field by modern Siberian historical science and bibliography. These studies, in turn, create a basis for the philological study of Siberian spiritual literature in its continuous historical development from the Middle Ages to our time and in dialogue with secular literature.

Love is Blind! in Byzantium The Blind Cupid Figure in Byzantine Art Through The Middle Ages

Antik dönem sanatında çok sevilen Eros, yetişkin rollerini oynayan tombul oğlanlar veya kanatlı/kanatsız putti imgeler şeklinde, circus konulu tasvirlerde, dövüş, her türden av ve kovalamaca sahnelerinde, sarkofaj konteksinde cenaze sanatında, sıkıcı tarımsal faaliyetleri neşeli ve heyecan uyandıran aktivitelere dönüştüren yaramaz çocuklar olarak tasvir edilmişlerdir. Bu uygulamaların Bizans sanatında devam ettiği görülür. Kimi zaman bağ bozumu sahnelerinde, euchariste (ökariste) bağlamında ya da öteki dünya ile ilişkilendirilerek cennete giden yolda görev alarak kristolojik sembolizm dâhilinde kullanılmışlardır. Erken Hristiyanlık dönemi katakomp resimlerinden Ortaçağın sonuna kadarki çeşitli Bizans eserlerinde yer alan Cupid figürünün ikonografisi iki kavramı barındırır: Tanrı aşkı ve dünyevi aşk. Etimolojisi ile bir Hıristiyan adaptasyonu olarak karşımıza çıkar zira sevgi/aşk anlamına gelen eros kelimesinin -dini ya da profan kavramsal bir yer edinmesi küçük aşk tanrısını ikiye bölmemiş zaten geçmişte de aşkın her türlü yüzünü temsil etmesi ile kişilere yabancı bir figür değildir. Hıristiyan metinlere nüfuz eden Θείος Έρως (İlahi Eros) kavramını Tanrı ile insan arasındaki sevgiyi anlatmanın bir yöntemi olarak kullanır; öte yandan manastır pratikleri figüre simgesel yaklaşım göstermiş, zengin dini metin ve figüratif içeriği ile dini sanatta sıradışı uygulamalar ortaya koymuştur; seküler edebiyatta ise başlıca konusu aşk olan destan ve romanslar incelendiğinde ulaşılan belirgin özelliklere sahip bir eros tarifine rastlanmış, bu tarifin ortaya konan sanatsal üretimler ile örtüştüğü görülür. Bizans sanatının farklı dönemlerine tarihlenen metal, fildişi, mozaik, dokuma, elyazma resmi ya da fresko gibi farklı ürün gruplarına ait örneklere yansıyan tasvirler figürün kavramsal boyutlarını yansıtır. Ancak Aşk Tanrısı Cupid -ya da diğer isimleriyle Eros veya Amor- Helenistik ve Roma sanatında hiç kör temsil edilmemesine karşın, Bizans Sanatında sıra dışı bir körlük örneği gösterir. Bu araştırma yazısı, çok-tanrılı geçmişin hatırasını taşıyan bir figürün ağır başlı Bizans kültür ortamında, dinin tüm ağırlığına rağmen anlamını devam ettirmesi sürecinde üstlendiği kavramlar uyarınca ortaya konan sanatsal temsillerinin ikonografisi üzerine bir çalışmadır.

로페 데 베가의 성체극과 기사 문학

Lope de Vega's The Bridge of the World, which added public interest of a chivalric literature to the religious solemnity of the sacramental act made a fresh impression on the Spanish audience who were enthusiastic about the chivalric novels. Since the essence of Christianity is the spiritual warfare between Christ and Satan, the sacramental act and the secular chivalric literature are naturally connected. By summoning the Spanish public's passion for chivalric literature and incorporating it into his sacramental act, a representative genre of the Counter-Reformation, Lope de Vega satisfied not only the Catholic Church's purpose of catechesis but also the adventurous taste of the Spanish audience. The incorporation of chivalric literature, a typical secular literature, into a Catholic religious drama, ideally embodied the aesthetics of Horatius' dulce et utile.

Woman as a Character and Author in the Albanian Literature (Inter-influences of European Literature)

The Albanians are an ancient people in the Balkans with very rich oral literature, but very late written literature, which was not written until after the 15th century. The late documentation certainly has to do with the existential and historical circumstances that our people lived through. Compared to the age of the people and their oral history, this literature seems to have emerged so late in terms of the authorship of women writers. They were characters before they became women writers. The written literature is simply late in comparison to the antiquity of the people and their oral texts in terms of the authorship of women writers. Before they were characters, they were authors. If we look at the chronological context of Albanian literary historiography, first we had the literature about women, then the literature of women authors, and lately, more and more influenced by secular literature, we have started to create and read feminist literature of our women authors, so we call this literature gender literature. In the process of development of Albanian literature (over time and geographical space), in this paper, I treat the woman from her character to her creativity. I have treated her in this paper both comparatively and influencing and empirically: from the referential level to the narratological level.

The Public Library of P. I. Makushin in Tomsk: The Quantitative and Qualitative Fund Structure at the End of the XIX – the Beginning of the XX Century

The fund of the Public Library of P. I. Makushin in Tomsk and the dynamics of its replenishment at the end of the XIXth – the beginning of the XXth century are presented and analyzed. The purpose of the article is to reconstruct the fund of this library. To achieve it, use was made of eleven printed catalogs of this library, additions and attachments to them of different years. This base allowed the calculation the number of titles and volumes of books in the library as a whole and in its departments. It is discovered that their number has increased respectively from 3925 and 6415 in 1878 to 7162 and 9334 in 1907, and in 1916 the fund was replenished by another 2753 and 3745 tytles, which allows us to talk about the steady positive dynamics of the fund replenishment. Quantitative indicators of titles and volumes with works by famous domestic and foreign writers are given in dynamics. Short lists of authors whose works on art, scientific and philosophical works presented in the library fund, and a number of works in all departments are compiled. The presence in the fund of such publications that have introduced to readers the achievements of science and technology, various religious, socio-­political and economic teachings, including revolutionary ones, together with the increase in the number of books in the fund and the predominance of secular literature in it is the manifestation of the modernization of traditional society that took place in the country during the period under review.

The Face and Faciality in Medieval French Literature, 1170–1390. By Alice Hazard

This book is a challenging and inventive study of the face and faciality in medieval French literature. Alice Hazard’s core project is to rethink faciality, defined here as ‘the quality of being a face’ (p. 202), in a way that destabilizes and uncouples this concept from its associations and apparent affinities with the physiological face. Hazard also challenges the traditional view that the human face in medieval literature might offer any kind of reliable guide to individual subjectivity or interiority. She is more interested in the philosophy of faciality and the shifting planes and patterns of perception in medieval literature — its ‘engagement with the productive illusion of interiority’ (p. 146) — than, for example, the face as the site of gesture, physiognomic character, the expression of emotion, or the marker of ethnic or racial difference. The book’s conclusion makes it clear that, for Hazard, the face is not a text to be deciphered; but, in its mutability and instability, it is a ‘literary motif, a cultural model and a philosophical construct’ (p. 206). Four core chapters consider the face in Arthurian romance, in ‘doodles’ in the decorated margins of manuscripts (p. 82), in the opening scenes of Le Roman de la Rose, and in selected fabliaux. All four chapters explore the inherent and productive instability of faciality. Hazard draws her theoretical inspiration variously from Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Lacan, Silvan S. Tomkins, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Judith Butler, and others, while also engaging with recent scholarship and criticism on medieval French literature. Most of her primary texts and her theoretical approaches are oriented towards secular literature. This means that her reading of Levinas, for example, is somewhat selective, as she interprets his conception of otherness through the face primarily as a relationship with another subject, not with the divine. Throughout this book, Hazard consistently steers us away from the face as a stable sign that might be confined to or co-extensive with the physiological features on the front of our heads. For instance, her reading of the armed and helmeted combatants in Old French romances leads to a very subtle argument about the dispersal of faciality onto ‘codified facial surfaces’ such as the knight’s helmet and shield which both constitute the ‘facing surface’ of the knight and therefore, his face (pp. 148, 207). The chapter on Le Roman de la Rose uses Deleuze and Guattari to read the wall around the garden of Deduit as an example of faciality, while the discussion of the relationship between faces and genitalia in the fabliaux affirms how little one needs, in the surreal and improbable world of these stories, to make a face (p. 176). This book reads like a PhD that has been adapted — not entirely successfully — for publication as a monograph. It is somewhat weighed down by the burden of its theoretical material, and its prose is careful and dutiful rather than elegant or lively; nevertheless, it is a strikingly original book that makes a powerful intervention into contemporary theories of the face and faciality.

The electronic catalog creation in the library of the Znamensky Cathedral of Kemerovo diocese

The goal of the article is to present the experience of creating an electronic catalog of the library of the Znamensky Cathedral of Kemerovo diocese. The article examines the history of the library foundation, its role in the educational activities of Kemerovo diocese. The characteristic of documents of the library collections as objects of metadata forming when creating the electronic catalog is given, the availability of both religious and secular literature in different languages including reprint publications and electronic resources is emphasized. The technology for creating the electronic catalog using the “Authoritative Files” database, developed by the catalogers of the State Scientific Library of Kuzbass named after V. D. Fedorov, is described in detail. Regulatory documents including national standards are listed as well as the software in the form of the automated library and information system “OPAC-Global” and linguistic tools used in cataloging are presented. The classification table brief characteristic and its peculiarities used in the systematization of documents in the library under analysis is given. The experience of working together the Znamensky Cathedral, the State Scientific Library of Kuzbass named after V. D. Fedorov and Kemerovo State Institute of Culture in the project “The Electronic Catalog Creation in the library of the Znamensky Cathedral” is summarized. Participation of KemSIC Faculty of Information and Library Technologies students in this project within their work practice for to perfect their cataloging skills and abilities is emphasized. The quantitative results of the creation of bibliographic records in the electronic catalog for the period of 2021 are presented. In the conclusion, the outlook for the electronic catalog being created in the activities of the Znamensky Cathedral library is denoted: optimization of the information search, the opportunity to participate in the machine-readable cataloging projects, the creation of the quality system of library and information services for readers.

Formation of the language of science in Russia (Example of the XVIII century)

The article analyzes the factors that determined the formation of the language of science in the Russian culture of the XVIII century. Six key factors are highlighted: 1) transformation of the teaching system and the formation of the habit of using foreign languages in teaching and certain spheres of life; 2) the creation of professional translation practice and the publication of scientific secular literature; 3) the formation of a scientific community; 4) the development of philology, without which it would be impossible to have a literary language; 5) the purposeful desire of native scientists to write their works in ‘simple’ Russian; 6) the practice of compiling dictionaries. In addition, it should be borne in mind that the formation of science and, in particular, its national linguistic discourse would be impossible without the support of the authorities.

Vaishnava theories Sangam Literature

Tamil language has many special features. One of them is the charity done to Tamil by all religions. Tamil is a language that has been singularly praised by six different religions namely Jainism, Buddhism, Veganism, Vaishnavism, Islam and Christianity. In the history of Tamil literature, Sangam literature can be considered as a secular literature. Thoughts about God are prevalent in Sanskrit literature. But they did not all grow in isolation. Doctrines about God have developed on the basis of department. The literatures of Thirumurukaaruppadi, Paripadal and kalithogai do not become religious literatures as they refer to the gods. They refer only to the theological doctrines of the people of that time. The Sangam literature reveals that religious thought is intertwined with people's lives.

TAMIḺ ILAKKIYAṄKAḶIL TOṈMAM [MYTH IN TAMIL LITERATURE

This article is about the use of Myth in Tamil literature. The stories and philosophical sayings of the inevitable god are termed as “MYTH". The antiquity of language is based on the diversity of myths used in that language. Myth is considered the spirit of the literature. In foreign countries, myth plays a unique and professional role. The author applies the idea of myth to make his work efficient. The beliefs of the end of the world and thoughts beyond the reach of human beings are seen in myths. The roots of myth have been gowned dup from the ancient Tamil literature to revival poetry of the 20th century. Myth is even present in secular literature works as the Sangam literature Heritage period went to its peak. Myth played a diverse role in Tamil literature. Library research was made for this study and an explanatory method was used to write this article. The findings of this article are Culture and Tradition of Race are influencing myth and how the myth was seen in the literature. This study summarizes the uses of myths and ideology in Tamil literature.

The Motive of Peace in the Works of B. Pasternak and M. Bulgakov

The concept of peace entered into Russian culture from the Bible and became its important spiritual tradition. With the development of secular literature, peace has gradually come out of the sacred field and become the significant aesthetic concept rich in connotation. In their works, Pasternak and Bulgakov reflect on the peace in the field of existence and art, especially the ontological value of family and love, thoughts about history, death and creativity. The concept of memory plays an important role in the artistic world of the two writers. Bulgakovs and Pasternaks books are testimony to rebirth and immortality, which is the way they participate in the sacred cause. The paper analyzes the place and role of the motive of peace in the novels of B. Pasternak Doctor Zhivago and M. Bulgakov The Master and Margarita in their similarities and differences. In this regard, the images of the house, music, creativity as the focus of the artists world are compared, the typological related figures of the beloved muse and the savior are considered, the specificity of the disclosure of the theme of immortality in creativity is noted.