World Epic Research Articles

The Hero in the Epic of Sheikh San'an Hawrami According to Joseph Campbell's Theory of the "Hero's Journey"

This paper entitled (The Hero in the Epic of Sheikh San'an Hawrami According to Joseph Campbell's Theory of the "Hero's Journey") is an attempt to introduce the hero of the Epic of Sheikh San'an Hawrami according to the theory of the hero's journey, That was set by the American mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904-1987). This theory consists of three sections, All three sections consist of seventeen stages. Joseph Campbell believes that no hero being is excluded from these seventeen stages, but not every Hero has to go through all seventeen stages in parallel, but varies from Hero to Hero. In this study, the journey of the hero of the Epic of Sheikh San'an Hawrami has been evaluated according to this theory and all the stages that the hero has gone through with the stages that the hero has not gone through have been discussed. Finally, the results are presented, one of which is the circular event of the Epic and the relationship between the gender of the hero and the subject of the journey. Through this special feature, the hero and the path of the journey within the structure of Sheikh San'an Hawrami epic is identified and by using the theory takes the relationship of Sheikh San'an Hawrami epic with several genders of Sufism and mythology to the structure of world epic.

The First Naipaul World Epics ed. by J. Vijay Maharaj (review)

The First Naipaul World Epics ed. by J. Vijay Maharaj (review)

БАШКИРСКАЯ ФОЛЬКЛОРИСТИКА В СИСТЕМЕ СОВРЕМЕННОЙ ГУМАНИТАРНОЙ НАУКИ (ОПЫТ СОБИРАНИЯ, ИЗДАНИЯ, ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ)

The article attempts to provide a brief overview of the activities of the Institute’s folklorists after joining the system of the Russian Academy of Science. It is characterized by regularity, consistency in all areas of folklore studies, activation of expedition, research, and publication activities. It was during this period in the history of Bashkir folklore that the experience of scientific and textual work appeared, as a result of which four multi-volume scientific collections “Bashkir Folk Art”, more than a dozen collections of samples of Bashkir folk art were prepared and published; several dozen monographic studies were written and published, in which genre features, ideological basis, and image system were considered, as well as artistic and visual means; The actual problems of Bashkir folklore studies were covered in the serial edition of the collection of scientific articles “Bashkir Folklore». The mid-1970s -early 2000s in the history of Bashkir folklore studies are significant for the increased attention to the publication of samples of Bashkir folklore in Russian, later in English. In the research of the XXI century, emphasis was placed on the poetics of such genres as fairy tales, epics, songs and others; interdisciplinary connections. In the genre of the Bashkir fairy tale according to the experimental method of the famous Russian folklorist, the corresponding member of RAS V.M. Gatsak conducted a study on the problem of the persistence of a fairy tale in time and the transferability of a fairy tale from a “teacher” to a “student” G.R. Khusainova. The XXI century in world folklore is also significant for the increased attention to the reliability of sources. In the history of Bashkir folklore, it is reflected in the monograph by Sh.R. Shakurova, devoted to the textual analysis of the archival primary source of the epic “Ural-Batyr” and its academic alternative (publishing) versions in the first part of the study, and in the second– the phototypic reproduction of the archival primary source of the epic “Ural-Batyr”; the publication of the authentic text of the epic “Ural-Batyr” with parallel submission in Cyrillic, prepared by G.V. Yuldybayeva. Significant events in Bashkir folklore were the preparation and publication of the encyclopedia “Folklore of the Peoples of Bashkortostan”, the translation of the masterpieces of world epic of the Kyrgyz epic “Manas” (2016) and the Yakut epic-olonkho “Nyurgun-Bootur the Swift” (2023) into the Bashkir language. One of the important achievements of Bashkir folklorists is also the implementation of projects under grants from the RGNF.

Introduction

The essay introduces the issue dedicated to World Epics and Puppet Theater

Fox Symbolism in Epics of The Turkish World Epics

Destanlar, Türk kültürünün en temel öğelerinden biridir. Türklerin, sosyal, siyasal, kültürel ve beşerî hayatı hakkında verdiği bilgiler bakımından önemli bir kaynak oluşturmaktadır. Destanların şahıs kadrosu, tipler ve karakterler bakımından oldukça zengin bir kaynaktır. Hayvanlar bu kadronun içerisinde önemli bir yer tutmakta, kahramanın ve diğer karakterlerin en büyük yardımcısı konumundadır. Yaratılış ile başlayan insan ve hayvan etkileşimi ilerleyen zaman içinde ayrılmaz bir bütünlük oluşturmuştur. Bu bütünlük içerisinde hayvan, sosyal yaşamın en önemli unsuru olmuştur. İnsanoğlunun yiyecek, giyim, alet vb. gibi ihtiyaçlarının en temel maddesi konumuna geçmiştir. İnsanoğlu, hayvanları bazı zaman ata/ana görmüş ve soyunu bir hayvana bağlayarak ona bir kutsiyet atfetmiş, bazen onun gücünden korkarak savunma mekanizmasını geliştirmiş, bazen de onun rehberliğinde milleti için büyük mücadelelere, savaşlara girmiştir. Bir milletin hayatı içerisinde bu kadar önem arz eden hayvanın, sembolizm açısından destan metinlerine kattığı değer yadsınamaz bir gerçekliktir. Hayvanlar metinlerde sosyal ve kültürel özelliklerin birer yansıması olarak yer almaktadırlar. Hayvanların metinlerde bu şekilde bulunmasının arkasında bir de sembolik kodlar bulunmaktadır. Bu sembolik kodlarla metnin soyut kültürel özellikleri de keşfedilmektedir. Bu düşünceden yola çıkılarak destan metinlerinde geçen tilkinin işlevleri tespit edilmiş ve sembolik olarak ifade ettiği özellikler değerlendirilmiştir.

Italian Chivalric Literature and Digital Humanities

There is an ever-growing number of Digital Humanities initiatives that explore Italian chivalric literature and its reception in the theatrical and visual arts, from combined digital and print projects that include Italian-language narratives within a panorama of world epics to interactive websites focused on a single epic text. This essay spotlights digital resources that I have found especially fruitful for the study and teaching of Italian chivalric works as well as two websites that I’m in the process of developing and other in-progress digital initiatives that have come to my attention.

The First Naipaul World Epics: From The Mystic Masseur to An Area of Darkness and Beyond , by J. Vijay Maharaj (ed.)

The First Naipaul World Epics: From The Mystic Masseur to An Area of Darkness and Beyond , by J. Vijay Maharaj (ed.)

MANAS DESTANINDA YAS TUTMA, CENAZE MERASİMİ VE AĞIT SÖYLEME GELENEĞİ

Death is a physiological phenomenon that will eventually confront every living thing. Curiosity for the unknown has led to more reflection and research. For this reason, death has been the focus of attention of researchers in many fields such as religion, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and medicine, as well as in the field of literature. Likewise, death appears as the main theme in both Turkish and Kyrgyz epics.In this study, based on the Manas Epic, the mourning, funeral, and lament traditions of the Kyrgyz people will be examined and the information on these issues will be revealed in terms of their similarities with the mourning, funeral, and lament beliefs and practices of the Avshar tribes living in Turkey.Epics are cultural assets that carry people's cultural memory from their historical depths to the present. Based on these features, in this study, firstly, the concept of death in the Manas Epic is discussed. The "Manas" epic, which has a very important place not only in the Turkish epic tradition but also among the world epics, is the longest and only living epic in the world. So it has a good reputation. The traditions, customs, and celebrations of "Marriage-Birth and Death", called "Mourning and Burial", are directly related to the world of myths and beliefs. There are two kinds of death. The first is physical death, the second is spiritual death. As a result of spiritual death, the hero is cleansed of sins, reborn, and continues to fulfill his obligations. There is death, but there is also resurrection due to duty and death again after the mission is completed. Thus, national heroes have immortal characters. When the society is in trouble, while this problem is being tackled, the spirit of the heroes emerges and stands on the side of those who struggle, often fighting in the eyes of the enemy.In the analysis, the funeral ceremony after the death phenomenon was mentioned. It is customary to give food and clothing to the poor after the burial. Today, in both Kyrgyz and Anatolian funeral homes, food is cooked and served to those who come. Although the cost of this meal is supposed to be met by the funeral home, it is usually shared among relatives. The main reason for delaying the burial of the dead, in Anatolia, in the epic of Manas, and among today's Kyrgyz people, is to ensure that distant relatives can attend the funeral on time.Finally, the lament ceremony is discussed. As in the epic of Manas, today's Kyrgyz also bury their dead before taking them to the cemetery. The Qur'an is recited during the burial. Before and after the burial, women continue to lament in the tent. In both cultures, on the 3rd, 7th and 40th days of the death, the Qur'an is recited for the soul of the deceased. Among the Kyrgyz, if the relatives of the deceased do not know how to recite “koshok”, a koshok reciter is found and they get him to recite it. The laments continue for three days after the death event takes place. When the men returning home after the burial are seen, the koshok reciting begins again.

Similarities and Differences between the Yakut Olonkho and the Buryat Uliger: Plot Composition and Motives

The article is devoted to the identification of typological similarities and differences in epic plots and motives in the texts of the Yakut olonkho and the Buryat uliger. The relevance of the stated problem is due to the purpose of obtaining additional materials to confirm the results of earlier studies on establishing the genetic origins and typological connections of the epic creativity of the Yakut and Buryat peoples. A brief review of the study of the problem in the works of domestic folklorists, who developed the theory of the comparative study of the peoples of the world epics; Yakut epic scholars, who considered in their works the historical and typological connections of the Yakut olonkho with the epics of the Sayan-Altai, Mongol-Buryat peoples; Buryat scientists who turn in their research to the processes of historical and cultural mutual influences of the epic heritage of the Yakuts and Mongol-Buryats. Scientific methods of typological, structural-comparative and textological analysis are used. The similarity of the plots and plot motives of the olonkho “Nyurgun Bootur the Swift” by K. Orosin and the uliger “Abai Geser Mighty” by M. Imegenov, which is due to the principles of typological repetition in folklore and cultural and historical contacts of the Yakut and Buryat peoples at different stages of development of the Proto-Turkic peoples inhabiting the territory of Central Asia and South Siberia.

"Greek to Me": Two Versions of Modern Epic in Victorian Bengal

Victorian Bengal saw a number of young writers, working under the influence of Orientalist scholarship, Romantic literary theory, and English poets like John Milton and Lord Byron, attempt to translate the great Sanskrit epic Rāmāyana into a modern world epic. This paper juxtaposes two such attempts: Romesh Chunder Dutt's Rāmāyana (1898) and Michael Madhusudan Dutt's Meghnādbadh kābya ("The Slaying of Meghanada," 1861-2). Read together, I argue, these poems embody two very different ways of recasting a colonial text as worldly. Where Romesh repackages the Rāmāyana within a comparativist rubric that telegraphs its resemblances to Homer or Milton, Madhusudan projects a blasphemous worldliness that stresses his ability to break with the past.

Reception

Chris Davies’ Blockbusters and the Ancient World is the latest addition to a growing body of scholarly literature on cinematic receptions of antiquity. The author takes as his focus the swathe of ancient world epics produced since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, ranging from movies set in the ancient Greek world (including the 2004 films Troy and Alexander, and, from 2007, 300) to the Roman occupation of Britain – as seen in King Arthur (2004), The Last Legion (2007), Centurion (2010), and The Eagle (2011) – as well as those which concentrate on aspects of Christianity (Agora, of 2009, set in Alexandria in the early fifth century ce, as contrasted with the 2004 biblical epic The Passion of the Christ). Structured around a series of case studies of these individual films, the book undoubtedly adds a set of valuable contributions to the scholarly literature on each piece; its real strength lies, however, in the way in which the author draws comparisons between these case studies while simultaneously situating the movies within their wider historical, political, and cultural contexts. Davies’ introduction alone – with a broad overview of the development of cinematic depictions of antiquity from the birth of cinema to contemporary productions, along with definitions of key terms – provides an excellent starting point for those new to thinking about ancient world films, and a comprehensive filmography of works referenced is a useful research tool. There is much here too, however, which will be of value to those seeking more in-depth discussion. Detailed analysis of the films themselves – with attention to staging, casting, and characterization – is accompanied by discussion of critical responses and evidence from published interviews with directors and producers. The author is careful to point out that artistic products often resist straightforward interpretation, and that multiple readings of each film are possible (for example, the critical reception of a movie may infer a different relationship to contemporary politics than the stated intentions of its creative team). He also explores the development and fluidity of genres, and the ways in which several of these films hybridize more than one genre (for example, traces of the western are strongly evident in the Roman Britain epics; and The Passion of the Christ carries striking elements of the horror genre). What results is a sensitive exploration of the films’ relationship to US politics, in the particular context of the ‘War on Terror’ and the US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, which examines ways in which the films ‘have inspired allegorical and metaphorical readings in which the past has been used to contextualise, warn or parallel the present’ (209).

Ancient Indian epics: essence and existence

Статья посвящена исследованию вопроса о месте эпоса в социальной памяти на примере индийского общества. Актуальность темы обусловлена как теоретически, так и практически. Теоретический аспект заключается в эпистемическом измерении нарративов, что в них отражает действительность, а что есть результат коллективного творчества? Практический аспект актуальности связан с потребностью осмысления новых мифов в условиях глобальной конкуренции и когнитивизма, когда граница между фейком и фактом пронизана нитями нарративизма.В условиях глобализации мы имеем беспрецедентные возможности изучать мировые эпосы и их влияние на динамику культур, определить внутренние институциональные и структурные условия, обусловливающие социально-политическую роль эпоса в развитии цивилизаций; установить решающие факторы модернизации мифа; наметить главные направления его трансформации в эпохе модерна.Цель работы – провести ценностно-смысловой анализ древнеиндийского эпоса. Задачи работы: 1) определить место эпоса в древнеиндийской литературе, 2) предложить классификацию индийского эпоса с точки зрения эстетического отношения к миру, 3) дать характеристику эстетических нарративов.Предмет исследования: рассматривается семиосфера индийских эпических произведений. Методы исследования: общелогические, общенаучные (структурный, системный и генетический виды анализа) и частнонаучные (герменевтический, частотный).Результаты: индийский эпос представлен как ценностно-смысловой эстезис, эволюция эстетического отношения, трансцендирование прагматического и гностического. Эстетизация эпического массива объясняется реакцией на рутинизацию текстов, потерю их онтопоэтической значимости.Новизна статьи определяется следующими ракурсами: 1) выделяется особый эстетический тип мифотворчества, 2) акцентирование значение Бхагавата пураны, 2) ставится вопрос о различном этосе и эстезисе ритуальных, гностических текстов и эпический нарраций. Перспективы исследования: изучение социокультурной инноватики эпических текстов Индии, их участия в современной социокультурной динамике, влияние на ноосферные процессы глобального синтеза.Исследование индийского эпоса приурочено к выходу в 2018 г. на российские экраны грандиозного индийского телевизионного проекта 2015-2016 гг. «Сита и Рама», который включает в себя 304 серии и выполнен по мотивам древнеиндийского эпоса «Рамаяна». The paper is devoted to the study of the place of the epics in social memory on the example of Indian society. The relevance of the topic is determined both theoretically and practically. The theoretical aspect is the epistemic dimension of narratives: how do they correspond to the reality and what is there from creative imagination? The practical aspect of research is related to the need to comprehend new myths in the conditions of global competition and cognitivism, when the border between fake and fact is marked with the fine line of narrativity.In the midst of globalization, we have unprecedented opportunities to study the world epics and their influence on the dynamics of cultures, determine their internal institutional and structural conditions that influence the socio-political role of the epic in the development of civilizations; to fix the decisive factors in the modernization of myth; to outline the main directions of its transformation in the era of modernity.The purpose of the work is to conduct a value-semantic analysis of the ancient Indian epic. The tasks of the work are: 1) to determine the place of the epic in the ancient Indian literature, 2) to propose the classification of the Indian epic from the point of view of the aesthetic attitude to the world, and 3) to characterize the aesthetic narratives.The subject of the study: the semiosphere of ancient Indian epics. Research methods: structural, systemic and genetic types of analysis and philosophical hermeneutic.Results: The Indian epic is presented as a value-semantic aesthesis, the evolution of the aesthetic attitude, the transcendence of the pragmatic and the Gnostic. The aesthetic dynamics of the epics is explained by the reaction to the routinization of texts, the loss of their ontopoietic significance.The novelty of the article is determined by the following perspectives: 1) a special aesthetic type of myth-making is singled out, 2) the emphasis of the aesthetic meaning of the Bhagavata Purana is stressed, 2) the question is raised about the different ethos and aiesthesis of ritual, Gnostic texts and epic narrations. Prospects for the study: the study of socio-cultural innovation of India's epic texts, their participation in modern socio-cultural dynamics, the impact of Indian narratives on the noospheric processes of global cultural synthesis.The study of the Indian epic is timed to coincide with the launch in 2018 on Russian screens of the grand Indian television project 2015-2016 “Sita and Rama”, which includes 304 series and is based on the ancient Indian epic “Ramayana”.

An Unknown Early Modern New World Epic: Girolamo Vecchietti’sDelle prodezze di Ferrante Cortese(1587–88)

AbstractThis article discusses an unpublished vernacular Italian New World epic of the 1580s, which narrates the Spanish conquest of Mexico. The work was authored by the traveler, diplomat, and Orientalist Girolamo Vecchietti, and it is dedicated to Ferdinando I de’ Medici, grand duke of Tuscany. Vecchietti’s poem is striking as a rare epic in terza rima, and as the sole surviving early modern Italian epic to center on the deeds of Cortés, rather than Columbus or Vespucci. It is also intriguing for its ambivalent attitude toward the Spanish colonizing enterprise, portrayed initially as a heroic evangelizing mission, but later shown in a more compromised light.

Sujeito imortal, sujeito interpassivo: a ambiguidade da personagem épica

Transcendendo as potencialidades humanas, o animal humano atinge o status de imortal quando resiste e supera a si mesmo. Assim ocorreu com os mártires cristãos e também com os arquétipos da épica universal. Para Badiou (2002), a imortalidade, em síntese, consiste na atitude do homem que se torna sujeito diante de um evento, ou seja, que, a partir de um momento de epifania, entrega-se à verdade do acontecimento ímpar, sendo convocado a uma fidelidade. Por outro lado, para além do processo de imortalidade, o conceito de interpassividade, exposto a partir dos estudos de Slavoj Žižek (2006) e da sua leitura da obra lacaniana, desvenda outra face para as personagens épicas, uma vez que os heróis das epopeias agem por obra dos deuses olímpicos; mesmo aparentando uma personalidade ativa, as personagens não agem por livre e espontânea vontade, mas para cumprir os planos pré-estabelecidos pelas divindades. Pretende-se, neste artigo, refletir sobre a dialogia sujeito imortal X sujeito interpassivo, apontando marcas de ambos os domínios no mundo épico.

Assistant Professor, Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch, Iran

Ferdowsi is one of the greatest poets of Iran whose great work named Shahnameh, is a national epic which is equal to world epics such as Iliados and Odyssee which are Homerus’ work. But its difference with epics of other nations is variety of this book. The book in which adventures of kings and champions has been expressed in mythical, heroic and historical stories. One of its stories is story of Siavash and Soodabeh which its story is very similar to a story from Euripide, Greek tragedy writer: story of Hyppolite and Phedre. This story has also been written by Racine, French poet and tragedy writer and both has created an independent story because subject of story itself has been considerable for them but Ferdowsi has considered to this story as one of Shahnameh adventures which is an introduction to important events. Both stories are about a forbidden and sinful love.In this essay, similarity and difference between story of Siavash and Soodabeh and story of Hyppolite and Phedre is studied. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n9p26

<i>Puritan Conquistadors: Iberianizing the Atlantic 1550–1700</i> (review)

Reviewed by: Puritan Conquistadors: Iberianizing the Atlantic 1550–1700 Thomas O. Beebee Puritan Conquistadors: Iberianizing the Atlantic 1550–1700. By Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006. xiv + 327 pp. Cloth, $60.00; paperback, $24.95. Those contemplating reading Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra’s latest book (his third from Stanford University Press) might wish to take the following self-test, observing which of the following statements they would either agree or take exception with: 1. “‘Creole’ patriotism in Spanish America was largely responsible for spreading the discourse of the colonial regime as demonic” (75). 2. “‘Americans’ need to look to Mexico for the true ancestors of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny” (80). [End Page 378] 3. “No analysis of early modern European colonization can afford to study Iberian and British sources separately (or French and Dutch ones for that matter)” (118). 4. “Iberian demonological views of Nature should inform any interpretation of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest (ca. 1611) as a colonial text” (121). 5. “[T]he United States and ‘Latin America’ (that opaque and seemingly homogeneous space south of the Rio Grande, comprising dozens of nation-states and peoples) are in fact ontologically different” (214). Statement no. 5 is—you guessed it—a trick, a bit of free indirect discourse taken out of context. Clearly contrasting with statement no. 3, it summarizes the supposedly dominant mode of historical thinking about the Americas that Cañizares-Esguerra attempts to deconstruct with this book. To that end, the author wants us to agree with statements 1 through 4, and his book presents a tenacious and richly evidenced argument for us to do so. Thus, the action of “Iberianizing” the Atlantic in the book’s subtitle is carried out by the author (and, presumably, by his readers who will end up convinced of theses 1–4). Literature provides much of the evidence in favor of these theses. Demonology in various forms—Satanic epic (35–82), demonological discourse (83–177)—haunts the main part of the book, with a positive note introduced in the last evidential chapter with the idea of spiritual gardening (178–214) as metaphor for the construction of New Jerusalems in the New World. With the term “Satanic epic,” the author wishes to draw attention to the hitherto neglected role of Satan as a character in many of the New World epics in both Spanish and English—Alonso de Ercilla’s La Araucana (1569–89) and Milton’s Paradise Lost (1677) are perhaps the best-known works to be discussed under this rubric. A key question concerns not so much the depiction of Satan as his choice of allies, which are shown to include Amerindians, Spaniards (in English accounts), conversos, and Nature. The chapter also notes how the English took clues from the earlier Spanish New World epics for their own versions, while inverting the paradigms of saved vs. damned to include the Spaniards in the latter. The Spanish conquest that had been a saving grace for the world appears as hell on earth in many English epics. Conversely, the use of Elizabeth in the discourse of English national providential election parallels the symbology of the Virgin of Guadalupe in New Spain as a sub-plot of the Satanic epic. The shared element of demonological discourse, which Spaniards this time learned from Anglo-Saxons, was typology. Aztecs as inverted Israelites, Satan as the ape of [End Page 379] God, and exorcism with Cross and Bible are some of the figures Cañizares-Esguerra visits, before devoting an entire chapter to the perception of New World nature as inherently demonic, for which Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1611) serves as a master text. Besides literature, graphic art provides much of the evidence in this handsomely illustrated book. More than fifty pictures are analyzed, frequently within the fine print of the captions. So frequent and extensive are these commentaries that they together provide a descant to the text’s main argument. The textual, iconographic, and ideational density of this book will make it a touchstone for ideas and sources; the importance this historian accords to literature in the overall ability of Europeans to “see”—and hence to master—the New World...

Religion, Myth, and Folklore in the World's Epics. The Kalevala and Its Predecessors

Religion, Myth, and Folklore in the World's Epics. The Kalevala and Its Predecessors