Authors:
Vadim V. Polonsky
(30 downloads)
Abstract
The author claims that interpretation has become a key element
among epistemological tools of the 20th Century humanities as the result of conflicting interference of philological and philosophical methods. Since the 1960s, there
have been attempts in literary studies to resist the expansion of interpretative models that often bear on subjective and ideological speculations and borrow from the
methodology of other disciplines. The essay gives a generalized historical insight
into the dynamics of interrelation between philology and philosophy in the light of
the interpretation problem, highlighting kin hostility and tense interdependence
of these two disciplines deriving from Platonism. It demonstrates the swing of the
pendulum between “philologization of philosophy” and “philosophication of philology” from Wolf, Friedrich Schlegel, and Schleiermacher to Nietzshe and Heidegger.
Describing the current crisis in the theories of interpretation, the author argues
that academic literary studies may overcome this crisis by following the principle
of practical conservatism and methodological reduction. Working in fundamental
philological genres (literary history, textology, preparing edited academic collections of classical works, biographical studies, the study of textual poetics, etc.),
scholars would beneft from abandoning further search for new interpretative strategies and adhering to those methods that were already developed within the tenets
of the classic 19th Century philology. This way, it would be possible to overcome the
current overlapping between philology and philosophy that, in its turn, more and
more conspicuously reorients itself from interpretation as a form of actual statement
towards a genre of commentary on the heritage of the past.
Keywords: interpretation, philology and philosophy, hermeneutics, commentary
Authors:
Andrey F. Kofman
(74 downloads)
Abstract
The article is the outcome of the theoretical research prepared for
the encyclopedia in progress entitled Dictionary of Literary Trends in the Twentieth
Century Europe and America. This is the frst such encyclopedia known to exist, with
no predecessors in Russia or abroad. The encyclopedia material is organized around
the term “literary trend” that defnes its specifcity. The author examines the history
of this concept in Russian and Soviet literary criticism introducing a number of
contraversial interpretations. A different situation is observed in Western European
and American literary studies where this theoretical problem does not seem to exist and such terms as “trend,” “movement,” and the like are seen as contingent on
specifc contexts of their applicability. This pragmatic approach shall be used in the
Dictionary as well. The author introduces the term “artistic community” that goes
beyond the scope of individual poetics and should be used as a selective criterion for
the encyclopedia material. As the work with the glossary has shown, this criterion is
a verbal designation of a certain artistic community that is either coined by artists
themselves or by critics. However, this criterion is not as primitive as it may seem.
It implies — already in the given name or in the self-name — a number of critical
operations: statement or declaration of aesthetic similarities and common aesthetic
principles shared by a number of authors; their union on these grounds; a brief
description of these aesthetic similarities coined in the name of the trend that is
intended not only to identify a certain artistic community but also to differentiate
it from others. In the case of self-naming, the recognition of the phenomenon’s value
is added. However differently the names of communities are verbarly articulated,
each name is informative, semantically rich, and reflects different types of artistic
communities discussed in the article.
Keywords: literary criticism, dictionary, literary trend, literary movement, artistic community, name
Authors:
Vladimir D. Sedelnik
(43 downloads)
Abstract
The problem of the author’s national identity manifested itself as part
of the nation-making process and aggravated at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, with the spread of theories about the superiority of nations. This especially
concerned those states that became independent of their mother countries while
sharing with them the same language, such as Switzerland, Austria, and Canada; it
became difcult to determine the national identity of such major authors as Keller,
Hesse, Rilke, and Ramuz. Also, there was tension between such terms as German
and German-language, French and Francophone, English and Anglophone, etc.
To solve this problem, a special classifcation different from the methods of traditional comparative studies was needed. Slovakian scholar D. Ďurišin suggested
a classifcation based on the category of the inter-literary (inter-literary process,
inter-literary historicism, and inter-literary community) that allows examine the
specifcity of literary interaction both on the level of national and literary processes and in the global literary context. To fulfl this goal, he had to modernize the
entire existing terminology of comparative studies. The author of the essay bears
on this classifcation and applies it to the case of Swiss literature demonstrating how
within the framework of “inter-literary communities” such as German-language
Switzerland, Austria, and Germany we observe mutual enrichment based on cultural feedback. Inter-literary relations suggest not passive exchange of “influences”
but competitiveness and struggle. Swiss authors writing in German, French, and
Italian even when published in Germany, France, and Italy do not realize them selves as full participants of the literary processes in these countries; they are not
altogether alien there but not native either being citizens of a different state. At the
same time, they do not feel comfortable even within their own national community,
they suffer from the “smallness” of their native land and long for the grandeur of the
mother countries, for global historical events that feed the national literatures of the
latter. This cluster of controversies is a consequence of the “double national identity” (Ďurišin). Double in this case may be also understood as “ambiguous,” characterized by inner fragmentation and conflict and sometimes, as this essay shows, by
genuine dramatism.
Keywords: nation, national identity, double national identity, national consciousness, Ďurišin, inter-literary, inter-literary community, inter-literary process, inter-literary classifcation
Authors:
Alexander B. Kudelin
(41 downloads)
Abstract
The article examines correlations of historiographical and literary
aspects within the seminal text of Arabic classics “The Life of the Prophet” (Al-sīra
al-Nabawiyya ) by Ibn Isḥāq – Ibn Hishām. We build our analysis around Al-sīra
by placing it against two essential elements of pre-Islamic and early Islamic lore of
the Arabs; namely, the accounts of tribal battle clashes knows as ayyām al-ʻarab
(the days of the Arabs) and khabars (i.e. “tidings,” “news,” “reports”), which
contain information of historical, biographical, or amusing nature. Our analysis
shows that the content and some operative specifcs of the ayyām al-ʻarab and
khabars were brought to bear upon the narrative of Al-sīra and helped to establish
its intermediate position between a work of literature and a historiography.
Thus, “The Life of the Prophet” employs different modes of viewing reality —
from historiographical methods of chronicling events (which look back to
khabars) to literary techniques of coloring these events and putting them into
a coherent narrative form (which are genetically similar to ayyām al-ʻarab). By
retrospectively observing the Ibn Isḥāq – Ibn Hishām writing against the ayyām
al-ʻarab and khabars in the light of the achievements of modern historiography,
we may venture certain conclusions. The work of Ibn Isḥāq — Ibn Hishām, as well
as the works of Arabic historians written over a century later, extensively drew
upon the days of the Arabs and khabars. It is to these mainstays of pre-Islamic and
early Islamic Arabic lore that “The Life of the Prophet” is indebted in manner and
form: it looms large between historiography and literature; it brings together two
different tendencies — a search after documentary precision and after artistic and
coherent depiction of the narrated events.
Keywords: Arabic studies, pre-Islamic and early Islamic narratives, Ibn Isḥāq, Ibn Hishām, Al-sīra al-Nabawiyya, ayyām al-ʻarab (the days of the Arabs), khabars (akhbār), Medieval studies
Authors:
Alexander E. Makhov
(35 downloads)
Abstract
Johann Sebastian Bach’s Passions are considered to be a synthesis
of dramatic and lyric principles. Traditional comparison of Passions with musical
drama or ancient tragedy does not exhaustively express the nature of the genre
because in the Passions, dramatic action coexists with a lyrical dimension where
the action is not shown or narrated but turns out to be the trigger for compassion.
Voices expressing compassion are designated by Bach in vague terms, as a certain
“I” or “We” unidentifable with any particular person. In the lyrical episodes of
Bach’s Passions, a singing voice does not allow any identifcation in the terms of
personality, in the same way as the speaker’s voice remains unidentifable in the
lyric poem. The “I” singing arias in Passions is the “lyrical I” (Margarete Susman)
in the strict sense of the term. The principle of non-identity of the voice with
a person is deeply rooted in the history of liturgical Passions. In the medieval
Passion, a single voice (a defnite intonation, or a manner of singing) could be
associated with a group of characters (apostles, Jews etc.), or on the contrary, a
single character could be endowed with different voices. Dramatic and lyrical dimensions of Passions form a unity which is supported by certain rhetorical devices. Antanaclasis (repetition of a word but each time with a different meaning) establishes thematic connections between adjacent dramatic and lyrical statements;
apostrophe (address to the absent or fctional audience) serves as a “shifter” that
switches between the dramatic and lyrical dimensions. However, there is also an
undeniable emotional tension between these two dimensions. Tragic effects of dramatic action are opposed to the lyric meditation which, paradoxically, fnds joy
in Jesus’ sufferings. This is why in the music of Passions, serene, idyllic, and even
dancelike images sometimes emerge amidst the most tragic moments of the action.
Bach’s music expresses the idea of joy found in Jesus’ Passion — the same idea that
Martin Luther had expressed in his “Sermon on the Meditation of Christ’s Holy
Passion” (1519).
Keywords: Passions; voice and character; lyrics and drama; lyrical I; antanaclasis; apostrophe
Authors:
Vera V. Shervashidze
(36 downloads)
Abstract
The debut of Maurice Barrès, his trilogy The Cult of the Self immediately won the reader’s attention. In the 1890s, his works evoked increasing
interest. His contemporaries read them as a fascinating narrative about the drama
of European consciousness and the attempts to overcome this drama. However,
after the author’s death, the interest of readers and researchers to his works decreased that may be explained by his fascination with ideas of nationalism, or
boulangisme, especially during the war. The writer was accused of nationalism,
however his nationalism was but a “replica” of his early ideas about the “culture”
of “the self.” According to Barrès, all major themes of his work were reflected in
the frst trilogy of The Cult of the Self. Later in his career, revealing the typological similarity of the processes taking place in the inner “self” and within the nation, he wrote about degradation of the “self” and degradation of the nation in
parallel. Portraying “the disease of the century” and seeking its recovery, Barrès
introduced the theme of the ancestor cult as a means of moral redemption in his
late work. The present study of linguistic, cultural, and historical properties of
Barrès’s work intends to introduce one of the greatest turn-of-the-century writers
into the Russian academic context.
Keywords: the cult of “self,” the drama of European consciousness, nationalism, boulangism, nation, the “disease of the age”
Authors:
Veronika D. Altashina
(20 downloads)
Abstract
Conversation was highly relevant for the 17th and 18th century
French aristocratic culture; a simple talk quickly grew into a “real” social ritual
with its inner structure and “poetics.” Likewise, it influenced French literature
that used a dialogue as a mode of narration, a way of expressing historical and
philosophical ideas. Under the influence of the parlor culture, there developed a
widespread genre of a novel-dialogue which origin may be traced back to the ancient tradition including the works of Plato who maintained ontological priority
of the dialogue; in the dialogue, many philosophers have seen conditions necessary for the appearance of the individual and subjective conceptualization (“I”
needs “You” for the sense of self). Dialogue is the form of narration in the novels
by Crébillon-fls (1707–1777) La Nuit et le moment ou les matines de Cythère: dialogue (1755) and Le Hasard du coin du feu. Dialogue moral (1763). Both novels
represent high society and focus mainly on the life of “libertines” who practice
the principles of freedom of body and spirit yet at the same time are constrained
by dominant behavior rules including the rules of conversation. Crébillon is skillfully using a widespread conversational form for popularizing the ideas of sensualism and libertinage. Also, Crébillon is employing dialogue as a device to make his
works diverse and psychologically deep (cf.: a dialogue of a character with himself
as he hovers between opinions; ongoing dialogue of the author with the reader;
dialogue with other authors by direct and hidden quotes from their work; references to the author’s own works).
Keywords: novel-dialogue, Crébillon-fls, dialogism, diegesis, libertinage, Enlightenment
Authors:
Anastasia V. Golubtsova
(22 downloads)
Abstract
The article analyzes various concepts of modernity in Italian literature
at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Modernity is considered a key category of the
literary process of the period: different views of modernity reveal philosophical, historical, and aesthetic ideas of the major authors and literary currents. The term modernity
in its relation to Italy at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries may be understood in two
different ways: as a specifc time period after the unifcation of Italy and as an aesthetic
ideal, both reachable and unreachable. Modernity as a historical period is inseparable
from the sense of disappointment and awareness of Italian backwardness and provincialism. The Scapigliati manifest their socio-critical position as a Romantic conflict
between individual and society, Verism represents the same idea as a tragic clash of traditional peasant world and modernity that is destroying it. Luigi Pirandello belongs
to the same socio-critical tradition. The sense of weariness and decadence is one of the
aspects of modern worldview: Gabriele D’Annunzio expresses it in the form of decadent
aestheticism; the Crepusculars reject modernity and replace it with the idea of everyday
life; Luigi Pirandello puts a special emphasis on the state of perplexity and confusion experienced by a modern man. From the aesthetic point of view, modernity in Italy begins
as a struggle against Romanticism; however, here we encounter the controversial nature
of the concept again. Giosue Carducci and the Scapigliati reject Italian Romanticism
but turn to European Romanticism trying to overcome Italian cultural backwardness.
A Verist writer Luigi Capuana elaborates a positivist ideal of modern literature and yet
abandons it later. D’Annunzio sees the ideal of modern art in restoring cultural continuity. Futurists, on the contrary, understand modernity as breaking with tradition. Thus,
all aesthetic interpretations of modernity in Italy focus on one intention — to overcome
Italian backwardness and isolation and make Italy part of European culture again.
Keywords: modernity, progress, Romanticism, Giosue Carducci, Scapigliatura, Verism, Gabriele D’Annunzio, the Crepusculars, Luigi Pirandello, Futurism
Authors:
Alfred A. Matsevitch
(25 downloads)
Abstract
The article examines the development of national self-identification in the three main countries of the Scandinavian region — Denmark, Norway,
and Sweden. All the three countries have been interconnected for centuries, at
least since the first millennium due to their geographical proximity and linguistic affinities, and this fact fostered their parallel historical, political, and cultural
development in spite of their differences, contradictions, and conflicts, including military conflicts and territorial claims (as for example, Denmark’s failed
attempt to dominate the Baltic region and to found a united Scandinavian state
under Danish supremacy). The problem of self-identification in Scandinavian
countries strongly manifested itself at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries
characterized by intensive industrial growth, urbanization, and the increase of
cosmopolitan, global tendencies threatening to destroy cultural traditions and
welfare of these countries. As a result, there sprang a tendency to preserve and
resurrect historical, cultural, and literary monuments, to turn to national history and especially to peasant traditions, customs, and national folklore as opposed to new urban values.
Keywords: Scandinavia, national self-identifcation, cultural monuments, literary monuments, peasant traditions
Authors:
Andrey V. Korovin
(23 downloads)
Abstract
Literature has been central to Icelandic culture in the history of the
nation. Icelandic immigrants in the U.S. created an original literature in their native
tongue that, on the one hand, continued a rich Icelandic literary tradition going
back to sagas and Edda texts, on the other hand, adopted New World themes and
images and was influenced by literary forms inherent in American culture. American-Icelandic Literature exists as an independent cultural phenomenon and belongs
to both cultures: American and Icelandic. Icelandic-American authors did not lose
their national identity when writing in English as they preserved national narrative
and poetic forms yet at the same time were part of American literature. National borders in the world literature are mainly defned by geographic and linguistic
factors. The concept of national literature very often draws on the concept of national identity, literature being one of the most important components of cultural
self-identifcation. Usually, immigrant literature intended for a specifc immigrant
community, is interesting only to this community and is not seen as part of national
culture in the home country. But in the case of Icelandic-American literature, it is
possible to say that this literary tradition did not break its connections with Iceland,
and regardless of the fact that Icelandic-American authors were writing in English,
their works became part of Icelandic cultural heritage.
Keywords: literature, immigration, authors, Icelandic culture, USA, Canada, Icelandic language, English Language, national traditions
Authors:
Yuri Y. Barabash
(25 downloads)
Abstract
The essay analyzes a specifc case of Ukrainian writer Yaroslav Melnik whose literary career is often related to the so called new literary immigration.
Melnik has lived for the last twenty fve years outside of Ukraine, has published
(and sometimes written) his books in different European languages and in different European countries and has yet preserved his mother tongue as the main language of his work. The essay discusses a novel, novellas, short stories, and parables
written in Ukrainian with the help of which Melnik has reentered in Ukrainian
literary space after a long lapse. These works characterized by existential problems, poetics of myth, parabola, and absurd, akin to European modernism (Kafka,
Kamu, Hesse, and Shultz) and 20th Century Ukrainian literary modernism, determine a specifc place of the author in modern Ukrainian literature. The essay
scrutinizes such seminal themes for Melnik as anti-totalitarian and anti-global
thrust, alienated person dispersed in the “multitude” and blindly submissive to
external power and such constant metaphorical images-concepts of his fction as
“forest man,” “selfhood,” “other reality,” “close space — distant space.” Rejecting
narrow interpretations of national tradition, Melnik insists, not without polemical bias, on the priority of universal human values. As the essay demonstrates,
there is no contradiction between the national and the universal in Melnik’s work;
instead, he seeks their synthesis. The organic inclusion of universal human values
in the national literary element and vice versa the inclusion of national Ukrainian
properties in the global, universal, all-human context, are seen as two sides of the
same process.
Keywords: еmigration, Ukrainian language, identity, national, universal, polylog
Authors:
Anatoly S. Demin
(25 downloads)
Abstract
The essay focuses on the understudied question of the poetics
of Old Russian literature: it is the frst study of the kind that analyzes semantic
interaction of different generic forms in the works of the period. The essay is
comprised of fve section each devoted to a specifc work. The frst section examines
historical narrative in its relation to sermons, eulogies, and biblical excerpts in
The Tale of Bygone Years (the beginning of the twelfth century) and comes to the
conclusion that the chronicler was not content with the negligence of his listeners
and readers. The second section examines the interrelation of factual material and
sermon in Novgorodskaa First Chronicle (the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries)
and reveals the chronicler’s severe attitude towards his contemporaries. The third
section examines a series of two works by Moscow Dyak Rodion Kozhuh as part
of Sofyskaya Second Chronicle and shows the author’s personal inclination to the
expressiveness of style. The fourth section examines a combination of prosaic and
rhymed fragments from the Saying of Avraamy Palitsyn written in the 1620s and
comes to the conclusion that the author was inclined to philosophically reflect on the
Time of Troubles. Finally, the ffth section examines a combination of the rhymed
narrative with poetical sermons in The Story of Unfortunate Misfortune (1660s)
and shows the author’s pessimistic mindset. The essay ends with a very tentative
conclusion: the interaction of different generic forms of narration was typical for the
whole оf Оld Russian literature. The variety of purposes and mindsets prompted
authors to employ various generic types of narration.
Keywords: Оld Russian literature, poetics, generic types of narration, phraseology
Authors:
Natalia D. Bludilina
(22 downloads)
Abstract
This article examines one of the pages of the history of Russian
Freemasonry as a philosophical and ideological trend within the circles of reflective minds of the Russian society and its influence on the literary process; in particular, it explores a connection of Freemasonry rationalist philosophy with the
“journeys of the mind” in the works of M. M. Kheraskov and his Moscow literary
circle (A. P. Sumarokov, A. A. Nartov, A. A. Rzhevsky, Alex and Simon Naryshkin,
D. Anichkov, J. I. Bulgakov, V. I. Maikov, and I. F. Bogdanovich) that to a certain
extent reflected complex processes of the development of spiritual culture in the
eighteenth century Russia. For the members of Moscow literary circle, a journal
was not only the most efcient way to establish and maintain contacts with the
readers but also the means of enlightening contemporaries introducing them to
literature. These literati, for the frst time in history, developed a group with its
own philosophical, political, and literary position: they claimed that enlightened
mind creates and perfects a soul that is open to kindness and love and that moral
life is based on the awareness of the moral imperative. The essay analyzes didactic
essays by the above mentioned authors and their translations (from Montaigne,
Fontenelle, Voltaire, Dodsli, and Gellert — a circle of spiritual reading they promoted) in chronological order of their publication in the magazines issued in the
1760 ‘s: “Useful Jollifcation,” “Free Hours,” “Monthly Essays Serving to Instruct
and Entertain,” “Idle Time,” and “Hardworking Bee.” As the analysis reveals,
they understood enlightenment mainly as self-knowledge and self-improvement
of a single individual; intellectual connection was reduced to the narrow circle of
single-minded and educated persons. To understand the “laws of the mind” and to
build a life of body and soul on their basis was the goal that Russian Freemason authors pursued as they attempted to develop and promote a new moral that would
rely not on religious authority but on the supremacy of reason.
Keywords: Russian literature; The 18th century; M. M. Kheraskov; Freemasonry; rationalism; literary magazines; poetry; didactic essays
