Consuming Epigrams

The subject of the research presented in the given paper is the esthetic notion as a special kind of a person’s attitude to the world and themselves. The objective of the paper is to find out the specificity of the implementation of the esthetic function in the language of poetry. The methodological bases of the research are the works by psychologists (L. S. Vygotsky, A. N. Leontiev), linguists (R. O. Yakobson, H. O. Vinokur, L. P. Yakubinsky), philologists (M.M. Bakhtin). The paper shows that the linguistic units in a poetic text subject to esthetic laws are caused by composition, intertextual relations, the author's vision, etc. At the same time, they get a completely new meaning different from the everyday one. As a result, we prove that dissimilarity of the natural language and the language used in works of art “makes” the recipient’s consciousness perceive the text as an esthetic object.

This book examiines the historical and intertextual relationship between European modernism and neobaroque Latin American literature by means of a comparative analysis of the works of Jose Lezama Lima and James Joyce. Revising concepts such as influence, imitation, and appropriation, it portrays modernism as a world aesthetic rather than a Euro-centred movement.

The mid-1890s saw the publication of two seminal critiques of capitalism in Norwegian drama: Bjornstjerne Bjornson’s Beyond Human Power – Second Play (1895), and Henrik Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman (1896) . The obvious differences, as well as the similarities of these plays, invite a comparative analysis. Bjornson’s play is a sociological depiction of class differences and class struggles, expressed in collective action strategies by employers, and a strange mixture of powerlessness and terrorism by the working class. The main references are work relations and social and political collectivities. Nevertheless, identities and close social relations are a necessary part of social structures as well as dramatic plots. The analysis of Bjornson’s play focuses on the relationships between individual lives and individual action on the one hand, and the broad social landscape on the other. John Gabriel Borkman is about a stagnated universe, where all of the main characters are trying to revive the past. Borkman is not about work and collectivities, but about financial capital. To Ibsen, financial capital is the ideal environment for research on the ambitions and shortcomings of individuals. Finance in one sense leads to the aggrandizement of individual power; it makes possible the idea that one man can rule the world. At the same time, there is a world of production in the Ibsenesque universe, as there is a world of social identities in Bjornson. The inspiration for both plays may be found in the developments of capitalism during the latter half of the nineteenth century, but also in their intertextual relationships with Nietzsche and Goethe’s Faust.

African-Language Writing Karin Barber and Graham Furniss "How did this new genre come into being? Why did it assume this particular shape and form rather than another? When or at what point did it assume this new shape and what outside factors contributed to it? As it travelled along Zimbabwe's dusty roads, which roads were open to it and which were closed?" asks George Kahari at the opening of his magisterial study of the Shona novel (1). African-language writing in general offers an unparalleled laboratory in which to ask questions about innovation and creativity about new genres and how they come into being; about the innumerable, protean ways in which orality combines with literacy; about the changing constitution of publics and imagined communities; about cultural nationalism and forms of the imagination that exceed cultural nationalism; and about the self-conception and representation of the individual through writing. African-language writing is a field of intense creative experimentation. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, old written traditions such as those of Ethiopia and the Swahili coast underwent radical transformation, and in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, wholly new written literatures were forged in the context of intense social change, conflict, resistance to domination, and acquisition of new cultural forms. Many written literary genres were pioneered by a new class of literati—mission-educated, often working as teachers or churchmen—and literary texts participated in a discursive sphere established by the African-language newspapers as well as by the school system. They were associated with public debates about progress and modernity. But to a greater degree than literature written in European languages, they were also close to older oral traditions and to local popular culture, offering a view of cultural history from a different vantage point. Literary history happened at high speed. New genres emerged, expanded, and were rapidly transformed, sometimes spontaneously, sometimes as a result of conscious decisions taken by writers' associations or by government bodies. Lone individuals carried out breathtaking experiments, writing away behind closed doors while their people wondered what they were up to. But enduring collective traditions were also established, shared conventions adopted. Simply as a social fact, the profusion, diversity, and dynamism of African-language writing demands to be understood and historically interpreted. But of course it is also more than a social fact. The texts discussed in this special issue are works of the [End Page 1] imagination and constructions of language, unique and often brilliant. Students of African literature could do worse than spend a lifetime learning the language, conventions, allusions, and cultural assumptions that would be needed in order fully to appreciate just one of these texts. And African-language writing is not a closed-off phenomenon; it exists in intertextual relations with anglophone and francophone African literary texts, and provides a perspective on them that can be highly illuminating. African-language creative writing is a fruitful arena for inquiry, then. But in what sense is it a coherent field? Fine individual studies of African-language authors, texts, and genres have been written. But the conceptualization of African-language writing as a field, which Alain Ricard has most recently pushed for,is in its early stages. The beginnings of such an inquiry have gone in two main directions. The first is the production of surveys and overviews documenting the history and distribution of written genres across Africa. Two of these at least (Andrzejewski et al., Gérard) reflect profound and impressively wide-ranging scholarship. They provide an invaluable starting point, for where extensive translations do not exist, it is a major task to bring disparate traditions and histories into a comparative frame. We work in an environment of specialization where individual scholars produce superb bodies of work on a single genre or language tradition without, it seems, expecting specialists on other, adjacent cultures to be the slightest bit interested. The mapping of written African literature (and, in the case of Andrzejewski et al., the mapping together of oral and written traditions from sample cultures across the continent) has provided the basis for a more searching comparative analysis. The other main approach to African-language writing as a field has revolved...

The poetic production of Gallia Belgica is marked by a strong presence of Christian funerary inscriptions, most of them coming from Trier, Augusta Treverorum in Roman times. This paper focuses on the ones that can be dated with relative certainty between the 7th century AD and the beginning of the 8th - that is, well outside of Roman domain -, and particularly on Fuchs 13, a fragmentary piece that offers an interesting glimpse into the evolution of the epigraphic poetic habit and the metrical forms attached to it in late Trier. The philological analysis of this inscription and the comparison with contemporary pieces allow us to acknowledge a pattern: even though it is almost never possible to distinguish a clear and canonical metrical scheme, all of them include sequences that can be considered poetic and whose language can be easily linked not only with classical literary tradition, but also with the rest of verse inscriptions that belong to the same micro-context.

In this article, the poems of the famous modern Kumyk poet Dzhaminat Kerimova for children of preschool and school age are analyzed. The artistic originality of poetic texts is considered, their comparative analysis is given. There are a thematic range, figurative system and poetics of the works in the focus of attention. In the course of the study, we have found that the works of children's lyrics of Dzh. Kerimova are various in the themes and intonation. The deep penetration into the wonderful world of the childhood and transfer in poetic texts of a live children's view of surrounding reality are observed. The author’s poems are original, full of national color. It is established that the lyrical expressions are profound, edification is reflected.

The purpose of the study is to analyze the pictorial and poetic strategies of David Burliuk one of the founders and active participants of the avant-garde processes of the early twentieth century in Russia, to identify the related nature of artistic techniques that resonated in his visual and poetic practice, to trace the proximity of their figurative and semantic functions within the framework of various types of art, which he addressed in his work. The result of the work was an analytical awareness of the kinship and common strategies of the artist and poet Burliuk in the process of the birth and creation of new art of the twentieth century. It is shown that the features and tactics of the artistic movements of the avantgarde of the early twentieth century — impressionism, post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cezannism, cubism, futurism and cubofuturism, usually actualized in relation to the phenomena of visual art, in Burliuk’s work found explication and full realization at the level of verbal and poetic text. It is demonstrated that the complex nature of the artist’s worldview left its mark not only on Burliuk’s paintings, but also colored his poems, revealing in the poetic texts of the author an impressionist, cezannist, cubist, futurist, cubofuturist. A comparative analysis of Burliuk’s paintings and poetic “opuses” revealed that a number of Burliuk's handpainted canvases, created in the manner of Impressionism, Cezanne or Cubism, find almost exact analogues in his poetry. As a result of the comparative analysis, it was revealed what means and techniques the artist transferred to poetic activity, what features of the pictorial phenomenon were reflected in his poetry, what role they assumed in the framework of various types of art. It shows how masterfully Burliuk realized two different hypostases of an artistic personality, how easily he was able to combine creative freedom at the level of form and content, how organically he found ways to implement avant-garde diffusion between different ways of creative worldview.

The poetic interferences of Nicolae Dabija with Nichita Stănescu are evident in many poems of the leader for "third eye" generation, which I analyze in this study using the comparative method of some well-known poetic texts, written by these two famous poets from both sides of the Prut river, who met in Chisinau in 1976. Through the dialogue of the texts, my article aims to reveal the similarities of their poetry and their personal perspectives on creation and the role of the word, identified in unique images such as Nicolae Dabija's "third eye", Nichita Stănescu's "tooth-eyed" vision or the common and distinct meanings like Dabija's 'precuvinte' (pre-words) and Stănescu's "necuvinte" (non-words). The idea of a comparative literary analysis of Nichita Stănescu's poems Înființare, Elegia oului, a noua, Necuvintele with Nicolae Dabija's poetic texts Ochiul al treilea, Precuvintele and Poem, inspired by the vitalist drive and novelty of Stănescu's lyricism, is based on the critical exegesis from Romania and the Republic of Moldova presented in this paper, which refers to the poetic interferences between the works of these two authors. The dialogue of the Nicolae Dabija's "non-words” with the Nichita Stănescu's "pre-words" creates a bridge over the Prut during a time when such a thing was forbidden, restoring the order of the world to reach the primordial word, the logos.

The presented research is devoted to highlighting the stylistic features of the processing genre in the piano work of Zhang Zhao. Zhang Zhao’s work is aimed at preserving the traditional musical art of China and popularizing it in the world music arena. From this point of view, the genre of processing in the work of Zhang Zhao occupies a special place. The composer chose folk songs of various ethnic groups inhabiting the territory of the PRC as material for processing. However, the methods of processing these songs, regardless of their national identity, are very close. The analysis of piano pieces in the genre of processing demonstrated the composer’s penchant for certain kinds of means.The purpose of the research is to determine the palette of means used by the composer Zhang Zhao in his piano pieces, written in the genre of processing.The research methodology is a comprehensive approach, in line with which the methods of culturological, historical, comparative and music-theoretical analysis such as holistic, stylistic and genre are used. In addition, the method of active illustration (E. Vyazkova’s term) aimed at confirming the considered provisions through the involvement of significant visual material in the form of musical examples, poetic texts and illustrations is used. The works of a general nature which cover the issues of style theory including national one were the theoretical and methodological basis of the concept.The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time the characteristic of stylistic features of piano pieces in the processing genre by the composer Zhang Zhao were revealed.Conclusions. Zhang Zhao’s analysis of piano pieces showed that most of these pieces have a structure based on a two-time theme and a small concluding section. The author most often chooses texture and register changes as the main means of development, that is, those means that contribute to the preservation of the original thematic material unchanged. The ostinato of the accompaniment part plays an important role in many of Zhang Zhao’s piano arrangements. At the same time, the predominance of certain developmental methods in the plays analyzed does not exclude the presence of other transformation means. The choice is determined by the desire, firstly, to preserve in the processing as close as possible to the original sound of the thematic material, and secondly, to reveal the full range of expressive potential of the theme in each piece.

This study aims to pinpoint the relevant relation between two literary works which have a relationship with one another in the perspective of comparative literature studies. Data were gathered through the text deconstruction theory method by means of an intertextuality approach. The method is applied to juxtapose two well-known poems, Krawang Bekasi (Indonesia) and The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak (America), which are suspected of having the same content and theme, but their relations were never revealed. This thematic-based study uses a multicultural perspective and is naturally suitable for comparative literature study. The objective of this study was to reveal the existence of Krawang Bekasi as one of the Indonesian poems written by Chairil Anwar and to demonstrate the cultural translation methods, known as cultural intertexts relation, for finding the intertextuality of two literary works. In fact, by tabling line through line, the intertextuality was found to be workable in comparative literature. As a result, the study shows that Krawang Bekasi by Chairil Anwar is an adaptation which borrows from and transforms The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak by Archibald MacLeish. Thus, the intertextual relationship of these two works is revealed.

This article aims to explore the intertextual relationships between Dante’s Divine Comedy and three pieces of creative writing: Chariklia Martalas’ “A Mad Flight into Inferno Once Again”, Thalén Rogers’ “The Loadstone” and Helena van Urk’s “The Storm”. By employing a comparative analysis, I argue that, even though decontextualised, the Comedy still represents a fruitful aesthetic source for representing particularly war-torn and violent contexts such as South Africa during apartheid and colonialism. I explore how the authors, through intertextual references and parodic rewriting, both re-configure the poem and challenge some of the Comedy’s moral assumptions and the idea of (divine) justice. I aim to show how Dantean Hell, far from being an otherworldly realm, is in fact transfigured and adapted to effectively represent (and make sense of) a historical context. In other words, through an intertextual analysis, this analysis tries to understand why and how the Comedy resonates with the South African socio-political (and literary) context.

The research aims to identify the specific features of deictic organization in a fragment of poetic text in Russian and in its English translations. The article examines the ways of expressing deictic fields and realizing deictic shifts, using as an example stanzas XLI-XLII of Chapter 4 of Alexander Pushkin’s novel in verse “Eugene Onegin”, as well as their rendition in eight translations of the first quatrain of stanza XLII of the specified text into English. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that, in addition to the traditionally identified linguistic means of expressing deixis, the analysis also employs relational, textual, and compositional deictic markers (based on the system of concepts of cognitive poetics presented in P. Stockwell’s work). The shift of deictic fields is demonstrated in connection with the overall concept of the literary text under consideration. In addition, a quantitative comparative analysis is conducted of the ways of expressing deictic parameters in the Russian poetic text and in its English translations. As a result of the linguo-cognitive analysis of stanzas XLI-XLII of the specified text in Russian, a shift of three deictic fields is revealed, reflecting the anti-romantic orientation of the work. The analysis of translations of the first quatrain of stanza XLII established that the deictic shift is reflected in all translations and the main characteristics of the deictic fields involved are partially conveyed. However, the specific characteristics of these fields, in particular their relational aspect connected with the social characteristics of the narrator and the reader, as well as the effect of creating uncertainty as a characteristic feature of one of the deictic fields, are not fully represented. The obtained data allow for refining the features of the deictic aspect of the literary text and also open new perspectives for cognitive research in translation studies.

The musical folklore items use to have continuity of general changes in large scale historically. We can see it in the instrumental folk music, singing folklore, traditional choreography developments. It is not easy to make clear analysis of this process and we need a great number of special studies based on it. We can show only the main points or directions of this object in some different levels here. Each tune of particular traditional folk song has a great number of its variations. Each folklore performer does not want to make clear copy while singing the particular song the same way, as he has heard it from the other performer. So, we are able to find hundreds of the same folk tune variants, performed by particular singers in different times and various localities at the folklore archives in Lithuania. We have a nice possibility to make a comparative analysis of definite part (it is impossible to record all the performing variations) of this melody existing in real folklore life this way. And all variants are both in melodic lines and in poetic texts there, as a rule. On the other hand, we also can see the very clear stability of some the most important intonations, motives or phrases in almost all the different recordings of the melody (and text, of course). It shows us a sort of very clear non-written rules, known intuitively for all the traditional folklore performers as the basic forms of all the oral tradition. All sorts of music performance on the stage have their own specific standards. We have to make a folklore program in clear time and sequence. We have to show the interesting things for all the audience only. Therefore, traditional folklore performers have to make themselves as the artists. They have to turn their faces right way, to speak, to sing and to play music enough loudly, to smile and cry according to the stage program. What more terrible things we can ask them to do? Is it the right perspective of the folklore evolution? Thus, in this article we set the main goal – to define, theoretically and practically comprehend the forms of modifications performed by musical folklore, meaning the definitions of its evolution and variability. Methods – scientific analysis, historical, deductive and comparative methods, generalization and hypothesis. The novelty of the research is primarily determined by applying the experience of Lithuanian ethnomusicology in solving the general problems of the musical features development in traditional singing folklore. Conclusions. All the situations presented in this article we would like to define as the changeability, variability or at least developments of folklore (or in folklore). And some of them we can find as development and evolution of all the art and culture history using the folklore (musical, verbal etc.) essence or its elements. Traditional folklore has its own basic laws. We are not allowed to force and to influence them. We can use the traditional folklore elements as the copies of primary folklore items for all the other purposes we need in the history of worldwide culture, but we will never be able to make clear primary items from such copies. This is the essence of everlasting process of folklore changeability in one hand and evolution in another one.

The article reveals the main functions of the symbolism of the moon in the poetry of A. Akhmatova by means of a complex description of direct and secondary (month, moonbeam) names of celestial bodies from the standpoint of functional originality of "cosmism" that existed in the era of Silver Age. The main semantic groups are singled out taking into account cultural and individual-author specificity, the specificity of direct ("moon", "month") and semantically related ("night light", "moon ray") construct of the celestial body are revealed, the individual-author concept of "psychological landscape" acting as a relay of emotions of the lyrical hero is reproduced. The images of celestial luminaries as a purely important component of the national picture of the world, as well as the system of moral and poetic attitudes are substantiating. The nomination of celestial bodies interpret as an interrelation of traditional and poetic perception of the worldview, realised in the works of Anna Akhmatova, a representative of Acmeism. The hypothesis introduces that solar-lunar images are an integral part of Anna Akhmatova's poetry, an important element of "psychology". Akhmatova, an important element of "psychological landscape", metaphorical comprehension of the historical context. Meanwhile, the image of "moon" that is read as a conceptual and semantic unity in several thematic groups and represented by a wide range of lexical units. A comparative analysis of similar and opposite aspects is carried out, the influence of the shape (crescent, disk) and color (green, pink, silver) of the night luminary on the interpretation of mythopoetic representations is determined, individual author's concepts in the interpretation of the negative lunar space, the interrelation of the real and otherworld are substantiated, the idea of ghostliness and illusory nature of what happens at night is actualised. The poetry of Anna Akhmatova distinguishes individual mythopoetic interpretations of the “moon” as an apocalyptic symbol of the mystical otherworldly nature. The statistics of references to the concept "moon" in the poetic text is given. Akhmatova's poetry explores the personal meanings of the concept 'moon', which include it as a background landscape and a symbol of creativity. It says about the fruitfulness of further observations on the interpretation of celestial luminaries and other cosmic objects in Anna Akhmatova's work in the aspect of building an artistic model.

A considerable body of philological and musicological literature exists concerning the thematic elements of panegyric canticles composed during the Petrine era. The reason for this paper to address the subject concerned is the discovery of two samples of this genre in an Old Believer miscellany of spiritual poems from the collection of Academician Tikhomirov (GPNTB SB RAS) written in znamennaya notation. The study aims to establish the methods for adapting the musical form of the genre of Russian New Age music to terms of a more archaic monodic musical system. The study revealed that the manuscript of spiritual poems belongs to the Vygoleksinskaya School of book writing. The composition of the miscellany is similar to the typical one, featuring three canticles dedicated to the Russian-Swedish Wars, with two being part of a series celebrating the Poltava victory. Textual analysis indicates a significant degree of consistency within the poetic text, which adheres to syllabic versification and integrates elements of modern lexicon, Church Slavonic, and Latin. Analysis of the musical text necessitated a reconstruction of the rhythmic implications of the znamennaya notation. Comparative analysis of the reconstructed and original musical texts revealed substantial alterations to the melodic, rhythmic, and compositional structures of the canticles. It is hypothesized that this transformation stemmed from the inscription of melodies that had undergone prolonged oral transmission.