Collected Papers of the XXIII Congress of the ICLA
On July 24-29, 2022, the XXIII Congress of the International Association of Comparative Literature “Re-Imagining Literatures of the World: Global and Local, Mainstreams and Margins” was held in Tbilisi. More than a thousand scientists from many countries of the world participated in the congress. This edition is the collection of the abstracts presented at the congress.
Georgian Comparative Literature Association (GCLA)
Elegy and the Melancholic Public from “9/11” to “Trumpland”: Ayad Akhtar’s Homeland Elegies in Context
This paper examines why and how the genre and tropes of the elegy have returned to US literature and culture in recent decades, namely after the terrorist attacks of “9/11” in 2001 and in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. It starts by referring to different works which make use of elegiac narratives and aesthetics to comment on social and political contexts in the US: works that emerged after the 11th of September 2001 such as Mohsin Hamid Reluctant Fundamentalist (2005) and others written after the economic recession, such as Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance (2016) and Nomadland by Chloé Zhao (2017). The paper will, thus, analyse in more depth Ayad Akhtar’s acclaimed novel, Homeland Elegies (2020), a book that fictionalizes biographical ele­ments in order to comment on the economic and social changes experienced by the United States during the last five decades. The paper will demonstrate how, in this novel, the elegy is both a work or mourning and a critical examination of the zeitgeist of the last two decades in the US, which pays particular attention to the aftermath of “9/11,” the impact of the economic recession and the social climate in the USA during Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Unconscious Motifs and Gender Trouble in Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood
The above-mentioned article reviews unconscious motifs and gender trouble in Djuna Barnes’ novel Nightwood. American modernist writer, a member of minorities due to her sexual orientation, had always been consi­dered as an eccentric and audacious person in Parisian society. The charac­ters of Nightwood have to fight against their unconscious that is presented not only as the event of specific period of mankind but the problem existing from ancient times to modern life. Djuna Barnes shed light on topics and issues that had rarely been dis­cussed publicly, including non-traditional sexual orientation, the characters’ search for status as members of society, and a permanent conflict between conscious and unconscious. These topics are presented within a fictional set­ting, whereas great importance is attributed to the symbolism of decoration together with the appearance of the characters and each of their gestures. Through the above-mentioned devices, the novel creates a sense of spacious­ness and despite presenting one specific epoch, it does not belong to any given period of time because it can be associated with the Elizabethan tragedy as well as with king James’s epoch. In the article I do analyze the sexual experiences and unconscious desi­res of Robin Vote, Matthew O’Connor, Nora Flood and Jenny Petherbridge. Robin represents the troubled nature of an animal and child with bisexual desires. Matthew O’Connor is the mythological Tiresias who appears in the novel as a hermaphrodite Parisian gynecologist. Nora Flood and Jenny Petherbridge present lesbian characters with childhood traumas.
The objective of this article will be a comparative analysis of two lite­rary works. One is the trajectory of Carolina Maria de Jesus, 60 years ago, with her “Quarto de Despejo” (Dump Room) and the other is the repercussion in 2020 of José Falero’s work, “Os Supridores” (The Suppliers). Within this com­pa­rative analysis, the question we ask is the same that makes us think about the, among many, reflections on racism in Brazil and how it all appears – or disappears – in the works of male and female black authors. This is the hypothesis that emerges: after so many years the literary situation, literature with black characters and male and female black authors, does not seem to take a different direction. The narratives of the two authors would not have changed regarding the social horizons of the places where they live. The com­parative and social analysis will provide these elements in Carolina's autobiographical speech, a life narrative, and in Falero's speech, in literary fic­tion of youngsters working in a supermarket. And, in this sense, it will also listen to the recent speeches of contemporary writers such as Paulo Scott, Jeferson Tenório and Itamar Vieira Júnior.
Language and Lesser Forms of Language: Arabi-Malayalam Negotiating the Canon with Malayalam :iterary Listoriographies
This chapter examines the formative relations between Malayalam and Arabi-Malayalam, a scriptorial variant of Malayalam that employs Arabic script and popular among the Mappila Muslim community of Malabar region of the present Kerala. As a linguistic form of peculiar scriptorial pattern and eth­nic-religious affiliation, Arabi-Malayalam had been invariably been over­looked, appropriated, and misrepresented in seminal documentary records of Malayalam such as historiographies, dictionaries, etc. This has undoubtedly been conducive to the near-extinct state of the linguistic form. This particu­lar paper examines four selected major literary historiographies of Malayalam written across a span of almost a century, i.e. the ones written by P. Govinda Pillai (1881), R. Narayana Panickar (1941), Ulloor S. Parameswara Iyer (1954), and Dr. K. Ayyappa Paniker (1977). This will not only facilitate a dia­ch­ronic view of the mutualities between both the linguistic forms, but also shed light on the continuities and disjunctures between them. Consistent across these works is the appraisal of Arabi-Malayalam as no longer part of ‘the language’ or as a lesser form of the language. This practice of lessening, the paper argues, was administered through a continual discursive praxis of historiographical manoeuvring and selective documentation. The paper em­phasises the act of ‘folklorization’ which serves the Mappila literary practices in Arabi-Malayalam to be temporalised in a primitive pre-modern time and space on the literary timeline of the region. Hence the category of folklore is discerned not only as an aesthetically driven one, rather a politically moti­vated one as well.
Magical-Realistic Motifs and Mystic Rituals in Modern Georgian and Latin American Novels (A Man Was Going Down the Road of Otar Chiladze and Lituma en los Andes of Mario Vargas Llosa)
Typological analogies are often revealed in fiction texts that are created in different cultural-geographic areas. This fact can be accounted for not only by similar fundamental changes in political and economic-cultural spheres, but by many other reasons as well. Such analogies are particularly frequently revealed through the usage of the method of magical realism. The present research analyzes such analogies. For this purpose, it compares a novel by Peruvian Nobel Prize Winner, Mario Vargas Llosa, Lituma en los Andes (Death in the Andes) (1993), with the novel by a renowned Georgian writer Otar Chiladze, A Man Was Going Down the Road (1973). These two novels have a noteworthy common passage, i. e. semi-real and semi-mystical location, dining-room: in Otar Chiladze’s novel it is an underground cellar of Bakha (Bacchus), in Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel it is a village dining-hall of Dionysius. Bakha / Bacchus and Dionysius are the prototypes of Ancient Greek god of wine, Dyonisus. However, they reveal a significant difference: Bakha’s (Bacchus’) tavern is an aesthetic relaxing place bearing mythical symbols. As for the dining hall of Dionysius, it is a place of worldly passions and drunkenness, deprived of any sacred features. One more noteworthy identical detail is the cult of the Moon. In the novel A Man Was Going Down the Road, the High Priestess of the Moon is a woman, the sister of King Ayet, Kamar, who appoints her niece, Medea, as her successor. In the novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, the wife of Dionysius, Donna Adrianna (Ariadne), tells the detective Lituma about the worshipping ritual of the cult of the Moon. And she believes that through this ritual of sacrifice, the ancient dwellers of the Andes attained peaceful and happy life. The research is based on semiotic, hermeneutic and comparative me-thods of analysis. Certain function-bearing signs, symbols, codes and struc-tures in fiction have been decoded and interpreted. In addition, comparative analysis has revealed typological nature of the mentioned analogies in the discussed novels.
Georgian Literature as Part of World Literary Heritage. A Brief Introduction
Digital Cultures of Horror in Mónica Ojeda’s Fiction
The Internet is a world where all kinds of people with different interests, motivations, and worldviews browse and interact with each other. These interactions have given rise to diverse digital cultures, some of which can be called Digital Cultures of Horror. As an inhabitant of the contempo­rary world, Mónica Ojeda is aware of these cultures’ dark themes and envi­ronments and how they shape the lives of their members, so she has used them to create her fiction and depicts the dreadful side of human beings. Mónica Ojeda describes the horrors of the Internet and digital cultures in her novels Nefando (Nefandous), where she touches on the subject of the Dark Web and its perverse and violent content through a creepy video game, andMandíbula (Jawbone), where she unveils how the digital folklore stories of horror called creepypastas induce fear and affect the lives of a group of teenagers. With this in mind, this paper argues that Mónica Ojeda’s fiction represents the crossroads between horror and technology that reveal the digital cultures of horror that exist on the Internet.
The Rhetoric of Videogame between Elocutio, Dispositio and Inventio: a Theoretical Proposal
The hegemony of digital culture has imposed a shift in the way of under­standing narrative logics, which can no longer ignore a transmedia perspective. The task of comparative literature should be to study the new narrative modes using its own tools – especially rhetorical ones – through to a comparison between the different media that takes into account the specificities of each one. The aim of this intervention is therefore to study the rhetoric of the videogame, the figural set suitable for its specific narratives. From the figurality of dispositio, we have diffe­rent perspective modes through the camera control and the camera angles between first person, third person or isometric. In elocutive figurality, we find direct effects on the level of expression such as photography between the use of light and colors, or the difference between the use of music in a diegetic and extra-diegetic way. Finally, the figurality of the inventio can be reread according to the intuitions of Northrop Frye in Anatomy of Criticism relating to the degree of stature of the character: based on the freedom offered to the player and his way of interfacing with the physics of the game – intended both as the environment that like the other characters –, the videogame can change its narrative arrangement, now con­figuring itself according to a mythical mode – the player has full control of the surrounding world as it is totally superior to it, as in Minecraft and in the crafting games –, or romantic mode – the player has more limited control but can still inti­mately affect the structures, as in the latest Zelda or Portal –, or high-mimetic mo­de – the player has no control over the environment, but is superior to other cha­racters as in most video games centered around the combat system –, and so on.
Post-Yugoslav in Others’ Languages: Memory and Identity among 1.75 Generation Writers
There have been many discussions about the common cultural space embracing the former Yugoslavia countries. Under the term of “post-Yugoslav literature,” scholars have argued the importance of works produced by exile writers, such as Dubravka Ugrešić and David Albahari, and their potentiality to transcend the national boundaries. Is the post-Yugoslav literature a transitional phenomenon, as some critics contend, or will it be a lasting legacy? To consider this question, this presentation will examine and compare two works written by the younger generation of novelists, Sofija Stefanovic and Pajtim Statovci, who wrote in their adopted country’s language. Stefanovic’s novel Miss Ex-Yugoslavia (2018) chronicles the story of a young woman who left Serbia in her childhood and grew up in 1990s Australia. Statovci’s first novel, My Cat Yugoslavia (Finnish: Kissani Jugoslavia) (originally published in 2014, translated into English in 2017, and translated into Serbian in 2020) explores two intertwined stories: The first story follows a young man who moved to Finland from Kosovo as a child, and the second story begins with the youth of his mother, set in the 1980s Kosovo. The novels of Stefanovic and Statovci differ greatly in their style and structure. In addition, the protagonists’ attitudes towards the Yugoslavia era are diagonally opposite: one is inclined to nostalgia, and the other is prone to resentment. Nevertheless, there are interesting affinities. One such example is the personification of Yugoslavia, which is traditionally represented as female but represented as male in both stories. With this clue to go on, this presentation will explore the question of memory, gender, and identity in an ever-changing post-socialist culture.
Where is the Solution in Case of Moral Degradation Acccording to Guram Dochanashvili's Novel "Boulder on Which Once there was a Church"
Guram Dochanashvili's novel "Boulder on Which Once there was a Church"expresses the moral degeneration and spiritual crisis of post-Soviet Georgia in the 90s, which is opposed by the eternal ideals and the phenome­non of faith reflected in art. The novel presents an inner monologue of one person, unworthy (author alter ego). This reality is tragic, because the works depict people desperate for the brutality of the civil war, and the question "Where did it all begin" is constantly heard and repeated like refrain "Where is salvation?" In order to escape from the devaluation of spiritual values and to save the nation, according to this book, it is necessary to return to eternal values. Only a material welfare society is doomed to degeneration, and the only solution is to return to the Christian faith, which implies the establishment of moral ideals and moral purity. One of the best parts of the novel is the postmodern texts created as a result of the use of artistic forms of Georgian oral tradition. The whole work is a combination of tests of different genres: it is a peculiar collection of essays, notes and small novels or memoirs written about distinguished wri­ters and musicians. All of this is perceived as an attempt by a person in a tragic post-Soviet environment to escape the unacceptable, soul-destroying reality and find spiritual peace in the eternal realm of beauty and the Christian faith.
The Trauma of Internal Displacement in Teona Dolenjashvili's Novel “The Bird Will Not Fly Out”
The reflection of the conflicts of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region is interestingly and multifacetedly presented in modern Georgian literature, in these types of texts special attention is paid to the image-icon of the displa­ced person. In this context, Teona Dolenjashvili's novel The Bird Will Not Fly Out is interesting. The text is based on real stories of displaced people from Abkhazia and Syria, which allows the author to present the essence of internal displacement in a global context as one of the most painful problems of the modern era. The bearer of the stigma of an internally displaced person is a displaced girl from Abkhazia – Nata, who managed to escape from the burning Sokhumi at the age of six, although she constantly lives with those painful memories that time could not dispel, moreover, the compulsively in­flicted trauma of her childhood changed her worldview forever and even be­co­ming an already famous photojournalist, war as a ghost, always accom­panies her. This novel exactly fits into and is in line with the theoretical frame­work of post-colonialism, internal displacement, victory and collective trau­ma, the author with intense emotional passages manages to outline the con­cept of internal displacement as a collective trauma in the background of war, the most destructive event for humanity.
The Free Verse and the Freedom of Expression in Soviet and Post-Soviet Georgian Poetry
The paper will discuss the role of the free verse in diversifying the poetic process in Georgian literature of Soviet/Cold War period and after. The intensification of this role in Georgian poetry of the period of the Thaw is related with works by Lia Sturua and Besik Kharanauli. These poets stat to oppose the mainstream of Georgian poetry which was based on realist aestheticism and conventional poetic principles; thus, their poetic choice can be seen as an alternative to dominant literary tendencies. We can assess the appearance of the free verse in Georgian poetry of the period of the Thaw as a revolt against the conventional verse and domi­nant literary principles cultivated by the majority of Georgian poets. In this period, one the hand, the Socialist Realism aestheticism is still strongly im­posed from the Soviet centre, on the other – Georgian poets create nationally minded poetry with meter. The free verses developed by the smaller group of Georgian poets oppose to both poetic tendencies, while suggesting the forms and themes which are more comparable to the texts appearing in the Western literatures beyond the Iron Curtain. When carrying the mission of altering and opposing to the existing reality, their poetry becomes a scene in which everyone has own role to play – the poet can be anti-poet, and poetry – an anti-poetry (Kharanauli); the process of writing is compared to the surgery and the writing desk – to the surgical table (Sturua); the poet is suggested to be a performer, expressing own fear and pain playfully. Post-Soviet Georgian poetry inherited the aestheticism of alternative poetry, and follows the principles developed in Georgian and Western poetry on the basis of freedom of expression.
"The Eighth Life: (For Brilka)" a novel by Nino Haratischvili (2014) and "Maybe Esther A Family Story" a memoir by Katja Petrowskaja (2014) are both German language works Both authors recount the passing on of memories and stories within a family over generations. In both stories, the family narrative is strongly influenced by the political events of 20th century world history. The personal confrontation with the consequences of the tota­litarian regimes in Eastern and Western Europe proceeds differently in the families. Stalinism and Nazi dictatorship leave violent traces in the respective families but also in the individual biographies. This paper will explore the question of how differently family history is passed on and how family stories, which are preserved in communicative memory and passed on orally (Welzer, 2011), relate to world history, which is stored in cultural memory (Assmann, A. 2018). "Families serve as a kind of switchboard between the individual memory and larger frames of collective remembrance. " (Erll 2011, p. 315). In both books, however, the remembering, telling and (re)constructing of family histories is also contrasted with forgetting (Haratischvili) and silen­ce (Petrovskaya). "The score of Forgetting" and the "Silence" in Katja Petrov­s­kaya's family history create gaps that are filled by fictional stories. Langu­age, also the "language of the mute", is the medium used to work against forgetting. Two different methods are shown of how language can function as a tool of emancipation and what functions language takes on in the indivi­dual, the familial and cultural memory. Notably, the works were not written in the mother tongue of the authors, but in German.
Postmodernist Experiment as a New Worldview Code in Post-Soviet Georgian Literature
The post-Soviet reality in Georgian culture is distinguished by marking out a new creative orientation, which was conditioned to the desire of integ­ration with the Western cultural-world. At the end of the 1990s, the dis­closure of postmodernist tendencies in Georgian literature became obvious, which was clearly revealed in Z. Karumidze’s novel „The Wine-dark Sea“ (1996-2000). Postmodern indications were identified in Georgian artistic thought (mainly in theater, cinematography, paintings and partly in literature) much earlier, (than 1960s), however, in prose it had a sporadic and / or incom­prehensible character. Therefore Z. Karumidze’s novel can be considered as the first postmodernist text. It is created with a direct postmodernist purpose and also can be noted as an attempt to attribute Georgian literature to the modern world culture, which, at the same time, implies a desire to liberate from Soviet memory. Admittedly, this is a typical postmodernist novel in­cluding all its features (citation, centrism, rhizome, deconstruction, intertex­tuality, parody-irony, etc.). The author reinterprets traditional literature in an anti-narrative way. The novel has no narrative line, and is a peculiar mixture of allusions and mystifications. This is the first novel in Georgian reality where the plot is completely rejected. The whole text is an extensive art game and this playing field requires a well-trained reader. Noteworthy is that Zurab Karumidze is both a prose writer and a theorist, and based on his dual experiences he tried to manifest postmodernism in the Georgian cultu­ral-worldview as a contemporary mindset and artistic thinking. This was once more conditioned by the suggestions of continuity of Georgian litera­tu­re in international cultural processes and the desire to fully adapt to it.
Blogosphere as a Source of Alternative Sex Pedagogy
I examine the Indian sex blogosphere as a medium of informal sex education in the present times. The sex blogosphere is part of the digital sex industry. It educates the netizens on sex and sexuality. I analyze sex blogs in lifestyle magazines and commercial websites. Both spaces allow some auto­nomy to talk about sex, especially to women. It is no secret that discussing women’s sexuality is taboo in India. There is no formal medium of sex educa­tion as such. In such an environment, the sex blogosphere is essential in enhancing knowledge of sex. Such knowledge does not necessarily stereo­type women’s sexual roles. The sex culture that emerges from the blogosphe­re is an alternative to traditional cultures. I infer that the sex knowledge produced through this medium is informal and customized. The sex blogos­phere presents sex as a lifestyle choice. It is an essential teaching for Indian women trained to practice sex as a marital duty.
“Forcibly Normalized Environments”: Precarious Japanese Female Worker in Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman
This paper contends that Sayaka Murata’s novel Convenience Store Women offers a perceptive and critical examination of the impact of the economic recession of the 1990s on the social character of labour and every­day life in contemporary society. Through the lens of the novel's protagonist, Keiko, a freeter who has spent eighteen years in a part-time job at a konbini, the novel illustrates the precarious living conditions and lack of job security experienced by young, unmarried individuals in post-recession Japan. Mura­ta employs a deft use of an alien metaphor and dark humour to illustrate the dehumanizing effects of Keiko’s machinic enslavement to the demands of recognizability under capitalism. Through her persistent attempts at mimetic conformity in search of a sense of belonging, the author exposes the dismal disillusionment of precarity in late capitalist society. The novel also draws attention to the toxic and affective attachments to gender-oppressive norms that exacerbate the exploitative effects and uneven distribution of precarity. Murata contrasts Keiko's experience with that of an unemployed male character, illuminating the ways in which misogyny and patriarchal ideals contribute to the normalization and disregard of female precarity. The novel offers a surrealistic affectsphere for its readers to foreground the oppressive nature of capitalist patriarchy and the prevalent, problematic yearning for the restoration of traditional family-corporate systems in Japan. The textu­ality of her workspace highlights the intersectionality of precarity and gen­der, as women are doubly marginalized due to the expectation of being house­wives and child bearers, combined with a significant wage gap. The novel's portrayal of Keiko's alienation and disillusionment, in the context of neoliberal precarity, serves as a metaphor for the larger human experience under the yoke of late capitalism, where individuals are reduced to mere cogs in the machine of a profit-driven system. Using contemporary research on precarity and vulnerability, this study examines the narrative strategies used by Murata to foreground Keiko’s failure to understand her cruelly optimistic attachments that deny relationality and interdependence, which ultimately trap her in oppressive gender norms and the negative consequences of neoli­beral precarity.
The Depiction of Women in Pauline Corpus and Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: Modern African Womanist Criticism
Humanities scholars, especially those in African Biblical criticism have given much attention to themes arising from biblical and ecclesiastical boundaries in their critical variants. However, in spite of the impressive body of existing literature in this field, less has been done on the comparative study of biblical and African literature. Using the African method of biblical criticism (comparative and liberation hermeneutics), this study examines the depiction of women in Pauline corpus (New Testament literature) and Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (African literature) by arguing that, although Paul’s and Achebe’s literary genres differ in this instance, similarities exist in their depiction of women in their socio-cultural milieus (first-century Greco-Roman and contemporary African societies). Gathering data from instances of selected modern African women who have locally and globally competed and achieved excellence and recognition, it critiques the negative depiction of women in Pauline corpus and Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. This paper, therefore, contributes to scholarship in the comparative study of New Testa­ment and African literature. It shows how the patriarchal societies of the first-century Greco-Roman and modern African world discriminate against women.
Medea of Three Different Eras – Woman’s Artistic Image as a Reflection of Epochal Tensions (Corneille, Legouve)
The consideration of prominent artistic images being especially sensi­tive in reflecting the problematic issues, tensions, and challenges of their day is widely recognized. Medea is one of the leading female figures among these outstanding images. The story of the Colchian maiden proved to be one of the best matrixes for the comprehension of socio-political problematics of va­ri­ous eras and the discourse regarding the multiple ideological and philo­sophical topics. Analysis of how French dramatists of different epochs – Cor­neille and Legouvé – interpreted Medea’s image to articulate the dominant issues of their respective eras is the central piece of the article. Pierre Corneille, French playwright of the neoclassical period, regarded Medea’s story appropriate for reflecting on topical issues such as allegations of witchcraft pertinent in 17th century France and related to it the contempo­rary judicial culture. Ernest Legouvé, another French dramatist and theorist of women’s rights, responded in his own way by reworking the Medea myth to the women’s emancipation movement taking place in France during the 1850s. The article discusses the novelties introduced by these dramatists in their reworking of the original Medea story – be it changing of the fabula, the personages, the artistic tools, etc. – while focusing to research the authors’ commitment to the development of the respective interpretative trends of Medea. The conclusion of the article presents useful insights to the study of interrelations between literature and contemporaneity as well as to the comprehension of artistic images as denominators of epochal tensions.
Gender Aspects of Shio Aragvispireli's Stories
Gender, which has changed from a grammatical term to a socio-cultu­ral construct, is a topical scientific problem and is being studied inten­sively from a culturological and scientific viewpoint. Gender theories developed considerably in XX century based on the studies by Simone de Beauvoir, Levi Strauss, Freud, Jacques Lacan, and other well-known scientists. These works cover philosophical, anthropological, psychological and historical aspects as well, and show the complexity and diversity of this issue, which is due to the fact that in this or that socio-economic and political system the stereotypes of female and male role models are closely linked to the values and cultural traditions of the society itself. The issue of the status of women is particularly acute in the second half of the nineteenth century in America and Europe. The discussions around the gender situation in Georgia can also be observed from the mentioned time period. The topic of equality between women and men is discussed in the publicist letters by famous Georgian figures of the second half of XIX century: Ilia Chavchavadze, Akaki Tsereteli, Sergey Meskhi, Niko Nikoladze, etc. They respond to the letters of European thinkers, and consider the role of women and men in the advancement of society to be equally important and also analyze the difficult reality in this regard. The complexity of the inevitable and necessary process of changing the social role of women in the society, which is full of traditional, and often of false clichés, has been well demonstrated by the Georgian literature of XIX-XX centuries. In this regard, Shio Aragvispireli’s stories should be distinguished. The prose writer raises the issue of gender equality in a number of works, showing the established clichés in society, which are primarily related to moral issues and personal freedom. The writer reflects on overcoming social and psychological pressures, revealing that without going through a complex and contradictory process of changing consciousness no society can overcome the reality oriented to social inequality and false beliefs.
Motherland, Holy Mother, “Mother Courage”: the Representation of Motherhood in Contexts of Armed Violence
The purpose of this paper is to question the massive presence of the motherhood motif in fictional literary production concerning female armed combat, and especially the recurrence of an archetypal pattern that we will call the “Mother Courage” pattern. After introducing the history of this ex­pre­ssion and its different meanings, from Brecht’s play to modern press, we will analyze the construction of the “Mother courage”, or the brave mother, in the literature about female participation in armed combat. So, using the examples of the protagonists of the novella Umm Sa‘d (1969), by the Pales­tinian author Ghassan Kanafani, and of And Agnese Choose to Die (1949), by the Italian writer Renata Viganò, we will discuss how this pattern intersects with other archetypal representations of motherhood, from the Holy Mother to the Motherland, and with modern representations inspired by the Femi­nist movement. We will not that, even if the motherhood of the two charac­ters is constantly highlighted in these novels, nearly becoming holy, inspired by the Marian pattern, Agnese and Umm Sa‘d follow different paths in regard to their engagement in armed combat. While the first one is a chan­ging character who reaches, at least in part, a gender consciousness and whose role in the Italian resistance evolves throughout the story, the second one remains first and foremost a fighter’s mother who takes part in the ar­med movement through her son’s fight, and therefore through her mothe­rhood. Through the examples of Umm Sa‘d and Agnese, we will finally consider whether the representation of motherhood, which materializes through the Mother Courage motif, amongst others, paradoxically allows women to reappropriate armed violence, traditio­nally considered as mascu­line, or whether it affirms a normative literary cons­truction of femininity, imprisoning wo­men through their reproductive role as much as trough their imposed non-violence.
Feminism, Post-feminism and Postmodern Feminism Reflections in Contemporary Georgian Poetry
The purpose of this study is to consider the manifestations and signs of feminism, post-feminism and postmodernist feminism in current Georgian poetry. In addition, according to the analysis of the viewpoints of Georgian classicists, feminism is confirmed as an ideology of the women’s rights and equality with the men, generally regarded as an issue for most of the Georgian scholars. Therefore, feminism declared in the current poetic texts, with its changes, is a kind of reflection, as referring to the same item and self-determination. Literature is the best space for reflecting and provoking any socio-cultural formation and oscillation. Accordingly, the literary texts constitute the most reliable, honest, and time-sustainable fictional “tractates” of such changes. The third wave of feminism, appearing at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries, based on the post-modern, post-structural and post-colonial theo­ries, conducts the revision of feminism and looking at it from a new per­spec­ti­ve. The third wave feminists attempt to achieve their goals through the cultural activities and declare their messages in such a form. Post-feminism, which provides understanding of the achieved results with the help of feminist movement and, meanwhile, it means looking at feminism not from anti-feminism, but from a different angle, is considered as fully antifeminist by its criticians. In addition to actively responding to women’s discrimination, post-modern feminism defines that a society consists of not women and men, but of the human beings. Different groups may be formed based not on their sex and gender affiliation, but other similar features and viewpoints; therefore, women will not be able to realize themselves just by means of one – wo­men’s voice. Similar tendencies have been reflected in the contemporary Georgian literature as well too, including poetry. It is noteworthy that no­wa­days there is an unprecedented large number of female writers in Georgia, literary representation of who is seen with different topics, discou­rses and positions. Research materials, provided in the suggested study are the texts of the contemporary Georgian poets. The presented materials have been researched on the basis the hermeneutic, analytical and comparative methods.
The Killjoy Mother: Navigating the Mother-Daughter Relationship in Avni Doshi's Burnt Sugar
Avni Doshi's Burnt Sugar (2020) narrates the story of a mother who disrupts the hegemonic discourse of motherhood by refusing to abnegate her desires for the sake of her child completely. This decision has significant ramifications for the daughter, who grapples with an ontological crisis and feelings of estrangement as she internalises patriarchal ideologies and grapples with her mother's humanity. The novel conceives of motherhood as a liminal space in which women must confront and negotiate the boundaries between their own subjectivities and their obligations to their children. Through an analysis of Sara Ahmed's understanding of happiness as a pro­duct of conformity to societal norms of family and marriage, the novel calls into question the fates of women who resist these norms. The novel dances on the edges of abstract notions of motherhood inconsistent with embodied experiences of motherhood. Ultimately, Doshi's narrative frame­work reclaims the agency and individuality of mothers, depicting them not simply as nurturers and caretakers but as multifaceted individuals with their desires and choices.
Delineation of Inner Spaces and Angst: A Comparative Studyof Amrita Pritam’sPinjar and Bapsi Sidhwa’sIce – Candy –Man
The recent women writers from India, Pakistan, SriLanka and Bangla­desh exemplify the issue of gendered self-representation and feminist con­cern. Their works realize not only the diversity of women but the diversity within each woman. They are incorporating their experiences to make new, empowering image for women, instead of limiting the lives of woman to one ideal; they push the ideal towards the full expression of each woman’s poten­tial. Indian land is known for its unity and diversity. It has been a witness to the most horrific as well as terrible atrocities that have ever been committed in the history of humanity. The harrowing situation of women during parti­tion has been quite popular among the literary writers. The pre­sent study tries to delineate the wounded soul of women during the partition of India in 1947. It has described the condition of women as delineated by Amrita Prita­min Pinjar and Bapsi Sidhwa in Ice– Candy Man. It will also aim at presen­ting a comparative study as to how both the writers share different perspec­tives of women during partition in their masterpieces-Pinjar and Ice-Candy-Man respectively. In both the novels we get a clear glimpse of the atrocities of partition and the ultimate tragedy shattering the lives of women across the boundaries. Both the novelists have described the pangs of women’s suffering in a realistic way. Amrita Pritam has tried to present an Indian identity in her description of Pooro’s journey of transformation from Pooro to Hamida, her loss of identity and agony while on the contrary Bapsi Sidhwa has given her own description through the character of Ayah, who was kidnapped by the Ice-Candy-Man. Though both the novels centre around the theme of partition and the plight of women, their struggle and suffering due to the perpetrators of violen­ce either in the name of culture, religion or societal norms during partition, the writers have tried to analyse the situation in their own way. Of course in presenting the condition of women during and after the partition both the writers have the same views. However, Sidhwa has delved deeper by depicting the trauma in a more realistic way through her feminist lens.The present paper intends to present a comparative stance of both the characters –Pooro on the one hand and Ayah on the other in terms of pangs and trauma they suffer in the hands of their near and dear ones against the background of partition.
A Literary Model of the Broken Gender Lens
The broken gender lens, based on androcentrism, gendered polariza­tion and biological essentialism, are considered one of the most significant challenges for today’s world. Views about powerfulness of men and insig­nifi­cance of women as a second sex have been entrenched in social institutions of various countries, ethno-cultural ways of life, and human minds since ancient times when monotheism took prevalence over polytheism. The equality of male and female deities in pagan beliefs stayed in the past. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam made radical changes in views about men’s and women’s roles. A man is regarded as God’s favorite human who is above everyone, while a women is viewed as his subordinate whose function are confined to in-door activities and reproduction. Based on the aforemen­tioned, humankind’s history is men’s history. There are compositions whose authors try to break gender lens of their societies. The bestsellers such as The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischwili, The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hossein. The main characters of these novels are women who live their lives in rather complicated times of their respective countries. Totalitarian regimes, wars, depreciation of moral and values exacerbates women’s predicament and sexual oppression. However, it is such political, social, economic, and ethic pressures that make them belligerent individuals who are able to oppo­se cruelty and even to arm themselves, to commit murder, to use their charm for the sake of a very difficult mission. In the world of masculine opinions they maintain their femininity and do not turn into so called manly women. Positions of the authors of the three novels are focused into a single idea: history is written by both men and women. The gender lens are broken and there comes a new reality of equal rights.
Perspectives on the Development of Literature in the Context of the Colonial Regime and the Independence of the Country
Perspectives on the Development of Literature in the Context of the Colonial Regime and the Independence of the Country While the national literature has been developed for centuries under the conditions of the colonial regime, it is natural for the reader to find difficulty in distinguishing between fictional works created in the conditions of freedom and the colonial regime. If we analyze this issue with the example of our country in mind, then we must confront both the literature created under colonial rule and in the time of freedom. Indeed, it is through such a comparative analysis that we can then identify the literary peculiarities characteristic of both eras. At the same time, it is natural to consider the author's creative indivi­du­ality as well as the paradigmatic features of each epoch in which the author is inculcated. Considering all of this, we can analyze, on the one hand, the work of Shota Rustaveli (12th century, Golden Age of Georgia), and on the other hand, the work of Nikoloz Baratashvili (19th century, a country that became a province of Russia). These two literary works provide an excellent platform for discussing the most fruitful conditions for literature development. In this case, the subject of relative controversy will be the hero-knight of the epic ("Panther-skinned"), and on the other hand the lyrical "Meran" character – also a rider who, like the first, tries to cross the border of destiny over to a promised land of harmony. It is important to recognize that "Merani" is as highly acclaimed as Rustaveli’s “Vepkhistkaosani." If the classical epic tradition is perfectly found and manifest in Rustaveli's poem, then "Merani is the most brilliant example of lyrical self-expression characteristic of romantic poetry" (Guram Asatiani). Lastly, we should not assume that this research will necessarily lead us to a banal conclusion, one in which the literature produced under colonial rule inevitably reflects a process of resistance or obedience to the current situation. The solution to the current situation is often to isolate oneself from reality. An even more effective way to escape colonial influence is to focus on a different cultural space which, in turn, carves a whole new modern paradigm for considering the national interest. This research is relevant and timely and, thus, we hope its results will be read with enthusiasm and appropriate interest. And, perhaps more importantly, we hope that these dual perspectives of literature (colonial, independent) will be thoughtfully acknowledged.
The Theme of War in German and Georgian Baroque Literature
The fierce Thirty Years' War in 17th century Germany (1618-1648) and the internal political chaos in 18th century Georgia (political fragmen­tation), the foreign aggression of the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Iran against Georgia became the subject of poetic creativity, in particular, in the works of the famous German Baroque writer Andreas Gryphius (1616-1664) and the poem "Davitiani" by the representative of Georgian Baroque, Davit Guramishvili (1705-1792). War is considered here as an apocalyptic event that not only destroys the homeland politically and economically but also war is regarded as a universal catastrophe, because it destroys all pers­pec­tives on human existence, making the course of history lose its meaning. The lyrical characters of these authors reflect this hopelessness and meanin­glessness with the baroque characteristic of Baroque, the deep sense of vanity, and the high style of Baroque poetry (genus grande), which makes the theme of war more apocalyptic than apocalypse itself. Thus, if Gryphius' sonnet “Thränen des Vaterlandes. Anno 1636” is set within the framework of the thirty-year war, where the apocalyptic visions of an objective universal catastrophe and the expectation of this apocalypse are conveyed, then in Guramishvili's lyrical poem we have reflections on the subjective existential fate, which is caused by a priori objective existences – political destabilization (historical factor) and the perfidy of "life" and "existence”, that is, by the spontaneity and unpredictability of existence (on­to­lo­gical factor) – "it is not in the hands of the one who holds it, but if you hold it with a fist". And here, the subjectivism of the lyrical hero of Gura­mishvili's poem, i.e. his subjective reflections on his existence, suddenly turns into an objective existential situation, namely, using Sartre's termi­nology, the existence of the lyrical hero of "Davitiani" can be perceived as "being" (Fr. en-soi, Germ. An-sich-ein, Existenz) and "essence“ (Fr. pour-soi, Germ. Für-sich-sein, Essenz) in the objectively given dialectic (Galle, 2009, p. 20; Seibert, 1997, p. 128), e. i. in the objectively given dialectic of existence and being when first there are existing and its ontological data, and then the personal existence of a person written in these data. Therefore, a priori we have an existential situation, when the existing and its ontological data al­ways precede and forego the person (respectively, the lyrical hero of "Daviti­ani") and his private existence, and these ontological data (for example, birth, death, historical existence, temporality, transience, impermanence, etc.) appear to a person (respectively, the lyrical hero of "Davitian") as they are already written in advance, as they already exist beforehand.
Postcolonial Representation in the “Indochinese Cycle” by Marguerite Duras
In the last decades postcolonial studies constitute a research field of literary studies, social sciences and history. In this article we are interested in the representation of colonial Indochina and the evolution of the colonial discourse in the work of Marguerite Duras through a contextual reading of a choice of her “Indochinese” texts. Marguerite Duras was born in French Indochina where she spent her childhood and early youth before leaving for France never to return to her country of birth. In his textual work we find the two aspects of colonial representation that are literary fiction and official propaganda. The fictional texts whose setting is Indochina is presented in “Indochinese Cycle” (or “the Indochinese Trilogy”): The Sea Wall (1950), The Lover (1984) and The North China Lover (1991). These semi-autobiographical novels have as their central protagonist the young girl of a French family belonging to the small whites of the colony. The three texts of our study contain many intertextual elements that refer to the nature of Indochina, to colonial urbanism, to the colonial population, to the relations between colonized and colonizers and to the family drama. Our postcolonial research focuses on the following issues: What representation of colonial Indochina is constituted by the texts, and by what signs the presence and the policy of colonial domination are transmitted .The fact that two of the texts (The Lover and The North China Lover) were written after the decolonization of Indochina in 1954, gives rise to the study of whether there is continuity or a change of perspective in these texts compared to The Sea Wall. Since the social, historical and cultural context is different from one text to another, as well as from one genre to another, it is possible for us to follow the evolution of Durassian thought on French colonialism over more than a half-century.
Georgian Poetry in the Face of Repression in the 1930s
The 1930s is one of the most tragic pages in the history of Georgian literature. As a result of Bolshevik rule, Georgian poets had to give up the search for versification and artistic-stylistic forms and, instead of developing modernist trends they almost wholly confined themselves to proletarian themes. Georgian verse, highly enriched in the 1910s-1920, nearly stopped evolving a decade later. The poets who failed to fit into a common pattern and tried to preserve their individuality were declared the "enemies of the people". They were faced with the choice of either to write Bolshevik poems or to be physically destroyed. The poetry was focused on the theme of revolution and building of communism. Proletarian literature rejected patriotism and replaced it with internationalism. Despite the threat of physical destruction, some Georgian poets still managed to adhere to the main path of the development of ancient Georgian poetry in the 1920s and 30s. Along with the older generation, a new gene­ration of poets (Lado Asatiani, Mirza Gelovani, Aleksandre Sajaia, Giorgi Napet­varidze, etc.) appeared on the scene in the early 1930s. These poets were able to revive the forms of national versification under the guise of Soviet internationalism. They adapted the traditional long– meter (20– and 16-syllable) textual structure to the verses on patriotic theme. The genre of ballad which occupies a worthy place in the works of the poets of "Our Generation" was also revived. Young authors turned poetic folklore into a source of creativity, and literary verse again came in close contact with folk poetry. This is especially important because these poets managed to breathe new life into the traditional Georgian verse forms at a time when the Bol­shevik regime was fighting against "formalism."
Two Cases of Roman-monde: Salman Rushdie’s Midinight’s Children and Édouard Glissant’s Tout-monde
L’exposé souhaite comparer les romans Tout-monde (1993) de Édouard Glissant (1922-2011) et Midnight’s Children (1981) de Salman Rushdie (1947- ) en les lisant comme cases d’étude du « roman-monde » théorisé par le même Glissant dans Poétique de la Relation (1990), c’est-à-dire comme la réécriture « créolisée » de la structure discursive du colonisateur. La migration de la propre terre d’origine (Martinique et Inde) vers la terre du colonisateur (France et Angleterre) fait percevoir aux deux écrivains ses natures de « hommes-traduits », c’est-à-dire de sujets entre-deux cultures et histoires. Dans les deux romans cette expérience permet la déconstruction de l’auctorialité occidentale vers la création d’un « auteur-rhizome » : un « pacotilleur » d’une « mer d’histoires » qui se démultiplie dans des différentes « identités-relation » dialoguant dans le texte. Il en découle une structure romanesque qui nie la logique narrative occidentale cause-effet, s’appuyant sur le retour « à spiral » de motifs thématiques et formels, sur la déconstruction du canon grâce à l’hybridation des sources et des genres littéraires à la fois européens, américaines (Glissant) et orientales (Rushdie), et surtout sur la polyphonie des voix et des langues. En fait la langue du colonisateur (français et anglais) ne vient pas abandonnée (comme dans autres expériences postcoloniales), en revanche elle est « créolisée » à travers des processus d’oralisation et de pluralisation à partir du créole, de l’italien e de l’anglais (Glissant), du dialecte de Bombay, de l’urdu et de l’arabe (Rushdie).
Interrelation of Censors and Editors During the Second Half of XIX Century or the Reaction of the Caucasus Censorship Committee to the Work of Editors
Goal of any type of censorship (quite often – pseudo-goal) is protecting society. In a totalitarian state it gains different essence and scale. Its main task becomes protecting the ideology of a totalitarian state and punishing its opposers in different forms. Caucasus Censorship Committee (1848-1906) was the main mechanism for the political and ideological control of Georgia and other nations of the Caucasus, which were part of the XIX century Russian Empire. The control mainly concerned the cultural-educational sphere, as other state institutions were under the Empire anyway. Responsibility for the national-liberating tasks in Georgia in XIX cen­tury was taken by Georgian literature and press, therefore, censorship fought against them, killing the free opinion at its appearance. Censorship reviewed any kind of texts by Georgian writers, critics, playwrights and persons wor­king wor­king in Georgian space in general – be it fiction, critical-publicist or scientific texts – and it was at the decision of censorship to publish, remake or to pro­hibit them. Not only creative freedom was restricted, but there was also pre­ssure on national and public opinion. Restrictions were expressed in taking out or remaking free pinion from an article or fiction work, its distortion; as punishment, a magazine could be closed down, an issue of a magazine could be banned or an editor could even be arrested. Repression censorship banned for prolonged period of time such well-known Georgian periodicals as, Tsiskari, Iveria, Droeba, Imedi and others; or even closed them down permanently. This happened to the first satire-humor magazine Khumara (Joker). Only one issue was published and the ma­ga­zine was closed down; its editor Akaki Tsereteli was arrested for mo­cking a public servant… In parallel with restrictions and punishments, Georgian literature, criticism, publicist work gradually transferred to defense regime and did not obey the ideological-political course of the Empire. Fiction, critical-publicist, scientific texts were being veiled, coded, disguised with symbolic-allegorical images; this is well confirmed by all the materials found in the texts by Georgian classics and non-classic writers and justifying statements sent by editors to censors. Goal of the article is to show, from the work by the Caucasus Censor­ship Committee, the interrelation of censors and editor, based on the decrees, reports by censors and justifying statements by editors.
Rethinking the Story of the Surami Fortress: Multicultural and Anti-imperial Dimensions of Georgian Novella and Films
The Surami Fortress (1859-1860), a 19-the century novella by the Georgian writer Daniel Chonkadze (1830-1860), was filmed twice as full-length movies in the 20th century, by the Soviet-Georgian cinematog­ra­phers. The first Georgian film based on a literary text, The Suram Fortress (Film Department of Gansakhcomi, 1923, 65 mins.), was directed by Ivan Perestiani (1870-1959), one of the founders of Georgian cinema, the film di­rec­tor, script-writer and actor of Greek descent, born in Russian city. Later, the famous Georgian film director and artist of Armenian descent, Tbilisi-born Sergo Parajanov (1924-1990), created his film The Legend of Suram Fortress (Film-studio Georgian Film, 1984, 88 mins.). Thus, the novella, which itself depicts the multiethnic Georgian society, inspired two film-directors who had a diverse ethnic/cultural background, but were dedicated to the idea of Georgia’s cultural uniqueness and unity. The author, Dainel Chonkadze, created the text which carries strong patriotic messages; at the same time, he supported Georgia’s cultural diver­sity, he was the first to work on Georgian-Ossetic dictionary, he researched and collected Ossetic folklore. The novella and films all deal with the themes and problems related, on the one hand, with Georgia’s national self-iden­tification and, its deep historic/cultural roots, ancient history of statehood and future goals of being established as a nation-state; on the other hand, they represent the role of various ethnic communities in Georgian history and culture. While the novella is a multi-layered text and can be interpreted from different angles, the idea of self-sacrifice of the hero for the sake of survival of the fatherland is central in it. This dimension was not ignored also by film-makers, although the Soviet literary criticism was suggesting to read the text solely as a revolt against the serfdom. The novella and films were deve­loped in the times of Russian domination in Georgia (the Russian Empire, the USSR), and, obviously, convey some hidden anti-imperial messages; howe­ver, they seem to be intentionally vailed by the author and film-makers through medieval setting and/or metaphoric language. The novella and films all deserve rethinking while rewriting Georgia’s cultural history.
Soviet Trauma and the Discourse Analysis of Narratives in Oral History
February 25, 1921 was a tragic day for Georgia – since then for the next 70 years our country has been under the influence of a totalitarian commu­nist regime. Unfortunately, many events of the Soviet period that in various scales are traumatic in the history of our country, have not yet been properly studied or evaluated, especially from the memory perspective. This is high­ligh­ted by the fact that even in history textbooks or among scientists, the traumatic perception of this or that Soviet event has not been completely analyzed in order to assess the regime accurately. All above mentioned facts, in their turn, lead to heterogeneous attitudes on the part of the society towards the seventy-year history of the last century. The "favour" for the Soviet past is especially felt in the villages of Georgia, in spite of the traumatic events of the Soviet Union that took place there in full force (genocide, collectivization, the terror of 1937-38, World War II, deportations, etc.). We think this is due to the fact that in villages the elderly rarely discuss or re-evaluate the Soviet past, while the young gene­ration is unaware of the whispered stories of that time, as well as the expe­riences hidden because of fear or shame caused by memory politics. Studying the totalitarian communist regime stories embedded in indivi­dual memory from a modern perspective view is important for understan­ding the traumatic perception of the Soviet past. Our research is based on the oral histories recorded over the last two decades. Discourse analysis of oral histories reveals that trauma plays an important role. They serve as a dividing line, according to which the narratives are divided into three significantly different periods: "this", "before" and "after".
Female Barbary Captivity Narratives: from “Self-made Woman” to Romantic Adventurer
Female Barbary captivity narratives feature women who were captured by North African pirates and their experience during captivity. Despite the numerous adaptations of women in Barbary Captivity in renaissance “Tur­kish plays”, the fact-based female Barbary captivity narratives were rather limited. And in this essay two of them will be discussed: the narrative of Maria ter Meeteleen and the narrative of Elizabeth Marsh. These two earliest texts of female barbary captivity narratives revealed that, instead of falling into the stereotype of “damsel in distress” in renaissance drama, the captivity narratives actually in a way provided a space for the empowerment of wo­men. Meeteleen’s experience of “self-made woman” and Marsh’s romantic adventure both crossed the patriarchy order in their original society and represented the unique cross-cultural experience for female individuals in early modern era.
Literary Paradigms of Adam Mickiewicz “Faris” in the World Poetry
The work displays, how the literary paradigm of A. Mickiewicz’s “Faris“ is manifested in the world poetry. In 1827 Goethe raised the issue of existence of the world literature, which in itself implies existence of common tendencies and literary para­digms in the world poetry. It is noteworthy that the works of N. Baratashvili are a new stage of development of the Georgian Romanticism and together with the essence of his works he is next to the European Romanticists. In Georgian poetry, “Merani” by N. Baratashvili is considered as one of the literary paradigms of A. Mickiewicz’s “Faris“, which was written in 1828. N. Baratashvili wrote his poetic masterpiece in 1842. It is mentioned in the scientific literature that “Faris” was for N. Baratashvili one of the sources of inspiration and we find a number of poetic coincidences between these two poems. The idea of “Faris” is as follows: a selfless rider rides his steed. There are a lot of obstacles along the way, but he does not give up and moves towards his goal. During the research, it was found that the poem of the famous Hunga­rian author Sandor Petofi “Merani” (“Az En Pegazusmon“) was also written under the influence of “Faris”. Petofi knew the poetry of Mickiewicz, and Petofi’s “Merani”, which was written in 1847, is one of the paradigms of “Faris” in terms of its content, artistic faces, and symbolic meaning. We find the mentioned literary paradigm also in the works of René Francois Armand Sully-Prudhomme, Heinrich Heine and other examples of world poetry. Symbolically, all poems express a man’s aspiration towards kindness, freedom and boundlessness.
World Literature from the Perspective of “Small” Literatures
Endeavouring to systemise the trends in world literature researches, our paper spotlights the differences between the concepts of this pheno­me­non as embraced by “small” and “great” literatures. It also takes account of the Czech and Slovak line of thinking querying the conceit of world litera­ture as normative poetics or the standardised canon of “arch-works”and their heterogeneous discourses. The historical experience of Czech and Slovak comparative studies defending the independent values of Slavonic literatures suggests that there cannot be any arbitrary researches on world literature. With some exceptions and regardless of their terminologically and semanti­cally different interpretations of this specialism, contemporary theoretical concepts (as embraced by Emily Apter; Pascale Casanova; David Damrosch; Theo d´haen; Marko Juvan; Franco Moretti; Haun Saussy etc.) re-establish recognising world literature as an international research issue or a subject employing English as a universal means of communication. Imposing such notion would allegedly condone inequality as a kind of epistomological fra­mework to codify the binary opposition of “developed” and “underdevelo­ped” or “the centre” and “a periphery”. It was mainly Czech-Slovak structu­ra­list tradition (represented by Frank Wollman; René Wellek; Dionýz Ďu­rišin; etc.) that rejected national tradition as a natural grounding of world literature. Anchored in Central European intellectual atmosphere at the crossing of various highbrow movements, these “defensive” theories were linked with the structural concept of the Prague Linguistic Circle, letting alo­ne the multilingual tradition of the former Hapsburg Empire and the phenomenon of migration which implied the aspect of polyglosy and hete­rotopy as a breeding ground for comparative scholars. In our contribution we would like to draw attention to the approach of the Slovenian scholar Marko Juvan in his monograph Worlding and Peripheral Literature (2019), which highlights the importance of language and the significance of land. On the other hand, he draws attention to the ability of literature itself to create the world in the form of aestheticizing national images in the case of so-called small literatures.
Writing and Teaching Maternal Language in a Non-maternal Place
Besik Kharanauli's Latest Metapoetic Books – at the Crossroads of Tradition and Innovation
Besik Kharanauli called the „intersection of prose and poetry“ an innovative, alternative genre which has been established by him in Georgian literature in 2020s. In his metapoetic collections („Eh, Bessarion“, „The Great Drinking“), Kharanauli talks about the latest hard times, caused not only by the pandemic, but also by the movement of man’s soul, national pain, and blowing of the dream. In our view, Besik Kharanauli's lyrical poems reflect the spiritual kin­ship of the poet's work, on the one hand, with Nikoloz Baratashvili's lyrical judgment and the attempt to answer the main epochal question („The Fate of Kartli“), and on the other hand, with Galaktion Tabidze's lyrical poems („Talking about lyrics“, „Akaki Tsereteli“). Besik Kharanauli put forward the eternal, cardinal question about the purpose of the poet and poetry as the main issue of the modern Georgian lyrical poem, lyrical cycles. Along with the lyrical poem, Besik Kharanauli creates the basis for alternative poetics, i.e., a „poem in prose“. The poem in prose is known to be based not on a narrative but on a subjective-evaluative aspect. Northrop Frye notes that the form of a poem affects the semantic structure, absorbs the meaning. Andrei Bely seeks rhythm in both verse and prose and thus destroys their genre nature. Denying the genre peculiarities of prose and poetry, their specificity, B. Kharanauli creates new metatexts: semantics and rhythm are united by the principle of free, unlimited expression of thought. The author is completely free in self-expression. In these metatexts, the traditional restrictions of prose or poetry, especially verse, are removed. In a lyrical cycle of „Songs during the Pandemic“, the informativeness of the narrative, the documentary, the laconicism are determined by aphorisms. All poetic phrases are divided into metro-rhythmic periods (5/4/5, 5/5/4/3, etc.). In all the texts, there is a minimal rhythmic impulsivity. The poetic tradition of Besik Kharanauli’s innovative metatexts is based on 19-th century original or translated Georgian poetry and Galaktion's lyric poem „A Conversation about Lyrics“. Besik Kharanauli's „Pandemic Songs“ is a new form of defeating by poetry and assimilation of „non-fictional space“, the poetry of the future. The poet recognizes the need to unite story and emotion, prose and lyricism as a means of overcoming the global, pandemic spiritual crisis and anxiety.
How to Translate the Speechless Other? An Eco-rhythmological Experiment
This paper reveals the contribution of practice-oriented physics and eco-rhythmology to the philosophy of translation with the help of a case study. This approach does not consider verbal transformations as the only relevant phenomena in translation, but it is focused on the search for any common kinetic space in contact-making. Methodologically, the investiga­tion is based on interdisciplinary research revealing affinities and resonances between the string theory of contemporary physics, the search for remote galaxies with space telescopes and the search for connections by artistic practices. This kind of investigation does not reveal photographs, but rather rhythms or galaxies of rhythms that can be followed through the gestural resonances of attention. Poems and arts offer such recordings. The author investigates literary approaches to fellow creatures who cannot talk. He reads Philip Gross’ collection of poems, entitled Deep Field (2011) – a lyrical story about his old father who has lost all his five languages in aphasia – in comparison with the poetic translation of animals and „lifeless” materials, performed by the same poet (The Water Table, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize 2009) or by other experimenters like Craig Foster, the human protagonist in an Oscar winning documentary My Octopus Teacher (2020). Such experiments of getting in-between reveals translation as ges­ture-resonance with the Other in shared kinetic spaces. By the art of lear­ning, poetic language ceases to be a conventional medium of symbolic ex­chan­­ge (alone), it becomes refined and very intensive gestures of attention that make possible inversions in the teaching process between teacher and student, human and animal or human and material environment. At the end, the author draws conclusions concerning the possibilities of gesture trans­lation beyond metaphoric reduction. In the gaps of culturally dominant or scientifically paradigmatic spaces, artistic practices (as rhythm-telescopes) help us to access the deep field of occurrences with many different rhythms and consequently different temporalities. In the company of the non-spea­ker, for example or when we access the happenings of our non-human environment.
Imposters by al-Hariri and its Translations
In 2020 the Imposters by prominent Arab author al-Hariri (1054-1122) was issued by the NYU press. The masterpiece of Arabic Literature has alrea­dy been translated into several languages, but Michael Cooperson presented absolutely different version. In the paper I try to analyze the attitude of the translators to the origi­nal text in a diachrony. How Maqamat of al-Hariri were perceived in diffe­rent cultures? What was / is the priority while translating them? What has been changed from the Middle Ages to the globalization era? Persian, Hebrew, German and Russian translations of the Maqamat are imitations, while Latin, French and previous English translations basically were paraphrase / metaphrase. As al-Hariri’s language is too complicated, Per­sian and Jewish translators in the 12th –13th centuries tried to prove that their languages were not of less importance than the holy language and the lingua franca of that time. As for European translations, Orientalistic attitude to the Arabic piece of literature meant to use it for the own interests. Imitations of the Maqamat were used for enrichment of receiving cultures, exact trans­lations – to teach Arabic or to make some linguistic researches. All of them were domestications. In post-orientlist times Cooperson first tried to preserve the soul of the origin. In his translation, which is more transculturation, one can see his great respect to the Arabic culture. But for the American translator the most important thing in the Maqamat is the linguistical firework in it. Cooperson doesn’t see original text as a fictional work with its irony and critic of the Arab society. He doesn’t assess it as a “pre-novelistic” literary piece. He doesn’t notice its fictional hero’s inner duality. He translates only the form. As a result, in the newest translation the possibilities of the modern global English are well represented, while important features of the origin are lost. Al-Hariri was not a great poet, nor a great improvisor, but his Maqa­mat, as a celebration of the language and style, became the text, which has been translated to demonstrate the possibilities of different languages. In the post-orientalist epoch, it’s the celebration of contemporary lingua franca.
Translating Sensations: The Task of Translating Rayuela’s Chapter 68 into Chinese
Following Guattari and Deleuze, a literary work is a compound of per­cepts and affects that the author creates by manipulating language. This manipulation is the style of the author and the essence of any literary work, and perhaps the most complicated aspect to recreate in literary translation. Taking into account that inRayuelaJulio Cortázar came up with a dynamic language that altered the conventions of the reading act to make readers active creators of the text, this paper intends to briefly analyze the Chinese translation ofRayuela’s Chapter 68 by Sun Jiameng, aiming to determine whether it keeps the style of Cortázar’s original text, which, according to Walter Benjamin and Octavio Paz, is the major goal of literary translation and the task of literary translators.
A Microcosm of Modernism: The Introduction and Continuation of James Joyce in China (1922 1949) - From the Circulation of the First Edition of Ulysses in China
On February 2, 1922, Ulysses was published in Paris by the Shakes­peare & Company in a limited first edition of 1,000 copies. Among the customers who have booked were William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Andre Gide, Ernest Miller Hemingway and other world-renowned writers. Surpri­singly, the Company received an order from China. It is recorded that Joyce excitedly told the news to his patron, Ms. Harriet Shaw Weaver, editor of The Egoist magazine. This order ushers in a great story of the entry of mo­dern Western literature into China represented by Ulysses, especially the promotion of Joyce in China and its influence on Chinese modern literati. In November of the same year, Shen Yanbing沈雁冰 published a review of Joyce citing Western commentaries of his new work in the column “News from the Overseas Literary World” in Novel Monthly小說月報, Vol. 13, No. 11, unfortunately misrepresenting him as a “new American writer” and a “representative of Dadaism”. On July 7, 1923, Xu Zhimo published a new poem he composed, “KangQiao Xiye Muse”康橋西野暮色(Dusk in the West Suburb of Cambridge) in a supplement to Shanghai Shishi Xinbao上海時事新報, Xue Deng學燈, with a foreword referring to Joyce and his work Ulysses. Subsequently, Zhao Jingshen趙景深, Fei Jianzhao費鑒照, Xia Ji’an夏濟安, Wu Xinghua吳興華 and others began to pay attention to and promote Joyce and his works. Their introduction may be particularly interesting and have, to some extent, influenced the understanding of Joyce in later genera­tions. After a hundred years of Ulysses’s publication, this paper will trace the origin of Joyce’s introduction and continuation in China with some new materials, using the circulation of the first edition of Ulysses in China as the main clue, and analyzing the comments or translations by Xu Zhimo, Shen Yanbing, Zhao Jingshen, Wu Xinghua, in an attempt to restore the interac­tion between the spread of Chinese and Western literature, and also to ex­plore the spread and influence of modernism in China.
Three English Translations of Chapter One of the Tao Te Ching: Reading Cultural Translatability through Intercultural Communication
This paper cites three English translations of chapter one of the Tao Te Ching by three translators from three distinct cultures, namely Arthur Waley from the UK, R. B. Blakney from the US, and D. C. Lau from Hong Kong, China while it examines relevant readings of cultural translatability through theories in intercultural communication and doctrines in the Holy Bible. It also examines the English translation of the Chinese word “道”(Dao or Tao) through the cultural adaptation in intercultural communication while analyzing renditions of the Chinese original into English, hence the English translations make the target texts culturally equivalent and relevant to the Chinese source text in terms of displaying its cultural translatability. Through a probe into the cultural backgrounds reflected in these three Eng­lish translations, the translations of the second sentence in chapter one of the Tao Te Ching are analyzed through the speech codes in intercultural com­mu­nication and doctrines in the Holy Bible. These translations helped to bridge cultural differences in translations and translatability by adopting the shared speech codes and exemplifying their cultural translatability.