Journal articles on the topic 'French-speaking writers and classical literature'

To talk of Symbolism in French literature may be ambiguous, as two different categories of writers have been grouped under this generic term: the symbolists stricto sensu, such as Moréas or Viélé-Griffin, who were mostly minor poets, and some great figures of French literature. The aim of this article is to show that, although Symbolism as an organized movement did not produce any important contribution, the nineteenth century witnessed indeed the emergence of a new trend, common to several poets who were inclined to do away with the heritage of the classical school. These poets - of whom Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud and Mallarmé are the most renowned, although they did not really associate with the symbolist school, created individualistic poetry of the foremost rank.

This article aims to examine the Polish literary reception of the French Revolution during the period of Romanticism. Its main focus is on how Polish writers displaced their more immediate experiences of revolutionary events onto a backdrop of ‘ancient revolutions’, in which revolution was described indirectly by drawing on classical traditions, particularly the history of ancient Greeks and Romans. As this classical tradition was mediated by key works of German and French thinkers, this European context is crucial for understanding the literary strategies adopted by Polish authors. Three main approaches are visible in the Polish reception, and I will illustrate them using the works of Zygmunt Krasiński (1812–1859), Juliusz Słowacki (1809–1849) and Cyprian Norwid (1821–1883). My comparative study will be restricted to four works: Krasiński's Irydion and Przedświt (Predawn), Słowacki's Agezylausz (Agesilaus) and Norwid's Quidam.

The works of Richard Wagner have been celebrated for their impact on progressive elements in European culture, as a bridge from romanticism to modernism. In France the influence of Wagner on symbolist writers and artists, and musicians sympathetic to them, has emerged as particularly significant. But there was also a conservative response to Wagner that has received much less attention in the scholarly literature. This filiation is exemplified in the figure of Albéric Magnard and his opera Bérénice (1911), which he claimed was influenced by a “classical” Wagner. This article considers the classicism of Bérénice and its composer from several perspectives: portrayals of temperament that demonstrate consonance with classical precepts, political readings that emphasize classical values, the legacy of the French theater of the seventeenth century, and strategies of tonal organization and motivic development related to the German symphony extending back to Beethoven.

Juxtaposed these quotations, which are separated by three centuries and two continents, suggest that seventeenth-century classical French drama serves as a model for African theatre of the early post-colonial period. The first quotation is, of course, from Moliere, the Old Regime's brilliant comic writer. The second is taken from a play by Oyônô-Mbia, a contemporary dramatist from Cameroon. Given the powerful grip France held over its colonies, it is not surprising to find residual influence of France's theatrical culture on African drama. By the end of World War One, French authority in sub-Saharan Africa extended from Cape Verde to the Congo river. The Third Republic established French schools in the larger colonial towns which attracted the children of well-to-do urban families. France therefore held strong political and cultural sway over the development of African leaders and writers.

In 1909 André Gide published three short articles in the journal La Nouvelle Revue française, subsequently grouped under the title ‘Nationalisme et littérature’ (Nationalism and literature). They were written as his response to a survey by the young French journalist Henri Clouard, ‘Enquête sur la littérature nationale’ (Survey on National Literature), in which contemporary writers and critics answered questions regarding possible definitions of French literature. Gide questions the value of the term ‘national literature’ and objects to the view that haute littérature (good literature) is synonymous with neo-Classical values, arguing instead for a conception of literature that embraces curiosity and innovation. For Gide the term haute littérature is problematic because it implies a hierarchical, regimented and limited view of both literature and culture tout court. The first part of this article argues that Gide's critique of both national literature and haute littérature can be read as a preference for a literariness that is liberated from the constraints of balance and imitation. The second part reads Gide's agronomic metaphor for literary innovation through the lens of Alexander Beecroft's theory of overlapping literary ecologies. Beecroft's model of different ecologies of world literature helps us to locate what I propose to be Gide's own contribution to the world literature debate: an emphasis on literariness that transcends the national-literature ecology and reclaims the notion of haute littérature for a different aesthetic.

The article deals with modern French-language literature on the loss of a person’s sense of happiness and harmony. The study authors explore the work of Western European novelists, who not only record the next decline of Europe but also try to return a sense of dignity to their fellow citizens. For centuries, literature has offered various forms of describing the uniqueness of human interaction with the world. If realism gives rise to a literature of explication that thinks aloud, and modernism tries to free the art of realists from layers of pretense, then the oppositional postmodern aesthetics proposes the so-called pluralism of reading practices, which frees both the reader and the literary critic from the need to search for forerunners and origins. Having experienced postmodern delight at the turn of the 21st century, the modern Western European writer en masse returns into the fold of realistic literature, in which a person is determined both socially and historically. At the same time, preference is given to documentary literature, which includes both memoirs, diaries, and essays, and the auto-fictional novel, known today as the “non-fiction” novel which has been in the focus of scholars’ attention for many years. Whatever forms modern literature may use to disguise itself, even if these forms are the most flowery, its main task is to describe a contemporary who lives with an inescapable feeling of the end of the world, trying to regain the meaning of life, to find footholds that are described in such detail by centuries of aesthetic practice. Therefore, the subject of the study is the classical categories: life, family, love, and peace of mind. The purpose of the study is to describe the current state of literature in Western European countries, identify the trends of its development and genre preferences of the experts of culture. The novelty of the study consists in the fact that the concept of “happiness” is investigated for the first time using the example of French-language literature, and the works of writers little studied in Russian criticism, such as A. Makine and Catherine Lovey, are introduced into academic circulation.

In 1955 a polychrome and affordable collection of writers' biographies was created, allowing a large and young audience to easily access contemporary art, especially abstract art. This is hardly a given in the context of post-war, where the return to classical French aesthetics clashes with Socialist Realism. This study of ‘The Pocket Museum’ (1955–1965), shows how the collection fits into art writing, between art criticism and poetic writing, and how it enables the reader to discover abstract works. An ideal place for mediation and transmission, the collection, as an editorial strategy, helps to transform these new aesthetic creations into a national cultural heritage. Through a discursive analysis of ten books from the collection, three processes that have contributed to the promotion of abstract art are highlighted: the legitimacy of the author's discourse, whether he is an art critic, a poet, writer or journalist; the representation of the artist in question, whose difficult path is both stereotyped and singular, but always valorized; and finally, a series of analogies between abstract art and nature or comparisons with music, or else metaphorical expressions manifesting the ‘collapse of time’ where the universality of abstract art is part of the past, the present and the future.

В статье выявляются предпосылки, обусловившие модификацию формы французского философского (экзистенциалистского) романа в середине XX века. На примере творчества Сёрена Кьеркегора показана связь поэтики экзистенциалистского произведения с философией. Определено существенное влияние на творчество французских экзистенциалистов не только идей датского мыслителя, но и соответствующей этим идеям найденной им формы философского поиска. Выявлены особенности этой формы: философское исследование параллельно в художественной и трактатной (или эссеистской) формах, их вступление в диалог, в ходе которого обе части поясняют и дополняют друг друга. Такой способ развития философской идеи и сама специфика экзистенциалистской философии определяют характер философского романа. Исчезает присущая «классическому» философскому роману необходимость прямого изложения идей. С помощью различных средств развивается выражение философии, а не ее высказывание. Отсюда — исчезновение в романе героя-резонёра, отсутствие исходной философемы (заданности философской проблемы) и другие особенности поэтики, которые еще предстоит изучить. Материалы исследования могут быть использованы при создании учебников и различных пособий по французской и зарубежной литературе, при разработке курсов лекций и практических занятий по литературе в высших учебных заведениях, при написании курсовых и дипломных работ. The article treats the prerequisites for the transformation of French existentialist novels in the middle of the 20th century. Soren Kierkegaard’s philosophy is used to show the connection between philosophy and existentialist poetics. The author of the article maintains that French existentialist writers were influenced not only by the Danish philosopher, but also by the latter’s method of philosophical inquiry. The author singles out some characteristics of the method: philosophical inquiry develops parallel with literary development, literary and philosophical patterns intertwine and complement each other. The method of philosophical inquiry and the peculiarities of existential philosophy determine the peculiarities of philosophical novels. The direct presentation of ideas typical of classical philosophical novels is no longer required, philosophical expressiveness prevails over philosophical description. The characters of existentialist novels no longer need to philosophize, philosophical problems don’t have to be set. The materials of the research can be used to create textbooks and manuals on French and foreign literature, to create lectures and seminars in literature in higher education institutions, to write term papers and graduation papers.

Southern Vietnam was reclaimed by the Vietnamese in the mid-seventeenth century. They first brought their folk Buddhism and various popular religions to new land; however, the bureaucratic system then forced the Chinese Han–Song dynasties’ institutionalized and politicalized Confucianism on the population. The arrival of the Chinese from overseas since the late seventeenth century marked the introduction of Qing Confucianism into Southern Vietnam, shaping the pro-Yangming studies among local literati. Many writers claim that Qing Confucianism had no impact on Vietnam. Obviously, however, these writers ignored the diversity of Vietnamese Confucianism in the new frontiers in the South. Qing Confucianism was truly absorbed into many aspects of life among the local gentry, popularizing the so-called pro-Yangming studies.The article aims to study the transmission, contestation, transformation, and manipulation of Qing Confucianism in Southern Vietnam by penetrating deeper into the life, career, mentality, merits, and influence of local Confucianists and reviving the legacies of practical learning in local scholarship. The research discovers that the practical learning of Qing Confucianism dominated the way of thinking and acting of local elites, affecting ideological, educational, cultural and socio-economic domains of local society. However, the domination of the classical Confucian orthodoxy and the lack of state-sponsored institutionalization in late feudal periods, as well as the later overwhelming imposition of Western civilization under French colonial rule, seriously challenged and downgraded the impacts of Qing Confucianism in Vietnam. Therefore, Yangming studies were once transmitted but had limited impact on Vietnam.

The article deals with Vasyl Gorlenko, one of the most prominent Ukrainian culturologists of the late nineteenth century – beginning of the XX century. Whose name on the one hand did not belong to the forgotten names: it is fixed in all professional encyclopedias, many articles have been written about it, it is mentioned in the memoirs of contemporaries, there are even three monographs, on the other hand all this is very small, going out from what was done by Vasily Petrovich. There are a lot of problems raised in the writings of V. Gorlenko. There are some that are extremely important. It was established that studying at the famous Sorbonne, he passed the beautiful school of the French theoretician of literature and art critic Ivan T., French classical literature and art, thus receiving a high level of education, education of the best spiritual traits of behavior, possessed at least 5 foreign languages. It was discovered that when V.Gorlenko returned to his homeland, he first met in St. Petersburg with many prominent figures who came from his native land. One of these places of acquaintances is "Tuesdays" by M. Kostomarov. It was on them that V. Gorlenko was a true school of Ukrainian studies. And when Ukraine appeared periodicals that were in line with its patriotic interests, V. Gorlenko began to work with them. In the newspaper Trud, after twenty years of actual silence about T. Shevchenko, the first in Ukraine is a fragment of Russian tales of Taras Shevchenko "A walk with pleasure and not without morality" and the story "The Musician" with some reproach to everyone else who hadn’t done it already. It was found out that the Ukrainian elite rallied around the magazine "Kievan old woman" (1882-1906): V. Antonovich, D. Bagaliy, M. Belyashivsky, P. Golubovsky, V. Domanytsky, P. Efimenko, P. Zhitetsky, O. Lazarevsky, O. Levitsky, M. Sumtsov, V. Tarnovsky and many others. Here were M. Drahomanov, M. Kostomarov, V. Vynnychenko, Panas Mirnyi, I. Franko, M. Staritsky and dozens of other Ukrainian scholars and writers. Among them Vasyl Horlenko. Currently, 114-th of his publications, contained in this publication, are known. Articles, reviews, reviews of publications, information, folk records - each of these publications is an example of scientific conscientiousness and responsibility of the author. It was here that his multifaceted talent of journalist, literary critic and historian, ethnographer and folklorist, art historian, expert in Ukrainian antiquity was revealed. Quite often, V.n Gorlenko was the first, who write about the works of P. Mirny, I. Franko, I. Karpenko-Karyi, M. Kropivnitsky, I. Manzhuro and many others. Invaluable source in the study of both the personality of V. Gorlenko and his environment is his correspondence. Currently, there are about 40 recipients and more than 700 letters to him and partly to him. He corresponded with many Ukrainian and foreign writers, scholars, and cultural figures. He loved Ukraine most of all and was afraid of those revolutions that were devastated, death, spiritual impoverishment, barbarism; advocated the steadfast development of society, feeling as an integral part of its people, small and great Nature. Therefore, it remained for us a bright star of the unimpeded space of culture.

Resumo: As letras antilhanas de língua francesa são a marca de uma literatura reveladora de denúncia, migração, resistência. Essa literatura, nas vozes de escritoras, representa contemporaneamente a singularidade de uma vasta região de língua francesa no continente americano que tem características peculiares e, ao mesmo tempo, similares, particularmente, quando pensada a língua francesa e seus traços culturais. Considerando esse contexto, damos destaque ao pensamento de escritoras antilhanas e evidenciamos duas autoras de obras literárias e reconhecidas pensadoras da cultura/ literatura (CONDÉ, 1993, 2013; LAHENS, 2019) como forma de pôr em relevo o pensamento feminino enquanto alicerce importante para se pensar a produção literária de países de língua francesa no continente da América Central.Palavras-chave: escritoras; Antilhas; Maryse Condé; Yannick Lahens.Abstract: French-language writing from the Antilles is the hallmark of a literature that reveals denunciation, migration and resistance. This literature, in the voices of female writers, currently represents the uniqueness of a vast French-speaking region on the American continent that has peculiar and, at the same time, similar characteristics, particularly when considering the French language and its cultural traits. Considering this context, we highlight the thought of Antillean female writers, especially two authors of literary works and recognized thinkers of culture/literature (CONDÉ, 1993, 2013; LAHENS, 2019) as a way to highlight female thought as an important foundation for thinking about the literary production of French-speaking countries on the continent of Central America.Keywords: writers; Antilles; Maryse Condé; Yannick Lahens.

No doubt that Classical Arabic Literature was influenced by Greek Literature, as the modern Arabic literature was influenced by European Literature. The narrative poetry was designed for the emergence of theatrical poetry, a poetry modeled on the model of the story with its performance in the front of audience. This style was not known as Arabic poetry, but borrowed from the European literatures by the elite of poets who were influenced by European literatures looking forward to renew the Arabic poetry. It means that we use in this article the historical methodology based on the historical relation between European and Arabic literature in the ancient and modern age. The first who introduced the theatrical art in Arab countries was Mārūn al-Niqqāsh, who was of a Lebanese origin. He traveled to Italy in 1846 and quoted it from there. The first play he presented to the Arab audience in Lebanon was (Miser) composed by the French writer Molière, in late 1847. It is true that the art of play in Arabic literature at first was influenced by European literatures, but soon after reached the stage of rooting, then the artistic creativity began to emerge, which was far away from the simulation and tradition. It is true also that European musical theatres had been influenced later by Arabic literature and oriental literatures. European musical theatres (ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn and the magical lamp), the play (Māʿrūf Iska in Cairo) and the musical plays of (Shahrzād) are derived from (One thousand and one Nights). This study aims to discover the originality of theatrical art in modern Arabic literature. Therefore it is focused on its both side: Its European originality and its journey to Arab World, hence its artistic characteristics in modern Arabic literature. We also highlight its journey from the poetic language to the prose.

The number of speaking actors in Old Comedy has been much discussed, but no consensus has been reached. The old assumption that the number was three, as in tragedy, was shaken when it was realized that some scenes of Aristophanes have four characters on-stage at once, all taking part in the dialogue: for example, in Lys. 77–253 we have Lysistrate, Kalonike, Myrrhine, and Lampito, and in Frogs 1414–81 we have Dionysos, Aiskhylos, Euripides, and Plouton. Rees therefore argued that there was no fixed number, but that view was not generally accepted. A more widely held view is that there were three principal actors with additional performers for small parts. However, there is no evidence contemporary with Aristophanes which distinguishes three actors from the others in this way, and it is probable that writers of later periods who mention three actors are referring to their own times and did not have authentic information about the fifth century. The passage which DFA, p. 149, seems to regard as the most trustworthy is in a brief account of comedy attributed to Tzetzes: πιγενμενος δ Κρατῖνος κατστησε μν πρτον τ ν τῇ κωμῳδᾳ πρσωπα μεχρ τριν, στσας τν ταξαν4DFA paraphrases this as ‘Cratinus reduced the disorderliness and, in some sense, fixed the number of regular actors at three’. But πρσωπα means ‘masks’ or ‘characters’; it does not mean ‘actors’ (for which the Greek word is ὑποκριτα). What the writer meant by saying that Kratinos settled the masks or characters in comedy at ‘up to three’ is not clear, but his statement is useless as evidence for the number of actors.

Abstract This paper explores the relationship between literary prizes and the framing of contemporary francophone literature as world literature. Using a literary and sociological lens, I analyze how the Prix des Cinq Continents marketed itself as a kind of French-speaking Nobel, promoting the idea of a world literature in French. This article examines the prize’s different criteria for selection through close readings of promotional materials as well as interviews conducted between 2012 and 2016 with members of the jury, prize administrators, prize-winners, and representatives from the Senegalese reading committee. My research shows how the prize administrators’ rhetoric of diversity, hides the inequalities and exclusionary practices that “francophone” writers must face. This article argues that the idea of world literature has been recuperated by the OIF to protect the category of “francophone” and consolidate the domination of French cultural power in its former colonies.

In the first half of the 19th century in literature on art the term ‘Old Masters’ was disseminated (Alte Meister, maître ancienns, etc.), this in relation to the concept of New Masters. However, contrary to the widespread view, it did not result from the name institutionalization of public museums (in Munich the name Alte Pinakothek was given in 1853, while in Dresden the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister was given its name only after 1956). Both names, however, feature in collection catalogues, books, articles, press reports, as well as tourist guides. The term ‘Old Masters’ with reference to the artists of the modern era appeared in the late 17th century among the circles of English connoisseurs, amateur experts in art (John Evelyn, 1696). Meanwhile, the Great Tradition: from Filippo Villani and Alberti to Bellori, Baldinucci, and even Winckelmann, implied the use of the category of ‘Old Masters’ (antico, vecchio) in reference to ancient: Greek-Roman artists. There existed this general conceptual opposition: old (identified with ancient) v. new (the modern era). An attempt is made to answer when this tradition was broken with, when and from what sources the concept (and subsequently the term) ‘Old Masters’ to define artists later than ancient was formed; namely the artists who are today referred to as mediaeval and modern (13th–18th c.). It was not a single moment in history, but a long intermittent process, leading to 18th- century connoisseurs and scholars who formalized early-modern collecting, antiquarian market, and museology. The discerning and naming of the category in-between ancient masters (those referred to appropriately as ‘old’) and contemporary or recent (‘new’) artists resulted from the attempts made to systemize and categorize the chronology of art history for the needs of new collector- and connoisseurship in the second half of the 16th and in the 17th century. The old continuum of history of art was disrupted by Giorgio Vasari (Vite, 1550, 1568) who created the category of ‘non-ancient old’, ‘our old masters’, or ‘old-new’ masters (vecchi e non antichi, vecchi maestri nostri, i nostri vecchi, i vecchi moderni). The intuition of this ‘in-between’ the vecchi moderni and maestri moderni can be found in some writers-connoisseurs in the early 17th (e.g. Giulio Mancini). The Vasarian category of the ‘old modern’ is most fully reflected in the compartmentalizing of history conducted by Carel van Mander (Het Schilder-Boeck, 1604), who divided painters into: 1) oude (oude antijcke), ancient, antique, 2) oude modern, namely old modern; 3) modern; very modern, living currently. The oude modern constitute a sequence of artists beginning with the Van Eyck brothers to Marten de Vosa, preceding the era of ‘the famous living Netherlandish painters’. The in-between status of ‘old modern’ was the topic of discourse among the academic circles, formulated by Jean de La Bruyère (1688; the principle of moving the caesura between antiquité and modernité), Charles Perrault (1687–1697: category of le notre siècle preceded by le siècle passé, namely the grand masters of the Renaissance), and Pellegrino Antonio Orlandi writing from the position of an academic studioso for connoisseurs and collectors (Abecedario pittorico, 1704, 1719, 1733, 1753; the antichimoderni category as distinct from the i viventi). Together with Christian von Mechel (1781, 1783) the new understanding of ‘old modernity’ enters the scholarly domain of museology and the devising of displays in royal and ducal galleries opened to the public, undergoing the division into national categories (schools) and chronological ones in history of art becoming more a science (hence the alte niederländische/deutsche Meister or Schule). While planning and describing painterly schools at the Vienna Belvedere Gallery, the learned historian and expert creates a tripartite division of history, already without any reference to antiquity, and with a meaningful shift in eras: Alte, Neuere, and lebende Meister, namely ‘Old Masters’ (14th–16th/17th c.), ‘New Masters’ (Late 17th c. and the first half of the 18th c.), and contemporary ‘living artists’. The Alte Meister ceases to define ancient artists, while at the same time the unequivocally intensifying hegemony of antique attitudes in collecting and museology leads almost to an ardent defence of the right to collect only ‘new’ masters, namely those active recently or contemporarily. It is undertaken with fervour by Ludwig Christian von Hagedorn in his correspondence with his brother (1748), reflecting the Enlightenment cult of modernité, crucial for the mental culture of pre-Revolution France, and also having impact on the German region. As much as the new terminology became well rooted in the German-speaking regions (also in terminology applied in auction catalogues in 1719–1800, and obviously in the 19th century for good) and English-speaking ones (where the term ‘Old Masters’ was also used in press in reference to the collections of the National Gallery formed in 1824), in the French circles of the 18th century the traditional division into the ‘old’, namely ancient, and ‘new’, namely modern, was maintained (e.g. Recueil d’Estampes by Pierre Crozat), and in the early 19th century, adopted were the terms used in writings in relation to the Academy Salon (from 1791 located at Louvre’s Salon Carré) which was the venue for alternating displays of old and contemporary art, this justified in view of political and nationalistic legitimization of the oeuvre of the French through the connection with the tradition of the great masters of the past (Charles-Paul Landon, Pierre-Marie Gault de Saint-Germain). As for the German-speaking regions, what played a particular role in consolidating the term: alte Meister, was the increasing Enlightenment – Romantic Medievalism as well as the cult of the Germanic past, and with it a revaluation of old-German painting: altdeutsch. The revision of old-German art in Weimar and Dresden, particularly within the Kunstfreunde circles, took place: from the category of barbarism and Gothic ineptitude, to the apology of the Teutonic spirit and true religiousness of the German Middle Ages (partic. Johann Gottlob von Quandt, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe). In this respect what actually had an impact was the traditional terminology backup formed in the Renaissance Humanist Germanics (ethnogenetic studies in ancient Germanic peoples, their customs, and language), which introduced the understanding of ancient times different from classical-ancient or Biblical-Christian into German historiography, and prepared grounds for the altdeutsche Geschichte and altdeutsche Kunst/Meister concepts. A different source area must have been provided by the Reformation and its iconoclasm, as well as the reaction to it, both on the Catholic, post-Tridentine side, and moderate Lutheran: in the form of paintings, often regarded by the people as ‘holy’ and ‘miraculous’; these were frequently ancient presentations, either Italo-Byzantine icons or works respected for their old age. Their ‘antiquity’ value raised by their defenders as symbols of the precedence of Christian cult at a given place contributed to the development of the concept of ‘ancient’ and ‘old’ painters in the 17th–18th century.

French-speaking Algerian writers find themselves forced to situate themselves in relation to French literature and their representation of Algerian reality. They are writers who have been specific in their distinction from the literature of the West because they have allowed the reader to discover the national heritage as well as the culture of their country. In order to highlight the richness and the multiplicity of the romantic forms of Africa, our major concern will be center on the sociocritical study of the novel of Dib "The Fire" with the aim of highlighting the social anchoring of the text and extract traces of Algerian culture. This cultural richness is manifested through the anchoring of Islam, the use of expressions referring to the culture of Algerians. Originality is also reflected in the picture he paints of his society in his daily life. The structure of Dib's work reveals close relations with Algerian culture, on the one hand, on the other hand, this orientation of the writing gives it an aesthetic particularity, The return to the sources and the valuation of its identity gives to the Dibien text its authenticity and originality.

Abstract This article examines the question of reinventing Chinese antiquity in the works of the contemporary French writer Pascal Quignard. It focuses on three aspects of Quignard’s Chinese-inspired works: his rewriting of ancient Chinese texts, his views on the idea of language via classical Chinese language and thought, and his recreation of Chinese antiquity via a radical contemporization of the past. This examination demonstrates that Quignard poses important questions about cultural reception and appropriation, especially as regards the problematic relation between sinophilia, Orientalism, and the reception of antiquity. Finally, the article proposes a nuanced view of Quignard’s sinophilia that recognizes both its merits and drawbacks. It concludes by arguing that despite the pitfalls of cultural misunderstanding and misrepresentation, Quignard spells out the conceptual death of French Orientalism in his refusal to fetishize Chinese antiquity and attests to a tendency in contemporary French literature and thought to creatively recycle foreign cultures and revise one’s understanding through the other.

From Translation to the Writing: On the Quebec Feminists, Anglo-Canadian Women Translators and the Translation ContinuumThe article presents the unique relationship between French- and English- -speaking translators in Canada, which has resulted in a great number of interesting translation phenomena. The author makes reference to the distinction between feminist translation and translation in the feminine, derived from literature in the feminine, both widely practiced in Quebec. One of the representatives of this trend was Suzanne de Lotbiniere-Harwood, mostly French-English translator, known for her translations of Nicole Brossard’s works. Her activity, as well as that of other translators, contributed to the spread of the idea of translation in the feminine among Canadian writers and theoreticians. What is more, their cooperation has resulted in the creation of the magazine Tessera and in the emergence of a range of phenomena on the borderline between translation and literature. This relationship is also a rare example of the impact of “minor literature”, which is the literature of Quebec, on the English-language Canadian literature.

En vue de résumé, et en suivant les propos de Robbe-Grillet, nous dirons que le concept du Nouveau Roman ne constitue pas une Théorie, ni une école, ni même un groupe d'écrivains optant pour la même démarche. Il n'y a là qu'une appellation commode englobant tous ceux qui cherchent de nouvelles formes romanesques, capables d'exprimer ou de créer de nouvelles relations entre l'homme et le monde, tous ceux qui ont décidés à inventer le romen. C'est à-dire à inventer- l'homme comme le croit Alain. Robbe- Grillet. Modern French novel has gained a distinctive status in the history of French literature during the first half of the twentieth century. This is due to many factors including the new literary descriptive objective style adopted by novelists like Alain Robbe – Grillet that has long been regarded as the outstanding writer of the nouveau roman, as well as its major spokesman, a representative writer and a leading theoretician of the new novel that has broken the classical rules of the one hero and evolved, through questioning the relationship of man and the world and reevaluating the limits of contemporary fiction , into creating a new form of narrative.

In the literary history of French-speaking countries, and France in particular, the appearance and development of illustrated pocket-sized collections is an editorial phenomenon typical of the boom decades of the post-war era (les trentes glorieuses). Initially devoted to writers, series of this type were later opened to philosophers and artists. While these projects of intellectual and cultural mediation may seem relatively simple, both in their form and in the issues they raise, they do present a diversity of points of view. They are also in fine part of a literary heritage – and more broadly, a cultural industry. These books have actively contributed to the development and dissemination of authors’ images, and have thus shaped the literary canon. Indeed, the very principle of the collection has a canonizing effect.

The article focuses on the reception of Russian classical literature translations in the English-speaking culture. The research was carried out on the material of three existing translations of ‘Forest and Steppe’ by both Russian and English translators published in 1895, 1955 and 1967. The main objective of the research is to determine the difficulties translators of Russian literature of the 19th century could face in the case of Turgenev's epigraph to ‘Forest and Steppe’. The tasks of the study were to define and describe the peculiarities of conveying the epigraph’s vocabulary, to outline the group of the most important keywords of the text, to recognize and describe discrepancies in their translation, to indicate why the chosen option is possible or impossible in the translation of Turgenev’s text. The study showed that Turgenev's worldview was formed under the influence of the culture of ‘rhetorical word’, and the epigraph to ‘Forest and Steppe’ proves it. The epigraph consists of a chain of symbolic images that add up to a single picture. The writer's worldview determined the style of the epigraph, the choice of vocabulary, and the composition of the text. For translators, the main difficulty at the lexical level lies in the fact that they often choose words that carry a greater emotional load than Turgenev’s vocabulary, and also introduce tropes, absent in the original, into translations. On the one hand, the translations create a realistic picture, in contrast to Turgenev’s symbolic landscape, on the other hand, the atmosphere of the text, reflecting the personality of the writer, is destroyed. The translations mirror profound changes that took place in the 19th–20th centuries in the European worldview.

Este artículo se propone como principal objetivo ilustrar la preponderancia de la escritura autoficcional en el panorama literario francófono actual mediante el análisis crítico de Désorientale, primera novela de la escritora francófona de origen iraní, Négar Djavadi. El estudio de su contexto de producción permitirá mostrar la pertinencia de su inclusión en el paradigma actual de escritoras de orígnenes muy diversos que han elegido el francés como medio de expresión literaria para dar voz a su testimonio como mujeres y/o como exiliadas. El recurso a la escritura autoficcional se convierte en una técnica narrativa común a todas ellas. The main objective of this article is to illustrate the preponderance of autofictional writing in the current Francophone literary scene through the critical analysis of Désorientale, the first novel by the Iranian-speaking French writer, Négar Djavadi. The study of its production context will show the relevance of its inclusion in the current paradigm of writers of very different origins who have chosen French as a means of literary expression to give voice to their testimony as women and / or as exiles. The recourse to autofictional writing becomes a narrative technique common to all of them.

This article argues that in Pindar's epinicians first-person statements may occasionally be made in the persona of the chorus and the athletic victor. The speaking persona behind Pindar's first-person statements varies quite widely: from generic, rhetorical poses—a laudator, an aoidos in the rhapsodic tradition (the “bardic first person”), an Everyman (the “first person indefinite”)—to strongly individualized figures: the Theban poet Pindar, the chorus, the victor. The arguable changes in the speaker's persona are not explicitly signalled in the text. This can lead to significant ambiguities concerning the identity of the speaker (“blurred quotation,” “indeterminate speech boundaries”). The lack of a concern always to distinguish clearly the primary from the secondary narrators relates to a desire to confuse diegetic and mimetic forms; the practice of the fifth-century choral lyric poets in this regard is compared to that of other ancient Greek writers. The main challenge is to indicate how it is possible, in theory and in practice, for the athletic victor to be identified as the speaker when this is not explicitly signalled in the text; and, if this is possible, to suggest how it is possible for an audience to recognize when the speaking persona subsequently reverts to laudator or poet. An attempt is made to consider whether any formal, structural, or thematic tendencies can be observed in those passages in choral lyric where the chorus or the victor are tacitly introduced as speaking personae: such effects, it is argued, occur especially when links of ritual or genealogy enable the ode to “zoom” from the mythical past to the present occasion of the performance. The main passages discussed in the article are Pind. P.8.56–60, P.9.89–92, N.7.85, Pae. 2.73–79, and Bacch. 3.84–85. But the phenomena discussed are related broadly to other phenomena in Greek literature, in Latin poetry, and, especially, in Cicero's forensic oratory.

This paper tries to show the influence of the classical tradition of the Golden Age in the avant-garde, specifically in the essayistic and creative work of the Canarian writer Agustín Espinosa García. His pages on Góngora, Lope de Vega, Calderón and, to a lesser extent, Cervantes are a reference of the best critical prose of the first third of the 20th century in the Canary Islands. Apart from his attention to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Espinosa developed keen notes on the Romancero, the Enlightenment or French poetry, among many other aspects of his insatiable intellectual curiosity. The recovery of Góngora in the magazine La Rosa de los Vientos (in parallel to Grupo del 27) was not the only project to revitalize the classics, regenerated and installed in the hour of modernity according to the criteria and concerns of the “new literature” where tradition and avant-garde dialogue.

RÉSUMÉ. La situation des écrivains francophones est plus complexe, et relève d'autres différences que le seul décentrement géographique : ils se situent en effet à la croisée des langues. Ainsi, pour analyser les littératures francophones, on ne peut procéder que par aire culturelle et même pays par pays, car la littérature est le fait d’individus marqués par leur environnement immédiat (Brahimi, 2001, p.3). La recherche est alors visée à deux romans de deux écrivains francophones très réputés et couronnés de Goncourt, Patrick Chamoiseau de la Martinique, et Tahar Ben Jelloun du Maghreb. Solibo Magnifique et Moha le Fou Moha le Sage ont été analysés sur le plan des codes littéraires et culturels. Pour cette étude, nous utilisons également les méthodes de la littérature comparée afin d’arriver à une conclusion des parallélismes et contrastes existant dans ces oeuvres francophones. Afin de rendre la recherche plus systématisée, nous allons encadrer les problématiques sous forme de deux questions suivantes : quelles sont les caractéristiques des romans francophones : Solibo Magnifique et Moha le fou Moha le sage, à travers l’analyse des codes littéraires et culturels, et quels parallélismes et contrastes existent-ils entre ces deux romans. Mots-Clés : littératures, francophones, parallelismes, contraste.ABSTRACT. The situation of French-speaking writers is more complex, and refers to differences other than geographical decentralization: they are at the crossroads of languages. Thus, to analyze Francophone literature, one can proceed only by cultural area and even country by country, because the literature is the act of individuals marked by their immediate environment (Brahimi, 2001: 3). The research is therefore aimed at two novels of two well-known and crowned Francophone writers of Goncourt, Patrick Chamoiseau of Martinique, and Tahar Ben Jelloun of Maghreb. Solibo Magnificent and Moha the Fool Moha the Wise were analyzed in terms of literary and cultural codes. For this study, we also use the methods of comparative literature in order to arrive at a conclusion of the parallels and contrasts existing in the francophone literatures. In order to make the research more systematic, we will frame the problems in the form of two questions: what are the characteristics of French-language novels: Solibo Magnifique and Moha the crazy Moha the wise, through the analysis of literary and cultural codes, and what parallels and contrasts exist between these two novels?Keywords: literature, francophones, parallelisms, contrasts.

From a certain perspective, literature is always political. Literature in a broad sense has been a source of uprisings and protest at least since Martin Luther nailed his theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg in 1517 – and probably much further back in history than that. Narratives are the most potent way to articulate both political praise and criticism within a given society. In his political satires, British author George Orwell reviled all kinds of totalitarianism and the idea of a socialist utopia. Swedish writer and journalist Stieg Larsson wrote explicitly dystopian crime stories targeting the Swedish welfare state. German novelist Heinrich Böll turned a critical eye on the development of the tabloid press and the use of state monitoring in German society. In the same tradition, Michel Houellebecq has been seen as a very provocative writer in his tone and in his use of political tools. He has articulated a nearly individual anarchist perspective combined with authoritarian and paternalistic views. In Soumission, Houellebecq uses the European idea of multiculturalism to explode our political frames from within. This article explores the perception of religion in Soumission, assesses the critique Houellebecq directs towards French society and European developments, and examines Houellebecq’s perception of democracy and politics. The following questions are addressed: does Houellebecq’s critique come from a classical ideological perspective? Does he describe any elements of an ideal society – even if only as the reverse of a presented dystopia? What kind of democracy does the text of Soumission support or oppose?

The article discusses and defines the content of the lexical and semantic field «Russian reality» in modern literature on the example of the novel by F. Beigbeder «Au secours, pardon» («Ideal»). The author of the selected work F. Beigbeder is a popular modern French writer, the winner of the famous literary award «Renaudot». F. Beigbeder is known in the literary world as a prominent representative of mass literature. The images created by the writer on the pages of novels are understandable and close to the reader. The style and linguistic units used in the works deserve special attention, since F. Beigbeder’s novels are characterized by intertextuality, the method of quoting cult classical works, the principle of ambivalence, and autobiography. The text under consideration is no exception. In it, the abovementioned techniques and principles are applied by merging the author with the narrator, shifting styles and genres in the work, using irony, and the presence of thematic images and representations. The analysis of entire thematic blocks in a work of fiction remains an urgent linguistic problem, since lexical and semantic research allows us to consider thematic groupings of words from the point of view of psycholinguistics, thenational cultural component. In the work under study, a significant place is given to the formation of images, ideas, stereotypes, and mythologies about Russian reality, which served as a rich material for building a lexical and semantic field with the same name. In addition, the image of Russian reality is reflected in the novel not directly, but through the perception of female characters, through the interpretation and explication of the concept «female beauty». This fact is even more interesting for the description of the selected field. The main results of the research are, first of all, the formation of the lexical-semantic field «Russian reality» (réalité russe) on the basis of linguistic units selected by the continuous sampling method from the text of the work in French and the linguistic-cultural analysis of the factual material with the indication of the percentage of filling the core and periphery of the analyzed lexical-semantic field.

Resumo: Este artigo busca apresentar uma contribuição aos debates de culturas de língua francesa através de um estudo de caso sobre literatura antilhana por um viés decolonial (Walsh, 2013). Serão apresentados como exemplos decoloniais os estudos sobre a tradição dos contos crioulos, registrados e traduzidos para o francês por Ina Césaire e Joëlle Laurent em três obras bilíngues publicadas pela Éditions Caribéennes (Contes de Mort et de Vie aux Antilles, 1976; Contes de Soleil et de Pluie aux Antilles, 1988; Contes de Nuits et de Jours aux Antilles, 1989), e seus reflexos na literatura das Antilhas e da Guiana Francesa. A proposta decolonial também será aplicada à obra Solibo Magnifique, de Patrick Chamoiseau (1991). Para tanto, utiliza-se o conceito de literaturas do desassossego de Gauvin (2016) a fim de opor-se aos conceitos de francofonia e de Littérature-monde – apresentados por Alves (2012) – para designar as literaturas de língua francesa nas Américas, buscando incluí-las nas produções latino-americanas. Percebe-se, assim, grande influência das tradições orais nas produções contemporâneas de escritores antilhanos, além da importância de levar este fato em conta em uma análise que se proponha decolonial dentro da universidade, como discorre Restrepo (2018).Palavras-chave: pensamento decolonial; literatura antilhana de língua francesa; literaturas do desassossego; Ina Césaire; Patrick Chamoiseau.Abstract: This article aims to contribute to the debates on French-speaking cultures through a case study on Antillean Literature according to Decolonial Criticism (WALSH, 2013). The studies about the tradition of creole tales, recorded and translated to French by Ina Césaire and Joëlle Laurant in three bilingual volumes published by Éditions Caribéennes (Contes de Mort et de Vie aux Antilles, 1976; Contes de Soleil et de Pluie aux Antilles, 1988; Contes de Nuits et de Jours aux Antilles, 1989) and its reflections on Antillean and French Guianese Literature will be presented here as decolonial examples. This decolonial approach will also be applied to the work of Solibo Magnifique by Patrick Chamoiseau (1991). In order to do so, the concept of Literatures of Disquiet has been used to oppose the concepts of Francophonie and Littérature-monde – as presented by Alves (2012) – to designate the literature in French language in America aiming to include them in Latin American productions. The influence of oral traditions in contemporary productions by Antillean writers is quite evident, as well how it is important to take this fact into account when proposing a Decolonial analysis inside the academy, as pointed out by Restrepo (2018).Keywords: decolonial thinking; Antillean literature in French; literatures of disquiet; Ina Césaire; Patrick Chamoiseau.

In this article the authors present results from research that tested well-established assumptions and explored longstanding dissatisfactions concerning questions about the relationship between moral development and religious development. Relying upon classical constructs derived from the work of Lawrence Kohlberg, Fritz Oser, and certain of their colleagues, the authors translated, revalidated, and employed a measure developed by John Gibbs for the measurement of moral judgment, and developed, validated, and employed a new measure of religious judgment for the purpose of comparing moral judgment and religious judgment levels in a population of French-speaking Belgian adolescents and young adults. Their findings introduce the beginning of a large-scale empirical effort in the testing of claims central to the literature of developmental psychology and the practice of developmental education where moral and religious judgment are concerned. The results of their research also raise a series of interesting questions about conflict and convergence in moral and religious development. Readers are invited to regard these findings both as a source of reinvigoration for the constructivist case about the relatedness of moral and religious development, and as an opportunity to enquire collaboratively into a series of perplexing questions which arise therein.

Is There Tunisian Literature? Emergent Writing and Fractal Proliferation of Minor VoicesThe article presents the Tunisian literature from the non-local perspective of global literary market and the circulation of translated literature. The minor status of the studied phenomenon becomes obvious even when the Tunisian literature is compared with the Moroccan one. What is more, this comparison helps to understand the consequences of some choices made by the Tunisian writers, choices that established diverging directions of literary quest and the ambivalent aspiration of belonging both to the Arabic and the French linguistic and cultural zone. This basic ambivalence is treated in the article as essential fissure and a kind of fractal principle, conducing to the proliferation of minor voices, instead of synergistic pattern of development leading to the synthesis of cultural contradictions. Some of these voices, such as Abdelwahhab Meddeb, try to inscribe themselves in the universalist, gallicized context, while others, such as the emigrant Arab-speaking writer Hassouna Mosbahi, find in the translation a chance of reaching new readers and the promise of escaping the status of minor or emergent writers. Czy istnieje literatura tunezyjska? Pisarstwo emergentne i fraktalna proliferacja mniejszościowych głosów Artykuł stanowi próbę świadomie „tendencyjnego” przedstawienia literatury tunezyjskiej z eurocentrycznej perspektywy. Postawione w tytule pytanie, wskazujące na wątpliwe istnienie tej literatury, wynika ze skrzyżowania spojrzenia na rzeczywistość lokalną z ujęciem globalnym, operującym ponadlokalnymi pojęciami rynku literackiego i obiegu literatury tłumaczonej. Literatura tunezyjska rysuje się jako zjawisko wybitnie mniejszościowe nawet wówczas, gdy zostaje ujęta w ramy regionalnego porównania z literaturą marokańską. Uwidacznia ono naturę i konsekwencje wyborów dokonanych przez pisarzy tunezyjskich począwszy od lat 20. i 30. XX wieku. Te wybory określiły rozbieżne kierunki poszukiwań własnego języka literackiego oraz podwójną aspirację „arabskości” i „europejskości”, jaka wprowadziła wewnętrzne pęknięcie w lokalnym pejzażu kulturowym. Ten podstawowy rozłam jest potraktowany w artykule jako element wprowadzający swoistą zasadę fraktalną. Niczym fraktal, literatura tunezyjska nie rozwija się w kierunku syntezy sprzecznych tendencji i synergii prowadzącej w konsekwencji do umocnienia jej obecności i oddziaływania, lecz w kierunku proliferacji wymiarów mniejszościowości. Oznacza to eksplorację coraz dalszych rejonów pisarskiego doświadczenia przez głosy coraz słabiej słyszalne, pozbawione czytelniczego zaplecza, choć same w sobie interesujące. Wywód o „fraktalności” literatury tunezyjskiej został zilustrowany przykładami odnoszącymi się zarówno do pisarstwa w języku arabskim, jak i francuskim. Wzmiankowanymi w artykule założycielami nowoczesnej tradycji poezji, prozy narracyjnej i eseju są odpowiednio Echebbi, Khraief i Memmi. Kolejne nazwiska, takie jak Meddeb i Mosbahi, konotują różne sposoby usytuowania pisarza tunezyjskiego wobec Europy, pomiędzy poszukiwaniem odrębności a postulatem uniwersalizmu i poczuciem głębokiego związku z kulturą francuską. To ostatnie roszczenie może być interpretowane jako przyczyna wyciszenia wielu wymiarów tunezyjskiej tożsamości; w artykule zwrócono uwagę na milczenie grup nienależących do tunezyjskiej kultury miejskiej, reprezentujących świat pustyni, które doczekały się co prawda literackiego wyrazu, przemieszczonego jednak w europejski kontekst i w dużym stopniu pozbawionego bezpośredniego czytelniczego zaplecza. Skomplikowane oddziaływanie języków i przekładów, mogących wesprzeć te mniejszościowe poszukiwania literackie, prawdopodobnie dałoby się lepiej uchwycić dzięki poszukiwaniu nowych perspektyw syntetycznych, na przykład podejmujących pojęcie „literatury afroeuropejskiej”, niż przy zastosowaniu tradycyjnego pojęcia „literatury narodowej”, które wydaje się mieć ograniczone zastosowanie w odniesieniu do aktualnej literatury północnoafrykańskiej.

In a series of lectures in 1994, Nadine Gordimer remarks the different status of Africa which is no longer at the edge of the empire, but on the contrary, in the center of it. In this respect, post-apartheid Africa has rebuilt its national identity on the background of global events that write universal history, offering citizens the chance to escape their country's constraints and bring important key elements in the globalization process. Thus, replacing apartheid themes in a new country is an extreme task by the applicant. Some of the favourite subjects of the "old guard" are the following: the importance of multiculturalism in post-apartheid South Africa, the writer's status, vulgarisation of violence due to mass-media, reconciliation with a violent past and their economic and cultural implications, the fight against AIDS, sexual emancipation, globalization and loss of cultural and national identity, uprooting, migration and economic exile which replaced major pre-existing concerns about violence, racial and gender discrimination, the relationship between literature and politics, or the role of ethics in literature. The same situation can be applied to eastern countries. Even though they were not "postcolonial" in the classical sense of the term, applicable to the former British, French, Spanish, Portuguese or Dutch colonies, the "post-communist transition" through which they passed included the disarmament of a certain political and economic "occupation". People had to adapt to the new order, to the new reality, which was a complex process, a difficult one, that implied, many times, exile. Therefore, the purpose of my argument is to present what consequences can occur at the psychological level because of the attempt of adaptation of the characters to the new social and political order, by imitation, postcolonial and post-communist context. And here comes the question: does imitation facilitate adaptation? Although the logical answer would be yes, we will notice, by discussing the two texts, exactly the opposite.

AbstractAry Scheffer (1795-1858) is so generally included in the French School (Note 2)- unsurprisingly, since his career was confined almost entirely to Paris - that the fact that he was born and partly trained in the Netherlands is often overlooked. Yet throughout his life he kept in touch with Dutch colleagues and drew part of his inspiration from Dutch traditions. These Dutch aspects are the subject of this article. The Amsterdam City Academy, 1806-9 Ary Scheffer was enrolled at the Amsterdam Academy on 25 October 1806, his parents falsifying his date of birth in order to get him admitted at the age of eleven (fifteen was the oficial age) . He started in the third class and in order to qualify for the second he had to be one of the winners in the prize drawing contest. Candidates in this were required to submit six drawings made during the months January to March. Although no-one was supposed to enter until he had been at the Academy for four years, Ary Scheffer competed in both 1808 and 1809. Some of his signed drawings are preserved in Dordrecht. (Figs. 1-5 and 7), along with others not made for the contest. These last in particular are interesting not only because they reveal his first prowess, but also because they give some idea of the Academy practice of his day. Although the training at the Academy broadly followed the same lines as that customary in France, Italy and elsewhere (Note 4), our knowledge of its precise content is very patchy, since there was no set curriculum and no separate teachers for each subject. Two of Scheffer's drawings (Figs. 2 and 3) contain extensive notes, which amount to a more or less complete doctrine of proportion. It is not known who his teacher was or what sources were used, but the proportions do not agree with those in Van der Passe's handbook, which came into vogue in the 18th century, or with those of the canon of a Leonardo, Dürer or Lebrun. One gets the impression that what are given here are the exact measurements of a concrete example. Scheffer's drawings show him gradually mastering the rudiments of art. In earlier examples the hatching is sometimes too hasty (Fig. 4) or too rigidly parallel (Fig.5), while his knowledge of anatomy is still inadequate and his observation not careful enough. But right from the start he shows flair and as early as 1807 he made a clever drawing of a relatively complex group (Fig. 6) , while the difficult figure of Marsyas was already well captured in 1808 and clearly evinces his growing knowledge o f anatomy, proportion , foreshortening and the effects of light (Fig. 7). The same development can be observed in his portrait drawings. That of Gerardus Vrolik (1775-1859, Fig.8), a professor at the Atheneum Illustre (the future university) and Scheffer' s teacher, with whom he always kept in touch (Note 6), is still not entirely convincing, but a portrait of 1809, thought to be of his mother (Fig.9, Note 7), shows him working much more systematically. It is not known when he left the Academy, but from the summer of 1809 we find him in France, where he was to live with only a few breaks from 1811 to his death. The first paintings and the Amsterdam exhibitions of 1808 and 1810 Ary Scheffer's earliest known history painting, Hannibal Swearing to Avenge his Brother Hasdrubal's Death (Fig. 10) Notes 8-10) was shown at the first exhibition of living masters in Amsterdam in 1808. Although there was every reason for giving this subject a Neo-Classical treatment, the chiaroscuro, earthy colours and free brushwork show Scheffer opting for the old Dutch tradition rather than the modern French style. This was doubtless on the prompting of his parents,for a comment in a letter from his mother in 1810 (Note 12) indicates that she shared the reservations of the Dutch in general about French Neo-Classicism. (Note 11). As the work of a twelve to thirteen year old, the painting naturally leaves something to be desired: the composition is too crowded and unbalanced and the anatomy of the secondary figures rudimentary. In a watercolour Scheffer made of the same subject, probably in the 1820's, he introduced much more space between the figures (Fig. 11, Note 13). Two portraits are known from this early period. The first, of Johanna Maria Verbeek (Fig. 12, Note 14), was done when the two youngsters were aged twelve. It again shows all the characteristics of an early work, being schematic in its simplicity, with some rather awkward details and inadequate plasticity. On the other hand the hair and earrings are fluently rendered, the colours harmonious and the picture has an undeniable charm. At the second exhibition of works by living masters in 1810, Ary Scheffer showed a 'portrait of a painter' (Fig. 13), who was undoubtedly his uncle Arnoldus Lamme, who also had work in the exhibition as did Scheffer's recently deceased father Johan-Bernard and his mother Cornelia Scheffer-Lamme, an indication of the stimulating surroundings in which he grew up. The work attracted general attention (Note 16) and it does, indeed, show a remarkable amount of progress, the plasticity, effects of light, brushwork and colour all revealing skill and care in their execution. The simple, bourgeois character of the portrait not only fits in with the Dutch tradition which Scheffer had learned from both his parents in Amsterdam, but also has points in common with the recent developments in France, which he could have got to know during his spell in Lille from autumn 1809 onwards. A Dutchman in Paris Empire and Restoration, 1811-30 In Amsterdam Scheffer had also been laught by his mother, a miniature painter, and his father, a portrait and history painter (Note 17). After his father's death in June 1809, his mother, who not only had a great influence on his artistic career, but also gave his Calvinism and a great love of literature (Note 18), wanted him to finish his training in Paris. After getting the promise of a royal grant from Louis Napoleon for this (Note 19) and while waiting for it to materialize, she sent the boy to Lille to perfect his French as well as further his artistic training. In 1811 Scheffer settled in Paris without a royal grant or any hope of one. He may possibly have studied for a short time under Prudhon (Note 20) , but in the autumn of 1811 he was officially contracted as a pupil of Guérin, one of the leading artists of the school of David, under whom he mastered the formulas of NeD-Classicism, witness his Orpheus and Eurydice (Fïg.14), shown in the Salon of 1814. During his first ten years in Paris Scheffer also painted many genre pieces in order, so he said, to earn a living for himself and his mother. Guérin's prophecy that he would make a great career as a history painter (Note 21) soon came true, but not in the way Guérin thought it would, Scheffer participating in the revolution initiated by his friends and fellow-pupils, Géricault and Delacroix, which resulted in the rise of the Romantic Movement. It was not very difficult for him to break with Neo-Classicism, for with his Dutch background he felt no great affinity with it (Note 22). This development is ilustrated by his Gaston de Foix Dying on the Battlefield After his Victory at Ravenna, shown at the Salon of 1824, and The Women of Souli Throwing Themselves into the Abyss (Fig.15), shown at that of 1827-8. The last years of the Restoration and the July Monarchy. Influence of Rembrandt and the Dutch masters In 1829, when he seemed to have become completely assimilated in France and had won wide renown, Scheffer took the remarkable step of returning to the Netherlands to study the methods of Rembrandt and other Dutch old masters (Note 23) . A new orientation in his work is already apparent in the Women of Souli, which is more harmonious and considered in colour than the Gaston dc Foix (Note 24). This is linked on the one hand to developments in France, where numbers of young painters had abandoned extreme Romanticism to find the 'juste milieu', and on the other to Scheffer's Dutch background. Dutch critics were just as wary of French Romanticism as they had been of Neo-Classicism, urging their own painters to revive the traditions of the Golden Age and praising the French painters of the 'juste milieu'. It is notable how many critics commented on the influence of Rembrandt on Scheffer's works, e.g. his Faust, Marguérite, Tempête and portrait of Talleyrand at the Salon of 1851 (Note 26). The last two of these date from 1828 and show that the reorientation and the interest in Rembrandt predate and were the reasons for the return to the Netherlands in 1829. In 1834 Gustave Planche called Le Larmoyeur (Fig. 16) a pastiche of Rembrandt and A. Barbier made a comparable comment on Le Roi de Thule in 1839 (Note 27). However, as Paul Mantz already noted in 1850 (Note 28), Scheffer certainly did not fully adopt Rembrandt's relief and mystic light. His approach was rather an eclectic one and he also often imbued his work with a characteristically 19th-century melancholy. He himself wrote after another visit to the Netherlands in 1849 that he felt he had touched a chord which others had not attempted (Note 29) . Contacts with Dutch artists and writers Scheffer's links with the Netherlands come out equally or even more strongly in the many contacts he maintained there. As early as 1811-12 Sminck-Pitloo visited him on his way to Rome (Note 30), to be followed in the 1820's by J.C. Schotel (Note 31), while after 1830 as his fame increased, so the contacts also became more numerous. He was sought after by and corresponded with various art dealers (Note 33) and also a large number of Dutch painters, who visited him in Paris or came to study under him (Note 32) Numerous poems were published on paintings by him from 1838 onwards, while Jan Wap and Alexander Ver Huell wrote at length about their visits to him (Note 34) and a 'Scheffer Album' was compiled in 1859. Thus he clearly played a significant role in the artistic life of the Netherlands. International orientation As the son of a Dutch mother and a German father, Scheffer had an international orientation right from the start. Contemporary critics and later writers have pointed out the influences from English portrait painting and German religious painting detectable in his work (Note 35). Extracts from various unpublished letters quoted here reveal how acutely aware he was of what was likely to go down well not only in the Netherlands, but also in a country like England, where he enjoyed great fame (Notes 36-9) . July Monarchy and Second Empire. The last decades While most French artists of his generation seemed to have found their definitive style under the July Monarchy, Scheffer continued to search for new forms of expression. In the 1830's, at the same time as he painted his Rembrandtesque works, he also produced his famous Francesca da Rimini (Fig. 17), which is closer to the 'juste milieu' in its dark colours and linear accents. In the 1840's he used a simple and mainly bright palette without any picturesque effects, e.g. in his SS. Augustine and Monica and The Sorrows of the Earth (Note 41), but even this was not his last word. In an incident that must have occurred around 1857 he cried out on coming across some of his earlier works that he had made a mistake since then and wasted his time (Note 42) and in his Calvin of 1858 (Fig. 18) he resumed his former soft chiaroscuro and warm tones. It is characteristic of him that in that same year he painted a last version of The Sorrows of the Earth in the light palette of the 1840's. Despite the difficulty involved in the precise assessment of influences on a painter with such a complex background, it is clear that even in his later period, when his work scored its greatest successes in France, England and Germany, Scheffer always had a strong bond with the Netherlands and that he not only contributed to the artistic life there, but always retained a feeling for the traditions of his first fatherland. Appendix An appendix is devoted to a study of the head of an old man in Dordrecht, which is catalogued as a copy of a 17th-century painting in the style of Rembrandt done by Ary Scheffer at the age of twelve (Fig.19, Note 43). This cannot be correct, as it is much better than the other works by the twelve-year-old painter. Moreover, no mention is made of it in the catalogue of the retrospective exhibition held in Paris in 1859, where the Hannibal is given as his earliest work (Note 44). It was clearly unknown then, as it is not mentioned in any of the obituaries of 1858 and 1859 either. The earliest reference to it occurs in the list made bv Scheffer's daughter in 1897 of the works she was to bequeath to the Dordrecht museum. A clue to its identification may be a closely similar drawing by Cornelia Scheffer-Lamme (Fig. 20, Note 46), which is probably a copy after the head of the old man. She is known to have made copies after contemporary and 17th-century masters. The portrait might thus be attributable to Johan-Bernard Scheffer, for his wife often made copies of his works and he is known from sale catalogues to have painted various portraits of old men (Note 47, cf. Fig.21). Ary Scheffer also knew this. In 1839 his uncle Arnoldus Lamme wrote to him that he would look out for such a work at a sale (Note 48). It may be that he succeeded in finding one and that this portrait came into the possession of the Scheffer family in that way, but Johan-Bernard's work is too little known for us to be certain about this.

In a justly famous paper published in 1961, Peter Brown set out a model for understanding the historical process whereby the formerly pagan aristocracy of imperial Rome became overwhelmingly Christian during the course of the fourth and fifth centuries. Brown's paper has deeply influenced all who have subsequently studied this historical phenomenon, at least in the English-speaking world. Since this article argues that the Roman aristocracy became Christian significantly earlier than Brown and most recent writers have assumed, it must begin by drawing an important distinction. Brown's paper marked a major advance in modern understanding because it redirected the focus of scholarly research away from conflict and confrontation, away from the political manifestations of paganism culminating in the ‘last great pagan revival in the West’ between 392 and 394, away from episodes which pitted pagan aristocrats of Rome against Christian emperors, away from ‘the public crises in relations between Roman paganism and a Christian court’, towards the less sensational but more fundamental processes of cultural and religious change which gradually transformed the landowning aristocracy of Italy after the conversion of Constantine. This change of emphasis was extremely salutary in 1961, it has permanently changed our perception of the period, and it entails a method of approaching the subject which remains completely valid. Unfortunately, however, Brown also adopted prevailing assumptions about the chronology of these changes which are mistaken, on the basis of which he asserted that the ‘drift into a respectable Christianity’ began no earlier than the reign of Constantius. The evidence and arguments set out here indicate that the process began much earlier and proceeded more rapidly than Brown assumed, but they in no way challenge the validity of his approach to understanding the nature of the process.

Введение. Выбор подхода к анализу художественного перевода объясняется тем, что интерпретация при переводе предполагает со-творчество переводчика и автора оригинального произведения, благодаря чему может возникнуть его новое понимание. Цель статьи – выявить отличия между авторской интерпретацией комедии «Ревизор» и ее переводческой интерпретацией К. Гарнетт. Это позволит проследить смысловые трансформации произведения при е го вхождении в англоязычную культуру. Материал и методы. Материалом исследования является комедия Н. В. Гоголя «Ревизор» и ее перевод на английский язык, выполненный британской переводчицей К. Гарнетт. В основе методологии настоящего исследования – сравнительно-сопоставительный метод, а также метод изучения перевода с точки зрения понятия «переводческой интерпретации». Результаты и обсуждение. Переводчица не выделяет название «Немая сцена» в отдельный заголовок и пишет его мелким курсивом слитно с предыдущим текстом. Это снижает ее значимость для английских читателей. Кроме того, К. Гарнетт в переводе пьесы убирает деление на явления, которое поддерживает классицистическую симметричность и правильность архитектоники, демонстрируя при этом заданность бытия, его подчиненность божественному замыслу. Это позволяет предположить, что в восприятии переводчицы уже не существовало изначально гармоничных законов бытия человека. Что касается антропонимики, все имена и фамилии персонажей передаются К. Гарнетт с помощью транслитерации. Это значит, что для англоязычного читателя их «говорящее» значение утрачивается. Такой способ перевода также может иметь более глубокое значение. В оригинальном произведении героев объединяет их причастность к пороку, символическим воплощением которого они являются. Связывает их и общее ожидание расплаты за свои деяния и, несомненно, принадлежность к одному народу, поскольку этот вопрос был важен для Гоголя. В то же время в этом воплощается и влияние на него традиций романтизма. В комедии единство народа демонстрирует, в частности, общий национальный характер героев. Наличие и характер порока в каждом отдельном случае выражаются в числе прочего посредством фамилии персонажа. Но поскольку при транслитерации в переводе эта семантика утрачивается, связующая нить становится уже не такой очевидной для англоязычного читателя. Утрате изначальной семантики принадлежности героев к единому народу способствует и перевод фразеологических оборотов, пословиц и поговорок, встречающихся в тексте оригинала. В переводе К. Гарнетт идиоматичность речи героев, указывающая на их народный характер, была в значительной степени редуцирована. Аналогичной особенностью является частая замена просторечных выражений героев лексемами литературного языка. В связи с этим речь персонажей становится в большей степени нейтральной и теряет свою выразительность. Из-за преобладающего количества подобных трансформаций характеры героев в переводе комедии сложно назвать народными. Относительно перевода российских реалий нужно отметить, что К. Гарнетт заменила многие из них английскими. И хотя нельзя говорить, что это относится ко всем реалиям, однако таких абсолютное большинство, что не может не влиять на читательское восприятие. Помимо прочего, К. Гарнетт добавляет в список действующих лиц Жандарма, что не соответствует замыслу Гоголя, до мельчайших подробностей продумавшего все детали своей комедии. Жандарм в комедии выступает как «вестник Страшного суда», и в его фигуре проявляется «надличностная сила», именно поэтому он и отсутствует на сцене. Однако появление в списке действующих лиц в тексте перевода полностью лишает его возможности воплощать десницу Божию. В совокупности с нивелированием значимости «Немой сцены» это лишает комедию ее подлинного смысла, который стремился выразить Гоголь. Заключение. Возникновение подобного варианта перевода комедии можно связать с тем, что работа К. Гарнетт приходится на начало эпохи модернизма, «коренным свойством литературы которого является, в частности, убеждение в замкнутости, отчужденности и конечной абсурдности каждого индивидуального существования и всего макрокосма действительности». Это во многом способствует формалистическому подходу к вопросам поэтики, который в данном случае и избирает переводчица. Это выражается в том, что К. Гарнетт воспроизводит текст без учета влияния контекста биографии автора и его взглядов. Нельзя сказать, что в достаточной мере был учтен культурно-исторический контекст оригинала и восприятие Гоголем литературных традиций. Трансформации при переводе привели к тому, что персонажи воспринимаются как части безликой толпы, каждого члена которой ничто между собой не связывает, а не как народ, черпающий одухотворенность в своем единстве. Герои по-прежнему вместе ожидают ревизора, но смысл его появления теряет свое сакральное значение кары Божьей. В такой интерпретации существование героев комедии предстает абсурдным и даже в некоторой степени трагическим, поскольку не намечается ни позитивной, ни негативной динамики. Таким образом, хотя изначальный авторский смысл не был воссоздан К. Гарнетт в переводе «Ревизора» на английский язык, можно констатировать, что возник новый, передающий мироощущение безысходности рубежа XIX−XX вв. Introduction. The choice of approach to the analysis of literary translation in this article is explained by the fact that interpretation in translation involves co-creation of the translator and the author of the original work, so that a new understanding of it can arise. Aim and objectives. The aim of the article is to identify the differences between the author’s interpretation of the comedy “The Government Inspector” and its translation interpretation by K. Garnett. It will allow us to see the semantic transformations of the work as it penetrates into the English-speaking culture. Material and methods. The material of the research is the comedy “The Government Inspector” by N. V. Gogol and its translation into English, made by the British translator K. Garnett in 1926. The methodology of this research is based on a comparative method, as well as a method for studying translation through the concept of “translation interpretation”. Results and discussion. The translator does not put the name “Silent scene” in a separate title and writes it in small italics merged with the previous text. This reduces its significance for English readers. In addition, K. Garnett in the translation of the play removes the division into scenes, which supports the classical symmetry and correctness of architectonics, while demonstrating the subordination of being to the divine plan. This suggests that in the understanding of the translator there were no initially harmonious laws of human existence. As for anthroponomy, all the names and surnames of the characters are conveyed by K. Garnett using transliteration. This means that for the English-speaking reader, their “speaking” meaning is lost. At the same time, this method of translation may also have a deeper meaning. In the original work, the characters are united by their involvement in vice, the symbolic embodiment of which they are. They are also connected by a common expectation of punishment for their actions and, undoubtedly, by belonging to the same people, since this issue was important for Gogol. It embodies the influence of the romanticism traditions on him. In comedy, the unity of the people demonstrates, in particular, the common national character of the dramatic personae. The presence and nature of the vice in each individual case is expressed, among other things, by the name of the character. But since this semantics is lost due to transliteration in translation, the connecting thread becomes less obvious to English-speaking reader. The loss of the original semantics of belonging of heroes to a common nation is facilitated by the translation of phraseological phrases, proverbs and sayings found in the original text. In the translation by K. Garnett, the idiomatic speech of the characters, indicating their folk character, was largely reduced. A similar feature is the frequent replacement of colloquial expressions of heroes with lexemes of the literary language. Therefore, the characters’ speech becomes more neutral and loses its expressiveness. Due to the prevailing number of such transformations, the characters of the dramatic personae in the translation of the comedy can hardly be called folk. Regarding the translation of Russian realities, it should be noted that K. Garnett replaced many of them with English ones. And although we cannot say that this applies to all realities, but they are the absolute majority, which cannot but affect readers reception. Among other things, K. Garnett adds a Gendarme to the list of actors, which does not correspond to Gogol’s conception. The Gendarme in the comedy acts as a “herald of the Last judgment” and his figure shows “transpersonal power”, which is why he is not on the stage of the theater. However, the appearance of the Gendarme in the list of actors in the translation text completely deprives him of the opportunity to embody the hand of God. Together with the “Silent scene” leveling this deprives comedy its significance and true meaning, which Gogol sought to express. Conclusion. The emergence of such a version of the comedy translation can be attributed to the fact that K. Garnett worked at the beginning of the modernist era, “the root characteristic of the literature of which is, in particular, the belief in the isolation, alienation and ultimate absurdity of each individual existence and the entire macrocosm of reality”. This largely contributes to the formalistic approach to poetics, which in this case is chosen by the translator. This is expressed in the fact that K. Garnett reproduces the text without taking into account the influence of the author’s biography and views. It cannot also be said that the cultural and historical context of the original and Gogol’s reception of literary traditions were sufficiently taken into account. Transformations in translation have led to the fact that characters are perceived as part of a faceless crowd, each member of which is not connected by anything, and not as people drawing inspiration from their unity. The characters are still together waiting for the Government Inspector, but the meaning of his appearance loses its sacred meaning of God’s punishment. In this interpretation, the existence of comedy characters appears absurd and even tragic to some extent, since there is no positive or negative dynamics. Thus, although the original author’s meaning was not recreated by K. Garnett in the translation of “The Government Inspector” into English, it can be stated that a new one that conveys a sense of hopelessness at the turn of the XIX−XX centuries has emerged.

The Routledge Handbook of language and culture represents a comprehensive study on the inextricable relationship between language and culture. It is structured into seven parts and 33 chapters. Part 1, Overview and historical background, by Farzad Sharifian, starts with an outline of the book and a synopsis of research on language and culture. The second chapter, John Leavitt’s Linguistic relativity: precursors and transformations discusses further the historical development of the concept of linguistic relativity, identifying different schools’ of thought views on the relation between language and culture. He also tries to demystify some misrepresentations held towards Boas, Sapir, and Whorf’ theories (pp. 24-26). Chapter 3, Ethnosyntax, by Anna Gladkova provides an overview of research on ethnosyntax, starting from the theoretical basis laid by Sapir and Whorf and investigates the differences between a narrow sense of ethnosyntax, which focuses on cultural meanings of various grammatical structures and a broader sense, which emphasises the pragmatic and cultural norms’ impact on the choice of grammatical structures. John Leavitt presents in the fourth chapter, titled Ethnosemantics, a historical account of research on meaning across cultures, introducing three traditions, i.e. ‘classical’ ethnosemantics (also referred to as ethnoscience or cognitive anthropology), Boasian cultural semantics (linguistically inspired anthropology) and Neohumboldtian comparative semantics (word-field theory, or content-oriented Linguistics). In Chapter 5, Goddard underlines the fact that ethnopragmatics investigates emic (or culture-internal) approaches to the use of different speech practices across various world languages, which accounts for the fact that there exists a connection between the cultural values or norms and the speech practices peculiar to a speech community. One of the key objectives of ethnopragmatics is to investigate ‘cultural key words’, i.e. words that encapsulate culturally construed concepts. The concept of ‘linguaculture’ (or languaculture) is tackled in Risager’s Chapter 6, Linguaculture: the language–culture nexus in transnational perspective. The author makes reference to American scholars that first introduced this notion, Paul Friedrich, who looks at language and culture as a single domain in which verbal aspects of culture are mingled with semantic meanings, and Michael Agar, for whom culture resides in language while language is loaded with culture. Risager himself brought forth a new global and transnational perspective on the concept of linguaculture, i.e. the use of language (linguistic practice) is seen as flows in people’s social networks and speech communities. These flows enhance as people migrate or learn new languages, in permanent dynamics. Lidia Tanaka’s Chapter 7, Language, gender, and culture deals with research on language, gender, and culture. According to her, the language-gender relationship has been studied by researchers from various fields, including psychology, linguistics, and anthropology, who mainly consider gender as a construct that preserves inequalities in society, with the help of language, too. Tanaka lists diachronically different approaches to language and gender, focusing on three specific ones: gender stereotyped linguistic resources, semantically, pragmatically or lexically designated language features (including register) and gender-based spoken discourse strategies (talking-time imbalances or interruptions). In Chapter 8, Language, culture, and context, Istvan Kecskes delves into the relationship between language, culture, and context from a socio-cognitive perspective. The author considers culture to be a set of shared knowledge structures that encapsulate the values, norms, and customs that the members of a society have in common. According to him, both language and context are rooted in culture and carriers of it, though reflecting culture in a different way. Language encodes past experience with different contexts, whereas context reflects present experience. The author also provides relevant examples of formulaic language that demonstrate the functioning of both types of context, within the larger interplay between language, culture, and context. Sara Miller’s Chapter 9, Language, culture, and politeness reviews traditional approaches to politeness research, with particular attention given to ‘discursive approach’ to politeness. Much along the lines of the previous chapter, Miller stresses the role of context in judgements of (im)polite language, maintaining that individuals represent active agents who challenge and negotiate cultural as well as linguistic norms in actual communicative contexts. Chapter 10, Language, culture, and interaction, by Peter Eglin focuses on language, culture and interaction from the perspective of the correspondence theory of meaning. According to him, abstracting language and culture from their current uses, as if they were not interdependent would not lead to an understanding of words’ true meaning. David Kronenfeld introduces in Chapter 11, Culture and kinship language, a review of research on culture and kinship language, starting with linguistic anthropology. He explains two formal analytic definitional systems of kinship terms: the semantic (distinctions between kin categories, i.e. father vs mother) and pragmatic (interrelations between referents of kin terms, i.e. ‘nephew’ = ‘child of a sibling’). Chapter 12, Cultural semiotics, by Peeter Torop deals with the field of ‘semiotics of culture’, which may refer either to methodological instrument, to a whole array of methods or to a sub-discipline of general semiotics. In this last respect, it investigates cultures as a form of human symbolic activity, as well as a system of cultural languages (i.e. sign systems). Language, as “the preserver of the culture’s collective experience and the reflector of its creativity” represents an essential component of cultural semiotics, being a major sign system. Nigel Armstrong, in Chapter 13, Culture and translation, tackles the interrelation between language, culture, and translation, with an emphasis on the complexities entailed by translation of culturally laden aspects. In his opinion, culture has a double-sided dimension: the anthropological sense (referring to practices and traditions which characterise a community) and a narrower sense, related to artistic endeavours. However, both sides of culture permeate language at all levels. Chapter 14, Language, culture, and identity, by Sandra Schecter tackles several approaches to research on language, culture, and identity: social anthropological (the limits at play in the social construction of differences between various groups of people), sociocultural (the interplay between an individual’s various identities, which can be both externally and internally construed, in sociocultural contexts), participatory-relational (the manner in which individuals create their social–linguistic identities). Patrick McConvell, in Chapter 15, Language and culture history: the contribution of linguistic prehistory reviews research in this field where historical linguistic evidence is exploited in the reconstruction and understanding of prehistoric cultures. He makes an account of research in linguistic prehistory, with a focus on proto- and early Indo-European cultures, on several North American language families, on Africa, Australian, and Austronesian Aboriginal languages. McConvell also underlines the importance of interdisciplinary research in this area, which greatly benefits from studies in other disciplines, such as archaeology, palaeobiology, or biological genetics. Part four starts with Ning Yu’s Chapter 16, Embodiment, culture, and language, which gives an account of theory and research on the interplay between language, culture, and body, as seen from the standpoint of Cultural Linguistics. Yu presents a survey of embodiment (in embodied cognition research) from a multidisciplinary perspective, starting with the rather universalistic Conceptual Metaphor Theory. On the other hand, Cultural Linguistics has concentrated on the role played by culture in shaping embodied language, as various cultures conceptualise body and bodily experience in different ways. Chapter 17, Culture and language processing, by Crystal Robinson and Jeanette Altarriba deals with research in the field of how culture influence language processing, in particular in the case of bilingualism and emotion, alongside language and memory. Clearly, the linguistic and cultural character of each individual’s background has to be considered as a variable in research on cognition and cognitive processing. Frank Polzenhagen and Xiaoyan Xia, in Chapter 18, Language, culture, and prototypicality bring forth a survey of prototypicality across different disciplines, including cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology. According to them, linguistic prototypes play a critical part in social (re-)cognition, as they are socially diagnostic and function as linguistic identity markers. Moreover, individuals may develop ‘culturally blended concepts’ as a result of exposure to several systems of conceptual categorisation, especially in the case of L2 learning (language-contact or culture-contact situations). In Chapter 19, Colour language, thought, and culture, Don Dedrick investigates the issue of the colour words in different languages and how these influence cognition, a question that has been addressed by researchers from various disciplines, such as anthropology, linguistics, cognitive psychology, or neuroscience. He cannot but observe the constant debate in this respect, and he argues that it is indeed difficult to reach consensus, as colour language occasionally reveals effects of language on thought and, at other times, it is impervious to such effects. Chapter 20, Language, culture, and spatial cognition, by Penelope Brown concentrates on conceptualisations of space, providing a framework for thinking about and referring to objects and events, along with more abstract notions such as time, number, or kinship. She lists three frames of reference used by languages in order to refer to spatial relations, i.e. a) an ‘absolute’ coordinate system, like north, south, east, west; b) a ‘relative’ coordinate system envisaged from the body’s standpoint; and c) an intrinsic, object-centred coordinate system. Chris Sinha and Enrique Bernárdez focus on, in Chapter 21, Space, time, and space–time: metaphors, maps, and fusions, research on linguistic and cultural concepts of time and space, starting with the seminal Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), which they denounce for failing to situate space–time mapping within the broader patterns of culture and world perspective. Sinha and Bernárdez further argue that although it is possible in all cultures for individuals to experience and discuss about events in terms of their duration and succession, the specific words and concepts they use to refer to temporal landmarks temporal and duration are most of the time language and culture specific. Chapter 22, Culture and language development, by Laura Sterponi and Paul Lai provides an account of research on the interplay between culture and language acquisition. They refer to two widely accepted perspectives in this respect: a developmental mechanism inherent in human beings and a set of particular social contexts in which children are ‘initiated’ into the cultural meaning systems. Both perspectives define culture as “both related to the psychological make-up of the individual and to the socio-historical contexts in which s/he is born and develops”. Anna Wierzbicka presents, in Chapter 23, Language and cultural scripts discusses representations of cultural norms which are encoded in language. She contends that the system of meaning interpretation developed by herself and her colleagues, i.e. Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), may easily be used to capture and convey cultural scripts. Through NSM cross-cultural experiences can be captured in a thorough manner by using a reduced number of conceptual primes which seem to exist in all languages. Chapter 24, Culture and emotional language, by Jean-Marc Dewaele brings forth the issue of the relationship between language, culture, and emotion, which has been researched by cultural and cognitive psychologists and applied linguists alike, although with some differences in focus. He considers that within this context, it is important to see differences between emotion contexts in bilinguals, since these may lead to different perceptions of the self. He infers that generally, culture revolves around the experience and communication of emotions, conveyed through linguistic expression. The fifth part starts with Chapter 25, Language and culture in sociolinguistics, by Meredith Marra, who underlines that culture is a central concept in Interactional Sociolinguistics, where language is considered as social interaction. In linguistic interaction, culture, and especially cultural differences are deemed as a cause of potential miscommunication. Mara also remarks that the paradigm change in sociolinguistics, from Interactional Sociolinguistics to social constructionism reshaped ‘culture’ into a more dynamic as well as less rigid concept. Claudia Strauss’ Chapter 26, Language and culture in cognitive anthropology deals with the relationship between human society and human thought/thinking. The author contends that cognitive anthropologists may be subdivided into two groups, i.e. ones that are concerned with the process of thinking (cognition-in-practice scholars), and the others focusing on the product of thinking or thoughts (concerned with shared cultural understandings). She goes on to explore how different approaches to cognitive anthropology have counted on units of language, i.e. lexical items and their meanings, along with larger chunks of discourse, as information, which may represent learned cultural schemata. Part VI starts with Chapter 27, Language and culture in second language learning, by Claire Kramsch, in which she makes a survey of the definition of ‘culture’ in foreign language learning and its evolution from a component of literature and the arts to a more comprehensive purport, that of culturally appropriate use of language, along with an appropriate use of sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic norms. According to her, in the postmodern era, communication is not only mere transmission of information, it represents construal and positioning of the self and of self-identity. Chapter 28, Writing across cultures: ‘culture’ in second language writing studies, by Dwight Atkinson focuses on the usefulness of culture in second-language writing (SLW). He reviews several approaches to the issue: contrastive rhetoric (dealing with the impact of first-language patterns of text organisation on writers in a second language), or even alternate notions, like‘ cosmopolitanism’, ‘critical multiculturalism’, and hybridity, as of late native culture is becoming irrelevant or at best far less significant. Ian Malcolm tackles, in Chapter 29, Language and culture in second dialect learning, the issue of ‘standard’ Englishes (e.g., Standard American English, Standard Australian English) versus minority ‘non-standard’ speakers of English. He deplores the fact that in US specialist literature, speaking the ‘non-standard’ variety of English was associated with cognitive, cultural, and linguistic insufficiency. He further refers to other specialists who have demonstrated that ‘non-standard’ varieties can be just as systematic and highly structured as the standard variety. Chapter 30, Language and culture in intercultural communication, by Hans-Georg Wolf gives an account of research in intercultural education, focusing on several paradigms, i.e. the dominant one, investigating successful functioning in intercultural encounters, the minor one, exploring intercultural understanding and the ‘deconstructionist, and or postmodernist’. He further examines different interpretations of the concepts associated with intercultural communication, including the functionalist school, the intercultural understanding approach and a third one, the most removed from culture, focusing on socio-political inequalities, fluidity, situationality, and negotiability. Andy Kirkpatrick’s Chapter 31, World Englishes and local cultures gives a synopsis of research paradigm from applied linguistics which investigates the development of Englishes around the world, through processes like indigenisation or nativisation of the language. Kirkpatrick discusses the ways in which new Englishes accommodate the culture of the very speech community which develops them, e.g. adopting lexical items to express to express culture-specific concepts. Speakers of new varieties could use pragmatic norms rooted in cultural values and norms of the specific new speech community which have not previously been associated with English. Moreover, they can use these new Englishes to write local literatures, often exploiting culturally preferred rhetorical norms. Part seven starts with Chapter 32, Cultural Linguistics, by Farzad Sharifian gives an account of the recent multidisciplinary research field of Cultural Linguistics, which explores the relationship between language and cultural cognition, particularly in the case of cultural conceptualisations. Sharifian also brings forth illustrations of how cultural conceptualisations may be linguistically encoded. The last chapter, A future agenda for research on language and culture, by Roslyn Frank provides an appraisal of Cultural Linguistics as a prospective path for research in the field of language and culture. She states that ‘Cultural Linguistics could potentially create a paradigm that “successfully melds together complementary approaches, e.g., viewing language as ‘a complex adaptive system’ and bringing to bear upon it concepts drawn from cognitive science such as ‘distributed cognition’ and ‘multi-agent dynamic systems theory’.” She further asserts that Cultural Linguistics has the potential to function as “a bridge that brings together researchers from a variety of fields, allowing them to focus on problems of mutual concern from a new perspective” and most likely unveil new issues (as well as solutions) which have not been evident so far. In conclusion, the Handbook will most certainly serve as clear and coherent guidelines for scholarly thinking and further research on language and culture, and also open up new investigative vistas in each of the areas tackled.

Increasing preoccupations and interest manifested for the Romanian language as a foreign language compose a focused and clear expression in the volume “Romanian as a foreign language. Methodology and cultural applicability”, launched at the Turku University publishing house, Finland (2018). The editors, Paul Nanu (Department of Romanian Language and Culture, University of Turku, Finland) and Emilia Ivancu (Department of Romanian Studies of the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań, Poland) with this volume, continue a series of activities dedicated to the promotion of the Romanian language and culture outside the country borders. This volume brings together a collection of articles, previously announced and briefly presented at a round table organized by the two Romanian lectors, as a section of the International Conference “Dialogue of cultures between tradition and modernity”, (Philological Research and Multicultural Dialogue Centre, Department of Philology, Faculty of History and Philology, “1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia). The thirteen authors who sign the articles are teachers of Romanian as a foreign language, either in the country or abroad. The challenge launched by the organisers pointed both at the teaching methods of Romanian as a foreign language – including the authors’ reflections upon the available textbooks (Romanian language textbooks) and the cultural implications of this perspective on the Romanian language. It is probably no accident that the first article of the aforementioned volume – “Particularities of teaching Romanian as a foreign language for the preparatory year. In quest of “the ideal textbook’’ (Cristina Sicoe, University of the West, Timișoara) – brings a strict perspective upon that what should be, from the author’s point of view, “the ideal textbook”. The fact that it does not exist, and has little chances ever to exist, could maybe be explained by the multitude of variables which appear in practice, within the didactic triangle composed by teacher – student – textbook. The character of the variables is the result of particular interactions established between the components of the triad. A concurrent direction is pointed out by the considerations that make the object of the second article, “To a new textbook of Romanian language as a foreign language’’ (Ana-Maria Radu-Pop, University of the West, Timișoara). While the previous article was about an ideal textbook for foreign students in the preparatory year of Romanian, this time, the textbook in question has another target group, namely Erasmus students and students from Centres of foreign languages. Considering that this kind of target group “forms a distinct category”, the author pleads for the necessity of editing adequate textbooks with a part made of themes, vocabulary, grammar and a part made of culture and civilization – the separation into parts belongs to the author – that should consider the needs of this target group, their short stay in Romania (three months to one year) and, last but not least, the students’ poor motivation. These distinctive notes turn the existent RFL textbooks[1] in that which the author calls “level crossings”, which she explains in a humorous manner[2]. Since the ideal manual seems to be in no hurry to appear, the administrative-logistic implications of teaching Romanian as a foreign language (for the preparatory year) should be easier to align with the standards of efficiency. This matter is addressed by Mihaela Badea and Cristina Iridon from the Oil & Gas University of Ploiești, in the article “Administrative/logistic difficulties of teaching RFL. Case study”. Starting from a series of practical experiences, the authors are purposing to suggest “several ideas to improve existent methodologies of admitting foreign students and to review the ARACIS criteria from March 2017, regarding external evaluation of the ‘Romanian as a foreign language’ study programme”. Among other things, an external difficulty is highlighted (common to all universities in the country), namely the permission to register foreign students until the end of the first semester of the academic year, meaning around the middle of February. The authors punctually describe the unfortunate implications of this legal aspect and the regrettable consequences upon the quality of the educational act. They suggest that the deadline for admitting foreign students not exceed the 1st of December of every academic year. The list of difficulties in teaching Romanian as a foreign language is extremely long, reaching sensitive aspects from an ethical perspective of multiculturalism. This approach belongs to Constantin Mladin from Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia, who writes about “The role of the ethical component in the learning process of a foreign language and culture. The Macedonian experience”. Therefore, we are moving towards the intercultural competences which, as the author states, are meant to “adequately and efficiently round the acquired language competences”. In today’s Macedonian society, that which the author refers to, a society claimed to be multiethnic, multilingual and pluriconfessional, the emotional component of an intercultural approach needs a particular attention. Thus, reconfigurations of the current didactic model are necessary. The solution proposed and successfully applied by Professor Constantin Mladin is that of shaking the natural directions in which a foreign language and culture is acquired: from the source language/culture towards the target language/culture. All this is proposed in the context in which the target group is extremely heterogeneous and its “emotional capacity of letting go of the ethnocentric attitudes and perceptions upon otherness” seem to lack. When speaking about ‘barriers’, we often mean ‘difficulty’. The article written by Silvia Kried Stoian and Loredana Netedu from the Oil & Gas University of Ploiești, called “Barriers in the intercultural communication of foreign students in the preparatory year”, is the result of a micro-research done upon a group of 37 foreign students from 10 different countries/cultural spaces, belonging to different religions (plus atheists), speakers of different languages. From the start, there are many differences to be reconciled in a way reasonable enough to reduce most barriers that appear in their intercultural communication. Beneficial and obstructive factors – namely communication barriers – coexist in a complex communicational environment, which supposes identifying and solving the latter, in the aim of softening the cultural shock experienced within linguistic and cultural immersion. Several solutions are recommended by the two authors. An optimistic conclusion emerges in the end, namely the possibility that the initial inconvenient of the ethnical, linguistic and cultural heterogeneity become “an advantage in learning the Romanian language and acquiring intercultural communication”. Total immersion (linguistic and cultural), as well as the advantage it represents as far as exposure to language is concerned, is the subject of the article entitled “Cultural immersion and exposure to language”, written by Adina Curta (“1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia). Considered to be a factor of rapid progress and effectiveness of acquisition, exposure to language that arises from the force of circumstances could be extended to that what may be named orchestrated exposure to language. This phrase is consented to reunite two types of resources, “a category of statutory resources, which are the CEFRL suggestions, and a category of particular resources, which should be the activities proposed by the organizers of the preparatory year of RFL”. In this respect, we are dealing with several alternating roles of the teacher who, besides being an expert, animator, facilitator of the learning process or technician, also becomes a cultural and linguistic coach, sending to the group of immersed students a beneficial message of professional and human polyvalence. A particular experience is represented by teaching the Romanian language at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. This experience is presented by Nicoleta Neșu in the article “The Romanian language, between mother tongue and ethnic language. Case study”. The particular situation is generated by the nature of the target group, a group of students coming, on the one hand, from Romanian families, who, having lived in Italy since early childhood, have studied in the Italian language and are now studying the Romanian language (mother tongue, then ethnic language) as L1, and, on the other hand, Italian mother tongue students who study the Romanian language as a foreign language. The strategies that are used and the didactic approach are constantly in need of particularization, depending on the statute that the studied language, namely the Romanian language, has in each case. In the area of teaching methodology for Romanian as a foreign language, suggestions and analyses come from four authors, namely Eliana-Alina Popeți (West University of Timișoara), “Teaching the Romanian language to students from Romanian communities from Serbia. Vocabulary exercise”, Georgeta Orian (“1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia) “The Romanian language in the rhythm of dance and hip-hop music”, Coralia Telea (“1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia), “Explanation during the class of Romanian as a foreign language” and Emilia Ivancu (Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań, Poland), “Romanian (auto)biographic discourse or the effect of literature upon learning RFL”. The vocabulary exercise proposed to the students by Eliana-Alina Popeți is a didactic experiment through which the author checked the hypothesis according to which a visual didactic material eases the development of vocabulary, especially since the textual productions of the students, done through the technique that didactics calls “reading images”, were video recorded and submitted to mutual evaluation as well as to self-evaluation of grammar, coherence and pronunciation. The role of the authentic iconographic document is attested in the didactics of modern languages, as the aforementioned experiment confirms once again the high coefficient of interest and attention of the students, as well as the vitality and authenticity of interaction within the work groups. It is worth mentioning that these students come from the Serbian Republic and are registered in the preparatory year at the Faculty of Letters, History and Theology of the West University of Timișoara. Most of them are speakers of different Romanian patois, only found on the territory of Serbia. The activity consisted of elaborating written texts starting from an image (a postcard reproducing a portrait of the Egyptian artist Eman Osama), imagining a possible biography of the character. In the series of successful authentic documents in teaching-learning foreign languages, there is also the song. The activities described by Georgeta Orian were undertaken either with Erasmus students from the preparatory year at the “1 Decembrie 1989” University of Alba Iulia, or with Polish students (within the Department of Romanian Studies in Poznań), having high communication competences (B1-B2, or even more). There were five activities triggered by Romanian songs, chosen by criteria of sympathy with the interests of the target group: youngsters, late teenagers. The stake was “a more pleasant and, sometimes, a more useful learning process”, mostly through discovery, through recourse to musical language, which has the advantage of breaking linguistic barriers in the aim of creating a common space in which the target language, a language of “the other”, becomes the instrument of speaking about what connects us. The didactic approach, when it comes to Romanian as a foreign language taught to students of the preparatory year cannot avoid the extremely popular method of the explanation. Its story is told by Coralia Telea. With a use of high scope, the explanation steps in in various moments and contexts: for transmitting new information, for underlining mechanisms generating new rules, in evaluation activities (result appreciation, progress measurements). Still, the limits of this method are not left out, among which the risk of the teachers to annoy their audience if overbidding this method. Addressing (Polish) students from the Master’s Studies Program within the Romania Philology at the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań, Emilia Ivancu crosses, through her article, the methodological dimensions of teaching Romanian as a foreign language, entering the curricular territory of the problematics in question by proposing an optional course entitled Romanian (auto)biographic discourse”. Approaching contact with the Romanian language as a foreign language at an advanced level, the stakes of the approach and the proposed contents differ, obviously, from the ones only regarding the creation and development of the competence of communication in the Romanian Language. The studied texts have been grouped into correspondence/epistolary discourse, diaries, memoires and (auto)biography as fiction. Vasile Alecsandri, Sanda Stolojan, Paul Goma, Neagoe Basarab, Norman Manea, Mircea Eliade are just a few of the writers concerned, submitted to discussions with the help of a theoretical toolbox, offered to the students as recordings of cultural broadcasts, like Profesioniștii or Rezistența prin cultură etc. The consequences of this complex approach consisted, on the one hand, of the expansion of the readings for the students and, on the other hand, in choosing to write dissertations on these topics. A “tangible” result of Emilia Ivancu’s course is the elaboration of a volume entitled România la persoana întâi, perspective la persoana a treia (Romania in the first person, perspectives in the third person), containing seven articles written by Polish Master’s students. Master’s theses, a PhD thesis, several translations into the Polish language are also “fruits” of the initiated course. Of all these, the author extracted several conclusions supporting the merits and usefulness of her initiative. The volume ends with a review signed by Adina Curta (1 Decembrie 1918 University of Alba Iulia), “The Romanian language, a modern, wanted language. Iuliana Wainberg-Drăghiciu – Textbook of Romanian language as a foreign language”. The textbook elaborated by Iuliana Wainberg-Drăghiciu (“1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia) respects the CEFRL suggestions, points at the communicative competences (linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic) described for levels A1 and A2, has a high degree of accessibility through a trilingual dictionary (Romanian-English-French) which it offers to foreign students and through the phonetic transcription of new vocabulary units.

A Rooted Man and a Sacred PoetBy Viggo MortensenA Review of A.M. Allchin: N.F.S. Grundtvig. An Introduction to his Life and Work. With an afterword by Nicholas Lossky. 338 pp. Writings published by the Grundtvig Society, Århus University Press, 1997.Canon Arthur Macdonald Allchin’s services to Grundtvig research are wellknown to the readers of Grundtvig Studier, so I shall not attempt to enumerate them. But he has now presented us and the world with a brilliant synthesis of his studies of Grundtvig, a comprehensive, thorough and fundamental introduction to Grundtvig, designed for the English-speaking world. Fortunately, the rest of us are free to read as well.It has always been a topic of discussion in Denmark whether Grundtvig can be translated, whether he can be understood by anyone except Danes who have imbibed him with their mother’s milk, so to speak. Allchin is an eloquent proof that it can be done. Grundtvig can be translated and he can be made comprehensible to people who do not belong in Danish culture only, and Allchin spells out a recipe for how it can be done. What is required is for one to enter Grundtvig’s universe, but to enter it as who one is, rooted in one’s own tradition. That is what makes Allchin’s book so exciting and innovative - that he poses questions to Grundtvig’s familiar work from the vantage point of the tradition he comes from, thus opening it up in new and surprising ways.The terms of the headline, »a rooted man« and »a sacred poet« are used about Grundtvig in the book, but they may in many ways be said to describe Allchin, too. He, too, is rooted in a tradition, the Anglican tradition, but also to a large extent the tradition taken over from the Church Fathers as it lives on in the Orthodox Church. Calling him a sacred poet may be going too far.Allchin does not write poetry, but he translates Grundtvig’s prose and poetry empathetically, even poetically, and writes a beautiful and easily understood English.Allchin combines the empathy with the distance necessary to make a renewed and renewing reading so rewarding: »Necessarily things are seen in a different perspective when they are seen from further away. It may be useful for those whose acquaintance with Grundtvig is much closer, to catch a glimpse of his figure as seen from a greater distance« (p. 5). Indeed, it is not only useful, it is inspiring and capable of opening our eyes to new aspects of Grundtvig.The book falls into three main sections. In the first section an overview of Grundtvig’s life and work is given. It does not claim to be complete which is why Allchin only speaks about »Glimpses of a Life«, the main emphasis being on the decisive moments of Grundtvig’s journey to himself. In five chapters, Grundtvig’s way from birth to death is depicted. The five chapters cover: Childhood to Ordination 1783-1811; Conflict and Vision 1811-29; New Directions, Inner and Outer 1829-39; Unexpected Fulfilment 1839-58; and Last Impressions 1858-72. As it will have appeared, Allchin does not follow the traditional division, centred around the familiar years. On the contrary, he is critical of the attempts to focus everything on such »matchless discoveries«; rather than that he tends to emphasize the continuity in the person’s life as well as in his writings. Thus, about Thaning’s attempt to make 1832 the absolute pivotal year it is said: »to see this change as an about turn is mistaken« (p. 61).In the second main section of the book Allchin identifies five main themes in Grundtvig’s work: Discovering the Church; The Historic Ministry; Trinity in Unity; The Earth made in God’s Image; A simple, cheerful, active Life on Earth. It does not quite do Allchin justice to say that he deals with such subjects as the Church, the Office, the Holy Trinity, and Creation theology.His own subtitles, mentioned above, are much more adequate indications of the content of the section, since they suggest the slight but significant differences of meaning that Allchin masters, and which are immensely enlightening.It also becomes clear that it is Grundtvig as a theologian that is the centre of interest, though this does not mean that his work as educator of the people, politician, (history) scholar, and poet is neglected. It adds a wholeness to the presentation which I find valuable.The third and longest section of the book, The Celebration of Faith, gives a comprehensive introduction to Grundtvig’s understanding of Christianity, as it finds expression in his sermons and hymns. The intention here is to let Grundtvig speak for himself. This is achieved through translations of many of his hymns and long extracts from his sermons. Allchin says himself that if there is anything original about his book, it depends on the extensive use of the sermons to illustrate Grundtvig’s understanding of Christianity. After an introduction, Eternity in Time, the exposition is arranged in the pattern of the church year: Advent, Christmas, Annunciation, Easter and Whitsun.In the section about the Annunciation there is a detailed description of the role played by the Virgin Mary and women as a whole in Grundtvig’s understanding of Christianity. He finishes the section by quoting exhaustively from the Catholic theologian Charles Moeller and his views on the Virgin Mary, bearing the impress of the Second Vatican Council, and he concludes that in all probability Grundtvig would not have found it necessary to disagree with such a Reformist Catholic view. Finally there are two sections about The Sign of the Cross and The Ministry of Angels. The book ends with an epilogue, where Allchin sums up in 7 points what modem features he sees in Gmndtvig.Against the fragmented individualism of modem times, he sets Gmndtvig’s sense of cooperation and interdependence. In a world plagued with nationalism, Gmndtvig is seen as an example of one who takes national identity seriously without lapsing into national chauvinism. As one who values differences, Grundtvig appeals to a time that cherishes special traditions.Furthermore Gmndtvig is one of the very greatest ecumenical prophets of the 19th century. In conclusion Allchin translates »Alle mine Kilder« (All my springs shall be in you), »Øjne I var lykkelige« (Eyes you were blessed indeed) and »Lyksaligt det Folk, som har Øre for Klang« (How blest are that people who have an ear for the sound). Thus, in a sense, these hymns become the conclusion of the Gmndtvig introduction. The point has been reached when they can be sung with understanding.While reading Allchin’s book it has been my experience that it is from his interpretation of the best known passages and poems that I have learned most. The familiar stanzas which one has sung hundreds of times are those which one is quite suddenly able to see new aspects in. When, for example, Allchin interprets »Langt højere Bjerge« (Far Higher Mountains), involving Biblical notions of the year of jubilee, it became a new and enlightening experience for me. But the Biblical reference is characteristic. A Biblical theologian is at work here.Or when he interprets »Et jævnt og muntert virksomt Liv paa Jord« (A Simple Cheerful Active Life on Earth), bringing Holger Kjær’s memorial article for Ingeborg Appel into the interpretation. In less than no time we are told indirectly that the most precise understanding of what a simple, cheerful, active life on earth is is to be found in Benedict of Nursia’s monastic mle.That, says Allchin, leads us to the question »where we are to place the Gmndtvigian movement in the whole spectmm of Christian movements of revival which are characteristic of Protestantism« (p. 172). Then - in a comparison with revival movements of a Pietistic and Evangelical nature – Allchin proceeds to give a description of a Grundtvigianism which is culturally open, but nevertheless has close affinities with a medieval, classical, Western monastic tradition: a theocentric humanism. »It is one particular way of knitting together the clashing archetypes of male and female, human and divine, in a renunciation of evil and an embracing of all which is good and on the side of life, a way of making real in the frailties and imperfections of flesh and blood a deeply theocentric humanism« (p. 173).Now, there is a magnificent English sentence. And there are many of them. Occasionally some of the English translations make the reader prick up his ears, such as when Danish »gudelige forsamlinger« becomes »meetings of the godly«. I learnt a few new words, too (»niggardliness« and »esemplastic«) the meaning of which I had to look up; but that is only to be expected from a man of learning like Allchin. But otherwise the book is written in an easily understood and beautiful English. This is also true of the large number of translations, about which Allchin himself says that he has been »tantalised and at times tormented« by the problems connected with translating Grundtvig, particularly, of course, his poetry. Naturally Allchin is fully aware that translation always involves interpretation. When for example he translates Danish »forklaret« into »transfigured«, that choice pulls Grundtvig theologically in the direction that Allchin himself inclines towards. This gives the reader occasion to reflect. It is Allchin’s hope that his work on translating Grundtvig will be followed up by others. »To translate Grundtvig in any adequate way would be the work of not one person but of many, not of one effort but of many. I hope that this preliminary study may set in train a process of Grundtvig assimilation and affirmation« (p. 310)Besides being an introduction to Grundtvig, the book also becomes an introduction to past and contemporary Danish theology and culture. But contemporary Danish art, golden age painting etc. are also brought in and interpreted.As a matter of course, Allchin draws on the whole of the great Anglo-Saxon tradition: Blake, Constable, Eliot, etc., indeed, there are even quite frequent references to Allchin’s own Welsh tradition. In his use of previous secondary literature, Allchin is very generous, quoting it frequently, often concurring with it, and sometimes bringing in half forgotten contributions to the literature on Grundtvig, such as Edvard Lehmann’s book from 1929. However, he may also be quite sharp at times. Martin Marty, for example, must endure being told that he has not understood Grundtvig’s use of the term folkelig.Towards the end of the book, Allchin discusses the reductionist tactics of the Reformers. Anything that is not absolutely necessary can be done away with. Thus, what remains is Faith alone, Grace alone, Christ alone. The result was a radical Christ monism, which ended up with undermining everything that it had originally been the intention to defend. But, says Allchin, Grundtvig goes the opposite way. He does not question justification by faith alone, but he interprets it inclusively. The world in all its plenitude is created in order that joy may grow. There is an extravagance and an exuberance in the divine activity. In a theology that wants to take this seriously, themes like wonder, growth and joy must be crucial.Thus, connections are also established back to the great church tradition. It is well-known how Grundtvig received decisive inspiration from the Fathers of the Eastern Church. Allchin’s contribution is to show that it grows out of a need by Grundtvig himself, and he demonstrates how it manifests itself concretely in Grundtvig’s writings. »Perhaps he had a deep personal need to draw on the wisdom and insight of earlier ages, on the qualities which he finds in the sacred poetry of the Anglo-Saxons, in the liturgical hymns of the Byzantine Church, in the monastic theology of the early medieval West. He needs these resources for his own life, and he is able to transpose them into his world of the nineteenth century, which if it is no longer our world is yet a world in which we can still feel at home. He can be for us a vital link, a point of connection with these older worlds whose riches he had deciphered and transcribed with such love and labour« (p. 60).Thus the book gives us a discussion - more detailed than seen before – of Grundtvig’s relationship to the Apostolic Succession, the sacramental character of the Church and Ordination, and the phenomenon transfiguration which is expounded, partly by bringing in Jakob Knudsen. On the background of the often observed emphasis laid by Grundtvig on the descent into Hell and the transfiguration, his closeness to the orthodox form of Christianity is established. Though Grundtvig does not directly use the word »theosis« or deification, the heart of the matter is there, the matter that has been given emphasis first and foremost in the bilateral talks between the Finnish Lutheran Church and the Russian Orthodox Church. But Grundtvig’s contribution is also seen in the context of other contemporaries and reforming efforts, Khomiakov in Russia, Johann Adam Möhler in Germany, and Keble, Pusey and Newman in England. It is one of Allchin’s major regrets that it did not come to an understanding between the leaders of the Oxford Movement and Grundtvig. If an actual meeting and a fruitful dialogue had materialized, it might have exerted some influence also on the ecumenical situation of today.Allchin shows how the question of the unity of the Church and its universality as God’s Church on earth acquired extreme importance to Grundtvig. »The question of rediscovering Christian unity became a matter of life and death« (p. 108). It is clear that in Allchin’s opinion there has been too little attention on this aspect of Grundtvig. Among other things he attributes it to a tendency in the Danish Church to cut itself off from the rest of the Christian world, because it thinks of itself as so special. And this in a sense is the case, says Allchin. »Where else, at the end of the twentieth century, is there a Church which is willing that a large part of its administration should be carried on by a government department? Where else is there a state which is still willing to take so much responsibility for the administration of the Church’s life?« (p. 68). As will be seen: Allchin is a highly sympathetic, but far from uncritical observer of Danish affairs.When Allchin sees Grundtvig as an ecumenical theologian, it is because he keeps crossing borders between Protestantism and Catholicism, between eastern and western Christianity. His view of Christianity is thus »highly unitive« (p. 310). Grundtvig did pioneer work to break through the stagnation brought on by the church schisms of the Reformation. »If we can see his efforts in that way, then the unfinished business of 1843 might still give rise to fruitful consequences one hundred and fifty years later. That would be a matter of some significance for the growth of the Christian faith into the twentyfirst century, and not only in England and Denmark« (p. 126).In Nicholas Lossky’s Afterword it is likewise Grundtvig’s effort as a bridge builder between the different church groupings that is emphasized. Grundtvig’s theology is seen as a »truly patristic approach to the Christian mystery« (p. 316). Thus Grundtvig becomes a true all-church, universal, »catholic« theologian, for »Catholicity is by definition unity in diversity or diversity in unity« (p. 317).With views like those presented here, Allchin has not only introduced Grundtvig and seen him in relation to present-day issues, but has also fruitfully challenged a Danish Grundtvig tradition and Grundtvigianism. It would be a pity if no one were to take up that challenge.

This paper aims to portray the overall picture of poverty in the world and mentions the key solution to overcome poverty from a critical perspective. The data and figures were quoted from a number of researchers and organizations in the field of poverty around the world. Simultaneously, the information strengthens the correlations among poverty and lack of education. Only appropriate philosophies of education can improve the country’s socio-economic conditions and contribute to effective solutions to worldwide poverty. In the 21st century, despite the rapid development of science and technology with a series of inventions brought into the world to make life more comfortable, human poverty remains a global problem, especially in developing countries. Poverty, according to Lister (2004), is reflected by the state of “low living standards and/or inability to participate fully in society because of lack of material resources” (p.7). The impact and serious consequences of poverty on multiple aspects of human life have been realized by different organizations and researchers from different contexts (Fraser, 2000; Lister, 2004; Lipman, 2004; Lister, 2008). This paper will indicate some of the concepts and research results on poverty. Figures and causes of poverty, and some solutions from education as a key breaker to poverty will also be discussed. Creating a universal definition of poverty is not simple (Nyasulu, 2010). There are conflicts among different groups of people defining poverty, based on different views and fields. Some writers, according to Nyasulu, tend to connect poverty with social problems, while others focus on political or other causes. However, the reality of poverty needs to be considered from different sides and ways; for that reason, the diversity of definitions assigned to poverty can help form the basis on which interventions are drawn (Ife and Tesoriero, 2006). For instance, in dealing with poverty issues, it is essential to intervene politically; economic intervention is very necessary to any definition of this matter. A political definition necessitates political interventions in dealing with poverty, and economic definitions inevitably lead to economic interventions. Similarly, Księżopolski (1999) uses several models to show the perspectives on poverty as marginal, motivation and socialist. These models look at poverty and solutions from different angles. Socialists, for example, emphasize the responsibilities of social organization. The state manages the micro levels and distributes the shares of national gross resources, at the same time fighting to maintain the narrow gap among classes. In his book, Księżopolski (1999) also emphasizes the changes and new values of charity funds or financial aid from churches or organizations recognized by the Poor Law. Speaking specifically, in the new stages poverty has been recognized differently, and support is also delivered in limited categories related to more specific and visible objectives, with the aim of helping the poor change their own status for sustainable improvement. Three ways of categorizing the poor and locating them in the appropriate places are (1) the powerless, (2) who is willing to work and (3) who is dodging work. Basically, poverty is determined not to belong to any specific cultures or politics; otherwise, it refers to the situation in which people’s earnings cannot support their minimum living standard (Rowntree, 1910). Human living standard is defined in Alfredsson & Eide’s work (1999) as follows: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.” (p. 524). In addition, poverty is measured by Global Hunger Index (GHI), which is calculated by the International Food Policy Institute (IFPRI) every year. The GHI measures hunger not only globally, but also by country and region. To have the figures multi-dimensionally, the GHI is based on three indicators: 1. Undernourishment: the proportion of the undernourished as a percentage of the population (reflecting the share of the population with insufficient calorie intake). 2. Child underweight: the proportion of children under age 5 who are underweight (low weight for their age, reflecting wasting, stunted growth or both), which is one indicator of child under-nutrition. 3. Child mortality: the mortality rate of children under 5 (partially reflecting the fatal synergy of inadequate dietary intake and unhealthy environments). Apart from the individual aspects and the above measurement based on nutrition, which help partly imagine poverty, poverty is more complicated, not just being closely related to human physical life but badly affecting spiritual life. According to Jones and Novak (1999 cited in Lister, 2008), poverty not only characterizes the precarious financial situation but also makes people self-deprecating. Poverty turns itself into the roots of shame, guilt, humiliation and resistance. It leads the poor to the end of the road, and they will never call for help except in the worst situations. Education can help people escape poverty or make it worse. In fact, inequality in education has stolen opportunity for fighting poverty from people in many places around the world, in both developed and developing countries (Lipman, 2004). Lipman confirms: “Students need an education that instills a sense of hope and possibility that they can make a difference in their own family, school, and community and in the broader national and global community while it prepare them for multiple life choices.” (p.181) Bradshaw (2005) synthesizes five main causes of poverty: (1) individual deficiencies, (2) cultural belief systems that support subcultures of poverty, (3) economic, political and social distortions or discrimination, (4) geographical disparities and (5) cumulative and cyclical interdependencies. The researcher suggests the most appropriate solution corresponding with each cause. This reflects the diverse causes of poverty; otherwise, poverty easily happens because of social and political issues. From the literature review, it can be said that poverty comes from complex causes and reasons, and is not a problem of any single individual or country. Poverty has brought about serious consequences and needs to be dealt with by many methods and collective effort of many countries and organizations. This paper will focus on representing some alarming figures on poverty, problems of poverty and then the education as a key breaker to poverty. According to a statistics in 2012 on poverty from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), nearly half the world's population lives below the poverty line, of which is less than $1.25 a day . In a statistics in 2015, of every 1,000 children, 93 do not live to age 5 , and about 448 million babies are stillborn each year . Poverty in the world is happening alarmingly. According to a World Bank study, the risk of poverty continues to increase on a global scale and, of the 2009 slowdown in economic growth, which led to higher prices for fuel and food, further pushed 53 million people into poverty in addition to almost 155 million in 2008. From 1990 to 2009, the average GHI in the world decreased by nearly one-fifth. Many countries had success in solving the problem of child nutrition; however, the mortality rate of children under 5 and the proportion of undernourished people are still high. From 2011 to 2013, the number of hungry people in the world was estimated at 842 million, down 17 percent compared with the period 1990 to 1992, according to a report released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) titled “The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2013” . Although poverty in some African countries had been improved in this stage, sub-Saharan Africa still maintained an area with high the highest percentage of hungry people in the world. The consequences and big problems resulting from poverty are terrible in the extreme. The following will illustrate the overall picture under the issues of health, unemployment, education and society and politics ➢ Health issues: According a report by Manos Unidas, a non- government organization (NGO) in Spain , poverty kills more than 30,000 children under age 5 worldwide every day, and 11 million children die each year because of poverty. Currently, 42 million people are living with HIV, 39 million of them in developing countries. The Manos Unidas report also shows that 15 million children globally have been orphaned because of AIDS. Scientists predict that by 2020 a number of African countries will have lost a quarter of their population to this disease. Simultaneously, chronic drought and lack of clean water have not only hindered economic development but also caused disastrous consequences of serious diseases across Africa. In fact, only 58 percent of Africans have access to clean water; as a result, the average life expectancy in Africa is the lowest in the world, just 45 years old (Bui, 2010). ➢ Unemployment issues: According to the United Nations, the youth unemployment rate in Africa is the highest in the world: 25.6 percent in the Middle East and North Africa. Unemployment with growth rates of 10 percent a year is one of the key issues causing poverty in African and negatively affecting programs and development plans. Total African debt amounts to $425 billion (Bui, 2010). In addition, joblessness caused by the global economic downturn pushed more than 140 million people in Asia into extreme poverty in 2009, the International Labor Organization (ILO) warned in a report titled The Fallout in Asia, prepared for the High-Level Regional Forum on Responding to the Economic Crisis in Asia and the Pacific, in Manila from Feb. 18 to 20, 2009 . Surprisingly, this situation also happens in developed countries. About 12.5 million people in the United Kingdom (accounting for 20 percent of the population) are living below the poverty line, and in 2005, 35 million people in the United States could not live without charity. At present, 620 million people in Asia are living on less than $1 per day; half of them are in India and China, two countries whose economies are considered to be growing. ➢ Education issues: Going to school is one of the basic needs of human beings, but poor people cannot achieve it. Globally, 130 million children do not attend school, 55 percent of them girls, and 82 million children have lost their childhoods by marrying too soon (Bui, 2010). Similarly, two-thirds of the 759 million illiterate people in total are women. Specifically, the illiteracy rate in Africa keeps increasing, accounting for about 40 percent of the African population at age 15 and over 50 percent of women at age 25. The number of illiterate people in the six countries with the highest number of illiterate people in the world - China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Bangladesh and Egypt - reached 510 million, accounting for 70 percent of total global illiteracy. ➢ Social and political issues: Poverty leads to a number of social problems and instability in political systems of countries around the world. Actually, 246 million children are underage labors, including 72 million under age 10. Simultaneously, according to an estimate by the United Nations (UN), about 100 million children worldwide are living on the streets. For years, Africa has suffered a chronic refugee problem, with more than 7 million refugees currently and over 200 million people without homes because of a series of internal conflicts and civil wars. Poverty threatens stability and development; it also directly influences human development. Solving the problems caused by poverty takes a lot of time and resources, but afterward they can focus on developing their societies. Poverty has become a global issue with political significance of particular importance. It is a potential cause of political and social instability, even leading to violence and war not only within a country, but also in the whole world. Poverty and injustice together have raised fierce conflicts in international relations; if these conflicts are not satisfactorily resolved by peaceful means, war will inevitably break out. Obviously, poverty plus lack of understanding lead to disastrous consequences such as population growth, depletion of water resources, energy scarcity, pollution, food shortages and serious diseases (especially HIV/AIDS), which are not easy to control; simultaneously, poverty plus injustice will cause international crimes such as terrorism, drug and human trafficking, and money laundering. Among recognizable four issues above which reflected the serious consequences of poverty, the third ones, education, if being prioritized in intervention over other issues in the fighting against poverty is believed to bring more effectiveness in resolving the problems from the roots. In fact, human being with the possibility of being educated resulted from their distinctive linguistic ability makes them differential from other beings species on the earth (Barrow and Woods 2006, p.22). With education, human can be aware and more critical with their situations, they are aimed with abilities to deal with social problems as well as adversity for a better life; however, inequality in education has stolen opportunity for fighting poverty from unprivileged people (Lipman, 2004). An appropriate education can help increase chances for human to deal with all of the issues related to poverty; simultaneously it can narrow the unexpected side-effect of making poverty worse. A number of philosophies from ancient Greek to contemporary era focus on the aspect of education with their own epistemology, for example, idealism of Plato encouraged students to be truth seekers and pragmatism of Dewey enhanced the individual needs of students (Gutex, 1997). Education, more later on, especially critical pedagogy focuses on developing people independently and critically which is essential for poor people to have ability of being aware of what they are facing and then to have equivalent solutions for their problems. In other words, critical pedagogy helps people emancipate themselves and from that they can contribute to transform the situations or society they live in. In this sense, in his most influential work titled “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” (1972), Paulo Freire carried out his critical pedagogy by building up a community network of peasants- the marginalized and unprivileged party in his context, aiming at awakening their awareness about who they are and their roles in society at that time. To do so, he involved the peasants into a problem-posing education which was different from the traditional model of banking education with the technique of dialogue. Dialogue wasn’t just simply for people to learn about each other; but it was for figuring out the same voice; more importantly, for cooperation to build a social network for changing society. The peasants in such an educational community would be relieved from stressfulness and the feeling of being outsiders when all of them could discuss and exchange ideas with each other about the issues from their “praxis”. Praxis which was derived from what people act and linked to some values in their social lives, was defined by Freire as “reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it” (p.50). Critical pedagogy dialogical approach in Pedagogy of the Oppressed of Freire seems to be one of the helpful ways for solving poverty for its close connection to the nature of equality. It doesn’t require any highly intellectual teachers who lead the process; instead, everything happens naturally and the answers are identified by the emancipation of the learners themselves. It can be said that the effectiveness of this pedagogy for people to escape poverty comes from its direct impact on human critical consciousness; from that, learners would be fully aware of their current situations and self- figure out the appropriate solutions for their own. In addition, equality which was one of the essences making learners in critical pedagogy intellectually emancipate was reflected via the work titled “The Ignorant Schoolmaster” by Jacques Rancière (1991). In this work, the teacher and students seemed to be equal in terms of the knowledge. The explicator- teacher Joseph Jacotot employed the interrogative approach which was discovered to be universal because “he taught what he didn’t know”. Obviously, this teacher taught French to Flemish students while he couldn’t speak his students’ language. The ignorance which was not used in the literal sense but a metaphor showed that learners can absolutely realize their capacity for self-emancipation without the traditional teaching of transmission of knowledge from teachers. Regarding this, Rancière (1991, p.17) stated “that every common person might conceive his human dignity, take the measure of his intellectual capacity, and decide how to use it”. This education is so meaningful for poor people by being able to evoking their courageousness to develop themselves when they always try to stay away from the community due the fact that poverty is the roots of shame, guilt, humiliation and resistance (Novak, 1999). The contribution of critical pedagogy to solving poverty by changing the consciousness of people from their immanence is summarized by Freire’s argument in his “Pedagogy of Indignation” as follows: “It is certain that men and women can change the world for the better, can make it less unjust, but they can do so from starting point of concrete reality they “come upon” in their generation. They cannot do it on the basis of reveries, false dreams, or pure illusion”. (p.31) To sum up, education could be an extremely helpful way of solving poverty regarding the possibilities from the applications of studies in critical pedagogy for educational and social issues. Therefore, among the world issues, poverty could be possibly resolved in accordance with the indigenous people’s understanding of their praxis, their actions, cognitive transformation, and the solutions with emancipation in terms of the following keynotes: First, because the poor are powerless, they usually fall into the states of self-deprecation, shame, guilt and humiliation, as previously mentioned. In other words, they usually build a barrier between themselves and society, or they resist changing their status. Therefore, approaching them is not a simple matter; it requires much time and the contributions of psychologists and sociologists in learning about their aspirations, as well as evoking and nurturing the will and capacities of individuals, then providing people with chances to carry out their own potential for overcoming obstacles in life. Second, poverty happens easily in remote areas not endowed with favorable conditions for development. People there haven’t had a lot of access to modern civilization; nor do they earn a lot of money for a better life. Low literacy, together with the lack of healthy forms of entertainment and despair about life without exit, easily lead people into drug addiction, gambling and alcoholism. In other words, the vicious circle of poverty and powerlessness usually leads the poor to a dead end. Above all, they are lonely and need to be listened to, shared with and led to escape from their states. Community meetings for exchanging ideas, communicating and immediate intervening, along with appropriate forms of entertainment, should be held frequently to meet the expectations of the poor, direct them to appropriate jobs and, step by step, change their favorite habits of entertainment. Last but not least, poor people should be encouraged to participate in social forums where they can both raise their voices about their situations and make valuable suggestions for dealing with their poverty. Children from poor families should be completely exempted from school fees to encourage them to go to school, and curriculum should also focus on raising community awareness of poverty issues through extracurricular and volunteer activities, such as meeting and talking with the community, helping poor people with odd jobs, or simply spending time listening to them. Not a matter of any individual country, poverty has become a major problem, a threat to the survival, stability and development of the world and humanity. Globalization has become a bridge linking countries; for that reason, instability in any country can directly and deeply affect the stability of others. The international community has been joining hands to solve poverty; many anti-poverty organizations, including FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), BecA (the Biosciences eastern and central Africa), UN-REDD (the United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), BRAC (Building Resources Across Communities), UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), WHO (World Health Organization) and Manos Unidas, operate both regionally and internationally, making some achievements by reducing the number of hungry people, estimated 842 million in the period 1990 to 1992, by 17 percent in 2011- to 2013 . The diverse methods used to deal with poverty have invested billions of dollars in education, health and healing. The Millennium Development Goals set by UNDP put forward eight solutions for addressing issues related to poverty holistically: 1) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. 2) Achieve universal primary education. 3) Promote gender equality and empower women. 4) Reduce child mortality. 5) Improve maternal health. 6) Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. 7) Ensure environmental sustainability. 8) Develop a global partnership for development. Although all of the mentioned solutions carried out directly by countries and organizations not only focus on the roots of poverty but break its circle, it is recognized that the solutions do not emphasize the role of the poor themselves which a critical pedagogy does. More than anyone, the poor should have a sense of their poverty so that they can become responsible for their own fate and actively fight poverty instead of waiting for help. It is not different from the cores of critical theory in solving educational and political issues that the poor should be aware and conscious about their situation and reflected context. It is required a critical transformation from their own praxis which would allow them to go through a process of learning, sharing, solving problems, and leading to social movements. This is similar to the method of giving poor people fish hooks rather than giving them fish. The government and people of any country understand better than anyone else clearly the strengths and characteristics of their homelands. It follows that they can efficiently contribute to causing poverty, preventing the return of poverty, and solving consequences of the poverty in their countries by many ways, especially a critical pedagogy; and indirectly narrow the scale of poverty in the world. In a word, the wars against poverty take time, money, energy and human resources, and they are absolutely not simple to end. Again, the poor and the challenged should be educated to be fully aware of their situation to that they can overcome poverty themselves. They need to be respected and receive sharing from the community. All forms of discrimination should be condemned and excluded from human society. When whole communities join hands in solving this universal problem, the endless circle of poverty can be addressed definitely someday. More importantly, every country should be responsible for finding appropriate ways to overcome poverty before receiving supports from other countries as well as the poor self-conscious responsibilities about themselves before receiving supports from the others, but the methods leading them to emancipation for their own transformation and later the social change.

AbstractIn classical history of literature, authors have preferred the book above other written media. In France, however, from the beginning of the 19th century, the press experienced an immense revival, which had a far-reaching impact on literature. Literary style colored the press, while the journalistic matrix influenced literary productions, even producing new genres, such as the serial novel. Through their involvement with the press, writers achieved an effect on public opinion. At the same time, reflections emerged on the gain (or loss) of autonomy caused by this cooperation. For a decade, now, French cultural and literary studies have analysed this cooperation and thus established a new area of research.

Abstract: Literature as resistance in Soviet Estonia in the post-World War II period The theme of this article is the resistance that took place in Soviet Estonian literature, literary criticism and literary studies in the post-Second World War period. The article accentuates that different modes and objectives of resistance were central in different periods. Literary resistance is divided into four groups according to the nature of the pressure and the aims of resistance: first, ideological resistance to Soviet ideology in the name of literature that is free of ideology, or in the name of some other ideology; second, national resistance in the name of the unity of the people and preservation of identity; third, aesthetic resistance to the official literary doctrine; and fourth, resistance in the name of general or personal freedom and authenticity. Writers and literary scholars used different modes of resistance. These were so-called writing for the desk drawer, silence within a text, the use of ‘secret codes’, self-publication, the selection of themes or modes of writing that were not favoured by the regime and were apolitical and nonideological, and the use of neutral words and concepts instead of concepts and words bearing Soviet ideology. Totalitarian control of literature by way of decisions and direct instructions from the Communist Party characterised the Stalinist period (until 1956). All literature had to adhere to the doctrine of socialist realism. Practically the only form of resistance in this period was to keep silent. Some authors remained completely silent, some worked on translations, some wrote for their desk drawer for themselves and presented texts for publication that adhered to the officially sanctioned model. Keeping silent can also be interpreted as resistance in the name of aesthetic authenticity. The subsequent period that lasted until the 1970s is characterised by an increase in liberty in society, including literature. The body of norms of socialist realism was relaxed. Literary activities were controlled by writers’ organisations according to the guidelines provided by the Communist Party. Different aesthetic and ideological camps of writers emerged and competed with one another. The era of keeping silent and writing for one’s desk drawer ended. Public resistance, which was united by the question of relating to literature that preceded the Soviet era, was at the centre of this period. The fight for aesthetic freedom and literature that was free of ideology carried on throughout this period and was finally won by 1968–69. By that time, socialist realism had essentially ended in Estonian literature. In place of it, avant-gardism, modernism and broader realism prevailed. In place of Marxism-Leninism, non-Marxist ways of thinking had become important: first and foremost existentialism, but also Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Taoism and classical psychoanalysis. Secondly, resistance was put up in the name of Estonian national unity and national memory. This was resistance in the name of authors who had been banished from the history of literature and of bringing back the pre-war metalanguage. This was concerned with modern writers (symbolists, decadents, impressionists, expressionists) in Estonian literature from the early 20th century. Generally speaking, this struggle was successful. The third struggle was waged in the name of creative freedom and the writer’s inner authenticity. Here political freedom and independence in general intertwined as ideals, with the Soviet system and any kind of system as the enemy that oppresses human freedom and independence: institutions and the state, machines and rationality, conformism and the middle-class way of life. The third period of resistance began at the start of the 1970s and continued until perestroika. The so-called tightening of the screws took place throughout the state during this period and Russification was adopted as a new orientation starting in the mid-1970s. On the other hand, a socialist consumer society took shape in Estonia, characterised by Communist Party membership for the sake of one’s career and openly double morality. Ideological censorship in literature was intensified, along with the partial steering of literature by way of Party documents. Such new conditions brought new variants of resistance to the fore. Nationalist resistance and resistance to Russification came to the fore in the 1970s and 1980s. Open struggle receded into the background. Covert resistance, primarily within individual texts, which had previously been insignificant, became central. This resistance used joint secret codes common to writers and readers (allusions, irony, parodies, and other such devices). The struggle continued in the name of a neutral metalanguage that is not ideologised. Resistance criticism, so to speak, took shape: keeping silent about negative assessments that could potentially have provided the basis for political accusations, and keeping silent about secret codes in texts that the authorities did not have to know about. The struggle for words and concepts without ideological connotations at the level of phenomena that were ideologically important for the Soviet regime was a continuing theme: the Republic of Estonia, the blue, black and white colour combination, expatriates, deportation, and other such concepts.

AbstractHeinrich Heine and Paul Celan have often been compared, mainly because of their shared Parisian exile and Jewish identity. Yet we should add another dimension to this comparison, by examining the authors’ relationship to the French versions of their texts. In fact, although Heine and Celan have always considered themselves as German-speaking writers, their perfect bilingualism and active participation in French literary circles made it possible for them to exert an early and considerable influence upon their own reception in France. This particularly affected the translation of their works, which were intensely managed and controlled by both poets. However, their influence took very different forms: Heine alleged to be the author of the French version of his writings, hiding the work of the translator, whereas Celan never wanted to appear as a self-translator, even if he played a key role in the development of the French translations of his works. Thus Heine’s French works appear to be staged self-translations, produced mostly by French translators, while many of the French translations of Celan are actually very close to disguised self-translation. In both cases the original connection between the author and his text is upheld and the movement of estrangement and disappropriation, inherent in translation, is impeded or even stopped.

Manifestos and literary programs in French-Speaking sub-Saharian of Africa: About ‘invisibility’ of the corpus in literary criticism. Despite an abundant production, the corpus of literary manifestos and programmes from sub-Saharan Francophone Africa is relatively invisible in literary criticism. With the exception of a few studies, critical works devoted to the programmatic works of writers are rare. This article proposes some hypotheses that can explain why the body of literature of authors’ ideas in this space is generally ‘invisible’. The approach of the literary field, applied to the sociology of scientific production, makes it possible to highlight three main causes for this invisibility: the importance of identity and cultural discourse, which makes it impossible to delimit the geographical space of writers from sub-Saharan Francophone Africa, whose production and reception are dominated by that of their colleagues from the West Indies and the Caribbean; the omnipresence of political and social discourse which takes precedence over poetic reflection; the metalanguage of the manifesto due to the fact that writers are also generally literary critics.

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare “It’s Greek to me,” you are quoting Shakespeare.Bernard LevinPsoriatic arthritis, in its acute or “generalised” stage, is unbearably painful. Exacerbating the crippling of the joints, the entire surface of the skin is covered with lesions only moderately salved by anti-inflammatory ointment, the application of which is as painful as the ailment it seeks to relieve: NURSE MILLS: I’ll be as gentle as I can.Marlow’s face again fills the screen, intense concentration, comical strain, and a whispered urgency in the voice over—MARLOW: (Voice over) Think of something boring—For Christ’s sake think of something very very boring—Speech a speech by Ted Heath a sentence long sentence from Bernard Levin a quiz by Christopher Booker a—oh think think—! Really boring! A Welsh male-voice choir—Everything in Punch—Oh! Oh! — (Potter 17-18)Marlow’s collation of boring things as a frantic liturgy is an attempt to distract himself from a tumescence that is both unwanted and out of place. Although bed-ridden and in constant pain, he is still sensitive to erogenous stimulation, even when it is incidental. The act of recollection, of garnering lists of things that bore him, distracts him from his immediate situation as he struggles with the mental anguish of the prospect of a humiliating orgasm. Literary lists do many things. They provide richness of detail, assemble and corroborate the materiality of the world of which they are a part and provide insight into the psyche and motivation of the collator. The sheer desperation of Dennis Potter’s Marlow attests to the arbitrariness of the list, the simple requirement that discrete and unrelated items can be assembled in linear order, without any obligation for topical concatenation. In its interrogative form, the list can serve a more urgent and distressing purpose than distraction:GOLDBERG: What do you use for pyjamas?STANLEY: Nothing.GOLDBERG: You verminate the sheet of your birth.MCCANN: What about the Albigensenist heresy?GOLDBERG: Who watered the wicket in Melbourne?MCCANN: What about the blessed Oliver Plunkett?(Pinter 51)The interrogative non sequitur is an established feature of the art of intimidation. It is designed to exert maximum stress in the subject through the use of obscure asides and the endowing of trivial detail with profundity. Harold Pinter’s use of it in The Birthday Party reveals how central it was to his “theatre of menace.” The other tactic, which also draws on the logic of the inventory to be both sequential and discontinuous, is to break the subject’s will through a machine-like barrage of rhetorical questions that leave no time for answers.Pinter learned from Samuel Beckett the pitiless, unforgiving logic of trivial detail pushed to extremes. Think of Molloy’s dilemma of the sucking stones. In order for all sixteen stones that he carries with him to be sucked at least once to assuage his hunger, a reliable system has to be hit upon:Taking a stone from the right pocket of my greatcoat, and putting it in my mouth, I replaced it in the right pocket of my greatcoat by a stone from the right pocket of my trousers, which I replaced with a stone from the left pocket of my trousers, which I replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my greatcoat, which I replaced with the stone that was in my mouth, as soon as I had finished sucking it. Thus there were still four stones in each of my four pockets, but not quite the same stones. And when the desire to suck took hold of me again, I drew again on the right pocket of my greatcoat, certain of not taking the same stone as the last time. And while I sucked it I rearranged the other stones in the way I have just described. And so on. (Beckett, Molloy 69)And so on for six pages. Exhaustive permutation within a finite lexical set is common in Beckett. In the novel Watt the eponymous central character is charged with serving his unseen master’s dinner as well as tidying up afterwards. A simple and bucolic enough task it would seem. But Beckett’s characters are not satisfied with conjecture, the simple assumption that someone must be responsible for Mr. Knott’s dining arrangements. Like Molloy’s solution to the sucking stone problem, all possible scenarios must be considered to explain the conundrum of how and why Watt never saw Knott at mealtime. Twelve possibilities are offered, among them that1. Mr. Knott was responsible for the arrangement, and knew that he was responsible for the arrangement, and knew that such an arrangement existed, and was content.2. Mr. Knott was not responsible for the arrangement, but knew who was responsible for the arrangement, and knew that such an arrangement existed, and was content.(Beckett, Watt 86)This stringent adherence to detail, absurd and exasperating as it is, is the work of fiction, the persistence of a viable, believable thing called Watt who exists as long as his thought is made manifest on a page. All writers face this pernicious prospect of having to confront and satisfy “fiction’s gargantuan appetite for fact, for detail, for documentation” (Kenner 70). A writer’s writer (Philip Marlow) Dennis Potter’s singing detective struggles with the acute consciousness that words eventually will fail him. His struggle to overcome verbal entropy is a spectre that haunts the entire literary imagination, for when the words stop the world stops.Beckett made this struggle the very stuff of his work, declaring famously that all he wanted to do as a writer was to leave “a stain upon the silence” (quoted in Bair 681). His characters deteriorate from recognisable people (Hamm in Endgame, Winnie in Happy Days) to mere ciphers of speech acts (the bodiless head Listener in That Time, Mouth in Not I). During this process they provide us with the vocabulary of entropy, a horror most eloquently expressed at the end of The Unnamable: I can’t go on, you must go on, I’ll go on, you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it’s done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on. (Beckett, Molloy 418)The importance Beckett accorded to pauses in his writing, from breaks in dialogue to punctuation, stresses the pacing of utterance that is in sync with the rhythm of human breath. This is acutely underlined in Jack MacGowran’s extraordinary gramophone recording of the above passage from The Unnamable. There is exhaustion in his voice, but it is inflected by an urgent push for the next words to forestall the last gasp. And what might appear to be parsimony is in fact the very commerce of writing itself. It is an economy of necessity, when any words will suffice to sustain presence in the face of imminent silence.Hugh Kenner has written eloquently on the relationship between writing and entropy, drawing on field and number theory to demonstrate how the business of fiction is forever in the process of generating variation within a finite set. The “stoic comedian,” as he figures the writer facing the blank page, self-consciously practices their art in the full cognisance that they select “elements from a closed set, and then (arrange) them inside a closed field” (Kenner 94). The nouveau roman (a genre conceived and practiced in Beckett’s lean shadow) is remembered in literary history as a rather austere, po-faced formalism that foregrounded things at the expense of human psychology or social interaction. But it is emblematic of Kenner’s portrait of stoicism as an attitude to writing that confronts the nature of fiction itself, on its own terms, as a practice “which is endlessly arranging things” (13):The bulge of the bank also begins to take effect starting from the fifth row: this row, as a matter of fact, also possesses only twenty-one trees, whereas it should have twenty-two for a true trapezoid and twenty-three for a rectangle (uneven row). (Robbe-Grillet 21)As a matter of fact. The nouveau roman made a fine if myopic art of isolating detail for detail’s sake. However, it shares with both Beckett’s minimalism and Joyce’s maximalism the obligation of fiction to fill its world with stuff (“maximalism” is a term coined by Michel Delville and Andrew Norris in relation to the musical scores of Frank Zappa that opposes the minimalism of John Cage’s work). Kenner asks, in The Stoic Comedians, where do the “thousands on thousands of things come from, that clutter Ulysses?” His answer is simple, from “a convention” and this prosaic response takes us to the heart of the matter with respect to the impact on writing of Isaac Newton’s unforgiving Second Law of Thermodynamics. In the law’s strictest physical sense of the dissipation of heat, of the loss of energy within any closed system that moves, the stipulation of the Second Law predicts that words will, of necessity, stop in any form governed by convention (be it of horror, comedy, tragedy, the Bildungsroman, etc.). Building upon and at the same time refining the early work on motion and mass theorised by Aristotle, Kepler, and Galileo, inter alia, Newton refined both the laws and language of classical mechanics. It was from Wiener’s literary reading of Newton that Kenner segued from the loss of energy within any closed system (entropy) to the running silent out of words within fiction.In the wake of Norbert Wiener’s cybernetic turn in thinking in the 1940s, which was highly influenced by Newton’s Second Law, fiction would never again be considered in the same way (metafiction was a term coined in part to recognise this shift; the nouveau roman another). Far from delivering a reassured and reassuring present-ness, an integrated and ongoing cosmos, fiction is an isometric exercise in the struggle against entropy, of a world in imminent danger of running out of energy, of not-being:“His hand took his hat from the peg over his initialled heavy overcoat…” Four nouns, and the book’s world is heavier by four things. One, the hat, “Plasto’s high grade,” will remain in play to the end. The hand we shall continue to take for granted: it is Bloom’s; it goes with his body, which we are not to stop imagining. The peg and the overcoat will fade. “On the doorstep he felt in his hip pocket for the latchkey. Not there. In the trousers I left off.” Four more things. (Kenner 87)This passage from The Stoic Comedians is a tour de force of the conjuror’s art, slowing down the subliminal process of the illusion for us to see the fragility of fiction’s precarious grip on the verge of silence, heroically “filling four hundred empty pages with combinations of twenty-six different letters” (xiii). Kenner situates Joyce in a comic tradition, preceded by Gustave Flaubert and followed by Beckett, of exhaustive fictive possibility. The stoic, he tells us, “is one who considers, with neither panic nor indifference, that the field of possibilities available to him is large perhaps, or small perhaps, but closed” (he is prompt in reminding us that among novelists, gamblers and ethical theorists, the stoic is also a proponent of the Second Law of Thermodynamics) (xiii). If Joyce is the comedian of the inventory, then it is Flaubert, comedian of the Enlightenment, who is his immediate ancestor. Bouvard and Pécuchet (1881) is an unfinished novel written in the shadow of the Encyclopaedia, an apparatus of the literate mind that sought complete knowledge. But like the Encyclopaedia particularly and the Enlightenment more generally, it is fragmentation that determines its approach to and categorisation of detail as information about the world. Bouvard and Pécuchet ends, appropriately, in a frayed list of details, pronouncements and ephemera.In the face of an unassailable impasse, all that is left Flaubert is the list. For more than thirty years he constructed the Dictionary of Received Ideas in the shadow of the truncated Bouvard and Pécuchet. And in doing so he created for the nineteenth century mind “a handbook for novelists” (Kenner 19), a breakdown of all we know “into little pieces so arranged that they can be found one at a time” (3): ACADEMY, FRENCH: Run it down but try to belong to it if you can.GREEK: Whatever one cannot understand is Greek.KORAN: Book about Mohammed, which is all about women.MACHIAVELLIAN: Word only to be spoken with a shudder.PHILOSOPHY: Always snigger at it.WAGNER: Snigger when you hear his name and joke about the music of the future. (Flaubert, Dictionary 293-330)This is a sample of the exhaustion that issues from the tireless pursuit of categorisation, classification, and the mania for ordered information. The Dictionary manifests the Enlightenment’s insatiable hunger for received ideas, an unwieldy background noise of popular opinion, general knowledge, expertise, and hearsay. In both Bouvard and Pécuchet and the Dictionary, exhaustion was the foundation of a comic art as it was for both Joyce and Beckett after him, for the simple reason that it includes everything and neglects nothing. It is comedy born of overwhelming competence, a sublime impertinence, though not of manners or social etiquette, but rather, with a nod to Oscar Wilde, the impertinence of being definitive (a droll epithet that, not surprisingly, was the title of Kenner’s 1982 Times Literary Supplement review of Richard Ellmann’s revised and augmented biography of Joyce).The inventory, then, is the underlining physio-semiotics of fictional mechanics, an elegiac resistance to the thread of fiction fraying into nothingness. The motif of thermodynamics is no mere literary conceit here. Consider the opening sentence in Borges:Of the many problems which exercised the reckless discernment of Lönnrot, none was so strange—so rigorously strange, shall we say—as the periodic series of bloody events which culminated at the villa of Triste-le-Roy, amid the ceaseless aroma of the eucalypti. (Borges 76)The subordinate clause, as a means of adjectival and adverbial augmentation, implies a potentially infinite sentence through the sheer force of grammatical convention, a machine-like resistance to running out of puff:Under the notable influence of Chesterton (contriver and embellisher of elegant mysteries) and the palace counsellor Leibniz (inventor of the pre-established harmony), in my idle afternoons I have imagined this story plot which I shall perhaps write someday and which already justifies me somehow. (72)In “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” a single adjective charmed with emphasis will do to imply an unseen network:The visible work left by this novelist is easily and briefly enumerated. (Borges 36)The annotation of this network is the inexorable issue of the inflection: “I have said that Menard’s work can be easily enumerated. Having examined with care his personal files, I find that they contain the following items.” (37) This is a sample selection from nineteen entries:a) A Symbolist sonnet which appeared twice (with variants) in the review La conque (issues of March and October 1899).o) A transposition into alexandrines of Paul Valéry’s Le cimitière marin (N.R.F., January 1928).p) An invective against Paul Valéry, in the Papers for the Suppression of Reality of Jacques Reboul. (37-38)Lists, when we encounter them in Jorge Luis Borges, are always contextual, supplying necessary detail to expand upon character and situation. And they are always intertextual, anchoring this specific fictional world to others (imaginary, real, fabulatory or yet to come). The collation and annotation of the literary works of an imagined author (Pierre Menard) of an invented author (Edmond Teste) of an actual author (Paul Valéry) creates a recursive, yet generative, feedback loop of reference and literary progeny. As long as one of these authors continues to write, or write of the work of at least one of the others, a persistent fictional present tense is ensured.Consider Hillel Schwartz’s use of the list in his Making Noise (2011). It not only lists what can and is inevitably heard, in this instance the European 1700s, but what it, or local aural colour, is heard over:Earthy: criers of artichokes, asparagus, baskets, beans, beer, bells, biscuits, brooms, buttermilk, candles, six-pence-a-pound fair cherries, chickens, clothesline, cockles, combs, coal, crabs, cucumbers, death lists, door mats, eels, fresh eggs, firewood, flowers, garlic, hake, herring, ink, ivy, jokebooks, lace, lanterns, lemons, lettuce, mackeral, matches […]. (Schwartz 143)The extended list and the catalogue, when encountered as formalist set pieces in fiction or, as in Schwartz’s case, non-fiction, are the expansive equivalent of le mot juste, the self-conscious, painstaking selection of the right word, the specific detail. Of Ulysses, Kenner observes that it was perfectly natural that it “should have attracted the attention of a group of scholars who wanted practice in compiling a word-index to some extensive piece of prose (Miles Hanley, Word Index to Ulysses, 1937). More than any other work of fiction, it suggests by its texture, often by the very look of its pages, that it has been painstakingly assembled out of single words…” (31-32). In a book already crammed with detail, with persistent reference to itself, to other texts, other media, such formalist set pieces as the following from the oneiric “Circe” episode self-consciously perform for our scrutiny fiction’s insatiable hunger for more words, for invention, the Latin root of which also gives us the word inventory:The van of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell, city marshal, in a chessboard tabard, the Athlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms. They are followed by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor Dublin, the lord mayor of Cork, their worships the mayors of Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Waterford, twentyeight Irish representative peers, sirdars, grandees and maharajahs bearing the cloth of estate, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade, the chapter of the saints of finance in their plutocratic order of precedence, the bishop of Down and Connor, His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, His Grace, the most reverend Dr William Alexander, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, the chief rabbi, the Presbyterian moderator, the heads of the Baptist, Anabaptist, Methodist and Moravian chapels and the honorary secretary of the society of friends. (Joyce, Ulysses 602-604)Such examples demonstrate how Joycean inventories break from narrative as architectonic, stand-alone assemblages of information. They are Rabelaisian irruptions, like Philip Marlow’s lesions, that erupt in swollen bas-relief. The exaggerated, at times hysterical, quality of such lists, perform the hallucinatory work of displacement and condensation (the Homeric parallel here is the transformation of Odysseus’s men into swine by the witch Circe). Freudian, not to mention Stindberg-ian dream-work brings together and juxtaposes images and details that only make sense as non-sense (realistic but not real), such as the extraordinary explosive gathering of civic, commercial, political, chivalric representatives of Dublin in this foreshortened excerpt of Bloom’s regal campaign for his “new Bloomusalem” (606).The text’s formidable echolalia, whereby motifs recur and recapitulate into leitmotifs, ensures that the act of reading Ulysses is always cross-referential, suggesting the persistence of a conjured world that is always already still coming into being through reading. And it is of course this forestalling of Newton’s Second Law that Joyce brazenly conducts, in both the textual and physical sense, in Finnegans Wake. The Wake is an impossible book in that it infinitely sustains the circulation of words within a closed system, creating a weird feedback loop of cyclical return. It is a text that can run indefinitely through the force of its own momentum without coming to a conclusion. In a text in which the author’s alter ego is described in terms of the technology of inscription (Shem the Penman) and his craft as being a “punsil shapner,” (Joyce, Finnegans 98) Norbert Wiener’s descriptive example of feedback as the forestalling of entropy in the conscious act of picking up a pencil is apt: One we have determined this, our motion proceeds in such a way that we may say roughly that the amount by which the pencil is not yet picked up is decreased at each stage. (Wiener 7) The Wake overcomes the book’s, and indeed writing’s, struggle with entropy through the constant return of energy into its closed system as a cycle of endless return. Its generative algorithm can be represented thus: “… a long the riverrun …” (628-3). The Wake’s sense of unending confounds and contradicts, in advance, Frank Kermode’s averring to Newton’s Second Law in his insistence that the progression of all narrative fiction is defined in terms of the “sense of an ending,” the expectation of a conclusion, whereby the termination of words makes “possible a satisfying consonance with the origins and with the middle” (Kermode 17). It is the realisation of the novel imagined by Silas Flannery, the fictitious author in Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveller, an incipit that “maintains for its whole duration the potentiality of the beginning” (Calvino 140). Finnegans Wake is unique in terms of the history of the novel (if that is indeed what it is) in that it is never read, but (as Joseph Frank observed of Joyce generally) “can only be re-read” (Frank 19). With Wiener’s allegory of feedback no doubt in mind, Jacques Derrida’s cybernetic account of the act of reading Joyce comes, like a form of echolalia, on the heels of Calvino’s incipit, his perpetual sustaining of the beginning: you stay on the edge of reading Joyce—for me this has been going on for twenty-five or thirty years—and the endless plunge throws you back onto the river-bank, on the brink of another possible immersion, ad infinitum … In any case, I have the feeling that I haven’t yet begun to read Joyce, and this “not having begun to read” is sometimes the most singular and active relationship I have with his work. (Derrida 148) Derrida wonders if this process of ongoing immersion in the text is typical of all works of literature and not just the Wake. The question is rhetorical and resonates into silence. And it is silence, ultimately, that hovers as a mute herald of the end when words will simply run out.Post(script)It is in the nature of all writing that it is read in the absence of its author. Perhaps the most typical form of writing, then, is the suicide note. In an extraordinary essay, “Goodbye, Cruel Words,” Mark Dery wonders why it has been “so neglected as a literary genre” and promptly sets about reviewing its decisive characteristics. Curiously, the list features amongst its many forms: I’m done with lifeI’m no goodI’m dead. (Dery 262)And references to lists of types of suicide notes are among Dery’s own notes to the essay. With its implicit generic capacity to intransitively add more detail, the list becomes in the light of the terminal letter a condition of writing itself. The irony of this is not lost on Dery as he ponders the impotent stoicism of the scribbler setting about the mordant task of writing for the last time. Writing at the last gasp, as Dery portrays it, is a form of dogged, radical will. But his concluding remarks are reflective of his melancholy attitude to this most desperate act of writing at degree zero: “The awful truth (unthinkable to a writer) is that eloquent suicide notes are rarer than rare because suicide is the moment when language fails—fails to hoist us out of the pit, fails even to express the unbearable weight” (264) of someone on the precipice of the very last word they will ever think, let alone write. Ihab Hassan (1967) and George Steiner (1967), it would seem, were latecomers as proselytisers of the language of silence. But there is a queer, uncanny optimism at work at the terminal moment of writing when, contra Dery, words prevail on the verge of “endless, silent night.” (264) Perhaps when Newton’s Second Law no longer has carriage over mortal life, words take on a weird half-life of their own. Writing, after Socrates, does indeed circulate indiscriminately among its readers. There is a dark irony associated with last words. When life ceases, words continue to have the final say as long as they are read, and in so doing they sustain an unlikely, and in their own way, stoical sense of unending.ReferencesBair, Deirdre. Samuel Beckett: A Biography. London: Jonathan Cape, 1978.Beckett, Samuel. Molloy Malone Dies. The Unnamable. London: John Calder, 1973.---. Watt. London: John Calder, 1976.Borges, Jorge Luis. Labyrinths. Selected Stories & Other Writings. Ed. Donald A. Yates & James E. Irby. New York: New Directions, 1964.Calvino, Italo. If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller. Trans. William Weaver, London: Picador, 1981.Delville, Michael, and Andrew Norris. “Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and the Secret History of Maximalism.” Ed. Louis Armand. Contemporary Poetics: Redefining the Boundaries of Contemporary Poetics, in Theory & Practice, for the Twenty-First Century. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 2007. 126-49.Derrida, Jacques. “Two Words for Joyce.” Post-Structuralist Joyce. Essays from the French. Ed. Derek Attridge and Daniel Ferrer. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1984. 145-59.Dery, Mark. I Must Not think Bad Thoughts: Drive-by Essays on American Dread, American Dreams. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2012.Frank, Joseph, “Spatial Form in Modern Literature.” Sewanee Review, 53, 1945: 221-40, 433-56, 643-53.Flaubert, Gustave. Bouvard and Pécuchet. Trans. A. J. KrailSheimer. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976.Flaubert, Gustave. Dictionary of Received Ideas. Trans. A. J. KrailSheimer. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976.Hassan, Ihab. The Literature of Silence: Henry Miller and Samuel Beckett. New York: Knopf, 1967.Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. London: Faber and Faber, 1975.---. Ulysses. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1992.Kenner, Hugh. The Stoic Comedians. Berkeley: U of California P, 1974.Kermode, Frank. The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Narrative Fiction. New York: Oxford U P, 1966.‪Levin, Bernard. Enthusiasms. London: Jonathan Cape, 1983.MacGowran, Jack. MacGowran Speaking Beckett. Claddagh Records, 1966.Pinter, Harold. The Birthday Party. London: Methuen, 1968.Potter, Dennis. The Singing Detective. London, Faber and Faber, 1987.Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Jealousy. Trans. Richard Howard. London: John Calder, 1965.Schwartz, Hillel. Making Noise. From Babel to the Big Bang and Beyond. New York: Zone Books, 2011.Steiner, George. Language and Silence: New York: Atheneum, 1967.Wiener, Norbert. Cybernetics, Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1965.

“One, who climbs the grammar tree, distinctly knows where noun, verb and participle grow.” – Dryden (1635). In the teaching-learning of a language, grammar occupies an important place. It helps the teacher to master the language well. It is also of great help to the learners. The English word grammar has come from the Greek word 'grammar' meaning a 'LETTER.' In classical Greek and the Latin word 'grammar' is referred to the general study of literature and language. From the 17th century onwards two meanings have been compared with each other in English. In 1605 Francis Bacon wrote concerning speech and words", the consideration of them produced the science of grammar ' while in 1637 Ben Johnson writes, " the grammar is the art of true and well speaking language." Then Bacon has told that 'grammar' is a science, a study of set of phenomena; but for Johnson, grammar is an art, the skill or technique of speaking well. Then L. Murray has written about grammar in 1824 English grammar is the art of speaking and writing the English language with propriety.'

The article discusses actual issues of the aspect "Home Reading" at the French language classes at the university. It describes forms of tasks and exercises that facilitate involvement of junior and senior students in the process of reading foreign literature in the original. Attention is given to types of extensive study and analysis of the text. Interpretation of a foreign language text includes the following stages: exposure, analytical-evaluation, analytical-linguistic and creative interpretation. The stage of exposure is characterized by immersion in a certain cultural and historical epoch and creation of an emotionally-emotive tone of the lesson. The analytical-evaluation stage implies discussion of problems raised in authentic texts. Analytical-linguistic stage is aimed at deepening the language skills on the material of classical works of French authors. The stage of creative interpretation is aimed at developing evaluation sphere of students, their creative abilities and speaking; it corresponds to such types of tasks as discussion of disputable issues of the text, assignments of a creative character to form cognitive skills of students.

Art Imitating ArtThis article discusses the global, historical and literary references that are present in the video game franchise Bayonetta. In particular, references to Dante’s Divine Comedy, the works of Dr John Dee, and European traditions of witchcraft are examined. Bayonetta is modern in the sense that she is a woman of the world. Her character shows how history and literature may be used, re-used, and evolve into new formats, and how modern games travel abroad through time and space.Drawing creative inspiration from other works is nothing new. Ideas and themes, art and literature are frequently borrowed and recast. Carmel Cedro cites Northrop Frye in the example of William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. These writers created stories and characters that have developed a level of acclaim and resonated with many individuals, resulting in countless homages over the years. The forms that these appropriations take vary widely. Media formats, such as film adaptations and even books, take the core characters or narrative from the original and re-work them into a different context. For example, the novel Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson published in 1883 was adapted into the 2002 Walt Disney animated film Treasure Planet. The film maintained the concepts of the original narrative and retained key characters but re-imaged them to fit the science fiction genre (Clements and Musker).The video-game franchise Bayonetta draws inspiration from distinct sources creating the foundation for the universe and some plot points to enhance the narrative. The main sources are Dante’s Divine Comedy, the projections of John Dee and his mystical practices as well as the medieval history of witches.The Vestibule: The Concept of BayonettaFigure 1: Bayonetta Concept ArtBayonetta ConceptsThe concept of Bayonetta was originally developed by video game designer Hideki Kamiya, known previously for his work including The Devil May Cry and the Resident Evil game series. The development of Bayonetta began with Kamiya requesting a character design that included three traits: a female lead, a modern witch, and four guns. This description laid the foundations for what was to become the hack and slash fantasy heroine that would come to be known as Bayonetta. "Abandon all hope ye who enter here"The Divine Comedy, written by Dante Alighieri during the 1300s, was a revolutionary piece of literature for its time, in that it was one of the first texts that formalised the vernacular Italian language by omitting the use of Latin, the academic language of the time. Dante’s work was also revolutionary in its innovative contemplations on religion, art and sciences, creating a literary collage of such depth that it would continue to inspire hundreds of years after its first publication.Figure 2: Domenico di Michelino’s fresco of Dante and his Divine Comedy, surrounded by depictions of scenes in the textBayonetta explores the themes of The Divine Comedy in a variety of ways, using them as an obvious backdrop, along with subtle homages and references scattered throughout the game. The world of Bayonetta is set in the Trinity of Realities, three realms that co-exist forming the universe: Inferno, Paradiso and the Chaos realm—realm of humans—and connected by Purgitorio—the intersection of the trinity. In the game, Bayonetta travels throughout these realms, primarily in the realm of Purgitorio, the area in which magical and divine entities may conduct their business. However, there are stages within the game where Bayonetta finds herself in Paradiso and the human realm. This is a significant factor relating to The Divine Comedy as these realms also form the areas explored by Dante in his epic poem. The depth of these parallels is not exclusive to factors in Dante’s masterpiece, as there are also references to other art and literature inspired by Dante’s legacy. For example, the character Rodin in Bayonetta runs a bar named “The Gates of Hell.” In 1917 French artist Auguste Rodin completed a sculpture, The Gates of Hell depicting scenes and characters from The Divine Comedy. Rodin’s bar in Bayonetta is manifested as a dark impressionist style of architecture, with an ominous atmosphere. In early concept art, the proprietor of the bar was to be named Mephisto (Kamiya) derived from “Mephistopheles”, another name for the devil in some mythologies. Figure 3: Auguste Rodin's Gate of Hell, 1917Aspects of Dante’s surroundings and the theological beliefs of his time can be found in Bayonetta, as well as in the 2013 anime film adaptation Bayonetta, Bloody Fate. The Christian virtues, revered during the European Middle Ages, manifest themselves as enemies and adversaries that Bayonetta must combat throughout the game. Notably, the names of the cardinal virtues serve as “boss ranked” foes. Enemies within a game, usually present at the end of a level and more difficult to defeat than regular enemies within “Audito Sphere” of the “Laguna Hierarchy” (high levels of the hierarchy within the game), are named in Italian; Fortitudo, Temperantia, Lustitia, and Sapientia. These are the virtues of Classical Greek Philosophy, and reflect Dante’s native language as well as the impact the philosophies of Ancient Greece had on his writings. The film adaption of Bayonetta incorporated many elements from the game. To adjust the game effectively, it was necessary to augment the plot in order to fit the format of this alternate media. As it was no longer carried by gameplay, the narrative became paramount. The diverse plot points of the new narrative allowed for novel possibilities for further developing the role of The Divine Comedy in Bayonetta. At the beginning of the movie, for example, Bayonetta enters as a nun, just as she does in the game, only here she is in church praying rather than in a graveyard conducting a funeral. During her prayer she recites “I am the way into the city of woe, abandon all hope, oh, ye who enter here,” which is a Canto of The Divine Comedy. John Dee and the AngelsDr John Dee (1527—1608), a learned man of Elizabethan England, was a celebrated philosopher, mathematician, scientist, historian, and teacher. In addition, he was a researcher of magic and occult arts, as were many of his contemporaries. These philosopher magicians were described as Magi and John Dee was the first English Magus (French). He was part of a school of study within the Renaissance intelligensia that was influenced by the then recently discovered works of the gnostic Hermes Trismegistus, thought to be of great antiquity. This was in an age when religion, philosophy and science were intertwined. Alchemy and chemistry were still one, and astronomers, such as Johannes Kepler and Tyco Brahe cast horoscopes. John Dee engaged in spiritual experiments that were based in his Christian faith but caused him to be viewed in some circles as dangerously heretical (French).Based on the texts of Hermes Trismegistas and other later Christian philosophical and theological writers such as Dionysius the Areopagite, Dee and his contemporaries believed in celestial hierarchies and levels of existence. These celestial hierarchies could be accessed by “real artificial magic,” or applied science, that included mathematics, and the cabala, or the mystical use of permutations of Hebrew texts, to access supercelestial powers (French). In his experiments in religious magic, Dee was influenced by the occult writings of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486—1535). In Agrippa’s book, De Occulta Philosophia, there are descriptions for seals, symbols and tables for summoning angels, to which Dee referred in his accounts of his own magic experiments (French). Following his studies, Dee constructed a table with a crystal placed on it. By use of suitable rituals prescribed by Agrippa and others, Dee believed he summoned angels within the crystal, who could be seen and conversed with. Dee did not see these visions himself, but conversed with the angels through a skryer, or medium, who saw and heard the celestial beings. Dee recorded his interviews in his “Spiritual Diaries” (French). Throughout Bayonetta there are numerous seals and devices that would appear to be inspired by the work of Dee or other Renaissance Magi.In these sessions, John Dee, through his skryer Edward Kelley, received instruction from several angels. The angels led him to believe he was to be a prophet in the style of the biblical Elijah or, more specifically like Enoch, whose prophesies were detailed in an ancient book that was not part of the Bible, but was considered by many scholars as divinely inspired. As a result, these experiments have been termed “Enochian conversations.” The prophesies received by Dee foretold apocalyptic events that were to occur soon and God’s plan for the world. The angels also instructed Dee in a system of magic to allow him to interpret the prophesies and participate in them as a form of judge. Importantly, Dee was also taught elements of the supposed angelic language, which came to be known as “Enochian” (Ouellette). Dee wrote extensively about his interviews with the angels and includes statements of their hierarchy (French, Ouellette). This is reflected in the “Laguna Hierarchy” of Bayonetta, sharing similarities in name and appearance of the angels Dee had described. Platinum Games creative director Jean-Pierre Kellams acted as writer and liaison, assisting the English adaptation of Bayonetta and was tasked by Hideki Kamiya to develop Bayonetta’s incantations and subsequently the language of the angels within the game (Kellams).The Hammer of WitchesOne of the earliest and most integral components of the Bayonetta franchise is the fact that the title character is a witch. Witches, sorcerers and other practitioners of magic have been part of folklore for centuries. Hideki Kamiya stated that the concept of” classical witches” was primarily a European legend. In order to emulate this European dimension, he had envisioned Bayonetta as having a British accent which resulted in the game being released in English first, even though Platinum Games is a Japanese company (Kamiya). The Umbra Witch Clan hails from Europe within the Bayonetta Universe and relates more closely to the traditional European medieval witch tradition (Various), although some of the charms Bayonetta possesses acknowledge the witches of different parts of the world and their cultural context. The Evil Harvest Rosary is said to have been created by a Japanese witch in the game. Bayonetta herself and other witches of the game use their hair as a conduit to summon demons and is known as “wicked weaves” within the game. She also creates her tight body suit out of her hair, which recedes when she decides to use a wicked weave. Using hair in magic harks back to a legend that witches often utilised hair in their rituals and spell casting (Guiley). It is also said that women with long and beautiful hair were particularly susceptible to being seduced by Incubi, a form of demon that targets sleeping women for sexual intercourse. According to some texts (Kramer), witches formed into the beings that they are through consensual sex with a devil, as stated in Malleus Maleficarum of the 1400s, when he wrote that “Modern Witches … willingly embrace this most foul and miserable form of servitude” (Kramer). Bayonetta wields her sexuality as proficiently as she does any weapon. This lends itself to the belief that women of such a seductive demeanour were consorts to demons.Purgitorio is not used in the traditional sense of being a location of the afterlife, as seen in The Divine Comedy, rather it is depicted as a dimension that exists concurrently within the human realm. Those who exist within this Purgitorio cannot be seen with human eyes. Bayonetta’s ability to enter and exit this space with the use of magic is likened to the myth that witches were known to disappear for periods of time and were purported to be “spirited away” from the human world (Kamiya).Recipes for gun powder emerge from as early as the 1200s but, to avoid charges of witchcraft due to superstitions of the time, they were hidden by inventors such as Roger Bacon (McNab). The use of “Bullet Arts” in Bayonetta as the main form of combat for Umbra Witches, and the fact that these firearm techniques had been honed by witches for centuries before the witch hunts, implies that firearms were indeed used by dark magic practitioners until their “discovery” by ordinary humans in the Bayonetta universe. In addition to this, that “Lumen Sages” are not seen to practice bullet arts, builds on the idea of guns being a practice of black magic. “Lumen Sages” are the Light counterpart and adversaries of the Umbra Witches in Bayonetta. The art of Alchemy is incorporated into Bayonetta as a form of witchcraft. Players may create their own health, vitality, protective and mana potions through a menu screen. This plays on the taboo of chemistry and alchemy of the 1500s. As mentioned, John Dee's tendency to dabble in such practices was considered by some to be heretical (French, Ouellette).Light and dark forces are juxtaposed in Bayonetta through the classic adversaries, Angels and Demons. The moral flexibility of both the light and dark entities in the game leaves the principles of good an evil in a state of ambiguity, which allows for uninhibited flow in the story and creates a non-linear and compelling narrative. Through this non-compliance with the pop culture counterparts of light and dark, gamers are left to question the foundations of old cultural norms. This historical context lends itself to the Bayonetta story not only by providing additional plot points, but also by justifying the development decisions that occur in order to truly flesh out Bayonetta’s character.ConclusionCompelling story line, characters with layered personality, and the ability to transgress boundaries of time and travel are all factors that provide a level of depth that has become an increasingly important aspect in modern video gameplay. Gamers love “Easter eggs,” the subtle references and embellishments scattered throughout a game that make playing games like Bayonetta so enjoyable. Bayonetta herself is a global traveller whose journeying is not limited to “abroad.” She transgresses cultural, time, and spatial boundaries. The game is a mosaic of references to spatial time dimensions, literary, and historical sources. This mix of borrowings has produced an original gameplay and a unique storyline. Such use of literature, mythology, and history to enhance the narrative creates a quest game that provides “meaningful play” (Howard). This process of creation of new material from older sources is a form of renewal. As long as contemporary culture presents literature and history to new audiences, the older texts will not be forgotten, but these elements will undergo a form of renewal and restoration and the present-day culture will be enhanced as a result. In the words of Bayonetta herself: “As long as there’s music, I’ll keep on dancing.”ReferencesCedro, Carmel. "Dolly Varden: Sweet Inspiration." Australasian Journal of Popular Culture 2.1 (2012): 37-46. French, Peter J. John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus. London: London, Routledge and K. Paul, 1972. Guiley, Rosemary. The Encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology. Infobase Publishing, 2009. Howard, Jeff. Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives. Wellesley, Mass.: A.K. Peters, 2008. Kamiya, Hideki.Bayonetta. Bayonetta. Videogame. Sega, Japan, 2009.Kellams, Jean-Pierre. "Butmoni Coronzon (from the Mouth of the Witch)." Platinum Games 2009.Kramer, Heinrich. The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger. Eds. Sprenger, Jakob, or joint author, and Montague Summers. New York: Dover, 1971.McNab, C. Firearms: The Illustrated Guide to Small Arms of the World. Parragon, 2008.Ouellette, Francois. "Prophet to the Elohim: John Dee's Enochian Conversations as Christian Apocalyptic Discourse." Master of Arts thesis. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2004.Treasure Planet. The Walt Disney Company, 2003.Various. "Bayonetta Wikia." 2016.

The genre of travel literature in the nineteenth century, particularly in the francophone context, allowed European writers to compare the Old World with the New World and cast judgments about democracy, religion, and race in comparison to Europe, themes which are particularly relevant to our discussion about modernity. One such example of this literature is Outre-Mer by Paul Bourget which was written over an eight month period beginning in July 1893 and was published in Paris in 1895. Bourget is best known for his 1883 collection Essais de psychologie contemporaine and for his 1889 novel Le disciple. Although his work is viewed largely as minor literature today, in the 1880s and 1890s, he was essentially a literary celebrity. Thus, in 1893 when he visited Canada at the very beginning of his trip he was received with great fan fare and the events of his three-week vacation were chronicled in nearly every Francophone Quebec Journal. However, when the book was published in 1895, the Canadians were surprised to find that Bourget did not mention them once, as if he had never even gone to Canada. The outcry from the Canadian public, in my opinion, was not just about being snubbed by a literary celebrity, but showed that French-speaking Canadians genuinely wanted to hear Paul Bourget’s opinion about their culture and society. To meet this need, a Canadian journalist and editor named Sylva Clapin wrote Sensations de Nouvelle-France with the subtitle “Pour faire suite à Outre-Mer” and signed the book Paul Bourget. My communication seeks to study Sylva Clapin’s appropriation of Bourget’s political and social ideology which he used to create his forgery and launch a polemic in the francophone journals of Québec in 1895. At the core of Bourget’s vision is the concept that while Democracy, Science (Positivism), and the problems of Race were essentially destroying the Old World, they were at the heart of what made the Americas great. These are the tools that Clapin applied to his study of French-speaking Canada which I propose to explore in my communication.

Vintila Horia (1915-1992) fue un escritor e intelectual de nacionalidad rumana. Condenado por la dictadura comunista de su país, vivió en el exilio gran parte de su vida, en Italia, Argentina y Francia, hasta que se estableció en España en 1953. Escribió una amplia y variada obra, que consta de artículos, novelas y ensayos, en rumano, francés y castellano. Ideológicamente tuvo un talante conservador y cristiano. Dos temas dominantes de su obra, relacionados entre sí, son el exilio y la disidencia intelectual. Analizaremos en este trabajo la incorporación creativa de la tradición clásica para expresar esos dos motivos. Varias de sus novelas versan sobre personajes históricos grecorromanos que, de alguna manera, representan al propio autor. Entre ellas, Dios ha nacido en el exilio (1960) recrea el exilio de Ovidio y su descubrimiento de la fe cristiana. En este trabajo se analiza el uso de fuentes clásicas por parte de Horia y la incorporación creativa de estos materiales como correlato objetivo y como base de creación de sentido en esa novela. Vintilă Horia (1915-1992) is a Romanian writer and romanist. Convicted by the communist régime of his country, he lived most of his life in exile, in Italy, Argentina, and France. He eventually settled in Spain from 1953. His production consists of articles, novels, and essays, written in Romanian, French, and Spanish. Ideologically, he was conservative and Christian. He develops two core subject-matters: exile and intellectual dissent. In this paper il will be analysed the creative use of the Classical reception for expressing these two motives. Several of his novels portray historical characters who represent the author himself: for instance, God was born in exile (1960) tells the story of Ovid’s exile and his conversion to the Christian faith. It will be examined the use of Classical sources by Horia and the creative assimilation of these materials as a correlative objective for creating meaning

Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum on olnud teerajajaid digihumanitaaria valdkonnas juba 1990. aastatest, alates arvutikultuuri laiemast levikust. Väärtuslike andmekogude haldamisel on olnud missiooniks nende kättesaadavaks tegemine avalikkusele. Kultuuripärand avati laiemale kasutajale kahes suunas: sisupõhised otsitavad andmebaasid ning suhtepõhised andmekeskkonnad. Siinse artikli eesmärgiks on näidata arvutusliku kirjandusteaduse tänapäevaseid võimalusi ja nendega seotud kirjanduslike keeleressursside loomist koostöös korpuslingvistidega. Artiklis analüüsin kultuuripärandi sisukeskkondade ja andmekoguside kasutusvõimalusi masinloetava keeleressursina. Esimeste selliste katsetena on valminud kirjavahetuse ja kriitika märgendatud keelekorpused päringusüsteemis KORP. Käesolev uurimus toob on 20. sajandi alguse mõjukriitika probleemi näitel välja kirjanduslike keelekorpuste potentsiaali kultuuripärandi uurimisel. Estonia can soon expect an explosive growth in digital heritage and text resources due to the current project of mass digitisation of national cultural heritage (printed books, archival documents, photos, art, audiovisual, and ethnographic artifacts) (2019–2023). This will give new opportunities for different fields of digital humanities and make digitised heritage accessible to everyone in the form of open data. The project will focus on the usage of the heritage, on the needs of education, e-learning, and the creative industry, including digital creative arts. The aim of this article is to examine some research possibilities that opened up for literary history due to the digitisation of literary works and archival sources and to put them in the general context of digital humanities. Although the field of digital humanities is broad, the meaning of DH is often reduced to methods of computational language-centered analyses, mainly based on using different tools and software languages (R, Stylo, Phyton, Gephy, Top Modelling etc.). While the corpus-based research is already a professional standard in linguistics, literary scholars are still more used to working with traditional methods. This article introduces two digital literary history projects belonging to the field of digital humanities and analyses them as language resources for creating texts corpora, and introduces some results of the case study of Estonian criticism from the Young Estonia movement up to the 1920s, carried out using the literary texts corpora in the corpus query system KORP (https://korp.keeleressursid.ee) by the Centre of Estonian Language Resources. During the past twenty years, I have mainly focussed on developing large-scale implementation projects for digital representation of Estonian literary history. The objective of these experimental projects has been to develop principally new non-linear models of Estonian literary history for the digital environment. These activities were based on my research of the intertextual relations between authors, literary works, and critical texts using traditional methods. The first content-based literary history project “ERNI. Estonian Literary History in Texts 1924–1925” (www2.kirmus.ee/erni) was based on a hypertextual network of literary source texts and reviews. We re-conceptualised literary history as a non-linear narrative and a gallery with many entrances. The task of the project was also to ensure its usability in education: a significant number of study materials has been added in cooperation with schoolteachers. In 2004, we initiated our long-term and still running project “Kreutzwald’s Century: the Estonian Cultural History Web” (http://kreutzwald.kirmus.ee) at the Estonian Literary Museum. The objective of this project was to make literary sources of the period accessible as the dynamic, interactive information environment. This was a hybrid project which synthesised the classical study of Estonian literary history, the needs of the digital media user, and the expanding digital resources from different memory institutions; its underlying idea was to link together all the works of fiction of an author, as well as their biography, manuscripts, and photos and to make them visible for the user on five interactive time axes. The project uses a specially created platform. Today, this platform is extensively used by schoolteachers: in 2020 (Jan.–Dec.) it had about 8, 986.555 million clicks and during seven years (2013 Dec.–2020 Dec.) it has collected 64, 627.380 million clicks. To find out how we can fit such content-based models of literary heritage into the context of Digital Humanities we need to compare the previous modelling practices with our current experimental project in the corpus query system KORP. Our interdisciplinary project “Literary Studies Meet Corpus Linguistics” (2017–2020) concentrated on studying literary history sources with linguistic methods. As the result of the project two literary text corpora were created: “Epistolary text corpus of Estonian writers Johannes Semper and Johannes Vares-Barbarus” and “Corpus of the Estonian literary criticism, Noor-Eesti and the 1920s”. Both of them were pilot projects in the field, started with converting the digitalised archival and printed sources into machine-readable format before text and data mining for corpus creation. Query system KORP allows us to organise the language data by all the categories used in the corpus, for example, to learn who and in what context mentioned the name of the French writer André Gide. The second currently running project is the morphologically annotated corpus of literary criticism. This corpus contains texts of literary reviews and criticism in different genres, drawn from the projects ERNI and “Kreutzwald’s Century”. The first results in studying the dynamics of literary values can already be seen. A query in KORP about the word ‘mõju’ (‘influence’) revealed that the manifesto “More of European culture!”of the group Young Estonia, voiced in 1905, was during the independent Estonian Republic replaced by the valuing of a specific national character. Corpus query showed a change in the meaning of the word: in the criticism contemporary to Young Estonia, the word ‘mõju’ was only associated with the historical pressure from Russian and German cultures. The foundation for modern comparative linguistics at the University of Tartu was laid in the 1920s by the professorship in Estonian literature.