Journal articles on the topic 'Rhyming styles'

Background: Prosody (rhyming words) is a connatural element of poetry, throughout its reach, across thousands of languages in the world. Since medieval era, the Indic poetry (principally the Hindi/Urdu poetry) has created an impactful flamboyance w.r.t the subjects, styles, and other creative aspects in poetry. Besides the message of heartfelt poetry, we see the Qafiya (i.e., rhyming words) is the core element, without which we may not consider anything Hindi/Urdu poetry but merely a piece of writing; alongside it, Radif (i.e., a phrasal suffix to qafiya) is also considered next to the intrinsic part in Ghazals. In this regard, the contributions of this paper are one–the development of an optimal technique for the prosodic (qafiya) suggestions/retrieval in Hindi/Urdu poetry; and two–the qafiya suggestions based on the attached subsequent radif. Methods: The work in this paper involves usage of a 13.46 M tokens tri-script corpus of poetry. Instead of phonetic value matching, the proposed methodology employs four different Edit Distances (i.e., Levenshtein, Damerau–Levenshtein, Jaro–Winkler, and Hamming distance) as the comparison measures for prosodic suggestions. Findings: The proposed work shows better results in comparison to ‘Qaafiya Dictionary’ powered by rekhta.org. Moreover, w.r.t the inter-metric similarity and running time Jaro–Winkler appears to be the most optimal algorithm for the rhyme suggestion, whereas the Levenshtein distance is the laziest technique. Novelty/Applications: This work benefits researchers of Indic natural language processing for lexical look-ups and analysis of creative literature, especially poetry.

There is currently considerable debate over the most appropriate phonological unit to teach beginning readers. While developmental theories promote the role of large-units such as syllables and onset and rime, instructional theories advocate the use of small-units through grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs). The practical implications of this issue have acquired particular significance since the publication of the National Literacy Strategy and its emphasis on teaching rhyming skills and large-units of spelling-to-sound correspondence. This paper reviews the literature on this debate and highlights the need for a detailed evaluation of the two styles of reading instruction (small vs large units) of the kind currently being undertaken in Essex. We summarize the results of one study which replicated Goswami’s (1993) research into children’s use of analogy on the clue word task with a sample of beginning readers who had received systematic instruction in grapheme-phoneme relationships for one, two or three terms. The findings indicate that teaching children GPCs (small units) facilitates children’s skills in reading phonically regular words and enables them to overcome the restrictions of task presentation which is hypothesized to influence the use of onset and rime in the clue word experiments.

The article analyzes the linguistic and functional-style features of advertising posts in the social network of Facebook on the example of the Ukrainian advertising agency "Kiwi Agency", whose purpose is to increase the process of selling and providing various commercial services on the media market; the main extralinguistic factors that influence the linguistic organization of this genre of Internet communication are determined. It has been established that advertising agencies that carry out an advertising campaign through the social network Facebook, attract SMM managers, copywriter and graphic designer. The main requirements for the creation of advertising posts are the uniqueness of the text, creativity, adaptability to the target audience, expressiveness, easiness of perception of information, call - to - action, correspondence of the text and its visual part. The conducted analysis of advertising publications made it possible to distinguish their main functions, which their structural and content features are related to: contact, call, information-entertaining, social, cognitive; find out the most important extralinguistic factors of the writing of posts, which include: purpose and communication tasks, adaptation to the target audience, information media, the influence of other languages ​​and cultures, etc., which led to the use englishisms, neologisms, created from the name of the brand of toys or abbreviation of the store "House of Toys", which is played by various variants: repetitions, alliteration, graphic means, rhyming, lexemes with affixes of an enlarged sign, exclamations, isotopes, imperative-vocative and nominative syntactic constructions; the use of speech techniques and allusions - the recognition of users of social media Facebook texts created by analogy with cartoons and famous songs. The article concludes that today in the language of Internet advertising as an effective marketing tool there are active processes of word formation, the tendency to simplify syntactic constructions, the growth of the role of visual means, mixing of styles.

The Qur’an has a variety of language styles that make the reading beautiful to hear which is reflected through the similarity of sounds at the end of each verse in the Qur’an, one of which is poetry. Poetry plays a role in beautifying the language of the Qur’an. Poetry is one of the branches of balaghah in the study of badi’ science which is studied in Arabic learning. The purpose of this study was to determine the number of poems contained in juz 30 in the Qur’an al-karim as well as the kinds and signs that exist in juz 30. In this study, the researcher uses the descriptive analysis method, because the researcher analyzes, describes, and explains the poems contained in the Qur’an, especially in juz 30. The results of the study show that number of poems in juz 30 is 99 poems. As for the kinds of poems in juz 30, is three kinds of poems, namely mutharraf’s poems have 86 poems and mutaeFRwazi’s poems have 10 poems and murassha’ poems have 3 poems. As for the signs, there are also three according to the type of rhyme, namely the mutharraf rhyme sign is the difference in the last word in terms of wazan and the suitability of the final letter. The mutawazi rhyming is the compatibility of the last word in terms of wazan and the final letter. As for the sign in the murassha’ rhyme is the compatibility of all or part of the lafadz in two or more sentences in terms of wazan and the final letter

This article contains a short overview of theory and practice of the poem text, dealing with the phenomenon of enjambment. It should be stressed that Ukrainian poetry (both classic and modern) widely uses the figure of enjambment. There is a number of recently published articles by Ukrainian authors offering the study of this poetic figure in different aspects of different individual styles. But for obvious reasons there are no such studies about sonnet texts in particular. Regarding the sonnet poem, since the times of the first French theorists of the 17-18 th centuries up to modern reference editions, genre definitions of its figurative structure almost always contain a number of restrictions. There should be no repeated words, the rhymes should be exact and voiced, every stanza - with the relevant rhyming system - has to be a complete syntactic entity etc. The author (using as example a number of sonnets of Ukrainian poets) tries to show that the enjambement accented word in the sonnet text is as natural as in any other poetic text. And as in any other poetic text (depending on the author’s intention) it can play an important semantic and stylistic function. The main meaning and functional shift of enjambement word on the structural level is being studied here both in the system of simple and compound sentence of the sonnet. Quite often we can observe the phrase shift from one stanza to another, from quatrain to tercet. An example of such enjambement structure of the poem where the shift is being observed in every line and every stanza is a sonnet of Dmytro Pavlychko "Слова”. Another rare phenomenon of syllable shift in the sonnet poem can be found here: Дихнуло весною, Десною... Над супер- / крутою урбанню.Над біль./У долі моєї чебрець і канупер / З чернігівських піль / (А. Мойсієнко).

The article deals with the peculiarities of translation of an Orthodox Christian poetic akathist prayer from Ukrainian into English by a native speaker of Ukrainian. The author analyses stylistic features of this type of religious discourse as well as processes involved in the translation work. The article dwells on the challenges and facilitating factors of translation. The challenges include a six-rhyme structure combined with a relatively poor selection of rhyming options, the syllable count, a system of word and sentence stresses different from Ukrainian, as well as a limited choice of vocabulary due to the peculiarities of style. The factors which facilitate the translation are also related to the stylistic features of akathist prayers which allow inversions and the use of alternative words and imagery as long as they are in sync with the style and the mood of the Orthodox hymn. The article shows which tools and procedures contribute to a successful result, in particular, rhyming dictionaries and thesauri. To secure the success of a translation performed by a non-native speaker of English, approval of the author and post-translation proofreading by a native speaker is indispensable, which includes both a clergyperson and a professional copyeditor. Consideration of all these factors will contribute to the quality of the translation.

ABSTRACTThis article provides a critical interpretation of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetry and vision of reality by comparing some of his focal ideas with those of Alfred North Whitehead. There is a fairly explicit theological cosmology in Hopkins' poetry, just as there is poetic expression in the cosmology of Whitehead. The creative and idiosyncratic terms and phrases of Hopkins are explained as they are correlated with technical terms in Whitehead's cosmology. Some of the comparisons or tentative equations worked out in this article include creativity in Whitehead with instress in Hopkins, concrescence in Whitehead with inscape in Hopkins, style in Whitehead with selving in Hopkins, selftaste with satisfaction, and transmutation in Whitehead with rhyming in Hopkins.

The research discusse joke strategies in American situational comedy How I Met You Mother (HIMYM). The purpose of this research is to identify; (1) the joke strategies in situational comedy HIMYM (2) The pragmatic meaning of jokes that are expressed by the characters in HIMYM AND (3) Pragmatic prank functions that are expressed by the characters in HIMYM. This research is categorized as descriptive linguistic research. Observation method applied in data collection, while the method of distribution and matching applied in analyzing data. The results of this research data analysis is presented using informal and formal methods. From the results of data analysis found 14 strategy joke uttered by characters in a situational comedy American HIMYM, namely: ambiguity, grammar, syllabics, idiomatics, questionable English, antonymics, style, negativism, lexicography, spelling, punctuation, Rhyming English, numerical English And part of speech. The dominant strategy used is ambiguity because there are many words in English that mean more than one and are likely to lead the listener to multiple interpretations. The jokes uttered by the characters in situational comedy HIMYM have assertive, expressive and directive meanings. Moreover, the joke also serves to show the power, solidarity and psychological defense of the speaker.

In the pursuit of life comfort, human beings will never stop to do various ways with everything close to their surrounding, and language as the primary means of communication is one of tools used to realize this purpose. For the sake of fulfilling, their aesthetic need, human beings often exploit their linguistic ability to produce aesthetic discourses. This paper will try to analyse the poetic functions truck container signs passed over roads in Indonesia. In order to create aesthetic signs, the creators massively exploit various types of rhyming formulas, metaphors, similes, contradictions, hyperboles, literary style diction. AbstrakDalam upaya menemukan kenyamanan hidupnya, manusia tidak akan pernah berhenti melakukan berbagai hal terhadap segala sesuatu yang dekat dengan lingkungan hidupnya, termasuk terhadap bahasa yang merupakan alat komunikasi verbal yang paling utama. Untuk memenuhi kebutuhan estetis ini, mereka sering memanfaatkan kemampuan berbahasanya untuk memproduksi wacana-wacana yang estetis. Makalah ini akan berusaha menganalisis fungsi poetik wacana tulisan di bak-bak truk yang melintas di jalan raya seluruh Indonesia. Dalam usaha menciptakan wacana yang estetis, para penciptanya secara masif memanfaatkan formula-formula berirama, metafora, simile, kontradiksi, hiperbola, kata-kata ragam sastra.

A superficial consideration of the history of Arabic literature impresses one by the remarkable longevity of literary forms: a qaṣīda written by the pre-Islamic poet Imru'l-Qays and many of those written by Aḥmad Shawqī who died in 1932 are eminently recognizable members of the same species. The system of prosody as codified by Khalīl b. Ahmad (d. A.D. 791) was still very much in force, and the thematic divisions into nasīb, wasf, and madīḥ or hijā' still had much in common. Similarly the maqāma form with its or ornate rhyming prose and limited range of stock characters was still being produced in Arabic at the turn of this century, and the links with the works of al-Hamadhānī (d. A.D. 1008) and al-Harīrī (d. A.D. 1122) are plain to behold and to hear. As with much world literature which is the product of ‘conservative’ or ‘traditional’ societies (for want of better terms), style is all. In thematic terms there is an implicit contract of understanding between the writer and the small, rarefied, élitist public. They know what to expect and the writer or performer delivers. The language, both in its form and its content, is a vehicle through which the relationships between writer or performer, and public or audience, are expressed.

The purpose of the article is to present a literary translation into English of P. Khuzangay’s poem «A Poet» and to make a comprehensive analysis of it. The object of the study is the text of P. Khuzangay’s poem «A Poet» and the literary translation of S. N. Vasilyeva «A Poet». The novelty of the work lies in the fact that a literary translation and a comprehensive analysis of this poem were carried out for the first time. Based on the methods of analytical reading, theoretical analysis of literature, search, contextual analysis, comparative analysis, the language of the work (morphology, syntax, vocabulary, style) is considered and the relationship between the ideological and artistic conception of the poem with its linguistic features is revealed. The methods used in the process of literary translation made it possible to preserve the idea of the poem, the features of the composition and to select the appropriate means of artistic expression. In the work of P. Khuzangay, the philosophical problem of the poet's destiny and his work is touched upon. The composition of the poem is three-part, the size is a three-foot trochee with cross-rhyming throughout the entire poem, the intonation is narrative. The translation was made using the technique of rhetorical exclamation. The temporal organization is interesting: throughout the poem, verbs are transmitted in the present tense. The translation is dominated by complex sentences. As a rule, a stanza corresponds to one sentence. Alliteration and assonance are used to enhance sound expressiveness and achieve speech imagery.

Within hip-hop, MC (Master of Cermonies) battles are one of the most visible and potentially humiliating venues for demonstrating one’s verbal skill. Competitors face each other in front of an audience. Each has a minute to “diss” his or her opponent against a backdrop of rhythms produced by a DJ. Each participant’s performance generally consists of “freestyle” or spontaneously generated rhymes designed to belittle some aspect of the opponent’s appearance, rhyming style or place of origin, and ritual insults directed at his or her mother, sister, or crew. Opponents show good will by embracing afterwards. Ultimately the audience decides who wins by applauding louder for one opponent than the other at the end of the battle. Using the framework of interactional sociolinguistics (Goffman 1974, 1981), I will analyze clips from a televised MC battle in which the winning contestant was a White teenager from the Midwest called “Eyedea.” I will show how Eyedea and his successive African American opponents, “R.K.” and “Shells”, participate in the co-construction of his Whiteness. Eyedea marks himself linguistically as White by overemphasizing his pronunciation of /r/ and by carefully avoiding Black ingroup forms of address like “nigga” (c.f. Smitherman 1994). R.K. and Shells construct Eyedea’s Whiteness largely in discursive ways – by pointing out his resemblance to White actors, and alluding to television shows with White cultural references. Socially constructed racial boundaries must be acknowledged in these types of performances because Whiteness (despite the visibility of White rappers like Eminem) is still marked against the backdrop of normative Blackness in hip-hop (Boyd 2002). In a counter-hegemonic reversal of Du Boisian double-consciousness hip-hop obliges White participants to see themselves through the eyes of Black people. Hip-hop effectively subverts dominant discourses of race and language requiring MC battle participants to acknowledge and ratify this covert hierarchy.

Musicality is a fundamental feature of poetry that takes the interest of scholars and critics. Most poets rely on a variety of literary devices and techniques to bring music to their work like rhymes - words that appear at the end of lines in poetry - and on arranging words techniques in such a way to create a pseudo melody, which is achieved primarily by patterning (or repeating) certain sounds. Such a poetic rhetorical and verbal enhancer’s aspect represented ever since the beginning of the classical poetry has been manifested more evidently in Nali’s poetry. His poetry is marked with particular letters that have played a substantial role in the rhyming that rings like cymbals or jingle like internal elevated rhymes. Within a descriptive-analytical approach, the present study describes the musical techniques of Nali’s poetry, particularly of what is called letter poetry, and investigates the application of these letters as figures of rhetoric in Nali’s poetic style. The study traces the letter poetry types and its impacts on poetic meaning creation in the light of semantic framework. کورته مۆسیقای هۆنراوه هەر لە سەردەمانی کۆنەوه، گرنگییەکی تایبەتی پێ­دراوه و جێگەوپێگەیەکی ئەوتۆی له چوارچێوه و پەیەکەرەی شیعردا هەبووه. ئەم مۆسیقایه به ڕیزکردن و پات­بوونەوه و ڕێک­خستنی وشە و پیته لێکچوو و هاوئاهەنگەکان پەیدا دەبێت. هەر له شیعری کلاسیکەوه تا ئەمڕۆ ئەم تەکنیکه له ڕازه و هونەره جۆربەجۆرەکانی ڕەوانبێژیدا خۆی نواندووه و دەرکەوتووه. له شیعری نالیدا به شێوازێکی زەق و بەرچاو پات­بوونەوەی پیتێکی دیاریکراو له هەندێ له هۆنراوەکانیدا دەورێکی مۆسیقایی بەهێز و زۆر دیاری به ئەستۆ گرتووه و ئاواز و مۆسیقای شیعرەکەی بەرزتر کردۆتەوه. به شێوەیەک که دەکرێت ناوی ئەو پیته ببڕین به سەر ئەو هۆنراوەدا و به «پیتەشیعر» ناوزەدی بکەین. ئەم توێژینەوە به شێوازی تەوسیفی – لێکۆڵینەوەیی هەوڵی­داوه به خوێندنەوەی شیعرەکانی نالی هونەر و مۆسیقا و دەوری پیتەشیعر ڕوون­بکاتەوه و وەک تەکنیک و هونەرێک له شێواز و شیعری نالیدا بیناسێنێت. له ئاکامدا توانیویه چەشن و کاریگەری و بەتایبەت لایەنە واتاییەکانی ئەم هونەره له شیعری نالیدا بخاته بەر چاو و تیشکی لێکۆڵینەوه و ڕاڤه و شرۆڤەیان لێ­بدات.

Abstract : Enny Hidajati is a lecturer and poet from Palembang. Enny was brn in Ngawi , East Java, on August, 26 1971. Enny has her own style (stylistic) which is very beaulful from the point of view of life. The collectionof poem studied is entitled “Embusan Anginmu” the problem studied in this study is how thestylistic styleof thecollectionof poems “Embusan Anginmu” is and how the leical, rhyming and figurative elements are. Therefore, this study aims to reveal the stylistic stylein the collection of poems “Embusan Anginmu”. This research is a library research using descriptive method. Theresearcher will eamine the poems in Enny’s poetry collection entitled “Embusan Anginmu” to determine the theme of each poem, then they will be grouped according to the predetermined theme. After than the researcher will choose one of each poem that has been determined according to their respectivethemes. Then the researcher will determine the elements in each poem, namely lexical elements, rhyme and figure of speech. Keywords:Poem, Stylistic, LexicalElemen, Rhime, Figure, Of Speech, Embusan Anginmu, Enny Hidajati, Learning Abstrak : Enny Hidajati merupakan seorang dosen sekaligus penyair yang berasal dari Palembang. Enny lahir di Ngawi Jawa Timur, pada tanggal 26 Agustus 1971. Enny memiliki gaya bahasa (stilistika) tersendiri yang sangat indah dalam sudut pandang kehidupan. Kumpulan puisi yang diteliti berjudul “Embusan Anginmu” masalah yang dikaji dalam penelitian ini adalah bagaimana gaya stilistika kumpulan puisi “Embusan Anginmu” dan bagaimana unsur leksikal, rima dan majasnya. Oleh karena itu, penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengungkap gaya stilistika dalam kumpulan puisi tersebut dan menentukan unsur leksikal, rima dan majas yang ada di dalam kumpulan puisi “Embusan Anginmu”. Penelitian ini berjenis penelitian perpustakaan dengan menggunakan metode deskripstif. Peneliti akan meneliti pisi-puisi yang ada didalam buku kumpulan puisi Enny yang berjudul “Embusan Anginmu”untuk menentukan tema pada tiap puisi, kemudian akan dikelompokkan sesuai dengan tema yang sudah ditentukan. Setelah itu peneliti akan memilih satu dari setiap puisi yang sudah ditentukan sesuai dengan temanya masing-masing. Kemudian peneliti akan menentukan unsur-unsur pada setiap puisi yakni unsur leksikal, rima dan majas. Kata kunci: Puisi, Gaya Stlistika, Unsur Leksikal, Rima, Majas, Embusan Anginmu, Enny Hidajati,

AimsGeneration Z and millennials are tech-savvy and they learn more from videos compared to books. On average young people from the digital age spend more than five hours on digital gadgets. Innovative use of social media technology will improve the access to health information amongst this group of users. This article aims to share the project of using short video clips in social media, combined with poetry to improve mental and physical health literacy.MethodsShort video clips (ranging from one to three minutes) were produced out of passion by the first author using the elements of poetry, rhyming, humour, artistic expressions, simulated play of clinical scenarios and news reporting style which depends on the creativity and suitability of the content. The production process includes initial conceptualisation, script drafting and editing, video-recording using a smartphone, and subsequent editing using phone and Canva software. Subtitles and captions were added to increase accessibility. The videos were uploaded in Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok under the name of “dr_lokai”. There is no external funding involved. The cost involved included subscription of editing software and the purchase of recording equipment.ResultsThe project was first conceptualised in 2014. Total videos produced so far is 70. The topics of mental health included both normal psychological topics (mental health, self-reflective practice, self-motivation, self-compassions, and self-actualisation) and disorder-related topics (delirium, generalised anxiety disorder, emotionally-unstable personality disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder); while the physical health topics included cardiology, dermatology, infectious diseases, etc.). There were also videos on stigma, interesting contemporary topics around public health and healthcare education. One of the videos was a collaborative work with The Royal College of Physicians, elaborating on the personal and non-clinical facet of journey in medical school. As of the day of submission, the number of followers was 1710. Qualitative feedback from the audiences was generally positive. There were frequent requests from audiences for videos on specific medical topics.ConclusionA creative generation requires a creative approach in outreach. The strength of this initiative is the low-cost production nature and it is freely accessible by anyone with internet access. In the future, more videos which involve debunking medical myths and history of medicine can be added. The main challenge is finding time to write the script, rehearse and record. Although the effectiveness and efficiency of this innovative initiative requires a systematic evaluation, passions in sharing medical knowledge using social media have kept this initiative alive.

Целью представляемого исследования является изучение творческого наследия Афанасия Фета посредством сопоставления оригинальных лирических произведений с их переводами, выполненными в начале XX века Федором Фидлером. Новизна проведенного исследования заключается в рассмотрении стихотворных переводов Фидлера как результата «авторизованной германизации стихосложения», что подразумевает не только наличие сверки переводов самим автором поэтической лирики, но и оценку качества перевода, в первую очередь с учетом сохранения эстетики и особенностей стихосложения текстов-оригиналов. Интегративное переводоведение, с позиций которого автор исследования осуществляет предпереводческий анализ текстов оригиналов и сопоставительный анализ переводов Фидлера с поэтическими произведениями Фета, позволяет посмотреть на результаты переводческого процесса в максимально широком ракурсе. Четыре основных уровня рассмотрения стихотворного перевода (смысловой, ритмический, строфический и рифмический) образуют лишь основу для оценки качества переведенных лирических шедевров. Значимыми представляются такие аспекты, как сохранение эстетической информации, а также нюансы, определяющие стиль и творчество как самого поэта, так и переводчика. Для этого необходим экскурс в жизнь и творчество как Фета, так и Фидлера. Отсутствие диахронической дистанции при создании Фидлером стихотворных переводов и наличие непосредственного контакта переводчика с автором поэтических произведений, Афанасием Фетом, объясняют максимальную близость переводов к текстам-оригиналам не только по смыслу, ритму, строфическому оформлению и рифмам, но и по сохранению цельности текстового единства, передаче определенных признаков индивидуального стиля автора. The aim of this study is to explore the creative legacy of Afanasy Fet by comparing the original lyrical poems with their translations, performed in the early 20th century by Fyodor Fiedler. The novelty of this research lies in the consideration of Fiedler's poetry translations as a result of the “authorized germanization of versification”, which implies not only the verification of the translations by the author of the poetic lyrics himself, but also suggests the assessment of the translation quality, first and foremost, taking into account the preservation of aesthetics and specificities of the source texts. The integrative translation studies, from which we perform the translational analysis of the source texts and the comparative analysis Fet's poetic works and its translations performed by Fiedler. It allows to look at the results of the translation process from the broadest possible perspective. The four basic levels of verse translation (semantic, rhythmic, strophic and rhymic) form only the basis for evaluating the quality of the translated poems. The preservation of aesthetic information as well as the transfer of features which define the style and work of the poet, for which an excursion into the life and work of both Fet and Fiedler is essential, are also of particular importance. The absence of diachronic distance in poetry translations performed by Fyodor Fiedler and the presence of direct contact between the translator and the author of source texts, Afanasy Fet, explaines the maximum closeness of translations to the source texts not only in sense, rhythm, strophic design and rhymes, but also in preserving the integrity of textual unity and the dominance of certain attributes in the author's individual style.

Введение. Рассматриваются высказывания в адрес оригинальной англоязычной поэзии И. Бродского, сделанные англоязычными критиками, поэтами и переводчиками. Все высказывания разделены на группы согласно географической, лингвистической и профессиональной принадлежности их авторов. Большинство характеристик в адрес английских стихов Бродского носят ситуативный, несистемный характер, представляя собой разрозненные высказывания. Объединяет их то, что многие даже самые ярые сторонники английской поэзии Бродского вынуждены отмечать некоторые шероховатости использования им языка, стилистические несуразицы и излишнюю «русскость» английских стихов поэта. Цель статьи – систематизация и критическая оценка подобных высказываний, носящих ситуативный и несистемный характер. Материал и методы. В качестве материала исследования выступили высказывания зарубежных исследователей и поэтов, касающиеся оригинального англоязычного поэтического творчества Бродского, встречающиеся в многочисленных интервью и книгах, посвященных жизни и творчеству поэта. Предметом исследования становится рецепция англоязычных стихотворений Бродского носителями языка. Были использованы методы фронтального анализа и контент-анализа, сравнительный метод. Результаты и обсуждение. Английские стихотворения Бродского до сих пор являются малоизученными, исследователи обходят стороной этот важный пласт творчества поэта, который, однако, может помочь достроить картину эстетического мышления автора до ее логической завершенности. В то время как исследователи традиционно концентрируются на русской поэзии, англоязычной прозе и (авто)переводах Бродского, в фокус данной статьи попадает англоязычная оригинальная поэзия автора – феномен, нуждающийся в более глубоком осмыслении. В работе классифицируются причины обращения Бродского к английскому языку, которые можно разделить на три группы: эстетические, утилитарные, лингвистические. Отношение Бродского к своим английским стихотворениям было непростым. Создание оригинальных поэтических текстов на английском для него было сродни так называемой игре в стихосложение с использованием иного лингвистического инструментария. Он видел в английском стихосложении возможность рифмовать краткосложные лексемы английского языка в различных комбинациях, использовать невозможные в русском языке ритмико-синтаксические структуры, экспериментировать с просодией. Одна из самых больших претензий к английским поэтическим текстам Бродского – некорректное использование им английских идиоматических единиц. По мнению даже большинства доброжелательных критиков, английская идиоматика стихов Бродского бывала проблематична. Многие отмечают взаимопроникаемость и взаимообусловленность русского и английского языков в поэтическом творчестве Бродского. Некоторые находят подобное явление неприемлемым, другие считают это уникальным стилем поэтики двуязычного автора. Заключение. Сделан вывод о том, что Бродский являлся носителем двух национально-языковых культур и литератур: русской и английской. При всем разночтении мнений критиков и поэтов, подавляющее большинство из них касаются исключительно лингвистического уровня оригинальных англоязычных стихотворений Бродского, ни один из критиков или высказывающихся по этому вопросу поэтов не обращается к эстетическому уровню анализа английских стихов автора. Будущее исследование предполагает ответить на вопрос: остается ли мироощущение Бродского русским и в его английской поэзии или оно меняется вслед за языком? Introduction. The article focuses on different statements concerning Joseph Brodsky’s original English poetry made by English and American critics, poets and translators. Aim and objectives. The paper aims to classify, systematize and critically value those statements, which can be described as occasional and unsystematic. Material and methods. The research is based on statements concerning Brodsky’s original English poetical works made by foreign English-speaking philologists, critics and poets. All the statements are found in variety of different interviews and books dedicated to Brodsky’s life and work. The methods used in the research are as follows: frontal analysis and content analysis, comparative method. Results and discussion. Brodsky’s English verses are yet to be studied as for researchers neglect such an important component of Brodsky’s works, which however is to help construct the whole picture of one’s esthetic thinking to its logical whole. As long as philologists traditionally concentrate on Brodsky’s Russian verses, English essays and (self) translations, this paper addresses Brodsky’s original English poetry as a phenomenon craving for deeper scientific understanding. The article brings the light on the reasons determined Brodsky’s turn toward English which can be divided into three groups: esthetic, utilitarian and linguistic ones. Brodsky’s attitude towards his own English verses was complicated. Creating original English poetical texts was like so-called play in versification and prosody with the using of new linguistic tools. He admitted in English prosody ability of rhyming short English lexical elements in broad variety of possible combinations, using impossible in Russian rhythmical and syntactic structures, experimenting with prosody. The paper provides review of statements addressing Brodsky’s original English poetry. All the statements are divided into groups according to geographical, linguistic and professional areas of the authors they were made by. The majority of studying statements are occasional and unsystematic, united however with some same features. Even supporters of Brodsky’s English poetry were forced to mention a bunch of imperfections in Brodsky’s English, stylistic mistakes and too Russian being of his English verses. One of the main grievance about Brodsky’s English verses is his incorrect using of English idiomatic elements. Many underline interferential and interconditional nature of English and Russian languages in Brodsky’s verses. Some consider this feature to be unacceptable, others as a unique style of bilingual author. Conclusion. Finally the article concludes that Joseph Brodsky was a two-cultured and two-language representative: Russian and English. Despite all the deviation in opinion of critics, poets and translators, the majority of them focus solemnly on linguistic level of Brodsky’s English verses. It’s worth noticing the lack of esthetic interpretation of Brodsky’s English poetry. The upcoming research can provide an answer to a question: does Brodsky’s world view remain the same in his English poetry or did it change subsequent to the language?

Abstract The Syriac poetry of the 11th–14th centuries (so-called Syriac Renaissance) was studied very purely until quite recently. One of the reasons for such indifference is a traditional approach of the scholars, who treated this poetry as a secondary one, because of a strong influence of the Islamic literature. In this article, it is argued that the authors of this period were trying to connect their own poetical traditions with the achievements of the Persian and Arabic poetry. As the result, they created new original forms that need to be carefully examined. One of the creators of this new style was probably Bar ʿEbrōyō (1226–1286), a famous West-Syrian philosopher and scientist. His esthetic approach was developed by his East-Syrian contemporary Khāmīs bar Qardaḥē of Arbela, who used sophisticated rhythmic and rhyme schemes to achieve a stronger expressive effect. The article discusses one of his poems that demonstrates his outstanding skills as a poet experimentalist in both rhythm and rhyming.

Teesid: Tartu Ülikooli maailmakirjanduse professori, luuletaja, kirjandusteadlase ja hispaaniakeelse kirjanduse spetsialisti Jüri Talveti tõlketegevuse viljade hulka kuulub luulet ja proosat nii sajandeid vanast Hispaania klassikast kui ka 20. sajandil või tänapäeval romaani keeltes või inglise keeles loodud teostest. Käesolev artikkel keskendub sellele, kuidas professor Talvet on tõlgendanud luule ja poeetika, kuid ka kirjandusajaloo, iseäranis barokk-kirjanduse alaseid küsimusi oma kirjandusteaduslikes esseedes. Vaadeldakse ka tema tõlketegevuse mahtu ja tõlketöö põhimõtteid. Jüri Talvet (born in 1945) is a poet and a scholar of comparative literature, Chair Professor of World Literature at the University of Tartu. His numerous translations of poetry and poetical fiction from the Romance languages and, to a lesser extent, from English, reflect his views on world poetry. Those views are also expressed in his theoretical writings from the years of 1977 to 2015. Having studied English literature as the main subject at the University of Tartu, he early developed an interest in Spanish, in other Iberian languages, and in the Iberoamerican literatures. His translations from that area include works from medieval and early modern literature as well as notable literary achievements from the 20th century and the contemporary era. Talvet’s interpretations of Federico García Lorca and the “Latin American boom” authors are supported by profound insights into the philosophy, aesthetics, and poetics of the 17th century Spanish Baroque literature, known as the literary Golden Age of Spain. The influence which Talvet’s activities have exerted has widened the horizons of Estonia’s literary culture: while in the early 20th century, the previous German, Russian and Finnish leanings were supplemented by orientations to, and translations from, French and Italian literatures, Talvet has helped to enrich the Estonian literary landscape with the mentality and traditions of even more distant language areas, such as Castilian (Spanish), Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, and the Latin American countries. In the section “Quevedo and Góngora” of this article, Talvet’s interpretation of some of the key issues of dispute in the Baroque literature of Spain are studied, based both on his theoretical essays and on his translations of the poetry of Francisco de Quevedo. Talvet has attempted to use the terms of the Baroque philosopher and writer Baltasar Gracián, agudeza, concepto (definable approximately as “conceit” or “wit”) and conceptismo, for the analysis of the late 20th century Estonian poetry. On that background, defnitions of conceptismo and cultismo (the other main school in Spanish Baroque poetry) are offered in this article, with implications that those definitions may have for understanding different styles and methods of poetry in general, and the characteristics of Talvet’s own poems and poetry translations in particular. To escape diffusion in pure sensuality and verbal indulgence, poetry has to rely on concepts as well as images. Talvet’s interpretations of poetry and poetical thinking are found to be close to conceptismo, or with a considerable amount of conceptuality inherent to them. The juxtaposition of paradoxical ideas from different levels of reality, social and psychic, is seen as the essential poetical method that Talvet refers to as he defines, quoting Yuri Lotman, the structural-semantic code of poetry as being “paradigmatic”. In the final section of the article, Talvet’s 23 book-length published translations are listed, including translations from Spanish, Catalan, English and French. The list does not include numerous translations of single poems or cycles of poetry that have appeared in literary journals, nor his contributions to anthologies of poetry, nor the translations from his native Estonian into a foreign language, such as Spanish or English, in which he has participated. His translations encompass lyrical works as well as fiction and plays. Talvet has translated classical European poetry, such as the sonnets of Petrarch and Quevedo and Provençal poems, as well as the rhymed poems of American poets into Estonian with complete metrical correspondence and full rhymes. However, in the latest decades Talvet has expressed scepticism in the sense and feasibility of attempting to convey the rhyming complexities of the major European literatures into Estonian, a language with a considerably smaller potential for finding full rhymes. Accordingly, his three translations of Spanish Baroque drama (by Calderón and Tirso de Molina) employ a liberal method of versification. In all his versatile activities as a poet, a translator, and a theorist of poetry, Professor Talvet has shown great devotion to developing and cultivating aesthetic values. A lot of his colleagues and students have benefited from his friendly advice. Thinking of his contributions to Estonia’s literary tradition, one may repeat and paraphrase the sentence that he used for the conclusion of his essay on the Catalan poet Salvador Espriu in 1977: “to write (and to translate) poetry is to work for the benefit of the people.”

Winters, Kari-Lynn. On My Bike. Illustrated by Christina Leist. Tradewind Books, 2017. Following their award-winning 2009 book, On My Bike, Winters and Leist have created a delightful, easy to read story following a young child taking a bicycle ride with their parents. The book, clearly designed to be read aloud, establishes a simple rhyming pattern which allows both narrative and sound effects to connect with the reading experience. Much of the enjoyment of the story comes from the connected sound effects and the structure, wherein the protagonist, cleverly left both unnamed and without a defined gender, goes on a bicycle ride with one parent while the other stays behind with a younger child. The story follows the two on their bicycle ride and once they have made the end of their trip, follows them back through all of the previous story elements, allowing easier understanding and recognition for younger readers, and ending up back with both parents. A very simple story following a relatable event for young cyclists, as well as those getting ready to begin cycling, On My Bike has a warm and welcoming style that would work great for preschoolers aged three to five. Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Kirk MacLeod Kirk is the Open Data Team Lead for the Government of Alberta’s Open Government Portal. A Life-Long reader, he moderates two book clubs and is constantly on the lookout for new great books!

Roberts, Justin. The Smallest Girl in the Smallest Grade. Illus. Christian Robinson. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2014. Print.This delightful narrative about young Sally McCabe will leave readers with a warm feeling in their hearts and the belief that they can make a difference in the world. A truly inspirational read, this book follows the story of Sally, the smallest girl at school, as she walks her silent world. On her journeys she notices the tiny details around her that are often overlooked, such as how others are negatively treating one another. In a desperate attempt to change these behaviours, Sally finds her voice and lets the entire school know what is on her mind.The language used by the author is beautiful and makes the reader reflect on the small important details in life that are often overlooked. The nature of the text is perfectly accompanied by the illustrations, which are simple in nature but fun and innocent as they resemble the brightly coloured crayon drawings of a child. This is a great read aloud, which will get young children thinking about the way they view the world and how they can have a positive impact on it. The rhyming text and predictable vocabulary makes it an accessible read for students at early reading stages.This book is a reflective read and does not have a bold climax or a lot of action in its plot. Therefore it may not appeal to all readers and some may not be as interested in the story. However, this story fills a niche that is often overlooked by writers and many readers will enjoy the style in which it is written. Overall this is a very inspirational story and will have even the smallest of us wanting to make a difference.Recommended: 3 out of 4 starsReviewer: Shelley BellShelley Bell is a grade 2/3 combined teacher with the Edmonton Public School Board and is currently working to complete her master’s degree in Elementary Education at the University of Alberta. Shelley is passionate about drama and literature and can often be found sharing a book or play with her husband Anthony and Rizzo her 4 year old Shih Tzu.

Smith, Danna. The Hawk of the Castle: A Story of Medieval Falconry. Illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline. Candlewick Press, 2017. The Hawk of the Castle is a picture book that tells a story centered on the practice of medieval falconry, and it is told from the perspective of a young girl whose father is the falconer of a castle. Upon picking up the book, the reader will immediately be drawn into Bagram Ibatoulline’s beautiful acrylic gouache illustrations, which not only vividly portray the content of the story, but also complement the work by depicting technical aspects of falconry that a reader might not easily imagine without visual aids. The great attention to detail and realistic style of the illustrations lends itself to the historical setting of Danna Smith’s story—a vivid world that was once as real and familiar to its medieval inhabitants as our world is to us. The author’s note communicates the dedication of Smith to her story as it not only describes her own expertise as a falconer who was trained, like the girl in the story, by her father, but also gives insight into the history and sources she consulted to provide further understanding of the art of falconry as it was in the past and as it is now. The book is designed with two levels of reading in mind: the primary text, written in short rhyming verses, is one that a child might easily read on their own or with assistance. The secondary text, found in textboxes on each page, provides a more challenging and technical text which could be used at an adult’s discretion in order to provide a child with a more nuanced understanding of the aspects of falconry being described. This design is effective as it illuminates, in varying levels of complexity, a subject that is unlikely to be familiar to most readers. In addition to these two levels of reading, Smith also provides a list of resources for further information, allowing her book to become a gateway to even more complex and detailed understandings of falconry and the medieval period. In this way, The Hawk of the Castle, also becomes a means for readers to learn about an aspect of medieval life and society outside of more popular stories about princesses and knights in shining armour. Together Smith and Ibatoulline have created a beautiful book that allows readers to encounter an ancient pastime through a story about medieval falconry, and for that reason it would be a good addition to both school and public libraries. Highly Recommended: 4 stars out of 4Reviewer: Arwen Thysse Arwen Thysse is a graduate of the University of Alberta Bachelor of Arts program and graduate of the University of Toronto’s Master of Medieval Studies program. She is also an avid musician, and enjoys children’s books.

Samurai and Chinese martial arts themes inspire and permeate the uniquely philosophical lyrics and beats of Wu-Tang Clan, a New York-based hip-hop collective made popular in the mid-nineties with their debut album Enter the Wu-Tang: Return of the 36 Chambers. Original founder RZA (“Rizza”) scored his first full-length motion-picture soundtrack and made his feature film debut with Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (Jim Jarmusch, 2000). Through a critical exploration of the film’s musical filter, it will be argued that RZA’s aesthetic vision effectively deterritorialises the figure of the samurai, according to which the samurai “change[s] in nature and connect[s] with other multiplicities” (Deleuze and Guattari, 9). The soundtrack consequently emancipates and redistributes the idea of the samurai from within the dynamic context of a fundamentally different aesthetic intensity, which the Wu-Tang has always hoped to communicate, that is to say, an aesthetics of adaptation or of what is called in hip-hop music more generally: an aesthetics of flow. At the center of Jarmusch’s film is a fundamental opposition between the sober asceticism and deeply coded lifestyle of Ghost Dog and the supple, revolutionary, itinerant hip-hop beats that flow behind it and beneath it, and which serve at once as philosophical foil and as alternate foundation to the film’s themes and message. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai tells the story of Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker), a deadly and flawlessly precise contract killer for a small-time contemporary New York organised crime family. He lives his life in a late 20th-century urban America according to the strict tenets of the 18th century text Hagakure, which relates the principles of the Japanese Bushido (literally, the “way of the warrior,” but more often defined and translated as the “code of the samurai”). Others have noted the way in which Ghost Dog not only fails as an adaptation of the samurai genre but thematises this very failure insofar as the film depicts a samurai’s unsuccessful struggle to adapt in a corrupt and fractured postmodern, post-industrial reality (Lanzagorta, par. 4, 9; Otomo, 35-8). If there is any hope at all for these adaptations (Ghost Dog is himself an example), it lies, according to some, in the singular, outmoded integrity of his nostalgia, which despite the abstract jouissance or satisfaction it makes available, is nevertheless blank and empty (Otomo, 36-7). Interestingly, in his groundbreaking book Spectacular Vernaculars, and with specific reference to hip-hop, Russell Potter suggests that where a Eurocentric postmodernism posits a lack of meaning and collapse of value and authority, a black postmodernism that is neither singular nor nostalgic is prepared to emerge (6-9). And as I will argue there are more concrete adaptive strategies at work in the film, strategies that point well beyond the film to popular culture more generally. These are anti-nostalgic strategies of possibility and escape that have everything to do with the way in which hip-hop as soundtrack enables Ghost Dog in his becoming-samurai, a process by which a deterritorialised subject and musical flow fuse to produce a hybrid adaptation and identity. But hip-hip not only makes possible such a becoming, it also constitutes a potentially liberating adaptation of the past and of otherness that infuses the film with a very different but still concrete jouissance. At the root of Ghost Dog is a conflict between what Deleuze and Guattari call state and nomad authority, between the code that prohibits adaptation and its willful betrayer. The state apparatus, according to Deleuze and Guattari, is the quintessential form of interiority. The state nourishes itself through the appropriation, the bringing into its interior, of all that over which it exerts its control, and especially over those nomadic elements that constantly threaten to escape (Deleuze and Guattari, 380-7). In Ghost Dog, the code or state-form functions throughout the film as an omnipresent source of centralisation, authorisation and organisation. It is attested to in the intensely stratified urban environment in which Ghost Dog lives, a complicated and forbidding network of streets, tracks, rails, alleys, cemeteries, tenement blocks, freeways, and shipping yards, all of which serve to hem Ghost Dog in. And as race is highlighted in the film, it, too, must be included among the many ways in which characters are always already contained. What encounters with racism in the film suggest is the operative presence of a plurality of racial and cultural codes; the strict segregation of races and cultures in the film and the animosity which binds them in opposition reflect a racial stratification that mirrors the stratified topography of the cityscape. Most important, perhaps, is the way in which Bushido itself functions, at least in part, as code, as well as the way in which the form of the historical samurai in legend and reality circumscribes not only Ghost Dog’s existence but the very possibility of the samurai and the samurai film as such. On the one hand, Bushido attests to the absolute of religion, or as Deleuze and Guattari describe it: “a center that repels the obscure … essentially a horizon that encompasses” and which forms a “bond”, “pact”, or “alliance” between subject/culture and the all-encompassing embrace of its deity: in this case, the state-form which sanctions samurai existence (382-3). On the other hand, but in the same vein, the advent of Bushido, and in particular the Hagakure text to which Ghost Dog turns for meaning and guidance, coincides historically with the emergence of the modern Japanese state, or put another way, with the eclipse of the very culture it sponsors. In fact, samurai history as a whole can be viewed to some extent as a process of historical containment by which the state-form gradually encompassed those nomadic warring elements at the heart of early samurai existence. This is the socio-historical context of Bushido, insofar as it represents the codification of the samurai subject and the stratification of samurai culture under the pressures of modernisation and the spread of global capitalism. It is a social and historical context marked by the power of a bourgeoning military, political and economic organisation, and by policies of restraint, centralisation and sedentariness. Moreover, the local and contemporary manifestations of this social and historical context are revealed in many of the elements that permeate not only the traditional samurai films of Kurosawa, Mizoguchi or Kobayashi, but modern adaptations of the genre as well, which tend to convey a nostalgic mourning for this loss, or more precisely, for this failure to adapt. Thus the filmic atmosphere of Ghost Dog is dominated by the negative qualities of inaction, nonviolence and sobriety, and whether these are taken to express the sterility and impotence of postmodern existence or the emptiness of a nostalgia for an unbroken and heroic past, these qualities point squarely towards the transience of culture and towards the impossibility of adaptation and survival. Ghost Dog is a reluctant assassin, and the inherently violent nature of his task is always deflected. In the same way, most of Ghost Dog’s speech in the film is delivered through his soundless readings of the Hagakure, silent and austere moments that mirror as well the creeping, sterile atmosphere in which most of the film’s action takes place. It is an atmosphere of interiority that points not only towards the stratified environment which restricts possibility and expressivity but also squarely towards the meaning of Bushido as code. But this atmosphere meets resistance. For the samurai is above all a man of war, and, as Deleuze and Guattari suggest, “the man of war [that is to say, the nomad] is always committing an offence against” the State (383). In Ghost Dog, for all the ways in which Ghost Dog’s experience is stratified by the Bushido as code and by the post-industrial urban reality in which he lives and moves, the film shows equally the extent to which these strata or codes are undermined by nomadic forces that trace “lines of flight” and escape (Deleuze and Guattari, 423). Clearly it is the film’s soundtrack, and thus, too, the aesthetic intensities of the flow in hip-hop music, which both constitute and facilitate this escape: We have an APB on an MC killer Looks like the work of a master … Merciless like a terrorist Hard to capture the flow Changes like a chameleon (“Da Mystery of Chessboxin,” Enter) Herein lies the significance of (and difference between) the meaning of Bushido as code and as way, a problem of adaptation and translation which clearly reflects the central conflict of the film. A way is always a way out, the very essence of escape, and it always facilitates the breaking away from a code. Deleuze and Guattari describe the nomad as problematic, hydraulic, inseparable from flow and heterogeneity; nomad elements, as those elements which the State is incapable of drawing into its interior, are said to remain exterior and excessive to it (361-2). It is thus significant that the interiority of Ghost Dog’s readings from the Hagakure and the ferocious exteriority of the soundtrack, which along with the Japanese text helps narrate the tale, reflect the same relationship that frames the state and nomad models. The Hagakure is not only read in silence by the protagonist throughout the film, but the Hagakure also figures prominently inside the diegetic world of the film as a visual element, whereas the soundtrack, whether it is functioning diegetically or non-diegetically, is by its very nature outside the narrative space of the film, effectively escaping it. For Deleuze and Guattari, musical expression is inseparable from a process of becoming, and, in fact, it is fair to say that the jouissance of the film is supplied wholly by the soundtrack insofar as it deterritorialises the conventional language of the genre, takes it outside of itself, and then reinvests it through updated musical flows that facilitate Ghost Dog’s becoming-samurai. In this way, too, the soundtrack expresses the violence and action that the plot carefully avoids and thus intimately relates the extreme interiority of the protagonist to an outside, a nomadic exterior that forecloses any possibility of nostalgia but which suggests rather a tactics of metamorphosis and immediacy, a sublime deterritorialisation that involves music becoming-world and world becoming-music. Throughout the film, the appearance of the nomad is accompanied, even announced, by the onset of a hip-hop musical flow, always cinematically represented by Ghost Dog’s traversing the city streets or by lengthy tracking shots of a passenger pigeon in flight, both of which, to take just two examples, testify to purely nomadic concepts: not only to the sheer smoothness of open sky-space and flight with its techno-spiritual connotations, but also to invisible, inherited pathways that cross the stratified heart of the city undetected and untraceable. Embodied as it is in the Ghost Dog soundtrack, and grounded in what I have chosen to call an aesthetics of flow, hip-hop is no arbitrary force in the film; it is rather both the adaptive medium through which Ghost Dog and the samurai genre are redeemed and the very expression of this adaptation. Deleuze and Guattari write: The necessity of not having control over language, of being a foreigner in one’s own tongue, in order to draw speech to oneself and ‘bring something incomprehensible into the world.’ Such is the form of exteriority … that forms a war machine. (378) Nowhere else do Deleuze and Guattari more clearly outline the affinities that bind their notion of the nomad and the form of exteriority that is essential to it with the politics of language, cultural difference and authenticity which so color theories of race and critical analyses of hip-hop music and culture. And thus the key to hip-hop’s adaptive power lies in its spontaneity and in its bringing into the world of something incomprehensible and unanticipated. If the code in Ghost Dog is depicted as nonviolent, striated, interior, singular, austere and measured, then the flow in hip-hop and in the music of the Wu-Tang that informs Ghost Dog’s soundtrack is violent, fluid, exterior, variable, plural, playful and incalculable. The flow in hip-hop, as well as in Deleuze and Guattari’s work, is grounded in a kinetic linguistic spontaneity, variation and multiplicity. Its lyrical flow is a cascade of accelerating rhymes, the very speed and implausibility of which often creates a sort of catharsis in performers and spectators: I bomb atomically, Socrates’ philosophies and hypotheses can’t define how I be droppin’ these mockeries, lyrically perform armed robberies Flee with the lottery, possibly they spotted me Battle-scarred shogun, explosion. … (“Triumph”, Forever) Over and against the paradigm of the samurai, which as I have shown is connected with relations of content and interiority, the flow is attested to even more explicitly in the Wu-Tang’s embrace of the martial arts, kung-fu and Chinese cinematic traditions. And any understanding of the figure of the samurai in the contemporary hip-hop imagination must contend with the relationship of this figure to both the kung-fu fighting traditions and to kung-fu cinema, despite the fact that they constitute very different cultural and historical forms. I would, of course, argue that it is precisely this playful adaptation or literal deterritorialisation of otherwise geographically and culturally distinct realities that comprises the adaptive potential of hip-hop. Kung-fu, like hip-hop, is predicated on the exteriority of style. It is also a form of action based on precision and immediacy, on the fluid movements of the body itself deterritorialised as weapon, and thus it reiterates that blend of violence, speed and fluidity that grounds the hip-hop aesthetic: “I’ll defeat your rhyme in just four lines / Yeh, I’ll wax you and tax you and plus save time” (RZA and Norris, 211). Kung-fu lends itself to improvisation and to adaptability, essential qualities of combat and of lyrical flows in hip-hop music. For example, just as in kung-fu combat a fighter’s success is fundamentally determined by his ability to intuit and adapt to the style and skill and detailed movements of his adversary, the victory of a hip-hop MC engaged in, say, a freestyle battle will be determined by his capacity for improvising and adapting his own lyrical flow to counter and overcome his opponent’s. David Bordwell not only draws critical lines of difference between the Hong Kong and Hollywood action film but also hints at the striking differences between the “delirious kinetic exhilaration” of Hong Kong cinema and the “sober, attenuated, and grotesque expressivity” of the traditional Japanese samurai film (91-2). Moreover, Bordwell emphasises what the Wu-Tang Clan has always known and demonstrated: the sympathetic bond between kung-fu action or hand-to-hand martial arts combat and the flow in hip-hop music. Bordwell calls his kung-fu aesthetic “expressive amplification”, which communicates with the viewer through both a visual and physical intelligibility and which is described by Bordwell in terms of beats, exaggerations, and the “exchange and rhyming of gestures” (87). What is pointed to here are precisely those aspects of Hong Kong cinema that share essential similarities with hip-hop music as such and which permeate the Wu-Tang aesthetic and thus, too, challenge or redistribute the codified stillness and negativity that define the filmic atmosphere of Ghost Dog. Bordwell argues that Hong Kong cinema constitutes an aesthetics in action that “pushes beyond Western norms of restraint and plausibility,” and in light of my thesis, I would argue that it pushes beyond these same conventions in traditional Japanese cinema as well (86). Bruce Lee, too, in describing the difference between Chinese kung-fu and Japanese fighting forms in A Warrior’s Journey (Bruce Little, 2000) points to the latter’s regulatory principles of hesitation and segmentarity and to the former’s formlessness and shapelessness, describing kung-fu when properly practiced as “like water, it can flow or it can crash,” qualities which echo not only Bordwell’s description of the pause-burst-pause pattern of kung-fu cinema’s combat sequences but also the Wu-Tang Clan’s own self-conception as described by GZA (“Jizza”), a close relative of RZA and co-founder of the Wu-Tang Clan, when he is asked to explain the inspiration for the title of his album Liquid Swords: Actually, ‘Liquid Swords’ comes from a kung-fu flick. … But the title was just … perfect. I was like, ‘Legend of a Liquid Sword.’ Damn, this is my rhymes. This is how I’m spittin’ it. We say the tongue is symbolic of the sword anyway, you know, and when in motion it produces wind. That’s how you hear ‘wu’. … That’s the wind swinging from the sword. The ‘Tang’, that’s when it hits an object. Tang! That’s how it is with words. (RZA and Norris, 67) Thus do two competing styles animate the aesthetic dynamics of the film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai: an aesthetic of codified arrest and restraint versus an aesthetic of nomadic resistance and escape. The former finds expression in the film in the form of the cultural and historical meanings of the samurai tradition, defined by negation and attenuated sobriety, and in the “blank parody” (Otomo, 35) of a postmodern nostalgia for an empty historical past exemplified in the appropriation of the Samurai theme and in the post-industrial prohibitions and stratifications of contemporary life and experience; the latter is attested to in the affirmative kinetic exhilaration of kung-fu style, immediacy and expressivity, and in the corresponding adaptive potential of a hip-hop musical flow, a distributive, productive, and anti-nostalgic becoming, the nomadic essence of which redeems the rhetoric of postmodern loss described by the film. References Bordwell, David. “Aesthetics in Action: Kungfu, Gunplay, and Cinematic Expressivity.” At Full Speed: Hong Kong Cinema in a Borderless World. Ed. and Trans. Esther Yau. Minneapolis: Minnesota UP, 2004. Bruce Lee: A Warrior’s Journey. 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Classical Fighting Arts of Japan. Tokyo/New York: Kodansha Int., 2001. Otomo, Ryoko. “‘The Way of the Samurai’: Ghost Dog, Mishima, and Modernity’s Other.” Japanese Studies 21.1 (May 2001) 31-43. Potter, Russell. Spectacular Vernaculars. Albany: SUNY P, 1995. RZA, The, and Chris Norris. The Wu-Tang Manual. New York: Penguin, 2005. Silver, Alain. The Samurai Film. Woodstock, New York: Overlook, 1983. Smith, Christopher Holmes. “Method in the Madness: Exploring the Boundaries of Identity in Hip-Hop Performativity.” Social Identities 3.3 (Oct 1997): 345-75. Watkins, Craig S. Representing: Hip Hop Culture and the Production of Black Cinema. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1998. Wu-Tang Clan. Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers. CD. RCA/Loud Records, 1993. ———. Wu-Tang Forever. CD. RCA/Loud Records, 1997. Xing, Yan, ed. Shaolin Kungfu. Trans. Zhang Zongzhi and Zhu Chengyao. Beijing: China Pictorial, 1996. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Eubanks, Kevin P. "Becoming-Samurai: Samurai (Films), Kung-Fu (Flicks) and Hip-Hop (Soundtracks)." M/C Journal 10.2 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0705/11-eubanks.php>. APA Style Eubanks, K. (May 2007) "Becoming-Samurai: Samurai (Films), Kung-Fu (Flicks) and Hip-Hop (Soundtracks)," M/C Journal, 10(2). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0705/11-eubanks.php>.