Postcolonial Gothic Elements in Joaquin’s The Woman Who Had Two Navels

Nick Joaquin (Nicomedes Márquez Joaquín, (1917-2004) is known for his unique style of writing, tropical Gothic, and applying gothic elements in his stories and novels. This paper examines his first novel The Woman Who Had Two Navels through the lens of postcolonial theory. The paper also investigates gothic narratives in his novel by applying David Punter’s literary-historical approach. Punter (2000), in his book Postcolonial Imaginings: Fictions of a New World Order, examines the metamorphoses of the Gothic as a genre in some selected novels and poems. The book depicts new manifestations of the Gothic during 20th century literature. This paper attempts to investigate how the elements of postcolonial Gothic as discussed by Punter are manifested in Joaquin’s novel. In doing so, the contrapuntal method of reading, introduced by Edward Said (1993), is also applied to explore the hidden parts of history in the novel.

Postmodernist Features in W. Gerhardie’s Novel “The Polyglots”

В статье изучается творчество русско-английского писателя Уильяма Герхарди, которое оценивается в литературоведении диаметрально противоположно — от восторженного признания его культового характера до полного отказа в художественности и идейной глубине. Цель данной статьи — исследовать черты постмодернистской эстетики и мировоззрения в наиболее известном романе Герхарди на тему Гражданской войны в России — «Полиглоты», вбирающем в себя тенденции литературного развития ХХ века и служащем примечательным образцом концептуально-художественного синтеза. В статье анализируются такие проявления постмодернизма в «Полиглотах», как эпистемологическое сомнение, критика метанарративов, восприятие действительности как неуправляемого хаоса, принцип нон-иерархии, разрушение бинарных оппозиций, игровое начало, деконструкция, необарочное мироощущение, интертекстуальность, полижанровость. Отдельное внимание уделяется образу протагониста-рассказчика, сознание которого, с одной стороны, скрепляет повествование, придает картине распадающейся действительности целостность, с другой, в силу своей подвижности и текучести, лишает образ бытия смысловой однозначности, что также является постмодернистской особенностью. Еще одна примечательная постмодернистская черта произведения английского автора — его метаповествовательная природа: «Полиглоты» — это роман о романе, о процессе его создания. Через все исследование проведена мысль о влиянии русской культуры на художественную картину мира Герхарди, о рецепции, в том числе в характерной для постмодернизма пародийно-игровой, иронической форме, произведений русских писателей. The article investigates the literary legacy of William Gerhardie, an Anglo-Russian novelist, whose works receive diametrically opposite reviews. Some give him ample praise, while others criticize his books for having neither artistic nor ideological merit. The aim of the article is to explore “The Polyglots”, W. Gerhardie’s famous novel about Russian civil war through the lens of postmodernist aesthetics and postmodernist worldview. W. Gerhardie’s novel is a prime example of 20th century literature with its conceptual unity and artistic synthesis. The article analyzes such postmodernist features of “The Polyglots” as epistemological doubt, metanarrative critique, perception of the world as something uncontrollably chaotic, non-hierarchical principle, destruction of binary oppositions, gaming essence, deconstruction, neobaroque worldview, intertextulaity, multigenre characteristics. Special attention is given to the analysis of the protagonist, the narrator of the story, whose consciousness glues together the random pieces of the mosaic of life and, being flexible and unstable, adds ambiguity, which is another postmodernist characteristic. One more postmodernist feature of the work is its metanarrative character. “The Polyglots” is a novel about a novel, a novel about the writing process. The article focuses on the influence of the Russian culture on Gerhardie’s artistic worldview, his ironic postmodernist interpretation of Russian writers’ literary legacy.

A tribute to the sea. A contribution to the studies on marine comositions by Adam Świerzyński.

One of the composers who devoted a substantial part of their creative output to the Baltic Sea and Kashubia is Adam Świerzyński – he wrote numerous marine-themed pieces for varied performance groups. These compositions are not wide-known and some of them even get forgotten. Nevertheless, they are worth looking into due to their artistic value. Świerzyński’s works are eclectic in their style as in terms of their harmonic aspect they refer to Neo- Romanticism or aim towards modernist sounds. The composer’s instrumental lyric, which is based on inspirations by the nature of the sea as well as by historical events and folk elements, is an interesting area in the Polish 20th century literature. The present article relates to two compositions for viola and piano, i.e., Sea Impressions and Elegy, as well as viola transcriptions of Kashubian Fantasy and Lamento, Arend Dickmann in memoriam.

Some Alternative Monetary Facts

In this paper, we discuss the modern history of monetarism and its alternatives, as well as the changing empirical relationship of various measures of money and inflation. After demonstrating that previous naïve correlations between money and inflation as established in the 20th century literature have largely disappeared, we explain why this cannot be taken as support for an increased reliance on permanent monetary finance. Rather, we argue that rapid technological innovation in payments systems—both public and private—including in global pledged collateral markets, portends a declining demand for central bank liabilities.

THE ARTISTIC IMAGES OF POST-DEATH IN THE POETRY BY JOSEPH BRODSKY AND OLGA SEDAKOVA

The article analyzes how Joseph Brodsky and Olga Sedakova depict the posthumous existence of a human. Brodsky holds an agnostic view on the world, tending to a positivism. The poet concentrates on depicting the Homeric horror of the very fact of death and its inevitability. Olga Sedakova tends to the Christian view of the world, taking into account the experience of the catastrophes of the 20th century, literature after Auschwitz. Unlike the traditionalist image of Paradise, Sedakova sees in it not only ‘incredible happiness’, but also an experience of tragedy and compassion, which leads her to a very unconventional form of idyll.

Joyce’s Literary Tradition in Mikhail Shishkin’s Prose and Its Evocation in the Story “The Blind Musician”

In this article, Mikhail Shishkin is presented as a literary successor to James Joyce’s modernist tradition of writing. The nature of the ties connecting his creative method with that of Joyce is considered in two aspects which also qualify the narrative structure of his texts, namely the autobiographical and intertextual ones. While the autobiographical features of Joyce’s works can be estimated by his numerous biographies and archives, the facts from Shishkin’s life, the writer being our contemporary, can mostly be judged on by their creative interpretations in his own literary works. However, in its degree of truthiness, Shishkin’s autobiographical prose is in large excess over that of Joyce’s who would rather tend to aesthetic transformations of his life in the art forms. The two writers’ life stories themselves demonstrate a noticeable parallelism: both are linguistically sensitive; both did similar jobs along with their primary, literary occupation (a teacher, a journalist, a lecturer, a translator); for both, mother’s death of cancer and the child’s illness are reflected in recurrent literary motifs; both left for Switzerland to write about homeland from the meta-distance of the artist. Shishkin follows Joyce’s strategy of interlacing the intimate, painful episodes of his personal life into the literary texture of his writings. The very episodes of the lives of the two writers belonging to different national and historical cultures are quite identical, too. It is only that Shishkin goes further than Joyce in directness and candour, thus putting Joyce’s principle of mimesis on edge. This ultimate autobiographicity makes Shishkin, on the one hand, a successor to the tradition of Russian classical literature (remember his “love for Akaki Akakievitch”), as well as the tradition of truth in the 20th-century literature. On the other hand, it attaches him to the postmodern trend of transforming text into reality. Anyway, unlike postmodernists who are destroying literary discourse together with the characters articulating it, Shishkin “plays” with it in order to bring the novel back to life. Aesthetically, Shishkin reproduces and expounds Joyce’s theory of the “rhythm of beauty”, his technique of radical intertextuality and anastomosis connections of “all in all”. The story “The Blind Musician” has every trait of modernist poetics outlined above. The plays with light and darkness set by the cyclic rhythm of the day/night alternation and by regular shifts from mimetic to mythopoetic (intertextual) discourse are the structural narrative devices similar to those used by Joyce. Joyce’s characters, like Minotaurs, are wandering blindly through the labyrinth of Dublin until they arrive at the visionary moment of epiphany, when the beauty of a trivial truth lights up in their minds. Shishkin’s ideology is also modernist in character, since his “new linguoworld” is created as a mode of reconciling man with this world’s imperfections and as a mode of clarifying its sense.

THE IMAGE OF SAINT SERGIUS OF RADONEZH IN SAINTS’ LIVES AND LITERATURE

The paper studies the image of Saint Sergius of Radonezh as depicted in the saints’ lives (written by Epiphanius the Wise, Pachomius Logothetes, and Archbishop Nikon Rozhdestvensky) and in 20th century literature (Boris Zaytsev’s essay ‘The Life of Saint Sergius’ and Ivan Shmelev’s short story ‘Kulikovo Field’). The main difference between the depictions of Sergius in the saints’ lives as opposed to the modern accounts lies in the authors’ historical perspective. The main goal of Epiphanius the Wise is to paint a detailed picture of the spiritual countenance of Sergius, his teacher and contemporary, while Archbishop Nikon focuses on the saint’s historical context. In contrast, Zaytsev takes a particular interest in Sergius’ personality and its ‘human’ manifestations; in parallels with his own life and time; and in moral lessons taught to us by Sergius’ life. In Shmelev’s short story, Sergius’ miraculous appearance in 1925 serves as an inspiring symbol of the inner unity of history and eternity. With peace and light he brings, Sergius counteracts the darkness and madness of life after the Revolution. For Zaytsev and Shmelev, Saint Sergius of Radonezh was a beacon that illuminated the difficult worldly life of contemporary man and directed him towards his main goal, salvation.

The poetics of reconciliation in French literary work of the 20th century. From Marie Noël to Sylvie Germain

Because of the Holocaust, World War II is the focal point for capturing spiritual experience in the 20th-century literature. How did the transformation of French spiritual literature from the poet Marie Noël in the 1st half of the century to the novelist Sylvie Germain at its end come about? Using examples from their work, this paper shows both authors’ sources of inspiration and highlights the means of expressing spirituality of a person going through an inner struggle. Although the authors describe a dark night, both of them they have a desire to overcome it, to reconcile with God, with the world and with themselves.

Dérives identitaires déclinaisons de l’engagement littéraire au XXIe siècle. La modernité un projet inachevé

Throughout the 20th century, literature of “engagement”took center stage in the hands of Sartre, emphasizing the responsibility of the writer. Our purpose is to reflect on way the texts from the end of the last century have made this modality of “engagement”some how . In addition, we will try to ascertain and present what the new methods of literary intervention consist of.

On “Urgent Literature” and its Transformations at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

“Urgent literature”, as journalism was called in the 19th century, underwent changes associated with both external factors and the internal logic of its own development at the beginning of the 20th century. Literature and journalism interact in many ways. The mechanisms of this interaction are still not well understood. The peculiarity of the Russian cultural situation lies in the unusually close connection in which not only journalism and literature developed in the 19th century, and especially at the beginning of the 20th century but also the way in which philology did. Poetics as a science is largely shaped by focusing on the current literary process, and the participation of leading scientists as critics noticeably increases the level of journalism.