Literature

9 pages, 871 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Last Entrustment: Funeral Concepts and Arrangements of for the Afterlife in the Tang Dynasty

by Guodong Meng

Literature 2023, 3(3), 376-384; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3030025 - 19 Sep 2023

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Arrangements for the afterlife were important matters to the Tang 唐 (618–907) people. The newly unearthed epitaphs of the Tang Dynasty contain a large number of dialogues and words of the deceased before their death, as well as their instructions concerning the arrangements [...] Read more.

Arrangements for the afterlife were important matters to the Tang 唐 (618–907) people. The newly unearthed epitaphs of the Tang Dynasty contain a large number of dialogues and words of the deceased before their death, as well as their instructions concerning the arrangements for funerals and the inheritance of family traditions. These instructions not only reflect Tang funeral concepts and the importance of arrangements for the afterlife, but they also allow us to perceive the characters and personalities of the deceased, which are valuable new materials for the study of ancient Chinese biographical literature. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Death, Dying, Family and Friendship in Tang Literature)

19 pages, 1004 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Serving the Dead as Serving the Living: Examining the Concept of Burial and Life Consciousness in Medieval China

by Wei Wang

Literature 2023, 3(3), 357-375; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3030024 - 18 Sep 2023

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Abstract

In the minds of ancient people, tombs and burials were where the lives of this world ended and another type of life began. By incorporating the concepts of life found in Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and the widespread belief in ghosts and immortals, burial [...] Read more.

In the minds of ancient people, tombs and burials were where the lives of this world ended and another type of life began. By incorporating the concepts of life found in Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and the widespread belief in ghosts and immortals, burial ceremonies evolved during the Wei and Jin 魏晋 dynasties (220–420) into an integrated and unified notion of burial. The funeral ritual’s imaginative and fanciful depictions of the hereafter express sentimental devotion to life and contemplation of death. The burial ceremony and tomb architecture change in accordance with how the concepts of sacrifice and ghosts develop. The features of people’s belief in ghosts and immortality are reflected in particular burial practices. The popularity of necromancy burials and ghost marriages during the Middle Ages (third to sixth centuries) bring to light the binary antagonism between the soul and the body in burial, as well as the emphasis on spiritual freedom and physical immortality in the life philosophy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Death, Dying, Family and Friendship in Tang Literature)

15 pages, 274 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Facing Your Fears: Navigating Social Anxieties and Difference in Contemporary Fairy Tales

by Dorothea Trotter

Literature 2023, 3(3), 342-356; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3030023 - 4 Sep 2023

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Abstract

In the 20th and 21st centuries, the rise of audio-visual media, particularly cinema and television, brought about new visual techniques and storytelling conventions that have transformed the way fairy tales are adapted for the screen. Initially adapted for a younger audience, newer adaptations [...] Read more.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, the rise of audio-visual media, particularly cinema and television, brought about new visual techniques and storytelling conventions that have transformed the way fairy tales are adapted for the screen. Initially adapted for a younger audience, newer adaptations often return to the darker and more horrific elements of the source texts; this includes body horror and an emphasis on physiological differences. This article employs structural, cultural, and folkloric interpretive lenses for the analysis of three contemporary, audio-visual fairy tales to discuss the way contemporary fairy tales include disability and difference as social constructs that are shaped by cultural attitudes and anxieties. The stories’ plots are driven by the protagonists’ “otherness”, and these texts feature transformations that provide clues to understanding current standards of beauty and normality. I argue that newer adaptations place an emphasis on finding resolutions to difference that challenge the traditional idea that if one has a face or body that strays from the standard of the norm, one must die, relegate oneself to the margins, or join others like oneself. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Severed Limbs and Monstrous Appetites: (Re)Defining Fairy-Tale Horror from the Seventeenth Century to the Present)

15 pages, 312 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Tales of Bluebeard’s Wives: Carmen Maria Machado’s Intertextual Storytelling in In the Dream House and “The Husband Stitch”

by Carolin Jesussek

Literature 2023, 3(3), 327-341; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3030022 - 30 Aug 2023

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Abstract

This paper examines the gothic fairy tale in Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir In the Dream House and short story “The Husband Stitch” with a focus on Bluebeard’s insistent presence and the interweaving of reality, gothic horror, and fairy tale. In the memoir, Machado [...] Read more.

This paper examines the gothic fairy tale in Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir In the Dream House and short story “The Husband Stitch” with a focus on Bluebeard’s insistent presence and the interweaving of reality, gothic horror, and fairy tale. In the memoir, Machado restages her experience of queer intimate partner violence in the form of a gothic fairy tale as “The Queen and the Squid”, reminiscent of the tale of Bluebeard’s latest wife. By including gothic fairy-tale elements in the autobiographical text, Machado blurs the boundaries between the fictional and non-fictional realm, between her story and that of Bluebeard’s latest wife, thereby rewriting the tale for a queer context. The annotation of the memoir using Stith Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature further superimposes the fairy tale onto Dream House. Machado’s short story “The Husband Stitch” is a gender-aware inversion of “Bluebeard”. The reappearance of the tale throughout Machado’s work reveals the persistence of abusive behavioral patterns in relationships to the present day. Machado’s intertextual storytelling blurs the lines between autobiographical events and the tale of Bluebeard’s latest wife, creating a shared narrative universe of experiences of women who have dealt with their own iteration of Bluebeard. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Severed Limbs and Monstrous Appetites: (Re)Defining Fairy-Tale Horror from the Seventeenth Century to the Present)

14 pages, 1273 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Media as Metaphor: Realism in Meiji Print Narratives and Visual Cultures

by Jonathan E. Abel

Literature 2023, 3(3), 313-326; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3030021 - 15 Aug 2023

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Abstract

This article begins with the assumption that the specificity of metaphors used to discuss narration and mediation matter for understanding them. For instance, arguing for a paradigm shift in literature concomitant with the visual revolution of Meiji, critic Maeda Ai saw Mori Ōgai’s [...] Read more.

This article begins with the assumption that the specificity of metaphors used to discuss narration and mediation matter for understanding them. For instance, arguing for a paradigm shift in literature concomitant with the visual revolution of Meiji, critic Maeda Ai saw Mori Ōgai’s famed early work of realism “Dancing Girl” (Maihime) as translating the effects of the panorama hall into literature. By the end of his career, Mori Ōgai’s narrator of Wild Geese (Gan) compares his own storytelling to stereoscopy. These two different visual medial affordances suggest two different techniques. However, I argue that it is in a third visual medium (one that draws on the marketing of panorama and the visual techniques of stereography) that we may find a metaphor suggesting a continuity between these two modes of realism, between Ōgai’s early career and his later opus, between Maeda’s medial understanding and Ōgai’s own. This third metaphor for understanding Ōgai’s narration implies his mode of narration is never flat, always polyphonous, and advertising one aesthetic on the surface while providing another within. In the end, this view suggests a modernist realism that understood and expressed its own limitations and was, therefore, all the more realistic. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Things, Space, and Sensation in, around, and through Modern Japanese Literature in Print (circa 1910–1990))

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17 pages, 1054 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Greek Literature and Christian Doctrine in Early Christianity: A Difficult Co-Existence

by Roberta Franchi

Literature 2023, 3(3), 296-312; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3030020 - 5 Jul 2023

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Abstract

This paper traces the complex relationship between classical literature and Christian doctrine in the first four centuries. In the earliest period of Christianity, we can identify two attitudes of Christians towards Greek literature: the hostile attitude shown by Tatian, Theophilus, and Tertullian, and [...] Read more.

This paper traces the complex relationship between classical literature and Christian doctrine in the first four centuries. In the earliest period of Christianity, we can identify two attitudes of Christians towards Greek literature: the hostile attitude shown by Tatian, Theophilus, and Tertullian, and the openness to Greek culture and philosophy demonstrated by Justin the Martyr, Athenagoras of Athens, and Minucius Felix. A notable change happened in the Alexandrian milieu when Clement of Alexandria and Origen started considering Greek classics the embodiment of an authentic Christian spirit. In keeping with Origen, Basil of Caesarea realized a good synthesis between Greek thought and Christian faith. Noting germs of divine revelation in ancient Greek thought, Christian authors took the tools of Greco-Roman criticism and ancient philosophy to develop their doctrine. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Greek Literature and Society in Late Antiquity)

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18 pages, 1835 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Virtual You: Reading Kurahashi Yumiko’s Kurai Tabi through Virtuality

by Jason M. Beckman

Literature 2023, 3(3), 278-295; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3030019 - 25 Jun 2023

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Abstract

Within literary criticism, the second-person narrative is frequently read within the conventions of the modern realistic novel, tackling the narratee/protagonist as a narratological problem. Such an approach, however, overlooks a core component of what second-person fiction aims to do: that is, draw the [...] Read more.

Within literary criticism, the second-person narrative is frequently read within the conventions of the modern realistic novel, tackling the narratee/protagonist as a narratological problem. Such an approach, however, overlooks a core component of what second-person fiction aims to do: that is, draw the reader into the narrative and experience the world of the text firsthand. Seeking instead to theorize the ways in which second-person narratives involve the reader in the text and invite the act of perspective-taking, I turn to virtual reality, which is deeply invested in the cognitive mechanisms through which a sense of presence is produced and in questions of how the mediated experience of virtual reality can influence human thought and behavior. Examining Kurahashi Yumiko’s Kurai Tabi (1961), one of the earliest examples of the literary form in Japanese literature, I consider how the reader can experience presence during moments in the text, and how the text drives the reader’s identification with the “you” who is the target of the narration. Analyzing the second-person narrative as a virtuality provides a new avenue for understanding the reader’s cognitive engagement and experience of second-person fiction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Things, Space, and Sensation in, around, and through Modern Japanese Literature in Print (circa 1910–1990))

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Literature, Volume 3, Issue 3 (September 2023) – 7 articles

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