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Humanities

Humanities is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal on the meaning of cultural expression and perceptions as seen through different interpretative lenses. Humanities is published monthly online by MDPI.

Open Access— free for readers, with article processing charges (APC) paid by authors or their institutions.
High Visibility: indexed within Scopus, ESCI (Web of Science), ERIH Plus, and other databases.
Rapid Publication: manuscripts are peer-reviewed and a first decision is provided to authors approximately 33.7 days after submission; acceptance to publication is undertaken in 4.9 days (median values for papers published in this journal in the first half of 2025).
Recognition of Reviewers: reviewers who provide timely, thorough peer-review reports receive vouchers entitling them to a discount on the APC of their next publication in any MDPI journal, in appreciation of the work done.

Impact Factor: 0.3 (2024)

Imprint Information Journal Flyer Open Access ISSN: 2076-0787

Latest Articles

35 pages, 83889 KB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Bildgespräche (Picture Conversations)—Peter Brandes and the Last Portraits of Hölderlin

by Valérie Lawitschka

Humanities 2025, 14(9), 181; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14090181 - 5 Sep 2025

The Danish artist Peter Brandes (1944–2025) visited the poet’s town of Tübingen (Germany) in 2007 and was inspired by the four portraits of Hölderlin (1770–1843) that were created during his time in the so-called tower. Hölderlin spent half of his life there. Admitted [...] Read more.

The Danish artist Peter Brandes (1944–2025) visited the poet’s town of Tübingen (Germany) in 2007 and was inspired by the four portraits of Hölderlin (1770–1843) that were created during his time in the so-called tower. Hölderlin spent half of his life there. Admitted to the University Clinic in Tübingen, diagnosed as incurable after six and a half months, he was released into the care of the carpenter Ernst Zimmer and his family in the house by the Neckar River, where he remained until his death. Based on these portraits, Brandes created over 100 works, seeking dialogue with Hölderlin. Following a brief overview of the artist Peter Brandes, we discuss the background of the four portraits that inspired his Bildgespräche: Hölderlin’s illness, his condition during his stay in the tower, and briefly, the poems he wrote during this period. A detailed discussion of the four portraits is followed by a presentation of Brandes’ “Annäherungen” (approaches) to these images in the form of his Bildgespräche. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Hölderlin and Poetic Transport)

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30 pages, 1729 KB

Open AccessArticle

FiCT-O: Modelling Fictional Characters in Detective Fiction from the 19th to the 20th Century

by Enrica Bruno, Lorenzo Sabatino and Francesca Tomasi

Humanities 2025, 14(9), 180; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14090180 - 3 Sep 2025

This paper proposes a formal descriptive model for understanding the evolution of characters in detective fiction from the 19th to the 20th century, using methodologies and technologies from the Semantic Web. The integration of Digital Humanities within the theory of comparative literature opens [...] Read more.

This paper proposes a formal descriptive model for understanding the evolution of characters in detective fiction from the 19th to the 20th century, using methodologies and technologies from the Semantic Web. The integration of Digital Humanities within the theory of comparative literature opens new paths of study that allow for a digital approach to the understanding of intertextuality through close reading techniques and ontological modelling. In this research area, the variety of possible textual relationships, the levels of analysis required to classify these connections, and the inherently referential nature of certain literary genres demand a structured taxonomy. This taxonomy should account for stylistic elements, narrative structures, and cultural recursiveness that are unique to literary texts. The detective figure, central to modern literature, provides an ideal lens for examining narrative intertextuality across the 19th and 20th centuries. The analysis concentrates on character traits and narrative functions, addressing various methods of rewriting within the evolving cultural and creative context of authorship. Through a comparative examination of a representative sample of detective fiction from the period under scrutiny, the research identifies mechanisms of (meta)narrative recurrence, transformation, and reworking within the canon. The outcome is a formal model for describing narrative structures and techniques, with a specific focus on character development, aimed at uncovering patterns of continuity and variation in diegetic content over time and across different works, adaptable to analogous cases of traditional reworking and narrative fluidity. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Interpretation of Fictional Characters in Literary Texts: History of Literary Criticism, Philosophy and Formal Ontologies)

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22 pages, 378 KB

Open AccessArticle

Mind Wandering and Water Metaphors: Towards a Reconceptualisation of Immersion and Fictional Worlds

by Francesca Arnavas

Humanities 2025, 14(9), 179; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14090179 - 2 Sep 2025

Mind wandering is a mental activity that occupies up to 50% of our waking time. While scientists have now started to acknowledge and to study the creative potential of mind wandering for our imaginative skills, fiction has long recognised its value. This article [...] Read more.

Mind wandering is a mental activity that occupies up to 50% of our waking time. While scientists have now started to acknowledge and to study the creative potential of mind wandering for our imaginative skills, fiction has long recognised its value. This article focuses on the depiction of mind wandering in fiction, with examples ranging from Virginia Woolf’s The Waves to Ayumu Watanabe’s movie Children of the Sea. In particular, I focus on how images related to water are employed in this respect. It appears that water-related metaphors and imagery are particularly significant for the depiction of the interlacement between mind wandering and processes of creativity connected to fiction. This article argues that the notion of fictional world per se can be enriched and better conceptualised as a less “fixed” entity if pictured as a fluid, stream-like mental construct, shaped by imaginative engagement and mind wandering. Full article

12 pages, 310 KB

Open AccessArticle

A Centrally Peripheral Publisher: The Fostering of the Hui Literary Field in Post-Mao China

by Mario De Grandis

Humanities 2025, 14(9), 178; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14090178 - 1 Sep 2025

In recent decades, Chinese literary studies has shifted away from center–periphery models, favoring frameworks that emphasize multiplicity and decentralization. While this turn has opened space for new perspectives, it risks overlooking persistent hierarchies that continue to shape literary careers, where certain publishers remain [...] Read more.

In recent decades, Chinese literary studies has shifted away from center–periphery models, favoring frameworks that emphasize multiplicity and decentralization. While this turn has opened space for new perspectives, it risks overlooking persistent hierarchies that continue to shape literary careers, where certain publishers remain more central to an author’s advancement than others. This essay reconsiders the center–periphery framework through an analysis of Huizu wenxue, a literary journal published in Changji, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Despite its geographic distance from China’s dominant literary hubs, Huizu wenxue has long served as a key platform for Hui literature. Drawing on interviews, as well as textual and paratextual analysis, I demonstrate how the journal functions both as a launchpad for emerging Hui authors and as an institutional anchor for a nationwide Hui literary community. Through dedicated columns that showcase new Hui talent and events that foster professional networks, Huizu wenxue has, since its inception, continually played a central role in shaping Hui literary production and supporting authors’ careers. Because it operates from the margins of the People’s Republic of China’s yet wields significant influence within Hui literary circles, I argue that Huizu wenxue is best understood as a “peripheral center.” Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Literature in the Humanities)

17 pages, 264 KB

Open AccessArticle

The Prince’s Two Bodies: The Machiavellian Hero as a Literary Character Between History and Invention

by Carmelo Tramontana

Humanities 2025, 14(9), 177; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14090177 - 29 Aug 2025

This article discusses how in De principatibus Machiavelli defines the status of the treatise main character (the Prince) through the intersection of three levels: (a) history (as a character born from the symbolic fusion of traits and characteristics of historical personalities who actually [...] Read more.

This article discusses how in De principatibus Machiavelli defines the status of the treatise main character (the Prince) through the intersection of three levels: (a) history (as a character born from the symbolic fusion of traits and characteristics of historical personalities who actually existed); (b) politics (as a character who is the sign of an abstract political function); and (c) literary invention (as a fictional character constructed according to the rhetorical and logical strategies of literary invention). This case study shows how rhetoric, historiography, oratory, and political analysis are mixed together in a coherent organism, thanks to the creation of a character (the Prince) who constantly oscillates between historical–political reality and literary fiction. The analysis, both theoretical and historical, of the status of the protagonist of De principatibus is accompanied by the study of the critical readings of Francesco De Sanctis, Antonio Gramsci, and Luigi Russo, whose reception is strongly conditioned by the ambiguous nature of the character of the Prince, both in terms of critical categories and argumentative strategies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Interpretation of Fictional Characters in Literary Texts: History of Literary Criticism, Philosophy and Formal Ontologies)

15 pages, 311 KB

Open AccessArticle

On Floods and Earthquakes: Iberian Political and Religious Readings of Natural Disasters (1530–1531)

by Marta Albalá Pelegrín

Humanities 2025, 14(9), 176; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14090176 - 26 Aug 2025

This article explores the ways in which writing about natural disasters conveyed a fraught sense of instability and ever-changing political alliances in the early sixteenth century. It centers on a broadsheet comprising two letters and a song sent to a Castilian statesman, the [...] Read more.

This article explores the ways in which writing about natural disasters conveyed a fraught sense of instability and ever-changing political alliances in the early sixteenth century. It centers on a broadsheet comprising two letters and a song sent to a Castilian statesman, the Marquis of Tarifa, from the papal curia and the court of Portugal. The two letters, one by Baltasar del Río and another by an anonymous informant, reveal that disasters could be potentially seen as moments of political action. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the papal curia suffered several floods, the plague, factional violence, and internal divisions with long-lasting consequences. In turn, Lisbon, was hit by a major earthquake, which impacted major structures. These letters allow us to reconstruct how the concept of curiosity and that of an untamable nature came together to make sense of natural disasters, such as floods and earthquakes. I analyze the ways in which Iberian agents negotiated the supposedly natural or divine character of these events in order to advance political and religious calls for action. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Curiosity and Modernity in Early Modern Spain)

23 pages, 327 KB

Open AccessArticle

Between Analysis and Metaphor: Forms of Poetic Transport in Hölderlin’s Patmos

by Jakob Helmut Deibl

Humanities 2025, 14(9), 175; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14090175 - 25 Aug 2025

This article identifies different forms of poetic transport—understood in the sense of metaphor, transition, transfer, crossing and translation—in Hölderlin’s poem “Patmos”. There are several motifs scattered throughout the poem that semantically express a transition using highly metaphorical language: motifs reflecting on the mediation [...] Read more.

This article identifies different forms of poetic transport—understood in the sense of metaphor, transition, transfer, crossing and translation—in Hölderlin’s poem “Patmos”. There are several motifs scattered throughout the poem that semantically express a transition using highly metaphorical language: motifs reflecting on the mediation between the divine and the human, signalling the hybridization of Greek and Christian religion, and indicating transfer from ancient to modern thought. Initially, this article examines the metaphorical quality of language in contrast to its analytical capacity and proposes that the former—by seeking forms of transitions—enables mediation between the associative-affective reading of the text and the critical-analytic method of the scientific view. Hölderlin reflects on this fundamental issue as a result of his spatial transition to Regensburg. The article will further show that various forms of transfer sustain the entire poem: motifs ranging from an epochal transfer to the transition from a topographical space into the text, the superimposition of different figures and the transformation of the biblical narrative, as well as the crossing between the different layers of the draft and the poet’s task of a creative translation of various forms of encountering the world, all describe issues central to Patmos. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Hölderlin and Poetic Transport)

31 pages, 459 KB

Open AccessArticle

Translation and Power in Georgia: Postcolonial Trajectories from Socialist Realism to Post-Soviet Market Pressures

by Gül Mükerrem Öztürk

Humanities 2025, 14(9), 174; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14090174 - 25 Aug 2025

This study examines the transformation of literary translation practices in Georgia from the Soviet era to the post-Soviet and neoliberal periods, using postcolonial translation theory as the main analytical lens. Translation is treated not merely as a linguistic transfer but as a process [...] Read more.

This study examines the transformation of literary translation practices in Georgia from the Soviet era to the post-Soviet and neoliberal periods, using postcolonial translation theory as the main analytical lens. Translation is treated not merely as a linguistic transfer but as a process shaped by ideological control, cultural representation, and global power hierarchies. In the Soviet era, censorship policies rooted in socialist realism imposed direct ideological interventions; children’s literature such as Maya the Bee and Bambi exemplified how religious or individualist themes were replaced with collectivist narratives. In the post-Soviet period, overt censorship has largely disappeared; however, structural factors—including the absence of a coherent national translation policy, economic precarity, and dependence on Western funding—have become decisive in shaping translation choices. The shift from Russian to English as the dominant source language has introduced new symbolic hierarchies, privileging Anglophone literature while marginalizing regional and non-Western voices. Drawing on the Georgian Book Market Research 2013–2015 alongside archival materials, paratextual analysis, and contemporary case studies, including the Georgian translation of André Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name, the study shows how translators negotiate between market expectations, cultural taboos, and ethical responsibility. It argues that translation in Georgia remains a contested site of cultural negotiation and epistemic justice. Full article

18 pages, 322 KB

Open AccessArticle

Visible Bullets: Shakespeare at the Ukrainian Front and Beyond

by Amy Lidster

Humanities 2025, 14(8), 173; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14080173 - 18 Aug 2025

The use of Shakespeare within warzones and at the frontline of conflict centralizes vital questions about the role of the arts during times of profound crisis, when lives and liberties are under direct attack. This article first considers Shakespearean productions linked to Russia’s [...] Read more.

The use of Shakespeare within warzones and at the frontline of conflict centralizes vital questions about the role of the arts during times of profound crisis, when lives and liberties are under direct attack. This article first considers Shakespearean productions linked to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, concentrating on the inaugural Ukrainian Shakespeare Festival and two documentaries that reveal how staging Shakespeare can serve humanitarian needs, promote political debate, and help individuals to process their wartime experiences. It then expands to include examples from other conflicts, including the First World War and the ongoing crisis in Gaza, and argues that warzone productions—in addition to embracing what theatre can achieve at times of conflict—also address its limitations. Warzone performances often acknowledge a gulf between representation and lived experience, between tragedy as a dramatic form and reality, which is reinforced when the individuals staging Shakespeare are also ‘actors’ in the war. This article proposes that what unites war and theatre is the power of narrative for shaping action and interpretation, and this recognition underlines the responsibilities of political and theatrical narratives at times of war, as well as the role of the critic. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Shakespearean Performance: Contemporary Approaches, Findings, and Practices)

14 pages, 221 KB

Open AccessArticle

Linguistic Analysis of Redemption in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner Through a Critical Discourse Approach

by Sidra Mahmood, Sareen Kaur Bhar and Shamim Ali

Humanities 2025, 14(8), 172; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14080172 - 16 Aug 2025

Redemption, as a response to guilt and a path toward self-realization, is a fundamental theme in human narratives. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini poignantly explores this theme through the protagonist’s moral conflict, internal struggle, and eventual journey toward atonement. While prior studies [...] Read more.

Redemption, as a response to guilt and a path toward self-realization, is a fundamental theme in human narratives. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini poignantly explores this theme through the protagonist’s moral conflict, internal struggle, and eventual journey toward atonement. While prior studies have predominantly examined the novel through psychological and literary lenses, this paper adopts a linguistic perspective by applying van Leeuwen’s Social Actor Network Model within the framework of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS). It investigates how discourse constructs and negotiates guilt, moral responsibility, and redemption through social actor representation, role allocation, and inclusion/exclusion strategies across Amir’s narration, inner monologue, and dialogue. The analysis reveals that linguistic techniques such as association, passivation, and categorization play a pivotal role in shaping the protagonist’s moral transformation. By foregrounding the role of discourse in constructing ethical identity, this study offers a novel contribution to both literary linguistics and trauma narratives. It also adds to global scholarly conversations on how language mediates reconciliation and recovery in postcolonial and transnational fiction. Full article

14 pages, 263 KB

Open AccessArticle

“A Little God of His South Sea”: Queer Exoticism in the Decadent Pacific

by Lindsay Wilhelm

Humanities 2025, 14(8), 171; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14080171 - 15 Aug 2025

This essay explores the convergence of Decadence, queer sociality, and Pacific imagery in the work of American travel writer Charles Warren Stoddard and Japanese poet Yone Noguchi. For these writers, the “South Seas” seemed to epitomize a prelapsarian sexual innocence, exempted (at least [...] Read more.

This essay explores the convergence of Decadence, queer sociality, and Pacific imagery in the work of American travel writer Charles Warren Stoddard and Japanese poet Yone Noguchi. For these writers, the “South Seas” seemed to epitomize a prelapsarian sexual innocence, exempted (at least provisionally) from capitalist calculations of value and the impositions of Victorian bourgeois morality. As such, the Pacific furnished a shared imaginary in which they could articulate transgressive homosocial intimacies, both with each other and with others in their bohemian circle. But these expressions of queer, cosmopolitan kinship also depended on well-worn stereotypes about native decline, in which Indigenous peoples were seen to embody an irrecoverable past—one doomed to disappear in the onward march of modernity. Drawing on postcolonial conceptions of extinction discourse and Indigenous agency, this essay will thus contend with one potential “misuse” of Decadence: that is, as the driver of an exoticism that perpetuated imperialist narratives about the inevitable extinction of Indigenous peoples. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Use and Misuse of Fin-De-Siècle Decadence and Its Imagination)

16 pages, 542 KB

Open AccessArticle

Beyond Vision: The Aesthetics of Sound and Expression of Cultural Identity by Independent Malaysian Chinese Director James Lee

by Xingyao Jiang and Rosdeen bin Suboh

Humanities 2025, 14(8), 170; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14080170 - 11 Aug 2025

Since the early 2000s, Malaysian Chinese independent cinema has garnered international recognition, with James Lee emerging as one of its most influential figures. Distinct from many of his contemporaries, Lee’s films feature a unique sound design that plays a pivotal role in articulating [...] Read more.

Since the early 2000s, Malaysian Chinese independent cinema has garnered international recognition, with James Lee emerging as one of its most influential figures. Distinct from many of his contemporaries, Lee’s films feature a unique sound design that plays a pivotal role in articulating cultural identity. This study, grounded in in-depth interviews with the director, investigates how sound aesthetics function as a vital medium for cultural expression. In the postcolonial context of Malaysia, sound is revealed not merely as a narrative device but as a complex tool of cultural translation. Lee’s creative practice exemplifies what this study terms a “sound-driven non-conscious cultural expression”, wherein surreal sound treatments and multilingual environments construct an aesthetic that is both locally rooted and transnational in scope. By drawing upon sound theory and theories of cultural identity, this research uncovers the significance of sound aesthetics in multicultural contexts, offering new perspectives for film and cultural studies alike. Full article

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20 pages, 324 KB

Open AccessArticle

Decadent Echoes: Arthur Machen, M. John Harrison, K.J. Bishop, and the Ends of Mystery

by Matthew Cheney

Humanities 2025, 14(8), 169; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14080169 - 11 Aug 2025

Although he first published fiction during the fin de siècle with John Lane, publisher of The Yellow Book, Arthur Machen denied a Decadent heritage for his work; nonetheless, echoes of Decadent interests and imagery carried through his fiction long after the 1890s, [...] Read more.

Although he first published fiction during the fin de siècle with John Lane, publisher of The Yellow Book, Arthur Machen denied a Decadent heritage for his work; nonetheless, echoes of Decadent interests and imagery carried through his fiction long after the 1890s, through to his final novel, The Green Round. Decades later, M. John Harrison’s Viriconium series of novels and stories nodded to and wrestled with the Decadent legacy, while his interest in Machen became explicit with the short story “The Great God Pan” (the title taken from one of Machen’s most famous tales) and the novel The Course of the Heart, built from the earlier story. Harrison was an initiator of the New Weird literary tendency at the turn of the millennium, and one of the books central to that tendency is K.J. Bishop’s 2003 novel The Etched City, which openly drew on Decadent writings and on Harrison’s own use of Decadent material. Attending to writings by Machen, Harrison, and Bishop, we can see ways that Decadent aesthetics and imagery carried forward, finding a home a century later, not in the literary mainstream but in an experimental corner of the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Use and Misuse of Fin-De-Siècle Decadence and Its Imagination)

13 pages, 291 KB

Open AccessArticle

Blind Spots: Feminist Memory, Gendered Testimony, and Cultural Trauma in Holocaust Memoirs

by Xiaoxue (Wendy) Sun

Humanities 2025, 14(8), 168; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14080168 - 8 Aug 2025

This article examines how gender shapes Holocaust memory through close analyses of two canonical women’s memoirs: Charlotte Delbo’s Auschwitz and After and Ruth Klüger’s Still Alive (2001), a considerably rewritten and culturally reinterpreted version of her earlier German book Weiter leben (1992). Delbo, [...] Read more.

This article examines how gender shapes Holocaust memory through close analyses of two canonical women’s memoirs: Charlotte Delbo’s Auschwitz and After and Ruth Klüger’s Still Alive (2001), a considerably rewritten and culturally reinterpreted version of her earlier German book Weiter leben (1992). Delbo, a French political deportee, and Klüger, an Austrian Jewish survivor, provide testimonies that challenge the male-centered paradigms that have long dominated the Holocaust literature. Although pioneering feminist scholars have shown that women experienced and remembered the Holocaust differently, gender-based analysis remains underused—not only in Holocaust studies but also in broader memory studies, where it is often assumed to be already complete or exhausted. This view of theoretical saturation reflects a Eurocentric bias that equates critical maturity with Western academic prominence, thereby masking the ongoing influence of gender on the production, circulation, and reception of testimony worldwide. Drawing on trauma theory, concepts of multidirectional memory and postmemory, systems theory of media, and ethical approaches to testimony, this article argues that gender is not merely descriptive of Holocaust experience but also constitutive of how trauma is narrated, circulated, and archived. Testimony, as a cultural form, is inherently mediated, and that mediation is fundamentally gendered. This analysis illustrates how Delbo and Klüger create gendered testimonial forms through unique aesthetic strategies. Delbo’s writing focuses on seeing by invoking a feminist aesthetics of voir as imagined and ethical visualization, while Klüger’s narrative emphasizes voice, utilizing rhetorical sharpness and ambivalent narration to challenge postwar silencing. Instead of equating gender with femininity, the article understands gender as a relational and intersectional system—one that includes masculinity, non-binary identities, and structural power differences. It also questions Eurocentric assumptions that feminist critique has been fully explored within memory studies, urging renewed engagement with gender in transnational contexts, such as the often-overlooked testimonies from wartime Shanghai. Ultimately, this article argues that feminist approaches to Holocaust testimony expose the gendered structures of grievability that determine which kinds of suffering are preserved—and which remain unspoken. Full article

16 pages, 265 KB

Open AccessArticle

Exile Beyond Geography: Bilingualism, Self-Alienation, and the Poetics of Silence in Samuel Beckett

by Erinda Papa

Humanities 2025, 14(8), 167; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14080167 - 8 Aug 2025

This article focuses on the experience of internal exile in Samuel Beckett’s work, focusing on two fundamental axes: bilingualism and silence. Beckett’s conscious switch from English to French after World War II is not an aesthetic or practical choice, but an act of [...] Read more.

This article focuses on the experience of internal exile in Samuel Beckett’s work, focusing on two fundamental axes: bilingualism and silence. Beckett’s conscious switch from English to French after World War II is not an aesthetic or practical choice, but an act of linguistic self-exclusion, through which he repositions himself in the face of word and meaning. Drawing on Derrida’s concept of the “monolingualism of the other” and Kristeva’s definition of the foreigner, this study treats bilingualism not as an expressive enrichment, but as a sign of a deep division within the creative subject. Meanwhile, silence is not seen as an absence of speech, but as the most sincere form of expression, a way of giving voice to what cannot be said. Analyzing works such as The Unnamable, Not I, and Krapp’s Last Tape, the article argues that Beckett does not write about exile, but from a permanent state of exile, conditioned not by geographical space, but by separation from language, identity, and meaning. The article aims to bring a new approach to the literature of exile, considering it as a fundamentally linguistic and existential experience, beyond the usual framework of national identity or cultural affiliation. Full article

29 pages, 4224 KB

Open AccessArticle

The “Harold Theme” as a Byronic Microcosm: Structural and Narrative Condensation in Berlioz’s Harold in Italy

by Lola Abs Osta

Humanities 2025, 14(8), 166; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14080166 - 8 Aug 2025

Lord Byron’s life and poetic works have inspired musical compositions across genres even during his lifetime. The English author’s fictional characters and themes impressed nineteenth-century European composers, especially since his Byronic heroes were often conflated with their creators’ own melancholy and revolutionary personas. [...] Read more.

Lord Byron’s life and poetic works have inspired musical compositions across genres even during his lifetime. The English author’s fictional characters and themes impressed nineteenth-century European composers, especially since his Byronic heroes were often conflated with their creators’ own melancholy and revolutionary personas. In contrast to Byron-inspired songs and operas, instrumental programme music has raised doubts towards a direct correlation with its poetic sources. While epigraphs help direct listeners to specific ideas, their absence has prompted dismissals of intermedial relationships, even those proposed by the composers themselves. This essay explores major connections between Hector Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, a Symphony in Four Parts with Viola Obbligato (premiered 1834), and Byron’s semi-autobiographical narrative poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: A Romaunt (published 1812–1818). Although Berlioz’s titles and memoirs partially identify Byron’s Childe Harold as his inspiration, other references, including his visits to the Abruzzi mountains, his fascination with Italian folk music, his reuse of earlier material, and his reflections on brigands and solitude, have fuelled ongoing debates about the work’s programmatic content. Combining historical-biographical research, melopoetics, and musical semiotics, this essay clarifies how indefinite elements were transmitted from poetic source to musical target. Particular focus is placed on the “Harold theme”, which functions as a Byronic microcosm: a structural, thematic, and gestural condensation of Byron’s poem into music. Observing the interactions between microcosmic motifs and macrocosmic forms in Berlioz’s symphony and their poetic analogues, this study offers a new reading of how Byron’s legacy is encoded in musical terms. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music and the Written Word)

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15 pages, 362 KB

Open AccessArticle

Radegund of Poitiers in Modern Scholarship: Recurrent Themes and Portrayals

by Giacomo Evangelisti

Humanities 2025, 14(8), 165; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14080165 - 7 Aug 2025

Radegund of Poitiers (520–587) was a princess of the Thuringian kingdom, wife to the Merovingian king Clothar I, and ultimately domina of the abbey of Sainte-Croix in Poitiers. The literary persona of Saint Radegund, as constructed by the poet-hagiographer Venantius Fortunatus and, a [...] Read more.

Radegund of Poitiers (520–587) was a princess of the Thuringian kingdom, wife to the Merovingian king Clothar I, and ultimately domina of the abbey of Sainte-Croix in Poitiers. The literary persona of Saint Radegund, as constructed by the poet-hagiographer Venantius Fortunatus and, a few years later, by the nun Baudonivia, underpins the historical figure. The saint exerted a significant cultural influence across Frankish territories, and over the ages her image has been continuously received, reinterpreted, and expanded. The purpose of this study is to provide a survey of the critical reception of Radegund’s character, in order to explore how modern scholarship has interpreted and reimagined her persona over time. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Interpretation of Fictional Characters in Literary Texts: History of Literary Criticism, Philosophy and Formal Ontologies)

17 pages, 293 KB

Open AccessArticle

“The Language of the Digital Air”: AI-Generated Literature and the Performance of Authorship

by Silvana Colella

Humanities 2025, 14(8), 164; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14080164 - 7 Aug 2025

The release of ChatGPT and similar applications in 2022 prompted wide-ranging discussions concerning the impact of AI technologies on writing, creativity, and authorship. This article explores the question of artificial writing, taking into consideration both critical theories and creative experiments. In the first [...] Read more.

The release of ChatGPT and similar applications in 2022 prompted wide-ranging discussions concerning the impact of AI technologies on writing, creativity, and authorship. This article explores the question of artificial writing, taking into consideration both critical theories and creative experiments. In the first section, I review current scholarly discussions about authorship in the age of generative AI. In the second and third sections, I turn to experiments in literary co-creation that combine the affordances of technology with the human art of prompting and editing or curating. My argument has three prongs: (1) experiments that frame artificial writing as literature (memoir, poetry, autobiography, fiction) are accompanied by enlarged paratexts, which merit more attention than they have hitherto received; (2) paratexts provide salient clues on the process of co-creation, the reconfiguration of authorship, and the production of value; and (3) in the folds of paratextual explanations, one can detect the profile of the author as clever prompter, navigating a new terrain by relying at times on the certainties of conventional authorship. My analyses show that while AI-generated literature is a novel phenomenon worthy of closer scrutiny, the novelty tends to be cloaked in a familiar garb. Full article

21 pages, 1748 KB

Open AccessArticle

Between Text and Form: Expanded Textuality in Contemporary Architecture

by Manuel Iglesias-Vázquez

Humanities 2025, 14(8), 163; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14080163 - 6 Aug 2025

This article explores the concept of textuality as embedded within contemporary architecture, understood as the capacity of buildings to generate meanings, narratives, and interpretations that transcend their physical and functional dimensions. An interdisciplinary approach is adopted, integrating architectural theory, semiotics, hermeneutics, and cultural [...] Read more.

This article explores the concept of textuality as embedded within contemporary architecture, understood as the capacity of buildings to generate meanings, narratives, and interpretations that transcend their physical and functional dimensions. An interdisciplinary approach is adopted, integrating architectural theory, semiotics, hermeneutics, and cultural studies, positioning architecture as a form of symbolic production deeply intertwined with current social and technological contexts. The primary aim is to demonstrate how certain paradigmatic buildings operate as open texts that engage in dialogue with their users, urban surroundings, and cultural frameworks. The methodology combines theoretical analysis with an in-depth study of three emblematic cases: the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Seattle Public Library. The findings reveal that these buildings articulate multiple layers of meaning, fostering rich and participatory interpretive experiences that influence both the perception and construction of public space. The study concludes that contemporary architecture functions as a narrative and symbolic device that actively contributes to the shaping of collective imaginaries. The article also identifies the study’s limitations and proposes future research directions concerning architectural textuality within the context of emerging digital technologies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Beyond and in the Margins of the Text and Textualities)

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Avant-Texts, Characters and Factoids: Interpreting the Genesis of La luna e i falò Through an Ontology

by Giuseppe Arena

Humanities 2025, 14(8), 162; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14080162 - 6 Aug 2025

This study introduces the Real-To-Fictional Ontology (RTFO), a structured framework designed to analyze the dynamic relationship between reality and fiction in literary works, with a focus on preparatory materials and their influence on narrative construction. While traditional Italian philology and genetic criticism have [...] Read more.

This study introduces the Real-To-Fictional Ontology (RTFO), a structured framework designed to analyze the dynamic relationship between reality and fiction in literary works, with a focus on preparatory materials and their influence on narrative construction. While traditional Italian philology and genetic criticism have distinct theoretical and editorial approaches to avant-text, this ontology addresses their limitations by integrating fine-grained textual analysis with contextual biographical avant-text to enhance character interpretation. Modeled in OWL2, RTFO harmonizes established frameworks such as LRMoo and CIDOC-CRM, enabling systematic representation of narrative elements. The ontology is applied to the case study of Cesare Pavese’s La luna e i falò, with a particular focus on the biographical avant-text of Pinolo Scaglione, the real-life friend who inspired key aspects of the novel. The fragmented and unstable nature of avant-text is addressed through a factoid-based model, which captures character-related traits, states and events as interconnected entities. SWRL rules are employed to infer implicit connections, such as direct influences between real-life contexts and fictional constructs. Application of the ontology to case studies demonstrates its effectiveness in tracing the evolution of characters from preparatory drafts to final texts, revealing how biographical and contextual factors shape narrative choices. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Interpretation of Fictional Characters in Literary Texts: History of Literary Criticism, Philosophy and Formal Ontologies)

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