Search Results (94)

The present study highlights how the Canaanite Amarna Letters offer unique insight into Canaanite literary culture in the Late Bronze Age. The letters represent the diplomatic acumen of scribes writing letters for local elites that were sent to the Egyptian court in the mid-fourteenth century BCE. Yet they also preserve the earliest evidence of Canaanite literary forms and compositional practices. The letters include memorized formulae and expressions, word pairs, poetic devices, and the use of repetition to frame poetic units, which are common in the practices of later first-millennium scribes working in this same region, including those who wrote the Hebrew Bible. The letters also offer insight into the ways that the scribes combined memorized units into new narrative contexts. Such features added literary texture to the letters, but also contributed to their rhetorical aims. While some poetic passages in the letters may be novel compositions, there is also evidence that literary forms and expressions were integral to Canaanite scribal education by the Amarna period. The Canaanite Letters therefore set an important precedent for literary creation, and for the scribes’ bricolage practices in the process of creating new diplomatic letters. Full article

This essay examines two hybrid poetic texts that emerged from a period of feminist activism in U.S. and global poetry communities from 2014 to 2017: the collaboratively, anonymously authored “No Manifesto” (2015) and the radically revised second edition of the book of poetry and visual art YOU DA ONE by Jennif(f)er Tamayo. “No Manifesto” and YOU DA ONE embrace the hybrid tactics of collectivity, incongruity, and nonresolution as ways of protesting sexism and sexual violence in poetry communities. Synthesizing theories of hybridity from poetry criticism as well as immigrant and borderlands studies, the essay defines hybridity as a literary representation of cultural positions forcefully imposed upon subjects. Born out of the domination of sexual and state violence, hybridity marks the wound that remakes the subject, who develops strategies for resistance. By refusing to play by the rules of poetic or social discourse—the logics of domination that would have them be singular, cohesive, and compliant—Tamayo and the authors of “No Manifesto” insist on alternative ways of performing activism, composing literature, and entering the public sphere. These socially engaged, hybrid poetic texts demonstrate the power of the collective to disrupt the social and literary status quo. Full article

Amidst Hölderlin’s many well-known odes, elegies, and hymns, it is perhaps not surprising that Hölderlin’s occasional poem “To my Venerable Grandmother. On her 72nd Birthday” (Meiner verehrungswürdigen Grosmutter. Zu ihrem 72sten Geburtstag) has been translated into English only once and in an obscure self-published edition. Yet the poem is rich in Hölderlin’s distinctive diction and syntax, it reveals much about Hölderlin’s aspirations for himself, and it contains one of his deepest sets of reflections on Christ. Still, the poem is often overlooked. But once one reflects on its content, with its multiple attempts to name Christ, including his friendship to the earth and his knowing no strangers, one can readily see why Pope Francis elevated this poem as one of his favorite literary works. This publication presents the first accessible translation of the poem (I), after which I offer some commentary on its form, individual lines, and the translation (II). I then turn to the period of his writing the poem (III). I conclude with a few additional thoughts on Hölderlin and religion (IV). Full article

In the analysis of isiXhosa literary texts, the role of stylistic sentences in enhancing the meanings and reinforcement of themes and their impact in foregrounding the textual features has been largely ignored and under researched. This study is intended to explore the efficacy of stylistic sentences in the isiXhosa creative work Ukhozi Olumaphiko. In Ukhozi Olumaphiko, the author artfully employs periodic, cumulative, and balanced stylistic sentences for the realization of different purposes in the story. In this study, content analysis has been used as a qualitative and quantitative research technique, as it allowed for a detailed examination of the novel Ukhozi Olumaphiko. Stylistic sentences were identified, interpreted, and coded, using integer coding for classification. Employing literary stylistics as a theoretical approach, the stylistic sentences were analysed according to their literary impact and effect. The findings indicate that the author utilises periodic sentences predominantly in the beginning stages of the story, a spread of cumulative, balanced, and periodic sentences in the middle stages, and periodic and cumulative sentences more in the end stages of the novel. The stylistics mentioned enhance the themes, textual meanings, and narrative features of Ukhozi Olumaphiko text and are useful in weaving suspense in a way that captures the reader’s attention and evokes emotions. Full article

In Turkish literature, hajj travelogues have been written since the 13th century, conveying Muslims’ experiences during the pilgrimage and explaining how to perform hajj. With the development and widespread use of the modern means of transportation in Türkiye from the 1940s onward, the pilgrims increasingly started to travel by air to avoid the hardships and duration of long journeys. However, this shift led to a decrease in visits to historical places along the traditional pilgrimage route from Türkiye to Mecca and Medina, consequently changing the content and nature of Hajj narratives. In spite of these changes, Mehmet Barut, a mufti (cleric), offered a unique response through his travelogue Hicaz Yolları [Hijaz Roads], which can be seen as a reaction to the rise in modern means of transportation. In 1965, Barut began his hajj journey from Tokat, within the border of the Republic of Türkiye, and travelled to Mecca and Medina by bus. Along the way, he visited Ankara, Konya, Tarsus, Iskenderun, Reyhanlı, Aleppo, Damascus, Jerusalem, Halilurrahman, Amman, Tabuk, Khaybar, and Medina before finally reaching Mecca. Barut’s travelogue is a contemporary non-fiction work, yet it was written in classical Turkish. In choosing to follow the historical pilgrimage route—established during the Ottoman period and beginning in Anatolia—Barut sought to revive and preserve the spiritual and cultural destinations and hajj journeys. His travelogue not only demonstrates his own travel experiences, but also reflects examples from the travelogue menazil-i hajj, offering insights into the historical significance of the cities and stopovers along the route. This study examines Hicaz Yolları from two key perspectives. First, it compares Barut’s chosen route with the historical Ottoman hajj route, highlighting key service areas and stopovers. Second, it explores the literary value of Barut’s work and its significance in contemporary Turkish literature. Ultimately, this study reveals that Barut’s travelogue not only kept the memory of traditional hajj pilgrimages alive, but also revived a fading tradition in an era dominated by modern means of transportation. Full article

In this article, I investigate the ontological status of the minor working-class character Mrs. McNab, the cleaner in “Time Passes", the middle section of Virginia Woolf’s tripartite novel To the Lighthouse. Woolf regarded this section as the connecting block between the two outer blocks, “The Window” and “The Lighthouse”, in which she aimed to depict an empty house, devoid of human presence, and to highlight the passage of time. This section has often been analysed by literary-stylistic criticism as if written from a non-anthropocentric worldview. However, the presence of a lower-class cleaner and the absence of the upper middle-class characters who predominate in the other two blocks has also raised much debate in the literary arena. Literary critics agree that this character is given a narrative voice, but how this voice functions, and whether this character is granted narrative agency in terms of the class issues and social relations in the period of transition between Victorian England and the early twentieth-century, is an issue which still remains open. Drawing upon cognitive stylistics, I suggest reading this character both as a category-based and person-based character, and as a narrative device. First, I carry out the analysis of the repetitive she-clusters and their semantic prosodies; then, through samples of the section “Time Passes", I analyse how viewpoint blending between narrator/author and character concur to grant narrative agency to Mrs. McNab and to what extent such agency may be limited by our perception of her through the social schemata of a servant, or whether such a perception may undergo a process of schema refreshment. Last, I suggest that this character may also be viewed as a narrative agent by means of which the reader can activate mental processes of TIME and SPACE blending between the three different blocks of the novel. This blending process allows for the completion of the narrative design of the novel: the journey to the lighthouse. Full article

Creole writer Sidonie de la Houssaye (1820–1894) registered the threat of anglophone dominance after the Civil War on behalf of a host of characters drawn from the geographies and ideologies in and around her home in Louisiana. Her little-known literary tales depict the period as a cultural and linguistic border zone. In addition to the texture of Louisiana French and Creole heritage, the tales depict the vexed social dynamics of prejudice and fragility. In the context of this special issue on good and evil, the poorly known children’s tales offer insight into these pernicious tensions that persisted under the surface of moral victory after the Civil War. La Houssaye’s lessons for children take up the moral panic of a Louisiana reckoning with its legacies of racial violence and cultural erasure. This article argues that morality in these tales takes shape in interpersonal practices that can be learned to heal social ills. What I have called La Houssaye’s “ethics of social life” relies on education rather than condemnation to redefine human bonds. If a broader lesson emerges from the stories taken together, it suggests that structural change is slow to heal cultural wounds. We must ourselves be the agents of a healthier community. Full article

Background: Professional knowledge and experience of healthcare organization went through continuous change and development with the progression of COVID-19 pandemic waves. However, carefully developed guidelines for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) remained largely unchanged regardless of the epidemic situation, with the largest change being a more prominent bioethical approach. It would be possible to further improve the quality of CPR by systematic data collection, the facilitation of prospective studies, and further development of the methodology based on this evidence, as well as by providing information and developing provisions on interventions with expected poor outcomes, and ultimately by refusing resuscitation. Methods: This study involved the critical collection and analysis of literary data originating from the Web of Science and PubMed databases concerning bioethical aspects and the efficacy of CPR during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: According to the current professional recommendation of the European Resuscitation Council (ERC), CPR should be initiated immediately in case of cardiac arrest in the absence of an exclusionary circumstance. One such circumstance is explicit refusal of CPR by a well-informed patient, which in practice takes the form of a prior declaration. ERC prescribes the following conjunctive conditions for do-not-attempt CPR (DNACPR) declarations: present, real, and applicable. It is recommended to take the declaration as a part of complex end-of-life planning, with the corresponding documentation available in an electronic database. The pandemic has brought significant changes in resuscitation practice at both lay and professional levels as well. Incidence of out-of-hospital resuscitation (OHCA) did not differ compared to the previous period, while cardiac deaths in public places almost halved during the epidemic (p < 0.001) as did the use of AEDs (p = 0.037). The number of resuscitations performed by bystanders and by the emergency medical service (EMS) also showed a significant decrease (p = 0.001), and the most important interventions (defibrillation, first adrenaline time) suffered a significant delay. Secondary survival until hospital discharge thus decreased by 50% during the pandemic period. Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic provided a significant impetus to the revision of guidelines. While detailed methodology has changed only slightly compared to the previous procedures, the DNACPR declaration regarding self-determination is mentioned in the context of complex end-of-life planning. The issue of safe environment has come to the fore for both lay and trained resuscitators. Future Directions: Prospective evaluation of standardized methods can further improve the patient’s autonomy and quality of life. Since clinical data are controversial, further prospective controlled studies are needed to evaluate the real hazards of aerosol-generating procedures. Full article

This study examines the symbolic ambiguity of Buddhist robes in the Heian period, focusing particularly on their representation in The Tale of Genji. While Buddhist monastic garments traditionally signify religious renunciation, they also functioned as fashion items regulated by strict social norms. Through an analysis of Heian-era dress codes and deviations from them, as well as literary portrayals of robes associated with ordination scenes, this study reveals that robes embodied not only religious aspirations but also worldly attachments. Literary depictions highlight the tension between formal religious identity and persistent human desires, demonstrating how Buddhist robes served not only as religious symbols but also as mediators between spiritual ideals and secular emotions. By examining robes as visual and emotional media within a broader cultural and historical framework, this paper argues that Buddhist robes during the Heian period symbolized the complex intersection of salvation and desire. Ultimately, this study sheds light on how religious symbols, rather than representing pure spiritual transcendence, reveal the enduring contradictions inherent in human nature. Full article

Metamorphosis is central to Indigenous Amazonian cosmologies, which often posit a period in the past when transformations from one being into another proliferated. This time gave way to the relative stability of the present that always runs the risk of going back to an ongoing process of transmutation. In this article, I highlight the significance of plants in Amerindian ontologies of becoming as catalysts of metamorphic movements through their entheogenic effects, through their curative properties and as the ancestors and teachers of humans. Beyond being the facilitators of other entities’ transformations and the virtual grandparents of all beings, plants are also masters of metamorphosis, displaying much more plasticity in adapting to their surroundings than animals. I argue that contemporary Amazonian women’s poetry translates the multiple transformations of vegetal life into literary form. In many Amazonian Indigenous communities, women have traditionally been the ones responsible for plant cultivation, while, in Western societies, women are often associated to certain parts of plants, such as flowers, and to nature as a whole. In the article, I analyze the poetry of Colombian author Anastasia Candre Yamacuri (1962–2014) and Peruvian writer Ana Varela Tafur (1963-), who emphasize the metamorphic potential of plants and the ontology of becoming at play in Amazonia. I contend that women’s writing on plants reflects evolving views on both plants’ and women’s roles in Amazonian societies, marked by rapid social transformation and environmental destruction. Full article

In 1802, Friedrich Hölderlin experienced his first mental breakdown, which was followed by a second one in 1805. On 15th September 1806, he was admitted to the clinic of Johann Heinrich Ferdinand von Autenrieth in Tübingen who addressed Hölderlin’s illness as “madness” (“Wahnsinn”). On 3rd May 1807, the poet was discharged as “incurable” (“unheilbar”). Until his death on 7th June 1843, he was cared for by the carpenter Ernst Zimmer. From the period between 1807 and 1843, 50 poems by Hölderlin have been preserved, in German studies known as the “Turmdichtung” (“tower poetry”). These poems have long been relegated to the margins of scholarly research. In my essay, I will discuss the modern and contemporary diagnoses, as well as Hölderlin’s literary (self-) therapy of his illness. I am suggesting that Hölderlin’s tower poetry contains a thera-peutic–poetic concept that is intended to serve the treatment of his illness. Full article

Novels, which take shape in imaginary worlds, are closely connected to life and reality. Psychiatric disorders also belong to life and reality and are part of the content of literary works. Authors sometimes make use of mental disorders to tell a story or to give depth to fiction. Such disorders, which started to be seen in Turkish literature in the novels of the Tanzimat period, play particularly dramatic roles in texts produced after the 1960–1970s. Psychological disorders include dissociative disorders, one type of which is multiple personality disorder. The person experiencing this type of dissociation develops two or more independent personality systems in response to feelings of anxiety. One of the most important works of recent Turkish literature, Nermin Yıldırım’s Saklı Bahçeler Haritası (The Hidden Gardens Map), first published in 2013, is a novel in which multiple personality disorder plays a significant role. This study attempts to determine how the defining criteria and symptoms of multiple personality disorder are exhibited in the aforementioned novel and how its effects and related issues are conveyed to the reader. Full article

My essay aims at considering the mythological figure of Melusina and her literary development, starting from the Middle Ages up to the Romantic period. The main purpose is to determine how this fictional entity, originally regarded as the symbol of nature and its fecundity, has changed over the time in relation to the historical and cultural complex and how this has reverberated in terms of interpretation of the identity of the literary character. I will consider the medieval versions of Jean D’Arras (1392), with some consequent references to Coudrette (1401–1405) and von Ringoltingen (1456), and the German romantic fairytale rewriting of Ludwig Tieck (1800). If the thematic nucleus remains the same, the configuration of the female character changes by reflecting the new Romantic poetics in terms of interest towards femininity, subjectivity and the study of the morphology of the Earth. In particular, Melusina is no longer seen as a mere and passive object, but as a subject who for the first time, hiding in an emblematic cave, reveals to the reader her own interiority and her own truth, totally assimilating herself to the external environment. The conclusion will show how the cultural subtext modifies the interpretation of this atavistic character. Full article

Philosophers and literary scholars have notoriously struggled with the periodization of Hölderlin’s work, showing particular reluctance to situate it within Early Romanticism. But there can be no doubt that Hölderlin’s philosophical work resides within the context of an anti-foundationalist criticism, which students of Karl Leonhard Reinhold leveled at his programmatic deduction from a “highest principle” (oberster Grundsatz) in the early 1790s and intensified following Fichte’s lectures (1794/95) on the Science of Knowledge (Wissenschaftslehre). Novalis belonged directly to the circle of Reinhold students, while Hölderlin gained access to it through Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer, his friend from student days in Tübingen and “mentor” in Jena. Niethammer encouraged both Hölderlin and Novalis to contribute to his Philosophisches Journal, conceived as a forum for discussing the pros and cons of foundational philosophy (Grundsatzphilosophie). Novalis’ Fichte-Studies and Hölderlin’s philosophical fragments from 1795/96 can be read as drafts for such an essay. Both men developed similar critiques of Reinhold’s reformulated, subject-centered “highest principle”, the “principle of consciousness” (Satz des Bewusstseins). They argued that according to Reinhold, self-consciousness is a representation, i.e., a binary relationship that provides no explanation for the certainty of unity associated with self-consciousness. Both postulate a transcendent “ground of unity”, which would address this issue while remaining inaccessible to consciousness. My article demonstrates that both men failed to disentangle themselves from the snares of Reinhold’s model of representation, and both transferred the solution for the problem of self-consciousness onto the extra-philosophical medium of art. Full article

In the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, Yunqi Zhuhong 雲栖祩宏 and Ouyi Zhixu 蕅益智旭 integrated Zen thought and Pure Land Buddhism based on the fusion of various Buddhist sects, which facilitated the transition to Chan Jing He Yi (integration of Zen and Pure Land Buddhism 禪淨合一). In this context, Journey to the West 西遊記, published in the late Ming Dynasty, reflects the characteristic of Chan Jing He Yi (integration of Zen and Pure Land Buddhism 禪淨合一). Based on the historical fact that the monk Xuanzang 玄奘 journeyed to India to seek Buddhist scriptures during the Tang Dynasty’s Zhenguan period, four relatively complete literary works that recount the stories of this westward journey were published over nearly a thousand years, from the Tang Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty: Da Ci En Si San Zang Fa Shi Zhuan 大慈恩寺三藏法師傳, Da Tang San Zang Qu Jing Shi Hua 大唐三藏取經詩話, the Journey to the West drama 西遊記雜劇, and Journey to the West. The Buddhist ideas in these four works went through a transformation from advocating yoga theory 瑜伽論 to advocating belief in Vaisravana 毗沙門天王信仰 and then to focusing on the “mind nature 心性” theory of Zen Buddhism. Finally, in Journey to the West, Buddhist thought is aimed at achieving rebirth in the Western Pure Land and supplemented with Chan Buddhist practices, which are aligned with the trend of Chan Jing He Yi (integration of Zen and Pure Land Buddhism 禪淨合一). In Journey to the West, the concepts of Ming Xin Jian Xing (find one’s true self 明心見性) and Ji Xin Ji Fo (the mind is the Buddha 即心即佛) differ from the Zen Buddhism concept of seeing one’s own nature. Instead, it requires seeking other Buddhas and ascending to the Western Pure Land to meet Amitabha Buddha in order to achieve complete spiritual cultivation. This had changed from the Wei Xin Jing Tu (mind-only Pure Land 唯心淨土) theory advocated by Zen Buddhism to the Xi Fang Jing Tu (Western Pure Land 西方淨土) theory advocated by the Pure Land School. The numerous depictions of Pure Land cultivation methods, such as Cheng Ming Nian Fo (chanting the name of Amitabha Buddha 稱名念佛), Chi Jie (commandment keeping 持戒), and the Pure Land reincarnation-type Guanyin faith 淨土往生型觀音信仰, also appear in Journey to the West, reflecting the profound influence of Chan Jing He Yi 禪淨合一 in the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty on Journey to the West. Full article