2025-11-04
Sanaz Alizadeh Tabrizi, Javid Aliyev
In his Writing in the Wings , Graham Wolf introduces theatre-fiction as a complex intermedial genre focusing on its agents, and “stages, or other performance spaces for dominant settings” (4). The theatre/novel interaction as the core of this study illustrates how Honoré de Balzac engages with this artistic practice to depict the theatre of his time and dramatises the entangled lives of its creators, performers, and sponsors. Balzac’s Lost Illusions introduces the young, naïve, ignorant Coralie not as the main protagonist, but rather as the paramour who unwittingly arouses Lucien Chardon Rubempré -the writer and socialite- to outbrave in the violent storm of post-Napoleonic Paris. The study scrutinises Coralie as a typical victim to see how Balzac reconciles the two interconnected territories of the novel and theatre to document the hostile historical incidents and social interactions when meritocracy had arrived to prevail.
2025-10-26
Abdulla Majed Al Ali
This paper critically examines the stylistic and narrative structures of selected novels and stories by UAE authors through the lens of contemporary intertextuality theories to explore the significance of incorporating water motifs in modern Emirati fiction. The paper argues that contemporary Emirati writers have borrowed various patterns of water-related discourses deeply rooted in popular culture and the local history of the Arabian Gulf region, integrating them into their literary works for thematic and aesthetic purposes. The paper analyzes renowned works such as Shahinda by Rashid Abdullah, The Sword and the Flower and The Trilogy of Love, Water, and Dust by Ali Abu Al-Reesh, The Scent of Ginger by Salha Ghabesh, and On the Edge of Day by Abdul Hamid Ahmad to investigate the sophisticated use of intertextuality in the indigenous maritime literature of the UAE. By employing intertextuality as a literary device, notable Emirati authors use water--in its various forms--as a central motif in their fiction to strengthen national identity, uphold domestic traditions, and reconstruct a heritage jeopardized by modernization and globalization.
2025-10-26
Elisabetta Marino
The story of many first- and second-generation Italian Americans was characterized by profound tensions: on the one hand, they strived to hold on to their cultural roots as a powerful act of resistance to assimilation; on the other hand, they felt compelled to erase difference in order to blend into the very society that often stigmatized them. Writers and artists Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Susan Caperna Lloyd have captured this struggle in their multi-faceted work, forcefully portraying their alienation, the self-erasure that often came with trying to succeed in America, as well as their proud assertion of their ethnic identity. This essay sets out to investigate the ways they both used documentary films— The Baggage (2001) and All That Lies between Us (2007)—as a means to restore visibility, reclaim complexity, and give voice to the Italian American experience.
2025-10-26
Katarina Marinčič
Marcel Proust, considered one of the most original writers in the history of world literature, was at the same time deeply attached to literary tradition. His writing is characterised by a high degree of intertextuality, and reading (the relationship to literature) is also an important theme within his fictional world. It is perhaps not surprising, given this, that Proust was deeply involved in literary criticism at the time when he began to write his cycle In Search of Lost Time . Proust’s most important literary criticism, collected in the posthumous collection Against Sainte-Beuve , is closely linked to the genre of the pastiche, which for Proust is in fact a form of literary criticism, or at least a preparation for reflection on literature. The article focuses on Proust’s relationship to Balzac as manifested through two texts from the collection Against Sainte-Beuve ( Sainte-Beuve and Balzac ; Balzac of Monsieur de Guermantes ) and the pastiche In a Balzac’s Novel . Proust’s main objective doesn’t seem to be to defend Balzac against Sainte-Beuve. In fact, Proust shares Sainte-Beuve’s opinion that Balzac’s writing is in bad taste, vulgar – with the important remark that it is probably in this vulgarity that Balzac’s strength lies. But it is clear from the pastiche, in which he does indeed imitate Balzac’s style, that Proust is more interested in Balzac’s narrative technique than in the style itself.
2025-05-27
Natalia Kaloh Vid, Agnes Kojc
The article focuses on translations of metaphors, a unique aesthetic and poetic figure that requires special attention and accurate rendering in a literary translation. When translating metaphors, the translator should understand and preserve the meaning and the aesthetic component of the metaphors. The study discusses the rendering of metaphors in translations and re-translations of three short stories by Edgar Allan Poe: “The Gold Bug,” translated by Boris Rihteršič in 1935, and Jože Udovič in 1960; “The Pit and the Pendulum,” translated by Rihteršič in 1935 and by Udovič in 1972, and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” translated by Zoran Jerin and Igor Šentjurc (1952), and by Udovič in 1972. In gothic fiction, Poe established himself as a master of metaphors, which he used with astonishing fluency and precision. The results of the analysis demonstrate how and in which way Slovene translators rendered metaphors in the short stories of one of the greatest writers of gothic fiction, and what strategies they used to preserve Poe’s unique, dark, and delirious metaphorical style.
2025-05-27
Haithm Zinhom, Fatima Saif Aldahmani
In the framework of contemporary literary theories, this paper explores Tayeb Salih’s acclaimed work, Season of Migration to the North , examining it as a postcolonial modernist novel that traverses the dynamics between the Orient and the Occident. The analysis investigates the novel to explore the conflicts between the Colonized and the Colonizer, aiming to uncover new thematic directions crucial to the relationships between Africa and Britain. The paper contends that Salih re-writes and reinterprets the history of the British Empire in Sudan by engaging with canonized western fiction, particularly Heart of Darkness , to highlight the complex intersections between East and West. As an example of post-colonial Arabic modernism, Season of Migration to the North employs a distinctive narrative approach featuring a multiplicity of voices, reflecting diverse perspectives on issues such as colonization, hegemony, hybridity, and loss of identity.
2024-12-16
Eldar Veremchuk
The article deals with the problem of AI-generated poetry. It aims to investigate the difference between human-authored poems and the ones created by AI. The paper hypothesizes that AI poetic generation abilities are restricted by the algorithms, which influence its creative output. The research procedure included a gradual comparative analysis of the original human-authored poems “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost and “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley with the ones created by AI on their basis. The analysis considered seven aspects: title, structure, rhyme and rhythm, grammaticality, vocabulary, meaningfulness, imagery and poeticness. We argue that AI-generated poetic output can easier be unravelled when contrasted to the corresponding human-authored poems. We presume that the online available highlights of literary criticism (author’s message, imagery, narratives) appear to be obligatory components in the AI’s poem creation process. The obtained result can be useful for conducting further research on the generative linguistic and creative abilities of AI, their development and improvement.
2024-12-16
Mineja Krisper, Petra Kramberger
Obwohl der deutsche Dichter Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) eine herausragende Position in der globalen literarischen Szene einnahm, wurde er bis zur zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts oft aus dem schulischen Lektürekanon ausgeschlossen. Die Anerkennung seines Werkes im Bildungsumfeld wurde von einer Vielzahl von Faktoren geprägt, unter anderem von politischen und gesellschaftlichen Bedingungen sowie Kontroversen, die sein Schaffen begleiteten. Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht Heines Rolle im gymnasialen und mittelschulischen Lektürekanon des slowenischen ethnischen Gebiets. Die Analyse konzentriert sich hauptsächlich auf die historische Entwicklung der Kanonisierung von Heines Texten im slowenischen Bildungsumfeld und betrachtet auch seine aktuelle Präsenz im slowenischen Schulsystem. Das erste Kapitel beleuchtet Heines Rolle im slowenischen Schulkanon von 1850 bis 1918 und gliedert sich aufgrund des historischen Kontextes in zwei Unterkapitel: Heines Rolle im Deutschunterricht und seine Präsenz in slowenischen Lesebüchern. Das zweite Kapitel konzentriert sich auf Heines Position im slowenischen Bildungskanon von 1918 bis heute. Dabei wird untersucht, wann Heines Texte erstmals in slowenische Lesebücher integriert und welche seiner Werke für die Aufnahme ausgewählt wurden, wann und wie Heines Werke zum festen Bestandteil des slowenischen Bildungssystems wurden und wie der Dichter den slowenischen Schülern heute präsentiert wird.
2024-12-16
Elke Mettinger
This article seeks to explore the 16th century Anglo-Irish problem through the lens of multiple Elizabethan media. It attempts to show that, despite the invention of printing and her Protestant religion, Elizabeth continued to rely on oral and visual media. The sermon and the image seem to have been more directly suitable for bringing her Irish agenda home to the people than printed works whose authors tended to become independent of royal patronage. In addition, the Queen’s gender and her ‘womanly’ feelings were perceived as an impediment to a successful military solution advocated by male authors like Spenser.
2024-05-23
Nazan Yıldız
This article reads Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave (1688) as a rewriting of the paradise story of Adam and Eve largely identified with John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) by literary circles. Meeting the true colours of civilization via slavery, the paradisal innocence of Oroonoko and Imoinda grows into a horrible experience that brings their downfall from African paradise, similar to Adam and Eve losing their innocence for the sake of knowledge. Drawing on the principles of primitivism, Behn emblematicizes a black Adam and Eve as representatives of mankind which subverts colonial and patriarchal discourses all in the same breath. In this respect, the article finally asserts that Oroonoko serves as a microcosm of humanity at large which delineates the unremitting war between nature and civilization, and innocence and experience as foregrounded in recent ecological studies, as well as men and women.
2024-05-23
Nina Jakoša
The article provides a corpus-assisted analysis of colour terms in Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula . The aim of the analysis is to establish whether colours contribute to the novel’s Gothic mood. Colours can be used to evoke specific atmospheres; they also bear symbolic meanings. This makes them a powerful option for enhancing the mood of a Gothic horror novel. The analysis indicates that white, red and black are the most important colours in Dracula , appearing in distinct patterns and contexts.
2024-05-23
Emre Say
This article discusses revelations of patriarchal along with colonial discourse and practice as poignantly adumbrated to coalesce and interact in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness . In this respect, the misogynistic representation of female characters who are sketched as insubstantial mystified stereotypes in a heterosexist men’s world constitutes an important aspect of the narrative. Besides, the connotative depiction of the river – characterized by an antagonistic aura ascribable to the hinted juxtaposition of the Congo and the Thames – as a symbolically evocative topographical element encourages keen reflection. Last but not least, the implication of language as an influential instrument serving to the endorsement of colonialist as well as patriarchal causes is worth exploring from a psychoanalytic perspective featured by feminist sensitivity.
2024-05-23
Igor Maver
Margaret Atwood’s provocative book of non-fiction contains many literary references, which help to effectively highlight her points about such a topical matter as debt, debt as a philosophical, politico-economic, religious, and historical issue over the centuries. In the central chapters of the book she looks at the Protestant Reformation and the introduction of interest on loans and in this light analyzes the novels by Dickens, Irving, Thackeray and G. Eliot. Her final statement in the book is, however, about the ecological debt we all have to pay to Earth in order to ensure our existence.