Máirtín Ó Cadhain: Politics and Literature

To the extent that one subscribes to the proposition, by now a virtual principle of criticism (at least in some circles), that literary texts constitute sites for the negotiation, often vigorous, of power relations within a society, the reader of Catullus can hardly avoid some consideration of the poet's attitude toward contemporary political matters. It is a subject on which two principal lines of thought can be traced. Mommsen argued that Catullus responded to the enormities that followed the reinvigoration of the First Triumvirate at the conference of Luca in 56 by occupying a thoroughly optimate position. Wilamowitz, on the other hand, insisted that Catullus' lyrics reflect only moments of the author's individual experience, amongst which expressions of personal distaste for certain public figures naturally appear but nothing which can appropriately be taken as indications of a political stance. The approach of Wilamowitz has proved more influential, followed in spirit if not in specifics by numerous commentators. To the degree that Catullus has been assimilated to the Augustan elegists, whose poems have been deemed by a scholar of the stature of Veyne to be anti-political in nature, it has been all the easier to reject the idea that Catullus adopts a political position, an assessment strongly maintained in a recent study by Paul Allen Miller, for whom the rejection of all political engagement is the sine qua non of true lyric poetry. Mommsen's optimate Catullus has lately found his champion, however, in a careful article by H. P. Syndikus. Although Miller and Syndikus, like Wilamowitz and Mommsen, draw diametrically opposed conclusions concerning politics in Catullus' poetry, they are agreed nevertheless that politics can be regarded as a relatively straightforward term: it refers to statecraft, matters of government, and party strife. Other readers, however, have been more self-conscious in their theoretical concerns, a salutary consequence of which has been a shift by some to a less narrow conception of the field of reference appropriate to discussions of ‘the political’ in Latin literature.

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Tilsynekomstens politik. Om virkelighedsmodellering i Joseph Conrads Nostromo

K&K - Kultur og Klasse ◽

10.7146/kok.v39i111.15767 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 39 (111) ◽

pp. 7-26

Author(s):

Jonas Kjærgård Laursen

Keyword(s):

Real Life ◽

The Novel ◽

Human Consciousness ◽

Politics And Literature ◽

Ideological Criticism ◽

Jacques Ranciere ◽

Politics Of Literature ◽

Material Interests ◽

Political Problem ◽

Novelistic Form

POLITICS OF APPEARANCE. ON REALITY MODELLING IN JOSEPH CONRAD’S NOSTROMOArtistically Nostromo is arguably the most ambitious of Joseph Conrad’s novels. It is also without a doubt the most explicitly political in that it openly engages with the question of how capitalism, imperialism, and revolution affect the human consciousness. There is however no agreement as to how this political problem is to be understood or, more precisely, what kind of understanding of the interrelationship between politics and literature is necessary when engaging this artwork. As a necessary supplement to both a 60’s Marxist reading and readings from the 70’s and 80’s dealing with ideological criticism, this article suggests a reading focusing on how the text creates a model of society by reconfiguring certain real life elements. By developing a specific artistic idiom Nostromo attempts to show the very limited view of the whole of society caused by, in the wording of the novel, the material interests of imperial capitalism. Under the inspiration of both Jurij Lotman and Jacques Rancière the analysis presented here is able to address some key political insights that appear as a consequence of the novelistic form when understood as a relatively autonomous model of society. And that is what is meant by the expression politics of appearance: the politics of literature is to be analysed as something generated by the specific gestalt of the text, as something that comes into sight with – and only with – the text.

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El lado de afuera. Idea de la historia en "Historia argentina" de Rodrigo Fresán

Cartaphilus. Revista de investigación y crítica estética ◽

10.6018/cartaphilus.406501 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 17 ◽

Author(s):

Christian Snoey

Keyword(s):

The State ◽

History Taking ◽

Politics And Literature ◽

Central Idea ◽

Ricardo Piglia ◽

Narrative Forms ◽

Argentine History ◽

The Relationship ◽

The Way

El objetivo de este trabajo es reflexionar en torno a las categorías de pensamiento mediante las que se trata de aprehender la historia en el volumen, híbrido entre cuento y novela, Historia argentina, de Rodrigo Fresán, a partir de un análisis de las formas narrativas mediante las que se construyen los relatos, puesto que la estructura de la obra, a modo de cuentos que funcionan por resonancia, espejea la manera en que se concibe la historia. Para ello, parto fundamentalmente de las ideas de Ricardo Piglia acerca de la relación entre política y literatura, para quien la ficción reproduce el lenguaje del Estado y crea su reverso; y también acudo a las teorías de Eloy Fernández Porta, ensayadas en Afterpop, para deslindar la manera en que el uso de referencias pop en esta obra responde a una crítica de las formas de la cultura oficial. Por tanto, el punto de llegada de este trabajo consiste en el análisis de la revisión del lenguaje con el que se ha articulado la historia argentina, y la búsqueda de un lenguaje otro para escribir y aprehenderla en Historia argentina, tomando como idea central el concepto de distanciamiento, puesto que cifra la actitud, tanto emocional como intelectual, respecto a la escritura de la historia. The objective of this work is to reflect on the categories of thought through which it is a question of apprehending the history in the book, hybrid between story and novel, Historia argentina, by Rodrigo Fresán, from an analysis of the narrative forms through those that build the stories, since the structure of the work, by way of stories that work by resonance, reflects the way in which history is conceived. To do this, I fundamentally start form the ideas of Ricardo Piglia about the relationship between politics and literature, for whom fiction reproduces the language of the State and creates its reverse. And I also turn to the theories of Eloy Fernández Porta, studied in Afterpop, to demarcate the way in which the use of pop references in this work responds to a critique of the forms of official culture. Therefore, the objective of this work is the analysis of the revision of the language with which Argentine history has been articulated, and the search for another language to write and apprehend in Argentine history, taking as a central idea the concept of distancing, since it figures the attitude, both emotional and intellectual, regarding the writing of history.

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