Douglas LePan: Poet of the New and Old Worlds

C. Day Lewis said of The Wounded Prince (1948) that Douglas LePan was a poet “in whom the New and the Old World have met.” Like the other New World/Old World or Atlantic world poets, such as T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden, LePan represents the individual in nature and the modern world. The other transatlantic poets had a United States-Britain axis, whereas LePan had a Canada- Britain connection. LePan and poets like him deserve study as part of a diversity of voices from smaller literatures, for the sound of beauty and not the noise of fame. During LePan’s life, others knew of his accomplishments, but, since his death, still others may have forgotten what Northrop Frye and Margaret Atwood knew – that LePan’s poetry warranted close and considered attention. Before a close reading of some of his most lyrical poems, I provide a context, the critical reception of LePan as a poet, particularly in the years from 1948 to 1987, and some germane discussions of LePan’s poetry in subsequent years.

Baśń i romans w ujęciu antropologii literatury. Życzeniowe myślenie o rzeczywistości jako źródło podobieństw między gatunkami

The aim of the paper is to analyse, within the paradigm of literary anthropology, the similarities between two literary genres: romance and tale. According to the assumptions provided by Wolfgang Iser and Northrop Frye the article considers fiction — taken as a building block of literature — the linguistic reflection of the natural world, and at the same time, the conceptual framework for the archetypes appearing in the literary work. What, in Frye’s view, both genres have in common is that they present the described world in the mode of comedy, essential to which is that an individual prevails by creating the new reality around him. The comparative analysis of both tale and romance allows one to discover the internal mechanisms of archetypes, which form the intrinsic “logic” of the world given in the literary work.

The Myth of Creation in William Blake's The Four Zoas

Northrop Frye knows the cyclic version of creation myth in his reading of The Four Zoas according to which the human lives in heaven unified with God, unfallen state; he then falls and loses the harmony had with God, fallen state; and he should restore the previous unfallen state in Apocalypse or Last Judgment. Unlike Fry, while thinking of Maurice Blanchot I argue that Blake has created a new myth of creation different from the cyclic one by focusing on what Blake calls Beulah as the stage intermediate between spiritual and physical existence. In the non-original state, Beulah is the state of perpetual creation beyond dialectic and dualism known in Eternity and the life on the earth, a sort of becoming. For Blake, this proves that entities are not created to be manifested in the state of independent selfhood, but they are in relation with the others. This makes both selfhood and indefiniteness simultaneously possible to exist. It is Beulah itself which is all and the only space of existence opening itself from within itself. All entities including God are in interrelationship while being in the process of interruption (acquiring selfhood) within continuation (interrelationship) simultaneously. This demonstrates Blake's new myth of creation avoiding the primal crisis of the cyclic myth of creation. He has also introduced a new idea of relationship.

A Bíblia como Literatura

Este artigo é resultado de uma palestra ministrada no Webinar: “Revisitando a Bíblia a partir de perspectivas modernas”, organizado pela Faculdade de Teologia da Igreja Metodista, em junho de 2020. Trata-se de um tema que também foi desenvolvido em minha tese de doutorado em Ciências da Religião. A reflexão sobre Bíblia como literatura parte de importantes autores que discutem o tema, a saber: Eric Auerbach, Northrop Frye e Robert Alter. A artigo procurou demonstrar e exemplificar as características literárias da Bíblia e sua importância no diálogo com a cultura e outras literaturas.

A Bíblia como Literatura

Este artigo é resultado de uma palestra ministrada no Webinar: “Revisitando a Bíblia a partir de perspectivas modernas”, organizado pela Faculdade de Teologia da Igreja Metodista, em junho de 2020. Trata-se de um tema que também foi desenvolvido em minha tese de doutorado em Ciências da Religião. A reflexão sobre Bíblia como literatura parte de importantes autores que discutem o tema, a saber: Eric Auerbach, Northrop Frye e Robert Alter. A artigo procurou demonstrar e exemplificar as características literárias da Bíblia e sua importância no diálogo com a cultura e outras literaturas.

Romance e Shoah Pratiche di narrazione sulla tragedia indicibile

Over the last 70 years, Holocaust representations increased significantly as cultural objects distributed on a large scale: fictional books, museum sites, artworks, documentaries, and films are only a few samples of those echoes the Holocaust produced in contemporary Western culture. There are some specific patterns in the way the Holocaust has been represented that, however, contrast with the survivors’ account of the same event: for example, the dichotomy between bad and good characters so essential within Holocaust-based media – especially on television and film - does not really match with the testimony’s experience. While storytelling strategies may help to involve the public by emotionally engaging with the story, the risks of altering the real meaning of the Holocaust are quite high: what we often label as a “story” is actually been an outrageous, documented mass-genocide. Furthermore, as the age gap between the present and the past generation progresses, also the collective awareness of Nazi crimes as a real fact gets compromised. This volume explores selected Holocaust narrations by contextualizing the historical, literary, and social influences those texts had in their unique points of view. Starting with some recent examples of Holocaust exploitation through social media, the first chapter explores the paradigm shift when the Holocaust became a cultural, fictional trend rather than a historical massacre. In the second chapter, the analysis examines postmodern representations of Holocaust and Nazi semantics through relevant examples taken from both American and European literature. The third chapter analyses Europe Central by William T. Vollman, as all the narratological and cultural issues considered in the previous two chapters are well outlined in this articulated novel, where the relationship between reality and its representation after the postmodernist period is largely investigated. In chapter four, an account is given of the connections and differences between the narratological category romance, as understood by Northrop Frye, and Holocaust narration features. In chapter five, those elements are used to consider the work of Italian Holocaust survivor and Jewish writer Primo Levi, as his narration around Auschwitz adopts some fictional tools and still refuses undemanding storytelling mechanisms. The sixth and final chapter examines the relevant novel Les Benviellants by Jonathan Littell, considering its Nazi genocide account through the antagonist’s perspective.

Modo supervivencia: sobre la despolitización del imaginario contemporáneo (utopía y distopía)

Survival mode: on the depoliticization of the contemporary imaginary (utopia and dystopia) Resumen: En este artículo analizamos el actual estatuto de la utopía y de la distopía a partir de los cambios en la experiencia y la sensibilidad acontecidos en la postmodernidad-globalización. Reflexionaremos sobre la forma en la que experimentamos el tiempo y el cambio histórico y acerca del modo en el que la realidad aparece representada en los productos culturales contemporáneos. En este sentido, nos fijaremos en lo que hemos denominado la “privatización de la utopía” a propósito del descrédito de la política y de los proyectos colectivos, y atenderemos tanto a la conciencia de un final que parece haberse instalado en nosotros desde hace tiempo como a sus posibles antecedentes. Abstract: We will analyze the present role and concept of utopia and dystopia in connection with the changes in our experience and sensibility that have taken place under postmodernity-globalization. We will think about our time and historical change experience and about the way reality is represented in contemporary cultural products. We will pay attention to what we call “the privatization of utopia” regarding the discredit of the political and collective projects and we will also consider the consciousness of an ending (and their possible antecedents) that seems to be settled in us for quite some time. Palabras clave: utopía, distopía, Fredric Jameson, Northrop Frye, George Orwell, Ricardo Piglia, privatización de la utopía, postmodernidad, globalización, experiencia del tiempo. Keywords: utopia, dystopia, Fredric Jameson, Northrop Frye, George Orwell, Ricardo Piglia, privatization of utopia, postmodernity, globalization, time experience.

A Bíblia e a literatura

O ensaio busca problematizar o Símbolo como o elemento que estabelece o cortejoentre o sagrado e o secular, tanto na escritura quanto na leitura da Bíblia, ao tensionar a suaprevalecente dimensão sagrada com o seu irrecusável aspecto humanístico e literário. Afundamentação teórica recai sobre a trajetória de pesquisa do pensador francês Gilbert Durand(1921-2012) sobre o símbolo e o imaginário, bem como a denúncia que ele efetua ao que elechama de esvaziamento simbólico do pensamento ocidental; e sobre os estudos dos críticosliterários John B. Gabel, Charles B. Wheeler, Northrop Frye (1912-1991), Robert Alter e FrankKermode (1919-2010) da relação entre a Bíblia e a literatura.