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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Translating From Memory: Patrick Modiano In Postmodern Context, Timothy H. Scherman
Translating From Memory: Patrick Modiano In Postmodern Context, Timothy H. Scherman
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
In this essay I have attemped to renegotiate the relationship between the work of Patrick Modiano and the conditions of literary production designated by "postmodernism." Contemporary French reviewers and critics have greeted with guarded praise Modiano's efforts to write in a language and about events that belong to another writing. Following their lead, this essay first explores the tension (often lost on American readers) created by the possibility that the historical referent of Modiano's texts—not only Modiano's personal past but the horror of the Occupation—might now exist only as a weightless narrative "effect." As such, it is a part of …
Some Wheat And Some Chaff: Jean Paulhan And The Postwar Literary Purge In France, Michael Syrotinski
Some Wheat And Some Chaff: Jean Paulhan And The Postwar Literary Purge In France, Michael Syrotinski
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
A somewhat overlooked figure of French literary history, Jean Paulhan has resurfaced in the polemic surrounding the wartime activities of many respected intellectuals, most prominently Blanchot, Heidegger and de Man. Commentators on Paulhan's role in the intellectual history of the period have tended to avoid reading his texts closely. Paulhan—one of the "heroes" of the literary Resistance in France during the Second World War—took the extremely unpopular and controversial stance after the Liberation of criticizing the National Committee of Writers' proposed purge of suspected collaborationist writers. This essay demonstrates the rigorous consistency of Paulhan's position in the context of his …
Snares: Pere Gimferrer's Los Espejos/ Els Miralls, Margaret Persin
Snares: Pere Gimferrer's Los Espejos/ Els Miralls, Margaret Persin
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
With the publication of Els miralls, Pere Gimferrer effected a major shift in philosophical and linguistic perspective. It is the first collection to be published in Catalan, and thus represents for the well-known writer a change in direction for him as a poet and spokesperson of his culture and his generation. But the change is more than one of mere language coding. For in this collection, the Catalan poet confronts all the snares of language which he views as limiting of creativity and originality. He adopts a variety of poetic strategies and voices in an attempt to come to …
Language And Consciousness In The Poetry Of The "Novisimos": Guillermo Carnero's Latest Poetry, Ignacio-Javier López
Language And Consciousness In The Poetry Of The "Novisimos": Guillermo Carnero's Latest Poetry, Ignacio-Javier López
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
Guillermo Carnero's latest book of poetry, Divisibilidad indefinida, has recently appeared in Spain. In it, the reader witnesses, on the one hand, the reaffirmation of the poetic of the "novisimos": a self-conscious use of language, the presence of "culturalism," a distancing of language, a doubling of the poetic persona. On the other hand, the book reveals an effort to encompass a more complete perspective of poetic reality. The combative attitude of the first decade of the "novisimos" having been left behind, Carnero now develops his poetry in Divisibilidad indefinida by bringing it nearer to human life, although without renouncing …
Recent Poetry And The Essential Word, Biruté Ciplijauskaité
Recent Poetry And The Essential Word, Biruté Ciplijauskaité
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
Postmodern poetry resists classification in tight compartments. After the last artificially-named group of the novisimos in the 60s, the evolution of poetry in Spain has followed different and at times divergent paths. The novisimos had reacted against "social" poetry, denouncing its lack of attention to artistry, almost prosaic quality, subservience to theme, and produced elaborate creations with an emphasis on form and the exquisite and more hermetic word and subject. Obeying the law of corsi e ricorsi, there was a certain return in the 80s to simpler expression which, however, does not pretend to be that of the "man …