Comparative Literature Commons^™

A Poet Bears Witness: An Interview With M. L. Williams On The Function Of Literary Studies In Troubled Times, Leah Toth, M. L. Williams

Critical Humanities

Dr. M. L. (Marty) Williams is a poet and professor of literature at Valdosta State University, a comprehensive university in south-central Georgia. He is the author of Game (What Books Press 2021), Other Medicines (Redbone Chapbooks 2008) and co-editor of How Much Earth: The Fresno Poets (Roundhouse Press 2001). The focus of the interview that follows is the future of literary studies in the modern neo-liberal university, a daunting topic in 2026, in the face of what many administrators refer to as the "right-sizing" of literature programs nationwide in both the U.S. and the U.K. Anybody paying attention to the …

A Work On/Of Language: Lyric And The Care Of The Self, Evan M. Knight

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Drawing on Michel Foucault’s work on the Ancient Greek practice of the care of the self, this dissertation argues that lyric poetry is a technology of the self: an ethical practice that creates potential for self-transformation through the demands it places on language and modes of attention. Lyric thus maintains a form of truth discourse overshadowed by the Cartesian conception of truth as propositional and method-driven. Unlike contemporary self-care, the care of the self, as the original Greek epimeleia heautou entails, is care inflected by concern and anxiety: the practicing subject places her thoughts, assumptions, ways of being, and—in the …

Race And Nation In Three Canonic Texts Of Puerto Rican Literature: Luis Palés Matos’S Tom-Tom Of Kinky Hair And Black Things, José Luis González’S La Llegada, And Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá’S Cortijo’S Wake, Luis R. Galanes

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In this essay we propose a critical reading of three politically-charged canonic texts of Puerto Rican literature that uphold and vindicate an African heritage for Puerto Rican culture, highlighting their role in moving discussions about blackness at the center stage of debates about national identity and culture, and assessing their contribution to the emergence and development of an Afro-Puerto Rican identity and literature. These texts are: Luis Palés Matos’s Tom-Tom of Kinky Hair and Black Things, José Luis González’s La llegada; and Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá’s Cortijo’s Wake. Moreover, a debate about the racial background of the authors …

Review: Pearl Verses The World, Rachel Schwedt

Ages 7-9

Caring, Coping, Family love, Individuality

Review: Moo, Rachel Schwedt

Ages 7-9

Cooperation, Coping, Courage, Ingenuity, Neighborliness, Perseverance, Respect, Responsibility

Review: We Are America, Rachel Schwedt, Janice Delong

Ages 10-12

Citizenship, Courage, Endurance, Ethnic pride, Hope, Inspiration, Leadership, Perseverance, Pride, Resolve, Sacrifice, Self-respect, Survival, Work ethic

Review: Swimming Upstream, Janice Delong, Rachel Schwedt

Ages 10-12

Caring, Coping, Diversity, Encouragement, Endurance, Friendship, Humor, Independence, Kindness, Perseverance, Resilience, Responsibility, Self-respect, Survival, Wisdom

Review: Rimshots: Basketball Pix, Rolls, And Rhythms, Janice Delong, Rachel Schwedt

Ages 10-12

Confidence, Competition, Cooperation, Craftsmanship, Determination, Discipline, Diversity, Encouragement, Endurance, Enthusiasm, Friendship, Hope, Humility, Humor, Initiative, Passion, Patience, Persistence, Pride, Resilience, Self-respect, Sharing, Work ethic

Review: Out Of The Dust, Rachel Schwedt, Janice Delong

Ages 10-12

Caring, Coping, Courage, Determination, Dignity, Endurance, Family love, Forgiveness, Hope, Persistence, Resilience, Resolve, Responsibility, Steadfastness, Strength, Survival, Trustworthiness, Work ethic

Review: My America: A Poetry Atlas Of The United States, Rachel Schwedt, Janice Delong

Ages 10-12

Appreciation of nature, Citizenship, Community, Diversity, Ethnic pride, Knowledge, Patriotism, Wonder

Review: Hand In Hand: An American History Through Poetry, Janice Delong, Rachel Schwedt

Ages 10-12

Ambition, Boldness, Citizenship, Coping, Courage, Dedication, Determination, Diversity, Endurance, Faith, Fearlessness, Hope, Independence, Initiative, Knowledge, Leadership, Patriotism, Persistence, Pride, Resolve, Sacrifice, Strength, Survival, Wonder, Work ethic

Wide Screen With Critical Essay "Translating A Poetry Of Cinema"., James L. Richie Iv

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation combines the creative task of translating Víctor Cabrera’s poetry collection WIDE SCREEN (2009) from Spanish into English with a critical study that analyzes the volume to highlight the uniqueness of his writing, the importance of translating such a work for an Anglophone audience, and the challenges that occur in translating this complex collection. Moreover, Cabrera’s writing engages with a variety of cultural works in ways that challenge preconceived notions of language, culture, and medium. The poetry in WIDE SCREEN draws inspiration from the films of American filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, while frequently putting these films into dialogue with works …

Odesa Will Never Be A 'Russian' City Again, Ian R. Singleton

Living in Languages

Russophone poet Galina Itskovich wrote the statement serving as the title of this text about the identity of her native Odesa, Ukraine in 2023, more than a year and a half after the full-scale invasion by Russia. I propose an examination of the relationship of contemporary Odesan writers to the Russian language. Sources for this examination include the work of writers in or from Odesa such as Galina Itskovich, Maria Galina, Oleg Fesenko, and Igor Bozhko. To discuss what this situation means for translation, such as is demanded by Ukraine’s 2019 law on the status of the Ukrainian language, I …

Review: The Catholicism Of Literature In The Age Of The Book Of Common Prayer: Poetry, Plays, Works, 1558-1689, Brandon Schneeberger

Quidditas

Anyone who has observed the worship trends of the younger generation of Christians in the last ten to twenty years will have noticed a renewed interest in traditional, liturgically conservative forms of worship. Whether it is interest in liturgy itself, or in the materials of liturgy - ornate vestments, incense, candles, bells, chanting, etc. - young people today display a keen interest in forms of worship and reverence that seem to have been lost in the cultural upheaval of the late twentieth century, a revolution that affected both Protestant and Catholic forms of worship. However effective the late twentieth-century iconoclasm …

Eliot’S Raid On The Ineffable, Louie Alexandris

The Criterion

In the poem Four Quartets, T.S Eliot employs a fragmentary form to dramatize the disjointed continuity of time. Within the poem though, the fluctuation or fragmentation of the form is also in service to the whole by showing the unending exploration of man to reach the “still point” of divine contemplation. For Eliot, the fragmentary nature of the form in Four Quartets is in service to the whole, because the continual fluctuation of musicality embodies a journey or exploration for the “still point” of the world to achieve true contemplation. In that sense, Eliot’s poem is an artistic success, …

Moving “Passed” Life For Death, Gwyneth Morrissey

The Criterion

The paper Moving “Passed” Life for Death explores Emily Dickinson's poem #479, "Because I could not stop for Death," focusing on the theme of movement expressed through the word "passed." It analyzes the contradictory qualities of movement and stopping and how they interplay. At the same time, it looks into how the poem's periodic stopping points highlight the natural cycle of life and death, challenging the conventional and fearful understanding of dying. Dickinson's use of "passed" ultimately alludes to the persistence of life after death, altering readers' perceptions of mortality. The essay presents an intriguing interpretation of life, death, and …

The Facade Of Names In Benjamin Clark’S “The Emigrant”, Brad Donegan

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Paul Celan And The Processes Of Survival In Post-Shoah Jewish Writing, Ari Savage

Theses

The following is a study of the poetry of Paul Celan as a representation of psychological and social processes present in the written works of Shoah survivors. It begins with an analysis of the place of writing in Jewish culture, then identifies three primary processes which operate in sequence: alienation, individuation, and integration. By examining Paul Celan’s highly personal and autobiographical texts in the context of his life experience as a Shoah survivor it is possible to discern the social and psychological forces at work which compel survivors to express their traumas in written form, and to gain a better …

Ladybugs, Gabrielle Bologna

Comparative Woman

No abstract provided.

Doc/U/Ment: Affinities In 20th And 21st-Century Documental Poetics, Katherine Payne

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation presents, analyzes, and builds on the existing literary genealogy of documental poetry. In 2020 Michael Leong proposed the term documental poetry to describe the turn toward source materials in 21^st-century North American poetry, seen in longform research-based poems that explicitly incorporate documentation and seek to intervene in cultural memory. Using Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concept of family resemblance, I argue that there are clear affinities between 21^st-century poets and their 20^th-century literary forerunners, also that an expansion of the scope of documental poetics is needed. The three nodes of connection I examine are works …

The Birds That Embrace Both Illusions: An Intersemiotic Translation Of All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace By Richard Brautigan, Veronika Yadukha

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

This essay analyzes the influence of various worldviews on Richard Brautigan's poetry, which form his particular language. A combination of Zen Buddhism, Japanese aesthetics, American poetic tradition, and echoes of the philosophy of absurdism are some of the core themes that serve as mechanisms for Brautigan's poems.

For each chapter of the book All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, I make an intersemiotic translation transposing Brautigan's poems into ceramic tea bowls. By combining different art forms and translating from an abstract symbolic art – poetry – to a form of applied art that is much more physically …

5 Poems, Rebecca Ruth Gould

Comparative Woman

These poems examine the challenges facing the woman creator, and focus in particular on the problem of the muse, and how this relates to the feminist reconceptualization of traditional notions of gender and sexuality. As part of this broader poetic inquiry, I also challenge traditional notions of monogamy and heterosexual desire.

Steven Patrick Fernandez’S Transcreation Of Poetry And The Integrated Performing Arts Guild’S Sugatula/Crossing Poetry: An Autotheoretical Analysis, Onnah Pierre P. Talle

Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance

This is an analysis of Steven Patrick Fernandez’s transcreation of poetry through the Integrated Performing Arts Guild’s SugaTula. I use autotheory as I retell, examine, and reflect on my experiences on SugaTula and on Fernandez’s transcreation of poetry. From my autotheoretical analysis, I then situate Fernandez’s and IPAG’s SugaTula in the field of translation studies. The study reveals that Fernandez’s transcreation of poetry through SugaTula is a concept which is not only significant for theater practitioners but also for reading and literature teachers. Transcreation can also be used as a method to explore not only poetry but other various literary …

Womanist Poetics: Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, And Audre Lorde, Aya Telmissany

Theses and Dissertations

Today, the sentimentality associated with poetry is often condescendingly dubbed in a patriarchal society as “feminine poetry.” The first women poets who dared to attempt the pen were often met with attacks on their femaleness and harsh critiques of their writing which was likened to sorcery and witchcraft. Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, and Audre Lorde are three American women poets who countered these attacks and turned them inside out in favor of their own womanist poetics. They wrote about experiencing the world as women and most importantly about experiencing poetry as women. What happens to poetry when a woman appropriates …

The Ancient's View Of The Poet And Poetry, Brahim Soussi

Dirassat

The poet’s position in society has always been much discussed throughout the ages and inall civilizations.Thus the poet is accepted and receives praise sometimes, but is rejected and banished from society at other times. The poet's oscillation between these two extremes has always existed and will exist, it seems, as long as there is poetry. However, these two contradictory attitudes towards the Poet and Poetry have never received complete consensus from the different classes of society. The absence of this agreement, no doubt, denotes the necessity of the poet's voice for some and its danger fo rothers.

Disability As An Existential Challenge: Reading The Body In Sarah Ismail’S Poetry, Amrit Mishra

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

No abstract provided.

Translating The Poetry Of Leena Malhotra, Komal Agarwal

Living in Languages

No abstract provided.

"The Battle Trumpet Blown!": Whitman's Persian Imitations In Drum-Taps, Roger Sedarat

Publications and Research

While Walt Whitman’s thematic use of the Orient continues to receive critical attention based on his explicit foreign references, aside from observations of specific Persian signifiers in “A Persian Lesson,” his engagement with the poetry of Iran has remained especially speculative and therefore analogical, with studies like J. R. LeMaster and Sabahat Jahan’s Walt Whitman and the Persian Poets showing how his mystical relation to his own religious influences tends to resemble the Sufism of Rumi and Hafez. A new discovery emerging from an examination of his personal copy of William Alger’s The Poetry of the East along with his …

Mukhammas Genre In The Second Half Of The Xix Century And The Beginning Of The Xx Century And The Principles Of Its Evolution, Sirojiddin Kholmakhmatovich Khujaqulov

Scientific reports of Bukhara State University

Introduction. The article discusses the evolution of the mukhammas genre in the national enlightenment and jadid literature, the principles of evolution of this genre, the place of the general literary process in the system of literary genres, its new principles, theme and ideological content, examples of works of jadid and enlightened poets. Traditional and innovative features in comparative typological monograph, analytical-comparative, descriptive and critical aspects are analyzed. Methods. During this period, it is possible to observe literary processes and trends in the form of paradoxical models of poetic norms of classical literature, based on realistic elements in the expression of …

Précisions À Propos De La Poésie Orale Du Rif, Abdelmottaleb Zizaoui

Dirassat

This article preaches the authenticity of Rifaine society in harmony with its physical and symbolic environment. While reflecting on Rifaine oral poetry, the author evokes the roots of the ancient poem as an element of socio-territorial identification in the test of time. Through the song rallabuya, it is the local heritage that forces admiration and forge the perpetual adaptation of young people. Following the orientation of Jean Cohen and Roman Jakobson, the author reinvests the concept of poeticity while resorting to the theses of the orality of Paul Zumthor in order to extract the poetic forms and thorny aspects accompanying …