Comparative Literature Commons^™

Ashok Kumar Malhotra. Instant Nirvana: Americanization Of Mysticism And Meditation., Michael Andregg

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Ironic Multiplicity: Fernando's "Pessoas" Suspended In Kierkegaardian Irony, Michelle Pulsipher Hale

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis applies Søren Kierkegaard's understanding of irony as outlined in his master's thesis, The Concept of Irony, to the literary works of Fernando Pessoa. Recently Kierkegaardian scholarship has opened possibilities for non-traditional interpretation of Kierkegaard's dissertation and pseudonymous "aesthetic" texts by reading them in the ironic tone in which they were written. This paper offers a similar re-reading of the poetic and prose works Pessoa attributes to his heteronyms.

Kierkegaard's presentation of Socrates as irony serves as a model for how Pessoa sustains the heteronymic project by balancing the use of rhetorical irony within the works of the heteronyms …

Book Reviews: Place, Language, And Identity In Afro-Costa Rican Literature, By Dorothy E. Mosby, And The Fugitive Race: Minority Writers Resisting Whiteness, By Stephen P. Knadler, Tim Engles

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews: Place, Language, And Identity In Afro-Costa Rican Literature, By Dorothy E. Mosby, And The Fugitive Race: Minority Writers Resisting Whiteness, By Stephen P. Knadler, Tim Engles

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Review Of Place, Language, And Identity In Afro-Costa Rican Literature, By Dorothy E. Mosby, And The Fugitive Race: Minority Writers Resisting Whiteness, By Stephen P. Knadler, Tim Engles

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Chaucer And The Discourse Of German Philology: An Addendum, Richard Utz

Medieval Institute Affiliated Faculty & Staff Publications

Contains several additions to the “Annotated Bibliography” of German and Austrian Chaucer criticism between 1793 and 1948 published in Chaucer and the Discourse of German Philology (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002)

Kurosawa's Throne Of Blood And East Asia's Macbeth, Yuwen Hsiung

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Yuwen Hsiung presents in her paper, "Kurosawa's Throne of Blood and East Asia's Macbeth," a comparative study between Kurosawa's film Throne of Blood and a contemporary Taiwanese play, Kingdom of Desire, both of which are adaptations of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Stepping from Eastern cultural background, both show similar orientation towards the original play, for instance the sizing down of the number of witches and the decreasing of Macbeth's heroic status. Gilles Deleuze's theory of movement image provides an insightful look into Kurosawa's filmology, which emphasizes the interrelatedness of every individual under the same condition. The idea of collectivity could be examined …

Introduction To Shakespeare On Film In Asia And Hollywood, Charles Ross

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Shakespeare And The Visualization Of Metaphor In Two Chinese Versions Of Macbeth, Alexander C.Y. Huang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Shakespeare and the Visualization of Metaphor in Two Chinese Versions of Macbeth," Alexander Huang proposes that, in addition to political uses, visualization is an important dimension of cultural translations of Shakespeare. In recent studies, Shakespeare's global presence has been investigated from various perspectives of critical inquiry, especially with postcolonial theories and in East-West literary relations. Instead of faulting cultural imperialism or foregrounding political statements in theatre, Huang explores the visual dimension of cultural translation found in Kingdom of Desire (a Beijing opera adaptation of Macbeth) and Story of the Bloody Hand (a Kunqu opera appropriation of the …

Reality And Metaphor In Jane Howell's And Julie Taymor's Productions Of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, Lucian Ghita

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Reality and Metaphor in Jane Howell's and Julie Taymor's Productions of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus," Lucian Ghita looks at how Jane Howell's 1985 BBC production of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and Julie Taymor's film 1999 adaptation Titus re-fashion the image of Young Lucius. In Ghita's interpretation this happens by structuring the boy as the nexus of a cycle of violence that disturbs not only Andronicus's household, but also the moral and socio-political structures of ancient Rome. Ghita shows how the two directors politicize and ritualize their films by using cinematic techniques to distinguish, on the one hand, the real …

Hamlet's "Globe" And The Self As Performer In England And Japan, Yu Shibuya

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Hamlet's 'Globe' and the Self as Performer in England and Japan," Yu Shibuya argues that Hamlet sees his life as a performance. Shibuya presents examples from Tsuneari Fukuda's Japanese translation to suggest that Fukuda makes choices that emphasize the theatrical side of Hamlet's character. If Hamlet perceives himself as an actor, then his definition of theater or an actor is ultimately a definition of himself. Shibuya uses the theme of self-definition to examine Kenneth Branagh's film version, especially the Mousetrap and the "O what a rogue and peasant slave" scenes. By analyzing Branagh's staging and directorial decisions …

Shakespeare's Taming Of The Shrew And The Tradition Of Screwball Comedy, Mei Zhu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her paper, "Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew and the Tradition of Screwball Comedy," Mei Zhu argues that Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew is controversial owing to the subtlety and complexity of the text as well as its subject matter. Franco Zeffirelli's 1967 film version seems to follow the narrative structure of the original play closely while its effect is different. Through a detailed analysis and comparison of Shakespeare's play and Zeffirelli's adaptation, Mei argues that Zeffirelli's Taming is based on the Hollywood genre of screwball comedy. Rooted in mid-1930s USA during the Great Depression, such films feature a comic …

Silence And Sound In Kurosawa's Throne Of Blood, Lei Jin

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Lei Jin argues in her paper, "Silence and Sound in Kurosawa's Throne of Blood," that silence and sound are employed as vehicles to explore the major themes of Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, fate, ambition, and destruction. By examining closely a few dramatic moments of the film, Lei demonstrates that silence and the interaction between silence, natural sound, and Noh music enhance the effect of Kurosawa's visual images, enforce their symbolic messages, and intensify the characters' psychological conflicts. Although Asaji's introspective speech and most of the dialogue between Washizu and Asaji are eliminated, silence bespeaks Asaji's unfathomable evil. In turn, Washizu's …

Science Fiction, Forbidden Planet, And Shakespeare's The Tempest, Simone Caroti

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Science Fiction, Forbidden Planet, and Shakespeare's The Tempest," Simone Caroti illustrates the way in which Cyril Hume and Fred Wilcox's 1956 science fiction movie Forbidden Planet -- whose plot is inspired by Shakespeare's Tempest -- reconfigures in Shakespeare's play. Caroti begins by defining the genre of science fiction and explaining its attraction for modern audiences. Following Darko Suvin's notions of science fiction, Caroti highlights the theme of cognitive estrangement and shows how Forbidden Planet offers a cultural translation of this theme in The Tempest. The result of Caroti's analysis is to read Prospero and his magic in …

Cultural Anxiety And The Female Body In Zeffirelli's Hamlet, Xianfeng Mou

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Xianfeng Mou analyzes in her paper, "Cultural Anxiety and the Female Body in Zeffirelli's Hamlet," the workings of power, both discursive and visual, behind Zeffirelli's handling of the Nunnery and Mousetrap scenes, focusing on feminist interpretations of the female body and female sexuality. Drawing on theories by Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and Julia Kristeva, Mou analyzes how Zeffirelli, using Hamlet as his spokesman, constructs his negative meanings about Gertrude's sexuality as rampant and aberrant and Ophelia's body as disloyal, insincere, and insignificant. Mou argues that Zeffirelli's discursive and visual constructions confer absolute power upon Hamlet and that this reflects Zeffirelli's …

Underwater Women In Shakespeare Films, Charles Ross

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Underwater Women in Shakespeare Films," Charles Ross looks at the film tradition of representing the social oppression of women by scenes submersion, a trope that has its literary roots in the classics, the French Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the novel. Ross argues that unlike classic directors such as Kurosawa, Kozintsev, and Polanski, modern filmmakers not only like to enhance the female body, but also to draw on this trope as a cinematic shorthand to symbolize the oppression of women by various forces. Hollywood films made in the 1990s often go overboard in their attempts to make …

Method Acting And Pacino's Looking For Richard, Peirui Su

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her paper, "Method Acting and Pacino's Looking for Richard," Peirui Su explores the influence of method acting on Al Pacino's decision to film Shakespeare's Richard III as an unconventional docudrama. She compares Pacino's film to Laurence Olivier's 1955 film of Richard III and Ian McKellen's 1995 modernized version to show how Pacino's documentary structure solves the problems raised by films that try either to recreate the Elizabethan world or to update Shakespeare, thereby introducing anachronisms. Su argues that Pacino engages US-American audiences by filming interviews and open rehearsals. Su concludes her paper by analyzing the well-known scene of Richard's …

Race And Othello On Film, Laura Reitz-Wilson

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Race and Othello on Film," Laura Reitz-Wilson discusses Shakespeare's treatment of race in Othello and compares it to what Hollywood as a producer of culture has done. Reitz-Wilson looks at nine different film versions and analyzes their approaches to Othello's race and character. She parses the historical and textual evidence for racism in Shakespeare's and concludes that it exists and should not be overlooked. Othello's otherness is, in fact, directly connected to his blackness, but Hollywood has rarely captured the tenuous line Shakespeare creates between barbarian and civilized Venetian. Her analysis of the film versions of Othello …

Bibliography For The Study Of Shakespeare On Film In Asia And Hollywood, Lucian Ghita

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Hermann Hesse’S Peter Camenzind: A Sufi Reading, Omneya Ahmed Ali Badr

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Faces Of Persuastion [Sic], Melissa Dawn Vincent

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Following the terrorist activities of September 11, 2001, the United States began weapons inspections in Iraq on November 18, 2002. This decision sparked interest throughout the world, including in France and the United States. By looking at Le Monde and The New York Times and focusing on the first war-related editorial each week from six weeks before and SLX weeks after the bcginning of weapons inspections, one can easily identify the opinions of the editorialists. These two papers are sister publications in France and the United States, respectively, with similarly wide ranges of audiences. Both papers were examined in their …

Delno C. West Award Winner (2003)

Quidditas

James K. Otté

The West Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a senior scholar at the annual conference.

The Morality Of Misogny: The Case Of Rustico Filippi, Vituperatore Of Women, Fabian Alfie

Quidditas

At the outset of his influential study on Rabelais, Mikhail Bakhtin makes an interesting observation. The scholar dedicates several pages to detail how the French author’s critical reception changed over time. Bakhtin illustrates how the attempt to comprehend an author can frequently be stymied by the cultural changes that occur across the centuries. As scholars analyze writers of earlier periods, the investigation of the cultural and textual background can become increasingly difficult.

Wedding Vows And Coffins: Canticles' Rhetoric, The Liturgical Form Of Matrimony And Middleton's A Chaste Maid In Cheapside (1613), Lisa Beauchamp

Quidditas

The concluding scene of Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside begins as a double funeral procession and turns into a wedding as the lovers rise from their coffins to be married; but what are coffins doing in a wedding scene? The coffins, as an onstage sign of the metamorphosis of funeral into wedding, are the emblematic focus for this paper. This investigation exposes the resonances of Canticles’ erotic betrothal and Revelation’s matrimonial fulfilment as a rhetoric common to both theatrical rituals and to ecclesiastical scriptures. After briefly introducing what I call Canticles’ rhetoric – Canticles itself, its exegesis, and …

Betwixt War And Peace: The Dual Function And Substance Of The Bell, James K. Otté

Quidditas

This paper owes its inspiration to Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage and to its protagonist, Henry Fleming, who

One night, as he lay in bed, the winds had carried to him the clangoring of the church bell as some enthusiast jerked the rope frantically to tell the twisted news of a great battle. This voice of the people rejoicing in the night had made him shiver in a prolonged ecstasy of excitement. Later, he had gone down to his mother’s room and had spoken thus: ‘Ma, I'm going to enlist.’ ‘Henry, don't you be a fool,’ his mother had …

Full Issue

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

Review Of Gender And The Victorian Periodical, Hilary Fraser, Stephanie Green, Judith Johnston

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

'We are dominated by Journalism' 'a really remarkable power', Oscar Wilde observed, not entirely neutrally, in 'The Soul of Man under Socialism' published in the Fortnightly Review in 1891. Like many of his contemporaries, Wilde recognized not only the power of the press, but also its modernity. In this wide ranging and important study Hilary Fraser, Stephanie Green and Judith Johnston argue that precisely because of its power the periodical press occupied a central position in the construction of gender in Victorian cultural history.

Journalism was gendered masculine by those who accorded it a lofty status within the profession of …

The Exceptional Woman And Her Audience: Armgart, Performance, And Authorship

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Mirah, the Alcharisi, Gwendolen, Dinah, and Rosamond are all, to various degrees, performing women. Eliot's grandest diva, however, is also her least studied. The opera singer Armgart takes centre stage in the poetic closet drama of the same name that Eliot wrote in 1861. A focused study of an exceptional woman, Armgart conveys both Eliot's belief in the dangers of the influence of public opinion and her belief that exceptionally talented women could gain power through interacting with audiences. Armgart demonstrates that Eliot advocated for community among exceptional women and ordinary women. Finally, Armgart's examination of the talented female performer …

Address At Wreath-Laying In The George Eliot Memorial Garden, Nuneaton 8 June 2003, Catherine Nisbet

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

It is now I suppose more than six months since Kathleen asked me to deliver this address and whilst I have given the task much thought, it is only now, a few days before the event, that I am committing myself to paper. I followed my usual course when faced with any task at the museum. I've thought a great deal around the subject often in the middle of the night or on my commute to and from work. I have done my research, scanned books, looked at previous examples and most important of all talked to other people who …

Notes On Contributors 2004

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Kathleen Adams has been Secretary of the Fellowship since 1968. She initiated the Review in 1970, was editor until 1981 and co-editor 1982-91. She published Those of Us Who Loved Her in 1980 and A Community of Interest: The Story of the George Eliot Fellowship 1930-2000 in 2000.

Beryl Gray teaches literature at the Faculty of Continuing Education, Birkbeck College. She is the author of George Eliot and Music (1989) and many articles on George Eliot. Her current project concerns the figure of the dog in Victorian Culture.

Barbara Hardy is Emeritus Professor of English, University of London, and her …