History in a Grotesque Key

History in a Grotesque Key PDF Author: Kevin M. F. Platt
Publisher:
ISBN: 0804728348
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
This book examines Russian literary works—some canonical but most obscure—since the time of Peter the Great that bring the lens of the grotesque to bear on the theory and practice of revolutionary social transformation in Russia.

History in a Grotesque Key

History in a Grotesque Key PDF Author: Kevin M. F. Platt
Publisher:
ISBN: 0804728348
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 293

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines Russian literary works—some canonical but most obscure—since the time of Peter the Great that bring the lens of the grotesque to bear on the theory and practice of revolutionary social transformation in Russia.

Grotesque

Grotesque PDF Author: Justin Edwards
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134105983
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
Grotesque provides an invaluable and accessible guide to the use (and abuse) of this complex literary term. Justin D. Edwards and Rune Graulund explore the influence of the grotesque on cultural forms throughout history, with particular focus on its representation in literature, visual art and film. The book: presents a history of the literary grotesque from Classical writing to the present examines theoretical debates around the term in their historical and cultural contexts introduce readers to key writers and artists of the grotesque, from Homer to Rabelais, Shakespeare, Carson McCullers and David Cronenberg analyses key terms such as disharmony, deformed and distorted bodies, misfits and freaks explores the grotesque in relation to queer theory, post-colonialism and the carnivalesque. Grotesque presents readers with an original and distinctive overview of this vital genre and is an essential guide for students of literature, art history and film studies.

Grotesque Revisited

Grotesque Revisited PDF Author: Laurynas Katkus
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443850942
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
This collection of essays aims to recapitulate the state of grotesque poetics in modern and post-modern writing. It concentrates on Central and Eastern Europe, introducing the Western reader to the variety and ingenuity of this region’s literary traditions, ranging from German and Russian to Lithuanian and Romanian literatures. At the same time, it seeks to highlight the importance of the grotesque mode of writing in the region. It includes new insights and interpretations of theories on grotesque and Menippean satire including (but not limited to) the works of Mikhail Bakhtin. The historic scope of the volume ranges from the legacies of Nazi dictatorship and exile to the post-communist times, but it is especially focused on the Soviet era. Scholars, not only from Central and Eastern Europe, but also from Great Britain, Ireland, and Turkey, analyze the literary devices of the grotesque, examining the relationship between the socio-political background and subversive representations of the grotesque. Many studies take on a comparative and transnational approach. Alternatively, some studies aim to present important and innovative creators of grotesque texts in greater detail. This book, which features, among others, contributions by Professor Galin Tihanov, George Steiner Chair of Queen Mary College at the University of London; Professor Alexander Ivanitsky of the Russian State University of Humanities; Professor Algis Kalėda of the Lithuanian Institute of Literature and Folklore; Professor Peter Arnds of Trinity College, Dublin; and Dr Carmen Popescu of the University of Craiova, Romania, will appeal to a broad academic readership, including both students and professors wanting to discover more about the literary grotesque and modern Central and Eastern European literature and culture.

Medievalism

Medievalism PDF Author: David Matthews
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 1843843927
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
An accessibly-written survey of the origins and growth of the discipline of medievalism studies. The field known as "medievalism studies" concerns the life of the Middle Ages after the Middle Ages. Originating some thirty years ago, it examines reinventions and reworkings of the medieval from the Reformation to postmodernity, from Bale and Leland to HBO's Game of Thrones. But what exactly is it? An offshoot of medieval studies? A version of reception studies? Or a new form of cultural studies? Can such a diverse field claim coherence? Should it be housed in departments of English, or History, or should it always be interdisciplinary? In responding to such questions, the author traces the history of medievalism from its earliest appearances in the sixteenth century to the present day, across a range of examples drawn from the spheres of literature, art, architecture, music and more. He identifies two major modes, the grotesque and the romantic, and focuses on key phases of the development of medievalism in Europe: the Reformation, the late eighteenth century, and above all the period between 1815 and 1850, which, he argues, represents the zenith of medievalist cultural production. He also contends that the 1840s were medievalism's one moment of canonicity in several European cultures at once. After that, medievalism became a minority form, rarely marked with cultural prestige, though always pervasive and influential. Medievalism: a Critical History scrutinises several key categories - space, time, and selfhood - and traces the impact of medievalism on each. It will be the essential guide to a complex and still evolving field of inquiry. David Matthews is Professor of Medieval and Medievalism Studies at the University of Manchester.

Grotesque

Grotesque PDF Author: Justin Edwards
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113410605X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 142

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Book Description
Grotesque provides an invaluable and accessible guide to the use (and abuse) of this complex literary term. Justin D. Edwards and Rune Graulund explore the influence of the grotesque on cultural forms throughout history, with particular focus on its representation in literature, visual art and film. The book: presents a history of the literary grotesque from Classical writing to the present examines theoretical debates around the term in their historical and cultural contexts introduce readers to key writers and artists of the grotesque, from Homer to Rabelais, Shakespeare, Carson McCullers and David Cronenberg analyses key terms such as disharmony, deformed and distorted bodies, misfits and freaks explores the grotesque in relation to queer theory, post-colonialism and the carnivalesque. Grotesque presents readers with an original and distinctive overview of this vital genre and is an essential guide for students of literature, art history and film studies.

Language and Culture in the Growth of Imperialism

Language and Culture in the Growth of Imperialism PDF Author: Sharron Gu
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786468483
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Political science interpretations of international relations tend to focus on abstract terms of economic interest, domination, rights and justice. Trapped within this limited horizon, the discipline fails to explain why nations of similar economic structure would have variant ideas for their foreign policies, and why nations with different economic structures and ideologies could develop a similar global posture during certain periods of their histories. This innovative study examines imperialism from a cultural and linguistic perspective, portraying the rise and fall of ancient Greek, Roman, medieval Islamic, modern British, Russian and American empires as a part of the natural life of world civilizations. As these imperial cultures matured through centuries of literary accumulation and interaction with other cultures, they finally found their confidence on the world stage and transitioned from an aggressive policy towards others to a more tolerant one.

Gargoyles and Grotesques

Gargoyles and Grotesques PDF Author: Alex Woodcock
Publisher: Shire Publications
ISBN: 9780747808312
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Gargoyles are an architectural feature designed to throw rainwater clear of the walls of a building. Widely used on medieval churches, these water spouts were often richly decorated, and fashioned as serpents' heads and other fanciful shapes. Today, the term gargoyle is also popularly applied to any carved decorative head or creature high up on a building and this book is an exploration of all of these enchanting features. Written by an academic and stonecarver, it is the perfect introduction to this fascinating subject. Gargoyles aims to provide a concise introduction to the stone carvings often found on religious and secular buildings in Britain from the medieval period to the modern. It will explore the typical imagery, some of the theories put forward to explain them, as well as consider the carvings within their architectural and social contexts. Incorporating recent and current research, the book will nevertheless be accessible to the general reader.

Rereading Russian Poetry

Rereading Russian Poetry PDF Author: Stephanie Sandler
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300071498
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
Russia's poets hold a special place in Russian culture, perhaps revealing more about their country than poets within any other nation. In this unique and wide-ranging collection of writings on poets and poetic trends in Russia, contributors from the United States, Britain, and Russia examine the place of poetry in Russian culture. Through a variety of critical approaches, these scholars, translators, and poets consider a broad cross section of Russian poets, from Pushkin to Brodsky, Shvarts, and Kibirov.

Edoardo Sanguineti

Edoardo Sanguineti PDF Author: John Picchione
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135119173X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
"Poet, novelist, theorist, playwright, translator, politician, and teacher, Edoardo Sanguineti (1930-2010) is one of the most original and influential Italian intellectuals of the second post-war period. An ardent and unremitting historical materialist, he investigated the links between language and ideology, literature and the other arts, together with their functions within the logic of late capitalism. The extraordinary range of his creative work persistently defies conventional aesthetic notions. With their variety of topics and critical perspectives, the essays assembled in this volume explore both the relevance of his theoretical postures and the ideological and formal fabric of his literary production. They highlight his subversive objectives, the complexity of the language, the astonishing linguistic ingenuity, metaliterary significance, whimsical disposition, and provocative social critique. Testimonials by Sanguineti's colleagues and students, presented here in English translation, offer a portrait of the man, his temperament and his distinctiveness, and provide a personal view of the life and work of a brilliant intellectual."

Wonderlands of the Avant-Garde

Wonderlands of the Avant-Garde PDF Author: Julia Vaingurt
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810166526
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
In postrevolutionary Russia, as the Soviet government was initiating a program of rapid industrialization, avant-garde artists declared their intent to serve the nascent state and to transform life in accordance with their aesthetic designs. In spite of their professed utilitarianism, however, most avant-gardists created works that can hardly be regarded as practical instruments of societal transformation. Exploring this paradox, Vaingurt claims that the artists’ investment of technology with aesthetics prevented their creations from being fully conscripted into the arsenal of political hegemony. The purposes of avant-garde technologies, she contends, are contemplative rather than constructive. Looking at Meyerhold’s theater, Tatlin’s and Khlebnikov’s architectural designs, Mayakovsky’s writings, and other works from the period, Vaingurt offers an innovative reading of an exceptionally complex moment in the formation of Soviet culture.