The article proposes an analysis of the representations of the Tatars in two historical novels published in Poland and Romania, respectively, from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the ...20th century. First of all, the article discusses the h
Este trabajo tiene como propósitos indagar en las técnicas de caracterización de los personajes de la novela El rastro de la canela de Liliana Bodoc, y analizar el impacto de esos caracteres en la ...identificación o extrañamiento que promueve el texto en el lector. La manera en la que ingresa el conjunto de rasgos del carácter del personaje resulta una puerta de acceso para develar al autor implícito de la obra y sus intenciones en cuanto a la relación que establecerán luego los lectores con sus personajes. Centrarse en las categorías de personaje y perspectiva ayuda a comprender por qué el lector puede sentir simpatía o antipatía, estar de acuerdo o en desacuerdo con los seres de ficción que el texto despliega. El análisis de esos aspectos nos conducirá a observar cómo la novela tematiza el problema de la libertad.
L’articolo intende approfondire la questione del Medioevo come luogo di narrazioni a partire dal romanzo di Louis De Wohl (1903-1961) dedicato ad Agostino d’Ippona, Una fiamma inestinguibile (1952) e ...dal tema della retorica. Il tema della retorica, come una delle dimensioni possibili in cui rappresentare la storia, dà vita sia a una peculiare narrazione descrittiva del Medioevo, plurale e variegata, sia a una narrazione creatrice della storia stessa, dal momento che la potenza della parola di Agostino viene colta nella sua capacità di incidere e trasformare la storia stessa. Il contributo si conclude con l’analisi di alcuni tratti salienti di altri romanzi di ambientazione medievale di De Wohl, su Francesco d’Assisi (1958) e su Tommaso d’Aquino (1950), per osservarne la peculiare rappresentazione di Medioevo che a tratti sembra andare oltre agli schemi storiografici degli anni in cui sono scritti. The article intends to explore the question of the Middle Ages as a place of narrations starting from Louis De Wohl’s (1903-1961) novel about Augustine of Hippo, The Restless Flame (1952) and the theme of rhetoric. The subject of rhetoric, as one of the possible dimensions in which to represent history, gives rise both to a peculiar descriptive narrative of the Middle Ages, plural and variegated, and to a narration that creates history itself, since the power of Augustine’s word is captured in its ability to affect and transform history itself. The paper concludes with an analysis of some salient features of other medieval novels by De Wohl, on Francis of Assisi (1958) and Thomas Aquinas (1950), in order to observe the peculiar representation of the Middle Ages that emerges, which at times seems to go beyond the historiographic schemes of the years in which they were written.
The paper discusses the works of African American writers of the end of the 1960s — the end of the 2010s that address the historical past of African Americans and explores the traumatic experience of ...slavery and its consequences. The tragedy of people subjected to slavery as well as their masters who challenged the moral and ethical norms has remained the topical issue of contemporary African American historical novel. Pivotal for the development of the genre of African American historical novel were Jubilee by the outstanding writer and poet Margaret Walker and the non-fiction novel Roots by Alex Haley. African American authors reconsider the past from today’s perspective making use of both the newly discovered documents and the peculiarities of contemporary literary techniques and showing a versatility of genre experiments, paying attention to the ambiguity of American consciousness in relation to the past. Toni Morrison combines the sacred and the profane, reality and magic while Ishmael Reed conjugates thematic topicality and a bright literary experiment connecting history with the problems of contemporary consumer society; Charles Johnson problematizes history in a philosophic tragicomedy. Edward P. Jones reconsiders the history of slavery in a broad context as his novel’s setting is across the whole country on a broad span of time. The younger generation of African American writers represented by C. Baker, A. Randall, C. Whitehead, J. Ward and other authors touches on the issues of African American history in order to understand whether the tragic past has finally been done with. Contemporary African American historical novel relies on documents, new facts, elements of fictional biography, traditions of slave narratives and in its range makes use of peculiarities of family saga, bildungsroman, political novel, popular novel enriching it with various elements of magic realism, parodying existing canons and sharp satire.
Stalag 17 (1953), the riveting drama of a German
prisoner-of-war camp, was adapted from the Broadway play directed
by José Ferrer in 1951. Billy Wilder developed the play and made
the film version ...more interesting in every way. Edwin Blum, a
veteran screenwriter and friend of Wilder's, collaborated on the
screenplay but found working with Wilder an agonizing experience.
Wilder's mordant humor and misanthropy percolate throughout this
bitter story of egoism, class conflict, and betrayal. As in a
well-constructed murder mystery, the incriminating evidence points
to the wrong man. Jeffrey Meyers's introduction enriches the
reading of Stalag 17 by including comparisons with the
Broadway production and the reasons for Wilder's changes.
The publication of novels about German history by Mexican authors offer an opportunity to reflect on the political and cultural relations between Europe and Latin American, particularly, these texts ...can be interpreted as the site of struggles for cultural capital and authority based on knowledge. This essay traces specific historical lines of Mexican narratives that focuses on German history and culture, and resorts to the concept of imperial eye to frames those lines and the power relations of image and knowledge creation. Novels written by Mexican authors that focus on German history and culture open a field to reflect on the capacity of literature to reconstruct European history from a Latin American locus of enunciation and to interrogate the power of the imperial eye as a Eurocentric mode of image making.
Vladimir Sharov (1952–2018), a distinguished contemporary Russian writer, published nine quasi historical novels. Each of his novels suggests a different semi-fantastical version of Russian history ...that is locked into continuing cycles or - to use Sharov’s preferred word - “rehearsals” of violence. Theater and performance are a recurring theme in Sharov’s prose.
In Before and During До и во время, one of the main characters is Alexander Scriabin. In The Rehearsals Репетиции Patriarch Nikon orders a play – a mystery-play about Easter — in which the amateur peasant actors are assigned roles from the Bible and replay these roles for generations. In Should Not I Spare Мне ли не пожалеть, the opening section shows characters participating in Chekhov’s plays, and the main part of the narration tells the story of staging an oratorio. In the last two novels, several of the protagonists are theater directors. This article argues that for Sharov, theater is an apt metaphor for history and a basic ontological principle, because theater is an experience that can be documented but is never reproduced in exactly the same form. The article examines how Sharov brings out the power of the playwright, director, and actor to implement multiple and different scripts and life stories. Life and art in his works imitate each other through a constant multiplication of versions or rehearsals - “rehearsals” in its expanded sense as reinterpretations, revisions, rewritings, and continuations.
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