Abstract In this article, I argue that Shi Zhi’s 郭路生 yu’er sanbuqu 鱼儿三部曲 (“Fish Trilogy.”, 1967) is an allegory of political trauma. The poem reflects on the atrocities of the Red Guard movement. In the poem, the sun acts as an autocratic figure. It lures the fish to leap from icy water, leading to the fish’s death. The sun serves a dual role. It is an oppressive patriarch and a revolutionary symbol of freedom. This duality reflects the broader ideological conflicts of the Maoist era. The poet critiques the failures of left-wing ideology. It shows that the fish’s search for freedom is paradoxical and its utopian dreams are destined to fail. While scholars of modern Chinese literature have historically privileged the novel as the primary archive of trauma, this article reclaims poetry as a central site of witness. By applying Gordon Teskey’s theory of allegory and Walter Benjamin’s critique of violence, I move beyond biographical readings to expose the poem’s deep ideological structures.
Abstract This article takes its cue from Giorgio Agamben’s observation that verse can be distinguished from prose by the presence of ‘enjambement’, a feature absent from prose. ‘Enjambement’ replaces a metrical boundary with a syntactic one, such that signification overwrites sound. At the conclusion of a metrically structured text, however – where the end of a verse coincides with the end of a sentence – ‘enjambement’ is no longer possible: the final verse thus reveals a state of indeterminacy, even a zone of transition between verse and prose. Against this theoretical backdrop, the article asks how this relationship manifests in medieval poetry, a period in which prose had not yet become an established literary norm. Focusing on Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, it examines the applicability and limits of Agamben’s approach within the context of medieval epic.
Abstract The thesis I want to pursue is that society is produced by discourse. Far from merely mirroring what already seems to exist, discourse, I propose, is a central agency in the verbal construction and institution of social structures which we make and in which we then live. For this, I first discuss the relation between our imaginary and society, attempting to describe society as a ‘habitat’ artificially made by us and at the same time paradoxically defining and determining us as cultural beings. I then try to embed this in the sociological and philosophical discussion on constructivism, establishing what we call ‘society’ and/or ‘culture’ and/or ‘reality’ as the result of semantic processes of verbalization which we then optimistically tend to ‘reify’ into existing ‘facts’. That this is possible seems to lie anthropologically in the human faculty of cognitively understanding, and creating, arbitrary signs, which finds its first expression in the exteriorizing discovery of the self in the mirror and then serves as the main matrix of infinitely building and modifying, but also of continuously maintaining and stabilizing, our ‘world’. The emerging world-like ‘semiosphere’ is thus fabricated out of words/lexemes, texts – and, I argue, first and foremost discourses, understood as semantic ‘systems of thinking and arguing’ that, through incessant dialogic translation and re-translation, negotiatingly build a specific universe of discourse that we have made and in which we (more or less) feel at home. This is briefly demonstrated with regard to the workings of political discourse in action in order to (metonymically) illustrate that the social world is of our own making, and that it is, above all, text-generated discourses that are its main media. A last point complementarily, if not supplementarily, discusses the ‘aesthetic’ as the free and open site of what could be called an ‘adiscursive’ or ‘metadiscursive’ play, and display, of discourses in action, which is the site of ‘literature’.
Abstract The article proposes a model that conceptualizes comics and graphic novels as two distinct modes of communication. Drawing on Luhmann’s theory of mass communication, comics are described as a form of entertainment that prioritizes information processing through a plot-driven, linear narrative sequence. Graphic novels, by contrast, are situated within the art system: they emphasize the communicative message and invite a reflective, non-linear engagement with meaning. Finally, these ideal types are translated into a matrix of flexible features capable of capturing the differentiated field of contemporary graphic storytelling.
Abstract This paper challenges the communis opinio that Catullus’ carmen 16 should be interpreted as a fiction-theoretical warning against a biographical reading of lyric poetry. It argues instead that the poem’s discussion does not center on fiction, but on the license to obscenity and on mimesis – more precisely, on the relationship between the author and his poetic work. A reconsideration of Catullus’ first poem supports the thesis that, despite appearances, he does not draw a clear distinction between life and work (at least not on the basis of fiction), but rather delineates two types of poetry: his own and a pious, Muse-inspired form. Catullus’ poetological reflections subsequently became a topos adopted by later Roman authors, notably Ovid, Martial, Pliny the Younger, and Apuleius. However, these authors do not merely appropriate the ambiguous Catullan “law,” but rather invert it by asserting the moral integrity of the author in contrast to the immorality of his poems.
Abstract The article addresses the role of ghost stories and otherworldly apparitions in Russian realism, with a special focus on the phenomenon of the “self-fulfilling prophecy” as a narrative device. Its point of departure is Plato’s myth of individual fate determined by a prenatal choice of human souls, as well as the paradigmatic role of Sophocles’ Oedipus as a victim of tragic fate. The “self-fulfilling prophecy” is then presented in three paradigmatic narratives of Russian realism: Pushkin’s “The Queen of Spades”, Lermontov’s “Fatalist”, and Turgenev’s “Stuk … Stuk … Stuk!”. Not only is the theme of fatalism of interest here, but also its narratological functions. This leads to a reading of Arthur Schnitzler’s story “The Prophecy”, in which the principle of the “self-fulfilling prophecy” and its realistic interpretation are reduced to absurdity. The reading takes into account Sigmund Freud’s fundamental critique in his interpretation of Schnitzler’s story, profoundly addressing the problem of fatalism and its narratability.
Abstract This article examines Alfons Paquet’s concept of culture through his prose poem Pe Ling (1912), which symbolises the tension between traditional China and a modernising China shaped by Western influence. Drawing on his travel experiences in China, Paquet combines personal observation with critical reflection on the profound cultural transformations of the early twentieth century. He contends that an imbalance between indigenous and foreign elements leads to cultural alienation and therefore advocates a modern, balanced cosmopolitanism that positions intercultural dialogue as the essential foundation for social progress, mutual understanding, and cultural renewal.
Since its publication, the age of the protagonist in Christian Kracht's Faserland has been widely discussed. While this discussion has often been accompanied by a devaluation of the novel, the childlike aspects of the first-person narrator and the role of childhood memories have not yet been systematically examined. This essay analyses the extent to which the idealisation of childhood proves to be regressive and futile. The investigation of the connection between the literary motif of the eternal child and current criticisms of tendencies towards infantilisation can help explain the polemical reactions of the literary public following the novel's publication.
Machiavelli's Mandragola, his most famous comedy, is structured around a complex web of intrigue. A carefully constructed narrative drives the plot, luring the victims into a trap. This narrative framework allows the audience to understand the characters' motivations, as it forms the foundation for key plot decisions. As this article demonstrates, the play makes functional use of implied consent - deceiving the victims while simultaneously entertaining the audience. The analysis focuses on the role of silence in comedy and its function in non-verbal behavior. This perspective highlights how, in drama, narrative often aligns with legal reasoning. In this sense, Machiavelli's Mandragola serves as a paradigmatic example of the strategic use of silence, illustrating how it creates implied-in-fact contracts among the protagonists.
Sonic experiments in lyrics are more than just nonsense. The sound has its own poeti-cal meaning which supports the semantics of the words, opposes them or works inde-pendently of them. This applies to both pre-modern and modern texts, but it seems to be a particular challenge for medieval songs, which have mostly survived without melody (d & ocirc;n), making the sound a kind of rudimentary substitute for the lost music. In this article, Walther's von der Vogelweide `Vokalspiel' (L 75,25), consisting of five monovocally rhymed stanzas, is claimed as a test case for a dense reading attuned to the sense of the text as/and sound. Further questions arise from this case, such as the evidence for a genuinely pre-modern sound poetics and-theory, the limits to the translatability of sound, and the effects of Walther's impulse on further medieval and even (post-)modern poetry.
This essay reconstructs Christian Hermann WeiEe's "System der Aesthetik", published in 1830, as well as his early writings on myth theory, and, with particular reference to WeiEe's examination of the pastness of art (Hegel) and his ,,theory of ugliness", outlines perspectives for a history of aesthetic theory "after Hegel".
The essay explores Shakespeare’s playful revision of Petrarchan conventions in Venus and Adonis and Twelfth Night . It is particularly interested in how these works engage with social contingency in the arena of love. In contrast to critical reflections on the subjectivity of the lyrical lover in Petrarchan poetry, the essay focuses on the beloved and their freedom to reciprocate or reject the lover’s attentions. In Venus and Adonis and Twelfth Night , the beloved is neither unattainable in principle nor necessarily willing to submit to persuasion, yet their freedom is contingent on their own desire. Read side by side, Shakespeare’s epyllion and play indicate that the critical engagement with Petrarchism around 1600 played out across different genres, facilitated by a proliferation of love discourses.
This article revisits the origins of reader-response theory by foregrounding the less-known contributions of Kharkiv literary theorist Aleksandr Beletsky of the 1920s. Challenging the traditional genealogies that trace the discipline’s emergence to postwar Western theory, the article argues that Beletsky developed a robust reader-centered methodology decades earlier. Drawing on psychological aesthetics, historical poetics, and sociological approach, Beletsky’s work articulated a nuanced theory of the reader as an active historical participant in the literary process. The article demonstrates how his typology of readers – especially the figure of the “reader who takes up the pen” – provided Ukrainian literary historians of the 1920s with the tools to interpret the phenomenon of Kotliarevshchyna as both mass literature and a key moment in the emergence of a Ukrainian reading public in the nineteenth century. By situating the problem of the reader within a broader theory of literary history, Beletsky and his students forged a synthetic method that positioned itself between Formalist theory and Marxist criticism. The article also situates the phenomenon of stylization and parody within the framework of Yuri Tynianov’s concept of literary evolution, highlighting the theoretical affinities between his work and Beletsky’s concept of the “reader who takes up the pen”.
Sonic experiments in lyrics are more than just nonsense. The sound has its own poetical meaning which supports the semantics of the words, opposes them or works independently of them. This applies to both pre-modern and modern texts, but it seems to be a particular challenge for medieval songs, which have mostly survived without melody ( dôn ), making the sound a kind of rudimentary substitute for the lost music. In this article, Walther’s von der Vogelweide ‘Vokalspiel’ (L 75,25), consisting of five monovocally rhymed stanzas, is claimed as a test case for a dense reading attuned to the sense of the text as/and sound. Further questions arise from this case, such as the evidence for a genuinely pre-modern sound poetics and -theory, the limits to the translatability of sound, and the effects of Walther’s impulse on further medieval and even (post-)modern poetry.
This essay reconstructs Christian Hermann Weiße’s “System der Aesthetik”, published in 1830, as well as his early writings on myth theory, and, with particular reference to Weiße’s examination of the pastness of art (Hegel) and his „theory of ugliness“, outlines perspectives for a history of aesthetic theory “after Hegel”.
The secret-society novel is one of the most popular genres of the late Enlightenment. Based on Carl Grosse's influential novel Der Genius (1791-95), this article explores narrative elements and discursive references that define the genre. The focus is on narrative structures that capture and negotiate contemporary theorems from the fields of aesthetics, poetics, and gnoseology. As a narratology-oriented analysis will demonstrate, conspiracy fiction unfolds a meta-perspective from which the supposedly trivial novel engages with issues crucial to modem literature and epistemology, such as concatenation, observation and form-building.
This article combines two questions: the question of the mechanisms of "world authorship" around 1930 in the context of the increasing political tensions between the Communist International, the strengthening fascist and National Socialist governments in Europe and the Western powers; and the question why and in what way the topic of "China" experienced a conspicuous boom on the international literary stage in these years, immediately before literary voices from China itself entered this stage. The focus is on three novels about China written almost independently of each other around 1930: one American, one Russian-Soviet and one French novel. All three were received internationally and canonized in world literature on the basis of translations, although they were quite different in terms of subject, style and aesthetic orientation. Apparently, "China, still marked by European colonialism and geopolitically hotly contested, acted as a trigger for their success. How did these novels portray China, what were their intentions? In what ways were the receptions linked, and what role did the theme of "China" play in their global literary canonization? It will become clear that the three texts, whose connection has not yet been taken into account in research, strove to de-exoticize China through global cultural, social and political contextualization and thus ultimately to decolonize it. And it was precisely with this strategy that they achieved international recognition.
Machiavelli’s Mandragola , his most famous comedy, is structured around a complex web of intrigue. A carefully constructed narrative drives the plot, luring the victims into a trap. This narrative framework allows the audience to understand the characters’ motivations, as it forms the foundation for key plot decisions. As this article demonstrates, the play makes functional use of implied consent – deceiving the victims while simultaneously entertaining the audience. The analysis focuses on the role of silence in comedy and its function in non-verbal behavior. This perspective highlights how, in drama, narrative often aligns with legal reasoning. In this sense, Machiavelli’s Mandragola serves as a paradigmatic example of the strategic use of silence, illustrating how it creates implied-in-fact contracts among the protagonists.
The secret-society novel is one of the most popular genres of the late Enlightenment. Based on Carl Grosse’s influential novel Der Genius (1791–95), this article explores narrative elements and discursive references that define the genre. The focus is on narrative structures that capture and negotiate contemporary theorems from the fields of aesthetics, poetics, and gnoseology. As a narratology-oriented analysis will demonstrate, conspiracy fiction unfolds a meta-perspective from which the supposedly trivial novel engages with issues crucial to modern literature and epistemology, such as concatenation, observation and form-building.
This article combines two questions: the question of the mechanisms of “world authorship” around 1930 in the context of the increasing political tensions between the Communist International, the strengthening fascist and National Socialist governments in Europe and the Western powers; and the question why and in what way the topic of “China” experienced a conspicuous boom on the international literary stage in these years, immediately before literary voices from China itself entered this stage. The focus is on three novels about China written almost independently of each other around 1930: one American, one Russian-Soviet and one French novel. All three were received internationally and canonized in world literature on the basis of translations, although they were quite different in terms of subject, style and aesthetic orientation. Apparently, “China”, still marked by European colonialism and geopolitically hotly contested, acted as a trigger for their success. How did these novels portray China, what were their intentions? In what ways were the receptions linked, and what role did the theme of “China” play in their global literary canonization? It will become clear that the three texts, whose connection has not yet been taken into account in research, strove to de-exoticize China through global cultural, social and political contextualization and thus ultimately to decolonize it. And it was precisely with this strategy that they achieved international recognition.
