Louise O. VASVARI
A Comparative Approach to European Folk
Poetry and the Erotic Wedding Motif
Abstract: In her article, "A Comparative Approach to European
Folk Poetry and the Erotic Wedding Motif," Louise O. Vasvari posits that
while the corpus of folk poetry in any one area of Europe always differs
from neighboring traditions, of greater interest is the existence of a
large amount of related material across the continent. Nevertheless, while
research in folk poetry has been rich in field collecting and cataloguing,
there exists little in-depth comparative study of folk poetry. Doubtless,
this is owing in part to the fact that the great majority of the texts
are accessible only in the original language or dialect. In this study,
Vasvari offers a case study as a model for such investigations. The comparative
analysis of examples from a German, Hungarian, and Spanish corpus show
how in folk poetry women are often depicted as potentially transgressive.
On the one hand, being titillating, the songs are appropriate to the occasion
of the wedding festivities, and, on the other, they represent a warning
to young women about the sexual and, consequently, social dangers always
present in their interaction with men.
Patricia D. FOX
Fiction, Biography, Autobiography, and Postmodern
Nostalgia in (Con)Texts of Return
Abstract: Patricia D. Fox discusses in her article, "Fiction,
Biography, Autobiography, and Postmodern Nostalgia in (Con)Texts of Return,"
the meditations, in novel and essay, of variously positioned writers and
protagonists as each contemplates return to a never glimpsed or long-lost
geographical and cultural center. Attempting to decipher the grounding
in place and time, by heritage or tradition, Fox's analysis juxtaposes
selected texts: Hungarian Rhapsodies: Essays on Ethnicity, Identity
and Culture (Richard Teleky, 1997); Out of America: A Black Man
Confronts Africa (Keith B. Richburg, 1998); Dreaming in Cuban: A
Novel (Cristina García, 1992);
The Hundred Secret Senses
(Amy Tan, 1995); Next Year in Cuba: A Cubano's Coming-of-Age in America
(Gustavo Pirez Firmat, 1995); and Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter
(J. Nozipo Maraire, 1996). The discussion compares the at once postmodern
and nostalgic negotiation of the enunciated perception of displacement,
on the one hand, and, on the other, a truncated sense of belonging, be
it
circumstantial, constructed, or assumed. Thus, the study suggests that,
coupling imagination and substitution in the search of tangible ties (e.g.,
language), essayist, novelist, and protagonist transform themselves into
architects of a unique transcultural history and diversely place themselves
within a desired territorial context by the studied reconciliation of polarities.
Frank DE GLAS
Literature, "In-House"Writers, and Processes
of Success in Publishing
Abstract: Frank de Glas discusses in his article, "Literature,
`In-House' Writers, and Processes of Success in Publishing," the fact that
too many studies of twentieth-century publishing practices concentrate
on individual case studies while neglecting more general patterns and that
too little use is made of theoretical concepts developed in the sociology
of cultural production. He argues that one of the contributing elements
in the economic and artistic success of a publishing house is the bringing
together of a productive group of "in-house authors." To build up and to
maintain such a group, publishers steadily launch new authors who they
hope will become productive writers associated with their publishing house.
There is little systemic and empirical knowledge, however, of the extent
of how and to what degree such publishers succeed. The present article
presents empirical research -- based on explicit theoretical and methodological
argumentation -- into the literary careers of Dutch-language writers of
literary fiction in the period of 1961 to 1965. The results of the study
increase our insight into general tendencies in the productivity of authors
and their commitment, or lack of it, to particular publishers in The Netherlands.
Peter SWIRSKI
Popular and Highbrow Literature: A Comparative
View
Abstract: In his article, "Popular and Highbrow Literature:
A Comparative View," Peter Swirski discusses the role and status of popular
fiction in contemporary culture. Starting with the basic question, "Who
needs popular fiction?," he surveys select sociological evidence and prevailing
aesthetic arguments in order to take stock of the ways in which highbrow
literature and popular fiction relate to each other. He begins with statistical
and socio-economic data which casts a different lights on many myths prevailing
in scholarship as well as in general social and cultural discourse, such
as the death of the novel, the alleged decline of the reading public, and
the role of paperback publishing and commercial pressures in shaping literary
production. In the second part of the article Swirski examines the most
persistent aesthetic arguments used to deride and attack popular literature.
Both parts of the article are, in fact, extended arguments for a greater
literary democracy, reflected in his recommendations for a critical response
to popular fiction more compatible with its actual socio-aesthetic status.
F. Elizabeth DAHAB
Théophile Gautier and the Orient
Abstract: In her article, "Théophile Gautier and the
Orient," F. Elizabeth Dahab discusses the function of the Orient in general,
and in particular, the function of Ancient Egypt in some of Gautier's contes
fantastiques written between 1835 and 1857. Gautier and many of his
contemporaries including Baudelaire wanted to escape from a society dominated
by the idea of progress. They expressed deep doubt in many of their texts
and strived to find solace in the notion of permanence in art characteristic
of Ancient Egyptian architecture and mortuary customs. They also believed
that Ancient Egypt may provide an answer to humanity's quest for immortality.
Their opposition to progress may also explain at least in part Gautier's
personal obsession with Ancient Egypt. Since Gautier visited Egypt only
three years before his death, it becomes of great interest to scholars
of culture and literature to determine the influence Ancient Egypt has
made in his writing and to refer to the accuracy of his accounts, notably
in Le Roman de la momie (1857).
Andrea FÁBRY
A Comparative
Analysis of Text and Music and Gender and Audience in Duke Bluebeard's
Castle
Abstract: Andrea Fábry
discusses in her article, "A Comparative Analysis of Text and Music and
Gender and Audience in Duke Bluebeard's Castle," the image of Bluebeard
as a metaphor for gender relations. Béla Bartók's opera and
its libretto represent a prime example of the metaphor that in turn can
be found in a range of text types, from fairy tales through novels to films.
In the article, Fábry analyzes Bartók's contribution to the
metaphor, namely with his opera, Duke Bluebeard's Castle. She relates
the opera to the text of the opera's libretto, written by film theoretician
Béla Balázs, and places her analysis in the larger historical
framework of audience research in modernity. The analysis reveals that
in a pronounced misogynistic artistic climate of the time and working from
a libretto whose tragic ending denies transcendence to the female character
of the opera, Bartók's opera can be understood as the representation
of simplistic domesticity where the real story remains un-mediated and
un-narrated.
Roumiana
DELTCHEVA
Western
Mediations in Reevaluating the Communist Past:
A Comparative
Analysis of Gothár's
Time Stands Still and Andonov's Yesterday
Abstract: Roumiana Deltcheva's
article, "Western Mediations in Reevaluating the Communist Past: A Comparative
Analysis of Gothár's Time Stands Still and Andonov's Yesterday,"
offers a comparative analysis of two films, Peter Gothár's Time
Stands Still and Ivan Andonov's
Yesterday. Both films appeared
in the 1980s, in Hungary and Bulgaria, respectively, and were highly acclaimed
by the critics and the audience. Both films deal with the Communist past
of these two countries. In her analysis, Deltcheva's adopts the perspective
of "in-between peripherality," a particular manifestation of the post-colonial
paradigm in its application to East Central and Central Europe. The two
films use similar strategies to suggest the specific position that the
countries belonging to the Soviet sphere of political influence possessed
during the forty years of communist rule. Ironically, the films completed
prior to the Changes of 1989 present a much more vivid representation of
these processes than anything else that has since been produced in the
region.
Steven
Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient,
"History," and the Other
Abstract: In his article, "Michael Ondaatje's The English
Patient, 'History,' and the Other," Steven Tötösy discusses
the historical background of Michael Ondaatje's novel, The English Patient
(1992). The historical background and its analysis extend to selected
aspects of Anthony Minghella's and Michael Ondaatje's adaptation of the
novel to film (1996) and the ensuing controversy after the release of the
film. From the historical background Tötösy designates as the
"Almásy theme" of the novel and the film, he relates Ondaatje's
engagement of the protagonist -- Central European Hungarian László
Almásy -- to the notion of the Other as a historical and fictional
concept. Tötösy argues that Ondaatje's particular rendition of
the notion of the Other provides venues for a specific understanding of
the historical background of the novel (the "real" Almásy) as well
as its fictional presentation (the "Almásy theme"). The article
also responds to the pronounced interest in the novel's and the film's
protagonist and his "real" history, evident internationally after the release
of the film in 1996.
Book Review Articles
Joseph PIVATO
The New Comparative
Literature:
A Review
Article of Work by Bassnett, Bernheimer, Chevrel, and Tötösy