This article investigates the historical and cultural contexts of the literary relationship between James Joyce and Dante Alighieri, arguing that Joyce was fundamentally influenced by the poet’s late nineteenth-century reputation. The article pays particular attention to the influence of the Italian Risorgimento and the counter-appropriation and re-Catholicising of Dante. Within the context of this wider discourse it considers the role of the Jesuit Order in Joyce’s education, Joyce’s Dante tuition at University College Dublin, and the editions of Dante’s works which Joyce is known to have read. In doing so, the article challenges pre-conceived notions of Dante’s canonicity and the nature of Joyce’s relation to him, and ultimately demonstrates that Joyce received Dante as a complex, subversive and historically determined writer.
{"title":"Uneasy Orthodoxy: The Jesuits, the Risorgimento and the Contexts of Joyce’S First Readings Of Dante","authors":"James Robinson","doi":"10.1515/ang-2012-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ang-2012-0004","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates the historical and cultural contexts of the literary relationship between James Joyce and Dante Alighieri, arguing that Joyce was fundamentally influenced by the poet’s late nineteenth-century reputation. The article pays particular attention to the influence of the Italian Risorgimento and the counter-appropriation and re-Catholicising of Dante. Within the context of this wider discourse it considers the role of the Jesuit Order in Joyce’s education, Joyce’s Dante tuition at University College Dublin, and the editions of Dante’s works which Joyce is known to have read. In doing so, the article challenges pre-conceived notions of Dante’s canonicity and the nature of Joyce’s relation to him, and ultimately demonstrates that Joyce received Dante as a complex, subversive and historically determined writer.","PeriodicalId":43572,"journal":{"name":"ANGLIA-ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ENGLISCHE PHILOLOGIE","volume":"1 1","pages":"34 - 53"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79461064","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Schottland zählt neben Irland sicherlich zu den englischen Sprachräumen, die seit jeher vermehrt Aufmerksamkeit auf sich ziehen. Die vorliegende Arbeit von Holger Schmitt gliedert sich daher in eine mehr oder weniger große Tradition von Arbeiten ein, die von klassischer Soziolinguistik wie Pollner (1985), Macafee (1997) oder Macaulay (1991) über Beschreibungen grammatischer Phänomene (Görlach 1985; Bergs 2005) und historische Darstellungen (Jones 1997) bis hin zu eher sprachpolitischen Abhandlungen wie McClure (1980, 1988) reicht. All diesen Arbeiten gemein jedoch scheint zu sein, dass der Gegenstandsbereich eher schwammig definiert wird. Was ist die Sprache Schottlands? Wir finden hier zum einen Gälisch, aber auch “English Standard English”. Und natürlich auch “Scottish Englisch” und “Scots”. Man fühlt sich nicht selten an den epochalen Ausruf Max Weinreichs erinnert:A shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot – “a language is a dialect with an army and navy” (Weinreich 1945, 13). In Schottland handelt es sich offenbar jedoch eher um ein Kontinuum denn um klar definierte oder definierbare Begrifflichkeiten, so dass keine aktuelle Arbeit umhinkommt, ihren Gegenstandsbereich sorgfältig zu beschreiben. Schmitt entzieht sich dieser leidvollen und doch eher fruchtlosen Diskussion in seiner Arbeit und ersetzt die Frage durch einen weitaus produktiveren, soziolinguistisch und sprachsoziologisch modernen Ansatz, nämlich der Frage, inwiefern und durch welche sprachlichen Merkmale sich Sprecher als “Scots-Sprecher” identifizieren. Der Begriff der sprachlichen Identität wird somit dynamisch und bewegt sich weg von eher historisch oder regional geprägten Faktoren, die zwar Einfluss auf die Identitätsbildung haben können, diese aber nicht schlussendlich deterministisch bestimmen. Auf dieser Grundlage erst können und sollten konkrete sprachpolitische Aussagen und Empfehlungen zum möglichen Ausbau von Sprachen und Varietäten getroffen werden. Die Arbeit gliedert sich in insgesamt acht Kapitel. Nach einer allgemeinen Einführung und Diskussion der Problematik von Sprache und Identität beschreibt Kapitel 3 “Scots in Geschichte und Gegenwart” und referiert dabei sehr hilfreich die z.T. recht komplexen Debatten bei Aitken (1981, 1982, 1985), Görlach (1991, 1998) und McClure (1988). Kapitel 4 schildert im Detail die Forschungsmethodik der vorgelegten Studie. Dabei geht Schmitt insbesondere auf Fragen der qualitativen Forschung ein. Dies wird nachvollziehbar begründet mit der Unschärfe und Multikausalität des Problems bzw. der Komplexität des Gegenstands selbst. Die acht Fragen bzw. Forschungskomplexe, die hier in dieser Studie aus qualitativer Sicht bearbeitet werden sollen, sind: 1. Kognition (die Wahrnehmung der sprachlichen Situation in Schottland); 2. Emotion (die emotionale Haltung den Varietäten gegenüber); 3. Volition (konkrete Wünsche und Bedürfnisse der Sprecher); 4. Scots (Kenntnisse über Scots); 5. Stabilität (Stabilität und Dynamik der Einstellungen); 6.
{"title":"Holger Schmitt. Sprache und Identität in Schottland. Eine qualitative Makrostudie zur Rolle des Tiefland-Schottischen (Scots)","authors":"Alexander Bergs","doi":"10.1515/ang-2012-0052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ang-2012-0052","url":null,"abstract":"Schottland zählt neben Irland sicherlich zu den englischen Sprachräumen, die seit jeher vermehrt Aufmerksamkeit auf sich ziehen. Die vorliegende Arbeit von Holger Schmitt gliedert sich daher in eine mehr oder weniger große Tradition von Arbeiten ein, die von klassischer Soziolinguistik wie Pollner (1985), Macafee (1997) oder Macaulay (1991) über Beschreibungen grammatischer Phänomene (Görlach 1985; Bergs 2005) und historische Darstellungen (Jones 1997) bis hin zu eher sprachpolitischen Abhandlungen wie McClure (1980, 1988) reicht. All diesen Arbeiten gemein jedoch scheint zu sein, dass der Gegenstandsbereich eher schwammig definiert wird. Was ist die Sprache Schottlands? Wir finden hier zum einen Gälisch, aber auch “English Standard English”. Und natürlich auch “Scottish Englisch” und “Scots”. Man fühlt sich nicht selten an den epochalen Ausruf Max Weinreichs erinnert:A shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot – “a language is a dialect with an army and navy” (Weinreich 1945, 13). In Schottland handelt es sich offenbar jedoch eher um ein Kontinuum denn um klar definierte oder definierbare Begrifflichkeiten, so dass keine aktuelle Arbeit umhinkommt, ihren Gegenstandsbereich sorgfältig zu beschreiben. Schmitt entzieht sich dieser leidvollen und doch eher fruchtlosen Diskussion in seiner Arbeit und ersetzt die Frage durch einen weitaus produktiveren, soziolinguistisch und sprachsoziologisch modernen Ansatz, nämlich der Frage, inwiefern und durch welche sprachlichen Merkmale sich Sprecher als “Scots-Sprecher” identifizieren. Der Begriff der sprachlichen Identität wird somit dynamisch und bewegt sich weg von eher historisch oder regional geprägten Faktoren, die zwar Einfluss auf die Identitätsbildung haben können, diese aber nicht schlussendlich deterministisch bestimmen. Auf dieser Grundlage erst können und sollten konkrete sprachpolitische Aussagen und Empfehlungen zum möglichen Ausbau von Sprachen und Varietäten getroffen werden. Die Arbeit gliedert sich in insgesamt acht Kapitel. Nach einer allgemeinen Einführung und Diskussion der Problematik von Sprache und Identität beschreibt Kapitel 3 “Scots in Geschichte und Gegenwart” und referiert dabei sehr hilfreich die z.T. recht komplexen Debatten bei Aitken (1981, 1982, 1985), Görlach (1991, 1998) und McClure (1988). Kapitel 4 schildert im Detail die Forschungsmethodik der vorgelegten Studie. Dabei geht Schmitt insbesondere auf Fragen der qualitativen Forschung ein. Dies wird nachvollziehbar begründet mit der Unschärfe und Multikausalität des Problems bzw. der Komplexität des Gegenstands selbst. Die acht Fragen bzw. Forschungskomplexe, die hier in dieser Studie aus qualitativer Sicht bearbeitet werden sollen, sind: 1. Kognition (die Wahrnehmung der sprachlichen Situation in Schottland); 2. Emotion (die emotionale Haltung den Varietäten gegenüber); 3. Volition (konkrete Wünsche und Bedürfnisse der Sprecher); 4. Scots (Kenntnisse über Scots); 5. Stabilität (Stabilität und Dynamik der Einstellungen); 6.","PeriodicalId":43572,"journal":{"name":"ANGLIA-ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ENGLISCHE PHILOLOGIE","volume":"15 1","pages":"280 - 283"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84991860","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
tory of Medieval English Literature. Ed. David Wallace. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 152–176. Hornstein, Lillian H. 1967. “Eustace–Constance–Florence–Griselda Legends”. Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050–1500. Vol. I: Romances. Ed. J. Burke Severs. New Haven: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. 120– 132. Pearsall, Derek. 1985. “Middle English Romance and its Audiences”. Historical and Editorial Studies in Medieval and Early Modern English for Johan Gerritsen. Ed. Mary Jo Arn & Hanneke Wirtjes. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff. 37– 47.
中世纪英国文学的故事艾德，大卫·华莱士。剑桥:剑桥向上。152 - 176。霍恩斯坦，莉莲H. 1967。“Eustace-Constance-Florence-Griselda传说”。中古英语写作手册(1050-1500)第一卷:浪漫。埃德·j·伯克·塞弗斯。纽黑文:康涅狄格艺术与科学学院。120 - 132。德里克·皮尔索尔1985。“中古英语浪漫主义及其受众”。约翰·格里特森的中世纪和早期现代英语的历史和编辑研究。Ed. Mary Jo Arn和Hanneke Wirtjes。格罗宁根:Wolters-Noordhoff。37 - 47。
{"title":"John Gower, Trilingual Poet: Language, Translation and Tradition. John Gower. Poems on Contemporary Events: The Visio Anglie (1381) and Cronica tripertita (1400)","authors":"Rory G. Critten","doi":"10.1515/ang-2012-0033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ang-2012-0033","url":null,"abstract":"tory of Medieval English Literature. Ed. David Wallace. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 152–176. Hornstein, Lillian H. 1967. “Eustace–Constance–Florence–Griselda Legends”. Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050–1500. Vol. I: Romances. Ed. J. Burke Severs. New Haven: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. 120– 132. Pearsall, Derek. 1985. “Middle English Romance and its Audiences”. Historical and Editorial Studies in Medieval and Early Modern English for Johan Gerritsen. Ed. Mary Jo Arn & Hanneke Wirtjes. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff. 37– 47.","PeriodicalId":43572,"journal":{"name":"ANGLIA-ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ENGLISCHE PHILOLOGIE","volume":"76 1","pages":"168 - 171"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74286172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
(although one would have welcomed a clear statement on which “good” narratives he thinks overcome the moral relativism of the more exploitative texts). Overall, the excess of evil in literature seems to flourish particularly in postmodern poetics and in American culture. True, Puschmann-Nalenz touches on some texts, but in general there is a paucity of “Anglophone”, i.e. non-American, nonEnglish literature in the volume. Surely Irish literature would have produced wonderful material, and the missing case of Martin McDonagh also points to a second blind spot in the collection: the almost complete absence of theatre and drama. Kathleen Starck addresses issues of ethnicity in her essay on the demonization of black male characters in American film. She singles out a somewhat predictable target, The Birth of a Nation, and compares it unfavourably with Richard Wright’s Native Son. Ethnicity is also the focus of Jutta Ernst’s contribution on Native American fiction that, interestingly, does not seem to conclude with a unifying, specific stance on evil in her texts. As the editors concede in their introduction, the concept of evil is so versatile and blurry that it embraces a vast, potentially unlimited territory, uncharted even in this rich volume, between resurgent moral binaries, an entanglement of good and evil, a variety of psycho-social analyses of evil that are so frequent in literature and the acceptance of a residual degree of inexplicable autonomy in evil. All in all, this is an intelligent and inspiring edition, prepared, with few exceptions, to generally high editorial standards. Its diversity, however, may compromise its usefulness as an “introductory survey of the phenomenon of evil in Anglophone literatures and cultures” (6), a claim made in the introduction.
{"title":"Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable","authors":"U. Schaefer","doi":"10.1515/ang-2012-0030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ang-2012-0030","url":null,"abstract":"(although one would have welcomed a clear statement on which “good” narratives he thinks overcome the moral relativism of the more exploitative texts). Overall, the excess of evil in literature seems to flourish particularly in postmodern poetics and in American culture. True, Puschmann-Nalenz touches on some texts, but in general there is a paucity of “Anglophone”, i.e. non-American, nonEnglish literature in the volume. Surely Irish literature would have produced wonderful material, and the missing case of Martin McDonagh also points to a second blind spot in the collection: the almost complete absence of theatre and drama. Kathleen Starck addresses issues of ethnicity in her essay on the demonization of black male characters in American film. She singles out a somewhat predictable target, The Birth of a Nation, and compares it unfavourably with Richard Wright’s Native Son. Ethnicity is also the focus of Jutta Ernst’s contribution on Native American fiction that, interestingly, does not seem to conclude with a unifying, specific stance on evil in her texts. As the editors concede in their introduction, the concept of evil is so versatile and blurry that it embraces a vast, potentially unlimited territory, uncharted even in this rich volume, between resurgent moral binaries, an entanglement of good and evil, a variety of psycho-social analyses of evil that are so frequent in literature and the acceptance of a residual degree of inexplicable autonomy in evil. All in all, this is an intelligent and inspiring edition, prepared, with few exceptions, to generally high editorial standards. Its diversity, however, may compromise its usefulness as an “introductory survey of the phenomenon of evil in Anglophone literatures and cultures” (6), a claim made in the introduction.","PeriodicalId":43572,"journal":{"name":"ANGLIA-ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ENGLISCHE PHILOLOGIE","volume":"10 1","pages":"148 - 151"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74906345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Typen geordnet vorstellt. Obwohl die Übersetzertätigkeit König Alfreds mittlerweile angezweifelt wird und Papahagi die einschlägige Literatur rezipiert hat, hat er den fünften, 2001 erschienenen Aufsatz “Res pæne inusitata: Alfred and Notker Translating Boethius” (179–199) in Hinblick darauf nicht umgeschrieben (vgl. S. 179, Anm. 1– 2). Dem grundsätzlichen Vergleich zweier Übertragungen in germanische Sprachen mit den jeweiligen Schwierigkeiten, Modifikationen und erklärenden Zusätzen tut dies keinen Abbruch. In Kapitel 6, “The Old English Boethius and the Distichs of Cato” (201–204), zieht Papahagi aufgrund der auffälligen Verwendung der seltenen Wörter wyrd (‘fatum’, vgl. Kap. 2) und wandrian in einem altenglischen distichum Catonis eine Verbindung zu König Alfreds Übersetzungstätigkeit (s. dazu oben). – Eine kleine Bemerkung zur Übersetzung des lateinischen Textes, S. 202, Anm. 10: Subjekt zu amministrat ist Deus. Die Bibliographie (205–223), sorgfältig erarbeitet wie die beiden Indices, der Index Codicum (225–226) und der Index Nominum (227–228), ist mehr als ein Nachweis der zitierten Werke, nämlich eine Zusammenstellung der einschlägigen Boethius-Literatur, in der sich auch Titel von C.S. Lewis und Benedikt XVI. (vgl. S. 37, Anm. 3 und 4) finden. In der exemplarischen Auseinandersetzung mit der Quelle selbst und in der Diskussion der Forschungsliteratur liegt die Stärke dieses inhaltsreichen Bändchens.
{"title":"Anonymous Interpolations in Ælfric’s Lives of Saints","authors":"V. Pakis","doi":"10.1515/ang-2012-0046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ang-2012-0046","url":null,"abstract":"Typen geordnet vorstellt. Obwohl die Übersetzertätigkeit König Alfreds mittlerweile angezweifelt wird und Papahagi die einschlägige Literatur rezipiert hat, hat er den fünften, 2001 erschienenen Aufsatz “Res pæne inusitata: Alfred and Notker Translating Boethius” (179–199) in Hinblick darauf nicht umgeschrieben (vgl. S. 179, Anm. 1– 2). Dem grundsätzlichen Vergleich zweier Übertragungen in germanische Sprachen mit den jeweiligen Schwierigkeiten, Modifikationen und erklärenden Zusätzen tut dies keinen Abbruch. In Kapitel 6, “The Old English Boethius and the Distichs of Cato” (201–204), zieht Papahagi aufgrund der auffälligen Verwendung der seltenen Wörter wyrd (‘fatum’, vgl. Kap. 2) und wandrian in einem altenglischen distichum Catonis eine Verbindung zu König Alfreds Übersetzungstätigkeit (s. dazu oben). – Eine kleine Bemerkung zur Übersetzung des lateinischen Textes, S. 202, Anm. 10: Subjekt zu amministrat ist Deus. Die Bibliographie (205–223), sorgfältig erarbeitet wie die beiden Indices, der Index Codicum (225–226) und der Index Nominum (227–228), ist mehr als ein Nachweis der zitierten Werke, nämlich eine Zusammenstellung der einschlägigen Boethius-Literatur, in der sich auch Titel von C.S. Lewis und Benedikt XVI. (vgl. S. 37, Anm. 3 und 4) finden. In der exemplarischen Auseinandersetzung mit der Quelle selbst und in der Diskussion der Forschungsliteratur liegt die Stärke dieses inhaltsreichen Bändchens.","PeriodicalId":43572,"journal":{"name":"ANGLIA-ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ENGLISCHE PHILOLOGIE","volume":"17 1","pages":"291 - 293"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82907917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad & Edward Finegan. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Longman. Brinton, Laurel J. & Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 2005. Lexicalization and Language Change. Research Surveys in Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Mair, Christian. 2006. Twentieth-Century English. History, Variation, and Standardization. Studies in English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
{"title":"Phonological Weakness in English: From Old English to Present-day English","authors":"Robert Mailhammer","doi":"10.1515/ang-2012-0028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ang-2012-0028","url":null,"abstract":"Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad & Edward Finegan. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Longman. Brinton, Laurel J. & Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 2005. Lexicalization and Language Change. Research Surveys in Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Mair, Christian. 2006. Twentieth-Century English. History, Variation, and Standardization. Studies in English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.","PeriodicalId":43572,"journal":{"name":"ANGLIA-ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ENGLISCHE PHILOLOGIE","volume":"951 1","pages":"155 - 158"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85545249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
and Shashi Deshpande’s essays discuss the significance of global success for Indian English literature as well as at home. Other essay’s by Bharati Mukherjee, Nissim Ezekiel, Nalini Natarajan, Vijay Mishra, and Jsabir Jain address the ‘cross-cultural’ encounters in the Indian fiction, diaspora, nation-state and the self. In all, the collection is broad and diverse. But for a volume on South Asia, Indian literature and Indian contributions dominate the book. And the collection could have benefited from the inclusion of the anthropological works on “jajmani system” and “village communities”, which were central to the early Orientalist scholarship. Among other missing components are the writings by the Subaltern Studies group; the agrarian strife and the peasant movements in the early 20th century. Having said that, however, the collection succeeds in bringing a wide selection of scholarly works on South Asia to the readers both within and outside of the region. The essays are written in a clear and concise manner; the absence theoretical jargon also makes this collection accessible to non-specialist readers.
{"title":"Patrick O’Donnell. The American Novel Now: Reading Contemporary American Fiction Since 1980","authors":"Christoph Ribbat","doi":"10.1515/ang-2012-0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ang-2012-0018","url":null,"abstract":"and Shashi Deshpande’s essays discuss the significance of global success for Indian English literature as well as at home. Other essay’s by Bharati Mukherjee, Nissim Ezekiel, Nalini Natarajan, Vijay Mishra, and Jsabir Jain address the ‘cross-cultural’ encounters in the Indian fiction, diaspora, nation-state and the self. In all, the collection is broad and diverse. But for a volume on South Asia, Indian literature and Indian contributions dominate the book. And the collection could have benefited from the inclusion of the anthropological works on “jajmani system” and “village communities”, which were central to the early Orientalist scholarship. Among other missing components are the writings by the Subaltern Studies group; the agrarian strife and the peasant movements in the early 20th century. Having said that, however, the collection succeeds in bringing a wide selection of scholarly works on South Asia to the readers both within and outside of the region. The essays are written in a clear and concise manner; the absence theoretical jargon also makes this collection accessible to non-specialist readers.","PeriodicalId":43572,"journal":{"name":"ANGLIA-ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ENGLISCHE PHILOLOGIE","volume":"5 1","pages":"142 - 144"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76078942","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The title of this volume, Literature and the Environment, may at first seem to indicate a more traditional ecocritical focus on environmentally themed fiction and nature writing, but it proves a flexible choice that allows the inclusion of a wide range of diverging critical approaches to environmental crisis in a broad sense. Indeed, the study points out that, considering the ultimately inconceivable apocalyptic potential of phenomena like climate change and overpopulation, the lack of any “recognized” and standardized bundle of methods may ultimately be one of ecocriticism’s salient qualities: “the unprecedented challenge ... may be the need, literally, to think everything, even to think everything at once” (203). What characterizes ecocriticism, then, is the attempt to overcome boundaries between disciplines and forms of “knowing” the world that have long been considered incompatible, in an effort not only to restructure the relationship of the cultural to the natural world, but also to reconsider what these very concepts might mean. Clark emphasizes that what is called into question is nothing less than “the now dominant liberal humanist conception of the human self” (65), along with its ideas of individual liberty and individual rights. This is a bold and far-reaching statement that needs careful differentiation, especially in an introductory work: while we unquestionably have to rethink what deserves to be recognized as a “right”, few ecocritics would wish to abolish the concept itself. Likewise, although the author is right that environmental damage cannot be kept in check without effective legislation and an “engagement with those national and global structures of economics and forms of government that are ultimately more responsible” (136) than individual lifestyle decisions, this should not lead us to make light of our own, individual, share of responsibilities. Giving an introduction to so polymorphic a field is a tricky task, even more so as the author announces in his preface that he aims for “a tighter synthesis” than the existing essay collections were able to achieve, a “lucid conceptual introduction more familiar to other schools of literary or cultural theory” (xiii). But Clark does indeed meet the challenge. Manageably structured into an introductory outline of the field of study plus twenty concise, thematic chapters, each about ten pages in length, and written in a highly readable style that still tries to avoid reductions and provoke thought, the book is certainly a suitable source for students wishing to get a general overview of the subject area. Lists of further reading, a detailed index and highlighted boxes with additional examples and explanations, as well as socalled “quandaries” (ongoing critical debates and unresolved conflicts), contribute to its user-friendly lucidity. In terms of content, the volume makes a point of demonstrating the wide scope of concerns connected with the study of literature and the environment
{"title":"Timothy Clark. The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and the Environment","authors":"Christina Caupert","doi":"10.1515/ang-2012-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ang-2012-0008","url":null,"abstract":"The title of this volume, Literature and the Environment, may at first seem to indicate a more traditional ecocritical focus on environmentally themed fiction and nature writing, but it proves a flexible choice that allows the inclusion of a wide range of diverging critical approaches to environmental crisis in a broad sense. Indeed, the study points out that, considering the ultimately inconceivable apocalyptic potential of phenomena like climate change and overpopulation, the lack of any “recognized” and standardized bundle of methods may ultimately be one of ecocriticism’s salient qualities: “the unprecedented challenge ... may be the need, literally, to think everything, even to think everything at once” (203). What characterizes ecocriticism, then, is the attempt to overcome boundaries between disciplines and forms of “knowing” the world that have long been considered incompatible, in an effort not only to restructure the relationship of the cultural to the natural world, but also to reconsider what these very concepts might mean. Clark emphasizes that what is called into question is nothing less than “the now dominant liberal humanist conception of the human self” (65), along with its ideas of individual liberty and individual rights. This is a bold and far-reaching statement that needs careful differentiation, especially in an introductory work: while we unquestionably have to rethink what deserves to be recognized as a “right”, few ecocritics would wish to abolish the concept itself. Likewise, although the author is right that environmental damage cannot be kept in check without effective legislation and an “engagement with those national and global structures of economics and forms of government that are ultimately more responsible” (136) than individual lifestyle decisions, this should not lead us to make light of our own, individual, share of responsibilities. Giving an introduction to so polymorphic a field is a tricky task, even more so as the author announces in his preface that he aims for “a tighter synthesis” than the existing essay collections were able to achieve, a “lucid conceptual introduction more familiar to other schools of literary or cultural theory” (xiii). But Clark does indeed meet the challenge. Manageably structured into an introductory outline of the field of study plus twenty concise, thematic chapters, each about ten pages in length, and written in a highly readable style that still tries to avoid reductions and provoke thought, the book is certainly a suitable source for students wishing to get a general overview of the subject area. Lists of further reading, a detailed index and highlighted boxes with additional examples and explanations, as well as socalled “quandaries” (ongoing critical debates and unresolved conflicts), contribute to its user-friendly lucidity. In terms of content, the volume makes a point of demonstrating the wide scope of concerns connected with the study of literature and the environment","PeriodicalId":43572,"journal":{"name":"ANGLIA-ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ENGLISCHE PHILOLOGIE","volume":"60 1","pages":"130 - 131"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91167717","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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