dragos ivana | University of Bucharest (original) (raw)

Papers by dragos ivana

The present article focuses on transatlantic female quixotism, as enacted by Tabitha Tenney's her... more The present article focuses on transatlantic female quixotism, as enacted by Tabitha Tenney's heroine, Dorcasina Sheldon. I argue that quixotism can be read as an interface between the events of the story and the Federalist conservative discourse that underlies them. In doing so, I claim that, in terms of gender, the heroine's misreading of romances transforms her into a political tool whereby the ideals of female freedom and agency, social mobility, gender equality, racial equity and abolitionism—effective under Thomas Jefferson's administration—are satirically depicted and seen as delusory in post-Revolutionary America. In terms of generic categories, I will show how Female Quixotism blurs the epistemological boundaries between truth and fiction by juxtaposing novel and romance, used interchangeably, with history.

The purpose of this article is to reexamine popular culture in early-modern England by focusing o... more The purpose of this article is to reexamine popular culture in early-modern England by focusing on the oral/illiterate-written/literate and popular culture-high culture dyads. I aim to question why these interrelated socio-cultural categories have not been properly reconciled by the writers of the time. Moreover, my purpose is to focus on antiquarianism as a valid method whereby the delineation between the above-mentioned dichotomies turns into a subtle relationship in which both terms become complementary. I shall focus on two important antiquarian texts – Henry Bourne's Antiquitates Vulgares (1725) and John Brand's Observations on Popular Antiquities (1777) – by considering issues of religion and national identity, in an attempt to show that popular culture made known its counter-hegemonic virtues which, though permanently negotiated, were never rejected by the polite. Ultimately, the unstable relationship between the high and the low will be seen as suggestive of the porous boundaries between the two, indicating, at the same time, popular culture's participatory role in rethinking cultural identity in Enlightenment England.

Aiming to explore the importance of emotions in eighteenth-century England, the seminar addresses... more Aiming to explore the importance of emotions in eighteenth-century England, the seminar addresses a wide array of questions related to the relationship between feelings and politics, the bourgeois novel of sentiment, the new cult of sensibility epitomised by the Man of Feeling, moral philosophy, economics, gender relations and aesthetic experience. Special attention will be paid to the process of negotiating public and private emotions with a view to highlighting forms of feeling that have been deemed responsible for the emergence of a politics of sensibility upheld not only by various groups and class identities but also by rhetorical and stylistic strategies meant to represent sensibility as both forma mentis and modus operandi.

Read through the lens of eighteenth-century moral philosophy works, Quixotism is viewed in the pr... more Read through the lens of eighteenth-century moral philosophy works, Quixotism is viewed in the present paper as a political discourse meant to carry out a moral reform in a value-free world (cf. Alasdair MacIntyre). I am trying to argue that the hypertexts tackled here (Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews) and Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote, as well as Henry Mackenzie's novel The Man of Feeling can be regarded as types of quixotism which differ from their original hero, Don Quixote, in that eighteenth-century Quixotes see what all the others can see, but distort reality in order to reconstruct it according to their own precepts. In other words, they are producers of reality or, in Mackezie's case, oversentimental Quixotes driven by unprincipled feelings in their inability to "read" the world properly.

Analele Stiinţifice-Seria Filologie, Vol. XXIII, No. 1/2012

My article explores three major aspects revealed by Fielding's comic play Don Quixote in England ... more My article explores three major aspects revealed by Fielding's comic play Don Quixote in England (1734). First, Don Quixote was a model bluntly imitated by Fielding in order to scrutinise the status quo in England, to compare and negotiate the difference between Spanish and English cultural identity and, consequently, to underline a crisis of English political identity. Second, Fielding buttressed the authority of the English Don Quixote construed as a metonymy of sound judgement and ethical conduct. Third, Fielding's imitation -which markedly denounces Horace Walpole's corrupted political system -capitalises on the politics of comic representation launched by Dryden under the form of utile and dulce, with the latter as the final aim. Strengthened by Shaftesbury's philosophy of good nature and universal benevolence, the Horatian pronouncement of moral didacticism and delight determined Addison and Steele to oppose an amiable Whiggish laughter to a sarcastic, satirical type of laughter proposed by the Tories. Though the new sympathetic laughter of pure comedy encouraged, according to Addison, dulce rather than utile, my argument is that Fielding linked the moral sanction of the Tory satire to the Whiggish new meaning of humour as a sympathetic foible, and of comedy as release. . Investigating the epistemological nature of examples in the

Modernity has become an inexhaustible source of observation and analysis, which underlies the con... more Modernity has become an inexhaustible source of observation and analysis, which underlies the contemporary agenda of cultural studies minutely tackled from the point of view of cultural traditions, cultural transgressions, cultural paradigms, and remapping of cultural boundaries. Recent studies have proven that its inexhaustibility derives from its "second typical dimension", that is, the identity between "time and self" (Călinescu 1995: 17), understood as accumulation in time or what L'École des Annales has termed as la long durée.

Language, Literature and Culture in Present-Day Context: Contemporary Research Perspectives in Anglophone PhD Studies

Imitatio-Inventio: The Rise of ‘Literature’ from Early to Classic Modernity

Etudes sur le XVIIIe siècle

British and American Studies, 2011

Books by dragos ivana

The present article focuses on transatlantic female quixotism, as enacted by Tabitha Tenney's her... more The present article focuses on transatlantic female quixotism, as enacted by Tabitha Tenney's heroine, Dorcasina Sheldon. I argue that quixotism can be read as an interface between the events of the story and the Federalist conservative discourse that underlies them. In doing so, I claim that, in terms of gender, the heroine's misreading of romances transforms her into a political tool whereby the ideals of female freedom and agency, social mobility, gender equality, racial equity and abolitionism—effective under Thomas Jefferson's administration—are satirically depicted and seen as delusory in post-Revolutionary America. In terms of generic categories, I will show how Female Quixotism blurs the epistemological boundaries between truth and fiction by juxtaposing novel and romance, used interchangeably, with history.

The purpose of this article is to reexamine popular culture in early-modern England by focusing o... more The purpose of this article is to reexamine popular culture in early-modern England by focusing on the oral/illiterate-written/literate and popular culture-high culture dyads. I aim to question why these interrelated socio-cultural categories have not been properly reconciled by the writers of the time. Moreover, my purpose is to focus on antiquarianism as a valid method whereby the delineation between the above-mentioned dichotomies turns into a subtle relationship in which both terms become complementary. I shall focus on two important antiquarian texts – Henry Bourne's Antiquitates Vulgares (1725) and John Brand's Observations on Popular Antiquities (1777) – by considering issues of religion and national identity, in an attempt to show that popular culture made known its counter-hegemonic virtues which, though permanently negotiated, were never rejected by the polite. Ultimately, the unstable relationship between the high and the low will be seen as suggestive of the porous boundaries between the two, indicating, at the same time, popular culture's participatory role in rethinking cultural identity in Enlightenment England.

Aiming to explore the importance of emotions in eighteenth-century England, the seminar addresses... more Aiming to explore the importance of emotions in eighteenth-century England, the seminar addresses a wide array of questions related to the relationship between feelings and politics, the bourgeois novel of sentiment, the new cult of sensibility epitomised by the Man of Feeling, moral philosophy, economics, gender relations and aesthetic experience. Special attention will be paid to the process of negotiating public and private emotions with a view to highlighting forms of feeling that have been deemed responsible for the emergence of a politics of sensibility upheld not only by various groups and class identities but also by rhetorical and stylistic strategies meant to represent sensibility as both forma mentis and modus operandi.

Read through the lens of eighteenth-century moral philosophy works, Quixotism is viewed in the pr... more Read through the lens of eighteenth-century moral philosophy works, Quixotism is viewed in the present paper as a political discourse meant to carry out a moral reform in a value-free world (cf. Alasdair MacIntyre). I am trying to argue that the hypertexts tackled here (Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews) and Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote, as well as Henry Mackenzie's novel The Man of Feeling can be regarded as types of quixotism which differ from their original hero, Don Quixote, in that eighteenth-century Quixotes see what all the others can see, but distort reality in order to reconstruct it according to their own precepts. In other words, they are producers of reality or, in Mackezie's case, oversentimental Quixotes driven by unprincipled feelings in their inability to "read" the world properly.

Analele Stiinţifice-Seria Filologie, Vol. XXIII, No. 1/2012

My article explores three major aspects revealed by Fielding's comic play Don Quixote in England ... more My article explores three major aspects revealed by Fielding's comic play Don Quixote in England (1734). First, Don Quixote was a model bluntly imitated by Fielding in order to scrutinise the status quo in England, to compare and negotiate the difference between Spanish and English cultural identity and, consequently, to underline a crisis of English political identity. Second, Fielding buttressed the authority of the English Don Quixote construed as a metonymy of sound judgement and ethical conduct. Third, Fielding's imitation -which markedly denounces Horace Walpole's corrupted political system -capitalises on the politics of comic representation launched by Dryden under the form of utile and dulce, with the latter as the final aim. Strengthened by Shaftesbury's philosophy of good nature and universal benevolence, the Horatian pronouncement of moral didacticism and delight determined Addison and Steele to oppose an amiable Whiggish laughter to a sarcastic, satirical type of laughter proposed by the Tories. Though the new sympathetic laughter of pure comedy encouraged, according to Addison, dulce rather than utile, my argument is that Fielding linked the moral sanction of the Tory satire to the Whiggish new meaning of humour as a sympathetic foible, and of comedy as release. . Investigating the epistemological nature of examples in the

Modernity has become an inexhaustible source of observation and analysis, which underlies the con... more Modernity has become an inexhaustible source of observation and analysis, which underlies the contemporary agenda of cultural studies minutely tackled from the point of view of cultural traditions, cultural transgressions, cultural paradigms, and remapping of cultural boundaries. Recent studies have proven that its inexhaustibility derives from its "second typical dimension", that is, the identity between "time and self" (Călinescu 1995: 17), understood as accumulation in time or what L'École des Annales has termed as la long durée.

Language, Literature and Culture in Present-Day Context: Contemporary Research Perspectives in Anglophone PhD Studies

Imitatio-Inventio: The Rise of ‘Literature’ from Early to Classic Modernity

Etudes sur le XVIIIe siècle

British and American Studies, 2011