CRAFTING IMAGES: CRITICAL AND AESTHETIC DISCOURSE IN POST- CLASSICAL GREEK LITERATURE (original) (raw)
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This volume aims to bring discussions of literary and artistic modernist expressions to bear on the current debates about form and formlessness within German Studies from a genuinely interdisciplinary perspective. Such discussions reflect the prevailing contemporary concern of how the evaluation of the 'other,'whether considered as a living being or a mere object-, tells us more about the evaluator's cultural biases, than about that which is being evaluated. It is common knowledge that the human body's posture, orientation, and motions are laden with meanings that provide an account of an individual's "life as a social creature" (10); when it comes to giving an appropriate voice to the bodily expressions of 'other' within the context of German modernism, however, far more is required than to simply adopt a distanced stance, or a critical outlook based on a purely visual perception. 1 As the author points out in the volume's introduction, modernists grant an appropriate voice to their chosen bodily expressions insofar as they adopt a form of understanding which, rather than appealing to human vision, counters gravity itself (3-13). As argued in the wake of Robert Musil's Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man without Qualities, 1930), this countercurrent action is explored in the study through the modernist reception of Arthur Schopenhauer's aesthetics, Auguste Rodin's sculptures, German empathy aesthetics, Paul Klee's lectures, and, last but not least, Franz Kafka's narrative and Alfred Döblin's literary masterpiece. The study focuses on the role played throughout modernity by the challenging relationships between human mental faculties and the individual's own body, as 1 The German word Form is borrowed both from the Latin forma, i. e. 'form, figure, shape,' which in turn is borrowed from the Greek morphê (μορφή), i. e. 'form, beautiful form,' and refers to the mold and the shape of the resulting object, as well as eidos (εἶδος), meaning 'species.' Cf.
Ekphrastic (re)Turns: Thoughts at the Intersections of Rhetoric and Aesthetics
Approaches to ekphrasis fall generally into two categories: first, ekphrasis as a textual or other inter-medial re-presentation of art objects, real or imagined, and, second, ekphrasis as a literary device subsumed under and simplified as description. Specific instances of the first approach appear as early as the Eikones of Philostratus the Elder; other examples include Keats’ Ode and Lessing’s Laocoön. The second approach is more recently exemplified by the 1981 Yale French Studies special issue, Towards a Theory of Description, and any of a number of monographs and edited volumes on theories of literary description (e.g., Wolf and Bernhart, 2007). While remaining at least partially connected to the originary rhetorical notion that ekphrasis is a verbal means of ‘bringing-before-the-eyes’ of an audience something that is not physically present, both of these approaches elide the rich rhetorical associations among the idea, the act, and, primarily, the purpose of ekphrasis. This paper seeks to open a dialogue between rhetoric and aesthetics, (re)turning ekphrasis, in terms of its rhetorical capacity, to an active role in both. I suggest that ekphrasis marks a crucial intersection between aesthetics and rhetoric, specifically in terms of purposefully ‘bringing-before-the-eyes’ not only objects of art but also scenes and persons and events in ways that situate the reader, broadly considered, as a participating subject within the ekphrasis. In doing so, I extend ekphrasis from ‘bringing-before-the-eyes’ toward ‘bringing-before-the-senses.’ I provide examples that support this suggested understanding of ekphrasis from both literary works and popular and mainstream media.
Journal of Literature and Art Studies Vol.3 Issue 3 March 2013
Journal of Literature and Art Studies, a monthly professional academic journal, covers all sorts of researches on literature studies, art theory, appreciation of arts, culture and history of arts and other latest findings and achievements from experts and scholars all over the world.
A b s tr a c t. Bajer Michał, Le personnage theatral dans les approches « poetiąue » et « pratiąue » du texte dramatiąue a I 'epoąue classiąue en France [Dramatis persona in poetical and practical approach of dramatic text in 17th century French theory of theatre]. Studia Romanica Posnaniensia, Adam Mic The idea of the dramatis persona posited by the first French theatre theorists o f the Richelieu circle, Jean Chapelain and Jules de la Mesnardiere, emerges as a quite literał implementation o f the Aristotelian concepts unfolded in the sixth and fifteenth chapter o f his Poetics. In a later period, the third of the aforementioned group o f authors, Franęois Hedelin d 'Aubignac, dismisses the Aristotelian categories, erecting his theory upon the elements adopted from the Roman theory o f rhetoric. The analysis of the Persona in classical drama theory allows to reconstruct the relation between these two 1701 century dramatic approaches. The former is the traditional perspective relying on the postulations of the Aristotelian theory. The latter, which is a practical grasp, is new to the 17th century's dramatic mindset, and was formulated by abbe d'Aubignac. Whereas the axis of poetics is the structural analysis of a work of art, it is the functioning o f that work of art in the theatrical process o f communication between the stage and the audience that remains the core interest of the practical approach. In this process, the rhetorical effect of presence o f the dramatis persona should by created in the imagination of the spectator-auditor. The subject o f analysis is common to both perspectives and the discrepancies concem merely aspects o f its description. Therefore poetics and practice are neither competitive nor mutually exclusive, but can both legitimately coexist in the description o f the very same work of art.
Journal of Literature and Art Studies Vol.3 Issue 1 January 2013
Journal of Literature and Art Studies, a monthly professional academic journal, covers all sorts of researches on literature studies, art theory, appreciation of arts, culture and history of arts and other latest findings and achievements from experts and scholars all over the world.