Literature

12 pages, 996 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Projected on the Dusk: Seeking Cinema in 1910s and 1920s Japanese Poetry

by Andrew Campana

Literature 2023, 3(1), 133-144; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3010011 - 7 Mar 2023

Viewed by 2194

In this article, I explore a set of poetic works from early 20th-century Japan that took cinema—films, movie theaters, screenings, sets, and a variety of cinematic technologies—as their main subject. An enormous range of poets, including some of modern Japanese poetry’s most canonical [...] Read more.

In this article, I explore a set of poetic works from early 20th-century Japan that took cinema—films, movie theaters, screenings, sets, and a variety of cinematic technologies—as their main subject. An enormous range of poets, including some of modern Japanese poetry’s most canonical figures, took a diverse set of approaches to the subject matter, but all were less interested in portraying films themselves, and more in how poetry could use “cinema” and the “cinematic” to grapple with questions of memory, media, ecology, the body, and social change. Looking at these works—most of which appear here in English for the first time—we can find a new archive of early cinematic thought and sensation not bound to the screen. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Things, Space, and Sensation in, around, and through Modern Japanese Literature in Print (circa 1910–1990))

10 pages, 243 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sound, Smell, Objects, and the Discursive Space of Nagai Kafū’s 1920s Fiction

by Gala Maria Follaco

Literature 2023, 3(1), 123-132; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3010010 - 23 Feb 2023

Viewed by 1604

Abstract

Throughout his life, Nagai Kafū (1879–1959) tackled crucial issues of modernity, such as the urban experience and conflicting notions of selfhood. This article explores some aspects of his narrative practice that enrich our understanding of his literary output while suggesting new avenues for [...] Read more.

Throughout his life, Nagai Kafū (1879–1959) tackled crucial issues of modernity, such as the urban experience and conflicting notions of selfhood. This article explores some aspects of his narrative practice that enrich our understanding of his literary output while suggesting new avenues for future research on space-time representation in twentieth-century literature. I focus on passive senses such as hearing and smell, and on material objects and physical sensations as narrative devices employed by the author in order to broaden comprehension and enrich the experience of objective reality. In particular, I examine Yukidoke (Melting Snow), a 1922 short story understudied thus far but that offers useful insights as regards the author’s intent to defy superimposed notions of affect and space. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Things, Space, and Sensation in, around, and through Modern Japanese Literature in Print (circa 1910–1990))

11 pages, 222 KiB

Open AccessArticle

“That Day Does Not Belong to Our Generation”: Komatsu Sakyō’s Affective Futurities

by Baryon Tensor Posadas

Literature 2023, 3(1), 112-122; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3010009 - 16 Feb 2023

Viewed by 1545

Abstract

Commentary that observes the frequency of the appearances of images of disaster pervades much of the discourse surrounding postwar Japanese popular culture, and especially Japanese science fiction. Against such approaches, I argue that it is more productive to read these narratives of disaster [...] Read more.

Commentary that observes the frequency of the appearances of images of disaster pervades much of the discourse surrounding postwar Japanese popular culture, and especially Japanese science fiction. Against such approaches, I argue that it is more productive to read these narratives of disaster through the critical lens of the genre’s engagement with the problem of futurity. My contention then is that these narratives of disaster do not merely function as imaginative repetitions or re-enactments of past events, but also take on an anticipatory quality, affectively preparing and the ground for and pre-empting responses to future events. I examine the work of Komatsu Sakyō (1931–2011) in particular, whose writing makes for an illustrative test case for articulating the premediative dimension of disaster narratives in postwar Japanese science fiction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Things, Space, and Sensation in, around, and through Modern Japanese Literature in Print (circa 1910–1990))

18 pages, 892 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Rhythm of Breath in Natsume Sōseki’s Recollecting and Such

by Matthew Mewhinney

Literature 2023, 3(1), 94-111; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3010008 - 8 Feb 2023

Viewed by 2674

Abstract

This article examines Japanese novelist Natsume Sōseki’s (1867–1916) memoir Recollecting and Such (Omoidasu koto nado; 1910). I argue that Sōseki invites the reader to imagine breath through his literary representation of both physiological and metaphysical experience and the rhythm of the [...] Read more.

This article examines Japanese novelist Natsume Sōseki’s (1867–1916) memoir Recollecting and Such (Omoidasu koto nado; 1910). I argue that Sōseki invites the reader to imagine breath through his literary representation of both physiological and metaphysical experience and the rhythm of the narrative’s experimental poetic form. In concert with the theme of this special issue, I show how Recollecting and Such self-reflexively restores and evokes the corporeal experience of sensation beyond just visual perception: the narrative reveals itself as a poetic form of measurement and its first-person narrator a “rhythmanalyst”, someone who listens to the internal rhythms of his own body and then to that of the external world (Henri Lefebvre). The narrator’s awareness of the duration, frequency, and intensity of sensation as well as his regular compositions of metered verse—haiku and kanshi (traditional Chinese poetry as practiced in Japan; Sinitic verse)—are ways that the narrative measures the limits of life, memory, and sensory experience. The oscillation between prose and poetry in the narrative generates an organic rhythm, simulating the long and short breaths of a convalescing body, which invites the reader to breathe together—“to conspire” in the literal sense—with the text as a form of sympathy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Things, Space, and Sensation in, around, and through Modern Japanese Literature in Print (circa 1910–1990))

12 pages, 268 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Aristotelian Time, Ethics, and the Art of Persuasion in Shakespeare’s Henry V

by Christopher Crosbie

Literature 2023, 3(1), 82-93; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3010007 - 31 Jan 2023

Viewed by 2148

Abstract

In his response to the Dauphin, his threats before Harfleur’s walls, and his St. Crispin’s Day oration, Henry V deploys what we might call proleptic histories of the present as a means of rhetorical persuasion. Henry invites his audiences, that is, to imagine [...] Read more.

In his response to the Dauphin, his threats before Harfleur’s walls, and his St. Crispin’s Day oration, Henry V deploys what we might call proleptic histories of the present as a means of rhetorical persuasion. Henry invites his audiences, that is, to imagine themselves in the future, understanding the present as part of their own history. Henry’s invocation of an imagined future that understands the present as a theoretical past betrays a surprising indebtedness to Aristotle’s notion of time as “a measure of change with respect to the before and after.” Drawing on Aristotle’s theory that time depends upon a perceiving mind and that those unconscious of change mistakenly “join up the latter ‘now’ to the former and make it one,” this essay argues that Henry succeeds in altering his auditors’ behavior, and thus generating the history he desires, by merging their shared, lived present with his own fictive temporalities. A mode of persuasion famous in its ethical ambivalence, Henry’s rhetoric reveals how the very ontological assumptions governing perceptions of time may be manipulated, for good or ill, amid audiences who fail to critically envisage their own counterbalancing, imaginative histories. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Times They Are A-changin’: Temporal Shifts in Early Modern Drama)

2 pages, 132 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Acknowledgment to the Reviewers of Literature in 2022

by Literature Editorial Office

Literature 2023, 3(1), 80-81; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3010006 - 16 Jan 2023

Viewed by 938

Abstract

High-quality academic publishing is built on rigorous peer review [...] Full article

14 pages, 301 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Henri Bergson’s Haunted Epistemology: Consciousness Unframed

by Adam Lovasz

Literature 2023, 3(1), 66-79; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3010005 - 9 Jan 2023

Viewed by 2371

Abstract

In his main work, Matter and Memory, Henri Bergson presents a panpsychist ontology which cuts through the Gordian knot of the mind vs. matter problem. Taking this age-old philosophical topic, Bergson pushes the dualism of mind and matter beyond breaking point. Matter [...] Read more.

In his main work, Matter and Memory, Henri Bergson presents a panpsychist ontology which cuts through the Gordian knot of the mind vs. matter problem. Taking this age-old philosophical topic, Bergson pushes the dualism of mind and matter beyond breaking point. Matter is reconceived as the sum of all images. Bergson introduces the dual concepts of cosmic “perception” and cosmic “memory”. Matter itself is reinterpreted as a continuum of all possible intensities of perception and memory. Bergson’s ontology has important epistemological ramifications. There is no sharp dividing line between consciousness and matter. In light of these insights, I propose a reading of Bergson’s relatively lesser-known lecture, “‘Phantasms of the Living’ and Psychical Research”, presented at the Society for Psychical Research in 1913. Here, Bergson elaborates upon the implications of his image-ontology for the possible post mortem fate of consciousness. In my concluding remarks, I suggest that Bergson’s observations may be of help in constructing an anti-reductionist and indeterministic epistemology. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Epistemologies in 20th Century French Literature and Thought)

24 pages, 1106 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Register-Based Study of Interior Monologue in James Joyce’s Ulysses

by Volker Gast, Christian Wehmeier and Dirk Vanderbeke

Literature 2023, 3(1), 42-65; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3010004 - 6 Jan 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2676

Abstract

While fictional orality (spoken language in fictional texts) has received some attention in the context of quantitative register studies at the interface of linguistics and literature, only a few attempts have been made so far to apply the quantitative methods of register studies [...] Read more.

While fictional orality (spoken language in fictional texts) has received some attention in the context of quantitative register studies at the interface of linguistics and literature, only a few attempts have been made so far to apply the quantitative methods of register studies to interior monologues (and other forms of inner speech or thought representation). This article presents a case study of the three main characters of James Joyce’s Ulysses whose thoughts are presented extensively in the novel, i.e., Leopold and Molly Bloom and Stephen Dedalus. Making use of quantitative, corpus-based methods, the thoughts of these characters are compared to fictional direct speech and (literary and non-literary) reference texts. We show that the interior monologues of Ulysses span a range of non-narrative registers with varying degrees of informational density and involvement. The thoughts of one character, Leopold Bloom, differ substantially from that character’s speech. The relative heterogeneity across characters is taken as an indication that interior monologue is used as a means of perspective taking and implicit characterization. Full article

► Show Figures

Figure 1

12 pages, 275 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Misfortunes of a Genre: Prins by César Aira as an Allegory of the Gothic

by José Mariano García

Literature 2023, 3(1), 30-41; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3010003 - 3 Jan 2023

Viewed by 1322

Abstract

The gothic genre in Latin American literature has been the object of fashionable interest in recent decades and seems to absorb all the elements of the politically correct agenda; however, in the current trend of absolute presentism that seems regular in the critics, [...] Read more.

The gothic genre in Latin American literature has been the object of fashionable interest in recent decades and seems to absorb all the elements of the politically correct agenda; however, in the current trend of absolute presentism that seems regular in the critics, it is not taken into account that there exists a previous tradition more or less connected with its European sources but in search of its own cultural character. I would like to comment on some specifically gothic novels published in Argentina between the 1980s and the 1990s, as well as a recent one by the prolific writer César Aira. Prins can be analyzed as an ambiguous culmination of the gothic tendency, as well as a symptom of the disorientation of a genre that threatens to become a label as broad as it is empty. Full article

11 pages, 259 KiB

Open AccessEssay

Performance Appraisal: Reinterpreting Tropic of Orange

by Greg Bevan

Literature 2023, 3(1), 19-29; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3010002 - 20 Dec 2022

Viewed by 2306

Abstract

Karen Tei Yamashita’s third novel Tropic of Orange (1997), set in Los Angeles and featuring an all-minority cast of characters and extensive use of magical realism, has been commonly received as an indictment of global capitalism. But the present study argues that such [...] Read more.

Karen Tei Yamashita’s third novel Tropic of Orange (1997), set in Los Angeles and featuring an all-minority cast of characters and extensive use of magical realism, has been commonly received as an indictment of global capitalism. But the present study argues that such an interpretation depends upon foregrounding the most didactic portions of the text, and that engagement with the enacted drama of the novel reveals a more fully developed and equally enduring theme, that of the performative nature of ethnic identity. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Magic Realism in a Transnational Context)

18 pages, 333 KiB

Open AccessArticle

In Defense of Literary Truth: A Response to Truth, Fiction, and Literature by Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen to Inquire into No-Truth Theories of Literature, Pragmatism, and the Ontology of Fictional Objects

by Paolo Pitari

Literature 2023, 3(1), 1-18; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3010001 - 20 Dec 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3219

Abstract

This article responds to the arguments put forth by Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen in Truth, Fiction, and Literature: A Philosophical Perspective (1994). It argues that the said work is representative of the widespread tendency in literary theory today to discard the [...] Read more.

This article responds to the arguments put forth by Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen in Truth, Fiction, and Literature: A Philosophical Perspective (1994). It argues that the said work is representative of the widespread tendency in literary theory today to discard the possibility of literary truth, and it provides counterarguments to the work’s main theses. Consequently, it criticizes the philosophy of pragmatism and its implications, and it offers a theory that defines fictional objects as existing and solves contradictions that commonly affect our debates on the ontology of fiction. The article does not provide a positive theory of literary truth, but it undermines its denials, which have become popular in recent decades. Full article

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

Literature, Volume 3, Issue 1 (March 2023) – 11 articles

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI