Grant Hardy
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199731701
- eISBN:
- 9780199777167
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199731701.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature, World Religions
While the significance of the Book of Mormon in American history and religion is universally acknowledged, its complicated narrative can be bewildering to outsiders. In addition, controversy over its ...
More
While the significance of the Book of Mormon in American history and religion is universally acknowledged, its complicated narrative can be bewildering to outsiders. In addition, controversy over its historical claims tends to overshadow its contents. This book argues that whether the Book of Mormon is approached as history, fiction, or scripture, focusing on its narrative structure, and in particular on the contributions of the major narrators, allows for more comprehensive, detailed readings. The Book of Mormon is nearly unique among recent world scriptures in that it is presented as a lengthy, integrated narrative rather than a series of doctrinal expositions, moral exhortations, or devotional hymns. Joseph Smith, whether regarded as an author or translator, never speaks in his own voice in the text; nearly everything is mediated through the narrators Nephi, Mormon, and Moroni. This study takes readers through the basic characters, events, and ideas in the Book of Mormon by focusing on each of the major narrators in turn and identifying their characteristic literary techniques. Critics and believers alike can agree that someone, sometime, decided how to tell the story—where to employ direct dialogue, embedded documents, parallel narratives, allusions, and so forth. This introduction sets aside questions of ultimate authorship in order to examine how the text operates, how it makes its points, and what its message is. Despite its sometimes awkward style, the Book of Mormon has more coherence and literary interest than is often assumed.Less
While the significance of the Book of Mormon in American history and religion is universally acknowledged, its complicated narrative can be bewildering to outsiders. In addition, controversy over its historical claims tends to overshadow its contents. This book argues that whether the Book of Mormon is approached as history, fiction, or scripture, focusing on its narrative structure, and in particular on the contributions of the major narrators, allows for more comprehensive, detailed readings. The Book of Mormon is nearly unique among recent world scriptures in that it is presented as a lengthy, integrated narrative rather than a series of doctrinal expositions, moral exhortations, or devotional hymns. Joseph Smith, whether regarded as an author or translator, never speaks in his own voice in the text; nearly everything is mediated through the narrators Nephi, Mormon, and Moroni. This study takes readers through the basic characters, events, and ideas in the Book of Mormon by focusing on each of the major narrators in turn and identifying their characteristic literary techniques. Critics and believers alike can agree that someone, sometime, decided how to tell the story—where to employ direct dialogue, embedded documents, parallel narratives, allusions, and so forth. This introduction sets aside questions of ultimate authorship in order to examine how the text operates, how it makes its points, and what its message is. Despite its sometimes awkward style, the Book of Mormon has more coherence and literary interest than is often assumed.
Vivienne J. Gray
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199563814
- eISBN:
- 9780191724954
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199563814.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This Introduction briefly outlines the book. This book is about Xenophon's literary presentation of the leadership of individuals in their communities, from those of private households up to those of ...
More
This Introduction briefly outlines the book. This book is about Xenophon's literary presentation of the leadership of individuals in their communities, from those of private households up to those of great empires. Leadership is his main interest throughout his works and the examination of the methods he uses to portray leadership allows us to look into his general literary techniques. The main aim is to show that these techniques produce images of leaders that are rich in literary and conceptual interest and contribute to the literary theory of writing in prose. As part of this analysis, the book addresses readings that have found concealed criticism behind his apparently positive images of leadership in a majority of his works. These represent a dominant trend of literary criticism of Xenophon in our time and we can profit from engaging with them.Less
This Introduction briefly outlines the book. This book is about Xenophon's literary presentation of the leadership of individuals in their communities, from those of private households up to those of great empires. Leadership is his main interest throughout his works and the examination of the methods he uses to portray leadership allows us to look into his general literary techniques. The main aim is to show that these techniques produce images of leaders that are rich in literary and conceptual interest and contribute to the literary theory of writing in prose. As part of this analysis, the book addresses readings that have found concealed criticism behind his apparently positive images of leadership in a majority of his works. These represent a dominant trend of literary criticism of Xenophon in our time and we can profit from engaging with them.
Fran Brearton
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197263518
- eISBN:
- 9780191734021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197263518.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This lecture discusses The White Goddess, a novel written by Robert Graves that was first published in May 1948. It is an intellectual and difficult book that has a toehold in many academic ...
More
This lecture discusses The White Goddess, a novel written by Robert Graves that was first published in May 1948. It is an intellectual and difficult book that has a toehold in many academic disciplines, including anthropology, literary studies, and Celtic studies. As an author, Graves has been described as the ‘bard’ of ‘an alternative society’ and as a ‘a unique figure in British literary life’. The lecture determines that The White Goddess can be both a help and a hindrance when it comes to looking at Graves' life and work. It also presents the literary techniques Graves used in the novel.Less
This lecture discusses The White Goddess, a novel written by Robert Graves that was first published in May 1948. It is an intellectual and difficult book that has a toehold in many academic disciplines, including anthropology, literary studies, and Celtic studies. As an author, Graves has been described as the ‘bard’ of ‘an alternative society’ and as a ‘a unique figure in British literary life’. The lecture determines that The White Goddess can be both a help and a hindrance when it comes to looking at Graves' life and work. It also presents the literary techniques Graves used in the novel.
Lynn Hunt
- Published in print:
- 1989
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520064287
- eISBN:
- 9780520908925
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520064287.003.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Theory and Practice
This book presents the agenda for the “new cultural history”. It specifically explores the models that have already been proposed for the history of culture. Concrete examples of the new kinds of ...
More
This book presents the agenda for the “new cultural history”. It specifically explores the models that have already been proposed for the history of culture. Concrete examples of the new kinds of work that are currently under way are also provided. Additionally, it tries to illustrate how a new generation of historians of culture uses literary techniques and approaches to develop new materials and methods of analysis. The linguistic analogy establishes representation as a problem which historians can no longer avoid. It is shown that the accent in cultural history is on close examination—of texts, of pictures, and of actions—and on open-mindedness to what those examinations will reveal, rather than on elaboration of new master narratives or social theories to replace the materialist reductionism of Marxism and the Annales school. Finally, an overview of the chapters included in this book is given.Less
This book presents the agenda for the “new cultural history”. It specifically explores the models that have already been proposed for the history of culture. Concrete examples of the new kinds of work that are currently under way are also provided. Additionally, it tries to illustrate how a new generation of historians of culture uses literary techniques and approaches to develop new materials and methods of analysis. The linguistic analogy establishes representation as a problem which historians can no longer avoid. It is shown that the accent in cultural history is on close examination—of texts, of pictures, and of actions—and on open-mindedness to what those examinations will reveal, rather than on elaboration of new master narratives or social theories to replace the materialist reductionism of Marxism and the Annales school. Finally, an overview of the chapters included in this book is given.
Michael Pennington
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197263518
- eISBN:
- 9780191734021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197263518.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This lecture discusses memories of appreciating William Shakespeare's work. It reveals the various theatre adaptations of Shakespeare's works, including Hamlet, Macbeth, and As You Like It, and some ...
More
This lecture discusses memories of appreciating William Shakespeare's work. It reveals the various theatre adaptations of Shakespeare's works, including Hamlet, Macbeth, and As You Like It, and some notable theatre actors who contributed to the portrayal of Shakespeare's characters. It examines Shakespeare's use of language in his works, including several other literary techniques he used.Less
This lecture discusses memories of appreciating William Shakespeare's work. It reveals the various theatre adaptations of Shakespeare's works, including Hamlet, Macbeth, and As You Like It, and some notable theatre actors who contributed to the portrayal of Shakespeare's characters. It examines Shakespeare's use of language in his works, including several other literary techniques he used.
John D. Early
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813040134
- eISBN:
- 9780813043838
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813040134.003.0013
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Social Groups
Taking an anthropological point of view, this chapter examines the Bible as a cultural document that employed theological categories of Hebrew culture to give moral instruction. The Bible as it ...
More
Taking an anthropological point of view, this chapter examines the Bible as a cultural document that employed theological categories of Hebrew culture to give moral instruction. The Bible as it currently exists is the result of theological interpreters editing ancient Jewish traditions to express the moral pattern of human communities: election, sin, judgment, redemption, liberation. This same pattern was used by early Jewish Christians to express the meaning of the life of Jesus. The biblical editors used a literary technique of parallel “historical” phases to form the pattern that symbolizes and teaches moral action and its metaphysical import, not to prove it nor to narrate history in a contemporary sense.Less
Taking an anthropological point of view, this chapter examines the Bible as a cultural document that employed theological categories of Hebrew culture to give moral instruction. The Bible as it currently exists is the result of theological interpreters editing ancient Jewish traditions to express the moral pattern of human communities: election, sin, judgment, redemption, liberation. This same pattern was used by early Jewish Christians to express the meaning of the life of Jesus. The biblical editors used a literary technique of parallel “historical” phases to form the pattern that symbolizes and teaches moral action and its metaphysical import, not to prove it nor to narrate history in a contemporary sense.
Lisa Stead
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748694884
- eISBN:
- 9781474426701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748694884.003.0006
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines how early film criticism evolved as a distinct branch of women’s interwar ‘film talk’ through writers such as Iris Barry and Dilys Powell, taking C. A. Lejeune as a central case ...
More
This chapter examines how early film criticism evolved as a distinct branch of women’s interwar ‘film talk’ through writers such as Iris Barry and Dilys Powell, taking C. A. Lejeune as a central case study. It explores Lejeune’s early writing in her The Manchester Guardian column from 1922 to 1928 and early work for the Observer. The chapter looks at developments and trends in her writing, considering how her columns produced a journalistic mode of film talk coloured specifically by debates and concerns about gender. This is read through Lejeune’s specific discussions about notions of women’s cinema, women and stardom, and female spectatorship. Gender shaped and shadowed much of her critical discourse, not only through the gendered associations of the topics she discussed – especially stardom – but through her approach to negotiating her own gender identity as a professional film critic, and the experimentation she enacted with crafting and refining her journalistic voice as a distinctly film-based writer. The chapter explores the stylistic strategies of Lejeune’s column writing, examining her use of literary techniques and fictional frameworks as a way to turn her attention far more explicitly to the topic of women and cinema.Less
This chapter examines how early film criticism evolved as a distinct branch of women’s interwar ‘film talk’ through writers such as Iris Barry and Dilys Powell, taking C. A. Lejeune as a central case study. It explores Lejeune’s early writing in her The Manchester Guardian column from 1922 to 1928 and early work for the Observer. The chapter looks at developments and trends in her writing, considering how her columns produced a journalistic mode of film talk coloured specifically by debates and concerns about gender. This is read through Lejeune’s specific discussions about notions of women’s cinema, women and stardom, and female spectatorship. Gender shaped and shadowed much of her critical discourse, not only through the gendered associations of the topics she discussed – especially stardom – but through her approach to negotiating her own gender identity as a professional film critic, and the experimentation she enacted with crafting and refining her journalistic voice as a distinctly film-based writer. The chapter explores the stylistic strategies of Lejeune’s column writing, examining her use of literary techniques and fictional frameworks as a way to turn her attention far more explicitly to the topic of women and cinema.
Susanne Zepp
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780804787451
- eISBN:
- 9780804793148
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804787451.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
The first chapter focuses on the Tragicomedia de Calixto y Melibea, which has become known under the title La Celestina. This closet drama is almost invariably described as a “threshold” or as a ...
More
The first chapter focuses on the Tragicomedia de Calixto y Melibea, which has become known under the title La Celestina. This closet drama is almost invariably described as a “threshold” or as a “work of crisis” (Manfred Tietz) at the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Hitherto existing research understands the text as an example of converso skepticism, and suggests that the constraints of persecution and the adaptive measures conversos were subjected to have shaped the path of Spanish literature into the Renaissance in a specific way. This chapter suggests a different reading, understanding the literary techniques in La Celestina as a decontextualization of biblical texts followed by “oblique” recontextualization. These oblique recontextualizations create surprising perspectives for the original context and make other perspectives not articulated in the text conceivable. A direct path leads from this technique, further perfected mainly by Cervantes in Don Quijote, to modern literature.Less
The first chapter focuses on the Tragicomedia de Calixto y Melibea, which has become known under the title La Celestina. This closet drama is almost invariably described as a “threshold” or as a “work of crisis” (Manfred Tietz) at the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Hitherto existing research understands the text as an example of converso skepticism, and suggests that the constraints of persecution and the adaptive measures conversos were subjected to have shaped the path of Spanish literature into the Renaissance in a specific way. This chapter suggests a different reading, understanding the literary techniques in La Celestina as a decontextualization of biblical texts followed by “oblique” recontextualization. These oblique recontextualizations create surprising perspectives for the original context and make other perspectives not articulated in the text conceivable. A direct path leads from this technique, further perfected mainly by Cervantes in Don Quijote, to modern literature.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846314995
- eISBN:
- 9781846316500
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846316500.013
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter focuses on Fignolé's engagement with the Caribbean oral tradition. It examines the author's weaving together of multiple narratives and voices into frenetically oral literary works — a ...
More
This chapter focuses on Fignolé's engagement with the Caribbean oral tradition. It examines the author's weaving together of multiple narratives and voices into frenetically oral literary works — a process that involves the melding of folklore with Joycean literary techniques to create profoundly hybrid texts.Less
This chapter focuses on Fignolé's engagement with the Caribbean oral tradition. It examines the author's weaving together of multiple narratives and voices into frenetically oral literary works — a process that involves the melding of folklore with Joycean literary techniques to create profoundly hybrid texts.
Katherine A. Brown
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813049175
- eISBN:
- 9780813050034
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813049175.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
Chapter 4 consists of close readings of fabliaux and novellas in the Decameron. These show how Boccaccio's manipulation of fabliaux and other narratives result in the creation of a new genre. The ...
More
Chapter 4 consists of close readings of fabliaux and novellas in the Decameron. These show how Boccaccio's manipulation of fabliaux and other narratives result in the creation of a new genre. The first texts, La Nonete and novella IX:2, show that Boccaccio used reversal both within individual narratives as well as among different narratives--novella IV:1 is a gendered reversal of novella IX:2--in order to underscore the openness of interpretation. The second example shows that novella III:10, through reversals, combines opposites genres: fabliaux and hagiographic texts. This combination of diverse genres reveals their inherent analogies. The final example shows that Boccaccio used one fabliau, Le Vilain de Bailleul, in two different novellas, III:8 and IX:3, revealing that stories can be endlessly adapted as well as interpreted.Less
Chapter 4 consists of close readings of fabliaux and novellas in the Decameron. These show how Boccaccio's manipulation of fabliaux and other narratives result in the creation of a new genre. The first texts, La Nonete and novella IX:2, show that Boccaccio used reversal both within individual narratives as well as among different narratives--novella IV:1 is a gendered reversal of novella IX:2--in order to underscore the openness of interpretation. The second example shows that novella III:10, through reversals, combines opposites genres: fabliaux and hagiographic texts. This combination of diverse genres reveals their inherent analogies. The final example shows that Boccaccio used one fabliau, Le Vilain de Bailleul, in two different novellas, III:8 and IX:3, revealing that stories can be endlessly adapted as well as interpreted.
