Bruce Clarke
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823228508
- eISBN:
- 9780823240999
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823228508.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
From Dr. Moreau's Beast People to David Cronenberg's Brundlefly, Stanislaw Lem's robot constructors in the Cyberiad to Octavia Butler's human/alien constructs in the Xenogenesis trilogy, this book ...
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From Dr. Moreau's Beast People to David Cronenberg's Brundlefly, Stanislaw Lem's robot constructors in the Cyberiad to Octavia Butler's human/alien constructs in the Xenogenesis trilogy, this book examines modern and postmodern stories of corporeal transformation through interlocking frames of posthumanism, narratology, and second-order systems theory. New media generate new metamorphs. New stories have emerged from cybernetic displacements of life, sensation, or intelligence from human beings to machines. But beyond the vogue for the cyborg and the cybernetic mash-up of the organic and the mechanical, this book develops neocybernetic systems theories illuminating alternative narratives that elicit autopoietic and symbiotic visions of the posthuman. Systems theory also transforms our modes of narrative cognition. Regarding narrative in the light of the autopoietic systems it brings into play, neocybernetics brings narrative theory into constructive relation with the systemic operations of observation, communication, and paradox. The book draws on Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, Niklas Luhmann, Cary Wolfe, Mieke Bal, Katherine Hayles, Friedrich Kittler, and Lynn Margulis to read narratives of bodily metamorphosis as allegories of the contingencies of systems. Tracing the posthuman intuitions of both pre- and post-cybernetic metamorphs, it demonstrates the viability of second-order systems theories for narrative theory, media theory, cultural science studies, and literary criticism.Less
From Dr. Moreau's Beast People to David Cronenberg's Brundlefly, Stanislaw Lem's robot constructors in the Cyberiad to Octavia Butler's human/alien constructs in the Xenogenesis trilogy, this book examines modern and postmodern stories of corporeal transformation through interlocking frames of posthumanism, narratology, and second-order systems theory. New media generate new metamorphs. New stories have emerged from cybernetic displacements of life, sensation, or intelligence from human beings to machines. But beyond the vogue for the cyborg and the cybernetic mash-up of the organic and the mechanical, this book develops neocybernetic systems theories illuminating alternative narratives that elicit autopoietic and symbiotic visions of the posthuman. Systems theory also transforms our modes of narrative cognition. Regarding narrative in the light of the autopoietic systems it brings into play, neocybernetics brings narrative theory into constructive relation with the systemic operations of observation, communication, and paradox. The book draws on Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, Niklas Luhmann, Cary Wolfe, Mieke Bal, Katherine Hayles, Friedrich Kittler, and Lynn Margulis to read narratives of bodily metamorphosis as allegories of the contingencies of systems. Tracing the posthuman intuitions of both pre- and post-cybernetic metamorphs, it demonstrates the viability of second-order systems theories for narrative theory, media theory, cultural science studies, and literary criticism.
Richard Taruskin
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520249776
- eISBN:
- 9780520942790
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520249776.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
This chapter presents an essay on the works of Vagn Holmboe, a Danish composer who despite being regarded as the greatest living traditional symphonist, never had much presence in the international ...
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This chapter presents an essay on the works of Vagn Holmboe, a Danish composer who despite being regarded as the greatest living traditional symphonist, never had much presence in the international concert stage. He had enormous contrapuntal energy and produced tight, tense musical arguments, based on the manipulation of terse melodic cells composers call motives that demanded and rewarded close attention over lengthy spans. His works demanded active intellectual engagement from his listeners that resulted in their emotional exhilaration. His choral Fourth Symphony, subtitled “Sinfonia Sacra,” and written in 1941 and revised four years later, embodies a staunch response to the German wartime occupation of Denmark in the form of a hymn-like Latin text by the composer. His Sixth and Seventh Symphonies exhibit a virtuosic “metamorphosis technique,” whereas in his Seventh Symphony, written in 1950, the motivic argument takes place in smallish, climax-driven bites at fast tempos, with a refrainlike “intermedio” that periodically and helpfully reorients the listener.Less
This chapter presents an essay on the works of Vagn Holmboe, a Danish composer who despite being regarded as the greatest living traditional symphonist, never had much presence in the international concert stage. He had enormous contrapuntal energy and produced tight, tense musical arguments, based on the manipulation of terse melodic cells composers call motives that demanded and rewarded close attention over lengthy spans. His works demanded active intellectual engagement from his listeners that resulted in their emotional exhilaration. His choral Fourth Symphony, subtitled “Sinfonia Sacra,” and written in 1941 and revised four years later, embodies a staunch response to the German wartime occupation of Denmark in the form of a hymn-like Latin text by the composer. His Sixth and Seventh Symphonies exhibit a virtuosic “metamorphosis technique,” whereas in his Seventh Symphony, written in 1950, the motivic argument takes place in smallish, climax-driven bites at fast tempos, with a refrainlike “intermedio” that periodically and helpfully reorients the listener.
Paul Hammond
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184119
- eISBN:
- 9780191674181
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184119.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This book examines the uses that Dryden makes of Latin in his poetry and his critical writing, firstly through quotation and allusion, and secondly through formal translation. The first half explores ...
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This book examines the uses that Dryden makes of Latin in his poetry and his critical writing, firstly through quotation and allusion, and secondly through formal translation. The first half explores the paradox that Dryden's sense of himself as a modern English writer is often articulated by means of a turn to classical Latin, while the contemporary English nation is conceptualized through references to ancient Rome. The second half offers readings of Dryden's translations from Horace, Juvenal, Lucretius, Ovid, and Virgil, culminating in a long essay on Dryden's Aeneis. Dryden used translation from the Latin poets as a way of exploring new territory: in the public sphere, to engage with empire and its loss, and in the private world, to contemplate selfhood and its dissolution. In following the varied traces of Rome in the texture of Dryden's writing, and by emphasizing his continual engagement with mutability and metamorphosis, this book argues the case for Dryden as a thoughtful, humanistic poet.Less
This book examines the uses that Dryden makes of Latin in his poetry and his critical writing, firstly through quotation and allusion, and secondly through formal translation. The first half explores the paradox that Dryden's sense of himself as a modern English writer is often articulated by means of a turn to classical Latin, while the contemporary English nation is conceptualized through references to ancient Rome. The second half offers readings of Dryden's translations from Horace, Juvenal, Lucretius, Ovid, and Virgil, culminating in a long essay on Dryden's Aeneis. Dryden used translation from the Latin poets as a way of exploring new territory: in the public sphere, to engage with empire and its loss, and in the private world, to contemplate selfhood and its dissolution. In following the varied traces of Rome in the texture of Dryden's writing, and by emphasizing his continual engagement with mutability and metamorphosis, this book argues the case for Dryden as a thoughtful, humanistic poet.
Andrew T. Snider and Elizabeth Arbaugh
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520235922
- eISBN:
- 9780520929432
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520235922.003.0050
- Subject:
- Biology, Animal Biology
The history of amphibians at the Detroit Zoo dates back to 1960, when The Holden Museum of Living Reptiles opened to the public. Amphibian breeding efforts first occurred in 1970, when production and ...
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The history of amphibians at the Detroit Zoo dates back to 1960, when The Holden Museum of Living Reptiles opened to the public. Amphibian breeding efforts first occurred in 1970, when production and rearing of clutches of axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum) commenced. In 1990, to acknowledge that amphibians were also included in the building, the facility's name was officially changed to The Holden Museum of Living Reptiles and Amphibians. Since 1994, the Detroit Zoological Institute has intensified its commitment to amphibian husbandry and conservation. In light of the global decline in amphibian populations, the need for a national conservation center for amphibians became more urgent and an idea was born: The National Amphibian Conservation Center (NACC). The NACC is the first major conservation facility dedicated entirely to conserving and exhibiting amphibians. It holds exhibits that define and describe amphibians, metamorphosis, amphibian evolution and diversity, aspects of amphibian ecology, and conservation biology. The Orientation Theater, a circular room with multimedia capabilities, is open to the public, school groups, and other organizations.Less
The history of amphibians at the Detroit Zoo dates back to 1960, when The Holden Museum of Living Reptiles opened to the public. Amphibian breeding efforts first occurred in 1970, when production and rearing of clutches of axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum) commenced. In 1990, to acknowledge that amphibians were also included in the building, the facility's name was officially changed to The Holden Museum of Living Reptiles and Amphibians. Since 1994, the Detroit Zoological Institute has intensified its commitment to amphibian husbandry and conservation. In light of the global decline in amphibian populations, the need for a national conservation center for amphibians became more urgent and an idea was born: The National Amphibian Conservation Center (NACC). The NACC is the first major conservation facility dedicated entirely to conserving and exhibiting amphibians. It holds exhibits that define and describe amphibians, metamorphosis, amphibian evolution and diversity, aspects of amphibian ecology, and conservation biology. The Orientation Theater, a circular room with multimedia capabilities, is open to the public, school groups, and other organizations.
Jane Spencer
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184942
- eISBN:
- 9780191674402
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184942.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, 18th-century Literature
This chapter traces the metamorphosis of Oroonoko into a vehicle for anti-slavery sentiment, showing how this change coincided with a tendency to play down the significance of Aphra Behn as narrator ...
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This chapter traces the metamorphosis of Oroonoko into a vehicle for anti-slavery sentiment, showing how this change coincided with a tendency to play down the significance of Aphra Behn as narrator and as author. Abolitionists had very little to say about Behn herself, and that little was not favourable; and the complex relationship between the black hero and the white woman who takes it on herself to tell his story was dropped from later versions. Here, the chapter concentrates on the way the tragedy of Oroonoko and Imoinda came to function in the early 18th century as an expression and encouragement of feminine feeling. Composed in the mixed tragicomic form that violated neo-classical standards but was popular in the late 17th century, the play was originally presented as an entertainment to suit all moods.Less
This chapter traces the metamorphosis of Oroonoko into a vehicle for anti-slavery sentiment, showing how this change coincided with a tendency to play down the significance of Aphra Behn as narrator and as author. Abolitionists had very little to say about Behn herself, and that little was not favourable; and the complex relationship between the black hero and the white woman who takes it on herself to tell his story was dropped from later versions. Here, the chapter concentrates on the way the tragedy of Oroonoko and Imoinda came to function in the early 18th century as an expression and encouragement of feminine feeling. Composed in the mixed tragicomic form that violated neo-classical standards but was popular in the late 17th century, the play was originally presented as an entertainment to suit all moods.
Elizabeth Boa
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198158196
- eISBN:
- 9780191673283
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198158196.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
The double taboo described in this chapter is the image of the phallus, and in context, the male body as a symbolic and sensual apparatus and entity. Kafka lived at a time in which society was ...
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The double taboo described in this chapter is the image of the phallus, and in context, the male body as a symbolic and sensual apparatus and entity. Kafka lived at a time in which society was male-centric, but in which the prominence of women was well underway. He not only criticized the patriarchal mindset from where he originated but also the emergence of conflicting views towards the male appearance itself. Added to this was the changing of the male image wherein the athletic and lithe youth was favored as the ideal masculine form, yet blurring the line between the two sexes. Kafka modernized the battle between the symbolic and the sensual apparatus, something he wrote of unorthodoxly in The Metamorphosis, wherein Gregor Samsa's father–almost grandfatherly but retaining that symbolic power–comes to blow with his virile son, albeit transformed into an insect. There is much symbolism with regards to Gregor's transformation, and this is heavily discussed in this chapter.Less
The double taboo described in this chapter is the image of the phallus, and in context, the male body as a symbolic and sensual apparatus and entity. Kafka lived at a time in which society was male-centric, but in which the prominence of women was well underway. He not only criticized the patriarchal mindset from where he originated but also the emergence of conflicting views towards the male appearance itself. Added to this was the changing of the male image wherein the athletic and lithe youth was favored as the ideal masculine form, yet blurring the line between the two sexes. Kafka modernized the battle between the symbolic and the sensual apparatus, something he wrote of unorthodoxly in The Metamorphosis, wherein Gregor Samsa's father–almost grandfatherly but retaining that symbolic power–comes to blow with his virile son, albeit transformed into an insect. There is much symbolism with regards to Gregor's transformation, and this is heavily discussed in this chapter.
ROGER PEARSON
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198158806
- eISBN:
- 9780191673375
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198158806.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter discusses one of Voltaire's popular works, LʼIngénu, which is a comic satire which was published in July 1767. This work features a ‘noble savage’, and by the end of the story readers ...
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This chapter discusses one of Voltaire's popular works, LʼIngénu, which is a comic satire which was published in July 1767. This work features a ‘noble savage’, and by the end of the story readers are left confused about what Voltaire was actually trying to say. The discussions included in this chapter are the relations and similarities LʼIngénu has with Rousseau, and the constant metamorphosis that goes on in the story. One concept introduced in this work is that of textual politics.Less
This chapter discusses one of Voltaire's popular works, LʼIngénu, which is a comic satire which was published in July 1767. This work features a ‘noble savage’, and by the end of the story readers are left confused about what Voltaire was actually trying to say. The discussions included in this chapter are the relations and similarities LʼIngénu has with Rousseau, and the constant metamorphosis that goes on in the story. One concept introduced in this work is that of textual politics.
Radcliffe G. Edmonds III
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691156934
- eISBN:
- 9780691186092
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691156934.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Social History
What did magic mean to the people of ancient Greece and Rome? How did Greeks and Romans not only imagine what magic could do, but also use it to try to influence the world around them? This book ...
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What did magic mean to the people of ancient Greece and Rome? How did Greeks and Romans not only imagine what magic could do, but also use it to try to influence the world around them? This book provides the most comprehensive account of the varieties of phenomena labeled as magic in classical antiquity. Exploring why certain practices, images, and ideas were labeled as “magic” and set apart from “normal” kinds of practices, the book gives insight into the shifting ideas of religion and the divine in the ancient past and in the later Western tradition. Using fresh approaches to the history of religions and the social contexts in which magic was exercised, the book delves into the archaeological record and classical literary traditions to examine images of witches, ghosts, and demons as well as the fantastic powers of metamorphosis, erotic attraction, and reversals of nature, such as the famous trick of drawing down the moon. From prayer and divination to astrology and alchemy, the book journeys through all manner of ancient magical rituals and paraphernalia. It considers the ways in which the Greco-Roman discourse of magic was formed amid the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, including Egypt and the Near East.Less
What did magic mean to the people of ancient Greece and Rome? How did Greeks and Romans not only imagine what magic could do, but also use it to try to influence the world around them? This book provides the most comprehensive account of the varieties of phenomena labeled as magic in classical antiquity. Exploring why certain practices, images, and ideas were labeled as “magic” and set apart from “normal” kinds of practices, the book gives insight into the shifting ideas of religion and the divine in the ancient past and in the later Western tradition. Using fresh approaches to the history of religions and the social contexts in which magic was exercised, the book delves into the archaeological record and classical literary traditions to examine images of witches, ghosts, and demons as well as the fantastic powers of metamorphosis, erotic attraction, and reversals of nature, such as the famous trick of drawing down the moon. From prayer and divination to astrology and alchemy, the book journeys through all manner of ancient magical rituals and paraphernalia. It considers the ways in which the Greco-Roman discourse of magic was formed amid the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, including Egypt and the Near East.
Jan N. Bremmer and Andrew Erskine
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748637980
- eISBN:
- 9780748670758
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748637980.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Religions
Richard Buxton discuss five examples of narratives which relate in some way to divine metamorphosis, whether as animals or humans, for the purpose of presenting themselves to mortals. The narratives ...
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Richard Buxton discuss five examples of narratives which relate in some way to divine metamorphosis, whether as animals or humans, for the purpose of presenting themselves to mortals. The narratives studied are the following: Athena’s encounter with Telemachos in the Odyssey, Apollo in the Hymn to Apollo, Thetis’ relationship with Achilles, Dionysos in the Bacchae and Zeus’ serial metamorphoses in pursuit of his erotic ambitions. After drawing conclusions about each of these metamorphoses and epiphanies, Buxton concludes by considering what light this material might shed on the old problem of how far Greek religion was essentially anthropomorphic.Less
Richard Buxton discuss five examples of narratives which relate in some way to divine metamorphosis, whether as animals or humans, for the purpose of presenting themselves to mortals. The narratives studied are the following: Athena’s encounter with Telemachos in the Odyssey, Apollo in the Hymn to Apollo, Thetis’ relationship with Achilles, Dionysos in the Bacchae and Zeus’ serial metamorphoses in pursuit of his erotic ambitions. After drawing conclusions about each of these metamorphoses and epiphanies, Buxton concludes by considering what light this material might shed on the old problem of how far Greek religion was essentially anthropomorphic.
Alison Sharrock, Daniel Möller, and Mats Malm (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- August 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198864066
- eISBN:
- 9780191896354
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198864066.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Ovid’s remarkable and endlessly fascinating Metamorphoses is one of the best known and most popular works of classical literature, and perhaps the most influential of all on later European literature ...
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Ovid’s remarkable and endlessly fascinating Metamorphoses is one of the best known and most popular works of classical literature, and perhaps the most influential of all on later European literature and culture. Loved for its vast repository of mythic material as well as its sophisticated manipulation of story-telling, the poem can be appreciated on many different levels and by audiences of very different backgrounds and educational experiences, whether it is for the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe or the endless but endlessly fascinating debate over the generic status of this epic which breaks all the rules and yet somehow must be included in any canon of Roman epics. The key to metamorphosis can be said to be not just transformation but also transgression, an especially significant issue in today’s culture and society. The actuality of Ovid’s Metamorphoses thus is remarkably strong, and that shows in the new scholarly approaches to the work. This anthology presents a number of recent developments, which, while representing different kinds of approach, explore the effects of transformation and transgression of borders in new ways. The main three aspects are transformations into the Metamorphoses (from what did the mythic narratives evolve), transformations in the Metamorphoses –(what new understandings of the dynamic of metamorphosis can be achieved), and how were the Metamorphoses transformed in later times, acquiring new meanings. So, transformation is explored as a form of transgression of states, or even the transcendence of mythic narrative.Less
Ovid’s remarkable and endlessly fascinating Metamorphoses is one of the best known and most popular works of classical literature, and perhaps the most influential of all on later European literature and culture. Loved for its vast repository of mythic material as well as its sophisticated manipulation of story-telling, the poem can be appreciated on many different levels and by audiences of very different backgrounds and educational experiences, whether it is for the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe or the endless but endlessly fascinating debate over the generic status of this epic which breaks all the rules and yet somehow must be included in any canon of Roman epics. The key to metamorphosis can be said to be not just transformation but also transgression, an especially significant issue in today’s culture and society. The actuality of Ovid’s Metamorphoses thus is remarkably strong, and that shows in the new scholarly approaches to the work. This anthology presents a number of recent developments, which, while representing different kinds of approach, explore the effects of transformation and transgression of borders in new ways. The main three aspects are transformations into the Metamorphoses (from what did the mythic narratives evolve), transformations in the Metamorphoses –(what new understandings of the dynamic of metamorphosis can be achieved), and how were the Metamorphoses transformed in later times, acquiring new meanings. So, transformation is explored as a form of transgression of states, or even the transcendence of mythic narrative.
Raphael Lyne
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198187042
- eISBN:
- 9780191718984
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198187042.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This book is about what four renaissance writers do to Ovid, and what he does to them. The four texts at the centre of this book – the Metamorphoses translations of Arthur Golding (1567) and George ...
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This book is about what four renaissance writers do to Ovid, and what he does to them. The four texts at the centre of this book – the Metamorphoses translations of Arthur Golding (1567) and George Sandys (1632), Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, and Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion – are all seen to work within the structural themes of Ovid's epic. All these authors imitate the classics but they serve their native culture while doing so, and in the study the moments of competition and crisis come to the fore. The emergence of the English literary language is shown to be a complex and troubled process. Ovid is no passive participant in this process, and the problematic implications of an eternal classic based on change impress themselves on all its imitators. This book uncovers the subtle energies of all four texts, dealing with one of the most important influences on the English Renaissance.Less
This book is about what four renaissance writers do to Ovid, and what he does to them. The four texts at the centre of this book – the Metamorphoses translations of Arthur Golding (1567) and George Sandys (1632), Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, and Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion – are all seen to work within the structural themes of Ovid's epic. All these authors imitate the classics but they serve their native culture while doing so, and in the study the moments of competition and crisis come to the fore. The emergence of the English literary language is shown to be a complex and troubled process. Ovid is no passive participant in this process, and the problematic implications of an eternal classic based on change impress themselves on all its imitators. This book uncovers the subtle energies of all four texts, dealing with one of the most important influences on the English Renaissance.
Jennifer J. Dellner
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199603848
- eISBN:
- 9780191731587
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199603848.003.0013
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy
Eavan Boland writes in ‘The Pomegranate’ that ‘as a child in exile in | a city of fogs and strange consonants’ she first encountered Ovid’s Metamorphoses version of the myth of Ceres and Persephone ...
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Eavan Boland writes in ‘The Pomegranate’ that ‘as a child in exile in | a city of fogs and strange consonants’ she first encountered Ovid’s Metamorphoses version of the myth of Ceres and Persephone as a form of consolation. This chapter argues that Boland’s poetry employs Ovidian poetics to represent Boland’s isolation and linguistic alienation, but also the hope of restoration.Derek Mahon’s ‘Ovid in Tomis’ may seem far from the poetics figured by Ovid in Boland’s work but this chapter demonstrates suggestive links between these Irish poets. At the end of the poem, as the poet weeps ‘for our exile’, the banishment of the centrality of poetry—especially a certain, Ovidian kind—from our culture comes to the fore. This chapter explores Mahon’s poem within its collection, Hunt by Night, and analyses its introduction of metamorphosis and exile as key poetic themes of the collection as a whole.Less
Eavan Boland writes in ‘The Pomegranate’ that ‘as a child in exile in | a city of fogs and strange consonants’ she first encountered Ovid’s Metamorphoses version of the myth of Ceres and Persephone as a form of consolation. This chapter argues that Boland’s poetry employs Ovidian poetics to represent Boland’s isolation and linguistic alienation, but also the hope of restoration.Derek Mahon’s ‘Ovid in Tomis’ may seem far from the poetics figured by Ovid in Boland’s work but this chapter demonstrates suggestive links between these Irish poets. At the end of the poem, as the poet weeps ‘for our exile’, the banishment of the centrality of poetry—especially a certain, Ovidian kind—from our culture comes to the fore. This chapter explores Mahon’s poem within its collection, Hunt by Night, and analyses its introduction of metamorphosis and exile as key poetic themes of the collection as a whole.
Matthew Reynolds
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199605712
- eISBN:
- 9780191731617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199605712.003.0025
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
Metamorphosis is an obvious metaphor for translation. But in fact it is so multifarious that translators have generally eschewed it. Nevertheless, Arthur Golding's translation of the Metamorphoses ...
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Metamorphosis is an obvious metaphor for translation. But in fact it is so multifarious that translators have generally eschewed it. Nevertheless, Arthur Golding's translation of the Metamorphoses (1567) fleetingly adopts particular metamorphoses as metaphors for its own behaviour: it echoes Echo, interprets Deucalion's interpretation of an oracle, and so on. In this, it anticipates the more disciplined and extensive metaphors of translation that I have explored in the bulk of the book. Yet, to interpret a metamorphosis as the embodiment of a metaphor is to simplify it; to interpret a translation as the embodiment of a metaphor is a simplification too. Golding's Ovid vividly exemplifies what is true of all the translations I have discussed: the imaginative work done by a poem‐translation will always exceed the explanatory categories that are brought to bear on it—even the comparatively nuanced and complex metaphorical categories which I have proposed.Less
Metamorphosis is an obvious metaphor for translation. But in fact it is so multifarious that translators have generally eschewed it. Nevertheless, Arthur Golding's translation of the Metamorphoses (1567) fleetingly adopts particular metamorphoses as metaphors for its own behaviour: it echoes Echo, interprets Deucalion's interpretation of an oracle, and so on. In this, it anticipates the more disciplined and extensive metaphors of translation that I have explored in the bulk of the book. Yet, to interpret a metamorphosis as the embodiment of a metaphor is to simplify it; to interpret a translation as the embodiment of a metaphor is a simplification too. Golding's Ovid vividly exemplifies what is true of all the translations I have discussed: the imaginative work done by a poem‐translation will always exceed the explanatory categories that are brought to bear on it—even the comparatively nuanced and complex metaphorical categories which I have proposed.
Gabriel García Márquez
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781496803382
- eISBN:
- 9781496806789
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496803382.003.0034
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter presents an interview with Gabriel García Márquez, who talks about his literary influences, including William Faulkner. García Márquez cites Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis as the ...
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This chapter presents an interview with Gabriel García Márquez, who talks about his literary influences, including William Faulkner. García Márquez cites Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis as the fundamental influence on his writing. A decisive influence on him, according to García Márquez, is Oedipus Rex. He also discusses Faulkner's influence on him, claiming that they share similar experiences. In particular, García Márquez reveals that Faulkner's whole world—the world of the South which he writes about—was very like his world, that it was created by the same people. He also cites the fact that Faulkner is in a way a Latin American writer whose world is that of the Gulf of Mexico.Less
This chapter presents an interview with Gabriel García Márquez, who talks about his literary influences, including William Faulkner. García Márquez cites Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis as the fundamental influence on his writing. A decisive influence on him, according to García Márquez, is Oedipus Rex. He also discusses Faulkner's influence on him, claiming that they share similar experiences. In particular, García Márquez reveals that Faulkner's whole world—the world of the South which he writes about—was very like his world, that it was created by the same people. He also cites the fact that Faulkner is in a way a Latin American writer whose world is that of the Gulf of Mexico.
Anne Dufourmantelle
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823279586
- eISBN:
- 9780823281459
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823279586.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Chinese thought and culture emphasize transitions, invisible germinations, and sentient life in contrast to Western culture that is focused on fixed identity. Gentleness is tied to this gradual ...
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Chinese thought and culture emphasize transitions, invisible germinations, and sentient life in contrast to Western culture that is focused on fixed identity. Gentleness is tied to this gradual process of transformation. Transformation is an attitude, a state of body and mind, a harmony with the “natural” pattern of things that mature and flourish, interacting with their surroundings. Gentleness also contains the seed of its opposite.Less
Chinese thought and culture emphasize transitions, invisible germinations, and sentient life in contrast to Western culture that is focused on fixed identity. Gentleness is tied to this gradual process of transformation. Transformation is an attitude, a state of body and mind, a harmony with the “natural” pattern of things that mature and flourish, interacting with their surroundings. Gentleness also contains the seed of its opposite.
Elizabeth Archibald
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198112099
- eISBN:
- 9780191708497
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112099.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This chapter considers the legacy of classical writing and mythology, much studied in the Middle Ages even though largely pagan. The classical approach to incest tended to be fatalistic, focusing on ...
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This chapter considers the legacy of classical writing and mythology, much studied in the Middle Ages even though largely pagan. The classical approach to incest tended to be fatalistic, focusing on cause and effect; sin could not be cancelled out by repentance, but usually led to further violence and transgression, to death, and sometimes to metamorphosis (except in the case of the gods, who committed incest with impunity). Classical writers can show sympathy for incestuous protagonists, and accept that such desire really occurs even in civilized societies. Medieval writers knew and adapted the Oedipus story. Ovid tells some lurid tales of incestuous desire in women, as well as men; his works were school texts in the Middle Ages, and the Metamorphoses was retold with Christian moralisations in the influential Ovide Moralisé. Other classical incest stories frequently retold in medieval narratives include Semiramis and Apollonius of Tyre.Less
This chapter considers the legacy of classical writing and mythology, much studied in the Middle Ages even though largely pagan. The classical approach to incest tended to be fatalistic, focusing on cause and effect; sin could not be cancelled out by repentance, but usually led to further violence and transgression, to death, and sometimes to metamorphosis (except in the case of the gods, who committed incest with impunity). Classical writers can show sympathy for incestuous protagonists, and accept that such desire really occurs even in civilized societies. Medieval writers knew and adapted the Oedipus story. Ovid tells some lurid tales of incestuous desire in women, as well as men; his works were school texts in the Middle Ages, and the Metamorphoses was retold with Christian moralisations in the influential Ovide Moralisé. Other classical incest stories frequently retold in medieval narratives include Semiramis and Apollonius of Tyre.
Rowena Fowler
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199237944
- eISBN:
- 9780191706455
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199237944.003.0016
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Religions
Contemporary women poets offer a serious, engaged, and formally satisfying encounter with classical myth. This chapter explores how the story of Daphne and Apollo provides an insight into women's ...
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Contemporary women poets offer a serious, engaged, and formally satisfying encounter with classical myth. This chapter explores how the story of Daphne and Apollo provides an insight into women's experience as subjects and makers of poems. It traces a body of women's writing that keeps faith with its original inspiration while discovering women's physical, emotional, and intellectual experience at the heart of myth: in the ambiguous relationships of female figure and natural landscape, movement and stasis, aversion and desire. In the work of poets Jorie Graham and Eavan Boland, classical myth, as allusion or persona, enables an individual lyric voice to be heard even as it mutes the sense of an intrusively autobiographical speaker. This chapter explores the role of individual subjectivity in the confrontation between the poet and the female subjects of the mythic tradition, and considers closely the relationship between formal experimentation and the articulation of feminist ideals.Less
Contemporary women poets offer a serious, engaged, and formally satisfying encounter with classical myth. This chapter explores how the story of Daphne and Apollo provides an insight into women's experience as subjects and makers of poems. It traces a body of women's writing that keeps faith with its original inspiration while discovering women's physical, emotional, and intellectual experience at the heart of myth: in the ambiguous relationships of female figure and natural landscape, movement and stasis, aversion and desire. In the work of poets Jorie Graham and Eavan Boland, classical myth, as allusion or persona, enables an individual lyric voice to be heard even as it mutes the sense of an intrusively autobiographical speaker. This chapter explores the role of individual subjectivity in the confrontation between the poet and the female subjects of the mythic tradition, and considers closely the relationship between formal experimentation and the articulation of feminist ideals.
Peta Mayer
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781789620597
- eISBN:
- 9781789629927
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789620597.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter mobilises key nineteenth-century aestheticist motifs to render a Sapphic lesbian homoerotic in A Misalliance. Protagonist Blanche Vernon’s nympholepsy is related to the text’s sensual ...
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This chapter mobilises key nineteenth-century aestheticist motifs to render a Sapphic lesbian homoerotic in A Misalliance. Protagonist Blanche Vernon’s nympholepsy is related to the text’s sensual motifs and the intertextual matrix surrounding the ancient Greek poet Sappho. The novel’s early reception is reviewed, including comments by Frank Kermode and John Bayley whose gendered readings obscure the text’s symbolism. On the contrary—emblematic of contested narratives of lesbian sexuality, women’s writing and political subversion in Sapphic texts by Charles Baudelaire and Renée Vivien—Sappho becomes the intertextual springboard for the production of the aesthete. In addition to the sensual motifs of the novel, key behaviours of aestheticism are indicated across the intertextual arc between Brookner’s text and her aestheticist predecessors including Renaissance revival, the desire to live life as art, the homoerotic gaze, the backwards turn, a trans-generational homoerotic and the subversion of bourgeois utilitarianism and family life. The performance of the aesthete is staged across the rhetorical figure of metaleptic prolepsis as supplied by Thomas Bahti’s reading of Walter Benjamin, and Mikhail Bakhtin’s narrative of metamorphosis with its contours of guilt, punishment, redemption, purification and blessedness. Reasserting women’s contribution to Romantic aestheticism, Brookner is read as both women’s writer and aesthete.Less
This chapter mobilises key nineteenth-century aestheticist motifs to render a Sapphic lesbian homoerotic in A Misalliance. Protagonist Blanche Vernon’s nympholepsy is related to the text’s sensual motifs and the intertextual matrix surrounding the ancient Greek poet Sappho. The novel’s early reception is reviewed, including comments by Frank Kermode and John Bayley whose gendered readings obscure the text’s symbolism. On the contrary—emblematic of contested narratives of lesbian sexuality, women’s writing and political subversion in Sapphic texts by Charles Baudelaire and Renée Vivien—Sappho becomes the intertextual springboard for the production of the aesthete. In addition to the sensual motifs of the novel, key behaviours of aestheticism are indicated across the intertextual arc between Brookner’s text and her aestheticist predecessors including Renaissance revival, the desire to live life as art, the homoerotic gaze, the backwards turn, a trans-generational homoerotic and the subversion of bourgeois utilitarianism and family life. The performance of the aesthete is staged across the rhetorical figure of metaleptic prolepsis as supplied by Thomas Bahti’s reading of Walter Benjamin, and Mikhail Bakhtin’s narrative of metamorphosis with its contours of guilt, punishment, redemption, purification and blessedness. Reasserting women’s contribution to Romantic aestheticism, Brookner is read as both women’s writer and aesthete.
Andreas Heyland, Sandie Degnan, and Adam M. Reitzel
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- December 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199568765
- eISBN:
- 9780191774591
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199568765.003.0003
- Subject:
- Biology, Evolutionary Biology / Genetics
Life histories of many marine invertebrate groups are diverse and complex, yet frequently include a pelagic larval phase that must make a developmental, morphological, behavioural, and ecological ...
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Life histories of many marine invertebrate groups are diverse and complex, yet frequently include a pelagic larval phase that must make a developmental, morphological, behavioural, and ecological transition into a benthic adult phase. The mechanisms underlying this life history transition are largely unknown, but with the recent application of modern molecular and genomic methodologies, some exciting patterns are beginning to emerge. New data suggest that hormones and specific neurotransmitter systems such as nitric oxide and histamine signalling play a critical role in larval settlement and metamorphosis. This chapter, which reviews available literature on mechanisms underlying this major life history transition in selected marine invertebrate groups, discusses new avenues of research that broaden the understanding of how gene regulatory networks are orchestrated during complex developmental programs.Less
Life histories of many marine invertebrate groups are diverse and complex, yet frequently include a pelagic larval phase that must make a developmental, morphological, behavioural, and ecological transition into a benthic adult phase. The mechanisms underlying this life history transition are largely unknown, but with the recent application of modern molecular and genomic methodologies, some exciting patterns are beginning to emerge. New data suggest that hormones and specific neurotransmitter systems such as nitric oxide and histamine signalling play a critical role in larval settlement and metamorphosis. This chapter, which reviews available literature on mechanisms underlying this major life history transition in selected marine invertebrate groups, discusses new avenues of research that broaden the understanding of how gene regulatory networks are orchestrated during complex developmental programs.
Deniz F. Erezyilmaz
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- December 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199568765
- eISBN:
- 9780191774591
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199568765.003.0005
- Subject:
- Biology, Evolutionary Biology / Genetics
The class Insecta is an ideal model for the study of complex life histories and their evolution. In this group, direct development is ancestral, and complete metamorphosis arose as a monophyletic ...
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The class Insecta is an ideal model for the study of complex life histories and their evolution. In this group, direct development is ancestral, and complete metamorphosis arose as a monophyletic group from incompletely metamorphosing ancestors. All insects share a common endocrine mechanism that regulates moulting and the progression of postembryonic development. The steroid hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone triggers moulting from one stage to another, while the presence of juvenile hormones regulates the identity of the cuticle that is laid down at each stage. This chapter revisits the view that alterations to this fundamental mechanism have given rise to metamorphosis and other polymorphisms within the insects.Less
The class Insecta is an ideal model for the study of complex life histories and their evolution. In this group, direct development is ancestral, and complete metamorphosis arose as a monophyletic group from incompletely metamorphosing ancestors. All insects share a common endocrine mechanism that regulates moulting and the progression of postembryonic development. The steroid hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone triggers moulting from one stage to another, while the presence of juvenile hormones regulates the identity of the cuticle that is laid down at each stage. This chapter revisits the view that alterations to this fundamental mechanism have given rise to metamorphosis and other polymorphisms within the insects.
