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Speaking of theatrical adaptation: "naturalizar teatro en una nueva cultura meta para lograr el 'efecto equivalente' de que habla Newmark; acomodar, adecuar y ajustar particulares a las espectativas de un colectivo distinto, separado del primero por un ampio gap socio-cultural de tiempo o spacio" (Santoyo "Traducciones" 104)
"An acknowledged transposition of a recognizable other work or works. A creative and an interpretive act of appropriation/salvaging. An extended intertextual engagement with the adapted work." (Hutcheon, Theory of Adaptation 8)
'Sithe the sege and the assaut was sesed at Troye' (First line of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ca. )
'Sith the siege and the assault was ceased at Troy'
An interdisciplinary field that studies the relationship between humans and nonhuman animals, including how human cultures represent their ideas about animals. Key notions are "animality", the human/animal distinction, "anthropocentrism", "anthropomorphism", "sentience", "specisism", "becoming-animal", among others. This field is also called Human-Animal Studies.
The distinction between humans and nonhuman animals is central to most discussions in Animal Studies. This field challenges the dominant view, originated in the West, that humans have distinguishing and unique traits that nonhuman animals lack, while sharing some features and also behaviours with animals; so that those unique traits gran humans a higher status on ethical, legal and political levels (Calarco 80). Among the supposed unique human traits are:
Questions for an analysis from the perspective of Animal Studies:
In Animal Studies theory: the view that humans are superior to nonhuman animals, that they "are of supreme importance in ethical, political, legal, and existential matters" (Calarco 19)
This view is based on
Anthropocentric attitudes can be seen in the use of animals for entertainment, in the construction of urban spaces and roadways that disregard and section the habitat of animals, in uses of animals as subjects of works of art or their bodies and byproducts to make works of art (Calarco 19).
The attribution of human form to nonhuman animals.
Animal Studies theorist question whether animal behaviour can be explained "by ascribing a quintessentially human mental experience" to it (Calarco p. 22)
An anthropomorphic view might describe two animals being aggressive to one another as fighting because they are angry. This view cannot be verified becuse "we do not have access to the inner lives of animals" (Calarco p. 22)
A primate might appear to smile and be happy while it may actually be displaying an aggressive stance (Calarco p. 23)
In Animal Studies, this concept refers to the overlap between human beings and nonhuman animals (Calarco 25). Created by Deleuze and Guattari (1994) as one of the concepts "to resist the dominant social order constituted by unhealthy desires and abominable sufferings".
"The knightly system of feudal times with its attendant religious, moral, and social code, usages, and practices" (OED n. 5)
Norton Topic Online page on Ramon Llull and El llibre de l'ordre de la cavalleria (The Book of the Order of Chivalry)
In ancient Greek tragedies, a group of people who sang or chanted verses while commenting on the action of the play. They "expressed traditional moral, religious, and social attitudes" (Abrams 36). "Roman playwrights such as Seneca took over the chorus from the Greeks, and in the mid-sixteenth century some English dramatists (for example, Norton and Sackville in Gorboduc imitated the Senecan chorus" (Abrams 36). In Elizabethan drama the chorus was mainly impersonated by a single actor, speaking the prologue and epilogue and sometimes "making other explanatory remarks, such as introductions and notes on offstage happenings delivered at the beginning of an act" (Murfin and Ray 59). The chorus may serve as an exposition of the play's subject and setting, or as a summary of events, and it may establish a dialogue within other voices or perspectives in the unfolding of the dramatic action onstage.
"Originally meaning a concept or image, "conceit" came to be the term for figures of speech which establish a striking parallel, usually ingeniously elaborate, between two very dissimilar things or situations" (Abrams 42) "often in the form of an extended metaphor" (Murfin and Ray 75) (Italian "concetto", Spanish "concepto")
In its crudest, sense "courtly love" refers to love relationships among members of the (feudal) court.
A number of social conventions related to love relationships among medieval aristocratic men and women, infused with the lord-vassal loyalties of feudal society and the veneration of the Virgin Mary.
The term used in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is "courtesy".
"Whether courtly love was purely a literary convention or whether it ac tually reflected aristocratic practice to any significant extent is still debated" (Murfin and Ray 82) The relationship is often secret, as the lady is usually a married woman. It could involve an adulterous affair or a spiritual (Platonic) and unconsumated love, but it did not lead to marriage. The nobleman or knight expressed a veneration for his lady comparable to that for the Virgin Mary and a loyalty analogous to that to a superior lord. Similarly the lady vowed faithfulness to her lover. They exchanged gifts. He dedicated his military exploits to her, and followed Christian and chivalric codes of behaviour in order to be worthy of her love.
"Courtly love conventions are often traced to the lyrics of the troubadours of eleventh- and tweflth-century Provence (now part of France). Important influences included the Roman Poet Ovid [...]" (Murfin and Ray 81)
"The Roman poet Ovid undoubtedly provided inspiration in the developing concept of courtly love. His Ars amatoria had pictured a lover as the slave of passion, sighing, trembling, growing pale and sleepless, even dying for love. The Ovidian lover's adoration was calculated to win sensual rewards. The courtly lover, however, while displaying the same outward signs of passion, was fired by respect for his lady. That idealistic outlook may be explained partly by contemporary religious devotions, both orthodox and heretical, especially regarding the Virgin Mary, and partly by France's exposure to Islamic mystical philosophy (gained through contacts during the Crusades), which embodied concepts of love 'as a delightful disease, as demanding of faithful service' that were to characterize courtly love." ("courtly love", Encyclopaedia Britannica, 10 Oct. 2015)
= A kind or type of literary criticism, that is, a "reflective, attentive consideration and analysis of a literary work" (Murfin & Ray, Bedford Glossary 272). As opposed to literary theory, which involves a reflection upon methods and models, criticism is a practice that entails the application of a general methods and models to specific literary works (Pope, English Studies 76). As opposed to a precritical response, it uses "logical and intellectual analysis", "intelligent application of . . . interpretive techniques", "precise critical language" (Guerin 4-5).
= "Cultural capital is what makes you acceptable in your society at the end of the socialization process" (Basnett Constructing 44)
= "a particular way of life, which expresses certain meanings and values not only in art and learning but also in institutions and ordinary behaviour" ... "the organization of production, the structure of the family, the structure of institutions which express or govern social relationships, the characteristic forms through which members of the society communicate (42) (Williams, Raymond, [1961], The Long Revolution, london: Hogarth, 1992)
that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, laws, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society (Taylor, Edward Burnett, [1872] 1958, Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art and Custom, Gloucester, MA: Smith.)
= the use of language in a given situation and context expressing or reflecting the system of social beliefs or ideology of a given group.
= modes of speaking and writing which involve participants in adopting attitudes towards areas of socio-cultural activity (racist, official) [Hatim and Mason]
A satire of the "estates" in a given society. "Estates" =
Late-medieval examples: John Gower's Mirour de l'Ome (c. 1374–78, in French) and Vox Clamantis (c. 1385, in Latin).
= short comic tale, usually in verse, which flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries (originally in northern France). Bawdy humour; sexual and scatological subjects; the "trickster tricked" is a common plot ; materialistic view of everyday life. "Though the fabliaux have been accused of antifeminist sentiment, it is interesting to note that, in most instances where such a sentiment is expressed, it is appended to a tale which illustrates female ingenuity and superiority, often over a foolish husband" (Preminger, A.; Harrison, R. L. in Preminger and Brogan 1993).
"Critical opinion in the past has been divided as to whether the fabliaux wre bourgeois or courtly in origin" (Preminger, A.; Harrison, R. L. in Preminger and Brogan 1993)
See extended glossAn analysis of ideology entails the analysis of language use through which it is formulated, that is, the analysis of discourse [van Dijk 1998, 316-7]
School of thought, from the time of the Roman Imperial Crisis to the Arab conquest, i.e., the middle of the 3rd to the middle of the 7th century (Wildberg)
"One of the central currents of Renaissance thought" (Hooker) -->> influence in Renaissance authors in their versions of Platonic love (Dante, Petrarch, Castiglione, Edmund Spenser).
Main ideas:
— superiority of ideas and mind over matter and reality (the material, visible world); the latter originates from a superior realm of ideas
— reality, in all its cognitive and physical manifestations, depended on a highest principle which is unitary and singular .... a single cause that they considered divine, and indiscriminately referred to as “the First”, “the One”, or “the Good” (Wildberg)
— idea of beauty: "the Absolute (the One, the Infinite being, the source of all value and being) radiates all beauty (and goodness and truth) that exists in this world" (Murfin & Ray 334)
"the material world is a path to the spiritual realm, rather than an obstacle to or diversion from it" (Murfin and Ray 334)
One of the two most important Neoplatonic philosophers is Plotinus, 3rd century AD: synthesis of Greek and Roman thought
During the Renaissance, ancient Greek learning, and Neoplatonism in particular, experienced a dramatic revival in the West ... above all, in the Florentine Platonic Academy, with Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), whose translation and interpretation of Plato and Plotinus (second half of the 15th century) influenced not only the philosophy, but also the art and literature of the period.
Ficino:
- central idea: the human soul is immortal and is the centre of the universe (Hooker)
"All things beneath God are but single things, but the soul can truly be said to be all things . . . For this reason, the soul is called the center of creation and the middle term of all things in the universe, the entirety of the universe, the face of all things, and the binding and joining center of the universe." (quoted in Hooker)
"This special, central position in the universe made humanity the most dignified of all objects in creation; Ficino's emphasis on the dignity of humanity was derived from humanistic currents." (Hooker)
– Platonic love: term coined by Ficino
Idea derived from Ficino's concept that contemplation [of Divine Beauty] is the ultimate goal of human life.
Spiritual or Platonic love is the spiritual relationship in a friendship or love that reproduces the relationship between God and the individual through contemplation (Hooker)
"In other words, when the love and spiritual activity in a friendship mirrors the love for God, then the two individuals have attained the highest type of friendship that they can. Ficino did not condemn sexuality or erotics nor deny that Platonic love was only possible outside sexual relations; his only concern was the nature of the spiritual bond between two people." (Hooker)
"although the lovers' ultimate goal is to apprehend Divine Beauty, they appreciate the bodily beauty of their earthly lover, believing it to signify a higher, more ethereal beauty" (Murfin & Ray 334)
"Today, most people use the phrase Platonic love to refer to love that does not involve sexual relations, without realizing that the term has a much deeper and more complex significance" (Murfin & Ray 384)
= "A fictitious prose narrative of considerable length, in which characters are portrayed in a plot of more or less complexity" (OED) thus focusing on characterization (Murfin & Ray 343)
direct or indirect imitation of the Italian poet Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca, 1304-74), esp. his Canzoniere
"The formal literary style peculiar to or imitated from Petrarch" (OED n.)
Canzoniere : (written 1330-1374) also known as Rime or Rime sparse
A sequence of individual lyrical poems (idea taken from Dante’s Vita Nuova), mostly sonnets, dealing with Petrarch's love for Laura, both when alive and after her death
Laura is "the unobtainable ideal of womanhood" (Wynne-Davies 796)
"Laura is something like an excuse for the poet to observe and analyze the reactions of his own heart. Using introspection to illuminate his earthly and spiritual encounters with Laura, he imparts a melancholy mood to his work" (Hoffmeister p. 97)
Topics:
- poem is a complaint, pain of absence
- lover in despair, tortured, slave to his lady
- love through vision
- lady, coldness.
Catalogue of the lady's features (blason): hair=golden wires; eyes=blue sky, sparkling diamonds; lips=coral; bosom=white snow
Style:
- interest in the elaboration of conceits and comparisons, fondness for word and image play (esp. paradox ‘I am not at peace and my war hath ceased’*; oxymoron ‘icy fire’)
Petrarchan conceit
[conceit : ingenious comparison or extended metaphor > "concepto"]
"an exaggerated portrait of a beautiful, cruel woman and the suffering, lovestricken man who worships her" (Murfin & Ray 379)
"typically employs analogy, hyperbole and oxymoron" (Murfin & Ray 379)
Certain comparison became clichés : e.g. the lover compared to a ship in a stormy sea (Murfin & Ray 379)
Example of a Petarchan conceit in : Spenser's 54th sonnet in Amoretti (1595) 'Of this world's theatre in which we stray' (Murfin & Ray 379)
-metaphors: eyes as windows of the soul; flowers, precious metals as symbols of lady’s beauty; fire as symbol for lust, ice for chastity.
"the term petrarchism gradually grew into a label of abuse to denounce artificiality of expression" (Hoffmeister 98)
anti-Petrarchism : satirical / parodic treatment of Petrarchan conventions (e.g in some of Shakespeare's sonnets, no. 130 "My mistress' eyes ...", or Donne's poetry)
Petrarch, Petrarchism and Neo-Platonism: See extended gloss
Repercussion in Europe:
France: Pleiade; Spain: Boscán, Vega, Cetina, Herrera, Lope, Quevedo, Góngora; Portugal: Camoes.
England: Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare. Wyatt and Surrey partly translated Canzoniere . Revival with Sidney during 1580. Sidney set vogue in 1590: Daniel’s Delia. Spenser’s Amoretti. Shakespeare uses Petrarchist conventions freely (to a young man, themes like procreation, poetic immortality, quarrels over unfaithful mistress, getting old)
John Donne, also influenced by Petrarchism, even in his Holy Sonnets, use of Petrarchan motifs to explore religious themes
"The capacity of an individual organism to sense and feel things and to have subjective experiences of those sensations and feelings." (Calarco 121)
From an ethical perspective, if a nonhuman animal is sentient (is able to experience pain or pleasure in a conscious way), humans should avoid causing suffering to that sentient being, or justify that suffering (Calarco 121)
"Unjustified bias against animals based on the purported superiority of the human species" ... "A prejudice that grants ethical consideration only to humans on the basis of species membership" (Calarco 124)
"At the level of what is ethically relevant - subjectivity, sentience, relationships- human beings and animals are sufficiently similar so as to render species-based discrimination unjustifiable" (Calarco 125).
= the action an utterance performs when uttered, e.g. by uttering "You’ll be more punctual in the future" one can be making a prediction or issuing a command or even a threat (Green, Mitchell, "Speech Acts", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/speech-acts/>)
= "an utterance defined in terms of the intentions of the speaker and the effect it has on the listener" (Crystal 1987, p. 430)
Speech act analysis : "a threefold distinction" (Crystal 1987, p. 120), in the example of "shut the door" (Hatim 1988, p. 178-9).
The illocutionary force may depart from conventional sense.
The illocutionary force and its perlocutionary effect may not coincide: one can warn her interlocutor against something and the interlocutor may or may not heed her warning.
Most acts in everyday conversation are indirect speech acts. In certaing circumstances, using the imperative "shut the door" to ask someone to shut the door may be inappropriate, rude, etc., so other grammatical formulation may have the same illocutinary force (request), such as "I'd be grateful if you could shut the door", "Can you shut the door?", "It's getting cold in here", "Shall we keep out the draught" (Crystal 1987, p. 121).
Thus, the theme in George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945) is not that the pigs that led the animals' rebellion against their human owner are oppressing the farm animals but "that power corrupts � and that absolute power corrupts absolutely" (Murfin and Ray 514)
Some utopias are subtle satires of the society described (S. Butler, Erewhon (1872))
utopian genre = works of fiction 'which claim truly to describe a community posited at some level as ideal' (Bruce xi)
utopia is a critique of dominant ideology, offering its readers an imaginary or fictive solution to the social contradictions of its own time' (Marin, in Bruce xv)
See also dystopia
"the doctrine of Platonic ... significantly changed the European experience of sexual love which, since antiquity, had always been closely related erotics and physical attraction. ... "sexual love [was then discussed] in terms of spiritual bonds, as reflecting the relationship between the individuals and God." (Hooker)
"Platonic love also gave homosexual erotics a new language. While homosexuality was extremely common in the middle ages, it wasn't really regarded as an identity characteristic, as we do today. When a man had sex with another man, he was a sodomite for as long as the act took place. After that, he was someone who committed sodomy; homosexuality as a steady state did not really exist. The language of Platonic love, however, gave the Italians a language with which to define non-sexual male-male relationships. Once understood in spiritual terms, male-male sexual relationships could now be discussed in the same terms: in the Italian Renaissance, the language of male-male friendship and male-male erotics became the same. This language is still a key element in the modern debates of homosexuality and lesbianism." (Hooker)
"Petrarch was inspired by Augustine, the Platonist; and therefore it is not surprising that the Florentine Neoplatonists [Ficino] interpreted Petrarch's Canzionere as a prime example of the successful integration of platonic ideas into a work of art" (Hoffmeister p. 97)
"Apparently Petarch had provided the proper mixture of psychology and melancholy, of love motifs and their integration into nature, of eroticism and platonism" (Hoffmeister p. 97-98)
"Characterstic pyschological analysis of his heart's conflicts between earthly and heavenly love, between Laura as a temptress and a redeemer, and his subsequent rise above this dualism to his mystical vision of Laura as an incarnation of divine virtue." (Hoffmeister p. 97)
Canzionere seen as "An Augustinian progress from unhappy love and the death of earthly beauty to final repentance and celestial beauty" (Hoffmeister p. 97)
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