Literary Theories

"Carter's music poses struggles of opposition, for instance in timbre (Double Concerto), space (String Quartet No. 3) or pulse (String Quartet No. 5). His preference for the all-interval tetrachords, 4–Z15 [0, 1, 4, 6] and 4–Z29 [0, 1, 3, 7], is also well known. From these facets of Carter's music, I develop a narrative interpretation of his Petrarch sonnet–inspired solo flute piece, Scrivo in Vento (1991). Specifically, I forge narrative pathways by imagining the two tetrachords as active agents opposed in competition. Previous Scrivo analyses (Capuzzo 2002; Childs 2006) stress continuity by revealing Q-transforms and common-note voice leading between the tetrachords. While acknowledging such features, my analysis emphasises oppositional struggle by tracing the tetrachords as separate entities which cooperate and conflict as they manoeuvre to outdo each other.

The analysis advances three theses: (1) it guides listening to and reading Scrivo in a way which resonates with Carter's concern for the aesthetics of oppositional struggle, his choice of a sonnet as inspiration and his affinity for all-interval tetrachords; (2) it shows that music-analytical detail can be organised into dramatic narratives by (a) projecting dramatic roles onto categories asserted by a formal theory and (b) treating the formal theory's relations metaphorically as actions performed by each role as the musical work unfolds; and (3) it shows how detailed pc-set analysis can support a Heraclitean view of music: a flux of opposing forces seeking and resisting unity."

Indian literature has a long history since the Vedic-period. Different social and political changes have influenced this literary history from time to time and these changes have given rise to  different literary genres. The last two decades are important for Indian literature in the context of emerging modernity and in bridging a link between the East and the West. The colonial rule played a significant role in the emergence of modernity in Indian literature . In this paper, the attempt has been made to uncover the facts behind the emergence of modernity in Indian literature under the impact of colonizers with special reference to the Assamese Literature.

Although New-Historicism and Reader-response literary theories suggest different attempts in the generation of meaning, in fact, they exist in separate domains. However, the connection between them is a matter of the existence of a text. Without doubt, on the most basic and cursory level, New Historicism is aimed at decoding the manner and culture prevalent in a particular time of history as encoded in the text while Reader-response firmly comes from the strength that a work of art cannot generate meaning for itself without the reader. From this measure of understanding, the clarity in the amalgamation possibility becomes clear. In Robinson Crusoe (1719) analysis here, the intention is to identify the meaning of realism construction the researcher gives to it but within the historical context of the 18th century English novel. On this significant scope the twin theories of New-Historicism and Reader-response become unavoidable tools in the research investigation.

In postmodern philosophy, desire is often considered as a positive liberating force that ought not to be seized or controlled. Actually, the postmodernist thinkers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari disprove Freud's negative perception of desire as lack and contend that desire is a dynamic energy that seeks to emancipate the subject. In Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari suggest that desire should be liberated from its consideration as lack and flow freely instead. In the same vein, Jean-François Lyotard questions the validity of the Freudian assumption that desire is a negative force. In his Libidinal Economy, Lyotard focuses on the workings of libidinal intensities in the Capitalist System and claims that Capitalism is based on the exploitation of libidinal energies. Lyotard insists that the System aims at controlling the subjects through manipulating their libidinal energies and transforming them into organized arrangements. Similar to Deleuze and Guattari, Lyotard believes that libidinal intensities shall be allowed to circulate freely without the intervention of the System to regulate their movements into organized structures. Briefly, Deleuze and Guattari's as well as Lyotard's libidinal politics attempts to destabilize the centrality of the System through the liberation of the structures and the release of libidinal intensities. In this paper, the study of the notions of desire and libidinal politics in Albee's play through the Deleuzo-Guattarian and the Lyotardian perceptions shall demonstrate that the playwright pictures the continuous conflict between libidinal forces, and therefore the individual will, and the American System. Through this very clash between the personal and the communal, Albee attempts to draw attention to the repressive nature of the System and the importance of the liberation of the libidinal forces and the emancipation of the oppressed subjects.

Cultural Criticsm and Feminism are literary theories that have been employed in the critical analysis here in the generation of meaning in Mariama Bâ's So Long a Letter. In exploring this investigation, the argument here is hinged on the fact that to properly ascertain the depth of female subjugation in such a traditional society, a researcher must, as a necessity, employ also, the tropes of Cultural Criticsm. The rationale behind this proves that through the lens of cultural criticism, the text can be better appreciated through the traditional theory of feminism.

Les frontières entre fait et fiction, réalité et imaginaire, ont la répu-tation d'être désormais brouillées. Pourquoi les défendre ? Parce qu'elles sont une nécessité cognitive, conceptuelle et politique ; parce que leur disparition élimine le plaisir de passer d'un monde à l'autre. Françoise Lavocat propose ici de repenser les frontières de la fiction dans la littérature, le cinéma, le théâtre et les jeux vidéo. La première ambition de son livre réside dans le bilan très complet qu'il dresse des controverses anciennes et récentes sur le statut de la fiction dans les domaines de la théorie littéraire, du droit, de la psychanalyse et des sciences cognitives. À la faveur des ces éclairages multiples, l'ouvrage prend notamment en compte le phénomène du storytelling, l'histoire des rapports entre Histoire et poésie, la question du blasphème. Le parti pris de distinction qu'il adopte, tout en défendant l'idée d'une hybridité essentielle de la fiction, en constitue le second intérêt et la stimulante nouveauté. Les conditions de possibilité d'une culture de la fiction sont interrogées, ainsi que ses limites. Le point de vue défendu renouvelle entièrement les termes du débat : l'auteur s'emploie en effet à définir la fiction comme un monde possible possédant son ontologie propre, en concentrant l'intérêt sur la relation aux personnages, la question des paradoxes et de la métalepse, cette figure qui confirme la fron-tière entre les mondes en donnant l'illusion de la franchir.

This book participates in the ongoing debate about the alleged “death of theory” and the current post-theoretical condition, arguing that the “finitude” of theoretical projects does not mean “end”, but rather contingency and transformation of thinking, beyond irreconcilable doctrines. Contributors from different cultural and scholarly backgrounds and based in three different continents propose new areas of investigation and interpretive possibilities, reopening dialogues with past and present discourses from a plurality of perspectives and locations. After a first section that reassesses the status and scopes of critique, theory, and literature, the book foregrounds new or neglected critical vocabulary, literary paradigms, and narrative patterns to reread texts at the intersection with other branches of the humanities—history, philosophy, religion, and pedagogy. It then explores geopolitical, cultural, and epistemological domains that have been historically and ideologically overdetermined (such as postsocialist, postcolonial, and cosmopolitan spaces), recodifying them as unstable sites of both conflicts and convergences. By acknowledging the spatio-temporal and cultural delimitations of any intellectual practice, the book creates awareness of our own partiality and incompleteness, but treats boundaries as zones of contact, exchange, and conceptual mobility that promote crossings and connections.

Table of Contents

Introduction: “Recoding the Past, Re-situating the “Post-”  (Nicoletta Pireddu, Professor of Comparative Literature and Italian, Georgetown University)

Part I    Theoretical Indisciplinarities

"Meta-Critiquing: Critique, Hermeneutics, Theory," (Ming Xie, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Toronto) 

"Illegitimacy as Norm: On the Temporal Structure of Science and Theory” (Kirk Wetters, Professor and Chair of Germanic Literature, Yale University)

“The Scope of Literary Theory" (Patrick Colm Hogan, Professor, Department of Literatures, Cultures and Languages, U of Connecticut)

“The Empirical Turn of Literary Studies” (Alexandre Gefen, Directeur de recherche,  Université Paris 3 - Sorbonne nouvelle and CNRS)

"Unstable Literature" (Sébastien Doubinsky, novelist; Professor of French, Aarhus University, Denmark)


Part II  Unruly Rereadings

"Reading Aristocratically" (Peter Y. Paik, HK Research Professor of the Humanities at Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea)

“The Function of Criticism in a ‘Post-Secular’ Age” (Vincent Pecora, Gordon B. Hinckley Presidential Endowed Chair in British Studies, University of Utah, Salt Lake City)

“Literary Ciceronianism and the Novel” (Sandra Gustafson, Professor of English and Political Sciences, University of Notre Dame)

“Taliban Poetry for Veterans. On Critical Pedagogy” (Robert Cowan, Acting Assistant Dean for Program Development, Assessment, & Review, Hunter College; Professor of English, The City University of New York).

Part III Critical Resettlements

“Space, Mobility and Materiality: Rethinking Notions of Geographic Coherence” (Diana Sorensen, Harvard University, Dean of Arts and Humanities, and James F. Rothenberg Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures and of Comparative Literature)

“Postsocialism and the Afterlives of Revolution: Impossible Spaces of Dissent” (Neda Atanasoki, Associate Professor, Department of Feminist Studies, UC Santa Cruz; Erin McElroy, Graduate Program in Feminist Studies, UC Santa Cruz)

“Outsourcing Post-colonialism” (Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Professor of Linguistics and English, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi; Senior Professorial Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies)

"Experimental Cosmopolitanism" (Didier Coste, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature, Université de Bordeaux Montaigne/ JNIAS-JNU, Delhi)

Le livre décrit la réalité trouvée aux Antilles avant, pendant et après l’esclavage/la colonisation. La réalité de la position subalterne des individus qui ne se reconnaissent plus. Un peuple qui a perdu leur identité. Ce livre a le but d’une introduction profonde à la littérature antillaise d’expression française. Ce travail a fait une description de la situation douloureuse des Antillais. Nous avons révélé quelques informations concernant les auteurs antillais, nous avons cité leurs œuvre populaires et décrivent les situations qu’on trouve dans leurs œuvres. Ce livre est très riche en tant qu’une introduction aux théories littéraires appartenant aux Antilles comme l’Antillanité et la Créolité. Ces théories aident l’explication des textes choisis pour réaliser ce livre. Les thématiques de la littérature antillaise se montrent dans ce travail. Dans cette œuvre nous avons utilisé différentes œuvres appartenant aux différentes régions et temps aux Antilles, nous l’avons fait pour être capable à discuter les différentes périodes qui avaient existé et qui existent toujours aux Antilles. Les œuvres utilisées dans ce livre capturent la période esclavagiste, coloniale et néocolonial.

The present research aims to explore the struggle of the marginalized community for a free nation, where individuals try to regain their culture. Gerald Vizenor's The Heirs of Columbus has depicted their longing for survival and cultural liberty. Vizenor has tried to regain the voices of the Native people through trickster stories because these stories have a healing power. The analysis shows that Red-Indians in the late fifteen century were never uncivilized as portrayed by the Western historians and the protagonist resisted for the survival of their unique civilizations. The present research has highlighted that how anarchist spirit stimulated a nation to reclaim their lost culture and identity. Their resistance through anarchist principles leads them towards getting a free state, where every individual try to preserve their culture through trickster stories and moccasin games. The tribal people wanted to represent this state as an anarchist Communist state, where there will be no property and land theft. The people will be free from the burden of taxes and prisons. The study concludes with the suggestion to resist power with anarchist spirit of survivance. Future researches are suggested to focus on the theme of marginalization and its strategies in the present novel.

« Histoire, s.f. c’est le récit des faits donnés pour vrai; au contraire de la Fable, qui est le récit des faits donnés pour faux. » Le projet de cet article est d’étudier cette définition que donne Voltaire, dans l’Encyclopédie, de l’Histoire. Elle nous intéresse dans la mesure où l’opposition Histoire – Fable chez Voltaire frôle à plusieurs niveaux une définition de certains types de romans qu’on voit se développer au XVIIIe siècle. Alors qu’il range résolument le roman dans la catégorie de la Fable, se développent sous les yeux fermés de Voltaire plusieurs types de romans dont sa définition de l’Histoire, opposée à la Fable, porte les traces.
Certains chercheurs ont essayé de ramener l’opposition voltairienne à l’opposition qu’élabore Aristote entre Histoire et Poésie. Nous montrons qu’en réalité, elle appartient à une tradition qui n’est pas poétique mais rhétorique et qui remonte à la triade cicéronienne Historia – Argumentum – Fabula. Argumentum est le plus souvent traduit par hypothèse. C’est dans le domaine entre Historia et Fabula que se développe le roman, au XVIIIe siècle. Argumentum y revêt deux sens différents que le roman cumule. Et cette combinaison est réglée par un pacte de lecture qui négocie avec le lecteur le statut du texte.
1)Le modèle de roman que le siècle des Lumières a surtout contribué à mettre en place est celui où, moyennant un pacte de lecture parfois habile, la feintise est partagée par le lecteur. Un roman, en d’autres termes, qui n’est pas Fable, dans le sens d’un texte qui avoue son caractère fictif par l’extravagance des faits racontés, ni une feintise non partagée, au sens que l’intention de l’auteur est de tromper le lecteur sur son véritable statut, mais un Argumentum, autrement dit une réalité représentée comme une Hypothèse, sans l’intention de tromper, mais dans le but de mettre en évidence, à travers l’imagination, une certaine perception de la vérité.  Une construction narrative donc où, dans le cadre de la vraisemblance, un pacte de lecture essaie de faire partager la feintise par le lecteur. La feintise contribue à mettre en place l’hypothèse, dans ce sens qu’elle la rend vraisemblable. Et en même temps les procédures de la feintise mises au profit de cette vraisemblance sont subtilement révélées au lecteur qui est prié de les accepter.
2)On peut reformuler les mêmes données autrement en mettant à contribution le sens moderne d’Argumentum, où ce dernier apparaît moins comme un univers hypothétique que comme une idée centrale, un ‘argument’, qui constitue en soi la ‘vérité’ du récit. Dans les types de roman que le XVIIIe siècle développe sous les yeux de Voltaire, les deux sens d’Argumentum sont intimement liés par un rapport de cause à effet : la vérité profonde du texte, qui est une idée - un argument - ne pourra convaincre le lecteur que quand ce dernier aura accepté le pacte de lecture qui fait qu’il croie à l’existence d’un univers hypothétique sans être trompé sur les moyens qui le créent. En d’autres termes encore, pour que le lecteur accepte l’argument du texte, une négociation entre auteur et lecteur doit régler les conditions d’acceptabilité, qui concernent autant la construction d’un univers hypothétique et vraisemblable (sur l’axe horizontal Vérité-Fiction) que la sincérité sur les moyens mis en œuvre (sur l’axe vertical Véridiction/Feintise). Et ce pacte est toujours à négocier.

The rationale behind teaching English as a second language is to impart English language skills and to enhance the communicative competence of learners. Though the objectives of the curriculum clearly reflect the rationale, the success of the curriculum largely depends on the execution of the syllabus. Undoubtedly, the sole responsibility of making the curriculum effective lies in the hands of the teachers. The mandate given to all English language teachers is to find novel methods and pedagogical tools in converting the curriculum into effective classroom modules. In reality, teachers of English in India are facing lots of challenges mainly due to the untoward significance given to test-based instruction. Hence, there is always a conflict between teaching English as a subject and as a skill. The result based structure supports the former and the latter is miserably neglected. At this juncture, it is essential to revisit English language teaching in schools. If English is taught to hone English language skills, a classroom needs to be interactive to bridge the gap between the objectives of the curriculum and the outcome. Therefore, the researcher proposes to employ collaborative learning approach to complement the acquisition of English speaking skills. This quantitative study aims at analysing the attitude of school teachers in employing collaborative learning strategies for the enhancement of English speaking skills. The study is conducted among school teachers because the researcher believes that it is crucial for the learners to achieve a certain level of competence in English speaking skills before pursuing higher education.

English is taught as a second language in India for every Indian has his own mother tongue. Second language is a language used by people as a language of communication when they are ignorant of each other's mother tongues. In India English is used as a second language for successful communication in day-to-day life by the people belonging to different states.

This article mainly covers the last of Regīna Ezera’s short fiction collection “Dragon’s Egg” (Pūķa ola). From it, four stories have been selected for analysis – “Journeying of Souls” (Dvēseļu ceļošana), “Satanic Story” (Sātanisks stāsts), “Ode for the Moon and Falling Leaves” (Oda mēnesim un krītošām lapām) un “Dragon’s Egg” (Pūķa ola) – which show bright images of animal characters. As it is known, animals have played an important role in both the life and work of the writer. The aim of the article is to study the short stories of Regīna Ezera in the context of postcolonialism, narratology, and animal studies, actualising and conceptualising the zoological images and their mutual relations in the formation of the image system of the literary works. The result provides insight into the formation of the system of zoological characters and their interaction with people and different principles of animal characters’ use. The article highlights the two most important principles. The fi...