Admin

How Many Heroes are there in Beowulf: Rethinking of Grendel’s Mother as ‘aglæcwif’

2.5K views

Santanu Ganguly, Netaji Nagar Day College, Kolkata

Download PDF Version

Abstract

Since Anglo-Saxon heroic society was male-dominated, women were relegated to a position of comparative mediocrity. However, Old English literature does contain instances where women often proved their prowess and ferocity through martial exploits. In this paper, I argue the case of Grendel’s Mother, as I try to rescue her from a status of enforced marginalization as a monster who is not even given a name. I analyze closely her encounter with Beowulf, as the desire for revenge propels her to fight against the slayer of her son Grendel, pointing out how she uses strength, strategy and intelligence to fight her adversary. At one time, she even throws the redoubtable hero Beowulf down and is in the process of killing him, when he grabs hold of a magical sword and kills her instead. Yet, concomitant with her war-like qualities, she also displays a wonderful motherly instinct. All these force us to contest the term “monster” that had been used to describe her for a long time, and view her in a new reverential light. Keep Reading

You might be interested in

What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

A Comparative Analysis of Lexical Variation in American and British English with special reference to few selected words

/
4.4K views

Debjani Sanyal, Camellia School of Engineering & Technology

Download PDF Version

Abstract

The main focus of the present paper is to find out the lexical variations of US and British English and how they constantly influence each other. In spite of several research findings question still arise like who ‘owned’ and set the ‘correct rules’ for the English language. Is it the different forces operating in the UK and the USA influencing the emerging concept of a Standard English? (David Crystal, 2003). The present study will be delving into these complex issues. The main reason for choosing this subject is that more references to immigration in the US and its influence onto the development of language made me explore the main issues. Keep Reading

War on Terror: On Re-reading Dracula and Waiting for the Barbarians

322 views

Abstract

Framed by the emerging emphasis in postcolonialism on terror and narratives of terror, this paper argues that Waiting for Barbarians (1980; hereafter Barbarians) can be read as a counter-discourse of resistance to Dracula’s (1898) representation of “war on terror” which revolves around the relationship between empire and its embattled subjects. To demonstrate this the paper examines how Barbarians deconstructs Dracula’s trope of barbarian invasion, resists the techniques of liquidating Dracula, and reimagines Dracula’s the notion of the end of history and the last man. The paper concludes that Dracula and Barbarians offer us radically different conceptualisations of the war on terror and contending visions of the future that cunningly reflect contemporary attitudes since the 9/11 attacks.   Keep Reading

You might be interested in

What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

Smudge on an Illuminated Manuscript: a Postcolonial Reading of Shalimar the Clown

715 views

Javaid Bhat, University of Kashmir

Abstract:

This Paper begins with Timothy Brennan’s riposte to Amir Mehmud and Sara Suleri, underlining, simultaneously, the problem of Post colonialism as described by Brennan. His rather hasty definition is used to underscore the different postcolonial propensity in Pachigam, a fictional village created by Salman Rusdie in the novel Shalimar the Clown (henceforth SC). This village is posited as hybrid, fluid, and a space marked by difference. It is a typical but not an unproblematic post colonial space, one which Brennan ignores in his categorical definition of post colonialism. Finally, the essay highlights the essentially ambiguous relationship of Pachigam, a microcosm of Kashmir, with the larger ‘postcolonial’, ‘post-imperial’ entities of India and Pakistan. Keep Reading

You might be interested in

What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

Pan Arabism and the Question of Palestine: A Reading of Yasmine Zahran’s A Beggar at Damascus Gate

295 views

Kaustav Mukherjee, Michigan State University

 Download PDF Version

Abstract:

The narrative of Yasmine Zahran’s novel, A Beggar at Damascus Gate, situates the political ideology of Nasser’s pan Arab project as a cultural construct. It reveals the Palestinian history as seen from the different ideological perspectives of the two protagonists. I dwell into the ideas of pan Arabism and why for Rayya, the female protagonist of the novel, Palestine’s fortune is inextricably linked with the pan Arab movement. The narrative tries to give two vantage points of looking at the question of Palestine—one of a Palestinian revolutionary and the other of a British spy. It tries to promote the idea that the solution to the question is embedded within the ideological cooperation between them, while the hurt of history makes it seemingly impossible to bridge the differences. Keep Reading

You might be interested in

Discursive Sites of Production and Opposition: Post World War I Popular Music Scene in Britain

531 views

Samraghni Bonnerjee, Independent Researcher, Kolkata, India

Download PDF Version

Abstract

The post World War I British music scene was varied, spanning several genres, from croon, swoon, jazz, blues, to swing – with influences both home-grown as well as imported. New dances, jazz music, and cocktail parties were continuously being imported from America, aided by the popularity of American cinema, which shaped the form of leisure activities of Britain throughout the Twenties and Thirties. However, the conservative response to these forms of music was strict, and post War society was involved with means of trespassing the restrictions and legislations. This paper intends to look at the genres of popular music and their spatial sites of performance – dance halls and ball rooms in England as well as the English colonies – as discursive sites of production and resistance. Keep Reading

You might be interested in

What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

Humanizing the Queen. Reading as Self-discovery and Writing as Redemption in Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader

1.3K views

Mihaela Culea, Vasile Alecsandri University of Bacau, Romania

 Download PDF Version

Abstract

This article looks at Alan Bennett’s fictional exercise in The Uncommon Reader (2006/2008), which provides the British monarchy with a human face and analyses the effects of this process of humanization through reading. The introduction presents the background to Bennett’s novella, with special emphasis on the monarchist and anti-monarchist trends in Britain, as well as on the increased popularity of the monarchy as a result of intensive media coverage. The first part also draws the connection between the media craze which exposes the private side of the royalty and Bennett’s disclosure of the humanity of Queen Elizabeth II through the mediation of the world of literature instead of that of tabloids or television. The next section explores the potential of reading for the Queen and the ways in which reading contributes to change in matters of both private and professional life. Thus, reading becomes a factor of social and affective communion with her people and also represents a process of discovery and acquisition of insight into human nature. The last part of the novel imagines the Queen as a potential writer, so the paper also deals with writing as an act of revelation and redemption. Stimulated by reading, the Queen’s decision to write “a tangential history” (119) of her times will be an invitation addressed to her people to reflect on the demoted political power of their monarch and the political evils that result from it. Apart from that, the article also discusses the possibility for self-discovery and personal achievement animated by the Queen’s new passion for books.            Keep Reading

You might be interested in

Canonical Values vs. the Law of Large Numbers: The Canadian Literary Canon in the Age of Big Data

302 views

Carolina Ferrer, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Canada

Download PDF Version

 Abstract

In this article, I propose an alternative technique to the traditional method of constitution of the literary canon. Instead of basing the determination of the canon on different values, I scrutinize the Modern Language Association International Bibliography database in order to determine the most cited authors and literary works. Specifically, I study Canadian literature. Thus, through the process of data mining, I obtain a sample of over 25,000 references that allows us to observe the chronological evolution and the linguistic distribution of the critical bibliography about Canadian literature. This quantitative technique yields a corpus of 151 titles and 295 writers that are cited more than 10 times in the database. Consequently, this bibliography is not the result of subjective selection criteria, but is based on the law of large numbers. Furthermore, this study shows that the quantitative analysis of bibliographic databases is an effective way to bring new light to the field of literary studies. Keep Reading

You might be interested in

What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

Clothes Make the (Wo)Man: Eighteenth-Century Materialism and the Creation of the Female Subject

1.1K views

Aubrey L. C. Mishou, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland

 Download PDF Version

 Abstract

At once controversial for the change in their construction, and useful in terms of creation the female shape and subject, women’s clothing comes to play a large role in the creation of the female subject in eighteenth-century English novels.  Female authors and clothing manufacturers alike utilize the subject of clothing in order to create an autonomous space for the female body.  By manipulating the means through which their body may be read (i.e. through clothing and undergarments), women gain a kind of power that reflects their emerging status as consumers and individuals. “Clothes Make the (Wo)Man,” argues that authors such as Lady Montague and Samuel Richardson utilize the theme of female clothing to both confirm the rising social and capitalist power of the female figure in the eighteenth-century marketplace, and reduce this rising female to the subjectivity of her clothing in order to situate her under patriarchal economical control, respectively. Keep Reading

You might be interested in

What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

Confused Reality: The War Masks in Japanese Author, Hikaru Okuizumi’s The Stones Cry Out and Argentine Author, Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Garden of Forking Paths”

1.6K views
Rachel McCoppin, University of Minnesota Crookston

 Download PDF Version

Carl Jung connects the idea that the mask is the persona one presents to the world; “the persona acts…to conceal the true nature of the individual.  It is a social role or mask which acts as a mediator between the inner world and the social world, and which constitutes the compromise between the individual and society” (Hudson 54).  The concept of the mask as persona is common in literature, and global modernity is no exception.  Oftentimes characters are so enveloped within false or unreliable personas that they fool and confuse the reader.  The masks they wear serves as a front to society and the characters they interact with, but sometimes characters are so effectively masked that they become unclear of their own realities, and become unreliable narrators.  Keep Reading

You might be interested in

What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

1 … 143 144 145 146 147 … 163