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This paper examines how two contemporary Chinese ekphrastic poems respond to an era characterized by visual media and globalization. It analyses how the poets connect their engagement with visual art to their explorations of complex cross-cultural encounters. These inter-art-form and inter-cultural engagements question the self-other dichotomy that operates in many simplistic imaginings of the relationship between art forms, between China and the West, and between so-called cultural centres and peripheries. Building on the example of these two poetic works, I propose a networked framework as an alternative to dichotomised conceptions of world literature and as a way to rethink global cultural politics and contemporary sociohistorical experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an extended introduction to the Kavikaṇṭhapāśa (or "Leash for Poets"), an anonymous text on the metaphysical qualities of poetry. By way of an annotated translation of key passages, the essay argues that the Kavikaṇṭhapāśa was likely composed sometime in the twelfth or thirteenth century, and that it is closely connected to the earliest Tamil pāṭṭiyal s. This suggests that it is one of the earliest witnesses to the metaphysical analysis of poetry in the Deccan and southern India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recurring subject of manhua (comics) in Republican-era China was the pipa player, a woman whose genealogy can be traced back to the disgraced and displaced subject of Bai Juyi's ninth-century poem Pipa xing (Song of the pipa). This paper traces this woman's development from her conception in Pipa xing and follows her as she is re-imagined by modern poets and manhua artists into a variety of figures, from scorned politicians to modern feminine archetypes. This paper argues that these artists leverage her precarity and anachronism to portray contemporary political turmoil and national insecurity, as they look back at China's imperial past and towards its uncertain future. And instead of reifying the distinction between the prosody of classical and New Poetry, this paper finds classical poetics not only in poems themselves, but also in tropes and images that reveal how poets and poetry reckoned with the rise of new media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine the renowned Early Islamic elegy, the ʿAyniyyah of the Mukhaḍram poet Abū Dhuʾayb al-Hudhalī in two respects. First, it examines the poem as an entirely unconventional example of a Classical Arabic elegiac poem (rithāʾ) in terms of its thematic structure of introductory lament to the poet's dead sons followed by three panels: the onager, the oryx and knightly combat. It concludes that the tragic endings of all three panels constitute a dramatic inversion of the triumphal outcomes of such thematic panels in the pre-Islamic qaṣīdah in a manner that reflects al-Jāḥiẓ's structural insights into the semantic functions of the animal panels in both elegy and qaṣīdah. Second, the paper explores the allegorical aspect of the thematic sections of the poem, the elegiac lament and the three tragic panels, in order to argue that they are a key to understanding the allegorical dimensions of such panels in the Early Arabic qaṣīdah tradition. The paper next explores Arabic critical terminology for the Western term "allegory," such as tamthīl, umthūlah and majāz , only to conclude that none of them are adequate. Building especially on ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī's proper understanding of majāz , the paper finally proposes a new etymologically and semantically sound neologism as an Arabic critical term for allegory: umjūzah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the poetry of the Andalusī woman poet Ḥafṣah bint al-Ḥājj (d. 589/1191) in the context of a rich body of anecdotes surrounding that poetry as preserved in Nafḥ al-ṭīb , which al-Maqqarī (d. 1041/1632) wrote to preserve the cultural memory of al-Andalus. Known as the preeminent woman poet of Granada in the twelfth century, she lived most of her life under Almohad rule and had a connection to their court. Although literature surrounding Ḥafṣah is generally limited compared to major male poets, this paper will show that a close analysis of al-Maqqarī's section on Ḥafṣah reveals the poet's voice and agency. This paper argues that al-Maqqarī's framing of Ḥafṣah in his landmark work elevates rather than marginalizes the poet and her status as a cultural figure in al-Andalus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the emergence of the canonical approach to the Psalter, individual psalms are no longer studied as standalone compositions, but viewed along a continuum of psalms to provide meaning. While scholars have analysed alphabetic poems and how they add to meaning, the study of such poems has rarely gone beyond the individual psalm. This paper seeks to understand alphabetic poems within the horizon of the Psalter and whether they function together to provide meaning at the macrostructural level. The paper begins with analyses of eight generally accepted alphabetical acrostics in the Psalter. From their characteristics, a total of forty-six alphabetic poems are suggested. It is observed that these poems mark leitmotifs at prominent locations and develop the motif of David across the entire Psalter. The macrostructural logic of alphabetical poems, as a whole, is subservient to the overarching theological thrust of the Psalter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deconstructs the ways the image of Fāṭima Zarrīn-Tāj Baraghānī, known as Tahirih Qurrat al-ʿAyn (d. 1852), has been distorted in academic works and in anti-Bahā'ī polemics. The misrepresentations of Tahirih in these works range from disconnecting her from the source of her inspiration, to accusations of immorality, to denying her knowledge, to denying her poetry, to depicting her as a militant figure. It is suggested that misogyny, religious prejudice, selective as well as uncritical use of primary sources, and agenda driven scholarship explain the misrepresentations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the Parthian theme in Horace's poems throughout its development. First, it delves into the works featuring the ethnonym Parthus , which, unlike the synonymous Medus , notably aligns with the events contemporaneous to the poet. It becomes evident that Horace's early works reflect the Parthian invasion of 41/40 B.C. and the anxiety surrounding the possibility of a recurrence. However, this apprehension is gradually replaced by verses celebrating victory over the Parthians and their apprehension of Roman power. Ultimately, these poems demonstrate their acknowledgment of Roman authority and the compromise established during the age of Augustus. Horace himself never forgets the threat posed by the Parthians, yet there is no compelling reason to consider him an advocate for a conquest war against their eastern neighbors. He appeared content with the diplomatic compromise that had been achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the parallels that can be observed between the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) and the English artist Austin Osman Spare (1886–1956). Although having quite different artistic backgrounds, they both arrived at complex spiritual theories and artistic production techniques associated with personality fragmentation and the emotional or intellectual exploration of alternative selves. While Pessoa and Spare are often regarded as exceptional artists and spiritual thinkers within their own environments, these similarities suggest a common familiarity with overarching themes and ideas expanding beyond their own restricted circles. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to question the exact nature of said esoteric and artistic exceptionality in light of the intellectual and artistic groups and movements surrounding them and propose a framework for the study of the overlap of occult and artistic circles in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on exploring dhvani as a hermeneutical tool for reading Christian devotional literature. Dhvani is a theory of poetic suggestion proposed by Ānandavardhana in the eighth century and elaborated upon by Abhinavagupta in the eleventh century that posits layers of semantics in poetic language. By focusing on the devotional poetry of the seventeenth-century religious poets of England, this paper argues for Ānandavardhana's proposed poetics of suggestion as an enabling way of reading and cognizing devotion as a psycho emotive process. In the context of Indian Christianity, dhvani has been suggested by certain scholars as also enriching the possibilities of interfaith dialogue. This paper argues for incorporating poetic frameworks like dhvani as modes of interfaith dialogue, especially when reading Christian texts in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes evidence to support the widely accepted view that Lucretius may justly be regarded by the reader as a Callimachean poet by synthesizing and analyzing Lucretius' use of the so-called 'Alexandrian footnote' in the DRN. Although most scholars have come to agree with Kenney that Lucretius embraces many of the same poetic ideals as his contemporaries, there are still some who remain skeptical of Kenney's thesis, and, while Kenney adduces the most prominent parts of the DRN that show signs of Alexandrianism, in fact he only scratches the surface of the extent to which Lucretius practices his own version of Roman neo-Callimacheanism. Moreover, very few of those who accept Kenney's results have followed his lead by adding corroborating evidence. It is still very much worthwhile, therefore, to explore this aspect of Lucretius' poetic artistry; this paper's analysis of the Alexandrian footnote provides further proof that Kenney's argument is correct, and it expands on his thesis by showing how integral Alexandrian poetic techniques are to Lucretius' philosophical purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines ways leading Song-dynasty Chan teachers, especially Cishou Huaishen 慈受懷深 (1077–1132), a prominent poet-monk (shiseng 詩僧) and temple abbot from the Yunmen lineage, transform the intricate rhetorical techniques of Chinese poetry in order to explicate the relationship between an experience of spiritual realization beyond language and logic and the ethical decision-making of everyday life that is inspired by transcendent principles. Huaishen's poetry expresses didactic Buddhist doctrines showing how an awareness of nonduality and the surpassing of all conceptual boundaries and categories can and must be applied to negotiating moral choices in concrete everyday situations that are either conducive or detrimental to the attainment of enlightenment. My main argument is that Song Chan discourse does not lead to antinomianism or an indifference to the conflicts of the mundane world but, instead, features an ethical approach for determining an aspirant's degree of illumination. This function is central to the school's overall teaching mission of assisting those seeking to overcome their egocentric delusions by realizing the benefits of Chan insight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the work of a sample of contemporary Arab prose poets whose poetic investments exceed the linguistic parameters of previous generations. Unlike the pioneers of the prose poem in Arabic in the early 1960s, the poets of this generation are not interested in interrogating Arabic poetic language or reimagining Arabic literary history. Instead, these poets embrace the Arabic literary tradition as an open multi-generic practice exercised in the space between multiple literary and linguistic traditions. This essay shows how their deliberate detachment from the Arabic poetic tradition, as well as from the inheritance of the early modernists, reveals a relationship with the Arabic language that differs from that of their predecessors. Their poetry is thus born translated: it is multilingual and exophonic in its motivations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reads Republic 583b-608b as a single, continuous line of argument. First, Socrates distinguishes real from apparent pleasure and argues that justice is more pleasant than injustice. Next, he describes how pleasures nourish the soul. This line of argument continues into the second discussion of poetry: tragic pleasures are mixed pleasures in the soul that seem greater than they are; indulging them nourishes appetite and corrupts the soul. The paper argues that Plato has a novel account of the 'paradox of tragedy', and that the Republic and Philebus contain complementary discussions of tragic and comic pleasure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zhao Luanluan 趙鸞鸞 is the main protagonist of an early Ming dynasty work of fiction, the "Luanluan zhuan" 鸞鸞傳 or "The Tale of Luanluan" by Li Changqi 李昌祺 (1376–1452), which is found in his collection of twenty-two short stories: Jiandeng yuhua 剪燈餘話 (More Stories Written While Trimming the Lamp). Zhao Luanluan is here described as a woman poet who is caught up in the fall of the Yuan dynasty, but subsequently she was further fictionalized as a Tang dynasty courtesan, and her poetic works reattributed to this imaginary person. Furthermore other related fictional female poets of the Ming dynasty have also been treated as genuine historical individuals, and their writings are included in many major anthologies of women's poetry. This paper argues that the boundaries between genuine female poets and fictional female poets created by male writers have been consistently ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the relationship between the extraordinary poetic achievement of Sharīf al-Raḍī (d. 406/1016) in his highly lyrical and influential Dīwān , on the one hand, and the literary-religious accomplishment of his unrivalled compilation of the sermons, epistles, and sayings of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, Nahj al-balāghah , on the other. It examines the interplay among the contemporary Mutanabbī-dominated literary scene, the Imāmī Shīʿite dominated Baghdādī politico-religious scene, and, in Islamic scholarship generally, the increasingly balāghah - (rhetoric)-focused theological discourse on iʿjāz al-Qurʾān (the miraculous inimitability of the Qurʾān). Finally, the paper attempts to connect al-Raḍī's sense of alienation and dispossession from his hereditary right to rule—one that he has found so strikingly expressed in the sermons of his forefather ʿAlī—and the extraordinary lyrical-elegiac strain in his own poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from a broad ancient definition of 'epigrams' which includes poems which are not in elegiacs, and Martial's use of Catullus 2 (written in hendecasyllables) as a model for his own epigrams (Mart. 4.14.13-4), my paper examines epigrammatic features in Catullus 2 and 3, as well as other literary affinities that can be traced in these poems. AP 7.195 and 196 (by Meleager) are important epigrammatic models for Catullus 2, and I identify major correspondences and differences between these poems, before considering another important model for Catullus 2: Sappho fr. 1. From examination of Sapphic features in Catullus 2 and 2b, my paper moves to Catullus 3, and explores its affinities with Greek epigram (in particular the epitaphs found in AP 7 and Hellenistic curse poetry). In the final section of the paper, working from Martial's references to Catullus' passer and Catullus' use of Sappho fr. 1 in Catullus 2, I consider Catullus 2 as the opening poem of a Catullan collection, and the implications that this has for our interpretation of his poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gadamer's question "Are Poets Falling Silent?" is motivated by the "linguistic need" (Sprachnot) of modern lyric indicative of the "forgetfulness of language" (Sprachvergessenheit) that prevails today. In Paul Celan's late work, Gadamer finds poetry that, bordering on the cryptic, stands on the verge of silence. Nevertheless, he insists that these poems do speak and that the title of Celan's poem series, Breath-crystal , figures the truth of the poetic word. From this standpoint the paper discusses Gadamer's hermeneutic understanding of the poetic word treating the constitutive elements of the poetic word as an event of language, the way this conception of the poetic word both embraces and yet departs from the usual understanding of the radical turn to language in modern lyric, and the meaning of Gadamer's claim regarding the truth of the poetic word that fulfills the original saying power of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zuo Si's 左思 [ca. 250-305] "Poems on History" [ yongshi 詠史] have often been regarded as a milestone in the development of the poetic subgenre "poems on history." Scholars have noted Zuo's use of historical allusion and description to articulate his personal emotions and ambitions and to criticize the political hierarchy of the Western Jin [265-316]. In addition, they have recognized Zuo's "Poems on History" as representing an alternative to the ornamental style of poetry popular in his time. This article addresses the way in which Zuo's poems contributed to the "poems on history" subgenre, as well as how they reflected the broader context of Six Dynasties [220-589] society. At the same time, it investigates another purpose for his use of historical figures in his poetry: self-canonization. This paper argues that Zuo used historical figures not only to express his emotions but also to skillfully place himself into the larger context and lineage of exemplary historical figures. Zuo is thus telling later generations that they should remember him with the same reverence—he is invoking history as a force of self-canonization. This self-canonization perspective reveals the complexity of Zuo's appropriation of earlier historical sources. It also deepens our understanding of the purpose of Zuo's "Poems on History" and of the ways in which history is disseminated through poetry in the Six Dynasties period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper interrogates the notion of intervention in popular poetry. It takes the example of popular poetry from Dar es Salaam, which has so far not received much scholarly attention, since it can neither be classified as traditional nor avantgarde. The urban poets struggle to make ends meet, but regularly publish their poetry in the newspaper or through social media and organize themselves in networks. They often remain without a voice in their society, but, contrary to a romanticist perception of the downtrodden, also do not seem to do much to criticize the status quo. Rather than following patterns of postcolonial paradigms which reduce poetry to a political message, I will argue for the potential of the aesthetic experience of poetry, whose imagery stirs the imagination of alternative worlds. Taking the example of a poem by the a female poet, Bi Jalala Sikudhani, I will show how the poem offers alternative views on her lifeworld. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The practice of performance or 'spoken word' poetry has gained a significant foothold among the youth in urban Namibia in the last two decades. While this poetry has been put to many socio-political uses, one of the main ones has been a protest against patriarchal elements in Namibian society and culture, and an outcry against Namibia's high rates of gender-based violence. Patriarchal aspects of Namibia's national culture are often explicitly linked to violence and to the intersectional nature of oppression. Spoken word poetry has also often given LGBT+ women a space to speak out against their oppression and to normalise their existence. This article shows how women performers have used and modified the conventions of poetry and song to get this challenging—in the Namibian context often radical—message across. The paper argues that poetry in this context has the potential to approximate a localised 'public sphere' where inclusive discourse can be held around social issues—bearing mind that people are not excluded from this discourse because of arbitrary reasons such as gender or sexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews exhibitions, previews conferences, and publishes announcements related to religion and the arts, including the exhibition "Power and Piety: Spanish Colonial Art at Allentown Art Museum in Allentown, Pennsylvania from August 25, 2017-December 8, 2018, "The Poetics of Faith: Exploring Belief in Modern and Contemporary Poetry" conference to be held in York, England on January 12-18, 2018, and calls for papers on religion and the arts.

The Sunni revivalist Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (d. 1792) has been subjected to rigorous scrutiny by a number of scholars. Much remains unknown about Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb's life and work, however, not least the rationale behind his idiosyncratic style of authorship. Examining the scholar's theological writings from the vantage point of Arabia's oral vernacular and popular religious traditions casts new light on the particularities of Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb's appeal. That appeal, this paper argues, is rooted in phenomena that were seemingly peripheral or even anathema to his puritanical religious mission, namely, poetry and magic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the Heming ji (Collection of singing in harmony), which comprises the sometimes surprisingly intimate poetic exchanges between the woman intellectual Wang Zhaoyuan (1763-1851) and her husband Hao Yixing (1757-1829), both renowned in their lifetimes as classical "evidential research" (kaozheng) scholars. The paper seeks to demonstrate the transformation of the cult of qing (romantic love) in the High Qing period. It argues that, as the centrality of courtesans in literati culture died out with the Ming-Qing dynastic transition, gentry women came to represent the positive cultural values of qing through the increasingly fashionable idea and practice of companionate marriage. In this process, the cult of qing that characterized the subversive late Ming literati culture, of which courtesan culture was an important part, was not obliterated by the High Qing classical revival as is often assumed; rather, it was domesticated, ritualized, transformed into conjugal love, and arguably, integrated into the High Qing "familistic moralism." The paper also explores how the concept of qing, in the narrow sense of love between man and woman, was expanded into this couple's shared passion and ambition to serve the state and empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first stasimon of Pindar Isthmian 2 has long been problematic: it appears to privilege past over present poetry and to stigmatise contemporary poets, including Pindar himself, as mercenary. This paper summarises previous solutions to this problem, none fully satisfactory, and, after modifying the logic of the first stasimon, proposes the following new solution. Pindar's 'past poetry' (contrary to the view of earlier scholarship) does not consist of monodic love songs but of choric paidikal enkômia performed at low cost by amateur choruses of fellow paides, whereas his 'present poetry' is performed by professional choruses and musicians who were expensively costumed and trained and highly paid. The issue, then, is not the poets' fees (for poets were always remunerated) but the high costs of contemporary choric performance. Those costs do not stigmatise Pindar as greedy, but they do further emphasise the patron's generosity in funding Isthmian 2 and its performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few Tibetan figures have left an impression on the Himalayan landscape, both literary and geographic, as indelibly as Mi la ras pa (ca. 1028–1111), whose career as meditator and poet was punctuated by travel across the borderlands of southern Tibet. This essay will begin to address the defining role of place in Tibetan biographical literature by examining the intersections of text and terrain in the recording of an individual's life. In particular, this study examines sites of transformation in Mi la ras pa's biographical narratives, arguing for what might be called a geographic biography by examining the dialogical relationship between a life story recorded on paper and a life imprinted on the ground. It first considers the broad paradigms for landscaping the environment witnessed in Tibetan literature. It then examines ways in which the yogin's early biographical tradition treated the category of sacred place, creating increasingly detailed maps of the yogin's life, and how those maps were understood and reinterpreted. The paper concludes by addressing two specific modes of transformation in the life story — contested place and re-imagined place — exploring new geographies of consecration, dominion, and praxis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes two of Ibn Darrāj al-Qastallī's famous odes presented to al-Mansūr b. Abī 'Āmir (d. 392/1002) and Mundhir b. Yahyā (d. 412/1022). Applying speech act theory reveals that these odes perform the illocutionary act, to use speech act terminology, of obligating the patron to reward the poet as a symbol of establishing a mutual relationship that is based on the poet's pledge of allegiance and the patron's acknowledgment of obligation toward the poet. The analysis focuses on what the panegyric ode does and what effect it has on the poet and patron within a proper context in the community. The paper uses speech act theory as a general framework for the ritual of gift exchange, which consists of giving (the poem as a gift), receiving (the poem by the patron), and repaying (the poet). This ritual establishes specific obligations between poet and patron that allow the panegyric ode to accomplish specific objectives. The paper also compares the function of each of the two odes in the context of the different political circumstances under which they were presented and shows how these circumstances affect the structure of each ode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores what the most substantial remnant of Sappho's poetry could have meant to its first audiences. Scholars often approach fr. 44 as a response to the Homeric Iliad, but for Sappho's contemporaries the Iliad would not have constituted the sole horizon for intertextual engagement. I suggest that the description of the wedding of Hector and Andromache would have brought to mind the wedding of Paris and Helen, a parallel traditional episode that was well-known in Sappho's day. Section 1 describes how our knowledge of mythical discourse on archaic Lesbos may guide the interpretation of fr. 44. Section 2 argues for the relevance of the wedding of Paris and Helen and sketches some interpretive implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of T'oung Pao is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Orphic Lithica is often considered an incoherent hodge-podge of teachings on magical stones. This paper, however, argues that the polyphony of voices (human, semidivine, and divine), as well as the amalgam of various subtypes of the hexametric super-genre (didactic epic, narrative epic, bucolic, hymn, oracle), contribute to the ultimate goal of the Lithica: to overwhelm the reader with authorities for the hermetic truth that the poem preaches. The poem further accomplishes this by appealing to the poetic tradition, so as to make the subject matter more recognizable and enjoyable to the audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the sense of writing poetry as a form of text immanence that is antinomous to the contemporary age, which is also an alternative system of thought, of transformation, of imitation and of critical redefinition of the reality of that contemporary age. At the same time, poetry is a neglected, peripheral literary genre, but also a hyperbolized fictional form that opens the way to an alternative victory of opinions and feelings. Essayistic in structure, the paper discusses several poems and the poetics of three 20th century Serbian and Yugoslav Modernists (Kosovel, Dis, Crnjanski), in order to show, on the basis of their developing and differentiated poetic self-consciousness, what sense the writing of poetry might have in the 21st century. In these instances of poetics, paradigmatic of poetic self-consciousness in general, not all the possibilities of the sense of creativity and action have been exhausted, nor the poetic solutions leading to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zhang Ruoxu's poem "Chunjiang huayue ye," reached Japan and Korea in the anthology Tangshi xuan compiled by the Ming dynasty scholar Li Panlong. In the mid-Edo period, under the influence of the "Kobunjigaku" (Ancient Rhetoric School) represented by Ogyū Sorai, the Tangshi xuan anthology enjoyed a phase of great popularity and became the widest-read Tang poetry work at the time. Because "Chunjiang huayue ye" was included in Tangshi xuan , it was also widely read. Many versions of Tangshi xuan containing abundant commentaries on "Chunjiang huayue ye" were published in Japan; most of these focus on art appreciation and comment on the poem in considerable depth. China, Japan, and Korea also produced many response poems and imitations of "Chunjiang huayue ye." Of these, the Chinese imitations were closest to the original work, the Japanese ones had greater ideological depth and echoed the commentaries on the poem, and the Korean ones were all rhymed response poems that were integrated into Korean culture over time. As a literary classic, "Chunjiang huayue ye" transcended its original era and at the same time broke the barriers of space, becoming world literature appreciated by people in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I will explore how the work of Wallace Stevens constitutes a phenomenology that resonates strongly with that of William James. I will, first, explore two explicit references to James in the essays of Stevens that constitute a misrepresentation of a rather duplicitous quote from James' personal letters. Second, I will consider Stevens' little known lecture-turned-essay, "A Collect of Philosophy," and the (conventional) poem, "Large Red Man Reading," as texts that are both about a conception of poetry-philosophy as well as being performances of poetry-philosophy. Finally, I will compare James' and Stevens' thought on the imagination, highlighting both form and content and the poetic-philosophical union or blend that makes possible (or virtual) those similarities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies moral education in Proclus and Iamblichus. The first section analyses Proclus' theory of moral education and its psychological underpinnings. Especially important in this context is the identification of the faculty of choice (prohairesis) with the passive or teachable intellect. The second section investigates the implementation of this theory into practice with the help of Iamblichus' Letter to Sopater: On Bringing up Children. The final section demonstrates how Proclus' famous tripartite division of poetry should be understood in the context of his program of moral education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tanure Ojaide and Niyi Òsundare are among the foremost politically committed Nigerian poets at present. The overriding concern in virtually all their literary works is commenting on the politics of the season. In Òsundare's words, poetry is "man meaning to man." For Ojaide, a creative writer is not "an airplant" that is not situated in a place. Both writers envision literature should have political message. Thus, in Òsundare's collection The Eye of the Earth (1986) and Tanure Ojaide's Delta Blues & Home Songs (1998) the major aesthetic focus is eco-poetry, which interrogates the politics behind oil exploration in Nigeria as well as its consequences on our environment. Both writers refract this with what Òsundare calls "semantics of terrestiality": i.e. poetry for the earth. Eco-poetry deals with environmental politics and ecological implications of humankind's activities on the planet. Armed with this poetic commitment, both writers unearth commodification of socio-economic relations, environmental/ecological dissonance, leadership malaise and endangered Nigerian environment mediated through (global) capitalism. Both writers maintain that eco-poetry is a platform for upturning environmental justice; and for decrying man's unbridled materialist pursuits. Thus, the preoccupation of this paper is to explore how both poetry collections: The Eye of the Earth and Delta Blues & Home Song interrogate the despicable state of Nigeria's environment as a consequence of global capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract One of the most original facets of Yosef Giqailla's mystical concept is his approach to the symbolical meaning of the Hebrew vowels. Throughout his life, he wrote several treatises about this subject, which deal with the Hebrew vowels as fundamental elements within Creation and the structure of the cosmos. About three hundred years later, the Italian kabbalist Mordekhay Dato wrote a commentary on the Secrets of the Vowels which actually is an interpretation of the poems written by Giqailla in order to condense his theses about the Hebrew vowels. The present paper explores the following questions: (1) From where did Dato derive the seven poems, which, on the one hand, are part of Giqailla's discussion about the vowels, but on the other, have been transmitted separately? (2) Did Dato know their original context? (3) In what way does his interpretation of these verses differ from Giqailla's? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses some contemporary challenges in approaching the Viking Age, specifically the need for new interpretive models that we can bring to bear on its material culture, ideally drawn from cross‐cultural, comparative analyses across time and place. A range of potential case studies is presented here from the island states of Oceania, across the broad socio‐cultural networks of the Pacific. By looking at familiar Scandinavian sites and finds through a different lens, we can view them afresh and arrive at new understandings of this critical period of Northern history by comparison with these 'distant Vikings'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on Sappho's use of epic models focuses primarily on her incorporation and rewriting of motifs and characters from the Iliadic cycle. This paper rather turns to the Odyssey's Penelope as exemplar for Sappho fragment 94, also known as Sappho's 'Confession'. The author argues that fragment 94 alludes to Penelope and her situation through a series of associative, lexical and narrative points, particularly through the unique adverb αδoλως; and the symbolic image of the soft bed as a locus for desire. At the same time, Sappho can be seen to subvert aspects of Penelope's fictional story, thereby more poignantly highlighting the focus on separation and change in the poem. Reading Sappho 94 through the Odyssey's Penelope also supports ascribing the first extant line of the poem to the departing girl and bolsters arguments for a marriage context for the fragment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to approach an understanding of time through the concept of 'poetic time,' and to do so by exploring the connections between theorizing, creativity, and ethics. Poetic time, in this sense, is a subjective phenomenon that we experience in our moment-to-moment acceptance of our ethical relationship to others. This acceptance is enacted by the decision to share our own allotment of time-our finite amount of time-with others, and others with us. This sharing of time finds and simultaneously creates spaces of mutuality and moments of poetry; it reveals and constructs worlds of mutuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Epigramma Paulini is a late antique Gallo-Roman poem of uncertain authorship which contains a dialogue structured on the model of the first Vergilian Eclogue. It is an unusual pastoral poem as it blends pastoral with satire. Recent scholarship has focused on the way the author of the Epigramma Paulini adapts the Vergilian model to suit his Christian message. The aim of this paper is to explore more fully the satirical section of the poem and, in particular, the lines focusing on Roman vices which contain a striking attenuation of the topos of misogyny. I seek to show through verbal and thematic similarities that the model for this part of the poem is the Hamartigenia of Prudentius. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses two deer similes by Simias and Theocritus that depend directly on a simile found in the New Sappho. Both passages confirm the interpretation of Sappho's simile as a case of so-called 'compendious comparison'. In turn, the New Sappho sheds new light on the texts of Simias and Theocritus. Simias' simile finds also resonances in two short similes in Id. 13.62-3 and Id. 18.41-2. This is possibly a literary tribute of Theocritus to Simias as his 'bucolic' predecessor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oríkì is a significant panegyric poetry in indigenous Yoruba communities of South-Western Nigeria. The different sub-generic forms which characterize its form, and its obvious ethnographic and anthropological histrionics constitute its thrust and aesthetic peculiarities. This paper sets out to examine Omoboyode Arowa's oríkì performance, explores how she articulates the ethnographic cum-psychosocial knowledge of her environment, and subsequently exploits the same to advantage. It further demonstrates how this, in turn, engenders her re-inscription of self in the performance under reference. Whereas a performer usually recites, sings, or chants a form of oriki, Àrowá's oríkì performance in Èkìtì dialect embraces varieties of oríkì sub-types, giving her performance a more elaborate, and unique quality. Besides, the gender specificity noticeable in Àrowá's performance in which as a woman chanter, she succeeds in negotiating a space for self re-inscribing, thereby qualifying her oriki corpus as one of the highly developed, complex, and most achieving form of oriki performances in indigenous Yoruba. It concludes that, in view of the findings, there is the urgent need for a new vigor and sense of commitment to the study of the oríkì repertoire of individual performer for the purpose of ensuring its survival in a manner that makes its scholarship transcend its present boundaries, thereby making it serve new functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In one of modern Arabic literature's most genuinely pessimistic poems, "Haffār al-Qubūr" ("The Gravedigger"), Badr Shākir Sal-ayyāb depicts a shattered world seen from the perspective of a lascivious misanthropist who earns his living as a grave-digger. While a majority of critics have interpreted the poem in psychological terms as a reflection of al-Sayyāb's tormented ego, this paper offers a radically contextual deconstructionist reading that relates the gloomy condition of the poetic persona's life not merely to its author's personal sufferings, but to the socio-historical circumstances and economic conditions of the Iraqi society in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The fundamental postulate of this study is that although al-Sayyāb's poetry always revolves around personal and abstract issues, it reflects the economic reality of its time in a manner that is not just mimetic or reproductive of dominant ideologies, but deeply ironic and critical of the contradictions inherent in those very ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Epic of Gilgamesh has been interpreted by Th. Jacobsen and his followers primarily as the story of a hero who struggles beyond his capacity to find immortality, gets disappointed, and finally faces the truth, maturing and turning to 'normality' on the premise that it is his achievements and not himself that will last. The present paper challenges a literal reading of the plot of the Epic along these lines, and through select comparison with the ancient Egyptian, 'heterodox' Hebrew, Iranian, and Gnostic traditions, argues that the meaning system embedded in the Epic can be thought to point to notions of 'mysticism' and 'soteriology', expressed in a distinctively Mesopotamian idiom that suppresses an explicit display of such concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A text linguistic analysis of the narrative structure of Catullus 63 attempts, in the first half of this paper, to provide a better insight into the extraordinary nature of this poem as a narrative. On the basis of this analysis it is observed that the 'narrative event structure' is in fact subservient to what is called the 'thematic structure' of the poem, in which the devices of contrast and repetition play an essential role. The second half of the article elaborates on the all-pervasive use of repetition in the poem and the implications of this observation for its interpretation, leading up to the conclusion that in Catullus 63 repetition is a theme (or aim) in itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an alternative interpretation and reconstruction of ensemble a from the Strasbourg papyrus of Empedocles, P. Strasb. gr. Inv. 1665-1666 , first published by A. Martin and O. Primavesi in 1999. I claim that Martin and Primavesi's working hypothesis for the reconstruction of lines a (ii) 3-17, upon which most of their individual supplements rely, is wrong, and that the doctrinal implications they draw from it are unfounded. Against them, I propose an alternate reconstruction of the text. If correct, two consequences follow from my alternative. First, it presents further reasons to reject a controversial variant reading revealed by the papyrus, retained by the editors, and the "we" of my title. Second, it provides new support for the role of chance in Empedocles' cosmic cycle, a theme largely ignored in modern scholarship on Empedocles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although aging is not a metamorphosis stricto sensu, it is a process that affects the shape of the body. This paper explores the ambivalent representation of old age and its interplay with the ostensible theme of Ovid's encyclopedic poem on bodies changing shapes. Aging in the Metamorphoses is mainly a physiological process, which affects men and women alike, but may be reversed by means of magic. It is also one of the trappings of divinity: gods and goddesses often disguise themselves as old women, in order to deceive or advise humans. Even the poem's narrator, 'Ovid', frequently assumes the persona of the elderly in an act of self-transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Herondas' mimiamb 8, a poem particularly concerned with questions of generic identity and reception, the poet defends his work and puts forward his literary program by means of a dream dominated by images related to Dionysiac myth and cult. The interpretation of the dream at ll. 66-79 is seen in terms of the generic affinities between Herondas' mimiambs, the iambographic tradition of Hipponax and the mime. In this paper the Dionysiac character of those images is not considered as an indication of a hypothetically dramatic nature of Herondas' work. It is argued, by contrast, that the poem's Dionysiac imagery and its subsequent interpretation are linked with the associations of Herondas' work with the mime and, more specifically, with the non-literary mime. Mimiamb 8 is considered as part of a long process through which the latter was eventually regarded as a dramatic genre. Herondas seems to be conscious of the disreputable character of that part of his sources, but attempts by means of a masterful use of images pertaining to Dionysiac myth and ritual to persuade his critics of the dramatic nature of the mimic origins of his work so as to invest his poetry with the authority and prestige of dramatic poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the form, content, and cultural significance of poems written by a number of otherwise unknown women before they committed suicide. The specific conditions under which these inscriptions are produced are disorder or violence in various forms, whether cultural, social, or familial, that threaten the integrity of the female body. The suicide poems are often accompanied by a short autobiographical preface. The author argues that this act of self-inscription at the moment of death is an act of agency. Through this textual production, the women reproduce a peculiarly Chinese sense of embodiment in inscription, and as selfrecorders, they write themselves into history. These women construct the integrity of their bodies in/out of disorder by textualizing and transforming them into cultural bodies inscribed with value and order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]