Subject collection: Literary Studies (221 titles, 1971–2015)

Curial e Güelfa és una novel·la anònima del segle XV escrita en llengua catalana, desconeguda fins al segle XIX i publicada por primera vegada el 1901. Es tracta d’una obra singular, a cavall entre l’Edat Mitjana i el Renaixement, en què es conjuminen magistralment els components cavalleresc i sentimental i la influència de l’Humanisme. Encara que el protagonista realitza les seues gestes per Itàlia, Alemanya, Hongria, França, Anglaterra, Grècia, Terra Santa, Egipte i Tunis, el seu ambient és bàsicament italià. El seu anonimat i la seva llengua han desorientat els lingüistes i els historiadors de la literatura que s’hi han acostat. La novel·la, ara accessible en anglès, espanyol, francès, portugués i italià — en traduccions promogudes per IVITRA, basades en l’edició filològica del prof. Antoni Ferrando (2007) —, atrau cada vegada més l’atenció dels estudiosos, no sols per la seva redacció exquisida i la seva ben traçada estructura, sinó pel seu ric rerefons cultural europeu. El present volum d’estudis intenta respondre a gran part d’aquests interrogants, amb quaranta aportacions molt rellevants tant en l’aspecte lingüístic com en el cultural.

Curial e Güelfa is a 15th century anonymous romance written in Catalan, unknown until the 19th century and first published in 1901. It is a singular work, halfway between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, in which the features of chivalry and sentimentalism and a touch of Humanism are brilliantly combined. Although the main character performs his heroic deeds in Italy, Germany, Hungary, France, England, Greece, the Holy Land, Egypt and Tunisia, the atmosphere is essentially Italian. Its anonymity and its language have always disconcerted the linguists and literary historians who have approached it. The novel, now available in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian — in translations sponsored by IVITRA, based upon Prof. Antoni Ferrando’s philological edition (2007) — and in German, is increasingly attracting the attention of scholars, not only because of its delighting style and its wonderfully traced structure, but also because of its rich cultural European background. This volume of studies tries to solve most of these questions with forty outstanding contributions, all of them very important both from a linguistic and a cultural point of view.

Where, when, and why did European Romantics take to Shakespeare? How about Shakespeare's reception in enduring Neoclassical or in popular traditions? And above all: which Shakespeare did these various groups promote? This collection of essays leaves behind the time-honoured commonplaces about Shakespearean translation (the 'translatability' of Shakespeare's forms and meanings, the issue of 'loss' and 'gain' in translation, the distinction between 'translation' and 'adaptation', translation as an 'art'. etc.) and joins modern Shakespearean scholarship in its attempt to lay bare the cultural mechanisms endowing Shakespeare's texts with their supposedly inherent meanings. The book presents a fresh approach to the subject by its radically descriptive stance, by its search for an adequate underlying theory along interdisciplinary lines, and not in the least by its truly European scope. It traces common trends and local features not just in France and Germany, but also in Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Scandinavia, and the West Slavic cultures.

The great diversity of contexts in which the term Postmodernism is currently encountered reflects the remarkable success of a coinage that has been in circulation for only about forty years. It has been used by philosophers, sociologists, art critics and literary historians to become, finally, a household word in the language of advertising and politics. Before letting it fade to a derelict cliché, an attempt is made in this volume of essays to use its potential as a cultural concept for the analysis and understanding of contemporary literature and thought.

The Ezourvedam, used by Voltaire among others, as sourcebook for the most ancient of religions, was thereupon found to have been a fraud. Actually it was composed by a Christian – the text shows him to have been a French Jesuit missionary, who did not necessarily know Sanskrit – in order to convert Hindus to Christianity. The controversy surrounding the spurious Veda continues, involving a number of scholars and missionaries particularly in the question of whether or not the Veda was composed in Sanskrit or French. In tracing the history of the Ezourvedam Ludo Rocher adds a number of points, one being that the text was definitely first written in French with a view to a later Sanskrit translation or, more likely, to one of several modern Indian vernaculars. This edition is based on the manuscripts of Voltaire and Anquetil du Perron, and, especially, on a third manuscript preserved at the Bibliotheque National in Paris, wrongly catalogued there as Yajurveda. This edition is therefor markedly different from the 1778 edition by the Baron de Sainte-Croix.

Lo que ante todo me propongo es compartir una lectura actual del ya centenario Martín Fierro, una lectura conforme a vigentes concepciones de la naturaleza y función de la lengua literaria. Pretendo mostrar cómo se presenta hoy el poema de José Hernández a lectores entrenados en la lectura de ficciones. Luego, y en reconocimiento de la relatividad de esta lectura pretensamente fiel al texto, refiero a la acogida que él tuvo en Argentina durante sus primeros cincuenta años.