Suchergebnisse

Seventeenth-century literature in the Holy Roman Empire has rarely been discussed in general cultural histories about the European Baroque. The dramatic achievements of Shakespeare, Calderon, and Corneille, the inimitable poetry of the Metaphysicals and Marino and the mischievous adventures of the Spanish picaro have long overshadowed the literary accomplishments of the German Baroque. Even today many scholars are still content to dismiss the German seventeenth century as derivative while, in the opposite camp, loyal Germanists currently defend its uniqueness. As is generally known, literary developments in the Empire were slowed by a number of unfortunate circumstances. Geographical, confessional, and linguistic disunity strongly contributed to the parochialism of German Baroque letters. Local literary societies were widely scattered throughout the Empire from Silesia to the Rhine and communication between them was greatly hampered. The lack of a main cultural center similar to the artistic hubs of Paris or London further isolated the writers from each other. In addition, confessional differences not only segregated Catholic and Protestant poets, but also resulted in the simultaneous development of a Batoque Latin and German literature.

This paper discusses a discourse grounding strategy that has not been described before. It is shown that the fragments of a literary text that are perceived as impressive, aphoristic, etc., tend to have a set of recurrent features. Firstly, in such fragments, there often is mutual re­flectedness of meanings (it emerges in metaphors, similes, parallelisms, or juxtapositions of contradictory notions). Second, mutual reflectedness goes through pronounced detrivializa­tion, i.e it is emphasised using special means, one of which is the ostentatious intricacy of the text usually achieved through amphiboly, or intended ambiguity. Thirdly, there is usually a strong anaphoric link between such fragments and the preceding text, i. e. a link between sub­jects and/or objects (this does not exclude adjunct-based links). Fourthly, the type of discourse relation between such fragments and the previous text is highly predictable. The main conclu­sion drawn in the article is that the described set of properties, which is instrumental in discourse grounding, is widely used in literature, on the one hand, and it is much more complex than the grounding devices earlier studied by narratology.

Russian literature is on the move. Despite the uncertain political and intellectual climate of the Putin era, it has not stagnated, but offers instead a colourful array of artistic diversity. The results of the book prizes 'Natsional'ny bestseller', 'Bol'shaia Kniga', 'Russkii Buker', and 'NOS' from 2009 to mid-2013 make it possible to follow the discourse of literary criticism. Familiar names, such as Dmitry Bykov, Aleksandr Terekhov, Daniil Granin, Lev Rubinshtein, and Maksim Kantor, define the picture set the tone, while new names, such as Igor Vishnevetsky, Arkhimandrit Tikhon, Marina Stepnova, Natan Dubovitsky, Figl-Migl, Plato Besedin, and Anton Ponizovsky enliven the literary scene. Among those authors who are innovative in terms of artistic skill and social criticism, the 'new realists' in particular represent an important trend. The advance of religiously influenced works stands out. Adapted from the source document.