This article compares the poetry of two prominent modern writers: Polish-Jewish poetess Zuzanna Ginczanka, and Ukrainian Lemko poet Bohdan-Ihor Antonych. They are believed to have certain poetic, stylistic, thematic, and literary similarities. The main discourses of their poetic imaginum mundi are studied with the use of a simple formula that includes five components. Tracing the interplay of nature, childhood, religion, and civilization in the development of an image of a holistic personality in their poetry, I analyze their (...) common and differing ideas, images, motifs, and themes. The article also outlines the underlying similarities of both poets, i.e., their otherness, and their references to childhood as a certain place in their poetry. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to familiarize the Polish reader with Poets and the Poetry of Poland, the first extensive anthology of the Polish literature published in English in the United States by Paweł Sobolewski. Particular emphasis was placed on the characteristics of this work, recreating the traces of reception of this work and showing the most important sources on which the author relied. The presented article also points out the importance of Sobolewski’s literary and cultural (...) activity, as he initiated multifaceted, often pioneering projects, becoming one of the leading Polish diaspora activists in the 19th century’s United States, also active in the American community. This paper was partially based on the source materials collected by Mieczysław Haiman at the Polish Museum in America, to which the access was possible thanks to a Kościuszko Foundation scholarship. The historical analysis of the sources based on the descriptive-historical paradigm was adopted as the basic tool. Noteworthy, the Poets and Poetry of Poland was the crown work of Sobolewski’s many-year mission, related to the desire to make Americans familiar with the Polish culture and to present it in representative forms. The anthology, including the translations of the works of 60 authors from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, gave an insight into the multi- faceted recognition of the biographies and literary works of eminent Polish poets, mostly belonging to the times of Romanticism and the Enlightenment. Despite the strong inspiration from Rycharski’s textbook and other sources, the final shape of the volume was influenced by the editor’s personal experiences, his reading preferences and contact with the authors. The selection of works and the structure of the conducted argument reflect the spirit of affirmation for the great tradition created by the first generation of romantics and the significance of the November Uprising, in which Sobolewski took part. (shrink)

The article is devoted to present Polish research on the literary work and philosophical thought of Hryhorii Skovoroda. The scientific reflection on Skovoroda’s legacy was initially carried out on the historical and literary level. It was initiated by Adam Honory Kirkor in 1874. In the context of the history of Ukrainian literature, Józef Tretiak, Ivan Franko and Bohdan Lepkyi presented the general characteristics of Skovoroda’s work, seeing in it only the original style and compilation character of thoughts. Ivan Mirtchuk (...) started his research on Skovoroda’s thoughts from the history of national philosophy, seeing in Skovoroda’s philosophy the features charac- teristic of Ukrainian philosophy, differing it fundamentally from Russian philosophy. As part of the research, it was possible to find an extensive article by Jarosław Ulwański, Philosophy of G.S. Skovoroda, published in 1930, in which the author presented arguments for a pantheistic interpretation of the Ukrainian philosopher’s thoughts. A breakthrough event was the publication of a monograph by Dmytro Tschižewskij, who formulated a view on the mystical philosophy of Skovoroda similar to the Western European mysticism of the 17th and 18th centuries. The interwar period ends with the work of Czesław Jastrzębiec-Kozłowski, in which the work of Skovoroda was analyzed against the background of Józef Hoene-Wronski’s messianic philosophy. After World War II and the 1990s, research on Skovoroda’s legacy was conducted primarily by philologists. Ryszard Łużny and Włodzimierz Mokry treated Skovoroda’s work as a Christian philosopher. In the 21st century, Polish research increasingly refers to philosophical interpretation. Denys Pilipowicz researched the ancient and patristic sources of Skovoroda’s mystical thought and compared it with the teachings of Paisij Velyczkovskyi. Iryna Betko analyzed his poetry from the perspective of Jung’s theory of archetypes. Michał Handzel conducted an in-depth historical and philosophical analysis of Skovoroda’s philosophy, seeing Skovoroda as a representative of the panentheistic trend, and Pavlo Snopkov examined the concept of Skovoroda’s self-knowledge from the perspective of Jung’s and Maslow’s psychological theories. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungHölderlin war wenig erfolgreich bei dem Versuch, sich mit seiner Lyrik gegen die zeitgenössischen Geschmacksanforderungen zu behaupten. Davon zeugt die Publikationsgeschichte seiner Elegie »Der Wanderer«. Erstmals 1797 bei Schiller für Die Horen eingereicht, erfuhr der Text in der Folge mehrfache Nachbearbeitungen: zunächst durch Hölderlin selbst, dann durch Schiller und schließlich durch Matthisson, der für den Abdruck in seiner Lyrischen Anthologie wiederum tiefgreifende Anpassungen vornahm. Die Überarbeitungen beider erfolgreichen Lyriker verbannen den ursprünglichen Reflexionsgehalt und glätten die formale und bildliche Dynamik zugunsten (...) von Anschaulichkeit und Gefälligkeit. Dies gibt Aufschluss über die zeitgenössischen Geschmackskonventionen und damit über die Erfolgsvoraussetzungen für Lyrik um 1800, von denen sich Hölderlin mit der Herausbildung seines Individualstils zunehmend entfernte.Hölderlin was not very successful in asserting with his poetry against the demands of contemporary taste. The publication history of his elegy »Der Wanderer« bears witness to this. First submitted to Schiller for Die Horen in 1797, the text was subsequently subjected to several revisions: first by Hölderlin himself, then by Schiller, and finally by Matthisson, who again made far-reaching adjustments for the reprint in his Lyrische Anthologie. The revisions of both successful poets banish the original reflective content and smooth the formal and metaphorical dynamics in favour of clarity and pleasentness. This provides information about contemporary taste conventions and thus about the prerequisites for the success of poetry around 1800, from which Hölderlin increasingly deviated by developing his individual style. (shrink)

The history of Milton's reception in Poland suggests that he was mainly seen as a model practitioner of epic poetry, rather than as a political or religious thinker. This conclusion is borne out by comparing two of the three complete translations of Paradise Lost into Polish—the first by Jacek Przybylski (1791), the second by Władysław Bartkiewicz (1902) (the third being Maciej Słomczyński's 1974 translation). The examination of a few crucial passages demonstrates that the earlier translation, Przybylski's, is more (...) successful in representing Milton's linguistic sophistication, theology, and attitude to the Roman Church, than Bartkiewicz's later translation, which, characterized above all by a concern with Catholic correctness, includes many omissions and distortions. Słomczyński's translation, criticized for its theological inaccuracies, is only briefly discussed, as are a few fragments of Milton's work that were translated by other Polish poets. (shrink)

“Ovid’s Old Age” is a sung poem written by the Polish poet and musician Jacek Kaczmarski which engages with the myth of Ovid’s exile. Kaczmarski’s works were heavily influenced both by classical culture and his experience of political emigration during the communist era. He was famed as an unofficial bard of the opposition movement, but is as yet little known to classical reception scholars. This paper presents Kaczmarski’s creative engagement with Ovid as both a deeply personal reflection on the (...) nature of exile and at the same time a universal commentary on poetry under authoritarian regimes. Our interpretation is based on a thematic analysis of the poem, including landscape, imperialism, displacement, “national” poets in exile, nostalgia, and the force of poetry. We set the reception in its social, political, and biographical context, with reference to several mediating receptions of the Ovidian exile. In Kaczmarski’s poem, the Ovidian voice helps the poet to express the trials of emigration and reveals their effect on his art. It shows how engagements with classical culture may flourish, even while the formal discipline of Classics has been undernourished. We provide a bilingual translation of “Ovid’s Old Age” to foster the understanding of migratory experiences in contemporary poetry and enrich international scholarship on the reception of Ovid with a response from communist Poland. (shrink)

In this essay, I analyze Romare Bearden’s art, methodology, and thinking about art, as well as his attempt to harmonize his personal aesthetic goals with his sociopolitical concerns. I then turn to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s reflections on art and our experience (Erfahrung) of art. I show how Bearden’s approach to art and the artworks themselves resonate with Gadamer’s critique of aesthetic consciousness and his contention that artworks address us, make claims upon us, and even reveal truth. Lastly, I discuss Gadamer’s emphasis (...) on the spectator’s active yet non-mastering role in the event of art’s address—an event that implicates the spectator and has the potential to transform him or her. This leads to a discussion of Gadamer’s notion of the type of self-(and world) understanding that occurs through aesthetic experience. I close by returning to Bearden in order to discuss how his art unearths a crucial feature of our being-in-the-world. I call this feature “world-unmasking” and show how it expands and enriches Gadamer’s account. (shrink)

This article examines the performance of masculinity by Piotr Odmieniec Włast in the poetry manuscript “In Grabów during the War:Book of Idyllic Poetry”. Following feminist arguments about the interdependence of the categories of gender and nationness, it argues that Włast uses Polish Romantic messianic discourse to make credible his staging of masculinity. Consequently, it participates in the discussions about the relations between nationness and non-normative gender scenarios.

Before approaching the problem of „The Torment of Christ in Polish Carmelitan Poetry Manuscripts”, it was necessary, specifically for the purpose of this work, to consider the problem of the beginning passion of Christ in Polish poetry in the 13th century. The sources creative invention, as in art and literature in the Middle Ages is evangelical dramatic torment of Christ. This subject presents mediaeval liturgical dramas, passion’s mysteries, meditations, saint biographies, legends, etc. The inspiration for literature (...) is dolorysm and a picture of pieta. In mediaeval Polish literature are very alive characteristics of passion’s motifs: meditation, compassion and imitation torment of Christ. Such a popular subject in the Middle Ages, the torment of Christ was also present in a rich array of literature in the 17th century. This article deals how the problem of the torment of Christ was visible in Polish carmelitan poetry manuscripts from 17th and 18th centuries. These carmelitan manuscript texts, which I research in this work, are contained in the Library of Jagiellonia and they have signatures: 3640 and 3642. The article also shows the influence of mysticism of St. Teresa of Avila and of St. John of the Cross in these manuscripts, but shows as well the original conception of Cracow’s anonymous poets from the 17th century. This work particularly presents the personal experiences of Cracow’s carmelitans (dialogue with God, the love to Him, a need of suffering how Christ and the need of death). This article shows not only carmelitan literary ingeniousness, but also a personal metaphysical and mystical way to the soul of God. (shrink)

This essay considers the relation between Don Quixote's hunger and the disenchantment (Entzauberung) that Max Weber understood as paradigmatic of the modern condition. Whereas hunger functions within a Hegelian dialectic of desire in Cervantes' novel, literary representations of hunger from later periods (in Kafka and post-Holocaust Polish poetry) acknowledge the cosmic insignificance of human need by substituting the desire for recognition with a desire for self-abdication. While Don Quixote's hunger drives him to seek recognition for his dream world, (...) modern literature's hungry heroes respond to hunger by changing their metaphysical identities. Like desire, hunger functions in the literatures of modernity as an index of psychic wholeness or of its lack, both enabling and resisting the hero's assimilation with the world outside the self. (shrink)

The paper provides an analysis and interpretation of selected literary texts by Ewa Lipska, with particular focus on poems: 11 września 2001 [September 11th, 2001] and Kopalnia [The Mine]. In these metapoetic poems, Lipska makes use of jewellery imagery in order to emphasise the processuality of an act of creation, its ethical ambivalence, and its complex sources. The offered interpretations refer, among other things, to theses by Carl Gustav Jung and Pierre Marc de Biasi. Analysing the way in which the (...) poet uses motifs of gemstones and metaphors with a jewel – and also demonstrating strategies of the literary refining of poems – the author of this paper challenges the hypothesis of the end of the ‘goldsmith convention’ in contemporary Polish poetry. (shrink)

Andrzej Walicki, the last Polish world-renowned humanist of the 20th century, passed away in August this year. The article offers a concise description of his personality and work, which partly undermines some aspects of his autobiography published in 2010. Walicki, who, like Leszek Kołakowski, was a member of the 56’ generation, also known as the “thaw” generation, became famous, first and foremost, as an expert in Russian thought. His publications, devoted to, among other things, retrospective utopianism and liberalism in (...) the 19th and 20th century Russian philosophy and social thought, were novel on a world scale. Equally novel were his works on the history of Marxism, where he challenged Kołakowski’s standpoint. Moreover, Walicki signifi cantly contributed to research on the history of Polish romantic philosophy, which had previously been overshadowed by great poetry. Walicki is considered to be one of the personalities who, in the 1960s and 70s, the time when Poland was part of the Soviet empire, made Polish humanities flourish. However, no matter how highly one estimates Walicki’s achievements, the impression that humanities were thriving in the communist Poland aft er de-Stalinization is an illusion. The illusion is an eff ect of the crisis in which humanities in Poland found themselves aft er the change of the regime, under neoliberal and populist governments. (shrink)

The Prussian Protestant Daniel Hermann is an important Neo-Latin poet. He lived from probably 1543 until 1601. Hermann studied at Königsberg, Straßburg, Basel and Wittenberg. Afterwards he served as a secretary at the Imperial Court at Vienna, later as a secretary of the city of Danzig and permanent ambassador of Danzig at the Royal Polish court during the wars against Russia. After the war he married and settled down in Riga and became the secretary of the Polish governor (...) Cardinal Radziwil and later of the general Georg Fahrensbach. Besides lots of poems on academical, political and private occasions he wrote letters in poetic form as well as theological, philosophical and political poems. This paper provides an overview over Hermann ’s life and his poetry, especially the poems written and published in Riga, and a short summary of the research on this poet. (shrink)

The objective of the article is to recall the European philosophical basis of the philosophical culture, inextricably connected with ancient Greece and its language. Plato’s philosophy is in the very core of the culture and its salient component is the doctrine of anamnesis. The elements of the doctrine are dispersed in numerous dialogues, particularly in Meno, Phaedo, Phaedrus, therefore they are given more attention. Platonic reflection on anamnesis is related to his view on the soul whose development is associated with (...) the process of cognizing, being essentially tantamount to recalling of what the soul saw before its imprisonment in the body. The role of myth in Plato’s philosophy, as well as in European culture as a whole, has been discussed, along with the main subject. On the background of the Platonic thought, examples of its reception in Polish Renaissance philosophy and in the poetry of the Romantic period has been presented. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to discuss the connections between Dante’s Divine Comedy and the poetic representations of the extermination of Jews during World War II. The work of the Italian master proves to be a point of reference for many Polish and Polish-Jewish poets in their search for the right language to describe the brutal reality of the Holocaust, to render the cruelty of this crime and the immense suffering of its victims, to testify about their own (...) experience, and to pay a tribute to the murdered. The poetry discussed in this text was written, among others, by Michał Maksymilian Borwicz, Izabela Gelbard, Janina Podlodowska, Krystyna Żywulska, and Andrzej Bursa. The references to the Divine Comedy are made in two ways and serve two basic purposes. Firstly, their aim is to portray the Holocaust as a reality confusingly similar to Dante’s inferno, secondly, they are to present the Holocaust as a reality far worse, more brutal and more gruesome than Dante’s hell. The second of the abovementioned ways of poetic presentation of the experience of the Shoah is very often connected with bitter irony, characteristic especially for Jewish art and sometimes directed against the sender of the message itself. In the course of analysis and interpretation, the phenomenon of universalization and partial decontextualization of originally religious motifs comes to the fore. The author argues that the reality of the Shoah can be compared to the devil’s abyss only if this abyss is no longer perceived as the place of eternal and just condemnation for sinners. The twentieth-century “hell” of concentration camps and ghettoes, though associated with Dante’s inferno, is not the place of deserved punishment, but of cruel crime and of immense, blameless and unjustifiable suffering. (shrink)

Author: Czerniak Stanisław Title: CAN WE RIGHTLY SPEAK ABOUT “KAZIMIERZ HOFFMAN’S PHILOSOPHY”? (SOME REMARKS CONCERNING THE PUBLICATION POZNAWANIE KAZIMIERZA HOFFMANA) (Filozofia Kazimierza Hoffmana? Refleksje na marginesie książki Poznawanie Kazimierza Hoffmana) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2011, vol:.15, number: 2011/4, pages: 1038-1046 Keywords: KAZIMIERZ HOFFMAN, IDEA OF DIVINE, EXISTENCE, POETRY Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:The article shows the philosophical background of Kazimierz Hoffman’s poetry. The author points to Hoffman’s idea (...) of the Divine, which creates all possible objects in the world and incessantly sustains their existence, treating it as the crucial point of his philosophical stance. Another question is devoted to a possible relationship between Hoffman’s philosophical views and the traditions of the philosophy of life and phenomenology. Worth examining are also some similarities between Hoffman’s concept of donation and the ethical standpoint of E. Lévinas. In conclusion to those considerations one could claim that in Hoffman’s poetry we experience an interesting kind of mysticism uniting the contemplation of the absolute order with the aesthetic, perfectionist attempts to write the “ideal poem” and to connect the metaphysical insight with the experimental form. In the article the author quotes extensively the most important hermeneutic conclusions contained in the book Poznawanie Kazimierza Hoffmana (“The Understanding of Kazimierz Hoffman”). (shrink)

The primary goal of this article is to get to the specifics of Zbigniew Herbert’s work. The poet had formal philosophical education and cannot be treated merely as a writer raising existential issues. The consequence of his studies in philosophy with the most eminent Polish philosophers of the time was that he took up important philosophical questions rather than used the answers that philosophers of the past had given. This is an important feature of his poetry and distinguishes (...) Herbert from those writers who subscribed to the worldview of their era. Failure to distinguish between these two stances has led to one-sided readings of his poem To Marcus Aurelius. The interpretations of the last sixty years quoted in the article lead to the conclusion that we are dealing with a kind of “contemporary”, or modified, “stoicism”. Later scholars interpreted the work as existential. A comparison of the poem with the work of Marcus Aurelius, and above all, an analysis of the differences between the ancient and modern understanding of such concepts as “nature”, “fate”, “self”, or “suffering”, allowed us to show the internal intellectualemotional tension in Herbert’s poem, and above all, the general idea of philosophizing poetry. The poet himself believed that it resembles primary reflection, such as that of the early Ionian thinkers. This is not about philosophizing on the basis of an elaborate conceptual apparatus, but about philosophical intuition and “philosophical experience”, an intellectual and emotional tension, in which – thanks to poetic talent – beauty is born. The dialog in To Marcus Aurelius is precisely a record of such poetic agitation. (shrink)

There has been much discussion of the phrase ‘perpetuum… carmen’ and of its relation to Callimachus' rejection of the . Much less has been written about deducite in line 4. However it is, I believe, equally important for the ‘programme’ of Ovid's poem. Deducere is a metaphor frequently applied to poetry in general with the sense of ‘to write, compose something.’ In certain contexts the reference is much more specific and indicates subtle and polished writing of the kind associated (...) with Callimachus. (shrink)

In this reminiscence I present some personal and little-known memories of my Father Tadeusz Kotarbiński. Among others, I dwell on his personality, the family atmosphere he created, his teaching talents, and his attitude towards the authorities of his times. I also speak about his artistic skills (notably his pencil drawings and poetry), his everyday language and the language of his lectures, as well as his hobbies like mushrooming, Polish bowling, and others.

Considerations are centred on the problem of actualisation of the anthropological structures of imagination within the chosen texts by B. Leśmian and M. Białoszewski. Theoretical point of departure is a statement by G. Durand, which concerns cultural manifestation of the fundamental pattern of experience consisting of the principles of disconnection (separation), of connection (unity), and of analogy. Those principles correspond lo two fields of the isotopies of archetypes, symbols, structures and attitudes that constitute archetypal images of day and night. In (...) the course of examination, Durand’s theoretical assumptions are introduced as analytical procedure that reveals and explicates mechanisms of creation of the represented world in the poetry of Leśmian and Białoszewski. The mechanisms m question are based above all on establishing the principle of disconnection (separation), and compensational suspending of it; establishment and suspension consist in introducing the representations of the unity and analogy principles into the structure of the represented world, according to the integral pattern of experiences. In Leśmian’s poetry, actualisation of atlthropological structures of imagination is performed above all by mediation of image and event; in poetry of Białoszewski – by mediation of linguistic morphodynamics within the scope syntactic and semantic operations that violate the rules of phrase and clause construction in Polish. In conclusion remarks one finds reflections regarding relationship between poetical and philosophical representation of anthropological structures of imagination. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Musa Lapidaria: A Selection of Latin Verse InscriptionsJane Bailey ThigpenCourtney, E[dward], ed. Musa Lapidaria: A Selection of Latin Verse Inscriptions. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995. Pp. x 1 457. 4 maps. Cloth, $41.95; paper, $27.95. (American Classical Studies, 36)Latin verse inscriptions have often been mined for philological, metrical, grammatical, and socio-historical data, but neglected as poetry worthy of study in and of itself. This oversight limits literary study (...) to the generally upper-class, cultured milieu of literary texts. Epigraphical verse, in contrast, allows the study of material from all levels of society and expertise—from highly literary to barely literate. Musa Lapidaria shows how rewarding in-depth literary study of epigraphical material can be. Although the book was written with graduate students and young professors in mind, it can also be read profitably (and enjoyably) by preparatory-level teachers and advanced undergraduates.Of the nearly twenty-three hundred inscriptions collected by Buecheler and Lommatsch in the Carmina Latina Epigraphica (the verse complement to CIL), most are highly formulaic and lack individuality and intrinsic literary worth. A few of these poems, however, are creative endeavors. In Musa Lapidaria, E. Courtney has picked some of the best from CLE and added thirty-four choice specimens from other epigraphical sources. He translates his collection of 204 inscriptions into literal but elegant prose and adds a commentary which provides bibliography for each inscription as well as a line-by-line analysis of significant linguistic, metrical, literary and historical features. As the commentary is written for literary non-specialists rather than epigraphers, the author only briefly describes the physical characteristics of inscriptions and archaeological features when pertinent and includes no pictures.The collection spans the centuries, running from the early Republic to a [End Page 152] fifth-century inscription on the Golden Gate of Constantinople. Although Courtney includes many inscriptions from late antiquity, he refrains from including those which are openly Christian. Republican inscriptions include Saturnian verse, the Scipio epitaphs, and a few other notable epitaphs. Imperial inscriptions are organized by topic: 1) emperors and notables, matters of state and public buildings; 2) baths and springs, private buildings, works of art, and furniture; 3) literary, educational, and philosophical connections; 4) inns, travel, and tourism; 5) erotic; 6) municipal politics and institutions; 7) games, public performances and performers; 8) trades and professions; 9) religion (mostly Hercules, Hermes, Aesculapius, Athena, the Vestals, Silvanus, and Priapus, hunt trophies to Liber Pater or Diana, and examples of late syncretism); 10) epitaphs, including several for horses and dogs.The resulting melange is a colorful, earthy slice of life. The reader encounters, among other things: graffiti from the pyramids, dinner etiquette from Pompeii, poetic complaints about the lack of chamber pots at an inn, a hash of elegiac “door-poem” cliches actually written on a door, an ad for a snake charmer, a clay theatre ticket, a braggart soldier who could have stepped off the Plautine stage, and lurid descriptions of peculiar deaths—including an accident with a play javelin à la Antiphon and an attack by witches.The inscriptions themselves show a broad range of literary styles and expertise. The offering of Republican verse runs from the austere, well-wrought dignity of upper-class Saturnian and elegiac epitaphs to the chatty wit of a Saturnian dedication by a collegium of cooks, who, as Courtney says, “know their Plautus, and play up to their traditional comic type-casting as pretentious boasters” (205) but are less competent in their handling of meter. The Imperial material runs from the coarse wit and vulgar Latin of obscene Pompeiian graffiti to the highly polished, elusive style of a second-century North African epitaph (199A) which spends most of its 110 verses describing the three-storey mausoleum—complete with weathercock—which it adorned. (If anyone wants to read the longest extant Latin epitaph, this is it.) Five epitaphs are bi-lingual (Greek/Latin): 112, 159, 160, 170b, 180. Courtney omits the famous epitaph of Allia Potestas because it has already received a thorough commentary by N. Horsfall, ZPE 61 (1985) 251.The commentary deals with all of this disparate material thoroughly and well, and is particularly informative regarding material... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Brevity, Conciseness, and Compression in Roman Poetic Criticism and the Text of Gellius' Noctes Atticae 19.9.10Amiel D. VardiGellius Reproduces in Noctes Atticae 19.9.10 four early Latin epigrams he reports to have been recited by his teacher Antonius Julianus, on which he remarks:quibus mundius, venustius, limatius, tersius Graecum Latinumve nihil quicquam reperiri puto.tersius Salmasius followed by most editors: persius Q, pessius Z, pressius FγNow that Salmasius' admiration for the Parisian (...) Q and the whole δ family has abated,1 there is no reason to prefer the emendation over the reading of F and γ, especially since the readings of both manuscripts of the δ family could easily have originated in. But Jacobus Gronovius, in his 1706 edition, objects to pressius on the grounds that the idea of conciseness is not relevant in this context.2 A consideration of both this reading and the emendation is therefore appropriate.There is no other occurrence of tersus in Noctes Atticae, though the word is quite a common literary term from the time of Quintilian on. In his Institutio Oratoria it is used with reference to oratory (12.10.20, 50), to elegy (10.1.93, tersus atque elegans), and to Horace's advantage over Lucilius (10.1.94, tersus ac purus). It serves the younger Pliny, again both for prose style (Ep. 2.3.1, 7.25.4) and for elegy (9.22.2, tersum, molle, iucundum), and Porphyrio ascribes it to Horace's style (ad Hor. S. 1.4.8, tersus atque eleganter). The meaning of the term seems always to be that of "polished" or "refined" and is thus not much different from limatus, which precedes it according to the vulgate reading in [End Page 291] NA 19.9.10. The combination limatius, tersius would thus be somewhat pleonastic, but such coupling of synonyms is not alien to Gellius' style,3 and the combination tersum ac limatum is also found in Quintilian (Inst. 12.10.50). The reading limatius, tersius in the Gellian passage therefore has no obvious lexical deficiencies, and if pressius had failed to satisfy, it would indeed have been a happy emendation.Pressus is an older stylistic term, commonly employed in rhetorical discussions by Cicero, the younger Seneca, Quintilian, the younger Pliny, Tacitus, and Suetonius. In this context it normally serves, side by side with brevis, as a Latin equivalent for, to designate the virtus dicendi of brevity, which was added to the Theophrastean by the Stoics but, except in narratio, not always favored by rhetoricians with a taste for the grand style, especially Cicero and his admirers.4 The term is coupled with limatus by Cicero (Brut. 35, Orat. 20) and Quintilian (Inst. 2.8.4, 11.1.3 twice), with reference to the genus subtile or the Atticist style. It serves Gellius in three other places (1.3.21, 2.6.5, 10.6.2), all in the adverbial comparative form pressius but not in the sense "concise," which would be its meaning in 19.9.10.5 With reference to poetry, pressus is found in this sense in Quintilian (Inst. 10.1.46, on Homer's style; 12.10.38, an advantage of the Greek language over Latin), and Silius Italicus employs the metaphor pressis metis, taken from chariot racing, with reference to epic narrative and corresponding to breviter... revolvere (Pun. 8.48).Terminology apart, the demand for brevity in poetic texts is quite common, and precedes that in rhetorical theory.6 In Roman poetic theory it is emphasized by Horace, both in Ars Poetica (25, 335-37) and in his criticism of Lucilius (S. 1.4.11-13, 1.10.50-51).7 Whereas in the passages from Ars Poetica Horace and the Hellenistic doctrines he follows8 [End Page 292] seem to adopt the rhetorical virtutes dicendi to poetry,9 the metaphor of the muddy stream ( flueret lutulentus) used in his Sermones suggests dependence on a completely different tradition, that of the poetic ideal of and Callimachus' Hymn to Apollo, already evoked in Catullus' poem 95.10 This fortuitous coincidence of rhetorical and Callimachean doctrines, often also formulated in the same terminology,11 continues to obfuscate the theoretical... (shrink)

Under the sign of Libitina, the Roman goddess of burials and funerals invoked in Horace's Ode 3.30, this essay provides a celebratory introduction to the work of the Polish Jewish poet Zuzanna Ginczanka, situating her within the cultural history of commemoration and consecration of the dead in Poland and the painful confrontation with the unburied dead of the Holocaust, of whom Ginczanka is one. Her best-known poem, a bitter parody of Juliusz Słowacki's “My Testament,” turns the Horatian notion of (...) poetry as the most precious and enduring legacy on its head by construing the author's meager household possessions, looted after her denunciation to the Nazis in wartime, as the only offering her fellow citizens will cherish, while the text itself was actually brought as evidence in a postwar trial of the Polish woman she accuses in the poem and contributed to a conviction for collaboration. Using historian Thomas Laqueur's terms necro-sociability and necronominalism as competing impulses in a seemingly intractable struggle, this essay argues that it is possible to find in Ginczanka's joyful defiance of traditional accounts of body and spirit the point of departure for a poetics that claims a new freedom of imagination in the attempt to transcend the most stubborn of memory wars. (shrink)

The article is dedicated to the early, Paris period of life and literary work of Nikolay Gumilyov (1906–1908), which is still insufficiently studied and understood by scholars. The paper aims to study the influence of this period on shaping Gumilyov’s personality and his spiritual values and aspirations, polishing of his literary taste, gradual gaining of an independent ideological and aesthetic platform and development of his inimitable poetic style. – The research for the paper was based on the comprehensive historical and (...) cultural approach, with application of literary and historical analysis techniques. This approach was used to consider the memoirs of his contemporaries, Gumilyov’s letters to Valery Bryusov, as well as his poetry, prose and art criticism during that period. Particular attention is paid to the history of publishing Sirius magazine and to such poorly studied aspects as the symbolic meaning of the magazine name and the first manifestations of acmeism in its aesthetic platform. The authors emphasize the fruitful and creative character of Gumilyov’s friendship with Sirius co-editor, artist and art critic M.V. Farmakovsky, whose name is unfairly forgotten. – They come to the conclusion that the “first Paris period” was not only the novice time for Gumilyov but also the start of his personal and creative self-identity. It was in Paris that the strong and persistent character of the poet was formed, his skills honed and his inimitable style created, with the colour-sound synthesis of the striking romantic picturesqueness and a clear strong word. Paris was the place of polishing the artistic taste, developing a comprehensive system of views, finding main poetic motifs and setting life goals of Gumilyov, a rising star of the Silver Age. (shrink)

Giacomo Leopardi, a major Italian poet of the nineteenth century, was also an expert in evil to whom Schopenhauer referred as a “spiritual brother.” Leopardi wrote: “Everything is evil. That is to say, everything that is, is evil; that each thing exists is an evil; each thing exists only for an evil end; existence is an evil.” These and other thoughts are collected in the Zibaldone, a massive collage of heterogeneous writings published posthumously. Leopardi’s pessimism assumes a polished form in (...) his literary writings, such as Dialogue between Nature and an Islander (1824)—an invective against nature and the suffering of creatures within it. In his last lyric, Broom, or the flower of the desert (1836), Leopardi points to the redeeming power of poetry and to human solidarity as placing at least temporary limits on the scope of evil. (shrink)

al-Tabarsī is one of the glossators in the Shī‘ah gloss tradition in the second middle period or first sagacity period. al-Tabarsī who had a wide knowledge in the various knowledge branches was mentioned as a glossator, narrator of Mohammad’s all sayings, deeds and approvals and scribe. One of compilations that al-Tabarsī wrote it in the field of gloss is Macmau-l-bayān fī tafsīri-l-Qur’ān. The glossator who widely included the recitations in this work used some evidence related to their averment while he (...) was reporting the recitations, and he made the recitations’ justification in the framework. The averment is a science which determines the correct recitations as distinguishing the correct one of recitation’s differences from the deficient one, and which founds an aspect of the correct category with all the other transferred and linguistic arguments of recitation in the predilection besides the imputation, the formal Qur’ān. Al-Tabarsī first mentioned the recitations under the subtitle of recitation related to the verses in each sura and then transferred the argument of recitations with the term of argument. So the glossator applied to give evidence on them with the linguistic and transferred arguments in each of the parts that the recitations were nearly mentioned. He mentioned the imputation, the Qur’ān lettering, verse, hadith, companion and natural people’s readings. He used Arabic poetry, Arabic idiom, dialect, grammar and syntax rules for the linguistic arguments. In this study, the evidences which were used in the recitations’ averment are reviewed in the sample of al-Tabarsī’s gloss in the name of Majmau-l-bayān. Summary: Full name of al-Tabarsī who was one of the leading scholar of Shī‘a is Fadl b. Hasan b Fadl al-Tabarsī. He was born in Thabaristan. According to some narration he was born in village named Tafrish which is between Kashan and Isfahan. He was called al-Tabarsī by reference to his hometown Thabaristan, according to another opinion he was called al-Tabarsī which comes from his birth place known as Tafrish located between Kashan and Isfahan. Tafrish was translated into Arabic as Tabars. Also, the commentator was known with nicknames such as Amīnü’l-islām, Amīnü’d-dīn and Umdatü’l-Mufassīrīn. He was called Sebzevarī due to the place where he died and named Maşhadī and Ṭūsī because of the place where he was buried. Although he is proficient in many fields, he has been described in the sources as commentator, muhaddīth and faqīh. Mufassīr has written many works in Islamic sciences. one of his works written in the field of commentary is Mujmau-l-bayān fī tafsīri-l-Qurʾān. Mufassīr stated that he wrote this commentary by taking advantage of Ṭūsī 's (d. 460/1067) al-Tibyān by saying “It is a guide from which I benefited from Tibiān light, and I write the subjects on the basis of his method”. The author started to write this work with the encouragement of some of his friends after he had aged quite a bit and his hair turned white. and he saw a gap in this area. He spent a lot of effort to fill that gap. This commentary, written during the first dirayet of the Shī‘a exegesis, is more moderate than the previous periods of Shī‘a commentators. The most basic indicator of this is the definitive rejection of the falsification of the Qurʾān in this period. The second important indicator is that insults and degrading expressions about the first three of the hulafā-i rashid and some of the companions are not accepted. The third important indicator is that most of the verses have been interpreted in a manner that corresponds to the views of the Ahl al-Sunnah school in linguistic analyses and proved by appealing to Arabic poems and sayings. al-Tabarsī mentioned recitation almost in all verses as a subtopic. He performed this in the surah by using subtopics. Then he has used “hujjatuhu” (its evidence) expression to narrate the evident of qirāʾāt. By doing so, commentator grounded qirāʾāts by using their evidences utilizing linguistic and narrative evidences in nearly every mentioned qirāʾāts. İhtijaj is a science that determines the authentic readings by distinguishing authentic readings from the weak ones, and that grounds the reading in the choice of an angle, which is mentioned in the authentic category, with isnād, Mushaf script and all other narrative and linguistic evidences. There are two types of ihtijaj which are ihtijaj bi-l-qirāʾāt ve ihtijaj li-l-qirāʾāt. İhtijaj li-l-qirāʾāt uses the linguistic evidences such as isnād, Mushaf line, Arabic language, consumables-nahiv pedestals, polish differences and the narrative evidences such as verses, hadith, qirāʾāt, Arabic words and poetry in determination and preference of a reading aspect. ihtijaj bi-l-qirāʾāt is the use of kıraa as evidence for any matter of science. al-Tabarsī has also mentioned detection proofs which reveal the authentic ways of qirāʾāt like isnād and rasm al-mushaf. Isnād is attribution to whom take the qirāʾāt from previous persons. This proportion reaches up to the Prophet. The persons in the chain of isnād constitute this chain. al-Tabarsī has given in preface the names of the recitors and narrators, which are famous in the cities, based on the fact that an authentic attribute is the basic element in the determination of the qirāʾāh. Thus he passed on the chains of isnād that reached up to the Prophet. Another thing that al-Tabarsī used in the determination proof of qirāʾāh is rasm al-mushaf. The commentator has used the spelling of al-mushaf scripture as evidence by saying “written in al-mushaf like this”. al-Tabarsī, also mentioned preferable evidences about ways of qirāʾā’s proof. Preferred proofs, are evidence to make choosing between qirāʾāh whose authenticity is defined by means of determination proofs. These evidences are divided into two parts which are determination proofs-based and special. Special evidence has not relation with the determination proofs. It contains evidence categories used to prefer one of the two authentic qirāʾāh as special. These categories are divided into four parts: linguistic, transplant, mental and private. al-Tabarsī has evidenced with verses of narrative proofs in the preferred evidence category. The commentator has mentioned about this method for qirāʾā evidence extensively. He has grounded qirāʾāh by using verses. al-Tabarsī also has evidenced these matters by using words of the Prophet from narrative proofs in the preferred evidence category. In this method commentator has evidenced from hadith after mentioning qirāʾāh ways. al-Tabarsī evidences from narrative proofs with qirāʾāh preferred evidence category. In this context, the commentator mentioned recitation of companion and followers by saying his qirāʾāh after reporting qirāʾāh. Moreover, the commentator has sometimes mentioned recitations which is related with reading seven of the recitation and reading ten of the recitation sciences qurra recitation and sometimes mentioned recitations which are known as shadhdh. Then, he has examined these recitations with the qirāʾāh of companions and followers. al-Tabarsī has benefited from narrative evidences, Arabic poetry and phrase in the preferred evidence category extensively. Another evidence used for examination of qirāʾāh is linguistic evidences. Qirāʾāh are related with Arabic language because it has connection with Qur’ānic wording which revelated in Arabic. al-Tabarsī has benefited from some things such as Arabic grammar rules and dialectic differences extensively. The commentator has benefited from Arabic grammar by emphasizing the meaning of the words with the literary features. He has explained grammar statement related with qirāʾāh aspects. He has also explained linguistic rules which are about aspects. (shrink)

Author: Waloszczyk Konrad Title: THE RELIGION AS THE POETRY. ABOUT PHILOSOPHY OF THE RELIGION OF GEORGE SANTAYANA (Religia jako poezja? O filozofi i religii George’a Santayany) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2010, vol:.11, number: 2010/2, pages: 93-106 Keywords: RELIGIOUS DOGMA, METAPHOR, “COPERNICAN REVOLUTION” IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION AND THEOLOGY Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:George Santayana (1863–1952) has contended that religion should be seen as a kind of poetry (...) and not as a literal truth. To him “religion, when seen to be poetry, ceases to be deceptive and therefore odious, and becomes humanly more significant than it seemed before”. I shall (1) expose reasons which have him conduced to this view, (2) compare it with the opposite doctrine of the Catholic Church and (3) conclude, that Santayana’s philosophy of religion seems to be in the age of globalization and religious pluralism of particular relevance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Six Poems GEORGE KALOGERIS The Atomists To see what the matter is, in all of its dense, Teeming particulars, and not through the lens Of a microscope but by the most lucid, precise, Leap of imagination: the first was Leucíppus. But it was his student, Democritus, who stated That human understanding was truly futile, Given the random collisions of atoms. Still, He blinded himself to keep from being (...) distracted. When he broke the long-jump record by two whole feet, Bob Beamon dropped to his knees, buried his face In his hands, and wept in a pit of sand—the trace Of his human, Olympian flight still fresh as a heel-print. When the earthquake struck Kalamáta, and Uncle Sotíri Lost everything, he asked a taxi driver To take him to “a nice high place by the sea. And then come back for me in half an hour.” arion 28.3 winter 2021 58 six poems One Credit Seminar on the Odes of Horace We were sitting around a polished oak table, just getting to Those famous lines near the end of the Sestius Ode: Revenant whitefaced Death is walking not knowing whether He’s going to knock at a rich man’s door or a poor man’s When one of the students (Andrew) said it was “totally weird”— Which led us to look at the paleness of Death’s appearance, Whose pallor is what, when he comes, comes with him: the sickness and shock In his ghastly face. And that’s where we stopped. And then It was Jennifer’s email, saying “I’m sorry for missing class, But I’m having panic attacks. I keep flashing back To March 19th, when I entered my dorm-room and found my boyfriend Dead of an overdose... I can get you a note... What reading should I do to be prepared for next week?” O goodlooking fortunate Sestius, don’t put your hope in the future; The night is falling, the shades are gathering around; The walls of Pluto’s shadowy house are closing you in. There who will be lord of the feast? What will it matter, What will it matter there, whether you fell in love With Lycidas, this or that girl with him, or he With her? So David Ferry’s great translation goes, And its tone of tender, knowing, bemusement is Horace’s Pitying voice, but whose pity has come to speak to us Through the whitefaced mouth of revenant Death, still going From house to house, until he gets to Jennifer’s dorm-room. And what will it matter now if Andrew was drawn to the line About fishermen hauling their caulked boats to the water? It’s late September. We’re sitting around a polished oak table Whose wood is sacred to Jove, whose lightning-bolt Has already sounded deep in the heart of Indian summer. George Kalogeris 59 Greek School The very first poem I ever knew by heart: That sing-song forsaken one assigned to me. Recited on our other Independence Day. When some of the girls were dressed in peasant costumes, And some of the boys in kilts of the freedom fighters. And the timid rest of us in our Sunday best. In the church gym, where Father Mihos called us Up to the microphone, and one by one We showed the parents what we’d learned in Greek school. In Horace’s Ode to his Lyre, the poet prays That his song will serve as the medicine of sorrows, His stricken voice the trembling instrument— Schooled as he was in Sappho, who said the ancient Prescription left a bittersweet taste in her mouth: Glukopikron. For me it’s that first-grade poem I stammer to remember: Egwo tha geino Yiatrós... “I shall grow up to be a doctor...” Just saying that, my elders perk up their ears. And even if Poetry wasn’t the kind of calling Expected of me, and one by one they all Got sick and died, it’s still the medicine That keeps them leaning forward on their folding chairs. 60 six poems Money Doesn’t Grow On Trees But evergreen the... (shrink)

K. K. Baczyński is usually perceived as a poet of the Columbus Generation (especially in case of teenagers and Polish language students). His poetry is not really known to the Polish reader. Its knowledge is usually restricted to some standard poems, for example With the head on the gun (Z głową na karabinie) or The Generation (Pokolenie). Having kept track of Baczyński’s creative activity ever since the juvenile period up till the poems written a few months ahead (...) of his death, it can easily be observed that his poetry is very fabulous, full of such characters as the king’s daughter, the mermaid, the aquarius, the knight and the glass mountain. The Dragon appears in 11 poems. It can be observed in the pre-war poems (e.g. Come, my good dragon - Przyjdi mój dobry smoku) as well as in the ones written during the occupation, for example The crystal Idyll (Idylla kryształowa). The dragon’s figure is perceived as the main character of the poem, the simile or the metaphor. All kinds of Baczyński’s “dragons’ presence” has been discussed or signalled in the article. The author seems to be intrigued by the two questions she is trying to give answers to: what is the function of dragons in Baczyński’s poems, any why is it a different dragon every time? A good example seems to be the poem Fault (Wina) where the author presents his own version оf the legend of St. George. The dragon is not a beast to be killed in order to save the imprisoned “blue-haired girl”. She felt safe. The dragon could be her protector or a friend. She is mourning for its death. It is the knight to be blamed not the dragon. All Baczyński’s dragons are good. (shrink)

In this reminiscence I present some personal and little-known memories of my Father Tadeusz Kotarbiński. Among others, I dwell on his personality, the family atmosphere he created, his teaching talents, and his attitude towards the authorities of his times. I also speak about his artistic skills (notably his pencil drawings and poetry), his everyday language and the language of his lectures, as well as his hobbies like mushrooming, Polish bowling, and others.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Making a New Man: Ciceronian Self-Fashioning in the Rhetorical WorksAndrew M. RiggsbyJohn Dugan. Making a New Man: Ciceronian Self-Fashioning in the Rhetorical Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. x + 388 pp. Cloth, $120.The title somewhat undersells this book in two respects. First, in addition to treating several of the rhetorica (De Oratore, Brutus, Orator), it also offers readings of two actual orations (Pro Archia and In Pisonem). (...) Second, and more importantly, self-fashioning in the narrow sense is only half of the project Dugan analyzes. As interested as Cicero was in offering versions of himself to a variety of audiences, he seems to have been at least as interested in fashioning an audience that would evaluate those versions properly (that is, positively). The theatrical character some have noted in much of Roman culture might lead one not to be surprised to find late Republican interest in self-fashioning; and, as Dugan points out, a "new" man such as Cicero would have been particularly self-conscious about the matter. One might even have expected that attempts to change the rules on the fly would be fair game (cf. Pliny Ep. 4.17.3, 6.17.4, 7.4.10). Still, the scale of Cicero's enterprise seems to have no classical parallel and was badly in need of description and analysis. This is the work carried out effectively by Dugan's book. The Cicero being fashioned is in part the togate general and hero of the Catilinarian affair. He is also, however, the cultural producer who tests cultural limits and standards of acceptability and is eventually displaced by his own product.The first chapter argues that Pro Archia adopts an essentially epideictic form to exploit, on the one hand, the ludic associations of that genre and, on the other, its proximity to the aristocratic laudatio funebris. The former licenses Cicero's valuation of literary polishing (roughly, ornatus), explicitly in poetry, but also in history and oratory. The latter co-opts a highly traditional mode of fashioning for a new man who might not have literal access to it. The speech is both an argument for a certain set of values and a demonstration of Cicero's possession of the same: the value of cultural production to the community, the [End Page 473] value of formal polish and aestheticization to that production, the role of texts in processes of exchange, personal auctoritas as the ultimate guarantor of value, and semiotic transparency. This speech and its hoped-for responses would be able to canonize Cicero's version of the Catilinarian conspiracy, a version in which he was the hero. In Pisonem attempts to canonize a vice-ridden Piso by similar means and also sets him in a world where the same values (especially transparency) break down.The second chapter reads De Oratore as a defense of a novel, Ciceronian construct of the ideal orator as in fact traditional. The key to the new aesthetic (beyond its being an aesthetic in sometimes moralizing terms) is "controlled transgression," that is, a tolerance for the metaphorical, the theatrical, the humorous, and in general the potentially indecorous and effeminate. This is made tolerable by a variety of strategies. The overt arguments of the text constantly police the boundaries of decorum (even if they protest too much). The whole is projected back onto ancestors who are automatically respectable and from whom Cicero personally can construct an intellectual genealogy. (Here again we have potential contact with the laudatio funebris.) At the same time, parts of the reputations of some of those maiores are cleaned up to suppress potential controversy. The dialogue form displaces responsibility for any particular claim of characters in the text, even though Cicero does in places stress his own authorship of the whole. Not only are Cicero's would-be weaknesses (such as his perhaps over-ready wit) justified, but he also assumes the role of the regulator. Heavy use of bodily metaphors and refusal of the conventional form/content distinction serve to naturalize Cicero's preference for risking effeminacy for the sake of ornatus.Brutus, the topic of chapter 3, gives a "history" of oratory with a point... (shrink)

The mass popular dissent which has marked the early twenty-first century, from al-Qaeda to the Arab Spring to the Occupy movement, can be read as expressions of collective, subjective, existential mutation. This reading is inspired by Félix Guattari, who described the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Polish Solidarity movement and the 1989 Chinese student demonstrations as demands for subjective singularisation. In each of these examples of social discontent, past and present, demands vary widely even within the same movement, spanning economics, (...) lifestyle, religion and politics, and ranging from cries for liberation to conservative returns to ancient tradition. In order to perform a schizoanalysis of such amorphous movements, Guattari developed a four-part ecosophic object, composed of existential Territories, Universes of value, material-energetic Flows and machinic Phyla. Assemblages can be dynamically mapped along these four dimensions. Of crucial importance in the age of extreme deterritorialisation is the existential Territory, which could potentially take the form of a homeland based on poetry or music rather than on ethnicity or even place. Such portable homelands would characterise the dissensual processual post-media era for which Guattari longed. (shrink)

This article explores book of poems entitled Requiem for Saddam Hussein and Other Poems for the Poor in Spirit by Konrad Góra in the light of animal studies. Looking at the poetic and beyond poetic activity of its author, this work reffers to Joanna Żylińska's question about ethical living founded on understandig of life both as zoe and bios. Think of the special opposition of village and city is trying to read this book in connection with mentioned vision of life. (...) These both areas shows presentifications and redefinings of persona in poems from Requiem and beyond poetic activity. By concentrating on poems specific for „nature” and „civilization this research will show how the mechanism of subordinating bare life (la nuda vita) works and how it concerns to both sides of the opposition of village and city. This article ask also for non-victims community, position and power of modern literature and involvment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:William Joseph Gavin, 1943–2021James Campbellit is my task briefly to memorialize the life of William Joseph Gavin. This is a sad task, as are all memorials, but it is also an important one. Bill was a beloved and respected colleague, and it is the duty of the Society to note his passing.The basic facts of Bill’s life are easy to recount. Born in New York City on 16 December (...) 1943, he was educated at Fordham from ninth grade on. He earned his BA in 1965, with a major in Russian language and Soviet-area studies. He completed his doctorate in 1970 with a dissertation entitled “An Aesthetic Approach to the Philosophy of William James.” Bill taught at the University of Southern Maine—with occasional periods in Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Japan and China—from 1968 until his retirement in 2014. He was the author, co-author, or editor of seven books, and wrote well over a hundred articles and reviews. Bill was an active member of SAAP forever. Long before we had T-shirts or posters, before there were prizes or even banquets, he was participating in our meetings and speaking on such figures as James and Dewey. A not irrelevant aspect in Bill’s life was that he was married to the same woman, Catherine Kerley Gavin, for over fifty years, and together they shared a life of travel, sailing, and dancing. Bill died in Maine on 25 April 2021.In addition to his work in American philosophy with which we are most familiar, Bill’s overall interests encompassed the sub-fields of ethics and aesthetics, medical ethics, Russian philosophy, and Existentialism. In his writings, these diverse aspects of his thought were seamlessly integrated and presented with a teacher’s eye on the larger mission of philosophy: to try to answer such questions as these: “Why do we do what we do?” “What should we value?” “What should we believe?” “How should we live?” [End Page 106]Running like a dark thread through Bill’s writings are the themes of finitude and death. He emphasized that our beliefs in the secure and the permanent—our delusional expectations of control, our excessive demands for clarity, our hopeless quest for certainty—are all misguided. In his wonderfully clear volume, William James and the Reinstatement of the Vague, Bill writes: “[M]ost philosophers, and indeed most people... have pursued certainty, objectivity, and some form of universal truth” and “have assumed that such truth can be captured in language, that is, that a complete linguistic description of reality is at least possible and certainly desirable” (Gavin, William James and the Reinstatement of the Vague, Temple UP, 1992, p. 1). By means of his work, Bill shows us that all of this is delusional. He helps us to grasp what it is to live our lives without an adequate understanding of what we are doing, and to face the tragedy of having to endure when our choices prove mistaken. His view of life, and his approach to philosophy, are thus existential in the deepest sense.Philosophy for him was not some gussied-up academic pastime by means of which we polish and update the thoughts of others. Rather, philosophy lives only in a broader cultural context that also includes hunger and illness, yet has room for both poetry and dance. In the vital niche that Bill’s work occupies between Pragmatism and Existentialism, he returned again and again to the diversity of our problematic contexts, and to the vague and tentative understandings that we cobble together to address our situation. [End Page 107]James CampbellUniversity of ToledoCopyright © 2023 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois... (shrink)

ON SOME STRIKING EXAMPLE OF JAN CZOCHRALSKI, AND HIS SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS, ALLOWING TO UNDERLINE HIS YEAR 2013 IN POLAND S u m m a r y A question has been addressed, and then partly answered, namely, to what degree Jan Czochralski, an eminent and well-recognized abroad Polish crystallographer, chemist, and metallurgist, also a material (metal) scientist, should, when based on his achievements in research, belong to (physicochemical) metallurgy, or ought to be recognized rather as a (“pure”) chemist, working in (...) a chemical fashion with metals and their impurities-containing alloys. The actual ground for trying to answer the intriguing question, relies on the fact that he performed his research entirely within physicochemical, or specifically, mechanochemical metallurgy of complex as well as very practical material systems that he was able to resolve successfully by his treatments. Its has been attempted to show that his type of research should be described as interdisciplinary, thus, being synergistically intermingled amongst a few crossdisciplines of technological and basic research. Astonishingly, his historical-context sensitive life, can also be viewed as the one being well networked amongst many areas of his activity, drawing him as inventor, university professor, owner, investor, art supporter, philanthropist, as well as some truly modest poetry author, or finally, husband and father of three children. (shrink)

Dilemma one, Between the theoretical concepts and authorial intention -- Dilemma two, Good manners and eristic -- Dilemma three, Between strangeness and familiarity -- Dilemma four, Between scholarly research and faith.

In this essay, I argue that Derrida cannot pursue the question of being/following unless he thinks through the question of sexual difference posed by figures of little girls in philosophical texts and in literature, specifically as posed by Lewis Carroll's Alice whom Derrida references in L'animal que donc je suis. At stake in thinking being after animals after Alice is the thought of an other than fraternal following, a way of being-with and inheriting from (other than human) others that calls (...) for an account of development that is not dictated by a normative autotelic and sacrificial logic. I argue that Derrida's dissociation of himself and his cat from Alice and her cat(s) in L'animal que donc je suis causes him to risk repeating the closed, teleological gestures philosophers like Kant and Hegel perpetuate in their accounts of human development. The more sweeping conclusion towards which this essay points is the claim that the domestication of girls and their subjection to familial fates in narratives and the reduction of development to teleology more generally, require the sacrifice and forgetting of ‘nature’, including animals, so that the fates of girls and ‘nature’ are intertwined in the context of projects of human world-building and home-making. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue S1, Page S18-S21, March‐April 2022.

We have become estranged from the cosmic movements, according to Bataille. We are confined by the error linked to the representation of ‘the stationary earth’. We have negated the immersive immanence of the whole and made nature into a fixed world of tools and things. How then do we recognise ourselves as part of the ‘rapture of the heavens’? Bataille urges us to consider life as a solar phenomenon, the free play of solar energy on the earth. This paper argues (...) how Bataille’s cosmic vision anticipates both planetary and ecological thinking. This entails a base materialism of difference based on a radical Nietzschean and Heraclitean theory of becoming and flux. This thought is developed along Bataillean concepts such as the movement of the whole, the labyrinthine, and compound beings, ipseity, as well as the concept of a communifying movement. This materialism paired with Vladimir Vernadsky’s biosphere lays the foundation for the laws of the general economy, which also constitutes an economy inclusive of a general ecology: a tragic vision of Gaia and Dionysos. Finally, poetry is considered, as a way we might reconnect with the universe and stimulate ecological imagination. (shrink)

Fabi and Goldberg raised important considerations regarding both research and funding priorities in the field of bioethics and, in particular, the field’s misalignment with social justice. W...

This essay focuses on a humorous metaphor that appears prominently in critiques of Buddhist monks’ poetry, from the eleventh century onward. Alluding to the monastic vegetarian diet, critics leveled that monks’ poetry had “a whiff of vegetables”, “the flavor of cabbage and bamboo shoots”, or “the taste of pickled stuffing”. The double meaning of qi 氣 is literally flavor or smell and by extension also refers to an individual’s literary style and character. Members of the literati largely agreed (...) that such flavors described what was distinctive about typical monks’ poetry, and debated whether monks ought to rid their poems of vegetal qualities such as plainness and narrowly repetitive themes. Other critics argued that monks’ poetry is an acquired taste, rich with delicate poetics well worth savoring. I conclude by observing how some modern scholars have uncritically reiterated the logic of this witty disparagement, and I suggest alternative directions for further study of monks’ poetry. (shrink)