Research in Contemporary World Literature
Year:2016 | Volume:21 | Issue:1 |Papers Count:10

Zola as a pioneer of literary school of naturalism looks at the world and society like a domain of struggling between natural and historical forces that influence on individual's life specially and human's life generally. This idea in a literary work like L'Assommoir is recognizable in two levels: one in contain itself which is directly received by the reader and the other one in form and literary techniques that demands more effort from the reader or the critic. In fact, the narration and the narrative tricks is a part that, in a different way from the contain, conducts us towards the discovery of the writer's thought. In this paper, we try to follow the traces of naturalism school principals in a practical example, it is to say L'Assommoir by Zola, on one hand and explain the cases where there is a contrast between theory and function, on the other hand.

One of the most influential figures in Iranian fiction, is Mohammad-Ali Jamalzadeh who has revolutionized this form in terms of both style and content. The source of his innovations was in his proficiency in European literature. This is the main subject of this article: to try to limit the scope discussed above and meditate on it, according to the laws of omparative literature, to explain the influence of Tales of Asia and spatially the story of « Gamber-Aly » by Arthur de Gobineau, French diplomat and writer, on a collection of six short stories by Jamalzadeh called Once Upon a Time that is recognized, in his modern form, as the first collection of short stories in Iran. Because of these characteristics, this article try to explain the influence of Gamber-Aly on Once Upon a Time in terms of both style and content, observing the essentiality of Jamalzadeh in his work.

This paper studies the concept of salvation by Goethe in his Masterpiece Faust based on the ideas of Georg Gadamer. In this work people have been classified into three groups: the searchers, simple mans and bad mans. The first group members are Scientists who are always trying to discover the truth, they are more than others exposed to temptations of Satan. The second choir members are simple and traditional mans who are on the trail of their predecessors. The third group members are bad people who only think about their benefits and misuse of the others. Barriers to achieving Salvation are Poverty, Despair, Seeking help from non-God and lack of Love. Of course, this point is also stressed that the sinful Man can achieve Salvation. For this purpose the following Factors are necessary Conditions: being in Love, Repent of past Sins and Repentance, continouos effort and Serve up to others.

Contemporary Persian literature, like many examples of the world literature, makes use of metafictional techniques which come under the general category of Postmodernism. Metafiction covers various elements which all indicate the artificiality of literary texts. Combining the factual and the fictional, introducing the author in the text, and baring the literary devices and conventions are the characteristics of metafiction. In the present article, "The Elegy for Zhaleh and Her Murderer" from Abu-torã b Khosravi's collection of short stories, Divã n-e Soomanã t, has been analysed in the light of metafictional theories. In fact, the article tries to give ample responses to a couple of questions: can this short story be considered as a metafictional example of contemporary fiction? and relying on the innovations in the area of narrative and plot, has Abu-torã b Khosravi been able to provide us with a comprehensive picture of intellectual sphere and concerns of himself and his contemporaries?

Jarmila Oč kayová is the first immigrant author to recreate one of the most well-known treasures of Italian literature. It has been over a century since Carlo Lorenzini, by the nom de guerre Carlo Collodi, wrote the Pinocchio stories, but the version created by Oč kayová is not just a humanoid machine, confused between the two worlds of humans and dummies, but on the other hand, it is the former wooden doll with a fundamental difference in structure: He starts to speak to his audience and narrates the story from his own point of view. The continues analysis of the words and the contemplation about their concept alternative etiology are the main structural and conceptual evolutions that Oč kayová has made in his recreation. On the other hand, the selection of this opus for rewriting is undoubtedly with certain cause. The reason of the selection is a kind of existentional bipolarize and the suspicion of Pinocchio between the tow worlds: human worlds and those of wooden dolls. In this inquiry the features of this recreation devoted to language and words and also the reasons why it was recreated are going to be discussed.

One of the discussed theories in literary criticism and analysis domain is the esthetic reception theory projected by The Constance School intellectuals, especially by Hans-Robert Jauss, a German academicو based on a hermeneutic resulting of Hans Georg Gadamer ideas and focused on reader and his reception of a literary work during the time. One of the Persian literary works introduced to the Occident by its first translation in French at the first half of the seventeenth century is Saadi's Gulistan. Since then, the multiple translations of this work have been done in French language. This article attempts to find the causes of attention of a grand part of this work readers during the centuries through its translators, considering the historical-literary conditions of these translations and the horizon of expectation concept that is a keyword in Hans-Robert Jauss's reception aesthetic theory, and then the survival causes of this work in the French literature.

Most literary experts consider Jamalzadeh as a precursor of Iranian storytelling, especially, of short story. They believe Jamalzadeh changed Persian prose by publication and using consciously narrative European techniques in his first collection of short stories “ once upon a time” (yeki boud yeki naboud). On the other hand, for many literary critics, Maupassant is known as the most famous short story writer and expert in this type of story in nineteenth century because of his several collections of short stories during ten years. This article studies comparatively the narrative methods of these two famous authors. Therefore, in this paper, using the theories of structuralists such as Gerard Genette, Greimas and Todorov, the writers will concentrate on the common methods applied by these authors for organizing time, atmosphere, characterization and story within story which produce narrative polyphony. Also, the common techniques based on benefiting from people language and satire will be studied in some of their short stories.

The issue of the possibility and creditability of present concept, that is, manifestation of Shkolosky's Defamiliarization haunts in some of Keats’ poems; in them he trys to avoid the traditional logic and conventional ways of looking at the objects in order to make a difference in the locus of their observation. Privileging here the hermeneutics of suspicion, the function of differences or contrasts refers to what Derrida extrapolated as Differance or to differ. These innovative ways of looking at the world, pave the way for new perceptions which are not revealed promptly, instead, challenges and penetrates the readers to discover the new conception which further makes some lingering in the new perception. In this sense, the slowness of new perception can become the other manifestation of Derridaian term, Diffé rance(defer). Considering such a postmodern prospective in mind, this study is to illustrate these manifestations in some of the poems by John Keats.

Fabliaux are originally brief obscene tales that deal with the vices of non-aristocratic people and pokes fun at some trades and guilds. The fourteenth Century English poet Geoffrey Chaucer adopted this popular form from French and Italian literatures and composed some fabliaux in The Canterbury Tales, the best of which is “ The Miller’ s Tale” and it is perhaps the first fabliau in English language. This tale, like Chaucer’ s other fabliaux, is not just an ordinary funny fabliau. It has some deep layers of meaning and is full of classic and Biblical allusions. This tale has a complicated plot, a variety of rich themes, diverse characters and precice characterization. The tale has replaced satire with mere fun, reflecting social contemporary matters in realistic manner, and is almost like a modern short story. It has also an intertextual relation with the preceding tale, “ The Knight’ s Tale” and is a parody of it.

Among philosophers such as Montesquieu, Diderot, Voltaire and Rousseau who were known as Lumiè res, there was another writer who focused on a different aspect of philosophical debates of enlightenment: Marquis de Sade. The Enlightenment, however, treated him differently in his lifetime regarding him as an enemy of the people, considering his work as a threat to common order of society. This article attempts to show that the Sade's works are extracted from the very rationality that the Lumiè res wanted to establish at all levels of social and political structure. Sade rather wanted to highlight the absolutism inherent in the authority of modern reason by drawing on the image of enlightened man. A rereading of Sade’ s ideas proves him to be the one who foretold the imperceptible decadence of enlightenment and its souvenirs for humanity by defending the ideal resorts of enlightenment for humanity and at the same time trespassing its borderlines.