نشریه نقد زبان و ادبیات خارجی
سال نهم شماره 13 (پاییز و زمستان 1393)

Death is one of the common subjects and yet the most important one between humans in the world without considering neither the time nor the place, that has been tried to ponder about it in different ages of time.
Persian and Spanish languages are one of the elite languages in the world since inner feelings, objections and uprisings can be clearly expressed by them. Khayyam and Lorca are the two outstanding poets who could skillfully put the feelings into words. The inner turbulence of both poets has made death, which is the essence of their thoughts, to play the main role in their poems. Their feelings, challenges and reactions toward death have been directly or indirectly reflected in their poems. Though Khayyam and Lorca have written about love, life and death, but in this article the author focuses only on death since this expression has made them worldwide poets.

The present article studies Tony Kushner’s Angels in America in the light of Hubert Zapf’s theory of “literature as cultural ecology” and demonstrates how as a result of the interactions between the three major discourses of the drama, namely cultural-critical metadiscourse, imaginative counterdiscourse and the reintegrative interdiscourse, a new discourse is created which constitutes the play’s latent and profound ideas and viewpoints. In this research, Angels in America is analyzed on two levels: superficially, the article examines the strategies employed by the play to confront the cultural, social, economic, and political crises of the American society during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. In this respect, it is argued that drawing attention to the aforesaid problems and bringing them to light are the principal techniques the play utilizes in order to promote the general public’s level of awareness towards such concerns, and as a method for their elimination in the near future. At a deeper level, it is explained that the peaceful and consensual gathering of a small community at the end of the play indicates the emergence of a new cultural and social discourse; one which is expressive of humanitarian values and ideals. Hence, it is concluded that Angels in America in addition to expressing concern about the problems of modern American society, through the propagation of human virtues, looks forward to a time when all people regardless of their ethnicity, race, color, religion and politics can live in peace and harmony with one another and the physical environment.

Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1859) is the most famous translation ever made from Persian verse into English. FitzGerald’s poem was published in a very turbulent time in England. The present study tries to show that The Rubaiyat circulates one of the dominant discourses of the period in which it was written: the discourse of the religious doubt. To do so, a new historical reading of The Rubaiyat is employed. According to this approach literary texts are inseparable from their historical context. So, the literary text participates both in the construction and consolidation of the discourses. The Rubaiyat is no exception; it reflects the same discourse circulating (in literary and non-literary) at the time it was written. These texts are as follows: discoveries in Assyriology, religious books and treaties, poetic and prose works, and scientific books and treaties.

The present study endeavored to see whether or not employing personification in the process of L2 English via mobile-game (m-game) has any significant effect on Iranian adolescent's vocabulary learning. The effect of group's make-up in the virtual world of m-games on vocabulary learning through collaboration in the m-games was also investigated. To those ends, through conducting English Vocabulary Level Test (VLT), from among 180 Iranian high school freshmen, 168 males and females were homogenized as the participants of the study. Afterwards, they were randomly divided into two groups with 84 members to learn L2 vocabulary items through m-game-mediated blended learning method. After the time the participants were taught the instructional contents inside the classroom, they practiced the m-games with either personified or reverse personification plots in mixed or matched dyads in 18 blended sessions. The results revealed the ascending level of learning outcome that was favorable outcome was ensued from m-games with personified plots. Also, findings indicated that the matched mode of collective practicing of contents in the virtual playground (i.e., m-game) had greater effect on the participant's performance than its mixed mode. In other words, types of m-game and contact appeared to account for variation in the participant's performance.

Despite the fervent interpretations on Beckett's later works, this fact is usually ignored in his studies that he escaped representation and mere expression in his writings. The question of the relation of representation and tracing the variations of this relation can involve Beckett interpretation with the problem of interpretation itself (and not merely its object). Thus, an approach to Beckett's text can be taken in which the text is directly experienced on the borders of language. Beckett's text can be treated as performative where language remains on its surface and insists on its materiality instead of going any deeper in representation. Following such a resistance to interpretation in Lodge's reading of Beckett's 'Ping' shows how textual approaches based on mere representation (and ignoring the performative sides of language) will necessarily fall into undecidability and are justified only by the plurality of possible meanings in Beckett's texts. Discerning a latent narrating 'eye' running on an undifferentiated homogeneous surface (in Beckett's 'Ping'), one may witness the performance of an eye in Beckett's text that is involved with its 'unseeing' and a language involved with its 'unsaying'.

Taking place and explosion of the Industrial Revolution can be connected to the innovation of machine and so 19th century can be called the machines century. Modernity has updated by the machine and it introduced the machine as its symbol. In the second half of the 19th century, literature and novel showed a good approach as a reflecting mirror of the society to the topic of appearance of these elements. Different authors showed different reactions to machine. Some authors totally rejected it, others in spite of the hostility with this devise, they praised it involuntary. The others gave it an original and important position. Even they introduced it as a real character in their literary works. Zola can be placed in the last category, since machine is allocated a significant station in the major of his main and famous works. This article will try to introduce this machine-personage and also it will study its position and awareness and warning literature of Zola. It watches also the relation of the human-machine and vice versa from the perspective of Zola.

The story of Annis by Simin Daneshvar which is published in his short stories collection named "To whom I may say hello?" is an adaptation of the story of The darling by Anthon Chekhov. Both stories narrate the story of a woman which has no idea and thought from herself and after marrying with different men take their beliefs and attitudes. Although the plot of both stories is similar and inter-textual of both works is clear, Daneshvar changed somehow the theme of the story using modern narrative methods. Daneshvar provide a critical view from patriarchal society through an especial characterization and also by lining up and approaching the narrator of study to character's perspective. However in story of Thedarling, the narrator clears Chekhov's critical view of women by approaching toward author's figurative standpoint and receding from main character. Regarding the concepts introduced in the time of narration, Daneshvar uses a more complex method. Using mixed retrospect which is one of the most complex retrospect, he makes adaptation narrative format more complex and interesting. Although Daneshvar adapts the plan of the story from Chekhov, she improves this adapted plan and doesn’t follow narrative style of Chekhov. It is attempted to compare both study in this article using narrative elements and definitions of these concepts provided by narrators and examine evolution trend of the plot adapted by Daneshvar.

Dostoyevsky is, without doubt, one of the most important thinkers and artists in the history of world literature. In his works the influence of German culture and tradition are clearly recognizable. Nevertheless, it may appear -at first glancethat his impression towards the Germans was that of hatred and resentment. However, a deeper insight into Dostoevsky’s works reveal spiritual and mental proximity and its affiliation with the German philosophers and thinkers. In this article an attempt is made to figure out Dostoevsky’s relation to the German tradition and his influences on the contemporary German speaking writers like Stefan Zweig. In order to enter into Dostoevsky’s thought-world, Zweig suggests to choose “empathic reading.” Zweig’s approach to Dostoevsky reflects the same method of empathic reading. Considering the “reception theory” of Wolfgang Iser and the theories of Constance School, we try to show the close relation between the reader and the literary text and also the interaction between the act of reading and understanding.

Amelie Nothomb, Belgium and contemporary author of literary has remained unknown for Iranian researchers. Her regard to social issues prompted she to create one of the most prominent works, "you and chills". She tries to recounting their memories during this story. Nothomb by recalling memories in Japan and omitting the boundry between reality and fantasy, creates a world ¬which is a combination of these elements. In this novel, the author has a critical approach towards the Japanese community (especially the administrative system). Hypocrisy, seeking profit, dry conditions in administrative system, behavior and social attitudes in Japan criticized by the author.This study attempts to analyze the themes of this novel and to indicate the author's critical view.

The present Article is a study of the effect of the indigenous cultural factors of the Igbo of Nigeria on the identity of the Nigerian Igbo women in the post-independence Nigeria as represented in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. Post-colonial feminists like Spivak and Holloway believe that without the recognition of the specific cultural elements surrounding the Third World women it is impossible to represent the material condition of the life of the subaltern women by methodologies of Western feminism. Through ages of suppression under patriarchy and colonialism, the ‘epistemic violence’ has suppressed the voice of the subaltern woman, and Holloway believes that the texts written by the African female authors apply particular strategies that are rooted in their indigenous cultural features to create polyphonic texts that represent the spectrum of identity and the post-colonial culture of the African woman. One of these strategies is named (re)membrance by Holloway through which myth, memory, and historical events are inscribed in the narrative to create a discourse which challenges both discourses of patriarchy and colonialism. The present article studies the significance of (re)membrance in Purple Hibiscus to represent the effect of the indigenous Igbo culture in the transition of a teen-aged girl to adulthood. Adichie shows that the identity of the African woman is a spectrum of various cultural elements of pre-colonial, colonial, and post-independence periods.

Among the authors who are involved in social problems and who tried to reflect them in their works, Emile Zola has a remarkable position. Germinal is one of the first books which drew social inequalities in french society. It is the story of a fight between the capital and the labor that is always under the yoke of its masters who do not stop exploiting it. The violence is the main element which reigns over all the novel and an essential factor which determines the life and the fate of the characters. It appears everywhere: in the family, in the work environments, etc. and the women suffer from it more than the men.

Implementation of the institution of marriage in “happy ending” plays will depict this institution as a concept that is taken for granted in such plays (Stanton, 575). This position is taken by a number of scholars including Francisque Sarcey (1827–1899), one of the most important critics in the French theatre and Ellen Terry, one of the most important critics on Shavian plays. According to Terry, many regard most of Shavian plays as drawing room comedies or well-made plays due to their depiction of marriage in their resolution (John, 66). Although well-made plays treat marriage in their fixed exogamic and endogamic ways, the very divergence between exogamic representation of early well-made plays and endogamic representation of late instances undermines the holistic regard towards the representation of the institution of marriage in well-made plays. Furthermore, Shaw’s ambivalent treatment of the issue, making the audiences question their conventional expectations, is rooted in his borrowing from both positions in well-made plays and at the same time, not belonging to either of them. Therefore, Shaw’s ambivalent position towards marriage, alongside with divergent and differing treatment of this institution in early and late well-made playwrights will be studied through utilization of Derrida’s generic notions in “The Law of Genre” and Mikhail Bakhtin’s notions on dialogism. The ultimate findings of this paper will be the negation of exclusivity of the notion of well-made genre or Shavian genre when it comes to the issue of marriage as an exclusive remark of belonging. Furthermore, Shaw’s ambivalent treatment of marriage will be regarded as a borrowing and at the same time, escaping from the endogamic and exogamic treatments of early and late well-made plays.

The tradition of suffering and fragmented body (body-in-ordeal) is followed, yet rectified, by Richard Foreman through his firm belief in the possibilities of bestowing the body with creation and reconstruction. Body should be seen as the potential site for phenomenological enactment with the surrounding world as a response to the biopolitical overactualization. In reaction to the imposed cultural forms on the body, this article tries to offer a poetics of (dis) embodiment on Foreman’s stage in dialogue with Giorgio Agamben’s meanswithout- ends pillar of thought and experience, which is the “gesture.” Body is rewritten by Foreman in order to reconcile with new forms of embodiment or gesturality. Gesture enspheres the critique of the forms of embodiment that are either installed by the power or modified by the subjects. The performers’ silence with their pure bodily existence and the voices without bodily presence reveal Agamben’s gesture. Another facet of mediality and without-means-ness emerges with Foreman’s cinematic techniques that expose his own body to multiple distortions such as close-ups through which he questions his authority as both the director and the actor. Foreman disintegrates the body into a flesh stripped of all its cultural robes and, therefore, manifesting its being-in-theprocess and potentiality.