fahimeh Khalili Teilami; Jalal Sokhanvar
Abstract
William Shakespeare, the Renaissance Dramatist, Influenced by the Bible, the Middle Age-Crusade-Renaissance relationship between England and Islam, and knowledge of Latin, with religious debates, inaugurates a new Islamic discourse in the tragedy of Hamlet based on the Holy Qur'an. In his discourse, ...
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William Shakespeare, the Renaissance Dramatist, Influenced by the Bible, the Middle Age-Crusade-Renaissance relationship between England and Islam, and knowledge of Latin, with religious debates, inaugurates a new Islamic discourse in the tragedy of Hamlet based on the Holy Qur'an. In his discourse, the nature of the man, as the pure God’s creature, is cognized through the existence of vice and virtue of the soul, and the inherent tendency of the soul for virtuous perfection even after death, for some human beings, which is called evolution of the soul, thus re-creates a good human. In this metaphysical approach, based on physics, the relationship between matter and form is like the intrinsic relationship between body and soul in which the soul as the essence and body form, has endowed with movement and evolution, and in addition to life-giving, identifies the changing matter and body to which it always belongs. This is called hylomorphism which is the basis of Substantial motion, physical resurrection, and causality. Aristotle's theory of hylomorphism and Mulla Sadra’s Islamic views are examined in this religious discourse. This research results in, inter alia, the re-presentation of Muhammad (PBUH) and depletion of constant accusations.Introduction: Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, is the founder of Islamic philosophy including transcendental wisdom while Christian thoughts have not been influenced by the Greek philosophies (Brague 252). Mulla Sadra as the founder of Quranic thought succeeded in uniting the four currents of thought, namely theology, mysticism, Plato’s, and Aristotle’s. Mulla Sadra’s thoughts are based on the Shiite religion of Islam including the principles of the Quran, Hadith, reason, and consensus leading to human salvation. Mulla Sadra’s philosophy is specific to the Quran in terms of an all-inclusive essential change such as ascending and descending purgatory and substantial change in everything, constant and new occurrence, and God as the pure cause (existential ontology). Additionally, purgatory in Islam is a place such as the grave where the souls of dead bodies reside (BRILL 100). William Shakespeare, the renaissance dramatist, was affected by the Anglo-Islamic rapport from the Crusades to the16th. Century renaissance in which different attitudes to Islam and Muhammad (PBUH) have been held. The allusion to Muhammad’s name is testified completely only in the Holy Quran and not the Bible. The Holy Quran was translated into Latin almost 5 decades earlier than Shakespeare’s time, and Shakespeare knew fully the Latin language. To get to know Bible, one should be familiar with the Holy Quran. The renaissance period was the rebirth of ancient Greek thoughts inter alia Aristotle, Plato, etc. pinpointing the evolution of man’s soul. Shakespeare attempts to inaugurate an Islamic discourse based on the evolution of man’s soul in this world and purgatory for some men to reach a virtuous perfection which results in a variety of findings.Background of Study: Dolat Abadi (1388) in comparing Hamlet with Imam Hossein, considers both martyr and hero fighting against evil and cruelty traced in all human society which is targeted at accomplishing an ideal, religious and virtuous morality. This is deeply rooted in the mind of a true man which bespeaks the inclinations of a virtuous soul as well. Thind (2014) represents Hamlet as a true religious hero who has a faith in Christianity and the doctrine of the renaissance. Therefore, he is precluded from committing any evil action or crime for his revenge. In other words, his revenge is carried out for a promising achievement based on religion which destroys evil and leads towards virtue and morality. This revenge tragedy is different from its contemporary tragedies in terms of its moral and virtuous predispositions.Methodology: Considering Shakespeare’s view seems to manifest the Islamic Philosophy of Mulla Sadra originated in and was proposed earlier by the Greek philosopher, Aristotle, whose philosophy is based upon physics regarding the dynamic relationship between matter and form as an embodiment of body and soul, a comparative philosophical methodology hinging upon a spiritual-religious outlook has been selected for this study. It suggests, on the one hand, the antiquity of (Islamic) philosophy founded on the Holy Qur’an and Hadith with its specific categories hinging on the principles of existence and essence including God’s existence as the pure and first cause (existential ontology), and constant and new occurrences in substance as essential change dedicated to the Qur’anic thoughts, and on the other hand, the significance of the inspiring Greek thought. The philosophical theories of Mulla Sadra and Aristotle will be the foundations for our research method which are applied in the content analysis as observed in the behavior of characters in the tragedy.Conclusion: The tragedy of Hamlet exhibits a virtuous perfection and enhancement of the soul for some men before death and in purgatory based upon the Islamic philosophy of Mulla Sadra which is rooted in the ancient Greek philosophies. Such a substantial change in man’s soul will bring about a myriad of findings among which one is noteworthy, i.e. a virtuous re-presentation of prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and depleting affronts carried against him by the west unaware of Islam and Muhammad.
Niloufar Aminpour; Jalal Sokhanvar; Zahra Bordbari
Abstract
Judith Butler efforts to highlight the significant role of the cultural heterosexism in the construction of female gender identity and roles by referring to repetitive acts through abjection, continuity among sex, gender, and sexual desire, interpellation, and exclusion of female gender . Tennessee Williams ...
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Judith Butler efforts to highlight the significant role of the cultural heterosexism in the construction of female gender identity and roles by referring to repetitive acts through abjection, continuity among sex, gender, and sexual desire, interpellation, and exclusion of female gender . Tennessee Williams in his masterpieces depicts the method of gender constructedness years before Butler and beyond her theory. This research intends to study the nominated plays by Williams and Butler’s theory of female gender construction to reveal a better understanding of female characters and a more genuine understanding of the manner of cultural heteronormativity in such constructedness. Butler argues that parodic acts terminate in the binaries of man/woman, male/female, and masculine/feminine which reassures the bipolarity of the heterosexist cultures. In the plays, the concept of abjection can be traced, for both heterosexual and homosexual female gender identity and roles. According to Butler, the male gender subject is the only accountable case that are not the constituent part of cultural constituent in defining the inferior female gender identity. The situation of female subjects in these plays demonstrates that female gender individual has a share in the construction of heteronormativity. Some female identities receiving and doing the reiterative cultural acts, take the function of the hegemony of heterosexism and behave other female gender identities as the minor personalities who should be defined as the lower-rate gender identity and roles; besides, the identical female individual represents heteronormativity and restricts herself in the binaries to construct her own gender identity and roles.
Bahman Zarrinjooee; Seyed Vahid Abtahi
Abstract
John Barth, among postmodern American novelists, is apt to be called the reviver of Pyrrhonist tradition in the Twentieth century. In his creation of Pyrrhonist characters, he criticizes the American value system and the empty life of contemporary man in a broad sense. The End of the Road, Barth’s ...
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John Barth, among postmodern American novelists, is apt to be called the reviver of Pyrrhonist tradition in the Twentieth century. In his creation of Pyrrhonist characters, he criticizes the American value system and the empty life of contemporary man in a broad sense. The End of the Road, Barth’s second novel is a successful example in which the marry traits of a protagonist give their place to the mean qualities of an antagonist. In the novel, the anti-hero characters suffering from a mental paralysis under the title “Cosmopsis” resort to “Mythotherapy” which means nothing but a distortion of identity. Among the consequences of this treatment are, of course, “Decidophobia” and “hyperbolic Cartesian doubt.” Interestingly, Barth’s description for the irrationality of such a man corresponds to the definition of rationality in Pyrrhonism. On this basis, the main question of the research arises from the fact that Barth’s views are an embodiment of those historical thoughts regarded as Pyrrhonist skepticism, which have been developed through ages by different forms. Apart from the historical impressions on the formation of modern skeptical philosophy which was flourished first by Cartesian doubt and developed by Hume’s empiricism the research also examines Barth’s postmodern-skeptical cosmology which derives from his obsession with identity and meaning. The overall point inferred by the researchers is that how Barth in The End of the Road indicates human decisions rely most on “emotions” rather than “reason” and that the rationality of man take him nowhere but in itself.
erfan rajabi; Jalal Sokhanvar
Volume 15, Issue 21 , October 2019, , Pages 179-198
Abstract
This study aims at investigating the production of space in Zero K (2016) in terms of Henri Lefebvre’s spatiology. Lefebvre conceptualized space as being comprised of three moments: the spatial practices, the representations of space and spaces of representation; on the one hand, and the conceived-the ...
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This study aims at investigating the production of space in Zero K (2016) in terms of Henri Lefebvre’s spatiology. Lefebvre conceptualized space as being comprised of three moments: the spatial practices, the representations of space and spaces of representation; on the one hand, and the conceived-the perceived-the lived, on the other hand. The analysis demonstrates that the characters create their own spaces individually or collectively, each in their own way. On a broader scale, the novel divides into two kinds of space: the abstract and the differential. But on a closer analysis, the character-narrator, on the one hand, uses a set of literary practices such as climax, anticlimax, register shifts, description, humor, iron, incongruity, word coinages and plays, and , on the other hand, everyday practices such as love, walking, bodily activities to defend himself against the rampant growth of the abstract space. In addition, the very act of novel writing could be taken as producing spaces of representation against the representations of space in the society. In the light of lefebvrean spatiology, some of the literary techniques could be redefined as space-producing ideological practices, too.
دیانوش صانعی; جلال سخنور
Volume 14, Issue 19 , October 2018, , Pages 209-232
Abstract
Cultural-environmental Discourse in Margaret Atwood’s
The Handmaid’s Tale
The present article approaches Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, (1985) to incorporate a variety of related discourses that enter into a dynamic relationship with current ecocritical theoretical discourses. ...
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Cultural-environmental Discourse in Margaret Atwood’s
The Handmaid’s Tale
The present article approaches Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, (1985) to incorporate a variety of related discourses that enter into a dynamic relationship with current ecocritical theoretical discourses. In a futuristic society, the pollution of natural world along with the growth of religious fundamentalism results in the sterility of most the members as the manifestation of entropy. It also suggests how the author’s conception of gender-environment connections correspond to the ideas held by ecofeminists. In this story, the patriarchal monopolization over women and nature points out wherever women are degraded, nature is exploited too The specificity of Atwood’s interest in environmental issues creates a symbiotic relationship between nature and culture as connected entities that constantly shape and reshape each other. Generally speaking, this study examines ecological values as well as the ideological vehicles for any position on the interactions in human-environment to reflect how literature participates in and interacts with the entire ecosphere. Atwood’s survived character in the novel is a woman who imagines herself in relation to nature and resists the controlling aspects of culture through narrating her story.
Key Terms: Ecocriticism- Ecofeminism-Entropy-Margaret Atwood-Survival-
Shohreh Chavoshian
Volume 15, Issue 20 , April 2018, , Pages 65-84
Abstract
Though Beckett’s name is closely associated with fiction and drama in the world of contemporary art and literature, a thorough understanding of his oeuvre seems impossible without the study of “Film,” the only film script he has ever written. The present research is a psychoanalytical study of ...
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Though Beckett’s name is closely associated with fiction and drama in the world of contemporary art and literature, a thorough understanding of his oeuvre seems impossible without the study of “Film,” the only film script he has ever written. The present research is a psychoanalytical study of “Film” within the critical framework of Lacanian theory. The study illustrates that both Lacan, in his theory, and Beckett, in his “Film,” differentiate between the concept of the eye and the concept of the gaze: in both masters, the eye stands in close relation to the consciousness, the subjectivity, and the representation; whereas, the gaze bears a close relation to the unconscious, the Object Petit a and the image. The concept of gaze occupies some different positions in Lacanian theory, corresponding to the different definitions the critic provides for his notoriously elusive notion of the Object Petit a: 1. the gaze as the lost object; 2. the gaze as the substitute object; and 3. the gaze as the feeling of strangeness, separation, captivation and lack of self-mastery. The present research, moreover, suggests that the subject’s avoidance of the gaze of the Other/other, on the one hand, and his attempt to escape from the dominant ideological discourses and regulatory norms, on the other hand, take place at the very crucial and unexpected moment of his short encounter with the Real, which is marked as a pathological symptom in the realm of the Symbolic.
maral keramat; jalal sokhanvar
Volume 12, Issue 16 , April 2016, , Pages 213-235
Abstract
Emerson’s Transcendentalism, in which both humanity and the cosmos participate, shares the manifestation of Over Soul in Hallaj’s union with Absolute. Meanwhile, the meditation of Plato’s cosmology and spiritual knowledge resulted in the contemplation of Essence and the relations of being so that ...
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Emerson’s Transcendentalism, in which both humanity and the cosmos participate, shares the manifestation of Over Soul in Hallaj’s union with Absolute. Meanwhile, the meditation of Plato’s cosmology and spiritual knowledge resulted in the contemplation of Essence and the relations of being so that one might be able to grasp the intuitive knowledge of Absolute Essence. The intuition of Essence uncovers the truth of beings and directed our attention to the fundamental Essence. Besides, Plato’s definition of Absolute in terms of the theory of Form and Idea opens a way to the universal acceptance of Mysticism by its followers. In order to grasp an intuitive knowledge of Essence, it is required to find a shared language among different cultures. This research is started by stating the fact that Plato’s Good within the framework of Gnostic Idealism will lead us towards the shared language. Then, it is mentioned that a comparative study of Hallaj’s and Emerson’s outlook reveals that these two mystics have marvelous similarities whereas they have different language, culture and religious sect. Indeed, their platonic Gnosticism is shadowed by Plato’s Idealism.
Volume 10, Issue 14 , October 2015, , Pages 45-77
Abstract
Abstract Drama has staged, presented, represented, and performed different concepts of subjectivity, throughout history. Many theoreticians believe in the mutual interdependence between modern drama’s structural and stylistic innovations and the major changes in the conceptual understanding of identity ...
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Abstract Drama has staged, presented, represented, and performed different concepts of subjectivity, throughout history. Many theoreticians believe in the mutual interdependence between modern drama’s structural and stylistic innovations and the major changes in the conceptual understanding of identity and subjectivity particularly from the beginning of the twentieth century onwards. Acknowledging the importance of theatre’s endeavour to imitate, negotiate and construct human identity; no one disputes their fundamental premise about the basic correlativity between the two. Critical analysis regarding the reciprocal relationship between the conceptual fluctuations of subjectivity and the structural and stylistic theatrical and dramatic innovations of our time is yet far from exhausted. The present article specifically will focus on the definition of postdramaticality form Lehman’s perspective and endeavors to investigate and identify the possible underlying causes for postdramatic innovative methods of characterizations in theatre after 1980. It also tries to explicate the necessity of stylistic and structural changes in theatre, due to the new conceptualization of subject in postmodern theories of subjectivity, and also the changed status of the subject in the mediatized environs of today’s world. The essay introduces five different postdramatic methods of characterization in theatre that are practiced by different playwrights to perform/represent postmodern subjectivity
Volume 11, Issue 15 , October 2015, , Pages 93-108
Abstract
The present article attempted to analyze the characters'
"subjectivity" in Samuel Johnson's The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia under the aegis of Deleuze and Guattari's theory of "subjectivity." Doing so, the characters' desires have been considered to clarify if their desire is the product ...
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The present article attempted to analyze the characters'
"subjectivity" in Samuel Johnson's The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia under the aegis of Deleuze and Guattari's theory of "subjectivity." Doing so, the characters' desires have been considered to clarify if their desire is the product of a lack (as psychoanalysis insists), or it is productive (as Deleuze and Guattari believe). By focusing on Deleuze and Guattari's famous syntheses in Johnson's Rasselas, it was revealed that it is the energy of the desire that sets Rasselas and his fellow travelers in motion to follow their quest. Moreover, it was cleared that their desire does not get repressed in the triangular family relation; instead, it is the social relations which is the main cause for repressing their desire, and the characters' subjectivity is constructed based on the repression society imposes on them. In fact, the characters' desire is not compatible with the social requirements such as social differentiation, and ideology, thus, desire gets repressed, and each repression renders the character "a" subjectivity specific to that experience.
Volume 6, Issue 1 , October 2013