THE ROMANIAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCES AND ARTS "GHEORGHE CRISTEA", BUCHAREST THE CENTRE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES THE DANUBE LINGUISTIC CENTRE
UNIVERSALIA ANNUAL REVIEW OF ETHNO-LINGUISTICS
2010
UNIVERSALIA EDITORIAL BOARD Prof.dr.ing. LIDIA CRISTEA, URSA "Gheorghe Cristea" - co-ordinator Prof.dr. THEODOR OLTEANU, URSA "Gheorghe Cristea", editor-in-chef Acad. VICTOR VASCENCO, University of Heidelberg, Germany Conf.dr. ARDIAN KYCYKU, URSA "Gheorghe Cristea" Prof.dr. ERIC GILDER, Ph.D., "Lucian Blaga" University, Sibiu Lect.drd. LUMINIŢA TĂRCHILĂ, URSA "Gheorghe Cristea" Asist. ROXANA LASCĂR, URSA "Gheorghe Cristea" Lect.drd. ALECSANDRU ŞTIUCĂ, director of DLC Lect.drd.DOREL COSMA, URSA "Gheorghe Cristea"
TECHNICAL EDITORIAL STAFF Asist.univ.drd. GEORGE MOTROC
UNIVERSALIA is published every year. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the Editor. I.S.S.N. 1583-395X
Annual Review of Ethno-linguistics of THE CENTRE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES and THE DANUBE LINGUISTIC CENTRE Year VII, No. 11, 2010
CONTENTS
PROF.UNIV.DR. THEODOR OLTEANU
-
Onomastics in the
lexicon of Danube
Lipovenian Russian dialect Delta…………………………….………………………………………..….…..3
CONF.UNIV.DR.
ION
DAVID
Contemporany educational culture………………………………………………………………..………...15
CONF.UNIV.DR. ARDIAN KYCYKU
- The bitter bread of the text............................................................................................................24
CONF.UNIV.DR. GEORGE VOLCEANOV
- Translating and Editing
Shakespeare works in Romania(n) in the third millennium…………….....................................................…………..…….33
LECT.UNIV.DR. KOPI KYCYKU
– Eminescu and the Balkan poetry (Hristo Botev Case)………………...……………...................................…52
LECT.UNIV.DR. LUMINITA TĂRCHILĂ - The Famillihood of Humanity through Language…………………..……………..........………………..….60
ASIST.UNIV.DRD. ROXANA LASCĂR
- Narrative Construction in the
Postmodern Historiographic Metafiction BURNING WATER by GEORGE BOWERING…………………………………………………..….86
ASIST.UNIV.DRD. GEORGE MOTROC
-
Morometii , the ratio of
democracy……………………………………………………………………..97
U N I V E R S A L I A VII, 11
ASIST.UNIV.DRD. CRISTINA NICOLAESCU
- The English / French
duality………………………………………………..…………………..……105
TEACHER RODICA IONIŢĂ
– The international status of indigenous
rights and the Canadian contribution to it………………………….….120
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ONOMASTICS LEXICON OF LIPOVENIAN RUSSIAN DIALECT IN THE DANUBE DELTA Prof.univ.dr. THEODOR OLTEANU Asist.univ. GEORGE MOTROC
The present paper describes the lexical physiognomy of the idiom, by referring to onomastics and, at the same time, proposes a rigorous classification of these language aspects. The material under discussion is related to the macro system (the common Russian language, with its dialectal dia-system and the standard variant) and, where necessary, to the Romanian linguistic environment, decisive from many points of view for this idiom. Until recently the Lippovan idioms from Romania were ignored. Only in 1958 there was published the first article that deals with linguistic problems based on the data gathered from the Lippovan Russians. Starting from this date, a series of actions have been directed to the study of the Lippovan idioms. A number of researchers organized trips to the localities with a Lippovan population and, following in situ studies, elaborated remarkable papers. Written sources show that the oldest locality with a Lippovan population in Romania is the village of Lipoveni (formerly called SocolinĹŁi), from the county of Suceava, where the Russian immigrants 3
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settled as early as 1724. The villages of Svistovca and Periprava date back to the same period. If the above-mentioned localities are considered the oldest Lippovan colonies, we can undoubtedly consider that the village of Mila 23, situated in the Danube Delta, is the most recent Lippovan settlement in our country. Although it separated from its original ethno-linguistic roots about three centuries ago, the idiom currently spoken by the Lippovan Russians from Mila 23 is, in all its compartments, an idiom of the South-Velico-Russian type. It is characterized by a series of features (phonetic, morphological, syntactic, lexical) specific to the South-Velico-Russian idioms. Forenames and surnames, although far from appellations, at least strictly in the synchronous point of view, are in their turn, a constituent part of the lexicon sector, to be studied under a common methodology (etymology, derivation, parentage, adaptation, stress, etc). However, these two anthroponomical categories, especially the first name, raise extra linguistic extra lexical issues, because their study requires, inter alia, references to the source (calendar or hagiographical and secular), frequency assignment criteria, sex of the exponents etc. The Eastern Slavic personal names system, including the Russian one includes - as we know - three official and binding anthroponomy categories: first name, patronymic and surname (rus. imja, otÄ?estvo, familija). Due to historical and linguistic reasons, the second anthroponomical, patronymic category is not found at Lipovenians2 (except in extremely rare atypical cases, under the form 4
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of “cultism”, for example, at some teachers); the situation is also true for the speech in question. Another differential feature from the macro system is the absence in the Lipovenian anthroponomical system of the female surname forms3. In other words, for the girls and women we meet only forms of type Grigorov, the same as men, with a morphologically neutralized opposition form (compare, in
standard Russian, the
feminine form of type Grigorova). Depending on this, out of the three anthroponomical categories mentioned above, are taken into account only first name (official, hypocoristic forms and nicknames) and surname (with non-emotional features). Being owned by some Slavs that in most instances, master both idioms (native tongue and Romanian) the anthroponomical categories in question are of interest not only for birthday: their study is important also for the theory of bilingualism and linguistic interference. Under the methodological report the macro systemic elements (anthroponomical common Russian language) are compared to the situation in Microsystems (dialects). References are also made to divergent tongues, Lipovenian Russian, and the situation of Romanian language, which is not negligible in terms of active bilingualism (especially characteristic of male individuals). As far as the taxonomical names are concerned we can not ignore the process of historical evolution. “Etymology is nothing if it neglects the causes which generated the naming”4 Historicism is considered by some the main law of taxonomy. Secondly, toponymes 5
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are closely linked to extra linguistic factors, including social life which plays a part of prime importance. Not by chance we talk lately of socio-birthday, "a subdivision of onomastics, whose key concern would be any kind of onomastic material research on sociolinguistic position"5. From this observation, we speak - ipso facto - of sociotoponimics, which we ought to call a subdivision of toponymy, whose key concern would be any kind of taxonomical material research on sociolinguistic positions. In fact, the finding was made long ago, when there was still no term in question. Thus, referring to relations between ethno linguistics communities, Acad. Iorgu Iordan remarks correctly that “Co-existence on the same territory of different peoples leads to very interesting results for toponymy. (as well as for language in general) If symbiosis takes a long time, bilingualism is reached eventually "6 (in our case, namely from the one of the Lipovenian to the Slavo-Romanian bilingualism). The study of proper names gives us the opportunity of the following major findings and conclusions: A. FIRST NAMES (OFFICIAL, HYPOCORISTIC FORMS AND NICKNAMES)
1. Of all three essential criteria of denomination, described in the specialized literature (calendaristical, genealogical and aesthetic criterion) the first of them is valid for the present dialect study, as the dominant criterion. 6
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2. The overwhelming majority of anthroponomical units – traditional surname (of 95%) are of hagiographical hagiological are originally Slavonic. 3. Anthroponomy interference in this case with the Russian-Ukrainian ones, characteristic to the East Slavic area, are generally quantitatively insignificant. 4. The basis of the anthroponomical system of speech variant is formed by the calendar names in their current version. Many "popular" forms are forms of high expansion and movement not only in the dialect but in the macro system, their corresponding advanced forms having the general tendency to disappear from use or maintain the status of archaic elements. 5. Although inventory of official forms broadly coincides in macro and micro system, their distribution is different, and sometimes appear inventory discrepancies, meaning that micro retains some elements which have now zero frequency in the macro-system. Being liberated from the negative influence of the common Russian language, the anthroponomical feature of the speech proves to be largely conservative and archaic, feature characterizing generally the divergent dialects.
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6. The anthroponomy innovations of the macro-system are foreign to the dialect, which - as is known - is isolated. 7. Closely linked to the new ethno linguistics configuration, which has placed its stamp on the whole aspect of Lipovenian Russian lexical idioms, the speech evolved in this area on its own line, characterized mainly by the influence of external factors. 8. New forms, properly Romanian or Romanized forms meet - in exclusivity or alongside traditional ones - in 30%, representing almost one third of all-type of surnames. From this point of view the situation is consistent with other Lipovenian Russian tongues encountered in Romania. 9. As with inherited forms, most anthroponomy nontraditional units (93%) are hagiological or hagiographical. 10. Russian canonical forms have adapted easily in the Lipovenian onomastrics practice to Romanian specificity, because here - in the new ethno linguistics environment – the basics of the anthroponomical system is the calendar name, the explanation involving the common source: Slavonic. 11. There may be indicated the following major processes of Russian adaptation to specific anthroponomy forms of Lipovenian Russians 8
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adoptive country: Romanian form that accompanies the original appropriation for parallel variants, substitution by paronymic attraction, the manufacture of hybrid forms part quasi-Romanian, lexical borrowing. The most productive method proves to be first. 12. Romanian specific adaptation is observed in some cases in stressing too. 13. Despite the Romanian influence sometimes of remarkable quality (changes of forms and sometimes of stress), surnames originating system has not suffered significant changes in quantitative terms: for the latest adaptation processes including lexical borrowing are unproductive. 14. In speech, a number of forms of subjective assessment (hypocoristic and nicknames) shows a tendency to "formalize" because value types can be found in official and formal composition full name. Here we must accept at least a catalyst direct influence of the Romanian element, which has reinforced an older trend, known to the Lipovenian ancestors of today before emigration. 15. Subjective assessment forms proper to Russian "coexist" with the Romanian origin ones, but - unlike the official forms - the dominant ones appear to be the first (the Russian). The explanation lies in the alloglotic influence (in the Romanian case) which primarily affects the
9
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solemn forms encountered in acts of state, being less felt in the hypocoristic and the diminutives, which are of familiar, intimate use. 16. The most common form of diminutive is -k (a), of rank 1 and frequency 58. Always having a comforting coloring, this morpheme continues in a way an older dialect tradition (in the standard anthroponomy of the
literary language, the suffix may also be
insulting). Given the circumstances in which this format is in the structure of complex suffixes as the second suffix (eg.: -UĹĄka), we find out that over half of all forms of subjective assessment of speech have the components -k (a). 17. One can speak here, as in the case of "formalized" hypocoristic and diminutives (found in state regulations) about a certain expression that is coincidental, in this case, the "homonymy" of morphemes because some form, exactly the same (like: -k (a), -a and – ‘a) pertain in the structure of male forms, and the female forms as well. 18. Psychologically and behaviorally, it is noted that hypocoristic and diminutives of the dialect, augmented with proper suffixes are - in most cases - ways of addressing children and young people. With age,the Lipovenian prefer to be called through full forms. 19. Note finally that in the absence of a scholarly tradition some dialectal phonetic phenomena, namely the South velico- russian one, is reflected in writing the names of Romanian. The most common are 10
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cases of ikanie (e atonic> i), for example: Simon, Ifim, Vidinei, Silifon, (compare Russian. Com Semën, Efim Vedenej, Selivon) and akanie (o atonic> medial type sound reduced to a), eg. Radion (rus. com Rodion, spelled with o). B. SURNAME
20. Phonetic features of Lipovan Russian surnames confirm the velicorussian origin of the speech in South Danube Delta. 21. Thanks to the Romanian influence most Lipovenian Russian surnames bears emphasis on the suffix: Gavrilov, Nichiforóv, Trofimov etc. 22. Lipovenian Russian surnames writing reflects a number of phonetic (South velicoruse) dialectal phenomena the most common being cases of akan (Barisóv, Carnei, Varabiév.), ikanie (Bisciasnîi, Dimidov, Pituh etc..) and sound poster lingual phoneme γ written as h (Buhaév, Halchin, Hapiév etc.). 23. Lipovenian Russian surnames are divided into two structural groups: a) traditional family names formed with suffixes antroponymics (Condratóv, Gavrilov, Ivanov etc.).
11
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b) the family name with the zero anthroponomical suffix (Epifan, Pitúh, Vlas, etc.). 24. The vast majority (76%) of Lipovan Russian surnames is made of the traditional family names. Of these, most (71%) are formed with the suffix-<ov>, highly productive in the macro system too. Other anthroponomy suffixes:-ev,-in and-yj.
In the micro system, the
surnames ending in –ij -skij, -ovo, -ago, -ich, presented in the macro system, are totally lacking. 25. Anthroponomy units - the traditional family names are derived largely (% 31), from the Russian first names: Chitaév, Gavrilov, Trofimov etc. 26. In vast majority (53%), traditional family names are derived from nicknames: Butâlchin, Cozlóv, Varabiév etc. 27. In the macro system are also present surnames derived from the occupation and name of places: Covaleóv, Popov, Bezalóv, Cubanţóv. 28. Lipovenian Russian surnames with the zero anthroponomical suffixes are new forms that emerged in the country of adoption of Lipovenian Russians. Adapting the originating anthroponomy to the structure of Romanian names was made by deleting birthday suffixes 12
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(of possessive adjectival origin) -ov, -ev, -in. Most family names resulted by suppressing anthroponomy suffixes may be identified in the first names originating list: Chita, Evséi, Sergey etc. Some surnames fully complied with the Romanian anthroponomy specificity (Terénte, Vasiliu), while others are derived from nicknames based on a Russian appellative (Pitúh, Sacólic). In conclusion, we can to remark that
the combination of
traditional elements with some form adapted to Romanian anthroponomy led to the establishment of a specific Lipovenian anthroponomy open nature micro system, different from the current system of official denomination.
NOTES
1.See, eg., Teophil Teaha, Black Cris Valley dialect, Bucharest (1961), p. 129. 2.See Victor Vascenco, Contributions to the study of Eastern Slavic anthroponomastics (Comments on Lipovan Russian system of personal names), the SCL XIII (1962), p. 245 ff., Id., Tradition and Innovation in anthroponomy of bilingual Slavic: Lippovans ( Contributions to the Study of Romanian influence), the SCL XVIII (1967), 1, p. 26.
13
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3. View Victor Vascenco, Lipovenian Russian personal name (female first name in common speech of Carcaliu, Tulcea county), the SCL XXI (1970), 4, p. 26. 4. V.A. Nikonov, Vvedenie toponimike, Moscow (1965), p. 27. 5. Pietreanu Marica, A survey of "socio-birthday" applied to the Romanian material, in volume "Studies birthday, Cluj-Napoca (1976), p. 47. 6. Iorgu Jordan, Toponym Romanian, Bucharest (1963), p. 3-4 (see also earlier edition, Place names in Romanian Romanian People's Republic), volume I, Bucharest, 1952.
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CONTEMPORARY EDUCATIONAL CULTURE
Conf.univ.dr. ION DAVID
Postmodernity (as we might call the space - temporality of the first century of the new millennium) is a concept / socio-cultural reality /in "conflict" with the modern world to which it is revealed the exhaustion and weaknesses, an amount of compelling contradictions, performing fatality strategy and violent denial. Stimulation of cultural relativity by requiring "spiritualization" borders by coagulation of "Mental Statesâ&#x20AC;? in which education is an exhausted area, a historic futility, so it is imposed the formation of a culture based on consume and information, and icy distanced from melancholy and metaphors. A large and valuable library (media library!) is only a communicational rerequisite. Or rather one of educational-cultural communication. If is not squeezed for information to be read, the thousands of books (bit) with information treasures that compose it, have only aesthetic or inventory value. It is true that in a world of crisis, the global information crisis has at least two facets: one given by a vast amount of information (redundancies and information"noise") and another so-called " 15
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informational silence " or the existence of supply shortages and information processing. A reflection of Hall's postulates as follows: "Culture is Communication and Communication is Culture '.1 He distinguishes two types of communication contexts, so two types of messages: rich (dense context communication ") or poor ("the low context). If the communication system is perceived as an "instrument of social control" and if theories of social communication "is based on a perspective that draws external and contextual communication frames”, then" the act of communication - as postulated by Jürgen Habermas - can not be analyzed without referring to the global society in which the communication is set ".2 Emmanuel Pedler summarized below, his fellow’s statement
3
concluding that "no legal mechanisms, in particular the lack of a direct democracy today, but rather inner process of the principles on which it is based. This point of view represents, another way to say that communication theories are a diversified and less homogeneous universe, a location of tehniciste speeches type transmitter- message receiver, a 'mechanistic' approach (Sfez, 1988) saw " equivocal mirrors” (Quere, 1992). Information theory (as "seductive tehnicist model") brings to the fore the human-machine relation. It must be distinguished from inter-comprehension questions (one mark, a trace of the animal, a broken door, chirping of an alarm clock, full indicator in the red tank of a car, danger signal emitted by a siren, etc.). and 16
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proper communication. More specifically, a rocket (red with three stars) to appear and be extinguished in seconds the sky for ad hoc viewers is a technical effect produced by intentional indices, only for specific receptors. But only they receive, decode and interpret the signal, so they take part in the act of communication involved). All types of information have a load of probability, so they should be discharged upstream. To avoid "redundancy," â&#x20AC;&#x17E;technical jam"," interferenceâ&#x20AC;? "," abundance of messages "there should be operated choices by the one who gives it, so as to have permits of interpretation for any receiver, namely what is called" double articulation " . As we have seen, communication occurs in a matrix of information processing (creation, issuance, propagation, distortion, amplification, reception), which gives it as a "core of the triad of the C-sitesâ&#x20AC;? (culture, knowledge and social behavior ). "Communication is a central dimension of our cultural life, without it, any culture dies," writes a prominent theorist american4, adding: "The transmission or reception of signs or codes, communication is the practice of social relations, defining it as "human interaction through messages" "process" type (transmission of messages, characteristic for Lasswell, Shannon and Weaver, Jakobson) and of semiotic type (exchange of meaning / signification specific for Pierce, Soussure and Roland Barthes). It is clear that the so-called "accidents of communication" multiply their effects (blocking, jamming, signal distortion) especially in crisis situations, but their production falls primarily on the 17
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language incompetence of the speakers, on the inability of actors and communicational "props". Communication culture must take into account "rigorous" approaches of language philosophy, determined by two mottos: "Everything that can be said can be said clearly" (Ludwig Wittgenstein) and "If reality is ordered, then everything is accessible to humans "( Vienna Manifesto Club ). Thus, the communicator, especially PR professionals will feel that the whole world of things which have certain properties and undergo some changes, so that language becomes a mirrorof the world with the following reflections: things - nouns, properties adjectives and change - the verbs. This approaches (choisism) will be joined the isomorphism (regarded structurally between world and language,
allowing
"
the
mapping
the
world"
through
a
communicational map. Universal traductibility (that is given by the "predetermined harmony" and the fact that language reflects "the same reality") must be seen as non-confrontational and unequivocal intraductibility of language, which enables possibility of partners compatibility of the multinational military device elements. Other "rigorous" approaches with visible effect seen in the communication state of alert they is Essentialism (which highlights a fundamental hidden sense, but demodulable in the language), universality (which emphasizes the over-historical and cross-localistic character, which generated the 18
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myth of universal languages, including esperanto experience, of language), universal order (the sine qua non of communication geography ), objectivity and intellectualism (given by the autonomy and semantics of the dialogue architecture). Therefore, communicational management the PCR trajectory (Peace - crisis-war) requires knowledge of cultural approaches to language barriers to communicate both up as a possibility (in general) and especially as endorsement of authenticity (in any dialogue). But, however, only after the answer to "communication is possible?" is yes.This (desirable) "yes" or "OK", depends on the existence and effective use of a common language, in which the "language" is not just "vocabulary" (even encrypted or coded) but a sense, certain specific rules of discourse . Cleavages in this logic causes semantic repercussions (such as "deaf dialogue"), psychological ( partnership excitement) or pragmatic (lack of cooperation act), which merely confirm a famous adagio: "What a lack of communication, so much violence ! I had immediately after December 1989, representatives of the new power allergic to words (sic) of Soviet origin, such as: culture, traditions, patriotism, morality, faith and, of course, education so the structures (work areas) related of such 'end-objects "disappeared. With specialists in all, without immediate effects, but adverse consequences, difficult and almost impossible to remove in time. Two decades after the events of December 1989 flaws in conduct, behavior and attitudes of new generations have sharpened, knowing the 19
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exacerbation of deviance, enhanced by drug and alcohol, catalyzed by the free offer of sex, violence, intolerance, revanchist spirit, challenging the media and the Internet. Moral values, traditional norms, are considered ancient virtues by the "new age" generation almost unanimously (with the help of an ignorant leadership and forced by material austerity to reduce up where it is "not shown" that is, in the cultural-educational field) some "nostalgic futilityâ&#x20AC;?. True, the Middle revoluta is so compromised in the propaganda sector, that they all rejected it as Satan! But why perpetuate (and in some places even stifles
formal cultural and
educational initiatives eating money and jobs!), we no longer understand. There can be no action (instruction) without will (education). Implementation is not effective unless there is motivation of the act. We do not break the bricks with the heel (even with the head), we do not demolish walls, or break the chains, if we do not know why we do it. And especially when and against whom? Improving skills is the prerogative of instructors, improving moral volitive role is for educators. Instructors prepare you physically, educators prepare you sentimentally and psychologically. There can be instruction without education only in an absurd world. In fact such work intended to form conditioned reflexes resembles the taming of riding, or the computer programming. Both examples are outside of the human area. Only education humanizes, 20
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gives meaning to instruction and helps to achieve the purpose of effective action, namely to achieve properly, timely and reasoned missions. Talking about education for communication, we do not think that it is irrelevant to invoke joke that Americans are inferior to us, in terms of culture, not because we overcome the age in history, but because they rarely know a foreign language ( Romanian, for instance), as we know, many, English, French or Russian. Access to information "swarming" has become a war of each with itself. Given that today, the world's daily print over 20 million words on various media (press, books, CD-ROMs, sticks) and the number of televisions exceeded 1.5 billion who can doubt that we are living in a global information society? The really serious problem is not the communication assault or the time given to the media (especially television) which has tripled in expense of other domestic concerns, such as reading books, but especially that this info-reality addresses a real market, where the information industry produces freight having as main quality the marketability, the audience, made by circulation of sub-cultural products, kitsch sites anti-educational materials, extreme violence, by a solidarity of irresponsibility in commercial media system. The more the news is combined with blood the greater is its mercantile impact. Is it still true the slogan, the British post BBC started with: 21
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"To inform, entertain, to educate?" We believe that fun overrated the other, and almost killed the last. We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe, as American military experts who cooperate with the filmmakers of Hollywood scripts and the production of war films, that such means of televisual communication for educational purposes are moral, harmonious, peaceful.
NOTES 1
Hall, Edward ,Le langage silencieux, Editure Seuil, 1984, p. 219.
2
About the thesis of J. Habermas (1954) translated to us by Janina
Ianosi (Bucharest, Univers, 1998) and paper "Theorie de l'Argir communicationnel" (Paris, Fayard, 1987). 3
Pedler, Emmanuel, Sociology of Communication, Bucharest,
Romanian Publishing House, 2001, p.116. 4
Fiske, John, Introduction to Communication Studies, Routledge,
2nd edition, 1990, pp. 2-4.
REFERENCES Fiske, J, Introduction to Communication Studies, Routledge, 2nd edition, 1990. Habermas, J (PhD 1954) translated the new Ianosi J (Bucharest, 22
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Univers, 1998). Habermas, J, Theorie de l'Argir communicationnel "(Paris, Fayard, 1987). Hall E, Le langage silencieux, Paris, Seuil Publishing House, 1984. Pedler, E, Sociology of Communication, Bucharest, Romanian Publishing House, 2001.
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THE BITTER BREAD OF THE TEXT (ESSAY OF LITERARY HISTORY) SOME ARE NOT SHOT
Conf.univ.dr. ARDIAN KYCYKU
MITRUSH KUTELI (pseudonym of DhimitĂŤr Pasko *, born in Pogradec on September 13, 1907), son of a famous merchant and usurer â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from whom he probably inherited a keen sense of responsibility and a real talent in finance, has left a literary legacy that can be considered a precursor to magical realism. Once you cross it, you can not avoid the impression that many writers would perish in the cruelty of memory and Kuteli not only remains, but will receive immortality from the potential one of the others. With a balanced temperament, superior intelligence and spiritual structure of a minstrel wandering among the graves, Kuteli had perhaps the most terrible fate that could avoid a Balkan writer. After graduating a Romanian high school in Thessalonica, he came to Romania and joined the Academy of Economics and Political Sciences. Exceptional results have helped him to become a director of the Agricultural Bank of Romania. He returned to Albania in 1942, after a
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long period lived with one of those dilemmas which change destinies and not rarely break them: to stay or to go? He left. First he was employed at the National Bank of Albania, from where a few writers of the new age, involved in the campaign of extermination of their fellows, fired him in order to send him directly to the morass of Maliq – one of the caves of communist hell. The wilderness of that cave made me thinking about the homes of those who had passed through the prisons. Kuteli Mitrush's Birth House is still in the old city district of Pogradec, between Church, Sources and streets leading to Lasgush Poradeci’s former tower **. I often played in that house since I was very young, before knowing who had been the uncle of my childhood friend Gj. Sh. Everybody was talking only about late uncle. The uncle’s shadow on the survivors was pervasive and so overwhelming that sometimes I suspected that his nieces, cousins, brothers and sisters, were advised by their Uncle in hiding. At that time I read the first novels written and published in Romania 30s. They scared me. The first reaction was an unknown fear. I was going to warn his followers not to mention Kuteli so much as to arouse suspicion of the security agents and, God forbid, they could get persecuted, if not punished because, in that old house they talked more about Uncle than about our legendary leader (Enver Hoxha). Mentioning and quoting him more often than the legendary leader they were about to be condemned for supporting the cult of the individual! I continued to read, and after exile in Tirana, in 1975,
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Kuteliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s writings masses were for me the spiritual support that helped me not to go crazy. Fifteen years later, when I came to Bucharest, I still had with me a volume of his stories. The impact was strong again. Aided by an insomnia which seems so personal, that I could have patented it, I wandered about Bucharest, passing through and over its nineties masks, while living in interwar Romania.How can you help writing in such a space?Kuteli even started writing right here. While Poradeci was cleaning himself in full memory and l defeat longing in pure poetry Kuteli chose and was chosen by prose of Longing. He confesses why and how he had begun. He was petrified by the longing for the mother tongue. A terrifying longing, he says, an unspeakable horror, terrible blow (fatal one!) given to an economist somewhat alien to literature. He realizes that he slides, he perishes. A ruin not only of the mother tongue, but also a deformation of the deeply expressive images of childhood, of parents, of grandparents, of idyllic loves. And not only that, but rather a loss of human essence, the temptation to make a pact with nothingness itself.
TEXTUAL RESURRECTION He first began to resurrect in the text his grandparents, the outlaw stories, legends, heroic deeds of the simple and good; he continued with the resurrection of Albanian nights with endless exile of people, of the dead and visions of ghosts until he realized he has done an entire spiritual history of Albania. A chronicle of eternal 26
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Albania (as I. Kadare calls it inspired) in which the personal vision has penetrated even the darkest or neglected corners- usually bypassed by official histories - which, in her immortal modesty, has drawn his identity. You think that not a columnist tells you, but the events themselves, and these events, in essence, comprise as a transparent universe of signs, symbols and typology, the Balkan world. It was, apparently, the lightning stroke for a columnist, an awakening after midnight, terrified, convinced that ready, so longing, so much pain and happiness, have shattered the real country, destroyed it, she does not actually exist and you, if you want to have name and life, you have to recreate it on paper. Thus former Balkans, the Albanian language, landscape, creatures, smell, nightmares and chimeras were rebuilt, by Mitrush Kuteli, at Bucharest, in the space where I was "doing servant work and eating the bread of God" *** Uncleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shadow of the past was no longer stressing for me, but shadows of the house of his birth -were. They were strange houses that had someone in jail. They looked somewhat like the poor mothers whose infants die. Even the scents, sounds, speed and color of the words are unusual. I found out later that Kuteliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s father was executed by fascists and their first house was burned to the ground. The writer had died in Tirana, in a house that can be considered a cell, located at two steps of high school "Partisans." I had passed over four years, each morning near his home, knowing that he had left in May 1967. Only after the volume "With
Mitrush" by Kolev
Petraq's appeared****, I realized the torment lived by my childhood 27
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hero. He was arrested because he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t agree to equalize Albanian Lek (very strong at that time) with Yugoslav Dinar. Along the cafes in Tirana were circulating strange hypotheses, with which the true lovers of literature alike were struggling to tame personal remorse (that that had not been doing anything) and to increase the size of envy disease among the socialist realism apostles. They said some had tried to destroy Kuteli for stealing his style! No other deviation of imagination made me sadder. Every comment was superfluous, not to say a profanation. Kolevica writes in its volume testimony from detainees in Maliq swamp, where the great Albanian prose writer was detained in a sty. Living conditions and survival are beyond literature. You had to be strong, to resist. Therefore wise Albanians in the spirit of mysticism of Naim Frasheri (1856-1900, considered the national poet of Albanians), said that (fate) hit a tree, burned it/ hit rock , broke it / hit man, he changed his mind . Past of the first youth, a father of four children, in one of the times of despair (or deep humanity) Mitrush Kuteli cut the veins, but they didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t give you permission to kill yourself. They were guarding you, not to live, but no one could die either. He then wrote a few heartbreaking poems. The day of his freedom, while he went up the truck, the guard who had tortured him grabs his collar and snarls in his ear: "Hey, asshole, if I knew you were so smart with so many schools and books, I would have fixed you " He had not known.
28
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By May 1967, when he passed away, Kuteli translated into Albanian many masterpieces of world literature and faced the deadly silence which surrounded him. Among the few friends who visited him, there is a Romanian, Marilisa, dancer of great talent, remaining in Albania after marriage and who had been destroyed by her colleagues at the Opera and Ballet in Tirana. Kolevica confesses that the beautiful Marilisa Kuteli brought a bouquet of white lilies and delicately arranged them on the dead breast instead of the candle that was also banned, and said: "He was my church. Now my church was demolished.
LAST WORDS OF AN ETERNAL MAN Kolevica believes that Kuteliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s death was not entirely natural. Judging by the few sentences spoken by the writer during a walk, you can think of suicide. I quote some excerpts from Kuteliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s will, published three decades after his death. Death is a great vacation, a detachment of pain, he says. Indeed, it is also a separation of happiness, but when the man is very sick, bored, death is a relief: the physical and spiritual pain as well. You know the pain I had so many lately. (...) My head is confused. I started to write you something else, let me repeat my previous pleas. Forgive me because I told you so many times. I have poisoned your life, because others poisoned mine. 29
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And I was not able to keep my poison just for myself, as it was natural. This should be the last poison, which I give you. We've united and made children in hard years: imprisonment, urbanization hotel. But I was healthy and we have overcome all of them. Now, you know ... You know my days and nights. Diseases and anger chew me inside, , I see death as a relief.. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want it but I can not keep it away. I see just how it is getting close. I am sorry that I will leave young children in extreme poverty, without my help. My pension will not be enough. I havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t got 'working years. Normal, 22 years abroad. And abroad I have worked hard, but those years do not count for pension over here. "My poor fate, poor fate of our children. Maybe after my death, when passions and hatred will be passed, the state will help you for the sake of my work - a life in journalism and literature, from early youth, and especially in the economy. Some of my writings in Albanian and Romanian are there at the National Library (...) I have not chosen the way of personal comfort, the solution 'dumb and full tablespoon'. I worked hard, loved much, did much wrong. Now life has gone and it no longer turns back, it can not be repaired (...) Will anybody know and understand me, even after death? I do not know. I wanted to be understood not for honor and glory, but for our children - whom I leave legacy my dreams and work - not to starve while they are small, to be able to pursue studies and to find their way in life. I'm sure that if my work and efforts of the past would have been appreciated, my children would have not suffered 30
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(...) command our children to love the country and our language to suffering. Do not let their heart slip against Albania even when they suffer with no guilt. Country is home even when it kill you. Here they were born here they should live, even with pain. (...) Literature as a profession in our country, yet is a path of suffering, it is bitter bread. I say bitter to him who doesn’t know to be vile and hypocritical. The land of literature is invaded by snakes. Your friends kill you because you obscure them. And if you do not eclipse them it means that you are not capable of literature ... "*****. Other friends - those who respect your shadow and understand you before death, but can do nothing more - they fit, fortunately, in the only coach of the Bureau of decrepit Burials of time. Cemetery is located a few kilometers from Tirana at the end of a hard road to travel even for goats. As in reality, it was easier to get to the cemetery, than to come back from there, much less walking. Burial of the magical realist author Mitrush Kuteli, of at least European class and with a touching love to the Romanian people was concluded quickly, maybe the land could hardly wait to rest him. And when the grieving people had just began to touch Kuteli’s gravestone, a thick and disgusted voice shook them. Bus driver dixit: - Dude, hurry up, I am expected for other-funeral now!
* Read: Mitrúş Kutélii and Dhimítăr Pasco ** Lasgush Poradeci (Lasgúş Poradéţii, pseudonym of Llazar Gusho, 1899-1987, considered the most important lyrical modern Albanian 31
U N I V E R S A L I A VII, 11
poetry. Poradeci lived several years in Bucharest before the war and his doctorate from Graz with a theme of Michael's work Eminescu. *** File Theofilos Kosti's life, from "Jakup Ago and Other Stories", Tirana 1943. **** Architect, poet, translator, novelist and essayist born in Korca Albania in 1934, the original author of several volumes of poetry and prose, a close friend of several personalities of Albanian culture. ***** MM, magazines Mikstat (Joint Review), Nr. 1, Pristina, in July 1995, p. 190-193. View and beauty that kills, Volume I, Albanian prose anthology, compiled and translated by Kopi Kyรงyku, Haemus Librarium Publishing, Bucharest 2006.
32
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TRANSLATING AND EDITING SHAKESPEARE’S WORKS IN ROMANIA(N) IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM
Conf.univ.dr. GEORGE VOLCEANOV “Spiru Haret” University, Bucharest
1. THE NEED FOR A NEW TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE’ WORKS For quite a while, the current Romanian Shakespeare Canon began to seem (on the page) and sound (on the stage) a rather outdated entity, with its archaic flavour assiduously cultivated by the translators involved in the 1955-1961 ESPLA edition of Shakespeare’s Works; some of those translations were replaced by new ones in Leon Leviţchi’s 1982-1995 Univers edition, but these new translations perpetuated the prevailing tradition of the Romanian versions’ penchant for archaic vocabulary, which makes them utterly incomprehensible in the eyes and ears of present-day readers and theatre-goers. Some time ago, archaic terms like “Frância”, “bucoavnă”, “lingav”, “bizantlâc”, “harapnic” and “întorlocat” were considered suitable for adequately translating Shakespeare’s would33
U N I V E R S A L I A VII, 11
be poetic vocabulary. The truth is that in the interval 1590-1610, when Shakespeare wrote his dramatic works, the English language underwent massive changes, at the both morphological and lexical level. Shakespeare and his contemporaries did invent a huge quantity of new words. The golden generation of the Elizabethan and Jacobean drama were viewed by their contemporaries as a group of highly innovative authors. The novelty of their language often baffled and bewildered their audience and readership. A theatrical performance enriched a spectator’s vocabulary as much as conferences would do in later ages. Shakespeare himself records in his plays the common people’s response to the rapid proliferation of new words: in Twelfth Night, Sir Andrew Aguecheek takes down notes as he is impressed by Viola’s vocabulary during the latter’s visit to Olivia (III. 1. 97-102), and Justice Shallow praises the linguistic inventiveness displayed by Corporal Bardolph in Henry IV – Part Two (III. 2. 75-79). The dominant feature of the vocabulary used in the English Renaissance drama was the recourse to neologisms, not to archaic words. It is only natural that each and every new generation of nonEnglish speaking readers and spectators should experience the freshness of the Shakespearean vocabulary experienced by his first English spectators, and that they should read and view his works in an updated, modernized vocabulary. After all, even the well-established, prestigious critical editions issued in the Anglo-Saxon world, to mention only the Arden, Oxford, New Cambridge and New Penguin Shakespeare, make the Bard more accessible to present-day readers by 34
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heavily modernizing the spelling of his plays, while the American No Fear Shakespeare edition has actually translated Great Will into a language comprehensible to anyone. Comprehensibility was one of Shakespeare’s major concerns in his days, too; “he wrote lines for the actors to speak which had to be understood as soon as they were heard by the audience”. The language used on stage had to be clear in an age when 72 per cent of men and 92 per cent of women were illiterate. The use of archaic, rare words and phrases may suit the taste of the learned reader in the privacy of his library; it implies the use of footnotes, endnotes and glossaries for the average reader, but, as Richard Proudfoot reminds us, “mutatis mutandis, editors of Shakespeare must remember that their patrons are the actors, students, teachers and others who will buy their editions, and that ‘bookish theory’ must of necessity be balanced against the constraints of practice’”. The new Paralela 45 Romanian edition of Shakespeare’s works is 100 per cent un-, or rather, de-censored from a political, social and religious point of view; it is, likewise, un-, or de-bowdlerized (i.e. not censored as regards the use of obscene, bawdy erotic terms). This new edition will abolish the use of “vodă” instead of “rege” (king) or “chiabur” instead of “răzeş” (yeoman); in it, God will be translated as “Dumnezeu”, not paraphrased as “pronia”, “Cerul” sau “Cerurile” (heaven or heavens), nor will it be written anymore with a small d. The new edition will provide Romanian slang equivalents for Shakespeare’s bawdy terms used for the genitalia and the sexual acts (the anti-prudish spirit of the Renaissance was shared by many other 35
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great writers including Rabelais and Aretino); even though some drama critics have expressed their anger at some recent “vulgar” Shakespeare productions, that allegedly betray Will’s great poetry, we should bear in mind that in his times the theatre was considered just a subliteray and subcultural form of entertainment that both the ecclesiastic authorities (the bishop of London) and the secular ones (represented by the Lord Mayor of London) struggled hard to eradicate by legal means! It is true that Shakespeare’s plays have some so-called purple patches or passages of high poetry, but they are essentially devised for entertainment and, as such, they also have vulgar and obscene cues, for which they were criticized by Voltaire, Samuel Johnson, Robert Bridges, Leo Tolstoy and many more. Eric Partridge, the supreme expert on English slang, contended in an influential study dated 1947 that, in his attitude towards sex and towards bawdiness, Shakespeare shows that he was “both an idealist and a realist; a romantic and a cynic; an ascetic and a hedonist; an etherealist and a brutalist; a philosopher and the average man; a saint and a sinner…”. He used dozens of synonyms for the pudend, the act of copulation and the action of copulating. Some of these colourful words and phrases have been rendered with great talent by Dan Grigorescu, Ion Frunzetti, Leon Leviţchi and Virgil Teodorescu; others are still waiting to be retrieved and introduced to the Romanian public for the first time. The new edition aims at observing the principle of stringency formulated by the German romantics Schlegel and Tieck, who insisted that the translations of Shakespeare’s plays should preserve their 36
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original form, i.e. their blank verse, rhyming couplets and prose passages. This principle has been observed by earlier translators like Ion Vinea, Leon Leviţchi, Dan Duţescu, Petre Solomon and others. In the 1950s, Leon Leviţchi suggested that, given the polysyllabic structure of Romanian, 100 lines of English poetry should be flexibly translated into no more than 107 lines. The translators involved in the ESPLA edition between 1955 and 1961 agreed to this compromise but not all of them managed to observe it: Tudor Vianu and Nicolae Argintescu-Amza often nearly doubled the number of lines in their translations, thus doubling the duration of a potential performance of the respective plays. Speaking of Shakespeare productions, the new edition is communicationoriented. It regards performability as a marker of success or failure in so far as it overtly aims at bridging the gap between the so-called philological
or
literary
translations
and
the
stage-oriented,
performable texts. Shakespeare himself wrote for the stage, not for the page, and the poetry of his dramatic works was a belated discovery of posterity. Most of the earlier translators lost themselves in the traps of entangled syntax and archaic vocabulary and their versions came to be regarded at best as philological translations, a label used as a lame excuse for the fact that the respective versions were not performable. Of the nearly 260 Shakespearean productions staged in Romania from 1950 to 2008 (I’m only counting the Romanian-language productions, not those in the languages of ethnic minorities), only 95 (i.e. 36 per cent) used the so-called canonical translations (of the aforementioned editions issued in the past sixty years). The translators currently 37
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engaged in the Paralela 45 project use the latest-generation critical editions that I have already mentioned in this article. The average readers and spectators do not know that a “Shakespeare” printed text or prompt-book is not actually a text by Shakespeare, but rather a textual reconstruction, the result of the joint effort of several generations of scholars and editors; they do not know that in the field of Shakespeare studies experts speak about the unstable character of the Shakespearean text, that the Shakespeare we read in a library or watch in a theatre hall is a virtual “Shakespeare”, the outcome of philological interpretations that fluctuate from one age to another. Hence, a new edition is not an act of rejection, of denying the merits of earlier generations of translators but a natural attempt to keep pace with the Anglo-Saxon editorial and publishing practices, with the latest interpretive developments in Shakespeare studies and translation studies. (This is why Sorin Mărculescu has recently retranslated Don Quixote and why so many translations of Goethe’s Faust and Dante’s Divine Comedy have succeeded one another in recent times.)
2. EDITING SHAKESPEARE IN PRESENT-DAY ROMANIA
Many Romanians make the mistake of translating the English words to edit and editor as “a edita” and “editor” (which are, in fact, the equivalents of to publish and publisher!). The words in italics have more than one meaning but in this article I shall refer to the following 38
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meanings: to edit 1. to prepare a book, a piece of film etc. for printing by removing mistakes or parts that are not acceptable 2. to prepare a book or article for printing by deciding what to include and in what order editor 2. someone who prepares a book or article for printing by deciding what to include and checking for any mistakes 3. someone who chooses what to include in a book on a particular subject. A Romanian editor’s task is that of mediator between a native virtual “Shakespeare” and the Romanian virtual “Shakespeare”. Editors mediate and, at the same time, appropriate the Bard by imposing their own views and interpretations on the original text. Harold Jenkins prepared for twenty years the ultimate archetypal, conflated version of Hamlet; two decades later, just years ago, Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor demolished the archetypal text and issued the three-text Arden edition of Hamlet (the first and second quarto versions plus the folio version). In 1987 Stephen Orgel’s Oxford edition of The Tempest questioned many earlier interpretations of certain lines and words; E.A.J. Honigmann pointed out that the quarto and folio versions of Othello might be issued as distinct versions, and Stephen Greenblatt included Double Falsehood (Cardenio) in the Norton canon. Thus, the Shakespearean text reinvented by Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Capell, Johnson, Malone, and hundreds of other editors ultimately becomes a palimpsest, a permanently evolving text with different decoding in different ages. The Romanian translator of 2010 translates meanings (and texts) that often diverge from the 39
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meanings decoded in 1700, 1800, or 1950. In translating Hamlet, the 2010 Romanian translators have relied on the latest Thompson-Taylor Arden edition to introduce a three-version Hamlet to the Romanian readers. This does not mean that they did not consult, and embrace, other editors’ textual interpretations, like, for instance, Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussens’ reading of the sledded Polacks on the ice in Act One, Scene One. At the time when I am writing this article I am also co-translating Twelfth Night. Both my co-translator and I use no less than four source-texts, four critical editions with four different critical apparatuses: the Oxford edition edited by Stanley Wells and Roger Warren (1998), the New Penguin edition edited by M.M. Mahood (2005), the New Cambridge edition edited by Elizabeth Story Donno (1994), and the latest Arden edition edited by Keir Elam (2008). This means that the two translators are trapped within a labyrinth of interpretations, a jungle of meanings and the act of translation can be construed as a long series of crossroads, of either-or decisions to be taken. The translators inevitably become editors in that they sometimes provide clues about their choices, provide footnotes with alternative versions of certain lines or phrases, and explain why they distance themselves from the meanings encoded in earlier translation (flute and rapier in the new Romanian Hamlet “set things right”, being correctly translated as “fluier” and “spadă”). In the following paragraphs I will draw a parallel between what native English
editors usually do with a critical edition of
Shakespeare’s plays, what Romanian translators that also assumed the 40
U N I V E R S A L I A VII, 11
editors’ task did in the past seventy or eighty years, and what the editors of the current Paralela 45 edition are doing nowadays. Let us take a look at a few British critical editions picked at random. All the editors commissioned to edit Shakespeare for a scholarly series must comply with some internal regulations established by the general editors of the respective series. The New Penguin Shakespeare, for instance, has a discernible pattern that is observed by every editor: the play’s text is preceded by an Introduction and Further Reading, and followed by Commentary (a set of useful endnotes, annotations, comments, explanations etc.), An Account of the Text (dealing with the quarto or folio origin of the printed play and differences between the quarto and folio editions), and, in the case of the chronicle plays, by Genealogical Tables. The New Cambridge Shakespeare editions have their critical apparatus made up of the following components: List of illustrations, Preface, List of abbreviations and conventions, Introduction, Note on the text, List of characters, The Play, Textual analysis (which is the equivalent of the New Penguin Shakespeare’s Account of the Text, Appendixes, and Reading List. The most important part, for students and the general readership as well, is the Introduction, which allows the editors to express their creativity and original thinking. The introduction has to comply with aspects it cannot overlook (like the dating of the discussed play, the sources and influences at work, the impact of the play on other authors, the critical interpretations it elicited in the long run, its stage history, screen adaptations, and so on); however, the editor can freely adapt his 41
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methods to each particular play. Michael Hattaway’s introductions to two different plays, As You Like It (a high romantic comedy) and Henry VI – Part One (a chronicle play of disputed, uncertain authorship) show the way in which an editor adapts the structuring of an introduction to issues dictated by the play itself. The chapters making up the Introduction to As You Like It read as follows: Journeys; Plays within the play; Theatrical genres; Pastoral; Counter-pastoral; The condition of the country; Politics; Gender; Nuptials; Stage history; Date and occasion; Sources. The Chapters of the Introduction to the aforementioned history play are: Henry VI: the reign and the plays; The decay of empire; Date and occasion; Authorship; Stage history; Sources. One can easily notice that As You Like It poses questions like those of genre and gender, while Henry VI – Part One poses totally different questions, like those of authorship and history. The Oxford Shakespeare series is less precise in the outline of its critical apparatus, bit it still has some constant components like the List of Illustrations, (General) Introduction, Textual Introduction and Editorial Procedures, the Play, a variable number of appendixes, and an Index of words and proverbs explained in the footnotes of the edition. The most important part, again, is the Introduction, with a variable number of chapters that tackle various issues dictated by the specificity of each and every play. Eugene M. Waith’s Introduction to The Two Noble Kinsmen inevitably lays emphasis on authorship and collaboration in its eight chapters titled as follows: Early Publication and Performances; Authorship; Text; Sources; Occasion; The Play in 42
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Performance; Interpretation; The Collaborative Structure. Stanley Wells’ Introduction to King Lear has the following chapters that aim at an exhaustive critical survey: What Shakespeare Wrote; When Shakespeare Wrote ‘King Lear’; Where the Play Came From (with subchapters legend; ‘King Leir’; ‘Arcadia’; Other Influences); Shaping the Play; The Play’s Language; Early Performance; ‘King Leir’ as a Text for Readers; Performance Texts of ‘King Lear’; Nahum Tate’s Adaptation; Return to Shakespeare; Interpretation in Performance. The Arden Shakespeare, the oldest and most prestigious scholarly Shakespeare series in Britain (established in 1899), provides the most comprehensive critical approach to the Bard’s works. All of the Arden editors aim at achieving an exhaustive presentation of the main issues they detect in the plays. Suzanne Gossett’s 2004 edition of Pericles has an Introduction consisting of 8 chapters and 16 subchapters; Keir Elam’s 2008 edition of Twelfth Night is made up of three huge chapters consisting of no less than 28 subchapters, and Anthony B. Dawson and Gretchen E. Minton’s 2008 edition of Timon of Athens has an Introduction consisting of an unprecedented number of 30 chapters. The very number of pages of the Arden introductions speaks volumes about the scholarly efforts of these academics involved in editing Shakespeare for a third millennium readership that is constantly growing alienated from the Bard’ s works due to the inevitable historical evolution of the English language.Speaking of Romanian editors, we will notice that the first great Romanian editor 43
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of Shakespeare’s works was, at the same time, a scholar and a translator. Author of a famous monograph published in the 1930s, Miracolul Shakespeare, Dragoş Protopopescu translated more than ten Shakespeare plays between 1938 and 1945. His translations were usually preceded by bulky prefaces in which he expounded his theoretical and practical views regarding the translation of Shakespeare’s plays into Romanian.The 1955-1961 ESPLA edition had almost no critical apparatus: each play was preceded by a onepage commentary stating the approximate date of composition and the main sources; each commentary inevitably contained a quote from Marx, Engels, Lenin, or some the fashionable Russian or Soviet scholar. The only piece of critical work to accompany this “red” edition (a clear example of Communist appropriation via translation and editing!) was Mihnea Gheorghiu’s introductory essay Un Shakespeare al oamenilor (A Shakespeare of All People). Shakespeare’s biography was reconstructed or, to put it bluntly, reinvented in accordance with the ideological context of the 1950s. Gheorghiu concocted references to Will’s humble origin, naming his grandfather “a peasant from Smitterfield” and his father “a ploughman’s son”. The rural landscape of Stratford is depicted via quotes from Friedrich Engels. Shakespeare himself is shown as a sixteen year-old teenager who has to earn a living by hard work due to the material hardship his father suffered at the time. Will’s wife is likewise the descendant of a yeoman’s family whose main virtue is poverty. Ann Hathaway becomes a synecdoche in Gheorghiu’s rhetoric, who describes her as “an extra mouth to feed”. 44
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He does not miss the opportunity to present the anecdote of Shakespeare’s poaching on Sir Thomas Lucy’s lands (currently rejected by historians, who have documented the fact that Sir Lucy’s park held no game in Shakespeare’s time) as an exemplary episode of class struggle. In Gheorghiu’s falsified biography Shakespeare had to get away from Stratford in order to escape justice. His “lost years” (1585-1592) are conveniently assigned to his apprenticeship in Richard Field’s printing workshop in London, Shakespeare being thus once again reinvented as a working-class fellow descended from the ivory tower to the lower classes. According to Gheorghiu, Shakespeare’s sole reason for writing plays was his progressive view, reflecting the highest aspirations of his entire nation. This is the greatest possible lie, one that is substantiated with further distorted considerations: thus “the time is out of joint” is nothing but a metaphor about Shakespeare’s concern about the evils of both capitalism and feudalism. The outlaws of The Two Gentlemen of Verona and As You Like It are proclaimed the symbols of struggle for social liberation, etc., etc.The only wellestablished critics quoted in Gheorghiu’s introduction are G. Wilson Knight and Ivor Brown, but they are referred to only to be refuted with the arguments of V. Uzin, a Soviet scholar. The other critical sources are confined to the following list of illustrious names: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Belinski, Dobroliubov and the Academy of Science of the Soviet Union. Decades later, Leon Leviţchi freed Shakespeare’s work from the ideological constraints of the 1950s with the impeccable critical 45
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apparatus of his 1982-1995 edition, consisting of a general introduction, commentaries ( by Leon Leviţchi himself ) and endnotes ( by Virgiliu Ştefănescu- Drăgăneşti ). The general introduction aimed at being as comprehensive as the Arden Shakespeare introductions. Leviţchi did not perpetuate Mihnea Gheorghiu’s politicized discourse but chose to establish a new paradigm in the reception of Shakespeare in Romania. For Leviţchi, Shakespeare no longer meant a fighter for social justice and progress, but the greatest author of all times and a three-sided personality: the Poet, the Dramatist and the Thinker.The first chapters of Leviţchi’s introduction dwell upon issues like Shakespeare’s biography, the historical context of his life and career, the tentative chronology of his works, Shakespeare’s vocabulary and syntax, his use of connotation, and the utility of translations. Today parts of these chapters seem prolix and too elaborate for a general readership, but Leviţchi’s great merit was that of advocating a linguistic approach to Shakespeare’s works, by which he supplanted the outdated, ideological approach. Speaking of the Poet, Leviţchi discussed his sonnets, the poetry, i.e. the figures of speech and the poetic syntax of his plays.Shakespeare the Thinker was discussed in terms of essence and appearance, of conscience and lack of conscience, while Shakespeare the Dramatist was discussed under the headings dramatic species, subject, plot, themes, characters, and linguistic mimicry in the plays. The latter issue was the subject of my own graduation dissertation, published as a monograph in 2004. The Paralela 45 Shakespeare series will have its own specific format: footnotes will be used for the first 46
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time in a Romanian edition to supplant the endnotes that usually nobody cares to read. We regard footnotes as extremely important assets – they will be written and edited by the general-editor himself. They are important inasmuch as they will comment on the novel interpretive aspects of the new translations and on the translators’ choice to depart from well-established clichés of earlier translation. The general introduction that opens the first volume of the new series has also supplanted Leviţchi’s paradigm with a new one, one that suits better the spirit of our times and also mirrors the latest evolutions in Shakespeare studies. The new Shakespeare, still unknown to the general Romanian readership, is the entrepreneur (the capitalist investor and shareholder who wrote for profit in the early days of showbiz) – the collaborator (a script writer very much like the presentday Hollywood script writers, one who does not refuse team work in a competitive domain) – and the censored author (Shakespeare as the author of an uncertain number of plays, given the fact that the Elizabethan an Jacobean censorship is responsible for the loss of many plays known to have been written and brutally suppressed). Unlike Mihnea Gheorghiu and Leon Leviţchi, as a general-editor of new series, I am intent on involving the most important Romanian Shakespeare scholars as well as other valuable non-Shakespeare academics in writing the critical apparatus of the new edition. The first two volumes have already enjoyed contributions from fellowShakespearean academics Eugenia Gavriliu from the “Lower Danube” University of Galaţi, Veronica Popescu from “Al. I. Cuza” University of Iaşi, and Nicoleta Cinpoeş from Worcester University. Thus, the 47
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new edition will recuperate and introduce to the Romanian readers an entire generation of Romanian scholars that write mostly in English and are better-known abroad as reputed experts. The format of the prefaces to the plays was set forth by the general-editor in his preface to The Tempest. The prefaces will tackle basic issues like the date of composition, the sources, external influences, critical interpretations, literary echoes and stage (and screen) history. They will not tend to be exhaustive, in an attempt to offer the average reader of the series non multa sed multum
REFERENCES Jonathan Hope, The Authorship of Shakespeareâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Plays, Cambridge
1
University Press, Cambridge, 1994, p. 1. 2
Richard Proudfoot, the general editor of The Arden Shakespeare,
praises Stanley Wells, the general editor of Oxford Shakespeare, for his decision to thoroughly modernize the spelling of the Oxford editions issued after 1980, cf. R. Proudfoot, Shakespeare: Text, Stage, Canon, The Arden Shakespeare, Thomson Learning, London, 2001, pp. 15-16. 3
Sean McEvoy, Shakespeare: The Basics, Routledge, London and
New York, 2000, p. 13. 4
R. Proudfoot, op. cit., p. 29.
5
See, for instance, David Scott Kastan, Shakespeare and the Book,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001, p. 31. 48
U N I V E R S A L I A VII, 11 6
For an ampler debate on the censorship and bowdlerization of
Shakespeare in the translations issued in Communist Romania, see G. Volceanov,
„Bowdlerizing
Shakespeare:
Here,
There,
and
Everywhere”, in British and American Studies, Vol. XI, Editura Universităţii
de
Vest,
Timişoara,
2005,
pp.
117-130
and
„Appropriating through Translation: Shakespeare Translations in Communist Romania”, in Translation Studies: Retrospective and Prospective Views, Editura Fundaţiei Universitare „Dunărea de Jos”, Galaţi, 2006, pp. 205-218. 7
Eric Partridge, Shakespeare’s Bawdy, Routledge, London and New
York, 1990, p. 4. 8
Idem, pp. 23-28.
9
The statistics are borrowed from Monica Matei-Chesnoiu (ed.),
Shakespeare in Romania: 1950 to the present, Editura Humanitas, Bucureşti, 2008, pp. 259-363. 10
The Shakespearean text is unstable even at the level of every single
edition. There are 82 copies of the first Folio edition at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., and each displays significant differences in point of spelling and punctuation, so that reaching the ideal, perfect and unique text, and the author’s original intention is an almost impossible task. For more details, see R. Proudfoot, op. cit., pp. 7-8. 11
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman, Six
Impression, Essex, 2003, p. 501. 12
Cf. W. Shakespeare, Opere II, Hamlet, Paralela 45, Piteşti, 2010, p.
69n, where I explain that the translators have chosen Bate and 49
U N I V E R S A L I A VII, 11
Rasmussen’s interpretation from their RSC edition of Shakespeare’s Works, Basingstoke, 2008. 13
The New Penguin Shakespeare Richard II edited by Stanley Wells
(1997) and Henry V edited by A. R. Humphreys (1996) have a similarly patterned critical apparatus. 14
I strongly recommend both of Michael Hattaway’s Introductions as
examples of scholarly editing: W. Shakespeare, Henry VI – Part One, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000, pp. 1-65 and W. Shakespeare, As You Like It, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000, pp. 1-69. 15
W. Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen, edited by Eugene M.
Waith, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994, pp. 1-66. 16
W. Shakespeare, King Lear, edited by Stanley Wells, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 2001, pp. 1-80. 17
W. Shakespeare, Pericles, edited by Suzanne Gossett, Arden
Shakespeare, Thomson Learning, London, 2004, pp. 1-163. 18
W. Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, edited by Keir Elam, Arden
Shakespeare, Cengage Learning, London, 2008, pp. 1-153. 19
W. Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, edited by Anthony B. Dawson
and Gretchen E. Minton, Cengage Learning, London, 2008, pp. 1-152. 20
Cf. Virgil Stanciu, Dicţionar de anglişti şi americanişti români,
Tribuna, Cluj-Napoca, 2008, pp. 105-6. 21
Mihnea Gheorghiu, “Un Shakespeare al oamenilor”, in W.
Shakespeare, Opere, Vol. 1, Bucureşti, 1955, pp. 5-53. 22
Idem, pp. 6-7.
23
Ibidem, p. 11. 50
U N I V E R S A L I A VII, 11 24
Ibidem, p. 5.
25
Leon Leviţchi, Studiu introductiv, in W. Shakespeare, Opere, Vol.
1, Univers, Bucureşti, 1982, pp. 5-118. 26
Idem, pp. 5-29.
27
Idem, pp. 66-91.
28
Idem, pp. 29-66.
29
Idem, pp. 91-118.
30
Idem, pp. 5-29.
31
Idem, pp. 66-91.
32
Idem, pp. 29-66.
33
Idem, pp. 91-118
34
George Volceanov, “Methinks You’re Better Spoken”: A Study in
the Language of Shakespeare’s Characters, Institutul European, Iaşi, 2004. 35
George Volceanov, Studiu introductiv, in W. Shakespeare, Opere
I, Sonete – Furtuna, Piteşti, 2010, pp. 5-100. 36
Eugenia Gavriliu, “De ce sonetul?”, in W. Shakespeare, Opere I,
Sonete – Furtuna, ed. cit., pp. 120-125. 37
Veronica Popescu, “Sonetele unei iubiri”, in W. Shakespeare,
Opere I, Sonete – Furtuna, ed. cit., pp. 204-240. 38
Nicoleta Cinpoeş, G. Volceanov, “De trei ori Hamlet sau
extinderea canonului shakespearian…”, in W. Shakespeare, Opere II, Hamlet, ed. cit., pp. 5-61. 39
George Volceanov, “Despre răzbunare şi iertare prin magie şi
piraterie”, in W. Shakespeare, Opere I, Sonete – Furtuna, ed. cit., pp. 243-272. 51
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EMINESCU AND THE BALKAN POETRY (HRISTO BOTEV CASE)
Lect.univ.dr. KOPI KYCYKU
As it is known, along with his journalistic activity, evidenced by the many pages of high quality and outstanding literary value, Eminescu conducted an intense poetic activity. The main themes of Eminescu's poetry can be summarized as: romantic dualisms "pain-happiness", "sadness – longing” (for an idyllic past, but not only),"reclusion – exteriorization of a great ideal ", and: "revitalization" of the past glory "against" present decay, pantheism as another dimension of monotheism, worship of nature to serve as a bridge between the soul of a poet and a portrait of his sweet beloved. In most of Eminescu’s poetic creations, one can see vague or clear influences of Schopenhauer's thinking, subjected to Eminescu's personal beliefs, rightly, "the universal ideal" the reference point of Romanian literature. An entirely separate space (and functions) in his poetry are the descriptions of nature connected with the nostalgia about the past. Nature is very often present in Eminescu’s verses. The form of dialogue in which the narrator and protagonist addresses to it, is significant to highlight the theatrical passion that 52
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Eminescu cultivated step by step since his teens and by working at the National theatre in Bucharest. Motifs of this type, convergent with its pantheistic vision that appeal to youth are fresh perennial calling: lime trees, fir, poplar, leaves that have been ephemeral, errant and hiking, seem to sit on the bare land of human ephemeris; the "blue lake in the forest / covered by yellow nymphs - everything contributes to molding a wonderful golden-green frescoes, rooted in eternity, created by Eminescu’s tempestuous soul. Eminescu's work, which is a kind of bridge - the separation and division - between the romantic and the modern Romanian literature, includes long philosophical poems, elegies and love idylls, which sometimes borrow their tone from romance, hot social and political satires, and suggestive epic legends. Besides the masterpiece poem, “Morning Star” and the considerable lyric production, there are also the stories “Poor Dionis” (1872) and Caesara (1876), the poem Memento Mori (posthumously, 1903) and novel “The solitary genius”(posthumously, 1904). Eminescu was aware of the importance of the fact that the Romanian spirituality had a tremendous power of radiation especially in neighborhoods and throughout the Balkan Peninsula, Romania being, as will be noted later by Nicolae Iorga, the only country surrounded by Romanians. 'There is no state in Eastern Europe, no country from the Adriatic to the Black Sea that does not contain pieces of our 53
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nationality. From the shepherds of Istria, from the morlacs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, we find fragments of this large ethnic unit in the mountains of Albania, in Macedonia and Thessaly, in the Pindus and in the Balkans, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and up across the river t near Odessa and Kiev " Eminescu wrote, in the " Iasi Courierâ&#x20AC;?, the 1st December 1876, p. 3. "As far as the Macedo-Romanian language is concerned," it is today a fact known to all that it is only a Daco-Romanian dialect and that it has nothing to do with all new Latin-derived languages of the West ... The Istrian dialect and the Macedo-Romanian are varieties of Daco-Romanian language, with small phonological differences and large and crucial similarities, "said Eminescu, in the" Time "of 27th August 1882, p.1. Echoing these statements, many Balkan poets, contemporaries with Eminescu, but also later ones, took him as a model. One of them was the Bulgarian Hristo Botev (1828-1876). Walking in the predecessors footsteps, Hristo Botev leaves his hometown Kalofer to come to Romania in September 1867. Crossing the Danube, he carried with himself the conviction that the Bulgarian people were prepared to fight for independence and freedom. His personal life had ended, being replaced by another life entirely devoted to noble ideals, with three passions: poetry, journalism and action. In Romania, Botev enters the actors band of Dobri Voinikov in 54
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Bucharest, following, in the same time the courses of “The top medical school”, which he soon interrupts. Botev was personally interested in the positive functioning of the Bulgarian school opened on 15 September 1869, which, inter alia, was a Romanian-Bulgarian twinning place, many students being Romanian. The year 1870 marks a very dynamic period of life, full of revolutionary activity for Botev. This year he published his work in poetry. In 1871 moved to Galati and Braila, functioning as editor of <<Duma na balgarskite emigranti>> (The Word of Bulgarian emigrants). Since 1873, Botev shall liaise with Romanian and Russian revolutionaries. Arrested for his revolutionary activity Botev spends three months in prison in Focsani. Then we see him as editor of the immigrants magazine “Svoboda” (Freedom), where he publishes articles in the satirical page. In 1874, Botev continues to publish poetry and reviews in the magazine “Nezavisimost“ (Independence), including a volume of poetry entitled <<Songs and Poems>>. For a long time he lived in an abandoned mill near Bucharest, together with Vasil Levski, the leader of Bulgarian insurgency. Like Eminescu, Botev inspired his comrades with his passion for freedom and his last action came to fulfill his oath. Botev gave his life for his ideal his death being, in historical and metaphorical perspective, a continuation of a higher life that defeats the desacred life. The inscription on Botev’s gravestone said: "Your prophecy has come true – you still live." Like Eminescu, Botev have the cult of Mother and Family. He believed strongly in Christian values, which, 55
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as he said, "had martyrs, by until it called his slaves the Son of God, the Son of Man." As they told me in Kalofer, his hometown, -the Lady Superior of St. Petka Monastery and the priest Petar Totev, respectively Tsutsov spouses - who kept at home the strong "echo" of Botev's work - his parents and especially Ivana Staikova Driankova his mother, raised their son in fear of God. With a life so short (and here you can find an organic similarity with Eminescu), lived in a very unfavorable environment for harmonious and sound cultural development, in his literary work Botev had to focus on emotional sensitive factors, on the power of his message of personal, on a Promethean effort and especially on refinement, on technical and artistic perfection, on an actual harmony at the textual level, hoping maybe this harmony could arouse the reader's inner harmony and make it productive. However, something unrealized until the end, like an unfinished bust, remains always in the most beautiful pages of Botev's creation. We witness, at all times, in the most bright and brilliant moments, to an improvisation which still retains fragments of raw material from which it arose and the impatience that set it on paper: message, call, confession. On the other hand, precisely due to the inner strength, the tragic ordeal causing it and heating it, the sincerity with which he rebelled against the cruel reality that he would like to conquer, Botev's poetic work marks one of the top items of the Bulgarian artistic literature. 56
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With the emergence of Botev, the huge artistic heritage of popular poetry that was behind the modern Bulgarian literature and facing the Western European and Russian models, heavily steps into the best national literary tradition, assuming a countenance and a proper name . While the echoes of folk poetry, as a handy guide, had already created a source to which appealed many masters of verse, especially those who intended to exploit first their technique, the light and melodious modulation, the pure and brilliant language without pedantry for rustic writing or for conventional epics, Botev just like Eminescu assumes it and relives it with personal and political passion, assimilates it to use it against the enemies of free thinking and freedom itself, making from that language a flag of revolt and a tool for personal confession. The twenty poems, which Hristo Botev left us, remain a formidable human document and a strong poetic confession. With good reason, not only Bulgarians but generally Europeans could recognize in Botev one of the champions of national freedom and pure ideals of the early '800. Bulgarian mothers sang their children in the cradle lyrics of Botev's poems to prepare them for the battles of life to be always ready to defend their homeland and nation: Those who fall on your altar, do not die one, freedom ...weeps its nature, earth and sky race in their praiseand poets proclaim their immortality ... 57
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... Earth and sky race in their praiseand poets proclaim their immortality ... On the traditional friendship of Bulgarians with Romanians, Botev wrote: Same plan, same feelings our brotherly heart knows to share. We never got out of our mind And never got to fight. All we have done- bad or good Future descendants will judge Closer now we shake hands, Our strong steps will lead us forward . Botev is also characterized by his live, juicy, combative, but combine romance that intertwines with a deep realism " And if it is for me to die soon I take comfort in a single thought: people, my dear people will say: we lost a brother, in heavy combat for rightness and freedom for all.
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Georgi Dimitrov sees Hristo Botev as a "consistent DemocraticRepublican, confident and bitter political enemy of obscurantism and spiritual, villain chauvinism, a passionate fighter for eternal friendship with the Russian people, brotherly cooperation of all freedom-loving peoples, brilliant poet of struggle people freedom and national independence. Hristo Botev was the most talented, most sagacious leader of the national liberation movement of the last century "(Hristo Botev, a poet - Bulgarian revolutionary, Universal Cultural Institute, Bucharest, 1949, p.32). "... By the help of Hristo Botev, we have understood our people, we achieved freedom, we loved the past and we glimpsed into the future ... Hristo is more than an idol, legend or genius. He is in our blood, in our souls, in our science, in our innate fate, "said Bulgarian patriotic intellectual A. Strazimirov since 1922.
59
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THE FAMILLIHOOD OF HUMANITY THROUGH LANGUAGE
Lecturer LHD LUMINIŢA TĂRCHILĂ
If we want to understand "la langue", the speech –Sapir told us1- it is necessary for our spirit to renounce to its preferable values and to be acquainted to look at the English language in the same way we look to the Hottentot’s language.To see both of them with the same imperturbable, but still interested detachment. People would judge totally different if they assign to the speech a function which is rather productive and constructive than reproducible. It is the "energy" of the speech the one that represents a supreme importance for the speakers. This is because, through speaking, even the child passes from a more subjective state of mind to an objective one, concurrently with the first understanding of the symbolism of the speech. If a child had to learn only a vocabulary, when he starts speaking, if he wished to impart into his mind and memory only a large mass of artificial and arbitrary sounds, it would be only a strictly mechanical process. By learning, the child know rather how to form concepts of the objects and how to arrive at an equilibrium, at a better understanding with the objective world. His uncertain and indefinite 60
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perceptions, which are fluctuating and sentimental or unclear, start gaining a new form. They crystallize around the name as if around fixed centre, as if a focus of thinking. The first denomination that the child uses could be compared to the stick blind men is able to find his way with. The language, as a whole, becomes a gate for entering into a new world. That is why, extending this aspect to the grown-ups world, an old saying shows that "The more languages you know, the more men you are." This happens as a result of the fact that any progress, done in learning languages, enriches our concrete experience.The problem is that, for an adult, the objective world has already had a definite form, as a result of the language action, which, in a way, has fashioned all the other activities of them. The perceptions, people's intuitions and their concepts have interpenetrated with the terms of their mother tongue. There are necessary great efforts to release the link between words and things. However, when people are going to learn a new language, they have to separate the two elements. It is only then that people are imbued with the "spirit" foreign language. It is a traveling for discovering in a foreign country and the greatest advantage from such a traveling consists in the fact that the man has learnt to look at his mother tongue through a new light. This study intends to show that as time as people do not learn a foreign language, they are, in a sense, ignorant about their own language, because they are not able to realize its specific structure and its distinctive traits. A comparison between two languages shows them 61
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that there is not a perfect synonymy. The suitable words from two languages refer seldom to the same objects or to the same actions. They cover different domains which interpenetrate each other and which offer the multi-colored perspective of their own experience. The name of the object can not lay claims to express the nature of the object, to express the truth of it. The function of name is always limited to the accentuation of a peculiar aspect of the object and the value of the name depends exactly by this restriction and limitation. The function of a name is not that of referring exhaustively to a concrete situation, but to select and insist on a certain aspect, action, a fact which is not negative but positive. This is the result of the fact that, in the act of denomination, people select from the multitude and the defuse character of the sensorial data some fixed centers of the memory. These centers are not the same with those of the logical or scientific thinking, but they are the "land marks" which guide people on the road that leads toward the scientific concepts.
These terms are those by which people acquire
their first objective and theoretical vision over the world. Such a vision is not simply "given", but it is the result of an intellectual constructive effort, which could not reach its purpose without the steadfast help of the language. From this level on, it is possible the raising to a superior levels of abstraction, to more general names and ideas, which is a difficult and a laborious task. The human speech has evolved from a relative concrete state to a more abstract state. This raising to some universal concepts and categories seems to be very slow in the developing of the 62
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human speech, but any new advance in this direction leads to a more comprehensive perspective, to a better orientation and organization of peoplesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; perceptible world. It is only this evolution that could enable the man to aspire to an universal language, because this endeavor makes a better man, who is able not only to speak, but also to communicate. Probably, this is the only way towards an universal language: its changing towards a function which must be one of communication, love, compassion, understanding and of the feeling that each of the human beings is the whole, and the whole is inside of each man. There might have been at least three reasons that persuade me to start a research on the possibility or the impossibility for setting up a single language on the Earth. The first one is the evidence that is felt more and more acutely by each person; that is the world has been shrinking since very long time ago. It has shrunk spatially, timely and even mentally. There was not left a place on the Earth which could be further than hours away from any place else by using fast and sophisticated means of transport. Moreover, by means of radio waves or Internet we can find ourselves feeling and thinking that the world is no longer as large as we once believe it to be. What does this means? It means that any two people on the Earth might find themselves in the position of having to communicate with each other. The question is: what language will they use?
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The second reason for studying the already announced theme could be the visible dawn of a new sort of thinking under the pressure of some new concrete data. In this sense the world has been changing since long ago but especially for a few decades. The man seems that has been passing to a new energetic level, to a new kind of understanding, to a new outlook. A universal changing is felt in the air also. It has recently been proved, once more, by the reaction of people in front of the eruption of the volcano in Island. That was one of the moments when people from whole the world showed themselves like brothers, all alike in front of a threaten, in front of the universal danger. It was a moment which demonstrated that we, all the human beings are actually the same; we are the children of the same mother that is our planet, the Earth. In suffering and in happiness we are all the same, we express ourselves in the same way, without any difference and regardless the kind of language we would speak. Unfortunately, there are only such feelings of insecurity, such great emotions that enabled us to surpass the barriers of language or of our own particular sorts of prides, of vanities. Exactly for the fact that there exist such kinds of experiences, another question has arisen: wouldn't it be possible to understand each other always so well and not only in moments of despair, in moments of the top experiences? Finally, the third impulse towards this piece of work has come from the Zen advice which I am still reflecting upon and which says: You Man! Don't forget: the Good Thought, the Good Word, and the Good Deed! This emphasizes the fact that everything starts from the thought, but not from the language we use.For all these reasons and 64
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some other more I consider that tackling the theme of the language it is necessary an anthropological approach rather than a linguistic one strictly, or rather than a metaphysical one. The philosophy of the language is confronted the same problem that appears when studying no matter which other symbolic form. The highest task and actually the only one of all these forms is that of unifying people. This is because there must be reached the profound conviction that there exists solidarity of life which is fundamental and everlasting, which exists above the multiplicity and the variety of its singular forms. It is a supposition more and more demonstrated by the reality of life and it reminds us of the mythical way of thinking which considered that all forms of life are kindred, are linked together. That is why, the main question as regarding people is: do we need a universal
language? This is the tough question that we must
face in this new millennium. Some may argue that a universal language is necessary; others may feel that it would be a waste of collected efforts. A large percent of the population would most likely pose a new question: who cares? Before we can even ponder the different arguments of this issue, we must define what is meant by the syntagma "universal language". On a very extreme scale, a universal language would be one that every human being on the planet speaks and is fluent in. It would be the only language in which we, as a world, write and converse with. From another perspective, we can consider a universal language as one that everyone knows and can use it fluently, but only when it is 65
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necessary and thus it would exist in parallel with the native language of each person. It could be one that only national heads would use. As regarding to who are the effects of this issue, it is clear for everyone. Trying to elaborate one language for all two hundred and sixty five nations would be the most prominent, prolific goal, with many others following close behind. The point is whether we could strike down the language barrier and communicate as one, joining together the six point six billion people who live on the Earth. And more, could this end wars, eliminate poverty, cure cancer? Could it make people to work together towards a universal peace? Not necessarily, because it is not the language that stops us to do it. The real change must happen into our thought, in our way of thinking. Actually, in attempting to establish a universal language, we come across a few bumps. Which language do we switch to? How do we even begin to spread the new language to every single person? And, more important, won't we lose the values, the cultures, which go alongside with each native language? While researching the current debates, one can find out that some (and they are not a few) believe that English is already a universal language, through Internet and many other science research journals. Indeed, the universal language on the Internet is English, to be more exact, a vague collection of languages called "English" because their common origin is the national language spoken in England. The natural language has spread over the world, and several variants such as American English (in USA), Australian English exist. Moreover, a 66
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great number of people whose native language is none of the variants enounced above know English as a foreign language. They typically use a more or less simplified variant, excluding, for example, most of the idioms of British, American or Australian languages. The result is, of course, the fact that they make mistakes and sometimes, the "English" used by people as a foreign language on the Internet is almost incomprehensible to anyone else. In addition, even among the people who use English as their native language, there are persons who do not know how to spell difficult words, since they basically know English as a spoken language. Thus, roughly speaking, the universal language of the Internet is clumsy, coarse and misspelled "English". WHY ENGLISH? Generally speaking, when a language would get the position of a universal language that position itself would tend to be affirmed and extended. Since "everyone" knows and uses English, people are almost forced to learn English and use it and to learn it better. But why English? During the history of mankind, there have been several more or less universal languages or "lingua franca" ("language of the Franks" i.e., Europeans), such as Latin (and Greek) in the Roman Empire, mediaeval Latin in Western Europe, later French and then English. Universality is of course relative; it means universality in the "known world" or "civilized world", or just in a large empire. No language has 67
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been able to become really universal (global), but the current position of English comes closest.The position of a universal language has always been gained as a by-product of some sort of imperialism, which means by means of political acts: a nation has conquered a large area and more or less it assimilated that spiritual, social and political space into its own culture, including language, thus forming an empire. Usually the language of the conqueror has become the language of the state and of the upper class firstly, and then it probably spread among the society, sometimes almost wiping out the original languages of the conquered areas. Sometimes â&#x20AC;&#x201C;especially in the Middle Ages- the imperialism had a definite cultural and religious nature which might have been more important than the brute military and economic force. As regarding the English language, it would have remained as a national language of England had it not happened that the English first conquered the rest of the British Isles, then many other parts of the world. Later, some English colonies in a relatively small part of America rebelled, formed the United States of America and expanded a lot. They formed a federal state where a variant of the English language was one of the few really uniting factors. And that federal state has become â&#x20AC;&#x201C;as it is known- wealthy and important. It also exercised traditional imperialism, but more important it gained a very important role in the economy and the politics of the world. Whether the US influence is called imperialism or neo-imperialism , it is a matter of opinion, but it certainly has the similar effects on maintaining and expanding the use of English as a classical 68
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imperialism. This is the reality, and it is not necessary to regard imperialism as an incarnation of the Evil because it has had both positive and negative effects and in many cases imperialism has been a necessary step from chaos to civilization. Nowadays another type of imperialism is manifested through Internet. The importance of the Internet has grown rapidly in all fields of human life, including not only research or education, but also marketing and trade as well as entertainment and hobbies. This implies that it becomes more and more important to know how to use Internet services and, as a part of this, to read and write English. In developed countries, the Internet causes polarization: people are divided into Internet users and Internet illiterates. But although the Internet services themselves are, generally speaking, easy to be learnt and used, a man will find himself isolated on the Internet if he is not familiar with English. This means that the knowledge or the lack of knowledge of English is one of the most severe factors that cause polarization. Learning to use a new Internet service or users interface may take a few hours, a few days, or even weeks, but it takes years to learn a language so that one can use it in a fluent and self-confident manner. In different cultures and countries, English has different positions. There are countries where English is the native language of the majority, there are countries where English is a widely known second language, and there are countries where English has no special position. These differences add to the above mentioned polarization. To be more specific, it is difficult for people in the previous colonies 69
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of other countries than Great Britain (for instance France, Spain, and the Netherlands) to adapt to the necessity of learning English. Locally, it may be necessary to learn the language of the previous colonial power since it is often an official language and the common language of educated people; globally, English is necessary for living on the Internet. The point is that the more languages one has to learn, the less time and energy he will have for learning other things. The profile of the economic man that is the emblem of our times is also outlined by this eternal lack of time, ignoring thus the deep meaning of the old saying which proclaims that the more languages you know, the more men you will be. Even the old sayings are changing. COULD THINGS BE CHANGED? Of course things can change mostly because changing is one of the natural rules of life. The rapid fall of the Soviet Empire â&#x20AC;&#x201C;including the loss of the role of Russian as a "universal" language within it- is a relative recent indication of this fact. English can lose its position as a widely used universal language (although not officially) in two ways. Either a new empire emerges and its language becomes universal, or a constructed language becomes very popular. Two possible empires could be seen in the politics horizon: the European Union and yet nonexistent Japanese-Chinese empire. The European Union (EU) is an existing formation which is, at least according to its own doctrine, moving towards federalism. In many respects, the European Union already is a federal state, with less 70
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independence and autonomy for its constituents than the states have in the United States of America. Although people may present the EU as the successor of the previous empires such as the Roman Empire and the empire of Charlemagne, it is quite possible that the EU never becomes a real empire, since it seems to be inherently bureaucratic. Every empire needs a bureaucracy of course; to promote the aims of the ruler, but the EU lacks true rulers. Nevertheless, if the EU ever becomes a true empire with prominent role in the world, the language of the empire would hardly be any of the national languages of it, except possibly English. It is more probable that the builders of the empire will realize the need for a relatively neutral universal language, and they will adopt Esperanto or some other constructed language for official purposes. Such a choice would be very rational at the present stage of the EU, since now a considerable portion of EU expenses are used for translation and interpretation between the official languages of the EU. Anyway, a single official language of the EU might or might not be adopted by people worldwide as a universal language for everyday communication, including communication on the Internet. Japan, on the other hand, is probably too small, both as a country and as a nation, to create an empire with its own forces, despite its flourishing technology and economy and efficient social organization. But its potential combined with the vast human and other resources of China would certainly contribute as basis for an empire that successfully competes with the United States of America and the European Union, even if latter powers were (economically)
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strongly allied. Both, Japan and China would have a lot to gain from intensive mutual cooperation, or alliance, confederation or federation. A Japanese-Chinese empire would have a difficult choice of language. It might decide to accept the role of English as a universal language, both for continuity and for the reason that selecting either Japanese or Chinese (Mandarin) would set the Japanese-Chinese union at stake. Alternatively, it might seriously consider not Esperanto but a language which is culturally more neutral, this meaning not dominantly Indo-European. It would be something like Loglan or Lojban probably.
IS ENGLISH A SUITABLE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE? Leaving aside all the aspects discussed above, there must be said that English is not a suitable universal language for more reasons. First of all any national language which was originally the language of a particular nation has obvious defects when using it for international communication. Native speakers tend to use idioms and rare words and to speak too fast, unless they exercise conscious control over their language. Such control is difficult and unnatural when applied to one's mother tongue. This implies that in oral communication in particular native speakers of English often have worse problems in getting themselves correctly understood than nonnative speakers. Besides, national languages exist in various dialects and forms and the differences always make communication harder. 72
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On the other hand, when one learns his or her native language in his or her childhood, he or she learns it by listening to and talking with people who have it as their native language. As regarding this aspect Ernst Cassirer noticed with much accuracy: "In an ulterior and more advanced stagy of our conscious life we can never repeat the process which led to our first penetration into the world of human speaking. In the agility, freshness and elasticity of our first chi ldhood, this process had significance totally different. In an enough paradoxically way, the real difficulty consists much less in the learning of the new language, than in forgetting the before known language. We are no longer in the psychological condition of the child who gets for the first time new conceptions about the objective world. For an adult the objective world has already had a definite form as a result of the language activity, which, in a way, has molded all the others our activities. Our perceptions, intuitions and concepts have interpenetrated with our mother tongueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; forms. There are necessary great efforts to release the link between words and things "1 Then, he continues: "Still, when we begin to learn a new language, we must do such efforts and to separate the two elements. [â&#x20AC;Ś] When we pass towards the spirit of a foreign language, we have inevitably the impression of a nearness of a new world, a world that has a proper intellectual structure. It is like a discovery travel in a new country, and the biggest gain from such a traveling consists in the fact that we have learnt to look towards our mother tongue in a new light." 2 Moreover, a national language carries with it the history of the nation. For instance, words and phrases have got, in addition to their 73
U N I V E R S A L I A VII, 11
dictionary meanings, connotations, colors and associations. This is an important cultural phenomenon which helps in keeping the nation a nation and which is very much used by writers in their national literary works. It is a burden in an international communication. To all of these, there must be added the fact that national languages have originally evolved as spoken languages. When written national languages originated, they were usually formed on the basis of the dialect of the capital or other important area, with the aim of creating a language which supports the creation of a unified nation. Thus, the very origin of a national language is in a sense nationalistic, not internationalist. As a matter of fact, due to their long history, national languages have historical relics and features which make them illogical and irrational, such as grammatical gender or irregular forms are. Above this, being originally spoken languages, they lack sufficient tools for expressing things in an exact, unambiguous manner, and the need for such expression is immense and grows especially in the areas of law and contracts, technology and technical descriptions, and in science. All these aspects apply also to English and especially to English. One of the worst relics of English is the orthography. English has a very rich level of idioms, and it typically has several words which have the same basic meaning but different connotations and stylistic values. For instance, for the Romanian word "a aĹ&#x;tepta" it has two verbs with specialized meanings for certain contexts: "to wait" and "to expect". Or, for the verb "a spune" in English could be found "to tell" "to say" "to speak" "to talk". Instead, Romanian uses two 74
U N I V E R S A L I A VII, 11
separated units -"râu", "fluviu"- for one English unit "river". Romanian uses also two units -"dragoste" "iubire"- for the single English unit "love". The list could continue, but I want to mention besides this another aspect. There are words, for example in the same Romania (even if the fact is valuable in any other foreign language), without correspondence in English. Such words are "dor" and "candelÄ&#x192;" and it is better for them to be given an explanation, in a few sentences or by paraphrasing them somewhere on the bottom of the page , in a special note , than to translate them as " missing " and respectively "holy light", which would be a pale and insignificant meaning from the wholeness of the senses that they have in Romania. Especially in international contexts one can never know what words mean to people with different backgrounds. Thus one may occasionally get his basic message understood in some way, but he can not say in which one. Actually each comparison of two different languages shows us that there does not exist a perfect synonymy. Among other anthropologists Ernst Cassirer has argued this in the following: "The corresponding terms from two languages do seldom refer to the same objects or actions. The act of naming depends on a process of classification which is one of the fundamental treats of human language. To give a name to an object or to an action means to subsume them to a certain class-concept. If this subsumation were prescribed once for ever by the things nature, it would be unique and uniform. Still, the names which appear into the human language cannot be interpreted in any such invariable way. They are rather 75
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determined by human interest and goals. But these interests are not fixed and invariable. The classifications from the framework of the language are based on some constant and recurrent elements from our sensory experience. Without such recurrent elements there would not be any support, any aid point for our linguistic concepts. Therefore, the name of an object cannot pretend to express exactly its nature; it is not destined to offer us the truth of an object. The function of a name is always limited to the underlining one particular aspect of the thing and the value of the name depends exactly on this restriction and limitation. The identification of a particular aspect means that in the act of denomination people select from the multitude and diffused characters of the sensory data some certain fixed centers of the perception. These centers are not the same with those from the logical or scientific thinking. The terms of the usual language must not be measured with the same standards people measure and express the scientific concepts. Nevertheless, these terms are the ones that people have gained with their first objective or theoretical vision over the world."3 To rise up to superior levels of abstraction, to names and ideas more general and more comprehensive is a laborious and difficult task. There are necessary long and complex mental activities to raise the language to such long and complex degrees of abstractions. Therefore, coming back to English, the inherent problem of human communication are maximized. English is an eclectic language which tends to borrow words from other languages instead of constructed words for new concepts from older words with derivation 76
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or word composition. The richness of the vocabulary results mostly from word borrowing and implies that words for related concepts are typically not related to each other in any regular manner. Word borrowing makes a language more international, but in the essential sense, it makes it less suitable for international communication, since learning the vocabulary is more difficult. The above discussion shows that it would be probable more desirable
to
have
a
constructed
language
for
international
communication. But it is hard to believe that such a construct would be possible or would not have the fate of Esperanto, as long as the language, like man himself, is an enigma and a mystery. It has its own "blood" and "nerves", it is a living phenomenon with its own flows, its own course. Any natural process has some unseen and undreamt of rules. That is why, to construct a language, no matter how well could it be done, is like creating an artificial man, a robot. A lot of important and essential aspects are lost when people replace the natural for artificial. Of course, the idea of a constructed international language is not a new unrealistic one. Esperanto is already such an auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto, the pseudonym under which L.L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887. The word "Esperanto" means "one who hopes" in the language itself. The language's original name was La Internacia Lingvo. Zamenhof's goal was to create an easy to learn and politically neutral language that would serve as a universal second language to fasten peace and international understanding. 77
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Esperanto has approximately one thousand native speakers, this meaning people who learned it as one of their native languages, from their parents, and there are only one hundred thousand speakers of Esperanto in the world. As I have said, artificial languages seem to lack vitality, and one can only be realized again if strong economic and political interests are involved. Most probably, that language would first be used in parallel with English, and the initial usage would be for such purposes like international agreements where national languages are clearly insufficient. If there is the need to formulate an agreement between two countries, it is definitely necessary a neutral common language instead of having the text in two languages, each of them allowing its own interpretation. Some other voices declare that after a few decades, no universal language is needed because machine translation will allow people to use their own language. Imagine a person who could sit on his or her terminal, writing his or her news articles or a message, and by saying "finish", another person in Australia would read the text in English, due to automatic translation "on the fly". Actually, machine translation is operational for a wide range of texts, although corrective actions by human translators may be necessary. Corrections are needed to resolve ambiguities which exist due to the limitations of the software and to fix errors caused by the fact that translation of human language requires extra linguistic information.
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Assumedly, fully automatic correct translation will never be possible. However, this does not exclude the possibility of using it extensively. In fact, machine translation and constructed international languages are alternative but not mutually exclusive solutions to the problem of communication between people with different native languages. They can be combined in several ways. But, There's a Catch! Could we imagine a world like in the wonderful short story The Country of the Blind, by H.G.Wells, where all the people would speak only one language, or more than this, would speak an artificial language only? Or, which is even worse, a world where all the people are dumb and a machine would speak for them? The researcher Jacques MĂŠlitz, in his work entitled English Language Dominance, Literature and Welfare warns us saying that "World literature will be an English literature and will be the poorer for it â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as if the music were written only for cello."4 I think that it is better for all the human beings to avoid such a situation like that which was artistically created by the film directors Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha, in their marvelous film Robots, where Robin Williams, as a principal protagonist, play the role of a robot that asks from a supreme World Court the right of being simply declared Man. We still have this quality. We are the mankind of this planet. We have been gifted with the capacity of speaking and are the only 79
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beings endowed with this ability. Why should we play with this marvelous present? There is no reason strong enough to justify us for losing the color of this world, for killing the soul of our species which is the native language of each people. It is up to us to create for our grandsons either a beautiful man, or a Frankenstein monster. In connection with this I must bring down your attention upon a very serious and dedicated researcher on human behavior. I refer to A.H. Maslow who has relatively recently written a good book, entitled Motivation and Personality. His strong conviction is that a new man, whom he called a "healthy manâ&#x20AC;?, must be let to appear. For this goal he speaks about "psychotherapy" that must be those means which could help man to come back on the way of self-actualization in conformity with the guiding lines traced by his inner nature. Such a man must feel safe and must lack anxiety, must feel loved and must love in his turn, perceiving himself as an accepted, respected and respectful person. He would have to clarify his own philosophical, religious and axiological conceptions. His characteristics must be: an acute perception of the reality, spontaneity, the power to focus on the problems, autonomy, the capacity of seeing all things with fresh eyes, many of what was called "hyerophanies" by Mircea Eliade (a great Romanian researcher in the religions of the world) or called "epihanies" by the well known English writer James Joyce, the author of the announced book named these experiences "top experiences". This new man has also to know the real meaning of modesty, of creativity, of humor of the ethic and
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proves resistance in front of the "enculturation", which is a bad method of education. If we knew how to surpass our own scares, our "egocentrism", our own frustrations, or how to solve the dichotomies and to rise above them; if we knew how to appreciate the values, which must be able to be demonstrated empirically instead of remaining simple taste or recommendation matters, then we would obtain a familyhood of humanity despite the different languages we were speaking. Yes we do need a universal language, but it must be one of love. Love is the universal language of mankind. Thus, without having this in my mind at the beginning, I have arrived at the same old biblical urge which once so mildly warned us "If I have the gift of being able to speak in other languages without learning them, and could speak in every language there is in all of heaven and earth, and knew all about what is going to happen in the future, knew everything about everything, but didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t love others, what good would it do? Even if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, I would still be worth nothing at all without love. If I gave everything I have to poor people, and if I were burned alive for preaching the Gospel but didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t love others, it would be of no value whatever. " 5 Yes, in full process of globalization we must not think so much at a new universal language, but at a new kind of man who has to be designed inside each of us. The spiritualized man was the ideal in the Mediaeval Age; the man as the center of the universe through his intellect was the model in Renaissance; the economic man started to 81
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dominate the human thinking since the capitalism and Marxism had set up; the newer times has propelled the myth of the hero (in a Nietzschean sense). Now, the evolution of man must be proved also at a spiritual level as well as at a material one. The tolerance and the freedom of gesture seem to be the key necessities for what Maslow called "a good environment" for the "healthy man", with the capacity to detach from any exterior pressures and to live, like Thoreau for instance, according to his own deep laws, conferring himself mostly the primary necessities, such as security and love. Otherwise, like the king in the old story, there will come a time when a possible conqueror of the whole world asks sadly over whom was he going to rule. Over nobody or over a man multiplied in many copies. The variety of the individuals is the wealth of this world. This is exactly its beauty, in the same sense the beauty of the nature stays in its diversity of plants, of trees, of animals and relief forms. Even if it has been known ever since Leibniz that we will not be able to find out a Scientia generalis without a Characteristica generalis, we must strive towards this mystery. Moreover, even if this task were accomplished, a philosophy of human culture would have to confront the same problem: we must accept the facts in their concrete forms, in their full diversity and divergence. If we destroyed the words, the art of word, which is literature, would be also destroyed. The universal literature, which has actually been the mankind's real "universal language", would become a nonsense and a lot of 82
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characters that have been populating it will die for ever. Imagine, if you could, a planet where does not exist any more a prince like Mîşkin, a naïve man like Mr. Pickwick, a great model of goodness like professor Wilczur, a courageous and sensitive man such as Lord Jim, a hungry for justice man such as Hamlet, a proof of sacrifice in Jean Valjean or the whole repertoire of love givers as many characters in Henriette Yvonne Stahl's novels are. The characters in literature have indeed a universal language: that of feelings and profound thoughts; and their creators, the writers know the mystery of how to make the wedding of the words in each national culture, and thus to raise their work up to universality, in each national literature. Coming back to my first three reasons for writing this study: the shrinking of the world, a new way of thinking and a bridge between thought and deed, I end underlining that the most important goal of people should be the high understanding that we are already all united by the same basically emotions, the same essential feelings, the same reactions against everything that violate the old and everlasting principles of good sense, of Truth, of Goodness and of Beauty. This is because life itself means history, continuity and memory.
NOTES: 1.
Ernst Cassirer, Essay on Man. An Introduction in the Philosophy of Human Culture, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 1994, p. 187. 83
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2.
Ibid.
3.
Id., p. 188.
4.
Jacques Mélitz, English Language. Dominance, Literature and Welfare, Discussion Paper Series No 2055.
5.
The Living Bible; Corinthians 13.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Grace de Laguna, Speech Its Function and Development, New Heaven, Yale University Press, 1927. 2. Jaspersen, Progress in Language, London, 1894. 3. Jaspersen, Language Its Nature, Development and Origin, London, 1922. 4. Jaspersen, The philosophy of Grammar, New York, Holt&Co, 1924. 5. C.K. Ogden and L.A.Richards, The Meaning of Meaning, New York, 1938. 6. F. Max Müleer, Contribution to the Science of Mythology, London, Green&Co, 1897.
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7. F. Max Müleer, Lectures on the Science of Religion, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1893. 8. John P. Hughe, The Science of Language. An Introduction to Linguistics, Random House , New York, 1967. 9. Leonard Bloomfield, Language, New York, Holt&Co,1933. 10. J.B.S. Haldane, The Causes of Evolution, New York, London, 1932. 11. David R. Major, First Steps in Mental Growth, New York, McMillan, 1906. 12. Stephen R. Anderson, Phonology in the Twentieth Century, Chicago University Press, 1985. 13. Ferdinand de Saussure, Cours de Linguistique Générale, Paris, 1922. 14. V. Bröndal, Structure et variabilité des systèmes morphologiques, 1935. 15. F. Bruno, La pensée et la langue, Paris, 1922. 16. Hjelmslev, Principes de grammaire générale, Copenhagen, 1928. 85
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NARRATIVE CONSTRUCTION IN THE POSTMODERN HISTORIOGRAPHIC METAFICTION “BURNING WATER” BY GEORGE BOWERING
Asist.univ.drd. LASCAR ROXANA
It is known that the concept of postmodernism is still difficult to define. This may be due to Mark Currie’s statement: 'Nothing described as postmodern can be categorized as new because postmodern literature obsessively revisits and rereads its past ' (54) The postmodern novel is characterized by a combination of selfreflexivity and doubt related to the question of historical description accuracy. The cognitive predilection of the narrative in contemporary culture is evidenced by the Canadian theorist Linda Hutcheon in the term of <historiographic metafiction > (154-6). She believes that postmodern writers start from the premise that history reaches us by public or private documents that every historian interprets and reinterprets them swimming in a sea of inter-texts. 86
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Since writers often warn their readers about the process, she has labeled the novels postmodern historiographic metafictions because the narrativisation of the past is not hidden and is often self-reflexive. "If the past is known to us today only through textualized traces which are all open to interpretation, then both the writing of history and of historical metafiction is a complex form of intertextual references" (The Canadian postmodern / 62) According to this concept, the postmodern novel re-creates history upon its own image but also draws attention to its artificial, subjective nature and by extrapolation, to the historical discourse mined by the same deficiencies. Meanings and narrative values have diversified and the novelists have gradually displaced the historians from their position of prophets of the past.Vision on history took shape as a discursive construct that includes the dominant ideology of the culture that produced it. The past is not a series of major events and heroic leaders but it is just presented as such by the authors of textbooks who wrote them in a partisan manner. Mark Currie (Postmodern Narrative Theory / Textuality and History) says: "History can not be known only by a single narratological line that reduces the irreducible difference to only one center. History must renew itself by removing its <<realist>> assumptions about the 87
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meaning of a historical text, turning towards the recognition that history and literature are discourses that construct rather than reflect and invent more than discover the past. "(87) George Bowering's novel "Burning Water" (1980) is an example of historical reconstruction as well as analysis of imagination in life and art that requires being read as a fiction that insists on being seen as an invented entity '(212), as Smaro Kantboureli said in her article "A Window onto George Bowering's fiction of Unrest." Bowering interweaves two narrative plots in the novel: that of explorer George Vancouverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s trip on the west coast of North America and that of the narrator in the opposite direction. The author has no desire to reconstruct an actual historical situation but only to reinforce the idea of subjectivity of the historical rewritings as well as the one of multiple perspectives opposed to the uniquely accepted traditional one. (Jensen, 112). He used anachronistic details strategically coupled with the narratorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s constant wonder connected to his calling, to keep the reader aware of the technical elements of writing a prose that is narrating a historical past only on the surface.Bowering makes the very definition of historical time arbitrary and irrelevant, merging versions of the contemporary expressions with false formula of past idioms, his prose insists that time has no dimension, everything is <now>.(Moss, Paradox of Meaning, 132-34) 88
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Bowering is inserting anachronistic references to semiotics and twenty century type dialogues between historical figures thus making visible the fictionality of rewriting history. I can not help but think that languages have goals which go beyondlimited communication between a master and a subject. There is song for example ..... also, dare I say, a language that is neither spoken nor written. (Bowering, 42) The obvious coding of Bowering's text encourages the reader to develop simultaneously with the author / narrator, a history for Vancouver, placing the problematic and transient creator in the center and thus discrediting the official version of historical events. Bowering prefaces his narrator's existence as a mediated authorial presence, amalgamating the problematic narrator with the invasive author to create the<all encompassing protagonist >. (Scobie, 125) The postmodern historiographical metafiction strategy forces the comparison between the debatable subject matter and the objectivity of the historical narration. The texts of this kind undermine the stable and unified self is narrating historical events, constructing a topic which tells a story coded as history only to question the assumptions on which historical narrative is based.
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In the prolog, Bowering tries to present himself as an innocent observer of history, one that has not followed the story of Vancouver consciously, but was pushed to the subject by some accidental coincidences: name, place, literary profession, all happily mixed in order to give him the opportunity to write about George Vancouver. When I came to live in Vancouver, I thought of Vancouver and that's because geography involved my name, George Vancouver .... what else could I do than to write a book filled with history and with myself about this place and these people. (Burning, 7) In this book,â&#x20AC;?filled with history and with myself "Bowering's narrator assumes both Vancouver's creation in history" without a storyteller George Vancouver is just another dead sailor "(Bowering, 7) and the readerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s involvement in the process of text construction. In the historiographic metafiction the stable narrator can be manipulated in many ways to to highlight its status of <construct>. This manipulation gives the effect of multiple voices as showed Singer: Voice, the dominant metaphor for the totalizing power of the novelistic form is the locus of gender subjectivity. Thus, it is uniquely problematic in the novel.In its ineluctable multiplicity, the narrative voice undermines the imperative unity of the very metaphor of human communication that otherwise has rhetorical skills.
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The narrative voice prefaces an intertextuality that crushes the subject which talks about it. (72) There are more levels of addressing in Bowering's novel, "Burning Water". He remains true to his hostility towards the fiction of "transparency" drawing attention to the very own act of narration. The implied author is clearly visible in the prologue as the narrator <I> that familiarizes the reader with his fictional procedures in a mellow tone. During the rest of the novel he prefers to avoid the narrator <I> although he repeatedly penetrates the story as the author's voice. Bowering is trying to distance himself of the relationship <<YOU/ I >> (addresser-addressee), referring to himself by staging the third person; he thereby reduces himself to the level of his characters as a <<he>> who still occasionally draws his readers into the intimate company of <<<we>>>. So the addressing levels include an <<I>> narrator explicitly identified as author-involved, a <<he>> character who is also the author and several other speeches attributed to the characters Vancouver Quadra and Menzies, who are mediated by the relationship narrator/implied author. Here is how the narrative authorial voice explains to the readers the conditions and the motivation, or writing:
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"We
can
not
tell
a
story
that
excludes
us
and when I say we, I include you too"(9) Bowering's story alternates between the narration of the writing process or the preparation to write, in the present tense, and the story of Vancouverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s trials.Although gradually, the authorial voice controlling the action becomes mute as in the good days of the "realisticâ&#x20AC;? novel, there is still interaction between text production and its reception. While the journey was getting longer, the book thickened and he increasingly felt that he must rely on faith in the readers: will they support him afloat? He thought so. (104) Bowering represents this way the reader â&#x20AC;&#x2122; s presence and then he continues playing ironically with it: In fact we make a story as we always did sitting and speaking to build up a history, a real historical fiction. (9), reaffirming the interpenetration between fictional genres and the traditionally non-fictional ones by the paradoxical form of metafiction which reveals their shared identity that of the discourse which invents rather than discovers the past. The implied author hopes to win the reader on his side, convincing him that he is participating in his fiction, standing beside him and contemplating the creation of historical fiction; he promises
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to reveal the formation process of his story, engaging himself in plot as the third person, <<HE>> (Deer, 367) In the postmodern fiction, the author serves to draw attention to the artificiality of the work. Interrupting the voluntary suspension of the readerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s distrust, the author undermines the traditional willingness of blending with the action.This authorial interruptions have become clichĂŠs of postmodern fiction but Bowering uses them to train the recipients in the second story, that of an imaginative endeavor.Writing the novel within the novel is a <<character >> in itself and it is given a larger space than the one of the traditional characters. Like Vancouver, Bowering is trying to get down to the core (of the historical facts in his case) to discover the reality as author being aware of the analogy between writing and traveling. The parallel established between him and Vancouver is based on common purposes but also common limits. Both are named George, they are obsessed with food and even eating the same type of food. As Vancouver walks in the footsteps of Cook, Bowering follows Vancouver mentally. There are clues throughout the novel of what the author feels about the possibility of success in any work of imagination. Like Vancouver, whose maps are compromised when he is unable to explore a bay.... and the dream of perfection ..... ...... disappears 93
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behind a cloud. (232), Bowering is faced with many problems in trying to create a work of imagination about a historical figure. He wants his work to be perfect with historical accuracy and narrative vivacity but is aware that his goals are contradictory.Trying to animate a historical figure in history and fiction inevitably involves the creation and recreation, and the result will contain as much of the author and of the subject matter. The
author-narrator
is
omnipotent
and
uncontrollable
threatening to become as rigid, arbitrary and fatuous as Vancouver. Vancouver's real world, his time and mind remain closed in the end to the novelist who must accept the status of creative failure. The perfect artwork is a blend of incompatible elements, an impossibility as "burning water" the very title of the novel itself. Bowering is aware of everything that might interfere with imaginative perception such as the fears connected with the characters texture or preconceptions. It is difficult to create a life for others as do historians and artists. Failure is the norm and success is always imperfect but the fascination for what is difficult ensures us that our lovers, explorers and writers will continue to dream and create.
PRIMARY SOURCE Bowering, George. . Burning Water. Don Mas, ONT.: General P, 1980. 94
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SECONDARY SOURCES Currie, Mark. Postmodern Narrative Theory. New York, London: Macmillan Press , St. Martin's Press, 1998. Deer, Glenn. 'The Politics of Modem Literary Innovation: A Rhetorical Perspective Dalhousie Review 70:3 (1990): May 3 1-72. Hutcheon, Linda. The Canadian postmodern. Toronto, New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Jensen,
Lars.
"By
George!
Exploring
Explorers"
Kuqipi, 15:3 (1993): 10 to 22 January. Moss, John. The Paradox of Meaning: Cultural Poetics and Critical Fiction. Winnipeg: Turnstone, 1999. Singer, Alan. The Ventriloquism of History: Voice, Parody, Dialogue on O'Domeli Patrick and Robert Con Davis, eds. Inter-textuality and Contemporary American Fiction. Scobie, Stephen Telling the Truth: The Theory and practice of Documentary Fiction. Ithaca: Comell UP, 1986.
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Smaro Kantboureli "A Window onto George Bowering's fiction of Unrest." The Allegory of History "Anezi 26:2 (April 1995): 41-62. Kamboureli, Smaro Burning Water: Two Stories / One Novel: Narrative as Exploration " Island 10 (1981): 1989-1994.
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MOROMETII – THE RATIO OF DEMOCRACY IN A NON-DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY
Asist.univ.drd. GEORGE MOTROC
PROLOGUE “Romania is one of those countries where it seems that every literate person has written a novel, a book of essays, or at least a play,” says the Times film critic A.O. Scott, who recently traveled here to research for his article about the Romanian New Wave. Generally speaking, the period between the two World Wars was characterised by change and significantly higher level compared with other periods. This link of the Romanian literature to the European trends, which was achieved by the interwar generation, was abruptly cut short by the onset of communism. The Cold War and "proletcultism" of the '50s left little space for authentic literature and, even if blamed in the late '60s, literature no longer had freedom of creation. It enjoyed the necessary financial resources as it became subsidised by the state and, in spite of the ideological restrictions, disruptions like those experienced in the '50s became no longer possible. Authentic literature was extremely well received by readers, who identified in it the symbol of a civic attitude. 97
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Never before was there such an accord between public and critical taste like the one in the last decade of Ceausescu's dictatorship. Prose writers like Marin Preda (1922-1980) and Augustin Buzura, poets like St. Augustin Doinas, Nichita Stanescu or Marin Sorescu were appreciated by both prestigious critics (Eugen Simion, Nicolae Manolescu) and the authentic readers.
I. A SHORT BIOGRAPHY The central pattern of Romanian novel and one of the best Romanian writers for all times is Marin Preda (5 August 1922–16 May 1980). He was born into a family of peasants, in a camp village called Siliştea-Gumeşti, in fact a microcosm of a disappearing democratic word and a source of inspiration for his arts. Then he discovered the city, because he moved to Bucharest, in 1940 and became a proofreader at ” magazine Timpul. He made his literary debut as a writer with a short story in 1943, called Calul ("The Horse"), it was included in his debut volume from 1948: Intalnirea din pamanturi ("The Meeting between the Lands"). Between 1943 and 1945 he served in the army, which was to inspire some of his later works. In 1945 he was hired as a proofreader at România liberă ("Free Romania") newspaper, and beginning in 1952 served as an editor at the cultural magazine Viaţa Românească ("Romanian Life"). 1956 is his glorious year because the novel Moromeţii was awarded with the State Literature Prize and change the history of 98
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Romanian literature. In 1980 he published his last novel, Cel mai iubit dintre pământeni ("The Most Beloved of Earthlings"), which was a violent critique of communism. After a few short weeks on the market, the novel was withdrawn from all public, university, and school libraries and all bookshops. It was not much later, on May 16, 1980, that the novelist died under suspicious circumstances, apparently suffocated with a pillow at the Writers' Mansion of Mogoşoaia Palace. Stories circulated afterwards that he had died at the Writer's Mansion, after getting extremely drunk. His brother, Saie, believes that he was executed on orders of the Securitate (Secret Police), but the dossier regarding this has disappeared from the Securitate's archive.1 II. MOROMETII - A LOST NOBEL FOR LITERATURE First volume, announced
in an interview since 1948, first
developed in 1949, abandoned until the spring of 1955, as the author confesses, "I enjoyed my stories from "The Meeting of the Lands", hard, cold, unforgiving"; later, after the appearance of some excerpts in "Viata romaneasca", the book is finally published. Using as inspiration a period of great political and worries problems, Marin Preda made a fresco of the world village in the Danube Plain, talking bravely about the most important problems of Romanian society after World War II, but and disappearance of the traditional peasant type. 99
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This dramatic experience of the Romanian village is located in Silistea-Gumesti, "in the Danube fields, a few years before World War II, it seemed that time was very patient with people; life was going on here without major conflicts.â&#x20AC;? Between now and the final one when the time had no patience with people, is shaping the evolution and collapse of an illusion: economic independence. Human existence of the village people depends primarily on the existence of land, not like a ideal to be conquered, as in â&#x20AC;?Ionâ&#x20AC;?(author Liviu Rebreanu), but as something which must mention price at all costs, because the integrity of land given peasant family identity. Thus, Moromete accuse his boys because they can not understand the importance of this social level: "We worked and we worked hard and took land from the masters like you to live better! For years I struggled to not sell of it, to pay without selling taxes, to remain unto the whole, the blind and wilderness in mind! And I always paid, I sold no furrow and now jump on me and these that I have stolen your work. " monologue shows
This short
an image of a peasant class which, although
struggling in large weights because of sale harvest at a reduced price, lack of means of production and capital, is able to keep the 'lot' of land. Individual property claims utopia feeling of independence because a piece of land equals with the illusion of a large existing without constraints. Such mentality is best
exemplified by Ilie
Moromete, a farmer who like many others is neither rich, nor poor and can not even organize household so well that you no longer live close 100
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to permanent debtor. However, the world's essential for Moromete is Iocan blacksmith's where his real reputation is evident in this environment. Spend here many evenings with his friend, read newspaper articles and discuss politics, but important mention, with humor and irony, without that anger to be seen in the dogmatic spirit of the time, "class enemies" or anyone did not agree with you. Contradict with the 'necessities' officially imposed ideology, Marin Preda made the image of a peasant who is not alienated because of his heavy work, but who can afford and such' bourgeois luxury ", that's some serious spiritual joy, the pleasure of contemplation of the world an in short, they behave like free people, with some free spirits, who, although not red too many books, do not let blinded by a certain political option or ideological clichĂŠs. A disturbing example of cordial polemic unthinkable in socialist realism, it is offered by Moromete and Cocosila. They could be friends in everyday life, but political opponents in Iocan blacksmith's, Sunday, where each tries to observe and enforce the irony backed by intelligence before the other, especially the public. It thus builds a democratic model of polemic, in which interlocutors always trying to convince, to win using arguments and / or irony, but does not think any moment force him to accept another opinion or or to reduce to silence opponents through physical force and terror , methods of the communist regime. This is a stunning exercise of normality which belong to free men, a counterexample suggested by Marin Preda for official 101
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dogmatic spirit that dominated the 50s, when notions such as freedom of speech, or accept any opinion other lose their importance. The man
who breaks the image of democratic dialogue is
Tugurlan, who acts as a future
communist activist, verbally and
physically violent, without arguments, lower mind; this is sanctioned prompt by a impersonal "voice", the "voice" of views: 'Maybe Tugurlan have other political views ... It could have, but that's just political struggle, to fight your opponent honest. Why curse ?!... Eeeee! ... Well, that's not political fight! That means he is a man with no manners... "Delirium of history does not stop after the Second World War because the villagers begin another great war - against collectivization, to preserve our land, a war presented in detail in the second part. This part came after long changes, in 1967 and was the expression of his courage to write unwritten novel and drama of the Romanian village collectivization. The novel gets even more serious now, because it is no longer about an individual destiny, an entire civilization threatened. Thus, Moromete become a symbol for this ”old” world, increasingly marginalized due to a new communist world. But this brave ”new” world is actually made by old people, primitive and marginalized until then, which is only perceptible through the bacchanalian excesses (eg Adam Fantana) or a constant struggle internal power in the village between the new personalities: Bila, Isosica, Mantarosie and Ouabei. An aged Ilie Moromete, abandoned by his sons and his wife,, Catrina, who could not understand the significance of his last attempts 102
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to bring his boys at home, in the village. He tries to rebuild the family unit because he understood what any communist regime not understand: his boys, like other villagers move to town and turn workers suddenly become some expanded from a city suburb, a sort of annex countryside, even lower village from which they fled. In other words, escaping is not the solution, because those who do not go where they belong, will be some losers, fail to edge the big city, absorbed by it. Ilie Moromete, the last Romanian peasant, denies communist society and the ”new” world, but not opposed by other gestures of rebellion. This is because he understands, finally, the "wheel" of history , but can not suppress skepticism and disapproving silence; so,, the whole chapter XVIII is one of the gold passages of Romanian literature "2 Ilie Moromete statements are actually some peasant axioms of common sense, of a ”old” man, but balanced view, in opposition to "new", enthusiastic view of his son, Nicolae Moromete, a communist activist. His acid criticism is against the communist regime and collectivization, not against a person, it is still a Marin Preda's worth what have highlighted. According to Alexandru Piru: "With Moromeţii Preda gives the proof that peasant world is not, as we were used to believe, governed by instincts, but is capable of great feelings, and that its soul reactions are infinite".3 II. CONCLUSIONS For that time, Moromete – symbol for a ,,old” democracy and world, lost his dramatic game with the new world and the ,,new” 103
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democracy,
so
THE
RED
democracy
won…But
was
a
TEMPORARY victory, although for more then 30 years… REFERENCES 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moromeţii. 2. Aureliu Goci, Razbunarea lui Moromete, Editura Curierul Dunarii, Bucuresti,1999. 3. Piru, Alexandru , Panorama deceniului literar românesc, E.P.L , 1968.
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THE ENGLISH / FRENCH DUALITY. THE CONFLICT OF CULTURES AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGISM IN “TWO SOLITUDES” BY HUGH MAC LENNAN
Asist.univ.drd. CRISTINA NICOLAESCU
In his book Two Solitudes, MacLennan explores the psychology of the two ‘selves’of French and English Canada, using traditional conflict patterns and standard literary techniques in order to cast a new light on the Canadian identity divided within the nation’s bicultural solitudes. Most of the action is set in Montreal, the bilingual metropolis of Quebec, and in Saint-Marc-des Erables, a fictitious francophone rural parish not very far from the big city. This choice of topography is immediately put into the context of the question of Canadian nationhood by the narrator, on the very first pages of the novel which describe the river Ottawa flowing ” out of Protestant Ontario into Catholic Quebec” (1) The impression of one vast and untouched country evoked by the geographical details is juxtaposed to a different cultural landscape. But down in the angle at Montreal, on the island about which the two rivers join, there is little of this sense 105
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of new and endless space. Two old races and religions meet here and live their separate legends, side by side. If this sprawling half-continent has a heart here it is. Its pulse throbs out along the rivers and railroads; slow reluctant and rarely simple, a double beat, a self-moved reciprocation. (2) This passage is quite significant for the main theme of the novel: on the one hand the two old cultures are mentioned with reverential respect, on the other they are seen as separate which may range from peaceful mutual indifference to aggressive hostility. The fictional world of Saint-Marc is one full of conflict structured along binary dichotomies. The first section of the novel introduces the many components of the basic French-English conflict which is to form its structural base. These are embodied by the representatives of the old instances of spiritual and political power in Quebec: Father Emile Beaubien, the Catholic village priest, who epitomizes the conservative clerical element in the history of French Quebec, and Athanase Tallard, the latest head of the family of seigneurs of old Norman stock that has ruled in San-Marc for well over two centuries. Although he represents his parish as a Member of Parliament in Ottawa and is widely respected at home as the last representative of the traditional but dying feudal system of mutual reliance and fidelity, 106
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Tallard has contributed to a polarization of his community by marrying an Anglophone Irish woman much younger than himself and by displaying a remarkable openness towards the English in Quebec. His elder son, Marius, is an ardent French-Canadian nationalist and has never forgiven his father for marrying a young Irishwoman after his mother premature death. Marius feels a mystical rootedness to the land he was brought up on (32), and he can not understand why his father has given away part of it to an English-Canadian, namely Yardley. This kind of fanatic anti-English sentiment is also seen when Marius hears about his fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plans of working together with the English-Canadian capitalist Huntly McQueen. Because they want to use the energy of a near-by waterfall to build a factory in San-Marc, Marius draws a parallel to the first take over of Quebec by the British in the after math of 1759. Turn a perfect old parish like San-Marc into a factory town. [â&#x20AC;Ś..]A second conquest! First the English took over the government of your country. Then they used you for cheap labour in their factories.(44) Marius places himself firmly on the side of those who want to keep Quebec a rural Catholic francophone nation characterized by static traditional structures and based on an agricultural economy and 107
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sees the dynamic urban entrepreneur, McQueen, as a destructive capitalist. He neither knows the English-Canadians properly nor does he differentiate between various members of the group homogenizing them in order to legitimize his negative evaluation, which only strengthens and supports his ideological fanaticism. To Yardley, Marius is a symptom of the malaise of Quebec. In this novel, Yardley, becomes the personified instrument with which collective ethnic stereotypes are deconstructed and shown to be overgeneralizations untenable when applied to individual people. With his strategy of intercultural dialogism, he is placed in between Beaubien and Tallard as a possible mediator in the internal divisions within the francophone community of San-Marc represented by the two. However in the first part of the novel, it is the bipolarity between Beaubien’s fanatic fundamentalism and Tallard’s liberal pragmatism that prevails, and Yardley’s intercultural approach cannot do much to abolish the conflict within the parish. Marius and Beaubien are not the only examples of destructive fanaticism in the novel however. There is also an example on the English side and it comes in the guise of no other than Yardley’s daughter Janet, a middle-aged woman with social aspirations who has made her way into the upper reaches of fashionable Anglophone society in Montreal through her marriage to Harvey Methuen, a promising offspring of one of the richest and most influential families in the city who fights on the English side in the war in Europe.
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This makes her despise French-Canadians opposition to conscription, which she can only interpret as a remarkable lack of patriotism and when Harvey is killed in action, she becomes the enemy of all those opposed to the undertaking that cost her husband his life. This attitude turns into a fanatic rejection of anything French in Quebec, and when Marius hides from the police in his father’s sugar cabin in the bush in order to avoid being conscripted, Janet accidentally discovers his whereabouts and betrays him to the authorities. Such behavior on the part of the Anglo-Canadian woman of course only contributes to a widening of the gulf between the two ethnic groups and Beaubien takes her behavior as just another proof of his view of English-Canadians. Although he is Janet’s father, Yardley can avoid being condemned as just another Anglo-Canadian by the people of San-Marc because he expresses a heart-felt shame at his daughter despicable act. He would have been ostracized by the parish as a result of Janet’s betrayal had it not been for his extraordinary personality. The parish knew that he was hurt and ashamed […. ] He had gone to the presbytery and said he was sorry to Father Beaubien. Almost against his principles, the priest had shaken hands with him. (192) Again, Yardley’s voice seems to be the most reliable in the book’s analysis of the events at San-Marc and he lands his voice to the 109
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implied author because what he says is devoid of all indebtness to ethnic stereotyping and he judges people as individuals rather than as members of groups that have been engaged in a bitter struggle for supremacy for centuries. Two Solitudes also explores the views the French had of themselves in the 1940s.On the one hand, they had pride in themselves and their ancestry. Athanase came back from Paris with a proud feeling that France stood behind him: French culture, French art everything that made la grande nation. With France behind him he had been able to feel superior to any Englishman.(73)
On the other hand, however, there is the truth that under the English a French-Canadian could not become great. You had to imitate the English or they refused to look at you, You had to do things their way. If you were different, they automatically regarded you as second-rate. (80-181) In the end this “lessened a man” , as Marius discovered, it took away his real manhood and left him “ alone against an entire continent with nothing to do except breed children and hope.” (182) 110
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Athanase would like to transcend the cultural particularities of the various ethnic groups of Canada and knit them into one vibrant whole able to face the future and to turn it into a fertile one for everybody. This partly endears him to the reader but at the same time proves to be the cause of his downfall since it makes him associate with Huntly McQueen, the agent of his negative development. A very successful upstart capitalist, McQueen is interested not only in making profit but primarily in imposing his will and in shaping the country for exerting as much influence as possible and thus gratifying his ego. In a way. he partially, fits the negative stereotypes hatched by the radical French-Canadian nationalists of EnglishCanadians trying to impose their designs on everyone, Huntly McQueen, indeed, turns out to be an evil character who sets his interests above everything else and knows no group solidarity unless he gains an advantage from it. Thus, he sides with the Montreal capitalists because he has selected them as the peer group within which he wants to be successful and because membership in this group is prone to making him more influential than if he belonged to any other group or community. Apart from that McQueen is a pragmatic egoist who despises the English as much as the French (116) and hates the Americans for their â&#x20AC;&#x153;Yankee ingenuityâ&#x20AC;? (270), as he calls it. He is a Canadian patriot of a rather unpleasant kind because he tries to place himself in the centre of Canada that thrives on the negative alterity of other nations. 111
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Such an attitude also made McQueen look down on the FrenchCanadians whom, as an Ontario Presbyterian, he has been reared to think of as “an inferior people” (14). Being
so
Machiavellian,
he
complains
about
their
incalculability and unreliability, as he confides in Yardley: “You never can be sure where you stand with people like these. I know them.”(12) To him, the French-Canadians are only important in so far they can be useful to the realization of his aims. This is the only reason that makes him seek the acquaintance of Athanase Tallard whom, right from the start, he intends to exploit for his purposes. But he is clever enough to hide his real schemes and makes himself appear as the agent of inescapable processes of change and development. Tallard, whose money come from the toll-bridge across the river, one of the last remnants of the old and meanwhile anachronistic feudal privileges soon to be abolished, decides to accept the EnglishCanadian partnership in developing the factory project for Saint-Marc. On a certain level, he admires McQueen as one who has “made his way into the hierarchy of business families in Montreal, a group of men regarded by all the French-Canadians with a mixture of envy and suspicion.” (17) Athanase does not understand this move as one directed against his people since he considers himself as an enlightened FrenchCanadian in the spirit of Voltaire and Rousseau whose portraits hang on the wall of his study.
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As Tallard sees it, he simply wanted to give in to his nature’s demand for “a new idea of itself”(200) by abandoning the rural static life of a francophone Catholic seigneur for what would hopefully become that of a dynamic and enterprising French-Canadian in the city of Montreal and entertaining mutually profitable relations with the English-Canadians. At the end of part one of the novel, however, he has to realize that there is a high price to pay for his ambitions because he finds himself totally isolated from the whole of his community. Having destroyed all links to the francophone community of Saint-Marc, Athalase totally depends on the success of the joint venture with the Anglo-Canadian McQueen who also rejects him because in his zeal for progress and cooperation with the AngloCanadian world Tallard has become useless. Although McQueen is shown as a heartless businessman, Athalase can be accused of having broken down all bridges to his francophone compatriots and try to play McQueen’s game which he mistook to be the better option for his country. Now he realizes that he has not only lost everything but he has also cut himself off from both communities in the province. To the two ethnic solitudes referred to in the title of the novel he now adds his individual one. After an initial period of mutual interest and enterprise, the contact between these two men belonging to the two main ethnic groups in Quebec, turns out to be a one sided affair and they relapse into the discourse of mutual negative stereotyping. Athalase condemns 113
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everything English and McQueen labels the French-Canadians as a group consisting only of trouble-makers. Tallard’s affairs take a disastrous turn and he dies two years after, impoverished and eschewed by both English
and French
Canadians proving that his attempt to shake off the cultural ties he shared with the conservative elements of the Francophone community has been personally impracticable and socially destructive rather than a positive step in the transformation of the country.The only shimmer of hope in the negative scene of the novel is provided by Yardley, who manages to establish some successful intercultural communication with members of both solitudes. The last part of the book tries to provide an ideal norm that might help Canada unite the two main ethnic solitary groups. This is done by following the fate of the younger generation in the novel, namely Janet Methuen’s daughter Heather and Athanase Tallard’son Paul. Paul is perfectly bilingual being the son of an Anglophone Irishwoman and a francophone Canadian thus placed in between the ethnic groups of Quebec. He feels homeless in the Canada of the two solitudes, because he belongs to both of these solitudes and is consequently at home in none. Even his own half-brother, Marius considers him a symbol of “bastardization”(3o4) and a “de-raced” being. He sees himself as an outsider because “ it’s a tribal custom in Canada to be either English or French” (3o4) and he doesn’t fit either description. This is why he becomes a sailor and, like Yardley before 114
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him, travels through the world and acquires an outside view of affairs back home in Canada. Janet Methuen’s daughter, Heather, has clear structural similarities as a character with Paul. She is the unloved sister of Daphne who only uses her supposedly ugly sister to set off her own beauty; she is sent away for two years in Lausanne where she studies French just like Paul studies English at Frobisher; in the end she too feels the need to “get away from Montreal”(291) and works for some time in New York. Both Heather and Paul feel rootless because they are unable to devise a way out of the dilemma between the two solitudes. They both react by displaying an artistic impulse. Heather is interested in Canadian painting which allows her to forget and transcend the racial divisions of her country by admiring great art no matter what the ethnic background of the painter may be. Paul, on his part, wants to become a writer which enables him to express his feeling of living in “a world in disintegration” .(364) What counts for Paul is first and foremost his identity as an individual and as a Canadian beyond the ethnic tensions that galled the lives of his parents’ generation. The issues of Englishness or Frenchness have been substituted by notion of a Canadianness which leaves enough way for the development of particular identities beyond the smothering forces of the traditional racial legends. 115
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This new approach to the question of how to deal with the different races in Canada is also reflected in Paulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s development as a writer. First he intends to place the action of his novel in Europe but when Heather asks him why he writes about disintegration in a Europe caught in the whirlpool of racism and warfare rather than celebrate life in a Canadian setting he experience a kind of epiphany that makes him burn the manuscript of his novel and begin anew with a totally different concept. Previously, Paul looked towards Europe as the birth place of what he considered to be important master discourses and this was why the first version of the novel was set in the old rather than in the new world. He rebels against the marginalization of Canada as second-rate imitative and unproductive as well as against its economic and political exploitation. Paulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new novel will not deny its indebtedness to English and French influences but will at the same time place Canada on the map as a new and original independent cultural unit. His use of the English and French cultural heritage is to be seen in a metonymic relationship to the vision of the future development of Canada as described in Two Solitudes. The two ethnicities are to be neither denied nor dissolved into something totally different ; they are to be accepted, valued and turned into a new whole the specificity of which lies in the coming together not of two solitudes but of a new partnership of intercultural
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understanding which will give a better quality to the inter-ethnic existence. With the publication in 1945 of Two Solitudes, MacLennan articulated for his readers the truth as they wanted to see it. He described the history of the two races in Canada and caught in words the reality of the tensions and conflicts which had developed between them : directly through the narrator, indirectly through the dialogue, obliquely through the plot and symbolically through the settings . Robert Kroetch whose works show a vivid influence of following in Hugh MacLennan’s footprints explained several decades later: Hugh MacLennan had dared to name the names of my world, and that truly was daring at that time. He had dared to root his story in the geography of our country. In that naming and in that concern with geography –the total implications for a particular people in a particular landscape-he was the role model I had been seeking. He was-he is – the novelist as geographer :a man who reads rivers, who reads water…the cartographer of our dreams, be they social or political or religious or personal. (135) The readers response to the novel was positive and it affected the way English Canadians came to view their French cousins changing the horizons of Canadian readers forever and eventually
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impacting upon later literary visions of the truth about French and English relations.
BIBLIOGRAPHY PRIMARY SOURCE MacLennan,
Hugh.
Two
Solitudes:
Stoddart,
Macmillan
of
Canada,1991.
WORKS CITED Ashcroft Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. London: Routhledge 1993. Ashcroft Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies. London. New York 1998. Bhabha, Homi. “Dissemination”: Time, Narrative, and the Margins of the Modern Nation. ‘Nation and Narration’. Ed. H. Bhabha. London. Routhledge 291-322. Bottez, Monica. Infinite Horizons: Canadian Fiction in English, Bucuresti: Editura Universitatii 2004. Buitenhuis, Peter. Hugh MacLennan. Toronto: Forum House,1969 Darias-Beautell, Eva Contemporary Theories and Canadian Fiction Shifting Sands. Queenston, Ontario 2006. Hutcheon, Linda. Splitting Images: Contemporary Canadian Ironies. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1991.
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Kroetsch, Robert. The Lovely Treachery of Words. Toronto, New York,Oxford. Oxford University Press 1989. Woodcock, George. Hugh MacLennan. Toronto:The Copp Clark Publishing Company,1969.
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THE INTERNATIONAL STATUS OF INDIGENOUS RIGHTS AND THE CANADIAN CONTRIBUTION TO IT
Teacher RODICA IONITA
INTRODUCTION Canada has figured very prominently in the battle over indigenous rights, which represents a classic struggle between the international and the local and an effort to bring regional realities into line with international sensibilities.Canadian First Nations have been at the forefront in terms of pressing their claims at the international level. The Canadian government has also played a significant role in elevating the status of indigenous groups at the United Nations. For the past decade, indigenous leaders from around the world have been pressing the United Nations to adopt a Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples. The development is unprecedented, for the movement for indigenous rights has brought together hundreds of indigenous groups that, hitherto, were little known outside their traditional territories. In recent years, the Yanomami of Brazil and Venezuela, the Chittagong Hill peoples of Bangladesh and the Gwitchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;in of northern Canada have managed to attach international attention to their struggle 120
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for cultural survival, finding support among indigenous and nonindigenous peoples alike. The processes of globalization which brought hardship and dislocation to indigenous peoples around the world have more recently provided both the technological capacity, organizational contexts and the reassessment of Western industrial values necessary for indigenous groups to reach beyond their hereditary boundaries in the defense of their life way .
DEFINITIONS AND RIGHTS OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES There is ,as yet, no wide agreement on which groups properly belong under the “indigenous “ epistemological umbrella .During the United Nations meetings on the Draft Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, the indigenous representatives have insisted on an open-ended conception of the term and have relied on self definitions to determine membership . National governments, which often see a distinction between indigenous and ethnic minorities, have great difficulties with this definition. To the degree that the indigenous “label” attracts international attention, there is possibility that other groups will attach themselves to the movement, potentially lessening the impact of the indigenous protest in the process. Indigenous peoples also described in various academic and popular studies as tribal, small, aboriginal or original peoples are generally defined by a series of internal and external characteristics. Indigenous peoples are noted for their intensely spiritual and cultural attachment 121
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to the land. Most definitions focus on the human-land relationship and the cultural belief shared by many different peoples that human society is meant to live with the land and not to dominate the natural environment. They tend to be self-contained societies, seeking neither to expand to new territories nor to establish dominance over neighboring groups. Through well-known processes of colonization and foreign domination, indigenous peoples have, with few exceptions: -lost political control of their land -enjoy few political rights within the nation-states erected around them. They are small minorities with their host countries; share only marginally in the economic and social benefits of resource development and industrial expansion, much of which has taken place on their territories. One of the most widely accepted definitions is by Martinez Cobo : â&#x20AC;&#x153;Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, considered themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and 122
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transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and the ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems.” Indigenous groups, described by anthropologist John Bodley as “victims of progress” have been profoundly transformed by historic processes of globalization; what first Nations describe as a “Canadian” process is in fact primarily a regional manifestation of a much broader phenomenon.
CONSEQUENCES OF WHITE EXPANSION ON INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND SPIRITUALITY The transformation commenced with the “Colombian exchange” or the biological and epidemiological transfers that accompanied the age of European expansion. This unintentional but profoundly disruptive consequence of exploration and initial settlement brought diseases that ravaged indigenous populations, animals, and plants that competed with local flora and fauna, and a surging migrant population that quickly pushed local inhabitants from their territories. Over subsequent generations, European, Christian, and commercial value systems drove newcomers to push further into indigenous territories, and armed them with the assurance of cultural and religious superiority. Weakened by disease, vulnerable to the military technology of the newcomers, indigenous groups struggled against the incursions. They responded in a variety of ways, from fleeting the 123
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settlement zones to staging desperate battles to keep the foreigners out. The indigenous groups experienced occasional success, but generally waged a losing battle against the many faceted incursions of the newcomer populations. The world was, between the commencement of the age of exploration and the end of nineteenth century, blanketed by foreign incursions onto indigenous territories. The new comers came to farm or to raise livestock, to open mines, to build railways, roads, canals, to establish a strategic advantage over a European rival, or to locate a cheap source of labor for planned commercial operations. They were armed not only with guns, new technology, and the backing of an empire but also with the certainty of faith and the support of the expansionist Christian church. Thus supported, they both displaced and then sought to “save” the “heathen”, believing that their expansion was as much an act of Christian charity as it was a land grabs. By the late nineteenth century, most of the world’s accessible agricultural zones had been destroyed, displaced, or amalgamated into new colonial societies. Paternalistic attempts at assimilation had much the same consequences as more aggressive measures of land confiscation and government domination. The original inhabitants bore the brunt of a painful transformation, for the loss of their land was typically accompanied by direct assaults on indigenous language, culture and spirituality. But many indigenous peoples, including those in extremely difficult situations, held onto their traditional ways.Through the first 124
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half of the twentieth century, distance and the absence of agricultural possibilities ensured that huge sections of the globe remained largely in the hands of the original inhabitants. Although Canada, for example, claimed sovereignty over its vast northern territories, it had but a tiny official presence in the area and left the indigenous peoples very much on their own. But during and immediately after the Second World War much of the marginal land around the world was quickly and decisively absorbed into the global economy. The postwar development highlighted the inherent conflict between environmental sustainability and industrial, material views of the world. At a pace and with an urgency rarely before seen in history, tens of thousands of square miles of indigenous territory was pulled into the orbit of the modern industrial economy.Lands rejected by newcomers as uninhabitable were now seen to hold highly desirable resources and considerable wealth.Indigenous peoples who had lived apart from or only tangentially connected to newcomer, industrial societies now found themselves in the vortex of a worldwide development boom. INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE FOR INDIGENOUS RIGHTS The post-World War II era, then, witnessed the coming together of two streams of indigenous protest: -the anger and frustrations of long-marginalized indigenous peoples living in the settlement areas 125
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-the panic-stricken reaction of indigenous groups in the new development zones, who faced the imminent loss of their land, resources, and way of life The early struggles were typically fought and conceptualized in national terms. Indigenous
groups
and
their
supporters
criticized
national
governments and demanded political and economic action to address the identified problems. While some critics, particularly those associated with left-wing organizations, recognized the often present hand of multinational corporations, the general consensus was that the problems were national in origin and content and could best be dealt in a national political context. Indigenous rights advocates could and did use international pressure and international comparisons to advance their case, but the focus for their campaign remained on national governments. As a consequence, each country, currently seeking to address indigenous rights, tended to see the matter within the context of its national history. In Canada legal scholars pointed to the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and subsequent government actions and legislation as the foundation for the governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s commitment to settle unresolved First Nations land claims. Australia long held that the national legal doctrine of â&#x20AC;&#x153;terra nullisâ&#x20AC;? obviated the need for special attention to indigenous land claims. New Zeeland had the Treaty of Waitangi, the United States its history of signing treaties 126
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before settlement and development, Scandinavia its historic pattern of seeking to incorporate the Sami into nation-states, the former Soviet Union a lengthy attempt at Russification and communal organization of the Small Peoples of the North, and Brazil a long period of neglect of the indigenous peoples of the interior. As rights and land claims emerged as a matter of national political importance, each nation turned to its past and to its legal system as a source for both an explanation for participation or non-participation and for a solution to a difficult and sensitive political matter. CONCLUSION In Canada, the First Nations have asserted their pride and determination and managed some impressive political and legal gains. But they, like indigenous peoples in many other quarters of the world, still feel the complicated pressures of social, political, economic, and legal change. And while Canadian First Nations, appropriately, seek to resolve their demands within the context of the Canadian political and legal systems, they are increasingly aware that their struggle is a part of a much broader global conflict and contest, between the original inhabitants and newcomer populations. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bodley John
VICTIMS OF PROGRESS Mountain View, Ca.
Mayfield, 1990.
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Cobo
Martinez
DISCRIMINATION
STUDY
OF
THE
PROBLEM
OF
AGAINST INDIGENOUS PEOPLES,
(vol.5) Beacon Press, Boston, 1993. Prucha Francis Paul STATES
THE GREAT FATHER: THE UNITES
GOVERNMENT and THE AMERICAN INDIENS
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. Reynolds Henry THE LAW OF THE LAND Penguin: Melbourne, 1987.
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