Słowa kluczowe

politics |Transition |Reason of State |civil reason |Hamlet |delay

Streszczenie

Early modern politics displayed a transition from civil reason to Reason of State. An extensive body on the new political discourse of Reason of State in continental Europe started to emerge, outlining a new grammar for the state, politics, and princes. The latter had undermined the traditional humanist Christian discourse of politics. This paper will address how Shakespeare’s Hamlet debates Reason of State onstage—an issue that has been little dealt with in the early modern scholarship of Shakespeare, or, at best, dismissed as marginalia. The protagonist’s famous delay and his political and philosophical reflections can be read in the light of contemporary political discourses to which Reason of State had become so central. Despite Hamlet’s resistance, the play ends with the triumph of political realism introduced mainly by Giovanni Botero in his oeuvre Ragion di Stato. Hamlet is not the exception in this regard. Reason of State became one of the focal subjects of early modern tragedy as I will be showing in this paper.

Słowa kluczowe

spiritualism |Victorian Britain |occult |C19 |medium

Streszczenie

The tradition of communicating with ghosts is deeply rooted in various belief systems around the world. The motif of supernatural encounters recurs in numerous myths, legends, and ballads, functioning as one of the human universals, embraced among all kinds of communities. Ghosts were believed to have a profound impact on the realm of the living not only in terms of action but also feelings; their appearance evoked a wide array of sensations: fear, moroseness, or apprehension, but also comfort and an uncanny sense of protection. Yet, numerous nineteenth-century sceptics pointed out the potential dangers of spiritualism, concentrating on the emerging spiritualist subculture.

The article aims to explore the way spiritualism in Victorian Britain was described by the contemporary media. By looking at the textual and pictorial excerpts from the press, I argue that nineteenth-century spiritualism, commonly associated with the haunting imagery of spectral encounters, cautionary tales, or even romantic stories of reunions, was formed mostly by the proponents of the movement. By examining Victorian mainstream visual culture and articles from magazines, I trace the media’s critical responses to the issue of alleged spiritual meetings. Such an analysis of sources may provide a fuller and deeper understanding of the portrayal of spiritualism, especially among Victorian opponents of the movement.

Słowa kluczowe

epidemic |polio |Roth |postmodern |plague |allegory

Streszczenie

Abstract: The article discusses Roth’s use of the theme of the polio epidemic in his novel Nemesis (2010). Initially, Nemesis seems to comply with the tradition of plague writing, in which the material reality of the disease is largely ignored and the disease itself becomes “a figurative way of speaking of other things” (Gilman 2009, 4). The epidemic exposes a hidden weakness in the main protagonist, which is his inability to accept the imperfect world. One of the central themes in the novel becomes the problem of theodicy: the main protagonist is obsessed with the question of why God kills innocent children. The mythical and allegorical aspect of the narrative is reinforced by allusions to Oedipus and Job. However, a closer examination of the narrative mode employed by Roth reveals that the main concern of the text is typically postmodern: the story illustrates the impossibility of arriving at the objective truth. That is why eventually
Nemesis will not yield a coherent allegorical meaning

Słowa kluczowe

Barack Obama |Detroit |the Great Recession |Black Lives Matter |precarity

Streszczenie

The aims of the paper are twofold. Firstly, it analyses Benjamin Markovits’ 2015 novel You Don’t Have to Live Like This as an example of the nascent genre of the “Obama-era novel.” Set in Detroit during Obama’s supposedly post-racial presidency, Markovits’ work offers a critical assessment of its legacy and addresses the problem of growing racial tensions reflecting both the beginnings of the Black Lives Matter movement and the most recent crisis of white masculinity. Secondly, the novel is read as a literary response to the economic aftermath of the Great Recession following the 2008 global financial crisis. The novel’s depiction of a fictitious corporate-run scheme attempting Detroit’s urban revitalisation is interpreted as a critique of the “Yes, we can” culture about to be replaced by the “Trump-era,” which the novel anticipates. Finally, the novel is compared to other examples of “crash fiction”; it is argued that Markovits’ work is a rare example of literature’s deeper and direct engagement with the recent economic crisis.