Słowa kluczowe

love |E.M.Forster |homosexuality |police |Mattei Radev |paintings

Słowa kluczowe

Volodymyr Zelensky |Second Henriad |Henry V |Transition |Comedian

Streszczenie

Inspired by the remarkable personage of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his transition from comedian and actor to an inspirational leader admired around the world, this paper will examine the similar fate of Hal/Henry V in Shakespeare’s second Henriad. The focus will be on Henry’s comic “career”, prior to ascending the throne, “slumming” with Falstaff and his followers, in particular in Henry IV Part One. There will be an attempt to demonstrate how Henry, contrary to expectations, makes profitable use of his time to “learn the ropes”. Henry in his interactions with Falstaff and others employs a wide range of comic techniques: jokes, insult comedy, imitations, political satire, etc. In contrast, however, with Zelensky who has bravely rallied his country and inspired the world with resistance to a larger aggressor in a defensive war, Henry V does the exact opposite invading neighbouring France on the most flimsy of pretexts. Although lionized in many productions as a great military leader, icon of Englishness and man of the people, this paper will argue for his ultimate failure as a leader, failing to heed the lessons of his comic “apprenticeship”, in stark contrast to Zelensky.

Słowa kluczowe

cross-dressing |neo-Victorian literature |Sarah Waters |music halls |Peter Ackroyd

Streszczenie

This article looks at two turn-of-the-century neo-Victorian works – Tipping the Velvet (1998) by Sarah Waters and Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (1994) by Peter Ackroyd. Both novels offer a detailed depiction of cross-dressing and theatre in the latter part of the nineteenth century and its effects on the main characters. The article analyses each work individually to sufficiently examine significant relationships and their impact on the main heroines’ character formation. Furthermore, it looks at gender performativity in the Victorian setting and the unique environment of the music halls. As demonstrated, the examined characters achieve liberation by occupying both male and female spheres and by refusing to propagate the strict rules encompassing gender binaries. As a result, both characters are able to freely explore their possibilities while wearing male clothes and arrive at a more authentic and well-rounded image of who they are.

Słowa kluczowe

English |mood |psalter |subjunctive |translation

Streszczenie

The paper analyses verbal structures employed in 16 translations of Psalm 20 coming from Old, Middle, Early Modern and Late Modern English periods, spanning over ten centuries, with a view to determining the principles of mood selection in each of the psalter translations and observing any diachronic shifts in this respect. The major finding of the study is that grammatical choices seem to lie at the intersection of language change and the type of translation aimed at by the translators rather than reside in the source text underlying the rendition. The changes in the grammatical structure of the language inevitably surface in the text of the translation unless they are blocked by the overriding principle of formal faithfulness to the original, resulting in such marked choices as adherence to the subjunctive in main clauses in a Late Modern English rendition. The paper is a preliminary step in a larger diachronic study of the subjunctive in English and its findings suggest that it is possible to investigate the change in mood selection also on the basis of linguistic material gathered in biblical translations.

Słowa kluczowe

Wycliffe’s Bible |Book of Hours |Book of Job |English primers |text similarity measurement

Streszczenie

This contribution examines nine lessons from the Office of the Dead, found in a group of English translations of the Book of Hours. The text of the lessons comes from six chapters of the Book of Job and therefore constitutes scriptural content of this medieval prayer book. Selected for this analysis are four primers as well as the two vernacular versions of the Bible available at that time, namely the Early and Late Version of the Wycliffite Bible (cf. Dove 2007). As far as the primers are concerned, three of them have received an edition, while New Haven, Yale University Library, MS Beinecke 360, which is examined in this contribution, still remains to be edited and analyzed in depth. This study attempts to establish the textual tradition of its non-psalmic scriptural passages as well as that of other primers. This will be achieved by performing comparative analysis expressed by objective mathematical values, with the results presented in tabular form and illustrated with fragments of the actual text. The analysis performed in this paper will shed some light on the complicated history of scriptural content of the selected English primers.