Theme (narrative)

About: Theme (narrative) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 13050 publications have been published within this topic receiving 159511 citations. The topic is also known as: narrative theme.

Suicide Century: Literature and Suicide from James Joyce to David Foster Wallace

Abstract: Suicide Century investigates suicide as a prominent theme in twentieth-century and contemporary literature. Andrew Bennett argues that with the waning of religious and legal prohibitions on suicide in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the increasing influence of medical and sociological accounts of its causes and significance in the twentieth century, literature responds to the act and idea as an increasingly normalised but incessantly baffling phenomenon. Discussing works by a number of major authors from the long twentieth century, the book explores the way that suicide makes and unmakes subjects, assumes and disrupts meaning, induces and resists empathy, and insists on and makes inconceivable our understanding of ourselves and of others.

The Portrait of the Lover

Abstract: There are a surprising number of stories from antiquity about people who fall in love with statues or paintings, and about lovers who use such visual representations as substitutes for an absent beloved. In a charmingly conversational, witty meditation on this literary theme, Maurizio Bettini moves into a wide-ranging consideration of the relationship between self and image, the nature of love in the ancient world, the role of representation in culture, and more. Drawing on historical events and cultural practices as well as literary works, "The Portrait of the Lover" is a lucid excursion into the anthropology of the image. The majority of the stories and poems Bettini examines come from Greek and Roman classical antiquity, but he reaches as far as Petrarch, Da Ponte, and Poe. The stories themselvesranging from the impassioned to the bizarre, and from the sublime to the hilariousserve as touchstones for Bettini's evocative explorations of the role of representation in literature and in culture. Although he begins with a consideration of lovers' portraits, Bettini soon broadens his concerns to include the role of shadows, dreams, commemorative statues, statues brought to life, and vengeful statuesin short, an entire range of images that take on a life of their own. The chapters shift skillfully from one theme to another, touching on the nature of desire, loss, memory, and death. Bettini brings to the discussion of these tales not only a broad learning about cultures but also a delighted sense of wonder and admiration for the evocative power and endless variety of the stories themselves."

Seneca's Apocolocyntosis as a Possible Source for Erasmus' Julius Exclusus

Abstract: T HE Julius exclusus has generated a good deal of attention on the part of twentieth-century scholarship, especially since the publication of Wallace K. Ferguson's critical edition in 1933.1 Primary interest has centered on the debate concerning the authorship of the dialogue, with the prevailing scholarly opinion assigning the work unequivocally to Erasmus.2 According to the present consensus, Erasmus composed the Julius at some point between the death of Pope Julius II in February 1513 and his departure from England for Basel in July 1514. The work was known to members of Erasmus' circle by August 1516 and was first published in 1517.3 With the issue of authorship and dating settled to their general satisfaction, Erasmian scholars have recently begun to direct their attention to the substance of the Julius, particularly its ecclesiology.4 On the other hand, the investigation of Erasmus' possible sources for the work has received comparatively sketchy treatment. So far, there has been no study specifically devoted to the analysis of the models on which Erasmus might have drawn for the Julius. It has been noted in passing that he was acquainted with Pierre Gringoire and Fausto Andrelini, two contemporary satirists employed by King Louis XII of France to produce anti-papal burlesques, and that he was present in Paris in 1511, when satires written by both of these authors were published.5 One of these works, whose theme bears on that of the

Homelessness: integrating international perspectives

Abstract: This article, the issue introduction, discusses the background issues effecting the conceptualization and debate surrounding research on homelessness in the US and Europe, focussing largely on the UK. It considers the themes to be developed in this special issue, and examines how psychology together with other disciplines such as sociology, geography and policy studies can be complementary in meeting the challenges of researching, evaluating and understanding the issues. This article also begins to discuss how these divergent approaches can strengthen both the evidence bases on homelessness, and explore some of the lessons that can be learned from different perspectives, a theme raised throughout this issue. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.