Mock Epic

An essay tracing the conflict of Partition synchronically with the life of Mohammad Ali Jinnah in an attempt to provide at least a relatively objective view on the relationship between historical events and their (anti)epification in Salman Rushdie's novel.

Satire 4 is one of the most-criticized poems of Juvenal. Because of its structural problems, certain scholars have even casted doubts on its unity considering it as two fragments patched together by a later editor. The key to understand the satire’s structure is the connection between its two main parts and the central figures thereof, Crispinus and Domitian. Apart from the structural problems, this paper also deals with certain features of the mock-epic as well as the targets of the invective.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo investigar a origem do estranhamento provocado pela leitura de Eu, Tituba, feiticeira... Negra de Salem (1986), de Maryse Condé. Ambientada no século XVII, o livro trata de Tituba, negra natural da ilha de Barbados e escravizada na América do Norte. Conforme as teorias Leonor Arfuch (2010), Ingedore Koch (2012) e Ritchie Robertson (2009), a análise revela que Eu, Tituba... é, estilisticamente, uma espécie de mock-epic pós-moderno, projetada com o intuito consciente de desafiar os códigos de expectativa do receptor. Uma performance poética que celebra a cultura e a espiritualidade caribenhas, com fortes elementos de fantasia, interpelando temas como racismo, misoginia, a opressão das estruturas coloniais e o apagamento do negro da história.

The article acts as a presentation of Paweł Zaborowski and as an analysis of Batrachomyomachia in his translation published in the year 1588. Two Latin texts that could have been sources of the Polish translation, namely an anonymous line-for-line translation and a verse translation by Joachim Münsinger, are indicated. The paper discusses the original features of Zaborowski’s piece that make it different from the other 16th c. Latin translations of the text and from the Greek original, i.e. adjusting it to the reality contemporary to the poet, supplementing it with epic elements (as Homeric similes), adhering to the principles of rhetoric, didactism, as well as referencing to Roman poets.

Nell’ultimo periodo della sua vita, Leopardi diede una svolta al modo di intendere la propria arte poetica, che a partire dal 1830 si fa piu aggressiva e battagliera, pronta finalmente a un piu attivo incontro-scontro con il presente. Con l’abbandono di Recanati si apre dunque per il poeta una stagione nuova, quella (soprattutto) satirica, molto differente da ogni altra sua esperienza precedente. Il frutto piu particolare del "nuovo" corso leopardiano e costituito senza dubbio dai Paralipomeni della Batracomiomachia , il poemetto eroicomico che costituisce il coronamento della stagione comico-satirica del recanatese. Vero e proprio unicum nel panorama della produzione del poeta, questo libro terribile e nutrito da molteplici sensibilita letterarie e ascendenti piu o meno scoperti. Il presente contributo punta dunque a indagare soprattutto quali sono stati per Leopardi i precedenti e i modelli che piu hanno avuto influenza nel suo avvicinarsi al genere eroicomico, e attraverso quali strategie comunicative e modalita espressive ne abbia compiuto la rielaborazione e il superamento, allo scopo di servirsene per le sue peculiari esigenze satiriche, mettendo le suggestioni della tradizione al servizio della propria sferzante, e in vari sensi "nuova", ironia. In the last period of his life, Leopardi gave a twist to his way to make poetry, which became more aggressive and combative since 1830, ready to a more active clash with the present. With the abandonment of Recanati, a new season for the poet began: the (mostly) satirical one, very different from any other previous experience. The most important result of Leopardi's 'new' course is indisputably the Paralipomeni della Batracomiomachia , the mock-epic poem which is the masterpiece of Leopardi's satirical poetry. A real unicum in Leopardi's production, this book is fed by multiple literary influences and sources, more or less discovered. This paper therefore aims to investigate which were for Leopardi the main models that have had more influence in his approach to the mock-epic genre, and through which communication strategies and ways of expression the poet was able to renew this traditional literary genre, in order to produce a particular and ferocious poem suited to his particular satirical needs.