Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics articles from January 1 2004

Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics archives from January 1 2004

The archeology of literature: tracing the old in the new.
January 1, 2004... This issue of Alif is inspired by Doris Enright-Clark Shoukri and her approach to literary appreciation. Steeped in the Classics and having worked on medieval Latin texts for her doctorate, she nevertheless taught and continues to teach modern...

Sahara (for Doris Shoukri).(Brief Article)(Poem)
January 1, 2004... Sahara (For Doris Shoukri) Sand, sand grained as seasalt, tawny as lionskins, wild all that way to my horizon lashes' line. In the swept sky's eye, its whitegold pupil centers. Here's no sand our childhood beaches...

A wistful lament for an irrecoverable loss.
January 1, 2004... Reminiscing over the past while surrounded by ancient Egyptian temples in Luxor, the author of this testimonial essay reflects on the significance of the past in personal and collective consciousness. Drawing on her own experience, she views...

Memory, inequality, and power: Palestine and the universality of human rights *.
January 1, 2004... Stressing the role of collective memory in the survival of Palestinian people in the diaspora, Said argues for acknowledging the rights of the Palestinians as a people, since human rights are universal. No earthly or divine dispensation could...

Egypt in Greco-Roman history and fiction *.(Critical Essay)
January 1, 2004... This article sketches Greek and Roman views towards the ancient Egyptians as a prelude to examining the metaphorical resonance of Egypt in the fiction of the imperial period of ancient literature. Both the Greeks and the Romans wrote about...

Valentinus et nomina: Saussure, Plato, and signification.(Critical Essay)
January 1, 2004... The mythology of Valentinus, the Christian Gnostic, is replete with the fascinating suggestion that names have salvific power. In The Gospel of Truth, he says that God uses names to call beings into existence, and that "the name of the Father...

The uses of interpretation in Hamlet.(Critical Essay)
January 1, 2004... Hamlet is the most problematic play ever written. Inconsistencies arise from the variousness of its medieval and Renaissance sources; from discrepancies between printed versions of Shakespeare's drama; and from a host of unresolved thematic and...

Travelers from an antique land: Shelley's inspiration for "Ozymandias".(Critical Essay)
January 1, 2004... An enduring myth about artists of all kinds is that work arises from personal physical experience. A case in point is Shelley's great political sonnet "Ozymandias," which is conventionally presumed to have been "inspired" by an ancient Egyptian...

From past to present and future: the regenerative spirit of the Abiku.(Critical Essay)
January 1, 2004... This article investigates the representation of the famous West African abiku phenomenon in three works by three Nigerian writers, namely, J. P. Clark-Bekederemo's poem "Abiku" (1965), Wole Soyinka's poem also entitled "Abiku" (1967) and Ben...

Musical recall: postmemory and the Punjabi diaspora.
January 1, 2004... The Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 has profoundly altered the geopolitics and demography of South Asia, generating also large-scale diasporic movements to Britain from the regions most deeply affected thereby, such as the Punjab....

History and poetry.(Critical Essay)
January 1, 2004... History is about research and analysis, it clarifies and classifies, whereas poetry describes the mess that historians try to clear up. In illustrating the difference between history and poetry, the author excavates the 'historical influence'...

"Nothing But Little Lines".
January 1, 2004... This philosophical essay--written in a non-conventional and playful way, in the form of a dialogue with a friend and with other philosophers ranging from Socrates to Gilles Deleuze--asks the elemental question of what philosophy is and why such...