Research Article
Romanticism and Nonviolence: Percy Bysshe Shelley Exhumed
George Ewane Ngide*
Issue:
Volume 12, Issue 2, April 2024
Pages:
16-26
Received:
15 February 2024
Accepted:
6 March 2024
Published:
11 April 2024
Abstract: This paper posits that in his prose and poetry, Percy Bysshe Shelley (an English poet of the Romantic period) articulates both the philosophy and methodology of nonviolence as a response to oppression, repression and marginalisation. It also contends that although his theory significantly impacted the formation of the philosophies and socio-political campaigns of later nonviolence activists, especially the Indian Civil Rights Activist Mahatma Gandhi, Shelley has not been sufficiently credited for the ground-breaking political philosophy of nonviolence. This article thus explores Shelley’s philosophy of nonviolence in his poetry, prose, dramas and pamphlets. It compares the nonviolence philosophies of Gandhi and Shelley and brings out Shelley’s unquestionable influence on Mahatma Gandhi. The article raises questions about why Shelley was not credited with the philosophy of nonviolence and suggests possible reasons for this apparent near lack of global consideration for the English Romantic poet despite his pioneering the philosophy. Having proceeded thus and upon thorough academic investigation, the article irresistibly concludes that contrary to popular socio-political opinion, Percy Bysshe Shelley is the unrivalled father of nonviolence as an ethical and pragmatic philosophy for socio-political mutation. By this study, Shelley is given his rightful position in matters of nonviolence and thus exhumed as a poet-philosopher whose philosophy has outlived his existence and practised to date by activists to press for reform.
Abstract: This paper posits that in his prose and poetry, Percy Bysshe Shelley (an English poet of the Romantic period) articulates both the philosophy and methodology of nonviolence as a response to oppression, repression and marginalisation. It also contends that although his theory significantly impacted the formation of the philosophies and socio-politic...
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Research Article
Dual Narrative Progression and Metaphors for Noise in Julian Barnes’s The Noise of Time
Shengjie Zhao*
Issue:
Volume 12, Issue 2, April 2024
Pages:
27-33
Received:
3 April 2024
Accepted:
22 April 2024
Published:
8 May 2024
Abstract: In The Noise of Time, Julian Barnes once again turns to the writing of biography after Arthur & George (2005), and this time he experiments by tactfully setting dual narrative progression which is the combination of the overt plot and the covert progression. Also, the word “noise” in the title The Noise of Time has double metaphorical meanings, which correspond to the theme and characterization in the dual narrative progression. So, the present article aims to probe into the relationship between the dual narrative progression and the respective metaphorical connotation of the word “noise” in the title. In the overt plot centering on Shostakovich’s three Conversations with Power, for the sake of his friends and associates, in the struggle between life and death, the protagonist Shostakovich is depicted as a coward disciplined by the multiple mechanisms of “incarceration”, such as arrest, being taken to the concentration camps, forbidding his music, and banning his opera performed, in the service of the former Soviet government; and the word "noise" is a metaphor for the totalitarian society of the former Soviet Union which influences Shostakovich's musical composition. However, in the covert progression, by mainly adopting indirect satire (irony), verbal defence, perfunctory behaviors and physical absence, the author characterizes the composer Shostakovich as a hero who follows the inner voice of his ego, and expresses his ridicule, resistance and intransigence in different ways, thus becoming an outsider or a stranger rebelling against the absurdity of the totalitarian society, and the metaphor for “noise” refers to the composer Shostakovich himself who strives to compose an artistic noise that is not compatible with the totalitarian society. Therefore, the overt plot and the covert progression form a striking contrast, and by so doing, Barnes creates an artistic paradoxical image of both a coward and a hero.
Abstract: In The Noise of Time, Julian Barnes once again turns to the writing of biography after Arthur & George (2005), and this time he experiments by tactfully setting dual narrative progression which is the combination of the overt plot and the covert progression. Also, the word “noise” in the title The Noise of Time has double metaphorical meanings, whi...
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