Category Archives: LITERARY CRITICISM

Summary

Haykazun. S. Alvrtsyan

The canto “Resurrection” (begins with the line “The cart was going down the mountain Masis”) by Gregory of Narek is his only writing that he did not include in Gandzatetr, later it was not included in Gandzaran (Treasury) too. The question arises – why? The answer to the question is important because the resolution of this issue is going to contribute to the interpretation of the content expressed with help of some spiritual allegory. Many linguists, literary scholars and translators have tried to interpret this canto, but there is still no single, final and complete interpretation, which would respond to all the answers. Taking into account the previous interpretations, the author tried to reinterpret and answer to the above question by analyzing this sample of exceptionally reasonable speech (covenant) basing upon spiritual interpretation, and especially upon the system of interpretation of Gregory of Narek.

(Solution or impasse)

Summary

Sergey N. Sarinyan

The article is an attempt of textual analysis of Levon Khechoyan’s novel “The Book of Mher’s Door”. By genre it can be called a novel-apocrypha with a complicated structure both in form and content.

Comparing the canonized version of the epos with the one hundred and fifty versions of the Armenian Epos, Khechoyan gives a new interpretation to the mythologism of Mher and Agravakar trying to reveal the cosmogonic beginning of the Armenian Epos. According to the scientific hypothesis, the universe came into existence and developed in the result of the Big Bang, and the Earth being a celestial body, can also be renovated through the Big Bang just by pressing the button of the atomic bomb.

It is for this bang that waits Mher in the Agravakar claiming he will come out of the cave when “the wheat grain is the size of a dog-rose”.

According to Khechoyan, the cosmic reason has its origins in the Armenian Plateau, and just then the epos “Sasna Tsrer” was created which can be called a pro-epic by its world importance.

In the novel “The Book of Mher’s Door”, the epos is viewed as a transformation of contemporaneity just the way the modern-day Armenian being is seen as a transformation of the epic. As a historical and cultural phenomenon the epic “The Sasna Tsrer” reflects the philosophy of the Armenian history which continues today and goes to the future.

Parallels in Typology

Summary

Zhenya A. Kalantaryan

Hrant Matevossyan’s novella “Tashkent” is discussed in the light of comparative analysis of the writer’s earlier works, Russian rural prose (in most general fearures), and “The Sound and the Fury” by William Faulkner. The parallel with Faulkner’s novel is of typological character and refers to the poetics of the above mentioned works, particularly the principle of depicting the same phenomenon from different characters’ perspectives and the stream-of-consciousness narrative technique. The performed analysis allows to appreciate “Tashkent” as one of the best and highly artistic examples of 20^th-century fiction.

Summary

Ashkhen Ed. Jrbashyan

This article is an attempt to summarize for the first time the whole sesquicentennial history of Armenian sonnet which is based on the poetic heritage of the most prominent representatives of Armenian literature. Begun with the poetry of Mkhtarists, sonnet passed a unique way, full of ups and downs. While sonnet was one of the most important forms of poetry in Western Armenian literature in postdurian age, Eastern Armenian poetry was indifferent to it till the beginning of the 20th century. The founder of Eastern Armenian sonnet was Vahan Teryan whose traditions were later developed by Eghishe Charents. After some standstill, the sonnet came to life again due to the generation of poets in 70s, especially in H. Edoyan’s poetry.

In comparative study with European medieval satire

Summary

Albert A. Makaryan, Ani A. Shahnazaryan

The study of the origin and development of humor in the context of ancient and medieval cultures makes it possible to define, to classify and to interpret the generic system of the comic in European and Armenian literature. The Roman rhetorician Quintilian had already developed a true theory of the humor devoting a whole chapter of his masterwork to the art of provoking laughter and focusing on the genres of humor, parody in the first place. Even though the culture of laughter in Medieval literature was subjected to the pedantic rules of religious and scholastic literature, from the 9th century on, we find visible generic changes in European literature: parody replaces eulogy (such is the poetry of the Vagrants), the Fabliaux and the Schwank come to substitute didactic and moralistic genres). Humour had its distinctive qualities in Armenian Medieval literature: elements of mirth would reveal in sermons, hagiographic works, in the genres of Parsav (criticism in literal translation), Arak (fable) or Zruyts (Tale). The latter were miniature counterparts of European Fabliaux and Scwank. Later, in the 14th-17th centuries humor found its way in comical poetic texts appearing in different Armenian communities.

Summary

Sergey A. Aghajanyan
The article is dedicated to the examination of the comedy by D. Demirtchyan “Nazar the brave”. The author firstly sums up the opinions expressed about the poetics of that work, and then he compares them with the particularities of the similar tale his primary source – Hov. Tumanyan. Single parts of the article concern the analysis of particularities of the story line’s end, genre and artistic features of the comedy. The research concludes by clarifying the current signification of this comedy, which was written in the atmosphere of soviet ideology and social political conditions of the sovietization of Armenia.

Summary

Petros H. Demirchyan
Diran Chrakian (Intra) is one of the most individualistic and, at the same time, most mysterious figures in Armenian literature whose life and creative activities from the outset were exposed to highly controversial, even extreme estimates.

His exceptional talent and literary activity, especially “Nerashkharh” (inner world) analytical-philosophical essay and “Nojastan” (cypress-groove) collection of poems, were appreciated by many great literary figures such as Vahan Tekeyan, Arshak Chopanyan and others, but no fewer were his opponents and criticizers.

Even some of his most serious critics used to blame him mainly for keeping away from all-national concerns and for advocating abstract and false values.

Yet, not only does full knowledge of Intra’s multidimensional literary works, published in both Homeland and the Diaspora – scattered through the media of that time – refute this view, but it also helps reveal the ethnic foundations of his creative thinking, a few manifestations of which are highlighted in this article, in addition to “Nerashkharh” (inner world) and, in particular, “Torosen Antsk” (passage of Taurus) diary and “R. H. Perperyan: the literate” in-depth analysis, as well as his views on ethnic language-building issues and other writings.

Summary

Aram S. Topchyan
In Shakespeare’s time, the late Renaissance, among other traditional notions blood vengeance was also thoroughly reconsidered. The so-called ‘revenge tragedy’ became an important genre in English theatre. This or that dramatic character, being faced with the obligation of revenge, dealt with it in a specific way, becoming a determined avenger, a tolerant stoic or a pious believer who relies on divine justice. Shakespeare totally transformed the genre: in Hamlet, the vengeance has acquired a much deeper and contradictory meaning, and any one-sided characterization of the play’s protagonist would be unconvincing.

Ex re the re-edition of Grigor Beledian’s novels

Summary

Haroutiun L. Kurkjian
The present essay attempts to analyze several prose works of diasporan author Grigor Beledian. The th ree works presented here, his first novels, “Semer” (“Thresholds”), “Harvadze” (“The Blow”) and “Nshan” (“Mark”), have been republished recently in a single tome by publisher Sarkis Khachents (Printinfo) in Armenia.

The article first examines G. Beledian’s first two decades of literary production, both prose and poetry (free verse), with which the reading public, not only in Armenia but also in the diaspora, is often unfamiliar, and which has not been sufficiently studied, in order to reveal the maturation process of the author’s choice of themes and prose technique.

The study then addresses the three aforementioned novels.

In conjunction with the critique of the works itself, the study seeks to appraise the “Beledian phenomenon” in contemporary Armenian literature, especially in the Diaspora. In this context, it is necessary to note that in the Middle Eastern communities, literary creation, especially in prose, stagnated during the half century following their establishment, due to the overbearing dominance of traditional stereotypes and the social and cultural isolation inherent to such communities, rendering them incapable of partaking in the international literary movements of their era. In contrast, the first generation of Armenian Diaspora authors in Europe had achieved notable success in the same domain.

G. Beledian’s work in the form of novels, the outcome of a highly personal literary conception and language, bridges the gap between the traditional literary practices of the past referenced to above and the contemporary world, creating a series of literary murals of unprecedented expanse and depth, personal testimony from the collective past of those Middle-Eastern communities.

Leon aven Surmelian’s “98.6°”

Summary

Arpi S. Muradyan
The novel of L. Z. Surmelian “98.6°” that we are going to discuss in this article has been published in the USA in 1950, and in Armenian – in 2005, in Yerevan by Aram Arsenyan’s translation. The title implies human body’s normal temperature, and the novel is the artistic reflection of the writer’s illness and the process of his painful treatment of four years.
Practicing literary criticism’s contemporary achievements and making synthetic analysis of some facts of writer’s biography, the author of the article substantiates that despite the absence of Armenian entourage and Armenian characters, the novel is psychological – autobiographical by its genre. The novel’s central character – Irishman Daniel Moore’s prototype is the author himself, who has been in some marginal existential state, but overcame the death threat with stubborn commitment. The novel’s structure, actions, the systems of characters and images performing them, artistic peculiarities are examined with the wide application of thesis of the author’s theoretical work “Techniques of Prose: Measure and Madness”.