Category Archives: LITERARY CRITICISM

Armenia of the beginning of the 20^th century through the eyes of the American writer

Summary

Albert A. Makaryan, Svetlana R. Tumanyan
The present article is devoted to the novel Ararat by Elgin Groseclose, which was published just the week before World War II broke out, and which, as Warren French put it, “provides the best epitaph fr the tarnished age of modern Imperialism”. We have tried to reveal the peculiarities of the seemingly complicated plot, to analyze the author’s intentions in the depictions of the Armenian Genocide and the Russian Revolution, to disclose the symbolic meanings of the biblical mountain and to expose the way to salvation that the author offers the humanity.

Summary

Lusine V. Tonoyan
A French- Armenian writer Vazgen Shushanian’s “Mild Letters of Spring Love” Novel helps us to realize the changing moral and national values back in 20-30-es of the last century. A life story of a whole Armenian generation fighting for survival is first of all presented here, a reflection of political views and opinions, a personal struggle between inner self and outer world, which is not always obvious.

“Spring” is considered one of the best works of Shushanian, though later strongly criticized by Shahan Shahnur.

Shahnur and Shushanian have different perceptions of things. The only common thing between them is the constant search of humanism, Armenian identity, and national salvation — a question which has been the cornerstone of Diaspora Armenian literature until now.

In temporal, spatial and value system of Middle Ages

Summary

Vazgen H. Safaryan
Sayat-Nova’s lyrics are an original expression of difficult collations. Ashug poetry was sourced from the persian-eastern sufism, so Sayat-Nova conserved the rules of ashug’s songs to be close to the perfect in proper and metaphoric senses, with the evaluation of the teacher-”pir”, with different reasonable layers of admonition. As a temporal borderline’s representative in the Middle Ages and in the new period, and also as a result of dimensional coverage of “from Prangstan and from Venice” till “India and China” Sayat-Nova is linked with the Middle Ages through its means to oppose the soul and body, to accept and at the same time to resist class relations, to reject the transitory life. Instead of canonicity of Turkish melodies, Sayat-Nova’s Armenian and Georgian love songs are the illustration of the real art of the author’s singularity, even among the medieval lovesongs art full of “clichռs”.

On the base of Michelangelo Antonioni’s movie “The night”

Ala A. Kharatyan
A new technical trick in the literature – the semantic-structural use of montage in the novel “The Alive and The Dead” by Hrant Matevosyan is expressed in the article. The article also analyzes and receals the co-penetrating of the two arts due to which Matevosyan’s prose has become quite a different phenomenon in the classical art by the means of enriching the possibilities of prose, acquiring a great intertextuality, as well as raising the readers’ standards. Some elements of the famous Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni’s film “The Night” are revealed with the help of montage. The novel has a complicated montage technique: on one hand the plot of the film has twisted into the literal text, on the other hand another plot has been involved in the novel, the author of which is the novel’s protagonist, and on the third hand quite another element is merged into the novel – the personal life of the protagonist and the features of Antonioni’s film which are outwardly similar but inwardly different. By analyzing the novel’s ifficult elements it has been displayed that as a united text the novel expresses Matevosyan’s world outlook and his attitude towards the art and it is also a guiding principle to understand his aesthetic concept.

The mystery in the saying: “O Armenian people, your one and only salvation is concealed in your collective strenght”.

Seyran Z. Grigoryan
In 1933 Yeghishe Charents wrote and placed the poem “Precept” (“Patgam”) in his collection of poems “Book of the Way”, by each line’s second letter of which was formed the secret saying “O Armenian people, your one and only salvation is concealed in your collective strength”. For many decades it was considered to be an acristic. It is shown in the article that it is a mesostic, because it is formed not with the first letters but whith the middle of the line (second letter). This hypothesis has its  grounds in thes sowld literature, especially in the analysis of mesostics in the works of the 20th century’s Russian writers. There can be found even some cnvergences between the poem of Charents “Precept” and Edcar Allan Poe’s “An Anigma”. Charents renewed the tradition of acrostic, which was quite extended in the middle age Armenian poetry, but forgotten in modern times. He devoted some acrostics to her daughter Arpenik Charents, which are also placed in the collection of works “Book of the Way” and have tight connections with the poem “Precept”. Beside the artistic values of Charents’ mesostic. his national ideology and creative destiny also have important significance and their several undiscovered aspects are discussed in the following article.

Summary

Aram G. Aleqsanyan
Hakob Baronyan’s moral philosophy and the historicity of his satirical heritage are studied in this article. The perceptions of man’s time structure are underlined as much as possible in the context of which the future leads consciousness, and presents the action. Historically, in philosophy these core modifications expand the individual’s role in the process of creating history. In this context, moral philosophy and satire are born.

A comparative analysis is made with Plutarchus’ moral orientations about the family and marriage and their resonance in Baronyan’s dramas. Baronyan’s art is very natural. In his work, Baronyan presents the moral ideal of the individual and the public and the ways and means to achieve that ideal.

According to Yeghishe Charents’ “Land of Nayiri” and Orhan Pamuk’s “Snow”

Summary

Vahram S. Danielyan
The article deals with two particular novels: Yegishe Charents’ “Land of Nayiri” and Orhan Pamuk’s “Snow.” The events of these two novels are set in the same city, Kars and the article is an attempt to describe the literary space from the perspectives of geographical, historical, political platforms; how these two different authors reconstruct and rediscover the city and its life from the perspective of different historical times, political worldviews and novelizing styles. This is also a new attempt to draw parallels between the literature of the two nations: Armenian and Turkish and to find a bonding point on the base of common literary space.

Comparative Analysis of the Characteristic of 20th century Epic Writings

Summary

Knarik A. Abrahamian 

Our article is dedicated to the creative and theoretical relationship that exists between Eastern Armenian poet Paruyr Sevak and Western Armenian poet Zareh Khrakhouni.

It’s interesting, that in the 1960s two separate cultural environments formed independent literary movements. The Eastern Armenian literary scene, influenced by P. Sevak, was characterized as “non-poetic poetry,” while Z. Khrakhouni’s poetry established “objective symbolism” within Western Armenian literature.

It’s not a superfluous observation to say that recognition between the two poets was not mutual. The Western Armenian poet from Istanbul knew Eastern Armenian poet P. Sevak very well. The same cannot be said about P. Sevak, who never mentioned Z. Khrakhouni in his poems, articles or letters. This fact comes to show that regularity between two artists can be seen in the development of literature, but not as a subjective influence.

Comparing methods in literature is vital to understanding inter-literary history that fate separated to two sections. The comparative work between two cultural systems gives us a chance to see their history through one lens.

Summary

Mariam H. Gevorgyan
Writer, poet, and critic Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849), a notable representative of late period American romanticism, holds a unique place in the history of world literature.

Poe was an exceptional lyricist and theoretician. He created a complete poetic review of American literature.

Poe’s aesthetic goals were complied in the articles, ‘’The Philisophy of Composition,’’ (1846) and “The Poetic Principle,” (1850).

In the sphere of aesthetics, he developed the concept of beauty, the close bond between lyricism and music, the study of the principles of poetic structure of European romanticism, and through his theories discriminated between the concepts of Beauty and Truth. The concept of superlative Beauty was at the foundation of Poe’s poetry.

By moving on to the revelations of lyrical functions, Poe considered it important to have limits and characterizations, which determine the place of poetry in man’s consciousness.

Summary

Haroutiun L. Kurkjian (Athens)

The paper examines the work and personality of Ler Kamsar, the satirical author born in 1888 in Van (Western Armenia, present-day Turkey) who lived for most of his life in Soviet Armenia. Because of his unconstrained character and nature of his work, he was subjected to persecution and exile and later condemned to silence until his death in 1965.

Ler Kamsar’s published writings of the 1920s and 1930s were placed under censure; due to his subsequent arrest and exile his unpublished works were partially lost or destroyed. It was only in the 1980s and more prominently at the end of the 1990s that his works were once again published.

The publications of the last decade are from those unpublished “underground” works which were saved and were made possible through the undertaking of his relatives and which reveal a gifted satirist and a brave dissident on a pan-Soviet level, and disclose a powerful moral individuality.

The current work is an attempt to outline a literary analysis and a moral and ethical image; a call for the reevaluation of Ler Kamsar’s universal worth.