Patterns of conflict in the English morality plays

The dissertation considers the English morality plays as explorations of inner conflict. The pre-Reformation moralities use personification-allegory as a means of analysing the conflict which takes place within the soul of man between his attachment to this world and his other-worldly aspirations. The social ethic of Reformation theology, however, introduces a new interest in social relationships. The moralities of the post-Reformation period retain allegory to analyse the inner process which lead to ethical choice,but they also incorporate literal dramatis personae in order to express social themes, and the proportion of personification-allegory correspondingly decreases. The early popular Elizabethan "tragedies” are predominantly literal, but they tend to retain personified abstractions as a means of expressing inner conflict. It is suggested ,;,: that in the transition from this hybrid form to purely literal tragedy, the allegorical technique of the earlier plays is absorbed rather than discarded, that the deliberative soliloquies of later tragic heroes are a development of the analysis of inner conflict leading to ethical choice which is central in the morality tradition

The Enchanted Hunters in Nabokov’s Lolita

In Nabokov’s Lolita, Humbert Humbert’s The Enchanted Hunters, as a quest for love, aims to reconstruct a felicitous world or integrate various fragmentary details into an organic unity that revives a lost love, experiencing it on the basis of irony, and revealing a simulation of the desire, violence, and despondency which have been expressed in myths of nymphs and Persephone. The protagonist never reaches this unity, but his narrative of erotic and romantic love reveals him as a pathetic addict engaged in mechanical reproduction related to the phenomena of desire, seduction, violence, and sex. His The Enchanted Hunters does not simulate what he expects of his childhood love with Annabel; rather, it simulates the erotic imagination suggested in Mary D. Sheriff’s term “nymphomania,” in which artists fall degenerately to a model of tragedy

Sexualidade e identidade no espaço escolar: notas de uma atividade em um curso de educação a distância

O artigo discute a construção das identidades docentes e discentes no âmbito escolar articulada às questões de gênero e sexualidade. Ele parte da análise de uma experiência de um curso de educação a distância – EaD em que, por meio de uma disciplina específica, buscou-se mapear cenas e ações que foram propostas na escola no sentido de se produzir um debate na área da diversidade. Compreende-se que as identidades constituídas por gêneros, por orientação sexual, por raça/etnia, por classe social, por geração, entre outros marcadores sociais, implicam em diferenças, em distinções vividas por vezes de forma harmônica, e vividas, não raras vezes, de forma conflitiva e/ou violenta. A instabilidade, a incerteza e a transitoriedade atribuídas ao jovem são aspectos que caracterizam também o nosso mundo contemporâneo. Essas novas condições juvenis geram tensões entre os sujeitos envolvidos nas instituições escolares (professoras/es, familiares, e entre as/os próprias/os alunos/as). A análise também permitiu verificar que nas situações de conflitualidade há uma tendência de um culpar o outro revelando: inabilidade dos/das professoras/es, famílias desestruturadas, alunos/as descomprometidos/as, entre outros. Argumenta-se que a temática relacionada à diversidade e especificamente à sexualidade e ao gênero compõe fortemente esse cenário de conflitos, apesar das discussões e avanços na compreensão desses temas existentes na sociedade brasileira como um todo.The article discusses the construction of teachers’ and students’ identities in the school system, articulating it with gender and sexuality issues. It presents an analysis of an experience in a distance education course in which, by means of a specific discipline, it was sought to map scenes and actions that were proposed in the school in order to produce a debate in the area of diversity. Identities consisted of genres, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, social class, generations, among other social markers, imply differences in living distinctions which are sometimes experienced harmoniously and sometimes in a rather conflicting and/or violent way. The instability, uncertainty and transience attributed to youngsters are also aspects that characterize our contemporary world. These new youth conditions generate tensions between the subjects involved in educational institutions (teachers, families, and among the students themselves). The analysis has also shown that in situations of conflicts there is a tendency to blame each other revealing: the inability of teachers, broken families, uncompromising students, among other factors. It is argued that the themes related to diversity and specifically related to sexuality and gender sharply constitute this scenario of conflicts, despite the discussions and advances in the understanding of these existing topics in the Brazilian society as a whole