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The article focuses on the portrayal of female inebriates in nineteenth-century American temperance fiction, particularly in Mary Spring Walker's "The Family Doctor". Topics include the gendered dynamics of alcoholism and its medical management, the societal pressures on women and their domestic roles, and the way institutionalized medicine in the 19th century shaped and reinforced norms around gender and health.

The aim of this article is to research the meaning of the presence in the play Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare of a character which apparently doesn't fulfill any dramatic function. Although the drunkard Barnardine seems to be brought into the scene in order to make possible the salvation of Claudio, the brother of the main feminine character, through the dramatic mechanism of replacing one man sentenced to death with another, Shakespeare surprisingly quits this solution. Barnardine is spared because he has strongly drunk all night long and, as a consequence, he doesn't feel prepared to die. In this manner, this minor character approaches, during only one page of text, some fundamental themes of Shakespearian writing: preparation for death, and sleep and inebriation as paradoxal states of the conscience. Barnardine floats in three dimensions: inebriation, dream, and reality. This state of chiaroscuro of the conscience reveals the negative of the being, it opens the gate to the realm of the shadow. In this state, Barnardine chooses not to die and the Duke, the demiurge of the play, spares his life. Barnardine exists in a dimension where the laws of the real loosen their rigidity and death can be an option, not a necessity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of decolonisation that followed the Second World War, various authors sought to engage with India and the Empire’s past anew throughout their novels, identifying medicine and illness as key parts of Imperial authority and colonial experience. Salman Rushdie’s approach to the Raj in Midnight’s Children (1981) focused on the broad sweep of colonial life, juxtaposing the political and the personal. This article argues that Rushdie explores the history of colonial India by employing alcohol and alcoholism as lenses through which to explore the cultural, political and medical legacies of Empire. Through analysis of Midnight’s Children as well as a range of medical sources related to alcohol and inebriation, it will illustrate how drinking is central to Rushdie’s approach to secular and religious identities in newly independent India, as well as a means of satirising and undermining the supposed benefit that Empire presented to India and Indians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The author presents a literary criticism of the English novel "Under the Volcano" by Malcolm Lowry. He discusses the alcoholism of the Consul, how it is an accurate depiction of alcoholism, and how his alcoholism enables him to find momentary beauty in the world.

A literary criticism of the novel "High Skies and Fat Horses" by William Wallisch is presented. Topics discussed include the author's comment on the Korean War setting of the novel, her perspective on the Vietnam conflict, and an overview of various cast of characters of the book. Also mentioned is the author's view on character Captain Whitman and his alcoholism.

This literary analysis examines the emergence of children of alcoholics narratives and their growth from 'resource' texts to literary subgenre. While early texts offer useful information about parental alcoholism, they are also limited. Namely, they do not adequately mirror the diversity of children, families, and problems associated with parental alcoholism nor do they offer alternatives for children whose parents do not, or cannot, seek treatment for their addiction. Literature, on the other hand, in inviting what philosopher Martha Nussbaum refers to as 'narrative play,' can help children learn to understand and empathize with others, nourish their inner curiosity, and, most importantly, tolerate ambiguity in the face of an imperfect world. Thus, this paper presents and examines three literary narratives about children of alcoholics: Gary Paulsen's Harris and Me (), Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part- Time Indian (), and Tom Robbins' B is for Beer (). By providing characters and situations with which they can identify, these stories possess potential to validate the feelings that children of alcoholics often experience. At the same time, by offering models of strength and hope, these stories can also help broaden and awaken new perspectives so that children of alcoholics might envision a different life for themselves and reject the pattern of self-victimization and the cycle of alcoholism. Humor, a dominant feature throughout all three narratives, is identified as an especially effective means of discussing this topic with younger audiences. Teachers and librarians can draw on this examination to better guide their selection of texts for young readers, especially for those who are burdened by parental addiction and/or family dysfunction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following is a story of Hart Crane (Section I) and John Keats (Section II, next issue), in which we focus on the dramatic aspects surrounding the works and the lives, with special reference to the letters. It is as if Hart Crane (1899- 1932) and John Keats (1795-1821), total strangers to each other, have through their letters initiated a complex agonal dialogue, whereby they unwittingly initiated an unmatched battle for supremacy: who of the two ends up composing the most stunning letters ever written in the English language? Both poets died very young (Keats: at 25; Crane: at 31) and tragically (Keats: mercury poisoning, possible saturnism, possible venereal disease, alcohol and opium abuse, depression, tuberculosis; Crane: depression, alcohol abuse, suicide); both reached during their lives a climax of creative power, but, had they lived to old age, they might have left behind more magnificent masterpieces. Through their works, they forged literary archetypal creative models, bringing literature to a new level of expression: 1) among Keats's best poems in this sense are surely Hyperion: a fragment - which reveals new and unprecedented powers of poetic English language -, Ode to a Nightingale, which develops his Lethe mystique (already in the making in Fill for me a brimming Bowl), and Ode on a Grecian urn, which launches the idea that beauty and truth are two sides of the same coin; 2) among Crane's best poems no doubt The Bridge is one - which offers an alternative to T. S. Eliot's pessimistic Waste land poetics and thus reveals new unprecedented modes of poetic diction in English literature -, and The Broken Tower is another, which may be considered a poetic testament, a kind of poetic farewell note, that paradoxically is also a kind of "birth certificate" for the true American bard that Crane was just starting to turn into, a kind of bard that Keats no doubt would have awaited for, as we know that he had urged his brother George and his wife, Georgiana, to bring into the world the first American poet. The following research invites the reader to comparatively explore mainly the magnificent letters John Keats and Hart Crane wrote without necessarily being aware of the literary, philosophical and aesthetic value they were thus creating, in the larger context of a comparative discussion of the two poet's dramatic lives and astonishing works, and with focus on the fact that the whole corpus of the letters of both poets represents a kind of master map showing the evolution of their creative genius and personal drama, the final letters containing elements that somehow predict their tragic premature end. Some of these letters sound, in retrospect, like farewell notes. If Keats's final letters to his fiancee Fanny Brawne show us a poet that was deeply depressed, literally feeling in the maws of death, but stubbornly refusing to say a final good bye to his beloved - seemingly anticipating that the trip to Italy was to be the last one of his life -, and showing to her his desire of death, but resisting this temptation by a process of philosophising that infinite pain is better than total vacuity; Hart Crane's final letters and poems seem to anticipate the suicide as a tragic, but dignified resignation and admission of defeat in front of life's too heavy burden. One conclusion emerges: both creators took life in all its complexity as the prime matter of their poetic quest with one major awareness: everything belonging to life, however painful or joyful, forges the soul, and everything belonging to the soul forges life - the meeting point between the two (life and soul) for them was the very process of poetic creation as verbal distillation of all physical, mental and spiritual experience, be that joyful or tragic. The "Joy of Grief" was thus their poetic Grail - the sublimated distillate which they dared sip out of Lethe's "brimming Bowl." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on poems written by poets Li Bai and Baudelaire. It presents a comparison of the poetic tropes of different cultures in terms of inebriation and wine tropes. Moreover, it features a critical analysis on how poets expressed base tropes in terms of the power relations of source cultures.

This article is a comparative study of two epic works that share a historical setting and a broad political outlook, but diverge significantly in at least one respect. Frequent and heavy alcohol consumption is a feature of both Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day and John Dos Passos's USA trilogy, but the way in which these authors describe heavy drinking – and hedonistic behaviour in general – indicates fundamental differences between the modernism of Dos Passos and Pynchon's postmodernist strategies. The article contends that this aspect of Pynchon's novel represents a critique of attitudes within the twentieth-century American left towards sensuality, patriarchy and the failure of leftist aspiration within a contemporary context that invokes such subjects as the complicity of consumption, terrorism and the ethics of political assassination. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay is an examination that, primarily comparativist in its approach, links publication materials from the temperance and Prohibition periods with the Big Book to show how AA's narrative antidotes to the traumas of modernity (sited in alcohol abuse) were as much the product of premodernist and turn-of-the-century hysteria as they were an attempt to write a new chapter in America's relationship with alcohol based on contemporary medical and social research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A literary critique is presented for the 19th-century American novel "Bartleby, the Scrivener" and the short story "Cock-a-Doodle-Doo!" by Herman Melville, focusing on their engagement with the theme of alcoholism. Topics addressed include the distinct presence of alcoholics in both stories, the role of escapism as an early symptom of alcoholism, and Melville's social intentions of presenting alcohol as something to be avoided.

This essay explores literary representations of drinking, drunkenness and alcoholism, and their relationship to issues of masculinity and national identity, in nineteenth-century Mexican fiction. I focus on the novels of Manuel Payno and Heriberto Frías, who used images of drinking to create contrasting male characters and to articulate their differing views on the meanings of manhood in nineteenth-century Mexico. Payno celebrated the values of fraternity and patriotism in Los bandidos de Río Frío (1888-91) in his heroic male prototype, Juan Robreño, who drinks in a moderate and socially appropriate manner, and condemned a macho-style pattern of heavy drinking, irresponsibility and violent behaviour through his portrait of Evaristo, a murderous worker and cruel bandit, in the same novel. In contrast, Frías created an alcoholic protagonist in his 1893 novel Tomóchic to challenge the validity of nationalist ideology centred on the values of fraternity and patriotism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism is presented of the book "Infinite Jest," by David Foster Wallace. The addictions and obsessive compulsive behavior of its characters are examined, particularly how the main character, Don Gately, applies the methods that he used to get sober to other areas of his life. The author argues that anti-interiority is at the novel's core in that the material world has been stripped of emotion and that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a form of anti-interiority.

The attention of folklorists is attracted by so called "an argument of proverbs" from the times of Vladimir Dal. Dialectics of mentality of creators and contradictoriness of real life are reflected in those proverbs. The opinion about drinking and drunkards differs very much. Antonymic pairs of proverbs are given in the article. Judgements neglecting each other are found among them. That is why it is possible to comment semantics of some texts differently («To sell bread is cheep; to buy bread is expensive" etc.). The special group form proverbs in which one part of statement refutes the other part semantically. Alterations of traditional proverbs in nowadays are based on the principle of negation of ancient assertions very often: "The sea is up to drunk knees (+ but a puddle is up to ears)." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the use of inebriation imagery related to the consumption of alcoholic beverages during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The images of inebriation by South American Quechua noble man, author and illustrator Guamán Poma de Ayala in his chronicles in ''El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno'' are addressed by the author. Literary works including Jesuit José de Acosta's ''De procuranda indorum salute'' are discussed.

The article provides information on the catalog of prohibited music that the Jesuits' provincial administrator in Bavaria, Germany appended to a set of supplemental instructions regarding the use of music by colleges in the sixteenth century. It states that majority of the banned pieces include verbal texts treating drunkenness and erotic love. It explains that the catalog was derived solely from a review of the music collection of Munich's college upon its move to a new building in 1591. Moreover, it notes that the music catalog reflected the understanding of Bavaria of its role as a principal post-Tridentine defender of the true faith.

The apparent success of Alcoholics Anonymous and its spiritually based program of recovery in 1935 led early researchers to explore how AA worked and ultimately led to more formalized research on alcoholism and spirituality in the latter part of the 20th century. Using Miller's suggested research framework, a review of empirical research was conducted on four roles of spiritual variables in alcohol abuse and recovery. Tentative conclusions about the relationship between alcoholism and spirituality are provided. Limitations of studies are examined and implications for social work research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Crime represents for James Ellroy as much the center piece of his works as does his autobiography. The recurrent theme of this article is the analysis of the distance covered by the author, surpassing delinquency, alcoholism and drugs to produce a literary work so unique and in a style so different. He is ten years old when his Mother dies; she was the victim of a crime that was never to be resolved. Forty years later, the author tries in vain to solve the enigma of her assassination, a journey which leads him to a better understanding of her personality. It''s in his autobiography "My dark places" first and foremost a work of mourning that he accomplishes the elaborate work of subjectivity. We will analyze as well the family galaxy and the disturbing relationship that James Ellroy had with his parents, illustrated through the memories of his childhood. In the end we will analyze the history of the author of the Black Dahlia and his literary production in the light of the theory by N. Abraham and M. Törok. We will re-read the myth of Orpheus which will enable us to be more precise when following the road of mourning taken by Ellroy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Mary Ann Evans, who would later become the great nineteenthcentury novelist George Eliot, takes up in her first three works of fiction a discussion of the use of alcohol in her own culture. However, it is in Adam Bede (1859) that a significant portion of the discussion (the alcoholism of one female character in particular) is so deliberately closeted - so backgrounded - that the structure of the text becomes a slippery portrait, not only of the extent to which the culturally pervasive alcoholism of women was persistently denied, but of Eliot's own mother's hidden substance abuse. An important minor character in Adam Bede, identified by more than one biographer as having a kinship to Eliot's mother Cristiana Evans, shows all the signs and symptoms of alcoholism, a phenomenon which even the story's narrator appears to be hiding from the reader. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the so-called 'ballade et oroison' for Jehan Cotart by the French poet François Villon. Role of Cotart as Thibaut d'Aussigny's adversary; Significance of drinking and drunkenness in the 'Testament' as a whole; Ballad's burlesque tone; Depiction of water and wine in two ballades other than Cotart's; Argument that the consumption and enjoyment of divine wine even in excess are the purpose of its production.

Examines a discourse of intoxication as it ranges in a body of poetry associated with the legendary poet Anacreon of Teos. Survey of drink poetry; How Anacreos' historical character has dissolved into tradition of poetry that he has falsely been credited with originating; Reasons why Romantics turned against the anacreontic equation.

Discusses how the book `Dred,' by Harriet Beecher Stowe, compared chattel slavery and intemperance. Significance of the sermons of Lyman Beecher, father of Stowe, on the temperance movement launched in 1825; Importance of temperance reform recognized by the African-American reformers; Plot and characterization of the book.

Discusses issues pertaining to addiction. Debate over the voluntary code governing tobacco advertising and promotion; Articles about alcohol from potentially useful publications.

Discusses literary works that effectively illustrate the negative consequences of alcohol abuse and addiction. Examination of literature for content and theme in service of alcohol education; Relationship between writers' own alcoholism and the portrayals in their literary works; Effectiveness of literary portrayals of abuse and addiction.

Explores the shamanistic influences on William Kennedy's character Francis Phelan in his book `Ironweed.' Role of alcoholism in creating or releasing superhuman powers; Phelan's assumption of mythical qualities despite weakness of character; Comparisons between Kennedy's characters and legendary heroes.

Interprets and criticizes the novels of Thomas Hardy. "Far From the Madding Crowd;" "The Woodlanders;" "Tess of the d'Urbervilles;" Focus on the subject of drunkenness in Hardy's works; Attribution of the ultimate blame for drunkenness and for its consequences to some petaphysical source.