Dabarties eilėraščiui ypač reikšminga kultūrinė žanro atmintis. Ji teikia papildomų prasmių. XXI amžiuje lyrikos žanrinis skirstymas nebėra aktualus. Labai dažnai sumaišomi gyvi ir nebegyvi žanrų elementai. Tačiau XX amžiuje buvo rašytojų, kurie pasirinkdavo vieną ar kitą žanrą, arba – bent jau žanro elementus savo poezijai. Tokie turinio ir formos elementai būdavo apjungiami į moderniąją visumą. Moderniosios lietuvių literatūros ištakos – Vakarų Europos literatūros tendencijų plėtotė XX amžiaus vidurio lietuvių prozoje ir poezijoje. Šiuo laikotarpiu Lietuvoje susiformavo ir Vakarų Europoje subrendo poetų žemininkų karta – poetų karta, kurios kūrybai įtaką darė ne tik Lietuvos kultūrinis modernizmas, bet ir Europos literatūros ištakos bei moderniausioji Vakarų Europos kultūra. Jonas Mekas yra retai analizuojamas literatūrinės kritikos. Poeto lyrika nagrinėta prarasto rojaus, gamtos kaitos, laiko ir erdvės įvaizdžių aspektais. Jo poezija, kaip pažymi kritikai savo straipsniuose, įtvirtino naują daiktiškumą. Iš keturių idilių laidų daugiausia dėmesio sulaukė 1955 metų laida. Pasirodžius šiam leidimui savo kritinį požiūrį Henrikas Nagys pateikia 1957 metų Literatūros lankų laikraštyje. / The literary searching of the 20th century Lithuania’s poets lead to the modern changes of the genre. In Jonas Mekas’ ‘Semeniskiu idiles’ lyrical subject is divided into subject-speaker and subject-observer. In ‘Semeniskiu idiles’ the time consists of two parts. The big circle of time belongs to the subject-speaker and it is his journey of one year in ‘lost paradise’ cycle of nature. The speaker using his senses and memory becomes the observer in the small circle of time. The space consists of two parts in ‘Semeniskiu idiles’. The big circle of space is the view which is seen by lyrical subject. In the small circle of space the lyrical subject-observer using his senses pays attention to concrete objects. Jonas Mekas can be named as the landowners.

« La simplicité » est un principe essentiel de l’esthétique de George Sand, ce goût permanent marque non seulement la vie réelle de l’écrivain, mais aussi ses œuvres, surtout la série de romans champêtres et socialistes (1840-1853), dont le décor principal est la campagne berrichonne. Nous allons étudier successivement, en trois grandes parties, la notion de simplicité chez George Sand et son sentiment de la nature, la simplicité en tant que constituant de la nature humaine et enfin la simplicité considérée comme le comble de l’art. Les personnages sandiens, paysans ou aristocrates, s’unissant dans une vie idyllique, sont souvent empreints de la même caractéristique se présentant sous diverses facettes : rejet de l’affectation, absence de duplicité et de prétention, refus des artifices, goût pour le naturel et la transparence, ou sublime, naïveté, ingénuité, sincérité, candeur, etc.. Sur le plan esthétique, la simplicité signifie le non composé, le non apprêté, l’originel, le primitif, l’élémentaire, le caractère d’un ensemble formant une entité harmonieuse pouvant être saisie par une intuition synthétique. Tout cela se voit dans la musique populaire et les objets d’art créés par des artistes naïfs. La simplicité sandienne se présente aussi dans d’autres domaines comme les mœurs rustiques, la société et la politique, mais cela restera notre travail post-thèse. / Simplicity is a fundamental principle of George Sand’s aesthetics.The taste for simplicity has also not only pervaded the writer’s life but her whole work, and notably the socialist and country novels (1840-1853) taking place in the Berry landscape.Our purpose is to analyse firstly, Sand’s concept of simplicity and the way she perceives nature, then simplicity as a component of humanity and finally simplicity revealing consummate artistry. Sand’s characters, either peasants or aristocrats sharing an idyllic life, often show this same psychological characteristic under different features: reject of affectedness, absence of duplicity, taste for naturalness and openness, longing for sublimity, innocence, ingenuousness, genuineness, naivety, etc.Aesthetically speaking, simplicity refers to all that is not composed, not prepared, and, positively, to that what is genuine, primitive, and elemental. Simplicity is also accomplished in any harmonious whole perceptible through synthetic intuition, like popular music pieces and naif works of art.Sand’s concept of simplicity also operates in other fields like rural customs and habits and society and politics, as we will show in our subsequent research.

The present study inquires into the problematization of attention in the reception and distribution of photography in 19th-century Sweden. It investigates how photography’s alleged abundance of detail and indiscriminate reproduction became a problem in the reception of the medium. The problem became urgent when photographs were put to use by established discourses; specifically, when used in printed publications meant for a public. The thesis therefore argues that the problem of attention had a profound influence on how printed photographic or photographically illustrated editions (photo-texts) were modelled and arranged. For this purpose, the study affirms a particular focus on attention practices: the various ways in which the printed editions aim to regulate the reader’s attention before the supposedly distractive image. Specifically, the thesis focuses on how texts in these printed editions are arranged or juxtaposed in relation to the image, how they speak of and to the images, what values they reflect, and what effects they could be said to produce. Consequently, the present study is more than an investigation of a problem; it is also an inquiry into the various attempts to overcome this problem. The problem and its responsive practices will have different characteristics in the various contexts of individual discourses. Therefore, the study situates the problem of attention in four prominent genres of 19th-century photography: the topographical albums of photographic views, art books with photographic reproductions, the scientific atlas, and the photographically illustrated travelogue. These genres and forms of publication, as well as the discourses of attention relating to them, are discussed in separate chapters. Every chapter departs from a specific Swedish photographic edition from the nineteenth-century. In sum, the thesis aims – with its focus on the problematization of attention – at giving a new historical perspective on the emergent relation between photography and the printed word.

In this thesis we explore the period of renewal that Athens experienced during the second century AD. This century saw Athens at the peak of her cultural prominence in the Roman Empire: the city was the centre of the League of the Panhellenion and hosted a vibrant sophistic scene that attracted orators from across the Greek world, developments which were ideologically fuelled by contemporary conceptions of Classical Athens. While this Athenian 'golden age' is a standard feature of scholarship on Greek culture under Rome, my thesis delves further to explore the renewal of the urban and rural landscapes at this time and the relationship between that process and constructions of Athenian identity. We approach the renewal of second-century Athens through four lenses: past and present in the Ilissos area; the rhetoric of the Panhellenion; elite conflict and competition; and the character of the Attic countryside. My central conclusions are as follows: 1. The renewal of Athens was effected chiefly by Hadrian and the Athenian elite and was modelled on an ideal Athenian past, strategically manipulated to suit present purpose; the attractions of the fifth-century golden age for this programme of renewal meant that politically contentious history of radical democracy and aggressive imperialism had to be safely rewritten. 2. Athens and Attica retained their uniquely integrated character in the second century. Rural Attica was the subject of a powerful sacro-idyllic ideology and played a vital role in concepts of Athenian identity, while simultaneously serving as a functional landscape of production and inhabitation. 3. The true socio-economic importance of the Attic countryside as a settled and productive landscape should be investigated without unduly privileging the limited evidence from survey, and by combining all available sources, both literary and documentary, with attention to their content, cultural context and ideological relevance.