The Gift of the Magi

Lietuvių kalba, 2017

The article deals with issues of allusion theory and provides “demarcation lines”, i.e. features that allow distinguishing allusion from other types of intertext. Allusion is commonly defined as an indirect, implied, or covert reference, but here it is defined as an element of text which has certain features. This is in line with conventional terminological practice which requires a proper definition to entail a hypernym superordinate by one or two levels. Allusion is intertext, therefore its definition must include the categories of “intertext” or “text”. The essential features of an allusion are the following: a) Allusion is made of two texts: the text in praesentia and the text in absentia. The text in absentia is widely perceived as a work of art, a historical fact, a person, etc. It is always prior, except for Jason Holt’s interpretation of ex ante allusions. b) The texts in absentia and in praesentia are bound by a covert, indirect reference the purpose of which is to link bot...

zenodo.org, 2022

"What do the Magi's Gifts Mean Today?"

January 6th is the Christian feast of Epiphany or Theophany, celebrating the arrival of the Magi who brought gold, frankincense and myrrh to honour the birth of Christ. As we enter the New Year, we take inspiration from this feast day to celebrate the rebirth of the light after the winter solstice, with traditional dances which emphasise light and wisdom. The Magi (singular 'magus', 'mage') are also known as the 'three wise men' or the 'three kings' who came from the East when Jesus was born. The number of Magi was not recorded: the Western church assumes three gift-givers, perhaps because of the three gifts, but in Aramaic and Syriac Christianity, the Magi were twelve. The gifts they brought – gold, frankincense and myrrh – were extremely precious, materially and spiritually, and can guide us to better understand the significance of this celebration.

Journal of Advanced Zoology, 2023

This article is presented as an example of research on the study of the allusions in the English language. Allusion serves as a powerful rhetorical device that enriches communication by adding layers of meaning, establishing connections, evoking emotions, and developing characters or themes. Its functions range from enhancing depth and complexity to providing cultural and historical context, and from engaging the audience to showcasing the writer's skill and craftsmanship.

B. Chilton noted a verbal and thematic agreement between the eschatological reversal of fortunes of the rich and the poor in Luke's Gospel and Tg Isa 5:13,14,17. This notion occurs explicitly in the Gospel of Luke only in the Magnificat in 1:53 and in 6:20,24. When the Magnificat is compared with the broader context of the targumic interpretative traditions of the expectations of deliverance and judgment present in Tg 5:1-25, further agreements of major theme, sequence and language come to light. On the basis of these agreements, and given the likely chronology of the targumic expectations involved as well as known, or likely first century Jewish and New Testament hermeneutical techniques it is possible that the Magnificat was composed to represent those expectations as realised in the birth of Jesus.

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry (pen name for William Sydney Porter) is an iconic short story; it is a popular story for adaptation, and there are many versions other than the original one by Henry (The Sacrifice, I’ll not be Gangster, Love, For the First Time are notable film adaptations). The story was published on the 10th of December in the ‘New York Sunday World’ newspaper. After its publishing in the newspaper it was also published in Henry’s 1906 collection of short stories, ‘The Four Million’. The Gift of the Magi, in scholarly discourse, has fulfilled many purposes. In Gender Studies it is a popular story to relate to household roles and division. In Economics and Anthropology it forms a topic for discussion in the context of gift-giving. Even in Computer Studies, the Gift of the Magi is the name of an Analogy based coding software (see Ferguson, 1994). Stylistic analysis of the story is a less common practice, but there are some examples of analyses found in (primarily Chinese) journals, and are oftentimes focused on the creation of suspense in narration (see Ming-li, 2005; Xue-ping, 2008). This paper will endeavour to prove using a point of view analysis framework that O. Henry had the intention of giving a moral message to the readers of his story in the ‘New York Sunday World’ and did by so by changing the narrator.

The present article is a brief overview of the research dedicated to the taxonomy of biblical allusions (BA-s). It defines three parameters of taxonomy, presents a classification scheme and classifies BA-s according to the proposed scheme. To thoroughly describe biblical allusions as one of the thematic groups of allusion, the study introduces the following three parameters for taxonomy of BA-s: Semantic-Stylistic-a parameter identifying the purity of BA-s from a stylistic point of view. i. e. it identifies whether or not BA is mixed with some other stylistic devices. Semantic-textual-a parameter identifying the semantic relation/bonds of the BA to the text, determining the range of semantic-stylistic influence of BA-s on the text. Semantic-structural-a parameter of linguistic and structural features, the constitution of BA-s. Within the frames of the above parameters BA-s fall into classes and sub-classes.

The article presents a brief overview of the research devoted to biblical allusions (BA-s) functioning in literary texts. It describes the process of realization of biblical allusion in speech, defines the essence of stylistic functions for BA-s, reveals the basic stylistic functions of BA-s, encircles the range of functional scope of BA-s in literary texts. The process of realization of BA in the text is described as the simultaneous development of two information flows, contextual and associative, resulting in the creation of a subtext, the various semantic-stylistic components of which are regarded as stylistic functions of allusion. The basic stylistic functions of BA-s, Implication, Evaluation, Expressive and Aesthetic-cognitive functions, correspond to the general functions of the language. The functional range depends on the position of BA in the organization of the text. The strong position BA's functional coverage embraces the mega context, and other position BA's – micro/ macro context.

Lietuvių Kalba, 2016

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