Zuzana Kopecká
Symptómy literárnej moderny v slovenskej a českej medzivojnovej próze
Symptoms of literary modernism in Slovak and Czech interwar prose
VEDA, vydavateľstvo Slovenskej akadémie vied, Ústav svetovej literatúry SAV, v. v. i.
Published: 21. 12. 2022
About monography:
Protagonists able to reflect on their own problematic experience through psychological optics resonate strongly in modernism, which in its more radical form in the interwar period, has become a kind of an alarming anthropological phenomenon recording the ongoing crisis of the subject in the 20th century. The introspective dimension of literary modernism is then reflected in various ways in which the states of the soul are portrayed in an alternative world of the protagonists – in their inner worlds as well as in their dreams. In the novels Muž s protézou (The Man with the Prosthesis; 1925) by Ján Hrušovský, Ztracený stín (The Lost Shadow; 1931) by Egon Hostovský, Dům o tisíci patrech (The House of a Thousand Storeys; 1929) by Jan Weiss and Pisár Gráč (Gráč the Scribe, 1940) by Jozef Cíger Hronský, the authors seem to express the consequences of the world the subject escapes. The distance from others and finally from oneself leads the protagonists into existential solitude. The connection between literary modernism and introspection is therefore based on the assumption that its symptoms (hidden features) are mental images that are subjective reactions to certain phenomena or are the result of their displacement. However, the result of such self-reflections in this case is not a romantic gesture of an individual rebelling against society. It transforms into the inner turmoil that the modern subjects experience through their ability of introspective reflection. The self-reflection of this crisis has, to varying degrees, also affected the literary texts of Slovak and Czech interwar authors and turned them into typologically related texts. These “typological links” are not based on the common geographical space of the two nations, but on a common experience (closely linked to World War) that correlates with a form of metaphorization of the existential uprooting of literary characters.
If art can be considered an authentic reaction to society, which is the sum of individuals and their internal facts, then the non-literary context associated with its production must be considered as well. In textual analysis, therefore, I work with a range of different contexts (situated mainly in footnotes) closely related to the author. However, the reflection of these connections is significantly limited by the literary text, in which it is possible to identify the symptoms of literary modernism through a comprehensive analysis of the author‘s poetics applied in the text. The aim of the monograph is therefore to identify the symptoms of literary modernism in Slovak and Czech interwar prose through a comparative analysis with certain interdisciplinary overlaps. The analytical categories on which the presence of literary modernism can be proved are movement in alternative spheres, intimate topography of characters, narrative time and the phenomenon of fragmentation. Subsequent interpretation within a certain network of contexts finally goes beyond the individual author‘s statements encoded in various poetics and typologically connects them. This fact then creates the possibility of implementing Slovak and Czech interwar writing into the concept of world literature.
If art can be considered an authentic reaction to society, which is the sum of individuals and their internal facts, then the non-literary context associated with its production must be considered as well. In textual analysis, therefore, I work with a range of different contexts (situated mainly in footnotes) closely related to the author. However, the reflection of these connections is significantly limited by the literary text, in which it is possible to identify the symptoms of literary modernism through a comprehensive analysis of the author‘s poetics applied in the text. The aim of the monograph is therefore to identify the symptoms of literary modernism in Slovak and Czech interwar prose through a comparative analysis with certain interdisciplinary overlaps. The analytical categories on which the presence of literary modernism can be proved are movement in alternative spheres, intimate topography of characters, narrative time and the phenomenon of fragmentation. Subsequent interpretation within a certain network of contexts finally goes beyond the individual author‘s statements encoded in various poetics and typologically connects them. This fact then creates the possibility of implementing Slovak and Czech interwar writing into the concept of world literature.
Details:
223 pages
Keywords:
literary modernism, author's poetics, transformation of identity
About edition:
Publishers: VEDA, vydavateľstvo Slovenskej akadémie vied, Ústav svetovej literatúry SAV, v. v. i.
Edition: 1.
Edition place: Bratislava
Edition year: 2022
ISBN 978-80-224-1969-7 (print)
Book type: monography
How to cite:
ISO 690:
Kopecká, Z.: Symptómy literárnej moderny v slovenskej a českej medzivojnovej próze. 1 vyd. Bratislava : VEDA, vydavateľstvo Slovenskej akadémie vied, Ústav svetovej literatúry SAV, v. v. i.. 2022. pp. 223. ISBN 978-80-224-1969-7. Dostupné na: https://doi.org/10.31577/2022.9788022419697
APA:
Kopecká, Z. (2022). Symptómy literárnej moderny v slovenskej a českej medzivojnovej próze. Bratislava : VEDA, vydavateľstvo Slovenskej akadémie vied, Ústav svetovej literatúry SAV, v. v. i.. ISBN 978-80-224-1969-7. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31577/2022.9788022419697