The smell and colour of words. Attempts at intersemiotic translation and synaesthesia in Damir Miloš’s works "Smetlar" and "Bijeli klaun" Cover Image

Zapach i kolor słów, czyli o próbach intersemiotycznego przekładu i synestezji w utworach Damira Miloša „Smetlar” i „Bijeli klaun”
The smell and colour of words. Attempts at intersemiotic translation and synaesthesia in Damir Miloš’s works "Smetlar" and "Bijeli klaun"

Author(s): Ewa Szperlik
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Uniwersytet Adama Mickiewicza
Keywords: intersemiotic translation; synaesthesia; conceptual prose; intersemiotics; sensuality in literature; the theme of smell in the novel; cognitive relativism

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the intersemiotic and conceptual prose of Damir Miloš is to overcome the limitations of language and literary description, especially when presenting reality through the prism of sensual experience, both visual and olfactory. In Miloš’s prose the interconnectedness of art forms, often perceived today as a symptom of a literary crisis or a trend towards intermediality, becomes a special and convenient pretext to use intersemiotic translation, visuality and synaesthesia as a means of presenting sensuality in literature. The Croatian author creates a world in which his protagonists, marked with certain incapacities or hypersensitivity of senses (an absolute sense of smell, colour-blindness or blindness), conjure up their own individual and subjective reality. Thus, Miloš stresses the postmodern aspect of the multiplicity of truths and perspectives.

  • Issue Year: 2012
  • Issue No: 02
  • Page Range: 313-331
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: Polish