Modernism Undercover Cover Image

Модернизъм под прикритие
Modernism Undercover

Valery Bryusov’s and Pencho Slaveykov’s Anthology Projects

Author(s): Henrike Schmidt
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature
Published by: Национална библиотека »Св. св. Кирил и Методий«
Keywords: anthology games; individual stylistic directions

Summary/Abstract: The article offers a comparative study of Valery Bryusov’s and PenchoSlaveykov’s fictitious anthologies—Russian Symbolists, 1894–1895, and On the Isle of the Blessed, 1910, respectively. Fictitious anthologies simulate the collecting of representative works or masterpieces by inventing them and by mystifying their authorship. They use the meta–genre of anthology to propagate and canonize individual stylistic directions, overarching aesthetics, and national literatures, or to question these canons in a playful and subversive way. The article compares the techniques and intentions of Bryusov’s andSlaveykov’s anthology games by placing them within broader contexts of mystification practices in European literature, such as James Macpherson‘s Ossian and Prosper Merimée’s La Guzla. The study is theoretically anchored in Gideon Toury’s concept of pseudotranslation as a literary innovation strategy,and in Gauti Kristmannson’s work on pseudotranslation as an act of subversive appropriation.

  • Issue Year: 2016
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 102 - 119
  • Page Count: 9
  • Language: Bulgarian