About One Idealized far-off World in the Modern Literature Cover Image
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За един идеализиран отминал свят в модерната литература
About One Idealized far-off World in the Modern Literature

Author(s): Nikolay Aretov
Subject(s): Studies of Literature
Published by: ЮГОЗАПАДЕН УНИВЕРСИТЕТ »НЕОФИТ РИЛСКИ«
Keywords: Thomas Mann; Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa; Elin Pelin; retro-utopia; idyll; Agrarianism

Summary/Abstract: This paper starts with comparing three key texts from European literature from the first half of the 19th century – Buddenbrooks (1901) by Thomas Mann, The Gerak Family (1904/7, 1911) by Elin Pelin, and The Leopard (Il Gattopardo) (1958) by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. There are all dedicated to the downfall of socially elevated families, presented with empathy by the writers. Apart from the obvious differences, one can trace several interesting common features that can have similar social, cultural, and even political motivation.The image of the patriarchal idyll that was questioned by some others authors here is interpreted as ‘imagined’, as a type of criticism of the modern times a nostalgic / retro-utopian; some national and regional (Balkan) specific features are traced, which are also problematic or ‘imagined’. The paper analyses the underlying ideas of the literary text in the perspective of the evolution of the social ideas from that time and seeks some kind of proximity between the Bulgarian short novel and the Agrarianism, a trend of thinking and political activism popular at that time. This proximity was neither deliberate, nor a form of direct political engagement of the author, but was later used in some interpretations, and is still a critical part of a retro-utopian trend of thinking in Bulgarian culture.

  • Issue Year: 2018
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 180-193
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: Bulgarian