"Pauses" of the narrator and the "forbidden" speech of the storyteller in the novels of Milan Kundera Cover Image

„Pomlky“ románového vypravěče a „zapovězená“ řeč lidového vypravěče v románech Milana Kundery
"Pauses" of the narrator and the "forbidden" speech of the storyteller in the novels of Milan Kundera

Author(s): Xavier Galmiche
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Univerzita Karlova v Praze - Filozofická fakulta, Vydavatelství
Keywords: Milan Kundera; novel; central-european novel; narrator; storyteller; Bohumil Hrabal; laughter;

Summary/Abstract: Milan Kundera poetics is based on a “world of the romantic fiction built on the personal speech of the narrator” (M. Chvatík). Nevertheless, it enters in contradiction with some essays of Kundera himself, who centers on the figure of the storyteller, active figure of the narrative “from Rabelais to Laurence Sterne” (“Speech of Jerusalem”, resumed in The Art of the Novel). Kundera seems to give for task to the modern narrator to resuscitate an atavistic, pre-rational genius, chairing in instinctual desire to tell. Thus there is a contradiction between the ambition of recovery of the lively word — the voice of the storyteller — by the modern novel, and the actual practice of the story adopted by Kundera. This article tries to describe this paradox through one of these mythical categories approached in a recurring way by Kundera: that of laughter.

  • Issue Year: XXVIII/2018
  • Issue No: 58
  • Page Range: 115-122
  • Page Count: 8
  • Language: Czech