"I am not...": Aesthetical Claims and Apophatic Definitions Cover Image

"Не съм": Естетическа волеизява и апофатически определения
"I am not...": Aesthetical Claims and Apophatic Definitions

Notes on Two Cases

Author(s): Albena Hranova
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Bulgarian Literature, Philology
Published by: Пловдивски университет »Паисий Хилендарски«
Keywords: Bulgarian literature; literary history; apophatic literary canons
Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with the “I am not…” formula of Bulgarian lyric poetry and refers to two specific cases – that of a 1873 satirical poem of Bulgaria’s greatest poet of the nineteenth century Hristo Botev, and that of Nikolay Liliev’s lyrical discourse, a paragon of Bulgarian symbolism of the second and third decades of the twentieth century. Botev rejected his own context by making an apophatic canon, a list of writers taken as laughing stock. Liliev did not pronounce any writers’ names yet he rejected the social images and roles of the writers of his decade. Thus, by negating names and discourses or by negating writers’ roles and images, both authors aimed at definitely declaring their bias of non-belonging to their literary contexts.