NÁVRATY: VARIÁCIE NA VÝCHODISKOVÉ TÉMY (PROZAICKÁ TVORBA V. ŠIKULU OD POLOVICE SEDEMDESIATYCH ROKOV)

• Authors: Vladimír Barborík

Title variants

EN

Returns: Variations on the original themes (Vincent Šikula´s prose of the mid-1970s)

• Languages of publication: SK

Abstracts

EN

The study deals with the whole Šikula´s prose (except the novel cycles), which was written for the adult reader from the mid-1970s to the author´s death in the year 2001. It is the second period of the writer´s creative life (the first one being set in the 1960s). The attention is paid to the shorter prosaic genres, to that part of the author´s creative efforts which is placed within the short story, the sketch (the collections of short proses such as Pastierska kapsička /Shepherd´s Purse/ or Pôstny menuet /Fast Minuet/) and the novella (the best works of the period include the novella Liesky /Hazels/). The rare attempt of a historical novel (Matej) is within the given context more or less an exception. The characteristic feature of Šikula´s works in this particular period is focusing on the past, which takes two forms. It is the narrator´s personal past reconstructed by the individual memory as well as the historical past preserved in the super individual memory of the national community. Three basic narration variants based on the works of the 1960s have been identified in the second period of Šikula´s creative work: (1.) the biographical narration of other people motivated by the effort to capture in a short epic genre (sometimes only a few pages) the essence that could represent „the whole life“ of the protagonist or what has „remained“ of him/her in the memory for the others; (2.) the narration with the narrator´s autobiographical role-taking; (3.) the narration based on a historicizing story plan (the protagonists´ life stories are „woven into history“), mostly using the archetype of journey and the related protagonist type (wanderers, vagabonds, beggars...), moving on a changeable horizon of the setting plan, which allows him to „be there“, that is in history or at least on the edge of it. The three used approaches to the theme combine and overlap in individual works.

Keywords

EN

ŠIKULA VINCENT; PROSE; NARRATION; AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ROLE-TAKING; MEMORY; HISTORY; SLOVAK LITERATURE

• Publisher: Institute of Slovak Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovenská literatúra (Slovak Literature)
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 59
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 393 – 427

Contributors

author

Vladimír Barborík

• Ústav slovenskej literatúry SAV, Konventná 13, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovak Republic