Original scientific paper

HAMLET BETWEEN BUKARA AND UČITELJ

Helena Peričić ; Faculty of philosophy in Zadar

Abstract

The issue of representation, even defence (of literary, aesthetic, ethical etc.) values comes up quite often in Brešan’s opus of plays on the grounds of a same mechanism: between primitivism, deceit, roughness, brutality, even a potential and real offence, and crime – on the one side (Brešan’s »Antithesis«) and on the other – enlightenment, progressiveness/advancement and idealism (»Thesis«) – stands a literary text as an extension of the Thesis, i.e. a more or less an obvious/covert template the purpose of which is to build up a new dramatic storytelling, thematically and plot-wise adjusted to spatial, social and philosophical circumstances to which the author himself belongs.
A »mediator« literary text in Brešan’s plays (whether it be Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Julius Caesar, Racine’s Phaedra or Gogol’s Auditor) thus enters the zone of »popularization« because with its role of transporter (or as Souriau would call it, »arbiter«) that emphasizes the values of the Thesis, the transfer between the scope »of the serious literature« and reality, it becomes presented as a structure that should be made accessible to a wider audience, i.e. to the ultimate receiver of the dramatic text (whether he reads or watches it on stage), regardless if the receiver has recognized the respective »bridge« text or not, i.e. he has not »deciphered« it. From the conscience of such a construction, arise the questions on stratifications and goals of such a transfer or »borrowing« from classic literature. From the afore mentioned, one can conclude that the mediator text, in this case Shakespeare’s Hamlet, with the milieu associated to it (Antithesis) – and the means (Thesis) is on its way towards Brešan’s mentioned Synthesis, which creates a new potential Thesis, etc. A classic text that was meant for Elizabethan people, throughout the centuries turned into an elitist canon of the educated and grew distant from its roots and its primary purpose of folk entertainment, morals etc. In the 20th century the same text receives a role of a highly valuable work of art, and the show based upon it turns into an aesthetic event meant for the educated audience. Created and represented this way within the practice of play writing – in the period of creation of Croatian literature e.g. by the end of the 60’s and the beginning of the ‘70s of the previous century – Shakespeare’s text was used as a foundation for the construction of a new text, and this new text – in this case Brešan’s »Predstava Hamleta u selu Mrduša Donja« which is to be written by a future playwright using our domestic, by then already a classic play (Brešan’s text) for transformation and new intertextuality.

Keywords

Ivo Brešan; »Hamlet u selu Mrduša Donja«; Shakespeare; »bridge« tekst; classic literature; reality; modernity; reception

Hrčak ID:

200159

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/200159

Publication date:

9.5.2018.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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