Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.15176/vol57no202
Desiralbe Other: On the Positive Attitude towards the Other in Love and Wedding Oral Lyric Songs
Ana Vukmanović
; Beograd
Abstract
The paper discusses the positive attitude towards the Other in love and wedding oral lyric songs in the South Slavic context. Oral lyricism models the relation with the Other as dynamic, determined by relations of strangeness and closeness. Depending on perspective, the meanings of the Other varies: he/she attracts attention, provokes desire (presented as erotic play, as realized in an erotic encounter, or as powerful desire which overcomes refusal and boundary between what is one’s own and what is alien) and becomes one’s husband/wife. The Other is ambiguous between being powerful and endangered, and as a being in liminal (pre-wedding) situation. The contrast is even more emphasized in a wedding context when the Other is a desirable groom (or a desirable bride), and an encounter with him/her marks the passage from one life phase to another, separation from one’s own family and entering a new one. In the male text of wedding songs, the relation with the Other represents the arrogance of the bride. The wide range of meanings, from erotic play to arrogance demonstrates the capacity of oral lyricism to deal with a desirable Other in different ways. Following complex human emotions, songs show the importance of the relation with the Other and surpassing the boundaries between one’s own and alien.
Keywords
the Other, oral lyric songs, erotic desire, wedding
Hrčak ID:
248309
URI
Publication date:
21.12.2020.
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