Review article
https://doi.org/10.22210/ur.2020.064.3_4/08
Love, Town and War. An Analysis of the Microstructure ("Close Reading") in Drago Jančar’s War Novels
Peter Scherber
; Sveučilište u Beču
Abstract
ABSTRACT
The paper focuses on the micro-structural analysis, i.e., close-reading, of the selected literary texts. Close-reading is the opposite of distant reading that generally connotes analysis of a much larger corpus. Close-reading is an acceptable strategy for textual interpretation. This strategy includes, at first glance, some banal issues, such as the relationship between historically documented events and their literary (fictional) presentations, spatial data (in this case Maribor and its topography), and temporal data (linear or recursive). Furthermore, this procedure enables identification of a given genre, for example a cycle or some kind of a supra-text (in this case a novelistic trilogy). The analysis will show how the fundamental paradox embedded in Maribor, its Slovene-German past, is reflected in Jančar’s novels. Special emphasis is placed on processes, motifs, images, characters, events and even micro-texts present in Jančar’s short prose that later reappear in his novels in a new context. Jančar’s text that are studied are Severni sij (Northern Lights, 1984), To noč sem jo videl (I Saw Her That Night, 2010) and In ljubezen tudi (And Love Itself, 2017).
Keywords
novel, novel-trilogy, close-reading, spatial, temporal, Maribor, supra-text, Drago Jančar
Hrčak ID:
256329
URI
Publication date:
22.4.2021.
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