Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.32728/tab.20.2023.1
Generational question: What defines a generational novel and which contemporary Croatian novels fall under this category?
Boris Koroman
; Sveučilište Jurja Dobrile u Puli, Hrvatska
Abstract
In this paper examples of the articulation of the concept of generation in Croatian literature are examined. The idea of the paper is to demonstrate how and with which literary-historical moves some novels have come to be classified as „generational.” With this analytical goal in mind, we began by observing the idea of generation in popular culture, the new media, and academic contexts, sociology in particular. In order to describe how various literary historians approach the concept of generation, recent histories of Croatian literature and the Croatian novel were analyzed. It is demonstrated here that the epistemological stances of literary historians influence how generations are described in literary histories. The paper further analyzes the key novels of Croatian literature that have been identified by literary historians as generational novels, and the imaginary of ideas, generational lines of identity that lead to the 21st century of which they are comprised. It is shown here that a variety of transgenerational, as well as particular generational, elements may be recognized in texts written by authors of various ages, as well as locally articulated generational „breaks”, which problematize the so-called generational line of the West. The aspects of this generational shift in the novels by Maša Kolanović, Vlado Bulić and Olja Savičević Ivančević are analyzed. The problematization of recent books from the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century, which are characterized as generational from the level of representation, is constitutes the conclusion of this paper. The elements of recognition of generational novels identified previously in the study are expanded upon with the addition of two new aspects as a closing point.
Keywords
generation; generational novel; generational fiction; literary generation; contemporary Croatian literature; contemporary Croatian novel
Hrčak ID:
311541
URI
Publication date:
18.12.2023.
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