Colloquia Maruliana, Vol. 15 , 2006.
Izvorni znanstveni članak
Narration, Action, Place and Time in the Structure of Marulić’s Judita
István Lőkös
Sažetak
The traditional epic, in every part of it, is on the whole a narrative work. An epic fabula includes the main and the minor characters and a presentation of the main and continuous events. Narration has an important role in Judita. If we take into account that the story of Judith and Holofernes appears in narrative form in the text of the epic, we will at once see that the narration is an appropriate framework for events, for in this framework events, place and time of events appear, creating a complex structure for the work.
As for place and time it can be concluded that in the description of place fiction too takes on a function (for example the city of Bethulia), as does reality. It would seem that the proportions of fiction and reality in the description of place determine the composition of the epic. In the description of the campaign of Holofernes’ army, Marulić follows the Biblical geography, accepting the imprecisions that appear in the Old Testament Book of Judith. He presented all this as reality, in a historical and geographical sense. As for fiction in the description of place, it is restricted to the description of Bethulia. The textual site of this fictionis more or less in the centre of the composition of the epic which - in our understanding - comes from the rules of Renaissance art composition.
As for the problem of time, Marulić in his epic once again keeps up with the Biblical tradition. In the Old Testament Book of Judith events occur in the biblical period, but of course without any date. The reader is informed only whether it is day or night, and reads that the “sun set and rose twenty times” since the Assyrians had “toured and sat upon the wells” or that Oziah advised the Bethuliansto “wait another five days” before capitulating, or that after the victory of Judith, the people ”three months stayed in Jerusalem / eating and drinking here” - but in all this the poet does not keep up with historical time. Through this technique for describing time, Marulić in effect imparts to his work a universal character.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
2811
URI
Datum izdavanja:
22.4.2006.
Posjeta: 2.060 *