Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.32728/tab.13.1.2015.11
Postcolonial reading of "Veli Jože" by Vladimir Nazor
Boris Koroman
Abstract
The allegorical tale Veli Jože by Croatian modernist writer Vladimir Nazor, text that has for decades been present in school curricula and often interpreted as the story about the national struggle against Venetian oppressors, is analyzed in this paper using the postclassical narratology and postcolonial theory as the main interpretative optics. Research and interpretations of the work of Vladimir Nazor show that his ideological and poetical positions are in general ambivalent, hybrid and polilogical. The close reading analysis of Veli Jože reveals several significant narrative elements, especially in the tale's closure, that can be identified as the problematic moments of reproduction and representation of colonial discourse, thus opening postcolonial theory as its' interpretation framework. Writing from the position of subaltern, described by Gayatri Chakraworty Spivak, is per se problematic, while Homi Bhabha notes that the process of "narrating the nation" presupposes dualism, ambivalence and ambiguity. The interpretation shows that the canonical text that tends to reproduce national mythologies fails at many levels to be read as unambiguous.
Keywords
Vladimir Nazor; Veli Jože; postcolonial criticism; discourse; nation; interpretation
Hrčak ID:
158176
URI
Publication date:
17.12.2015.
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