Review article
Stanko Lasić’s Ontological Structuralism and the Anima of Miroslav Krleža's Novels: From the Eternal Feminine to the Political
Suzana Marjanić
; Institute for Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb
Abstract
This review paper takes as its starting point Stanko Lasić’s analysis of the anima in Miroslav Krleža’s novels. According to Lasić, Krleža’s novels paradigmatically focus on a protagonist in search of a purpose and the Absolute who simultaneously moves away from authority (e.g. father figures in the family, nation or religion) towards the one he loves (the Woman). From a homo politicus the protagonist turns into a homo eroticus. The archetypal constellation of characters can be traced in all of Krleža’s novels: Vražji otok (1923): father – Gabrijel – Ljiljana; Povratak Filipa Latinovicza (1932): mother – Filip – Bobočka; Na rubu pameti (1938): Domaćinski – Doktor – Jadviga; Banket u Blitvi (1938, 1939, 1962): Barutanski – Nielsen – Karin/a; Zastave (1962 – 1968): father – Kamilo Emerički Junior – Ana Borongay. To this I also add Krleža’s first novel, Tri kavaljera frajle Melanije, while the novelistic animas are further illustrated by Lasić’s interpretations of Krleža’s dramatic animas.
Concerning the aforementioned, I consider Bobočka – regarding Krleža’s novelistic animas – to have been conceived according to the archetypal principle of the femme fatale. Out of the numerous fatalistic determinants, for this occasion I choose the following: when Baločanski first met her, “Bobočka’s body, a vessel filled with profound and opaque passions, was an androgynous and pure body of a young girl standing on the threshold of her first spring.” The novel Na rubu pameti (1938) – conceived as a transition from the psychological novel (Tri kavaljera frajle Melanije, Vražji otok, Povratak Filipa Latinovicza) toward the political novel (cf. Vučković 1986), i.e. the three-volume novel Banket u Blitvi (1938, 1939, 1962) and the five-volume synthetic novel Zastave (1962–1968) – does not require fatality, but rather the serenity of the Faustian Eternal Feminine in the unification of Eve and Lilith. It is exactly in this sense that I interpret Jadviga Jesenska (cf. Nemec 2000), Karina Michelson, as well as Ana Borongay, Krleža’s most profound metaphor, to quote Stanko Lasić. It would not hurt to note this, perhaps in purple ink that was used by Karina.
Keywords
Miroslav Krleža; Stanko Lasić; novelistic anima; the femme fatale
Hrčak ID:
201798
URI
Publication date:
19.6.2018.
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