Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.15176/vol52no205
How Krleža Unmasks Reality, or How “Even Moonlight Can be an Outlook on Life”
Suzana Marjanić
; Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku, Zagreb
Abstract
This article deals with how Krleža unmasks mentality, or the outlook on life, through the character of the Faustian Doctor in his novel On the Edge of Reason (1938), who, as the author’s alter ego (one of his alter egos) has no outlook on life of his own, because for him, ironically, “even moonlight can be an outlook on life”. This negates the attribution of mentality (an outlook on life which “slithers like serpents through the jungle”), which is in opposition to an autonomous way of representing and experiencing life. Or, to use Krleža’s own words from 1971: “It is mentalities that divide people and nations, as seen from all the civil wars waged within a single united linguistic area”. In the second part of the article, I analyze the opposition between mentality and autonomy on two recent examples – one from the actionist / alter-globalist practice, and the other being the state ceremony on the occasion of Croatia’s accession to the European Union.
Keywords
Miroslav Krleža, On the Edge of Reason (1938), mentality, Croatia’s accession to the EU
Hrčak ID:
149475
URI
Publication date:
14.12.2015.
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