Allegory in Prison Letters: Art or Puzzle?

Bajram Kosumi

doi:10.13189/lls.2017.050408

Abstract

This article examines the style and discourse in prison epistles, a special literary manifestation in the Albanian literature of the late 20th century. The allegoric and hermetic discourse dominates in these letters. Why does this happen: to hide the thoughts from the censorship of the prison administration (to disorient the censor, authors in general used many words with obscure meanings, and many other allegoric texts, which in reality are hypertexts) or simply for aesthetic and stylistic effects? This is a question which determines the status of the text. In this analysis special attention is given to words in the semantic and stylistic aspects. The focus of attention is especially allegoric and hermetic words and sentences. Decoding the words and sentences, of the allegoric and hermetic discourse, brings to a new light the text itself: whether it is a literary or a referential text. The stylistic analysis method and the critical discourse analysis are used in the examination. The critical discourse analysis is necessitated by the polysemy of the text, which lies always beyond the text and is interrelated with different textual or life contexts.

Highlights

Prison Letters, a Body of Literature at the End of the 20th Century, and the Political BackgroundFrom World War II to the demise of Yugoslavia, many Albanian intellectuals, mostly young men, were jailed and convicted to long-term prison sentences by the Yugoslav regime for their political activity for the freedom of Kosovo
This, for one administrative reason: prison administrators, every six months on average destroyed everything that the Albanians who had been jailed for political reasons had written. Those letters that they managed to hide were saved, as well as epistolary literature. Families retained those letters and a small portion of them were edited and published by Merxhan Avdyli and Bajram Kosumi in 2004 in the anthological book entitled Letra nga burgu/Libri i censuruar [Prison Letters/ The Censured Book]
When Merxhan Avdyli structures his letter in a way which affirms by denying and props up the paradoxical nature of this discourse, he certainly utilizes allegory mainly to engender expressiveness and literary effects

Summary

Introduction

From World War II to the demise of Yugoslavia, many Albanian intellectuals, mostly young men, were jailed and convicted to long-term prison sentences by the Yugoslav regime for their political activity for the freedom of Kosovo These prisoners, especially after the 1981 revolution – the protest rallies of Kosovo Albanian pressing for republican status for Kosovo within the Yugoslav Federation – used all possible means necessary to convey to the public their political concepts, as well as their ethic, literary and humanist ideas from prison. This, for one administrative reason: prison administrators, every six months on average destroyed everything that the Albanians who had been jailed for political reasons had written Those letters that they managed to hide were saved, as well as epistolary literature. : 1. Firstly, if the allegoric discourse is a case of the prevailing circumstances in which the letters had been written, and that the obscure and allegoric language had served only to hide the intended thoughts

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Conclusion