The place and significance of the avant-garde in the modern literature teaching and learning

Abstract

Given that understanding the literary theory contributes to the acknowledgement not only of the overall social, historical and cultural, but also pedagogical significance of literature, the marginalization, even total exclusion of the avant-garde stylistic formation from the primary school curricula is quite surprising, to say the least. For this reason, the aim of this paper is to emphasise the necessity of the (re)inclusion of the key authors of Serbian literature for children, such as Aleksandar Vučo, in the curricula, and, by using the literary works of this author as an example, to show the importance of studying the works written between the two world wars which fall into category of the avant-garde literature. A more comprehensive study of Serbian poetry, in terms of literary-historical analysis, is not the only reason underlying the requirement for the inclusion of the authors of the avant-garde poetry in the curricula. The primary reason is the necessity of understanding the canonical poetical phenomena (such as the poetry of Dušan Radović,) which definitely have their place in the primary school curricula, as well as the intention to offer an adequate interpretation of the contemporary literature for children which, hopefully, will be more and better represented in the future curricula.