Milorad Pavic Research Articles

Beyond the Page: Exploring Hypertextual Elements in Milorad Pavic’s The Landscape Painted with Sea

Beyond the Page: Exploring Hypertextual Elements in Milorad Pavic’s The Landscape Painted with Sea

Aesthetic Multilingualism as Ontological Relativism. Milorad Pavić's Dictionary of the Khazars and Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves

The text is brought to life through reading. This has not only been understood by literary scholars like Wolfgang Iser or Umberto Eco, but also by authors or poets. This can be recognized in some literary texts when, from the first page, the reader is forced by the author to actively shape the story to be read. The concept of fold, coined by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, seems to take into account many strategies of authors to stimulate the negotiation process between author and reader. By fostering non-linear and parallel stories, which lead to many worlds interpretation, the agency of the reader comes to its fore. We can observe very different strategies like this for example in novels of Mark Z. Danielewski and Milorad Pavic. Using the concepts of Deleuze and Guattari, I want to explore how multilingualism can be understood aesthetically and how it leads us to an ontological relativism in literature.

Dictionary of the Khazars as a postmodern narrative veiling an ultra-nationalistic rhetoric

Milorad Pavic’s lexicon novel Dictionary of the Khazars is an example of historiographic metafiction which attempts to question the line between the historical and literary narratives. The book narrates the historical/fictional event “Conversion of the Khazars” via various references none of which acknowledges the others’ representation of history. Also, the self-reflexive text strongly emphasizes the role of the reader. Many fictional authors break the domination of the authoritative narrator and make the novel a crucial example of postmodern literature. On the other hand, we argue that each society experiences the postmodern differently and this must be considered in interpreting a literary work. Thus, in this study, Pavic’s novel is interpreted as an example of postmodern literature from Yugoslavia in the 1980s. For us, the formal aspects of the text make it a distinguished postmodern work influenced by post-structuralist theories of language and literature, but the novel is also strongly tied with the national question and it problematizes the basis of Yugoslav existence. The story of the Khazars has many parallels with the Serbian people and their historical experience especially in Titoist Yugoslavia. Thus, the playful, fantastic language of the book also covers an ultra-nationalistic rhetoric of Serbian victimization and suppression. This rhetoric is clearly seen in satirical parodies of Tito’s multiethnic state. In addition, the novel problematizes the Yugoslav context via impressive images showing that assembled structures like Yugoslavia are not natural and they are doomed to be demolished. It must also be pointed out that the main reference to the failure of the Yugoslav metanarrative is the form of the novel which overtly denies the combination of diverse narratives and indicates the impossibility to reach a harmonious totality.

Mise-en-abyme der Rezeption. Zu den Frühkritiken des Chasarischen Wörterbuchs auf Deutsch

With an implicit view on issues of theoretical importance, the paper analyzes the earliest phase in the reception of the Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic in the German-speaking area. The research focuses on reports about the novel and its author in the German print media published before the publication of the German translation of the work, with a view to the later development of reception within the newspaper, daily criticism. A detailed review of the content of this early reception phase shows that even then, before the publication of the Dictionary of the Khazars in German, almost all critical judgments about the novel were formulated, as well as the image of the writer's personal and authorial profile. The paper ends with a question about the value of these conclusions for understanding the general mechanisms of literary reception, ie. for possible generalizations in the domain of reception aesthetics.

The study of the works of Milorad Pavic “Biography of Belgrade” and “Landscape painted with tea” as historical sources using the methods of digital humanities

The study of the works of Milorad Pavic “Biography of Belgrade” and “Landscape painted with tea” as historical sources using the methods of digital humanities

МЕТОДИЧКИ ПРИСТУП ТЕМИ СЛОВЕНСКОГ ЈЕЗИКА И ПИСМА У ХАЗАРСКОМ РЕЧНИКУ МИЛОРАДА ПАВИЋА НА ДОДАТНОЈ НАСТАВИ У СРЕДЊОЈ ШКОЛИ

У раду је представљен методички модел за анализу теме језика и писма старих Словена (словенског језика и писма) у Хазарском речнику Милорада Павића на додатној настави у четвртом разреду средње школе. Реализација модела замишљена је кроз четири наставна часа. На првом часу тема словенског језика и писма пореди се са чињеницама у историји језика и књижевној традицији. На другом часу се, применом концептуалне анализе (користећи појмовне метафоре), разматра начин на који су словенски језик и писмо представљени у Хазарском речнику. Трећи и четврти час посвећени су интерпретацији уочених метафора у контексту композиције и поетике Хазарског речника и постмодернизма уопште. Кроз реализацију модела ученици се сусрећу са важним постмодернистичким појмовима и темама (текст, интертекстуалност, енциклопедичност, итд.), истовремено обнављајући постојећа знања из историје језика и књижевности.

Milorad Pavić Lost in Translation: Analysis of the Dictionary of the Khazars translation from Serbian to Italian

This paper features, through a linguistic analysis of the translation of the novel Dictionary of the Khazars from Serbian into Italian, some of the basic issues concerning translation: to transpose, apart from the faithful meaning and form of a literary text, the very style of the author, as well as to recognise the function and impact a certain expression has on the reader. With regard to this, the paper primarily analyses the expressions from the aforementioned novel that characterise the unique writing style of Milorad Pavic, which attempts at infusing prose with a poetic material. In doing so, Pavic uses the existing phraseological expressions as a subtext, but he blurs their meaning by changing their form. The translator, as a link between the sender and the receiver of the information, is supposed to transpose such linguistic constructions to the target language in their original form, thus making the reader familiar with the original text. Through a comparative analysis of the original text and translations of Pavic’s stylistic expressions, the author comes to the conclusion that what can be deemed as successfully translated expressions are those in which all the original elements of the writer’s poetics are preserved and suggests that, when translating a writer such as Pavic, the literal translation method should be preferred to the free one.

Quantum in literature - James Joyce and Milorad Pavic

The main hypothesis of this paper examines the relationship between the revolutionary changes in the science, especially related to the quantum theory at the beginning of the 20th century, and their influence on the literary texts of modernism, as well as the relationship between the revolutionary changes in the network communications since the 1960s and their influence on the postmodern literature. The analyzed examples of these impacts and analogues of science, literature and information technologies belong to the literary works of James Joyce, Milorad Pavic and their receptions.

Alphabetical imaginations fact and fiction in lexicographical literature

Examples of lexicographic writing in literature often play with the distinction between fictional and factual representation. On the one hand they refer to non-literary knowledge discourses and quote from conventional sources of information; on the other hand, they provide descriptions of fictitious characters, events, objects, animals, places etc. Since these texts also refer to social and cultural realities, the lexicographic format and diction often produce critical and satirical estrangement effects. Following in the tracks of Borges, authors like Milorad Pavic and Ror Wolf in their lexicographic texts depict compounds of imaginary worlds; other writers such as Xiaolu Guo and David Levithan rather use this format to tell fragmented romance stories. Some examples of literary lexicography are influenced by critical dictionaries from the era of Enlightenment, others rather by surrealist dictionaries. There is, however, a generally convergent interest in the semantics of the alphabet and the writing format of the concise dictionary entry.

Jorge Luis Borges en Danilo Kiš o la lección intertextual

Few authors of the 20th century have had such a remarkable influence on the literature of other writers as Jorge Luis Borges. The impact of his works can be appreciated in all important national literatures; many writers have recognized his expertise and influence, some of them openly imitating him. In this respect, literature written in Serbo- Croatian is a special case, with a huge reception of his literature. The Borges “wave” arrived late to Yugoslavia, but with increased strength, and from the 1970s on the Argentinean author has remained one of the favourite writers amongst young readers. Local writers quickly absorbed all the aesthetic and conceptual developments of the author of Ficciones, even giving birth to a new trend called “Borgesian prose” which has given the world such remarkable authors as Milorad Pavic. Although not considered strictly a borgesist, Danilo Kis, one of the internationally best known Serbian authors, deserves special attention. Much of his work is marked in many ways by Borgesian stylistic and thematic influences. Numerous intertextualities make some of his texts a genuine dialogue with the Argentinean master. However, the high quality, originality and diversity of Kis’s work distinguish the Serbian author from the rest of the Balkan Borges’ followers. The present paper reviews the influences, references, allusions, appropriations and other intertextual links to Borges’ literature that can be found in works by Kis, from his first novels, where the influence is more subdued, through numerous references in A tomb for Boris Davidovich, to the already clearly Borgesian stories of The Encyclopaedia of the Dead.

ПАСТИШ ЯК ПРИЙОМ ЖАНРОВОЇ ТРАНСФОРМАЦІЇ РОМАНУ «АДЕПТ» В. ЄШКІЛЄВА ТА О. ГУЦУЛЯКА

In the article the heterogeneous structure of the novel Adept of V. Yeshkilev and O. Hutsuliak is in focus, the composition of this alternative history novel from the fragments of earlier texts, including Life of Alexis, the man of God, Milorad Pavic’s novel Dictionary of the Khazars and other are studied. It was defined that in the structure of the novel: different intertextual elements such as allusions, quotations, imitations of different genre samples (chronicle, the confession, vision, hagiography, historical novel, adventure novel, etc.) are combined; the concepts of word, number, alphabet, Khazaria and steppe are actualized; the nonlinear and fragmented organization of the text is adhered; the combination of elements of mass and elitist literature is immanent. The author proves that a pastiche serves as the technique of transformation of historical and autodocumentary prose into the genre of postmodern quasi-historical novel, more specifically the alternative history, based on the mythologizing of history, attention to the missed opportunities, deconstruction of the causality of the events, rhizomatic features.

Posts and Pasts: A Theory of Postcolonialism (review)

KEVIEWS into a discussion ofburial rituals as well as a careful account ofthe Orientalist paléographie work ofthe 1870s. Each chapter within the three sections hinges on a surprising and productivejuxtaposition that combines comparisons between texts that share a historical connection with those whose connection is forged in the reader's mind. After the chapter centering on the Assyrian epic comes one that emerges from a reading ofAztec court poetry. A third chapter is inspired by Congolese novelist Mbwil a M. Ngal's reconsideration ofViconian historiography in the 1970s. After the chapters on circulation, Damrosch then undertakes the matter of translation. Using as his starting point an ancient Egyptian lyric, he moves from assessing "the complex dynamics oftransmission" to laying out with care the "irreducible problems that translation always faces" (147). With two further prime examples, the visions ofthe thirteenth century German mystic Mechthild von Magdeburg and the "littérature mineure" ofDeleuze's Kafka, Damrosch presents the complex network oflinguistic and cultural exchanges which both challenge and enrich the process of translation and the text itself. The final third of the book involves dissemination, the ways in which works have and might travel. The case of P.G. Wodehouse's international marketing success epitomizes Damrosch's theory that a key element in becoming world literature is the extent to which an author has "subtly delocalized" (212) his text thereby making translation itselfonly a further step in an already undertaken circulation. With Wodehouse, Rigoberta Menchu, and Milorad Pavic as his foci, he suggests that some texts are worldly from their very inscription. Throughoutthis "masterwork," ifone dare use such a term, Damrosch engages with critics as varied as Northrope Frye and Edward Said and refuses, with the exception ofthe strong presence ofGerman language texts as a spine, to study any sortofregional orhistorical chauvinism. The study is entirelycollégial, whetherto the editors ofthe Norton anthologies ofworld literature or to critics ofparticular authors. This is no small achievement in the often competitive and market-driven world ofmaking and distributing anthologies. Beyond its clarity and grace ofstyle, its breadth and depth ofknowledge, Damrosch's book is not only humanistic in the best and widest sense, it is also humane, profoundly concerned with how we read, think, and teach about literature. One would expect exactly such an approach form the author of We Scholars in a text that enables and refines the work ofreaders as different as endowed chairs ofliterature and sophomore undergraduates. Elizabeth M. Richmond-GarzaUniversityofTexas atAustin ALFRED LOPEZ. Posts andPasts: A Theory ofPostcolonialism. Albany: State University ofNew York Press, 2001. 274 pp. In her now seminal essay "The Angel ofProgress," Anne McClintock inaugurated the criticism of the concept-word "postcolonial" by doubting that the world's countries "share a single 'common past', or a single common 'condition,' called 'the postcolonial condition'." She was also wary ofthe fact that "the term 'postcolonialism ' is, in many cases, prematurely celebratory" (Social Text 10.2-3 [1992]: 87). In his remarkable first book, Posts and Pasts: A Theory ofPostcolonialism, Alfred J. López opens with a reexamination of many similar criticisms that followed, arguing against the postcolonial as a concept /academic practice, which he groups under three headings: a) "objections to the term 'postcoloniaP as a Vole 28 (2004): 158 THE COMPAKATIST discreet epistemological category"; b) "questions ofpostcolonial agency and the subaltern"; and c) "questions ofpostcolonial hybridity and the critique of hegemony ," which interrogates the efficacy ofpostcolonial academic discourse and its role in relation to colonial and neocolonial discourse. These criticisms, López argues, share "the conviction that postcolonial studies unnecessarily privilege Western theorizations at the expense ofa politics ofresistance." López counters with a defense ofthe postcolonial both as a useful heuristic and as a discipline. Again, he structures his response to criticism around three claims: a) the postcolonial goes beyond the economic and the historical to encompass class, gender, race, ethnicity, language, and geography; b) "the postcolonial is not simply an idealism or an essentialism"; and c) "at its best, postcolonialism does not lack historical specificity." It soon becomes evident that the book sides with theorists who speak for those "third spaces" where subjectivities are not easily fixated, especially in terms of dualities. For López...

Les éléments du folklore slave dans la littérature contemporaine serbe : Milorad Pavić, le Dictionnaire khazar

Elements of Slavic Folklore in Serbian Contemporary Literature : Milorad Pavic’s Novel The Khazar Dictionary Pavić's poetic form comprises elements of mythical perception, especially with regard to spatial logic and the use of subconscious energy. The mystification of the poetic image is, moreover, obtained by introducing elements from Slavic mythology and folklore. In his novel The Khazar Dictionary, we note the interaction between the author' s poetic imagination and elements of Slavic mythology. His taste for ambivalence and the incertitude of the subconscious and of dreams is consistent with the nature of pagan divinities. This link is evident, notably with regard to the incorporation of figures from popular Slavic traditions into the realm of dreams. For the fantastic element of Pavić's novel derives from human fears when faced with the unexplained phenomena which the mind translates into demons and which lie buried in the subconscious as a natural heritage of human experience (archetypes). This heritage, full of the ambiguity and incertitude present in dreams, is evoked by the author who creates his own vision of a world of magical realism. Thanks to the demons, ghouls, witches, chthonian animals, ail of which constitute, according to Slavic mythology, the true reality he gives a new interpretation of this subconscious energy. The mystification of the poetic image in Pavić's novel may be interpreted as a return to the primary and essential sources of the perception of the world, which survives in folklore and popular tradition.

Introduction to "James Joyce's Ulysses in Hypermedia"

Introduction to “James Joyce’s Ulysses in Hypermedia” Michael Groden (bio) Computer-based hypertext linked its way into literary studies about a decade ago, causing a certain rethinking and repositioning of such works as Joyce’s Ulysses. (“Hypertext” can be defined, following Ilana Snyder, as “a structure composed of blocks of text connected by electronic links” which “offers different pathways to users.” 1 “Hypermedia” is hypertext involving other media in addition to words: sound, visuals, video, animation, and the like.) In Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing, Jay David Bolter describes Ulysses and Finnegans Wake as “hypertexts that have been flattened out to fit on the printed page,” and he names one section of his book “the hypertexts of James Joyce.” 2 George Landow calls such books as Ulysses an “implicit hypertext in nonelectronic form” and argues that “a work conventionally considered complete, such as Ulysses . . . would immediately become ‘incomplete’” in a hypertext structure. 3 Of course, these sweeping statements and descriptions can be countered quite easily, but they also point to some potentially fascinating developments. In the light of hypertext, scholars have highlighted certain aspects of earlier literary works and reorganized past works into new arrangements. Bolter argues that the literary past needs to be “reconsidered in the light of the electronic medium,” 4 and he places such authors as Laurence Sterne, Joyce, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, and Milorad Pavic in what he calls “the tradition of experiment.” 5 Christopher Keep, Tim McLaughlin, and Robin Parmar create [End Page 359] a similar canon that they name “the non-linear tradition in English,” 6 and other critics refer to pre-hypertexts, proto-hypertexts, anticipations of hypertext, or Landow’s “implicit” hypertexts. An extreme teleological view even sees these writers as producers of electronic hypertexts in all but medium: “it is as if these authors had been waiting for the computer to free them from print.” 7 A more print-based work than Ulysses is hard to imagine. And yet the terms used to describe hypertext—associative, multi-pathed, nonlinear (or, much better, multilinear)—echo Joyce’s interior monologue techniques in Ulysses, in which details connect across hundreds of pages and readers progress through the masses of information in various ways, ranging from reading the text straight through to jumping around in the book (or simply skipping sections) to moving back and forth between the text and secondary materials. The possibility of seeing Ulysses in relation to its many stages of compositional development—something that hypertext can facilitate 8 —leads Bolter to call the published Ulysses a “flattened” hypertext, and the large amount of accompanying explanatory, critical, and scholarly material—all of which can be presented in the same electronic space as the text of Ulysses—inspire Landow to call Ulysses “incomplete.” “James Joyce’s Ulysses in Hypermedia” grows out of and explores the possible connections between Ulysses and hypertext by presenting Joyce’s book in an electronic hypermedia format. The full text of Ulysses will be included, we hope in several of its printed versions. Specific words and phrases will be linked to definitions and annotations, extended analyses and commentary, photographs, videos, maps, songs, an oral pronunciation guide, and audio readings from works that are quoted or cited in the text. Broader sections of Ulysses will be linked to several translations of The Odyssey and other literary works that lie behind Ulysses, biographical and historical background documents, a complete oral reading of Ulysses, film and video excerpts from the book, and critical and scholarly books and articles—all coordinated whenever possible to the passage of Ulysses on the screen. Users will be able to bookmark their place and leave notes for future use. The presentation takes full advantage of the computer screen’s aesthetic possibilities and allows the simplest possible ways of navigating through the vast amounts of available material so that users ranging from beginners to scholars can find what they want without being burdened by overly advanced or elementary information. The contents of the hypermedia Ulysses fall into thirteen broad categories: 1. The text of Ulysses, ideally in several of its printed versions. 2. Published and newly written definitions, annotations, and commentaries...

Postmodernism as Nightmare: Milorad Pavic's Literary Demolition of Yugoslavia

Postmodernism as Nightmare: Milorad Pavic's Literary Demolition of Yugoslavia