Slovenska Literatura (Dec 2012)
The Balladic Mode As A Travesty (Dušan Kužel: Lampa)
Abstract
The study The Balladic Mode As A Travesty is an attempt to read anew the novel Lampa (Lamp) by Dušan Kužel. The novel was written in the first half of the 1970s as a brave attempt to put across an authentic message of the generation, whose textual outcome included prosaic works which were varied in terms of genre and multilayered in terms of meaning. On the one hand, the piece of writing was inspired by the influences of pop-art and pop-culture (the Western, Sci Fi, literary persiflage), on the other hand, it simultaneously refers to the inspirations by classic Romantic ballad, which is mainly represented by Janko Kráľ´s modern ballads in the context of Slovak literature. The study builds on N. Frey´s theory of mythical-archetypal interpretation of epic and poetic narratives and tries to identify analogical approaches in Kužel´s novel. This results in perceiving the piece of writing as a considerably artificial and constructed work of art, which does not lack spontaneous, up-to-date relation to serious literary assignment and enterprise, though. The ambition of the study is to identify the essential schemes of the theme, genre and topology (the myth of spring, a new beginning, topics of the demonic initiation), where Kužel´s narrative is situated. The method as well as the result of the reflection is a genre-topological interpretation of the narrative as a move on from the fixed ideological assignment to possible aesthetic innovations. This is the context where the study introduces the issue of size and reach of the literary travesty as an open and semantically productive text-forming technique. Ako citovať:
