Religio triplex as a framework model for self-referentiality in Ján Kollár’s Cestopis [Travelogue]

Abstract

The paper, employing the narratological method, examines and systematises self-referential speeches in Cestopis obsahující cestu do Horní Italie ([Travelogue containing a journey to Upper Italy] 1843) by Ján Kollár (1793 – 1852). Drawing on materials included in the kollar.elte.hu database, it maps typical forms of narrator’s self-referential speeches: the name of the author and his family members in the narration; the use and interpretation of the author’s own works in the narrative; the various forms of the author’s taste manifested in the text; the preferred literary, artistic, and architectural works he encounters or quotes; the presentation of the author’s ecclesiastical, philological, pedagogical, and other activities in the travelogue; and the narrative forms of self-referentiality that provide the narrator with the opportunity to express himself on an ideological level. The article also examines the various narrative roles which can be attributed to self-referential speeches and which point to the existence of an ideological system generally characteristic of the Enlightenment and Romantic periods in Central Europe. In this way, it reveals the characteristic features of Slavic national emblematism in the text and a certain broad system of ideas which can understood as religio triplex, which by merging revealed, natural, and national devoutness provides the narrator with a unified narrative framework.

Keywords

• ján kollár
• 19th century travelogue
• narration in travelogue
• religio duplex
• religio triplex
• narratology