Slovenska Literatura (Jun 2013)
Subject and Madness. Peter Kompiš´s Novel Wanderings of a Great Wizard
Abstract
The study interprets the novel by Peter Kompiš Bludná púť velikého čarodeja (Wanderings of a Great Wizard, 1929) in terms of the way the literary subject in constituted in the text and in respect of the literary representation of madness. Within the context of Slovak inter-war prose I classify the novel as the theme invariant of a character breaking out of the social relationships and the inter-subjective world. I raise the question what concept of subject is assumed in the type of madness which is represented in the text. On the topological text level, the motif of madness causes the discontinuity of chronotopes, on the motif level, flying motifs (supposedly „astral travels“ of a soul set free of the body). The semantic curve of the subject transformation in the text leads from the absolute „divine“ subjet, voluntarily ruling the reality (when the character´s madness bridges the gap between self and not-self) to a subordinate, dependant subject (the character eventually becomes a slave to a mad „theatrical“ performance). This subject transformation in the text is considered to be a modernist (Modern-dependant) subject and is also found in the writings by the modernist Ján Hrušovský. The supposedly original philosophy of the literary character Rojko (Dreamer) is an inter-textual patchwork of the motifs present in the contemporary philosophies (e.g. the „super-human“ concept) as well as gnosticism and is generated, like the motifs of hallucination, by the character´s magalomaniac figment of immagination. The representation of madness in the text is enabled by Modern-Age subject constitution, which is opposed to the world and is presented as the basis and the source of the reality representation: thus the gap between self and not-self is bridged even further.
