Slovenska Literatura (Feb 2012)
The motif of Palánk in the poetics of Ballek´s Agáty /Black Locusts/
Abstract
The study deals with a partial subject of poetics, which Ladislav Ballek applied in his artistically most interesting work Agáty (1981, Black Locusts). It focuses on the transformation of spacetime (the town of Palánk), in terms of genre a varied epic reality, which develops a personal element (a town as a protagonist). The function change of the mentioned elements of Agáty´s motif structure is regarded as a result of a long-term process, which is obvious from the analysis of the poetics typical of the novella collection Južná pošta (1974, Southern post) and the novel Pomocník (1977, Assistant), which are both related to Agáty through their spacetime settings and migration of the characters. The summary of the original literary-critical findings, responding to Ballek´s novel poetics metamorphoses, is extended by both poetological analysis of the titles and chapter titles found in the Palánk series (primary signals of the outlined process) and identification of a pattern-like nature of the spacetime organization of the prose Palánk – štvrť mačiek (Cat quarter, part 1 in the novel Agáty), which is applicable throughout the opus. This example is used to demonstrate ambivalence and dynamic nature of spacial parameters as well as the fact the use of them in the motif axes of characters (personificability) or spacetime is predetermined by the narrative strategy. It presents personification mechanisms in Pomocník and Agáty and the semantic results showing the artistic variety of both authors´ contexts and the prose in the 1970s and 1980s as a whole.
