Čas a priestor, subjekt a pamäť. Malé veľké mesto Kataríny Kucbelovej
Time and Space, Subject and Memory. Katarína Kucbelová’s Malé veľké mesto [Little big city]

Summary/Abstract: The article offers an interpretation of Malé veľké mesto ([Little big city] 2008), the third book of poetry/long poem by the contemporary Slovak poet and writer Katarína Kucbelová (1979), the author of four books of poetry and a novella. From the point of view of poetics, Malé veľké mesto is a transitional text, a breaking point in the development of the author’s style. The book embodies a change towards a more concrete way of expression and contains topics, motives and language typical of Kucbelová’s later works. The article tackles two mutually intertwined aspects of the poem – the city and the subject. The central principle of the poem is the projection of the subject into the time and space. The city (specified as Bratislava) can be analysed from the point of view of urban studies as outlined by Olivier Mongin – through his theses on the urban situation and various forms of flows in the city and the creation of bonds with it. The issue of identity that is intimately connected with the city is read on the background of various forms the speaking subject in Katarína Kucbelová’s poetry takes. In her early work, the subject focuses on biological and physical traits, later she moves onto the analysis of her individualised experience complex and, finally, in her fourth book of poetry Vie, čo urobí ([He knows what he will do] 2012), the subject turns her attention to the society. A discussion of Malé veľké mesto illustrates the gradual abandonment of the fragmented (non)subject bearing traces of postmodernist subjectivity and a move towards a more decisive delineation of the boundaries of an individual.

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