The Poetics of Ivanjska noć [Midsummer Night] by Josip Cvrtila in the Light of Literary-Historical, Literary-Critical and Literary-Theoretical Writings Cover Image

Poetika Ivanjske noći Josipa Cvrtile u svjetlu književnopovijesne, književnokritičke i književnoteorijske literature
The Poetics of Ivanjska noć [Midsummer Night] by Josip Cvrtila in the Light of Literary-Historical, Literary-Critical and Literary-Theoretical Writings

Author(s): Vladimira Rezo
Subject(s): Croatian Literature, Theory of Literature, Sociology of Education, Pedagogy, Sociology of Literature
Published by: Hrvatska udruga istraživača dječje književnosti
Keywords: Christian viewpoint; fairy tales; fantasy; genre and subgenre hybrid; intertextuality; Ivanjska noć [Midsummer Night]; Josip Cvrtila; self-referentiality;

Summary/Abstract: As a consequence of the forcing of realist writers in children’s literature which he was not, and as a result of his absence from Croatia, the targeted concealment of his name and works due to the Christian spirit that permeated them, as well as due to his voluntary vow of silence in emigration, Josip Cvrtila is not in the focus of modern readers. The analysis of the author’s literary debut, the collection Ivanjska noć [Midsummer Night] (1922), shows Cvrtila as an anticipator of several postmodernist processes. In the realistic fairy-tale matrix, the author mixes major literary forms, genres (poetry and prose) and prose subgenres (fairy tales, fables, legends, and short stories), plays with the laws of genres, is self-referential in places, introduces real recipients into the fabric of the story (two little neighbours, Ivo and Ančica), and sometimes recounts the circumstances of the reception of certain stories (their oral presentations that preceded the version in the collection) and reveals the sources of other stories. This genre and subgenre hybrid flirts with intertextuality, brings metatextuality into focus, and announces the insatiable need of new poetics to expose the narrative process.

  • Issue Year: 12/2023
  • Issue No: 02
  • Page Range: 293-312
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: Croatian
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