Napuklo zrcalo (rubovima biografizma)
The Cracked Mirror (On the Egdes of Biografism)

Summary/Abstract: Under the title The Cracked Mirror (On the Edges of Biographism) the author examine s the "external conditions" of the literary work in a modern way and from various points of view. After a brief mention of ancient, humanist, and Renaissanee biographers (Plutarch, Laertius, Boccaccio, Vasari) he deals more extensively with the theorists of modern biographism as method (Sainte-Beuve) and the deflection from it (Proust), towards the textuallife of the author (Spitzer). He also deciphers several biographical enigmas (the novel by Angela Bianchini, Le nostre distanze (Our Distances), on Lowenberg-Spitzer in the Unitet States) and elucidates the historical role of some Croatian critics (Hergešić's biographism and Frangeš's stylistics). 'The Protean Sphere' of the text is supplemented by the consideration of the life - work relationship in letters, diaries and 'self-criticism', by an analysis of more recent critical biographies (Lajolo's Pavese, Siciliano's Pasolini) and by example s of autobiographies leading to the exhaustion of the sub-genre (Alfieri) and the withdrawal of the author (Foscolo). The reduction of life to a percentage and the abolishment of biographies mark 'the negative' of contemporary views (Montale, Morselli, Bigongiari), while the 'positive' of the semiologie message is less frequent (the testament character of Cavalcanti in the past and Cattafi more recently) . "Superfluous presence, suffering and redundancy in the work have reverted into - as the author puts it - absence, non-life, and text as the expression of lack, i. e. in a more favourable variant, into the metabiographical sign."

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