STYLE AND RECEPTION Cover Image

STILOGENOST I RECEPCIJA
STYLE AND RECEPTION

Author(s): Sanda Lucija Udier
Subject(s): Bosnian Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Bosansko filološko društvo
Keywords: reader; reception; stylology; diversity; novel The Fortress; Meša Selimović; figurative of diversity; cultural space;

Summary/Abstract: This paper will show how the interpretive style of a literary work is not an absolute category; on the contrary, its interpretation largely depends on the perspective of its reader. Therefore, what is considered to be stylogenetic in a literary text should be understood as a function of the reader and his or her reception of literary text. These specific theses will be shown and exemplified using the novel The Fortress written by Meša Selimović as an example. It will show how the style of that novel appears using the perspective of a Croatian audience and those of its aspects are considered as stylogenetic to this Croatian audience. Croatian readers consider the most obvious characteristics of Bosnian language in the novel The Fortress (that which is lexical and phraseological) which are different from the characteristics of the Croatian language, to be very stylogenetic. Cultural components of that novel are also stylogenetic, especially those that are atypical within context of the Croatian cultural space. Croats consider the Bosnian cultural aspects to be different and exotic from one point, but also close and a similar from another. This ambivalence is one of the reasons for the acceptance and popularity of Meša Selimović and other Bosnian authors by Croatian readers.

  • Issue Year: 1/2012
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 321-332
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: Croatian
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