Primerjalna književnost

RAZPRAVE

Terry Eagleton: Culture wars   1

Vladimir Biti: Identiteta   11

Nadežda Starikova: K vprašanju tipologije zgodovinskega romana   23

Janez Vrečko: Orkestra, scena in Ahil   35

Miha Pintarič: Arabci in trubadurji   53

Lado Kralj: Teorija drame (Jelka Kernev Štrajn)   75

Marko Juvan: Intertekstualnost (Tomo Virk)   83

Terry Eagleton: CULTURE WARS

University of Oxford, Oxford

Summary: Kultura danes niha med estetsko-normativnim in antropološko-opisnim pomenom, med univerzalizmom in partikularizmom. Estetska ideja kulture se je na Zahodu od razsvetljenstva znatno preoblikovala: funkcionirala je kot utopična kritika civilizacije in vodila v spoznanje o nujnosti radikalnih družbenih sprememb; Herder in nemški idealizem sta omajala razsvetljenski univerzalizem s predstavo, da je kultura razločevalen, tradicijsko-etnični način življenja; zahodni imperializem se je soočal z množico tujih oblik življenja in iskal potrdilo za svoje lastne privilegije; kulturna industrija, značilna za sodobno družbo, je simbolno produkcijo vključila v blagovno proizvodnjo, pojem kultura pa se je vpletel še v politike vzpostavljanja identitete (od feminizma do revolucionarnega nacionalizma). Nekdanja ideja o kulturi kot soglasju in duhovnem preseganju vsega posvetnega in razlikovalnega je zato v krizi. Kultura je postala arena spopadov. Kaže se kot vojna med Kulturo in kulturami, tj. med domnevno splošno veljavno omiko in vrednotami najrazličnejših načinov življenja. Čeprav je Kultura sama kulturno pogojena (je Zahodna in novoveška), se ima za implicitni standard vrednotenja kultur. Kulture niso kultivirane, temveč so izrazito, celo bojevito partikularne. Konflikt med Kulturo in kulturami je tudi spopad med Zahodom, ki se ima za nosilca univerzalizma (“natovska visoka kultura”, po F. Jamesonu), in nacionalizmom, regionalizmom, nativizmom itn. ostalega sveta. Kulturni spopad poteka tudi znotraj transnacionalnih korporacij: bolj ko se univerzalnost prazni v sinonim za globalizacijo, bolj patološke so kulturne obrambe pred njo. Zahod po ošibitvi vloge klasičnih nacionalnih držav svojim transnacionalnim političnim formam neuspešno išče primerne kulturne korelative.

Kultura v normativnem pomenu se znotraj postmoderne sooča z množično kulturo in razmahom raznovrstnih identitetnih politik. Bolj ko postmoderna tržna kultura prodira v svet, bolj intenzivno se išče duhovno legitimizacijo zanjo. Relativizem postmoderne kulture pa ruši ravno trdne vrednote Kulture, s katerimi bi tržna kultura hotela kriti svoje delovanje. Zahod si na politični ravni ne more privoščiti skeptičnega post-metafizičnega ozračja, čeprav ga sam proizvaja in z njim izvotljuje visoko retoriko svojih lastnih idejnih temeljev. Stremi namreč h globalni avtoriteti in se sooča s sovražniki, ki imajo za sabo močnejše legitimizacijske sestave, npr. islam. Kriza zahodne kulture je povezana tudi z neuspehom religije v kontekstu industrijskega kapitalizma, brezobzirne sekularizacije in racionalizacije. Kultura ni mogla zdržati vloge nadomestka religije, kakršno je imela od 19. st. naprej. V nasprotju z religijo je ostala omejena na manjšine in specialna področja.

Avtor se v polemiki s postmodernim kulturalizmom zavzema za vnovičen premislek univerzalističnega razumevanja kulture. To je bilo sprva, v obzorju razsvetljenstva, revolucionarna in radikalna ideja – vrednote svobode, enakosti, spoštovanja in samoodločbe so pripadale človeku ne glede na rod, razred, poreklo in druge partikularnosti, na katerih je temeljil stari režim. Marx je razsvetljenski univerzalizem povezal z romantičnim partikularizmom, a tako, da je vse, kar je posebno, obenem konstitutivno odprto in diferencialno. Kolikor kultura funkcionira kot psevdoreligiozna tolažba zaradi meje, ki jo človeški vrsti postavlja narava s smrtjo, lahko postane preveč intimna in morbidna. Zato jo je treba postaviti v razsvetljeni politični kontekst, v katerem se njena neposrednost kanalizira v abstraktnejše povezave.

Vladimir Biti: IDENTITETA

Filozofski fakultet, Zagreb

Čeprav so identiteto že v strukturalizmu izvajali iz razlike, so sami strukturalisti to razliko spet spreminjali v identiteto v obliki tim. binarnih opozicij. Zato se preučevanje pojma identiteta v tem članku odpira šele s tistimi teoretskimi smermi, za katere razlika ni več predmet, temveč pogoj možnosti spoznanja. Če svet imenujemo edino tako, da vanj uvajamo razliko, potem so vse identitete zasnovane na izključevanju, čeprav se skuša to na različne načine prikriti. Besedilo kaže različne posledice tega uvida za tvorbo nacionalne, politične in kulturne identitete.

Identity. Although in structuralism identity has been determined from difference, strucfturalists themselves have kept changing this difference into identity in the form of so-called binary oppositions. Therefore, the study of the notion of identity in this article opens only with those theoretical orientations for which difference is no longer the subject, but the condition of the ability of awareness. If we designate the world only by introducing difference into it, then all identities are based on elimination, although this is disguised in various ways. The paper shows the consequences of such an insight for the formation of national, political and cultural identities.

Summary: This paper is a critical reconstruction of arguments relating to one of the most topical questions of modern theory from psychoanalytical, deconstructionist, post-structuralist, feminist, post-colonial critiques, and the so-called queer theory. The fundamental thesis is that difference is a condition of the non-ability of identity, so its delimitation is at the same time both necessary and impossible. The problem is that we are faced with the creation of a certain identity, as a condition of existence of that which succumbs to identification, to the detriment of another identity from which, although unintentionally, the former removes the right to speech (and therefore existence). The compensation for an appropriated right, for example sexual, as recognised in demands for 'the union of women', necessarily removes some other identity, one, for instance which enables the existence of differences occurring within the same sex, such as differences in skin colour, class, sexuality, and so on. It is this that in every achieved identity, be it personal, national, political or cultural, opens up the cave of deprived otherness and keeps the process of identification in constant movement.

Nadežda Starikova: K VPRAŠANJU TIPOLOGIJE ZGODOVINSKEGA ROMANA

Univerza V. Lomonosov, Moskva

Janez Vrečko: ORKESTRA, SCENA IN AHIL

Filozofska fakulteta, Ljubljana

Summary: Aristotle’s statement that the chorus belongs in the orchestra and the actors belong on stage illustrates an important change in the architecture of the Greek theatre, as the brief, humorous, ritual choral song of Dionysius, performed in the middle of a flat area surrounded by a hill, was extended and its tone became serious. For this, a set, a new place for the actors of the tragedy, was needed in the theatre. There would be no room for an individual who had stepped away from the whole in the circular design of the orchestra, he would need a place outside the link of the circle, in the linear course of the tragic historicism on stage. There, Dionysius becomes a heroic character of a tragically dying winner, to whom resurrection from death will no longer be given. Bringing heroes such as Oedipus, Philoctetes, Ajax and others into the tragedy is, in addition to the dithyramb and the satyr play, the third important element which shaped the image of the tragedy and the architecture of the place where it was performed.

This paper aims to show that it was already Achilles, the epic hero, who transcended the magical line between the orchestra and the scene and thus broke the epic world of totality, which would correspond to Aristotle's equating Homer and Sophocles.

Had the architectural proto-image of the Greek theatre, which will later be claimed by tragedy, not appeared already in the case of Achilles? Achilles’ anger becomes powerlessness because of his own mortality, an obsession with death; while Homer’s poetry willfully transforms the myth, which needs to be changed if Achilles is to be understood in such a way. Instead of epic heroism, Homer introduced tragic heroism, which is reflected in many references to Achilles, reserved for the dead in heroic times, but used to refer to the living hero by the poet. Such examples are the image of Achilles lying in front of the tent, where the verb ‘keito’, normally reserved for dead warriors, is used; Thetis, supporting her son's head, which presents the living son as dead; or the mention of Achilles' living, gigantic body (‘megas megalosti’), used to refer to the dead hero in the Odyssey. Homer is only interested in Achilles’ mortality, not in his death; he leaves that to the Odyssey and other epics. The word for anger, ‘menis’, used only for the wrath of the gods, is used of a man for the first time in the case of Achilles. Because of it, Achilles separated himself from the territory of the public and collective, and turned to the private as an individual. Homer then shows the values of the epic world, the collective and public, but also the individualised character of Achilles in the private and tragic. So far, the epic world has been understood as exclusively a world of the public, political, total, heroic. But in the Iliad, the private is put forward as well, not only as something marginal, but as the force driving, retarding and accelerating the epic action itself. Achilles creates a private space in the midst of the public, in his tent, on the fringe of the battlefield. Here, he asks himself questions not typical of the enclosed epic world, which is full of meaning. This is especially noticeable in Achilles’ answer to the three messengers, where he accepts death, which levels everybody, and the annihilation of the heroic code; the language he uses is broken, no longer that of an epic poem. Achilles obviously had no language in which he could express his disappointment, so he had to abuse the language available to him. In this, Homer went beyond the epic and entered the territory of the tragic and tragedy. In doing so, he placed Achilles on the edge, the first isolated scene before its placement within an architectural design. There was no place for Achilles on the battlefield, the orchestra. The relationship between the tragic, with a marginalised Achilles, speaking a new language, and the circular battlefield underneath, is thus similar to the relationship between the tragic hero on stage and the chorus in the orchestra of the later tragedy.

Miha Pintarič: ARABCI IN TRUBADURJI

Filozofska fakulteta, Ljubljana

Summary: L'article propose une brčve analyse des interférences possibles de la poésie hispanoarabe et de la poésie des troubadours en renvoyant études ŕquelques qui ont traité de cette problématique.

L’auteur souligne l’importance des rapports culturels entre l’Espagne musulmane et l’Occitanie chrétienne pour insister ensuite sur les rapprochements possibles des deux poésies quant ŕ leur forme, topiques et spiritualité.

Pour le côté formel, sont examinés le probleme de la rime et du rythme, muwashshah, jarchas et zadjal; qasida et gazelle sont citées en référence.

Ensuite, la typologie des personnages qui peuplent la poésie des deux côtés des Pyrénées est établie et les topiques (‘lieux communs’) sont passés en revue.

La partie consacrée aux rapprochements spirituels mentionne l’orthodoxie islamique, l’amour odhrite, Ibn Daud, Ibn Hazm et Avicenne, pour insister ensuite sur la tradition des soufis.

L’article termine en constatant qu’en dépit des rapprochements nombreux et séduisants entre la poésie des Arabes d’Espagne et celle des troubadours, l’histoire littéraire est encore loin d’avoir épuisé la passionnante question des sources arabes de la lyrique occitane.