Documents found
-
4.More information
With reference to the reflection on exile proposed by Edward Said, Tzvetan Todorov, etc., we focus on the ambivalence and paradox of exile in the writing of Milan Kundera: the ambiguous and complicated relations between exile and writing, and joint themes such as homeland, identity, language in his essays, as well as in his novels. Exile is perceived as suffering and as a field of fertility for the writer torn between two homelands, two cultures and two languages. Corresponding to nomadism, pluralism and the adventurous spirit of the writer, exile is thus transformed into a positive sign. If exile inevitably raises the question of identity in connection with languages, the past and the memory; it also metaphorizes the modern human destiny characterized by uprooting and instability. Under an ambiguous identity, man sets out in search of the true homeland that is art, literature. The writing of exile is an expression of identity anxieties in the face of change, but also of the need to overcome them. Art becomes the homeland, literature a true home, because it corresponds to the writer's aspiration to freedom and eternity by making works resistant to the force of time. The ambivalance of exile is a reflection of the paradox of man who goes through perpetually an identity, cultural and axiological reconstruction. The writing of exile is a reflection of his journey to find a point of equilibrium between fluidity and immutability, between deconstruction and reconstruction.
-
6.More information
Drawing on an example from one of Milan Kundera's essays on the novel, I explore in this brief essay the qualities of the sociological approach and of the sociologist's work. I chose this novelist because of his experimentations with a character that I am particularly fond of, Mister Engelbert. His “experimental ego” accompanies me while teaching; and I often think about him when delineating the contours of a sociological perspective. I am also attentive to his context, the first quarter of the 20th century in central Europe, and reflect on the form Kundera makes him use: the autobiography.
-
9.
-
10.More information
Milan Kundera's L'art du roman considers Cervantes, Richardson, Diderot, Balzac and various 20th century novelists as great innovators who helped define the novel in its modern form. Taking Kundera's argument, this article examines two types of novelistic irony. One of these, apparent in Diderot's Jacques le fataliste, stresses the impossibility of the characters to control their destiny. The other examines the ideals pursued by the protagonists and emphasizes their inability to achieve them. The destiny of Lucien Rubempré in Balzac's Illusions perdues provides an example. The second type of irony dominates Flaubert's work and becomes particularly important in the 20th century with Proust, Joyce, and Thomas Mann.