Acasă Articole RTR Marele Contemporan sau farsorul avangardist. Arhetipul trickster-ului regăsit în romanul Cocktail
Marele Contemporan sau farsorul avangardist. Arhetipul trickster-ului regăsit în romanul Cocktail
Rezumat
The Great Contemporary Man or The Avant-Garde Prankster: The Trickster Archetype Found in The Cocktail Novel
Abstract: This paper aims to review the novel Cocktail, Victor Valeriu Martinescu’s most prominent work from the perspective of the trickster’s archetypal persona. I provide context in regard to the writer’s marginal position both in the general Romanian literary space and within the local literary avant-garde. In order to understand Victor Valeriu Martinescu’s position of otherness and marginality, I highlight the means of operation of the literary trickster in order to denounce the modern society of the first half of the 20th century. The case of Victor Valeriu Martinescu is relevant because the author’s profile has remained obscure, although he represents the most radical form of avant-garde prose of the period, with a profoundly anti-modern character. The trickster’s archetypal profile relies on defying readers and shattering the textual mechanisms of the Proustian novel, which is seen as a mirror of his contemporary bourgeois society. The main concept that emerges in the novel Cocktail is the ultimate farce, represented by its disregard of literary norms. In a manner similar to postmodernism, the text blends several literary genres such as the novel, essay, drama, etc., while at the same time also exhibiting an author-narrator-character mix-up. The trickster archetype acts in the dichotomy between good and evil, because on the one hand it destroys the literary convention, and on the other it gets to innovate through a bold literary experiment. Given that Victor Valeriu Martinescu’s reception is almost non-existent, the novelty of this research is based on the recovery of an archetypal figure lost in obscurity.
Key Words: Victor Valeriu Martinescu, avant-garde, trickster, farce, literary convention.
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