„Did postmodern start here?”

Additional information about the evolution of literary consciousness in the bigger region of Trieste–Szombathely–Kőszeg–Vienna–Prague during late modernism

Abstract

Researchers have always been interested in the questions of literary regions, although – with few exceptions – this point of view has never become a priority part of literature or the teaching of literature (it has been part of the latter one since 2005, the introduction of the two level matura exam). The author builds his statement hypothetically on 20th century canonical works of art of world literature (Joyce, Musil, Rilke), or rather their poetic similarities, according to which one of the cradles of literary modernity could be the cultural channel of the Amber Road spanning over Europe, and Hungarian literature is its organic part as well – mainly by means of Géza Ottlik’s novel entitled Iskola a határon. Ottlik’s work of art processes the period (1923–1926), in which the characteristics of postmodern poetry appeared characteristically: coordination, parallel points of view, the break-up of timelines etc. For example the „Bay of Trieste” (Joyce, Ottlik) becomes the cradle of modernity in a way that the road spans from Duino (Rilke) over Trieste and Szombathely (Joyce), furthermore Kőszeg (Ottlik) to Vienna (Musil) and Prague (Kafka). A series of thematic problems can be highlighted (among other things), like for example the possible point of view of „military school author”-s; which is essentially the determinant point of view of a literary scholar creating in the same period together with them, that is the military school-texts determined by their „chronotopos” feature (Bahtyin). The main hypothesis indicated in the title („Did postmodern start...”) may as well be said to be exaggerated or playful, but the author hopes that his point of view can contribute to the interpretation of the poetic world of the small period concerned with some additional information.