East Central European Prose: Călin Mihăilescu

East-Central European Prose (CL 793b)

Jan. – Apr. 2008, Mondays 1:30 - 4:30, SH 3359

Instructor: Călin Mihăilescu

cmihails@uwo.ca; tel. 661-2111 ext. 85862

Course Description

The prose written throughout the twentieth century in the countries caught between Germany and Russia (the Balkans included), as multiple and telling as it is mind boggling, is an object of study worthy of original reflection.

The course inquires into Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian and Albanian long and short prose, and aims at presenting cultural traditions which, while alien to most, are fundamental to the understanding of twentieth-century literature. The authors studied include, Cioran, Čapek, Esterházy, Gombrowicz, Hašek, Hrabal, Jelinek, Kadare, Kiš, Kundera, and Naum. Secondary literature includes a large array of critical, historical, political and philosophical works.

Jan. 7 Introduction to borders: Baltic to Adriatic, Germany to Ukraine

Jan. 14 Theory, history; then, from Hašek on

Jan. 21 Jaroslav Hašek, The Good Soldier Švejk and his Fortunes in the

World War

Jan. 28 Karel Čapek, RUR

Feb. 4 Witold Gombrowicz, Ferdydurke

Feb. 11 Kadare, The General of the Dead Army

Mar. 3 E.M. Cioran, Short History of Decay

Mar. 10 Danilo Kiš, The Encyclopedia of the Dead

Mar. 14 Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Mar. 17 Gellu Naum, Zenobia

Mar. 28 Elfriede Jelinek, Lust

Mar. 31 Péter Esterházy,

Apr. 4 Milorad Pavić, The Dictionary of the Khazars

Apr. 5 Bohumil Hrabal, I Served the King of England

Apr. 7 Conclusion

Bibliography

Primary texts

Čapek, Karel. Hordubal; Meteor; An Ordinary Life. Trans. M.&R. Weatherall Highland Park, NJ: Catbird Press, 1990

Eliade, Mircea. “La ţigănci.” 1945. La ţigănci şi alte povestiri. Bucuresti: EPL, 1969. 441–79. Trans. William Ames Coates as “With the Gypsy Girls.” Tales of the Sacred and Supernatural. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981

Esterházy, Péter, Harmonia cælestis. Translated as Celestial Harmonies by Judith Sollosy. Toronto : HarperFlamingoCanada, 2004

Gombrowicz, Witold. Ferdydurke. Trans. Eric Mosbacher; intro. Czesław Miłosz. London: Penguin, 1986

Hašek, Jaroslav. Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války. 3 vols. Prague: ROH, 1921–22. Trans. Cecil Parrott as The Good Soldier Švejk and his Fortunes in the World War. London: Penguin, 1973

Hrabal, Bohumil. A Close Watch on the Trains. Transl. (of Ostre sledované vlaky) by Edith Pargeter. London: Cape, 1968; ISBN: 0224613758

Kadare, Ismail. Gjenerali i ushtrisë së vdekur. Tirana: Naim Frashëri, 1963. Trans. Derek Coltman as The General of the Dead Army. New York: New Amsterdam, 1991

Kiš, Danilo. Bašta, pepeo. 1965. Beograd: BIGZ, 1995. Trans. William J. Hannaher as Garden, ashes. London: Faber & Faber, 1985

___. Enciklopedija mrtvih. Zagreb: Globus, 1983. Trans. Michael Henry Heim as The Encyclopedia of the Dead. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1989

Klíma, Ivan, Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light. Trans. Paul Wilson. New York: Grove Press, 1993

Kundera, Milan. The Joke. Trans. David Hamblyn and Oliver Stallybrass.
London: Macdonald, 1969

Naum, Gellu, Zenobia. Trans. James Brook and Sasha Vlad. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1995

Secondary literature (selective)

Ambros, Veronica. “On the Waves of Avantgarde. From Hašek to Nezval.” Avantgardistische Literatur aus dem Raum der (ehemaligen) Donaumonarchie (Avant-garde Literature from the Territory of the [former] Danube Monarchy). Ed. Eva Reichmann. St. Ingbert: Röhrig, 1997. 46–62

Babeţi, Adriana. Dilemele Europei centrale (The Dilemmas of Central Europe). Timişoara: Mirton, 1998 (translated excerpts)

Bakić-Hayden, Milica. “Nesting Orientalism: The Case of Former Yugoslavia.” Slavic Review 54. 4 (1995): 917–31

Bavčar, Eugen. “Écrire slovène à Trieste” (Slovene Writing in Trieste). Italo Svevo et Trieste. Ed. Centre George Pompidou. Paris: CGP, 1987. 223–36.

Bibesco, Marthe. Au bal avec Marcel Proust (In the Ballroom with Marcel Proust). 5th ed. Paris: Gallimard, 1928

Canetti, Elias. The Tongue Set Free. Remembrance of a European Childhood. Trans. Ioachim Neugroschel. 1977. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1999

Carter, Francis W., Peter Jordan and Violette Rey, eds. Central Europe after the Fall of the Iron Curtain: Geopolitical Perspectives, Spatial Patterns and Trends. Frankfurt/M.: Lang, 1996

Cioran, E.M. History and Utopia. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Seaver, 1987. Trans. of Histoire et utopie. Paris: Gallimard, 1960.

Davies, Norman. God’s Playground: A History of Poland. New York: Columbia UP, 1982.

Deleuze, Giles, and Félix Guattari. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. Trans. Dana Polan. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1986

Demetz, Peter. Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City. New York: Hill and Wang, 1997

Ehrenburg, Ilya. Lyudy, gody, zhizn’ (People, Years, Life). Novyi mir (New World) 8–10 (1960); 1–2, 9–11 (1961); 4–6 (1962); 1–3 (1963); 1–4 (1965)

Rpt. Moscow: Sovetskij. pisatel´, 1990. Trans. Tatiana Shebunina and Yvonne Kapp as Post-War Years: 1945–1954. New York: World, 1967

Eliade, Mircea. Autobiography. Vol.1: 1907–1937. New York: Harper and Row, 1981; Vol 2: 1937–1960. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1988

Elsie, Robert. History of Albanian Literature. 3 vols. Boulder: Social Science Monographs, 1995

Fondane, Benjamin. “L’homme devant l’histoire ou le bruit et la fureur” (Man Facing History, or the Noise and the Rage). Cahiers du Sud 18 (1939): 441–54

Foucault, Michel. “Of Other Spaces.” Diacritics 16 (1986): 22–27

___. “Questions on Geography.” Power/Knowledge. New York: Pantheon, 1980. 63–77

___. “Space, Knowledge and Power.” The Foucault Reader. Ed. Paul Rabinow. London: Penguin, 1984. 239–57

Gelder, Ken. Reading the Vampire. New York: Routledge, 1994

Gellner, Ernest. Nation and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1983.

Goldsworthy, Vesna. Inventing Ruritania: The Imperialism of the Imagination. New Haven: Yale UP, 1998

Gombrowicz, Witold. Cosmos. Trans. Danuta Borchardt. New Haven: Yale UP, 2005

___. Diary. 3 Vols. Ed. Jan Kott. Trans. Lillian Vallee. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1988–93

___. A Kind of Testament. Trans. Alastair Hamilton. London: Calder Boyars, 1973

Graff, Martin. Le réveil du Danube. Géopolitique vagabonde de l’Europe (The Awakening of the Danube: Geopolitical Vagabond of Europe). Strasbourg: La Nuée Bleue/DNA, 1998

History of Transylvania. Ed. Gábor Barta et al. Budapest: Akadémiai, 1994. Rev. and abr. trans. of Erdély története, ed. Béla Köpeczi et al., 1986.

Ilieşu, Petru. Timişoara: The History of a European City. Timişoara: Planetarium, 2004

Ionesco, Eugène. “The Austro-Hungarian Empire.” Cross Currents 4 (1985): 3–8

___. “La Littérature roumaine.” Clarté: Encyclopédie du présent (Clarity: Encyclopedia of the Present). Vol. 1. Paris: n. p., 1955. 5–10

___. Present Past, Past Present: A Personal Memoir. Trans. Helen R. Lane. New York: Grove, 1971

Kerekes, Gábor. “La littérature germanophone en Hongrie, des Lumières à nos jours” (Germanophone Literature in Hungary, from the Enlightenment to Our Day). Les littératures de langue allemande en Europe centrale. Des Lumières à nos jours (The German-Language Literatures in Central Europe. From the Enlightenment to the Present Day). Ed. Jacques le Rider and Fridrun Runner. Paris: PUF, 1998. 175–203

Konrád, George. Antipolitics. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984

Krleža, Miroslav. Povratak Filipa Latinovicza. 1932. Sabrana Djela. Zagreb: Zora, 1962/ The Return of Philip Latinowicz. Trans. Zora Depolo. London and New York: Quartet, 1989

Kundera, Milan. “The Tragedy of Central Europe.” The New York Review of Books 7 (26 April 1984): 33–38. Rpt. as “A Kidnapped West or a Culture Bows Out” in Granta 11 (1984): 95–118

___. Kniha smíchu a zapomnění. Toronto: Sixty-Eight Publishers, 1981. Trans. Michael Henry Heim as The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981

___. “Interview with Alain Finkielkraut.” Trans. Susan Houston. Cross Currents 2 (1982): 15–19

Longinović, Tomislav Z. Borderline Culture: The Politics of Identity in Four Twentieth-Century Slavic Novels. Fayetteville: U of Arkansas P, 1993

Magris, Claudio. Danubio. Milano: Garzanti, 1984. Trans. Patrick Creagh as Danube. London: Collins Harvill, 1989

Meštrović, Stjepan Gabriel. The Balkanization of the West: The Confluence of Postmodernism and Postcommunism. London: Routledge, 1994

Miłosz, Czesław. The History of Polish Literature. U of California P: Berkley, 1983

___. “Central European Attitudes.” Cross Currents 5 (1986): 101–108

Nemoianu, Virgil. “Learning over Class: The Case of the Central European Ethos.” Cultural Participation: Trends since the Middle Ages. Ed. Ann Rigney and Douwe Fokkema. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1993. 79–107

Todorova, Maria. Imagining the Balkans. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997

Trumpener, Katie. “The Time of the Gypsies: A ‘People without History’ in the Narratives of the West.” Appiah and Gates, Jr., 843–84

Wilson, Douglas. The Life and Times of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić 1787–1864. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1970. Rpt. Ann Arbor: U of Michgan, 1986

Wolff, Larry. Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1994

Zweig, Stefan. The World of Yesterday. 1943. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1964. Trans. of Die Welt von Gestern, Erinnerungen eines Europäers. 1942. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1947

Extra readings

Andrić, Ivo. Na Drini ćuprija. 1945. Belgrade: Prosveta, 1958. Trans. Lovett F. Edwards as The Bridge on the Drina. New York: Macmillan, 1959

Asch, Sholem. Mary. Trans. Leo Steinberg. New York: Putnam’s, 1949

Cioran, E.M. Short History of Decay. Trans. Richard Howard. London: Quartet, 1990. Trans. of Précis de décomposition. Paris: Gallimard, 1949

Duczynska, Ilona and Karl Polanyi, eds. The Plough and the Pen: writings from Hungary, 1930-1956; foreword W.H. Auden. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1963

___. Noaptea de Sânziene. Paris: Ioan Cusa, 1971. Trans. Mac Linscott Ricketts and Mary Park Stevenson as The Forbidden Forest. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 1978

Kadare, Ismail. Dosja H. Tirana: Naim Frashëri, 1990. Trans. David Bellos as The File on H. New York: Arcade, 1998

Sholem Aleykhem. Favorite Tales of Sholem Aleichem. Trans. Julius and Frances Butwin. New York: Avenel, 1983

Stanev, Emilian. The Peach Thief (also The Last Journey, by D. Talev, Land, by E. Pelin, and My Father, by P. Vezhinov). Trans. Radost Pridham and Jean Morris. London: Cassell, 1968

Gombrowicz, Witold. Three Novels. New York: Grove Press, 1978

___. Princess Ivona. Trans. Krystyna Griffith-Jones and Catherine Robins. London: Calder & Boyars, 1969

___. Trans-Atlantyk. Trans. by Carolyn French and Nina Karsov; intro. Stanislaw Baranczak. New Haven: Yale UP, 1994

___. Polish Memories. Trans. Bill Johnston. New Haven: Yale UP, 2004

Hrabal, Bohumil. Too Loud a Solitude. Transl. (of Prílis hlucná samota) by Michael Henry Heim. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990 ISBN: 015190491X

___. I Served the King of England. Transl. (of Jak jsem obsluhoval anglického krále) by Paul Wilson. London: Chatto & Windus, 1989 ISBN: 0701134623

___. Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age. Transl. (of Tanecní hodiny pro starsí a pokrocilé) by Michael Henry Heim. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1995

ISBN: 0156002329 (pbk.)

Kadare, Ismail. Koncert në fund të dimrit. Tirana: Naim Frashëri, 1988. Trans Barbara Bray as The Concert. New York: Morrow, 1994

___. Kronikë në gur. Roman. Tirana: Naim Frashëri, 1971. Trans. Arshi Pipa as Chronicle in Stone. London: Serpent’s Tail; New York: Meredith, 1987

___. Nëpunësi i pallatit të ëndrrave. In Emblema e dikurshme. Tregime e novela. Tirana: Naim Frashëri, 1981. 269–440. Trans. Barbara Bray as The Palace of Dreams. New York: Morrow; London: Harvill, 1993

___. Piramida. 1992. Tirana: Çabej MÇM, 1995. Trans. David Bellos as The Pyramid. New York: Vintage, 1998

___. Ura me tri harqe. Triptik me një intermexo. Tirana: Naim Frashëri, 1978. Trans. John Hodgson as The Three-Arched Bridge. Franklin, NY: New Amsterdam, 1995

Kaffka, Margit. Hangyaboly. Serialized in Nyugat I (1917): 14–28, 164–177, 291–303, 364–377, 467–493, 546–562. Rpt. Budapest: Franklin-Társulat, 1948. Trans. Charlotte Franklin as The Ant Heap. London: Boyars, 1995

Istrati, Panait. Viaţa lui Adrian Zografi/La Vie d’Adrien Zograffi (The Life of Adrian Zograffi). 1938. Bucharest: Minerva, 1983

Kafka, Franz. Letters to Milena. Ed. Willy Haas. Trans. Tania and James Stern. New York: Schocken, 1962

___. The Trial. Trans. Willa and Edna Muir. New York: Vintage, 1969

Kiš, Danilo. “Birth Certificate.” Cross Currents 7 (1988): 347–48

___. Homo Poeticus. Essays and Interviews. Ed. with an Introduction Susan Sontag. Trans. Ralph Manheim. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1995

___. Grobnica za Borisa Davidovica: Sedam poglavlja jedne zajedničke povesti. Zagreb: Liber, 1976. Trans. Duska Mikić-Mitchell as A Tomb for Boris Davidovich. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978

___. Hourglass. Trans. of Peščanik by Ralph Manheim. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1990

___. Mansarda. 1962. Beograd: Slovo ljubve, 1977

___. Peščanik. 1972. Beograd: BIGZ, 1995

___. Porodični cirkus (Family Circus): Rani jadi -- Bašta, pepeo -- Peščanik. Preface Mirjana Miočinović. Belgrade: Srpska književna zadruga, 1993

___. Psalam 44 (Psalm 44). 1962. Zagreb: Globus/Beograd: Prosveta, 1983

___. Rani Jadi. 1969. Zagreb: Globus; Beograd: Prosveta, 1983. Trans. Michael Henry Heim as Early Sorrows: for Children and Sensitive Readers. New York: New Directions, 1998

___. “Variations on the Theme of Central Europe.” Cross Currents 6 (1987): 1–14

___. “Život, Literatura.” Život, Literatura. Beograd: BIGZ, 1995. 9–32. Trans. Ralph Manheim as “Life, Literature.” Homo Poeticus 231–51

Kommer, Rudolf. Stories from the Vienna Café or Hungary and the New York Times. New York: Vital Issue Co., 1915

Mendele, Mokher Sefarim. Tales of Mendele the Book Peddler. Ed. Dan Miron and Ken Frieden. New York: Schocken, 1996

Miłosz, Czesław. Beginning with My Streets: Essays and Recollections. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1991

Reymont, Władysław Stanislaw. Chłopi. 4 vols. Warsaw: Gebethner i Wolff, 1902–09. Trans. as The Peasants. New York: Knopf, 1924–25

Sadoveanu, Mihail. Creanga de aur. Bucharest: Cartea Românească, 1933. Trans. Eugenia Farca as The Golden Bough. Bucharest: Minerva, 1981