FAMILY PORTRAIT IN THE LITERARY FRAME – THEMATISATION OF FAMILY IN THE NEW SERBIAN LITERATURE

Abstract

In literary criticism, the theoretical status of the family is not as homogeneous as their receptive potential might suggest at first. The family is both a motif and a wider thematic complex, a collective character in its own metonymic mirror, which is confirmed through the eponymous function, it is a literary topos, but also a chronotop, a factor of plot integration, the bearer of ideological values of the literary image of the world. Its variability is further complicated within the literary–historical context which models the poetic direction, philosophical paradigm and other different formative discourses. The concept of the family has changed throughout its long history, but it has always been the central motif / character / ideologue around which different narratives have spun. This paper approaches the literary representation of the family in the new Serbian Literature from the perspective of historical poetics. As the basic directions of this representation, mythological, religious–Christian, enlightenment, romantic, realistic, modernist and contemporary, postmodernist viewpoints are highlighted. The discussion also includes the thematization of the family in Serbian oral literature as well as in children’s literature. In the final part of the paper, we draw attention to the linguistic presentations of the concept of family and conceptual metaphors about the family, as well as the conflicting tendencies in current cultural practices, which indicate the scope and limitations of the narrative of family as one of the Grand Narratives.