PERSPECTIVES OF DETACHMENT IN CONTEMPORARY HUNGARIAN LITERATURE – COMPARATIVE LITERARY ANALYSES

Abstract

The title of the dissertation (Perspectives of detachment in contemporary Hungarian literature – comparative literary analyses) was inspired by the texts that were consciously selected and analysed during the research. The interpretations focus on the characters and the aspects of marginality, furthermore on the theoretical differentiation between the concepts of strangeness and detachment. Detachment can be interpreted as a hypernym, that creates a framework where representation and self representation both have significant roles. Contemporary Hungarian literary texts that intertwine with literary traditions are the focal point of the research. For example take Seven Pennies, a short story by Zsigmond Móricz written in 1908. The text enables the interpretation of the beggar character in the Hungarian literature, making the intertextual analysis of the ‚beggar’ essential in present-day Hungarian literature. The paper examines the beggar, the homeless, and the adopted child characters as outsiders, at the same time problematic aspects of the broken home, marginality, and the lowlife existence, respectively the theoretical approaches and world literary connections of these tropes and topics. The works of Julia Kristeva, Jacques Derrida, Gordon Willard Allport, Gérard Genette, Enikő Darabos, Zsuzsa Tapodi, Slavoj Žižek, Antal Bókay, István Fried, Vladimir Gvozden and other authors provide the theoretical background for the thesis. The subject of the research are the problem and theoretical perspective of detachment, while the primary means of analysis is the comparative method. As a result the complexity of the concept of detachment can be revealed, additionally the variety of the examined characters. Based on these the paper aims to work out a typology, since such a comparative research, as well as a classification has not yet been completed regarding contemporary Hungarian literary texts.