American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

Review
Reviewed Work(s): The Art of the Word, 1957-1967 by Zdenko Škreb
Review by: Anthony M. Mlikotin
Source: The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Autumn, 1971), pp. 391-394
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/306852
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 Reviews 391

Another way the editors have made the book difficult for read
set a policy as to the sort of reader they wish to reach. If they are a
arly audience, it ought to have a bibliography and more than a Pe
index. If they are aiming it at a more general audience, it ought to i
involved with greater precision. To understand the impact of the
continued to be sober" on p. 37, the reader must know from past
biography that he was an inveterate carouser. Without this knowl
makes little sense. It is presumptuous to assume such knowledge in
for whom names like Ha'ek, Capek, and Fuaik are far from hou
is more, the editors assume a knowledge of French, German, and
from these languages are translated) and occasionally Czech, Sl
as well (here and there quotations from these languages too are le
As the first English-language treatment of Czechoslovak-Russian
this study contains much interesting material. Its potential has no
Perhaps a second edition will remedy the editorial inadequacies.

Michael Berman, University of Wisconsin,

Zdenko Skreb, ed. The Art of the Word, 1957-1967. Zagreb: Cr

Society, 1969. 362 pp.

The book contains seventeen articles by fourteen critics belong

Croatian or Zagreb School of Literary Criticism. The articles, tran
French, German, and Russian, were originally published in Ser
journals Pogledi 55 and Unmjetnost rijec'i. In the preface the edit
the contributors "by no means present an ideological and meth
However, "all of them would probably subscribe to the opinion
literary theory is an essential quality of a literary critic and a litera
analysis of literary text is the kind of activity all of them consider
tant, if not the most important, task of literary criticism."
The significance of this group of critics can best be understoo
the events which prec&ded their emergence. World War II, the
Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia's break with the Soviet Union, and the su
ment of Yugoslavia from both the East and the West, affected no
but also the cultural climate in the country. In the course of thes
literary criticism veered away from Soviet theories to its own co
their own theory of literature, Yugoslav critics in general and Za
ticular have focused their attention on finding a scholarly plat
make their literary theories acceptable to both their socialist con
general history of literary criticism. It is against this background th
Zagreb critics acquires a special significance for the development o
in Yugoslavia. A few articles merit special attention.
The editor is represented by two articles, one on the German c
and another entitled "Sprachstil und Stilkomplex" .(1961). In the fi
Steiger's role as one of the pioneers of Stilkritik after World Wa
ously opposed the external methods of literary analysis prevalent a
many and developed concepts and methods to deal with a work of
mous entity. Skreb accepts Steiger's ideas but does not subscrib
elimination of all historical approaches to literature. He concludes

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392 The Slavic and East European Journal

of art is both dependent and autonomous; dependent as a historical product, autono-

mous as a work of art." In the second article Skreb argues that each generation should
evaluate for itself the literary concepts passed on from previous generations. This
must be done not on the basis of a philosophy or ideology, but on the basis of "a
thoroughly new investigation of the texts." Skreb draws a distinction between the
stylistic features and what he terms stylistic complexes. While style is the most unique
feature of a literary period, literary periods often exhibit other features besides. For
example European romanticism had strong admixtures of realism and even naturalism.
In such instances, literary historians are apt to wage interminable disputes over the
dates, limits, and the exact characteristics of a literary period. Skreb thinks that in
such cases it would be more scholarly to introduce a new term and designate a literary
period as a stylistic complex. The stylistic complex would comprise all the stylistic
features of a literary period. See also my remarks on Skreb in SEEJ, 11 (1967),
333-34.
The next most prominent critic, Ivo Frange', is generally regarded as one of the
pioneers and foremost practitioners of stylistic criticism in Yugoslavia. The excellence
of his criticism lies in the wide range of his topics, his vast knowledge, his brilliant
style as well as in his daring deviation from the dogmatic sociological approaches to
literature which still lingered in the fifties in Yugoslavia. His scholarship was highly
instrumental in redirecting Yugoslav criticism from Soviet theories towards a more
literary approach to literature. His "Valeur et limites de la critique stylistique"
(1957) opened a Pandora's box of iconoclastic ideas which subsequently affected every
major critic in Yugoslavia. Frange' defines stylistics as a branch of scholarship which
studies literary style or, as he often terms it, expression (izraz). This style or expres-
sion is nothing else than the individual language of a particular writer. Consequently,
"stylistic criticism studies the style and language of a writer because on this basis
alone we can establish his grammar and aesthetics; this type of aesthetics is not an
abstract aesthetics whose eternal laws are valid for the evaluation of every work of
art. On the contrary, it is a unique aesthetics which is derived from the inner struc-
ture of each particular work of art." In the process of analysis, stylistic criticism must
first "decompose the expression . . . in order to discover the unique aesthetic value
of a piece of literature." This decomposition, however, is not the ultimate goal of a
literary critic. Such an approach would lead stylistic criticism into ordinary formalistic
analysis. After the analysis follows the synthesis, which conveys to us the critic's final
opinion. In order to establish the uniqueness of a writer's style one must first be aware
of other stylistic solutions. A reader unconsciously compares his own choice, his own
artistic rendering of life, with that of the writer. Thus in the process of a literary
analysis a norm is established. In order to escape the label normative, Franges rejects
Soviet theories, which tend to maintain the sole literary norm of socialist realism.
This type of norm he calls purism and sees it as unscholarly. He recognizes, however,
that certain literary genres, e.g., the sonnet, require a strict observance of rules.
Frange' is against quantifying literary devices or epithets. This statistical ap-
proach ("old-fashioned rhetoric") annihilates the general impression produced by a
literary work. And without the general impression no true attempt can be made to
penetrate to the unique value of a literary work. The aesthetic uniqueness of a work
of art is seen in its form. Frange' rejects the duality of form vs. content in a literary
work. Form is the manner of creation of a work of art and is thus inseparable from
content; a literary work is a tightly knit unit, an organism. In the end Frange' admits
that stylistic criticism should not be viewed as the only true method. Other methods
can and should be used if better suited for the evaluation of a literary work. FrangeS

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 Reviews 393

has written extensively on various periods and schools in the histor

tures and on individual authors. His survey of Yugoslav literatur
rije6i u nevremenu" (Forum, May-June, 1967), and his studies of
and Matos are examples of radical re-evaluations of old beliefs an
In his "Integral Method or A Creative Approach" (1961), Svetozar Petrovid
surveys several prominent contemporary approaches to literature and suggests the
ultimate possibility of an integral critical method. PetroviS first examines the methods
of analytical or close criticism. In these methods the norms of interpretation grow
out of the work itself thus eliminating the points of view external to the work of art.
To Petrovi3 this method is nothing but an abstraction of individual procedures, which
is as external to the text as other methods. Its conceptual language such as "deviation
from the norm" or "violations of conventions" is wholly dependent on the sensibility
of the modern avant-garde and has not been tested by generations of critics. More
diversified in its approach to literature is the opposite school, which champions the
complementarity of methods in the belief that a complete interpretation of a literary
work requires an approach from various points of view and with different methods.
Recognizing the value in this comprehensiveness, he finds its weakness in the fact
"that the labels themselves may have some value in discussion only while the arbi-
trariness of their use is kept in mind." PetroviS thinks that not a single literary study
has ever been done successfully utilizing solely one method in its pure form. A better
solution would be to harmonize traditional methods into an integral unified method.
To most critics the integral method may mean primarily a fusion of sociological and
close analyses. Accepting stylistic criticism, Petrovid also defends the individual,
creative exploration of the social context of the literary work.
Alexandar Flaker's study "O realizme" (1958) considers examples from Russian
and Croatian literatures and trades pros and cons with Vinogradov, Elsberg, Sakulin,
Markiewicz, Foht, and Barac. Flaker maintains that the concept of realism has ceased
to designate a literary period or trend and has become instead an evaluative term.
Soviet literary theory in particular has identified realism with the only truthful and
artistic interpretation of reality. Consequently, the entire history of literature is seen
as a struggle between "realistic" and "anti-realistic" tendencies. However, in the late
fifties both in Poland and Russia a reaction had been set in motion to return to the
concept its original mIeaning. This shift greatly enhanced the proper evaluation of
the specific features of a work of art. Flaker comments positively on Foht's defense
of realism as a historically limited category of style. To Flaker, realism is a stylistic
formation which is historically unrepeatable. He warns us, however, that any period-
ization is but an auxiliary means of orientation in the diversity of literary phenomena.
Flaker's article is one of the most objective and scholarly statements on realism com-
ing from the Slavic world. It should be added that Flaker has written extensively on
literary genres, devices, styles, periods, and other aspects of literary theory. In a series
of articles and translations he acquainted Yugoslav readers with the achievements of
the Russian Formalists and Soviet critics. Particularly valuable for an American
Slavist are his comparative studies of Russian and Croatian literatures.
Zdravko MaliC's article "Lutke" (1963) is an attempt to reconstruct the author's
commentary in Krleia's Banket u blitvi. The article is an excellent example of the
structural analysis of a stylistically and ideologically complex work.
One conclusion is inevitable: Zagreb critics have turned Yugoslav criticism
sharply away from 19th-century theories toward contemporary concepts of world
criticism. In their emphasis on the text, Zagreb theories are related to German Litera-
turwissenschaft, Russian Formalism, and American New Criticism. Within Marxist

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394 The Slavic and East European Journal

criticism they challenged some of the essential points of Soviet literary theory. They
stressed the value of both style and idea, the intuitive and the rational aspects of a
literary work. They used a free-wheeling choice of methods to find the aesthetic value
of a literary work. Their work was stronger in the analysis of literary genres, devices,
periods, and the methods of literary evaluations than in definitions of the nature of
literature or the mode of existence of a literary work. Covering all aspects of the
scholarly approach to literature, they wrote the first systematic theory of literature
in post-World War II Yugoslavia. They have proved beyond doubt that even a small
nation can produce a highly sophisticated literary criticism.

Anthony M. Mlikotin, University of Southern California

Gerda Baudisch. Das patriarchale Dorf im Erzdihwerk von Janko M. Veselinovid.

(Slavistische Beitrage, 43.) Miinchen: Otto Sagner, 1969. 225 S.

Janko Veselinovid (1862-1905) is known among the Serbian realists as the creator
of the Serbian village idyll. In this book Gerda Baudisch sets out "to compare the life
of the Serbian village people and the social reality of the second half of the 19th
century to the facts presented in Veselinovid's works in order to take stock of the
folkloristic materials employed by the writer and their function in his stories" (p. 8).
The monograph comprises an introduction, which gives a brief biography of Vesel-
inovid and a sketch of his native region, the Maiva (northwestern Serbia), a long
section (120 pp.) on folklore elements, a section on their function, and a conclusion
placing Veselinovid as an ethnographer and a realist. Part 1, on folklore elements,
reviews the essential features of the physical and social structure of the 2adruga (com-
munal family) and the village and gives cursory treatment to such topics as "The
Patriarchal System among the South Slavs." Although concise, the discussion is not
limited to phenomena mentioned by Veselinovid or even to those characteristic of
the Maiva. There is an inconsistency in the approach: on some points, e.g., the
definition of zadruga, Miss Baudisch cites evidence from many authorities on the
zadruga in all parts of the Balkans, quoting from Veselinovid where appropriate as
illustration; on other points, e.g., "Beliefs and Customs connected with the Seasons,"
she uses Veselinovid as the primary source of evidence, thus invalidating her intended
comparison. For her ethnographic information she relies on the research and conclu-
sions of others and so adds little besides the illustrative examples from Veselinovi6 to
our knowledge of the zadruga.
Having described the reality, Miss Baudisch turns to Veselinovi6's depiction of
it in Part 2. By the function of folklore elements she apparently means the author's
attitude toward the peasantry and the way he chose to portray peasant life. The bulk
of Part 2 tends to repeat what has been said earlier in adducing quotations from
Veselinovid. Here, however, the writer is concerned to emphasize the point (a
commonplace in the criticism of Veselinovid) that Veselinovi6's view of the village
was thoroughly sentimental, both when he idealized it in his early works and when
he later deplored its downfall. Veselinovid was a realist in his choice of subject and
medium, but he was no naturalist or muckraker. Like other contemporary Serbian
socialists he regarded the zadruga as the salvation of the nation and saw little in the
prosperous villages of his childhood memories to lead him to social protest. Miss
Baudisch concludes that in spite of his rose-tinted vision Veselinovid was an accurate
observer of those details of village life which he chose to mention. Unfortunately for

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