Visions and visualizations. Visual Narration in Géza Ottlik’s novel School at the Frontier

Diána Mosa

IN: Partitúra Irodalomtudományi folyóirat, Volume XIII. , Issue 1, 2018, p. 63-100, ISSN 1336-7307

DOI: 10.17846/PA.2018.13.1.63-100

Abstract:

My research treats one of the most important works of Hungarian literature in the 20th century, Géza Ottlik’s novel school at the Frontier (1959). My study has three main aspects: (1) the everyday sight-metaphors and the examination of the textual elements of visual reflexion, (2) the presentation of the role played by the invoked paintings and other graphic images (especially the hidden message of the Las Meninas in relation with the motto from saint Paul), and (3) the analysis of three passages where the narration shows ekphrastical features. Through the arguments of my essay I aim to demonstrate that a visual reading could enrich the traditional interpretations. The school at the Frontier’s „scandalous modernity” consists (among others) in the rhythm of its aesthetic and pictorial spheres and in the intense reflections made on the whole novel’s visuality.

Keywords: image and language, narratology, Velázquez, mise en abyme, ekphrasis

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Partitúra is a Hungarian literary journal published in Slovakia twice a year. The first edition was issued in 2006. From 2007 to 2014 its publishers were the Faculty of Central European Studies at The Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra in cooperation with Sambucus Literary Society. Since 2014 the Faculty of Central European Studies at the CPU in Nitra became the sole publisher.

The journal releases peer-reviewed scientific articles, literary studies and art reviews of both Hungarian as well as world literature. It is also a forum for essays on several other arts and intercultural relations. Furthermore, special attention is devoted to the Central European literature and literary studies; the magazine not only publishes the reviews of such studies, but also provides the arena for reflections about them. The journal aims to give an account of the contemporary Hungarian literature of the Hungarian minorities as well as to serve as a cluster for discourses.

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