Dr. Jekyll’s Prophecy: Following the old-new imagery of man

Péter H. Nagy

IN: Partitúra Irodalomtudományi folyóirat, Volume: IX. , Issue 1, 2014, p. 141-148, ISSN 1336-7307

DOI: 10.17846/PA.2014.9.1.141-148

Abstract

The study starting from an excerpt of the novel Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson strives to answer where the imagery of man foretold by Dr Jekyll will find its continuation in the 20th century. Touching upon the achievements of biology (endosymbiosis) and physics (nanotechnology), it proves through examples taken from the novels by Greg Bear and Greg Egan that the part from the Stevenson opus – which leads to postmodern recognition of dispersion and manifoldness of human subjectivity – advances the imagery of man in hard science fiction and nanofiction.

Keywords: metamorphosis, subjectivity, symbiosis, hard sf, nanofiction

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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.

As for the structure of the paper, it is usually divided into three main sections. The first part generally deals with the translation of an important foreign abstract literary study. It is followed by the heading of Scientific Studies and the Columns of Critical Analysis. Partitúra regularly publishes thematic abstracts by authors, genres, as well as a literary and artistic phenomenon in focus.