Mannerist Literary Concert in 88 Fragments: Over the Book 88 by Nadija Rebronja

Abstract

The paper deals with Nadija Rebronja’s book 88, which is conceived as 88 piano keys or fragments. The paper recognizes some important links that this book establishes with the mannerist literary tradition, as understood and explained by Gustav René Hocke in his widely acknowledged books Mannerism in Literature and The World as a Labyrinth. Instead of opening up to the totality of all things, 88 resembles a mannerist work that closes itself into its own artistic reality and questions the place that literature and art occupy in today’s world. The paper also deals with the implications that arise from the connection Nadija Rebronja establishes with the tradition of magic(al)realism, particularly regarding the construction of motivational systems and their relation to the phenomenon of magic in this book. By utilising the concepts of simultaneity and catalogue, 88 relates to the tradition of the Russian avant-garde, as understood by Aleksandar Flaker. It is also shown that a reassessment, a significant avant-garde procedure, holds an important place in the 88, since the author re-evaluates the figure of travel and a topos of the town square in relation to classical literature. This reassessment is linked to the tradition of hikaye, instructive stories that have come from the Islamic tradition, as well as a farce - a literary form based on reversal. The final part of this paper deals with the fragmentation in Nadia Rebronja’s88 which can be linked to the atomization within the mannerist literature and the avant-garde understanding of the world. It also explores the ways in which the world created in this book relates to,on the one hand,the “optimal projection” as one of the characteristics of the avant-garde, and the concept of utopia as an alternative to freethinking on the other.