Literatūra - kultūros ekologija

LTAnalizei pasirinkta išeivijos autorių Danutės Paškevičiūtės ir Alės Rūtos kūryba; siekiama atskleisti jų kūrybos ir literatūros tradicijos santykį. Pirmiausia Paškevičiūtės ir Alės Rūtos poezija aptariama kaip egzilinės vaizduotės išraiška, ir lyginamosios feministinės kritikos kontekste pateikiamas kritikos apie šias autores vertinimas. Antra, atkreipiamas dėmesys į kai kuriuos kritikos raidos išeivijoje ypatumus, bandoma ieškoti sąsajų su minimų autorių vertinimu, pasitelkiant pasaulinės literatūros tradicijos analizės paraleles. Trečia, pateikiami literatūros tradicijos revidavimo pagrindiniai aspektai ir jų ryšys su ekokritika, atveriant ekokritikos kaip kultūros ekologijos perspektyvą, skatinančią marginalizuotų diskursų integraciją į dominuojančią literatūros tradiciją. Paskutinėje dalyje literatūros bei kultūros ekologijos aspektu aptariamas šių perspektyvų taikymas ekologinį budrumą skatinančiai literatūros analizei. [Iš straipsnio, p. 13]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Literatūra; Egzodo literatūra; Rašytojai; Poetai; Danutė Paškevičiūtė; Alė Rūta; Gamta; Ekologija; Literatūrinis vaizdavimas; Ekokritika; Lithuanian literature; Exodus literature; Writers; Poets; Danutė Paškevičiūtė; Alė Rūta; Nature; Ecology; Literary representation; Ecocriticism.

ENCentral is the problem of literary excellence, by implication literary canonicity. The paper argues that Lithuanian emigre poetry, as other emigre writing including the subject of the present analysis, tends to be a discursive representation of the intersection between the homeland and the country of immigration. This poetry inevitably entails a realignment of the association of identity with the motherland, perceived as a source of wholeness. As claimed by Susan Rubin Suleiman, homeland is frequently aligned with the perception of identity as dissociated from the recognition of selfhood in terms of continuous change, hybridity and hyphenation. Irresolvable tensions and multidimensional ambivalences, on the other hand, unavoidably mark gradual self-alignment with the hyphenated or diasporic identity. The question of self-positioning within diasporic discourses is often related to a re-consideration of borders with regard to hierarchies that moving from homeland to a host country may imply. One such hierarchy is related to problems centered on the critical reception of émigré writing. Many an emigre author attempted to connect the poles of existence in diaspora by their texts, concentrating a conception of past and present existence within these poles. Meanwhile, a dispersion of present-day self-realization is being reflected via categories of "I" and "Other". The discussion of Danutė Paškevičiūtės and Alė Rūta's poetry attempts to reveal the semantic spectrum of existence as well as trajectories of subjectivity and self-actualization encoded in their texts. Actually, it was the negative criticism about these authors, which appeared in Lietuvių egzodo literatūra Lithuanian Emigre Literature: 1945-90 that provoked the topic for this discussion.Such criticism compels contemplation about problems that are centered on the canonization of literature, if not the setting of standards for quality judgment of literary texts. There is a closely related problem, which is a treatment of woman writer as "Other" in the logocentric discourse permeating the literary tradition. The critical debate on Danutė Paškevičiūtės and Alė Rūtas poetry seems to highlight its sentimentality. By extension, if it is not regarded as distinctively minor, is envisioned as significantly departing from qualities that make a literary work good or great. The paper "Literature as Cultural Ecology: The Poetry of Danutė Paškevičiūtė and Alė Rūta at the Crossroads of the Exilic Imagination and the Literary Tradition" argues that the problem involved in the reception of a literary work can hardly be, in any way, a correlative of gender. However, the overt negativity reverberating in the male critics' assessment of Paškevičiūtės and Rūtas poetry makes it difficult not to evoke Sandra Gilberts and Susan Gubar's statement that women artists often feel strangers in the "male palace of art" and their work is frequently judged as "'odd' in relation to the predominant male literary history defined by the standards of what we have called patriarchal poetics". According to Ruth Sherry, "there is an implicit assumption that the best or the greatest writers and texts are ones which survive their own time." Implicit in this assumption is, however, that reception of a literary work is not entirely independent of gender and, by implication, power. These correlations, according to Sherry, in effect condition the writer's inclusion into or exclusion from the literary tradition.The postmodern emphasis on arbitrariness and decentering, combined with gender sensitive revision of literary works, has instigated a repositioning of hierarchies as well as a redrawing of many borders, including those marking the boundaries between gender and literary excellence or even legitimacy of the text per se. Sherry takes issue with just this situation, when she comments: "It is historically typical that groups which are asserting, or attempting to gain, increased political power will resurrect and re-examine cultural phenomena and achievements of their own group in earlier times, and will encourage members of their own group to make distinctive cultural contributions". In the article, the analysis of such contributions is carried out in the light of Violeta Kelertienės discussion of the critical insights presented in Literatūros lankai (1952-1959), ajournai of literary criticism published in the United States of America. It is also argued that the historical moment that conditions the resurrection and re-examination of literary texts that had existed outside the mainstream of, broadly speaking, canonical texts within the national literary tradition may be due to a number of reasons. One possible reason is the vast geopolitical changes caused by the processes of European integration and massive globalization. With regard to émigré writing, the late Lithuanian critic Vytautas Kubilius considers cultural migration and cultural resistance in the following way". The literature of Lithuanians living in exile veered towards an aim of retaining national identity under new conditions of life. This literature changes the behavior, nature, and language of fellow nationals. It is meant to awaken a longing for the Lithuania left behind - it describes the beauty of the country until it was viciously axed down by history. [From the publication]