| Abstract [eng] |
The aim of this master's thesis is to highlight the expression of authentic authorship in debut Lithuanian short prose works published in the “First Books” series by the Lithuanian Writers' Union Publishing House. The analysis focuses on the debut works of the following ten authors: Laura Sintija Černiauskaitė’s short stories Three Days at the Threshold of a Beloved (1994), Renata Šerelytė’s Dissecting a Fish (1995), Marius Ivaškevičius’ Kam vaikų (1996), Andrius Jakučiūnas’ The Life and Death of Socrates (1999), Sandra Bernotaitė’s Fire (2010), Jurga Tumasonytė’s Artificial Fly (2011), Marijus Gailius’ Wet October (2012), Tomas Vaiseta’s The Sleep of Birds (2014), Saulius Vasiliauskas’ Now I Will Have a Quiet Lunch (2020), and Indrė Motiejūnaitė’s One Fine Day (2022). The thesis examines how authentic authorship manifests through stylistic, thematic, and narrative decisions, using Henri Bergson’s philosophical concepts of intuition, duration (durée), and the vital impulse (élan vital), which allow for an understanding of creativity as an organic inner process independent of external literary field norms. The study reveals that debuting authors, despite stylistic and generational differences, consistently strive for the expression of subjectivity—their prose reveals an authentic relationship with the world, time, and identity. Černiauskaitė’s prose emphasizes emotional fragility, existential boundary situations, and poetic language. Šerelytė uses folkloric motifs and grotesque elements to depict transformations of female corporeality and identity. Ivaškevičius’ stories are dominated by surreal imagery, irony, and the deconstruction of subjective experience. Jakučiūnas’ work stands out for its philosophical reflections on knowledge, meaning, and death. Bernotaitė intimately portrays a woman’s psychological states, bodily tensions, and memory. Tumasonytė experiments with fragmentary form, playful language, and the exploration of urban psychology. Gailius addresses melancholy, historical echoes, and reflections on the past. Vaiseta articulates a poetics of silence and slowness of being, seeking an individual relationship with trauma. Vasiliauskas’ stories are marked by minimalism and the observation of modern human conditions. Motiejūnaitė’s short stories combine visual sensitivity, observation of everyday life, and a personally interpreted female subjectivity. These debut works reveal diverse forms of individuality, where not only narrative but also the inner state of the writer is of importance. Although each author writes in a unique style, all demonstrate a drive for authentic expression—inseparable from intuition, a personal perception of time, and an inner creative impulse. This thesis shows that debut short prose can be regarded not only as a genre or a marker of the beginning of a literary career, but also as a profound philosophical attempt to articulate subjective being within the text. Authentic authorship in these debuts emerges as a unique dialogue with the world and the self, expressed through original linguistic and narrative forms. |
