| Abstract [eng] |
The object of this paper is literary biography, which is viewed a structure of cultural memory, in Lithuanian poetry of the 20th century. Forms and functions of literary biography as well as peculiarities of its (self-)construction are discussed by analysing two cases – Nijolė Miliauskaitė’s and Sigitas Parulskis’s. Both cases can be classified as poet-as-an-ousider type of literary biography that was extremely popular in Lithuanian literary field in the end of the 20th century. The focal methodological point in this paper is Lotman’s concepts of cultural memory and literary biography. Another major methodological approach is that of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of literary field. This analysis has shown that Miliauskaitė and Parulskis represent the same type of literary biography, the poet-as-an-outsider type, although their acting and poetic devices reveal significant differences. This occurs because the poets’ biographies are based on different models. Their literary biographies do not correspond with their actual biographies because literary biography focuses only on particular facts of authors life. Biographical facts that contradict literary biography are either omitted, disproved or slanted. It is important to note that literary biography is also shaped by the poet as well as other participants in the literary field – critics, literary scholars and others. Creative output is also a significant part of literary biography: certain aspects of poetry are frequently incorporated in it. |
