Neohelicon
Volume/Issue:
Volume 35: Issue 2
Secrecy and the transcendental desire for order in drama and narrative
Author:
Péter Hajdu Hungarian Academy of Sciences Institute for Literary Studies H-1118 Budapest Ménesi út 11-13 Hungary

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Pages:
203–213
Online Publication Date:
28 Oct 2008
Publication Date:
01 Dec 2008
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-008-4015-5
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Abstract  

A secret in a literary text initiates a delicate interplay between narrators and readers, since the latter must be informed of existence, or even of the content of the secret. The paper analyses various samples from this viewpoint, starting with Euripides’ Hippolytus and Ion, where-due to the absence of any narrator-the interplay of secrecy develops between the agents, the chorus, the gods and the audience. The subsequent samples are taken from European novels (Thackeray’s The History of Henry Esmond, Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Jókai’s Friedrich Trenck and Franz Trenck). Secrecy functions many times as a hint at a secret order or a hidden entity that guarantees order. The order, or rather the impression of arrangement, may function as a suggestion of a secret sense. The meaning can be described as the secret of literary texts, which is always present in the form of a promise.

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Cover Neohelicon
Neohelicon
Print ISSN:
0324-4652
Online ISSN:
1588-2810

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Neohelicon
Language English
Size B5
Year of
Foundation		 1973
Volumes
per Year		 1
Issues
per Year		 2
Founder Akadémiai Kiadó
Founder's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Publisher's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
CH-6330 Cham, Switzerland Gewerbestrasse 11.
Responsible
Publisher		 Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN 0324-4652 (Print)
ISSN 1588-2810 (Online)

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