Modernism

Bulgarian poet Dimcho Debelyanov and renowned modernist Ezra Pound independently used an epigraph from a common literary source in a poem by French symbolist Albert Samain. The paper discusses this coincidence with regard to two basic functions of epigraph as paratext: to broaden the interpretation of the quoting work, and to perform rhetorical gestures. Through an epigraph-focused interpretation of both works, the paper outlines the capacity of literary epigraphs to produce complex intertextual links, exhibiting valence both inward, i.e. within the own text, and outward, reaching to other texts and the broad field of intertextuality.

The text discusses one aspect of the receptive horizon of Bulgarian literature – the lack of active reception of such writers as Thèophile Gautier, Henri de Régnier, and Andrè Gides. The focus falls on their works which reveal a modern way of working with the pastoral code and their absence in receptive circles in our country; on the feeble interest our literature (and reading public) displays towards the pastoral in its “classical” and modern shape. The observations here are limited mostly to the cultural processes from the first half of the 20th century but I also touch upon the contemporary reception in Bulgarian translation of pastoral works as well as the critical reception of writers such as Kiril Merdzhanski.