Anarchetypes. Re-evaluation of marginal literary forms and genres/ Corin Braga (ed.)
This volume starts from the observation that in the current era the concept of archetype and structural center have been denounced as intellectual constructs without a real metaphysical or psychological basis. However, based on their authority and prestige, they have substantiated the most important aesthetics in European culture, being used as a criterion of value and canonical judgment and condemning to marginality works and literary genres that do not respect the Aristotelian idea of organic composition. In order to reevaluate and recover such “anarchic” literary forms and genres, this volume resumes and develops the concept of anarchetype created by Corin Braga. In opposition to archetypal works, which have an internal structure, a plot, a global significance, anarchetypal works are polyphonic compositions, whose components are unpredictably linked, deliberately avoiding imitation of models and integration into a single and coherent sense. The eight authors present in the volume, members of the Phantasma Imaginary Research Center in Cluj-Napoca (Maria Barbu, Carmen Borbély, Corin Braga, Marius Conkan, Laura T. Ilea, Călina Părău, Radu Toderici and Alex Văsieș), analyze several such corpora of atypical texts: ancient novels, extraordinary and utopian journeys, “romances” and adventure novels, fantasy literature, modern and postmodern maximalist novels. Soon also available in English (Brill)