Another Name. Jakov Ignjatović’s The Eternal Bridegroom [Večiti mladoženja] in the Light of Queer and Camp Theory

• Autores: Igor D. Perišić
• Localización: Knjizevna istorija = Literary History, ISSN 0350-6428, Nº. 159, 2016, págs. 59-76
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
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• Resumen

  • The first part of this paper sets out the hypothesis how the protagonist of Jakov Ignjatović’s novel The Eternal Bridegroom [Večiti mladoženja] could be named, both as a literary character and a psychological type, from the perspective of contemporary literary theory, primarily regarding the queer and camp theory. This initial hypothesis posits Šamika as the literary type of the eternal bridegroom or a man not sexually interested in women, and as a psychological type – a homosexual, gay, queer or camp figure; these terms do not have an identical meaning, and we will return to that in the third part of the text. Afterwards, we offer a short overview of strategies the Serbian literary criticism and history of literature used in order to avoid speaking about the main subject of Ignjatović’s novel.

    The second part analyses the strategies the protagonist uses to hide his true nature by a close reading of Šamika’s excuses for not marrying and an interpretation of the final sentence of the novel, “Not shameful” [“Nije postidno”] and the “ideology” of Jakov Ignjatović’s auctorial comments. We pay particular attention to the difference between the manifest and the hidden, the public and the subconscious, the censored and the “anarchic” behavior of the main character.

    On the basis of the contextualization of such behavior, the third part of the text develops the hypothesis of the first part. We conclude that Šamika as a literary character is quite certainly a man not sexually interested in women, which is a more adequate or real name instead of the “eternal bridegroom” or “confirmed bachelor”, as the critics usually called him. The answer to the question of Šamika’s psychological type could not achieve a complete match between the literary depicted fate and a term, since the camp strategies applied by Šamika always allow enough space for ambivalent interpretations. Therefore, Šamika as a psychological type could not be unreservedly called “homosexual”, and we chose to limit ourselves to stating (while using queer and camp theory) that Šamika represents the psychological type of the latent homosexual (one whose desire is not necessarily realized or even one who never became aware of that potential desire) or the camp homosexual. Finally, we raise the question of the literary-critical and social purpose of the genealogy of names as conducted in the text.