BARNSOVA IRONIJSKO-RETORIČKA MASKA: CENTRIRANjE DECENTRIRANOG

Abstract

Now, mainstream and canonical postmodern literary elaborations investigate Barnes’ novel A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters in terms of re-examining the credibility of Grand narratives, historiographic metafiction and ironic and parodic (meta)fabulation. One of the goals of this paper is to delve into the narrative of the novel within a different interpretative key, following the tenets of phenomenology (of perception), as well as Ricoeur’s infinite re-interpretation and the narrative reception, that is to say Derrida’s postulates on each and every meaning being (ever) delayed. Given the aforementioned context, we shall examine three chapters from Barnes’ novel, which are to illustrate the ironic rhetorical mask, misuse of art and raise the question of human concept of temporality, that is to say the anthropological given – fear of death and the desire for immortality as that of Eternal Now. We shall also highlight the possibility of centering “the decentered”, “unfit” and “peripheral” as those concepts prevalent in postmodern theoretical framework.