Mise en poeme: Epic (Auto)reflexivity and South Slavic Poetry in the Age of Romanticism

This paper deals with the discursive phenomenon of reflexivity in the epic poetryof South Slavic romantic poets around the middle of the 19th century. Reflection is here understood as a kind of poetic self-formation procedure of romantic literary subject and his efforts to renovate epic mode in its original form. Starting with concept of “epic Romanticism”, in a way specific to South Slavic literatures, the author proceeds by distinguishing basic modes: explicit, implicit, and intertextual reflexivity. While the first two are related to typical romantic affectivity (D. Demeter, F. Prešeren) and/or rhetoric identification with oral folk rhapsodists’ tradition (P. P. Njegoš), the third one is marked with so-called “integration story” (I. Mažuranić), or mise en abyme, i.e. “the mirror in the text” effect as a medium of artistic auto-perspectivization and possible creative invention which leads to indications of the early pro-modern poetic procedures.