Abstract
This article analyses the relationship between epic, irony, and comedy in Ismail Kadare's 1981 novel Dosja H. (The File on H.), loosely based on the real-life attempts to discover the origins of Homeric epic. Using the theories of Lukács and Bakhtin, the article argues that Kadare's novel is not merely a droll satire of intrigue and small-town mores in 1930s Albania, but, far more, an enquiry into the function of literature in the age of philology and a dramatization of the birth of the novel out of the death of the epic and the world to which it belongs.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 818-839 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | Modern Language Review |
| Volume | 111 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 1 2016 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Language and Linguistics
- Linguistics and Language
- Literature and Literary Theory