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Nationalism and the Lyric, Or How Taras Shevchenko Speaks to Compatriots Dead, Living, and Unborn

2011; Maney Publishing; Volume: 89; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.89.1.0029

2222-4327

Rory Finnin,

Translation Studies and Practices

For Benedict Anderson, the novel provides 'the technical means for re-presenting the kind of imagined community that is the nation'. What is the role of lyric poetry in this regard? In order to begin to answer this question, this article engages in a close reading of Taras Shevchenko's 'My Friendly Epistle' ( 1 8 45 ) and argues that the poet exploits the power of lyric address to interpellate the reader as a national subject; to discipline him in accordance with a 'national-ethical identity'; and to condition him to a 'community in anonymity' that is an analogue of a nation perceived omnitemporally, outside of novelistic 'homogeneous, empty time'.