Marcello Potocco, Nacionalni imaginariji ... - Pedagoški inštitut

250Nacionalni imaginariji – Literarni imaginarijifunctioning due to its documentary, i.e. subject-material, elements. Specialattention is paid to the representation of space and the representationof indigenous people. E.J. Pratt’s epic poetry is seen as the clearestexample of national interpellation. The choice of hero in “Brébeuf andhis Brethren” is suitable for the British-French (bicultural) identificationdue to the hero’s origin. The identification is achieved through thesuppression of the natives, which culminates thematically in the comparisonof the Iroquois language of torture with the European “high”code of honour/saintliness. Even the affective-cognitive elements (metaphoricallanguage) sustain this duality (the metaphor of a language battle).On the whole, Pratt avoids affective elements or any emphasis onthe work’s fictiveness. On the contrary, with the unobtrusive use of historicalquotations (from The Jesuit Rélations), he provides a frameworkwhere centrifugal forces prevail: identification with the extra-textualworld is hardly put into the “as if ” relation. Moreover, „Brébeuf “ may beread as a double ideological narrative, where a national narrative and aChristian narrative are linked and do not contradict each other. Pratt’smost obvious “national narrative”, “Towards the Last Spike,” is similarlystructured. Instead of the natives, the suppressed element here is nature(the Laurentian Shield, in particular). The building of the railwayis clearly presented as a national mythological event, based on the cognitiveidentification with the hostile land (the imagery of the Lizzard, theparliamentary battles). The treatment of the theme is even more documentaryand the selection of material even more “objective”, withoutirony and emphasis on the fictive structure.Pratt’s poetry was preceded by the poetry of the so called Confederation p o et s , i n pa r t ic u l a r A rc h iba ld L a mpma n a nd D.C . S cot t .L a mp -man’s “At the Long Sault” proves to be specific and different from themajority of other Lampman’s works. Structurally, the traces of nationalinterpellation are found – again – in the choice of the character (enablingidentification for both French and English language groups),choice of the historical event itself and especially in the selection andexclusion of details, which further enables identification with the presumedhero. Similarly as in Pratt’s Brébeuf, the British-French identificationis based on the suppression of the natives. The reader’s identificationin this unique Lampman’s long poem is based on rational and cognitiveelements, while the national interpellation in Lampman’s short,lyric poetry is, by contrast, traceable in affective elements, whose role inthe poem is an excessive use of post-romantic fragility and the rebuttal ofa “naive” American transcendentalism. In D.C. Scott’s lyric poems, there