Dr. Ognyan Kovachev, Assoc. Prof.
Sofia University
https://doi.org/10.53656/for22.431cern
Absract. Emiliyan Stanev’s unfinished short novel The Black Monk still remains on the margins of his oeuvre, and also of research interest on the part of Bulgarian literary studies. On the other hand, the plot and the eponymous character
fit it into a wide network of works by English, German, French, Russian and other
authors, in the traditions of Gothic, Romanticism, Realism and their varieties,
where the ‘Black Monk’ motif is a locus communis. I call the potential of such loci
communes to form sets of works partially connected by separate, often contextually
undetermined threads, polyvalent intertextuality. Comparing through it works by
different authors, from different genres and nationalities, I come to the conclusion
that their interaction can be described, in terms such as de- and reterritorialization
(Deleuze and Guattari), as rhizomatic and gothic. This paper does not range over
historical-philosophical, ethical, socio-political, etc. aspects of Stanev's work.
Keywords: marginality; history of creation; intertextuality; comparative literary study; rhizome; Gothic