Onomastics in the novels of Ștefan Agopian
The present study focuses on the proper names of the characters of Ștefan Agopian’s novels, namely The Day of Wrath (Ziua mâniei) and Velvet Tache (Tache de catifea), those in which this seemingly secondary aspect of the text proves to be significant. An atheist and calophile writer, originally attributable to the 80s generation, at least temporally, Stefan Agopian remains particular in the field of the characters’ names, in part due to the similarity of the novels, which place the action in more or less revolt eras. The poetics reflected also in the proper names is one of, as it has been said, magical realism and, in any case, of a highly formal form of prose with a mannerist stylistic, a contorted and precious discourse not to be encountered by other authors of the postwar.
Keywords: contemporary Romanian literature, Ștefan Agopian, proper names, magical realism, kalophylia, characters, simili-historic novel.
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2. Ioan Holban, Profiluri epice contemporane, Ed. Cartea Românească, Bucureşti, 1987, p. 375.
3. Vezi Sorin Titel, „Istorie şi ficţiune”, în „România literară” nr. 14, 1981.
4. Ibidem.
5. Monica Spiridon, Melancolia descendenţei, Ed. Cartea Românească, Bucureşti, 1989, p. 308.
6. Eugen Negrici, „Realismul magic: triumful imaginaţiei şi al fanteziei”, prefaţă la Ştefan Agopian, Opere, vol. I, Ed. Polirom, Iaşi, 2008, p. 21.
7. Gheorghe Crăciun, „Made by laboratoarele Agopian”, în „Observator Cultural”, octombrie 2001.
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