Page 133 - Vinkler, Jonatan, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco. Eds. 2019. Ideology in the 20th Century: Studies of literary and social discourses and practices. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 133
Women’s Poetic Discourse
in the Context of Post-war
Ideologies: Senca v srcu
(A Shade in the Hearth)
by Ada Škerl
Varja Balžalorsky Antić
As Irena Novak Popov demonstrated in the Anthology of Slovenian wom-
en poets, Slovenian literature has a relatively well-established tradition of
poetry written by women.1 Nevertheless, few women poets were accepted
to the Slovenian canon of poetry, because it was shaped through patrilin-
ear and patriarchal power-structures as is the case in most other nation-
al traditions. In this paper, I deal with the acceptance of women’s (poet-
ic) discursiveness2 into the structures of the literary system in its broader
context. Throughout history, the literary system mostly equated the mas-
culine with the universal and silenced the women or, in the case of poet-
ry, gave them the title ‘our female lyric poetry’, which due to accompany-
ing valuative attributes explicitly or implicitly meant that women’s poetic
production was second-rate to men’s. This article addresses the tensions
between ideology and women’s poetic discourse in the case of Ada Škerl’s
poetry collection Senca v srcu. The first tension, subversive and all-pres-
ent, results from the fact that women’s discourse has to directly or indi-
rectly, consciously or unconsciously define itself in relation to the (larger)
patriarchal system which defines all other systems including the socio-po-
litical, aesthetic, and ideological systems. The second tension refers to the
relationship between ideology and aesthetics in the invention of new po-
etic paradigms. Here I tackle the question how Ada Škerl’s voice was po-
sitioned in between the currents called builder’s poetry and intimism as
1 The author acknowledges the project “Slovene literature and social changes: national
state, democracy and transitional discrepancies” ( J6—8259) was financially support-
ed by the Slovenian Research Agency.
2 I use the term as proposed by Stanislava Chrobáková Repar (2018).
in the Context of Post-war
Ideologies: Senca v srcu
(A Shade in the Hearth)
by Ada Škerl
Varja Balžalorsky Antić
As Irena Novak Popov demonstrated in the Anthology of Slovenian wom-
en poets, Slovenian literature has a relatively well-established tradition of
poetry written by women.1 Nevertheless, few women poets were accepted
to the Slovenian canon of poetry, because it was shaped through patrilin-
ear and patriarchal power-structures as is the case in most other nation-
al traditions. In this paper, I deal with the acceptance of women’s (poet-
ic) discursiveness2 into the structures of the literary system in its broader
context. Throughout history, the literary system mostly equated the mas-
culine with the universal and silenced the women or, in the case of poet-
ry, gave them the title ‘our female lyric poetry’, which due to accompany-
ing valuative attributes explicitly or implicitly meant that women’s poetic
production was second-rate to men’s. This article addresses the tensions
between ideology and women’s poetic discourse in the case of Ada Škerl’s
poetry collection Senca v srcu. The first tension, subversive and all-pres-
ent, results from the fact that women’s discourse has to directly or indi-
rectly, consciously or unconsciously define itself in relation to the (larger)
patriarchal system which defines all other systems including the socio-po-
litical, aesthetic, and ideological systems. The second tension refers to the
relationship between ideology and aesthetics in the invention of new po-
etic paradigms. Here I tackle the question how Ada Škerl’s voice was po-
sitioned in between the currents called builder’s poetry and intimism as
1 The author acknowledges the project “Slovene literature and social changes: national
state, democracy and transitional discrepancies” ( J6—8259) was financially support-
ed by the Slovenian Research Agency.
2 I use the term as proposed by Stanislava Chrobáková Repar (2018).
