The theoretical part of this diploma thesis begins with autobiography of a Slovene writer, poet, musician and teacher Janez Bitenc. It continues with alphabetical and chronological list of his published children’s stories, which include written texts and audio recordings. I listed three fairy tale genres: Max Lüthi’s folktale, classical authorial fairy tale according to the theory of Marjana Kobe and short contemporary fairy tale according to the theory of Marjana Kobe.
In this diploma thesis, I presented Janez Bitenc, and applied the theory of short contemporary fairy tale to the following fairy tales written by Janez Bitenc: Domišljavi želodek, Medvedki na semnju, Oblaček Postopaček, Tinko Polovinko, Zajček Kazimirček and Zmaj Lakotaj z Ljubljanskega gradu.
The theory of short contemporary fairy tale distinguishes between six types of literary characters: a child as the main character, a resurrected toy/object as the main character, a personified animal as the main character, a personified plant as the main character, a personified space phenomenon/body as the main character and folktale character as the main character. Each fairy tale genre has its own specific motif and theme, as well as morphological and structural characteristics: theme, topic and motif; synthetic plot line, main literary character, side literary characters, plot, existence abilities, cause, narrative perspective, literary space and time and message.
In the empirical part, I analysed six above mentioned fairy tales by Janez Bitenc and came to the conclusion that only two fairy tales encompass all the characteristics of Marjana Kobe’s theory – motif, theme, morphological and structural characteristics. These two fairy tales are Oblaček Postopaček and Tinko Polovinko.
The theory of short contemporary fairy tale is not entirely applied to the fairy tales Domišljavi želodek, Medvedki na semnju and Zajček Kazimirček. Contemporary fairy tales are two- or three-dimensional. All three analysed fairy tales correspond to this model and at the same time differ from it. They exist in one dimension because they relate to the model of folktales. Because of one-dimensionality in these fairy tales the main character cannon exist in reality. As the fairy tale exists only in magic realm no other unreal elements break in. According to Marjana Kobe’s theory, time and place can be defined only in the reality, and as these fairy tales take place in magic realm these two elements cannot be defined.
The fairy tale Zmaj Lakotaj z Ljubljanskega gradu exists in the reality in the past, in the time of dragons. According to Marjana Kobe’s theory this fairy tale is contemporary.
|