Literary burden of "Our" donkey

Abstract

Starting from examination of religious and cultural prejudice towards donkey's figure, this paper tries to analyze it as a motive for shaping certain stereotype in its literary presentation.There are two frequent literary stereotypes connected with a donkey: disguise and metamorphosis. First one developed in fables, from Esopus to Orwel and Lewis, and it is burdened by sociological and ideological messages. Metamorphosis are thematically connected with the problem of identity or developing process starting from a sin, to punishment and finally, redemption (Apuleius), but functionally, donkey's character is always involved in "lowering"or translating from high and spiritual to low and physical level. That provide opportunity for donkey to play important role in literary travesties and parodies (Fauvel, Shakespeare, Cervantes).Character and function of a donkey in Croatian literature developed from the simple phraseological to more complex symbolical levels. While in Držić's Tirena, image of the donkey appears only in the function of inventive curse, or proverb reflecting prejudice of wantonness and stupidity, multileveled intertextual reading of Draginić's and Kaznačić's octosyllabic verses about donkey, revealedmore sophisticated meaning of the donkey's character, almost in the function of parodical lowing of the genre and, on the ideological level, reflecting some ideas of Enlightenment. At the end, there is a review on naturalistic stories by Marko Uvodić, written when donkey becomes a symbol for losted rural past of Split. While in the historyof "donkey's" genre, donkey had its own voice only to speak instead of a man about human problems, and so indirectly representing human being, in Uvodić's stories literary voice is taken away from a donkey. Represented only by the narrator, donkey's character becomes richer with metaphorical meanings – Uvodić's donkeyis humiliated, abused and helpless creature who mutely demonstrating bestiality of a man just by a silent suffering.