Vladoje Dukat as an intermediary of british literature in Croatian criticism between 1914-1940

Abstract

The author investigates the last, literary critical, period of the career of Vladoje Dukat, one of the founders of Croatian Anglistic studies. Taking stock of and investigating ten bibliographical units (published between 1915 and 1931), the author concludes that these are chiefly shorter texts, generally occassional pieces and commentaries which testify to a long since superceded approach to the literary work. There are traces of the comparative method especially on the poetical-esthetic level with a focus on narrative and formal-genric parallels with which Dukat belongs to the pioneering phase of the development of the comparatist methodology in Croatian literary criticism. Nevertheless, the value of Dukat's intermediary critical endeavour during this period ought to be sought in his role as a professor with the academic-pedagogical and animating functions this role presupposes.