Literary relics in time
Lajos Lakner
Déri Museum, Debrecen, Hungary
email: lakner.l@axelero.hu
The objects of literary museology are essentially different from those of other branches of museology, where the objects can be used as sources of information, they can be classified and it is their historical value that dominates. With literary relics it is not themselves, their shape or material that matters. Nor are they exhibited because of their historical value. They have a transhistorical quality and their way of existence is the eternal present. In their background the historical past appears as a unified tradition. More precisely, the real tradition, at least that is what those who take an active part in the cult of a particular author think. These objects are called literary relics and they are regarded with sacred respect by readers susceptible to the cultic reception of literature. As exhibits, these relics are not historical resources, rather they are presented like works of art and have a quasi-aesthetic value.
In order to be able to characterise these exhibits, we should outline some features of the heroes of literary cults and cultic memorial places (exhibitions, museums, memorial houses). They are independent authors, whose biographies are at least as important as their works. In literary cults and at exhibitions they appear as heroes who have authority over the interpretation of their works. They are examples of the "great man" created by the French revolution. Visitors of their memorial houses, by having an insight into their circumstances and personal belongings, are initiated into their personal sphere of life. The objects speak on behalf of their late users. They lose their practical value and it is rather their atmosphere that is important.
The lecture introduces the main features of these objects. Their most important characteristic is their authenticity. This means that they speak for themselves, influence the visitors directly and have an aura in the Walter Benjaminian sense. What makes them different from similar everyday objects? That, for the participants of the literary cult, they belong to another dimension of existence as they make it possible to get in touch with the divine author and have a share in the tradition. Their task is exactly this representation in the mystical sense. They show the whole world in a new light, which can readily be illustrated by an extract from Henry James' novel The Aspern Papers. Literary relics are the basis of the self-representation and self-affirmation of those who take part in the cult. That is, in Baudrillard's words, they belong to the class of objects which lets the subjects speak as opposed to the class in which the functions of the objects speak and are of primary importance.
These relics make museums and exhibition halls appear as shrines, as places which teach visitors to transcend everyday life and rationality and get rid of the "bondage of sins" (A. Danto), and to go beyond the sphere of individual interests and experience. This step can be compared to what Kierkegaard described as the leap into the religious phase. Literary relics and the spaces furnished with them appeal mainly to the visitors' social self, i.e. that part of one's personality which makes one's self-esteem depend on one's social position and rank. Like visiting shrines, visiting these places of cult is urged by the hope of initiation rather than artistic pleasure. That is what makes them different from art exhibitions and gives them a quasi-aesthetic effect. Therefore it is not interpretation that a place of cult furnished with relics supposes but dissolving in communal-social knowledge. Hence the authoritative nature of these objects and their cult and tradition. That is, they always presuppose common knowledge and a common value system and expect one to be dissolved in them. The common knowledge can ensure that the objects become expressive having the same meaning to everyone. This tradition-based interpretation is also apparent at the exhibition of the Lessing house in Wolfenbüttel (Susanne Lange-Greve).
It follows from the above nature of relics and literary exhibitions that they provide suitable ground for ideologies. The expected passive recipient role makes visitors subject to power-based and ideological purposes which convey various world view schemes.
Literary relics appear in two types of exhibition. Both examples belong to the history of the Petőfi House in Budapest. At its first exhibition objects were displayed practically without any concept, like in a treasury. The purpose of a treasury-like arrangement was to evoke proper devotion in visitors and experts. The objects themselves spoke here. In the wake of the political changes (1948) after World War II the exhibition was rearranged in the spirit of a 'didactic iconologic program' (Wallach-Duncan). Instead of relying on the objects the exhibitors wanted to control them and create what could be considered as secondary relics: the enormous photos of Petőfi and of his revolutionary poems. The didactic purpose was clear: to impose only one discourse on visitors, the ruling party's discourse about Petőfi or, more precisely, through Petőfi about the world that was offered to people as the only possibility. These examples show that, although relics are of transhistorical nature, they can still reveal a lot about the time that determined their then meaning, thus serving as a source of cultural history. References
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