The context of modernist transformation of social structures at the beginning of the nineteenth century created new semantics of intimate relations, which is in traditional criticism referred to as romantic love. Contrary to traditional love matrices which are mostly based on external factors (family, state, religion) and pre-established characteristics of lovers (social status, wealth, beauty), modern lovers/individuals “love for love’s sake” (Luhmann 1982) placing the rationale behind their love in the mutual intimate orientation towards one another. Related to the emergence of middle-class novel in English, and somewhat later in German literature as well, the concept of romantic love gradually spread in other European literatures, in time becoming a dominant cultural model of expressing amour passion.
Taking as a starting point the fact that literature is an important medium of production and distribution of discourse on romantic love, and that it presupposes a narrative form par excellence, the goal of the conference is to problematize and shed light on the constitution, modification and the specificities of the code of romantic love in South Slavic literatures (Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian) from different perspectives. The exploration shall focus on the following topics:
