Silver Age

The text discusses one aspect of the receptive horizon of Bulgarian literature – the lack of active reception of such writers as Thèophile Gautier, Henri de Régnier, and Andrè Gides. The focus falls on their works which reveal a modern way of working with the pastoral code and their absence in receptive circles in our country; on the feeble interest our literature (and reading public) displays towards the pastoral in its “classical” and modern shape. The observations here are limited mostly to the cultural processes from the first half of the 20th century but I also touch upon the contemporary reception in Bulgarian translation of pastoral works as well as the critical reception of writers such as Kiril Merdzhanski.

The study focuses on some emblematic variations on the theme of joie de vivre discernible with French Belle Époque writers and among representatives of the Russian Silver Age. The discussion also touches upon the manifestations of the overarching theme in the advertising industry, which constructs the consumers’ “paradise”. The delineated dialogues, which appear along the lines of the gallant feasts (fête galante), the isle of Cythère, the Golden Age, idyll and Harlequinade, develop in contexts that are marked simultaneously by resonating similarities and by divergent cultural, historical, and national particularities that account for their specific nuances.