The Reception of John Updike’s Couples in Serbia and Montenegro

The paper aims to provide an introduction to the study of the recep-
tion of John Updike’s Couples in Serbia and Montenegro. This novel is
still alive and continues to evolve into new works and shapes–therein
lies much of its challenge and fascination. The “afterlife” of Updike’s
Couples will be studied on the basis of the works of Hans-Georg Gad-
amer, and H. R. Jauss: Gadamer’s (2004) theory that the meaning of a
text is constructed by a fusion of horizons between the present and the
past, and Jauss’ (1982) esthetics of reception which explored the inter-
action of the creator of the new work and its audience. An overview
of the changing contexts for publishing John Updike’s Couples, and
reactions to it notes a strong response by Serbian scholars and a rather
modest reception of his works in Montenegro. This provides a vital
contextual setting for discussing the textual reception of not only this
novel, but also of the American literature in Serbia and Montenegro.

Key words: reception, Updike, Couples, Serbia, Montenegro
Being a part of the comparative studies of literature, the research of
reception has a long global tradition, which is also present in Serbia
and Montenegro. Svetozar Ignjačević pointed out two decades ago that
“our literature” belongs “to the circle of the so called small cultures...
[That is] ready to accept and absorb the achievements of world litera-
ture and to react to them, sometimes with some delay, but always with
specific, autonomous and developed critical awareness.” (Ignjačević
1997: 299) He adds that receptions of foreign literatures in our culture
are mostly studied at universities (M.A. and Ph. D thesis). This does
not mean that there is not more space for further research even though
much has been defined, and “it seems that only some empty spaces are
left to be filled from time to time, and along the way, some innovations
and possible reevaluations are expected in accordance with the latest
critical theories.” (299)
However, the latest critical approaches concerning the reception
of Couples in Serbia and Montenegro are of no great help. Despite the
lack of critical approaches, Gadamer’s (2004) theory of reception, which
claims that the meaning of a text is constructed by a fusion of horizons
between the present and the past, and Jauss’ (1982) esthetics of recep-
tion, which explored the interaction of the creator of the new work and
its audience, will provide a sufficient foundation for this exploration.
It has become evident that readers have a new role, which inspired
one of our scholars, Aleksandar Jerkov, to define the relationship be-
tween the work and the reader in this way: “Reception is a passion-
ate need of the text for the reader (as) the text invites and implicates a
reader, it does not exist autonomously regardless of the consciousness
of a reader”. (Jerkov 1992: 202) It is obvious that there is a dynamic
relationship between a text and a reader. The reader is asked to be open
to the different aspects of the work and “to possess an active and cre-
ative attitude.” (202) Apart from the readers, literary historians should
possess this attitude, as seen by Jauss, since they are the ones who have
to play the role of the interpreters of the past from today’s point of view.
He points out the role of the horizon of expectations which is formed
on the basis of the previous understandings of forms and genres, and
the polarities of poetic and practical language. (Jauss 1978: 60) Its es-
thetic value is defined depending on this horizon: it enables defining of
the artistic value of the work of art based on its impact on the supposed
audience. Jauss supports Gadamer’s belief that during the process of
reading the horizons of an author and an interpreter, former and cur-
rent, melt together. In this manner the historical distance between the
past and present is overcome. The advantage of hindsight allows for
our potential interactions with all the previous interpretations in addi-
tion to our own. Our scholar of great distinction Petar Milosavljević
points out the importance of breaking the previous balance in order to
study scientific facts through a new lens and thus be able to strive for
a new balance. (Milosavljević 1991: 553) We have to take into account
both the context and the time when the text was created as well as
the time that the reader lives in, and that is why the interpretation of
one work is taken as an encounter of time horizons between an author
and a reader. Further, Jauss agrees with Gadamer that it is necessary
to understand the question a text raises and answers, but contradicts
Gadamer in the notion that every reader can be an interpreter. Jauss
claims that a reader evaluates a text which becomes a part of tradition
after it has been accepted. It has to be defined according to its historical
position and meaning. (Jauss 1978: 356)

Serbia and American Literature in XIX and XX century
Serbia is a country that used to be an independent state, which became
a part of the great Ottoman Empire before becoming a part of the
Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenians in 1918, and then Yugo-
slavia in 1941. Following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Serbia became a
part of the state of Serbia and Montenegro, and finally an independent
state in 2006. Throughout almost all the later periods of the XIX and
XX centuries (tsarist, communist and democratic periods), American
literature, its TV, and theatrical dramas were widely received. Thus,
Emil Sîrbulescu in his dissertation “Reception of American Literature
in the Balkans” informs us that significant American playwrights, pro-
ducers, directors, and their TV dramas and theatre adaptations had an
outstanding reception in Serbia. Specifically, it was Saul Bellow who
was translated and best received in the Balkans, according to Sîrbu-
lescu’s research. He also discovered that much criticism both posi-
tive and negative came from celebrated critics such as Rade Vojvodic,
Zoran Gluščević and Jara Ribnikar. (Sîrbulescu 2016: http://www.ucv.ro)
Our research confirms Svetozar Ignjačević’s statement that,
throughout its history, Serbia has been more than a thankful recipient
of American literature, and it reacted to it mostly without any delay,
but with specific, autonomous and developed critical awareness. This
is confirmed by Zoran Konstatinović’s study Comparative Perspectives
on Serbian Literature, more specifically in the chapter of his outstand-
ing book “Foreign Writers in Our Culture”. (Konstatinović 1993: 62-
125) He points out that it was in the 1960s that the reception of Amer-
ican literature in the Serbo-Croat speaking areas started to be studied
at our (Yugoslav) universities. The choice of the writers was made ac-
cording to their popularity in their culture and others, and the strong
influence they had over a certain period of time. From Sonja Bašić’s
dissertation “Edgar Allan Poe in Croat and Serbian Culture”, Konstat-
inović discovers that enthusiastic reception of Edgar Allan Poe began
with the 1863 translation of his short story “Black Cat”. Poe’s later re-
ception included not only translations but also critical texts written by
the most respectable critics from former Yugoslavia: Milorad Šapčanin,
Matoš, Svetislav Stefanović , Bogdan Popović, Vinaver, Goran Kovačić,
Isidora Sekulić, Slamnig and Šoljan (Sasa Simovic with her doctoral
dissertation on Criticism of Edgar Allan Poe will join them in 2013) .
The reception of American literature continued into the 1970s when
Ljiljana Babić writes about Walt Whitman in Yugoslavia (Acta Neo-
philologica, Ljubljana, IX, 1976), while Dunja Detoni-Dujmić research-
es the reception of English and American poetry of XX century. Ileana
Ćosić focuses her dissertation on the presence of American drama
in Belgrade in the period from 1920 to 1970, at Belgrade University.
Her findings show that the best received authors were Arthur Miller,
Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill. Ljiljana Kontić continues the
research into American drama in Belgrade in the period from from
1970 to 1980. The American novel reaches a great popularity in former
Yugoslavia in the period between the two WWs. It is the social novel
which is studied in the doctoral dissertation of Omer Hadžiselimović:
“Serbo-Croat criticism of the American social novel, from 1918 to 1941”
(Sarajevo, Filozofski fakultet, 1978).
The research of the modernist tendency in American literature
(Hemingway, Faulkner) began only after the WW2, that is, from the
1950s, and we learn a lot about this from Gvozdan Eror’s study: Faulk-
ner in our literary criticism (Eror 1975: 709-766). Zoran Konstatinović,
the previously mentioned author, gives a special credit to Zoran Gav-
rilović’s dissertation “Insights: American and Yugoslav understand-
ings of Literature Between the two WWs” (Uočavanja. Američka i
jugoslovenska misao o književnosti između dva rata) because this re-
search connects American and Yugoslav literature of this period on
the basis of typological analogies.
The interest in American literature has intensified during the last
three decades thanks to the research (Svetozar Ignjačević, Tihom-
ir Vučković, Mirko Magarašević, Vera M. Savić) and translations by
Serbian respectable translators (most notably: Aleksandar Petrović;