Where Is 'East of Eden’? The Politics of Steinbeck’s Literary Reputation in Slovenia

Danica  Čerče

doi:http://doi.org/

Abstract

Katherine Arens maintains that literary texts or authors can function as prototypes for their speech genres within literary history and in a cultural community. Until very recently, in Slovenia, John Steinbeck has been regarded primarily as an objective social chronicler of the Great Depression. This popular critical view, earned with his “labor trilogy,” The Grapes of Wrath, In Dubious Battle, and Of Mice and Men, is needlessly limiting, given that Steinbeck’s literary achivements extend well beyond the modes and methods of traditional realism or documentary representation. Written against the background of the critical discourse regarding the political implications of literary works and the ways in which readers are involved in creating the texts they read, this essay analyzes the indicators of and the plausible reasons for the unprecedented popularity of Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden. It shows that in past decades, when Slovenia was in the grip of communist rule, even this book, concerned with moral dilemmas and personal traumas, rather than dealing with the workers’ struggle for social change, could not escape a political reading and served to promote an ideology it does not formally articulate.

Keywords

Communism, literary criticism, politicization of literature, popular appeal, social realism, Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden

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Kritika Kultura
Department of English
School of Humanities
Ateneo de Manila University

The Philippine Commission on Higher Education (CHED) declares Kritika Kultura as a CHED-recognized journal under the Journal Challenge Category of its Journal Incentive Program.

International Board of Editors

Jan Baetens
Professor
Faculty of Arts
Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven (Belgium)

Joel David
Professor of Cultural Studies
Inha University (South Korea)

Michael Denning
Professor of American Studies and English
Department of English
Yale University (US)

Faruk
Faculty of Cultural Sciences
Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia)

Regenia Gagnier
Professor of English
University of Exeter (UK)

Leela Gandhi
John Hawkes Professor of the Humanities and English
Brown University (US)

Inderpal Grewal
Professor of Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies
Professor of South Asian Studies, Ethnicity, Race and Migration Studies
Yale University (US)

Peter Horn
Professor Emeritus and Honorary Lifetime Fellow
University of Cape Town (South Africa)
Honorary Professor and Research Associate in German Studies
University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

Anette Horn
Professor of German Studies
University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

David Lloyd
Distinguished Professor of English
University of California, Riverside (US)

Bienvenido Lumbera
National Artist for Literature
Professor Emeritus
University of the Philippines

Rajeev S. Patke
Director of the Division of Humanities
Professor of Humanities
Yale NUS College (Singapore)

Vicente L. Rafael
Giovanni and Amne Costigan Endowed Professor of History
University of Washington (US)

Vaidehi Ramanathan
Department of Linguistics
University of California, Davis (US)

Temario Rivera
Professorial Lecturer
Department of Political Science
University of the Philippines

E. San Juan, Jr.
Philippines Studies Center (US)

Neferti X.M. Tadiar
Professor of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Barnard College (US)
Director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race
Columbia University (US)

Antony Tatlow
Honorary Professor of Drama
Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)

Where Is 'East of Eden’? The Politics of Steinbeck’s Literary Reputation in Slovenia

Danica Čerče: University of Ljubljana

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