COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF YOUTH TEXTS BY OSCAR WILD AND CIRIL KOSMAČ

Abstract

Oscar Wilde or Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854–1900) is an Irish poet, writer and playwright who became famous for his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) and dramatic texts. It is known that Wilde wrote two books of fairy tales for his two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan, namely The Happy Prince and Other Stories (1888) and A House of Pomegranates (1891). In total, he wrote only nine authorial tales for the double addressee (The Great Rocket, Infantina’s Birthday, The Young King, The Fisherman and His Soul, The Selfish Giant, The Nightingale and the Rose, The Happy Prince, The Loyal Friend and The Star - Child). His fairy tales have a special place in world youth literature precisely because of the openness of the addressee–the text is intended for children and the context for adults. Young addressees are also surprised to read his texts because there is no ‘happy ending,’ as is typical of the folk tale model. Wilde’s distinctly authorial tales have a mostly tragic ending. Ciril Kosmač (1910–1980) is a contemporary classic in Slovenian (youth) literature. He is better known as an adult author and less well known as a youth author. He wrote eleven texts for young addressees, namely Kamen in njiva (Stone and Field), Kdo bo zobal češnje (Who will Eat the Cherries), Kovač in hudič (The Blacksmith and the Devil), Kruh (The Bread), Medvejke (The Bears), Pravljica o maku (The Tale of the Poppy), Pravljica o velikem mlinu (The Tale of the Great Mill), Vrnitev Martina Jakončiča (The Return of Martin Jakončič), Ringaraja, Smrt nedolžnega velikana (The Death of an Innocent Giant), Sreča (The Happiness), and Vgaju (In the Grove). His youthful work can be divided into realistic (Kdobozobalčešnje, Kovačinhudič, Kruh, Medvejke, Pravljica o velikem mlinu, Ringaraja, Smrt nedolžnega velikana, Sreča, Vgaju) and fantastic (Kameninnjiva, Pravljicaomaku) texts. Authentic authorial tales are Kamen in njiva, which is associatively distant from the Korean tale The Stone, and Pravljica o maku. 

Keywords: fairy tales, motif, myth, ethics, symbolism, etc.