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NIKOLA TUTEK Cultural romanticism in modern literature can, in my opinion, in some instances, be compared to positive discrimination in social studies. Hence, cultural romanticism is often based on positive (benevolent) prejudice. Such romanticism, which overemphasizes various features of greatness in a certain culture, strongly affects the guality of literary work while leaving the described, that is, appropriated culture distant and intact. Ihese claims can find fertile ground especially in the analysis of "Ihe Albanian Virgin". In his literary works, Lord Byron glorified Greek culture and people and his biased description of the idyllic Greek society escapes scientific scrutiny simply because it was written in times when this was a sort of a stylistic standard. What Munro offers in "Ihe Albanian Virgin" is close to idealization; many of the idyllic scenes of village life in the story are written in a “neoByronic” style. Interestingly, Lord Byron is mentioned in “The Albanian Virgin” in a humorous depiction of the narrator’s attempt to write a thesis. This might be seen as Munro’s attempt at (self-)irony (regarding Charlotte’s reinterpretation of the story) or as an expression of parallelism in the narrator’s destiny: unable to write a thesis on Mary Shelley and related themes from the period of Romanticism, the narrator gets a chance to witness a romantic Byronic story in her real life. “FIVE POINTS”: ENFORCING THE COMMON DENOMINATOR Alice Munro’s “Five Points” was published in the collection of short prose Friend of my Youth in 1990, four years before the publication of “The Albanian Virgin”, with which it shares many similarities. Just like parts of “The Albanian Virgin’, the plot of “Five Points” is set in Victoria, British Columbia. Both stories feature intertwined sections of the main and the auxiliary narrations, and both stories end with a revelation from the auxiliary narration, which is crucial for understanding the main narration. Furthermore, in both stories, the auxiliary narration is retold by one of the characters in the main narration. Finally, both stories contain elements of cultural re-interpretation. The main narration of the story is about Brenda, a married family woman who is having an affair with Neil. Only the auxiliary narration, retold by Neil, contains elements of literary cultural re-interpretation. Neil remembers his childhood and the candy store run by a Croatian family. The Croatian family had a daughter, a thirteen-year-old girl, who was not blessed with good looks but was assertive enough to pay young boys to have sex with her. Maria’s addiction to sex finally leads to the bankruptcy of the store, and the family leaving the town. At the core of both narrations is Munro’s delicate examination of the power games in male-female relationships. + 78 +
