Page 136 - Vinkler, Jonatan, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco. Eds. 2019. Ideology in the 20th Century: Studies of literary and social discourses and practices. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 136
Ideology in the 20th Century: studies of literary and social discourses and practices
tween personal ideals and the cruel reality. According to most scholarly
discussions, the break with the past tradition and the beginnings of the
so-called new intimism, drawing from modernity as well as romanticism,
began in 1953 with the publication of a collaborative collection of poetry
by Kajetan Kovič, Ciril Zlobec, Janez Menart, and Tone Pavček entitled
Pesmi štirih (Poetry of Four).
Even before the breakthrough publication of Pesmi štirih, a small col-
lection of poetry entitled Senca v srcu was published by then 25-years old
Ada Škerl at Mladinska knjiga publishing house. Her work was indeed
very different from the prevailing collectivist poetry. Škerl, recognised as
a poetic talent early on, was a member of the literary circle connected to
People’s Youth (other members included Ivan Minatti, Ciril Zlobec, and
Branko Hofman) and already published her poems in most important
136 literary journals, for example in Novi sveti (New World). However, she
could not foresee the reaction to the publication of her first collection,
which sealed her literary fate.
Thirty-nine poems in the collection with a title, provocative for the
time, express a silent but nevertheless radical subjectivism of a female sub-
ject, focusing on her intimate world. A deep personal experience in the
collection does not vary between different thematic and motive frame-
works as is characteristic, for example, for the above-mentioned Pesmi
štirih, but is rather focused on one central theme, that is, the pain of love
related to the feeling of death. Škerl’s book is compositionally well struc-
tured and consists of three poetic sections, Thirsty youth, Their love, and
Grave candle, creating an impression of a personal lyric diary. They out-
line a story of unfulfilled love of a young girl for a sick man and his death.
The majority of poems (e.g. the whole first section) are narrated from the
perspective of a female or a girl with feelings of an unfulfilled longing,
jealousy, despair, resignation, mental exhaustion, and existential loneli-
ness and pain, which further prevails in the last poetic section. The fe-
male narrator and her perspective are in the second section replaced by
the voice and the perspective of a male, facing an inevitable death, thus
creating a dialogic structure of the collection. The third section is placed
in the time after the man’s death. Here, the male voice appears once more,
speaking from the grave and addressing the woman who then responds in
the subsequent poem. The second section Their love hence acts as a coun-
terweight to other two surrounding sections. Through male focalisation
and narration, it presents the idyllic moment of the relationship between
the object of desire of the central lyric persona and another female per-
son, the literary space being an ideal rural environment. The Platonic love
tween personal ideals and the cruel reality. According to most scholarly
discussions, the break with the past tradition and the beginnings of the
so-called new intimism, drawing from modernity as well as romanticism,
began in 1953 with the publication of a collaborative collection of poetry
by Kajetan Kovič, Ciril Zlobec, Janez Menart, and Tone Pavček entitled
Pesmi štirih (Poetry of Four).
Even before the breakthrough publication of Pesmi štirih, a small col-
lection of poetry entitled Senca v srcu was published by then 25-years old
Ada Škerl at Mladinska knjiga publishing house. Her work was indeed
very different from the prevailing collectivist poetry. Škerl, recognised as
a poetic talent early on, was a member of the literary circle connected to
People’s Youth (other members included Ivan Minatti, Ciril Zlobec, and
Branko Hofman) and already published her poems in most important
136 literary journals, for example in Novi sveti (New World). However, she
could not foresee the reaction to the publication of her first collection,
which sealed her literary fate.
Thirty-nine poems in the collection with a title, provocative for the
time, express a silent but nevertheless radical subjectivism of a female sub-
ject, focusing on her intimate world. A deep personal experience in the
collection does not vary between different thematic and motive frame-
works as is characteristic, for example, for the above-mentioned Pesmi
štirih, but is rather focused on one central theme, that is, the pain of love
related to the feeling of death. Škerl’s book is compositionally well struc-
tured and consists of three poetic sections, Thirsty youth, Their love, and
Grave candle, creating an impression of a personal lyric diary. They out-
line a story of unfulfilled love of a young girl for a sick man and his death.
The majority of poems (e.g. the whole first section) are narrated from the
perspective of a female or a girl with feelings of an unfulfilled longing,
jealousy, despair, resignation, mental exhaustion, and existential loneli-
ness and pain, which further prevails in the last poetic section. The fe-
male narrator and her perspective are in the second section replaced by
the voice and the perspective of a male, facing an inevitable death, thus
creating a dialogic structure of the collection. The third section is placed
in the time after the man’s death. Here, the male voice appears once more,
speaking from the grave and addressing the woman who then responds in
the subsequent poem. The second section Their love hence acts as a coun-
terweight to other two surrounding sections. Through male focalisation
and narration, it presents the idyllic moment of the relationship between
the object of desire of the central lyric persona and another female per-
son, the literary space being an ideal rural environment. The Platonic love
