Hvar City Theatre Days, Vol. 51 No. 1, 2025.
Original scientific paper
The Writer's Original and Adaptations of Literary Texts. Marulić's vs. Maroevic's Judita - Two Author's Medals
Dubravka Brezak Stamać
orcid.org/0009-0002-4594-1595
Abstract
Judita and Davidias are two epics by the Croatian Humanist and poet Marko Marulić, adapted for the theatre by the poet and translator Tonko Maroević. The source text is both the original and the template for a new poetic text adapted for the stage. Thus, in the poetic adaptation process by Tonko Maroević, the biblical-virgilian epics by Marko Marulić become a play, i.e. a puppet show. In this context, the adaptor of the poetic template is also undersigned as the author. Are such texts literary, poetic »counterworlds« and/or an unbetrayed original template? The paper to the forefront the timeless theme of the epic Judita. War, the catastrophe of a prolonged and exhausting pillage and occupation of another people’s space. Betulia becomes a possible Split of Marulić’s time, a city under Venetian rule with a nearby Turkish occupation. The epic Davidias, in which the weaker David defeats the stronger Goliath, apart from the subject matter close to the one in Judita, primarily serves as an explanation of the versification procedures. Maroević wrote the adaptation in three meters: octameter, double rhymed dodecasyllable, and hexameter. The poetic adaptation by Tonko Maroević definitely reflects the virtuosity of a poet who approaches the original in a completely unique way, because the »new« poet must be an expert in poetry and a master in versification. Both originating and rooted in the Mediterranean world of Marulić’s Split, Maroević presents a unique authorial poet’s profile.
Keywords
Judita; Davidias; literary adaptation; versification
Hrčak ID:
330782
URI
Publication date:
14.5.2025.
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