Original scientific paper
Elements of the Balladic in Dinko Šimunović’s Novella Duga: Between the Aesthetic, the Intimate, and the Political
Marijana Bijelić
; University of Zagreb
Abstract
This article examines the balladic elements in Dinko Šimunović’s short story Duga, with a focus on the interplay between the balladic and the tragic. Particular attention is given to the terminological and structural proximity of these two concepts, both of which reflect deep ethical contradictions, though within different frameworks: the tragic tends to dramatize moral conflict in the political and public sphere, while the ballad transposes it into intimate, personal experience. Through the analysis of Srna’s relational desire and her aestheticized death, as well as the broader symbolic and gendered implications of the text, the article explores how patriarchal norms are first reinforced and then disrupted. The balladic structure enables a poetic treatment of transgression, mortality, and emotional repression, while tragedy remains an implicit structural undercurrent. The article also emphasizes the connection between aesthetic and ethical dimensions within the genre, and the way in which the ballad reflects social codes through personal conflict. Unlike tragedy, which tends toward resolution and the articulation of guilt, the ballad mystifies death and embeds moral struggle in an emotionally and symbolically charged private space. Duga does not resolve in the restoration of order, but in the exposure of its symbolic violence and the belated recognition of individual desire beyond gendered expectation.
Keywords
ballad; Dinko Šimunović; genre; gender; desire; death; ethics
Hrčak ID:
349035
URI
Publication date:
9.7.2026.
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