Original scientific paper
The Romantic Island of Hvar of Dimitrija Demeter and August Šenoa
Cvijeta Pavlović
orcid.org/0000-0002-5800-961X
; Faculty of philosophy in Zagreb, University of Zagreb
Abstract
In his 2003 anthology Poems about Hvar from Marulić to Šoljan (Pjesni Hvara od Marulića do Šoljana), Nikša Petrić collected some one hundred poems and prose fragments describing in different ways the space of the Island of Hvar from the beginning of the Croatian literature to the 20th century. The selected 19th-century literature dedicated to Hvar is represented by A. Kaznačić, J. Carić, P. Kuničić, and A. Tresić Pavičić. However, there are two additional important 19th-century authors whose writing includes the motif of the Island of Hvar: Dimitrija Demeter in the historical tragedy Teuta (1844; 1864) and August Šenoa in the epic poem Vinko Hreljanović (1874). It could be concluded that Šenoa learnt how to adapt the desire for spatiality to performative or narrative space from Demeter’s Teuta, which, in turn, represents a bad example of spatiality. The fact that the both authors describe the space they are not familiar with in general terms and the space they have experienced in more specific terms testifies to the Romantic aesthetics according to which description is subject to the principle of »realist« representation. Romantic representation of nature is in accordance with the inner world of the hero as well as in accordance with the consequences of historical mistakes or victories. The more credible reconstruction of time and space the better is one of the most important principles of all historical genres of the Croatian and European Romantic Movement. Accordingly, Romantic representations of fictional world represent an important nexus with the realist as well as the modernist worldview.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
82208
URI
Publication date:
4.5.2012.
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