Review article

Publications and Critical Reception of Krunoslav Kuten’s Children’s Poetry

Nikolina Berta ; Faculty of Teacher Education, Univeristy of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Lucija Stepanić ; Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

This paper presents a historical overview of the publications and critical reception of the children’s poetry of Krunoslav Kuten (1855 – 1894) from the 1970s on. Kuten was one of the most remarkable representatives of Croatian 19th century children’s literature. He published his children’s poems exclusively in the children’s magazine Smilje [Immortelle] in the period 1875 – 1892. Recent critical reception of his children’s poetry was initiated by an extensive study by Milan Crnković, followed by the writings of several other scholars. The examination of the issues of Smilje and the first and only collections of Kuten’s poetry edited in 1988 by Milan Crnković and in 1991 by Ivo Zalar reveals several changes in the texts of individual poems in their re-publication. In addition, eleven poems were omitted
from these collections, and thus remained unknown to contemporary readers. Reasons are considered for these omissions and for the lexical changes in some of the included poems. The findings indicate self-censorship in the selection and publication of Kuten’s verses.

Keywords

Krunoslav Kuten; Smilje; children’s poetry; critical reception of children’s poetry; self-censorship in children’s literature

Hrčak ID:

132479

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/132479

Publication date:

31.12.2014.

Article data in other languages: croatian german

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