Hvar City Theatre Days, Vol. 43 No. 1, 2017.
Original scientific paper
POPULAR INTO ELITE – »REALIST« POETRY AND POETIC MODERNITY
Slaven Jurić
; Faculty of philosophy in Zagreb, University of Zagreb
Abstract
The so-called »realist« poetry – appearing as it did alongside the preference for similar concepts in prose at the turn of the century – incited a substantial critical attention, but also gave rise to a few misconceptions as regards the use of strategies uncommon in the poetry of preceding generations, no less than as regards its rapport with poetic modernity in general. Branded by some critics as a regression into the popular, even into triteness, for the ostensible purpose of reaching a wider audience, it was characterized above all by relinquishing of linguistic experimentation and insistence on transparent meanings. Starting from contemporary theoretical insights, the paper proposes that the situation might be clarified if the referential plane of the text is considered in the light of the modes employed for mediating social and aesthetic norms, and if the deep relations that obtain between »realist« poetry and the popular and elite poles of literary communication respectively are analysed with respect to the dominant rhetorical strategies. The latter in particular are shown to be much more ambivalent than it appears when the effects of the referential and rhetorical apparatus are conflated – as is habitually the case – with the mimetic aspect imposed as the decisive factor in the reception of this kind of poetry.
Keywords
Croatian poetry; modernism; realism; lyric; referential function; rhetoric; popular
Hrčak ID:
192200
URI
Publication date:
8.5.2017.
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