Darko Gašparović on Janko Polić Kamov

Abstract

My intention is to address the topic starting from several different, but mutually entangled levels. The first level of impetus can be found in the following: the scientific legacy of Darko Gašparović is much more complex and diverse than his Kamovian opus. However, we should not be fooled by this fact. From his dissertation (1986) through to the last of Gašparović’s academic pursuits (preparing the second book of Polić’s ‘Selected Works’ in 2016), Kamov has become a permanent topic, one of the unbroken strands of Gašparović’s scholarly letter. This decades-long preoccupation with the work of the ‘cursed poet’ is the second plateau to be viewed, but also the reason for the sentimental naming of this piece. The dedication and thoroughness of Gašparović’s approach to Polić’s literary achievements is shaped both by the most relevant monograph production on this writer from Rijeka, and by insightful articles, essays, lectures, editorial care about Kamov’s collected works, references to the theatrical and / or performer’s versions of ‘the walker’. The third, is the plane that forms the basic cohesive tissue of the first two levels, and that plane is the one of the passionate advocate and reader of Rijeka’s ‘cursed poet’.