ARTIFICIAL WORLDS OF THE CROATIAN MODERN LITERATURE IN THE ONE-ACT PLAY VENUS VICTRIX BY MILAN BEGOVIĆ AND THE TRAGEDY PETRONIJ BY ANTE BENEŠIĆ

Abstract

The comparative reading of two drama texts of historical topics, the one-act comedy Venus victrix by Milan Begović of 1905 and the tragedy Petronij by Ante Benešić of 1907 question and confirm the poetics of the artificial worlds of the Croatian modern literature. The material for the artificial worlds is aesthetically stylized past, renaissance in Begović’s one-act play and Roman in Benešić’s tragedy. The artificial worlds are stylized according to the old type systems such as Roman and renaissance comedy and historical drama, and tragedy with which they have inter-textual connections. The fiction of the historical and artificial worlds does not testify of the past, but of contemporary times and central aesthetic issued of the modern literature: the relations between art and life, aestheticism and vitality, sensuality, decadence, dialectics of decline and recreation.