Biće, čovek, igra u poeziji Vaska Pope

Abstract

Fragmented, aphoristic and elliptic essays from the field of literary theory by Branko Miljković provide insight into the poet’s motivation, explain the idiosyncrasies of his poetic expression, and clarify metaphysical basis of his opus. However, mentioned essays are not only extremely important for interpreting his poems, but they also bear exceptional significance when it comes to explicating poetry in general. The relevance of Miljković’s literary and theoretical musings when interpreting Vasko Popa’s poetry rests upon the evident similarity of their poetic expression the com- Липар / Часопис за књижевност, језик, уметност и културу Јасмина А. Теодоровић, Марија В. Лојаница 108 mon denominators being not only their metaphorical postulates but also the elliptic quality of the verse. Thus, by using Miljković’s understanding of poetic language and the analysis of Popa’s poem cycle Play as the starting point, the paper attempts to answer the following questions: where is the meaning of a literary work constituted, what is the nature of the relationship between truth and literature, is Popa’s poetry a criticism of life’s mechanisms and dogmatism in general, does his poetry merely affirm the existing ontological dimension of human existence or does it promote its newly discovered absurdity, and how clear is the demarcation line between modernist and postmodernist understanding of humanity.