Korifej onirizma srpske romantičarske književnosti, Laza Kostić

Abstract

While searching for the oniric layer in the literary opus of this romanticism poet, the author of this research will be convinced that Laza Kostić is a being of doubt who spent his whole life, both personal and professional, oscillating between dreams and reality. The origin of dreams in Kostić's work is of a two-fold nature: some are the fruit of the poet's creative intention, whereas the others, the ones left, the ones making intriguing and mysterious The Diary of Dreams, are his 'alive' dreams which fulfilled his nights, sometimes even days, for the entire six years, maybe even longer. Kostić intended those first dreams, created out of necessity, to lead a public life, while the others, being written in French, were meant to stay away from prying eyes. That can, it seems, be a valid reason for them to be read and interpreted separately. End yet, our research, as well as the others up to now, related to Kostić's life and work, indicate that the key of the genesis and understanding of his swan song is what The Diary of Dreams exactly is. In it the motives and the concepts are consistently and constantly showing up, and later, at the peak of his career culminated into 'the most powerful love song of Serbian literature', Santa Maria della Salute. In the corpus of his written legacy, the motive of dream is often recognised as a metaphor for life and/or death, but also as an expression of poetically transposed desires of a poet. That would also correspond to the Freud's theory that dreams are a mere expression of repressed desire of the one dreaming. In his work, the motive of dream is appearing within the thematic units in whose basis are: a) national-romantic idea of Serbian identity b) mythological religious theme c) emotional sensitive life. Studying poet's literary dreams, as well as personal ones, we will realise that neither in the idea of national awakening and restoration of the former Serbian empire, nor in mythology and religion, did he find consolation and satiation. Only when he encountered Lenka Dunđerski, who is said to have been the embodiment of Anima from his dreams, did he start his way from individually unaware Anima to collectively unaware archetype of the Great Mother, through the means of individuation, towards original oneness, permanent conciliation and satiation, which will result in his swan song, Santa Maria della Salute.