Problems of Poetic Reactualization of Medieval Heritage in Post-War Modernism

Abstract

A significant portion of Serbian poetry of the latter half of the 20th century was marked by the creative reactualization and rediscovery of medieval heritage. This orientation is evident in some of the leading poets of post-war modernism, such as Vasko Popa, Miodrag Pavlović, Ivan V. Lalić, and Ljubomir Simović. At the same time, this creative direction raised a number of poetic and cultural studies questions, most notably those that pertain to the nature of the relationship with that distant era. Namely, is it possible to establish authentic contact between the Middle Ages and the 20th century, given the linguistic, spiritual, and even civilizational distance between them? In this essay we attempt to define the nature of this connection as it appeared to the most important poets of the latter half of the 20th century. We show how some of the most central characteristics of post-war modernism (ideas of the totality and history, the poem as prayer) were formed through interactions with medieval poetics and its worldview. We further examine whether this relationship is established and realized exclusively as an individual poetic act of modernist poetry, or as a result of older and more profound cultural and historical forces. In other words, whether medieval legacy is only a part of individual poetic memory, or part of a greater spiritual body of Serbian history and culture.