Slovenska Literatura (Dec 2014)
Poet in Time. The Synthesis of the „Split“ World in the Subject (Laco Novomeský´s Poetry 1923 – 1939)
Abstract
The goal of the paper is to show the evolutionary transformations and identifications of Laco Novomeský´s poetic gesture in the interwar period of his work. The subject of the research is Novomeský´s poetry written between the years 1923 – 1939, ranging from the juvenilia published in magazines (1923 – 1925), to his debut collection of poems Nedeľa (Sunday, 1927), collections Romboid (1932) and Otvorené okná (Open Windows, 1935), to collection Svätý za dedinou (The Saint at the End of the Village, 1939). Novomeský´s poetic subject does not find his position so easily as do those of his contemporaries (Poničan, Smrek); quite early, even before his debut, he abandons Utopism and the ideal of Revolution, ideas typical of those times, and subsequently also the illusory forms of love. Novomeský completely gives up optimistic positions in order to take on disillusion as early as his debut book, and the tendencies towards deficit, pessimism and tragic feelings deepen even further. The expression of disintegration, collapse and isolation is the crisis of objective time, and Novomeský finds a way out of it by associating himself with intimate time. Overcoming the destruction poetry is enabled by means of new recognition of the value of the poetic word, which becomes the intention of the synthesis of the split world in the subject, a tool of relieving the deficits and destructions, and symbolizes the return to the positive values of life and the restoration of dehumanized humanity. The contribution of the paper can be seen in clarification of the evolution of Novomeský´s poetic gesture in relation to other similar authors (Smrek, Poničan) and identification of the method that Novomeský used to overcome and synthesize the opposites.
