Slovenska Literatura (Jun 2012)
Philosophical-aesthetic sources and premise o f Ján Smrek’s „sunny books“
Abstract
The goal of the study is to place the poetry of Ján Smrek´s „sunny books“ into wider philosophical, artistic and cultural-aesthetic context of the early 20th century. The influence of Bergson´s philosophy on the artistic thinking, culture and sensibility of modernist literature of the time proves to be more and more significant. In the context of the philosophy of life (Bergson, Dilthey etc.) and related artistic-aesthetic, philosophical and psychological concepts (Husserl, Jung, Steiner, Guardini etc.) it can be seen revitalisation of religion, mythology and spirituality, whose sources can be traced back to German idealistic philosophy, romanticism and the tradition of hermetic-esoteric sciences. With the intention of reconstructing culture, values and meaning, several modernist artistic-aesthetic manifestos (Anglo-American modernism, Russian acmeism etc.) turn to the principle of cultural memory and the tradition, which they reformed by modern means. Those attempts are developed within the intentions of Bergsonism. The identical dynamic understanding of a tradition can be found in Ján Smrek´s artistic-aesthetic manifestos. In a narrower context, the influence of the vitalism-oriented Czech thinking (the artistic branch - Neumann, Šramek and the theoretical-aesthetic branch - K. Čapek, J. Čapek, Šalda, Černý) on then forming Smrek´s poetics and aesthetic beliefs is also interesting. The gain of the study can be clear with regard to the fact that the influence of Bergsonism and vitalism on Smrek´s poetry has not yet been analysed or researched. The most important is to grasp Smrek´s aesthetic gesture in a wider context of artistic and theoretical thinking of the time.
