Contrastive Elements in the Poetry of Stijepo Mijović Kočan

Abstract

Starting from the polyphonic nature of the poetic voice of Stijepo Mijović Kočan and a broad spectrum of the motifs thematised in his poems, the paper analyses the contrastive elements in his poetry, fistly on the motif and thematic plan: motifs of the native Konavle versus urban motifs of Zagreb, secondly, on the poetic and formal plan of expression: the avant-garde, close to surrealism, automatism of associative narration "directly to the typewriter" versus the traditional rhyming verse of the sonnet, and thirdly on the linguistic-stylistic plan: irony and satire opposite lyrical sentimentality or the štokavian standard against the native language idiom and kajkavian dialect, etc. The analysis shows that this (paradoxical) contrasting quality – obvious already from the fist collection of poems Ispovjedaonica (1969) to the recent books of poems (Sonet svinjcu… i Kati, naravno!, 2000; Sred zavičajnih nebesa, 2001; Ode himne ne, 2012, etc.) – is one of the constant characteritics of Kočan’s poetry.