Images and Features of the Mediterranean in the work of Paula von Preradović

Abstract

Paula von Preradović, the author of the Austrian national anthem,
became known early on as the poet of the Istrian and Dalmatian
coastal landscapes and as mediator between cultures - with her first
volumes of poetry Südlicher Sommer (1929) and Dalmatinische
Sonnette (1933). In a unique way, her oeuvre shows the wide range
and complexity of the way in which the sea is inscribed into literature
and which functions are attributable to it; among other things, the
sea becomes an object of yearning and homesickness, an inspiration
for writing, a remedy, a symbol of forlorness, but also of the basis of
contemporary historical statements.