songbooks, songs for children, poem collections, school youth, reception of poetry
Abstract
In the second half of the 19th century, children’s poems were mostly published in periodicals and poem collections. Until now less attention has been devoted to the poems that had been set to music and included in the songbooks published in the late 19th century. Ljudevit Varjačić was the acclaimed author of children’s verses used for song lyrics. He is known as a particularly prolific collaborator of the Smilje magazine, whose songs were often set to music. Among other things, he also published “Lira”, a songbook with music notation for male and female school youth, and his poems were set to music in other songbooks for children and youth. Varjačić poems set to music are analysed in this paper with regard to their poetic, thematic and lexical features. His poetry is written with the well-defined overall metric pattern and rhyme, marked by pedagogical and ethical tendencies. Lexical analysis showed several topics on which Varjačić writes: songs that refer to physical work, songs that inspire learning, songs expressing love for mother, patriotic songs, religious songs, and songs about vacation and fun. Although some of these lyrics are still offered to children, we conclude that their poetic, thematic and lexical features are no longer close to the contemporary recipient.
