Drama texts by Antun Sasin

Abstract

An analysis of three plays by Antun Sasin - “Malahne komedije od pira“ (Little Comedies of the Wedding Feast), “Filida“ and “Flora“ - show that these texts were written in the literary tradition of his predecessors who had tried their hand at the pastoral genre. This paper is the first part of a more comprehensive study of Sasin's relation to the traditional drama. His predecessors were Džore Držić, M. Vetranović and N. Nalješković, Marin Držić. The relations of Sasin to Marin Držić are subject of a separate study. Sasin composes his units on the basis of a lexical inventory similar to the Petrarcan poets, but follows somewhat different rules in spite of the superficial similarities that the Petrarcan tradition gives them. Sasin takes over fragments of certain motifs and procedures: he has a selective attitude towards literary tradition, and develops his own imaginary world on the basis of the literary impulses he took over. The establishment of such relations to the literary tradition is not only Sasin's individual stylistic feature, but it is rather the mark of the times, when authors nourished a pronouncedly explicit and affirmative relation to the tradition.