Domjanić in sun and shadow

Abstract

Domjanić is a poet whose work even today, hundred years after his birth and forty two years after his death, invites different and often very contradictory reactions. He stands between the »huge« but for him »unsuitable« Kranjčević and the expressionism, the movement which brought a different mood into the Croatian literature. Although this poet of delicate, dusk-like atmosphere was not familiar with the particular expressionistic feeling, he sometimes anticipated it in his verse. He introduced into the poetry of Croatian Moderna a recognizable and subtle sense for music and feeling for a palpable plastic image. The Light in his poetry is a central theme which runs trough the whole series off his poems. The touch of light very often creates a specific Awakening, as it could be seen in his masterpiece »Figurice«. He builds a great number of very successful impressionistic images based on the Sun- Shadow antinomy. In this antinomy the Sun becomes a symbol of Joy and Hope, a symbol of the essenetial Life-force, a source of Awakening and Ra- dinace, and finally it transforms itself into a metaphysical metaphorical sun. Domjanić gave a special touch to the whole Croatian contemporary poetry. This decadent roccocco-clad Petrica Kerempuh is a figure in the Croatian literature as natural as Vidrić in whose shadow he is usually placed. The tone of his poetry, descrete, passionless and often naive, is unique. His verse could express the feelings caracterical for the whole period and influenced the poets of the period that followed.