Poetry
Утопљене душе
Not translated into English
Vladislav Petković Dis · 1911
Opening lines
Још једном само, о, да ми је дићи
Испод живота свет умрлих нада;
Још једном само, о, да ми је ићи
Простором снова под видиком јада.
Just once more, oh, if only I could raise
From beneath life the world of dead hopes;
Just once more, oh, if only I could go
Through the space of dreams beneath the horizon of grief.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from sr.wikisource.org
Synopsis
Poems arranged in cycles, which was new. The book opens with “Тамница”, the prison of life into which one falls from pure distances, without knowing or wishing it, then passes through “Нирвана” and through a world of sleep, death and oblivion, where everything happens as in a dream. Nothing in it is narrated; the image comes from the unconscious rather than from the world, and the tone remains dark.
Context
The author had the book printed at his own expense, with the help of friends. Jovan Skerlić, the most influential critic of the time, attacked it harshly: he saw in it the model of an entire new art and judged this poetry to be negating, plaintive and dark. Other voices immediately came to its defence, Svetislav Stefanović, Stanislav Vinaver and Isidora Sekulić, who saw in the author the one who brought modern poetics to the Serbian poets. He published a second collection in 1913.
Who it is for
A short collection, in a simple language that some have judged careless. Nothing requires prior knowledge: one only has to accept that no poem tells a story.
Prizes and reception
Panned when it appeared, the collection is regarded as the entry of Serbian poetry into modernity; it has been on the school curriculum for decades.