MOTIVE OF A LOG CABIN (FOREST HOUSE) IN THE POETRY OF MILAN DEDINAC

Abstract

The paper explores the relationship between tradition and surrealism in the poetry of Milan Dedinac on the example of a traditional log cabin motive, a forest cottage, which receives the most space in the last cycle of the poetry book Od nemila do nedraga (1957), "Pesnički ogledi s putovanja po Crnoj Gori“. In the introductory part of the work, the poet is placed in the context of the avant-garde and surrealism, in order to determine the significance of surrealistic tendencies in his poetry. The focus of the paper is the way the log cabin is functionalized within the poetic structure, specific because of the unusual relationship between the poet and the lyrical subject, represented through the figure of a lone traveler on Montenegrin virtues. The forest hut is an eminently liminal space in which the lyric subject simultaneously tries to communicate with the transcendent, and unites with the nature that surrounds it. The doubt and questionability are constant in the appearances of this motive in Dedinac's poetry. Contemplation in a desolate log cabin is an attempt to protect one's identity under the roof of a house imagined in the context of folklore heritage, with the songs recognizing the lyrical subject's growing awareness that such protection is no longer possible. The aim of the paper is to analyze the meaning and symbolism of the traditional motive of the forest house in the poems of Milan Dedinac, in the context of the complex relationship between tradition and the avant-garde in general.