Antički i mitološki motivi u zbirci Carmina Burana

ANTIQUE AND MYTHOLOGICAL MOTIFS IN CARMINA BURANA This paper discusses the function, purpose, place and formal characteristics of the Greek and Roman mythological motifs in the poems that are part of Carmina Burana, a medieval collection of poetry dating from the first half of the 13th century. Different relations established between the aforementioned motifs and lyrical subjects are also examined, as well as how these motifs fit into the context of the individual poem and the entirety of Carmina Burana. The paper focuses exclusively on the motifs which belong to the ancient Greek and Roman traditions, and not on those of the Judeo-Christian provenance, although the latter are numerous in their own right. Also, as Publius Ovidius Naso is often regarded as the main influence on the goliards, traces of his works and militaristic concepts of love visible in the poems of Carmina Burana are also highlighted and examined. The focus of this paper is on those poems which belong to the basic thematic elements usually attributed to the goliards, including tavern, wine, gambling, physical love and satirical and anticlerical overtones.

"Iz ormara na police": O odrastanju i izlasku iz ormara u hrvatskoj queer književnosti

“OUT OF THE CLOSET, ONTO THE BOOKSHELF”: ON GROWING UP AND COMING OUT IN CROATIAN QUEER LITERATURE In the contemporary Croatian queer prose, growing up is represented as a process with uncertain outcomes. Contemporary writers do not describe gay and lesbian identities as already shaped, finalized, and unquestionably different from heterosexuality. Their poetics have many predecessors, Bildungsroman, the 19th-century genre that, despite conventional epilogues, depicts youth as a period of the adventure and overturn, being the oldest one. The second important influence are foreign coming out novels (texts that describe the articulation of gay and lesbian identities in the family and community) or narratives of affirmation, and the third Yugoslav young adult prose. The publication of the Croatian queer prose has increased dramatically since the first Gay Pride in Zagreb (2002) and the Queer Zagreb festival the following year. In the short story collection Poqureene priče [The queered stories] (2004) growing up is one of the prevailing topics with eventually popularized motifs such as coming out, moving away / traveling, cultural signifiers of gay identity, and crossings of sexual orientation with gender and class. Writing in the first person is also very popular. Vladimir Stojsavljević’s oeuvre is important because the author depicts growing up in three contexts, during Yugoslavia, in the war-time, and in post-transition, and texts by Nora Verde are a novelty because she writes about queer women as belonging to lesbian community. Young authors Mirta Maslać and Viktorija Božina reveal an interesting autobiographical discourse and share a tendency towards using diverse cultural references. This paper aims to show how the encounter of local gay and lesbian culture, foreign fiction, and already present genres has shaped the current texts about queer identity that manage to avoid writing about sexuality within simplistic, binary oppositions.

Lavr Evgenija Vodolazkina kao roman o vječnoj ljubavi

EUGENE VODOLAZKIN’S LAURUS AS A NOVELA ABOUT ETERNAL LOVE Even though in Eugene Vodolazkin’s hybrid novel Laurus, the hagiographic and love storylines are inseparable, this paper focuses mainly on the topic of love, or more precisely, on the concept of eternal love. The paper seeks to demonstrate that in his understanding of love, Vodolazkin is inspired, on the one hand, by Vladimir Solovyov and Nikolai Berdyaev’s Christian-Platonist rendering of Eros, and, on the other, by the Orthodox-theological interpretation of passion as sin. In any case, the semantic field of “love”, as seen by Vodolazkin in his novel, includes passion and compassion and unquestionable permanence. The meaning of the adjective “eternal” in “eternal love” first points to the meaning of the Christian concept of eternity. The meaning of the adjective is further discussed and clarified in the framework of Vodolazkin’s metaphysical assumptions about the irrelevance or absence of time.

Buddha u prvom i trećem pripovjednom licu

BUDDHA IN THE FIRST- AND THIRD-PERSON NARRATION The Jätakas tales about previous existences of Gotama Buddha are a voluminous and extremely popular part of Buddhist literature. Told, according to the Buddhist belief, by Gotama himself, the jätakas describe the path of the future Buddha (Bodhisatta) who, being reborn numerous times as human, animal or deity, gradually moves towards his last existence and Enlightenment. The paper aims to show a manner in which the shift between narrative voices simultaneously allows identification and distinction between Buddha and Bodhisatta (based on the research by Naomi Appleton and Sarah Shaw, and accompanied by additional explanations and illustrations). The Jätakas are presented in the light of the Buddhist doctrines of no-self and Buddhist interpretation of the rebirth-process. Also, it is suggested that the lasting popularity and the lure of the jätakas can be seen as rooted in their potency to serve as a kind of model for resolving various life-issues to which even a modern-day reader can relate to. The paper also aims to introduce Croatian readers to extremely diverse and numerous motifs and themes presented in the Päli Jätaka collection.

“Femine erranti”: biblijske žene u djelima talijanskih renesansnih umjetnica

Prikaz knjige: Francesca Maria Gabrielli, Evine kćeri: žene o biblijskim ženama u talijanskoj renesansi. Zagreb: Disput. 2019. 217. str.