Poetry and Literary History in the Works of Ivan Prijatelj

Abstract

Several authors have established a dichotomy between the positivistic method of Ivan Prijatelj's historical treatises on literature and the intuitively oriented treatment of poetry in his essays. They have suggested that the theoretical source of this dichotomy is his dualistic view of literature, demonstrated in his conceptual doublets "poet" vs. "man of letters" and "poetry" vs. "literature". The present paper points out that Prijatelj’s lecture on The Literary History contains a theoretical model for a synthetic treatise offering a possible solution to the basic difference between the subjects of poetry and literature. The art of literature, aesthetically defined by its nature, is subjected to historical determinism through the expansion of the fundamental category of national history – which frames the total development of literature and poetry – beyond the sphere of empirical reality.