Kosovel and Modern Poetry: An Analysis of Imagery

Abstract

Besides analyzing the images that Kosovel used most frequently, the paper also discovers their structural, grammatical and compositional characteristics. The main conclusions can be summarized in four points: 1. Kosovel used so-called modern figures of speech only in a limited number of poems. There are some rather bold metaphors in “s”, some cases of absolute metaphor and individual cases of analogies or images of identification, but this is not enough to link Kosovel to futurism or surrealism. Kosovel did not use symbolist symbols expressing horizontal correspondences, the only exceptions being the piano and the lake. He used many so-called natural symbols; however, their meanings tend to be conventional, and for the most part decoded. The bulk of Kosovel’s poetry tends to realism (particularly in pure impressions) and romanticism (particularly in poems expressing similarities between nature and people). 2. The group of modern identification metaphors in Kosovel includes rare metaphors made with apposition. His genitival metaphors are still wholly traditional. A technique of merging was not established. 3. Symbolist poetry is characterized by networks of symbols, which Kosovel never employed. Integrals consists of montages of disparate images. The idea for this style of writing could have come from any number of sources, since it is typical of all modernist movements. He occasionally uses a nominal style; only a few poems from the Integrals collection are impersonal. 4. Kosovel drew most extensively on the following motifs: flowers, animals, water, the sun, the moon, night, the stars, heart, soul, religious images, music, and technology. Since these motifs appear in different literary trends and movements, it is impossible to identify Kosovel with a particular movement solely on the basis of his imagery. In terms of the thematic function of his images, Kosovel’s closest affinity seems to be with romanticism and expressionism.