The Idea Behind the Integrals in Kosovel’s Poetry

Abstract

Like many avant-garde artists, Kosovel believed in the connection between the world and humanity, the Earth and the Universe. He regarded poetry as an expression of human sensitivity, man’s reason as well as his emotional and empathetic faculties. Thus, he recognized the aesthetic, as well as gnoseological value of poetry. In striving for the integral human being, he saw the need for art and literature to analyze and synthesize the phenomena of life. His efforts resulted in poems denominated as “konsi” (“cons” poems) and “integrali” (integrals) – both of which encapsulate his aesthetic quest and his Weltanschauung. – The word integral is a concept from the fields of mathematics and physics. Kosovel discovered its analytic and synthetic utility in the period of his constructivist experiments. The integral is the outcome of a process of integration, in which the primary function is determined with the aid of a derived one. The derived function enables the discovery of a primary and more elementary piece of information on the basis of the smallest possible number of unknowns. The process of integration is therefore used to study what is simultaneously an autonomous phenomenon and a derivative of some other, more elementary or fundamental phenomenon. – This yields a sense of the interconnectedness of phenomena and their continuity, which is not always immediately apparent. Kosovel’s “cons” poems include elements that seem to be autonomous, but are, in fact, derivatives. The poet subjects them to a process of integration in order to reach or construct the integral human being, the essence of humanity, that is, the quintessential human being.