Poem of the World: An Attempt of a Hermeneutical Approach to Strniša’s Book of Poetry Oko

Abstract

The article represents an attempt of a hermeneutical, interpretative approach to a book of poetry Oko [The Eye], published by Gregor Strniša in 1974. Starting from a concept of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and his thoughts on historical nature of understanding, its mediation through tradition, I define the essence of interpretation as an attempt of an understanding dialogue with the text, as a circular game of questions and answers, as a hermeneutical approachment. In my article I aim to answer the question, what Strniša’s poem in his book Oko is trying to relate and what brings her into motion. To do so, I follow Strniša’s definition of the essence of his own poetic creation, the definition of the cosmic (world) consciousness, and the similarity of the book with the transcendental philosophy of Immanuel Kant, the similarity, which derives from the structure, the strict systematic composition, and the subtitle of the book: The Outline of the Transcendental Logic. Before moving to my own commentary of the book, I discuss the ways of approaching to and understanding of Strniša’s poetry, as represented in the interpretations of J. Stanek, V. Truhlar, T. Hribar and A. Žižek. Strniša's poetry is a poem of the world, a poem of the cosmos as an inhabited world. Of the world in its veiled unveiling. The world, as Strniša depicts it, is embraced and inhabited by two monstrous creatures, made (up) out of anxiety: the kraken and the roc, a giant octopus and a fearful bird of prey. As figures of an unknown and invisible eye, of an unknown and invisible hand, the kraken and the roc are reaching into the world and are veiling its openness between the sky and the sea. Although Strniša refers to Kant’s philosophy, although, at least on a principal level, he accepts the Kantian restriction of cognition to a possible experience, he is trying to outline, in his poems and with them, also the transcendence as always intervening in the world. As the invisible, to which all that is visible essentially belongs. As the unknown, to which all that is known essentially belongs. As the in-visible. As the un-known.