Environment-Poem in the Poetry of Walt Whitman and Oton Župančič

Abstract

The relationship between Whitman’s and Župančič’s poetry is more complex than it might appear at first sight. Thus, in addition to directly demonstrable influence, the article focuses on affinities that are not necessarily the result of direct influence. Of particular interest are the differences and similarities in the authors’ attitudes, revealed by a comparative reception of both oeuvres in the light of concepts such as environment-poem, introduced by the literary theorist Angus Fletcher in relation to Whitman’s poetry, and the untimely, as conceived by Gilles Deleuze on the basis of Nietzsche’s notions of the will to power and eternal return. The article observes the manifestations of these concepts and their relations with the conceptual metaphor of wave motion which further links the two poets and supports their comparative reading. This reading proceeds from the premise that every original creative act involves an element that no interpretation can exhaust. This is an element common to each modernity, but at the same time it can be excluded from and turned against this modernity in the hope of a time to come; it is what makes the artwork a unique experiment. The parallel reading of the two poets in light of the concept of environment-poem leads to the conclusion that neither Whitman’s nor Župančič’s oeuvre, despite the latter’s diversity, can be reasonably divided into distinct categories of ideologically marked or engaged poems, and those belonging to a “pure lyricism.”