In this Book
- Across the River: On the Poetry of Mak Dizdar
- Book
- 2011
- Published by: Fordham University Press
summary
The work of Mehmedalija MakDizdar (1917-71) is the cornerstone of modern Bosnian literature. During the Second World War he was a member of the anti-fascist Partisans. After the war, he became prominent in Bosnian cultural life and eventually President of the Writers' Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina. His work blends influences from Bosnian Christian culture, Islamic mysticism, and the cultural remains of medieval Bosnia, especially its stone tombstones.This book falls into two parts. The first is an essay on Dizdar's major poetry book Stone Sleeper. It argues that in his poetry Dizdar turns to spiritual regions and resources that had been suppressed during the time of communism. From the very outset, Stone Sleeper was recognized as a liberatrion from the ideological disciplines of communism, nationalism, and scientism. Few, however, were able fully to understand the traditional content of its post-traditional form. In this part, Rusmir Mahmutcehajic introduces readers to the traditional substance of Stone Sleeper, in the context of what he calls perennial philosophy.From that perspective, prophecy, being the source of perennial wisdom, is set above poetry. In some poetry, however, prophetic wisdom and poetic pronouncement exist inseparably. Stone Sleeper is an example of that mutual co-existence.In the second part, the author traces, in a discussion of Dizdar's mystically influenced poem Blue River,the perennial questions of how we are to discover or realize the human self in relation to God as Creator.
Table of Contents
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- I. The Text beyond the Text
- 1. The Poet
- pp. 7-14
- 3. The Word
- pp. 21-28
- 7. The City
- pp. 50-56
- 8. The Praised
- pp. 57-64
- 9. The House
- pp. 65-71
- 10. Judgment
- pp. 72-78
- 11. I and You
- pp. 79-85
- 12. Incompleteness
- pp. 86-93
- 13. Message
- pp. 94-100
- II. Across Water: A Message on Realization
- 1. Introduction
- pp. 112-116
- 2. Nobody Knows
- pp. 117-121
- 3. Beyond the Hills
- pp. 122-127
- 4. From Noon to Night
- pp. 128-133
- 5. Across the Haws
- pp. 134-139
- 6. Beyond All Mind
- pp. 140-145
- 7. Down There Below
- pp. 146-151
- 8. From Depth to Depth
- pp. 152-157
- 9. To Where The Cock-Crow I s Not Heard
- pp. 158-163
- 10. From Good to Bad
- pp. 164-170
- 11. Wide and Deep
- pp. 171-176
- 12. A Hundred Winters
- pp. 177-182
- 13. About Its Length
- pp. 183-188
- 14. A Dark Blue River
- pp. 189-193
- 15. We Need to Cross
- pp. 194-199
- Epilogue: The Perfect Man
- pp. 200-204
- Annexes
- A. The Poet
- pp. 207-211
- B. Coagulation
- pp. 212-216
- Bibliography
- pp. 241-246
- Abrahamic Dialogues
- pp. 255-256
Additional Information
ISBN
9780823247417
Related ISBN(s)
9780823231683
MARC Record
OCLC
742517402
Pages
192
Launched on MUSE
2012-06-26
Language
English
Open Access
No