Tin Ujević’s Ispit savjesti (Examination of Conscience). The Critical Methodology of an Essayistic Subject Cover Image

Ispit savjesti Tina Ujevića. Kritička metodologija esejističkoga subjekta
Tin Ujević’s Ispit savjesti (Examination of Conscience). The Critical Methodology of an Essayistic Subject

Author(s): Jela Sabljić Vujica
Subject(s): Croatian Literature
Published by: Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Mostaru - Studij povijesti i Hrvatski institut za povijest - Zagreb
Keywords: essay; criticism; methodology; practice; subject;

Summary/Abstract: Ispit savjesti (Examination of Conscience) occupies a unique place in Ujević’s works. It is the junction of his biography, the creative principle of his poetry. In it, the author is testing himself in a self-examination and self-analysis exercise with no determined order or plan, in a medium which has no fixed base. Ispit savjesti is the search for coherence, the search for expression and the settling of accounts. This is from where its branched structure flows, which theory would find hard to define with any precision, placing it in the context of hybrid literature, at a crossroads where confession, essay, autobiography, lyricism and mysticism intersect. This paper develops two lines of discussion from this junction, which, in the end, connect in Ujević’s essay. On the one hand, it will consider the difficulties in mediating between the subject and the world, and on the other hand, it will point out the contentious places in Ispit savjesti. By following the two lines further, the historical/crisis/critical status of the principles of modernist self-determination will become evident, but so will the inviolable way in which it is deflected in Ujević’s soul-searching prose. In this way, the modernist subject will be exposed three-fold in the soul-searching: as a document of the time, as a document of crisis and as a document of criticism.

  • Issue Year: 2023
  • Issue No: 9
  • Page Range: 339-358
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: Croatian
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