Два лица љубави и смрти – "Маска" Милоша Црњанског
Two Faces of Love and Death. "The Mask" by Miloš Crnjanski

Summary/Abstract: By analysing literary characters, as agents of thematic, motivational and ideational function of the literary work, the paper will attempt to shed light on the juxtapositions love/passion, life/death, young/old, fact/fiction, which represent the inside and the outside of all relations among characters, and which, at deeper semantic structures, enable the recognition of the assumed role – the mask, and the substance lying beneath it. Special attention will be paid to the phenomena of beauty and shame, which take on their own meaning in the textual tissue of Miloš Crnjanski’s play. The pre-Easter atmosphere – the period of Shrovetide games – is observed through the prism of the carnival, and inevitably implies the excess of vital energy,and it is within this framework that we will analyse the specific, outrageously sumptuous theatrical metaphors which use a wide range of images such as dance, play and masquerade. Crnjanski stylizes his characters as decadent passionate people, while the language he employs is decoratively picturesque, reflecting “the horror induced by the common speech” of common life. The dominant topic of this “poetic comedy”– eroticism – ironically put forward and introduced with the aim of unmasking the cult of female sexuality and the image of the glitter of nobility suggestively alludes to the world lacking substance effected by the motives of transcendence and illusion.

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