Hviezdoslav – básnik veľkých paradoxov a paradoxnej veľkosti
Hviezdoslav – A Poet of Great Paradoxes and Paradoxical Greatness

Summary/Abstract: The paper focuses on paradoxical aspects of P. O. Hviezdoslav’s personality. The poet – although considered a central figure in the Slovak literary canon, institutionally accepted authority and emblem of national culture – remains “rather unpopular and basically unread” and “incomprehensible”. Slovak literary studies, especially before 1989, praised Hviezdoslav’s folk realistic orientation – especially in his “peasant themes”. This narrative foregrounded his folk realistic orientation which was supposed to make his poetry more accessible to the common reader. By means of synecdochal interpretation of fragments of his work, the author of the article shows that Hviezdoslav’s peasant themes – by their expressive, formal and genre qualities – do not display so much a folk realistic influence as the poet’s tendency towards verbal extensiveness, stylistic “exclusivity,” mannerism, Parnassism and respect for classical models. The paper focuses on how these features influence the real status and reception of Hviezdoslav’s poetry today.

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