Вечна кућа у усменој епици
Eternal Home in Oral Epic Poetry

Author(s): Mirjana Detelić, Lidija D. Delić
Subject(s): Serbian Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Институт за књижевност и уметност
Summary/Abstract: This paper focuses on one of the aspects of the atypical attribution of home in the oral tradition (eternal home = grave). Searching for the origin of the atypical motif of leaving an opening on a coffin wherein the body of a deceased person is placed, encountered in the poem “A Sad Wedding” from the manuscript collection of Jovan Srećković (The Ethnographic Collection of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, no. 1, 1/55, 48–49а), the authors sift through layers inherited from the ancient Slavic past (confirming the existence of the said motif in the north of Russia and in the regions of the Carpathians, Ukraine, northern Romania and Poland) and follow the connections with lyrical variants (Kosovo) and certain motifs and pat terns (death in the woods, a fairy building a city). Furthermore, the authors point to a transfer of formulas and occasional collisions between the traditional images and layers of epic poetry within the framework of specific poetic creations.

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