Issue 15 (Summer 2021), pp. 1-19
DOI: 10.6667/interface.15.2021.127
Ecophenomenology in Croatian and Modern Greek Poetry:Janko Polić Kamov and Angelos Sikelianos. A comparative study case
Nikoleta Zampaki
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Abstract
The aim of this study case is to examine the discipline of Ecophenomenology in Janko Polić Kamov’s Ištipana hartija (Pinched Paper) and Angelos Sikelianos’ Lyrikos Vios ("Lyrical Life"). Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s concepts of “flesh of the world” and “chiasm” are the main keys in order to interpretate the terms of Nature and body in both Kamov and Sikelianos’ poems. Variable chiasms are analyzed through different ontological frameworks such as the death zone and landscape sceneries including flora and fauna, based on the individual senses and cognitive state. The universal flesh offers a new reading of the death and life zones, perceived as somaesthetical bodies. In this sense, the death and life zones are considered to be eutopias where death advances a symbiotic internship with life and enlightens more its impact on subjective psychology. To sum up, the conception of the universal flesh which is an upper hierarchically, constant and dynamic becoming is central in order to enter the aforementioned poets’ biocosmic perception.
Keywords: ecophenomenology, Janko Polić Kamov, Angelos Sikelianos, flesh, chiasm, somaesthetics of death zone, more than human world
The phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty studies the subjective embodied experience in the general context of Nature and body. According to him, Nature is perceived not in terms of an inter-embodiment, but as a representation and realistic articulation of human, mind and history (Merleau-Ponty, 1983, p. 3). Moreover, his account on Nature and body tends to be considered as a holistic remapping of the internship among them and is based on the central concept of flesh. Specifically, the perception of the world through senses and human experience is not restricted only in terms of the humans or world, but the flesh is the ontological dynamics of their extension as it entails a universal remark. In the Merleau-Ponty’s essay entitled “Flesh of the world – Flesh of the Body” (1960), the universal flesh is the key axis of decoding the flesh of Nature and body respectively as it is the core, even the question mark of the world’s being (Merleau -Ponty, 1983, p. 298-299). Thus, the universal flesh is a constant and dynamic stylistics of both Nature and body’s flesh which controls the modalities and functionalities of all lifeforms.
David Abram’s account about the concept of flesh and its primary source tends to the study of the internship among human and more than human world. Thus, according to Abram, the flesh’s substance is traced back to the Empedocles’ philosophy of the four elements and their ontological structure (Abram, 1997, p. 65-66). The flesh of Nature and body respectively is structured on different symbiotic chiasms in the name of universal flesh. In this sense, the universal flesh or the ‘flesh of the world’ is an embodied, axiomatic and dynamic stylistics of being which verifies its substantial structure. In this sense, we could perceive it as the anima mundi (Hilman, 1982, p. 101), however, it is very difficult to define the notion of flesh directly, as the universal flesh is everywhere and around us constantly, perceived only through senses, mind and embodied experience.
The discipline of Ecophenomenology emerges on the context of Nature’s transformations that are perceived through mind and senses per subject (Brown, Toadvine, 2003, pp. xi-xxi, xiii). The embodied experience remaps the ecocritical and phenomenological terrains of epistemology and highlights the complexities of human and more than human relationship. In this sense, Nature is perceived mentally as naturata and not as a natural production (naturans).
Here Janko Polić Kamov and Angelos Sikelianos’ poetry about Nature and body is not studied only in terms of variable natural and bodily representations, but is centered on the concepts of flesh and chiasm within the world. The universal flesh shapes an ontological narrative about the perception of the world and its depth which is the primary dimension of the embodied experience, founded in the poets’ work.
The universal flesh’s depth is a dimension of the world and verifies the dynamic, functional and symbiotic chiasms between the organic and inorganic lifeforms that are perceived and interpreted in both life and death zones (Evans and Lawlor, 2000, p. 99). We will see that the ecophenomenological impact on the biocosmic perception of both Kamov and Sikelianos is multi-voiced due to the diverse chiasms which are held in space and are operated by the universal flesh. In this sense, ego and world are the greatest symbiotic chiasm in time and space. Hence, the ontological narrative of both poets decodes partial narrations of the variable chiasms that can be found in different environments where the universe is the locus of transitions, transformations, chiasms and modalities.
In this study case the selected poems from both Kamov and Sikelianos’ poetry are examples of somaesthetical bodies operated by the universal flesh which is a constant becoming of interplays in their biospheres. Kamov’s work introduces the modernism in Croatian poetry as well as he studies in-detail the notions of freedom, individuality and creativity (Ivanišin, 1975, p. 46). In addition, in Kamov’s poetry we could study about the social institutions, ethics, religion and subject’s nature towards any limitations. In this sense, Kamov’s perception about Nature and body is not restricted to the traditional dichotomies of the terms, but he focuses on these notions as they are perplexed by keeping their independence in space and time (Milanja u Polić Kamov, 1997, p. 14). Kamov’s poem entitled “Kad kroči smrt” (: “When death steps”) refers to a death zone where the poetic subject calls someone else whose name is not mentioned. The poem opens up with the sunlight which is dazzling: “Ogromna ko svjetlo sunca” (: “The sunlight is everywhere”) and the subject highlights the width and depth of the sun as the biggest body among others within the Nature’s body: “nijema kroka, šira, dublja, /ona stupa sa vrhunca” (: “silent step, wider, deeper, / she steps from the top”).
The poetic subject focuses on the fallen eyelids when his interlocutor is not able to see the dazzling sunlight. Here the human body outlines all the intended projections. The subjective knowledge is about the closed eyes and is self-referential as the body’s image emerges into the body’s flesh. In addition, the subjective consciousness is being - towards the thing through the intermediary with the body’s flesh. The sense of a bitter curse is unavoidable when the lived body is at the same time a transcendental one:
Pa kad treneš vjeđam crnim, |   | |
kad zjenica nešto žudi, |   | |
da po svijetu leti, ludi- |   | |
jedva smogneš trpku psovku |   | |
i mišjim se mozgom ganeš: |   | |
zapo sam u - mišolovku! |   | |
(Kamov, 2019, p. 19) | ||
  | ||
  | ||
So when you train my eyelids black, |   | |
when the ego craves something, |   | |
to fly around the world, crazy- |   | |
you can barely utter a bitter curse |   | |
and you move with your mouse brain: |   | |
I am in a mousetrap![1] |   |
The black colors correlate with the “poetic warm rhyme” (“ko pjesnička topla rima”) in which a figure is singing a love. Considering that the song is as an artistic / poetic manifestation of love, the poetic ego perceives two bodies: its body and a work of art (: musical body). Based on these two bodies, there is another one which is the subjective body within the poetic/artistic body (: chiasm within a chiasm).
The artistic representation of the loss transcends the limits of life and a figure moves in an ontological sphere which is the death zone itself:
Šarali su svi preko nje |   | |
i bacali čarne boje |   | |
ko pjesnička topla rima |   | |
kad nam pjeva ljube svoje |   | |
(Kamov, 2019, p. 19) | ||
  | ||
  | ||
(Everyone was scribbling over her |   | |
and threw black paint |   | |
like a poetic warm rhyme |   | |
when he sings to us his loves ) |   |
The interplay among good and bad emotions is an expression of chiasm found in a donkey’s skin. This internship between the emotions and more than human world’s body is characterized by charm and insistence. Beauty, charm, sweetness and happiness are variable human emotions, perceived as embodied somaesthetic textualities:
“Svu ljepotu, čar i dragost, |   | |
lakokrilu, punu sreću: |   | |
sve su oni povezali |   | |
a u kožu magareću |   | |
(Kamov, 2019, p. 19) | ||
  | ||
  | ||
(“All the beauty, charm and sweetness, |   | |
light-winged, full of happiness: |   | |
they all connected |   | |
in the skin of a donkey”) |   |
The reference about some “black letters of lies” (: “I vezahu crna slova / i skladahu riječi laži”) that are composed and sent by the anonymous crowd (: “i onud su ljudstvo slali”) decodes the nature of writing which is articulated on vague expressions. The presence of a divine figure is an apocalyptic one and towards the fake promises and faith: “da si zadnje boštvo traži” (: “that you are looking for the last deity”). The female figure’s bodily flesh, including the eyelid, finger and skin correlates with the poetic subjective emotional world. The poetic subject raises a question about the figure’s current state: if she is sleeping or she is awaken. The borders among nap and awakeness are flux. In regard with it, the poetic subject concerns about the current state of himself as well:
“I kada već vjeđa pada |   | |
i prst je sve tiska niže |   | |
i kad zjena prestravljena |   | |
nervozasto kožu liže |   | |
  | ||
u cjelovu bolne strasti, |   | |
s molitvama plamenijem |   | |
i kad duša strahom pita: |   | |
o spavam li ili bdijem? |   | |
(Kamov, 2019, p. 19) | ||
  | ||
  | ||
(“And when the eyelid is already falling |   | |
and the finger is all the press lower |   | |
and when the woman is terrified |   | |
nervously licks skin) |   | |
  | ||
(in the whole of painful passion, |   | |
with prayers burning |   | |
and when the soul fearfully asks: |   | |
oh, am I sleeping or not?") |   |
The fallen eyelids are a chiasm with the colors and beating which describe the tension of the poetic subject’s emotional world. The calling of a divine figure is apt to the deep sense and intention of the poetic subject to accept an upper from him power. The whispering of some Greek words reveals that the poetic subject is familiar with the Greek religious tradition in which the goddess has a wide perspective of everything (: panopticon). The word “grkijem” could be interpreted as a literary comparative form, in the instrumental case, of the Croatian word of proto-slavic origin “gorak” which means the feeling sour or bitter. Here it is foremost to an eventual homophony as Greece is metaphorical initial place of deity from the religious perspective. The divine figure expresses this inner intention of finding an upper power that will take care and save humanity. Thus, the faith of a divine figure characterizes the impact of the religion on both public and private sphere:
“iza spalih onih vjeđa |   | |
umišljene redaš boje |   | |
i grkijem šaptom tepaš: |   | |
boštvo moje, boštvo moje |   | |
(Kamov, 2019, p. 20) | ||
  | ||
  | ||
(“behind those fallen eyelids |   | |
conceited redash colors |   | |
and in a Greek whisper you beat: |   | |
my deity, my deity”) |   |
“A ono se gubi negdje |   | |
i izmiče brzim letom |   | |
ko ljubavna topla priča |   | |
kad zahiriš nerve sjetom” |   | |
(Kamov, 2019, p. 20) | ||
  | ||
  | ||
(“And it gets lost somewhere |   | |
and eludes fast flight |   | |
like a warm love story |   | |
when you grieve your nerves with sadness”) |   |
The reference of youth is another issue which is raised by the poetic subject in order to uncover its existence through time. His intention is to kiss the figure by proposing an alternative option of redemption which will remove any existential uncertainty. A kiss is a sign of a grotesque eroticism which is characterized by the darkness and macabre of the whole scenery:
“I mrmoriš trpkom žuči: |   | |
kud li ono mladost svene... |   | |
i hvataš se njenih skuta |   | |
i pružaš joj usne zdene. |   | |
  | ||
O zalud ti plamna miso |   | |
sa nemoćnim, spalim udom, |   | |
i zalud ti pljuckat prošlost |   | |
sa osamnim, crnim bludom!” |   | |
(Kamov, 2019, p. 20) | ||
  | ||
  | ||
(“And you murmur with bitter bile: |   | |
where does that youth go... |   | |
and you grab her lap |   | |
and you give her your lips pursed. |   | |
  | ||
Oh, you fiery miso in vain |   | |
with a helpless, burnt limb, |   | |
and spit on your past in vain |   | |
with solitary, black fornication!”) |   |
The death zone is a space of tentative emotions and thoughts which are perplexed. The female figure includes all the characteristics of a visionary one which is touchable and at the same time untouchable. The whole scenery is full of chiasms and is balanced among charm and gloom of consciousness which intoxicate the poetic subject’s emotional world. In this sense, the death zone is a eutopia, a transcendental place of emotional intoxication:
“Ona stupa krokom noći, |   | |
kad se gasnu nebni krijesi |   | |
i kad žali sveta duša, |   | |
što je nisu takli grijesi. |   | |
  | ||
A nad ovom crnom sferom |   | |
svjetla lete u obijesti |   | |
i u letu čar ih ljudi |   | |
i ispija mrkost svijesti” |   | |
(Kamov, 2019, p. 20) | ||
  | ||
  | ||
(“She steps at night, |   | |
when the celestial bonfires are extinguished |   | |
and when the holy soul mourns, |   | |
that she was not touched by sins. |   | |
  | ||
And over this black sphere |   | |
the lights fly in a frenzy |   | |
and in flight the charm of them people |   | |
and drinks the gloom of consciousness”) |   |
The subjective emotional and passionate eruption (“To je prštaj, prštaj strasti”) is expressed by the crowd’s vision of the female and divine figure. Here, the death and mourning correlate with life. According to the poetic subject’s statement, “everything is beautiful, everything is eternal” (“Sve je krasno, sve je vječno!”) as all appear in terms of a bodily non-teleology which is based on the norm of subjective psyco-physiological settings. The idea of Nature and body’s finality is a regulative a priori concept, concerning with our embodied experience which ascribed to the world (Galen, 1993, 20).
Kamov’s narrative on embodied experience is constructed in chiasms concerning with the real encounters of the world. These mutual internships transform the aesthetical experience into ontological principles of transcending the human life (Galen, 1993, p. 125) and postulates an ultimate truth. This synthesis occurs from mutual reversibility of both senses and the sentient. The subjective experience of body as a perpetual unit is synthetic and analytical one and coincides with Kamov’s biocosmic perception. In this way, the universal flesh is a multi-voiced articulation of chiasms that are constant in time and space.
Furthermore, the topic of death is described extensively in another poem entitled “U mrtvoj noći” (“In the dead night”). Here, the poetic subject refers to a “dead night” considered it as a silent one. The chiasm of thoughts, buzzing in the air and blazing decodes the poetic subject’s turbulent emotional world as it is represented both in the Nature and body’s flesh. The array among Nature and cognitive state is centered by another chiasm among Nature and body’s flesh. The icy glass, frost strips and their internship with the subjective vision remap the perception about the subjective vision itself. The ice is a natural body and at the same time a metaphorical locus of transparency and clearness:
“U mrtvoj noći, gdje misli zuje zrakom |   | |
plamisajuć - u noći – |   | |
na ledna stakla, što mraz ih štrapa bijeli |   | |
uperih svoje oči.” |   | |
(Kamov, 2019, p. 23) | ||
  | ||
  | ||
(“In the dead of night, where thoughts buzz through the air flaming - at night – |   | |
on ice panes, which frost strips them white |   | |
my eyes are stable.”) |   |
Here the death zone is a space where the poetic subject moves and mentions that there are some silent ghosts (“aveti tišine”) as well. These unseen bodies are invisible but are perceived by the poetic subject. These enigmatic figures have started unexpectedly a circle dance (“zapodjele su kolo”) and the chiasm of life and death is balanced among realism and transcendentalism. The silence and noise of ghosts tend to be considered as vivid acoustic patterns of different lifeforms (chiasm of human and more than human world) as the senses are perplexed. The universal flesh operates the living and dead tissues in whole so the subject transcends and inserts itself in the question mark of the whole Being (chiasm of Nature and body). The adjectives that describe the sky raise an existential query about the chiasm of life and death (“Tihano sve je ko mrtvo, vječno nebo, /bez oblačine, golo”) while the silence corresponds with the Nature’s flesh which is referred here as a dead, naked and eternal sky without clouds. The representation of a clear, silent and continuous sky is both a public and personal spatiality of wondering about the human existence:
“I gledam, gledam, a aveti tišine |   | |
zapodjele su kolo – |   | |
Tihano sve je ko mrtvo, vječno nebo, |   | |
bez oblačine, golo” |   | |
(Kamov, 2019, p. 23) | ||
  | ||
  | ||
(“And I look, I look, and the ghosts of silence |   | |
they dance in a circle- |   | |
Everything is silent like a dead, eternal sky, |   | |
no clouds, naked”) |   |
The subjective vision is a wandering and staring one. The eyes are the locus of reflection, a space of visual chiasms (“u one slike crne /i motre usne, što utisnute šute” (“in those black pictures / and watch the lips, which are imprinted silent”). The poetic subject is impressed by the blackness and silence which are effective and imply a subjective melancholic state which is considered not only as an emotional one, but in terms of a subjective embodied sense. Here we have to introduce the concept of melancholy which is a human state of an externalization of a particular and individual emotion (Wyllie, 2010, 7). Thus, it is a mechanism for the subjectivity’s behavior and way of thinking. The subjective melancholy is an inverted chiasm of realistic and phenomenological encounters:
““A oči blude i gleđu - dugo gleđu |   | |
u one slike crne |   | |
i motre usne, što utisnute šute, |   | |
sa kojih miso trne |   | |
  | ||
Ušesa kočim za jedan sami trzaj |   | |
i sve je nijemo... |   | |
O da sam dijete, tek klonuo bih glavom |   | |
pa tad – zadrijemo” |   | |
(Kamov, 2019, p. 23) | ||
  | ||
  | ||
(“And the eyes wander and stare - they stare for a long time |   | |
in those black pictures |   | |
and watch the lips, which are imprinted silent, |   | |
from which the miso tingles |   | |
  | ||
I brake my ears for a single jerk |   | |
and everything is silent .. |   | |
Oh, if I were a child, I would just nod |   | |
so then - we fall asleep”) |   |
Through our ecophenomenological perspective the concept of melancholy is the genetic and functional ontology of a lived realism. The being of melancholy is an ontological fact for the embodied experience. Kamov’s “new melancholy” is an expression of meanings and realism. Thus, it is a normative teleology of the Nature’s body and rhythm. Julia Kristeva’s statement about melancholy is about the shaping of a narrative which is analogous to the other’s bodily experience. The discourse of the melancholic subject is faded by the Other’s one. In regard to it, the discourse is an artistic ‘articulation of fades’ which proves the dimensions of discourse itself:
the melancholic discourse is analogous to the other’s skin. The melancholic people are foreign from their maternal language. They lost its meaning. They speak a dead language which is the suicide’s shadow and manifest that it is a dead thing” (Kristeva, 1989, 53).
The death zones of the aforementioned poems are eutopias of different lifeforms which are in a constant interplay among each other. In Kamov’s perception the life’s vibes are represented through diverse chiasms which correspond each other by defining a multi-voiced becoming that is universal flesh. In this sense, the universality of intertwining implies the continuities and discontinuities of all life and non-life patterns in space and time.
In Sikelianos’ poem entitled “Μπαίνω στον ασφοδελώνα” (“I am entering into the asphodelus’ zone”) the poetic subject refers to the multiple representations of Nature through some particular acoustic patterns of e.g. the rain, olive’s leaves and sparrows careen during a rainfall:
“Αριά η βροχή του λιόφυλλου. |   | |
και το σπουργίτι αργόπεφτε |   | |
σα φύλλον, απλοφτέρουγο, |   | |
μες στη σιωπή, στον κάμπο…” |   | |
(Savvidis, 2008, p. 147) | ||
  | ||
  | ||
(“The sparse rainfall drops to the olive’s leaves |   | |
and the sparrow falls down slowly |   | |
like a leaf, simple in its wings, |   | |
inside the silence, in the campus…”)[2] |   |
Here the subject is apt to a cosmological link between the universe’s architecture, Nature’s patterns and individual space. These parameters create an internship among the human and world where the subjective body is in chiasm with soil and light. The latter are elementary substances of universal flesh’s core and are partial bodies of flesh within the universal one:
“κι απλώθηκα στα χώματα, |   | |
και φάνη μου πώς λάμπω… |   | |
(Savvidis, 2008, p. 147) | ||
  | ||
  | ||
(“I was expanded in the soil, |   | |
and it seems that I am the light…" |   |
Following up the light, the waves are divided into two acoustic patterns by highlighting the subjective intensity in order to describe in-detail the whole spatiality in which he is moving on:
“Μές στο άσπρο φως απλώθηκα, |   | |
στο ανάλαφρο κυμάτισμα |   | |
που ανάερα δεν ηχούσε |   | |
(Savvidis, 2008, p. 147) | ||
  | ||
  | ||
(“I was expanded through the white light |   | |
on the light ripple |   | |
that does not sound in the air” ) |   |
The poetic subject perceives its state of flesh in space as the last one is found “on the light ripple” and is going higher and higher in order to revive its nature:
“Το νέο κορμί το ανάλαφρον |   | |
ανέβαινε, ανέβαινε, |   | |
και η σάρκα ετραγουδούσε!” |   | |
(Savvidis, 2008, p. 148) | ||
  | ||
  | ||
(“The new body is light |   | |
and is going higher, is going higher, |   | |
and the flesh is singing!” ) |   |
The spatial acoustic patterns are unseparated from the body as it is ontologically perceived in its space. The flesh’s song, a musical composition, is an intertwining interplay among ego and its world, as the song is an artistic product which highlights the bodily encounters within the world. The song displays the mechanisms in which the being enters into the world aesthetically. This evolution is structured on the internship among Nature and body’s flesh by setting strong affinities with the universal flesh. The death zone is not a space of biological ending and Sikelianos transcends the biological limits and argues that life and death are a great chiasm of human being.
In Sikelianos’ poem entitled “Του ασφόδελου αρμονία” (“Asphodelus’ harmony”) the poetic subject describes the aforementioned plant. This plant is growing in the death zone’s land and its ingredients and functionalities are perceived by the poetic subject who is trying to decode them:
“Εσύ μονάχα, ω βότανο, |   | |
ιερό, σμίγεις τη δύναμη |   | |
με τη βαθιά αρμονία, |   | |
δίκαια στο νου ζυγίζοντας, |   | |
με την ιερή μανία” |   | |
(Savvidis, 2008, p. 154) | ||
  | ||
  | ||
(“You are only, oh a botanical plant, |   | |
sacred, by uniting the power |   | |
with the deep harmony, ) |   | |
you are weighing equally in cognitive sphere, |   | |
under the sacred fury”) |   |
The chiasm among the poetic subject and asphodelus is based on the subjective experience and perceived through sacred and transcendental perspectives. The asphodelus entails recondite functionalities, morphological and functional dimensions. Here the death zone is a space and at the same time a bio-regional area where plant life tends to frame a textual ecology.
The subjective “mental storm” is resulted due to the inertia and multiple and different chiasms that are held in the Nature’s body. The asphodelus’ harmony is perceived towards the “mental storm” and timidity:
“Κι όποιος δέ σ’ άκουσε, ή βαθιά |   | |
δειλιάζει ή στο τρικύμισμα |   | |
σαλεύουνε τα φρένα του, |   | |
του ασφόδελου αρμονία!" |   | |
(Savvidis, 2008, p. 155) | ||
  | ||
  | ||
(“And anybody who does not hear you or in depth |   | |
he is timid or due to the mental storm |   | |
his mind does not stir, |   | |
here there is an asphodelus’ harmony”) |   |
Sikelianos’ botanical textuality is apt to a dynamic relationship with flora and shapes a botanical narration (Gagliano et al., 2017, p. xvi). The plant’s harmonious vibes are perceived in terms of subjective bio-acoustics. The subjective experience is tuned with the asphodelu’s rhythms organically. This concordance is monitored by the universal flesh which operates all the lifeforms. The whole poem tends to be considered a praise to the asphodelus, a plant that can be found in death zones and manifests the life as lived being in its sphere.
Kamov and Sikelianos’ perception about Nature and body is embodied within the universal flesh. In both cases, the death zone is an ontological eutopia where the chiasm among life and death is constant throughout time and space. The faith in eternal life is an expression of their credo about the continuous cycle of life and death and is not perceived as a discontinuity of these two ontological spheres. The cult of beauty is discarded in favor of a kind of a somaesthetics of death as the death zones are both aesthetical bodies. The symbiosis among life and death contains immanent elements of the disharmonies and discontinuities which are shaped and appeared coherently.
The poetic discourse raises a question about the existence of phenomenological writing and poetry, considering that the author/artist/creator writes in a phenomenological manner. The texts are conceived within their environments in which they are constructed and structured. The interpretative approach of both Kamov and Sikelianos’ poems is not exclusively philosophical as the poetic language is representative of the interplays monitored and caused by the universal flesh.
The materiality of body is not ascribed to its bodily substance, but it reflects on the embodiment of ego in its world frame. In this sense, the embodiment is a phenomenon of rethinking of the world frame as the world is a bodily structured phenomenon itself (Chouraqui, 2021, p. 94). The plasticity of both lyric discourses reflects on the ecophenomenological aspects of ego towards the world. In this sense, the natural spatiality is embedded in plasticity and we see that there is a balance among an ethical harmonization of life and the meaning of a world discourse which Ecophenomenology proposes in the respect of the ontology of lifeforms. The only difference that we have to mention is that each poet perceives and conceives the chiasm among Nature and body in a different degree. Kamov seems to adopt a more direct sense of feeling the world around him while Sikelianos’ ontological perspective is centered by constant existential anxieties. Instead of using idyllic expressions and linguistic eruptions, Kamov’s writing is apt to a more critical manner towards its environment. The emotional eruptions do not exaggerate the chiasm of Nature and body as Kamov places them organically within the general context. Sikelianos is oriented in a more ontological perception of the mechanics of all lifeforms and his descriptions and representations are not workmanlike.
In both cases, the chiasm among Nature and body is structured on multiple ‘conflicts’ within the universal flesh’s terrain which seems to ‘cage’ the ego in its spac. Through this condition the poets are towards the society which appeals to vanish the current movement of modernism (Stanić, 2018, p. 24) in Croatia (Kamov) and logocentrism and irrationality (Sikelianos). However, the ego manifests the majesty of Nature and body in its wholeness.
Kamov’s perception of the divine is a means of entering the world in order to survive as life is phenomenologically existent. In contrast, Sikelianos’ poetic subjects do not call for emergence by any divine figure or deity but they are in dialogue with an anthropomorphized form of death considering that life and death’s chiasm is central in their biocosmic perception.
In both Kamov and Sikelianos’ poems the universal flesh is by nature a self-representation: its presence is perceived in pairs with a motivation towards the world and without any external cause as the world entails all the causalities. Thus, this an -in front - motivation is synonymous of the universal flesh as an auto-poetic unity of forms of thought about the unity (chiasm) of Nature and body.
To sum up, the biocosmic perception of both poets is shaped by the textual mechanics of realist representations considering that the universal flesh shapes their thoughts, modalities of representations and perspectives upon variable chiasms in a plastic manner. In this sense, the biocosmic perception of both poets is the Logos which unfolds the different aspects of universal flesh in order to conceive the circularity of life and death.
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[1] The English translations are mine.
[2] The English translation of all passages is mine.
accepted June 27, 2021]
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