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Body and death, body and love. Motifs of body, senses, and emotions in Samo Vozár’s poetry
Authors: Gabriela Mihlaková
Number of views: 7
The paper analyses the presence of the motifs of the body, senses and emotions, the degree of representation, functions, and meanings of somaticisms, the ways of aestheticisation of the body and the contradiction or integration of the motifs of the body and the soul in the poetic cycle Ukojenie tôní (Soothing the shadows, 1845) by Samo Vozár (1823 – 1850), a Slovak Romantic poet. Vozár’s sonnets provide ample material for exploring the somatisms involved in the creation of the image (representation, personification) of death, but also of love (both maternal and filial). Corporeal motifs
are tied to the object of the lyrical statement (the dead mother) and to the subject of the lyrical statement (her son). Stylistically neutral forms of somatisms prevail. These are
used both in the primary sense (naming the parts of the body) and in the figurative one – in the depiction of other phenomena of the external and internal world. They “make
visible” the affective experience of the lyrical subject, abstract phenomena connected with the inner experience (the soul), which is manifested in a higher representation of somatisms, which are conventionally considered as carriers, anifestations of mental, emotional movement such as the heart, tears, or blood.