Popálený jazyk poézie (Ján Ondruš: Jazyk)
The scorched tongue of poetry (Ján Ondruš: “Jazyk [Tongue]”)

Summary/Abstract: The study offers an interpretation of the poem “Jazyk [Tongue]” by Ján Ondruš (1932–2000) from his collection Šialený mesiac ([Mad moon] 1965). The interpretation proceeds as a linear reading with digressions and excursuses, combining spontaneous engagement with the poem, the interpreter’s self-clarification in relation to the selected text, the search for points of support for understanding it in the poet’s other texts, and the productive use of theoretical and essayistic writings on the problem of death in art. The suicidal situation exposed by the poem may be understood as a counter-direction to the natural tendencies of life and the instinct of self-preservation, that is, as a drive toward death. This initial suicidal phantasm is then also presented as a phantasm of the poetry of the “scorched tongue.” This may situate the selected poem within current poetological discussions of the poetics of ellipticity under the sign of trauma, deficiency, stigma, and pain. Ellipticity is not merely a matter of aporetic readings of poetry, but of the very feeling of existence in its weight and pain.

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