The Covid Pandemic and the Slovenian Poetry Cover Image

The Covid Pandemic and the Slovenian Poetry
The Covid Pandemic and the Slovenian Poetry

Author(s): Marcello Potocco
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Slovenian Literature, Health and medicine and law, Theory of Literature
Published by: ლიტერატურის ინსტიტუტის გამომცემლობა
Keywords: Marcello Potocco; COVID-19; poetry;

Summary/Abstract: To my knowledge, my poem chosen as an introduction to this contribution was the first »Covid« poem published in any Slovenian literary media. It was issued on August 14, 2020, half a year after the beginning of the crisis in Italy in the literary e-zine LUD Literatura (Potocco 2021). The poem assumes the point-of-view of an Italian resident describing the lockdown, but not opposing it. Instead, the main idea is hidden in the last four verses: the poem questions the possibility of humanism; by putting Darwinism, hedonism and freedom in the context of social media, it questions the validity of the ideological base of these beliefs when shared over these media, and this doubt is implicitly extended to the whole debate over Covid during the first few months of the pandemic. Putting aside that it was first published in an e-zine, I have to point out that it is due to this main idea that the lyrical narrator in the poem does not assume what I shall later describe as »the Slovenian perspective«. Thus the poem can be hardly seen as a representative of the mainstream Slovenian poetry. But it can be taken as a reference – actually as a contrast – to the mainstream Slovenian Covid poetry.

  • Issue Year: 2022
  • Issue No: 23
  • Page Range: 199-211
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: English