Optimistični pesimist: dječja poezija i poezija za odrasle Ante Gardaša
An Optimistic Pessimist: Children’s Poetry and Poetry for Adults by Ante Gardaš

Summary/Abstract: Croatian literary scholarship has so far predominantly focused on Gardaš’s narrative fiction. This study, instead, explores the prevailing thematic and motivational features of his children’s poetry and his poetry for adults. In both parts of his opus, six motif-thematic units are identified, and the poet’s inclination towards the same motifs is observed in both groups of poems: landscape, nocturnal motifs, the Mediterranean, and, most of all, Slavonia, as well as motifs typical of love poems and socially engaged poetry. A comparison of the two bodies of poetry, however, reveals a significant difference between the two: a tonal dualism regarding different intended readerships. Gardaš’s children’s poetry is characterised by an optimistic expression, while his poetry for adults predominantly conveys a pessimistic tone infused with existential contemplation about life. There is an exception, though, because the poems for adults belonging to his “Šokac” thematic cycle, which are characterised by a specific Pannonian style, embrace much lighter overtones.

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