ЛAЛИЋEВО ОТКРИЋE AМEРИЧКОГ ПЈEСНИЧКОГ КОНТИНEНТA
LALIĆ’S DISCOVERY OF THE AMERICAN POETIC CONTINENT

Summary/Abstract: An Anthology of Modern American Poetry (1972) by Ivan V. Lalic was the first anthology of its kind with the South Slavs. In the introduction of this anthology in two of his essays about American poets Walt Whitman and T. S. Eliot, Lalic has described his critical-anthological criteria and poetic principles necessary for understanding of his poetry. Those criteria and principles are the subject of this paper. American poetry is young, and almost all modern. Lalic's Anthology covers fifty-two poets — from Walt Whitman to Charles Simic — the period when this poetry was independent from English poetry, and when it became literary fact of the first order. It is still connected with the tradition of English poetry though, but it has also strongly characterized the development of the world modern lyrics. That is why Lalic defines both American poetry as a whole and its individual supreme voices polycontextually: in American context, in the context of the English language and in the context of world literature. Lalic also considers American poetry to be inseparable from the development of literary and critical thought, which was strongly influenced by American poets.

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