TOMAŽ ŠALAMUN AND TOLNAI OTTÓ

Abstract

The aim of this research is to conduct a comparative analysis of some poems by the Slovenian author Tomaž Šalamun and Ottó Tolnai’s poem entitled Tomaž Šalamun. The poetic dialogue or the response-effect is based on a parodical poetic language game, and makes obvious the kinship between the two ironic worldviews. Tolnai uses the poems of the Slovenian poet, primarily the poem entitled Who is who (1), in a playful manner, by adding to them, writing them further. There is not only an opportunity to research the poetic circuit between the opuses of the poets, but also between generations or literary magazines (the Új Symposion from Novi Sad and the Katalog from Slovenia). In the 1969, No. 47 issue of Új Symposion Tolnai’s poem Tomaž Šalamun and Šalamun’s Who is who (1) were published in the same section (Mici project) of the magazine. Tolnai replied to Šalamun’s poem, built on it, made a parody of it, of its lyric race, which started from a search for identity, self-defining, a parodic self-mythization: “you are a genious tomaž šalamun”. The demythization is a process of ironic self-mythization in Šalamun’s work, too: the selfportrait is an accessory for a grotesque parody – all this from a “cold”, “on the outside looking in” standpoint of conceptual self-perception.