Summary
Milan Begović: Dunja u kovčegu
Begović's first novel (1921), "the best lyrical novel" (J. Bogner) of Croatian literature, is a romantic story set in a patriarchal, rural landscape. It is a story about the passionate love of two conflicting characters: the refined bon vivant Dušan and the fragile, naive Rođena, full of emotional charge, sentimental and poetic expressions, dramatic and even tragic twists.
The golden-mouthed poet will also build his novels on revealing the secrets of male-female relationships. The first of them, published in 1921, Dunja u kovčegu, soon received the epithet of the best lyrical novel in our literature (Josip Bogner).
Dunja u kovčegu, despite somewhat stereotypical characters and a somewhat stretched, melodramatic plot, remains to this day a subtle literary insight into the nature of love. Set in a patriarchal, rural landscape such as Begović's birthplace, the romantic story of a passionate love affair between two antipodes: the chaste, young, fragile Rođena and the experienced seducer, fashionable bon vivant Dušan, is full of emotional charge, sentimental, poetic statements, dramatic, and ultimately tragic, twists. A bit old-fashioned, sweet in places, Quince in a coffin on its best pages reveals the writer's talent for precise characterization of characters, for realistic evoking of environment and time, for nuances with linguistic peculiarities that include dialectics, Turkishisms, Europeanisms...
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