Kornelijaus Platelio kūrybos kontekstai, arba Tarp Dioniso ir Apolono

ENThe book introduces and analyses creative work of Kornelijus Platelis (b. 1951), an outstanding contemporary Lithuanian poet and a laureate of the National Culture and Arts Prize (2002). His creative output is approached as a suggestive poetical phenomenon distinguished for its complex artistic expression. Considerable attention is paid to the place of Platelis’ work in the development of new Lithuanian literature (within the period from about 1980 to 2015), its contexts, connections, and parallels with Lithuanian and global literature and culture. The author of this book aims to discuss Platelis’ poetry and essay writing not just as a separate phenomenon but also as one that is closely associated with wider creative spaces. This primarily concerns connections with the writers of his own generation, with their artistic idiolects and their poetic variants, as well as with his own environment and the period of his own lifetime. Such a method of analysis has been determined by the poet’s constant focus on cultural reflection, philosophical contemplation, and on the ontological and existential aspects of existence. [...] Analysis of Platelis’ work is supported by a considerable number of oeuvres of contemporary literary historians and introspections by such scholars and authors as Vytautas Kubilius, Viktorija Daujotytė, Kęstutis Nastopka, Rita Tūtlytė, Dalia Satkauskytė, Audinga Peluritytė, Eugenijus Ališanka, Laurynas Katkus, and others. [...] Platelis debuted in 1980 with the collection Žodžiai ir dienos (Words and Days). The title bears intentional similarity to Works and Days by the Greek classical poet Hesiod. The literary community promptly appreciated the book as an individual artistic phenomenon highly original in the context of the literature of that time. [...].It should be stressed that Platelis embarked on his creative path during the years of the Soviet occupation when not only Lithuanian culture, but the whole nation was affected by totalitarian oppression and ideological indoctrination.[...] Openness to classical and Western culture and literature, and attitudes of resistance against the Soviet authorities are prominent in Platelis’ other books written during the Soviet period, that is, before 1990, when Lithuania became independent again: Namai ant tilto (House on a Bridge, 1984) and Pinklės vėjui (Snare for the Wind, tr. Jonas Zdanys). [...] A multi-aspect semantic structure is a trait inherent in Platelis’ poetry and in his narrative poems. Recurring plots, motifs, and images hide their ‘secret compartment’ under traditional and conventional layers of meaning, and in order to recognize it one must possess not only the skill of interpretation, but also a considerable baggage of cultural information. [...] In his works Platelis models a multi-level communication structure with corresponding polyphonic discourse that makes a parallel switching of several points of view possible. The lyrical subject appeals to the addressee under different guises: he exposes not only the roles of an ingenuous poeta doctus, a thinker philosopher, a confessor of Buddhism, and of a classical personage, but also those of a gourmand, an aesthete, a snob, and of a confused dupe. [...] Alongside the solemn, pompous, polyphonic, intellectual, and prosaic discourse, the dispersion of Platelis’ irony appears original and embraces several semantic planes. On the one hand, the contesting aspects of mockery are representative of the poet, because they allow him to critically reflect on the surrounding social existence and the absurdities of life. Furthermore, he has mastered, to perfection, the expression of existential, Socratian irony based on a vast diversity of modulations [...].Platelis’ artistic world is permeated with vitalizing energy such as water, other liquids and sap, which impart life and sustain it, and should therefore be linked with vital foundations of life. [...] The neoclassical aura of discourse with emphatically ornamented predicates and transparent euphemisms facilitate the creation of the sacral act of universal love. Multicultural images are entwined with individual experiences and impressions, and a work resembles a polylogue because it speaks as if on several planes of meanings. [...] Analysis of the poet’s work presented in this study makes it possible to reconstruct - at least to some extent - this original artistic world. Its coordinates can be defined as a symbiosis of the Apollonian and Dionysian beginnings, or, in other words, as a fusion of harmony and intellect, of spontaneity and the somatic element. Kornelijus Platelis was a vice-minister for culture and education (1991-1993) and a minister for education and research (1998-2000). For a couple of years he headed the Vaga Publishers, and from 2001 to 2013 he was the chief editor of the cultural weekly Literatūra ir menas (Literature and Art). Platelis has occupied important positions at the Lithuanian Writers’ Union and other associations of writers and cultural workers. He is the founder and one of the main organizers of the well-known international literary forum Poetinis Druskininkų ruduo (Druskininkai Poetic Fall). The poet is a holder of numerous literary prizes and awards and a laureate of quite a number of significant literary events, such as, for example, Poezijos pavasaris (The Spring of Poetry). In 2002, he was awarded the National Culture and Arts Prize.