Along the prolonged moments of Lalic’s insomnia - or on the clatter of awakening from pain

This paper follows several lines of research in the poetry of Ivan V. Lalic, a major Serbian poet of 20th century. The first concerns the recognition and definition of the formula of his poetry, showing the inseparability of the author?s life practice and his poetic metaphysics. This metaphysics was not only the result of his lifelong poetic endeavor - expressed, among other things, in his ?poetic poems? - but was also carefully elaborated in his essays and interviews. The second line, running parallel to the first, traces the maturity of Lalic the person into Lalic the poet, through an examination of his intimate poetic confessions about himself, his closest relations, and ultimately about humanity as such. From this it becomes clear that Lalic?s emergence as a poet was the only possible mode of his spiritual awakening - for a tragic affirmation of an excessively inhospitable world.