INTERRELATION OF NATURE’S IMAGE AND SPIRITUALITY IN PAVEL PETR’S AND ROBERT BIELIK’S POETIC WORKS

Abstract

Nature and spirituality often intersect in the poetic world of both nineteenth and twentieth-century poets, as well as contemporary ones. An example can be found in the works of Czech and Slovak authors who utilized the imagery of nature to intensify and underline their own spiritual quests. Since higher powers often cannot directly influence the world, they do so indirectly through living or inanimate nature, hinting to the lyrical hero the right path of inner development. Nature can also serve as a backdrop, emphasizing this path, making it brighter, organically delineating the features of the lyrical character. Among contemporary poets who can be attributed to the so-called «line of spiritual poetry,» we can highlight Robert Bielik (Slovakia) and Pavel Petr (Czech Republic). Both poets are popular in their respective countries, actively publishing, having several published poetry collections, participating in literary life, and engaging in artistic translations. For both poets, a key image of winter nature is characteristic, against which the lyrical hero conducts his own search for a higher power. The ascetic winter nature in this case symbolizes renunciation of worldly goods, transparency of the poetic world, its sincerity, and absence of excess. The difference in the poetic worlds of the mentioned authors lies in the fact that in R. Bielik’s works, we see clear images of animals, plants, mythical, and religious characters, which emphasize the inner world of the lyrical hero, while the poetic world of P. Petr is more abstract, and even the images exist in a more complex and somewhat blurred interaction with each other.