Držić and Vetranović: suhi javor (literally: Dry Maple) and Dugi Nos (literally: Long Nose)

Grmača, Dolores. (2009). Držić and Vetranović: suhi javor (literally: Dry Maple) and Dugi Nos (literally: Long Nose). Dani Hvarskoga kazališta : Građa i rasprave o hrvatskoj književnosti i kazalištu, 35(1). pp. 152-173. ISSN 1849-0255

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Abstract

This article analysis the links between the statements of suhi javor (dry maple) in the epic poem Pelegrin by Mavro Vetranović and the first prologue of the comedy Dundo Maroje told by Držić’s Negromant Dugi Nos (Necromancer Long Nose) as an example of the connection and literary association of these two authors from Dubrovnik. First of all, it establishes a place in the canon of Croatian literary historiography of these two afore mentioned works. By opposing / comparing the words of suhi javor (dry maple) and Dugi Nos (Long Nose), a whole slew of common poetic elements based mostly on series of ethical contradictions is easily observed: dominant antithesis (nazbilj – nahvao*, wisdom – insanity), topos mundus inversus, the myth of aurea aetas, the motif of greed. In a thusly defined critical analysis of layers of common meaning, we discover more about the identity of suhi javor (dry maple), and the article tries to argue the thesis that suhi javor (dry maple) is the personification of Marin Držić. This opens the possibility of new interpretations of Pelegrin, which offer relations to actual historic persons as well as the underlying ethical-moral and political allegory. * These are terms for describing two kinds of people that Držić uses in his comedy Dundo Maroje. Nazbilj people are truthful and honest people, moral heroes, while nahvao people are those who are hypocrites, phonies and greedy people.

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