A POET OF THE END

The turn between the 19th and the 20th centuries becomes a crucial point of the Slovak literature of the 20th century. It is a meeting point and a point of confrontation of two generations and two different poetics. This confrontation has been reflected in the literary historiography as a polemic between Parnassism and Realism with Modernism - just coming into the world. The comparison of Hviezdoslav's and Krasko's lyricism as it shows a comparison of a Hviezdoslav's poem 'Postrán cesty topole' (Poplars Along the Road) and a Krasko's poem 'Topole' (Poplars), depicts that both poets were connected with each other through several common factors: common contemporary feeling of melancholy, situation of 'two souls', individualistic and collectivistic ones; the feeling of human fate, many times described by a symbolic picture of a Sphinx, or frustration from a prevailed pragmatism. It is also clearly evident that foundational difference among these poetics could not be overcome. Hviezdoslav's poetic in a moment came to touch, convergence with a poetic of Modernism and what more there was a momentarily penetration, but soon after it declined and mutual polemics and misunderstanding accompanied their divergence. Finally Hviezdoslav kept his position of being a poet of the end of previous epoch.