PSHK #12-13: Ivan Gundulić I-II

The two volumes of the Five Centuries of Croatian Literature series dedicated to Ivan Gundulić present the most significant parts of his literary output and offer an overview of his religious, dramatic, and epic works. The first volume includes an introductory essay titled "Ivan Gundulić," a bibliography, and the works The Tears of the Prodigal Son (Suze sina razmetnoga), Dubravka, and In Praise of the Exalted Rank of Ferdinand II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, accompanied by a glossary and notes.

In the religious poem The Tears of the Prodigal Son, Gundulić addresses the biblical story of the prodigal son. Following sin, the individual recognizes their own guilt, repents, and seeks forgiveness. The work embodies typical Baroque themes such as sin, transience, human frailty, and the relationship between man and God.

Dubravka is a pastoral-melodramatic work in which themes of freedom, harmony, justice, and patriotism unfold through a love story set in an idealized world of shepherds. Thus, Dubravka becomes a symbol of a free Dubrovnik.

The second volume is dedicated to Gundulić’s most famous work, the epic Osman. Comprising twenty cantos, the epic deals with events surrounding the Battle of Khotyn in 1621 and the fall and death of the young Sultan Osman II. Cantos 14 and 15 are missing, and the most renowned completion of the work was written by Ivan Mažuranić.

Osman blends historical events with chivalric, romantic, and fictional episodes. It highlights themes such as the transience of human happiness, the impermanence of power, hubris, freedom, and the clash of different worlds. Gundulić shapes historical material into a complex Baroque epic composed of octosyllabic quatrains with alternating rhyme.

Together, the two volumes present Gundulić as a versatile Baroque author whose body of work intertwines religion, love, patriotism, history, political ideas, and reflections on the transience of human life.