The Seventh Cycle of Vasko Popa

Abstract

The paper focuses on the previously understudied topic of the connection between Vasko Popaʼs poetry and alchemy. It provides an overview of the previous treatment of the topic and attempts to establish a connection between the alchemical motifs of Vasko Popaʼs poetry and those in the texts by A. Breton, M. Eliade, C. G. Jung, Fulkanelli, and his student Eugene Kanzelli. Within a given context, it analyzes symbols in the collections of poems No-Rest Field and Home in the Middle of the Road; the poem A Heart of a Pebble Stone from the collection No-Rest Field; the cycle of poems Fiery Wolf; the fourth and the sixth poems of the cycle Wolfʼs Bastard from the collection Wolfʼs Salt; and the poem Discussion on Dew from the collection The Cut.