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Review paper

THE FOREST SPACE AS A METAPHOR FOR THE EXISTENTIAL

By
Hrvoje Mesić ,
Hrvoje Mesić
Helena Sablić Tomić
Helena Sablić Tomić
Editor: Enes Prasko

Abstract

Literary geography, as a subdiscipline of cultural geography, interprets the representations of
landscapes and geographic phenomena in the literary discourse, and the connection between human
subjectivity and emotions on the one hand, and space on the other. The forest is a mythical Slavonian
space, depicted in Slavonian literature as an emblem representing paradisiacal plenty. The paper explores
the forest space portrayed by selected Slavonian authors, who depicted it in their short stories and novels
as an Arcadia, mirroring a variety of curious and wondrous events from the everyday life. The purpose of
these mini itineraries, which take us for a walk in the forest, is reflected in the need to keep the authors
and the readers alike from shutting themselves inside the myth of their personal smallness, and to make
them speak and read about themselves in a way that pushes the boundaries, which are arbitrarily drawn,
always from the outside, by another arbitrary myth: the one about greatness, grandeur, and great people.
The great story about the Slavonian forest, as the owner and guardian of boundaries, the military and state
ones as well as the private and intimate ones, in itself positions and constitutes the power of Slavonian
authors. The paper provides an incentive for and a contribution to the development of so-called green
literature within the cultural and creative dimensions of the European Green Deal project.

Citation

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 

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