Tears of the Prodigal Son
Encyclopedia
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
poet Ivan Gundulić
Ivan Gundulic
Ivan Franov Gundulić is the most celebrated Croatian Baroque poet from the Republic of Ragusa. His work embodies central characteristics of Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation: religious fervor, insistence on "vanity of this world" and zeal in opposition to "infidels." Gundulić's major...
. It was originally published in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
in 1622.
The poem is composed of three laments (cries) (plač): the Sin (Sagriješenje), the Comprehension (Spoznanje) and the Humility (Skrušenje), presenting the three basic categories of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
— sin, repentance and redemption — through contrasts like death/life, sin/purity and Hell/Heaven.
Biblical basis
The poem Tears of the Prodigal Son draws on the well-known biblicalBible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
Parable of the Prodigal Son
Parable of the Prodigal Son
The Prodigal Son, also known as the Lost Son and the Prodigal Father, is one of the parables of Jesus. It appears in only one of the Canonical gospels of the New Testament. According to the Gospel of Luke a father extravagantly gives his sons their inheritance before he dies...
found in Luke
Luke the Evangelist
Luke the Evangelist was an Early Christian writer whom Church Fathers such as Jerome and Eusebius said was the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles...
15:11-32, the basis of which forms a story on a father forgiving his son's spendthriftness and greed, after the son comes back home remorseful of his actions. Gundulić adapts and heavily elaborates the original storyline, but still leaves clearly recognizable traits of the biblical template.
Parable as a literary form represents an elaborated simile
Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two different things, usually by employing the words "like", "as". Even though both similes and metaphors are forms of comparison, similes indirectly compare the two ideas and allow them to remain distinct in spite of their similarities, whereas...
or a metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
, inserted into a larger literary works — the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
in this case. Biblical parable on the prodigal son has but merely two dozen lines, while Gundulić's poetical cultivation extends to 1332 verses, being permeated with numerous son's contemplations on the meaning of life
Meaning of life
The meaning of life constitutes a philosophical question concerning the purpose and significance of life or existence in general. This concept can be expressed through a variety of related questions, such as "Why are we here?", "What is life all about?", and "What is the meaning of it all?" It has...
and death, the sin, and numerous verses dedicated to his repentance.
In monologue
Monologue
In theatre, a monologue is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media...
form the son introduces the plot to the reader, and therefore beside being the main character serves also the role of a narrator, with the exception of sporadic occurrence of the omniscient narrator who announces the monologue. In the biblical parable, however, only the omniscient narrator appears.
Significantly different is the elaboration on the sin itself, being portrayed in the biblical parable as a hedonistic enjoyment in life's pleasures, excessive luxury and overindulgence. The poem adapts those sins too, but ultimately binds them into the foremost sin of lust
Lust
Lust is an emotional force that is directly associated with the thinking or fantasizing about one's desire, usually in a sexual way.-Etymology:The word lust is phonetically similar to the ancient Roman lustrum, which literally meant "purification"...
, induced by a beautiful woman. Lust has encouraged the son to prodigality, for his fortunes fade not for his own self-centered "riotous living", but for the sake of pleasing the woman by buying her valuable presents. The character of a salacious woman is non-existent in the biblical parable, and as a counterbalance the poem omits the character of an older son which slightly changes the poem's ending and significantly the moral lesson learned.
Both the parable and the poem elaborate on the problem of sin, insight into it, and finally on repentance and forgiveness. But, while the biblical parable is directed towards the "righteous" which are advised that every sinner's conversion should be celebrated "for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found" (Luke 15:32, KJV), the poem focuses on the sinner itself, emphasizing that everyone who experiences genuine repentance will be forgiven, and his eternity secured.
Form
Gundulić's Tears of the Prodigal Son is a religiousReligion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
poem structured in three lament
Lament
A lament or lamentation is a song, poem, or piece of music expressing grief, regret, or mourning.-History:Many of the oldest and most lasting poems in human history have been laments. Laments are present in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, and laments continued to be sung in elegiacs accompanied by...
s. Every lament is prefaced by a convenient quote from the Gospel of Luke
Gospel of Luke
The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...
whence the plot itself is adopted from. Laments are titled in accordance wit the three stages the prodigal son experiences: the Sin, the Comprehension and the Humility.
The very beginning of the poem is marked by a brief dedication in prose to the Prisvijetlomu gospodinu Jeru Dživa Gundulića ("the lustrous sire Jeru Dživa Gundulića"), formally separated from laments, in which the author looks back to the glorious tradition of Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...
's poetry and briefly announces poem's subject.
The poem is written in symmetric octosyllable
Octosyllable
The octosyllable or octosyllabic verse is a line of verse with eight syllables. It is equivalent to tetrameter verse in iambs or trochees in languages with a stress accent. It is often used in French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese poetry...
s combined to sestinas, with the first lament having 74, the second 56 and the third 92 octosyllabic sestinas, rhyming ababcc.
Style
Poem as a term even in the ancient Greco-Roman literature had a more general notion of literary form, which is probably one of the reasons why it remained undetermined by today, embodying the characteristics of all three literary arts: lyricsLyrics
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...
, epics
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
and drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
. Elaborate plot, characters and the narrator are traits of epic poetry, drama is manifested by an extremely intensive internal conflict of the main character and the long monologues, and lyrics is indicated in the form itself, by the emotional vigour, ethical and theological contemplations and numerous poetical devices and figures of speech
Figure of speech
A figure of speech is the use of a word or words diverging from its usual meaning. It can also be a special repetition, arrangement or omission of words with literal meaning, or a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words in it, as in idiom, metaphor, simile,...
such as simile
Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two different things, usually by employing the words "like", "as". Even though both similes and metaphors are forms of comparison, similes indirectly compare the two ideas and allow them to remain distinct in spite of their similarities, whereas...
s, epithets, strong metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
s and numerous contradictory figures — oxymoron
Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms...
s, paradoxes
Paradox (literature)
In literature, the paradox is an anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unexpected insight. It functions as a method of literary composition - and analysis - which involves examining apparently contradictory statements and drawing conclusions either to...
and antitheses
Antithesis
Antithesis is a counter-proposition and denotes a direct contrast to the original proposition...
. The antithesis of "sin/purification" imbues the piece as a whole, so the poem itself can be understood as one big antithesis. Also, it's marked by the prevalent allegory
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
, for the plot on the relationship between the father and the son can be transferred to the relationship of a man and God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
.