Revue des études slaves - Année 1994 - Volume 66 - Numéro 4 - Pages 807-816The poetry A. B. Šimi? : the bringing of the body into croatian literature The modernity of Croatian literature at the beginning of the twentieth century, wrongly interpreted as the sign of a favorable cultural context, coincides, on the contrary, with tragic lifes of many, often most brilliant authors. Their modernity arises from the contradictory and multifaceted relations between their texts and social and historical context of their writing. Dead at the age of 27, A. B. Šimi?, an exceptional poet, displaces the decomposition of his own body by turning it into the principle of textual organisations of the poem. Starting from 1917, the body becomes a thematic obsession of his poetry. Gradually, and through systematic use of blank verse, Šimi? abandons the traditional metrical scheme and represente the decomposition of the body by particular graphie disposition of his verse: the theme of the decomposing body organises the body of the poem. The form of the poem becomes the embodiment of poetic principles. The white of the page, which corrodes the graphie form of the poem, includes the paratext into the significance of the poem and provides it with the circumstantial meaning. Since the decomposition of the body is represented in his later poetry (1920-1925) in relation to social misery, Šimi? is the first Croatian poet to in-corporate social and political criticism into the organisation of the poetic text itself. 10 pages Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.