Momcilo Nastasijevic Biography

During his lifetime Momcilo Nastasijevic was less well known than some of his contemporaries, such as Milos Crnjanski and Rastko Petrovic. His literary output was not large, and it gained immediate appreciation only in a narrow circle of intimate friends. Although he published poems regularly in leading literary periodicals such as Misao (Thought) and Srpski knjizevni glasnik (Serbian Literary Herald), he remained relatively unnoticed. He privately published his one volume of poetry, Pet lirskih krugova (Five Lyrical Cycles, 1932). One reason for this lack of recognition was that--with his individual views of poetry and literature and the problems of the development of the Serbian literary language--he was outside the trends of expressionism and surrealist Marxism dominant in Belgrade at the time. Another reason was that his compression of style and his individual imagery make him an extraordinarily difficult poet, especially for those who seek a paraphrasable meaning in poetry. For...
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