Eros and Thanatos in the Poetry of Josip Osti

Abstract

The work is focused on Josip Osti's book On the Cross of Love, in which the author searches for answers to the universal question of the intertwining of love (as the awakening and celebration of life - eros) and dying, i.e. death (as the end - Thanatos). Through poetry, Osti talks about human nature, about the fact that we are all, no matter how different from each other, made of the same elements: mortality, but also a renewing love for life and other people. This is a book about a man as he should be, a book about diversity, which opposes uniformity, accepting (and coming to terms with) the World. Two key questions come to mind while reading this book: is Osti's center of love a refuge from loneliness, and is it possible for death to be the trigger of new love? Is love how one can reach a sublime state of happiness and fulfillment? We try to offer possible answers to these questions as well as show the types of love the book is about. And all those answers in our research are sublimated into one: the collection of poems On the Cross of Love appears as an Orphean parable about the inseparability of Eros and Thanatos.