The Relation between the Spiritual and the Aesthetic in the Poetry of Daniel Pastirčák

The aim of the study is to present the poetry of Daniel Pastirčák, one of the most prominent spiritual poets in the contemporary Slovak literature. Through interpretation of his four book of verse, we attempt to name dominant features of his poetry. A thread of spiritual poetry can be seen since Old Slavonic literature, particularly St. Cyril’s foreword to his translation of the Gospels called Proglas. Since then, every period of literary history had active priests engaged in writing poetry, and a short survey of most important names is given in this study. We tackle general problems of writing spiritual poetry, especially the tension between its theological and poetic aspect. A good way to overcome this threatening imbalance is either the use of original imagery or particular human experience with faith as is shown in Pastirčák’s best poems. His philosophical and meditative poetry emphasizes the unity of the world, of man and nature, of earthly and divine. The speaker can see dualism in both: man and the world, combining it with the cyclical conception of time. He proves what is typical of good poetry and literature entirely: that they are able to point to spiritual values indirectly not only by their invocation. The Christian character of Pastirčák’s poetry is supported by his frequent references to the Bible, either direct quotations or paraphrases, or allusions. The diction of many of his poems, mainly in his first book of verse Tehilim, is biblical, too. We try to support our conclusions with quotations of particular poems or their extracts in English translation. The overall ambition of this study is the attempt to offer a relatively complex view upon Daniel Pastirčák as a poet, which, we hope, will contribute to the reception of spiritual poetry in Slovak literature.