„IZ UTROBE JAVOROVE”: RAĐANJE PESME U POEZIJI SRPSKOG ROMANTIZMA

This paper analyzes the symbolism of the maple tree as a source of poetic inspiration and creation in Serbian Romantic poetry. Starting from the mythic-magical and creative potential of the maple in oral poetic tradition, and through the lens of the phenomenology of imagination, the maple tree is interpreted as a material foundation that transforms into a metaphysical object—a matrix of poetic creation. In this context, the concept of material imagination allows the maple to be viewed as a dynamic medium within the creative process, mediating between nature, the poet, and cultural memory. Special attention is given to the motif of the painful birth of the poem “from the womb of the maple tree,” which represents the overcoming of the dualism between physical and spiritual creation. Through the analysis of the poetic works of Laza Kostić, Branko Radičević, Jovan Jovanović Zmaj, and other poets of Serbian Romanticism, the sound of the gusle—carved from maple wood—is revealed as an acoustic form of collective ontology. At the same time, the maple tree is established as an archetypal matrix in which the poetic, spiritual, and cultural potentials of Serbian tradition are accumulated and recoded.