THE POETIZED SPACE OF THE ANCESTRAL HOME IN THE NOVEL „THE TALE OF THE CRICKET SAILOR“ BY PALMA KATALINIĆ

The paper interprets the role of one’s ancestral home in the emotional world of complex human and animal characters through the example of Palma Katalinić’s novel The Tale of Cricket the Sailor (Pričanje Cvrčka moreplovca). The realistic narrative, set in Mediterranean spatial imaginary, and the introduction of animalistic characters directs the narration toward a fantastical storytelling model and a distant, yearned-for ancestral home. The contentious relationship between culture and nature, due to the intuitive inclination of the child hero, undergoes a correction. The poetized space of the lived and yearned-for ancestral home is viewed through ecocritical reflection, where a narratological analysis of the storytelling strategies in the novel confirms the multiple functionalities of the embedded stories. The dialogical storytelling strategy, characterized by lyrical passages, balances between a realistic and symbolic vision of the ancestral home as a space of longing and freedom, departure and return, but also as a space of polysemic artistic reinterpretations.