The thesis aims to analyze Anatomija Čustvovanja (The Anatomy of Feeling), a text from the legacy of Vitomil Zupan, kept at the manuscript department of the NUK (The Slovenian National and University Library), and apply its core principles to the author's novel Potovanje na konec pomladi (Journey to the end of Spring). Both the text and the novel deal with one of the fundamental struggles of humanity: the clash between the primordial instincts that promote selfish individuality and those exalted instincts that aim preserve society as a whole. Man seeks deliverance in sexuality, which symbolizes the unification with a primal force that unites man with the rest of creation. For Zupan, the goal of society is to silence this internal conflict, while the goal of man is to transform base instincts into exalted ones, thus becoming an enlightened being. Ultimately, the main goal of this comparison between Zupan's essay and his novel is to promote a more indepth analysis of the author's essayistic legacy kept at the NUK and to gauge its relevance as a tool for the analysis of his literary works.
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