DIVAN · Works by
Jovan Sterija Popović
10 published works. Explore authors and their published works in the DIVAN library.
A Trick for a Trick
A Trick for a Trick — Jovan Sterija Popović. A purse changes hands in a garden, and neighbourly advice becomes a weapon. A Trick for a Trick needs only two people and one hiding place. Its action is small enough to follow at a glance; its arguments expand to take in marriage, learning, commerce and conscience. Both men are gifted explainers, especially when an explanation makes self-interest sound respectable.
Jovan Sterija PopovićDramaeBook · AudiobookMiloš Obilić
Miloš Obilić — Jovan Sterija Popović. In Miloš Obilić, honour is both a source of strength and a point of vulnerability. A hero who wants to free Serbia from foreign rule must answer an insult to his own name; a decision declared in public becomes an obligation that even love cannot easily restrain. Against his openness stand Branković’s envy, Negoda’s resourcefulness and Lazar’s willingness to believe a rumour once it takes the form of a letter.
Jovan Sterija PopovićDramaeBook · AudiobookSvetislav and Mileva
Svetislav and Mileva — Jovan Sterija Popović. In Svetislav and Mileva, peace arrives as a demand made upon a family. After the defeat at Kosovo, Milica and Stefan seek a way to preserve their country; the price Bajazit sets includes Mileva’s marriage. She becomes the point at which duty to the fatherland, maternal love and an existing pledge of love collide. The play conducts its political argument through conversations between people who love one another and nevertheless cause one another pain.
Jovan Sterija PopovićDramaeBook · AudiobookSympathy and Antipathy
Sympathy and Antipathy — Jovan Sterija Popović. Agnica reads a story and decides to turn it into a performance. Her parents dislike the man she wants to marry, so she devises an illness that only his presence can relieve. The audience hears the plan before the household sees its effects. This difference in knowledge is the play’s engine: each new sign confirms a theory to the doctor while revealing a piece of stagecraft to us.
Jovan Sterija PopovićDramaeBook · AudiobookThe Enchanted Donkey
The Enchanted Donkey — Jovan Sterija Popović. The donkey in this comedy never speaks. Everyone else speaks a great deal, and their eloquence makes the animal seem increasingly sensible. Three students discover a sleeping peasant and a donkey they would like to turn into money. Their solution depends on a theatrical substitution: one student stays behind in the animal’s place, ready to explain the miracle when the owner wakes.
Jovan Sterija PopovićDramaeBook · AudiobookThe Fate of a Mind
The Fate of a Mind — Jovan Sterija Popović. A Doctor of Philosophy has misplaced his mind. His servants look for it as though it were an object left in a room, and the Doctor eventually advertises a reward for its return. The joke grows out of the language he teaches: once a mind can sit at home, a river can have shoulders and a school can float, figures of speech become things that can walk, quarrel and get lost.
Jovan Sterija PopovićDramaeBook · AudiobookThe Liar and His Accomplice
The Liar and His Accomplice — Jovan Sterija Popović. Two hungry adventurers stop before a respectable house and invent a social position for themselves. Aleksa becomes Baron Golić, Mita his servant. Yet skill in lying is not all that opens the door: within the house is already a desire to hear exactly what they offer.
Jovan Sterija PopovićDramaeBook · AudiobookThe Miser or Kir Janja
Jovan Sterija Popović’s Tvrdica ili Kir Janja (The Miser or Kir Janja) turns a merchant’s household into a counting house. Bread, a hat, a servant’s wages and a daughter’s marriage all pass through Janja’s private arithmetic. His thrift repeatedly destroys what it should preserve. Yet his attachment to money also makes him vulnerable: a promising return can overcome the caution that governs every ordinary expense.
Jovan Sterija PopovićDramaeBook · AudiobookThe Patriots
The Patriots — Jovan Sterija Popović. A cockade can be taken off in a moment. In The Patriots, that small action becomes a political system. The same men discover first that freedom requires Hungarian colours, then that Serbian colours are indispensable, then that both may be worn at once. Their explanations grow more elaborate as their principles grow cheaper.
Jovan Sterija PopovićDramaeBook · AudiobookThe Quarrelsome Husband
The Quarrelsome Husband — Jovan Sterija Popović. Maksim can find fault with a clean room because too much cleaning wears out the floor. An untidy room would condemn his wife just as surely. The trouble in The Quarrelsome Husband is therefore more stubborn than a disagreement about housework: any answer can be made wrong by a man determined to complain.
Jovan Sterija PopovićDramaeBook · Audiobook