Odour and colours in Martynas Vainilaitis' poetry

Martynas Vainilaitis lietuvių vaikų poezijos raidoje yra žinomas kaip ypač subtilus tradicinės struktūros eilėraščio kūrėjas, praturtinęs vaikų eilėraštį mitine pasaulio sandara, folkloro stilizacijomis. Straipsnyje Vainilaičio poezija aptariama neįprastu kvapo ir spalvos aspektu. Tai poezija, kurioje susipina vaizdas ir jutiminiai potyriai, akustinis skambesys, lingvistinės subtilybės. Pastebima, kad muzikalus ir dainingas Vainilaičio eilėraštis ne tik skamba, bet ir švyti įvairiausiomis spalvomis bei atspalviaisM. Vainilaitis' poems for children are traditional and subtle. Their poetic world is rich, mythical, full of stylized folklore elements. The paper deals with unusual odour-colour mixture in Vainilaitis' poems where visual, sensory experiences are enriched with acoustic splendour, linguistic subtleties. His easily remembered poems are full of shades of colours. The scale of colours is wide, mostly linked to nature. Colours are indicated directly, also bear metaphoric meaning, symbolize longing, dreams, hope and create a secret. Traditional light-dark colours are not characteristic for Vainilaitis' poems, dark colours are subdued and do not arose negative emotions. A mixture of odours and colours make them a little melancholic, lively, playful, sensitive. The world of odours is related to childhood memories, longing for beautiful nature of Dzukija, homeland, home environment. Smells of the cool of the morning, soil and clay, meadows and gardens, rye, clovers and hay, herbal tea and cakes and many others are found in Vainilaitis' poems. However, smells that animals and beasts sense when they are hungry, as in children folk songs or tales, may be also found in a few of his poems for preschool children: mice smell a slice of pork on a letter, a fox smells ducks, a bear smells oak acorns, a wolf smells a sheep, a bear smells a honeycomb, etc. Mostly the poet uses emotionally charged verb 'smell', less often - what or who smells what but then includes some nature motif, e.g., the scent of pinewood resin in the forest, of freshly cut grass, of ploughed soil brought by the wind, of meadow in water, of dragonflies in a water tank. Although sometimes no odour or colour has been mentioned they are easily sensed in the text. The poetry of Vainilaitis reveals the harmony of images, sounds, odours and emotionsVytauto Didžiojo universitetasŠvietimo akademij