The Homily on Love by Despot Stefan

it is interesting that an acrostic is also used in this work, which further speaks of the high level of his poetic craft.

The Homily on Love is much more than a love poem - it is a profound philosophical and lyrical contemplation of love, beauty and human relationships. What sets it apart is its universality - it can be read as a doxology to the Creator, as a personal confession, a diplomatic message, or as a literary hymn to love in all its forms. The author of the Homily on Love, Despot Stefan Lazarević, besides being one of the most powerful Serbian rulers, also proves to be a great thinker and artist, and this work of his is a precious link between the Serbian medieval tradition and the new European cultural currents.

The Homily on Love of Despot Stefan Lazarević attracts the attention of writers and researchers; it has been studied by many Serbian and foreign Slavists, linguists, historians... The first translation of A Word on Love into Serbian was published by Milivoje Bašić (1868–1927) in Belgrade in 1911, and it was followed by the translation of Dragutin Kostić (1873–1945) from 1931. The first poetic translation of this work was made by Momčilo Nastasijević in 1936. After them, several other distinguished Serbian translators sought to bring these verses closer to readers: in modern Serbian there are more than ten verse renderings of this poem of the Despot, and the Homily on Love has been translated into some ten world languages. Many eminent Serbian authors have studied, commented on and interpreted the Homily on Love - among them Đura Daničić (1825–1882), Stojan Novaković (1842–1915), Dragoljub Pavlović (1903–1966), Đorđe Sp. Radojičić (1905–1970), Saint Justin Popović (1894–1979), Milan Kašanin (1895–1981), Vladeta Jerotić (1924–2018), Bishop Atanasije Jevtić (1938–2021), ...

Academician Dimitrije Bogdanović (1930–1986) says of the Homily on Love: "Written sometime in the first half of the 15th century (1404 or 1409), the Homily, by its poetics, although on the foundations of the epistolary genre - as a model for the writing of letters - went beyond the framework of the standard epistolary literature of its time. By its true nature it is a lyric poem, in theme and character - a serene hymn to spiritual love and to love in general, which 'surpasses every virtue.' Restrained in expression, unspoken, all in hint and intimation, grounded in its ideas on the biblical motifs of the Johannine, psalmic and Pauline reflections on love, it presupposes a high literary culture not only in its author but also in the milieu for which it was intended. New for Serbian medieval literature in the Homily on Love is the experience of nature, in which one seems to sense the Renaissance. Nevertheless, there is no fundamental opposition between the poetic spirit that permeates the works of Stefan Lazarević and the traditional Serbian literature of the Middle Ages. The ideational and poetic unity of the whole of Serbian literature from the 10th to the 15th century is not disrupted by the works of Despot Stefan."

The Serbian historian and scholar of Old Serbian literature Đorđe Trifunović says the following of the Homily on Love: "The theme and motif of the Homily on Love is the fundamental principle of the Christian sense and vision of God and of the divine. The fundamental New Testament