to European Romanticism than that of any other Serbian poet of his time. Kostić attempted unsuccessfully in numerous, incomplete theoretical essays to combine the elements of the native folk song with those of European Romanticism. The lack of success can be attributed to the advanced nature of his poetry, the ideas of his time, and his eccentricity. Of Kostić's plays. Maksim Crnojević (1863) represents the first attempt to dramatize an epic poem. Pera Segedinac (1875) deals with the struggle of the Serbs for their rights in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and his play Gordana (1890) did not receive much praise. Kostić was a controversial personality; he was more celebrated than understood in his youth and became less popular in his old age, only achieving real fame after his death. Today, it is generally accepted that Kostić is the originator of modern Serbian poetry. Translation of works in English At the age of eighteen, in 1859, Kostić undertook the task of translating the works of William Shakespeare. Kostić researched and published works on Shakespeare for around 50 years. The cultural ideals that motivated Kostić to translate Romeo and Juliet into Serbian were part of the Serbian literary revival that originated with Dositej Obradović in the eighteenth century. At the time, theatre emerged following the Serbian people's campaign for national independence in the late eighteenth century. During the 1850s and inter-war years, Kostić and his collaborator Andrejević made efforts to introduce Shakespeare to the Serbian public. He tried to bring closer the Balkan cultures and the Antiquity, experimenting with the translation of Homer into the Serbian-epic decametre. He translated the works of many other foreign authors, notably Heinrich Heine, Heinrich Dernburg, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton's The Last Days of Pompeii, and Hungarian poet József Kiss. All Serbian intellectuals of the period believed the existence of their country was bound to the fate of their native tongue, then spoken widely throughout the two foreign empires. This premise provided for Kostić's translation of Romeo and Juliet. The Serbian translation of Richard III was the joint effort of Kostić and his friend, the physician and author Jovan Andrejević-Joles. Andrejević also participated in the founding of Novi Sad's Serbian National Theatre in 1861. The year of the appearance of Richard III (1864) in Novi Sad coincided with the 300-year anniversary of Shakespeare's birth; for that occasion, Kostić adapted two scenes from Richard III using the iambic