This paper deals with the 18 th and 19 th century handwritten songbooks (there are about a hundred preserved till today). These manuscripts of poetry basically originate from the territory of Karlovac Metropolis which covers areas north of the Sava and the Danube rivers. And at that time they were within the framework of the Hausbourg monarchy inhabited by Serbs, who were living in urban or semi urban surroundings. So the owners and writers of the mention songbooks were literate people

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... , seminarians, priests, teachers, artisans, merchants, and sometimes young ladies), who were enrolling their notebooks with songs that they liked. They were basically love poems, but also had patriotic and spiritual content and some heroic and ballad tones. Smaller part of the songs in mention manuscripts originate in folklore, but most of the poems are nonetheless lyrics of individual origin, even though their authors who were primarily anonymous wrote under the strong influence of folklore. So, the paper discusses these songs, which are on the border line of literature and folk poetry, stressing the nature of their reception and poetics which is of a specific neature of that time.