Błogosławieństwa awangardy. "Pisarz pism nie św." Miron Białoszewski

Abstract

It can be observed that the hitherto prevailing tendencies of reading Miron Białoszewski’s works – saturated with religious references used in an idiomatic or profane way – have been either metaphysical (A. and T. Sobolewski, M. Stala, A. Zagajewski) or linguistic (J. Sławiński, E. Balcerzan, S. Barańczak). These two extremities produce a gap that can be bridged by a reading which combines the postsecular perspective, understood in an institutional way, with neo-avant-garde (in H. Foster’s interpretation). Just as the avant-garde is a critique of the obligatory art institution (P. Bürger), so can postsecularism be understood as a critique of the current institution of religion. The article presents readings of Kalejdoskop (Kaleidoscope) and of poems written in the 1950s and 1960s, and shows Białoszewski’s poetry as neo-avant-garde and postsecular at the same time, depicting the writer as the first postwar postsecular Polish poet.