Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie Jana Potockiego i wybrane powieści XX wieku (Fowles - Rosendorfer - Gretkowska)

Abstract

Summary The present study tries to show the unusual modernity of The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki by analysing the intertextual relations be-tween the work of the Count, written in the first decades of the 19th century, and two 20th-century novels: The Magus by John Fowles and The Architect of Ruins by Herbert Rosendorfer. Another novel subjected to analysis is Manuela Gretkowska’s Rękopis nieodnaleziony, czyli zalety szubienic. Convergences and similarities can be indicated primarily in the scope of the composition of works, genre and literary conventions used, the construction of the protagonist and novel spaces. Their analysis leads to further findings: these novels are linked by genre diversity, compositional and ideological polyphony, philosophical, epistemological, anthropological and metalliterary problems, dramatization of the depicted world, the element of irony and parody, the symbolism of the labirynth and circles, and other, more detailed ties, such as mirror motifs, love triangles or the figure of the Wandering Jew. All these works also highlight the importance of the act of narration and explore vari-ous areas of Mediterranean culture. Among the direct allusions present in the works of Rosendorfer and Gretkowska, there are repeated vampire motives that take up the game with the legend surrounding Potocki’s death, and at the same time draw an image of the „vampirism” of The Manuscript… itself, constructed from recurring, potentially infinite stories. From this perspective, The Manuscript… appears as a work extremely close to contemporary consciousness, pioneering in the face of 20th-century novels on many levels, from artistic solutions to the correlated vision of an unrecog-nisable, changeable and relative world. These numerous analogies, noticeable between works created in different epochs and national literatures, demon-strate the novelty of Potocki’s writing.