Pochwała lekkości? Leśmian - Przyboś - Karpowicz

Abstract

This volume contains essays on writers who are familiar with the ambivalence of lightness and heaviness. These writers take up the pen to seek remedies for that which disturbs the world with its inertia, and above all, to escape the inertia that is the word’s lot. This involves a penchant for a certain kind of bravado or even risk, taken in order to be able to seemingly draw from the energizing potential of what is changeable, among other things. Lightness and heaviness constitute ambiguous categories. For those who are by nature sluggish, sometimes weary and slow, and at the same time constantly confronting their own limitations, everything that seems – even if only to a small degree – unrestrained or undetermined can be refreshingly light. That is why sometimes small signs of freedom, including dynamic suggestions inscribed in the order of art, appear to be more interesting and more important than the usually illusory states of weightlessness. As the subjects of the study exemplify, allusions that allow us to recognize the unfl agging love of life are quite unexpectedly also linked with the images of weightiness. What counts as important is the joy of action and the creative nerve, sometimes the height of sensation, at other times the surge of will or the momentum of danger, but also the ability to overcome resistance, giving a sense of fullness of life. Dynamic reinforcements and motoric impulses are important, since movement, thanks to which we gain a sense of space, supposedly contributes to relieving the psychological tensions that aff ect a person. It seems important for the subjects of this study to be able to draw vital force from the intensity of movement: fi rst of all, of course, from the transformation of meanings inscribed in the matter of words, from the fl ow of thoughts, and so on. Although the artists discussed here diff er in their degree the troublesome realities of life, is connected with a sense of participation in the fl ow of existence. The subjects of this study aspire to achieve unity with the world – also in the act of creation. What matters is the creative energy of language, the invigorating power of the movement of meanings, the impulse of life inscribed in the attempt to evade determinants – everything that does not allow the story about existence to be reduced to a uniform scheme, a binding rule. Speaking about lightness in this context, one should have in mind exactly what tries to elude already established boundaries, fi nds itself out of place, and is too mobile – alive – to become instrumentalized. Therefore, the revolutionary force seems light, understood fi rst and foremost as a derivative of the ever-moving, undomesticated creative thought. Lightness – ambivalent and manifold: uplifting but at the same time ephemeral, incidental and at the same time open to the constant need for movement (preferably movement without boundaries), giving the sense of freedom and liberty, the impression of youth and the “freshness” of the world, and yet having its share in the weight of things – invariably remains an open question, since what is free and undetermined does not fi t into the dictionary of fi nal notions. This is also true of the stories of poets who constantly juxtapose the new with the old, who try to escape the defi nitive, who tend to shy away from endings. And if they allow for an end at all, it is a light one, consistent with the idea of “openness” – fading away. Above all, however, the attempts to overcome what is heavy and resisting, made (with varying success) by the authors discussed in this volume – Bolesław Leśmian, Julian Przyboś and Tymoteusz Karpowicz – are an expression of openness to what is manifold and changeable, a kind of apologia for liberating movement from tension, which allows one to rise to life again and again.