"Brudnopis" in blanco: rzecz o poezji Władysława Broniewskiego

Abstract

The book consists of six independent, though tightly intertwined and composed, parts. The first part, entitled Broniewski, almost a politician, is devoted to a specific reception of one of the most popular poets of the PRL period, consisting in, on the one hand, the attempt to “smooth” biographic details at variance with the propaganda doctrine, and, on the other hand, the attempt to justify or explain Władysław Broniewski’s political involvement and his communist sympathies. The second part A long history of one friendship is centred around friendship with Don Kichot, declared in his youthful diary and realized in life and works. It consisted in a clear literary inspiration to act and experience the world according to poetic patterns. Likewise Cervantes’ character, Broniewski joined the army and went to the war right from the library. The third part Soft revolutions of a hard revolutionist concerns above all Broniewski’s pre-war writing. Thus, a lot of attention is paid to his debut book of poems Wiatraki, clearly inspired by Don Kichot. The way the narrator of this and subsequent poetical books (cycles) goes is not on a horse, but on foot, according to the incedere necesse est maxim formulated and skillfully presented by Andrzej Kotliński. Out of an autotellic “walking”, “trudging”, “marching”, “treading”, which transforms the way to nowhere into the way to anywhere, (“the front is anywhere in the world”), the next “non-autotellic” step leads to an equally irrational writing of “the myth on the left hand”. The next, fourth part, Through this bloody world…, mainly concentrates on two war books and a constantly traveled “way to Poland”. The very way, poetically determined by the “dead road-sign” goes directly from the world that is totally ruined after his last pre-war book Krzyk ostateczny, (treated here as a literary interpretation of éschatos and lógos). The wanderer’s way to Poland was indicated by a special map because in the world in which all landmarks were “blurred” (ruined), wandering was to take place not only in a specific direction, but follow traces, at the address of no longer existing towns and streets. In a sense, such an address will lead the reader in the fifth part And there is a fog on Theatrical square. The way will not lead to the ruined towns, but to the address burdened with the legend of one of the most important places in the history of the Polish revolution in 1905. A closed, as the composition of the whole ballad, small space on the square from which one cannot go out, does not make either a topographic or reading orientation easier. A “disastrous step” is made in a place determined by the “echo from the bottom of the legend” in a night and foggy scenery of Ballada o placu Teatralnym. That is why the attention in the fifth part is paid to the ballad involved in questions which are not answered, but which, when avoiding a naïve interpretation, allow for finding lost tragedy. From the very beginning, the book is accompanied by Michel Foucault’s question concerning the lack of possibility to capture all Broniewski’s writings: […] “but what does this »all« mean?” This is responsible for mistrust towards too strong attempts to blend Broniewski many a time signaled in the narration, and those which involved in the propaganda war, postulated the exposition of the complete image of the poet and his works, also taking into account “cracks” and “scratches” in his biography and on his works. A confession made by Broniewski saying that “the most beautiful poems are the unwritten ones”, covers the works of the author of Komuna paryska with the question mark. Not each text was published, some of them – “arranged in memory” – were not even written, and some others were not signed or just nicknamed. The question on this “all”, was answered in the sixth, summarizing, part Outside the drawer. However, the question on “the meaning of »all«” was unanswered somehow on principle.