Kto ten pejzaż zimą niewydarzoną zatruł? : tropy egzystencji w liryce Jerzego Kamila Weintrauba

Abstract

Poetry by Jerzy Kamil Weintraub hides silence rarely interrupted by the historians of the literature. Apart from two post-war issues prepared by Jan Śpiewak and Ryszard Matuszewski, texts by the author of Próby powrotu, constitute an unknown are a on the historio-literary map. Hardly ever do we meet a fresh and, at the same time, delayed work, the new, and at the same time, more than 60-year old literature. Poetical “old newness” — the output by Jerzy Kamil Weintraub seems to be the victim of carelessness and selectiveness of the contemporary historio-literary awareness. Such a state of affairs, in the area of the studies on the war and occupation literature , turns out to be unjustified, contemptible and harmful to the “war victims”. That is why the present article is an attempt to order and make an initial classification an d exposition of the literary output ascribed to Jerzy Kamil Weintraub, a recognition piece of work, a harbinger of overstatements on this underestimated and non-silent muse during the war. How and is it at all possible to move the poetry of the forgotten author Jerzy Kamil Weintraub closer as his lyrical attempts did not manage to catch the attention of the literary critics for the last 60 years. Is it, thus, possible to try and legitimize a poetical position of Jerzy Kamil Weintraub as an important, though separate and nomadic link in a big chain of the war and occupation poetry? These questions constitute the aim and horizon of expectations in the present work. What dominates in my scientific inquiries with respect to the poetry by Jerzy Kamil Weintraub constitutes existential traces of the lyrical persona thrown into the unfortunate fate of an outcast and exile into the unfortunante coincidence of life, national and historical events. The dissertation resigns from monographic attempts, i.e. a linear model of his creative personality development, big-picturesque perspectives of reception, and the work of lyrics based on biographical genealogy. In the first chapter, entitled „Chłopięce igrzysko”. Wojenne mikrohistorie w poezji Jerzego Kamila Weintrauba i Krzysztofa Kamila Baczyńskiego. Tropy mikrologiczne, the author of the article makes an attempt to follow the traces of micrologists. The very traces are not always clear and easy to recognise. To find them, sometimes, it is necessary to use special tools equipping an eye of a rese arch e r and causing a non-standard way of perceiving poetical things. One of such special and modern methods is literary micrology. Micrological signs can appear in the most unexpected places of the text. In the case of lyrics by Jerzy Kamil Weintraub, “microelements” can be found in poetical considerations on “the Spirit of history”, sense, aim and rationalism of great History. This chapter follows a “double” trace, i.e. that of Jerzy Kamil Weintraub and Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński. The very trace is not coincidental; it does not result only from the similarities of the their birth certificates, places of living or unfortunate fate. What connects the two poets is Weintraub’s big friendship with Baczyński. The second chapter, entitled „Kto ten pejzaż zimą niewydarzoną zatruł?” O korpusie tekstów zimowych Jerzego Kamila Weintrauba. Tropy fantazmatyczne, constitutes an integral part of the thesis under discussion. Jerzy Kamil Weintraub, in his winter story, constructs his own reality based on a counterhistorical, “higher” and para-historical poetical narration. The poet’s “second horizon” — a hyperborian land is a theoretical model, a mainstay of unchanging truth(s), built in accordance with an allegoric way of world articulation. This is the world parallel to the reality of occupied Warsaw in which the poet, thanks to his consistent work of imagination and intellect (the “cold” reasoning), managed to breathe life into the phantasm of winter — a safe existential model by means of the power of a poetical word. Such an attitude derives from the awareness of a linguistic utopia, and a romantic drive to create alternatives. Therefore, Weintraub’s existential traces imprinted in the “corpus of w inter texts” are so legible and clear. Neither the poet himself, nor the researcher of his poetry selected his “winter” poems. The corpus of winter texts constitutes the platform here, and is treated as one of the variants of an interpretational reflection on his poetry. Despite the fact the “winter poems” do not form an outline composition, do not have the hallmarks of the author’s methodical arrangement into the poetical atempts and re-issued subcycles, particular winter images form a given sequence which, as a complex lyrical utterance, shows the principle of poem sequence and combination. The corpus of winter texts is a whole made of many heterogeneous texts, various genological, stylistic and metrical formulas. Despite a big span of time under which the texts were created, and their formal diversification, the project is not finished and fragmentaric — as if the author of Tropy zimowe tried to describe “an indescribable winter” — knowing that this task is impossible and doomed to constant causality. Weintraub’s worldimage is the “land of one hundred winters” — an ominous winter, a catharctic winter, a winter of a hybernatic dream, a winter of a piercing cold, a winter of immaculate beauty, a winter of blizzard and constant freezing. Such a multidimension of white viewpoints is pertained due to a winter paradigm, whereas their change is caused by a move of imagination between particular autonomised worlds. In the la st chapter, entitled „Lato eligijne”, lato ostatnie. Tropy tanatyczne, the author of the article takes a look a t the texts having a special stigma. In the case of poems by Jerzy Kamil Weintraub, it is a full awareness of ending life. This painful knowledge enabled the poet to thinking an uncompromised and unspeculative way, though not from biterness, fear and sadness. These poems are more economical and lapidaric, though enriched with the conviction that words in the face of death are empty yet necessary. However, it would be surprising for someone searching for a panic hurriness in the light of passing time of a justified nervous quiver or a cataleptic stupor in these testamenta rystanza s because Jerzy Kamil Weintraub wrote his “last poetical will” in a peaceful way, and in full awareness (“sanity”).