"Possible communications" and the "possible addresssee" in lyrical poetry

Abstract

The article deals with the place of the addressee in the poetics of the lyrical text through the lens of the theory of communication, history of poetry and poetics. As the addressee represented in contemporary poetry is unlikely to reflect any specific model of personality, or a homogeneous cultural type, I have articulated the conceptions of the “possible addressee” and “possible communication” of the literary text. Accordingly, our speaking to “You” does not necessitate a description of his/her image (by analogy to lyrical hero) but the contact as such, i.e. the relation itself. It is then in the wake of this relation that specific poetical aspirations toward the personality of “You” are born. We would not want to read “You” evoked in a poem, even if this is performed as an instance of semantic fulfilment, as a theme. We would rather perceive “You” through the prism of relations through which he/she approaches us, or which lead us to him/her. We wish to apprehend the “content” of the personal relationship in the text as a “place of perpetuating contacts” (Opacki 1995: 172). What is poetical according to the contemporary formula of the addressee-oriented poetry is transposed from “communiqué” to “contact” (the content of the intricate formula “toward You”).