Oko smoka : o wierszu Marcina Świetlickiego "Dla Jana Polkowskiego"

Abstract

The present study is an interpretation of one of the most renowned poems of the 1989 breakthrough in Poland. The author discusses the reception of the poem as it was soon after its publication, and argues with the three main tendencies in that reception: the poem was read as lampoon of Polkowski’s poetry, and of Polkowski as a person, as a rejection of Tradition, and as a text providing an “algorithm of action” in the post-communist world. A “reconstructive interpretation”, i.e. one that strives to reconstruct the author’s intention as it appears with the text, enables us to reveal a different aspect of the poem. The author has discovered that the poem is stylised on Z. Herbert’s and J. Polkowski’s poetry, and is motivated, in the context of the speech act theory, by the gesture of a poetical “gift”, which Swietlicki’s poem is supposed to be. This gift “For Jan Polkowski” is, however, only a “quasi-gift”, as it is devoid of sincerity. This means that, at least from the author’s point of view, Swietlicki in his poem opposes the appearance of ethical questions in poetical communication.