W stronę inności : rozbiory i debaty

Abstract

The autor discusses briefly the notion of otherness from Jacques Derrida’s point of view concentrating on it In the introductory part of the book titled Instead of Introduction — the otherness exemplified by a constant epithet: irreductible. Part One comprises both the interpretations of such canonical texts as Nad Niemnem by Eliza Orzeszkowa, Proszę państwa do gazu by Tadeusz Borowski or Przestanie Pana Cogito by Zbigniew Herbert, and also the interpretations of those functioning “on the margins” like the prose by Tadeusz Różewicz or regional literary output (Śląsk, Zagłębie). The aim of those interpretations carried out in a deconstruction-like manner is searching the otherness in such a way as to find a crack which would reveal the elements of otherness in the texts mentioned above, the elements being an indispensable condition in the course of building the text’s identity. Hence the figures of otherness, the other experience created there: the egotist in the novel glorifying solidarity and altruism, death “taken away" from the prisoners of extermination camps in Borowsk’i story, excessive pride compromising Herbert’s mythical heroes, reading other’s texts as a remedy for his resistance towards his own writing in Różewicz, homelessness as an experience of a living in a “small homeland” recorded by the writers of Zagłębie. In Part T\vo (Debates) the discussion concerning the author’s attitude towards widely-held opinions and recognised authorities was introduced. The attention was paid to the otherness understood as a constitutive part on the way of experiencing oneself, i.e. the subject searching his identity among the texts of culture such as: the ideology of freedom, a mythical story, semiotics of a text, a sovereign discipline, a scientific doctrine or a cohesive genre of expression.