Antropologia słowa, antropologia wspomnienia

Abstract

The author presents an interpretative proposal of Edward Balcerzan’s autobiographical prose. She concentrates on the novel Perehenia i słoneczniki aiming at interpreting it on the basis of the interference of orality and writing noticed in the book. The title perehenia plays a vital role (as a key word) in the course of the interpretation. Referring to his childhood when constructing his biography, the writer is searching for perehenia in written sources, above all in dictionaries and lexicons. He contrasts the recollections and fragments of his previous novel Pobyt and stories from the volume Heneral with the store of dictionary, encyclopaedic knowledge in order to make his own story “come into force”. Since, his desire for putting down roots combines here with the strong need for proving his lexical identity. Whereas the author’s retrospective attitude towards the presentation of the story of his life is accompanied by the consciousness of literary conventions and principles applied in autobiographical works, revealing the secrets of his origin is arranged here with an attempt at making individual, carefully chosen fragments of privacy introduced in the book, more objective.