"Kosmos" Witolda Gombrowicza, czyli zagłada powieści

Abstract

The starting point for this article was the identification of Kosmos by Witold Gombrowicz as a narration whose objective is an attempt at constituting a story and a plot. The shifting between the ontological and epistemological aspect of the object in the text has the effect that all the endeavours directed towards constructing a plot, and in consequence — order, are marred with suspicion and arbitrariness. Then also the classidally conceived narration „threatens” deterioration into story-telling. As if at other pole may be found those parts of Kosmos which present non-ordered reality. In this article these are named as presentive sequences. Oscillating between story-telling and presentive sequences, the narrator manages to retrieve the narrative nature of the work, but also delimitates the horizon of possibilities of the novel genre for which the narrative aspect is the principal genological determinant.