In the Footsteps of Kierkegaard: Modern Ethical Literature by Józef Wittlin and Paer Lagerkvist 3631843895, 9783631843895

Citation preview

In the Footsteps of Kierkegaard The book is a comparative study of the works of Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist, in their youth recognized as prominent expressionist writers, and in their later years making the ethical topic the core of their works. In search for ways of expressing ethical dilemmas, the works of Søren Kierkegaard and his concept of indirect communication turned out to be an extraordinarily powerful tool for both writers, enabling them to explore the matters of ethics and morals in a way substantially different from traditional didactic literature. In the reading of Wittlin‘s and Lagerkvist’s works undertaken in this book, the perspectives of comparative studies and the history of literature complement and make it possible to describe an important, but rarely recognized phenomenon of modern European literature: its ethical variant.

The Author Katarzyna Szewczyk-Haake – professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan ´ . Her area of academic interest comprises comparative literature, interarts studies, history of modern European literature and relations between literature and philosophy.

Katarzyna Szewczyk-Haake

Katarzyna Szewczyk-Haake

23

In the Footsteps of Kierkegaard

Studien zur Germanistik, Skandinavistik und Übersetzungskultur 23

Studien zur Germanistik, Skandinavistik und Übersetzungskultur 23

Katarzyna Szewczyk-Haake

In the Footsteps of Kierkegaard Modern Ethical Literature by Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist

ISBN 978-3-631-84389-5

GSÜ_023 23_284389_Szewczyk-Haake_KG_A5HC 151x214 globalL.indd Benutzerdefiniert H

05.01.22 16:55

In the Footsteps of Kierkegaard The book is a comparative study of the works of Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist, in their youth recognized as prominent expressionist writers, and in their later years making the ethical topic the core of their works. In search for ways of expressing ethical dilemmas, the works of Søren Kierkegaard and his concept of indirect communication turned out to be an extraordinarily powerful tool for both writers, enabling them to explore the matters of ethics and morals in a way substantially different from traditional didactic literature. In the reading of Wittlin‘s and Lagerkvist’s works undertaken in this book, the perspectives of comparative studies and the history of literature complement and make it possible to describe an important, but rarely recognized phenomenon of modern European literature: its ethical variant.

The Author Katarzyna Szewczyk-Haake – professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan ´ . Her area of academic interest comprises comparative literature, interarts studies, history of modern European literature and relations between literature and philosophy.

Katarzyna Szewczyk-Haake

Katarzyna Szewczyk-Haake

23

In the Footsteps of Kierkegaard

Studien zur Germanistik, Skandinavistik und Übersetzungskultur 23

Studien zur Germanistik, Skandinavistik und Übersetzungskultur 23

Katarzyna Szewczyk-Haake

In the Footsteps of Kierkegaard Modern Ethical Literature by Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist

ISBN 978-3-631-84389-5

GSÜ_023 23_284389_Szewczyk-Haake_KG_A5HC 151x214 globalL.indd Benutzerdefiniert H

05.01.22 16:55

In the Footsteps of Kierkegaard

Studien zur Germanistik, Skandinavistik und Übersetzungskultur Herausgegeben von Stefan H. Kaszyński, Andrzej Kątny, Maria Krysztofiak und Beate Sommerfeld

Band 23

Katarzyna Szewczyk-Haake

In the Footsteps of Kierkegaard Modern Ethical Literature by Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist Translated by Agnieszka Gicala

Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available online at http://dnb.d-nb.de. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. The translation and publication of this book was financially supported by the Rector of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, the School of Languages and Literatures of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, and the authorities of the Institute of European Culture at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. The author’s research stay in the Royal Library in Stockholm was granted by the Foundation for Polish Science. Part of Chapter Two translated by John Comber All translations of Józef Wittlin's poems published in this book are by Patrick John Corness, who owns the copyright in these translations. Pär Lagerkvist's poems translated by Katarzyna Szewczyk-Haake This translation is a modified version of the Polish original: "Nowoczesna literatura etyczna. Wokół twórczości Józefa Wittlina i Pära Lagerkvista", Poznań 2017. This work has been reviewed by Maria Sibińska (University of Gdańsk). Cover illustration: © Michał Haake. ISSN 2192-3310 ISBN 978-3-631-84389-5 (Print) · E-ISBN 978-3-631-83016-1 (E-PDF) E-ISBN 978-3-631-86964-2 (EPUB) · DOI 10.3726/b19185 © Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Berlin 2022 All rights reserved. Peter Lang – Berlin · Bern · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Warszawa · Wien All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. This publication has been peer reviewed. www.peterlang.com

To defend the moral intent of the author is in itself no more conclusive than to show that he wanted to write a masterpiece. Wayne C. Booth

Table of Contents Introduction  ....................................................................................................... 11 1. Contemporary comparative studies and the comparative studies of Swedish and Polish literature ................................................................ 12 2. Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist, or the question of the ethical horizon of modernist literature ................................................................. 15 3. Ethical criticism: Notes on the method .................................................... 20

Chapter One Modern ethical literature: Genealogy and definition ..................... 25 1. Moral obligations of literature and changes in ethics in modernity ..... 25 2. The shadow of modernisation ................................................................... 31 3. Søren Kierkegaard’s ethics of communication and the model of ethical literature by Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist ............................. Kierkegaard’s reception in Swedish and Polish literature until the Second World War ...................................................................................... Kierkegaard’s ethics of communication /​literary communication ...... Interpretative context: Kierkegaard and/​or Nietzsche ...........................

36 37 43 50

Chapter Two Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin .. 53 1. “I’m essentially a moralist,” or choosing the “non-​cultural:” On Pär Lagerkvist ........................................................................................ The ambivalent meaning of bad art .......................................................... On the trail of a “third kind” of art ........................................................... Literature and art, and the question of “ethical art” ............................... Expressionism, modernity and ethical literature (a digression of a historical-​literary nature)  ........................................................................... Falsification or enchantment? ....................................................................

53 58 62 65 69 73

8

Table of Contents

2. “I am primarily concerned with the moral side of human existence,” or “let’s archaise consciously:” On Józef Wittlin .................. The truth and truths: The problem of language ...................................... Literature facing evil –​and facing good: “It is no skill to criticise the earth from the height of heaven” ........................................................ Facing the Holocaust .................................................................................. The ethical and the aesthetic: Existential understanding of a work of art ..............................................................................................................

77 80 87 91 95

3. Summary ...................................................................................................... 99

Chapter Three The capabilities of poetry: On Ångest [Anxiety] and Hymny [Hymns] ................................................................................................................ 105 1. On Lagerkvist ............................................................................................... 105 Anxiety and fear .......................................................................................... 105 Doubt in words ............................................................................................ 110 2. On Wittlin .................................................................................................... 119 In the face of nothingness: Nihilism and fear .......................................... 120 Towards the reader’s ethical independence ............................................. 129 3. Summary ...................................................................................................... 134

Chapter Four The capabilities of prose: On Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] and Dvärgen [The Dwarf] ............................................................. 139 1. Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] by Józef Wittlin .................................... 140 Pacifism as ethical literature? ..................................................................... 141 Modern and timeless evil ........................................................................... 142 Types and functions of irony ..................................................................... 149 The irony of a simpleton: Modifications ................................................... 152 The irony of the sender: Analogies and paradoxes ................................. 158 Irony as an attitude ...................................................................................... 162 Summary  ...................................................................................................... 165

Table of Contents

9

2. Dvärgen [The Dwarf] by Pär Lagerkvist ................................................... 167 Three evils: Eternal, renaissance and modern ......................................... 168 Facing nihilism  ............................................................................................ 174 The chances of the first-​person narrative ................................................. 186 Perspectivism  ............................................................................................... 189 Summary  ...................................................................................................... 192

Chapter Five Exiles, visitors and pilgrims: Around apocryphal works .............. 195 1. On Wittlin: Saint Francis of Assisi, or on imitation ............................... 199 “Avoid the word God” ................................................................................. 209 2. On Lagerkvist: God’s witnesses ................................................................. 213 Barabbas ....................................................................................................... 219 “Why do I sit here on the shore?” ............................................................. 226 3. Summary ...................................................................................................... 229

Conclusions  ........................................................................................................ 233 Bibliography  ....................................................................................................... 237 Index of Names ................................................................................................. 255

Introduction The comparative studies of modern Swedish and Polish literature is not a completely neglected field, but at the same time it would be difficult to maintain that findings in this area allow for outlining a comparative synthesis presenting modernism in the literature and culture of both countries.1 My initial intention was to write a book that would allow for taking a step forward in the further “synchronisation of European modernisms.” Hence the choice of authors whose work constitutes the material of the analyses: two writers considered to be the most outstanding representatives of expressionism in their national literatures, peers with similar generational experiences (although, obviously, with quite different perspectives, as they were characterised by differences of cultural nature, as well as different biographies, strongly affected by geopolitics). However, more detailed studies have revealed in the oeuvre of the two writers the existence of the common core other than that based on the experiences of participating in modern literary currents –​in this case: expressionism –​and on the trauma of the First World War. Its recognition not only makes it possible to significantly supplement the image of their creative output with elements which, in my view, have eluded research on their legacy so far, but also makes it necessary to indicate some less described places on the map of modernist litera-​ ture. I owe such historical and literary findings to the capabilities of contemporary comparative studies, based on the principle of not just confronting separate qualities (in this case: national literatures) but, rather, finding a proper context for them, in which their mutual relationships will become visible.2 In the first See Zwierciadła Północy, Vol. 1 eds. M. Janion, N. Å. Nilsson and A. Sobolewska, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Badań Literackich PAN, 1991; Vol. 2 ed. R. Górski, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Badań Literackich PAN, 1992; M. A. Packalén, Under två kulturers ok: allmogeskildringar i den polska och svenska 1800-​och 1900-​ talslitteraturen, Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2001; Kształty nowoczesności. Szkice porównawcze o literaturze polskiej i szwedzkiej, eds. P. de Bończa Bukowski, K. Szewczyk-​Haake, Poznań-​Gniezno: Wydawnictwo Poznańskiego Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Nauk, 2013. 2 Cf. M. Wasilewska-​Chmura, “W stronę intermedialności. Szwedzka droga do neoawangardy a sprawa polska.” In:  Kształty nowoczesności. Szkice porównawcze o literaturze polskiej i szwedzkiej, p. 113. Cf. also T. Bilczewski, Komparatystyka i interpretacja: nowoczesne badania porównawcze wobec translatologii, Kraków: Universitas, 2010; Niewspółmierność. Perspektywy nowoczesnej komparatystyki. Antologia, ed. T. 1

12

Introduction

part of the Introduction, I specify how I view the place of the comparative research of Swedish and Polish literature in the context of significant tendencies visible in modern comparative studies. Next, I briefly outline the chief research problem considered in this book, i.e. the phenomenon which I call modern ethical literature, and I explain how I understand the modernity and ethicality of the oeuvre of Pär Lagerkvist and Józef Wittlin, which make themselves powerfully evident in the parallel reading of their works, undertaken by me. At the end of the Introduction, I present the methodological assumptions which I adopt making use of the achievements of ethical criticism, and I indicate why I regard it as operative in relation to the literature that I am going to analyse in this book.

1. Contemporary comparative studies and the comparative studies of Swedish and Polish literature In recent decades, the growing convergence of comparative studies and cultural research has resulted in many significant consequences for comparative literature,3 for an exhaustive description of which there is no room here. At the turn of the twentieth and twenty-​first centuries, the transformations that occurred in comparative literary studies led to an understanding of its own interdisciplinarity in a way that was increasingly broader and more and more often shifting the focus of attention from issues related to the study of a text to problems related to cultural studies, including issues of multiculturalism and postcolonialism.4

Bilczewski, Kraków: Universitas, 2010; Komparatystyka dzisiaj, Vol. 1 Problemy teoretyczne, eds. E. Kasperski, E. Szczęsna Kraków: Universitas, 2010. 3 See M. Bérubé, “Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature.” Comparative Literature Studies 2005, No. 42/​2, pp. 125–​129; W. Ning, “Confronting Globalization: Cultural Studies versus Comparative Literature Studies.” Neohelicon 2001, No. XXVIII/​ 1, pp. 55–​66; A. Burzyńska, “Kulturowy zwrot teorii.” In: Kulturowa teoria literatury. Główne pojęcia i problemy, eds. M. P. Markowski, R. Nycz, Kraków: Universitas, 2006, pp. 41–​91. 4 The consequences of bringing comparative studies and cultural research closer together are also the object of critical reflection, resulting in the growing distance of some comparators from adapting cultural studies methods and theories to the field of literary research. See S. Tötösy de Zepetnek, “About the Situation of the Discipline of Comparative Literature and Neighboring Fields in the Humanities Today.” Comparative Literature: East & West, 2017, Vol. 1, No. 2, p. 190; E. Kushner, “Is Comparative Literature Ready for the Twenty-​First Century?” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 2.4 (December 2000), Article 13: http//​docs.lib.purdue.edu/​clcweb/​vol2/​iss4/​

Contemporary comparative studies

13

This does not mean, however, that the field of comparative research, which operates strictly within the study of literature, should now appear excessively traditional and therefore marginal. On the contrary, the voices maintaining that it is literature above all that should remain the subject of comparative research5 reverberate clearly. One of the reasons for that is the fact that literary historians are increasingly aware of the usefulness of the findings of comparative literary studies for their analyses. I emphasize this fact because the book which the reader is holding in their hands, and which has been designed as a comparative study, is also meant to present some conclusions drawn in this way within the scope of historical and literary studies. It is worth noting, however, that also within the strictly literary foundation of comparative studies, what is clearly visible is the significant nature of changes in global comparative research at the beginning of the twenty-​first century. As noted by Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, in the field of comparative literary studies the turn of the millennium resulted in a significant intensification of research on the relationship between Europe’s literatures.6 It has become a particularly visible phenomenon to conduct research in the hitherto “peripheral” areas of study and to include in their scope not only the five “great” European literatures but also the traditions of smaller national literatures, so far often marginalised. The latter had previously been compared almost exclusively with the “great” literatures of Europe, which led to a special perspective of their viewing and to conclusions clearly marked by that perspective. The “decentralisation” of European literature that happens in this way shows certain similarities to the “decolonisation” undertaken and postulated in the field of global comparative studies, although its critical and social potential (of the highest rank in that context) is obviously different. The works of the above-​mentioned comparative literary scholars juxtaposing Polish and Swedish literatures contribute highly to such “decentralisation.” At the same time, they confirm the belief that it is neither advisable nor even possible to study any European literature in isolation, i.e. in isolation from the historical and literary context, and to break with the tradition of Western 13; O. Płaszczewska, Przestrzenie komparatystyki –​italianizm. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2010, pp. 298–​299. 5 Cf. H. H. Remak, “Once again: Comparative Literature at the Crossroads.” Neohelicon XXVI /​2, p. 100; H. H. Remak, “Origins and Evolution of Comparative Literature and Its Interdisciplinary Studies.” Neohelicon XXIX/​1, p. 249. 6 S. Tötösy de Zepetnek, “Comparative literature in 21st century.” In: Dictionary of International Terms in Literary Criticism, ed. J.-​M. Grassin; qtd. after O. Płaszczewska, Przestrzenie komparatystyki –​italianizm, pp. 44–​45.

14

Introduction

literature, which has shaped the identity of European scholars.7 Adopting such a strategy –​after the lesson that comparative studies have been informed by cultural studies and by the situation of the globalising knowledge of literature in the reality of the early twenty-​first century –​does not mean a thoughtless adoption of the long-​established framework of operation but results from a conscious decision, from recognition of the limitations and specificity of both one’s own point of view and that of the object of research. The fact that more recent comparative studies have to a great extent abandoned the search for and cataloguing of the genetic relationships between texts in favour of typological findings sometimes makes today’s comparative literature studies close to the history of ideas. Both of these fields use a set of concepts that lie at the boundary of literary studies and philosophy, both are interested in describing the impact of philosophical ideas on literature (and this issue will also be discussed in the present book). The fact that comparative literary studies enhance not only the ideological but also the aesthetic layer of a literary work and ask about the contexts of literary and artistic meanings revealed in those works makes its way of seeing and evaluating works obviously go beyond the competences and interests of the history of ideas. At the same time, the latter prompts an observation that is extremely inspiring for a comparator interested, like myself, in comparative research between two “peripheral” literatures. Relatively distant cultures and literatures may be bound by a whole range of extremely diverse relations: from real contacts between their representatives to textual relations, such as similarities, filiations and homologies: only when taken together do they constitute “an image, a text of culture and a research problem.”8 History of ideas helps comparative literary research by pointing to a path different from both the infamous and long-​abandoned “influenceology” and the path of sociological and cultural studies, distant from the philological tradition, which is, after all, the basis of knowledge about literature.9 The relationship between comparative studies and philology remains binding:  the former is a discipline that grows out of the tradition of learning

7 Cf. S. Bassnett, “Reflection on Comparative Literature in Twenty-​First Century.” Comparative Critical Studies 3 (2006), pp. 4–​5. 8 A. Borowski, Iter Polono-​Belgo-​Ollandicum: cultural and literary relationships between the Commonwealth of Poland and the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2007, p. 7. 9 Cf. O. Płaszczewska, Przestrzenie komparatystyki –​italianizm, p. 298.

Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist

15

national languages ​​and literatures.10 At the same time, and importantly for the research undertaken in the present book, Saussy argues that the goals of comparative studies and national philologies are different. In the comparative perspective adopted by me, certain literary phenomena, described earlier by Polish and Swedish philology, have revealed themselves in a light that is different from the previous one. Therefore, the findings of a historical and literary nature, which I am going to present here, to some extent both complement and go beyond what the literary studies undertaken in the field of Swedish and Polish philology have so far had to say about the works of the two authors on which I have focused although, obviously, my research owes a great deal to those studies.

2. Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist, or the question of the ethical horizon of modernist literature The association of the two protagonists of this book with the notion of modern literature (even in the broadest and the most vague sense) must be surprising at first. The reasons for this state of affairs should, in my view, be sought both in the established research opinions concerning their oeuvre and in the ways of perception of modernist literature in both countries. In order to briefly describe, for the purposes of this introduction, the phenomenon whose implementation I find in the works of Wittlin and Lagerkvist, and which I refer to in this book as modern ethical literature, it is necessary to point to two basic aspects that determine its specificity and distinctiveness: on the one hand, the background of all modernist literature, and on the other hand, the context of the rich tradition of literature that takes up ethical and moral tasks. Due to the change in the perception of the capabilities and tasks of literature, which has been taking place since Romanticism, and which has been expressed, among others, in a distinction made between didactic literature and other types of writings (made when the specificity of the aesthetic tasks of literature were acknowledged and began to be defined in opposition to its utilitarian obligations11), the literature that undertook an ethical mission began to appear as a separate trend within the art of the word as a whole. Modern literature (which, in

10 Cf. H. Saussy, “Exquisite Cadavers Stitched from Fresh Nightmares.” In: Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization, ed. H. Saussy, Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2006, p. 11. 11 “Dydaktyczna literatura.” In: Słownik terminów literackich, ed. J. Sławiński, 2nd edition, Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im Ossolińskich, 1988, p. 104.

16

Introduction

this book, I understand broadly as literature created after the breakthrough that took place in the Enlightenment) is characterised by appreciation of the former rather than the latter element in the opposition of “pure art” and art aimed at any non-​artistic goal. This appreciation manifests itself in marginalising the significance of both the works which do not meet the postulate of artistic refinement and those that set themselves “practical” goals, such as the task of shaping the ethical sensitivity of the reader. The modern ethical literature described in this book deals with ethical issues; however, it is created in a situation when dealing with such issues in a literary work has ceased to be a commonplace, and has become a testimony to specific literary interests. That is why it applies different techniques and has quite different goals than the moralistic literature created by writers in earlier periods. Before I present my analyses in this book, I want to emphasize in this place that those techniques as well as the goals that the authors of modern ethical literature set for themselves, do owe a lot to the inspiration drawn from the Danish thinker, Søren Kierkegaard. The writing interests of Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist are commonly described as focussed on great existential questions and related ethical issues. Moreover, in the vast (and best known) part of their works they took up religious issues. Tirelessly and quite openly, they reached for the resources of the greatest Christian stories, they repeatedly asked questions about religious faith and its justification, and constantly confronted their protagonists and readers with fundamental existential, metaphysical and ethical questions, prompting reflection on the essence of good and evil. At the same time, it seems that it was precisely this existential and ethical orientation of their work that, in the opinion of numerous commentators of modernist literature, made Pär Lagerkvist and Józef Wittlin appear as “visitors from another planet.”12 The fact that in their

12 Cf. V. Wejs-​Milewska, “Gość z innej planety: Józef Wittlin.” In: V. Wejs-​Milewska, Wykluczeni, wychodźstwo, kraj. Szkice z antropologii emigracji polskiej XX wieku (idee, osobowości, instytucje), Białystok:Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu w Białymstoku, 2012, pp. 341–​364. In a way that was analogous to some degree, the Swedish researcher Ingrid Schöier, when writing about Lagerkvist, noticed that he could not be included in any historical-​literary context (cf. I. Schöier, Som i Aftonland. Studier kring temata, motiv och metod and Pär Lagerkvists sista diktsamling, Stockholm: Akademilitteratur, 1981, p. 16). The decreed “distinctiveness” of these writers against the background of all modernist literature is related not only to the ethical and religious inclination of the works of both writers (which, compared to the panorama of modern art, cannot be considered completely unique, although it should be agreed that they do not belong to the dominant ones –​cf. R. Sheppard, “The Problematics of European Modernism,” in: Theorizing

Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist

17

works, in a more or less hidden way, both of them expressed their views on the topics of spirituality and ethics must have caused problems to both structuralist and formalistic criticism (which decades ago had a dominant position in Poland and has recently been described bluntly as “ethically blind”)13 as well as to that criticism which willingly took up the proposals formulated by New Criticism, including skepticism towards any moral or socially didactic elements in a literary work (abundantly represented in Sweden).14 Modernism: Essays in Critical Theory, ed. Steve Giles, London & New York: Routledge, 1993, pp. 1–​51), but also to the place of such issues in the scholarly description. Significantly, the literary studies of modernism undertaken in Sweden did not actually take up such a “spiritual” research thread (cf. B. Landgren, “Research on Literary Modernism in Sweden: An Overview.” In: Swedish-​Polish Modernism: Literature-​Language-​Culture, eds. M.A. Packalén, S. Gustavsson, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2003, pp. 10–​27). Numerous and insightful studies devoted to Polish twentieth-​century authors and their approaches to religious, metaphysical and spiritual issues (exhaustive bibliographic guidelines in this regard can be found in the book by E. Sołtys-​Lewandowska, entitled O “ocalającej nieporządek rzeczy” polskiej poezji metafizycznej i religijnej drugiej połowy XX i początków XXI wieku, Kraków: Universitas, 2015) only sporadically try to diagnose the place of this issue in the context of literary modernism, more often situating it in the perspective of modernity understood as a series of civilisational and historical processes, including those related to secularisation. A certain change has been brought in Poland by the implementation of research in the field of post-​secularism, but it is difficult to assume on its basis that there has been any fundamental alteration of the perception of modernist literature. 13 Cf. A.F. Kola, “Dlaczego literaturoznawstwo polskie jest etycznie ślepe?” In: Filozofia i etyka interpretacji, eds. A.F. Kola, A. Szahaj, Kraków: Universitas, 2007, pp. 247–​263. Kola’s essay concerns, first of all, the issues of the ethics of interpretation; however, the theses it poses on the structuralist paradigm and its consequences for the understanding of the “place” where the ethical character of the work is decided, also imply the kind of understanding of the limitations of this research tradition that I point to here. Namely, as stated by Kola, the “return to man” that takes place in poststructural humanities necessarily means the “reappearance of the question of ethics” (p. 250) in the scope of analysis. This problem was also pointed out in: M. P. Markowski, “Zwrot etyczny w badaniach literackich.” Pamiętnik Literacki 2000, No. 1, p. 239. An in-​depth analysis of the structuralist tradition in Polish literary studies, “disregarding the topic of the so-​called tasks of literature as a research problem” is presented in the book: J. Orska, Przełom awangardowy w dwudziestowiecznym modernizmie w Polsce, Kraków: Universitas, 2004, p. 232 ff. 1 4 Cf. K. Bak, “Södergran och närläsningen. Några reflektioner.” Acta Sueco-​Polonica No. 16 (2010–​2011), pp. 11–​13. Bak asks the question whether the methods proposed by the New Criticism are indeed the most handy for an analysis of Swedish modernist

18

Introduction

The classification of the works of both writers as “different” and “specific,” set against the background of their contemporaries, was facilitated by the fact that both of them clearly distanced themselves from many modernist myths (such as the myth of progress, the myth of secularisation, and the myth of emancipation) in the name of the deepest layers of European tradition. As a result, it would be difficult to indicate any study that would consider Wittlin’s work in the context of literary modernity. Although, as the author of important literary manifestos and a promoter of avant-​garde movements in visual arts, Lagerkvist is commonly mentioned in the ranks of leading Swedish modernists, this classification imperceptibly disappears in research on his later works, covering approximately three-​ quarters of his oeuvre, including the novel Barabbas [Barabbas], which earned him the Nobel Prize, as well as such masterpieces as Dvärgen [The Dwarf], Mariamne [Herod and Mariamne] or the volume of poems Aftonland [Evening Land]. The fact that, in literary studies, the two writers are regarded as distinctly separate from their epoch finds its ultimate confirmation in the fact that for the most part of their work they remained at first glance in the circle of traditionally understood ways of practicing literature,15 failing to be included in the trend of modern literature that is most willingly described by researchers (for which the experimental activities of the avant-​garde were a significant inspiration),16 and, indeed, they radically dissociated themselves from it. The interpretations of the works contained in this book indicate, however, that the classification of Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist within the traditional (“classical,” as they were perceived)17 discourse is a great simplification. Undoubtedly, poetry, or whether they are rather “part of the great modernist story about itself ” (p. 13), and in the conclusion of his text he unequivocally points to the correctness of the latter answer. 15 Such a classification remains in force even if Lagerkvist’s expressionist dramas are described as non-​traditional, as this “non-​traditional” character refers to works written in just a few of his early years, which to many scholars appear as a significant but short-​ -​lived episode. 1 6 Cf. A. Eysteinsson, “The Avant-​Garde as/​or Modernism?” in: A. Eysteinsson, The Concept of Modernism, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992, pp. 143–​178. 17 See e.g. E. Hörnström, “Klassikern Lagerkvist.” Ord och bild 1951, pp. 516–​520; I. Schöier, Som i Aftonland. Studier kring temata, motiv och metod i Pär Lagerkvists sista diktsamling, passim; E. Wiegandt, “Wstęp,” in: J. Wittlin, Sól ziemi, Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossilińskich, 1991, p. LXXV; W. Ligęza, “Świadek czasów i wyznawca wiecznych wartości. O poezji Józefa Wittlina,” in: W. Ligęza, Jaśniejsze strony katastrofy. Szkice o twórczości poetów emigracyjnych, Kraków: Universitas, 2001, p. 17 ff. Especially in the case of Wittlin, such statements were often associated with emphasizing

Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist

19

their writing is indicative of striving for clarity of expression and order in composition along with abandoning radical linguistic experiment and ostentatious autotelism. However, at the same time, while tirelessly taking up metaphysical and ethical issues, they did not ignore the aesthetic assumptions constituting the novelty of modern literature, among which what turned out to be the most important for their oeuvre were the techniques enabling the achievement of a polyphonic effect in a work. Moreover, it is in the way they used the fabric of literature that one should look for an important feature of this branch of modern literature that was interested in creating a new way of speaking about ethics. It is not only the thematic layer of the works –​often dealing with the question of evil and its modern dimensions as well as the drama of human existence in the face of the disappearance of the metaphysical horizon –​that makes one think of Wittlin and Lagerkvist as the creators of modern ethical literature. Similar conclusions are drawn also by examining the formal layer of those works, which, contrary to the centuries-​old tradition of moralistic literature, does not strive for “transparency” of style, communicativeness and, as a result, for clearly formulated truths, directives and guidelines. A closer look at the theoretical views of both writers and at their works makes one convinced that it is exactly the opposite: they fully share with other modernist authors “the growing awareness of the importance of the medium, verbal material in which they express themselves,” “the focus on the form (or structure)” and “increased attention to language.18 The simplicity of style very often proves to be apparent while refined games aimed at stylisation and complex compositional structures are designed to lure the virtual recipient to adopt an attitude of ethical thinking, not at all identical with the adoption of a ready-​made worldview, which would indeed be difficult to find in the works of Wittlin and Lagerkvist (also in this sense undoubtedly belonging to modernity). What is obvious in this situation is that the “ethicality” of this literature includes not only (or even: not so much) discussions concerning the issue of legitimacy of a given ethical system, but also attempts to create solutions to the problems of ethics of communication (ethical communication). Therefore, an interpretation the writer’s metaphysical interests, but they also deepened the gap drawn by the commentators between his work and modernism: some Polish researchers assume that classicism and modernism are in the relationship of opposition and mutual exclusion (cf. A. Kaliszewski, Nostalgia stylu. Neoklasycyzm liryki polskiej XX wieku w krytyce, badaniach i poetykach immanentnych, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2007, pp. 10–​12). 1 8 R. Nycz, Język modernizmu. Prolegomena historycznoliterackie, 2nd edition, Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2002, pp. 36–​37.

20

Introduction

of the ethical threads of their work that disregards this compositional nuance would be burdened with a serious risk of erroneous perception of the literature they create as “nothing more than supplementing traditional moral vocabularies or shoring up contemporary therapeutic recastings of traditional wisdom.”19

3. Ethical criticism: Notes on the method In the context of Charles Altieri’s statement, sensitising readers to the risk of reductionism in the interpretation of the relations between literature and ethics performed from the perspective of ethical criticism, it should be pointed out that research on these relations can be divided into three basic approaches. The first of these is implicit in the activities of all literary scholars interested in placing a work within the ideological context of its time, so it is not related to the emergence of ethical critique in the 1980s. It consists in reconstructing the ethical convictions contained in specific works and reflecting on their place in the writer’s entire worldview, formation or the period in which the work was created; the work is treated here as a manifestation or embodiment of the ethical sensitivity characteristic of its historical time. The second approach is to interpret literary works as ethical instructions, expressed more or less literally in the stories about the fate and dilemmas of the protagonists;20 such a strategy marks one of the poles of ethical criticism and is sometimes called moralism.21 The third 19 Ch. Altieri, “What difference can contemporary poetry make?” in: Renegotiating Ethics in Literature, Philosophy and Theory, eds. J. Adamson, R. Freadman, D. Parker, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 115. 20 In the context of literary studies, such an attitude was often assessed as quite risky (cf. e.g. Ch. Altieri, “Lyrical Ethics and Literary Experience,” in: Mapping the Ethical Turn, ed. T.F Davis, K. Womack, Charlottesville-​London: University of Virginia Press, p. 31). It should be remembered that the ethical turn stems from a polemical attitude towards the legacy of formalism. For this reason, some of its animators sometimes went to the extreme of an overly careless treatment of formal issues, going to the point of ignoring the autonomy of a literary work, thus exposing themselves to obvious (and, admittedly, difficult to refute) accusations. 21 Cf. E. Schellekens, Aesthetics and Morality, London: Continuum, 2007, pp. 68–​73; see also the entry Ethical Criticism of Art on website of the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. A Peer-​Reviewed Academic Resource (http://​www.iep.utm.edu/​art-​eth/​, accessed May 15, 2018). Usually, two types of this approach are indicated: radical moralism and moderate moralism; the former assumes that the aesthetic value of a work is completely determined by its ethical values, while the latter recognises slightly more carefully that moral flaws in a work are sometimes important for the aesthetic evaluation of that work (cf. N. Carroll, “Moderate Moralism,” British Journal of Aesthetics,

Ethical criticism: Notes on the method

21

one, emphasizing the ethical message that is revealed to the reader of the work, brings with it intensified reflection on the formal side of the analysed works as co-​constituting their ethical meanings; such a course of action can be described as the other pole of ethical criticism, called autonomism.22 When writing about modern ethical literature, my perspective will remain the closest (but not slavishly close) to the third of the above-​mentioned research approaches in its moderate form:  mainly due to the fundamental role played by compositional nuancing in the ethical meanings conveyed by Wittlin and Lagerkvist. The works of these writers are characterised by the non-​ostentatious but consistent appreciation of the formal side of a literary work as the sphere in which a significant part of the battle to awaken the reader’s ethical sensitivity takes place. It is these individual, author’s choices and decisions concerning composition that I treat as more important for the modern ethical literature reconstructed here than imposing on language the irreducible burden of ethical

volume 36, No. 3, 1996, p. 236). Moderate moralism sometimes approaches the position of ethicism although it is not identical with it; ethicism is an approach assuming that the internal relationship between the moral character of a work and its value as a work of art is always an important matter for the evaluation of a work (cf. E. Schellekens, Aesthetics and Morality, p. 71). Cf. also: Mapping the Ethical Turn. A Reader in Ethics, Culture and Literary Theory, eds. T. F. Davis, K. Womack, Charlottesville-​London: University of Virginia Press, 2001; Renegotiating Ethics in Literature, Philosophy and Theory, eds. J. Adamson, R. Freadman, D. Parker, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998; R. Posner, “Against Ethical Criticism,” Philosophy and Literature 1997 Vol. 21, issue No. 1, pp. 1–​27 (part one), 1998 Vol. 22, issue No. 2, pp. 394–​412 (part two); M. Nussbaum, “Exactly and Responsibly: A Defense of Ethical Criticism,” Philosophy and Literature 1998 Vol. 22, issue No. 2, pp. 343–​365; W. Booth, “Why Banning Ethical Criticism is a Serious Mistake,” Philosophy and Literature 1998 Vol. 22, issue No. 2, pp. 366–​393. 22 Cf. E. Schellekens, Aesthetics and Morality, pp. 64–​68; see also Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. A Peer-​Reviewed Academic Resource. This approach (sometimes also called aestheticism) also has its radical and moderate variant (radical autonomism, moderate autonomism). My perspective is definitely close to the moderate variant, also described by Walter Lesch, who commented on the “third way” between radical moralism and radical aestheticism (W. Lesch, “Zum Beispiel: Literatur und Ethik. Jenseits von Moralismus und Ästhetizismus,” in: Ethisch-​Philosophische Grundlagen im Lehramtsstudium, eds. Ch. Mandry and J. Dietrich, Tübingen: Universität Tübingen, 2001, pp. 53–​73; cf. also: J. Zimmermann, “Einleitung,” in: Ethik und Moral als Problem der Literatur und Literaturwissenschaft, eds. J. Zimmermann, B. Salheiser, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2006, p. 11).

22

Introduction

judgements, as it is sometimes pointed out by proponents of ethical criticism.23 It can be said that this literature does not give its commentator any special freedom in the choice of analytical tools: it makes formal measures aimed to empower the recipient more important than ethical projects (which, in fact, it does not contain), thus forcing the critic to pay attention to the issues of ethics of communication in a literary work. It can be noticed, somewhat subversively, that the works of the writers who are the topic of this book make the researcher’s task easier as they do not allow the researcher to fit into any interpretation pattern based on some programme or ideology. In my view, the fundamental characteristic of modern ethical literature lies in the fact that it implements a certain model of communication24 instead of proclaiming a specific set of beliefs; it praises sensitivity and openness to the world rather than a given worldview. Moderate autonomism, however, has yet another value in my eyes, co-​deciding on its choice: this attitude makes it possible to take a somewhat roundabout path to reach conclusions of a historical-​literary nature, and this perspective is very important for my reading of the works of Pär Lagerkvist and Józef Wittlin as creators of modern ethical literature. Modern ethical literature, which is the subject of my research, is an area that encourages multidirectional reflection (at the boundary of literary history, literary theory, history of philosophy, and cultural anthropology). Therefore, there is a need, on the one hand, to profile research in the spirit of literary anthropology (which results from the close relationship between the essence of this literature and the issue of the modern breakthrough), and on the other hand, to take into account the perspective of ethical criticism in its moderate fraction. This need arises in search for an answer to the question: what is the way of shaping the literary form of works which look for such means of expression that, without violating the aesthetic autonomy of those

2 3 Cf. W. C. Booth, “Why Ethical Criticism Can Never Be Simple”, p. 25. 24 It is therefore a question different from the one indicated by Wolfgang Welsch, who emphasizes the relationship that, in his opinion, exists necessarily between the modernist postulate of aesthetic autonomy of a work and social development: “The training of taste is understood as a contribution to the cultivation of the idea of ​​humanity as a whole. Aesthetic autonomisation is significant in general not only for the aesthetic but also for the pedagogical and political project of the emancipation of humanity.” (W. Welsch, Vernunft: Die zeitgenössische Vernunftkritik und das Konzept der transversalen Vernunft, 2nd ed., Frankfurt /​Main: Suhrkamp, 1996, p. 470). Welsch points to what in his opinion is a universal regularity; whereas what I am interested in is a particular model of literary communication which has its ethical consequences, and which was very carefully designed by the writers who will be discussed here.

Ethical criticism: Notes on the method

23

works, make them an efficient tool of a modern, and therefore unobtrusive, didactics. These are the paths that I will follow in this book. Wolfgang Iser rightly points out that tracing the literary techniques that are proper to modernity often consists in shifting smoothly between the fields of historical and anthropological research;25 and shifting between these two areas will also be my task. I hope that the results of the research designed in this way will be able to reduce the distance that the slogan “literature and ethics” sometimes raises among critics who equate invoking ethical categories with the powerlessness of commentators and the anachronism of the works26 (the distance has been decreasing in recent years). Hence the choice of the book’s motto:  a warning memento, which has accompanied me in my interpretative struggles and reminded me of the dangers that argumentation aspiring to the rank of scholarship may be exposed to by ethical criticism, when it is devoid of theoretical-​literary (and historical-​literary) security measures.

25 W. Iser, “Die Appellstruktur der Texte,” in: Rezeptionsästhetik. Theorie und Praxis, ed. Rainer Warning, München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1975, p. 248. 26 For more about this kind of reservations (accusing the commentators underlining the ethical aspect of a literary work of being “intellectually primitive”) and the line of defence against them cf. also M. Gregory, Shaped by Stories. The Ethical Power of Narratives, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009, p. 34 ff.

Chapter One Modern ethical literature: Genealogy and definition In order to consider that part of modern literature which has voluntarily assumed ethical obligations towards its readers, it seems necessary to reconstruct at least a few spheres of issues. First of all, an approximate map of the changes that philosophical ethics underwent in the period after the Enlightenment, responding to the crisis of ethics based on religious convictions. Secondly, the evolution of understanding of the tasks of literature, taking place in subsequent stages throughout the nineteenth century. Against that background, the artistic choices of the two writers, Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist, seem to be a very consistent and thoughtful attempt to find themselves in the difficult situation in which the ethics of the modern era found itself together with the people living in the modern world. At the same time, those choices also have the value of a revealing and artistically excellent response to the impasse in which the literature of the modernist period, interested in ethical issues, got caught.

1. Moral obligations of literature and changes in ethics in modernity From antiquity to the Enlightenment, a view was maintained in poetics that by fulfilling the postulate of mimeticism, a literary work is connected with reality and can proclaim truths about it, thus naturally fulfilling a didactic and pedagogical function. An author was seen as the one who instructs readers about the world, including its moral conditions.1 The romantic break with mimesis contributed to a radical change in these beliefs; it was now to turn out that neither is external reality easily described (and as such it is difficult to make it a framework for moral considerations) nor does a literary work allow full communication with the world, so it is difficult to proclaim any ethical system through it. Neither did the problem of the integration of poetry with philosophy and religion, which some Romantic poets were occupied with, contribute to the renewal of literature focused on ethical issues. That state of affairs deepened in the nineteenth

1

E. Sarnowska-​Temeriusz, Przeszłość poetyki, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1995, pp. 186, 299, 373.

26

Modern ethical literature: Genealogy and definition

century, when, in creative practice as well as literary criticism, beliefs were formulated more and more clearly about the creative freedom to undertake the issues and proclaiming the worldviews chosen by the author rather than imposed by tradition, social expectations or patronage. This, obviously, could not make all writers immediately abandon the idea of ​​the possible moral impact of literature; nevertheless, it opened up such a possibility, which has been used increasingly ever since. The emphasis placed, especially at the beginning of the nineteenth century, on the personal and emotional dimension of art, both in terms of its creation and its reception, further reduced the possibility of thinking about a work as containing universal and rational features.2 The undertaking of ethical obligations by modernist literature was also hindered by the ethical uncertainty characteristic of modernity: a state in which the moral convictions inherited from previous epochs are in fact fragmentary and make an impression of a set of competing concepts, among which it is impossible to rationally indicate the most appropriate ones.3 As a result of reevaluations, both modern and occurring in the Enlightenment, resulting in the rejection of teleological views on human nature, moral issues began to appear as incomprehensible.4 One of the consequences of the process of modernity was the replacement of substantial ethics (based on the concept of the constitutive good) with procedural ethics5 and the far-​reaching secularisation of morality. The emancipation of reason, denying the need for metaphysical reflection or pointing to the impossibility of making final decisions in this regard, resulted in abandoning reflection on the ontology of good, shifting the burden of moral considerations to the issues of obligatory deeds.6 Charles Taylor notes that modern moral theory thus abandoned another way of describing morality, namely the one leading to reflection on “qualitative distinctions,”7 necessary to obtain the image of a good life, but unnecessary to describe morality in terms of duty. In this perspective, it

2 K. F. McKean, The Moral Measure of Literature, Denver: A. Swallow, 1961, p. 48. 3 Cf. A. MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 3rd edition, 2007, p. 6 ff. 4 A. MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, p. 6 ff. 5 Cf. Ch. Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1989, pp. 85–​86. 6 Ch. Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, p. 79. The author explains that a large part of modern philosophy assigns a narrow scope to the notion of morality, limiting its sphere to defining “the content of obligation rather than the nature of the good life,” thus becoming a “philosophy of obligatory action.” 7 Ch. Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, pp. 81–​82.

Moral obligations of literature and changes in ethics

27

is impossible to express the background of moral convictions, i.e. the way of understanding the good that is at stake in a given situation: one can practice “rhetoric or propaganda,” but it is impossible to define what is good in given views and why it is worth adopting them.8 Stephen Toulmin points out that, after the modern breakthrough, it was possible to notice a shift from practical to theoretical philosophy in the domain of ethics. The philosopher states that, since approximately the mid-​seventeenth century, ethics has been made a field of general, abstract theory, separated from the concrete problems of moral practice. His thesis that since then it has become a common belief that “the Good and the Just conform to timeless and universal principles,”9 while ethics has henceforth been subordinated to “abstract, general ideas and principles,”10 complements Taylor’s view on replacing the reflection on the constitutive good with increasingly complex inquiries into obtaining an infallible procedure that describes and founds good behaviour, the result of which is a set of principles that have no basis in any prior concept of good. All these processes have made ethics a field of abstract and theoretical regulations, which, in addition, are often mutually incompatible. It turned out that in the absence of the possibility of discussing the constitutive good and the absence of a uniform anthropological concept rooted in metaphysical convictions, it is extremely difficult to find a convincing justification for any norms, which in turn must lead to a tedious polyphony of expressed ethical opinions, whose conflict is perceived as in fact unsolvable.11 Due to the transformations, presented here very briefly, and taking place over entire decades, writers who, at the beginning of the twentieth century, wanted to take an ethical perspective in their work found it impossible to return to the old method of practising literature profiled in this way and based on the idea of ​​constitutive good. By following that path, the writers would expose themselves to the accusation of backwardness. Pedagogy based on any other system of values, however, must have raised analogous reservations because modern ethical uncertainty was in fact (as indicated by the above-​mentioned historians of philosophy) the reverse of all modern searches in this field, sometimes extremely formalised, and meant that all certainty had to be accompanied, like

Ch. Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, pp. 81–​82. S. Toulmin, Cosmopolis. The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990, p. 32. 10 S. Toulmin, Cosmopolis. The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, p. 33. 1 1 Cf. A. MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, pp. 14–​40. 8 9

28

Modern ethical literature: Genealogy and definition

a shadow, by an accusation of arbitrariness. Most importantly, propagating in a literary work any of the highly formalised ethical systems formulated in modernity would mean that the work, instead of escaping from didacticism in the premodern fashion, would in fact be condemned to using the same tools which had lost much of their artistic credibility by then. As stated above, modern worldview changes in the field of ethics had an impact on literature and met with the need, growing since the beginning of the nineteenth century, to free literature from pedagogical obligations and the tools of poetics that served them. Writers’ aversion to didacticism, which had been increasing throughout the nineteenth century, was additionally reinforced by the attitude of critics towards the literature that took up moral issues. A measure of the pressure exerted by the modern expectation that addressing ethical questions directly in literary works should be avoided may be constituted by the fact that the famous formula: “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all,” repeated, by the way, after Edgar Allan Poe, was included by Oscar Wilde in the introduction to The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), one of few successful moral allegories created in modern times.12 This is because ethics and poetics were treated by modernism as oppositional, and the conflict of values that ​​ emerged between them marked to equal degrees both literary and critical awareness in this period. These two phenomena: the growing aversion to didacticism in 19th-​century literature and the situation of modern ethics define the starting point of a modern writer interested in taking up ethical issues. Needless to say, that situation was far from easy. At the same time, there occurs a regularity of a different kind: both of these circumstances equally stimulate the authors of modern ethical literature to look for a more “capacious” form, which could account for the instability in the new conditions of a premodern moral project (or even the certainty that there is no chance of maintaining it), but which would not allow one to be satisfied with this observation. The way out of the situation in which the traditional (pre-​ modern) ways of speaking about ethics in a literary work had become obsolete was the development of completely new tools of ethical communication in literature. Modern ethical literature found a solution consisting in a radical and expressive turn towards the reader, made by shifting to the reader the burden of

12 Cf. Ch. Clausen, The Moral Imagination. Essays on Literature and Ethics, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1986, p. IX. See also: L. Oser, The Ethics of Modernism. Moral Ideas in Yeats, Eliot, Joyce, Woolf and Beckett, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 21.

Moral obligations of literature and changes in ethics

29

making ethically marked interpretative decisions and, within this structure, indicating a fairly real possibility of turning to “qualitative distinctions” in one’s own life. The writers in question deal with metaphysical issues, but as we shall see, the latter do not, however, serve as the basis for one or another ethical system in their writing. Reflection on metaphysical issues does not bring them any ready-​ made answer (after all, in the absence of certainty, a modernist is left only with hypotheses13), but the very fact of taking it up and developing it, which is in fact an ethical choice, determines the sense of existence in the modern world –​and it is the adoption of exactly that attitude of reflecting on the spiritual that they constantly urge their readers to do. What is individual and singular, and therefore related to a given human existence and a private worldview, was considered by Lagerkvist and Wittlin to be central to the issues of ethics and morality in modern times. It is worth quoting their almost identical opinions on this subject. In his “Mały komentarz do Soli ziemi” [A Little Commentary on The Salt of the Earth] (1936), Wittlin wrote: Can private morality be subjected to some higher morality: national, state, class, and does such a collective morality exist at all? … These are two elements which are alien to each other and which constantly fight each other. Where these two moralities have come to an agreement voluntarily and live in harmony –​we can observe a significant reduction in the value of the human being, both mentally and in life in general. The barracking of minds, hearts, characters, tastes and elations. That is why I value private morality so highly and I place great hopes in the development of mentality in each separate individual.14

Very similar remarks, at a similar time (the beginning of the 1930s),15 were written down by Lagerkvist in his notebook: The defence of individualism –​if needed! –​would be based on the fact that individuals can actually rise to an ethically high level at times (admit a mistake, concentrate unselfishly on an idealistic goal, resign from benefits, etc.), while people as a mass never do. The moral images of people, nations are frightening and atavistic in comparison with the morality of individuals.16

13 Cf. D.W. Fokkema, Literary History, Modernism, and Postmodernism, Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1984, pp. 19–​36. 14 J. Wittlin, “Mały komentarz do Soli ziemi,” [A Little Commentary on The Salt of the Earth] in: J. Wittlin, Sól ziemi, introduction and edition by E. Wiegandt, Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1991, pp. 288–​289. 15 Time estimation following I. Schöier, Som i Aftonland. Studier kring temata, motiv och metod i Pär Lagerkvists sista diktsamling, Stockholm: Akademilitteratur, 1981, p. 291. 16 P. Lagerkvist, Antecknat. Ur efterlämnade dagbőcker och anteckningar, selected and edited by Elin Lagerkvist, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1977, p. 73.

30

Modern ethical literature: Genealogy and definition

The unequivocal placing of the ethics of an individual above the ethics of the collective was catalysed by the interwar context and the reality of the times in which there could be no illusions about what modernity, understood as an apology of development, led to. In response to the universal “collective morality,” easily explained by abstract norms, the writers undertook an effort to develop their own concept of ethical literature. They did not want to proclaim in it any moral theses that would easily turn into a threatening slogan but looked for a way to activate the ethical imagination and sensitivity of individuals, perceiving this activity as the only chance for the ethical rebirth of humanity. Staying away from proselytism, such literature does not give up on ethical activities, but understands its task as quite different from any kind of direct appeal to the emotions or intellect of the recipient, whose treatment as a subject (excluding any element of didacticism, instruction or emotional blackmail) is understood here as the basic condition of ethical communication. This element of fundamental similarity between the two writers, which is ideological in nature but is directly translated into the issues of literary work composition, is the right starting point for the analyses and interpretations conducted in this book. This strong trait of interest in morality and individual ethics and the resulting implications for their work make it possible to notice a clear community of these two writers. Their juxtaposition must take for granted the multitude of differences and dissimilarities that result from their literary traditions and the biographies (Wittlin, born in a polonised Jewish family, a witness of the events at the front of the first World War, an emigrant from 1939, and in his mature age a convert to Catholicism; and Lagerkvist, a child in the family of a railwayman with peasant roots, born in a small town in Småland, among deeply religious people, bound to Sweden throughout his life). In this book, I pass over in silence many of these differences, emphasizing them only where they seem relevant to the course of reasoning on the fundamental theme of ethics in modern literature. If, despite a number of differences, there is a clear point of contact between them, it means that it is of considerable importance, because it is a characteristic of modernist literature (culture) that crosses the boundaries of national languages, results from generational experiences, and is a response to the situation and dilemmas of those times. This characteristic in a literary work is the need to turn to individual morality, individual ethical sensitivity of each recipient and the resulting “moral style,”17 characteristic of the type of modern literature they

17 The concept proposed by Christopher Clausen (The Moral Imagination. Essays on Literature and Ethics, p. 16.).

The shadow of modernisation

31

practised, characterised by ambiguity of approaches as well as by throwing the lion’s share of responsibility for the ethical meanings of a literary work onto the reader, and constructed with the help of compositional measures.

2. The shadow of modernisation Modern ethical literature grows out of the lack of consent to various modernisation processes taking place in the post-​Enlightenment world. In the absence of a metaphysical basis, the ethics and axiology contained in the works of Wittlin and Lagerkvist arise from the response to what in the modern world the writers regard as wrong because in the name of progress it is a reduction of what is human. I will limit myself to pointing to one, yet compelling example, which is their treatment of railways as a meaningful symbol of speed and technological progress.18 Pär Lagerkvist (by the way, brought up in an apartment on the first floor of a railway station building) refers in his works to railways many times, and it is usually an unambiguously negative image. In the story entitled “Far och jag” [Father and me] from the volume Onda sagor [Bad Fairy Tales] (1924) the narrator recalls how his father, a railroad worker, took him for a walk in the woods on a Sunday summer afternoon. The idyllic mood of the walk changes with the onset of darkness, which arouses undefined fear in the boy, and the climax is the unexpected appearance of the train: As we were on the curve of the track, there was a mighty blast behind us! We awoke with horror from our reverie. My father pulled me abruptly off the embankment, into the abyss, and held me there. A train rolled past us at an insane speed. Black, with the car lights turned off. What was that train, after all, no train was supposed to pass us now? We watched in horror. Fire sprang from the huge locomotive where coal was being shovelled, sparks whirled and fell into the night. It was terrifying. The driver stood pale, motionless as if petrified, lit by the fire. Father did not recognise him, he did not know him; the driver looked only ahead as if he wanted to plunge into darkness, into the deepest darkness that had no end.19

In the story, the train means not only physical danger but also a whole sphere of what eludes human knowledge and is shrouded in an aura of mystery. This strange train, seemingly beyond human control as it was being driven by a 18 On the importance of technology in the value system of thinkers who form the foundations of modern thought, cf. e.g. E. Voegelin, From Enlightenment to Revolution, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1975. 19 P. Lagerkvist, “Far och jag” [Father and me], in:  P. Lagerkvist, Onda sagor. Bonniers: Stockholm, 1965, p. 12.

32

Modern ethical literature: Genealogy and definition

devilish engineer, makes us see what is apparently tame (because it is created and managed by man) as a dangerous element: technology thus introduces into human life a kind of anxiety and fear, which is impossible to reduce. In the work written by Lagerkvist approximately at the same time, what is meant as a signal of such a negative dimension of railways and technicisation is the almost symbolic, everyday and systematic staining of the bright walls of the family house by the smoke rising from the locomotive.20 Wittlin’s novel Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] opens with a description of the railway that is at least as significant: Into distant, forgotten corners of the Hutsul country –​filled with the aroma of mint on summer evenings, sleepy villages nestling in quiet pastures where shepherds play their long wooden horns –​comes the intruding railway. It is the only connection these godforsaken parts have with the outside world. It pierces the night’s darkness with the coloured lights of its signals, violating the silence, violating the immaculacy of the profound night-​time peacefulness. The din of its illuminated carriages rends the membrane of darkness. A long-​drawn-​out whistle blast awakens hares from their slumber and arouses people’s drowsy curiosity. Like a great iron ladder nailed down onto the stony ground, shiny black rails on wooden sleepers stretch from one infinity towards another.21

The unnamed, but clearly present background of the description of the railway is the image of the devil: in Lagerkvist, evoked by the image of abyss and darkness associated with hell, illuminated by burning fire; in Wittlin, evoked in a less figurative way, by pointing to the curiosity, noise and illusion of infinity aroused by the railway, all of them –​satanic attributes. Modernisation, symbolised by the railway, is therefore something bad and, non-​incidentally, its diagnosis must be formed by means of ostentatious use of traditional symbols and metaphors. The evil of modernity consists also in the fact that it has lost all moral sense and it is impossible to adequately grasp what is good and bad within the framework of its language. Such a diagnosis of modernity formulated by Wittlin and Lagerkvist –​modernity as an era in which evil and good remain beyond the reach of its proper language and worldview –​is confirmed by the characteristic transpositions of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the works of both writers. Lagerkvist’s story entitled “Paradiset” [Paradise] (from the volume I den tiden [In the Terms] 1935) narrates the events of God’s creation of the world and man as well as the first period of

20 P. Lagerkvist, “Gäst hos verkligheten” [Guest of reality], Stockholm: Aldus/​Bonnier, 1972, pp. 3–​4. 21 J. Wittlin, The Salt of the Earth, trans. from Polish by Patrick John Corness, London: Pushkin Press, 2018, p. 43.

The shadow of modernisation

33

humanity’s life in Paradise. In this text, instead (as opposed to the biblical story –​cf. Gen 2:17) of forbidding the eating of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God addresses people saying: “remember to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so that you may become really rational and knowing everything you need to know.”22 In Lagerkvist’s story, God does not want people’s innocence, which equals ignorance, but believes that it is the knowledge of the difference between good and evil that is a necessary element of their intellectual and moral endowment. What was right in God’s plan, however, did not bring good results in the long run. That was because the people: “ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil eagerly, as the Lord had commanded, but it seems that they did not become wiser by it. They were very sly and cunning, intelligent and educated, in various ways even outstanding, but they were not wise.”23 A certain man, concerned about the fate of mankind, turned to God, reporting the events he had witnessed: “they use their skill and knowledge most willingly for what is evil and unwise; I don’t know, but apparently there is a defect in the tree of good and evil.”24 God answered his doubts decisively: “If you do not prove worthy of it [the tree of knowledge –​K.S.H.], nothing interesting will come out of human life,” because he could not “come to terms with the thought that mankind could do without it, without the true, deep values contained in it”25 However, mankind did not consider these values necessary for life. After some time, the archangel Gabriel gives God an account of what is happening in Paradise: They try to destroy everything and devise the worst of frauds and misdeeds to do it. They make such noise that you can become completely deaf, they throw at one another the unripe fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, until the fruit bursts open with a huge roar and, worst of all, destroy the vegetation all over the earth. … They have terrible creatures that knock down everything on their path, everything that you have thought out with so much difficulty, and huge artificial birds fly in the air, breathing fire and destruction. I have never been to hell –​which certainly exists –​but it must look like that place. It is disgusting. And the blame is on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which you should never have given them, as I have been saying from the beginning.26

22 P. Lagerkvist, “Paradiset” [Paradise]. In: I den tiden [In the Terms], Stockholm: Bonnier, 1935, p. 136. 23 P. Lagerkvist, “Paradiset” [Paradise], p. 136. 24 P. Lagerkvist, “Paradiset” [Paradise], p. 136. 25 P. Lagerkvist, “Paradiset” [Paradise], p. 137. 26 P. Lagerkvist, “Paradiset” [Paradise], p. 138.

34

Modern ethical literature: Genealogy and definition

In Gabriel’s story, there are attributes that clearly point to the modern condition of mankind, behaving so boldly in paradise (fruits that burst with a crack are associated quite unambiguously with exploding bombs, and the artificial birds, spreading destruction, are probably combat planes; further on, the text mentions tanks). Modern humanity portrayed in the story is characterised by the inability to use knowledge of good and evil, and is consequently deprived of any sense of ethical behaviour. In the works of Józef Wittlin, we encounter an equally significant image: Angels fallen many ages ago Are returning to heaven –​by human will. Borne upwards they ascend, perforating the stratosphere Armed to the teeth –​lunar-​bound rockets and satellites circling the earth. All their wisdom was of service to humanity. The physicists were nurtured on their knowledge so arcane. They have hacked down with their axes The tree of knowledge of what is good and evil Now returning –​returning –​whence they came.27

Situated in the context of devilish (as performed by “fallen angels”) actions that modern man uplifts and sacralises (science and armament), the drastic image of the tree of knowledge chopped with axes, indicating the modern annihilation of the ethical horizon, was aptly commented on by Wojciech Ligęza, who wrote that this is the image of the times when “sinful knowledge has crossed all moral boundaries.”28 The poem quoted above is quite late, but in his debut volume, in a poem “Hymn niepokoju, obłędu i nudy” [A Hymn to Anxiety, Madness and Boredom], Wittlin described the situation of modern rejection of axiological certainties and of an ethical assessment of reality: “a curse on the knowledge that this is good and that is evil!”29 At that time, he described it as if “on trial” and looked for a way to overcome it. However, I want to make it clear at this point that such awareness –​namely that in modern times the awareness of what good and evil is sometimes simply rejected and always possible to question, and that this experience cannot be invalidated –​is

27 J. Wittlin, “Wniebowstąpienie roku 1958” [Ascension to Heaven in the Year 1958], in: J. Wittlin, Poezje, introduction J. Rogoziński, Warszawa: PIW 1981, p. 146. Trans. © by Patrick John Corness 2021. 28 W. Ligęza, “Poezja Józefa Wittlina na obczyźnie,” in: Between Lvov, New York and Ulysses’ Ithaca. Józef Wittlin:  poet, esseyist, novelist, ed. A. Frajlich, Toruń  –​New York: Nicholas Copernicus University –​Columbia University, 2001, p. 99. 29 J. Wittlin, “Hymn niepokoju, obłędu i nudy” [A Hymn to Anxiety, Madness and Boredom] in: J. Wittlin, Hymny, Poznań: Zdrój, 1920, p. 47. Trans. © by Patrick John Corness 2021.

The shadow of modernisation

35

present in Wittlin’s oeuvre from the very beginning. Therefore, the basis of the ethical perspective he develops is not the ability to distinguish between good and evil, given to a person in advance, but the conviction of one’s own uncertainty in this regard. The motif of the tree of knowledge that appears in the works of both writers reveals the same meanings: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, i.e. the elementary ethical awareness, is necessary for the human being, and the knowledge passed on through its fruits (in the biblical account it is sinful, which is the theme that both writers silence in a significant way) is necessary to “know everything one needs to know.”30 Its absence places the human world under the control of “angels fallen.”31 However, modern people equipped with motorcycles (as in Wittlin) and bombers (in Lagerkvist) do not want this knowledge; they allow the forces they have liberated to chop down the tree or throw its unripe fruit at one another (and, one might say, this is what appears as a real and irreversible expulsion from paradise). In this diagnosis, the Swedish and the Polish author come closer to the previously cited philosophers and historians of philosophy, who point out that modernity has lost its credibility with regard to ethical judgments, among other things, as a result of undermining the foundations for their formulation; in the end, this is how one should understand the metaphor of the destruction of the tree of knowledge or its fruits. The unrestrained reluctance to modernisation and the perception of the dark side of modern processes (such as social exclusion, dehumanisation, weakening of spiritual values, disappearance of ethics), characteristic of the two writers discussed here, are present in some literary trends in the early decades of the twentieth century, including expressionism, to which both authors belonged in a way. However, Wittlin and Lagerkvist carried it far into the twentieth century. The expressionist imperative of writing about social reality, initially present in the works of both writers (although in each of them with a different degree of intensity), weakens over time as they turn their attention to a more fundamental issue: the possibility of opposing modernisation processes and the price to be paid for civilisational modernity. In this context, what appears in the pages of their works is war (observed by Wittlin at a close range, while by Lagerkvist imagined rather than experienced), which, in the interpretation of both writers, grows out of modernist tendencies to improve the world in the name of absolutised reason and emancipation. Both saw a connection between

3 0 P. Lagerkvist, “Paradiset” [Paradise], p. 136. 31 J. Wittlin, “Wniebowstąpienie roku 1958” [The Ascension to Heaven in the Year 1958]; translation © by Patrick John Corness 2021.

36

Modern ethical literature: Genealogy and definition

the Enlightenment revolution and the twentieth-​century totalitarianisms, for which modernism was a myth-​creating base, needed to fill the void after liquidated values, and serving new mechanisms of power. Such a perception of modernism as a civilisational process, however, meets in both artists with the need to use a modernist language (this time, “modernism” is understood as a literary and artistic trend) along with such writing techniques that are capable of transferring axiological and ethical considerations far beyond the area designated by the tradition of old moral literature. Therefore, even when they refer to ancient forms (such as psalm, fairy tale, myth, hymn, epic), these authors update them and use them to express truths that are currently valid and refer directly to the modern reality that surrounds them –​in a way that emphasizes freedom and the self in the reader.

3. Søren Kierkegaard’s ethics of communication and the model of ethical literature by Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist In their search for a way of practicing literature that would make it a medium of ethical communication (i.e. that would allow them to take up ethical topics without fear of excessive didacticism as well as to treat the reader in an ethical manner, acknowledging the reader as a subject, but also focussing the reader’s interest on ethical issues), Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist have a common patron: an author whose oeuvre has left subtle but significant testimonies in the works of both writers. Themes of this kind are constituted by the fundamental part of Søren Kierkegaard’s legacy, whose existentialism, if considered in terms of ethics in general, is an ethics of communication, choice and action –​precisely in that order.32 For this reason, it can be concluded that for literature –​its creation, as well as reflection on it –​the thought of the Danish philosopher may turn out to be extremely fruitful. And this is, I believe, also the case of the two writers commented on in this book, who, faced with the modern difficulties of discovering tools capable of dealing with the issue of ethics in a literary work, found in the reflections of the author of The Concept of Anxiety a number of inspiring thoughts and practical solutions. For Kierkegaard was not only a philosopher but also a very skilled writer, which increased the attractiveness of his proposal and made it credible in the eyes of practitioners of literature. There are several similarities in the approach to the issues of human existence that validate the association of the achievements of the two writers in question with

32 R. D. Cumming, Starting Point: An Introduction to the Dialectic of Existence, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979, p. 469.

Søren Kierkegaard’s ethics of communication

37

the philosophical legacy of the Copenhagen philosopher. The key places in Kierkegaard’s reflection are such problems as fear (anxiety), freedom, the relationship between God and man, and the infinite difference between them –​and these problems are the great themes of Wittlin’s and Lagerkvist’s writings. An issue that is as important as the thematic correlations is, in this case, the far-​reaching convergence of the communication model developed and practised by Kierkegaard and the literary strategies implemented by the writers who are the protagonists of this book. All three authors struggled with a similar set of problems, focussing on the question: what possibilities of being ethical (i.e. respecting the reader as a subject) and, at the same time, expressing what is ethical (which in modern times takes the form of a normative lecture) are involved in verbal communication and its particular variety called literature? Since this communication frame is superior to the issues taken up in texts and remains an important element contributing to the meaning of literary works, in this chapter I devote most attention to this sphere of problems. The themes linking Lagerkvist and Wittlin with Kierkegaard will be discussed in the parts of the book focussed on the interpretation of individual works. Before I go on to the reconstruction of Kierkegaard’s ethics of communication, I will briefly discuss the history of the reception of Kierkegaard’s thought in Polish and Swedish literature, contextualising these considerations for the purposes of interpretation of Lagerkvist’s and Wittlin’s works.

Kierkegaard’s reception in Swedish and Polish literature until the Second World War33 Kierkagaard’s influence on Swedish literature has been discussed taking into account the convergence of themes and motifs. Nils Åke Sjöstedt, the author of an early (and the only) monograph on this phenomenon, noted that it is due to the legacy of Kierkegaard, who influenced writers also through Henrik Ibsen, inspired by him,

33 There is no need here to provide detailed information on the Swedish and Polish editions of translations of the Copenhagen philosopher’s works and on critical statements published in these languages. The bibliography of the Swedish editions of the translations of Kierkegaard’s works and critical statements can be found in the monograph: Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Vol. 1 Northern and Western Europe, ed. J. Stewart, Ashgate: Farnham and Burlington, 2009, pp. 185–​195 (bibliography by Jonna Hjertström Lappalainen and Lars-​Erik Hjertström Lappalainen). A similar Polish bibliography by Antoni Szwed can be found in the book: Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Vol. 2 Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, ed. J. Stewart, Ashgate: Farnham and Burlington, 2009, pp. 230–​243.

38

Modern ethical literature: Genealogy and definition

that all Nordic literature of the modern breakthrough contains a clear element of moral rigorism.34 Swedish literature of the 1880s is characterised by a “moral programme” originating directly from the writings of Kierkegaard and Ibsen, which is of particular importance in the context of the break between the sphere of science and religion that was taking place in Swedish culture at that time,35 while the pessimistic literature of the 1890s is, according to Sjöstedt, mentally indebted to Kierkegaard’s “Diapsalmata” (which is a fragment of Either/​Or). Sjöstedt points out how diverse were Kierkegaard’s influences on literature, how varied were the associated themes and approaches (e.g. eroticism, the problem of anxiety, the relationship between God and man, religious issues, anti-​church attitudes) and how diverse were the writers in whose work they could be found (the authors indicated by him include Fredrika Bremer, Viktor Rydberg, Pontus Wikner, August Strindberg, Selma Lagerlöf, Hjalmar Söderberg). It should be emphasized, however, that Sjöstedt sees Kierkegaard s influence on Swedish literature primarily in the sphere of ideological borrowings. The monographer pays very little attention to the possible influences of Kierkegaard’s writing on the literary form of the works of Swedish writers and their metaliterary reflection, making the only exception for Victoria Benedictsson and her opinion about “remembrance” and “memory” as the substance of art.36 More recent studies indicate the inspiration drawn from Kierkegaard by writers such as Lars Ahlin, August Strindberg, Selma Lagerlöf or Victoria Benedictsson, focussing primarily on “Kierkegaardian” motifs or themes, but also pointing to the issues of literary forms and literary language.37 Due to the intense presence of Kierkegaard in the Swedish literature and culture of the early twentieth century, together with the circumstances of Lagerkvist’s own account of reading his writings,38 an attempt to illuminate the work of the author of

34 N. Å. Sjöstedt, Søren Kierkegaard och svensk litteratur. Från Fredrika Bremer till Hjalmar Söderberg, Göteborg: Göteborg Universitet, 1950, p. 13. 35 N. Å. Sjöstedt, Søren Kierkegaard och svensk litteratur, p. 294. Cf. also: G. Hägg, Gud i Sverige, Stockholm: Norstedt, 2010, p. 366 ff. 36 N. Å. Sjöstedt, Søren Kierkegaard och svensk litteratur, p. 310. 37 Cf. papers by Hans-​Erik Johannesson (“Lars Ahlin: Kierkegaard’s Influence –​an Ambiguous Matter”) and Camilla Brudin Borg (“Victoria Benedictsson: A Female Perspective on Ethics”) in: Kierkegaard’s Influence on Literature, Criticism and Art, Vol. 3 Sweden and Norway, ed. J. Stewart, Ashgate: Farnham and Burlington, 2013. 38 Cf. U.-​B. Lagerroth, Regi and möte med drama och samhälle, Stockholm: Rabén och Sjőgren, 1978, p. 117 ff; I. Schöier, Pär Lagerkvist. En biografi, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1987, p. 538; I. Schőier, Som and Aftonland. Studier kring temata, motiv och metod and Pär Lagerkvists sista diktsamling, Stockholm: Akademilitteratur, 1981, p. 32.

Søren Kierkegaard’s ethics of communication

39

Barabbas with the help of Kierkegaard’s thought is not unjustified. The legitimacy of following this path is also confirmed by the interpretative achievements of the research efforts undertaken so far (although not very numerous), making Kierkegaard’s philosophy an interpretive context for the work of the Swedish Nobel Prize winner.39 The reception of Søren Kierkegaard’s work in Polish literature of the interwar period has not yet been systematically examined. The only author who explicitly addresses the issue of the presence of the Danish philosopher’s thought in Poland before 196540 is Marian Stala,41 focussing his attention on the works written before the First World War and pointing to the correlation between Polish translations of Kierkegaard from 1899 (the date of the first “Polish Kierkegaard,” i.e. the publication of the Polish translation of the “The Seducer’s Diary”)42 to 1914 (the publication of the one-​volume Wybór pism [Selected writings] of the Danish philosopher in

39 These analyses focussed on the worldview layer of the Swedish writer’s works but did not deal with the issues of literary form. Cf. U.-​B. Lagerroth, Regi i möte med drama och samhälle, p. 117 ff; G. Syréhn, “Himlens hemlighet –​en studie något på tvärs,” in: B. Olsson, G. Syréhn, Två Lagerkviststudier, Växjö: Pär Lagerkvists-​samfundets főrlag, 1993, p. 46; A. Chojecki, “Bóg i religia w twórczości Pära Lagerkvista.” Studia Scandinavica 1979, No. 2, p. 61. 40 This date is sometimes considered the terminus post quem of Kierkegaard’s appearance in the focus of interest of Polish writers (see H. Chojnacki, “Kierkegaard in Poland since 1965.” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2001, pp. 341–​350), which seems to be an oversimplified judgment. It is hardly surprising, however, because there are only a few detailed studies which point to the presence of “existentialist threads” (including Kierkegaardian threads) in the interwar period, and only in the perspective of certain parallelisms of approaches rather than the actual reception. See S. Morawski, “Wątki egzystencjalistyczne w polskiej prozie lat trzydziestych,” in: Problemy literatury polskiej lat 1890–​1939, series 1, eds. H. Kirchner, Z. Żabicki, in cooperation with M. R. Pragłowska, Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1972, pp. 465–​532; B. Dąbrowski, “Poeta egzystencji, Wątki egzystencjalistyczne w liryce Władysława Sebyły,” Pamiętnik Literacki 2001, No. 1, pp. 119–​136; M. Całbecki, “Czarna kropla nieskończo-​ ności:” fenomen lęku w twórczości Jerzego Lieberta, Władysława Sebyły i Aleksandra Rymkiewicza, Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 2008. 41 M. Stala, “‘Estetyczne i etyczne.’ Sören Kierkegaard a przemiany wewnętrzne polskiego modernizmu,” in: Materiały międzynarodowej sesji naukowej zorganizowanej przez Koło Polonistów IFP UJ z okazji jubileuszu 75-​lecia istnienia Koła w dniach 20–​24 maja 1974 roku, Kraków: Uniwersytet Jagielloński, 1976, pp. 7–​30. 42 The Seducer’s Diary was published in the Polish translation as Dziennik uwodziciela in 1899 twice in the press: first translated by Jan August Kisielewski, and then by Stanisław Lack (the latter was published as a book in 1907).

40

Modern ethical literature: Genealogy and definition

the excellent philosophical series Symposion)43 and the evolution of Polish literary modernism of that period. The aforementioned Wybór pism in the translation of Maksymilian Bienenstock, who also devoted to Kierkegaard several detailed studies published in the press,44 and for several decades remained the most serious populariser of the Danish thinker in Poland, remained a significant reference point for the interwar period. However, what is important in the context of the relationship between Kierkegaard’s legacy and Wittlin’s work is also the German (and Austrian) reception of the thought of the Copenhagen philosopher.45 Wittlin, who was fluent in German, studied in Vienna from the autumn of 1914 to the autumn of 1916; meanwhile, in the capital of the Austro-​Hungarian Monarchy from the beginning of the twentieth century, Kierkegaard’s oeuvre became the subject of scientific and cultural attention. Kierkegaard’s work was mentioned quite often in the journal Die Fackel, which Wittlin read regularly. The journal editor Karl Kraus, one of Wittlin’s most significant “German friends,”46 knew and promoted the works of the Danish philosopher in his journal, publishing, among other things, literary discussions about Kierkegaard, and contributing significantly to

43 The book contained excerpts from Either/​Or (in this edition, the excerpts are entitled “O równowadze estetycznego i etycznego pierwiastka w rozwoju osobowości”), from Fear and Trembling (from which Bienenstock selected and translated “Problema I” and “Problema II”), from The Concept of Anxiety (the last chapter of that work, translated under the title “Trwoga w połączeniu z wiarą jako środek zbawienia”), three excerpts from Philosophical Fragments (here entitled “Bóg jako nauczyciel i zbawca (próba poetycka)”, “Absolutny paradoks (Metafizyczna chimera)” and “Współczesny uczeń”) as well as six excerpts from The Moment. The book does not mention precisely which of Kierkegaard’s works those individual excerpts came from; moreover, which is confusing, excerpts from The Concept of Anxiety were even included in one part together with excerpts from Fear and Trembling, under one title “Fear and Trembling”. 44 M. Bienenstock, “Sören Kierkegaard,” Sfinks 1913, pp. 304–​313; M. Bienenstock, “Sören Kierkegaard. Jego twórczość i znaczenie,” Przewodnik Naukowy i Literacki. Dodatek do Gazety Lwowskiej 1912, No. 10–​12. These sources are not mentioned in the above-​ mentioned bibliography by Antoni Szwed. 45 H. Schulz, “A Modest Head Start: The German Reception of Kierkegaard,” in: Kierkegaard’s International Reception, tom 1 Northern and Western Europe, ed. J. Stewart, Ashgate: Farnham and Burlington, 2009, p. 307-​ 387. 46 Cf. A. Lawaty, “Józef Wittlin: niemieckie powiązania i przywiązania,” in: A. Lawaty, Intelektualne wizje i rewizje w dziajach stosunków polsko-​niemieckich XVIII-​XXI wieku, Kraków: Universitas, 2015, pp. 269–​272.

Søren Kierkegaard’s ethics of communication

41

his becoming a “canonical author” in the German-​speaking countries in the first decades of the twentieth century.47 In Wittlin’s works, Søren Kierkegaard is sometimes quoted directly. It has already been pointed out that Wittlin refers to the views of the Danish thinker in two sketches, entitled “Kapliczka nieczystego sumienia” [The Shrine of a Bad Conscience] (1947) and “Tragiczny Gogol” [Tragic Gogol] (1952). Both essays contain excerpts that testify to the non-​superficial knowledge of the Danish philosopher’s writings, as well as quotes from The Concept of Anxiety.48 In the former essay, Wittlin aptly captures the essence of Kierkegaardian (and more broadly: existentialist, as he also mentions Sartre and Heidegger) reflections on fear as “added value, some vitamin for the soul, without which we could not live”49 while in the latter, following the Danish philosopher, he indicates that human fear can flow “from purely metaphysical sources.”50 Clearly, the reflections of the Danish thinker that he expressed in Either/​Or are referred to by Wittlin in his essay “Blaski i nędze wygnania” [The Brilliance and Misery of Exile] (a lecture delivered for the first time in 1957), where he writes about three types of stimuli affecting a person (moral, aesthetic and religious51), which apparently

47 Cf. Joachim Grage, Karl Kraus, “‘The Miracle of Unison’ –​Criticism of the Press and Experiences of Isolation,” in: Kierkegaard’s Influence on Literature, Criticism and Art, Vol. 1 The Germanophone World, ed. J. Stewart, Ashgate: Farnham and Burlington, 2013, pp. 157–​170. 48 In his essay Tragiczny Gogol [Tragic Gogol] Wittlin places two excerpts from that work –​ J. Wittlin, “Tragiczny Gogol” [Tragic Gogol], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], afterword by J. Zieliński, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2000, p. 606. Under the influence of the misleading description in the Lviv edition, where excerpts from various works were combined under a common title “Trwoga i drżenie”, Wittlin described the quotations as originating from Frygt og bæven, while in reality this is a fragment of Begrebet Angest (cf. S. Kierkegaard, Wybór pism, trans. M. Bienenstock, Lwów: Księgarnia Polska B. Połonieckiego, 1914, p. 128). 49 J. Wittlin, “Kapliczka nieczystego sumienia” [The Shrine of a Bad Conscience], in:  J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 151. 50 J. Wittlin, “Tragiczny Gogol” [Tragic Gogol], p. 606. Wittlin points to the “rehabilitation of fear,” which under the influence of the Danish philosopher took place in culture, and he penetratingly interprets Gogol’s works using categories derived from Kierkegaard. 51 J. Wittlin, “Blaski i nędze wygnania” [The Brilliance and Misery of Exile], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 168. While commenting on this essay, it is worth pointing out that for Wittlin, who struggled with the problem of isolation all his life (for national and religious reasons, as well as as an émigré writer), the important aspect of Søren Kierkegaard’s writing, which

42

Modern ethical literature: Genealogy and definition

correspond to Kierkegaard’s stages: aesthetic, ethical and religious. It should be clearly emphasized (as in this respect the reception of Kierkegaard’s thought is not homogeneous) that he viewed the Copenhagen thinker as the one who pointed to the possibility of a person experiencing religious consolation.52 It is worth adding to these observations that the motto for the never published essay “Necrophilosemitism” (1945) was taken by Wittlin from Kierkegaard: “It is against my very being to speak inhumanly about greatness, to make it a dim and nebulous far-​distant shape.53 This is a slightly modified quotation from the 1914 Lviv edition.54 Wittlin also refers to Kierkegaard’s considerations around the notion of fear (anxiety) in his notes for the unfinished work Raptus Europae.55 In this light, it can be argued that Irena Maciejewska was right when she pointed to the relationship that exists between, on the one hand, the title and the issues taken up in one of the poems from the collection Hymny [Hymns]: “Trwoga przed śmiercią” [The Fear of Death], and on the other, Kierkegaard’s Wybór pism [Selected Writings], published in 1914;56 and I consider the Kierkegaardian theme worth supporting and developing in the interpretation of the entire legacy of the author of The Salt of the Earth. It should be noted that what has been established so far regarding Wittlin’s and Lagerkvist’s continuation of certain threads drawn from Kierkegaard’s philosophy has focussed on motifs, images and themes, so these findings were neces-​ sarily auxiliary in the interpretation of one work or another. Among these

52 53 54

55 56

was his sensitivity to isolation and loneliness as elements of human experience, was extremely close. The image of Kierkegaard as “a believing Christian” was outlined by Bienenstock in his introduction to the Lviv edition (M. Bienenstock, “Wstęp,” in: S. Kierkegaard, Wybór pism, p.VI). I point this out as it is not an obvious interpretation. Manuscript in the possession of the Museum of Literature in Warsaw, shelf-​mark 945, sheet 20, emphasis by Wittlin. S. Kierkegaard, Wybór pism [Selected Writings], p. 101. The quotation comes from the text Problema I. Is there a Teleological Suspension of the Ethical? which is a fragment of Fear and Trembling. In his Polish text, Wittlin uses the translation by Maksymilian Bienenstock (Wybór pism, 1914); his intervention in the text is very small and does not modify the meaning of Kierkegaard’s words. J. Wittlin, Raptus Europae, the library of the University of Rzeszów –​the Digital Archive of Józef Wittlin, shelf-​mark 1.1.1.4., sheet 43 v. I. Maciejewska, “Doświadczenie wielkiej wojny –​Józef Wittlin,” in: Poeci dwudziestolecia międzywojennego, Vol. 2, ed. I. Maciejewska, Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna, 1982, p. 507.

Søren Kierkegaard’s ethics of communication

43

motifs, what is regarded as the most significant in Wittlin’s case is that of Isaac’s sacrifice,57 whereas in the case of Lagerkvist the moment of “a leap of faith” (religious),58 which outlined a significant direction in the anthropological search that both writers were engaged in. My analyses will also often take up this element of the Kierkegaardian legacy in the writings of both authors (sometimes proposing solutions different from the existing approaches). However, in order to be able to talk about the presence of the Kierkegaardian tradition in their entire oeuvre, what I consider as fundamental is an issue that goes far beyond the motifs, images or even ideas expressed in the thought of the Copenhagen philosopher, which I believe should be situated in the domain still unexplored in studies known to me, namely:  in text structure. In my view, Kierkegaard’s concept of indirect communication turned out to be an important inspiration for both writers in their own work, which in the oeuvre of the author of Fear and Trembling finds its expression not so much in the form of a systematic lecture but rather an expressive principle of constructing his works. In the next subchapter, I reconstruct its main assumptions and point to those textual solutions present in Kierkegaard’s writings that were taken up by modern ethical literature.

Kierkegaard’s ethics of communication /​literary communication In Kierkegaard’s view explained in Either/​Or, the stages of life of a person who is determined to live their life as an existential challenge, are arranged in a specific order: the initial aesthetic horizon becomes replaced by an ethical perspective, and this is transcended in the final religious stage. These stages are quite radically separated from one another and although it is possible to wander between them, the decision on which side a person wants to be at a given moment is of a radical “either/​or” nature. At first glance, it can be seen that this puts in a difficult situation a writer who wants to take up ethical issues in their works: does an attempt to reconcile the aesthetic qualities inherent in a literary work with an ethical or

57 Cf. K. Kłosiński, “Cztery interpretacje ofiary Abrahama. Wokół wiersza Józefa Wittlina ‘Lament barana ofiarnego’,” in: Studia o twórczości Józefa Wittlina, ed. by I. Opacki, Katowice: Uniwersytet Śląski 1990, pp. 55–​72; R. Cudak, “‘Otom przed Tobą, Abraham.’ Lektura wiersza Józefa Wittlina ‘Trwoga przed śmiercią’,” in: Studia o twórczości Józefa Wittlina, pp. 34–​54. 58 Cf. G. Syréhn, “Himlens hemlighet –​en studie något på tvärs,” passim; S. Klint, Romanen och evangeliet. Förmer för Jesusgestaltning i Pär Lagerkvists prosa, Skellefteå: Norma, 2001, passim.

44

Modern ethical literature: Genealogy and definition

religious content not condemn the author to a discouraging pursuit of an always elusive, unrealistic goal? Kierkegaard himself was well aware of this difficulty; in a sense, all of his works show a certain ambiguity hidden in the tension between what is aesthetic and what is ethical (religious). In view of the necessity to resolve this dilemma for the needs of a specific literary venture, Kierkegaard adopted as the main aesthetic criterion the internal, mutual adaptation of ideas and the medium conveying them.59 According to the author of Either/​Or, the proper attention to form did not contradict the possible ethical character of a work; on the contrary: the need to correlate these layers of the text opens the field for action for the author, who is obliged to be highly creative. When asked if what is ethical can be communicated at all, Kierkegaard replied in the affirmative (and that is why he can become the patron of a certain branch of modern literature, which I call ethical here). The philosopher made it clear, however, that “the ethical must not be communicated in a moralising way; if it is taught in this way, then such communication is unethical” (Papirer VIII 2 B 85).60 He even rejected showing patterns of positive and negative behaviour and deeds, arguing that nothing makes one more ethically asleep than looking at them.61 According to Kierkegaard, since what is ethical co-​creates what is the most intimate in a human being, it cannot simply be communicated to oneself or to another human being; it can, however, only be communicated as art (Papirer VIII 2 B 81).62 Kierkegaard believed that it is artistic communication that should become a model for indirect communication he postulated because “only this type of communication could, according to Kierkegaard, fulfil the ideal of subjective expression and the related type of interpersonal relationship.”63 59 Cf. S. Kierkegaard,Either/​Or. Part One, trans. H. and E. Hong, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988, pp. 5–​56. Cf. also E. Kasperski, Dialog i dialogizm. Idee-​formy-​ tradycje, Warszawa: Elipsa, 1994, p. 23. 60 Qtd. after K. Krawerenda-​Wajda, “Problem komunikacji pośredniej u Sørena Kierkegaarda. Poznanie a samopoznanie,” Tekstualia 2014, No. p. 3 133. 61 E. Kasperski, Dialog i dialogizm, p. 34. 62 Cf. K. Krawerenda-​Wajda, “Problem komunikacji pośredniej u Sørena Kierkegaarda. Poznanie a samopoznanie,” p. 133. 63 E. Kasperski, Dialog i dialogizm, p. 26. Cf. also: K. Toeplitz, “Nad Kierkegaardem i egzystencjalizmem,” in:  S. Kierkegaard, Okruchy filozoficzne. Chwila, trans. K. Toeplitz, Warszawa: PWN, 1988, p. xiv: “Adopting the literary formula of expression gives both the author and each of his readers a great freedom in reading his writings. … It manifests itself primarily in the uniqueness of experiences, as well as in the uniqueness of the subject, clothed in words. And if it constitutes the credo of existential

Søren Kierkegaard’s ethics of communication

45

Indirect communication was to be, first of all, communication of existence, and its main task was to enable the transmission of ethical and religious meanings as well as to allow the sender and the recipient to become active subjects. According to Kierkegaard, the authenticity of the transmission of existential meanings was to be guaranteed not through honesty of expression, but through indirectness, ambiguity and mysteriousness. And since subjectivity meant the awareness of the opposites contained in a person, existential communication should contain these opposites and convey them in the very form of the message. This meant that one of the principles of indirect communication was to create internally polemical statements that made different worldviews clash, thus creating a counterpoint, leading to a situation where the opposites are preserved rather than cancelled or reconciled. The project of literary communication drawn up by Kierkegaard thus assumed the use of a whole range of measures and techniques aimed at creating the ethical character of a literary work by departing from the formula of “a lecture on ethics” and abandoning any mentoring tones. Thus, it was a response to the key dilemmas of the authors of modern ethical literature, who wanted to formulate an ethical message and at the same time to communicate with the reader in a way that was far removed from preaching. Therefore, in this book I consider all of the literary techniques that Kierkegaard practised and theorised on, and whose artistically outstanding applications are found in the works of Lagerkvist and Wittlin. These are: irony, open composition,64 polyphony and the positioning of various points of view, quotations, multiplicity of genres, imitations, dialogues and continuations, an inclination for “dramatising” the form of literary communication65 –​precisely in the light of the assumptions of the writing strategy

reflection, then a literary or literary-​philosophical work must not only be open in its own right, without the proverbial dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, but must also be conductive to a similar reception on the part of the reader, that is, it cannot impose anything.” 64 G. Pattison, “If Kierkegaard is Right about Reading, Why Read Kierkegaard?” in: Kierkegaard Revisited. Proceedings from the Conference “Kierkegaard and the Meaning of Meaning It,” Copenhagen, May 5–​9 1996, eds. N. J. Cappelørn, J. Stewart, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997, pp. 304–​305. 6 5 Cf. A. Nagy, “The sacral character of stage versus the profanity of pulpit –​the schism between observation and participation in Kierkegaard’s late writings,” in: Polifoniczny świat Kierkegaarda. Księga honorowa dedykowana Profesorowi Karolowi Toeplitzowi, eds. E. Kasperski, M. Urbańska-​Bożek, Gdańsk: Pomorskie Towarzystwo Filozoficzno-​ Teologiczne, 2014, pp. 239–​250.

46

Modern ethical literature: Genealogy and definition

outlined by the Danish philosopher in his theory and practice of writing. Since Kierkegaard perceived the relationship between the ethicality of the message and its formal shape in this way, the practice of indirect communication had to rely on the strong orientation of the latter towards the organisation of an act of communication rather than its content. In line with these assumptions, the ethical message (also –​the ethical writer’s message) became internally contradictory, and its meaning was not something given in advance, but rather something that the recipient himself had to reach in a series of personal interpretative decisions. The practical application of the principles of indirect communication resulted in the adoption of a strategy of making the reader attentive, and even more than that: active and ready to constantly make an interpretative effort. In this literary proposal, the burden of responsibility for reading is shifted largely to the recipient: “Kierkegaard does not intend to deliver anything to the reader, but wants to move him so that the reader will return to himself. That is why he lays everything on the reader.”66 Such a strategy is by no means a gesture aimed at avoiding the author’s own responsibility for a work (philosophical or literary) but serves to place the recipient in a situation of a constantly repeated effort to face problems that are in fact undecidable67 –​problems which Kierkegaard as well as Józef Wittin and Pär Lagerkvist kept returning to in their writing. The ethical sense of the message, according to Kierkegaard, does not lie in formulating in it one moral principle or another, but in providing the recipient with a specific experience: the reader of Kierkegaard feels, as Karl Jaspers writes, that he is “drawn into an increasingly limitless depth; he feels that whatever approach he wishes to establish as something permanent turns out to be just a façade. However, it is always possible to achieve what Kierkegaard intended, which is that the reader reveals what he is himself by how he responds when reading these writings.”68 In this way, the recipient, placed by Kierkegaard in the world of possibilities, instead of seeking knowledge in an ethical message, is forced to return to himself. To sum up the above reflections, it can be stated that the maieutic method used by Kierkegaard consisted in avoiding direct ethical and religious decisions as well as refraining from providing the recipient with the only right arguments.

66 K. Jaspers, Kierkegaard, translation and edition by D. Kolasa and T. Kupś, Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, 2013, p. 153; trans. of this quotation from the Polish translation –​ A.G. 67 G. Pattison, “If Kierkegaard is Right about Reading, Why Read Kierkegaard?,” p. 304 ff. 68 K. Jaspers, Kierkegaard, p. 162; trans. of this quotation from the Polish translation –​ A.G.

Søren Kierkegaard’s ethics of communication

47

The concept of communication created by the Danish thinker was primarily aimed at the actual empowerment of the reader, who was forced to decide for himself what variant of sense he favoured. The essential elements of this strategy are:  resignation from the author’s authority, independence and empowerment of the recipient, placing emphasis on the reader’s own choices, decisions, and as a result, equalising the positions of the author and the reader. In at least some of these postulates, it is not difficult to find features that can be perfectly related to modernist literature –​in the variant I am writing about, however, they have unique characteristics. This element of the reader’s independence and the author’s withdrawal to the shadows plays a primary role in the concept of ethical communication. The process is described by a commentator of Kierkegaard’s “theory of reading” in the following words: For all good reading ends in taking responsibility for the self-​understanding at which, in and through its polyphony of voices, we believe the text to have arrived. As we put our signature to the work of reading, literature enters the strife of values and reading becomes one way of learning to be an individual, one way of being ethical.69

For, as Kierkegaard wrote in Either/​Or, “So it is with the ethical also; if a person fears transparency, he always avoids the ethical, because the ethical really does not want anything else.”70 The same process takes place in the course of reading of the works of Wittlin and Lagerkvist, or at least in the course of such reading that intends to look closely at the texts and is sensitive to the sphere of that “how,” consciously shaped by both authors. Their declared reluctance to formulate ready-​made ethical judgments, while passionately returning to the most important ethical questions that every human life is forced to ask, brings the reader to the same point as reading the writings of the Copenhagen philosopher: to facing oneself, to accepting responsibility for (self)understanding, and thus consenting to the discussion about values provoked ​​ by the literary work. Thus, reading opens the way for the recipient to become a subject aware of his ethical choices. That is why it can be argued that the multitude of strategies and formal measures to achieve such a complex literary goal as the creation of ethical literature capable of avoiding any preaching tones, although showing an external similarity 69 G. Pattison, “If Kierkegaard is Right about Reading, Why Read Kierkegaard?,” pp. 306–​307. 70 S. Kierkegaard, Either/​Or, Part Two, ed. and trans. with Introduction and Notes by H. V. Hong and E. H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987, pp. 253–​254.

48

Modern ethical literature: Genealogy and definition

to the formal achievements of modern literature, does not result from the tendency to experiment aimed to refresh the linguistic medium, which is inherent in many important works of the latter. Kierkegaard stated authoritatively:  “as soon as the ethical person’s gymnastics become an imaginary constructing he has ceased to live ethically. All such imaginary gymnastic constructing is equivalent to sophistry in the realm of knowledge.”71 Similarly, the writer’s ethical attitude –​ as understood by the Danish philosopher and as understood by Lagerkvist and Wittlin –​consisted in looking for the most adequate, indirect form of expression of an existential message, but had nothing to do with aestheticism practiced solely “for art’s sake.” In the field of communication of ethical content, Kierkegaard adopted the Socratic maieutic model, referred to directly in the treatise The Concept of Irony and in Philosophical Fragments. From a certain point of view, the whole modern concept of “ethical literature” also clearly follows the Socratic line of thought. After all, the struggle with the sophists undertaken by the Greek philosopher did not concern the sense of the general principle of rhetorical persuasion which referred, among other things, to the aesthetic sensitivity of the recipient and wished to give him aesthetic pleasure. Socrates, on the other hand, asked about the goals of speakers who were contemporary to him; he proclaimed that the tools developed by the rhetoric of the time compromised themselves the very moment they began to serve inappropriate (unethical) purposes. That is why Plato, a disciple of Socrates, modified his view of rhetoric over time and, from the initial violent negation of this type of activity, he moved to the position of a conscious co-​creator of an important line of rhetorical tradition.72 The author of Phaedrus developed a model of rhetoric that was aimed at the ethical development of the listener and assumed that making an influence should respect the both the sender and the recipient of the message as the subjects, and the form of dialogue was to be the fundamental instrument of this type of activity. Modern ethical literature continues the Socratic-​Platonic (or rather Socratic-​Platonic-​ Kierkegaardian) understanding of the recipient’s independence as a condition of ethical communication and is extremely distant from expressing ready-​made truths. This is possible, among other things, thanks to the firm assumption that every human being knows what is the ethical –​the assumption that characterised

71 S. Kierkegaard, Either/​Or, Part Two, p. 253. 72 Cf. K. Tuszyńska-​Maciejewska, Platon a retoryka:  od krytyki do modelu, Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, 1996.

Søren Kierkegaard’s ethics of communication

49

Kierkegaard’s reflection73 and which can be easily found as the cognitive foundation of the literature I am writing about in this book. Literature is a type of communicative act whose illocutionary power is secondary, i.e. the reader is “an observer of primary illocutionary acts and, looking at whether they are fortunate or not, allows the created world to speak to him and to move him in a specific, though not precise way.”74 This observation can be used in an attempt to describe modern ethical literature, which follows Kierkegaard’s footsteps. According to the Danish philosopher’s concept of ethical communication, ethical messages, built –​as we remember –​on the model of a literary work, are designed to move the recipient, though not in a way that is “impossible to specify” (as claimed by Jerzy Ziomek, quite rightly with regard to large stretches of literature), but in a way that is precisely programmed: by focussing on ethical issues and pointing to the “sovereignty of good”75 in a human existence aimed at what is ethical and religious. The works of modern ethical literature are not concerned about educating or emotionally moving the recipient, but about assuming the recipient as a person experiencing existence and the loss inscribed in it, asking about sense and, in the face of problems with finding it, constantly exposed to the temptation to doubt it –​and about helping such a recipient to endure his own condition and to search for the ethical.

73 Alisdair MacIntyre rightly indicates the conservative and traditionalist character of the ethical, revealed at this point in Kierkegaard’s philosophy (A. MacIntyre, After Virtue. A Study in Moral Theory, p. 43); and it is in these terms that the views of the authors of modern ethical literature should be seen (of course, such descriptive terms are not aimed at a positive or negative valuation of that standpoint but indication of its rooting in the pre-​modern tradition: not so much in specific moral views as, rather, in accepting the conviction about the need to base the concept of the ethical in a specific anthropology). 74 J. Ziomek, Retoryka opisowa, Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 2000, p. 69. Cf. also: P Lübcke, “Kierkegaard and Indirect Communication,” History of European Ideas 12 (1990), No. 1, pp. 31–​40. 75 Cf. I. Murdoch, Prymat Dobra [The Sovreignty of Good], translation and introduction A. Pawelec, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1996. In fact, when describing the necessity to choose between the aesthetic and the ethical as an act of choice performed by free will, Kierkegaard grants the ethical infinitely greater authority (cf. A. MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, pp. 40–​41).

50

Modern ethical literature: Genealogy and definition

Interpretative context: Kierkegaard and/​or Nietzsche Many of the elements of Kierkegaard’s concept of “indirect communication” correspond to the project of Friedrich Nietzsche. For this reason, it is necessary to justify why Kierkegaard, rather than Nietzsche (whose writings both Wittlin and Lagerkvist read diligently, and whose influence on modernist literature is unquestionable), is viewed by me as the patron of modern ethical literature.76 Like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche also did not want to be a prophet and warned against accepting his theses uncritically; he put on various masks and cultivated secrecy. Both philosophers equally realised that in understanding their ideas (and, in fact, in every human thought) “it is important who it is that understands.77 Both, as Jaspers writes, “turn to individuals who must bring with them and bring forth from themselves what can only be said indirectly;”78 for Nietzsche too, one’s own thinking was merely an interpretation. At the same time, they were both extremely innovative in the field of language. Finally, both thinkers realised that their epoch and the modern man inhabiting it were threatened by nothingness, and both decided to defend themselves against it. And it was at this point that the strategies they had adopted diverged: Kierkegaard was convinced of the possibility of finding the truth within Christianity, while Nietzsche, on the other hand, saw a chance for man’s rebirth in the state of godlessness he had ascertained. Their “leap towards transcendence” was therefore of a completely different character:  in Kierkegaard it was a turn towards Christianity understood as a paradox and absurdity, in Nietzsche –​towards the idea of ​​the eternal return and the Űbermensch. What also differed were the areas of tradition on which they drew their support:  for the Copenhagen philosopher, this area was the New Testament Christianity, and for Nietzsche  –​pre-​ Socratic Hellenism.79 What Kierkegaard called providence  –​the awareness of the meaning and necessity of all events –​Nietzsche called a coincidence. Due to the fact that, in Lagerkvist and Wittlin, the Christian tradition plays a primary role and that their ethics is not directed towards the horizons delineated

76 In this section, I make use of the inspiring comparison made by Karl Jaspers between Kierkegaard’s and Nietzsche’s philosophy –​cf. K. Jaspers, “First lecture: Origin of the contemporary philosophic situation (the historical meaning of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche),” in: Reason and Existenz. Five Lectures, trans. and introduction by William Earle, New York: Noonday Press, 1957, pp. 19–​50. 77 K. Jaspers, Reason and Existenz: Five Lectures, p. 28, emphasis added by Jaspers. 78 K. Jaspers, Reason and Existenz: Five Lectures, p. 28, emphasis added by Jaspers. 79 K. Jaspers, Reason and Existenz: Five Lectures, p. 28 ff.

Søren Kierkegaard’s ethics of communication

51

by the ideas of the superman and the will to power, then out of the two philosophers it is Søren Kierkegaard who is a much better patron of their writing. Neither of the two writers reaches the limits of Nietzsche’s “reevaluation of all values” in their writing, and their ethics –​although it remains an ethics without a system –​is guided by compassion and love that is of Christian provenance: the feelings which Nietzsche rejected. Due to the common starting point and partly a common path of inquiry of the two philosophers, in my analyses of the works of Wittlin and Lagerkvist the context of Nietzschean thought will also appear, as at that time it did constitute the actual locus communis of European literature. However, I believe that it is Kierkegaard, who was closer to Christianity (although he did indeed reinterpret it), that turns out to be a much livelier and more far-​reaching source of inspiration for them.

Chapter Two Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin In this chapter, I undertake a reading of Pär Lagerkvist’s and Józef Wittlin’s metaliterary writings, on the basis of which I reconstruct their view of the possibilities and obligations of modern literature as well as the project of such a type of literature that they themselves wanted to create. The fundamental issue in terms of which both writers repeatedly define themselves is constituted by one of the historical oppositions characterising the modernity of the literature of the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, namely the opposition of expression and construction, pointing, in the words of Ryszard Nycz, to “the long-​lasting competition of principles: on the one hand, personal expression as well as the cult of authentic, direct expression, and on the other hand –​interest in the problems of construction and composition, indirectness or even impersonality of the artistic form, along with celebration of the “awkwardness of feelings”.”1 This dilemma is considered by both writers from the perspective of the ethics of communication. It is only the simultaneous disclosure of one’s own worldview as a writer in a literary work and achievement of the effect of activating the reader as an individual whose worldview the work addresses that the two writers will regard as a sufficient basis for ethical communication, which –​if it is to be effective in a literary work –​must meet both authors’ specific formal requirements.

1. “I’m essentially a moralist,”2 or choosing the “non-​ cultural:”3 On Pär Lagerkvist4 The young Lagerkvist’s programmatic declaration –​the manifesto Ordkonst och bildkonst. Om modärn skönlitteraturs däkadans  –​Om det modärna konstens R. Nycz, Język modernizmu,. Prolegomena historycznoliterackie, 2nd edition, Wrocław 2002, pp. 37–​38. 2 P. Lagerkvist, Brev, selected and ed. by I. Schöier, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1991, p. 147 (letter to August Brunnius of 25 November 1920). 3 Manuscript held in the Royal Library in Stockholm, shelf-​mark KB L 120: 79: 2. 4 Sections: “The ambivalent meaning of “bad art,” “On the trail of a “third kind” of art” and “Literature and art, and the question of “ethical art” in this chapter trans. by John Comber. 1

54

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

vitalitet [Literary Art and Pictorial Art: On the Decadence of Modern Literature –​ on the Vitality of Modern Art], from 1913 –​shook up the Stockholm literary scene and contributed to discussion on the meaning of the term “modern” in the context of contemporary Swedish literature.5 One of the first issues addressed by Lagerkvist in this essay is the creation of “popular” or “commodity” literature, pandering to the tastes of the public. He regards aspirations in that direction to be extremely harmful, and it is in their context that the notion of “morality” appears (on the second page of the text!). Lagerkvist explores the question of a writer’s ethics (or morality), the lack of which is evidenced by the treatment of a literary work as an item for sale, characteristic of the popular literature which the Swedish writer criticises. Lagerkvist regards that mercantile attitude to literary works, as well as the subject matter taken up by modern literature, to be indic-​ ative of decadence and atrophy. In a characteristic way, he expresses his views on contemporary literary output, which  –​particularly compared to trends in the plastic arts –​comes across as ignorant of the times in which it is written and pathologically decadent: The great passion of modern literature is describing that which is unhealthy, sick, oversensitive and submissive. That is its element, in which it can employ its meticulous psychological apparatus and weave together various strands in such a way that the whole tangle appears senseless and thereby extremely interesting. The gallery of characters appearing in it bring no joy to the reader, only the impression of walking through a menagerie of rare creatures. /​The fashion is for that which is weak and fragile, and the protagonist is someone with a ruined soul, weary and eagerly awaiting death.6

Yet contrary to what modern literature proclaims, the times in which it is written cannot –​in Lagerkvist’s opinion –​be rightly accused of unhealthy oversensitivity or spiritual weakness. On the contrary, “The present times are manfully healthy and so far from submissiveness and sentimentality that they may even deserve to be called brutal.”7 Hence one may point out that “(contemporary) literature is alien to our times; it finds neither form nor expression for the specificities of those times. It is concerned with other things. Consequently, it has become for us something indifferent, meaningless.”8

5 See P. Luthersson, Svensk litterär modernism. En stridstudie, Stockholm: Atlantis, 2002, p. 61ff. 6 P. Lagerkvist, Ordkonst och bildkonst. Om modärn skönlitteraturs däkadans –​Om det modärna konstens vitalitet. Stockholm: Raster, 1991, p. 20. 7 P. Lagerkvist, Ordkonst och bildkonst, p. 20. 8 P. Lagerkvist, Ordkonst och bildkonst, p. 20.

“I’m essentially a moralist”

55

Leaving aside a number of aesthetic issues addressed in Lagerkvist’s manifesto, such as the relations between the visual arts and literature, the aesthetic models for modern art taken from former times and primitive cultures, the trends in modern art and the criterion of “simplicity” as a gauge of a work’s value, I wish at this point to emphasise two elements of Lagerkvist’s reflections made manifest in the quoted passages and which seem to me to be particularly crucial from the perspective of the subsequent evolution of Lagerkvist’s concept of ethical art and literature. First, it is not the remit of literature and art to show people their own weakness in such a way as to help trigger doubt and disillusionment. Secondly, literature is obliged to respond to the spirit of the times in which it is written; otherwise, it becomes something utterly superfluous (importantly, Lagerkvist does not specify here whether that response should be of an acceptive or polemic character, merely pointing to the artistic and ethical danger that escapism represents for literature). These two remarks, which in the context of the manifesto as a whole are seemingly of a marginal character, reveal certain characteristics of Lagerkvist’s thinking on literature that became constitutive of his theory and creative practice. Around 1915, when the prose collection Järn och människor [Iron and men, 1915] was published, shortly followed by the Ångest [Anxiety] volume of poetry (1916), one notes a distinct increase in interest on Lagerkvist’s part in the question of the ethical value of art, as expressed in his critical texts and letters.9 Among his manuscript notes and sketches, we find such titles as “Konstens etik” [The ethics of art], “Om betydelsen av en dålig konst och Om döden” [Of the meaning of bad art and Of death] and “Om nödvändigheten av någon etisk begåvning hos konstnären” [Of the need for ethical talent in the artist], and ethics is addressed not just in texts where it is announced in the title. In some contexts, the subject of ethical art is linked to considerations of the spiritual aspect of modern life, easily (and wrongly) overlooked by art. This approach to reality and to artistic creativity, from the angle of its spiritual dimension, is clearly manifest in a letter to Nils von Dardel (16 November 1915): I think that modern art, if it is not to wither, must begin to feel with more intensity, more internally, and must let itself be swept away by mystery, which lays itself, heavy and intoxicating, upon life –​upon modern life –​more deeply and heavily than ever, since with each passing day our environment becomes bigger and more unfathomable.10

9 The theses contained in this part of the chapter refer to my findings in the article “The ethical turn in the early writings of Pär Lagerkvist,” Folia Scandinavica Posnaniensia. The International Journal of Scandinavian Studies, 18 (2015), pp. 49–​66. 10 P. Lagerkvist, Brev, pp. 60–​61.

56

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

In striving to render justice to the modern world in a modern language, the artist is forced to admit that the world cannot be explained by means of science and technology or other ways of rationalising it. The trends in modern art that the Swedish writer had hitherto valued highly, cubism especially, although fulfilling their function of expressing the truth about the role of “construction” and “organisation” in the life of modern man, were not effective for describing the whole of the phenomenon, since they were incapable of grasping the aura of mystery and uncertainty that characterises modern life  –​an aura in which Lagerkvist was showing an increasingly distinct interest.11That is because the truth about modern life must take into account –​according to Lagerkvist –​“life” tout court, with its “unfathomable” aspect, forcing us to appreciate the spiritual. Livet is an important term for Lagerkvist, meaning not so much –​or not only –​ biological life, but above all vital force, the essence of which remains for humans a source of wonder and of hope, forcing people to venture beyond everything that can be grasped by the mind.12 It is livsmystik, or “the mystery of life,”13 that would become one of the principal themes in Lagerkvist’s writing over subsequent decades. For the time being, in the unpublished text “En ny tid och en ny konst” [A new time and a new art], from December 1915, devoted to aspects of art, contemporary times are defined in quite general terms as “good for mystery.”14 In the sketch “Om konsten. Några reflektioner [Of art: A few reflections], meanwhile, Lagerkvist asked rhetorically: “Clarity and mystery, human will and boundless scepticism underlying every thought, every intention –​is that not the essence of the times?”15 In further articles, the writer, moving towards a definition of the meaning of art, drew the category of “truthfulness,” as ethically conceived, increasingly

11 Cf. U.-​L. Karahka, Jaget och ismerna: studier i Pär Lagerkvists estetiska teori och ly-​ riska praktik t.o.m. 1916, Lund: Cavefors 1978, p. 22. Karahka defined the period of Lagerkvist’s work discussed here quite unequivocally as ‘aesthetic.’ In light of the arguments which I put forward here, in my opinion that assessment requires modification. 12 Cf. S. Linnér, Pär Lagerkvists livstro, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1961, pp. 9–​18; B. Larsson, “Den röda tiden och den rena konsten. Pär Lagerkvists litterära utveckling fram till Ordkonst och bildkonst,” Samlaren 1964, p. 32. 13 Lagerkvist used this expression in a letter to Mia Leche Lofgren of 23 June 1930. P. Lagerkvist, Brev, pp. 261–​263. 14 ‘Bra för mystiken.’ Kungliga biblioteket (Stockholm), shelf-​mark KB, Lagerkvist 1978/​ 82. 15 P. Lagerkvist, “Om konsten. Några reflektioner,” Folkkalendern 1916, p. 72. Cf. also P. Lagerkvist, Brev, p. 38 –​letter to Karin Carlsson of 25 April 1913.

“I’m essentially a moralist”

57

distinctly into the sphere of his interests, setting aside questions of form and composition. One might assume that such a gesture would not have come easy to a recent advocate of the cubist avant-​garde, although, as can be seen from the slightly later text (probably dating from the turn of 1917)16 “Om betydelsen av en dålig konst. Några stilla ord” [Of the meaning of bad art: A few quiet words], he did not find it as difficult as we might suspect: Even I consider it ill-​mannered, in well-​mannered society, when the conversation concerns aesthetics, to suddenly interject the expression ‘ethics.’ However, were I to choose between proclaiming that which is commonplace in culture today or approaching true originality, then I would obviously choose the latter.17

Yet Lagerkvist hesitates over assuming the role of a champion of ethical values in art, probably still having in mind the aesthetical criteria he used to distinguish between true and popular art –​only a few years before.18 He is aware that it is a rather unspectacular role, and, in the eyes of a reader who is sensitive to forms of utterance, it additionally burdens the author with the transgression of “crudeness,” which the insistent adherence to particular words and thought patterns represents: The moralist always evinces something crude and stupid, especially if he is still a dilettante in the particular field. And the reader cannot fail to notice how words [repeated] time after time become ponderous and vain. /​Today, the only thing demanded of an artist is that he produce good art. No one asks by what means? at the cost of what concessions, what deceptions, what bending of the truth? What magnification of his own insignificance, how many hours acted out for himself? Only what is the artistic success?19

This passage, in which Lagerkvist  –​as if “testing the water”  –​assumes the mission of a moralist within the ranks of the literary critics, reveals at least one conviction that is worth remembering. For Lagerkvist, the artist is above

16 The manuscript is not dated. The proposed dating is based on information contained in a letter to Edvard Hald (18 January 1917), in which Lagerkvist informs him that one of the two planned articles on the meaning of bad art is ready (P. Lagerkvist, Brev, p. 74). 17 Kungliga biblioteket (Stockholm), shelf-​mark KB L 120: 79: 2. The sketches contained in the file with this shelf-​mark (“Om betydelsen av en dålig konst. Några stilla ord,” “Om betydelsen av en dålig konst och Om döden,” “Om betydelsen av en dålig konst”) have no pagination, which is why I do not give page numbers in relation to them. 18 Such a distinction is put forward in Ordkonst och bildkonst. Om modern skönlitteraturs dekadans –​Om den modärna konstens vitalitet. 19 Kungliga biblioteket (Stockholm), shelf-​mark KB L 120: 79: 2.

58

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

all –​and contrary the modern convictions, upheld by most avant-​garde trends –​ “insignificant.” The need to come down on the side of either moral art (thereby lowering one’s aspirations to elite, high art) or refined art (at the cost of communicativeness and the possibility of reaching “all” receivers, with their ethical convictions) was one of the key dilemmas of literary expressionism, while the problem of satisfying both creative ambition and the need to appeal to a broad readership to some extent characterises the whole of modernist literature. In his notes, Lagerkvist touches on this very problem, although he elaborates on it, as we will see, in his own peculiar way.

The ambivalent meaning of bad art The quoted text “Om betydelsen av en dålig konst” is a collection of notes rather than an ordered exposition, and we do not find in it the clear and consistent line of reasoning that characterises other writings on art by Lagerkvist from the same period published in the press.20 There are many conditional forms and hesitations, plenty of evidence of his search for the right language to express what is truly essential and what he regards as correct. Some of the difficulties with which Lagerkvist wrestles are due to the fact that he is attempting to reconstruct his thinking up to that point, formed in part by the aesthetic categories of modernity (the avant-​garde postulates of cubism), using to some extent the descriptive tools proper to those categories. It is significant that in the title of the text he places the unequivocally sounding term “bad art,” making that classification from the position of a modernist theorist and critic, whilst the titular epithet refers in the text to works that do not follow the fashionable trends in modern art and do not try to achieve self-​fulfilment in a formal tour de force. At the same time, he clearly distances himself from the criteria of assessment to which contemporary modish criticism adheres, forcibly stressing his own point of view in the text “Om betydelsen av en dålig konst och Om döden:” There is no denying that we have fatally distanced ourselves from what may, in itself, support the health and depth of aesthetic life: respect for bad art. We have gone so far that we negate not only the artist’s obligation to create bad art, but even his right to do so.21

20 Cf. P. Lagerkvist, “Om konsten. Några reflektioner,” Folkkalendern 1916, pp. 71–​81; P. Lagerkvist, “Paul Cézanne,” Första maj 1915, pp. 10–​13. 21 Kungliga biblioteket (Stockholm), shelf-​mark KB L 120: 79: 2.

“I’m essentially a moralist”

59

The distance with regard to the “salon” is evident in many sketches from this period in which Lagerkvist writes with irony about the blind aspiration to originality and the submission to the rituals of artistic life that characterise the modern artist and are fuelled by the critics.22 Against this background, it is easier to comprehend the need for a return to “bad” art, as an important and invigorating alternative. Its significance, sought by Lagerkvist, is by no means trifling. In the text “Om betydelsen av en dålig konst och Om döden,” Lagerkvist grants bad art an exceptional ability –​the most crucial ability that art in general can obtain: Although the significance of art is in principle something dubious, there is no doubt that good art has no significance either for humankind or for a single person, whereas bad art, at least at certain moments in time, is capable of lifting our hearts to humility and anxiety –​and what could be greater than that?23

The categories evoked here indicate that resistance to the dogmas of the “salon” is not the only virtue of bad art; it is credited above all with stirring essential emotions and feelings in man. The assertion that humility and anxiety are the “greatest” feelings is significant, as it points unequivocally to a system of values that sees virtue in ‘smallness’ and a path to perfection in spiritual suffering(the emphasis on the role of fear in shaping personality may be connected of course with Lagerkvist’s reading of Kierkegaard). The same evaluation is manifest in a passage in which Lagerkvist levels an important accusation at ‘good’ modern art, charging it with the falsification of the image of human existence and the inability to represent its real and crucial dimensions. It goes without saying that the line of attack on modernist art –​at the same time a line of defence for ‘bad’ art –​is based on ethical questions: For that which is grand and noble in human suffering, modern art has found, in my opinion, beautiful and enduring expression. But not for the suffering itself.24

Here, Lagerkvist calls for human suffering to be made an object of art’s attention, without elevating it and thereby transferring it into artistically recognisable and assimilated areas –​a falsification of the crucial dimension of human existence that characterises, in the writer’s opinion, self-​styled modern art, although

22 Cf. G. Löwendahl, ‘“Det yttersta ödet.” Kring några Lagerkvistmanuskript i Lund,” in Diktaren och hans formvärld, eds. R. Arvidsson, B. Olsson and L. Vinge, Malmö: Allhem, 1975, pp. 120–​121. 23 Kungliga biblioteket (Stockholm), shelf-​mark. KB L 120: 79: 2. 24 Kungliga biblioteket (Stockholm), shelf-​mark. KB L 120: 79: 2.

60

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

not that alone. At one point, he generalises: “good” art, of both modern and earlier times, always has the same sins on its conscience: At present, I do not really have the desire or the need to dwell in particular on what we are accustomed to calling modern art, since my remarks would not appear to concern it to a greater degree than any other kind of good art.25

So the division into good and bad art is timeless, and the crusade against good art does not amount to an attack on spectacular but short-​lived artistic fads. It clearly concerns something more, namely the truth about man and the possibility of expressing that truth in a work. In the opinion of Lagerkvist, the crucial dimension of the “ethics” of art was not the creation of an illusion, but the sober, honest articulation of the drama of human fate, treated in a very serious way. In the sketch “Konstens etik” [The ethics of art],26 he wrote: After all, it is not entirely true that art is something exceptional, that it shows man’s supremacy, in the few ecstatic moments in life, over the nothingness of life. For it shows more when it is great and true: its subjection to fate, which it cannot comprehend, let alone suppress.27

Thus, the importance of bad art, capable of approaching the truth about human fate, is great, both for the beholder and for the artist. The former has the chance to “rise towards humility and anxiety,” while the latter can honestly express his/​her own existential disquiet: “It must be said: a fundamental condition of good art is dishonesty in emotional life. Of bad art –​honesty and anxiety.”28 We may state for certain that the antipathy towards “dishonest” art is not confined solely to works which provide the receiver with sublimated suffering instead of the expression of suffering, masking falsification with artistic refinement. In another sketch (“Om betydelsen av en dålig konst”), Lagerkvist

2 5 Kungliga biblioteket (Stockholm), shelf-​mark. KB L 120: 79: 2. 26 This text is not dated; the rest of the material in the file is from the end of 1915 and the beginning of 1916, and on that basis, we may assume that this sketch was written around the same time. 27 Kungliga biblioteket (Stockholm), shelf-​mark KB Lagerkvist 1978/​82. Very similar remarks are contained in Lagerkvist’s essay Den knutna näven [The Clenched Fist], from around two decades later. 28 Kungliga biblioteket (Stockholm), shelf-​mark Lagerkvist L 120:  79:  2. It is worth remembering this reference to “anxiety” as a condition for the production of “bad” art, since that is precisely the title Ångest [Anxiety] given to Lagerkvist’s debut volume of poetry, from 1916, referring (as we will discuss in the next chapter) to Søren Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Anxiety.

“I’m essentially a moralist”

61

distances himself clearly from works that, raising form to perfection, prevent us from nearing the truth about existence and with their dazzling character falsify our way of thinking about the sense of artistic activity. In effect, the very term “art” is untrustworthy, since the works to which it is most often applied do not approach the truth about existence, which is bound up with ordinariness, discouragement and anxiety: Art! The very word itself is essentially ridiculous. It leaves an insipid and sweetish taste in your mouth when you utter it. That is because it has been embellished the whole time with enormous joy. Colours and words have radiated richness and lavishness. The word is all but redundant in relation to desolate darkness. And I want to try to avoid it.29

The quoted sketches, differing in their subtitles, bear the common main title “Of the meaning of bad art” (my emphasis), and that is an apt title, since, in pursuing the rehabilitation of honest art, Lagerkvist is far from affirming it uncritically. It would seem that besides his enduring attachment to the imperative of working on the formal aspect of the work, Lagerkvist is restrained from the glorification of bad art by an awareness of the fine line between feelings honestly expressed, on one hand, and ideological or programmatic solutions arising from those feelings, on the other. At the same time, he was aware that the need to forge a suitable form of expression –​a need that was occasionally expressed quite openly –​could not be easily reconciled with the equally strong desire to express that which lay most deeply within. Yet he believed that such a marriage was possible. In the sketch “Folket och dikten,” published in the second half of 1915, he stated: “After all, it is precisely in the form that the artist must give expression to everything that he bears within; it is in the form that his own contribution acquires true significance –​in the form understood in the deepest and broadest sense of the word.”30 One may legitimately see in this declaration an important clue to the status of Lagerkvist’s conviction that one’s “inner world” is a crucial source of artistic expression –​a conviction that is modified, however, by the need to impart to works a formally defined shape. When writing about “bad art,” Lagerkvist is wrestling with the problems that are most crucial to him, and the titular term is essentially pseudonymous with his own output from that period. When he writes that the conditions for bad art are “honesty and anxiety” in emotional life, it is difficult not to associate this

2 9 Kungliga biblioteket (Stockholm), shelf-​mark Lagerkvist L 120: 79: 2. 30 P. Lagerkvist, “Folket och dikten,” Tiden 1915/​8, p. 237.

62

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

with passages from letters in which he employs the category of honesty to define his own writing31 or suggests that Järn och människor is a book that he wrote “from himself,”32 in which “nothing was made, but everything sprang from concentration and joy at work.”33 Yet the question of the value of tendentious literature was a crucial one for Lagerkvist; after all, at that time he was still working with left-​wing periodicals (Stormklockan, Fram, Första Maj), and some of the texts published there certainly merit such a name.34 And it may have been that personal dimension to the notes that made him refrain from publishing them, also affecting the difficulty he had with making an unequivocal critical gesture; consequently, bad art, although its status was enhanced, remains bad art, whilst good art, although profoundly criticised, is not given another name. The lack of consent to the existence of an axiological hierarchy in literary criticism does not make it any easier to find other criteria, since the way is clearly blocked by a fear of turning literature and art into an arena of campaigns and disputes over worldviews.

On the trail of a “third kind” of art At one point in his deliberations, however, Lagerkvist defines also the kind of art that appears to interest him the most –​a variety of ethical art: In addition, there is one question that troubles me when I ponder it, namely, would it not be more in keeping with the spirit of the times to express contempt for art per se? Yet each time I am about to do so, I suddenly stop, since I remind myself that there exist not just those two kinds of art, good and bad, but also a third kind, over and above those two expressions. Now perhaps we may question whether this third kind is at all subject to the absurd name of art, since it issues from a world that is utterly dissimilar and far-​removed from the one that in its narrowness and pretty-​pretty ridiculousness allows every little artistic fancy to cut a dash with a graceful vision and revelation of cosmic proportions.35

In this way, on the path to the complete invalidation of the existing aesthetic division into good and bad art, or rather the parenthesising of its entire domain,

31 P. Lagerkvist, Brev, p. 70. Undated letter to Karl Otto Bonnier from the end of 1916 or beginning of 1917. This passage concerns Ångest [Anxiety]. 32 P. Lagerkvist, Brev, p. 60. Letter to Nils von Dardel of 16 November 1915. 33 P. Lagerkvist, Brev, p. 61. Letter to Ellen Key of 2 January 1916, emphasis Lagerkvist. 34 Cf. B. Larsson, Den röda tiden och den rena konsten. Pär Lagerkvists litterära utveckling fram till Ordkonst och bildkonst, pp. 19–​39. 35 “Om betydelsen av en dålig konst. Några stilla ord,” Kungliga biblioteket (Stockholm), shelf-​mark KB L 120: 79: 2.

“I’m essentially a moralist”

63

a resolution can be achieved. We may hesitate over whether that resolution is of an artistic or an existential character. In declaring himself in favour of a “third kind,” Lagerkvist questions whether it would be right to call it “art,” since its essence is far from artistic criteria. With regard to activity of this sort, the postulate “It is as a person that I am an artist,”36 essentially expressionist in spirit, is actualised entirely, since it is in works produced in this ‘third’ way that the honesty of utterance guarantees the simultaneous expression of the truth, on account of the “sources” from which it arises. As for the world from which that “third,” and only valuable, kind of art arises, we know only that it is similar to neither the world governed by changing aesthetic criteria nor the world of individual emotionality, which easily descends into blindness. Here too Lagerkvist does not articulate his idea to the end; if he had, then he would have proclaimed a ready-​made metaphysical truth –​a step that he never took. Nevertheless, the direction taken by his reflection is perfectly clear. In the passages from the Lund manuscripts, we read that valuable art is art that “has something to say to man,” from which grows “the flower of eternity.”37 However we might wish to clarify that “distant world” (and every ‘clarification’ would tend rather to obscure the writer’s intentionally elliptic idea more than elucidating it), the very awareness of its existence bestows upon a person the opportunity of perceiving his life in a dimension that is broader than his own here and now. Only in this way, setting aside deliberations of good and bad art, can the artist address the task of expressing in his work the truth about “livsmystik:” then, the positive value of his work will lie not –​or not just –​in its aesthetic values or in the hope borne by the proclaimed ideology, but in the very fact that he has turned to that which determines the depth and weight of human existence: to its spiritual layer. And in that sense the showing and transmitting of the truth about “livsmystik” may be couched in terms of the moral obligation that is incumbent on the artist. Be that as it may, we are dealing here with the truth about human existence and also about something else: the support which the receiver may (or may not) gain from literature –​support that is understood, let us reiterate, not as fortification through the suggestion of a particular worldview, but as a signpost to the spiritual world, extending above the reality familiar from everyday life and enabling us to confront our existence, which consequently acquires a higher meaning. Lagerkvist’s own output –​both that from the period which scholars refer to as

36 Extract from an unpublished essay held in Lund University Library, quoted after G. Löwendahl,”‘Det yttersta ödet.’ Kring några Lagerkvistmanuskript i Lund,” p. 120. 37 Cf. extracts quoted by G. Löwendahl, p. 121.

64

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

“livstro” and that from the later period of Det besegrade livet [The conquered life],38 characterised by revolt and activism –​remains within the sphere of ethical art as understood in the following way: it shows first and foremost the existential situation of man, particularly susceptible in the modern world to the loss of his awareness of what is spiritual. This approach also enhances the status of the form and the language of a work: a necessary medium of communication with the receiver, they also resist absolutisation (as Lagerkvist noted around the turn of the 1960s, “It is the substance that should be the poetry. The language should only express it in the fullest, most perfect and at the same time simplest way it can. (That is quite a lot!) Language should never be the end in itself.”39) Lagerkvist did not publish, and did not even finish, those theoretical texts on art which place questions of ethics to the fore; in his published critical texts from that time, ethical issues, although present in the background, do not occupy a prominent place. One may gain the impression that he wished to consider them primarily for his own purposes. In Lagerkvist’s works from that time, meanwhile, and also –​at least just as crucially –​in his own commentaries to them, we can detect clear traces of an analogous ‘ethical turn.’ With regard to the book Järn och människor [Iron and men], he wrote to Ellen Key (11 November 1915): I wrote this book in a different mood to that in which I wrote Motiv [Motif]. I tried to be a bit more humble and less self-​confident. I also tried to sacrifice a little of that wheedling jargon of the trade and to introduce instead characters formed in such a way that they be sensed and engaged with first and foremost as people. Hence, of course, the faith in the principles of art that I earlier confessed has not waned within me. Yet principles are nothing more than scaffolding; it is ridiculous to erect it if one has no notion of building a home in which people can warm themselves and get closer to one another.40

The metaphor used by Lagerkvist towards the end of this passage is significant and speaks more about his attitude than a longer theoretical exposition could have done. Principles and rules of creative work are important insofar as they allow one to achieve the basic goal of creating the work, that is, to forge a place where the receiver will be bolstered and uplifted. Thus the artist’s ethical stance is not reduced to any specific ideological content made explicit in the work, but,

3 8 The title of a Lagerkvist essay from 1927. 39 P. Lagerkvist, Antecknat. Ur efterlämnade dagböcker och anteckningar, selected and ed. E. Lagerkvist, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1977, p. 94. The dating of this extract is given after the findings of I. Schöier, Som i Aftonland. Studier kring temata, motiv och metod i Pär Lagerkvists sista diktsamling, Stockholm: Akademilitt., 1981, p. 292. 40 P. Lagerkvist, Brev, p. 60.

“I’m essentially a moralist”

65

rather, involves an attitude towards existence that precedes the writing of the work. Expressed in words, that attitude easily descends into one worldview or another; in essence, it boils down to what Lagerkvist deftly described using the metaphor of ‘building a home,’ and what may be linked to the integrative function of literature, which Lagerkvist valued extremely highly. It would seem that he regarded the evolution of his works in the direction indicated here as one of his most significant achievements as a writer. In a letter to Henrik Sörensen of 18 August 1927 concerning Det besegrade livet [The conquered life], which had just been published, he wrote: In any case, it is particularly significant for me, more so than any earlier book, and I can also imagine that it has something to communicate to others, since it deals with matters that to some extent concern us all. I did not avoid in it certain issues that could be called ‘current,’ but I did not look at them from that perspective, but wrote about inner matters that I felt myself –​and that is that. It is a book of confession –​that is how it looks to me personally. At the same time, however, it is less egocentric, more constantly turned towards other people than anything I have written before.41

Literature and art, and the question of “ethical art” In numerous articles on the fine arts published during the 1910s, Lagerkvist revealed his own interpretation of many phenomena in earlier and contemporary art.42 His plainly expressed evaluation inclines one to reflect on his hermeneutic practice. It is worth accentuating above all the emphasis he places on the value of inner experience as the cornerstone of the most valuable works of former times and his distance, despite his admiration for the formal skills of artists working at that time, with regard to the Renaissance –​an era of impressive ”splendour and culture,” but incapable of “moving” people to such an extent as the “simplicity” and “expressivity” of the mediaeval masters. Lagerkvist also considered the ethical responsibilities of artistic works in relation to modern art, and the robust views he expressed on that subject concern fundamental issues. In a sketch about his idol Cézanne published in 1915, he wrote: We stand before these compositions depicting people in the space of nature, which occupied him during the last period, or before the remarkable still lives from the same period with the sense of beholding a new world and witnessing how the hidden forces

41 P. Lagerkvist, Brev, p. 241. 42 Cf. P. Lagerkvist, “Om konsten. Några reflektioner,” Folkkalendern, 1916, pp. 71–​81; P. Lagerkvist, “Något om den modärna konsten,” Första maj, 1916, pp. 8–​10.

66

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin of nature and of things reveal themselves in order to clash with one another. For what we are observing is a battle and its dramatic tension, although the artist masters the restless forces and weighs them according to his will. That is how the picture, in spite of everything, is full of harmony. No modern works seem at first glance so calm and composed as Cézanne, although few were painted in such great suffering. It is because the means of expression are so refined that the entire representation bears the hallmarks of sophisticated culture. The harmony of the colours is exceedingly simple and delicate, and this painter of unleashed forces avoids all brutality of form. That harmony rests on the picture like a veil, through which we sense only little by little the whole vigour of the artist’s vision. … Only when we penetrate the idea of the work do we understand that this calmness is hard-​won and that the soft murmur from afar is the rumbling of the recent battle, not yet entirely suppressed.43

Lagerkvist included in this passage a crucial element of his views on how art ought to be. Particularly essential would appear to be the words about the “hard-​ won sense of calm,” achieved through the artist’s mastery of the suffering and contradictions that wrack him. It is thanks to that ability to combine unperturbed diction with a remembrance of former anxiety that Cézanne deserves to be hailed by Lagerkvist in the same text as “one of the great educators of humanity.”44 He himself did not wish to cross that threshold, aware as he was that the writer-​ educator, in contrast to the artist-​educator, is condemned to the intermediary of words and easily becomes a slave to the philosophical, religious or social systems constructed on those very same words.45 Indeed, it is worth stressing that his early (from 1912) considerations with regard to language reveal the young writer’s modern linguistic awareness46 –​his conviction of the important stature

4 3 P. Lagerkvist, “Paul Cézanne,” Första maj 1915, p. 12, emphasis K.S.H. 44 Significant here is the broader context of this extract: “He was not just a special genius, a phenomenon arousing our admiration, but something more besides: one of the great educators of humanity” (P. Lagerkvist, “Paul Cézanne,” p. 13). Here the role of the educator is more highly esteemed than ‘genius.’ This corresponds to earlier remarks concerning the superiority of ‘ethical’ art over art indulged by the ‘salon,’ and also the sense of distance with regard to ‘geniuses’ devoid of a sense of morality. 45 Cf. manuscript held in the Kungliga biblioteket (Stockholm), shelf-​mark Lagerkvist KB L 120: 49: 1. The early text to which I refer here bears the somewhat exalted title “Om dikten och diktaren. Improviserade fantasier. Ur en ungs och ensams dagbok” [On poetry and the poet: improvised fantasies from the journal of a lonely young man] and is dated 12–​18 August 1912. 46 Of a similar character is the unpublished text “Essä om språket som konstens bäst uttrycksmedel” [Essay on language as the best means of artistic expression], manuscript

“I’m essentially a moralist”

67

of the problem of language for philosophical, anthropological and aesthetic-​ literary reflection.47 That is precisely how the aesthetic and linguistic alienation that became part of the experience of language among contemporary writers came to hold a lofty position in Lagerkvist’s eyes (despite all the reservations with regard to “salon” and over-​aestheticised art): it was thanks to that alienation that it became possible to break through the hardened formulas of scholarly language and practical communication and to use them for creative literature that satisfied the conditions of ethical communication. His reflection on the correspondence of the arts and the essence of literary expression, cultivated since his early years, meant that Lagerkvist had a remarkably deep understanding of the issue of art ethics, in connection with the problem of the peculiarity of linguistic material. Long since convinced that the writer who is bound to the philosopher, theologian and historian by the linguistic material that he uses finds it difficult to achieve independence,48with time Lagerkvist began to discern in that independence a condition for creating art that might have some crucial bearing on human existence. His ideal became ethical literature, apt to express at the same time the truth about imperfect human nature and about the human ability to perceive dimensions transcending man. At the same time, this is a literature that avoids ossified words and the worldviews expressed through them, which all too easily move away from human suffering, wishing rather to relieve suffering by showing man from the perspective of long since forgotten spiritual horizons of existence. Such literature must turn language into a highly specific instrument, which Lagerkvist described most succinctly in one of his notebooks (and this phrase essentially encapsulates his own writing style as much as it represents an artistic declaration): “Clarity, simplicity, depth. Achieving them and combining them into one is what I am seeking. Not to lose any one of them. That is why it is so difficult.”49 Urpu-​Liisa Karahka rightly points to the evolution of Lagerkvist’s lyrical practice during the 1910s, describing it in terms of a passage from a constructivist and intellectual aesthetic towards the need to ‘account for the times’ and

held in the Kungliga biblioteket (Stockholm), shelf-​mark L 120: 53: 3; sketchbook dated 21 August to 23 September 1914. 47 Cf. R. Nycz, Język modernizmu: prolegomena historycznoliterackie, 2nd edn, Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2002, p. 49. 48 See remarks on this aspect of modernist reflection on language contained in: R. Nycz, Język modernizmu: prolegomena historycznoliterackie, p. 50 ff. 49 P. Lagerkvist, Antecknat. Ur efterlämnade dagböcker och anteckningar, p. 92.

68

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

ultimately to acknowledging the supremacy of feelings and perceiving the poem as a document of emotions (although never to a degree that would allow the role of the conscious construction of the text to be ignored).50 It would seem, however, that we will not have said everything about the inner changes in Lagerkvist’s work at this stage in his oeuvre if we do not take into account the strongly manifested need to make the literary work a space for human closeness and a kind of haven, and also the imperative of justifying the existence of the work in terms of its moral weight. If we return for a moment to the passage from “Konstens etik” [The ethics of art] quoted at the very beginning, we can note a hesitation as to the exact status of art which appears to speak the most about man when it reveals his weakness, although it is not devoid of virtue when it draws attention to the “ecstatic moments” of existence. The answer that Lagerkvist gives at the end passes over the content of the work understood as its plot or conceptual substance, since the key criterion of his assessment proves to be the ability to point to the spiritual element that is present in life –​be it happy or tragic. This brings him close to expressionist literature. Distrustful with regard to an excess of aesthetic self-​awareness and also to turning the work into a conduit for a ready-​ made worldview, in his own output he never resolved to play the role of educator, mentor or prophet, although he did approvingly attribute the first of those roles, as we have seen, to his adored Cézanne. Lagerkvist’s self-​awareness as an “ethical poet” grew over time, as can be gauged from a letter to August Brunius of 25 November 1920: I have always felt respect for your appraisal of my work, but I shall tell you when I felt really great deference for it. It was when, after the publication of Kaos [Chaos], you wrote to me that I was essentially a moralist. No one else made such a claim, although ethical issues, and not ‘doing art,’ have occupied me continuously. I would be glad if you were to retain that opinion when reading my latest book,51 since I believe you are right. There also appear to be compatriots of ours who would see in me a kind of writer-​aesthete after the modern fashion; God be with them. That is just how it is now in churlish, tobacco-​ chewing Sweden (the literary one, not the real one!), that anyone who has the slightest sense of form and balance is labelled an aesthete.52

50 U.-​L. Karahka, “Pär Lagerkvists 10-​talspoesi i ett internationellt perspektiv,” in: Pär Lagerkvist 100 år. Föreläsningar och anföranden i Växjö våren 1991. Pär Lagerkvists-​ samfundetsskriftserie No. 1, Växjö: Pär Lagerkvist-​Samf., 1992, p. 106. 51 The book in question is Det eviga leendet [The eternal smile] (1920). 52 P. Lagerkvist, Brev, pp. 147–​148.

“I’m essentially a moralist”

69

These last sentences may explain why Lagerkvist so vehemently attacked the aesthetic norms of the salons, unwilling to submit to their judgments. More importantly, however, he strongly internalised the not entirely recorded and unnamed criteria of “ethical art.” The fundamental value of that kind of art, its inalienable role as a “common home” for receivers prepared to undertake a spiritual quest, served Lagerkvist as the cornerstone of his own output over subsequent decades, long after the avant-​garde disputes had fallen silent. Hence the ethical literature postulated by the Swedish writer is a literature that helps modern man to live –​not in the sense of proclaiming any particular idea or system of values capable of ensuring people of peace by resolving existential dilemmas on their behalf, but in a more primary sense: drawing attention to the spiritual horizon of human life. Thus the foundations are laid for the search for the meaning of life, which all the great Lagerkvist characters later ponder.53 The early decision to make literature a forum for metaphysical reflection based on the principles of ethical communication, far from offering any solutions, but consistently pointing to the existence of a spiritual dimension to human life, remained an enduring part of his concept of the art of writing.

Expressionism, modernity and ethical literature (a digression of a historical-​literary nature) There is no doubt that Pär Lagerkvist was perceived by his contemporaries as an experienced expert in contemporary  –​modern (“modärna”)  –​artistic trends. The writer himself had provoked such an optics, because his 1913 manifesto Ordkonst och bildkonst [Literary Art and Pictorial Art], mentioned above, became, in the eyes of the Swedish audience, a clear testimony of his author’s sophistication in key issues of contemporary art. Literary critics soon began to describe Lagerkvist’s work in terms indicating its avant-​garde character: in the second and third decade of the twentieth century, Lagerkvist was (quite often) described as a cubist (after all, he was the first Swedish reviewer of Apollinaire’s work) and (occasionally) as a futurist,54 most often, however –​as an expressionist, which was not unrelated to his contacts with the milieu of visual artists associated with that trend (in 1912 the writer began an artistically fruitful acquaintance with Isaak

53 S. Linnér, Pär Lagerkvists livstro, p. 38. 54 This fact is indicated by: P. Luthersson, Svensk litterär modernism. En stridstudie, p. 91. The book contains a list of the titles of contemporary reviews.

70

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

Grünewald,55 one of the main representatives of expressionism in Swedish visual art, and in the spring of 1915 the writer went to Berlin with a group of Swedish artists on the occasion of a famous exhibition of Swedish expressionist painting, organised by Herwarth Walden, editor of the journal Der Sturm). In the case of the above-​mentioned opinions, Lagerkvist’s alleged “multi-​ current” character results from specific (and, let us add, not very convincing) understanding of modernism in Swedish criticism of the time. That understanding (to which Lagerkvist himself contributed a lot as the author of the manifesto Literary Art and Pictorial Art) was based on defining modernism in terms of unconventional style and breaking formal patterns. Such symptoms could easily be seen in any of the contemporary “-​isms,” the names of which were treated as, in fact, quite synonymous. Peter Luthersson puts forward the thesis that Lagerkvist’s views on the formalistic nature of modernism, expressed in his manifesto, were taken at face value by the great majority of literary scholars. Due to that, first of all, Lagerkvist began to be regarded as a leading modernist in Sweden,56 and secondly –​the image of modernism as a form-​centred current perpetuating free verse, associativeness and intensification of metaphors of the poetic language has established itself for good in the Swedish history of literature. Consequently, as Luthersson writes, it was recognized in Sweden that the domain of modernism did not include such phenomena as interest in current social tendencies and the broadly understood spiritual life, while the modernist valuation of a literary work was based on the belief in the highest rank of the aesthetic autonomy of that work. Luthersson notes that in the face of opposing concepts: one stating that stylistic measures are the hallmark of modernism and that this trend is entirely directed towards aesthetics, and the other saying that modernism has been influenced by the need to describe reality, and is thus not primarily focused on aesthetic issues –​Lagerkvist, entering the Swedish literary scene, definitely opted for the former.57 The researcher’s conclusion should be supplemented by clearly stating that such a young artist’s fascination with the formal achievements of

55 See B. Lagerkvist, Vem spelar i natten. Den unge Pär Lagerkvist, Stockholm 2001, pp. 38–​81. 56 P. Luthersson, Svensk litterär modernism. En stridstudie, p. 61 ff. Cf. also: I. Algulin, B. Olsson, Litteraturens historia i Sverige, Stockholm: Norstedt, 1987, p. 374 ff.; Den svenska litteraturen, Vol. 5 Modernister och arbetardiktare: 1920–​1950, eds. L. Lönnroth, S. Deblanc, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1989, p. 92 ff. 57 P. Luthersson, Svensk litterär modernism. En stridstudie, p. 75.

“I’m essentially a moralist”

71

modernism had a very specific effect very soon, namely the writer’s inevitable separation from modernist literature and his consent to his own non-​belonging to its elite circle. Soon after his Paris and Berlin experiences, in 1918, when he received from the editors of the important Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet an ennobling proposal to run a column devoted to the criticism of modern art,58 he rejected that possibility, and the reasons for his refusal, which he explained in a letter to his friend, must arouse our surprise. While the argument that he prefers to devote time to his own work rather than commenting on someone else’s may seem understandable, the confession that he is “interested” in modern art but does not feel “competent” in its matters is difficult to accept at face value if “competences” are to be understood purely substantially. We can see in it the seeds of his later attitude, perhaps not fully realised by the writer himself, but present as if between words. In a short time, his distance to modern art becomes unveiled. Characteristic in this respect is the letter to his brother, Gunnar Lagerkvist, dated 26th November 1920, in which the writer says that he has agreed to the staging of his play59 in the Stockholm theatre, provided that the performance is not accompanied by any presentations on “modernism” or that it is not advertised as “modern”.60 Considering it is that only two years earlier that Lagerkvist had become famous as the author of the manifesto Modern teater. Synpunkter och angrep [Modern Theatre: Points of View and Attack, 1918], such a formulation testifies to a radical change in his attitude to “modernity” as an evaluative category in contemporary critical language. I am also inclined to interpret in this spirit Lagerkvist’s statements against his association with expressionism, which became quite numerous over time. Researchers explain them mostly as the Swedish writer’s reluctance towards what is German,61 that branch of German expressionism which the artist knew best (i.e. the expressionism of the Berlin circles of Der Sturm) and which he did not appreciate.62 In the outlined perspective, critical remarks about

58 P. Lagerkvist, Brev, p.108 ff. Letter to David Sprengel dated 3rd Nov. 2018. 5 9 What he means is probably Himlens hemlighet [The Secret of Heaven] (1919). 60 P. Lagerkvist, Brev, p. 149. Cf. also: G. Löwendahl, “‘Det yttersta ödet.’ Kring några Lagerkvistmanuskript i Lund,” p. 121. 61 What is often referred to in this context is Lagerkvist’s letter to Erik Hörnström (dated 5th Jan. 1947) –​P. Lagerkvist, Brev, p. 340. 62 U.-​B. Lagerroth, “Pär Lagerkvist och tysk expressionism än en gång,” Tidskrift för litterturvetenskap 1976/​2-​3, pp. 75–​98. For the relationships of Lagerkvist with the milieu of Der Sturm cf. also U.-​L.Karahka, “Kring Pär Lagerkvists Ångest och den tyska expressionismen,” Tidskrift för litterturvetenskap 1975/​1, pp. 22–​32.

72

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

expressionist art appear rather as a way of manifesting the distance towards all modern art, which made its own participation in theoretical discussions more important than contact and dialogue with the recipient. Expressionism, as one of the many fashionable “-​isms,” does not inspire the writer’s trust, as he most clearly perceives it as part of “all this fuss with that thing called modernity” (“en sådan där “modernist” historia”63). Lagerkvist’s definition of himself as a writer distant from modernity seems, therefore, as indicated by Luthersson, to be rooted in upholding Lagerkvist’s early understanding of modernist literature as “aesthetic engineering,” to which he began to refer negatively over time, and therefore it should not be overly trusted. Contrary to the writer himself, to some extent, it must be clearly stated that Lagerkvist can be successfully classified as a modernist, although not in the sense that Swedish literary studies usually do it by referring to his early manifestos. Lagerkvist’s creative path led him quite soon to recognising aesthetic issues as necessary, but only as a supplement to the actual goal of his writing, which was to describe human reality, especially that part of it which in modernism attracted less attention of writers, namely –​the spiritual part. In this perspective, it is also worth noting that Lagerkvist’s cubist interests, described by researchers quite accurately and sometimes, as one may believe, overestimated,64 do not have to direct the “engineering” tendency of this trend exclusively towards the literary implementation. After all, as described by Hans Robert Jauss, using the example of Apollinaire’s Zone, the reverse of the cubists’ activity is constituted by a new approach to the relationship of art and life, as well as (which is even more important for Lagerkvist’s writing) by the consequence of the new way of presentation consisting in the fact that “The break with a closed, still organic form of the autonomous work of art … opens art to productive reception.”65 From the perspective of the oeuvre of the author of Barabbas, this feature of avant-​garde works seems to be particularly important although, as we shall see, its use for the purposes of specifically understood ethical literature makes Lagerkvist’s approach quite unique. 63 P. Lagerkvist, Brev, p. 149. 64 Cf. A.N. Flodstrom, The early poetry of Pär Lagerkvist: a study in the influence of cubism, Urbana 1976 (typescript in Kungliga biblioteket in Stockholm); G. Tideström, “Något om Pär Lagerkvists kubism,” in: Synpunkter på Pär Lagerkvist, ed. G. Tideström, Stockholm: Aldus/​Bonnier, 1966, pp. 95–​96. 65 H.R. Jauss, The Literary Process of Modernism from Rousseau to Adorno, trans. by L.C. Roetzel, Cultural Critique No. 11 (Winter, 1988–​1989) University of Minnesota Press, p. 59.

“I’m essentially a moralist”

73

Falsification or enchantment?66 Among the remarks on the essence of the ethical obligations of art and literature, there appears another theme in Lagerkvist that is worth noting as important. In his notes (fragments of which were published in 1977 under the title Antecknat), which he kept throughout his life, the Swedish writer repeatedly directs his attention to the issues of falsehood or falsification as close to the essence of artistic activity, and goes on to their moral evaluation. The question of moral evaluation of the falsification of reality in a literary work is preceded by an anthropological question that is extremely important for modernity: whether a person has unfalsified access to reality at all. Modernism often answered this question in the negative.67 It is in this modern order that Lagerkvist’s remark can be placed –​although his assessment of this state of affairs differs from the dominant modernist tendencies: [Life] is not and will never be something conscious. “To remove the veil from human eyes” is just a phrase that refers to something completely different –​not the essence of things. This one will not change. The actual source of light and life must remain hidden from us. Conscious life is unthinkable.68

Accepting the necessary margin of human ignorance about reality, according to these statements, is tantamount to the statement that all emancipatory projects undertaken in the name of reason and proclaiming liberation from superstition (“removing the veil”) completely miss what constitutes the essence of human existence in a world whose inalienable element is the existentially important moment of mystery and uncertainty. Lagerkvist indicates the attitude of denouncing the human need to trust in various unscientific ways of explaining one’s own existence, widespread in modern art, and adopted from the scientific worldview of that epoch,69 and questions its liberating character:

66 Cf. Max Weber’s famous concept of disenchantment (Entzauberung), presented in his work 1917 Wissenschaft als Beruf. 67 Cf. D.W. Fokkema, Literary History, Modernism, and Postmodernism, Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1984, p. 16 ff. 68 P. Lagerkvist, Antecknat. Ur efterlämnade dagböcker och anteckningar, p. 73. According to the dating proposed by Ingrid Schöier (I. Schöier, Som i Aftonland. Studier kring temata, motiv och metod i Pär Lagerkvists sista diktsamling, p. 292), the notes come from the second half of the 1920s or the first half of the 1930s. 69 In The Ethics of Modernism: Moral Ideas in Yeats, Eliot, Joyce, Woolf and Beckett, Cambridge 2009, p. 120 ff., Lee Oser writes at length on the important inspiration of science and technology for modernist literature. From the perspective outlined by this

74

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin This freedom of expression, proclaimed by modern young people who are disgusted at all old illusions and appearances, is, in fact, a cliché. For the human being cannot live without appearances and illusions. Real freedom of expression should begin with recognising this truth.70

It follows that the “freedom of expression, proclaimed by modern young people” is a project which tries (wrongly, according to the Swedish writer) to universalise its perspective, proclaiming the need to “remove the veil” of illusions and appearances. Meanwhile, according to Lagerkvist, the latter constitute the necessary contribution of art to the human world of experiences and values, in the era of modernism all the more valuable because it is extremely rare. Modern art should acquire an extensive meta-​artistic awareness in this respect and understand that its own freedom of expression should be subject to ethical reflection and evaluation resulting from the role that art has to play in human life. What is significant is the observation that Lagerkvist wrote down after the publication of the novel Dvärgen [The Dwarf], in which he forcefully exposed the mechanisms of the emergence of evil in the lives of individuals and societies, and in which human falsehood and duplicity gains significance as one of the sources of evil and its most extreme, tragic consequences. Having expressed in that work his view of evil, which is always dormant in human nature and which develops best under the cloak of lies resorted to by culture that sanctions the rightness of the social system,71 the writer noted: “After The Dwarf, I should actually now write about the deep and positive meaning of human hypocrisy, about falsehood having creative power.”72 And a little further: “A scientist cannot create anything by falsification, this can be done only by a writer or an artist –​they can do it brilliantly.”73

70 71

72 73

researcher, Lagerkvist’s distancing himself from the achievements of science that refutes “illusions and appearances” is truly unique. P. Lagerkvist, Antecknat. Ur efterlämnade dagbőcker och anteckningar, p. 73. This is another theme of Lagerkvist’s reflection that is rooted in the key problems of modernist art and thought. Reflection on the “lie of culture,” developed in modern thought from Rousseau to Adorno, was confronted (in contrast to the moralistic critique of culture of earlier epochs) with the problem of evil inherent in social structures, to which Lagerkvist is particularly sensitive. For more on the topic, cf. H.R. Jauss, The Literary Process of Modernism from Rousseau to Adorno, p. 40. I discuss this topic more extensively in the part of the book devoted to the interpretation of The Dwarf. P. Lagerkvist, Antecknat. Ur efterlämnade dagböcker och anteckningar, p. 77, emphasis by Lagerkvist. P. Lagerkvist, Antecknat. Ur efterlämnade dagböcker och anteckningar, p. 77.

“I’m essentially a moralist”

75

This is reminiscent of the theses contained in the youthful manifesto Ordkonst och bildkonst, in which Lagerkvist distanced himself from naturalism and psychologism in literature as leading to the decline of this branch of art, reducing it to a poor imitation of natural sciences and to an activity that is ethically ambiguous as it leads to man’s discouragement and doubt in his own possibilities. Literature, the writer argues, achieves the most precisely when it makes full use of its right to “creative falsification.” There are many indications that this “falsification” should be understood in an ethical way. As part of a literary work designed by Lagerkvist, “falsification” is not explained by the writer’s adherence to the anthropological truth which says that life without illusions is impossible, and man must use any “faith” to manage his terror of his own mysterious existence. The creator of modern ethical literature is not a preacher of any ready-​made worldview the acceptance of which will “enchant” the readers’ reality anew. This would be contrary to both the modernist “convention of epistemological doubt,”74 and to the recognition of the subjectivity of a modern author and modern reader, the former of whom does not want to play the self-​mocking role of a preacher, while the latter, wanting to commune with literature, counts on something more than a lecture on ready-​made, comforting truths. Nevertheless, “falsification” in a literary work belonging to the domain of ethical literature is, according to Lagerkvist, a necessary and fundamental moment that has a saving and creative power because it is the basis for mastering the actual existential situation of man in the world: Creative falsehood. One has to penetrate deeper, into falsehood, in order to find the right ground for faith in man. The majority (the skeptics) see nothing but this frightening surface and only judge according to it, not realising that the human being must –​to a greater or lesser degree –​be like that; this is the law of life. And it stems from life. But what hides under this surface is man himself, which makes it something else, something of matter and laws that we do not know. Only by such understanding of the eternal falsehood and realising that it is divinely creative can one attain real faith in man. Not by denying falsehood and not by seeing only that, stopping at that. –​In its essence, the problem of falsehood is a fundamental issue concerning man and life. This is the problem that needs to be penetrated thoroughly to understand it. And perhaps understanding this fact would make us see something great and wonderful beyond it.75

7 4 Cf. D.W. Fokkema, Literary History, Modernism, and Postmodernism; p. 16. 75 P. Lagerkvist, Antecknat. Ur efterlämnade dagbőcker och anteckningar, p. 69; italics by Lagerkvist, emphasis by K.S.H. Cf. also the passage: “Creative falsehood (the main motive) –​that it is a certain stage in spiritual life, that it embellishes, strengthens, enables faith in oneself and in one’s faith, which would otherwise be impossible for many.” (P. Lagerkvist, Antecknat. Ur efterlämnade dagbőcker och anteckningar, p. 66).

76

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

The essence of “creative falsehood” therefore amounts to nothing less than paving the way to understanding the spiritual dimensions of human life and to faith in man. This is the deepest meaning of culture, which by its very existence transcends the smallness and evil inherent in man. In his notes for the drama Seger i mőrker [Victory in the Dark] (1939), the Swedish writer noted: “Culture is ambiguous in general –​ambiguity is culture-​forming. The so-​called primitivists call this the falsehood of culture –​which is quite thoughtless. Culture is nature, it is something nature desires –​not its opposite.”76 In a slightly earlier essay, Den knutna näven [The Clenched Fist], published in 1934, he wrote in a similar vein: “There are no shorter paths to which one could deviate in order to avoid the difficulties arising from the complications of human life, there is no return to primitivism when “we feel bad in culture” –​because culture is as “natural” as nature used to be, it is part of it.”77 The falsification carried by art and literature, which consist in attesting to the existence of inexhaustible spiritual forces in man, even under the most unfavourable conditions, is therefore not a lie although it contradicts the common knowledge of the human nature. It is more of a blessing capable of revealing the truth about man: the truth that reality suppresses and obscures. In Lagerkvist’s anthropology, literature and art have an enormous ethical role to play exactly because, by transcending (“falsifying”) life and reality, they enable man to develop and understand the surrounding world. As he wrote in his text Det besegrade livet [The Defeated Life], real art surpasses life precisely in its possibility to make an ethical gesture of opening the human being to what makes him unique, because: “life makes it possible only to sense what the human being is. It is unable to do more. For it is an imperfect instrument.”78 This anthropological conviction –​that man surpasses earthly reality, although in his weakness he is easily inclined to surrender and subordinate himself to it –​is the foundation of Lagerkvist’s concept of modern ethical literature. In a situation where reality “diminishes” man and shows him his own evil, only art and literature are able to breathe hope into man. It makes one realise that: “We are beings that stretch out their hands to heaven. Beings who can raise them … towards what does not exist. Yes, this is our whole hunger, our whole misery. Our whole anxiety, our whole torment. And our whole greatness.”79 Such art does 76 P. Lagerkvist, Antecknat. Ur efterlämnade dagbőcker och anteckningar, p. 75. 77 P. Lagerkvist, “Den knutna näven” [The Clenched Fist], in: P. Lagerkvist, Prosa, Stockholm: Bonniers, 1955, p. 91. 78 P. Lagerkvist, Det besegrade livet, Stockholm: Albert Bonnier, 1927, p. 31. 79 P. Lagerkvist, Det besegrade livet, p. 30.

On Józef Wittlin

77

not force one to perceive people in an idealised way, appropriate to certain philosophical and religious systems, thus falsifying the essential truth about them –​ but it allows one to see in the difficult human condition of eternal non-​fulfilment the source of spiritual strength. As viewed by the Swedish writer, the merit of literature and art for man is not the fact that they carry these or other views, always leaning either towards the pole of “removing the veils” or towards “cliche and dogma,”80 but that they help to create a conviction about the value of searching for the sense of human life, which –​especially after the profound changes that took place in European thought after the modern breakthrough and in view of the historical experiences of the twentieth century –​it is so easy to suspect of a complete lack of this sense.

2. “I am primarily concerned with the moral side of human existence,”81 or “let’s archaise consciously:”82 On Józef Wittlin The author of Hymny [Hymns] repeatedly declared his interest in the issues of morality and ethics as a literary subject, often describing them as the key issues of his writing. In his “Mały komentarz do Soli ziemi” [A Little Commentary on The Salt of the Earth], he explained: “For many years I have been interested in the issue of individual and social morality, and I have studied all relationships between these two categories.83 He considered these issues to be fundamental to human life, because, as he explained in his essay “Barbarzyństwo” [Barbarism]: “we lack selflessness in relation to human affairs and therefore we have no power to renounce morality.”84 In his reflections on this subject, Wittlin deals with issues very important for modernism as a civilisational formation, asking,

80 P. Lagerkvist, “Hellensk morgondröm“ [Hellenic Morning Dream], in: P. Lagerkvist, Prosa, pp. 127–​131. 81 J. Wittlin, “Ze wspomnień byłego pacyfisty” [From the Memoirs of a Former Pacifist], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus on the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 83. 82 J. Wittlin, “Śmierć Barbusse’a” [The Death of Barbusse], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus on the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 508. 83 J. Wittlin, “Mały komentarz do Soli ziemi” [A Little Commentary on The Salt of the Earth], in: J. Wittlin, Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth], introduction and edition by E. Wiegandt, Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1991, p. 287. The original text comes from 1936. 84 J. Wittlin, “Barbarzyństwo” [Barbarity], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus on the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 49. The original text comes from 1924.

78

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

among other things, about the place, rights and duties of an individual within the structures of a modern state, about the costs (especially ethical and moral) of the processes of technological development and progress, as well as about the conflict between national and individual ethics. In an essay of 1925 “Wojna, pokój i dusza poety” [War, Peace and the Soul of a Poet], he wrote about the insufficiency of ethics remaining at the service of a community –​a state or a nation –​for the correct arrangement of interpersonal relations; while in his “Mały komentarz do Soli ziemi” [A Little Commentary on The Salt of the Earth], he emphasized that it is individual rather than collective morality that is important for the ethical ordering of social life. The writer was clearly aware that the place of moral issues in contemporary literature is not marginal, which was contributed to, among other things, by the First World War and its long-​term social consequences. At the same time, he clearly indicated that the generally accepted way of describing moral issues is far from what he himself would like to achieve in this area. In the “Fragment z przedmowy” [An Excerpt from the Preface] (1926) to the never completed book on Saint Francis of Assisi, Józef Wittlin formulated a thesis about contemporary European literature which “has achieved great skill” in “exposing the iniquities of the modern world.” The writer comments on that skill, pointing to the morally questionable consequences of such an artistic strategy: However, this awareness does not satisfy mankind. With broken bones, with bloody eye sockets, spit over, beaten, kicked, the human conscience comes out of the living-​room-​ like torture room into the fresh air, and does not know what to do with itself now, or which way to turn. Due to the lack of strength, it falls over in the middle of the street and lies in this shameful position until there comes a passerby, merciful and strong enough, who will lift it from its downfall and selflessly put it on its feet.85

According to Wittlin, although it is wrong to remain silent about “the world’s iniquities,” leaving the powerless human being alone to face the knowledge of them can only multiply evil. As an antidote, Wittlin proposes the book about St Francis. According to the writer, this figure responds to the deepest need of modernity, and a reflection on his biography may become the fulfilment of the task faced by culture and civilisation in the late 1920s and early 1930s:

85 J. Wittlin, “Fragment z przedmowy” [An Excerpt from a Preface], in: J. Wittlin, Pisma pośmiertne i inne eseje [Post-​Humous Writings and Other Essays], selection, edition and preface by J. Zieliński, Warszawa: Biblioteka “Więzi,” 1991, pp. 56–​57.

On Józef Wittlin

79

I believe that, in order to get out of the vicious cycle of chaos in which we live today, we need a complete change of morality. We must rub our eyes, straighten our arms, have the courage to reject the ballast of lies in which today’s world is hopelessly entangled. We have to create a fresh force within ourselves that would work for life, not for self-​destruction.86

When starting to work on the book about St Francis, it was as early as in “Przedmowa” [Preface] that Wittlin designed a non-​obvious communicative strategy that was not in line, as one might think, with the character of the main protagonist. On the one hand, the writer was aware that the figure that belonged to the holy Catholic Church had little chance of attracting the attention of a wider audience of modern literature. Anticipating the charges, he wrote: “I can hear well the question thrown in my face by the mocking lips of my generation: “What do we care about a saint from seven centuries ago?”87 On the other hand, Wittlin rejects the chance of easy communication with those readers who would be inclined to seek in a literary work the spiritual consolation and traditional aesthetics that characterise the literature that is close to the religious tradition. At the outset, the writer declares: With unworthy hands, I take the flaming halo off the head of a man whom the Catholic Church has made a saint. I know that I am burning my hands, and yet I must do it, because the brightness of the halo blinds my eyes and prevents me from looking into the face I want to paint.88

The artistic risk taken by Wittlin was therefore considerable. Taking it upon himself clearly testifies to his determination to achieve his goal: to create a book about St Francis which would be able to “put human conscience on its feet.” This task could only be successful if the proposed optics of looking at St Francis silenced the authoritative (and to some extent appropriate) perspective of the Church, and at the same time showed the contemporaries the ethical significance and universalism of the attitude of the Poor Man of Assisi. The writer’s self-​awareness is characteristic: Wittlin wants to direct his readers to ethical issues, in his opinion fundamental for human reality, especially in the modern era, while resigning from any ready-​made ideological solutions.

86 J. Wittlin, “Czy kultura nasza chyli się ku upadkowi?” [Is Our Culture Leaning Towards a Decline?], in: J. Wittlin, Pisma pośmiertne i inne eseje [Post-​Humous Writings and Other Essays], p. 145. 87 J. Wittlin, Święty Franciszek z Asyżu [St Francis of Assisi], in: J. Wittlin, Pisma pośmiertne i inne eseje [Post-​Humous Writings and Other Essays], p. 55. 88 J. Wittlin, Święty Franciszek z Asyżu [St Francis of Assisi], p. 55.

80

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

Even such an approach does not guarantee the silencing of the “mocking voice” of the contemporary generation, accompanying ethics-​oriented writing efforts. Deprived of illusions, he commented ironically: We all know by now that man is not good, and perhaps the word “humanity” in the sense in which humanitarians used it is now only an archaism. Therefore, let’s archaise consciously. … (The existence of collective morality is certainly already anachronistic as well).89

Despite presenting the matter in such a dramatic way (the irony in the quoted fragment is, after all, extremely bitter), Wittlin does not distance himself from the main thought behind the literature dealing with ethics and morality  –​ namely, that this issue is of fundamental importance for humanity (after all, he plans to “archaise” against the times and worldviews common in them). At the same time, he points out, though not directly, the need to find a different path of ethical influence on the recipient through literature than discussing long-​gone problems which in modernity (especially in the historical moment which exacerbated many of the problems of modernity, i.e. the 1920s and 1930s) do not find their right expression. What “archaising” means here is not so much operations related to the form of expression and the worldviews contained in it but rather the recognition of the fundamental truth that the “humanity” of man is not just an empty fantasy –​its basis, however, must be formed not by what is collective and given in advance but by what is developed in an individual effort. Literature, treated as a space of intimate communication with the recipient, can be perfectly suited to stimulating such an effort.

The truth and truths: The problem of language In Wittlin’s essays, read in terms of the theses about modern ethical literature, contained there, the use of the terms “truth” (in singular) and “truths” (in plural) must be noticeable, often referred to in the context of reflections on the moral obligations of art. What appears in the essays is also the concept of illusion, which is opposed to truth understood in an existential way. It is with the term “illusion” that Wittlin defines the entire domain of human culture: We conclude, therefore, that culture is that supreme illusion of man, obtained as a reward for strenuous struggle with nature. These and similar illusions are the actual deities of man today. Today we are ruled by an entire Olympus of illusory truths, an Olympus

89 J. Wittlin, “Śmierć Barbusse’a” [The Death of Barbusse], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 508.

On Józef Wittlin

81

whose inhabitants are not immortal but always live longer than us. When we come into the world, we have a whole set of moral and amoral truths already prepared, which we must dress ourselves in a priori because they are the achievements of previous generations; and to doubt them means to undertake a risky revolution of the universe in which it is impossible to win except by the enthronement of new deities.90

The essayist also points out that contemporary culture, trying to be satisfied with “modern Olympus,” in fact falsifies the image of man and therefore does not fulfil its basic role –​it is unable to make the world habitable, even for a moment. What stands in the way is its essentially “barbaric” character, the infinite distance separating the epoch of “cubist painting, Wallace’s novels and jazz” from the old epochs, which based the inner harmony of a work on the “culture of hearts.”91 In the passage quoted above, Wittlin questions the legitimacy of accepting the “moral and amoral truths” that are imposed on the human being at the moment of birth in a given culture. The irony with which the concept of truth has been treated here may be surprising, especially since it is expressed by the author who wrote about himself in another place (and at a not very distant time) that he was attached to poetry which wants to serve the “unpleasant and unattractive truth” rather than “a beautiful lie.”92 However, there is no contradiction between these statements. In his essays, Wittlin uses two meanings of the concept of truth: one is a term for “illusory truths,” which usually occur in the plural and are “moral and amoral,” proposed by subsequent, more or less dogmatic, worldview systems; the other is “truth” in singular, “unpleasant and unattractive,” and concerning the foundations of the human condition –​the same that is embodied in Gothic art, “naked and gray,” reminding man of his mortality and imperfection. Wittlin strongly favours the latter:  the existential truth about life  –​expressed,

90 J. Wittlin, “Barbarzyństwo” [Barbarity], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 46 (the essay dates from 1924). The motif of “conscious lying,” used in the moralistic criticism of culture for a long time, has quite a special dimension in modernity as it is connected with the criticism of modern society, its institutions and civilisational processes (cf. H.R. Jauss, The Literary Process of Modernism from Rousseau to Adorno, pp. 35–​36) and this is the perspective in which I would like to situate it here. 91 J. Wittlin, “Ze wspomnień byłego pacyfisty” [From the Memoirs of a Former Pacifist], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], pp. 89–​90 (an essay of 1929). 92 J. Wittlin, “Wojna, pokój i dusza poety” [War, Peace, and the Soul of a Poet], in:  J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century] p. 22 (an essay of the years 1923–​24).

82

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

however, in the language of art, a language that tames this life at the same time, thus giving it a certain ethical framework. Therefore, this truth is not related to the cognitive sphere and is not a guarantee of the objectivity or correctness of cognition, but it stands at the beginning of an existential choice based on the alternative of accepting or rejecting the responsibility for participating in existence. Conceived in this way, it has the character of a moral attitude towards a certain factual reality that is revealed by literature. At the same time, according to Wittlin, all ethical writers can, with their artistry, “transfer the reader, tortured by the “truth” of life on our planet, into an equally real, though imaginary world of harmony.”93 From Wittlin’s point of view, signalling in a text the horizon of faith in this “real, though imaginary world of harmony” is a condition for the ethicality of that work. It can be assumed that this is why the collection of poems Hymny [Hymns], which is a book about the dramatic war experiences of a whole generation of Europeans, opens with “Przedśpiew” [A Prelude]: a poem that enchants reality and tries to “sweeten life” –​through literature. The “myth-​making” quality of literature, in Wittlin’s view, cannot of course be equated with any ideological line. Wittlin did not believe in art changing the social world under the slogans of some ideology (including the “moral truth” that he himself recognised, namely Christianity, repeating in his essays Christ’s statement about the “kingdom not from this world” and pointing to the separateness of the rules of the social world and the truth of the religious experience of an individual). The writer hoped that ethical literature could save an individual person, one’s individual “degraded existence.” This kind of writing task is formulated by Wittlin directly in his “Mały komentarz do Soli ziemi” [A Little Commentary on The Salt of the Earth]. There is a metaphorical image of “house building” (noteworthy, a twin to the metaphor from Lagerkvist’s letter), which describes both the essence of a writer’s effort from the point of view of someone who undertakes it, and the essence of literature from the point of view of its recipient: It is about them, grandchildren and great-​grandchildren, that I thought above all when writing my Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] (Hence its legendary style in places.) It is difficult to build houses without the hope that someone will live in these houses. It is difficult for a writer who swims against all currents to renounce the illusion that the

93 J. Wittlin, “Pochwała fikcji poetyckiej” [Praise of Poetic Fiction], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 579.

On Józef Wittlin

83

river will change its course. We have to live a utopia in order to be able to look the evil truth in the eye.94

The salvation that a literary work brings with it is the opportunity that opens for the reader to “live” in the universe of culture, in a symbolic community, to whose co-​creation every literary work is called (although not every work fulfils this postulate) –​the community whose primary task is to help the recipient to overcome even the most justified fear of the surrounding reality and choose oneself as an ethically responsible individual. The faith in such a power of literature is utopian in nature, but at the same time it is the necessary mental equipment of every writer who, under conditions of modernity, is a hostage to his own conviction that his effort to make a literary work a communal space is not in vain. This is the essence of the response to the “evil truth” of modern times (the truth about lifting the metaphysical perspective of viewing human reality, about the collapse of centuries-​old axiological systems, and finally –​the “unattractive truth” about human nature, which modernity has revealed in subsequent scenes), which cannot be denied or invalidated –​but which one can try to balance by creating works that make it possible to exist in its presence. It is possible, let us repeat, not because of the content of these works (which too easily turns into propaganda or becomes outdated), but because of the understanding of a literary work as a place that shows by its very existence that man (the writer and the recipient) “holds firm in the Nothingness of this night”95 by making an existential choice and confronting the alternative of acceptance or non-​acceptance: taking responsibility for participating in an existence full of evil. This is how I understand the word “utopia” as used by Wittlin: it is not any optimistic worldview in the name of which reality is constructed, but the belief that people can take responsibility for the world around them: dwell in “shared houses” built on the foundation of faith in the community of existential experience and such a response to it that is able to “look the evil truth in the eye.”

94 J. Wittlin, “Mały komentarz do Soli ziemi” [A Little Commentary on The Salt of the Earth], pp. 291–​292, It is difficult to resist the association of this metaphor of a literary work as a house, used by Lagerkvist and Wittlin, with a figurative phrase by Martin Heidegger, who in the text “Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry” (written in 1936), referring to Hölderlin’s phrase “poetically, man /​Dwells on this earth” wrote that the essence of poetry is to help man, living in the times of “gods who have fled,” to “inhabit” the earth again. –​M. Heidegger, Elucidations of Hölderlin’s Poetry, trans. K. Hoeller, Amherst, New York: Humanity Books, 2000, p. 60. 95 M. Heidegger, Elucidations of Hölderlin’s Poetry, p. 65.

84

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

The problem of truth in a literary work, however, is also closely linked to the issue of linguistic expressiveness, which is one of the essential moments of modernist literary reflection. This theme is part of the broader context of modernist struggles with “expressing the inexpressible”96 and allows for developing the problem of the modernity of Wittlin’s writing. Tymon Terlecki was perhaps the only one to reflect on this issue, although he did not collect his results in a systematic form. Fully convinced that “for Wittlin, writing is a moral issue,”97 in his notes to a lecture on Wittlin’s “dialectics of weakness,” Terlecki considered the fact that Wittlin’s literary activity in exile (except for essay writing and a few, however important, pieces of poetry) was very scant. When commenting on the writings of the author of Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth], Terlecki invokes an important document of modernist linguistic awareness, namely Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s “The Lord Chandos Letter.” In Wittlin’s works and artistic attitude, his London friend notes numerous elements that testify to the modern awareness of the author of Hymny [Hymns] in terms of understanding the capacities of language: “Distrust of words through the use of not only “so-​called” but also quotation marks, e.g. ”soul” in quotation marks;” “Horror verbi, the so-​ called life truth and the so-​called reality –​avoiding a worn-​out cliché, as if the forced use of an inadequate word, meticulous warning of the reader –​securing oneself against sliding into plain banalities. The horror that there already are words, that they are worn out, their edges are polished, they do not fit the matter closely;” “The sense of the gap between the signifiant and the signifié.”98 Summing

96 Cf. R. Nycz, Literatura jako trop rzeczywistości. Poetyka epifanii w nowoczesnej literaturze polskiej, Kraków: Universitas, 2001, pp. 17–​49. A reading that combined the threads of reflection on émigré writing and a reflection on the characteristic features of modern literature has been referred by me to Wittlin’s essay Blaski i nędze wygnania in the article entitled in my paper “How do you spell your name? Emigrant Literature as/​ and Modern Literature (according to Józef Wittlin),” in: Literature in Exile: Emigrants’ Fiction (20th century experience), ed. I. Ratiani, Tbilisi: Institute of Literature Press, 2013, pp. 237–​247. 97 T. Terlecki, “O Józefie Wittlinie”, in: T. Terlecki, J. Wittlin, Listy 1944–​1976, edited by N. Taylor-​Terlecka, Warszawa: Biblioteka “Więzi,” 2014, p. 405. 98 Quoted in: N. Taylor-​Terlecka, Dwaj panowie z Galicji, in: T. Terlecki, J. Wittlin, Listy 1944–​1976 [Letters 1944–​1976], p. 452. This is an element of a wider problem: the modernist “convention of epistemological doubt” (D.W. Fokkema, Literary History, Modernism, and Postmodernism, p. 23), which takes the form of reflections on language here. This problem is also related to the myth of the Tower of Babel, invoked several times by Wittlin in Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth].

On Józef Wittlin

85

up these observations by Terlecki, it can be stated that the fear of the inaccuracy of expression, which accompanied many modernist writers, was certainly experienced by Wittlin, too. In this context, Terlecki rightly draws attention to the writer’s tendency to put certain words in quotation marks, to reserve his own way of using them, which in Wittlin’s essays and unpublished notes grew to nearly an obsession. In the context of reflections on the modern linguistic awareness of the author of Sól ziemi, it is worth recalling a fact that has rarely been signalled by commentators, namely his in-​depth knowledge of trends in modern art and literature. In Lviv, where he lived from 1908 (the beginning of lower secondary education) to 1922 (with a break in the years 1914–​1918), Wittlin experienced not only the Polish-​Ukrainian war (he mentions those experiences directly in essays and poems99), but also an initiation into modern art. The city was a forum for presenting new trends in fine arts: in 1913, new art was displayed there at the Futurist, Cubist and Expressionist Exhibition, attended by German, Czech and Russian artists who were staying in Germany at that time.100 In April 1918, an exhibition of Polish Expressionists was opened in Lviv, and a survey announced by the daily Gazeta Wieczorna provoked many professors and art critics to pronounce their statements about expressionism. Subsequent exhibitions were organised in 1920 and 1922; they were also accompanied by critics’ statements in the press. The Lviv artists created an artistic group, describing themselves, similarly to the artists active in Krakow and Warsaw, as Formists. There is no doubt that Wittlin knew the Polish Formist milieu and its artistic achievements  –​to an extent that made him competent to speak on the topic: Wittlin spoke at the opening of the Formist exhibition in Krakow in the Palace of Arts in January 1921,101 which displayed, among others, the works of 99 J. Wittlin, “Ze wspomnień byłego pacyfisty” [From the Memoirs of a Former Pacifist], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], pp. 76–​80; Wittlin notes there that it is in Lviv, that he wrote “Hymn nienawiści” [A Hymn of Hatred], “Tęsknota za przyjacielem” [Missing a Friend], “Kołysanka” [A Lullaby], “Trwoga przed śmiercią” [The Fear of Death], “Hymn o łyżce zupy” [A Hymn to a Spoonful of Soup] and “Grzebanie wroga” [Burying an Enemy]. The essay reveals that Wittlin was back in Lviv on 1st November 1918, just in time to witness the outbreak of the Polish-​Ukrainian military conflict. 100 See Z. Baranowicz, Polska awangarda artystyczna 1918–​1939, Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe, 1975, p. 14. 101 See the letter to Kazimiera Żuławska of 21st January 1921 (in: J. Wittlin, Listy [Letters], edited by T. Januszewski, Warszawa: Niezależna Oficyna Wydawnicza NOWA, 1996, p. 21).

86

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

Leon Chwistek, Tytus Czyżewski, Zbigniew and Andrzej Pronaszko, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz. The writer published his poems in the journal Formiści, issued in Krakow; and his poetry evening in Lviv on 12th May 1920 coincided, as intended by the organisers of both events, with the exhibition of Polish Formists (15th April  –​15th May 1920) and the cultural events of May 1920, when “the frontal attack of the avant-​garde was launched on Lwów.”102 Wittlin was therefore not only interested in the then Polish avant-​garde visual art and was widely regarded as its competent commentator (as evidenced by the fact that he was invited to speak at the opening of the exhibition) but (which can be concluded on the same basis) he also held a favourable opinion about it. It is worth mention that his translation of Gilgamesh appeared in 1922, decorated with illustrations by Ludwik Lille, one of the main representatives of Formism in Lviv.103 Wittlin, who was familiar with the trends of avant-​garde art in Western Europe,104 did not, however, take up the creative path of the avant-​garde, although he had every chance to do it. What prevailed was the deep need he articulated in the first paragraph of his essay “Ze wspomnień byłego pacyfisty” [From the Memoirs of a Former Pacifist] (1929): the will to remain “a completely homeless writer” who “is not reported to any of the known literary and social police stations.”105 This distancing also includes expressionism. In his essay “Jan Stur,” written in 1933 on the tenth anniversary of the death of that Lviv critic and his dear friend, Wittlin wrote: The mistake and fatal disease of expressionism, both in our country and in Germany, where it was born, was that by means of abstract, ultra-​individualistic means it wanted to reform life. Expressionist poetry, technically similar to today’s “pure” poetry, abandoning all realism, detached from real life, which it despised –​wanted to dictate laws to this life. No wonder that life mocked it mercilessly. Expressionism considered as one of its chief tasks the deformation of the colloquial sense of words, but it did not give up on social ambitions. It imposed on the world the faith in spirit with a language that the world did not speak and did not understand. Today’s conquerors of the colloquial sense

102 J. Pollakówna, Formiści, Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1972, p. 107. 1 03 Cf. Gilgamesz. Powieść starobabilońska, trans. J. Wittlin, Lwów: Monsalwat, 1922. 104 Cf. J. Wittlin, “Barbarzyństwo” [Barbarity], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], pp. 51–​52; J. Wittlin, Ze wspomnień byłego pacyfisty [From the Memoirs of a Former Pacifist], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], pp. 89–​90. 105 J. Wittlin, “Ze wspomnień byłego pacyfisty” [From the Memoirs of a Former Pacifist], in:  J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 73.

On Józef Wittlin

87

in poetry do not want to reform the world with their poetry, and therefore their chances are greater.106

Wittlin writes about expressionism in a way that does not allow himself to be ascribed to this trend despite the fact that Hymny [Hymns], classified in this way by his contemporaries, were re-​published by him with minor changes in 1927 and 1929, which proves that he did not consider that work too outdated. However, he wanted to clearly cut himself off from the expressionists as “the conquerors of the colloquial sense in poetry,” not trusting the capabilities of art that does not value the basic communicative bond with the recipient, devoting itself to experimentalism or autotelism. At the same time, when reading this passage, one gets an impression that Wittlin sees nothing wrong with the fact that literature shows aspirations to change the world, “to reform life:” therefore, in Wittlin’s opinion, the error of expressionism did not consist in undertaking such a task but in inadequate means that it used to do so. It follows that, according to the writer, the very idea of ​​reforming life through literature as well as its moral ambitions are not unfounded  –​the point is that this requires literary means other than the extreme individualism of expression, characteristic of expressionism. The expressionist need “to reform life” through literary action, undertaken in the name of spiritual values​​ and emphasizing them, does not deserve condemnation. A significant part of Wittlin’s artistic effort was directed at creating works indeed able “to reform the world;” however, not by demonstrating certain ethical principles but as a result of changing the way of thinking of a concrete, individual reader, confronted not with an ideological lecture but with a work that is aesthetically demanding and forcing one to define one’s own position.

Literature facing evil –​and facing good: “It is no skill to criticise the earth from the height of heaven”107 Wittlin was of the opinion that, from the point of view of the ethics of literature, discussing the issues of evil and suffering in art is an ambiguous activity. In order to fulfil an ethical task, literature cannot stop at ascertaining the existence of evil or man’s inclination to do evil: firstly, because it is unethical to leave

106 J. Wittlin, “Jan Stur,” in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 484. 107 J. Wittlin, “Festiwal muzyczno-​teatralny w Wiedniu” [The Music and Theatre Festival in Vienna], Wiadomości Literackie 1924, No. 44, p. 3.

88

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

man in the hopeless conviction of his own, incurably crippled moral condition, and secondly, because it places the recipient of the work in a morally ambiguous situation, making him participate –​even if compassionately –​in the “illusory sufferings” of others. Wittlin takes up this issue in his essay entitled “Święty Augustyn i teatr” [Saint Augustine and the Theatre] (1930) and, quoting the author of Confessions, comments: “Although compassion with someone unhappy is the fulfilment of the obligation to love, but whoever is really merciful would ​ f a work of rather the cause of compassion did not exist.”108 The artistic values o art, insofar as they accompany the themes of suffering and evil, can only worsen the situation, adding to it the context of aesthetic pleasure that is ambiguous in this situation. Similarly to St Augustine, Wittlin regards the way of presenting someone else’s suffering in art as crucial to the “morality of art.” Noting that the Bishop of Hippo criticises the Aristotelian concept of horror, pity and catharsis in the theatre, he follows St Augustine by strongly rejecting the idea of “purifying one’s own soul by looking at the pain of others.” Like St Augustine, Wittlin believes that this is what constitutes the immorality of art, which “is sometimes immoral, the more immoral the deeper it reaches.”109 In his opinion, a moral artist would be inclined to present the subject of evil and suffering only in such a way that, apart from compassion, he would also evoke some kind of real action for the transformation of moral reality, even if it consisted simply in changing one’s own –​i.e. the recipient’s –​ethical attitude towards others. In the same essay, Wittlin points to an example of ethically effective artistic activity and draws attention to the “practical consequences” of dealing with this type of art: It was only Saint Francis who created a new morality of the theatre, one which Saint Augustine might have agreed to. For in the religious mysteries of the Middle Ages it was not human suffering that was portrayed, but the passion of Christ, and the compassion shown to this passion had practical consequences.110

Also in this text, Wittlin focusses his special interest on activities at the boundary of art and life, the relationship between art and life, the ability of art (sometimes –​its moral obligation) to influence life. Ethical literature he searches for always tends towards this boundary: by not resorting to interventionism, he also avoids escapism carried out in the name of aesthetic values.

108 J. Wittlin, “Święty Augustyn i teatr” [St Augustine and the Theatre], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 441. 109 J. Wittlin, “Święty Augustyn i teatr,” p. 441. 110 J. Wittlin, “Święty Augustyn i teatr,” p. 441.

On Józef Wittlin

89

In this light, it is not surprising that realism and naturalism (understood not as the trends of nineteenth-​century literature, but as certain concepts of literary creation) are criticised by Wittlin, who points to those artistic achievements in which breaking the tendency to realistically portray reality resulted in achievements precisely in the domain of the ethicality of a work. He signals the growing importance of this problem in the light of twentieth-​century historical experiences: “It is difficult to express the nightmare of our times in a realistic way. And if it can be expressed in this way, it is impossible to overcome.”111 The latter part of this statement is, of course, fundamental to my reflections. In Wittlin’s view, ethical art and literature are to serve not only the purpose of “doing justice,” but above all finding for human morality a way out of the terrible consequences of the portrayed state of affairs. As understood by the author of Hymny [Hymns], an artist who confines himself to the former task is not an ethical artist but, rather, fails morally as a human being as he does not help the audience to develop an appropriate moral response to the presented events. If –​contrary to the warnings of St Augustine –​the artist decides to depict evil and suffering in his work, he should feel obliged not only to present them adequately and evoke compassion in the recipient, but also to overcome them by showing such horizons of human existence that suffering and evil cannot breach. This more important task can only be coped with by artistic creativity, the wisdom of which lies in going beyond the shallow ambition of portraying the world, and which, by interpreting the world, wants to provide the recipient with ethical support: “For the world always looks as it is presented to us by great poets, and not –​by reporters. The way it was seen by El Greco, Rembrandt, Cézanne, and not –​by photographers.”112 This thread of reflections may be summed up by a quotation from the poetry notebook by Wittlin, who wrote in the last year of the Second World War: Artists are unfaithful thomases [sic!], they touch divine and human wounds with their own hands. The world is one huge bleeding wound, and if art is forbidden to paint it, life on this earth will become unbearable. We will not change the world with art (although such events have sometimes happened) but we can bring relief to ourselves and others … –​by showing its torments, transposed into art.113

111 J. Wittlin, “Apologia Gombrowicza,” in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 595. Wittlin’s texts quoted above are distant by almost thirty years and separated by the Second World War as a division line; the principles have apparently remained unchanged. 112 J. Wittlin, “Uwagi o Panu Tadeuszu” [Notes on Pan Tadeusz], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 591. 113 Manuscript of the Museum of Literature in Warsaw, shelf-​mark. 950 Vol. 1, sheet 62.

90

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

In the writer’s opinion, the condition for the fulfilment of ethical literature is also constituted by a special freedom that the author is ready to grant to his reader. In an essay written in 1924, Wittlin concluded: An unequivocal attitude towards life is a denial of all that is tragic, and the fact that an artist takes into account his own tragic nature is the greatest concession he can give to the audience. … /​No man should be deprived of an opportunity to participate in the drama and to find himself in it. And we deprive him of this by making unequivocal the issues that concern him the most.114

Wittlin considered the dramatic genre to be particularly valuable, most fully suited to the spiritual dimensions of human life –​both because of its tradition,115 and because of “dialogisation,” the form of which corresponds to contemporary spirituality. Emphasis on the need to present the main existential problems in an “unequivocal” way, which is implemented in a model way in a dramatic work (especially in the tradition of tragedy and “tragic comedy,” which Wittlin refers to116) makes drama, in which there is no authority who would be able to impose one’s point of view on the reader, a model of the most perfect way of artistic communication. A drama most radically forces the recipient to make interpretative decisions of an ethical nature, helps in transgressing previous convictions, and forces the recipient to analyse the foundations of his own moral judgment. What is brought together here is a modern understanding of the obligations and possibilities of a literary work, whose author has no certainty about discovering the laws governing human existence,117 and the postulates of ethical literature. True ethical literature, following a work of drama, makes a condition for its recipient: if he wants to continue reading with true comprehension, he must decide which view and which attitude gains his understanding and which does not, and recognise the existence of issues that are essentially undecidable once and for all, and whose constant reconsideration is a necessary ethical task. The recipient must therefore acknowledge the fact that reading (which makes it similar to life) consists in constant interpretation and choice (and therefore evaluation).118

114 J. Wittlin, “Pusty teatr” [An Empty Theatre], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], pp. 434–​436. 115 J. Wittlin, “Pusty teatr,” pp. 434–​436. 116 J. Wittlin, “Pusty teatr,” pp. 434–​436. 117 Cf. D.W. Fokkema, Literary History, Modernism, and Postmodernism, p. 20. 118 W. Iser, “Changing Functions of Literature,” in: W. Iser, Prospecting: From Reader Response to Literary Anthropology, Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1989, p. 211 ff.

On Józef Wittlin

91

When Wittlin writes about “participating in a work of drama and finding oneself in it,” his words can be successfully applied both to the play being watched or read and to non-​literary existential experiences –​in this sense, “a work of drama” becomes for Wittlin (similarly to Kierkegaard119) a model of ethical literature, the characteristic feature of which is to make one realise the need to constantly interpret (and evaluate) what we participate in.

Facing the Holocaust During and after the Second World War, Wittlin was forced to resume his reflections on the ethical obligations of literature and a writer in the context of, among other things, the extermination of Polish Jews and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (the poems “Żydom w Polsce” [To the Jews in Poland] and “Na Sądny Dzień Żydowski 1942 (5703)” [On the Jewish Judgement Day of 1942 (5703)] refer to these events directly). War, the Holocaust and the accompanying moral disaster of humanity120 meant that the current views on the ethicality of literature were subjected to the toughest test. Confronted with a tragedy for which there are no words (“My great grief robs me of words as you languish in ghettos, o my brothers”121 –​“To the Jews in Poland”), in his poems and essays the writer returns to the question about the saving power of literature, about its ability to contribute to the moral strengthening of the reader by preaching faith in what is spiritual. His theses sound very powerful. Paper –​the material of his writing –​is associated with a cloth used to cover human corpses lying in the street, and the writer’s action, instead of being used to create a mourning hymn, turns into barely audible “whispering.” The poet is silent, incapable of uttering and writing down words, his mourning takes the shape not of a literary work but of “sleepless nights,” among which the rustle of unused paper only testifies to the readiness to fulfil in that work

119 Cf. A. Nagy, “The sacral character of stage versus the profanity of pulpit –​the schism between observation and participation in Kierkegaard’s late writings,”in: Polifoniczny świat Kierkegaarda. Księga honorowa dedykowana Profesorowi Karolowi Toeplitzowi, pp. 239–​250. 120 J. Wittlin, “O potrzebie nowej moralności” [On the Need for New Morality], in:  J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], pp. 132–​134. 121 J. Wittlin, “Żydom w Polsce” [To the Jews in Poland], in: J. Wittlin, Poezje [Poems], p. 124. Trans.© Patrick John Corness 2021.

92

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

the duty of a mourner rather than to the creation of a work, impossible in this situation: Death swathes you in paper, in vain a miracle you await. In paper: soiled wings of a new Angel of Death Rustle, through sleepless nights whispering strains of my grief.122

The poem’s speaker makes a paradoxical gesture and talks (like the speaker in Wittlin’s pre-​war poem Litania [A Litany]) about his own silence. The powerlessness he describes, however, has entirely different sources than the conviction that words and things or feelings are inadequate. That powerlessness is of an ethical nature and comes closer to the opinion of those who proclaimed the need to remain silent when “there are no words” in the context of the war and the Holocaust. Wittlin’s poem does not fully share this perspective, either. In the poem, what saves the writer from his feeling of helplessness, from being unable to express the terrible suffering, is the material itself: paper. The same paper from which the wings of the new Angel of Death in the Holocaust are made, “soiled” because tainted with evil, the fruit of which is the mass death of Jews. Understood in this way: as the material of creativity, paper is not used for monuments, it is only able to “swathe” or accompany the dead in their departure from the world. This is how, to a minimal extent, the moral function of literature, which is unable to perform a miracle, but makes it possible to bear witness to someone else’s terrible death and one’s own shocking helplessness, becomes fulfilled. Singing, which is only whispering, is a reduction of the human (poet’s) voice in favour of the testimony given by the paper itself, which replaces the poet’s voice, and at the same time is able to envelop the bodies of the dead like a shroud –​in which the poet is outgrown. Thus, if the writers become silent, struck by pain (“grief ”), the paper itself will speak (or rather: whisper) –​as Wittlin seems to argue, and this is the final point to which leads his reflection on “ethical literature,” ultimately transcending all actions of the human being as a subject, fulfilled in a gesture of silent, merciful leaning over the corpses, stripped of all dignity, as articulated by the material itself. Wittlin’s poetic voice, which referred to the extermination of Jews in poems written during the war, is one of the earliest literary responses to the Holocaust. It seems that by entering the date (30th August 1942) under the poem “To the Jews in Poland”, what the poet wanted to emphasize was the immediateness

122 J. Wittlin, “Żydom w Polsce” [To the Jews in Poland], in: J. Wittlin, Poezje [Poems], p. 125. Trans. © Patrick John Corness 2021.

On Józef Wittlin

93

of his reaction,123 he wanted to testify that the terrible loneliness of the ghetto inhabitants could be overcome in a symbolic dimension. Of course, Wittlin’s poems do not have the character of a testimony in the sense of a direct account of events, nor are they a “substitute testimony,” i.e. a voice speaking on behalf of those who were murdered. Both the physical distance separating the poet from European tragedies and the stylistic structures used in his poems obviously exclude those poems from this category. Because the answer to the question: “does literary credibility, and therefore sui generis authenticity, not arise also through the awareness of the substitute role that a literary text fulfils in relation to the murdered”124 is not necessarily negative, Wittlin’s poems remain credible in their need for a double testimony: to the tragedy of the victims and to the pain caused by helplessness. The topos of moral testimony, as Barbara Breysach writes, was the subject of the earliest Holocaust literature in Poland.125 Wittlin’s testimony is of a special kind: being away from the dying “brothers,” he consciously gives his poem the form of a song directed at the addressee who cannot hear it. This paradox, always present in works belonging to the epitaph genre, points directly to the problem of the ethical obligations of literature as the epitaph is of a special kind in this case. Wittlin intentionally emphasizes the physical distance from those dying in the ghettos (“O brothers, I send you my lament from my distant freedom”), knowing that any attempt to assume the role or to feel on behalf of “brothers” would be a groundless claim. At the same time, it is impossible to relate to his poems the theses of Alvin Rosenfeld in his classic book on Holocaust literature. When writing about it,

123 In spring 1942, the Nazi terror aimed at the inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto increased. In April and May, Gestapo carried out night operations of taking people out of their apartments and murdering them in the streets; in summer 1942 the transports of people to the death camp in Treblinka became intensified. The news of those events was sent by the Polish underground resistance movement by radio to the Polish government in London. Information on the facts from the lives of Jewish inhabitants on the Polish territory was conveyed to the Western Allies by Jan Karski, a courier of the Polish underground resistance movement. In 1942, the information on the events in ghettos and Nazi death camps was announced regularly by the New York newspaper “Out Tribune. Pismo Żydów polskich,” with which Wittlin cooperated occasionally. 124 B. Breysach, “Zastępcze świadectwo jako problem w utworach polskiej i niemieckiej literatury Holocaustu,” in: Literatura polska wobec Zagłady, eds. A. Brodzka-​Wald, D. Krawczyńska, J. Leociak, Warszawa: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, 2000, p. 262. 125 B. Breysach, “Zastępcze świadectwo jako problem w utworach polskiej i niemieckiej literatury Holocaustu,” p. 263.

94

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

Rosenfeld points out that “The common element in all these examples is the employment of the literary text as refutation and repudiation, a denial not only of an attendant literary assertion but also of its implicit premises and explicit affirmations. In the main, Holocaust literature relies for its expression on the received languages and the established literary forms. It does so, however, in the profoundly revisionary way that we have been noticing, turning earlier literary models against themselves and, in the process, overturning the reigning conceptions of man and his world that speak in and through the major writings of our literary traditions.”126 Though deprived of the centuries-​old cultural background that belongs to, for example, literature dealing with the topic of war,127 in Rosenfeld’s view, Holocaust literature draws on formal patterns and does it in an absolutely negative way. Meanwhile, references to traditional patterns in Wittlin’s poems devoted to the Holocaust do not have the character of a denial (although they do avoid the danger of aestheticism) –​on the contrary, they seem to constitute a positive sign, a confirmation of the continuity of the human world (and culture) beyond the horror of the war and the Holocaust, not in the sense of a justification of the whole world of art, too often committing the sin of disappearance of the ethical sense, but a justification of those forms of literature that are capable of reflecting basic human emotions and responding to evil in a different way than just by trying to depict it realistically. To a writer sensitive to moral issues, literature dealing with the topic of war and the Holocaust is an exceptionally difficult area, not only because of its themes. To Wittlin, writing about evil, making literature a witness to cruelty, is like walking a fine line –​it should be noted how reluctant he was towards literature describing humanity as “a huge hog.” As Rosenfeld remarks, “There is something preposterous and even obscene about the notion of gross evil being inspiring”128 –​ and with this thesis Wittlin would probably agree, inclined to believe that the task of literature is always to propose such an interpretation of evil that for the readers will not be a cause for lamentation or easy consolation, but a hint for the future, an increase in the essential ethical knowledge of the world. That is probably why he draws attention to the special value of ghetto poetry: in his view, it wants to speak not so much about evil in its particular manifestation but in its general

126 A.H. Rosenfeld, A Double Dying. Reflections on Holocaust Literature, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980, p. 31. 127 Cf. J.L. Nancy, “Forbidden Representation,” in: The Ground of the Image, trans. J. Fort, New York: Fordham University Press, 2005, pp. 27–​50. 128 A.H. Rosenfeld, A Double Dying. Reflections on Holocaust Literature, p. 77.

On Józef Wittlin

95

character –​and this is what its greatness consists in: “to the poets of the ghetto, the monstrous matter between Jews and Germans is already a matter for all mankind. And it is not even the tragedy of THIS war anymore. It is a gigantic struggle of the elements of light and the elements of darkness, a struggle between good and evil, taking place on the plane of eternity.”129 In his own poems, he did not, of course, decide to outline such a perspective because, for ethical reasons, only the victim may be entitled to adopt it. Nevertheless, the fact that he appreciated it in the surviving works of the Warsaw ghetto authors makes him situate his opinion in the context of his concept of ethical literature, whose chapter on war and extermination is also intended to serve as a moral memento. As he wrote in reference to the entire anthology: “Since humanity allowed what happened to the inhabitants of Polish ghettos, something similar may happen elsewhere in the future, with different dramatis personae.”130

The ethical and the aesthetic: Existential understanding of a work of art Despite the difficulties encountered in ethical communication via literature, the latter, according to Wittlin, has the possibility of effectively addressing this type of problem due to its aesthetic shape distinguishing it from other acts of linguistic communication. Therefore, a question arises about the relationship between the concern for the formal shape of a literary work, the care for its aesthetic shape, and the assumptions of Wittlin’s ethical literature. In 1935, Wittlin published his review “Rainer Maria Rilke i jego Księga godzin” [Rainer Maria Rilke and his The Book of Hours], devoted to Witold Hulewicz’s translations of Rilke’s poetry. He wrote there, among other things: “The measure of the savagery of the so-​called artistic taste of our times is the distance that 129 J. Wittlin, “Pokłon poetom warszawskiego Ghetta” [A Bow to the Poets of the Warsaw Ghetto], in: Poezje Ghetta z podziemia żydowskiego w Polsce [The Ghetto Poetry of the Jewish Underground in Poland], New York: Association of Friends of Our Tribune, 1945, p. 9. The anthology collected poems written by the inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto, and smuggled outside it by couriers, as well as several poems by Polish poets commemorating the tragedy of the inhabitants of the Jewish quarter in Warsaw under occupation. It was first published in the underground press in Warsaw in 1944 under the title Z otchłani [From the Abyss]. A year later, based on the microfilm, it was republished in New York under the title Poezje Ghetta z podziemia żydowskiego w Polsce [The Ghetto Poetry of the Jewish Underground in Poland]. 130 J. Wittlin, “Pokłon poetom warszawskiego Ghetta” [A Bow to the Poets of the Warsaw Ghetto], p. 9.

96

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

separates these times from the poetry of R. M. Rilke. Ten years have not elapsed since the premature death of the great poet, and his voice already seems to us to be a stray echo from a very distant century of silence, concentration, contemplation and ecstasy.” And he continues: “Is there really nothing else that still touches us in poetry, only its solidified lava, only the beauty of the verbal crust itself?”131 These formulations indicate that the formal “beauty” of literature may stir the readers, although at the same time any attempts to read (and evaluate) a literary work that are based solely on aesthetics were considered insufficient by Wittlin. The “solidified lava” of words is contrasted by the writer (in a way, modelled on the Romantics) with “the voice of the soul which, with the flutter of elaborate stanzas, tries to reach our cold sensitivity.”132 The conviction that the formal shaping of a literary work reveals its creator’s soul may suggest that Wittlin points to the expression of the subject’s inner, spiritual life as the essential message and task of art, which he values ​​very highly. However, it is not so. That “soul” exists in a literary work in so far as it “tries to reach” someone else’s sensitivity as a reader, appealing to it and animating it. The task and goal of the writer is to reliably convey a certain worldview, a description of man and his existential struggles, going far beyond individual or even generational experience, and to stimulate the reader to reflect on them. Obviously, it is easier to create this kind of art and find an audience for it in times of “peace and contemplation;” other times, however, also need such art, although its means of expression will have to be changed. The “verbal crust” does not exist in order to provide aesthetic excitement or to pave the way for “expressing the soul” through individual expression. It serves to convey a deeper meaning that applies to every person, regardless of the times in which they live. For this reason, according to Wittlin, it is “by the form” that readers may judge the honesty or insincerity of a given piece of writing: “The discrepancy between form and content –​seems to be the only feature that entitles us to claim that the author is dishonest. Due to this discrepancy –​the author’s dishonesty towards himself often turns into dishonesty towards us. We only judge by the so-​called

131 J. Wittlin, “Rainer Maria Rilke i jego Księga godzin” [Rainer Maria Rilke and his The Book of Hours], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 511. 132 J. Wittlin, Rainer Maria Rilke i jego “Księga godzin” [Rainer Maria Rilke and his The Book of Hours], p. 511.

On Józef Wittlin

97

form. All we know are the forms of artistic expression.”133 Therefore, according to Wittlin, attention to form does not mean excessive aestheticism; on the contrary –​it is a condition for the actual “honesty” of acts of communication, the writer’s honesty both towards himself and towards the recipient (“in the name of honesty,” as he wrote, one can even “deform words”134). Honesty, manifesting itself in the close contiguity of “content and form,” is an important category for Wittlin’s evaluation of literature. It is difficult to precisely define this place of (non-​)convergence of “content and form” and it seems that also for Wittlin himself this remained a special je ne sais quoi. However, how critical he was towards those works in which he found such a discrepancy (despite undeniable formal efficiency) proves that he treated the category of specifically understood honesty very seriously. In general terms, he postulated the artist’s faith in the beliefs proclaimed in his (the artist’s) work and the worldview presented there; as only such art takes ethical responsibility for the recipient, enabling discussion on existential and ethical topics. The proximity of the artist’s life and his work, a kind of existential truth that the work should convey, is a condition also for the recipient to experience the truthfulness not only of the work as an aesthetic whole, but also as a credible proposition of a certain way of understanding and experiencing the world. Wittlin reached the final conclusions about the relationship between art and life, the necessary lack of discrepancy between them, in his essay “Pisma pośmiertne” [Posthumous Writings] of 1962: “every honest literary work is precisely the author’s posthumous mask, made during his lifetime.”135 That linking of the author with his work is a moral responsibility, readiness to “answer with his own face” for the artistic whole he has created, but also giving his signature to the content and beliefs carried by the work. Thus, in Wittlin’s view, the writer’s formal efficiency deserves recognition as it is thanks to compositional measures that effectiveness can be achieved: not so much didactic effectiveness but credibility, i.e. the basic condition for reaching

133 J. Wittlin, “O szczerości w poezji” [On Sincerity in Poetry], Wiadomości Literackie 1924 No. 24, p. 4 (a review of the book by Kornel Makuszyński, entitled Pieśń o ojczyźnie [A Song about the Homeland]). 134 J. Wittlin, “O szczerości w poezji” [On Sincerity in Poetry], p. 4. 135 Wittlin, Pisma pośmiertne [Posthumous Writings], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 711. Józef Olejniczak commented extensively on the subject of Wittlin’s understanding of literary responsibility, the truth of literature and life –​see J. Olejniczak, “Odpowiedzialność pisarza”, in: J. Olejniczak, Emigracje. Szkice-​studia-​sylwetki, Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 1999, pp. 161–​177.

98

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

the recipient via a work considered to be an existential act of communication. Thanks to it, the recipient may become sensitised: because it is the reading itself, rather than the assimilation of specific, moral or ideological meanings carried by it, that is understood here as participation and a gesture of a moral nature, a meeting with another human being mediated by the literary work. From this standpoint, the distance to moralistic literature is as great as to pure art; even if Wittlin sometimes looked at the latter with admiration, he understood his own tasks quite differently. Referring to this issue, he noted:  “Mallarmé is my old and unhappy love. Unhappy, because the distance to him is huge, especially for someone who, like me, has practised “dirty” poetry on the side.”136 According to Wittlin, a serious difficulty lies in the need to resolve this dilemma in some way: on the one hand, the increased temptation of escapism (both on the part of the writer and the reader), while on the other hand, the moral ease of interventionist solutions. Modern ethical literature, meanwhile, concerns life in its most important, existential dimensions; therefore, one cannot escape from reality in its name –​and at the same time it does not try to provide ready-​made ideological solutions, focussing on moving the recipient’s ethical sensitivity and seeing in this its way of influencing reality. In Wittlin’s view, a work of art and a literary work have this unique chance to influence the recipient in a non-​specific way, not by suggesting one solution or another, but simply by awakening ethical sensitivity by engaging the reader, also through “form,” in the act of reading, to reveal what is personal. Much of his own work follows this path. In this sense, ethical literature that Wittlin advocates inevitably does have an interventionist element, but it cannot be reduced to one ideology or another. Such a hermeneutic concept links literature with life in a way that goes far beyond not only the problems of mimesis or the author’s “self-​expression” but also beyond the issues of didactic or interventionist literature. In this perspective, not only writing but also reading literature turns out to be an ethical act. Wittlin, exceptionally sensitive to the “moral side of human existence,” knew it perfectly well, and in a letter to Gombrowicz he recalled a very significant situation related to it: “As early as 1919, as a secondary school teacher in Lviv, I did not want to read The Trilogy with my students, considering these novels as immoral

136 J. Wittlin, letter to Tymon Terlecki of 22nd November 1973, in: T. Terlecki, J. Wittlin, Listy 1944–​1976 [Letters 1944–​1976], p. 306. It is worth juxtaposing this attitude of distance towards “pure poetry,” adopted by Wittlin, with the remarks of Wolfgang Iser, who reconstructs the distancing from autonomous art, characteristic of modernism (W. Iser, Changing Functions of Literature, p. 206 ff.).

Summary

99

for young people. Instead of compulsory classroom lectures, I gave a lecture for teachers and older students, justifying my negative position.”137 In the light of the presented reconstruction of Wittlin’s concept of modern ethical literature, it will probably not be an exaggeration to say that the decision made by Józef Wittlin –​ a secondary school teacher at that time –​is a prefiguration of the gesture of Paul Moses, to whom Wayne C. Booth dedicated a book on ethical criticism,138 and clearly testifies to the radicalism of Wittlin’s view of the issues of literary ethics.

3. Summary Marshall Berman maintains that modern attempts to radically change the world for the better are always risky and, despite their moral grounds, morally suspect as restricting the freedom of individuals and easily succumbing to the

137 J. Wittlin, a letter to Witold Gombrowicz of 13th July 1953, in: Gombrowicz. Walka o sławę. Cz. 1. Korespondencja Witolda Gombrowicza z Józefem Wittlinem, Jarosławem Iwaszkiewiczem, Arturem Sandauerem, edited by J. Jarzębski, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1996, p. 64. The story of Trylogia [The Trilogy] by Henryk Sienkiewicz, published in 1884–​1888, deals with extremely dramatic war events in the history of Poland from the 1640s to the 1670s. The plot of Ogniem i mieczem [With Fire and Sword] takes place during the Khmelnytsky Uprising in today’s Ukraine, Potop [The Deluge] –​during the war with the Swedes, and Pan Wołodyjowski [Fire in the Steppe] –​at the beginning of the war with Turkey. The novel was written during the Partitions of Poland and was intended by the author to remind Poles of the difficult and glorious events in the past of Poland, thus awakening the patriotism of Polish society, which was subject to gradual denationalisation. 138 Paul Moses, “the one black member of the staff …, an assistant professor of art” at the University of Chicago in the early 1960s, publicly protested against the customary practice of discussing Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn in class, justifying his distance to the novel on ethical grounds and sharing his doubts whether it was moral to teach about a book stepped in racist stereotypes (W.C. Booth, The Company We Keep. An Ethics of Fiction, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988, p. 3). The dramatic tone of the teacher’s protest against a book that reproduces racist thinking at a time when racist laws were still in force in some US states finds a parallel in Wittlin’s radicalism, who presents his view of The Trilogy –​the book treating, among others, on the uprising of the Zaporozhian Cossacks against the Polish-​Lithuanian Commonwealth –​and voices his opinion right after the end of the First World War and the bloody Polish-​Ukrainian fights for Lviv that took place immediately after it. The writer was driven by doubts whether a book present on the school reading list, in which an armed conflict is described as an armed effort rather than a human tragedy, is, in the current historical and ethnic context, a moral book.

100

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

temptations of ideologization.139 This regularity also applies to literary works created in the conditions of modernity and trying to influence reality in order to change it positively, if only in terms of making the recipient a morally better person. The writers discussed in this book are well aware of this dependency. This is the source, both in Lagerkvist and Wittlin, of a strong emphasis on the recipient’s ethical independence, hyper-​sensitivity to elements of any ideologization of literature, including the trend that openly calls itself moral. Hence, in their reflections, the presence of the extensively analysed problem of truth and falsehood, as well as the art-​life relationship. The relationship between art and life is understood by both writers in an existential way, and they both see the credibility of literature obtained in this way as a necessary condition for its ethical impact. Both believe that the ethical role of modern literature should primarily consist in helping man to regain the awareness of the significance of the spiritual sphere of human life and the moral importance of his choices, lost by a large part of post-​Enlightenment thought, rather than in proclaiming ethical systems or social interventionism. The essential ethical function of literature is understood by Lagerkvist and Wittlin in line with what Wolfgang Iser described as a continuation through modern literature of the process started by myth.140 Reflecting on the place of literature in modernity, Iser traces the fate of autonomous art and comes to conclusions about a certain contradiction inherent in this concept (“For the flight from oppressive reality into the worlds of fantasy serves very real needs and shows very real practical purposes.”141), noting at the same time that the illusions of humanistic culture have made it easy prey for various manipulations. Similarly discredited was the literature with a practical attitude as it did not fulfil its basic task, i.e. “failed to bring the human being to full fruition.”142 Iser points out, therefore, that the task of literature is to interpret reality, to establish something that corresponds to the needs of a given situation but is not necessarily normatively important in a universal manner. The researcher points out that “Since

139 M. Berman, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air:  The Experience of Modernity, New York: Penguin Books, 1988; see esp. pp. 37–​71. 140 Iser writes: “literature does not head toward a future Utopia so much as to continue the process begun by myth. … It gives form to what the very success of the organizing systems leaves behind and makes it conceivable as the unconscious level of the world we live in.” W. Iser, “Changing Functions of Literature,” p. 212. 141 W. Iser, “Changing Functions of Literature,” p. 203. 142 W. Iser, “Changing Functions of Literature,” p. 208.

Summary

101

literature is itself a form of interpretation, it must be linked to the real world.”143 However, it does not have the character of a utopia: its function is to soothe fear with the help of mythical images, whereby “[i]t spotlights the unavailable, which it draws out into the open through its stories and images.”144 Lagerkvist and Wittlin, in fact, follow quite a similar path of thinking, commenting on both the traps of “pure art” and the easy ideologization of didactic projects implemented by literature. Sensitive to the issues of literary form and language (the importance of which they understand to a large extent in the spirit of modernism), they are also keenly interested in how literature is related to life, how it responds to human reality at the same time transcending it by commenting on it and proposing its explanation. Iser’s concept of literature as an interpretation describes well their own ideas for linking literature with the world, not on the basis of interventionism but as part of an eternally unfinished project of explaining and understanding (hermeneutics) of what is human: particular and immersed in a specific historical time as well as universal. Both writers clearly express their conviction that literature not only explains human efforts to adapt to the world but is itself a means of adaptation; it is “a form of semblance that –​for all our awareness of its fictionality –​is nevertheless indispensable.”145 Obviously, this belief is related to a certain anthropological concept. For both writers, man is “something greater than he can think,” and literature helps to highlight this contradiction inherent in man. It penetrates and exposes the systems ordering the world so as to discover the reality which eludes such ordering. Literature has the ability to capture, in an act of interpretation, certain aspects of the human world (i.e. created by people and inhabited by them) that escape expression in everyday communication. This double reference of modern literature to myth, on the one hand consisting in the continuation of processes initiated by myth (and calming fear with the help of mythical images), and on the other hand, going beyond myth as “[i]t spotlights the unavailable, which it draws out into the open through its stories and images,”146 is visible in the concept of modern ethical literature developed by both writers, whose relationship with the world is not reduced to either escapism or interventionism, but consists in interpreting the world in such a way as to (following myth) remove fear and at the same time, point to

1 43 W. Iser, “Changing Functions of Literature,” p. 210. 144 W. Iser, “Changing Functions of Literature,” p. 212. 145 W. Iser, “Changing Functions of Literature,” p. 213. 146 W. Iser, “Changing Functions of Literature,” p. 212.

102

Ethical tasks of literature according to Lagerkvist and Wittlin

the eternal temporality of all interpretative solutions, including those that create the appearance of universality. A characteristic gesture of creative practice that, for both writers, consists in reaching for those literary genres which assume the possibility of explaining the world through literature (for Lagerkvist this will be a myth, a fairy tale, as well as references to the form of a psalm, for Wittlin –​an epic,147 a hymn, a psalm) will invariably indicate both the hope for interpretation of reality, associated with literature, and the belief that the modern world can yield to such comprehensive interpretations only at the cost of ideological simplification. This idea for the cultivation of literature turned out to be extremely durable, and, as understood by the two authors, apparently corresponded to the needs of the twentieth-​century world –​seen both from the perspective of Sweden, which escaped direct participation in most European catastrophes of the twentieth century, and from the perspective of a refugee from war-​torn Europe, finding a safe haven only on a different continent. Both Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist were well acquainted with modern artistic and literary currents, including expressionism  –​they also decisively detached themselves from belonging to the latter, viewing it most clearly, despite all the differences between “-​isms,” as part of a wide-​ranging project of modernity that, in their eyes, served an ideology rather than the human being. This detachment had a price that both writers were well aware of. Lagerkvist willingly risked the possibility of the odium of backwardness, which he had predicted, while Wittlin agreed to the status of “separateness” and incompatibility to contemporary (i,e. modern) literary standards. However, in their case this was not a negative choice, caused by their ignorance or misunderstanding of contemporary artistic trends. On the contrary, they built their creative path consciously in opposition to something they considered worthy of attention at least to some extent. Both writers follow the path of thought that is fundamental to modernism, namely the reflection on “the Janus character of culture.”148 Hans Robert Jauss points to the pioneering role of Rousseau in approaching this issue and the solution of the author of Julie, or the New Heloise, which consisted in turning against institutions and the “system.” As is well known, Rousseau himself did

147 On the relationship between epic and myth, see: G. Lukács, The Theory of the Novel. A Historico-​philosophical Essay on the Forms of Great Epic Literature, trans. A. Bostock, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1971 (nb. this essay, first published in 1920, had been written at a time when Wittlin and Lagerkvist were laying the foundations for their concepts of modern ethical literature). 148 H.R. Jauss, “The Literary Process of Modernism from Rousseau to Adorno,” p. 34.

Summary

103

not propose a clear way out of this situation and the various reform paths he proposed are contradictory; and the solution became part of Kant’s thought, postulating man’s moralisation as a necessary consequence of his education and civi-​ lisation.149 I believe that it is in these terms that one should view the reflections of Wittlin and Lagerkvist, who turn to ethical literature in the hope of finding help in it in the face of the collapse of the optimistic variant of the Enlightenment project. As artists, they were obviously forced to look for literary measures appropriate for the writer’s task formulated in this way. For this reason, both writers appreciated works that gave testimony to their authors’ compositional and formal skills. However, if those works were not accompanied by reflection on the spiritual condition of man and an attempt to enrich the reader’s inner life in this way, then technical efficiency, even assessed as above average, did not arouse their admiration or trust. It is worth noting that this tendency was already crystallised in the mid-​1920s, i.e. at a time that was, otherwise rightly, described as choosing shallow aesthetics and the lack of commitment for therapeutic purposes.150 As presented by Wittlin and Lagerkvist, the approach to a literary work which could not fit into any of the “-​isms” fashionable in their youth consists in subordinating formal choices to the authors’ ethical interest without abandoning ambitious searches in this field. However, the aesthetic choices are subordinated to an ethical (rather than ideological, political, religious) influence.

1 49 H.R. Jauss, “The Literary Process of Modernism from Rousseau to Adorno,” p. 41. 150 Cf. A. MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, p. 41.

Chapter Three The capabilities of poetry: On Ångest [Anxiety] and Hymny [Hymns] In this chapter I undertake a comparative analysis of two poetry volumes: Ångest [Anxiety] (1916) by Pär Lagerkvist and Hymny [Hymns] (1920) by Józef Wittlin. The comparative perspective I have adopted means that I do not aspire to a complete and exhaustive description of each of these works; both have been reflected upon by literary scholars on many occasions and many accurate observations have already been made about them.1 My reading focuses on just a few selected threads, which, however, constitute a distinct tertium comparationis –​the threads that have so far been less commented on, but which, as I will try to show, play a significant role in the two volumes. The first one is the question of anxiety, a phenomenon that appears in the very title of Lagerkvist’s book, while in Wittlin’s volume is thematised in many poems –​and which, at the same time, is a key concept in Søren Kierkegaard’s philosophical thought. The second issue of interest to me with regard to both volumes is the problem of their polyphonic quality, mutually exclusive points of view, palynody and paradoxes, internal polemics, worldview tension that occurs between the poems within each volume, and sometimes also between the stanzas or lines of a single poem. Therefore, I read these two volumes of poetry as a lyrical overture to the modern ethical literature created by both writers. The books in question are in fact indisputably among the major works of the two writers and, at the same time, in their synthetic verse form, they announce many topics and formal solutions which will find their full development later.

1. On Lagerkvist Anxiety and fear Lagerkvist’s volume is centred around just a few words or concepts.2 However, what can be derived from them is an entire structure of thought, built to diagnose

1 See the bibliography at the end of this book. 2 As Arthur Flodstrom writes, “The repetition of similar terms and images, at times enforcing, at times contrasting with the original term or image, is a technique characteristic of ‘Ångest.’” –​A. Flodstrom, “Ångest and Cubism.” Scandinavica 1971, p. 9. See

106

The capabilities of poetry

man’s place in the world and to understand the meaning of human existence. One of the most important words recurring throughout the volume is the title word ångest [anxiety.] The book opens with a poem entitled in this way: Anxiety, anxiety is my heritage, a wound of my larynx, a cry of my heart into the world. Now the foamy sky stiffens in the rough hand of the night, now forests and stiffened tops rise so sternly to the shrunken vault of heavens. How harsh everything is, how stiffened and black and silenced! I wander around in this dark space, I feel the sharp edges of rock on my fingers, I tear to blood my hands, raised towards the frozen lumps of clouds. Ah, I tear my nails off my fingers, I tear my hands, wounded, aching, against the mountains and a darkened forest, against the black iron of heaven and against the cold earth! Anxiety, anxiety is my heritage, a wound of my larynx, a scream of my heart into the world.3

We learn nothing from the text about the source of the anxiety. Like Kierkegaard’s Angest, it has no clearly defined material cause,4 and its formation is

also S. Malmström, Stil och vers and Svensk 1900-​talspoesi, Stockholm: PAN/​Norstedt, 1971, p. 113; S. Linnér, Pär Lagerkvists livstro, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1961, p. 51. 3 P. Lagerkvist, “Ångest” in: P. Lagerkvist, Ångest, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1916, pp. 5–​6. All of Lagerkvist’s poems and their fragments quoted in this book, apart from quotations from Aftonland [Evening Land] in Chapter 5, are in my translation into English –​  K.S.H. 4 Cf. S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety. A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin, ed. and trans. with Introduction and Notes by R. Thomte in collaboration with A. B. Anderson, Princeton: Princeton

On Lagerkvist

107

contributed to by the feeling of alienation experienced in the midst of the cold, dark world and loneliness. In addition, defined as something inherited (and therefore –​incriminating regardless of the independent decision of the poem’s speaker), it seems to be a necessary element of internal human reality. The speaker calls anxiety the heritage (Swedish arvedel) of man, an inalienable part of humanity. Etymological similarities prompt an association with original sin (Swedish arvsynd –​literally ‘inherited sin’) in this case and bring to mind Kierkegaard’s reflections on anxiety as a state that is born in innocence but transcends it in the direction of sin (anxiety, in Kierkegaard’s words, is “a presupposition of hereditary sin”5). The cause of anxiety also turns out to lie in human mortality, the terrifying strangeness of the death of the human body, uniting the human being with animals: My anxiety is a scrubby forest in which bloody birds scream. Perhaps one may find more proud wastelands, but I don’t care! I stare out from under the dry trees, I listen to hoarse screams. Soon I will lie silent under the empty trees and rot among the birds.6

Writing about anxiety, Kierkegaard noted: “If a human being were a beast or an angel, he could not be in anxiety. Because he is a synthesis, he can be in anxiety; and the more profoundly he is in anxiety, the greater is the man.”7 The poem quoted above indicates this ambivalent, ambiguous relationship between man and animals, united by the common necessity of dying and being subject to the laws of nature, at the same time differing precisely in the ability to feel anxiety: as Kierkegaard noted, “For this reason, anxiety is not found in the beast, precisely because by nature the beast is not qualified as spirit.”8 Throughout the volume, University Press, 1980, p. 44; see also W. Lowrie, Kierkegaard, Vol. II, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962 (passim). 5 S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety. A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin, p. 46. In Danish, the original sin is ‘Arvesynd.’ 6 P. Lagerkvist, “Min ångest är en risig skog…”, in: P. Lagerkvist, Ångest, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1916, p. 10. 7 S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety. A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin, p. 155. 8 S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety. A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin, p. 42. Cf. also: “The possibility of this

108

The capabilities of poetry

this thread returns many times, mainly due to the allusion to Darwinism, which arouses in the subject speaking in the text the impulse of rebellion and offended pride.9 The remedy for the fear of one’s own, animal-​primitive condition, which may appear as a result of internalising the theory of man’s origin in lower creatures, is  –​paradoxically  –​also anxiety. This time, however, it is not the fear which has its source in reality, but precisely Kierkegaard’s Angest, pointless, felt only because man (unlike animals) relates mentally and emotionally to his own existence. The reason why man feels the so-​understood anxiety is life itself, the very shape of human existence in the world.10 Therefore, turning to life, the speaker of the poem “Aldrig glömmer jag dig, o liv…” says: “Full of anxiety I will walk among people, always with your hand around my larynx.”11 The view of life presented here can be explained by the proximity of death  –​latent, but constantly present in life. This kind of approach finds a simply model implementation, associated with conceptual approaches in early poetry, in the poem “Pinad av syner…”, which is crowned with the image of death lurking in all still living limbs:  a skeleton that every living person carries inside and thanks to which the person is alive and able to move, and which is an obvious thanatic symbol. In a sense, thanatophobia is the fear of nothingness, of annihilation. In Ångest, as in Lagerkvist’s dramas created shortly afterwords:  Sista mänskan (The Last Man, 1917), Den svåra stunden (A Difficult Hour, 1918), Himlens hemlighet (The Secret of Heaven, 1919), Den osynlige (The Invisible One, 1923), death means “emptiness” and “nothingness” (“intet” och “intigheten”), and the fear of death

sickness [despair –​K.S.H.] is man’s superiority over the animal, and this superiority distinguishes him in quite another way than does his erect walk, for it indicates infinite erectness or sublimity, that he is spirit. The possibility of this sickness is man’s superiority over the animal; to be aware of this sickness is the Christian’s superiority over the natural man; to be cured of this sickness is the Christian’s blessedness.” (S. Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death. A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening, ed. and trans. with Introduction and Notes by H. V. Hong and E. H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980, p. 15). 9 Cf. esp.: P. Lagerkvist, “Den irriterar mig…”, in: P. Lagerkvist, Ångest, pp. 37–​38. Sven Linnér drew attention to the presence of Darwinian themes in Lagerkvist’s early works –​ see S. Linnér, “Pär Lagerkvists bardnomsmiljö,” in: Synpunkter på Pär Lagerkvist, p. 22. 1 0 Cf. T. Stenström, Existentialismen i Sverige. Mottagande och inflytande 1900–​1950, Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 1984, p. 31. 11 P. Lagerkvist “Aldrig glömmer jag dig, o liv…”, in: P. Lagerkvist, Ångest, p. 16.

On Lagerkvist

109

is actually a subjectless anxiety, exactly as Kierkegaard’s conception assumes.12 At the same time, in many poems it is truly a completely pointless anxiety, and the subject resembles the figure of “the pupil of possibility,” described by Kierkegaard: the pupil who, if placed “in the middle of the Jutland heath where the greatest event is a grouse flying up noisily”, will experience everything “more perfectly, more accurately, more thoroughly” even if in fact “no event takes place.”13 In this perspective, it is worth emphasizing that anxiety, metaphorized by dark, drastic images, is not regarded solely as a burden in Ångest. On the contrary: in a few lines the motif of an almost prayerful plea for anxiety returns. This theme is developed especially in two poems adjacent to each other in the volume: “Hur ville jag ej äta…” and “Nu kastar jag orden…”. In the former, the addressee is life, in the latter: God, and the requests addressed to them are in fact quite similar: I want to get down on my knees and when the stars appear above me, beg only for dust and anxiety. 14 Load my thoughts with anxiety, cover my womb with soot for the short time that has remained. 15

This conscious choice of anxiety, the feeling that patronises the entire volume, is striking, considering that previously the imagery indicated the destructive (though at the same time –​most deeply human) power of this feeling. For the interpretation of these poems, especially the latter one, one more context seems to be crucial: the function attributed to anxiety by Kierkegaard in reference to religious life. According to the author of Either/​Or, anxiety (fear) is an essential feeling, because it is the one that makes it possible to reach the highest (from the Danish philosopher’s point of view: religious) stage of human development and “the individual through anxiety is educated unto faith.”16 Understood as part of necessity, it leads to despair; however, when chosen as an option, it leads to interiorised religiosity, to infinity.17

12 Cf. U.-​B. Lagerroth, Regi i möte med drama och samhälle: Per Lindberg tolkar Pär Lagerkvist, Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren, 1978, p. 117 ff. 13 S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, p. 159. 14 P. Lagerkvist, “Hur ville jag ej äta…”, in: P. Lagerkvist, Ångest, p. 62. 15 P. Lagerkvist, “Nu kastar jag orden…”, in: P. Lagerkvist, Ångest, p. 63. 16 S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, p. 159. 17 S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, pp. 159–​162; cf. also W. Lowrie, Kierkegaard, pp. 657, 660.

110

The capabilities of poetry

Anxiety, which in the works of expressionists results in extreme states (from madness to desperate ecstasy),18 has, therefore, a different function for the Swedish poet. As in Kierkegaard’s existentialism, it is the driving force of man in his search for the meaning of life, in his efforts to fulfil himself in life as an existing individual. Anxiety does not cause despair in the subject of the poems; on the contrary: it becomes the beginning, the moment of choosing oneself and –​ perhaps –​even a “leap” of faith. Therefore, anxiety is a path towards religious questions.

Doubt in words The imagery present the title poem of the Lagerkvist’s volume is similar to the metaphors known from Charles Baudelaire’s “Spleen II”.19 It is worth noting that the Swedish writer went beyond the impulse from the French poet twice (if it actually worked here). First, Lagerkvist decided to follow his own path, seeking poetics clearly different from Baudelaire’s (which he did effectively20). Secondly, which from the point of view adopted in this book is more important, in Ångest, which closes the volume, Lagerkvist wrote words that build a distance from even the most outstanding artistic affinities because they situate the entire sphere of creativity (including the work of great predecessors and his own) in reducing parentheses. The last poem of the volume, “Under stjärnorna” [Under the stars] sounds extremely radical, and therefore it is appropriate to view the entire book in its light Here I want to stop, silent. Here I want to bow my forehead. A sacred space. No human words are true. 21

These statements sound extremely powerful as the conclusion of a volume of poems in which, after all, attempts were made to answer questions about the

18 Cf. T. Anz, “Entfremdung und Angst. Expressionistische Psychopatographie und ihre sozialwissentschaftliche Interpretierbarkeit,” in: Expressionismus –​Sozialer Wandel und künstlerische Erfahrung, eds. H. Meixner and S. Vietta, München: W. Fink, 1982, pp. 15–​29. 19 K. Espmark, Själen i bild. En huvdlinje i modern svensk poesi, Stockholm: Norstedt, 1977, pp. 65–​66. 20 K. Espmark, Själen i bild, pp. 64–​70. 21 P. Lagerkvist, “Under stjärnorna”, in: P. Lagerkvist, Ångest, p. 76.

On Lagerkvist

111

meaning of existence in none other way than through words. By alluding to the Kantian conviction about moral values (born “under the stars”), which man is able to find in himself, the poem makes a statement about the falsity of human words that try to convey such values. At the same time, the end makes one ask the question whether there are words other than human (“männskoord”) which would accurately and without falsification express the experience shared by man “under the stars” as well as the question about the source of an impression unprecedented in the whole volume: the calming of the speaker’s thoughts and the sanctity of the space that surrounds man. The reader has received no answer to either of these questions although he is directed, by the mere necessity of asking them, to the domain of metaphysics. The poetry volume must end here as the individual language is not sufficient to express the truth concerning the subject matter which Lagerkvist’s speaker was led to by his anxiety:  the religious experience. From the book edition of the Ångest collection, the author removed many of the poems that had appeared in the handwritten variants of the volume. As noted by Urpu-​Liisa Karahka, it is particularly the texts with a high emotional charge, personal, ecstatic outbursts of anxiety, disgust, longing and terror that fell victim to the cuts. However, this decision may not have been dictated by embarrassment with the personal tone of some poems (as suggested by the Stockholm researcher22). It may also be assumed that the decisive factor here was the inadequacy of the direct expression of feelings, states and the most profoundly subjective content, and thus the negligible value of these texts for the project of “ethical literature,” which must try paths other than direct communication. In Ångest, the belief in the effectiveness of the latter is systematically undermined by the constant confrontation of opposing positions, voiced from one and the same level of the poem’s speaker. What is characteristic of the book is the way of stimulating the reader to individually face the issues raised, in the spirit of Kierkegaard’s ethics of communication. An analysis of an example will make it possible to trace the method of artistic implementation of the postulates of ethical literature, which Lagerkvist reflected upon in the period immediately preceding the publication of the volume in question. In the text “Egentligen är det underligt…”, we read: Actually, it is amazing that the earth could not stay in slow stillness, but rose, clothed itself with grass, trees, herbs, animals, people, vehicles and buildings. From countless hooves, blood spurts up to limbs trying to warm up, countless circles spin in bright

22 P. Lagerkvist, “Under stjärnorna”, in: P. Lagerkvist, Ångest, p. 76.

112

The capabilities of poetry

spirals above the ground, space becomes concentrated in huge, heavy houses, full of people who talk and shout. The world could be more quiet and empty. Wouldn’t that be more beautiful? 23

Considering whether the world would not be more beautiful if human beings, extremely expansive and burdensome according to the text, had not appeared in it, resembles the metaphor of Friedrich Nietzsche, who spoke of humanity as a “skin disease” from which the world suffers.24 Such a tone of superiority in relation to the swarming human masses, uttered from the point of view of someone tired of both the biological rhythm of life (the image of the constant movement of blood in living organisms) and the civilisation built by modern man (cars, crowded cities) has much in common with the Nietzschean approach to the spiritual situation of modern man. Such an association is strengthened when the reader returns to the poem “På frälsningsarmén” [In the Salvation Army], which is a few pages earlier. One gets the impression that the ironic look at the poem’s protagonist, “a little man in gray threadbare clothes” and the epiphanies experienced by him have the Nietzschean provenance: Man has just found God. With what brightness has the house been filled! 25

Indeed, the passage builds a distinct distance to the temptation to easily find the metaphysical comfort, which man, small and weak, yields to –​exactly as in Nietzsche. At the same time, the end of the poem, showing the non-​institutional context of the protagonist’s spiritual search (the Salvation Army in the title), sounds different and it would be difficult to say unequivocally whether the last stanza is ironic or not: How the city roars, how cars groan on squares and streets, in what hurry is the one who walks forward to a target that lies so close! Here in the middle sits a man,

23 U.-​L. Karahka, Jaget och ismena: studier i Pär Lagerkvists estetiska teori och lyriska praktik t.o.m. 1916, pp. 216–​217. 24 Qtd. after K. Michalski, Płomień wieczności. Eseje o myślach Fryderyka Nietzschego, Kraków: Znak, 2007, p. 35. Sven Linnér (S. Linnér, Pär Lagerkvists livstro, p. 282 ff.) indicated nihilistic elements in Lagerkvist’s writing, signalling at the same time their positive re-​evaluation. 25 P. Lagerkvist, “På frälsningsarmén”, in: P. Lagerkvist, Ångest, p. 30.

On Lagerkvist

113

a little man in tight, gray clothes, groping in space, rises high up to the eternal stars.26

As argued by Kierkegaard, irony does not have to be negative at all: as a maieutic tool it can help one to find the truth, including the most important for man:  religious truth, impossible to convey in a dogmatic form but achievable through individual searches, to which irony stimulates.27 The quoted poem exploits these special possibilities of an ironic approach, ridiculing the attitude of waiting for easy religious consolation. At the same time, a completely different path opens here, which modern man may pursue to awaken his metaphysical feelings: occurring “in solitude,” in view of “space” and “stars.” The negative dimension of irony manifests itself most fully when it treats mockingly the entire human life and invalidates all values ​​that fill it: My friend, let’s sit somewhere in the shade, have a drink and let the day pass. I can assure you, it is all ridiculous! Here now the round earth is rolling through the universe and there are people, longing, crying, howling, that stick out of it in all directions, like thick nails, like the quills of an angry hedgehog. Let’s show that we have at least a little idea of ​​ the comic nature of this whole awkward scene …. I assure you, man should fear nothing more than the fact that he will appear ridiculous. 28

So understood, irony is the moment of reaching absolute negativity, the sign of which in Lagerkvist’s volume is the question that crowns his prose “Egentligen är det underligt…” whether the world would not be more beautiful as a place without the presence of people. This, however, turns out not to be a rhetorical question at all, and the very first sentence of the following polemical text throws the reader out of the unreflective state of accepting the worldview offered a moment earlier: No, I feel rich and happy when I think of those billions of things standing next to each other on the vast earth, all the trees, animals, buildings, vehicles and people rising from the ground one next to another. How wonderful that I am one of those earth-​borne things! How wonderful that I can be alive.29

2 6 P. Lagerkvist, “På frälsningsarmén”, in: P. Lagerkvist, Ångest, p. 30. 27 Cf. A. Szwed, Między wolnością a prawdą egzystencji. Studium myśli S. Kierkegaarda, Kęty: Antyk, 1999, p. 199: “the contradiction of the negative capacity” of irony occurs at the moment of “a reference to the original moral and religious consciousness.” 28 P. Lagerkvist, “Min vän, låt oss sätta oss ner någonstans i skuggan…”, in: P. Lagerkvist, Ångest, pp. 31–​32. 29 P. Lagerkvist, “Nej, rik och lycklig känner jag mig…”, in: P. Lagerkvist, Ångest, p. 34.

114

The capabilities of poetry

It cannot be concluded that any of the worldviews does more justice to the depicted reality. It may rather be assumed that the full view arises precisely after taking into account the multiplicity of voices, each of which appears to be partial and not entirely adequate.30 The polyphonic quality of Ångest, as indicated in this example, serves to make the recipient aware of the necessary multiplicity of attitudes towards the world and becomes a tool of ethical literature. Obviously, polyphony itself  –​a variant of the polyphony of the collective subject  –​characteristic of modernism,31 does not prove that a work is “ethical;” it may even become an opposing tool. In the case of Lagerkvist, however, there are many indications that such a reading is accurate. In his debut volume of poems, the Swedish writer makes an effort to create a kind of literature that would give the reader an account of the multitude of acceptable philosophical positions that trouble the modern man, and at the same time would not push him to the nihilistic negation of the hierarchy of values ​​and to falling into despair (Kierkegaard’s “sickness unto death”). The multitude of voices telling various stories that interpret and evaluate the world, which could easily be taken as a multi-​coloured veil hiding the abyss of desperate nothingness, must be viewed in the perspective defined by the book’s finale, clearly stating that human words are unable to bear the truth about the most important spheres of human life: the ethical and the religious one. An expression of the tension permeating the volume, of the search for the right tone, to finally capitulate in the face of the helplessness of “human language,” consists in the enormous stylistic diversity that characterises Ångest. Passages with a brutal, almost vulgar character32 are adjacent to lyrical parts dominated by subtle images and lexis. The clashes of opposites take place not only on the plane of worldviews or expressed feelings but also on the plane of style. The chief principle of the volume’s composition is contrast  –​a category that is close to expressionism but here, by pointing to contradictions, meant to simultaneously direct the reader to the need for recourse to a higher, supernatural perspective in the process of their interpretation. 30 The effect of polyphony will be used by Lagerkvist again in his prose book of 1920 entitled Det eviga leendet [The Eternal Smile]: there too the voices of all characters contribute to the full view, pulsating with multiplicity and irreducible to a single sense. Cf. S. Linnér, Livsförsoning och idyll. En studie i rikssvensk literatur 1915–​1925, Up-​ psala: Uppsala Universitet, 1954, pp. 31–​32. 31 Cf. H.R. Jauss, “The Literary Process of Modernism from Rousseau to Adorno,” p. 58. 32 Cf. U. Lindberg, “Högt, lågt och lyrisk modernism. Lagerkvist, Södergran, Ekelöf,”Edda no 2, 1999, p. 115.

On Lagerkvist

115

A striking feature of Ångest is the drastic reduction in the range of vocabulary used. In the volume, there is a group of words that are quite intrusive:  ångest [anxiety], mull [dust], stjärna [star], hjärta [heart], natt [night], jord [earth], liv [life], himmel [sky, heaven], ord [word], öde [destiny], död [death].33 Even these reductions do not make the volume unanimous, which is not exclusively due to the fact that among the above-​mentioned words there are several pairs of words with opposing meanings. More importantly, frequently repeated words are distributed and contextualised in such a way as to show their ambiguity and entangle the recipient in paradoxes. On this path, the reduction of vocabulary and the use of the same lexical units in many lines leads directly to the problem that “no human words are true,”34 raised in the finale: the same words, returning in dozens of contexts, obviously create a conceptual map but also have different meanings each time. It is, in a way, the living matter of poetry that shows the helplessness of (human) language, which the poet makes the material of his art –​ and an explanation is given as to why “no human words” are true. All these creative endeavours result in the considerable mysteriousness of the poems and the impossibility of ultimate clarification of the presented worldview. This feature has sometimes provoked researchers to make unambiguous interpretative decisions. It seems, however, that they remain alien to the spirit of this volume, which consistently draws a picture of the fluid consciousness of modern man, doomed to a multitude of interpretations of the world around him, the man for whom the only chance to answer the questions that haunt him is to choose himself as an existing individual. The image from the volume’s last poem “Under stjärnorna” [Under the Stars], quoted above, resembles the scene described by Kierkegaard in Either/​Or: When around one everything has become silent, solemn as a clear, starlit night, when the soul comes to be alone in the whole world, then before one there appears, not an extraordinary human being, but the eternal power itself, then the heavens seem to open, and the I chooses itself or, more correctly, receives itself. Then the soul has seen the highest, which no mortal eye can see and which can never be forgotten; then the personality receives the accolade of knighthood that ennobles it for an eternity. He does not become someone other than he was before, but he becomes himself.35

Lagerkvist’s approach to the ethics of communication postulated by Kierkegaard, which rejects all directness of expression, meant that interpretative

3 3 Cf. S. Malmström, Stil och vers i svensk 1900-​talspoesi, p. 110 ff. 34 P. Lagerkvist, “Under stjärnorna”, in: P. Lagerkvist, Ångest, p. 76. 35 S. Kierkegaard, Either/​Or. Part Two, p. 177.

116

The capabilities of poetry

attempts to make unequivocal decisions concerning the meanings of the debut volume and to extract from it the worldview-​related beliefs are a breakneck task, a task that contradicts the intentions adopted by the author –​and carried out brilliantly by him in the domain of literature. I suggest considering one more example, which shows the scale of this phenomenon and the kind of pitfalls that await those who want to interpret it. In the volume Ångest, Lagerkvist included the following untitled poem “Människor, människor…”: People, people. Gold and light. Heavy snow falls outside. There are hot drinks on the marble tops, hot veins move in the bodies, rush from human hearts to penetrate through their hands. Little, tiny thoughts circle round, they look for nothing, they miss nothing. But there is space outside, and in its blue circle the stars shine like pearls. Think small thoughts, small people shut yourselves deep under the blue space, fill the space tightly, sit together, many. Ah, outside the warm gold of the walls it is night, after all, cold, numb and dumb; and one day it will pay back the human debt to the stars, darkness and eternal space. Life is infinitely great. 36

When analysing this poem, Erik Hörnström stated that the metaphysical-​ religious ending of the text is ironic and that the entire text, therefore, is critical towards all metaphysics.37 Arguing with him, Sten Malmström maintained that there was no justification for such an unequivocal decision as there was a possibility of an entirely different interpretation, taking the final statement at face value. The researcher indicated that the text immediately preceding this poem in the pages of the volume Ångest, “Stinkande avskrädeshög…”, remains completely unclear as to its

3 6 P. Lagerkvist, “Människor, människor…”, in: J. Wittlin, Ångest, pp. 27–​28. 37 E. Hörnström, Från den röda tiden till Det eviga leendet, Stockholm: Bonniers, 1946, p. 110.

On Lagerkvist

117

ultimate meaning (i.e. whether it proclaims the attitude of rejection of the world or, on the contrary –​its deep acceptance), which should lead to caution in perceiving unambiguous ideological manifestos in the poems in Ångest.38 One should agree with Malmström that extreme caution is required in this regard. Moreover, the text that was the subject of the polemic is an excellent example not only of how easy it would be to make an interpretation error, but also of how Lagerkvist understood the possibility of ethical communication in literature. In Lagerkvist’s manuscript (nb. in the same one, which includes, among others, the sketch of “En ny tid och en ny konst”, discussed by me while reconstructing Lagerkvist’s concept of ethical literature in the section “I’m essentially a moralist, or choosing the ‘non-​ cultural.’ On Pär Lagerkvist”) there is a poem entitled “Caféinteriör” [A cafe interior]. The fact that it is easily recognisable as the basis for the poem published in Ångest (the book was printed on 23rd-​29th November 1916) results from considerable constructional similarities. In the manuscript from December 1915, we read: People, people. It is warm and bright. Heavy snow falls outside. There are hot drinks on the marble tops, hot veins move in the bodies, rush from human hearts to seep through their hands. Small, tiny thoughts go round, they look for no one, they miss nothing. But there is space outside, and in its blue circle the stars shine like pearls. Think small thoughts, small people, shut yourselves deep under the blue space, fill the room tightly, sit together, many. Ah, beyond the warm gold of the walls it is night, after all, cold, numb and dumb; and one day it will demand the human debt owed to the stars, darkness and eternal space. Life is infinitely great. 39

38 S. Malmström, Stil och vers i svensk 1900-​talspoesi, p. 108. 39 The manuscript in Kungliga Bibliotek (Stockholm), shelf-​mark KB Lagerkvist 1978–​ 1982. Immediately below it, there is a second variant of this text, this time entitled “Interiör” (dated 12/​22/​15), followed by another, also titled “Interiör”, undated and very poorly legible. Between “Caféinteriör” and the first version of “Interiör” there are

118

The capabilities of poetry

The similarities between the two variants of the text are not overshadowed by either making the described place less concrete or by the small formal change in the ending. The latter, however, entirely changes the meaning of the text. The semantic difference between the handwritten “och en gång den utkräver varje människas skuld” (“one day it will demand [the payment of] the human debt”) and the published “och en gång den skall gäldas varje människas skuld” (“one day it will pay back the human debt”) reverses completely the meaning of the poem’s ending: instead of threatening space as a gloomy memento for all human actions, there is an image of space that mercifully leans over man. It would be difficult to talk about expressing a specific worldview in any of the variants of the text: in both versions, what is essential is a specific anthropomorphisation of cold, dark space, which precedes perceiving it as either friendly or hostile, as well as the common belief in human “indebtedness,” in a kind of original guilt, inherent in man (presumably, the belief of Kierkegaardian provenance although also immersed in Protestant theology40). At the same time, the later variant, drawing the picture of the justification of human life in the perspective of eternity, gives the last words of the poem (“Omätlig stort är att leva”) a very significant meaning, allows one to believe in the meaning of existence not only against the world but in harmony with it. However, from yet another perspective, it can be said that the change –​although it is of key importance –​ceases to be essential at a certain level of interpretation. The poem may be read as a text about the fact that the night and the cold (the same attributes that the speaker in the title poem in Ångest struggled with) do exist and that man must somehow relate to them unless (like an individual remaining in the Kierkegaardian aesthetic stage) he wants to engage in measures that are supposed to damp down that awareness. The night and darkness do exist –​but whether they will “pay off ” or “demand” the debt, man cannot know. The text is therefore intended to make people aware –​especially those who are still in the aesthetic stage, like the ones, described in the poem, sitting in the bright space of a cafe –​that there is also another dimension, not

changes, mainly aimed at making the described place even less concrete. The passage that is of key importance for my analysis (“Och en gång den utkräves varje människas skuld /​till stjärnorna och mörkret och evighetens rum.”) is identical in both manuscripts. 4 0 In The Concept of Anxiety, Kierkegaard strongly links reflection on fear with that on sin. The Swedish word skuld, used by Lagerkvist, means both debt and sin.

On Wittlin

119

necessarily dangerous and not necessarily blissful, but simply one due to which “life is great;” the text wants to make the reader “choose [him]self absolutely.”41

2. On Wittlin The turn towards exploring man’s inner self, done in the pages of Hymny [Hymns], results in a multitude of images. Still, the dominant first-​person perspective, characteristic of confessional poetry, prompts a search for continuity between the positions taken by the speaker in subsequent poems. This reading strategy42 proves correct for a fairly large group of poems with a pacifist character,43 directly related to the experiences of the Polish-​Ukrainian war in 1918–​1919. Upon closer reading, however, it turns out that the subsequent poems in Hymny [Hymns] differ from each other not only with respect to the different feelings and moods in which their speakers find themselves, but also in terms of the views they present; what is more, such differences in attitudes and beliefs may be observed many times within a single poem, which develops in the rhythm of contradictions and turns. If one adds to this the multitude of poetic genres that appear in the volume (e.g. a ballad, a lullaby) along with their characteristic genre-​related worldviews,44 which disrupts from the inside the volume whose title, apparently, is decisive and unequivocally defines the character of the book in terms of its genre, it can be argued that such polyphonic quality is consciously

41 S. Kierkegaard, Either/​Or. Part Two, p. 222. 42 Cf. I. Maciejewska, “Doświadczenie wielkiej wojny –​Józef Wittlin,” in: Poeci dwudziestolecia międzywojennego, ed. I. Maciejewska, Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna, 1982, pp. 489–​519. 43 These poems include “Grzebanie wroga” [Burying the Enemy], “Hymn o łyżce zupy” [A Hymn to a Spoonful of Soup], “Pochwała miecza” [In Praise of the Sword], “Kołysanka” [A Lullaby], “Tęsknota za przyjacielem” [Missing a Friend]. I do not comment on the issues of pacifism in Hymny [Hymns] in detail, firstly in the belief that the studies published to date have offered a satisfactory approach, and secondly, on the assumption that Wittlin’s pacifism is a branch of the problem of Wittlin’s ethical literature, which is more important to me. 44 W. Sadowski, Litania i poezja. Na materiale literatury polskiej od XI do XXI wieku, Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2011, pp. 12–​13. Regardless of changes in the genre in the course of its existence, the religious layer remains important for the semantics of the hymn, as noted by Witold Sadowski: “the more the genre has become entrenched in tradition, the more important layers of culture it allows to speak, … the more effective the resistance of the genre-​related worldview” (W. Sadowski, Litania i poezja, p. 92)

120

The capabilities of poetry

assumed by Wittlin and very precisely implemented. This shows in a special light the ethical issues the undertaking of which is one of the characteristic features of the volume:45 it is impossible to extract a coherent system of ethical norms from the multiplicity of voices and positions, and all attempts in this regard lead to quite general premises (compassion, avoiding physical suffering, condemning war). This encourages a search for the “ethicality” of Hymny [Hymns] not only in terms of the problems expressed but also in terms of how it has been said.

In the face of nothingness: Nihilism and fear Wittlin’s strategy of intricately assembling an internally contrasted whole may be exemplified by the poem “Kołysanka” [A Lullaby]. From the very beginning, the reader is offered two ways of reading the text, suggested on equal terms from the same level of the poem’s speaker, and expressed in the titles which also constitute a genre-​related classification: a hymn is supposed to contain the meanings and tasks of a lullaby. The poem, which is a hymn-​lullaby, does not yield to easy classification, and the reading of the entire text creates further difficulties. I’ll whisper in your ear A little word, a charm, In the Father’s, Son’s and Spirit’s name. Your arms now lay down -​ Your sabre, your firearm, Brother, father and son: All men. You’ll be receiving guests, Some great dignitaries, So invite them Into your parlour, They will arrive, yearning, Tomorrow –​at dusk –​today –​ Releasing panniers in the Hallway

45 Cf. E. Wiegandt, “Wstęp,” in: J. Wittlin, Sól ziemi, introduction and edition by E. Wiegandt, Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1991, pp. xiii-​xxiv; M. Kisiel, “Poezja świadectwa. O Hymnach Józefa Wittlina,” in: Studia o twórczości Józefa Wittlina, ed. I. Opacki, Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 1990, pp. 7–​33.

On Wittlin

121

The enemy won’t know–​ The makers of corpses Have savoured enough spoils –​ Those kings. Hush now, hushabye now Someone will lay a palm On your weary, tormented Brow. The Good angel’s Grace Will caress your face, And calm your brow. Hush now, hushabye now They’ll close your eyes, You’ll never feel A thing.46

The poem, which begins with a prayer gesture, seems to respect the hymn-​ like, sacred character of the whole volume, designed by means of the superior authorial framework. At the same time, it cannot be overlooked that the final lines sound extremely powerful. The “nothing” [“nic”] that in the Polish original takes up the entire final line47 contains an absolutely terrifying load of meaning, the full strength of which is revealed in the contrast to the earlier religious references (the words of prayer, the allusion to the mysterious “guests,” the figure of the “good angel”). The proximity of sleep and death, signalled at the end of the poem, is, of course, a frequent theme in literature and art, but the horror of the situation described in the poem is not exhausted here. The statement: “You will never feel /​A thing” holds, in fact, the moment of complete an-​nihil-​ation of man as a sentient individual –​whether in death or in a state of “never feeling a thing,” both of which are, however, equally dramatic. The vision of death as nothingness is equally terrible, as is the observation that people can be driven by war (referred to directly in the second and fifth stanzas of the poem, as well as in the poems adjacent to “Kołysanka” [A Lullaby]) to a state where they want to dream

46 J. Wittlin, “Kołysanka” [A Lullaby], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny, Poznań: Zdrój, 1920, p. 34. Translation© by Patrick John Corness 2021. 47 In Polish the last stanza goes as follows: “Cicho, cichuteńko /​Powieki wam stuli. /​ Nie będziecie czuli /​Nic.” –​J. Wittlin, “Kołysanka” [A Lullaby], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny, Poznań: Zdrój, 1920, p. 34.

122

The capabilities of poetry

and “never feel a thing” so they want their own, even if only temporary, annihilation. This kind of ultimate state of mental torment, leading to the acceptance of and even to the desire for nothingness, does not only characterise frontline soldiers:  its Hamlet-​like48 dimension makes Wittlin’s “Kołysanka” [A Lullaby] seem to be a piece hummed to every man as a warning –​especially to modern man, deprived (to which Hamlet is also inclined) of faith in justice after death. Although the poem brings a deceptive promise of blissful nothingness, there is as much pity as terror in the gesture of putting the listeners to sleep. The final result is giving up to the state of “non-​sentience” and thus giving up that dimension of human life thanks to which people not only experience suffering but are also able to enter into relations with others and to develop as ethical individuals. The interpretation of “Kołysanka” [A Lullaby] as a piece leading to the perception of the terror of nothingness is supported by the fact that the poem “Intermezzo nocy wiosennej” [Intermezzo on a Night in Spring], adjacent to “Kołysanka” [A Lullaby], ends with a line with a completely different meaning, which can hardly be considered an unplanned coincidence: As all things.49

Despite the fundamental semantic difference between the final lines, the sense of both texts is similar because “Intermezzo nocy wiosennej” [Intermezzo on a Night in Spring] is about “all things:” an annihilation that does not allow one to accept the easy consolation that could be derived from the sense of immortality derived from the observation of nature: Something in this silence plucks the strings just slowly, oh so slowly –​ –​ Hark: Something in this silence plucks the strings You don’t feel pain now, only –​ –​ Suddenly something plucks the strings And sobs in torment And in your breast there stirs a complaint And in your heart something’s asking you

48 “To die—​to sleep, /​No more; and by a sleep to say we end /​The heart-​ache and the thousand natural shocks /​That flesh is heir to: ‘tis a consummation /​Devoutly to be wish’d.” –​W. Shakespeare, Hamlet, https://​www.poetryfoundation.org/​poems/​56965/​ speech-​to-​be-​or-​not-​to-​be-​that-​is-​the-​question [retrieved on 4th July  2021]. 49 J. Wittlin, “Intermezzo nocy wiosennej” [Intermezzo on a Night in Spring], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny, p. 35 –​in Polish the line goes: “I wszystko?.”

On Wittlin

123

Why must it fade, this lovely flower? For then it will wither, The flower and your lips too, As all things.50

As in “Kołysanka” [A Lullaby], also in this poem the consolation resulting from the fact that “you don’t feel pain now” turns out to be insufficient in view of the question about the death of all that exists and the need to confront nothingness. However, while in “Kołysanka” [A Lullaby] nothingness (“nic”) is, funnily enough, the last word, in Intermezzo… [Intermezzo…] the final accent is the opposition to such a state of affairs. In Hymny [Hymns], the confrontation with nothingness (the emptiness after death) and the resulting defence mechanisms, falsifying the cruel reality, sometimes has an undeniably Nietzschean meaning. In this perspective, “Kołysanka” [A Lullaby] is an “anesthetic” text; it is, as we read in the poem: “A little word, a charm /​In the Father’s, Son’s and /​Spirit’s name.” It is, therefore, an attempt to enchant the world, which the poem’s speaker undertakes, guided by pity towards people genuinely terrified with this world  –​and the final “You will never feel /​A thing” serves this diagnosis, exposing the entire mechanism at work. Similar steps are also taken by the speaker in other poems which express the tragic fear that the object of faith, the guarantee of the meaning of existence, the personal God, is only an image (in the poems “Matka żegna jedynaka” [Mother says goodbye to the only child] and “Trwoga przed śmiercią” [Fear of Death]). This is a state very close to what the author of the Twilight of the Idols noted about nihilism: “Nihilism as a psychological state must appear, first, when in all events we have been looking for some “sense,” which is not there.”51 The final stage of nihilism in Hymny [Hymns] is the rejection of all values: I feel satisfaction –​ that my good deed today helped a poor man –​a curse on the knowledge that this is good and that is evil!52

50 J. Wittlin, “Intermezzo nocy wiosennej” [Intermezzo on a Night in Spring], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny, p. 35. Trans. by Patrick John Corness 2021. 51 F. Nietzsche, “Zapiski o nihilizmie,” selection and translation by G. Sowinski, Znak, 1994, No. 6, p. 53. 52 J. Wittlin, “Hymn niepokoju, obłędu i nudy” [A Hymn to Anxiety, Madness and Boredom], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny [Hymns], p. 47. Trans. by Patrick John Corness 2021.

124

The capabilities of poetry

In view of modern man’s discovery that “You will never feel /​A thing” one can, however, also take a different stand. The nothingness that the speaker in “Trwoga przed śmiercią” [Fear of Death] confronts becomes an impulse to feel that fear,53 present in the title, and this leads to areas diametrically different from Nietzsche’s negation of values, namely in the direction close to the findings of Kierkegaard, for whom anxiety was a derivative of nothingness, always accompanying man.54 In Wittlin, this fear is experienced by a participant of the war as well as by every person who has crossed the threshold of easy satisfaction with life and who is open to existential reflections. In the finale of the poem “Hymn o rękach” [A Hymn to Hands], the speaker even declares the omnipresence of this feeling in human life: Fear, like a phantom, always slinks behind me.55

The text of this poem is a very nuanced description of the awakening of fear in a person. This feeling is born when a person remains asleep and quiet –​a condition known from “Kołysanka” [A Lullaby], although it is described there in a different perspective. In the poem poem “Hymn o rękach” [A Hymn to Hands], we read: Speak softly. At the self-​same moment when my soul Slumbers with its eyes half open or half closed A million hands rise, one and all All over the world.56

This kind of state of innocence, unawareness, blamelessness that is the starting point here is soon transformed into an awareness of the dangerous possibilities that life opens up for man. The description of the hands that follows, sometimes

53 In Polish: lęk, which is the word that appears in the title of Kierkegaard’s work in its 1914 Lviv edition. Kierkegaard’s understanding of fear as an experience that forces man to “make a choice of his attitude towards nothingness,” to which, as I believe, Wittlin is close in his Hymny [Hymns], is analysed by J.A. Prokopski –​cf. J. A. Prokopski, “Egzystencja i nicość: Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre,” in: Aktualność Kierkegaarda. W 150. rocznicę śmierci myśliciela z Kopenhagi, ed. A. Szwed, Kęty: Antyk, 2006, p. 122. 54 Cf. “Anxiety … consumes all finite ends and discovers all their deceptiveness.” –​S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, p. 155. 55 J. Wittlin, “Hymn o rękach” [A Hymn to Hands], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny [Hymns], p.42. Trans. by Patrick John Corness 2021. 56 J. Wittlin, “Hymn o rękach” [A Hymn to Hands], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny [Hymns], p.41. Trans. by Patrick John Corness 2021.

On Wittlin

125

grotesque, shows the terrifying potentiality inherent in all human actions, in each human decision. Human hands are used to murder and to create works of art, they give in to reprehensible desires and express lofty dreams, they bless and sin, and the consequences of their actions are not always foreseeable. On this path, the “song of praise” for the hands, as the speaker himself describes his poem, leads to the recognition of a higher order in the world: All that is but transient upon this earth Is shaped –​it is created by human hands. But I am feeling upon me the hot breath Of eternity that everything transcends.57

Immediately after this passage, however, comes a sentence that signals the uncertainty, the insufficiency of the opinions expressed earlier by the speaker, who –​despite feeling “the hot breath of eternity” –​keeps falling into the state of fear again and again: But when I’m facing forward or behind, When I glance ahead, look back, or all around –​ -​Speak softly! –​ Phantom hands always follow me –​ –​Speak softly –​ Fear, like a phantom, always slinks behind me.58

The fear of the possibility, which resounds in “Hymn o rękach” [A Hymn to Hands], is a reversal of the mainstream reflection of modernity, whose main post-​Enlightenment variant appreciated liberation from fear/​anxiety (in the first place, fear of the deity) as an act of true freedom. In Wittlin, the opposite is true: it is fear/​anxiety that is precisely “freedom’s possibility,” and, in the words of the Danish philosopher “only such anxiety is through faith absolutely educative.”59 In this way, the speaker in Wittlin’s poem stands on the threshold of religious faith, just like Abraham, the speaker in “Trwoga przed śmiercią” [Fear of Death]. For in the fear that he feels, there is a seed of the religious stage, of the perception of the horizon of “eternity” in everything –​as in Kierkegaard’s

57 J. Wittlin, “Hymn o rękach” [A Hymn to Hands], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny [Hymns], p.42. Trans. by Patrick John Corness 2021. 58 J. Wittlin, “Hymn o rękach” [A Hymn to Hands], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny [Hymns], p.42. Trans. by Patrick John Corness 2021. 59 S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, p. 155.

126

The capabilities of poetry

concept known to Wittlin: “Whoever is educated by anxiety is educated by possibility, and only he who is educated by possibility is educated according to his infinitude.”60 Thus, fear/​anxiety in Wittlin’s poems not only reveals its destructive character but also opens to man the way of religious trust –​this is also what happens in “Trwoga przed śmiercią” [Fear of Death]. While the initial part of the poem speaks of the fear of finiteness, the finale reveals a different perspective. Outlined in it, the fear felt by Abraham, standing before God in absurd trust (“Behold, I stand before Thee, I’m Abraham”61), is the choice of this feeling and the faith in infinity behind it –​without making any calculations, in the conviction that salvation is possible only on this path.62 The very moment of the transition from the state of doubt to the state of faith, however, is exactly the moment about which the poem is silent: … Thou, Creature of my mind, Thou –​my notion in an hour of impotence Thou, who art named by me, O my God! Thou!!! … And now I face Thee with this one last challenge: O my son, the creature of MY mind! –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​  Lord, I do not want to die! Lord! …63

60 S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, p. 156. 61 J. Wittlin, Trwoga przed śmiercią [Fear of Death], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny [Hymns], p. 20. Trans. by Patrick John Corness 2021. 62 According to Kierkegaard, “So when the individual through anxiety is educated unto faith, anxiety will eradicate precisely what it brings forth itself ” (S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, p. 159). Cf. also R. Grimsley, Kierkegaard. A biographical introduction, London: Studio Vista, 1973, p. 65. 63 J. Wittlin, “Trwoga przed śmiercią” [Fear of Death], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny [Hymns], p. 18.Trans. © by Patrick John Corness 2021 The function of pauses in Hymn o rękach [A Hymn to Hands] is similar. It is worth confronting these observations with the function of silence described by Kierkegaard. For the Dane, silence may lead one towards faith (when an individual gives up contacts and communication with the outside world in order to focus on his relationship with God) or towards the demonic side (when a person refuses to communicate with others in the name of attachment to finite values and ​​ the rejection of freedom) –​cf. The Concept of Anxiety. Cf. also:  R. Grimsley, Kierkegaard. A biographical introduction, pp. 66–​67. In this light, it is

On Wittlin

127

Likewise, about this moment, undoubtedly taking place, “Hymn nad hymnami” [The Hymn of Hymns] is silent: I come to weep over the remains of the king, king and father, killed by a crazed mob of ungrateful servants … They killed him with the thunderbolt of non-​belief! … –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ It’s not true! It’s not true! I sense Thy presence …64

Wittlin’s volume contains a clear conviction that the moment of the birth of faith is something that cannot be expressed, and that words cannot cope with. At the same time, attempts are consistently made to silently signal to the reader the very possibility of the emergence of a religious feeling. In the face of the speaker’s grandiloquence, presented in the poems, such moments of silence attract attention even more. What they mean is the belief, important for Hymny [Hymns], and appearing directly in the finale of “Trwoga przed śmiercią” [Fear of Death], that Abraham’s religious faith is a feeling incomprehensible to anyone from the outside, incommunicable.65 Characteristic for the aforementioned poem “Trwoga przed śmiercią” [Fear of Death] is the speaker’s passion for the clash of opposing points of view. On the one hand, God, about whom the human being says “I measure Thee by my own enchantment” and “Rather Thou art our finest invention,”66 appears here almost as an imaginary creature, whose creation would be best explained by the psychology of

also worth viewing the phrase: “speak softly,” repeated in Hymn o rękach [A Hymn to Hands]. 64 J. Wittlin, “Hymn nad hymnami” [The Hymn of Hymns], in:  J. Wittlin, Hymny [Hymns], p. 64. Trans.© by Patrick John Corness 2021. 65 “Abraham cannot be mediated; in other words, he cannot speak. As soon as I speak, I express the universal, and if I do not do so, no one can understand me.” –​S. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, in: Fear and Trembling. Repetition, ed. and trans. with Introduction and Notes by H. V. Hong and E. H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983, p. 60. Cf. also “the single individual as the single individual stands in an absolute relation to the absolute. This position cannot be mediated, for all mediation takes place only by virtue of the universal; it is and remains for all eternity a paradox, impervious to thought.” (p. 56). 66 J. Wittlin, “Trwoga przed śmiercią” [Fear of Death], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny [Hymns], p. 17.

128

The capabilities of poetry

religion. At the same time –​the entire text is an apostrophe, the confessional tone of which is strengthened by biblical references. It is impossible to include these two perspectives in a single work. The poem breaks, becoming a testimony to the divided consciousness of the speaker, who alternately makes a leap of faith, then again doubts its foundations and discovers the impossibility of justifying it. This paradox of faith is as if taken directly from the remarks of Kierkegaard,67 according to whom any certainty –​that is: knowledge –​excludes faith, and the person who wants to believe should strive to maintain this uncertainty. The irritating fracture of “Trwoga przed śmiercią” [Fear of Death], which actually makes description impossible, may be interpreted in the context of a double understanding of religious faith: in the perspective of the Enlightenment rationalism or traditional religiosity, emphasizing the irreconcilable contradictions between them. However, one may also try to approach it by paying attention to the structure of the text, the task of which, apparently, is precisely to preserve the crack, to indicate the impossibility of getting out of this loop of confidence and doubt. I interpret the final “Behold, I stand before Thee, I’m Abraham” as a reference to Abraham as described by Kierkegaard: Abraham as a knight of faith and an absurd (anti)hero68 as well as a model to follow individually,69 a man who has experienced that in faith there is no comfort but constant fear. The entire poem, like Wittlin’s entire volume, is an attempt to create such literature that does not want to offer certainty but also does not allow one to abandon spiritual activity aimed at inducing in oneself credo quia absurdum. Therefore, the spiritual horizon of life and the mechanism due to which “Whoever does not wish to sink in the wretchedness of the finite is constrained in the most profound sense to struggle with the infinite”70 is reminded in the pages of Hymny [Hymns] to each reader in a direct address to him: Ah, whither now? Ah, when will they end, these anxious yearnings in my blood, stirring the tremors of eternal waiting both within my body and within my soul … and in yours –​ whoever you are!71

6 7 Cf. esp. S. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, passim. 68 A. Melberg, Theories of Mimesis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 141. 69 K. Toeplitz, Kierkegaard, Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna, 1975, p. 77. 70 S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, p. 160. 71 J. Wittlin, “Hymn niepokoju, obłędu i nudy” [A Hymn to Anxiety, Madness and Boredom], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny [Hymns], p. 45. Trans. by Patrick John Corness 2021.

On Wittlin

129

Towards the reader’s ethical independence In line with the concept of an authentic religious experience as available only to an individual, Hymny [Hymns] bring images of individual religiosity, explicitly proclaimed in the poem “Zapowiedź dnia jutrzejszego” [A Herald of Tomorrow]. The prophet makes a characteristic prediction there: he proclaims the coming of the time when: “begging God to be their salvation /​no-​one will find Him in Heaven, /​but on the doorstep at home.”72 In Hymny [Hymny], ethics is not about, and certainly not exclusively about conveying a specific worldview in a poem. Such passages can probably be found in the poems (I mean especially the passages with pacifist meanings). The strategy encompassing the entire volume has a much wider scope than this kind of thematic approach: namely constant forcing the reader to reflect on ethical topics (fear/​anxiety, trust, faith) and to make an independent choice. In this situation, it may be argued that the primary ethical task in relation to the choice between good and evil is to choose oneself as an ethical individual, to define oneself in relation to infinity, and to recognise one’s own freedom of choice. This constitutes an extension of Kierkegaard’s concept of absolute choice, which becomes the beginning of the ethical stage of an individual’s life.73 Wittlin’s book aims to direct the reader to make ethical reflections and choices by means of a whole range of measures. The first one is irony, most often referring to the religious beliefs of people who are convinced that God is inclined to intervene in their case as well as convinced about their own unquestionable moral rightness. Criticism of this approach to religion resonates with the concept of authentic faith based on an absurd trust, outlined in other texts, and reconstructed above. The ironist in Hymny [Hymns] points to a complete ethical collapse among those who most often invoke God as a witness of their actions: Now behold this sword –​ever illustrious, with blade of grace forged in the shape of the cross –​ Soon will come the day when to it the hundredth cadaver will fall; whereupon this fine sword will join in the vault the helmet and shield of the Holy Knights! –​ –​ … With bombast amid crowds, through clouds of incense, this sword will be borne into the cathedral –​ -​

72 J. Wittlin, “Zapowiedź dnia jutrzejszego” [A Herald of Tomorrow], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny [Hymns], p. 74. Trans. by Patrick John Corness 2021. 73 Cf. S. Kierkegaard, Either/​Or. Part Two, especially pp. 223–​224.

130

The capabilities of poetry

Such a procession! Ah –​how momentous! Such an oration! –​all in God’s name!74

Another strategy adopted by the speaker in the poems and compliant with the ethical requirements of indirect communication is multiplication of points of view of the protagonists in subsequent poems. From this standpoint, it is worth paying attention to the poem that represents mask poetry, rarely found in Hymny [Hymns], and that poses a special interpretation challenge: “Ból drzewa” [The Pain of a Tree].75 The point of view has been chosen here in such a way as to prevent the reader from identifying with the poem’s speaker; at the same time, it is this poem that is a unique example of making the reader practise compassion, an attitude that is proclaimed in Hymny [Hymns] as the only unquestionable ethical principle as well as one that makes room for fundamental reflections in the field of ethics and its limits. “Ból drzewa” [The Pain of a Tree] is one of those works by Wittlin in which the question about the meaning of suffering is clearly expressed –​a very important question from the perspective of the entire volume of Hymny [Hymns], but particularly disturbing in this poem as it is asked in the religious context. The poem’s speaker is the tree from which the Holy Cross was made; and its story, composed of an account of its own life and its dramatic intersection with the life of the Crucified One, is a profound study of the forced participation in evil and spiritual torment of someone who, against his will, becomes simultaneously a torturer and a victim. The quasi-​apocryphal theme of the poem is used in such a way as to pose the problem of moral responsibility and moral suffering of the “involuntary executioner,” whose whole life is changed due to forced participation in murder. The protagonist of “Ból drzewa” [The Pain of a Tree] is a being physically and mentally sentient and rational just like people, an innocent torturer and at the same time a co-​victim of the passion, dying together with the crucified Christ. The personification of the tree can be associated with the song tradition as well as, above all, with the Franciscan belief, strongly present in Wittlin, in the spiritual endowment of creatures below man in the order of creation and their ability to feel humiliation, joy and fear. In the world of nature, changing seasons, days and nights, the tree had its place in the surrounding harmony: “The Holy Spirit passed through my body /​And thereupon all my sobbing was hushed.”76 The evil

74 J. Wittlin, “Pochwała miecza” [In Praise of the Sword], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny [Hymns], p. 29. Trans. © by Patrick John Corness 2021. 75 J. Wittlin, “Ból drzewa” [The Pain of a Tree], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny [Hymns], pp. 75–​80. 76 J. Wittlin, “Ból drzewa” [The Pain of a Tree], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny [Hymns], p. 75. Trans. by Patrick John Corness 2021.

On Wittlin

131

that was manifested in that world was unable to disturb this order and thus unable to make the tree shake: I know what storm means, and hurricane, I’ve battled the wind in its fury, When it comes buffeting drunkenly, Bending my branches vigorously, And breaking off many a frail limb I know, I know, for I am elderly: The storm knows me and I know the storm. Not that! Not that!77

In the poem, the tree as a protagonist from beyond the human world is endowed with an ability to see and radically evaluate those elements of human and evangelical reality that seem the most shocking from the perspective of the harmonious and moral order of the forest. In that world without people, evil did manifest itself but it did not result from someone’s deliberate and planned action. The human world is different, as first evidenced by the statement that compares a crowd to a forest and shows the difference between them: Bearing me, bearing, bearing me on –​ –​ I see a forest of human heads, Only this forest all insane Is multicoloured –​not green –​ –​ They are shouting, they cry: “It’s time!”

In René Girard’s interpretation, the New Testament authors, aware of the scapegoat mechanism, in the texts of the Gospels made an effort to expose the particular cruelty of the social principle that created it,78 The voice of the tree, heard in Wittlin’s poem, emphasizes this moment equally clearly. The crowd’s urge to perform the execution is described as “insane” and appears as diametrically distant from the harmonious order of nature, and this optics in the tree’s account is reinforced with further elements of the story about the suffering of a man condemned to crucifixion and about his mother. The “insanity” of the crowd condemning the man to death is most vividly illustrated by the moment of the crowd of trees appearing in defence of their fellow creature, analogous to the New Testament scene of the crowd’s demands of the crucifixion of Christ (cf.

77 The English translation of this and subsequent quotations from “Ból drzewa”: © by Patrick John Corness 2021. 78 R. Girard, The Scapegoat, trans. Yvonne Freccero, Baltimore, Maryland: John Hopkins University Press, 1986, pp. 111–​124.

132

The capabilities of poetry

Mt 27:22–​23; Mk 15:13–​14; Lk 23:21). This scene owes its strength precisely to the complete reversal of roles, it powerfully destroys the scapegoat mechanism that functions in the human world: I wanted to cry out in shame: To my body this is an affront! To my heart this is an affront! (For a tree has a heart.) Take him down from the cross! But I was a corpse. But there in my mother forest At once all the trees called out in chorus, … “To our bodies this is an affront!” “To our hearts this is an affront!” “Take him down from the cross!” –​ –​Take him down from the cross! –​ –​ –​ “To our arms this is an offence!” –​ –​ He shall not be crucified! “Take him down from the cross! –​ –​“Take him down from the cross!” –​ –​ –​

The immediate cause of the protest is the suffering of the tree, which in an innocent way has become not only a victim (as evidenced by the extensive description of felling the tree and the construction of the cross, as well as consistently describing the felled tree as a “corpse”) but also a tool of torment of an innocent man –​in addition, a tool which has no chance of deserving forgiveness or justification in the ethical order of thought that is characteristic of trees. The issue that has been taken up in this way is the ethical disagreement with participation in evil and the tragedy of a being forced to such silent participation. This perspective appears in Hymny [Hymns] many times as it constitutes an important element of reflections on forced participation in war (formulated, for example, in “Grzebanie wroga” [Burying the Enemy]); but in the poem in question, making use of an archetypal situation, Wittlin draws the reader’s attention to the total divergence of the religious and the ethical order, which are mutually exclusive and between which there is no mediation. From a religious point of view, Christ is the Saviour, from an ethical point of view, an innocent victim; from a religious point of view the tree appears as a sacred instrument of the Lord’s Passion, from an ethical point of view –​as a terrifying instrument of torture. The scene of the trees’ protest not only demonstrates the moral superiority of the primeval world of nature over the human world, but above all raises the question of the meaning of sacrifice, which for morally reasoning beings is a scandal

On Wittlin

133

and an insult, which, moreover, contradicts the tendency to minimise suffering, that characterises modern thinking.79 It should be noted that nowhere in the poem is the word “victim” present, and the absence of this word in the tree’s account, signifying the absence of this concept in its innocent, primal consciousness, indicates that within the ethics of the poem’s speaker and his “brothers-​ -​beeches,” this mechanism does not exist. It remains an open question, however, whether this is because the ethics of trees outweighs the endowment of people in this respect (as in the concepts underlying expressionist primitivism) or because trees are incapable of viewing the events of Golgotha from a religious perspective? The latter possibility cannot be easily dismissed, as evidenced by the ending of the poem: I was taken away from this hill Abandoned somewhere beyond the town. … I have perished. While He is risen -​ They say.

By composing the poem in this way, Wittlin draws the recipient’s attention to the issue of the optics of reading of sacred texts: the possible viewing of Christ’s Passion in ethical terms (is it allowed to condemn someone to a terrible death and make another living creature a passive tool of inflicting pain?) is confronted by Wittlin with the religious perspective (the suffering of the victim is redemptive and leads to immortality), which is only signalled but present in the text. The poem thus makes a fundamental distinction between the ethical and religious attitudes, identical to the one proposed by Kierkegaard in relation to the situation of Abraham.80 The question about physical evil and its place in the world’s order is in fact an extension of those reflections because it forces a resolution: is it possible to suspend ethics in favour of a religious perspective, and who would actually be able to make such a suspension in their own conscience? The poem, which adopts an ethical (non-​religious) perspective due to the status of its speaker, exposes the scapegoat mechanism, but, above all, negates the entire concept of expiatory sacrifice. It appears as a moral scandal –​not only because of the dread of taking the life of an innocent victim but also because of

79 Ch. Taylor, The Sources of the Self. The Making of the Modern Identity, pp. 12–​13. 80 Cf. S. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, pp. 54–​67.

134

The capabilities of poetry

the absurdity of co-​suffering in this way. The words, uttered without emphasis at the end of the tree’s monologue, indicate an extremely ironic circumstance: The next day, the next day at dawn, I was taken away from this hill, Abandoned somewhere beyond the town. … I have been rotting for years deep in the land, This is holy land!

In the eyes of an ethical individual, it is ironic that the land on which the scandal of an innocent death took place and in which the “corpse” of an innocent, morally disgraced creature has been decomposing, can be called holy. The order of sanctity sanctioned by institutional religion and the order of the ethical diverge, and this is best seen from the perspective of a being “excluded” from religion.81 In the context of the project of modern ethical literature, the poem leads to an important conclusion: no ethical system is capable of responding to all imaginable existential situations, and accepting the religious order, i.e. believing in the sanctity and religious sense of sacrifice, condemns an individual to ultimate loneliness in his own choices: “he who walks the narrow road of faith has no one to advise him—​no one understands him.”82

3. Summary As the authors of their debut poetry volumes, Pär Lagerkvist and Józef Wittlin did realise what a few decades later was written by a twentieth-​century existentialist philosopher: when one loses faith in meaning and in values, then the “evil and virtue are a matter of chance or whim.”83 Therefore, instead of dealing with

81 Another creature that is like the tree form the analysed poem is the ram from Wittlin’s much later poem “Lament barana ofiarnego” [The Lament of a Sacrificial Ram] (where the ram speaks mockingly: “my pain does not count, /​my fear is trivial, for I have no soul.” –​J. Wittlin, “Lament barana ofiarnego” [The Lament of a Sacrificial Ram], in:  J. Wittlin, Poezje [Poetry], p. 144, translation © by Patrick John Corness 2021). 82 S. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 67. 83 I quote the words of Albert Camus after: T. Gadacz, “Myślenie z wnętrza nihilizmu,” Znak 1994, No. 6, p. 9. Associations between the works of both writers and the work of Albert Camus have been signalled by: T. Stenström, Existantialismen and Sverige. Mottagande och inflytande 1900–​1950, pp. 35–​36; J. Olejniczak, “Odpowiedzialność pisarza”, in: J. Olejniczak, Emigracje. Szkice-​studia-​sylwetki, Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 1998, p. 162.

Summary

135

the question of good and evil, they turned their attention to matters far more essential for the creation of an ethical horizon in the modern world, namely the issue of faith in the meaning of reality, which man must find in their own attitude to the world. They do not see the salvation from nihilism in the restitution of old religiosity with its ethical norms, but in fear/​anxiety: an attitude leading modern man to the threshold of religious trust, which is absurd and incommunicable. As a result, the main ethical principle is to raise the ethical sensitivity of the human individual, equipping him with a sense of the meaning of existence, and not pointing to a set of ready-​made moral norms. Obviously, Hymny [Hymns] additionally contain elements of “poetic philanthropy” in the form of ethical principles proclaimed in a direct way (e.g. in the poem “Zapowiedź dnia jutrzejszego” [A Herald of Tomorrow]: “I demand /​… /​but mercy for every canker /​ chastising a dear one’s body”),84 while pacifist elements in his poems sometimes take the form of specific ethical postulates (as in “Hymn o łyżce zupy” [A Hymn to a Spoonful of Soup]). Such rooting of ethical postulates in the reality being experienced is undoubtedly related to the fact that Hymny [Hymns] were created as a direct reaction to a war conflict. In Lagerkvist, there is a far-​reaching reduction of even the smallest elements of a positive ethical programme: the compassionate view of another person is present in those poems where the world depicted is included in an intimate, loving space between two people, which makes it difficult to treat those poems as an expression of a moral worldview. However, what prevails over these manifestations of creating a situational ethics in the works of both poets is the concept of ethical literature, sovereign over ethical systems (and even critical towards them, if they manifest themselves in an institutionalised or vulgarised form, having little in common with real ethics), fulfilling the task of the ethical awakening of the recipient, rather than persuading him to follow one principle or another. Common to both writers in the poetic strategy adopted in their debut volumes is the method of existential maieutics,85 which should be associated with Kierkegaard. Responding to the disintegration of values, shaken by the Enlightenment thought, both writers do perceive the re-​evaluation of those values, characteristic of modernity, which does not mean that they are willing to reject them all. The

84 J. Wittlin, “Zapowiedź dnia jutrzejszego” [A Herald of Tomorrow], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny [Hymns], p. 71. Trans. by Patrick John Corness 2021. 85 Cf. K. Toeplitz, “Nad Kierkegaardem i egzystencjalizmem,” in:  S. Kierkegaard, Okruchy filozoficzne. Chwila, translation, introduction and notes by K. Toeplitz, Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1988, pp. XXVI, XXXVII ff.

136

The capabilities of poetry

technique of Kierkegaardian existential maieutics, adopted by the two writers, offers positive meanings in an ambiguous way, forcing one to make a choice. In this way, man has the task of eliciting from himself everything that concerns God. This process became the main theme of both poetry volumes analysed here: in each of them loneliness and anxiety force one to confront the emptiness of the world and to choose specific meanings from among all those revealed and experienced by man. The supreme value and meaning that the protagonists of both poetry volumes are able to discover in themselves is God, accessible to man in acts of faith that are repeated, absurd and impossible to rationalise. Embracing these issues in literary works adds further difficulties as the conceptualisation of experiences, including religious experiences, is an internally contradictory act. Both volumes, granting importance to silence, to passing over some things in silence and to becoming silent, lead towards the paradox of impossibility of expressing God, as Kierkegaard viewed it.86 Hence, in both volumes, one may find many literary techniques used to signal ethical and religious issues without simultaneously prejudging them; embracing them in such a way that will force the reader to an individual reflection and choice. Existential maieutics therefore means the use of a certain rhetorical strategy, crucial for ethical literature –​more important than any thematic determinants. In Hymny [Hymns] it was implemented via the polyphonic quality of the volume, in Ångest through polyphony and irony. What was triggered was the process that Kierkegaard had designed in this way: As the reader engages ever more deeply with this multiplicity of voices, the exigency of making the transition into another kind of reading therefore makes itself felt:  as I become increasingly participant in the debate between the multiplicity of represented points of view I am ever more frequently required to take responsibility for judging the issues in play at ever more serious existential level if I am to go on reading.87

Another result of the adopted strategy of polyphony is that, in their works written at the stage of creativity commonly referred to as expressionist, neither Wittlin nor Lagerkvist approach the poetics of naive expressionism rooted in the Romantic theory of communication, which resigned from the nuancing of the structure of works and focussed on relentlessly exposing the inner self of the speaker.88 Violent expression of one’s inner self, passionate self-​expression

86 K. Toeplitz, Kierkegaard, p. 132 ff. Cf. also: K. Toepllitz, “Nad Kierkegaardem i egzystencjalizmem,” p. XXXVII ff. 87 G. Pattison, “If Kierkegaard is Right about Reading, Why Read Kierkegaard?,” p. 305. 88 Cf. W.H. Sokel, The Writer in Extremis. Cf. also U.-​B. Lagerroth, “Pär Lagerkvist och tysk expressionism än en gång,” Tidskrift för litterturvetenskap 1976 /​2–​3, pp. 75–​98.

Summary

137

without concern for communicative effectiveness, are categories incongruent with their poetry, which is worth associating with the Kierkegaardian lesson of indirect communication, toning down the need for self-​expression, characteristic of expressionism, and making it possible to fulfil in a different way the need to speak about fundamental –​ethical –​aspects of one’s own existence.

Chapter Four The capabilities of prose:  On Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] and Dvärgen [The Dwarf] This chapter examines two outstanding prose works written by Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist: Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] (1935) and Dvärgen [The Dwarf] (1944). In their light, I try to answer the question: how can the author of a modern novel express his ethical interests and what kind of formal achievements make it possible to take up this subject without fear of falling into easy didacticism. The other problem I undertake is the diagnosis, undertaken by the two writers, of the evil of modern civilisation. These two issues are, in fact, closely related to each other in the eyes of both authors. Criticism of modernity, in their opinion, is not tantamount to the desire to return to what is premodern. They indicate that the restitution of old values ​​is not a sufficient remedy in this situation. Both writers walk on an extremely fine line: while showing modern evil, they proclaim hope; while offering encouragement, they constantly formulate warnings. To achieve this, they activate complex compositional structures in their prose. The persuasiveness obtained in this way, however, does not assume the need (or the possibility) of educating the readers by instilling in them any ready-​made ethical convictions; on the contrary: both of the analysed novels destroy many myths of a moralistic nature, which facilitate unreflective functioning in the world of ethical systems proposed by modernity. Being Kierkegaardian in its spirit, the kind of persuasiveness of these works consists in activating the reader, forced to make independent interpretative decisions, and breaks away from crystallised techniques and genres, generating its own order and thus ensuring its effectiveness. Both writers have thus avoided the shallows of ethical didacticism, but also achieved a very important goal. In Wittlin and Lagerkvist, compositional structures serve to constantly keep the reader in a state of moral vigilance, they make him ask first about his own condition, then about the boundary between good and evil and the basis for distinguishing between them –​in this sense, shaping his ethical attitude towards the world. In both novels, the writers place the depicted events at a historical moment that allows them to show ethical re-​evaluations that are of key importance for modernity by pseudonymising current problems. Both for the period when both works were written (the 1930s and 1940s) and for the times depicted in

140

The capabilities of prose

both works, it is difficult to establish an “ethical paradigm” because it is just being reformulated. The situation of cultural heritage witnessed by both writers changed the situation of the novel: those moral values the attachment to which had accompanied the creation of this genre, changed their status;89 therefore, instead of explicit and implicit statements of an ethical nature, there are question marks and a passionate appeal to the reader to try to deal with the presented issue. Wittlin and Lagerkvist repeatedly ask the question about modernity and the moral costs of achieving it, emphasizing the whole ambivalence of the epoch, “which set itself the goal of improving the life of every individual,” while at the same time bringing to it “completely new sufferings, unknown to pre-​modern traditional wisdom.”90 It seems that the instability and ethical uncertainty that characterise modernism are not the least among these sufferings,. Both of the analysed novels try to face them.

1. Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] by Józef Wittlin A few years before the publication of the first volume of Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth], Wittlin had declared in the preface to Święty Franciszek z Asyżu [Saint Francis of Assisi] that he was not interested in the literature whose meaning is reduced to making humanity aware of its own poor condition –​he was interested in that which is capable of awakening moral reflection in the recipient and inspire the reader with at least moderate optimism about human capabilities of ethical conduct.91 One may get the impression that Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth], his first completed novel –​which, by the way, was to turn out to be the only one –​contradicts his earlier declarations of seeking “ethical literature,” because its main topic is precisely the fall of man, tracing the mechanisms of the civilisational looping of humanity, heading –​against reason and the warnings of conscience  –​towards war, murder and depersonalisation. Constituting the moral meanings of the novel, the anti-​civilisation and pacifist idea, the presence of which in the novel has been repeatedly indicated, is balanced –​if not

89 See R. Scholes, “The Novel as Ethical Paradigm?” in: NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, Vol. 21, No. 2/​3, pp. 188–​196. See also: G. Lukács, The Theory of the Novel. A Historico-​ philosophical Essay on the Forms of Great Epic Literature, trans. A. Bostock, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1971. 90 A. Bielik-​Robson, Inna nowoczesność. Pytania o współczesną formułę duchowości, Kraków: Universitas, 2000, p. 8. 91 J. Wittlin, “Fragmenty z przedmowy” [Fragments of the Preface], in: J. Wittlin, Pisma pośmiertne i inne eseje [Posthumous writings and other essays], p. 56 ff.

Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] by Józef Wittlin

141

suppressed  –​by a dark anthropological vision, the importance of which is emphasized by the biblical stylisation abundantly used in the book, locating the story of the degradation of modern man in the context of the fall of the first parents and the Apocalypse.

Pacifism as ethical literature? Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] is a novel that tells the story of Piotr Niewiadomski, an illiterate Hutsul who is recruited to the Austro-​Hungarian army shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, his recruitment procedure, the journey to the place of military training and preparation to go to the front. The novel has been interpreted many times as a work bearing the hallmarks of a pacifist ideology. Such a qualification opens the way to linking the book with ethical issues in literature in a fairly easy and largely non-​objectionable way.92 Such a possibility exists, however, insofar as we wish to understand the ethical function of literature as the proclamation of moral views derived from an expressive exemplum. Pacifism, the essence of which is the rejection of violence and the opposition to taking other people’s lives, finds expression in novels in which the brutality and drama of war events are intended to direct the recipient to an unequivocal condemnation of any armed conflict. The problem with the classification of such an artistic strategy as ethical appears when we accept –​following Wittlin, whose views on this matter I reconstructed above –​that the essence of ethical literature consists primarily in its ability to reassure the meaning of what is it to be human. Although pacifist literature did explore the possibilities of this kind (the collection of short stories by Frank Der Mensch ist gut, well-​known by Wittlin, appeared in 1917), it cannot be denied that the rhetorical effectiveness of that literature is largely based on a colorful presentation of the most tragic consequences of the evil spreading around in human nature. Besides, according to Wittlin, the moral influence of pacifist literature on readers turned out to be exceptionally short-​lived and superficial.93 Wittlin himself understood the moral dilemma of an author writing about war in a way that was an extension of his concept of ethical literature. Wittlin’s famous essay of 192994 reveals that he did remain an apologist of the pacifist idea,

9 2 Cf. E. Wiegandt, “Wstęp,” p. XIX. 93 Cf. J. Wittlin, “Śmierć Barbusse’a” [The Death of Barbusse], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 510. 94 Cf. J. Wittlin, “Ze wspomnień byłego pacyfisty” [From the Memoirs of a Former Pacifist], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], pp. 73–​91.

142

The capabilities of prose

but he understood clearly how backbreaking the conditions for its implementation must be. In the above-​mentioned essay, the pacifist worldview is treated as closely related to the entire set of social issues, which ultimately forces a fundamental question about ethical ideas and moral principles on which the life of a given community is built. This way of perceiving the problems of war, i.e. as bound tightly with the social and ethical order (or even as a consequence of the latter) prevailing also in periods of peace, determines the construction of Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth].

Modern and timeless evil The interpretation of the novel as a literary work that asks questions about the consequences of modernity is imposed on the reader from the moment of reading its first sentences.95 The opening paragraph of Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] brings with it an intricately composed and powerful image. It shows how modernity, in the form of the railway, takes over areas and spaces that have so far been quiet and sleepy: Into distant, forgotten corners of the Hutsul country –​filled with the aroma of mint on summer evenings, sleepy villages nestling in quiet pastures where shepherds play their long wooden horns –​comes the intruding railway. It is the only connection these godforsaken parts have with the outside world. It pierces the night’s darkness with the coloured lights of its signals, violating the silence, violating the immaculacy of the profound night-​time peacefulness. The din of its illuminated carriages rends the membrane of darkness. A long-​ drawn-​out whistle blast awakens hares from their slumber and arouses people’s drowsy curiosity. Like a great iron ladder nailed down onto the stony ground, shiny black rails on wooden sleepers stretch from one infinity towards another. Little white station buildings surrounded by hedges, vegetable plots, gazebos and flower-​beds with coloured glass orbs on white-​painted sticks, numerous little iron bridges crossing streams and countless small signal boxes give the lie to any impression that this part of the country was totally God-​ forsaken. (p. 43) 96

95 I disregard the Prologue to the novel as different from the whole and bearing traces of the earlier concept of the novel, which was modified later (cf. K. Jakowska, Z dziejów ekspresjonizmu w Polsce. Wokół “Soli ziemi,” Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1977, pp. 133–​150). 96 J. Wittlin, The Salt of the Earth, trans. from Polish by Patrick John Corness, Pushkin Press, London 2018; the page number in this edition is provided in brackets following each quotation.

Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] by Józef Wittlin

143

The basic meaning of this passage97 is expressed in a metaphysical reflection subtly woven into a realistic description: the railway “violates,” “rends,” “comes … intruding” into previously peaceful territories, and therefore it is an evil which, while enabling development, at the same time exposes man to temptation and changes the environment so far unexposed to modern shocks. The peace of the “Hutsul country” is, however, far from the idyll in which Rousseau’s “primitive man” functioned: it is a “distant” world of “darkness” and “silence,” it is indeed calm but certainly with no special signs of moral good or of being the chosen land. Although this quiet world does not disappear due to railroads, it becomes irretrievably transformed. The most serious change is the one signalled in the last sentence, which, apparently just stating the logic of modernisation and the facts, does in fact reveal, thanks to the associations that had been activated earlier, a deeply disturbing truth: from now on, darkness and sleepiness are only appearances, and the “God-​forsaken” quality of that land stirs the devil who, with the help of a tool created by modern civilisation, begins his activity among people with new force. The work done by the railway, which “awakens people’s … curiosity,” is ambivalent after all: thanks to it, human societies evolve, and individuals develop. However, in the context of the linguistic form of this passage and its clearly biblical stylisation, it is impossible to forget that it is precisely the indulgence in one’s curiosity that brought sin to man only as soon as an opportunity appeared. The temptations of modernity, represented here as the railroad, find fertile ground: they “awaken … curiosity,” which has been a human trait since the times of Adam and Eve, and which allows the devil to re-​ enter the scene. Leading “from one infinity towards another,” the railway tracks give man the illusion of overcoming the punishment that fell on the first people after expulsion from Paradise (Gen. 3: 22). The visual shape of the railway tracks, symbolising modernisation, is used by Wittlin to convey another metaphysical reflection, extremely important for the meaning of the novel. The phenomenal, creative metaphor of the tracks as a “ladder nailed down onto the stony ground” signals that, instead of reaching up and connecting heaven and earth like the

97 Recently, this passage has been analysed in an interesting paper by Dorota Siwor, comparing the fate of Niewiadomski with initiation rites –​D. Siwor, “Dokąd zmierza Piotr Niewiadomski –​o bohaterze Soli ziemi w kontekście mityczno-​rytualnym,” in: Etapy Józefa Wittlina, eds. W. Ligęza, W.S. Wocław, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2014, pp. 61–​62. However, I cannot agree with her thesis about the ironic character of the opening paragraph of the novel, for the reasons which I specify below.

144

The capabilities of prose

ladder in Jacob’s dream,98 this modern ladder, consisting of sleepers and rails, allows one to move only on the surface of the earth, reducing the vertical dimension of human life and interests. “[A] man who had emerged from the darkness” (p. 43) –​as Piotr Niewiadomski was called in the novel –​once brought out of his original state of silence and sleep, cannot return to the old world because it is radically transformed. These two images: the modern civilisation that wreaks confusion and changes the face of reality, and the disturbing “darkness” of the world that is confronted with this civilisation –​are the two poles of the evil of the human world being diagnosed in the novel. As described by Wittlin, the disastrous influence of modernity on the traditional world means the annihilation of the latter: it can be achieved through physical destruction or through the annihilation of values, as indicated by the subversive sense of the last sentence of the novel’s first paragraph (with the “God-​ forsaken” space). The tragic irony is that the alleged benefits of development will soon become a tool of destruction: This track had once led to the world, to life, to Kołomyja, Stanisławów, to Lwów. Now it led only to war, directly to death. (p. 182)

The main issue that occupies Wittlin’s attention in Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] is criticism of civilisation, whose aberrations lead to social injustice, violence and wars (and in this sense: negative assessment of the development of modern phenomena associated with the pacifist attitude). It should be noted that anti-​civilisation accents in the novel99 mainly have the character of criticism of modern civilisation, the mechanisms of which operate covertly and secretly strive to incapacitate man, and in which technological means and calculation seem to reign supreme over the whole reality, while evil comes in an impersonal form, through institutions, organisations and offices. When Piotr is summoned to a military commission, his reflections lead (obviously, in a way he did not realise) precisely in this direction: Until then, Piotr had thought that you were captured only when a living person stronger than you tied your hands, seized you by the neck and threw you to the ground. But a piece of paper? Today he knew that there were also invisible forces which can overpower

98 Cf. Gen. 28: 12. The ladder that Jacob dreamed of expresses a symbolic connection between heaven and earth, and the angels walking on it are God’s messengers to people, while the overall meaning of the dream assures Jacob in the conviction that he is under God’s protection in his journey. 99 Cf. K. Jakowska, Z dziejów ekspresjonizmu w Polsce. Wokół “Soli ziemi,” pp. 25, 61.

Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] by Józef Wittlin

145

you and take away your freedom. They exist somewhere else, but they know all about us and can determine everything to do with us, even sending us to death. (p. 77).

On the path of the changes proper to modernity, there occurs a forced change of human identity. Man, caught in the cogs of modern transformations, does not recognise himself. For Piotr, it becomes overwhelming when he learns that he is called “Mr Piotr Niewiadomski” in the official correspondence. Initially pleased with this (“Tak źle nie jest, kiedy piszą do mnie: ‘pan’ –​myślał Piotr i odetchnął z ulgą,” p. 54 –​“It can’t be so bad if they address me as ‘Mr,’ Piotr thought,” p. 73), Piotr soon realises that this is not a good sign (“Ładne słowo!,” p.  58  –​“That sounds good!” p. 77) because the change of definition changes the situation of the object to which it refers. The linguistic customs that seemingly ennoble the recipient, adhered to by the imperial administration, essentially conceal a sinister perspective: Piotr imagined the Emperor sitting in his Chancellery in Vienna behind a big desk with gilt corners, writing letters to all the Hutsuls. The Messrs Hutsuls. (p. 77).

The next moment when Piotr is no longer sure of his own identity is putting on his uniform and receiving the bayonet number 46 821. The high number is a reason for his naive satisfaction but the number of the weapon also makes it clear that from now on man becomes a replaceable accessory to it, and not vice versa: Such a powerful number associated with his person filled him with pride and he felt more important than before, but at the same time he realized that from that moment he was no more than an additional property of the number 46 821. This weapon was not new. Many others must have made use of the number 46 821 before Piotr. … Yes, Piotr himself felt that the weapon was more important than he was. Wagons were also more important; they too had big numbers written on them. /​“How many dead bodies can all these weapons cause?” he asked himself, looking at the hundreds of rifles in the hands of the recruits. Five thousand? Ten? (pp. 303–​304)

The fact that a person is made into an impermanent, exchangeable element added to a long-​lived machine, as well as Piotr’s question to himself about its efficiency, in a powerful way impose on the reader the idea of ​​war as a factory, harnessed to the service of economic development and supporting it in its perverse, destructive way. War then appears as an inevitable consequence of modern logic, which orders an increase of economic profit even at the cost of citizens’ lives and builds a system in which machines are more important than people. Piotr is a representative of pre-​modern consciousness, explaining the world by the existence of sacred forces, and he is inevitably mistaken as to the actual order of modern reality, disregarding an individual life and cynically using human emotions and feelings. As such, Niewiadomski becomes one of Berman’s

146

The capabilities of prose

“people in the way,”100 that is, a man who stands in the way of the progressive processes of civilisation development and whom modern forces must destroy. Being one of the “people in the way,” Piotr knows nothing about his situation: if he takes a subversive action, he does it by accident, like the one that happened to Piotr when he stuck the imperial proclamation about the outbreak of war upside down. The accidental character does not diminish the effectiveness of that event as a symbolic demonstration that “the world has turned upside down” –​ the irony of events touched the war announcement, and fate used the illiterate man as its tool. In this sense, the illiterate Hutsul, contrasted with modernity, becomes a tragic hero because he is condemned to death (from the very beginning there are suggestions in the text that indicate such an ending of the story), he continues to look for signs of order in the world and persistently mythifies the reality. This attitude would have a distinct tinge of heroism, were it not for the fact that it is adopted completely thoughtlessly, it is more of a kind of self-​preservation reflex. It is depicted by Wittlin as the will and need to maintain human dignity by a man who does not deserve fear, pain and cynical treatment although he is certainly far from the moral ideal. Krystyna Jakowska puts forward the thesis that Wittlin’s protagonist is related to the communionist hero of the expressionist German novel, whose fate was usually based on the fulfilment of a mission of saving the world, following the example of Christ. However, this view seems unfounded. Wittlin’s protagonist has too many low and morally questionable features to resemble “God’s simpleton.” Suffice it to recall some information given in the opening pages of the novel, namely that Piotr, “a man who had emerged from the darkness” (p. 43), committed petty thefts, drank to death, and loved his dog more than the orphan woman who was devoted to him. His “simplicity” derives too much from the natural human attraction to laziness and misdemeanor to make the reader able to see in him the figure of the saviour of the world, while the “darkness” from which he came takes on, I believe, the moral meaning in this perspective. Moreover, Piotr is primitive and undoubtedly stupid, as depicted in his reaction to the solar eclipse (and the narrative commentary strengthens the thesis about the ethical “darkness” of the protagonist): Therefore Piotr, like other Hutsuls, saw the solar eclipse as closely associated not only with the war and the death of the Pope, but also with his own sins. Original sin was the most prominent, overshadowing all the other, lesser, sins. And for the second time since

100 M. Berman, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air, p. 293.

Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] by Józef Wittlin

147

his recruitment in Śniatyn Piotr bitterly regretted not having married Magda. He had emerged from the darkness; the darkness was his homeland, but at the moment he was mortally afraid of it, and he begged forgiveness on his knees. (p. 171)

The above passage shows, in the end, a certain moral sense, even if stimulated by fear. The latter circumstance, however, makes Piotr, a sincere believer in the principle “When in fear, God is dear,” a victim of the author’s irony, and here he is no longer defended by the narrator’s undoubted sympathy for the victims of modernisation. Therefore, it should rather be assumed that the figure of Piotr serves Wittlin to nuance the image of evil depicted in the novel. There is no place in it to juxtapose a good hero with a bad reality. There are also no traces of the naive faith in the idyll of the pre-​civilisation period, which stems from the conviction, present in the novel, about evil invariably accompanying the human nature, as indicated by the biblical story of Adam and Eve, repeatedly alluded to in the text. The narrator does not glorify or even defend Piotr because his attitude has no chance of success: it is impossible to oppose the mighty forces of modernity with a premodern attitude, especially that it is professed naively and unreflectively. Nevertheless, the narrator tirelessly shows what harm is done to individuals (and to communities such as the Hutsuls) who are not adapted to the deceptive and cruel mechanisms of modernity. In the novel, the purest tones of compassion, not tinted with irony, concern those characters who oppose modernisation with their own, doomed, premodern attitude and awareness. This is the character of the lofty scene concluding chapter six, in the finale of which the train with recruits leaves for Hungary. After the train has disappeared behind the mountains, a special moment follows, the uniqueness of which has been emphasized in the narrative by the use of the historical present (praesens historicum) solely in this part of the chapter: From the group of silent women some old woman emerges. She hobbles to the middle of the track. Her colourless hair, dead as crumpled hemp, protrudes from under her white headscarf. She mumbles something toothlessly. From her eyes devoid of eyelashes some liquid drips, like resin from rotten bark. The old woman is saying something to the rails, explaining something to the rails, which no one hears. Then in a hieratic gesture she raises her trembling bony hands and makes a gigantic sign of the cross on the rails, the triple Greek sign. (pp. 182–​183).

The old woman’s condition, appearance, and resemblance to a witch make her gestures both respectable and dreadful. The ritual she performs gives the impression that it is dead, unable to change an iota of the tragic position of the people transported to the front or the pain of those who remain in Topory. At the same time, the composition of the chapter means that it is this gesture that closes

148

The capabilities of prose

that stage of Piotr’s life which was still connected with the home space and the premodern order that was fading into the past. Another scene in which the sign of the cross is equally significantly invoked is at the end of the novel: this is the moment when Piotr, standing in line, wants to cross himself but is unable to do so, being held back by military discipline. The old woman from Topory, who is perhaps closer to the dead than to the living, performs her gesture not only to say goodbye to the train but also to ultimately close the time when religious rituals protected people from the terror of existence. The ethical chaos with which the protagonist of the novel is confronted on the brink of the First World War became overwhelming once the former instances that could guard the moral order had disappeared from the world depicted in the novel. According to the narrator, the death of the Pope becomes a distinct sign of this state of affairs. The only event in the entire novel that, without a sign of the narrator’s irony, is described as “moral” is the Pope’s death, which, precisely from the moral point of view, occurred at the right moment: A few days after the death the Rome Tribune wrote: “The Pope is a victim of the war. In his last days the Holy Father personally dictated many messages in an attempt to avert this European catastrophe.” He did not avert it. By his death, which came at a critical moment, he renounced all moral association with the perpetrators of this butchery. (p. 156)

With these words, the narrator indicates that the responsibility for the evil that occurs in the world does not rest solely with its immediate performers but also with those who were unable to effectively oppose it. Therefore, it can be concluded that in the modern world, where evil has spread in a completely uncontrolled way because the system created by man has gone beyond human ethical formulas, all people, whether by omission or with their active deeds, participate in evil. This does not mean, however, that moral events can no longer take place, for they do not necessarily have to be something intentionally designed: sometimes it is fate that causes something moral to happen, such as the death of the Pope, “which came at a critical moment.” Analogously to the irony of events, according to Wittlin, there also exists the morality of events, but this is of little comfort to people who want to actively oppose evil. Summoned by the old woman crossing the train as a religious gesture of farewell, God was thus ousted from the world transforming into a modern one, as was the set of premodern ethical convictions associated with religious beliefs. In the modern world of Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth], described by Wittlin, religion cannot exist: its old forms have been doomed to oblivion, their relics are no longer relevant to the believers, and new beliefs and rituals appear in its

Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] by Józef Wittlin

149

place. Having the remains of their old moral instinct, the recruits going to Hungary “still believed inthere was justice in the world” (p. 186), which was to be completely shaken in their immediate future. The military God appearing in the pages of the novel, as Wittlin directly points out, is God created by modernity: The Imperial and Royal military god was not Jehovah, nor the Holy Trinity, nor Allah; rather, he could have been the deity of agnostics, deists and Robespierre. He abandoned any attributes of particular faiths, renounced forms given him by dogma and legend, and was insensitive to incense and wax candles. He represented that highest being to which even freethinkers and freemasons bow down. … As for God, whose existence it was forbidden to doubt, he indeed had to be an abstraction, as bland as an algebraic symbol. (pp. 113–​114)

In the modern reality, at best, such a God “acted as regent” (p. 114). In the modern world presented in the novel, the search for foundations for morality in the religious system is doomed to failure because the old religiosity is now only a dead relic, easy to replace with a religion with a different content, while modern quasi-​religiosity has removed any ethical reflection from its horizon. It is time to ask the fundamental question here: how, in the face of these extremely pessimistic diagnoses of the human nature and modern reality, can Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] be categorised as ethical literature, postulated by Wittlin, the task of which is to provide moral support to man?

Types and functions of irony An important category of interpretation invoked repeatedly in relation to Wittlin’s novel is myth, which in the context of questions about “moral literature” seems to be quite a convenient key insofar as the mythification of the world always directs one toward specific ethical concepts and moral principles.101 It seems, however, that these interpretations remain incomplete insofar as they ignore or treat marginally the issue that is crucial for the reconstruction of the meanings of the novel, namely the problem of irony.102 Irony makes it much 101 Cf. K. Jakowska, Z dziejów ekspresjonizmu w Polsce. Wokół “Soli ziemi,” p. 58 ff.; A. Biała, “Wittlinowski mit o wiecznym pokoju,” in: A. Biała, W kręgu polskich mitów literackich XX wieku, Piotrków Trybunalski: Naukowe Wydawnictwo Piotrkowskie, 2000, pp. 26–​60; E. Wiegandt, “Wstęp,” p. LXXIV. 102 Cf. Z. Yurieff, Joseph Wittlin, New York: Twayne Publishers, 1973. By stating that “The Salt of the Earth should not only be considered a largely ironic novel but it can even be included in the canon of ironic literature” (this passage is translated from the Polish edition: Z. Yurieff, Józef Wittlin, trans. M. Szczubiałka, Izabelin: Świat Literacki, 1997, p. 91), Yurieff draws attention to various aspects and functions of irony –​especially

150

The capabilities of prose

more difficult to identify the “moral reason” in a specific place because an ironist excludes and denies rather than affirms. Diminishing its significance in the novel in favour of the novel’s mythographic structure underestimates the fact that irony, present in Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] both as a figure and the attitude of the narrator, indirectly points to the imperfection of the myth-​creating measures undertaken by him (correct in this context are the reservations made by Łukasz Tischner,103 who points to Wittlin’s “longing for an epic” –​let us add: a longing that is unfulfilled). Meanwhile, when Wittlin’s writings are read with the aim to verify the thesis about his search for “ethical literature,” the problem of irony in Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] turns out to be crucial. The concept of irony is not only helpful in making findings regarding the worldview present in the novel (around which, by the way, many research controversies have arisen, confirming the importance of the novel as a masterpiece always open to new interpretations). Irony also makes it possible to present Wittlin’s writing strategy and his effort to create such a literary form that would allow for avoiding didacticism and unambiguous axiological formulas, in return making the reader constantly reflect on the essence of the moral conceptualisation of the world.104 The functions of irony in Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] are varied. First of all, there is the aesthetic function of an ironic description of reality, which makes it possible, at least to some extent, to mask the author’s didactically marked intention. The literature of the nineteenth century developed a series of methods to transfer persuasion into areas other than direct presentation of principles; and irony was among those tricks.105 When, as done by Wittlin, irony is used in a subtle way, it attracts readers because it treats them as participants aware of the literary process. The “imperceptibility” of a thesis, which guarantees the aesthetic success of the ironic approach, is, however, associated with some fundamental risk for ethical literature. Obviously, the level of literary complexity of a text abounding in

those that are satirical and intensifying the tragicomic expression of the novel, akin to the irony of the sender and the irony of fate. Cf. also: W.S. Wocław, “Świat –​igrzysko ironisty. Rozważania o Soli ziemi Józefa Wittlina,” in: Etapy Józefa Wittlina, pp. 89–​97; Ł. Tischner, “Sól ziemi, czyli tęsknota do eposu,” in: Etapy Józefa Wittlina, pp. 13–​40. 103 Ł. Tischner, “Sól ziemi, czyli tęsknota do eposu,” p. 39. 104 Wittlin was an ironist also in his essays, as well as in poetry, which has been noticed even more rarely. His Hymny [Hymns] (in the first edition) bear a very eloquent testimony of this. 105 Cf. K. Jakowska, Międzywojenna powieść perswazyjna, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1992, p. 264 ff.

Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] by Józef Wittlin

151

tropes and rhetorical figures places high demands on the recipient, and the reader who does not recognise the situation will understand the text in a completely wrong way: “sequences containing a trope require more tedious calculation than literal sequences, and among the tropes irony is surely the one whose decoding is the least certain:  it has been signalled many times that the determinants of this trope have always been mere indications rather than flawless guides, and that irony is all the more effective the more subtle the determinants, while they remain discernible”106 The fact that an ironist’s artistry evokes genuine admiration in an irony-​conscious reader is an undoubted advantage of a text from an aesthetic point of view, for the writer-​moralist may nevertheless cause a disaster as the sender risks that his message will not be understood or that it will be misunderstood. This is due to the uncertainty of reading, inscribed in a successful ironic statement, which also makes it possible to perceive all ironic texts either as containing certain statements or judgments or as merely suggesting certain images or attitudes.107 Most importantly, irony, understood as a certain attitude that characterises a statement or a way of thinking, may raise moral objections as, at the outset, it seems to inevitably assume a certain distance, i.e. a perspective which, from a moral point of view, is at least ambiguous.108 How, then, to understand the ethicality of an ironist –​as long as we do not want to assume in advance that, in his literary intention to reconcile water with fire, Wittlin is doomed to failure? The function of irony in Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] as an important structural element of ethical literature can, I believe, be understood in two ways. One is related to the use of irony as a figure and can be traced through the analysis of the classic varieties of irony found in Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth]: irony of the simpleton, of the narrator, situational, and tragic. The other is related to how the ironic attitude, the prototype of which is Socrates as interpreted by Søren

106 C. Kerbrat-​Orecchioni.,“Ironie comme trope,” Poétique 36/​1971, pp. 108–​127. Translation of this passage into English is from the Polish edition: C. Kerbrat-​Orecchioni, “Ironia jako trop,” trans. M. Dramińska-​Joczowa, in:  Ironia, ed. M. Głowiński, Gdańsk: Słowo/​Obraz Terytoria, 2002, pp. 125–​126. 107 D. Sperber, D. Wilson, “Irony and the Use-​Mention Distinction,” in: Radical pragmatics, ed. P. Cole, New York: Academic Press, 1981, pp. 295–​318. 108 Cf. D.S. Kaufer, “Irony, interpretive form, and the theory of meaning,” Poetics Today 4 (3)/​1983, pp. 451–​464. I do not even mention the difficulties that arise in this perspective with the ironic sense of superiority that sometimes characterises the ironist.

152

The capabilities of prose

Kierkegaard, initiates an attitude of openness to what is ideal109 and, in a literary work, enables the emergence of a variety of the maieutic method thanks to which the reader receives the intuition that decayed moral values can ​​ be revived by man. The ironic attitude thus performs a didactic function, but in a completely different way than the traditional lecture on principles, treated by an ironist with an obvious distance.

The irony of a simpleton: Modifications Let us start by reading a few passages, representative of the novel, which reveal the irony of a simpleton by using the measure known as free indirect speech: Suddenly, Emperor Franz Joseph’s eyes were on Piotr Niewiadomski. He was observing him from a cross attached to the red-​and-​white ribbon on the gendarme’s tunic, commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of his coronation. A golden bust of the Emperor, encircled by a wreath, was mounted at the point where the arms of the cross met, for God and the Emperor always accompany one another. Franz Joseph’s cold, metallic eyes pierced Piotr’s tunic and his sweaty shirt, penetrating into his very conscience. Anyone failing to voluntarily obey the Emperor’s call from the cross at such a time would forgo the pardon of Jesus Christ himself on the day of judgement. (p. 74) Can you imagine a war conducted in frock-​coats, jerkins, kaftans, ties, bowler hats and Jewish skull-​caps? No, not even Piotr Niewiadomski could imagine such a war. He clearly understood that you were only allowed to kill a man when wearing uniform, and death in the name of the Emperor only counts if bodies are packaged in the official state wrapping and intact. … But God created man in his own image and likeness, so the Emperor too gave men a uniform in order to create at least some likeness. Of course, there was a great difference between the uniform of the Emperor himself and that which Piotr Niewiadomski was to wear today. Yes, but there was also a good deal of difference between those two mortals. (p. 299).

As can be seen at first glance, the narrator’s voice and the protagonist’s view of the world, sometimes expressed via the narrator, create a multi-​layered structure in which the primary factor is constituted, alternately, by the two elements that form it. It is difficult in practice to clearly distinguish between the situation in which the ironist-​narrator simply presents an ironic fact (its irony consists in the fact that Piotr deeply believes in the rightness of the rituals of the army as well as considers the emperor to be equal to God) from the situation in which a certain

109 Cf. B. Stocker, “Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Novel,” in: Człowiek wobec rozpaczy w filozofii Sørena Kierkegaarda, eds. M. Urban, W. Zuziak, Kraków: Wydawnicwo Naukowe PAT, 2004, p. 288.

Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] by Józef Wittlin

153

community forms between the ironist-​narrator and the protagonist-​simpleton because the narrator in fact agrees with the incidental assessment of certain phenomena and pathologies in Piotr’s perspective. There occurs yet another complication here:  in the classic naive irony, the simpleton-​protagonist cannot understand the twisted arguments he is witnessing, and for this reason he becomes the direct spokesman of the ironist-​ narrator.110 Meanwhile, in Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth], the naive protagonist does everything to understand and become familiar with the absurd situation in which he finds himself. In this sense, as a man deeply wishing to understand and interiorise the mechanisms of the army’s operation (which would allow him to feel at home in its reality), the protagonist obviously does not become the voice of the narrator; on the contrary, in his constantly expressed faith in the emperor, he is diametrically distant from what the narrator thinks about the mechanisms of power. Undoubtedly, however, Piotr’s naivety, which is the source of ironic situations in which he finds himself, allows the narrator-​ironist to expose the essence of the absurdity of the army. Ultimately, then, what might be considered a mockery of Piotr’s mental limitations and his level of religious self-​awareness turns out to be a critique of the spiritual and moral void of modernity and of the social engineering mechanisms used by the army. The difference between the religious system of Christianity and the order of the military structure, obvious to an external observer, places Piotr in an ironic situation (he does not understand the obvious difference between them), but also ironically points to the usurpation committed by the state by taking over the ritual and creating an appearance of its own omnipotent and heavenly status. Therefore, the simpleton’s irony, used by Wittlin in this way, strikes both at the protagonist himself (by “explaining” to himself the world of the army, he falls into fundamental hypocrisy for which he will have to pay) and at specific phenomena in the world depicted in the novel. This leads to significant complication of the narrative, which is, besides, a derivative of Wittlin’s ambiguous attitude to the “unspoilt” simplicity of the Hutsul world. Niewiadomski plays the role of the narrator’s spokesman because his naivety exposes the mechanisms at which the narrator ironically targets, and at the same time he himself becomes a victim of an ironic situation. This happens not only when it comes to Piotr’s attitude to the imperial army but also when the protagonist participates in a “debate” on “matters of religion,” as the narrator describes it ironically:

110 Cf. D. S. Muecke, “Basic Classifications,” in: D. S. Muecke, The Compass of Irony, London: Routledge, 1969, p. 62-​63.

154

The capabilities of prose

In the end, Piotr allowed himself to be convinced that Hungarians are not Catholics at all. Secretly, he was even pleased about it when he finally realized why in this accursed country Emperor Franz Joseph is only a king. At the same time, the mystery of the leaning cross on the crown of St Stephen was solved for him. Wherever the Christian faith falters, the cross leans over. All his fellow Hutsuls felt very proud to have not one but two reasons to feel superior to the Hungarians. Firstly, as soldiers of the Emperor, and secondly as true Catholics. (p. 203)

The mechanism revealed by the ironist-​narrator stems from an overwhelming human need to understand the surrounding world. By succumbing to it blindly, Piotr comes to obvious absurdities. At the same time, what falls victim to the narrator’s irony is a set of convictions characteristic of this type of religiosity, which sees religion as a set of rules serving to divide people into better (“true”) and worse ones (“heretics”). This bi-​directional irony of the simpleton remains a characteristic of Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth]. At the same time, it is worth noting that the ironic situations in which Piotr sometimes finds himself always contain, apart from the comic quality, a clear tragic tinge as they result from ignorance that desperately seeks clarification of its doubts and leads to the emergence of an inadequate image of reality, which always carries some hidden threat. It is not a coincidence that, in all the analysed passages in which the irony of the simpleton is present, an important role is played by the pattern of analogy (the image of the emperor = the image of Christ, God creating man in his image and likeness = the emperor giving a subject a uniform similar to his own, the imaginary fall of religion in a country = the physical shape of the symbols on the royal insignia). The search for order in the incomprehensible military reality that surrounds him leads Piotr to establish a parallel between the religious order and that of the army. Inaccuracies that may appear along this path (the doubt as to whether the recruit’s uniform resembles the emperor’s uniform sufficiently) can be easily resolved, again relying on the deep structure of the correspondence (the difference between people is reflected in the difference in clothes). Piotr’s tendency to think and explain the world by pointing to the similarity between things and phenomena is very clearly visible in the passages quoted, in which argumentation ends with statements which have the structure of analogy, almost like maxims (“Anyone failing to voluntarily obey the Emperor’s call from the cross at such a time would forgo the pardon of Jesus Christ himself on the day of judgement.” p. 74; “Wherever the Christian faith falters, the cross leans over.,” p. 203). An analogy is a type of inference used in argumentation; therefore, due to the establishment of various similarities, Piotr’s arguments gain (in his eyes at least) the strength of proof. The oddness of Piotr’s enunciations, obvious from the perspective of the narrator and the reader, places Piotr in an ironic situation.

Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] by Józef Wittlin

155

The sources of irony can be seen, on the one hand, in Piotr’s desires to embrace with his own, weak intellect, matters that overwhelm him, which is when the protagonist himself must fall victim to them; on the other hand, the ironic situation seems to stem from the fact that man –​especially modern man, stripped of all metaphysical certainty –​eagerly seeks “signs of analogy” in the world around him, although he usually lacks a suitable basis for this. It is worth remembering these repeated attempts made by Piotr with the help of analogies in order to feel at home wherever he is because when examining the irony of the sender, we will encounter quite a similar action, which will allow for making the conclusion more precise. The irony which has its source in Piotr’s naivety therefore targets at numerous elements of the world depicted: it reveals the actual instrumentalization of religion by power as well as –​characteristic of simple Hutsuls –​the perception of “Calvinists” as the devil’s seed, and thus treating religion not as an expression of spiritual life but as another order and casteism. Endowing the protagonist with negative features or, more carefully speaking, the narrator’s morally dubious and ironic distance towards him, allows Wittlin to avoid the unbearable didacticism of showing a crystal clear and naive hero dying as a result of his own innocence. Giving Piotr sinful human features makes less exalted and more credible those truths that he is a carrier of, and which deal with the inhumanity of the modern world, making man a passive tool and object of external influence. The distance towards the protagonist that the narrator sometimes creates serves the purpose of viewing this protagonist in a way that is disillusioned and resisting the temptation to sacralise the “primitive man” and the ideology built on this basis. On the other hand, identification with the protagonist is necessary to be able to accept the shocking accuracy of some of his judgments, inadvertently and unconsciously exposing the disgrace of the modern world and the dark sides of modernisation processes. This means that the narrator can neither fully accept the protagonist nor ignore the truths about the world that result from watching this character in the world. It is this naive irony that serves to maintain this double perspective. In the novel, Wittlin activates the dialectic of convergence and distance between the narrator and the protagonist, as well as various degrees of that distance. However, even where the distance is very clear, it is toned down by the conviction about the tragic situation of Piotr Niewiadomski, doomed to extermination in the processes of modernisation, accumulating in the war, as well as the conviction about the innate and irremovable tendency to do evil, common to all people regardless of education, nationality and religion. The awareness of that tendency may allow the narrator for distancing himself  –​but not for

156

The capabilities of prose

condemnation. Therefore, the narrative distance does not serve the purpose of accusation, and it even seems that it sometimes increases compassion, which is the basis for the special role of irony, as used by Wittlin. This figure, being a sign of a certain way of thinking about the world and people, enables Wittlin to take the position that a researcher of irony writes about in the following words as an instrument profiling human self-​knowledge: Ironic anthropology … carries a huge potential for natural solidarity: the ridiculousness that characterises our bustle in the universe encourages a melancholically serene sense of community that penetrates the barriers created by all kinds of tragedy, pathos, and disappointed aspirations. It awakens the compassion born of the commonness of “ordinary human misfortune,” this is unpretentious ordinary everyday evil that seeks no dramatic reinforcement, no special means of expression, to distinguish itself. Ironic anthropology creates an image of the universal equation of man in relation to fate. Its element is not difference but dedifferentiation. Therefore, it follows from ironic anthropology that solidarity between people takes root spontaneously wherever the commonness of fate is revealed: where the universals of the human condition come to the fore.111

The protagonist presented by Wittlin is ridiculous, maladjusted, does not understand the world despite strenuous attempts in this direction, precisely so that the tragedy of his fate arouses compassion based on the conviction that, in fact, the fate of every human being in modernity has a similar course, among the mechanisms of futile or total explanation of the world that has lost its foundation. Wittlin uses the simpleton’s irony not only to expose and unmask the actual state of the world (in the way that pacifist literature authors wrote about war, and all critics of modernisation wrote about modernity). Indeed, by becoming a victim of irony, and sometimes the object of the narrator’s mockery, Piotr, with his remarks, sometimes hits the core of the moral confusion of the modern world, with which the narrator has to agree. Piotr is neither a saint nor a villain –​in that mediocrity, which, however, can sometimes gain noble ethical intuitions, he paves the way for the conviction that real values ​​still do exist (despite the triumph of the modern world), although when looking for them, one has to abandon the thought of the “virgin” premodern spaces and agree to their imperfect implementations. What is perhaps even more important for Wittlin’s ethical literature, created with the help of the simpleton’s irony, irony allows for the creation of an authentic sense of community based not on the unity of interests or status, but on the unity of fate.

111 A. Bielik-​Robson, Inna nowoczesność. Pytania o współczesną formułę duchowości, pp. 193–​194.

Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] by Józef Wittlin

157

The distance with which the narrator refers to the protagonist is therefore of a complex nature. On the one hand, it causes the narrator to perceive Piotr without illusion, it does not idealise or sanctify him; on the other hand, it does not make impossible the narrator’s special identification with the protagonist. At one point in the novel it becomes fully visible. This is the passage in which the narrator reveals himself and by saying “we” means a community of men forced to appear before a military commission: During those days, men’s bodies were weighed and measured. They were sorted by categories, picked over like potatoes, like fruit shaken off the tree of life. … /​For the first time in many years we were not being judged according to the way we were dressed. On the contrary, today we were only worth anything without our clothes. Only as naked bodies could we display our greatest merits. All they were interested in was whether we were fit. They looked at our teeth as you look horses in the mouth at the sales; they looked us over from the front, they checked us over from behind, tapping our bellies to make sure our innards were not infested with worms. /​Up till then, we had been mere names. All the calculations of the War Ministry and the General Staff were based on the numbers of names. The names moved around the world, grew fat and multiplied, to be converted on the day of mobilization into bodies. (pp. 80–​81)

What takes place before the reader’s eyes is the “dedifferentiation”112 of the narrator and the protagonist, whom almost everything distinguishes from each other. The common experience binds people more strongly than any clearly verbally marked community of ideas, despite its declarative layer always establishing a relationship of special asymmetry resulting from the fact that words about brotherhood are spoken by only one of the parties in this system: the one that views itself as intellectually superior.113 This kind of the narrator’s temporary 112 “The experience of dedifferentiation, whose name was coined by René Girard (dedifférenciation), is a special type of experience of a community in the common, most down-​to-​earth suffering that affects everyone, accidentally and randomly. Dedifferentiation is therefore a state of temporary disappearance of individual differences, as experienced by the “community of victims.” … In the state of de-​differentiation, pity and fear –​these two Aristotelian tragic experiences –​reach such a degree of intensity that they blur the boundaries between individuals carried away by an intense wave of compassion.” –​ A. Bielik-​Robson, Inna nowoczesność. Pytania o współczesną formułę duchowości, pp. 201–​202. 113 “Dedifferentiation” is therefore that moment in the novel which prevents Wittlin from falling into the trap of “snobbery,” the danger of which in novels using an “unreliable” narrative, making the meanings dependent on ironic collusion between the author and readers, is pointed out by: Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, Chicago-​ London: The University of Chicago Press, 3rd ed., 1963, p. 391 ff.

158

The capabilities of prose

but significant identification with Piotr makes Piotr’s statements about the war machine “approved” by the narrator; moreover, all that happens to Piotr –​his entire gradual transformation into a “new man” –​concerns not only himself but also the broadly defined “we” of the community. This leads to the conclusion that Wittlin saw in irony not only its absolute negativity but also something that is particularly necessary under conditions of modernity:  a remedy, a weapon against reification and the loss of the community horizon.

The irony of the sender: Analogies and paradoxes In his statements about the world presented in the novel, the narrator often develops what we learn from Piotr’s opinions expressed in his holy naivety. The drastic incompatibility of world orders, which the protagonist’s imagination struggles to reconcile, becomes, in the narrator’s account, a moment of ironic indication of the absurdity of the modern world. An example is the recruits’ oath scene that takes place in the school gym: Here, where children’s physical prowess was developed on the yellow ladders, poles and trapezes, only those bodies that had been passed fit by the commission were given access. But these people had not been brought to the gymnasium in order to have their strength and agility tested. Here it was all about their souls. (p. 109)

After such preparation, the narrator makes a remark that is close to sarcastic tones: For Emperor Franz Joseph acknowledged not only the human body. He was not an adherent of materialist doctrine or an advocate of Haeckel’s theory. He was an adherent of dualism and he would not deny that even the most wretched of his subjects, the most backward Hutsul, possessed a soul. Nonetheless, he must have order. He took bodies and souls separately. They are two different things and they may not be mixed up. (p. 109).

The narrator in Wittlin’s novel is as much willing to make ironic comments as he simply presents ironic situations which –​as Hofmannsthal, Wittlin’s contemporary, wrote –​were revealed with particular clarity during the First World War, which ruined the existing social order.114 The task of the narrator is therefore

114 Cf. B. Allemann, “O ironii jako o kategorii literackiej,” in: Ironia, p. 40. Allemann notes that, by abandoning the ironic “attitude,” the generation of Musil and Hofmannsthal was content to discover irony which “constantly and in advance is present in the relations between things,” and the nature of which revealed itself during the upheavals, associated with the First World War, that violated the social order. See also: H. von Hofmannsthal, “The Irony of Things,” in: H. von Hofmannsthal, An Impossible Man,

Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] by Józef Wittlin

159

both to build a distance (to the world, to the protagonist) and to give an account of the “ironic state of affairs” that characterises the depicted reality. The narrator is particularly sensitive to paradoxes and contradictions in the world of the novel, which co-​create ironic situations115 (such as:  the fact that the soup that Niewiadomski eats on his way to war is associated by him with the health-​restoring soup cooked by his mother; the meaningful neighbourhood of the barracks and the municipal slaughterhouse; a situation in which Piotr, standing on a scales, has some numbers written on his chest with a pencil by a doctor, and feels like a slaughtered calf, being marked by a vet). Sometimes, however, it is the narrator himself who contributes to such a view of reality, emphasizing the dialectic of similarities and differences between things and phenomena. In his comments, one can find dozens of comparisons which contrast the tragic and the comic, the realistic and the grotesque elements, the high and the low, the spiritual and the material (the staff Feldfebel Bachmatiuk is thus compared to God the Creator, and elsewhere to a nun, while Piotr Niewiadomski –​to Moses, etc.). As we remember, when mediating between the known and the unknown world, Piotr Niewiadomski tried to see in the reality in which he found himself a series of correspondences, interpreted by him as a sign of order. The protagonist tried to arrange the world in this way, and his opinions are clearly inaccurate (which, however, strikes back upon both Piotr and, even more, the structures that destroyed his former world). It is worth noting that the narrator also tries to use similar measures, a particularly telling sign of which are his comments on the depicted scenes, in which he tries to describe what he is reporting with the help of seemingly adequate biblical quotations. Let us consider the following example: But it was not only the Jews who had their hair cut; it was Christians as well. It fell from their heads, from their chins and from their faces onto their shoulders, their backs, onto the floor, into the dust, dark and fair, straight and curly, Catholic and Jewish all mixed together, though it is written, clearly written, that except by the will of God not one hair of your head shall fall. (p. 284)

trans. A. Stillmark, Vol. 12, Cambridge: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2016, pp. 129–​131. 115 Situational irony is based on the opposition of antitheses built on clichéd opposites, always understood as binary oppositions, such as war and peace, love and hate (D.S. Kaufer, “Irony, interpretive form and the theory of meaning,” pp.456–​459). See also Z. Yurieff, Józef Wittlin, p. 93.

160

The capabilities of prose

The literalisation of the biblical quotation (cf. 3 Kings 1:52), which, apart from the literal meanings evoked by the context, also carries its original meaning (“without God’s will, no harm will happen to anyone”), becomes the source of the question about God’s will and the possibility of intervention in human reality. As evidenced by a subverse juxtaposition of the novel’s plot and the biblical quotation, God apparently wanted recruits to be enlisted; in this way, the narrator leads the reader to the question about theodicy, important especially since the modern breakthrough.116 By invoking the biblical formula, the narrator raises the question why God does not intervene in the evil that is already happening and why he does not prevent the evil that is about to happen. This passage may be treated as an extremely ironic indication of the fact that God that is almighty and good at the same time certainly does not exist, or as an ironic treatment of those who want to understand the phrases of the Holy Scriptures literally.117 However, what can also be found there, beyond irony (or: precisely because of irony), is an apt description of the situation of modern man, who seeks signs of God’s presence in the world and sadly states that he is unable to find them. In all interpretations, however, this passage leads to conclusions about the irretrievable disenchantment of the modern world, in which invoking God with the help of a holy book, or a ritual turns out to be an empty and ineffective sign. Quotations from the Bible, which are part of Wittlin’s broader stylisation strategy on the plane of expression, reveal their striking irrelevance to the new context in which they have been placed; and if they are correct, it indicates the profound irony of fate in that the words which in the Bible refer to God now, in the modern world, aptly capture the essence of Satan’s actions or the all-​powerful mechanisms of objectification. For the existence and proper understanding of the sender’s irony, it is necessary to reconstruct the frame of reference adopted by the ironist, the ‘difference of perspective’ realised by the sender (and the reader), constituting the necessary canvas for each ironic scene118 Wittlin created a novel which –​as a masterpiece of irony –​is completely permeated with the spirit of the difference of perspective, makes the ear and conscience sensitive to different voices, different ways of seeing, and at the same time does not shy away from activating ethical categories. Therefore, Wittlin’s belonging to the “coterie of ironists” is by no means

116 Cf. O. Marquard, “Der angeklagte und der entlastete Mensch in der Philosophie des 18. Jahrhunderts”, in: Abschied vom Prinzipiellen, Stuttgart: Reclam 1981, p. 39 ff. 117 CF. D. Sperber, D. Wilson, “Irony and the Use-​Mention Distinction,” p. 313. 118 Cf. D.S. Kaufer, “Irony, interpretive form, and the theory of meaning,” p. 462.

Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] by Józef Wittlin

161

a testimony to the blurring of values, the disappearance of the symbolic centre of view and judgment. I perceive it rather as a gesture that directs the recipient towards “intersubjective understanding,”119 and, at the same time, is not devoid of a clear axiological mark. However, the value lies here not so much in ideas or ideologies (i.e., for example, attachment to a specific religious denomination or to the idealistic image of Rousseau’s simpleton) but in specific attitudes: listening to the voice of another and justifying one’s own judgment. By resorting to the use of irony, the sender each time forces the recipient to become aware of the interpretive frame, the frame of reference within which irony operates. This “adoption of a perspective” implies a number of actions and attitudes, requires the recipient to be vigilant and make an effort to reflect, associate and separate.120 It seems that the omnipresence of irony in Wittlin’s novel should also be treated in these terms and the conclusion should be drawn that one of the key messages of the book does not consist in one or another worldview it conveys (Wittlin approaches those, as we have seen, rather distrustfully) but in making the reader adopt a certain existential attitude. As Agata Bielik-​Robson writes: [irony] does not allow us to fall into the “universalist error” which, despite all good intentions, always, sooner or later results in a projective  –​and therefore oppressive towards others –​vision of human nature that is common to all. It also prevents us from immersing ourselves completely … in hermetic, tribal indifference to others …121

Wittlin’s irony activates the recipient to be constantly vigilant and to adopt the attitude of constantly asking himself about the assessment of the situation or phenomenon being described. As such, it constitutes ethical literature, which wishes to shape man without teaching him, and constantly reminds us of the multiplicity of points of view from which reality can be observed, as well as provides suggestions of an anthropological nature. As noted by Edward Kasperski regarding Kierkegaard’s approach to irony: “Irony adopted … the role of a guide and a prototypical model … Thanks to irony, the figures of the discourse about man became comprehensive and flexible, adapted to independent, understanding reception by the addressee and to existential assimilation. Thanks to assimilation, irony participated in man’s becoming human.”122 In this perspective,

1 19 Cf. D.S. Kaufer, “Irony, interpretive form, and the theory of meaning,” p. 463. 120 Cf. D.S. Kaufer, “Irony, interpretive form, and the theory of meaning,” p. 459. 121 A. Bielik-​Robson, Inna nowoczesność. Pytania o współczesną formułę duchowości, p. 217. 122 E. Kasperski, Kierkegaard –​antropologia i dyskurs o człowieku, Pułtusk: WSH-​Asprwa JR, 2003, p. 489.

162

The capabilities of prose

irony has an extremely important meaning:  it forces man to explore his own personality, which is constantly reduced by all systemic approaches123 and which saves the basic human ethics.124 The narrator of Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] is an ironist who also ironically targets his own myths, i.e. mythical stories important for the culture from which he grows, such as biblical history or the myth of the simpleton, which is particularly valuable for modernity. While documenting the disintegration of values and ​​ ideas, however, he points out that there is another way to transform the world other than the way of ready-​made ideological recipes, which is of dubious effectiveness. An ironist, whose real opinion is revealed only when his words are heard and interpreted, wants the recipient to think creatively on the moral issues that bother him and it is in such stimulating activity that sees the actual, profound and, ultimately, moral sense of his work. In the world of a novel (but also in the modern world, participated in by the author and virtual recipients of the novel), where there are no longer any effective rituals that protect the community from disintegration and the individual from the loss of meaning, irony appears in their place, creating the community anew, not only, as mentioned earlier, between the narrator and the protagonist but also between the sender and the reader. This community is built on the awareness of the futility of the human condition, but it endures it precisely with irony and offers empathy instead of resignation or despair.

Irony as an attitude Søren Kierkegaard, reflecting on Socrates as “the founder of morality” and on “the significance of his moralizing,” repeats after Hegel that “he moralized … but its nature and method are not that of preaching, exhorting, teaching, of a

123 K. Toeplitz, Kierkegaard, pp. 87–​88. 124 “Any ironic or metaphoric shaping required of me as I play the role of implied reader will become mine insofar as I genuinely engage with the text; I may repudiate it later, but for now it has become a part of me.” –​W. C. Booth, The Company We Keep. An Ethics of Fiction, Berkeley-​Los Angeles-​London: University of Califormia Press, 1988, p. 190, emphasis by W.C.B. The suspension of the distinction between the implied recipient and the reader has much in common with the suspension of the division between the “implied author” and the author of the text, postulated by Kierkegaard in his concept of the ethics of communication. In this perspective, the Danish philosopher can be seen as the godfather of many ideas of contemporary ethical criticism, which I write slightly more extensively about at the end of the book.

Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] by Józef Wittlin

163

dry moralizing etc.” and adds: “This moralizing manifested itself, however, in his prompting everyone to think about his duties. He entered into the interests of the young and old, shoemakers, blacksmiths, Sophists, politicians, citizens of every kind, whether they were domestic interests (bringing up children) or intellectual interests, and directed their thinking away from the specific incident to the universal, the in-​and-​for-​itself truth and beauty.”125 In this view, Socrates becomes a master of morality; however, not because he proclaimed specific moral principles but because he constantly prompted reflection on what is moral –​whereas his student, when properly attuned, was able to travel the rest of that path on his own. As we remember, one of the two tools of Socratic teaching, apart from maieutics, was irony. According to Kierkegaard, who thus rehabilitates the ironic attitude, this did not prevent Socrates from following precisely this path towards good, even if understood abstractly.126 It is thanks to Socratic irony, as the Danish philosopher points out, that the soul gains protection against the threat of excessive relativism and is led onto the path of self-​improvement. According to the author of The Concept of Irony, the “healthy” Socratic irony puts in front of man’s eyes the horizon of meaning and belief in concepts, while at the same time questions the adoption of an attitude of unwavering certainty. No wonder then that the fifteenth thesis appended to Kierkegaard’s treatise on irony reads: “Just as philosophy begins with doubt, so also a life that may be called human begins with irony.”127 It is not by accident that Wittlin takes up the path of Socratic rather than Romantic irony. The latter, born on the modern ground, excessively risks (as criticised by Hegel) sliding down into pure negation and preaching nothingness. Therefore, in order to help man surrounded by modern moral chaos, Wittlin uses a tool created when the world had not yet been shaken by the temptation of unstoppable development, destroying the absolute and the ethical. Realising that unambiguous moral formulas created in isolation from the idea of absolute good rooted in metaphysics can serve both good and oppression, by means of irony Wittlin overrules the unambiguousness of categorical statements which appear on the pages of the novel and function as a kind of quotations. At the same time, his irony, unlike the Romantic irony, is not a rhetorical attack against the world,

125 S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony, with Continual Reference to Socrates, ed. and trans. with Introduction and Notes by H. V. Hong and E. H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989, p. 227, emphasis K.S.H. 126 S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony, p. 216. 127 S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony, p. 6.

164

The capabilities of prose

but on the contrary, it wants to uphold the legitimacy of faith –​not so much faith in the world but faith in the power of gestures designed to make humanity ethically sensitive. This is what constitutes a clear convergence between Socratic and Wittlin’s attitudes to the world. As Kierkegaard wrote: But Socrates’s irony … was turned against the whole established order. It demanded ideality from all of it, and this demand was the judgement that judged and condemned Greek culture. But his irony was not the instrument he used in the service of the idea; irony was his position –​more he did not have. If he had had the idea, his annihilating activity would not have been so radical. The one who proclaimed the law was not the one who also brought grace; the one who laid down the demand in all its rigor was not the one who could satisfy the demand.128

“Demanding ideality” from the world is one of Wittlin’s traits, which –​as in Socrates –​should be understood not as seeking an aesthetically perfect world but a world that is ethically perfect. It is like this that they both would like to make the reality they know well. This act cannot be performed, as Kierkegaard notes, with the use of an idea, a ready-​made recipe, because this immediately takes away the absolute dimension of changes, while this dimension is what Socrates and the author of Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] expect. Kierkegaard indicates several times in his book that Socrates’s activity was the end of the old order and the beginning of a new one.129 It is worth noting that the narrator of Wittlin’s novel, precisely because of irony, occupies a position that is equally at the boundary: the death knell that he rings over the pre-​modern world by ironically targeting Piotr Niewiadomski is not only a sign of the inexorable coming of a new order. The irony that Wittlin uses to strike at the modern world is at the same time a guarantee of the continuity that exists between the narrator and Niewiadomski, despite the obvious differences and the marked distance between them. The ironic position of the narrator is in this sense also the beginning of an ethical upheaval. Its basis is not only the ethical advantage that in the end the Hutsul, illiterate and far from being moral, gains over modern reality, but also the gesture of an ironist who proposes distrust instead of an idea and, in a hidden way, infects the reader with a longing for ideality. Being rooted in the previous, pre-​modern formation performs, in Wittlin’s case, a function similar

128 S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony, pp. 213–​214; emphasis K.S.H. 129 Cf. in S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony, e.g. “In Socrates, one process ends and with him a new one begins,” p. 211; “He himself still belongs to an older formation, and yet a new one begins with him,” p. 217.

Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] by Józef Wittlin

165

to what being classical was for Socrates, namely, it allows Wittlin to bear the load of irony without letting it slide into negativity.

Summary During the many years of composing a volume of memoirs and essays addressed to his daughter Elżbieta, Wittlin reflected on the moral consequences of people watching and analysing scenes of “people killing people:” I would like to spare you, dear Foal, at least the sight of people killing people, not in order to save you from the terror that is the truth of our existence since Cain killed Abel, but to save your soul from shame that you are the same human as people who kill people. To save you from accepting fellowship with mankind for whom slaughter is a normal activity. 130

According to Wittlin, who represents ethical maximalism, being a passive witness of a criminal act means the necessity of “accepting fellowship” with the tormentor, and consequently, infinite shame for being who one is (and not for what one actually did). As viewed by Emmanuel Lévinas, shame means the “fact of being riveted to oneself, the radical impossibility of fleeing oneself to hide from oneself, the unalterably binding presence of the I to itself”131 and the feeling of shame leads, according to Giorgio Agamben, who develops the thought of Lévinas, to de-​subjectification.132 It can be assumed that also for these reasons –​the desire to save the reader from debilitating shame, and at the same time the need to satisfy his own ethical passion –​Wittlin adopted an ironic perspective in his novel about the great war. Irony allows for distance towards evil without an excessive sense of superiority (because horror is, as Wittlin writes to his daughter, “the truth of our existence”), a sense of a positive bond, built not with the help of declarations, but thanks to ironic tensions, in a sense of the community of the defective and insecure condition. In the light of the observations made, it is worth asking once again about the meaning of the title of the novel and the evangelical motto chosen by Wittlin (the motto is: “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast 130 J. Wittlin, Raptus Europae, The Digital Archive of Józef Wittlin, The Library of the University of Rzeszów, shelf-​mark 1.1.1.4., sheet 22 v. 131 E. Levinas, On Escape: De l’évasion, trans. Bettina Bergo, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2003, p. 36. 132 G. Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz. The Witness and the Archive, trans. Daniel Heller-​Roazen, New York: Zone Books, 2002.

166

The capabilities of prose

out, and to be trodden under foot of men” –​King James Bible, Matt. 5: 13). Many interpretations have arisen around them, sometimes extremely divergent (significantly, the controversy focuses on the problem of irony, which is of key importance to me).133 In order to propose my own, I suggest recalling the other quotations from the Bible that appeared in Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] that have been mentioned above. Each of them is quite difficult to interpret convincingly in the context of the novel: the gesture of recalling them each time seems close to ironic blasphemy as much as to the breathtaking sancta simplicitas. Everywhere, a quote is radically decontextualised, sometimes literalised, its metaphorical meaning is lost, while the literal interpretation of a metaphor is always easy to treat as a sign of multidirectional irony (although, at the same time, it is difficult to justify such an understanding convincingly). However, the motto may be considered as an attempt to recall the Gospel formula under conditions of modernity and as a test of its effectiveness. By delivering the memorable words about “the salt of the earth,” Christ constructs a distinct receiving community of all his listeners. In this passage of the Gospel, Jesus speaks about moral values in an extremely general manner ​​(of what kind and in what meanings they are manifested, it would be in vain to inquire about): that if they lose their meaning, they will be useless. Interestingly, in uttering these words, Christ does not focus on assessing the world (that requires seasoning, which means that it is imperfect), but on those who are to make this world better; they are the addressees of the enigmatic warning; it clearly outlines a collective recipient, a certain group united by a common situation of spiritual threat. It seems that Wittlin perceived the recipients of his novel quite similarly, considering the times when the novel was being written as a period of spiritual impoverishment, the dulling of the (always weak) moral instinct. It can be assumed that the title of the novel points to the plural “you” of the community of readers and the author, all those who go out into the modern world trying to look for community with others and for lasting values. The time that Wittlin describes is a time when the sense of community declines, old values ​​go away, salt loses its flavour. But, as he seems to repeat after the Gospel, it is bad especially for the community itself, not only for the world. This brings an incentive to take care of ethical reflection and nurture the thought about values; the whole novel is in this

133 Z. Yurieff, Joseph Wittlin, passim; K. Jakowska, Z dziejów ekspresjonizmu w Polsce. Wokół “Soli ziemi,” pp. 18–​19; D. Siwor, “Dokąd zmierza Piotr Niewiadomski –​o bohaterze “Soli ziemi” w kontekście mityczno-​rytualnym”, p. 70; A. Frajlich, “Two Unknown Soldiers,” in: Between Lvov, New York and Ulysses’ Ithaca, pp. 53–​54.

Dvärgen [The Dwarf] by Pär Lagerkvist

167

sense “the salt of the earth” because it was written in the lack of consent to modernity although it shows full awareness that modernity cannot be rejected and is filled with concern that what is moral should not disappear –​against human nature, which instrumentalises morality and deprives it of its essence. The motto of the novel, just like the whole novel, contains a conviction that one should first of all care about the “salt,” i.e. people’s ethical sensitivity, and not about one or another system of values understood in an abstract or legalistic way. Wittlin’s work is structured in such a way as to contribute to the rescue of human reality by discreetly and ironically taking care of the moral condition of the reader.

2. Dvärgen [The Dwarf] by Pär Lagerkvist Dvärgen [The Dwarf], one of Lagerkvist’s most important works, is a novel set in the Renaissance Italian court. The narrative is conducted from the point of view of the eponymous protagonist, who presents a whole range of main characters (the prince and the princess, princess Angelika, the painter and scholar Bernardo, the ruler of the hostile principality Lodovico Montaza and his son Giovanni) and the events taking place over several months: Bernardo’s arrival at the prince’s court, the outbreak of war with a neighbouring city-​state, an apparent reconciliation with the opponents and a betrayal, crowned with a series of murders, a revenge accumulating in a cruel war and a raging plague. The Swedish literary scholar Bengt Brodow included Dvärgen [The Dwarf] among those of the writer’s works that are characterised by the poetics of “mediated confession.”134 Works that belong to this group depart from the simple, personal style that is characteristic of numerous works of the author of Ångest and make distinct stylisation the main principle of construction. In Dvärgen [The Dwarf], the narrative is carried out all the time from the point of view of the eponymous character, and stylisation measures are used to suggestively portray this protagonist in an expressive way as well as to get as close as possible to his way of viewing reality. The form of a diary, in which the dwarf writes down his observations and thoughts, allows us to penetrate deeply into his way of thinking, leaving all attempts at his valuation solely to the reader’s creativity. Continuing my reading of Lagerkvist’s oeuvre as modern ethical literature, I would like to emphasize precisely this element of moral involvement of the reader, clearly inscribed in the structure of the novel. On the one hand, an important part of

134 Cf. B. Brodow, Ett författarskap speglat i språket. Struktur och stil i Pär Lagerkvists prosa, Lund: Gleerup, 2003, p. 177.

168

The capabilities of prose

my analysis of Dvärgen [The Dwarf] will consist in the reconstruction of the worldview voiced in the novel, especially the problem of moral evil, which is crucial for it. On the other hand, I will pay close attention to the analysis of the novel’s narrative structure and to the description of the techniques with which the writer aims to stimulate the reader to moral reflection in such a way as to avoid the shallowness of didactically effective but artistically flawed writing.

Three evils: Eternal, renaissance and modern The dark portrait of the novel’s eponymous character results from his wicked deeds as well as his opinions about himself, which he writes down in his diary. The dwarf ’s behaviour leaves no doubt as to his nature: the dwarf is a murderer and an assassin, a blasphemer; he dreams of war and is completely unable to understand the feelings of religious attachment or interpersonal love. He denies the existence of good (the manifestations of which remain incomprehensible to him) and all that is invisible, but he is full of adoration for courtly glitz and lavishness. He sees all human beings as “misshapen,” a kind of evil that he, horribly “misshapen” himself, is an embodiment of. He is a creature that is cruel, immoral and terrifying to the core. It is clear from the dwarf ’s story that he himself chooses the evil he does; for this reason he feels stronger and wiser than all those around him, and hence his stories of others often reverberate with pity. He repeatedly expresses his infinite contempt for people as a species and for each individual person, which he summarises most succinctly in the scene of a feast at the castle: “Is there anything as vile as human beings?”135 This characteristic is confirmed by the analysis of the style and language used by the dwarf. His way of speaking about the surrounding reality is full of rhetorical phrases and polished statements136 as well as very conventional, which is a sign of the protagonist’s emotional disability and testifies to his spiritual poverty; and in places where he tries to convey his own bad emotions, the dwarf becomes rhetorically helpless and turns to simple exclamations. In this accumulation of morally reprehensible features, the dwarf acquires a symbolic dimension, strengthened by his self-​awareness as a representative of “a race of dwarfs,” “the original beings” (p. 6), i.e. creatures more primeval than people and, as the dwarf claims, shaped better than them. 135 P. Lagerkvist, The Dwarf, trans. from Swedish by Alexandra Dick, New York 1945, p. 147. All quotations from Dvärgen [The Dwarf] come from this edition; the page number is provided in brackets following each quotation. 136 Cf. B. Brodow, Ett författarskap speglat i språket, p. 192.

Dvärgen [The Dwarf] by Pär Lagerkvist

169

The gesture of making the protagonist of this book the eponymous character indicates that Lagerkvist will direct the readers’ attention to the problem of the existence of evil, its sources and place in the world and in human nature. Due to the symbolic role of the dwarf as evil incarnate, and at the same time as a shadow or a caricature of what is human, the novel expresses the conviction that evil always accompanies man, being a kind of lining of human nature. The eponymous character claims that “One always needs the services of one’s dwarf ” (p.  182) and this statement is confirmed by numerous remarks scattered throughout the novel and in the events depicted there. When describing his relationship with the prince, the dwarf remarks: “I follow him [the prince] constantly, like a shadow” (p. 7); about his role in the ruler’s life, he says that “it is great to have a little bravo like that who can render all manner of service” (p. 149); before taking revenge on enemies, he describes his relationship with the prince with the words: “Never before have I realised how closely we are bound together” (p. 180). Importantly for the meaning of Lagerkvist’s novel, special closeness can be observed not only in the relationship between the eponymous character and the prince but also in the relationship between the dwarf and the princess: “Sometimes she calls me her only friend” (p. 10). In the world depicted in the novel, the dwarf ’s evil seems to many characters to be very much needed, and the desire to give in to it is a powerful temptation, an inalienable element of human nature. In this mode of reading, the dwarf would be a symbol of the traditionally understood metaphysical evil that destroys man when he himself allows it. Indeed, almost all of the leading characters of the novel yield to evil instincts (although, unlike them, only in the dwarf is this choice supported by an open declaration of the worldview). The moral mediocrity of other people manifests itself in opposing the main ethical principles of Christianity:  in murder, debauchery, lying, betrayal, cunning, perjury. The dwarf, who genuinely admires the prince at whose court he lives, describes his as follows: the Prince, who is a great and powerful man, a man of great schemes, and one who knows how to put them into execution. He is a man of action, but at the same time a scholar who finds time for everything and likes to discuss all manner of subjects under heaven and on earth. He conceals his true aims by talking about something else. /​It may seem unnecessary to be so preoccupied by everything (always supposing he really is), but perhaps it has to be, perhaps as a prince he is obliged to comprehend everything. He gives the impression of being able to understand and master anything, or at least of wishing to do so. Undeniably he is an imposing personality … /​He is very treacherous. (pp. 6–​7)

The Prince’s Machiavellian personality is complemented by a truly Renaissance versatility of his interests and a considerable intellect. The prince uses reason to

170

The capabilities of prose

subjugate the whole world: from political opponents to the clergy, deceived by his façade piety. The essentially self-​interested friendship with master Bernardo, with the help of which the prince tries to make the painter a tool in his hands, completely fits in with this model of conduct. In the world depicted through the dwarf ’s eyes, there is no place for love understood as genuine closeness of two people or for a true religion that is faithful to its ideas. Instead, there is room for speculation by astrologers, whose actions gain the proud name of science, for pseudo-​nationalist praise of war, for the admiration for nature as a perfect and soulless mechanism. In the cold rationalism of the dwarf, as well as in the attitudes of many other figures, a deep crisis of the belief in the metaphysical order in the world is visible. The religion that is officially professed in the state is treated by the dwarf as well as by a significant number of people participating in its rituals as an insignificant rite, performed in the name of custom. The very institution of the church has, in the described world, been sold to serve the state and the authority. When the prince plans to go to war: All the bells are ringing and the churches are crammed to bursting. The priests pray earnestly for the war and obviously it has the blessing of the church (p. 69).

This is the picture of institutionalised religion that is drawn in many parts of the novel. However, the image of private religiosity shared by the novel’s characters is no better. Most of the main characters do not believe in God; the moment of man’s conversation with God in prayer, present in the pages of the novel, does constitute an allusion to pious mystical dialogues but, since the role of the interlocutor is played by the dissolute and vain princess, it is hardly surprising that “The Crucified One doesn’t answer” (p. 200). At the same time, it should be noted that several characters that the dwarf openly despises (Angelica, guardian Anselmo) profess faith in God, and the conversion of the princess shortly before her death, which is incomprehensible to the dwarf due to his cognitive limitations, bears the symptoms of authenticity. Sincere religiosity and piety have not been completely ousted from the Renaissance world, although people considered great by that culture (Bernardo, the prince) are unable to get closer to their essence. Love, on the other hand, is reduced by the people of the dwarf ’s epoch, full of marital betrayals and prostitution, to the rank of entertainment and one of the sensual pleasures of life. The only characters capable of true love, abolishing prejudices and striving for peace, namely Angelica and Giovanni, fail and their feeling will remain unfulfilled. Significantly, none of the main and background characters in the novel at any time relies on any ethical intuitions, either their own or derived from any

Dvärgen [The Dwarf] by Pär Lagerkvist

171

authority. Sparks of good, present in Giovanni, severely tried by fate, do not fully come to the fore until he dies a tragic death. The prince, willing to use deception even when his friend’s life is at stake, shows no ethical hesitations. None of the protagonists are willing to give up their own ambitions or pleasures in the name of friendship. Morality, clearly separating good and evil from each other, has been replaced in this world by the principle of experiencing and striving to experience pleasure, i.e. a kind of good that is only personal and material.137 The only undoubtedly morally good figure (and therefore hated by the dwarf) is Angelika, who chooses suicide after the murder of her beloved. Very characteristically, the linguistic structure of Angelika’s few statements that the dwarf quotes (the most extensive of them is her letter written before the decision to take her own life, which is “credible” in the world of the novel as a testimony to her linguistic habits precisely because it is quoted in extenso) clearly shows that her kindness find its reflection in the style in which she expresses herself. Contrary to the dwarf ’s bitter style, full of curses and invectives, Angelica’s language is simple, clear, devoid of tones of anger or regret: I do not want to stay with you any longer. You have been so kind to me, but I do not understand you. I do not understand how you could take my beloved away from me, my dear one who came so far from another country to tell me that there was a thing called love. /​… I shall just lay myself down to rest on the river, and He [God –​K.S.H.] will take me where I am to go. /​You must not believe that I have taken my life, for I have only done as I was told. And I am not dead. I have gone to be joined forever to my beloved. (pp. 199–​200)

Such expressive linguistic differentiation of the two protagonists perfectly corresponds to the difference that exists between their worldviews. In this way, using linguistic means, Lagerkvist expresses the essential and irreducible difference between good and evil.138 A fundamental part of the novel’s reflections on evil is the diagnosis of its origins. In Dvärgen [The Dwarf], however, Lagerkvist does not focus on mythical stories of the origin of evil but on an analysis of those phenomena which are part of the human world that favour the development of evil. It can be reasonably

137 This resembles the “principle of happiness” developed in the Enlightenment, and described by: P. Hazard, European thought in the eighteenth century: from Montesquieu to Lessing, trans. J. L. May, J. L.May, London: Hollis & Carter, 1954, p. 140 ff. I will return to the analogy between the portrait of the Renaissance in Lagerkvist’s work and the Enlightenment in the further course of my reflections. 138 Cf. B. Brodow, Ett författarskap speglat i språket, pp. 197–​198.

172

The capabilities of prose

argued that the period against the background of which the fictional events unfold was deliberately chosen by the writer precisely because it constitutes the beginning of many varieties of modern evil. Bengt Lewan put forward the thesis it was in an environment shaped by Renaissance ideas that the dwarf had the opportunity to function so wonderfully.139 Complementing Levan’s observations, it can be pointed out that nihilism, of which the dwarf is a follower,140 from a certain point of view was born with the birth of modernity and is sometimes called its synonym.141 If we accept this thesis, it can be stated that avant la lettre the modern dwarf-​nihilist is an inherent child of his times. It should be noted that the image of the epoch in the novel was constructed by Lagerkvist in such a way that its features could be problematised. The dwarf gives a very faithful account of the worldview discussions that he witnesses although, as he himself claims, he sometimes understands little of them. It is difficult to explain this circumstance in a way other than the author’s intention of creating a comprehensive image of the epoch. As a chronicler of the life of a Renaissance city, the dwarf is quite credible, although of course not as a person who evaluates and ascribes values, and the comprehensive image of the epoch that he depicts, significantly different from the stereotypical, optimistic portrait of the Renaissance, functioning in contemporary Swedish literature,142 can be read as a message from the author. Thus, the novel analyses both the problem of the timeless evil, symbolised by the eponymous character, and the evil born of Renaissance anthropocentrism –​ of which modernity is a late result. Bengt Lewan draws attention to the characteristic first words of the novel: “Jag är” (“I am,” p. 5), which is a sign of egoism and inability to love as well as negative freedom, the freedom to choose evil. The researcher sees in them a miniature of the novel’s theme and the Burkhardian opposition of Renaissance individualism and the medieval collective attitude.143

139 B. Lewan, Renässansbilder. Den italienska renässansen i svensk diktning, Stockholm: Carlsson, 1995, p. 256. 140 “The perfect nihilist –​the eye of the nihilist that idealises in the direction of ugliness, that is faithless to its memories (–​it lets them fall, shed their leaves; it doesn’t protect them from the corpse-​like pallor with which weakness bleaches what’s remote and past); and what he doesn’t practise towards himself, he doesn’t practise towards mankind’s whole past either he lets it fall,” in: F. Nietzsche, Writings from the Late Notebooks, ed. by R. Bittner, trans. K. Sturge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 182. 141 T. Gadacz, “Myślenie z wnętrza nihilizmu,” Znak 1994, No. 6, p. 4. 142 B. Lewan, Renässansbilder. Den italienska renässansen i svensk diktning, p. 254. 143 B. Lewan, Renässansbilder. Den italienska renässansen i svensk diktning, p. 256.

Dvärgen [The Dwarf] by Pär Lagerkvist

173

It is worth supplementing this observation with other important threads in the analysis of the consequences of the Renaissance upheaval for the anthropological convictions and the moral condition of later epochs. One of them (and the key one for the present analyses) is the disappearance of the category of the sacred in the humanist-​oriented world as an effect of the emancipation of reason and the absolutisation of rational decisions, resulting in the depreciation of reflection based on cognitive principles other than rational ones: At the end of the Middle Ages, the paths of philosophy and theology diverged. Theology and philosophy become alien to each other. Faith and reason live separately. And since reason in general is probably the only condition under which “the world” can be positively brought into theological thinking, then this means that, as a result of the liberation of reason from theological thinking, the world becomes theologically inconceivable. It becomes deprived of its ability to understand itself in a theological way. Thus, it tends to form and formulate itself in a way that is free from theology, i.e. in terms of the profane. … The world is clearly a world of disenchanted and uninhibited needs and interests, a “sensual” world of rival individuals and groups, pressure for power, fear of others and concern for survival.144

Without much exaggeration, the above words could be made a motto for the interpretation of Lagerkvist’s Dvärgen [The Dwarf] because the novel’s image of the Renaissance finds an excellent commentary in the categories proposed by the philosopher. As described by Marquard, the Renaissance re-​evaluation of the sacred and the profane conceived as two spheres of human life and present in man himself, the issue of the legitimacy of rational cognition and religious faith, as well as the question of moral criteria in the world after the modern revolution, remain the main topics of the novel. Therefore, the “Renaissance” aspect in Lagerkvist’s novel is not only a stylised costume (such an approach may be taken into account when interpreting the book as a parable relating to the Second World War145). The epoch which constitutes the background of the events was chosen intentionally because the question, asked repeatedly in the novel, about the cognitive capabilities and ethical competences of human reason resounds very clearly against the background of 144 O. Marquard, Kant i zwrot ku estetyce, in: O. Marquard, Aesthetica i anaesthetica. Rozważania filozoficzne, trans. K. Krzemieniowa, Warszawa:  Oficyna Naukowa, 2007, p. 29. 145 An analysis of Dvärgen [The Dwarf] as a reply to the folly of Hitlerism has been undertaken by: S. Selander, “Om ondskans väsen,” Svenska Dagbladet of 18.11.1944; U.-​L. Karahka, “Pär Lagerkvists aktualisering av historieromangenren: en studie i Bödeln och Dvärgen,” Fenix 1988 No. 3–​4, p. 123 ff.

174

The capabilities of prose

the times that raised reason to the rank of the determinant of humanity. At the same time, the Renaissance. which opened the period of modernity, was the epoch in which philosophical thought was confronted for the first time with the difficulties in pointing to a non-​metaphysical basis of morality. These difficulties became its part on a large scale in modernity146 while modern nihilism became their distinct expression. In this sense, by diagnosing the evil inherent in the times in which the dwarf lived, Lagerkvist’s novel becomes a diagnosis of modern evil and human attempts to confront it.

Facing nihilism The dwarf wants to know, comprehend, understand, and therefore rationalise the world in various ways. This undoubtedly constitutes his limitation as certain phenomena of the surrounding reality cannot be accessed on this path, which becomes the most striking when he is confronted with the sphere of religious faith. In this situation, he makes cold calculations concerning those elements of Christian beliefs that he knows, which in the light of purely rational arguments turn out to be cruel or absurd (“Now that I think of it, the mother is in paradise while her son languishes in hell-​fire, having died without prayer or sacraments while sleeping the deep slumber of sin. So they can never meet. Perhaps Angelica prays for his soul. Her prayers are sure to be in vain,” p. 195). The dwarf is also unable to grasp the meaning of natural religion and treats its followers with contempt: according to their own account it was some kind of feast to celebrate the harvest. A pregnant woman poured wine and olive oil over the earth on a bit of tilled ground, and then they all seated themselves in a circle around it and partook of bread and wine and goats’ milk cheese. /​The Prince sat down too and ate with them. … /​When he asked them why the woman had done all that, they became very secretive and embarrassed and did not want to answer, but smiled knowingly with their silly peasant faces. But at last they came out with it: it was to make the earth bear grapes and olives the next year also. It sounded too comic for words. As though the earth could know that they had poured wine and oil on it and their purpose in so doing! “We do this every year at this time,” they said. (pp. 90–​91)

146 According to Charles Taylor, what has occurred in modernity is a definite change of the ethical tradition: “The move from substance to procedure, from found to constructed orders” –​Ch. Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, p. 156). See also: S. Toulmin, Cosmopolis. The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, 1990.

Dvärgen [The Dwarf] by Pär Lagerkvist

175

In interpreting religious activities in a rational way, the dwarf views them only as a manifestation of naivety or cynicism. This, of course, has far-​reaching ethical consequences. The dwarf, incapable of metaphysical reflection, claims that man is part of a completely indifferent natural world, beyond which there is nothing: Who knows anything about the stars? Who can read their secret? Can these men? … /​ I too read in the book of the night, but I cannot interpret it. My wisdom shows me not only the writing, but also that it cannot be interpreted. (p. 14, emphasis by K.S.H.)

For the dwarf, the limits of rationalism are also the boundary of cognition. This gesture of giving up the search for the meaning of existence, which lies beyond the sphere that can be justified in a purely intellectual way, can be identified as the immoral condition of the dwarf who, by declaring: “It is my nature to know it” (p. 57), does not try to translate this knowledge about facts, desired by him, into understanding the deeper meaning of reality. Therefore, the dwarf ’s nihilism results from the consistent adoption of the rational perspective and the limitation of his own view of reality to the horizon determined by reason, the only instance that he trusts. This leads to the inability to take up axiological reflection, which the dwarf willingly consents to: What do they know of the greatness of life? How do they know it is great? It is only a phrase, something they enjoy saying, One might just as well affirm that it was small, insignificant, completely unimportant, an insect that one can crush on a fingernail. And one might add that it has no objection to being crushed on a fingernail, being just as contented with its end as with anything else. (p. 41)

The dwarf ’s views, unless in any way challenged within the world of the novel, would inevitably lead to an extremely pessimistic anthropology. The measure of their ultimate truthfulness could be found in the last words of the novel, indicating that the prince does not have the strength to get rid of the dwarf once and for all, which means that man is unable to effectively defend himself against evil. The nuancing of this issue was possible thanks to introducing into the depicted world the figure of Bernardo, stylised as Leonardo da Vinci: a Renaissance artist and scientist marked with an inner fracture, “internally split” in a truly modern way. The conflict between the dwarf and Bernardo is the axis of the dispute of worldviews in the novel because these characters, though in some respects similar, differ fundamentally, and the reconstruction of their strife is a key element in interpreting the ideological (also: ethical) message of the novel. The dwarf and Bernardo attract each other. The dwarf is intrigued by the man who, although reluctant towards court pomp, is a great authority for the prince; therefore the dwarf tries to unravel the artist’s nature. Bernardo looks at the dwarf with undisguised curiosity and makes him an object of his own anatomical

176

The capabilities of prose

studies. This mutual attractiveness can be explained by the fact that there are fundamental similarities between them. Both are distanced from other people to the point of contempt for them;147 both carry out a philosophical analysis of the world, for which the starting point is a rejection of the belief in the metaphysical order of the world, foreshadowing modernity. The latter circumstance, however, makes each protagonist adopt a radically different attitude. The dwarf openly proclaims evil as his principle of existence whereas Bernardo, although –​ like all people (except Angelica) in the world of the novel –​is “misshapen” by evil, does not glorify it or make it his measure of conduct. Characteristically, the dwarf cannot at first glance find in the scholar the deformation that characterises all people, i.e. the evil pseudonymised in this way, of which he himself is a sign. He discovers it only when he learns that Bernardo is a designer of war machines: then, in a nightmare, he sees Bernardo being deformed like the fantasy-​grotesque creatures that he draws (pp. 67–​68). Bernardo investigates the truth about the world and man through scientific and artistic research. Investigation of physical reality leads him to recognise the wisdom of nature, admiration for all creation. After he performs an autopsy and recognises the principles of functioning of the human organism, he expresses boundless admiration for the mechanisms of nature: They spoke of nature, of its inexhaustible greatness and riches. One great continuity, a single miracle! The veins which lead the blood around the body as the spring water is led around in the earth; lungs which breathe as the oceans breathe with their ebb and flow; the skeleton which supports the body as the stones support the earth and the soil which is its flesh … /​What bliss is to behold the wonderful riches of nature, they exclaimed. There is so much to be explored. And man shall become rich and powerful by learning to know all that, all these secret forces and how to make use of them. … Ah, life is wonderful and human existence unfathomable in its greatness!148 (pp. 40–​41)

1 47 Cf. B. Lewan, Renässansbilder. Den italienska renässansen i svensk diktning, pp. 262–​263. 148 The exclamation “Ah, life is wonderful and human existence unfathomable in its greatness!” is, in the original, as follows: “Ack! Hur stort och härligt är det inte att leva!” (P. Lagerkvist, Dvärgen, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1989, p. 29) –​thus the quote is an exact repetition of the words in Lagerkvist’s poem analysed in Chapter 3 “Människor, människor…” (the ending of the poem reads: “omätlig stort är att leva” –​P. Lagerkvist, “Människor, människor…”, in: P. Lagerkvist, Ångest, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1916, p. 28). In the poem and in the context of the adjacent poems in the volume Ångest, that sentence was profoundly ambiguous; in the novel, too, Bernardo will soon contradict his own words. I believe that Lagerkvist’s self-​quote points to a conscious game that should be viewed in terms of perspectivism. I will return to this issue later in this chapter.

Dvärgen [The Dwarf] by Pär Lagerkvist

177

Bernardo, however, is also interested in what is ugly and evil, and expresses his interests as an artist by drawing non-​existent monsters: “They were something between men and beasts, women with bats’ wings between their long hairy fingers, men with lizards’ faces and legs and bodies like toads; others flying about like devils with cruel vulture faces and spread claws instead of hands. (p. 48). Shocked by the sight of these drawings, the dwarf asks himself the question that is important for the meaning of the novel: “What can he be like, the being who produces things like that, who revels in such horrors and lusts after them?” (p. 48). Bernardo the artist is marked by a deep inner fracture. The dwarf reflects on his duality by asking how it is possible that one and the same man has painted fearful and disgusting, non-​existent monsters as well as Christ, “Sitting there… with his pure solemn face”(p. 46) at the Last Supper, and how one man can alternately despair over vanity and glorify the greatness of one and the same human existence. The question asked by the dwarf directs the recipient’s mind to a very important issue in the perspective of Lagerkvist’s theory of ethical art, namely:  why does an artist and man need the knowledge of evil? The humanistic attitude declared by Bernardo, contained in the motto Homo sum, humanum nihil a me alienum esse puto, reveals in the person of Bernardo its sinister dimension of putting oneself to the test. The figure of a genius torn between delight and despair shows that the need to explore what is evil or even amoral (like nature) means, for a man devoid of a moral compass and metaphysical confidence, making himself prey to doubt and despair. Neither the utopia of science as a universal tool for explaining reality nor the utopia of art are able to survive the radical doubt in meaning, as experienced by a man devoid of faith in the metaphysical dimension of reality: He said: “In the end human thought accomplishes so little. Its wings are strong, but not as strong as the destiny which gave them to us. It will not let us escape nor reach out any further than it desires. Our journey is predestined, and, after a brief roaming which fills us with joy and expectation, we are drawn back again as the falcon is drawn back by the leash in the hand of the falconer. … /​“And yet we are such that we are always subject to the enticement of space, and believe that we belong to it. And yet it is ever present over us, it reveals itself to us as something veritable. It is as real as our imprisonment.” … /​He continued: “Are we the happier because we seek the truth? I know not. I merely seek it. All my life has been a restless search for it, and sometimes I have felt that I have apprehended it, I have caught a glimpse of its pure sky –​but the sky has never opened itself for me, my eyes have never filled themselves with its endless spaces, without which nothing here can be fully understood. It is not vouchsafed to us. Therefore all my efforts really have been in vain. Therefore all that I have touched has been but partly true and partly completed. … All that I have created is imperfect and unfinished. All that I leave behind

178

The capabilities of prose

me is unfinished. /​But is there anything strange in that? It is the fate of mankind, the inescapable destiny of all human effort and all human achievement. It is ever more than an attempt, an attempt at something which can never be achieved, which is not meant to be achieved by any of us? All human culture is but an attempt at something unattainable, something which far transcends our powers of realization. (pp. 53–​55)

Moving from delight to doubt, Bernardo seems to summarise the revolution in modern philosophy that took place when the mind became separated from the material universe and its insight into the world ceased to have the character of cognition of the order of goods, and became an act of insight into the world devoid of any thought and meaning. Charles Taylor calls this process “neutralizing the cosmos,”149 a term worth recalling all the more so as Lagerkvist, writing about the sages who, “read the writing of the stars” (p.  14) refers to the same symbolic sphere. The truth that Bernardo talks about is in fact unknowable and impossible to grasp by human reason, yet at the same time man is aware of its existence. The metaphors of the “falconer” and the “leash” on which human thought is “drawn” indicate Bernardo’s attachment to the belief in a mechanism that regulates human life and that overwhelms the human being; at the same time it is clearly visible that his spiritual longing cannot be satisfied as it is no longer possible to rely on the theological concept (the mention of a “falconer,” rather than God, is not a coincidence). The religious horizon, which makes coherent and explains the place of man in the world, is inaccessible to Bernardo. At the same time, the conviction that the truth is impossible to find, accompanying the desire for truth, is by no means tantamount to Bernardo’s admission that this truth does not exist.150 Human fate is defined as a Sisyphean attempt to build a whole out of fragments, reaching for the impossible. Bernardo diagnoses the situation of modern man, who is aware of the partiality of perception, the futility of efforts aimed at reaching towards a holistic and universalising view, and falls into discouragement: “What use are wings when they can never be spread? They become a burden instead of a release. They weigh us down, we trail them and finally we hate them.” /​“And it comes

149 Ch. Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, p. 148. 1 50 This dialectic in relation to Lagerkvist’s poems from the volume Aftonland [Evening land] became the focus of attention of Staffan Bergsten, who noted that what is “inconceivable” does not have to mean “meaningless.” See S. Bergsten, Jaget och världen. Kosmiska analogier i svensk 1900-​tals lyrik, Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 1971, p. 80.

Dvärgen [The Dwarf] by Pär Lagerkvist

179

as a relief when the falconer wearies of his cruel play and draws the hood over our head so that we no longer have to see anything.” (p. 55)

The inherent human attraction to evil (being “misshapen”) is not, therefore, the only ethically ambiguous feature of Bernardo’s personality. This worshipper of reason, who wishes to tear away nature’s secrets and learn about the world as a scientist and artist, when struggling with the problem of the limits of human cognition and fearing doubts about the sense of the existence of the world and man, withdraws into the perspective of “ignorance by choice.” His fate shows that in the face of the futility of cognitive efforts and total nothingness, man either adopts a Quietistic attitude or tries to look for a made-​up meaning in the world. Through this character, Lagerkvist suggests that this is the greatest human weakness in a world devoid of the metaphysical sanction: in the search for certainty, man –​including Bernardo –​is willing to give up some of his freedom and even consciously choose evil in order to gain certainty and peace. This diagnosis is confirmed by the dwarf when he says that what man wants most is simplification of life, even at an unimaginably high price: In reality all of them want a war. It implies a simplification which comes as a relief. Everybody thinks that life is too complicated, and so it is as they live it. In itself life is not at all complicated; on the contrary its salient feature is its great simplicity, but they can never understand that. (p. 61)

At this point, it is worth introducing into my reflections the context previously signalled by me only marginally, and in my opinion present too vaguely in scholarly discussions on Dvärgen [The Dwarf] so far, namely an analysis of Nietzschean tropes that can undoubtedly be identified in the novel. As indicated above, the dwarf can reasonably be called a nihilist. For this reason, it is worth comparing the novel’s eponymous character not with the protagonists of contemporary books, who are closely related to him in his condition as a dwarf,151 but with his twin brother: the dwarf whom the Nietzschean Zarathustra encounters in his vision. This mysterious figure, “half dwarf, half mole,”152 tries to overpower Zarathustra, who is climbing a steep stone path, by pouring discouraging 151 A whole range of dwarf figures in the literature of that time is reconstructed by:  J. Mjöberg, Livsproblemet hos Lagerkvist, Stockholm: Bonniers 1951, pp. 170–​172. Among them, he mentions Dudu (from Thomas Mann’s novel Joseph and His Brothers) and an anonymous dwarf from Dmitry Merezhkowsky’s novel Leonardo da Vinci: The Resurrection of the Gods. 152 F. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. A Book for All and None, eds. A. Del Caro, R. Pippin, trans. A. Del Caro, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 124.

180

The capabilities of prose

thoughts into his ear (“Oh Zarathustra, you stone of wisdom, you sling stone, you star crusher! You hurled yourself so high –​but every hurled stone –​must fall!”153). The dwarf who meets Zarathustra holds the belief in the Eternal Return of the Same, in the circular pattern of time, which destroys human reality. In fact, Zarathustra also holds this belief but in his discussion with the dwarf he vehemently opposes the dwarf ’s conclusions, stating that his own “abysmal thought”154 reaches deeper and describes the actual facts better. The dwarf views the world as a spectacle and perceives the eternal return from this external perspective, while the proper attitude, according to Zarathustra, is to participate in the world and in life. Instead of trying to comprehend the world and embrace it with thought, which is what the Nietzschean dwarf (but also his fictional relative described by me) attempts, Zarathustra chooses the way of not sealing life in any formulas, constant movement leading to the affirmation of life and its dimension that is superhuman, transcending the human being (and this trait is also shared by Bernardo, incapable of religious faith but, in the end, not reconciled with the “nonsense” of human existence). The knowledge represented by the dwarf is necessary for life but at the same time it binds life infinitely; therefore Zarathustra, agreeing with the dwarf as to the essence of the “Eternal Return,” must at the same time go beyond this view so that his life may continue.155 Bernardo’s case is similar. It is worth pointing out, however, that transcending the dwarf perspective takes place not by returning to the old values, but by means of perspectivism and affirmation of life, which overcome nihilism. The attitude of nihilistic disappointment with the world and the devaluation of the multiform will to live is, according to Nietzsche, something fatal, therefore the task of strong individuals (including Zarathustra) is to say “yes” to the Dionysian world and thus to transcend the standard rational categories.156 Describing the protagonists of Dvärgen [The Dwarf] in Nietzschean categories, it is easy to point out that the eponymous character embodies the nihilism of the unhealthy type, “a pathological intermediate state,” when consciousness is dominated by “pathological … generalization, the inference that there is no 153 F. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, p. 124. 154 F. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, p. 125. 155 Cf. K. Michalski, Płomień wieczności. Eseje o myślach Fryderyka Nietzschego, Kraków: Znak, 2007, p. 256 ff. 156 Cf. P. Bukowski, “Nihilizm, autorytet i autonomia: w kręgu filozofii nadczłowieka Friedricha Nietzschego,” in: Nowoczesność i nihilizm, eds. E. Partyga, M. Januszkiewicz, introduction by M. Januszkiewicz, L. Sokół, M. Werner, Warszawa: Oficyna Wydawnicza Errata, 2012, p. 59.

Dvärgen [The Dwarf] by Pär Lagerkvist

181

meaning at all.”157 The dwarf is also characterised by the will of destruction, of performing morally repugnant deeds, which can be described either as a consequence of making this character a symbol of metaphysical evil (as I did before), or as a diagnosis of modern active nihilism, with enough power to carry out acts of destruction but too weak “to productively posit for oneself a new goal”158 Although the knowledge of the dark sides of man and the painful experience of all the difficulties of existence in a world devoid of a metaphysical horizon were not spared him, Bernardo strenuously defends himself against accepting this knowledge as the whole truth about man and life. After all, there is a significant difference in meanings between Bernardo’s resigned words and their repetition, seemingly completely faithful, by the dwarf. While for Bernardo the conviction that the cognitive efforts of man and his striving towards the ideal must remain fruitless does not mean the necessity to give up this path (the suspension of activities appears to him rather like a capitulation), the dwarf, who in a way continues Bernardo’s thought, sums up the issue as follows: He has said that everything of his is left unfinished. Everything is but an attempt at something which can never be realized. All human culture is but an attempt, something quite impracticable. Therefore everything is really quite futile. (p. 57)

What for Bernardo remains a mystery difficult to accept and bear (the dimension of existence, sensed by Bernardo, that transcends man and is unknown to him), is “futile” for the dwarf. While having a similar starting point, which is the conviction that there is no metaphysical horizon for human existence and that human attempts to achieve perfection are futile, they arrive at different conclusions. While for the dwarf this means that all human activity except for pure destruction is meaningless, for Bernardo this opens the possibility of undertaking a tragic, unfulfilled struggle for the meaning of existence. When Bernardo feels doubt about who man is and about the fact that the world has been created intentionally, when he loses his conviction about the sense of searching and speaks the memorable words that it is “a relief ” when “we no longer have to see anything,” he loses the spiritual privileges of the “Übermensch,” he makes himself prey to spiritual suffering that ends in capitulation and a shift of interest from art and science to the design of siege machines. In

157 F. Nietzsche, Writings from the Late Notebooks, ed. R. Bittner, trans. K. Sturge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006 [2003], §9 [35], pp. 146–​147. 158 F. Nietzsche, Writings from the Late Notebooks, p. 146.

182

The capabilities of prose

this protagonist, one can rightly look for a portrait of modern man who, in the face of uncertainty as to the sense of his own condition, easily falls into ethical nihilism –​but also, by narrowing down the meaning, Bernardo can be considered the model of a modern artist who becomes distanced from people by own individualism and amorality. A look at this character in the novel is therefore an important point in the reconstruction of Lagerkvist’s reflection on the issues of ethical art. Bernardo is characterised by an extraordinary ability to acknowledge the problematic character of the world –​a feature that Nietzsche described in the context of the consequences and the possible overcoming of nihilism, ascribing this skill to artists.159 An artist of the Nietzscheian type, able to refrain from unambiguous diagnoses and from offering ready-​made solutions, does not pose questions, unjustified in his situation, about the sense of culture (as Bernardo puts it, “All human culture is but an attempt at something unattainable, something which far transcends our powers of realization,” p.  55), but undertakes actions whose meaning is to invigorate us to spiritual activity that opposes discouragement. He is characterised by the “will to create” which  –​as Nietzsche wrote –​allows a person to live in a meaningless world, when he himself organises just its small part.160

159 F. Nietzsche, Writings from the Late Notebooks, p. 150. 160 F. Nietzsche, Writings from the Late Notebooks, p. 150. In the light of the analyses carried out here, one cannot agree with the researcher’s statement made in the context of Lagerkvist’s novel analysed here: “It is the will to power that is the root of anti-​democratic ideologies” (U.-​L. Karahka, “Pär Lagerkvists aktualisering av historieromangenren: en studie i Bödeln och Dvärgen”,” p. 123). To perceive Nietzscheanism and the concept of the will to power solely through the prism of the use made of them by Nazi ideologists is an obvious simplification, while the will to power and elements of the concept of the Übermensch are an important element of the positive programme inscribed in the Swedish writer’s novel (in whose works the anti-​totalitarian dimension is indeed very important). I analysed the question of Nietzschean inspirations in the works of Lagerkvist in more detail in my paper “The light that unifies worlds. On Pär Lagerkvist’s short story Morgonen,” Acta Sueco-​Polonica No. 20 (2015–​2016), pp. 73–​85. Nietzsche could turn out to be an unexpected ally for the creators of “moral literature” thanks to the characteristic feature of his thought, grasped perfectly by the authors of Dialectic of Enlightenment: his merit was to make everyone aware that “he did not hush up the impossibility of deriving from reason a fundamental argument against murder, but proclaimed it from the rooftops.” And what is perhaps equally important for the Swedish writer: “With his denial he [Nietzsche –​K.S.H.] redeemed the unwavering trust in humanity which day by day is betrayed by consoling affirmation.”

Dvärgen [The Dwarf] by Pär Lagerkvist

183

Art created by an artist distanced from people, proclaiming, in turns, the glory and fall of humanity, appears to the artist himself as unfinished (when giving an account of Bernardo’s statement, the dwarf remarks: “But it must be unfinished since he says so. He has said that everything of his is left unfinished,” p. 57). As such, it brings neither delight nor relief. Significantly, looking at the same artwork about which its author spoke with dissatisfaction (the portrait of the princess), the dwarf considers it perfect (“I happened to see it once in the Prince’s room and I do not see what is wrong with it. I think it is admirable. He has painted her exactly as she is, like a middle-​aged whore. … And he has put all her soul into the picture; it is uncannily revealing. After all he does seem to understand human nature,” p. 56). The dwarf claims that the portrait (the first of the two portraits of the princess that Bernardo painted) is finished, because for him the essence of art consists in presenting what is “middle-​aged” and “lustful” (p. 56) in a realistic way. Bernardo, however, clearly wants his art to reflect something more (“He says that he cannot complete it, that there is something about her which he cannot penetrate or explain to himself,” p. 56). As a result, the only work the painter will regard as completed will be the painting depicting the Madonna whom he gave the features of the princess as seen before in the moment of conversion and agony (“The old master explained that he wanted to reproduce her innermost self and all that he had been able to apprehend only vaguely before he saw her on her deathbed. … He took a long time over it but in the end he did finish it,” p. 223). For Bernardo, a “completed” work clearly means a painting that shows the spiritual truth about man and his inexhaustible possibilities of spiritual regeneration. The fact that Bernardo agrees (in full symbiosis with his epoch, after all) that his “completed” work, Madonna, directs the audience towards a specific system of values should ​​ not necessarily be treated as the need to make Wiederverzauberung. After all, the Madonna painted by him is, to quote Hans Belting, “an image with a double face,”161 because in Bernardo’s time it cannot have a different status: it is regarded as a sacred image (by those who find inspiration for deep prayer in front of the painting and find consolation in it) as much as an

(M. Horkheimer, Th.W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, ed. G. Schmid Noerr, trans. E. Jephcott, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002, p. 93). 1 61 H. Belting, Likeness and Presence. A History of the Image Before the Era of Art, trans. Edmund Jephcott, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1994; trans. of this quotation based on the Polish edition: Obraz i kult. Historia obrazu przez epoką sztuki, trans. T. Zatorski, Gdańsk 2010, p. 523.

184

The capabilities of prose

expression of art. The fulfilment of the Madonna as a cult image does not change an iota of the situation of Bernardo himself as an areligious man or the fact that there is also another portrait of the princess, fulfilling other functions, which, however, shares with the former one an important formal similarity.162 The pair of representations exhibited in the novel illustrates a fundamentally new situation of modern art, which allows for the existence of “images of two kinds,” those intended for cult and representative ones (the former can be understood in a split, double way, depending on the viewer’s position), and puts the artist himself in such a schizophrenic situation, too. The value of art can henceforth be measured either by its purely aesthetic value (and Bernardo’s artworks undoubtedly have this value: each without exception is called an “extraordinary masterpiece,” p. 223), or by a measure of the spiritual support that it is able to provide to the recipient. The latter variant is much rarer, but it was watched closely by Lagerkvist. In his novel, he expresses the conviction that such an approach to the value of an artwork is deeply justified (to say the least, even as an eloquent opposition to the nihilistic stance of the dwarf), but at the same time he indicates that for both the artist and for the elite audience, shaped by the framework of the modern market and “principles of art” (like the prince in the novel), such a method of valuation remains deeply insufficient and inadequate. Namely, this recipient is deprived of the spiritual foundation that must accompany the reading of a work as a “cult image.” The open ending of the novel encourages caution when trying to formulate definite diagnoses but it can be assumed that Lagerkvist, pointing to the re-​ evaluation of art in modernity, quite consciously signals that, as long as an artist remains active, he is able to open the recipient to the spiritual horizon of existence even if he himself has significant problems with recognising this horizon. The axis of the conflict between the dwarf and Bernardo is the dispute about knowing and being able to touch the meaning of existence. In his own words, the dwarf ’s task is to know, not to inquire about uncertain things. This par excellance enlightenment exclusion of an enormous (“unexplained”) sphere of life paves the way for the claims of reason. If this attitude is adopted, the emancipated reason tends towards the defeat of the idea of man ​​ and the disappearance of morality, replaced by the will to rule over reality.163 The dwarf proclaims nihilism: not only 162 “Most entrancing of all was the enigmatic smile which hovered around her lips, which affected everyone as being something quite heavenly, inexplicable and full of divine mysticism. I understood that the artist had taken that smile from his earlier portrait, the one in which she resembled a whore.” (P. Lagerkvist, The Dwarf, p. 223). 163 Cf. A. Giddens, Modernity and Self-​Identity. Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1991, passim.

Dvärgen [The Dwarf] by Pär Lagerkvist

185

the absurdity of the world, but also the futility of human efforts to make it meaningful or merely habitable. Meanwhile, this is where Bernardo, though always torn between enthusiasm and despair, sees the essence of his human condition. The fact that Bernardo is finally successful as the author of a “completed work” may be related to the fact that he gave up his aspiration to explain the world scientifically in favour of creative activity capable of changing it. In a battle with nihilism, as Nietzsche argued, it is the attitude of an artist who has a greater chance of success than that of a scientist who gets rid of illusions as much as inevitably exposes himself to disappointment and discouragement:164 “Artists … establish at least the parable of the world as it should be: they are creative because they really change and transform, unlike the knowers who leave everything as it is.”165 By making an artist-​scientist the novel’s protagonist, Lagerkvist shows how the problem of the limits of human cognition and attitude towards them is related to the question about the meaning of culture, i.e. all activities that domesticate the hostile world. Scientific knowledge turns out to be ineffective in the perspective of seeking and establishing new moral principles governing the “disenchanted” modern world because it does not open up the prospect of further action (“The will of truth” is, as Nietzsche points out, the impotence of “the will to create”166); it comes to an end and thus indicates either the cognitive deficiencies of man or the end of his reality. Cognition through art is capable of bringing something that opens man up to that mysterious dimension of reality that science is unable to grasp. The difference between the dwarf and Bernardo, then, lies in an utterly different understanding of the role of man in the world, the reign of which is completely taken over by humanity, brought by humanism to a shaky position as the only criterion of values. The nature of this role depends on the recognition of the absolute primacy of reason (the dwarf) or on the hesitation about the absolute value of the rationalist attitude (Bernardo). The aporias of Bernardo’s condition accurately illustrate the situation of man in a world ruled by reason. They are

164 F. Nietzsche, Writings from the Late Notebooks; trans. of this quotation based on the Polish edition: Zapiski o nihilizmie, selection and translation by G. Sowinski, “Znak” 1994, No. 6, p. 49. 165 F. Nietzsche, Writings from the Late Notebooks, trans. of this quotation based on the Polish edition, p. 48. 166 F. Nietzsche, Writings from the Late Notebooks, trans. of this quotation based on the Polish edition, p. 48.

186

The capabilities of prose

typical of the Renaissance, but also of the present day, the condition of which stems in part from the assumptions made during the Renaissance era. In Lagerkvist’s novel, evil is spoken of in two senses: one is universal, metaphysical, while the other modern –​shown in a (well-​justified) Renaissance costume. The fact that he speaks of metaphysical evil is, in the perspective defined by Nietzsche’s thought, an obvious anachronism; the fact that these two concepts coexist in the novel makes this novel much more difficult to interpret and testifies to a very characteristic fracture within it. As a consequence of the compositional shaping of the novel, the solution to the problem of evil in the world is also twofold: in the pre-​modern spirit, suggested by the way Angelica is depicted, and in the spirit of Nietzsche’s response to the lack of values: as the “will to power” and the transformation of pessimism into “that form of a Dionysian saying Yes to the world as it is”167 –​in the character of Bernardo. Undoubtedly, however, such a solution is indeed proposed and that is why it can be reasonably said that Lagerkvist “saved in Dvärgen [The Dwarf] more of his idealism and cultural optimism … than may be assumed at first glance.”168

The chances of the first-​person narrative The difficulty characteristic of first-​person narration, consisting in the need to equip the narrating character with high awareness and intellect, allowing him to report events in a journalistic mode, does not appear in Dvärgen [The Dwarf] because the protagonist, who lived at the Renaissance court and absorbed the scientific ideas of his time, is intellectually completely credible as the author of a journal. However, what the reader may find difficult to accept in the journal of the character who is immoral and deprived of all good feelings is poetic formulations. Brodow notes that endowing the eponymous character with the qualities of an artist-​writer not only gives him certain complexity but also makes one realise that some resemblance to the dwarf is hidden in every human being, and that the writer or artist is no exception here169 –​it can be added that this

167 F. Nietzsche, Writings from the Late Notebooks, p. 173. 168 B. Brodow, Ett författarskap speglat i språket, p. 186. On Lagerkvist’s idealism and its place in the tradition of Swedish lyric idealism, see J. Salminen, Från “Det eviga leendet” till “Den knutna näven,” Lund: Tegnérsamf., 1990. 169 B. Brodow, Ett författarskap speglat i språket, p. 187. Cf. also: T. Stenström, Berättartekniska studier i Pär Lagerkvists, Lars Gyllenstens och Cora Sandels prosa, Stockholm:  Bonnier, 1964, p.  12  ff.; G. Tideström, “Sybillan,”in:  Synpunkter på Pär Lagerkvist, p. 224 ff.

Dvärgen [The Dwarf] by Pär Lagerkvist

187

meta-​artistic reflection was reinforced in the manner of creating the figure of Bernardo. The main difficulty in reading the novel, which is closely related to the issue of the exponents of “moral literature,” is that the reader is forced to be constantly vigilant with regard to the moral and ethical views expressed by the narrator: insofar as the dwarf deserves to be trusted as a reporter, he is completely unreliable in the role of an arbiter, which the reader is made to remember about over and over again.170 The narrator evaluates reality ethically in a completely opposite way to how the reader “should” do it. The latter is thus not only urged to be constantly vigilant but also instructed that no moral criteria can be regarded as universal. Thus, the reader gets used not only to the “reversed” direction of valuation but also to constant vigilance. It is characteristic, after all, that at least some of the dwarf ’s statements strike the reader with their terse accuracy. When he comments on, for example, human duplicity, vengeance or cruelty, he undoubtedly has a factual basis for his judgments. One of the main difficulties accompanying the reading of the novel is precisely the necessary observation that the dwarf does not always make mistakes in describing reality and assessing human behaviour, and that sometimes it is impossible not to see a grain of truth in his words –​also when he makes generalised, negative comments about humanity. For when the reader would like to dismiss the dwarf ’s opinion as the voice of a sick and morally distorted mind, the narrator presents him with an expressive image, providing it with a commentary that is difficult to deny as untrue: The flickering rays of the dying torches illuminated the mutilated corpses of friend and foe, lying in their blood on the stone floor among the trampled bloodstained napery and the remnants of the great banquet. Their festal garments were torn and dirty and their pallid faces still twisted and evil, for they had died fighting in the midst of their mad fury. I stood there, surveying everything with my ancient eyes. /​Brotherly love. Eternal peace. /​How these creatures love to discuss themselves and their world in great and beautiful words! (p. 156)

The reader is not able to validly challenge such comments. He is thus in the position of the Nietzschean Zarathustra encountering the dwarf. Recognising the truth about man, which can be seen from the perspective of the dwarf (an individual, after all, cruelly wronged both by fate and by people), Lagerkvist is far from accepting the axiology and moral convictions proclaimed on its basis. As I indicated earlier, knowledge of the reality possessed by the dwarf is irreducible, 170 Cf. W. C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, p. 378.

188

The capabilities of prose

but at the same time it can limit and inhibit the will to live. In order for this not to happen, the awareness of the foundations of human reality and the awareness of who man is must be supplemented with the will to transcend this dimension. This teaching is not expressed in a discursive manner in the novel but results from the formal shaping of the text, designed to elicit a moral response from the reader at the end of the reading. As the creator of “ethical literature,” Lagerkvist places himself in a paradoxical position. After writing the novel in question in the darkest years of the Second World War, he was indeed aware that human nature is exactly how the dwarf sees it: ruthless, dark, full of evil. At the same time, in order to remain faithful to his own writing assumptions, he had to both visualise this dimension and show ways of transcending it, even if temporary –​ consisting, for example, in the response of moral opposition towards the evil that the reader is witness to. This seems to be an important dimension of the novel about the Renaissance court:  by showing the evil of human nature, observed through the eyes of the dwarf, Lagerkvist provides the reader with a chance to get to know it deeply and to reject it firmly. It is worth pointing out, however, that this rejection does not take place on the basis of a return to the old values, but on the path also indicated by Nietzsche: perspectivism and affirmation of life, which overcome nihilism. The reader is forced to be vigilant, to look for ways out of “in vain” which is a risk to slide into totalising simplifications and resignation. Both theses: the one confessed in moments of rapture by Bernardo, who proclaims that the world is good, and one that is close to the dwarf (and also to Bernardo in moments of doubt), who claims that the world is evil, have the same power of persuasion. Lagerkvist points out, however, that if one does not volitionally take the side of the value of life and action in this dispute, the dwarf will most likely prevail, because the exploration of nature and the invalidating of theological perspective, initiated by the Renaissance, in the long run lead man to the conclusion that neither is the world beautiful nor is man the crown of creation. If evil is not rejected totally (and none of the protagonists of the novel can afford such a gesture: the prince decides to imprison the dwarf, but he accepts it calmly: “If I know anything of my lord, he cannot spare his dwarf for long,” p. 228), it will come back and decide about human fate, as did the dwarf in the scene of the feast at the castle. The dwarf ’s ironic words: “Brotherly love. Eternal peace. How these creatures love to discuss themselves and their world in great and beautiful words!” (p. 156) deserve to be rejected not because they are particularly harmful; on the contrary, they reveal a painful but necessary truth about the human condition; however, one should refrain from internalising them as they contain the nucleus of the temptation of nihilistic condemnation of humanity, which results in the praise of violence and terror.

Dvärgen [The Dwarf] by Pär Lagerkvist

189

Perspectivism There are grounds to consider the narrative solutions used by Lagerkvist not only in the context of the changes and functions of first-​person narrative structures in the novel of the first half of the twentieth century, but also in relation to the phenomenon on the boundary of literature and philosophy, which was perspectivism. Important in the philosophical thought of both Kierkegaard171 and Nietzsche172 as well as in Strindberg’s oeuvre173 –​three authors undoubtedly important to Lagerkvist –​perspectivism can be viewed as an attitude summarised in the Nietzschean maxim: “to look into the world with as many eyes as possible.”174 This attitude is not synonymous with relativism, because in perspectivism each of the perspectives reveals a different aspect of reality and interprets it differently, and this polyphony does not lead to the recognition that truth does not exist: what turns out to be interesting is the multitude of images of the world that become available on this path. It seems that Bernardo’s statements, which in their essential sense remain in deep contradiction (man as a perfect work of nature versus man that is helpless and weak), should be seen precisely in the context of perspectivism. On the one hand, this attitude makes it impossible to maintain the thesis that there is only one, right, moral or amoral way of seeing reality. On the other hand, it is perspectivism that is capable of resisting the nihilistic temptation born when the human belief in a superior entity capable of explaining the world (in a theological or rationalist way) is removed from the human horizon. For when the world loses its meaning, it is easy to agree to any unambiguous interpretation of it, and the nihilistic one seems to be the simplest of these. Perspectivism, the essence of which is the recognition of many possible ways of viewing reality, opposes such a simplification with its very essence. The effectiveness of the perspectivism adopted by Bernardo as a tool for resisting nihilistic temptations is evidenced by the dwarf ’s reaction to the cracks and contradictions discovered in the painter’s worldview and achievements. The

171 J. Balbierz, À propos inferna. Tradycje wynalezione i dyskursy nieczyste w kulturach modernizmu skandynawskiego, Kraków: Universitas, 2012, p. 270. 172 See M. P. Markowski, Nietzsche. Filozofia interpretacji, 2nd edition, Kraków: Universitas, 2001, pp. 131–​184. 173 In Strindberg, perspectivism is present both as a subject and a construction technique. Cf. J. Balbierz, À propos inferna, p. 169 ff. 174 F. Nietzsche, The Gay Science, in: M. Ure, Nietzsche’s The Gay Science. An Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, p. 84.

190

The capabilities of prose

eponymous character is unable to comprehend how it is possible to alternate the proclamation of contradictory anthropological views, just as he does not understand why there may be two paintings depicting the princess: one portraying her as a harlot, the other as Madonna, and that they enjoy equal recognition. After one evening when he witnessed the admiration that Bernardo and the prince had for man’s place in the order of nature, when on the other he heard a statement indicating the disappointment and failure inherent in the human condition, the dwarf, as a professed nihilist, asks helplessly: But how are these ideas connected? How can they combine such contradictions within themselves and talk about them all with the same profound conviction? I who am always the same, who am quite inalterable, find it utterly incomprehensible. /​… /​One minute it is a chorus of jubilation over the glory of being a human creature. The next minute it is nothing but hopelessness, complete futility, despair. Well, what is it then (pp. 55–​56)?

The dwarf-​nihilist is unable to oppose perspectivism. Bernardo’s attitude turns out to be an effective weapon in the struggle against the overwhelming “in vain”175 that Nietzsche warned against. In the context of the issue of perspectivism mentioned here, it is worth returning to Lagerkvist’s play with the motif of the princess’s two portraits with two opposing meanings, this time emphasizing the role of the novel’s reflection on the ethical obligations of an artist. The theme of the two portraits of the princess can be interpreted in terms of Nietzschean views on the art of painting and the mode of reading paintings, often undertaken by the German philosopher precisely through the prism of the many perspectives they contain. For Nietzsche, a painting is a projection not conditioned by the artistic order, but determined by the way in which it influences the viewer. The loosening of the understanding of the compositional structure of a work of art leads the philosopher to understand that work as a “metaphysical spectacle,” containing many perspectives.176 The Nietzschean analysis of Raphael’s The Sistine Madonna shows that the figurative structure of the painting contains premises for two competing ways of interpreting it, and that reading from two perspectives was programmed by the painter himself –​characteristically, Nietzsche described this in an aphorism that

175 F. Nietzsche, Writings from the Late Notebooks, pp. 113, 117 ff. 176 Cf. Ł. Kiepuszewski, Niewczesne obrazy. Nietzsche i sztuki wizualne, Poznań: Wydaw-​ nictwa Uniwersytetu Adama Mickiewicza, 2013, pp. 96–​97.

Dvärgen [The Dwarf] by Pär Lagerkvist

191

he entitled “Honest Painter” [Ehrliches Malerthum].177 An “honest” artist, i.e. one who has “no wish to paint a state of soul in whose existence he did not believe,” is able to include in a painting such tropes that, when addressed to “the faithful,” will be explained by them “in the sense of their belief in miracles: which the artist was entitled to anticipate from their art of interpretation and imposition of what they wish to see.”178 In the light of the Nietzschean perspectivism, art is true not in the sense rooted in the correspondence theory of truth, but in the sense of revealing the truth about the multiplicity of perspectives in viewing the world and the consequent necessary rejection of the nihilistic attitude. It can be noticed that in Lagerkvist’s novel analysed here the picture of Madonna, subject to at least two interpretations, plays exactly such a role. The “perspectivist” meaning of the “painting theme” in Dvärgen [The Dwarf] is strengthened by the existence of two paintings depicting the princess, which become a sign of the multitude of possible ways of interpreting both reality and works of art, and at the same time invalidate the nihilistic negation of the value inherent in the very act of searching for the meaning of what is seen. At the same time, as stated above, it is the second portrait, in front of which crowds of believers gather and which has aroused religious feelings, is one that Bernardo himself appreciates more, as it is completed and reflects the “innermost self ” of the princess (p. 223). The religious point of view is thus allowed to speak in the novel –​as one of the perspectives, not at all superior, but not marginal either. What remains the most important is the conviction that it is necessary to maintain perspectivism, a tool protecting against any unifying interpretation of the world, the unambiguity of which –​as the history of modernism, witnessed by Lagerkvist, has shown –​is no longer an asset, but a threat. Due to the structuring of the novel’s narrator, the reader of Dvärgen [The Dwarf] is kept in constant tension, watching with disgust the actions of people from the surroundings of the eponymous character, whose deeds, seen from the distance provided by the narrator’s disability, appear to be some helpless and pointless bustle, quite cruel, in addition to that. This distortion: the inability to see any good in man and to judge all merciful reflexes as naivety or stupidity says the most about the evil of the dwarf. The fate of the princely family, at least of some of its members, and especially the unhappy youthful lovers: Angelica and Giovanni, could arouse sympathy if the reader watched them with eyes other

177 F. Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, Cambridge, New York: New York University Press, 1996, p. 328. 178 F. Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, p. 328.

192

The capabilities of prose

than those of the cripple who infects others with evil. Meanwhile, the narrator’s perspective means that the element of compassion, if it appears in the reading, is brought in from outside by the reader. This is also an existentially pivotal moment for the reading: the moment when the reader, who is shown around the world of the novel by the wicked dwarf, feels that his own perception and assessment of events differ from what the first-​person narrator says. The transformation of the recipient’s attitude to the novel’s characters takes place in the recipient himself, once he understands how distorted the image drawn by the dwarf is and when, breaking the (otherwise justified) aversion, he begins to feel compassion for people who truly deserve mercy and who, in their responses and behaviour, are quite frightening. The moral task faced by the reader is ultimately to feel deep compassion for the prince, who –​though immoral –​arouses sympathy by the fact that he is enslaved by evil: instead of getting rid of it or good, he imprisoned the dwarf in a dungeon, feeling that he might need him again in future.

Summary In his classic monograph, Wayne C. Booth writes that the greatest moral harm that can be caused to the reader in an act of reading takes place when the reader believes that the world around him is wicked and vile.179 This happens neither in Sól ziemi [The Salt of the Earth] nor in Dvärgen [The Dwarf] despite the dark themes of both novels and their terrifying plots, neither of which ends well, and even the opposite: each allows the reader to predict further disastrous complications of the characters’ fate. It follows from Booth’s reflections (although he himself does not specify it) that, from an ethical point of view, the most ambiguous moment of reading would be precisely the possibility of openly accusing the world of the evil that prevails in man (and thus justifying a protagonist, who is evil and consciously chooses evil). Thus, it would be morally suspicious to willingly make judgments about and accusations against what is external (the social order, ideological enslavement, etc.) –​such behaviour leads to easy justification of the protagonist and, consequently, to self-​justification of the reader. In their novels, neither Józef Wittlin nor Pär Lagerkvist contented themselves with the analysis of modern evil, the description of which can be concluded too smoothly by putting all the blame on the structures of the modern world and civilisation. Both writers discussed metaphysical evil, the element of which is, in their opinion, always present in

179 W. C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, p. 383.

Dvärgen [The Dwarf] by Pär Lagerkvist

193

human nature. The fact that the analysed novels (and probably all the writings of Wittlin and Lagerkvist) contain these two perspectives of thinking about reality (reflection on the specificity of the modern condition and reflection on the universal dimension of human nature) remains the foundation of modern ethical literature, saving the human being both from despair and from indifference. The reader, on the other hand, deprived by both writers of the possibility of “compassionate identification”180 with the protagonist, is urged by means of irony or perspectivism to take responsibility for his reading and to independently define his own ethical position –​as well as its justification.

180 W. C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, p. 384.

Chapter Five Exiles, visitors and pilgrims: Around apocryphal works Many important prose works of the Swedish Nobel Prize winner (Barabbas [Barabbas], Mariamne [Herod and Mariamne], Sibyllan [The Sibyl], Ahasverus död [The Death of Ahasuerus]) are sometimes mentioned as outstanding examples of twentieth-​ century literature based on the apocryphal schema making use of New Testament stories or motifs to point to modern dilemmas of faith,1 but such motifs appear in his poetry and journals, too. In Wittlin’s literary notes, there are numerous characters from both the Old and the New Testament stories (Noah, Barabbas, Ahasuerus, King Balthazar), very often transferred to modern reality.2 As written down by Wittlin, their fates become (or: could have become if the notes had been transformed into literary works) a metaphor of the fate of twentieth-​century people. Noah, a survivor of the Flood catastrophe, becomes a figure that prompts Wittlin to reflect on his own status as one rescued from the Holocaust, while Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew, who is tired of the world and wants to but cannot die, in the writer’s tragic vision becomes a prisoner of a concentration camp (where the grace of death is not granted to him, either). I also treat as an apocryphal work Wittlin’s unfinished book about Saint Francis of Assisi, which travesties the schema of the lives of saints in the spirit of modern ethical literature, distant from didacticism, and searches not for personal role models but for evidence of the possibility of the human being performing an act of religious entrustment. This group of literary works will become the subject of my analysis in this chapter. In order to situate the reading of this literature in its proper context, let us note that in the situation, characteristic of modernity, of the shaking of beliefs in the impact of the Bible as a moral source, the understanding of the tasks of apocryphal literature and the scope of its possible ethical influence has also changed. Modern literature brings many examples of the re-​evaluation of biblical stories

T. Ziolkowski, Fictional Transfigurations of Jesus, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972, p. 17. 2 Cf. J. Wittlin, Raptus Europae (The Digital Archive of Józef Wittlin, Library of the University of Rzeszów, catalogue No. 1.1.1.4.); notebooks from the Museum of Literature in Warsaw also contain numerous themes of this kind. 1

196

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

and ethical tasks of the literature that undertakes them, even articulating (in extreme but famous and influential cases) the conviction that the ostentatious breaking of ties linking man with the sacred should be treated in terms of liberation –​by the way, the conviction shared by a considerable part of modern moral philosophy.3 Meanwhile, the authors who are the protagonists of the present study understand the ethics of literature in a completely different way than its belonging to the emancipatory project of modernity. However, neither do they associate it with the proclamation and propagation of a moral programme having its source in the religious worldview of Christianity (although both authors’ oeuvre is defined in a meaningful way precisely in relation to it). Therefore, they are in opposition to both apocryphal works with an iconoclastic character and to old apocrypha that remain within the model of traditional religiosity. The apocrypha created by them should therefore be read in terms other than those derived from research on the two types distinguished above. Such tools are provided, in my opinion, by the broad concept of articulating the “constitutive good” presented by Charles Taylor. The Canadian philosopher points out that it is the “lack of articulation” of the background of moral beliefs (i.e. of the way of understanding the good meant in a given situation), characteristic of modernity, that has contributed to the formalisation of ethics and the breakdown of modern ethical reflection. According to Taylor, the way out of the impasse of “ethics of inarticulacy”4 is to give the story its proper place. The philosopher states that words are capable of discovering the source or “may restore the power of an older source that we have lost contact with;” moreover, “they may have power … by articulating our feelings or our story so as to bring us in contact with a source we have been longing to.”5 This is more than an indication that attempts to reactivate old forms in modern literature are proof of the longing for values absent ​​ in modernity;6 because what is indicated is the moral power of the story itself, the ethical sense of communicating, both for the sender and for the recipients of the message (which, incidentally, makes us return again

3 4 5 6

Cf. Ch. Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, p. 81 ff. Ch. Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, p. 53 ff. Ch. Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, p. 97. It was in this spirit that Wittlin’s work was commented on by: E. Wiegandt, “Wstęp,” p. LXXIV; Ł. Tischner, “Sól ziemi, czyli tęsknota do eposu,” in: Etapy Józefa Wittlina, pp.13–​40.

Chapter Five Exiles, visitors and pilgrims: Around apocryphal works

197

to Søren Kierkegaard as the patron of this literature). In other words: the very act of telling a mythical or religious story contains an element of articulating good.7 Therefore, in order to fulfil its moral function, such a story does not have to –​and this is where the field of free action opens for the apocryphon that co-​ creates modern ethical literature –​be faithful to the canonical version of events. Moreover, it is free to choose its points of view in order to revive a story known from tradition: not so much to turn its basic meanings upside down (it must still be about good), but rather to force readers to become re-​sensitised to it, to all its meanings, interpreted and petrified long ago. Telling anew the events of the story of salvation or the life of a saint requires asking questions about the topicality of those stories and about the conditions and possibilities of one’s own (the author’s and the readers’) hermeneutics,8 and both of these questions are undoubtedly of a deeply ethical nature and force a person to define one’s own attitude to this problem area. As viewed by the writers who are the protagonists of the present book, faith is something valuable, and it is worth taking the risk of faith –​not (or: not only), as Blaise Pascal wanted, within the horizon of eternal life, but in the perspective of life on earth, precisely in the name of ethical grounding of one’s own existence, ethics understood not as a set of ethical principles but as an articulation of the meaning and purposefulness of human life. Their profound conviction that it is too difficult to live without faith and, at the same time, the painful twentieth-​ century awareness that it is dangerously easy to believe in anything, directs them towards the writing that is focussed on seeking constitutive good. In this way, Wittlin’s and Lagerkvist’s apocrypha meet the needs of their times and their

7 Charles Taylor does not openly raise the question which in the case under discussion is of primary importance, namely whether the stories play such a role even when they constitute a manifestation of articulation other than “effective.” However, he writes: “A formulation has power when it brings the source close, when it makes it plain and evident, in all its inherent force, its capacity to inspire our love, respect, or allegiance” (Ch. Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, p. 96). It can be concluded that we are dealing not with the case of bipolar values but with the whole scale of possible phenomena. The cases discussed further on in the chapter do not, as we will see, belong to those describing the source in a “plain and evident” way, but they still serve to guide man towards values ​​and provoke him to take an existential path. 8 This point reveals a significant convergence of the strategies of modern ethical writers with the trend of ethical criticism, which is clearly visible in contemporary literary research, and in which there occurs a specific return of the author and the reader as participants in the process of literary communication and responsible for this process.

198

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

ethical quests. Instead of a consolatory (traditional) or subversive (iconoclastic) narrative, the writers propose a reflection on the human longing for what is good and infinite, on the essence of entrustment, on the one hand pointing to the timeless and universal significance of these issues, while on the other, being fully aware that the modern epoch, suffering the consequences of the long reign of “ethics of inarticulation,” more than any other needs a signpost on the path of ethical reflection. Indeed, the very reflection on the constitutive good brings them closer to the religious and philosophical thought of the past ages, which again may evoke some simplifying associations and lead one to look for associations with the ethics based on religious tradition. However, the writers do a lot to suspend such a religious path of reading. They do not believe in the effectiveness of the predetermined systems of ethical norms but they care about something prior to these systems: the stimulation of reflection on good and ethics. The thesis about Wittlin’s and Lagerkvist’s apocrypha as stories that attempt to articulate constitutive good is supported by the fact that those stories, without exception, make their main theme the human experience of encountering what appears to give value and meaning to life. These are stories about a reflection that appears in human life (sometimes –​suddenly and unexpectedly) on how to relate one’s existence to values ​​beyond the temporal horizon, how to justify it morally and make it better, more valuable, about the human need of meaning and the need of God. In this sense, the apocryphal stories of Wittlin and Lagerkvist are stories of people’s search for good: for what makes human behaviour meaningful, stories about how people encounter what is beyond them, and how they use (or do not use) the then emerging opportunity to change their life. The horizon of Wittlin’s and Lagerkvist’s writing does not encompass description of an epiphany of the divine; what they emphasize is, above all, the moment of human response to an awaited or accidental encounter with that which makes the human being aware of the existence of an infinite dimension hidden within oneself. It is therefore the human being who is co-​responsible for the shape of this constitutive good which has a chance to manifest itself, and who, predestined for such an encounter, can (or cannot) respond to it in his inner freedom. This moment of the human subjectivity experiencing a revelation of the divine, infinite and superhuman is, in the works of both writers, at the same time a moment of communicative aporia, which appears when one wants to tell others about such an experience (it is, actually, a characteristic of the specifically modern type of literary religious discourse9). In the world of Lagerkvist’s and

9 Cf. R. Nycz, Literatura jako trop rzeczywistości, p.7. According to Nycz, this discourse

On Wittlin: Saint Francis of Assisi, or on imitation

199

Wittlin’s apocrypha depicted in their writings, it is impossible to speak about one’s own unwavering faith (as evidenced by the fate of the protagonists), and it is impossible to comprehend someone else’s faith, as claimed by Kierkegaard, who pointed out that no one can give an account of one’s subjective relationship of faith.10 The two writers, presenting such situations in the depicted world, at the same time determine the possibilities –​or rather their lack –​of a literary work in terms of testifying to religious entrustment. Literature is thus put in a paradoxical situation, forced to talk about communication failure and the secular side of religious experience that can be grasped in words, visible from the outside, and necessarily incomplete, ostentatiously deficient. What is incomplete, however, reveals the horizon of the infinite. Like the words of the protagonists, which do not give one insight into their religious experiences, nevertheless speak about the possibility of such experiences and their consequences for the spirituality of an individual, ethical literature, exactly by thematising the failure to speak about faith, also testifies that it is a fundamental sphere of issues opening the readers to their own ethical search and reflection on what is actually good. The certainty that literature can provide in this situation does not concern the content of an epiphany, but the moral value inherent in man’s opening up to an encounter with what is beyond him and what opens him to the meaning of existence.

1. On Wittlin: Saint Francis of Assisi, or on imitation The most extensive apocryphal text (in the broad sense of the word) that was written by Wittlin is an unfinished book11 about Saint Francis of Assisi. By taking up a hagiographic theme, Wittlin was forced, in accordance with his concept of ethical literature, to properly “set his voice” in order to avoid basing literary apologetics on a constructive exemplum.12 He did it in the very first words of the book: With unworthy hands, I take the flaming halo off the head of a man whom the Catholic Church has made a saint. I know that I am burning my hands, and yet I must do it,

assumes the “radical disproportionality of the “human” and “non-​human” side of reality” and corresponds to the attitude “adopted towards what is “inconceivable”, “inexpressible”, “other”.” 10 A. Szwed, Między wolnością a prawdą egzystencji. Studium myśli Sørena Kierkegaarda, p. 62. 1 1 In the passages that appeared in print, the text is situated at the boundary between a novel and an essay. 12 See footnotes in Chapter 1.

200

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

because the glare of this halo blinds my eyes and prevents me from looking at the face I want to paint.13

Both the interpretation of the main character and the writing strategy adopted in this book reveal Wittlin’s concept of faith and his view of the essence of the relationship between God and man. Contrary to the hagiographic tradition and in contradiction to its basic assumptions, it is a concept that does not recognise the possibility of basing one’s faith on any example or mediation and perceives the relationship with God as the most intimate and non-​communicable. At the same time, Wittlin clearly distances himself from illuminating the lives of saints from a new point of view, which is the goal of many contemporary authors14 and is often done for iconoclastic purposes. By accentuating the character’s individuality and his loneliness in achieving the true faith, Wittlin draws attention to the dramatic nature of this path, the only possible, painful one –​and very difficult to describe. Thus, the book can by no means be classified as having didactic functions, which was crucial for the old hagiography. However, it is possible to identify another point where the author’s specific ethical intention is implemented. Wittlin points out that faith in God (regardless of whether or not it is right –​in the sense of the true existence of the object of that faith –​because, as Wittlin seems to view it, it is impossible to convince anyone about that), became the source of great spiritual gains for St Francis and for people who are willing to reflect on his stance. It can be said that in Wittlin’s book Saint Francis is, first of all, a “cipher of transcendence,” i.e. a man who “gives us a testimony of what we ourselves should take care of.”15 Hence the adopted imperative: an attempt to write about the eponymous character in a way that, on the one hand, will show the reader his own individualism in faith, which conditions spiritual independence and unprecedented radicalism, and on the other –​will force the reader to undertake an analogous, independent reflection on the most important existential issues, in the belief that this path must be travelled by each person (like Saint Francis) entirely by himself.

13 J. Wittlin, “Fragment z przedmowy” [A Fragment of the Preface], in: Pisma pośmiertne i inne eseje [Posthumous Writings and other Essays], p. 55. 14 An example, obviously known to Wittlin, who reviewed it quite critically, is the 1923 book on St Francis by Gilbert K. Chesterton. Being interested in contemporary apocryphal literature, Wittlin also commented on the well-​known novel by Henry Barbusse entitled Jesus, published in 1927, and voiced a number of objections concerning the writing concept adopted by the French author. 15 K. Jaspers, Szyfry transcendencji, trans. Cz. Piecuch, Toruń: Wydawnictwo Comer Jacek Waloch, 1995, p. 42.

On Wittlin: Saint Francis of Assisi, or on imitation

201

Thus, the Franciscan subject matter of the book has been significantly supplemented with inspirations flowing from the thought of Søren Kierkegaard, and it seems that combining these apparently incompatible propositions into one constitutes Wittlin’s important literary achievement. The modern tendency to talk about matters of faith while camouflaging the irreducible load of drama contained in them did not escape the attention of the philosopher, who examined closely the issue of speaking about faith in his writings. In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard points to the difficulties that New Testament commentators invariably encounter when explaining the true meaning of the cruel-​sounding words in Chapter 14 of the Gospel of St Luke: “Anyone who comes to me without hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, cannot be my disciple.” (Lk. 14: 26) Mocking the “pious and accommodating exegete” who wants to “smuggle Christianity into the world” (emphasis by K.S.H.) at the price of softening the proper sense of those truths that are difficult to accept, yet necessary for a person to become truly religious, the Danish philosopher points out that they are doing a disservice to both the audience and the writings commented on: The teaching that in one of its most lyrical outpourings, in which the consciousness of its eternal validity overflows most vigorously, has nothing to offer except an overblown word that signifies nothing but only suggests that one should be less kind, less attentive, more indifferent, the teaching that in the moment it gives the appearance of wanting to say something terrible ends by slavering instead of terrifying—​that teaching certainly is not worth standing up for.16

When, in a review of Gilbert K. Chesterton’s book about Saint Francis (published in 1927, i.e. when Wittlin himself was working on a book about the saint), Wittlin describes Chesterton’s writing method with the following words: “Chesterton plays on the so-​called aesthetic feelings, trying to smuggle in religious values.”17 One gets the impression that he treats this “smuggling” with reluctance equal to Kierkegaard’s indignation towards “smuggling Christianity” by a “pious exegete,” knowing that “lulling” the listener will not help him on his way to true faith –​as well as that the aesthetic and the religious belong to two different orders. In his book, the writer constantly emphasizes the trait of Saint Francis’ faith consisting in total individualism in faith, the lack of mediation by any institutions

16 S. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, pp. 72–​73, emphasis by K.S.H. 17 J. Wittlin, “Święty Franciszek Chestertona” [“St Francis” by Chesterton], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 448, emphasis by K.S.H.

202

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

and traditions. According to Wittlin, it was possible for the Poor Man of Assisi to find faith exactly when he rejected not only the apparent values ​​of earthly life (mercantile wealth and knightly fame) but also all mediation on the way to God: “The path that Francis followed before finding his own faith and his own prayer is the path of a helpless seeker of truth who had been failed and deceived by all earthly powers.”18 That is why the individualism of Saint Francis is radical: “He did not go to Saint Rufin’s Cathedral or to any other churches to discover God. He found him himself, in a holy place: in himself.”19 These remarks are close to Kierkegaard’s concepts of religious entrustment as a state achievable only through individual choice.20 The difference might perhaps be that Kierkegaard assumed that faith is a dynamic reality that undergoes constant change, while Wittlin, writing about the conversion of Saint Francis, describes a one-​way process, a single “leap” that was not questioned afterwards. Although the book shows clear signs of the narrator’s distance from “the Roman institution,” it is precisely in this point: regarding his protagonist as a saint that Wittlin agrees with the position of the Church. It is the dimension of Francis’ life that consisted in the faithful imitation of Christ as well as the enormous difficulties that this act causes for man that are the main topic of the completed fragments of the book. Thus, “taking the halo off ” the saint’s head turns out to be a gesture that is far from iconoclastic. A saint in a halo is a saint recognised by the institution, i.e. ensnared by the ossified religiosity of type A, which Kierkegaard reluctantly described. Wittlin explains: “the glare of this halo blinds my eyes and prevents me from looking at the face” (p.  55). In these words, one can see an echo of Kierkegaard’s criticism of the situation when a person tries to enter the path of faith not on the basis of his own experience but in the name of the convictions of his predecessors.21 Also in Wittlin’s opinion, man is forced to try to gain faith entirely on his own. As the Danish thinker pointed out, there is no “disciple at

18 J. Wittlin, “O nawróceniu świętego Franciszka” [On the Conversion of St Francis], in:  J. Wittlin, Pisma pośmiertne i inne eseje [Posthumous writings and other essays], p. 94, emphasis by K.S.H. 19 J. Wittlin, “O nawróceniu świętego Franciszka” [On the Conversion of St Francis], p. 93. 20 Cf. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 67: “he who walks the narrow road of faith has no one to advise him—​no one understands him.” 21 This criticism was developed by later thinkers connected with existentialism, Jean-​Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, enabling the creation of the concept of “mauvaise foi” (‘bad faith’).

On Wittlin: Saint Francis of Assisi, or on imitation

203

second hand” in the field of religion22 and all people have to draw the foundation of faith directly from the “object” of faith. Hence, according to the writer, contemporaries do not need “the life of a saint,” but material for reflection on how difficult, individual, changeable and always unfinished is the reality of faith type B, i.e. authentic, unmediated and personal faith. That is why, when writing about St Francis, Wittlin adopts Kierkegaard’s chief writing principle: the image of an exemplary disciple of Christ (in Kierkegaard’s writings –​anonymous, in Wittlin’s –​St Francis) aims to show the conditions of being such a disciple instead of giving an example of specific attitudes or achievements, and in this sense, it is a maieutic, rather than didactic, measure in relation to the reader.23 Thus, when composing successive fragments of the book, the writer apparently repeated in the plane of expression the most important gesture of his protagonist, namely the suspension of didacticism in favour of “attracting to the truth” with the protagonist’s own stance, which required the reader’s interpretation and personal attitude. According to Wittlin, “the success of Francis’ sermons” consisted in the fact that “he himself served as an illustration of the Gospel:” “Nobody doubts the truth of his words, supported by an example of several years.”24 In this perspective, one’s actions and life become an extremely important element of ethical communication, which Kierkegaard repeatedly pointed out in relation to Christ. The Danish philosopher stated that the life of Christ was an absolute expression of his teaching: “When one speaks only of teaching, and disregards life, Christ is made into a prophet who reveals the word of God with no relation to existence. … Therefore, it is not the teaching itself as knowledge that is directed to people for their salvation, but the whole life of Christ, His stance as something that should be followed,” and that is why, in Kierkegaard’s view, “a Christian is not supposed to be someone who preaches Christianity but someone who bears

22 This is a passage from the text The Case of the Contemporary Disciple. Interlude. Cf.:  S. Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, originally translated and introduced by D. Swenson, new introduction and commentary by N. Thulstrup, translation revised and commentary translated by H. V. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1962, p. 68 ff. 23 A. Szwed, Między wolnością a prawdą egzystencji. Studium myśli Sørena Kierkegaarda, pp. 211–​212. Cf. also K. Toeplitz, Kierkegaard, p. 107. 24 J. Wittlin, “’Vir simplex i idiota.’(O powołaniu św. Franciszka)” [‘Vir simplex and an idiot’. On the calling of St Francis], in: J. Wittlin, Pisma pośmiertne i inne eseje [Posthumous Writings and Other Essays], p. 100.

204

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

witness to it with his life.”25 As described by Wittlin, St Francis turns out to be exactly such a Christian. The thought that appears in the book about St Francis following the example of Christ “blindly, obediently, precisely”26 is worth juxtaposing with the passage from Philosophical Fragments in which Kierkegaard describes the earthly life and deeds of Christ. Kierkegaard asks the following question about God, who “has has no possession and desired none; he is not concerned for his daily bread … He does not turn his head to look at the things that usually claim the attention of men:” whether such a God actually fulfilled what is human –​and, therefore, “whether a human being may venture to express the same idea”27 Kierkegaard answers this question in the affirmative and even makes it a condition for becoming an ideal Christian;28 however, revealing in his reflections the whole paradox, drama and madness of such imitation. In the protagonist of his novel, Wittlin seems to find a confirmation of Kierkegaard’s thesis about the difficulties of following the Model that was able to absolutely trust in God, something that no human being can fully do. At the same time, when describing Saint Francis, he clearly indicates that, regardless of the times in which he lives, the human being is able to believe and do good. This is why, for Wittlin, Saint Francis is an undoubtedly fascinating figure: someone who made a gesture of entrustment although “he was also a human being”29 and, within that condition, he was aware of all the obstacles awaiting him on that path. Wittlin’s Saint Francis is a good illustration of Kierkegaard’s thesis that those who have never met Christ on earth can become “contemporary disciples” to whom God has given grace and who will take the risk of entrusting themselves.30

25 Cf. A. Słowikowski, Wiara w egzystencji. Teoretyczny wymiar chrześcijańskiego ideału w pismach pseudonimowych Sørena Kierkegaarda, Warszawa-​Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, 2015, p. 360. 26 J. Wittlin, “Fragment z przedmowy” [An Excerpt from the Preface], p. 57. 27 S. Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, or A Fragment of Philosophy, pp. 69–​70. 28 A. Szwed, Między wolnością a prawdą egzystencji. Studium myśli Sørena Kierkegaarda, p. 207 ff. 29 J. Wittlin, “Skrucha w Assyżu,” Wiadomości Literackie 1926 No. 2, p. 3. The quoted line reads in full: “Saint Francis of Assisi, you were human, too!”. 30 Cf. S. Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, p.  68  ff. For example, Kierkegaard writes: “When the believer is the believer and knows the God through having received the condition from the God himself, every successor must receive the condition from the God himself in precisely the same sense, and cannot receive it at second hand … But a successor who receives the condition from the God himself is a contemporary, a

On Wittlin: Saint Francis of Assisi, or on imitation

205

It does not matter when the believer lives, because at all times it is difficult to drown out the prompts of one’s own reason and accept the paradox of faith. In order to make his use of the figure of the Poor Man of Assisi credible in the eyes of his contemporaries, Wittlin writes in “Fragment z przedmowy” [An Excerpt from the Preface] about the social dimension of Christianity and Franciscanism (St Francis’ resignation from property, his choice of poverty, sensitivity to harm, suffering and poverty  –​and in this context, Francis returns in the essay “Ze wspomnień byłego pacyfisty” [From the Memoirs of a Former Pacifist]). From the perspective of all of the completed fragments of the book, however, a more important message is the one concerning the paradoxical dimension of religious faith, its double, subject-​transcendent sources, complex and painful dynamics, and finally –​the enormous difficulties of accepting it, which unite St Francis and modern people, and are in fact timeless. The story of a potential model worth following emphasizes above all the fact that the deeds performed by St Francis are feasible and postulated; therefore, in the spirit of Kierkegaard, St Francis as a model is not an object of admiration but a “stimulus for … possible unique imitation of him;”31 moreover, the story is told not in the spirit of an account of Christian doctrine, but of the possibilities that accepting Christ as an existential model opens up for man who seeks to become an individual that is open to reflection on his own life. In the “Introduction”, known to Wittlin from the Lviv edition of Kierkegaard’s writings, the Polish translator of the Danish philosopher’s writings notes: Kierkegaard distinguishes between two forms of the religious phase. In the former one, easier, accessible to every mortal, “the eternal is the general background of life and being.” The latter, higher, “transcendent” form is an expression of paradoxical faith in which an individual enters into a direct relationship with the absolute, with “God in time,” who is a paradox in himself. This paradoxical faith is New Testament Christianity, the religion of boundless suffering, intellectual and moral passion, and spiritual perfection.32

Wittlin’s book on Saint Francis is in fact based on this schema. In the chapter “O nawróceniu świętego Franciszka” [On the Conversion of St Francis], Wittlin writes about this first stage (form) of the religious phase of his protagonist,

real contemporary; a privilege enjoyed only by the believer, but also enjoyed by every believer” (Philosophical Fragments, p. 85). 31 K. Toeplitz, “Nad Kierkegaardem i egzystencjalizmem,” p. XXXV. This is how Kierkegaard himself wrote about “the fathers of faith.” 3 2 M. Bienenstock, “Wstęp,” p. 15.

206

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

which, moreover, is close to the elements repeatedly emphasized in the saint’s lives, such as the joy of life, love of nature, message of peace: A misanthrope and a loner turns into a friend of people and all creatures. A living corpse becomes an inspired apostle of life. He who was saddened by the earth, by the vineyards and olives in the valley of Spoleto, becomes a eulogist of the earth thanks to heaven. Francis had to go to heaven in his lifetime, like Odysseus, who was in hell during his lifetime, in order to receive there the infallible route of his earthly journey. And Francis brought for himself from God those ciphers which were to be used by him throughout his life to clearly read the text of the world.33

The other form of the religious phase, according to Kierkegaard, is the form of paradoxical faith, emphasizing the necessity to follow Christ but at the same time pointing to the hidden element of suffering in Christianity, inscribed in human striving for perfection. In Wittlin’s book, the last completed chapter “‘Vir simplex i idiota’. (O powołaniu świętego Franciszka)” [“Vir simplex and an idiot.” On the vocation of St Francis] is devoted to it. What it treats about first is Francis’ desire to transcend his present faith and express it with his whole life, which he finally decides to do:

33 J. Wittlin, “O nawróceniu świętego Franciszka” [On the Conversion of St Francis], p. 95. The concept of ciphers used by Wittlin is strongly associated with the philosophy of Karl Jaspers, developing at the same time in Germany (the theory of the ciphers of transcendence –​“Chiffern der Transzendenz” –​appeared in the last part of his basic work of 1931, Philosophie, and was fully articulated in his 1961 lectures on this concept). The philosopher wrote: “Ciphers are not the knowledge of something. They are not signs that show something. But what is made present in them is what cannot be present in any other way.” (K. Jaspers, Szyfry transcendencji, p. 31). Wittlin uses this concept in a different way because in his interpretation it is related to religious concepts (they come “from God”) –​the two readers of Kierkegaard (and Jaspers’ concept of “ciphers of transcendence” is strongly related to Kierkegaard, cf. K. Jaspers, Szyfry transcendencji, p. 30) differ in situating the “ciphers” in the sphere of religious transcendence (Wittlin) and in a sphere not connected with religion (Jaspers). It is worth mentioning that Lagerkvist uses the notion of the world-​filling signs that make it possible to “read” reality and understand its essence in his late poetry in the volume Aftonland [Evening Land] (1953), some of which are discussed in the next subsection. What recurs many times there is the metaphor of the sky strewn with stars as a book written by God, from which the initiate could read the meaning inscribed in the world, the meaning of which, however, remains effectively hidden by people.

On Wittlin: Saint Francis of Assisi, or on imitation

207

He drops his bag, takes off his shoes, unbuckles his belt, throws his cane to the ground. He girds his loins with an ordinary string. A barefoot apostle. 34

The desire to sacrifice his own life and to undertake the task of perfectly fulfilling Christ’s commands causes the world to undergo another transformation in the eyes of Saint Francis. The moral passion of a saint who wants to help people overcome “the dragon of human trespasses” results in suffering in the first place. It results from understanding one’s own condition, which makes an authentic relationship with the Absolute constantly threatened by human sinfulness: On this whole bloody rag of the world, woven by the hands of murderers and the murdered, thieves and the robbed, the full and the hungry, only one white spot is noticed by Francis: the white corpse of Christ. But even this whiteness was pierced by the human hand five times with blood. The apostle covers his eyes so as not to look at that common red. He hides his head in his hands so as not to see people. Suddenly the red hair of Judas appeared on every human face. And when he touched his own cheeks with his hand, he trembled all over: Judas was an apostle, too. 35

Wittlin’s Saint Francis constantly feels the suffering of a man of faith entangled in sinfulness and condemned to a paradoxical relationship to God, to a relationship of inequality to Him whom he desires and should follow. Therefore, “played under the direction of Francis,” the farce “Jesu Christi imitatio” is “joyful and sad”36 and makes one realise his own guilt. Between Saint Francis, who, in an apostolic gesture, decided to set out into the world to save it, and Kierkegaard’s concept of faith, there is a certain discrepancy which Wittlin was surely aware of. It is doubtful whether in the mind of the Danish philosopher there is room for active work aimed to reform reality; and his attitude to all preaching was, as mentioned many times above, definitely negative. Wittlin, who values Kierkegaard and undertakes the task of writing a novel about the Saint of Assisi, clearly reduces this difference of perspectives. He does this in two ways: firstly, he emphasizes that Saint Francis as a preacher remained completely credible by testifying to the ideas he preached primarily with his whole life. Secondly, there is a clear intention to arrange the book material in such a way as to give primacy to faith-​related existential issues. Characteristically,

34 J. Wittlin, “’Vir simplex i idiota.’ (O powołaniu świętego Franciszka)” [“Vir simplex and an idiot.” On the conversion of St Francis], p. 98. 35 J. Wittlin, “’Vir simplex i idiota.’ (O powołaniu świętego Franciszka)” [“Vir simplex and an idiot.” On the conversion of St Francis], p. 99. 36 J. Wittlin, “’Vir simplex i idiota.’ (O powołaniu świętego Franciszka)” [“Vir simplex and an idiot.” On the conversion of St Francis], p. 100.

208

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

Wittlin focusses on that stage of Francis’ life when the most dramatic events related to faith took place: he tells the story of hesitations, uncertainty, maturing to conversion, to the radicalism of the “leap of faith.” Obviously, the unfinished works (and such is the book under analysis) should be approached with great caution as their unwritten parts could hide content that would require a change in excessively unambiguous interpretations. At the same time, the fact that Wittlin systematically published successive fragments of the book shows that he treated the existing parts as in a way complete or full. Undoubtedly, it seems that what interested him most in the biography of Saint Francis was its earlier stage: the time of struggling with himself, showing all the drama of human striving for faith. In this regard, Wittlin resembles Kierkegaard, whose concept of faith was “a hermeneutic programme rather than a call to action.37 As a result of Wittlin’s selection of material, his book about St Francis brings an image of achieving faith through despair, conversion, rejection of social norms and the institutional shape of religion. Wittlin’s Saint Francis made a “leap of faith,” became an idiot in the eyes of the world (the last completed chapter of the book is entitled “Vir simplex et idiota”) and his faith carried him beyond the world, above the world –​like the “spiritual person” described by Kierkegaard: The spiritual person is different from us human beings in that he is, if I may put it this way, so solidly built that he can bear a redoubling [Fordoblelse] within himself. By comparison, we human beings are like a half-​timbered structure compared with a foundation wall –​so loosely and weakly built that we are unable to bear a redoubling. But the Christianity of the New Testament relates specifically to a redoubling. The spiritual person is able to bear a redoubling within himself; with his understanding he can maintain that something is against the understanding and then will it nevertheless; with his understanding he can maintain that something is an offense and then will it nevertheless; that something, humanly speaking, makes him unhappy and then will it nevertheless, etc. But that is precisely the way the Christianity of the New Testament is constituted.38

Writing about Saint Francis, Wittlin focuses on those elements that harmonise well both with Kierkegaard’s reflections on the “absurdity” of faith and the Danish philosopher’s views on the possibility and conditions for the existence 37 M. Hintz, “Dwie drogi wiary w dziewiętnastowieczny protestantyzmie: Wichern i Kierkegaard,” in: Polifoniczny świat Kierkegaarda. Księga honorowa dedykowana Profesorowi Karolowi Toeplitzowi, p. 101. 38 S. Kierkegaard, “The Moment” and Late Writings, ed. and trans. with Introduction and Notes by H.V. Hong and E. H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998, pp. 183–​184.

On Wittlin: Saint Francis of Assisi, or on imitation

209

of a “contemporary disciple” of Christ. The writer points out that the essence of faith consists in taking a risk, in living against reason, against one’s milieu, against knowledge; as a result, faith is combined with suffering because it is accompanied by uncertainty, loneliness and rejection by the milieu. Faith as experienced by Saint Francis is therefore a miracle (as Kierkegaard wrote, “faith is itself a miracle”39), and the conclusions drawn from the contemplation of his life for the sake of contemporary man must first of all take into account the saint’s postulate to follow Christ: an ethical model that shows how to develop the relationship with God. The book about Saint Francis, though unfinished, clearly leads the reader along the path of the transformation described by Kierkegaard: an esthete (i.e. Francis, who lived the life of a medieval bon vivant) is replaced by a man living in the ethical stage (Francis returning from the war), who is then replaced by a man experiencing the religious stage of life (Francis after his conversion). Characteristically, it is only at the two earlier stages that the verbalised beliefs and moral principles appear in Francis’ consciousness (a child and a young man at that time). When meeting a beggar on church steps, little Francis expresses the conviction that poverty is a virtue (“she is poor” Francis turns into “she is with God”); while learning a Latin conjugation, he utters –​as if by accident –​a word that contains the whole meaning of the commandment of love (the imperative: “love!”); in prison, Francis impresses everyone with his kindness and courtesy towards each person, showing respect for others and working for interpersonal reconciliation (“reconcile!”). However, when Francis reaches the religious stage, what becomes more important than his words is his life, an authentic testimony of the Gospel, and, in the situation of living contact with God, it is no longer necessary to formulate any principles.

“Avoid the word God”40 Wittlin’s refraining from openly manifesting a religious worldview in his works has, I believe, two sources. One is his reluctance towards unambiguous formulas in which religious literature, both premodern and modern, abounds, forced to adopt a clear stance in opposition to the increasingly unveiled, violent acts of opposition to this tradition. The other is a complete refusal to make one’s faith a public matter (as he wrote, “we will see all the littleness and snobbery of our 39 S. Kierkegaard, “The Moment” and Late Writings, p. 81. 40 J. Wittlin, an untitled manuscript of the Museum of Literature in Warsaw, shelf-​mark 934, sheet 52.

210

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

times in the fact that our letters to God do not consciously go to their destination, but we open them in front of people and we accept payments for them”41). Meanwhile (which in this situation is worth special consideration), he published a poem which emphasized its “private” character quite ostentatiously, was written approximately at the same time as the book about St Francis and touched upon matters of faith: namely “Psalm” [The Psalm]. This text shows a certain trait of speaking about faith, which perhaps justified a public speech in the eyes of its author. What I mean is the ambiguity that fills the entire text, thanks to which the main issue in the text is not only (or rather not so much) the ambiguous confession of the speaker’s faith but, rather, the reader’s necessary self-​definition in the face of problems posed in the text and the attitudes presented there: O God of morning, of twilight and of storm, Heavenly Father! I, Józef Wittlin, of the tribe of Judah, stand before Thee in nakedness for my sins, that with these my unworthy lips I may stammer forth Thy greatness. With dread I find that this heart of mine is more and more bending down to the earth, upon which Thy feet ever more rarely do tread. Before I’m wholly consumed by earthly love, I’ll sing to Thee a psalm drawn from vestiges of my childhood. May it ever remain with Thee, as a hostage to my faith until the hour of my death shall come. And should I ever repudiate Thee –​ –​before Thee may it redeem me.42

The exceptionally, even manifestly personal character of the poem results from the initial formula immediately following the invocation that opens the text. The poem’s speaker testifies not to the unwavering faith that he has but on the contrary: to his own faith that is changing, uncertain, subject to dynamic changes beyond his control, which may even (of which the speaker is fully aware) turn into radical doubt one day. In the following fragments, the poem brings –​not

41 J. Wittlin, “Słowo tłumacza do czytelnika” [The Translator’s Note for the Reader], in: Homer, Odyseja, trans. J. Wittlin, Lwów: Wydawnictwo Altenberga, 1924, p. 17. 42 J. Wittlin, “Psalm” [The Psalm], “Pamiętnik Warszawski” 1931 No. 5, pp. 33–​37. The text was written in the years 1922–​1926. This and the following quotations from Psalm have been translated © by Patrick John Corness 2021.

On Wittlin: Saint Francis of Assisi, or on imitation

211

explicitly articulated, but clearly insinuated –​questions about the attributes of God who allows the existence of pain and suffering in the world: And be Thou praised in the singing of birds: May the lark lament to Thee in the sun’s blazing heat, May the nightingale trill to Thee in quiet valleys at night, May the cuckoo bird cuckoo to Thee, and let the turtledove also coo to Thee just any day. … But may a raven croak for Thee over a soldier’s remains, may it croak to Thee over the carcass of someone disgraced. … So Lod be praised, o Lord be praised, o Lord be Thou praised, o Thou Eternal Lord, be praised in all the colours: Thou art worshipped in the colour of green with which Thou didst adorn the grass, to Thee bow down both violet and white! … And be Thou greeted by the colour black, which is sad, for it awakens in us sadness! O beautiful art Thou in every colour the blind cannot see!

Due to this basic ambiguity, hidden in “praising the world,” which is not free from the suffering of the innocent (in the poem, there are: “someone disgraced,” “the blind,” a soldier killed in war), “Psalm” [The Psalm] many times treats about the loss of faith, the unbelief resulting from the confrontation with physical evil: O be Thou praised, o be Thou praised, o be Thou praised Eternal Lord, in the taste of our daily bread and the taste of water and the taste of wine, be praised in the flesh and the blood of Thy Son and be praised in bitterness, praised in regret, and praised in the despair of those who are hungry and cry, and shout that Thou dost not exist! Be greeted, oh be greeted in the grievances of widows and lamentations of mothers whose sons have perished in war. Be greeted in the abandonment of orphans; for they enshrine the abundance of Thy love. … O be praised in the madness of people whom Thou hast commanded to be evil, in whose eyes Thou hast extinguished the light, so they live and they perish in the darkness.

212

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

The problem of unbelief (and of lost faith, easy to lose on earth, where the presence of God can be felt “less and less frequently”) is not exhausted in this poem in the question of theodicy. The importance of this issue is evidenced by the fact that such an accent appears in the last line that closes the entire poem, where it sounds in an entirely independent way: Hosanna, Hosanna! For ever and ever, Amen. And be Thou praised in the prayers of those who do not believe in Thee.

The poem commented on is an easily identifiable travesty of “The Canticle of the Sun” by St Francis; at the same time, it demonstrates far-​reaching independence in the interpretation of its themes, reaching the point of questioning the essential element, i.e. the certainty of faith in a merciful God. The poem indicates that Wittlin has mastered the difficult art of “speaking with many voices,” the difficult and valuable polyphony postulated by Søren Kierkegaard. Wittlin updates and transfers to the times of the modern questioning of metaphysical certainty the prayer of a saint whose faith, also having a heroic dimension (Wittin knew that the “Cantico del sole” was created by Francis already as a blind man43), patronises modern people’s struggle for faith. The speaker in “Psalm” [The Psalm] is clearly inclined towards faith in the variant described by Wittlin in his book on St Francis, interpreting it as dramatic faith and emphasizing the risk and uncertainty present in every religious belief. The poem’s speaker also admits that he is unable to prejudge the durability of his faith. Faith as “remnants of childhood” (this metaphor must be associated with the Kantian description of enlightenment precisely as a state of abandoning childhood44) is for Wittlin something like childhood:  a beautiful, though by necessity impermanent object of memories and memory, closer to magic than to reality, and yet shaping a person forever. Therefore, instead of professing unwavering faith in “Psalm” [The Psalm] (which the title seems to imply), the speaker makes the poem only a testimony of the possibility of such faith, at the same time asking about the

43 Cf. J. Wittlin, “Ślepi i głuchoniemi w Asyżu” [The Blind and the Deaf-​Mute in Assisi], in: J. Wittlin, Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku [Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century], p. 191. 44 According to Kant, enlightenment means “man’s emergence from his self-​incurred immaturity” (I. Kant, “An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?,’” in:  I. Kant, Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss, trans. H.B. Nisbet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 54), i.e. emergence from the state of dependence on, among others, mythical religious concepts.

On Lagerkvist: God’s witnesses

213

chances of updating it –​in the plane of an individual’s biography and the historical processes of modernisation. An element of the psalm that ties Wittlin with the biblical psalms and “The Canticle of the Sun” is the praise of the God-​Creator of the universe. Modern man, as Wittlin seems to claim, has lost the straight path of religious entrustment leading to God. If, however, man wants to open himself to a spiritual search, make an effort to ask questions about a higher meaning and a higher order, return in a hermeneutic effort to understanding old religious texts, creating his own, updating interpretations and agreeing to their instability and impermanence –​this will save his ethical sensitivity, based not so much on the Highest Good as on striving for it, recognised as a gesture that constitutes the human nature.

2. On Lagerkvist: God’s witnesses One of the main topics undertaken by Lagerkvist is the question of the presence of God in human life and the human need for faith; and practically every discussion of his work must take up the issue of religious themes in his writing.45 My focus on it in the course of the present reflections, limited to the circle of issues related to the project of modern ethical literature that I reconstruct, results from the conviction that the way Wittlin and Lagerkvist take up religious themes is an important element of their concept of literary ethics. What is not surprising in the perspective of changes taking place in European culture after the Enlightenment is that, for Lagerkvist, religion understood

45 There is a vast body of literature on the subject focussed on these issues. The most important Swedish and Norwegian studies in this area include: I. Schöier, “Drabbad av Gud och övergiven. Den frånvarande Guden hos Pär Lagerkvist,” in: Pär Lagerkvist 100 år Föreläsningar och anföranden i Växjö våren 1991, Växjö:  Pär Lagerkvist-​ samfundetsförlag, 1992, pp.  39–​61; A. Ahlberg, “Det religiösa problemet hos Pär Lagerkvist,” in: Troende utan tro. Religiösa sökare i vår tid, Stockholm: Natur och kultur, 1966, pp. 110–​165; M. Lund, Frigjort fra Gud –​og bundet til Ham: Pär Lagerkvists selvbiografiske roman Gäst hos verkligheten (1925) og romanserien “korsfestelsessyklusen” (1950–​1964), Trondheim: Norges teknisk-​naturvitenskapelige universitet, 1999; M. Lund,”Barabbas –​mellom myten og historien: Pär Lagerkvists roman Barabbas (1950)” Edda 1995, No. 2, pp. 147–​159; S. Klint, Romanen och evangeliet. Former för Jesusgestaltning i Pär Lagerkvistsprosa, Skellefteå: Norma, 2001; S. Klint, “Kristologi, fantasi och ideologi i Pär Lagerkvists författarskap,” in: Kirke og kultur, 1998, pp. 44–​ 57; S. Klint,”Den expressionistiska Jesusgestalten i Pär Lagerkvists tidiga produktion,” in: Speglingar: svensk 1900-​talslitteratur i möte med biblisk tradition, eds. S. Klint, K. Syreeni, Skellefteå: Norma, 2001, pp. 50–​70.

214

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

as a set of dogmas and moral norms did not constitute an acceptable solution to the metaphysical and ethical issues that he pondered on. At the same time, the religious question of the relationship between God and the human being is a completely basic problem for him –​as if it were actually the only issue worth considering by the reader. This resulted in the writer’s extremely intensive use of apocryphal narrative structures, creating plots with the use of biblical patterns of events or characters. Lagerkvist particularly eagerly kept returning to the situation of man’s encounter with God incarnate, Christ –​the Son of God and the Son of man, proclaiming the commandment of love –​and among his apocryphal stories this is a moment of fundamental importance. The event of the encounter of man with God invariably appears in Lagerkvist’s works as one that in fact fuels, rather than reduces, existential uncertainty. An encounter with God is a key life experience for the two main characters of the novel Sibyllan [The Sibyl], (1956): the Sibyl and Ahasuerus. They both ask themselves the same question: who exactly the God they have encountered is, and neither of them gets any clarity in this matter. Ahasuerus’ experience consisted in not recognising the Son of God in an unknown convict and continuing to live in the shadow cast by his curse. From then on, the protagonist is forced to constantly think about the unknown, mysterious God whom he hates, not reconciled with the lack of knowledge about him. The Sibyl, on the other hand, who at one point in her life felt metaphysical longing and decided to become the pythia, even as an inhabitant of the temple did not gain an insight into the nature of the god that had nothing to do with priests or religious rituals. Physical communion with the deity who finally visited her outside the sanctuary and the world of institutional religion does not, however, reduce her doubts as to the essence of that deity. But this ignorance did not make her as unhappy as Ahasuerus; she argued that God is a mystery that will always make people anxious and that no one will ever be able to solve. The conversations and experiences of the protagonists show that God remains unknown to man, and that whatever man does and whatever he believes, his fate will always be bound to God. This cognitive uncertainty, which marks human relations with God, was presented excellently in the novel’s narrative plane.46 Although the suggestion of the narrator’s omniscience is built at the very beginning, later there appear narrative parts that use free indirect speech, and the events are observed and commented on alternately from the point of view of the characters and the narrator; over

46 Cf. R. Schönström, Dikten som besvärjelse. Begärets dialektik i Pär Lagerkvists författarskap, Stockholm: Symposion, 1987, p. 106 ff.

On Lagerkvist: God’s witnesses

215

time, it turns out that sometimes it is the characters who have more knowledge about the novel’s world than the narrator, and it is only their voice that allows for correct understanding of the presented situations. Such a structure resembles the solutions used in numerous modern novels. What is peculiar, however, is that by using these measures Lagerkvist achieves a clear, superordinate perspective. The unifying principle is dialogism: an intentional clash of voices and points of view, which make it clear that the storyteller cannot (or perhaps does not want to, either) talk about the events and phenomena that are being commented on –​all of which, let us recall, practically without exception refer to questions of faith –​in a way other than by means of polyphonicity.47 In the context of Sibyllan [The Sibyl], it is worth emphasizing that the problem of uncertainty as a necessary element of faith and religious entrustment, thematised in the conversation between the Sybil and Ahasuerus, finds its extension in formal measures aimed at indicating that there is no instance in the presented world that could comment on God and his attributes in a credible way, and at the level of the subject of creative activities, this uncertainty achieves the status of the truth about the world. It has been pointed out that “the author, on an aesthetic level, conducts a dialogue with himself. A credible explanation for this measure is the supposition that he does not believe in his own omniscience and that is why he is unable to express himself otherwise than by “dialogising” the presented content. Perhaps the author preferred to achieve a more unified perspective by combining two subjective points of view. The dialogical structure of the text would in this case compensate for the lack of a divine, superior outlook.”48 In line with the key adopted in the entire monograph, Schönström interprets the narrative in Sibyllan [The Sibyl] using the tools of psychoanalysis. I believe that Schönström’s observations, by all means apt, concerning the structure of the narrative, can in the light of the arguments collected in my book be interpreted differently; one can assume the author’s deliberate work on such compositional formation of the text that, by depriving the narrator of authority, will completely shift the burden of interpretative decisions onto the reader. Then it turns out that Sibyllan [The Sibyl] is modelled on Kierkegaard’s indirect communication: it avoids instructing the reader and forces him to make independent decisions. Such an

47 On the “principle of dialogue” as an important compositional element of Lagerkvist’s works, see G. Fredén, Pär Lagerkvist. Från Gudstanken till Barabbas, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1952, p. 10. 48 R. Schönström, Dikten som besvärjelse. Begärets dialektik i Pär Lagerkvists författarskap, pp. 114–​115, emphasis by K.S.H.

216

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

interpretation (polyphony as a deliberate measure) is based on the fact that the same measure is repeated by Lagerkvist many times –​as I have already indicated, it constituted the chief compositional principle of Ångest, and it reveals itself in numerous works on the problem of religion. Lagerkvist’s approach to the issues of religious faith in literary works is usually accompanied by some metaliterary reflection on the possibility of conveying religious experiences and experiences via words. This issue was taken up by Lagerkvist in an early work Myten om människorna [Myth about people] (1922); although belonging to his early texts, it was so important to the writer that its fragments were used by him in the Nobel Prize speech in 1951.49 I believe that it is possible to interpret this work as a text that is almost programmatic, pointing to the importance not only of metaphysical questions in the Swedish author’s entire oeuvre but also of the way of presenting them, and, above all, as a text asking about the meaning of making this effort. As befits a myth, the text deals with the distant past and the origins of mankind. The main characters are a man and a woman who come from far away to the earth, where their children are born. The place they find themselves in differs from the spaces they have known so far: on earth, sometimes it is night and the seasons of the year change. This new world, characterised by changeability and instability, becomes a space for their love to flourish, but every now and then the human couple remembers that they have come to earth only for a moment and that they will have to leave the earth and return to worlds where dusk does not fall, and nature does not worry people. However, they are unable to describe those places to their children, who know only earthly life: one of the sons, as if protesting against these stories, kills a bird, another child, dreaming about the ideal world from the mother’s stories, dies of longing for it. After some time, the parents die, too, calm and sure that they are leaving for better worlds that exist somewhere far away. After the death of their parents, two sons set off on a journey; they find out how large and wonderful the world where they live is but also that the earth is already inhabited by other people. The people they meet, however, are completely

49 The story that I am summarising here, beginning with the words “Det var engång en värld” (“Once upon a time there was a world”), was the first part of a planned larger whole, entitled Myten om människorna [Myth about people]. Apart from that, only a short ending was written. This initial excerpt was first published in 1951 under the title Myten om människorna. I refer to the following edition: P. Lagerkvist, Det var engång en värld, Växjö: Pär Lagerkvist-​samfundetsförlag, 2005.

On Lagerkvist: God’s witnesses

217

deprived of the perspective of the existence of other worlds, they are full of discouragement and fear of life that seems empty and meaningless to them. The brothers decide to live among them. In a way that is difficult to explain, the knowledge obtained from their parents becomes alive in their consciousness in the form of a mythical story about how people appeared on earth and that all people here are only visitors.50 They know that, sometimes, individuals like themselves appear among people, aware that human life on earth is only a “short visit,” and with their life they testify to it for others, giving their lives a deeper dimension, at the same time ready to depart for other, more wonderful spaces. This story is based on the story of Adam and Eve but shifts the emphasis in such a way as to point to an issue which is absent in the Bible for obvious reasons: the possibility of entrustment by those who themselves did not know what constitutes the content of faith (the human call to immortality for the first parents was in fact not the object of trust, but knowledge; however, already in the second generation –​as Lagerkvist points out –​the perspective has changed dramatically). The story emphasizes the role of testifying: firstly, by parents to their children, and secondly  –​by the two brothers (and similar individuals, whose presence among people is mentioned in the text) to other people. The unprovable conviction that the earth is not the only space to live in for people who depart to a different, better reality after death is difficult to accept as a message verbalised by their parents because it seems inconsistent with the children’s knowledge about earthly life; however, with time it turns out to correspond to the inner experience of the latter. This mythical concept lasts for generations, because, although its verbalisation is not able to convince anyone to believe in a ready mythical story, the very act of uttering it touches such chords in the recipient that he will be able to find in himself an answer to existential questions tormenting people. The modern “myth about people,” just like all modern ethical literature, does not therefore proclaim theological or moral truths. Rather, the content of this myth is the conviction that people who have lost the ability to think about their own life in a perspective broader than the time of their “short visit” on earth are unhappy –​and that what is truly human is achieved precisely thanks to the ability to transcend the fear and limitations of earthly life, in the hope for what transcends physical existence, in spiritual readiness:

50 This metaphor of “short-​time visitors” (“gäster på ett kort besök”) appears frequently in other early works by Lagerkvist –​cf. e.g. Kaos [Chaos] (1919), Morgonen [The Morning] (1920).

218

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

But they knew there were strangers here. They knew that they were not really part of this world, something distinguished them –​they were called to higher things, to the realisation of the highest; to travel home, to find a home. Yes, human life will certainly begin because of them: real, immortal and radiant, but not what they had previously thought it would be. They thought of their father and mother, kept a clear memory of them. They thought about what the old man in the forge had said; about those who descended here, one after another, to people with their testimony, as they themselves had done. They came to all peoples as mysterious visitors and lived quietly, unnoticed; but through them happened what people had been made for. … A light gathered in them, stronger and stronger, which was supposed to guide them. They, however, calmly kept it within themselves, like living flames from which one moves away the hands.51

The two brothers become ones like Kierkegaard’s “disciple at second hand:” in fact, they are direct witnesses of faith, and it does not matter where they received it from –​they are “contemporary as a believer, in the autopsy of Faith.” faith.”52 What turns out the key is to accept what is revealed within oneself. Hence, it does not matter whether a person experiences the physical presence of God or (as in Lagerkvist’s story) perfectly remembers “other worlds” beyond the earth from his own experience, or learns about them from other people’s accounts –​it is important whether this particular person wants to believe in the truths that are revealed to him. The issue of testifying to the existential truth returns in many works by the Swedish writer, each time in close connection with the religious questions they deal with. “Seekers of the truth” filling the works of the Swedish writer never actually remain satisfied after an encounter with “those who testify” and who try to put into words their own religious experience (numerous examples are provided by the novel Barabbas [Barabbas] as well as by the tetralogy about the Holy Land). On the other hand, the purest message about the power of faith is the life of those characters in the novel who, acting for the benefit of others in the name of love and good, do not try to investigate the grounds for their behaviour in a discursive way (this is, for example, the case of Mariamne, the protagonist of the novel with her name as the title, who makes a breakthrough in Herod’s seemingly insurmountable evil, but has no need to express her stance in words). In the world presented in Lagerkvist’s works, in which the theme of searching for truth and the meaning of life comes to the fore, what counts is testifying to religious truth with one’s own life rather than with words; living the truth rather than communicating it. In this optics, one can see the whole ambiguity, but also 51 P. Lagerkvist, Myten om människorna, p. 62. 52 S. Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, p. 87.

On Lagerkvist: God’s witnesses

219

the full potential of the genre named “myth,” used by Lagerkvist in the title of the planned text. The modern myth, as suggested by Lagerkvist, no longer tells a story that makes it possible to give meaning to the world in a single act of entrustment; its task is to direct man’s thought and his own reflections towards what transcends the aesthetic stage of human life, towards ethical and religious areas. In this sense, although written earlier than Barabbas [Barabbas], Myten om människorna is a great commentary on this “Nobel-​Prize” novel, the structure of which forces the reader to take responsibility for interpretative decisions as well as decisions in the field of religious (or quasi-​religious) meanings of this text.

Barabbas Barabbas [Barabbas] is a story of the life of a criminal who, at the request of the Jews, was released by Pontius Pilate on the day Jesus Christ died on the cross. The novel’s plot takes place first in Jerusalem, and then in several points of the Roman Empire, where the eponymous character ends up as a slave. The fact that Christ died in place of Barabbas initiated a strange relationship between Barabbas and the Crucified One. It is indicated not only by the parallels between these characters but also by the fact that throughout his life after the miraculous deliverance, Christ, His teachings and His followers are somehow close to the eponymous character. This is also the case in the novel’s finale, taking place in Rome, where Barabbas, having misunderstood the call he hears, takes part in setting fire to the city by the emperor’s people and, together with a group of Christians, is condemned to death and crucified. The analysis should start with the fact that in the novel, based on biblical themes and referring directly to various genres of religious literature,53 it is impossible to distinguish a voice that resounds with certainty as to the essence of the reported events and their meaning. The readers’ attention must be drawn to the frequency of phrases such as “as if,” “maybe,” signalling the inadequacy and vagueness of judgments about the world, both those proclaimed by the characters and those formulated by the narrator.54 The narrative is conducted in such a way as not only to question the characters’ established and unequivocal

53 Cf. S. Klint, Romanen och evangeliet. Former för Jesusgestaltning i Pär Lagerkvists prosa, p. 144 ff.; H. Riesenfeld, “Barabbas och Nya testementet,”in: Synpunkter på Pär Lagerkvist, pp. 209–​224. 54 Cf. G. B. Schwab, “Herod and Barabbas: Lagerkvist and the Long Search,” Scandinavica 1981, No. 1, p. 81.

220

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

worldviews but also to persuade the readers to form their own reflections on them through constant confrontation of suggested interpretations. This mechanism is clearly visible in the scenes presenting the thoughts of Sahak (an Armenian Christian, a slave with whom Barabbas works in the mine and to whom he is bound by a kind of closeness, partly forced by the conditions in which they find themselves) and of the hare-​lip girl (a woman who accepted Christ’s teaching, and who is marginalised by her community and fellow believers) and confronting those thoughts with the worldview of the eponymous character. In both cases, one of the characters experiences a miracle, and Barabbas is also a witness to this event. It is in terms of a miracle that Sahak understands and feels the release from work in the mine, which happened to both men (and which, within the realities of the presented world, is indeed very unusual): Sahak grieved –​but not for his own sake. … For his own part he was, on the contrary, a happy man. Especially now, since his Lord had worked this miracle for him, brought him up here into the sun and up to the lilies of the field, which he himself had spoken of so beautifully. /​He had worked the same miracle for Barabbas too. But Barabbas gazed uneasily about him in the world that lay again before his eyes, and none knew what he was thinking.55

The woman referred to as the hare-​lip and Barabbas are present at Christ’s tomb on the morning of the resurrection. In this situation too, Barabbas turns out to be completely incapable of seeing a miracle in the world –​a miracle that in the woman’s experience is beyond doubt: She looked up at him for a moment in surprise. Didn’t he know? But then in her snuffling voice she described rapturously and in detail how an angel in a mantle of fire had come rushing down from heaven with arm outstretched like the point of a spear. And the spear had been thrust in between the stone and the rock and parted them. It sounded as simple as could be and it was so, too, although it was a miracle. That’s how it had happened. Had he not seen it? /​Barabbas looked down and said that he had not, and deep down inside he thought how very pleased he was not to have seen it. It showed that his eyes were all right now, like everybody else’s eyes, that he no longer saw any visions but only reality itself. That man had no power over him anymore; he had not witnessed any resurrection or anything. But the girl with the hare-​lip still knelt there, her eyes radiant with the memory of what she had seen.56

55 P. Lagerkvist, Barabbas, trans. A. Blair, with a preface by L. Maury and a letter by A. Gide, New York: Random House, 1968, p. 109. 56 P. Lagerkvist, Barabbas, pp. 38–​40.

On Lagerkvist: God’s witnesses

221

Both passages are structured in a similar way: in them, thanks to the use of free indirect speech, the protagonists’ worldviews are revealed –​and their contradictory opinions about reality are confronted. As a result, it is impossible to claim that religion is exposed here as a false worldview, but it cannot be maintained, either, that the characters who were capable of entrustment, including, as it will turn out in the further course of events, the heroic entrustment when facing martyrdom, were right. Andrzej Chojecki rightly pointed out that irony remains a ubiquitous figure in the discussed novel.57 It multiplies the possible meanings of individual scenes and statements and obstructs orientation in the text and the emergence of the overarching, generally applicable perspective of the presented events. It should be added that the use of irony in this novel serves Lagerkvist to ultimately prevent the reader from gaining certainty about the validity (within the framework of the presented reality) of a religious or non-​religious perspective. The above-​ mentioned examples of scenes and the characters’ statements also show that it is impossible to determine which of the characters (and if any of them at all) could be the ‘voice’ of the ironist-​writer. For the same reason, it is impossible to consider these scenes only as “presenting an ironic situation,” when a naive character in his or her simplicity believes in an obvious untruth.58 The consistent hiding of the narrator behind the voices of the novel’s characters has multiple consequences for the shape of the Lagerkvistian variety of modern ethical literature. First, it makes the irony present in the novel59 work in many directions. Based on the analysis of the text, it is impossible to decide whether the following statement by the fellow prisoner who is watching Sahak: But this curious slave prayed to a god who, he obviously thought, was there in the darkness in front of him. And he spoke to him just as he would to a living being, who, he imagined, took notice of him. It was most peculiar. He could be heard whispering and praying earnestly there in the dark, but anybody could see that there was no god there. It was all imagination.60

This fragment has an undisputed ironic character or, rather, in which direction the vector of this irony is pointed. It is not known whether the voice we hear

57 A. Chojecki, “Bóg i religia w twórczości Pära Lagerkvista,” Studia Scandinavica 1979, No. 2, p. 59 ff. 58 Cf. D.S. Muecke, The Compass of Irony, London: Routledge, 1969, p. 64. 59 On the use of irony in the text under analysis, see A. Chojecki, “Bóg i religia w twórczości Pära Lagerkvista,” p. 59 ff. 60 P. Lagerkvist, Barabbas, p. 112.

222

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

in this passage (belonging to a man who will later use Sahak’s trust and indirectly lead to his martyrdom) is a voice that reveals, above all, the emotional and spiritual shortcomings of the speaker,61 or whether it discovers the truth about the ironic (or: tragic)62 situation of Sahak himself. Secondly, the constant “disappearance” of the novel’s narrator and giving way to the voices and thoughts of the characters force the reader to ask moral questions directed to the text being read. As shown by Wayne C. Booth, all narrative techniques, via which –​through the simple measure of “giving the floor to someone” –​it is easy to build trust to even the worst characters, direct the reader to such questions automatically.63 The novel Mariamne [Herod and Mariamne] (1967) brings the narrator’s ostentatious and repeated stress on his own ignorance about the essence of the characters’ faith. Let us quote perhaps the most emphatic passage of this kind: It was true that Mariamne needed no temple. Her worship was within her, and she could listen to it at any time. She was like a tree which the wind fills with its secret soughing. She had no need of any sanctuary. /​But Herod had need of a temple, for he was a desert man. And in the desert he raised a temple over himself. /​Over himself only? Only to glorify himself? /​That I cannot say. I don’t know.64

Despite the narrator’s clearly demonstrated uncertainty about the important details of the character’s inner life, two things are clearly stated in this passage. First, judgement on Herod is suspended. As we know from Barabbas [Barabbas], even an unrepentant criminal is capable of reflecting on faith and considering the conditions of entrustment; this ability is, moreover, perhaps the most profoundly human trait in Lagerkvist’s anthropology. The narrator, who avoids prejudging whether Herod knew any actual religious feelings, formulates an implicit recommendation that it is not appropriate for anyone who is outside to judge someone else’s faith (and unbelief) –​and this principle is also used by those of Lagerkvist’s characters who have the most developed religious and ethical sense.

61 He is the only character in the entire novel who is genuinely evil, malicious, cruel, and despising the lives of others and his own. The fact that he is the one who makes the most vehement critique of the Christian faith is probably not accidental. Such a radical questioning of faith is a marginalised voice within the framework of the novel; this does not mean, however, that Sahak’s faith thereby gains the sanction of truthfulness. 62 On the closeness of these categories, cf. D.S. Muecke, The Compass of Irony p. 59 ff. 63 Cf. W.C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, p. 378. 64 P. Lagerkvist, Herod and Mariamne, trans. N. Walford, New York: Vintage Books, 1982, p. 101.

On Lagerkvist: God’s witnesses

223

Secondly, the passage quoted above shows that there are naturally good people, who have in themselves sources of good, people of a pure heart, simple people who do not need a “temple.” In the writings of the author of Ångest (in accordance with Kierkegaard’s motto “the crowd means untruth”65), religion as a declaration of the faith of a community is the source of distortions of the authentic sacred sphere, which is hidden at the core of the religious worldview. Social mechanisms make religion an element that differentiates people from one another, and thus make it a source of conflicts and suffering. To refer to examples from the novel most widely commented on here, let us quote the words of Barabbas, who, while eating supper with a man raised from the dead by the Crucified One, comes to a conclusion about the man that is very critical of the group of Jerusalem Christians that “He was not so particular as the brethren in Potters’ Lane, and made but little distinction between one man and another.”66 Lagerkvist also repeatedly sketches situations in which the Christian community rejects an individual –​also a co-​believer –​who is not like others (in Barabbas this is the case of the hare-​lip girl). Barabbas sees that some of the people who preach Christ are the same ones who called for His crucifixion. It follows that faith, whose manifestations Barabbas observes, has been depicted in an extremely ambiguous way, and in an attempt to love one’s neighbour, it is only individual people who do not fail sometimes, guided not by collective instinct or general principles but by their own moral sense. It has been noticed that Barabbas [Barabbas] is a novel that alludes to evangelical models not only because of its content, but also because it refers to the biblical model with its linguistic style67 and the genres, where one can see similarities with such forms as the life of a martyr, the gospel (and the para-​gospel), and the apocrypha. At the same time, the certainty of inspired authors and the didactic tradition associated with genres such as the lives of saints and martyrs are contradicted by the narrative complexity (irony, dialogism, points of view, the narrator with a clearly incomplete knowledge of the presented world) and the resulting ambiguity of the novel by the Swedish Nobel Prize winner. The 65 Cf. A. Szwed, “Wprowadzenie,” in: S. Kierkegaard, O chrześcijaństwie, trans. A. Szwed, Kęty: Wydawnictwo Marek Derewiecki, 2011, p. 8 ff. 66 P. Lagerkvist, Barabbas, p. 52, emphasis by K.S.H. 67 S. Klint, Romanen och evangeliet, pp. 140–​141. Victor Claes notes, however, that the beginnings of the “naive” style that Lagerkvist mastered to perfection in the novel in question can be traced back to the prose book Gäst hos verkligheten [Guest of reality] of 1925 (V. Claes, Pär Lagerkvists “Barabbas” som roman, Växjö: Pär Lagerkvist-​ samfundetsförlag, 1993, pp. 1–​2).

224

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

fundamental role of ambiguity as an element building the main message of the text is clearly demonstrated by the finale of the novel Barabbas [Barabbas] (which one of the researchers calls directly and aptly “the unfinished ending”68). Is the darkness to which the dying Barabbas (who paraphrases the last words of Christ from the Gospel of Luke, Lk. 23: 46) addresses his last words (“To thee I deliver up my soul,” p. 149) a synonym of emptiness or of God? This finale can be interpreted as a testimony to Kierkegaard’s main character’s “leap of faith.” However, it is also possible to understand this passage as an act of the protagonist’s surrender to the darkness symbolising evil, to which he belonged all his life. Finally, it can be concluded that Barabbas entrusts his spirit to boundless emptiness, just as he lived and died in complete solitude.69 The ambiguity of the novel Barabbas [Barabbas] does not therefore result from low precision of expression, vagueness of concepts or vague symbolism. It is based on the use of a whole range of measures, the essence of which lies in forcing the reader to make an interpretative choice and opt for one of the meanings. This novel is a riddle whose solution the recipient must undertake entirely on his own. This feature of the novel allows one to think of it in Kierkegaardian terms, and I refer here not to the problem of the “leap” of faith, which –​ (not) made by Barabbas –​ends the novel, but to the Copenhagen philosopher’s understanding of the method of mediating ethical and religious content. It is known that The goal of the indirect method is not only to think about the problem, which is only a prerequisite …, but it is necessary to declare in favour of a certain result of the reflections, the result of the choice made, and finally in favour of the resulting experience or against it … When talking about ambiguity, about the openness of a text used to inspire someone, Kierkegaard means all forms of objective contradictions, all pro et contra inherent in the very matter of the presented issue, which necessitate the making of an alternative decision: either/​or, because, according to existential and qualitative dialectic, there is no third possibility and that is why a choice is necessary.70

Lagerkvist understood the essence of a linguistic approach to ethical and religious issues similarly to the Danish philosopher, namely that they can only be

68 Cf. S. Klint, Romanen och evengeliet, p. 169. This is, to some extent, characteristic of Lagerkvist’s narrative: similarly, it is not known how (in a consolational or tragic way) to properly understand the finale of Det eviga leendet [The eternal smile] . The ending of the dramatic version of Barabbas [Barabbas] remains equally puzzling. 69 S. Klint, Roman en och evangeliet, p. 169. 70 K. Toeplitz, “Nad Kierkegaardem i egzystencjalizmem,” pp. XXIX-​XXX.

On Lagerkvist: God’s witnesses

225

conveyed in an indirect way, i.e. by making the reader take responsibility for understanding a text strewn with contradictions, ambiguities and paradoxes. Lech Sokół noted that Barabbas [Barabbas] is a commentary or a parable “about the fate of a man experiencing evil rather than good, living in times of radically questioned faith, and thirsty for faith and religion and what they offer: a comprehensive explanation of and giving meaning to a world in which evil wins so easily; hope and salvation.”71 Indeed, both the drama and the novel under this title bring a poignant portrait of a man who –​both because of his own experiences and the times in which he lives –​is unable to believe either in human dignity or in God, although, as he claims, he really wants to: “I want to believe,” he says at one point.72 This trait, the desire to trust and the lack of ability to do so, must be considered very contemporary and characteristic of the modern world. Like Kierkegaard, Lagerkvist too is concerned with the conditions of religious entrustment in the world of his contemporaries. At the same time, it can be noted that the difficulties they both point to are in fact universal, although modernity has sharpened them to an unprecedented degree. In fact, this is what makes Lagerkvist’s novel a masterpiece: the story of the situation of modern man is at the same time a story about what is eternal and unchanging in man. The novel’s Barabbas is therefore “similar to us,” as the author of one of the early critical statements about the novel points out.73 In such a writing measure it is quite easy to recognize an important element of Kierkegaard’s writing technique, which the Dane himself characterised by referring to the well-​known Old Testament scene: You know how the prophet Nathan dealt with King David, when he presumed to understand the parable the prophet had told him but was unwilling to understand that it applied to him. Then to make sure, Nathan added: You are the man, O King! In the same way I also have continually tried to remind you that you are the one who is being discussed and you are the one who is spoken to.74

The Lagerkvistian way of transposing biblical situations into the structure of a novel is clearly similar to Kierkegaard’s subjectivisation of biblical situations. It could be argued that such subjectivisation is a feature of the vast majority of modern apocryphal texts, and in this perspective it would not be necessary

71 L. Sokół, “Wstęp,” in: P. Lagerkvist, Król, Kamień filozoficzny, Barabasz, trans. A. Marciniakówna, J Szutkiewicz, Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2007, p. 27. 72 P. Lagerkvist, Barabbas, p. 119. 73 H. Ahlenius, “Barabbas, vår like,” in: Synpunkter på Pär Lagerkvist, pp. 202–​208. 74 S. Kierkegaard, Either/​Or. Part Two, p. 5.

226

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

to interpret Lagerkvist’s works using categories derived from the works of the Danish thinker. Lagerkvist’s similarity to the author of Either/​Or, however, consists not only in the aforementioned subjectivisation of biblical situations but also in their maieutic use, forcing the reader to accept that these plots concern him personally.

“Why do I sit here on the shore?” Lagerkvist’s last poetry volume, Aftonland [Evening Land] (1953), brings a mature and outstanding literary implementation of the topic of God’s absence in the world (not only in the modern world). The recurring motif in it is the situation of a man who finds around him various traces of God’s former presence, or rather –​memories of it: In the silent river of evening I saw the place where once, only once, his face was reflected, at the hour of departure before he continued his journey. The wind showed it to me, the sorrowing wind which at his command erased his image from the waters, and still grieves because it had to obey.75 Who walked past the window of my childhood and breathed on it? Who walked past in the deep night of childhood, that still was starless? With his finger he made a sign on the pane, on the moist pane, with the ball of his finger, and then passed on to think of other things, leaving me deserted for ever. 76

75 P. Lagerkvist, “In the silent river of evening…“, in: P. Lagerkvist, Evening land, transl. W. H. Auden and L. Sjöberg, with an Introduction by Leif Sjöberg, Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 1975, p. 167. 76 P. Lagerkvist, “Who walked past the window of my childhood...”, in: P. Lagerkvist, Evening land, p.99. The reference to childhood in the poem, on the one hand, anchors the poem (as done more often in this volume of poems, e.g. in “Med gamla ögon ser jag mig tillbaka…”) in the writer’s biography, but on the other hand it allows for a metaphorical interpretation. If one attempts such a reading, then, of course, one recalls the Kantian metaphor of childhood as a “state of immaturity,” susceptibility to various

On Lagerkvist: God’s witnesses

227

Who has walked here before me and inscribed these signs on the firmament? I do not understand his writing, but perhaps he means I should follow him. Whither?77

The conviction expressed in the Middle Ages that the beings that fill the visible world are at the same time symbols that make it possible to get to know the Creator78 underpinned the belief to which Lagerkvist refers directly, namely the opinion that the world is a text written by God, in which God’s message has been conveyed to people. In Lagerkvist’s poems, however, the old topos undergoes a characteristic transformation. In the world depicted in the poems in Aftonland [Evening Land], the “book of nature” is written in an incomprehensible language, with signs that man is unable to read. Man yearns to understand the mysterious scripture and learn something about the mysterious scribe, but he is unable to do so: All powerful-​one, why do you not teach us to read your book? Why do you not move your finger along the letters, and teach us to piece them together and understand like children? But no, that you do not do. You are no schoolmaster. You let things be as it is, incomprehensible as they are. 79

The consequence of God’s departure from the human world is the longing that arises in the human being. Its object cannot be defined more closely, and its source is a metaphysical need that is dormant in the human being and aroused in an experience of sublimity, but present virtually all the time as it is an inalienable human trait: My longing is not my own. It is just as old as the stars. Once born like them out of Nothing, out of boundless void. The murmur in the trees,

myths that a mature man should reject, which is an idea that Lagerkvist undermines in his poem. 77 P. Lagerkvist, “Who has walked here before me…” in: P. Lagerkvist, Evening land, p.93. 7 8 J.M. Gellrich, The Idea of the Book in the Middle Ages. Language Theory, Mythology, and Fiction, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2019, p. 34. 79 P. Lagerkvist, “Everywhere, in all the heavens you will find his footprints…“, in: P. Lagerkvist, Evening land, p. 103.

228

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

the beating of the wave against the shore, the tall mountains far away -​ they arouse my longing. But not to anything here. To something infinitely far away, something long, long ago -​ Long before the sea, before the mountains, long before the winds –​ 80

What arises in this situation is the question about the “Stranger,” someone who, having left unclear signs, fuelling human longing, has gone forever, remains an unanswered question: Who are you who so fill my heart with your absence? Who fill the entire world with your absence?81 Who walked past, walked past in the deep night of childhood, leaving me deserted for ever.82

Many of the poems from the volume Aftonland [Evening Land] repeat the measures present in the previously discussed text “Myten om manniskorna” [Myth about people] (1922):83 a special way of constructing the presented world, including not only the earth but also cosmic spaces, in which the human reality on earth appears to be small and insignificant, as well as focussing the text around the figures of “witnesses” of the supra-​terrestrial dimension of human life (in the story, these are the two brothers while in the poems this role is played, albeit uncertainly, by the speaker himself). Neither in “Myten om manniskorna” [Myth about people] nor in the late poems, nor actually in the entire work of the Swedish Nobel Prize winner, is it fully known what the content of the faith of the “witnesses” is. Does Lagerkvist lead to Christianity by means of his own variant of indirect communication? One cannot be sure about it, and by answering this question in a definite way, 8 0 P. Lagerkvist, “My longing is not my own…“, in: P. Lagerkvist, Evening land, p. 73. 81 P. Lagerkvist, “My friend is a stranger…“, in: P. Lagerkvist, Evening land, p. 119. 82 P. Lagerkvist, “Who walked past the window of my childhood…”, in: P. Lagerkvist, Evening land, p. 101. 83 The monographer of the Aftonland volume has shown that this book actually sums up the motifs of Lagerkvist’s writings and ideas of Lagerkvist’s entire oeuvre (cf. Schöier, Som i Aftonland. Studier kring temata, motiv och metod i Pär Lagerkvists sista diktsamling, Stockholm: Akademilitteretur, 1981).

Summary

229

we would add meanings that are not present in the text. They have left an empty space. However, reflecting on it is just what the human being should constantly do in order to develop ethically –​and perhaps also religiously. This is the nature of the answer to the question that ends the poem “I den stilla aftonfloden…”: In the silent river of evening I saw the place where once, only once, his face was reflected, at the hour of departure before he continued his journey. … On a raft of rushes he crossed the river. Why do I sit here on the shore which he left so long ago? 84

3. Summary The Wittlinian figure of an exile (from the essay “Blaski i nędze wygnania” [The brilliance and misery of exile], in which Wittlin summed up his experiences as an emigrant writer, comparing political exile to being exiled from paradise, a condition characteristic of all people, descendants of Adam and Eve85) and Lagerkvist’s figures of a visitor and a pilgrim reveal the same trait of imagination and worldview that is contained in the works of both writers: the conviction that the human condition is a condition of being on the road and heading towards the ultimate goal, which –​although unknown –​exists in the horizon of imagination of every human being. The apocryphal works that I have analysed in this chapter say a lot about the human need for faith in a way that is far from demythologising the activities of much of post-​Enlightenment science and art. They are about “exiles” (from paradise and the land of certainty), “visitors” (with a “brief visit” on earth), “pilgrims” (to unknown destinations), “followers” (of a model that eludes cognition). Undoubtedly, both writers share the interests revealed in this way with the philosophical anthropology of the 1920s, which asked, via the writings of chief representatives of this newly emerging field, about the religious horizon of human thought and the omnipresence of metaphysical intuitions in culture. In the early works of both writers one can find interpretations of the religious instinct as a response to the psychological need of the human being (in the 1920 8 4 P. Lagerkvist, “In the silent river of evening…“, in: P. Lagerkvist, Evening land, p. 167. 85 I have analysed this essay and the concept that it contains in: K. Szewczyk-​Haake, “’How do you spell your name?’ Emigrant Literature as/​and Modern Literature,” pp. 237–​247.

230

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

story “Morgonen” [The Morning], God is described as “our mysterious work” (“vårt hemlighetsfulla verk”86), and in one of the Hymny [Hymns] he is called “our finest invention”87). This is, however, not their final answer: by tracing various mythical stories, they approach the concept of “ciphers of transcendence” present in the world inhabited by people. For Wittlin and Lagerkvist, the Bible and the lives of saints are an excellent source of inspiration and borrowings, a treasury of stories about a vivid and rich religious experience –​because this experience, its universalism (it concerns everyone and everyone experiences similar difficulties within it), and at the same time, its extreme individualisation (it always concerns one specific person and is difficult to describe in a communicative way to others) clearly interests both writers. Their modern ethical literature sets itself a goal: within the framework of literary tools perfected by modernism, to make readers face the problems of faith and, as in Kierkegaard’s writings, to force them to make efforts to work out a personal stance in this domain. References to sacred texts do not indicate any authority or a source of religious epiphany but point to the need for an individual interpretation, Giving up a positive definition of the Eternal Truth at the same time means giving up attempts to define the absolute criterion of good and evil. Searching for an unequivocal answer to the question about the postulates of the Lagerkvistian and Wittlinian ethics in fact has to fail and attempts to find clearly formulated guidelines for ethical conduct are a very thankless task. For Wittlin, these would probably be principles related to the Franciscan ideal of kindness, concerning gentleness towards people and the entire creation. In Lagerkvist’s works, in the absence of clear ethical principles capable of regulating human reality, the characters who turn out to be ethically mature are those who can independently, without the support of religious institutions or authorities, turn to other people with kindness and who do not harm others. As mentioned above, both writers depict characters who do good (Saint Francis or Mariamne), but the distinct feature of those characters in fact consists in disregarding norms and principles and relying on their own experience or religious instinct. This feature undoubtedly proves the similarity of the ethical convictions of both writers to the ethics of Søren Kierkegaard, who opposed the ethics of

86 P. Lagerkvist, “Morgonen,” in: P. Lagerkvist, Sagor satire och noveller, Stockholm: Norstedt, 1987, p. 21. 87 J. Wittlin, “Trwoga przed śmiercią” [The Fear of Death], in: J. Wittlin, Hymny [Hymns], Poznań: Zdrój, 1920, p. 17; trans. © by Patrick John Corness, 2021.

Summary

231

obligation88 and understood the ethical choice (namely: either/​or) not as a choice between good and evil –​but as the question about “under what qualifications one will view all existence and personally live.”89 For this reason, the precondition for distinguishing between good and evil in human consciousness is, in the Copenhagen thinker’s thought, is the basic choice, namely choosing oneself: Now he possesses himself as posited by himself –​that is, as chosen by himself, as free –​ but in possessing himself in this way, an absolute difference becomes manifest, the difference between good and evil. As long as he has not chosen himself, this difference is latent.90

In Kierkegaard’s opinion expressed in Either/​Or, the key moment for making an ethical choice is man’s self-​definition as an individual (and this argument, as noted by Karol Toeplitz,91 was the basis of the existential concept of freedom in the twentieth century): But the person who chooses himself ethically chooses himself concretely as this specific individual, and he achieves his concretion because his choice is identical with the repentance, which ratifies the choice. The individual, then, becomes conscious as this specific individual with these capacities, these inclinations, these drives, these passions, influenced by this specific social milieu, as this specific product of a specific environment. But as he becomes aware of all his, he takes upon himself responsibility for it all. … He has his place in the world; in freedom he himself chooses his place –​that is, he chooses this place. He is a specific individual; in the choice he makes himself into a specific individual: namely, into the same one, because he chooses himself.92

According to Kierkegaard, an ethical choice is the choice of an individual. However, it is not an escape from the world: only at this stage is it possible (unattainable in the aesthetic stage) for self-​awareness to relate both to itself (individuality) and to Transcendence (to generality). An ethical choice (i.e. choosing oneself as an individual) is therefore the ethical condition for opening the human being as a subject to existence.93

88 M. Gołębiewska, “Koncepcja wyboru etycznego według Sørena Kierkegaarda,” in: Polifoniczny świat Kierkegaarda. Księga honorowa dedykowana profesorowi Karolowi Toeplitzowi, p. 233. 89 S. Kierkegaard, Either/​Or, Part Two, p. 169. 90 S. Kierkegaard, Either/​Or, Part Two, p. 223. 91 S. Kierkegaard, Albo-​albo, Vol. 2, p. 341 (this is a note from the Polish translator of Either/​Or). 92 S. Kierkegaard, Either/​Or, Part Two, pp. 250–​251. 93 M. Gołębiewska, “Koncepcja wyboru etycznego według Sørena Kierkegaarda,” p. 234.

232

Exiles, visitors and pilgrims

It is this point in Kierkegaard’s concept that makes the Danish philosopher reject the ethics of obligatory actions. As Kierkegaard writes, “The ethical individual, then, does not have duty outside himself but within himself.”94 For if a person understands what is ethical as abstract and devoid of reference to the concrete existence of a given individual, then the sphere of ethics appears as the domain of laws and prohibitions. On the other hand, a person who lives ethically, i.e. chooses himself as an individual, is able to internalise his obligation towards others because what is ethical consists in a specific relation of an individual to himself and the world. Kierkegaard’s creative energy is aimed at formulating ethical messages in such a way that the reader is forced to make the relevant primary and ethical choice of himself as an individual who makes interpretative decisions and who is responsible for them and for the meanings discovered in a text; hence the special importance accorded to literary communication as a model of communication in general. This concept of ethical choice seems to have had a strong influence on the writers whose works I have commented on. The ethical convictions of Wittlin and Lagerkvist, which constitute an essential part of their literary anthropology, are of a dialectical and apophatic nature; at the same time, both authors were convinced that literature must fulfil ethical obligations. Alasdair MacIntyre believes that Kierkegaard’s project of basing what is ethical on the foundation rooted in the notion of radical choice is deeply contradictory;95 It is difficult to argue with this, and it is probably appropriate to conclude that Søren Kierkegaard has shared the fate of many other philosophers of modernity who have attempted unsuccessfully to find a justification for what is ethical. At the same time, it would be difficult to deny that as an ethical writer Kierkegaard has achieved spectacular success. Modern ethical literature does not overcome the difficulties that are (according to MacIntyre) faced by all modern ethical reflection –​on the contrary, it is their hostage, as shown by the struggles of Wittlin and Lagerkvist with the problem of a positive exemplum, a moral authority, and above all by their ambiguous attitude towards religion and the resulting (or not resulting) moral principles. However, this literature is novel in terms of awareness of the potential of a literary work for an ethical influence –​ and in this field it certainly owes much to Søren Kierkegaard.

94 S. Kierkegaard, Either/​Or. Part Two, p. 256. 95 A. MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, pp. 41–​42.

Conclusions In the light of the analyses of the works of Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist presented in this book, I am inclined to say that what should be considered as the most significant and lasting element of the literary legacy of both writers is the uncompromising ethical attitude with which they approach their own work and its creative fruits, as well as all (aesthetic, worldview-​related) implications of this fact. At the same time, it is surprising in what polyphonic, dialogical forms, pulsating with a multitude of meanings, this leading tone manifests itself. This is possible thanks to the assumptions of this ethical literature, which does not want to instruct, but to arouse the reader’s sensitivity, using specific tools of modern literature that force the recipient into far-​reaching independence in reading a text. Considering the fact that, according to Kierkegaard, who in this book was the patron of the oeuvre of Wittlin and Lagerkvist, a literary work which crystallises itself in the form of a possibility becomes a message about the author’s life and his actions, there is a temptation to use Kierkegaard’s categories to interpret works of literature also in this respect. Let us recall that Kierkegaard’s critical thought was oriented at the human being as an individual: he did not want either self-​creation or “amputation” of the person of the author in a text, believing that writing is a way of authentic existential communication that “takes place not between abstract personal instances of literary communication but between the persons of the author and the reader as subjects with their own worldviews and personalities.”1 Such views of Kierkegaard mean that his inspiration makes it possible to transcend the modernist dilemma of “expression” and “construction,”2 or, rather, to abolish their opposition in the name of the ethicality of the message (it also, indirectly, frees the interpreter from the necessity to constantly “justify” giving priority to “content” or “form,” which in the case of an analysis carried out from the standpoint of ethical criticism may sometimes tip the balance –​in this sense, Søren Kierkegaard can patronise the kind of ethical criticism that I have tried to implement in this book3). This alternative in the works of Wittlin and Lagerkvist

1 E. Kasperski, “Kierkegaard jako krytyk literacki,” Miesięcznik Literacki 1988, No. 9, pp. 65–​66. 2 Cf. R. Nycz, Język modernizmu. Prolegomena historycznoliterackie, passim. 3 Regarding the possible analogy between Kierkegaard’s thought and the twentieth-​ century literary studies, I find very accurate the remarks of Odo Marquard

234

Conclusions

cannot be reduced only to the rank of one of the historical oppositions that characterise modernity. It is precisely the ethical aspects of literary communication that are at stake here: it is only the author’s simultaneous disclosure of his own worldview and personality in his literary work, and the effect of activating the reader as a personality to whose worldview the text is addressed, that creates a chance for the success of ethical communication undertaken in that work. The ethical dimension of a literary work conceived in this way, from the reader’s perspective, is determined by personal involvement in the reading process, necessary to extract essential meanings from it. This situation is described by George Pattison in relation to Kierkegaard’s works, and his opinion can be fully sustained in relation to works of modern ethical literature: We are participants in this history only on the condition that we bring to it the utter engagement of our passional selves and make of it the mutual bestowal of “mine” and “thine,” of “I and “Thou,” a work of love that is the truest form of dialogue and that is our one hope to retrieve unambiguous meaning from the catastrophic loss that otherwise defines us.4

The fundamental place reserved in this concept for the reader’s interpretative activity makes it worth considering how the literary works commented on in this book rank against the background of all modern literature characterised in this respect. The postulate that the reader should “discover” and thus become an interpreter and co-​creator of the meanings of a literary work has a long history dating back to the eighteenth century. Wolfgang Iser, who analyses indeterminacy as a condition for the impact of literary prose,5 indicates that it was already formulated by Henry Fielding, and that its meaning is dual: historical and structural. The latter can be described as follows: “a novel increases its impact if it does not formulate the point of convergence of its stances and patterns, and leaves the removal of this indeterminacy to the reader.”6 As pointed out by Iser, indeterminacy in literary texts is a phenomenon whose intensity is historically variable and “since the eighteenth century, has constantly increased” in

(O. Marquard, Der Einzelne. Vorlesungen zur Existenzphilosophie, ed. F.J. Wetz, Stuttgart: Reclam, 2013, p. 162), who points to Kierkegaard as the progenitor of the criticism of reception –​it is difficult not to notice the fundamental similarities as to the initial assumptions between the latter and ethical criticism. 4 G. Pattison, “If Kierkegaard is Right about Reading, Why Read Kierkegaard?” p. 309. 5 W. Iser, “Die Appellstruktur der Texte,” in: Rezeptionsästhetik. Theorie und Praxis, ed. Rainer Warning, München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1975, pp. 228–​252, trans. K.S.H. 6 W. Iser, “Die Appellstruktur der Texte,” p. 242, trans. K.S.H.

Conclusions

235

all national literatures,7 while its scale ranges from the novels of Fielding and Thackeray to the works of Joyce. It should be assumed that Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist, who make indeterminacy the key moment for reading the text and the meanings existing in it, fit into a more general schema of the development of modern literature, whose outstanding achievements in the domain of the novel do not allow for “adjusting its points of view” but force the reader “to construct this consistency himself,” because “the reader will always feel the temptation to organise the multiplicity of aspects.”8 And although none of them transcends the threshold established by the experimental current in modern literature, they certainly make the recipients aware of the need to deal with the multiplicity of points of view on their own and at the same time indicate the illusory nature of the possible coherence that can be achieved in this way. Wolfgang Iser points out that there are various answers to the question: “what is the function of this form of indeterminacy which brings out our behaviour towards the characters and leaves everything else to us?”9 –​places of indeterminacy can be found at different levels of the text (in its syntax, pragmatics, semantics). It is precisely in the special function that Wittlin and Lagerkvist give to places of indeterminacy in their works that I see their profound similarity and at the same time the reason why I call the variety of modern literature created by them ethical. It is a function related to the pragmatics of the text, serving the ethical formation of the reader. At the same time, the fact that they carry out this ethical intention with the use of places of indeterminacy makes it impossible to confuse modern ethical literature with traditional moralism. It is in the tendency of modernist literature to make indeterminacy the condition for the reception of a text that Lagerkvist and Wittlin found support and inspiration for their works and used this gain, modern in its spirit, to address ethical issues in literature in the way they cared about most: These texts become … capable of communication to the extent to which our ideas and preferences change. They only start to exert an impact when our schemas of understanding and perception are in crisis, and thus allow us to understand that we will not activate our freedom as long as we close ourselves in our private world of ideas.10

In the concept articulated in the two authors’ theoretical writings, but above all finding its outstanding implementation in their literary works, literature 7 8 9 10

W. Iser, “Die Appellstruktur der Texte,” p. 241, trans. K.S.H. W. Iser, “Die Appellstruktur der Texte,” p. 246, trans. K.S.H. W. Iser, “Die Appellstruktur der Texte,” pp. 240–​241, trans. K.S.H. W. Iser, “Die Appellstruktur der Texte,” p. 247, trans. K.S.H.

236

Conclusions

appears as a text that awaits the concretisation of its projected meaning in an encounter with the reader, an individual characterised by his own, unique sensitivity and pool of experiences. A literary work is becoming one in the reader’s interpretative effort, it is a voice in the undecidable discussion on questions of how to live –​a discussion whose value lies in the fact that it does not seek final solutions but constantly redirects thoughts to the main problems of human existence and demands that the reader should define himself when facing them. By this a literary work renounces its argumentative function. The model of reading designed by both writers is a hermeneutic model. A reader who agrees to such a situation resigns from obvious arguments and at the same time defines his own identity in a dialogue with others (and with the text). Therefore, the oeuvre of the writers who are the protagonists of this book seems to precede the belief underlying critical ethics, which Daniel L. Schwarz described as follows: “Ethical criticism implies a transactive theory of reading where texts shape reader, and reader shapes text.”11 Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist formed their literary works in such a way that, in order to extract meaning from them, it is necessary to engage in reading and to respond to the indeterminacy left in the text, without which the text would remain ostentatiously cracked and defective. They did not hesitate to present ethical problems in this form as well. Following Kierkegaard, they indicate that moral reflection does not necessarily have to be oppressive and that ethical literature is not a domain of moralism. However, this requires a special way of understanding the sender-​receiver relations, which the writers expressed in metaliterary statements as well as implemented in their literary works, and which Kierkegaard described in the pages of Either/​Or as follows: Therefore, I do not at all doubt that while reading you will continually have an impression that it is a letter you are reading, even if you might be deflected by the fact that the format of the paper is inappropriate for a letter.12

11 D.L. Schwarz, “A Humanistic Ethics of Reading,” in: Mapping the Ethical Turn: A Reader in Ethics, Culture and Literary Theory, p. 6. 12 S. Kierkegaard, Either/​Or. Part Two, p. 5.

Bibliography 1. Works by Józef Wittlin a) Literary works and essays Eseje rozproszone. Edited by Paweł Kądziela. Warszawa: Twój Styl, 1995. Hymny. Poznań: Zdrój, 1920. Orfeusz w piekle dwudziestego wieku. Afterword by Jan Zieliński. Kraków:  Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2000. Pisma pośmiertne i inne eseje. Selection, edition and introduction by Jan Zieliński. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Więź, 1991. Poezje. Introduction by Julian Rogoziński. Warszawa: PIW, 1978. “Psalm,” Pamiętnik Warszawski 1931 No. 5, pp. 33–​37. “Skrucha w Assyżu,” Wiadomości Literackie 1926 No. 2, p. 3. “Słowo tłumacza do czytelnika.” In:  Homer. Odyseja. Lwów:  Wydawnictwo Altenberga, 1924, pp. 1–​27. Sól ziemi. Introduction and edition by Ewa Wiegandt. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1991.

b) Journal and monograph papers “Festiwal muzyczno-​teatralny w Wiedniu,” Wiadomości Literackie 1924, No. 44, p. 3. “O szczerości w poezji,” Wiadomości Literackie 1924 No. 24, p. 4. “Pokłon poetom warszawskiego Ghetta.” In: Poezje Ghetta z podziemia żydowskiego w Polsce. New York:  Association of Friends of Our Tribune, 1945, pp. 8–​10.

c) Letters Gombrowicz. Walka o sławę. Cz. 1. Korespondencja Witolda Gombrowicza z Józefem Wittlinem, Jarosławem Iwaszkiewiczem, Arturem Sandauerem. Edited by Jerzy Jarzębski. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1996. Terlecki Tymon, Wittlin Józef. Listy 1944–​1976. Edited by Nina Taylor-​Terlecka. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Wieź, 2014. Wittlin Józef. Listy. Edited by Tadeusz Januszewski. Warszawa: Niezależna Oficyna Wydawnicza NOWA, 1996.

238

Bibliography

d) Archival materials The Library of the Museum of Literature in Warsaw –​Józef Wittlin’s manuscripts and typescripts Józef Wittlin’s literary notebook –​shelfmark No. 934. Józef Wittlin’s notes for his planned essay “Nekrofilosemityzm” –​shelfmark No. 945 Journal papers –​shelfmark No. 950 The Digital Archive of Józef Wittlin –​The Library of the University of Rzeszów Raptus Europae, catalogue No. 1.1.1.4

2. Works by Pär Lagerkvist a) Literary works, essays, memoirs Aftonland. Göteborg: KabusaBőcker, 2007. Antecknat. Ur efterlämnade dagböcker och anteckningar, selection and edition by Ellen Lagerkvist. Stockholm: Bonnier, 1977. Ångest. Stockholm: Bonnier, 1916. Barabbas, trans. by Alan Blair, with a preface by Lucien Maury and a letter by André Gide. New York 1968. Den svåra stunden. Stockholm: Bonnier, 1918. Det besegrade livet. Stockholm: Bonnier, 1927. Det eviga leendet. Stockholm: Bonnier, 1920. Det var engång en värld. Växjö: Pär Lagerkvist-​samfundetsförlag, 2005. The Dwarf, trans. by Alexandra Dick, New York 1945. Evening land, transl. Wystan Hugh Auden and Leif Sjöberg, with an Introduction by Leif Sjöberg, Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 1975. Järn och människor. Stockholm: Bonnier, 1915. Kaos. Stockholm: Bonnier, 1919. Herod and Mariamne, trans. by Naomi Walford. New York: Vintage Books, 1982. Onda sagor. Stockholm: Aldus/​Bonnier, 1965. Ordkonst och bildkonst. Om modern skönlitteraturs däkadans –​Om det modärna konstens vitalitet. Stockholm: Raster, 1991. Prosa. Stockholm: Bonnier, 1949. Sagor, satirer och noveller. Stockholm: Norstedt, 1987.

Bibliography

239

W sercu genesis, selection, translation and afterword by Janusz B. Roszkowski. Warszawa: Oficyna Literatów i Dziennikarzy “Pod wiatr,” 1992. Wybór prozy, selection and translation by Zygmunt Łanowski, introduction by Andrzej Chojecki. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1986.

b) Journal  papers “Folket och dikten,” Tiden 1915 No. 8, pp. 235–​239. “Något om den moderna konsten,” Första maj 1916, pp. 8–​10. “Om konsten. Några reflektioner,” Folkkalendern 1916, pp. 71–​81. “Paul Cézanne,” Första maj 1915, pp. 10–​13.

c) Letters Brev, selected by Ingrid Schöier. Stockholm: Bonnier, 1991.

d) Archival materials Kungliga biblioteket [The Royal Library] in Stockholm shelfmark No. L 120: 79: 2 shelfmark No. Lagerkvist 1978/​82 shelfmark No. L 120: 49: 1 shelfmark No. L 120: 53: 3 shelfmark No. L: 120: 70

3. Works on Józef Wittlin Cudak, Romuald, “‘Otom przed Tobą, Abraham.’ Lektura wiersza Józefa Wittlina ‘Trwoga przed śmiercią’,” in: Studia o twórczości Józefa Wittlina, ed. Ireneusz Opacki, Katowice: Uniwersytet Śląski, 1990, pp. 34–​54 Etapy Józefa Wittlina, eds. Wojciech Ligęza, Wojciech P. Wocław. Kraków:  Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2014. Frajlich Anna, “Two Unknown Soldiers,” in: Between Lvov, New York and Ulysses’ Ithaca. Józef Wittlin: Poet, Essayist, Novelist, ed. Anna Frajlich, Toruń: Nicholas Copernicus University -​NewYork: Columbia University, 2001, pp. 45–​60. Jakowska, Krystyna. Z dziejów ekspresjonizmu w Polsce. Wokół “Soli ziemi.” Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1977.

240

Bibliography

Kisiel, Marian. “Poezja świadectwa. O Hymnach Józefa Wittlina.” In:  Studia o twórczości Józefa Wittlina, ed. Ireneusz Opacki. Katowice: Uniwersytet Śląski, 1990, pp. 7–​33. Kłosiński, Krzysztof. “Cztery interpretacje ofiary Abrahama. Wokół wiersza Józefa Wittlina ‘Lament barana ofiarnego’.” In: Studia o twórczości Józefa Wittlina, ed. Ireneusz Opacki. Katowice: Uniwersytet Śląski, 1990, pp. 55–​71. Lawaty, Andreas. “Józef Wittlin  –​niemieckie powiązania i przywiązania.” In: Lawaty, Andreas, Intelektualne wizje i rewizje w dziejach stosunków polsko-​ niemieckich XVIII-​XXI wieku. Kraków: Universitas, 2015, pp. 261–​305. Ligęza, Wojciech. “Poezja Józefa Wittlina na obczyźnie.” In: Between Lvov, New York and Ulysses’ Ithaca. Józef Wittlin:  poet, esseyist, novelist, ed. Anna Frajlich. Toruń: Nicholas Copernicus University –​NewYork: Columbia University 2001, pp. 91–​103. Ligęza, Wojciech. “Świadek czasów i wyznawca wiecznych wartości. O poezji Józefa Wittlina.” In:  Ligęza, Wojciech, Jaśniejsze strony katastrofy. Szkice o twórczości poetów emigracyjnych, Kraków:Universitas, 2001, pp. 11–​35. Maciejewska, Irena. “Doświadczenie wielkiej wojny  –​Józef Wittlin.” In:  Poeci dwudziestolecia międzywojennego, Vol.  2, ed. Irena Maciejewska. Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna, 1982, pp. 489–​519. Olejniczak, Józef. Emigracje. Szkice-​studia-​sylwetki. Katowice:  Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 1999. Rogoziński, Julian. “O poezji Józefa Wittlina.” In:  J. Wittlin, Poezje. Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1981, pp. 5–​17. Siwor, Dorota. “Dokąd zmierza Piotr Niewiadomski  –​o bohaterze Soli ziemi w kontekście mityczno-​rytualnym.” In: Etapy Józefa Wittlina, eds. Wojciech Ligęza, Wojciech P. Wocław. Kraków:  Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2014, pp. 59–​72. Szewczyk-​Haake, Katarzyna. “‘How do you spell your name?’ Emigrant Literature as/​and Modern Literature (according to Józef Wittlin).” In: Literature in Exile. Emigrants’ Fiction (20th century experience), Vol. 1, ed. Irma Ratiani. Tbilisi: Institute of Literature Press, 2013, pp. 237–​247. Taylor-​Terlecka, Nina. “Dwaj panowie z Galicji.” In: T. Terlecki, J. Wittlin, Listy 1944–​1976, edited by Nina Taylor-​Terlecka. Warszawa:  Biblioteka “Więzi,” 2014, pp. 421–​456. Tischner, Łukasz. “Sól ziemi, czyli tęsknota do eposu.” In: Etapy Józefa Wittlina, eds. Wojciech Ligęza, Wojciech P. Wocław. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2014, pp. 13–​40.

Bibliography

241

Wejs-​Milewska, Violetta. Wykluczeni, wychodźstwo, kraj. Szkice z antropologii emigracji polskiej XX wieku (idee, osobowości, instytucje). Białystok: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu w Białymstoku, 2012. Wiegandt, Ewa. “Wstęp.” In:  J. Wittlin, Sól ziemi, introduction and edition by Ewa Wiegandt. Wrocław:  Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1991, pp. V-​LXXXVIII. Yurieff, Zoya. “Józef Wittlin.” [“Joseph Wittlin,” 1973] Trans. Michał Szczubiałka, Izabelin: Świat Literacki, 1997.

4. Works on Pär Lagerkvist Ahlberg, Alf. “Det religiösa problemet hos Pär Lagerkvist.” In: Ahlber, Alf. Troende utan tro. Religiösasökare i vår tid, Stockholm:  Natur och kultur, 1966, pp. 110–​165. Ahlenius, Holger. “Barabbas, vår like.” In:  Synpunkter på Pär Lagerkvist, ed. Gunnar Tideström, Stockholm: Aldus/​Bonnier, 1966, pp. 202–​208. Brodow, Bengt. Ett författarskap speglat i språket. Struktur och stil i Pär Lagerkvists prosa. Lund: Gleerup, 2003. Chojecki, Andrzej. “Bóg i religia w twórczości Pära Lagerkvista.” Studia Scandinavica 1979 No. 2, pp. 43–​63. Claes, Victor. Pär Lagerkvists “Barabbas” som roman. Växjö:  Pär Lagerkvist-​samfundetsförlag,  1993. Fabreus, Karin. Sagan, myten och modernismen i Pär Lagerkvists tidigaste prosa och “Onda sagor.” Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2002. Flodstrom, Arthur Norman. The early poetry of Pär Lagerkvist: a study in the influence of cubism. Urbana 1976 (manuscript in the Royal Library in Stockholm). Fredén, Gustav. Pär Lagerkvist. Från Gudstanken till Barabbas. Stockholm:  Bonnier, 1952. Hörnström, Erik. Från den röda tiden till Det eviga leendet. Stockholm:  Bonnier, 1946. Hörnström, Erik. “Klassikern Lagerkvist.” Ord och bild 1951, pp. 516–​520. Karahka, Urpu-​Liisa. Jaget och ismerna: studier i Pär Lagerkvists estetiska teori och ly-​ riska praktik t. o.m. 1916. Lund: Cavefors, 1978. Klint, Stefan. “Den expressionistiska Jesusgestalten i Pär Lagerkvists tidiga produktion.” In: Speglingar: svensk 1900-​talslitteratur i möte med biblisk tradition, eds. Stefan Klint, Kari Syreeni, Skellefteå: Norma, 2001, pp. 50–​70. Klint, Stefan. “Kristologi, fantasi och ideologi i Pär Lagerkvists författarskap.” Kirke og kultur 1998, pp. 44–​57.

242

Bibliography

Klint, Stefan. Romanen och evangeliet. Former för Jesusgestaltning i Pär Lagerkvists prosa. Skellefteå: Norma, 2001. Lagerkvist, Bengt. Vem spelar i natten. Den unge Pär Lagerkvist. Stockholm:  Atlantis, 2001. Lagerroth, Ulla-​Britta. “Pär Lagerkvist och tysk expressionism än engång,” Tidskrift för litterturvetenskap 1976 /​2–​3, pp. 75–​98. Lagerroth, Ulla-​Britta. Regi i mote med drama och samhälle: Per Lindberg tolkar Pär Lagerkvist. Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren, 1978. Larsson, Bengt. “Den röda tiden och den rena konsten. Pär Lagerkvists litterära utveckling fram till Ordkonst och bildkonst.” Samlaren 1964, pp. 19–​39. Lindberg, Ulf. “Högt, lågt och lyriskmodernism. Lagerkvist, Södergran, Ekelöf,.”Edda 1999 No. 2, pp. 107–​128. Linnér, Sven. “Pär Lagerkvists barndomsmiljö.”Samlaren 1947, pp. 53–​90. Linnér, Sven. Pär Lagerkvists livstro, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1961. Löwendahl, Gösta. “‘Det yttersta ödet,’ Kring några Lagerkvist manuskript i Lund.” In: Diktaren och hans formvärld, eds. Rolf Arvidsson, Bernt Olsson, Louise Vinge. Malmö: Allhem, 1975, pp. 119–​131. Lund, Marion.”Barabbas –​mellom myten og historien: Pär Lagerkvists roman Barabbas (1950).” Edda 1995, No. 2, pp. 147–​159. Lund, Marion. Frigjort fra Gud  –​og bundet til Ham:  Pär Lagerkvists selvbiografiske roman Gäst hos verkligheten (1925) og romanserien “korsfestelsessyklusen” (1950–​1964), Trondheim:  Norges teknisk-​vnaturvitenskapelige universitet, 1999. Mjöberg, Jöran. Livsproblemet hos Lagerkvist, Stockholm: Bonniers, 1951. Riesenfeld, Harald. “Barabbas och Nyatestementet.” In:  Synpunkter på Pär Lagerkvist, ed. Gunnar Tideström. Stockholm:  Aldus/​ Bonnier, 1966, pp. 209–​224. Salminen, Johannes. Från “Det eviga leendet” till “Den knutna näven.” Lund: Tegnérsamf., 1990. Schöier, Ingrid. “Drabbad av Gud och övergiven. Den frånvarande Guden hos Pär Lagerkvist.” In: Pär Lagerkvist 100 år Föreläsningar och anföranden i Växjövåren 1991. Växjö: Pär Lagerkvist-​samfundetsförlag, 1992, pp. 39–​61. Schöier, Ingrid. Pär Lagerkvist. En biografi. Stockholm: Bonnier, 1987. Schöier, Ingrid. Som i Aftonland. Studier kring temata, motiv och metod i Pär Lagerkvists sista diktsamling, Stockholm: Akademilitteratur, 1981. Schönström, Rikard. Dikten som besvärjelse. Begäretsdialektik i Pär Lagerkvists författarskap. Stockholm: Symposion, 1987.

Bibliography

243

Selander, Sten. “Om ondskans väsen.” Svenska Dagbladet of 18.11.1944, p. 1. Sokół, Lech. “Wstęp.” In: P. Lagerkvist, Król, Kamień filozoficzny, Barabasz, trans. Anna Marciniakówna, Jolanta Szutkiewicz. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2007, pp. 9–​28. Stenström, Thure. Berättartekniska studier i Pär Lagerkvists, Lars Gyllenstens och Cora Sandels prosa. Stockholm: Bonnier, 1964. Syréhn, Gunnar. “Himlens hemlighet  –​en studie något på tvärs.” In:  Yngve B. Olsson, Gunnar Syréhn, Två Lagerkviststudier. Växjö:  Pär Lagerkvist-​ samfundetsförlag, 1993, pp. 41–​47. Szewczyk-​Haake, Katarzyna. “The ethical turn in the early writtings of Pär Lagerkvist.” Folia Scandinavica Posnaniensia. The International Journal of Scandinavian Studies Vol. 18 (2015), pp. 49–​66. Szewczyk-​Haake, Katarzyna. “The light that unifies worlds. On Pär Lagerkvist’s short story Morgonen.” Acta Sueco-​Polonica No. 20 (2015–​2016), p. 73–​85 Tideström, Gunnar. “Sybillan.” In:  Synpunkter på Pär Lagerkvist, ed. Gunnar Tideström, Stockholm: Aldus/​Bonnier, 1966, pp. 224–​240.

5. Works by Søren Kierkegaard Either/​Or. Part One, Edited and Translated by Howard and Edna Hong, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988. Either/​Or. Part Two, Edited and Translated with Introduction and Notes by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 1987. The Sickness unto Death. A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening, Edited and Translated with Introduction and Notes by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. Fear and Trembling. Repetition, Edited and Translated with Introduction and Notes by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983. The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates. Edited and Translated with Introduction and Notes by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. The Concept of Anxiety. A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin, Edited and Translated with Introduction and Notes by Reidar Thomte in collaboration with Albert B. Anderson, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.

244

Bibliography

The Moment and Late Writings, Edited and Translated with Introduction and Notes by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Philosophical Fragments or A Fragment of Philosophy, Originally translated and introduced by D. Swenson, new introduction and commentary by Niels Thulstrup, translation revised and commentary translated by Howard V. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1962. Wybór pism, trans. Maksymilian Bienenstock, Lwów:  Księgarnia Polska B. Połonieckiego, 1914.

6. Works on Søren Kierkegaard Bienenstock, Maksymilian. “Wstęp.” In:  S. Kierkegaard, Wybór pism, trans. Maksymilian Bienenstock. Lwów: Księgarnia Polska B. Połonieckiego, 1914, pp. V-​XVII. Bienenstock, Maksymilian. “Sören Kierkegaard.” Sfinks 1913, pp. 304–​313. Bienenstock, Maksymilian. “Sören Kierkegaard. Jego twórczość i znaczenie.” Przewodnik Naukowy i Literacki. Dodatek do Gazety Lwowskiej 1912, No. 10–​12. Chojnacki, Hieronim. “Kierkegaard in Poland since 1965” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2001, pp. 341–​350. Chojnacki, Hieronim. “Otchłań negatywnej wolności i zła. Spojrzenie literaturoznawcy na dynamiczny antynihilizm Sørena Kierkegaarda.” In:  Aktualność Sørena Kierkegaarda w filozofii, teologii, literaturze  –​w 200. rocznicę urodzin, eds. Marcin Hintz, Maria Urbańska-​Bożek. Sopot –​Gdańsk: Pomorskie Towarzystwo Filozoficzno-​Teologiczne, 2013, pp. 129–​141. Gołębiewska, Maria. “Koncepcja wyboru etycznego według Sørena Kierke-​ gaarda.” In:  Polifoniczny świat Kierkegaarda. Księga honorowa dedykowana profesorowi Karolowi Toeplitzowi, eds. Edward Kasperski, Maria Urbańska-​ Bożek. Gdańsk:  Pomorskie Towarzystwo Filozoficzno-​ Teologiczne, 2014, pp. 219–​235. Grage, Joachim. “Karl Kraus: “The Miracle of Unison” –​Criticism of the Press and Experiences of Isolation.” In: Kierkegaard’s Influence on Literature, Criticism and Art, Vol. 1 The Germanophone World, ed. Jon Stewart. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013, pp. 157–​170. Grimsley, Ronald. Kierkegaard. A biographical introduction, London:  Studio Vista, 1973. Hauberg Mortensen Finn, “Kierkegaard in Scandinavia. A History of Radical Reception.” In:  Kierkegaard Revisited. Proceedings from the Conference

Bibliography

245

“Kierkegaard and the Meaning of Meaning It,” Copenhagen, May 5–​9 1996, eds. Niels J. Cappelørn, Jon Stewart. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997, pp. 410–​441. Hjertström Lappalainen, Jonna, and Hjertström Lappalainen, Lars-​Erik. “Kierkegaard’s Reception In Swedish Philosophy, Theology, and Contemporary Literary Theory.” In: Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Vol. 1 Northern and Western Europe, ed. Jon Stewart. Farnham: Ashgate 2009, pp. 173–​184. Jaspers, Karl. Kierkegaard, translation and edition by Dawid Kolasa and Tomasz Kupś, Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, 2013. Johannesson, Hans-​Erik. “Lars Ahlin: Kierkegaard’s Influence –​an Ambiguous Matter.” In:  Kierkegaard’s Influence on Literature, Criticism and Art, Tome III: Sweden and Norway, ed. Jon Stewart. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013, pp. 3–​14. Kasperski, Edward. Kierkegaard  –​antropologia i dyskurs o człowieku, Pułtusk: WSH-​Aspra JR, 2003. Kasperski, Edward. “Kierkegaard jako krytyk literacki.” Miesięcznik Literacki 1988, No. 9, pp. 59–​68. Krawerenda-​ Wajda Katarzyna, “Problem komunikacji pośredniej u Sørena Kierkegaarda. Poznanie a samopoznanie.” Tekstualia 2014, No. 3, pp. 129–​140. Lowrie Walter, Kierkegaard, Vol. II, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962. Lübcke Paul, “Kierkegaard and Indirect Communication.” History of European Ideas 12 (1990), No. 1, pp. 31–​40. Nagy, András, “The sacral character of stage versus the profanity of pulpit –​the schism between observation and participation in Kierkegaard’s late writings,” in: Polifoniczny świat Kierkegaarda. Księga honorowa dedykowana Profesorowi Karolowi Toeplitzowi, eds. E. Kasperski, M. Urbańska-​Bożek, Gdańsk: Pomorskie Towarzystwo Filozoficzno-​Teologiczne, 2014, pp. 239–​250. Pattison George, “If Kierkegaard is Right about Reading, Why Read Kierkegaard?” In:  Kierkegaard Revisited. Proceedings from the Conference “Kierkegaard and the Meaning of Meaning It,” Copenhagen, May 5–​9 1996, ed. Niels. J. Cappelørn, Jon Stewart, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997, pp. 291–​309. Schulz Heiko, “A Modest Head Start:  The German Reception of Kierkegaard.” In: Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Vol. 1 Northern and Western Europe, ed. Jon Stewart, Farnham:Ashgate, 2009, p. 307-​ 387. Sjöstedt Nils Åke, Søren Kierkegaard och svensklitteratur. Från Fredrika Bremer till Hjalmar Söderberg, Göteborg: Göteborg Universitet, 1950. Słowikowski Andrzej, Wiara w egzystencji. Teoretyczny wymiar chrześcijańskiego ideału w pismach pseudonimowych Sørena Kierkegaarda, Warszawa-​ Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, 2015.

246

Bibliography

Stala Marian, “‘Estetyczne i etyczne.’ Sören Kierkegaard a przemiany wewnętrzne polskiego modernizmu.” In: Materiały międzynarodowej sesji naukowej zorganizowanej przez Koło Polonistów IFP UJ z okazji jubileuszu 75-​lecia istnienia Koła w dniach 20–​24 maja 1974, Kraków: Uniwersytet Jagielloński, 1976, pp. 7–​30. Stewart, Jon (ed.) Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Vol.  1 Northern and Western Europe. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. Stewart, Jon (ed.) Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Vol. 2 Southern, Central and Eastern Europe. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. Stoker, Barry. “Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Novel.” In:  Człowiek wobec rozpaczy w filozofii Sørena Kierkegaarda, ed. Marek Urban, Władysław Zuziak. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PAT, 2004, pp. 287–​306. Szwed, Antoni. “A Short History of the Reception of Kierkegaard’s Thought.” In: Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Vol. 2 Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Jon Stewart. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009, pp. 213–​229. Szwed, Antoni. “Kierkegaard w Polsce.” In:  Aktualność Kierkegaarda. W 150. rocznicę śmierci myśliciela z Kopenhagi, ed. Antoni Szwed. Kęty: Wydawnictwo Marek Derewiecki, 2006, pp. 192–​226. Szwed, Antoni. Między wolnością a prawdą egzystencji. Studium myśli Sørena Kierkegaarda. Kęty: Wydawnictwo Marek Derewiecki, 1999. Szwed, Antoni. “Wprowadzenie.” In:  Søren Kierkegaard, O chrześcijaństwie, trans. Antoni Szwed. Kęty: Wydawnictwo Marek Derewiecki, 2011, pp. 5–​17. Toeplitz, Karol. Kierkegaard. Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna, 1975. Toeplitz, Karol. “Nad Kierkegaardem i egzystencjalizmem.” In:  Søren Kierkegaard, Okruchy filozoficzne. Chwila, translation, introduction and notes by Karol Toeplitz. Warszawa:  Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1988, pp. VII-​LXVI.

7. Theory and history of literature, comparative literature Adamson, Jane, and Freadman, Richard, and Parker, David (eds.) Renegotiating Ethics in Literature, Philosophy and Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Algulin, Ingemar and Olsson, Bernt. Litteraturenshistoria i Sverige. Stock-​ holm: Norstedt, 1987. Allemann, Beda. “O ironii jako o kategorii literackiej.” In: Ironia, ed. M. Głowiński. Gdańsk: Słowo/​Obraz Terytoria, 2002, pp. 17–​41.

Bibliography

247

Altieri, Charles,. “Lyrical Ethics and Literary Experience.” In: Mapping the Ethical Turn, eds. T. F. Davis, K. Womack. Charlottesville-​London: University of Virginia Press, 2001, pp. 30–​58. Altieri, Charles. “What difference can contemporary poetry make?” In: Renegotiating Ethics in Literature, Philosophy and Theory, eds. Jane Adamson, Richard Freadman, David Parker. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 113–​132. Anz, Thomas. “Entfremdung und Angst. Expressionistische Psychopatographie und ihre sozialwissentschaftliche Interpretierbarkeit.” In:  Expressionismus Sozialer Wandel und künstlerische Erfahrung, eds. Horst Meixner and Silvio Vietta, München: W. Fink, 1982, pp. 15–​29. Bak, Krzysztof. “Södergran och närläsningen. Några reflektioner.” Acta Sueco-​ Polonica No. 16 (2010–​2011), pp. 11–​24. Balbierz, Jan. A propos inferna. Tradycje wynalezione i dyskursy nieczyste w kulturach modernizmu skandynawskiego. Kraków: Universitas, 2012. Bassnett, Susann. “Reflection on Comparative Literature in the Twenty-​First Century.” Comparative Critical Studies 3 (2006), pp. 3–​11. Bergsten, Staffan. Jaget och världen. Kosmiska analogier i svensk 1900-​tals lyrik. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 1971. Bilczewski, Tomasz. Komparatystyka i interpretacja:  nowoczesne badania porównawcze wobec translatologii. Kraków: Universitas, 2010. Bilczewski, Tomasz (ed.) Niewspółmierność. Perspektywy nowoczesnej komparatystyki. Kraków: Universitas, 2010. Bérubé, Michael. “Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature.” Comparative Literature Studies 2005, No. 42/​2, pp. 125–​129. Booth, Wayne C. The Company We Keep. An Ethics of Fiction, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction, 3rd edition, Chicago-​London: The University of Chicago Press, 1963. Booth, Wayne C. “Why Banning Ethical Criticism is a Serious Mistake.” Philosophy and Literature 1998 Vol. 22, issue No. 2, pp. 366–​393. Booth, Wayne C. “Why Ethical Criticism Can Never Be Simple.” In: Ethics, Literature, Theory. An Introductory Reader, ed. Stephen K. George, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005, pp. 23–​35. Bończa Bukowski, Piotr de, and Szewczyk-​Haake. Katarzyna (eds.) Kształty nowoczesności. Szkice porównawcze o literaturze polskiej i szwedzkiej. Poznań-​ Gniezno: Wydawnictwo Poznańskiego Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Nauk, 2013.

248

Bibliography

Borowski, Andrzej. Iter Polono-​Belgo-​Ollandicum: cultural and literary relationships between the Commonwealth of Poland and the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, Kraków: Ksiegarnia Akademicka, 2007. Breysach, Barbara. “Zastępcze świadectwo jako problem w utworach polskiej i niemieckiej literatury Holocaustu.” In:  Literatura polska wobec Zagłady, eds. Alina Brodzka-​ Wald, Dorota Krawczyńska, Jacek Leociak, Warszawa: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, 2000, pp. 256–​277. Bukowski, Piotr. “Nihilizm, autorytet i autonomia: w kręgu filozofii nadczłowieka Friedricha Nietzschego.” In: Nihilizm i nowoczesność, eds. Ewa Partyga, Michał Januszkiewicz, introduction by Michał Januszkiewicz, Lech Sokół, Mateusz Werner, Warszawa: Oficyna Wydawnicza Errata, 2012, pp. 49–​64. Burzyńska, Anna. “Kulturowy zwrot teorii.” In:  Kulturowa teoria literatury. Główne pojęcia i problemy, eds. Michał Paweł Markowski, Ryszard Nycz, Kraków: Universitas, 2006, pp. 41–​91. Całbecki, Marcin. “Czarna kropla nieskończoności:” fenomen lęku w twórczości Jerzego Lieberta, Władysława Sebyły i Aleksandra Rymkiewicza. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 2008. Carroll, Noël. “Moderate Moralism.” British Journal of Aesthetics Vol. 36, No. 3, 1996, pp. 223–​238. Clausen, Christopher. The Moral Imagination. Essays on Literature and Ethics, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1986. Dąbrowski, Bartosz. Poeta egzystencji, Wątki egzystencjalistyczne w liryce Władysława Sebyły, “Pamiętnik Literacki” 2001, no 1, pp. 119–​136. Davis, Todd F., and Womack, Kenneth (eds.). Mapping the Ethical Turn. A Reader in Ethics, Culture and Literary Theory. Charlottesville-​London: University of Virginia Press, 2001. Den svenska litteraturen. Vol. 5. Modernister och arbetardiktare: 1920–​1950, eds. L. Lönnroth, P. Deblanc, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1989. Espmark, Kjell. Själen i bild. En huvudlinje i modern svenskpoesi, Stockholm:  Norstedt, 1977. Eykman, Christoph. Denk-​und Stilformen des Expressionismus, München:  Francke, 1974. Eysteinsson, Astradur. “The Avant-​Garde as/​or Modernism?” In: The Concept of Modernism, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992, pp. 143–​178. Fokkema, Douwe Wessel. Literary History, Modernism, and Postmodernism, Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1984. Gregory, Marshall. Shaped by Stories. The Ethical Power of Narratives, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009.

Bibliography

249

Hägg, Göran. Den svenska litteraturhistorien, Stockholm:  Wahlström & Widstrand, 1996. Hofmannsthal, Hugo von. “Ironia rzeczy.” In:  Hofmannsthal, Hugo von. Księga przyjaciół i szkice wybrane, selection and translation by Paweł Hertz, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1997, pp. 181–​184. Iser, Wolfgang. “Die Appellstruktur der Texte.” In:  Rezeptionsäathetik. Theorie und Praxis, ed. Rainer Warning. München:  Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1975, pp. 228–​252. Iser, Wolfgang. “Changing Functions of Literature.” In: Iser. Wolfgang. Prospecting: From Reader Response to Literary Anthropology. The John Hopkins University Press: Baltimore and London, 1989, pp. 197–​214. Jakowska, Krystyna. Międzywojenna powieść perswazyjna. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1992. Jauss, Hans Robert. “The Literary Process of Modernism from Rousseau to Adorno.” Cultural Critique No. 11 (Winter, 1988–​1989), trans. Lisa C. Roetzel, pp. 27–​61. Kaliszewski, Andrzej. Nostalgia stylu. Neoklasycyzm liryki polskiej XX wieku w krytyce, badaniach i poetykach immanentnych, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2007. Kaufer, David P. “Irony, interpretive form, and the theory of meaning.” Poetics Today 1983 no 4 (3), pp. 451–​464. Kerbrat-​Orecchioni, Catherine. “Ironie comme trope.” Poétique, 1978, no 36, pp. 108–​127. Kola Adam F. “Dlaczego literaturoznawstwo polskie jest etycznie ślepe?” In: Filozofia i etyka interpretacji, ed. Adam F. Kola, Andrzej Szahaj, Kraków: Universitas, 2007, pp. 247–​263. Kushner, Eva. “Is Comparative Literature Ready for the Twenty-​First Century?” “CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture” 2.4 (December 2000), Article 13: http//​docs.lib.purdue.edu/​clcweb/​vol2/​iss4/​13. Landgren, Bengt. “Research on Literary Modernism in Sweden: An Overview.” In:  Swedish-​Polish Modernism:  Literature-​Language-​Culture, eds. Małgorzata A. Packalén, Sven Gustavsson. Stockholm:  Almqvist & Wiksell, 2003, pp. 10–​27. Lesch, Walter. “Zum Beispiel: Literatur und Ethik. Jenseits von Moralismusund Ästhetizismus.” In:  Ethisch-​Philosophische Grundlagen im Lehramtsstudium, eds. Christof Mandry and Julia Dietrich. Tübingen:  Universität Tübingen, 2001, pp. 53–​73. Lewan, Bengt. Renässansbilder. Den italienska renässansen i svensk diktning, Stockholm: Carlsson, 1995.

250

Bibliography

Linnér, Sven, Livsförsoning och idyll. En studie i rikssvens literatur 1915–​1925, Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 1954. Lukács, György. The Theory of the Novel. A Historico-​philosophical Essay on the Forms of Great Epic Literature, trans. Anna Bostock. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1971. Luthersson, Peter. Svensk litterär modernism. En stridstudie. Stockholm:  Atlantis, 2002. Malmström, Sten. Stil och vers i svensk 1900-​ talspoesi. Stockholm:  PAN/​ Norstedt, 1971. Markowski, Michał Paweł, and Nycz, Ryszard (eds.) Kulturowa teoria literatury: główne pojęcia i problemy. Kraków: Universitas, 2012. Markowski, Michał Paweł. “Zwrot etyczny w badaniach literackich.” Pamiętnik Literacki 2000, No. 1, pp. 239–​244. McKean, Keith F. The Moral Measure of Literature. Denver: A. Swallow, 1961. Lemberg, Arne. Teorie mimesis. Repetycja, trans. Jan Balbierz, Kraków:  Universitas, 2002. Morawski, Stefan. “Wątki egzystencjalistyczne w polskiej prozie lat trzydzie-​ stych.” In:  Problemy literatury polskiej lat 1890–​1939, series 1, eds. Hanna Kirchner, Zbigniew Żabicki, in cooperation with Maria R. Pragłowska, Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich/​PAN, 1972, pp. 465–​532. Muecke, Douglas. The Compass of Irony. London: Routledge, 1969. Muecke, Douglas. “Ironia:  podstawowe klasyfikacje.” In:  Ironia, ed. Michał Głowiński. Gdańsk: Słowo/​Obraz Terytoria, 2002, pp. 43–​74. Murdoch, Iris. The Sovereignty of Good. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970. Ning, Wang. “Confronting Globalization: Cultural Studies versus Comparative Literature Studies.” Neohelicon 2001, No. XXVIII/​1, pp. 55–​66. Nussbaum, Martha. “Exactly and Responsibly: A Defense of Ethical Criticism.” Philosophy and Literature 1998 vol 22, issue no 2, pp. 343–​365. Nycz, Ryszard. Język modernizmu. Prolegomena historycznoliterackie, 2nd editio. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2002. Nycz, Ryszard. Literatura jako trop rzeczywistości. Poetyka epifanii w nowoczesnej literaturze polskiej. Kraków: Universitas, 2001. Orska, Joanna. Przełom awangardowy w dwudziestowiecznym modernizmie w Polsce. Kraków: Universitas, 2004. Oser, Lee. The Ethics of Modernism. Moral Ideas in Yeats, Eliot, Joyce, Woolf and Beckett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Bibliography

251

Packalén, Małgorzata Anna. Under två kulturers ok:  allmogeskildringar i den polska och svenska 1800-​och 1900-​talslitteraturen. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2001. Płaszczewska, Olga, Przestrzenie komparatystyki –​italianizm, Kraków: Wydaw-​ nictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2010. Posner, Richard. “Against Ethical Criticism.” Philosophy and Literature 1997 Vol. 21, issue no 1, pp. 1–​27. Posner, Richard. “Against Ethical Criticism. Part two.” Philosophy and Literature 1998 Vol. 22, issue No. 2, pp. 394–​412. Remak, Henry H. H. “Once again: Comparative Literature at the Crossroads.” Neohelicon XXVI /​2, pp. 99–​107. Remak, Henry H.H. “Origins and Evolution of Comparative Literature and Its Interdisciplinary Studies.” Neohelicon XXIX/​1, pp. 245–​250. Sadowski, Witold. Litania i poezja. Na materiale literatury polskiej od XI do XXI wieku. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2011. Sarnowska-​Temeriusz, Elżbieta. Przeszłość poetyki. Warszawa:  Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1995. Saussy, Haun. “Exquisite Cadavers Stitched from Fresh Nightmares.” In: Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization, ed. Haun Saussy, Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2006, pp. 3–​42. Scholes, Robert. “The Novel as Ethical Paradigm?” In: NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, Vol. 21, No. 2/​3, Why the Novel Matters: A Postmodern Perplex Conference Issue (Winter –​Spring, 1988), pp. 188–​196. Schwarz, Daniel L. “A Humanistic Ethics of Reading.” In:  Mapping the Ethical Turn. A Reader in Ethics, Culture and Literary Theory, eds. Todd F. Davis, Kenneth Womack. Charlottesville –​London: University of Virginia Press, 2001, pp. 3–​15. Sheppard, Richard. “The Problematics of European Modernism.” In:  Theorizing Modernism: Essays in Critical Theory, ed. Steve Giles, London & New York: Routledge, 1993, pp. 1–​51. Słownik terminów literackich, ed. Michał Głowiński, Teresa Kostkiewicz, Aleksandra Okopień-​Sławińska, Janusz Sławiński, 2nd edition. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1988. Sokel, Walter. The Writer in Extremis. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964. Sołtys-​Lewandowska, Edyta. O “ocalającej nieporządek rzeczy” polskiej poezji metafizycznej i religijnej drugiej połowy XX i początków XXI wieku. Kraków: Universitas, 2015.

252

Bibliography

Sperber, Dan, and Wilson, Deirdre. “Irony and the Use-​Mention Distinction.” In:  Radical pragmatics, ed. Peter Cole, New York:  Academic Press, 1981, pp. 295–​318. Stenström, Thure. Existentialismen i Sverige. Mottagande och inflytande 1900–​ 1950. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 1984. Strelka, Joseph P., Vergleichende Literaturkritik. Bern-​München: Francke Verlag, 1970. Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. “About the Situation of the Discipline of Comparative Literature and Neighboring Fields in the Humanities Today.” Comparative Literature: East & West 2017, Vol. 1 No. 2, pp. 176–​203. Wasilewska-​ Chmura, Magdalena. “W stronę intermedialności. Szwedzka droga do neoawangardy a sprawa polska.” In: Kształty nowoczesności. Szkice porównawcze o literaturze polskiej i szwedzkiej, eds. Piotr de Bończa Bukowski, Katarzyna Szewczyk-​Haake. Poznań-​Gniezno:  Wydawnictwo Poznańskiego Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Nauk, 2013, pp. 111–​138. Zima, Peter V. Komparatistik. Einführung in die Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft. Tübingen: Francke Verlag, 1992. Zimmermann, Jutta. “Einleitung.” In:  Ethik und Moral als Problem der Literatur und Literaturwissenschaft, eds. Juta Zimmermann, Britta Salheiser. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2006, pp. 9–​23. Ziomek, Jerzy. Retoryka opisowa, 2nd edition. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 2000. Ziolkowski, Theodor. Fictional Transfigurations of Jesus. Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 1972. Zwierciadła Północy. Vol.  1, eds. Maria Janion, Nils. Åke Nilsson, Anna Sobolewska, Warszawa:  Wydawnictwo Instytutu Badań Literackich PAN, 1991; Vol. 2, ed. Ryszard Górski, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Badań Literackich PAN, 1992.

8. Philosophy, cultural history, art history Agamben, Giorgio. Remnants of Auschwitz. The Witness and the Archive, trans. Daniel Heller-​Roazen, New York: Zone Books, 2002. Baranowicz, Zofia. Polska awangarda artystyczna 1918–​1939, Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe, 1975. Belting, Hans. Obraz i kult. Historia obrazu przez epoką sztuki, [Likeness and Presence. A History of the Image Before the Era of Art], trans. T. Zatorski, Gdańsk: Słowo/​Obraz Terytoria, 2010.

Bibliography

253

Berman, Marshall. All That Is Solid Melts Into Air. The Experience of Modernity. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1982. Bielik-​Robson, Agata. Inna nowoczesność. Pytania o współczesną formułę duchowości. Kraków: Universitas, 2000. Cummning, Robert Denoon. Starting Point. An Introduction to the Dialectic of Existence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979. Gadacz, Tadeusz. “Myślenie z wnętrza nihilizmu.” Znak 1994, No. 6, pp. 4–​14. Gellrich, Jesse M. The Idea of the Book in the Middle Ages. Language Theory, Mythology, and Fiction. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019. Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and Self-​Identity. Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1991. Girard, René. The Scapegoat, trans. Yvonne Freccero. Baltimore, Maryland: John Hopkins University Press, 1986. Hägg, Göran. Gud i Sverige, Stockholm: Norstedt, 2010. Hazard, Paul. European thought in the eighteenth century:  from Montesquieu to Lessing, trans. James Lewis May, John Lewis May, London:  Hollis & Carter, 1954. Heidegger, Martin. Elucidations of Hölderlin’s Poetry, trans. Keith Hoeller. Amherst, New York: Humanity Books, 2000. Hofmannsthal, Hugo von. An Impossible Man, trans. Alexander Stillmark, Vol. 12, Cambridge: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2016. Horkheimer Max, Adorno Theodor Wiesengrund. Dialectic of Enlightenment, ed. Gunzelin Schmid Noerr, trans. Edmund Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. A Peer-​Reveiwed Academic Resource:  http://​www.iep.utm.edu Jaspers, Karl. Reason and Existenz. Five Lectures, translation and introduction by William Earle, Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1997. Jaspers, Karl. Szyfry transcendencji, trans. Czesława Piecuch. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Comer Jacek Waloch, 1995. Kant, Immanuel. “An Answer to the Question:  ‘What is Enlightenment?.’” In: Kant, Immanuel.Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss, trans. Hugh Barr Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991 [1970], pp. 50–​59. Kasperski, Edward. Dialog i dialogizm. Idee  –​formy  –​tradycje. Warszawa:  Elipsa, 1994. Kiepuszewski, Łukasz. Niewczesne obrazy. Nietzsche i sztuki wizualne. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, 2013.

254

Bibliography

MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue:  A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 3rd edition, 2007. Markowski, Michał Paweł. Nietzsche. Filozofia interpretacji, 2nd edition. Kraków: Universitas, 2001. Marquard, Odo. Aesthetica i anaesthetica. Rozważania filozoficzne, trans. Krystyna Krzemieniowa. Warszawa: Oficyna Naukowa, 2007, pp. 23–​56. Marquard, Odo. Der Einzelne. Vorlesungen zur Existenzphilosophie, ed. Franz Josef Wetz. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2013. Marquard, Odo. Abschied vom Prinzipiellen. Stuttgart: Reclam 1981. Michalski, Krzysztof. Płomień wieczności. Eseje o myślach Fryderyka Nietzschego. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2007. Murdoch, Iris, Prymat Dobra [The Sovreignty of Good], translation and introduction Andrzej Pawelec, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1996. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. A Book for All and None, eds. Adrian Del Caro, Robert Pippin, trans. Adrian Del Caro. New York:  Cambridge University Press, 2006. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Human, All Too Human, trans. Reginald John Hollingdale. Cambridge, New York: New York University Press, 1996. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Writings from the Late Notebooks, ed. by Rüdieger Bittner, trans. Kate Sturge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Zapiski o nihilizmie, selection and translation by. Grzegorz Sowinski, “Znak” 1994, No. 6, pp. 41–​59. Pollakówna, Joanna. Formiści. Wrocław:  Zakłąd Narodowy im. Ossolińs-​ kich, 1972. Schellekens, Elisabeth. Aesthetics and Morality. London: Continuum, 2007. Taylor, Charles. Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1989. Toulmin, Stephen. Cosmopolis. The Hidden Agenda of Modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Ure, Michael. Nietzsche’s The Gay Science. An Introduction. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2019. Voegelin, Eric. From Enlightenment to Revolution. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1975. Welsch, Wolfgang. Vernunft: Die zeitgenössische Vernunftkritik und das Konzept der transversalen Vernunft, 2nd edition, Frankfurt/​Main: Suhrkamp, 1996.

Index of Names Abraham 125-​128, 133 Adamson Jane 20, 21 Adorno Theodor Wiesengrund 183 Agamben Giorgio 165 Ahlberg Alf 213 Ahlenius Holger 225 Ahlin Lars 38 Algulin Ingemar 70 Allemann Beda 158 Altieri Charles 20 Anderson Albert B. 106 Anz Thomas 110 Apollinaire Guillaume 69 Arvidsson Rolf 59 Auden Wystan Hugh 226 Augustine, Saint 88, 89 Bak Krzysztof 17 Balbierz Jan 189 Baranowicz Zofia 85 Barbusse Henri 200 Bassnett Susan 14 Baudelaire Charles 110 Beauvoir Simone de 202 Beckett Samuel 28, 73 Belting Hans 183 Benedictsson Victoria 38 Bergsten Staffan 178 Berman Marshall 99, 100, 145, 146 Bérubé Michael 12 Bielik-​Robson Agata 140, 156, 157, 161 Bienenstock Maksymilian 40-​42, 205 Bilczewski Tomasz 11, 12 Bittner Rüdieger 172, 181 Blair Alan 220

Booth Wayne C. 21, 22, 99, 157, 162, 187, 192, 193, 222 Borowski Andrzej 14 Bostock Anna 102, 140 Bremer Fredrika 38 Breysach Barbara 93 Brodow Bengt 167, 168, 171, 186 Brodzka-​Wald Alina 93 Brunius August 68 Bukowski Piotr (Bończa Bukowski Piotr de) 11, 180 Burzyńska Anna 12 Cappelørn Niels 45 Caro Adrian del 179 Carroll Noël 20 Cézanne Paul 58, 65, 66, 68, 89 Chesterton Gilbert Keith 200, 201 Chojecki Andrzej 39, 221 Chojnacki Hieronim 39 Chwistek Leon 86 Claes Victor 223 Clausen Christopher 28, 30 Cole Peter 151 Cudak Romuald 43 Cummning Robert Denoon 36 Czyżewski Tytus 86 Dąbrowski Bartosz 39 Dardel Nils von 55, 62 Davis Todd F. 20, 21 Deblanc Sven 70 Dick Alexandra 168 Dietrich Julia 21 Earle William 50 Ekelöf Gunnar 114

256

Index of Names

Eliot Thomas Stearns 28, 73 Espmark Kjell 110 Eysteinsson Astradur 18 Fielding Henry 234 Flodstrom Arthur Norman 72, 105 Fokkema Douwe Wessel 29, 73, 75, 84, 90 Frajlich Anna 34, 166 Francis, Saint (St. Francis of Assisi) 78, 79, 88, 140, 195, 199-​210, 212, 230 Frank Leonhard 141 Franz Joseph (Emperor) 152, 154, 158 Freadman Richard 20 Freccero Yvonne 131 Fredén Gustav 215 Gadacz Tadeusz 134, 172 Gellrich Jesse M. 227 Gide André 220 Giddens Anthony 184 Girard René 131, 157 Gogol Nikolai 41 Głowiński Michał 151 Gołębiewska Maria 231 Gombrowicz Witold 99 Górski Ryszard 11 Grage Joachim 41 Gregory Marshall 23 Grimsley Ronald 126 Grünewald Isaak 70 Gustavsson Sven 17 Hägg Göran 38 Hazard Paul 171 Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 162 Heidegger Martin 41, 83, 124 Heller-​Roazen Daniel 165 Hintz Marcin 208 Hjertström Lappalainen Jonna 37 Hjertström Lappalainen Lars-​Erik 37

Hoeller Keith 83 Hofmannsthal Hugo von 84, 158 Hölderlin Friedrich 83 Hollingdale Reginald John 191 Hong Edna H. 44, 47, 108, 127, 163, 208 Hong Howard V. 47, 108, 127, 163, 203, 208 Horkheimer Max 183 Hörnström Erik 18, 71, 116 Hulewicz Witold 95 Ibsen Henrik 37 Iser Wolfgang 23, 90, 98, 100, 101, 234, 235 Iwaszkiewicz Jarosław 99 Jakowska Krystyna 142, 144, 146, 149, 150, 166 Janion Maria 11 Januszewski Tadeusz 85 Januszkiewicz Michał 180 Jarzębski Jerzy 99 Jaspers Karl 46, 50, 200, 206 Jauss Hans Robert 72, 74, 81, 102, 103, 114 Jephcott Edmund 183 Joyce James 28, 73, 235 Kaliszewski Andrzej 19 Kant Immauel 103, 212 Karahka Urpu-​Liisa 56, 67, 68, 71, 111, 112, 173, 182 Karski Jan 93 Kasperski Edward 12, 44, 45, 161, 223 Kaufer David P. 151, 159-​161 Kerbrat-​Orecchioni Catherine 151 Key Ellen 62 Kirchner Hanna 39 Kierkegaard Søren 16, 36-​51, 59, 60, 91, 105-​111, 113-​115, 118, 119, 124, 125-​129, 133-​137, 139, 152,

Index of Names

161-​164, 189, 199, 201-​209, 212, 215, 218, 223-​225, 230-​234, 236 Kiepuszewski Łukasz 190 Kisiel Marian 39, 120 Kisielewski Jan August 39 Klint Stefan 43, 213, 219, 223, 224 Kłosiński Krzysztof 43 Kola Adam F. 17, 46 Kolasa Dawid 46 Kraus Karl 40, 41 Krawczyńska Dorota 93 Krawerenda-​Wajda Katarzyna 44 Krzemieniowa Krystyna 173 Kupś Tomasz 46 Kushner Eva 12 Lack Stanisław 39 Lagerkvist Bengt 70 Lagerkvist Ellen 64 Lagerkvist Gunnar 71 Lagerkvist Pär 12, 15, 16, 18, 22, 25, 31, 36, 38, 46, 55, 68-​72, 102, 105, 108, 109, 117, 134, 136, 139, 167, 186, 192, 213, 215, 216, 219, 225, 233, 235, 236 Lagerlöf Selma 38 Lagerroth Ulla-​Britta 38, 39, 71, 109, 136 Landgren Bengt 17 Larsson Bengt 56, 62 Lawaty Andreas 40 Leociak Jacek 93 Lesch Walter 21 Lessing Johann Gottfried 171 Lewan Bengt 172, 176 Liebert Jerzy 39 Ligęza Wojciech 18, 34, 143 Lille Ludwik 86 Lindberg Per 109 Lindberg Ulf 114 Linnér Sven 56, 69, 106, 108, 112, 114 Lönnroth Lars 70

257

Löwendahl Gösta 59, 63, 71 Lowrie Walter 107, 109 Lübcke Paul 49 Lukács György 102, 140 Lund Marion 213 Luthersson Peter 54, 69, 70, 72 Maciejewska Irena 42, 119 MacIntyre Alasdair 26, 27, 49, 103, 232 Makuszyński Kornel 97 Mallarmé Stéphane 98 Malmström Sten 106, 115-​117 Mandry Christof 21 Marciniakówna Anna 225 Markowski Michał Paweł 12, 17, 189 Marquard Odo 160, 173, 233, 234 Maury Lucien 220 McKean Keith F. 26 Meixner Horst 110 Melberg Arne 128 Michalski Krzysztof 112, 180 Mjöberg Jöran 179 Montesquieu 171 Morawski Stefan 39 Moses Paul 99 Muecke Douglas 153, 221, 222 Murdoch Iris 49 Musil Robert 158 Nagy András 45, 91 Nietzsche Friedrich 50, 51, 112, 124, 172, 179-​182, 185, 186, 188, 189-​191 Nilsson Nils Åke 11 Ning Wang 12 Nisbet Hugh Barr 212 Nussbaum Martha 21 Nycz Ryszard 12, 19, 53, 67, 84, 198, 233

258

Index of Names

Olejniczak Józef 97, 134 Olsson Bernt 39, 59, 70 Opacki Ireneusz 43, 120 Orska Joanna 17 Oser Lee 28, 73 Packalén Małgorzata Anna 11, 17 Parker David 20, 21 Partyga Ewa 180 Pattison George 45-​47, 136, 234 Pawelec Andrzej 49 Piecuch Czesława 200 Pippin Robert 179 Plato 48 Płaszczewska Olga 13, 14 Pollakówna Joanna 86 Posner Richard 21 Pragłowska Maria R. 39 Pronaszko Andrzej 86 Pronaszko Zbigniew 86 Ratiani Irma 84 Reiss Hans 212 Remak Henry H. H. 13 Riesenfeld Harald 219 Rilke Rainer Maria 95, 96 Roetzel Lisa C. 72 Rogoziński Julian 34 Rousseau Jean-​Jacques 72, 74, 81, 102, 103, 114, 143, 161 Rydberg Victor 38 Rymkiewicz Aleksander 39 Sadowski Witold 119 Salheiser Britta 21 Salminen Johannes 186 Santi Raphael 190 Sarnowska-​Temeriusz Elżbieta 25 Sartre Jean-​Paul 41, 124, 202 Saussy Haun 15 Schellekens Elisabeth 20, 21

Schöier Ingrid 16, 18, 29, 38, 53, 64, 73, 213, 228 Scholes Robert 140 Schönström Rikard 214, 215 Schmid Noerr Gunzelin 183 Schulz Heiko 40 Schwarz Daniel 236 Sheppard Richard 16 Sebyła Władysław 39 Selander Sten 173 Shakespeare William 122 Sienkiewicz Henryk 99 Siwor Dorota 143, 166 Sjöberg Leif 226 Sjöstedt Nils Åke 37, 38 Sławiński Janusz 15 Słowikowski Andrzej 204 Sobolewska Anna 11 Socrates 48, 151, 162-​165 Söderberg Hjalmar 38 Södergran Edith 114 Sokel Walter 136 Sokół Lech 180, 225 Sołtys-​Lewandowska Edyta 17 Sörensen Henrik 65 Sowinski Grzegorz 123, 185 Sperber Dan 151, 160 Stala Marian 39 Stenström Thure 108, 134, 186 Stewart Jon 37, 38, 40, 41, 45 Stillmark Alexander 159 Strindberg August 38, 189 Stur Jan 86, 87 Sturge Kate 172, 181 Swenson David 203 Syréhn Gunnar 39, 43 Szahaj Andrzej 17 Szczubiałka Michał 149 Szewczyk-​Haake Katarzyna 11, 229 Szutkiewicz Jolanta 225 Szwed Antoni 11, 37, 40, 113, 124, 199, 203, 204, 223

Index of Names

Taylor Charles 26, 27, 84, 133, 174, 178, 196, 197 Taylor-​Terlecka Nina 84 Terlecki Tymon 84, 85, 98 Thackeray William Makepeace 235 Thomte Reidar 106 Thulstrup Niels 203 Tideström Gunnar 72, 186 Tischner Łukasz 150, 196 Toeplitz Karol 44, 128, 135, 136, 162, 203, 205, 224, 231, Tötösy de Zepetnek Steven 12, 13 Toulmin Stephen 27, 174 Urban Marek 152 Urbańska-​Bożek Maria 45 Ure Michael 189

259

Werner Mateusz 180 Wetz Franz Josef 234 Wiegandt Ewa 18, 29, 77, 120, 141, 149, 196 Wikner Pontus 38 Wilson Deirdre 151, 160 Witkiewicz Stanisław Ignacy 86 Wittlin Elżbieta 165 Wittlin Józef 12, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 25, 29-​32, 34-​37, 40-​43, 45, 47, 48, 50, 51, 53, 77-​103, 105, 116, 119-​ 151, 153, 155-​161, 163-​167, 192, 193, 195-​213, 229, 230, 232, 233, 235, 236 Wocław Wojciech P. 143, 150 Woolf Virginia 28, 73 Womack Kenneth 20, 21

Vietta Silvio 110 Vinci Leonardo da 175, 179 Vinge Louise 59 Voegelin Eric 31

Yeats William Butler 28, 73 Yurieff Zoya 149, 159, 166

Walden Herwarth 70 Walford Naomi 222 Wallace Lewis 81 Warning Rainer 23, 234 Wasilewska-​Chmura Magdalena 11 Weber Max 73 Welsch Wolfgang 22

Zatorski Tadeusz 183 Zieliński Jan 41, 78 Ziomek Jerzy 49 Ziolkowski Theodor 195 Zimmermann Juta 21 Zuziak Władysław 152

Żabicki Zbigniew 39

Studien zur Germanistik, Skandinavistik und Übersetzungskultur Herausgegeben von Stefan H. Kaszyński, Andrzej Kątny, Maria Krysztofiak und Beate Sommerfeld Band 1

Agnieszka Magdalena Rybska: Deutsche Kriminalgeschichten von 1780 bis 1820 als Anfänge der Kriminalliteratur. 2011.

Band 2

Oleksii Prokopchuk: Wortbedeutung. 2011.

Band 3

Joanna Drynda: Spiegel-Frauen. Zum Spiegelmotiv in Prosatexten zeitgenössischer österreichischer Autorinnen. 2012.

Band 4

Stefan H. Kaszyński: Kurze Geschichte der österreichischen Literatur. Aus dem Polnischen übersetzt von Alexander Höllwerth. 2012.

Band 5

Beate Sommerfeld: Zwischen Augenblicksnotat und Lebensbilanz. Die Tagebuchaufzeichnungen Hugo von Hofmannsthals, Robert Musils und Franz Kafkas. 2013.

Band 6

Maria Krysztofiak (Hrsg.): Transkulturelle skandinavischer Literatur. 2013.

Band 7

Katarzyna Lukas / Izabela Olszewska / Marta Turska (Hrsg.): Translation im Spannungsfeld der cultural turns. 2013.

Band 8

Joanna Drynda / Marta Wimmer (Hrsg.): Neue Stimmen aus Österreich. 11 Einblicke in die Literatur der Jahrtausendwende. 2013.

Band 9

Grzegorz Moroz: Travellers, Novelists and Gentlemen. Constructing Male Narrative Personae in British Travel Books, from the Beginnings to the Second World War. 2013.

Geschehen/Ereignis

als

Textkategorie,

Identität

und

Sachverhalt

und

Übersetzungsmodelle

Band 10 Magdalena Lisiecka-Czop: Kinderwörterbücher. Lexikografische und glottodidaktische Eigenschaften am Beispiel deutsch-polnischer und polnisch-deutscher Wörterbücher. 2013. Band 11 Maria Krysztofiak: Einführung in die Übersetzungskultur. 2013. Band 12 Aldona Zańko: Moderne dansk kortprosa i dialog. En genreundersøgelse ud fra et intertekstuelt perspektiv. 2015. Band 13 Tamara Brzostowska-Tereszkiewicz: Modernist Translation. An Eastern European Perspective. Models, Semantics, Functions. 2016. Band 14 Piotr Robert Sulikowski: Der literarische Text und I-Faktoren in der Übersetzung. Anhand ausgewählter Werke Zbigniew Herberts im Deutschen und Englischen. Eine kontrastive trilinguale Analyse. 2016. Band 15 Beate Sommerfeld / Karolina Kęsicka / Małgorzata Korycińska-Wegner / Anna FimiakChwiłkowska (Hrsg.): Transgressionen im Spiegel der Übersetzung. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Prof. Maria Krysztofiak-Kaszyńska. 2016. Band 16 Beate Sommerfeld / Karolina Kęsicka / Małgorzata Korycińska-Wegner / Anna FimiakChwiłkowska, (Hrsg.): Übersetzungskritisches Handeln. Modelle und Fallstudien. 2017. Band 17 Stefan H. Kaszyński: Österreichische Literatur zwischen Moderne und Postmoderne. 2017. Zweite, verbesserte und erweiterte Auflage. 2019. Band 18 Joanna Ławnikowska-Koper: Literarisierung der Familie im österreichischen Roman der Gegenwart. 2018.

Band 19 Beate Sommerfeld / Karolina Kęsicka / Małgorzata Korycińska-Wegner / Anna FimiakChwiłkowska (Hrsg.): Pragmatische und rhetorische Determinanten des Translationsprozesses. 2018. Band 20 Aleksandra Wilkus-Wyrwa: Forfatterens individuelle estetikk i gjendiktning. Wisława Szymborska og Czesław Miłosz i norske oversettelser. 2019. Band 21 Agata Lubowicka: Mapping Ultima Thule. Representations of North Greenland in the Expedition Accounts of Knud Rasmussen. 2019. Band 22 Małgorzata Tempel: Imagologische Probleme der Übersetzung. Thomas Manns politische Reden und Schriften in polnischen Übertragungen. 2020. Band 23 Katarzyna Szewczyk-Haake: In the Footsteps of Kierkegaard. Modern Ethical Literature by Józef Wittlin and Pär Lagerkvist. 2022.

www.peterlang.com