Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk

Piotr Śniedziewski (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań): A “POOR IN SPEECH” POET. ON SILENCE IN NORWID’S WRITINGS

The aim of the article is an analysis of a late Norwid’s essay Silence (Milczenie, 1882), which can be seen as a kind of a literary testament. Not only does it allow to insight into Norwid’s preferred theory of poetic language, but also to discern the richness of his ideas. It is important to identify the essay’s enlightenment background (allusions to Ignacy Krasicki and Józef Koblański, who investigated ethical aspects of silence), connections with romanticism (silence as a metaphysical category), and the scent of modernism. Norwid, as a matter of fact, considers the typically romantic conflict between the word and the thought, and the speech imperfection against the sacred, but only to develop the theory of poetic language as epiphany. The Author’s strategy of withdrawal from the text, literariness rejection, pathos of everyday objects should all lead Norwid and his potential readers to the inexpressible.