(Un)masking Bruno Schulz: New Combinations, Further Fragmentations, Ultimate Reintegrations

(UN)MASKING BRUNO SCHULZ NEW COMBINATIONS, FURTHER FRAGMENTATIONS, ULTIMATE REINTEGRATIONS STUDIES IN SLAVIC LITERATU...

Author: Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckelom (Editors)

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(UN)MASKING BRUNO SCHULZ NEW COMBINATIONS, FURTHER FRAGMENTATIONS, ULTIMATE REINTEGRATIONS

STUDIES IN SLAVIC LITERATURE AND POETICS VOLUME LIV

Edited by

J.J. van Baak R. Grübel A.G.F. van Holk W.G. Weststeijn

(UN)MASKING BRUNO SCHULZ NEW COMBINATIONS, FURTHER FRAGMENTATIONS, ULTIMATE REINTEGRATIONS

EDITED BY

DIETER DE BRUYN AND KRIS VAN HEUCKELOM

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2009

Cover design: Aart Jan Bergshoeff The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 978-90-420-2694-0 E-Book ISBN: 978-90-420-2695-7 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2009 Printed in the Netherlands

CONTENTS DIETER DE BRUYN & KRIS VAN HEUCKELOM Introduction: Seven Decades of Schulzology

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NEW COMBINATIONS: LITERATURE KAREN UNDERHILL Ecstasy and Heresy: Martin Buber, Bruno Schulz, and Jewish Modernity

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ANDREA MEYER-FRAATZ Exposing and Concealing Jewish Origin: Bruno Schulz and Bolesaw Lemian

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SAWOMIR JACEK UREK As One Kabbalist to Another… On Arnold Sucki’s Mystical Visions of the World in the Poem ‘Bruno Schulz’

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DIETER DE BRUYN “The Lie Always Rises to the Surface like Oil”. Toward a Metafictional Reading of Karol Irzykowski’s Pauba and Bruno Schulz’s Fiction

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ANNA LIWA “I Drew a Plan of an Imaginary City”. The Phenomenon of the City in Bruno Schulz and Miron Biaoszewski

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ALFRED GALL Mythopoetic Traditions and Inserted Treatises: Bruno Schulz and Danilo Kiš

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DOROTA WOJDA Bruno Schulz and the Magical Realism of Gabriel García Márquez in One Hundred Years of Solitude

173

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Contents

NEW COMBINATIONS: ART MARTA SKWARA “A (Wo)man on a Sofa” in Bruno Schulz’s Art and Writings. Schulz as a “Painterly” and “Writerly” Artist

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ARIKO KATO The Early Graphic Works of Bruno Schulz and SacherMasoch’s Venus in Furs: Schulz as a Modernist

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JAN ZIELISKI Zuloaga (Rilke?) Schulz

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ESTHER SÁNCHEZ-PARDO Bruno Schulz and Djuna Barnes: Border-crossing and Artistic Practice

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DANIEL WATT Bruno Schulz’s Incomparable Realities: From Literature to Theatricality

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FURTHER FRAGMENTATIONS MIECZYSAW DBROWSKI Aesthetics of Melancholy in Bruno Schulz’s Writings

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JERZY JARZ BSKI Bruno Schulz and Seductive Discourse

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SHLOMIT GORIN Thinking About Absurdity with Bruno Schulz: Paradox and Potential

339

MARTA SUCHASKA-DRAYSKA Jewish Mysticism – A Source of Similarities Between Bruno Schulz’s Writings and Psychoanalysis

361

Contents

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JÖRG SCHULTE The Clepsydra of Empedocles and the Phenomena of Breath and Wind in Bruno Schulz’s Fiction 379 THOMAS ANESSI The Great Heresy of the Varsovian Center

397

OKSANA WERETIUK The Ukrainian Reception of Bruno Schulz’s Writings: Paradox or Norm?

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ULTIMATE REINTEGRATIONS MICHA PAWE MARKOWSKI Text and Theater. The Ironic Imagination of Bruno Schulz

435

THEODOSIA ROBERTSON Bruno Schulz’s Intimate Communication: From the “True Viewer” of Xiga bawochwalcza to the “True Reader” of ‘Ksi ga’

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ALFRED SPROEDE Bruno Schulz: Between Avant-Garde and Hasidic Redemption

473

JANIS AUGSBURGER Poetical Fluidization and Intellectual Eclecticism in Bruno Schulz’s Writings

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Index

519

Introduction: Seven Decades of Schulzology Dieter De Bruyn & Kris Van Heuckelom When the Polish artist Bruno Schulz (1892-1942) eventually managed to publish his first collection of phantasmagoric stories in 1933, he could not have imagined that his modest literary output would ever lead to an accumulation of critical readings. Even more, when working in complete privacy on his drawings and graphic works in the 1920s, he would not even have believed that someone would ever be interested in writing an academic essay on this part of his creative activity. When looking back to the past seven decades of “Schulzology” (schulzologia in Polish), however, one can only find that the assemblage of critical and scholarly writings has been growing steadily, to such an extent even that the presentation of a comprehensive “state of the art” appears to be almost impossible. For those interested in an exhaustive overview of Schulzology, the only advice is to check the online shrine for the Polish artist at www.brunoschulz.org, where Branislava Stojanovi has gathered virtually all available bibliographical references, together with many other valuable sources. In this introduction to yet another collection of Schulzological papers, then, we will limit ourselves to a more modest critical discussion of the key figures and important currents in Schulzology. At the same time, however, some remarks should be made on the issue of critical and scholarly overproduction. Few people will object if we state that what we are living today is nothing less than some kind of “Schulzomania”. Indeed, Schulz nowadays is an international literary star who is worshipped by readers and critics alike. Looking back on the history of Schulzology, however, we must admit that the reception of Schulz’s creative output started in the 1930s with what could be called pure “Schulzophobia”. As Wodzimierz Bolecki has already demonstrated in his major study on the “poetic prose model” (“poetycki model prozy”; 1996 [1982]) in

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Dieter De Bruyn & Kris Van Heuckelom

the Polish interwar period, Schulz’s stories, immediately after their publication in the 1930s, conflicted with the horizon of expectations of many Polish critics. In many cases, this conflict could be resolved by applying the rules for reading lyrical works: “One could appreciate the plastic or poetic values in it (the ‘images’ or the ‘metaphors’), but there was clearly the lack of a ‘theme’, a ‘leading idea’, a ‘problem’, etc.” (“[m]o na byo w niej ocenia walory plastyczne (‘obrazy’) lub poetyckie (‘metafory’), ale oczywisty by brak ‘tematu’, ‘idei przewodniej’, ‘problemu’ etc.”; 1996 [1982]: 305). As soon as critics tried to extract a consistent world view from Schulz’s stories, however, the strictly axiological character of their approach was immediately exposed. As Bolecki has pertinently remarked, this attempt at reading Schulz’s literary world according to existing moral standards led not only to accusations of “antihumanism and establishment of chaos” (“antyhumanizm i utwierdzanie chaosu”; Wyka and Napierski 2000 [1939]: 422) but also to the attribution of immoral elements in Schulz’s prose to the author’s conduct in real life. Whereas Kazimierz Wyka and Stefan Napierski are still rather polite in their notorious diatribe against Schulz’s prose (‘Dwugos o Schulzu’ or ‘Dialogue on Schulz’, 1939), the most severe personal attack against Schulz and such contemporaries as Witold Gombrowicz and Stanisaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (Witkacy) was launched by the Marxist critic Ignacy Fik in his essay on what he terms a “literature of sick maniacs” (‘Literatura choromaniaków’, 1935). In order to have an impression of what Fik thought of Schulz and the like, we may have a look at the following fragment of his essay: Czy nie jest zastanawiaj ce, e pisz cy [tak literatur ] autorzy s to ludzie, którzy w rozwoju zatrzymali si na fazie dojrzewania pciowego, e s to homoseksualici, ekshibicjonici i psychopaci, degeneraci, narkomani, ludzie chronicznie chorzy na o dek, mieszkaj cy na stae w szpitalach, ludzie nie rozró niaj cy jawy od snu, hipochondrycy, neurastenicy, mizantropi? (1961 [1935]: 126) (Isn’t it striking that the authors who write such literature are people whose development was arrested during the phase of sexual maturation, that they are homosexuals, exhibitionists and psychopaths, degenerates, narcomaniacs, people who chronically suffer from stomach trouble, who permanently live in hospitals, people who don’t distinguish between sleeping and waking, hypochondriacs, neurasthenics, misanthropes?)

Introduction: Seven Decades of Schulzology

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When reading such merciless tirades against Schulz and his creative activities, one may indeed have difficulties believing that a movement in the opposite way, toward Schulzomania, would ever take place. It is commonly known that postwar critical interest in Schulz was temporarily halted in the difficult years before the Polish October. In his overview of the reception of Schulz’s oeuvre between 1945 and 1976, Andrzej Sulikowski calls the period from 1945 until 1955 the “years of silence” (“lata milczenia”; 1978: 282). From 1956 onwards, Schulzology gradually started flourishing under the impulse of Artur Sandauer and Jerzy Ficowski. Whereas Ficowski has mainly been important for the collection and publication of all kinds of Schulziana and for the reconstruction of the biographical portrait of the writer (cf. his 1967 and 1986 monographs, published in one volume in 2002), Sandauer was the first to map out several routes for a more academic approach of Schulz’s stories in his 1956 essay ‘Rzeczywisto zdegradowana (Rzecz o Brunonie Schulzu)’ (‘The Degraded Reality (A Contribution on Bruno Schulz)’; 1964 [1956]). On the one hand, his analysis of Schulz’s fiction against the background of twentiethcentury socio-economic developments was continued by such critics as Czesaw Samojlik (1965), Tomasz Burek (1966), and Wiesaw Pawe Szymaski (1970). On the other hand, his suggestion that Schulz should be studied in the framework of early twentieth-century experimental currents was further elaborated in discussions about the surrealistic (Dubowik 1971, Speina 1971, Jarz bski 1973) and expressionistic (Speina 1974, Wyskiel 1980) traits of his stories. In addition to this, the reading strategy of “applying the rules for reading lyrical works” was further developed in three subsequent articles by Krzysztof Miklaszewski (1966, 1971a, 1971b). Academic criticism of Schulz’s works received its next stimulus in 1974, when Wojciech Wyskiel organized the first conference devoted to the writer from Drohobycz. In the wake of this event, a structuralist turn took place in Schulzology, as exemplified in the writings of such influential scholars as Wadysaw Panas (1974a, 1974b, 1976), Krzysztof Kosiski (1976), Wojciech Wyskiel (1977a, 1977b), Jerzy Jarz bski (1976, 1984), and Wojciech Karkowski (1976, 1980). Their valuable thoughts on Schulz’s stories were seconded by a few of the first foreign Schulz scholars, such as Colleen Taylor Sen (1969, 1972) and Elisabeth Golicki-Baur (1972).

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Despite this structuralist turn, a closer look at the growing corpus of critical accounts toward the end of the 1970s reveals two major methodological trends that would continue to dominate Schulzology. First, many critics proposed a mimetic reading of Schulz’s stories (focusing on the distorted literary reality they produce) instead of a reflexive one (focusing on the process underlying the production of this particular literary reality). In other words, the approach many of them took was ontocentric instead of logocentric (cf. Stala 1993 for this distinction). Second, critics tended to treat the many seemingly self-informing comments in Schulz’s stories as authoritative clues that could be easily interpolated into their own particular interpretation of the text. As a result, such critics were caught in a kind of circular reasoning because discursive parts of the text were used in order to elucidate the same text. In the early 1980s, this ontocentric and mimetic model of reading Schulz’s stories was attacked by Wodzimierz Bolecki. In what is undoubtedly the most valuable and comprehensive study on the fiction of such interwar writers as Schulz, Witkacy, and Gombrowicz, he focuses on generations of readers’ difficulties to construct a consistent story world out of these very alienating and unusually discursive narrative accounts. More specifically, Bolecki argues that the interwar authors under scrutiny have propagated a new “poetical prose model” (“poetycki model prozy”) as an alternative to the prevailing “vehicular prose model” (“wehikularny model prozy”; 1996 [1982]: 14). Whereas in the latter case literary language is overshadowed by its referential function (as in Realism), in the former case it “draws attention to its autonomy” (“zwraca uwag na swoj autonomi ”) and thus takes on a “reflexive character” (“character samozwrotny”; 12). With respect to Schulz’s stories, Bolecki argues that his literary world is the result of linguistic rather than of mimetic processes: “The narrative utterance stops being a story about what once existed because it turns out to be itself an event in language” (“Wypowied narracyjna przestaje by opowiadaniem o tym, co niegdy zaistniao, albowiem sama okazuje si zdarzeniem w j zyku”; 300). Though Schulzology continued flourishing in the 1980s and early 1990s (e.g. Steinhoff 1984, Chwin 1985, Robertson 1990, 1991, Brown 1991), only few critics elaborated on the turn toward the logocentric reading that had been promoted by Bolecki.


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Characteristically, those critical accounts that addressed Schulz’s reflexive treatment of the creative possibilities of language (Rachwa 1985, van der Meer 1990, Schönle 1991) all focused on the subcycle on tailors’ dummies (manekiny) in Sklepy cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops, 1934) and more specifically on the rich metaphorical power of such motives as the tailor’s dummy and “trash” (tandeta). In the wake of the 1992 jubilee year, the popularity of Bruno Schulz in literary and artistic criticism could not be stopped. What is typical of this new phase in Schulzology is the heterogeneity of critical approaches and research subjects – a situation which is, of course, completely in accordance with the typically postmodern plurality of philosophical, literary theoretical and culturological discourses that was gaining prominence in independent Poland (cf. D browski 2000 for a discussion of Schulz in this context). In an everincreasing number of publications (e.g. in two influential conference volumes: Kitowska-ysiak 1992 and Jarz bski 1994b), scholars began to devote attention to “new” topics such as the feminine element in Schulz, the local, Galician or Habsburg background of Schulz’s works, his creative reworking of biblical, kabbalistic, and Jewish elements, and eventually to Schulz’s visual output and its relation to his literary works. The position of Schulz’s artwork within Schulzology deserves a separate discussion. Although his pictorial works received critical attention in the 1920s and 1930s (Lauterbach 1929, Vogel 1930, Dresdner 1935, Witkiewicz 1935), they remained in the shadow of his literary works for many decades. The first steps toward rediscovering Schulz’s visual output were taken in the 1960s, with an exhibition of Schulz drawings in the Adam Mickiewicz Literary Museum and the subsequent publication of thirty Schulz reproductions (Schulz 1967). Although these initiatives coincided with an increasing interest in Schulz’s pictorial oeuvre (Witz 1967, Becker 1967) and were followed by some introductory articles in the foreign press (e.g. Kosko 1976), in-depth discussions of Schulz’s graphics and drawings began to appear only in the 1980s. Whereas Jerzy Ficowski’s archaeological approach led to the discovery and gradual publication of a wide variety of Schulz drawings and graphics (Ficowski 1967, 1975, 1988), the first researcher to map out a more scientific approach to Schulz’s artwork was Magorzata Kitowska-ysiak (1979, 1981, 1986). Her exploratory research eventually amounted to the inclusion of a wide

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range of art-related entries in the Bruno Schulz dictionary (Bolecki, Jarz bski and Rosiek 2003). For a long time, critical discussions of Schulz’s artwork have tended to remain in line with some of the main ideas expressed in Witkacy’s well-known “written interview” with Schulz (‘An Interview with Bruno Schulz’ and ‘An Essay for S.I. Witkiewicz’, Witkiewicz 1935). On the one hand, Schulz’s bold assertion of “having expressed [him]self more fully in [his] literary works” has been an incentive for many critics to treat his graphics and drawings as mere preliminaries to his literary works. On the other hand, Witkacy’s characterization of Schulz as a “demonologist” has paralleled a strong interest in the position of obsessive eroticism in Schulz’s pictorial output. From a biographical perspective, Schulz’s “demonological” art has tended to be linked to the artist’s personal obsessions and erotic perversions. In art-historical terms, the issue of demonic femininity and male masochism has often been discussed within the context of fin de siècle decadence and grotesque art (Kasjaniuk 1993, Kulig-Janarek 1994, Kitowska-ysiak 1994). Much attention has been paid, then, to Schulz’s artistic and thematic affinity with a wide variety of predecessors such as Francisco Goya, Aubrey Beardsley, Félicien Rops, etc. Notwithstanding the seemingly monothematic, anachronistic and repetitive character of Schulz’s graphics and drawings, the “pictorial” branch of Schulzology has gained more prominence and relevance in recent years. First of all, it has been pointed out that his illustrative works are more than mere illustrations and add a particular twist to his fiction (Wysouch 1992, Shallcross 1994). Also, in line with similar developments in the discussion of Schulz’s fiction, increasing attention has been drawn to the function of Jewish and Judaist elements in Schulz’s graphics and drawings, particularly kabbalistic messianism (Panas 1997, 2001). Apart from that, the repetitive character of Schulz’s pencil sketches and drawings has been increasingly differentiated from the more complex character of his early graphics (Van Heuckelom 2006, Kato 2009). To a certain extent, the aforementioned research currents seem to reflect the main shift that took place in the discussion of Schulz’s fiction, moving from mimetic approaches (focusing on the reality represented) toward more reflexive approaches (focusing on the process of representation). Emblematic for a more balanced approach toward Schulz’s artwork is


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Sikorski (2004), whose critical discussion of Schulz’s “symbolical world” draws both on Schulz’s literary and pictorial works. Although Schulz’s artwork will perhaps always remain in the shadow of his fiction, there seems to be a growing consensus that his graphics are artistic works in their own right rather than constituting a mere backdrop to his literary works. With regard to Schulz’s fiction, another popular critical strategy has been to compare Schulz’s works to an ever-increasing number of well- and less-known writers and literary trends. Parallel to this, the literary historical role of Schulz had to be reconsidered. Back in the 1980s, this issue had been already addressed by Jerzy Jarz bski, who proposed to locate the works of such “atypical avant-gardists” (1987: 160) as Schulz, Gombrowicz, and Witkacy “in either a broadly-conceived modernism or as a particular tendency in an equally widely-conceived avant-garde” (161). A few years later, then, Jarz bski signaled a shift in critical attention from Schulz as a modernist to Schulz as a postmodernist (1994a: 14) – which is also a shift from the idealism of ‘Mityzacja rzeczywistoci’ (‘The Mythologizing of Reality’) to the ironic stance of ‘An Essay for S.I. Witkiewicz’, and from the cycle ‘Traktat o manekinach’ (‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’) to the novella ‘Wiosna’ (‘Spring’). Although this tendency to treat Schulz as a harbinger of postmodernism was soon (and with good reason) criticized (cf. Bolecki 1999, Shallcross 1997: 255), stories such as ‘Ksi ga’ (‘The Book’), ‘Genialna epoka’ (‘The Age of Genius’), and ‘Spring’ proved to be extremely receptive to (more or less) poststructuralist readings (cf. Czabanowska-Wróbel 2001, Gowacka 1998, 1999 [1996], Hyde 1992, Kony 1995, Lachmann 1992, 1999 [1996], Markowski 1994, Ritz 1993, Rybicka 2000, Schönle 1998, Stala 1993, Waszak 2002). No matter how interesting the discussion of Schulz’s literary historical position may be, it is unclear whether or not it adds something substantial to our understanding of Schulz’s creative output. Indeed, as the pile of Schulzological writings keeps growing and growing, we should ask ourselves if there is any clear research agenda behind this occasionally blind worship of Schulz. Or, in plain words: what is it that makes us devote so much energy to the analysis of this quantitatively modest body of stories and graphic works? In order to gain an insight into this crucial problem of Schulzology, we should take a look at what some other critics have said about the

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problematic reception of Schulz’s fiction. In his groundbreaking monograph, On the Margins of Reality: the Paradoxes of Representation in Bruno Schulz’s Fiction, Krzysztof Stala comes up with the following observation: Why is it that these tales […] so stubbornly resist critical analysis and interpretation? Why do these critical essays only propose some fragmentary, marginal reading, being rather aware of the inexhaustibleness of Schulz’s prose than trying to define this inexhaustibleness, domesticate it with some proposal richer than “expression of the inexpressible”? (1993: 1)

What Stala suggests here is that Schulz’s stories merely evoke fragmentary, marginal readings which slavishly imitate the language of their subject of research, domesticating it over and over again with such poor proposals as “expression of the inexpressible”. According to us, what is hidden behind these readings is the same methodological fallacy which we already mentioned: more often than not, the same set of discursive and metafictional comments uttered in Schulz’s stories is used for interpreting these stories, which inevitably leads to a kind of circular (tautological) reasoning. Stala suggests that critics should try more to define Schulz’s literary world themselves rather than merely accepting the unreliable interpretative clues which are offered by the “author-like” first-person narrator. Contrary to Stala, Stanislaw Eile focuses on readings in which Schulz’s linguistic world is treated as an open structure which can be filled up with the most extraordinary content: Despite many digressions and metafictional comments articulated by the first-person narrator and the main character, his father, the extensive use of figurative language renders [Schulz’s] message rather confusing and consequently open to a variety of esoteric readings, which often demonstrate the inventiveness of critics rather than representing a convincing explication of the text. (1996: 97)

Eile seems to signal that such readings often misuse Schulz’s equivocal message in order to impose the most far-fetched meaning on it. Whereas the reading strategy discussed by Stala could be called “description without interpretation”, we could consider the one proposed by Eile as “interpretation without description”. In the former case, we get critical accounts which describe Schulz’s literary world


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by using its inherent terminology, whereas in the latter case the critic merely singles out what he needs from the text in order to substantiate his interpretation. According to us, the key to the future of Schulzology lies exactly in the liminal space between the two reading strategies: on the one hand, we should continue to scrutinize new and interesting influences and similarities and adopt new methodological frameworks, but on the other hand, we must always start from a clear description of what is actually happening in these stories or in their graphic counterparts. As we have seen in this brief overview of Schulzological writings, whatever critical scalpel one selects for dissecting Schulz’s fiction, there will always be a certain degree of textual resistance which cannot be broken, or in other words, taking off one of Schulz’s many masks, one will probably never avoid the impression that a new mask has emerged. Being fully aware of the relativity of each particular reading, the present volume aims to contribute to what we believe are the three main currents in Schulzology: combinations with other writers, trends, and traditions, fragmentations within new historical and theoretical contexts, and reintegrations of the ultimate sense of Schulz’s artistic universe. In addition, the book sets out to explore all of Schulz’s creative output (i.e. his stories as well as his graphic, epistolary and even literary critical works), as one of Schulz’s main goals was to cross artificially set up boundaries between, among other things, different artistic media of expression. In this way, the book should be seen as a continuation of the inspiring panels and fruitful discussions at the International Conference “The World of Bruno Schulz/Bruno Schulz and the World: Influences, Similarities, Reception” (Leuven, Belgium, May 25-26, 2007), which was organized in preparation to this volume by its editors. The first two parts of the book, “New Combinations: Literature” and “New Combinations: Art”, offer new comparative approaches to Schulz’s artistic legacy. Whereas some contributions further explore the problem of concrete influences on and creative reception of Schulz’s oeuvre, other articles present authors, trends and traditions which share typological similarities with his works. A first selection delves into the Jewish background of Schulz and his writings. Karen Underhill’s contribution sheds new light on Schulz’s ambivalent relationship with Jewish tradition by bringing into view the artistic and intellectual currents prominent within the generation of

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acculturated, “de-racinated” Jews to which Schulz belonged (including Martin Buber, Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem and Franz Kafka). Andrea Meyer-Fraatz’s article draws on similar premises but focuses on the problem of assimilation and acculturation within the context of modern Polish literature. In particular, she draws an interesting comparison between the diverging strategies of “literary” assimilation embodied by Schulz and his contemporary Bolesaw Lemian. Sawomir Jacek urek in turn discusses the influence of Schulz’s usage of “kabbalistic” motifs and ideas on the writings of another Polish author of Jewish descent, Arnold Sucki. Other chapters draw on all kinds of parallels between Schulz’s fiction and the works of twentieth-century Polish and foreign writers: Dieter De Bruyn employs the concept of “metafiction” as an interpretative tool for connecting Schulz’s stories with Karol Irzykowski’s novel Pauba (1903). According to De Bruyn, both authors demonstrate that no matter how hard literature tries to add a third dimension (depth, signifié), the reader will always be confronted with the two-dimensional reality of the text (surface, signifiant). While directing our attention to the position of Schulz within postwar Polish literature, Anna liwa puts Schulz’s work next to the poetry of Miron Biaoszewski. As her detailed analysis of Schulz’s and Biaoszewski’s “mythologization of the city” shows, the presence of striking (albeit superficial) convergences in the domain of “urban imagery” helps to highlight the differentia specifica of Schulz’s and Biaoszewski’s writings. The contributions of Alfred Gall and Dorota Wojda, finally, venture into the domain of world literature and “combine” Schulz’s works with respectively Yugoslav and Latin American literature. While Wojda compares Schulz’s usage of irony with Gabriel García Marquez’s magical realism in One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gall explores Schulzian echoes in the works of Danilo Kiš (in particular the ‘Treatise on the Potatoe’ chapter from Hourglass). As his analysis shows, the sophisticated intertextual play created by Kiš functions as a literary response to the Shoa. The second, art-related series of “combinations” starts with Marta Skwara’s elaborate discussion of the “(wo)man on a sofa” motif that often recurs in Schulz’s literary and plastic output. It allows Skwara to highlight the artist’s creative, unconventional, and transgressive application of traditional schemes and motifs. Schulz’s position as a (non-)traditional artist also comes to the fore in Ariko


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Kato’s contribution, which discusses the masochist and modernist aspects of Schulz’s early graphic works in relation to Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s novel Venus in Furs. Jan Zieliski, in turn, draws some interesting thematic and formal parallels between Schulz’s works and the paintings of one of his favorite artists, the Basque Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta. The issue of typological similarities between Schulz and other Modernist artists (in terms of biography and artistic practice) is central to Esther Sánchez-Pardo’s article on the American writer and visual artist Djuna Barnes. Daniel Watt’s closing article exposes the “incomparable reality” of Schulz’s stories by examining theatrical and cinematic “adaptations” of his works (for instance the Quay Brothers’ Street of Crocodiles). In the third part of the book, “Further Fragmentations”, detailed studies of single ideas or motives or of hitherto unnoticed subtexts will demonstrate once more that Schulz’s artistic universe allows for ever new fragmentary approaches, which merely reinforce its superficial polyvalence without ever disclosing its semantic core. The first of these approaches, as proposed by Mieczysaw D browski, is a discussion of Schulz’s works through the prism of the aesthetics of melancholy, which closely cooperates with the ironic aspects of Schulz’s writings. Another analytical approach is taken by Jerzy Jarz bski, who focuses on the “seductive activities” performed by the protagonists of Schulz’s stories and by the author himself. Shlomit Gorin in turn proposes to reconsider Schulz’s works from the perspective of the absurd. A strongly psychoanalytic stance is taken in Marta Suchaska-Dra yska’s contribution which relates the parallels between Schulz’s works and Freudian psychoanalysis to their common Jewish roots. Jörg Schulte’s contribution reconsiders Schulz’s knowledge of Greek mythology and cosmology by focusing on the recurrent usage of breath and wind metaphors throughout Schulz’s stories. The article by Thomas Anessi is strongly concerned with literary sociological matters and discusses Schulz’s paradoxical position of a writer both disconnected from and connected with the literary center of his time. While Anessi’s analysis focuses on Schulz’s links with Warsaw literary and cultural circles in the 1930s, Oksana Weretiuk’s contribution focuses on the particular reception of Schulz’s work in its “peripheral” place of origin, particularly among Ukrainian artists, writers, scholars, and the general public from the 1930s to the present.

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The last part of the book, “Ultimate Reintegrations”, attempts to gather all these bits and scraps of a unity long gone, “like fragments of a broken mirror” (dixit Schulz), in order to reintegrate our picture of Schulz’s artistic world. It remains to be seen, however, whether these final remarks conclude once and for all the ongoing discussion on Schulz’s essence, or if they bring new problematic issues into existence. According to Micha Pawe Markowski, central to Schulz’s ironical universe is the permanent deconstruction of apparent oppositions, such as the metaphysical dualism between essences and appearances and the opposition between high and low culture. Theodosia Robertson perceives a close link between Schulz’s early graphics and his later stories in the sense that they both aim to establish a form of intimate communication between the artist and his “select” audience. Alfred Sproede’s contribution breaks with the image of Schulz as a respectful propagator of Hasidic and kabbalistic thought by relating the author’s particular re-enactment of Hasidic tales and motifs to his dispute with the avant-garde movement. Janis Augsburger, finally, links the interpretative openness of Schulz’s fiction to the intellectual eclecticism that lies at the heart of his writings. The present volume would have never been completed without the help and support of some of our colleagues. First of all, we would like to extend our gratitude to our reviewers for their critical evaluation of the articles considered for publication, in particular Brian Banks, Rolf Fieguth, Theodosia Robertson, Katarzyna Ruchel-Stockmans, and Krzysztof Stala who took up the role of discussants during the 2007 Schulz conference in Belgium. We are also indebted to Marek W. Podstolski for granting permission to include reproductions of Schulz’s artwork and to Carol M. Richards for proofreading the articles. Bibliography Becker, Jan. 1967. ‘Bruno Schulz’ in Przegld artystyczny 5. Bolecki, Wodzimierz. 1996 [1982]. Poetycki model prozy w dwudziestoleciu midzywojennym. Kraków: Universitas. ——. 1999. ‘Le Postmodernisme? Ou peut-être un modernisme méconnu?: Witkacy – Gombrowicz – Schulz’ in Delaperrière, Maria (ed.) Modernisme en Europe Centrale. Les avant-gardes. Paris: L’Harmattan: 173-192.


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Bolecki, Wodzimierz, Jerzy Jarz bski and Stanisaw Rosiek (eds). 2003. Sownik schulzowski. Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria. Brown, Russell E. 1991. Myths and Relatives: Seven Essays on Bruno Schulz. München: Verlag Otto Sagner. Burek, Tomasz. 1966. ‘Ogromny fragment. Uwagi na marginesie lektury ksi gi zbiorowej Z problemów literatury polskiej XX wieku’ in Kultura i Spoeczestwo 10(4): 263-272. Chwin, Stefan. 1985. ‘Twórczo i autorytety. Bruno Schulz wobec romantycznych dilematów tworzenia’ in Pamitnik Literacki 76(1): 69-93. Czabanowska-Wróbel, Anna. 2001. ‘Fantazmaty dziecistwa: glosa do “Wiosny” Schulza’ in Ruch Literacki 42(1): 57-66. D browski, Mieczysaw. 2000. ‘Bruno Schulz w kontekcie wspóczesnych dyskursów o kulturze’ in Rocznik Towarzystwa Literackiego im. A. Mickiewicza 35: 23-35. Dresdner, Karol. 1935. Kultura i sztuka ludu ydowskiego na ziemiach polskich. Zbiory Maksymiljana Goldsteina. Lwów: M. Goldstein. Dubowik, Henryk. 1971. Nadrealizm w polskiej literaturze wspóczesnej (Prace Wydziau Nauk Humanistycznych B5). Pozna: Bydgoskie Towarzystwo Naukowe. Eile, Stanisaw. 1996. Modernist Trends in Twentieth-Century Polish Fiction. London: University of London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies. Ficowski, Jerzy. 1967. Regiony wielkiej herezji. Szkice o yciu i twórczoci Brunona Schulza. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ——. 1975. Regiony wielkiej herezji. Szkice o yciu i twórczoci Brunona Schulza. (2nd ed.) Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ——. 1986. Okolice sklepów cynamonowych. Szkice, przyczynki, impresje. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ——. 2002. Regiony wielkiej herezji i okolice. Bruno Schulz i jego mitologia. Sejny: Pogranicze. Fik, Ignacy. 1961 [1935]. ‘Literatura choromaniaków’ in Wybór pism krytycznych. Warszawa: Robotniczy Spódzielnia Wydawnicza: 125-134. Gowacka, Dorota. 1998. ‘The Heresiarchs of Form: Gombrowicz and Schulz’ in Ziarek-Ponowska, Ewa (ed.) Gombrowicz’s Grimaces: Modernism, Gender, Nationality: Albany: State University of New York Press: 65-88. ——. 1999 [1996]. ‘Sublime Trash and the Simulacrum: Bruno Schulz in the Postmodern Neighborhood’ in Prokopczyk, Czesaw Z. (ed.) Bruno Schulz: New Documents and Interpretations. New York: Peter Lang: 79-134. Golicki-Baur, Elisabeth. 1975. Die Prosa von Bruno Schulz. Bern: Lang. Hyde, George. 1992. ‘State of Arrest: The Short Stories of Bruno Schulz’ in Eile, Stanisaw and Phillips, Ursula (eds). New Perspectives on TwentiethCentury Polish Literature: Flight from Martyrology. London: Macmillan: 47-67. Jarz bski, Jerzy. 1973. ‘Sen o ‘zotym wieku’’ in Teksty 2(2): 104-121. ——. 1976. ‘Uwagi o semantyce przestrzeni i czasu w prozie Brunona Schulza’ in Czaplowa, Kazimiera (ed.) Studia o prozie Brunona Schulza (Prace naukowe Uniwersytetu l skiego w Katowicach 115). Katowice: Uniwersytet l ski: 49-73.

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——. 1984. ‘Czasoprzestrze mitu i marzenia w prozie Brunona Schulza’ in Powie jako autokreacja. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie: 170-226. ——. 1987. ‘Witkacy, Schulz and Gombrowicz versus the Avant-garde’ in Nilsson, Nils Äke (ed.) The Slavic Literatures and Modernism: a Nobel Symposium, August 5-8 1985. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International: 151-165. ——. 1994a. ‘Wst p: czytanie Schulza’ in Jarz bski (1994b): 5-17. ——. 1994b. Czytanie Schulza. Kraków: T.I.C. Karkowski, Czesaw. 1976. ‘System kultury Brunona Schulza’ in Czaplowa, Kazimiera (ed.) Studia o prozie Brunona Schulza (Prace naukowe Uniwersytetu l skiego w Katowicach 115). Katowice: Uniwersytet l ski: 3147. ——. 1980. Kultura i krytyka inteligencji w twórczoci Brunona Schulza. Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossoliskich. Kasjaniuk, Halina. 1993. ‘Rodowody i symbole w grafikach Schulza’ in Ciechowicz Jan and Kasjaniuk Halina (eds). Teatr Pamici Brunona Schulza. Gdynia: s.n.: 10-25. Kato, Ariko. 2009. ‘Obraz i Ksi ga. O autoreferencyjnoci w twórczoci Brunona Schulza’ in Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata (ed.) Biae plamy w schulzologii. Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL (forthcoming). Kitowska, Magorzata. 1979. ‘Czytaj c “Xi g Bawochwalcz ” in Twórczo 3: 157160. Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata. (ed.) 1981. ‘Xiga Bawochwalcza – grafiki oryginalne (cliché verre) Brunona Schulza’ in Biuletyn Historii Sztuki 4: 401-410. ——. 1986. ‘Brunona Schulza “Xi ga Bawochwalcza”. W sprawie analogii’ in Akcent 3: 154-161. —— (ed.) 1992a. Bruno Schulz in memoriam. 1892-1942. Lublin: Wydawnictwo FIS. ——. 1992b. ‘Bruno Schulz – “Xi ga Bawochwalcza”: wizja - forma – analogie’ in Kitowska-ysiak (1992a): 133-151. Kosiski, Krzysztof. 1976. ‘Schulzowskie modele komunikacji’ in Czaplowa, Kazimiera (ed.) Studia o prozie Brunona Schulza (Prace naukowe Uniwersytetu l skiego w Katowicach 115). Katowice: Uniwersytet l ski: 91102. Kosko, Allan 1976. ‘L’œuvre graphique de Bruno Schulz à la Sorbonne’ in Opus International 59. Kony, Witold. 1995. ‘“Bo czym e jest wiosna, jeli nie zmartwychwstaniem historyj”. (Zu Bruno Schulz’ Erzählung “Wiosna”)’ in Zeitschrift für Slavische Philologie 55(2): 313-322. Kulig-Janarek, Krystyna. 1992. ‘Erotyka – groteska – ironia – kreacja’ in Kitowskaysiak (1992a): 153-177. ——. 1993. ‘Schulzowska mitologia: Motywy, w tki, inspiracje w Xidze Bawochwalczej’ in Kresy 14: 37-49. Lachmann, Renate. 1992. ‘Dezentrierte Bilder. Die ekstatische Imagination in Bruno Schulz’ Prosa’ in Hansen-Löve, Aage (ed.) Psychopoetik. Beiträge zur Tagung “Psychologie und Literatur” München 1991 (Wiener Slawistischer Almanach, Sonderband 31). Wien: Gesellschaft zur Förderung slawistischer Studien: 439-461. ——. 1999 [1996]. ‘Demiurg i jego fantazmaty: spekulacje wokó mitologii stworzenia w dziele Bruno Schulza’ in Teksty Drugie 10(6): 103-119.


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Lauterbach, Artur. 1929. ‘Talent w ukryciu. O grafikach Brunona Schulza’ in Chwila 3740. Markowski, Micha Pawe. 1994. ‘“Wiosna”: mi dzy retoryk a erotyk ’ in Jarz bski, Jerzy (1994): 286-295. Miklaszewski, Krzysztof. 1966. ‘Cena wiadomoci. (Próba analizy opowiadania Bruno Schulza pt. ‘Pan’)’ in Ruch Literacki 7(6): 285-295. ——. 1971a. ‘Poeta prozy. (O poetyckiej materii prozy Brunona Schulza)’ in Poezja 7(7): 46-51. ——. 1971b. ‘O pewnej modernistycznej waciwoci prozy B. Schulza (na przykadzie Sklepów cynamonowych)’ in Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Jagielloskiego. Prace historycznoliterackie 21: 49-66. Panas, Wadysaw. 1974a. ‘‘Regiony czystej poezji’. O koncepcji j zyka w prozie B. Schulza’ in Roczniki Humanistyczne 22: 151-173. ——. 1974b. ‘Apologia i destrukcja (‘Noc wielkiego sezonu’ Brunona Schulza)’ in Bartoszyski, Kazimierz, Jasiska-Wojtkowska, Maria and Sawicki, Stefan (eds). Nowela. Opowiadanie. Gawda. Interpretacje maych form narracyjnych. Warszawa: Pastwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe: 191-205. ——. 1976. ‘‘Zst pienie w esencjonalno’. O ksztatach sowa w prozie Brunona Schulza’ in Czaplowa, Kazimiera (ed.) Studia o prozie Brunona Schulza (Prace naukowe Uniwersytetu l skiego w Katowicach 115). Katowice: Uniwersytet l ski: 75-89. ——. 1997. Ksiga blasku. Traktat o kabale w prozie Brunona Schulza. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL. ——. 2001. Bruno od Mesjasza. Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS. Rachwa, Tadeusz. 1985. ‘Remityzacja sowa. Rzecz o manekinach w prozie Brunona Schulza’ in Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu lskiego w Katowicach 668: 116-124. Ritz, German. 1993. ‘Die Fahrt in die Krokodilstraße als ein Verlassen des mythischen Raums: Zu einer Erzählung von Bruno Schulz’ in Zeitschrift für Slawistik 38(2): 207-216. Robertson, Theodosia S. 1990. ‘Time in Bruno Schulz’ in Indiana Slavic Studies 5: 181-192. ——. 1991. ‘Bruno Schulz and Comedy’ in The Polish Review 36(2): 119-126. Rybicka, El bieta. 2000. ‘B dzi w czytaniu: proza Brunona Schulza’ in Rybicka, El bieta, Formy labiryntu w prozie polskiej XX wieku. Kraków: Universitas: 102-127. Samojlik, Czesaw. 1965. ‘Groteska – pisarstwo wszechstronnie banalne… Sprawa prozy Brunona Schulza’ in Brodzka, Alina and abicki, Zbigniew (eds). Z problemów literatury polskiej XX wieku. II: Literatura midzywojenna. Warszawa: Pastwowy Instytut Wydawniczy: 266-296. Sandauer, Artur. 1964 [1956]. ‘Rzeczywisto zdegradowana (Rzecz o Brunonie Schulzu)’ in Schulz, Bruno, Proza. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie: 743. Schönle, Andreas. 1991. ‘Cinnamon Shops by Bruno Schulz: the Apology of Tandeta’ in The Polish Review 36(2): 127-144. ——. 1998. ‘Of Sublimity, Shrinkage, and Selfhood in the Works of Bruno Schulz’ in Slavic and East European Journal 42(3): 467-482.

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Schulz, Bruno. 1967. Prace Brunona Schulza. Blok-notes Muzeum Mickiewicza 5.1. Warszawa: Muzeum Literatury im. A. Mickiewicza. ——. 1988. Xiga Bawochwalcza. (ed. J. Ficowski). Warszawa: Interpress. Shallcross, Bo ena. 1994. ‘Pencil, Pen and Ink: Bruno Schulz’s Art of Interference’ in Pula, James (ed.) The Heart of Nation. Proceedings of PIASA International Congress. New York: PIASA & Columbia University Press: 57-68. ——. 1997. ‘Introduction: Bruno Schulz and Modernism’ in East European Politics and Societies 11(2): 254-256. Sikorski, Dariusz K. 2004. Symboliczny wiat Brunona Schulza. Supsk: Wydawnictwo Pomorskiej Akademii Pedagogicznej w Supsku. Speina, Jerzy. 1971. ‘Bruno Schulz a nadrealizm’ in Hutnikiewicz, Artur and Zaworska, Helena (eds). O prozie polskiej XX wieku (Z Dziejów Form Artystycznych W Literaturze Polskiej 24). Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossoliskich: 183-198. ——. 1974. Bankructwo realnoci. Proza Brunona Schulza. Warszawa: PWN. Stala, Krzysztof. 1993. On the Margins of Reality: the Paradoxes of Representation in Bruno Schulz’s Fiction. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Steinhoff, Lutz. 1984. Rückkehr zur Kindheit als groteskes Denkspiel. Ein Beitrag zum Motiv des ‘dojrze’ do dziecistwa in den Erzählungen von Bruno Schulz. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. Sulikowski, Andrzej. 1978. ‘Twórczo Brunona Schulza w krytyce i badaniach literackich (1934-1976)’ in Pamitnik Literacki 69(2): 264-303. Szymaski, Wiesaw Pawe. 1970. ‘O twórczoci Brunona Schulza’ in Ruch Literacki 11(5): 295-306. Taylor Sen, Colleen. 1969. ‘Childhood Revisited: The Writings of Bruno Schulz’ in Slavic and East European Journal 13(4): 455-472. ——. 1972. Polish Experimental Fiction 1900-1939: A Comparative Study of the Novels of Karol Irzykowski, Stanisaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, Witold Gombrowicz and Bruno Schulz. PhD thesis. Columbia University. van der Meer, Jan Y. 1990. ‘On Bruno Schulz’s “Tailors’ Dummies”’ in de Haard, Eric, Thomas Langerak and Willem G. Weststeijn (eds). Semantic Analysis of Literary Texts. To Honour Jan van der Eng on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. Amsterdam: Elsevier: 385-405. Van Heuckelom, Kris. 2006. ‘Artistic Crossover in Polish Modernism. The Case of Bruno Schulz’s Xi ga Bawochwalcza (The Idolatrous Booke)’ in Image [&] Narrative. Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative 15. On line at: http://www.imageandnarrative.be/iconoclasm/heuckelom.htm (consulted 18.05.2008). Vogel, Debora. 1930. [‘Bruno Schulz’] in Judisk tidskrift 3: 224-226. Waszak, Tomasz. 2002. ‘Die Republik der Texte. Bruno Schulz’ Das Sanatorium zur Todesanzeige als utopisches Dokument’ in Orbis Linguarum 22: 37-49. Witkiewicz, Stanisaw Ignacy. 1935. ‘Wywiad z Brunonem Schulzem’ in Tygodnik Ilustrowany 17: 321-323. Witz, Ignacy. 1967. Obszary malarskiej wyobra ni. Eseje. Kraków: Wyd. Literackie. Wyka, Kazimierz and Stefan Napierski. 2000 [1939]. ‘Dwugos o Schulzu’ in Wyka, Kazimierz, Stara szuflada i inne szkice z lat 1932-1939. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie: 419-427.


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Wyskiel, Wojciech. 1977a. ‘Brunona Schulza porozumienie z czytelnikiem’ in Bujnicki, Tadeusz and Janusz Sawiski (eds). Problemy odbioru i odbiorcy. Wrocaw etc.: Ossolineum: 257-267. ——. 1977b. ‘wiat i j zyk w dziele Brunona Schulza’ in Ruch Literacki 18(2): 119135. ——. 1980. Inna twarz Hioba. Problematyka alienacyjna w dziele Brunona Schulza. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. Wysouch, Seweryna. 1992. ‘Ilustracja autorska – casus Brunona Schulza’ in Teksty Drugie 5(17): 116-122.

Ecstasy and Heresy: Martin Buber, Bruno Schulz, and Jewish Modernity Karen Underhill Abstract: Bruno Schulz’s complex and ambivalent relationship with Jewish tradition and subject matter, and his use of Hasidic and kabbalistic tropes and imagery, are viewed alongside modern intellectual and artistic currents prominent within the Jewish community at the time he was writing. Specifically, the essay discusses the trend dubbed “fin de siècle Orientalism” and the influence of Martin Buber’s work on the perception of Hasidic culture among the generation of acculturated, “de-racinated” Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to which Schulz belonged. The article goes on to explore the divergent paths through which Buber and Schulz engaged and incorporated elements of Jewish tradition in their respective forms of “remythologization”.

Introduction By proposing a dialogue between the texts of Bruno Schulz and Martin Buber, I would like to engage Schulz as a Jewish writer and artist in the context of what Benjamin Harshav has called “the modern Jewish revolution” (Harshav 1993). His phrase refers to the period of a few decades from the end of the nineteenth century until World War II in which Jews negotiated the complex paths of entry into modern European society. Given the complex and often uneasy relationship that Schulz’s work has with Jewish heritage and the Jewish cultural currents of his time, I would like to examine some of the motivations and strategies for engaging that tradition which existed among assimilating, cosmopolitan Jewish artists and thinkers in the early twentieth century. Schulz and his work can fruitfully be placed within a constellation of assimilated Jewish intellectuals of his generation, whose work reveals an attempt to incorporate Jewish philosophical and mystical heritage into modern, often secular systems of thought: including Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem, Franz Kafka, Martin

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Buber and Franz Rosenzweig. All chose to engage that tradition in different ways – from philosophical, scientific, artistic, or theological perspectives, respectively – but all are illustrative of a certain intellectual genealogy, a recognizable trend among assimilated Jewish intellectuals in the early part of the twentieth century: their work and the type of philosophical “solutions” they propose are influenced by, and have incorporated into their language and imagery, elements of Jewish mystical and messianic philosophy – including attitudes toward language drawn from kabbalah, certain elements drawn from Hasidic philosophy, and the Hasidic storytelling tradition. My interest in placing Schulz within this constellation is to consider his own positioning within a range of choices made by assimilated Jewish writers and artists, about how to engage Jewish, and in particular Eastern European Hasidic tradition, and how to give it a vital continuity within their modern, cosmopolitan, and broadly European context. In particular, I look at two members of this generation, Schulz and Buber, who placed the idea of modern myth-making or “remythologization” at the center of their work and for whom the relationship with myth is simultaneously a relationship to Jewish tradition of the Galician region. For both writers, the search for authenticity and meaning in the modern world involves negotiating a relationship with the Jewish past – but one that is not only not traditional but also entails an emphatic rejection of traditional religious practice or belief and the construction instead of an association of that which is “truly Jewish” with that which is strongly heretical. The divergent ways in which Buber and Schulz negotiated that relationship are as expressive of the modern Jewish experience as is the overlap in their vocabularies and thematics.1 While for Buber this relationship would take the form of commitment to the Zionist cause and to Cultural Zionism, Schulz’s solution takes a more decadent modernist turn: it involves envisioning Jewish spirit and 1

Both writers were the children of assimilated Jewish parents in the AustroHungarian Empire. Both grew up near Lwów, and were educated in Polish gymnasia. A decisive difference lies in their exposure to Jewish languages and traditional religious practice. Buber was raised at the home of his grandparents; and while Buber wrote that “it was not Hasidism alone from which I was alienated at that time, but Judaism as a whole” (Buber 1958: 47), even so his grandfather Salomon Buber was a devoted Midrash scholar. Alongside Classical and European languages, Buber learned Hebrew, which Schulz did not.

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heritage as a source of marginalized or repressed inspiration and authenticity, an underground or hidden source of vitality, more powerful precisely for its very sublimation; fertile not despite but because of its degradation, like the decayed material of an organic compost which contributes to the most fertile humus. Considering the very different models Buber and Schulz present involves engaging the problems both of continuity and authenticity: what keeps a tradition vital? What is the role of the heresiarch in negotiating the path from tradition into modernity? I argue that a consideration of Buber’s influential early work with Hasidic culture can help to shed light on the context in which Schulz himself encountered this complex challenge. Hence, the present study will specifically highlight the significant influence that Buber’s work had on the attitudes of assimilated Jewish intellectuals of Central Europe in the early twentieth century toward Hasidic culture, philosophy, and storytelling. Schulz as a Jewish Writer Over the past decade or so, scholars of Schulz have taken a number of different approaches in discussing Jewish themes and sources in his work: Jan Boski (1994) emphasizes the traditional biblical culture and the culture of the book, the late Wadysaw Panas (1997) examines how kabbalistic tropes – of creation through a process of contraction and emanation, of repair through the recuperation of sparks of divinity scattered in the lower world; or of the divine spirit or Shekhinah in exile in the world – are woven throughout the stories. Eugenia Prokop-Janiec (1994) provides an important overview of the historical background of the Galician crossroads in which Schulz developed as a Polish Jewish writer, working amidst a melting pot of cultures. Bo ena Shallcross (1997) considers Schulz’s modernist retextualization of aspects of Lurianic kabbalah, while David Goldfarb’s in-depth reading of ‘Noc wielkiego sezonu’ (‘The Night of the Great Season’) explores Schulz’s use of elements from Jewish mythology and tradition, and more broadly his adaptation of a Talmudic model for imagining both what it is to write – the story as a commentary or exegesis in the margins of an original text – and how Schulz encourages us to read and interact with his text (1994). Jörg Schulte (2003) has analyzed Schulz’s use of allusions to the Jewish calendar, and Shalom Lindenbaum (1994) uncovers the extensive

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references throughout Schulz’s work to elements of Jewish mysticism and messianism. All of these contributions testify to a complex engagement on Schulz’s part with Jewish culture, played out within his prose writings and graphic works. Throughout his prose, this engagement with Jewish tradition is not a sideline or simply a recurring motif: it is closely connected, though in an uneasy dance of push and pull, to the search for authenticity in the modern world. It is also true that the ways that Jewish elements appear in Schulz’s texts – often coded in allusive or allegorical references that also become some of his most powerful, many-layered metaphors – reveal a simultaneous rejection of and embracing of Jewish sources – less an erasure than a sublimation of Jewish content. While the studies I mentioned above successfully tease out a multitude of allusions to Jewish tradition and culture in Schulz’s work, he can also be seen as a writer who goes to some length to de-ethnicize and de-contextualize his writing, seeking its entry into a non-marked community of European letters that shares a broadly modern, cosmopolitan sensibility. In this sense Schulz’s work reveals a tension characteristic of the modern Jewish experience, between competing urges. One involves negotiating a vital relationship with Jewish tradition, and writing oneself and one’s work into the literary lineage of that tradition. As Schulz writes: Ach, i spisuj c te nasze opowiadania, szereguj c t histori o moim ojcu na zu ytym marginesie jej tekstu, czy nie oddaj si tajnej nadziei, e wrosn one kiedy niepostrze enie mi dzy z óke kartki tej najwspanialszej, rozsypuj cej si ksi gi, e wejd w wielki szelest jej stronic, który je pochonie? (Schulz 1989: 98)2 (Ah, when writing down these tales, revising the stories about my father on the used margins of its text, don’t I, too, surrender to the secret hope that they will merge imperceptibly with the yellowing pages of that most splendid, mouldering book, that they will sink into the gentle rustle of its pages and become absorbed there?; Schulz 1988: 87)3

The other involves striving both to create and to inhabit an intellectual community – and within the texts themselves, a narrative space – that transcends ethnic specificity; that escapes history or the temporary forms into which the human mythologizing urge temporarily gels. A 2 3

All further references will be given as Op. All further references will be given as TF.


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hopeful striving, but also a self-effacing one: for it expresses a yearning to belong to an intellectual and spiritual community in which Jewishness is not a factor – or in which it is something to be overcome. Given this ambivalence, a relevant question becomes: how can we understand the presence and use of Jewish themes in Schulz’s work? It is far from self-evident that an assimilated Jewish intellectual who did not receive a Jewish education or read Jewish religious texts in their original languages would develop a poetics influenced by kabbalistic philosophy or imagery, kabbalistic theories of language, or the Hasidic storytelling tradition. What then is the nature of Schulz’s engagement with Jewish tradition? According to the distinctions proposed by Benjamin Harshav in his seminal study of the modern Jewish experience, Language in Time of Revolution, Schulz would belong to that group of Jewish intellectuals of his generation who reflect the “extrinsic” route of entry into modern European culture. Harshav writes: What occurred in this period [within the Jewish community] was a multidirectional, centrifugal movement away from the old existence, symbolized by the religious culture of the Eastern European small town, the shtetl, as mythologized in Jewish fiction. […] [T]he movement went in two directions, extrinsic and intrinsic. (1993: 14) In other words: either go to the center of culture (in both the physical and spiritual sense), master its language, literature, ideologies, behavior, and science, and become a member of that language community (German, Russian, English),4 or create a parallel culture in Jewish languages [Yiddish and Modern Hebrew] that would have similar genres, norms, ideas, institutions, and achievements. Through either of those, you join cosmopolitan European culture as a whole. (1993: 5)

If we accept this perhaps too-easy dichotomy, then Schulz clearly embraced the extrinsic route, choosing to write in Polish and attach himself to the Polish literary community – as opposed to joining, for example, the Yiddishist movement, as did Debora Vogel, or actively identifying with the young Zionist art movement that was strong in Lwów, or striving for the articulation of a space for a demonstratively Polish-Jewish literature (cf. Prokop-Janiec 1994). This bears mentioning because while Schulz may have been raised with Polish as a mother tongue, as the language of the home and the school, even so 4

I will add here, Polish, which interestingly goes unmentioned in Harshav’s study.

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his decision to enter Polish letters represents a choice and not a given. As Harshav writes, it was impossible to remain oblivious to the debate: The hostilities between all the intrinsic trends and the assimilationists, between the Socialists and the Zionists, […] between Yiddish and Hebrew, between Western Jews and Eastern Jews, were in the center of social consciousness and public debate. No Jew in this secularized period seemed able to live without active consciousness, and in Jewish behavior there was no consciousness without a position in a debate. (1993: 16)

In order to help elucidate the context for Schulz’s particular engagement with Jewish and Hasidic tradition, the present article will discuss one important element of the intellectual environment in which Schulz was developing his artistic identity and his unusual oeuvre: namely, the influence of Martin Buber’s writings, and charismatic speeches, on an entire generation of assimilating Jews. In particular I will discuss some of the themes put forward in Buber’s early lectures on Judaism – later published in two collections Drei Reden über das Judentum (Three Addresses on Judaism, 1911) and Vom Geist des Judentums (The Spirit of Judaism, 1916) – which he was invited by the Bar Kochba Students’ Association of Prague to deliver to the sizable assimilated public of Prague between 1909 and 1914. These lectures had an enormous impact on those members of the younger generation who attended them or later read them. Martin Buber and Fin de siècle Orientalism Buber’s early lectures on Judaism and his and his wife Paula Buber’s retellings in German of Hasidic tales appealed particularly to those who had moved away from traditional religious practice, had been educated in German, Polish, or Czech, and had joined, or hoped to join, a cosmopolitan, secular European culture as citizens of their respective countries. Estranged from their ethnic and religious traditions, and often no longer speaking a Jewish language, whether Hebrew or even Yiddish, many in this generation developed a more or less-articulated longing for a revived relationship with Jewish tradition (even as their European compatriots around them were discovering new romanticized conceptions of traditional European folk culture) and sought possibilities for an affirmative relationship with that


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tradition that did not require adherence to halakhic law or the separation of the Jew from the larger society and culture in which he or she lived. Buber’s lectures became a kind of bellwether and inspiration for a generation of Jewish intellectuals – transforming the attitudes toward their Jewish heritage of such thinkers as Franz Kafka, Max Brod, Georg Lukács, Ernst Bloch, and Gustav Landauer; individuals who, like Schulz, took an “extrinsic” path of participation in European letters, and aligned themselves neither with Zionism nor with Buber’s modern religiosity. Left-wing anarchist Gustav Landauer writing on Buber’s influence said: If I now say that […] it is precisely through the mediation of Martin Buber that I have found Judaism, I must caution all who do not know the world of Jewish spirit to which Buber brings us, not to conjure up a formal religion and ritual practices. (in Mendes-Flohr 1991: 107)

What Landauer responded to in Buber’s collection of Hasidic tales, Die Legende des Baalschem (The Legend of the Baal Shem, 1908), was rather a way of understanding his Judaism as an “‘inalienable’ spiritual sensibility” (Mendes-Flohr 1991: 107) which he shared with his fellow Jews, and which was independent of formal belief and affiliation. Drawing on categories proposed by his teacher Georg Simmel, Buber introduced the division between religion and religiosity (Schaeder 1973: 51). Religion – as practice, observance of halakhic law – was staunchly rejected as no longer valid for the modern Jew. But “religiosity” was brought forward as a primary value, a quality present in the individual who was open to the perception of authenticity and wholeness or unity and who sought in affirming this perception to restore meaning to life in modern Europe. For Buber, this sensitivity or openness was characteristic of the Jewish spirit, was latent in the soul of even the most deracinated modern Jew. Of relevance to our study of Schulz, Landauer “also learned from Buber that often those Jews who were most faithful to this sensibility were aligned with an unofficial, indeed heretical tradition” (MendesFlohr 1991: 107). This idea was central to Buber’s reevaluation of Jewish tradition and his understanding of the revitalizing role Hasidism had played in that tradition. What Martin Buber offered, then, was a discourse and a new way of thinking about Judaism that this assimilated generation was looking for – and it was based in a revaluing of precisely the culture of

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the so-called Ostjuden – a negative epithet which referred to unassimilated Polish Jewry, and in particular Hasidim. Writes Paul Mendes-Flohr: [Buber] rendered Hasidism respectable, as it were, by integrating this most distinctive manifestation of East European Jewish spirituality into the general discourse and idiom of the New Romanticism (and later, of Expressionism). By virtue of Buber’s inspired presentation, Hasidism – and the millenial Jewish tradition from whence it emerged – was deemed relevant to the concerns of the educated individual involved in the spiritual quest of the fin de siècle. (1991: 14)

As Mendes-Flohr points out, the call that Buber made to his contemporaries, in these lectures and in his early writings on Hasidic culture, represents a specifically Jewish manifestation of a wider trend, or movement at the fin de siècle, and on into the interwar period, then dubbed the “New Romanticism”. The name was coined by German publisher Eugen Diederichs, who published Buber’s collection entitled Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic Confessions) in 1909, and whose publishing house sought to promote “a return to a higher transcendent reality” (Mendes-Flohr 1991: 80). For Jews and non-Jews, this was a period of vigorous interest in mysticism, and, under the strong influence of Schopenhauer, particularly in many forms of Eastern or “Oriental” spirituality, including Hinduism and Buddhism and, as a result of Buber’s efforts, later Hasidism – hence the term “fin de siècle Orientalism”. Adherents of the New Romanticism sought, and found in the teachings of the Orient, material and language for a revived spirituality, while at the same time vehemently rejecting organized religion, whether Christian or Jewish. They turned for inspiration, both spiritual and artistic, to mysticism, folklore, and the occult, and sought meaning and even potential salvation in art, poetry, theater, music – in forms of cultural expression that were based on a return to myth and reconnecting with mythic consciousness. Almost paradoxically, within the Jewish world, this new interest in Oriental spirituality and culture offered an opportunity to radically transform the relationship of assimilated Jewish intellectuals to their own past – to Jewish tradition. For within European discourse Judaism itself had been considered an Oriental religion and culture – with all the negative connotations that that had previously carried. By


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the turn of the century, and since the Jewish Enlightenment or Haskalah and the entry of Jews into wider European society in Western Europe, the relationship of assimilated Jews to their “unenlightened” neighbors to the East had become a strongly conflicted and even pained one. Assimilating Jews, particularly in Germany and the West but also in Poland and Russia, had internalized Europe’s negative image of the Jew as Oriental and transformed their own discomfort with Jewishness into a fear and scorn for the Orthodox and Hasidic Jewry of Poland and Eastern Europe. Viennese writer Karl Emil Franzos, also born in Galicia, referred to this Polish region in his very popular novels as Halb-Asien – “an exotic world characterized by squalor, ignorance, and superstition, and ruled by a fanatic mystical sect known as Hasidim” (in Mendes-Flohr 1991: 83). In the climate of fin de siècle Orientalism, however, with the rise of interest in Eastern religions and the new respect for eastern spirituality and mysticism, it became possible for Buber to effect a complete turn-around of this attitude among many members of his generation and the generations to follow. He was able to appropriate the image of the Jew as Oriental, to make it a sign of how Jews had in themselves and in their tradition a source of deep spirituality that modern European intellectuals and artists were now seeking. Hasidic culture and tradition, reexamined and repackaged as Oriental spirituality in the positive sense, could be seen as a source of living spirituality and still vital myth and legend, which should be an inspiration not only to modern Jews but to European culture. In his speech ‘The Spirit of the Orient and Judaism’, Judaism – in particular Hasidism – becomes, in fact, the highest expression of the Oriental spirit, and modern, secular Jews as the inheritors of this tradition are invested with a world-historical mission; they are a promise of spiritual hope to all nations. He concluded his lecture by saying: For this world-historical mission, Europe has at its disposal a mediating people that has acquired all the wisdom and the skills of the Occident without losing its original Oriental character, a people called to link Orient and Occident in fruitful reciprocity, just as it is perhaps called to fuse the spirit of the East and the West in a new teaching. (Buber 1967: 78)

As part of this shift in perception, Hasidic legends and mythology drawn from popular kabbalah and the Hasidic oral storytelling tradition, could also become a rich source of inspiration

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for modern and modernist literature, in its many incarnations in several languages. The Bubers’ German-language renditions of Hasidic legends, and Martin Buber’s essays which introduced Hasidic philosophy and basic principles of the kabbalah, opened the tradition up to assimilated Jewish writers and artists, who would not have had access to this tradition in any Jewish language. Buber’s translations were certainly not the only work on Jewish mysticism available in German; there were numerous scholarly studies on the kabbalah published in German, including work by Marcus Ehrenpreis, the uncle of Debora Vogel. But they reached an incomparably larger audience of secular, assimilated Jews who likely would not have expected to be drawn to this material – in a way, at the time, and with a message that many of them wanted to hear. It is also true that Polish-Jewish readers from Galicia would have brought a different perspective to Buber’s Hasidic tales and essays than their German and Austrian neighbors. For them the Hasidic culture that Buber was re-presenting was neither foreign nor exotic but a part of everyday life in Galician cities, and Hasidim were a sizable portion of the Jewish population of the region. Buber’s revaluation, then, could instead have served to complement and complicate their own exposure to the Hasidic world and to its philosophy and storytelling traditions and to change their intellectual and artistic engagement with the heritage of that culture, which thrived in the towns and cities of Galicia, like Drohobycz. As David Goldfarb writes: Schulz probably did not have intimate direct knowledge of Zohar or Talmud or Maimonides in Hebrew and Aramaic, but he could have read them in German, and it would have been difficult to avoid absorbing their style and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in Galicia at the time of Schulz’s youth. (1997: 265)

Indeed, Schulz’s exposure to Hasidic culture, and to the Hasidic oral storytelling tradition, would have begun in childhood – as it did for Buber. It is neither possible nor necessary to our study to establish whether and which titles by Martin Buber Schulz himself may have read though it is likely that he would have read Die Geschichten des


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Rabbi Nachman (Tales of Rabbi Nachman, 1906)5 or discussions in periodicals concerning Buber’s presentation of Hasidic philosophy, as so many of his generation did. More importantly, however, in negotiating his relationship to Hasidic culture and choosing to build his poetics and many of the most powerful images in his stories around a re-working of aspects of Hasidic culture, Schulz reveals sympathy with the wider trend within the Jewish intellectual community that Buber pioneered. It is my conviction, then, that this context of fin de siècle Orientalism – in particular the positive reinterpretation of Jewish mysticism, Hasidic legend and myth, and a perception of the vital and heretical elements of the Jewish spirit – can help us to situate Schulz’s uses of elements from these Jewish traditions. As I will suggest, Schulz’s prose works and poetic theory can be read as a modernist – at times irreverent – literary answer to the call that Buber made to his generation. Ecstasy and Heresy: Making the World “God-Real” What were the specific elements of that call, as Buber formulated them in his early lectures, and in the introductions to his two most widely-read collections of Hasidic tales? I will summarize here a number of key elements and also suggest points of overlap between Buber’s discussion and Schulz’s poetics. Essentially, Buber identifies the need for a revived perception of “unity” in the world and connects the search for authentic life with an innate striving to restore a lost unity, or original state of wholeness. He understands this “striving for unity” as the most elemental drive in mankind and that which connects him to the Divine. Schulz’s poetics also adopts this basic premise but mapped onto the field of language and the Word. If for Buber “being” is in a state of duality, for Schulz it is language that is splintered, in shards, and longs to be restored to its home in myth. 5

Also influential and widely read were the three essays on Hasidic thought which were published in this edition (Buber 1906) and provide an introduction to the Tales: ‘Die jüdische Mystik’, ‘Rabbi Nachman von Bratzlaw’ and ‘Worte des Rabbi Nachman’. Numerous other editions of Buber’s works on Hasidism were also available before the mid-1930s, including Buber 1908, 1918, 1930 and 1935. In a 1903 album profiling a number of modern Jewish artists that was edited by Buber, he already makes reference to the significance of Hasidic tradition for the modern or “new” Jewish artist.

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Buber writes: “The Orient perceives that […] the primally intended unity is split and distorted; […] Man is called upon to change being from duality to unity. The world is waiting for man, to be unified by him” (1967: 62). And Schulz writes, in ‘Mityzacja rzeczywistoci’ (‘The Mythologizing of Reality’): Sowo w potocznym dziesiejszym znaczeniu jest ju tylko fragmentem, rudymentem jakiej dawnej wszechobejmuj cej, integralnej mitologii. Dlatego jest w nim d no do odrastania, do regeneracji, do uzupeniania si w peny sens. […] Poezja odpoznaje te sensy stracone, przywraca sowom ich miejsce, czy je wedug dawnych znacze. U poety sowo opami tuje si niejako na swój sens istotny, rozkwita i rozwija si

spontanicznie […] odzyskuje sw integralno. (Op 385) (The word in its common usage today is only a fragment, remnant of some former all-embracing, integral mythology. That is why it possesses a tendency to grow back, to regenerate and complete itself in full meaning. […] Poetry recognizes these lost meanings, restores words to their places, connects them by the old semantics. In the poet’s mind, the word remembers, so to speak, its essential meaning, blossoms, unfolds spontaneously […] regains its wholeness; Schulz 1998: 372)

Buber describes a particular type of individual (variously described as the Oriental, the Jew, the mystic) who is open and susceptible to the perception of that authenticity and wholeness. Such an individual experiences a call or command, in the form of an ecstatic revelation that manifests itself viscerally, as light, color, and a sense of the intense interconnectedness of all things in the physical world. He is a person – in one of his stranger formulations Buber calls him the motorischer-mensch or “motor-type man” – for whom all of the senses are interconnected. Schulz’s particular poetics, so full of synaesthesia, rich layers of metaphor and metonymy, and the permanent mutability of forms, offers an excellent corollary in prose of the type of perception that Buber discusses. For Buber, the individual who is gifted with such perception experiences it as a “demand”: he takes on the burden, as a life task, of working to express his perception of that unity and divine presence. Similarly, young Joseph in ‘Ksi ga’ (‘The Book’) states: “I knew then that The Book [the Authentic] is a postulate, that it is a goal. I carried upon my shoulders the burden of a great mission” (TF 129; “Wiedziaem, e Ksi ga jest postulatem, e jest zadaniem. Czuem na barkach ci ar wielkiego posannictwa”; Op 118). For Buber, the revelation experienced by the ecstatic can be


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described as a “God image”; and it is this that is captured in true myth. He writes: Myth, where it really is myth and therefore different from and greater than fable, is an account not imagined by man but impressed upon him, impressed, that is, upon that human being who is alive with a burning sense of color and shape. (1967: 6)

Schulz’s ‘The Book’, together with the story ‘Genialna Epoka’ (‘The Age of Genius’), in which the protagonist experiences his ecstatic initiation into the life of the artist, again provides a modernist poetic rendition of these elements of Buber’s discussion. In his ecstatic state of heightened perception, the young Joseph experiences an intensity of color and shape, an invasion of brightness – literally, he has “a burning sense of color and shape”: [W]skazuj c na sup ognisty, na zot belk , która tkwia ukonie w powietrzu, jak zadra, i nie daa si zepchn – pena blasku i kr cych w niej pyów – krzyczaem: – Wydrzyj j , wyrwij! […] wyci gni tymi, wydu onymi palcami pokazywaem […] wypr ony jak drogowskaz i dr cy w ekstazie. (Op 131) (Pointing to the column of fire, a golden bar that shot through the air like a splinter and would not disappear – full of brightness and spiraling dust specks – I cried: “Tear it out, tear it out!” […] I stood rigid like a signpost, with outstretched, elongated fingers […] hand trembling in ecstasy; TF 141)

Buber presents the heritage of Jewish myth and legend as a powerful expression of the “unitary spirit”. Myth for him is “the living force of God-consciousness” (1967). But crucially, Buber emphasizes that true, living myth is that which has always escaped – as heresy, mysticism, or oral, folk tradition – from the calcifying and deadening effects of organized religion and institutions. It exists in the margins, as it were, of the tradition and of the texts. In one paean to the power of subterranean myth in Judaism, he writes: To be sure, rabbinism, in its blind zeal to build a fence around Judaism, endeavored to restore a faith in God that was “purified” of myth; but the result of this endeavor was a miserable homunculus. And this homunculus was the eternal exilarch: it held sway over the galut generations; under its tyranny the living force of Jewish God-consciousness, myth, had to lock itself in the tower of the Kabbalah, or hide behind the women’s distaff, or

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Karen Underhill flee from the walls of the ghetto into the world. It was tolerated as an esoteric doctrine, or scorned as superstition, or banished as heresy, until Hasidism established it on a throne, a throne of a short day’s duration, from which it was pushed down to slink around, like a beggar, in our melancholy dreams. (1967: 100)

We are reminded of Schulz’s principle question: “Where is Truth to shelter, where is it it to find asylum if not in a place where nobody is looking for it: in fairground calendars and almanacs, in the canticles of beggars and tramps…” (TF 189; “Gdzie ma schroni si wykl ta, gdzie znale asylum, jeli nie tam, gdzie jej nikt nie szuka – w jarmarcznych kalendarzach i komeniuszach, w tych ebraczych i dziadowskich kantyczkach…”; Op 189). Buber’s tirade against rabbinism is strongly reminiscent of Schulz’s opposition in ‘Wiosna’ (‘Spring’), between the prosaic world of Franz Joseph, and the Divine and heretical power of the stamp album. Where Buber speaks in religious categories, Schulz maps this ostensibly Jewish tradition of “heretical mythmaking” onto the realm of secular, modernist – and Polish – literature. Whereas Buber sets the vital regenerative power of Hasidic myth and legend in opposition to the rabbinic authorities, in ‘Spring’ it is the appearance of the stamp album on the scene – an incarnation of Schulz’s “authentic” – that offers Joseph escape from the suffocating domination of Franz Joseph’s world of prose: Ale gdy ju wi zienie zamyka si nieodwoalnie, gdy ostatni otwór jest zamurowany, gdy wszystko sprzysi go si , a eby ci przemilcze, o Bo e, gdy Franciszek Józef I zatarasowa, zalepi ostatni szpar , a eby ci nie dojrzano, wtedy powstae w szumi cym paszczu mórz i kontynentów i kam mu zadae. Ty, Bo e, wzi e wtedy na siebie odium herezji i wybuchn e na wiat tym ogromnym kolorowym i wspaniaym blunierstwem. O herezjarcho wspaniay! Uderzye wtedy we mnie t pon c ksi g […] (Op 156) (But when the prison seemed irrevocably shut, when the last bolt-hole was bricked up, when everything had conspired to keep silent about You, Oh God, when Franz Joseph had barred and sealed even the last chink so that one should not be able to see You, then You rose wearing a flowing cloak of seas and continents and gave him the lie. You, God, took upon yourself the odium of heresy and revealed this enormous, magnificent, colourful blasphemy to the world. Oh splendid Heresiarch! You struck me with the burning book […]; TF 159-60)


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The heretic, for Buber (the Baal Shem Tov, eighteenthcentury founder of Hasidism being the best example) is privileged as the true purveyor of what is vital in the tradition, as the true prophet. Schulz’s prophet, too, may be a madman, a criminal, a child, but he speaks from the margins, from outside of power. Buber also emphasizes the concept, drawn from Hasidic philosophy, that truth is to be found in the low places: “Revelation”, he writes, “does not flash from the cloud, but from the lowly things themselves; it whispers to us in the course of the ordinary every day, and it is alive quite near us, quite close” (1967: 6). Summarizing his call in the Preface to the 1923 edition of collected essays Reden über das Judentum (Essays on Judaism), Buber writes: We ought to understand that to “realize God” means to prepare the world for God, as a place for His reality – to help the world become God-real (gottwirklich); it means, in other and sacred words, to make reality one. This is our service in the Kingdom’s becoming. Are we capable of that much? (1967: 9)

In the sense that Buber uses it, participating in the work of making the world “God-real” means participating, through one’s deeds, in the repair of a broken or divided universe. For Buber, this means not only to be open to the perception of the unity of all being, but also most importantly to strive to make that unity a reality in the world. He writes, “the unified world must not only be conceived, it must be realized. It is not merely given to man, it is given to him as a task; he is charged with making the true world an actual world” (1967: 60; emphasis mine). For Schulz, working in the realm of literature, the task of the poet is likewise to make the “true” world exist again, to bring it into being through his act of poetry. This is precisely what he calls for in ‘The Mythologizing of Reality’: a reconnection with the authentic and originary state of language and myth – sens ‘meaning’ – through a poetic transformation of the everyday into timeless myth; a bringing of the divine or primordial world, of mythic perception, into experience in time, in the modern world. If the concept of an actual divine or of God has ceded its place in Schulz’s work to the spirit that lies in the “Authentic”, or in true myth, then this poetic practice is precisely the writer’s enactment of the call to “make the world Godreal”.

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Remythologization and Modernity: Divergent Paths As we have seen, both Buber and Schulz see the remythologization of reality as central to their literary and philosophical work; and they both undertake a modern revival and transformation of Jewish myth, particularly drawn from Hasidic lore and kabbalah. However, their work represents two opposed poles with regard to the final form that the movement of Jewishness into modernity will take: a centripetal vs. a centrifugal motion, respectively; the concentration of ethnically and nationally-determined mythic elements (Buber) vs. (Schulz) their dispersal into a universalist narrative landscape filled with remnants from the myths of many, disparate cultures. Within Jewish art and letters of Eastern and Central Europe, the connection between mythical consciousness and nationalism (the embracing of myth as part of the construction of ethnic and national self-consciousnesses) also had its place in the imagery and cultural expressions of Zionism. Indeed, Martin Buber’s own turn to Cultural Zionism, his work to rehabilitate Jewish myth and symbolism and employ their power in attracting others to the Zionist movement, represents a participation in neo-romantic, myth-based affirmations of ethnic identity taking place throughout Central Europe. Schulz, however, engages myth in a very different way. He uses the revaluation of myth and mythic consciousness specifically not to reaffirm connection to or identification with a specific ethnic or national tradition, or to show the continuity of that tradition from the historical present to a time in the past on the same soil, for example. On the contrary, in Schulz’s work the move to mythologize reflects the desire, the will, to step out of ethnic and historical bonds and boundaries. It becomes a strategy, or a dream, to escape ethnic identification, to build a space – narrative, artistic, philosophical – of meaning in the modern world that precisely transcends ethnic divisions and historical realities. As Schulz wrote of his first book, Sklepy cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops), “This book, however, is not a repository of a mythology culturally grounded in res gestae, bearing the stamp of history” (Schulz 1998a: 412-413). This mythic space is instead a narrative space of belonging in language; it is a textual homeland that eschews historical or political realities, or materials, or operates alongside them. Schulz’s prose exists in an oneiric borderland of its own creation, which – not unlike the narrative spaces


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of Franz Kafka – also depends for its mythic resonance on the erasure of any one culture. In a line from Schulz’s ‘Republika marze’ (‘The Republic of Dreams’), the countryside of his narrator’s childhood, or of his dreams, becomes “no man’s land, or God’s land” (Op 329; “kraj ju niczyj i bo y”; Schulz 1998b: 269):6 W tych dniach dalekich powzi limy po raz pierwszy z kolegami ow myl niemo liw i absurdaln , a eby pow drowa jeszcze dalej, poza zdrojowisko, w kraj ju niczyj i bo y, w pogranicze sporne i neutralne, gdzie gubiy si rubie e pastw, a ró a wiatrów wirowaa b dnie pod niebem wysokim i spi trzonym. (Op 329) (In those far-off days our gang of boys hit on the outlandish and impossible notion of straying even further, beyond that inn, into no man’s or God’s land, of patrolling borders both neutral and disputed, where boundary-lines petered out and the compass role of the winds skittered erratically under a high-arching sky; CW 269)

Where it diverges from Buber’s, I suggest that Schulz’s conception of myth accords closely with that of Thomas Mann, whose work, in particular his mythic novel Joseph und seine Brüder (Joseph and His Brothers, 1933-43), had a great influence on Schulz.7 It is in ‘Spring’ that Schulz most fully develops the idea of a genealogy that circumvents history, ethnicity, and cultural specificity by invoking the idea of a universally accessible realm of myth. In his essay for Stanisaw Ignacy Witkiewicz he writes: Do jakiego rodzaju nale Sklepy cynamonowe […] S one autobiografi albo raczej genealogi duchow , genealogi kat’ exochen, gdy ukazuj rodowód duchowy a do tej g bi, gdzie uchodzi on w mitologi , gdzie gubi si w mitologicznym majaczeniu. Zawsze czuem, e korzenie indywidualnego ducha, dostatecznie daleko w g b cigane, gubi si w mitycznym jakim mateczniku. To jest dno ostateczne, poza które niepodobna juz wyj. (Op 446) (To what genre does Cinnamon Shops belong? The work is […] a spiritual genealogy, a genealogy par excellence in that it follows the spiritual family tree down to those depths where it merges into mythology, to be

6

All further references will be given as CW. As Ficowski writes, “Schulz’s admiration for Mann’s Joseph und seine Brüder (1933-43) knew no bounds, and tributes to it occurred frequently in his conversations and letters. Schulz regarded Mann as the greatest writer among his contemporaries and knew his works from many readings in the original” (in Schulz 1998a: 475). 7

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Karen Underhill lost in the mutterings of mythological delirium. I have always felt that the roots of the individual spirit, traced far enough down, would be lost in some matrix of myth. This is the ultimate depth; it is impossible to reach further down; CW 370)

What Schulz seeks in this line of thought is to affirm a genealogy of the spirit and of creative energy or ferment – a storyteller’s and poet’s genealogy – that draws on a timeless magma or humus of human culture that is otherwise envisioned as a perpetual eating of the dead, a journey into the underworld: Teraz dopiero widzimy na czym wiosna ronie […] oto s ciepe jeszcze groby, próchno i mierzwa. Prastare historie. […] Tu s te kolumbaria, te szuflady na umarych, w których le zaschni ci, czarni jak korzenie i czekaj na swój czas. (Op 158-159) (It is only now we realize what the soil is on which Spring thrives […] Here are graves that are still warm, the litter, and the rot. Age-old tales. […] Here are columbaria, the drawers for the dead, in which they lie dessicated, blackened like roots, awaiting their moment.; TF 168)

These references to the underworld resonate strongly with Thomas Mann’s invitation into the underworld that prefaces his revisitation of the biblical story of Joseph und seine Brüder (Joseph and His Brothers, 1934). “Very deep is the well of the past”, he writes in the opening to the first volume, entitled ‘Vorspiel: Höllenfahrt’ (‘Prelude: Descent into Hell’): Shall we not call it bottomless? […] For the deeper we sound, the further down into the lower world of the past we probe and press, the more do we find that the earliest foundations of humanity, its history and culture, reveal themselves unfathomable. No matter to what hazardous lengths we let out our line they still withdraw again, and further, into the depths. (1999: 3)

Once again, Schulz’s concerted attempts to articulate this prehistorical genealogy also say something about his complex and uneasy relationship with Jewishness. They represent a choice as an artist to openly distance himself from his own “real”, historical, and culturally specific genealogy. In his 1935 essay for S.I. Witkiewicz, cited above, Schulz continues:


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Mann pokazuje, jak na dnie wszystkich zdarze ludzkich, gdy wyuska je z plewy czasu i wieloci, ukazuj si pewne praschematy, “historie”, na których te zdarzenia formuj si w wielkich powtórzeniach. U Manna s to historie biblijne, odwieczne mity Babilonii i Egiptu. Ja staraem si w skromniejszej mej skali odnale wasn , prywatn mitologi , wasne “historie”, wasny mityczny rodowód. Tak jak staro ytni wyprowadzali swych przodków z mitologicznych ma estw z bogami, tak uczyniem prób statuowania dla siebie jakiej mitycznej generacji antenatów, fikcyjnej rodziny, z której wywodz mój ród prawdziwy. (Op 446; italics mine) (Mann shows that beneath all human events, when the chaff of time and individual variation is blown away, certain primeval patterns, “stories”, are found, by which these events form and re-form in great repeating pulses. For Mann, these are the biblical tales, the timeless myths of Babylon and Egypt. On my more modest scale I have attempted to uncover my own private mythology, my own “stories”, my own mythic family tree. Just as the ancients traced their ancestry from mythical unions with gods, so I undertook to establish for myself some mythical generation of forebears, a fictitious family from which I trace my true descent; Schulz 1998a: 370; italics mine)

Conclusion This last is a complex and dense statement of confession. Far from reflecting a simple movement away from Jewish identification, which the above testimony and others seem to imply, Schulz’s specific form of deracinated, de-historicized myth reflects an unexpected reaffirmation and recuperation of Jewish identification, a vital sublimation of Jewish content and of Jewish genealogy. In negotiating this relationship with tradition Schulz can be seen to engage in a storyteller’s sleight-of-hand, producing a storytelling mechanism not unlike the chess-playing puppet described by Walter Benjamin in his “Theses on the Philosophy of History” (also: “On the Concept of History”, “Über den Begriff der Geschichte”, 1939, published posthumously). In Benjamin’s allegory, a mechanical figure dressed in Turkish attire, at a chess table, consistently plays a winning game, operated from within by a hunchbacked dwarf who is hidden from the sight of the audience. For Benjamin, the successful chess-player, which represents historical materialism, is triumphant only because it “enlists the services of theology, which today, as we know, is wizened and has to keep out of sight” (1968: 253). I would suggest that in Schulz’s breathtakingly original literary performance, Jewishness

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functions similarly to the hunchback, theology, in Benjamin’s parable. On the one hand, Schulz pushes Jewishness to the margins and proclaims it dead, banishing direct discussion of it from the body of the text. On the other hand, his entire oeuvre works to enshrine precisely marginality, and the Underworld – the land of the dead. Thus, in Schulz’s work we confront both the subtle identification of Jewishness with death, marginality and misshapenness, and the constant recuperation of that which is marginal – of the scrapheap or the shards – and of that which is dead, abandoned, or decayed, lying in the tomb awaiting its own Spring (waiting for the living, hungry poet to digest it and make it part of his present). Schulz’s hope for poetic and artistic relevance, and for authenticity of perception and expression, centers around adoration of the Underworld and the margin as the sources of creative energy and, indeed, of life energy. We are reminded once again of Buber’s claim that true myth, in the Jewish tradition, has always been pushed to the margins, “to slink around, like a beggar, in our melancholy dreams”. I would like to conclude by suggesting that in an unexpected fashion, Schulz’s prose bolsters this claim and even adds itself to Buber’s noble lineage of heretics – perhaps precisely there, where his use of myth diverges most strongly from Buber’s own. Bibliography Benjamin, Walter. 1968. ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ in Sontag, Susan (ed.) Illuminations. New York: Schocken: 253-264. Boski, Jan. 1994. ‘wiat jako ksi ga i komentarz’ in Jarz bski 1994: 68-84. Buber, Martin. 1906. Die Geschichten des Rabbi Nachman. Frankfurt am Main: Rütten & Loening. ——. 1908. Die Legende des Baalschem. Frankfurt am Main: Rütten & Loening. ——. 1918. Mein Weg zum Chassidismus. Irinnerungen. Frankfurt am Main: Rütten & Loening. ——. 1930. Hundert chassidische Geschichten. Berlin: Schocken Verlag. ——. 1935. Deutung des Chassidismus. Berlin: Schocken Verlag. ——. 1967. On Judaism (ed. N.M. Glatzer). New York: Schocken Books. Buber, Martin (ed.) 1903. Juedische Kuenstler. Berlin: Juedischer Verlag. Goldfarb, David A. 1994. ‘A Living Schulz: “Noc Wielkiego Sezonu” (“The Night of the Great Season”)’ in Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History 14(1): 25-48. ——. 1997. ‘The Vortex and the Labyrinth: Bruno Schulz and the Objective Correlative’ in East European Politics and Societies 11(1): 257-269. Harshav, Benjamin. 1993. Language in Time of Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press.


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Jarz bski, Jerzy (ed.) 1994. Czytanie Schulza: Materiay midzynarodowej sesji naukowej Bruno Schulz – w stulecie urodzin i w pidziesiciolecie mierci, Instytut Filologii Polskiej Uniwersytetu Jagielloskiego, Kraków, 8-10 czerwca 1992. Kraków: T.I.C. Lindenbaum, Shalom. 1994. ‘Wizja mesjanistyczna Schulza i jej podo e mistyczne’ in Jarz bski (1994): 33-67. Mann, Thomas. 1999. Joseph and His Brothers (tr. H.T. Lowe-Porter). London: Vintage. Mendes-Flohr, Paul. 1991. Divided Passions: Jewish Intellectuals and the Experience of Modernity. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Panas, Wadysaw. 1997. Ksiga Blasku: traktat o kabale w prozie Brunona Schulza. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego. Prokop-Janiec, Eugenia. 1994. ‘Schulz a galicyjski tygiel kultur’ in Jarz bski (1994): 95-107. Schaeder, Grete. 1973. The Hebrew Humanism of Martin Buber (tr. N. J. Jacobs). Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Schulte, Jörg. 2003. ‘Wielka Kronika Kalendarza’ in Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata and Wadysaw Panas (eds). W uamkach zwierciada…Bruno Schulz w 110 rocznic urodzin i 60 rocznic mierci. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL: 163-172. Schulz, Bruno. 1988. The Fictions of Bruno Schulz (tr. C. Wieniewska). London: Picador. ——. 1989. Opowiadania, wybór esejów i listów (ed. J. Jarz bski). Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossolinskich. ——. 1998a. ‘A Description of the Book Cinnamon Shops’ in Schulz (1998b): 412414. ——. 1998b. The Collected Works of Bruno Schulz (ed. J. Ficowski). London: Picador. Shallcross, Bozena. 1997. ‘Fragments of a Broken Mirror: Bruno Schulz’s Retextualization of the Kabbalah’ in East European Politics and Societies 11(2): 270-285.

Exposing and Concealing Jewish Origin: Bruno Schulz and Bolesaw Lemian Andrea Meyer-Fraatz Abstract: Bruno Schulz and Bolesaw Lemian are two Polish writers of Jewish origin who deal differently with that fact in their works. Lemian only implicitly reflects his double identity of an assimilated Polish poet by referring to oriental themes. Hiding behind his texts, he represents a typically modernist author. Schulz exposes his Jewish origin, and as an avant-garde author he creates a recognizable alter ego in his texts. Creating an esoteric layer, he writes for a Jewish in-group while at the same time representing a Jewish avant-garde for a broader public.

Introduction Bruno Schulz has been compared more than once to his older contemporary Bolesaw Lemian. Besides many differences, there are plenty of parallels in their poetics and philosophical background, some of which have already been analyzed by various researchers. Czesaw Karkowski (1978), for example, discussed Lemian’s and Schulz’s reference to Bergson. Herta Schmid (1998) compared their theories on poetic language and their relationship to myth, pointing out the differences, whereas Jerzy Jarz bski (1999: 119-120) underlined the similarity of their mythopoetics due to their teacher-disciple relationship, hinting at the fact that Schulz as a young man became acquainted with Lemian’s poetry and poetic writings in the bookshop of his colleague’s father, Mundek Pilpel (Jarz bski 1999: 33). Both Lemian and Schulz developed similar poetics: they are inclined to use bold metaphors; typical for both of them is the grotesque. They share common themes, such as depicting an abundant nature, fantastic or erotic motifs, and create worlds and myths of their own. Stefan Chwin (1994) worked out the similarities and differences in poetological and ontological respect when comparing Schulz and

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Lemian with regard to the motif of metamorphosis and the theme of creating worlds. Moreover, both of them are of Jewish origin and specifically deal with that fact in their works. This common biographical fact, however, forms at the same time a difference between the two authors. Whereas on the one hand Lemian created an “assimilated” poetry, saturated with motifs of Polish folk poetry, the depiction of Polish (or East European) landscapes and Christian themes, and did not expose any specific elements of Jewish culture or religion, in this way “concealing” his Jewish origin, Schulz on the other hand not only exposes Jewish themes but also creates a poetics which is based on Talmudic exegesis in a heretical way. This “poetics of revelation” (Schulte 2004), however, is only recognized by those who are familiar with Jewish tradition. My thesis is that Schulz on the one hand avoids the open treatment of Jewishness when he uses motifs (such as nature, outsiders, or eroticism) that he shares with Lemian, who concealed his Jewish origin. (Although such motifs in Schulz’s stories often contain hidden references to Jewish religious writings, they are known only to those who are acquainted with them). Schulz, on the other hand, exposes Jewish themes with regard to the father, calling him, for example, an Old Testament prophet on more than one occasion. In this last respect he differs from Lemian. In their disparate attitudes toward dealing with their Jewish origin in their texts, both of them stand for two different models of authorship. The following investigation will demonstrate this and at the end will attempt to explain the younger author’s relationship to the older one. Each author’s relationship to his Jewish origin and its treatment in their texts will be related to the problem of authorship, which in Lemian’s case is linked with orientalism, identity, and alterity and their correlation to modernism, and in Schulz’s case is linked to the positioning of his work in contemporary Polish literature in general.

Exposing and Concealing Jewish Origin: Schulz and Lemian

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Bolesaw Lemian: Oriental Motifs as a Concealed Reflection of Jewishness Bolesaw Lemian was the first assimilated Polish poet of Jewish Origin writing for a Polish public in general.1 He was baptized and grew up in an assimilated family of the Warsaw bourgeoisie. During his lifetime he published, besides his theoretical writings and his fairy tales, three books of poetry: Sad rozstajny (Crossroads Orchard, 1912), ka (Meadow, 1920), and Napój cienisty (Shadowy Drink, 1936). The fourth volume, Dziejba lena (Forest Happenings) was published posthumously in 1938. His first book was published seventeen years after the first publication of a poem in a journal. Whereas other poets and a handful of critics appreciated his work, literary critics in general faulted it for nominally containing too many foreign influences; for example, one anonymous critic pointed out the similarity of Lemian’s poetry to the works of Baudelaire and Verlaine (cf. opuszaski 2000: 105). A rejection of the poet’s works as strange to the Polish public can be interpreted as a hidden form of anti-Semitism: ignoring the fact that there are many references to Polish romanticism and contemporary Polish poetry, Lemian’s work is suggested to be French rather than Polish, i.e. not to be rooted in Polish culture.2 Rochelle Stone (1976: 22-27) notes other critical harassments against Lemian: for example, Brzozowski’s attacks against Lemian’s nominally epigonic modernism. Obviously, the critics transfer a biographical fact to the author and thus to a literary fact, so the assimilated poet who wrote “assimilated” poetry is actually judged by his origin and not by his work. In a certain sense, Lemian himself transfers the problem of his twofold identity as a 1

Although there have been minor poets of Jewish origin since the nineteenth century, “the presence of these authors in the Polish literature of the 19th century is only of documental significance. Outstanding Polish writers of Jewish origin appear only in the 20th century” (“obecno tych pisarzy w literaturze polskiej XIX wieku ma znaczenie jedynie dokumentalne. Wybitni pisarze polscy pochodzenia ydowskiego pojawiaj si dopiero w XX wieku” ; Panas 1996: 18). Interestingly enough, Panas investigates only Jewish authors who deal with Jewish themes and consequently does not mention Lemian at all in his monograph on the problems of Jewishness. 2 Rochelle Stone (1976: 147-181) thoroughly demonstrates the relationship of Lemian’s poetry to contemporary Russian symbolism and thus explains his strangeness to Polish readers.

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baptized Jew to his work, to his “double” (“sobowtór”, cf. Przybylski 1987), the implied author. In general, references to Jewish culture or religion can hardly be identified in Lemian’s poetry. An exception might be found in the “heretical” long poem ‘Eliasz’ (‘Eliah’) in Shadowy Drink, but the prophet Eliah is not only important for Jewish messianism but also in Christian tradition and folklore. The title ‘Kabaa’ (‘Fortune-Telling’) in Crossroads Orchard does not directly refer to Jewish mysticism. The word means “fortune-telling”, and the text does not support a link to Jewish tradition. All other texts refer to Polish or Ukrainian folklore, to myths of various origins, and to the New Testament, first and foremost the Birth of Christ as in ‘ ka’ (‘Meadow’) or ‘Betleem’ (‘Bethlehem’), though in both cases it is in a syncretistic and heretical way. A reflection of the author’s own double identity can be established only implicitly. This problem is related to motifs of metamorphosis, doubling, and to oriental themes; the motif of doubling and oriental themes appear to be related. In Lemian’s first book of poems there are two texts referring to the tales of the Arabian Nights – ‘Sidi-Numan’ and ‘Nieznana podró Sindbada-eglarza’ (‘Sindbad the Sailor’s Unknown Journey’); in the following year Lemian published his adaptations of tales of the Arabian Nights for children: Przygody Sindbada- eglarza (Sindbad the Sailor’s Adventures, 1913) and Klechdy Sezamowe (Old Tales of Sesame, 1913). In several respects these texts can be understood as a sublimation of the author’s dual identity. On the one hand, there are thematic elements: for example, the question of the equality of all religions in ‘Rybak i geniusz’ (‘The Fisher and the Genius’) and ‘Opowiadanie króla Wysp Hebanowych’ (‘The Story of the King of the Ebony Islands’). Uncle Tarabuk in Sindbad the Sailor’s Adventures, Lemian’s own invention which does not correspond with the tales of Sindbad in the original of Arabian Nights, can be understood as the author’s ironic self-portrait: like the real author who for many years had not been able to publish a book, his character discovers various unconventional methods of saving his graphomaniacal verse, one after the other turning out to be useless, but does not publish them as a book. Moreover, Uncle Tarabuk’s calembours and neologisms are typical for Lemian’s own poetic language.


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On the other hand, characters with a dualistic conception represent the author’s dual identity: for example, the girl in ‘Sindbad the Sailor’s Unknown Journey’, the last long narrative poem of Crossroads Orchard. Every morning and every evening she changes the colour of her hair and her eyes, representing thus an “oriental” and an “occidental” identity, which is underlined by the paraphrase of “East”, “od wschodu soca” (“from sunrise”; 1965: 103). When the lyrical subject kills her at the end of the poem, only her black hair continues growing. The poem can be understood as a nightmare in which the implied author tries to kill one part of his identity and to expose the other, namely the “oriental” one. The whole poem does not share much more than the title with the oriental tales of the Arabian Nights. The depicted landscape is more similar to East and Middle European landscapes than to oriental ones. Exposing typical traits of Lemian’s work in general, ‘Sindbad the Sailor’s Unknown Journey’ represents the Orient as something familiar rather than as something strange. The same applies to the poem ‘Sidi-Numan’ of the cycle ‘Poematy zazdrosne’ (‘Jealous poems’). The underlying narrative is based on the Arabian Nights, but Lemian added significant changes which integrate the story and the poem into his own work. Traits which could be interpreted as “orientalistic” in the notion of Edward Said (1978), for example, cruelty, sensuality, sexual mania, abundance, are at the same time typical of movements such as symbolism and decadence, to which Lemian’s poetry belongs. Ironic, self-conscious phrases at the same time create a personal distance and are a means of overcoming the modernist tendencies of Young Poland literature. Oriental themes in the first book of poems and in the fairy tales for children are indebted to a current tendency of the time. Lemian, however, does not represent the Orient as something strange but as something of his own; he identifies with the oriental traits of his work and represents himself as something exotic, thus subverting a common anti-Semitic cliché. Parallels can be found in Polish culture as well as in other European cultures. The Polish painter of Jewish origin Maurycy Gottlieb, for example, in 1876 created a self-portrait titled Ahasver, showing an “oriental”-looking man. The German poet of Jewish origin Else Lasker-Schüler created a fantastic Orient in her novels Die Nächte der Tino von Bagdad (Tino of Bagdad’s Nights, 1907) or Der Prinz von Theben (The Prince of Thebes, 1914) which serve as an expression of her Jewish identity in the German literary

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scene.3 Last but not least, in 1948, Marc Chagall illustrated the Arabian Nights and chose texts mainly of Jewish origin (cf. Chagall 1999). This aesthetic practice corresponds to a discourse founded by Martin Buber and other Prague Jews, who appealed against assimilation and postulated an “oriental” way of life around 1910 (cf. Berman 1996: 281-286). Although Lemian lived in Poland where unassimilated Hasidism dominated, he belonged to an assimilated family and tried to conceal his Jewish origin. The identification with oriental themes can be understood as a means of concealed reflection with the dual identity which was imposed on him by his origin and by the society in which he lived. The “oriental” texts belong to the first book of poems, which was published almost at the same time as the oriental fairy tales. In the first and last book of poems, the texts containing a sublimed discussion of the author’s dual identity are positioned at the end and therefore in an exposed position. Lemian who carefully conceived his books of poems as meta-cycles cannot have done this by chance. The first book of poems was published long after the author’s debut as a poet. Dual oppositions that are overcome by a “third” element are characteristic of the second book of poems, Meadow, which seems to present the possibility of overcoming the problem of dual identity. The book finds the resolution in poetry which lasts forever and triumphs over the dualism of soul and body (cf. Meyer-Fraatz 2000). The dualistic motifs, however, are again insurmountable in the third book of poems, Shadowy Drink, which is dominated by a pessimistic, melancholic tone. The motif of death is implicitly expressed by the adjective cienisty ‘shadowy’ in the title and is reinforced in the ultimate poem which is about the doubling of a man who is unable to eradicate his doppelganger until his own death. This poem is preceded by ‘Eliah’, the only text with an identifiable Jewish (but also Christian) subject, even though it is treated in a heretical way because Eliah wants to eliminate God. Similarly the motif of metamorphosis represents the changing of identity. This is best shown in the poem ‘Akteon’ from the cycle ‘Postacie’ (‘Characters’) in Shadowy Drink. ‘Akteon’ is the only poem referring to Greek mythology. In the first stanza, the story of Akteon’s metamorphosis into a stag is narrated in the third person, whereas the 3

Cf. Berman (1996: 291-345) for a detailed analysis of Else Lasker-Schüler’s “oriental” works as an expression of Jewish identity.


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second stanza represents the words of the stag himself who feels like a human. In both stanzas it is stated that it is awful to die in a shape other than the primordial one. In this way, the motif of metamorphosis is another way of concealing the consciousness of Lemian’s dual identity.4 Despite both Lemian’s election to the Literary Academy and the “Golden Laurel” the Academy conferred to him, his situation in the mid-thirties when his third book of poems was published had not really improved. The circumstances of his death in 1937 confirm this judgement: although as a member of the Academy he should have received a national funeral and have been represented in the Alley of Honor, this was not the case. A number of documents prove that the act of disrespecting his rights as a Member of the Academy was motivated by anti-Semitism.5 As an author Lemian reacted to his complicated situation implicitly through his work. Reflecting his dual identity by using oriental motifs and by creating dual characters, he hides behind his texts. This is typical for modernist authors, as the Swiss Slavicist Felix Philipp Ingold (1992) has demonstrated. In a certain sense, Lemian’s situation is comparable to that of the Russian poet Pasternak: both of them are poets of Jewish origin but baptized, and both of them hide behind their texts as modernist authors.6 Moreover, it is typical that the modernist author does not live on his poetry (cf. Ingold 1989). Lemian was not able to earn his living by writing poetry; he was forced to work as a lawyer. Another proof that he separated poetry from “ordinary” life is his choice to adopt the phonetically similar Polish surname Lemian for the poet, whereas the man and lawyer until the end of his life bore the original name Lesman (cf. Rymkiewicz 2001: 238-239). Lemian’s concealment of his Jewish identity thus coheres with the modernist author’s attitude to his own work.

4

Chwin (1994: 114) names Lemian’s poem ‘Przemiany’ (‘Changes’) as a model for Schulz. 5 Stone (1976: 11) even mentions that Lemian’s body lay unburied for weeks because the Academy denied him the funeral honours. 6 As for Pasternak, however, his Jewishness does not form a part of the relation between author and text (cf. Ingold 1992: 175-194).

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Bruno Schulz: Exposing Jewishness as Avant-Garde Although Bruno Schulz, like Lemian, grew up in an assimilated, Polish-speaking family, he in no way conceals his Jewish origin in his texts. On the contrary, there are many details in his texts which expose this fact. Unlike Lemian, Schulz did not live in the capital but on the Galician periphery in the small town of Drohobycz, where Hasidic traditions were dominant. Although it is doubtful that Schulz spoke Yiddish, he understood the language because of his profound knowledge of German, and he was familiar with the Jewish tradition. He learnt Hebrew and even met a Zaddik in the 1930s. Although he was not religious, his literary work proves his knowledge of the rabbinic tradition (cf. Schulte 2004). Plenty of books and articles deal with the Jewish element in Schulz’s prose: first and foremost literary critics are concerned with Hasidism, messianism, mysticism, gnosis, kabbalah (Lewi 1989; Kaków 1992; Lachmann 1992, 1999, 2002; Goldfarb 1993; Shallcross 1997; Panas 1997, 2001; Sproede 2000). Stala (1993) links Schulz’s creation of various realities to Jewish philosophers; MeyerFraatz (2001, 2005) and with profound judaistic knowledge, Schulte (2004) interpret Schulz’s cycles by means of traditional Talmudic exegesis. As for Schulz’s graphical works, Jewish elements have been discussed by Panas (2001) and Sikorski (2004) and by Van Heuckelom (2006) with regard to iconoclasm. As previously mentioned, there are two ways of representing Jewish elements in Schulz’s texts. On the one hand, they exhibit Jewish motifs as prophets and the Messiah; on the other hand, there are hidden hints toward Jewish religious texts and exegetic practices, which are recognizable only to those who are acquainted with them. Unlike the explicit thematizations of Jewishness, they are present throughout his prose; one example, is the underlying principle of the calendar described by Schulte (2004). This article does not intend to continue this kind of analysis, but instead tries to determine the function of Jewish elements in Bruno Schulz’s prose with regard to the implied as well as the real author. By understanding the exposition of Jewish origin as related to Schulz’s position in literary history, it will be possible to explain his attitude to Jewishness in his texts as contrary to Lemian’s.


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When Schulz started writing, poets of Jewish origin were no longer something special in Polish literature: Julian Tuwim, Antoni Lange, Aleksander Wat, Józef Wittlin, and others had followed Lemian into Polish literary life although as Henri Lewi points out, anti-Semitism was a crucial force in new independent Poland (1989: 54). Schulz was being promoted by Zofia Nakowska, one of the most influential Polish writers in the 1930s, and he had a close relationship with Stanisaw Ignacy Witkiewicz and Witold Gombrowicz, the most outstanding avant-garde writers at that time. Although Schulz became a writer more or less by chance, encouraged by his friend Debora Vogel to whom he sent his stories accompanying his letters, he was quickly accepted by the literary scene.7 His friend Romana Halpern, who lived in Warsaw, introduced him to people such as Witkacy, who became of great importance for him. In his study on Hasidism and avant-gardism in Schulz’s prose, Alfred Sproede (2000) states that Schulz is sceptical toward the avantgarde and uses Jewish elements in order to ridicule avant-garde literature. He understands Schulz’s stories, even though they show the author’s familiarity with avant-garde devices, as embodied in Hasidism and as a continuation of this tradition. My aim is to demonstrate that it is the opposite: Schulz uses Hasidic elements to expose or rather stage himself as a Jewish avant-garde author. This can be illustrated by the status of the real and the implied author in his texts. The implied author is the one who conceives the represented world of the narrative; using Ryszard Przybylski’s term (as I previously mentioned), the implied author is the author’s doppelganger in the text and is responsible for the occurrence of Jewish motifs such as prophets or the Messiah as well as for the esoteric references to the rabbinic tradition. Whereas the esoteric layer extends throughout the two cycles Sklepy cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops, 1934) and Sanatorium pod klepsydr (Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, 1937) as well as the stories which are not included in the cycles, it is not comprehensible for those who are not familiar with the Jewish tradition; Jewish motifs recognizable to everyone are mostly confined to the depiction of the father who is frequently characterized as weak, moribund, and eccentric at the same 7

This does not imply that he was accepted by all critics. Jarz bski (1999: 52) mentions anti-Semitic attacks by the right-wing critics of the 1930s.

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time. The most outstanding example seems to be the following: straddling the chamber pot, he is blasphemously compared to an Old Testament prophet – as in ‘Nawiedzenie’ (‘Visitation’). The noises of emptying his bladder and his gestures are interpreted as Moses’s dialogue with God on Sinai, culminating in the emptying of the chamber pot through the window. The heretical ‘Traktat o manekinach’ (‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’), consisting of three parts, is called ‘Wtóra Ksi ga Rodzaju’ (‘The Second Book of Genesis’), and the father who plays the role of a demiurge is defeated each time by Adela, a character who has much in common with Lilith, Adam’s first wife who later becomes the wife of Satan (cf. Lachmann 1999: 142). In the last story of Cinnamon Shops, the father, once more compared to Moses on Sinai, creates an ephemeral world out of bales of cloth, a “fantastic Canaan” (Schulz 1989b: 91; “fantastyczny Kanaan”; Schulz 1989a: 99) containing wise Jews and prophets: Gdzie indziej stay grupy ydów w kolorowych chaatach, w wielkich futrzanych kopakach przed wysokimi wodospadami jasnych materyj. Byli to m owie Wielkiego Zgromadzenia, dostojni i peni namaszczenia panowie, piel gnowane brody i prowadz cy wstrzemi liwe i dyplomatyczne rozmowy. (1989a: 101) (In other places in front of the waterfalls of light fabric stood groups of Jews in coloured gabardines and tall fur hats. These were the gentlemen of the Great Congregation, distinguished and solemn men, striking their long well-groomed beards and holding sober and diplomatic discourse; 1989b: 92)

But at the end of the story, after the return of the birds, which the father bred under his roof and which Adela expelled in the story ‘Ptaki’ (‘Birds’), and their sudden death, the landscape vanishes and the father returns early in the morning to the kitchen where Adela is already – perhaps even triumphantly – grinding coffee. The father is characterized once more as a broken and defeated man who must capitulate in front of his satanic housekeeper and his subjects. Thus combining Jewish motifs with the world of the dying father, which is often depicted comically, this manner of exposing Jewishness attains an ironic touch. The esoteric layer of Jewish elements confirms an ironic treatment of the Jewish tradition: the underlying structure of an achronological calendar (cf. Schulte 2004), the structuring of the cycle after the principle of the Talmudic


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interpretation of the Book of Genesis, in which a “Pentateuch” is positioned at the end of the cycle (cf. Meyer-Fraatz 2005: 331). Also, the grotesque comparison between the father sitting on the chamber pot and Moses who communicates with God and other grotesque depictions of the father (for example, in ‘Traktat o manekinach, ci g dalszy’ (‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies. Continuation’) which are identified with the world of Jewish tradition, demonstrate a certain irony on behalf of Hasidism. The episode of aunt Perasia, from the story ‘Wichura’ (‘The Gale’), who burns together with the paper she used to make a fire and whose family does not care for her as well as the father’s metamorphosis into a crab which is served at the table, yet nobody can decide to eat it, belong to the esoteric layer of Jewish “injokes”,8 and thus represent further examples of the comic treatment of Hasidic elements. Such a self-ironic attitude toward tradition is part of the Jewish tradition. Walter Benjamin (1985: 293) once said about Kafka that to understand him properly, it is necessary to discover the comical side of Jewish theology. This is at the same time a key to the Jewish element in the prose of Schulz, who commented that Kafka wrote “in the conventional language of certain esoteric communities and schools” (“w j zyku umownym pewnych gmin i szkó ezoterycznych”; 1989a: 413), thus recognizing a common method. Another proof for the ironic treatment of Jewish traditions is the fact that the son hardly communicates with his father in Sklepy cynamonowe; mostly he watches his father’s grotesque behavior like a spectator in the theatre, fascinated by the father’s strange show.9 The son is outside of the father’s world. In the second cycle, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, the son speaks with his father in several stories and shares the bed with him for one night in the title story. At the end of the cycle, in ‘Ostatnia wycieczka ojca’ (‘Father’s Last Escape’), when the father is cooked and served as a crab, the son comes close to incorporating the father when he nearly eats him. 8

As Sproede (2000: 150) pointed out, the episode of the burning aunt can be interpreted as a comical allusion to Jewish meditation, whereas the father’s various metamorphoses can be explained as gilgul, the Hasidic transmigration of souls (cf. Sproede 2000: 154; Meyer-Fraatz 2004: 361-362). 9 The intrinsic theatrality of Schulz’s prose has been described and interpreted by such critics as Wyskiel (1977, 1980), Robertson (1994), Sproede (2000), Meyer-Fraatz (2001, 2004, 2005). Nonetheless, it is related to the Jewish tradition (cf. Sproede 2000) and of importance with regard to the relationship of father and son (cf. MeyerFraatz 2004).

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Nevertheless, the son is also watching him as a spectator, for example, when the father is sitting in a café and is ordering a plethora of food while flirting with the waitress and other women around him. The son’s attitude toward the father is best symbolized in an Ex-Libris for Stanisaw Weingarten: a Harlequin or a Pierrot is looking at a frivolous scene, in which he does not take part, but because of his disguise, he is a potential actor as well.10 The question is whether he has stopped playing or still participates. At any rate, the presentation of the father as an actor in a grotesque tragicomedy implies his distance from the son who does not always take part in the play. By confining those Jewish motifs which are discernable by readers who are unfamiliar with the Talmudic tradition to the father and excluding the son from the father’s world, the implied author underlines his ironic attitude toward the Jewish tradition, at least in the first book. Schulz himself pointed out the authenticity of his personal myth depicted in the cycle Cinnamon shops (cf. Schulz 1992a: 326). This specific authenticity is underscored by the fact that the father bears the same name as Schulz’s father, whereas the son is called Józef, referring to Jacob’s son in the Book of Genesis and thus highlighting the mythological aspect of the stories. Although the son bears a name other than that of Jakub Schulz’s real-life third son, he is nevertheless recognizable as the real author’s alter ego. In this way, the author has not only an implied but also a fictionalized presence in the texts. This fact is confirmed by the illustrations to his stories in which Józef is always represented by the author’s self-portrait. In his graphic cycle Xiga bawochwalcza (The Idolatrous Book), Schulz presents himself as a masochist male surrounded by or facing female nudes. The title is a citation of a Jewish book of the Hasidic tradition, directly translated into Polish (cf. Schulte 2004). Referring idolatry to the masochist adoration of women means an even higher degree of idolatry. The topic of the The Idolatrous Book is not only highly heretical but also shocking for the mostly catholic public because of the depicted nudes and situations among which the painter depicts himself (though the pictures were actually known to only a few

10 The Ex-Libris is reproduced in Jarz bski (1999: 179) and in Panas (2001). Panas (970) describes and interprets the Ex-Libris very thoroughly, pointing out its position in the whole history of arts on the one hand and the importance for Schulz’s whole work on the other, drawn and written later. My own interpretation reduces the picture to the mere aspect of spectator and scene.


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people). Additionally, even the Jewish theme itself was most unusual for an author who wrote for a Polish-speaking public. In the stories erotic themes are either less exposed or restricted to characters other than Jacob and Joseph (except ‘Manekiny’ (‘Mannequins’), where the father examines Pauline’s knee and the ‘Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass’, in which the father flirts with waitresses and the son waits for the pornographic books that he ordered by mail); however, both the illustrations and The Idolatrous Book (to an even greater degree) expose erotic themes. This attitude toward shocking the petite bourgeoisie is typical for the avant-garde, as well as the exposition of the “authorial I”. Van Heuckelom (2006) pointed out the aspect of iconoclasm with regard to the prohibition of pictures by the Ten Commandments. A prototype of an avant-gardist author exposing his own identity is the Russian poet Vladimir Maiakovskii who wrote an autobiography titled Ia sam (I Myself) and a tragedy titled Vladimir Maiakovskii. Felix Philipp Ingold points out that Maiakovskii exposes his own identity in order to dissolve it, fragment it in the collective crowd while at the same time identifying his fictional self in his literary text with his real self in the text of his life (1992: 145-174). Although Maiakovskii and Schulz do not have much in common, there is a parallel in the exposition of the authorial subject. Similarly, Schulz’s fictional identity is partly identical to his real identity. In spite of all the differences between the two authors, the model of fictionalising one’s self and thus combining literature and life is valid for both of them. Witkacy, Schulz’s literary and artistic companion, also created a great number of self-portraits. By fictionalizing himself and depicting the father as representing the dying Jewish world, Schulz exposes his Jewish origin but at the same time demonstrates his own estrangement from his roots by means of irony. He paradoxically demonstrates that he belongs to the literary avant-garde by referring to traditional Hasidic methods. Panas (2001: 191) points out that on Schulz’s drawing ‘Przyjcie Mesjasza’ (‘The Coming of the Messiah’) there is no Messiah, but due to the happy faces of the people in the picture, he supposes that the Messiah must be near. Although Panas negates Isaac Bashevis Singer’s cited words “Death is the Messiah” (Panas 2001: 121), I am inclined to apply them to the case of Schulz; such a comprehension of a major Jewish theologeme would fit to his ironic

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and heretical treatment of Jewish tradition. Similarly, his novel on the Messiah, which was announced more than once and has been missing since Schulz’s death, might have been a metaphor for something which will never come. Thus the exposition of his Jewish origin is tightly knitted to the real author Bruno Schulz. Conclusion Both authors, Bolesaw Lemian and Bruno Schulz, were Polish authors of Jewish origin who contributed works of hitherto unknown poetic qualities to Polish literature. Besides important differences, they shared central traits in their poetic practices, such as the use of the grotesque, the depiction of an abundant nature, and bold, complex metaphors. Both of them were confronted with anti-Semitic harassment by literary critics. However, one main difference between them is the treatment and reflection of Jewish origin in their work. Interestingly, this difference manifests itself in the common motif of metamorphosis. Whereas Lemian’s metamorphoses focus on the mourning over a double identity (for example in ‘Akteon’, see above), Schulz’s metamorphoses are related to the esoteric layer of his prose, representing his Jewish identity. At the same time, the different treatment of their Jewish origin as a literary fact makes it evident that they belong to different phases of modernism. Lemian only implicitly reflects his dual identity through the use of oriental motifs, motifs of double identity or metamorphosis, and thus hides behind the text, represents a typically modernist author of the turn of the century. Although some motifs can be recognized as autobiographical, Lemian by no means exposes his own personality in his texts. Schulz, on the other hand, exposes his Jewish origin by using motifs of prophets and the Messiah and creating a poetics of revelation based on the rabbinic tradition of Thora exegesis in the Talmud and the Midrashim. Although the latter is comprehensible only to insiders, Schulz’s illustrations to his stories and his other drawings showing Hasidic Jews underline the Jewish theme which ultimately refers back to the Jewish identity of their author. In his prose he created a recognizable alter ego and thus fictionalized himself and obscured the border between fiction and reality, literature and life. This is typical of the avant-garde. Neither Schulz nor Lemian belonged to any literary group, but Schulz, unlike Lemian, was lucky to have influential


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friends, for example, Zofia Nakowska, in the literary scene. Forming a trio with Witkacy and Gombrowicz, he soon belonged to the most important newcomers of Polish literature in the 1930s. In these circumstances, Schulz exposes his Jewish origin in his work as a specific form of avant-garde.11 Some of Schulz’s stories thematically recall the motifs of Lemian’s poetry: the abundant nature of ‘Sierpie’ (‘August’) or ‘Pan’, ‘Wiosna’ (‘Spring’) and other stories are depicted with a similar metaphorical expression. Gabriel Moked (1994: 88-89) speaks of “Lemianesque landscapes” (“krajobrazy Lemianowskie”) in Schulz’s prose. Some of his outsider characters as Touya, Pan, or Dodo evoke respective outsiders in Lemian’s poetry (cf. Karkowski 1978: 64). Chwin (1994: 119) mentions the theme of cosmic creation as the most common trait shared between the two poets and relates them both to fantastic romanticism. Schulz appreciated Lemian and read his poems repeatedly. In 1938, he wrote to his friend Romana Halpern that he just received Lemian’s Meadow (2002: 170), which suggests that Lemian was important for him throughout his life. Outlining a model of writing strategies of Jewish writers in Poland in the 1930s, Eugenia Prokop-Janiec (1994: 97) confirms that Lemian was a fully assimilated Polish poet of Jewish origin. According to her model, Schulz was a semi-assimilated author, using Jewish themes and motifs only in certain situations and contexts. She concludes that Schulz’s strategy of assimilation was moderate: he chose a “private Jewishness with Polish or European aspirations” (“prywatn ydowsko z polskimi czy europejskimi aspiracjami”; 1994: 98) and “functioned” in a twofold way, in a Jewish and in a Polish surrounding. His treatment of Jewish elements in his texts as outlined in this article can explain this assertion in more detail. Whereas the esoteric layer of his texts is understandable only for a Jewish in-group for whom he is a Jewish author, the unconventional poetics which are a result of his “in-jokes” turn him into an avantgardistic author for a wider audience.12

11 Herta Schmid (1998: 57) comes to the conclusion that Schulz is stylistically rooted in the Krakow avant-garde and futurism but surpasses both of them by creating a poetics of his own. 12 The question of whether or not the ridiculing of avant-garde manifests in the ‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’ by the father can be referred to the author himself.

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Nonetheless, Schulz’s Lemianesque landscapes seem to be more than a typological similarity, no less than his heretical and blasphemous treatment of biblical motifs and his presentation of outsiders. When Schulz confines openly Jewish motifs mostly to the world of the father and composes those stories in which he seems to be an adept of Lemian but with hidden Jewish elements, he obviously in a certain sense surpasses his older contemporary. Schulz’s twofold authorial strategy represented by the two layers of Jewish elements in his prose corresponds to Lemian’s treatment of his Jewish identity in his poems. Whereas Lemian conceals his Jewishness behind motifs of dual identity or metamorphosis by staying on the level of the implied author, Schulz acts out his dual identity on the levels of both the real and the implied author. One might speculate whether or not this is a case of Bloom’s “anxiety of influence”. Bibliography Benjamin, Walter. 1985. W. Benjamin, G. Scholem. Briefwechsel 1933-1940. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Berman, Nina. 1996. Orientalismus, Kolonialismus und Moderne. Zum Bild des Orients in der deutschsprachigen Kultur um 1900. Stuttgart – Weimar: Metzler. Chagall, Marc. 1999. Arabische Nächte. Vier Erzählungen aus 1001 Nacht. München – London – New York: Prestel. Chwin, Stefan. 1994. ‘Schulz a Lemian’ in Jarz bski, Jerzy (ed.) Czytanie Schulza. Materiay midzynarodowej sesji naukowej Bruno Schulz – w stulecie urodzin i w pi dziesi ciolecie mierci. Kraków: T.I.C.: 108-126. Goldfarb, David A. 1993. ‘Czytaj c Schulza: “Noc wielkiego sezonu”’ in Kresy 13: 15-21. Ingold, Felix Philipp. 1989. ‘Schöpfertum und Führungskraft. Zum Wandel der “Funktion Autor” in der Moderne’ in Wunderlich, Werner (ed.) Der literarische Homo Oeconomicus. Vom Märchenhelden zum Manager. Beiträge zum Ökonomieverständnis in der Literatur. Bern – Stuttgart: Haupt: 171-195. Ingold, Felix Philipp. 1992. Der Autor am Werk. Versuche über literarische Kreativität. München: Hanser. Jarz bski, Jerzy. 1999. Schulz. Wrocaw: Wydawnictwo Dolnol skie. Karkowski, Czesaw. 1978. ‘Poezja na mietniku’ in Poezja. 13(6): 64-68. Kaków, Robert. 1992. ‘Wielki teatr paschy. O akcentach ydowskich w twórczoci Brunona Schulza’ in NaGos 7: 34-47. Lachmann, Renate. 1992. ‘Dezentrierte Bilder. Die ekstatische Imagination in Bruno Schulz’ Prosa’ in Wiener Slawistischer Almanach. Sonderband 31: 439-461. ——. 1999. ‘Der Demiurg und seine Phantasmen. Schöpfungsmythologische Spekulation im Werk von Bruno Schulz’ in Kosta, Peter, Holt Meyer and


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Natascha Drubek-Meyer (eds). Juden und Judentum in Literatur und Film des slavischen Sprachraums. Die geniale Epoche (Jüdische Kultur 5). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 131-153. ——. 2002. Erzählte Phantastik. Zu Phantasiegeschichte und Semantik phantastischer Texte. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Lemian, Bolesaw. 1965. Poezje (ed. J. Trznadel). Warszawa: Pastwowy Instytut Wydawniczy. Lewi, Henri. 1989. Bruno Schulz et les stratégies messianiques. Paris: La Table Ronde. opuszaski, Piotr. 2000. Lemian. Wrocaw: Wydawnictwo Dolnol skie. Meyer-Fraatz, Andrea. 2000. ‘Das Rätsel der dritten Rose. Bolesaw Lemians Zyklus “Trzy ró e” im Kontext des Gedichtbands ka’ in Ibler, Reinhard (ed.) Zyklusdichtung in den slavischen Literaturen. Frankfurt/M. etc.: Lang: 367379. ——. 2001. ‘Zasady cyklizacji w prozie Brunona Schulza’ in Jakowska, Krystyna, Olech, Barbara and Sokoowska, Katarzyna (eds). Cykl literacki w Polsce. Biaystok: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu w Biaymstoku: 283-299. ——. 2004. ‘Söhne und Väter: Überlegungen zu einer thematischen Konstante bei Franz Kafka, Bruno Schulz und Danilo Kiš’ in Hansen-Kokoruš, Renate and Richter Angela (eds). Mundus narratus. Festschrift für Dagmar Burkhart zum 65. Geburtstag. Frankfurt/M. etc.: Lang: 359-374. ——. 2005. ‘Zasady cyklizacji w twórczoci narracyjnej Brunona Schulza (ci g dalszy)’ in Demska-Tr bacz, Mieczysawa, Jakowska, Krystyna and Sioma, Radosaw (eds). Semiotyka cyklu. Cykl w muzyce, plastyce i literaturze. Biaystok: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu w Biaymstoku: 327-336. Moked, Gabriel. 1994. ‘Dwie galaktyki pónego modernizmu. wiat przeszoci i modernizm w twórczoci dwóch ydowskich pisarzy z Galicji – Brunona Schulza i Samuela Josefa Agnona’ in Jarz bski, Jerzy (ed.) Czytanie Schulza. Kraków: T.I.C.: 85-94. Panas, Wadysaw. 1996. Pismo i rana. Szkice o problematyce ydowskiej w literaturze polskiej (Critice literaturae judaicae). Lublin: Dabar. ——. 1997. Ksiga blasku. Traktat o kabale w prozie Brunona Schulza. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego. ——. 2001. Bruno od Mesjasza. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii CurieSkodowskiej. Prokop-Janiec, Eugenia. 1994. ‘Schulz a galicyjski tygiel kultur’ in Jarz bski, Jerzy (ed.) Czytanie Schulza. Kraków: T.I.C.: 95-107. Przybylski, Ryszard K. 1987. Autor i jego sobowtór. Wrocaw: Ossolineum. Robertson, Theodosia. 1994. ‘Bruno Schulz i komedia’ in Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata (ed.) Bruno Schulz. In memoriam. 1892-1942. Lublin: Wydawnictwo FIS: 101-109. Rymkiewicz, Jarosaw Marek. 2001. Lemian. Encyklopedia. Warszawa: Sic! Schmid, Herta. 1998. ‘Sprachursprungstheorien bei Bolesaw Lemian und Bruno Schulz’ in Grözinger, Karl Erich (ed.) Sprache und Identität im Judentum (Jüdische Kultur 4). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 43-57. Schulz, Bruno. 1989a. Opowiadania. Wybór esejów i listów (ed. J. Jarz bski). Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossolinskich.

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——. 1989b. The Complete Fiction of Bruno Schulz. New York: Walker and Company. ——. 1992a. ‘Exposé über das Buch “Zimtläden” von Bruno Schulz’. Die Wirklichkeit ist Schatten des Wortes. Aufsätze und Briefe (ed. J. Ficowski). München: Hanser: 325-328. ——. 1992b. Ilustracje do wasnych utworów (ed. J. Ficowski). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Reprint. ——. 2002. Ksiga listów (ed. J. Ficowski). Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria. Schulte, Jörg. 2004. Eine Poetik der Offenbarung. Isaak Babel’, Bruno Schulz, Danilo Kiš (Jüdische Kultur 12). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Shallcross, Bo ena. 1997. ‘“Fragments of a Broken Mirror”: Bruno Schulz’s Retextualization of the Kabbalah’ in East European Politics and Societies. 11(2): 270-281. Sikorski, Dariusz K. 2004. Symboliczny wiat Brunona Schulza. Supsk: Wydawnictwo Pomorskiej Akademii Pedagogicznej w Supsku. Sproede, Alfred. 2000. ‘Expérimentations narratives après la fin de l’avantgarde: notes sur Bruno Schulz, ses lecteurs et ses incantations’ in Konicka, Hanna and Hélène Wodarczyk (eds). La littérature polonaise du XXe siècle: textes, styles et voix. Paris: Institut d’Etudes Slaves: 135-165. Stala, Krzysztof. 1993. On the Margins of Reality: the Paradoxes of Representation in Bruno Schulz’s Fiction. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Stone, Rochelle. 1976. Bolesaw Lemian. The Poet and his Poetry. Berkeley – Los Angeles – London: University of California Press. Van Heuckelom, Kris. 2006. ‘Artistic Crossover in Polish Modernism. The Case of Bruno Schulz’s Xi ga Bawochwalcza (The Idolatrous Booke)’ in Image [&] Narrative. Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative 15. On line at: http://www.imageandnarrative.be/iconoclasm/heuckelom.htm (consulted 18.05.2008). Wyskiel, Wojciech. 1977. ‘Brunona Schulza porozumienie z czytelnikiem’ in Bujnicki, Tadeusz and Janusz Sawiski (eds). Problemy odbioru i odbiorcy. Wrocaw: Ossolineum: 257-267. ——. 1980. Inna twarz Hioba. Problematyka alienacyjna w dziele Brunona Schulza. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie.

As One Kabbalist to Another… On Arnold Sucki’s Mystical Visions in the Poem ‘Bruno Schulz’ Sawomir Jacek urek Abstract: Bruno Schulz and Arnold Sucki (1920-1972) have several things in common: their place of birth (shtetl), their Jewish origin (Polish-Jewish roots), their assimilation to Polish culture, their attachment to the history of Polish literature, and their fascination with Jewish mysticism and philosophy, primarily with medieval kabbalistic thought. They are not only writers, but also Jewish philosophers and kabbalistic thinkers. This article is a hermeneutic effort to show influences of Schulz’s output on Sucki’s poetry in the context of Judaism and first of all – kabbalah. It analyzes one of Arnold Sucki’s poems, entitled ‘Bruno Schulz’.

Introduction Two distinguished Polish writers, Bruno Schulz and Arnold Sucki (1920-1972), have several things in common. Both came from a shtetl – a small Jewish town – Schulz from Drohobycz, Sucki from Tyszowce on the Huczwa river; both were born into Jewish families; both were assimilated into Polish culture; and today they are both famous as Polish writers. There is also one other connection between them, namely their fascination with Jewish mysticism and philosophy, primarily with medieval kabbalah.1 Looking at their output, one could call these two writers “Jewish philosophers and kabbalistic thinkers” because one can find in their poems and novels not only inspirations from Jewish philosophy but also connections with its mystical vision of worlds and cosmic ideas. One Polish mystic literally talks to another, as one kabbalist to another…

1

Cf. Panas (1997) and urek (1999) for a discussion of connections between the works of Polish writers and Jewish mystical tradition.

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“The Constant Temptation of Matter” The basic philosophical category operating in Arnold Sucki’s poetic text ‘Bruno Schulz’ is the principium individuationis. The term originates in the Middle Ages. Like many other modern terms, it harkens back to Thomas Aquinas, who in Summa Theologica (Question 75: Of Man Who is Composed of a Spiritual and a Corporeal Substance: And in the First Place, Concerning What Belongs to the Essence of the Soul (Seven Articles), Fourth Article: Whether the Soul is Man?) describes a human being in the following way: The assertion the soul is man can be taken in two senses. First, that man is a soul; though this particular man, Socrates, for instance, is not a soul, but composed of soul and body. I say this, forasmuch as some held that the form alone belongs to the species; while matter is part of the individual, and not the species. This cannot be true; for to the nature of the species belongs what the definition signifies; and in natural things the definition does not signify the form only, but the form and the matter. Hence in natural things the matter is part of the species; not, indeed, signate matter, which is the principle of individuality; but the common matter. For as it belongs to the notion of this particular man to be composed of this soul, of this flesh, and of these bones; so it belongs to the notion of man to be composed of soul, flesh, and bones; for whatever belongs in common to the substance of all the individuals contained under a given species, must belong to the substance of the species. (1981)

Aquinas points to a certain tension between individuality and universality, and between the subjective and objective aspects of their perception. Stefan Swie awski comments on the above fragment of the medieval thinker’s ontological argument in this way: W okrelenie rzeczy materialnych wchodzi materia wspóna, nie za materia ilociowo oznaczona, stanowi ca o ujednostkowieniu, indywidualizacji, czyli o rozdrobnieniu na jednostki. Zasad , czynnikiem jednostkowienia (principium individuationis) jest to, co sprawia, e dany byt nie jest tylko jedynym w gatunku, lecz e na gatunek tego bytu skadaj si liczne jednostki. Zasad t jest materia, która podobnie jak ka da mo no jest ródem mnogoci. Materia pierwsza jest czyst mo noci , ale mo noci stania si ciaem; i dlatego tym, do czego jest ona w pierwszym rz dzie w mo noci, jest rozci go i wszelkie okrelenia ilociowe (quantitas). Tote zasad jednostkowienia dla w. Tomasza nie jest materia pierwsza bez adnych bli szych wyjanie, ale materia uj ta jako pozostaj ca w mo noci do okrele ilociowych:

As One Kabbalist to Another… Schulz and Sucki

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quantitate signata. Jest to ta materia, która – po czywszy si z form substancjaln – wyst puje w danym jednostkowym bycie, ukonstytuowanym przez po czenie si tej formy substancjalnej z materi pierwsz . Czym zupenie innym jest materia wspólna czy powszechna (materia communis); oznacza ona ten element materialny, który jest istotny nie dla danej jednostki, ale dla gatunku, gdy istoty jestestw cielesnych nie stanowi nigdy sama forma, lecz zespolenie formy i wanie owej materii wspólnej. (in z Akwinu 1956: 726). (Material entities are determined by the common matter rather than by matter circumscribed qualitatively. The common matter individuates particular entities. The principle of individuation (principium individuationis) makes it possible for many particulars to share the same species. Matter constitutes the principle of individuation, which – like other possibilities – is the source of variety. Primary matter is the pure possibility of acquiring a body. Thus, extension and quantity (quantitas) constitute its primary potential. Therefore, Aquinas considers primary matter to be the principle of individuation only insofar as it encompasses the possibility of quantitative determination (quantitate signata). It is a type of matter that occurs in a particular in combination with the substantial form, and the particular is constituted by this combination. The common matter (materia communis) is totally different, as it refers to the material component, which is not essential to a particular, but only to the species. For the essence of material entities is never constituted by form alone, but by its combination with the common matter.)2

Beginning his lyrical philosophical treatise, pointedly entitled ‘Bruno Schulz’, Sucki writes: Tak urealnia si principium individuationis: kuszenie substancji ci ge, upynniony ar pogardy sennej, mioci… (1966) (It is in this way that principium individuationis becomes real: the constant temptation of matter, the fluid heat of dreamy disdain, of love…)

Considering Schulz’s way of understanding reality and his metaphysical and ontological vision, it appears that Sucki is trying to indicate at the beginning of his poetic argument the principle that both orders Schulz’s vision and provides a means for understanding it cosmologically and anthropologically. Following Aquinas (and, as we will see shortly, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Jung), Sucki seeks the 2

Translation into English by P. Kawalec.

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central axis of all the processes to which both cosmos and man (and all beings) are subject in the category of the principium individuationis: that is, in the category of the principle of individuation mentioned by Aquinas, and in its natural objectives, understood in Schopenhauer’s sense as the objectification of the transcendental will, conceived as the thing in itself. In his poetry, Schulz asks an important question about the universal principle that would explain all the processes of transformation and becoming for both the human being and, more broadly, the world. According to Sucki, in Schulz’s system, this principium applies to both the individual and human community or nature. Man and the world become actual not through the process of having their being objectively confirmed by a number of other individuals, but through individuation, which takes place in an individual and subjective manner, somewhere in the human ego, where the hidden principle of life is being discovered. According to Jung’s theory wszystko wi e si zarówno z aspektem procesualnym zmian w obr bie bytu (zarówno bytu jako takiego, jak i bytu psychicznego w szczególnoci), ale nade wszystko z wymiarem teleologicznym (celowociowym) tego . Prawo to wyra a wi c bezporednio d enie jednostki jako caoci do „wyra enia” siebie jako niepowtarzalnej, jedynej w swoim rodzaju indywidualnoci, kieruj cej si wasnym cho powszechnym wewn trznym prawem – apriorycznie dan , potencjalnie w nim tkwi c struktur . Na gruncie psychologii analitycznej zasada ta oznacza przede wszystkim proces wyodr bniania si , ró nicowania bytu wiadomego z wszechogarniaj cej macierzy niewiadomoci. (Kumicki 2006) (everything is linked to the process of changes in being (both being itself and as a particular mental state of being), and above all to its teleological (design) dimension. This principle therefore expresses the aspirations of the individual as a whole for “expressing” oneself as a unique individuality, guided by internal laws that are one’s own yet also universal – an a priori structure, a potential lying deep within. At the basis of analytical psychology, this principle denotes first of all a process of separating, of differentiating a conscious being from the all-embracing mother of unconsciousness.)

Jung’s understanding of the principium individuationis seems closer to Schulz’s ontological conception than to Schopenhauer’s understanding of individuation as a source of human suffering (as it is in Buddhism). In both Schulz’s and Jung’s conceptions, it is above all the principle responsible for the creative transformations of the


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individual, for the individuals’ development toward higher goals, namely, wholeness, the uniqueness of existence, and higher forms of order (Kumicki 2006). We should give some attention here to the historical context, pointed out by Stefan Chwin (1994) in his article ‘Grzeszne manipulacje. Historia sztuki, a historia medycyny’ (‘Sinful Manipulations: the History of Art and the History of Medicine’). We have to remember that Schulz’s lifetime (1920s and 1930s) was marked by very intensive development of the sciences. In his essay, Chwin shows the extent of Schulz’s fascination with biology and medicine. According to Chwin, the artist from Drohobycz was deeply interested in discoveries made by Alexis Carrel in the area of transplantation, which had changed the understanding of the human body (the shift of the border between life and death) and of human identity (the transcendence of sexual differences). These discoveries were accompanied by unusually rapid – at least for that time – development of other medical sciences, especially the creation of genetics and the emergence of eugenics. For Chwin, the description of these fascinations in Schulz’s case can be found in the dreams that the hero of Schulz’s prose has about creating a human being in the form of a tailor’s dummy, about experiments consisting of the exclusion of the principium individuationis from an ontological (and, consequently, axiological) perspective, and then reversing the order and trying to turn the principium individuationis into the primary principle of the cosmic order, which also pertains to inanimate objects. All of this acquires a new form within the aesthetic domain where the artist attempts to create new textual worlds without paying attention to the limitations of matter because such limitations have been overcome. For this reason, some critics have opted for the theory that this principium individuationis (a term which appears only once in Schulz’s work, in the story ‘Kometa’ (‘The Comet’)) has a Nietzschean genealogy in the case of the author of ‘Traktat o manekinach (‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’), or as Jerzy Jarz bski (1998a: c-cv) suggests, it is deployed parodically by Schulz. As Wodzimierz Bolecki forcefully asserts: [P]rincipum individuationis […] funkcjonuje w schulzowskiej koncepcji literatury niew tpliwie w takim sensie, w jakim u ywa jej Nietzsche w Narodzinach tragedii, tzn. jako kryterium podziau na sztuk apollisk i dionizyjsk . (2003: 20)

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(Principium individuationis undoubtedly works in Schulz’s conception of literature in the sense in which Nietzsche used it in The Birth of Tragedy, that is, as the criterion for dividing art into Apollonian and Dionysian.)

According to Nietzsche, kategoria ta implikuje podzia bytu na odizolowane, indywidualne elementy. [J]est […] wyznacznikiem sztuki apolliskiej. A sam Apollo zosta nazwany […] “boskim obrazem principium individuationis”, “ubóstwieniem” i “geniuszem tej zasady”. [Z]asada [ta] stanowi fundament sztuki, która ten ywio [istnienie, byt] zasania i która zatem nie jest przedstawieniem istnienia, lecz jego pozorem. […] eby rozerwa zason zasaniaj c rzeczywisto, aby dotrze do istoty bytu, trzeba przede wszystkim unicestwi zasad principium individuationis. [T]ej destrukcji dokonuje wanie Dionizos. (Bolecki 2003: 21-22) (this category implies the division of being into isolated, individual elements. This is the determinant of Apollonian art. Apollo himself was called “the divine image of principium individuationis”, “its divinization” and “the genius of this principle”. This principle constitutes the basis of art, art which covers up this element [existence] and which therefore does not depict existence but rather its illusion. To tear this veil covering reality, to reach the core of being, one must first of all destroy the principle of principium individuationis. This destruction is carried out by Dionysus.)

In this approach, the breaking of this principle is an artistic phenomenon, which is not wholly negative since it is connected with a return to the sources of culture. As Bolecki further observes: Tymczasem Schulz – si gaj c do tych samych nietzscheaskich róde – nadawa amoralizmowi sens ontologiczny. Dla Schulza bowiem aetyczny jest nie artysta (“kapan sztuki” w terminologii Przybyszewskiego), lecz byt – samo istnienie. […] Schulz rozwija w nim koncepcj , zgodnie z któr dawna jedno sowa zostaa rozerwana na izolowane fragmenty. Jedno tym elementom mo e przywróci jedynie sztuka, a dokadniej – zabieg zwany przez Schulza mityzacj . Celem mityzacji jest odzyskanie utraconej jednoci, mit jest bowiem w koncepcji Schulza rzeczywistoci pierwotn . W pierwotnej rzeczywistoci ukryty jest sens istnienia, którego nie ma w sztuce wspóczesnej, zbudowanej na odizolowanych od siebie fragmentach dawnych kultur i mitów. […] Poezja, czyli sztuka – pisa Schulz – to “regeneracja pierwotnych mitów”. (Bolecki 2003: 23-27) (Meanwhile Schulz, using Nietzschean sources, gives an ontological sense to amoralism. This is because for Schulz it is not the artist who is ethical (the artist who was called “the priest of art” by Stanisaw Przybyszewski)


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but being, existence itself. Schulz develops the concept according to which the old unity of the word has been broken into isolated elements. The unity of these elements can be restored only by art, and, more precisely, by the operation which Schulz called “the mythologizing of reality”. The goal of this mythologizing is the restitution of lost unity, as myth, for Schulz, constitutes original reality. In this original reality, there is hidden the sense of existence, which no longer exists in modern art, which is created from the isolated fragments of old cultures and myths. Poetry, that is, art – Schulz wrote – is the “regeneration of the original myths”.)

This is not the first or only case of the existence of the motif of the principium individuationis in Polish literature. This term appears, for example, in Czesaw Miosz’s poetry: “What happened and when to the principium individuationis? Where is the smell of ‘ajer’3 near the river bank, for me only and nobody else?” (“O, co si stao i kiedy z principium individuationis? Gdzie zapach ajeru nad rzek , mój tylko i dla nikogo?”; 1980: 124). The poet – as Jan Boski wrote musi nazwa matk dawnym, jedynym imieniem, inaczej zostanie policzony w tum, zmierzony, zapomniany… Bo imi nowe, pospolicie stosowane, uogólnia i str ca w abstrakcj , pozbawiaj c jednostkowoci, któr ocali mo e tylko poezja. Jak ocali principium individuationis? Za spraw “ajeru nad rzek ”, który by “mój tylko i dla nikogo”… Zgodnie ze wi tym Tomaszem, wanie materialno funduje principium individuationis. (2008) (must call his mother by the old, the only name, or else he will become part of the crowd, calculated, forgotten… Because the new name, colloquially used, generalizes and turns into an abstraction, depriving one of his or her individuality, which can be saved only by poetry. How can one save the principium individuationis? Thanks to the “‘ajer’ on the river bank”, which was “only mine and no one else’s”… According to Thomas Aquinas, it is materiality that is at the core of the principium individuationis.)

“This Migration of Forms is the Essence of Life” How does Schulz himself understand the meaning of individuality or individualization of beings? In a letter to Witkiewicz, he wrote:

3

“Ajer” is a liquor, also known as “advocaat”.

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Sawomir Jacek urek Wszystko dyfunduje poza swoje granice, trwa tylko na chwil w pewnym ksztacie, a eby go przy pierwszej sposobnoci opuci. […] Rzeczywisto przybiera pewne ksztaty tylko dla pozoru, dla artu, dla zabawy. Kto jest czowiekiem, a kto karakonem, ale ten ksztat nie si ga istoty, jest tylko rol na chwil przyj t , tylko naskórkiem, który za chwil

zostanie zrzucony. Statuowany tu jest pewien skrajny monizm substancji, dla której poszczególne przedmioty s jedynie maskami. ycie substancji polega na zu ywaniu niezmiernej iloci masek. Ta w drówka form jest istot ycia. (Schulz 1998a: 444-445).4 (Everything diffuses beyond its borders, remains in a given shape only momentarily, leaving this shape behind at the first opportunity. […] Reality takes on certain shapes merely for the sake of appearance, as a joke or form of play. One person is a human, another is a cockroach, but shape does not penetrate essence, is only a role adopted for the moment, an outer skin soon to be shed. A certain extreme monism of the life substance is assumed here, for which specific objects are nothing more than masks. This migration of forms is the essence of life; Schulz 1990: 113)

“This migration of forms is the essence of life” seems to be the key to Schulz’s ontology. Beings only exist in their essence deep beneath the epidermis, which peels off periodically. Everything is only a “mask” under which one can find the “essence”. Beings are in constant motion; they mutate but only in their external forms, while their inner essence remains unchanged. Should this ontological understanding of reality be treated as a distant echo of gilgu neshamot, the Jewish mystical conception of a regenerated, post-mortem incarnation of the essence of each being (in Hebrew gilgulim means a turn, a circle, a wheel), that is, of its soul (or spirit, in Hebrew, neshama) into another physical form or human figure, which would happen thanks to the energy stored in each being?5 Initially, this concept was popular only in circles close to the Karaits (it was popularized by Anan ben David), who had taken it from Indian thought (samsara – the circle of forms; cf. Ochman 1995: 31-32). This teaching later infiltrated the kabbalah, but it was not – which must be stressed here – in agreement with Orthodox Judaism. Some kabbalists searched for the model of gilgul neshema in the history of Moses, who led the Jewish people out of 4

All further references will be given as Op. Wadysaw Panas (2001: 120) signalized the presence of this motif in Schulz’s prose.

5


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Egypt.6 In the kabbalah, the concept of gilgul neshamot appeared for the first time in a treatise entitled Sefer ha-Bahir. Later, it was popularized by Isaac Luria,7 who, according to Panas, strongly influenced Schulz.8 According to the Lurian notion, the souls of the dead could be reincarnated into animals, and those who did not find a place in the world of animate nature took their place in stones. Luria liberated the souls imprisoned in stones and ordered them to continue the restitution and repair of the world (Hebr. tikkun) because liberating souls from these inanimate forms and sending them on to develop further were the role of a mystic-kabbalist. In kabbalistic visions, stones, thanks to the souls hidden in them, behave like live bodies to such an extent that they themselves can become a source of light (cf. Unterman 1994: 294-295). In the kabbalah, the entire cosmos is understood as the realm of forms, where all beings undergo development from a mineral state, to vegetal and animal states, and toward the stage of incarnate humanity. In the Jewish tradition, man occupies a special place in the hierarchy of created beings: higher than angels. This position is a result of two features. First, man has a second soul, which guarantees him eternity, and second, thanks to this soul, man is a mirror of the Absolute (En-Sof). Does Sucki also point to such a kabbalistic interpretation of Schulz’s ontology and cosmogony? 6

Cf., for example, Halevi (1994: 19). Gershom Scholem (1996: 128) claims that after Luria’s death the theory of the wandering of souls, known as the banishment of souls, achieved an important place in the worldview of the subsequent generations of Jews. 8 Cf. Panas (1997: 99-100): “We are sure that there exists an intellectual and conceptual context for interpretation, which helps us to explain the mystery of Schulz’s vision of cosmogony. We see it in the kabbalistic doctrine cimcum, which was created by the Palestinian mystic Isaac Luria (1534-1572). In our opinion, this is the only possible link, because in all known systems of cosmogonic ideas – mythological, religious, philosophical – there is nothing analogical to this collection of ideas and the pictures accompanying it, which we have discovered in Schulz’s world” (“S dzimy, e istnieje pewien intelektualny i wyobra eniowy kontekst interpretacyjny, który pomo e wyjani tajemnic Schulzowskiej wizji kosmogonicznej. Dostrze emy go w kabalistycznej doktrynie cimcum, któr wykreowa palestyski mistyk Izaak Luria (1534-1572). W naszym przekonaniu to jedyne mo liwe odniesienie, poniewa we wszystkich znanych systemach myli kosmogonicznej – mitologicznych, religijnych, filozoficznych – nie znajdujemy praktycznie adnej analogii dla tego zespou idei i towarzysz cych im obrazów, jaki wykrylimy u Schulza”). 7

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“At the Blind Spot of its Circumference” It is interesting that in his interpretation of Schulz’s works, Sucki instantly moves from ontological matters to the figure of the father, directly addressed with the words “Father, father”: Ojcze, ojcze, kondor pi, przelatuje soce nad Drohobyczem i przejrzyst machinacj szykuj na niebie oboki w lepym punkcie obwodu. Blask: Pantha rei, Alleluja woa ruchem r k Bóg guchoniemy (Father, father, the condor is sleeping, the sun flies above Drohobycz and the clouds prepare a transparent machination in the sky at the blind spot of its circumference. A brilliance: Pantha rei, Hallelujah – cries the deaf-and-dumb God with a waving of his hands)

The father is invoked as a concrete person, the hero of the prose written by Schulz, addressed as a sleeping condor (the father is reincarnated as the condor in another story, ‘Ptaki’ (‘Birds’)). He “flies” together with the sun above Drohobycz, which becomes very important with regard to my discussion earlier, specifically in the cosmic context evoked by the poem and, as we will see in a moment, in the context of cosmogonist speculation. This cosmogony is a mysterious act, a physically unusual action (“clouds prepare a transparent machination in the sky”), which is connected to some cycle (“at the blind point of its circumference”), in which the movement takes place along a circular trajectory (the sun is circling, “flying” along a “circumference”). It is at this very moment that the cosmogonist elements start to appear in the text: light (“shine”) and visualized sound (“Hallelujah” – he cries “with a waving of his hands”). From this point forward, everything starts moving: panta rhei. In his story ‘Kometa’ (‘The Comet’), Schulz puts the words of Heraclitus into the father’s mouth, which is most interesting precisely in the context of principium individuationis: – Panta rei! – woa i zaznacza ruchem r k wieczne kr enie substancji. Od dawna pragn zmobilizowa kr ce w niej utajone siy, upynni jej sztywno, torowa jej drogi do wszechprzenikania, do transfuzji, do wszechcyrkulacji, jedynie waciwej jej naturze. – Principium individua-


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tionis furda – mówi i wyra a tym sw bezgraniczn pogard dla tej naczelnej ludzkiej zasady. (Op 339-340) (“Panta rhei!” he exclaimed, and indicated with a movement of his hands the eternal circling of substance. For a long time he had wanted to mobilize the forces hidden in it, to make its stiffness melt, to pave its way to universal penetration, to transfusion, to universal circulation in accordance with its true nature. “Principium individuationis – my foot”, he used to say, thus expressing his limitless contempt for that guiding human principle; Schulz 1998b: 88)

The essence of being here is movement and ceaseless change, while its matter is light and sound, as in the kabbalah. A silent and closed “deaf-and-dumb God” enters history, a God who lost some of His divine attributes to man, a God who performs an act of self-limitation through his creative gesture, as Luria and Schulz claim. This is the way in which Sucki introduces the reader to his lyric treatise on Schulz, on a great philosopher who wrote down his ontological and cosmological discoveries in literary texts. Bruno Schulz, a writer and kabbalistic philosopher, is described by Arnold Sucki, a poet and kabbalist. “A Shy Philosopher” Toward the end of his poem, Sucki writes: wstydliwy filozof incognito szmacian tog

rozwija na wszechwiat, na miasteczko, jak wdowi pantofel rzucony w zorz za ogrody i ju jest za drzwiami (a shy philosopher incognito unfolds a rag toga over the universe, over the little town, like a widow’s slipper, thrown into the dawn beyond the gardens and it is already beyond the door)

At precisely this moment in the poem, the eponymous hero appears, entering history in God’s footsteps. Sucki defines him as a “shy philosopher incognito”. This modest, emotionally marked thinker makes an important gesture by covering with the flaps of his coat both the macro reality (“the universe”) and the microcosm (“little town”). It

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is a quick and unique movement, which one can understand in two ways: on the one hand, he covers reality, but on the other hand, he tries to join it in a kind of “material” unity. A moment later, Sucki compares this act to the gesture of throwing away the “widow’s slipper” toward the source of light (“dawn”) coming from mythical gardens. These poetic acts can be understood as the process of uncovering the woman’s feet, a very important gesture in the iconography of Bruno Schulz. The entire role of “a shy philosopher”, who appears in the room (on stage?), is reduced to this symbolic manifestation of his cosmic unity with all beings because immediately he “is already beyond the door”: i ju jest za drzwiami, gdzie rozwi ze szmery traw i teksty dosowne kwiatów przepoczwarzaj si w ruchomy telegram stamt d, stamt d a dochodziy nas fale snu w rytmicznych pulsach. (and it is already behind the door, where the lustful whispers of grass and literal texts of flowers metamorphose into a mobile telegram from there, from where the waves of dream came to us in rhythmical pulses.)

The cosmos (“beyond the door”) consists of a mysterious system of signs, a code. In Schulz’s story ‘Wiosna’ (‘Spring’), there are mysterious worlds beyond the “glass-fronted door” (“szklane drzwi”; Op 138). In Sucki’s text, outside of this caesura, there is hidden a textual code, that is, the literary world and Bruno Schulz’s world. There are “wanton whispers of grass”, “literal texts / of flowers” there, and everything has taken on an ontological meaning; this world, as Sucki states following Schulz, is a “mobile telegram from over there” into which these biological-textual charades have metamorphosed. This juxtaposition of biological and textual orders, exploited by the author, appears at the beginning of Schulz’s ‘Spring’: Oto jest historia pewnej wiosny, wiosny, która bya prawdziwsza, bardziej olniewaj ca i jaskrawsza od innych wiosen, wiosna, która po prostu wzi a serio swój tekst dosowny, ten manifest natchniony, pisany najjaniejsz , wi teczn czerwieni , czerwieni laku pocztowego i kalendarza, czerwieni oówka kolorowego i czerwieni entuzjazmu, amarantem szcz liwych telegramów stamt d… (Op 133-134)


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(This is the story of a certain spring that was more real, more dazzling and brighter than any other spring; a spring that took its text seriously, an inspired script, written in the festive red of a sealing wax and of calendar print, the red of coloured pencils and of enthusiasm, the amaranth of happy telegrams from far away; Schulz 2008: 141)

The metaphysical substance of these worlds – in Schulz’s text and Sucki’s text – are, like in the Book of Zohar, sounds (“whisper” – Sucki), signs (“literal text” – Schulz), and nature (spring – Sucki and Schulz). The hero of the poem is “walled up” in his meaning; he “knock[s] everywhere”, and transmits “from over there” through “waves of dream […] in rhythmical pulses”. In Schulz’s text (‘Spring’), we can find a similar interpretation of these events: Bo tekst wiosny znaczony jest cay w domylnikach, w niedomówieniach, w elipsach, wykropkowany bez liter w pustym b kicie, i w wolne luki mi dzy sylabami ptaki wstawiaj kaprynie swe domysy i swe odgadnienia. Dlatego b dzie ta historia, wzorem tego tekstu, ci gn a si

na wielu rozga zionych torach i caa przetykana b dzie wiosennymi mylnikami, westchnieniami i wielokropkami. (Op 138) (Because the text of spring is marked by hints, ellipses, lines dotted on an empty azure, and because the gaps between the syllables are filled by the frivolous guesses and surmises of birds, my story, like that text, will follow many different tracks and will be punctuated by springlike dashes, sighs, and dots; Schulz 2008: 142)

In Sucki’s poem, the vision of resurrection directly accompanies the cosmic visions: trumny wiate otwieraj si , jak antyki na wiosn

(coffins of light open up like antiques in spring)

And what can we see? In the open “coffins of light”, let us recall, “the treasures of our questions” (“skarby naszych pyta”), “shining bank drafts” (“weksle olniewaj ce”), “blind piles / in a panic full of explosions and breakneck hopes” (olepe pliki / w panice, pene eksplozji i karkoomnych nadziei”) are lying ready to be resurrected. In the coffins, there are different sources of light, a kind of energy which makes it possible to see the potential for resurrection in the man

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sleeping in the grave. This light indicates the double nature of humanity: humanity belongs to the order of nature (“there our herbarium” / “tam zielniki nasze”) and, at the same time, to the order of revelation (“cardboard rolled up into scrolls” / “w roda zwini te brystole”). But “the yellow flame” (“ óty promie”) has changed this situation of division, once again reuniting both orders. First, this bracing light (“flame”) destroys: it “bites” (“zagryza”), “threatens” (“wygra a”, kills like a virus, but it can also “regenerate” (“regeneruje”) like a “medium from far away” (“jak medium z daleka”). All creatures undergo this process of destruction and regeneration: seeds which “sharpen their genes” (“geny swoje ostrz ”) in glass cases, as well as human beings (“sisters shine in bed linens there with the particles of their bodies” / “siostry wiec w pocieli drobinami ciaa”). And everything takes place “in a universe open like a dolphin’s wound” (“we wszechwiecie otwartym, jak rana delfina”) and tight “like an astral cake of angels after a slaughter” (“jak astralne ciasto anioów po rzezi”). Conclusion The poem ‘Bruno Schulz’ is a story about various worlds in which we must live. It is a story about worlds with unusual structures, multifariously reflected in each being, so that it can finally bring hope to man that the very composition of our being is marked by the perspective of resurrection. This is a very beautiful and joyful vision, like the stories and myths that Jewish parents tell their children in the spring during Seder. Bibliography z Akwinu, Tomasz. 1956. Traktat o czowieku – Suma teologiczna 1, 75-89. Pozna: Pallottinum. Aquinas, Thomas. 1981. The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas (5 Vols) (tr. Fathers of the English Dominican Province). Westminster, MD: Christian Classics. Boski, Jan. 2008. ‘Epifanie Miosza’. On line at: http://www.milosz.pl/o_jb_em.php (consulted 17.08.2008). Bolecki, Wodzimierz. 2003. ‘Principium individuationis. Motywy nietzscheaskie w twórczoci Brunona Schulza’ in Teksty Drugie 14(5): 17-33. Chwin, Stefan. 1994. ‘“Grzeszne manipulacje”. Historia sztuki, a historia medycyny’ in Jarz bski, Jerzy (ed.) Czytanie Schulza. Kraków: T.I.C.: 278-285.


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Halevi, Z’ev Ben Shimon. 1994. Kabaa. Tradycja wiedzy tajemnej (tr. B. Kos). Warszawa: Artes. Jarz bski, Jerzy. 1998. ‘Wst p’ in Schulz, Bruno. Opowiadania. Wybór esejów i listów. Wrocaw: Ossolineum: C-CV. Kumicki, Andrzej. 2006. ‘C.G. Jung i A. Schopenhauer – Niewiadomo’. On line at: http://www.jungpoland.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view &id=57&Itemid=86 (consulted 17.08.2008). Miosz, Czesaw. 1980. ‘Nad miastami’ in Gdzie wschodzi soce i kdy zapada. Kraków: Znak: 124. Ochman, Jerzy. 1995. redniowieczna filozofia ydowska. Kraków: Universitas. Panas, Wadysaw. 1997. Ksiga blasku. Traktat o kabale w prozie Brunona Schulza. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Towarzystwa Naukowego KUL. ——. 2001. Bruno od Mesjasza. Rzecz o dwóch ekslibrisach oraz jednym obrazie i kilkudziesiciu rysunkach Brunona Schulza. Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS. Scholem, Gershom. 1996. Kabaa i jej symbolika (tr. R. Wojnakowski). Kraków: Znak. Schulz, Bruno. 1990. ‘Bruno Schulz: An Essay for S.I. Witkiewicz’ in Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz (ed. J. Ficowski). New York: Fromm International: 110-114. ——. 1998a. Opowiadania, wybór esejów i listów. Wrocaw: Ossolineum. ——. 1998b. The Collected Works of Bruno Schulz (ed. J. Ficowski). London: Picador. ——. 2008. The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories (tr. C. Wieniewska). New York: Penguin. Sucki, Arnold. 1966. ‘Bruno Schulz’ in Eklogi i psalmodie. Warsaw: Czytelnik: 5960. Unterman, Alan. 1994. Encyklopedia tradycji i legend ydowskich (tr. O. Zienkiewicz). Warszawa: Ksi ka i Wiedza. urek, Sawomir Jacek. 1999. …lotny trud póistnienia. O motywach judaistycznych w poezji Arnolda Suckiego. Kraków: Ksi garnia Akademicka.

“The Lie Always Rises to the Surface like Oil”. Toward a Metafictional Reading of Karol Irzykowski’s Pauba and Bruno Schulz’s Fiction Dieter De Bruyn Abstract: In this article, Karol Irzykowski’s canonical autothematic novel Pauba (1903) is confronted with Bruno Schulz’s multifaceted fiction. Whereas Pauba, with its dominant discursive layer, has been systematically received as an autothematic novel, Schulz’s stories, with their manifold form, keep resisting any similar interpretative model. However, free of the yoke of their seemingly univocal selfinforming tendency (Irzykowski) or of their supposed ultimate inexhaustibility (Schulz), these texts emerge as representations of a similar literary critical discourse. On this metafictional level, they incessantly display a significant interaction between the conventional illusion of a third dimension (depth, signifié) and the reflexive consciousness of the inevitable two-dimensionality of the text (surface, signifiant).

Introduction: From Autotematyzm To Metafiction In almost every national tradition one can find literary works whose titles are referred to all the time, but which are hardly ever read from cover to cover. It goes without saying that Joyce’s Ulysses is the classic example of such “most unread novels”. One of the most obvious Polish specimens, however, is undoubtedly Karol Irzykowski’s highly experimental novel Pauba (1903). Although Pauba has been referred to as an important literary composition by generations of critics and readers alike, one could posit that only few people actually know what the novel is all about. Even those critics who have tried to grasp the novel’s main ideas seem to have difficulty getting to its very core. The same certainly holds true for both of Bruno Schulz’s collections of stories, Sklepy cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops, 1934) and Sanatorium pod klepsydr (Sanatorium Under the

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Sign of the Hourglass; 1937),1 of which Stanislaw Eile has correctly remarked that “the extensive use of figurative language renders [the] message rather confusing and consequently open to a variety of esoteric readings, which often demonstrate the inventiveness of critics rather than representing a convincing explication of the text” (1996: 97). It seems that both Pauba and Schulz’s complete fiction, notwithstanding their many differences in form and content, at least share one particular feature: in both cases, the reader is faced with a certain formal residue, some kind of narrative distortion, which causes a continual postponement of the text’s explication. Despite this common characteristic, hardly any attempt has been made to propose a similar reading of both Irzykowski and Schulz. This is all the more surprising if one takes into consideration the many literary critical accounts, in which both authors are treated as belonging to the same experimental or avant-garde vein of Polish Modernism (e.g. Taylor Sen 1972, Nycz 1997, Bolecki 1999). The main reason for the absence of one single approach to both Irzykowski and Schulz (apart from the aforementioned general literary historical categories) is of course the completely different impression which these authors’ texts make at first glance. For many years, due to its heterogeneous structure and its peremptory self-informing layer,2 Pauba could only be “naturalized” with recourse to the concept of autotematyzm or, more specifically, to the genre of the “powie autotematyczna” (“autothematic novel”). Since it was first introduced 1

All further references to these collections will be given as SC and SpK. Quotations of the original Polish text are taken from Schulz 1964, the English translations are from Schulz 1989 (hereafter referred to as CF). 2 The novel consists of five different parts: the introductory novella ‘Sny Marii Dunin (palimpsest)’ (‘The Dreams of Maria Dunin (A Palimpsest)’), in which an anonymous archaeologist reports how he was initiated into the hidden “Brotherhood of the Great Bell” (“Bractwo Wielkiego Dzwonu”), then fell in love with the leader’s daughter Maria, and eventually married her sister Hermina, after which the narrator admits that the entire story is a falsification; the “actual” novel ‘Pauba (studium biograficzne)’ (‘Pauba (A Biographical Study)’), which tells the story of Piotr Strumieski’s married life with Angelika and, after her suicide, with Ola; and three explanatory essays, respectively entitled ‘Uwagi do Pauby’ (‘Remarks to Pauba’), ‘Wyjanienie Snów Marii Dunin i zwi zek ich z Paub’ (‘An Explanation of The Dreams of Maria Dunin and Its Connection with Pauba’), and ‘Szaniec Pauby’ (‘The Rampart of Pauba’). The point to note is that even the actual novel consists mainly of explanatory digressions, discussing, for example, the protagonists’ psychology and – most prominently – the form of the novel which is being written.

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by the famous literary critic Artur Sandauer, the concept of autotematyzm has made a stunning career in Polish criticism, which eventually led to its complete exhaustion (cf. De Bruyn 2007a). The problem with this term is that it mainly focuses on explicit thematizations of the artistic genesis and the textual process, thus excluding more implicit techniques of literary reflexivity. Furthermore, by treating such self-informing tendencies in literary texts as fully reliable approaches to the same literary texts, propagators of autotematyzm usually end up in a kind of circular reasoning: discursive parts of a certain text are used in order to elucidate the same text. Due to this methodological fallacy, for instance, Irzykowski’s truly equivocal anti-Modernist3 commentaries were interpolated rather unequivocally into many literary critical accounts, so that Pauba started functioning as a univocal, more or less novelistic critique of conventional literary techniques and reading habits, rather than as an extraordinary artistic representation of the highly sophisticated literary critical self-consciousness of the author.4 Schulz’s fiction, on the other hand, even though it contains a similar but less dominant and univocal self-informing layer, has hardly ever been read as an example of “autothematic” writing. At the same time, however, this most enigmatic collection of narrative pieces has posed even larger interpretative problems. Immediately after its publication in the 1930’s, as Wodzimierz Bolecki has sufficiently proved, Schulz’s prose conflicted with the horizon of expectations of most Polish critics in two particular ways: “First, it urged to violate the generally accepted rules for reading epic literature, and second – it aroused such readerly reactions which were reserved for reading lyrical works” (“Po pierwsze, zmuszaa do pogwacenia spoecznie zaakceptowanych regu czytania epiki, po drugie – wywoywaa takie reakcje czytelnicze, jakie zrezerwowano dla lektury utworów lirycznych”; 1996 [1982]: 304). It could be argued that this twofold orientation holds true to a certain extent for the majority of critical readings of Schulz’s fiction up to now. Whereas “poetic” or 3

In this case, “anti-Modernist” refers to the traditional Polish interpretation of literary Modernism, according to which this current is limited to the early, 1890-1900 period of Moda Polska, instead of encompassing the entire 1890-1930 period. 4 This tradition includes such postwar critical works as Wyka 1977 [1948], Lipiski 1949, Zengel 1958, D browska 1963, Werner 1965, Gowiski 1969, St pnik 1973, Taylor Sen 1972, Budrecka 1981, Drozdowski 1987, and Eile 1996: 42-45.

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“logocentric” readings of this prose generally do injustice to its narrative core, any approach starting from the rules and conventions of traditional epic literature will always struggle with the many narrative inconsistencies in the stories under scrutiny.5 Consequently, as Krzysztof Stala has argued, too many critics limit themselves to “some fragmentary, marginal reading, being rather aware of the inexhaustibleness of Schulz’s prose than trying to define this inexhaustibleness, domesticate it with some proposal richer than ‘expression of the inexpressible’” (1993: 1). One of the main reasons for this difficult critical reception is that many of these interpretations are methodologically fallacious in much the same way as the already mentioned “autothematic” readings of Pauba. Again, discursive parts of the text are interpolated rather recklessly in the critic’s account as reliable sources for interpreting the same text. As a result, many of these readings are, indeed, merely marginal commentaries on the text’s discursive dimension rather than thorough analyses of the text as a literary representation. In recent years, some scholars have tried to establish new ways of interpreting the formal or “nonnarrative” residue which both authors’ texts clearly display. In one way or another, all these attempts build on an earlier interpretative model by Wodzimierz Bolecki. In what is undoubtedly the most valuable and comprehensive study on the narrative prose of such interwar writers as Bruno Schulz, Stanisaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (Witkacy), and Witold Gombrowicz, Bolecki (1996 [1982]) for the first time focuses on generations of readers’ difficulties to construct a consistent story world out of these most alienating and unusually discursive narrative accounts rather than repeating once more the texts’ main philosophical ideas, presenting themselves in the ready-made form of unequivocal selfcommentaries. More specifically, Bolecki argues that the interwar authors under scrutiny have propagated a new “poetical prose model” (“poetycki model prozy”) as an alternative to the prevailing “vehicular prose model” (“wehikularny model prozy”; 14). Whereas in the latter case literary language is overshadowed by its referential function (as in Realism), in the former case it “draws attention to its autonomy” (“zwraca uwag na swoj autonomi ”) and thus takes on a “reflexive character” (“character samozwrotny”; 12). What the critic is aiming at 5

Cf. the introduction to this volume for a critical discussion of the key figures and important currents in Schulzology.


is not necessarily the numerous metapoetic utterances in many of these works but first and foremost a manifest “semiotic overorganization” (“nadorganizacja znakowa”; 13) on all narrative levels – i.e., including the lexical (stylistic) as well as the compositional, fabular, or semantic structure of the text. Although Bolecki explicitly excludes Pauba from his “poetical prose model” for reasons of periodization and because of the alleged “cognitive uniformity of the narration” (“jednolito poznawcza narracji”; 92), the novel will later return in his critical writings as an important predecessor of this “poetical” vein of Polish Modernist fiction because of its reflexive, parodic and grotesque attitude toward literary conventions (cf. Bolecki 1999, 2003). The idea of a “parodic-grotesque current” (“nurt parodystyczno-groteskowy”) that connects Pauba with the fiction of Schulz, Witkacy and Gombrowicz was further developed by Brygida Pawowska-J drzyk (1995: 155). According to her, the “autothematic” character of Irzykowski’s novel has always overshadowed its parodic and grotesque effects. In order to restore the balance, PawowskaJ drzyk draws attention to the parodic evocation of existing literary conventions in all kinds of (either literally or figuratively) inserted “texts” (i.e., both Strumieski’s and Gasztold’s literary projects Ksiga mioci (The Book of Love) and Chora mio (A Sick Love), and the introductory novella ‘The Dreams of Maria Dunin’) as well as to the eventual self-parodic attitude toward the evolving novelistic product itself. More important, though, is the use of the grotesque as a parodic device. Whereas most critics had focused predominantly on the discursive (or the narrator’s) level of the text, Pawowska-J drzyk for the first time stresses the (less overtly) parodic function of its narrative and stylistic structure. On the level of the story, for instance, she perceives a recurrent grotesque transformation of “sublimity” (“wznioso”) into “stupidity” (“mieszno”; 156), as in the scene where Piotr Strumieski kisses Berestajka while observing a centipede on the wall (cf. Irzykowski 1976 [1903]: 339).6 Furthermore, both on the discursive and the narrative level of the text, the critic observes a grotesque deformation of conventional literary language, e.g. through the use of awkward neologisms and strained metaphors, through the deliberate combination of different stylistic registers, or more simply 6

All further references will be given as P.

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by incessantly putting typical phrases between ironic quotation marks (161-163). According to Pawowska-J drzyk, it is exactly this particular combination of grotesque scenes with a systematic use of the “linguistic grotesque” (“groteska lingwistyczna”; 161) which makes Pauba similar to Schulz’s fiction. Indeed, whereas the presence of grotesque situations in the latter’s stories is self-evident, his baroque style reaches a comparable degree of “semiotic overorganization” through a continuous flow of metaphors. In a book-length study on the entire “parodic-grotesque current” in Polish Modernism, Pawowska-J drzyk further develops her initial findings on Irzykowski’s novel. More specifically, she introduces the concept of “mediocrity” (“bylejako”) as a new interpretative tool. “Mediocrity (in a descriptive, and not in an axiological sense)”, she argues, “is a term which is used for denoting the specificity of the poetics of works which stand out with a deliberate carelessness of their artistic execution” (“Bylejako’ (w znaczeniu opisowym, a nie oceniaj cym) to termin stosowany […] dla okrelenia swoistoci poetyki utworów wyró niaj cych si celow niedbaoci wykonania artystycznego”; 2002: 89). In her classification of devices of mediocrity, Pawowska-J drzyk makes a distinction between “static motives” (“motywy statyczne”), such as the representation of “shoddy” objects or physical deficiencies, and “dynamic motives” (“motywy dynamiczne”), such as inadequacies in the narrative structure of the text (90-91). Whereas the “static” version of the poetics of mediocrity brings to mind Schulz’s fascination with tandeta (“trash”), a more “dynamic” approach can be discerned in Pauba. More specifically, Pawowska-J drzyk stresses the central role of the “‘anti-aesthetic’ word-symbol” (“‘antyestetyczne’ sowosymbol”; 105) pauba in Irzykowski’s poetics.7 Unlike tandeta, she argues, the concept of pauba induces a dynamics of “mediocrity” on 7

Pauba is a dialectal form in Polish, which may take on a lot of meanings. Irzykowski continuously plays with this polysemy in his novel (cf. infra). Quite surprisingly, the enormous poetical relevance of the word has been underestimated by virtually all earlier critics. Moreover, as we have seen, critics tend to limit themselves to some kind of critical repetition of those discursive parts of the texts in which the meaning of pauba is discussed by the narrating “author” (i.e. the “author-like” narrator who incessantly comments on the story told). One of the few exceptions can be found in Ewa Szary-Matywiecka’s brilliant, though quite idiosyncratic, monograph on the Polish “autothematic novel”, in which this symbolic keyword is even considered to be a forerunner of Sandauer’s concept of autotematyzm (1979: 13-18).


several levels of the text of the novel.8 Of course, Pauba as a whole, with its intricate heterogeneous structure, is already a “shoddy” artifact in itself, but what Pawowska-J drzyk is particularly aiming at is the interplay between the level of the story and the level of the narration. On the level of the story, Piotr Strumieski and the other protagonists cannot but accept that their conventional ideals (of love, fidelity, etc.) are constantly compromised by the very nature of everyday reality. On the level of the narration, this conflict is described as the clash between the “constructive element” (“pierwiastek konstrukcyjny”) and the “‘palubic’ element” (“pierwiastek paubiczny”). As a result, a dual dynamics of “mediocrity” is generated: Demaskowanie stereotypów i zafaszowa odbywa si w utworze na drodze dyskursywnej rewizji fantazmatów (metoda wiwisekcji), a tak e poprzez fabularne sprowadzanie ich ad absurdum, w czym nieocenione usugi oddaj pisarzowi parodia i groteska. Obydwie wymienione paszczyzny dziea – narracyjna i fabularna – stanowi domen swoicie poj tej “bylejakoci”. (106) (In the work, the unmasking of stereotypes and imitations is implemented not only through the discursive revision of the phantasms (method of vivisection) but also by leading them ad absurdum on the level of the story, in which the writer receives valuable support of the devices of parody and grotesque. On both the levels mentioned above – of the narration and of the story – a specifically conceived “mediocrity” comes to the surface.)

In other words, by introducing the idea of a poetics of “mediocrity”, Pawowska-J drzyk now gives a more particular interpretation of the “parodic-grotesque” clash between the ideal (sense) and reality (chaos) in such novels as Pauba – a problem which she had already touched upon in her earlier writings. No matter how valuable Pawowska-J drzyk’s notion of the poetics of mediocrity might be for the critical reassessment of the fiction of such writers as Irzykowski, Schulz, Gombrowicz, and Witkacy, the focus of her analysis is predominantly on these works’ “predisposition to the extra-discursive evocation of philosophical contents” (“predyspozycja do pozadyskursywnego ewokowania treci 8

As I will demonstrate in the last section of this article, the concept of tandeta in fact lies at the basis of an intricate semiotic “dynamics” as well.

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filozoficznych”; 5), or, more specifically, on their search for some ultimate signifié that is behind the represented chaos of reality. What she seems to overlook, however, is that these works’ protest against any schematic rendering of reality is eventually directed against the evolving literary product itself. In other words, the represented “migration of forms” (“w drówka form”; Schulz 1964: 682) – the chaos of reality – is strongly interrelated with the representing “dispersion of signifiants” – the chaos of language. As we have seen, in order to go behind this problematic signifying form, Bolecki proposes a “poetic” reading of these narrative works. As Krzysztof Kosiski has argued, however, by introducing this “new, alternative readability” (“nowa […], alternatywna czytelno”), Bolecki in fact tactfully evades the often indicated problem of the “unreadability” (“nieczytelno”) and the subsequent “incomprehensibility” (“niezrozumialstwo”) of these extraordinary fictions (2000: 20). According to Kosiski, these texts are never completely “unreadable” or “incomprehensible”. What should be done, then, is exactly to define this complicating factor, this paradoxical “growth” (“narost”; 21) or “formal residue” (cf. supra). In his paper, Kosiski proposes to use the notion of “stylization” (“stylizacja”; 21). What makes Kosiski’s analysis particularly interesting, is that it points at Pauba as the first Polish novel which explicitly discusses its own “stylized character” (“stylizacyjny charakter”; 24). On the second last page, more exactly, one can read as follows: A teraz gdy si wie, jak Pauba nie jest, pojmie si te , czym ona jest: Jest ona monstrualn ruin – a i to tylko stylizowan. Czy tak jak j powinno si pisa ka de dzieo? Czy to jest program poezji, poezji przyszoci? I znów mamy b dne koo. Wszak e program Pauby dotyczy tylko jej samej, znika razem z ni . W ka dym dziele autor na nowo bierze rozmach i na nowo stosunkuje si do kwestii “poezji” […], dzieo jest tylko ladem tego stosunkowania si . (P 586; italics mine) (So, now that we know what Pauba is not like, it should also be clear what it is: it is a monstrous ruin – be it merely a stylized one. Should every work be written like this one? Is this the program of poetry, of the poetry of the future? And again we have a vicious circle. Indeed, the program of Pauba only touches the work itself – it expires together with it. In each work the author gathers momentum again and once more determines his position about the question of “poetry” – the work is merely a trace of this act of positioning.)


In this fragment, Irzykowski not only puts into perspective his own destructive literary practice (“it is a monstrous ruin – be it merely a stylized one”) but also clearly describes the technique of stylization: its function is to somehow put into words what in fact cannot be put into words, to show what precedes its verbal phase, to “reveal its own usurping nature” (“ujawni swoje uzurpatorstwo”; Kosiski 2000: 24). In this way, stylization mediates between what the literary work eventually conveys (a text which is merely a “trace”) and the creative process by which it is preceded (the “positioning” of the author toward the question of poetry). Whereas the majority of literary texts tend to create the illusion of a particular reality or a particular meaning – thus concealing their “own usurping nature” (toward reality, toward meaning), – the technique of stylization makes this “lie” to come to the surface.9 In my opinion, what all these approaches of the specificity of the experimental vein of twentieth-century Polish fiction share is, in fact, a particular sensitivity to these texts’ reflexivity. More specifically, each particular approach focuses on certain textual signals which – to a larger extent than in more conventional works of fiction – refer to their own literary (linguistic, fictional) form: to their own poetics (poetycko), to their own deformity (groteskowo), to the “carelessness of their own artistic execution” (bylejako), or to the “usurping nature” of their own language (stylizacja). At the same time, critics have always been conscious of the presence of explicit “autothematic” statements in the majority of these texts. Due to the conceptual rigidity of the notion of autotematyzm, however, no attempts have been made to link together both these reflexive techniques, i.e. the inclusion of “autothematic” comments and the more implicit device of “foregrounding” certain literary conventions. Of course, one could quite simply treat all these works within the framework of literary reflexivity, but due to the wide variety and omnipresence of reflexive devices in all of them, it seems better to introduce the concept of metafiction as a new literary critical tool. Unlike autotematyzm (which suggests a thematic subgenre) and reflexivity (which primarily denotes the general device), metafiction 9

As Kosiski correctly remarks, the “stylistic over-organization” – to use a variant of Bolecki’s notion of “semiotic over-organization” – is not limited to the narrative level of Pauba because on the discursive level one may come across many passages in which the “narrating author” loses himself in a mixture of various discursive styles.

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emphasizes the permanent bifurcation of the fictional discourse into a referential and a reflexive level (cf. Waugh’s definition of metafiction as “the construction of a fictional illusion […] and the laying bare of that illusion”; 1984: 6). More exactly, whereas autotematyzm manifests itself in the form of a separate metalinguistic discourse beside the common discourse of the object language, metafiction can best be defined as a specific “borderline discourse […] between fiction and criticism” (Currie 1995: 2) that is represented in the text in ever varying manners. In fact, these different textual devices (either forms of foregrounding or forms of commentary) are merely representations of a discourse that, on the other side of the borderline between fiction and criticism, should be answered with a similarly self-conscious literary critical discourse. With regard to Irzykowski and Schulz, the question is whether the metafictional discourse that their respective texts represent in a different way bears certain resemblances. Do both metafictional projects stem from a (more or less) similar attitude toward the essence of literary practice? In order to answer this question, one could start from Pawowska-J drzyk’s hypothesis that what is behind the grotesque strategies of both authors is the philosophical ambition to grasp the sense (sens) of the chaos of reality. Applied to literary practice, one could posit that both authors show a specific interest in the dynamics between surface (the text) and depth (meaning, sense). What they seem to diagnose is that no matter how hard literature, by analogy with reality itself, tries to add a third dimension (depth, signifié), the reader will always be confronted with the twodimensional reality of the text (surface, signifiant). In order to substantiate my hypothesis, I will first focus on those textual features which expose the search for depth, for illusion or representation, and then on the various ways in which this pursuit is disillusioned by a foregrounding of the textual surface, of the materiality of the text. In the concluding section, I will argue that this metafictional dynamics between depth and surface crystallizes, as it were, into such reflexive metaphors as pauba, manekin, and tandeta. Irzykowski and Schulz between Surface and Depth In their respective works, both Schulz and Irzykowski push forward the absolute “truth” as an almost unattainable ideal. More specifically,


the ill-fated ambition to get to the core or the essence of things is characteristic of the tragicomic fate of several of their protagonists. In Schulz’s stories, the search for truth is the main preoccupation of both Jacob and Joseph; whereas the former is often busy with carrying out the most subversive experiments, the latter is repeatedly depicted when undertaking bizarre nightly quests. Examples of Jacob’s experiments can be found in such stories as ‘Ptaki’ (‘Birds’) and ‘Kometa’ (‘The Comet’); characteristic of his endeavours is that they are systematically thwarted by Adela, who represents the conventional order of everyday reality. Joseph, on the other hand, is struggling with the labyrinthine quality of (nocturnal) reality in such oft-discussed stories as ‘Sklepy cynamonowe’ (‘Cinnamon Shops’), ‘Ulica krokodyli’ (‘The Street of Crocodiles’), ‘Wiosna’ (‘Spring’), and ‘Sanatorium pod klepsydr ’ (‘Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass’). During these journeys, the world reveals itself to the young Joseph as an arbitrary configuration of signs which misleads him again and again. In ‘Cinnamon Shops’, for instance, the boy is incessantly led away from his initial goal to visit the “cinnamon shops” with their exotic goods. His journey brings him to a series of imaginary places (dark streets, a gymnasium, an art room, the principal’s private rooms, etc.) that momentarily seem to materialize, after which they merge into something new. After a final ride in a carriage, the boy ends up somewhere on the countryside while being completely under the spell of the mystery of the night. Whereas ‘Cinnamon Shops’ comes to an end with a timid prostration for the nocturnal element, the novella ‘Spring’ leads Joseph into a complete fiasco due to the protagonist’s usurping attitude toward fictional reality. Though he wanted to win Bianca for himself, Joseph cannot but come to the conclusion that his manipulation of the course of events has eventually lead to the successful seduction of Bianca by Rudolph: W zalepieniu moim podj em si wykadu pisma, chciaem by tumaczem woli boskiej, w faszywym natchieniu chwytaem przemykaj ce przez markownik lepe poszlaki i kontury. czyem je niestety tylko w dowoln figur . Narzuciem tej wionie moj re yseri , podo yem pod jej nie obj ty rozkwit wasny program i chciaem j nagi , pokierowa wedug wasnych planów. (SpK 264) (In my blindness, I undertook to comment on the text, to be the interpreter of God’s will; I misunderstood the scanty traces and indications I believed

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Similar tragic attempts to grasp reality and lay bare its “truth” appear in numerous variants in Pauba, too. The most striking examples are, of course, the subsequent “próby w g b” (“attempts to get to the core”) that are undertaken by Piotr Strumieski in order to get to the bottom of the mystery of his first marriage (the so-called “Angelika case” or sprawa Angeliki). While trying to sort out the past and to uphold the ideal of absolute, platonic love, however, he is permanently thwarted by the sensual aspect of love, which systematically leads him away from his “underground life” (“podziemne ycie”) and incites him to have sexual relations. Irzykowski represents this conflict discursively by means of the dialectics between the “constructive element” (“pierwiastek konstrukcyny”) and the “palubic element” (“pierwiastek paubiczny”), which in fact refers to the struggle between nature and culture in man.10 The same dynamics of delving in search of a particular core without eventually disclosing it reappears in the introductory novella ‘The Dreams of Maria Dunin’ in the form of the allegorical digging for the Great Bell. In this case, the victim is Maria Dunin, who comes so close to the ideal of platonic love, that the Brotherhood of the Great Bell has no other option than to sentence her to death, since its paradoxical task is exactly to suggest the existence of the ideal (by digging for the Great Bell) while simultaneously hiding its secret (that is, the nonexistence of the Great Bell) for humanity. By repeatedly representing the tragedy of striving for the ideal, both Irzykowski and Schulz appear to be conscious of the inevitable fiasco of the enterprise. The same consciousness of this striving being eventually led away by other motives manifests itself even more distinctly on the discursive level of the respective texts. Toward the end of Schulz’s story ‘Manekiny’ (‘Tailors’ Dummies’), for example, the narrator reports that

10 This kind of oppositions is, of course, particularly important in Schulz’s stories as well (cf. the struggle between Jacob and Adela). Cf. Bolecki 2005 and Ritz 2005 for recent discussions of gender aspects in Irzykowski and Schulz.


[j]est godne uwagi, jak w zetkni ciu z niezwykym tym czowiekiem rzeczy wszystkie cofay si niejako do korzenia swego bytu, odbudowyway swe zjawisko a do metafizycznego j dra, wracay niejako do pierwotnej idei, a eby w tym punkcie sprzeniewierzy si jej i przechyli w te w tpliwe, ryzykowne i dwuznaczne regiony, które nazwiemy tu krótko regionami wielkiej herezji. (SC 79) ([i]t is worth noting how, in contact with that strange man, all things reverted, as it were, to the roots of their existence, rebuilt their outward appearance anew from their metaphysical core, returned to the primary idea, in order to betray it at some point and to turn into the doubtful, risky, and equivocal regions which we shall call for short the Regions of the Great Heresy; CF 30)

In other words, any attempt at “getting to the core” is presented as some kind of heresy, as an improper usurpation that must necessarily lead to deviations. In Pauba this same idea is depicted as a selfregulating mechanism in man. In ‘The Dreams of Maria Dunin’ the principle of self-regulation is represented in an allegorical way in the form of the “Hall of the Manometers” (“Hala Manometrów”) where Acheronta Movebo, the leader of the Brotherhood, monitors a series of manometers that are connected with reality in order to check whether the pressure of mankind on the “ideal” is still under control. As soon as the pressure starts to be threatening, the Brotherhood disposes of the principle of the “Safety Valve” (“Klapa Bezpieczestwa”) in order to keep the secret of the Great Bell. Maria Dunin could be called the most prominent victim of this principle: eliminating her should rescue the rest of mankind. Whereas the mechanism is merely suggested in guarded terms in the mysterious novella, its functioning is described at large in ‘An Explanation of The Dreams of Maria Dunin and Its Connection with Pauba’. The starting point is the “theory that certain ideals, as well as the sciences and finally also love and poetry, contain a centrifugal element; if they would be taken seriously and carried through to the end, they would have to destroy man” (“teoria, e niektóre ideay, dalej nauki, wreszcie mio i poezja maj w sobie pierwiastek odrodkowy, bo wzi te na serio i przeprowadzone a do koca, musiayby zniszczy czowieka”; P 565). This theory can be linked with the old manuscript from ‘The Dreams of Maria Dunin’, which contains the warning that “earth is covered with a certain fluid, the existence of which existence nobody knows but which will ignite once, on some small point, shaken up by the tones of the awoken Bell

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and blow up the world” (“w wiecie rozlane jest pewne fluidum, o którego istnieniu nikt nie wie, które jednak kiedy na jakim maym punkcie, wstrz ni te dwi kami zbudzonego Dzwonu, zaponie i wiat rozsadzi”; P 28). This is exactly what makes Maria Dunin’s behavior so threatening: by taking the ideal of platonic love so seriously, she is drawn apart from her human core by a centrifugal element. Her death is a safety valve that should save the rest of mankind. In order to counter their own disintegration, however, real human beings have their own safety valve at their disposal: Z pierwiastkiem odrodkowym walczy jednak pierwiastek dorodkowy, instynkt samozachowawczy ludzi i wiata. wiat wytrzymuje tylko pewne maximum brania rzeczy na serio, w ostatecznej bowiem chwili dziaa wentyl, który nadmiar wyrzuca, a idea redukuje do przyzwoitej miary […] Naturalnie w wiecie psychicznym odbywa si funkcjonowanie wentyla mniej lub wi cej niewiadomie. Bractwo WD za jest jakby uwiadomionym dziaaniem tego instynktu samozachowawczego natury ludzkiej, jego hipostaz , najwy szym centralnym urz dem. (P 565-566) (The centrifugal element, however, is counteracted by a centripetal element, that is, the instinct for self-preservation of people and the world. The world tolerates only a certain maximum of taking things seriously, since at the very last moment a valve is put into operation, which allows the surplus to escape and reduces the ideal to acceptable dimensions. Obviously, in the psychic world this valve operates more or less unconsciously. The Brotherhood of the GB, then, could be considered the conscious operation of the instinct for self-preservation of human nature, its hypostasis, its highest central body.)

What this passage illustrates is that Piotr Strumieski and the other protagonists from Pauba are conditioned by the same mechanism as Maria Dunin. What is demonstrated in ‘The Dreams of Maria Dunin’ on the level of the story, by means of the allegorical activities of the Brotherhood, reappears in the actual novel on the level of the narrator’s psychoanalytical comments. In fact, by repeatedly compromising the human pursuit of the ideal, Irzykowski primarily wants to elucidate the complexity of the psychological motives that lie at the basis of all human deeds. In the ‘Trio autora’ (‘Author’s Trio’) chapter, which seems to be crucial for understanding the poetical principles that govern Pauba, this ambition to probe into the “subterranean psychic life” (“podziemne ycie psychiczne”; P 447) of man is expressed as follows:


Dotychczasowym b dem byo, e si gano albo za pytko, albo – przeskakuj c cae ycie nast pcze – za g boko, tj. tam, gdzie ju nic by nie mo e, i robiono rzekome wizje kosmiczne zamiast uprawia introspekcj . Mnie si zdaje, e zbada warstw na kilkaset metrów pod tzw. powierzchni duszy – to mo e wystarczy, nie trzeba szuka nadiru. (P 447) (Until now, the mistake has been made of probing either not deeply enough, or – while skipping the entire secondary life – too deeply, that is, where nothing can be found anymore, and of producing so-called cosmic visions instead of doing an introspection. In my opinion, it is probably sufficient to probe into the layer a few hundred metres below the so-called surface of the soul – to search for the nadir is rather unnecessary.)

What is suggested here is that by confining oneself to an examination of the human psyche on a “relative” depth, one can gain insight into the problem of “secondary life” – that is, the human habit of organizing life by means of a number of “absolute” concepts (love, truth, faithfulness, etc.) which separate us from “real” life without bringing us closer to the ideals we strive for. The only way, then, to represent the problematic mental life of mankind in literature, or in any verbal form at all, is by continually exposing the relativity of its representation, which can never escape the tension between surface and depth, lie and truth, or signifiant and signifié. In their attempt to reveal a certain “truth”, whether it is the “soul” (Irzykowski) or “myth” (Schulz), both authors are aware of the inevitable defeat right from the very start. Schulz explains this awareness in his essay for Witkacy: W ze, na który dusza zostaa zasupana, nie jest faszywym w zem, rozchodz cym si za poci gni ciem koca. Przeciwnie, coraz cianiej si

zw la. Manipulujemy przy nim, ledzimy bieg nici, szukamy koca i z tych manipulacyj powstaje sztuka. (1964: 681) (The knot the soul got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends. On the contrary, it draws tighter. We handle it, trace the path of the separate threads, look for the end of the string, and out of these manipulations comes art; 1990: 111)

To put it another way, striving for the unattainable ideal while being fully conscious of the inevitable failure of such an attempt, manifests itself most prominently in (or rather as) art. A similar thought is

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expressed in the continuation of ‘An Explanation of The Dreams of Maria Dunin’: [Z]waszcza ludzie, którzy najwi cej bij we Wielki Dzwon, wi c myliciele (tacy jak Nietzsche, Ibsen, Schopenhauer) i poeci – u tych funkcjonuje klapa bezpieczestwa najwybitniej. W rozstrzygaj cej chwili cofaj si oni przed konsekwencj i morduj Mari Dunin w sobie. (P 566) (In particular people who ring the Great Bell most often, that is, thinkers (such as Nietzsche, Ibsen, Schopenhauer) and poets – in such people the safety valve functions best. At the critical moment they shrink from the consequences and kill Maria Dunin in themselves.)

What Irzykowski suggests, is that every literary or philosophical work is a construction to the second power, as it additionally renders the ideal, whose representation in man is already problematic, in a closed linguistic form. Although both Schulz and Irzykowski reveal this mechanism in different ways, they continually display the awareness that even their own apparently “open” or “self-conscious” texts are merely constructions; this is why Schulz refers to his own artistic “manipulations” and why the narrating “author” in Pauba confesses without hesitation that he also “belongs to the Brotherhood, from which escape is simply impossible” (“[nale y] do Bractwa, przed którym w ogóle nie ma ucieczki”; P 568).11 From all this, the question arises why both authors, despite their awareness of the inevitable “secondariness” of every literary operation, have decided to produce their texts at all. When even the most self-ironical literary form appears to be a construction, and if every attempt to get to the truth eventually exposes its own deceitfulness, is it then not more authentic to simply refuse to create such constructions? In order to find a way out of this tautological circle, it seems important to stress the role of the reader. More specifically, opposed to the “tragedy” of the (stable, definitive) literary product is always the “pleasure” of the three-dimensional (unstable, provisional) reading process. By exposing in various ways their own two-dimensionality (or grafemiczno ‘graphemicity’ as 11

In another part of Pauba, Irzykowski summarizes the dynamics of the entire novel in the following oft-quoted aphorism: “The lie always rises to the surface like oil, while the truth sinks to the bottom because it is hard and heavy” (“Kamstwo wypywa na wierzch jak oliwa, prawda opada, bo jest cie ka i trudna”; P 289).


Szary-Matywiecka (1979: 6) would call it), both authors’ texts incite the reader to become aware of his/her own “role” in the textual “game”, or of his/her own “pose” which is merely a “comedy”.12 Both authors have explicitly stressed the constructive dimension of their destructive literary practices. As to Irzykowski, the following striking self-commentary from Beniaminek (Little Benjamin; 1933) could be mentioned: “[D]emaskuj c” i wymiewaj c bohatera, zsolidaryzowaem si z nim […] prawie na caej linii, a zasad swoj wypowiedziaem nawi zuj c do sów Mignon Goethego (która to mówi, gdy j przebrano za anioa): “So laßt mich scheinen, bis ich werde!” […] – to znaczy e tzw. komedia, gest, pozór, obuda itp. maj swoje g bokie uprawnienie. (1976c: 447) (While “demasking” and making fun of the hero, I had almost complete solidarity with him, and I expressed my point of view by repeating the words of Goethe’s Mignon (who is saying this as she is being dressed up as an angel): “So laßt mich scheinen, bis ich werde!” […] – which means that the so-called comedy, gesture, appearance, hypocrisy and the like are entirely legitimate.)

In his essay for Witkacy, Schulz in a similar way draws on the legitimacy of his destructive practices and on the possibility of deriving some indeterminate kind of pleasure from it: Jaki jest sens tej uniwersalnej deziluzji rzeczywistoci, nie potrafi

powiedzie. Twierdz tylko, e byaby ona nie do zniesienia, gdyby nie doznawaa odszkodowania w jakiej innej dymensji. W jaki sposób doznajemy g bokiej satysfakcji z tego rozlunienia tkanki rzeczywistoci, jestemy zainteresowani w tym bankructwie realnoci. (1964: 683) (What the meaning of this universal disillusioning reality is I am not able to say. I maintain only that it would be unbearable unless it was compensated for in some other dimension In some sense we derive a profound satisfaction from the loosening of the web of reality; we feel an interest in witnessing the bankruptcy of reality; 1990: 113)

Although neither Irzykowski nor Schulz mention the actual reader in these passages, they are clearly behaving as “readers” of their own literary world. Only on this level (or in this dimension) of literary

12 Quite remarkably, such concepts as “comedy” (komedia), “role” (rola), and “pose” (poza) are omnipresent in Irzykowski’s and (to a lesser extent) Schulz’s character descriptions.

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communication does it seem possible to escape from the finiteness of the two-dimensional text and to enter into the infinity of the threedimensional act of reading. Particularly when the text presents itself as a “game”, as a finite repertory of rules (conventions) and signs (words), the reader may partake in it as a “player”, repeating his act of reading over and over again as he pleases. Just like a player in a game is forced to play a particular, provisional role, Schulz’s and Irzykowski’s readers are made aware of their temporary task as “readers”. When determining the most dominant signals by which these texts stress their two-dimensionality, the dynamics of surface and depth once more proves extremely useful: after the texts have revealed themselves as the result of a recursive graphic activity (in the form of palimpsests, cryptograms, or arabesques) in order to break the illusion of the ultimate depth, the horizontal orientation of their literary reality is semantically embedded in two specific metaphors of maximal arbitrariness (pauba and tandeta). In this way, the (vertical) search for the unique, authentic truth is transformed into the (horizontal) reality of the recursive, inauthentic act of reading. Palimpsests, Cryptograms, Unattainable Original

Arabesques.

Exegesis

of

the

As has already been sufficiently demonstrated, Schulz’s prose in many ways “vegetates” on the repertory of existing stories or on the primeval “myth”, revealing itself, as it were, as a “palimpsest” or as the “book of arabesques”.13 In both cases the text appears to be the result of a particular graphic activity: either it conceals a number of underlying texts of which certain traces can still be discerned, or it behaves as mere commentary or ornamentation in the margin of the actual yet invisible text. Whatever the case may be, the text always

13 At the center of the discussion of this particular characteristic of Schulz’s prose is, of course, the story triptych ‘Ksi ga’ (‘The Book’), ‘Genialna epoka’ (‘The Age of Genius’), and ‘Spring’. Cf. Lachmann (1992) for the concept of the “book of arabesques” (“So wie das Sinnzentrum, das das Urbuch zu verheißen scheint, im Aufschub bleibt, befinden sich die Bildphantasmen, in denen die Suche nach dem Buch inszeniert wird, in einem Sinnschwebezustand. Da sie in wuchernder, metamorphotischer Bewegung nich auf einen Sinnkern orientiert sind, stürzen sie zentrifugal auseinander. Aber in dieser metamorphotischen, zentrifugalen Bewegung, die ihre punktuelle Identität ständig aufkündigt, schreiben sie selbst ein Buch, das Buch der Arabesken”; 454).


manifests itself as a mere “text”, that is, as a horizontal configuration of signs which does not pretend to carry within itself a particular semantic core or essence, which is explicitly situated outside (or rather, next to) itself. The palimpsest, on the one hand, conceals a more important text (the Original) of which it is merely a “superscription” or yet another superscription of a single Original. In the case of the arabesque, on the other hand, the text suggests a particular mythic core around which it incessantly circles but which itself is unattainable. The text, which explicitly is a “text” (the result of a graphic activity), urges the reader to the active exegesis of its deeper meaning, though it already carries the unavoidable fiasco of this exegetic act within itself; the actual, (more) authentic text is always elsewhere. As the exegetic act must be repeated over and over again, it is itself foregrounded, as it were, as a process. A similar situation appears in Pauba. Due to its multilayered structure and heterogeneous composition, critics have always questioned the textual and generic status of the novel. More particularly, they had the impression that the actual work (the artistic core) had been overshadowed by the abundant commentary. Immediately after its publication, for instance, Wadysaw Jabonowski called Pauba “an unusual commentary, a great and masterly scaffold for a work which is almost invisible apart from this” (“niepospolity komentarz, wielkie i misterne rusztowanie do dziea, którego po za nim prawie nie wida”; 1903: 407-408). What such critical commentaries suggest is that Irzykowski was mainly interested in contextualizing the actual novel or adding ever new points of view on its rather lame story. In the terminology of this section, one could posit that these critics received the novel as “arabesques” of commentary in the margins of an absent “masterpiece”. Furthermore, such early critics as Kazimierz Wyka also mentioned the palimpsestic structure of the novel, stressing, for example, that it was “a true interlacement of a couple of novels being written simultaneously, without, however, containing one single novel that was fully completed” (“istna plecionka kilku powieci naraz pisanych, ale nie zawiera ani jednej powieci naprawd dopenionej”; Wyka 1977 [1948]: 184). The interpretation of Pauba as some kind of palimpsest that had been written over the actual “text” or “novel” in various layers or versions could easily be legitimized by referring to the following metapoetical utterance in the novel:

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In other words, beside or under the realized text there is always an eternally absent “text” that is completely consistent with the inner feelings of the author. As Szary-Matywiecka has demonstrated, the dynamics of rewriting and overwriting in Pauba is more complex than can be concluded from the text’s discursive layer. According to her, the novel is characterized by a “different functional application of fiction” (“inne funkcjonalne zu ytkowanie fikcji”; 1979: 23), because the text is not, as is usually the case, producing a story, but it is the other way round: the story is a “prefabrication” that generates a series of textual variants. As a result, the story’s semantic core is always absent, whereas the texts that keep emerging are merely attempts at reading its unattainable essence. What this continual exegesis of the story through an accumulation of provisional readings (“texts”) eventually demonstrates is that every concretization of a text (every “reading”), including that of the actual reader, is dubious and provisional. In other words, by textually dramatizing the reader’s unstable position, Irzykowski’s novel effectuates a foregrounding of the specific role of the reader in any form of literary communication. Whereas Szary-Matywiecka mainly focuses on the “possible” (both realized and merely suggested) textual incarnations of the story of Strumieski’s platonic love for Angelika,14 I (as a reader of the only existing text of the novel) would like to draw attention to the more subtle signals by which the text either directly or indirectly discloses 14

As the critic demonstrates, both Strumieski (in the biography Ksiga mioci/The Book of Love) and his rival Gasztold (in the novel Chora mio/A Sick Love) at a certain point seek to evade the “palubic element” by producing real (semi-)autobiographic texts in which they can easily construct their high ideals of love.


its deficient, provisional, or palimpsestic character. On many occasions, for instance, the narrating author, who pretends to be in the middle of writing a novel with the same title, suggests that the present version is but one possibility in a long chain of textual representations of his novelistic concept: Pauba already not only has a prehistory (cf. the account of an evening gathering at which the “author” reads an earlier version of his novel to “a circle of invited literators”/“grono zaproszonych literatów”; P573), but also anticipates such future versions as “a popular edition” (“popularne wydanie”; P362), “a school edition” (“szkolne wydanie”; P 419, P 533), and even “the ideal Pauba, the one that should have been written” (“idealna Pauba, taka, jak si powinno byo napisa”; P 569). The question of the possibility of a definitive version of the novel and its relation to the text at hand is further complicated by the addition of the novella ‘The Dreams of Maria Dunin’. Again, notwithstanding the presence of the unifying discursive layer (and, more specifically, the explanatory essay ‘An Explanation of The Dreams of Maria Dunin and Its Connection with Pauba’), the position of the novella in the complete textual reality is far from stable. First of all, in chapter XII of the actual novel the novella ironically enters the fictional reality of Strumieski and Ola. Being some kind of allegorical mirror text of Strumieski’s story (cf. supra), it immediately starts to influence both him and Ola. The latter, for instance, plans to “write a new ‘Maria Dunin’” (“[napisa] now ‘Mari Dunin’”) and even calls Strumieski in passing “the male Maria Dunin” (“m ska Maria Dunin”; P 237). For his part, Strumieski, who is used to devising all kinds of “symmetries” or “constructions” in any given situation, immediately discovers certain parallels between Maria Dunin and himself. His “reading” of the novella is, however, far from unequivocal, and his attitude toward its author similarly hesitates between praise and attempts to “denigrate” him “as a romantic, a decadent, a neurasthenic who worships an erotomaniac, and suchlike” (“poni y […] jako romantyka, dekadenta, neurastenika, który uwietnia erotomank itp.”; P 238). What this example once more illustrates is that as soon as a text serves as a function of the unstable position of the reader, it may “incarnate” in ever new versions. The presence of the novella and its author in the fictional framework of the actual novel also causes a fundamental ontological

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distortion. Not only does it unsettle the conventional closedness of the novelistic text (as the novella is both part of and prior to Pauba), but it also puts into question the author’s authority (as the novella’s author is both said to have passed away and identified with the narrating “author”). Few critics have noted that the novella itself in a similar way distorts the convention of the text as a closed structure and of the narrating “author” as a reliable mediator of the story. The opening lines already hint at this in many ways: Wskutek o ywionej i serdecznej pogadanki, któr a do pónej nocy toczylimy w salonie pastwa X-ów, oproszono mnie, abym w mojej formie, formie szkicu z podró y, opisa pewien wypadek z swego ycia, maj cy zwi zek ze sferami idealnymi, mistycznymi. […] Rzeczywicie mam co takiego w bibliotece swoich wspomnie […] (P 7) (On the occasion of an animated and warm conversation I had well into the night in the salon of Mr and Ms X, I was asked to describe in my form, in the form of a travel account, one of my personal adventures having a connection with the ideal, mystical spheres. I indeed carry something like that in the library of my memories.)

Although this passage suggests a classical story within a story, expressions such as “travel account” and “library of my memories” indicate that the narrative situation might be more stylized than expected. When the narrator occasionally interrupts his account in the following chapters, the initial situation even appears to have disappeared. In the beginning of chapter IV “a certain guy to whom I [the narrator] have read the hitherto collected memories” (“[p]ewien jegomo, któremu przeczytaem dot d spisane wspomnienia”; P 29) is mentioned. A bit further this same “clever guy who has read the beginning of these sheets” (“bystry jegomo, który czyta pocz tek tych lunych kartek”; P 34) reappears. Both examples stress the textual character of what is narrated, thus problematizing the initial narrative situation. This situation is similar to what happens in the actual novel: the story’s essence is “read” in various ways and turned into provisional “texts”. As a result, the reader’s attention is temporarily distracted from the content of the story to the form in which it is passed on. At the same time, the narrator appears to be unreliable and loses his “authorial” status. The novella ends with a true coup de théâtre when it appears that all that preceded was but a mystification. It turns out that the


narrator (the archaelogist who pretended to have discovered the secret Brotherhood) has become a royal librarian who likes to produce “artifical palimpsests” (“sztuczne palimpsesty”), which he renders more authentic by inserting them into rumpled originals. His surprising conclusion is that “of all these palimpsests this one is the most sophisticated, since I am one of the most excellent members of the Brotherhood of the Great Bell myself!” (“z owych palimpsestów ten wanie celuje wyrafinowaniem, bo ja sam jestem najznakomitszym z Bractwa Wielkiego Dzwonu!”; P 51). This is why the novella carries the subtitle ‘A Palimpsest’; the supposedly authentic story of Maria Dunin is an ingenious construction whose artificiality is disclosed at the end. In ‘An Explanation’, the “author” explains the subtitle as follows: ‘Maria Dunin’ jest palimpsestem, to znaczy tyle co mistyfikacj . […] Autor wypowiada oficjalnie przekonania, pod którymi nale y dopatrywa si innych jego przekona, wr cz przeciwnych tamtym. Poniewa za przy kocu autor nawet i te drugie przekonania ujmuje w cudzysów, przeto mo na powiedzie, e ‘Maria Dunin’ jest palimpsestem do kwadratu. (P 560) (‘Maria Dunin’ is a palimpsest, or in other words, a mystification. The author officially expresses his beliefs, under which one ought to detect his other beliefs, which are diametrically opposed to the former. Given that at the end of the novella even these other beliefs are put in quotation marks by the author, one could state that ‘Maria Dunin’ is a palimpsest to the second power.)

It should be clear that the complex structure of ‘The Dreams of Maria Dunin’ is treated here as a palimpsest only in a symbolic or allegorical way; indeed, having betrayed himself on several occasions in the course of the story (e.g. when reading part of the manuscript or when adding fake “spiritological” texts to existing documents in order to manipulate Maria), the narrator eventually relativizes the entire “text” by presenting it as a mystification. According to Aleksandra Budrecka, the importance of the novella’s last sentence cannot be underestimated. When read as a logical paradox of the Epimenides type (“All Cretans are liars”), it simply suggests that in language “nothing can be stated either on the actual or on the represented reality” (“niczego nie da si orzec o rzeczywistoci, tak realnej jak i przedstawionej”; 1981: XV) because every statement on the truth inevitably calls forth its antithesis (the

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lie). When the closing sentence is separated from the rest of the novella, however, then it may reveal itself as the only truthful statement, of which the “linguistic reality” (“rzeczywisto j zykowa”; XIX) is brought to the surface. As a result, attention is diverted from the “false” world of the archaeologist and Maria Dunin to the “real” world of the narrator, “someone who utters sentences and who establishes their falseness” (“kto, kto wypowiada zdania i kto konstatuje ich faszywo”; XIX). According to Budrecka, the function of this sentence is identical to the many comments in the actual novel; in both cases the inauthentic or linguistic nature of what is narrated is reflexively brought to the surface. What both Budrecka and the narrator in ‘An Explanation’ seem to overlook is that the creative use of the principle of the palimpsest also results in a foregrounding of the textual character of Pauba. The act of “overwriting” other texts confronts the reader with the finiteness of the visible text as opposed to the infinity of all possible texts. As soon as the reader is aware of the (partial) absence of a text that is potentially richer than the text that is before him, the latter may transform before his eyes into an insufficient ornament (an “arabesque”) that merely represents the absence of a more “original” text that has become unattainable. The idea that a text may hide more than it actually discloses is thematized in ‘The Dreams of Maria Dunin’ through the appearance of a mysterious manuscript. Although its content plays an essential role in the further development of the story, the narrator signals that it lacks “a lot of pages, probably the most important ones, as well as the complete conclusion” (“brak byo wielu kartek, prawdopodobnie najwa niejszych, oraz caego koca”; P 28). The motive of an incomplete document that nevertheless is considered to be highly significant also appears in Schulz’s story ‘The Age of Genius’ in the form of the famous szparga or “script”. The resultant readerly tendency to fill in a text’s “blank spaces” (that is, the textual options that could have been rendered but were erased from the textual surface as in a palimpsest) has also been dramatized in Pauba in a particular way. Indeed, both in the novella and, to a lesser extent, in the actual novel certain textual elements are explicitly suppressed, as a result of which the reader is invited to actively bridge the gaps. This strategy ranges from simple omissions – cf. references to “Mr and Ms X” (cf. supra) or to the “vicinity of N… Q.” (“okolice N… Q.; P 9) – to a more general narratorial attitude of


openly concealing certain (often embarrassing) details. This strategy is also present in Schulz’s stories (e.g. in Joseph’s descriptions of his father’s behavior in ‘Traktat o manekinach’/‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’), and it seems to have its prehistory in ‘The Dreams of Maria Dunin’, in which the narrator, for instance, quotes a letter he received from the Brotherhood “leaving out the words that could be misunderstood (“z opuszczeniem sów, które by mo na faszywie zrozumie”; P 32). Quite ironically, what is left after this act of censorship is completely incomprehensible. Since many of the novella’s lacunae are filled in ‘An Explanation’ (where, for example, the full text of the letter from the Brotherhood is rendered), critics have never questioned this narrative technique. Because the inaccuracies in the account of the novella’s narrator are adjusted by the narrating “author” through whom the rest of the novel is mediated, the latter is considered to be fully reliable. When taking a closer look at this narrator’s account, however, one may discover similar reservations toward what is told. The narrator not only constantly puts his own language between quotation marks or suggests that he might have rendered certain passages in a more poetic way, but also is responsible for the kind of omissions for which he blames the novella’s narrator. In a passage that strikingly resembles the novella’s narration, Strumieski discovers a farewell letter on Angelika’s chest after her suicidal fall in a well: “Part of it was illegible, since the ink had dissolved in the water, but the part that he could decipher – it ended with the question: “All right?” – deeply touched him” (“Cz jego bya nieczytelna, bo atrament rozpuci si

w wodzie, lecz to, co odczyta, zakoczone pytaniem: ‘czy dobrze?’, przej o go do g bi”; P 93). Once again, the reader is confronted with the existence of an important text of which the narrator knows the full content, the protagonist merely the outlines, and the reader nothing but an unimportant detail. In ‘The Rampart of Pauba’ the idea of the complete novel as a text that is deliberately left incomplete for the reader (in other words, as a “palimpsest” that is merely an “echo” or “trace” of an unattainable essence) is commented on as follows: Ja […] nie troszcz si o miny, wygody i kaprysy czytaj cego, nie gram na “strunach jego duszy”, lecz urz dzam mu wykady o Paubie, tej, która gdzie tam napisana cakiem inaczej spoczywa w mojej gowie, a wykadam mu jak profesor, który cz prelekcji mówi gono i

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Dieter De Bruyn przyst pnie, a druga cz , o której w tpi, czy j kto zrozumie, mówi obrócony do ciany, czasem mrucz c pod nosem. (P 579) (I don’t care about the grimaces, the conveniences, and the whims of the reader; I don’t “pluck his heart’s strings”, but I’m giving him lectures on Pauba, on the version that rests somewhere in my head in a completely different form, and I teach him just like a professor who reads part of his lecture aloud and clearly; the other part, however, of which he doubts that someone will understand it, he utters with his face turned to the wall, just muttering something every now and then.)

As the reader is confronted with a text that openly omits essential information, he might feel tempted to look for certain hidden connections himself. This inevitable reaction will manifest itself particularly when reading those parts in which the cryptographic character of the novel is revealed. As soon as the text manifests itself as a cryptogram, it explicitly becomes a “text” to be deciphered by a reader in order to lay bare the connections underlying the visible “signs”. In many cases, this typically readerly attitude is further influenced by the behavior of the protagonists, who constantly tend to look for hidden meanings themselves. The first target of both readers and protagonists seems to be the choice of proper names. In what is perhaps the most striking example of this characteristic, Piotr (Piotru) Strumieski (born Wosek) draws a parallel between his surname and the “stream” (strumie) in which his future lover Berestajka has just dropped a ring by accident; his conclusion is that Berestajka is now symbolically engaged with him. On the one hand, this association seems to be a quite ironical attempt by Strumieski to (once more) take advantage of certain symmetries between the signs that surround him – ironical, as he got his surname only after having been adopted by a nobleman named Adam Strumieski. On the other hand, however, the parallel between the surname and the concept of a “stream” could be interpreted as more than just a coincidence, as Strumieski’s impulse to organize reality by means of all kinds of “constructions” does indeed seem to be an attempt at escaping the (“palubic”) “stream” of life. A similar manipulation of proper names can also be found a bit earlier in the novel, where Strumieski names his son Pawe/Paweek (Paul) “after the name of the apostle who did not like women” (“od imienia apostoa, który nie lubi kobiet”; P 180). What is suggested here is that Strumieski once more tries to impose a certain scheme on reality; more specifically, by establishing a


connection with the apostle, he hopes that Paweek will stay away from his mother Ola, who in Strumieski’s model represents physical (as opposed to platonic) love. Moreover, in a way that reminds of the situation in Schulz’s stories (in which the narrator and his father are named Joseph and Jacob respectively), Strumieski also seems to want to connect his son’s fate with his own ambitions (Piotr-Pawe, or Peter-Paul). As we will later see, all these aspirations will eventually prove a failure. It should be clear that this focus on the practice of manipulating and wrongly interpreting names is part of a more general strategy in the novel of mocking the typically human tendency to impose all kinds of “constructions” (words, names, forms, concepts, symbols) on the world. The narrator seems to be particularly aiming at those moments in which such “errors in reasoning” (“b dy mylowe”; P 519 and passim) result in a complete fiasco. Most of these “errors” go back to the idyllic “ideal” love between Strumieski and Angelika, who are reported to be completely obsessed with “the conviction that love is a problem, a cryptogram of the world that has to be solved” (“przekonanie, e mio jest problemem, kryptogramem wiata, który nale y rozwi za”; P 80; italics mine). As we have seen, in his pursuit of the ideal of posthumous love, Strumieski is permanently thwarted by the chaos of life. Until now, critics of Pauba have mainly discussed this clash between the ideal and reality as a psychological problem, much in the same way as it is commented on in the novel’s discursive layer, that is, by means of the dialectics between the “constructive element” and the “palubic element” (cf. supra). However, what has too often been overlooked is that Irzykowski’s protagonists, as they experience the world explicitly as a “text” (a cryptogram, a selection of signs), confront the reader with the inevitable fiasco of his own reading. As a matter of fact, the text abounds in examples of (mis)readings, thus stressing the problematic nature of any exegetic practice. First of all, both the narrator (in his many comments) and the protagonists (e.g. when a copy of the novella falls into their hands) often use literary models in order to “model” their thoughts and behavior. In the novella, then, one of the crucial “texts” to be read by both the protagonists and the reader is the mysterious configuration of three small islands in a local pond, each of which stands for a letter (B, W, and D). This acronym – a “mysterious monogram” (“tajemniczy

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monogram”; P 14) in the narrator’s words – of course refers to the Brotherhood’s full name (Bractwo Wielkiego Dzwonu). Both the archaeologist (when visiting the islands) and the reader (when confronted with a schematic presentation of the three islands), however, are invited to find out the truth of this cryptogram themselves, of “reading” its hidden meaning. In the course of the story, the archaeologist reveals himself as a detective-like figure who attempts to make every insinuation, every detail, and every noise fit into the scheme of his exegesis. In the actual novel the situation is more comparable than is generally assumed. First of all, by adding a map depicting the scene of the action and commenting on it on the opening pages of the novel, Irzykowski seems to want to stress the two-dimensionality of the story world, which is presented as a closed configuration of lines, dots, and letters (A, B, C, D… for indicating the main places) rather than as an illusion of a three-dimensional, “real” reality. Not surprisingly, during his frequent “attempts to get to the core” (cf. supra), Piotr Strumieski approaches this reality primarily as a “text” of which the essence may be revealed through intensive exegesis. Immediately after Angelika’s suicide, for instance, Strumieski starts exploring the estate’s vicinity in search of “signs” that could help him to unravel the mystery of Angelika’s death: Nieraz […], kiedy si […] intensywnie wpatrywa w kontury, ksztaty i barwy naokoo siebie, […] wówczas zakulisowym ruchem fantazji wywoywa w sobie wra enie, e ksztaty te i barwy poruszaj si na swych kraw dziach, jakby maszerowa chciay, zmieniaj si , przepywaj w siebie, e cay wiat chwieje si , dr y i mruga na niego tajemniczo, jakby mu dawa znaki, jakby w nim byo co zakl tego, co si

chce zdradzi, e nie jest takim, jakim si by wydaje. (P 99-100) (Sometimes, when he looked intensively at the contours, the shapes, and the colors around him, he then furtively activated his fantasy in order to evoke the impression in himself that these shapes and colors were set in motion at their edges, as if they wanted to march, to change, to merge into each other, that the entire world was staggering, trembling and secretly winking at him, as if it was giving him signs, as if a curse rested on him that wanted to reveal itself, in brief, that the world was different than it seemed.)

This “trembling” and “winking” of nature reminds us, of course, of the way in which Schulz’s narrator experiences reality. One of the


most striking examples of this may be found in the opening pages of ‘Spring’, in which this most inspiring season is represented as a whirl of signs, as a loose configuration of signifiers still to be “read” by the narrator.15 In a similar way, Strumieski imposes his “constructions” on the open “text” of reality – to such an extent even that he experiences these constructions “as if he was reading a book” (“jakby ksi k czyta”; P 385). Another striking characteristic is that Strumieski’s “attempts to get to the core”, which are, after all, attempts to grasp nature in cultural schemes, at a certain point start to manifest themselves in the form of artistic activities. In a similar way as Jacob in Schulz’s story ‘Birds’ wants to maintain his ideals of poetry by setting up a colorful colony of birds in the attic of his house, Strumieski attempts to “construct” an ideal picture of his matrimonial life with Angelika by means of a series of creative experiments. He not only sets up a cult of Angelika in the museum which he has created to her memory, but also, in the course of time, tries to initiate his son Paweek into this cult through the most diverse creative activities. One of these activities consists of writing Angelika’s artistic biography (The Book of Love) – an undertaking which ends in a complete fiasco. Just like his ideal of platonic love is permanently thwarted by the sensual aspect of love (cf. supra), Strumieski now cannot but conclude that he must constantly suppress all kinds of (mainly sexual) details when writing down the “ideal” history of Angelika. In the concluding chapter the deforming effect of the palubic element on his creativity is expressed as follows: “What else was this entire history of Angelika than arabesques around the most ordinary obscenities” (“Czym e bya caa historia Angeliki, je eli nie arabeskami naokoo cakiem prostych wistw?”; P 474). After having broken off his biographical project and having devoted himself to the study of the “sexless relations of plants” (“bezpciowe stosunki rolin”; P 285), Strumieski’s impulse to “express himself in some work of art” (“wypowiedzenie si w jakim dziele sztuki”; P 290) soon resurfaces. After a double and once more disappointing architectural enterprise, however, Strumieski starts to concentrate his artistic ambitions on living material, that is, on his son Paweek. As the boy functions as some kind of incarnation of 15

Cf. De Bruyn (2008a) for an analysis of Schulz’s narrator as a “reader” of the “text” of reality.

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Angelika, Strumieski expects him to be predestined to be a painter (just like Angelika) and therefore is tempted to “sow artistic impressions in him” (“zasiewanie w nim wra e artystycznych”; P 299). In the conviction that “nature is abundant in allusions” (“[n]atura jest obfita w aluzje”; P 302), he takes Paweek to a forest and confronts him with the reflection of the palace that he has ordered to be built: [W] wodzie widzieli […] drugi daleko pi kniejszy paac, […] zbudowany […] przez tajemnicze duchy podziemne, na przekór budowlom nadziemnym tu pod nimi wanie, przez duchy, które swoj czynno kryj zazdronie przed okiem ludzkim za pomoc zudzenia, i to jest tylko zwyky fenomen optyczny. (P 302-303) (In the water they saw another, far more beautiful palace, which had been built by mysterious ghosts of the underground in spite of the aboveground buildings right below by ghosts that kept their activity hidden from sight by means of the illusion that it was merely an ordinary optical phenomenon.)

Having roused Paweek’s interest in this kind of mystification, Strumieski can now proceed to his main objective: projecting the ideal image of Angelika onto her “spiritual son”. To this end, he sets up a sophisticated construction in the museum in which Angelika’s paintings are exhibited. Each time Paweek secretly enters the building, he sees a three-dimensional image of a woman through an optical illusion. Instead of making Paweek partake in the cult of Angelika, however, a “completely unexpected, nearly grotesque turn” (“cakiem niespodziewany, groteskowy niemal obrót”; P 427) takes place: after his father has closed down the museum, Paweek, who has gradually and completely arbitrarily started to refer to the phantom with the name Pauba (cf. P 317, 458-459), associates the anonymous effigy which he adores (his ideal woman) with the loose village idiot Kseka (whom the shepherds nickname Pauba). As soon as the licentious Kseka has initiated him into the physical (instead of the platonic or cultural) aspects of love, the image of Angelika is transformed, as it were, into its dialectical negation. This “grotesque turn” appears to have a lot in common with a similar event in Cinnamon Shops. As has already been mentioned, one of Jacob’s most remarkable “attempts to get to the core” is the establishment of a colony of birds in the attic of his house. At the peak


of the experiment, however, the by then extensive collection of all kinds of breeds is chased away by Adela. When the birds eventually return to their spiritual father in the final story of the cycle (‘Noc wielkiego sezonu’/‘The Night of the Great Season’), they appear to have developed into an “brood of freaks” (“sztuczne potomstwo”) that is “degenerated and overgrown” (“zwyrodniae i wybujae”), a “malformed, wasted tribe of birds” (CF 93; “zdegenerowane plemi

ptasie, zmarniae wewn trznie”; SC 157). After the birds have been knocked down with stones thrown by a bunch of jesters Jacob cannot but “notice the wretchedness of that wasted generation, the nonsense of its second-rate anatomy” (CF 94; “obserwowa ca lichot tej zubo aej generacji, ca mieszno jej tandetnej anatomii”; SC 158; italics mine). In spite of its high aspirations, the experiment turns out to have yielded nothing but tandeta (“trash”), that is, defective copies of the birds that he had intended to create: Byy to ogromne wiechcie piór, wypchane byle jak starym cierwem. U wielu nie mo na byo wyró ni gowy, gdy pakowata ta cz ciaa nie nosia adnych znamion duszy. Niektóre pokryte byy kudat , zlepion sierci , jak ubry, i mierdziay wstr tnie. Inne przypominay garbate, yse, zdeche wielb dy. Inne wreszcie byy najwidoczniej z pewnego rodzaju papieru, puste w rodku, a wietnie kolorowe na zewn trz. Niektóre okazyway si z bliska niczym innym jak wielkimi pawimi ogonami, kolorowymi wachlarzami, w które niepoj tym sposobem tchni to jaki pozór ycia. (SC 158) (They had been nothing but enormous bunches of feathers, stuffed carelessly with old carrion. In many of them, one could not recognise where the heads had been, for that misshapen part of their bodies was unmarked by the presence of a soul. Some were covered with a curly matted fur, like bison, and stank horribly. Others reminded one of hunchbacked, bald, dead camels. Others still must have been made of a kind of cardboard, empty inside but splendidly coloured on the outside. Some of them proved at close quarters to be nothing more than large peacock’s tails, colourful fans, into which by some obscure process a semblance of life had been breathed; CF 94)

The analogy with Pauba could be expressed as follows: just like Strumieski sets up a complex construction in order to “mould” Paweek into something that he is not in reality, Jacob attempts to impose his will on matter and bring it to life. Both “creative” projects, however, take revenge on their creators: Paweek shatters the ideal his father was aiming at and shows his human instincts, while Jacob’s

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birds shake off the illusion and disclose their “trashy” nature. The ambition “to get to the core” that Strumieski and Jacob share collides in a grotesque way with reality, with pauba and tandeta; the illusory symmetry between the idea and its representation has to give way to the asymmetry of the final result. Moreover, the fiasco of both protagonists’ experiments had already been hinted at beforehand: Jacob’s birds might have been merely the result of his reading of “large ornithological textbooks” (“wielkie ornitologiczne compendia”) from whose pages “these feathery phantasms seemed to rise” (Cf 21; “zdaway si ulatywa […] te pierzaste fantazmaty”; SC 69), while Strumieski already knew from his personal experiences that man will always be thwarted in his higher aspirations by the physical aspects of love. Although both grotesque turns in some way result in a defeat, both protagonists stubbornly continue their illusory activities. In Jacob’s case, this continuation is mainly the effect of the cyclic nature of Schulz’s literary reality. As has been sufficiently demonstrated by many critics, Schulz’s stories are characterized by a circular rather than a chronological temporal structure, as a result of which each motive may be perpetually repeated. A striking example of this is exactly Jacob’s constant struggle with the grayness and stability of everyday reality, which is perhaps best revealed in his repeated yet each time provisional metamorphoses. Strumieski, for his part, does not seem to calm down either in the wake of the clash between his “construction” and the “palubic element”; after he has shot Kseka (who had come to visit Paweek at his sickbed), he is convinced he has averted the sensual branch of the myth of Angelika. At once the “Angelika case” starts with a new cycle: “Strumieski experienced a moment in life at which he, after having passed through a particular cycle, had reached the same point for the second time” (“[Strumieski mia] chwil w yciu, w której niejako po przebyciu pewnego koa drugi raz by w tym samym punkcie”; P 481). After Paweek’s death in particular, he cannot restrain himself from linking all he experiences in life to one single scheme: “Seduced by the extraordinary, though in fact only superficial, symmetry of the events, he connected their peaks with lines, created a historiosophy of his own life, searched for pseudoconnections in it and drinked in these” (“Uwiedziony nadzwyczajn , chocia pozorn tylko symetrycznoci zdarze, czy


ich punkty szczytowe liniami, tworzy historiozofi wasnego ycia, doszukiwa si w nim pseudozwi zków, którymi si upaja”; P 489). On the very last page of the novel, Strumieski’s “mythologizing of reality” finally seems to have reached its apogee: “The Angelika case entered the stadium of the highest, already unattainable spiritualization” (“Sprawa Angelika wst pia w stadium najwy szego, nienaruszalnego ju uduchowienia”; P 490). The spiral in which Strumieski seems to be caught, however, cannot even be broken by his own death, as he will then enter “into that land, where he will eventually find out how things really are at the other side of the canvas” (“w ten kraj, gdzie wreszcie zobaczy, jak to tam jest po drugiej stronie kanwy”; P 490). It should be clear that the choice of the symbolically charged kanwa (“canvas”) as the last word of the novel once more strengthens the hypothesis of the horizontal orientation of Strumieski’s reality. Strumieski’s tragedy is in fact identical to what happens to Joseph in such stories as ‘Spring’ (cf. supra). Both protagonists attempt to impose a particular scenario on their realities, even though they are (to a different extent) aware of the inevitable fiasco. Their tragedy is first and foremost the result of the “exegetic paradox”: reality is perceived as a “text” from which a certain meaning should be drawn, which nonetheless slips through their fingers again and again. As a matter of fact, this is exactly what eventually affects the actual reader of their texts. In Pauba the reader is even made aware of his inclination to chase blindly after some ultimate signifié by devising illusory symmetries between the signs of a given text: “I know that my sober protest against Strumieski’s behavior will be some kind of humiliation for three-fourths of my readers, who, while being equally influenced by the suggestion of the facts, might feel exactly the same as Strumieski” (“Wiem, e ten mój trzewy protest przeciw zachowaniu si Strumieskiego b dzie rodzajem upokorzenia dla trzech czwartych moich czytelników, którzy, ulegaj c równie sugestii faktów, ewentualnie tak samo by czuli jak Strumieski”; P 477). In other words, Pauba does everything to thwart a traditional reading toward some kind of closure. Although it is possible to distinguish particular connections as the act of reading proceeds, these eventually turn out to be “pseudoconnections” that are as deceitful as provisional.

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What we can learn from Irzykowski and Schulz is that the asymmetric, three-dimensional, and infinite reality cannot be grasped in an inevitably symmetric, two-dimensional, and finite text. In their respective works this conflict is dramatized by laying bare the horizontal, textual character of the literary reality in question, after which the characters are exposed to the tragedy of the circular, recursive exegesis of their own textual reality. Eventually, the narrating “author” himself has to admit that his own “text” is but a “trace” of an unattainable original: Po analizie przedmiotu przychodzi kolej na mikroskop. Speni to, co w wiecie fizycznym równaoby si widzeniu wasnych oczu. Sprawa Strumieskiego tkwi we mnie samym […] Mia ebym wi c pisa swoj wasn Paub? Zdaje mi si , e zapomniaem na chwil , w jakim si

towarzystwie znajduj . Czy mam sam jeden – w literaturze – gra w otwarte karty? tam gdzie si gra nawet faszywymi? (P 450-451) (Now the object has been analyzed, let us focus on the microscope. Let us fulfill what in the physical world would be equal to looking at one’s own eyes. The Strumieski case is inside myself. Do I have to write my own Pauba then? Apparently I have forgotten for a moment in which company I am. Do I have to be the only person – in literature – who shows his cards? While others even play with false ones?)

What this passage suggests is that it is impossible to fully “show one’s cards”: when “looking at our own eyes” in a mirror, all we can see is but a representation that confronts us with the limits of our own visual range. The illusion that reality can be fully grasped dashes against the surface of the mirror; the own eye is a “residue” whose ultimate signifié will remain concealed forever. Even the metafictional text, which looks at itself as in a mirror, cannot possibly pass this limit; just like any other text, it will always remain an inauthentic construction – pauba or tandeta. Pauba, Manekin, Tandeta. Apology of the Inauthentic Art As has been suggested earlier, the constructive dimension of both Irzykowski’s and Schulz’s destructive literary practices cannot be denied. After the illusion of an attainable semantic core has been shattered, the reader is offered the perspective of an active, recursive, and reflexive reading of the respective texts’ “transformativity” (“transformacyjno”; cf. Szary-Matywiecka 1979: 36). More specifi-


cally, the reader may feel challenged by the text to a complex “game”, an alternative series of rules (conventions) and signs (words), in which one has to play a particular “role” that may offer a certain “pleasure”. Indeed, between the reader and his illusion of a three-dimensional reality a two-dimensional text is placed, like a chessboard on which the reader may freely arrange all kinds of temporary constructions. The reader becomes a “player” who is well aware of his exceptional role. What the reader may learn from all this is that this “game” is the only kind of authenticity that literature has to offer. In ‘Author’s Trio’ this positive value of the “role” and the “comedy” each human being inevitably has to play in life is underscored as follows: Mam e wyranie powiedzie, e jestem po stronie Strumieskiego? Gdyby taki czowiek y […], rad bym si z nim spotka i pomówi. Powiedziabym mu mo e: Panie Strumieski, ty, który chciae urzeczywistni frazes, w jaki to wpade chaos! Dlaczego ci nie przyszo na myl, e nie ty skompromitowae ide , ale e idea skompromitowaa si przed tob ! […] Widziaem np., jak odkrywszy w sobie pewn warstw komedii, zu ytkowae to odkrycie i wycofae si . Mam e ci bra to za ze? Potkn e si tylko na wasnej szczeroci. Bo có to znaczy komedia? Pokazuje si , e jest ona niezb dn cz ci dziaania ludzkiego; a je eli czowiek wybiera sobie wy sze formy ycia, ma jakie wzory lub plany przed oczyma, wówczas musi mu towarzyszy uczucie roli. […] W ogóle zanadto si ulega rozró nianiu dwóch kontrastów: pozoru i istoty rzeczy, a tylko Goethe mia pomys powiedzie: “So, laßt mich scheinen, bis ich werde.” (P 428-430) (Do I have to state explicitly that I sympathize with Strumieski? If such a person would exist, I would be happy to meet him and talk to him. I would probably tell him: Mr. Strumieski, you who wanted to execute a cliché, in which chaos have you ended up! Why haven’t you realized that it was not you who has compromised the idea, but the idea which has compromised itself in front of you! I have noticed, for instance, how you, after you had discovered a certain layer of comedy in yourself, took advantage of this discovery and then withdrew. Should I hold this against you? You have only stumbled over your own sincerity. For what does that mean, comedy? Apparently, it is inextricably part of human conduct; so, if someone chooses higher forms of life for himself or has certain models or plans in mind, then he must be accompanied by a sense of role. In general, we reconcile ourselves too easily to the distinction between these two opposites – the appearance and the essence of things – and only Goethe came up with the idea to state: “So lasst mich scheinen, bis ich werde”.)

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In other words, those who take their ideals too seriously and ignore the “sense of role” will inevitably end up in chaos. Only those who are aware of the relativity of every human act, of the comedy that lies at the basis of every human aspiration, may experience a certain degree of authenticity. A similar stress on the playful dimension of being, on the undermining of seriousness, can be found in Schulz’s work. In his essay for Witkacy, the writer describes his literary reality as follows: Obecna tam jest nieustannie atmosfera kulis, tylnej strony sceny, gdzie aktorzy po zrzuczeniu kostiumów zamiewaj si z patosu swych ról. W samym fakcie istnienia poszczególnego zawarta jest ironia, nabieranie, j zyk po bazesku wystawiony. (682-683) (Thus an all-pervading aura of irony emanates from this substance. There is an ever-present atmosphere of the stage, of sets viewed from behind, where the actors make fun of the pathos of their parts after stripping out their costumes. The bare fact of separate individual existence holds an irony, a hoax, a clown’s stuck-out tongue; 1990: 113)

In other words, both authors explicitly stress that the exposure of the characters’ tragedy causes a turn that reveals the positive, playful, and comical side of their tragic roles. The awareness that all seriousness is but a provisional “costume” (a “form”) that can be “stripped off” without any problem, reduces their drama to reasonable proportions. Even the cyclical repetition of the drama in ever new forms is not disadvantageous, as the laugh and the “stuck-out tongue” will always function as “safety valves” through which the surplus of seriousness can be temporarily reduced. The last issue to be addressed, then, is in which ways Irzykowski and Schulz have embedded this awareness of the eventual “superficiality” of each human act (and, as a consequence, also of their own literary practice) into their texts. It should be clear that characters such as Maria, Strumieski, and Jacob are not so much responsible for their fortunes, as they are victims of a specific (literary) role. Therefore, ons should also pay some attention to the reliability of the narrator of their stories. Schulz’s stories are characterized by a type of narration that Alfred Sproede, because of its dialectic of seduction and deception, has appropriately called “a kind of humbug” (“une espèce de boniment”; 2000: 148). Indeed, on numerous occasions, the characters and their reality (the merchandise) as well as the reader (the potential buyer) are


explicitly twisted around the finger of the “humbugging” narrator (the seller). Irzykowski’s narrator too is not as balanced as many critics have thought he was.16 In ‘Author’s Trio’ the narrator even openly confronts himself as “author”: Bo có s dzisz ty sam, szanowny autorze? […] Czy jeste jednym z tych autorów, którzy wyszydzaj , wydrwiwaj swe postacie, aby przez to narzuci czytelnikowi opini , e oni sami wi cej wiedz , e s m drzejsi? Czy nie przerzucasz wanie swego wasnego chaosu na Strumieskiego? (P 428) (Now what’s your opinion, dear author? Are you one of those writers who make fun of their characters and ridicule them in order to force the reader to believe that they know more themselves, that they are more intelligent? Aren’t you in fact shifting your own chaos onto Strumieski?)

In other words, the narrator is clearly aware of the relativity of his own narrative construction. He even doubts if the use of reflexive devices will offer a way out of this aporia: “Until now, there were certain accents in your story that made me hope that you would lead me behind the coulisses of the coulisses of your art” (“[W] twym opowiadaniu byy takie akcenty, które mi si ka spodziewa, e wprowadzisz mnie za kulisy kulis swej sztuki”; P 429). What the narrator suggests here is that even the exposure of his own narrative procedures is no guarantee for a stable, reliable, and “ordered” account, as new coulisses will continue to turn up behind the coulisses that have already been exposed. The reason why both Schulz’s and Irzykowski’s narrators also eventually undermine their own stability is that they are convinced that any attempt at “ordering” their world or making essentialist statements will inevitably lead them into chaos and that only the “appearance” and the “game” are legitimate. For similar reasons, both authors not only seem to have reconciled themselves in advance to the provisional and defective nature of their literary constructions, but also deliberately stick to an aesthetics for which Pawowska-J drzyk has coined the term “mediocrity” (“bylejako”) – “a term which is used for denoting the specificity of the poetics of works which stand out with a deliberate carelessness of their artistic execution” (cf. 16

Cf. De Bruyn (2007b, 2008) for more detailed analyses on narrative unreliability in Irzykowski and Schulz.

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supra). Pawowska-J drzyk pertinently remarks that this aesthetic attitude in both authors’ works has crystallized, as it were, into two “anti-aesthetic” concepts: tandeta and pauba. Whereas tandeta manifests itself in Schulz’s stories primarily in the form of all kinds of “shoddy” characters and objects, Irzykowski’s concept of pauba seems to be the driving force behind the exposure of all usurping “constructions” of the various protagonists. What Pawowska-J drzyk seems to overlook, however, is that both “symbols” have much more in common than merely their shared emphasis on the “mediocrity” of the literary construction in which they have found themselves. In a revealing article, Andreas Schönle (1991) has already shed light on the ambiguity and wide range of applications of the concept of tandeta. The word and its derivatives as well as the idea of cheap and “shoddy” form are indeed omnipresent in Schulz’s stories: tandeta appears as parasitic vegetation (e.g. in ‘Sierpie’ (‘August’) and ‘Pan’), as “shoddy” goods (e.g. in ‘Cinnamon Shops’ and ‘The Street of Crocodiles’), as disabled characters (e.g. in ‘Emeryt’ (‘The Old-Age Pensioner’), ‘Edzio’ (‘Eddie’) and ‘Dodo’), as metamorphoses of humans into lower or marginal forms of life (e.g. not only Jacob’s transformations but also the dog-man in ‘Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass’, the transsexual seller in ‘The Street of Crocodiles’, and uncle Edward as a doorbell in ‘The Comet’), etc. The most “perfect” form in which tandeta manifests itself, however, is the manekin or “(tailor’s) dummy”. More specifically, due to the incongruity between what is represented (a human being) and the inadequacy of the image, the manekin draws some attention on its own material quality of “sign” (cf. Schönle 1991: 132). Quite interestingly, in this same conceptual framework of the poorly executed doll, Schulz also employs the rarely used pauba – not only with reference to the less suitable (for apparently more perfect) “figury panopticum” (“figures in the panopticum”) or “pauby woskowe” (“waxworks”), but also for designating the quality of “shoddy” matter, its “paubiasta niezgrabno” (“dummy-like clumsiness”). Because Schulz was familiar with Pauba (cf. his mention of it in his review of Gombrowicz’s novel Ferdydurke), it is not unlikely that he wanted to insert Irzykowski’s “text” into his own literary reality. A similarly significant connection between tandeta and pauba can be found in the following description of luxuriant vegetation in ‘August’:


Na tych barach ogrodu niechlujna, babska bujno sierpnia wyolbrzymiaa w guche zapadliska ogromnych opuchów, rozpanoszya si patami wochatych blach listnych, wybujaymi ozorami mi sistej zieleni. Tam te wyupiaste pauby opuchów wybauszyy si jak babska szeroko rozsiade, na wpó po arte przez wasne oszalae spódnice. Tam sprzedawa ogród za darmo najtasze krupy dzikiego bzu, mierdz c mydem, grub kasz babek, dzik okowit mi ty i wszelk najgorsz tandet sierpniow . (SC 50-51; italics mine) ([On the back of the garden] the untidy, feminine ripeness of August had expanded into enormous, impenetrable, clumps of burdock spreading their sheets of leafy tin, their luxuriant tongues of fleshy greenery. There, those protuberant bur clumps spread themselves, like resting peasant women, half enveloped in their own swirling skirts. There, the garden offered free of charge the cheapest fruits of wild lilac, the heady aquavit of mint and all kinds of August trash; CF 6; italics mine)

Whereas tandeta in this fragment stresses the cheapness and “shoddiness” of the parasitic vegetation in the periphery of the garden, pauba (which in this case rather stands for an “old and ugly woman”, a “hag”; cf. infra) links up with those expressions (e.g. the various variations on baba) that designate the impudent femininity and fertility of the plants in question. Apart from this, the word was most probably also chosen for its alliteration (cf. “te wyupiaste pauby opuchów wybauszyy si ”), which in a way causes an “overgrowth” of the text’s meaning by its poetic “sound”. In Pauba the sound of the word plays an important role, too. When pauba is mentioned for the first time on the occasion of the projection of Angelika’s image on one of her paintings, it even seems to represent mere sound without meaning: Paweek mówi c o kobiecie na obrazie nazywa j czasem […] “paub ”, “nasz paub ”. Dwi k tego sowa przypomina Strumieskiemu co ohydnego i ordynarnego zarazem, co by to jednak byo, nie pami ta. Wprawdzie jeszcze dawniej dowiedzia si Strumieski od Paweka, e on to sowo “pauba” zasysza od parobków i pastuchów wiejskich, w jakim jednak sensie tego sowa u ywano, Paweek wytumaczy nie umia. (P 317-318) (When Paweek talked about the woman on the painting, he sometimes called her “pauba”, “our pauba”. The sound of this word reminded Strumieski of something disgusting and ordinary at the same time, but he could not remember what it was. Admittedly, he had already learned from Paweek that he had heard the word “pauba” from the servants and the

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Although it is clear that Paweek had taken over the popular word from the villagers in order to designate in a completely arbitrary way the phantom for which he could not find a name on his own, it now appeals to Strumieski as if it were a cryptogram. As a result, he starts interpreting the word in his own way. In a remarkable scene in Angelika’s museum, Strumieski responds in the following way to Ola’s accusation that he may have killed Angelika himself: Patrz na ten martwy manekin (tu przypomniao mu si sowo Paweka), na t paub za tym szkem, ona ust nie otworzy i nic ci nie powie, je eli si

to nie przecinie samo na moje usta, jak prze eraj cy wyrzut sumienia, bo tego nikt nie wie na wiecie prócz mnie i tej tu niemej pauby, która skoczya samobójstwem – ha ha pyszne samobójstwo! (P 374; italics mine) (Look at this dead dummy (now he remembered Paweek’s word), at this pauba behind the glass, she will not open her mouth and she will not tell you anything, unless it escapes from my mouth itself, just like devastating remorse, for nobody on earth knows this except for me and this stupid pauba, who has committed suicide – ha ha a marvelous suicide!)

As soon as Strumieski imitates Paweek in connecting the word pauba with Angelika, his late wife transforms, as it were, into an imperfect image of her, into a dead and dumb dummy, a pauba or (by analogy with Schulz) manekin. By associating Angelika with something ordinary and “shoddy”, he apparently wants to close the “Angelika case” in language, too. Some time later, however, he will also consider this innocent association to be one of the main causes of Paweek’s fatal relationship with Kseka Pauba. Unlike Strumieski, Paweek does not seem to want to express something specific when using the word pauba: Paweek nie zna dokadnie zastosowa sowa “pauba”, nie oznaczao te ono dla zrazu nic wstr tnego ani ohydnego, tak e niemal tylko przypadkiem przeniós je ywcem na obraz Angeliki. Latao mu ono w gowie samopas bez odpowiedniego wyobra enia, a poniewa wydawao mu si sowem b d co b d niezwykym, wi c sczepi je z tym, co byo dla bezimiennym i równie niezwykym, tj. z obrazem Angeliki. (P 458459)


(Paweek did not know the uses of the word “pauba”, and it did not immediately mean anything horrible or disgusting for him, so he almost only accidentally and integrally applied it to Angelika’s image. It flew around in his head unguardedly and without any corresponding representation, and since it seemed to him to be an unusual word after all, he connected it with something that for him was anonymous and unusual at the same time, that is, with Angelika’s image.)

After the museum has been closed down by Strumieski and mainly under the influence of his father’s hinting at the “Angelika case”, Paweek increasingly starts to associate the word with all kinds of inappropriate meanings, as a result of which his positive memory of the image in the museum transforms into something mysterious and disgusting against his will. As he gets in touch with Kseka, whom the shepherds also use to nickname pauba (in the sense of “shrew”, “hag”), a “huge cataclysm” (“wielki kataklizm”) takes place inside him, after which he concludes “that this is not another, but the same Pauba” (“i to jest ta sama a nie inna Pauba”; P 466). Although both of Paweek’s fascinations (for Angelika’s image and for Kseka) seem to have something in common through the association with one single word, their respective objects are completely different: while Kseka quite simply is responsible for Paweek’s sexual initiation, Angelika is but a phantom who haunts his imagination. Or as the narrator stresses, “in fact this was not the same case anymore, but a new one, a new piece of reality with its own autonomy, so Paweek’s history, which is entitled “Angelika-Pauba” on the outside, only superficially radiates uniformity” (“[w]aciwie nie bya to ju ta sama sprawa, ale nowa, nowy pat rzeczywistoci, o wasnej autonomii, […] a historia Paweka, zatytuowana na zewn trz “Angelika-Pauba”, byszczy tylko pozorn jednolitoci ”; P 468). What Irzykowski suggests is that both Strumieski and Paweek establish the “pseudoconnections” between Angelika and Kseka merely on acoustic facts (the “unusual” sound of pauba). Hence, all additional emotions and meanings that are subsequently associated with (the complex surrounding) this word are merely artificial “constructions” that do not correspond with reality. What the reader can learn from this is that he should not put a particular meaning on the word pauba. In an important passage in which the choice of the title of the novel is explained, the narrating “author” stresses that the only criterion was to “drum into the reader the matter

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that he wanted to raise” (“wbi w pami czytelnika to, co chcia wyuszczy”; P 482). As the novel’s theme is the absence of any theme (the “disintegration of any thematicity” / “rozchwianie si

tematowoci”), the “author” opts for pauba because “something which itself is different from anything else should also have a name which is different from anything else” (“to, co samo nie jest do niczego podobne, powinno mie tak e nazw do niczego niepodobn ”; P483). In other words, the “author” acts in exactly the same way as Paweek: he arbitrarily selects a name for his “case” (the novel he is writing), which is as “unusual” as what it is supposed to designate. However, because he is merely an “actor” who plays a “role” in his text, he cannot prevent himself from making illusory associations as well. At a certain point, for instance, the narrating “author” reduces the numerous meanings (up to ten according to Kak 1976: 123) of pauba to only three: a pile driving ram, a tailor’s dummy (manekin), and a hag (P 458). Although these meanings seem to be selected completely at random from the ones in the dictionaries, they appear to be less accidentally chosen upon closer examination. As we have seen, pauba is used both as a synonym for manekin and as a nickname for the loose village idiot Kseka. Furthermore, the association with the pile driving ram is suggested by the narrator when stating that he wishes to “drum into the reader the matter that he wanted to raise”. In other words, the choice of pauba is not arbitrary at all. One could argue that the novel did not necessarily need a title but that the title needed a novel: the word pauba has produced a heterogeneous novel of the same name. Due to its polysemy, the word lends itself to ever new variations and, as a consequence, to the intended “disintegration of any thematicity”. As a result of every subsequent variation by the narrator or interpretation by the reader, however, the meaning of the word becomes more complete (it “reintegrates”, as Schulz would have it), which makes it comparable to the “original word” (“pierwotne sowo”; 1964: 443) at which Schulz is aiming. By analogy with Schönle’s analysis of Schulz’s use of tandeta and manekin, therefore, one could argue that pauba “represents a sign only partially oriented towards its signified, remains vaguely motivated, while already including some conventionality, and thus draws some attention on its signifying shape as such” (1991: 132). In


his article on the technique of stylizacja (cf. supra), Kosiski interprets the function of pauba in a similar way: Funkcja tego sowa, które jest przezw , staje si imieniem, w kocu tytuem ksi ki, od którego pochodzi kluczowa kategoria podmiotu (pierwiastek paubiczny), pozostaje funkcj czystego signifiant. […] W symbolice przestrzennej charakteryzuje go ruch z dou do góry, od chopów do Paweka […], od Paweka do Strumieskiego […], od Strumieskiego do autora, od autora do sowników […], jakby od natury do kultury. (2000: 35-36) (The function of this word, which begins as a nickname, then becomes a name, and eventually the title of the work, of which even the narrator’s key concept (the palubic element) is derived, continues to be the function of a pure signifiant. In the spatial symbolics it is characterized by a bottom-up movement, from the peasants to Paweek, from Paweek to Strumieski, from Strumieski to the author, from the author to the dictionaries, as it were from nature to culture.)

According to Kosiski, Irzykowski’s novel also illustrates how each word originates from acoustic stimuli (in this case from the succession of “a” and “u”), and in this way, it even offers some kind of “meticulous reconstruction of the fortunes of the word and its changing meanings” (“dokadna rekonstrukcja losów sowa i jego zmiennych znacze”; 2000: 36). One of these meanings – a “hood” of a carriage – even turns pauba into a symbol of the “word” itself, which is also some kind of “covering” or “mould” with a variable content. Just like tandeta imposes a loose and provisional form upon matter, pauba symbolizes the formative word, the word that has not yet fossilized into a fixed meaning. Instead of conventionally referring to the final product of (literary) communication, both deliberately unconventional concepts apparently focus on the semantic process itself. Within the respective texts, they function as metaphors of maximal arbitrariness: by constantly postponing their final signifiés, they reveal themselves as “pure signifiants”. In their role of a covering or loose form for ever new but equally provisional contents, they initiate a complex textual process. The provisional texts that result from this process (the actual works of both authors) may be merely read in their transformacyjno (cf. supra), as a “migration of forms” (cf. supra) or infinite dissemination of signifiers that refer to anything and nothing at the same time. Without the metaphors that have initiated the entire process, the reader would be lost. In other words,

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after pauba and tandeta have played their metaphorical role, they reflexively start focusing attention on themselves. By exposing their maximal arbitrariness they have transformed (in the reader’s eyes) from meaningless coverings into a powerful experience of reality, or as Stala puts it with reference to Schulz’s metaphors: “The word, returning to reality from its metaphorical journey is no longer the same word; it is the liberated, forming and creative word, full of energy” (1993: 92). The role that pauba and tandeta perform in their respective literary realities is indeed thoroughly ambivalent. Although both words continually aim at concretization, at mimesis and semiosis, they eventually always withdraw from this ill-fated mission. In this way, they implicitly criticize any construction of meaning that does pretend to bring this circle to a closure. This critical function is, of course, primarily directed against any literary text and its concretization by the reader. Against the illusion of an authentic reality which the reader of a narrative is traditionally pursuing, both concepts oppose their plea in favour of an art that is as inauthentic as possible, an art that does not aspire to coincide with the object to which it refers and evokes this illusion only to immediately expose it. This attitude not only reveals itself in these works’ own artificial and “shoddy” form (for both words are part of a subcultural, “ordinary” and even vulgar dimension of language), but also even more in their most striking incarnation: the manekin or (tailor’s) dummy. In his illuminating article on the concept of tandeta in Schulz’s fiction, Schönle has convincingly determined the semiotic value of the “trashy” or “carelessly executed” tailor’s dummy as opposed to the waxwork figure, which is supposed to be nearly identical to its model. As Jacob argues in ‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’, the waxworks are “fairground parodies of dummies” (CF 35; “kalwaryjskie parodie manekinów”; SC 87) because they are forced to be fully similar to an unattainable model. In other words, whereas the waxwork tries to conceal at any cost the inevitable dissimilarities from its model, the tailor’s dummy continuously displays its mere referential task. According to Schönle (cf. supra), the reflexive dimension of the latter way of representing man should be clear: Put into the vocabulary of semiotics, the waxwork is a sign transparent towards its signified, since it is motivated by a full visual similarity,


whereas the dummy represents a sign only partially oriented towards its signified, remains vaguely motivated, while already including some conventionality, and thus draws some attention on its signifying shape as such. (1991: 132; italics mine)

Undoubtedly, many readers will be tempted to interpret Jacob’s preference for the tailor’s dummy as an unequivocal plea for “antimimetic” or abstract forms of art because the manekin could be considered an abstract representation of man. Upon closer examination, however, father’s argument appears to be more subtle. More specifically, Jacob seeks not the (supposedly artistic) creation of tailors’ dummies “in the image and likeness” of man but just the opposite – viz., the establishment of a “generatio aequivoca” (SC 89) by re-creating man “in the image and likeness of a tailor’s dummy” (“na obraz i podobiestwo manekina”; SC 83). Hence, what he seems to be attacking is not so much the faithful depiction of man (as in traditional mimesis) but any artistic depiction of man, which is always but an artificial copy of a (mental) picture of real man – of a provisional abstraction “for one gesture, for one word alone” (CF 32; “dla jednego gestu, dla jednego sowa”; SC 82). In Jacob’s opinion, when compared to God’s “first” creation, any kind of human creation is secondary and inauthentic, and the best man can do is to reveal the inauthenticity of his creation as much as possible. It should be clear that Schulz rejects the conventional creation of “illusions of humans” (that is, of puppets) in favor of the creation of “illusions of illusions of humans” (that is, of copies of puppets). In other words, instead of modeling his literary world and its inhabitants after the real world, he prefers to use artistic (man-made) products as a model. Moreover, by choosing the explicitly artificial tailor’s dummy as a model (instead of the more perfect waxwork figure, as the realistic writer unconsciously does), it is more likely that the reader will perceive the intended “illusion of an illusion of man” than some new illusion (of an authentic puppet). Obviously, Schulz’s approach is also more subtly reflexive when compared, for instance, to a painting which directly depicts both another painting and a painter’s easel or a novel which includes not only the representation of a fictional reality but also a description of the artistic genesis of this literary construction (as Irzykowski has done). In all these examples, however, the same artistic principle is at work: instead of denying that what has been portrayed is merely a construction of reality (as in Realism),

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reflexive forms of art expose their delusive practices in one way or another. In Schulz’s fiction, the technique of creating “in the image and likeness of a tailor’s dummy” reveals itself most prominently in the exposure of the inadequacies of reality, of its tandetno. As for the characters inhabiting his literary world, their artificiality and defectiveness is almost complete; some of them (e.g. father, aunt Perasia, uncle Edward) are ruled by what Schulz himself (in his essay for Witkiewicz) has called the principle of “panmasquerade” (“panmaskarada”; 1964: 682), which makes them assume new masks again and again, whereas others clearly display physical deficiencies (e.g., Edzio, Dodo) or even explicit “mannequinesque” traits: in ‘August’ (‘Sierpie’), for instance, the narrator reports of his cousin ucja that “[s]he stretched out to [him] a small doll-like hand” (CF 9; “[p]odaa [mu] r czk lalkowat ”; SC 55). Similar conclusions can be drawn regarding the material side of Schulz’s literary world. The illusoriness and defectiveness of the setting in which the subsequent stories take place can best be observed in the periphery, on the margins of the represented world. Indeed, like a painting which betrays its own construction the most at its margins (where the frame begins and the order of the work merges with the chaos of reality), Schulz’s fictional settings display their shoddiness particularly on the outskirts. In ‘The Street of Crocodiles’, for example, the narrator offers a description of a peripheral city district on the basis of an old map of his hometown. In this part of town, the degree of imitativeness is almost unlimited: Jest to szary dzie, jak zawsze w tej okolicy, i caa sceneria wydaje si

chwilami fotografi z ilustrowanej gazety, tak szare, tak paskie s domy, ludzie i pojazdy. Ta rzeczywisto jest cienka jak papier i wszystkimi szparami zdradza sw imitatywno. Chwilami ma si wra enie, e tylko na maym skrawku przed nami ukada si wszystko przykadnie w ten pointowany obraz bulwaru wielkomiejskiego, gdy tymczasem ju na bokach rozwi zuje si i rozprz ga ta zaimprowizowana maskarada i, niezdolna wytrwa w swej roli, rozpada si za nami w gips i pakuy, w rupieciarni jakiego ogromnego pustego teatru. Napi cie pozy, sztuczna powaga maski, ironiczny patos dr y na tym naskórku. (SC 127) (It is, as usual in that district, a grey day, and the whole scene seems at times like a photograph in an illustrated magazine, so grey, so onedimensional are the houses, the people and the vehicles. Reality is as thin as paper and betrays with all its cracks its imitative character. At times


one has the impression that it is only the small section immediately before us that falls into the expected pointillistic picture of a city thoroughfare, while on either side, the improvised masquerade is already disintegrating and, unable to endure, crumbles behind us into plaster and sawdust, into the lumber room of an enormous, empty theatre. The tenseness of an artificial pose, the assumed earnestness of a mask, an ironical pathos tremble on this façade; CF 67-68)

Such descriptions perfectly illustrate Schulz’s method of using a “trashy” (tandetny), explicitly artificial version of reality as a model for literary mimesis rather than reality itself. Moreover, in much the same way as the tailor’s dummy, this kind of setting may evoke a double perception: on the one hand, the temporary illusion of a human being (in the case of the dummy) or a real (big) city thoroughfare (in the case of the Street of Crocodiles district), and on the other hand, the enduring reality of a shoddy artifact – made of “plaster and sawdust”. Although Irzykowski’s techniques are often less subtle, his novel does not pretend to be more than merely an inauthentic image of the construction that “rests somewhere in [his] head in a completely different form” (cf. supra). By analogy with Schulz’s stories the “monstrous ruin” (cf. supra) entitled Pauba incessantly exposes its own secondary, “derivative” character. First of all, the narrating “author” regularly betrays his literary sources of inspiration, from which he now and then directly quotes. Furthermore, many of the works of art that turn up in the novel appear to be thoroughly “shoddy”. This is certainly the case for the literary works that Gasztold and Strumieski produce, both of which are based on second-rate models from the popular circuit and which the narrator criticizes as worthless efforts that would better not be published. ‘The Dreams of Maria Dunin’, then, abounds in inconsequences and eventually turns out to be a mystification. Angelika, who shares both her first and surname with the historical painter Angelika Kauffmann (1741-1807) and as such is already some kind of “copy”, is openly accused of plagiarism at a certain point. Angelika’s museum appears to contain for the most part all kinds of trash and kitsch. Apart from the exotic knickknacks and Angelika’s pathological portraits and landscapes it also accommodates a remarkable “plaster moulding representing a man who was sculpturing himself in stone” (“odlew gipsowy, który przedstawia czowieka wykuwaj cego samego siebie w kamieniu”; P 167). What makes this example so worth mentioning

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is not only its imitative and “kitschy” nature but also most of all its reflexive dimension, as if Irzykowski wished to evoke some kind of plastic equivalent of his own novel. The most striking manifestation of manekinowato (“dummy-likeness”) is the image of Angelika that Strumieski creates through an optical illusion. Whereas the image of his dead wife until then had only existed as an ideal construction in his head, he now transforms it into an inferior, overtly artificial variant: Tumaczy Oli cay mechanizm optyczny. e rzecz nie polega wcale na jakich wynalazkach, które maj by dopiero wynalezione, jak cudownoci Poego lub Vernego, ale na znanych ju fenomenach, na interferencji wiata i na sekretnych farbach profesora Lipmanna, i wcale nie wymaga koncesji prawdopodobiestwa. Ola niewiele z tego rozumiaa, ale rozumiaa przecie tyle, e cudowno nie odgrywa tu adnej roli, i jej oczekiwania zawiody j nieco, zwaszcza gdy Strumieski kad nacisk na t naturalno, tj. tak zwan sztuczno zjawiska. (P 364-365) (He explained the complete optical mechanism to Ola. That it had nothing to do with any particular inventions that still had to be discovered, like the curiosities of Poe and Verne, but with existing phenomena, with the interference of light and with the secret colors of professor Lipmann, and that it did not require any concessions to probability. Ola did not understand a lot of this, but she did nonetheless understand that it had nothing to do with illusionism, and she was slightly disappointed, particularly when Strumieski emphasized this naturalness, that is, the socalled artificiality of the phenomenon.)

After this explanation, the confusion turns out to be almost complete. Although the image is characterized as completely natural and authentic, it actually is a visualization of Strumieski’s ideal image of his wife and as such should be considered an inauthentic construction “to the second power” when compared to the “real” Angelika. In fact, both interpretations of the optical illusion are correct: either one ignores the underlying construction and perceives an authentic optical effect or one becomes aware of the double defectiveness of the image with regard to its original (cf. the manekin as an “illusion of an illusion of man”). Strumieski initially still defends the authenticity and mimetic power of the spectacle, but by renaming the image into a “dead dummy” and a “stupid pauba” (cf. supra), he exposes his work as a mystification and once again yields to the power of the “palubic element”.


Conclusion As we have seen, although the works of Irzykowski and Schulz do not seem to have a lot in common, both authors in a similar way put into perspective all possible cultural constructions and “stylizations” (words, ideas, texts, etc.) As the relativistic and cultural critical discourse of both authors is represented in the form of a narrative, this critique is primarily directed against all “actors” that play a “role” in the “game”, which this literary construction appears to be: the author and his text, the narrator and his story, the characters and their reality. Because the text continually displays its own artificiality and its own two-dimensional nature, the reader may realize that his reading of this text, of every text, and by extension of every cultural construction is merely a temporary “pose” or a necessary “comedy”. Unable to trace back the horizontal orientation of the text (its palimpsests, cryptograms, and arabesques) to a stable semantic core, he cannot but activate, for the duration of his reading, the “mediocre”, “shoddy”, and “inauthentic” artifact at hand as an aesthetic object. Or as Irzykowski almost casually puts it in his novel: “Do you feel the poetry of this apoetry after all?” (“Czy jednak czujecie poezj tej apoezji?”; P 435). Bibliography Bolecki, Wodzimierz. 1996 [1982]. Poetycki model prozy w dwudziestoleciu midzywojennym. Kraków: Universitas. ——. 1999. ‘Le Postmodernisme? Ou peut-être un modernisme méconnu?: Witkacy – Gombrowicz – Schulz’ in Delaperrière, Maria (ed.) Modernisme en Europe Centrale. Les avant-gardes. Paris: L’Harmattan: 173-192. ——. 2003. ‘Metaliteratura wczesnego modernizmu. Pauba Karola Irzykowskiego’ in Arkusz 2, 3: 4-5, 13. ——. 2005. ‘Gender and Sex in Early Modernist Polish Fiction: Przybyszewski, Irzykowski, Witkacy, Schulz’ in Grimstad, Knut Andreas and Ursula Phillips (eds). Gender and Sexuality in Ethical Context. Ten Essays on Polish Prose (Slavica Bergensia 5). Bergen: University of Bergen, Department of Russian Studies, IKRR: 98-123. Budrecka, Aleksandra. 1981. ‘Wst p’ in Irzykowski, Karol, Pauba. Sny Marii Dunin. Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossoliskich: III-XC. Currie, Mark (ed. and intr.) 1995. Metafiction. New York: Longman. D browska, Krystyna. 1963. ‘Struktura artystyczna Pauby Irzykowskiego’ in Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikoaja Kopernika w Toruniu (Nauki Humanistyczno-Spoeczne 9, Filologia Polska IV): 159-197.

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De Bruyn, Dieter. 2007a. ‘The Problem of Autotematyzm in Polish Literary Criticism, or How to Immobilize a Perpetuum Mobile of Nothingness’ in Danaher, David S. and Van Heuckelom, Kris (eds). Perspectives on Slavic Literatures. Proceedings of the First International Perspectives on Slavistics Conference (Leuven, September 17-19, 2004) (Pegasus OostEuropese Studies 6). Amsterdam: Pegasus: 127-139. ——. 2007b. ‘The Janus-Faced Author: Narrative Unreliability and Metafiction in Karol Irzykowski’s Pauba and Witold Gombrowicz’s Ferdydurke’ in Russian Literature 62(4): 401-422. ——. 2008. ‘An Eye for an I. Telling as Reading in Bruno Schulz’s Fiction’ in D'hoker, Elke and Gunther Martens (eds). Narrative Unreliability in the Twentieth-Century First-Person Novel (Narratologia 14). Berlin: de Gruyter: 209-227. Drozdowski, Piotr Joran. 1987. Arcydzieo graniczne: Pauba Karola Irzykowskiego na tle Pozytywizmu i Modej Polski. PhD Thesis. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Eile, Stanisaw. 1996. Modernist Trends in Twentieth-Century Polish Fiction. London: University of London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies. Gowiski, Micha. 1969. Powie modopolska: Studium z poetyki historycznej. Wrocaw, Warszawa: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossoliskich, Wydawnictwo Polskiej Akademii Nauk. Irzykowski, Karol. 1976 [1903]. Pauba. Sny Marii Dunin. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. Jabonowski, Wadysaw. ‘Karol Irzykowski. Pauba’ in Ksika 3(11): 406-408. Kak, Zofia. 1976. ‘O filozoficznych i psychologicznych koncepcjach w Paubie Karola Irzykowskiego’ in Materiay midzynarodowej sesji naukowej zorganizowanej przez Koo Polonistów IFP UJ z okazji jubileusza 75-lecia istnienia Koa w dniach 20-24 maja 1974. Kraków: Uniwersytet Jagielloski, Instytut Filologii Polskiej: 121-145. Kosiski, Krzysztof. 2000. ‘Prolog. Przemiany prozy XX wieku’ in Kosiski, Krzysztof, Eros. Dekonstrukcja. Polityka. Katowice: l sk: 15-37. Lachmann, Renate. 1992. ‘Dezentrierte Bilder. Die ekstatische Imagination in Bruno Schulz’ Prosa’ in Hansen-Löve, Aage (ed.) Psychopoetik. Beiträge zur Tagung ‘Psychologie und Literatur’ München 1991 (Wiener Slawistischer Almanach Sonderband 31). Wien: Gesellschaft zur Förderung slawistischer Studien: 439-461. Lipiski, Jacek. 1949. ‘Pauba jako program literacki Karola Irzykowskiego’ in Prace polonistyczne 7: 137-157. Nycz, Ryszard. 1997. Jzyk modernizmu. Prolegomena historycznoliterackie. Wrocaw: Fundacja na Rzecz Nauki Polskiej. Pawowska(-J drzyk), Brygida. 1995. ‘Parodia i groteska w Paubie Karola Irzykowskiego’ in Przegld Humanistyczny 39(5): 153-168. ——. 2002. Sens i chaos w grotesce literackiej. Kraków: Universitas. Ritz, German. 2005. ‘Does Paluba Have a Sex? Irzykowski’s Paluba in the Light of Gender Studies’ in Grimstad, Knut Andreas and Ursula Phillips (eds). Gender and Sexuality in Ethical Context. Ten Essays on Polish Prose


(Slavica Bergensia 5). Bergen: University of Bergen, Department of Russian Studies, IKRR: 124-154. Schönle, Andreas. 1991. ‘Cinnamon Shops by Bruno Schulz: the Apology of Tandeta’ in The Polish Review 36(2): 127-144. Schulz, Bruno. 1964. Proza. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ——. 1989. The Complete Fiction of Bruno Schulz (tr. C. Wieniewska). New York: Walker and Company. ——. 1990. Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz (ed. J. Ficowski). New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation. Sproede, Alfred. 2000. ‘Expérimentations narratives après la fin de l’Avant-garde: notes sur Bruno Schulz, son lecteur et ses “Incantations”’ in Konicka, Hanna and Hélène Wodarczyk (eds). La littérature polonaise du XXe siècle. Textes, styles et voix. Paris: Institut d’études slaves: 135-165. Stala, Krzysztof. 1993. On the Margins of Reality: the Paradoxes of Representation in Bruno Schulz’s Fiction. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. St pnik, Krzysztof. 1973. ‘Ogólne wyznaczniki paradygmatu literackiego Pauby i jego organizacja estetyczna’ in Studia Estetyczne 10: 215-238. Szary-Matywiecka, Ewa. 1979. Ksika, powie, autotematyzm: od Pauby do Jedynego wyjcia. Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossoliskich. Taylor Sen, Colleen. 1972. Polish Experimental Fiction 1900-1939: A Comparative Study of the Novels of Karol Irzykowski, Stanisaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, Witold Gombrowicz and Bruno Schulz. PhD Thesis. Columbia University. Waugh, Patricia. 1984. Metafiction. The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. London & New York: Methuen. Werner, Andrzej. 1965. ‘Czowiek, literatura i konwencje: refleksja teoretycznoliteracka w Paubie Karola Irzykowskiego’ in Kwiatkowski, Jerzy and Zbigniew abicki (eds). Z problemów literatury polskiej XX wieku. I: Moda Polska. Warszawa: Pastwowy Instytut Wydawniczy: 327-369. Wyka, Kazimierz. 1977 [1948]. ‘Wst p do Pauby’ in Wyka, Kazimierz, Moda Polska. II: Szkice z problematyki epoki. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie: 175-204. Zengel, Ryszard. 1958. ‘Pauba po latach’ in Twórczo 14(11): 126-133.

“I Drew a Plan of an Imaginary City”. The Phenomenon of the City in Bruno Schulz and Miron Biaoszewski Anna liwa Abstract: The aim of this article is to investigate the degree of similarity between Bruno Schulz’s and Miron Biaoszewski’s writing. The problem will be researched by comparing both writers’ spatial imagery using a method of close-reading. When thinking about the spatiality in Schulz’s and Biaoszewski’s literary works, we have to admit that it is almost impossible to imagine without the city. Their writing is strongly filled with urban space, and the status of the civilian plays an important role in forming the identity of the subject. Particular attention will be paid to the aspect of “mythologizing” the city.

Introduction The comparison of Bruno Schulz’s prose and Miron Biaoszewski’s poetry may seem risky considering that these two writers never met. In the year of Schulz’s tragic death (1942), Biaoszewski was twenty years old. He never mentioned Schulz in his writing, but it is hard to avoid the impression that the imagery in his debut volume Obroty rzeczy (The Revolution of Things, 1956) contains something Schulzian. Critics such as Artur Sandauer (1981) and Kazimierz Wyka (1959) pointed at similarities between Schulz’s prose and some of Biaoszewski’s poems, but they did not expand on the subject. The main aim of this article is to critically revise this observation and investigate the real degree of similarity between Schulz’s and Biaoszewski’s writing. The problem will be researched on the field of spatial imagery – the theme of a city. The analysis of the city in Schulz’s prose will be mainly limited to the story ‘Ulica krokodyli’ (‘The Street of Crocodiles’). The question about similarity in Schulz’s and Biaoszewski’s imagery may be posed more directly and ironically: is there something

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that links the literary works of Schulz and Biaoszewski other than the Polish literary historian Artur Sandauer? Or is it only a coincidence that Sandauer, who gained his status as a literary critic on interpreting Schulz’s and Gombrowicz’s prose, promoted Biaoszewski and helped him to publish the debut volume? Of course, the questions formulated in this way sound provocative, but they are worth consideration, especially because the possible answers seem ambivalent. Even if we agree that Sandauer’s presence in the critical reception of Schulz’s and Biaoszewski’s writings cannot be a satisfactory, serious, and above all, scientific argument for these writers’ similarity, there still remains a matter of literary taste that cannot be omitted. Schulz’s prose and Biaoszewski’s early poetry must have suited Sadauer’s individual taste; otherwise he would not assume the role of Biaoszewski’s promoter. It is important to repeat and emphasize the reference here to Biaoszewski’s early work because his next volumes – Rachunek zachciankowy (An Account of Whims, 1959) and Mylne wzruszenia (Deceptive Emotions, 1961) – met with rejection by Sandauer. During the period of Sandauer’s fascination with The Revolution of Things, he characterized Schulz as Biaoszewski’s main predecessor which was the first critical comparison between Schulz and Biaoszewski. The aspects that allowed Sandauer to compare both writers were the chosen literary space – “the world of underculture” (“wiat podkultury”; Sandauer 1981: 372) – and the “mythologizing of reality” (“mityzacja rzeczywistoci”; Sandauer 1981: 372-375) present in Schulz’s prose as well as in some of Biaoszewski’s poems. Unfortunately, the critic’s article remains rather casual and superficial. Sandauer limits his analysis to the repetition of some Schulzian mechanisms (e.g. connection between naturalistic observation and “mythologizing”) in Biaoszewski’s poems without investigating further. The same situation may be observed in Wyka’s article. The comparison of Schulz and Biaoszewski appears as a polemic with Sandauer. According to Wyka, the main difference between both writers is Schulz’s “deadly serious” (Wyka 1959: 186) approach to myths contrasted with Biaoszewski’s humor; however, Wyka does not develop his suggestions. It is quite interesting that in this article Biaoszewski is not only the successor of Schulz but also of Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Tadeusz Peiper, Julian Przybo, Józef Czechowicz,

The Phenomenon of the City in Schulz and Biaoszewski

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Julian Tuwim, Bolesaw Lemian, Stanisaw Ciesielczuk, and Albin Dziekoski. Despite his extensive literary inheritance, Biaoszewski remains isolated.1 The main problem is that the question about similarities between Schulz’s and Biaoszewski’s literary works has been posed but not answered. As we have already noticed, Sandauer’s and Wyka’s texts might be classified as reviews, quick first-drafts rather than comprehensive research. That is why some critics’ ideas are only mentioned but not explored. To formulate a satisfactory answer, we should look at more recent studies into the authors’ poetic imagery and ways of perceiving reality. The territory on which we can compare these two imageries and artistic creations is the theme of city space. First, however, we must find some similarities between the two writers in other fields, such as critical reception and biography. The critical reception of Schulz and Biaoszewski has much in common. Their debut volumes, published after years of writing for themselves (in Polish we would say do szuflady ‘for the drawer’), obtained very good reviews. While interpreting their writing, many critics used autobiographical information, provoked by the autobiographical quality of Schulz’s prose and Biaoszewski’s realistic writing. Similarities in Schulz’s and Biaoszewski’s attitudes toward life make our comparison even more interesting. Their youth was disturbed by world wars (in the case of Schulz, World War I and in the case of Biaoszewski, World War II), and both had to quit their studies, but this did not stop their interests and passions. Both writers were fascinated by film and dreams and both were individualists. As such they were not accepted by the communist regime and had to wait until 1956 for public recognition – Biaoszewski for his debut and Schulz for post-war and posthumous mementos. When we approach the role of the city in both writers’ biographies, spatial imagery, and literary works, we can find as many similarities as differences. Biaoszewski, like Schulz, lived in the city, specifically Warsaw, throughout his entire life, unlike his provincial “predecessor” from Drohobycz. Biaoszewski had extremely welldeveloped orientation skills, and all cities seemed familiar to him. 1

Marian Kisiel (1999: 100-103) links this mix of tradition with the change in literary consciousness characteristic for the period 1955-1959. After Stalin’s death and the end of Socialist Realism, critics tried to show the continuity of Polish literature and look for analogies.

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Sandauer, to his surprise, discovered that Biaoszewski knew Paris better than he did after only a few days even though the critic had lived in the capital of France for over a year (Biaoszewski 1976: 60). Schulz, on the contrary, felt safe and familiar only in his native Drohobycz. He easily got lost in other cities, even in Warsaw. Some interesting differences also can be found with regard to the city in their literary works. In spite of the fact that both writers placed a stimulus for their imagery in the real urban space, only Biaoszewski kept original names of districts, streets, and squares. All the topographical names in his poetry refer to real locations. Schulz never used the name Drohobycz in his prose and always protested against the simple identification between reality and fiction. Of course, that did not change the fact that to the majority of his readers, the city described in Sklepy cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops) resembles Drohobycz and Crocodile Street seems to be an artistic recreation of Stryjska Street, the main street in Drohobycz. It is worth adding that Schulz’s imagery only focuses on a Drohobycz-like city, whereas Biaoszewski found inspiration also in little towns located near Warsaw (Kobyka, Woomin, Otwock, Misk Mazowiecki, Garwolin, etc.) as well as in the Southeast region of Poland, Rzeszowszczyzna (Binarowa, Biecz, Krosno, Dukla, etc.). Despite the aforementioned differences, there cannot be any doubt about the importance of city space in Schulz’s prose and Biaoszewski’s poetry. Both writers’ artistic inspiration came not from the lime tree branches or idyllic rural landscapes but directly from the daily life: a street, a house, or a town square. When thinking about the spatiality in Schulz’s and Biaoszewski’s literary works, we have to admit that it is almost impossible to imagine them without the city.2 Their writing is so strongly filled with urban space, and the status of the civilian plays an important role in forming the identity of the subject. According to Bohdan Budurowicz (1994: 10), Schulz was in love with Drohobycz since his early childhood, and the city never stopped fascinating him. Biaoszewski also never tried to hide his

2 It is interesting that the authors of Sownik schulzowski or The Schulz Dictionary (Bolecki, Jarz bski and Rosiek 2003) decided to omit the entry “city”, especially since there is an entry for “home”. Instead of “city”, they placed real, geographical names as entries: “Drohobycz” and “Ulica Stryjska” (“Stryjska Street”). The theme of the city in Bruno Schulz’s prose was interpreted by Jarz bski (2005: 88-108).


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attachment to the city. In one of his narratives entitled Szumy, zlepy, cigi (Noises, Conglomerates, Sequels) he even wrote: Nie jestem dzieckiem natury. Mam w sobie jeszcze t

siedemnastowieczn niech do marszczonego od wiatru bota i do podje d aj cego na zimnie zawiewu zielska, mam tak jak mój Ojciec, a Ojciec po Dziadku, p d do miasta, do haasu i toku. (1976: 177). (I am not a child of nature. I have inside me this seventeenth-century aversion to the mud wrinkled by the wind and the smell of weeds brought by cold wind, I have, just like my Father and Father just like Grandfather, an urge for the city, for noise and crowd.)3

Although we accept all of the similarities mentioned above and remember the differences, there remains an unanswered question: can Schulz really be seen as Biaoszewski’s forerunner? I will use close-readings to investigate the degree of similarity between Schulz’s and Biaoszewski’s spatial imagery. First, I will explain how both writers understood the term “city”. Second, I will analyze the spatial differentiation between the centre and the peripheries, which seems to be crucial. Special attention will also be paid to the aspect of “mythologizing” the city. The City-Creative Factors Biaoszewski wrote ‘I Drew a Plan of an Imaginary City’ (‘Rysowaem plan miasta wymylonego’) when recalling his childhood in his prose piece Rozkurz (Pulverization, 1980). The plan or a map, as a visual, schematic representation of a city, has always been a form of controlling space. The childish game of drawing a map can be understood as the equivalent to the act of founding a city, a repetition of cosmogony. Since the main role of a map is to provide orientation and help in finding the proper way, the elements placed on it must be well-chosen in order to avoid disorientation. A glance at city maps allows one to enumerate elements which define a city: a market with a church and town hall, a main street, particular districts and possibly even city walls. Mircea Eliade concludes that it is 3

All translations of Miron Biaoszewski’s works are mine, except for the poems ‘Garwolin – miastko wieczne’ (‘Garwolin – A Little Town For Ever’) and ‘Rozprawa o stolikowych baranach’ (‘An Essay on Bazaar Rams’), which were translated in Biaoszewski (1974: 17-19).

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impossible to live in the chaos of homogeneity and uniformity characteristic of profane space (Eliade 1991: 15). Man needs the sacred that brings hierarchy, sets a centre, and demarcates borders. The city plan shows an effect of such divisions. The map which Schulz extensively describes in the beginning of his story ‘The Street of Crocodiles’ is also the result of (in this case artistic) differentiation and transformation. It is an extraordinary map precise and detailed in the centre and vanishing as it depicts suburbs. In Schulz’s story, the real city exists only in the centre, the sacred sphere; everything placed outside of or distant from the centre remains a poor imitation. Jerzy Jarz bski (2005: 91-92) interpreted this process as a confusion of values and noticed that it has an equivalent in the language in which it is described more elaborate while portraying the city-centre and modest in presentation of suburbs. But the truth is that even while depicting the centre, the author does not mention any typical city-creative factors, such as presence of a temple or a location, such as the town hall, of city authorities. The city is seen as a sum of streets and houses. Differences between them are limited only to external “architectonic polyphony”4 (“polifonia architektoniczna”; Schulz 1989: 71)5 – in Schulz’s words. So it is not the “real” city that attracts Schulz’s attention, but an imaginary one where Crocodile Street is scarcely marked on a map. What is interesting is that the paperlike nature of the city spreads also on the labyrinth-like Crocodile Street: “grey windows cross-ruled many times like sheets of chancellory paper” (“szare okna, kratkowane wielokrotnie, jak arkusze papieru kancelaryjnego”; Op 73); “grey and parchment-like” salesgirls (“szare i papierowe, jak ryciny”; Op 74); “reality […] as thin as a sheet of paper” (“rzeczywisto […] cienka jak papier”; Op 76); and “trams made of papier-mâché” with “sides battered and crumpled after many years of use” (“wozy, zrobione z papier-mâché, o cianach powyginanych i zmi tych od wielokrotnego u ytku”; Op 77). Crocodile Street seems to be a “paper imitation, as in a photomontage made up of cuttings from last year’s mouldered newspapers” (“papierowa imitacja, jak na fotomonta zo ony z wycinków zle aych, zeszorocznych gazet”; Op 80).

4 All quotations from ‘The Street of Crocodiles’ are taken from John Curran Davis’s translation (Schulz 2007). 5 All further references will be given as Op.


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In Biaoszewski’s debut volume, we do not find a poem related to a city plan in such an explicit manner as is found in ‘The Street of Crocodiles’, but there is one poem that can be compared with Schulz’s story. ‘redniowieczny gobelin o Bieczu’ (‘A Medieval Tapestry about Biecz’) begins like Schulz’s prose with the presentation of a city panorama. While in ‘The Street of Crocodiles’ the role of vocabulary was to create an impression of paper-like imitation, the key to Biaoszewski’s poem can be found in its title. The tapestry may be understood as an extraordinary genre created by the author to emphasize correspondence between a decorative weave and literature. One may suppose that the choice of a medieval background was influenced by Biecz’s reception of city rights in the Middle Ages (1363) as well as by the preserved medieval urban structure of the city (city walls, a market square with an originally Gothic town hall rebuilt in Renaissance style in the sixteenth century, and a Gothic parish church). The most splendid days of Biecz may be traced back to the second half of the fourteenth century, the period of Queen Jadwiga’s patronage. In the poem, Biaoszewski depicts the moment the keys to the city are handed to King Wadysaw Jagieo and Queen Jadwiga; this moment seems to summarize best the history of Biecz, and the form of tapestry best commemorates the city, which is famous for weaving. The tapestry described in the poem is fictional (Dan-Bruzda 1961: 426), just like the map in ‘The Street of Crocodiles’. The poem does not refer to any real object of art, as may be thought at first, especially since all metaphors seem to try to convince us of its actuality. By drawing a parallel between spinning and the story that is spun, the poem itself becomes a decorative tapestry woven from words instead of colorful wool. It becomes a contemporary tapestry presenting medieval Biecz. Following the sequence of events presented in the poetic tapestry, it is hard to dismiss the impression that the main character of this atypical story is the city of Biecz. The structure of a phrase included in the title – ‘A Medieval Tapestry about Biecz’ – recalls titles of numerous medieval hagiographies or chansons de geste (songs/stories/legends about a saint/knight, etc.), which were constructed in the same way. Critics have observed the influence of painting techniques (Cubism, Impressionism) in the way the author presents the world in

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the poem (Wyka 1959: 173-176; Dan-Bruzda 1961: 428). Although I do not deny this fact, I also want to suggest that more attention should be paid to the tapestry-like qualities of the poem. It is a fictional tapestry (rather than a Cubist painting) that becomes the object of poetic description. Of course, geometrical tendencies in poetic imagination are clearly visible and cannot be omitted – roofs (triangles), towers (circles), even whole quarters (squares) were transformed into geometric figures. But at the same time it may be interpreted as evidence of simplifications characterizing a tapestry – a woven “painting” – rather than of Cubist curiosity leading to an object’s deconstruction into basic elements. The lexis of the poem incessantly reminds us that it is the tapestry that is the main focus. For example, instead of “they built in Gothic style”, we read “they wove Gothic” (“utkali gotykiem”; Biaoszewski 1987: 20). The elements of a real world are transferred to a context of forms presented on the tapestry. Let us take a look at the following example: “[…] livid threads of a wood / sewed to the sky / into a peak crown” (“[…] sine nici lasu / przyszyte do nieba / w koron spiczast ”; 21). In other lines of the poem we read about “sky’s threads” (“nici nieba”; 23) and “Peter and Paul [who are made] from shiny thread” (“Piotr i Pawe z byszcz cych nici”; 28). Metaphors are also used to emphasize the structure of a tapestry, e.g. “a rough / texture of a pavement” (“szorstka / tkanina bruku”; 23). Beginning from the “Gothic miracle” (“gotyckie cudo”), which “inclined the whole city / on a green hill / although it stayed flat” (“przechylio si cae miasto / w zielonym wzgórzu, / cho pozostao paskie…”; 21), we can find throughout the poem many signals that remind us about simplifications which are an effect of transforming the scenes of life into a tapestry. The members of a particular guild seem to be “portraits of one face” (“portrety jednej twarzy”; 25), and their steady moving procession became “one tower of movement” (“na jednej wie y porusze”; 24). The metaphorical image of the “tower of movement” is completed by a synecdoche, in which proceeding lines of guild members are named “black hats’ stories” (“pi trami czarnych kapeluszy”; 24). Uniformity and loss of individuality are strongly marked by a comparison with the descending representatives of a guild, a monotonous ring of a bell, or a flowing stream. Steadiness of rhythmical motion permeates the poem.


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The precision in portraying the city is due to numerous adjectives, especially those in superlative degree, and an extremely extended scale of colours that does not omit even one particular tint. The Sownik terminologiczny sztuk piknych (Terminological Dictionary of Fine Arts) explains that tapestries from the period of fifteenth century to seventeenth century differed in range of colors (twenty-five) in comparison to later ones (Kozakiewicz 1969: 126). The number of colors with their tints that are mentioned in the poem also fluctuates around twenty-five. The color red has the highest number of tints and thus dominates the poem, perhaps because it is the color of tiles and because the executioner’s guild played an important role in medieval Biecz. As previously noted, the colorful tapestry presents medieval Biecz. The first lines of the poem offer information about localization of the city: “On the green hill / they wove Gothic / city” (“W zielonym wzgórzu / utkali gotykiem / gród”; Biaoszewski 1987: 20). The choice of localization of the city was dictated by the need of selfdefense. City walls with towers and gates function similarly. Directly behind them the dominant space is created by the guild’s seat gables and towers, with the highest one belonging to the city hall. The first sight of the city seems to be taken from the bird’s-eye view and this perhaps explains why the shapes of city walls, towers, and quarters become geometrical or even similar to a chessboard. Indeed, medieval cities, following the example of Roman camps, usually chose a chessboard plan, in which streets crossed at a right angle and created rectangular plots around a market square (Kozakiewicz 1969: 232). But Biaoszewski takes this comparison a bit further. It is not individuals who go up “on the most spectacular city walls” (“na najznamienitsze mury”) but “red figures” (“czerwone figury”; 20). After a general sketch of Biecz, a series of close-ups follow, beginning from a parish church, through a city hall and a market square with a well and figure of Saint Florian (a patron of firemen). These images mark the city centre with its main buildings representing the sacred (a parish church) and profane (a city hall) power. Although there will be no representatives of the clergy in the procession proceeding to meet the royal couple, the parish church catches the first sight and the poem ends with a recollection of Biecz’s arms that present “Peter and Paul […] / with the second keys to the city” (“Piotr i Pawe […] / z drugimi kluczami do miasta”; Biaoszewski 1987: 28).

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Placing the city into a sacral perspective seems obvious in the context of a medieval spirituality. Homo religiosus feels a need to build his own city by orienting it toward the sacred, to a constant point, a centre. From this perspective, the act of locating a city is tantamount to the act of world creation and becomes similar to cosmogony insofar as it reveals and resets the centre. Therefore, a line in which we read that a parish church’s roof “falls each triangle / on four sides” (“spada trójk tem / na strony cztery”; 22) does not seem to appear here by chance and could not be only a result of geometrical tendencies in a presented world. It emphasizes the centre as creating the role of a church – an indispensable point in any medieval city. The space beyond the city centre is divided into squares and quarters that belong to every guild. There is a Jewish square, an executioners square and a painters square. The space provided for each guild seems to reflect citizens’ occupations, and so the specificity of Jewish traders left imprints on their quarter. Even a shadow takes the shape of Jewish side curls. The mobility and activity of Jewish merchants are expressed by dynamic verbs. In the medieval Biecz, which is presented as a tapestry, nothing is lacking, not even the lanes and blind alleys. Sunken windows and thatched roofs or “a black rectangle of gate / knotted by a hunched old woman” (“bramy czarny prostok t / zasupany staruch zgarbion ”; 23) also appear. Thanks to the variety of presented space – from city centre to bystreets – the city on a green hill appears to be truly complete and ready to be imagined in all its detail. Even the sounds and colors are precisely described. The medieval city seems to become immortalized on a tapestry woven from words. As we may observe, even though Schulz and Biaoszewski used similar techniques in presenting a city – both began with a city panorama and then focused on specific spaces (Schulz on Crocodile Street and Biaoszewski on particular districts) – the final effect is completely different. Crocodile Street as an “open addition” is a contradiction of Biecz as a complete and enclosed space. Schulz’s colorless, illusive, labyrinth-like city contrasts with Biaoszewski’s colorful and well-ordered one. This is perhaps a consequence of the fact that both authors tried to transfer the material of visual representation of a city into language: for Schulz, a paper map and for Biaoszewski, a tapestry.


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Periphery – Centre The next issue with regard to Schulz’s and Biaoszewski’s perceptions of the city, and at the same time further similarities and differences between both writers’ poetic imagery, is the problem of the periphery and the centre. In recalling Schulz’s story ‘The Street of Crocodiles’ we could recognize how seemingly unattractive, illusive suburbs became interesting for the author, how trashy items appealed to him (cf. Schönle 1994). The same fascination with rubbish and crippled or deficient things may be found in Biaoszewski’s debut volume. That is why Sandauer (1981) called ‘The Revolution of Things’ the poetry of oddments. Agnieszka Karpowicz (2006) compared the function of objects in Biaoszewski’s prose with ready-made and environment in twentieth-century art. With regard to city space, the abode of trash and shoddy goods is a bazaar. In Biaoszewski’s debut volume, between poems about Warsaw, we can also find one about this special place. What is significant is that Warsaw was always the most important space for Biaoszewski. It was the place of his birth. He lived there almost his entire life and survived the difficult days of the Warsaw Uprising during World War II. Recalling the pre-war appearance of his city, the poet observed with a reporter’s flair every detail of the changing capital. Biaoszewski’s inspiration, taken from reality and concrete space, can also be easily seen in his poem ‘Rozprawa o stolikowych baranach’ (‘An Essay on Bazaar Rams’). Praga, Warsaw’s district mentioned in the poem, really is famous for bazaar folklore and a prototype of “bazaar rams” – the golden Easter Ram – was bought in that district (Chabowska-Brykalska 1996: 97). According to Biaoszewski’s friends’ recollections, the author was fascinated by the world of local markets and church fairs (Chotomska 1996: 107, 109; Prudil 1996: 78). However, the fact that a bazaar and bazaar rams became an inspiration, a poetic topic, means much more than following memories and being interested in shoddy, trashy goods. It seems to be an answer to a socialist culture’s centralism, especially because in Stalin’s period, when this poem was written, markets existed but only in a very restricted way (some change was brought by the government of Gomuka). The author indicates that a real urban life is hidden in all places that are marginalized and rejected by an official culture.

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The choice of this poetic topic may be explained in another way. Biaoszewski – a city connoisseur – would not have forgotten about such an essential place, a market, and its role as a city creator. It is not accidental that huge metropolises were built along main trade routes because the trade of commodities guaranteed the citizens’ prosperity and safety as well as the city’s economic development. The title of the poem – ‘An Essay on Bazaar Rams’ – includes two pieces of information. It mentions a genre (“an essay”) typical for scientific theses and a subject of analysis – “bazaar rams”. The title strongly suggests that the poem should be taken seriously. However, an opening apostrophe addressed to “a bazaar of left-bank Warsaw” (“fantazjo warszawskiej Pragi”; Biaoszewski 1987: 44) warns us that the poem is much closer to a bazaar’s bunkum than to an essay that requires seriousness. The reader receives in that way a signal that he enters a poetic market where everything is possible. The bazaar is a game in which you must be aware all of the time and not let anyone trick you. In order to produce an image of Warsaw’s bazaar in poetic words, Biaoszewski made use of an interesting trick: he split a poetic subject into two persons, each having different points of view on a location presented in the poem. For the first person, the bazaar is a centre of interest, attracts attention as a new, colorful, fascinating microcosm; the first person is an outsider observing the market’s customs with both interest and distance. At the same time, the second person, who is a tradesman and insider, offers his articles for sale. As an effect of this division, we are given not only two different yet complementary points of view but also an opportunity to hear this difference. The bazaar’s explorer uses long, extensive sentences and tries to formulate general conclusions. In contrast, the tradesman – an integral part of the bazaar world – prefers abridgement and detail. Thus his statements are limited only to information about his products – bazaar rams – and seem to be characteristic of a negligent tradesman’s language with false etymology or borrowings repeated without understanding. In a metaphorical apostrophe to Praga, Biaoszewski names another object of the bazaar reality: a table on “one leg / varnished / red” (“masz assyryjskie rogi / i jedn nog / czerwono / lakierowan ”). Both the table, which is said to have “Assyrian horns”, and the rams put on it – equivalents of a bazaar’s trash and junk – are


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placed in the context of an ancient art and are at the same time ennobled by this comparison. Cultural references, mainly to prehistoric (palaeolithic) and ancient art, did not appear here by chance. In some ways, the Praga bazaar, preserved somewhere in the Warsaw suburbs despite the centralized economy and nationalized shops, seems to belong more to remote antiquity than to the communist present. Drawing a comparison between a bazaar and an ancient excavation appears quite reasonable. Both spaces give their explorer a chance to discover something sensational (in terms of price or artistic and historical value) and worth attention. Both demand from the explorer some special qualities, like quick wits and intuition. As archeology provides information about ways of living and occupations of ancient people, so a market – an institution as old as human history – preserves customs and local folklore that have completely disappeared in other areas of contemporary life. The bazaar’s articles – Easter rams –– appear to be not so different or distant from ancient statuettes and cult’s sculptures. For example we can recall Neolithic clay figures representing rams that have served in magical practices as a guarantee of wealth. In ancient Egypt a ram was considered to be a saintly animal of the god of the air and harvest, Amon, who was later identified with the god of the sun, Re. Thus a temple of Amon in Karnak is preceded by an alley of sphinxes with rams’ heads. Ancient analogies of “bazaar rams” widen the context of the poem. It refers not only to Warsaw’s market but also to a mechanism that forms human civilization. The poem’s subject – the bazaar’s explorer – surprised by this permeation of past and present and of cultural values, asks: “What tropic is it? / ‘Which epoch? – What time?’” (“Jaki zwrotnik? / ‘Wiek który? – – Czas który?’”). This question, in which we can recognize a slightly modified text borrowing from a Norwid poem entitled ‘List do Bronisawa Z.’ (‘A letter to Bronislaw Z.’), seems to concern the two most important aspects organizing the human condition – space and time. However, what is most interesting is that the passage of time does not change much. “Religions – rituals – and magic” (“Magie – religie – rytuay”) are situated outside time or more precisely, become part of a cyclical, sacral time, and this is why they seem eternal. Paradoxically, the bazaar located in the outskirts of Warsaw may at the same time be in the centre of existence; it is where civilization is being born, inside a

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crucible of mixed products, offers, and cultural values,. The bazaar obtains the status of a chosen space, one appropriate for the fulfillment of timeless ritual, in which various people and elements meet with each other and mutual contact between human thought and experience is possible. At this point, the fundamental difference between Schulz’s and Biaoszewski’s way of perceiving the periphery and the centre appears. In Schulz’s prose, the choice of Crocodile Street as a literary topic does not change the traditional hierarchy and order of values. The centre of the town remains central as a possessor and dispatcher of values, and Crocodile Street, though appealing, must be seen as an inferior, secondary, and imitative space. Biaoszewski decentralizes the centre. He suggests the peripheral bazaar as a city origin and centre – not a communist House of Party or the Palace of Culture – to emphasize that the pulse of civilization can be felt right there on the market. “Mythologizing” the City The main aspect of Schulz’s prose is the “mythologizing of reality” (“mityzacja rzeczywistoci”), the conviction that “reality is a shadow of the word” (“rzeczywisto jest cieniem sowa”; Schulz 1989: 368). The city space actively participates in this process. It is the power of language that changes provincial Drohobycz into “wschodni Bagdad, […] egzotyczne miasto jak z Bani tysica i jednej nocy” (“an oriental Bagdad, the exotic city from One Thousand and One Nights”) as Adam Zagajewski (1994: 21) accurately observed. The consequences of “mythologizing” might be seen especially in the description of Crocodile Street – a mysterious and tempting metamorphosis of Stryjska Street. The paper-centric, book-like or newspaper-like existence of this street is closer to dream or imagination than to reality. Biaoszewski did not use the term mityzacja in The Revolution of Things, but rather wrote about “undetermined reality” (“rzeczywisto nieustalona”; Biaoszewski 1987: 69) or “doubtful presence” (“obecno niepewna”; 46-47). In many poems, however, he transformed reality into myth through his ability to perceive uniqueness in everyday life not only in Warsaw but also in Warsaw’s surroundings. He changed the ordinariness of daily duties into


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mysterious rituals and extolled their repetition as mythical ceremony. From Warsaw’s surroundings, it was Garwolin that appeared in poems most frequently. This small city situated southeast of the capital became an inspiration for two separate poetical cycles and other narrative ones. Biaoszewski often visited Garwolin – a city where his mother had lived since her second marriage. The poet’s mother always seems to be present in his Garwolin poems. As a result, if we appeal to a conception of Gaston Bachelard, Garwolin can be viewed as the archetypal Mother’s Home (Lege yska 1996: 73). Even preparations for the journey and the route to Garwolin were marked by positive emotions. The coziness of home was guaranteed by not only the poet’s mother but also the proximity of Stefa and aunt Wacka. It was also more visible because it is contrasted with Garwolin’s cold and frosty landscape. It is interesting that we become acquainted with Garwolin mainly at winter time. Winter was also chosen for a background in the first poem dedicated to Garwolin entitled ‘Garwolin – miastko wieczne’ (‘Garwolin – A Little Town For Ever’). “A little town for ever”, a phrase included in the title of the poem, brings to mind cultural references connected with ancient Rome. Of course, in comparison to Rome – the Eternal City of European civilization – everlasting Garwolin can only be a little town and not a city. But it is not the comparison with Rome that provides Garwolin with prestige. Its main advantage and quality is its provincial identity. A key to this explanation was hidden in a motto placed under the title: “garlic like a pearl… why? – garlic is garlic” (“czosnek jak pera… – dlaczego? czosnek jak czosnek”; Biaoszewski 1987: 121). The truth about garlic is told by its own shape. No sophisticated comparisons are needed. The variety of associations can be found in garlic itself. Peeling garlic brings to mind Roman legions (it is believed that legionaries ate a lot of garlic, which protected them against infections) and Spain (garlic is commonly used in Spanish cuisine) which means the subject can pose a question: “don’t you [also] feel by any chance” (“nie czujecie przypadkiem” Biaoszewski 1987: 121) this civilization’s pulse in the European continent? Garlic’s route to Garwolin became identified with the route of European culture: from East (Greece), through the South of Europe and Spain, then to the North, and to Garwolin as well. The question is

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also a bit ironical considering garlic’s strong smell. Although ordinary days in little towns seem to be similar to each other like a garlic’s plait, commonplaceness appears archetypal. Peeling garlic recalls a ceremony in which Garwolin becomes included into a community of culture’s history. In the end, we should return to the poet’s mother – Garwolin’s inhabitant. It could be thought that this poem completely forgets to mention her. The title, like the rest of the poem, does not even mention her name. Similarly, the reason for designating Garwolin as “a little town forever” and the poetic comparison between Garwolin and Rome still stays unresolved. The answer for both conundrums surprisingly combines and complements them. We can find it in a proverb: all roads lead to Rome, which was slightly modified by Biaoszewski. In his poem, all roads lead to mother – to Garwolin, and that is the reason for Garwolin’s eternity, for becoming a little Rome. The role of Mother in Biaoszewski’s poetry may be compared with the role of Father in Schulz’s prose. The similarity between them is only superficial. It should be emphasized that Father in Schulz’s prose is someone special, an artist, a demigod creating new worlds as well as becoming an object of metamorphoses. Mother in Biaoszewski’s poetry never claimed such a role. However, there is something that links those two characters in the analyzed literary works. Their presence can be perceived as a stimulus to “mythologizing”. In ‘The Street of Crocodiles’ Father is absent, but the map belongs to him – it is the starting point to the whole story. In ‘Garwolin – A Little Town For Ever’, garlic braids, presumably hanging in Mother’s kitchen, play a similar role. Conclusion During three stages of research into Schulz’s and Biaoszewski’s spatial imagery we tried to answer the question of whether or not – and to what degree – Schulz can be thought of as Biaoszewski’s forerunner. Of course, the answer is ambivalent and far from simple. We observed some similarities as well as differences in both writers’ perception of the city. In-depth analysis shows that even striking convergences of both writers’ imageries or artistic means do not confirm Biaoszewski’s subordination to Schulz and may appear superficial. Biaoszewski was an original and innovative writer. He


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usually took his own paths, as shown in his debut volume; however; reading of The Revolution of Things with Schulz’s prose as a context seems productive and fruitful. It calls our attention to some topics of his writing that might be less appealing without this comparison and less investigated by critics. It also allows one to recognize the specificity of Biaoszewski in terms of poetic language as well as the emphases each writer highlights and the artistic choices he makes. Bibliography Biaoszewski, Miron. 1974. The Revolution of Things. Selected Poems of Miron Bialoszewski (tr. A. Busza and B. Czaykowski). Washington: Charioteer Press. ——. 1976. Szumy, zlepy, cigi. Warszawa: Pastwowy Instytut Wydawniczy. ——. 1980. Rozkurz. Warszawa: Pastwowy Instytut Wydawniczy. ——. 1987. Utwory zebrane, vol. 1. Warszawa: Pastwowy Instytut Wydawniczy. Bolecki, Wodzimierz, Jerzy Jarz bski and Stanisaw Rosiek (eds). 2003. Sownik schulzowski. Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria. Budurowicz, Bohdan. 1994. ‘Galicja w twórczoci Brunona Schulza’ (tr. M. Adamczyk-Grabowska) in Kitowska-ysiak (1994): 9-17. Chabowska-Brykalska, Teresa. 1996. ‘34 lata bliskiego znania si ’ in Kirchner (1996): 95-106. Chotomska, Wanda. 1996. ‘Pan Mironczewski’ in Kirchner (1996): 107-120. Dan-Bruzda, Stanisaw. 1961. ‘O obrotach rzeczy Mirona Bialoszewskiego’ in Pamitnik Literacki 52(4): 425-476. Eliade, Mircea. 1991. ‘wiat – miasto – dom’ (tr. I. Kania) in Znak 12: 12-22. Ficowski, Jerzy. 2002. Regiony wielkiej herezji i okolice. Bruno Schulz i jego mitologia. Sejny: Pogranicze. Jarz bski, Jerzy. 2005. ‘Miasto Schulza’ in Jarz bski, Jerzy. Prowincja centrum. Przypisy do Schulza, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie: 88-108. Karpowicz, Agnieszka. 2006. ‘Ready made. Przedmiot w prozach Mirona Biaoszewskiego’ in Pamitnik Literacki 97(1): 125-139. Kirchner, Hanna (ed.) 1996. Miron – wspomnienia o poecie. Warszawa: TENTEN. Kisiel, Marian. 1999. ‘Lektury Kazimierza Wyki’ in Zmiana. Z problemów wiadomoci literackiej przeomu 1955–1959 w Polsce. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu l skiego: 100-103. Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata (ed.) 1994. Bruno Schulz. In memoriam. 1892–1942. Lublin: Wydawnictwo FIS. Kozakiewicz, Stanisaw (ed.) 1969. Sownik terminologiczny sztuk piknych. Warszawa: Pastwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe. Lege yska, Anna. 1996. ‘Dom Mirona Biaoszewskiego’ in Dom i poetyka bezdomnoci w liryce wspóczesnej, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN: 71-94. Prudil, Irena. 1996. ‘Znaam kiedy chopca’ in Kirchner (1996): 59-86.

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Sandauer, Artur. 1981. ‘Poezja rupieci (Rzecz o Mironie Biaoszewskim)’ in Zebrane prace krytyczne, vol. 1. Warszawa: Pastwowy Instytut Wydawniczy: 358392. Schönle, Andreas. 1994. ‘Sklepy cynamonowe Brunona Schulza: apologia tandety’ (tr. J. Szpyra) in Kitowska-ysiak (1994): 59-77. Schulz, Bruno. 1989. Opowiadania. Wybór esejów i listów (ed. J. Jarz bski). Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossoliskich. ——. 2007. ‘Ulica krokodyli’ (tr. J.C. Davis). On line at: http://www.schulzian. net/translation/shops/krokodyli.htm (consulted 12.02.2007). Wyka, Kazimierz. 1959. ‘Na odpust poezji’ in Rzecz wyobra ni. Warszawa: Pastwowy Instytut Wydawniczy: 173-194. Zagajewski, Adam. 1994. ‘Drohobycz i wiat’ in Kitowska-ysiak (1994): 19-24.

Mythopoetic Traditions and Inserted Treatises: Bruno Schulz and Danilo Kiš Alfred Gall Abstract: The article focuses on the reception of Bruno Schulz’s fiction in Danilo Kiš’s novel Peš anik (Hourglass, 1972). It deals with the complex patterns of intertextual relationship one can observe in this novel, where the ‘Traktat o krompiru’ (‘Treatise on the Potato’) alludes to Schulz’s ‘Traktat o manekinach’ (‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’). Comparative inquiry into the functions of these striking textual echoes has seldom been undertaken. This essay tries to cast light upon the way in which Kiš refers to Schulz’s text. In summary, the sophisticated intertextual play is considered to be a mode of literary response to the Shoah.

Introduction The mythopoetic literary practice of Bruno Schulz has been the focus of critical studies including comparative approaches (e.g. Koschmal 1987: 193-214). Among the authors usually considered to be influenced by Bruno Schulz, the Yugoslav writer Danilo Kiš – he declared himself to be the only Yugoslav writer – must certainly be mentioned. This influence is especially strong in Kiš’s autobiographical trilogy. The trilogy (also called the “family trilogy”, or the “family circus”) is composed of the volumes Rani jadi (Early Sorrows, 1969), Bašta, pepeo (Garden, Ashes, 1965) and Peš anik (Hourglass, 1972) all reflecting, though in very different ways, the experience of the author’s family during the Second World War and focusing on Kiš’s father, who fell victim to Nazi genocide.1 The similar cultural contexts of these two outstanding writers, both situated in Jewish traditions as well as in the culture of Habsburg Central Europe, delineate a common frame of reference for literary study that focuses on a comparative approach (e.g. Bukwalt 2003: 5 ff.; Fiut 1999: 279-302). However, one must remember the gap that 1

Cf. Deli (1997: 65 ff., 143 ff., 227 ff.) for a general orientation.

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separates these two writers. It is hardly appropriate to merge Schulz’s experience of the Habsburg cultural background with Kiš’s experience, bearing in mind the latter lived from 1935 to 1989, long after the breakdown of the Habsburg Monarchy; nevertheless, as far as Kiš’s novel is concerned, it certainly makes sense to consider different forms of notable intertextual references to Bruno Schulz’s texts. Furthermore, any attempt to trace the complex pattern of Kiš’s literary practice (at least in his famous family trilogy) will inevitably lead to the conclusion that his texts are made from elements found among others in Schulz’s stories. Of course, Kiš is definitely not an epigone. He instead pays homage to the Polish writer by referring to his literary work. The point to note here is that the broader context of a similar cultural background and the Jewish origin of both writers mark a certain affinity. In addition, the fact that Bruno Schulz was gunned down by a German officer in the ghetto of Drohobycz immediately refers to the Shoah, a break in civilization that also deeply affected Kiš’s family. Hence, cultural affinity, biographical correlation and the impact of the Shoah appear to have led Danilo Kiš to pay special attention to the Polish writer, for he actually constructs his textual world in Hourglass from elements found in Schulz’s stories. Thus, the aim of this study is to examine certain aspects of this intertextual dimension. Studies that have recently appeared cover a wide range of questions arising from the comparison between the two authors although descriptions and literary criticism prevail and far-reaching conclusions are still to be drawn.2 In order to confirm a comparative approach, most authors refer to Kiš’s alleged remark “Schulz is my God” in a conversation with John Updike (1988: 3),3 yet there is no evidence in Kiš’s legacy that he actually said this. In recent times the affinities between Kiš and Schulz have been analyzed in different studies which focus on key topics appearing in texts of both writers (and thereby establishing a common framework for comparative study), such as the idea that reality is a 2

Cf., for instance, Bukwalt (2003) for a comparison of the literary creation of Jewish fathers, a motif equally crucial for Danilo Kiš and Bruno Schulz. A comparative approach based on key motifs is offered by Pijanovi (1992: 80-96). 3 Cf. Schulz (1988: 120) and Brown (1990: 234) for a mention of the remark and Stojanovi (2002: 171-183) for a discussion of this issue.

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book, subsequently the idea that reality can be understood as a peculiar textual configuration or even as labyrinth where one has to orientate oneself – which is sometimes linked to the influence of Gnostic traditions (cf. Lachmann 2002: 344 ff.). But attention is also paid to the fact that literary texts resemble a palimpsest, and of course, the all-embracing role of the father in the literary imagination of both writers has attracted interest (Olchanowski 2001: passim), just as the mythopoetic traits as well as the palaeontological and archaeological imagery at work in their texts has (Pijanovi 1992: 80-96; Fiut 1999: 279-281, 287-298). Danuta irli-Straszyska stressed the fact that Kiš was not immediately influenced by Bruno Schulz.4 However, Branislava Stojanovi casts a different light on this matter (2002: 171-183). In her seminal article concerning the reception of Schulz’s texts in former Yugoslavia, she convincingly presents concrete sources of literary reception, which clearly indicate that Danilo Kiš must have known Bruno Schulz’s works at least to some extent. For instance, Sklepy cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops, 1934) appeared in 1961 in Belgrade in a Serbian translation.5 In the discussion whether Kiš was influenced by authors like Schulz, Borges, Joyce, Proust or Nabokov, it should be kept in mind that influence is too meagre a concept. Instead of naively searching presupposed sources, we must face the question of reflexivity in a literary text. Kiš can be understood as an author who relies on other texts which are then transformed in a subtle intertextual play; hence, the emerging textual configuration cannot be deduced from the evoked texts. They instead serve as a multi-layered background for literary applications and adaptations that create new semantic schemes by inscribing one text in a variety of others. To put it bluntly, there is no way to accuse Kiš of plagiarism.6 Writing with the consciousness to be part of a self-chosen tradition is not comparable to writing as an epigone.7 Instead it alludes to the evermore actual idea (Ingold 1992: 11 ff., 345 ff.) that creativity and 4

Danuta irli-Straszyska’s opinion is expressed in her afterword to the Polish translation of Hourglass (cf. Kiš 1978: 244). 5 A translation of parts of Cinnamon Shops appeared in Subotin (1969: 187-241). 6 Cf. the affair aroused after the publication of Grobnica za Borisa Davidovi a (A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, 1976); cf. Krivokapi (1980: passim) for statements in this campaign against Kiš. 7 Danuta irli-Straszyska (1988: 259) seems to identify these two notions.

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innovations are realized in a constant application and simultaneous transformation of given and chosen texts of reference and are thus emerging qualities that occur in a basically dialogical process (Wierzbycki 1988: 240 ff).8 This dialogue is not necessarily bound to a similar cultural background, but in our case the relationship between Bruno Schulz and Danilo Kiš can be identified as such a literary dialogue.9 A closer scrutiny showed that it is highly probable that Kiš knew Schulz’s texts at least to some extent. In this context Kiš’s selfreflexive literary practice can be described as postmodern in the sense that it marks a different attitude in comparison to other texts with their concomitant idea of reaching or constructing a reality of its own without reference to underlying sign systems (Lawson 1985: passim; Vladiv-Glover 2003: 7 ff., 35 ff). Now special attention is paid to two key features we meet in Schulz’s prose as well as in Kiš’s texts. My interest is focused on the one hand on metatextual devices such as inserted treatises and on the other hand on mythopoetic traditions permeating the literary text. I intend to combine these two features and will focus on two selected passages where they are intertwined. I will concentrate on the story cycle ‘Traktat o manekinach’ (‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’) in Cinnamon Shops and on the ‘Traktat o krompiru’ (‘Treatise on the Potato’), which is part of ‘Beleške jednog ludaka’ (‘Notes of a Madman’) in Danilo Kiš’s Hourglass. Bruno Schulz’s ‘Traktat o manekinach’ (‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’) Mythopoetic narrative in Schulz’s texts is often described in reference to his article ‘Mityzacja rzeczywistoci’ (‘The Mythologizing of Reality’), where the ontological basis of reality is defined by the idea of a general, all-embracing but at the present time dissolved text (Schulz 1989: 385 ff.) For Schulz, this text lies underneath the different mythological and religious traditions that form the basis of literary practice which is trying to adjust these traditions to the modern world. In this way, a mythopoetic text relates the contemporary world to mythological traditions which form a certain canvas for actual texts. Writing means facing the challenge of 8

Kornhauser (2001: 187-202) argues in the same vein. Cf. Baraczak (1996: 173) for the notion of a dialogue on the common ground of cultural and historical experience in Central Europe.

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reconstructing the original text that has been lost. This double-layered process of writing combines the reference to different mythological traditions and fragments with the construction of literary visions that transcend empirical structures of reality. Because the frame of reference for any understanding and modelling of reality is anchored in myth, the structure of the real can be compared to language, i.e. to a certain system of signs that must be deciphered. The primary word is an expression of this metaphysically established order that still can be found whenever the given reality is related to its hidden metaphysical structure. In any case, mythopoetic devices are meant to build a certain reality founded on regained sense. Literary practice, with its imaginary way of representing patterns of mythological traditions, offers insights into a hitherto unseen totality that can be visualized at least in some fragments. These fragments result from aesthetic revision of myths. Parcels and fragments of mythologies are recombined and actualized in the process of literary writing (Kuprel 1996: 100-117). Moreover, the performative aspect of literary imagination is closely linked to the idea that in contemporary desacralized and secularized reality only the newly gained access to myth offers the possibility of at least a fragmentary presence of lost sense which cannot be re-established in a metaphysical order. Mythopoetics is thus a literary ars memoria recalling ancient cultural traditions and thereby transcending immediate reality.10 Reality loses its firm ground and stable structure (Stala 1995: passim). The genealogy of myth offers sense, but does not necessarily establish a newly found reality, as there is no centre in Schulz’s texts that would integrate totality in a manifest way.11 The antecedent idea prevails that lost sense has to be found and re-established by the work of the literary text that recollects mythological beginnings where word and reality, sign and substance, were once identical. Literary practice, however, as a way of dealing with the archive of culture including myths, does not regain metaphysical or ontological stability (Jarz bski 1984: 196, 205), but instead enforces the process of disintegration by evoking also minor or 10

Speina (1974: 54) sees a child’s imagination at work here. According to Kasperski (1993: 79-94), reality as the corollary of literary imagination using and transforming myths (or fragments of them) is denied any substantial ground and should instead be described as a floating process with no attainable or clearly defined centre.

11

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only fragmentary realizations full of ironical flavour indicating the second-rate as well as second-hand character of the reapplied mythological fragments (Wiegandt 1997: 73). Amongst other things this is meant when the phantasmagoric character of imagined realities in Schulz’s prose is stressed (Jarz bski 1973: 120; Okopie-Sawiska 1973: 8). Bruno Schulz’s Cinnamon Shops is an important example of literary activation of myths. Fragments of mythological and religious traditions can be found in the ‘Traktat o manekinach’, where the subtitle ‘Wtóra ksi ga Rodzaju’ (‘The Second Book of Genesis’) clearly indicates the textual interplay that takes places with the biblical text. This inserted treatise engenders an intertextual play which transforms biblical traditions. The treatise contains a heretical vision of the process of creation. Jacob, the father of the first-person narrator, explains his own point of view on creation and creativity. Man-made creation, though of minor quality, is accepted as a consciously developed second-rate creation that rivals with God and his creation. The quarrel with God in the treatise is grounded in a religious code – also found elsewhere in Cinnamon Shops – that realizes the idea of regaining a mythological framework for the description of reality. In the treatise Jacob reflects to a certain degree his own ornithological experiments that seem to be experiments with the ontological foundations of reality. The birds and their appearance, after they underwent far-reaching deformations, resemble the tailor’s dummies of the treatise: they are distorted and the product of a secondary imagination which fails to realize itself in comparison with the power of God but does indeed fulfil its own premises and self-declared idea of a second Genesis. This “treatise” containing the quarrel with a demiurge and the idea of a man-made creation that substitutes God’s creation can be identified as an obvious literary travesty of metaphysical and religious debate. There is no way to identify the treatise with a clear-cut religious concept although one can see obvious references to the Gnostic idea of a minor world or creation that has to be transcended (Jarz bski 1994: 310).12 The inserted treatise can also be read as a metatextual frame of reference as it comments on the process of derealization as well as of depersonalization that takes place in other texts of Cinnamon Shops, 12

Cf. also Bukwalt (2003: 64 ff.).


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where the undermining of any stable place leads to ontological instability. In Schulz’s text we cannot find any hint of concrete historical circumstances. The whole scenery of Cinnamon Shops is embedded in the nearby reality of a provincial town in Galicia and is focused on the narrator’s family and their home. This setting is the starting point of the process of derealization. Reality is evolving as a form of permanent instability without any given aim to reach and lacking ontological firmness. History appears in the form of economical and social modernization that undermines the father’s position and thus threatens the family’s home. Additionally, the treatise refers, even in its form as an inserted text, to a generic tradition that includes accounts in the sense of a systematic exposition including a methodical discussion of the facts and principles involved and conclusions reached. The father claims to be a new creator; in this way he rivals with the demiurge: – Demiurgos – mówi mój ojciec – nie posiad monopolu na tworzenie – tworzenie jest przywilejem wszystkich duchów. Materii dana jest nieskoczona podno, niewyczerpana moc yciowa i zarazem uwodna sia pokusy, która nas n ci do formowania. (Schulz 1998: 35)13 (“The Demiurge,” said my father, “has had no monopoly of creation, for creation is the privilege of all spirits. Matter has been given infinite fertility, inexhaustible vitality, and, at the same time, a seductive power of temptation which invites us to create as well”; Schulz 1988: 39)14

Jacob claims that the material world does not have any stable structure, and in spite of its seeming stability, it is bound to be reverted. This means that a creative force can interfere and exert influence on the floating process of the material world: Materia jest najbierniejsz i najbezbronniejsz istot w kosmosie. […] Wszystkie organizacje materii s nietrwae i lune, atwe do uwstecznienia i rozwi zania. (Op 35) (Matter is the most passive and most defenceless essence in the cosmos. […] All attempts at organizing matter are transient and temporary, easy to reverse and to dissolve; TF 39)

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Jacob’s intentions to create a new world that will be founded on the accepted knowledge of the ever-floating substance of the real transcend the given world. In his world-making, the creation he faces goes far beyond the given material reality that seems to be reduced to a playground of creative energy, constantly changing the appearance of what we call the real: “[…] the second Genesis of creatures which was to stand in open opposition to the present era” (TF 41; “[…] obraz tej drugiej generacji stworze, która stan miaa w otwartej opozycji do panuj cej epoki”; Op 37). The father explains in detail the idea of creating man a second time; creation is in this treatise especially concentrated on man, who has to be created in a new form that will actually not be lasting: “‘In one word,’ Father concluded, ‘we wish to create a man a second time – in the shape and semblance of a tailor’s dummy’” (TF 41; “– Sowem – konkludowa mój ojciec – chcemy stworzy po raz wtóry czowieka, na obraz i podobiestwo manekina”; Op 38). As far as these new human beings the father intends to create are concerned, they form a simulacrum of God’s creation; they are equal but ontologically different because of their lack of stability and their minor substance in comparison with the creation they are meant to imitate. In summary, they are a minor substitute to man created by God: Byy to w istocie istoty amorfne bez wewn trznej struktury, pody imitatywnej tendencji materii, która, obdarzona pami ci , powtarza z przyzwyczajenia raz przyj te ksztaty. (Op 43) ([…] they were amorphous creatures, with no internal structure, products of the imitative tendency of matter which, equipped with memory, repeats from force of habit the forms already accepted; TF 44)

The floating material substance, gaining new shapes that are doomed to perish and giving way to new evolving forms, is equal to a permanent metamorphosis affecting every single element. In his deliberations, Jacob stresses the fact that even his own brother fell victim to the ever-changing material world in its never ending unfolding of new forms: – Czy mam przemilcze – mówi przyciszonym gosem – e brat mój na skutek dugiej i nieuleczalnej choroby zamieni si stopniowo w zwój


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kiszek gumowych, e biedna moja kuzynka dniem i noc nosia go w poduszkach, nuc c nieszcz liwemu stworzeniu nieskoczone koysanki nocy zimowych? Czy mo e by co smutniejszego ni czowiek zamieniony w kiszk hegarow ? […]. (Op 48) (“Am I to conceal from you” he said in a low tone, “that my own brother, as a result of a long and incurable illness, has been gradually transformed into a bundle of rubber tubing, and that my poor cousin had to carry him day and night on his cushion, singing to the luckless creature endless lullabies on winter nights? Can there be anything sadder than a human being changed into the rubber tub of an enema? […]”; TF 51)

The metamorphosis with its concomitant effects of depersonalization and dehumanization will play a key role in Hourglass and then also encompass historical contexts. In the ‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’ the material world is a product of imagination and indicates the basic instability of any ontological order. Kiš’s Hourglass also displays the connection of a treatise with mythopoetics. In this context Schulz’s devices and their rearrangement form a certain literary descriptive vocabulary (Rorty 1989: 3 ff.) that is meant to be used in the wake of the necessity of self-positioning after the Shoah. More accurately, Hourglass presents a metatextual rearrangement of Schulz’s prose. One has to be reminded that Kiš reworked different literary traditions in his text and was not following just one textual pattern. It is important to note that Hourglass is on one level the reconstruction of the life of E.S. – a literary double of Kiš’s own father – who as a Jew fell victim to the Nazis. The reconstruction relies on documents, especially on a letter E.S. wrote to his sister Olga. For any comparison, we should carefully remember that Nabokov in his novel The Gift, in the second chapter, deals with a similar problem: writing the biography of his own father leads the main protagonist, Fedor Godunov-erdyncev, to archival studies and evaluations of documents until he finally resigns because he does not want to falsify his father’s life in his own biographical study that he is about to complete. Kiš and the resonances of Schulz’s works: ‘Traktat o krompiru’ (‘Treatise on the Potato’) The novel we focus on now is the third and concluding volume of the so-called family trilogy. Hourglass appeared in 1972 and is an

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archaeological novel reconstructing the world lost in the course of World War II. Unlike the other two parts of the trilogy, Hourglass is a text without a first-person narrator. It offers a wide range of different narrative devices, but none of them can be attributed to a single narrator. The core motif is the experience of a break in civilization caused by the Shoah. The break separates two different worlds. Whereas the former world of the main protagonist E.S. who perished in Auschwitz is irreversibly lost, the actual world associated with the narrator is deeply marked by the impact of the Shoah. The text is an attempt to close the gap between past and present, but it is exactly this intention that exposes the inadequacy of any successful representation of the past in a given literary text. Furthermore, the idea of adequacy itself evaporates (Rorty 1989: 160-161). Yet even the antecedent idea of representing and regaining a lost world is refuted. The text thus accomplishes the paradoxical movement between the idea of reconstructing the past world of a single protagonist in all its variety and the disclosure of the elusiveness of any such endeavour. The oscillation between reconstruction and disclosure is thus characterized as a paradoxical narrative discourse. This paradox refers to the Shoah as a historical break which undermines any stable textual representation. Therefore, the novel Hourglass is the complete disruption of time and ontological embedding of humanity. The autobiographical trilogy as a narrative return to childhood does not rest upon any a priori supposed continuity. Because of the irreparable break the Shoah caused, individual existence is deeply marked by traumatic experiences which disrupt the continuous flow of history.15 The main protagonist is described as E.S. (obviously Eduard Sam, as he is called in the two former novels of the trilogy). In Hourglass the topic of reconstruction is all-embracing and based on the letter E.S. wrote to Olga. Cited in full length and quoted in italics, the letter is the underlying document for the whole reconstructive work in the novel. E.S., the father who is depersonalized, reduced to his initials and appears in the other parts of the autobiographical cycle, functions as personification. He is a multi-layered protagonist alluding to mythological and religious traditions: Ahasverus, Narcissus, Jesus Christ, Moses, Jeremiah, Don Quixote, Charlie Chaplin, a clown, a 15

Cf. atuszyski (1997: 78 ff) for a discussion of the motif of return to one’s own childhood.


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genius, a pantheist, a madman, a pharaoh, a chess-player, smoker, anarchist, drunkard, tyrant, alcoholic etc. (Panti 2000: 42). E.S. thus appears in a fragmentary vision, in a series of different appearances and masks without any substantial identity (Bukwalt 2003: 116; Deli 1997: 180). The novel functions as a “parable of the creation of the world” and therefore begins in a biblical setting: darkness and the beginning of literary recreation in the process of reconstruction (Kiš 1995: 212). Reconstruction means utmost objectivity (Kiš 1995: 216). The epic is predominantly developed but includes lyric layers. The first person singular is completely reduced and even eliminated. The narrative lacks any form of personal reminiscences. Reconstruction of a past and lost world is an objective aim not related to a concrete person undertaking it. The whole narrative is based on one single document that has been found and saved: the letter at the end of the book (and this letter is in fact a real letter written by Kiš’s father, the only document Kiš possessed of his father).16 The letter is like a bone that has been found and must be analyzed in order to gain knowledge about past worlds. Literature is thus correlated to the scientific approaches of archaeology and palaeontology. Archaeology and anthropology go hand-in-hand, they complete each other. The reconstruction of a lost world is at the same time the reconstruction of past human beings in their everyday experience, even if no full representation is reachable and even if the idea that a text can actually grasp the past is proven false (Kiš 1995: 243-244). The novel is itself a combination of anthropology, archaeology, and ontology (Kiš 1995: 283). Hourglass consists of four mutually exclusive and not intertranslatable discursive sections (and two framing texts: the ‘Prolog’ (‘Prologue’) at the beginning and the abovementioned letter at the end of the book). The four sections include ‘Slike s putovanja’ (‘Travel Scenes’), ‘Istražni postupak’ (‘Criminal Investigation’), ‘Ispitivanje svedoka’ (‘A Witness Interrogated’), and the ‘Notes of a Madman’. Hourglass, in its objective approach, resembles a protocol and offers a large-scale inventory but contains no narrative that might embrace the disseminating pieces of memory. The devices of registration and description plainly lack the idea of a pertaining totality. 16

The real letter was dated: 5.4.1942 (cf. Kiš 1995: 229).

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The novel contains different mythopoetic elements stemming from various sources. Mythological, religious, and theological traditions intermingle in their literary application. One recurrent motif is the biblical flood indicating the devastating force of history. The biblical flood is associated with the Pannonian Sea which highlights the fact that a concrete surrounding – Pannonia, i.e. also the Vojvodina and Hungary – is the playground of forces transcending concrete geographical and historical contexts. This combination of concrete geographical and historical spaces with a mythological as well as religious frame of reference marks the disruption of historical time which is “out of joint”. In its textual appearance the flood is not a symbol and certainly does not integrate the reconstructed horror of Nazi genocide into a religious totality. It is instead part of the literary imagery accentuating the break of history and of civilization as well. What is left behind after the flood ought to be treated as a relic of a distant past, but in the meantime, it provokes and compels interpretation and needs to be put into a broader context that revives the former and lost world. Literary practice as archaeology and anthropology is orientated toward the remnants that have to be recollected. Writing is akin to remembering; the recollection of relics and their inventory is the basic literary strategy in Hourglass. A comparable paradox can also be seen in the ‘Treatise on the Potato’ where religious and philosophical thinking is annihilated by the drastic historical context. The ‘Treatise on the Potato’ belongs to the so-called ‘Notes of a madman’ written by E.S. himself. A closer look offers fertile insights into the way Kiš adopts the textual patterns of Schulz’s prose. In a discussion of Baruch Spinoza, E.S. first declares his agreement with the philosopher: reality and history are determined. Then he differs from Spinoza: the philosopher’s position in this determined world order is, for E.S., not linked to the idea of pure knowledge, an absolute point-of-view where one perceives and comprehends things sub specie aeternitatis, but is instead rooted in a position sub specie mortis. The outlined mythopoetic literary practice can be understood as a certain play on mythological and theological or philosophical systems of descriptions as well as with their referential schemes (Goodman 1978: 2 ff.). The mythopoetic devices in Kiš’s text differ strongly from Schulz’s mythopoetic writing in Cinnamon Shops, where it constructs counterworlds. Furthermore, in Schulz’s


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texts it creates other worlds transcending empirical and established realities, and destroys given realities that transcend toward their hitherto unnoticed other side. However, the approach to mythopoetics is quite different in Hourglass, where emphasis is put on the disruptive impact of the Shoah. In the ‘Notes of a madman’ and especially in the short ‘Treatise on the Potato’, E.S. focuses on the idea of a second creation that annihilates the given world, a world that seems to have been made by a bad demiurge. The pseudo-gnostic theory is concretized in the theory of the potato. According to E.S., the treatise is a parable referring to the history of the Jews: Došla su vremena kada moramo misliti o sebi iz aspekta života i smrti, ne kao sebine individue, nego iz aspekta itave svoje rase, tog božanskog korova zemlje, raseljene po svetu, raširene po svim kontinentima, baš kao i taj nesreni krompir (solanum tuberosum) […]. (Kiš 1999: 292) (The time has come when we must think about ourselves from the standpoint of life and death, not as self-seeking individuals, but as representatives of our entire race, that divine weed scattered over all the continents of the earth, just like the lowly potato (Solanum tuberosum) […]; Kiš 1997: 49)

The potato incorporates the depersonalized, degraded, and dehumanized essence of men. The potato – an obvious analogy to the tailor’s dummy in Cinnamon Shops – marks the minor reality of degraded humanity. E.S. links the potato and its history with the Jews. E.S. sees in the history of the potato a simile of mankind having lost its integration into a metaphysical order vaulted by a transcendent frame of reference. As a perfect symbol of the homunculus, the potato, in a way resembling Schulz’s tailor’s dummy, incorporates a human reality of a second and minor degree. The core of human reality has vanished, and all that is left are phantasmatic and disintegrated homunculi: [T]e je postao idealna slika zemlje i oveka od zemlje sazdana, meso i koža, bez srži i bez srca, pravi homunculus (homo-homulus-humus), sasvim po liku ovekovu, oveka bez duše, oveka iz koga je prognan Bog. (Kiš 1999: 293) (It has thus become a perfect symbol of the earth and earth-made man, all flesh and skin, without heart or essence, a regular homunculus (homo-

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Alfred Gall homulus-humus), just like a man, a man without a soul, a man from whom God has been banished; Kiš 1997: 50)

In his treatise that might be best understood as a short parable on human history and its disaster, E.S. compares the potato – the second degree and degraded human being, and for E.S. especially, the Jew – to the apple and the tomato. The latter is described by reference to the Austrian expression Paradiesapfel (Solanum lycopersicum). Of course, both words refer to the biblical myth of paradise, thereby integrating the mythological framework into the discourse on human history. The difference between potato and apple or tomato (in the sense of the Paradiesapfel) is the metonymical expression of the difference between man made by God and man driven as well as torn by history and dispossessed of any metaphysical order. In comparison to the apple or the tomato, the imperfect shape of the potato reflects the elementary difference between the mythical order of biblical tradition and the prevailing force of history. A biblical narrative is also applied when E.S. refers to Noah and the deluge, claiming that another, even more profound cataclysm takes place. The only remnants will be degraded and devastated human beings of a potato-like appearance. The minor reality of the potato and its broken substance that cannot be combined to the biblical fruit, the apple, is caused by the fact that the potato is created by some pseudodemiurge and not by God. This ontological difference obviously evokes the idea of an inferior creation as well as an inferior reality in the ‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’. In the meantime it locates this problem in the context of historical experience, that is, the Shoah. The Jews are separated from other human beings and systematically exterminated. The ontological difference between man made by God and man as result of a second creation, the difference between tomato/apple on the one hand and the potato on the other hand, is part of the discourse of E.S. who tries to grasp through such queer analogies – notably in the ‘Notes of a madman’ – the essence of his own experience as a Jew as well as of his fellow people. The potato – i.e. the Jew – is not made by God but is the essential outcast, an ontological outsider separated violently from his environment: I, vidiš, danas, dok prosjaim taj krompir, ne mogu da se ne setim te udesne slinosti izmeu krompira i oveka, i, s druge strane, dozvolite,


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izmeu krompira i Jevrejina. […] I ja poinjem ozbiljno da verujem, makar to bilo za ljubav slike i fantazije, da je krompir (Kartoffel, patate) jedini stvor na svetu – i neka mi Bog za to oprosti – koji nije sazdan voljom Božjom i rukom Tvorca, nego da je delo nekog jalovoplodnog i mahnitog šamana, plod neke jalove alhemije […]. (Kiš 1999: 293-294.) (And today, you see, when I ask for a potato, I can’t help thinking about the amazing resemblance between potato and man, and, at the same time, begging your pardon, between potato and Jew. […] I’m beginning to believe in earnest that the potato (Kartoffel, pomme de terre) is the only thing on earth – may God forgive me – that was not created by the will of God and the hand of the Creator, but is the work of some insane, sterilefertile shaman, the fruit of some sterile alchemy […]; Kiš 1997: 50-51)

Kiš’s text is in a certain sense correcting history because it covers individual aspects, remembers lost human beings and gives them a voice of their own in the silence of history, and this is all done under circumstances where essential insights into one’s own life are not made from an absolute point of view (sub specie aeternitatis) but in the shadow of death (sub specie mortis). Kiš’s text blurs the distinction between mythopoetics and thanatopoetics (Lachmann 2004: 277-291). Literature is in its basic principles directed against the appalling indifference to an individual’s and his fellow people’s history. In that sense, literature is counter-history (Kiš 1990: 145).17 Conclusion The ‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’ is obviously a parody of the biblical book of Genesis. In the meantime, it represents in a ludistic way a Gnostic concept of the creation of a counter-world transcending the bad reality of the demiurge. In the ‘Treatise on the Potato’ we are confronted with yet another version of this biblical narrative. Here we observe an intense intertextual play that takes place between Kiš’s ‘Treatise on the Potato’ and Schulz’s ‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’. The common 17

Here we see some clear affinities with Walter Benjamin’s notion of history: “Es ist niemals ein Dokument der Kultur, ohne zugleich ein solches der Barbarei zu sein. Und wie es selbst nicht frei ist von Barbarei, so ist es auch der Prozeß der Überlieferung nicht, in der es von dem einen an den andern gefallen ist. Der historische Materialist rückt daher nach Maßgabe des Möglichen von ihr ab. Er betrachtet es als seine Aufgabe, die Geschichte gegen den Strich zu bürsten” (1997a: 696-697).

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background for this intertextual relationship is the idea of a minor creation (second creation) as well as the idea of a minor existence, a second degree human being lacking a stable core and ontological identity. In both cases, the literary disclosure of other worlds is not to be understood in terms of multiple alternatives to a single actual reality but has to be conceived as emergence of actual multiple worlds. In Kiš’s ‘Treatise on the Potato’, just as in Schulz’s ‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’, the emerging multiplicity amounts to a decomposition of ontological stability.18 Although quite close in its inner structure and imagery, the literary imagination at work in the mentioned texts pursues different aims in the process of unfolding an actual multiplicity of worlds and therefore realizes a divergent range of functions. The idea of a second creation for Kiš is not only reflected as a problem of a minor reality that eventually emerges but is also correlated with the disruptive force of history and linked to another biblical notion, the cataclysm of the flood irreversibly devastating a given world. The second genesis, which for Schulz is part of an aesthetic and Gnostic imagination, is transformed to a basic element in the self-description of E.S. facing his death. In the ‘Treatise on the Potato’ the idea of a minor creation and of a dissolved human existence is embedded in historical circumstances. The mythopoetical imagination is intended to render possible the self-description in the aftermath of the Shoah, whereas Schulz hardly ever confronts history openly and does not make it his central topic. In the ‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’ the idea of a second genesis is based on Jacob’s defiance of God. In this second creation the imagined new creation evolves in a ludistic, even absurd new world lacking order, transparency, and even stability. The metaphysical debate arising from the challenge to God is in Schulz’s text linked to an absurd countercurrent disenabling the construction of a single sense (Lachmann 2002: 341). Kiš’s literary practice is completely different because he is facing the disseminating force of history and making it the core of his texts. The idea of a second or minor creation is not meant to open the 18

This reminds us of constructionalist concepts that negate the existence of one single reality containing multiple possible alternatives to a single actual world. Cf., for instance, Goodman: “We are not speaking in terms of multiple possible alternatives to a single actual world but of multiple actual worlds” (1978: 2).


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way to some different reality or to transcend given realities. It leads in contrast to the heart of darkness of history. Kiš – and his protagonist E.S. – does not want to create an imaginary world, but tries to grasp the horror of the real. It is, however, noteworthy that Kiš applies similar mythopoetical devices and develops his own writing as a double-encoded literary practice based on an intertextual play with antecedent texts. The mythopoetical devices Kiš borrows from Schulz are intended to facilitate a literary self-positioning in the aftermath of the Shoah. Schulz’s ‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’ offers a textual pattern for a literary practice facing the extreme experience of the Shoah. The following conclusions may be drawn: Schulz’s text can be discerned as a pattern for Kiš’s Hourglass. Kiš stresses and unveils the profound disruption that separates the contemporary culture in its post-Shoah condition from mythic traditions, but uses myth to reflect the break in civilization caused by the Shoah. Although the Holocaust occurred in the past, it is not entirely of the past. Quite the contrary, the Holocaust haunts the present. Kiš responds by transforming literary intertexts (Riffaterre 1990: 141-162) and offering concrete conceptual schemes as well as vocabularies for self-description and self-positioning in a post-Shoah context. In the ‘Treatise on the potato’ this is realized from a protagonist’s perspective, as it is E.S. who writes down his conclusions about what is going on. But against the idea of some adequate self-description or self-positioning against historical trauma we stress the fact that the key concept is the process of self-positioning without the antecedent idea of a reachable or realizable description. The break in civilization permanently changes one’s own position and causes an impossibility of regaining a stable position that might not be further undermined (Rosenfeld 2003: 27). Kiš’s text functions as a Reflexionsmedium (“medium of reflection”) – not in quite the sense Walter Benjamin gave to this word (1997b: 36, 62) – in which descriptive vocabularies, literary traditions and codes as well as different semantic and generic traditions are reworked and re-actualized.19 In our case this goes for the intertextual play with Schulz’s ‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’ in the ‘Treatise on the Potato’. The way Kiš’s Hourglass refers to Schulz’s inserted treatise resembles the kind of deconstruction Derrida has in mind, when he writes that deconstruction operates from within a given text. Kiš 19

Cf. Weigel (1994: 9 ff.) for a further discussion of the emergence of a cultural memory and the different ways of remembering the Shoah in post-Shoah culture.

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operates within Schulz’s text and reworks thereby concrete features of literary tradition in order to develop a hybrid descriptive vocabulary and conceptual scheme for finding his own position in the post-Shoah era. For Kiš, ontological instability means the loss of any key idea (the idea of a great book or any other master narrative) that might be revealed or function as an aim in the process of imagination. The Shoah has completely destroyed any idea of stable human order. Past and present are intertwined. Any nostalgia for unity or integrity is illusory. Bibliography Baraczak, Stanisaw. 1996. Poezja i duch uogólnienia: Wybór esejów 1970-1995. Kraków: Znak. Benjamin, Walter. 1997a. ‘Über den Begriff der Geschichte’ in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. I, 2. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp: 691-704. ——. 1997b. ‘Der Begriff der Kunstkritik in der deutschen Romantik’ in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. I, 1. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp: 9-122. Brown, Russell E. 1990. ‘Bruno Schulz and World Literature’ in Slavic and East European Journal 34(2): 224-246. Bukwalt, Miosz. 2003. Literackie portrety ydowskich ojców w prozie Brunona Schulza i Danila Kiša. (Slavica Wratislaviensia CXXV). Wrocaw: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocawskiego. irli-Straszyska, Danuta. 1988. ‘Danila Kiša ogród, literatura’ in Literatura na wiecie 1: 258-261. Deli, Jovan. 1997. Kroz prozu Danila Kiša. Beograd: Beogradski Izdavako-Grafiki Zavod. Fiut, Aleksander. 1999. By (albo nie by) rodkowoeuropejczykiem (Obrazy wspóczesnoci). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. Goodman, Nelson. 1978. Ways of Worldmaking. Indianapolis: Hackett. Ingold, Felix Philipp. 1992. Der Autor am Werk: Versuche über literarische Kreativität. München – Wien. Jarz bski, Jerzy (ed.) 1973. ‘Sen o “zotym wieku”’ in Teksty 2: 104-121. ——. 1984. Powie jako autokreacja. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ——. 1994. Czytanie Schulza: Materiay midzynarodowej sesji naukowej “Bruno Schulz – w stulecie urodzin i pidziesiciolecie mierci”. Kraków: T.I.C. Kasperski, Edward. 1993. ‘Mit maciczny – Bruno Schulz i Kresy’ in Przegld Humanistyczny 3: 79-94. Kiš, Danilo. 1978. Klepsydra (tr. D. irli-Straszyska). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ——. 1990. Gorki talog iskustva. Beograd: Beogradski Izdavako-Grafiki Zavod. ——. 1995. Homo poeticus. (Sabrana dela Danila Kiša). Beograd: Beogradski Izdavako-Grafiki Zavod. ——. 1997. Hourglass (tr. R. Manheim). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.


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——. 1999. Porodi ni cirkus: Rani jadi – Bašta, pepeo – Peš anik. Split: Feral Tribune. Kornhauser, Julian. 2001. wiadomo regionalna i mit odrbnoci: o stereotypach w literaturze serbskiej i chorwackiej. Kraków 2001: Scriptum. Koschmal, Walter. 1987. ‘Zur mythischen Modellierung von Raum und Zeit bei Andrej Belyj und Bruno Schulz’ in Schmid, Wolf (ed.) Mythos in der slavischen Moderne (Wiener Slawistischer Almanach, Sonderband 20). Wien: Institut für Slavistik der Universität Wien: 193-214. Krivokapi, Boro (ed.) 1980. Treba li spaliti Kiša. Zagreb: Globus. Kuprel, Diana. 1996. ‘“Errant Events on the Branch Tracks of Time”: Bruno Schulz and Mythical Consciousness’ in Slavic and East European Journal 40(1): 100-117. Lachmann, Renate. 2002. Erzählte Phantastik. Zu Phantasiegeschichte und Semantik phantastischer Texte. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. ——. 2004. ‘Faktographie und Thanatographie in Psalam 44 und Peš anik von Danilo Kiš’ in Hansen-Kokoruš, Renate et al. (eds). Mundus narratus: Festschrift für Dagmar Burkhart. Frankfurt/Main etc.: Peter Lang: 277-291. atuszyski, Grzegorz. 1997. W wiecie wykltych. Szkice o literaturze serbskiej i chorwackiej. Warszawa: Agawa. Lawson, Hilary. 1985. Reflexivity: The Post-Modern Predicament. London etc.: Hutchinson. Okopie-Sawiska, Aleksandra. 1973. ‘Sny i poetyka snu’ in Teksty 2: 7-23. Olchanowski, Tomasz. 2001. Jungowska interpretacja mitu ojca w prozie Brunona Schulza. Biaystok: Trans Humana. Panti, Mihajlo. 2000. Kiš. Beograd: Filip Višnji. Pijanovi, Petar. 1992. Proza Danila Kiša. Priština – Gornji Milanovac – Podgorica: Jedinstvo – Deje Novine – Oktoih. Riffaterre, Michael. 1984. ‘Intertextual Representation: On Mimesis as Interpretive Discourse’ in Critical Inquiry 11: 141-162. Rorty, Richard. 1989. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosenfeld, Alvin H. 2003. Podwójna mier. Rozwaania o literaturze Holocaustu (tr. B. Krawcowicz). Warszawa: Cyklady. Schulz, Bruno. 1988. The Fictions of Bruno Schulz (tr. C. Wieniewska). London: Picador. ——. 1998. Opowiadania. Wybór esejów i listów (ed. J. Jarz bski). Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossoliskich. Speina, Jerzy. 1974. Bankructwo realnoci. Proza Brunona Schulza. Pozna: Pastwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe. Stala, Krzysztof. 1995. Na marginesach rzeczywistoci. O paradoksach przedstawiania w twórczoci Brunona Schulza. Warszawa: Instytut Bada Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk, Stowarzyszenie “Pro Cultura Litteraria”. Stojanovi, Branislava. 2002. ‘Recepcija Bruna Schulza u Srbiji. Prvo poglavlje: Danilo Kiš’ in Slavistika 6: 171-183. Subotin, Stojan (ed.) 1969. Antologija poljske fantastike. Beograd: Nolit. Updike, John. 1988. ‘The Visionary of Drohobycz’ in The New York Times: Book Review, 30 October 1988. On line at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/

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fullpage.html?res=940DE3DF1139F933A05753C1A96E948260 (consulted 10.04.07). ——. 1992. ‘Skromny geniusz Bruno Schulz’ in NaGos 7: 85-87. Vladiv-Glover, Slobodanka. 2003. Postmodernizam od Kiša do danas. Beograd: Prosveta. Weigel, Sigrid. 1994. Bilder des kulturellen Gedächtnisses. Beiträge zur Gegenwartsliteratur. Dülmen-Hiddingsel: Tende. Wiegandt, Ewa. 1997. Austria felix czyli o micie Galicji w polskiej prozie wspóczesnej. Pozna: Bene Nati. Wierzbycki, Jan. 1988. ‘Serbska proza (m. in. o I. Andriciu)’ in Literatura na wiecie 1: 233-257.

Bruno Schulz and the Magical Realism of Gabriel García Márquez in One Hundred Years of Solitude Dorota Wojda Abstract: The aim of this article is to indicate analogies between the writing of Bruno Schulz and the magical realism in Gabriel García Márquez’s Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1967) and consider them in the postcolonial perspective. The irony created by both writers is a strategy that disarms the authoritarian divisions of colonial discourses. Performativeness of narration is significant in the works by Schulz and Márquez because it indicates that magical realism – as the poetics, ontology, and strategy of postcolonial discourse – is not only a literary creation which problematizes discourses of power but also a practice which induces thought, writing, and action.

Introduction The conviction has already been expressed that Bruno Schulz’s work has numerous ties with magical realism (cf. Gazda 2005); however, a more profound exploration of these relationships has not been performed yet. In the meantime, the context of magical realism literature, read from the postcolonial perspective, might nevertheless be beneficial in casting a new light on Schulz’s writing, that is, as a creative expression of a cross-cultural borderland with features close to postcolonial discourse. The aim of the present article is to indicate analogies between the writing of Bruno Schulz and the magical realism in Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1967). The most significant comparison would be to show how both writers create a reality in which the ordinary, one’s own, turns out to be the space for the articulation of the other. This otherness takes center stage thanks to a poetics which combines the realist convention with fantasy and creates a special form of mimesis. It is not a mimesis of adequate representation but an autothematic mimesis of process, in which the text imitates both itself and other text-creating practices and not just general cultural

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mechanisms (Elbanowski 1983; Stala 1995; Gowacka 1996). In the writings of Schulz and García Márquez, this mimesis consists of the displacement and ironic demonstration of tensions between centre and periphery, the personal and the strange, a rule and an exception. As a result, hybridized creatures are shown – transvestites, mannequins, characters somewhere between life and death, like Jacob or Melquíades – as well as borderline areas, like Crocodile Street or the Street of the Turks. The status of these forms is compatible with the concepts of plural identity, as proposed by Homi Bhabha (1990, 1995) or Stephen Slemon (1989). For the sake of explaining hybridization, Wilson Harris employs the figure of Teiresias: “[T]he contrary but mutually necessary and inextricably linked principles of male and female, natural and supernatural, life and death are held in productive tension and do not resolve into a stable final synthesis” (in MooreGilbert 1997: 183). Such non-solubility poses an important feature of the works of Schulz and García Márquez, combining radically different realities, what may be described with the expressions of magical realism theoreticians: lo real maravilloso (“the marvel of trivial things”) by Alejo Carpentier, el realismo mágico by Luis Leal (“the mystery does not descend to the represented world but rather hides and palpitates behind it”) or lo extraño (“strangeness”, opposed to lo verídico and lo sobrenatural) by Enrique Anderson Imbert (Pindel 2004: 211 ff.) Although “magical realism” raises much doubt among researchers (Elbanowski 1983: 10-11; Slemon 1995: 407; Pindel 2004: 212-214) as an imprecise and ambiguous term, it is still useful for naming the poetics of combining various conventions and offers a paradoxical ontology. García Márquez often indicated that in his prose a merger of separate worlds – real and fictional, regular and miraculous – matching the coexistence of those dimensions takes place in reality. Consequently, he valued Italian neorealism. Reviewing a movie by Vittorio de Sica, he wrote: The story told in Miracolo a Milano is a real fairy tale even if only because it takes place in an unusual setting, where the real blends in a brilliant way with the fantastic, making it often impossible to discern where the former ends and the latter begins. (translated from the Polish text in Ploetz 1997: 49-50)

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Schulz, in turn, evoked the convention of arabesque both in the literary form by mixing the mundane with the fantastic and in the floral ornament by creating a miraculous, dynamic world. The writer presented the essence of arabesque art when he described Father’s experiments: W jadalni naszej krzesa miay wysokie pi knie rzebione oparcia. Byy to jakie girlandy lici i kwiatów w gucie realistycznym, ale wystarczyo prztykni cie ojca, a rzeba ta nabieraa nagle niezwykle dowcipnej fizjonomii […] i ten i ów z obecnych zaczyna wykrzykiwa: – Ciocia Wandzia, jak mi Bóg miy, ciocia Wandzia! […] Cuda ojca unicestwiay si same, bo nie byo to adne widmo, bya to rzeczywista ciocia Wandzia w caej swej zwyczajnoci i pospolitoci, która nie pozwalaa nawet na myl o jakim cudzie. (Schulz 1998: 359)1 (We had in our dining room a set of chairs with tall backs, beautifully carved in the realistic manner into garlands of leaves and flowers; it was enough for Father to flip the carvings and they suddenly acquired an exceptionally witty physiognomy […] and one or another of those present would suddenly exclaim: “Aunt Wanda, by God, Aunt Wanda!” […] Father’s miracles cancelled themselves out automatically, for he did not produce a ghost but the real Aunt Wanda in all her ordinariness and commonness, which excluded any thought of a possible miracle; 1988: 103)2

The form revives here so to speak, in order to, receive a grotesque shape without losing its realism, thanks to which anthropomorphization as a figure of poetry, will be fulfilled. A conjuring trick constitutes in this case, as Viktor Shklovskii would put it, a bizarre effect: the ordinary Aunt Wanda shows herself to the spectators in an extraordinary way, different than in the texts where poetry is supposed to convey extraordinary things with ordinary depiction (Looby 2003). Magical realism may be identified by a characteristic mimesis of difference, where the personal is confronted with the other in the process of disturbing systemic oppositions (Durix 1998). According to Slemon, the paradox of this form is matched by the articulation of incompatible worlds, of which “neither one can fully come into being, and each remains suspended, locked in a continuous dialectic with the “other”, a situation which creates disjunction within each of the separate discursive systems, rending them with gaps, absences, and 1 2


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silences” (1995: 409). Magical realism has become an important category for the postcolonial studies because it can be perceived as a strategy of postcolonial discourse, where a dispute of anti-colonialism and colonialism is arranged in order to, through the exposure of their dialectics, loosen the structures of imperial power (Pawyszyn 1998; Podgórniak 2004; 2006). Here the poetics of magical realism is useful, conveying the collision of intellect with irrationality. This poetics strikes at the binary divisions, thus turning against diversifying the world into the values of the colonizers and the colonized (Baker 1993). Moreover, the formula of magical realism – nowadays extended to texts from outside the Latin-American literature – allows readers to recognize significant relations between contemporary and past texts and to compare very different postcolonial works (Slemon 1995: 409). Some assert that magical realism was one of the first literary phenomena questioning postcolonial discourse. Such is the opinion of Alfred López, convinced that thanks to “a mimesis of excess […], which paradoxically turns out to be a more ‘realistic’ mode of representation than the conventional Western conceptions of literary ‘realism’”, works of magical realism definitely are “under the sign of the postcolonial” (2001: 210). Both the prose of Schulz and One Hundred Years of Solitude can be situated against colonial discourses. The first case concerns mythologizations which emerged due to the centuries-old Polish domination of the “Kresy” (the “Borderlands”) and the partition of Poland which took place in the eighteenth century, leaving the country without statehood for a long period. The other case concerns the colonialism of Latin America, particularly the Caribbean. While locating the novel by García Márquez against colonial discourse is obvious, analogous placing of the work of Schulz requires a commentary. At first, colonialism had been associated with cultural domination on overseas territories. These days, however, the manifestations of colonialism have also been recognized in other areas. One may distinguish the real colonialism, linked with racial discrimination, from the “white colonialism”, while at the same time assuming that postcolonialism is not an exclusive feature of the cultures of the so-called Third and Fourth World ethnic groups but also concerns the “white communities” dependent on the imperial power. That is of significance, for instance, to Ireland as well as to Poland, where more and more frequently the need has been indicated


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to assume the postcolonial perspective (Cavanagh 2003; Thompson 2006; Skórczewski 2006; Bakua 2006; Janion 2007). In One Hundred Years of Solitude magical realism has a complicated nature: it is created and problematized. Such a strategy Adam Elbanowski calls magical irony: Ironia u Márqueza, nie pozbawiona tak e pierwiastków komicznych, prowadzi wprost do parodii […] realizmu magicznego. Jest “naladowaniem” wzoru i jego regu i równoczenie jego karykatur , przekroczeniem. Parodia byaby zatem jedn z funkcji “ironii magicznej”, jako gry sprzecznych znacze, nieustannego przechodzenia elementów powieciowych w swoje przeciwiestwo, staego podwa ania sensów, przechodzenia afirmacji w negacj i odwrotnie. (1983: 15–16) (Irony in Márquez, not deprived of comic elements, leads straight to a parody […] of magical realism. It is an “imitation” of the pattern with its principles and at the same time its caricature, contravention. Parody would thus be one of the functions of “magical irony” treated as a game of contradictory meanings, constant evolving of the novel’s elements into their opposites, constant undermining of meanings, turning affirmation into negation and vice versa.)

Magical realism has a similar character in the tales of Schulz. The author of Cinnamon Shops creates a mythical reality in which what is in accordance with doxa blends with the fantastic in order to perform demythologization and keeps evolving from one level to another. The target solution in Schulz is not the “aesthetics of the binary opposition” (Kaufer 1983) but the very dialectics that are being struck. Seditiousness in the texts by both writers is close to the form of irony found in the writings of Friedrich Schlegel by Paul de Man (1996), who claims that permanent parabasis is a deconstruction: constant severing of the consistent narrative, exposing fiction, disturbing the identity of the subject, form and history. Such irony destabilizes the concepts of otherness from the colonial and anti-colonial models. In this sense, the ironic poetics of magical realism, determining the paradoxical ontology, may be called the strategy of the postcolonial discourse. Reading Kafka At first glance, Bruno Schulz and Gabriel García Márquez have not so much in common. The former, born in Galician Drohobycz in 1892,

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came from a Jewish merchant family; the latter was born in a Colombian village of Aracataca in 1927, as a son of a descendant of a prominent family, Márquez Iguarán and a telegrapher. Schulz’s fate seems unfulfilled. His biography includes health problems, nuisances of the teaching profession standing in the way of his creative work, unsuccessful relationships with women, and finally, a tragic death. Even though Schulz published prose and exhibited paintings, he did not have a brilliant career. Only the future showed how great an artist he was. García Márquez also experienced poverty and difficulty combining gainful employment with writing; however, after the success of One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and El otoño del patriarca (The Autumn of the Patriarch, 1975), honored with the Nobel Prize in Literature (1982), a happy husband and father, he could freely devote himself to artistic work. Schulz spent most of his life in Drohobycz and concentrated on art, whereas García Márquez, who kept changing his whereabouts, was involved in politics and humanitarian actions. Where, in this case, are the similarities between the writers whose stories are so different? Just where their roots are. Both the writings of Schulz and the prose of García Márquez are stimulated by genius loci and, related to it, by phantasms of childhood. The author of ‘Ksi ga’ (‘The Book’) did not create an epos, though his work is one fragmented story in which the themes of home, the streets and outskirts of Drohobycz recur. Similarly, the themes of home can also be found in García Márquez. The first book that García Márquez wanted to write was about the house in which he spent his childhood and was to be entitled La casa. Yet it was La Hojarasca (Leaf Storm, 1954) that emerged; nevertheless, the setting remained the same. Finally, the outcome of all those exercises appeared – One Hundred Years of Solitude. Even though the novel was acknowledged as a national epic, it consisted of micronarratives arising from the most personal experiences, memories, and dreams about home. Just like Schulz built his textual world from the elements of the Galician province, García Márquez transformed the peripheral region of Magdalena into the literary Macondo. They both were able to present their homelands so that they would radiate with an aura of everyday life, uncanny yet at the same time universal. This is largely what the essence of magical realism in the works of those writers consists of:


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the universalization of localness due to the work of the memory, dream, and imagination. Created in such a way, however, literary provinces are not static and unchanging but quite the opposite – things are subject to metamorphoses, transgress their boundaries, evolve from one form to another. These changes happen sometimes in the joke convention, sometimes in the spirit of parody or a dissonant clash; this is matched in Schulz by the motif of blinking that becomes a figure of the ironic form: Tylko p k piór pawich […] nie da si utrzyma w ryzach. By to element swawolny, niebezpieczny, o nieuchwytnej rewolucyjnoci, jak rozhukana klasa gimnazjalistek, pena dewocji w oczy, a rozpustnej swawoli poza oczyma. widroway te oczy dzie cay i wierciy dziury w cianach, mrugay, toczyy si , trzepocz c rz sami […]. (Op 87). (These feathers were a dangerous, frivolous element, hiding rebelliousness, like a class of naughty schoolgirls who are quiet and composed in appearance, but full of mischief when no longer watched. The eyes of those feathers never stopped staring; they made holes in the walls, winking, fluttering their eyelashes […];TF 79).

García Márquez directly describes the form of One Hundred Years of Solitude as dissonant: “Everything will be on the borderline between sublime and kitsch. Like bolero” (translated from the Polish text in Ploetz 1997: 85). Conveyed in such a form, the outskirts are not at all idyllic. Their residents are affected not only by love but also by suffering, betrayal, and death. What links the protagonists of Schulz and García Márquez in particular is solitude. Similarly to Jacob, José Arcadio Buendía cuts himself off the world and plunges into experimenting, and Úrsula, similarly to Adela, has difficulty finding allies in her passion for establishing order. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a study of the isolation of the whole community and its individual members. Many characters live here in seclusion, like Rebecca, who condemns herself to the solitary confinement of her own house. A similar existence is led by a character of Schulz, the pensioner from ‘Samotno’ (‘Loneliness’), alien even to his mirror look-alike. A similar motif of a strange mirror reflection is found in Diálogo del espejo (Dialogue with the Mirror, 1949), the novel by García Márquez. Contaminated by civilization, Macondo faces

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complete extinction; the world in Schulz’s tales is similarly headed for collapse. The reflections on the fatalism of individuals’ solitary fate, on the decline of community and the whole world, as well as placing the provinces in the universal dimension link the works of Schulz and García Márquez with the writing of William Faulkner (Obehelman 1988; Maszewski 2003). In his works, the region of Lafayette is transformed into the land of Yoknapatawpha, for which there is no future. The author of One Hundred Years of Solitude will allude to this catastrophism, saying: “I’m not forgetting that the county of Yoknapatawpha borders on the Caribbean Sea” (translated from the Polish text in Ploetz 1997: 36). Yet, the texts of both writers are even more strongly linked with the works of Franz Kafka (Hahn 1994; Owczarski 2004; Gazda 2006). The indicated lines of literary creation – the motif of metamorphosis, a dissonant form, irony, an alienated protagonist enclosed within four walls, as well as fatalism and the universalization of ordinariness – lead to Der Prozeß (The Trial, 1925) or Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis, 1915). The writers became fascinated with Kafka’s writings for the portrayal of man as dual, dead in his own lifetime, and the world as a closing trap. In ‘Vor dem Gesetz’ (‘Before the Law’, 1919) we can see a man in front of the door that he cannot get through, whereas in Schulz’s story ‘Loneliness’ we read: Otó to wanie: dla dobrej woli nie ma zapory, intensywnej ch ci nic si

nie oprze. Musz sobie tylko wyobrazi drzwi, dobre stare drzwi, jak w kuchni mego dziecistwa, z elazn klamk i ryglem. Nie ma pokoju tak zamurowanego, eby si na takie drzwi zaufane nie otwiera, jeli tylko starczy si, by mu je zainsynuowa. (Op 327) (That is just it: where there is a will, there is a way; a passionate determination can conquer all. I must only imagine a door, a good old door, like the one in the kitchen of my childhood, with an iron handle and a bolt. There is no walled-in room that could not be opened by such a trusted door, provided one were strong enough to suggest that such a door exists; TF 297–298).

However, the thought about “a trusted door” here does not lead to imagining it and liberating from the walled reality. ‘In der Strafkolonie’ (‘In the Penal Colony’, 1919) shows how the island,


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where the ruthless machine of power has been working, can be abandoned only by the traveller, whereas all the others have to remain on it. The text may, just like Kafka’s other works, be read as a presentation of a modern system of “discipline and punish” (Foucault 1975), but one may also observe in it a figure of the primordial world order. Through descriptions of the repressive structures, Kafka creates fantastic realities, yet he sets them in ordinary backgrounds, thus demystifying the apparatus of power as ubiquitous. A similar assessment can be made in Schulz’s tales ‘Wiosna’ (‘Spring’) or ‘Sanatorium pod klepsydr ’ (‘Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass’) and in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Just like in Kafka’s ‘Before the Law’ it is the peasant who is put to the test, in the works of Schulz and García Márquez, ordinary provincial people are put to the test. The residents of the Galician town must confront the mercenary power of Crocodile Street, and the Buendías must face the economic settlement of the Street of the Turks. Nothing special, except for the desire for freedom, distinguishes Joseph N., who, just like Joseph K. from The Process, cannot escape the “mills of justice”. For both writers, the reading of Kafka was an important experience which they used while creating their own literary works. In the case of Schulz and García Márquez, magical realism is pushed to the limit – negating the apparatus of power turns into affirmation and vice versa. Jacob experiments on Uncle Edward, and is himself disciplined by Adela. While killing the cockroaches, he becomes similar to them, comprehending the dialectics of attraction and repulsion triggered by what is strange. Aureliano Buendía fights for the ideal of liberalism in order to become a dictator – charismatic but also repugnant and pity-arousing. After One Hundred Years of Solitude, García Márquez has written books which were studies of ambivalent rulers: The Autumn of the Patriarch and El general en su laberinto (The General in his Labyrinth, 1989), the story of Simón Bolívar. Such extensive studies cannot be found in the works of Schulz; however, the creation of Franz Joseph from ‘Spring’ is also ambiguous. In the works of Schulz and García Márquez, the poetics of magical realism, where mimetic codes interact with fantasy codes, and irony, which complicates this poetics, are a means to reflect upon the complicated relations of power. Since such a strategy does not

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explicitly turn against the systems of cultural domination but imitates their mechanisms and mythologies in order to problematize them on different levels, it corresponds with postcolonial discourse. A simple negation of these systems would create an effect of dialectical reflection, whereas postcolonialism expresses “distrust toward precise names, simple categories, myths that can explain all, unambiguous historical stories, and is rather inclined to present the world ironically” (“nieufno w stosunku do jasnych hase, prostych kategorii, mitów, które wszystko potrafi wyjani, jednoznacznych opowieci historycznych, a skonny jest raczej do ironicznego ujmowania wiata”; Pawyszyn 1998: 531). Periphery, Events and People in Time Loops As Robert Rawdon Wilson indicates, in works of magical realism there emerges a “space in which the spatial effects of canonical realism and those of axiomatic fantasy are interwoven […] in magic realism, space is hybrid (opposite and conflicting properties are copresent)” (1990: 204). It is of great significance for postcolonial revisions because it allows readers to perceive the region’s history, identity, and language of its residents, in general, the culture of the colonized area as a palimpsest in which layers of different civilizations show through each other (Brooke-Rose 1983). Magical realism defines the rhetoric of resistance in relation to the methods of representation that aspire to exclusivity, such as the traditional realist novel or the historiography promoting the ideology of conquest. There are three fundamental methods of loosening the colonial system: firstly, a “representation of transformational regionalism” where a particular local space poses the metonymy of a colony in general; secondly, a “foreshortening of history” – metaphorical condensation in the represented time of the whole history of the colonization and its consequences; thirdly, a “thematic foregrounding” of blank pages in the histories of the compared cultures, resulting in the destruction of the simple division into centre and periphery (Slemon 1995: 411-412). In One Hundred Years of Solitude a “representation of transformational regionalism” is evident. Macondo is a fictional space, yet it possesses features drawing attention to a reference to the province of Magdalena. At the same time, the place constitutes a closed universe, thus created as a figure of a human awareness


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developing from scratch. The depiction of Macondo is full of contradictions; in this world, “geographical space meets mythical space, and elliptical space is specified” (“przestrze geograficzna styka si z przestrzeni mityczn , przestrze eliptyczna jest dookrelona”; Elbanowski 1983: 17). The village has love and death in its origins. José Arcadio Buendía marries Úrsula, his cousin, and kills Prudencio Aguilar when the latter jeers at the spouses’ sexual abstinence. Consequently, the Buendías leave Riohacha to found Macondo. The novel may also be read as a history of mankind that starts with breaking the prohibition against incest and a founding murder. These contraventions recur in both the story of the Buendías and the history of the world. The initial parts of the narrative abound in different images of violence. The very first sentence presents an execution; then there are weapons of war, the colonization of Latin America, felling trees for the future village, and setting traps for singing birds. José Arcadio Buendía has a conqueror’s instinct – having learned to use navigational instruments, “he conceived a notion of space that allowed him to navigate across unknown seas, to visit uninhabited territories, and to establish relations with splendid beings” (1973: 4). At first independent from institutional power, Macondo will eventually surrender to it, and be drawn into political conflict and war; finally, it will be exploited by the Banana Company. Capitalism will become the cause of the crisis leading to the defeat of Macondo. Therefore, in One Hundred Years of Solitude there takes place a “foreshortening of history” – the represented time is a metaphor of the history of mankind that turns out to be a streak of offence, conquest, and aggression. The fall of the civilization is presented as a consequence of the incompetent management of natural and cultural resources and at the same time, as revenge taken by nature on the people hostile to it. In the last years of its existence, the Buendías’ household deteriorates from a plague of rain, an invasion of ants, and prolific growth of flora, finally being wiped off the surface of the earth with the whole Macondo by a hurricane. Fatalism of this event is highlighted by the last words of the novel: “races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth” (1973: 422). In his Nobel Prize speech, however, the writer will call literature an anti-utopia able to offer resistance to the atrocities of the world thanks to a vision of life “where the races condemned to one hundred years of solitude will have, at last and forever, a second

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opportunity on earth” (translated from the Polish text in Ploetz 1997: 124). Just as in the case of topography, temporariness, measured with events and thus being a function of the storyline, has an explicit reference in the novel, and is connected with the developments in which the writer’s family took part. The model here is the time of the Thousand Days’ War, the time of violencia, which ravaged Colombia between 1940s and 1960s, and the time of neocolonialism in the beginning of the twentieth century, dominated by American capital, which resulted in economic exploitation, the influx of hojarasca (hired workers), moral decline of the population, and the loss of historical memory of the region. These phenomena had already been given attention by García Márquez in Leaf Storm. Ernesto Volkening depicts how the writer experienced the impoverishing humanization of the tropics, acting in defence of the exploited nature and against the colonial ideology that destroys anything contrary to its idea of the world (Volkening 1963). One Hundred Years of Solitude also exposes the cruelty of the power apparatus – what takes place here is a “thematic foregrounding” of the repressions perpetrated by the colonial system. José Arcadio Segundo continues telling the story of the striking workers’ massacre about which history books say nothing. The Buendías perceive the historic events in a different way than the authority; they also see temporariness and spatial relations differently. What is accepted in the official order, has little value for them or is thoroughly false although at times they do admire alien values, but then they explain them in their own way. In this way, there is a change in the way the elements of colonial discourse are marked; qualities regarded as central by the colonizers turn out to be peripheral in Macondo and vice versa. The narrative perspective, however, is displaced in such a way that it passes from one judgement to another, thereby drawing attention to the relativity of culture and its hybrid structure in a typically postcolonial way. Determining references in One Hundred Years of Solitude is connected with adopting codes of realist representation, whereas the relativization of values is connected with applying the fantasy convention. Strictly speaking, the magic of the represented world contains fantastic and miraculous elements (Todorov 1970). The former appear when the protagonists find the space, events, or time incompatible with their own vision of reality, what, on the whole,


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coincides with the appearance of technological developments in Macondo. To the village’s residents, cinemas, railways, or the gramophone seem to be supernatural phenomena: “Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo did not know where their amazement began” (1973: 229). Miracles, on the other hand, emerge with the appearance of irrational things yet in accordance with the order of the local microcosm. People perceive the excesses of time (such as loops, condensations, or the eternal return) as natural (Michaowski 1983). However, they perceive any intervention of the historical time, which is measured with the chronometers of the rational culture, as a disruption. The time is absorbed by the magical reality in order to become the matter of the mythical cycle. In a different aspect, the events of Macondo reflect Latin-American history (Elbanowski 1983: 17). An important part is played by reiteration – when the time loops, the people’s lives also overlap, which makes us read the novel as a universal parable. The world created in One Hundred Years of Solitude is built on the reality outside the text in order to transform it in a literary way and return to the point of departure, that is, become a metaphor of the human condition. It is, however, a world given to irony. Miraculousness receives the status of a literary convention and plays with the reader. The magic is sometimes so grotesque and the figures of violence so great in numbers and so odd that the parable seen in the novel seems to be true (Danow 2004). Consequently, the criticism of cultural domination performed in the novel saves it from becoming an ideology analogous to the negated form of the claiming power. The presence of colonization issues is not as obvious in the tales of Schulz as it is in the novel by García Márquez. It may be noticed, however, if we assume that the Polish writer, using the poetics of magical realism, transforms the Galician reality and imitates not the reality itself but general cultural processes filtrated by the artist’s perception and imagination. The space of Schulzian prose, similarly to that of García Márquez, refers to specific places. Father’s map depicts the real valley of the River Tysmienica; Crocodile Street is a literary counterpart of Stryjska Street; Górka and the tavern are located on the way to Truskawiec. Simultaneously, the Galician province is a self-contained area, isolated from the world, constituting a setting for the story of Joseph’s family. Just like in One Hundred Years of Solitude, a family story in Schulz’s tales can be read as a

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metaphor of the history of mankind. Nonetheless, the author of ‘The Book’ concentrated on one particular protagonist. The life of Joseph becomes a figure of man’s lot. Also similarly to the novel by García Márquez, the topography of the tales has a paradoxical nature. Geography turns into a myth; space emerges from the language and characterizes the form of the prose on its own; a room evolves into a jungle or into a “nightly forest train” (TF 197; “w lenym poci gu nocnym”; Op 211). In such a space, the character tries to find a way to the Book that founded the world and the nature of man. Its distance or elusiveness (the spread of forgeries made to resemble the Book) is the reason for the decline of the world because in the absence of the authentic, reality makes no sense and is full of violence. The demiurge here is Franz Joseph, destroying the pricelessness of the world with his police ideology, or Father, seemingly favourably inclined toward multiplicity but in fact, causing its extinction. Similarly to One Hundred Years of Solitude, violence here assumes the form of aggressive capitalization, as evident in ‘The Street of Crocodiles’. Read as a text about the consequences of neocolonialism, the work also induces the interpretation of Schulz’s prose as a “representation of transformational regionalism” and a “foreshortening of history”. It may be stated that the changes depicted in the tale, which take place in the province as a result of the invasion of foreign capital, are metaphors of the decline of the civilization – a brief presentation of a cultural crisis that has spanned considerable time. Moreover, the method of evaluation from ‘The Street of Crocodiles’ turns against Polish stereotypes concerning the centre and periphery, including the mythologization of the Eastern borderlands. According to the myth of “Kresy”, the borderland is a bastion of homeland and cultural achievements and at the same time, an area with a mission to civilize and a dangerous but fascinating authenticity (Czaplejewicz 1996: 16). Schulz creates the space, plot, and character in such a way that the borderland becomes something different. The old business culture contrasts here with the modern economy spreading on the outskirts of the town. The location of the district characterized by progress makes the centre/periphery opposition lose its clarity. Crocodile Street is called the space “of breaking down the barriers of hierarchy” (TF 70; “zniwelowania granic i hierarchij”; Op 77) – moral principles decline here, and the new merges with the old, resulting in the appearance of new hybrid forms. Three attitudes were taken toward this region:


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approbative, critical, and ironic. The first attitude conforms with the colonial idea of the centre/periphery layout, according to which action recognized as a civilizing mission receives a positive opinion. The second bears the hallmarks of an anti-colonial world view. Crocodile Street is criticized by most of its natives, including the narrator, who sees its appearance and rubbish. At the same time, the figure betrays his fascination with this world, thus pointing to another difference between Schulz’s presentation and colonial discourse: cultural artificiality is charming here, whereas, the authenticity of nature is charming there. Furthermore, the explorer’s experiences are presented in a different way as the protagonist reaches no destination but keeps wandering about the street that is subject to constant metamorphoses. The realist convention is broken with the fantasy code, resulting in the blurring of the difference between a rule and an exception. In its process of invalidation, the play between the topography and character creation manifests itself as an ironic subject that creates illusions of different conditions in order to dispel them. The ironic subject changes the perspectives of evaluation and consequently, interprets the cultural borderland. Owing to that, the dialectic of the centre/periphery is set in motion – it is established, inverted, and finally, ironically problematized. It may be described as a “thematic foregrounding” of the repressions of colonial discourse and a shifting to the postcolonial vision of the borderland, where irony accompanies reflection on cultural difference beyond the unequivocal dimension of the identity-based culture. Not only in ‘The Street of Crocodiles’ but also in other tales by Schulz, the relativization of values occurs thanks to the fantasy element, which also links the prose with the novel by García Márquez. It is difficult, however, to speak here of a division into fantastic and miraculous elements. Father experiments in the field of technology as well as nature, and he treats all forms on which he works as ordinary elements of reality, which are at the same time possible places for the articulation of the mystery of the other. In this aspect, the magical realism of Schulz differs from the magical realist poetics and ontology of García Márquez. From the poetological perspective, it can be presented in the categories developed by the Russian formalists – as a defamiliarization that allows us to perceive the extraordinary in the ordinary. With regard to the ontological perspective, Schulz’s ideas bring to mind the Freudian concept of Unheimlichkeit, where the

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uncanny manifests itself in the natural. Despite the indicated differences, there exists a certain similarity between the presentations of the two writers – in both cases literature opposes the categorization of rationalism, whereas motion, fluidity of matter, madness, and nonsense are evaluated positively. This is visible in the creations of José Arcadio Buendía and Jacob, behind whom is the fatherhood authority. Buendía searches for the philosopher’s stone and finds an ice block to be the greatest invention: he imagines the beauty of tropical Macondo built of icy crystals. Jacob’s laboratory works according to the panta rhei principle. The demiurge experiments with matter in order to “pave its way […] to transfusion, to universal circulation in accordance with its true nature”; (TF 101; “torowa jej drogi […] do tranfuzji, do wszechcyrkulacji, jedynie waciwej jej naturze”; Op 356). We are dealing with a different way of evaluation than in colonial discourse, where motion is regarded as modus operandi, which is supposed to make the power consolidate and where man struggles to control the nature with the power of his mind. Such a worldview translates in Schulz’s tales into the peculiarity of the temporal form. A history is told correspondingly to One Hundred Years of Solitude; the plot is not identical with the fictional pattern. Only after its reconstruction there emerges a linear story that progresses from Joseph’s childhood through his adolescence, Jacob’s successive metamorphoses, until ‘Father’s Last Escape’ (‘Ostatnia ucieczka ojca’), and from the period of the Book’s absence until its loss in the time of forgeries. Both of these processes, linked with each other, constitute the time of myth, simultaneous perpetuation of different fragments of history. Such simultaneity also appears in the novel by García Márquez: “Melquíades had not put events in the order of man’s conventional time, but had concentrated a century of daily episodes in such a way that they coexisted in one instant” (1973: 421). The events which have their equivalents in reality do not play as important a role in Schulz’s texts as they do in One Hundred Years of Solitude, but when they appear, they also become objects of fantastic transformation. And just like in García Márquez, the literary representations of those events become a means of conveying the general evaluation of culture. The temporal fantasy conventions used by Schulz in many ways resemble the means used later by the Colombian writer. Among the conventions used are – next to


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simultaneity and inversion – ellipses, condensations, loops, and various kinds of reiteration. The last two techniques especially combine the different ways of building time in the works of Schulz and in One Hundred Years of Solitude. The author of ‘Spring’ constructs the text in such a way as to create the temporal paradoxes and the cyclical nature of events, especially of seasons and the times of the day as well as the stages of human life (Jarz bski 1998: LVI). A similar form appears in García Márquez, except that he pays special attention to the recurrence of the biographical patterns. The images of the palimpsests and temporal apocrypha are characteristic of Schulz’s prose. In both of the literary creations, the arrangement of time turns against rational discourse and triggers the parabolic mode of reading. Schulz’s parable is so multidimensional that its meanings should not be narrowed to just one superior sense. It certainly underlines the significance of the whole, the myth, integrity of the world, and literary form on the one hand and fragmentariness, demythologization, division of existence, and literature on the other. This duality, passing from one order to another and thus playing with the conventions of realism and fantasy, is matched by irony. Read in the postcolonial context, this irony becomes a strategy that disarms the authoritarian divisions of colonial discourses. Conclusion: Figures of Narration The final part of the article concerns a matter that must be addressed separately: narration in the prose of Schulz and the novel by García Márquez, which also constitutes the summary of the preceding discussion. Narration ought to be discussed separately and undertaken in the part that contains conclusions because it has a dimension extremely significant for postcolonial discourse, that is, performativity, which pertains to how the message is formulated simultaneously in the direct, objective articulation of the text and through use of the articulated meanings. The nature of both the writing of Schulz and the work of García Márquez is intertextual and self-referential. A wide range of references may be found in them, including the Bible, mythology, and various philosophical currents – writings of the Jewish and Polish traditions in Schulz, and works from the Latin American world in García Márquez. Jarz bski indicates that Schulz was indebted to

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writers such as Rilke, Kubin, Meyrink, and Mann. Among the writer’s philosophical inspirations, the scholar mentions the works of German Romanticism: Jung, Bergson, and Nietzsche (Jarz bski 1998: XCVII). García Márquez, as Elbanowski notices, creates in One Hundred Years of Solitude a synthesis of Latin American literature (reminiscences from Borges, Carpentier, Fuentes, and Cortázar are found in the text) as well as a certain summa of his own work. One of the characters in the novel is Gabriel Márquez, who leaves Macondo for Paris, where he starts writing (Elbanowski 1983: 19–20). Similarly in the work of Schulz, a range of references between his tales, paintings, and drawings may be found. In the context of such intertextual and self-referential techniques, one ought to examine the way both writers lead the narrative. They insert into their texts sections that characterize the poetics of magical realism. In ‘Spring’, the narrator describes Bianca’s villa not only to define the style of the girl but also of Schulzian prose: W tych wyszukanych i ruchliwych liniach o przesadnej wytwornoci […] byo co fertycznego, arliwego, zbyt jaskrawo gestykuluj cego – co jednym sowem kolorowego kolonialnego i ypi cego oczyma… Tak jest, styl ten mia na dnie swym co niesychanie odra aj cego – by rozpustny, wymylny, tropikalny i niesychanie cyniczny. (Op 183) (In those elaborate and mobile lines of exaggerated elegance […] there was something fidgety, too eager, to showy – something, in a word, colourful and colonial… Indeed, the style was in effect rather repulsive – lustful, over-elaborate, tropical, and extremely cynical; TF 177).

A previously mentioned metaphor that was important for Schulz was lost in the translation of this quote. Its meaning would correspond to that of the idiom “to give someone the glad eye”. The style of the author “winks” at the reader, showing its multidimensional character. In the quoted paragraph, a metonymy also appears which allows the text to become performative – the “winking” means that the fragment refers to the whole, and its form is revealed here. In other words, the text practises exactly what it describes. Similar techniques are employed by García Márquez: It was as if God had decided to put to the test every capacity for surprise and was keeping the inhabitants of Macondo in a permanent alternation between excitement and disappointment, doubt and revelation, to such an


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extreme that no one knew for certain where the limits of reality lay. (1973: 230)

On the surface, the paragraph concerns the reality of Macondo which dawns with the appearance of new technological inventions, yet those words also have another meaning – they simultaneously explain and create the dual, magical realist form of the novel. The self-referentiality of the narration in Schulz’s tales and in One Hundred Years of Solitude is fulfilled on higher levels that are modal frames of the texts. In the first case, the reader may speculate that the events of the novel are described in the Book. This guess is based on the narration of ‘Spring’, a key tale of Schulz, where the stamp album, which is a counterpart of the Book, turns out to be the text of spring as a season, and at the same time, a piece of prose with the same title. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the reader finally learns that all he has read had already been written in the Manuscript of Melquíades, which the protagonists had been trying to decipher for one hundred years. The same moment Aureliano reaches the last words of the manuscript, Macondo is wiped off the face of the earth, and the reader finishes reading. Performativeness of narration is significant in the works by Schulz and García Márquez because it indicates that magical realism (as the poetics, ontology, and strategy of postcolonial discourse) is not only a literary creation, in which realism and fantasy problematize the discourses of power in an ironic way, but also a practice which induces thought, writing, and action. Requested action may be explained in different ways – either as creating postcolonial literature or as action meant to change the violence-supporting culture. Bibliography Baker, Suzanne. 1993. ‘Binarisms and Duality: Magic Realism and Postcolonialism’ in SPAN: Journal of the South Pacific Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies 36: 82-87. Bakua, Bogusaw. 2006. ‘Kolonialne i postkolonialne aspekty polskiego dyskursu kresoznawczego. (Zarys problematyki)’ in Teksty Drugie 6: 11-33. Bhabha, Homi K. 1990. Nation and Narration. London and New York: Routledge. ——. 1995. The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge. Brooke-Rose, Christine. 1983. Rhetoric of the Unreal: Studies in Narrative and Structure, Especially of the Fantastic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Cavanagh, Clare. 2003. ‘Postkolonialna Polska. Biaa plama na mapie wspóczesnych teorii’ (tr. T. Kunz) in Teksty Drugie 2/3: 60-71. Czaplejewicz, Eugeniusz. 1996. ‘Czym jest literatura kresowa?’ in Czaplejewicz, Eugeniusz and Edward Kasperski (eds). Kresy w literaturze. Twórcy dwudziestowieczni. Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna: 7-73. Danow, David K. 2004. The Spirit of the Carnival: Magical Realism and the Grotesque. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. de Man, Paul. 1996. ‘The Concept of Irony’ in Warminski, Andrzej (ed.) Aesthetic Ideology. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press: 163-184. Durix, Jean-Pierre. 1998. Mimesis, Genres and Post-Colonial Discourse. Deconstructing Magical Realism. London: Macmillan Press. Elbanowski, Adam. 1983. ‘Márquez : od realizmu magicznego do ironii magicznej’ in Literatura na wiecie 9: 10-23. Foucault, Michel. 1975. Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison. Paris: Gallimard. García Márquez, Gabriel. 1973. One Hundred Years of Solitude (tr. G. Rabassa). London: Penguin. Gazda, Grzegorz. 2005. ‘Mityzacja rzeczywistoci a realizm magiczny (glosa komparatystyczna)’ in Kita, Magorzata and Bo ena Witosz (eds). Spotkanie. Ksiga jubileuszowa dla Profesora Aleksandra Wilkonia. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu l skiego: 212-219. ——. 2006. ‘Bruno Schulz i Franz Kafka (glosy komparatystyczne)’ in Bolecki, Wodzimierz and Ryszard Nycz (eds). Dziea, jzyki tradycje. Profesorowi Januszowi Sawiskiemu na siedemdziesite urodziny przyjaciele, koledzy, wspópracownicy. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN: 314-326. Gowacka, Dorota. 1996. ‘Wzniosa tandeta i simulacrum. Bruno Schulz w postmodernistycznych zaukach’ in Teksty Drugie 2/3: 72-91. Hahn, Hannelore. 1994. The Influence of Franz Kafka on Three Novels by Gabriel García Márquez (Comparative Cultures and Literatures 4). New York: Peter Lang. Janion, Maria. 2007. Niesamowita sowiaszczyzna. Fantazmaty literatury. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. Jarz bski, Jerzy. 1998. ‘Wst p’ in Schulz (1998): V-CXL. Kaufer, David S. 1983. ‘Irony, Interpretative Form, and the Theory of Meaning’ in Poetics Today 4(3): 451-464. Looby, Robert. 2003. ‘Formalizm i parodia w twórczoci Brunona Schulza’ in Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata and Wadysaw Panas (eds). W uamkach zwierciada…Bruno Schulz w 110 rocznic urodzin i 60 rocznic mierci. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL: 261-274. López, Alfred J. 2001. Posts and Pasts. A Theory of Postcolonialism. Albany: State University of New York Press. Maszewski, Zbigniew. 2003. William Faulkner and Bruno Schulz: a Comparative Study. ód: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu ódzkiego. Michaowski, Piotr. 1983. ‘Sto lat samotnoci – powie o czasie’ in Literatura na wiecie 9: 24-34. Moore-Gilbert, Bart. 1997. Postcolonial Theory. Contexts, Practices, Politics. London and New York: Verso.


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Obehelman, Harley D. 1980. The Presence of Faulkner in the Writings of García Márquez (Graduate Studies Texas Tech University 22). Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press. Owczarski, Wojciech. 2004. ‘Schulz i Kafka. Poetyka egzystencji’ in Kasperski, Edward and Tomasz Mackiewicz (eds). Franz Kafka na progu XXI wieku. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Wydziau Polonistyki Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego: 247-262. Pawyszyn, Marko. 1998. ‘Ukraiski postkolonialny postmodernizm’ (tr. A. Korniejenko and A. Hnatiuk) in Nycz, Ryszard (ed.) Odkrywanie modernizmu. Kraków: Universitas: 530-537. Pindel, Tomasz. 2004. Zjawy, szalestwo i mier. Fantastyka i realizm magiczny w literaturze hispanoamerykaskiej. Kraków: Universitas. Ploetz, Dagmar. 1997. Gabriel García Márquez (tr. J. ukosz). Wrocaw: Wydawnictwo Dolnol skie. Podgórniak, Alexandra. 2004. ‘Realizm magiczny jako strategia postkolonialna’ in Er(r)go 8(1): 189-192. ——. 2006. Magic Realism. Postcolonial Literary Theory and Practice. PhD thesis. University of Silesia. Rawdon Wilson, Robert. 1990. In Palamedes’ Shadow: Explorations in Play, Game and Narrative Theory. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Schulz, Bruno. 1988. The Fictions of Bruno Schulz (tr. C. Wieniewska). London: Picador. Schulz, Bruno. 1998. Opowiadania. Wybór esejów i listów (ed. J. Jarz bski). Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossoliskich. Skórczewski, Dariusz. 2006. ‘Postkolonialna Polska – projekt (nie)mo liwy’ in Teksty Drugie 1/2: 100-112. Slemon, Stephen. 1989. ‘Reading for Resistance in the Post-Colonial Literature’ in Maes-Jelenek, Hena, Kirsten Holst Petersen and Anna Rutherford (eds). A Shaping of Connections. Sydney, Coventry, Aarhus: Dangaroo Press: 100115. ——. 1995. ‘Magical Realism as Postcolonial Discourse’ in Parkinson Zamora, Lois and Wendy B. Faris (eds). Magical Realism. Theory, History, Community. Durham and London: Duke University Press: 407-426. Stala, Krzysztof. 1995. Na marginesach rzeczywistoci. O paradoksach przedstawiania w twórczoci Brunona Schulza. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN. Thompson, Ewa M. 2006. ‘Sarmatyzm i postkolonializm. O naturze polskich resentymentów’ in Europa. Tygodnik Idei 46: 11. Todorov, Tzvetan. 1970. Introduction à la littérature fantastique. Paris: Seuil. Volkening, Ernesto. 1963. ‘Gabriel García Márquez o el trópico desembrujado’ in Eco. Revista de la Cultura de Occidente 40: 273-293.

“A (Wo)man on a Sofa” in Bruno Schulz’s Art and Writings. Schulz as a “Painterly” and “Writerly” Artist Marta Skwara Abstract: This article analyzes Bruno Schulz’s creative application of the motif of “a (wo)man on a sofa” in order to indicate the various games that Schulz plays both with tradition and his spectators/readers, and the ways in which he transgresses the conventions of art and literature. The essay demonstrates how Schulz creates texts which unsettle all the reader’s assumptions by displacing his or her cultural memory and explains in what sense his text has to be created anew in each reader, who is part of the seductive theatre of love.

Introduction When trying to explore the limits of the comparability of Schulz’s works one profitable thing to focus on is a particular motif employed by Schulz in both his art and writing. “A (wo)man on a sofa”, understood as a version of “a reclining woman”, is a good place to begin this discussion because the iconographic scheme has been exploited in European art ever since Titian, and not only is the tradition rich and evergreen (e.g. Rainer Fetting’s Reclining Nude on Sofa, 1988) but it also provokes questions about different kinds of transgressions in both art and stylistic conventions. Because it is also possible to point to a literary motif as a specific counterpart of the iconographic scheme in question, “the pictorial character of Schulz’s prose” and “the literary character of his drawings” (Ficowski 1998: 514), or an iconic layer of Schulz’s prose, “a sort of pictorial screen, or filter, modeling the mode of representation” (Stala 1993: 100-101), can be put into a comparative perspective and discussed within world literature and art. What I want to do is demonstrate Bruno Schulz’s modes of creative usage of the widespread art tradition and the various games he plays with his spectators/readers. Through interpreting Schulz’s creative applications of one particular motif, I do not propose

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to demonstrate his (dis)similarity to other painters and writers but will instead attempt to discern particular aspects of his technique and artistic imagination, the ways in which he creates his radically plural world and makes it function as a conduit for the disruptive potential of interdisciplinary and intertextual relations. First I will try to establish the framework of the iconographic scheme that I will use to interpret Bruno Schulz’s art, then I will demonstrate possible comparative approaches to his realizations of the iconographic scheme. After that, I will attempt to specify in what manner Schulz’s art and writing differ while applying the same iconographic scheme followed by an interpretation of the motif in question in Schulz’s writing. In conclusion, I will present possible ways of defining Schulz’s art and writing technique, which makes him a limitlessly comparable yet also boundlessly transgressive artist, more in his literature than in his art. Art It is obvious that “a reclining woman” is a general iconographic scheme denoting a picture of a (dressed/half-dressed/naked) woman resting somewhere (in nature1/a salon/a bedroom) on something (for example, the ground, a sofa, just a bed, or sometimes in an armchair). This general scheme is far too generic to be the scheme to which I would like to refer. When we take Schulz’s drawings and graphics into account, it becomes clear that his interests were focused on a particular version of the scheme: in almost every case, his women are half-naked or naked and recline on a sofa (bed) that is situated in some kind of an interior. It does not seem that Schulz was interested in explorations of the iconographic scheme in the way Egon Schiele (Reclining Woman, 1917) or Marc Chagall (Reclining Nude, 1914) were, producing pictures with a female figure reclining in an unspecified space.2 Neither was Schulz attracted to explorations of the shapes which the female body can take as, for example, Matisse (Pink Nude, 1935) or Modigliani (Reclining Nude on a White Cushion, 1917-1918) were. Surrealistic devices typical of Magritte (Bather Between Light and Dark, 1935) were also out of the mainstream of his 1

The tradition dates back to Lucas Cranach the Elder (Reclining Nymph, 1530-34) and Giorgione (Sleeping Venus, 1510). 2 With the exception of some sketches which seem to be unfinished (see drawings in Schulz 1992: 241-242, 254).

“A (Wo)man on a Sofa”. Schulz as a “Painterly” and “Writerly” Artist

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fine art. It does not mean, however, that Schulz did not discuss the tradition as his famous contemporaries did; instead, he tended to allude to a particular type of tradition – by using and combining its characteristic elements – rather than invent new forms of artistic expression. What he created were more or less discursive versions of well-known iconographic schemes, connected to various extents to their prototypes. Drawings such as Reclining Nude (c. 1933) and Reclining Woman (c. 1933), for example, can be seen as the simplest cases of using tradition; they are almost exercises in the style of Goya’s Naked Maja or Manet’s Olympia or as Magorzata Kitowskaysiak argues, Zuloaga’s Irena (Sownik schulzowski: 428). Kitowskaysiak also sees Schulz’s depiction of draperies as a characteristic link to Zuloaga’s manner of creating space. By not ignoring this possibility, one could also point out a connection to Delacroix’s manner of rendering cloth, e.g. in his Female Nude Reclining on a Divan (1830), especially in the context of the third cover of Schulz’s The Idolatrous Book with the woman reclining on the sofa wrapped in sophisticated draperies. This cliché-verre also alludes to the traditional air of a female bedroom: warm, cozy, and erotically attractive (the yellow brownish light used by many painters – beginning with Rembrandt and Rubens – was perhaps symbolically replaced by Schulz with candles burning in candleholders). The fifth cover of The Idolatrous Book alludes to elements known from Velazquez’s Venus at the Mirror (1649-51), with the figures and symbols being playfully changed. Instead of presenting the naked beautiful back of the goddess and hiding her face (in Velazquez’s version the face is seen vaguely only in a mirror held by Cupid), Schulz places the dressed woman frontally (only her legs and arms are naked) and lets us see her face, while the mirror held by Pierrot is empty. One may discuss how this cliché-verre can be interpreted (it should be noted that it is not the only example of Schulz playing with Velazquez’s scheme: two drawings, Venus and Cupid and Venus and Cupid [II] (before 1933) should be recollected here). Yet it is clear that without putting Schulz’s book covers into the context of Velazquez’s painting, the possibilities of discovering Schulz’s art games are lost. What Jerzy Ficowski (1988: 52) called “a deliberate archaization” typical of The Idolatrous Book seems to be a conscious artistic choice bringing forth the main issue of Schulz’s art; it is as though he manifestly declares on the covers of his Book: “this is not how I see a woman but how I

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see (play with) what other artists and their spectators had already seen”. Inside the Book one finds more examples of such playing: one of them, titled ‘The Book of Idolatry II’, alludes to the classical images of a woman on a sofa, this time more in the Titian manner. Yet the woman who lies on the sofa in the pose of Venus of Urbino is only half-naked; her characteristically full body is covered in the upper part, just like her face is partly covered by the hat. Her bosom seems to be shaped in the manner of the other Venus of Titian (“with the organ-player”), and this is not the only link between these pictures. In both the woman is accompanied by a man. Instead of Titian’s organplayer who is distracted from his job of playing the instrument, Schulz presents a man who is distracted from reading a book. Neither man looks at the instruments of art but gazes at the woman. The direction of the organ-player’s glance, toward the division of Venus’s legs, makes his interest in her more obvious than that of Schulz’s man, who tries to catch the woman’s eyes, while kneeling in the pose of both respect and fear. The open book is as empty as the mirror held by Pierrot. This may symbolically connect both of Schulz’s pictures on “idolatry”: the one from the cover and the one from the inside of The Idolatrous Book. Could it be said that the man with the book – resembling Schulz himself – serves as a kind of mediator between the spectator and the erotic object: the voyeur placed within the composition as a surrogate for the voyeur who cannot enter it?3 Or perhaps in Schulz’s case the mediator does not dare to be the voyeur because he can see less than the spectator? The book of idolatry is to be written, the story to be told, and as Schulz seems to suggest, it is a more complex story than the story of sexual attraction. Because Schulz’s Venus holds a kind of a whip instead of red roses symbolizing carnal love (an attribute of Titian’s Venus), she alludes to a different kind of sensuality of which Sacher-Masoch’s Venus became a symbol. Nevertheless, by combining different traditions, Schulz deliberately recalls many Venuses (one could fill the line of tradition with other classical representations among which Paris Bordone’s Venus with Cupid (1520-1530) should be most obvious), intentionally expanding and multiplying meanings. Schulz’s presupposed masochistic interest in women – for which drawings such 3

As Edward Lucie-Smith interprets Titian’s picture (1995: 173).


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as Reclining Female Nude with Self-portrait (before 1936) could provide more arguments – is an element of a very complex play rather than a feature of both Schulz’s personality and art, as his contemporary Witkacy (Witkiewicz 1990: 108-109) and later other interpreters claimed; I agree here with Wodzimierz Bolecki’s standpoint (1994: 128-129). Exploring further the art scenes in which a woman on a sofa is placed in the center of the composition and is the center of artistic endeavors, I would point to one more cliché-verre, ‘Stallions and Eunuchs’, in which Schulz alludes to the characteristic position of the woman lying on her stomach with slightly spread legs, introduced by François Boucher (Odalisque, 1743; Mademoiselle O’Murphy, 1751). Instead of an exclusive boudoir, the typical interior of eighteenthcentury “pink pornography”, Schulz creates a half-open interior and fills the complex expressionistic setting around the woman on the sofa with horses (called stallions in the title, which emphasizes their sexual function) and figures of men (called eunuchs, which emphasizes their asexual function). In this case, disputable “pornographic aspects” of Schulz’s art can be discussed within a comparative perspective. Boucher, according to Edward Lucie-Smith’s interpretation, retains sufficient traces of the individual identity of a desirable young woman to make one wonder what it would be like to go to bed with her (Lucie-Smith 1995: 99), which would mean that by doing so, Boucher crosses the thin line beyond which we talk about pornography.4 Schulz, however, makes one wonder who would go to bed with the somewhat generalized type of woman, devoid of individual traces, and gives the possible answers by contrasting active animals with passive human beings. Through ironic expressions of wishes and fears rather than suggestions of sexual pleasure, Schulz shifts from causing reactions to talking about them; he starts to tell the story of adoration and idolatry, while not necessarily being pornographic (i.e., not necessarily causing sexual reactions, which, in all honesty, can never be unarguably denied). In The Idolatrous Book as a whole, the most characteristic (because they are the most numerous) scenes show the woman placed on the sofa and exercising her power over the man with her naked foot on his face or head (a naked beauty, like Undula, is sometimes 4

Understood in the simplest way as erotic material intended to cause sexual excitement.

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replaced by her dressed maid, traditionally connected with the literary heroine Adela). Even Biblical Susanna (who is surprisingly wearing stockings, which make her look more like Félicien Rops’s Cythera than the biblical symbol of virtue) is placed naked on a type of sofa and put on display. Schulz, an art student and art lover, seems to retain connections to the long tradition of an old man watching a sleeping nude. One may recall Rubens’s Angelica and the Hermit (1626-28), where the possibly dishonest wishes of the hermit are symbolized by the dark screaming face in the background (likewise, in the background of Schulz’s sleeping Susanna, we can also notice such an inhuman face). In the other graphic, still naked and asleep, she is adored by the elders, one of them kissing her foot. The group of elders plays the same role as the group of artists/pariahs/pilgrims in Schulz’s other graphics or drawings: they adore the beauty who (naked or halfnaked, lying, half-lying, or just sitting on a sofa, sometimes on a bench or a chair) pays no attention to them. These group scenes go beyond the iconic tradition of a woman on a sofa and begin to explore new contexts too complex to discuss here. One element, however, should be stressed: the role of a female leg. The line of demonologists, which Witkacy evoked in the context of images of a woman torturing a man with her leg (Cranach, Dürer, Grünewald, Goya, Munch, Beardsley), could be recalled here, yet Schulz starts to play not only with the pictures we have seen but also with the scenes about which we have read. Sacher-Masoch’s demonic women, like Lola kicking the face of the male servant kneeling before her or Venus in furs humiliating her lover, become the most obvious yet, perhaps, overused contexts (Bolecki 1994: 129). Why should we forget Frida stepping on the poor surveyor hidden under the counter at their first meeting in Das Schloss? While a female leg is an element of the sexual play in Schulz’s graphics and drawings, a sofa (bed) seems to be a necessary prop, the sign of being put on display and being watched, the iconic sign of demonstrating sexual attraction and sexual captivation in a recognizable manner. Schulz creates his message as if he were a mediator between the pictures already seen and those he creates himself. Such an attitude seems to have been symbolically presented in an India ink drawing titled Masochistic scene; above the sofa and the naked woman displaying her back temptingly to the naked man lying flat on the rug below, we can see a frame which is left empty. It


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can be interpreted as a mirror,5 one of many mirrors in Schulz’s art that reflects nothing; yet the pose of the woman can also be recognized as a transformation of the famous Grand Odalisque (1814) by Ingres, which was said to be a transformation of David’s Madame Recamier (1800). Thus the spectator might move backwards in his or her interpretation: from Schulz’s erotic (masochistic) scene in which the naked woman deliberately puts on a provocative pose while looking indifferently toward the spectator/admirer present in the picture to the equally indifferent though less provocative Odalisque looking at the spectator placed outside the picture, and finally to the modest and noble Madame – whose potential erotic appeal is only gently suggested by her naked feet – fully dressed and placed on the sofa in a manner which suggests a salon rather than a bedroom scene. The empty frames above the sofa can be filled with images to which Schulz seems to allude by using both the well-known scheme and the symbolically empty frame (which becomes the metaframe), as if he constantly (also by means of repetitions) moves along the line of tradition, between the salon and the boudoir; between the innocent beauty (goddess) and the indifferent torturer; between the spectator who watches the scene from outside the frames and the spectator present inside (who is sometimes the artist himself); between this which can be demonstrated in a particular picture and that which can be expressed by a series of particular pictures and their reinterpretations. Art and Literature The connection between Schulz’s visual and literary representations, which manifests as a disruptive tension arising between the same motif depicted in Schulz’s art and literature, can be demonstrated by a scene from the story titled ‘Edzio’ (‘Eddie’). The well-known illustration presented in the London edition (1998) with a caption taken from the story – “Every night he presses his white, fat face to the window pane” (1998: 242;6 “Jak co nocy, przyciska sw blad 5

This would be quite unusual, however, because pictures were commonly placed above sofas, and this tradition was still respected by expressionists (Erich Heckel, Lying woman (1909)). 6 All further references will be given as CW.

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tust twarz […] do szyby”; 1989: 292)7 – shows a man behind a window, with an ecstatic (painful) expression on his face, and a naked woman sleeping on a big flat bed, with her head on a pillow. While the spectator can see her naked front, the man behind the window can only see her back, yet he does not look.8 The full moon illuminates the scene in which the interior mingles with the exterior; since the room opens into the city, the woman is placed in an open space, while the man seems to be caged, painfully separated from the woman by the window that he touches powerlessly with his open hands. The whole scene could be interpreted in typical sexual terms: the man suffers from desire, while the woman sleeps indifferently and out of his reach. When we go back to Schulz’s text, however, the interpretation must be changed considerably because Edzio does not occupy the same position as the other “Peeping Toms”, young shop-assistants who would stand in front of Adela’s window singing dirty songs and trying to spy on her. On the contrary, disabled Edzio cries for help and because his crutches are locked in the cupboard, so must jump on all fours like a dog. Alas, Adela sleeps indifferently and ecstatically: “She has no strength even to pull up the blanket over her bare thighs” (CW 243; “Nie ma si nawet, by wci gn kodr na obna one uda”; Op 292). Surprisingly, it is not sexuality but dreamlike transformations of leaf-like insects running over Adela’s naked body which are explored in the literary scene. The manner in which they are depicted creates a separate and suggestive picture of which nothing is present in the “illustration”: S to paskie torebki na krew, rude mieszki na krew, bez oczu i bez fizjonomii, i teraz maszeruj caymi klanami, wielka w drówka ludów podzielona na pokolenia i na rody. Biegn od nóg krociami, niezliczon promenad , coraz wi ksze, tak wielkie jak my, jak paskie pugilaresy, jak wielkie czerwone wampiry bez gowy, lekkie i papierowe na nó kach subtelniejszych od paj czyny. (CW 292) They are flat receptacles for blood, reddish blood bags without eyes or faces, now on the march in whole clans on a migration of the species subdivided into generations and tribes. They run up from her feet in scores, a never-ending procession, they are larger now, as large as moths,

7

All further references will be given as Op. His eyes are closed, his mouth half-open; the woman’s mouth is half-open, and her eyes are closed too while her face is turned in the opposite direction, which emphasizes the effect of separation. 8


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flat red vampires without heads, lightweight as if cut out of paper, on legs more delicate than the web of spiders. (Op 243)

While the drawing depicts the story of desire, the literary text goes much further, depicting the story of the mysterious life of small creatures which develops into the image of all the sleeping creatures in the house. Thus, while the “illustration” is kept within a wellknown convention, in accordance with the idea that female nakedness causes male suffering, the literary scene goes beyond the description of the sexual attractiveness of a naked female body or its aesthetics. Schulz’s literary scenes open the areas of transformations and transgressions, which always diverge from the pictures, even though they are called “illustrations”. Literature The first strong indication of a meaningful shift of notions is seen in a literary depiction of Touya. After having seen and analyzed all of the fine art scenes where a woman placed on a sofa was admired, adored, and feared, when we turn to Schulz’s first short story ‘Sierpie’ (‘August’), the Touya scene strikes us as a unique one, not a typical realization of the scheme. However, some of the iconic layer is still easily recognizable. Touya “sits hunched up” on a bed, “among the yellow bedding and odd rags” (CW 11; “siedzi przykucni ta wród ótej pocieli i szmat”; Op 7). The bed itself is an unaesthetic and defunct object – “propped up on two bricks where one leg was missing” – and so is the heroine, the “half-naked idiot girl” (CW 11; “podparte zamiast brakuj cej nogi dwiema starymi cegami”, “na wpó naga i ciemna kretynka”; Op 7-8). The scene is set in a garden, which we seldom see in Schulz’s drawings and graphics. When he once placed the woman on an antique bed against a landscape, it was a city landscape (Akt w antycznym ou na tle miejskiego krajobrazu, 1930). In the drawing, the naked woman reclines gracefully on a pillow, with her body put on display and meant to be adored. Touya cannot be adored because her inhuman ugliness is emphasized in the description, yet the moment she rises on her feet and stands like a pagan idol (“on short childish legs”; CW 11; “na krótkich, dziecinnych nó kach”; Op 8), she becomes more than an object to be

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seen and not touched.9 Instead of torturing men with her sexuality and playing with their sexual wishes, she turns out to be a self-sufficient erotic creature reaching sexual fulfillment without a man. There is, however, still someone who watches and describes Touya, a voyeur without whom we would not see the half-wit, half-naked girl on the bed, “the autobiographical boy Joseph, passive, tolerant, a watcher and a learner” (Brown 1991: 54). Is this scene supposed to function as a simple negation of aesthetic categories? It seems to be highly subversive in comparison to literary scenes in which a woman on a sofa used to be placed in the middle of a salon, for example, Jules Barbey D’Aurevilly’s baroness de Mascranny reclining on the sofa as if she were Cleopatra, or more ironically rendered yet exploring the same scheme, Witkacy’s Akne who lies on a sofa in a traditional pose and teases her admirer Bungo with her leg intentionally dressed in a black stocking and black shoe (Witkiewicz 1996: 133). By replacing beauty with ugliness, the salon with the garden, civilized and controlled poses with savage wild gestures, erotic passive attractiveness with sexual active selffulfillment, Schulz confronts his voyeur/spectator/reader with a scene which could hardly be accepted as pleasurable or alluring. The question he asks is no longer about what we want to see and who wants to be watched but is instead about what we refuse to see or realize. Schulz obviously does not ask his imaginary question in the manner of naturalism, but he instead confronts us with what we have already seen through using a pictorial screen. His device can be compared to grotesque devices introduced by the Polish modernistic writer Roman Jaworski (Historie maniaków / The Stories of Maniacs, 1910). In one of his stories he presents us with Honorcia, who has a disproportionately ugly body marked by warts and thin wisps of oily hair and seems to be a parody of the fin de siècle beauties, especially when her image is contrasted with well-known paintings. Honorcia, after her death, leaves her husband an unusual set of pictures called “the past tokens of the secret cabaret”. Among them, not surprisingly, are Goya’s Maja desunda, Rembrandt’s Danae, and Titian’s Venus

9 It seems as if two scenes known from Schulz’s graphics, the woman reclining on the bed and the woman standing up on her beautiful legs, were united in one movie-like sequence. When we look at Touya from this perspective, her “short legs” in contrast with “long legs” of women from the pictures become one more visible sign of aesthetic discussion.


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from Urbino (which itself is the proof of the diffusion of the tradition in the epoch). All pictures are less attractive and devoid of charm because the face of Honorcia was glued to all of them (Jaworski 1978: 118). Both Jaworski and Schulz do not create a grotesque representation of the world but a grotesque representation of the representations; they “glue” new pictures on those to which we were accustomed. Additionally, Schulz sets the pictures in motion using a cinema-like technique. The narrative character of his graphics turns into a real narration; the passive idol adored in a set of sequences becomes an active anti-idol playing its own game, still in front of the spectator/voyeur, present both inside and outside the scene. The artistic credo of The Idolatrous Book, which can be specified as the cult of the freedom of artistic expression aimed against the Old Testament ban on idolatry (Van Heuckelom 2007: 570), expands to the region of new transgressions; The Idolatrous Book (a set of pictures) indeed becomes a book (a story told). An analogy can be drawn between the manner in which Touya is presented and the way in which the pornographic cards are displayed to the young Joseph at the ending of the same story. The cards with pictures of “naked women and boys in strange positions” (“nagie kobiety i chopcy w dziwnych pozycjach”) are first watched by the boy “with distant, unseeing eyes” (“dalekimi, niewidz cymi oczyma”), then the moment of “sudden comprehension” (CW 14; “nage zrozumienie”; Op 12) inevitably comes. Both scenes seem to be good examples of “iconic intertextuality – an interplay of pictures and images” (Stala 1993: 102) because sexuality is shown through some medium, through cards, through pictures. In each case the moment of realization is needed. The realization of how pornography works, however, is not the realization of how art works. Touya on the bed in “her immobile frame” refers to other frames (although the word frame should not be seen as double-coded in Schulz’s text),10 to other pictures shaking them as she shakes the bed with her moves, and it is not so much the realization of our sexuality that we are faced with as the realization of how sexuality was (or was not) depicted. Because the well-known and widespread convention is subverted, the effect becomes staggering. 10

In the Polish sentence: “Muchy obsiadaj nieruchom g stym rojem” (8; “A dense swarm of flies gathers around the immobile [Touya]”), a frame does not appear.

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It could be argued that the interpretation of the Touya scene is more or less disputable; the bed, for example, can be seen as too weak a link with the tradition. Had Touya been placed on the ground, it could be argued, not much would have changed. Nevertheless, Schulz avoids putting his models and heroines on the ground and seems to keep the sofa (bed) as the prop which gives him an opportunity to subvert social codes, especially salon codes (repeated in less majestic yet equally pretentious drawing rooms) and perhaps also, with an ironic wink, middle-class morality. What was ironically rendered by Flaubert as Madam Bovary’s enchantments with drawings on which ladies “lay on sofas […] gazing dreamily at the moon” (Flaubert 1995: 51) is one more convention which should be kept in mind while interpreting Schulz’s scenes. The element of Madam Bovary’s dreamlike life, ladies on sofas resting in salons, well-established both in literary and art depictions11 (at least Claude Monet’s Madame Monet on the Couch (1871) should be called to mind), is usually set apart from fine art representations of “reclining women” because it seems to be devoid of eroticism, yet the same prop – the sofa – is in operation here (which Toulouse-Lautrec masterfully used in In the Salon at Rue des Moulins (1894)). Let us see what Schulz did with that salon (drawing room) context. At the beginning of ‘Karakony’ (‘Cockroaches’) we find a mother who, suffering from a migraine (one more stereotypical sign of social codes), “was lying down on the sofa in the drawing room” (CW 65; “le aa na sofie w salonie”; Op 82) with her son sitting near. He was “absent-mindedly touching with two fingers the delicate fabric of her housecoat” (CW 66; “badaj c dwoma palcami, jakby w zamyleniu, delikatn materi jej szlafroka”; Op 82) while his conscious efforts were directed at learning what had happened to his father, whether he had been really transformed into the condor. The mother becomes embarrassed at the question and casts down her eyes. Nevertheless, after a moment, she starts to masterfully use all the tricks of a flirtatious woman: she blinks her eyes; her lips tremble lightly, then they swell but at the same time become smaller. It is no surprise that the son soon felt “she was being coy, like a woman with 11

Ladies on sofas are also well-established in readers’ imaginations as the cover of the popular edition quoted above seems to suggests; one can see a charming lady on a sofa looking straight into a future reader. Le Sphinx by James Tissot turns into Madame Bovary herself.


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a strange man” (CW 66; “[…], e mnie kokietuje, jak kobieta m czyzn ”; Op 83). As in the case of the Touya scene, there is also an element of movement in the salon scene. Like the black flies around Touya’s bed which rise in a buzzing cloud, the peacock’s feathers standing in a vase (the “frivolous element” (“element swawolny”) out of Adela’s control) do not stop “winking, fluttering their eyelashes” (CW 66; “robiy perskie oczko”; Op 82). That uncontrolled movement seems to suggest that something will be unsettled: in Touya’s case, it is our aesthetic sense whereas in the mother’s case, it is our moral sense. Schulz’s play goes far beyond a simple moral rebellion or a representation of what is really hidden beneath the salon games around a sofa, which can be demonstrated by evoking some literary contexts. Proust, commonly regarded as one of Schulz’s literary fathers (Brown 1991: 56-57), and his rendition of the intimate mother-son rendezvous by the bed, seems to be the most obvious literary context. Again, as in case of some of Schulz’s graphics, the elements which might be reversed by Schulz would be easy to indicate; instead of a nervous boy trying to keep his mother at his bed with his charming poses and small lies, we are presented with an ailing mother who pretends that she does not know the truth. She uses all her charm to distract the son from his duty, just as Proust’s son would use all his charm to distract his mother from her duty. In both cases, the intimate mother-son rendezvous by the bed is used against fathers (symbolizing the painful truth that one must grow up and accept the harsh reality). In Schulz’s scene the innocent child’s game was replaced with a villainous mother’s game, with the shift emphasized by the mother’s erotic attractiveness. Beyond this literary context (or beneath it) an archetypal situation emerges because it is the young Joseph who is being seduced. That Putifar’s wife, despite being older, was not a mother could be argued here but only while disregarding the arguments of Thomas Mann’s Mut. When Joseph tells her that his master Putifar is like a father to him and that sleeping with his wife would be like sleeping with his own mother, Mut ridicules his childishness announcing that “everybody sleeps with his mother” because a woman is “the mother of the world and her son is a man who begets in his mother” (“Mit der Muter schläft jeder […]. Das Weib ist die Mutter der Welt; ihr Sohn ist der Mann, und jeder Mann zeugt in der Mutter […]“ (Mann 1983: 511). Mut, like Schulz’s mother “with a bandage

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round her head”, also bears the sign of illness, an intentionally hurt tongue (which she cut herself at the moment she thought about killing her husband, a thought of which Schulz’s Joseph also accuses his mother in the course of action), and most obviously, her attempts to seduce Joseph focus on drawing him into her bed. Both Josephs, Mann’s (or the biblical, see Schulz 1990: 114) and Schulz’s, protest with virtuous indignation in the name of their fathers. Seen from this angle, Schulz’s hero repeats the mythical story of failed seduction which is in accordance with one of the levels of Schulz’s programmatic “mythologizing of reality”: Nie ma okruszyny wród naszych idei, która by nie pochodzia z mitologii – nie bya przeobra on , okaleczon , przeistoczon mitologi . Najpierwotniejsz funkcj ducha jest bajanie, jest tworzenie “historyj”. Si motoryczn wiedzy ludzkiej jest przewiadczenie, e znajdzie ona na kocu swych bada ostateczny sens wiata. […] Ale elementy, których u ywa do budowy, ju byy raz u yte, ju pochodz z zapomnianych i u ytych “historyj”. (Op 366) (Not one scrap of an idea of ours does not originate in myth, isn’t transformed, mutilated, denatured mythology. The most fundamental function of the spirit is inventing fables, creating tales. The driving force of human knowledge is the conviction that at the end of its researches the sense of the world, the meaning of life, will be found. [T]he building materials it uses were used once before; they come from forgotten, fragmented tales or “histories”; Schulz 1990: 116)

Despite the fact that Schulz ironically transforms “the history”, rendering the seduction of Joseph as a salon game around a sofa, he makes the episode meaningful in the context of the whole story because at the end Joseph’s transformed father vanishes definitively while his mother eliminates and takes over the position of Adela the rival. By doing so, she makes her sexuality, which is strongly emphasized in the analyzed scene, triumphant. Despite its visibility, the scene with the mother attempting to seduce her son by “playing coy on a sofa” was not noticed by interpreters. Whether one reads the entry in Sownik schulzowski (The Schulz Dictionary; 2003: 210) or the whole article devoted to the image of the mother in Schulz’s prose (Kitowska-ysiak 2003: 351), the sexual connotations of the sofa scene are not evoked; perhaps the iconic and mythical layer of the scene had not been decoded (despite the obvious mythical connotation to Venus, so often represented in Schulz’s graphics and


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drawings, who was Cupid’s mother); or perhaps the interpreters had found the scene too unsettling. Having subverted our aesthetic and moral sense and having played with all the kitsch which attracts the readers for whom Madam Bovary is the immortal symbol, Schulz crosses one more line, that of gender. The creature on the sofa can be attractive not because she is a woman but because the poses and the sofa have had sexual connotations for ages. Whoever assumes the right pose in the convenient situation becomes sexually attractive. The salesman from the ‘Ulica krokodyli’ (‘The Street of Crocodiles’) story arranges “a sham comedy” as if illustrating Joseph’s father’s “extravagant concept of mimesis inverted” (Stala 1993: 102) introduced in ‘Druga jesie’ (‘A Second Autumn’); yet it is not nature that imitates art (or the expression of pure convention, “third- and fourth-rate painters”) but a human being. By manipulating a piece of cloth like “a screen ironically placed to hide the true meaning of things”, the salesman is not only a director but also an actor within that comedy, “prancing around like a transvestite” (CW 59; “przymila si i kryguje i chwilami robi wra enie transwestyty”; Op 74). His actions lead from trademarks on the material which embody just “transparent symbolism” into the realm of meanings marked by “the most peculiar trademarks” and “highly questionable” books and private editions. Once more we are faced with “books, drawings, photographs” symbolizing “the depths of corruption”. This time the private scene which took place between Joseph and his cousin in ‘August’ becomes more public, everyone who enters the shop is subjected to “varieties of licentiousness” manifested by visual objects; the change in narration, with “I” being replaced by “we”, emphasizes the common level of the experience which, with time, turns into a “general lasciviousness” (CW 60). At this point, the main actor changes his tactics from “active importuning” to “feminine passivity”; thus the subject becomes the object. His show culminates in a well-known display: “He now lay on one of the many sofas which stood between bookshelves, wearing a pair of deeply cut silk pyjamas” (CW 60; “Le y teraz na jednej z wielu kanap, porozstawianych wród rejonów ksi ek, w jedwabnej pi amie, odsaniaj cej kobiecy dekolt”; Op 75). The original says much more: his pyjamas expose “a female cleavage” (“kobiecy dekolt”). This small detail, omitted in translation, goes beyond the conventions of a

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woman on a sofa; by adding it, Schulz enters a new realm of transgression: transsexuality. It seems it was easier (or perhaps safer) for Schulz to transgress the images created by words than those represented in pictures. No similar scene is to be found in Schulz’s drawings or graphics; it is always a woman who is placed on a sofa, though for a long time the tradition of fine arts has also known other representations (e.g. Giovanni Lanfranco, Young Boy on a Bed, c. 1620). Schulz’s transvestite also deviates from the well-established modernistic pattern of a hermaphrodite. Let us recall Huysmans’s famous Miss Urania, whose sex was being changed “artificially” in a single moment from a typical, lovely woman, through an androgynous phase, and finally to a complete man (Huysmans 1997: 145-146); in one of Witkacy’s dramas (Maciej Korbowa i Bellatrix, 1918), the hermaphrodite Bellatrix exhibits the same type of transformations. Schulz does not present us with a scene of a deliberate change of sex – which more or less belongs to the fantastic (grotesque) world to which hermaphrodites themselves belong (in ancient art often placed alongside satyrs) – but with the question of deliberately pretending to belong to the different sex. From the world of symbolic (mythical) figures, we move to the world of real (i.e., existing in the real world) attitudes, from symbols of ambiguous human nature to the real examples of such ambiguity.12 The sham comedy becomes an ironic play with our (our being emphasized in narration) modes of perception because the presentation takes the shape of a performance played in the theatre with well-known props: a sofa and various licentious pictures. If the woman on the sofa has always been used to attract attention in art (and in life), which can be easily accepted and agreed upon, then the easiest way of arousing the same interest is to assume the same pose. When Schulz’s transvestite does it (s)he does not subvert the convention itself but subverts our way of interpreting conventions and sexuality by fitting into the convention. (S)he becomes the center of attention but his/her pose is also that of the 12

Needless to say, it is a transvestite and not a hermaphrodite who became the cult figure of the late twentieth century and played a special role, for example, in the socalled “camp literature” for which Schulz’s sentence from the analyzed story could be a motto: “Reality is as thin as paper and betrays with all its cracks its imitative character” (CW 61; “Ta rzeczywisto jest cienka jak papier i wszystkimi szparami zdradza sw imitatywno”; Op 76).


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spectator; (s)he watches the girls who demonstrate the poses “of the drawings” in front of the sofa, while “the excited onlooker” is ignored. The performance becomes an inner one which is played regardless of our wishes; the convention goes on by itself. Escape is the only action one can take when confronted with ironically stripped iconic layers of our perception: “[W]e slip back into the street. No one stops us” (CW 61; “Skorzystajmy z tego momentu nieuwagi, a eby […] wydosta si

na ulic . Nikt nas nie zatrzymuje”; Op 75-76). The roles of actors and spectators, passive and active figures are inverted as well as gender roles in the spectacle traditionally played out in front of the sofa. Having subverted our aesthetic and moral sense, Schulz uses the same iconic pattern to subvert our sense of the sexes and their roles by shifting from literary modernistic patterns (hermaphrodite) to the theatre of life patterns (transvestite). All the elements discussed above seem to merge in the poses which Bianca assumes. In the 28th section of ‘Wiosna’ (‘Spring’), she is seen in “a shining, open landau as broad and shallow as a conch” (CW 150; “lni ca, otwarta landara z pudem szerokim i pytkim”; Op 174). “In that white, silk-lined shell” Bianca is “half-lying, in a tulle dress” (CW 150; “W tej biaej, jedwabnej muszli […] na wpó le c w tiulowej sukience”; Op 174). The aesthetics of this scene serve as an illustration of Huysmans’s Duke’s opinion on furniture which, with its shapes imitating the shapes that a woman’s body takes, would cloak the woman in the sinful atmosphere of the eighteenth century.13 What was the symbol of sin becomes in Schulz’s image the symbol of innocence, which is emphasized by the whiteness. However, the conch-shaped seat in which Bianca reclines evokes sexual connotations. The same shape is easy to find in Schulz’s drawing called Sadystki (1919); the tradition of using the shell shape dates back to Botticelli (Sownik schulzowski 2003: 231). The play between innocence and sin becomes more visible in Schulz’s illustrations of the scene, which directly allude to sexuality. In one of them Bianca’s legs are shown; in the other one she is naked, which clashes with the innocence of her pose in the conch. In the course of the story, during the night, her poses become even more ambivalent: from the conch she is moved to the bed, the whiteness of the day scene is replaced by

13 “[S]eul, en effet, le XVIIIe siècle a su envelopper la femme d’une atmosphère vicieuse, contournant les meubles selon la forme de ses charmes, imitant les contractions de ses plaisirs, les volutes de ses spasmes” (Huysmans 1997: 105).

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the pink glow of the bed lamp. She “rests on enormous pillows” (CW 167; “spoczywa wród ogromnych poduszek”; Op 198), though in fact she sails on the bedding like on a night tide and the implied movement crosses the female passivity connected with the pose on the bed. Her power over the male spectator (Joseph again but this time in a role of a secretary, sometimes called “regent”) is symbolized by the conscious control of her glamour; flaws in her beauty seen from nearby disappear from a distance where her beauty “regenerates” and becomes unbearable (and from a distance is the only way of seeing the woman on the sofa). Bianca’s indifference is emphasized by her book reading, which irritates the busy secretary. Yet the only reaction he deserves is irony. Later, with a characteristic gesture, Bianca puts her pale arm under her head and mischievously plays the role of the capricious kid, who sends all important papers to the floor with one kick of her foot under the bedclothes. Again, as with many of Schulz’s graphics, we are presented with a scene in which the man is ruled by the female leg and finds himself below the woman, this time crouching and picking up papers. The scene, just like the Touya, the mother, and the transvestite scenes, is everything but a stable frame; the crazy rustle of the trees behind the open window “evoke in the room visions of landscapes” with “innumerable trees and bushes moving past the bed” (CW 168; “Coraz nowe odcinki lasu przesuwaj si i w druj , korowody drzew i krzewów, cae scenerie lene pyn , rozprzestrzeniaj c si przez pokój”; Op 200). This is only the beginning of the transformations as the bedroom changes into a compartment, “rolling slowly along a ravine in the wooded outskirts of the city” (CW 168; tocz cym si

wolno brzegiem parowu po lesistej okolicy miasta”; Op 200). Even a conductor with a lantern appears from nowhere and punches tickets with his machine. This surrealistic transformation is far from the plays one can find in Schulz’s pictures; it is as if the surrealistic domain was reserved (mainly) for his literary world. Nevertheless, the sense of “a bed scene” does not disappear as Bianca wriggles “like a lizard under her counterpane” (CW 169; “jak jaszczurka pod kodr ”; Op 200) before the last act of humiliation. Having accused Joseph of a betrayal (and having praised his rival Rudolf), she finally asks a surprising question: “Do you remember Lonka, the washerwoman Antonia’s daughter, with whom you played when you were small?” (CW 169; “Czy pami tasz Lonk , córk Antosi, praczki, z któr bawie si ,


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b d c may?”; Op 200) and answers it giggling: “It was I […] only I was a boy at that time. Did you like me then?” (CW 169; “To byam ja […] tylko, e byam jeszcze wówczas chopcem. Czy podobaam ci si wtedy?”; Op 200). The hermaphrodite motif comes back, and it does not seem to me that it is only a sign of Bianca’s androgyny (Sownik schulzowski 2003: 46-49), to which I will revert. The Bianca scene embodies the richest version of the “(wo)man on a sofa” scenes rendered in Schulz’s prose. It contains all the symbolic elements crucial for the iconographic scheme and transgresses them in the course of action: a majestic pose of a woman – high on pillows – changes into a series of a lizard-like movements; her characteristic gestures vary from expressions of indifference to exercises of power, including the characteristic movement of a leg. The figures of the men, in their different roles at the bed, are also multifariously evoked: a subdued man (who is the spectator of the display and the actor on whom the game is played), the figure of a rival (Rudolf), and a conductor whose status is surprisingly not that of another actor or spectator but that of a controller (who, in fact, cannot control anything). All of these elements are set in the interior of the bedroom which changes into a moving landscape. Just like the frame of the scene is unsettled, all the other categories are subverted: the moral (Bianca’s presupposed innocence is crossed by her betrayal), the aesthetic (her alluring beauty changes according to the distance), and the sexual (she is not the woman but the boy who became the woman). All of these elements can be linked to particular fine art and literary traditions or even sometimes to specific scenes. Bianca’s poses allude to a tradition from which various gestures were adopted and taken up in Schulz’s own art (the white arm under her head, the mischievously playful leg); the changes of objects and landscapes refer to a surrealistic tradition, such as the one built up by Kafka, for example. Yet, as Russell E. Brown (1991: 91) remarked, Kafka’s erotic scenes take place in the most inconvenient places, where floors or benches are much more conspicuous than beds; Bianca’s sadistic or at least hostile actions can be seen as an allusion to Sacher-Masoch’s stories, which are, however, devoid of any surrealistic devices (especially surrealistic lightness in the sense Italo Calvino spoke of in his American lectures). The two texts seem to be particularly in agreement with the Bianca scene and can be used to illuminate further interpretations. However, let us look once more at Schulz’s “literary

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father”, Thomas Mann, and his heroine Clawdia Chauchat. At the beginning of the novel she is set typically in the center of the group, on the sofa and admired from a distance by Hans Castorp. At the culmination of his enchantment, during Walpurgis Night, later called “the additional time” (the Bianca scene takes place during an extra night, called “noc zamarginesowa”), the young admirer brings a soft armchair in which Clawdia adopts “almost a lying pose”. Although she places her knees too high, she still crosses her legs and keeps rocking one of them (the fact that it was dressed in a black stocking and a shining black shoe should not surprise us).14 It is no wonder that Hans ends up kneeling before her and declares his passionate love, only to be dismissed. Equally as capricious as Bianca, Clawdia also bears a similar sign of transsexuality; her eyes are the eyes of Prybislaw, the boy with whom Hans was infatuated as a youth. When we keep Prybislaw/Clawdia in mind, Bianca’s revelation that she was a boy once does not seem astonishing; her figure obviously goes beyond the mythical context of androgyny and enters the realm of literary dialogue. Mann’s Clawdia is also put on pillows in a sledge, first when she leaves the sanatorium with her compatriot, then when she comes back with Hans’s rival at her side. Perhaps it should not be surprising that the integral elements in Bianca’s appearance are all found in Mann’s story which is shaped by the same tradition though considerably condensed (to the length of two pages!), transformed, and put into a surrealistic domain, into Schulz’s specific world. Also, Marcel and Albertina should not be forgotten in the context of great love scenes in which a kneeling admirer is dismissed and humiliated by an indifferent woman lying on a bed. As Marcel approached too closely, he lost his balance and dared to try kissing the one who was only supposed to be watched (Proust 1991: 752-753). (Bianca, in her wisdom, spared her admirer that destructive closeness.) The humiliated Marcel at last conquers the object of his admiration during a “reverted scene” (as he himself says), when he lies down in a bed, and Albertina sits near. Perhaps that change of position turned him from the victim into the conqueror. Such a change never happens to Schulz’s Joseph who always remains on the verge of the sexual 14

“Sie ihrerseits lag allzu tief in dem Plüschgehänge, ihre Knie waren emporgehoben, doch schlug sie trotzdem das eine über das andere und ließ ihren Fuß in der Höhe wippen, dessen Knöchel über dem Rande des schwarzen Lackschuhs von der ebenfalls schwarzen Seide des Strumpfes überspannt war” (Mann 1981: 470).


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activities of an adult, while retaining the timidity and diffidence of a middle-class child (Brown 1991: 60). Conclusion Regardless of how many contexts of a particular motif one can indicate,15 trying to fulfill the encyclopedic Stoffgeschichte task, the way in which Schulz uses well-known art and literary motifs, has less to do with intertextuality between specific works than with the entire cultural code comprised of discourses, stereotypes, clichés, and various modes of artistic and literary representations. Schulz’s astonishing ability to transgress them makes his text a “writerly” one in Barthes’s sense – the text of bliss that “imposes a state of loss, the text that discomforts (perhaps to the point of certain boredom), unsettles the reader’s historical, cultural, psychological assumptions, the consistency of his tastes, values, memories […]” (Barthes 1975: 14). Because of this, Schulz’s works will always seem to be simultaneously similar to a particular tradition and different from it16 as his constant play with well-established literary and fine art images is far from being limited. For the same reason, his texts remain modern and seductive, especially because they deal with the theatre of love we all share, the theatre in which a woman who is watched and admired and a man who watches and admires her have played their (and not only their) parts for ages. Schulz puts us all in the position of spectators/voyeurs – not only in his art but also in his writing – and does not allow us to forget that we are voyeurs of some higher degree;

15 One could also ask about the traditions which are not evoked, like women dying in beds, as it often happens in Poe’s stories, especially since Poe is one of a few writers evoked by name in Schulz’s prose though he is characteristically mistaken for Baudelaire. Illness and death are not connected with a woman in neither Schulz’s stories nor his pictures; the other tradition of a man in bed, ill and dying, could be explored instead. 16 In the case of the motif discussed it could be said that Schulz resembles Kafka while employing surrealistic transformations yet not while applying an iconic layer, or that he seems to be close to Proust’s autobiographical narration yet goes much further in the transgressions of salon codes; or that he is close to Mann when reaching for an archetypal layer while being more ironic; or that he delves into the world of art like Huysmans and Kubin (and that his Crocodile Street reminds one of Huysmans’s Rivoli Street or Kubin’s French district) yet is more deeply embedded in the world of nature; or that, at last, he alludes to Sacher-Masoch’s stories while operating on a level which goes far beyond set stereotypes.

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we are the spectators of scenes watched before and witnessed many times in many different circumstances, both in art and literature as well as in life. In a masterful way, he makes us see them differently, not beside the broad tradition but through it and beyond it, with new meanings to be discovered. In his many drawings and graphics, from simple sketches to complex scenes, Schulz seems to practice his ability of unsettling our assumptions by playing with well-known elements and displacing them (as it happens with a book which is no longer reserved for a woman on a sofa) rather than by transgressing conventions; in this sense his art could be called a “painterly” one. In his published books, not accidentally limited to two collections of perfectly wrought short stories, he transgresses both conventions and our expectations.17 Annette Lavers’s definition of the “writerly” text seems to suit Schulz’s world perfectly; his text “has to be created anew in each reader, the observer being part of the observed” (Lavers 1982: 202). The mode, however, in which Schulz creates his world is far from postmodern free play. Despite the fact that he witnesses the bankruptcy of reality, the “ever-present atmosphere of the stage, of sets viewed from behind, where the actors make fun of the pathos of their parts after stripping off their costumes” (Schulz 1990: 113; “atmosfera kulis, tylnej strony sceny, gdzie aktorzy po zrzuceniu kostiumów zamiewaj si z patosu swych ról”; Op 445) – the varieties of the “(wo)man on a sofa” scenes seem to illustrate this excellently – he also constantly searches for “primeval patterns”, “stories”, “matrices of myth” out of which he creates his own private mythology, and this is what has to be created in each reader anew, the reader being part of the reading. Bibliography Barthes, Roland. 1975. The Pleasure of the Text (tr. R. Miller). New York: Hill and Wang. Bolecki, Wodzimierz. 1994. ‘Witkacy-Schulz, Schulz-Witkacy’ in Jarz bski, Jerzy (ed.) Czytanie Schulza. Kraków: Instytut Filologii Polskiej UJ: 127-151.

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Schulz himself put it this way: “A drawing sets narrower limits by its material than prose does. That is why I feel I have expressed myself more fully in my writing.” (Schulz 1990a: 112; “Rysunek zakrela cianiejsze granice swym materiaem ni proza. Dlatego s dz , e w prozie wypowiedziaem si peniej”; Op 443-444).


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Brown, Russell E. 1991. Myths and Relatives. Seven Essays on Bruno Schulz. München: Verlag Otto Sagner. Flaubert, Gustave. 1995. Madame Bovary (tr. T. Russell). London: Penguin. Ficowski, Jerzy. 1988. ‘Introduction’ in Schulz, Bruno. Xiga Bawochwalcza (ed. J. Ficowski). Warsaw: Interpress: 5-54. Ficowski, Jerzy. 1998, ‘Introduction to Drawings’ in Schulz (1998): 505-522. Huysmans, Joris-Karl. 1997. À rebours. (ed. D. Mortier). Paris: Pocket. Jaworski, Roman. 1978. Historie maniaków. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata. 2003. ‘Matka wychodzi z cienia’ in Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata and Wadysaw Panas (eds). W uamkach zwierciada…Bruno Schulz w 110 rocznic urodzin i 60 rocznic mierci. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL: 341-355. Lavers, Annette. 1982. Roland Barthes: Structuralism and After. London: Methuen. Lucie-Smith, Edward. 1995. Sexuality in Western Art. London: Thames and Hudson. Mann, Thomas. 1981. Der Zauberberg. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag. ——. 1983. Joseph und seine Brüder III. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag. Proust, Marcel. 1991. A la recherche du temps perdu. A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. (ed. J. Yoshida). Paris: Éditions Robert Laffont, S.A. Schulz, Bruno. 1989. Opowiadania. Wybór esejów i listów (ed. J. Jarz bski). Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossoliskich. ——. 1990. ‘An Essay for S. I. Witkiewicz’; ‘The Mythologizing of Reality’ in Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz with Selected Prose (ed. J. Ficowski, tr. W. Arndt and V. Nelson). New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation: 110-114, 115-117. ——. 1992. Bruno Schulz 1892-1942: Rysunki i archiwalia ze zbiorów Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza w Warszawie (ed. W. Chmurzyski). Warszawa: Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza w Warszawie. ——. 1998. The Collected Works of Bruno Schulz (ed. J. Ficowski). London: Picador. Sownik schulzowski. 2003. (ed. W. Bolecki et al.) Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria. Stala, Krzysztof. 1993. On the Margins of Reality: the Paradoxes of Representation in Bruno Schulz’s Fiction. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Van Heuckelom, Kris. 2007. ‘Koncepcja idolatrii w twórczoci Brunona Schulza z punktu widzenia studiów wizualnych’ in Czermiska, Magorzata et al. (eds). Literatura, kultura i jzyk polski w kontekstach i kontaktach wiatowych. Pozna: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM: 563-571. Witkiewicz, Stanisaw Ignacy. 1990. ‘Interview with Bruno Schulz’ in: Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz. With Selected Prose: (ed. J. Ficowski, tr. W. Arndt and V. Nelson). New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation: 107-110. ——. 1996. 622 upadki Bunga, czyli Demoniczna kobieta. (ed. A. Miciska). Warszawa: PIW.

The Early Graphic Works of Bruno Schulz and SacherMasoch’s Venus in Furs: Schulz as a Modernist Ariko Kato Abstract: This article discusses the early graphic works of Bruno Schulz in relation to Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s novel Venus im Pelz (Venus in Furs, 1870). First, it demonstrates that some pictures from Xiga bawochwalcza (The Idolatrous Book) were inspired by Sacher-Masoch’s novel. Second, it illustrates the similarity between Schulz and Sacher-Masoch with regard to the issue of mimesis. Finally, based on an examination of the reception of Sacher-Masoch’s works and the popularity of Freudian theory in Polish-speaking circles prior to WWII, the essay reconsiders the “Schulz-masochist” discourse that was first proposed in the 1930s.

Introduction This article discusses the early graphic works of Bruno Schulz in relation to Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s novel Venus im Pelz (Venus in Furs, 1870). Edmund Löwenthal’s remembers that Schulz made illustrations for Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs by using the technique of cliché-verre (Schulz 1984: 55).1 Jerzy Ficowski, who included this reminiscence in his books on Schulz, regarded Schulz’s explanation to be a mere camouflage to hide his real nature, which was apparent in his graphics (Ficowski 1986: 32; 2002: 246). The reminiscence has been largely ignored and little attention has been paid to Sacher-Masoch’s novels in discussions on Schulz’s works.2 In general, Schulz’s graphic works that portray a specific conceptualization of women and men (e.g., Xiga bawochwalcza) are described as “masochistic” or “sadomasochistic”, which has caused 1

Löwenthal was a friend of Schulz’s nephew who lived with Schulz in Drohobycz. An exception is Nella Cassouto, who briefly reminded of this reminiscence and admitted the influence of Sacher-Masoch’s novel on Schulz’s works (1990: 22-27). Krystyna Kulig-Janarek also made reference to Venus in Furs in her article on the graphic works of Schulz (1994: 155).

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confusion between his own life and the subjects in his works.3 Schulz’s early graphic works are often regarded as an output of his hidden sexuality; alternatively, the graphic works are viewed as if they were created as illustrations for his later novels. In accordance with the stereotypical views of Schulz as a masochist, Sacher-Masoch’s name tends to be taboo in any discussion on Schulz. Discussions of Schulz’s graphic works have often centered on the subjects in his works, without considering the years of production. In this article, I will concentrate on his works produced in the 1910s and 20s, before his literary debut, in order to uncover common features in his early graphics and later prose. First, I will compare the images in Xiga bawochwalcza (The Idolatrous Book) with the text of Venus in Furs in order to examine Löwenthal’s reminiscence. Second, by focusing on the self-referential motif in the early graphics of Schulz and Sacher-Masoch’s novel and the manner in which mythological motifs are adapted in them, I will present the common concerns of Schulz and Sacher-Masoch with regard to the issue of mimesis. Finally, I will suggest a reconsideration of the post-1930 discourse on “Schulz-masochist”, based on an examination of the reception given to Sacher-Masoch’s works and the popularity of Freudian theory in Polish-speaking circles before World War II. The last examination supports my assumption that Schulz, who could also read German, was influenced by Venus in Furs. Based on the entire discussion, I will present Sacher-Masoch as an important figure in the study of Schulz’s works and Schulz as a modernist whose works took up important issues with regard to artistic representation. Comparison of The Idolatrous Book with Venus in Furs: Undula/Wanda To begin with, I compare The Idolatrous Book with the text of Venus in Furs. In Venus in Furs, the physical appearance of the heroine, 3

Irena Kossowska and ukasz Kossowski (2002: 26) also suggested distinguishing between what was represented in Schulz’s images from the life of the artist. There are many academic articles on his graphic works. Krystyna Kulig-Janarek (1993) has provided iconological analyses. Jan Gondowicz (2006) has discussed Schulz’s graphic works in the wide contexts of culture and history. Cf. also Kitowska-ysiak (1994b, 2002) and Kasjaniuk (1993) for in-depth discussions of Schulz’s graphic works.

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Wanda, is introduced to the readers as a figure portrayed in a picture. The narrator describes the image as follows: A beautiful woman, with a sunny smile on her fine face, with rich, classically knotted hair covered with white powder like soft frost: naked in a dark fur, she reclined on a sofa, leaning on her left arm, her right hand playing with a whip, her bare foot casually propped on the man, who lay before her like a slave, like a dog. And this man, who revealed salient but well-shaped features infused with brooding melancholy and devoted passion, this man, who peered up at her with the burning, enraptured eyes of a martyr, this man, who served as a footstool for her feet – this man was Severin, but beardless and apparently ten years younger. (2000: 8)4

Krystyna Kulig-Janarek (1994: 155) also cited this depiction to draw similarities between Venus in Furs and The Idolatrous Book. This image of Wanda, depicted three times in Venus, agrees with the portrayal of the woman named Undula5 in Schulz’s The Idolatrous Book. The Idolatrous Book is a portfolio comprised of ten or more cliché-verre works. The selection of cliché-verre works is different in each portfolio. Jerzy Ficowski (2002: 252-253), the pioneering scholar on Schulz and the editor of Schulz’s graphic albums in Poland and abroad, wrote that Schulz signed his name and sometimes provided a title under his graphics. In addition, Schulz sometimes gave a different title to the same picture. Through my investigations,6 I noticed that the graphics included in a set of The Idolatrous Book owned by the National Museum of Krakow (NMK), along with some of the graphics 4

All further references to the English text of Venus im Pelz will be given as ViF. The Polish translation of the fragment does not closely follow the original and interestingly lends a sadomasochistic tone to the scene (Sacher-Masoch 1989: 24), as will be discussed below. 5 The drawing reprinted in 1930, in the second issue of Cusztajer (Gift), a Yiddish journal published in Lviv, is similar to that known as ‘Zaczarowane miasto’ (‘The Enchanted City’) in The Idolatrous Book; however, it is titled as ‘Undula oyfn shpatsir’ (‘Undula Takes a Walk’) though the women are not similar to Undula. It seems that Undula was the name that was symbolically used by Schulz for the heroine in his graphics even after The Idolatrous Book. 6 I examined the copies of The Idolatrous Book that are in the National Museum of Warsaw (NMW), the National Museum of Krakow (NMK), the Library of Jagiellonian University (JU), and the Museum of Literature in Warsaw (ML). I thank the curators of these museums for their timely help and suggestions, as well as Krystyna Kulig-Janarek, a curator of NMK, for the detailed information with regard to the issue of the titles and signatures of Schulz’s graphics.

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included in The Idolatrous Book owned by the National Museum of Warsaw (NMW), and the Museum of Literature (ML), are entitled and signed by Schulz. Moreover, a frontispiece of the set owned by the NMW presents a list of titles, although the list does not completely correspond with the contents (Kitowska-ysiak 2003: 420). However, from the titles of these graphics, we can identify the female figure that appears in several graphics as Undula. In this article, I limit my discussion to those graphics wherein the described titles or circumstances indicate that the heroine is Undula. The pose of Wanda described in the above quotation is represented in the image of Undula. Schulz’s graphic entitled ‘Jeszcze raz Undula’ (‘Undula, Once Again’ [il. 1, ML]) depicts Undula sitting on a bed, with her foot on the neck of a man. ‘Xi ga bawochwalcza’ (‘The Idolatrous Book’ [il. 2, NMK]) shows Undula7 reclining on a bed with a whip.8 We should also not overlook the conformity of their hairstyles (‘awka’ (‘Bench’ [il. 3, NMW]), ‘Undula, Once Again’ and ‘Undula u artystów’ (‘Undula with the Artists’ [il. 4, NMW])9. Some of the women in The Idolatrous Book, including Undula, tie their hair in a knot, sometimes with a ribbon, which Jan Gondowicz (2006: 66) described as “à la grecque”. In fact, the “classically knotted” (ViF 8) hairstyle of Wanda in the portrait, described later, is fastened with a green ribbon.10 Given the contextual backdrop, we also discern that the hairstyle is similar to that of the statue of Venus.11 Incidentally, this knotted hairstyle was commonly used for goddesses in European paintings on mythological narratives.

7 The Idolatrous Book possessed by the NMK includes two pictures portraying the same woman with a hat. Schulz entitles them as ‘Undula w nocy’ (‘Undula at Night’) and ‘Xi ga bawochwalcza’. We can guess, based on the former title, that the woman in the latter picture is Undula as well. 8 The woman in ‘Jej garderobiana’ (‘The Dresser’ [il. 16, NMW]) also poses in a similar manner. 9 In the Polish version, however, there is no description of Wanda’s hairstyle but a description of fur that is “rich and dark” (“futrem o obfitym ciemnym wosie”; Sacher-Masoch 1989: 24). 10 “[Wanda] then had me tie her heavy, electric hair into a large chignon held together by the green velvet ribbon” (ViF 90). 11 In the opening pages, the narrator dreams that he talks with a living statue of Venus wearing fur in the cold North Country. Awoken by a servant, the narrator then visits Severin and finds the portrait of Wanda, who is exactly like the Venus of whom he dreamt.


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Let us compare the picture called ‘Bench’12 with a scene in Venus in Furs. The woman in this picture resembles Undula, who is explicitly represented in other pictures (for example, ‘Undula, once Again’). The hero Severin proposes to Wanda: “[…] If you can't be a decent, faithful wife, then be a devil.” […] I no longer know what I said, but I do recall that I kissed her feet and finally picked up her foot and placed it on the nape of my neck. (ViF 39)

This scene takes place in a park and “she [Wanda] sat down on one of the stone benches” (ViF 39). The picture ‘Bench’ completely agrees with this scene. This is the only picture that has the background drawn in the real view, which strengthens the assumption that the depiction is based on Venus in Furs. Moreover, a man kissing or throwing himself at a woman’s feet is typical in Schulz’s graphics while Severin also frequently adopts this pose. ‘The Idolatrous Book’ depicts a man sitting at Undula’s feet and reading a book to her. In fact, Venus in Furs has many scenes in which Severin reads a book to Wanda. For instance, “I [Severin] sat down at her feet and read her a little poem that I had penned for her” (ViF 22). In addition, a poem titled ‘Venus im Pelz (‘Venus in Furs’) begins as follows: “Gracious, devilish, mythical lady. / Put your foot upon your slave […]” (ViF 23). The picture titled ‘Undula w nocy’ (‘Undula at Night’ [il. 5, NMK]) and the one identified with the title ‘Undula idzie w noc’ (‘Undula Walks into the Night’ [il. 6, NMW])13 depict a man respectfully accompanying Undula. These pictures can also be understood with reference to the novel. Severin plays the part of Wanda’s servant and follows her during a trip to Florence. In one of these scenes, Wanda wears a Russian hat and attracts attention on the street, which is consistent with Undula’s depiction in the second of the two pictures. It is important to note that at the beginning of the novel, Wanda was Severin’s witty and tender lover; he was the one who awakened her latent demonic character and urged her to behave cruelly with him. Among the women portrayed in The Idolatrous Book, Undula is the only one who has such a sympathetic expression 12

The picture ‘Bench’ owned by the NMW is not titled by the author (it only bears his signature). 13 This picture is not titled by the author (it only bears his signature).

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which contrasts to her masterful pose. Moreover, she and Zuzanna are the only two recurring figures in The Idolatrous Book to be given names. It is true that Schulz’s images do not always have a one-to-one correspondence with the novel; however, his graphics, which he created for his novels in the 1930s, reveal to us that what he termed “illustrations” were not precise visualizations of a concrete scene. The moderate appearance of the image of fur might be explained simply by the disagreement with the artist’s intention or by the technical difficulty in representing fur in black-and-white cliché-verre works. In fact, it is rather difficult to distinguish fur-like objects from a background of black shadows.14 Based on this analysis, we can validate Löwenthal’s reminiscence about some images in The Idolatrous Book. The graphics depicting Undula have many similarities with the descriptions in Venus in Furs; so much so that Undula can be considered to represent Wanda. ‘Bench’ and Undula’s images are directly inspired by Venus in Furs and were supposed to be illustrations for this novel. The question that remains to be asked is whether Schulz designed these graphics as part of an order for the publication of Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs or created them of his own accord. The Idolatrous Book is thought to have been produced around the years 1920 to 1922. Meanwhile, the Polish version of Venus was first published in Lviv in 1913, with the second edition also published in Lviv in 1919.15 Incidentally, neither of these publications have illustrations except for a picture of a slender woman in a fur coat and a fur hat on the cover of the second edition, though it is drawn in a style different from that of Schulz. Little is known about his life in those years, yet it is more likely that he created these illustrations for this novel of his own accord, before his debut as a graphic artist. In either case, it is likely that the reissue of the Polish version of this novel 14

We can find the depiction of fur in ‘Plemi pariasów’ (‘Tribe of Pariahs’). Black shadows of ‘Undula, Once Again’ and ‘The Idolatrous Book’ look like fur, though this remains no more than speculation. In other pictures, only fur-like articles on women’s costumes are found. 15 The reissue, from 1989, provides its original as that published in 1920 by the same publisher (Sacher-Masoch 1989); however, I could not find this edition.


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gave Schulz, who could also read German, the idea to create illustrations for this novel. Similar Concerns between Schulz and Sacher-Masoch: The Issue of Artistic Representation After comparing Schulz’s images with the descriptions from SacherMasoch’s novel, let us now examine the usage of the mythological motif of Venus and the representation of art in Schulz’s graphics made in the 1910s and 1920s and Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs. These works are usually regarded as representing masochistic motifs in a naturalistic style; in reality, they addressed the issue of mimesis from a modernistic perspective. As the title Venus in Furs indicates, the goddess Venus is the central motif in the novel. It is important to note that Wanda represents the pagan world of the “South” as opposed to the Christian world of the “North” to which Severin – a Galician landlord – belongs. Wanda is the modern personification of goddess Venus. Their romance represents the encounter between ancient spirituality and modern Christian spirituality. Not just Wanda’s mentality but also her looks are compared to those of Venus. The German painter who painted Wanda’s portrait, quoted in the first section of this article, explained that he imagined the Goddess of Love, who has left Mount Olympus and descended for the sake of a mortal man in the modern world (ViF 93). He explains his understanding of the portrait as follows: “Like many paintings of the Venetian school, this should be both a portrait and a narrative”; (ViF 92; “Das Bild soll, wie viele der venezianischen Schule, zugleich ein Porträt und eine Historie werden”; Sacher-Masoch 1980: 109; italics mine). The German painter’s idea of the portrait reminds us of historical paintings that visualize mythological, biblical, or historical narratives. In De pictura (On Painting, 1435), which served as one of the seminal works on European painting until the end of the nineteenth century, Renaissance theoretician Leon Battista Alberti proposed the notion of istoria as paintings of a new age. He discussed in detail the characteristics of the concept, which refers to a depiction of an event largely extracted from an ancient written source, and the way to realize it. He regarded istoria as “the greatest work of the painter, in which there ought to be copiousness and elegance in all things” (Alberti 1976: 95). Referring

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to the mythological narrative, the German painter therefore follows the tradition of istoria and the later historical painting; however, by modifying the concept that was originally supposed to depict “high” literature and featuring a secular woman’s portrait instead, he creates a new narrative in his painting. This idea of the painter also agrees with that of Schulz. The Greek mythological motifs in Schulz’s early graphics have already been pointed out.16 As a matter of fact, some of the women presented in these graphics, not only from The Idolatrous Book, have iconographic references to goddess Venus. We find several attributes of Venus: Amor17 and Shell18. Schulz even drew two pencil sketches (‘Venus and Amor’ and ‘Venus and Amor [II]’, both before 1933 [il. 10, il. 11, ML) whose compositions were similar to that of Velázquez’s ‘Venus at Her Mirror’. In addition, some picture titles in The Idolatrous Book contain references to goddess Venus – ‘Wiosna’ (‘Spring’), ‘wi to wiosny’ (‘Rite of Spring’), and ‘Na Cyterze’ (‘On Cythera’ [il. 13]).19 Venus is associated with spring in historical paintings (Battistini 2005: 34-35), and the island Cythera was the place where Venus drifted after her birth. This picture depicts a woman who has just arrived, which agrees with this mythological plot.20 Schulz thus compares the woman to the goddess in his early graphics. However, many of the women represented in the early graphics of Schulz, including the above three works from The 16

The important articles on this topic include the following: Kulig-Janarek (1993), Kitowska-ysiak (1994c). Kitowska-ysiak (1994c: 255) also pointed out the inspiration of the myth of Venus in Schulz’s graphics. 17 ‘Swawolne kobiety’ (‘Playful Women’, 1916 [il. 7]), ‘Autoportret przy pulpicie rysowniczym’ (‘Self-portrait Before an Easel’, 1919 [il. 8]), ‘Odwieczna ba’ (‘The Eternal Fairy Tale’, from The Idolatrous Book [il. 9]), ‘Wenus i Amor’ and ‘Wenus i Amor (II)’, both before 1933 [il. 10, il. 11]). 18 ‘Self-portrait before an Easel’ and ‘Kobiety, sadystki’ (‘Women, Sadists’, 1919 [il. 12]). The same remark is also found in Kulig-Janarek’s article (1994: 155). 19 The following are the three graphics that Schulz gave titles to: ‘Wiosna’ (‘Spring’ [NMK]), ‘wi to wiosny’ (‘Rite of Spring’ [NMW]), and ‘Na Cyterze’ (‘On Cythera’ [NMW]). 20 This picture also literally visualizes what Wanda says: “But the person who wants pleasure….mustn’t shy away from indulging at other people’s expense, he must never feel pity. He must harness others to his carriage, to his plow like animals” (ViF 115). However, we cannot regard it as a direct inspiration of Sacher-Masoch’s novel because this type of image of men harnessed to a carriage was popular in Europe since the latter half of the nineteenth century. Cf. Noyes (1997), especially chapter 4, for a discussion of this topic.


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Idolatrous Book, are dressed in modern clothes if they are not naked. Moreover, the backgrounds in these pictures convey the impression that the scenes depicted take place in modern times. Both SacherMasoch and Schulz compared the woman to Venus; however, they transferred the subject to modern settings and adopted the motif, which was taken from the original mythological context, in a manner that enabled them to recreate history on their own. In this way, Schulz’s graphics and the portrait of Wanda in Venus in Furs remodelled the history of Venus; in modern contexts, Venus appeared as a cruel woman with a whip, reflecting the zeitgeist of the modern period. It seems that Schulz consciously challenged and parodied historical paintings, which were considered the highest form of art. An example is ‘Self-portrait Before an Easel’ (1919 [il. 8]). It depicts two framed paintings hung on the wall against which the artist, Schulz, stands before an easel. These two paintings parody religious and mythological paintings. In one of the paintings, a man dressed in a monk’s habit is shown kneeling down similar to what is shown in the religious paintings; however, he is not kneeling before Christ or the Madonna but before a naked woman. In the other image, the motif of Judith is adopted and mingled with that of Venus. A naked woman with a smiling face is sitting on the edge of an open shell, which is filled with a black, blood-like liquid. The head of a man lies at her feet. Two women hold his headless body at the other side of the shell’s edge. These examples prove Schulz’s sound knowledge of mythological and biblical motifs in the tradition of European paintings and his critical reconsideration of its conventions. Apart from parodying historical paintings, Sacher-Masoch and Schulz also questioned the conventional understanding of works of art as imitative representations of nature or narrative. Schulz’s ‘Autoportret ze Stanisawem Weingartenem’ (‘Self-portrait with Stanisaw Weingarten’, 1921 [il. 14]) presents the elements related to a picture at different levels: the artist gazing directly at viewers; the portrayed person; the works of plastic art (pictures, sculptures); models or figures represented in a picture; and a picture frame drawn on the edge of the mat board on which the “main” drawing is glued. The drawing is shown as a painting whose composition adopts the common juxtaposition of the images of a man and his dreams or the divine revelation in historical paintings of biblical narratives.

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However, this juxtaposition fulfills a role that is different from those fulfilled by historical paintings depicting biblical stories. It takes up a theoretical question on representation in the work of art. According to Alberti,21 a figure looking at viewers in traditional narrative paintings sometimes plays a role in calling our attention to a picture. In this drawing, the artist, Schulz, standing in the back and gazing at viewers, plays this role. The drawn Schulz indicates that he depicted all human figures that were supposed to belong to different levels – the artist, the person portrayed, posing models or figures represented in a picture – simply as represented figures in a plan. After the traditional composition of historical painting, Schulz paradoxically questions the ground on which it stands and rejects the traditional understanding of works of art as an imitative representation of nature or narrative.22 In addition, in Venus in Furs, the motif of works of art is scattered and shows a similar view on art.23 The figure of Venus appears in various forms – as a plaster sculpture, as a figure in a picture, and as the heroine Wanda. This also reminds us of ‘Undula with the Artists’ from The Idolatrous Book. Venus in Furs is a frame story, consisting of two narratives by two narrators at two different times – narration in the present time frames the manuscript written by Severin about the past episodes between him and Wanda. This structure enables the story to develop in a manner such that it gives the reader the illusion that reality imitates artistic representation.24 Moreover, by using language to describe visual art, the distinctions between reality and representation in art and between the original and

21 “In an istoria I like to see someone who admonishes and points out to us what is happening there; or beckons with his hand to see; or menaces with an angry face and with flashing eyes, so that no one should come near; or shows some danger or marvellous thing there; or invites us to weep or to laugh together with them. Thus whatever the painted persons do among themselves or with the beholder, all is pointed toward ornamenting or teaching the istoria” (Alberti 1976: 78). 22 Kris Van Heuckelom (2006) discussed The Idolatrous Book as an embodiment of artistic crossover of the verbal and the visual. 23 I owe the inspiration to consider the issue of representation in Leopold von SacherMasoch’s works to the following studies: Hirano (2004) and Tanemura (2004). 24 Severin even confesses that Wanda reminds him of the legend of the sculptor Pygmalion, whose statue of a woman came to life: “Yes, she had to come alive for me, like that statue that had started breathing for her creator” (ViF 15).


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copy are suspended.25 This novel challenges the basic understanding of artworks as a copy of reality. As mentioned earlier, in Venus in Furs, there are three depictions of Wanda’s portrait: first, as a portrait through the narrator’s eyes; second, as an actual occurrence between Wanda and Severin; and finally, the scene in which they again pose before the German painter who made the portrait in the first depiction.26 After the second depiction of Wanda’s image in the novel, Severin found their image reflected in a mirror: […] she, placing her one foot upon me as if on a footstool, rested on the cushions in the large velvet mantle. The supple fur lasciviously snuggled around her cold marble body, and her left arm, on which she propped herself like a slumbering swan, remained in the dark sable of the sleeve, while her right27 hand carelessly played with the whip. I [Severin] happened to glance at the massive mirror on the opposite wall and I cried out, for I saw us in its golden frame as if in a painting […] (ViF 90-91; italics mine)

This scene clearly reflects Sacher-Masoch’s awareness of the issue of mimesis. He suspends the clear distinction between reality and artistic representation. Furthermore, the scene captures the moment of the birth of an artwork; here, a real-life scene has been transformed into an image through the eyes of a man who has defamiliarized reality. In the above quotation, the frame of the mirror is a device that encourages us to notice the boundary between a plan of a picture and its external environment. In this scene, the frame might be a part of the picture; however, at the same time, it belongs to the external world. This scene, therefore, reminds us of the concept of parergon that Jacques Derrida renewed based on Kant’s Kritik der Urteilskraft (The Critique of Judgment). As observed above, Schulz’s graphics ‘Self-portrait with Stanisaw Weingarten’ and ‘Self-portrait before an Easel’ also present picture frames. In the former, Schulz represented the ambiguity of the frame as a parergon in concord with Derrida’s 25

Incidentally, suspension is a key term in Gilles Deleuze’s study on Sacher-Masoch (1998). 26 “Wanda, dressed only in the sable and clutching the whip, came downstairs and once more stretched out on the velvet cushions. I lay at her feet, and she put one foot on me while her right hand played with the whip” (ViF 92). 27 “Left” in the German original.

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meaning. Moreover, he makes the viewers aware of the system on which their reception of the painting relies.28 We observed in this chapter that Sacher-Masoch and Schulz share a similar modernist concern with regard to the issue of mimesis. In their stylistically naturalistic works, they questioned the conventions of traditional European paintings after the Renaissance and tried to represent this issue in their own way. Analysis of Schulz’s early graphics leads us to believe that he was well-versed in European paintings. His later career as an art teacher at the local gymnasium supports this view. Thus his stay in Vienna during World War I, before he made the abovementioned graphics, also becomes meaningful. Based on his knowledge of the European paintings from the Renaissance to the first period of modernism, Schulz critically reconsidered the conventions used in historical paintings and the issue of representation in this tradition, consciously raising relevant issues in his graphics. Reception of Sacher-Masoch’s Novel in the Polish-Speaking Sphere before World War II I would like to focus further on how Sacher-Masoch’s novels were introduced into the Polish-speaking sphere prior to World War II.29 A reconstruction of the common perception of Sacher-Masoch in that period helps us to reconsider the unquestioned discourses presenting Schulz as a masochist. Until the end of World War I, south-eastern Poland and Lviv belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Unsurprisingly, the Polish intellectuals in Galicia read German during that era. Schulz, who was born in 1892, in Drohobycz, was no exception. The first Polish translation of Sacher-Masoch’s works was published in Warsaw in 1904. It was Warjat z Firlejówki (A Madman from Firlejówka), a Poe-like Gothic story that did not have so-called strikingly masochistic scenes. However, the other two titles published 28

I discussed parergon and Schulz’s graphic works in a conference paper titled ‘Obraz i Ksi ga. O autoreferencyjnoci w twórczoci Brunona Schulza’ (Lublin, forthcoming in Biae plamy w schulzologii). 29 I searched for the Polish translations of Sacher-Masoch’s novels at libraries in Poland and Lviv (the National Library in Warsaw, the Library of Warsaw University, the Library of Jagiellonian University, and the Stefanyka Library in Lviv).


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in Polish concentrated solely on cruel women and were published in Lviv: Wenus w futrze (Venus in Furs) and Gro ne kobiety (Cruel Women). In 1911, the first two volumes of the six-volume series Grausame Frauen (Cruel Women, 1907)30 were published, along with its original subtitles Gro ne kobiety: Sfinksy (Dangerous Women: Sphinxes) and Gro ne kobiety: Silne Serca (Dangerous Women: Strong Heart), in Lviv by the publisher “Kultura i Sztuka” (“Culture and Art”).31 A year or two later (1912 or 1913),32 they were combined into one book and republished with a slightly changed title: Demoniczne kobiety (Demonic Women). Incidentally, Schulz was a student of the Polytechnic College in Lviv until the outbreak of World War I. Around 1920, even a third edition of the book was published. As briefly mentioned above, the first translation of Venus in Furs was published in 1913, by the publisher Globus in Lviv. In 1919, the second revised edition of this book was published by “Culture and Art” in Lviv.33 To sum up, before World War I, people had already read Sacher-Masoch’s novels in Polish and knew him for his writings about the specific relationship between men and women. On the back pages of the book Demonic Women (1913), Sacher-Masoch’s short stories were advertised as those portraying the cruelty inflicted by women on men. The following was written about Venus in Furs: Sacher-Masoch odsania nam miao smutn prawd o okruciestwie drzemi cem na dnie duszy kobiecej. Jest on przedstawicielem pogl du, e pi kna kobieta posiada w sobie pierwiastki dzikiego despotyzmu i e stosuje ten despotyzm do m czyzny, jeli on tylko nie potrafi zapanowa nad ni bezwzgl dnie. St d ma Sacher-Masoch suszn saw jako z

30

It was published in Leipzig, twelve years after the death of Sacher-Masoch. Given the volume numbers, it seems that the Polish publisher planned to publish the complete series in Polish. 32 According to the central catalogue of the National Library in Warsaw, the first edition of Demonic Women was issued in 1912. However, it is not held by the library. The second and third editions, published in 1913, and around 1920, respectively, are in several libraries. 33 The main publisher of Sacher-Masoch’s novels, “Culture and Art”, published novels and literary works on spiritualism, Freemasonry, psychology, and sexology. This publisher appears to have introduced and popularized the then up-to-date topics into the Polish-speaking sphere. 31

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Ariko Kato jednej strony niezmiernie powa ny i pilnie czytany, a z drugiej strony bardzo znienawidzony powieciopisarz. (Sacher-Masoch 1913a) (Sacher-Masoch bravely revealed the sad truth about the cruelty hidden in women’s souls. He presents the view that a beautiful woman has the ingredients for wild despotism and that she applies it to him only if he does not manage to rule her mercilessly. This is the reason why SacherMasoch has garnered fame as an extremely important and urgently read author as well as a very hated novelist.)

His books must have gained popularity considering that the second and third editions were published in independent Poland. A noteworthy fact is that the translation does not closely follow the original. Furthermore, the translator’s name is not mentioned. As a result of countless omissions and modifications, the Polish translation ultimately emphasizes Wanda’s demonic character and simply transforms Severin’s love or adoration into an abnormality. According to the advertisement, the anonymous translator clearly and dramatically assigned sadistic and masochistic attributes to Wanda and Severin, respectively; in contrast, the other contexts were not shown as distinctly. What mostly changed the characters of this novel were the several deletions of the key term “suprasensual” (übersinnlich, nadzmysowe). This word, which was repeatedly used in the original to characterize Severin, was once replaced by the word anormalno ‘abnormality’ (Sacher-Masoch 1989: 51). The title of Severin’s manuscript, Bekenntnisse eines Übersinnlichen (Confessions of a Suprasensual Man; Sacher-Masoch 1980: 17), was altered to Zwierzenia gupiego fanatyka (Confessions of a Foolish Fanatic; Sacher-Masoch 1989: 27) even though the term suprasensual responds to the manuscript’s motto, which is a variation of Mephistopheles’ verses from Goethe’s Faust.34 In addition, some interesting modifications were made from the Polish perspective. It has been known that Sacher-Masoch often set his stories in the pluralistic society of eastern Galicia. As a matter of fact, he projected the exotic image of the “East” on the Slavic world, which indeed appealed to Western readers. However, in the Polish version, the translator projected the images of “East” or “Asia” 34

“You suprasensual sensual suitor, / A woman leads you by the nose!” (ViF 10; “Du übersinnlicher sinnlicher Freier, Ein Weib nasführet dich!”; Sacher-Masoch 1980: 17). Cf. Goethe’s “Du übersinnlicher sinnlicher Freier, Ein Mägdalein nasführet dich” (Goethe [s.d.] :120).


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on Russia and eastward. The demonic heroine Wanda, who was from Lviv in the original, was from Moscow in the translated version. The figure of the unsophisticated Polish peasants disappeared from the text, while negative Jewish stereotypes – typical to the anti-Semitic discourse during the interwar period – were added and emphasized. The exotic image of Galicia depicted from the Austrian perspective was displeasing to the Polish readers; this is confirmed in the only study on Sacher-Masoch published in the Polish-speaking sphere before World War I, in 1907. Leon Wachholz – author, doctor, and professor of the Jagiellonian University – criticized Sacher-Masoch for distorting the images of Poles and characterizing the Slavs as masochists (Wachholz 1907). Moreover, the pluralistic background had faded away from the translated Venus in Furs; this novel simply went on to become a work on a sensational “masochistic” subject. It is important to note that the Polish translations of SacherMasoch’s novels are still limited to the two titles that are actually reissues of the publications by “Culture and Art” before World War II.35 In addition, the translations have not been revised since then. This could be a reason for the neglect of Sacher-Masoch in the discussion on Schulz. Reconsidering the Discourse on “Schulz-Masochist” Finally, I would like to reconsider the discourse on “Schulzmasochist” by comparing it to the cultural background in those days. Aleksander Wat’s wife recalled that Schulz was regarded as a masochist in Warsaw because of his paintings (Watowa 2000: 16). In fact, in the mid-1930s, his literary contemporaries published some texts alluding to his or his works’ masochistic tendency in literary magazines: an open letter to Schulz from Stanisaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (1935) and Witold Gombrowicz (1936a, 1936b) as well as Józef Nacht’s report on his meeting with Schulz (1937). In Witkacy’s open letter to Schulz, the former interpreted Schulz’s graphic works as those representing female sadism and male masochism (Witkiewicz 1935: 321-322, Witkiewicz 1988: 108). As revealed in Witkacy’s novels such as Poegnanie jesieni (Farewell to Autumn, 1927), his 35

The reissue of Demonic Women, from 1986, reproduces the text as it was published in Lviv by “Kultura i Sztuka” in 1922.

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understanding of masochism was based on the binomial opposition of masochism and sadism assigned to men and women, respectively.36 His view must have influenced the response to Schulz’s graphics37 and helped form the discourse on “Schulz-masochist”. However, it is important to pay attention to the fact that in those days, Freudian theory and the topic of the subconscious attracted a great deal of attention in Poland as well as in other European countries. In all likelihood, this was true in Galicia, which belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire when Freud began his theory in Vienna. Since the first decade of the twentieth century, Freudian theories, like the novels of Sacher-Masoch, have been translated into Polish. In 1936, in the second open letter to Schulz, Gombrowicz wrote, “I know that if someone today talks about thighs, people say Freud and that’s all” (“wiem, e teraz, jak tylko kto wspomni o ydce, to zaraz mówi , e z Freuda i koniec”; Gombrowicz 1936a: 220). Moreover, Witkacy directly mentioned Freud or his theory in his novels without trying to conceal his hatred or contempt for it. Krystyna Kulig-Janarek pointed out that the motifs in Schulz’s early graphics agreed with the Freudian schema to a great extent (1993: 47). It seems, therefore, more important to discuss these motifs against their cultural background rather than to psychoanalyze them. In 1937, the Encyclopaedia of Sexology was published in Warsaw. It was the expanded Polish version of the original German Handwörterbuch der Sexualwissenschaft edited by Max Marcuse in Bonn in 1923. The article titled ‘Literature and Psychoanalysis’ in the Polish encyclopedia described Schulz as one of the Polish writers influenced by Freudian theory, along with Witkacy and Karol Irzykowski (Marcuse 1937: 73). The article ‘Masochism’ in this encyclopedia explained that masochism can be associated with fetishism, especially for boots, and that masochism is not found among people who culturally belong to the lower class (Marcuse 1937: 156). This definition of masochism 36

The demonic heroines in Witkacy’s novels, such as Akne in 622 upadki Bunga czyli Demoniczna kobieta (The 622 Downfalls of Bungo or the Demonic Woman, 19101911, republished in 1968) and Hela in Farewell to Autumn, have characters similar to the heroines in Sacher-Masoch’s novels. The similarities between the works of Schulz and Witkacy were closely discussed in an article by Wodzimierz Bolecki (1994). 37 Indeed, Schulz’s graphics have often been compared to the painters with whom Witkacy compared Schulz in his open letter to Schulz (i.e. Goya, Rops, Munch, and Beardsley) (Witkiewicz 1935: 321; Witkiewicz 1988: 108).


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helps us understand the discourse on “Schulz-masochist”. In his report, which seems to be partly fictitious – especially the section that takes the form of dialogue – Józef Nacht expressed sympathy toward Schulz with regard to his graphics. Nacht parodied Hegel’s masterslave dialectic, applying it to the relationship between man and woman. He wrote, “The whole world is just to rule or to stop ruling. There are rulers and slaves everywhere” (“Cay wiat przecie yje po to tylko, aby panowa lub znosi panowanie. Wsz dzie sa wadcy i niewolnicy”; 1937: 5). This view is repeated in Venus in Furs and apparently adapted from it.38 However, Nacht expressed a negative view on Sacher-Masoch’s novels by regarding them as describing only masochistic practices. In fact, his article represented the common conceptions of Sacher-Masoch in those days because a similar neglect was found in the abovementioned encyclopaedia (Marcuse 1937: 56).39 Nacht continued by stating the following: “Many people view masochism as snobbism; however, the possibility of the ‘fashion’ of masochism, which could cause a sexual revolution, is far more dangerous” (“ró ni ludzie nazywaj masochism snobizmem, ale znacznie groniejsza jest mo liwo mody masochizmu, która mogaby wywoa rewolucj seksualn ”; 1937: 5). Let us recall that at the beginning of the open letter to Schulz, Gombrowicz alluded to Schulz’s masochistic tendency, quoting a possibly fictitious comment made by a doctor’s wife: “Bruno Schulz, she said, he’s either a sick pervert or a poseur, but most probably a poseur. He’s only pretending” (Schulz 1988a: 117; “Bruno Schulz – powiedziaa – to albo chory zboczeniec, albo pozer; lecz najpewniej pozer. On tylko udaje tak”; Gombrowicz 1936a: 209). Considering that masochism was quite a popular topic among the intellectuals of Schulz’s time, the discourse on “Schulz-masochist” becomes understandable as intellectual play among Schulz’s contemporaries. The allusion to masochism by the artist whose works depicted such motifs was by itself an intellectual discussion. Schulz, to some extent, played his part as a masochist – a part that was given to him – in Polish literary circles.

38 The narrator, in his dream, explained the living statue of Venus about his view on the relationship between men and women, adopting Hegelian rhetoric. Indeed, the narrator had been reading Hegel before he fell asleep; interestingly, the name Hegel was deleted in the Polish version (Sacher-Masoch 1989: 23, 2000: 5). 39 Cf. the article titled ‘Belles Lettres’.

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After World War II, Gombrowicz wrote in his Dziennik (Diary) that Schulz was a masochist (Gombrowicz 2001: 8-13). Irena Kejlin-Mitelman also observed that Schulz posed like the men in his paintings (Schulz 1984: 49). We refrain from any discussion on his masochism since the subject is beyond the scope of our discussion. At the same time, Kejlin-Mitelman’s statement reminds us of Sacher-Masoch whose novels contained scenes that replicated his real life. Incidentally, the composition of the picture, which SacherMasoch had taken and which was published in Dresden in 1901, after his death [il. 15], is similar to ‘Jej garderobiana’ (‘The Dresser’ [il. 16]) in The Idolatrous Book. Conclusion The comparison of Venus in Furs with The Idolatrous Book can lead us to the conclusion that Schulz must have been inspired by the novel when he made The Idolatrous Book, especially ‘Bench’ and the pictures portraying Undula. Moreover, this article has made clear the similarity between Schulz and Sacher-Masoch: they questioned the traditional understanding of artworks as imitative representations of reality or existing narratives, and represented this problem of mimesis in their naturalistic works. An examination of the then popularity of Freudianism and the reception accorded to Sacher-Masoch’s novels has led us to reconsider the discourse on “Schulz-masochist”, and it appears that Schulz, to some extent, played his part in furthering this discourse. The analysis of Schulz’s early graphics reveal him to be a theoretic-artist who, based on his knowledge of European paintings, critically reconsidered its conventions and succeeded in representing his own views in his works. His early graphics, although they seem to be inspired by the traditional painting styles, substantiate his twentieth-century modernistic views on art, which are reflected in his later prose. Bibliography Alberti, Leon Battista. 1976. On Painting. (tr. J.R. Spencer). Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. Battistini, Matilde. 2005. Symbole i alegorie (tr. M. Witczak). Warszawa: Arkady.


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Bolecki, Wodzimierz. 1994. ‘Witkacy-Schulz, Schulz-Witkacy’ in Jarz bski (1994): 127-151. Bolecki, Wodzimierz, Jerzy Jarz bski and Stanisaw Rosiek (eds). 2003. Sownik schulzowski. Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria. Cassouto, Nella. 1990. ‘“She Walked up to Father with a Smile and Flipped Him on the Nose”: Schulz and the Wars of the Sexes’ (tr. V. Barsky) in Drawings of Bruno Schulz: From the Collection of the Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature, Warsaw. Jerusalem: The Israel Museum: 22-27. Deleuze, Gilles. 1998. Masoch to Sade (tr. S. Hasumi). Tokyo: Shobun-sha. Derrida, Jacques. 2003. Prawda w malarstwie (tr. M. Kwietniewska). Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria. Ficowski, Jerzy. 1986. Okolice sklepów cynamonowych: Szkice, przyczynki, impresje. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ——. 2002. Regiony wielkiej herezji i okolice: Bruno Schulz i jego mitologia. Sejny: Fundacja Pogranicze. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. [s.d.] Faust: Der Tragödie. Erster Teil. Berlin and Leipzig: Hermann Seemann Nachfolger. Gombrowicz, Witold. 1936a. ‘List otwarty do Brunona Schulza’ in Studio 7: 209-211. ——. 1936b. ‘Do Brunona Schulza’ in Studio 7: 217-220. ——. 1988. ‘Open Letter to Bruno Schulz’ in Schulz (1988a): 117-119. ——. 2001. Dziennik: 1961-1969. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. Gondowicz, Jan. 2006. Bruno Schulz [1892-1942]. Warszawa: Edipresse Polska. Hirano, Yoshihiko. 2004. Sacher-Masoch. Tokyo: Seido-sha. Jarz bski, Jerzy (ed.) 1994. Czytanie Schulza. Kraków: T.I.C. ——. 1999. Schulz. Wrocaw: Wydawnictwo Dolnol skie. Kasjaniuk, Halina. 1993. ‘Rodowody i symbole w grafikach Schulza’ in Ciechowicz J. and Kasjaniuk H. (eds). Teatr Pamici Brunona Schulza. Gdynia: s.n.: 1025. Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata. (ed.) 1981. ‘Xiga Bawochwalcza – grafiki oryginalne (cliché verre) Brunona Schulza’ in Biuletyn Historii Sztuki 4: 401-410. —— (ed.) 1994a. Bruno Schulz. In memoriam. 1892-1942. Lublin: Wydawnictwo FIS. ——. 1994b. ‘Bruno Schulz – “Xi ga Bawochwalcza”: wizja – forma – analogie’ in Kitowska-ysiak (1994a): 133-151. ——. 1994c. ‘Wizje kobiecoci w Xi dze Bawochwalczej: Salome i androgyne’ in Jarz bski (1994): 251-263. ——. 2002. ‘“Bezlik nieskoczonych historyj”: O reinterpretacji mitologicznych pierwowzorów na kartach Xigi Bawochwalczej’ in Schulz (2002b): 9-22. ——. 2003. ‘Xiga bawochwalcza’ in Bolecki, Wodzimierz, Jerzy Jarz bski and Stanisaw Rosiek (eds) (2003): 420-425. Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata and Wadysaw Panas (eds). 2003. W uamkach zwierciada…Bruno Schulz w 110 rocznic urodzin i 60 rocznic mierci. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL. Kossowska, Irena, and ukasz Kossowski. 2002. ‘Wanie: humor Schulza’ in Schulz (2002b): 23-33. Kulig-Janarek, Krystyna. 1993. ‘Schulzowska mitologia: Motywy, w tki, inspiracje w Xidze Bawochwalczej’ in Kresy 14: 37-49.

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——. 1994. ‘Erotyka – groteska – ironia – kreacja’ in Kitowska-ysiak (1994a): 153177. Marcuse, Max (ed). 1937. Encyklopedia wiedzy seksualnej: dla lekarzy, prawników i socjologów. Vol. II. (tr. S. Higier). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Lekarskie “Eskulap”. Nacht, Józef. 1937. ‘Wywiad drastyczny (Rozmowa z Brunonem Schulzem)’ in Nasza opinja 77 (204): 5. Noyes, John K. 1997. The Mastery of Submission: Inventions of Masochism. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press. Sacher-Masoch, Leopold von. 1904. Warjat z Firlejówki: Opowiadanie. Warsaw: Skad u F. Kasprzykiewicza i S-ki. ——. [1911a]. Gro ne kobiety (Sfinksy). Lviv: Kultura i Sztuka. ——. [1911b]. Gro ne kobiety (Silne Serca). Lviv: Kultura i Sztuka. ——. [1913a]. Demoniczne kobiety (2nd ed.) Lviv: Kultura i Sztuka. ——. [1913b]. Wenus w futrze. Lviv: Globus. ——. [1919]. Wenus w futrze (2nd ed.) Lviv: Kultura i Sztuka. ——. [ca. 1920]. Demoniczne kobiety (3rd ed.) Lviv: Kultura i Sztuka. ——. 1980. Venus im Pelz. Frankfurt am Main: Insel. ——. 1986. Demoniczne kobiety. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe. ——. 1989. Wenus w futrze. ód: Wydawnictwo “Res Polona”. ——. 2000. Venus in Furs (tr. J. Neugroschel). New York: Penguin. Sandauer, Artur. 1964. ‘Rzeczywisto zdegradowana (Rzecz o Brunonie Schulzu)’ in Bruno Schulz. Proza. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie: 7-43. ——. [1992]. Trójca nowoczesnych. Kraków: Miniatura. Schulz, Bruno. 1936. ‘Do Witolda Gombrowicza’ in Studio 7: 211-217. ——. 1984. Listy, fragmenty: Wspomnienia o pisarzu. (ed. J. Ficowski). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ——. 1985. ‘Xi ga Bawochwalcza’ in Twórczo 7/8: 124-152. ——. 1988a. Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz: With Selected Prose. (ed. J. Ficowski, tr. W. Arndt and V. Nelson). New York: Harper & Row Publishers. ——. 1988b. Xiga Bawochwalcza. (ed. J. Ficowski). Warszawa: Interpress. ——. 1992. Bruno Schulz 1892-1942: Rysunki i archiwalia ze zbiorów Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza w Warszawie (ed. W. Chmurzyski). Warszawa: Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza w Warszawie. ——. 1995. Bruno Schulz 1892-1942: Katalog-Pamitnik Wystawy “Bruno Schulz. Ad Memoriam” w Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza w Warszawie (ed. W. Chmurzyski). Warszawa: Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza. ——. 1998. The Collected Works of Bruno Schulz. (ed. J. Ficowski). London: Picador. ——. 2002a. Ksiga listów. (2nd ed.) (ed. J. Ficowski). Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria. ——. 2002b. Mityzacja rzeczywistoci: Bruno Schulz 1892-1942. Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS. ——. 2003. Bruno Schulz. Olszanica: BOSZ. Stala, Krzysztof. 1993. On the Margins of Reality: the Paradoxes of Representation in Bruno Schulz’s Fiction. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Tanemura, Suehiro. 2004. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.Tokyo: Heibon-sha.


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Van Heuckelom, Kris. ‘Artistic Crossover in Polish Modernism. The Case of Bruno Schulz’s Xiga Bawochwalcza (The Idolatrous Booke)’ in Image [&] Narrative. Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative 15. On line at http://www.imageandnarrative.be/iconoclasm/heuckelom.htm (consulted 09.11.2007). Wachholz, Leon. 1907. Sacher Masoch i masochizm: Szkic literacko-psychiatryczny wedug collegium publicum. Kraków: Drukarnia Uniwersytetu Jagielloskiego. Watowa, Ola. 2000. Wszystko co najwaniejsze…(2nd ed.) Warszawa: Czytelnik. Witkiewicz, Stanisaw Ignacy. 1935. ‘Wywiad z Brunonem Schulzem’ in Tygodnik Ilustrowany 17: 321-323. ——. 1988. ‘Interview with Bruno Schulz’ in Schulz (1988a): 107-110. ——. 2001. Poegnanie jesieni (ed. A. Miciska). Warszawa: Pastwowy Instytut Wydawniczy. ——. 2005. 622 upadki Bunga czyli Demoniczna Kobieta. Kraków: Zielona Sowa.

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Illustrations

[il.1] Jeszcze raz Undula [Undula, Once Again], 9.5x15 (ML Bibl. II 14606/2)

[il.2] Xi ga bawochwalcza [The Idolatrous Book], 14.5x23.9 (NMK: III7474)


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[il.3] awka [Bench], 13x18.1 (NMW: Gr.W.6007/7)

[il.4] Undula u artystów [Undula with the Artists], 9.9x15 (NMW: Gr.W.6008/5)

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[il.5] Undula w nocy [Undula at Night], 15x10.5 (NMK: III7468)


[il.6] Undula idzie w noc [Undula Walks into the Night], 11.6x8.4 (NMW: Gr.W.6007/6)

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[il.7] Swawolne kobiety [Playful Women], 26.8x35.8 (Jewish Historical Institute Warsaw (JHI): A-738)

[il.8] Autoportret przy pulpicie rysowniczym [Self-portrait Before an Easel], 43x29.5 (JHI: A-460)


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[il.9] Odwieczna ba [The Eternal Fairy Tale], 16.8x12.2 (NMW: Gr.W. 6007/3)

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[il.10] Wenus i Amor (II) [Venus and Amor (II)], 17.5x27 (ML: K.725)

[il.11] Wenus i Amor [Venus and Amor], 15.5x25.5 (ML: K.726)


[il.12] Kobiety, sadystki [Women, Sadists], 29x40 (JHI: A-462)

[il.13] Na Cyterze [On Cythera], 11.4x18 (NMW: Gr.W 6008/7)

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[il.14] Autoportret ze Stanisawem Weingartenem [Self-portrait with Stanisaw Weingarten], 24x31 (JHI: A-739)


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[il. 15] Picture of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch with Fanny Pistor (reproduced from Carl Felix von Schlichtegroll. Sacher Masoch und der Masochismus. Dresden: Verlag von H. R. Dohrn, 1901)

[il.16] Jej garderobiana [The Dresser], 12x16 (NMW: Gr.W.6008/4)

Zuloaga (Rilke?) Schulz Jan Zieliski Abstract: The article discusses some thematic and stylistic affinities between Bruno Schulz and the Basque painter Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta (1870-1945). Rainer Maria Rilke is treated as a potential mediator. After a survey of Polish themes in Zuloaga and Spanish ones in Schulz, a parallel is drawn between the motif of a wounded horse in Zuloaga’s art and Schulz’s imagery. The article ends with the presentation of the similarities in the treatment of a human head by both artists and a discussion of the role of physical deformation for Zuloaga and Schulz.

Introduction Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta (1870-1945) was one of Schulz’s favorite painters, if not the favorite, according to the testimony of Bruno Schulz’s pupil, Feiwel Schreier: Przynosi na lekcje ró ne albumy dzie malarzy, objania ich obrazy […] Utkwi mi w pami ci szczególnie hiszpaski malarz Zuloaga – zdaje si , by to jego ulubiony malarz – a tak e El Greco. (in Ficowski 2002: 119). (He used to bring along art publications with works of different painters, explaining their meaning […] Especially the Spanish painter Zuloaga – who was, as it seems, his favourite painter – stuck in my memory, as well as El Greco.)

Zuloaga has a short but dense entry in Sownik schulzowski, the famous dictionary on Schulz. Magorzata Kitowska-ysiak starts from Schreier’s testimony and describes one particular painting, Irene, a young nude female reclining on a sofa, with a picturesque shawl across her left arm (2003: 428). Kitowska-ysiak discerns two aspects that could particularly interest Schulz in Zuloaga: his direct, emotional treatment of erotic subjects and the theatricalization of the space, visible especially in the form of suspended curtains creating the background of his compositions, representing either the sky or a

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distant small town. However, according to Kitowska-ysiak, all these possible inspirations were treated by Schulz with his characteristic refinement. To begin, let us compare their respective biographies. Schulz was a contemporary of Zuloaga who, born twenty-two years earlier, died three years after Schulz was killed by a Nazi. Both were minoritarian: Zuloaga, known as a Spanish painter, was Basque, like his great predecessor Zurbaran; Schulz, one of the greatest Polish writers, was born into a Jewish family. Both were provincial and came from small towns: Zuloaga from Eibar in the Basque Country and Schulz from Drohobycz, now part of Ukraine. Apart from Schulz’s short studies in Lwów/Lemberg (1913) and Vienna (1917), and some short trips to Warsaw, Zakopane, Kudowa, the village of Boberka, Stockholm, and Paris, he spent practically his entire life in Drohobycz. But Zuloaga, unlike Schulz, was a restless spirit, moving constantly between Rome, Paris, Florence, Madrid, Segovia, Seville, and Zumaya, a Basque fishermen’s village. Zuloaga and Schulz were born respectively into the families of craftsmen and merchants: Zuloaga into that of armorers, whereas Schulz’s father, an accountant, owned a textile wholesale shop. Both felt attached to their ancestors and families, especially to some particular wizardly figures. In the case of Zuloaga, it was his uncle Daniel, called el alchimista de San Juan de los Caballeros: Painter as well as potter, he leads the life of a sixteenth-century craftsman, and when you see him, bearded and clad in long, flowing blouse, adding a touch of colour to some ornate composition or feverishly firing the clay, your mind travels back to Faust’s kitchen and the spell of mediaeval necromancy (Sargent 1916: 18).

In the case of Schulz, it was his father; when remembering that Sklepy cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops, 1934) was initially going to be called Recollections of My Father, one is tempted to compare Daniel Zuloaga with the father from Schulz’s prose, an “inspired heresiarch” (Schulz 1989a: 33;1 “herezjarcha natchniony”; Schulz 1989b: 37)2 with the “terrible eye of a prophet” (“grone oko prorocze”; Op 39): 1 2

All further references will be given as CF. All further references will be given as Op.

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Broda jego zje ya si dziwnie, wiechcie i p dzle wosów, strzelaj ce z brodawek, z pieprzów, z dziurek od nosa, nastroszyy si na swych korzonkach. Tak sta dr twy, z gorej cymi oczyma, dr c od wewn trznego wzburzenia, jak automat, który zaci si i zatrzyma na martwym punkcie. (Op 39) (His beard bristled grotesquely, the tufts of hair growing from warts and moles and from his nostrils stood on end. He became rigid and stood with flaming eyes, trembling from an internal conflict like an automaton of which the mechanism has broken down; CF 35)

A question arises: which of Zuloaga’s vast output of paintings could Schulz have actually seen? One picture hangs now in the Lviv museum – A Spanish Woman on a Street. It shows a woman in blue dress with a fan and some people and houses in the background. It has not been determined if the painting was a part of the collection during Schulz’s lifetime. During his stay in Vienna he could have seen the portrait of the folk-poet Don Miguel from Segovia, offered in 1903 by the count Lanckoroski to the newly founded Moderne Galerie, now called Österreichische Galerie Belvedere (Anonymous 2003: 9). Schulz certainly saw many of Zuloaga’s paintings in Paris in 1938, although that was after both of his books had been published. Of the numerous publications – books and articles – on Zuloaga, Schulz most probably knew those published in German. The most important of these was the German edition of Léonce Bénédite’s (the director of Musée du Luxembourg) book on Zuloaga, published in 1911, by Otto Beckmann Verlag “mit 1 Gravure und 51 Originalreproductionen”, with titles of the pictures given in French, German, and English. Then, almost simultaneously, the German translation of Camille Mauclair’s study, Ignacio Zuloaga, was published in the October 1, 1911, issue of Die Kunst für Alle, with twenty-two black-and-white and two colour illustrations. These two publications provided a rich survey of Ignacio Zuloaga’s early work. Rilke the Go-Between? As a possible missing link between Zuloaga and Schulz, one should consider Rainer Maria Rilke. He and his wife, Clara Rilke-Westhoff, became friends with Zuloaga in 1902, in Paris, and in 1904, they went to Düsseldorf to see his exhibition. For a few years (1902-06), Rilke and Zuloaga exchanged letters, which were full of admiration and

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devotion on the part of the poet. After 1906, their friendship waned, and Rilke did not visit Zuloaga during his travels in Spain. He never wrote a book or even an article on Zuloaga.3 On the other hand, Rilke was one of the most important literary influences on Schulz, who admired his poetry and prose and liked to read aloud from his book in German and make improvised comments.4 The correspondence between Rilke and Zuloaga was prepared for publication by Jean Gebser and even published during Schulz’s lifetime, but it is unlikely that Schulz ever had it in his hands. The text was written by Gebser in Spanish in spring 1936, but the civil war made the planned publication impossible and almost cost the author his life. The German version was published in 1940, in Zurich by Emil Oprecht, a well-known anti-Nazi publisher. It is very doubtful, albeit not totally impossible, that the book could find its way to Drohobycz during the Nazi occupation. Spanish Themes – Polish Themes The main Spanish subject in the written work of Bruno Schulz is Bianca, the heroine of ‘Wiosna’ (‘Spring’). The form of this first name, used by Shakespeare for a meek young daughter in The Taming of the Shrew and for a courtesan in Othello, is Italian, not Spanish, but the heroine of ‘Spring’ has many Spanish characteristics. There is a close affinity between Bianca and the heroine of Schulz’s engraving ‘Infantka i jej kary’ (‘The Infant and her Dwarfs’, 1920), who resembles some historical Spanish female figures: first and foremost, la infanta Blanca de Castila, who at the age of twelve married the future king of France, Louis VII, and was a dominant political and military personage; as well as Blanca de la Cerda, through whom the Basque province Vizcaya passed into the hands of the Castilian kings. Bianca is the daughter of a certain de V. What we hear about her presumed and rejected maternal ancestors all sounds very Spanish: Có z tego, e nie wywodzia si ona ani od prawowitej cesarzowej Meksyku, ani nawet od owej ma onki po lewej r ce, morganatycznej

3

Their relationship was recently the subject of the paper delivered by Justus Lange during the meeting of the International Rilke Society in Dresden (September 2006). 4 On Rilke’s influence on Schulz, cf. Zieliski (1999) and Kuczyska-Koschany (2004).


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Izabeli d’Orgaz, która ze sceny w drownej podbia arcyksi cia sw pi knoci ? Có z tego, e matk jej bya owa maa Kreolka, której nadawa pieszczotliwe imi Conchity i która pod tym imieniem wesza do historii – niejako przez kuchenne schody? (Op 187) (What if she was not descended either from the legitimate empress of Mexico or even from the morganatic wife, Izabella d’Orgaz, who, from the stage of a touring opera, conquered Archduke Maximilian by her beauty? What if her mother was a little Creole girl whom he called Conchita and who under that name has entered history through the back door as it were; CF 186).

D’Orgaz was the stage name of the Mexican actress Elena Delgado de Baviera (1919-47), quite popular in the thirties. First of all, however, the surname, d’Orgaz, sends a reader to the famous painting by El Greco. One should mention here that Zuloaga, who owned several paintings by El Greco, was so fascinated by The Burial of the Count Orgaz that he once travelled day and night from Paris to Seville, woke the local priest, demanded to see the picture, contemplated it, and went directly back to Paris.5 In the description of Bianca, Schulz emphasizes her whiteness several times. One is tempted to compare these passages with the picture by Zuloaga, which presents a lady in a wide white gown and is entitled The Duchess of Alba (1925). Her surname, one of the best Spanish families, can be translated as white, just as Bianca can be. Another Spanish theme in the work of Schulz is the corrida motif in his open letter to Witold Gombrowicz. I will discuss this case separately below. All these references are treated here not as direct indicators of the influence of Zuloaga but as the most recognizable motifs of Spanish culture in general. There are reciprocally some Polish subjects in Zuloaga’s paintings. In 1912, he painted a portrait of the red-haired beauty Vittoria Malinowska, called La Rusa. The nickname means Russian, but her name sounds Polish. Definitely Polish was the soprano singer Aga Lahowska, another beautiful woman, painted by Zuloaga in 1919. Joaquín Turina composed Poema en forma de canciones (1911) for

5 “El Greco también tuvo un papel fundamental en su vida. Durante su estancia en París, si sentía el deseo de contemplar El entierro del conde de Orgaz era capaz de viajar día y noche. Una vez en Toledo, y fuese la hora que fuese, pedía al capellán que por favor le abriese la iglesia. Lo admiraba y después emprendía viaje de regreso a la capital francesa” (Garcia 2000).

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Lahowska. She was a friend and performer of the works of Manuel de Falla (another friend of Zuloaga). In October 1917, Lahowska, Falla, and Zuloaga participated in the inauguration of a school complex near the birth house of Goya in Fuendetodos (del Pino 2006). But most interesting for us is the portrait of the Polish musician and politician Ignacy Paderewski. In 1924, Zuloaga went specially to Riond-Bosson, near Morges in Switzerland, to paint this picture, commissioned by Steinway. According to the New York Times article from 1925: The painting shows Paderewski standing before his piano, which is on a balcony and in the background is Warsaw, with the famous monument there brought out. […] About him are the trappings of a statesman – a few law books on a stool near by and the eagle of Poland is seen in the folds of the red emblem that is thrown loosely over the end of the piano. […] But the details of the picture are lost in the strength of the figure and especially the face, which shows all the vigor and strength that the erstwhile Premier of Poland has. (Anonymous 1925)

This description reveals the importance of the symbolic value of background in Zuloaga’s pictures, especially in his portraits. The background is frequently a distant view of a city, like Toledo in the magnificent portrait of the French writer Maurice Barrès. Sometimes it is simply a street or some separate houses. There is a passage in the prose of Schulz, namely the twenty-fourth chapter of ‘Spring’, that seems to comment on this technique of using architecture as a background: Odkryem tajemnic tego stylu. Tak dugo linie tej architektury w swej natarczywej swadzie powtarzay ten sam niezrozumiay frazes, a poj em ten szyfr zjadliwy, to perskie oko, t askotliw mistyfikacj . Bya to zaprawd zbyt przejrzysta maskarada. W tych wyszukanych i ruchliwych liniach o przesadnej wytwornoci bya jaka papryka nazbyt ostra, jaki nadmiar gor cej pikanterii, byo co fertycznego, arliwego, zbyt jaskrawo gestykuluj cego – co jednym sowem kolorowego, kolonialnego i ypi cego oczyma… Tak jest, ten styl mia na dnie swym co niesychanie odra aj cego – by rozpustny, wymylny, tropikalny i niesychanie cyniczny. (Op 172) (I have discovered the secret of the villa’s style. The lines of its architecture repeated one incomprehensible pattern so many times and so insistently that I finally understood their mystifying code: the masquerade was really quite transparent. In those elaborate and mobile lines of exaggerated elegance there was too much spice, an excess of hot piquancy, something fidgety, too eager, too showy – something, in a


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word, colorful and colonial… Indeed, the style was in effect rather repulsive – lustful, overelaborate, tropical, and extremely cynical; Schulz CF 173).

Fighting Bull and Wounded Horse In the year 1936, the editor of the Warsaw monthly Studio encouraged Witold Gombrowicz and Schulz to exchange some letters. Three of the letters were published in the July issue of Studio. In his first letter, Gombrowicz attempted to provoke Schulz and quoted (or rather fabricated) the opinion of a doctor’s wife (from Wilcza Street in Warsaw); the quote suggested that Schulz was either a pervert or a poseur. Gombrowicz was challenging Schulz to descend from his usual heights and face the allegation. In his answer, Schulz used a peculiar argument, taken from the Spanish reality but adapted to his own situation. He compared the action taken by his friend against him with a corrida, with Schulz as a bull and Gombrowicz as a torero, hidden behind the doctor’s wife in her red underwear. Schulz, however, refused to step into the trap and declared himself ready to challenge the convention by fighting directly with Gombrowicz instead of attacking the lady in red: “Not to bump you off your feet, O noble toreador, but to take you on my back […] and carry you out of the arena, beyond the confines of its rules and statutes” (Schulz 1988: 120; “Nie, eby Ci zwali z nóg, szlachetny Toreadorze, ale eby Ci

wzi na grzbiet […] i wynie Ci poza obr b areny, jej prawide i kodeksów”; Op 450). He even proposed challenging convention by abandoning the tauromachy and with the muttters of the disappointed crowd rising behind us, walk side by side at an easy gait, bull and toreador, to the exit, freedom, absorbed in intimate conversation even before we leave behind the outer circle of the arena. (Schulz 1988: 120-121) (maj c gwar rozczarowanej publicznoci za sob , ruszyli rami przy ramieniu – byk i jego toreador – ku wyjciu, na wolno, swobodnym spacerowym krokiem – pogr eni w intymnej rozmowie, zanim jeszcze wyszlimy z ostatnich kr gów teatru; Op 451)

This exchange was the subject of numerous speculations; some commentators were trying to discover its hidden meaning (Salamon 1996). I would like to propose a modest explanation. Schulz’s answer clearly reminds the reader of the following

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description of a corrida in Granada, taken from a book, published first in Sweden, here in German translation: Ich befinde mich in diesem Augenblick im “feindlichen” Lager. Mein menschliches Solidaritätsgefühl lässt mich im Stich und ich fühle mich solidarisch mit dem gemarterten Tier. Ich hatte das Gefühl, als ob die Rollen hier vertauscht wären: die Menschen benehmen sich wie Tiere, das Tier dagegen wirkte in seiner hilflosen Bestürzung so ganz und gar menschlich. War aber nicht auch meine eigene Stimmung in jener Stunde etwas verworren? In dieser von Leidenschaft aufgepeitschten Luft werden die moralischen Instinkte umnebelt und die Rechtsbegriffe von oberst zu unterst gekehrt. Wer hatte hier recht? Wer war moralisch verworrener: die Toreadore in ihrem sinnlosen Angriff auf das überrumpelte Tier, das blutdurstig verwilderte Publikum oder ich selbst, der ich mit dem Tier gegen die Menschen mitfühlte? [A]ls ich mitten im, fortgesetzten, Spiele, die Arena verließ, hatte ich das Gefühl, dass mich das Publikum als Barbaren betrachtete. (Ehrenpreis 1928: 123-124)

The similarities between these passages are striking: the identification of the writer with the bull, the need to overturn the conventions, the final escape. The book about Spain was written by Marcus Ehrenpreis (1869-1951), born in Lviv, a Jewish journalist from Sweden, publisher of the Judisk Tidskrift, and chief rabbi of Sweden; there were two ways how this passage could quite probably have reached Schulz. Firstly, at the Iberian Peninsula, Ehrenpreis had a guide, Samuel Schwarz, from Zgierz near ód (Lodz). Schwarz, a mining engineer, discovered a community of crypto Jews when he went to Portugal just before the outbreak of World War I. His brother Marek was a painter, active in Paris, a member of the artistic group Junge Jidysz. Schulz himself had good contacts with Jewish artists in ód. One of them, Nathan Spiegel, encouraged him to go to Paris in 1938, to try and organize an exhibition of his works. Secondly, and this seems even more probable, Ehrenpreis was the uncle of Debora Vogel, a writer and a friend of Schulz. In 1930, he published in his Judisk Tidskrift Vogel’s article on the art of Schulz, illustrated by Spotkanie (Meeting) and The Infanta and her Dwarfs (Chmurzyski 1995: 163). Also in 1930, Ehrenpreis published the Polish version of his Spanish book, Kraj midzy Wschodem a Zachodem – Podró yda po Hiszpanii (The Country Between East and West – The Journey of a Jew Through Spain). Six years later Schulz used the motif of a reversal of the roles in corrida in his polemic with Gombrowicz.


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Although Schulz, of course, was not known to partake in an actual bull fight, Zuloaga was an active participant in the bull-fighting scene when he was a young man. On a corrida poster from 1897, we see his name as one of two matadors, with a nickname El Pintor (The Painter). Because of pressure from his family, he quit after being wounded, but corrida was present in his work until the end.6 Later in his life, his attitude toward corrida became milder, full of compassion. Another animal seems to be directly related to Zuloaga. In one of the most lyrical fragments of Schulz’s prose, the short story ‘Cinnamon Shops’, which was the title to the original edition of his first collection of short stories, there appeared “an old, wise cabhorse” (“stary, m dry ko doro karski”), a horse that “inspired confidence” (“budzi zaufanie“) and even “seemed smarter than its driver” (CF 60; “wydawa si m drzejszy od wonicy”; Op 67). This passage was often interpreted as a deep personal recollection. The ride with the wise horse became a special, mystical experience for the hero of the story, who confessed: “I shall never forget that luminous journey on that brightest of winter nights” (CF 61; “Nie zapomn

nigdy tej jazdy wietlistej w najjaniejsz noc zimow ”; Op 68). The culminating point of that journey is worth quoting in full: Wreszcie usta. Wyszedem z doro ki. Dysza ci ko ze zwieszon gow . Przytuliem jego eb do piersi, w jego wielkich czarnych oczach lniy zy. Wtedy ujrzaem na jego brzuchu okr g czarn ran . – Dlaczego mi nie powiedziae? – szepn em ze zami. – Drogi mój – to dla ciebie – rzek i sta si bardzo may, jak konik z drzewa. Opuciem go. Czuem si

dziwnie lekki i szcz liwy (Op 68). (At last we stopped. I got out of the cab. The horse was panting, hanging its head. I hugged its head to my breast and saw that there were tears in his eyes. I noticed a round black wound on its belly. “Why did not you tell me?” I whispered, crying. “My dearest, I did it for you”, the horse said and became very small, like a wooden toy. I left him and felt wonderfully light and happy; CF 61)

The wounded horse is the subject of one of the best-known pictures by Zuloaga, called The Victim of a Fiesta (1910), where, to use the words of Camille Mauclair, “ein alter, sich über sein blutendes Pferd neigender Pikador [der] vor einem Himmel à la Delacroix vorüberreitet, frösteln macht” (Mauclair 1911: 13). In 1923, in an 6

Cf. Claretie (1905) on Zuloaga and corrida.

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interview Zuloaga declared his wish to keep that painting to himself and explained the story of its creation: I bought the old horse right from the bull-ring, and he lived just long enough for me to paint him. I did it more as a protest than anything else, and it has made such an impression on the minds of the Spanish people, that now, when a white horse comes into a bull-ring, a shuddering whisper passes through the crowd: “Zuloaga’s horse!” (Sangree 1923).

The following year this passage gave an anonymous author from the same newspaper inspiration for a witty remark: There is a case of a horse, who sat, or stood, for The Picador. Legend has it that he died as a result of being gored in a bullfight. Zuloaga assured the reporters that it was quite true. “That horse watched me painting, and when I came to the very last stroke of my brush he turned to me and said, ‘Well, goodbye, old man!’ and then he dropped over dead.” But that, of course, was after he had seen his portrait. (Anonymous 1924)

On the one hand, we can hardly assume that Schulz could have seen these publications in the American daily press; on the other hand, those stories were widely spread, and he could have read about this legend of the dying horse who speaks to its creator somewhere in the German or Polish press. An Evening Stroll and the Desire One of the most spectacular examples of the affinity between Zuloaga’s and Schulz’s subjects is the picture Evening Promenade and the sixteenth chapter of ‘Spring’. Let us start with two opening paragraphs from Schulz: W parku miejskim gra teraz codziennie wieczorem muzyka i przez aleje przesuwa si promenada wiosenna. Kr i nawracaj , mijaj i spotykaj si w symetrycznych, wci powtarzaj cych si arabeskach. Modzi ludzie nosz nowe wiosenne kapelusze i trzymaj niedbale r kawiczki w doni. Przez pnie drzew i ywopoty wiec w s siednich alejach sukienki dziewcz t. Id te dziewcz ta parami, koysz c si w biodrach, napuszone pian szlar i wolantów, nosz ze sob , jak ab dzie, te ró owe i biae napuszenia – dzwony pene kwitn cego mulinu i czasami osiadaj nimi na awce, jakby zm czone ich pust parad – osiadaj ca t wielk ró gazy i batystu, który p ka, przelewaj c si patkami. I wtedy odsaniaj si

nogi zao one jedna na drug i skrzy owane – splecione w biay ksztat


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peen nieodpartej wymowy, a modzi spacerowicze, mijaj c je, milkn i bledn , ra eni trafnoci argumentu, do g bi przekonani i zwyci eni. Przychodzi chwila przed samym zmierzchem i kolory wiata pi kniej . Wszystkie barwy wst puj na koturny, staj si odwi tne, arliwe i smutne. Szybko napenia si park ró owym werniksem, lni cym lakierem, od którego rzeczy staj si naraz bardzo kolorowe i iluminowane. Ale ju w tych barwach jest jaki lazur zbyt g boki, jaka pi kno zbyt askawa i ju podejrzana. Jeszcze chwila i g szcz parku ledwie przysypany mod zieleni , ga zisty jeszcze i nagi, przewieca cay na wskro ró ow godzin zmierzchu, podbit balsamem chodu, napuszon niewymownym smutkiem rzeczy na zawsze i miertelnie pi knych (Op 154-155). (A band is now playing every evening in the city park, and people on their spring outings fill the avenues. They walk up and down, pass one another, and meet again in symmetrical, continuously repeated patterns. The young men are wearing new spring hats and nonchalantly carrying gloves in their hands. Through the hedges and between the tree trunks the dresses of girls walking in parallel avenues glow. The girls walk in pairs, swinging their hips, strutting like swans under the foam of their ribbons, and flounces; sometimes they land on garden seats, as if tired by the idle parade, and the bells of their flowered muslin skirts expand on the seats, like roses beginning to shed their petals. And then they disclose their crossed legs – white irresistibly expressive shapes – and the young men, passing them, grow speechless and pale, hit by the accuracy of the argument, completely convinced and conquered. At a particular moment before dusk all the colors of the world become more beautiful than ever, festive, ardent yet sad. The park quickly fills with pink varnish, with shining lacquer that makes every other color glow deeper; and at the same time the beauty of the colors becomes too glaring and somewhat suspect. In another instant the thickets of the park strewn with young greenery, still naked and twiggy, fill with the pinkness of the dusk, shot with coolness, spilling the indescribable sadness of things supremely beautiful but mortal; CF 160-161)

The first sentence contains a direct reference to Zuloaga’s title, visible especially in Polish original: “codziennie wieczorem […] przez aleje przesuwa si promenada wiosenna” (italics mine; “every evening […] people on their spring outings fill the avenues”). In the second paragraph we find terms taken from the technique of a painter – “ró owym werniksem” (“with pink varnish”) or “lni cym lakierem” (“with shining lacquer”) – another hint that the scene was borrowed from Zuloaga’s painting. Evening Promenade is one of many works by Zuloaga that develop the subject of awakening sexuality, seduction, and courtship. It is enough to mention such well-known

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paintings as Spanish Lady, The Spicy Joke, Weariness, The Lady with the Fan, Paulette the Dancer, Spanish Ladies at a Bull-fight. Two of them deserve closer attention in the context of Schulz’s writing and art. The Old Women’s Admirer shows an elderly gentleman with an umbrella under his right arm who eagerly follows two beautiful Spanish ladies, one of them looking with a knowing smile at the viewer – a parallel motif to numerous drawings and engravings by Schulz, such as ‘Zaczarowane Miasto I’ (‘The Enchanted City I’). Zuloaga’s The Street of Desire evokes the dubious atmosphere of the Street of Crocodiles. Both Zuloaga and Schulz were exploring the borderland between religious devotion and sensual admiration. From that point of view it seems interesting to compare Schulz’s The Tributary Procession on the Streets of a Town with Zuloaga’s The Scourgers. There are also some similarities in the use of particular motifs, like that of a pilgrim’s stick. Particularly striking from that point of view is the similarity between Schulz’s sketch ‘W drówki sceptyka’ (‘The Wanderings of a Sceptic’, 1936) and Zuloaga’s dwarf Gregorio in The Old Castile. Self-portraits and Portraits To all these similarities I would finally like to add another one: the means of self-presentation, more specifically, the presentation of the human head. Let us start with the striking affinity between Zuloaga’s Sketch for a Portrait of Pérez de Ayala (1931) and the way Schulz used to draw his own face. Apart from the accidental similarity of the features between Pérez de Ayala and Schulz, there is a deeper affinity in the way the human head is presented in such a way which allows the skull to emanate from under the skin. The structure of the skull is visible through the shape of a drawn or painted head, especially when you look at it diagonally from a certain angle. Schulz gives an apt description of this particular angle in his short story ‘Samotno’ (‘Loneliness’): Czasem widz si w lustrze. Rzecz dziwna, mieszna i bolesna! Wstyd wyzna. Nie widz si nigdy en face, twarz w twarz. Ale troch g biej, troch dalej stoj tam w g bi lustra nieco z boku, nieco profilem, stoj

zamylony i patrz w bok. (Op 311).


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(Sometimes I see myself in the mirror. A strange, ridiculous, and painful thing! I am ashamed to admit it: I never look at myself full face. Somewhat deeper, somewhat farther away I stand inside the mirror a little off center, slightly in profile, thoughtful and glancing sideways; CF 309)

Schulz’s interest in skulls probably originated in his visit to the Schädelkapelle near Kudowa, in the Sudety Mountains in 1921.7 Pride of the Dwarfs Another common trait is the interest in physical deformation. Let us compare some cases of swollen faces. In Schulz’s work we have the face of the defecating vagabond in ‘Pan’: Wieche brudnych kaków wichrzy si nad czoem wysokim i wypukym jak bua kamienna, utoczona przez rzek . [T]en grymas rós, bra w siebie tamten ob d i natchnienie, p cznia nim, wybacza si coraz bardziej, a wyama si rycz cym, charcz cym kaszlem miechu. (Op 53) (A tuft of filthy hair bristled over his broad forehead rounded like a stone washed by a stream […] The grimace intensified, taking in the previous madness and tension, swelling, becoming broader and broader, until it broke into a roaring, hoarse shout of laughter; CF 47)

Schulz also describes Charles/Karol, who has something growing inside his body: Gdy tak siedzia w bezmylnym, wegetatywnym osupieniu, cay zamieniony w kr enie, w respiracj , w g bokie pulsowanie soków, rosa w g bi jego ciaa, spoconego i pokrytego wosem w rozlicznych miejscach, jaka niewiadoma, nie sformuowana przyszo, niby potworna narol, wyrastaj ca fantastycznie w nieznan dymensj . (Op 56) (While Charles sat there in a thoughtless, vegetative stupor, completely surrendered to circulation, respiration, and the deep pulsation of his natural juices, there formed inside his perspiring body an unknown, unformulated future, like a terrible growth, pushing forth in an unknown direction; CF 50)

Zuloaga has a predilection for dwarfs and other cases of deformation of the human body. There are several paintings showing the dwarf named Gregorio. A fragment of one of them, the abovementioned 7

See the recollection of Irena Kejlin-Mitelman in Schulz (1984: 48).

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picture The Old Castile, was titled Hypothyroid Dwarf in a book on nutritional deficiency in Spain (Fernandez 1990). That example shows the ambivalence of Zuloaga’s treatment of dwarfs, a certain pride in deformity. In the work of Bruno Schulz – both literary and artistic – there are many dwarfish male figures with disproportionately large heads.8 They crawl under the feet of women, begging for a glance or a touch of the shoe. Some of them have Schulz’s face, and despite the submissive attitude, there is a distinct touch of pride in them. Zuloaga’s toreros in dance-like poses proudly present their elaborate costumes and carefully coiffed hair. One of the best pictures of this subject, representing three young toreros and sometimes called The Young Bull-fighters, also has a metaphorical title: The Idols of the Future. One recalls immediately the title of Schulz’s map of engravings: Xiga bawochwalcza (The Idolatrous Book, 1920-1922). Both artists, the Spanish-Basque and the Polish-Jew, meet again in their critical description of the aspirations of the modern society, a description which mingles humility with pride and distance with admiration. The comparison between Zuloaga and Schulz certainly has some limitations. On the one hand, it is definitely more visible in the prose than in the art work of Schulz. On the other hand, the influence of Zuloaga is attested not only by several (more or less) direct borrowings, which are usually ingeniously refined but also by the testimony of Schulz’s pupil. One can well imagine a Spanish edition of Bruno Schulz’s prose illustrated with reproductions of works by Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta. Bibliography Anonymous. 1924. ‘Portraits as Art’ in The New York Times (17 December 1924). ——. 1925. ‘Paderewski Portrait by Zuloaga on View’ in The New York Times (29 November 1925). ——. 2003. “Die neuesten Bestrebungen der Kunst documentieren…” Die Moderne Galerie 1903. Wien: Österreichische Galerie Belvedere. Chmurzyski, Wojciech. 1995. ‘Nieznany “szwedzki” artyku Debory Vogel o Brunonie Schulzu’ in Chmurzyski, Wojciech (ed.) Bruno Schulz 18921942: Katalog-Pamitnik Wystawy “Bruno Schulz. Ad Memoriam” w

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They were recently discussed by Owczarski (2007) in his book on Lemian, Schulz, and Kantor.


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Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza w Warszawie. Warszawa: Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza: 165-166. Claretie, Jules. 1905. ‘Bravo Toro!…’ in Je sais tout 1: 501-516. del Pino, Rafael. 2006. ‘Falla ante Goya: una romería spiritual’ in La Opinión de Granada (26 November 2006). Ehrenpreis, Marcus. 1928. Das Land zwischen Orient und Okzident. Spanische Reise eines Juden. Berlin: Welt-Verlag. Fernandez, Renate Lellep. 1990. A Simple Matter of Salt: An Ethnography of Nutritional Deficiency in Spain. Berkeley: University of California Press. On line at: http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft2d5nb1b2/ (consulted 24.12.2008). Ficowski, Jerzy. 2002. Regiony wielkiej herezji i okolice. Sejny: Fundacja “Pogranicze”. Garcia, Amaya. 2000. ‘Un pintor con una visión muy peculiar de España’ in Aula del mundo (30 October 2000). Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata. 2003. ‘Zuloaga (y Zabaleta) Ignacio’ in Bolecki, Wodzimierz, Jerzy Jarz bski and Stanisaw Rosiek (eds). Sownik schulzowski. Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria: 428-429. Kuczyska-Koschany, Katarzyna. 2004. Rilke poetów polskich, Wrocaw: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocawskiego. Mauclair, Camille. 1911. ‘Ignacio Zuloaga’ in Die Kunst für Alle (1 October 1911). Owczarski, Wojciech. 2007. Kantor, Lemian, Schulz – miejsca wspólne, miejsca wasne. Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria. Salamon, Joanna. 1996. ‘Schulz hermetyczny’ in Gnosis 8-9. On line at: http://www.gnosis.art.pl/numery/gn08_salamon_schulz_hermetyczny1.htm (consulted 24.12.2008). Sangree, Constance L. 1923. ‘Ignacio Zuloaga His Own Architect’ in The New York Times (1 July 1923). Sargent, John S. 1916. ‘Foreword’ in Exhibition of Paintings by Ignacio Zuloaga. New York: Redfield-Kendrick-Odell Co., Printers. Schulz, Bruno. 1984. Listy, fragmenty. Wspomnienia o pisarzu (ed. J. Ficowski). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ——. 1988. Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz with Selected Prose (ed. J. Ficowski, tr. W. Arndt with V. Nelson). New York: Harper & Row. ——. 1989a. The Complete Fiction (tr. C. Wieniewska). New York: Walker. ——. 1989b. Opowiadania, wybór esejów i listów (ed. J. Jarz bski). Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossoliskich. Zieliski, Jan. 1999. ‘Schulz a Rilke. Hipotetyczna próba rekonstrukcji lektury’ in Ritz, German and Gabriela Matuszek (eds). Recepcja literacka i proces literacki / Literarische Rezeption und literarischer Prozess. Kraków: Universitas: 231-242.

Bruno Schulz and Djuna Barnes: Border-crossing and Artistic Practice Esther Sánchez-Pardo Abstract: Bruno Schulz and Djuna Barnes (1892-1982) are two unclassifiable modernist artists. A closer look at their works, superficially disparate and unrelated, reveals striking similarities in both form and content. Their fierce independence as self-taught writers and visual artists distinguished them from a bourgeois milieu in which the artist no longer occupied an autonomous realm. Their relative isolation also enabled their transformation into icons of the decadence and bohemianism of the avant-garde. This essay will examine their convergences and differences in order to elucidate their methods of work and sources of inspiration as well as their engagement with their audiences and societies.

Introduction When the careers of these two great writers and artists, Bruno Schulz (1892-1942) and Djuna Barnes (1892-1982) are examined, striking similarities, which connect them across a European and American 1 cultural divide at the time after “the world broke”, are perceived. Their creative production bears witness to a world in a state of permanent instability. Apart from the fact that they were both born in 1892, Schulz in a rural area in Poland (Drohobycz) and Barnes in upstate New York (Cornwall on Hudson), their lives were completely dissimilar. Barnes lived a long life; she outlived Schulz by forty years. Barnes also disappeared from view in 1940, when she moved to a

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American writer Willa Cather’s much-quoted dictum that “[t]he world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts” reflects her awareness of the radical social alterations, most notably in the areas of sex and gender, that were consolidated in Europe and in the United States in the years following the First World War (1936: v)

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small apartment in Greenwich Village and lived in complete isolation.2 Critics coincide in their appraisal of Schulz’s and Barnes’s works as primarily the product of writers rather than visual artists. As they gradually developed their own styles, they decided to jettison their role as illustrators and concentrate on their struggle to resolve through their writing the continual rapid transformation of the world in the period between the two world wars. We may also ask ourselves if it is not precisely in their passion and need to write rather than in the illustrations to their written work where we find Schulz’s and Barnes’s clearest statement of their inner world. In literary history, social upheavals, including shifts in social relations and in sex and gender, appeared both in the publication of alternative literary traditions by women, minorities (Jewish, AfricanAmerican), and non-heterosexuals, and in the professionalization of literary studies that marginalized these literatures. Authorship in the modern era could be seen as both feminine, insofar as it was an uncertain, part-time occupation, and masculine, insofar as it was a financially profitable one, even though writing could actually be lucrative for a woman or unreliable for a man. In this article, I will focus on Schulz’s and Barnes’s early work, and I will expand more on Barnes due to the familiarity and the expertise of the readership of this volume with the work of Schulz. This contribution is part of a larger project that compares the achievements of both artists along the different stages of their careers – fatally cut short in the case of Schulz and voluntarily in the case of Barnes. Schulz and Barnes: Intersections Schulz and Barnes were both born into middle-class households that did not provide them with a university education. The progress and 2

Philip Herring, Barnes’s biographer, writes: “The longevity of the Barnes family was for Djuna an inherited curse. She had tried to end her life in London in 1939; in the late 1970s, she tried again, undertaking to swallow all the pills on her night table, though somehow she missed the sleeping pills […] But [even if] daily life and simple tasks became increasingly difficult…the alternative to staying in Patchin Place drove Barnes to even more intense anxiety: a nursing home would be a fate far worse than death itself, for it would mean the end of creativity” (1995: 295-296).

Bruno Schulz and Djuna Barnes: Border-crossing and Artistic Practice

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evolution in their writing and art was self-taught. They both found themselves faced with the necessity of making a living and thus practiced their creative work on the side. Schulz and Barnes worked in solitude, almost in complete isolation; they never belonged to a literary or artistic group. They were also terribly protective of their independence and had no masters. They differ in their openness to the world; whereas Schulz spent his entire life in his birthplace, Drohobycz, except for a few 3 short visits abroad, Barnes crossed the Atlantic several times. She lived in Paris and London and moved around freely in Europe. Schulz and Barnes were both influenced by the Decadent movement and specifically by Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898). They both shared similar concerns with turn-of-the-century artists interested in representing and writing about the obscene and the grotesque. Beardsley’s thin line-style of drawing was particularly well suited to the grotesque. The use of the grotesque, which deliberately plays with forms that are exaggerated, bizarre, and ugly, is an accepted artistic convention and an important element in much of Beardsley’s work. It tends to express a particularly disillusioned view of life, and this underpinned Beardsley’s occasionally morbid philosophical outlook. He once famously remarked: “I have one thing, the grotesque. If I am not grotesque, then I am nothing” (Slessor 2000: 27). Schulz’s art, original and unique as it is, comes also from Viennese expressionism and the Old masters. In Jerzy Ficowski’s view, the dynamic arrangement of figures and bright spots surrounded by complete darkness are signs of Goya’s influence, especially from the series of Los Disparates, Los Caprichos, and The Naked Maja – a direct source of Schulz’s Undula in The Idolatrous Book. Scholars of Schulz’s work have stated that it is almost impossible to place his oeuvre in mainstream Polish literature, to find affinities, influences, and identify trends present in his work. Schulz was a loner living in a world of his own. In Celina Wieniewska’s words, [He was a man] with an intense, formidable inner life, a painter’s imagination, a sensuality and responsiveness to physical stimuli which

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With the help of friends in Poland and France, Schulz did manage to visit Paris during the summer of 1938. He spent three weeks visiting museums and discussing art and literature. This visit had quite an impact on him.

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Esther Sánchez-Pardo most probably could find satisfaction only in artistic creation… (in Schulz 1988: 12)

The world of Schulz is an eminently private one where his family and especially his father occupy center stage. Apart from his family, Schulz’s universe is populated by the inhabitants of Drohobycz. His characters are people who stuck to the old way of life before a new wave of entrepreneurs and fortune seekers moved to the region. When oil was struck near the city and prosperity brought about major changes in their lifestyles, the old patriarchal order collapsed. Nazi expansionist policies presented a threat to peace in central Europe. The Polish-German pact of 1934 intensified the spread of Nazi ideas in some sections of Polish society. When war broke out in September 1939, Drohobycz was for a time occupied by the Russians. Schulz could still teach and was able to write, but his type of writing was too personal and confessional to be acceptable during wartime. He, therefore, had to return to painting and to try to make a living as a traditional craftsman when, during the German advance into Soviet territory, Drohobycz was occupied by the Nazis in the summer of 1941. In the Jewish quarter of the city, in November 1942, Schulz was shot dead on the street by a Gestapo officer. Regarding Djuna Barnes, we know Oscar Wilde had an important influence on the early plays she wrote for the Provincetown Players. The 1906 American edition of Salomé, which Barnes probably owned, was adorned with Beardsley’s enigmatic illustrations. These stories, the drawings, the decadent aura, and the curiously stilted dialogue of many of Barnes’s plays point to the styles of Wilde and Beardsley as crucial influences in her formative years. Barnes’s Nightwood, written at the peak of her career, is a rereading, from the grim perspective of 1936, of the alternatives available to men and women after the collapse of the American economy and the worldwide depression had constrained the possibilities for avant-garde literary communities, and after the ascendance of the National Socialists in Germany who had begun to enforce ordered and hierarchical social patterns with deadly power.4 In what follows, we will examine similarities and differences between Schulz’s and Barnes’s formal and thematic concerns appearing in their early work. This comparative framework will lead 4

Jane Marcus (1991) has documented Nightwood’s relation to the rise of Nazism.


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us to further cross-cultural reflections on the unexplored connections between the Anglo-American and the Eastern European avant-gardes and on the yet uncharted territories of modernism. Bruno Schulz’s and Djuna Barnes’s Forms There are clear formal similarities in Schulz’s and Barnes’s work. First, Schulz and Barnes shared ideas on visual artistic practice as the “illustration” of the textual. As Jerzy Ficowski has remarked, Schulz was fully aware of the divergence of the two realms of the visual and the verbal; Schulz wrote in one of his letters: If I were asked whether the same thread recurs in my drawings as in my prose, I would answer in the affirmative. The reality is the same only the frames are different. Here material and technique operate as the criteria of selection. A drawing sets narrower limits by its material than prose does. That is why I feel I have expressed myself more fully in my writing (in Ficowski 1990: 4).

This is also the case with Barnes, as I will try to show later in this article. In terms of style, both Barnes and Schulz manifest love for the archaic, the grotesque, and the uncanny. They were extremely interested in metamorphosis and in profound transformation and experimentation. Barnes and Schulz usually shape their narratives as life-writing, a part of their autobiographies-in-progress. As it is wellknown in Schulz’s case, his Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (1937) is a poetic recreation of his autobiography. Schulz delves into his past, and with the sensitivity of an artist merged with the capacity to recollect as a grown-up child, he embarks on a journey to reconstruct a lost and happier time. In this sense, we may understand the collection of stories in Sanatorium as a Künstlerroman, in which the discovery of Schulz’s artistic vocation goes hand-in-hand with a growing awareness of the loneliness, sadness, and near despair of his daily existence. The fatal accident that brought about his brother’s premature death in 1936 made his financial responsibilities grow; he became the sole supporter of his widowed sister, his nephew, and an aged cousin. His correspondence in these years reveals frequent bouts of depression lasting for longer periods of time.

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Schulz and Barnes both painted their friends and acquaintances. The majority of Schulz’s early drawings were destroyed or lost during the war. From his extant works, the author’s self-portrait in pencil (1919) together with portraits of friends (Stanislaw Weingarten, Maria Budratzka) bear the mark of his characteristic style, which moves from realistic academic compositions to pictures full of imaginary scenes, mythological figures, and pastoral vision. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, Barnes produced detailed portrait drawings, primarily in pencil and using color and shading. A good number of her early portraits were of the Provincetown Players – e.g., a pen-and-ink portrait of Eugene O’Neill showing the highly textured style of her early, more Beardsleyesque work (a reptile is growing out of his shoulder, but the drawing is sensitive and frank) or the portrait of actress Helen Westley, with whom Barnes had a personal as well as a professional connection; the portrait of Westley appears as an illustration in her short story collection, A Book. The portrait of her friend Emily Coleman also appears in A Book; it shocks the viewer because of its distorted character. This and other images show Barnes’s peculiarly bleak view of the human being. As it has been noted, the more emotionally involved Barnes was with the subject, the more likely she was to represent that person in accordance with her own inner world, producing an image simultaneously deformed and transformed, terrifying and true. If it was the emotional proximity and intimacy that caused Barnes to reshape and deform those she loved, the origin of this process may be seen in her own early experience of intimacy. In creating the illustrations and text of Ryder, Barnes concealed fragments of her autobiography amid a true explosion of styles and genres. The illustrations of Ryder and Ladies Almanack show a marked break from Barnes’s early work. Between 1923, when A Book was published, and 1928, Barnes moved to Paris and became the lover of sculptor Thelma Wood, whose work consisted of sculpture and etchings. We wonder to what extent the fact that Wood was an artist contributed to Barnes’s decision to derive her illustrations from existing images. Barnes herself was using what Frances Doughty has called a strategy of “literal representation, hidden by borrowed and highly stylized forms that seems to have no experiential referent [which is]


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especially clear in these illustrations, which contain direct copies of folk images from popular culture into which Barnes inserted the faces of her family and friends” (1991: 140-141). Duchartre and Saulnier’s L’Imagerie Populaire appeared in 1926 and it was the source of many images that Barnes produced between 1926 and 1928, later on to appear in Ladies Almanack and Ryder. It is a collection of eighteenthand nineteenth-century imagiers. As Carolyn Burke has noted, Barnes’s radicalism in her visual work downplays the values of originality and creativity through her open acknowledgement of her sources and her adaptation, which is a type of “visual quotation” (1991: 77). Barnes certainly challenged the concept of artistic authority. Intrigued by the “atemporal quality” (1991: 76) of the French illustrations, Barnes used the past as a source and model; she was paradoxically engaging in a cyclical return while creating her own images. Once we acknowledge this process of “visual quotation”, we are no longer able to see her as a traditional author or to function as traditional readers. Yet Barnes’s illustrations are not as innocent as they might seem. Doughty argues that although the images are mimetically tied to the text, the passages that they illustrate are not only the most emotionally disturbing kind but also generally those that cannot be fully understood without the help of a visual image (1991: 142). Barnes uses the double-coding of visual and verbal art in many of her works in order to subvert the social structure of her time. Barnes challenges her readers and the whole social order by using canonically sanctioned writing styles (from the Elizabethan in Ryder to the avantgarde in Ladies Almanack and high modernism in Nightwood) to place her narratives in a safe, unquestionable position. Schulz’s and Barnes’s Contents With regard to content, Schulz and Barnes also share similar creative concerns. For both artists, the realm of private fantasies and the imagination coexists alongside a “realistic” rendering of human types. They are also attracted by the representation of sexuality in its multiple forms, especially the complex power relations between men and women. Their own families are central to their creative processes. They show a tendency to create self-portraits and to appear as

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characters in their respective works. Their lives were also marked by loss, and their art testifies to the traumatic effects of that loss. In the case of Schulz, the loss of his father and the burning of the family home and business as a consequence of German occupation and in the case of Barnes, the deprivation of parental love, abuse, and an obligation to grow up fast and abandon the family household had a profound impact on their careers. Schulz and Barnes were both interested in transiency, bohemianism, and the precarious existence of the artist. This is shown in their interest in representing life at the circus. Anyone who has read Nightwood, with Dr. O’Connor’s splendid description of Nikka, a performer of the Cirque de Paris, would be aware of how important the visual was to Barnes.5 In Schulz’s The Idolatrous Book, several engravings pay tribute to the grotesque world of the circus (see ‘The Infanta and her Dwarfs’, ‘Mademoiselle Circe and her Troupe-circus’) Both Schulz and Barnes were also censored in their writings and visual productions. Schulz’s later drawings were never presented to the public. The intimate subject matter, bordering on obscenity, did not seem appropriate for public display, and he had to consider the consequences his drawings might have had on his reputation as a teacher in the local gymnasium. What is more, as Ficowski has written, some artistic circles would not have looked favorably upon the “dilettante”, and others, especially in the provinces, rejected his work as mere pornography (1990: 12). Under such circumstances, his drawings could only be presented as illustrations of his literary works – this was certainly the case with the illustrations Schulz designed for Sanatorium after the success of the 1934 story collection Cinnamon Shops (originally with no illustrations due to the editor’s decision to cut production costs). Barnes’s 1928 novel Ryder was censored, and its original and subsequent versions appear with a foreword by the author who explains that her work is missing fragments that are marked by blanks within the text. This was also the case with several of her explicitly 5

Barnes’s work is notorious for its interest in democratic forms of entertainment. The circus is among those forms of popular culture that undoubtedly influenced Barnes’s literary creations. Nightwood draws precisely from the cult of the circus, the sideshow and the theatre, to populate its pages, expanding on the experiences she had already written about in her earlier work as a reporter for various journals in New York City (see Marcus 1991: 221-250).


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sexual illustrations to the text. Ladies Almanack faced similar circumstances due to the fact that this booklet was self-published and circulated furtively among the circles of the Paris Left Bank in the late 1920s. Djuna Barnes: Early Work The majority of Barnes’s early drawings were originally published in newspapers along with her interviews, stories, and essays. Her first four books (Book of Repulsive Women, Smoke, Ladies Almanack, Ryder) also interweave illustrations and text. Even in her great novel Nightwood (1936), which contains no drawings, Barnes focuses much of her concern on linguistic descriptions of tableaux vivants. It is impossible to separate the visual from the verbal in Barnes’s work. This has led scholars of Barnes to describe her writing as emblematic, “both text and visual image are given equal weight, each comprehensible on its own terms, but together redefining and reshaping the other” (Messerli 1995: 7). For both Barnes and Schulz, the interplay between the textual and the visual is of paramount importance; one dimension cannot exist without the other because they are complementary, and full meaning is only produced through the creative convergence of the two. As Douglas Messerli has noted, Barnes often sketched her subjects during her interviews as she recorded her conversations with her interviewees (1995: 5). There is also a tendency in her written works to describe the visual appearances of those with whom she has spoken. In her journalism, with the urgency and artistic limitations of the genre, Barnes’s drawings served as snapshots that captured, among other things, the reality of life in the streets of Paris and New York. In her novels, it is through the visual that Barnes reveals her characters and the rationale behind their acts. Barnes struggled to situate her work within a specific style in line with her sensitivity and her concerns. She recasts many of her subjects in fin de siècle contexts and established a fruitful dialogue with her revolutionary predecessor, Beardsley. Around 1915, Barnes began to borrow the style of Beardsley and set her Greenwich Village bohemians and her early literary characters in a world of decadence; this was an art world divorced from the realistic portrayal of her previous New York scenes. She embraced this Beardsleyesque style

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up to the 1920s when she started to incorporate other sources into her work, especially emblem books, chapbooks, and almanacs from earlier centuries. By the late 1920s, from the Ladies Almanack on, Barnes’s style manifests a profound change; once again the imitation of older art forms takes her subjects out of a contemporary context and places them in a remote world, the world of art. This is apparent in her sketches and descriptions of figures from that time when Barnes’s interest in the grotesque becomes obvious. Bruno Schulz and the Enigma of The Idolatrous Book Even before he was a writer, Schulz came closest to creating a complete book with his early The Idolatrous Book (1920-22), a portfolio of black-and-white engravings with titles like ‘Tribe of Pariahs’ and ‘The Infanta and her Dwarfs,’ all depicting women with men abasing themselves at their feet. Schulz was a brilliant caricaturist, and his own face was used many times as a recurrent motif in his work. In The Idolatrous Book, Schulz appears as part of the crowd, center stage with his face tilted and with a small dwarfish body crawling toward the foot of a woman. Systematically, the women are indifferent and take no notice of their suitors. The book contains a series of engravings in which women are depicted as superior beings while men adapt to their role of subordinate creatures, praising and adoring the all-powerful women and their qualities. It is clear and highly significant that the primary opposition on which the book is based is that of gender, and from there a second binary emerges: the opposition of the visual and the verbal. On the cover illustration Schulz designed for The Idolatrous Book, he shows the female idol sitting on a throne that looks very much like a book. The Idolatrous Book is Schulz’s only series of engravings, created in 1920-22. The series is governed by the idea of idolatry, the veneration of a Woman-idol by a submissive Man-slave. That motif dominates the majority of Schulz’s graphic works: the celebration of gynocracy, the rule of women over men who find satisfaction in pain and humiliation at the hands of their female rulers. Suffering seems to be the condition of love. Throughout the entire portfolio, books are presented as the male domain par excellence whereas the idol is given an obvious


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female shape. Most of the engravings in The Idolatrous Book are characterized by the pattern of looking and being looked upon. The female figure is always the object of looking – usually the object of the male gaze, or by extension the object of her own gaze as reflected in a mirror – whereas the male, apparently in a subservient position, governs the field of vision (Van Heuckelom 2006). Critics have described these female figures as “idealized” or “goddesses,” but their poses, the faces full of ennui and the surprisingly stylish dress could well represent the “New Women” of the turn of the century. These women may be enthroned or languidly reposing on a bed or divan or carriage seat. A persistent motif in The Idolatrous Book is that of a carriage sweeping through the dark, sometimes drawn by horses, sometimes drawn by the Schulz figure himself. In The Idolatrous Book Schulz manages both to approach and to stay out of the woman’s way simultaneously with a peculiar mixture of longing and detachment. The series is clearly obsessed with masochism and deviant sexuality. Masochism as a sexual deviation becomes a ritual of prostration in front of the idol and is shown in scenes of transformation of humans into beasts, in gestures of worship, genuflection, abjection, and slavery. As Ficowski writes, In these drawings the stigma of slavery marking the faces of the men (sometimes little Negroes, as a symbol of slavery) is combined with teratoid deformation of their whole figures, their dwarfing and animalization – in short, with a metaphor of degradation. Such a caricature or “black magic” transformation affects only the Idolaters and never the Idol. The woman is untouchable, not only free of deformation but idealized, as if presented with greater care for her beauty and charm than for the pictorial quality of the drawing, its stylistic and formal unity. (1990: 6)

In Ficowski’s view, the drawing shows the self-contained perfection of the woman and even the line of the drawing is different from those of the rest of the composition. One of the demonic elements Ficowski identifies as central in The Idolatrous Book is fetishism, which is clearly present in the attention to detail, especially to feminine attire, from shoes to clothes to body parts. As Ewa Kuryluk states, when Schulz was working on The Idolatrous Book, he told his students that he had been illustrating

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Esther Sánchez-Pardo 6

Sacher-Masoch’s novel Venus im Pelz (Venus in Furs), indeed a book “of idolatry” and the founding literary text of masochism (1990: 32). As Kuryluk writes, Schulz’s women, evocative of powerful pagan goddesses seem to be superior. But their superiority is also a form of degradation. The erotic prominence of femaleness is associated with the all-encompassing but inferior quality of womb, mother, and earth, and connected, like in the Old Testament and in Platonic philosophy, to matter, ignorance, and immortality. This archaic vision of femininity as omnipotent nature and low culture prevails in Schulz’s texts and pictures where women represent a physical threat and an irresistible temptation. (1990: 33)

Ficowski has proved that Schulz’s art finds also a rudimentary source, which he himself speaks about in his story ‘The Book’: advertisements and personal announcements from old magazines. Schulz brought these dead pictures to life making them unfold in stories that develop their hidden potential. The innovative and self-reflective character of The Idolatrous Book has recently been underlined by Kris Van Heuckelom (2006) who writes: This proclaimed autoreferential character of The Booke ensues directly from the fact that the title of the books seems to have a twofold application. It refers firstly, to the material product created by the artist (a portfolio of engravings). Secondly, it designates a similar object (a book) being depicted on the engravings themselves (creating thus the effect of a sui generis mise-en-abîme). The double position of the book, both inside and outside of the depicted world, enables and urges the reader to reflect upon the function and the status of the artifact he is dealing with.

This extreme self-reflexivity manifests itself in how the book shows the act of its own creation and in the presence of the book-within-thebook motif. The final stage of the process of creation is evident on the final engraving, which has the same title as the entire portfolio (‘The Idolatrous Book’). The work-in-progress is also shown in the seventh engraving (‘Undula with the Artists’), which depicts the female idol Undula looking at a sheet of paper and surrounded by a group of male artists, who are apparently sculptors and painters. The separate sheets 6

As Ewa Kuryluk aptly remarks, Sacher-Masoch’s and Schulz’s preoccupation with male degradation do not reflect simply their personal choice for analysis; they instead testify to the masochism of late nineteenth-century Europe (Schulz 1990: 34)


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lying at Undula’s feet may be regarded as drafts or as final revisions of the engravings that will eventually constitute the “idolatrous book”. (Van Heuckelom 2006) The enigmatic Idolatrous Book still possesses an aura of mystery with its eclectic mixture of themes and motifs and shows the contradictions that stem from this unique combination of worship and demonism, elegance and abjection, initiation and knowledge. Schulz delves into an atmosphere where everything, even the human body, transmutes into dead matter, and this finally translates into stories. Barnes’s Critique in The Book of Repulsive Women Originally published by Guido Bruno as part of his chapbook series, The Book of Repulsive Women contains eight poems and five illustrations. As Burke has noted, there is something troubling about the eroticism of the images (1991: 70), and when we place them within the context of the verbal text, we begin to see how the book as a whole constitutes an attempt to write radically with pictures. In 1912, a twenty-year-old Barnes moved with her mother to New York from her home in Cornwall-on-Hudson, thereby joining the mass exodus from country to city which occurred in these years. She was young, but she had already lived through incest in her childhood and a broken marriage in her teens. A year after her arrival in New York, Barnes began publishing articles in the Brooklyn Eagle and entered an American tradition by joining the ranks of notable journalist-cum-fiction writers such as Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, and Theodore Dreiser. Journalism, like everything else, was undergoing changes in these years. Gone was the comfortable reporting of the nineteenth century when the journalist from a cool distance objectively stated the facts of an event. Many felt that this detached, god-like poise was entirely inadequate in this fast, rapidly changing, and fragmentary world where the journalist felt just as bewildered as other mortals. It is known that Barnes carried out participatory journalism as a means of closing the distance between the reporter and the event: firstly, in order to better guarantee the validity of her angle; and secondly, as a means of imbuing news with human warmth and thereby affecting her readership. Her experience as journalist would leave its mark on some of her early work, such as

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her first book of poetry, The Book of Repulsive Women, published in 1915. Just as a newspaper is necessarily made up of fragments of news forming a collage so too is Barnes’s little book, subtitled 8 rhythms and 5 drawings. It is a collage of drawings and poems, each with a headline, often hinting at some piece of news caught by the camera lens as the journalist travels around New York. In this sense, just as Dos Passos’s Manhattan Transfer is a portrait of the city, this book constitutes an angle on New York. Interestingly, it is also piece of Barnes’s intimate autobiography in those years of apprenticeship away from the family household, when she was trying to establish herself as a writer. In The Book of Repulsive Women, however, we are not shown the hustle and bustle, the skyscrapers, and the fast cars of the big city. Here there is no rendering of the rich and successful. On the contrary, and in keeping with Barnes’s later work, we are shown some of the realities that perhaps the establishment would rather not emphasize. Barnes depicts marginal figures that society would prefer to ignore; she makes news of those who would never be news unless, as in the final poem, it were through their final capitulation before the system – her poem ‘Suicide’ closes this collection. The sweeping eye of the journalist captures the dark side of life and treats its inhabitants with warmth and sympathy, giving them a place of equal right in the fabric of society. In this sense, The Book of Repulsive Women prefigures Nightwood, which concentrates on marginal groups and, as Jane Marcus puts it, “[it] figures by absence the authoritarian dominators of Europe in the thirties, the sexual and political fascists” (1991: 221). This little book of poems also figures by absence the upright, hegemonic power against which its women protagonists are measured and found wanting. This sense of otherness is signaled by Shari Benstock, who maintains that “the fall from innocence […] results from the realization that woman in Western society is defined by her difference from the masculine norm” (1986: 241). Benstock reads The Book of Repulsive Women as “part of a developing critique of woman’s place in modern society. The decadence and depravity of [the] women […] is an effect of patriarchal culture” (1986: 241). Along the same lines, Marcus points out with reference to Nightwood that Barnes’s aim was “to assert that the outcast is normal and truly


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human… Barnes makes us all misfits claiming that in human misery we can find the animal and divine in ourselves” (1991: 233). If Barnes intended an embracing of difference, what made her focus The Book of Repulsive Women on women’s loss of innocence, on women’s destruction? What made her choose precisely “repulsive women” as her subject matter? It is a fact that The Book of Repulsive Women has been relatively ignored in Barnes scholarship. Despite the poems directness and lack of sophistication when compared with her mature work, they remain a troubling part of the Barnes canon. Apart from the shocking ending with feminine suicide, one of the answers to this neglect can be found in the accompanying illustrations heavily influenced by Beardsley. As we move through the cycle of poems, which in some way mirrors one day and night, we first encounter the woman in ‘From Fifth Avenue Up’ who is called upon to reveal her sexual orientation, while the protagonist in ‘From Third Avenue On’ has “a vacant space…in her face” (1994: 20). Their companion in ‘Seen from the L’ stands naked with a “risky” body (24). She is certainly an appropriate precursor to the women in ‘Twilight of the Illicit’ and ‘To a Cabaret Dancer’ who start as dangerous and bestial but end up defeated, thus leading finally to the corpse of ‘Suicide’ – powerless, voiceless. On the one hand, the poems create portraits of women who experience brief moments of freedom outside the conventions that would capture and silence them. On the other hand, these women are ultimately defeated by those societal conventions. In this sense, these women are “repulsive” because like the suicide they prefigure, they end their own lives, thereby suffocating their protest and negating themselves and their voices. ‘In General’ and ‘In Particular’ are two very short and very obscure poems that can be considered to constitute a diptych. As their names suggest we move from the general to the particular, from a sense of bitter disillusionment to the concrete reason for this disillusionment, and this reason is once again the abuse suffered. ‘In General’ starts with “altar cloth” and its sacred connotations then moves on immediately to question this sacredness with the use of the oxymoron “rag of worth”. “Unpriced” also allows the double reading of priceless or with no price, i.e., worthless. The next lines introduce us into a game of chance, yet the “Undiced” of the next line suggest that in this case, there was no chance. The last lines, “And you we

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valued still a little / More than Christ” (17), give us a final clue to the meaning of the poem. Christ, as both God and son of God, simultaneously connotes the sacrifice of the child at the hands of the father and the father figure itself, imbued with all the power and authority that a father has for a child. These lines give us a poignant vision of the extent of the disillusionment the child suffers when her father, her god who can do no wrong, stoops to abuse. ‘In Particular’ ratifies this reading with its overt references to “loin”, “wrong”, “body”, and “lust”, and again the last two lines, now with “valued” substituted by “Worshipped” (25) – a word which suggests the blind faith that the religious place in their God – a reiteration of the bitter accusation of the child toward her father, her god. The five original black-and-white illustrations present images of women, animals, and inanimate objects. Four of the five drawings have clear borders, but all of the images challenge these borders with off-center subjects and large areas of either blankness or black background. The women of the poems are always off-center, paradoxically surviving and thriving on the margins. This power of the margin is exemplified in the first drawing in the series in the original chapbook, opposite the poem ‘From Third Avenue On’. Against a black rectangle, Barnes creates a white image of a tall woman, walking out of the frame, accompanied by two birds. The woman is dressed in a white-patterned jacket, wide-legged pants, and white shoes. She smiles as she walks, projecting a seemingly positive image of her independence, creativity, and freedom. That the birds would seem to be “cocks” and that one is positioned between her legs seems to reinforce further an impression of power. Yet this woman is restricted to only a third of the picture space. She is off-center; the two birds, including the “cock”, seem to occupy a more prominent position. Even more disturbing is the thick blackness of the image. Although the woman seems to be liberated and powerful, she is simultaneously marginalized, pushed to the edges of a bounded illustration, never to escape the frame. As a prototypical “New Woman” of the turn-of-the-century, single and professional, Barnes did not fit into the societal scheme nor did her writing entirely correspond to the writing of high modernism. As Louis Kannenstine pointed out, “although Barnes’s work displays certain affinities with the major literary movements of the early years of the twentieth century, it cannot be said to wholly conform to any of


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these movements” (in Benstock 1986: 233) and “it is precisely Barnes’s relation to literary tradition that so troubles assessments of her work: readers do not know where to ‘place’ her” (in Benstock 1986: 242). Finally, why does Barnes remain on the margins of literature and art? We might answer the question by focusing on her emphasis on the body: she exalts it, sings its intricacies, hidden places, and dark desires. Barnes writes about the emotions as opposed to cool rationalism; she writes herself fearlessly into her work, and from this personal perspective, she addresses many themes, all of which constitute an attack on the values of the day. In The Book of Repulsive Women, she shows prostitution, the hypocrisy of the upright, “perverse” sexuality, suicide, loneliness, squalor, and underlying all these she deals with the taboo subjects of incest and rape. These themes and attitudes were more than sufficient to convert her, in the eyes of her society, as a real danger to the way of life supported and promoted by the capitalist system; it was necessary for the good of all that these women’s voices be silenced and so it came to pass, through feigned indifference and ridicule. The Convergences of Schulz and Barnes Schulz’s visual and verbal art has many features in common with Barnes’s: their stories converge on the absurd and the grotesque; they deal with conflicts within the family and specifically between childhood and adulthood; and their production is to a large extent autobiographical. In their visual artwork, the figure of the artist is central and constantly appears in self-portraits; and they both refuse to devalorize the popular culture from which they draw many of their images. Their themes were common to German expressionist prose and poetry and to French decadent art: the mechanization and dehumanization of life, the anthropomorphic character of the natural world, teratoid figures, and dummies and dolls that may come to life. Barnes’s early journalism includes several stories about the sideshow, the circus, the zoo, and other forms of mass entertainment where bodies are displayed before paying audiences; this is shown in her best known novel Nightwood. Understanding Barnes’s characters as “freaks” sheds light on her attempt to portray radical forms of sexual

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difference and to find an appropriate stylistic form to depict Otherness. Thus, contemporary scholars interested in the novel’s lesbian themes focus on the relationship between Robin, Nora, and Jenny whereas others concentrate on its marginal characters. In Nightwood, there are multiple allusions to dolls, and, as it has been noted, the doll as a substitute for the child is a reference to nonreproductive sexuality.7 In Schulz’s story ‘Tailors’ Dummies’ – included in Cinnamon Shops – a dressmaker’s shop assistants work under the gaze of an anthropomorphized dummy. The dummy’s control over the situation creates ambiguity around her inanimate figure, and what follows is the father figure’s growing obsession with the animation of dummies. He becomes fascinated with the idea that human beings, as well as God, are capable of creating life. The father’s preoccupation with the animation of nature is grotesque because it so strongly emphasizes the mechanical aspect of the body. Both Schulz and Barnes present us with the irruption of the grotesque in their work. The grotesque depends on an unexpected and unsettling contrast to achieve its effect, and it requires some grounding in reality in order not to be classified as purely absurd or frightening. In the grotesque, the human body is a common focal point. When the given limits of the body are transgressed, the result can be either disturbing or comical with an emphasis on artificiality and ambiguity. Often Schulz’s and Barnes’s works describe the old world coming to an end in a context of natural disasters and decay, usually interspersed with observations on the state of the bourgeois world. The idea of a natural phenomenon behaving in unnatural ways echoes the expressionist idea that the unexpected has become commonplace. Modernity, it is implied, requires a reordering of accepted beliefs and the casual acceptance of the grotesque in everyday life. In The Idolatrous Book, the grotesque effect is magnified by the fact that the reader is aware from the start that there is a mixture of real-life characters and fictional characters. In The Book of Repulsive Women something analogous occurs. The mysterious figures that often appear in the background blur the line between reality and the 7

For discussions about the novel’s lesbian themes, see Julie Abraham (1996), Carolyn Allen (1996), and Frann Michel (1989). Karen Kaivola (1991) and Jane Marcus (1991) pay special attention to Nightwood’s marginal characters.


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imagined fears and dangers to which women are exposed, making the figures grotesque and even uncanny – familiar yet unfamiliar as in the Freudian sense.8 In any event, the ambivalent nature of Schulz and Barnes’s visual and verbal production complicates interpretation and keeps their work from being simply comical or horrifying. In literary history, the effectiveness of these resources carries over from times of confrontation and conflict – the interval between the two world wars – into the periods of peace that follow. They appear not only to make sense of contemporary crises but also to make sense of, or at least give voice to, the emotional aftereffects of such a crisis. I would like to draw attention to the importance of the grotesque with regard to the effect a text has on a reader. Because the grotesque thrives on the inability to synthesize two opposing forces, it provides us with a useful way of looking at the impossibility of “closure” in the texts we are examining. The grotesque requires an intense negotiation of meaning and the transgression of boundaries, and it depends on the reader’s response to achieve full effect. It opens up new perspectives by revealing a hidden reality, and it inspires, particularly as a result of its fragmentary nature, reflection that reaches beyond the text. Finally, we should also note that Schulz and Barnes were warding off silence in their dense and complex works, in part because of their suspicion that not all could be said in words and that the silence of the visual image was an ideal that language could emulate but never attain. In The Idolatrous Book, Schulz probably felt visual images were somehow superior to literary ones; in The Book of Repulsive Women, Barnes, preoccupied with the relationship between words and images, repeatedly reflected on the impossibility of conveying adequate images of women. From their different gender positions, Schulz and Barnes show a deep concern about the functions of representation and interpretation. 8

Hoffmann’s novella Der Sandmann (1817) is considered the definitive grotesque text of the nineteenth century, in large part because of Freud’s treatment of it in his essay ‘Das Unheimliche’ (1919). Freud writes about a familiar object or event that returns in unfamiliar form (1955 [1919]). In literature, the uncanny can be used as a way of dealing with moments of crisis, even collective trauma, since incomprehensibility in literature enacts the same situation in life.

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Conclusion Neither Barnes’s repulsive women nor Schulz’s “women idols” fit into conventional formats; they are never perfect models that lend themselves to mimetic realism. These women are all powerful and powerless, always restrained by a society that is unable to accept them in their emotional and sexual freedom. They walk away from the center but are paradoxically contained by the borders – a visual contradiction that mirrors the verbal contradictions present in Barnes’s series of poems about strong women who end up as suicides. In the case of Schulz, women are constrained as objects of the male gaze. As a response to the ironic centrality of the “New Woman” of the fin de siècle who was frequently observed and feared by men (Showalter 1990: 127-8), Barnes’s women, our most extreme instance, ignore the masculine gaze and instead celebrate their own freedom by quitting society altogether.9 With The Book of Repulsive Women, Barnes challenges the canonical through a combination of radical visual and verbal techniques. She came to realize that the only way for her to gain entrance into this space was to play by its rules and to subvert it from within. Schulz and Barnes placed emphasis on physicality, on the body when the entire western world wanted to forget physicality by focusing on the superphysical. They showed humankind with raw animality, stripped bare of the comforting veils of humanity. And they proudly showed and wrote fearlessly about themselves. They constructed a poetics of the body and spoke to us in many voices, moving from the margins to perform a true polyphony, a magnificent chorus that grants Modernist texts their privileged status in contemporary literary history. How can one write about oneself from a position of marginality and expect to be read? The complex terrain between visual and verbal art was undoubtedly a privileged medium with which to violate the barrier of 9

In this way, Barnes is addressing what Carol Laing identifies as the structures of gender that surrounded Barnes in 1920s Paris: “Barnes describes the conditions of abjection before the fact, simultaneously beseeching and pulverizing her female subjects because they are impossible, ambiguous, and in perceptual danger, preempted by the One who has already set everything in its place, with whom she cannot identify without becoming him” (1992: 70). Barnes conveys a dark message, to live only in the conventional world amounts to choosing silence and suicide.


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repression and circumvent the institution of censorship. Schulz and Barnes, each in their own way, refused the symbolic constructs that humankind used to make life more bearable and opposed the dominant trends of thought in their time. In their oeuvres they actively work against replacing the flesh with a cultural construct. They also predict the dilemmas of contemporary artists before their radical alienation from the self, and they perhaps also predict a time when the body will regain its precedence over the Word and humanity will be once more humanized. Finally, the eclecticism of current definitions of the avantgarde does not necessarily fit in with the singularity of its major representatives. Why should we exclude Barnes or Schulz as important contributors to twentieth-century European avant-garde? As other scholars and critics sympathetic to Barnes’s and Schulz’s engagement with their own work, we would also heartily endorse complementing the well-known facade of modern art with the ignored backstage: the stylistic revolution of Djuna Barnes and Bruno Schulz, whose escape into the past ended in the future. Bibliography Abraham, Julie. 1996. Are Girls Necessary? Lesbian Writing and Modern Histories. New York: Routledge. Allen, Carolyn. 1996. Following Djuna: Women Lovers and the Erotics of Loss. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Barnes, Djuna. 1994. The Book of Repulsive Women (ed. D. Messerli). Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press. ——. 1995. Poe’s Mother. Selected Drawings of Djuna Barnes (ed. D. Messerli). Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press. Benstock, Shari. 1986. Women of the Left Bank: Paris, 1900-1940. Austin: University of Texas Press. Broe, Mary Lynn (ed.) 1991. Silence and Power. A Reevaluation of Djuna Barnes. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Burke, Carolyn. 1991. ‘Accidental Aloofness: Barnes, Loy, and Modernism’ in Broe (1991): 67-79. Cather, Willa. 1936. Not Under Forty. New York: Knopf. Doughty, Frances. 1991. ‘Gilt on Cardboard. Djuna Barnes as Illustrator of Her Life and Work’ in Broe (1991): 137-154. Herring, Philip. 1995. Djuna. The Life and Work of Djuna Barnes. New York: Viking. Freud, Sigmund. 1955 [1919]. ‘The Uncanny’ in Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol XVII. London: Hogarth Press: 217-256. Kaivola, Karen. 1991. All Contraries Confounded. Iowa: University of Iowa Press.

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Laing, Carol. 1992. ‘Rhetoric and Ornament: Reading (S)exchanges and Violence in Work by Women’ in Public 6: 65-80. Marcus, Jane. 1991. ‘Laughing at Leviticus. Nightwood as Woman’s Circus Epic’ in Broe (1991): 221-250. Messerli, Douglas (ed.) 1995. ‘Introduction’ in Barnes (1995): 5-9. Michel, Frann. 1989. ‘Displacing Castration: Nightwood, Ladies Almanack and Feminine Writing’ in Contemporary Literature 30(1): 33-58. Schulz, Bruno. 1988. The Fictions of Bruno Schulz (tr. C. Wieniewska). London: Picador. ——. 1990. The Drawings of Bruno Schulz (ed. J. Ficowski). Evanston, Il.: Northwestern University Press. Showalter, Elaine. 1990. Sexual Anarchy. Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle. New York: Penguin. Slessor, Catherine. 2000. The Art of Aubrey Beardsley. London: Chancellor Press. Van Heuckelom, Kris. 2006. ‘Artistic Crossover in Polish Modernism. The Case of Bruno Schulz’s Xi ga Bawochwalcza (The Idolatrous Booke)’ in Image [&] Narrative. Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative 15. On line at: http://www.imageandnarrative.be/iconoclasm/heuckelom.htm (consulted 18.05.2008)

Bruno Schulz’s Incomparable Realities: From Literature to Theatricality Daniel Watt Abstract: Bruno Schulz’s fiction has influenced fantastical literature profoundly without engendering attempts to replicate it directly. Rather the stories have generated a mood and atmosphere which resists any clear critical strategy to interpret them. It is interesting therefore that “reading” the work seems to call for some form of representation, in the form of art, theatre, or film. This essay examines the theatrical representation of his texts (Complicite’s Street of Crocodiles and Double Edge Theatre’s Republic of Dreams), its influence on other dramatic events (Tadeusz Kantor’s Dead Class), and the ensuing creation of phantasmagorical worlds of eroticised objects (The Quay Brothers’ Street of Crocodiles).

Introduction: An “Illegal Event’, a “Doubtful Manoeuvre” or a “Cul-de-sac”? What might a faithful adaptation of Schulz’s work consist of? It is a question that arose from teaching, not from research. I have been attempting to teach Schulz’s texts and their various stage and film adaptations for an undergraduate module on “adaptation”. For this course we use an admirable text, Julie Sanders’ Adaptation and Appropriation (2006). In it Sanders distinguishes two broad strategies for the transformation of prose to stage, or a variety of media in their migration to other forms of “entertainment”. These are, as the title might well suggest: adaptation – the relatively straightforward transposition of one work into the new medium, in an attempt to render a faithful repetition in the new form; and appropriation – the essential characters, themes, or issues, transposed and represented in a somewhat changed or even entirely different setting. This essay begins therefore by asking: are stage and screen adaptations of Schulz’s work “doubtful manoeuvres” or “cul-de-sacs” in understanding his work? Schulz himself provides something of an answer concerning transformations:

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Daniel Watt There is no dead matter…lifelessness is only a disguise behind which hide unknown forms of life. The range of these forms is infinite and their shades and nuances limitless. The Demiurge was in possession of important and interesting creative recipes. Thanks to them he created a multiplicity of species which renew themselves by their own devices. No one knows whether these recipes will ever be reconstructed. But this is unnecessary, because even if the classical methods of creation should prove inaccessible for evermore, there still remain some illegal methods, an infinity of heretical and criminal methods. (Schulz 1998: 30)

Of course, the matter of which Father speaks is precisely that: matter. The ever-present mood of ‘Tailors’ Dummies’ is the props cupboard, the storeroom of old children’s toys fashioned variously from tubing, canvas and cardboard, whitewashed and emblazoned with memory and imagination. So to extend my question in light of the transformation of matter that Schulz is so obsessed with, is it possible that theatre and film are just materials in the “heretical and criminal” methodology of Schulz criticism? Do these “multiple species”, originating from the Schulzian fermenting matter of the page of the “book”, give us a particular insight into Schulz’s work? These terms: book, play, film, as considered in the classic manoeuvres of contemporary cultural artefacts, bear no relation to the complex interplay of such terms in the Schulzian universe. As we shall come to momentarily, the book(e) and the theatre are emblems of a metaphysical transformation that perhaps only a certain type of media is able to realize. As Krzysztof Stala notes, there is a relational aspect of Schulz’s work to the burgeoning activities of mass culture: Only due to supplements containing the trash of secondary truths we can realize the (non)existence of the true Book. Only in the margins and in palimpsests of the official culture, may altered time appear – the time of heretical art, of magical reality – that transgresses the boundaries of the world. In these supplementary books one is able to recognize the glitter, the radiance of the great Original, of the metaphysical repletion which appears in the quotidian world only in its secondary, unsuccessful shapes. (Stala 1993: 45)

Obviously this quotation branches out across many issues concerned with Schulz’s work; the book(e), the Original, time, reality etc., but it is to the issue of the supplement that I should like to turn here. For the supplementarity of the theatrical, in terms of a temporal relation to

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Schulz’s texts, cannot be denied (and perhaps the foundational aspects of this supplementarity may also make themselves apparent). However, as many critics note, the visual, theatrical, and performative are not as simply separate from the written work as might initially appear. The area is, of course, fraught with issues of translation, nationhood, mythology, religion, and iconography, but let us return to an issue of writing and one that might be best addressed by the work of Jacques Derrida. For in tracing the movements of works in relation to origins, totalities, and meanings, he is perhaps the most careful thinker with which to proceed in terms of what might constitute the “illegal event” of Schulz on stage and screen. Consider Derrida’s statement from Positions in light of Schulz’s work: [P]olysemia, as such, is organized within the implicit horizon of a unitary resumption of meaning, that is, within the horizon of a dialectics… a teleological and totalizing dialectics that at a given moment, however far off, must permit the reassemblage of the totality of a text into the truth of its meaning, constituting the text as expression, as illustration, and annulling the open and productive displacement of the textual chain. Dissemination, on the contrary, although producing a nonfinite number of semantic effects, can be led back neither to a present of simple origin… nor to an eschatological presence. It marks an irreducible and generative multiplicity. The supplement and the turbulence of a certain lack fracture the limit of the text, forbidding an exhaustive and closed formulation of it, or at least a saturating taxonomy of its themes, its signified, its meaning. (Derrida 1981: 45)

It will be worth bearing these issues in mind as we consider the following, provisional, examples of Schulz adaptations. There is, in each of them, a “certain lack”, and none has a “simple origin” or formulates the work in relation to an “eschatological presence”. None attempts to draw out the meaning of Schulz, but rather than adapt or appropriate, perhaps each example, in its own way, “inhabits” Schulz’s world momentarily. Consider this essay a visit to a travelling waxworks museum, with a grainy pre-recorded voiceover of partial details and issues that arise for consideration, an evocation of a performance memory perhaps. These scraps, as in the nature of dissemination, have no distinct origin, nor fathomable teleology. As Schulz would have it, [t]heir roles will be short, concise; their characters – without a background. Sometimes, for one gesture, for one word alone, we shall

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Daniel Watt make the effort to bring them to life. We openly admit: we shall not insist either on durability or solidity of workmanship; our creations will be temporary, to serve for a single occasion. (Schulz 1998: 31)

Four Installations in the Great Schulz Waxworks Sideshow: Kantor, Complicite, Double Edge and the Quay Brothers The Dead Class is the first in the series that would be associated with Tadeusz Kantor’s Theatre of Death, and it toured worldwide and brought him well deserved recognition. It opens on classroom benches occupied by ashen-faced older actors playing at being schoolchildren. Kantor is also there, on stage, as he always was “conducting” the event. After silent appeals and the raising of their hands these elderly children exit, to return moments later with dummies of themselves as children, sprouting strangely from their bodies, impeding their movements – a burden of memories. The séance begins. The origins of Kantor’s The Dead Class may well be found in Schulz’s story ‘The Old-Age Pensioner’. Certainly the environment of the schoolroom in this performance evokes the early twentieth-century Galician schoolroom that would have been the rich and febrile memory of Kantor’s youth and Schulz’s workplace. Krzysztof Pleniarowicz in The Dead Memory Machine provides a comprehensive literary background to Kantor’s work. He writes: Just before the war, Kantor began discovering Witkiewicz’s extravagant dramas, which had been rejected by the theatre. He also became familiar with Gombrowicz’s 1938 novel Ferdydurke and Schulz’s extraordinary stories, although it was only during the occupation that he fully immersed himself in the latter… Schulz remained forgotten until the mid-1970s when, along with Witkiewicz, he became a “participant” in The Dead Class. In a conversation with Miklaszewski, Kantor said that his whole generation had grown up “in the shadow of Schulz”. (Pleniarowicz 2004: 27)

So Kantor directly signals that the participants in this “dramatic séance”, The Dead Class, include Bruno Schulz. Can it be said to be an adaptation of Schulz’s work? It seems firmly based on a particular experience of the classroom and certainly also carries elements of Schulz’s pensioner who returns to the class to learn his times tables properly. However, Kantor’s actors are somewhat different.


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In the accompanying Theatre of Death Manifesto from 1975, Kantor writes: “The MANNEQUIN in my theatre must become a MODEL through which pass a strong sense of DEATH and the conditions of the DEAD. A model for the live ACTOR” (Kantor 1993: 112). It is here, most crucially, that the tension between object and actor appears and indicates the proximity of Kantor’s séance to the work of Schulz. For whilst Kleist and Craig (precursors, Kantor acknowledges, to the work of the Theatre of Death) had urged for the grace of the marionette over the false consciousness of the human (actor), Kantor wanted the actor to fuse themselves to, or be challenged by the presence of, their mannequin. Kantor took the mannequin very seriously; the effigy was not a joke, and it became a fulcrum upon which the theatre itself created a new reality. In Kantor’s own work on objects, which begins long before the Theatre of Death period, we can also hear the same concern that runs through Schulz’s texts: Figures in a waxwork museum… even fairground parodies of dummies, must not be treated lightly. Matter never makes jokes: it is always full of the tragically serious. Who dares to think that you can play with matter, that you can shape it for a joke, that the joke will not be built in, will not eat into it like fate, like destiny? Can you imagine that pain, the dull imprisoned suffering, hewn into the matter of that dummy which does not know why it must be what it is, why it must remain in that forcibly imposed form which is no more than a parody? (Schulz 1998: 33)

The Dead Class, as a performance, also cares for matter in the same way that it cares for the chaotic absurdity of memory. It evokes childhood to locate it throughout life and in so doing provokes the audience to remember. The mannequin itself, whilst an obvious symbol for the memory of youth, repeats the opposition that takes place between actor and audience; an opposition that Kantor himself comments upon: “IT IS NECESSARY TO RECOVER THE PRIMEVAL FORCE OF THE SHOCK TAKING PLACE AT THE MOMENT WHEN OPPOSITE A MAN (THE VIEWER) THERE STOOD FOR THE FIRST TIME A MAN (THE ACTOR) DECEPTIVELY SIMILAR TO US, YET AT THE SAME TIME INFINITELY FOREIGN, BEYOND AN IMPASSABLE BARRIER” (Kantor 1993: 114). Is it Kantor’s actor or dummy that is so infinitely foreign, or the traces of Schulz’s “tragically serious” matter that haunts the audience throughout the performance?

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Kantor does not attempt to simply “adapt” Schulz, certainly. There is nothing but the barest element of the ‘Old Age Pensioner’ remaining in The Dead Class – a return to childhood in the most funereal of guises. But as Pleniarowicz comments, it is in this surface that a certain layer of reality, Kantor’s reality, is revealed through Schulz: The characters in the dead class are additionally, like Schulz’s heroes, suspended between a drive to grow and a tendency to regress, and also imprisoned in a labyrinth of unavoidable repetitions (the pictorial form of the labyrinth expresses the futility of their actions). Yet neither of the themes borrowed from Schulz indicates any mythological motivation or content with a deeper source; each illustrates imprisonment in the photographs of dead memory and demonstrates the automatism of vain action – in Schulz’s words, “vestigial automatism, without cause and effect”. (Pleniarowicz 2004: 199)

In the tradition of the great puppet thinking of Kleist, Hoffmann, and Craig, Kantor’s cyclical circus of memory and desire evokes a Schulzian world, at once threateningly degenerate but liberatingly infantile and signals the theatre as a possible site of reconfigured reading of Schulzian themes. Whilst Kantor recreated Schulz as part of his own dramatic construct, others have taken what might be considered, in terms of “adaptation”, to be a more faithful approach to the texts. Theatre de Complicite’s The Street of Crocodiles was originally produced in 1992 and toured the world until 1994. It was then remounted in 1998 and 1999. Taking direct textual quotation and a blend of biography and physical theatre, the company created a fast-paced dreamscape that evokes the environment of Schulz’s writing. An important element in the process is, of course, rehearsal. Of this Simon McBurney, the company’s director, writes: [We began] by telling and retelling the stories. In abbreviated forms; or as fireside tales. As evocations of ‘The World of Bruno’ and visions without words at all, as dreams and nightmares. But in this rehearsal the objects began to dominate. They took over the room, filling pockets and the insides of the actors’ hats, or under their tables. Umbrellas, book sprouting feathers, boots, shirts, plates, glasses and cutlery. In retrospect I realised that Schulz’s vision, which evokes the transforming power of the child’s eye, necessarily meant that objects and their transmogrification would be central to the process. But when we were in it, they seemed to take over


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the whole process without permission, beyond our control. (McBurney, Complicite Website)

If we recall the powerful role of objects in Kantor, it seems that the object dominates a Schulz performance. In Complicite’s production a variety of languages were used, dependent on the performers involved, lending a certain chaotic dreaminess to the production of meaning as the piece carried along. What remains now is obviously the play text itself and a video in the Theatre Museum. McBurney describes the play text as follows: More the record of a process than a text for performance; a map rather than a play. A play is a place which demands to be inhabited; both origin and destination, linked by a clearly determined path. A map indicates the landscape, suggests a multitude of directions, but does not dictate which one you should take. A map, however beautiful, is a guide not a site. If you wish to visit the site yourself, pick up Schulz’s books. And travel. (Complicite 1999: note on the script)

Again the terminology of inhabitation which describes both the relation of Schulz’s work to stage and film and also the audience’s relation to the work and to Schulz’s writing. We may also recall the bleak whiteness of the map area of the street of crocodiles, which “usually marks polar regions or unexplored countries of which almost nothing is known” (Schulz 1998: 57). So at once McBurney directs the “explorer” away from the book that is the map of the performance and into Schulz’s own texts but also reifies the absent performance as a place in which to dwell. If a map remains to show some way into uncharted territory, there is also the issue of the building plans. A play script may also be treated in this manner: the basic model to construct a site in which to dwell. Indeed Kantor’s “scripts”1 worked in this fashion, too. They constituted a series of possible blocks from which the piece was built, differently, in each environment. Brian Banks eloquently pursues the architectural elaboration of Schulz’s imagination: Schulz shares a search for place – an imaginary space – that’s partly of this world but reconstituted through language, uncorrupted by history and undefiled overtly at least by ideas. He creates a “house of being”, as

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The “script” or “partytura” comprises the compositional elements of the performance. It is not a fixed text and functions more like a musical score.

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Daniel Watt Iribarne noted, reflected also in both book titles, first entered through childhood then through lexical incantation. The reader hasn’t been shown the plans – drafts, diaries and reading lists are lost – but its masonry can be glimpsed among the architectural remains (as well as the formal shapes of his drawings) where is exhibited a fondness for images of a protective refuge, the houses, rooms, shop interiors, cabs, landaus, and frozen market square of childhood. Drohobycz and its environs is his dream republic, which just happens to be called Poland. Even the sky is conceived architecturally, in parallel fashion to the almost plotless stories that are built up, word upon word, simile upon metaphor, into basilicas. (Banks 2006: 91-92)

Here there is also a description of the process of group theatre elaboration, as scenes are built up, plotless, broken and shorn from narrative coherence, but rising into some form of reflection of the Schulzian psyche. There are moments in Complicite’s performance that mirror Kantor’s: schoolroom anarchy prevails at the opening of part two of the play. But what is perhaps lost in the Complicite piece is a sense of Poland itself, which seems to come through more forcefully in Kantor’s work. However, as Banks (2006: 91-92) notes, Drohobycz is Schulz’s dream republic that “just happens to be called Poland”. Place is incidental in many respects to the fantastical dream imperative of Schulz’s work. Any backstage, refuse ridden alleyway, or gaudy toyroom may present a detour into the imaginary wilderness of his supremely theatrical mental map. Each work of adaptation must declare itself provisional until the pieces, or props, are reconfigured. Double Edge Theatre’s recent work, The Republic of Dreams, has evolved steadily from a lengthy engagement with Schulz’s work, both directly in previous performances and also as part of community cultural exchange programmes such as during a visit in 1994 to Drohobycz where the company focused on the recovery of Judaic songs in the synagogue there. The work from this period included collaboration with the Polish company Gardzienice, but the company has since focused on their own performer training techniques partly informed by the Jewish history of many of the company’s performers. A brief description of the performance by Ewa Kara in her recent review of the work may help set the scene of the piece: If at first sight the performance builds slowly, this is just an illusion, because here time submits to a vital condensation of events. One vision runs into another. Numerous transformations come one by one, and the


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lines between dream and reality are being blurred. From an opened armoire, “a big city degeneration” falls out and Bruno’s family household changes in a crowded Street of Crocodiles, full of music, and galling erotic women of blemished beauty. Later, from the same armoire, will fall Jacob, father of Joseph (and Bruno as well), played remarkably by Carlos Uriona, who transforms also for a moment into a grotesque Franz Joseph together with the mother (Carroll Durand) as Maximilian. This big armoire, as well as a table, are places of transformation and at the same time places of sacrum and peace. Although the creators of the performance are interested in Schulz’s magical realism, they don’t let us forget about a real world and history, which in 1942 so cruelly claimed him… Fluent changes between scenes are strengthened by moving set pieces (tables, armoire, mannequins), and a fantastical character of space by rhythmically placed curtains used also as a screen for shadows […] Sometimes it seems like the spectator is expected to be familiar with Schulz’s work. It’s not necessary but highly recommended, in order to fully understand the quotations appearing on stage. Dreamy atmosphere, dynamism, and plasticity of a performance are its huge advantages, but there is an impression of dissatisfaction, because proud “regions of great heresy” want to be captured by frames of time. (2007: 10)

I think Kara raises an important concern at the end here, but one that will perhaps always be levelled at any adaptation, of Schulz or otherwise: the capture of the vast imaginative sphere by the time limits of a performance event. Indeed, but then one may ask, is all performance a vain attempt to render visible this invisible threshold of dream and nightmare? If we treat each theatre piece in light of its inevitable failing, we will perhaps be much better able to understand the impulse to create the work, for its impulse lies elsewhere than the final dramatised event. And to return to Schulz’s question, “Could it be that time is too narrow for all events? Could it happen that all the seats within time have been sold?”, we might state that yes, the demands reality places on time are too narrow for the event of theatre, whether the tickets have all been sold or not. Stacy Klein, the director of Double Edge, elaborates her own methods for working in the “frame of time” that is theatre, in an interview: As a director I create the performance through image, rhythm, and poetics. To me it is indeed a moving painting, or a musical poem. Schulz bursts out alive on the performance platform in my view, and perhaps particularly for my theatre, I surmise. The difficulty may be for those watching to suspend their literal minds enough to go into his world. For me his stories, and his wonderful art, practically jump off the page by

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Daniel Watt themselves, and most of what I had to do was fill in Schulz’s own life story and his context. This was the hard part, to juxtapose his life and his terrible ending, and his work. (Klein 2007)

So there is an element of exchange that has to happen here. The audience must be gracious enough to accept the new world they will enter: an amalgam of Schulz and the director of that work. The company have produced a piece very similar in design to that of Complicite, in the sense that it takes textual, biographical, and imaginary elements and combines them into a vivid and physical theatre piece. Very apparent in Double Edge’s work is the evolution of particular visual quotations from Schulz’s artistic output. These emerge from the general mise-en-scene with uncanny precision and dwell briefly before evaporating. This succeeds in evoking the dream environment still further. Again in interview Klein elaborates further: Daniel Watt: Theatre seems so adept at evoking dream worlds and I wonder if there was a particular method you had of training actors to dwell in, or represent, their own dream environments during the evolution of the piece? Stacy Klein: We train in three parts for a piece – the first is physical and physical metaphor (using objects) which is very concrete. The second stage is improvization, in which the actors take the physicality and turn it towards the relationship between themselves and their characters. This is done as a group, and also each actor directs an etude with everyone based on their character. So the first is an interrupted dream world, the second is a dream world which is controlled. Through this process the scenes are developed by me. The third stage is the structure in which this is all edited and developed into a performance language. Basically the entire second stage deals with dreams, the actors in relation to the material we work with. My view is that dreams, or imagination, or creativity, is what is lacking on our dear earth today, so in every way we try to encourage or provoke our audience into another reality, a separate reality. To demonstrate that it exists and is possible, not only for us, but for them. That is why I love ‘The Republic of Dreams’, the story, and the sentence, “no dream, however senseless, goes wasted in the universe”. (Klein 2007)

That final quotation from Schulz, therefore, forms the basis of much of what Klein is looking to effect in the Double Edge production, and should the audience give themselves up to it, they will also find that perhaps, like dreams, no theatre event goes wasted in the universe. For however marginal or central its Schulzian core may be, each


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production elaborates a “performance language” that communicates new strata of meaning not only for the Schulz texts but also to that thin, fragile, environment we are so fond of: reality. It is important to bear in mind that the Quay Brothers were initially working on their animation that finally came to life as ‘Street of Crocodiles’ without the particular focus of a Schulz story. The project, as a funding requirement, needed to have a particular literary foundation, as they explain in a 2001 interview with André Habib: I remember when we first read Schulz. The BFI was demanding that we hang our new film on an author, and we proposed Schulz right away. It was such a challenge, since we had been reading his work and we thought that this was the direction we really wanted to go with the puppets. We had to sort of grab them, and not be fearless, not be afraid of the puppets. Schulz in a way liberated us. He’s such a powerful writer. We could make films around Bruno Schulz for the rest of our lives and still try and grasp, apprehend his universe. (Habib 2001)

The animation was also driven particularly by the musical score by Leszek Jankowski. Later in the interview there is discussion again of maps and the way that the stories were used in the generation of the film. AH: I read Schulz’s Street of Crocodiles after having seen your film. It’s funny how Schulz’s text works like a map on which you placed different elements. Quays: In fact, we took a lot of elements from different stories and sort of pulled it together. We gave the story a theatrical dimension gleaning a lot of other things from Schulz, and even other things which we thought were Schulzianesque, which we thought would work in terms of a Schulzian universe. He didn’t have to write about such and such, it’s all blurred. We’re not sure what belonged to us and what was in the texts. (Habib 2001)

So the Quay’s work gathered, gravitationally, around Schulz’s work, and the difference is very apparent. They succeed, in an animation devoid of dialogue and containing only one direct textual reference to Schulz’s stories, in portraying a world of nightmarish matter: animated screws, leather strips, broken toy automata, a world close to Father’s almost psychotic speculations:

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Daniel Watt Who knows… how many suffering, crippled, fragmentary forms of life there are, such as the artificially created life of chests and tables quickly nailed together, crucified timbers, silent martyrs to cruel human inventiveness? The terrible transplantation of incompatible and hostile races of wood, their merging into one misbegotten personality. (Schulz 1998: 36)

And in another interview the Quays have said that what they want to create in their work is an “alchemy of objects” where there is “a sense of things inhabited”; they want “puppet films [that] have a life, a pathology” (Quays 2006). What the animation achieves with great effect is conjuring the general atmosphere of ‘The Street of Crocodiles’ evoked so well in the following quotations: Only a few people noticed the peculiar characteristics of that district: the fatal lack of colour, as if that shoddy, quickly growing area could not afford the luxury of it. Everything was grey there, as in black-and-white photographs or in cheap illustrated catalogues. The similarity was real rather than metaphorical because at times, when wandering in those parts, one in fact gained the impression that one was turning the pages of a prospectus, looking at columns of boring commercial advertisements, among which suspect announcements nestled like parasites, together with dubious notices and illustrations with a double meaning. And one’s wandering proved as sterile and pointless as the excitement produced by a close study of pornographic albums. (Schulz 1998: 59)

It is precisely this dual quality of the fecund and the sterile that the Quays produce in their animation, both the guilty indulgence of the lustful gaze and the tawdry, meaninglessness of commerce. Indeed, everything in the film seems busy, or brimming with life, but… …despite the bustle and sense of purpose, one has the impression of a monotonous aimless wandering, of a sleepy procession of puppets. An atmosphere of strange insignificance pervades the scene. The crowd flows lazily by and, strange to say, one can see it only indistinctly; the figures pass in gentle disarray, never reaching complete sharpness of outline. Only at times do we catch among the turmoil of many heads a dark vivacious look, a black bowler hat worn at an angle, half a face spilt by a smile formed by lips which had just finished speaking, a foot thrust forward to take a step and fixed forever in that position. (Schulz 1998: 61)

The Quays succeed in offering us puppets at once beautiful and terrible. These creatures not only echo the crippled forms trapped in wood but also the frustrated, sexually charged characters of the


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tailor’s shop. Returning a moment to consider Kantor’s elaboration of Kleist and Craig’s obsession with the grace of the puppet, the Quays are very particular with the way they wish to use the puppet. AH: I was reading the other night Heinrich Kleist’s essay on the Theatre of Marionettes and it made me think of the relationship between puppets and dancers, between puppetry and dancing. Do you believe, like Kleist does, that a puppet – since its movements are void of self-consciousness – can have more grace than a dancer? Quays: Certainly not. It’s of a different kind. I don’t think you can ever compete with the human body, the way a dancer can. But I think a puppet can achieve other things, on a more symbolic level. You would never make your puppets work the way a dancer can and we wouldn’t begin to attempt it. It’s a sort of empty virtuosity, even to begin. (Habib 2001)

Their different approach is fundamentally, one might argue, in the form of puppet that they deploy. Their puppets are still characters, moved minutely, frame by frame, as the film advances. The graceful puppet of the Kleist and Craig school is one in full movement by the puppeteer, its limbs and body under gravitational commands. But one statement here is very important, “empty virtuosity”, because however the grace of the puppet is conceived, it is still under the power of the human. What, ironically, the Quays enable through stop-motion animation is matter to regain control of itself, for things to come alive, through time, and generate a universe less planned by the artistry of “the director”. The Quay Brothers’ original treatment for the film indicates directions at the beginning for the “middle-aged man” who enters an “amusement parlour” of “private viewing machines” (Quays 2006 [Notes]: 16). This framing device is frequently overlooked in considerations of the animation, but I think it serves to return us to the private world evoked in the film and by Schulz’s work in general. Due to the incredibly insular environment of altered reality evoked by Schulz, we readers, and viewers, must each come to our own “private view”; whether it is through a rather shady kinetoscope in a dusty museum or on the stage of a grand theatre or in the isolation of a study or library room. Schulz’s work is difficult to share. Let us admire the effort of those who attempt to represent the work, whilst also safeguarding our own private “pathological” Schulzian reality.

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Conclusion: An Accumulation of Charges So to our growing list of changing forms, from “adapt” and “appropriate” to “inhabit”, we might also add, in light of the Quays work: “pathologise”. The urge to pathologise becomes one of dissemination, of distribution of the varieties of meaning. Rather than pursuing polysemic renderings of all possible meaning, recoverable at some distant future point, Schulz’s work on stage and screen offers us new environments of understanding that free our thought with a view to the vast spaces of the work. Perhaps Schulz might even add his own term to our list. He might say “mythologise”. As he writes in ‘The Mythologizing of Reality’: The process of imparting meaning to the world is closely bound up with the word. Language is man’s metaphysical organ. Nonetheless, in the course of time the word becomes static and rigid, stops being the conductor of new meanings. The poet restores conductivity to words by new quasi-electric tensions that are produced by an accumulation of charges. Mathematical symbols are extensions of the word into new realms. The image, too, derives from the primal word, the word that was not yet a sign but myth, story, sense. (Schulz 1998: 373)

So Schulz proposes a continual refiguring of the world, through word and image. It is a task, even an obligation, to work against stasis and rigidity and to become “conductors of new meanings”. Such a combination of language and the visual is most obvious not only in the theatre, but also in Schulz’s own drawings that accompany the texts. They are ways to build an accumulation of charges that direct new meanings into the world. Let us pursue a branch-line momentarily before we reach our destination and explore the chiasmatic event of The Idolatrous Book, as recently examined by Kris Van Heuckelom. He writes: The interpretational approach I would like to propose focuses on Schulz’s portfolio of engravings as an autoreferential artifact. This proclaimed autoreferential character of The Booke ensues directly from the fact that the title of the book seems to have a twofold application. It refers, firstly, to the material product created by the artist (a portfolio of engravings). Secondly, it designates a similar object (a book) being depicted on some of the engravings themselves (creating thus the effect of a mise-en-abîme). The double position of the book, both inside and outside of the depicted world, enables and urges the reader to reflect upon the function and the


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status of the artifact he is dealing with. The impetus for an autoreferential reading of Schulz’s Idolatrous Booke is reinforced by the fact that not only the book itself, but also its creator reappears on many of the engravings. (Van Heuckelom, 2006)

This autoreferential structure that is suggested here, with very particular reference to The Idolatrous Book, may nudge us to consider the very paradoxical nature of the mise-en-abîme generated by its internal mirroring. But it also leads me to think of a certain outward directionality, a dissemination perhaps. For there is no doubt there is a sort of sealed quality in Schulz’s work, a kind of hermetic imagination locked inside a skull now long lost to the world. But the “artifacts” remain, pseudo-iconic, and urge continually towards the visual. Perhaps the very autoreferentiality that Van Heuckelom suggests for the ‘Book’ can also be found in the other works, both biographically and nationally (which if we recall Banks’ quotation above “just happens to be Poland”). Perhaps in Schulz’s work the “accumulation of charges” leads to new meanings in terms of representation rather than just interpretation, and the growing number of adaptations of the works is only reflective of an implicit tendency for the works to theatricalise rather than realise. The qualities we should look for in Schulz’s journey from literature to theatre are perhaps more in tune with his own quest for alternate time frames, more concerned with the “illegal event” or the “doubtful manoeuvre”, which pays little regard to the simple facts but rather transforms and represents the banal and mundane. Returning, then, to the impact of reality, it is not simply discarded in Schulz’s work but reapplied, touched up, gilded, and put on stage. Banks again, paraphrasing from ‘The Street of Crocodiles’, provides a poetic description of Schulz’s immersion in reality: As if a physical phenomena psychic séance, reality is something to be analyzed. It collides with the senses and impacts upon cognition, yet so paper-thin its imitative character is betrayed in all its cracks, creating an impression of only a small section immediately before we fall into the expected pointillistic picture of, say, a city street. On either side the improvised masquerade already disintegrates and, unable to endure, crumbles behind us like plaster and sawdust (the “rubbish of reality”) into the store-room of an enormous empty theatre. Parallel to his visual art that barely sketches the surrounding world, reality is a sham exposed in the tenseness of an artificial pose, the assumed earnestness of a mask, an ironical pathos trembling in its own façade. (Banks 2006: 107)

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And in the context of the sham that is reality, it is the responsibility of the artist to attempt, through language and image, to conjure new realms of meaning that face reality’s mask with other façades, more artificial perhaps, more human, perhaps, but always to attempt further constructions than the complacent acceptance of the given conditions that surround us. That is also each reader’s obligation in approaching Schulz’s work, each audience member’s obligation in encountering Schulz in the theatre: to draw together the visual and literary spheres, perhaps in “one gesture”, for “one single occasion” and to state, from the individual confines of our dreamy imaginary dwellings, that the “world will be run for our pleasure”. Such would be the instigation of a myriad number of incomparable realities, rather than the return to a single one. But perhaps Schulz may have disagreed, and to borrow a phrase from another’s love song, he may have replied to this essay, and perhaps to many others: “That is not it at all, / That is not what I meant, at all” (T.S. Eliot. ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, 1915). Bibliography Banks, Brian R. 2006. Muse & Messiah: The Life, Imagination and Legacy of Bruno Schulz (1892-1942), Ashby-de-la-Zouch: InkerMen Press. Derrida, Jacques. 1981. Positions (tr. A. Bass). Chicago: Chicago University Press. Ficowski, Jerzy. 2003. Regions of the Great Heresy: Bruno Schulz. A Biographical Portrait (tr. T. Robertson). London: Norton. Habib, André. 2001. ‘Through a Glass Darkly – An Interview with the Quay Brothers’, 20th of October 2001, at L’Auberge des Acacias, in Montreal, Québec. On line at: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/19/quay. html (consulted 25.04.2007). Kara, Ewa. 2007. ‘Dreamy World of Schulz’ in Przegld Polski (16 March 2007). Kantor, Tadeusz. 1993. A Journey Through Other Spaces: Essays and Manifestos, 1944-1990 (ed. and tr. M. Kobialka). Berkeley: University of California Press. Klein, Stacy. ‘Email Interview with Daniel Watt’, 2nd – 3rd May 2007. Pleniarowicz, Krzysztof. 2004. The Dead Memory Machine: Tadeusz Kantor’s Theatre of Death (tr. W. Brand). Aberystwyth: Black Mountain Press. Quay, Stephen and Timothy. 2006. Quay Brothers: The Short Films 1979-2003 (DVD). British Film Institute. Schulz, Bruno. 1998. The Collected Works of Bruno Schulz (ed. J. Ficowski). London: Picador. Stala, Krzysztof. 1993. On the Margins of Reality: the Paradoxes of Representation in Bruno Schulz’s Fiction. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.


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Theatre de Complicite. 1999. The Street of Crocodiles, based on stories by Bruno Schulz. Adapted by Simon McBurney and Mark Wheatley. London: Methuen. Theatre de Complicite. 1999. The Street of Crocodiles, based on stories by Bruno Schulz. An Account of a Play. (Information Pack) Compiled by Kate Sparshatt. London: Complicite. Theatre de Complicite Website. 2007. Online at: http://www.complicite.org/ productions/detail.html?id=14 (consulted 18.04.2007). Van Heuckelom, Kris. 2006. ‘Artistic Crossover in Polish Modernism. The Case of Bruno Schulz’s Xi ga Bawochwalcza (The Idolatrous Booke)’ in Image [&] Narrative. Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative 15. On line at: http://www.imageandnarrative.be/iconoclasm/heuckelom.htm (consulted 24.04.2007).

Aesthetics of Melancholy in Bruno Schulz’s Writings Mieczysaw D browski Abstract: The article analyzes Schulz through the consciousness and aesthetics of melancholy in its modern meaning, or the melancholy of “fulfilled future” and the disappearance of the horizon of expectations, which – according to Koselleck’s diagnosis (1979: 211-375) – determined the direction of thinking and general desires from the early Enlightenment (cf. Heidbrink 1994: 246). The analysis concentrates on issues such as awareness of loss, nostalgia for uncontaminated totality and “better life”, the state of being embroiled in the mystery of existence, insolvability of textual events, and suspension of sense. The author also proves that Schulz uses fundamental figures of melancholy, i.e. trace, allusion, and allegory, which constitute not only the text itself but also the whole aesthetics of melancholy.

Introduction The fundamental dimension of Schulz’s prose is a feeling or awareness of loss. Loss, fragmentariness, incompleteness are the bases for both this ontology and aesthetics. The hero’s consciousness is never set in the entirety, which is never given to him; he learns it in pieces, fragments of experience. This stems from the ontologicalcognitive systems becoming in some way blurred, and a particular fragment of reality is merely a sign, an allegory of some whole, which is absent. Schulz was an insightful visionary, whose predictions can only now be attained in this reality by fully developing them. The point is that the nineteenth-century experience – based on solemnity, transparent pragmatics, clear-cut contours of social discourse, distinct stratification, the prescriptive force of customs, etc. – started to collapse after the First World War and was replaced by a considerable measure of freedom, latitude, fancy, idiosyncrasy, and ambiguity. If we recall Benjamin’s description of allegories (cf. Frydryczak 2002), it will transpire that precisely this colorful world of pieces, the everchanging picture, and especially language fit well in this context.

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After these preliminary remarks, I would like to examine the problem of the aesthetics of melancholy in two ways. First, by examining this problem as an ideology of melancholy, I will explain why we can associate Schulz with this conception; this would be, as Bieczyk (2002: 34) puts it, a “melanchological” (melanchologiczny) level. Second, by investigating the aforementioned problem using the aesthetics of melancholy, I will attempt to show how literary figures and stylistic tropes characteristic of melancholy are at play in his prose. Ideology. Irony. Parabasis Schulz can be read as not only a modern but also a present-day writer, whose texts proved his extraordinary insight and in his time foresaw the world we were entering. This is a world of fragments, incompleteness, and discontinuity. His prose corresponds to this basic experience through its form as a series of loosely connected stories, which can nevertheless be easily recognized as a whole, and by its graphic isomorphism. But this is only its surface for we are dealing with a fragmented world on a far deeper level of the text: on the ontological level of the presented world and experience. This is a world in fragments: fragments on the level of expression because the world is perceived in this way by the main character who is a child and fragments on the level of ontology because the world broke up long ago. The wholeness can only be longed for like a healing myth, but it can never be attained. This state is best (but not solely) signalized by the motif of the Book. Each of the main characters, even Shloma, who was released from prison, feels that he is not living in the world he would expect to live in, that it is only a sorry imitation of what used to be. This awareness of the collapse of the myth, the decomposition of the whole, is highly characteristic of the philosophical understanding of melancholy, which is a language of decay, which explains why it is so widely used nowadays. It is believed that the question of incompleteness and discontinuity is an indicator of contemporary culture. Melancholy, however, has such a quality that it combines three aspects: ontological, epistemological and axiological; we speak of three levels at once, of a philosophically understood whole. Melancholy in the contemporary sense is therefore not “the source of single motifs”, which most often convey the

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impression of pessimism but “a matter of the general method of being in the world, and thereby a text for an all-embracing interpretation” (Bieczyk 2002: 41). Interpreted in this way, Schulz becomes an example of a weakened (doubting), mourning, nostalgic, and thanatic consciousness, yet he is creative on the level of melancholic aesthetics, on the level of writing, where his characteristic figures can be read in two ways. The aesthetics of melancholy closely cooperates with irony. Schulz’s prose would not be his prose if we failed to notice its constant accompanying element of irony, which is the source of all modern thinking/writing. This is signaled through a characteristic kind of distance between the text and its creator (narrator, writer); it denotes the inner inconsistency of the narrator’s/hero’s Self, and then reveals the figurativeness of speech, the conscious moulding of the language of knowledge, and it imposes on the reader the duty of another way of reading. In the basic dimension, irony denotes “reversing”, and it is obvious that the reversibility of the text and sense in Schulz’s works cannot (at least today) be read in a canonical, unambiguous way. The real Schulz is always somewhere nearby, and each suggestion of reading refers only to some “periwinkle garland” strand, but it never embraces the whole. A “whole” like that is probably not possible in this case. For irony is a trope/mode of language that introduces unusual dynamism, movement, or uncertainty into the text. In the philosophical sense, irony is the mechanism which, by exposing the construction of the text, inevitably leads to the fundamental question about its (intangible) truth and the machinery of language. At the same time, which is very important, irony is a manner of interpreting the text (its ideology) and “grammar” (construction); irony therefore pervades the whole text and is not its property located here or there. It is most clearly visible in Schulz’s prose in the space of parabasis or in the places which are metatextual or paratextual, where, while being a text, they comment on and interpret the text while using a different rhetorical code. But irony is also seen in the mainstream of the story. We may call it basic, where repeatedly a more or less distinct rhetorical turn takes place in the form of characteristic question marks, language forms, or rhetorical phrases. Irony, therefore, is not only a disruption of narrative coherence; it is, as de Man repeats after Schlegel, “permanent parabasis” (2000: 237). Parabasis thus understood is a way of

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destroying the naïve world; it introduces into it the question marks, movement, and suspicion while at the same time demonstrating the linguistic character of the work. As such, parabasis is negative and deconstructive, and excellently fits in with the general field of “melanchological” reflection. Take, for example, this child/adult narrator in Schulz’s prose. He is characterized by his duality, and to separate the phenomenon from a specific character, this doubling of his perspective is very characteristic of understanding melancholy. As a narrator with adult consciousness, he perceives the world in a melancholic way: in the state of decline, in fragments, in decomposition, in material and moral decay; and most of all, when witnessing the mental and bodily degradation of his father, he experiences a sense of acute loss. As a narrator/child character, he perceives the world in a cheerful and ecstatic way, as a place of incessant explorations, inspirations, and delights. Beata Frydryczak (2002: 191 ff.), when examining the figure of the collector, emphasizes this very duality: for the adult man, the collector’s room reminds him of the entirety, which is gone, broken apart; we can only reconstruct it, look at the traces of the once splendid whole; however, for the child’s perception, the room will be a constant source of cheerful exploration. In incredibly rich language, vivid, colourful descriptions of summer, the garden, and shopping in the market (‘Sierpie’/‘August’), of neglected rooms (‘Sklepy cynamonowe’/‘Cinnamon Shops’) etc. are the very example of such childish delight. Schulz formulates highly significant remarks concerning the power of depiction and representation. As we know, this issue is one of the major points of reference for modern consciousness. The referentiality of the text, so strongly established in previous literature and literary studies, was found in a weak and uncertain form in poststructuralism and deconstructivism. It was found earlier in the writings of Freud and Nietzsche, but it was only our era that defined its eventual status. The break-up of the monolith of the human Self and introduction of a specific psycho-linguistic game, reinforced by the fundamental question posed by Nietzsche (and earlier by Fichte) of whether the self is actually the self and on what grounds we can suppose so, must have had a strong impact on philosophical discourse. The development of studies on language in the twentieth century completed the work of destruction. Text referentiality, which


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previously cooperated with mimesis so efficiently, was put under suspicion primarily by the question of whether the word really touches the thing (object) since between the thing and its name there is the subject, which, by naming the thing, interprets reality after all. That is one point; the other point is that the question arises about the shade of that which is expressed, about that which is absent, about the possibility to express it, about its existential and ontological legitimacy, etc. Referentiality is therefore suspended; this powerlessness of the power of representation naturally breeds melancholy, for at present it is founded on the sense of collapse of the clear metaphysical world order. It breeds melancholy yet also sublimity because the latter stems from the impossibility to express experience. If we look at Schulz’s prose from this standpoint, we amazingly will find in it many statements that signal this kind of conviction. Schulz’s narrator repeatedly interrupts the narrative coherence of the story in order to enter the space of parabasis, stand beside his narrative plot, and comment upon it in a specific way: for example, the final part of ‘Ksi ga’ (‘The Book’), the final part of ‘Ulica krokodyli’ (‘The Street of Crocodiles’), the conclusion of ‘Pan Karol’ (‘Mr. Charles’), an excerpt from ‘Wiosna’ (‘Spring’). If we also add his ‘Mityzacja rzeczywistoci’ (‘The Mythologizing of Reality’), where Schulz significantly states that “The unnamed does not exist for us” (Schulz 1979: 42;1 “Nienazwane nie istnieje dla nas”, Schulz 1998: 383)2, we will obtain highly puzzling material for analysis. “For it is only above ground, in the light of day, that we are a trembling, articulate bundle of tunes; in the depth we disintegrate again into black murmurs, confused purring, a multitude of unfinished stories” (San 42; “Bo tylko w górze, w wietle – trzeba to raz powiedzie – jestemy dr c artykuowan wi zk melodii, wietlistym wierzchokiem skowronkowym – w g bi rozsypujemy si

z powrotem w czarne mruczenie, w gwar, w bezlik nieskoczonych historyj”; Op 169). The material points to the inefficiency of language, its naming and interpretive dysfunction, its peripherality and impermanence – these are rather fundamental statements to be expressed in the early 1930s. Admittedly, a very serious discussion on language had already started. Wittgenstein was to advance his radical thesis about making 1 2

All further references will be given as San. All further references will be given as Op.

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the power of language more modest (3.221: “Objects I can only name. Signs represent them. I can only speak of them. I cannot assert them. A proposition can only say how a thing is, not what it is”; 2000: 1314). The so-called British analytic school was active, and there was the Vienna Circle of neopositivists, who permanently wanted to tie together the object, the word, and the meaning on the basis of consistent empiricism. However, this defence of the former status of the word and the condition of language failed; Schulz, for example, continued to stress the uncertain status of the word, its ontological instability, and consequently, epistemological impossibility. Words are only an attempt to approximate the thing, always incomplete, imperfect and doomed to fail; their stability is undermined by either the self-knowledge or consciousness of limitless nature, or the impossibility to express oneself. Schulz is attracted by some mysterious “other side”, “the lining of things”, where nothing has been decided yet, nothing resolved, nothing established in a name, in the final, concrete concept. What interests Schulz is where the power of the word ends, stretches the incomprehensible and the inexpressible: “Again, the power of our magic has failed and the dark element that cannot be embraced is roaring somewhere beyond it” (San 41; “Dopiero poza naszymi sowami, gdzie moc naszej magii ju nie si ga, szumi ten ciemny, nieobj ty ywio”; Op 168). He is fascinated with this fluidity, chance, possibility, because it denotes the absence of constraints; the word or the name always appears to him as a constraint and damages reality; the name is usually richer and more vivid than the language of the one who cognizes it. In Jewish culture the word asserted, not simply described, a thing. Schulz’s narrator goes back to the sources, where everything is still open. He is fascinated by the pulp of reality/being because he believes that it is the truth of existence, which in a name always comes mutilated, lame in the form of continual “als ob”, “as if”. It resembles Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of rhizome, which means that we are right in the middle of postmodernist discourse whereas some scholars regard this whole discourse as melancholic or at least ambiguous. But what is vital is not only this impossibility, insufficiency, and failure of language as a tool for naming/cognition; Schulz’s negation appears to extend further: it touches the thing/event itself. Beings established to exist by the word are always imperfect and incomplete; they essentially indicate their basis, which is supposedly


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far richer and more important: “There are things that cannot ever occur with any precision. They are too big and too magnificent to be contained in mere facts” (San 12; “Bo s rzeczy, które si cakiem, do koca nie mog zdarzy. S za wielkie, a eby si zmieci w zdarzeniu, i za wspaniae”; Op 128). Therefore, that which we see and partake in would be merely surrogates – something “instead”, miserable concretization in the face of the magnificent ideal, imaginary world, the world of the “age of genius” or myth – which underlie the origins of human culture and the eternal longing for something different, for something that goes beyond, for, let’s phrase it strongly, a kind of primitiveness and unity. Bieczyk speaks accordingly about the affirmation of lack of source: To szczególne ustanowienie nieobecnoci – czy to jako horyzontu t sknoty, czy to jako jedynej “prawdy” tekstu, lecz w obu wypadkach jako punktu wyjcia, negatywnego i zarazem sprawczego – zdaje si kreowa kondycj melancholiczn tak w planie ekspresji, jak w planie istnienia. (2002: 14) (This special assertion of absence – whether as a horizon of yearning or as the only “truth” of the text, but in either case as the starting point, both negative and causative – appears to create the melancholic condition both on the level of expression and on the level of existence.)

This is indeed a philosophical issue par excellence; we could observe that in this way we come closer to the aesthetic subject matter of trace and allegory. What we encounter every day are traces, “allusions, these earthly approximations” (San 13; “aluzje, te ziemskie przybli enia”; Op 129) of an ideal, superterrestrial world of myth that we cannot attain or cognize. We are dealing, therefore, with the issue of the inexpressible, constant experience of the sublime. Reality of essence eludes us; we are doomed to deal with its surrogates, with an “als ob reality”. The existential representation of the world is challenged in these texts. The concept of the world according to the “als ob principle” implies linear time, where “continuity and successiveness” (San 14; “ci go i sukcesja”; Op 130) prevail. But Schulz’s narrator breaks with such a line of thinking by constructing a branched off form of time, which is chaotic and torn from the influence of logos and subjected to sensitivity. The time of chaos, also in the theological-religious sense, is the time of potency and development, when no actions or circumstances can be excluded.

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Shloma speaks mysteriously about some unexplained breakdown of the creative impetus of the Creator on the seventh day of creation. Schulz is convinced that order kills spontaneity and multiplicity; it is a constraint. The orders of law, society, religion, causal logic, referential and transparent language all cause us to live in the world of constraint and impoverishment, that is, the world of the father, logos, metaphysics, abstraction, and patriarchy. In this respect, what Schulz promotes would coincide with Poulet’s pensée indeterminée, free thought before the time of concretization, perceiving some other underlying sense of experience concealed under the named façade (cf. Bieczyk 2002: 11 ff.) Longing for a state of chaos is in essence an unrealizable metaphysical yearning for the origins, for the beginning of all there is, under the illusion that everything could have been done differently. Schulz’s utopia must stem from his insightful recognition of the model of the world in which he functioned: the pragmatic Austro-Hungarian model, so spitefully treated in several texts, most notably in ‘Spring’. Schulz is plagued by a vision of an unequivocal world. He prefers a Platonic vision, which marks only the direction of thinking, an idea, and all the rest is left to individual fancy and a separate language. He finds ambiguity unpleasant and dangerous because it is a constraint. Hence, the motif of the Book as an unattainable model of “everythingness”; his father’s explanations that the Book does not exist, that there are only books or the Book’s miserable mystifications, arouses Joseph’s anger and bitterness. He does not abandon his convictions and repeats them even while browsing through a stamp album: “The main thing was not to forget […] that no Mexico is final, that it is a point of passage which the world will cross, that beyond each Mexico there opens another, ever brighter one” (San 47; “Gówna rzecz, a eby nie zapomnie […] e aden Meksyk nie jest ostateczny, e jest on punktem przejcia, który wiat przekracza, e za ka dym Meksykiem otwiera si nowy Meksyk, jeszcze jaskrawszy”; Op 177). This is the type of thinking confirmed much later by literary theory and rewritten in the detailed language of deconstruction in the diagnoses offered by Jacques Derrida, Wolfgang Iser, and Odo Marquard: “Before the oldest known legend there were others no one has ever heard; there were nameless forerunners; novels without a title; enormous, pale, and monotonous epics […] sagas, unwritten books” (San 44; “Przed najstarsz zasyszan histori byy inne, których nie syszelicie, byli bezimienni


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poprzednicy, powieci bez nazwy, epopeje ogromne, blade i monotonne, […] – ksi ki-legendy, ksi ki nigdy nie napisane”; Op 173). This deconstructivist sentiment denotes the departure from the essentialist model of thinking and is characterized by an impossibility to indicate the beginning, which continues to escape into its more primal stages and hidden regions, a recognition of the right to the ambiguity of sense, many forms of reality, and diversity of thinking. Another issue associated with what has just been discussed, is the flickering of matter. In Schulz’s prose, there are two competing positions: one of solemnity, moderation, decency, and norms, and the other of extravagance, color, and multiplicity. The former could be linked with the idea of social being subordinated to logos and symbolically called the nineteenth-century experience; the latter – with the experience of surfeit, passion, materiality and freedom – could be contained in a formula of idiosyncratic sensitivity and associated with the twentieth-century experience. Schulz’s prose is seething with experiences of the latter type; each of his descriptions is one of an exceptionally eventful life, of the unrestrained instinct to give birth, of endurance, growth, and exploration of the impossible, which even has temporal implications: there arise these thirteenth months, time-wildings, and the luxuriance of the world can no longer be contained within the framework imposed upon it by human cognitive ability and pragmatic rationality. We can see this in the description of a summer day: a garbage heap, a window with flies, Nimrod, the festival of colors in his father’s breeding of birds, and empty, forgotten rooms. But this is most discernible in ‘Traktat o manekinach’ (‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’), where the father, this “second Demiurge” (1977: 61;3 “wtóra demiurgia”; Op 37) expounds on his concept of the world, which will be materially saturated, colorful, though poor and barely tacked together.4 It will be turned with only one side facing the viewer, but it will also be luxuriantly free from the original, constraining solemnity. Observe, however, that the “second Demiurge” father is a caricature, an imperfect figure. His authority is nevertheless retained on cultural grounds, and at best, it is slightly disrespected by Adela. While the “first Demiurge” is treated here in a traditional way, as demonstrating the logos, law, and 3

All further references will be given as SoC. Cf. Schulz’s image of “fragments of a dress marked with white basting thread” (SoC 55; “fragmenty sukni, znaczone bia fastryg ”; Op 31). 4

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abstraction, “the second Demiurge” is full of praise for the feminine element in culture (Kristeva?), for matter, body plurality, impression, elusiveness. He clearly has a greater mixture of the anima and animus, which stimulate and complement each other. Father, as “the second Demiurge” and creator, is the logos, which asserts reality, but because of what he states, he is also a signifier. Similar experiences can be found on each page of Sklepy cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops). In the story ‘Manekiny’ (‘Mannequins’) the first thing we witness is the confusion of matter; in ‘Pan Karol’ (‘Mr. Charles’) – the blurring of a picture, as a consequence of which we do not quite know what to think of the main character, who “walked toward the door slowly, resignedly, hanging his head, while someone else, someone forever turning his back, walked at the same pace in the opposite direction into the depths of the mirror, through the row of empty rooms which did not exist” (SoC 84; “odchodzi ku drzwiom zrezygnowany, z wolna, ze spuszczon gow – gdy w przeciwn stron oddala si

tymczasem bez popiechu – w g b zwierciada – kto odwrócony na zawsze plecami – przez pust amfilad pokojów, które nie istniay”; Op 61). This language, imagination, and thinking are penetrated by the principle of change, difference, and plurality. The modern ThisOther replaces the traditional, hierarchical, and patriarchal This-Same. A fundamental question therefore arises: what is twentieth-century culture about? Is it about the masculine, patriarchal-Christian (in our circle) logos or the feminine proliferation of sense and matter, plurality and randomness, which are secondarily subordinated to some order, for example, the order of writing, which means aesthetization? As I said earlier, we are dealing with deliberately practiced irony; the father, as an exemplar of a traditional, reliable trader, must have opposed this kind of thinking and practice. But did Schulz himself? If we were to examine his texts as a specific anthropological project, then we should treat these statements as signals of the coming world, where interpersonal relations are, as Lyotard (1997: 176) puts it, temporal. The world is extremely diversified and uses in its recognitions the category of difference rather than the identical, which evokes precisely the feelings of loss and nostalgia. A passionate declaration of fondness for diversity, multiplicity, plurality, in short, for everything that is ambiguous and equivocal is the text ‘Spring’, which is expanded into forty fragments. Its essential formal-aesthetic trait is a specific isomorphism between


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the shape of the text and history (a tale). Note the opposition between the Austria of Emperor Franz Joseph and of Rudolf’s stamp album. The Habsburg empire is described as hermetically closed, divided like a checked notebook, organized in the minutest detail – there is no room for individual human behavior because everything is governed by legal paragraphs, decisions, orders, and prescripts. In contrast there is the narration of the stamp album, which spreads the peacock’s tail of worlds, colors, representations, and stories. The stamp album activates imagination, releases desire and nostalgia; in short, it stimulates the need to be in many worlds, to shed the straitjacket of legal mandates and reject the existing world for the sake of accepting and experiencing created worlds. Austria, with its emperor, is downgraded and “marching with some others […] immediately following South America, but preceding Australia” (San 35; “kroczy w szeregu za Ameryk Poudniow , a przed Australi ”; Op 157). In another phrase we can read: “A stamp album is a universal book, a compendium of knowledge about everything human. Naturally, only by allusion, implication, and hint” (San 48; “Markownik jest ksi g uniwersaln , jest kompendium wszelkiej wiedzy o ludzkim. Naturalnie w aluzjach, potr ceniach, w niedomówieniach”; Op 179). Let us also examine the issue of the insolvability of situations and the ambiguity of sense, which is predicated on the level of textual events and associated with establishing the dominance of the signifier over the signified. In Schulz we often encounter specific situational epiphanies: short clashes of events about which there is no clear idea of how they can be understood. In these events, Schulz eludes action and retreats for cover into the unclear game of fragments, verbal epiphanies, and vivid external descriptions. We should concentrate on ‘Sanatorium pod klepsydr ’ (‘Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass’), a fairly fundamental text, where we will deal with such experience. Both the essential plot situation (comprised of a visit to the deceased/living father in a peculiar place and the way he functions there) and the ending of the story are highly mysterious. First, in the world of physical time, the father is dead; however, the narrator speaks elsewhere about a wild, additional time, where the father can be alive. The son-narrator goes to visit him there, finds his father either immersed in a deep slumber or engrossed in a busy trader’s activity in the ad hoc store – this collision, this simultaneous cooccurrence, confuses the son. He is unable to decide correctly whether

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his father is alive or not, which one is the real, and what kind of activity – the one in the sanatorium room or the one in the marketplace, store, and restaurant – is characteristic of his father: Jak to pogodzi? – pyta – Czy ojciec siedzi w restauracji, ogarni ty niezdrow ambicj arocznoci, czy le y w swoim pokoju, ci ko chory? Czy jest dwóch ojców? Nic podobnego. Wszystkiemu winien jest pr dki rozpad czasu, nie nadzorowanego nieustann czujnoci . (Op 279) (How do I reconcile all this? Has Father been sitting in the restaurant, driven there by unhealthy greed, or has he been lying in bed feeling very ill? Are there two fathers? Nothing of the kind. The problem is the quick decomposition of time no longer watched with incessant vigilance; San 127)

Moreover, no one seems to be able to explain it to the son. Dr. Gotard uses vague language, offering unclear explanations both of the father’s condition and the special kind of procedures that apply in this world: “My father’s time and my own no longer coincide” (Op 279; “Czas mego ojca i mój wasny czas ju do siebie nie przystaway”; San 127). This reversed time appears sometimes to him as a gift and sometimes as a used, second-hand thing, “thrown up” (“zwymiotowana”), and therefore not the best, and it would be thus better if people “don’t tamper with time” (San 131; “nie tykali czasu”; Op 283). Time is an element which can be subjectively moulded, defined according to one’s individual wish. Events occur which are “quite fantastic in their absurdity” (San 132; “rzeczy fantastyczne wprost przez sw absurdalno”; Op 284). The dog guarding the sanatorium door turns out to be a man, who, freed from the leash by the narrator, eventually accepts an invitation to the room, by which he only adds to the confusion and insolvability of the situation. We learn on this occasion that “dogness” is neither an external attribute nor inherent in the shape/form of the dog. In order to explain this, the narrator resorts to oxymorons: “terrible friendship” and “uncanny sympathy” (San 138; “straszna przyja”/“niesamowita sympatia”; Op 289). No wonder that the ending comes from the same level: the hero flees from this place on the first train he can board, leaving both his father and the dog/man in a state of non-recognition, incomprehension with the absence of any solution. He himself metamorphoses and presents himself as an eternal, ghostly passenger who lives his life on trains. In terms of cause-and-effect logic, it is an entirely vague text and can


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only be treated as an example of creationist logic, which is, according to former recognitions, surrealist. Perhaps the text could also be treated as a logic of retention, incompletion, and reversal. Dr. Gotard explains to Joseph that they turned back time by a “certain interval” and the length is unknown; therefore, one can reverse that which happened in that world, e.g. illness can develop in a different way or disappear altogether. In this particular time space, the father lives “a relative and conditional […] life, circumscribed by so many limitations!” (San 121-122; “ yciem tak warunkowym, relatywnym, ograniczonym tylu zastrze eniami!; Op 272). This situation is well explained by the logic of proliferation, an analytical-linguistic example of which was given by Derrida and an artistic one, much earlier, by Borges in his story “El Jardín de senderos que se bifurcan” (“The Garden of Forking Paths”, 1941), where the novel is a labyrinth because the main character killed in chapter three is still alive in chapter four, and the plots are happening in parallel times. This applies to any experience; the narrator says that even the mirror did not clearly reflect his shape when he wanted to tie a tie: “only an opaque blur was visible” (San 120; “wiruj c m tn toni ”; Op 270). Everyone here lives some imaginary life, implementing a specific idée fixe; this is “risked anticipation, without any guarantee” (San 129; “antycypacja powzi ta na wasne ryzyko, bez adnej por ki”; Op 280), in which one could see the freeing of human cognitive and existential passion from norms and constraints. Schulz, therefore, speaks about an existential utopia, which is possible only in the system of the word, in unconstrained expression and creation, freed from the universal rules of the game, obligations, and pragmatic meanings. Such existence is possible only as a product of words in the world of imagination, where Dichtung is mixed up with Wahrheit and where we cannot attain the ultimate truth of being because it constantly eludes the organization of reason. This is an attribute of modern allegory, to which we attribute precisely with the ability to speak about something in a language from another domain, a language which is incognoscible. Allegory and Trace. History (Tale) In the melancholic understanding of the world the most important literary figure is allegory. Known in aesthetics for a long time, and

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long treated interchangeably with the symbol, allegory came to be interpreted differently by Walter Benjamin and has lived a separate life ever since. Paul de Man devoted considerable attention to it; for him it also became a figure of modern reading, an admission of “interference of truth and error in the process of understanding” (“interferencja prawdy i faszu w procesie rozumienia”; 2004: 92). This guarantee lies primarily in its insolvability and the impossibility of such an act because allegory assumes vacillation and in the last resort, the temporality and cultural nature of cognition. Allegory is a sign of the interpretive attitude; its value is not constant but dynamic. How we read a text/picture depends to the same extent on the time and place of reading as on our cultural marking. Therefore, it is a definition on the level of modelling our reading and making sense of the signs scattered throughout the text. Allegory is also treated as the picture of language itself or as response to the contemporary ruined language of communication. Language is at the same time too rich and too poor; metaphorically speaking, we could say that there is too little and too much of it: everything originates in cognitive ambiguity, in the separation of the word from the thing, in expansion of the consciousness of the intermediate link, which is the act of naming (interpretation) itself. It is here that a conviction must probably arise that language is in decay at the moment. Such a conviction evokes dual feelings: first, it is not communicatively efficient enough and sufficiently expressive in meaning;5 and second, that as a fragment, a scrap, it focuses the reader’s attention on its primeval quality. This embraces melancholic loss, nostalgia, the inexpressible, and the sublime. Schulz writes so insightfully for our modern era: “We are beginning to be at a loss for words: they become confused, meandering, and raving” (San 41; “Jestemy u koca naszych sów, które ju tu staj si majaczliwe, bredz ce i niepoczytalne”; Op 168). And he adds that the truth of being is revealed only beyond them, where the word does not reach. We also have to agree with the conclusion that such a form of the word is richer in meaning, even if it is only implied rather than in its “canonical” form. Jean Starobinski, therefore, is right when he writes that “allegory reveals excess, points to diverse connections that surround each real object, or to countless sense forms that can be assumed by each ideal being” (“alegoria 5

Cf. Wojciech Kalaga’s conception of speech as a “nebula of discourses” (2001).


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ujawnia nadmiar, wskazuje na wielorakie po czenia, które otaczaj ka dy rzeczywisty przedmiot, albo na niezliczone formy zmysowe, w które mo e si wcieli ka da istota idealna”; in Bieczyk 2002: 48). In the third part of ‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’ appears a description of the environment, in which the allegorical picture is specifically shaped: it speaks of squalid apartments, where there are those “rubbish heaps, abounding in the humus of memories, of nostalgia, and of sterile boredom” (SoC 67; “rumowiska, obfituj ce w humus wspomnie, t sknot, jaowej nudy”; Op 44). It is under such conditions that “this pseudovegetation sprouted abundantly yet ephemerally” (SoC 67; “owa pseudowegetacja kiekowaa szybko i powierzchownie, paso ytowaa obficie i efemerycznie”; Op 44). The description combines two perspectives: on the one hand, the picture of decay, neglect, and degradation; on the other hand, the picture of false, short-lived luxuriance and multiplication. The father both rejoices in and is upset by this; he rejoices in the plurality and variability of matter, which he exalts in the whole ‘Treatise’, and he is upset that these are ephemeral worlds and that we do not lend credence or room to the “fragmentary forms of life” (SoC 69; “fragmentaryczne postacie ycia”; Op 46) that do not have enough energy to become stable and come into being in full even though they might have their reasons and rights for that. The father is a troubadour of decay and plurality, and of the allegorical figures because behind each one, there is a conviction about the specific crossing of the boundary which is current reality. Allegory is a way of shaping imaginary worlds moulded from fragments recalled in language, in reminiscence, in experience; allegory is a way of creative existence or, according to Marquard, a compensatory, surrogate experience of the world. But there is also another significant remark referring to the negation of reality and the impossibility of finding the source of sense, a specific “negative epistemology” (“negatywna epistemologia”; de Man 2004: 91), then allegory also appears as specific form of “speaking instead”. Allegory, in its basic function, is the way of speaking about the abstract in the language of a surrogate picture, or in more general terms, it is a possible narration in the face of capitulation before an unattainable narration. If we take into consideration, for example, Schulz’s ‘Spring’, then we can say in the most general terms that it is an allegory of the Book, a pre-established

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myth of entirety and sacredness, and within it Rudolf’s stamp album could be an allegory of richness of the world: “With the stamp album in my hand, I was studying the spring. Was it not a great commentary on the times, the grammar of its days and nights?” (San 47; “Z markownikiem w r ku czytaem t wiosn . Czy nie by on wielkim komentarzem czasów, gramatyk ich dni i nocy?”; Op 177). We read at the beginning of ‘Spring’ that the text is an allegorical, graphicverbal emblem of spring: “[M]y story, like that text, will follow many different tracks and will be punctuated by spring-like dashes, sighs, and dots” (San 25; “Dlatego b dzie ta historia, wzorem tego tekstu, ci gn a si na wielu rozga zionych torach i caa przetykana b dzie wiosennymi mylnikami, westchnieniami i wielokropkami”; Op 145). Spring is in the state of waiting, in tension; it is simultaneously ready for realization and afraid of it, and finally realized – by allegorical surrogate – in Rudolf’s stamp album: “In it were strange abbreviations and formulae, recipes for civilizations, handy amulets” (“Byy to przedziwne skróty i formuy, recepty na cywilizacje, por czne amulety”). The stamp book suddenly reveals information “of the limitless possibilities of being” (San 32; “o nieobj tych mo liwociach bytu”; Op 154). He contrasts the album with stamps (which are emblems of far-away countries, signs of the exotic), with Kakania (the “imperial and royal” or “kaiserliche und königliche” (k.u.k.) monarchy), where “Franz Joseph I rested on top of everything and checked the world in its growth” (San 33; “Na wszystkim poo y si Franciszek Józef I i zahamowa wiat w jego wzrocie”; Op 155). Bianka, the main character in ‘Spring’, is colorless and grey because she is dominated by Gombrowiczian “form” and “class” or she would be were it not for the implicit signs of ambiguity implying her boyishness: “this is deeply touching and guides my thoughts into tantalizing regions of contradiction, into blissful antinomies” (San 39; “co jest g boko wzruszaj ce i prowadzi myl w dr cz ce przesmyki sprzecznoci, pomi dzy uszcz liwiaj ce antynomie”; Op 212). This is again one of those characteristic transgressions of the code of official reality which open the possibility for implied meanings. The Book, in turn, is contrasted with the Fragment (the shred of a book); the two phenomena are allegorical. The Book is referred to in the first sentences in a very mysterious way:


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[W]iatr szed przez jej stronice i obrazy wstaway […] wywiewaj c kolory i figury […] Tak ulatywaa, rozsypuj c si stronica za stronic i wsi kaa agodnie w krajobraz, który sycia barwnoci . (Op 114) ([T]he wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise […] merging the colors and shapes […] Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness; San 1)

The Book, therefore, is a primeval myth. It is the power and fundamental reason, which saturates the world and cannot at the same time be concretized and understood. Its phenomena (pictures) arise from rubbing the pages with father’s “wet fingertip” (San 1; “polinionym palcem”; Op 113). We should add that it appeared “in the dawn of childhood” (San 2; “zaraniu dziecistwa”; Op 115), which was fulfilled without a mother and was the domain of the Father and symbolic language. Then the mother appears, and the narrator yields to her pleasures, “[s]educed by [her] caresses” (“uwiedziony pieszczotami”), but the following days “began to run along a new and different track with no holidays and no miracles” (San 2; “potoczyy si nowym, odmiennym torem, bez wi t i bez cudów”; Op 115). The picture of the Book does not correspond even to the Bible, which the father tries to give his son to read; the Book was something more. The son calls the Bible a “fake copy […] clumsy falsification” (San 3; “ska ony apokryf, nieudolny falsyfikat”; Op 117). The point is that something more primeval can only be felt by the mind and by a desire which can never be fulfilled or materialized. The opposite of the Book is the Fragment, in which the narrator unexpectedly found the Book’s concretization; the Fragment is evidently a kind of popular diary, containing more or less fanciful and entertaining stories about characters such as Anna Csillag and her heavenly hair, and Madame Magda Wang, an expert in bringing men to heel. When studying the Fragment, the narrator becomes immersed into the heart of the Book. How is it possible? What principle governs this process? I believe this is the dialectic complement of thought and reality, the abstract idea and life concretization, logos and chaos. The Fragment is treated as “the unofficial supplement” (San 5; “jej nieurz dowy dodatek”; Op 119) of the book; there is an ongoing process of “peculiar confusion” of words, of which the “meaning had mysteriously shifted” (San 9; “osobliwego zawrotu i migotania” / “kierunki oznacze moralnych przesun y si dziwnie”; Op 124).

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Meanings are not permanently assigned to some or other form of being; they change, complement and add to one another, and the effect of recontextualization follows. The process is continuous and cannot be stopped. Schulz compares this phenomenon to a luminescence, which “burned over and over again from within itself, and passed through all its flames and purples, and returned once more, and didn’t not want to end” (“wci na nowo od samej siebie si zapalaa i sza przez wszystkie pomienie i purpury, i wracaa raz jeszcze, i nie chciaa si skoczy”; Op 125). The phenomenon of semiosis, as we understand it today, is infinite because meaning is constantly proliferated; that which was the signified in earlier reasoning will be merely the signifying in the next, and again and again without end. This is also the nature of present-day allegory. Because the narration is made up of fragments of mental and concrete reality, and is open to shifts and complements, the unstable structure is subjected to constant interpretive processing and yields all sorts of interpretations; its semantic productivity is essentially infinite – “Well, perhaps next time, when we open our old script, we may not find Anna Csillag and her devotees in their old place” (San 11; “Oto, gdy nast pnym razem otworzymy nasz szparga, kto wie, gdzie b dzie ju wówczas Anna Csillag i jej wierni”; Op 125). Regardless of experience, phenomena (Erfahrung) remain in their place. Their meaning and experiencing (Erlebnis) will change because circumstances and contexts change. Paradoxically, the two spheres define the horizon of our thinking and imagination, and they are both allegorical toward existential expectations. Allegory stretches between those poles: “Let’s return to the Authentic. We have never forsaken it” (San 12; “Wracamy do Autentyku. Ale nie opuszczalimy go nigdy”; Op 127), writes Schulz. One, therefore, is the other, and the former turns into the latter. The Fragment is open to all fluctuations and is in a way an example of “the phenomenon of imagination and vicarious being” (San 13; “zjawiska reprezentacji i zast pczego bytu”; Op 128) for the Book. I wrote about the other aspects of the text earlier. The question about the “age of genius” remains unresolved because language and thinking, the high and the low, the noble and the mediocre, constantly merge, producing some inextricable tangle of sensation, which can be understood only as a figure of a certain way of perceiving and interpreting the world, a figure of allegory.


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Bibliography Bieczyk, Marek. 2002. Oczy Dürera. O melancholii romantycznej. Warszawa: Sic! De Man, Paul. 2000. ‘Poj cie ironii’ in Ideologia estetyczna (tr. A. Przybysawski). Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria: 251-281. ——. 2004. ‘Czytanie Prousta’ in Alegorie czytania. Jzyk figuralny u Rousseau, Nietzschego, Rilkego i Prousta (tr. A. Przybysawski). Kraków: Universitas: 74-98. Frydryczak, Beata. 2002. wiat jako kolekcja. Próba analizy estetycznej natury nowoczesnoci. Pozna: Wydawnictwo Fundacji Humaniora. Heidbrink, Ludger. 1994. Melancholie und Moderne. Zur Kritik der historischen Verzweilung. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. Kalaga, Wojciech. 2001. Mgawice dyskursu. Podmiot, tekst, interpretacja. Kraków: Universitas. Koselleck, Reinhart. 1979. Vergangene Zukunft: zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Lyotard, Jean-François. 1997. Kondycja ponowoczesna, Raport o stanie wiedzy (tr. M. Kowalska and J. Migasiski). Warszawa: Fundacja Aletheia. Schulz, Bruno. 1977. The Street of Crocodiles (tr. C. Wieniewska). New York: Penguin. ——. 1979. Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (tr. C. Wieniewska). New York: Penguin. ——. 1998. Opowiadania. Wybór esejów i listów (ed. J. Jarz bski). Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossoliskich. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2000. Tractatus logico-philosophicus (tr. B. Wolniewicz). Warszawa: PWN.

Bruno Schulz and Seductive Discourse Jerzy Jarz bski Abstract: Bruno Schulz is well aware of the fact that having to be content with fragments, bits and pieces of the unattainable Whole is the universal fate of every artist and thinker. This weakness, this insufficiency of the demiurge, demands acceptance from the entourage, so it is no longer self-sufficient; it desires, at all cost, to be completed; it demands going beyond one’s limits, seducing, gentle eroticism; it is feminine by nature and contains a hidden irony. This seductive activity concerns practically all of Schulz’s characters, especially the Father. One could compare Father’s demiurgic activity and Schulz’s own creative doctrine, observing that both of them are directed at some recipient and contain a hidden intention of seducing.

Two earlier texts of mine: ‘Schulz – ironiczny ad i dyskurs uwodzicielski’ (‘Schulz – Ironic Order and the Seductive Discourse’), a presentation given at Drohobycz at a conference in November 2006 (Jarz bski 2007) and ‘Schulz: uniwersalno i poetyka fragmentu’ (‘Schulz: Universality and the Poetics of the Fragment’), a lecture delivered in Montreal at the beginning of May 2007 (Jarz bski 2008), lay the foundations for this article. Both were a result of a significant change, a switch in emphasizing certain elements of interpretation, which took place in my reading of Schulz in the course of the last year. To put it briefly, this means a practical shift away from an allinclusive way of looking at the world of Schulz, that is, the sort of looking which primarily stresses some form of general order ruling in that world and its subordination to universal concepts such as mythical time and space as well as various dimensions of cycles, for example, cosmic, natural, historical, ritual, and commercial. Within the frame of these cycles of various lengths, the world presents itself as the domain of repetitiveness. It is, therefore, not only well ordered but also predictable and constitutes a safe place, which is familiar to its inhabitants, day after day, year after year confirming its order and the eternal return of “The Same”.

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And yet this world also contains profoundly different aspects related to the uncertainty, insufficiency, and fragmentation of being. Even though the world of Schulz refers us to a vision of the Whole which (having now ceased to provoke researchers’ emotions) has never been abrogated, it requires, nevertheless, reconstruction from data provided by the writer, and he himself never allows us direct access to this Whole. On the contrary, he always shows us only particles of that Whole: unfinished stories lacking a moral, characters reduced to a single, very short role who disappear forever from the story after performing their function, humiliating and failed endeavors (like those undertaken by Father). A crippled world and a myth of the hero’s manifold impotence was – even half a century ago – the leitmotiv of Artur Sandauer’s reading of Schulz (1964). The writer from Drohobycz, however, was an artist very aware of his worth and would not agree to this somewhat deprecatory way of interpreting his world. The poetics of the fragment, considered by Friedrich Schlegel to be a fully legitimate artistic device in which the thought appears in a flash, at the moment of its birth, gained wide recognition and popularity in the period of romanticism. Novalis, Coleridge, Shelley, Macpherson, Byron, Poe, and in Poland Krasiski, Pol, and Korzeniowski, among others, made use of it (Konarzewska 2006; Bartoszyski 1991). I do not want to suggest that Schulz was directly inspired by them; instead, I only want to point out that this poetics was something well established in literature at the moment when the author of Sklepy cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops, 1934) was beginning to write. Schulz was totally aware that he was doomed to incompleteness and failure as an artist and creator, since being content with fragments of the unattainable Whole is the universal fate of every artist and thinker. The best example of this is the return of the birds raised by Father in the closing part of ‘Noc wielkiego sezonu’ (The Night of the Great Season’), which ends the grandest of old Jacob’s demiurgic performances. In my essay ‘Schulz – Ironic order and the seductive discourse’ (Jarz bski 2007), I devoted some space to the comparison of Father’s demiurgic activity and Schulz’s own creative doctrine, observing that both of them are directed at some recipient and contain a hidden intention of seducing. This seductive activity concerns practically all of Schulz’s characters. There are no persons among

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them who would be especially predestined to perform this function. Thus, the beautiful and enticing Adela seduces, but so does the dotty Touya and the old man Jacob. In Schulz’s work, seduction is a concept understood similarly to the way it is expressed by Jean Baudrillard (1990: 37-49), where it is sharply opposed to eroticism as an activity not aimed at fulfillment, inscribed in cyclical time. This is confirmed by the case of Touya, who does not necessarily autoerotically “seduce” the stump she rubs herself against but instead seduces the potential observers, for whom she becomes a pornographic spectacle. It seems that seducing is one of the most elementary human activities without which no creature can exist. Why? Is it not because each one feels in his or her own way incomplete and thus demands completion, reaches out beyond himself or herself toward the object of its efforts, and at the same time, just before fulfillment, withdraws, wanting to repeat the act of seducing endlessly. Such a conclusion does not seem especially original unless we survey particular characters from Schulz’s writings and discover how varied their repertoire of different forms of seduction is. The most “typical” method is the one that the shop attendants use to seduce Adela in ‘The Night of the Great Season’: chasing her, catching her in the kitchen where she had barricaded herself, and finally dragging her out through the window. Adela is also seduced in ‘Ksi ga’ (‘The Book’) by Joseph himself, who cuddles up to her and breathes in the scent of her body. Old Jacob seduces Adela in a different way by trying to interest her and the seamstresses Polda and Pauline in his bizarre and heretical ‘Traktat o manekinach’ (‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’). Thus, Adela is the universal object of seductive exertions although nothing is known of anyone ever having succeeded in possessing her. Such is also the case with Bianca from ‘Wiosna’ (‘Spring’), for whom Joseph (with Rudolf in the background) organizes an entire historical spectacle-story, only to withdraw just before the very end and hand the girl over to his rival. In Schulz’s writings, however, there are many reasons why the seducers are more interesting than the ones who are being seduced. The seducers sometimes go beyond their stereotypical social or familial roles (Father in the ‘Treatise…’, cousin Emil from ‘Sierpie’ (‘August’), even the handicapped Edzio or Dodo, who complete themselves in substitute actions). They also transfer their seductive endeavors to a

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different sphere, such as a commercial one (like Father in ‘The Night of the Great Season’ or the shop assistant in ‘Ulica krokodyli’ (‘The Street of Crocodiles’), who try to draw the clients in the shop into their game). Sometimes the seducers simply press themselves senselessly against the world, trying to squeeze their own portion of bliss and acceptance out of it (Touya rubbing her genitals against the tree stump). The state of seduction is, therefore, situated on the border between one person and another or, in some special cases, between a person and everything that surrounds him or her. By his very nature, the writer is a seducer who incites his readers to an endless repetition of “voluptuous textual pleasure”. Schulz is aware of this as well as of the fact that as he seduces, he must pretend and in a way surpass himself. In a letter to Romana Halpern, Schulz writes: M cz si bardzo moimi próbami pisania. Pisarz (przynajmniej w moim rodzaju) to najn dzniejsze stworzenie na ziemi. Musi nieustannie kama, musi przekonywaj co przedstawi jako ziszczone i realne, co jest w nim naprawd w n dznym rozpadzie i chaosie. (2002: 126) (My attempts to write are really agonizing. A writer (my type of writer, anyway) is the most wretched creature on earth. He has to lie incessantly, has to represent as valid and real what is actually in a miserable state of disintegration and chaos within him; 1990: 133)

Tomasz Bocheski uses this quotation as a starting point to reflect on the role that writing can play in overcoming death in the works of Schulz: Ruch form, pynno, nieokrelono, amorfia, formy porednie, hybrydyczne, opis wiata, który przemija, akcentowanie przemijalnego, odrzucanie wiecznego, wreszcie pena czarnego humoru kpina z ostatecznoci – to sposoby wymkni cia si mierci (2005: 208). (The movement of forms, fluidity, indefiniteness, amorphous shapes, oblique forms, hybrid beings, the description of a world that slips away, stressing all that is transient, rejecting the eternal, finally, mocking eschatology, in the spirit of black humor – all these are ways of escaping death.)

And further on :


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Igranie ze mierci prowadzi do rozkoszy tekstowej, do zwyci stwa w narracji nad si zamykaj c ka d narracj i dlatego ujawnia g bok zale no mi dzy pisaniem a erotyk . T zale no doskonale pokazuj opisane w Sklepach relacje ojciec-Adela. Erotyzm perwersyjny, erotyzm skrywany, “wstydliwy” to dobry sposób przeciwstawienia si mierci. Gra Schulza w ukrywanie “skonnoci”, tak by zostay odkryte, to rodzaj zabawy z czytelnikiem, tym lektorem przynosz cym do dziea mier ostatecznych odczyta, zamykaj cym dzieo w ksztat interpretacji, a erotyzm cienia ukazuj cym w penym wietle psychiatrii czy socjologii (2005: 209). (Trifling with death leads to voluptuous textual pleasure, to victory, through narration over the force that ends all narrations and that is why it unveils the deep relationship between writing and eroticism. This interdependence is shown very well by the example of the father-Adela relationship described in Cinnamon Shops. Perverse eroticism, hidden eroticism, the “shameful” eroticism is a good way to oppose death. Schulz’s game of hiding “dispositions”, so that they may be disclosed, is a way of playing with the reader, the kind of reader who brings the death of final, unequivocal interpretations to the literary text, and closes the literary work into such readings, presenting the shadow of eroticism in the full light of psychiatry or sociology.)

Bocheski probably stresses correctly the tendency, so characteristic of Schulz, of avoiding all visions of “the final sense” or “the definite interpretation” – understandable in such an assiduous reader of Nietzsche (cf. Bolecki 2003a). It is not, however, only a matter of escaping death. For Schulz, life itself is obviously a specific balancing act between great gestures of assuming or even enforcing power over the Whole of the universe on the one hand and a ceaseless slipping into ordinariness on the other hand, an ordinariness within which everything is only a fragment, a particle, a tawdry trinket, a pretense at having the might of a demiurge. But this weakness, this deficiency of the demiurge, demands acceptance from the entourage; therefore, it is no longer self-sufficient; it desires at all cost to be completed; it demands going beyond one’s limits, beyond seduction and gentle eroticism; it is feminine by nature. However, what is seduction in Schulz’s writings? In the classic Diary of a Seducer, Kierkegaard tells the story of a young man who masterfully entices a girl who previously was emotionally involved with another man. When the intrigue is successful and Kordelia yields to the seducer, he is no longer interested in continuing the adventure and abandons her. In the texts by Schulz, no such

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development is taken into consideration; his characters have no erotic successes but this is not because they are unwilling nor due to their character traits. Instead, erotic success would mean embracing either the world in its entirety or a definite interpretation of it, which is impossible in Schulz’s version of understanding reality. In the world of Schulz, seduction always directs us toward the fragment. The seducing body is dismembered and reduced to functional elements: Adela’s eyes and long legs, the “soft line of the chin” (“mi kko zarysowana broda”) and “the powdered, white cheek” (“upudrowany, blady policzek”; Schulz 1989: 79) of the effeminate shop assistant from ‘The Street of Crocodiles’, and finally the bodies of the “creatures” designed by Father in ‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’. These functional elements can be compared to the fictional characters in literary texts who are always reduced to “glimpses”, always demanding completion, qualification, or definition on the part of the reader. In my earlier work about seductive discourse, I pointed out the special way in which Schulz creates the recipients of narration. In the case of the ‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’, which seems to be the prototype of his seductive stories, the recipients of Father’s tirades are three enticing but simple girls, which explains why Father’s heretical lecture about demiurgic power occasionally slips into kitschy exempla which are chosen to intrigue the simple little souls, to draw the recipients to the narrator and allow him to make awkward advances. These advances end with the fondling and caressing of their legs; the magic of the story allows Jacob that much and no more. It is Adela who constitutes the obstacle on the way to more scandalous practices, and Father himself seems to be aware that he cannot (or does not want to) allow himself anything more because going further would contradict the very principle of seduction. ‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’ seems to be the ideal seductive discourse in the sense given to it by Baudrillard: Seduction takes from discourse its sense and turns it from its truth. It is, therefore, contrary to the psychoanalytic distinction between manifest and latent discourses. For the latent discourse turns the manifest discourse not from its truth, but towards its truth. […] In seduction […] it is the manifest discourse – discourse at its most superficial – that turns back on the deeper order (whether conscious or unconscious) in order to invalidate it, substituting the charm and illusion of appearances. These appearances are not in the least frivolous, but occasions for a game and its stakes, and a


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passion for deviation – the seduction of the signs themselves being more important than the emergence of any truth – which interpretation neglects and destroys in its search for hidden meanings. (1990: 53)

It is a different matter with Schulz’s short stories. We can consider Debora Vogel in the case of Cinnamon Shops and Józefina Szeliska in the case of Sanatorium pod klepsydr (Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, 1938) as the recipients. Vogel is the addressee of the letters from which the beginning writer’s short stories evolved. The volume of writings in prose was dedicated to Szeliska. The specific trait shared by these stories, which are undoubtedly seductive, is that the recipients are absent from them. Additionally, at the moment of publication, the recipients were already absent from Schulz’s life as potential erotic partners. Thus, the texts perform a substitutional function because they take the place of physical contact. In the texts, there is not only the shy shamefulness of emotions, but also the intention of repeating seductive actions endlessly, and all are doomed to futility from the very start. What, however, does the writer offer his beloved yet unattainable women? He offers his self-portrait as an author taken at different moments and in different roles, as if in accordance with the conviction that one seduces most effectively when talking about oneself, which he does in a special way, so as to incite the addressees’ emotional involvement. Both Debora Vogel and Józefina Szeliska came to Drohobycz from the outside, from “the wide world”; thus, the provincial atmosphere and climate characteristic of “the small homeland” where Schulz lived could have appealed to them. Schulz, the eulogist of regress and withdrawal, was an author who glorified marginal beings and creatures, which were at the same time the center of the spiritual world of the individual (cf. Jarz bski 2005, LipiskaIakowicz 2003). Schulz’s seducing, therefore, was rather like the opposite of the Father’s in ‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’. Father seduces by performing the role of the sage-heresiarch, the demiurge imitating the divine act of creation, trying to impress his listeners with a grand gesture even though he is somewhat limited intellectually and comes from a rather common background. Father is very different from Schulz who, while facing his “wordly” listeners, spins a tale from the world’s backstage about defective people and projects doomed to failure from the moment of their very conception. And

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even if Schulz portrays his own Father, he presents his tirades in ironical parentheses. We would thus have a multi-layered irony because the Father also “pressed them [his female listeners] against the wall, tickled them with the finger of irony” (“przypiera do ciany i askota, drapa ironicznym palcem”; Schulz 1989: 36), while his great speech was treated by the narrator without appropriate seriousness. It seems that the ironic distance is born in the gap between the initial scale of the gesture and its miserable realization. This brings to mind the contrast between the universal idea of the Book and the demonstratively vestigial “script”, or rather “scrap” (szparga), saved from it. It appears, then, that whatever the Whole may mean in Schulz’s text, it is in fact presented as a foggy outline within the framework of which one can only see a fragment, a pars pro toto, which directs us back toward the Whole, yet the fragment is not only not identical with the Whole but also uncertain about having any links with it. Where, however, does the ironic quality of all presentations in Schulz’s texts stem from? Does it not come from these performances that are always done in someone’s presence, in some sense publicly in front of a varied audience with a critical outlook, which is quick to pronounce unfavorable sentences and make malicious comments? These performances seduce, but at the same time, they are compromising and render someone ridiculous in the eyes of others. One can find the most striking examples in ‘August’, where the unwitting demonstration of Aunt Agata’s daughters’ sexuality is exciting but at the same time makes them feel ashamed.1 Touya, on the contrary, is shameless; her condition of being handicapped (mentally) is expressed in one way by the fact that she is not embarrassed to show her physical desire. This lowest form of “seduction” is at the same time definitely obscene, and perhaps its 1

In his psychoanalytical interpretation of eroticism in Schulz’s writings, Pawe Dybel (2005: 204-218) stresses the fact that the female characters are totally self-sufficient as well as very successful in their seducing whereas the Father is not capable of fulfilling his role of “symbolical father”, one who imposes compliance with the Law; his existence consists of a continuous lack, a fading away. In its “hard” version, this view derived from Freud and Lacan, seems to me definitely exaggerated because women do not dominate the world of Schulz in such a decisive manner. In his own way, Father as a seducer is much more efficient , and he seduces all the time, albeit only through story telling.


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obscenity is that element of all seduction which is concealed elsewhere. Seduction is a form of theatrical activity calculated to produce a public result, which is probably the most frequent outcome in Schulz’s texts. The shop assistants chasing after Adela do so “publicly”; their efforts to attract clients are presented as happening “publicly” in ‘The Street of Crocodiles’, and the performances of Father in ‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’, ‘The Night of the Great Season’, and ‘Kometa’ (‘The Comet’) are also “public”. This means nothing more than stating the fact that a man who is fighting for recognition, admiration, or for someone’s body is usually doing so in the presence of others, under their gaze and subject to their evaluation. Writers whose books are available on the market and become critically assessed by readers are all the more so acting in the public eye; this is what lies at the source of the irony that pervades all “being” in the works of Schulz. The irony in Schulz’s work operates in a manner somewhat different from the definitions of irony given in Sownik schulzowski (The Schulz Dictionary) by Piotr Millati and Wodzimierz Bolecki: […] ironia jest nie tylko sugesti obecnoci w tekcie innego znaczenia ni to wyra one dosownie, nie tylko poszukiwaniem drugiego dna, demaskacj waciwego, lecz zakamuflowanego sensu, ale te filozoficznym wyznaniem wiary, i rzeczywisto jako taka ma charakter wielowarstwowy, e to, co dane nam jest ogl da na jej powierzchni, stanowi jedynie przykrywk dla tego, co g binowe, a wi c faktycznie prawdziwe. (Millati 2003: 157) (Irony is not only a suggestion of the presence of a different meaning in the text than the one expressed literally, not only a searching for the other, deeper, layer of meaning, an unveiling of the hidden sense, but also a philosophical declaration of a conviction that reality as such is multilayered, that what we can see on the surface is only a cover for what is hidden deep down and what is really true.)

Can we prove the existence of the depth of reality though? Or can we possibly discover from where this multi-layered character of reality comes? Is it a trait belonging to the world’s ontology or does it have a completely different source? We should consult the author of the other definition of irony:

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Jerzy Jarzbski “Ironiczno” zdarze w tym wiecie oznacza, e s one oparte na narastaj cych nieporozumieniach: zudzenie jest brane za istot , kulisy za miejsce akcji, mistyfikacja za rzeczywisto, udawanie za szczero, nazwa za stan rzeczywistoci etc. Wszystko to jednak postrzega tylko opowiadacz ze swojej zewn trznej perspektywy, albowiem ogl dany od wewn trz wiat Schulza przypomina zdarzenia bezadne i chaotyczne. (Bolecki 2003b: 156) (“The ironic character” of events in this world means that they are based on accumulating misunderstandings; illusion is taken for the heart of the matter itself, the backstage for the place of the main action, mystification for reality, pretending for sincerity, the name for the fact, etc. All this, however, can be perceived by the one who tells the story from his outer perspective because the world of Schulz seen from within resembles chaotic and disordered events.)

Bolecki inadvertently changes the perspective here, writing not so much about objective traits of being as about how being presents itself to its observers. This, it seems, is the heart of the matter: Schulz’s world is ironic not so much by its nature but because at every moment it is perceived from several points of view, thus bringing to the one who tells the story a whole set of various emotions ranging from the sense of power (offering what Bocheski calls “voluptuous textual pleasure”) to shame. The problem, however, is that one can be “obscene” in various ways. The first way, described by Barthes in Fragments d’un discours amoureux (Fragments of a Lover’s Discourse, 1977), is the kind in which the very expression of love is obscene, which is why the discourse of emotions is always fragmentary, incapable of naming its object directly and slides constantly into irony, spoiling its own strategy. The other way of understanding the matter is Baudrillard-like by nature: it becomes clear that obscenity consists of bringing to the surface and exposing everything that is elsewhere hidden shamefully; “what is characteristic of the stage” ceases to exist in such a world because there is no identified space which could be called the “stage”. It seems that Schulz is obscene in that first way; he would like to salvage the notion of the world’s “theatricality” because the theatre unveils and covers simultaneously, exposes and leaves itself to the mercy of the public (audience), while at the same time hiding the mechanism of the spectacle backstage, behind the scene. In the world of Schulz, as stated in an often cited fragment of his letter to Witkacy, the principle of the “panmasquerade” (panmaskarada) rules:


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Rzeczywisto przybiera pewne ksztaty tylko dla pozoru, dla artu, dla zabawy. Kto jest czowiekiem, a kto karakonem, ale ten ksztat nie si ga istoty, jest tylko rol na chwil przyj t , tylko naskórkiem, który za chwil zostanie zrzucony. Statuowany tu jest pewien skrajny monizm substancji, dla której poszczególne przedmioty s jedynie maskami. ycie substancji polega na zu ywaniu niezmiernej iloci masek. Ta w drówka form jest istot ycia. Dlatego z substancji tej emanuje aura jakiej panironii. Obecna tam jest nieustannie atmosfera kulis, tylnej strony sceny, gdzie aktorzy po zrzuceniu kostiumów zamiewaj si z patosu swych ról. W samym fakcie istnienia poszczególnego zawarta jest ironia, nabieranie, j zyk po bazesku wystawiony (Schulz 1989: 444-445). (Reality takes on certain shapes merely for the sake of appearance, as a joke or form of play. One person is a human, another is a cockroach, but shape does not penetrate essence, is only a role adopted for the moment, an outer skin soon to be shed. A certain extreme monism of the life substance is assumed here, for which specific objects are nothing more than masks. The life of the substance consists in the assuming and consuming of numberless masks. This migration of forms is the essence of life. Thus an all-pervading aura of irony emanates from this substance. There is an ever-present atmosphere of the stage, of sets viewed from behind, where the actors make fun of the pathos of their parts after stripping out their costumes. The bare fact of separate individual existence holds an irony, a hoax, a clown’s stuck-out tongue; 1990: 113)

Schulz’ theatre exists in two ways: it ironically unmasks the pretextlike character of all the pronounced texts, a spectacle during which people realize their seductive passions, often while being watched by others, but it is also a personal adventure in which the author himself is the one who tries to seduce, and the theatre which he is presenting is the theatre of his own soul, which is incurably sick with loneliness and desperately needs someone emotionally close – if not a woman, then at least “a partner in the enterprises of discovery”. Bibliography Barthes, Roland. 1977. Fragments d’un discours amoureux. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Bartoszyski, Kazimierz. 1991. ‘O fragmencie’ in Powie w wiecie literackoci. Szkice. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN: 141-164. Baudrillard, Jean. 1988. America (tr. C. Turner). London and New York: Verso. ——. 1990. Seduction (tr. B. Singer). New York: St. Martin’s Press. Bocheski, Tomasz. 2005. Czarny humor w twórczoci Witkacego, Gombrowicza, Schulza. Lata trzydzieste. Kraków: Universitas. Bolecki, Wodzimierz. 2003a. ‘Principium individuationis. Motywy nietzscheaskie w twórczoci Brunona Schulza’ in Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata and

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Wadysaw Panas (eds). W uamkach zwierciada…Bruno Schulz w 110 rocznic urodzin i 60 rocznic mierci. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL: 321-340. ——. 2003b. ‘Ironia (1)’ in Bolecki, Wodzimierz, Jerzy Jarz bski and Stanisaw Rosiek (eds). Sownik schulzowski. Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria: 155-157. Dybel, Pawe. 2005. ‘Seksualno zdegradowana, czyli perwersyjny wiat prozy Brunona Schulza’ in Teksty Drugie 16(3): 204-218. Jarz bski, Jerzy. 2005. ‘Prowincja Centrum’ in Prowincja Centrum. Przypisy do Schulza. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie: 109-129. ——. 2007. ‘Schulz – ironiczny ad i dyskurs uwodzicielski’ in Akcent 1: 25-31. ——. 2008. ‘Schulz: uniwersalno i poetyka fragmentu’ in Kozicka, Dorota and Maciej Urbanowski (eds). Literatura – punkty widzenia – wiatopogldy. Prace ofiarowane Marcie Wyce. Kraków: Universitas: 143-156. Kierkegaard, Søren. 1966. Diary of a Seducer (tr. G. Gillhoff). New York: F. Ungar Publishers Co. Konarzewska Marta. 2006. ‘Fragment’ in Gazda, Grzegorz and Sowinia TyneckaMakowska (eds). Sownik rodzajów i gatunków literackich. Kraków: Universitas. Lipiska-Iakowicz, Krystyna. 2003. ‘Myl c powoli: przestrze prowincjonalna u Heideggera i Schulza’ in Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata and Wadysaw Panas (eds). W uamkach zwierciada…Bruno Schulz w 110 rocznic urodzin i 60 rocznic mierci. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL: 485496. Millati, Piotr. 2003. ‘Ironia (2)’ in Bolecki, Wodzimierz, Jerzy Jarz bski and Stanisaw Rosiek (eds). Sownik schulzowski. Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria: 157-159. Sandauer, Artur. 1964. ‘Rzeczywisto zdegradowana (Rzecz o Brunonie Schulzu)’ in Schulz, Bruno. Proza. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie: 5-43. Schulz, Bruno. 1989. Opowiadania. Wybór esejów i listów (ed. J. Jarz bski). Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossoliskich. ——. 1990. Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz (ed. J. Ficowski). New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation. ——. 2002. Ksiga listów (ed. J. Ficowski). Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria.

Thinking About Absurdity with Bruno Schulz: Paradox and Potential Shlomit Gorin Abstract: It is inadequate to think about conditions of existence, and absurdity in particular, without contemplating dynamics of perspective, conflict, and potential; a sense of the absurd is inextricable from the nature of perception and, moreover, is necessarily rooted in a specific kind of perceptual tension. Underlying the works of Bruno Schulz is a unique framework for a sophisticated understanding of and reconciliation with the nature of absurdity, which paradoxically may lead to its annihilation as a source of anguish and provide an alternative to a view of life as meaningless.

Introduction Essays and fictional narratives giving expression to absurdity present a challenge to a view of life as inherently meaningful. Implicit within such works is a polemic against deterministic ideologies and historical and scientific theories that purport to account for the boundless, unknowable phenomena of life. Philosophical, existential, and other critical analyses about absurdity, as well as creative efforts to express the absurd, can strike at some pillars of characteristically Western thought as they question fundamental assumptions about knowledge, language, and meaning. I suspect that it is impossible, or at least inadequate, to think about conditions of existence, and absurdity in particular, without contemplating dynamics of perspective, conflict, and potential. In this essay, I argue that a sense of the absurd is inextricable from the nature of perception and, moreover, is necessarily rooted in a specific kind of perceptual tension. Furthermore, I suggest that a sophisticated understanding of and reconciliation with the nature of absurdity paradoxically may lead to its annihilation as a source of anguish and provide an alternative to a view of life as meaningless. This alternative

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view is based on the idea that the world is only absurd if we think it can be and expect it to be otherwise. I believe that such a perspective is implicit in the works of Bruno Schulz. While different scholars have focused on various interesting features of his writing, I derive from his stories and essays a framework of thinking about absurdity that fits the aforementioned alternative view. A common conceptualization of absurdity is based upon the supposition that existence precedes meaning, and that the world is an objective entity distinct from human consciousness and devoid of meaning. Realization of absence of inherent reason, purpose and necessity in life may result in a sense of absurdity and anguish. A view of absurdity as a source of despair violates notions of inherent meaning, yet it fails to depart from the same fundamental assumptions in which these very trends of thought are rooted. In other words, it tacitly accepts what it openly rejects. The alternative view of absurdity that I will explore is not concerned with objective meaning or purpose, for it does not characterize the absence of inherent meaning in the world as a defect or problem. The inquiry of whether meaning is one of the properties making up the objective world is not significant. What is essential is acknowledging dynamics of agency implicit within the nature of perception, as well as embracing contradiction, absence of universal purpose, and uncertainty. The question of how one finds meaning in a meaningless world is not answered, but recast. Identification of absurdity with a problematic absence of innate meaning leads to an intense sense of absurdity that diminishes vigor and vitality and serves as an impetus to yearning for death. Death may function both as a resignation to, as well as a confrontation with or subversion of, absurdity. Self-annihilation is the (albeit extreme) consequence for an individual who views life as wholly and absolutely meaningless and sees no way of escaping such conditions lest they lead to an artificial existence or a way of life based on what Sartre calls “Bad Faith.” “Bad Faith,” Sartre explains, is A lie to oneself within the unity of a single consciousness. Through Bad Faith a person seeks to escape the responsible freedom of Being-for-itself. Bad Faith rests on a vacillation between transcendence and facticity which refuses to recognize either one for what it really is or to synthesize them (1956: 628).

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Sartre insists that the “sincere” man must face “Nothingness” (Hinchliffe 1969: 25). Interestingly, an awareness of absurdity does not exclude emphasis on sincerity, or even its praise. Suicide, Sartre believes, is by no means a solution to absurdity since it is clearly a relinquishment, rather than an honest facing up, to the meaninglessness of the world. This proposition implies absence of inherent reason and overarching purpose in life need not, and should not, halt the search for authenticity. Recognizing inherent meaninglessness, which rests in large part on an admission of mortality, is a fundamental prerequisite for a genuine life. The existentialist (absurd) hero is exemplified by the individual who achieves honesty only in the face of death (Hinchliffe 1969: 21). Like the hero in Tolstoi’s Smert’ Ivana Il’icha (The Death of Ivan Il’ich, 1886), one may establish and preserve an honest experience of life only by considering death rather than by trying to forget its existence or by ending one’s life oneself. As Camus urges, “[i]t is essential to die unreconciled and not of one’s own free will” (1955: 21). Refusal to die will not ameliorate a sense of anguish arising from absurdity. On the contrary, it will remain and ought to remain so that we can resist it. As John K. Roth writes in Great Thinkers of the Western World, “Defiance of the absurd maximizes life’s intensity in a way that would not be possible if some transcendent God guaranteed life’s significance” (1999: 558). Camus contends believing there is a way to escape absurdity is merely philosophical suicide, for such hope disables one from drawing honest existential conclusions. “One cannot remain honest if one has succumbed to the temptation offered by that hope” (Camus 1955: 21). With honest consideration of death, the idea of action despite human mortality becomes significant; individuals are free in the sense that they do not have to do any particular thing and yet they both painfully suffer through and joyfully delight in a life they know ends in death. Freedom as absence of reason, purpose, or necessity translates into metaphysical captivity in which everything becomes equal and, hence, meaningless. Total and open potentiality paradoxically creates the impossibility of creating meaning in a world in which everything is arbitrary. Implicit within this concept of freedom is a view of limitations as necessary for the generation of meaning. Dostoevskii’s underground man personifies the idea of sheer

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potential as enslaving and longs for limits that release him from the burden of nothingness: “If only my doing nothing were due to laziness! How I’d respect myself then! Yes, respect, because I would know that I could be lazy at least, that I had at least one definite feature in me, something positive, something I could be sure of” (1961: 104). Camus proposes that the only type of action capable of overcoming this arbitrary quality of freedom is willful and thoughtful action. Action in this sense is not meant to escape the absurdity of the world but is rooted in an embrace of it. Authenticity is derived from action that occurs despite mortality and absence of purpose. An understanding of absurdity as a source of genuine experience is a beginning that leads to revolt against it. Escape Versus Confrontation Fictional narratives expressing absurdity portray a world with characteristics that aggravate notions of a deterministic world. The degree to which such writing moves beyond trends of mechanistic thought varies; some depictions of an unfamiliar world may lean more toward the realm of fantasy than toward an expression of absurdity. One could speculate that in a fantasy world, relations of being are overturned and remain unordinary, whereas an absurd world is created when the unordinary melts into, or collides with, the ordinary. Kafka’s Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis, 1915) represents the archetypal literary expression of the absurd world in these terms. The first line of The Metamorphosis reads: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect” (1970: 67). The scene immediately presents a most extraordinary event as a very ordinary occurrence. As the story unfolds, the reader, Gregor’s family, and Gregor himself become progressively more accepting of this most bizarre transformation, yet the tension between unpredictable fantasy and familiar reality never fully dissipates. In contrast, the dynamics within a fantasy world remain within the context of the unreal and the reader is not presented with a challenge of discerning between the two. Fantasy is rooted in reality as a result of its direct departure from a familiar world and in its polarity to reality. Its unrealistic nature remains within the expected boundaries of the realistic.


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Based on these conditions, one could claim that the emergence of conflict between genres or imaginative worlds is what distinguishes the absurd from fantasy. Confusion and uncertainty evoked through portrayal of a world oscillating between normalized and fantastical anticipations reflect the unique nature of the absurd world. Expressions of absurdity challenge notions of a known, rigid reality through an attempt to create an authentic depiction of the world, one that explodes illusions of order and certainty and moves beyond the direct negation of such notions. Although a surface examination reveals an absurdist depiction of the world as a retreat from reality, a more thorough exploration of absurdist writing illuminates how such writing manifests the attempt and desire to penetrate reality in all its irascibility. Viewing friction between worlds as an integral feature of the absurd means that conflict plays a crucial role in ideas about absurdity. To reiterate, the absurd world presents neither evasion, nor acquiescence; absurdity presents itself when the fantastic is placed within the context of the realistic and therefore must be considered within the terms of collision. This requires a battle with paradoxes and challenges one to embrace honestly inconsistencies and complexities that are otherwise and oftentimes either maddening or justified through reductive simplifications. Meaning is necessarily rooted in tension, complexity, and dynamism. An element of conflict is apparent from the initial emergence of absurdity. Camus attributes a sense of the absurd to opposition between human need for rational comprehension on the one hand, and existence within an untenable world on the other: “What is absurd is a confrontation of the irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart” (1955: 16). This is the basic encounter with absurdity and the fundamental tension upon which all proceeding conflicts rest. To realize absurdity is neither difficult nor unique: “At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face” (1955: 9). What follows from this nascent meeting is difficult to digest, but it is in the complexity of facing up to absurdity that the possibility for meaning is found. “As [the feeling of absurdity] is, in its distressing nudity, in its light without effulgence, it is elusive. But that very difficulty deserves reflection” (1955: 9). Discarding suicide, which he views as the “ultimate retreat” (Roth 1999: 558), Camus insists an attempt to acquire meaning from

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recognition of inherent meaninglessness is crucial and must not be construed as resignation. “To refuse the world for what it is does not mean that one gives up and flees it – rather it means that one lives it under different terms” (Camus 1974: 56). The way to find or create meaning involves simultaneous acceptance and defiance of the absurd. Camus persists that “the absurd has meaning only insofar as it is not agreed to” (1955: 24). Not only is there an intrinsic tension involved in the phenomenon of revolt itself, but also there is clearly a conflict between accepting the world as absurd while revolting against absurdity through conscious adoption of human purpose and action. Sisyphus is the exemplary embodiment of such tension held in ideal balance and Camus’s hero: Sisyphus loves life and hates death. His passions have condemned him, but the grandeur of Sisyphus is that he never gives up and is never dishonest. He accepts his fate only to defy it. Thereby he gives meaning to existence, meaning that cannot negate absurdity but refuses to succumb to it (Roth 1999: 558).

In Camus’s interpretation, absurdity lies in the opposition between the demand we make as rational beings for purpose and reason and a world that is indifferent to such implorations and expectations: “The absurd depends as much on man as on the world” (Camus 1955: 16). Absurdity presents a challenge to our capacity to find rational solutions through logical employment of reason. Camus thereby asserts limitations of reason while suggesting meaning is found in the very aspiration for rational comprehension of the world. Longing for rational comprehension is still given precedence over accepting absence of rational solutions. Camus’s recognition of uncertainty lies in his resignation to absence of certainty hitherto and is tinged with hope for a future arrival of certitude. Perseverance in the search for knowledge or moral authority in based on a desire for certainty and absolutes. Thus, although Camus adamantly insists upon the gravity of accepting our inability to understand the world’s irrationality, his proposition seems rather suspect. It may be fair, then, to assert that Camus questions the ability to arrive at answers, yet not the questions themselves. His assertion that a sense of disgust follows recognition of absurdity implicitly and paradoxically stems from an assumption that meaning in order to be


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meaningful must be total. If one really accepted the impossibility of inherent, total meaning in the world, then it would be difficult to conceive of such an absence as indeed an absence. Defiance of the absurd only strengthens its significance. Moreover, Camus’s view that absurdity arises out of a divorce between human awareness and the world rests upon an assumption of a dichotomy between the two and paradoxically presupposes a possibility for the existence of innate meaning. Underlying Camus’s view that “[t]he absurd is born of the confrontation between human need and the unreasonable silence of the world” (1955: 21) is the idea that there exists a world separate from human consciousness a world that inherently constrains human potential. Perception and the Impulse to Create The Polish modernist writer Bruno Schulz expresses a view of open potentiality that offers a breath of fresh air in light of Camus’s ideas about absurdity. Schulz’s narratives invoke the feeling that both freedom and meaning exist within the threshold of potentiality. Whereas Camus’s conception of freedom implicitly denies the value of sheer potential, Schulz suggests the fact we are free to do what we want can be helpful rather than terrifying. Lack of necessity – open potentiality is seen as liberating rather than enslaving. The world Schulz portrays merges external reality with the life of imagination and suggests that an attempt to separate the two would prove to be a futile task. His narratives reflect a perspective of the world as what we see it to be rather than as a distinct entity following its own objective logic and rules (or absence of rules). Detachment of external phenomena from consciousness, which Camus finds problematic, is not a feature in Schulz’s world. Instead, Schulz’s work presents an external reality consumed by imagination. In his fascinating work, Sklepy cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops, 1934), emphasis falls on imagination's power and its influence on perception and the decisions we make about how to live. Such a narrative, in which imagination determines all senses of life, carries significant implications for a view of reality and human potential. The world in Cinnamon Shops illuminates the dream-like quality of reality, a place where unpredictability, inexplicability, and instability reign. It also affirms human potentiality and the impulse to

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create. Within the depths of chaos, an authentic vibrancy is found and creative expression bubbles and thrives, but this brilliance is neither final nor permanent, making itself known through acute observations rather than rational grasping. It is also expected to change shape since novelty and honesty require both tension and fluidity. Father, the protagonist in Cinnamon Shops, is obsessed with birds. His meticulous nurturing of rare, exotic birds epitomizes ultimate cultivation of his imagination. When Adela, the housemaid, could no longer cope with “the fetid smell that filled the room, the heaps of droppings covering the floor, the tables, and the chairs” (Schulz 1987: 50;1 “nad fetorem, który si unosi w powietrzu – oraz nad kupami kau, zalegaj cego podogi, stoy i meble”; Schulz 1989: 25)2, she prodded the mass of birds out the window with a broom and “danced the dance of destruction” (SC 50; “taczya taniec zniszczenia”; Op 25). Adela, symbolizing the incessant maintenance of order, destroys the lively chaos of Father’s bird kingdom, an empire of imagination, creative freedom, and unyielding expression. The endeavor to accomplish order results in the elimination of vibrant life and the destruction of creativity’s breathing vitality. In the chapter following the account of the birds, Schulz writes: Ta ptasia impreza mego ojca bya ostatnim wybuchem kolorowoci, ostatnim i wietnym kontrmarszem fantazji, który ten niepoprawny improwizator, ten fechtmistrz wyobrani poprowadzi na szace i okopy jaowej i pustej zimy. Dzi dopiero rozumiem samotne bohaterstwo, z jakim sam jeden wyda on wojn bezbrze nemu ywioowi nudy, dr twi cej miasto. Pozbawiony wszelkiego poparcia, bez uznania z naszej strony broni ten m przedziwny straconej sprawy poezji. (Op 26) (The affair of the birds was the last colorful and splendid counteroffensive of fantasy which my father, that incorrigible improviser, that fencing master of imagination, had led against the trenches and defenseworks of a sterile and empty winter. Only now do I understand the lonely hero who alone had waged war against the fathomless, elemental boredom that strangled the city. Without any support, without recognition on our part, that strangest of men was defending the lost cause of poetry; SC 51)

1 2

All further references will be given as SC. All further references will be given as Op.


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When Father’s “metaphysical mission” (Schulz 1988: 154) is interrupted by the attempt to establish order and Adela dethrones him, boredom and dullness fill the space once occupied by a kaleidoscope of dazzling colors and creatures: Oblega nas znowu ze wszech stron aobna szaro miasta, zakwitaj c w oknach ciemnym liszajem witów… tapety pokojów rozlunione bogo za tamtych dni i otwarte dla kolorowych lotów owej skrzydlatej czeredy, zamkn y si znowu w sobie, zg stniay, pl cz c si w monotonii gorzkich monologów. (Op 26-27) (We were beset again from all sides by the mournful grayness of the city which crept through the windows with the dark rash of dawn… the wallpaper of the rooms, blissfully unconstrained in those former days and accessible to the multicolored flights of the birds, closed in on itself and hardened, becoming engrossed in the monotony of bitter monologues; SC 52)

Even perception of physical reality, devoid of imagination, is lifeless and dreary: Lampy poczerniay i zwi dy jak stare osty i bodiaki. Wisiay teraz osowiae i zgryliwe, dzwoni c cicho krysztakami szkieek, gdy kto przeprawia si omackiem przez szary zmierzch pokoju. Na pró no w tkn a Adela we wszystkie ramiona tych lamp kolorowe wiece, nieudolny surogat, blade wspomnienie wietnych iluminacyj, którymi kwity niedawno wisz ce ich ogrody. (Op 27) (The chandeliers blackened and wilted like old thistles; now they hung dejected and ill-tempered, their glass pendants ringing softly whenever anybody groped their way through the dimly lit room. In vain did Adela put colored candles in all the holders; they were a poor substitute for, a pale reflection of, those splendid illuminations which had so recently enlivened these hanging gardens; SC 52).

Adela’s attempt to revitalize the somberness of existence fails, not surprisingly, for she is not only the destroyer of Father’s imaginative kingdom but also the symbol of order whose omnipresence is embodied in the “clacking of her slippers” (SC 75; “z kapaniem pantofli Adeli”; Op 49). Schulz unveils the intimate relationship between imagination and perception by describing a change in material reality, and in so doing, he irradiates the bizarre, enigmatic manner in which the animate and inanimate sometimes fuse. Perhaps more significantly,

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Schulz evokes and affirms the playful dance between imagination, perception, and human potentiality. The possibilities surrounding perception are infinitely expanded by dynamics of imagination, and the impulse to create becomes highly sensitized. Whereas expressions of creativity are generally thought about in terms of tangibility (books, paintings, sculptures), Schulz suggests a novel possibility for the manifestation of creativity, or perhaps he elevates the process that necessarily precedes tangible expression. Nevertheless, accentuation clearly lies in the inner world of imagination. The world, Schulz suggests, is colored and shaped by the landscape of imagination and thus the way we see, to a large extent, determines the way we live. Father’s eccentric obsession with birds provides a way to quell his curiosity of other life forms and perspectives. Father’s “passionate interest in animals” (SC 47; “nami tne zainteresowanie dla zwierz t”; Op 22) is described as “the passion of the huntsman and the artist rolled into one. It was also perhaps a deeper, biological sympathy of one creature for kindred, yet different, forms of life, a kind of experimenting in the unexplored regions of existence” (SC 47; “nami tno myliwego i artysty zarazem, bya mo e g bsza, zoologiczna sympatia kreatury dla pokrewnych, a tak odmiennych form ycia, eksperymentowanie w niewypróbowanych rejestrach bytu”; Op 22). Father attempts to transcend all that is familiar and known, seeking unique ways of viewing the world. Perhaps more importantly, Father recognizes the parameters of his perception and how those boundaries may be stretched; aware of the limitations, he seeks every possibility to reinforce potential. Through close observation of birds and absorption into their manners of existence, Father wishes to see through the eyes of another. Even before Father begins importing rare birds, there are traces in his behavior of a sense of identification with this particular life form that are closely related to his longing for unordinary, fresh experiences: Czasem wdrapywa si na karnisz i przybiera nieruchom poz

symetrycznie do wielkiego wypchanego s pa, który po drugiej stronie okna zawieszony by na cianie. W tej nieruchomej, przykucni tej pozie, z wzrokiem zamglonym i z min chytrze umiechni t trwa godzinami, a eby z naga przy czyim wejciu zatrzepota r koma jak skrzydami i zapia jak kogut; Op 19).


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(Occasionally [Father] climbed on a pelmet and froze into immobility, a counterpart to the large stuffed vulture which hung on the wall opposite. In this crouching pose, with misty eyes and a sly smile on his lips, he remained for long periods without moving, except to flap his arms like wings and crow like a cock whenever anybody entered the room; SC43)

Father’s identification with the stuffed vulture permeates his body and reaches physical imitation. When Adela shooed Father’s bird kingdom out the window, Father, “waving his arms in panic, tried to lift himself into the air with his feathered flock” (SC 50; “razem z ptasi gromad ojciec mój, trzepi c r koma, w przera eniu próbowa wznie si w powietrze”; Op 25). Father’s intimate assimilation into his creative empire spills into his physicality, so much so that he even hopes in desperation that he can literally flee Adela’s destruction with his bird friends. Change and Authenticity As we will see, Father’s theories about matter and form denote a view of life that serve as an alternative to Camus’s conceptualization of absurdity. To reiterate, Camus calls for a passionate revolt against absurdity through concurrent acceptance and defiance of it. His demand, nevertheless, does not eliminate the significance of, or possibility for, rational comprehension of the world from his ideas and hopes. Meaning, Camus infers, must be totalizing in order to be truly meaningful and is equated with striving for rational understanding. Within the section in Cinnamon Shops entitled “Traktat o manekinach” (“Treatises on Tailors’ Dummies”) lies a subtle and ingenious critique of the endeavor to understand the world in Camus’s recommended terms. Schulz suggests that replacing consistency with contingency and rational analysis with imagination makes much more sense. In an essay dedicated to S.I. Witkiewicz (1935), Schulz elaborates the process of auto-recreation in which matter perpetually partakes, referring to this process as “the migration of forms” (1998: 369; “w drówka form” Op 445): Substancja tamtejszej rzeczywistoci jest w stanie nieustannej fermentacji, kiekowania, utajonego ycia. Nie ma przedmiotów martwych, twardych, ograniczonych. Wszystko dyfunduje poza swoje granice, trwa tylko na

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Shlomit Gorin chwil w pewnym ksztacie, a eby go przy pierwszej sposobnoci opuci. (Op 444) (The substance of that reality exists in a state of constant fermentation, germination, hidden life. It contains no dead, hard, limited objects. Everything diffuses beyond its borders, remains in a given shape only momentarily, leaving its shape at the first opportunity; 1998: 369)

Schulz’s notions (seemingly expressed through Father) about matter containing infinite possibilities for limitless cultivation affirm human potential and impulse to create: Stanowi ona teren wyj ty spod prawa, otwarty dla wszelkiego rodzaju szarlatanerii i dyletantyzmów, domen wszelkich nadu y i w tpliwych manipulacyj demiurgicznych. Materia jest najbierniejsz i najbezbronniejsz istot w kosmosie. Ka dy mo e j ugniata, formowa, ka demu jest posuszna. Wszystkie organizacje materii s nietrwae i lune, atwe do uwstecznienia i rozwi zania. (Op 33) ([Matter] is a territory outside any law, open to all kinds of charlatans and dilettanti, a domain of abuses and of dubious demiurgical manipulations. Matter is the most passive and most defenseless essence in cosmos. Anyone can mold it and shape it; it obeys everybody. All attempts at organizing matter are transient and temporary, easy to reverse and to dissolve; SC 59).

Instability, impermanency, and absence of strict laws serve as the ontological and existential condition[s] for all creation (Shallcross 1997: 281). Demand for certainty constricts creative outflow and, in the worst case, may impede creative production altogether: “The matchless perfection of the Demiurge […] has paralysed our own creative instinct” (SC 62; “niedociga doskonao Demiurga […] paralizowaa nasz wasn twórczo”; Op 34). In one of the earliest in a series of meetings Father has with the two seamstresses Polda and Pauline, who “father succeeded in charming […] with the magnetism of his strange personality” (“ojciec mój zdoa rycho oczarowa […] urokiem swej przedziwnej osobowoci”) and who “in return for his witty and elegant conversation […] permitted the ardent ornithologist to study the structure of their thin and ordinary little bodies” (SC 57; “Odpacaj c si za pen galanterii i dowcipu konwersacj […] pozwalay zapalonemu badaczowi studiowa struktur swych szczupych i tandetnych ciaek; Op 31), Father exclaims:


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Gdybym, odrzucaj c respekt przed Stwórc , chcia si zabawi w krytyk

stworzenia, woabym: – Mniej treci, wi cej formy! Ach, jak by ul y wiatu ten ubytek treci. Wi cej skromnoci w zamierzeniach, wi cej wstrzemi liwoci w pretensjach – panowie demiurdzy – a wiat byby doskonalszy! (Op 31) (If, forgetting the respect due to the creator, I were to attempt a criticism of creation, I would say “Less matter, more form!” Ah, what relief it would be for the world to lose some of its contents. More modesty in aspirations, more sobriety in claims, Gentlemen Demiurges, and the world would be more perfect!; SC 57)

In the aforementioned essay dedicated to Witkiewicz, one finds what may be interpreted as an explanation for Father’s desire for less matter – an unusual yearning when placed aside Father’s conflation of matter with pure, unrealized potential. Schulz writes: Wszystko dyfunduje poza swoje granice, trwa tylko na chwil w pewnym ksztacie, a eby go przy pierwszej sposobnoci opuci. W zwyczajach, w sposobach bycia tej rzeczywistoci przejawia si pewnego rodzaju zasada – panmaskarady. Rzeczywisto przybiera pewne ksztaty tylko dla pozoru, dla artu, dla zabawy. (Op 444) (Everything diffuses beyond its borders, remains in a given shape only momentarily, leaving this shape behind at the first opportunity. A principle of sorts appears in the habits, the modes of existence of this reality: universal masquerade. Reality takes on certain shapes merely for the sake of appearance, as a joke or form of play; 1998: 369)

This endless masquerade contributes to the creative and playful dimension of Schulz’s perception of reality, but it also seems to trouble him: “What the meaning of this universal disillusioning reality is I am not able to say. I maintain only that it would be unbearable unless it was compensated for in some other dimension” (1998: 369; “Jaki jest sens tej uniwersalnej deziluzji rzeczywistoci – nie potrafi

powiedzie. Twierdz tylko, e byaby ona nie do zniesienia, gdyby nie doznawaa odszkodowania w jakiej innej dymensji; Op 445). This “other dimension” may be understood as the imaginative realm of creation in which lack of solidity plays a beneficial role, as seems to be suggested by Schulz’s statement that, “In some sense we derive a profound satisfaction from the loosening of the web of reality; we feel an interest in witnessing the bankruptcy of reality” (1998: 369; “W jaki sposób doznajemy g bokiej satysfakcji z tego rozlunienia

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tkanki rzeczywistoci, jestemy zainteresowani w tym bankructwie realnoci”; Op 445). Moreover, the juxtaposition of “more” with “perfect” in Father’s exclamation that “more modesty in aspirations, more sobriety in claims” would result in a “more perfect” world mimics the way that finitude and permanence cease to exist in a world that is already perfect yet could still be perfected – a testament to the incessantly changing nature of matter. If resilience and doubt caused by the incessant “migration of forms” are assimilated, then acknowledgment of fundamental uncertainty may serve as both a receptor for, and transmitter of, the creative impulse. Human creation is inevitable, Father adamantly claims, because matter inherently and incessantly provides potential that necessarily leads to creative interaction and expression: Demiurgos [...] nie posiad monopolu na tworzenie – tworzenie jest przywilejem wszystkich duchów. Materii dana jest nieskoczona podno, niewyczerpana moc yciowa i zarazem uwodna sia pokusy, która nas n ci do formowania […] Caa materia faluje od nieskoczonych mo liwoci, które przez ni przechodz mdymi dreszczami. Czekaj c na o ywcze tchnienie ducha, przelewa si ona w sobie bez koca, kusi tysi cem sodkich okr glizn i mi kkoci, które z siebie w lepych rojeniach wymajacza. (Op 33) (The Demiurge has had no monopoly of creation, for creation is the privilege of all spirits. Matter has been given infinite fertility, inexhaustible vitality, and, at the same time, a seductive power of temptation which invites us to create as well […] The whole of matter pulsates with infinite possibilities that send dull shivers through it. Waiting for the life-giving breath of the spirit, it is endlessly in motion. It entices us with a thousand sweet, soft, round shapes which it blindly dreams up within itself; SC 59).

Matter blurs the boundaries between humans and the world, between subject and object. Humans interact with their environment fluidly, their bodily matter fusing with and melting into their surroundings. Thus, the dichotomy between humans and the world Camus characterizes as a leading cause of a sense of absurdity is not a feature in Father’s world. Paradoxically, maximization of potential portrayed in Schulz’s narrative world makes the existence of absurdity impossible.


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Subjectivity and Time In his essay ‘Mityzacja rzeczywistoci’ (‘The Mythologizing of Reality’, 1936), Schulz expresses a view of reality as embroiled in both meaning and language. He claims, “[t]he essence of reality is Meaning or Sense. What lacks Sense is, for us, not reality […] The nameless does not exist for us. To name something means to include it in some universal Sense” (1988: 115; “Istot rzeczywistoci jest sens. Co nie ma sensu, nie jest dla nas rzeczywiste […] Nienazwane nie istnieje dla nas. Nazwa co – znaczy w czy to w jaki sens uniwersalny; Op 366). Reality is filtered through language; however, one should be careful not to conclude hastily that Schulz is claiming language makes the signified real and lasting. In Schulz’s stories, one can find recognition of this capacity, but, as scholar Diana Kuprel observes, “the recognition is a negative one and the capacity provisional” (1996: 111). In ‘Ksi ga’ (‘The Book’), found in Schulz’s Sanatorium pod klepsydr (Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, 1937), the opening lines consist precisely of the act of naming The Book. Yet the narrator views this process, as Kuprel describes, as a “silent capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental, for no word, no allusion, can adequately suggest the shiver of fear, the presentiment of a thing without name that exceeds all our capacity for wonder” (1996: 110). The world evades both the volume and aptitude of language, which only trickles like sand through the human grasp. What underlies Schulz’s declaration is not the idea that the world possesses objective meaning but that it is swollen with potent possibilities leading inevitably to creation of meaning. Schulz’s thoughts about language highlight the nature of subjectivity inherent within dynamics of perspective; our understanding of the world is always changing, and, hence, our reality is implicitly mutable. Reality is fluid to the extent that subjectivity and, thus, possibility (for change) actively and persistently affect perception. Enhancing the significance he attaches to subjective experience, he further emphasizes the affects of human agency on dynamics of perspective. Implicit in the idea that meaning must be produced within conditions of subjectivity and confines of language is an assent to absence of inherent, objective meaning. However, unlike Camus’s assertion that meaning cannot exist without a revolt against absurdity,

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Schulz does not interpret lack of intrinsic meaning and purpose as a challenge. As pointed out previously, and as his thoughts in “The Mythologizing of Reality” maintain, Schulz sees no dichotomy between perception and the world. The world is what we are capable of conceiving it to be. Meaning must be produced through human consciousness and creativity and can be neither total nor a feature belonging to an isolated, circumscribed world. Schulz illuminates the role of humans in the concern about absurdity; human demands for certainty are problematic in Schulz’s narratives, rather than the world’s indifference to such expectations (as Camus suggests). Absurdity, then, in Schulz’s world, is no cause for despair, but is instead an essential characteristic of life that ought to be assumed and accepted. If human thought and behavior accord with absence of objective meaning and work on the assumption that our world is fundamentally messy, then absence as such no longer presents itself as problematic. This stance differs from Camus’s understanding of absurdity. Since Camus presupposes a desire for inherent meaning, he contends that meaninglessness of the world becomes a source of anguish. The underlying implication of Schulz’s view is affirmation of human potential and agency; the world is only absurd if our desires are not viable. In a way, the world Schulz creates, though unrealistic on the surface, is perhaps unfathomably realistic. Schulz’s treatment of time exposes the subtle yet essential idea that when desire for certainty is eliminated, a sense of absurdity dissipates. Schulz’s characters are unable to relate to a universal time; instead, each follows his or her own sense of time, as epitomized by the remark “My father’s time and my own no longer coincide” (1978: 127;3 “Czas mego ojca i mój wasny czas ju do siebie nie przystaway”; Op 265). Moreover, none of the characters seem to be comfortable even within their own temporal experience. Time personified in Schulz’s writing represents a threatening force unpleasantly reckoned with, an unwanted guest who makes everyone nervous. However, it is not time itself that Schulz describes as taunting but time as a quantifiable phenomenon, as linear and progressive. It is time represented by clocks and calendars which Schulz portrays negatively. The challenge presented here is directed against methodological and quotidian treatment of an unquantifiable 3

All further references will be given as San.


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and unknowable force, which results, Schulz suggests, in imposition of artificial limitations. The idea that time, when placed within the boundaries of measurement and tangible representation, functions as a force constraining potential is enhanced by allusions to time as a spatial entity: “The days passed, the afternoons grew longer: there was nothing to do in them. The excess of time, still raw, still sterile and without use, lengthened the evening with empty dusks” (San 151; “Mijay dni, popoudnia staway si du sze. Nie byo co z nimi zrobi. Nadmiar czasu jeszcze surowego, jeszcze czczego i bez zastosowania, przedu al wieczory pustymi zmierzchami”; Op 345). Here, it is time metaphorically represented within the confines of spatial dimensions not time as a phenomenon itself – that is problematic. As scholar Sven Spieker has observed, “The real problem for Schulz’s characters lies in their inability to avoid allegory in their dealing with time… Time becomes knowable only where it takes on the guise of an image or symbol. As such, it seems chronically devoid of meaning, ‘unable to provide a definition’” (1997: 283). Characters are unable to relate to time as something incapable of representation, yet their understanding of time represented by symbols also proves inadequate. The endeavor to understand time through representational, bounded means only leads to disappointment. Kuprel has pointed out that time transposed as a spatial entity also functions as a “master image”, which, as Ray Hart in Unfinished Man and the Imagination explains, is “not the direct object of knowledge”, but is, rather, “the horizon through and in which things are known… [ it is not] an id quod cognoscitur (that which is known) but rather an id quo cognoscitur (that by which is known)” (in Kuprel 1996: 104). Time functions as a sensory sea in which possibility thrives. Similarly, the stamp album in Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass serves as a master image the protagonist uses to navigate toward the events in his life. Kuprel suggests that “[t]his spatio-temporal void serves as a schema of all possible togetherness and successiveness” (1996: 105). Yet perhaps just as importantly, this empty (or full) chasm also functions as a fluid network of all possible incongruency, disorder, and contingency. Similarly, Kuprel writes: “Empty space and time… serve as the ground of latency out of which specific events are

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actualized” (105). However, and again – perhaps as significantly – empty spatio-temporal dimensions also serve as the “ground of latency” in which those events that do not happen, yet nevertheless could happen, lie in their pre-actualized, purely potential states. Viewing spatio-temporal dimensions as containing both unrealized and realized possibility leads to the idea that reveling in the threshold of potential maximizes possibility. To see potential, or empty time and space, only as a medium to obtain actualized outcomes necessarily limits possibility because at the moment potential becomes crystallized, it ceases to exist as potential. Camus’s call to action and to the conscious espousal of human purpose and reason suggests the medium of potential serves as a bridge one must cross to reach a destination. Contrarily, Schulz’s narratives urge us to pay close attention while strolling across that bridge. Schulz’s approach to time also implicitly challenges histories that disguise contingency in masks of causal patterns. He portrays time, and, by implication, canonical history, as incapable of being contained within the boundaries of human knowledge and comprehension: Wiemy wszyscy, e ten niezdyscyplinowany ywio trzyma si jedynie od biedy w pewnych ryzach dzi ki nieustannej uprawie, pieczoowitej troskliwoci, starannej regulacji i korygowaniu jego wybryków. Pozbawiony tej opieki, skania si natychmiast do przekrocze, do dzikiej aberracji, do patania nieobliczalnych figlów, do bezksztatnego baznowania. (Op 265) (We all know that time, this undisciplined element, holds itself within bounds but precariously, thanks to unceasing cultivation, meticulous care, and a continuous regulation and correction of its excesses. Free of this vigilance, it immediately begins to do tricks, run wild, play irresponsible practical jokes, and indulge in crazy clowning; San 127)

Schulz’s perception of time as a jokester may be understood as his attempt to overturn an interpretation of history as a series of stable, self-contained, sequential patterns. Implicit in this representation of history is an attack on the artificial production of meaning through syntheses of historical and scientific determinism that fail to take contingency into account. By writing about the “contraband of supernumerary events that cannot be registered” (San 14; “tak kontraband […], takie


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nadliczbowe zdarzenie nie do zaszeregowania”; Op 121), and how “[e]veryone knows that in a run of normal uneventful years that great eccentric, Time, begets sometimes other years, different, prodigal years which – like a sixth, smallest toe – grow a thirteenth freak month” (SC 125; “Ka dy wie, e w szeregu zwykych, normalnych lat rodzi niekiedy zdziwaczay czas ze swego ona lata inne, lata osobliwe, lata wyrodne, którym, jak szósty, may palec u r ki, wyrasta k dy trzynasty, faszywy miesi c”; Op 91), Schulz pokes at some of the most fundamental assumptions we hold about time and history. He opens for exploration an alternative view of time as expanded and multi-dimensional an idea that, not surprisingly, cannot be represented through the use of symbols or terms of measurement. As Spieker asserts, “Schulzian extra time is semiotically empty” (1997: 285). Time and history enter into an unfamiliar world, a realm of possibility beyond dialectics and rational understanding wherein many different things could have happened and could yet happen. Schulz’s views of time and space implicitly attach as much significance to the real as they do to the possible. Spieker points out that the Schulzian motif of time has a pretext in Robert Musil’s idea of Möglichkeitssinn, a “sense of alternative history… a feeling for that which is not but which nevertheless could be” (1997: 286). As Czesaw Miosz expressed in ‘A Few Words on Bruno Schulz’: “Every object and every action reveals, the very instant it materializes, its own instability, its temporarily assumed role. Every form is undermined by an anti-form sticking its tongue out” (1989: 32). One cannot help but hear the echoes here of Schulz’s ideas about the substance of reality, which he describes in his essay dedicated to S. I. Witkiewicz: ycie substancji polega na zu ywaniu niezmiernej iloci masek. Ta w drówka form jest istot ycia. Dlatego z substancji tej emanuje aura jakiej panironii. Obecna tam jest nieustannie atmosfera kulis, tylnej strony sceny, gdzie aktorzy po zrzuceniu kostiumów zamiewaj si z patosu swych ról. W samym fakcie istnienia poszczególnego zawarta jest ironia, nabieranie, j zyk po bazesku wystawiony. (Op 445) (The life of the substance consists in the assuming and consuming of numberless masks. This migration of forms is the essence of life. Thus an all-pervading aura of irony emanates from this substance. There is an ever-present atmosphere of the stage, of sets viewed from behind, where the actors make fun of the paths of their parts after stripping off their

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costumes. The bare fact of separate individual existence holds an irony, hoax, a clown’s stuck-out-tongue; 1998: 369)

In summary, Schulz suggests the attempt to encapsulate time into a unifying system of terms and guiding principles is misleading, unsatisfactory, and, perhaps most importantly, premised upon false assumptions. The temporality of potential is highlighted; through an acknowledgment of the impossibility of defining and knowing time as an objective entity, possibility is heightened. The oppressive weight of time may be ameliorated through this realization, allowing for a more open and honest dealing with one’s life. As Kuprel asserts, Schulz’s stories “present a unique re-envisagement of the world, and demonstrate the inherent plasticity of literature to provide a panorama of the possible” (1996: 112). Conclusion Absurdist writing does not present an imaginary escape from life or reality. It does, however, suggest different terms under which to live life authentically and thus, meaningfully. Ultimately, meaning is derived from an understanding of the world as complex and messy rather than from an illusory existence in which life appears to lack contradiction, disorder, and chance. A view of the world as inherently meaningful is not only deceptive but also misleading. Moreover, an acknowledgment of absurdity implicitly and paradoxically upholds the same presuppositions from which a belief in inherent meaning, order, and certainty stems. The depth of the paradoxical nature of absurdity is remarkable. An acknowledgment of absurdity must simultaneously be an acknowledgment of existence of meaning, for how can one assert absence of meaning if its existence is a phenomenon completely unknown? How does one claim nothingness without creating something in the process? Is not the thoughtful and careful declaration of meaninglessness meaningful in itself? These questions point to how analyses of absurdity demand attention to definitions of and ideas about absence and nothingness. To claim “there is nothing” is problematic, for it seems impossible to conceptualize nothing. One may attempt to think of an absence of something, but the result is usually either a validation of the presence of that thing or a transformation of that initial absence into something


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else. Therefore, to claim that the world is meaningless is to assert simultaneously not only the possibility, but also the existence, of meaning. In addition, to claim that the world is irrational is to display a product of rational thinking since an understanding of irrationality may only be thought about under the premises of rationality. Needless to say, the annihilation of rational concepts can only occur through the use of rationality, and the claim that the world has no meaning is a function of rationality itself. Regardless, what one can perhaps learn from Schulz is that imagination can play as dominant a role in our perception of reality as rationality does. Far from the act of imagining yielding merely creative pleasure, it is also, as Schulz shows us, a dance with reality. Bibliography Camus, Albert. 1955. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays (tr. J. O’Brien). New York: Random House, Inc. Dostoevsky, Fyodor. 1961. Notes From Underground (tr. A. R. MacAndrew). New York: NAL Penguin, Inc. Goldfarb, David A. 1994. ‘A Living Schulz: “Noc wielkiego sezonu” (“The Night of the Great Season”)’ in Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History 14(1): 25-48. ——. 1997. ‘The Vortex and the Labyrinth: Bruno Schulz and the Objective Correlative’ in East European Politics and Societies 11(2): 257-269. Hinchliffe, Arnold P. 1969. The Absurd. London: Methuen & Co Ltd. Kafka, Franz. 1970. The Penal Colony: Stories and Short Pieces (tr. W. and E. Muir). New York: Schocken Books. Kuprel, Diana. 1996. ‘Errant Events on the Branch Tracks of Time’ in Slavic and East European Journal 40(1): 110-117. Milosz, Czeslaw. 1989. ‘A Few Words on Bruno Schulz’ in The New Republic 200(1): 30. Roth, John K. 1999. ‘Albert Camus’ in Great Thinkers of the Western World. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1956. Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology (tr. H. E. Barnes). New York: Philosophical Library, Inc. Schulz, Bruno. 1978. Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (tr. C. Wieniewska). New York: Walker and Company. ——. 1987. The Street of Crocodiles (tr. C. Wieniewska). New York: Viking Penguin Inc. ——. 1988. Letters and Drawing of Bruno Schulz, with Selected Prose (ed. J. Ficowski, tr. W. Arndt and V. Nelson). New York: Harper & Row. ——. 1989. Opowiadania, wybór esejów i listów (ed. J. Jarz bski). Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossoliskich. ——. 1998. The Collected Works of Bruno Schulz (ed. J. Ficowski). London: Picador.

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Shallcross, Bo ena. 1997. ‘“Fragments of a Broken Mirror”: Bruno Schulz’s Retextualization of the Kabbalah’ in East European Politics and Societies 11(2): 270-281. ——. 1997. ‘Introduction: Bruno Schulz and Modernism’ in East European Politics and Societies 11(2): 254-256. Spieker, Sven. 1997. ‘“Stumps Folded Into a Fist”: Extra Time, Chance, and Virtual Reality in Bruno Schulz’ in East European Politics and Societies 11(2): 282298.

Jewish Mysticism – A Source of Similarities Between Bruno Schulz’s Writings and Psychoanalysis Marta Suchaska-Dra yska Abstract: This essay explores the similarities between Freudian psychoanalysis and the concepts of Bruno Schulz from the perspective of Jewish mystical thought. Although many have interpreted his works in Freudian categories, Schulz himself was rather skeptical about applying psychoanalytic theory to literature. We can, however, observe that both authors look into the past to participate in the present; they both dive into the reality beyond language and try to understand dreams using wordplay to elucidate their hidden meaning. Furthermore, they both understand the process of entitling things as an act of creation. Their way of understanding language and interpreting meanings proves that they share a Jewish philosophical source.

Introduction I will try to show Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis and Bruno Schulz’s prose from the angle of Jewish traditional themes. Such a view is just one of many interpretations and variations on the presence of the kabbalistic thought in European culture. Nevertheless, it lets us compare some aspects of Freudian thought with the works by Schulz and prove that there are some similarities between them. The concurrences may be coincidental; however, they may also be related to the intellectual atmosphere which was characteristic of Jewish circles in Middle-Eastern Europe at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Bruno Schulz’s Attitude Toward Psychoanalysis The relationship between Schulz’s work and psychoanalysis seems to be remarkable. Even the first superficial reading of Sklepy cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops, 1934) reveals motifs that are typical of Freud’s theory: the presence of the unconscious, wordplay and free association, the poetry of dreams, dominant female figures, the main

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character’s complex about the father. Many important interpretations of Schulz’s work headed in that direction (cf. Sandauer 1974, Speina 1976, Dybel 2002). These interpretations were frequently based on the explanation of the way in which the author of Sanatorium pod klepsydr (Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, 1938) included the motifs of psychoanalysis in his works. Pawe Dybel showed that Schulz managed to illustrate and describe the unconscious mechanisms of psychological life as if they were conscious and in this way gave some autonomy to his fantasy world. We also hear repeatedly that it was Jung’s theory, and not Freud’s, that was the source of Schulz’s inspirations. According to Jerzy Speina and Jerzy Jarz bski, the influence of Jung’s theory in Schulz’s work is proved by the fact that Schulz refers to concepts such as the collective unconsciousness, archetypes of Great Mother and Old Wise Man, and that he presents the psyche as a multilayered structure with deep recesses. I wonder, however, if this combination of Schulz’s motifs with analytical psychology’s premises is correct. Schulz never mentions Jung’s concepts; however, he refers to Freud’s discoveries four times.1 Moreover, the psychoanalytical terms he uses come from Freud. Such concepts as the language of the conscious and the dynamics of the unconscious, psychological energy and neurotic symptom occur in Jung’s work secondarily but do not form the core of his work. Furthermore, the archetype of Great Mother,2 which Schulz supposedly took from Jung, is interpreted by the writer differently than it is in Jung’s psychoanalysis. The prototype of the mother presented by Schulz is far removed from the archetype of the Great Mother as described by Jung. In analytical psychology, she is equated with nature and is a harmonious synthesis of contradictions, a symbol of plenitude and solace. In Schulz’s work, the mother evokes ambivalent feelings; at times she is authoritarian and even arouses 1

The references are found in the article ‘Aneksja podwiadomoci (Uwagi o Cudzoziemce Kuncewiczowej)’ (‘The Annexation of the Subconscious. Observations on Kuncewicz's The Foreigner’), in ‘Zofia Nakowska na tle swej nowej powieci’ (‘Zofia Nakowska Against the Background of her New Novel’), in the ‘W drówki sceptyka’ (‘Travels of a Sceptic’) review of Aldous Huxley’s book Music at Night (1931), and in the review of Witold Gombrowicz’s Ferdydurke. 2 Some of Jung’s archetypes have their equivalents in Schulz’s prose, but as I will try to prove later, it is possible that the author took them from kabbalistic tradition and not from analytical psychology. Jung himself indicates that he knows kabbalistic thought, e.g., in Mysterium Coniunctionis (1956).

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anger and aggression in the main character. Aside from this, it is hard to differentiate between Jung’s and Freud’s concepts. They have common roots, vocabulary, and ideas. I think, therefore, that one should not only focus on Jung’s analytical psychology but also on the relationship of the Drohobycz author’s prose to Freud’s classic theory. I must thus assume that there are similarities between Schulz’s world and the concept of reality presented by psychoanalysis. It does not mean, however, that Schulz was directly inspired by Freudianism; we should remain cautious with regard to the origin of these similarities. Did Freud and his students’ discoveries influence Schulz in such great measure that he intentionally made them the subject of his works? Did the reading of psychoanalytical classics affect the form of Cinnamon Shops and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass? I am aware that it is impossible to find definitive answers to these questions. We can only be sure of the fact that Schulz, who spoke German fluently, knew the psychoanalytical works just as he knew the works of the Vienna and Prague circles of writers and German expressionism. When World War I broke out, he stayed for a few months in Vienna, where he was close to the scientific and cultural life of Europe at that time. However, the author’s statements concerning Freud’s theory are distant and even reluctant. In his commentary on Maria Kuncewiczowa’s Cudzoziemka (The Foreigner, 1935), Schulz only reaches the conclusion that it was not yet time to use psychoanalytical methods in novels and that they will be for a long time “unconvincing for an unaccustomed mind” (“dla nieprzyzwyczajonego umysu nieprzekonywuj ce”; 1989: 375).3 He is more resolute in the review of Ferdydurke, in which he accuses Freud of showing only a small fragment of the subconscious world and of making an “isolated island” (“wyspa izolowana”; Op 381) of it. He says: Generalny atak na t dziedzin móg si uda tylko przez cakowite zwini cie i opuszczenie pozycji powagi, przez otworzenie frontu dla ywiou miechu, dla bezgranicznej inwazji komizmu. Okazuje si , e w samej powadze naukowej, w samej dostojnej pozie badacza le a najpowa niejszy szkopu, nie pozwalaj cy na gruntown dekonspiracj

mechanizmu mylenia. Oficjalno i obuda, wyposzone z pozycji

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Marta Suchaska-Drayska zdemaskowanej, chroniy si w powag postawy badawczej. Bya to gra w ciuciubabk […]. (Op 381) (A general attack on this field could be a success only if the position of being completely serious was abandoned, and the front for laughter and total invasion of humour opened. It turns out that the problem was the scientific seriousness, the dignified pose of a researcher. These made the thorough exposure of the mechanism of thinking impossible. Chased out of the exposed position, formality and hypocrisy found refuge in the seriousness of the research-oriented attitude. It was playing blind man’s bluff.)

For Schulz, the person who exposes the rules of the unconscious, who manages to “change a tool of destruction into a constructive unit” (“przerobi narz dzie destrukcji na organ konstruktywny”; Op 381) is Gombrowicz, not Freud. It is difficult for me to imagine on the one hand that Schulz, with his attitude to in-depth psychology, was inspired by Freud and intentionally included psychoanalytical motifs in his works. On the other hand, the argument saying that Schulz unconsciously used these motifs in his works is also not convincing. As Pawe Dybel and Jerzy Speina showed, Schulz is completely conscious of his references to symbolic pictures. Consequently, there is no good reason to consider his works as expositions of unconscious contents. One more explanation of the relationship between Schulz’s prose and Freud’s theory is possible. It is an assumption that there is a common tradition of thinking, which influenced both authors, a philosophical system, which is a common source of inspiration. I do not want to say that Schulz did not draw on psychoanalytical knowledge; however, I am convinced that the most important thing in his work which coincides with Freud’s thinking comes from a different tradition rather than a psychoanalytical one. For this common point of reference, I would like to use Jewish mysticism. Schulz and Freud’s Jewish Identity In a letter to Karl Abraham, Freud wrote: Please, do not forget that it is much easier for you than for Jung, to accept my point of view. Primarily, because you are completely independent, but also because of our common roots - this makes it possible for you to share my intellectual temperament. (in Szafran 1971: 93)


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I think that the father of psychoanalysis could turn to Schulz in the same way as he did to Abraham. It is probable that common roots, the same tradition, influenced their work. Maybe thanks to this, Schulz was particularly sensitive about some of the ideas presented in psychoanalysis. Freud and Schulz have roots in the same Galician Jewish environment, which was one of the most pervaded by mystic ideas in that period. The tradition of kabbalah stayed indefinitely in the Vienna and Prague circle of writers in which Gustav Meyrink revived the kabbalistic legend of Golem. Also in Central-Eastern Europe, the penultimate period in the history of kabbalah, Hasidism, developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the context of this article, the significance of that period is especially important because not only individuals but also whole communities had access to mystical knowledge and experience. This democratization of kabbalah consisted of experiencing its ideas together with a master called cadik (cf. Ouaknin 2006: 123). We should, therefore, assume that the environment in which Schulz and Freud grew up was immersed in mysticism. As Willy Szafran points out: La mystique juive, transmise par ses derniers héritiers, les Hassidim, est bien plus importante par l’influence philosophique qu’elle eut sur la pensée juive que par ses aspects religieux. Si Freud estime être resté juif, s’il pense avoir une communication de pensée plus facile avec ses frères de race, la tradition mystique juive dans son influence sura la pensée en général ne peut lui être étrangère. (1971: 95)

Schulz’s and Freud’s attitude to Judaism is quite similar although the latter is more radical. They were both born into families in which the traditional rite of the Mosaic religion was poorly obeyed. Schulz’s family spoke among themselves in Polish and Freud’s in German. Neither renounced their Jewish roots nor did they make a point of it. As a matter of fact, both Schulz and Freud had to cope with the question of their identity as a Jew who was not a believer of Judaism. This conflict became apparent especially in Freud’s case. His attitude toward religion (especially to orthodox Judaism) was very critical. Although they both withdrew from the Jewish community, neither of them decided to convert to Christianity even though they had such an opportunity (Schulz to Catholicism and Freud to Protestantism). Schulz and Freud, to an even greater extent, wanted to become known

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in Europe, to assimilate into the environment of the countries in which they lived. Freud was aware of the fact that his Jewish origin caused reluctance toward psychoanalysis, which was considered a “Jewish theory”.4 Schulz tried to mingle with Polish literary circles. However, neither isolated himself from the Jewish community. On the contrary, Schulz even wrote to a Polish Zionist press once in a while. That was something that Julian Tuwim and Antoni Sonimski avoided (cf. Prokop-Janiec 1997: 4). It is a well-known fact that Freud supported the Zionist movement in Germany and was surrounded almost exclusively by friends of Jewish origin (with the exception of Jung). It is worth mentioning that the first listeners of his works were the members of the Viennese Jewish service organization B’nai B’rith. This association was established as an answer to the signs of antiSemitism in Europe. It was open to certain members of Jewish origin. Freud joined it in 1897 and took part in obligatory gatherings every month on the second Tuesday and in Saturday tarot meetings. Undoubtedly Schulz was also under the influence of his Jewish environment. He published in Jewish, Polish-speaking periodicals such as Chwila (The Moment) and Nasza Opinia (Our Opinion). His works were reproduced in Yiddish by the Cusztajer (Gift) magazine (cf. Prokop-Janiec 1997: 86). These circles treated Schulz favourably and even promoted his works in the 1920s. This seemingly random biographical information about Freud and Schulz forms a factual basis for a hypothesis saying that both authors could have been influenced by Jewish mystical thought. While in Schulz’s case this statement is quite popular and supported by many analyses,5 when it comes to Freud, it is only an assumption, which cannot be proved explicitly. However, this statement was already suggested before6 and it seems to have had serious consequences with regard to the understanding of the psychoanalytical theory. The question, nonetheless, is whether or not the kabbalistic tradition had 4

This belief has remained to this day; in the Arab world, psychoanalysis is virtually unknown on account of its Jewish origin. Only in the last few years have some Arab psychologists begun studying this theory and encourage their patients to undergo psychoanalytical therapy. 5 Cf. especially Wadysaw Panas’ works, in particular Panas (1997). 6 Bakan (1975) is one of the most important works on Freud and Jewish mysticism; cf. also the many articles and lectures by Willy Szafran (1971) and Robert (1987) on Freud and his Jewish identity.


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an impact on Schulz’s works and the form of psychoanalysis, and if so, in what way. Traces of Kabbalistic Thought in Schulz’s Prose and in Psychoanalysis In Zohara, rabbi Szimon ben Jochaja says that it would have been stupid to stay on the surface of the Torah’s meanings. The Torah’s nature lies in descending into the depth of the scripture, in discovering the real, latent sense. Schulz mentions that our knowledge of reality is like a palimpsest. Between the official verses, the latent, invisible “white script” (“biae pismo”; Stala 1983: 92)7 shows through. In Freud’s Die Traumdeutung (The Interpretation of Dreams, 1899) we read: “[F]or us a new psychic material interposes itself between the dream-content and the results of our investigations: the latent dreamcontent, or dream-thoughts, which are obtained only by our method” (1911: 183). Jewish mysticism is immersed in metaphorical thinking. A human being exists in a world of symbols, through which he turns to God. According to Gershom Scholem, a mystical symbol presents contents that stay outside expression and verbal communication. It introduces something that comes from another sphere, something that is a part of it. It comes from a sphere which is turned away from us toward the inside. Schulz’s world and Freud’s thinking are both organized by such consciousness. With Schulz we find ourselves in a symbolically organized reality, which exists in a process of constant reference to intuitive sense. This reality exists in a network of scintillating, metaphorical meanings. Just as Schulz’s and kabbalah’s world, psychoanalysis could also be described as a symbol sphere. It is based on an attempt to explain and demystify that symbol sphere. This superior pattern of covering and discovering, the pattern of the presence of overt and latent content and of reaching the elusive sense determines a whole list of similarities in Schulz’s and Freud’s 7

I find the term “white script” puzzling. According to the kabbalistic theory, the Torah was written on God’s right arm as black fire on white fire. So white fire could be the primeval, covered contents of the Torah, whose meaning is looked for by the mystics. The white script of the palimpsest, the latent contents, could be an allusion to the latent meaning of the Torah.

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thinking. These similarities were preceded by the ontological vision of kabbalah. Kabbalists’ metaphysics, Schulz’s use of metaphors, and Freud’s metapsychology are based on a “meta” mechanism, which means going beyond what is visible toward what is inaccessible. Jewish metaphysics goes from the physical world to the metaphysical plenitude of heavens. The writer from Drohobycz goes beyond the boundaries of the word toward the metaphor, which reveals latent senses of the language. Freud drifts away from the psychology of consciousness and behaviourism of the nineteenth century and heads toward the recesses of unconsciousness and thus creates metapsychology. This move, leaving one sphere for the other, is conditioned by energy. It is one of the central ideas of kabbalah, Schulz’s prose, and Freud’s theory. Such migration, mounting, and dynamics of energy organize all movement; they determine the position of a human being. According to kabbalah, it is the energy and not the matter that constitutes the reality of the world. Matter was put on the top of emanation as a source of forms. However, it remains elusive for the mind. It is a substratum of a thing, and it cannot exist in the world without energy. A similar conclusion could be drawn from the construct of Schulz’s world. In his work, matter is subordinate to energy. Schulz revives lifeless things and reifies living beings by giving them energy or taking it away from them. The same dynamics of the overt and the latent determine the concept of time in theories. We always fluctuate between historical and cyclical time. The first one belongs to the overt order and the second one to the latent order. The Torah’s literal meaning describes events in a linear, historical dimension. The interpretation of its latent meaning refers to mystical pictures. We find ourselves in the cyclical time sphere, in a sphere of meanings of universal significance. These meanings take part in the mystical process of repetition. And so we immerse in sacrum. Schulz's prose follows the same rule. Here, the linear time has its offshoots, branches, and alcoves, in which it changes into cyclical time. When we unexpectedly get lost in unknown offshoots, rhizomes of time and space, we are immersed in mythical stories. That is where the cornflower shop is no longer an ordinary room but becomes an arena on which ultimate matters take place. Freud’s thinking is ingrained in the very same logic. Overt contents belong to the conscious sphere. They are arranged in a


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definite order by the rules of rational thinking. The events that exist in our consciousness are organized. They belong to certain moments in life and come one after another. The laws of the unconscious sphere work in exactly the opposite way because historical time is negated; some things repeat or stay intact regardless of passing time. Childhood reality is sometimes more real than the present, and the energy is organized around more significant experiences. The transition from the overt to the latent, the turning toward what occurs in the secret sphere, seems, at least in some way, a violation of set boundaries because it means entering the sphere of what is unavailable. Ireneusz Kania writes in his commentary to Opowieci z Zoharu (Tales from the Zohar): [P]odo em psychologicznym pomysowych koncepcji kabalistów i ich fantazji jest jaki niepokój, pyn cy gdzie g boko mrocznym nurtem niezadowolenia z literalnego sensu Tory […] Tora jest tak wi toci dla prawowiernego yda, e owo “niezadowolenie”, choby tylko intelektualne, musiao go napawa trwog i oburzeniem; samo w sobie byo dla herezj . (Kania 2005: XVIII) (The psychological basis of Kabbalists’ inventive ideas and their fantasy is a kind of anxiety which comes with a deep dark current from the disgruntlement at the literal meaning of the Torah. The Torah is such a sanctity for an orthodox Jew that this disgruntlement, even if only intellectual, had to fill him with trepidation and indignation; for him it was heresy.)

And that is what happens in Schulz’s prose. He dips into these “doubtful, risky and ambiguous regions, which in short we call the regions of great heresy” (“w tpliwe, ryzykowne i dwuznaczne regiony, które nazwiemy tu krótko regionami wielkiej herezji”; Op 32). Their opposition to the official letter of the law and Judaic tradition marked Jewish mystics, who started the search for a latent meaning of the Torah in the second century BC. The same sort of rebellion against the ties of tradition and literature are described by Wadysaw Panas (1996). In Schulz’s work, the Demiurge-Creator transforms into a misshapen bird, then into a cockroach, and then becomes tangled in erotic desires, and changes its form again: from a prophet releasing waves of anger as Moses on Sinai, to a clumsy figure of a father in a nightgown and with ruffled hair who, at night, pours the contents of a chamber pot out of the window. He alternately desacralizes and elevates the main figures of the Judaic tradition. That

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is what he does with Demiurge-Creator, Moses, Joseph, and the events which are crucial for Jews, such as the liberation from Egyptian slavery or the giving of the commandments on Mount Sinai. In this heretical sphere, we also find Freud. Psychoanalysis turned out to be an attack not only on the Judaic tradition but also on Western civilizations’ morality. From the very beginning Freud opposes the rabbinical tradition. When he drops out of law school, he defies the letter of law and religion, and these two are considered equivalent in Jewish communities. The same person, a rabbi, adjudicates matters of law and religion. Freud, however, chooses medicine. In Moses and Monotheism (1939), his last and only work in which he addresses the issue of his Jewish identity, Freud writes about Moses as the embodiment of the super-ego (cf. Bakan 1975: 137-183). The prophet on Mount Sinai received the law, which since then had been imposed on the Jews. Freud turns away from this tradition and enters the path of heresy. In this context, we find Schulz’s commentary to Franz Kafka’s Der Prozeß (The Trial, 1925) puzzling. There is no doubt that Schulz sees the novel by the Prague author from the angle of the Jewish mystical tradition. He sees in it a parable of a trial by ordeal, which is, contrary to most interpretations of The Trial, a just court. According to Schulz, Joseph K.’s mistake was that he tried to avoid the sentence. He sees negation in the novel as a human's response to the loftiness of divine order. He writes: Te poznania, wgl dy i wnikni cia, którym Kafka pragnie da tu wyraz, nie s jego wy czn wasnoci , s one wspólnym dziedzictwem mistyki wszystkich czasów i narodów, która je wyra aa zawsze w j zyku subiektywnym, przypadkowym, w j zyku umownym pewnych gmin i szkó ezoterycznych. (Op 413) (The perceptions and insights Kafka means to give expression to here are not his exclusive property. They are the common heritage of the mysticism of all times and nations, which has, however, always been couched in a language that was subjective and extraneous, the adopted language of certain esoteric communities and schools; 1990: 88)

This interpretation shows that the kabbalistic view of the trial by ordeal was present in Schulz’s consciousness.8 The author of 8

I would like to quote a description of a trial by ordeal from one of the Hasidic stories that was popular in the Jewish circles of Galicia and Prague in that time: “Ka dego


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Cinnamon Shops saw The Trial as if he had taken Scholem’s advice to Walter Benjamin: “I would suggest you start your research into Kafka from the Book of Job or from deliberations on the inevitability of the divine decrees, which I consider the only object of Kafka’s work” (“[R]adzibym Ci zacz wszelkie badania nad Kafk od Ksi gi Hioba albo od rozwa a o nieuchronnoci boskich wyroków, co uwa am za jedyny przedmiot twórczoci Kafki”; in Grözinger 2006: 21). We could hazard a guess that Freud felt the omnipresence and the inevitability of the trial by ordeal even more strongly than the two authors discussed above. While in Kafka’s and Schulz’s work we see that this trial is constant and inevitable, in Freud’s work it does not manifest at all. Just as the figure of Moses embodies law, the trial embodies its execution. The law is burned as deeply in an individual’s psyche just as though it were carved into a tablet of stone. A person cannot hide from it because there is no way he could break free from himself. Thus, the trial is constant, regardless of wherever we go and whatever we do. Schulz’s references to kabbalistic concepts are direct and overt. The language in Cinnamon Shops and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass itself refers to the kabbalistic tradition. He uses expressions such as: exegesis, messiah, demiurge, book, light, energy, heresiarch, golem, cherub, and prophets. Panas proves that the central subject of Schulz’s prose is cosmogony, the conception of the world, matter, time, and sense. The author wants to encompass “everything” in his writing, discover a great, unlimited perspective, present the history since the Creation till Prophet’s arrival and end of the history (cf. Panas 1997: 8). As Panas shows, Schulz’s cosmogony is based on the Lurian kabbalah doctrine.9 From the first gesture of Creation that dnia zawisza S d nad wiatem, bo wiat zosta stworzony na s dzie [to znaczy wedug zasad Prawa] i to jest jego fundament. Dlatego strze e si czowiek grzechu, bo nie wie, kiedy rozpocznie si nad nim S d. [Zdarzy si mo e], siedzi w swym domu, a tam zaczyna si S d nad nim, albo idzie na dwór z domu, a S d ju radzi i nie wie, czy powróci jeszcze w dom […], bo S d pod a przed nim” (in Grözinger 2006: 23; “Everyday the Trial looms over the world, because the world was created during the trial which is according to the Law and that is its foundation. That is why the man bewares a sin, for he does not know when his Trial starts. It might happen that he is at home and there the Trial begins, or he goes to the courtyard and the Trial is already on and he does not know if he comes back home, for the Trial is ahead of him”). 9 Cf. Scholem (1997: 302-352), Ouaknin (2006: 189-201) and Mopsik (2001: 18-19) for more on Lurian kabbalah.

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is cimcum, when God retreated inside himself, shrank and therefore left space in which the world came into being, through the fall of Creation, breaking the vessels and scattering divine sparks, which is szewirat ha-kelim, to the repair and transformation of the world tikkun and the anticipation of the Messiah’s arrival and his times (cf. Panas 1997). The confirmation of this interpretation is an unpublished, missing novel, Mesjasz (Messiah), Schulz’s largest literary project. There are many threads linking the author of Cinnamon Shops and psychoanalysis with the kabbalistic doctrine. I would like to draw your attention to one more, possibly the most important one. I mean the philosophy of language, which has its roots in the Jewish mysticism and which is present both in Freud's and Schulz's thinking. The Philosophy of Language The linguistic aspect of the Jewish mystical tradition is one of its most important parts.10 The kabbalists developed a coherent philosophy of language, which became an inspiration for many later thinkers. According to their doctrine, it is impossible to unify with God. It is a sacrilege to watch the Almighty, and the sphere of language is the only place where a human can meet the Creator. Words, letters, and numbers are the three manifestations of divine nature. They have an infinitely creative power, and at the same time, they are the expression of language’s triumph. For the kabbalists, a word is the ancient material of the world (cf. Tomkowski 1992). The word creates the reality; we live for it and in it. Scholem wrote that “all happening is in the deepest sense a linguistic happening, and the combinations of the most primeval elements of speech, hidden in it or working, are concealed in the existence of a matter” (“[w]szelkie dzianie si jest w najg bszym sensie dzianiem si j zykowym, to za co kryje si w istnieniu rzeczy, to schowane w nich lub dziaaj ce kombinacje najpierwotniejszych elementów mowy”; in Kania 2005: XXVI). This language, which determines the nature of the world, is a poetical language. Only this language lets us open our minds to infinity.

10 We can hazard a guess that it opposes the premises of Christian mysticism, which talk about the insignificance of the earthly language. The wide spheres of speech and writing are completely insignificant during the encounter with God. Language is only an imperfect tool, which Adam took with him from paradise. A mystical experience in Christianity is completely non-linguistic; it turns the word away from God.


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Original pictures, symbols, and metaphors are the first means of expression because they precede the logical discourse: J zyk i nasze rozumienie wiata rozpoczynaj si w tym pierwotnym obszarze, gdzie zgodnie wspóbrzmi zo one powi zania, które pozwalaj wyczu najmniejsze subtelnoci naszej obecnoci w wiecie. (Ouaknin 2006: 96) (Language and our understanding of the world begin in this primeval field, where complicated connections stay in harmony. These connections let us sense the slightest subtleties of our presence in the world.)

This description of the kabbalists’ language may serve as a definition of a word in Schulz’s concept. Here it is the language that has the creative power. It starts, shapes, and distorts reality. The word in Schulz’s works develops in a sequence of associations, triggers an avalanche of connotations and images. Everything in this world is text, even spring: “Because the text of spring is marked by hints, ellipses, lines dotted on an empty azure” (2008: 142; “[B]o tekst wiosny znaczony jest cay w domylnikach, w niedomówieniach, w elipsach, wykropkowany bez liter w pustym b kicie”; Op 135). Just as the poetical language in kabbalah heads for pre-eternal, primeval harmony, the word in Schulz’s works heads for that lost “integral mythology” (“integralna mitologia”; Op 365), the “primeval home of words” (“praojczyzna sowna”; Op 366), which we call poetry. Freud refers to the same concept of language. The premise of psychoanalysis (presented even more literally in later concepts by Jacques Lacan) is our immersion in the language. Reality is set up only in the act of naming. Unconscious contents, such as the “primeval home”, come up to the surface in the form of a story, and as Lacan would say, their structure recalls the structure of a language. A word results in a word; it induces senses. When we look for the sources which inspired the psychoanalytical method of free association, we find one of Freud's favourite authors, Ludwik Börne. Freud was able to quote him from memory many years after he read his works. In 1823, Börne wrote an essay, How to be an original writer in three days, in which we find almost the exact description of the free association technique. As Willy Szafran (1971: 97) points out, both Freud and Börne find their inspiration in the Jewish mystical tradition. The divine reality, which for the kabbalists is the world of language, is learned by humans

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through a process of interpretation. Among the basic linguistic assumptions of kabbalah there are the meditation of God’s names and examining the Torah as a living organism whose language becomes an object of endless analyses and thus an unlimited number of interpretations and variations of the meaning of words and letters. After David Bakan (1975: 246-270) we could say that Freud analyzes his patient in the same way as a kabbalist interprets the Torah: through dreams, symbols, mistakes and, above all, through endless narrations, associations and verbal sequences. The work of a dream is similar in its construction to poetical language. Unconsciousness, as the deepest primeval sphere of the psyche, refers to poetical tracks. After all, the condensation of a dream is nothing other than a metaphor, a shift that uses the mechanism of metonymy. The dream’s vividness is the translation of a word into an image (cf. Burzyska and Markowski 2006: 47-78). Both Freud and the kabbalists try to reach the world’s and human depths. Their word, just as Schulz’s, reaches to its source, back to childhood, in the search for the primeval meaning. We are able to confirm that psychoanalytical therapy is subordinate to the aim of inserting as many unconscious elements into the consciousness as possible. This process makes it linguistic in nature. We are surprised by the similarity between this idea and Schulz’s “demand of humanism” (“postulat humanizmu”; 2002: 123), which he made in a letter to Rosenberg in 1938. According to Schulz, the word’s task is to humanize dark spheres of life “so that fewer and fewer things avoided the light of thought and dodged the word” (“ eby coraz mniej rzeczy byo unikaj cych wiata myli i uchylaj cych si przed sowem”; Schulz 2002: 123). The lost sphere of primeval poetry is the source to which we turn and which stays inaccessible. Krzysztof Stala wrote that Schulz’s prose concentrates on the search of sense, which continually flees from cognition. The world of kabbalah, Cinnamon Shops, and psychoanalysis, through the continuous process of interpretation, heads for what is non-linguistic, deepest, and primeval yet never reaches it. In kabbalah and in the Talmud we find the interpretation of the four levels of a reading: pesztat – simple, literal meaning, remez – allusive meaning, derasz – desired meaning, and sod – secret, latent meaning. The last and deepest level of interpretation of the four mentioned above is characterized by a complete lack of meaning. This


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emptiness, this void is one of the fundamental premises of kabbalistic ontology. The space for the world came into existence as God retreated. Szechina, which is divine existence, was chased away from Him and then the history of man began. That is a history of the combination of the transcendental world and the human world, the continuous dialogue with God, the circulation of the energy between the lower and higher spheres. In this sense, absence is the condition of existence. A human aspires to a union with God but such a mystical union is unattainable. The human wants to fill the void, but his actions are doomed to failure from the start because this void is the very essence of his human nature. The same paradox occurs in Schulz’s prose. Stala aptly characterized this phenomenon in one of his articles: Dotarcie do sensu w jego g bokiej, pozawiatowej postaci, w jego transcendencji i descendencji, jest zadaniem niemo liwym, nieosi galnym […]. Sens jest wiecznie oddalaj cym si centrum, otchani bez dna, j drem niedost pnym w swym sukiennym mateczniku. (Stala 1983: 96) (Reaching the sense in its deep, out-of-world form, in its transcendence and descendance is impossible, unattainable […]. Sense is an ever receding centre, an abyss with no end, an unavailable crux in its “cloth matrix”)

In a later work Stala adds: Penia wiata zdaje si by gwarantowana jedynie przez jego pusty rodek. Tylko “wypadni cie” rodka – utrata Ksi gi, pora ka Króla, odejcie Ojca – umo liwia twórcze widzenie i dowiadczanie wiata” (Stala 1995:61) (The fullness of the world seems to be guaranteed only by its hollow core. Only the “falling out” of the core – the loss of the Book, the defeat of the King, the abandonment of the Father – enables creative thinking and experiencing the world.)

The term of loss (castration) is also one of the central premises of psychoanalysis. The very existence of the unconscious places the human in a position of void. He loses access to himself. We confront the notion of absence from our birth. During our infancy, it is separation from our mother, who has a symbolical meaning. Substitution, compensation, sublimation, complex – all key psychoanalytical terms – involve the primeval experience of loss. Simultaneously, the loss

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determines the dynamics of development; it is the driving force of the process of individualization. Moreover, the absence, and in fact, the need of compensation of the void, leads the human to a symbolical order, which as we mentioned before, is the underlying reason for meditation between the overt sense and the present latent contents. Conclusion The main purpose of this essay was to explore a hypothesis concerning similarities between Freudian psychoanalysis and the concepts of Bruno Schulz. from the perspective of Jewish mystical thought. In my opinion, the correspondence of Schulz’s and Freud’s works with kabbalah expresses similar structures of thinking, mutually overlapping ideas, rooted in the same tradition. They are the answer to an eternal pursuit of understanding the latent sense. They are the secret of hearing the inaudible and seeing the invisible. Bibliography Bakan, David. 1975. Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition. Boston: Beacon Press. Bolecki, Wodzimierz, Jerzy Jarz bski and Stanisaw Rosiek (eds). 2003. Sownik schulzowski. Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria. Burzyska, Anna and Micha Pawe Markowski. 2006. Teorie literatury XX wieku. Podrcznik. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak. Dybel, Pawe. 2002. ‘Bruno Schulz and Psychoanalysis: The Images of Women in ‘August’’. On line at: http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/schulz/ schulzA.html (consulted 06.11. 2008). Ficowski, Jerzy. 1975. Regiony wielkiej herezji. Szkice o yciu i twórczoci Brunona Schulza. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. Freud, Sigmund. 1999. The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: Oxford University Press. Grözinger, Karl-Erich. 2006. Kafka a Kabaa. Kraków: Austeria. Kania, Ireneusz. 2005. Opowieci z Zoharu. O Kabale i Zoharze. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Homini. Mopsik, Charles. 2001. Kabaa. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Cyklady. Ouaknin, Marc-Alain. 2006. Tajemnice Kabay. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Cyklady. Panas, Wadysaw. 1974. ‘Regiony czystej poezji. O koncepcji j zyka w prozie Brunona Schulza’ in Rocznik Humanistyczny 22/1: 151-172. ——. 1996. ‘Bruno kabalista. O kosmogonii kabalistycznej Brunona Schulza’ in Akcent 1: 19-29. ——. 1997. Ksiga blasku. Traktat o kabale w prozie Brunona Schulza. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL.


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Prokop-Janiec, Eugenia. 1997. ‘Schulz and the Galician Melting Pot of Cultures’ in Periphery 3: 84-88. Robert, Marthe. 1987. D’Oedipe à Moïse. Freud et la conscience juive. Paris: Seuil. Sandauer, Artur. 1974. ‘Schulz i Gombrowicz, czyli literatura g bin (Próba psychoanalizy)’ in Kultura 44: 4-8. Scholem, Gershom. 1997. Mistycyzm ydowski i jego gówne kierunki. Warszawa: Czytelnik. Schulz, Bruno. 1989. Opowiadania. Wybór esejów i listów (ed. J. Jarz bski). Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossoliskich. ——. 1990. Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz (ed. J. Ficowski). New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation. ——. 2002. Ksiga listów (ed. J. Ficowski). Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria. ——. 2008. The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories (tr. C. Wieniewska). New York: Penguin. Speina, Jerzy. 1976. ‘Bruno Schulz wobec psychoanalizy’ in Czaplowa, Kazimiera (ed.) Studia o prozie Brunona Schulza. Katowice: Uniwersytet l ski: 1729. Stala, Krzysztof. 1983. ‘Przestrze metafizyki, przestrze j zyka. Schulzowskie “mateczniki” sensu’ in Pamitnik Literacki 74/1: 81-104. ——. 1995. Na marginesach rzeczywistoci. O paradoksach przedstawiania w twórczoci Brunona Schulza. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN. Szafran, Willy A. 1971. ‘Aspects socio-culturels judaïques de la pensée de Freud’ in L’volution psychiatrique 36/1: 89-107. Tomkowski, Jan. 1992. ‘wi ta przestrze j zyka’ in Teksty Drugie 5: 63-74.

The Clepsydra of Empedocles and the Phenomena of Breath and Wind in Bruno Schulz’s Fiction Jörg Schulte Abstract: The article examines the phenomena of breath and wind in Bruno Schulz’s stories. Both motifs are part of a rich mythological and literary tradition. It has only been possible to identify the immediate sources for a few metaphors whereas for other metaphors only suggestions are made to which periods and authors certain motifs might refer. In many cases, this article will consider through which intermediaries Schulz gained his knowledge of Greek mythology and cosmology. The failure to identify the individual sources indicates that Schulz was aware that breath and wind are – poetically as well as anthropologically – universal phenomena and that their use implies a consciousness of both aspects.

The longest extant fragment (fr. 100 Diels 1906-1910) by the Greek pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles deals with the problem of respiration. Empedocles uses the clepsydra, which was a simple device for drawing water from jars, as evidence for the corporeality of air. The air became trapped inside the clepsydra when the top was covered, preventing the entry of water when the device was immersed; when the top was uncovered again, the water entered the clepsydra, replacing the air. Aristotle, who has transmitted the fragment in his ‘On Respiration’ (‘ ’), introduces the argument of Empedocles: , ! "# " , $ " % & '" , !() #

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(Empedocles says that inhalation and exhalation occur because there are certain veins, which contain some blood but are not full of blood, and have openings to the air outside, too small for solid particles, but large enough for air; hence, since it is the nature of blood to move up and down, when it is carried down, the air flows in and inhalation occurs, but when it rises, the air is driven out and exhalation takes place. He equates this process to what happens in water clocks; Hett 1975: 445)

Then he quotes twenty-five hexameters of Empedocles. Empedocles’s first line extends the scope of the metaphor to all living creatures. :7 4 1 43 ; " .866 8" ." , " ) 4 5+ @$"\ (^_@$^%^ +$~$> +^ \+^%% >+%@$ %$^’. 2004. @%’ in @%*` (11 October 2004). {{%, >{. 2004. ‘`%$ +$@{\. {%>%{’ in ^#> (5 >\$+{{ 2004). , `%$. 1985. ‘>%$\@$’ (tr. . §}{$@>) in % +*$ 6. ——. 1989. ‘¥>%{$%$@^ {%>^ (+%; {@^%\@$; {~>; {%%>; {{ +$ {%%>. $$@%%; {{ +$ {%%>. ¡{^%%%; $; {%; {% {$, ¥>%{$%$@^ {%>^; > $$>^@; {|{%>; `; ^ @>$|$ \$%’ (tr. . #%{) in %#" 2: 37-69. ——. 1990. ‘{@{%>’ (tr. §. *++) in %< $%#%* 12: 10-14. ——. 1992a. ‘{%{$^ “^ +\>$”; ’ (tr. . ¨$@>%{) in *%" 10: 28-41. ——. 1992b. ‘{%{$^ “^ +\>$”’ (tr. . ¨$@>%{) in 5. On line at: http://www.brunoschulz.org/sklepy.html (consulted 20.04.2007). ——. 1995. . %> @_ $#`_ (tr. §. {}’). @^@: $\@i{.

The Ukrainian Reception of Schulz’s Writings

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Text and Theater. The Ironic Imagination of Bruno Schulz Micha Pawe Markowski Abstract: Two sets of imagery govern Bruno’s Schulz’s universe. The first one draws its adjectives from the traditional reservoir of (rabbinic) textual exegesis, the second one from the popular (low-culture) realm of the masque theater. Perceived through the lenses of both families of images, reality appears simultaneously as a text to be intellectually deciphered and as a spectacle to be sensually enjoyed. This double structure, bifurcated on the ontological level, reflects another split in Schulz’s universe, that between the true and the artificial, and undermines its traditional status. In Schulz, the unavoidable clash of textual and theatrical imagery ironically deconstructs the apparent metaphysical dualism of true essence versus merely beautiful appearance(s).

Introduction In this article, I plan to question the traditional criticism of Schulz which draws its resources from the unstoppable drive to offer an easygoing interpretation of Schulz’s philosophy, be it Jewish, Greek, metaphysical, or aesthetic. I will argue that literature itself is the most effective instrument for questioning this traditional account. The literary text, in its singularity, cannot be subsumed under any clear and distinct idea, and it also disables any attempt to make monolithic claims of conceptual discourse. My point is that Schulz’s output, revealing the self-reflective character of literary illusion, makes fruitless every effort to reduce this illusion to truth. In short, literature, according to Schulz, with its “unlimited perspective, ambiguity, metaphorical expansiveness” (Schulz 1990: 164;1 “nieskoczona perspektywiczno, wieloznaczno i ekspansywno metaforyczna”; Schulz 1964: 491)2 is the most efficient weapon against the arrogance 1 2

All further references will be given as LD. All further references will be given as P.

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of persistent and imposing theories, regardless of their discursive disguises. This claim follows the enthusiastic defense of the aesthetic made by Murray Krieger whose critical work has long been focused on the resisting power of the aesthetic against the “dominant culture’s attempt to impose its institutions by claiming a “natural” authority for them” (2000: 226). Nothing is “natural” and everything is “arbitrary” in Schulz, and this is why his work may be justifiably regarded as the literary (and thus political) critique of any one-sided interpretation.3 Threat of Time To begin, I will quote an almost randomly chosen passage from ‘Wiosna’ (‘Spring’): Wtedy wiat nieruchomia na chwil , stawa bez tchu, olniony, chc c wej cay w ten zudny obraz, w t prowizoryczn wieczno, któr mu otwierano. Ale szcz liwa oferta mijaa, wiatr ama swe zwierciado i czas bra nas znów w swe posiadanie. (P 198) (The world stood motionless for a while, holding its breath, blinded, wanting to enter whole into that illusory picture, into that provisional eternity that opened up before it. But the enticing offer passed, the wind broke its mirror, and Time took us into his possession once again; 1988: 156)4

As we can see, in the world of Schulz, Being is incessantly corrupted or violated by Time, whose promising illusion-making ability is threatened by an unexpected disenchantment. This is the reason why Being, notwithstanding its desire to be purified from any changing element, cannot reach its extra-temporal, eternal, and “glassy” plenitude, and why it is also exposed to the process of systematic undermining, brought into the world by Time’s disjointed condition. Time, in Schulz, as in Heidegger, is a synonym for the ecstatic existence, which makes the human desire to stabilize one’s identity altogether impossible. The obscure text of existence is given to 3

However, in reviewing Ferdydurke, Schulz does not reproach Gombrowicz for his one-sidedness because as he says, “[e]very great system of thought is one-sided and has the boldness of this one-sidedness as well” (LD 163-164; “[k]a dy wielki system mylowy jest jednostronny i ma odwag swej jednostronnoci”; P 490). Let us not overlook this small adjective: great. 4 All further references will be given as SC.

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laborious deciphering, which, unfortunately, never approaches the final account. The human being, thrown into the world possessed by Time, is unable to grasp his true essence in much the same way that he is unable to recognize the shapes and contours of the seemingly familiar world. There inevitably comes a moment of painful disillusionment, in which what was expected to be solid and deeply rooted in being becomes ruined, and what was taken for granted discloses its transitory and fugitive status. The Schulzian characters endlessly drift in the labyrinth, not even being able to recognize the closest neighborhood. In ‘Wichura’ (‘The Gale’), the senior shop assistant Theodore and Joseph’s brother volunteered to help the Father, who was cut off in his office by the blowing wind. Their mission failed very quickly: “They could not reach the shop, they said. They had lost their way and hardly knew how to get back; the city was unrecognizable and all the streets looked as if they had been displaced” (SC 85; “Nie mogli doj do sklepu, zgubili drog i ledwo trafili z powrotem. Nie poznawali miasta, wszystkie ulice byy jak przestawione”; P 142). Notice that Schulz does not say that the streets were displaced, but he underlines the illusionary character of what happened. This “as if” indicator marks the fictional status of not only this passage but also the entire universe spreading before our eyes. Nothing happens for sure; everything comes up “as if”. The narrator of the story titled Cinnamon Shops, sent home by his mother to bring back the forgotten Father’s wallet, becomes bewildered by the miraculous demonstration of false signs: “There open up, deep inside a city, reflected streets, streets which are doubles, make-believe streets” (“Otwieraj si w g bi miasta, eby tak rzec, ulice podwójne, ulice sobowtóry, ulice kamliwe i zwodne”), which “multiply, becoming confused and interchanged” (“zwielokrotniaj si , pl cz i wymieniaj jedne z drugimi”) due to the “inexhaustible inventiveness of the night” (SC 61; “noc w niewyczerpanej swej podnoci”; P 110-111). You cannot trust your perception because what is shown immediately reveals its misleading and treacherous composition. It is as if Being, contaminated by Time, realized the futility of its attempts to enclose its substance in the crystal ball of the perfect essence and came to realize that there is no way to gather its attributes and cut them off from the “unfinished and growing [life]” (LD 223; “nie gotowe jeszcze i rosn ce [ ycie]”; P 408).


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The Logos Lost Given this ontological displacement, built into the very substance of Being, we understand promptly that the full and unambiguous understanding of meaning is not possible in Schulz. This is at least the lesson drawn from the joint reading of two crucial texts by Schulz concerning the hermeneutical enterprise: Schulz’s essay ‘Mityzacja rzeczywistoci (‘The Mythologizing of Reality’), written in 1936, and the famous seventeenth paragraph of ‘Wiosna’ (‘Spring’). In both pieces, the universe is structured as a complex text through which one has to peer in order to find the univocal origin of meanings. As everybody knows, there are two kinds of words for Schulz: the Logos, or “primeval word” (“pierwotne sowo”) which was “a great universal whole” (“wielka uniwersalna cao”), and the common word, “a mosaic piece” (“mozaikowe sowo”) which was detached from this universal Sense by the pragmatic needs of humankind. Nevertheless, this second kind of word, as separated from the Logos in everyday linguistic practice, possesses a capacity to “regenerate and complete itself in full meaning” (LD 115; “do regeneracji, do uzupenienia si w peny sens”; P 443). This opposition between the Logos and everyday speech faithfully follows the modernist demarcations between the magical poetic language fully endowed with meaning and the hollow prosaic statements totally deprived of real substance (cf. Markowski 2003a). If only the poetic speech participates in Sense, then the ordinary word immersed totally in a mundane life should incline itself to recapture its lost symbolic capacity, and this is how the poetry comes to life: [T] d no sowa do matecznika, jego powrotn t sknot , t sknot do praojczyzny sownej, nazywamy poezj . Poezja – to s krótkie spi cia sensu mi dzy sowami, raptowna regeneracja pierwotnych mitów. (P 444) (This striving of the word toward its matrix, its yearning for the primeval home of words we call poetry. Poetry happens when short-circuits of sense occur between words, a sudden regeneration of the primeval myths; LD 115).

There are then two orders of words: the mythical one, which consists of eternal stories about human fate, and the everyday one, which is unconsciously comprised of these forgotten stories. The only way for


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writers to participate in the Sense is to return to what has been lost, to pave their way through the ruins of language and retrieve the ancient epic. If so, the poetic, or, to put it in a broader way, literary creation, must be a kind of regression, of stepping back to the Logos, where the writer would experience the plenitude of meaning. Schulz seems to follow here the same optimistic tradition that Heidegger and Ricoeur do (cf. Markowski 2003b). The Sense – the Logos – was in the beginning and only in the beginning, and the only way to find a place in the world is to know how to re-create the lost fables and myths. This re-creation then, which is called literature, is supposed to name reality and to impart meaning to the world, which remains meaningless until it gets told. Schulz, however, brings quite a new meaning to the image of the Logos in his long story called ‘Spring’. This story, concerned with the narrator’s childhood, is a kind of extended and convoluted commentary to a spring as such, read as a text built on the other text, called its “horoscope”: Oto jest historia pewnej wiosny, wiosny, która bya prawdziwsza, bardziej olniewaj ca i jaskrawsza od innych wiosen, wiosna, która po prostu wzi a serio swój tekst dosowny, ten manifest natchniony, pisany najjaniejsz , wi teczn czerwieni , czerwieni laku pocztowego i kalendarza, czerwieni oówka kolorowego i czerwieni entuzjazmu, amarantem szcz liwych telegramów stamt d… […] Tak nieobj ty jest horoskop wiosny! Kto mo e jej wzi za ze, e uczy si ona go czyta na raz na sto sposobów, kombinowa na olep, sylabizowa we wszystkich kierunkach, szcz liwa, gdy jej si uda co odcyfrowa wród myl cego zgadywania ptaków. Czyta ona ten tekst w przód i na wspak, gubi c sens i podejmuj c go na nowo, we wszystkich wersjach, w tysi cznych alternatywach, trelach i wiergotach. (P 191-192) (This is a story of a certain spring, that was more real, more dazzling and brighter than any other spring, a spring that took its text seriously: an inspired script, written in the festive red of sealing wax and of calendar print, the red of colored pencils and of enthusiasm, the amaranth of happy telegrams from away… […] How boundless is the horoscope of spring! It tries to read it in a thousand different ways, interpret it blindly, spell it out at will, happy to be able to decipher anything at all amid the misleading divinations of birds. The spring reads this text forwards and backwards, loses its sense and finds it again in many versions, in a thousand alternatives; SC 150-151; translation modified)

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According to Schulz, reality is nothing but a commentary on a deeper text lying under it, and the process of storytelling is a commentary on the second degree, both being subjected to the series of conjectures “marked by hints, ellipses, lines” (SC 151; “znaczony […] cay w domylnikach, w niedomówieniach, w elipsach”; P 192). But what is that underlying text whose deciphering makes the reality possible? Schulz tries to answer this question in the long paragraph intended primarily as a description of a spring’s dusk. Having complained that “the miracle of dusk” is beyond any reach and totally unspeakable, he develops a long metaphoric image of a dual descent into the Underworld. The first movement leads us inside, and Schulz calls it “a return journey into ourselves” (SC 168; “powrotna w drówka do siebie”; P 215). This introversive descent is characterized in purely “psychoanalytic” terms, as a “total regression” (“regresja na caej linii”), “retreat into self” (“cofanie si w gab”), “journey to the root” (“powrotna droga do korzeni”; P 215) and can be treated as a perfect example of, according to Ricoeur, an “archeological” hermeneutics. Schulz, like Freud and Nietzsche, makes us think that “it is only above ground, in the light of day, that we are a trembling, articulate bundle of tunes” (“tylko w górze, w wietle […] jestemy dr c artykuowan wi zk melodii”) because deep down, “in the depth we disintegrate again into black murmurs, confused purring, a multitude of unfinished stories” (SC 168; “w gebi rozsypujemy si z powrotem w czarne mruczenie, w gwar, w bezlik nieskoczonych historyj”; P 216). Skipping over a few passages and coming to the conclusion, I would say that Schulz, in the seventeenth paragraph of ‘Spring’, seems to follow faithfully the main aporia inscribed in Freud’s project of interpreting dreams. It is worth remembering that Freud’s desire to interpret was structurally divided. On the one hand, the analyst wants the dream to be interpreted without any residue, without anything left of meaninglessness. On the other hand, however, he is quite aware that this kind of transparency is just a wish. In the seventh chapter of Die Traumdeutung (The Interpretation of Dreams, 1899), ‘Zur Psychologie der Traumvorgänge’ (‘The Psychology of the DreamProcesses’), Freud, using a classical metaphor of the journey, which is taken up by Schulz as well, says that every path he has traveled so far “led us towards the light – towards elucidation and fuller


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understanding”. And now – he adds in the same paragraph – “as soon as we endeavor to penetrate more deeply into the mental process involved in dreaming, every path will end in darkness” (1900: 511). There is no more explanation because in order to explain one must have access to something already known to which what is to be explained must be traced back. And in the case of dreams, there is an impenetrable darkness, Dunkel, which is at the end of every attempt of interpretation. This image of essential obscurity reappears a few pages later with another now famous metaphor, that of the navel: There is often a passage in even the most thoroughly interpreted dream which has to be left obscure; this is because we become aware during the work of interpretation that at the point there is a tangle of dream-thoughts which can not be unraveled and which moreover adds nothing to our knowledge of the content of the dream. This is the dream’s navel, the spot where it reaches down into unknown. (1900: 525)

Having used the same metaphor of Dunkel in his hermeneutic journey to the unspeakable, Schulz seems to complicate it. At first, words in their regression toward the Logos, “return to their etymology, re-enter their depths and distant obscure roots” (SC 167; “wraca w sw etymologi , wchodzi z powrotem w g b, w ciemny swój korze”; P 214). Descending into the Logos hidden in the dark, getting into “the other side”, is analogous to the process of psychoanalytic elucidation: it aims at the luminous moment of Aufklärung, at the translucent epiphany of Sense when everything will become meaningful and legible. But what happens then, “at the roots” (“u korzeni”), “at the lining of things” (“u podszewki rzeczy”), “at the very bottom” (“na samym dnie”)? What does the Logos consist of? It consists of the countless bunch of stories; its luminous residence is replaced by “hazy smoking rooms of fables and tales” (SC 169; “mgliste fajczarnie fabu”; P 217). Instead of an epiphany of transparent meaning, what we encounter at the bottom is the crowd of stories referring interminably to other stories. A “tangle of dream-thoughts” which for Freud led to the unknown and then the unspeakable, for Schulz takes the shape of the fabulous reservoir of stories and tales. There is no access to reality except the detour made between texts. It means that, as in Hegel, there is no room for the Unspeakable because everything speaks in this world of necessary mediations. “The nameless does not


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exist for us” (LD 115; “Nienazwane nie istnieje dla nas”; P 443), says Schulz in ‘The Mythologizing of Reality’; thus, he repeats faithfully the Hegelian lesson.5 Contrary to the traditional view of the Logos as the unmediated – because it is divine – origin of any language, Schulz offers a different reading. The Logos as the Primordial Word is nothing but a story or, even better, a collection of stories already shaped – albeit in a somewhat shabby manner – and thus already interpreted. And if Schulz says in one of his stories that “events are not ephemeral surface phantoms” (“zdarzenia nie s efemerycznym fantomem na powierzchni”) and that they “have roots sunk into the deep of things” (“maj korzenie w g b rzeczy”) and “penetrate the essence” (LD 217; “si gaj istoty”; P 401), or that we can come “closest to the being itself” (LD 38; “najbli si bytu”; 2002: 35), then these statements must be considered in the light of the Logos philosophy (or rather philology) as developed in ‘Spring’. This reading brings any conclusive account of Sense to failure. Contrary to appearances, there is no pure, unmediated essence in Schulz’s universe; there is no “regression to essence” (LD 217; “zst pio w esencjonalno”; P 401) in this world. Consequently, there is no room for any one-sided reading, even the most insightful of ones. If there is a single rule in this world, then it is that there is no single rule. Irresistible Irony This ironic, or even self-contradictory, statement of Schulz leads us to the most interesting comment ever made by the author regarding his own work. It is placed in a well-known essay written for Witkacy, in which Schulz discloses his philosophy of “panmasquerade” (panmaskarada): Rzeczywisto przybiera pewne ksztaty tylko dla pozoru, dla artu, dla zabawy. Kto jest czowiekiem, a kto karakonem, ale ten ksztat nie si ga istoty, jest tylko rol na chwil przyj t , tylko naskórkiem, który za chwil zostanie zrzucony. Statuowany tu jest pewien skrajny monizm substancji, dla której poszczególne przedmioty s jedynie maskami. […] Dlatego z substancji tej emanuje aura jakiej panironii. Obecna tam jest nieustannie atmosfera kulis, tylnej strony sceny, gdzie aktorzy po zrzuceniu kostiumów zamiewaj si z patosu swych ról. W samym fakcie

5

Cf. Hyppolite (1997) for a discussion of this issue.


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istnienia poszczególnego zawarta jest ironia, nabieranie, j zyk po bazesku wystawiony. (P 682-683) (Reality takes on certain shapes merely for the sake of appearance, as a joke or form of play. One person is a human, another is a cockroach, but shape does not penetrate essence, is only a role adopted for the moment, an outer skin soon to be shed. A certain extreme monism of the life substance is assumed here, for which specific objects are nothing more than masks. The life of the substance consists in the assuming and consuming of numberless masks. […] Thus an all-pervading aura of irony emanates from this substance. There is an ever-present atmosphere of the stage, of sets viewed from behind, where the actors make fun of the pathos of their parts after stripping out their costumes. The bare fact of separate individual existence holds an irony, a hoax, a clown’s stuck-out tongue; LD 113)

Schulz, in an incomparable manner, puts together here two seemingly inconsistent languages. The metaphysical language of the “two worlds” splits reality into two incompatible halves: the essence and appearances, the substance and its attributes. Another language heavily draws from the reservoir of theatrical metaphors pointing to a frivolous character of reality. No matter how serious the claim to separate the essence from its appearances (since “shape does not penetrate essence”), we already know that the essence cannot remain uncontaminated by the gestures of illusions. In fact, there is no way to tear off the masks of the substance just as one cannot get into the nontextual stratum of the Logos. If “at the bottom” of reality one encounters only the brood of bibles, then the masks worn by essence belong to it so closely that they introduce the moment of artificiality in the very core of it. Nothing in this world remains secured against the hoax which does not come from the outside but is inscribed in the very essence of reality. And this is why Schulz uses the term “irony” to describe this permanent fissure in the heart of things. As we can clearly see, Schulz’s imagery is thickly woven of the images of two sorts: textual and theatrical. Reality is perceived both through the lenses of a text to be deciphered and the spectacle to be attended.6 Having touched lightly the opaque layers of text, we 6

Thus we can answer the question asked by Jerzy Jarz bski, “what, actually, does ‘theatricality’ mean in Schulz” (“co to jest waciwie ‘teatralno’ u Schulza”; 2005: 140). Schulz’s theatricality happens not between people but inside the substance. It is mainly the ontological reason of the world which puts everything in motion and does not permit it to coagulate.

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have now to engage with the sensuously seductive theater. The world compared to theater is condemned to be deceptive because the conventional difference between theatrical artificiality and natural authenticity (reflecting the classical metaphysical difference between Wesen and Schein) collapses, as we witness in the story called ‘Druga jesie’ (‘A Second Autumn’): Jesie ta jest wielkim, w drownym teatrem kami cym poezj , ogromn kolorow cebul uszcz c si patek po patku coraz now panoram . Nigdy nie dotrze do adnego sedna. Za ka d kulis , gdy zwi dnie i zwinie si z szelestem, uka e si nowy i promienny prospekt, przez chwil

ywy i prawdziwy, zanim, gasn c, nie zdradzi natury papieru. I wszystkie perspektywy s malowane i wszystkie panoramy z tektury i tylko zapach jest prawdziwy, zapach wi dn cych kulis, zapach wielkiej garderoby, peen szminki i kadzida. […] I ta popieszna gor czka, ten zdyszany i póny karnawa, ta panika nadrannych sal balowych i wie a Babel masek, które nie mog trafi do swych szat prawdziwych. (P 290-291) (Fall is a great touring show poetically deceptive, an enormous purpleskinned onion disclosing ever new panoramas under each of its skins. No centre can ever be reached. Behind each wing that is moved and stored away new and radiant scenes open up, true and alive for a moment, until you realize that they are made of cardboard. All perspective are painted, all the panoramas made of board, and only the smell is authentic, the smell of wilting scenery, of theatrical dressing rooms, redolent of grease paint and scent. […] And there is an atmosphere of feverish haste, of belated carnival, a ballroom about to empty in the small hours, a panic of masked people who cannot find their real clothes; SC 221)

What does this poetical deception inherent to the world mean? By introducing the aesthetic into the very structure of metaphysics, Schulz suggests that separating reality (or nature) from art relies on a false distinction imposed upon artistic experience by the theoretical minds which would like to denigrate art by placing it in a secure position contrasted with “true” reality. Thus, the deceptive character of reality, supported by the persisting images of a belated carnival, flamboyant irresponsibility, and mocking buffoonery, points to the impossibility of maintaining this opposition and, consequently, to the gesture of liberating art from the ideological accusation of being totally disinterested and indifferent toward reality. The aesthetic appearance is not deprived of being effective. In fact, it is quite the contrary: the all-pervasive presence of artificiality mirrors the inability


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to catch the true meaning of a text, and it subsequently marks the insecure position of the subject. The Moss Thrown Away In a story called ‘Emeryt’ (‘The Old-Age Pensioner’), from Sanatorium pod klepsydr (Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, 1937) we read: [J]estem troch niepewny w nogach i musz stawia powoli i ostro nie stopy, stopa przed stop , i bardzo uwa a na kierunek. Tak atwo jest zboczy przy tym stanie rzeczy. Czytelnik zrozumie, e nie mog by zbyt wyranym. Moja forma egzystencji zdana jest w wysokim stopniu na domylno, wymaga pod tym wzgl dem wiele dobrej woli. […] Tylko adnej romantyki. Jest to kondycja jak ka da inna, jak ka da inna nosz ca w sobie znami najnaturalniejszej zrozumiaoci i zwyczajnoci. […] Wielkie otrzewienie – tak mógbym nazwa mój stan, wyzbycie si

wszystkich ci arów, taneczna lekko, pustka, nieodpowiedzialno, zniwelowanie ró nic, rozlunienie wszelkich wi zów, rozprz gni cie si

granic. […] [D]awno przestaem ju zagrzewa miejsce pod sob . (P 361365) (I am little shaky on my feet and must put one before the other slowly and cautiously and watch where I go. It is so easy to stray under such circumstances. The reader will understand that I cannot be too explicit. My form of existence depends to a large degree on conjecture and requires a fair amount of goodwill. […] No sentimentality please. It is a condition like any other, and therefore capable of being understood and treated naturally. […] You sober up – this is what is characteristic of my situation: you are unburdened, feel light, empty, irresponsible, without respect for class, for personal ties, for conventions. […] I stopped gathering moss a long time ago; SC 282-284).

The end of this passage is especially remarkable. In using the idiom “to gather moss”, which changes the Polish version into an altogether different register, the translator unwillingly, but perspicuously, reveals some Greek connotations hidden in the concept of the subject. The subject, or hypokeimenon, means almost exactly “to gather moss under (hypo) oneself”. Sub-jicere has these connotations as well. The subject means: because I want to make myself comfortable in my standing, I put some moss under myself in order to stabilize my position. By doing this, he builds himself up as the subject whose only aim is to stop moving, to extinguish existence, to gather moss in order

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to prevail. Thus, the very act of construing the subject (because the subject is always constructed and not given) forbids being uncomfortable with oneself. Furthermore, there is no way for the subject to suffer from the lack of comfort. Any discomfort in the place taken over by the subject presses him to rearrange this position in order to regain what has been lost. This is why the transcendental subject is less a construction than a series of re-locations aimed at finding the most appropriate position, or Setzung. If, however, we turn the table, then what is clearly recognizable is the insecure status of existence which contradicts the subjectivity as described above. “I am a little shaky on my feet”, says the narrator, but he can, he seems to say, travel lightly, with no burden on his back.7 To quit gathering moss is to stop paying attention to subjectivity as the governing principle of existence and to loosen up the ties which firmly determine his position. In some sense, one is permitted to say that the tightly circumscribed existence contradicts itself or, more precisely, narrows itself down to esse, or essentia. In Schulz, however, the essence is loosened up as well, which means that there is no possibility to fly away from the unstable ground of existence. This inability to gather moss under oneself is explicitly stated in a fragment that has already been quoted above: No centre can ever be reached. Behind each wing that is moved and stored away new and radiant scenes open up, true and alive for a moment, until you realize that they are made of cardboard. All perspective are painted, all the panoramas made of board.

For the Schulzian subject, “no centre can ever be reached”, which means that the very possibility of stabilizing both the position of the subject and the true meaning of the world is endlessly postponed. One of the principal reasons for this semantic delay lies in the fact that it is not art which imitates reality (this relationship being based on the separation between them) but reality which imitates art. In Schulz, 7

One should note, however, how much this account differs from the actual existence of Schulz. His letters to friends reveal the totally opposite attitude to life, filled with “mundane worry” (“codzienna troska”) and melancholy: “One must, for instance, fence off one’s inner life, not permit the vermin of ordinary cares to infest it” (LD 190; “Trzeba np. odgrodzi swe ycie wewn trzne, nie dopuszcza, by tam zagniedzio si robactwo pospolitych trosk”; P 643). This image of fencing the inner life off from reality is repeated many times in Schulz’s letters.


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reality follows the aesthetic gesture of not closing off art in the separate field of false aestheticism. Instead, reality opens art up to the world. In this sense, art in Schulz cannot imitate nature. This is reality itself which “betrays [or rather displays] with all its cracks its imitative character” (SC 73; “wszystkimi szparami zdradza sw imitatywno”; P 127). It must be stressed once again that by this inscribing of the aesthetic into the whole fabric of reality, Schulz eschews the commonsensical accusations of promoting the selfreferential, purely autonomous model of art, contrasted with actual reality as it is. For him, this intensive promotion of the aesthetic has openly displayed the existential dimension. Simulation As the traditional, rhetorical definition maintains, irony is a sort of discrepancy between what is said and what is intended, or more precisely, it is a kind of indeterminateness between the manifest meaning and the latent one. Using this term in a more ontological way, we could say that irony is based on the incompatibility of two realms: the true essence (in rhetoric: the true meaning) and false appearances, but instead of sustaining this opposition, it unfastens its rigid structure. Irony, then, is structured as an insoluble tension between the surface and the deep, the false and the true, or the Logos and the Lie. Schulz developed the best account of this double structure of irony in his afterword to the Polish translation of Kafka’s Der Prozeß (The Trial, 1925). Kafka’s reality, according to Schulz (and this is the most justifiable and persuasive basis for any comparison between these two writers) is of a dual nature; he sees “the realistic surface of existence with unusual precision”, but this is just “a loose epidermis without roots”. This is why [h]is attitude to reality is radically ironic, treacherous, profoundly illintentioned – the relationship of the prestidigitator to his raw material. He only simulates the attention to detail, the seriousness, and the elaborate precision of this reality in order to compromise it all the more thoroughly. (LD 88)

One cannot overestimate the value of this passage for any reading of Schulz. The power of simulation defies any simple interpretation,

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considered as a straightforward allegorical reading. “Kafka’s books”, Schulz continues, “present neither allegory, nor analysis, nor exegesis of a doctrine” (LD 88), and this is what the effective reading should be: neither analysis nor “exegesis of a doctrine”. Instead of reading allegorically, Schulz brings in the idea of ironical, or double reading, which perfectly fits his entire paradoxical attitude. This presupposed, although not explicitly stated, concept of multifaceted reading, unsealing the ironic potential of the text, refers openly to Friedrich Schlegel’s theory of irony. According to Schlegel, irony is “the form of paradox” (1991: 6) which enables us to avoid any form of dualistic thinking. As a “transcendental buffoonery”, Schlegel’s irony combines the freedom of spirit which elevates itself above every determination (exactly as poetry does in Schulz) and the “mimic style of an averagely gifted Italian buffo” (Schlegel 1991: 6). If the Kantian term “transcendental” suggests the stabilized position of der selbsetzende Subjekt, then the buffoonery and “universal masquerade” attached to him undermine this position, making it more unstable and unexpected and putting him on the verge of losing his footing. This loss, if we want to translate it into critical language, implies that reading strives not for the well-rounded meaning but for the mechanism of its production. In this sense, the ironical reading of Schulz aims at revealing what puts his entire work into motion. The ironical reading of Schulz can reveal nothing but his encompassing irony. Metaphysical Puppetry Reality presented by Schulz has “the explosive impact of the scandal” (LD 223; “eksploduj ca sia skandalu”; P 393). The ontological scandal reveals the contaminated, impure character of the essence, which cannot resist its unavoidable degradation into existence, or to put in other way, it cannot avoid turning itself into its own parody. Theatrical existence in Schulz is contagious: no meaning can avoid being distorted, and no sense can resist miscomprehension. The point is that this parodic stance does not spring from human imperfection. It belongs to reality itself, and this belonging results in the loss of any firm grasp of it. It means that in Schulz the radical ambivalence of reality finds its analogue in the interpretative lack of conclusion.


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In a letter to his close friend, Anna Pockier, written in June, 1941, Schulz, remaining “under the spell of [her] charming metamorphoses” (“pod urokiem [jej] uroczych metamorfoz”), explained his own interpretation of them: Jest tak, jak gdyby kto cichaczem podsuwa kogo innego, zamienia Pani , a Pani braa j za siebie sam i graa swoj rol dalej na nowym instrumencie, nie wiedz c, e to ju inna porusza si na scenie. Naturalnie przejaskrawiam spraw i przeci gam j do paradoksu. (P 666) (It’s as though somebody substituted another person to take your place on the sly, and you, as it were, accepted this new person, took her for your own, and continued playing your part on the new instrument, unaware that someone else was acting onstage. Of course I am exaggerating the situation toward the paradoxical; LD 206)

This is a common strategy in Schulz: to exaggerate everything toward the paradoxical. In this case the paradox (which has another name, that of irony, of course) consists of splitting the personality into two characters and showing their reciprocal play “within the dimensions of a single person” (“w skali jednej osoby”). Schulz calls this internal staging “a metaphysical puppetry” (“metafizyczna marionetkowo”), mobilizing in this expression his entire philosophy of irony which, as we can see, defines also the human personality, which is exposed to the internal puppet show. As such, as an internal staging of differences, the human condition does not differ substantially from literature. In both cases, under each skin or each layer of a text, one finds another one and another one and so on. “All things referred to other things, which in turn called further things to witness, and so on ad infinitum” (LD 225; “Ka da rzecz odsyaa do innej rzeczy, tamta powoywaa si na dalsz i tak bez koca”; P 395). And then, against these moving horizons, we all look like the masked people who, in panic, cannot find their real clothes. The problem is, Schulz says, that the real clothes have been already stolen at the origin. Due to this original theft, not only literature, but also our existence, can be possible. This is the lesson we can draw from Schulz. Bibliography Freud, Sigmund. 1900. The Interpretation of Dreams. SE, 4: 1-338; 5: 339-625. Hyppolite, Jean. 1997. Logic and Existence. An Essay on Hegel’s Logic (tr. L. Lawlor, A. Sen). Buffalo: SUNY.

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Jarz bski, Jerzy. 2005. Prowincja centrum: przypisy do Schulza. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. Krieger, Murray. 2000. ‘My Travels with the Aesthetic’ in Clark, Michael P. (ed.) Revenge of the Aesthetic. The Place of Literature in Theory Today. Berkeley: University of California Press: 208-236. Markowski, Micha Pawe. 2003a. ‘Poetry and Modernity’ in Identity and Interpretation. Stockholm: Stockholm University, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures: 73-97. ——. 2003b. ‘The Two Faces of the Logos. Michel Foucault, Paul Ricoeur, and the Hermeneutic Tradition’ in Wierciski, Andrzej (ed.) Between Suspicion and Sympathy: Paul Ricoeur’s Unstable Equilibrium. Toronto: The Hermeneutical Press: 357-369. Schlegel, Friedrich 1991. Philosophical Fragments (tr. P. Firchow; foreword R. Gasché). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Schulz, Bruno. 1964. Proza. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ——. 1988. The Street of Crocodiles and Sanatorium Under the Hourglass (tr. C. Wieniewska). London: Picador. ——. 1990. Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz (ed. J. Ficowski). New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation. ——. 2002. Ksiga listów (ed. J. Ficowski). Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria.

Bruno Schulz’s Intimate Communication: From the “True Viewer” of Xiga bawochwalcza to the “True Reader” of ‘Ksiga’ Theodosia Robertson Abstract: Bruno Schulz’s Xiga bawochwalcza (The Idolatrous Book) existed in a dual form, as loose graphics and bound portfolios. Many of its images depict minidramas similar to erotic role play. Both these aspects reflect the intimate and participatory experience of erotic art: art directed not to a general public, but to a “true viewer/receiver”. With its flexible form and its scenes of erotic role play, The Idolatrous Book engaged artist and audience in a shared experience. When Schulz turned to writing the notion of a true viewer/receiver persisted, becoming the notion of the “true reader” which found its ultimate formulation in ‘Ksi ga’ (‘The Book’).

Introduction The erotic dimension of Bruno Schulz’s Xiga bawochwalcza (The Idolatrous Book, 1920-1922) has challenged critics from reviews of its first showings in the 1920s until today. What artistic sources and tradition inform the pervasive erotic elements of the graphics in The Idolatrous Book? How to characterize the psychosexual phenomena that find visual expression there? Reviews of the earliest shows of Schulz’s art that included prints from The Idolatrous Book sought to address these questions. Critics Alfred Bienenstock (in 1922) and Artur Lauterbach (in 1929) noted both the artistic influences upon the graphics (Goya, the rococo, Félicien Rops, and Toulouse-Lautrec) and also their “fantastic-erotic ideas” and “thematic exclusivity” (Ficowski 1988: 7-9, 12-13). In 1935 Stanisaw Ignacy Witkiewicz added Edvard Munch and Aubrey Beardsley as formative for The Idolatrous Book and categorized Schulz as a demonologist, pronouncing the central node of his eroticism to be female sadism linked to male masochism (in Schulz 1988: 108-109). Interpretive comments by Witold Gombrowicz and Ola Watowa cemented the view that Schulz worked out his own private sexuality in The Idolatrous Book (Kitowska-

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ysiak 2003: 424). Two decades later, in his 1956 essay ‘Rzeczywisto zdegradowana’ (‘The Degraded Reality’), critic Artur Sandauer transposed the idea of masochism to Schulz’s fiction in an interpretive theory that weighed heavily upon readers’ understanding of Schulz’s writing for many years. In his 1988 edition of The Idolatrous Book (its title translated in the English version as The Booke of Idolatry), Jerzy Ficowski developed the kindred concept of fetishism for the graphic cycle (1988: 19-21). Meantime, accumulating biographical details of Schulz’s life, such as the reminiscence of Irena Kejlin-Mitelman (in Schulz 1984) and anecdotal information about the sexual activities of Schulz and his friend Stanislaw Weingarten, both confirmed and complicated suppositions about the personal nature of the erotic in Schulz’s art and especially in his Idolatrous Book (Jarz bski 2003: 408-409). Since the 1990s critical focus has shifted focus away from a displaced sexuality in The Idolatrous Book and toward its larger cultural context. Art historians such as Magorzata Kitowska-ysiak and Halina Kasjaniuk have pursued the many technical and thematic antecedents and connections in Schulz’s art (some of which had been noted by early critics in the 1920s). In these studies eroticism is mediated, for example, through the influence of artistic and cultural tradition such as the grotesque and early Modernism. In the case of the grotesque, its long and multifarious tradition supplies the fantastic, hybridizing forms of pagan eroticism; the Renaissance melded the grotesque of antiquity with folkloric motifs of north Europe and introduced commedia dell’arte elements popularized in the prolific illustrations of the seventeenth- century French engraver and printer, Jacques Callot, master for Francesco Goya (Kitowska-ysiak 2003: 132-138). The grotesque mingled easily with the sexual topoi of early Modernism at the turn of the twentieth century. In this view, the trappings of masochism in Schulz’s visual art can be understood as a “quoting” of popular motifs extracted from literary and artistic tradition, as well as from the iconography of turn of the century mass culture. Rather than representing clinical states, Schulz’s art represents a sophisticated play with the modernist context in which the female organizes and hierarchizes the space; man, subject to her, exists at the periphery while she is at the center. Males and females belong to two different worlds (Bolecki 2005: 114-119).

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Despite shifts of focus, over eight decades of commentary have culminated in considerable critical consensus and at the same time revealed some divergence of opinion about the role of the erotic in Schulz’s Idolatrous Book.1 The consensus among scholars is that Schulz’s art seems to have been almost immune to newer trends of his day, a reflection of the past rather than a precursor of the future. Above all, Schulz was faithful to his erotic themes. What are the consequences of this faithfulness to erotic themes for an evaluation of Schulz’s art? Here, the critics are less unanimous. Some have maintained that through interpreting his own erotic obsessions, Schulz’s art transforms libido, raising it to myth and sacralizing trauma (Kitowska-ysiak 2003: 424). Others remain skeptical about the positive value of the erotic in Schulz’s art. His erotic themes fail to transcend the narrowness of his private obsessions and their repetition courts boredom; Schulz’s art ultimately falls short of the universal vision of his writing.2 The skeptics echo, in fact, Lwów reviewer Alfred Bienenstock who observed in 1922 that “[t]his thematic exclusiveness of Schulz’s artistic inspiration is his strongest and in some ways his weakest point”.3 The skepticism is understandable. The eroticism in Schulz’s Idolatrous Book does present something of a paradox. Although thematically the graphics repeatedly assert the erotic power of particular incarnations of the female, the effect of monotony from these visual reiterations appears inescapable. I suggest that this paradox – the repeated theme of female erotic power and the consequent monotony repetition may induce – involves two evident but underestimated aspects of The Idolatrous Book. These aspects, in 1

The many entries by Magorzata Kitowska-ysiak in the 2003 Sownik schulzowski (edited by Wodzimierz Bolecki, Jerzy Jarz bski and Stanisaw Rosiek) are invaluable for the current understanding of Schulz’s art. 2 Jerzy Ficowski and Wojciech Chmurzyski are proponents of the greatness of Schulz’s art. In contrast, Jerzy Jarz bski concludes that Schulz is a writer of universal vision while his art is more narrow; there, Schulz remained within the confines of his private obsession (Jarz bski 1989: XXX, 2003: 320). Magorzata Kitowska-ysiak (2003: 322) observes that scenes of naked women and adoring men repeat to the point of boredom. 3 For Alfred Bienenstock’s review, see excerpts in Ficowski (1988: 8). The review was originally published in Chwila, 1922, nr. 1213. Cf. Kitowska-ysiak (2003 ‘Wystawy’: 419).

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turn, illustrate another way to understand its nature and its significance for Schulz’s creative output. The Dual Life of The Idolatrous Book The first underestimated aspect of The Idolatrous Book is its dual existence as a collection of some twenty-eight loose graphics (plus covers and frontispieces) that we know today and as a handful of finished portfolios surviving in the national museums of Warsaw and Krakow, the Jagiellonian Library in Krakow, and in private collections (Kitowska-ysiak 2003: 420). Critics routinely note the significance of Schulz’s choice of the archaic spelling of Xiga for the collection and its implications for the concept of the book in Schulz’s prose. In practice, the complete number of graphics termed The Idolatrous Book functioned as a reservoir from which a selection of graphics – some ten or twelve to a maximum of twenty – could be made. Having this reservoir allowed Schulz to create several dozen individual “books” with specific recipients in mind. The Idolatrous Book lived a double life as the larger collection (never bound) and as the bound portfolios, the individualized teki entitled The Idolatrous Book (Chmurzyski 1990). At the time Schulz was creating the graphics of The Idolatrous Book, 1920-1922, he was working on bookplates (1919 to 1921) for a private collection of erotica belonging to his Drohobycz friend Stanisaw Weingarten (1920) and for Lwów bibliophile, Maksymilian Goldstein (1920-22). Highly personal artistic conceptions designed for particular recipients, the bookplates were also the genesis of the cliché-verre process that Schulz ultimately employed for the prints of The Idolatrous Book.4 He began making the teki around 1924; he created a cover and a title page or frontispiece for each portfolio-book which he bound himself (Ficowski 1988: 6). 4

Schulz’s use of discarded photographic plates for the cliché-verres of The Idolatrous Book bridged high and low culture (as we so often see in his fiction). The Idolatrous Book literally grew from tandeta ‘trash’ since Schulz availed himself of discarded commercial photographic plates to produce his own cliché-verres. Research into the technical side of Schulz’s graphic work shows how literally Schulz’s art emerged from popular culture: ordinary commercial photographic plates and refuse from the waste bins of Bertold Schenkelbach’s photography studio (Leszczewska-Wodarska and Wodarski 1995: 223).


Certain graphics consistently provided opening and closing “frames” for the bound individual portfolios. The opening graphic was entitled ‘Dedykacja’ (‘Dedication’), followed by a doublet of graphics now identified as ‘Odwieczna ba’ (‘The Eternal Fairy Tale I’/’The Eternal Fairy Tale II’); closing graphics were the doublet ‘Xi ga bawochwalcza’ (‘The Booke of Idolatry’/’The Booke of Idolatry I’) (all reproduced in Ficowski 1988). Within this frame, however, the sequence of images was variously arranged. The frontispiece of the surviving portfolio in the National Museum of Warsaw contains a list of nineteen graphics titles, with ten lined out. Lists of titles did not always reflect the actual portfolio contents. Schulz sometimes gave different titles to the same graphic, or different graphics got the same title (Ficowski 1988: 16-17). The sequential order for the graphics between the covers, frontispieces, and ‘Dedication’ and the closing graphics is something of a reconstruction. As Ficowski wrote in 1988, “[Schulz] seems not to have had any established order in mind, with the exception of the first and last print … the remaining prints may be arranged at random”. Steadfastly opposing the notion of some hidden narrative to be deciphered, Ficowski’s view was that the sequence depends upon the order of the graphics’ creation. We can see only that some technically inferior ones were probably created earlier (Ficowski 1988: 17). To produce a complete, contemporary version of Schulz’s Idolatrous Book, Ficowski assembled twenty-six graphics according to the Warsaw National Museum order, supplementing them with seven other prints not included in this portfolio but “distributed – according to [Ficowski’s] own judgement – throughout the book”. The result was the 1988 Interpress edition of Xiga bawochwalcza – in its English version entitled The Booke of Idolatry (Ficowski 1988: 53). For the 1992 centenary celebrations honoring Bruno Schulz, another assembly of prints was made for the Warsaw Museum of Literature exhibit. In the Ad Memoriam catalog to that exhibit, curator Wojciech Chmurzyski reiterates that the portfolios had no established order. He characterizes the complete set as an “ideal”: Schulz supplied all his graphics with authorial title, often in different sounding versions and together with his signature he placed them onto cardboard surfaces upon which he pasted the actual prints. Individual portfolios with covers decorated with drawings porte-folio as well as drawn title pages were compositions worked up individually for each set.

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Theodosia Robertson These sets were treated very freely: from several to a maximum of 20 graphics in a set (teka). Some themes of the Book have different versions, sometimes differing only in details, sometimes taking a completely different form. For our exhibit we show the ideal, never before in this completed set, all 30 possible themes and variations, from ‘Introduction’ or ‘Dedication’ … to the graphic closing the cycle entitled in two completely differently developed forms. (Chmurzyski 1995: 15)

The graphics of The Idolatrous Book have also been organized into clusters according to the types of females represented: the androgynous ingénue, the mature Undula, and finally the sexual tormentor/temptress of ‘Bestie’ (‘The Beasts’).5 The increasing intensity of the female images from ingénue to dominatrix implies a sequence, while the first graphic, ‘Dedication’, functions as an interpretive key (alas, ambiguous) that is rooted in Schulz’s own sexual identity (Kitowska-ysiak 2003: 420-421). Lists of titles diverging from portfolio contents, different titles for the same graphic, different graphics with the same title, thematic clusters, and – above all – no set order for the prints suggest that The Idolatrous Book was a fluid entity. Since there seems never to have been a portfolio that contained all the graphics, the entire collection – the ideal – offered certain possibilities. Its flexibility meant that the collection of graphics could function in a more protean way than a book in the conventional sense of a fixed and finished product. Within its “frame” of opening and closing graphics, the complete set of the Idolatrous Book was a source from which Schulz culled images to engage particular aficionado recipients. Clusters of variations on erotic themes in the graphics enabled him to make individualized choices. Personalizing the portfolios in selection and sequence allowed the collection both to respond to its creator’s needs (Schulz’s self-portrait appears in almost all prints) and to be adjusted to please the erotic preferences of a recipient (perhaps including some of the recognizable Drohobyczans portrayed). Schulz probably made several dozen portfolios; technically, he would have been able to reproduce several dozen graphics from each individual plate in the entire cycle (Leszczewska-Wodarska and Wodarski 1995: 223). When the publisher Rój made an offer to 5

Cf. Magorzata Kitowska-ysiak (1994: 134-138) and also Sulikowski (1994: 185188); Magorzata Kitowska-ysiak finalized her concept in her entries in Sownik schulzowski (2003). See also Kuryluk (1987: 145-9) and Dijkstra (1998).


Schulz for ten to twenty-one folios (not a large number), he declined. In an April 1934 letter to Zenon Waniewski Schulz explained his reasons succinctly: first, the process was costly (perhaps in Schulz’s financial circumstances), and secondly, it was laborious – the “technique” was not for mass production (Schulz 1988: 73). If by 1934 Schulz had already exhausted the number of impressions that could be made from the first plates, he would indeed have to make new ones, but the several hundred zloty offered by Rój would recoup some expenses. Time was surely a factor; early 1934 was a peak period of activity and change: Cinnamon Shops had been published; the romance with Zofia Nakowska was on, and Schulz had met Józefina Szeliska the year before (Jarz bski 1999: 223-224). He was anxious to produce more fiction that would capitalize on his success with Cinnamon Shops. Nevertheless, Schulz’s explanation seems uncharacteristically resolute, even disingenuous. His letter avoided the obvious practical consideration: he could not risk the notoriety of any publication of erotic art that would jeopardize his job. Moreover, publication of The Idolatrous Book would change its nature: it would fix the graphics’ sequence and fluidity would end. Printing would remove Schulz’s personal experience with, and control over, the content. He would not be able to present personalized portfolios as gifts. Intimacy of communication would evaporate – a complaint that appeared after the publication of Cinnamon Shops when he was laboring to complete a second volume of stories. Even though Schulz’s circle of portfolio recipients dwindled and prints were sold off separately, he still returned to these works; some personal satisfaction working on the collection did not abate. He changed the prints in the series, added new compositions, and altered some titles. In short, both as the larger number of graphics and as the smaller portfolios, The Idolatrous Book remained a living work. What does this dual life of The Idolatrous Book – as a living creation in two forms, an ideal collection and individual portfolios – say about the concept of Schulz’s artistic “book”? It suggests a parallel with Schulz’s fiction: just as his two slim volumes of short stories are parts of Schulz’s larger imaginative world, never completely formulated in prose, so too the bound portfolios are parts of his larger erotic vision – that of all the graphics, loose and not bound, open and changeable, thus bearing a hallmark of true creation.

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In Schulz’s fiction the narrator discovers many books but seeks the Authentic from which the apokryfy and falsyfikaty derive (Schulz 1989: 105). Schulz’s Idolatrous Book exists in an analogous duality where its portfolios are individual incarnations of an ideal Idolatrous Book, a larger, changing vision with its shifting variations on erotic themes. In this dual existence of The Idolatrous Book, as we might expect, it is only in the covers, frontispieces, and closing two graphics that we find images of bound, folio-like books (see Covers II, III, IV, Frontispiece V, and ‘The Booke of Idolatry’ version I and II in Ficowski 1988: 58, 60, 62, 65 and 92, 93). Two covers and one frontispiece (and perhaps a second) allude to holy books; their thick ruffled pages frame the entire collection (see Covers ‘The Booke of Idolatry’ II [58] and ‘The Booke of Idolatry’ IV [62]). In the covers and frontispieces, the males, including Schulz’s self-portrait, are garbed as priests; some wear hats associated with Jewish elders.6 Between the covers or frontispieces and the closing doublet ‘The Booke of Idolatry’ (versions I and II) – that is, internally, so to speak, within the entire collection and the portfolios – no books appear. The graphic ‘Undula u artystów’ (‘Undula with the Artists’) shows the female Undula perusing not a book but unbound portfolio leaves which lay on the floor as if discarded. She seems unaffected by them, indifferent. When a bound book does appear in the closing graphics, it is the offering of Schulz, dressed not as a priest (as in the covers) but as an ordinary craftsman-artist. The portfolios aspire to be an earthly, human offering to a fickle idol.7

6

As Jan Boski observed, Schulz’s “idolatry” means religious adoration, the table of ritual and the well, and their opposite, the profanity of the female foot and basin. These sets of associations, spiritual and carnal, mingle in Schulz’s art. While the woman may signify a sinful distraction for the elders, for Schulz the artist she is present as an alternative object of study, equivalent in perfection to the traditional object of study for Jewish males, Torah. In interior scenes, a basin frequently appears at the bed of the coveted woman, a reminder of the well and ritual washing (Bloski 1993: 54-68). 7 Kris Van Heuckelom (2006) treats the Idolatrous Book “as an autoreferential artifact [that] arouses reflections about its own artistic genealogy”.


Erotic Role Play The second underestimated aspect of The Idolatrous Book is the similarity between many scenes of its graphics and visual enactments typical of erotic role play. In addition to their numerous cultural and artistic allusions, graphics such as ‘Jej garderobiana’ (‘The Dresser’), ‘Zabawa w ogrodzie’ (‘Merrymaking in the Garden’), or ‘wi to wiosny’ (‘Rite of Spring’) also resemble erotic role play in which participants act out highly formalized erotic scenes. Such scenes are governed by rules and rituals; participants employ a particular “vocabulary” of poses, props, costume, and setting. Enactments are scripted visually (and to a lesser degree, verbally), and they may have an audience of viewers.8 Just as actual erotic role play involves participants and viewers familiar with the script, the scenes in the graphics in The Idolatrous Book imply a “true viewer”. The true viewer understands the visual vocabulary, the erotic rhetoric, of the scene – both its sexual connotations here and now and the rich, centuries-long tradition of their representation in art. The true viewer can appreciate the degree of variation or originality that Schulz’s graphics contribute to (or play with) the artistic tradition. Schulz’s particular predecessors in the tradition, the genre of the erotic series, have been researched by art historians (Kasjaniuk 1993; Kitowska-ysiak 1994a, 1994b). It is a genre where lesser and greater artists meet. Schulz’s “line” in this genre includes the AngloSwiss graphic artist Johann Heinrich Füssli (Henry Fuseli, 1741-1825) who illustrated William Blake, the Belgian symbolist engraver, Félicien Rops (1833-1898), who illustrated selections from Charles Baudelaire, and Aubrey Beardsley who illustrated Oscar Wilde’s Salome (1894), well-known in Poland. Other artists in the latter nineteenth century linked their art with general literary themes and produced a series: Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921), Gustave Moreau (1826-1898), Alfred Kubin (1877-1959), Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), and Klimt’s student, the notorious Egon Schiele (1890-1918).

8 In the world of BDSM typical “scenes” are: slaves (males pulling carts or chariots), mistresses, corporal punishment, doctors, nurses, office. Scenes are highly scripted with sets, costume, props, some dialogue; they are accessible today through the internet. See also the work of documentary photographer Susan Meiselas that shows an elite New York salon on Fifth Avenue (August et al. 2001).

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In addition to these artists, fin de siècle erotic art was invigorated by the appearance of Japanese Shunga or erotic prints. The Japanese artists’ asymmetry, color contrast techniques, and frankly sexual scenes inspired the artwork (including erotic) of artists such as Edgar Degas and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.9 For sophisticated connoisseurs of the 1920s like Schulz’s friend Stanisaw Weingarten, a personal erotic series for private or semi-private delectation combined psychological dimensions with refined aesthetic tastes cognizant of a long, rich tradition. Schulz’s erotic mini-dramas of masochism and fetishism, their generic titles, characters, plots, costumes, and props are clichés of erotic role play that belong to a subculture as lively in the twenty-first century as it was in Schulz’s time and centuries before. However flourishing in the literary and art worlds (and wherever else) such practices were in the 1920s and 1930s, conventional society labeled them abnormal or perversions. In contemporary psychosexual terminology they are categorized as compulsive sexual behaviors, variations along a continuum of sexual practices, part of the repertoire of human psychosexual practices considered unusual relative to cultural norms.10 Fetishism and masochism are much more visible in popular culture today than a century ago; the secrecy and scandal associated with them has dissipated substantially. Compulsive sexual behaviors often cause no particular stress or disruption of normal functioning (non-paraphilic); when they do cause stress and disruption of normal functioning (paraphilic), they may be accompanied by depression, anxiety, and somatic disorders – conditions that chronically afflicted Schulz. The female slippers, feet, whips, leashes, collars, hats, carriages, and horses of his Idolatrous Book all derive from a standard repertoire of sexually-charged fetish objects readily recognizable in their culturally conventional forms.11 Their universality confirms 9

In 1891 Goncourt published a volume on one of the first Shunga artists to be widely known in fin de siècle Europe, Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806). Works by this color print master were exhibited in Paris in 1894. 10 Whether the sole condition of sexual satisfaction or a necessary preliminary to it, masochism also refers to the deriving of pleasure from being offended, mistreated, scolded, dominated, and embarrassed or the tendency to court such treatment. It also refers of any sort of destructive tendencies inward upon oneself. In many cases orgasm ensues (English and English 1970). 11 Schulz was aware of Freud, although evidently not Jung, to whose understanding of reality Schulz seems so similar (Jarz bski 1999). Havelock Ellis (1859-1939), Freud’s


Schulz’s choice of titles for his graphics as “the eternal” or the “eternal idol” for a dynamic that exists both beyond and within timebound associations particular to different eras and societies.12 The fetish-triggered erotic enactment is a ritual: it happens over and over with small variations, but is essentially the same. As reliable as magic, fetishism and masochism exist eternally on multiple levels: human sexuality, religion, myth, art. Whatever Schulz’s personal erotic predilections may have been, clinical descriptions of compulsive sexual behavior aid us in decoding more accurately (and more frankly) the representations in less famous contemporary, describes the masochist-fetishist in his seven-volume The Psychology of Sex (1897-1928) in a way that evokes Schulz: “His most sacred ideals are for all those around him a childish absurdity, or a disgusting obscenity, possibly a matter calling for the intervention of the policeman. We have forgotten that all these impulses which to us seem so unnatural – the adoration of the foot and other despised parts of the body, the reverence for the excretory acts and products, the acceptance of congress with animals, the solemnity of self-exhibition – were all beliefs and practices which, to our remote forefathers, were bound up with the highest conceptions of life and the deepest ardors of religion… Yet, regarded as a whole and notwithstanding the frequency with which they witness to congenital morbidity, the phenomenon of erotic symbolism can scarcely fail to be profoundly impressive to the patient and impartial student of the human soul. They often seem absurd, sometimes disgusting, occasionally criminal, they are always when carried to an extreme degree, abnormal. But of all the manifestations of sexual psychology, normal and abnormal, they are the most specifically human. More than any others they involve the potently plastic force of the imagination. They bring before us the individual man, not only apart from his fellows, but in opposition, himself creating his own paradise. They constitute the supreme triumph of human idealism” (in Gerald and Caroline Greene 1995: 219-220; italics mine). 12 The sexual significance of feet and footgear is common to many human societies. In modern European culture, fashions and conventions have determined the details of the fetish object. In eighteenth-century painting, females extend their small feet encased in curve-heeled shoes; their rococo footwear dangles from swings and peeks out from beneath rustling skirts in the fêtes galantes of Antoine Watteau’s Island of Cythera. Watteau’s prototype appears in Schulz’s favorite female shoe, a style again popular in the 1920s and 1930s. Not surprisingly, Schulz used the Island of Cythera as a title for one of his drawings. In Watteau’s work, the shimmering satin-shod and arched feet are miniaturized in relation to the women’s broad hats and billowing dresses. Scenes within scenes depict the “Italian comedy” of ancien régime France with aristocrats costumed as the traditional characters Harlequin and Columbine acting out “lessons” in love. Countless prints were made of these paintings, many by Watteau himself, since he was an engraver. As an erotic object, the shape and terminology of the shoe replicates the female body – its “waisted” heel, curved “breast” and bow or cockard concealing the “cleavage” between the toes. Some of this iconography and terminology was noted in Kasjaniuk 1993.

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his art. They confirm the contradiction at the heart of the eroticism we find in The Idolatrous Book, namely, that this form of sexual expression combines fantasy and formula. As Jerzy Jarz bski (1999: 112-113) notes, the similar erotic scenes repeat “as if the artist continually tried again and again from the beginning, persistently to capture something that is impossible to grasp and whose essence does not lie in precision of form but in the whole concept, in emotion which accompanies the very process of creation”. Crafted by a very particular artist working out his emotions in the process of creation, The Idolatrous Book requires a very particular viewer to complete the combined sensual and aesthetic frisson which is the ultimate success of the erotic portfolio. If the scenic enactments are repeated for the combined sensual and esthetic power they exert on viewers who share the psychosexual sensibility, it matters little that such repetition entails monotony for viewers who do not.13 How, might we ask, does the true viewer participate? Within the graphics the Schulz self-portrait is often approaching from behind the female, toward the back of her foot; other males approach or view the females at an angle, from the side or from behind. The eyes of the avid males and bored, distracted female or females do not meet: enactment and not communication is what counts (Sulikowski: 1994). Schulz’s self-portrait sometimes looks out at us, seeking the viewer outside the scene (‘Dedication,’ ‘Undula w nocy’ (‘Undula at Night’), ‘Procesja’ (‘Procession’)). Females may gaze distractedly outward as well. Meantime, the eye of a third party, the viewer, travels along the lines of the figures’ placement to a point where the lines in the whole composition converge: the focus of the action, the female foot or shoe. The viewer, outside the graphics, is invited into fetishism, to share an imagined worship of the depicted scene itself. The visual participation of a complicit audience for a scene of intimate activity creates the final tension of delectation. The faces and bodies of the females in the erotic scripts of The Idolatrous Book tend toward schematic depiction without grotesque deformation. Whether nude, in transparent shifts, or costumed as sexy maids in aprons and black stockings, the self-absorbed females are unmoved by the men around them. Passive foci for active males, the females acquiesce disdainfully to the male adoring an extended female 13

Clinicians estimate that compulsive sexual behavior affects about 5% of the population (Coleman, Raymond, McBean 2003).


leg or kissing a female foot which has tossed off one delicate shoe. Male and female figures appear in variations of similar poses with repeating foci (feet, shoes, stockings, or objects like whips or household substitutes like a wicker carpet beater) so familiar in the psychology of sexuality as fetishes. The male in the form of a realistic but grotesque dog-man, dwarfish or servile (often Schulz’s selfportrait), is poised for abasement before one or more women. Multiple heads of similar males suggest movement, perhaps even a sequence of positions involving the same man. Schulz’s self-portrait may appear more than once, as a kind of divided self. The female faces are little individualized, and even allowing for changing conventions of beauty, the women are not particularly attractive. Although the women are depicted whole and entire, the artist does not seem to study them and often they are somewhat flat and incompletely rendered (Kitowska-ysiak 2003: 17). They are “perfection” to the male because the fetish object he needs attaches to them and because they acquiesce to the staging of his erotic enactments. They dominate and determine the spatial arrangement (as Wodzimierz Bolecki and others have noted) simply by being present and “in character”. The male half man, half dog or tiger (a nocturnal hunter) gazes at the females accoutered with the requisite whips, stockings, and high heels, adjuncts to abasement and the foot, and depicted as highly stylized repetitions. The crouching, grotesque male is placed low, crawling forward, approaching in anticipation with mouth open and tongue poised to kiss or suck an extended female foot often just pulled out of a shoe.14 Some males appear so overwrought that they are curled up, fetal and gibbering on the floor. As erotic fantasies that are little dramas, the recurring erotic scenes of The Idolatrous Book reflect the high theatricality of this compulsive sexual behavior (Kulig-Janarek 1994: 161-166). In many graphics of The Idolatrous Book, peeping alternates with proclaiming, and the artist’s private fantasies are shared by a gaggle of other males. Recognizable details of Schulz’s town provide a backdrop for groups of people passing one another in the street or town square. The town 14

The most prominent fetish – but not the only one – is the foot fetish or “retifism” (from the eighteenth-century French novelist, Nicolas Edmé Retif). Sexual allure resides in the enactment of a fantasy. Gloves, shoes, handkerchiefs, or body parts (such as feet, locks of hair, ears) may stimulate sexual arousal. An extended female leg is a symbolic phallus; a tiny foot encased in a delicate shoe, a symbolic vulva.

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may witness in the distance to the action in the interiors (Chmurzyski 1992: 16). The mingling of private space and public space allows scenes of erotic activity to have many viewers inside, behind closed doors, while private rituals pour out onto the public square or street. Private sexuality is raucously proclaimed to the public and the viewer in the graphic ‘Procession’. People “meet” in the open town spaces, join ritual-like processions of men of various ages, often older and sometimes blind (a Freudian symbol of castration of which Schulz must have been aware); males peep at or crowd around a naked female. Night provides cover but not threat. In only one graphic do the males really seem capable of harming the female, ‘Undula idzie w noc’ (’Undula Walks into the Night’).15 When Schulz turned to writing around 1925 with ‘Noc lipcowa’ (‘July Night’, completed between 1925 and 1927), the graphics of The Idolatrous Book had been done, but he was still working on the covers of the individual portfolios. Schulz’s 1934 letter to Zenon Waniewski indicates that even a decade later The Idolatrous Book was still fresh in his mind (Schulz 1988: 73). As Schulz wrote in his exchange with Witkiewicz the next year, writing allowed him to “express himself more fully”, to expand beyond the circumscribed audience of erotic art – but his subject matter remained a given (Schulz 1988: 111-112). Schulz’s “given” appears in his fiction where some of the females of The Idolatrous Book seem to have counterparts; the saucy maid and Undula can be seen as counterparts to Adela and the Infantka to Bianka (Kitowska-ysiak 2003: 421). However, the fully depicted recumbent nudes and local beauties of The Idolatrous Book are absent from the stories. Instead, Schulz renders his fictional females through deformation he formerly reserved for men in the visual art of The Idolatrous Book. Whereas women had appeared whole and entire in The Idolatrous Book, in Schulz’s fiction they emerge verbally through grotesque fragments of synecdoche (a part for the whole, or partialism) or metonymy (an associated detail, or fetishism). The partialism of the foot fetish in The Idolatrous Book has now become partialism of other body parts or dress in the stories. Females are reduced to eyelashes (cashier in ‘Noc lipcowa’/‘July 15

Here the top hats typical of Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas males in the demi-monde are placed on two sinister faces. The demi-monde of Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas combined the public and private; scenes of music hall, ballet, and brothel allowed depiction of scantily clad females viewed by fully dressed males.


Night’), a décolletaged, gold-toothed, painted torso (cashier in ‘Wiosna’/‘Spring’), dusky women with “ingratiating smiles” (‘Druga jesie’/‘A Second Autumn’), enamel eyes, leather and garter buckles (‘Manekiny’/‘Tailors’ Dummies’), a lacy, black shawl on stilts (‘Wichura’/‘The Gale’) – just to list a few examples of faceless and disembodied female characters. Schulz’s fiction also expands the range of male sexual paraphilias beyond what we see in The Idolatrous Book. Father exhibits the klismaphilia of the enema and chamber pot (‘Nawiedzenie’/‘Visitation’) and can be reduced to submission by Adela’s tickling (‘Traktat o manekinach’/‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’).16 In ‘Genialna epoka’ (‘The Age of Genius’) a revelatory childhood experience of art merges with sexuality, signaled by the appearance of Shloma whose thievery of female articles is a hallmark of compulsive sexual behavior. Commonplace manifestations typical of Schulz’s time appear as well: small, cheap photographic images for the mass market called “postcards” (although it was actually illegal to send them through the mail) appear in ‘Sierpie’ (‘August’). The young narrator finds himself viewing such pictures on cards, concealed, then brought out and held in cousin Emil’s hand. Examples could be multiplied. From True Viewer to True Reader As Schulz formulated his larger imaginative world in writing, the distinctive features of erotic art – its dual existence as an ideal vision and as individual portfolio-incarnations, its intimacy and reliance upon a shared understanding with its particular audience – did not disappear. The “true viewer” essential to full appreciation of The Idolatrous Book found a subsequent analogue in Schulz’s larger verbal world as the “true reader” or czytelnik prawdziwy whom Schulz’s narrator posits and addresses in the story ‘The Book’. As we read there, some ten years after The Idolatrous Book, 16

Fetish paraphilia may also gravitate toward the elemental where their range spans diaperism, feces, smells, and body odors. The variant termed “undinism” focuses on urine; in the variant termed “klismaphilia”, medically unnecessary enemas provide sexual gratification. In a category related to fetishism termed partialism, a person obtains arousal from observation of or sexual contact with parts of a human body (such as feet, breasts, or buttocks).

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Communication with a true receiver who understands, shares, and participates in his imaginative world was essential to Schulz’s creative work, regardless of medium. Only the true viewer who is responsive to particular kinds of erotic art could fully appreciate The Idolatrous Book. Seeking such a receptive other is a leitmotif of Schulz’s fiction, his voluminous correspondence, as well as his most important personal relationships, especially those with women, throughout his life. Schulz considered his creative work to be rooted in a unity. At the peak of his creative powers in 1934-35, he characterized that unity in an essay for Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz. Describing the fundamental images of his graphic work and its relation to Cinnamon Shops, Schulz invoked an analogy with a tangle of threads, a cord of life, and a web of reality. Visual images function like nitek w roztworze, dokoa których krystalizuje si dla nas sens wiata. [S]ztuka nie rozwi zuje tego sekretu do koca. Pozostaje on nierozwikany. W ze, na który dusza zostaa zasuplana, nie jest faszywym w zem, rozchodz cym si za poci gni ciem koca. Przeciwnie, coraz cianiej si zw la. Manipulujemy przy nim, ledzimy bieg nici, szukamy koca i z tych manipulacyj powstaje sztuka […] W dziele sztuki nie zostala jeszcze przerwana p powina cz ca je z caloci naszej problematyki, kr y tam jeszcze krew taj mnicy […] W jaki sposób doznajemy g bokiej satysfakcji z tego rozlunienia tkanki rzeczywistoci, jestemy zainteresowani w tym bankructwie realnoci. (Schulz 1975: 63-65). (threads in the solution around which the significance of the world crystallizes for us. […] Art […] does not resolve that secret completely. The secret stays in a tangle. The knot the soul got itself tied up in is not a


false one that comes undone when you pull the ends. On the contrary, it draws tighter. We handle it, trace the path of the separate threads, look for the end of the string, and out of these manipulations comes art […] In a work of art the umbilical cord linking it with the totality of our concerns has not yet been severed, the blood of the mystery still circulates […] In some sense we derive a profound satisfaction from the loosening of the web of reality; we feel an interest in witnessing the bankruptcy of reality; Schulz 1988: 110-113).

The erotic representations in Schulz’s art which have analogues in human psychosexual experience constitute a strand in the “same thread” that Schulz so positively asserted to run throughout both his art and fiction. From the 1922 Idolatrous Book, through the “true reader” of the 1935 ‘Ksi ga’ (‘The Book’), to the June 1941 letters to Anna Pockier, warning her of his complexes and an “abyss” that was deeply his own, eroticism and sexuality were inextricably part of Schulz’s life and work. Schulz’s tangled secret linked every aspect of his life.17 In general, however, critics have striven to cordon off Schulz from dicey sexuality, to keep his genius dignified and private. Whether compensating for charges of pornography leveled at his art in the 1920s and 1930s or reflecting a conservative critical climate, critics maintain that Schulz’s eroticism is “far from pornography”, that his erotic subjects belong to his private world, unfulfilled and deeply coded in his subconscious (Chmurzyski 1995: 19). Yet the mingling of private and public in an erotic scene, so characteristic of the graphics in The Idolatrous Book, toys with scandal and the illicit. Playing with the shock of public revelation is part of the erotic thrill. In Schulz’s graphics the town becomes the bedroom and the intimate boudoir/bedrooms are spied upon from the wings or outside by males. Rococo-inspired scenes such as ‘On Cythera’ or ‘The Bench’, carnivalesque street scenes of ‘The Infanta and her Dwarfs’, ‘Circus’,’ Rite of Spring’, and ‘Procession’ combine a highly theatrical sexual paraphilia with Schulz’s theatrical vision in general (Kulig-Janarek 1994: 157, 159).18 Curtains and stages and 17

Schulz objected that psychoanalytical labels eliminated individual uniqueness in art (Schulz 1988: 157, 159; Kulig-Janarek 1993: 47; Jarz bski 1989: LXI). Eroticism and sexuality likewise submerge everyone, even artists and writers, into the great aggregate of humankind. 18 In Schulz’s other works, see the background of his portrait of Stanisaw Weingarten. Commedia dell’arte characters and situations appear in two-thirds of Schulz’s extant artwork. For the theatrical in Schulz’s art see Kitowska-ysiak (2003

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public streets and squares of the town seem to be all sets in a larger theatre, a theatrical cosmos constantly revealing its inner mysteries, particularly its erotic ones. Shielding Schulz’s art from charges of pornography misses a powerful element in the creative power of his artwork. Conclusion The two aspects of Schulz’s Idolatrous Book explored here – its duality of form and its similarity to erotic role play – enrich our understanding of Schulz’s work because they recognize the relevance of the dynamics of erotic art. Although Schulz’s prose introduces many more themes, characters, and models of erotic behavior, The Idolatrous Book constitutes Schulz's first and fundamental “book” because the notion of a true viewer/true receiver was first worked out there. Erotic art epitomized the intimate and participatory experience that marked all Schulz’s creativity. With its fluid and flexible form, The Idolatrous Book engaged both artist and audience. Today we might term this form interactive. Although writing gradually supplemented, even supplanted The Idolatrous Book, it remained a harbinger of Schulz’s larger imaginative “book”, its concept formulated more generally in the story ‘The Book’. There Schulz’s narrator says: Nazywam j po prostu Ksi g , bez adnych okrele i epitetów, i jest w tej abstynencji i ograniczeniu bezradne westchnienie, cicha kapitulacja przed nieobj toci transcendentu, gdy adne sowo, adna aluzja nie potrafi zalni, zapachnie, spyn tym dreszczem przestrachu, przeczuciem tej rzeczy bez nazwy, której sam pierwszy posmak na kocu j zyka przekracza pojemno naszego zachwytu. Có pomógby patos przymiotników i napuszysto epitetów wobec tej rzeczy bez miary, wobec tej wietnoci bez rachuby. Czytelnik zreszt , czytelnik prawdziwy, na jakiego liczy ta powie, zrozumie i tak […] (Schulz 1989a: 105) (I am simply calling it The Book without any epithets or qualifications, and in this sobriety there is a shade of helplessness, a silent capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental, for no word, no allusion, can adequately suggest the shiver of fear, the presentiment of a thing without a

“wiat-teatr”: 261) and Chmurzyski (1992): #27 (p. 45 ‘Cyrk’, 1920-22), #106 (p. 129), #137 (p. 160), #264 (p. 305). Allusions to theatre pervade Schulz’s fictional world (cf. Robertson 1991: 119-126).


name that exceeds all our capacity for wonder. How could an accumulation of adjectives or a richness of epithets help when one is faced with that splendiferous thing? Besides, any true reader – and this story is only addressed to him – will understand me anyway […]; Schulz 1989b: 117)

No longer confined to the erotic as in the visual art of The Idolatrous Book, in verbal art the Book has become everything – enormous, boundless, inclusive of all reality.19 Nevertheless, those who understand and appreciate The Book remain a select few, the true viewers and true readers who can complete the circle of understanding. For these faithful few, the word, the image, and the erotic converge in a symbol of all knowledge, the book, which serves as the most ancient metaphor for the world (and worthy of its archaic spelling): open, changeable, amenable to the desires of its creator and its true recipient alike. Bibliography August, Richard et al. 2001. Pandora’s Box. New York: Trebruk Publishing. Boski, Jan. 1993. ‘On the Jewish sources of Bruno Schulz’ in Cross Currents. A Yearbook of Central European Culture 12: 54-68. Bolecki, Wodzimierz. 2005. ‘Gender and Sex in Early Polish Modernism: Przybyszewski, Irzykowski, Witkacy, Schulz’ in Grimstad, Knut Andreas and Ursula Phillips (eds). Gender and Sexuality in Ethical Context. Ten Essays on Polish Prose (Slavica Bergensia 5). Bergen: University of Bergen, Department of Russian Studies, IKRR: 98-123. Chmurzyski, Wojciech. 1990. Catalog to ‘Bruno Schulz---40 rysunków’. Lublin: Galeria Sztuki Sceny Plastycznej KUL. —— (ed). 1992. Bruno Schulz 1892-1942: Rysunki i archiwalia ze zbiorów Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza w Warszawie. Warszawa: Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza w Warszawie. ——. 1995. ‘Bruno Schulz 1892-1942. Ad memoriam. Koncepcja i ukad wystawy’ in Chmurzyski, Wojciech (ed.) Bruno Schulz 1892-1942: Katalog-Pamitnik Wystawy “Bruno Schulz. Ad Memoriam” w Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza w Warszawie. Warszawa: Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza: 11-20. Coleman, Eli, Nancy Raymond and Anne McBean. 2003. ‘Assessment and Treatment of Compulsive Sexual Behavior’ in Minnesota Medical Association 86: 4247. Dijkstra, Bram.1998. Idols of Perversity. Fantasies of Feminine Evil in fin de siècle Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

19

As Jan Boski observed, there is one great Book which has endless Commentary (1993: 54-68).

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English, Horace B. and Ava Champney English. 1970. A Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychological and Psychoanalytical Terms. A Guide to Usage (10th ed.) New York: McKay. Ficowski, Jerzy (ed.) 1988. The Booke of Idolatry. Warsaw: Interpress. Greene, Gerald and Caroline. S-M. The Last Taboo. 1995. New York: Blue Moon Press. Jarz bski, Jerzy. 1989. ‘Wst p’ in Schulz (1989a): III-CXXV. ——. 1999. Schulz. Wrocaw: Wydawnictwo Dolnol skie. ——. 2003 ‘Rysunek’, ‘Weingarten Stanislaw’ in Bolecki, Wodzimierz, Jerzy Jarz bski and Stanisaw Rosiek (eds). Sownik schulzowski. Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria: 318-323; 408-409. Kasjaniuk, Halina. 1993. ‘Rodowody i symbole w grafikach Schulza’ in Teatr pamici Brunona Schulza. Gdynia: Uniwersytet Gdaski: 10-25. Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata. 1994a. ‘Bruno Schulz – Xiga bawochwalcza: wizja – forma – analogie’ in Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata (ed). Bruno Schulz. In memoriam. 1892-1942. Lublin: Wydawnictwo FIS: 133-151. ——. 1994b. ‘Wizje kobiecoci w Xidze bawochwalczej’ in Jarzebski, Jerzy (ed). Czytanie Schulza, Kraków: T.I.C.: 251-263. ——. 2003. ‘Groteska’, ‘Xi ga bawochwalcza’, ‘Akt’, ‘Pierrot’, ‘Wystawy’ in Bolecki, Wodzimierz, Jerzy Jarz bski and Stanisaw Rosiek (eds). Sownik schulzowski. Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria: 131-138; 420-425; 14-19; 259261; 416-419. Kulig-Janarek, Krystyna. 1993. ‘Schulzowska mitologia: Motywy, w tki, inspiracje w Xidze Bawochwalczej’ in Kresy 14: 37-49. ——. 1994. ‘Erotyka – groteska – ironia – kreacja’ in Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata (ed.) Bruno Schulz. In memoriam. 1892-1942. Lublin: Wydawnictwo FIS: 153-177. Kuryluk, Ewa. 1987. Salome and Judas in the Cave of Sex. The Grotesque: Origins, Iconography, Techniques. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. Leszczewska-Wodarska, Magorzata and Zbigniew Wodarski. 1995. ‘Xiga bawochwalcza Brunona Schulza. Kilka uwag o technologii i praktyce techniki cliché verre’ in Chmurzyski, Wojciech (ed.) Bruno Schulz 18921942. Katalog-Pamitnik Wystawy “Bruno Schulz. Ad memoriam” w Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza w Warszawie. Warszawa: Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza: 222-223. Robertson, Theodosia. 1991. ‘Bruno Schulz and Comedy’ in Polish Review 2: 119126. Schulz, Bruno. 1975. Bruno Schulz. Ksiga listów (ed. J. Ficowski). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ——. 1984. Listy, fragmenty. Wspomnienia o pisarzu (ed. J. Ficowski). KrakówWrocaw: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ——. 1988. Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz with Selected Prose (ed. J. Ficowski, tr. W. Arndt and V. Nelson). New York: Harper & Row. ——. 1989a. Opowiadania. Wybór esejów i listów (ed. J. Jarz bski). Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossoliskich. ——. 1989b. The Complete Fiction of Bruno Schulz. New York: Walker and Company.


Sulikowski, Andrzej. 1994. ‘Schulzowskie sytuacje komunikacyjne’ in Jarz bski, Jerzy (ed.) Czytanie Schulza. Kraków: T.I.C.: 231-250. Van Heuckelom, Kris. 2006. ‘Artistic Crossover in Polish Modernism. The Case of Bruno Schulz’s Xiga Bawochwalcza (The Idolatrous Booke).’ Image and Narrative. Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative 15 (Nov. 2006). On line at http://www.imageandnarrative.be/iconoclasm/heuckelom.htm (consulted 28.01.2007). Witkiewicz, Stanisaw Ignacy. 1988. ‘Interview with Bruno Schulz (1935)’ in Ficowski, Jerzy (ed.) Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz with Selected Prose. (tr. W. Arndt and V. Nelson). New York: Harper & Row: 107-110.

Bruno Schulz: Between Avant-Garde and Hasidic Redemption Alfred Sproede Abstract: Bruno Schulz’s stories have been repeatedly interpreted in the context of Judaism. Instead of tracing further parallels pointing to the Old Testament, kabbalah, or other written sources, this article investigates less dignified, even partly ostracized, popular strands of East European Jewish culture. The new focus is on a set of customs and rites that are strikingly consonant with Schulz’s euphoric tales and their narrative enactment. In fact, the central source (Sitz im Leben) of the narrative “gestures” by which the author tries, as it were, to “charm” his imagined audience is “Hasidic celebration” – forms of semi-religious, semi-mundane festivity specific to Galician Jewish communities.

Institutions of Narrative. The “Location” (Sitz im Leben) of Schulz’s Stories In past and present research, the work of Bruno Schulz is frequently praised for its daring metaphorical procedures and for an original contribution to the traditions of fantastic literature. Whatever approach is chosen – whether it is readings “in the light of psychoanalysis” (Speina 1976) or with respect to “decentered images” (Lachmann 1992) – the style of his stories invariably falls, and justly so, under the category of a lyrical prose operating beyond the limits of traditional, mimetic conceptions of literature. The bid for accommodating these readings to Derridean deconstruction did not come as a great surprise. Thus, a study published shortly after Schulz’s centenary offers new interpretations highlighting “figures of dissemination” and “inexhaustibleness” (Stala 1993: passim). Schulz certainly defies any kind of interpretive closure; the complexity of his prose is not a philological artifact. The difficulty of coming to terms with his lyrical roaming is real. However, before embarking on exalted metaphors, grand horizons, and the starry sky – as, for instance, in the narrator’s ravished

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wandering through the blue night of the story ‘Sklepy cynamonowe’ (‘Cinnamon Shops’) – Schulz frequently ventures a gesture of rescue, as if he wanted to compensate himself and his readers for an impending insecurity. He seems to be conscious of what Walter Benjamin, in his groundbreaking article ‘Der Erzähler. Betrachtungen zum Werk Nikolai Lesskows’ (1936), called the dilemma of the narrator “devoid of counsel” (1968: 86). Schulz actually has the resources to address this dilemma. The insecurity or instability of his narrative semantics has a counterpoint in a certain set of narrative institutions. The wanderings under the blue sky are, in fact, controlled transgressions, escapes from a distinct semantic and pragmatic order. The order underpinning Schulz’s storytelling surfaces whenever the narrator affirms – or rather conjures – familiarity with his audience and tries to get in touch with his reader. The story entitled ‘Wiosna’ (‘Spring’) has this comment after the first lyrical outburst: “But we have not finished yet; we can go deeper. There is nothing to fear. Give me your hand, take another step: we are at the roots now” (Schulz 1987: 43;1 “Ale nie tu koniec jeszcze, zst pujmy g biej. Tylko bez strachu. Prosz mi poda r k , krok jeszcze i jestemy u korzeni”; Schulz 1989: 159).2 Other stories can step down into the regions of the fantastic because the narrator, beforehand, has assured his reader against all risks and dangers: [C]zytelnik prawdziwy, na jakiego liczy ta powie, zrozumie i tak, gdy mu spojrz g boko w oczy i na dnie samym zalni tym blaskiem. W tym krótkim a mocnym spojrzeniu, w przelotnym cini ciu r ki pochwyci on, przejmie, odpozna – i przymknie oczy z zachwytu nad t recepcj g bok . Bo czy pod stoem, który nas dzieli, nie trzymamy si wszyscy tajnie za r ce? (Op 105) ([A]ny true reader – and this story is only addressed to him – will understand me anyway when I look him straight in the eye and try to communicate my meaning. A short sharp look or a light clasp of his hand will stir him into awareness, and he will blink in rapture at the brilliance of The Book. For, under the imaginary table that separates me from my readers, don’t we secretly clasp each other’s hand?; San 1)

The fictitious situation in which Schulz places this communicative act seems to be in keeping with the central thesis of his literary 1 2

All further references will be given as San. All further references will be given as Op.

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“manifesto”, ‘Mityzacja rzeczywistoci’ (‘The Mythologizing of Reality’). According to this text, all human utterances are produced in the framework of compelling linguistic and thematic forms. The interlocutors who hold each other’s hand under the table owe their mutual understanding and the meaningfulness of their utterances to an unexplained but imperative institution, to a fundamental myth or a network of symbolic forms. Every utterance is framed in a set of language games – and Schulz conceives of them as “forms of existence”, defining the horizon of what can be expressed at all.3 The aim of this article is to describe these forms and to identify some of the institutions on which Schulz can lean as a storyteller. Since the time when the term was first developed in Protestant theology under the auspices of a “history of biblical forms”, the notion of a “location in life” (Sitz im Leben) was meant to seize the existential embedding of biblical texts – according to their function as historical relations, edifying tales, sermons, songs, or codes of conduct for the religious community.4 In an analogous perspective, we can determine a set of cultural institutions when looking into the “lifeworldly embedding” of Schulz’s texts. These institutions, in turn, should offer forms of compensation for the storyteller’s propensity for semantic indetermination. In his letter to Witkiewicz, Schulz warns his readers against any attempt to decipher “the philosophical credo of Cinnamon Shops” (“credo filozoficzne Sklepów cynamonowych”; Op 444); distrusting all forms of explanation of his tales, he advises readers and scholars rather to “describe the reality” (“opis rzeczywistoci”; Op 444) of the stories. And it is this very task – a description of the texts’ reality or pragmatic dimension – my essay is about. It is a commonplace of scholarship that we cannot circumscribe the location of Schulz’s stories without addressing Jewish tradition. The author’s transformation of themes borrowed from the Old Testament, his interest in heretical movements and messianism has been broadly discussed (cf. Goldfarb 1993, Lewi 1989, Lindenbaum 1994, Panas 1997). My article will deal with a closely affiliated issue, which has drawn much less attention, namely the tradition of Hasidism. Although Schulz frequently turns to this tradition – suffice it to mention his numerous drawings between 1930 3

Fragments of this quasi-theory can be gathered from the manifesto ‘The Mythologizing of Reality’ and from Schulz’s 1935 letter to Witkacy. 4 Cf. Berger (1987: 156-161) for a succint presentation of this method.

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and 1935,5 – we still lack (as far as I can see) detailed research on how his narrative art relates to Hasidism. I consider the Hasidic background to be relevant to Schulz and to his stories in several respects. The central issues are: (1) the atmosphere of Hasidic celebrations and entertainment; (2) the narrative and rhetorical institutions connected to and embedded in these celebrations; (3) the fantastic genres of Hasidic popular literature and, finally, (4) Schulz’s attitude toward sexuality, toward the “evil propensities” (Hebr. yetser hara) and the world of “impurity”. As a conclusion to my article, I will try to grasp Schulz’s attempt at a literary transformation of Messianism and his attitude toward avant-garde literature. Let me start with a series of remarks about the specific culture of Hasidic celebration and some of its social and, especially, narrative institutions.6 Schulz, the Pragmatics of Storytelling, and Hasidism Hasidism originated in the Eastern provinces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (the kresy) around the middle of the eighteenth century; it can be defined as a movement of practical, popular piety opposing the dogmas of the learned elites in the name of individual religious experience and personal communion with God (devekut). After the crises and the wars of the seventeenth century (the era of the “Deluge”), this movement captures, transforms, and pacifies the growing messianic expectations; against the apocalyptic mood of the times, it celebrates the sanctity of everyday life. One of the decisive themes of the Hasidic movement – passionately combated by the Gaon of Vilna, the formal authority of rabbinic Judaism in Eastern 5

Four of these are reproduced in Sownik schulzowski (Bolecki, Jarz bski and Rosiek 2006: 213, 293, 322): ‘Chasydzi przy studni’ (‘Hasidim at the Well’; ca. 1930), ‘Chasydzi na miejskim placu’ (‘Hasidim at the Town Square’; before 1933), ‘Chasydzi przy stole biesiadnym’ (‘Hasidim at the Festive Table’; ca. 1933), and ‘Chasydzi na ulicy’ (‘Hasidim on the Street’; before 1934); however, Ficowski’s standard edition of Xiga bawochwalcza (The Idolatrous Book) indicates different titles for the second and the fourth of the drawings: ‘W Jerozolimie’ (‘In Jerusalem’) and ‘ydzi’ (‘Jews’). Cf. Kitowska-ysiak (1994: 120) for an untitled further drawing supposedly representing a Hasidic assembly. 6 For the following paragraphs I draw mainly on Dubnow (1982 [1931-1932]), Haumann (1990: 48-56), Jacobson (1989), Mandel (1963), Scholem (1954: 325-350; 1971: 78-141, 176-227), and Tollet (1992: 129-41, 189-200).


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Europe – is the conviction that the believer does not gain proximity to God by studying the Torah or by observing Talmudic Law, but rather in moments of joy and wordly exaltation; this ecstatic side of Hasidic religious practices admits also dancing and other forms of emotional elevation. On the other side – in a way reminiscent of German Pietism – Hasidic culture advocates a mystical, “inner” worship which stands in opposition to established forms of Church piety. This does not imply a complete rejection of the Rabbinic Law but a weakening of a number of traditional institutions: the Talmudic school (yeshiva), ritual slaughter and, finally, the Synagogue as the hitherto exclusive place of worship. The Hasidic community gathers around the charismatic figure of the Tsaddik (i.e. the righteous man, the just one), who gives not only religious but also practical advice. In many cases the Tsaddik is celebrated for miraculous healings, the force of his amulets, or other magical performances. The most famous Tsaddiks – acting frequently in a sort of dynastic descendancy – are famous for their ways of holding court and of attracting pilgrims from distant regions for the Jewish Holidays. The Tsaddik’s constituency assembles around his table in illuminated spiritual conversation; alcohol, by the way, is not excluded from these pious banquets. Descriptions of Hasidic assemblies – already appearing in legends about the Baal Schem Tow (1700-1760), the “founding father” of the Hasidic movement – relate scenes where worshippers embrace the Torah rolls and lead them onto the dance floor.7 The secularized perception of Hasidic poetry and celebration can be illustrated by a text which Robert Musil published in 1922 after attending a stage presentation of the Vilna theater company, famous for its adaptation of Hasidic themes: [A]us der Umwelt chassidischer Sagen, einer phantastischen Welt, die […] ein Gemisch der aller Mystik gemeinsamen Vorstellungen mit schweren Träumen und einem etwas negerhaften Geisterglauben ist. Aber diese Mischwelt von Religion und Aberglaube ist ein guter Boden für schauspielerische Leistungen, welche den Geist traumhaft entführen. Es singt und psalmodiert leise und unaufhörlich in alten Riten zwischen den

7

Cf. the story ‘The Master joins in the dance’, which is retold in Martin Buber’s The Tales of the Hasidim (1949: 134). A more recent literary portrait of Hasidic everyday life is to be found in Julian Stryjkowski’s novel Austeria (1966); on the position of the Tsaddik, cf. also Mandel (1963: 166-183).

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Alfred Sproede Kulissen dieser Spiele, hebt sich zu vollem Gesang und versinkt wieder in die halbe Melodie eines Sprechers, so daß man nie weiß, wo die Wirklichkeit aufhört, der Traum, vielleicht auch nur ein fremdes Gebet beginnt, oder schon wieder die gewöhnliche Wirklichkeit weiterläuft: es ist in dieser Kunst ein fortwährendes Passieren nach zwei Richtungen, zwischen Profanem und Religiösem, so wie es auch in den Menschen ist, die sie schildert als Menschen, die in ihrem wohlgefälligen Händlerdasein nicht intimer zuhause sind als in einem übergeordneten Geistesdasein, das sie ebenso sehr zu fürchten, wie zu lieben scheinen. Die Truppe besitzt […] einen Sprecher […] Vielleicht sollte ich ihn einen Sänger nennen, denn die Grundlage seiner Klanggebilde ist zweifellos eine Tempelliturgie, aber so wie rhythmische Prosa nicht bloß ein Vers minus irgend etwas ist, sondern ein selbständiges Kunstgebilde, ist sein Sprachgesang ein wundersames, aus ihm aufsteigendes, sich in der Einsamkeit wiegendes Gewächs, das in der weiten Welt nirgends sein Vorkommen hat als in ihm. [D]ieser Schauspieler […] läßt langsam seine Worte steigen, sich verschlingen und wieder in ein Häuflein Stille zusammensinken. [M]an wird von einem aufregenden Verlangen erfaßt, diesen Wortarchitekten von Klangmärchenschlössern sich an anderen Aufgaben erproben zu sehn […] (1922: passim)

For a reader of Schulz’s tales, this description of the Hasidic “passage between the profane and the religious” may render a familiar echo: “the performance of actors who takes our mind to distant places”, the “psalmodizing”, which “heaves itself up to full song before descending into the half-litany melody of a speaker, so that you never know where reality ends and where begins a dream or only the prayer of another person”. Musil comments on the term “litany” (Sprachgesang) by evoking “a lonely vegetation swaying its branches, which actually occurs nowhere in the world” and the “verbal architects of sonorous fairy castles”. This is the atmosphere in which Schulz’s incantations and cantilenas seem to have their origin. Remember the opening lines of ‘Cinnamon Shops’, the hymn in praise of autumn and the discourse on Adela, who “on those luminous mornings […] returned from the market, like Pomona emerging from the flames of day, spilling from her basket the colorful beauty of the sun” (Schulz 1977: 25;8 “Adela wracaa w wietliste poranki, jak Pomona z ognia dnia roz agwionego, wysypuj c z koszyka barwn urod soca”; Op 3). If we had to designate a characteristic feature of Schulz’s prose – besides the “winks” (“migi”; Op 65; “mrugni cie”; Op 15; “wymowne spojrzenie”; Op 37; “ciche znaki porozumiewaw 8

All further references will be given as SC.


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cze”; Op 97) and other gestures of a narrator eager to find accomplices in his audience – we would inevitably have to think of the high-strung tone of excitement, of the eulogy of the visible world. How much “enthusiasm” the narrator shows when first seeing a newly born little dog, that “scrap of life” called Nemrod (SC 73; Op 46, 50); how much “rapture” takes possession of his mind in the face of a magnificent sky (SC 86; Op 58) or of an impressive winter landscape by night (SC 96; Op 68); how much “ecstasy” throbs in the heart of the “age of genius” (‘Genialna epoka’) or in the “republic of dreams” (‘Republika marze’)! Under the sky illuminated by a comet (‘Kometa’/‘The Comet’), the high-pitched spirit of the juvenile, later of the adult, narrator joins the emotion of the whole city: Co odwi tnego wlao si w nasze ycie, jaki entuzjazm i arliwo, jaka wa no i solenno wesza w nasze ruchy, rozszerzya nasze piersi kosmicznym westchnieniem. Glob ziemski wrza nocami od uroczystej wrzawy, od solidarnej ekstazy tysi cy. (Op 348) (Something festive had entered our lives, an eager enthusiasm. An importance permeated our gestures and swelled our chests with cosmic sighs. The earthly globe seethed at night with a solemn uproar from the unanimous ecstasy of thousands; SC 154)

At any time, Schulz’s stories suddenly flare up into an inspired mood, which has a tangible origin in reality but almost regularly takes some supernatural, fantastic, or magic turn: “On such a night, unique in the year, one has happy thoughts and inspirations, one feels touched by the divine finger of poetry” (SC 97; “W tak noc, jedyn w roku, przychodz szcz liwe myli, natchnienia, wieszcze tkni cia palca bo ego”; Op 69). As in the case of Hasidic practices, Schulz rejects the separation of a sphere of holiness from the profane world and its humble everyday routine; his poetic-religious elevation starts from the scraps of tabloid newspapers, from modern musical kitsch (‘Ksi ga’/‘The Book’), or from looking at a stamp album. Whenever the divine spirit steps down into this world, the narrator breaks out into transports of joy, which vibrate like fervent prayer: “Oh, that shedding of the film, oh, that invasion of brightness, that blissful spring, oh, Father…” the narrator cries out, his eyes “turned toward a virgin dawn of divine colors, toward a miraculous moistness of purest azure” (San 1; “wzrok schodzi, mdlej c, w dziewiczy wit bo ych kolorów, w cudown mokro najczystszych lazurów. O, to

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przetarcie si bielma, o, ta inwazja blasku, o boga wiosno, o ojcze…”; Op 106). At times, Schulz seems to emulate Nikolai Gogol’s descriptions of Ukrainian nights and their starry skies: “Oh, you skies of these days, full of luminous signs and meteors […]! O starry arena of the night […]!” (SC 155; “O, niebiosa tych dni, cae w sygnaach wietlnych i meteorach […]! O, gwiezdna areno nocy […]!”; Op 349). But then, the reading of an illustrated book, nay, of newspaper scraps, can have the same overwhelming effect: O, te rysunki wietliste […], o, te przejrzyste kolory i cienie! […] O, te b kity mro ce oddech […], o, te zielenie zielesze od zdziwienia, o, te preludia i wiegoty kolorów dopiero przeczutych, dopiero próbuj cych si

nazwa! (Op 123) (Oh, those luminous drawings […]! Oh, those transparent colours and shadows. […] Oh, those blues that stop your breath […]. Oh, those greens greener than wonder. Oh, those preludes of anticipated colors waiting to be given a name!; San 16)

For the young reader taken by enthusiasm, the printed fragments found in his parents’ cupboard are a token of God’s creation at large. Admiration passes into prayer: Co za olniewaj cy relatywizm, co za czyn kopernikaski, co za pynno wszystkich kategorii i poj ! Wi c tyle dae sposobów istnienia, o Bo e, wi c taki Twój wiat jest nieprzeliczony! Jest to wi cej ni w najmielszych marzeniach roiem. (Op 144) (What a dazzling relativism, what a Copernican deed, what a flux of all categories and concepts! Oh God, so there were uncounted varieties of existence, so your world was indeed vast and infinite! This was more than I had ever imagined in my boldest dreams; SC 33)

However, Schulz is indebted to the Hasidic tradition not only for his tone of enthusiasm and the illuminated gestures celebrating God’s ubiquity. His familiarity with Hasidism reaches well beyond a broad perception of piety and of its expressive manifestations. Schulz has recourse to Hasidic traditions for giving shape and consistency to his narrator’s role, in other words, in adapting specific narrative and rhetorical conventions. The first interesting instance here


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is the role of the schadkhn, the Jewish wedding jester (cf. Meier Ydit 1983: 70). This hilarious little man who is in charge of matchmaking presents himself as the eternal loser, good-for-nothing except for the role of a go-between. In order to enliven parties, he must – quite like the showman of a carnival booth – deliver big talk and heap exaggerated praise on presumptive candidates. After the shadkhen has accomplished his mission, another entertainer gets on the stage: accompanied by klezmer music, an actor called badkhn presents funny tricks and all kinds of “linguistic fireworks” (Roskies 1995: 298 and passim). The usual form of this merry-making is a sort of laughing ballad or an exalted poem, in which the bride, the bridegroom, and their families are humorously praised for their real and imaginary qualities and merits (Meier Ydit 1983: 72). Thus, Hasidic wedding customs and the culture of the shtetl offer strongly conventionalized institutions and practices of fibbing or yarning – forms of storytelling with alleviated truth conditions (cf. Polish blaga, bajanie; German Flunkern). The utterances making up these stories may be termed quasi-illocutionary acts.9 The stories, poems, and anecdotes are meant neither to cheat nor to effect any change in the ongoing communication; they are simply intended as a pastime. There are other occasions where these practices are welcome; besides the cases already mentioned, we may think of the night before the Sabbath, when believers use to keep their children awake by games, little poems, jokes, and tales. In Schulz’s biography we find an amusing trace of those scenes; according to his pupils, when overwhelmed by boisterous classes, Schulz, in order to calm their spirits, now and then told fantastic stories on improvised themes (Schulz 1984: 53, 70). Storytelling in all times used to be play, pastime and advice. In the context of Schulz’s school teaching, it assumes an unexpected practical and pedagogical function: not only as a civilizing tool but also as a gesture of charm and conjuration. Before addressing further formal and thematic borrowings that make Schulz resemble a Hasidic storyteller, I will briefly restate his interest in Hasidic narrative performance. Schulz tries to “re-enact” modes of narration in which melancholy, inebriated enthusiasm, and 9

Cf. Sproede (1999: 144-146) for the issue of “quasi-illocutionary acts” in Schulz’s prose and of the writer’s possible familiarity with theories developed in the Lwów philosophical circles.

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humour come together. Where the Hasidic tales do not yet offer a note of cunning and dialectics, Schulz makes them deviate from their edifying use by different strategies of fibbing and mystification. In his story ‘Spring’, Schulz explicitly deals with this type of narrative, commenting on “lying”, “willful mystification” (“blaga, umylna mistyfikacja”) and “masquerade” (San 52; “maskarada”; Op 172). Let us now pass on to the legendary and mythological material that Schulz seizes upon for his stories, mainly borrowings from Hasidic lore and from tales about miraculous rabbis and metempsychosis. Elements of Hasidic Lore: Thaumaturgy and Redemption Through Sin First and foremost, Schulz is interested in thaumaturgy, specifically the legends about miraculous rabbis. Adapting these stories and ironically leading their plots astray is one and the same operation. The behaviour of the narrator’s father is a case in point. Disappointed by the failure of his bird breeding experiences, Jacob seizes upon the Golem plot in two contradictory ways: on the one hand, he assumes the role of an heresiarch in order to breathe a soul into the tailors’ dummies (‘Tailors’ Dummies’); on the other hand, he transforms uncle Edward, one of his human guinea-pigs, into an electric device, for, as he says, czowiek by oscyluj c strzak , czonkiem tkackiego warsztatu, strzelaj cym to tu, to tam wedle jej woli. […] Czowiek wedug tej teorii by tylko stacj przejciow , chwilowym w zem mesmerycznych pr dów, pl cz cych si tam i sam w onie wiecznej materii. (Op 341) (man was nothing more than an oscillating arrow, the shuttle of loom, darting here or there according to Nature’s will. […] According to his theory, man was only a transit station, a temporary junction of mesmeric currents, wandering hither and thither within the lap of eternal matter; SC 146)

Hasidic piety knows a second narrative convention, which Schulz could draw on: a type of animal story, based on mythological conceptions of metempsychosis (Hebr. gilgul). Before the particles of the divine light are redeemed from their dispersion in this world – that is, until the Messiah comes to perform the act of “universal


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restitution” (Hebr. tikkun) – the divine sparks are wandering from one body to another in order to expiate their errors and sins. After physical death, but also during man’s sleep, the soul sets out for an uncertain peregrination, which is in the image of the elected people’s exile. The soul returns into man when the offences are atoned for; until that time it dwells in plants, stones, and animals. In order to reach the tikkun, the soul must pass through the hierarchy of living beings. Fuelled by kabbalistic speculation, these motifs inspire a rich popular tradition of tales on revenants and fantastic animals (cf. Grözinger 1987: 93-112; Grözinger 1994: 101-126, esp. 101-103; Scholem 1971: 46-48, elaborated in Scholem 1992: 97-102; Scholem 1954: 280-284). This field of literary genres seems to offer a more plausible explanation of Schulz’s animal motifs than the speculation about a possible influence of Franz Kafka. The Hasidic tales about damned souls or souls incarnated in animals (dybuk) are probably one of the common sources for both authors.10 “At that time, my father was definitely dead. He had been dying a number of times, always with some reservations that forced us to revise our attitude” (San 174; “W tym czasie ojciec mój umar by ju definitywnie. Umiera wielokrotnie, zawsze jeszcze nie doszcz tnie, zawsze z pewnymi zastrze eniami, które zmuszay do rewizji tego faktu; Op 313) – this passage points clearly toward the empire of revenants and chastised souls. Whether the narrator’s father is transformed into a crab, as in ‘Ostatnia ucieczka ojca’ (‘Father’s Last Escape’), into a bird (‘Nawiedzenie’/‘Visitation’; ‘Ptaki’/‘Birds’), or into a huge fly (‘Martwy sezon’/‘Dead Season’), the metamorphosis always pertains to the canonic motifs of the gilgul, God’s anger and punishment – be it in grotesque substitutes as in ‘Visitation’, where the narrator sees “the face of Jehovah, swollen with anger and spitting out curses” (SC 40; “twarz Jehowy, wzd ta gniewem i pluj ca przeklestwa”; Op 16).11 Even the story ‘Nimrod’, which does not at first sight invite “mystical” readings, is unmistakably based on the kabbalistic motif of the dispersion of the divine sparks (cf. Scholem 1971: 45-48). The

10 Chajim Bloch’s 1925 collection Kabbalistische Sagen contains two exemplary tales: ‘The Dybuk’ and ‘The Wandering Soul’ (‘Die Seelenwanderung’). 11 The horse which is talking to the narrator of ‘Cinnamon Shops’ (SC 96-97; Op 68) may have been inspired by one of the presumptive legends about the Baal Shem Tov; cf. ‘The little horse’s death’ commented on in Mandel: 134-136.

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story carries this theme to a point where the metaphors of the “breaking of the vessels” (schevirat ha-kelim), of the dispersion of the divine light and of the exile of the souls are connected into a kind of litany with multiple variations.12 The young dog is an “example of the riddle of life”, a “manifestation of the eternity of life”: it promises “to reveal the human being to man itself” (SC 73; “Byo to nad wyraz interesuj ce, mie na wasno tak odrobink ycia, tak cz steczk

wieczystej tajemnicy, w postaci… budz cej… respekt sekretny sw obcoci , niespodzian transpozycj tego samego w tku ycia, który i w nas by…; Op 46). Schulz implies the idea of a line of anterior existences and the image of souls wandering in exile when he describes the dog’s “irrational fits of melancholia”: the dog “would dip into the fount of his memory, the deep-seated memory of the body, would search blindly […] the wisdom of generations, deposited in his plasma, in his nerves.” (SC 74; “daje nura w swoj pami , w g bok pami ciaa, i szuka omackiem […] m dro pokole, zo on w jego plazmie, w jego nerwach”; Op 48). Thus, the context of Hasidism permits us to decipher some of the premises of Schulz’s poetical metamorphoses. When metamorphosis is dreamt of or effected by the “demiurgic” operations of the father, it is rooted in the legends about miraculous Rabbis; when metamorphosis is suffered, as in the stories about human souls banned into an animal’s body, the motif comes from the Jewish tales about gilgul, or metempsychosis. From the atmosphere of piety and celebration, from institutions of storytelling and thaumaturgic motifs Schulz could find in Hasidic tradition, I will now pass on to a more disturbing aspect of Hasidism – the temptation of radical mysticism and antinomism. 12

Cf. Panas (1997) for a discussion of this motif. Unfortunately, the interpretations, even when not “postponed to later chapters” (121, 159, 161, 186, 188), rarely go beyond promises and sketches of future projects of reading – as in the case of the speculations about the lost manuscript of the novel Mesjasz (Messiah) (195). According to Panas, Schulz’s narrative project is “part and parcel of a messianic process”; “Messianism (is) the basic strategy of his artistic practices” (221, 214). This central claim of the book, featured with an amazing grandiloquence, is largely untenable. It ignores Schulz’s paradoxical “aestheticism” and his playful transformation of the pragmatics of storytelling; more specifically, it does not grasp the ironic “neutralization of Messianism”, which Schulz practices throughout his narrative work (cf. the last section of my article).


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Schulz does not eschew the dark side of Hasidism. On the contrary, he makes it an essential reference for the figure of the paternal “Heresiarch”, his contact with the world of the “impure”, and the images of sexuality, which are so pervasively present in the narrative as well as in the graphic work. Artur Sandauer has suggested reading Schulz’s presumed “masochism” as a reaction to social distress, which therefore reaches beyond an openly confessed perversion (Sandauer 1981 [1956]: 561-576).13 Other investigations consider the “spectacular ‘enactment’ of a psychological theme” and the “aggressive demonstration of masochistic behaviour” as part of a consciously constructed mythopoetics meant to “reflect deviant models of the world” (Lachmann 1992: 441 ff). Schulz’s “models of the world”, although deployed in a mythopoetic or fantastic dimension, have a historically tangible “address”. They hark back to Hasidism and to the antinomic movements, which precede and prepare Hasidism and continue their existence under its protection. Numerous themes decisive for Schulz can be traced back to the mystical doctrine of “redemption through sin” (for the following argument cf. Scholem 1971: 78-141). This doctrine makes its first Eastern European appearance among the radical disciples of Sabbatai Zwi (1626-1676) and his “prophet” Nathan of Gaza (1644-1680). Rooted in seventeenth-century heretical versions of Lurianic kabbalism, it starts with speculations on the idea of universal restitution (tikkun), thought of as a reunion of the particles of the divine light dispersed in the material world (cf. Scholem 1954: 311-313, 265-268). When the Messiah does not manage to collect the dispersed sparks, which are supposed to unite into God’s supreme luminosity (shekhina), he must descend into the places of the impure and break the vessels of evil (kelipoth) from the interior. Heiko Haumann’s History of the Eastern Jews has a description of this radicalized tikkun: The Messiah takes unending pains to restitute harmony on earth. He cedes to the evil forces in order to overcome them from the interior. Becoming himself “impure”, he can purify the impure. For this reason he is not under the reign of the Tora, and he is permitted recourse to forbidden deeds. Even apostasy, the sacrifice of his faith, can be part of the process of redemption. (Haumann 1990: 48-49; see also Scholem 1954: 287-324)

13

The recent book-length study by Janis Augsburger (2008) basically elaborates on Sandauer’s view.

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These ideas, which initially were supposed to justify the apostasy of Sabbatai Zwi (his conversion to Islam), later gained a huge resonance in Podolia and Eastern Galicia. Sabbataism imposed itself in the long run as a movement with far-reaching consequences ruinous for rabbinic Judaism. The mystical “sanctification of profane life and the concomitant ‘profanation’ of sacredness” (Mandel 1963: 48-49) had been a positive motif for the Jews in exile. It now turned into an aggressive “profanation of holiness”. In practice, this meant contempt of the rabbinic law and a subversion of the traditional cult in the name of bizarre and, on occasion, provocatively debased ritual practices. Haumann comments: In a certain sense the sabbataist movement degenerated into a “religious myth of nihilism”. Sustained by Nathan’s teaching, this process led especially to conceptions of the “holiness of sin”. He who sins is a good and righteous man in God’s eyes, for impurity attracts the spirit of holiness. Or even, in a more extremist version: Sabbatai Zwi is thought to have abolished evil, henceforth everything is pure, nothing can be abject any more. (Haumann 1990: 49)

These ideas could be easily “accommodated” with the pneumatic interpretations of the persecutions and pogroms since the times of Bohdan Chmelnyc’kyj (cf. Haumann 1990: 38-51; Tollet 1992: 85-93, 129-134); they finally consolidated into a special line of teaching, according to which Jewish self-abasement will provoke the ultimate salvatory catastrophe – the summons to the coming of the Messiah. Both Sabbataism and the Hasidic movement are the fruit of Lurianic speculation and linked to the latter by numerous aspects of continuity in doctrine and audience (cf. Scholem 1954: 330-334; Mandel 1963: 92-96). But they disagree over the attitude to be adopted in the face of an impending apocalypse. The Hasidic believers “de-escalate” the crisis by transposing the drama of redemption into the believer’s soul. The experience of the divine shall be attained through practices of individual piety (devekut) exempt of all apocalyptic tension. Sabbataism, on the contrary, concentrates on the doctrine of collective redemption and fosters messianic expectations. This tendency increases massively following the appearance of Jakub Lejbovic Frank (1726-1791), who, from 1755 on, claimed to be “God’s messenger” and gained a broad audience and numerous followers between Kamienec Podolski and Lwów (Tollet 1992: 132-


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35). Like the Hasidim, Frank’s followers practice enthusiastic prayer, but their intoxication has a new significance: in their conventicles, religious elevation systematically passes over into sexual excitement. He who “crosses the gates of indecency” will be admitted to the “house of holiness” – this is the “justification of a life in sin”, according to Frank’s “Words of Our Lord” (“Sowa Paskie”). The orgiastic celebrations of the Frankists, marked by well-planned, organized scenes of promiscuity under the direction of the “Master”, imply a complete degradation of the human personality – and intentionally so, for “he who has sunk to the uttermost depths is the more likely to see the light” (Scholem 1954: 318).14 Let us return to Bruno Schulz. My hypothesis concerning links between Schulz and specific currents of mystic-heretical Judaism is relevant only to his literary affiliations and has no biographical dimension whatsoever. We can hardly imagine our author as a witness to (and much less as a participant of) forbidden parties. True, one of Schulz’s correspondents, Ella Schulz-Podstolska, remembers the author mentioning a visit he paid to a Tsaddik in order to ask for a family horoscope (Schulz 1984: 60). But Schulz’s personal contact with Hasidic culture, even if this visit may indicate a propensity to superstition, is above all the sign of a fundamentally “bookish life” – or, as French poets have it, “fait pour finir dans un livre”. The decline of Hasidic culture, though, makes Schulz’s effort of bookish conservation worthwhile: the storyteller conserves and saves this culture through a chronicle of legendary sinners, false pretenders, and perverse Messiahs preaching redemption in the middle of sexual temptations, and he tells stories about apostasy, humiliation, and ordeal.15 In his story entitled ‘Spring’, Schulz introduces us to this field of motifs. In the course of a revolt against Kaiser Franz Joseph, against his anointed office, and against a state that has degenerated 14

Even Jan Doktór’s 1991 study on Frank, couched in a sociological language cautiously marked off against all moralizing, cannot entirely keep the reader from a reflex of disgust – over Frank’s anti-rabbinic politics, disguised under an opportunistic quasi-Catholicism prepared to betray and to side with police informers at any time (Tollet 1992: 133-135; Doktór 1991: 55-57), over the sexual excesses planned in detail and staged in Frank’s Cz stochowa jail, over his cynical manipulation of the followers and of their family ties, and over the phallic-religious mania flaring up now and then in his autobiographical fragments (see Doktór 1991: 87-90, 91-108). 15 The issue of “dégradation-épreuve“ is discussed in Mandel 1963: 105.

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into a vulgar “Empire of prose”, God Himself takes sides with the insurgents who want to bring about a mystical apocalypse; the narrator praises Godfather, who rejects his own vicar on earth: O Bo e, […], wtedy powstae w szumi cym paszczu mórz i kontynentów i kam mu [Franciszkowi Józefowi] zadae. Ty, Bo e, wzi e wtedy na siebie odium herezji i wybuchn e na wiat tym ogromnym kolorowym i wspaniaym bluz´nierstwem. O herezjarcho wspaniay! (Op 145) (Oh God […] You rose wearing a flowing cloak of seas and continents and gave him [Franz Joseph] the lie. You, God, took upon Yourself the odium of heresy and revealed this enormous, magnificent, colorful blasphemy to the world. Oh splendid Heresiarch!; San 34)

The three stories framing ‘Traktat o manekinach’ (‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’) now and again cross the borderline between mystical heresy as a purely speculative idea on the one side and a much more physical form of deviance (“the Odium”) on the other side; the theurgic rapture of the Father regularly borders on states of sexual excitement (SC 56, 63-65; Op 31, 36-40). The temptations to which the founder of the new religion submits voluntarily turn frequently into self-humiliation and ordeal. Other stories delving into the world of the impure and the “evil propensities” draw on Hasidic legends of a more innocuous kind, most of which are based on conventional plots suited for edifying purposes. Thus, the tales about the shadow business near the Cinnamon Shops and on the Street of Crocodiles are probably inspired by a legend about the Baal Shem Tov entitled ‘A Desecration of the Sabbat’ (Bloch 1990: 24-26, 51-53). In this legend the famous Tsaddik leaves the assembly of his believers, requests a horse carriage and, while the night of the Sabbat is in full swing, drives to the street of depravity. When the pupils of the Besht find out that their master has disappeared in a brothel (the place of the demoniac Lilith), the Besht already steps out of the infamous place: he just saved a young woman who had fled from her parents to work as a prostitute. Now, it goes without saying that Schulz would not have needed Hasidic stories or kabbalistic myths about Lilith in order to refurbish the ambiguous atmosphere of his tales; the field had been too well prepared by the steamy prose of Leopold von SacherMasoch, Stanisaw Przybyszewski, and the like. In fact, the productions of the era of literary Decadence – including Slavic


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literatures – are crowded with demonic femmes fatales prefiguring tyrannical Magda Wang (San 9; Op 114), the humiliations invented by a capricious Bianca (San 71; Op 198), or the cold young ladies we encounter in ‘Tailors’ Dummies’ and ‘Sanatorium pod klepsydr ’ (‘Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass’; San 127; Op 265). Schulz, however, makes an important difference because he is constantly eager to draw on metaphysical or speculative guaranties when entering the terrain of eroticism. Think of the story ‘The Age of Genius’, where the theft of Adela’s fetishized high heels is followed by a circumstantial quasi-theological commentary (San 23; Op 132133). There is a word for this blend of soaring rhetoric and the stirring-up of impure impulses: charlatanism. Schulz’s narrator is fascinated by all forms of this communicative behavior as a way of obscuring or even extinguishing the meaning of the words. Yet Schulz’s holy sinners and messianic prophets are not just charlatans or sophists. They are also a surface of projection on which Schulz celebrates his creative individuality and defines himself in contrast to rival literary movements and authors. Whereas in his images of erotic-religious deviancy and of messianic sinners Schulz is indebted to traditions of decadence, Hasidic piety and songs, on the other hand, give him the means to address more recent artistic tendencies, primarily, the problem of literary avant-garde. Art and Time Horizon: Schulz and the Literary Transformation of Messianism The significance of Hasidism for Schulz’s storytelling is not only a matter of narrative devices, readers’ response, and folk-tale motifs. It has to do – and very fundamentally so – with the way Schulz conceived the relationship between Art and (historical) Time. A last function of Hasidic tradition for his work can be defined in the following terms: Schulz adopts Hasidism from the perspective of a neutralization of the messianic idea and a humoristic deconstruction of avant-garde literature. Hasidism as such, as I mentioned earlier, can be considered as a mobilization of personal piety in order to resist apocalyptic over-heating. The “neutralization of the messianic element” is not an explicit doctrine of Judaism (cf. Scholem 1971: 176-202; Scholem 1954: 329-330; Jacobson 1989: 55-63); it rather results surreptitiously from the insistence of the Hasidic believers on a

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perspective of individual salvation; the messianic tension is relaxed not only because it is powerless against the promises and satisfactions of a sanctified everyday life but also because it ignores the sweetness of the mystical communion with God – Hasidic devekut. “As I love God, what is the use of a world to come?” – this is a saying of the Baal Shem Tov, according to a Hasidic legend (Buber 1949: 133-134). Rabbi Mejr of Przemyl has as similar reasoning: “If the Messiah is to come in the calm, then he may come and we will wait for him with longing. But if he wants to come in a storm and bring us suffering and hardship, then he should leave us alone, then we don’t need him and we renounce to his presence!” (in Bloch 1990: 246-248). We have seen that Schulz knows the Hasidic devekut; in the exuberant richness of his world, we can identify the echo of a mystical conception of God’s presence and of the idea of a sanctified everyday life. This conception defies any interpretation affirmatively relating his work to gnosticism. The thesis according to which “Schulz devaluates matter in a gnostic way” (Jocz 1996: 169 and passim) fundamentally misrepresents the writer’s fascination for everything living. Renate Lachmann has pointed out that Schulz makes matter “the object of an incredible glorification” and that he “hyperbolically reverts the supposed negativity of matter” while presenting “an ephemeral reality which apes and, at the same time, overcomes the Gnostic myth” (Lachmann 1992: 450-451). This thesis is also concerned with Schulz’s attitude toward the avant-garde as the promise of liberation or secular redemption. Schulz mimics the gestures of heresy and revolt, he pictures a world exposed to messianic consequences. But the imaginary impulse which is at work in his stories is not heading for a “world to come”. Artur Sandauer has pointed out that Schulz, born in 1892, was “a contemporary of the dynamic and futurist generation, who entered the scene and presented their work after the First World War”. But, as Sandauer continues, “provincial life, conserving, as is well-known, not only tailor’s fashions, but artistic forms as well […], made his work look outdated in a peculiar way” (1981 [1957]: 570). The proximity between the outmoded, old-fashioned elements in Schulz’s work and his “futurism” can be illustrated by many stories. In the collection of tales Cinnamon Shops and in two of his stories not included in his narrative cycles (‘The Republic of Dreams’, ‘The Comet’), the author operates with almost all conceptions and slogans circulating among


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intellectuals and artists between Jugendstil and the beginning totalitarian movements. His style navigates between labels and programmatic attractions like decadence and Young Poland; art nouveau and fashion; progress, the cult of the machine, and avantgarde. As Schulz shows in his stories, modern times have brought industrial plants and capital to his region, transforming the town into a “wild Klondike” (SC 101; Op 72). The “serious” traders and shopkeepers like Jacob, who are wont to surround their clients with an anachronistic ceremony of advice and negotiation are confronted with an invasion of pseudo-Americanism, of a culturally indifferent flow of accelerated merchandizing traffic, and the trashy rhetoric of newspaper advertisement. The “serious habits” and the “severity” of the traditional traders and townspeople slowly resign in the face of a world of “ephemeral commercial phenomena” exuded by the Street of Crocodiles and by dubious suburbs (‘The Republic of Dreams’).16 Against this background swarming with “phantoms” (ibid.), the upsurge of new youth movements gains a particular significance – as if the world of trash and commercial intrigue called for a compensation in dreaming and generosity, in the grand departure for the “republic of dreams” or in the putsch of the palace guard launched in the story ‘Spring’. Schulz was certainly conscious of the fact that the myth of a “rejuvenated world” (cf. the Soviet slogan “kommunizm – molodost’ mira”) was, since the 1920s, ferociously disputed between left- and right-wing movements. However unequivocal we may judge Schulz’s attempt to install Pisudski in the heart of this myth and to make it a basis for charismatic politics – cf. his article ‘Powstaj legendy’ (‘The Formation of Legends’, 1935) – his stories do not leave the slightest doubt as to the ambivalence of this myth: W tych dniach dalekich powzi limy po raz pierwszy z kolegami ow myl […], a eby pow drowa jeszcze dalej, poza zdrojowisko, w kraj ju niczyj i bo y, w pogranicze sporne i neutralne, gdzie gubiy si rubie e pastw, a ró a wiatrów wirowaa b dnie pod niebem wysokim i spi trzonym. Tam chcielimy si oszacowa, uniezale ni od dorosych, wyj zupenie poza obr b ich sfery, proklamowa republik modych. Tu mielimy ukonstytuowa prawodawstwo nowe i niezale ne, wznie now hierarchi miar i wartoci. Miao to by ycie pod znakiem poezji i

16

I cannot discuss here Schulz’s closeness to Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetic critique of the modern commercial object and his concomitant protest against the vanishing of ornament, authenticity, and aura.

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Alfred Sproede przygody, nieustannych olnie i zadziwie. Zdawao si nam, e trzeba tylko rozsun bariery i granice konwenansów, stare o yska, w które uj ty by bieg spraw ludzkich, a eby w ycie nasze wama si ywio, wielki zalew nieprzewidzianego, powód romantycznych przygód i fabu. (Op 329) (In those far-off days our gang of boys first hit on the […] notion of straying even farther, beyond that inn, into no-man’s- or God’s-land, of patrolling borders both neutral and disputed, where boundary lines petered out and the compass rose of the winds skittered erratically under a higharching sky. There we meant to dig in, raise ramparts around us, make ourselves independent of the grown-ups, pass completely out of the realm of their authority, proclaim the Republic of the Young. Here we would form a new and autonomous legislature, erect a new hierarchy of standards and values. It was to be a life under the aegis of poetry and adventure, never-ending signs and portents. All we needed to do, or so it seemed to us, was push apart the barriers and limits of convention, the old markers imprisoning the course of human affairs, for our lives to be invaded by an elemental power, a great inundation of the unforeseen, a flood of romantic adventures and fabulous happenings; Schulz 2008: 318319)

Schulz masters also the detail of avant-garde rhetoric and poetics (for a retrospective synthesis cf. Poggioli 1994). He evokes “meteors” (“meteory”) when talking of books which are aflame with daring messages and which expose their epoch to the sudden light of novelty before shedding their “extinct pages” (“wystyge stronice”) to ashes (San 10; Op 115-116). He clearly alludes to the formulas of futurist manifestoes, such as the statements authored by Velimir Khlebnikov. There is, however, a decisive nuance; in contrast to the texts of the Russian budetlyanin, the racing meteor in Schulz’s picture is not associated with the efficiency of “poetic action” but with “common old books” and with children’s literature as an object of adult nostalgia. Thus, the axiology of Khlebnikov’s metaphor is reversed to its contrary. This witty iconoclasm is symptomatic of Schulz’s general attitude toward the avant-garde movement. In the opening lines of the story ‘The Comet’, the spectacular beginning of a grand future is ironically compared to the straw-fire of a purely imaginary apocalypse: “The predictions in the calendar flourished in red in the snowy margins of the morning.” (SC 139; “Kolorowe wró by kalendarza zakwitay czerwono w niegu na rubie y poranków.”; Op 333). Elsewhere, Schulz comments on the tailors’ dummies made of


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inferior materials and the second-rate homunculi that have become the favorite pastime of the narrator’s father: Nie zale y nam […] na tworach o dugim oddechu, na istotach na dalek met . Nasze kreatury nie b d bohaterami romansów w wielu tomach. Ich role b d krótkie, lapidarne, ich charaktery – bez dalszych planów. Cz sto dla jednego gestu, dla jednego sowa podejmiemy si trudu powoania ich do ycia na t jedn chwil . […] [T]wory nasze b d jak gdyby prowizoryczne, na jeden raz zrobione. (Op 35) (We are not concerned […] with long-winded creations, with long-term beings. Our creatures will not be heroes of romances in many volumes. Their roles will be short, concise; their characters – without a background. Sometimes, for one gesture, for one word alone, we shall make the effort to bring them to life. […] [O]ur creations will be temporary, to serve for a single occasion; SC 61)

These sentences aim at the pretended torrents of innovation and the ritual of challenging and knocking out rival artistic movements, which had been installed as first-rate cultural events for new literary and artistic audiences. “We shall have this proud slogan as our aim: a different actor for every gesture. For each action, each word, we shall call to life a different human being. Such is our whim, and the world will be run according to our pleasure” (SC 61; “Nasz ambicj pokada b dziemy w tej dumnej dewizie: dla ka dego gestu inny aktor. Do obsugi ka dego sowa, ka dego czynu, powoamy do ycia osobnego czowieka. Taki jest nasz smak, to b dzie wiat wedug naszego gustu”; Op 35) – these are malicious clins d’œil aiming in the same direction. The story ‘The Comet’ addresses once more the futuristic theories of absolute novelty and with a good portion of humour brings down to earth the creations and dreams which the avant-garde movement linked to these theories: Epoka staa pod znakiem mechaniki i elektrycznoci, i cay rój wynalazków wysypa si na wiat spod skrzyde geniuszu ludzkiego […] Filozoficzny pogl d na wiat obowi zywa. Kto przyznawa si do idei post pu, wyci ga konsekwencje i dosiada welocypedu. Pierwsi byli naturalnie koncypienci adwokaccy, ta awangarda nowych idei, z podkr conymi w skami […], nadzieja i kwiat naszej modzie y. (Op 336338) (It was the age of electricity and mechanics and a whole swarm of inventions was showered on the world by the resourcefulness of human genius […] An outlook based on philosophy became obligatory. Whoever

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Alfred Sproede admitted to a belief in progress had to draw the logical conclusion and ride a velocipede. The first to do so were of course the lawyers’ apprentices, that vanguard of new ideas, with their waxed moustaches […], the hope and flower of youth; SC 142)

Schulz arms his “progressive folks” with irrefutable theories (and with bicycles), but, after all, these people are simply stepping out of the over-coat of Monsieur Homais, the obtusely modern-minded hero in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1857); and the Grand Final Day they dream of is in the image and likeness of its petty-bourgeois, if not philistine origins. One day, the narrator’s brother returns from school with “the incredible but veracious news, that the world’s end is drawing close” (SC 153; “brat mój, wróciwszy ze szkoy, przyniós nieprawdopodobn a jednak prawdziw wiadomo o bliskim kocu wiata”; Op 346-347). After a first shock the enlightened townspeople begin to take the message with serenity, as the event is supposed to produce itself “without a period or exclamation mark, without a last judgment or God’s Wrath – in an atmosphere of friendly understanding, loyally, by mutual agreement” (SC 153; “bez kropki i wykrzyknika, bez s du i gniewu bo ego – niejako w najlepszej komitywie, lojalnie, podug obopólnej umowy”; Op 346-347): Nie, nie by to eschatologiczny, od dawna przez proroków przepowiedziany, tragiczny fina i akt ostatni komedii boskiej. Nie, by to raczej bicyklowo-cyrkowy, hopla-prestidigitatorski, wspaniale hokuspokusowy i pouczaj co-eksperymentalny koniec wiata – wród aplauzu wszystkich duchów post pu. (Op 347) (No, it was not to be an eschatological, tragic finale as forecast long ago by the prophets, nor the last act of the Divine Comedy. No. It was to be a trick cyclist’s, a prestidigitator’s, end of the world, splendidly hocuspocus and bogus-experimental – accompanied by the plaudits of all the spirits of Progress; SC 153)

Schulz makes the supposedly apocalyptic scenario run aground in purest verbiage. We remember this procedure from the numerous passages in which a suggestion of certain facts is hardly put in place when a whim of the narrator – or of any speaker at hand – hurries to give it the lie (cf. he “would […] try to turn the whole incident into a joke”; SC 50; “stara si ten incydent obróci w art”; Op 25). In ‘The Comet’, the end of the world does not take place because the celestial object supposed to crush down on the town is being “outdistanced by


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the fashion of the season” before withering away and vanishing into the abyss of the universe: “What has become of the end of the world, that splendid finale, after the magnificently developed introduction? Downcast eyes and a smile.” (SC 159; “Jak to, a có stao si z kocem wiata, co z tym wietnym finaem po tak wspaniale rozwini tej introdukcji. Spuszczenie oczu i umiech”; Op 353). Schulz is careful not to flatly ridicule the utopian tension or the messianic hunger of his contemporaries. He instead places the avant-garde in a new light, by transplanting it into the culture of a Jewish shtetl, separated from the big cities by a century’s distance. In this Jewish life-world, futurist action encounters a specific atmosphere of humoristic, anti-dogmatic, sometimes self-ironical, discourse. As a consequence, the bids and proclamations of avantgarde authors are collapsed into a series of fibbing quasi-utterances. The mystical and political speculation characteristic for Judaism – especially the sabbataist and Frankist heresy – shares with avant-garde programs the hope of redemption and the expectation of a Grand future. Schulz for his part cultivates the atmosphere and the narrative tone of Hasidism in order to attain a neutralization of the messianic gesture. Enacting the role of an avant-garde author, he becomes, in fact, an “inefficient sophist”, taking revenge on the spectacular action of modern advertisement. Schulz fakes persuasion, he belies the emphatic enflure of futurist manifestoes; all of his eloquence turns into a discourse subtly defeating itself. I hope I have made clear how this discourse and the corresponding narrative project evolve between avant-garde and Jewish tradition. Schulz knows the poets who thought their calling to be a “martyrdom of the future“, but he also knows the Tsaddikim, the Hasidic righteous men. Venturing theoretical shorthand derived from the genealogy of prose genres, one may say that his narrator stands half-way between Lukács’s modern hero exposed to “transcendental homelessness“ (“transzendentale Obdachlosigkeit”) and the “oldfashioned” character Walter Benjamin so suggestively describes in his ‘Storyteller’ essay. Featuring the tales of Nikolai Leskov, Benjamin conjures up the authority of a character conveying an “auratic” personal experience – “a man who has counsel for his readers” (cf. Benjamin Benjamin 1968: paragraph iv-v, xiii-xv). Schulz reaches out to the tradition of the Hasidic righteous men, but he keeps aloof of edifying conclusions and words of wisdom.

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Righteousness and the prospect of redemption are performed, so to speak, in small cast. Following this reading, we may also keep in mind that several of the texts were written in the course – or on the margins – of a correspondence with a lover, a correspondence which frequently borders on a kind of self-therapy. I compared Schulz’s stories to “conjurations” or “incantations”. This is one more way to stress how far the texts go beyond the domain of belles-lettres and artistic contemplation. By affirming an intention of effectiveness, the creative and communicative practices echo one of the central theses of the avant-garde, namely the programmatic openness of aesthetics toward the sphere of our life-world and toward politics. Schulz’s narrative roaming takes place in an area dominated by a set of specific traditions: his experimental writing is embedded in conventions of everyday life and religious practices which were cultivated by Jewish communities in Poland since the eighteenth century. It is by opening his tales toward this world that Schulz can elevate his inspired and humoristic hymns, soaring into regions where the sense of the words becomes evasive and borders on the ineffable. The “institutional“ frame in which this play with indeterminacy and semantic suspension can be enacted is the life-world of Hasidism. Bibliography Augsburger, Janis. 2008. Masochismen. Mythologisierung als Krisen-Ästhetik bei Bruno Schulz. Hannover: Wehrhahn. Benjamin, Walter. 1968. ‘The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov’ in Sontag, Susan (ed.) Illuminations. New York: Schocken: 83-109. Berger, Klaus. 1987. Einführung in die Formgeschichte. Tübingen: Francke Verlag. Bloch, Chajim. 1925. Kabbalistische Sagen. Leipzig: Verlag der Asia Major. ——. 1990. Chassidische Geschichten. München: Eugen Diederichs Verlag. Bolecki, Wodzimierz, Jerzy Jarz bski and Stanisaw Rosiek (eds). 2006. Sownik schulzowski. Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria. Buber, Martin. 1949. Die Erzählungen der Chassidim. Zürich: Manesse Verlag. Doktór, Jan. 1991. Jakub Frank i jego nauka ne tle kryzysu religijnej tradycji osiemnastowiecznego ydostwa polskiego. Warszawa: Polska Akademia Nauk. Dubnow, Simon. 1982 [1931-1932]. Geschichte des Chassidismus (2 Bde). Königstein/Ts.: Jüdischer Verlag. Goldfarb, David A. 1993. ‘Czytaj c Schulza: “Noc wielkiego sezonu”’ in Kresy 13: 15-21. Grözinger, Karl Erich. 1987. ‘Himmlische Gerichte, Wiedergänger und Zwischenweltliche in der ostjüdischen Erzählung’ in Grözinger, Karl Erich et al (eds). Kafka und das Judentum. Frankfurt a.M.: Jüdischer Verlag/Athenäum: 93112.


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——. 1994. Kafka und die Kabbala. Das Jüdische im Werk und Denken von Franz Kafka. Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. Haumann, Heiko. 1990. Geschichte der Ostjuden. München: dtv. Jacobson, Yoram. 1989. La pensée hassidique (tr. C. Chalier). Paris: Ed. du Cerf. Jocz, Artur. 1996. ‘Bruno Schulz a gnostycyzm’ in Poznaskie Studia Polonistyczne (seria literacka III (xxiii), Innowiercy – odszczepiecy – herezje): 165-72. Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata (ed.) 1994. Bruno Schulz. In memoriam. 1892-1942. Lublin: Wydawnictwo FIS. Lachmann, Renate. 1992. ‘Dezentrierte Bilder. Die ekstatische Imagination in Bruno Schulz' Prosa’ in Psychopoetik. Beiträge zur Tagung München 1991 (Wiener Slawistischer Almanach, Sonderband 31): 439-461. Lewi, Henri. 1989. Bruno Schulz ou les stratégies messianiques. Paris: La Table Ronde. Lindenbaum, Shalom. 1994. ‘Wizja mesjanistyczna Schulza a jej podo e mistyczne’ in Jarz bski, Jerzy (ed.) Czytanie Schulza. Materiay midzynarodowej sesji naukowej „Bruno Schulz – w stulecie urodzin i w pidziesiciolecie mierci”. Uniwersytet Jagielloski 1992 r. Kraków: T.I.C.: 33-67. Mandel, Arnold. 1963. La voie du hassidisme. Paris: Calmann-Lévy. Meier Ydit, Max. 1983. ‘Schadchen, Schul und Schammes. Aus dem osteuropäischen Gemeindeleben’ in Brocke, M. (ed.) Beter und Rebellen. Aus 1000 Jahren Judentum in Polen. Frankfurt a.M.: Deutscher Koordinierungsrat der Gesellschaften für Christlich-Jüdische Zusammenarbeit: 51-78. Musil, Robert. 1922. ‘Die Wilnaer Theatertruppe in Wien (8. Dezember 1922)’ in Kritisches und Theoretisches. Reinbek: Rowohlt: 1955 (Rowohlts Klassiker der Literatur und Wissenschaft/ Deutsche Literatur, Bd. 16): 138-139. Panas, Wadysaw. 1997. Ksiga blasku. Traktat o kabale w prozie Brunona Schulza. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Towarzystwa Naukowego KUL. Poggioli, Renato. 1994. The Theory of the Avant-Garde (tr. G. Fitzgerald). Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press. Roskies, David G. 1995. A Bridge of Longing. The Lost Art of Yiddish Storytelling. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press. Sandauer, Artur. 1981 [1956]. ‘Rzeczywisto zdegradowana. (Rzecz o Brunonie Schulzu’ in Zebrane pisma krytyczne. T. 1. Warszawa: PIW: 557-580. Scholem, Gershom. 1954. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. New York: Schocken Books. ——. 1971. The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality. London: George Allen & Unwin. ——. 1992. Le messianisme juif. Essais sur la spiritualité du judaïsme. Paris: Calmann-Lévy. Schulz, Bruno. 1977. The Street of the Crocodiles (tr. C. Wieniewska). New York/London: Penguin. ——. 1984. Listy, fragmenty. Wspomnienia o pisarzu (ed. J. Ficowski). Kraków/ Wrocaw: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ——. 1987. Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (tr. C. Wieniewska). New York/London: Penguin. ——. 1989. Opowiadania. Wybór esejów i listów (ed. J. Jarz bski). Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossoliskich.

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——. 2008. The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories (tr. C. Wieniewska). New York: Penguin. Speina, Jerzy. 1976. ‘Bruno Schulz wobec psychoanalizy’ in Czaplowa, Kazimiera (ed.) Studia o prozie Brunona Schulza (Prace naukowe Uniwersytetu l skiego w Katowicach 115). Katowice: Uniwersytet l ski: 17-30. Sproede, Alfred. 1999. ‘Expérimentations narratives après la fin de l’Avant-garde. Bruno Schulz, son lecteur et ses “incantations”’ in Konicka, Hanna and Hélène Wodarczyk (eds). “La littérature polonaise du XX siècle. Textes, styles, voix.” Colloque International à l'Université de Paris IV–Sorbonne-Nouvelle. Paris: Institut d’Etudes Slaves: 135-165. Stala, Krzysztof. 1993. On the Margins of Reality: the Paradoxes of Representation in Bruno Schulz’s Fiction. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Tollet, Daniel. 1992. Histoire des Juifs en Pologne du XVIe siècle à nos jours. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Poetical Fluidization and Intellectual Eclecticism in Bruno Schulz’s Writings Janis Augsburger Abstract: This article examines the strategy of poetical fluidization in Bruno Schulz’s fiction and positions it in relation to the intellectual debates of his time. The concepts regarding fluid identity in contemporary ontology prepared the ground for Schulz’s aesthetics of dissolution and transgression. Schopenhauer’s energetic system of metaphysical will is introduced as one of these concepts which is consonant with Schulz’s dialectics of a monistic substance versus a “panmasquerade”. Nonetheless, attempts to disambiguate Schulzian metaphysical allusions in his prose as well as in his aesthetics seem to constantly fail. Schulz’s ironic distance is rooted in an intellectual eclecticism that states his genuine method of heresy.

Introduction Schulzological quotations bear a certain degree of reiteration. They might even create a déja-vu effect. Nevertheless, the play of interpreting Bruno Schulz’s comparatively small oeuvre has not come to an end. Analogous to myths, any interpretation of Schulz’s work generates new varieties through repetition. One reason that his texts and illustrations are still discussed may be found in Schulz’s intellectual perceptions of not only Polish-Jewish identity but also European intellectual and artistic disputes at the turn of the century. Difficult economic and political circumstances in the Polish interwar period, the rise of anti-Semitism and a complex family drama, including pauperization, illness, and even suicide among its members leave their marks in Schulz’s work. It holds a melancholic trait founded in early twentieth-century history, in which perception is dependent on the reader’s openness to respond to “historical vibrancies”. This essay, however, does not intend to present Schulz’s

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work primarily as a necessary reaction to social pressure even though its provenance in Polish-Jewish interwar history cannot be neglected.1 This essay explores a poetic strategy in Schulz’s fiction that contains fragments of contemporary intellectual debates. Poetical fluidization, i.e., the dissolution of semantic orders by transforming conventional meaning, helps regain possession of creative agency, which might have been lost in the political sphere. A striking characteristic of Schulz’s fiction is its transgressive poetics or its occasional abrupt shifts to different layers of (anti-)realism. In a letter to St. I. Witkiewicz, Schulz wrote that to “loosen the tissue of reality, to show it in the state of constant ferment, germination, hidden life” helps to sustain the immediate reality. Schulz here pleads for the “bankruptcy of reality” (“bankructwo realnoci”; Schulz 1989: 442446) One could suggest that this responds to the real insolvency of the family’s business, the political instability of the Second Republic, anti-Semitism; the poetic strategy of fluidization turns passive historical experiences into creative assertiveness. Schulz’s poetical fluidization is based on a degree of intellectual openness that might be called “eclecticism”. However, there is a common dualistic structure contained in the intellectual systems to which Schulz might refer: one of fluid identity vs. unrecognizable truth. This structure is rooted in an ontological trend in modern thought, in the fluidization of identity. In Schulzian terms this structure becomes transformed into the dialectics of “panmasquerade” vs. “substance”. This structure can be applied Schopenhauer’s metaphysical system and will be further analyzed in this essay as a possible reference for poetical fluidization. Concepts of “fluid identity”2 were circulating in the spheres of neo-romantic, symbolist, and esoteric modernism and were easily reaching Schulz’s horizon. These concepts not only doubt if the term “identity” applies to the material world but also articulate the dilemma of representation within the spheres of the divine, sublime, or unconscious. They declare that via aisthesis (perception) and language 1

Artur Sandauer’s 1956 essay ‘Rzeczywisto zdegradowana’ (1964 [1956]) may still be considered an actual interpretation of the interrelation between sociology and literature. His study was somewhat neglected in further studies on Schulz’s work. 2 As will be shown, this term is paradoxical. Fluid identity reminds of Heraclitus who said that one could not step twice in the same river. The dilemmatic notion of identity within fluidity comes to the fore.

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only a superficial knowledge of a preliminary, fluid sphere of reality can be gained whereas there is no direct aesthetic and linguistic access to the spheres of the divine, the sublime, and the unconscious. Likewise, fluidization of identity concerns the inner disruption of the modern individual and thereby states a new conditio humana. The psychic status of this new human oscillates between feelings of ironic triumph and melancholic loss in the face of uncertainty and instability of the self and fluid truth. This ambiguity of crisis and potentiality seems to be inherent to the reflection of fluid identity3 and becomes a characteristic of Schulz’s fiction. “Panmasquerade” and Substance The often cited “panmasquerade”, a metaphor referring to the semantical field of carnival and stage, introduced in Schulz’s response to Witkiewicz’s interview, bears the traits of this modern ambivalence. The universalizing greek prefix pan- within “panmasquerade” suggests, that there is no escape from the sphere of play and deception. This idea comes close to the modernist reception of the Hinduist concept of “a veil of Maya”, which Schopenhauer (1996: 568) for instance understands as “mere appearance” within the “Platonical world of shadows”.4 Schulz writes that his prose is ruled by this very concept of “panmasquerade”. Having been asked to describe a philosophy that motivates his prose, he first doubts if any dissection of literature is possible without finally demoting its meaning. Schulz then describes a prolific ontological structure: he conceives “panmasquerade” as the endless and contingent motion of forms within art, and as being the emanation of a “monistic substance” (Schulz 1989: 444-445). This paradoxical construction is highly significant because it applies to fluid ontology. Schulz raises the question, whether the ontological substance (meaning identity or universal meaning) is representable 3

Cf. Lyotard (1990: 46) who considers the postmodern dilemma of representation as resulting into the ambivalence of melancholia and venture. Also see Richard Rorty’s insistence on the ironic constitution of the postmodern man. 4 See later in this article. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche refer to only one sense of Hinduism, where the deity Maya (originally the goddess of illusion, inspiration and dream) becomes the principle of deception. Her veil obscures the unitary identity (brahman) from which all illusions spring and therefore leads to a misconception of reality.

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within language. Schulz does not specify what kind of monistic substance he is thinking about; therefore, the notion of it remains overly general. The relationship between substance and “panmasquerade” is described as neither logical nor natural. Its dialectics seem to be anti-teleological; thus, the process of the “panmasquerade” emanating from a monistic substance remains fluid and open to interpretation. However, Schulz created a literary realization that seemed to encode monistic substance: “The Book”, also called “the original” in the story with the same title (Schulz 1989: 115 ff.). The unsuccessful search for this missing original text, the autentyk, leads to a congenial hermeneutics of a degraded, secondary scripture dominating not only the story’s plot but also the interpreter’s effort to decode Schulz’s literature. Because Schulz is aware of this interpretative desire, he addresses the reader, sometimes directly, sometimes covertly and plays hide and seek with their intents to domesticate his eruptions of fantasy.5 Intriguingly, most interpretations of Schulz’s work, including the following, reveal to a great extent the commentators’ positions, interests, and preliminary knowledge. Taken to the extreme, Schulz’s fiction serves as a projection surface for the absent original that interpreters are trying to rediscover; however, this means that the reception of Schulz’s work increasingly becomes an in-depth hermeneutics of contemporary intellectual history. Because the structure of monistic substance versus “panmasquerade” applies to various intellectual and religious constructs, it seems crucial for Schulz studies that the search for the adequate translation of his “monistic substance” remains subject to the problem of the 5

Besides the strategy of ironic distancing, the narrator also pursues an alliance with the reader, for instance in ‘Ksi ga’ (‘The Book’), where Schulz writes of an immediate understanding (depicted as an exchange of gazes): “Czytelnik zreszt , czytelnik prawdziwy, na jakiego liczy ta powie, zrozumie i tak, gdy mu spojrz

gl boko w oczy i na dnie samym zalni tym blaskiem. W tym krótkim a mocnym spojrzeniu, w przelotnym cini ciu r ki pochwyci on, przejmie, odpozna – i przymknie oczy z zachwytu nad t recepcj g bok . Bo czy pod stoem, który nas dzieli, nie trzymamy si wszyscy tajnie za r ce?” (Schulz 1989: 105; “Besides, any true reader – and this story is only addressed to him – will understand me anyway when I look him straight in the eye and try to communicate my meaning. A short, sharp look or a light clasp of his hand will stir him into awareness, and he will blink in rapture at the brilliance of The Book. For, under the imaginary table that separates me from my readers, don’t we secretly clasp each other’s hands?”; Schulz 2008: 115).


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hermeneutic circle. But does that mean, therefore, that Schulz studies are bound to an interpretive relativism? Intertextuality and Eclecticism In accordance with this interpretative indecisiveness, the German Slavicist Renate Lachmann asserts that no single “origin” (such as The Book) can be fixed in Schulz’s literature; instead, a combination of intertextual matrices constitutes his “heterodox ludism” (Lachmann 1999). Schulzian hints toward an “original” meaning can be understood as allusions to Gnostic cosmogony, to pantheist romanticism, or to Jewish kabbalah, yet none of these systems of knowledge provides the ultimate solution of the enigmatic substance from which emanation in “panmasquerade” evolves. Each interpretative approach had since widened the scope of historical and intellectual knowledge concerning Schulz’s fiction. At least, all those different, even contradictory statements in interpretations of Schulz’s work supply a specific “Schulzian sound”, or “atmosphere” whereas the “sense” still resists interpretive domestication. The search for it has yielded the subtlest conclusions concerning the essence of “the Book”. Can this effect be ascribed to a genuine Schulzian intellectual eclecticism? Focusing on intertextuality suggests a structural reading of implied knowledge in literature. Schulzian intertextuality can be understood as the effect of intellectual eclecticism, eclecticism arising as a possible consequence of modern diversification and pluralization of knowledge. With regard to the colloquial use of “eclecticism”, the prevailing notion of the term is negative, referring either to methodological assembling, non-systematic montage, and above all, unoriginality to the point of plagiarism. This belief is well founded in the history of the concept (Albrecht 1994) but neglects its inherent ambivalence. A negative opinion on eclecticism stresses the aspect of unoriginality and indecisiveness. However, eclecticism can also be seen as a conscious selection based on intellectual autonomy and skepticism, and therefore dissociated from orthodox and irremovable truth. From this perspective, eclecticism becomes an attitude which is opposed to orthodox authority and fundamentalism. It then bears a freeing dimension because it highlights the autonomous intellectual choice that is not bound to any school of thought and abandons

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orthodox soteriology. Schulz realizes this attitude in Jacob’s “secondary creation” of his ‘Traktat o manekinach’ (‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’), where imperfect and “essentially amorphous beings, without internal structure, products of the imitative tendency of matter”, are publicized as the last refuge of artistic creation and where senile, addled Jacob is named an inhabitant of “the regions of great heresy”. Hence, there is an alliance between eclectic assemblage, Schulz’s aesthetics of the “panmasquerade” and Jacob’s “Second Genesis”. All these phenomena aim at artistic and intellectual liberation; they oppose any kind of religious, philosophical, or aesthetic “orthodoxism”. Even though Lachmann’s theoretical focus is on intertextuality, her term “heterodox ludism” seems to indicate the eclectic aesthetic strategy in Schulz’s writing. Consequentially, while asking for its possible soteriological dimension, she comes to the conclusion that it emerges in the process of formal artistic creation. Schulzian eclecticism implies a conscious strategy of divergent origins, the effect of which might be found in the intertextuality of his prose. Furthermore, it can be understood as a trial to obscure the traces of reading experiences by concealing or confusing fragments of contemporary knowledge. By means of this eclectic distancing, his texts gain intellectual and artistic freedom. Their liberating potential can be noticed in the exalted expressions of his prose. Nevertheless, they point at the loss of a last, perfect instance, “the Book”, and tell about its compensatory substitutes. It is interesting that in the last years Schulz studies nonetheless focused to a great extent on the sense of the Schulzian “monistic substance”. The consideration of Jewish mysticism in Schulz’s work contributed to a completely new direction of interpretation. In his exegesis, the late scholar Wadysaw Panas found Jewish Messianism as the inherent soteriological sense in Schulz’s work (Panas 1997, 2001). His suspenseful hermeneutics of messianic announcement as a leitmotiv not only in the literary but also in the graphical work of Bruno Schulz has inspired scholars to regard the Jewish origin and knowledge of the artist more than ever before. Panas investigates Schulz’s work in order to identify the underlying method that rules this artistic creation. For example, the exalted atmosphere in his prose can be understood as rooted in the Hasidic, Galician culture (Sproede 2002), and Schulz’s Cinnamon Shops can be considered to be composed as a visualization of the Jewish


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calendar (Schulte 2003, 2004). It is interesting that Panas refers to Gershom Scholem’s history of Jewish esoterism, i.e., Lurianism (Sholem 1980: 267-355). Its threefold cosmogony of zimzun (God’s self-restriction in order to let the cosmos appear), shebirat ha-kelim (the burst of the vessels), and tikkun (understood as messianic restitution of the burst fragments) has been used as a model for different interpretations. While Panas concentrates on the aspect of messianic tikkun, Marta Bartosik also considers Schulz’s essay ‘Mityzacja rzeczywistoci’ (‘The Mythologizing of Reality’) to be influenced by this Lurian model. She draws parallels between the fragmented (scientific, analytical) modern language that has been criticized by Schulz and the shebirat ha-kelim, and at the same time she sees Schulz’s systematic restoration of language through poetry as analogous to the process of tikkun (Bartosik 2000: 90 ff). In contrast, Bo ena Shallcross, while taking into account the possible JewishMessianic allusions, asserts that in Schulz’s prose there is no messianic intention in the strictest sense but a play with mystical allusions and meanings. She is following Harold Bloom, who in his canonical The Anxiety of Influence stated that literature raises the question of existential meaning and therefore must in some way refer to the mystical traditions (Shallcross 1997: 270-281). Monistic substance might thus remain enigmatic, mystical. “Panmasquerade” is easier to decipher because it parallels fluid identity: the eternal transgression and transformation of forms. Fluidization of Identity and of the Self Identity was a much-discussed problem in the aesthetics of the early twentieth century. The term is derived from Latin identitas. It is now mainly used in two contexts: logic and psychology. With regard to logic, identity is defined by the criterion of indistinguishableness, yet if this same criterion is transposed to the physical world, a number of philosophical problems arise: can spatial-temporal objects be identical at all if they are permanently subject to physical force effects of time? How is it, then, that a term designates an object in general as identical if this very object is subject to permanent change in the physical world? From this follows that identity is a logical abstraction. In the history of philosophy this problem mostly led to idealistic solutions, which share an essential structure: the separation of two different

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ontological spheres. In the sphere of the physical world, the forms of being are understood as not identical but dynamic and thus inferior. Hence, any reliable cognition must start from the superior sphere of the identical. A prototypical and idealistic solution of the identity problem can be found in the Platonic doctrine in which the sphere of ideas is conceptualized as the sphere of identical substance that is equated with divinity, validity, and moral good because ideas eternally remain the same. This idealistic solution, however, still leads to conceptual problems because ideas cannot be recognized by ordinary perception (which is always part of the physical world) but must be presumed in a speculative manner by the logos. An epistemic dilemma follows: the objects in the physical world are too fluid to be identical – and the presumed identical ideas are not recognizable in the world. The sphere of identity remains a heuristic abstraction of the logos. Hence, approaches to the “monistic substance” in Schulz’s aesthetics remain speculative. Nonetheless, by the end of this essay, there will be one more attempt to decipher it via Schopenhauer’s concept of the will. Similar problems can be seen in the psychological use of the term identity. The “unity of personality”, how personal identity could be described, must be sufficiently open in order to be able to integrate a person’s development and experience. The concept of personal identity seems to imply a dialectics of a nucleus of identity (sometimes called “the self”) and the changing personal experience or development of a person. Henri Bergson treats this problem in his Introduction to Metaphysics (1993: 188-225). According to Bergson, any personal experience can, from the perspective of physical psychology, be analyzed only as a series of different psychological and sensory impressions, which are arranged on a continuous timeline. Bergson calls this sequence “the stream of experience”. In this stream one state simply follows another, but because this sequential perspective does not conform to the perception of personal identity and internal coherence, Bergson introduces the term “duration”. The experience of duration within the stream of experience is equivalent to the “self”, i.e., the unity of a person in the multiplicity of his or her experiences. Duration and memory, then, seem to hold the concept of identity together. However, this concept resists analytical approaches because it appears only as imagination or intuition – or even abstraction.


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This schematic demonstration shows that the term identity is problematic. It seems to produce a splitting of two spheres: one of unrecognizable unity and the other of perceptual multiplicity. However, this split of identity is a main topic in modern literature. Modern inner conflicts, experiences of estrangement are producing the notion of lost integrity and identity. This conflict is also the heart of Schulz’s prose. In his ‘A Description of the Book Cinnamon Shops’ (originally written in German), Schulz distinguishes between an inferior sphere of biographical facts and a deeper one of a spiritual dimension, the myth that guarantees coherence and identity: It is the author’s conviction that there is no way to plumb the deepest level of biography or make out the true shape of personal destiny either by describing the external curriculum vitae or by psychological analysis, however deeply the latter might probe. The ultimate given data of human life, he submits, lie in a spiritual dimension, not in the category of facts but in their transcendent meaning; likewise, a curriculum vitae that aims to elucidate its own semantic structure, that is honed to be sensitive to its own spiritual significance, amounts to – myth. That murky, portentous atmosphere, that aura which condenses around every family history and illuminates it, as it were, with mythic flashes – as if it embodied the ultimate secret of blood and kinship – is the poet’s way of glimpsing that history’s other face, its profounder gestalt. (Schulz 1990: 153)

In his essay ‘The Mythologizing of Reality’, Schulz already formulated this distinction between “banal” facts and deeper sense: Istot rzeczywistoci jest sens. Co nie ma sensu, nie jest dla nas rzeczywiste. Ka dy fragment rzeczywistoci yje dzi ki temu, e ma udzia w jakim sensie uniwersalnym. […] Poezja – to s krótkie spi cia sensu mi dzy sowami, raptowna regeneracja pierwotnych mitów. […] Poezja odpoznaje te sensy stracone, przywraca sowom ich miejsce, czy je wedug dawnych znacze. U poety sowo opami tuje si niejako na swój sens istotny, rozkwita i rozwija si spontanicznie wedug praw wasnych, odzyskuje sw integralno. Dlatego wszelka poezja jest mitologizowaniem, d y do odtworzenia mitów o wiecie. (Schulz 1989: 385) (The essence of reality is Meaning or Sense. What lacks Sense is, for us, not reality. Every fragment of reality lives by virtue of partaking in a universal Sense. […] Poetry happens when short-circuits of sense occur between words, a sudden regeneration of the primeval myths. […] Poetry recognizes these lost meanings, restores words to their places, connects them by the old semantics. In the poet’s mind, the word remembers, so to speak, its essential meaning, blossoms, unfolds spontaneously according

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Janis Augsburger to its own inner laws, regains its wholeness. Thus all poetry is mythologizing and strives to restore myths to the world; Schulz 1990: 115-116)

As we learn from this citation, the sphere of myths is connected with an experience of sense that is absent in everyday life but can be restored by poetic language. In this context, “sense” should be seen as coherence which refers to regularity, contiguity, and even truth. The philosopher Alasdayr MacIntyre in his well-known After Virtue (1981) stated that personal identity is a result of a coherent narration of one’s own life, which seems to come close to Schulz’s conception of mythical biography even though in his prose there are passages that surprisingly and apparently dissolve coherence and sense. There is a permanent changeover between the illusion of identity and (sometimes psychic) “panmasquerade”. Schulz wrote of a certain mental disorientation in a letter to Tadeusz Breza: Zostaj w Drohobyczu, w szkole, gdzie nadal haastra b dzie wyprawiaa harce na moich nerwach. Trzeba bowien wiedzie, e nerwy moje rozbiegy si sieci po caej pracowni robót r cznych, rozprzestrzeniy si

po pododze, wytapetoway ciany i oploty g st plecionk , warsztaty i kowado. Jest to znane w nauce zjawisko pewnego rodzaju telekinetyki, moc której wszystko, co dzieje si na warsztatach, strugnicach itd., dzieje si poniek d na mojej skórze. (Schulz 2002: 50) (I’m still in Drohobycz, in the school where the gang will go right on playing fast and loose with my nerves. For you must realize that my nerves have been stretched thin like a net over the entire handicraft center, have crept along the floor, smothered the walls like tapestry and covered the shops and the smithy with a dense web. This phenomenon is known to science as telekinesis, which makes everything that happens in the shops, the planing shed, and so on seem to happen on my skin as well; Schulz 1990: 55)

While Schulz practiced “telekinesis” in an apparently involuntary manner, it was a well-known phenomenon in French Surrealism, where states of psychic disintegration, dreaming, and other states of unconsciousness were considered to be a prolific resource for artistic creation. By examining these extraordinary psychic dimensions, fluid identity can be reviewed from a psychological perspective. Following Roger Caillois who in his article ‘Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia’ examines the decaying distinction between


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a creature and its environment, Rosalind Krauss proposes the term insectoid psychosis: Caillois explained psychotic states as resulting from a sudden “decrease of psychic energy”. It occurs within some insect species, for example, when mantises are adapting their appearance in accordance to environmental conditions. For Krauss, the mantis is a perfect example of camouflage or delusion; it is indiscernible whether it is a dead object or a living creature (in Krauss 1998: 179). The collapse of the distinction between the I and its environment can also occur within extreme, traumatic situations, when a decrease of energy results in a psychotic desire to dissolve oneself into the environment in order to protect the individual from a threatening stimulus satiation. As a result, the individual is confronted with a loss of internal coherence, with an uncanny extension of its self: To these dispossessed souls, space seems to be a devouring force. Space pursues them, encircles them, digests them in a gigantic phagocytosis. It ends by replacing them. Then the body separates itself from thought, the individual breaks the boundary of his skin and occupies the other side of his senses. (Krauss 1998: 179)

Because psychotic perception, or any other psychically influenced perception, bursts static ideas of what is normal, states of psychic disintegration were appreciated in the Surrealist movement. In these states, as well as in dreams or in trance, new pictures, meanings, and combinations of thoughts were generated and justified in the realm of art. Outside that frame of artistic creation, however, the delimitation of the normal remained sanctioned. The psychotic drug-induced crisis of Antonin Artaud was “treated” in hospital. The ambivalence of crisis and potentiality in fluid identity becomes obvious as well from the perspective of psychology. Fluidization of the self also appears in the context of masochism.6 Not only in the early graphic art of his Xiga bawochwalcza (The Idolatrous Book) does Schulz follow a masochistic aesthetics that is loaded with quasi-religious significance. The main strategy in masochistic aesthetics is the introduction of the moment of suspense, which is a medium for creating a presence that is 6

Cf. Augsburger (2008) for a detailed study on masochism in Schulz’s work.

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ruled by the notion of something absent and missing. The state of masochistic adoration implies an unfulfilled desire whereas the pain of masochism that is brought on stage in Schulz’s graphical work serves as a paradoxical affirmation of a precarious masculine self. In Xiga bawochwalcza, the dialectics of monistic substance and “panmasquerade” is transformed into a mythologized concept of gender. The sphere of (alleged) integrity in Schulz’s graphics belongs to an empowered femininity whereas “panmasquerade” and deformation becomes a trait of adoring masculinity. The pain of the unfulfilled masochistic desire equals Joseph’s pain that was triggered by the missing “Book”. Poetical Fluidization In summary, the confrontation of statements in Schulz’s aesthetic program with passages of his prose leads to a contradiction between the metaphysical justification of art and concrete deformation and tendencies toward dissolution in his literary work. While in his theoretical statements Schulz often refers to a concept of metaphysical sense that in his opinion is encoded in the ancient and modern myths, his literary narrations at the same time practice poetical fluidization. In his stories, Schulz tells of the illness, poverty, and ridiculousness of human existence, enriching his narrations with grotesque elements and coloring them with a melancholic tone. One can easily provide examples, such as the figure Jacob who is presented in a fragile psychic and physical condition. His status changes several times between dead and alive. He appears as a condor as well as a roach or a cancer. ‘Ostatnia ucieczka ojca’ (‘Father’s Last Escape’) starts with: Byo to w pónym i zatraconym okresie zupenego rozprz enia, w okresie ostatecznej likwidacji naszych interesów. […] W tym czasie ojciec mój umar by ju definitywnie. Umiera wielokrotnie, zawsze jeszcze nie doszcz tnie, zawsze z pewnymi zastrze eniami, które zmuszay do rewizji tego faktu. (Schulz 1989: 312) (It happened in the late and forlorn period of complete disruption, at the time of the liquidation of our business. […] At the time, my father was definitely dead. He had been dying a number of times, always with some reservations that forced us to revise our attitude toward the fact of his death; Schulz 2008: 307)


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‘Wichura’ (‘The Gale’) contains several transgressions and is a perfect example of poetic fluidization. The story begins with a fantasy. During a furious storm, there is an uncontrollable awakening of junk in the attics. The narrator animates the objects and presents them forming a military formation that suddenly explodes and then floods the town. A “black parliament of jars” (“czarne sejmy garnków”) with its “blithering and empty discussion” (“wiecowania gadatliwe i puste”) becomes a “dark tumult of the vessels” (“ciemny zgiek naczy”) that together with the “baggage of the wind” (“tabory wichru”) finally rages in the town for three days and nights (Schulz 1989: 85-86). Schulz is using verbs with destructive notions: to degenerate (wyradza), to shoot (wystrzela), to outpour (wyla), to flow (pyn), to swarm (mrowi si), and to push (napiera). By introducing these explosive metaphors, he creates a Dionysian atmosphere. In the following second section, this Dionysian tension is contrasted by the reasonable considerations of the practical mother, who demands: “You won’t go to school today, […] there’s a gale blowing” (Schulz 2008: 78; “Nie pójdziesz dzi do szkoy, […] jest straszna wichura na dworze”; Schulz 1989: 86). Schulz ascribes the practical and reasonable behavior in his prose to female housekeeping. ‘The Gale’ contrasts this safe and reasonable sphere of female domestic economy with a Dionysian world outside. Thus, it is not surprising that in this scene the father Jacob is outside the house. The story’s plot consists of three events. The first event is when the assistant Theodore and the first-person narrator’s brother bring Jacob his meal. The second event is the arrival of some exhausted visitors who are excitedly talking about the storm. The third event is the unexpected visit of Aunt Perasia and her argument with Adela about how to cook a chicken, which culminates in Perasia’s furious rage. Perasia carries the Dionysian atmosphere into the rational domestic sphere. The furious storm becomes her furious rage. It is pictured by means of a strategy typical of Schulz that Krzysztof Stala in his On the Margins of Reality called the “realization of metaphor” (Stala 1993: 90 ff.) It is the metaphorical fuming and boiling rage that is now described as a real occurrence. In the following example, the metaphorical language (“it seemed as if”) abruptly materializes: Zdawao si , e w paroksyzmie zoci rozgestykuluje si na cz ci, e rozpadnie si , podzieli, rozbiegnie w sto paj ków, rozga zi si po

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Janis Augsburger pododze czarnym, migotliwym p kiem oszalaych karakonich biegów. Zamiast tego zacz a raptownie male, kurczy si , wci roztrz siona i rozsypuj ca si przeklestwami. (Schulz 1989: 90) (It seemed that in her paroxysm of fury she might disintegrate into separate gestures, that she would divide into a hundred spiders, would spread out over the floor in a black, shimmering net of crazy running cockroaches. Instead, she began suddenly to shrink and dwindle, still shaking and spitting curses; Schulz 2008: 81-82)

Perasia starts to shrink physically and turn into smoke. The description of her dissolution is completed by circus metaphors: Perasia is acrobatically dancing on stilts but then losing control over her motor skills, which is characteristic of clownish figures. Perasia decays “into dust and nothingness” (“w proch i w nico”; Schulz 1989: 91), which indicates the disappearance of the storm. This scene is described from an objective distance. There is only a short moment of embarrassment among the family, a painful sympathy (“ubolewanie”). But the following relaxation (“pewna ulga”), the cool acceptance of the uncanny and impossible, reminds one of Kafka’s Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis, 1915). After the physical dissolution of Perasia’s identity, her literal fluidization, the family returns to normal. In this story, two directions of fluidization can be distinguished. First the animation of lifeless objects, i.e., the tableware in the attic, then the dissolution of a creature into matter. The borders between things and creatures are blurred. Both metamorphoses are induced by the theme of the furious storm. Schulz induces a moment of ecstatic frenzy, which in his work seems to be inspired by the image of Maenadian Bacchanalia. As is well known, this Dionysian procession was a theme in one of Schulz’s drawings with the same title which presents a female procession accompanied by an anxious looking figure – the Pierrot. The impact is highly symbolic because the picture depicts the ambivalence of Dionysian ecstasy, in which according to the legends crimes were committed by the Maenads, where a matriarchal power was reinforced, threatening male identity concepts. In Schulz’s texts, however, the function of his fluidization strategy is to create a parallel between the inner sphere of consciousness and the outer sphere of spatial-temporal reality. This poetic strategy can be seen as a late figuration of states of disintegration, by which the author regains control and freedom.


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“The Other Dimension” As was shown, fluid identity concepts were strikingly apparent in the intellectual disputes of the early twentieth century as well as in the work of Schulz, and his strategy of poetic fluidization has been roughly situated within these discussions. However, if one considers Schulz’s insistence on a “monistic substance”, as mentioned in his letter to Witkiewicz, or on “myth” as a sphere of sense and coherence, and if one additionally regards the universal metaphor of “The Book”, fluid identity appears as just one dimension of the Schulzian intellectual and artistic system. The “other dimension” of his work has been characterized as a “quasi-religious nostalgia” (Stala 1993: 123). These nostalgic Schulzian concepts, i.e., substance, myth, sense, as well as his poetic metaphor “The Book”, all have something in common: they seem to relate to the discourse of Negative Theology with its inherent critique of the representation of the divine. Negative Theology consists of the idea that God can be described only by negation – there is no positive linguistic access to God. If the idea of God or alternatively a divine sphere of integrity is maintained, then this position of Negative Theology leads to mystical consequences. The sphere of the divine, the universal meaning and, one might postulate, the messianic tikkun are not yet realized in the ordinary world but traces of them can be experienced by epiphany and revelation. As a consequence, the epistemic realization of the sphere of the divine switches from a discursive to an iconic layer (Stala 1993: 100). Nevertheless, iconic or metaphorical allusions to this realm of integrity imply a suspension ad infinitum, such as in the metaphor of “The Book”. The original remains absent, but its text can be rediscovered in the ordinary journal with its advertisements. It is questionable whether this suspension of negative theology should be understood as strictly logical (as beyond human comprehension) or if it even bears a temporal dimension. If so, the “other Schulzian dimension” could be referred to as utopian rather than nostalgic, so that the messianic interpretations of Schulz’s work indeed appear to be justified.

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Fluid Identity in Schopenhauer Although fluid identity had been realized in different aesthetic and philosophical debates, even the notion of this quasi-religious integrity, including its problematic dilatory representation, diverged into the various neo-religious and esoteric movements of the early twentieth century. Carl Gustav Jung, in a lecture on the problem of soul in modern man held in 1928, asserted that since the sixteenth and seventeenth century there was no comparable increase of general interest in spirituality, astrology, theosophy, and parapsychology. This esoteric trend was developed in the course of the modern critique of religion since the Enlightenment. Accordingly, Jung explained the increasing interest in esotericism as a result of “freed religious energy” that has “flown back from obsolete (monotheistic) religions” (Jung 1986: 100). Under this condition of secularization, the religious systems of the Far East offered orientation. The first European studies on Asiatic Religion came into existence in the late eighteenth century. In London, the Royal Asiatic Society edited Hindu scriptures, including the translation of fifty Upanishads into Latin by Abraham Hyacinthe A. Du Perron (Lütkehaus 2004: 44). In Germany the Romantic movement capitalized on “The Language and the Wisdom of the Indians”, which was also the title of a work by Friedrich Schlegel. The Prussian state philosopher G.W.F. Hegel even stated that in the culture of Buddhist meditation there emerges a state of complete indetermination and indifferentism, which in its infinitude comes close to his concept of the Absolute (Lütkehaus 2004: 42). A more detailed elaboration of early twentieth-century esoteric movements and their foundations in European Indology cannot be provided here.7 However, regarding the abovementioned Schulzian nostalgia for a sphere of integrity, there are still a few more observations to be made, for it seems that Schulz knew very well the vocabulary of European spiritualism. Thus, in ‘Ksi ga’ (‘The Book’), in the advertisement for the dubious Magda Wang, who claims to “treat male misbehavior”, it is pointed out that her alleged diary, Z purpurowych dni (The Purple Days), has been edited in the “Publishing House of the Anthroposophical Institute in Budapest” (Schulz 1989: 117). Another 7

Cf. Washington (1993) for a discussion of the American theosophic context.


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passage alludes to anthroposophical issues regarding a type of human that happened to be changed into arctoid creatures by Anna Csillag’s hair remedy. Mr. Bosco from Milan, another figure in this collection of salvatory announcements, is presented as “master of dark magic”. Nevertheless, these esoteric allusions are obviously highly ironic: for example, when Schulz notes that “we must become completely esoteric for a while” (“Tu zmuszeni jestemy sta si na chwil

cakiem ezoteryczni”; Schulz 1989: 118) in order to understand Mr. Bosco’s cryptic signs. The narration is charged with allusions to “the transcendent”, to “reincarnation”, to “prophecy”, “exegesis”, and “salvation”. Yet ‘The Book’ seems to be paradigmatic for the Schulzian strategy of covering the traces of his knowledge. The sphere of transcendence is somehow invoked but at the same time its description underlies the “dilatory movement of the signs” (Stala 1993: 47). The suspension of the transcendent can also be observed in ‘Kometa’ (‘The Comet’), yet this story provides us with a slightly more obvious philosophical context. Schopenhauer’s “principium individuationis” is mentioned several times, and additionally, the Heraclitian “Panta Rhei” and the term “mesmerism” are evoked briefly. Jacob, who is enthusiastic with his physical transformation experiments, declares that “Principium individuationis furda!” (Schulz 1989: 339). In two substantial passages it is said that a certain ignorance of the principium individuationis bears the quasi-magic potential of which Jacob becomes aware in his experiments. The reference to Schopenhauer is apparent, but besides its reasoning for poetical fluidization, what other conclusions can be drawn from this reference? If we also bear in mind that Schulz avoids definite assertions that concern a possible religious or philosophical discipleship, the question emerges of whether Schulz’s reference to Schopenhauer is just another matrix within multiple layers of intertextuality. And indeed, this could be asserted. The Schulzian dialectics of “panmasquerade” and substance in many respects applies to Schopenhauer’s ontology of pure energy (“will”), objectifying itself in various ranges of form. This model’s possible origin in Indian theology has often been shown. The discussion of a Hindu-Buddhist version of “principium individuationis” as a domain of deception spread from mid- and latenineteenth-century European Indology, and after Schopenhauer’s prominent reception, it became an instrument in bourgeois

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Kulturkritik, e.g. it found a prominent place in Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy. In Polish modernism and expressionism, Nietzsche’s philosophy became an important reference, based on the Polish translation of Nietzsche’s entire work at the beginning of the twentieth century (Kunicki 2002). Nietzsche’s concepts of “existential tragedy”, “Dionysian celebration of life”, his criticism of (Christian and bourgeois) morality, and his favoring the individual’s freedom and self-determination radically influenced European literature and promoted experimental forms in aesthetics. During the early twentieth century’s Schopenhauer and Nietzsche boom, the fluidity of material forms and states of consciousness as “Veil of Maya” had been conjoined with a celebration of life as a transgressive carnival. This aesthetic idea had a great impact on reforming concepts of identity. In Schopenhauer’s doctrine, however, central themes of the Schulzian intellectual horizon seem to converge. If one recalls the questions which are comprised in The World as Will and Representation, concepts such as will (as pure, blind energy), objectification (of will in physical forms and cognitions), representation (deceitful, or enlightened as recognition of the will) ought to be mentioned as well as the notions of affliction, pessimism, and aestheticism. Schopenhauer identifies the noumenon (as the transcendent condition of phenomena) via the will, which he specifies as electricity and gravity. Uncle Edward’s transformation into an electric bell refers ironically to this idea. Principium individuationis can be described as the idea of the separation of individual forms. In Schopenhauer’s work as well as in Schulz’s fiction, it is a pejorative notion because the idea of individuation is seen as illusive. Hence, revealing the deceptive “veil of Maya” was comprehended as the revelation of a deeper truth that expresses one simple doctrine: “Tat swam asi” (“Thou art that“); i.e., the mystical Hindu insight that Brahman, the transcendent grounding of reality, and Atman, the nucleus or self of a person, are identical. This identity allows us to explain the meaning of the Schulzian monistic substance. Bearing this in mind, fluid identity becomes less tragic because the sequence of forms, impressions, and occurrences become encompassed by the will that unifies the phenomena. Hence, the “lack of prejudices regarding principium individuationis” (“brak uprzedze co do principium individuationis”; Schulz 1989: 343) not only permits poetical fluidization but also delivers substantial


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theoretical justification for the Schulzian “panmasquerade”. Poetical fluidization comprises methods of poetical dispersion, flow, eruption, conversion, and transgression. It is the realization of the concept of “panmasquerade”. Fluid identity concepts prepared the ground for “loosening the tissue of reality”, while the other metaphysical dimensions in Schulz’s aesthetics agree with various (quasi)religious and mystical concepts. This generalization of meaning derives from the eclectic knowledge of Schulz, who was familiar with the esoteric soteriological systems of his time but refuses to privilege one definitely. As Schulz pleads for heresy, even the Schopenhauerian allusions might be part of his heterodox ludism, by which the interpretative openness of his fiction will be sustained for further essays. Bibliography Albrecht, Michael. 1994. Eklektik. Stuttgart and Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog. Augsburger, Janis. 2008. Masochismen. Mythologisierung als Krisen-Ästhetik bei Bruno Schulz. Hannover: Wehrhahn. Bartosik, Marta. 2000. Bruno Schulz jako krytyk. Kraków: Universitas. Bergson, Henri. 1993. Denken und schöpferisches Werden. Hamburg: Europäische Verlagsanstalt. Jung, Carl Gustav. 1986. ‘Das Seelenproblem des modernen Menschen’ in Gesammelte Werke (Bd. 10). Zürich: Rascher: 91-113. Krauss, Rosalind. 1998. Das Photographische. Eine Theorie der Abstände. München: Fink. Kunicki, Wojciech (ed.) 2002. Nietzsche i pisarze polscy. Pozna: Wydawnictwo Poznaskie. Lachmann, Renate. 1999. ‘Der Demiurg und seine Phantasmen’ in Drubek-Meyer, Natasha, Peter Kosta and Holt Meyer (eds). Juden und Judentum in Literatur und Film des slavischen Sprachraums. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 131-153. Lütkehaus, Ludger (ed.) 2004. Nirwana in Deutschland. Von Leibniz bis Schopenhauer. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. Lyotard, Francois. 1990. ‘Beantwortung der Frage Was ist postmodern?’ in Engelmann, Peter (ed.) Postmoderne and Dekonstruktion. Leipzig: Reclam: 33-48. MacIntyre, Alisdair. 1981. After Virtue. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Panas, Wadysaw. 1997. Ksiga blasku. Traktat o kabale w prozie Brunona Schulza. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL. ——. 2001. Bruno od Mesjasza. Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS. Sandauer, Artur. 1964 [1956]. ‘Rzeczywisto zdegradowana (Rzecz o Brunonie Schulzu)’ in Schulz, Bruno, Proza. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie: 7-43.

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Scholem, Gershom. 1980. Die jüdische Mystik in ihren Hauptströmungen. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. Schopenhauer, Artur. 1996. Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Frankfurt/Main: dtv. Schulte, Jörg. 2003. ‘Wielka kronika kalendarza’ in Midrasz 3(2003): 12-15. ——. 2004. Eine Poetik der Offenbarung. Isaak Babel, Bruno Schulz, Danilo Kiš. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Schulz, Bruno. 1989. Opowiadania, wybór esejów i listów (ed. J. Jarz bski). Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossoliskich. ——. 1990. Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz (ed. J. Ficowski). New York: Fromm. ——. 2002. Ksiga listów (ed. J. Ficowski). Gdask: sowo/obraz terytoria. ——. 2008. The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories (tr. C. Wieniewska). New York: Penguin. Shallcross, Bo ena. 1997. ‘“Fragments of a Broken Mirror”: Bruno Schulz’s Retextualization of the Kabbalah’ in East European Politics and Societies 2: 270-281. Sproede, Alfred. 2002. ‘Eine verlorene Art jüdischen Erzählens’ in Hahn, HansHenning and Jörn Stübing (eds). Jüdische Autoren Ostmitteleuropas im 20. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang: 253-275. Stala, Krzysztof. 1993. On the Margins of Reality: the Paradoxes of Representation in Bruno Schulz’s Fiction. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Washington, Peter. 1993. Madame Blavatsky’s Baboon: Theosophy and the Emergence of the Western Guru. London: Secker & Warburg.

Index

A Abraham, Julie, 284, 287 Abraham, Karl, 364, 365 Alberti, Leon Battista, 225, 228, 236 Albrecht, Michael, 503, 517 Alchevska, Khrystia, 421 Allen, Carolyn, 284, 287, 497 Anderson Imbert, Enrique, 174 Apuleius, 383, 394 Aquinas, Thomas, 68-70, 73, 80 Aristotle, 379, 381, 383, 391, 394, 395 Artaud, Antonin, 509 Aszkenazy, Szymon, 423 Augsburger, Janis, 485, 496, 499, 509, 517 August, Richard, 459, 469

B Bachelard, Gaston, 149 B k, Wojciech, 425 Bakan, David, 366, 370, 374, 376 Baker, Suzanne, 176, 191 Bakua, Bogusaw, 177, 191 Banks, Brian, 295, 296, 303, 304 Baraczak, Stanisaw, 156, 170 Barbey D’Aurevilly, Jules, 204 Barnes, Djuna, 267-276, 279-288 Barrès, Maurice, 256 Barthes, Roland, 215-217, 336, 337 Bartosik, Marta, 417, 505, 517

Bartoszyski, Kazimierz, 23, 328, 337 Battistini, Matilde, 226, 236 Baudelaire, Charles, 51, 215, 459 Baudrillard, Jean, 329, 332, 336, 337 Beardsley, Aubrey, 14, 200, 234, 269, 270, 275, 281, 288, 451, 459 Beaujeu, Jean, 383, 394 Becker, Jan, 13, 20 Bénédite, Leonce, 253 Benjamin, Walter, 27, 45, 46, 59, 64, 167, 169, 170, 307, 320, 371, 474, 495, 496 Benstock, Shari, 280, 283, 287 Berent, Wacaw, 402 Berger, Klaus, 475, 496 Bergson, Henri, 49, 190, 406, 506, 517 Berman, Nina, 54, 64 Bhabha, Homi, 174, 191 Biaoszewski, Miron, 135-139, 141146, 148-151 Bieczyk, Marek, 308, 309, 313, 314, 321, 325 Bienenstock, Alfred, 451, 453 Blake, William, 459 Bloch, Chajim, 483, 488, 490, 496 Bloch, Ernst, 33 Boski, Jan, 29, 46, 73, 80, 458, 469 Bloom, Harold, 64, 505 Bocheski, Tomasz, 330, 331, 336, 337 Bolecki, Wodzimierz, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 20, 21, 71, 72, 80, 84-87, 90,

Index

520 91, 94, 131, 138, 151, 192, 199, 200, 216, 217, 234, 237, 265, 331, 335-338, 376, 452, 453, 463, 469, 470, 476, 496 Bolívar, Simón, 181 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 413 Borges, Jorge Luis, 155, 190, 319 Botticelli, 211 Boucher, François, 199 Breza, Tadeusz, 508 Brod, Max, 33 Broe, Mary Lynn, 287, 288 Brooke-Rose, Christine, 182, 191 Brown, Russell E., 12, 21, 154, 170, 204, 207, 213, 215, 217 Bruno, Guido, 279 Brzozowski, Stanisaw, 51 Buber, Martin, 27-29, 32-43, 46, 47, 54, 477, 490, 496 Buber, Paula, 32 Buczkowski, Leopold, 424 Budrecka, Aleksandra, 85, 105, 106, 131 Budurowicz, Bohdan, 138, 151 Bukwalt, Miosz, 153, 154, 158, 163, 170 Burek, Tomasz, 11, 21 Burke, Carolyn, 273, 279, 287 Byron, George, 328

Chabowska-Brykalska, Teresa, 145, 151 Chagall, Marc, 54, 64, 196 Chaplin, Charlie, 162 Chciuk, Andrzej, 423, 424, 431 Chmelnyc’kyj, Bohdan, 486 Chmurzyski, Wojciech, 217, 238, 258, 264, 453-456, 464, 467-470 Chotomska, Wanda, 145, 151 Chwin, Stefan, 12, 21, 49, 55, 63, 64, 71, 80 Ciesielczuk, Stanisaw, 137 irli-Straszyska, Danuta, 155, 170 Claretie, Jules, 259, 265 Cleopatra, 204 Coleman, Eli, 462, 469 Coleman, Emily, 272 Coleridge, Samuel, 328 Corcoran, Thomas H., 384, 394 Cortázar, Julio, 190 Craig, Gordon Edward, 293, 294, 301 Cranach, Lucas, 196, 200 Crane, Stephen, 279 Currie, Mark, 92, 131 Czabanowska-Wróbel, Anna, 15, 21 Czaplejewicz, Eugeniusz, 186, 192 Czarski, Wacaw, 404 Czechowicz, Józef, 136

D C Caillois, Roger, 508, 509 Callot, Jacques, 452 Calvino, Italo, 213 Camus, Albert, 341-345, 349, 352354, 356, 359 Carpentier, Alejo, 174, 190 Carrel, Alexis, 71 Cassouto, Nella, 219, 237 Cather, Willa, 267, 287 Cavanagh, Clare, 177, 192

D browska, Krystyna, 85, 131 D browski, Mieczysaw, 13, 21, 307 Dan-Bruzda, Stanisaw, 141, 142, 151 Danow, David K., 185, 192 David, Jacques-Louis, 201 De Bruyn, Dieter, 9, 18, 83, 85, 111, 119, 132 de Falla, Manuel, 256, 265 de Man, Paul, 177, 192, 309, 320, 321, 325

Index

521

De Pasquale Barbanti, Maria, 390, 394 de Sica, Vittorio, 174 Degas, Edgar, 460, 464 del Pino, Rafael, 256, 265 Delacroix, Eugène, 197, 259 Deleuze, Gilles, 229, 237, 312 Delgado de Baviera, Elena, 255 Deli, Jovan, 153, 163, 170 Derrida, Jacques, 169, 229, 237, 291, 304, 314, 319, 473 Des Places, Édouard, 394 Detienne, Marcel, 391, 394 Dickstein, Samuel, 423 Diederichs, Eugen, 34, 496 Diels, Hermann, 379-381, 394 Dijkstra, Bram, 456, 469 Doktór, Jan, 487, 496 Dorofte, Oleksi, 427, 432 Dos Passos, John, 280 Dostoevskii, Fëdor, 341, 359 Doughty, Frances, 272, 273, 287 Dreiser, Theodore, 279 Dresdner, Karol, 13, 21 Drozdowski, Piotr Joran, 85, 132 Dubnow, Simon, 476, 496 Dubowik, Henryk, 11, 21 Duchartre, Louis, 273 Dürer, Albrecht, 200 Durix, Jean-Pierre, 175, 192 Dybel, Pawe, 334, 338, 362, 364, 376 Dziekoski, Albin, 137

E Ehrenpreis, Marcus, 36, 258, 265 Eile, Stanisaw, 16, 21, 84, 85, 132 El Greco, 251, 255 Elbanowski, Adam, 174, 177, 183, 185, 190, 192 Eliade, Mircea, 139, 140, 151

Eliot, Thomas Stearns, 304 Ellis, Henry Havelock, 460 Empedocles, 379-381, 395 English, Horace B. and Ava Champney, 460, 470 Eppel, Asar, 425, 427, 432, 433

F Faulkner, William, 180, 192, 193 Fernandez, Renate Lellep, 264, 265 Fetting, Rainer, 195 Ficino, Marsilio, 390 Ficowski, Jerzy, 11, 13, 21, 24, 43, 47, 66, 81, 133, 151, 195, 197, 217, 219, 221, 237, 238, 251, 265, 269, 271, 274, 277, 278, 288, 304, 338, 359, 376, 377, 395, 402, 403, 405, 417, 418, 424, 425, 431, 450455, 458, 470, 471, 476, 497, 518 Fik, Ignacy, 10, 21 Finkel, Ludwik, 423 Fiut, Aleksander, 153, 155, 170, 428 Flaubert, Gustave, 206, 217, 494 Foucault, Michel, 181, 192, 450 Frank, Jakub Lejbovic, 486, 495 Franko, Ivan, 429, 430 Freud, Sigmund, 234, 285, 287, 310, 334, 361-368, 370-374, 376, 377, 440, 441, 449, 460 Fris, Lew, 425 Frydryczak, Beata, 307, 310, 325 Fuentes, Carlos, 190 Füssli, Johann Heinrich, 459

G García Márquez, Gabriel, 173, 174, 176-181, 184-193 Garcia, Amaya, 255, 265 Gazda, Grzegorz, 173, 180, 192, 338 Gebser, Jean, 254

Index

522 Gowacka, Dorota, 15, 21, 174, 192 Gowiski, Micha, 85, 132 Godley, Alfred Denis, 391, 394 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 99, 117, 232, 237 Gogol, Nikolai, 480 Golberg, Leonid, 425, 426, 428, 432 Goldfarb, David, 29, 36, 46, 56, 64, 359, 475, 496 Gombrowicz, Witold, 10, 12, 15, 2022, 24, 57, 63, 86, 87, 89, 120, 131, 133, 136, 233-237, 255, 257, 258, 292, 362, 364, 377, 399, 402, 412, 436, 451 Gomuka, Wadysaw, 145 Gon, Maksim, 422, 432 Goncourt, Edmond de, 460 Gondowicz, Jan, 220, 222, 237 Goodman, Nelson, 164, 168, 170 Golicki-Baur, Elisabeth, 11, 21 Gottlieb, Maurycy, 53 Goya, Francisco, 14, 197, 200, 204, 234, 256, 265, 269, 451, 452 Greene, Gerald and Caroline, 461, 470 Groski, Marek Ryszard, 399, 417 Grözinger, Karl Erich, 65, 371, 376, 483, 496 Grünewald, Matthias, 200 Grydzewski, Mieczysaw, 398-400, 411

H Habib, André, 299, 301, 304 Hahn, Hannelore, 180, 192, 518 Halevi, Z'ev Ben Simon, 75, 81 Halpern, Romana, 57, 63, 330, 403, 416 Harris, Wilson, 174 Harshav, Benjamin, 27, 31, 32, 46 Hart, Ray, 355

Haumann, Heiko, 476, 485, 486, 497 Haupt, Zygmunt, 64, 424 Heckel, Erich, 201 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 235, 441, 442, 449, 514 Heidbrink, Ludger, 307, 325 Heidegger, Martin, 436, 439 Hemar, Marian, 423 Heraclitus of Ephesus, 76, 500 Herodotus, 391, 394 Herring, Philip, 268, 287 Hett, Walter Stanley, 379, 380, 394 Hinchliffe, Arnold P., 341, 359 Hirano, Yoshihiko, 228, 237 Hnatiuk, Ivan, 193, 420, 426, 428 Hoffmann, E.T.A., 285, 294 Huxley, Aldous, 362 Huysmans, Joris-Karl, 210, 211, 215, 217 Hyde, George, 15, 21 Hyppolite, Jean, 442, 449

I Iamblichus, 393, 394 Ibsen, Henrik, 98 Ingold, Felix Philipp, 55, 61, 64, 155, 170 Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, 201 Irzykowski, Karol, 18, 24, 83-85, 8789, 91, 92, 94, 96-102, 109, 110, 116, 118-120, 123, 125, 127, 129133, 234, 469 Iser, Wolfgang, 314 Iwaszkiewicz, Jarosaw, 398, 405

J Jabonowski, Wadysaw, 101, 132 Jacobson, Yoram, 476, 489, 497 Janion, Maria, 177, 192 Jankowski, Leszek, 299

Index

523

Jarz bski, Jerzy, 11, 13-15, 21, 23, 46, 47, 49, 57, 60, 64, 65, 71, 80, 81, 138, 140, 151, 152, 157, 158, 170, 171, 189, 190, 192, 193, 216, 217, 237, 265, 325, 327, 328, 333, 338, 359, 362, 376, 377, 395, 401, 415, 418, 428, 432, 443, 450, 452, 453, 457, 460, 462, 467, 470, 471, 476, 496, 497, 518 Jastrun, Mieczysaw, 424 Jaworski, Roman, 204, 205, 217 Jesus, 52, 162, 227, 282 Jocz, Artur, 490, 497 Joyce, James, 83, 155 Józefczuk, Grzegorz, 429, 432 Jung, Carl Gustav, 69, 70, 81, 190, 362-364, 366, 460, 514, 517

K Kaden-Bandrowski, Juliusz, 400, 413, 414, 417 Kafka, Franz, 27, 33, 43, 59, 65, 177, 180, 181, 192, 193, 213, 215, 342, 359, 370, 371, 376, 447, 448, 483, 496, 497, 512 Kaivola, Karen, 284, 287 Kalaga, Wojciech, 320, 325 Kania, Ireneusz, 151, 369, 372, 376 Kannenstine, Louis, 282 Kant, Immanuel, 229, 448 Kantor, Tadeusz, 264, 265, 289, 292296, 301, 304 Kara, Ewa, 296, 297, 304 Karkowski, Czesaw, 11, 22, 49, 63, 64 Karpin, Josef, 427 Karpowicz, Agnieszka, 145, 151 Kasjaniuk, Halina, 14, 22, 220, 237, 452, 459, 461, 470 Kaków, Robert, 56, 64

Kasperski, Edward, 157, 170, 192, 193 Kato, Ariko, 14, 22, 219 Kaufer, David S., 177, 192 Kauffmann, Angelika, 129 Kejlin-Mitelman, Irena, 236, 263, 452 Kessling, C. R., 390, 394 Khlebnikov, Velimir, 492 Khnopff, Fernand, 459 Khonigsman, Iakov, 422 Kierkegaard, Sören, 331, 338 Kirchner, Hanna, 151 Kiš, Danilo, 65, 66, 153-156, 161, 163-171, 518 Kisiel, Marian, 137, 151 Kitowska-ysiak, Magorzata, 13, 14, 22, 47, 65, 151, 152, 192, 197, 208, 217, 220, 222, 226, 237, 238, 251, 252, 265, 337, 338, 452-454, 456, 459, 463, 464, 467, 470, 476, 497 Kak, Zofia, 124, 132 Klein, Robert, 390, 395 Klein, Stacy, 297, 298, 304 Kleiner, Juliusz, 423 Kleist, Heinrich von, 293, 294, 301 Klekh, Igor, 431, 432 Kligler, Artur, 425 Klimt, Gustav, 459 Kosiski, Krzysztof, 11, 22, 90, 91, 125, 132 Konarzewska, Marta, 328, 338 Kornhauser, Julian, 156, 171 Korzeniowski, Józef, 328 Koschmal, Walter, 153, 171 Koselleck, Reinhart, 307, 325 Kosko, Allan, 13, 22 Kony, Witold, 15, 22 Kossowska, Irena, 220, 237 Kossowski, ukasz, 220, 237 Kozakiewicz, Stanisaw, 143, 151 Krasiski, Zygmunt, 328

Index

524 Krauss, Rosalind, 509, 517 Krieger, Murray, 436, 450 Kristeva, Julia, 316 Krivokapi, Boro, 155, 171 Kubin, Alfred, 190, 215, 459 Kuczyska-Koschany, Katarzyna, 254, 265 Kulig-Janarek, Krystyna, 14, 22, 219221, 226, 234, 237, 463, 467, 470 Kumanicki, Kazimierz, 399, 418 Kuncewiczowa, Maria, 363, 411, 412 Kunicki, Wojciech, 516, 517 Kuprel, Diana, 157, 171, 353, 355, 358, 359 Kuryluk, Ewa, 277, 278, 456, 470 Kuniewicz, Andrzej, 424 Kumicki, Andrzej, 70, 71, 81 Kwiatkowski, Jerzy, 133, 398, 418

L Lachmann, Renate, 15, 22, 56, 58, 64, 100, 132, 155, 167, 168, 171, 473, 485, 490, 497, 503, 504, 517 Lahowska, Aga, 255, 256 Laing, Carol, 286, 288 Lam, Andrzej, 398, 399, 418 Lanckoroski, Karol, 253 Landauer, Gustav, 33 Lanfranco, Giovanni, 210 Lange, Antoni, 57, 254 Lasker-Schüler, Else, 53, 54 atuszyski, Grzegorz, 162, 171 Lauterbach, Artur, 13, 23, 451 Lavers, Annette, 216, 217 Lawson, Hilary, 156, 171 Leal, Luis, 174 Lecho, Jan, 398, 400 Lege yska, Anna, 149, 151 Leskov, Nikolai, 474, 495, 496 Lemian, Bolesaw, 49-57, 62-66, 137, 264, 265, 402

Leszczewska-Wodarska, Magorzata, 454, 456, 470 Lewi, Henri, 56, 57, 65, 475, 497 Lig za, Wojciech, 428 Lille, Ludwik, 404 Lindenbaum, Shalom, 29, 47, 475, 497 Lipiska-Iakowicz, Krystyna, 333, 338 Lipiski, Jacek, 85, 132 obodowski, Józef, 424 Looby, Robert, 175, 192 López, Alfred, 176, 192 opuszaski, Piotr, 51, 65 Louis VII, 254 Löwenthal, Edmund, 219, 220, 224 Lucie-Smith, Edward, 198, 199, 217 Lukács, Georg, 33, 413, 495 Luria, Isaac, 75, 77, 483 Lütkehaus, Ludger, 514, 517 Lyotard, Jean-François, 316, 325, 501, 517

M Mach, Wilhelm, 425 MacIntyre, Alasdayr, 508, 517 Macpherson, James, 328 Magritte, René, 196 Maiakovskii, Vladimir, 61 Malaniuk, Yevhen, 421 Mandel, Arnold, 476, 477, 483, 486, 487, 497 Manet, Edouard, 197 Mann, Thomas, 43-45, 47, 190, 207, 208, 214, 215, 217, 381, 382, 395 Marcus, Jane, 270, 274, 280, 284, 288 Marcuse, Max, 234, 235, 238 Markowski, Micha Pawe, 15, 23, 374, 376, 435, 438, 439, 450 Marquard, Odo, 314, 321 Maszewski, Zbigniew, 180, 192

Index

525

Matisse, Henri, 196 Mauclair, Camille, 253, 259, 265 McBean, Anne, 462, 469 McBurney, Simon, 294, 295, 305 Meier Ydit, Max, 481, 497 Meineke, August, 393, 395 Meiselas, Susan, 459 Mendes-Flohr, Paul, 33, 34, 35, 47 Meniok, Ihor, 427 Meniok, Vira, 428, 429 Messerli, Douglas, 275, 287, 288 Meyer, Howard Abrams, 390, 395 Meyer-Fraatz, Andrea, 49, 54, 56, 59, 65 Meyrink, Gustav, 190, 365 Michaowski, Piotr, 185, 192 Michel, Frann, 284, 288 Mickiewicz, Adam, 13, 237, 415 Miklaszewski, Krzysztof, 11, 23, 292 Millati, Piotr, 335, 338 Miosz, Czesaw, 73, 81, 170, 357, 359 Mnich, Roman, 429, 430, 432 Modigliani, Amedeo, 196 Moked, Gabriel, 63, 65 Monet, Claude, 206 Moore-Gilbert, Bart, 174, 192 Moreau, Gustave, 459 Munch, Edvard, 200, 234, 451 Musil, Robert, 357, 477, 478, 497

N Nabokov, Vladimir, 155, 161 Nacht, Józef, 64, 233, 235, 238 Nakowska, Zofia, 57, 63, 362, 402, 412, 457 Napierski, Stefan, 10, 24 Nathan of Gaza, 485 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 69, 71, 72, 98, 190, 310, 331, 440, 501, 516, 517 Norwid, Cyprian Kamil, 136, 147

Novalis, 328 Noyes, John K., 226, 238 Nycz, Ryszard, 84, 132, 192, 193

O O’Neill, Eugene, 272 Obehelman, Harley D., 180, 193 Ochman, Jerzy, 74, 81 Okopie-Sawiska, Aleksandra, 158, 171 Olchanowski, Tomasz, 155, 171 Olzhych, Oleh, 421 Oprecht, Emil, 254 Ortwin, Ostap, 423 Owczarski, Wojciech, 180, 193, 264, 265

P Paderewski, Ignacy, 256, 264 Panas, Wadysaw, 11, 14, 23, 29, 47, 51, 56, 60, 61, 65, 67, 74, 75, 81, 192, 217, 237, 338, 366, 369, 371, 372, 376, 425, 475, 484, 497, 504, 505, 517 Panti, Mihajlo, 163, 171 Pasternak, Boris, 55 Pavlyshyn, Andriy, 427 Pawowska-J drzyk, Brygida, 87-92, 119, 120, 132 Pawyszyn, Marko, 176, 182, 193 Peck, Arthur Leslie, 391, 395 Peiper, Tadeusz, 136 Pérez de Ayala, Ramon, 262 Petlura, Simon, 422 Pietrzak, Wodzimierz, 421, 432 Pijanovi, Petar, 154, 155, 171 Pilpel, Mundek, 49 Pisudski, Józef, 397-400, 404-406, 411-414, 417, 491 Pindel, Tomasz, 174, 193

Index

526 Plato, 381, 389 Pleniarowicz, Krzysztof, 292, 294, 304 Pliny, 383, 391, 392, 395 Pockier, Anna, 449, 467 Ploetz, Dagmar, 174, 179, 180, 184, 193 Podgórniak, Alexandra, 176, 193 Poe, Edgar Allan, 130, 215, 230, 287, 328 Poggioli, Renato, 492, 497 Pol, Wincenty, 328 Poulet, Georges, 314 Prohas’ko, Yurko, 429 Prokopczyk, Czesaw Z., 21, 414, 415, 418 Prokop-Janiec, Eugenia, 29, 31, 47, 63, 65, 366, 377 Proust, Marcel, 155, 207, 214, 215, 217 Prudil, Irena, 145, 151 Przybo, Julian, 136 Przybylski, Ryszard, 52, 57, 65 Przybyszewski, Stanisaw, 72, 131, 469, 488 Pshenychnyj, Yevgen, 428

Q Quay, Stephen and Timothy, 289, 292, 299, 301, 304

R Rachwa, Tadeusz, 13, 23 Rackham, Harris, 383, 392, 395 Rawdon Wilson, Robert, 182, 193 Raymond, Nancy, 462, 469 Retif, Nicolas Edmé, 463 Ricoeur, Paul, 439, 440, 450 Riffaterre, Michael, 169, 171

Rilke, Rainer Maria, 190, 251, 253, 254, 265, 491 Rilke-Westhoff, Clara, 253 Ritz, German, 15, 23, 94, 132, 265 Robertson, Theodosia, 12, 23, 59, 65, 304, 417, 451, 468, 470 Rops, Félicien, 14, 200, 234, 451, 459 Rorty, Richard, 161, 162, 171, 501 Rosenfeld, Alvin H., 169, 171 Rosenzweig, Franz, 28 Rosiek, Stanisaw, 14, 21, 138, 151, 237, 265, 338, 376, 418, 453, 470, 476, 496 Roskies, David G., 481, 497 Roth, John K., 341, 343, 344, 359 Rubens, Peter Paul, 197, 200 Rudnyts’kyj, Mykhajlo, 424 Rybicka, El bieta, 15, 23 Rymkiewicz, Jarosaw M., 55, 65

S Sabbatai Zwi, 485, 486 Sacher-Masoch, Leopold von, 198, 200, 213, 215, 219-222, 224-238, 278, 488 Said, Edward, 53 Salamon, Joanna, 257, 265 Samchuk, Ulas, 420, 421 Samojlik, Czesaw, 11, 23 Sandauer, Artur, 11, 23, 85, 88, 135138, 145, 152, 238, 328, 338, 362, 377, 452, 485, 490, 497, 500, 517 Sanders, Julie, 289 Sangree, Constance L., 260, 265 Sargent, John S., 252, 265 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 340, 341, 359 Saulnier, René, 273 Schaeder, Grete, 33, 47 Schiele, Egon, 196, 459 Schlegel, Friedrich, 177, 309, 328, 448, 450, 514

Index

527

Schmid, Herta, 49, 63, 65, 171 Scholem, Gershom, 27, 64, 75, 81, 367, 371, 372, 377, 476, 483, 485487, 489, 497, 505, 518 Schönle, Andreas, 13, 15, 23, 120, 124, 126, 133, 145, 152 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 34, 69, 70, 81, 98, 499, 500, 501, 506, 514-518 Schulte, Jörg, 29, 47, 50, 56, 58, 60, 66, 379, 505, 518 Schulz, Bruno ‘A Night in July’, 388 ‘A Second Autumn’, 209, 444, 465 ‘August’, 63, 120, 128, 203, 209, 310, 329, 334, 376, 388, 465 ‘Birds’, 58, 76, 93, 111, 402, 420, 483 ‘Cinnamon Shops’, 93, 120, 259, 310, 389, 392, 474, 478, 483 ‘Cockroaches’, 206 ‘Dead Season’, 483 ‘Dodo’, 120 ‘Eddie’, 120, 201 ‘Father’s Last Escape’, 59, 188, 510 ‘Fatherland’, 406, 409, 410 ‘Loneliness’, 179, 180, 262 ‘Mr. Charles’, 311, 316 ‘My Father Joins the Fire Brigade’, 388 ‘Nimrod’, 483 ‘Pan’, 23, 63, 120, 263, 389 ‘Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass’, 61, 93, 120, 181, 317, 381, 382, 388, 389, 489 ‘Spring’, 15, 40, 43, 63, 78, 79, 93, 100, 111, 115, 181, 189-191, 211, 226, 254, 256, 260, 311, 314, 316, 321, 322, 329, 406, 436, 438-440, 442, 465, 474, 482, 487, 491

‘Tailors’ Dummies’, 94, 284, 290, 465, 482, 489 ‘The Age of Genius’, 15, 39, 100, 106, 465, 479, 489 ‘The Book’, 15, 38, 39, 100, 178, 186, 278, 311, 329, 353, 405, 451, 465, 467, 468, 479, 502, 514, 515 ‘The Comet’, 71, 76, 93, 335, 387, 479, 490, 492, 493, 494, 515 ‘The Gale’, 59, 384, 437, 465, 511 ‘The Night of the Great Season’, 29, 113, 329, 330, 335 ‘The Old-Age Pensioner’, 120, 292, 386, 390, 445 ‘The Republic of Dreams’, 43, 298, 400, 406, 407, 479, 490, 491 ‘The Street of Crocodiles’, 93, 120, 128, 135, 140, 141, 145, 150, 186, 209, 300, 303, 311, 330, 332, 335 ‘Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies’, 15, 58, 59, 63, 71, 107, 126, 153, 156, 161, 166-169, 315, 321, 329, 332, 333, 335, 386, 465, 488, 504 ‘Visitation’, 58, 465, 483 The Idolatrous Book, 60, 61, 197199, 205, 219-224, 226-228, 236, 264, 269, 274, 276-278, 284, 285, 302, 303, 451-454, 456-459, 462-469, 476, 509 Schulz-Podstolska, Ella, 487 Schwartsbard, Samuil, 422 Schwarz, Marek, 258 Seneca, 383, 394 Shakespeare, William, 254 Shalata, Mykhailo, 426 Shallcross, Bo ena, 14, 15, 24, 29, 47, 56, 66, 350, 360, 505, 518 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 328

528 Shevchenko, Taras, 421, 430 Shklovskii, Viktor, 175 Shkrabiuk, Andriy, 428 Shore, Marci, 399, 418 Showalter, Elaine, 286, 288 Sikorski, Dariusz, 15, 24, 56, 66 Simmel, Georg, 33 Singer, Isaac Bashevis, 61, 337 Skórczewski, Dariusz, 177, 193 Slemon, Stephen, 174-176, 182, 193 Slessor, Catherine, 269, 288 Sonimski, Antoni, 366, 398, 400, 405 Sowacki, Juliusz, 390, 423 Sucki, Arnold, 67-70, 75-79, 81 Speina, Jerzy, 11, 24, 157, 171, 362, 364, 377, 473, 498 Spiegel, Nathan, 258 Spieker, Sven, 355, 357, 360 Spinoza, Baruch, 164 Sproede, Alfred, 20, 56, 57, 59, 66, 118, 133, 473, 481, 498, 504, 518 Staff, Leopold, 397, 398, 402 Stala, Krzysztof, 12, 15, 16, 24, 56, 66, 86, 133, 157, 171, 174, 193, 195, 205, 209, 217, 238, 290, 304, 367, 374, 375, 377, 473, 498, 511, 513, 515, 518 Stalin, Iosif, 137, 145, 422 Starobinski, Jean, 320 Steinhoff, Lutz, 12, 24 Stempowski, Jerzy, 421, 432 St pnik, Krzysztof, 85, 133 Stojanovi, Branislava, 9, 154, 155, 171 Stone, Rochelle, 51, 55, 66 Strabo, 393 Stryjkowski, Julian, 477 Subotin, Stojan, 155, 171 Sulikowski, Andrzej, 11, 24, 456, 462, 471 Susak, Vira, 428, 432 wi ch, Jerzy, 428

Index Swie awski, Stefan, 68 Szafran, Willy, 364-366, 373, 377 Szary-Matywiecka, Ewa, 88, 99, 102, 116, 133 Szeliska, Józefina, 333, 403, 457 Szrajer, Alfred, 425 Szuman, Stefan, 402 Szymanowski, Karol, 427 Szymaski, Wiesaw Pawe, 11, 24

T Tanemura, Suehiro, 228, 238 Taran, Lyudmila, 428, 432 Taylor Sen, Colleen, 11, 24, 84, 85, 133 Thompson, Ewa M., 177, 193 Tissot, James, 206 Titian, 195, 198, 204 Todorov, Tzvetan, 184, 193 Tollet, Daniel, 476, 486, 487, 498 Tolstoi, Lev, 341 Tomkowski, Jan, 372, 377 Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de, 206, 451, 460, 464 Tudor, Stepan, 421 Turina, Joaquín, 255 Tuwim, Julian, 57, 137, 366, 398, 400, 402, 405, 406, 408 Twain, Mark, 279 Tychyna, Pavlo, 421

U Unterman, Alan, 75, 81 Updike, John, 154, 171 Utamaro, Kitagawa, 460

V van der Meer, Jan, 13, 24

Index

529

Van Heuckelom, Kris, 9, 14, 24, 56, 61, 66, 132, 205, 217, 228, 239, 277-279, 288, 302, 303, 305, 458, 471 van Rijn, Rembrandt, 197, 204 Vandyshev, Valentin, 428 Velazquez, Diego, 197 Verbeke, Gérard, 390, 395 Verlaine, Paul, 51 Verne, Jules, 130 Vico, Giambattista, 408, 409, 418 Vladiv-Glover, Slobodanka, 156, 172 Vogel, Debora, 13, 24, 31, 36, 57, 258, 264, 333 Volkening, Ernesto, 184, 193 Vozniak, Taras, 428, 429

W Wachholz, Leon, 233, 239 Washington, Peter, 514, 518 Wasilewska, Wanda, 422 Waniewski, Zenon, 457, 464 Waszak, Tomasz, 15, 24 Wat, Aleksander, 57, 233, 399, 402 Watowa, Ola, 233, 239, 451 Watteau, Antoine, 461 Waugh, Patricia, 92, 133 Wa yk, Adam, 399, 402 Weigel, Sigrid, 169, 172 Weingarten, Stanisaw, 60, 229, 272, 452, 454, 460, 467, 470 Weretiuk, Oksana, 19, 419, 421, 422, 424, 432 Werner, Andrzej, 64, 85, 133 Werner, Edmund, 425 Westley, Helen, 272 Widelski, Andrzej A., 429 Wiegandt, Ewa, 158, 172 Wieniawa-Dugoszowski, Bolesaw, 399

Wieniewska, Celina, 47, 81, 133, 171, 193, 265, 269, 288, 325, 359, 377, 418, 450, 497, 498, 518 Wierzbycki, Jan, 156, 172 Wierzyski, Kazimierz, 397, 398, 400, 405, 406, 411, 413-415, 417, 418 Wilde, Oscar, 270, 459 Witkiewicz, Stanisaw Ignacy (Witkacy), 10, 12-15, 20, 22, 24, 43, 44, 57, 61, 63, 73, 81, 86, 87, 89, 97, 99, 118, 128, 131, 133, 199, 200, 204, 210, 216, 217, 233, 234, 237, 239, 292, 336, 349, 351, 357, 399, 402, 412, 413, 442, 451, 464, 466, 469, 471, 475, 500, 501, 513 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 311, 325 Wittlin, Józef, 57, 402 Witz, Ignacy, 13, 24 Wodarski, Zbigniew, 454, 456, 470 Wood, Thelma, 272 Wright, M. R., 381, 395 Wyka, Kazimierz, 10, 24, 85, 101, 133, 135-137, 142, 152 Wyskiel, Wojciech, 11, 25, 59, 66 Wysouch, Seweryna, 14, 25 Wyspiaski, Stanisaw, 398, 418

Y Yavoryna, Mykola, 428

Z Zagajewski, Adam, 148, 152 Zengel, Ryszard, 85, 133 eromski, Stefan, 399 Zieliski, Jan, 251, 254, 265 Zuloaga y Zabaleta, Ignacio, 197, 251-256, 259-265 urek, Sawomir Jacek, 67, 81

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