Mapa emocji w emigracyjnej poezji Barbary Toporskiej

Abstract

Barbara Toporska (1913-1985), best known to readers and literary scholars as an emigration novelist (Siostry, Na wschód od dzisiaj) and journalist (mainly publishing her articles in London "Wiadomości"), is also the author of a volume of poems, Athene noctua (1973). Her poetry involves the full spectrum of multidimensional emotions, arising at the meeting of her personal experiences on the one hand (among others, the perspective of exile and the cancer she suffered from), and the universal traditions (Hellenist and Christian philosophy and art) or historical events (the problem of the condition of the world after the hecatomb of WWII) on the other. Toporska valued poems the most of all the genres, she looked for language relevant to the subjects discussed, as a result producing sophisticated, contemplative poetry full of emotions. It must be emphasized that for her the lyric genre was the only area in which she - as an artist - was not in the shadow of her husband, a well-known novelist and journalist, Józef Mackiewicz.