Zygmunt Haupt. Melancholia i literatura

Abstract

The presented article attempts to indicate those places in Zygmunt Haupt's prose, which show its melancholic structure according to the theory proposed by Sigmund Freud. Such reading allows us to place the imagined author's 'I' in a world marked by loss and decay. The ambivalence towards this world is expressed in the longing and guilt that come to light, especially in the memories of the lost love. The stories contained in the volume of the Basque Devil not only describe the world of the author's youth but represent a literary attempt - unsuccessful in result - to imaginary return. It is both understanding as much as giving meaning that is at stake when reconsidering the present in the literary game of presence and absence.