Sławomir Mrożek wobec krajobrazów

Abstract

This paper examines the poetics of recording the experience of a particular geographical space in Sławomir Mrożek’s Diary and his correspondence with Stanisław Lem. Referring to a self-comment contained in one of the letters, in which the writer states that he prefers to “work in the sphere of inference rather than description”, the author analyses Mrożek’s way of perceiving landscapes and “elaborating” on the observations and sensations registered during his initial period of the stay outside Poland. As she demonstrates, the writer is more interested in the cultural than in aesthetic dimension of the observed landscapes. Mrożek’s way of reading the meanings of the surrounding geographical space is predominantly occulocentric, but sometimes it is also conditioned by olfactory and haptical sensations. The particularity of Mrożek’s reading of the landscapes of Western Europe is also determined by the fact that the writer adopts a confrontational attitude, perceiving them through the prism of the cultural experience of a newcomer from Eastern Europe.