Kosmiczny gest Gałczyńskiego

Abstract

The author of the essay analyses the images of the Universe, the sky, the stars, and the Moon that appear in the works of K.I. Gałczyński (1905–1953). The analysis reveals that the poet made a poetic movement that the author refers to as the “cosmic gesture” in multiple poems, starting from the beginnings of his work until the end. The gesture consists in placing the lyrical subject and the created world in a cosmic space that is filled with the movement of stars, moons, and angels. However, this is not the Romantic universe: full of movement, infinite, with another, divine side. The universe of Gałczyński is infinite, yet closed, filled with the repetitive movements of celestial bodies. Close to the end of his life, the poet dreams about stifling this gesture and halting the cosmic movement. He dreams that the melancholic splintering of the subject between what has been lost and what is the dream about harmony and fulfilment will cease. When he had articulated this dream in a poetically perfect manner in the Songs (1950) and the Olsztyn Chronicles (1953), he died, probably of a heart attack.