Harmonia, liryzm, trwoga. Studia o twórczości Bronisławy Ostrowskiej

Abstract

Harmony, Lyricism, Anxiety. Studies of Bronisława Ostrowska’s Works is an attempt at a comprehensive review of the oeuvre of Bronisława Ostrowska, a major representative of the Young Poland Movement. The author of the study analyzes not only Ostrowska’s poetic works, but also her fiction and books for children. The interpretations of such diverse literary production have been divided into sections, each one touching upon different themes and problems. The first part, The Experience of Sacrum, is dedicated to Ostrowska’s observations of the sacred that is manifested in art, a transcendent soul and man’s partaking in nature. The works mentioned in this section testify to the writer’s heterogeneous outlook on life (spiritualism, mysticism, the esoteric, pantheism). However, most of the analysis revolves round the works that may be interpreted as documenting an individual’s way to faith (fragments of Meditations and poems from the volume The Ring of Life). In her poems Ostrowska often evokes a universal mystic symbolism. The chosen mode of representation abounds in metaphors of light and frequent references to the philosophy of Francis of Assisi. The artistic vision of nature’s harmony is deeply rooted in the biblical Book of Genesis. The mystical experience of an act of creation and the emphasis that is put on the idea of all-encompassing unity (of God, nature, soul and the world) stem from Ostrowska’s readings of great Romantic poets (Słowacki in particular) and philosophical fascinations that were typical of her generation. The next part, Metamorphoses of Love, looks at various aspects of love. The phenomenon of love, the power capable of transforming the world, recurs in the writer’s oeuvre (lyrics, epic poems and fairy tales) on numerous occasions. The interpretation of the poetic fairy tale, Siren’s Daughter, points to Ostrowska’s original way of overcoming Schopenhauer’s pessimistic conception of love. This is done by means of sublimation of Eros into caritas. Ostrowska produced both literature that recalled the Young Poland’s myths of love (rather conventional in the chosen mode of representation) and avant-garde, deeply moving, confessional lyrics that mirrored struggles within female souls. The latter can be perceived as anticipating Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska’s erotic poetry. The chapter is supplemented by an analysis of the sonnet cycle, Motherhood, which exemplifies the motif of “motherly” love. The chapter Polish Universum takes up various threads and motifs concerning Ostrowska’s preoccupation with her native land. The analysis of selected works leads to a clear-cut conclusion: that the relation between man and his native land should be perceived on different levels of involvement, and that this relation is not so much connected with national “ornamentation,” but rather with cultural contextualization and specifically understood space, time and memory. The author of the study demystifies the popular fallacy that national preoccupations did not appear in Ostrowska’s works until after the outbreak of the First World War. In fact, such preoccupations had always been part of her artistic imagination. Ostrowska’s overt affiliation with Romantic tradition, the echoes of Konopnicka, Kasprowicz or Tetmajer in her own works should, according to the author of the study, be interpreted as a conscious dialogue with traditional topoi and conventions. The interpretation of Ostrowska’s works emphasizes the fact that the presence of such elected affinities demonstrates the writer’s artistic ambition and her urge to re-contextualize and contemporize traditional themes and motifs. Searching for the origins of her writing, Ostrowska deliberately archaizes the language of some of her works and looks for the original but forgotten meanings of words. The last part of the study, In the Circle of Fairy Tales and Myths: Books for Children, discusses the functions of fairy tales and myths in Ostrowska’s oeuvre and analyzes the transformations they are subject to in different thematic contexts. Reading Teddy Bear, the Her; The Book of Tomorrow; Madej; The Glass Mountain or Siren’s Daughter, the author of the study observes a certain indecisiveness about the target reader of these books: they are meant for both children and adults. Interestingly, the stories often break the boundaries of genre. In fact, Ostrowska’s literary fairy tales, folk fairy tales and fairy tale dramas appear alongside the works that merely refer to the sphere of a fairly tale or a myth. In the conclusion of the study it is clearly seen that taken together Ostrowska’s literary works constitute a coherent, harmonious and value-oriented whole.