„Gry z nicością” – o ironii w twórczości Jana Lemańskiego

Abstract

Irony in the literature of Young Poland functions as a philosophical notion, the notion (having been worked out by August Comte or Herbert Spencer) establishing a so-far unprecedented view on reality (see:, among others, the works of Tadeusz Miciński, Stanisław Przybyszewski and Maria Komornicka). The said perspective allows for keeping a distance to the world; it also specified the attitudes â of the individual seeking for freedom and it settles â “the games with nothingness”. One of the artists who in his works developed ironic stances and created an idiosyncratic â “theory” of irony was Jan Lemański. Irony present in his works demonstrated the underlying Romantic attitudes. However, Lemański enriched its significance as well as he connected the phenomenon of irony with the experience of emptiness and of melancholic powerlessness. He also interestingly construed of the theses stated by the Danish pre-existentialist Soren Kierkeggard, the latter being justifiably regarded as one of the pioneers of the modern notion of irony and melancholy.