Niespodziewane świadectwa. Psychoanaliza i literatura
Unexpected Evidence. Psychoanalysis and Literature

Summary/Abstract: The author broached a problem indicated by the originator of psychoanalysis: difficulties associated with becoming acquainted with psychoanalysis and the process of convincing about the reality of its discoveries, conceits, and statements. This is, after all, a domain of knowledge in which nothing can be demonstrated or familiar from the inside, i.e. from the position of the observer. Freud maintained that psychoanalysis can be recognised only by referring to oneself and in connection with personal experience. This is the sole path for becoming convinced about the reality of the psychological knowledge it contributes.The author, who as a researcher deals with literature, combines in her publications the skills of an expert on literature and that of a psychoanalyst; by conducting for a number of years a seminar on Literature and Psychoanalysis she became convinced that the use of literary works is the only conducive way of linking one’s experience with learning about the fundamental discoveries and concepts of psychoanalysis. She has in mind studies that originated prior to the emergence of psychoanalysis (and not later ones, written already under its impact). In them one can come across specific precursory poetic embodiments (in concrete poetic images, figures, and events) of certain essential Freudian discoveries and concepts. This holds true in particular for works from the Romantic era, whose analysis, carried out together with persons familiar with psychoanalysis, provides evidence concerning the degree to which such discoveries and concepts become convincing. The second part of the text analyses, by way of example, a sonnet by Adam Mickiewicz: Burza morska (The Storm), a fragment of Zygmunt Krasiński’s Modlitwa w chwili zwątpienia (Prayer at Moment of Doubt), and a fragment of Pamiętnik (Diary) by Zofia Szymanowska ( secundo voto Lenartowiczowa) from 1854. The last part focuses on an analysis – conducted by applying psychoanalytical discoveries and conceits – of the autobiographical poem by Adam Mickiewicz: Ach, już i w rodzicielskim domu…(Already in My Family Home), which also from the vantage point of its form and contents is the opposite of another such poem written at the same time: Polały się łzy me (My Clear, Abundant Tears Flowed), which research into Mickiewicz’s life and oeuvre almost ignored. Danuta Danek claims that the special form of this poem (in which she perceives a precursory stream of consciousness) and its extremely unclear and as if entangled content comprise poetic evidence of a sui generis psychomachia between conscious contents and extremely painful, and thus not admitted, unconscious contents invading consciousness and involving a child harmed within the family.

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