Janko the Musician: Music and Desire Cover Image

Janko Muzykant. Muzyka i pragnienie
Janko the Musician: Music and Desire

Author(s): Michał Zając
Subject(s): Polish Literature, Psychoanalysis, Sociology of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: Janko the Musician; The Stranger; Oedipus complex; psychoanalysis; subjectivity; music; desire;

Summary/Abstract: The article presents the interpretation of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Janko the Musician and Maria Kuncewiczowa’s The Stranger, having chosen as the central analytic and interpretational concept the desire, which in case of both characters is centred around music and violin that symbolises and embodies it. Identified and acknowledged desire plays a key role in the transition from the Oedipus complex and creates the base for the development of human subjectivity. Music (being art) enables the expression and formation of that subjectivity.

  • Issue Year: 18/2021
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 587-598
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: Polish