Groza i miłość. O Schulzu Witkiewicza
Horror and Love. On Witkiewicz’s Schulz

Summary/Abstract: The Bruno Schulz oeuvre is not without images of horror; on the contrary, such forms are numerous but remain curious – often allusive or with an underpinning of irony. The most expressive is the image of the fury of an apparently endless gale destroying the roofs of houses. There is also horror, or rather its allusion, as a mysterious aura evoked by the dramas of clouds and celestial objects, taking place in the sky over Drohobych. Terrifying metamorphoses of persons changing into birds, insects, crabs or rubber intestines. More, there is an almost classical tragedy with all the elements of tragic qualities: when father-crab is baked and almost eaten in the course of a family dinner. Nonetheless, horror in Schulz’s world appears to lack a solid enrootment in the firm ground of reality – be it the reality of Nature or society; its epiphanies cease and dissolve without clear reason or lack consequences of any sort; we cannot even tell whether the threats were real. In an article published in “Pion” (1935) Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz undertook a philosophical interpretation of stories from the Sklepy cynamonowe volume. This clarification contains also a possible answer to the question why horror in Schulz’s works was treated so amicably.

• Details
• Contents