HORYZONTY AKSJOLOGICZNE OPOWIADANIA REINHOLDA SCHNEIDERA SEN ŚWIĘTEGO
AXIOLOGICAL HORIZONS OF THE SHORT STORY THE DREAM OF THE SAINT BY REINHOLD SCHNEIDER

Summary/Abstract: The subject matter of the analysis is a short story entitled The Dream of the Saint by Reinhold Schneider, a writer belonging to the leading representatives of the Catholic resistance against National Socialism in Germany. The aim of the following sketch is reconstruction of the hierarchy of values which rule the world as presented in the given short story. Axiological analysis aims at grasping a general sense of a literary piece in the perspective of values updated in it. Axiological process is composed of (in order): intellectual cognition of some value, recognizing it as good; therefore, affirmation and benevolence, i.e. its free choice. Growing from the Gospel, the hierarchy of values that Schneider’s short story embraces has determined my choice of typology of values – personalistic and theocentric – as Max Scheler proposed, by dividing them into sensual, vital, spiritual, and religious. Axiological marking of a literary piece is already formed on the level of vocabulary, sentences, as well as whole, shorter or longer, texts. For the correct deciphering of a given value, the context in itself is extremely important, because a word, by having an explicitly positive connotation, may become ambivalent in its own meaning. The action of the analysed short story takes place in a prison cell, where Thomas Morus sentenced for his refusal of taking an oath of recognition of the king of England, Henry VIII, as the head of the Church of that country, is imprisoned. With reference to the utterances of the heroes, that are the dialogue between Morus and the monarch, one may mark out and name the values made manifest in this piece of writing. They concentrate on such problems as death, life (earthly and eternal), fidelity to God’s commandments, love, service to the king, power, affluence, intellectual goods, etc. The text reveals axiological marking both, on the plane of individual expressions and longer fragments. It allows reconstruct the hierarchy of values as recognized by Morus in the following way: fidelity and loyalty towards the king give way to fidelity to God; love of cognitive-intellectual and material values gives way to religious values. The attitude of the monarch stands in opposition to the attitude of his subordinate, thus, here, we may also speak about anti-values. KEY WORDS: axiology, value, short story.

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