Ekonomia szaleństwa w "Pamiętniku wariata" Mikołaja Gogola. O wiatrakach, cogito, teorii i szaleństwie
Madness Economy in Nikolai Gogol’s "Diary of a Madman". On windmills, cogito, theory and madness

Summary/Abstract: This text is an attempt to touch on the theme of madness in literature. While recalling an interpretation of the first modern novel (Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Don Quixote), the author refers us to a Cartesian attempt of bypassing the madman position. This moment, described in Meditations on First Philosophy, becomes the starting point for musings on the nature of language and the contemporary state of literary research, erroneously seeking a basis in legal and economical sciences. The main subject here remains a rigorous analysis of Nikolai Gogol’s Diary of a Madman. In the course of the lecture, the nature of madness is revealed in front of the reader, the economy of “insane” writing, which jeopardizes any positivity of sense, and with it – the achievements of traditional metaphysics. A comparative dimension of interpretation also reveals historically fluid borders between a sane and insane subject.

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