Apofatyczna mistagogia 'Zdań i uwag'. Ku poetyckiemu zamilkaniu Adama Mickiewicza
The Apophatic Mystagogy of 'Zdania i uwagi' – towards the Poetic Falling Silent of Adam Mickiewicz

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on Zdania i uwagi – a work that could be recognised as the penultimate stop on the way towards the poetic falling silent of Adam Mickiewicz. In it the Romantic author renounced all claims to autonomous creativity and concealed his auteur “I” behind the spiritual guidebooks read by him. The collection reflects Mickiewicz’s evolving views about poetry and the word. In his concept of literature emerging in the shadow of the Romantic crisis of the language the author stressed the mystagogic and performative role of the word. The objective of writing is to render truths permanent and to transmit them (initiation); the written work is to be the reason why something that shall incline others to act will take place. Doubt in the cognitive power of language, combined with an inner conviction about the necessity of proclaiming the truth, leads the poet along the apophatic path, which in Zdania i uwagi reveals itself upon the level of the form in the aesthetics of a fragment (the “kenosis” of the discourse, a bereft style), while upon the level of contents it is expressed in the praise of silence and calm – conditions for contemplation conceived not merely as a way of cognition but also prayer.

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