W żywiole szukania „ja”. Refleksje wokół wiersza „Broń mnie przed sobą samym…” Adama Mickiewicza
In the element of searching for the “I”. Reflections on the poem “Protect me from myself…” by Adam Mickiewicz

Author(s): Ewa Hoffmann-Piotrowska
Subject(s): Polish Literature, Philology
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Summary/Abstract: This paper is an attempt to interpret Mickiewicz’s poem from the Roman-Dresden period. It is most often discussed as a fragment of a larger whole, a variant of the Great Improvisation or a surviving fragment of the poet’s devised continuation of his masterpiece. Researchers have extracted various meanings from it, most often looking for inspiration and references in the heterodox religious tradition. In this paper I propose to read this intriguing text from the perspective of Mickiewicz’s anthropological and theological reflections of the 1830s, his comprehensive reading of St. Augustine, Thomas à Kempis and the meditations of Thomas Aquinas. The poem is an intriguing and surprising testimony to the poet’s theological reflection. The problems of the hypostatic union or the divinity of Christ resound in the poem, and ultimately lead to the search for Meaning, which turns out to be the primary problem of the poem’s subject.

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