Erudycja i wyznanie… O przypisach w twórczości Cypriana Norwida (rekonesans)
Erudition and Creed. On Annotations in Cyprian Norwid’s Works (Reconnaissance)

Author(s): Agata Seweryn
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Summary/Abstract: The annotations in Norwid’s writings reveal a tension between the rhetorical and the lyrical, characteristic for his works. On the one hand, conventional explanations and philological commentaries (occasionally erroneous due to the poet’s lack of knowledge or memory), initiating the conventions proper to the rhetorical function of docere, fit into the tradition of a classical erudition. On the other hand, their associativity and hermetism, demanding increased attention from a researcher, impose specific Norwidian perspective of the intertpretation of reality. They reveal the authorial „I” and become lyrically and personally charged. In this context, it is worth mentioning particularly the commentaries that – being at odds with Norwid’s principle of „omissions and understatements” – appear to be redundant to the main content. The uniqueness of many of the annotations by Norwid also lies in the fact that they frequently explain very little objectively and hence require explanatory notes themselves, thus prompting an increased intellectual effort in a reader. Therefore, they can be read, to a certain extent, as parallel to the content of the poem Ciemność, among others.

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