Andrzeja Buszy „podróż do kresu nocy”
Andrzej Busza’s “Journey to the End of Night”

Author(s): Stanisław Dłuski
Subject(s): Polish Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: existentialism; catastrophism; tragedy; heroism; faith;
Summary/Abstract: Unlike many Polish poets of the mid‑twentieth century, Andrzej Busza largely eschews themes of war and patriotic sacrifice. His concerns are universal in scope. He offers an insightful, if catastrophic, diagnosis of contemporary civilization. Dłuski writes that the title of his paper “Journey to the End of Night” not only alludes to Celine’s famous novel but also implies cognitive and moral striving, indeed a heroic endeavor to find meaning in life. As Janusz Pasterski has argued, the tragic dimension of this enterprise resides in the fact that Busza painfully feels the absurdity of history, the homelessness of the cosmos, the lack of any kind of bearings in universal emptiness. His poetry is imbued at every level with this eschatologically pessimistic vision. The only antidote to this deeply nihilistic and catastrophic (i.e. full of menace) worldview is the act of writing. The poet defends himself against the horror of meaninglessness by adopting an ironic stance towards the world, life, and even himself. Frequently, the feeling of despair is mitigated by an elegiac tone, and the sense of the absurd collides with cognitive and axiological need and a yearning to create order out of chaos. In the final analysis, however, the poet seems to be on the side of hope, believing that in spite of everything there is always a new dawn at “the end of night.” The struggle to overcome nihilistic despair is itself the beginning of hope.

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