Lekcje i kolekcje. O »Lekcji martwego języka« Andrzeja Kuśniewicza
Lessons and collections. About »Dead Language Lesson« by Andrzej Kuśniewicz

Author(s): Elżbieta Dutka
Subject(s): Polish Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: Andrzej Kuśniewicz;
Summary/Abstract: »Dead Language Lesson« is considered as one of the best novels of Andrzej Kuśniewicz and the peak artistic achievement of this author. The article presents an interpretation of this piece; this interpretation is focused around two „keywords”: „lesson” and „collection”, which keep boomeranging in many contexts and become peculiar metaphors embracing different levels of the novel. Learning and collecting often overlap each other to the extent they can be identified (learning is a specific type of knowledge, experience collection; collecting is learning), it happens however that they move in opposite directions, revealing different interpretative spaces. A collection at the level of the world presented (collections of lieutenant Kiekeritz) is a „lesson of things” about culture and history, tells about the fragility of human life, which is a collection itself - a collection of impressions, experiences, and thoughts. A collection at the level of language (dictionary as a collection of words), narration and composition (returning motives, associations, narration through „adding” - multiplication of descriptions, images) is a peculiar type of reality cataloguing. Different collections are joined and separated by death - they are a voice of an intensive experience of life at its end.

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