Juliana Kawalca pieśń o starości

Abstract

Constituting the background of the main theme, the first part of the article deals with several recent critical works on the subject. Among those are texts by Ryszard Przybylski entitled Baśń zimowa. Esej o starości (Winter Tale. An Essay on Death), Elżbieta Kieślak’s Szkice do portretu artysty i czasów starości (Sketches to the Artist's Portrait and Old Age) (about Czesław Miłosz), Wojciech Ligçza’s Worek strachów. O upływaniu czasu w twórczości Aleksandra Wata (A Sack of Fears. On Time Passing in Aleksander Wat’s Output), Andrzej Strendo’s O szczególnych właściwościach tzw. późnej twórczości Różewicza (On Peculiar Characteristics of the so-called Late output of Różewicz). In this context, Julian Ka- walec’s output from 1990-ties is viewed. It was the time when his transformation took place from a prose writer to a poet who demonstrated all characteristic aspects of “the old age” creation, meaning the problems of life and death, limitations resulting from the old age. The same topics are also discussed in small narrative forms that appear towards the end of the 1990-ties. The analysis of this phase of Kawalec’s literary creation leads to several conclusions, namely that the anatomy of the old age is inscribed in poet’s biography. The covered problems are decline of physical strength, atrophy and relation between youth and old age, recollections from childhood, maladjustment to contemporary times and the end of the category of death. Death is approached stoically by the author who only rebels against its preposterous occurrence in wars, revolutions and terrorist attacks.