Konteksty gatunkowe Miazgi Jerzego Andrzejewskiego

Abstract

The main problem discussed in the article is an attempt at showing, naming and determining the functions of genres and genre categories included in the novel, which is an innovative literary piece, against the contemporary Polish prose. The literary experiment, among other things, consisted in the introduction of other genres into the context of the novel and the construction of a complete whole. The core of Miazga is an outline of a social novel conceived of as a huge panorama- novel created in agreement with the principles of the 19th century literary genre. There are four distinct short stories, a drama piece and several poems in Miazga. In fact, these were Andrzejweski’s texts published earlier in separate collections. To emphasise the effect of a separate narrator’s presence in the novel, the author commissioned Antoni Libera to write a text that functions as a student’s essay on the literary output of the main character. Beside the incomplete social novel there are two separate parts in the text, that is Dziennik and Intermedium, czyli Polskie życiorysy. The former introduces the autothematic element. The diary includes quotations from other literary, press and scientific texts, also scene sketches and dialogues, which were removed from the novel, and alternatives to novel events, etc. Intermedium, czyli polskie życiorysy is the only complete and coherent part linking the formal aspect of the novel with the autothematic one. It supplies the reader’s knowledge with biographic facts impossible to be depicted in the novel due to multiplicity of characters and short span of the plot.