Postmodernistyczny Porfirion Osiełek

Abstract

The study is devoted to the basic aspects of post-modernist ideas and techniques in the non-conformist novel by Gałczyński entitled Porfirion Osieiek, which was based on the assumption that post-modernism in the prose of the end of the 20lh century had its ideal and artistic traditions rooted in fin de siecle and also on the conviction that the post-modernism break actually did not take place. Thus, it was based on the thesis that had many supporters in literary studies, especially American (J. Barth) and West-European (J.-F. Lyotard), but also Polish (M. Dąbrowski). Furthermore, it is disputed that anti-mimetism and intertextuality (mode of expression) constituted main characteristics of modernist decadentism of Gałczyńskie débutante prose, which in the artistic practice led to intentional mixing of high and low culture through quotations, parodies, allusions and pastiche. Attempts of explanation are made how Gałczyński with his Porfirion Osiełek registered his name in the prose avant-garde of the inter-war period, beside names of Witkacy and Gombrowicz, who are undoubtedly considered post-modernist today. The poet’s direction, marked subsequently by such post-modernist works as Teatrzyk “Zielona Gęś" or Listy z fiołkiem, was initially determined by common features of literary modernism, which consisted in subjectivism and extreme originality perceived as categories of creative individuality. The author’s searches in this historic and literary context, in fact being a syncretic labyrinth of -isms, in which the “modern classicism” appeared as well, are conducted during the process of enlightened reading, which was the basis for the avant-garde strategy of carnivalisation and secularisation of literature, innovative escape of literature from extra-aesthetic duties, clear formulation of immanent poetics of the grotesque of the chaos of relics and continuity of Young Poland prose forms.