Liminality and Desire in Bruno Schulz’s Short Prose

• Authors: Hannes Brandt
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The general idea for this article goes back to the rigorous discussions of Bruno Schulz and the notions of tolerance in two seminars taught by Prof. Dr. Markowski and Dr. Rebes at the Jagiellonian University of Cracow during the winter term 2007/2008. The article discusses the relation of liminality and transcendence in the writings of the Polish writer Bruno Schulz. Based on an analysis of several of Schulz’s short stories the dichotomous relation between reality and transcendence is examined. The central point of interest is the contact zone, which is regarded as a liminal space between reality and transcendence. Following Ewa Karpinska, this border is understood as both, dividing and ordering. The introduction of the border shifts the analysis from temporal to spatial terms, which allows understanding the juxtaposition or even the simultaneous existence of both, reality and transcendence. This exactly is the Schulzian struggle. Having opened that field the essay introduces the ethical principles of Immanuel Levinas. The latter’s radical ethics of morality and Jozef Tischner’s conceptualization this, the Philosophy of Drama, are than applied to Schulzian writing. This opens up a new way of accessing the liminality in contact zones. It is the unveiling and stepping out of an isolated and constructed reality that is the aim of the protagonist in Schulz’s stories. His striving for the ‘pure’ compares to what in Levinas’ philosophy would be the striving towards the other’s Antlitz. This desire can never be fully reached, but it is the idea of desiring as such that Levinas introduces. This idea is laid out by Schulz in his philosophically programmatic essay Mythologizing of Reality. The condition of desire manifests itself as an unstable liminality. This fragile status of liminality prevents the protagonist from getting stuck in dull materiality of a „fake reality” or, in Levinas’ case, it prevents the I from getting stuck in the egocentric borders of self-sufficiency and ignorance.

Keywords

EN

LIMINALITY; DESIRE; BRUNO SCHULZ

• Publisher: Księgarnia Akademicka
• Journal: Euro-Facta
• Year: 2010
• Volume: 2. Kultura a komunikacja
• Pages: 281-287

Contributors

author

Hannes Brandt

• Research Platform, University of Konstanz, Universitatsstrasse 78457 Konstanz, Germany