Stygmat Norwida: w poszukiwaniu śladów historii świętej na powierzchni świata

• Authors: Arent van Nieukerken
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

This article analyzes the short story Stigma written by the Polish romantic poet Cyprian Kamil Norwid (1821-1883) against the background of nineteenth-century critical theology that attempted to diminish the gap between the transcendent God and the immanent world. This is usually accomplished by humanizing Christ, the Son of God, who is seen as ,,the most perfect of man”. An important representative of this conception was the French positivist historian Ernest Renan, the author of the famous Vie de Jésus. In Stigma Norwid engages in a veiled discussion with Renan’s ideas. The Polish poet tries to show that the traces of the transcendent God can be perceived ‘here and now’, in the world of sense-data and social conventions. These traces refer to ‘sacred history’, the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the apostles. They are, however, usually overlooked, not because they are ‘hidden’, but as а consequence of a wrong attitude of man. He (or she) must undergo a transformation, become him[her]self a subject of ‘sacred history’ (the narrator misses his chance to ‘become’ Saint Paul, on the road to Damascus), touch the stigmata of Christ. When we fail to undergo this transformation, we perceive being as ‘objective’, ruled by an impeccable chain of causes and effects, explained by positivist ‘science’. In this case we also loose our own liberty and turn out to be objects, determined by the ‘stigma’ of race and nature. What we take for liberty is only ‘chance’. This positivist point of view is not so much ‘wrong’ as one-sided. It often leads to fatal misunderstandings, by which human beings are destroyed, as shown by the plot of Stigma.

• Publisher: Wydawnictwo Naukowe AP
• Journal: Świat Tekstów. Rocznik Słupski
• Year: 2009
• Volume: 7
• Pages: 5-37
• Physical description: oryginalny artykuł naukowy

Dates

published

2009-12-01

Contributors

author

Arent van Nieukerken

• Uniwersytet w Amsterdamie

References

• Biblia w przekładzie księdza Jakuba Wujka z 1599 r. Transkrypcja typu „B” oryginalnego tekstu z XVI w. i wstępy Janusz Frankowski. Warszawa 2000
• C.K. Norwid, Pisma wszystkie, oprac. J.W. Gomulicki, t. 1-11. Warszawa 1971-1976
• E. Renan, Oeuvres complètes de Ernest Renan, red. H. Psichari, t. I-IV. Paris 1949

Identifiers

ISSN

1643-4668