The motif of the body in the poetry of Wisława Szymborska will be analysed in three ways, since “body” in the poetry of the Nobel Prize winner is not so much the object of description, but of more general considerations, relating, firstly, to cultural conditioning conducive to the alienation of women within their own body; secondly, to issues connected with our otherness in the world of living beings; and thirdly, shown as a totally innocent object of oppression. Although considerations of subjects connected with the body are not in the mainstream of problems in Wisława Szymborska’s poetry, they tend to surprise by their sharpness of cognitive reflection.
The motif of a dream has long appeared in the lyric poetry in the form of a dreamland and was usually used by poets as a pretext to penetrate the reality which goes beyond the flat reality and limits of the mundane word. One of such an unusual experiences often recorded by poets was a meeting of the living with the dead made possible in a dream. The poem analysed here, A Dream by Wisława Szymborska is such arecording of a dreamland meeting of the living protagonist with the dead ones. For the poet it is also an opportunity to show the dream as a mental process.
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