Kafka i Felicja. Romans epistolarny

• Authors: Kowalczyk, Andrzej Stanisław

Abstracts

PL

Kafka belongs to the greatest letter writers of the 20th century, but his epistolary prose does not enjoy the popularity it deserves. Kafka’s letters present problems in a different way than his fictional works. They should be read both as a biographical document and a literary text corresponding with the short stories and novels of the author of The Metamorphosis. The article discusses Kafka’s letters to Felice Bauer, a young woman he loved and with whom he was twice engaged. In reality this story ended with a disaster, however its resulted was a remarkable literary text. Elias Canetti called the letters to Felice “the second Trial”; in fact, this epistolary series resembles a novel in letters rather than writing correspondence, such as the one left by Joyce, Mann or Gombrowicz. It offers a fascinating, extraordinary range of emotional experience, style and deep self-analysis. At the same time, it arouses concern due to obsessiveness, repetitions, helplessness of the hero.

Keywords

PL

Franz Kafka; the 20th-century epistolography; love in modern literature; the 20th-century autobiography; epistolografia XX w.; miłość w literaturze nowoczesnej; autobiografia XX w.

• Publisher: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
• Journal: Przegląd Humanistyczny
• Year: 2016
• Volume: 60(4 (455))
• Pages: 71-81

Contributors

author

Kowalczyk, Andrzej Stanisław