The article explores the polarisation within the body of twentieth century criti-cism surrounding Samuel Beckett’s work: A polarisation between strict forma-list approaches which tend to see Beckett as very much part of a modernist tradition and poststructuralist theorists who seek to categorise his work in terms of postmodernism. As an unfortunate result of extreme critical standpoints, the philosophical thinking of Schopenhauer, which had such a profound and lasting influence on both Beckett’s approach to writing as well as to the theatre, has been largely ignored or simply pushed to one side.
There is no unlimited principle of liberty in regard to form of last will and testament in the United States law. Subject to statutory regulation on the contrary, a testament shall not be valid, unless made in accordance with formalities prescribed by statutes of wills. Therefore the testator has the right to make a testament only in such form that is provided by a wills act. In this article author discusses the question of form of last will and testament in the United States law (more precisely: laws of states forming the United States). However, a detailed description of each formal requirement of every testament’s form prescribed by states’ laws is not the aim of this study. The references to concrete testamentary formalities are made only when it is useful in analysis of general solutions applied in the field of forms of testament. Moreover, the scope of this study is limited only to two forms of testaments, which are the most popular forms in American statutes of wills, i.e. formal will (also known as: witnessed or attested will) and holographic will. It is not the purpose of this article to examine other forms of testament provided by states’ laws (e.g. notarial testament, oral will, soldiers’ and sailors’ will, military testamentary instrument, electronic will). In this article, the main focus is placed on issues relating to the formalism of American regulations concerning the forms of testament. In author’s opinion, the formalism should not be identified only with the doctrine of strict compliance (i.e. restrictive interpretation of statutes prescribing formal requirements of will). The concept of formalism should be read more broadly. Formalism is typical phenomenon of every regulation regarding form of testament (with the exception of total lack of formalities). However, a level of formalism may be different. It is affected mainly by the content of statute of wills and the method of judicial interpretation of that statute of wills. After discussion on preliminary issues, the paper presents the changes in respect to formalism that have been made over the years in American: law, judicial practice and legal science. First of all, author analyses the traditional approach to form of testament and the formalism connected with it, i.e. mainly the doctrine of strict compliance and regulations regarding formal requirements in force before. Secondly, he discusses the trend occurring in the United States to reduce the formalism. Those remarks concern the legislative changes in that respect and judicial approval of the doctrine of substantial (sufficient) compliance. Author examines also some doctrines proposed in literature, i.e. substantial compliance doctrine (by Prof. J.H. Langbein) and dispensing power (harmless error) doctrine. In the last chapter author presents the conclusions.
Wiele utworów z awangardowej spuścizny Kurta Schwittersa ma charakter enigmatyczny. Nie tylko jego abstrakcyjne prace wizualne, ale także poezja, opiera się prostej, jednoznacznej interpretacji, nie zawiera prostego przekazu ani wyraźnych sygnałów intencji Schwittersa. W tym kontekście utwory Schwittersa nie są odosobnionym przypadkiem, ale raczej typowym przykładem sztuki i literatury historycznej awangardy, do której należał Schwitters. Podobnie jak w przypadku ogólnych studiów nad awangardą, jego utwory literackie odnoszą się do manifestów i pism programowych, które zawęziły sens jego dzieł sztuki, obrazów, rzeźb, poezji i innych tekstów, jako źródła wskazówek intencji Schwittersa i znaczenia, jakie przypisywał swoim pracom. Ale do jakiego stopnia owe pisma programowe są godne zaufania albo – by ująć rzecz precyzyjniej – do jakiego stopnia owe cele estetyczne, procedury artystyczne i poetyka wyłożona w tych tekstach odnoszą się do artystycznej i literackiej praktyki, którą obserwujemy w pracach Schwittersa? Skupiając się na poetyckiej spuściźnie Schwittersa i jego poetyce sformułowanej w manifestach i innych tekstach z dziedziny poetyki, dostrzegamy wyraźnie, że uwagi Schwittersa o poezji były integralną częścią jego refleksji estetycznej o sztuce wizualnej i jego poetyce sformułowanej w pismach programowych, bardziej niż pochodną jego refleksji nad pracami artystycznymi. To nierzadka cecha poetyki awangardowej, która często odwzorowywała i próbowała skopiować cele artystyczne sformułowane w kontekście sztuki wizualnej (można argumentować, że Schwitters był w pierwszej linii artystą wizualnym). Nawet pomiędzy programowymi tekstami Schwittersa zogniskowanymi wyraźnie na poetyce, a jego poezją i prozą pozornie wyjaśnianą w tych tekstach, istnieje oczywista różnica pomiędzy teorią a praktyką. Porównanie z refleksją tzw. „rosyjskich formalistów” pokazuje, że te rozważania o poezji są w dużym stopniu zbieżne z podejściem Schwittersa, jednak o wiele bardziej subtelne i precyzyjne w definiowaniu poetyckich zasad, które charakteryzują spuściznę Schwittersa – być może nie jest to przypadkowe. Oprócz bliskości formalistów i awangardy, Schwitters, podobnie jak formaliści, inspirował się niemieckim historykiem i teoretykiem literatury, Oskarem Walzelem. Schwitters uczęszczał na jego zajęcia podczas studiów na akademii sztuk w Dreźnie, formaliści czytali Walzela i tłumaczyli jego prace. To może wyjaśniać rzucającą się w oczy zbieżność pomiędzy Schwittersem a formalistami, na przykład w naciskaniu na „materialność” słowa, ale także w próbach połączenia refleksji nad słowem i nad obrazem, które były głównym przedmiotem rozważań Walzela. Walzel jako trait d’union pomiędzy Schwittersem a formalistami, może być także zachętą do czytania poezji Schwittersa jako poezji z osobliwościami, które u formalistów stosowane były o wiele bardziej precyzyjnie niż jako ćwiczenie w czytaniu ahistorycznym, ale, jak pokazuje Walzel, nie tylko jako obopólne źródło inspiracji, wbrew rozbieżnościom, symultanicznie dzieląc horyzont teoretyczny awangardowych prób sztuki i literatury z Zachodu i ze Wschodu w teorii i praktyce.
EN
Many works in the oeuvre of the avantgarde artist Kurt Schwitters have an enigmatic character. Not only his abstract visual art but also his poetry resists simple unambigious interpretation. They do not contain clear messages or unequivocal indications of Schwitters’ intentions. Here, Schwitters’ work is not a singular case, but rather a typical example of the art and literature of the historical avant-garde, to which Schwitters belonged. As in studies on the avant-garde in general, literature on Schwitters and his artistic and literary work tends to resort to his manifestoes and programmatic writing, which sided his works of art, collages, paintings, sculptures, poetry and other literary texts in a more narrow sense, as a source for clues on Schwitters’ intentions and the meaning he attributed to his work. But to what extent is this programmatic writing reliable, or to be more precise: to what extent do the aesthetic principles, artistic procedures and the poetics outlined in these texts correspond with the artistic and literary practice as it can be observed in Schwitters’ work? Focusing on Schwitters’ poetic oeuvre and his poetics formulated in manifestoes and other poetical texts, it is evident that Schwitters’ remarks on poetry were an integrated part of his aesthetic reflections on the visual arts and his explicit poetics in his programmatic writing rather a derivative of reflections on his artistic production – a not uncommon feature in avant-garde poetics, which frequently reflected and tried to translate aesthetic principles coined in the context of the visual arts to (and one might argue: Schwitters was in first instance a visual artist). Even between Schwitters’ programmatic texts strictly concentrating on poetics and his poetry and proseapparently explained in these texts, an obvious discrepancy between theory and practice. A comparison with the reflections of the so-called ‚Russian formalists’ shows that their considerations on poetry are to a large extent congenial to Schwitters’ approach, yet far more subtle and accurate in defining the poetic principles, which characterize Schwitters’ literary oeuvre – probably not accidental. Apart from the proximity of formalists to the avant-garde, both Schwitters and the formalists were inspired by the German literary historian and theoretician Oskar Walzel. Schwitters attended his classes during his study at the art academy in Dresden, the formalists read Walzel and translated his works. This may explain the striking congeniality between Schwitters and the formalists e.g. in their insistence on the ‚materiality’ of the word, but also in their attempts to combine reflections on word and image, which were a major subject in Walzel’s writing. Walzel as a trait d’union between Schwitters and the formalists may also be taken as incentive for a reading of Schwitters’ poetry as poetry with pecularities of its own, which were addressed by the formalists in a far more precise way – not just as an ahistorical reading exercise, but as Walzel as mutual source of inspiration shows, against a divergent, yet simultaneously shared theoretical horizon of avant-garde approaches of art and literature from West and East in practice and in theory.
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