The Vision of Love in the Recently Discovered Text ‘Here I Am, Still On This Bank...’ by the Young Karol Wojtyła

Abstract

The unknown piece entitled ‘Here I am, still on this bank’ was discovered during research work on the critical edition of the literary works of Karol Wojtyła / John Paul II in the Archive of the Metropolitan Curia in Cracow in late 2016. The text was created most likely between February 1941 (the date of Wojtyła’s father’s death), and October 1942, when young Karol, a cleric of the clandestine Cracovian Archdiocese Seminary, decided to take up underground studies at the Jagiellonian University’s Theological Department. It is the only piece among Karol Wojtyła’s works to take on the theme of the internal conflicts of the protagonist between love for a woman and a betrothed’s love for God. We can find here the basic foundations of the concept of love, which the Pope would later develop in his philosophy (Love and Responsibility), theology (Theology of the Body) and literary works (e.g. the mystical poems and plays In front of the Jeweller’s Shop and The Radiance of Fatherhood).