The Persisstent Impotence of Art, or Haupt and the Boundaries of Literature

Abstract

The article discusses the author’s aesthetics of Zygmunt Haupt. Both the metareflexive thread of his prose and its immanent properties have been taken into account. The main focus has been put on the concept of the speaking subject. The author of the article tries to revise Haupt’s autobiographism of prose which the previous studies used to expose excessively. Instead, the researcher recognises the concept of time – the past and the future as the “ecstasy” of the present – to be at the centre of this work. Haupt’s ideas have been confronted with the trend of Polish post-war literature, which was created under the slogan of a great revision. Both the works of Polish and emigrant writers have been taken into consideration. According to the researcher, in his aesthetic thought, exploring the boundaries of literature, Haupt is close to the writers of late modernism.