Struggle Against Form

Abstract

The paper is the first insight into the problem of form, so essential for Norwid. Its subject is, first of all, the poet’s struggle against form which exerts pressure, deprives things of their meanings and constitutes the source of deviation. There still remains to be written a paper presenting Norwid’s struggle for form which is mature and liberating and which deepens the spiritual freedom of man. We also need a thorough study on the poet’s comprehension of form, made against the background of the contemporary philosophical and aesthetic thought.

The paper consists of three parts.

The beginning of the first part recalls the article “Żydy” i mechesy (Jews and Converted Jews). Norwid resents in it the acceptance of the semantic deviation of the word “przechrzta” (“converted Jew”) and the strict caste system of the nobility. In both these phenomena the blind tradition prevails over their fundamental meanings, appearance over reality, form over “spirit”. The phenomena also mark the range of the problem: from the meaning of a single word to the attitude of the whole socio-historical group.

Norwid’s output is full of “antiformal” indignation. It can be found in different shapes and varies in intensity in the majority of his writings. Norwid is irritated by expressions deprived of their original meanings (“Ruszaj z Bogiem”, “Farewell, God be with you”), surprised by the conventionality of the language which ignores the symbolism of silence. He does not accept the formalized traditional versification and the trite use of metaphors. He is stimulated by certain themes (the theme of ruins) and myths (Wanda, Krakus, Tyrtej) which require a new expression. He sees the necessity to complete the gallery of literary characters (the mute heroine of Assunta). The conventionalized, irresistible genre constraints require intrepid modification: the idea of “white tragedy”, the new lyric poetry of Vade-mecum, the criticism of the contemporary moral novel, the parable variant of the epic poem in Quidam. Norwid protests against the spiritless customs, formal treatment of marriage, schematic evaluation of people and occurrences, stereotype of a Pole-patriot, external manifestation of feelings (Czułość, Tenderness), narrow-minded religious attitudes ([Dewocja krzyczy: “Michelet wychodzi z Kościoła!”...], [Bigotry Shouts: “Michelet is Leaving the Church!”...]), superficial understanding of history overlooking its “other writing”, its real spirit.

In the whole of Norwid’s writings we sense the spirit of protest and struggle against mechanical tradition, empty convention, fascination with the external world, resistless submission to the custom, narrow-mindedness of social and national structures. Norwid’s work is a great "non-possumus” against the limitations of the development and the slavery of man.

The second part of the paper deals with the reasons for such an attitude of the poet. They can be found, above all, in the rhapsody Niewola (Slavery, 1849) which concerns mainly the problems of the nation but assumes universal dimensions and becomes an attempt at poetic anthropology. Man’s life is seen by Norwid as life “towards death”. Death is the moment of the greatest value in man’s existence, the moment of the fullest spiritual maturity. Man’s life is a gradual process of freeing himself from formal restrictions: society, custom, body - from various kinds of slavery. Life “towards death” is for Norwid, at the same time, life towards transcendency, “towards freedom”, towards God. Every instance of exceeding the limits of degraded, false structures, each attitude morally independent of them is a step towards spiritual freedom, towards the fullest human maturity. The above refers also to a man-artist. His creations must be free from the patterns which cramp his artistic expression, his work must be a process of getting rid of necrotized “objectifying” forms being merely a sign of tradition, a process of looking for such forms which at this time and in this situation are a better expression of spiritual content and therefore serve in the name of the freedom of redeemed man.

This is the motivation of Norwid’s “struggle against form” on different levels of his literary work. It was not so much “struggle against” as “struggle for”: in service with man, his ultimate predestination, with all that is indestructible in him. This motivation is even more convincing in view of the historical and theological perspectives found in Rzecz o wolności slowa (The Matter of the Freedom of the Word).

The third part of the paper confronts Norwid with Gombrowicz - these two Polish writers who took particular interest in the problem of form.

For both writers, form is not merely an aesthetic question (as for Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz) but the center of their poetic anthropology. In both the philosophy of “struggle against form” changes.into the poetics of “struggle against form” and becomes the fundamental quality of their writings.

But they differ from each other radically. Norwid searches for all the misuses of form mainly of the social and more universal level. Gombrowicz goes deeper into the psychology of man and his individual deviations. The attitude of playing and distance towards each of the forms constitutes his writings. It reveals the “human condition” which is determined by the constant tension between maturity and immaturity, superiority and inferiority, officialness and suboffi- ciallness, form and formlessness. Form consciousness determines the consciousness and freedom of man “limited to himself”. Norwid fights with inadequate form in order to eliminate all that cramps man, to reveal spiritual values, to bring man closer to the attitude of love - “this eternal anti-formalism”, the attitude of mature freedom which is brought by the time of death. He remembers the evangelical letter that kills and the spirit that enlivens. What really matters to him is not the unmasking of form but the salvation of man whose nature is seen as the capability of great transcendence.

Gombrowicz’s protest against form (and at the same time his fascination with it!) originates in the contemporary existentialism and the psychosociology of the 20th century. Norwid’s sensibility to form limitations is bound up with the romantic philosophy and - above all - with the Christian thought of man interpreted in a surprisingly new and perspective way.

The paper ends with a personal confession. In the bringing together of thoughts and attitudes of both writers, so different as Norwid and Gombrowicz are, the author sees a chance and a hope for all we call modern Polish culture. Gombrowicz forces us, as no other writer does, to know the truth, even painful and cruel, of ourselves: what we are. Norwid helps us to know our place in the world, the sense of our presence here: wh o we are; as Poles and as people.