Utopian Saints: The Figure of the Messiah in the Polish Literary Prose after 1989

Wojciech KUDYBA

Katedra Literatury Współczesnej, Instytut Filologii Polskiej, Wydział Nauk Humanistycznych, Uniwersytet Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego, ul. Dewajtis 5, 01-815 Warsaw, Poland , Poland

Abstract

The figure of Messiah frequently recurs in the Polish literary prose of the 20th and 21st centuries. Among the 20th century novels in which it appears are Jan Dobraczyński’s Listy Nikodema [“Nicodemus’ Letters”], Roman Brandstaetter’s Jezus z Nazarethu [“Jesus of Nazareth”], and Zenon Kosidowski’s Opowieści ewangelistów [“The Evangelists’ Stories”]. The 21st century novels exhibiting this motif include Stefan Chwin’s Panna Ferbelin [“Miss Ferbelin”] and Jerzy Sosnowski’s Instalacja Idziego [“Idzi’s Installation”].

The literary prose after 1989 implements a new model of reference to the Bible. The text of the novel is no longer a simple exegesis of the Biblical text, and the actual bond of the literary work with the Scripture tends to be rather loose, as can be seen on the example of Stefan Chwin’s and Jerzy Sosnowski’s novels discusses in the article. The novels in question reflect two ways of approaching the Bible as a literary inspiration: Chwin draws on Biblical stories, but his characters adhere to the message of the New Age spirituality. Sosnowski in turn frequently paraphrases the Scripture with the objective to express its spiritual message in modern everyday language.

Keywords:

modern Polish literary prose, the figure of Messiah, the figure of Saint, the Bible as a literary inspiration, Jerzy Sosnowski, Stefan Chwin