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My Portuguese storyThe adventure started in 1992, at the very beginning of my studies in Romance philology at the Faculty of Humanities of the University Maria Curie-Skłodowska. During my studies, I had several opportunities of staying in Portugal, namely in the institutional framework of TEMPUS and Instituto Camões programs; due to these opportunities, I could participate in the summer school organised by the University of Lisbon (1993), and later on follow the regular curriculum in Portuguese Studies (3 semesters in total). After the completion of my studies at the University Maria Curie-Skłodowska, I was employed as the lecturer of Portuguese in the Institute of Romance Philology, Jagiellonian University.
My further studies at the University of Lisbon in 1998/99 were financed through a research grant of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. I developed my former interest in comparative literature participating, during one academic year, in the program of Mestrado em Literatura Comparada. At the same time I was preparing my doctoral dissertation L'architecture de la demeure imaginaire dans la prose narrative portugaise des années 1960-1996 under the supervision of prof. dr hab. Regina Bochenek-Franczakowa. In this dissertation I discussed the imaginary configurations of the domestic space in the newest Portuguese literature, using as the methodological basis the poetics created by Gaston Bachelard and the universalist pattern of reflection established by Mircea Eliade; the imaginary homes that I analysed acquired thus a microcosmic and sacral character. My doctoral degree in humanities, with a specialization in literary studies, had been attributed in June 1999. As I already mentioned, during my stay in Lisbon I not only prepared my doctoral dissertation, but also enlarged my comparative competences in such a sense as the comparative literature was understood at that time: I was moving between different national literatures of Europe, as well as exploring the zone of contact between literature and arts. Nonetheless, soon I understood that the challenge of comparative literature requires a move beyond the frontiers of Europe as a field of research and beyond the Eurocentric paradigm as the dominating perspective. For this reason, immediately after my PhD, I started studying Arabic in the Institute of Oriental Studies, Jagiellonian University. Unfortunately the continuation of these studies collided with my duties inherent to my newly acquired, full-time position of assistant professor, especially due to the preparation of the new curriculum in Portuguese philology that had been created as a new area of studies in the Institute of Romance Philology, Jagiellonian University. Nonetheless I have never abandoned the Oriental studies definitively, as it will be clear in the subsequent development of my scholarly interests, also in connection with the study of the Islamic past of the Portuguese territories. During the period that immediately preceded the habilitation, I concentrated my attention on the questions related to Portugal. As the result of my studies in recent literature of this country, that was still little known in Poland, I wrote the book Współczesna proza portugalska (1939-1999). Tematy problemy, obsesje, published by Universitas in 2000. In this context, I also initiated my preliminary studies on the literary work of José Saramago, recently distinguished by the Nobel Prize; I realized a 2-months long research stay in Lisbon (September – October 2000), financed by Instituto Camões, that didn't lead at that moment to any major publications (except a lecture during the meeting of the Modern Language Commission of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, published in the volume of Proceedings of this Commission); it served exclusively as a preliminary mapping of the research problems. In the initial period of my academic career, I also elaborated several other publications in Portuguese studies that were missing in the Polish-speaking context: namely I wrote an introduction to the grammar of Portuguese (Język portugalski od A do Z) and I translated a history of Portugal (Krótka historia Portugalii) by José Hermano Saraiva. Then I started the elaboration of the post-doctoral dissertation (habilitation). It was supposed to prove my competences beyond the contemporary literature, showing a more complete vision of the Portuguese spatial imagination, reflected in the literature created across centuries. Having gained the fellowship for young scholars offered by the Foundation for Polish Science (2002-2003), I could rely on propitious conditions for the realization of such an ambitious endeavour. As the result, in 2003, I published the dissertation Terytorium a świat. Wyobrażeniowe konfiguracje przestrzeni w literaturze portugalskiej od schyłku średniowiecza do współczesności. In October of the same year I passed the habilitation examination (kolokwium habilitacyjne). During the period that followed my post-doctoral degree (habilitation), my aspiration was to trespass the limitations of the Portuguese studies as a sub-discipline of literary studies. Initially, I fulfilled this aspiration in the context of the philological circles of the Jagiellonian University (2004-2006), through research that had a comparativist character that nonetheless remained inside the boundaries of the broadly understood Romance civilization. As the result of this comparativist endeavour, I realized a research project financed by the Committee of Scientific Research (KBN), Wyspa – wyspowość – wyspiarskość w kręgu cywilizacji romańskiej. In this project, I coordinated the work of a group composed by 11 persons that analysed the literary images of island, not only in the major Romance literature, such as the French one, but also in their regional variants, such as Catalan or Sicilian. As the outcome of this project, I edited the collective volume Archipelagi wyobraźni. Z dziejów toposu wyspy w kręgu literatur romańskich (Kraków 2007). Among the works of other members of the research group, the volume also contains my own contribution: a chapter concerning the images of an island of women or of love in the Portuguese epic texts written in the 16th and 17th c. (it is a separate paper under my name). Yet another, parallel endeavour was the elaboration of the chapters concerning the Brazilian literature for the compendium Historia literatur iberoamerykańskich, published by Ossolineum (2010). These chapters present the development of the Brazilian literature from the European discovery of this country to the present day. They form a separate part of the book (its length is about 240 000 signs; approx. 25% of the total length of the volume) that I had elaborated individually and that appeared under my name as a part of the volume that is clearly distinguished in the book. Among my most important works produced after the habilitation, I should mention the book Pokusa pustyni. Nomadyzm jako wyjście z kryzysu współczesności w pisarstwie José Saramago, published by Universitas in 2005. In contrast with my former works, the aim of this book was not to remain in the context of the Portuguese problems, but to inscribe the work of the Nobel winner in the broader context of the reflection in humanities, as it is required not only due to his criticism of the Judeo-Christian tradition (visible in the scandalizing novel The Gospel according to Jesus Christ), but also of the tradition of historical materialism, with which the writer, a late communist, apparently identified himself. Nonetheless it is a case of disturbed, ambiguous, ironic identification, hiding a deep criticism of the Marxism as an alternative to Judeo-Christianism. As a consequence, the book presents the vision of an agonistic clash between the “post-Christian” man and God who is jealous of the human creative potential. Its outcome is the loss of the sensation of inhabiting the world, a nomadic condition, a failure of man in his search for order. This book, published in 2005, analysed all Saramago's novels published till the date of its elaboration. Nonetheless in the following years the writer published several other books; this fact justified the continuation of the research and interpretation of his work. Such was the aim of the research project financed by the National Science Center, „Styl późny” w twórczości José Saramago (“Late style” in the writings of José Saramago) that I realized in 2013-2015. In its framework, I realized two 3-weeks research stays in National Library in Lisbon (in 2014 and 2015). The outcome of this work is the book Imperium i nostalgia. „Styl późny” w kulturze portugalskiej (Warszawa 2015). The most important aim of this work is to trace the range of Saramago's criticism in the last novel published in his lifetime, Cain. I read this novel as a form of rupture with the project of global hegemony initiated by the Portuguese at the beginning of the modern era, originating in the biblical exhortation to “subdue the earth”. It justifies the necessity of returning to the beginnings of the mankind in the Book of Genesis; without such a return the utmost deconstruction of the colonizing narrations is impossible. In my book, I claim that the potential of the post-colonial school has been insufficient in the Portuguese case; this is why I use yet another analytical tool proposed by Edward Said, namely his concept of “late style” associated with the old age. The individual old age of the writer, but also the eclipse of the cultural formation bring a chance of an final adjustment of the accounts in the project of global hegemony that finds its expression in the Portuguese dream of the universal state, the Fifth Empire, that was supposed to unite all humanity. In the book, I also use my own concept of transcultural condition that mentioned above, analysing the history of the Portuguese search for universalism that ended in fiasco, but at the same time provoked the critical intervention of Saramago. On this occasion, I also use several ideas proposed recently in humanities, such as the works of Agamben and Badiou. As the outcome of my research on Saramago after the habilitation, I should also mention several articles. Two most important ones are included in the only collective volume dedicated to this writer in Poland (Świat powieści José Saramago, Wojciech Charchalis (ed.), Poznań 2013; I would also like to mention that this volume also contains two papers written under my supervision by my PhD studens: Rafał Zawisza i Katarzyna Chruszczewska – Szafranowska). I also authored other articles concerning the novelistic work of Saramago that are to be found in other collective volumes: Narracja i tożsamość (II). Antropologiczne problemy literatury, Włodzimierz Bolecki, Ryszard Nycz (eds.) (Warszawa 2004), Images, Symboles, Mythes et Poétique de l’Ascension / Envol, Barbara Sosień (ed.) (Kraków 2007), as well as in journals (Tematy z Szewskiej, Anthropos?). Further expansion of my interests was the result of my employment (2006) in the Centre of Research on the Tradition of the Antiquity at the University of Warsaw (that was later transformed into the Faculty of „Artes Liberales”). From that moment on, my work is no longer connected exclusively with the Portuguese studies, but it is also inscribed into a broader field of Mediterranean studies and global studies, as well as the studies on world literature. |
Books
IN PRESS
NEBULA PESSOA:
PORTUGUESE LITERATURE FROM ROMANTICISM TO THE PRESENT
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Result of the research project supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Portugal.
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Mgławica Pessoa. Literatura portugalska od romantyzmu do współczesności [Portuguese literature from the Romanticism to the present], Wrocław, Ossolineum, 2019.
Summary
The book is an extensive presentation of the Portuguese literary history, going from 1826 to 2017. The content is divided into eight "lectures" and eight "interludes". While the former offer a synthetic narration involving currents and their major figures, the latter focus on some chosen aspects of the Portuguese culture, offering a personal appreciation and insight in such key matters as love, travel, translatability of the term saudade, the Portuguese relations with Europe and Africa, modernity, literary success and illustrated books.
EMPIRE AND NOSTALGIA
Result of the research project supported by the National Science Centre, Poland; DEC2012/05/B/HS2/03986.
Imperium i nostalgia. "Styl późny" w kulturze portugalskiej [Empire and Nostalgia. "Late style" in the Portuguese culture], Warszawa, DiG, 2015, 180 pp.
ISBN 978-83-7181-960-5
BUY THIS BOOK >>>
Price: 42 zł
TABLE OF CONTENT >>>
FRAGMENT >>>
Summary
The main conceptual framework of this book is given by my search for the definition of transcultural condition that the Portuguese never managed to achieve, in spite of their incessant search for universalism. The essays included in it form a chain of ideas recounting the Portuguese cultural history, passing through such key figures as Camões, Vieira, Pessoa and Saramago, to whom this research project has been officially dedicated.
In the Foreword, after some preliminary remarks, I give a working definition of transcultural and transcolonial, as well as situate the Portuguese case in the context of global studies. The first chapter, "Light at dusk" is dedicated to the concept of "late style" that appears in the title, as well as other ideas taken from Edward Said. I return to his evocation of Batinist and Zahirite schools in The Word, the Text and the Critic to search for an analogous dichotomy in the Portuguese literature, namely opposing Vieira and Pessoa on the one hand, and Saramago on the other.
In the second essay, "On the path of hyper-culture", I propose this neologism to grasp the premises and implications of the Portuguese idea concerning the special place of their culture as an "essence of unification", idea that appears in the vision of the "Fifth Empire" in the 17th century and is still present nowadays in the discourse of Lusophony. The main bulk of this chapter is dedicated to Vieira, as I try to confront my concept of transculture and his writings, such as História do Futuro and Clavis Prophetarum. Agamben's seminar on the Letter to Romans, as well as the whole discussion involving Paul and the origins of universalism, appear in the background. Finally, Vieira is confronted with Pessoa and what I call the "virtualization" of the Portuguese universalism.
The third chapter, "In the cycle of catastrophe" parts from the essay Shipwreck with spectator by Hans Blumenberg. The metaphor used by the German philosopher obviously invites a confrontation with the Portuguese maritime destiny. I try to go deeper than this superficial association, taking the dawn of the hyper-culture for the moment of transgression launching the European on the one-way path of progress, identified here with the fulfillment of the globalization. As Blumenberg suggests, the cyclic dynamics of the modern catastrophe, rebuilding the ships with the shipwrecked material, is caused by the incessant temptation of wholeness -- of which the early-modern vision of Vasco da Gama in The Lusiads is a premonition. Going back to the idea of crusade, I speak about the cycle of Portuguese catastrophes, situated quite close to the native shores, in Morocco. On the other hand, the longue durée of the crusade forms a cataclysmic pattern that I call the globalization of the Mediterranean.
The title of the next essay, "Conversation with a skull", is taken from Rushdie's short story included in East, West and refers to the skull of the dead jester Yorick that appears in Hamlet. Since the first moments of their presence in the New World, the Portuguese humanists, such as Pêro Vaz de Caminha and Damião de Góis, appropriate the alien voice, realizing the early-modern pattern of intercession, once again shown through the Shakespearean reference to the figure of Desdemona, causing the tragedy by her obsession of interceding in defense of a plain soldier. The stranger is silenced as the humanists speak loud in his name. The burden of hegemonic situation, of which I spoke in the chapter dedicated to Vieira, creates a longing for otherness' voice and the supposed re-creative potential of genus angelicum. Nonetheless, the eventuality of a native Yorick answering Hamlet causes a thrill that ultimately blocks any attempt at a genuine communication. On the other hand, the simile of the bottom and surface of Narcissus' spring subsumes the search for an alien mirror permitting a glance at the European condition. The chapter on Cannibals in Montaigne's Essays doesn't actually offer this insight; it is found very late, when a Portuguese colonizer discovers his own portrait in the African sculpture of Yaka.
In the next chapter, I return to the messianic imagination contributing to the imperial utopia that survives the decolonization and is to be found in the post-modern constructs of lusophony. I read both the defenders and the adversaries of the new project, seeking to understand the peculiar Portuguese understanding of the notion of spiritual empire that arguably survived unscathed the postcolonial negotiations.
Finally, the last part of the book is dedicated to the contemporary Portuguese culture, featuring Jorge de Sena, Eduardo Lourenço and Saramago. They are seen as "dispatriants" breaking through the limiting patterns of their homeland, reflected in the claustrophobic simile of an island of the leprous. Once again, they search for a new form of intellectual universalism beyond the limitations of the "insular" mentality of the Portuguese. The final remarks on Saramago are placed under the sign of the "victory of Erros". I employ the erotic-erratic concept proposed by the Polish philosopher Agata Bielik-Robson to highlight the earthly liberation achieved after the breakdown of the Portuguese hyper-cultural narration.
The book closes with a "Moral of the story", adopting an external view of the Portuguese culture and evoking its place in non-European memory. Panglima Awang, a short novel by a Malay writer Harun Aminurashid is evoked, leading to a de-centered vision of the global history.
ISBN 978-83-7181-960-5
BUY THIS BOOK >>>
Price: 42 zł
TABLE OF CONTENT >>>
FRAGMENT >>>
Summary
The main conceptual framework of this book is given by my search for the definition of transcultural condition that the Portuguese never managed to achieve, in spite of their incessant search for universalism. The essays included in it form a chain of ideas recounting the Portuguese cultural history, passing through such key figures as Camões, Vieira, Pessoa and Saramago, to whom this research project has been officially dedicated.
In the Foreword, after some preliminary remarks, I give a working definition of transcultural and transcolonial, as well as situate the Portuguese case in the context of global studies. The first chapter, "Light at dusk" is dedicated to the concept of "late style" that appears in the title, as well as other ideas taken from Edward Said. I return to his evocation of Batinist and Zahirite schools in The Word, the Text and the Critic to search for an analogous dichotomy in the Portuguese literature, namely opposing Vieira and Pessoa on the one hand, and Saramago on the other.
In the second essay, "On the path of hyper-culture", I propose this neologism to grasp the premises and implications of the Portuguese idea concerning the special place of their culture as an "essence of unification", idea that appears in the vision of the "Fifth Empire" in the 17th century and is still present nowadays in the discourse of Lusophony. The main bulk of this chapter is dedicated to Vieira, as I try to confront my concept of transculture and his writings, such as História do Futuro and Clavis Prophetarum. Agamben's seminar on the Letter to Romans, as well as the whole discussion involving Paul and the origins of universalism, appear in the background. Finally, Vieira is confronted with Pessoa and what I call the "virtualization" of the Portuguese universalism.
The third chapter, "In the cycle of catastrophe" parts from the essay Shipwreck with spectator by Hans Blumenberg. The metaphor used by the German philosopher obviously invites a confrontation with the Portuguese maritime destiny. I try to go deeper than this superficial association, taking the dawn of the hyper-culture for the moment of transgression launching the European on the one-way path of progress, identified here with the fulfillment of the globalization. As Blumenberg suggests, the cyclic dynamics of the modern catastrophe, rebuilding the ships with the shipwrecked material, is caused by the incessant temptation of wholeness -- of which the early-modern vision of Vasco da Gama in The Lusiads is a premonition. Going back to the idea of crusade, I speak about the cycle of Portuguese catastrophes, situated quite close to the native shores, in Morocco. On the other hand, the longue durée of the crusade forms a cataclysmic pattern that I call the globalization of the Mediterranean.
The title of the next essay, "Conversation with a skull", is taken from Rushdie's short story included in East, West and refers to the skull of the dead jester Yorick that appears in Hamlet. Since the first moments of their presence in the New World, the Portuguese humanists, such as Pêro Vaz de Caminha and Damião de Góis, appropriate the alien voice, realizing the early-modern pattern of intercession, once again shown through the Shakespearean reference to the figure of Desdemona, causing the tragedy by her obsession of interceding in defense of a plain soldier. The stranger is silenced as the humanists speak loud in his name. The burden of hegemonic situation, of which I spoke in the chapter dedicated to Vieira, creates a longing for otherness' voice and the supposed re-creative potential of genus angelicum. Nonetheless, the eventuality of a native Yorick answering Hamlet causes a thrill that ultimately blocks any attempt at a genuine communication. On the other hand, the simile of the bottom and surface of Narcissus' spring subsumes the search for an alien mirror permitting a glance at the European condition. The chapter on Cannibals in Montaigne's Essays doesn't actually offer this insight; it is found very late, when a Portuguese colonizer discovers his own portrait in the African sculpture of Yaka.
In the next chapter, I return to the messianic imagination contributing to the imperial utopia that survives the decolonization and is to be found in the post-modern constructs of lusophony. I read both the defenders and the adversaries of the new project, seeking to understand the peculiar Portuguese understanding of the notion of spiritual empire that arguably survived unscathed the postcolonial negotiations.
Finally, the last part of the book is dedicated to the contemporary Portuguese culture, featuring Jorge de Sena, Eduardo Lourenço and Saramago. They are seen as "dispatriants" breaking through the limiting patterns of their homeland, reflected in the claustrophobic simile of an island of the leprous. Once again, they search for a new form of intellectual universalism beyond the limitations of the "insular" mentality of the Portuguese. The final remarks on Saramago are placed under the sign of the "victory of Erros". I employ the erotic-erratic concept proposed by the Polish philosopher Agata Bielik-Robson to highlight the earthly liberation achieved after the breakdown of the Portuguese hyper-cultural narration.
The book closes with a "Moral of the story", adopting an external view of the Portuguese culture and evoking its place in non-European memory. Panglima Awang, a short novel by a Malay writer Harun Aminurashid is evoked, leading to a de-centered vision of the global history.
TEMPTATION OF THE DESERT
Pokusa pustyni. Nomadyzm jako wyjście z kryzysu współczesności w pisarstwie José Saramago [Temptation of the Desert. Nomadism as a solution for the contemporary crisis in the novelistic works of Jose Saramago], Kraków, Universitas, 2005, 360 pp.
ISBN 83-242-0563-2
ISBN e-book: ISBN 97883-242-1163-0
Summary
The aim of this book is to offer a synthetic vision of the complex theologico-anthropological and political position formulated by José Saramago in his novels, from Manual de Pintura e Caligrafia till O Homem Duplicado.
As a novelist, José Saramago gives a complex picture of the human condition in the world. It is determined by agonistic relations: on the one hand, a conflict between human beings and the tyrannical deity who strives to crush them, on the other – a feud among human beings themselves. History, therefore, appears to be a cyclical pattern of recurring tragedies and injustice.
A point of departure for the reflection is the impossibility to formulate a theodicy. The evil experienced by human beings is shown to be an outrage, a source of unassuaged horror. There is, however, a recipe for solving the dual conflict with the Other (another man or the deity): abandonment of the settled way of life, of manufacturing and accumulating material goods. Only extreme ascetism could remedy the human condition, eliminating the rivalry between the manufacturer and the Maker and disrupting the network of relations which entangle man in the historical human world. The way to avoid being enmeshed in relationship which, in Saramago’s opinion, always threatens with conflict, is nomadism: averting of the gaze, no longer meeting the gaze of the Other – either a rival human being or the jealous Eye of Providence. While looking at the Other, man sees an opponent, which gives rise to the agonistic relation. It is better, then, to view the world disinterestedly during an endless journey.
The first part of the book presents the situation of man facing the deity, tragically determined by disproportion between the heavenly power and the insignificant human world on the one hand and, on the other, by similarity between the participants of the conflict – similarity which incites God’s jealousy of human beings, for they, on their diminutive scale, may be achieving something unattainable to God in all his might. Human beings rebel and overcome their mortality, fulfilling themselves in parenthood and material, literary or musical achievement. The jealous Maker never stops trying to thwart their creative plans, to destroy the order they strive to establish, to stifle their words and their music which is not a reflection of harmony of the spheres but a revolt against the silence of God’s universe. The deity disrupts their work, uproots them, forces them on their way. The ultimate advice that can be given to the tormented human beings crushed in their struggle against the invincible enemy is to accept the necessity, to relinquish the hubris of manufacturing and to undertake the imposed journey.
The second part presents Saramago’s battle against politics and history. It appears that here too, one cannot trust promises. Neither religion nor political revolution leads to a better world. The Western world, based on individualism, is headed for collapse, since the individual identity does not provide a sufficiently stable foundation. Faith in reason is equally illusory and deceptive as faith in divine providence. Rational methods cannot prevent wrongs, and intellectual cognition not only fails to solve real problems but it also proves unable to strengthen morality or eliminate violence which is a basic modus of one human being meeting another. Democracy does not survive, either. This rational system of co-deciding is demonstrated to be a mere cover for ambitions of the most aggressive and an endorsement of the powerlessness and incapacitation of an individual in society. Voting gives only an illusion of responsibility, so the day comes when almost every voter casts an empty ballot into the box.
The nation as a system of solidarity also turns out to be a fiction aimed at concealing centuries-old inequity. Moreover, national history cannot be rectified; it is even impossible to do justice to victims of the past. Consequently, the national community is just another kind of relationship to be dissolved. A micro community, loose group of people, remains the only true form of social life. Only in such minimalist circumstances may the simplest kinds of responsibility be expected, though tentatively so, with no assurance.
History, then, is a problem to be solved. Recurring maladies cannot be remedied with historical methods, as history consists of ever returning, unchanging situations of violence. Permanent improvement can solely be attained in an messianic way, through an apocalyptic closing of history and establishment of an eternal kingdom of nomads who relinquish any rational or technological control over the world, who no longer appropriate anything nor enter relations with other people. Contrary to declarations made outside literature, therefore, the political recipe Saramago proposes is not Marxism as a strictly defined doctrine but going beyond the domain of politics.
The final part of the book elaborates on the metaphor of the desert appearing in the title. The desert is an area free from works of human hands and mind, a place of rest where the menacing deity, faced with human quietism, finds no grounds for rivalry. Thus, hell – that is, the world – becomes familiarized. Man stops fighting the lost battle against time and expanding chaos. Architecture changes into ruin, an indistinct sign. Meticulously organized archives fall apart. All archiving must be abandoned. The eye of the camera, which was supposed to serve as an extension of human sight and memory, proves to be completely useless. Human beings need to reject the instrument and undertake a journey, trying to see the world through their own eyes. They need to give up their passion for cartography and, instead of attempting to control and exploit the changing world, they need to wander without maps, accept the feeling of being lost, and rely on their instinct. Nomads are people without names, possessions or relationships with others, people without plans. They have liberated themselves from the burden of both past and future. Living in the constant now, they are free from history.
The minimalist solutions suggested by Saramago are a response to his radical assessment of Western culture. They arise from the state of utter helplessness, and it is only in such circumstances that they may be accepted. They constitute a call for betrayal, for rejection of one’s cultural heritage – a call made in hope that this radical act will give us the power to return to the auroral moment, to begin everything anew and thus to rebuild the world without its flaws. For those stuck at a dead end, the only course of action is to shift into reverse. This proposal, oscillating so dangerously between utopia and anti-utopia, between a promise and a threat, raises inevitable doubts and reservations. It is valid only in the context of powerlessness of literature, of a game without translation into reality which Saramago tries in vain to modify, searching, as the Neorealists did, for literature aimed at transforming the world. To cast literature in such an elevated role, however, means only another level of the cultural game, and the ultimate lesson to be learned from Saramago’s call for betrayal of Europe and, further, of Western culture, seems to be the affirmation of remaining faithful.
Review of this book
Agnieszka August-Zarębska, "Pokusa pustyni Ewy Łukaszyk (Kraków 2005)", Estudios hispánicos, XIV, 2006, pp. 212-215.
ISBN 83-242-0563-2
ISBN e-book: ISBN 97883-242-1163-0
Summary
The aim of this book is to offer a synthetic vision of the complex theologico-anthropological and political position formulated by José Saramago in his novels, from Manual de Pintura e Caligrafia till O Homem Duplicado.
As a novelist, José Saramago gives a complex picture of the human condition in the world. It is determined by agonistic relations: on the one hand, a conflict between human beings and the tyrannical deity who strives to crush them, on the other – a feud among human beings themselves. History, therefore, appears to be a cyclical pattern of recurring tragedies and injustice.
A point of departure for the reflection is the impossibility to formulate a theodicy. The evil experienced by human beings is shown to be an outrage, a source of unassuaged horror. There is, however, a recipe for solving the dual conflict with the Other (another man or the deity): abandonment of the settled way of life, of manufacturing and accumulating material goods. Only extreme ascetism could remedy the human condition, eliminating the rivalry between the manufacturer and the Maker and disrupting the network of relations which entangle man in the historical human world. The way to avoid being enmeshed in relationship which, in Saramago’s opinion, always threatens with conflict, is nomadism: averting of the gaze, no longer meeting the gaze of the Other – either a rival human being or the jealous Eye of Providence. While looking at the Other, man sees an opponent, which gives rise to the agonistic relation. It is better, then, to view the world disinterestedly during an endless journey.
The first part of the book presents the situation of man facing the deity, tragically determined by disproportion between the heavenly power and the insignificant human world on the one hand and, on the other, by similarity between the participants of the conflict – similarity which incites God’s jealousy of human beings, for they, on their diminutive scale, may be achieving something unattainable to God in all his might. Human beings rebel and overcome their mortality, fulfilling themselves in parenthood and material, literary or musical achievement. The jealous Maker never stops trying to thwart their creative plans, to destroy the order they strive to establish, to stifle their words and their music which is not a reflection of harmony of the spheres but a revolt against the silence of God’s universe. The deity disrupts their work, uproots them, forces them on their way. The ultimate advice that can be given to the tormented human beings crushed in their struggle against the invincible enemy is to accept the necessity, to relinquish the hubris of manufacturing and to undertake the imposed journey.
The second part presents Saramago’s battle against politics and history. It appears that here too, one cannot trust promises. Neither religion nor political revolution leads to a better world. The Western world, based on individualism, is headed for collapse, since the individual identity does not provide a sufficiently stable foundation. Faith in reason is equally illusory and deceptive as faith in divine providence. Rational methods cannot prevent wrongs, and intellectual cognition not only fails to solve real problems but it also proves unable to strengthen morality or eliminate violence which is a basic modus of one human being meeting another. Democracy does not survive, either. This rational system of co-deciding is demonstrated to be a mere cover for ambitions of the most aggressive and an endorsement of the powerlessness and incapacitation of an individual in society. Voting gives only an illusion of responsibility, so the day comes when almost every voter casts an empty ballot into the box.
The nation as a system of solidarity also turns out to be a fiction aimed at concealing centuries-old inequity. Moreover, national history cannot be rectified; it is even impossible to do justice to victims of the past. Consequently, the national community is just another kind of relationship to be dissolved. A micro community, loose group of people, remains the only true form of social life. Only in such minimalist circumstances may the simplest kinds of responsibility be expected, though tentatively so, with no assurance.
History, then, is a problem to be solved. Recurring maladies cannot be remedied with historical methods, as history consists of ever returning, unchanging situations of violence. Permanent improvement can solely be attained in an messianic way, through an apocalyptic closing of history and establishment of an eternal kingdom of nomads who relinquish any rational or technological control over the world, who no longer appropriate anything nor enter relations with other people. Contrary to declarations made outside literature, therefore, the political recipe Saramago proposes is not Marxism as a strictly defined doctrine but going beyond the domain of politics.
The final part of the book elaborates on the metaphor of the desert appearing in the title. The desert is an area free from works of human hands and mind, a place of rest where the menacing deity, faced with human quietism, finds no grounds for rivalry. Thus, hell – that is, the world – becomes familiarized. Man stops fighting the lost battle against time and expanding chaos. Architecture changes into ruin, an indistinct sign. Meticulously organized archives fall apart. All archiving must be abandoned. The eye of the camera, which was supposed to serve as an extension of human sight and memory, proves to be completely useless. Human beings need to reject the instrument and undertake a journey, trying to see the world through their own eyes. They need to give up their passion for cartography and, instead of attempting to control and exploit the changing world, they need to wander without maps, accept the feeling of being lost, and rely on their instinct. Nomads are people without names, possessions or relationships with others, people without plans. They have liberated themselves from the burden of both past and future. Living in the constant now, they are free from history.
The minimalist solutions suggested by Saramago are a response to his radical assessment of Western culture. They arise from the state of utter helplessness, and it is only in such circumstances that they may be accepted. They constitute a call for betrayal, for rejection of one’s cultural heritage – a call made in hope that this radical act will give us the power to return to the auroral moment, to begin everything anew and thus to rebuild the world without its flaws. For those stuck at a dead end, the only course of action is to shift into reverse. This proposal, oscillating so dangerously between utopia and anti-utopia, between a promise and a threat, raises inevitable doubts and reservations. It is valid only in the context of powerlessness of literature, of a game without translation into reality which Saramago tries in vain to modify, searching, as the Neorealists did, for literature aimed at transforming the world. To cast literature in such an elevated role, however, means only another level of the cultural game, and the ultimate lesson to be learned from Saramago’s call for betrayal of Europe and, further, of Western culture, seems to be the affirmation of remaining faithful.
Review of this book
Agnieszka August-Zarębska, "Pokusa pustyni Ewy Łukaszyk (Kraków 2005)", Estudios hispánicos, XIV, 2006, pp. 212-215.
THE TERRITORY AND THE WORLD
Terytorium a świat. Wyobrażeniowe konfiguracje przestrzeni w literaturze portugalskiej od schyłku średniowiecza do współczesności [The Territory and the World. Imaginary configurations of space in Portuguese literature since the end of the Middle Ages till the contemporary period], Kraków, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2003, 290 pp.
ISBN 83-233-1680-5
Summary
The book presents an analysis of space categories in Portuguese literature across the "imperial cycle", i.e. an extensive epoch that goes from the passage from Middle Ages to early modernity till the contemporary period. The main aim is to put in the limelight the evolution of spatial conceptualization, built up around two crucial notions: that of the "territory" and that of the "world". These two crucial concepts are in constant interaction along the Portuguese history, leading to their paradoxical identification in the concept of the "Fifth Empire" introduced by a 17th century Jesuit, António Vieira, who dreamed about a universal state unifying all humanity.
The five extensive chapters of this book show different aspects or stages in the development of the Portuguese spatial imagination. The first chapter, "Crossing the borders, seeing and reorganizing the world" starts with the teophanic root of the Portuguese identity, based on the narration of "milagre do Ourique". The maritime expansion is thus inscribed in the context of the "sacred mission" determining and justifying the existence of the nation. The legitimizing narration given by Camões in The Lusitans is one of the main points of this chapter. As a consequence, the paradigm of homo viator is conceptualized as the ideal realization of the human potential.
With the second chapter, "Unification of the world", we enter in the full blossom of the Portuguese idealistic project of the universal spiritual empire. I show the interplay of two apparently heterogeneous aspects: the vision of universalism elaborated by the humanists and the "Fifth Empire" of António Vieira. These two aspects contribute to the crystallized vision of humanity unified by the Portuguese in a new, at the same time political and mystic reality. Breaking the chronological order of the book, this chapters brings about Fernando Pessoa as the 20th century culmination of the vision of the Portuguese spiritual empire.
The beginning of the third chapter, "Unified world falling apart" takes the reader back to the early modern history, dealing with the negative aspects of the expansion. It presents the testimonies of being lost in the hostile world that make an important part of the Portuguese experience. A highlight in the presented material is given to the narrations of shipwrecks collected in História Trágico-Marítima. The analysis continues across the Portuguese literary history, culminating once again in the narrations of the African colonial war.
The last two chapters deal with modernity, marked by the destruction of the sacralised vision of the Portuguese destiny. This degradation of the consciousness of sacred mission that legitimised the very existence of the nation in earlier centuries is translated by visions of illness and degeneration of the national space, mainly in the literature created in the second half of the 19th century. What emerges during this century is the painful consciousness of contradiction between the supposed hegemonic and messianic mission in the world and the actual insignificance and poverty of the continental territory. Nonetheless, the generation of saudosistas brings back the idealised images of Portuguese homeland. Across this period, the negotiation of status between Portugal and Europe requires a new spatial category, that of periphery. Finally, the survey of the Portuguese spatial imagination culminates in Saramago's understanding of nomadism that obliterates both the hyperbolic notion of empire and the painful consciousness of periphery.
Review of this book
Teresa Jaromin, "E. Łukaszyk, Terytorium a świat...", Estudios hispánicos, XII, 2004, pp. 291-293.
ISBN 83-233-1680-5
Summary
The book presents an analysis of space categories in Portuguese literature across the "imperial cycle", i.e. an extensive epoch that goes from the passage from Middle Ages to early modernity till the contemporary period. The main aim is to put in the limelight the evolution of spatial conceptualization, built up around two crucial notions: that of the "territory" and that of the "world". These two crucial concepts are in constant interaction along the Portuguese history, leading to their paradoxical identification in the concept of the "Fifth Empire" introduced by a 17th century Jesuit, António Vieira, who dreamed about a universal state unifying all humanity.
The five extensive chapters of this book show different aspects or stages in the development of the Portuguese spatial imagination. The first chapter, "Crossing the borders, seeing and reorganizing the world" starts with the teophanic root of the Portuguese identity, based on the narration of "milagre do Ourique". The maritime expansion is thus inscribed in the context of the "sacred mission" determining and justifying the existence of the nation. The legitimizing narration given by Camões in The Lusitans is one of the main points of this chapter. As a consequence, the paradigm of homo viator is conceptualized as the ideal realization of the human potential.
With the second chapter, "Unification of the world", we enter in the full blossom of the Portuguese idealistic project of the universal spiritual empire. I show the interplay of two apparently heterogeneous aspects: the vision of universalism elaborated by the humanists and the "Fifth Empire" of António Vieira. These two aspects contribute to the crystallized vision of humanity unified by the Portuguese in a new, at the same time political and mystic reality. Breaking the chronological order of the book, this chapters brings about Fernando Pessoa as the 20th century culmination of the vision of the Portuguese spiritual empire.
The beginning of the third chapter, "Unified world falling apart" takes the reader back to the early modern history, dealing with the negative aspects of the expansion. It presents the testimonies of being lost in the hostile world that make an important part of the Portuguese experience. A highlight in the presented material is given to the narrations of shipwrecks collected in História Trágico-Marítima. The analysis continues across the Portuguese literary history, culminating once again in the narrations of the African colonial war.
The last two chapters deal with modernity, marked by the destruction of the sacralised vision of the Portuguese destiny. This degradation of the consciousness of sacred mission that legitimised the very existence of the nation in earlier centuries is translated by visions of illness and degeneration of the national space, mainly in the literature created in the second half of the 19th century. What emerges during this century is the painful consciousness of contradiction between the supposed hegemonic and messianic mission in the world and the actual insignificance and poverty of the continental territory. Nonetheless, the generation of saudosistas brings back the idealised images of Portuguese homeland. Across this period, the negotiation of status between Portugal and Europe requires a new spatial category, that of periphery. Finally, the survey of the Portuguese spatial imagination culminates in Saramago's understanding of nomadism that obliterates both the hyperbolic notion of empire and the painful consciousness of periphery.
Review of this book
Teresa Jaromin, "E. Łukaszyk, Terytorium a świat...", Estudios hispánicos, XII, 2004, pp. 291-293.
CONTEMPORARY PORTUGUESE NARRATIVE
Współczesna proza portugalska (1939-1999). Tematy, problemy, obsesje [Contemporary Portuguese Literature (1939-1999). Topics, problems, obsessions], Kraków, Universitas, 2000, 237 pp.
ISBN 83-7052-725-6
Summary
The book offers a comprehensive glance on Portuguese narrative literature (i.e. the history of such genres as novel and short story, as well as minor and experimental texts such as crónicas) since the neorealism till the end of the 20th century. The material is synthetically divided in three parts: "Ideas and manifestos. The age of certitudes, convictions and attitudes", "Fight against history. The age of questions without answers", and "After the Apocalypse. Tame history, entanglement in texts". The aim is to offer the reader an insight into the evolution of the main currents, ideological stances and aesthetic choices of the 20th century narrative in Portugal.
Review of this book
Agnieszka August-Zarębska, "Współczesna proza portugalska Ewy Łukaszyk (Kraków 2000)", Estudios hispánicos, X, 2002, pp. 153-155.
ISBN 83-7052-725-6
Summary
The book offers a comprehensive glance on Portuguese narrative literature (i.e. the history of such genres as novel and short story, as well as minor and experimental texts such as crónicas) since the neorealism till the end of the 20th century. The material is synthetically divided in three parts: "Ideas and manifestos. The age of certitudes, convictions and attitudes", "Fight against history. The age of questions without answers", and "After the Apocalypse. Tame history, entanglement in texts". The aim is to offer the reader an insight into the evolution of the main currents, ideological stances and aesthetic choices of the 20th century narrative in Portugal.
Review of this book
Agnieszka August-Zarębska, "Współczesna proza portugalska Ewy Łukaszyk (Kraków 2000)", Estudios hispánicos, X, 2002, pp. 153-155.
Selected papers and chapters
“Raczyński w Portugalii. Spuścizna 'zderzenia kultur'” [“Raczyński in Portugal. The heritage of a cultural clash”], Postscriptum Polonistyczne, no 1 (21)/2018, p. 27-43. ISSN 1898-1593
| raczynski_w_portugalii.pdf |
"De gregos a portugueses. A transferência cultural como um problema de consciência crítica na Cidade de Ulisses de Teolinda Gersão" ["From Greek to Portuguese. The cultural transfer as a problem of critical consciousness in Cidade de Ulisses, by Teolinda Gersão"], Estudios Hispánicos, vol. XXIII, 2015, p. 173-184. ISSN 0239-6661
| de_gregos_a_portugueses.pdf |
"Akt twórczy jako destabilizacja porządków w pisarstwie José Saramago" [“Creative act as a destabilization of order in the novelistic work of José Saramago”], Tematy z Szewskiej, 2(6)/2011, p. 193-198. ISSN 1898-3901
| akt_tworczy_jako_destabilizacja.pdf |
„Eschatology and politics. The dream of imperial justice in the writings of António Vieira”, La cultura del barroco español e iberoamericano y su contexto europeo, Kazimierz Sabik, Karolina Kumor (ed.), Varsovia, Instituto de Estudios Ibéricos e Iberoamericanos de la Universidad de Varsovia, 2010, p. 221-227. ISBN 978-83-60875-84-1
| eschatology_and_politics.pdf |
„Aliança com as coisas. O mito de Orfeu em Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen” ["Union with the things. The Orphic myth in the poetry of Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen"], Acta Universitatis Palackianae Olomucensis – Facultas Philosophica - Philologica 71 (1998), p. 85-92. ISBN 80-7067-809-7
| alianca_com_as_coisas.pdf |
“Atanazy Raczyński, historiógrafo da arte portuguesa” ["Atanazy Raczynski: a historiographer of the Portuguese art"], Estudios Hispánicos, t. XI (2003), p. 77-90. ISSN 0239-6661; ISBN 83-229-2486-0
| atanazy_raczynski.pdf |
"Nós, Portugal, o poder ser. Um universalismo virtual como resultado dum processo de auto-mitificação da cultura", ["We, Portugal, the possibility of being. Virtual universalism as the result of the process of cultural self-mythification"], Mitologizacja kultury w polskiej i iberyjskiej twórczości artystycznej / Mitificação de cultura na criação artística ibérica e polaca, Wojciech Charchalis, Bogdan Trocha (eds.), Zielona Góra, Pracownia Mitopoetyki i Filozofii Literatury - Uniwersytet Zielonogórski, 2015, p. 287-297. ISBN 978-83-940506-8-9
| nos_portugal_o_poder_ser.pdf |
"Claramente se mostra ser falso o que escreveram. A dupla aletheia dos Descobrimentos" ["'Clearly proven that what had been written was wrong'. The double alethea of the Portuguese Discoveries"], Taíra. Revue du Centre d'Etudes Lusophones, Université Stendhal - Grenoble III, nr 10 (1998-1999), p. 61-75. ISSN 1145-3559
| claramente_se_mostra.pdf |
"A crónica: um género-ambívio na actual paisagem literária portuguesa?” [ "The cronicle: a crossroad genre in the landscape of the contemporary Portuguese prose"], Romanica Cracoviensia, nr 2/2002, p. 86-98. ISBN 83-233-1633-3
| cronica_genero_ambivio.pdf |
"Fernando Pessoa jako «nacjonalista mistyczny». Wizje narodowej tożsamości i historii w twórczości orto- i heteronimicznej" ["Fernando Pessoa as a 'mystic nationalist'. Visions of the national identity and history in the orto- and heteronym poetry"], Prace Komisji Neofilologicznej, t. V, Kraków, Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 2005, p. 123-146. ISSN 1731-8491
| fernando_pessoa_jako_nacjonalista_mistyczny.pdf |
"Fearful and female. Narrations of anxiety and the boom of the Portuguese fiction written by women in the decade of 1980", Romanica Silesiana, nr 11 (vol. 2), 2016, p. 82-92. ISSN 1898-2433, e-ISSN 2353-9887
| fearful_and_female.pdf |
„Od przekładu do oryginału. O recepcji egzystencjalizmu francuskiego w Portugalii (Urbano Tavares Rodrigues i Vergílio Ferreira)” ["From translation to original. On the reception of French existentialism in Portugal (Urbano Tavares Rodrigues and Vergilio Ferreira"], Między oryginałem a przekładem VI, Kraków, Księgarnia Akademicka, 2000, p. 53-62. ISBN 83-7188-430-3
| od_przekladu_do_oryginalu.pdf |
"Vai, pequeno livro, e escolhe o teu mundo... O tempo da história e o tempo da História nos prefácios aos Amantes e Outros Contos de David Mourão-Ferreira e aos Grão-Capitães de Jorge de Sena” ["'Go, little book, and choose your world...' Time of story and time of History in the introductions to Amantes e Outros Contos by David Mourão-Ferreira and Grão-Capitães by Jorge de Sena"], Romanica Cracoviensia, nr 1/2000, p. 43-47. ISBN 83-233-1357-1
| vai_pequeno_livro.pdf |
"Wokół sztuki powieściowej José Saramago" ["On novelistic artism of José Saramago"], Prace Komisji Neofilologicznej, t. II, Kraków, Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 2001, p. 119-136. ISBN 83-88857-11-8
| wokol_sztuki_powiesciowej_saramago.pdf |
„Wyprawa zamorska jako zdrada i wyzwolenie w doświadczeniach iberyjskich między XV a XVII wiekiem” [“The maritime expedition as a betrayal and a liberation in the Iberian experiences from the 15th to 17th century”], Litteraria Copernicana, nr 2(6)/2010, p. 24-31. ISSN 1899-315x
| wyprawa_zamorska.pdf |
"Zamieszkiwanie wędrówki. Metafory ziemskiego losu człowieka u José Saramago” ["Dwelling in the wandering. Metaphors of the terrestrial fate of man in Jose Saramago"], Er(r)go, nr 1/2000, p. 115-120. ISSN 1508-6305
| zamieszkiwanie_wedrowki.pdf |
"Fatum, Parki, Salome. Kobiecość fatalna w «dramatach statycznych» Fernanda Pessoa Salomé i O Marinheiro" ["The Fate, the Fates, Salome. Fatal feminine in the 'static dramas' by Fernando Pessoa, Salomé and O Marinheiro"], Intertekstualność i wyobraźniowość, Barbara Sosień (ed.), Kraków, Universitas, 2003, p. 169-180. ISBN 83-7052-882-1
| fatum_parki_salome.pdf |
IMPERIAL TOPOLOGIES. PORTUGUESE CULTURE-IN-THE-WORLD
At the present moment, I think once again about building a new conceptual frame for the expertise concerning the history of the Portuguese culture I've gathered. My topological and diagrammatic thinking might eventually become such a conceptual frame also for the Portuguese expansion.
This topological approach to the history of the Portuguese "culture-in-the world" and the contemporary consequences of its expansion is based on such categories as discontinuity, continuity, transferability, connectivity.
In the well-known process of the maritime expansion, I've become particularly sensitive the imagination of spacial continuity and discontinuity. Let's think about the concept of cabo, a promontory, such as Cabo Não the Portuguese sailors encountered on their way around the African coast. The great question that should be answered at the original moment of the expansion was the problem of continuity, and thus navigability of the maritime space. The positive solution of this problem gave interesting thread of reflection, inspiring Vieira to presuppose a similar kind of continuity in time - I mean his reflection on the hemispheres of time in História do Futuro, his vision of futurology as an analogy to maritime exploration.
Even more interesting, from my point of view, is the reflection on continuity and discontinuity of symbolic space. In other words, the question whether the humanity is continuous, if it forms a continuous space that enables a transfer of values. The affirmative answer to this question, given - a priori - by the humanists brought about interesting consequences. I think about, for example, about the notion of the "Adamic language" - a dream of rebuilding or recuperating a primordial form of communication, a pre-Babelian speech. It is only with the last writings by Vieira, on the outcome of his long personal experience as a missionary among the Indians, that the notion of discontinuity in the symbolic space, and thus intransferability of concepts and values, finds its expression in the concept of ignorantia invencibilis.
What I call topological dimension of reflection appears as a generator of utopia. Considering the world as a field of abstract potentialities may also be a functional basis of an eschatology - either such as the apocatastatic return to Paradise through the recuperation of the original language or such as the millenarian vision of the Fifth Empire.
At the present moment, I think once again about building a new conceptual frame for the expertise concerning the history of the Portuguese culture I've gathered. My topological and diagrammatic thinking might eventually become such a conceptual frame also for the Portuguese expansion.
This topological approach to the history of the Portuguese "culture-in-the world" and the contemporary consequences of its expansion is based on such categories as discontinuity, continuity, transferability, connectivity.
In the well-known process of the maritime expansion, I've become particularly sensitive the imagination of spacial continuity and discontinuity. Let's think about the concept of cabo, a promontory, such as Cabo Não the Portuguese sailors encountered on their way around the African coast. The great question that should be answered at the original moment of the expansion was the problem of continuity, and thus navigability of the maritime space. The positive solution of this problem gave interesting thread of reflection, inspiring Vieira to presuppose a similar kind of continuity in time - I mean his reflection on the hemispheres of time in História do Futuro, his vision of futurology as an analogy to maritime exploration.
Even more interesting, from my point of view, is the reflection on continuity and discontinuity of symbolic space. In other words, the question whether the humanity is continuous, if it forms a continuous space that enables a transfer of values. The affirmative answer to this question, given - a priori - by the humanists brought about interesting consequences. I think about, for example, about the notion of the "Adamic language" - a dream of rebuilding or recuperating a primordial form of communication, a pre-Babelian speech. It is only with the last writings by Vieira, on the outcome of his long personal experience as a missionary among the Indians, that the notion of discontinuity in the symbolic space, and thus intransferability of concepts and values, finds its expression in the concept of ignorantia invencibilis.
What I call topological dimension of reflection appears as a generator of utopia. Considering the world as a field of abstract potentialities may also be a functional basis of an eschatology - either such as the apocatastatic return to Paradise through the recuperation of the original language or such as the millenarian vision of the Fifth Empire.
