Homunkulusy Brunona Schulza
Journal Title: Schulz/Forum - Year 2013, Vol 3, Issue 3
Abstract
In Bruno Schulz’s short stories, full of motifs taken from alchemy and the Book of Genesis, one can find many homunculi – artificial human beings that were one of the goals of alchemists’ experiments. In Schulz’s fiction, this figure is a symbol of artificial life which is empty, sterile, and unable to create. This artificial life is represented by mannequins, wax figures, idols, dummies, marionettes, golems, and dolls. In Schulz’s carnivalesque reality, such forms can be only temporary disguises, parts, and grotesque masks that have nothing to do with the creative soul. Consequently, each of them must be treated separately, since it is an automaton or a stuffed dummy only to an extent, similarly to dolls and plaster statues which may be partly human. The present essay is an attempt to put all such creatures together and interpret them in different contexts, ranging from the biblical creation and medieval alchemy to the twentieth-century science fiction. As it turns out, the most important are their faces – fixed, incomplete, and dead – which are disguises worn by protean individuals.
Authors and Affiliations
Tymoteusz Skiba
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP169794
- DOI -
- Views 33
- Downloads 0
Schulz czytany przez Henri Lewiego
Henri Lewi’s book, Bruno Schulz or, Messianic Strategies, published in 1989 in Paris, is an attempt to read the fiction and correspondence of Schulz as a record of his individual lot and the collective condition of Jews...
„Zmierzch będzie zapadał”, albo Historia Bianki
Joseph saw Bianca for the first time when “she was wearing a white dress, slender and calligraphic as if the had been out of the Zodiac.” Then he had no way out – he could not stop dreaming about meeting her once more. H...
Biografia Schulza jako wyzwanie (rzucone historii)
Each and every biography is a challenge, but the biography of Bruno Schulz is a peculiar one. First of all because it is not easily accessible, hidden – just like its protagonist who concealed himself behind effigies pro...
Pisarze polscy o pomocy zimowej
"An Unemployed Father from the Winter Aid", the story allegedly written by Bruno Schulz, in response to a call for help in organizing the Polish Winterhilfe (Winter Aid). Originally published in Sygnały, 1937, no. 25 (Ja...
[***] Masażystka zaprosiła mnie na kawę
Wiersz na motywach Schulz autorstwa Łukasz Kamińskiego.