Wound up world. A clock as a figure of nature and turns of human things in writing by Wacław Potocki Cover Image

Świat nakręcony. Zegar jako figura natury i obrotu spraw ludzkich w poezji Wacława Potockiego
Wound up world. A clock as a figure of nature and turns of human things in writing by Wacław Potocki

Author(s): Agnieszka Czechowicz
Subject(s): Language studies, Language and Literature Studies, Literary Texts, Poetry, Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego
Keywords: Wacław Potocki; poetic figures; mechanical clock; fortune; Providence

Summary/Abstract: The article shows the presence of the motif of a mechanical clock in Wacław Potocki’s poetry and it analyses as well his poetic reflection inspired by complexity of the clock mechanism. Chronometers, like other achievements of craftsmanship or culture, are treated by the poet as allegorical illustrations of the truths of the Christian faith and moral principles, as well as artful results of interpretations of the order that permeates both nature and the regularities of human affairs. The author of the paper shows that in the poems of the poet from Łużna, a watch becomes a “meditative piece” that inspires cosmological, anthropological and religious reflection. In Potocki’s writing, the clock mechanism stimulates reflection on the laws of the great mechanism of the universe and the civilization, and it reminds of the principle of entropy and its consequences as inevitable future of the world.

  • Issue Year: 16/2021
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 93-108
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Polish