Simone Weil i Kaija Saariaho. Paradoksy literacko-muzyczne
Simone Weil and Kaija Saariaho. Literary and Musical Paradoxes

Summary/Abstract: The article attempts to compare how the poetics of paradox is realised in the philosophical and theological writings of Simone Weil and in the musical language of the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho in her oratorio La Passion de Simone, dedicated to Weil’s biography and work. The etymology of paradox is a guide for the comparative analysis, from its meaning in opposition to doxa understood as a set of generally accepted beliefs to the reading of paradox as being ‛close to’ (para) ‛glory’ (doxa). Both semantic ranges permeate the fabric of Weil’s texts, both at the level of a language full of contradictions and at the level of the considered idea of kenosis, which is the greatest theological paradox, based on the clash between Christ’s divine nature and depriving him of glory at the time of his Crucifixion. Saariaho’s musical language exploits Weilian contradictions, juxtaposing contrasting masses of sound. It also transforms musical time into an impression of musical space and, paradoxically, imitates silence with sounds.

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