Na obraz i podobieństwo. Wokół wiersza Adama Mickiewicza „Broń mnie przed sobą samym...”
In His Own Image. On Adam Mickiewicz’s Poem “Defend me against myself…”

Summary/Abstract: The article contains an interpretation of Mickiewicz’s poem "Defend me against myself... [Broń mnie przed sobą samym...]". Employing structuralist-semiotic tools of textual analysis, and taking into account the intentions of the text encoded in its stylistic form, the author reaches the conclusion that the poem is a poetic elaboration of the biblical verse which states that God created man “in his own image”. Having analyzed the artistic means of expression (metaphors, imagery) and their function, she shows how references in the text contrary to the biblical vision of God find an explanation in the theosophical conceptions of Jacob Boehme, in whom Mickiewicz had been interested since his youth. The poem, the author concludes, is a romantic criticism of reason understood as the ultimate means of understanding the world and the place that human beings occupy in it.

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