Schulz’s Masochism and the Verbal Threshold of Shame Cover Image

Masochizm Schulza i próg wstydu w słowie
Schulz’s Masochism and the Verbal Threshold of Shame

Author(s): Paweł Dybel
Subject(s): Anthropology, Psychology, Studies of Literature, Interwar Period (1920 - 1939), Philology, Theory of Literature
Published by: Fundacja Terytoria Książki
Keywords: Bruno Schulz; schulz studies; literary theory; masochism;

Summary/Abstract: Masochism is deeply irrational: the masochistic subject can attain sexual bliss only whens/he has been tormented and humiliated. The essay reconstructs the sociohistoricalcontext in which reflection on masochism has been developing. Drawing on psychoanalysis(Freud, Lacan, Žižek), the author makes a distinction between Schulz’s privatemasochism and that which is demonstrated in his fiction and graphic works. All thevariants of Schulz’s masochism reflect the problems of Polish Jews with assimilation,parodic references to courtly love (fin’ amors), and those elements of the writer’s biographywhich foreground shame that he felt as he was writing.

  • Issue Year: 7/2016
  • Issue No: 7
  • Page Range: 5-24
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: Polish