W. G. Sebald czuje. Melancholiczny zawrót głowy
W. G. Sebald Feels: Melancholic Dizziness

Summary/Abstract: In this article on W. G. Sebald’s writerly strategies Masłoń mainly draws on Walter Benjamin’s theory of tragic drama. His goal is to show the ways in which the reader, caught in melancholy discourse, is subjected to narrative manipulation; thanks to this manipulation the traumatic void (written about in order to be commemorated) is transformed into the aesthetic completeness of empathising with the writer’s ‘authentic’ sensitivity. Sebald’s writing is, therefore, sentimental in terms of both content and form: the procedures intended to suggest traces of trauma in the narrative – such as the characters’ depsychologisation or the fragmentation of the narrative – fail to make us question the possibility of representation. Instead, these procedures are overcome and absorbed in the author’s potentially infinite knowledge and erudition.

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