Gajcy, Bachelard – the Church in a “dreaming memory”. The ontic status of things as epiphanies of personal images and imaginations Cover Image

Gajcy, Bachelard – Kościół w „pamięci marzącej”. Status ontyczny rzeczy jako epifanii osobistych obrazów i wyobrażeń
Gajcy, Bachelard – the Church in a “dreaming memory”. The ontic status of things as epiphanies of personal images and imaginations

Author(s): Rafał Brasse
Subject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, Polish Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Diecezjalne »Adalbertinum«
Keywords: Gajcy; Bachelard; Church in a “dreaming memory”;

Summary/Abstract: In childhood, Tadeusz Gajcy was an altar boy. Every morning, he must have listened to fragments of liturgical texts. Stories full of extraordinary events and miracles – undoubtedly affecting the childʼs imagination – come alive in his poetry at the level of naive consciousness. Poetic dreams seem to be stretched between the family room and everyday life woven into the rhythm of church life. The memory of the time spent serving at the altar allows the poet to treat the temple as a home, archetypical symbol of the inner refuge against sinister forces. Thus, hidden in the depths of the subconscious, the archetype is the foundation for the most powerful, cosmic dreams of happiness, the center from which the imagined contents of internal life soaked in richness flow from. In this article, using the Bachelardʼs categories of “oniric home” and “dreaming memory”, I ponder how the childhood archetype revived by memories evokes happy dreams. I come to the conclusion that the factor motivating their emergence are religious experiences marked by visionary eschatology. I explore relationships between the experience of the liturgical activities derived from childhood and the work of creative imagination. Simultaneously, I reflect on the essence and symbolic value of things transposed to the world of creative ideas.

  • Issue Year: 20/2018
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 329-349
  • Page Count: 21
  • Language: Polish