„Zobaczyć świat w ziarenku piasku”. Przyczynek do refleksji nad „literaturą a religią” z perspektywy pogranicznej
“To See a World in a Grain of Sand”: A Contribution to Reflection on “Literature and Religion” from a Border Perspective

Summary/Abstract: This consideration of some approaches to the relationship between literature and religion in what Charles Taylor termed “a secular age” is written from a Polish-English “border perspective.” It takes account especially of the work of Nicholas Boyle, Michael Edwards, David Jasper and Kevin Hart; but its inspiration derives from the opening line of William Blake’s poem Auguries of Innocence, both in the original and in the Polish translation by Zygmunt Kubiak. The analysis of this one line suggests some elements of a possible approach to “literature and religion,” especially but not only in a “secular age.” The combination of the original and the translated versions implies an ideal: to appreciate the mystery of every “grain of sand” as a separate, individual world (“a world”) and at the same time to relate that particular wealth to the whole, discovering the world (“świat”) in that grain of sand. This is clearly an impossible ideal, but one that is worth pursuing in the humble spirit also implied by the poem’s opening quatrain.

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