Comedy and intertextuality in the late works by Tadeusz Różewicz

Abstract

In Różewicz's oeuvre, intertextuality has always been an important category associated with the imperative of dialogism – such polyphony has been gradually gro- wing in the works of "the poet of Radomsko". In his late works, already in the 1990s, he has turned to postmodern aesthetic patterns. The writer also returns to his early projects of comicality - the satirical element appears, for example, in Kup kota w worku ("Buy a Cat in a Bag"). Różewicz's comic paraphrases, depending on whether they are modeled on literary standard or extra-linguistic reality, may be defined as parody or travesty. Also different is the attitude of the author to the text used, ranging from "sunny smiles" (Staff, Filipowicz) to the edge of criticism (Derrida, Masłowska). Notwithstanding this, the main method of achieving a joke is degradative comic method. Intertextuality in Różewicz is always active in generating meanings. His texts reinterpret the prototype, and thus creatively intervene in the present.