Distortion and other failures of poets. Leśmian’s poetological project in the light of the reading of „Przygody Sindbada Żeglarza” (The Adventures of Sinbad the Sailor)

Abstract

The paper is aimed at tracing the motif of the poet’s failure in the context of the poetological project, articulated most vividly by Bolesław Leśmian in his literary essays, but also developed in numerous poems with auto-thematic threads. The author proposes a peripheral perspective, placing in the centre of his deliberations the most ill-fated poet from the gallery of artists evoked by Leśmian, Sinbad’s uncle Tarabuk from Przygody Sindbada Żeglarza (The Adventures of Sinbad the Sailor) (1913). Even though this early literary fable tends to be treated as a marginal text in the poet’s literary output, it does contain in its core many elements which are important for his literary views. One of them is, for instance, the vision of a poet who strives to translate the rhythm of nature translate into the rhythm of his melodious verse, yet continues to experience failures of different types: the fruits of his labour undergo destruction, and subsequent methods of preserving poetry distort the author’s original intention. The paper contains elements of polemics with the essay entitled Wuj Tarabuk i nędza pisania (Uncle Tarabuk and the misery of writing) by Ryszard Koziołek.