Childhood topos in the light of history (a general outline of the problem in modern poetry 1939-1989)

Abstract

The attention in this article is paid to the problem of childhood (its literary picture in poetry) in relation to external factors – events and history (including the socio-political context). The researched material consists of Polish poetry from years 1939-1989 (as a clearly distinguished segment of the historical-literary process). Methodological ordering of the contents of subject literature results from the use of two research paradigms: one – current- autobiographical one – shows the problem under discussion in reference to such topics of 20th century writings as exile (poetry of return by Łobodowski, Wierzyński etc.) immigration (currents: nostalgic [pansentimentalism] and emotionally neutral), Holocaust (motifs of fear, the division between now and then, the role of imagination); the second one allows to follow the topos of childhood viewed in the perspective of history according to the order of generations entering Polish literature (from generation 1920 to New Age Groups) and to succession of consecutive phases of literary development in the second half of the 20^th century (e.g. socrealism and soc-plans). The text is concluded with the thought that poetic texts (concerning childhood in the light of history) are viewed as, among others, records of ‘rites of passage’ – from the child phase of pre-personalistic personality (the child’s sense of being one with the world, experiencing the harmony of being) to the period of personalization (when history leaves its stamp on this period; characterized by the sense of the subject’s distinctiveness from the reality, of individual separateness, the need for rationalization of one’s own and surrounding existence). The role of history often comes to leading a child from the pre-personalistic period to the experience of personalization.