Innocence as the source of comedy. On "Autorki" by Henryk Sienkiewicz

Abstract

Autorki by Henryk Sienkiewicz is a now completely unknown stage work, in which an unusual strategy of building comedy was chosen. This is because the source of humour in this text is the innocence and unconsciousness of the child protagonist. Taking into account the circumstances of the work’s creation, that is, the historical moment and the tendencies that were present in literature at the time, the introduction of laughter by means of the specific creation of a child seems a non-obvious choice, so it is worth investigating. The purpose of the article is to determine the type of comedy used in Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Autorki and to characterize its functionality. The discussion will confirm the thesis that the humour of Sienkiewicz’s play was based on three pillars: childlike innocence and unconsciousness, human sexuality and a playful reference to the stereotypes of the Polish sentimental novel.