The paper presents The Rings of Saturn as an example of liberature – a literary genre defined by Zenon Fajfer and Katarzyna Bazarnik that encompasses literary works in which authors purposefully fuse the content with the form and make use of the book as both a medium and an aesthetic object itself. The goal is to examine the relationship between words and images in the book to identify liberatic characteristics of Sebald’s work. The analysis concentrates around descriptions of landscape, focusing on the narrator noticing particular objects against the plain coast as well as uniting nature and humankind in numerous digressions. A close reading of a few passages with reference to studies by i.a. Long, Jacobs and Cooke makes it possible to examine the narrator’s relationship with nature and the historical concerns stemming from his complex national identity. Both are subsequently set against the whole narrative and the form of the book. The second part of the paper is devoted to a close analysis of a few photographs from The Rings of Saturn along with their impact on Sebald’s overall message. A reference to Stockwell’s studies on figures and backgrounds as represented in literature offers a cognitive perspective on the work’s multimodal content.   

Research financed from the budget for science and arts 2018–2022 as a research project being a part of the “Diamond Grant” programme / Praca naukowa finansowana ze środków budżetowych na  naukę w latach 2018–2022, jako projekt badawczy w ramach programu „Diamentowy Grant”.

The paper presents The Rings of Saturn as an example of liberature – a literary genre defined by Zenon Fajfer and Katarzyna Bazarnik that encompasses literary works in which authors purposefully fuse the content with the form and make use of the book as both a medium and an aesthetic object itself. The goal is to examine the relationship between words and images in the book to identify liberatic characteristics of Sebald’s work. The analysis concentrates around descriptions of landscape, focusing on the narrator noticing particular objects against the plain coast as well as uniting nature and humankind in numerous digressions. A close reading of a few passages with reference to studies by i.a. Long, Jacobs and Cooke makes it possible to examine the narrator’s relationship with nature and the historical concerns stemming from his complex national identity. Both are subsequently set against the whole narrative and the form of the book. The second part of the paper is devoted to a close analysis of a few photographs from The Rings of Saturn along with their impact on Sebald’s overall message. A reference to Stockwell’s studies on figures and backgrounds as represented in literature offers a cognitive perspective on the work’s multimodal content.   

Research financed from the budget for science and arts 2018–2022 as a research project being a part of the “Diamond Grant” programme / Praca naukowa finansowana ze środków budżetowych na  naukę w latach 2018–2022, jako projekt badawczy w ramach programu „Diamentowy Grant”.