What is Różewicz Laughing about?

An overview of motifs appearing in Tadeusz Różewicz’s poetry such as these of “jester” and “clownery,” “smile,” “laughter” and “mockery” serves as a background for the title reflection, in which the questions of affirmation of someone else’s joy of life; acceptance for ludic laughter; therapeutic role of laughter in face of war trauma; and satirical distance from the observed events come to the forefront. In Różewicz’s oeuvre, a meta-poetic reflexion on the role of laughter in poetry appears from the very beginning as well. The laughter means here the critique or the negation of poetry and the poet; irony and self-mockery – of different type and of different reach that go to the extremes of negative self-topicality. Ridicule of a poem becomes a leitmotif in the late oeuvre of Różewicz as its loudest manifestations are contained in the volume Płaskorzeźba [Bas-relief].

An overview of motifs appearing in Tadeusz Różewicz’s poetry such as these of “jester” and “clownery,” “smile,” “laughter” and “mockery” serves as a background for the title reflection, in which the questions of affirmation of someone else’s joy of life; acceptance for ludic laughter; therapeutic role of laughter in face of war trauma; and satirical distance from the observed events come to the forefront. In Różewicz’s oeuvre, a meta-poetic reflexion on the role of laughter in poetry appears from the very beginning as well. The laughter means here the critique or the negation of poetry and the poet; irony and self-mockery – of different type and of different reach that go to the extremes of negative self-topicality. Ridicule of a poem becomes a leitmotif in the late oeuvre of Różewicz as its loudest manifestations are contained in the volume Płaskorzeźba [Bas-relief].