Published: 2024-10-181

Spotkanie z Psyche. Nowela "Faun" Ignacego Nikorowicza wobec antycznej tradycji (Apulejusz z Madaury) i młodopolskiej konwencji (Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer)

Grzegorz Igliński
Prace Literaturoznawcze
Section: Interpretations
https://doi.org/10.31648/pl.9343

Abstract

The subject of this work is one of novellas by Ignacy Nikorowicz (1866–1951), a journalist, playwright, novelist and poet of Armenian origin. This article analyzes and interprets the novella "Faun" (probably 1903) and its poetic prose with the aim of bringing greater awareness of the beliefs and artistic imagery of this largely forgotten writer. The text is considered in the context of the story of Cupid and Psyche from Apuleius’s "Metamorphoses" and against the background the fashion present in the literature and arts of the turn of the 19th and 20th century to depict idols with goat horns (Pan, faun, satyr). The writer’s biography was also considered. The article also compares Nikorowicz’s work with the poem by Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer "Szalony Faun" ["Crazy Faun"], the probable source of inspiration.

The meeting of faun with Psyche presented in the novella may be interpreted as the meeting with one’s own self or soul. The character is subjected to effective therapy allowing him to see something in himself that he had not seen earlier – the desire for good and beauty. He surrenders to the power of spiritual love rather than being subjected solely to sexual desire and thus becomes a man focusing in himself life’s opposites – sorrow and joy, reason and feeling.

Keywords:

faun, Psyche, metamorphosis, Apuleius of Madaura, Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer

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Igliński, G. (2024). Spotkanie z Psyche. Nowela "Faun" Ignacego Nikorowicza wobec antycznej tradycji (Apulejusz z Madaury) i młodopolskiej konwencji (Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer). Prace Literaturoznawcze, (12), 201–216. https://doi.org/10.31648/pl.9343

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