Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Kathleen Cioffi
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction
- Part I Our Auschwitz: Grotowski's Akropolis
- Part II Our Memory: Kantor's Dead Class
- Chapter 22 Tadeusz Kantor: A Very Short Introduction
- Chapter 23 Dead Class: The Making of the Legend
- Chapter 24 Dead Class in Poland
- Chapter 25 The Polish History Lesson
- Chapter 26 Dead Class Abroad
- Chapter 27 On Not Knowing Polish, Again
- Chapter 28 The Visual and the Puerile
- Chapter 29 The National and the Transnational
- Chapter 30 Witkiewicz's Tumor
- Chapter 31 An Age of Genius: Bruno Schulz and the Return to Childhood
- Chapter 32 Conversing with Gombrowicz: The Dead, the Funny, the Sacred and the Profane
- Chapter 33 Panirony: “A pain with a smile and a shrug”
- Chapter 34 Raising the Dead
- Chapter 35 Dead Class as Kaddish…
- Chapter 36 Dead Class as Dybbuk, or the Absence
- Chapter 37 The Dead and the Marionettes
- Chapter 38 Men and Objects
- Chapter 39 Dead Class as Forefathers' Eve
- Chapter 40 Dead Class: The Afterlife
- Postscript
- Appendix
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 39 - Dead Class as Forefathers' Eve
from Part II - Our Memory: Kantor's Dead Class
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Kathleen Cioffi
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction
- Part I Our Auschwitz: Grotowski's Akropolis
- Part II Our Memory: Kantor's Dead Class
- Chapter 22 Tadeusz Kantor: A Very Short Introduction
- Chapter 23 Dead Class: The Making of the Legend
- Chapter 24 Dead Class in Poland
- Chapter 25 The Polish History Lesson
- Chapter 26 Dead Class Abroad
- Chapter 27 On Not Knowing Polish, Again
- Chapter 28 The Visual and the Puerile
- Chapter 29 The National and the Transnational
- Chapter 30 Witkiewicz's Tumor
- Chapter 31 An Age of Genius: Bruno Schulz and the Return to Childhood
- Chapter 32 Conversing with Gombrowicz: The Dead, the Funny, the Sacred and the Profane
- Chapter 33 Panirony: “A pain with a smile and a shrug”
- Chapter 34 Raising the Dead
- Chapter 35 Dead Class as Kaddish…
- Chapter 36 Dead Class as Dybbuk, or the Absence
- Chapter 37 The Dead and the Marionettes
- Chapter 38 Men and Objects
- Chapter 39 Dead Class as Forefathers' Eve
- Chapter 40 Dead Class: The Afterlife
- Postscript
- Appendix
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Finally, Kantor's most eminent literary inspiration was Adam Mickiewicz's Romantic, four-part drama-poem, Dziady [Forefathers’ Eve]. Written while Mickiewicz was in exile, Forefathers’ Eve consists of four parts, each distinct in form. They can be, and customarily were, performed separately. In 1832, in a letter to his colleague Joachim Lelewel, Mickiewicz wrote: “I place great hopes in our nation and in a course of events unforeseen by any diplomacy. […] I would think only that our aspirations should be given a religious and moral character, distinct from the financial liberalism of the French and firmly grounded in Catholicism.” For the next 200 years, Mickiewicz's martyrological, liberatory vision of a Poland as expressed and solidified in Forefathers’ Eve came to dominate Polish literature and art. It also became a primary source of Polish self-definition and nationalistic identity. Written in 1820–21, Part II, the so-called Vilnius–Kaunas part, focuses on folklore, particularly a Christianized version of a pagan ritual concerning the raising of the dead. The ludic ritual is viewed as a source of creativity and a manifestation of the early Romantic ontological and ethical attitude towards the mystical and supernatural. Part IV, written in 1821–2, is a spiritual, Romantic love story. It tells the tale of the unfortunate and exalted lover Gustav, who commits suicide upon seeing his beloved marry someone richer than he. Gustav returns from the dead to recount his story, lamenting his love and the suffering it brought him.
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- The Post-traumatic Theatre of Grotowski and KantorHistory and Holocaust in 'Akropolis' and 'Dead Class', pp. 274 - 279Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2012