Otherness that deserves to be protected. Empathy built upon distance

Abstract

The article is a review of Krystyna Pietrych’s book Co poezji po bolu.Empatyczne przestrzenie lektury (Łodż 2009) [What good pain and sufferingbring in poetry. Emphatic dimensions of reading]. Since the reviewedbook presents a bold and, to a large extent, novel approach topersonalistic reading — based on a subjective, compassionate experienceof an encounter with uncognizable and unreductible otherness oftormented man-poet, the reviewer focuses on the issues viewed as themost important for the method of emphatic reading adopted by the author.E. Winiecka analyses aesthetical and epistemological, as well asaxiological possibilities and risks that emphatic criticism opens up forreexamination. Formulates her own opinion on the analytical methodused by K. Pietrych in examining poetry, which is a recording of one’smind in agony and suffering experienced by seven authors: AleksanderWat, Zbigniew Herbert, Miron Białszewski, Stanisłw Barańzak, JanuszSzuber, as well as Julian Przybośand Anna Swirszczyńka. Outlinesthe methodological perspectives of the discussed work that tracesthe stages in the formation of literary depiction and representation ofsuffering. The text is also an attempt at defining and indicating the cognitiveperspectives of emphatic criticism.

Keywords

• personalistic reading
• otherness
• emphatic reading
• emphatic criticism
• poetry