„Dear Reader, I Declare Categorically that I Am Not Sure”

Abstract

The essay is devoted to Krzysztof Hoffmann book dubitatio o poezji Eugeniusza Tkaczyszyna-Dyckiego [dubitatio on poetry by Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki]. The author discusses the critic’s interpretative strategies, as well as his theoretical and metatheoretical assumptions. The author demonstrates how deconstructionist philosophy influences the modes of reading of poetical languages proposed by the young critic and his critical consciousness shaped by doubt and uncertainty. This distinguishes him from modern scientific strategy (structuralism) that treats interpretation as a way to reach the truth of a work. Hoffmann writes about the difficult, rhetorically sophisticated poetry by Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki, and more specifically, about its early stage before 2005. The story is built around four words: home, friendship, schizophrenia, disbelief. The most important problem, however, is the language of the poetry: its status, problematic referentiality, and difficult link to existence. The author, thus, reads dubitatio as a metaphorical discussion of theory and practice of poetry interpretation in general, and Tkaczyszyn-Dycki’s poetry in particular.

Keywords

• Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki’s poetry
• interpretation
• deconstructionist reading
• rhetoricality
• aporia
• anti-essentionalism