Studia Filologiczne UJK

Summary

Andrzej Bursa is a poet constantly measuring himself against the experience of death. The fear of it that undergirds his life is related, among other things, to his biography – especially to his illness (congenital heart defect, because of which he was often hospitalized). The subject of the sketch will be the interpretation of the poem beginning with the words “Inaczej wyobrażałem sobie śmierć”, whose lyrical hero presents himself as a “living corpse”, subjected to various painful experiments. Remaining motionless, unable to do anything, he “feels” everything, “sees" everything, suffers. He dies in full consciousness. The situation in which he finds himself is compared to the scene depicted in Rembrandt’s painting “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp”. Moreover, the piece, written in 1957, in the shadow of the socio-political changes taking place at the time, takes on additional meanings.