On inner experience and allegories of knowing in Leo Lipski’s works

Abstract

The article offers an interpretation of various allegories which denote a moment when the subject of Leo Lipski’s works acquires knowledge. The framework of my analysis is provided by Georges Bataille’s concept of the inner experience and of the allegory in the gnostic sense presented in Hans Jonas’ The Gnostic Religion. The article focuses on two allegories of knowing present in Miasteczko [Small Town] and Niespokojni [The Unsettled], which interfere with the most significant gnostic ideas, that is the myth of the anthropos, the first man, as well as the gnostic view on human existence in the micro- and macrocosmic perspectives. I argue that Lipski’s allegories, which are representations of inner experiences, reveal the remnants of the old gnostic knowledge. Moreover, the article intends to demonstrate that the act of acquiring knowledge beyond the ratio, as well as the attempts to absorb it, are one of the crucial ‘pedagogical’ motifs unifying Lipski’s oeuvre.