Różewicz’s “Turn to Things”?

About the Shoes of the Poet from the Poem "Áladerrida"

Abstract

The article examines the problem of the status of things in Tadeusz Różewicz’s poem titled Áladerrida (the volume: Kup kota w worku). Using the example of the poet’s shoes theme, the author analyzes the role of everyday objects in creating human socio-cultural identity. She argues that objects have agency, in the sense described by Alfred Gell, Bruno Latour or Bjørnar Olsen, who postulate that matter should be valued as a form of existence equal to the human actor. According to their philosophy, objects cannot be regarded only as passive tools and witnesses of the activities of the human subject, because they are active participants and co-creators of our life, causing real effects. This prompts her to ask questions about the possibility of reading Różewicz’s things in the perspective of “the turn to things”, which takes into account codes that go beyond the anthropocentric horizon – epistemological, ontological, ethical. This is helped by the poet’s inspiration with the paintings of Vincent van Gogh, whose A Pair of Shoes, according to critics, had a clearly mediating character, becoming for the artist a way of “traversing the world” and understanding it.