“Writings” or “completed works”? On editions of epistolography by Norwid in collective

Abstract

The article concerns posthumous collective editions of Norwid’s “writings”, which also contains letters. The editions, which also served the purpose of “discovering” the poet, reveal the problematic status (between “writings” and “compositions”) of epistolaries, provided to the public nearly at the same time and according to the same principles as literary works. What is more, the manuscript nature of a large part of Norwid’s legacy and almost simultaneous release of both stricte literary texts and private writings, determined the manner of functioning of the latter in scholarly reception. Their genre specificity was usually recognized by treating letter fragments as a direct expression of the poet’s views, a recording of his thoughts. However, when interest was shown in letters as a separate domain of Norwid’s activity, raising at the same time, among others, the issue of the structure of epistolar subject, their editorial form significantly influenced the results of analysis, as the letters were read as a whole, a coherent, consequently structured unity. Reading letters as letters – utterances which are situation – or event-related – would first require a destruction of their book-like form.