Literature as a Vehicle of Mystery: On Jerzy Grotowski’s Writing

Abstract

Jerzy Grotowski (1933–1999), who is considered to be one of the greatest theater artists of the 20th century, frequently expressed his ambivalent relation to words, repeating that any true knowledge has to be obtained by practice. However, all his life he created and published texts. The volume collecting them all in print runs to 1131 pages. Scholars interpreting his art (e.g. Krzysztof Rutkowski, Zbigniew Osiński) and his close collaborators, like Ludwik Flaszen, frequently times underlined the importance of Grotowski’s writings, stressing a special function literature played in this artist’s research. Following their recognitions, partly polemizing with them, one can formulate some basic assumptions concerning the character and functions of Grotowski’s writing and its relation to the main aspects of contemporary literature. This was the man of theater appears to be also an aware creator of a literature paradoxically closely related and working for mystery beyond words.