YY. Kryptonimy Jerzego Jankowskiego

Abstract

The article is an attempt to interpret the only book published by Jerzy Jankowski, a forerunner of Polish futurism who is often overlooked in literary history related to the beginnings of the avant-garde movement. Tram wpopszek ulicy (Tram crossways on the street), published in 1920, is presented in terms of innovative phenomena in Polish and European poetry. Such a point of view reveals its precursory character, despite its passeism repeatedly diagnosed by critics. The key word and the starting point of the analysis is the first word of the title – tram, whose ambiguity makes it not only a sign of a modern city but also a metaphor of the construction of the entire book and its historical location. Further analysis leads to conclusions that, on the one hand, reveal the complicated meaning of the vitalistic futurist concept of life and, on the other, indicate aporias and tensions between symbolism and avant-garde, originality and repetition, materiality and spirituality, as well as aesthetics and the social function of art. These seem to be a hidden dimension of Jankowski’s work.