LITERATURE, EXISTENCE, 'BLOSSES LEBEN'. ELECTIVE AFFINITIES OF PETER SZONDI (Literatura, egzystencja, 'blosses Leben'. Petera Szondiego powinowactwa z wyboru)

This article presents the life and work of Peter Szondi, a German literary scholar and the creator of literary hermeneutics and modern comparative studies in postwar Germany, and a careful interpreter of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Friedrich Hölderlin, Walter Benjamin, and Paul Celan. Using a philosophical category of 'naked/bare life' (Giorgio Agamben's notion), the author of the article interprets the work of Szondi as an attempt to rewrite - through the authors that Szondi analyzed and commented on, especially Paul Celan and Walter Benjamin - his own biography. On such a reading, the late work of Peter Szondi would be an attempt to overcome the traumatic war experiences, including the loss of identity and language.