“An exact statement in everyday speech”: on the essayistic “silvichness” of Polish prose
... goes back to Antiquity, and which in the postclassical period marks a new stage of literary self-consciousness, where the use of “silva” forms acquires the character of artistic play with the reader. In Gombrowicz’s Diary, the Old Polish forms of silva rerum are presented in a parodic aspect. Herling-Grudziński’s Diary Written at Night, as a collection of comments on what was read, preserves the genre memory of lucubrationes — nocturnal “reflections” presented in the works of the philosopher ...
