Krąg znaczeniowy spirali jako formy ornamentalnej i geometrycznej w autobiograficznej powieści Andrzeja Biełego „Kocio Letajew”

Abstract

Andrei Bely’s Kotik Letaev was written in 1915, and it is about the functioning of the creative mind, the genesis of consciousness, and the mechanism of its functioning. In the novel revised several times, the writer shows the obvious influence of the anthroposophic interpretation of Rudolf Steiner. According to the novel, consciousness is not a pre-set, closed world, and the forms of reality and the new stages of the functioning of consciousness demonstrate a close correlation, where the levels of consciousness are interpreting themselves. The subjects of narration are the events happening inside the consciousness. Self-consciousness comes to know and analyse itself, and it builds itself up, making the effects of the world immanent. The main character of the autobiographic novel is a 35-year-old man, and we can see the changes of a child’s consciousness in a retrospective way through his point of view. These changes are similar to the swings of a pendulum in time and space, like the geometrical form of a spiral, and at the end of the novel the hero’s consciousness is complete and consistent. The character of the spiral is an important principle of the novel’s organisation, it maps the levels of developing consciousness and the functioning of memory. It is also the symbol of growing consciousness in the life of Kotik who can increasingly perceive his environment.