Playing on an Ice Floe: Time in Jerzy Limon’s Scholarship and Literary writing

Abstract

Jerzy Limon has always been fascinated by sophisticated aesthetic solutions thanks to which time fl ows differently in the minds of the recipients of stage, visual, audial and literary arts than in life. He shows that on stage, in a radio studio, or in a literary work, time effects can be induced that are the actual subject of quantum physics. In his view, the artistic „calibration” of time not only has an aesthetic value, but also axiological and existential. By experiencing disturbances between the present, the past and the future, we get to know the world, evaluate it, and at the same time mentally go beyond the boundaries of our person. For Limon, „time travel” also includes scholarly research on past literature and theater, and his own studies are based on the postmodern theory of historical narrativism. The metaphorical description of boys jumping on a sea ice fl oe in his debut novel Münchhauseniada exemplifi es how Limon, a literary and theater historian, semiologist, translator and writer, made time an original critical and artistic category.