Ten sam głos. O „Dzienniku bez samogłosek” Aleksandra Wata

Abstract

THE SAME VOICE: THE DZIENNIK BEZ SAMOGŁOSEK [A DIARY WITHOUT VOWELS] BY ALEKSANDER WAT The purpose of this article is an interpretation of Aleksander Wat’s oeuvre from logopedic and literary perspectives. The author argues that the analysis of Aleksander Wat’s personal and medical documents, as well as of the phonetic transcripts of the recording of his voice, proves that he suffered from flaccid dysarthria. Furthermore, she also suggests that there is a correlation between Aleksander Wat’s speech disorder and his literary works, which serve to record his suffering and are an attempt to represent dysarthria in poetry. On the example of the poet’s early works, she shows that in his youth Wat was already interested in speech disorders and the significance of sound in poetry. His later compositions reflect his renewed interest in the field after he experienced a neurological incident. It turns out that the futurist poet’s interest in the sound of poetry and in utterances on the margins of standard discourses (speech impediments, stutter, errors, etc.), characteristic of many eminent avant-garde 20th-century writers, gained a personal meaning in Wat’s late works.