Stuck in loop: Kazimierz Tetmajer’s attempts to cope with transcendental absence (lack)

At the core of Kazimierz Tetmajer’s lyricism is the perception of transcendental absence, which provokes a range of unsettling reactions like fear, horror, or scorn (irony), and, in turn, the need to regain some sort of balance. This article analyzes all elements of this paradigmatic situation, especially the poet’s owing up to those reactions, his attempts to come to terms with them, and, if possible, to work out a way of converting their negativity into something that he actually wanted. At all times, it seems, he looks hard for the adequate means to express his emotional states. Struggling to express the inexpressible, he performs acts of creation which, however, do not produce anything (i.e. ‘nothing’ or ‘lack’). This outcome sets in motion, largely beyond conscious control, an emotional reaction, the affect of emptiness and lack (l’affect de vide et de manque). That emptiness constitutes a certain whole, or, more precisely, a negative figuration of lack. Attempts to make sense of it endow it with a new, spatial quality – it is a site where lack becomes nothing (le néant), but at the same time is reconstituted as a space which can engulf the human subject. This precarious situation defines in a way the human condition. The poet, as Tetmajer’s poetry shows, is stuck in a loop. The creative act is elicited by a lack which he tries to control, fill in, and master, yet all the attempts to find an adequate expression or figuration are in vain. They merely recreate the original absence (lack).