Dmitrij Tschižewskij’s Reading of Jan Amos Komenský’s Labyrint světa a ráj srdce

Dmitrij Tschižewskij’s Reading of Jan Amos Komenský’s Labyrint světa aráj srdce Renate Lachmann Universität Konstanz [email protected] SYNOPSIS This paper deals with Dmitrij Tschižewskij’s interpretation of Jan Amos Komenský’s poetical work Labyrint světa aráj srdce. In Dmitrij Tschižewskij’s articles dedicated to this masterpiece of Czech literature the analysis of its structure and the exploration of its moral-religious message are intertwined. The fact that the work is an outstanding example of Baroque literature is of prime interest and allows for an innovative approach to its devices. Dmitrij Tschižewskij detects astructural quality of the poem which he is the first to name ‘word chains’. In following the overwhelming quantity of this device he lays bare aunique verbal construction that consists of amultitude of word groups each of which belongs to asemantic field of its own. In order to capture the very essence of this procedure Dmitrij Tschižewskij makes use of notions which the rhetorical system offers. In pointing out the Baroque character of some rhetorical figures that Komenský adopts in his poem, Dmitrij Tschižewskij reveals the interplay between these figures and the ‘world view’ they convey— according to his twofold interpretive style. KEYWORDS Jan Amos Komenský; Baroque poem; structural strategies; rhetorical figures; interpretive style. DOI https://doi.org/10.14712/23366680.2025.1.1 I As we know, Halle was the very place where Dmitrij Tschižewskij intensified his interest for the writings of philosophers and poets of the Baroque, especially for mystics and their language. This interest found its counterpart in his tremendously growing library which he seems to have collected in an early phase of his studies in this field.1 Within this framework, Komenský, accidentally, became aprominent figure. In the library of the Franckeschen Stiftungen he rediscovered apart of De rerum 1 Angela Richter (2009) gave an enlightening account of his Halle years stressing the library aspect. She was the Halle Slavist to take care of the valuable library of rara and preciosa, published acatalogue and made the library accessible for reading. OPEN ACCESS 16 SLOVO A SMYSL 46 humanarum emendatione consultatio catholica, aLatin manuscript of 3440 pages, estimated as the main work of the humanist and theologian Comenius. Inspired by this discovery, Tschižewskij started his thorough exploration not only of this not yet printed section of the opus magnum but also of Komenský’s theoretical (pedagogical and linguistic) work, mostly published in Amsterdam, and with growing interest the novelistic poem written in the Bohemian Brother’s mother tongue, Labyrint světa aráj srdce (Komenský 1998), abrilliant example of Baroque literature. In her introduction to acollection of articles dedicated to Tschižewskij’s memory Angela Richter (2009, p.15) mentions his various contributions to the journal Analecta Comeniana in which he continuously discusses new contributions to Comeniology, accentuating his own interest in the Baroque nature of the Bohemian author’s philosophical and poetic productions. In order to capture Tschižewskij’s approach to Komenský’s poetic novel Iwill try to shed some light on his innovative method of analyzing Baroque texts and on some of his poetologial theses.2 2 For more details concerning this aspect, compare my recent article ‘Dmitrij Čiževskij as aresearcher of Baroque’, in Susanne Frank and Galina Babak (eds.), in print. Figure 1:The title page of the first edition of the Labyrinth text with the title Labirynt Swěta aLusthauz Srdce, 1631 (Wikipedia). OPEN ACCESS RENATE LACHMANN 17 II The general interdisciplinary occupation with the Baroque as an overarching cultural phenomenon culminated in aseries of publications in the late 1950s and 1960s. One of the major works was Gustav René Hocke’s Manierismus in der Literatur (1959) which delineates the Baroque as the climax of mannerism and exploring the irregular, ecstatic, enigmatic, ludic, and hypertrophic in amultitude of Western European literatures with afootnote hint (Hocke 1959, p.121) to Tschižewskij’s Formalistische Dichtung bei den Slaven (1958).3 The rhetoric of ‘concettismo’, the influence of Kabbalah and certain strands of mystical writings, including phenomena of the ‘arcana’, were subject to his explorations. Tschižewskij does not refer to Hocke directly but there are affinities in approach and in the main targets of interest. Instead, he insists on the studies of the forerunners in this field who provided ample literary material and acatalogue of descriptive terms: Ernst Robert Curtius and Heinrich Wölfflin, while also trying, of course, to establish acertain tradition in Baroque studies represented by Slavic scholars, naming partly forgotten fighters for the non-classical, such as the Polish Edward Poręmbowicz who already at the end of the 19th century defined Jan Andrzej Morsztyn as aBaroque poet and pupil of Giambattista Marino. He also quotes the Czech scholars— Josef Vašica, Zdeněk Kalista, and Antonín Škarka— who fostered research in this field.4 One of Tschižewskij’s concerns was to elaborate the interrelationship between Baroque stylistics and the Baroque world view, the Baroque mind structure, which he explores across language, genre, and even epoch borders. Connecting the diachronic with the synchronic aspect, and combining atopological with atypological interest, he tries to answer questions concerning the genesis and tradition of certain stylistic phenomena and thematic complexes, as well as their functional transformation in agiven ensemble of Baroque texts. His rhetorically oriented analysis, finally, is meant to establish atypology of Baroque poetics. In order to defend this goal, Tschižewskij was ready with his texts to fight against acertain group of literary scholars who denied the legitimacy of the term ‘Baroque’ and its application to literature and culture,5 and he presented his concept for aWestern scholarly audience whose members were not acquainted with Slavic Baroque literatures (Tschižewskij 1968). It is in referring to the appeal function of Baroque poetry that Tschižewskij approaches its strategies, stressing hyperbolism, risky antitheses, the weird, the unusual, the unprecedented, the shocking, and closes his characteristics with asceptical remark: 3 Formalistische Dichtung bei den Slaven (1958), acollection of Slavic poetical texts of different literary periods characterized by playful experiments from medieval to futuristic examples. 4 In this respect it is enlightening to follow Tschižewskij’s correspondence with Škarka, recently published by Marie Škarpová et al. (2024). 5 Tschižewskij’s ‘baroquism’ includes Russsian literature of the late 17th to the beginning of the 18th centuries. This claim was repudiated by Soviet literary scholars. ‘Classicism’ is the notion they used to characterize Russian literature of that period. OPEN ACCESS 18 SLOVO A SMYSL 46 What usually happens with every style, the highest achievements of Baroque are exposed to internal risks, even to deterioration, leaving the seriousness of the exceptional for the merely grotesque, the internal emotion for entangled, decorative, purely external, superficial traits of the artwork. The drive for originality leads to overdoing, exaggeration, in order to enhance, to hyperbolize, to reach amerely ‘ludistic’ [‘spielerisch’] originality ignoring the content by copious variations of forms. Instead of emotion [Erschütterung], the serious pathos, we are confronted with empty declamation and theatrical effects (Tschižewskij 1968, pp.210–211).6 Poetic strategies of eccentricity, of unbridled forms, are termed ‘formalistic’ belonging to this larger domain of word play, lingual manipulations, and alliteration, versus cancrini, versus rapportati, carmina echoica, acrosticha, that is strategies void of an idea. The absence of an idea illustrating acertain worldview and representing acertain mind structure leads Tschižewskij to asplit aesthetic evaluation of avariety of Baroque texts. This evaluation has amoralistic implication, yet it is ambivalent. Because there is an unveiled pleasure in detecting excitingly new stylistic adventures, the mastery of language. It is in this domain that he feels compelled to define stylistic and generic features, emphasizing their innovatory character. His thorough knowledge of rhetoric as adescriptive and proscriptive system enables him to precisely define the devices Baroque authors make use of. In his exemplary reading of Komenský’s Labyrint světa aráj srdce he proceeds in this vein. III We learn from Jana Stejskalová’s publication (in Čyževskij 2017) that Komenský’s masterpiece was atopic of Tschižewskij’s studies apparently much earlier. In 1941 he dedicated amanuscript on this subject to Jan Mukařovský, honouring his 50th birthday. The text in the printed edition, provided and commented by Stejskalová (KLabyrintu světa), contains two parts combining arhetorical analysis with an interpretation of the thematic level of this eminent example of Bohemian poetical prose. An article recalling the 2nd part of his Czech exploration concerning what he calls the ‘content of aliterary text’ was published in English (cf. Tschižewskij [1953] 1972). The analytical part of his study (nearly identical with the manuscript version) was published in German (cf. Tschižewskij [1957] 1983). His interest concerning the content or the6 ‘Und wie bei einem jeden Stil liegen in den höchsten Leistungen des Barock die Elemente der inneren Bedrohung, ja des Verfalls, die von dem Ernst des Eigenartigen zu bloß ‚Groteskem‘, von der inneren Bewegtheit zu verwickelten dekorativen, aber rein äußerlichen, ja oberflächlichen Zügen der Kunstwerke führen. Die Vorliebe für Originalität und Übertreibung führt zu dem Bestreben, jede Einzelheit zu steigern, zu hyperbolisieren, zu einer bloß ,spielerischen‘ Originalität, zu Überlastung des Inhalts durch die Formvariationen, und an die Stelle der in die Tiefe dringenden Erschütterung, des ernsten Pathos, tritt die Deklamation und theatralische Effekthascherei‘.— Translation, unless otherwise noted, by me— R.L. OPEN ACCESS RENATE LACHMANN 19 matic level7 leads him to read this novelistic poem as aspeculum mundi that seems to dissimulate the existing world, unable to mirror, to reflect its reality. Komenský’s image of the world as alabyrinth, seen from Tschižewskij’s perspective, means the negation of the world as abook (an often used metaphor) which implicitly means that the knowledge which the world has accumulated about itself falls prey to total annihilation: the labyrinth turns out to be anegative encyclopaedia. The Orbis pictus of 1658, we can add, will revert this negativity into apositivity of reliable signs (cf. Lachmann 2022). In other words, Komenský’s general approach to 7 Stejskalová in her reading of Tschižewskij’s study refers to 4 different thematic fields (Čyževskij 2017, pp.14–16), which reappear in the English version. Figure 2:Apage from Jan Amos Komenský’s Orbis Pictus. Svět vobrazích. Die Welt in Bildern. Le monde en tableaux, Hradec Králové 1883 (in my library, R.L.). OPEN ACCESS 20 SLOVO A SMYSL 46 culture and its sign structure is definitely binary. His pedagogical project of Orbis pictus belongs to the tradition of system building with the assistance of pictures, alphabet, grammar, and intelligible signs which is meant to deliver acomplete description of the visible, discernible world, adescription which is instructed and guided from above: God’s eye in an overarching triangle (the trinity emblem) can be seen in this function.8 Whereas the Orbis pictus is auniverse ordered by God and inhabited by people who pursue meaningful actions, individuals coming into the world and leaving it as aworld which was conceptually captured and described in all its appearances, the labyrinth is opaque, denying all rational approaches, depicted as utterly deficient, morally detestable, and as an evil world, azlý svět, bereft of sense and order. The pilgrim who has left his heart-chamber is met by two guides who allow him abird’s-eye view of the world, agaze from high above. This perspective offers ascene of utmost incomprehensible, incoherent human actions, afragmented world made of sense debris. There is afrequency of to and fro, sem atam, which seems to rhythmatize the text, an image 8 For the emblematics in Komenský’s writings, see Schadel (2003). Figure 3:Komenský’s drawing in the first version of the Labyrinth, 1623 (The National Pedagogical Museum and Library of J.A.Comenius, Prague). OPEN ACCESS RENATE LACHMANN 21 which permeates and encapsulates it, it appears as an insect-like swarming ‘hmyzilo’ (Chap. VI, 6). This image recalls apassage in Lukian’s Charon, where the gaze from above meets aswarming of ants. It is, of course, Tschižewskij who detected this intertextual bond between these texts, which both, according to Bakhtin’s genre terminology, belong to the tradition of the Menippean satire. His reference to Lukian is one of his strategies for embedding Baroque literature in abroader historical context. In all of his works, he recalls classical texts in order to trace atradition back to its origin. IV Following the picture of the labyrinth which Komenský himself depicts in the shape of acircle structure we discern buildings at certain points, paths or circuits (six in all according to the text), which circumvent rather irregularly the inner space which is the world and the world-town in one. The labyrinthine web dissolves the idea of apedagogical and system-oriented encyclopaedia and shatters the assumption of universal laws and reliability of rules. It reveals itself as aplace that is completely detached from aworld governed by order. Accordingly, the topic of order-disorder is the prevailing one in Tschižewskij’s reading, which includes two approaches, sometimes coinciding. His leading idea here means that averbal figure is simultaneously afigure (form) and athought (content). In order to capture the core of the multi-layered text he addresses it from these two perspectives. His prevailing goal, therefore, consists in analyzing the stylistic construction of the novelistic poem and in studying its central object: the striving for wisdom and religious tranquillity and its acquisition after along and puzzling search for it. In addition to Tschižewskij’s analysis of structure and content, the narrative aspect of the text appears to be of interest. The experiences gathered by the pilgrim on the different stations and phases of his wanderings, the play of questions and answers between him and his unreliable guides are narrated from the pilgrim’s perspective, which the storyteller has adopted as his alter ego. Or, to put it differently, it is afirst-person narration about the ‘fantastic’ experience of learning, an introduction into the mechanism of the world and its rules. Yet, the lessons the agents in this novel of education are offering turn out to be utterly misleading. Only religious enlightenment will finally rescue the pilgrim from the intellectual tortures he has to endure. The novel of education, however, is also anovel of adventure, one of both body and mind. The rhetoric of the Orbis pictus, arhetoric of an unequivocal correspondence between word and object, nomenclatura and res, i.e., arhetoric of claritas, perspicuitas and, according to its conciseness, also of brevitas, has its counterpart in the rhetorical equipment of the Labyrinth which Tschižewskij sees as being governed by ambiguitas, aequivocatio, and amplificatio. V According to his twofold interest, Tschižewskij addresses the formal or constructive side of the poem with counting the nouns on the title page of the work, which confronts the reader with one of its standard devices— sound repetition: OPEN ACCESS 22 SLOVO A SMYSL 46 Labyrint světa aráj srdce, to jest světlé vymalování, kterak vtom světě avěcech jeho všechněch nic není než matení amotání, kolotání alopotování, mámení ašalba, bída atesknost, anaposledy omrzení všeho azoufání: ale kdož doma vsrdci svém sedě sjediným Pánem Bohem se uzavírá, ten sám kpravému aplnému mysli upokojení aradosti že přichází (Komenský 1998, p.119). Das Labyrinth der Welt. Das ist eine klare Beschreibung, wie in dieser Welt und allen ihren Dingen nichts herrscht als Irrung und Verwirrung, Unsicherheit und Bedrängnis, Lug und Trug, Angst und Elend, und zuletzt Ekel an allem und Verzweiflung und Das Paradies des Herzens Das beschreibt, wie nur der, welcher zu Hause in seinem Herzen wohnet und sich mit Gott allein darin verschließet, zum wahren und vollen Frieden seiner Seele und zur Freude gelangt. (Comenius 1970, frontpage)9 The enumeration is followed by aregulating element which seems to promise aclearcut structure and calculated arrangement of textual components. These are the word chains which Tschižewskij was the first to define and name as Wortketten. He is aware of Komenský’s stylistic strategies and the poetic effect which ensues from the assemblage of words belonging to the same grammatical category. It is part of his analytical handicraft that he counts the varying numbers of the chain-segments, paying attention to rhythm, the effect of shorter and rather lengthy chains containing aquantity of members from 15 to 37. When counting the word chains containing three or more elements we find 582 of such chains on the 140 pages of the modern edition. We proceed carefully paying attention only to obvious cases. We notice that in some places Comenius intensifies their effect. […] The frequency of word chains decreases according to the number of elements packed into one chain (Tschižewskij 1983, p.4).10 What is amazing in his analysis of the changing quantity of members in one chain is that, in counting them, he means to discover acertain poetical trait in Komenský’s novel. Tschižewskij dwells on expounding this trait by pointing out word play— avariety of ludic forms— and he is eager to discern the types of word chains the author uses. There is one type which functions as the dissection/division of acertain term into minor terms, and there is another which works as the assemblage of names for amultitude of objects interrelated by contiguity. His me9 In want of an adequate English translation Ishall cite the original and the German version by Zdenko Baudnik (Comenius [1907] 1970), C.J.Bucher, Luzern— Frankfurt a. M 1970, with aforeword by Pavel Kohout. Tschižewskij did not think much of this translation. 10 ‘Wenn wir die Wortketten von drei und mehr Elementen zählen, so finden wir auf den etwa 140 Seiten des modernen Druckes nicht weniger als 582 solcher Wortketten. Bei der Zählung verfahren wir recht vorsichtig und beachten nur solche Stellen, wo die Wortketten ganz augenscheinlich sind (und, wie wir sehen werden, erreicht es Comenius durch allerlei Kunstgriffe, daß die Wortketten noch auffälliger werden). […] Die Häufigkeit der Wortketten nimmt mit der Zahl der ‚Glieder‘, der Elemente der Ketten ab’. OPEN ACCESS RENATE LACHMANN 23 ticulous account of these members and their analysis from arhetorical-stylistic perspective is nearly exhaustive, betrays afervent (nearly enthusiastic) interest in Komenský’s lingual ingenuity. The creation of registers and catalogues of certain types of chains leads to discern the complex verbal architecture of this multilayered work. Special attention is paid to the phonetic structure of the chains, the frequency of alliterations, and to another surprising device: the play with opposite pre-syllables of agiven verb producing acertain rhythm. We see this, for example, with dobývají aodbývají, and skládají arozkládají. It goes without saying that he highlights the abundance of homoioteleuta which the grammatical possibilities of Slavic languages provide, as well as the frequent word-play devices: the combination of two phonetically matching verbs: rva nice apranice; sekali aflekali; prudili, studili; vázali, mazali. In other words, with Tschižewskij’s analysis we understand that the scene of utmost disorder and disquieting senselessness that the labyrinth represents, is met by an impressive counterpart: the regularity of word chains which construes this worldly labyrinth. It abounds in alliterations, parallelisms, and repetitions that bridle the arbitrariness, chaos, and absurdity of the world. His meticulous account of these members and their analysis from arhetorical-stylistic perspective is nearly exhaustive, betraying afervent interest in Komenský’s lingual ingenuity. The creation of registers and catalogues of certain types of chains highlights the complex verbal architecture of this multi-layered work. The labyrinthical chaos is framed by amanifest order, i.e. by alingual geometry, leading the reader to presume that the labyrinth, in spite of the evident conundrum, is awell-designed construction. The word chains can be seen as architectonic factors. Or, to put it differently, the chains represent an order of their own, an order which is dictated by language itself. The grammar that Slavic languages make use of allows for avariety of lingual devices such agrammatical rhyme, homoioteleuta, that are highlighted by the analysis in question (these structures serve as excellent illustrations of Roman Jakobson’s ‘Poetry of Grammar and Grammar of Poetry’, 1981). VI Let us have acloser look at some of the chains11. The first example tells us about the first encounter of the pilgrim with the so-called noble human race, where the semantic field of expressions for human movements and modes of behaviour are enumerated: Nebo jedni chodili, jiní běhali, jiní jezdili, jiní stáli, jiní seděli, jiní leželi, jiní vstávali, jiní zas léhali, jiní se rozličně vrtěli; […] Potkali-li se kteří, rozličného tu bylo kejklování, rukama, usty, koleny ajinak ksobě se toulení achoulení, sumou rozličné trety (Chap. VII, 2, Komenský 1998, pp.137–138). 11 In order to emphasize Tschižewskyj’s analytical approach Iwill enlarge the number of quotations. OPEN ACCESS 30 SLOVO A SMYSL 46 LITERATURE Burrichter, Brigitte: Erzählte Labyrinthe und labyrinthisches Erzählen. Böhlau, Köln – Weimar— Vienna 2003. Comenius, Johann Amos: Orbis pictus— I: Veškeré spisy Jana Amosa Komenského. Vol.10/8, ed. H.Jarník. Nákl. ústředního spolku jednot učitelských na Moravě, Brno 1929. Comenius, Johann Amos: Das Labyrinth der Welt und das Paradies des Herzens, transl. Zdenko Baudnik [Jena 1907]. Bucher, Luzern— Frankfurt a. Main 1970, preface P.Kohout. Čyževskyj, Dmytro: Klabyrintu světa, ed. and com. Jana Stejskalová. Filosofia, Prague 2017. Hocke, Gustav René: Die Welt als Labyrinth. Manier und Manie in der euopäischen Kunst. Rowohlt, Hamburg 1957. Hocke, Gustav René: Manierismus in der Literatur. Sprachalchemie und esoterische Kombinationskunst. Rowohlt, Hamburg 1959. 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In: Hans Robert Jauß (ed.): Die nicht mehr schönen Künste. Grenzphänomene des Ästhetischen (Poetik und Hermeneutik 3.) Fink, Munich 1968, pp.207–238. Tschižewskij, Dmitrij: Das Labyrinth der Welt und Paradies des Herzens des Jan Amos Comenius. Die Thematik und die Quellen des Werkes [1953 in Harvard Slavic Studies I]. In idem: Kleinere Schriften. II: Bohemica. Fink, Munich 1972, pp.92–139. Tschižewskij, Dmitrij: Das Labyrinth der Welt und das Paradies des Herzens des J.A. Comenius. Einige Stilanalysen [1957 in Wiener Slavistisches Jahrbuch 5]. In: Renate Lachmann (ed.): Slavische Barockliteratur II. Gedenkschrift für Dmitrij Tschižewskij (1884–1977). Fink, Munich 1983, pp.1–24. OPEN ACCESS