Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer’s Danae Tycjana Within the Framework of Schopenhauer’s Philosophy: Reading Ekphrasis Through the Prism of Aesthetic Experience

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the relationship between word and image in literary works devoted to the so-called ekphrasis. The present research is organised as follows: I first discuss the concept of contemplative aesthetic experience as elucidated in Schopenhauer’s philosophy, and then provide some theoretical reflections on its current interpretations; in the second part, I try to examine the poem Danae Tycjana from III Seria Poezji (1898), by the Polish modernist poet Kazimierz  Przerwa-Tetmajer, through the lens of the concept of contemplative aesthetic experience. The analysis here carried out within the theoretical framework presented contends that the rhetorical device of ekphrasis should be understood as verbalisation of aesthetic aspects and experience. The last part of this paper investigates Titian’s painting Danaë (1545-1546, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples), one of several examples of the genre of erotic mythologies in Western art popularized by Titian, as the foundation for Tetmajer’s aesthetic experience and source of ekphrasis.