Politics
and Poetics of Space
Elżbieta Konończuk
In the Meanders of Geopoetics
D O I :1 0 . 1 8 3 1 8 / t d .2 0 1 6 .e n .1 .9
G
eopoetics entered Polish literary studies via various routes, led b y research ers rep resen tin g diverse d irections w ith in the hum an ities looking to confirm their ow n scholarly intuitions, expectations tow ard literature and m ethodological tendencies. This revival o f research on the form s o f articu latin g space in literature resulted in the em ergence o f num erous, som etim es contradictory, concepts o f geop oetics. A s an attractive and extrem ely poignant term , it broke aw ay from the poetic-philosophi
cal base and drifted tow ard an interdisciplinary m ethod
ology allow in g to explore variou s relationsh ip betw een the experience o f geographical space and its artistic e x pression. Thus, w hat is shared by all types o f geopoetics is a reflection on the m utual relations b etw een literature, art and geographical space.
W ithou t b road er referen ces to the w o rk o f K enneth W hite, but w ith due appreciation o f the category he p ro
p osed , E lżb ieta R ybicka in clu d ed ge o p o e tics into the Polish theoretical and m ethodological discourse. In G eo - poetyka. Przestrzeń i m iejsce w e współczesnych teoriach i prak
tykach literackich [Geopoetics: Space and Place in Contemporary Literary Theory and Practice], the author presents a coher
ent project, attributing geopoetics w ith a broad sem antic range: geopoetics, she em phasizes, is an am biguous n o tion w hich is a consequence o f its poetical origins. From
Elżbieta Konończuk - Associate Professor a t the Institute ofTheory and Anthropology of Literature, University o f Białystok. She is interested in the relationship of historiography, theory o f literature, and human geography She is the author of Mazurska obecność Erwina Kruka (1993), Literatura i pamięć na pograniczu kultur (2000), W poszukiwaniu dostępu do przeszłości.
0 powieściach warsztatowych Hanny Malewskiej 1 Jacka Bocheńskiego (2009). Co-editor o f monographs: Od poetyki przestrzeni do geopoetyki (2012), Geografia i metafora (2013), Przestrzenie geo(bio)graficzne w literaturze (2015), and Geograficzne przestrzenie utekstowione (2017).
Deputy Editor of Białostockie Studia Literaturoznawcze.
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a range o f d efin ition s te stify in g to th is am biguity, R ybicka selects the one w hich is m ost precise, one w hich (I believe) opens the w id est sem antic field:
“a study o f the in tellectual and sen sual m an -e a rth relation aim ed at devel
oping a h arm o n io u s cultural sp ace ”.1 A s R ybicka p ro ceed s to m eth od ically complete the outline o f the them atic area covered by the presented definition, her th e o ry acquires an anth ropological character and b eco m es p a rt o f the discourse o f cultural literary theory. Rybicka's tools for the interpretation of literature articulating broadly conceived experiences o f a specific geographi
cal space constitute a m ethodological proposal to study the relations betw een literature and geography in the context o f disciplines such as geoculturology, geocriticism , geopolitics and geohistory. Rybicka view s geographical spaces as am biguous texts carrying geographical, historical, cultural and anthropo
logical m ean in gs and is in terested in the m eth od s to in terpret the literary representations of those spaces; m ethods w hich activate num erous intersect
ing discourses, thus im pacting the dense netw ork o f m utual references w hich essentially shape a “harm onious cultural space”.
The con cept o f ge o p o e tics p ro po sed b y R yb icka fo llow s the ten d en cy originated b y K azim ierz Brakoniecki, w ho accen tuates the differen ces b e tw e en h is ow n g eo p o etic literary practice and th at o f K enneth W hite w ho highlights h is fascin ation w ith pure geograph y and distan ces h im s e lf from history and historiography. W hile Brakoniecki stresses that, as a resident of C entral Europe, he cannot “break free from the pressure o f history,” W hite is fascinated b y space in its prehistoric or ahistorical im portance w hich he lo cates in the cosm ological and geological shape o f the territory. This is because the historical aspect o f the place is entangled in a w eb o f ideological, political, econom ic and social relations w hich include place in the geopolitical order.
W hite is thus interested in the history o f the earth w h ich is readable from its geological shape, an idea w ell reflected in the theory o f “textonique de la Terre”
presented in one o f his latest works.2 The notion o f textonics refers to the idea o f tectonic m ovem en ts o f the Earth's crust and to the th e o ry o f w an d erin g con tinents; it also opposes the category o f textu alism , vie w ed b y W hite as ultra-literary and reductive, reducing everything (including the entire Earth) to a text. Textonics is a process o f continuous change o f the Earth's “text,” one w hich opens the hum an spirit to the ongoing, centu ry-long transform ations
1 Elżbieta Rybicka, Geopoetyka. Przestrzeń i m iejsce we w spółczesnych teoriach i praktykach literackich (Kraków: Znak, 2014), 64, afte r Kenneth White, Poeta kosmograf, trans. Kazi
m ierz Brakoniecki (O lsztyn: W ydaw nictw o Biblioteczka Centrum Polsko-Francuskiego, 2010), 35.
2 Kenneth W hite, Panorama géopoétique.Théorie d'une textonique de la Terre (Editions de la Revue des R esso u rces : Lapoutroie, 2014), 107-108.
through w hich our p lanet continues to acquire new m eanings. W hite listens to the speech o f the landscape in the hope o f hearing the p rim ary voice o f the earth and w ants to touch the prehistoric space, or to locate traces o f the o rigi
nal landscape, and to feel the eternal union o f m an w ith the cosm os. The poet exp erien ces that, for in stan ce, in C orn w all, w h ile con tem platin g the steep sea-sh o res form ed from green serpentine, covered w ith picturesque m oors and floating m ists, arousing aw e and em otions and evoking the sense o f the world's cosm ic p erm anence.3
I w ould refer to the concepts proposed by Rybicka and Brakoniecki as a n thropological; both the theoretical and m ethodological geopoetics outlined by Rybicka and its regional-poetic variety offered by Brakoniecki fit w ith in the order o f cultural literary theory. Their approach is com plem ented b y the n o tion of autobiographical places introduced to Polish geopoetics by M ałgorzata C zerm iń ska w ho expands the conceptual fram e o f the discipline b y adding the auto-geobiographical aspect.4 Proposals b y these three scholars have b e
com e integrated consequently w ith the Polish theoretical thought and gained the status o f a m eth od w h ich offers its ow n research tools, and a language for description o f the literary phenom ena w hich articulate the experience of a particular geographical space. The relations o f literature, art and geography are an extrem ely interesting and im portant research area in the context o f the interdisciplinary turn in the contem porary hum anities: investigation o f those relations resulted in the developm ent o f new subdisciplines in geography (i.e.
hum anist and cultural geography) and in literary studies (i. e. geopoetics, ge ocriticism , geoculturology and geoesthetics).5
In recen t years, as a result o f Rybicka's research, geopoetics has becom e in Poland a popular and intensively developed discipline. Edw ard Kasperski's
3 W hite p re se n ts his b io co sm o p o e tic ex p e rien ce s in his autobiography, w hich he refers to a s a g eo g rap h ic-in tellectu al journey. Kenneth W hite, La carte de Guido. Un pèlerinage européen (Paris: Albin M ichel, 2011), 53.
4 M ałgo rzata C zerm ińska, „M iejsca auto b iograficzn e,” Teksty Drugie 5 (2011); s e e also M ałgo rzata Czerm ińska, „ S ło w o w stę p n e . M iejsca auto b iograficzn e C zesław a M iłosza,”
in Czesława M iłosza„północna stron a ,"ed. M ałgorzata Czerm ińska and Katarzyna Sza- lew ska (Gdańsk: Scholar, 2011).
5 W hose research m eth o d s fo cu s on th e broadly defined relation b etw een geographical s p a c e s and their rep resen ta tio n s in a rt and literature. S e e Bertrand W estphal, La géocri
tique. Reel, fiction, espace (Paris: Minuit, 2007); Wasilij Szczukin, Mit szlacheckiego gni
azda. Studium geokulturologiczne o klasycznej literaturze rosyjskiej, trans. B o gu sław Żyłko (Kraków: U niversitas, 2006); Elżbieta Rybicka, "G eo p o etyka, g eokrytyk a, geokulturolo- gia,” Białostockie Studia Literaturoznawcze 2 (2011); Géoesthétique under th e supervision o f de Kantuta Q uirôs e t Aliocha Im hoff (Dijon: Ecole N ationale Sup érieu re d'Art de Dijon, 2014).
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article, w hose title suggests the initiation of geopoetics in the poetics o f space, is thus so m ew h at surprising. Ignoring the founding te x ts o f the geopoetic discourse and the w ork b y the Polish researchers w ho adapted it to the n a tive environm ent, the author p ro po ses a concept o f geopoetics com pletely detached from its philosoph ical and theoretical sources. K asperski believes that the task o f geopoetics is to “study in the w orks o f literature, art and cul
ture, spacial elem ents w hich are m arked anthropom orphically”. 6 He also adds that “in geopoetics, space is not identical either w ith physical space nor w ith geom etric, geographic and cartographic space”.
1
Consequently, “geo” appears to be a m isleading ornam entation in K asperski's project: one sim ply cannot talk about geopoetics as detached from the experience o f physical, geographical and cartographical space.
V iew in g geopoetics as a discipline to investigate cultural form s o f anthro
p om orphizing space (subordinated to m an as its “h o st”), K asp erski adopts an anthropocentric attitude, as opposed to W hite w ho favors the hum anities to be de-anthropocentrized. W hite view s m an not as the Earth's “host,” but as a resident w ho poetically dwells in it, reading its poetry, listening to its m usic;
in other w ords, experiencing the cosm ological poetics o f the un iverse. It is precisely this attitude, one com pletely unrelated to the anthropomorphization o f space, is h ow W hite understands the lyrical and philosophical presence of m an in the w orld. 8
In Geopoetyka. Zw iązki literatury i środowiska [Geopoetics: The Relation between Literature and Environment] A nn a Kronenberg presents geopoetics as one o f the
“g reen ” currents o f the ecological turn. She notes th at “in the fram ew ork o f national research, geopoetics as a term had been stripped o f several aspects w hich are o f crucial im portance to its founder, including the ecological trad i
tion, connections betw een literature and the environm ent and man's relation
ship w ith the Earth”. 9 Kronenberg's ow n p roposal is founded on a rather su perficial reading o f W hite's w ork, one w hich ignores the French texts (crucial to geopoetics) and places geopoetics in the context o f disciplines stem m ing from the ecological turn, such as ecocriticism , ecop h ilosop h y or e co fem i
nism . Thus, situating it w ith in the ideological order, K ronenberg reduces the
6 Edward Kasperski, „Geopoetyka. Ku nowej poetyce przestrzeni - p ierw szy krok w chm u
rach," in Geografia wyobrażona regionu. Literackie figury przestrzeni, ed. Daniel Kalinowski, Adela Kuik-Kalinowska, M ałgorzata M ikołajczak (Kraków: U niversitas, 2014), 39.
7 Kasperski, 24.
8 W hite, La carte de Guido. Un pèlerinage européen, 211.
9 Anna Kronenberg, Geopoetyka. Zw iązki literatury i środowiska (Łódź: W ydaw nictw o UŁ, 2014),
33
.sem an tic field o f the concept. M eanw hile, in the latest m onograph devoted to W hite's w ork, one encom passing both his literary and academ ic w orks and essays, Christophe Roncato m arginalizes the relationships b etw een ecocriti
cism and geopoetics. A lthough he stresses that both disciplines posit a poetic in h abitation o f the w orld, the task o f geo p o etics - according to W h ite - is to combine theory and practice in a w ay where habitation becom es som ething m ore than a concept or idea.10
S im p lifyin g the m atter, K ron en berg relates g eo p o etics to the concept o f n om ad ic sub jects pro po sed b y R osi B raidotti and con cludes th at “g iv in g sub jectivity to the natural environm ent is a p riority both for W hite and B raid o tti”.” F orm u lation s such as th is in vite a reflection on the adeq uacy o f language as a tool for analysis and in terpretation o f the them atized p h e
nom ena. K ronenberg sets for geopoetics the task o f “giving subjectivity to the natural environm ent,” w hile K asperski tasks it w ith describing cultural “an- thropom orphizations o f space”. Thus both scholars, the form er p robably u n intentionally, present an anthropocentric perspective o f the Earth's host who
“gives subjectivity” to the natural environm ent, placing h im se lf or h e rse lf in the center as a point o f reference. The problem of the adequacy of analytic la n guage can be seen also in Kronenberg's interpretations o f literary w orks. On the one hand, the author develops the concept o f “green ” reading and w ritin g (seen as the result o f the ecological turn in the literary studies), one b ased on
“a new type o f su bjectivity” w here the “subject is rooted in a particular place to speak from , draws pow er from its locality, body, gender, tradition, its re la tions to other people, anim als and the natural environm ent”. 12 O n the other hand, her practice o f “green” reading is m arked w ith the language of structural analysis, and follow ing the declaration o f reading texts for a n ew kind o f sub
jectivity, categories such as the speaking subject sound anachronistic. W hen she defines the task o f geopoetics as a search for “the relations b etw een the speaking subject and the natural en viron m en t”^ (or w rites about “the e le m ents o f the w orld becom ing elem ents o f the b ody o f the lyrical subject”™), K ron enberg m ixes tw o different p hilo soph ical and m eth odological orders.
There is no place for disem bodied, categorized subjects w ith in the ecological
10 Ch ristophe Roncato, Kenneth White. Une œ uvre-m onde (Rennes: P resses universitaires de Rennes, 2014), 202.
11 Kronenberg, Geopoetyka, 95.
12 Ibid., 33.
13 Ibid., 230.
14 Ibid., 234.
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discourse. The experience o f locality, o f a geograph ical and environm ental tangibility, requires a language open to the corporeal and sensual experience o f the w riter and the reader.
We can thus undoubtedly speak o f tw o versions o f geopoetics: the anthro- pocentric one represented b y Elżbieta Rybicka and the deanthropocentrized one, rooted in W hite. A n n a K ron enberg's p ro po sals seem to be located in the latter trad ition, or at le a st th e y could b e i f a m ore careful editing p ro cess o f Geopoetyka. Zw iązki literatury i środowiska allow ed the author's refle c
tion to be conveyed w ith m ore precision. In her book, K ronenberg criticizes Rybicka's detachm ent from the b asic context o f geopoetics, n am ely the eco
logical trad itio n w h ich she v ie w s as crucial to W h ite's id eas. H ow ever, his m ore recen t w orks (m ore recen t th an the ones referenced b y K ronenberg) allow u s to assum e th at W hite's in terests revolve around m an's g eo grap h i
cal en v iro n m e n t rath er th an the n atu ral one. Im portan tly, h is g e o p o e t
ics is rooted in B achelard's p o etics o f space w h ere h u m an im a g in atio n is shaped b y space. It is p h ysical m atter th at B achelard b elieves to be im a g i
nation's efficient cause, noting also that a reflection on m atter shapes open im agin ation .15 A s a result, p oetic im age, rooted in the su b stan tiality o f the land scape, reflects the experience o f in habitin g a territory. For W hite, g e o graphical m atter is a source o f im agination determ ining our poetic dw elling in world.
Follow ing Thoreau, W hite attaches great im portance to the m usic o f the landscape, such as the sounds o f rain pattering on the w in dow s, and learns to listen to the soun ds o f the earth and track the presen ce o f geopoetic to nalities in m usicians such as Ferrucio B usoni or John Cage. Intrigued, W hite quotes a passage from Busoni's letter, sent from the US in 19 10 , w here Busoni seem ed to define perfectly w ell w hat the m usic o f the earth w as b y recalling a conversation w ith a N ative A m erican : the w om an spoke o f her tribe's need for a m u sical in stru m en t con structed as a hole in the ground, w ith strings stretched across the opening. Busoni replied to the w o m an that such an in strum ent should be referred to as the voice o f the earth and received an e n thusiastic response from her. 1*
W hite's theory w as also in spired b y the w ork o f Luigi Russolo, one o f the first th eorists o f electronic m usic w h ose fu turist m anifesto The A rt o f Noises (19 13) posits irregular vibrations, the sounds o f w in d and thunder, creeks and w aterfalls, the cries o f anim als and the n oise o f the city as a rem edy for the
15 G aston Bachelard, Wyobraźnia poetycka, trans. Henryk Hudak, Anna Tatarkiew icz (War
szaw a: PIW, 1975), 115.
16 Kenneth W hite, "The M usic o f th e L an d scape,” in The Wanderer and his Charts. Essays on Cultural Renewal, (Edinburgh: Polygon, 2004), 225.
boredom and b anality ofW estern m usic. U sing rhythm s derived from nature, a kind o f m usical “ready-m ades,” he calls for a ren ew al o f contem porary m u sic. W hite's d iscu ssion o f geopoetic to n alities in avan t-gard e m u sic show s how the idea o f geopoetics is understood in art. 17
W hite's e ssay s are an account o f h is travels w hich , in the con text o f his philosophy, could be referred to as geopoetic journeys w h ose destination is to discover the “poetics o f space”/18 This is the goal he sets for geopoetics, re ferring to the latter as the lyrical and philosophical aspect o f our presence in the w orld, presence un derstood also as a lyrical dw elling in the w orld. Seen this way, presence in the w orld is realized through m ovem ent in space and a search for p laces w h ere one can exp erien ce the co sm o lo gical p o etics o f the universe. To describe this phenom enon, W hite reinterprets N ovalis' and W hitm an 's w ork on w ritin g the earth, in other w ords, on b e a u ty in scribed in geographical places and natural phenom ena. C ontinuing their reflection, he se es p o etry's cau sative force in g eo grap h ical and n atu ral ph en om en a w hich, w h e n read as m etap h o rical “te x ts” b y m an, m ay resu lt in aesth etic experiences.
A n n a Kronenberg charges Polish scholars o f geopoetics w ith a m isin ter
p retation o f id eas crucial to W hite's philosophy, having assu m ed th at those ideas are related to ecology. However, the dispute over geopoetics, tied to the history o f the term , is m uch older and has its roots in the theoretical literary turn w h ich took place in France after 19 68 . A s a term , “geopoetics” w a s first used b y M ich el D eguy in Figurations, published in 19 69 . M ich el C ollot notes that it em erged as a natural consequence o f the change in the m eaning o f the literary w ork w h ich involved abandoning the im m an en t concept o f the lat
ter as an autonom ous creation, and a return to Friedrich H olderlin's fam ous form ula o f poetic dw elling in the w orld. This creative attitude, one ex p re ss
ing post-structu ral tendencies, w as presented by the poets gathered around L'E p h ém ère. C ollot stresses that setting n e w tasks for poetry un derstood as a m an ifestatio n o f “b ein g in the w o rld ” had to produce a n eolog ism , “g é o poétique”. D eguy even suggested introducing the notion o f “geo-poéthique,”
w here the silent “h ” w as m eant to em phasize a search for poetics capable o f
17 Ibid., 226.
18 T exts such a s Kenneth W hite Le figure du Dehors (Paris: Le M ot e t Le Reste/1982), L'Esprit nom ade (Paris: G rasset, 1987), L'itinéraire de Kenneth White (Rennes: B ibliothèque m unici
pale de R ennes, 1990), Le Plateau de l'albatros: Introduction à la géopoéthique (Paris: G ras
set, 1994), The Wanderer and his C harts (Edinburg: Polygon, 2004), L'Erm itage de Brum es (Paris: Dervy, 2005), Poeta kosmograf, trans. K rzysztof Brakoniecki (O lsztyn: W ydaw nict
w a: C entrum P olsko-Francuskie w O lsztynie, 2010), La carte de Guido. Un pèlerinage eu- ropeén, White, "Panoram a g éo p o é tiq u e”.
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expressing the relationship b etw een the hum an spirit and the physical space, and the task o f dw elling in the w orld, view ed as an ethical responsibility for the w orld. 19 D eguy's con cept o f geo p o etics w a s b ased on the p rem ise that
“all logos is topological” and expresses the experience o f the earth. He w rites about the conviction that certain th in gs and their arrangem ents, or certain places, created p arables; that g e o -lo g y could be un derstood the w a y astro l
ogy w as, th at a kin d o f “g e o -p o e tic s,” learn in g the valleys o f the earth, w a s possible just as it is possible to learn the figures o f the thinkable, and that the m etaphor or tran slation o f b ein g to the figures o f thought w a s the nam e for
“p oetic” space. 2°
G eological m etaphors are abundant also in D eguy's poetry, w h ich seem s to suggest that a sim ilar type o f spatial im agination characterizes both crea
tors o f geop oetics. He describes, for in stan ce, the m an o f fu rth est reaches, building a house w here the plains m eet the valley, crushed to a pulp by the alluvial and vo lcanic m oraines, captured at the crossin g o f the m orain es o f clouds and m oraines o f forests, but reborn in the m ornin g w ith ou t hate to w ard sudden things b u t rather grateful to the m in e and the typhoon , to the avalanche and the w ell caving in to devour him . 21
Kenneth W hite refers neither to Deguy's poetry, nor to his theoretical w ork w here the concept o f geopoetics is founded on the linguistic theory o f spatial m etaphors. The Scottish poet “seized” the concept nine years later, notes C ol- lot, sign ifican tly broadening its sem an tic field and m oving tow ard the p h e nom enological definition o f being in the world.
The sim plest definition o f geopoetics as p roposed b y W hite the w anderer, and at the sam e tim e one w h ich opens the w id e st sem an tic fields, reads as follows: geopoetics begins w hen the body enters a space.22 W hite's poetic im agination is dom inated b y open space, the experience o f w h ich is articulated through several figures serving also as epistem ological m etaphors. W hite u n derstands space as a challenge to explore, to follow each disappearing horizon.
The notion of extravagance appeals to him due to its etym ology: “extravagare”
19 M ichel Collot ” De la g éo p o é tiq u e,” in L habiter dans sa poétique première. A ctes du col
loque de Cerisy-la-Salle, ed. Augustin Berque, A lessia De Biase, Philippe Bonnin (Paris:
Donner lieu, 2008), 314.
20 Collot, ” De la g éo p o é tiq u e,” 316. [Here a dapted b asin g on th e Polish translation from French by th e author o f th e article - A.W.]
21 M ichel Deguy, [Nikt nie b y łnawiedzaczem...], trans. Edward Stachura, in Edward Stachura, Wiersze, poematy, piosenki, przekłady, vol. 1 (W arszawa: Czytelnik, 1984), 389. [Based on th e Polish translation - A.W.]
22 Collot, ” De la g éo p o é tiq u e ,” 318.
m eans “to stray outside,” “w ander off,” and it is the m eaning the poet w ill use in his w ork. The figure o f “outside” (dehors) 23 is o f key im portance to his sp a
tial im agination: for W hite, discovery requires w andering away, going beyond, as is evidenced b y all geographical discovery, often resulting from the explorer becom ing lost in space. Consequently, his philosophy em erges from m oving beyond the fenced and separate theories, beyond the enclosed area o f the city tow ard the spaces o f lands w h ich open the thought. R oam ing “outside” the k n ow n and described areas is extravagan t in its nature as it alw ays results in a discovery o f the un usual. W hite's poetics u ses also other figures o f the
“b eyon d” reflecting the experience o f a space that opens up, provokes reflec
tio n and invites discovery, figures such as w hite territory, m argin, p erip h er
ies, littoral, horizon; in other w ords, figures o f crossing borders and evoking openness to all periphery.
The essence o f W hite's geopoetics lies therefore in an exploration o f p o e t
ics and poetry o f space, realized through “poetic dw elling in the w orld” w hich requires an un derstanding o f lan d -w ritin g (Walt W hitm an) and reading the w orld -text, listening to its m usic. W hite's geopoetics em erges from several in spirations w h ich can be expressed through popular b ut th ought-open ing adages: that there can be no culture w ithout nature (Jean-Jacque Rousseau), that in w ildn ess is the p reservation o f the w orld (H enry D avid Thoreau), that great poem s o f heaven and hell have been w ritten but the great poem o f earth rem ains to be w ritten (Wallace Stevens); “if I have any taste, it is for hardly an
yth in g but earth and stones” (Arthur Rim baud); “rem ain faithful to the earth”
(Friedrich Nietzsche); “poetically m an dwells in the w orld” (Friedrich H older
lin); and m eaning takes place through m otion (M aurice M erleau- Ponty).
Its in terd iscip lin ary character, able to reflect a h olistic system o f th in k in g about the relation sh ip o f m an and the w orld, is an im p o rtan t asp ect o f W hite's geopoetics. The p o et draw s in spiration from A le xan d er von H u m boldt's Kosm os, and in p articular from H um boldt's in terest in geology, m in eralogy, oceanography and landscape. Ju st like the von H um boldt brothers, W hite is fascin ated b y the com prehen sive approach to the study o f nature, and rep eats after W ilhelm th at poetry, science, ph ilo so p h y and h isto ry are not separate from each other, but create a certain w hole in the m in d o f a m an w ho thus achieves the state o f unity. 24
A lfred K orzybski's th eo ry about the con fusion o f the object and its re p resen tation in the p ro cess o f cogn ition (expressed in the fam ou s form ula:
the m ap is n o t the territory) w a s W h ite's other im p o rtan t and frequently
23 Kenneth W hite, La Figure du dehors (Paris: L'Harm attan ,2014), 89-102.
24 W hite, Poeta kosmograf, 68.
P O L I T I C S A N D P O E T I C S O F S P A C E ELŻBI ETA K ONOŃCZ UK I N T H E M E A N D E R S O f G E O P O E T I C S l 6 l
referenced source o f in spiration. B asin g h im se lf on its prem ises, W hite d e
velops his ow n theory w here the m ap is treated not as a representation o f the w o rld b u t as an in vitation to cross the b ord ers o f the territo ry represen ted b y the m ap, in the direction o f w h a t lies h id d en un der rep resen tatio n and rem ains, unknow n, un usual, eccentric and w ild. W hen he w rites about u n charted territories (even in the age o f google m aps and google street), White has in m ind the perpetual opportunity to explore phenom ena such as w in d direction, m igrations o f birds, clouds or sm ells.
His essays from La carte de Guido. Un pèlerinage europeen,2S from 2 0 11, exem p lify the kind o f w ritin g w h ich W hite refers as in tellectual and existen tial geography. Sketching a m ental m ap o f his life in transit, the narrator-cartog- rapher gives his biography the shape o f a m ap. In one o f the essays (Dernières nouvelles de Bruxelles), W hite describes a visit to the R oyal Library in Brussels w here he retrieves a tw elfth century m anuscript entitled Lib er de variis historiis - a treatise that is at once cosm ographical, geographical, toponym ic, h istori
cal, philosophical and poetic in character. Its author, Guido o f Pisa, included in the w ork a unique m ap and W hite, like a m edieval copyist, carefully redraws it in h is notebook. The gesture o f copying allow s h im to take p o sse ssio n o f the m edieval visio n o f the w orld, created w ith p iety and aesthetic attention to every detail b y the authors o f the m ap. Found in the m edieval m anuscript, the m ap fascin ates W hite b ecau se it conveys the experience o f a “b eau tiful w hole,” “a sym phony o f the world.” The M edieval m anuscript, an exam ple of holistic knowledge o f the w orld expressed through the language o f geography, history and poetry, seem s to W hite to be a confirm ation o f the cosm ological poetics o f the universe. O ld m aps - geographic and artistic representations o f the territory - reinforce in W hite the b e lie f that the cartographers o f old, sensitive to the poetic nature of the world, w ere in fact the first representatives o f geopoetics. Referring to h im se lf as a “poet-cosm ographer” he believes that the goal o f poetry is precisely to discover and describe the poetic dim ension o f the cosm os.
W hite is fascin ated b y space in its preh istoric and ah istorical sen se, in other w ords, in its cosm ological, geological and atm ospheric aspects. He lis tens to the speech o f the space, and particularly to the speech o f the natural land scape w h ich con veys the origin al voice o f the w orld . In another essay, Fum ée bleue sur fa la ise blanche, the poet d escrib es h is jo u rn e y to C o rn w all in search o f the voice o f the original landscape, one not entangled in the w eb of historical, political, econom ic and social relations. The experience o f p rim o r
dial space is brought by the observation o f the coastline w h ich fascinates the
25 S e e also Elżbieta Konończuk, „O poetyckim zam ieszkiw an iu św ia ta w e d łu g Kennetha W hite'a,” Białostockie Studia Literaturoznawcze 2 (2011).
w riter as a place w here tw o elem ents m eet. Sim ilarly, w atching the tall, black, rocky shore dripping w ith w ater, produces the im pression o f w itn essin g the em ergence o f rocks from the chaos.
Consequently, the speech o f the landscape becom es the source o f a deep experience w hich, follow ing W hite, could be referred to as a “source exp eri
ence,” an em otion al reaction to the prim ord ial b ea u ty in scrib ed in a place.
Experiencing the relations o f m an and un iverse, finding a deep connection to the space, becom es possible as a result o f poetic intuition providing access to the “w hite w orld” or the “w hite territory”. A llu din g to the ancient tradition o f presenting northern and un know n areas on the m ap, the m etaphor refers to the id ea o f exploring the pristine and p eripheral spaces u ncharted by the cartographers.
The th em e o f w h ite territo ry retu rn s in Su r les Cretes de I'Aurore, also in cluded in the autobiographical La carte de Guido, describing the author's journey to the Pyrenees, preceded by a study o f a geom orphological m ap o f the region.
W hite often search es for the source o f poetic in spiratio n in the geological nature o f the place. H eading tow ards the w hite peaks o f the m oun tain chain, he w atches the theatre o f form s and colors, and his im agin ation com pletes the spectacle w ith a visualization o f m illen nia old geological pro cesses: the form ation o f the rocks, the layering o f calcium , dolom ite and quartz deposits, the m ovem ent of tectonic plates and the geological m ovem ents w hich form ed the m ountains and gorges.
W hite un derstan ds geopoetics as a special p oetics o f experiencing g e o graphical space, a poetics of experiencing the earth and the cosm os. A s a “cos- m opoet,” he believes the relations b etw een p oetry and geography to be a cru
cial elem ent in the repertoire o f the hum anities w hich alw ays tell the story of man's habitation o f the w orld. W hite practices such lyrical dw elling not only by reading the landscape and interpreting the poetry and m usic o f the land, but also by giving his w ork geographical forms.
His travels narrate w hat the poet h im self talks about: the form ation o f deep bonds w ith space, labeled as livres-itineraire (“b o o k -ro u te s” or “b ook tra ils”), constituting the kind o f w ritin g practice w h ich M ichel de C erteau refers to as
“spatial stories,” understood as a record o f practicing space.26 De C erteau sees the very act o f w andering as a creation o f specific texts in space, or pedestrian speech acts,27 and W hite's jo u rn eys and travels are p recisely that, a kind o f utterance.
26 M ichel de C erteau , Wynaleźć codzienność: sztu ki działania, trans. Katarzyna Thiel-Jańczuk (Kraków: WUJ 2008), 115-129 .
27 de C erteau , Wynaleźć, 99-100.
P O L I T I C S A N D P O E T I C S O F S P A C E ELŻBI ETA K ONOŃCZ UK I N T H E M E A N D E R S O f G E O P O E T I C S 1 6 3
His w orks are a record o f spatial experience, w h ich m eans that th ey make up a b iograp h y-m ap (or a b io -atlas) d escribing geographical, poetic, e m o tional and in tellectual routes. A b iography-m ap not only presents the space, but also invites one to practice it.28
In h is p o e tic (geopoetic) practice, in the attem p ts to access th e e s sence o f the geographical experience, W hite search es for a synth esis o f the sub ject and the form , in sp ire d b y the exp erien ce o f space. C onsequently, he con stitu tes ge n re s such as “w o rld -p o e m ,” “riv e r-p o e m ” or “d iam on d - p o e m ”29 defined as fo llow s: “a long riv e r-p o e m w h ere I gath er the m a x i
m u m n u m ber o f e lem en ts, w h o se coheren ce re se m b le s th a t o f a w ater current. Or a d iam on d -p oem , a piece o f crystallin e rock, a poem em erging from con cen tration ”.30 L es A rch ives du Littoral, a riv e r-p o e m w h ich could be view ed as W hite's lyrical, intellectual and philosophical m anifesto d evelop
in g into a lecture, thus fu nctions both as a poem and a geop oetic d isse rta tion w hile H andbookfor the Diam ond Country contains several diam ond-poem s, each con stitu tin g a crystallized p oetic w h ole and a record o f a reflection - -concentration3i.
S p atially determ ined, W hite's im ag in ation dictates not only his literary w orks and theoretical reflection, but also his organizational practice. C h ris
tophe R oncato notes th at W hite took over from W h itm an the m etaphor o f the archipelago in order to u se it as a n am e for the n etw o rk o f spreading b ranches o f the Internation al Institute o f G eopoetics w h ose p resid en cy he p assed to R égis Poulet in 2 0 13 . A dozen islan d s o f the archipelago (A rch i
pel de l'In stytu t in ternational de géopoétique) spread around the w orld and
28 M ariusz Wilk's "trace-b o o k ,” Lotem gęsi [By the Flight o f Geese] m ay serve as a good e x a m ple o f practicin g W hite's ”b io grap h y-m ap ”. Wilk d e scrib e s his journ ey to Labrador inspired by W hite's The Blue Road and follow ing th e po et's fo o tste p s. Recounting his fascination w ith W hite's travels, Wilk co n fe ss e s : ” I too k th e first s te p s on his Blue Road in a sm all hotel bar in Sław k o w sk a S tre e t. From th e first page, it w a s a co m p le te im m ersion. When I cam e upon th e se n te n ce a b o u t w an derin g a w ay as far as possible, to th e lim its o f th e self, until a territo ry is found w h e re tim e tra n sfo rm s into sp ac e, w h e re th in gs e m e rg e in their n a
k e d n ess and th e w ind b low s w ith o u t a nam e, it w a s th en w hen I kn ew th a t I have found another brother. [...] Wilk believed th a t in Labrador he w ould s e e his original fa ce . "W hat I need th e m o st is sp ace, a g re a t w h ite breath in g em p tin e ss for ultim ate m ed itatio n ”. He also search ed for Labrador trib es, w e a ry o f n ations and s ta te s . S e e M ariusz Wilk, Lotem gęsi (W arszawa: Noir sur Blanc: 2012), 12.
29 W hite, Poeta kosmograf, 34-35.
30 Ibid., 41-42. [this and th e follow ing fo o tn o te refere n ce Polish tran slatio n s o f a selectio n of W hite's w o rk from French - A.W.]
31 Ibid., 126.
referred to as a geopoetic A telier^ are the result of the strategy of archipélisation (archipelagization) or océanisation (oceanization) outlined by W hite him self and adapted b y the Institute: in the 2 0 10 gen eral report, the p o et explain s that w hat he has in m in d is a dispersed and sim ultaneous influence in v a ri
ous disciplines and countries.33 Rocanto adds: “geopoetics [...] does not stop before the doors o f an y A telier, b u t spread s over the b ou n d aries. Ju st look at its presence, m ore or le ss u n derstan dab le on the W eb, and its influence on variou s disciplines: geography, literature, architecture, the visu al arts..”.34 A rchipelagization refers to m ore than the in stitutional spread o f the idea o f geopoetics. The idea perm eates m an y disciplines and discourses focused on variou s form s o f articulating the experience o f geograph ical space. Thus geopoetics, in the form o f islands, has spread itse lf over num erous disciplines and discourses, not only enriching the anthropological, poetological, regional and ecocritical aspects o f research in literary studies. A w e ll-so u n d in g and extrem ely spacious concept, applicable to all artistic records o f m an's in ter
action w ith space, geo p o etics h as n o w entered for good the vo cab u lary o f the con tem porary h um an ities. Since as a field it has b een form ed b ased on a fragm entary reception o f its creator's work, w e should speak rather o f several geopoetics, the nature o f w hich is often determ ined by frequently in strum en
tal uses o f various aspects o f W hite's thought. M eanw hile, the author o f The Blue R oad certainly deserves a m ore in -d ep th appreciation, esp ecially as his theory is w ell rooted in the French tradition of research on spatial im agination lead by G aston B achelard and G eorge Poulet, and very w ell know n in Poland.
Translation: A n na Warso
32 Roncato p re se n ts th e h istory o f th e Institute's grow th from th e first atelier foun ded in B russels in 1992, follow ed by Atelier g éo p o é tiq u e d'A quitaine (1993), Sco ttish C en tre for G e o p o e tic s (1995), Atelier d e s deux rives de Tübingen, C entre g éo p o é tiq u e de Paris i C e n tre g éo p o é tiq u e de Belgrad (1996), C entre su isse de g éo p o é tiq u e (2004) - and A telier ital
ien open ed in year 2012. S e e Roncato, Kenneth White. Une œ uvre-m onde, 206-208. [Here tran slated from Polish - A.W.]
33 Roncato, Kenneth White, 216. [Here tran slated from Polish - A.W.]
34 Ibid.
