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9 February 2010

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Jan Kott
languages: Polish  / English  / German 
 

Jan Kott, born in Warsaw in 1914, was the Polish critic and theoretician of the theatre who was best known around the world. He had lived in the United States and lectured at Yale and Berkeley sine 1966. A poet, translator, and critic of literature and the theatre, he was also one of the finest essayists of the Polish school. He died in 2001.

When he began writing after the war, he was closely identified with the communist authorities, an editor of "Kuźnica", and a theorist and codifier of the "socialist literature" that fulfilled the requirements of Marxist thinking about art. However, he never became a panegyrist of "socialist realism". Along with Györgi Lukacs, he promoted the "great realism" according to which the literature of the "New Poland" was to be modelled on Dickens, Balzac, Stendahl or Tolstoy. As the authorities tightened the screw, Kott found himself pushed to the margins of political life. He renounced his membership in the communist party in 1957.

A long-time theatrical reviewer, Kott won fame for his new readings of the classics, and above all of Shakespeare. Around the world, his "Sketches on Shakespeare" became the most widely read work of criticism by any Polish author. He interpreted Shakespeare in the light of the philosophical, existential and political experience of the twentieth century. He added insights from his own unusually colorful personal experiences; this autobiographical accent became the hallmark of his criticism. Kott juxtaposed Shakespeare with Ionesco or Beckett, but above all he juxtaposed Shakespeare with the everyday experiences of the citizens of totalitarian countries. He took a similar approach to his reading of Greek tragedy and its contemporaneity. He made the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles into records of universal experience: the cruelty of fate, the refusal to accept the world and the gods and kings who govern it.

For Kott, theatre was always more than another one of the fine arts. It was rather a figure of human life and a means of coping with the world. Since the 1960s, Kott had written not only books but also articles in such leading American journals as "The New Republic", the "Partisan Review", and the "New York Review of Books". Aside from Shakespeare and Greek tragedy, he also wrote about Japanese theatre, Brook, Kantor and Grotowski. He translated extensively, including Sartre, Diderot, Ionesco and Moliere.

Source: www.polska2000.pl; copyright: Stowarzyszenie Willa Decjusza.

Selected Bibliography

Essay Collections:
  • "Mitologia i realizm. Szkice literackie (Mythology and Realism: Literary Sketches)". Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1946.
  • "Po prostu. Szkice i zaczepki (Straight Talk: Sketches and Quips)". Warsaw: Książka, 1946.
  • "O 'Lalce' Bolesława Prusa (On Bolesław Prus' 'Lalka')". Warsaw: Książka, 1948.
  • "Szkoła klasyków (The School of the Classics)". Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1949.
  • "Trwale wartości literatury polskiego Oświecenia (The Lasting Values of Polish Enlightenment Literature)". Warsaw: PIW, 1951.
  • "Wiktor Hugo - pisarz walczący (Victor Hugo, Fighting Writer)". Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1952.
  • "Postęp i głupstwo. Szkice (Progress and Foolishness: Sketches)". Warsaw: PIW, 1956.
  • "Szkice o Szekspirze (Sketches on Shakespeare)". Warsaw: PIW, 1961.
  • "Szekspir współczesny (Shakespeare Our Contemporary)". Warsaw: PIW, 1965.
  • "Aloes. Dzienniki i małe szkice (Aloe: Journals and Minor Sketches)". Warsaw: PIW, 1969.
  • "Zjadanie bogów. Szkice o tragedii greckiej (The Eating of the Gods: an Interpretation of Greek Tragedy)". Krakow: WL, 1986.
  • "Kamienny Potok. Szkice (Stony Brook: Sketches)". Warsaw: NOWA, 1981.
  • "Przyczynek do biografii (Towards a Biography)". London: Aneks, 1990.
  • "Plec Rozalindy. Interpretacje Marlowa, Szekspira, Webstera, Büchnera, Gautiera (The Gender of Rosalind: Interpretations of Marlowe, Shakespeare, Webster, Büchner, Gautier)". Krakow: WL, 1992.
  • "Nowy Jonasz i inne szkice (The New Jonah and Other Sketches)". Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Wiedza o Kulturze, 1994.
  • "Kadysz. Strony o Tadeuszu Kantorze (Kaddish: Remarks on Tadeusz Kantor)". Gdańsk: słowo/ obraz/ terytoria, 1997.
  • "Lustro. O ludziach i teatrze (The Mirror: About people and theatre)", Warsaw: Czytelnik, 2000 "(more...)".
Selected translations:
  • English: "The Memory of the Body: Essays on Theater and Death". Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1992; "The Gender of Rosalind: Interpretations: Shakespeare, Buchner, Gautier", Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1992; "The Eating of the Gods: an Interpretation of Greek Tragedy", NY: Random House, 1973; "Theatre Notebook 1947-1967", Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1968; "Shakespeare Our Contemporary", Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co, Inc., 1964.
  • French: "Kaddish. Pages sur Tadeusz Kantor", Le Passeur, 2000; "La vie en sursis: Equisses pour une biographie (Przyczynek do biografii)", Paris: Solin, 1991; "Manger les dieux. Essais sur la tragÉdie grecque et la modernité (Zjadanie bogów)", Payot, 1989.
  • German: "Leben auf Raten. Versuch einer Autobiographie". Berlin: Alexander, 1993; "Das Gedächtnis des Körpers". Berlin: Alexander, 1990; "Gott-Essen. Interpretationen griechischer Tragödien". München: Piper, 1975; "Shakespeare heute". München: Piper, 1970; "Die Schule der Klassiker". Berlin: Henschel, 1954.

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