Strategie ukazywania piękna i brzydoty w wybranych opowiadaniach Zygmunta Niedźwieckiego

Abstract Strategies of showing beauty and ugliness in selected stories by Zygmunt Niedźwiecki The intention of this article was to present beauty and ugliness, manifested in various ways in Zygmunt Niedźwiecki’s stories. For the purposes of his argument, the author develops a certain fragmentary concept of beauty and ugliness, drawing attention to the primarily axiological nature of these concepts, as well as their complexity and multidimensionality. Their complicated structure means that they can be revealed simultaneously in the same object, encompassing its different aspects and entering into dialectical relations with each other. The author also emphasizes the integral nature of their perception, which is why they always appear as complexes of meanings, not simple qualities. The considerations contained in the article aim to present the most complete, integral image possible of the complex relations between beauty and ugliness described above, revealed in selected Niedźwiecki’s stories. The main areas of research include four areas of beauty (and at the same time ugliness): works of art, nature, events, and the „side effect” of human activities, revealed, among others, in utility objects. The analyses reveal, above all, the frequent phenomenon of the co-occurrence of aesthetic beauty and moral ugliness in the studied works, as well as the disturbing nature of the beauty of a work of art or the ambivalent values of the beauty of nature due to its immorality. The article also compares the features of Niedźwiecki’s literary workshop with the postulates of naturalism and Young Poland, showing that his work cannot be easily incorporated into any of the given trends, which proves its originality. The considerations are complemented by the presentation of selected threads from the author’s biography, which is an important point of reference, explaining, among other things, the specific choice of topics, as well as explaining to some extent the genesis of his worldview.The obtained complex image of the mutual relations between beauty and ugliness, emerging from Niedźwiecki’s stories, may encourage further research on this author, currently forgotten outside the narrow circle of historians of literature.