Pielgrzymki w literaturze przełomu XIX i XX wieku. Emil Zola, Joris-Karl Huysmans i Władysław Reymont

Pilgrimages in the literature of the turn of 19th and 20th centuries.

Summary: The paper attempts to compare Emil Zola’s Lourdes, Joris-Karl Huysmans’ Les Foules de Lourdes and Władysław Reymont’s Pielgrzymka do Jasnej Góry. All three pieces were written over a century ago and constitute interesting examples of ‘pilgrimage literature’, without being religionist.
The novels of the naturalist Zola and the convertist Huysmans, as well as the journalist report by the literary debuting Reymont are connected by the topic of pilgrimaging to a site of the Virgin Mary’s cult, namely Lourdes and Częstochowa. Despite being written at almost the same time, the three literary pieces were an expression of quite different inspiration the authors had drawn from participating in pilgrimages, and of quite different views.
The Zola’s novel, written in the spirit of naturalism, confronts two circles of values; on the one hand religion identified as superstition, naivety and the timeless desire for a miracle protection from death and on the other hand reason, science and progress, which according to Zola, are the sole remedy for suffering and the only way for the development of humanity. The story of father Froment and Maria, the two main characters of Lourdes, serves as a consistent illustration of the premise, which favours the scientific understanding of the world.
The novel by the convertist Joris-Karl Huysmans, while in dialogue with the Zola’s book, is similarly stark in presenting caricature features of the pilgrimaging community and manifests distrust for literal understanding of miracles. In Les Foules de Lourdes, the paramount issue is an attempt to guess, to decode the sign of Bernadette’s revelations as part of the long history of Virgin Mary’s revelations in France and attestation to the living dialogue between God and man. Huysmans consciously positions himself as the narrator and by assuming an extremely personal point of view gives his novel the air of a pilgrim’s personal diary.
The two French novels provide and interesting context to Reymont’s literary debut written at the same time, as Zola’s famous Lourdes. In his journalist’s report Pielgrzymka do Jasnej Góry (A pilgrimage to Jasna Góra), Reymont describes a traditional foot pilgrimage to the town of Częstochowa (the Polish equivalent to Lourdes) in all its variety. The long and tiresome road is conductive to the development of unique human relationship and inner calm. Reymont shows the process of spiritual transformation of the main character and narrator: a sceptical journalist, a removed observer and a man who by experiencing the community of pilgrimage surprises himself to regain faith.
Each of the three literary works renders an important feature of the phenomenon of pilgrimaging and of the nature of holy places. The artistic form of literature inspired by pilgrim-religiousness does not necessary draw universal acclaim - sometimes it causes controversy and polemics, such as in the case of a discussion which ensued around Zola’s and Huysmans’ novels.

Peregrinus Cracoviensis, 2002, z.12, s. 153-169.

Instytut Geografii i Gospodarki Przestrzennej UJ

ISSN 1425-1922

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