Literackość kazań – rozpoznania filologiczne

Abstract

The article tackles philological contexts of preaching and is situated in broadly understood contextual homiletics. The preacher’s ways of using fiction and poetry are not worked out well enough in Poland; a philological consideration of the subject is still missing. The present text is an attempt at doing it. Its author refers to literature (selected works), and also to the study of literature. He shows the question of the literary character of homilies in the context of the most important definitions and theoretical approaches. He shows ways of giving homilies a literary character and of making literature present in them. The article is an attempt at analyzing homilies with the tools used by the study of literature. This considerably broadens the analytical spectrum, as this is usually done almost exclusively by pastoral theology. The author indicates that literature should be something more for preaching than just a source of examples within its contents. For a preacher it may also be a source of form, style, imagery, reflections on literature itself (meta-literature), on preaching or on the preacher. The author stresses the need of axiological knowledge of literature on the part of the preacher, which is a condition for using its most valuable works. Certainly knowledge of the theory of literature terminology is indispensable, too. Summing up, the article is devoted to philological considerations of the problem of the literary character of homilies, and at the same time it is a collection of tips for the preacher about how he should preach the Gospel: in a beautiful way, with a sense of esthetics. The problem of literary value is connected with artistry of homilies. Skillful giving a literary character to homilies is one of the numerous ways to overcome the crisis in preaching.