Outlines of Henryk Siewierski's essayistic and translational framework

a scholar at the interface betwenn two worlds

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to highlight aspects of the essayistic and translational work of Polish professor Henryk Siewierski that suggest some decisive influences on his theoretical approach. Based on these investigations, this study aims to speculate on the theoretical contributions considered most notable in his career as an internationally renowned scholar and creative translator, who explores fertile avenues of connection between the Portuguese and Polish languages. In this work, we aim to present some theoretical conclusions that are minimally consistent with the main pillars of Henryk's conceptual framework, taking care not to falsify the study's aims by speculating on theoretical contributions that are considered inappropriate and potentially detrimental to his thinking. The objective is to demonstrate how the role played by the reader/receiver of the literary work is one of Siewierski's crucial concerns and how the centrality of the interpretive process in the literary text itself, according to him, cannot be separated from the dialogical relationship established between the work and the interpreting subject. The latter ultimately implies an essential phenomenological performance on the part of the reader.