Criticism of the Ontological Instability of the World in Bruno Schulz’s Stories

Magical, fantastical world, phantasmagorias, visions, Creationism, Onirism are categories which
were used by critics to analyse Bruno Schulz’s prose. The history of the perception of Schulz’s literary
production is an attempt to determine the relation between the Schulz’s world and the reality. It is the
starting point for the further interpretation. Based on the analysis of the language, imaging techniques,
functions of different motivs Schulz’s stories were placed in the perspective of surrealism, Bergson’s theory,
expressionism, different theories of myth and those are only some of the contexts. The important
point is which of the definition is actually used by critics — it determines the degree of interference of the
Drohobychian writer in “reality”. The study of perception of Schulz’s literary output shows how criticism
in the 20th century interpreted Schulz’s creationism techniques. Thanks to the new literary research we
can see that Schulz’s strategy was not an attempt to escape from reality but on the contrary a dramatic
attempt to reach it.