Chaplin as Charlie: From the Figure of Cinema to Poetic Figure

Rafał Koschany

Abstract

Koschany explores the phenomenon of the presence of the myth of Chaplin in Polish poetry. He discusses an almost organic relationship between the art of motion pictures and poetry from the very beginning of the genres. Imagination is a common area of the two domains. Koschany adds that Chaplin was named the most outstanding actor of the 20^th century in a survey by the Polityka weekly a few years ago, which is all the more surprising that his movies are rarely shown and as you would suspect their social influence is very insignificant. But the image of a bumbler with moustache, dressed in a bowler hat, baggy pants and oversized shoes, holding a walking stick in his hand is strongly rooted in mass imagination. We find the same “iconic image” and the same picture preserved in the “landscape of memory” in the poetry of Kazimierz Wierzyński, Marian Hemar, Anatol Stern, Stanisław Grochowiak, Wiktor Woroszylski and Janusz S. Pasierb. Besides, Charlie himself is almost the synonym of the cinema and cinematic art, and also embodies a set of noble ideals, goodness, daydreaming and altruism. Koschany completes his argument with numerous poetic quotations.