Ecstasy and pain. On semantic ambivalence of red rose in Young Poland's artistic texts

Beata Kuryłowicz

Uniwersytet w Białymstoku

Abstract

The article describes semantic ambivalence of purple rose conditioned by the flower's color that occurs in Young Poland's poems. Semantic connotations of the red color are motivated by prototypical references to blood and fire, which develop in two opposite directions: „happiness", „fullness of life", and „threat", „suffering", „death". The semantics of the red color is shaped analogically and justifies the connotations of rose's „ecstasy" and „suffering". In Young Poland's poetry, erotic sensual love symbolized by purple rose was a source of both ecstasy and happiness as well as pain. Therefore, bipolarity of rose's semantics, which is strongly updated in Young Poland's artistic texts, reflects a multidimensional aspect of love.