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An Inconceivable Coincidence: Szymborska and Lem \n \nIn the article, I review the life events of Wisława Szymborska and Stanislaw Lem – who \nwere close in age – that brought their fates together after the war. I aim to highlight \nthe similarities in their perspectives on certain fundamental issues. Sometimes, these \nconvergences seem to lead to intertextual connections between the otherwise very \ndifferent works by the two writers. I pay special attention to the similarities between \nthe concepts expressed by Lem in Summa technologiae and some of Szymborska’s \n“ontological” poems, with particular reference to the themes of “chance,” “individual \nidentity,” “evolution,” the shared suspicion of metaphysics, their generally nonanthropocentric \nvision, and the importance of rationalism and irony as keys to reading \nthe world

Art · Theology · Historical and Cultural Studies of Poland · Medieval European History and Architecture · Philosophy · Polish Historical and Cultural Studies