The city of Szymborska – World-building as a way of interpreting and presenting poetry

Abstract

As a literary related term, World-building mainly refers to the construction of grand imaginary worlds and is therefore seemingly unconnected to poetry. As an experimental project, the City of Szymborska nevertheless uses “World-building” as a way of interpreting and presenting the Polish poet Szymborska’s works. An imaginary city is constructed through transforming her poems into everyday formats or objects and then display ing them in an exhibition context.

In this thesis, using the characteristics of Szymborska’s writing as principles and the theory of World-building as guidance, I analyse the structure of the City of Szymborska as well as the construction process. Although there are some inevitable losses during the verbal-visual translation, I still found World-building an extremely good approach to both understanding and introducing poems because of its capacity to convey the poet’s worldview.

As an ongoing project, I believed in the value of the City of Szymborska. I am also positive on the potential that World-building as a way of interpreting and presenting carries to have a broader application in the future.