Speculum mundi: Deotym’s philosophy of the mirror

Abstract

Published in 1879, but utterly forgotten today, The Mystery of the Mirror (The Mirror's Enigma) by Jadwiga Łuszczewska takes up a fantastic theme of the mirrors, in which the history of the world is written down. Since the very moment our world was created the mirrors have been registering everything that looks at itself in them. Employing the theory of reflexions and duplications (thing/object - idea), the author formulates some theses concerning the process of creation: a thought is reflected in the air just like in the mirror. It is afterwards seized by an artist who is able to read (interpret) it correctly. Platon’s Idealism and Paracelsus’s theory interwine in Deotym’s novel with F. Schelling’s thought and the aesthetics of E. T. A. Hoffmann.