To Exist Is to Create: On the Life-Creative Attitude of Old Professors Based on Selected Examples

Abstract

The subject of qualitative research presented in the article is (scientific and artistic) creativity in the context of individual experience of old age. The figure – social and professional role – that is of interest to the author is the old professor, the master. In the European culture, it is a symbol of wisdom, experience, special abilities, but also of unfulfillment, of the split that Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s Faust deals with. The author conducted qualitative analyses of the content of selected texts and materials. She used concepts from the sociology of art and the artist (M. Gołaszewska). The author was also inspired by philosophical reflections (E. Sourieu, B. Jasinski, V. Frankl). The first stage of the research involved an analysis of the contents of three texts about the old professor: a poem by W. Szymborska, a book-interview by K. Zanussi, and the notes by W. Stróżewski. The second stage of comparative analyses concerned the attitudes of other eminent professors; their selected publications, achievements, sometimes biographies, memoirs, and interviews. On this basis, the author wanted to reconstruct the experience of old age and late activity of the authorities (philosophers), their values, motives, senses, and fears. Based on various criteria, she identified six types of the attitudes of old professors with regard to creativity in late life.