The Concept of the Tender Narrator in Olga Tokarczuk's Nobel Lecture Aspects of Linguistic Analysis

The paper introduces the concept of the tender narrator presented in her Nobel Lecture >> The Tender Narrator << by Olga Tokarczuk. Reminiscent of the values important to the Nobel Prize winner, the paper analyzes the textual revision of this category. The subject of the discussion is also the role of the narrator in interpreting reality, assessing the phenomena in the contemporary world, as well as the possibility of the tender narrator to influence the attitude, choices and life of contemporary man. Given that the writer's own approach is multidimensional, the paper considers the contexts of the categories: tender and tenderness not only from textological, but also more broadly, from lexicological, semantic and cultural perspectives. The analysis of the lexemes czuly und czulosc as well as the ways of revising the tender narrator in the text of the lecture, expressed either directly or indirectly, based on the way the argument proceeds, leads to the conclusion that the postulated new, >> fourth person << narrator is not just a grammatical construct. This is a wonderful storyteller who relates a universal, holistic and understandable story rooted in nature, who weaves an absolutely unique pattern. The Nobel Prize winner ascribes the tender narrator the following attributes: s/he (such narrator) knows how to embody the perspective of each person, how to see more broadly, how to ignore time, and is aware of the dangers of the contemporary world. Furthermore, the paper attempts to answer the question how to reconcile such person or category with the role that literature - according to the Nobel Prize winner - should play in the contemporary world; a world which is currently being destroyed by humans, divided into separate parts, and in which our spirituality is disappearing.