Góra jako fantazmat i realny żywioł, jako wyzwanie i metafora. Prowizoryczny esej o wchodzeniu na szczyt, pisaniu i czytaniu

This article brings together selected representations of the act of climbing a mountain as found in literary texts, ranging from conventional topoi in early literature associated with the poetic arts to contemporary reflections on the creative process and interdisciplinary artistic practices that draw on mountain symbolism. The metaphor of ascending a peak also provides a structural and interpretive framework for the poem discussed in the article. In addition, the paper refers to several selected personal accounts of real mountaineering or Himalayan expeditions – including, in an autoethnographic gesture, those of the author himself. The narrative, constructed from these varied elements that form the basis of the essay, becomes a performative attempt to imagine the experience of following a mountain path.