Abstract

The considerations focus on the category of melancholy – and boredom related to that – in the personal records (epistolographic, diary, aphoristic writing) of Władysław Sebyła and Franz Kafka. Their interpretation reveals biographies of writers determined by this category, which had a considerable impact on their literary paths as well. Life permeated with melancholy, which generally made daily existence difficult, gave one of the most original and moving in Polish and European literature testimony of struggle with himself and the world, and at the same time it disclosed a significant closeness of artists, which proves the main thesis of the article on shared spiritual biographies by Władysław Sebyła and Franz Kafka.