Piosenki – „poezja oralna cywilizacji przemysłowej”
Songs: “Oral Poetry of Industrial Civilization”

Summary/Abstract: The presented article poses a question about the limits of the art of lyricism, and more specifically about the methods of literary studies capturing certain specific or border phenomena that have emerged from it and gained an independent status, and the song/songs is one of such phenomena. Hence, the title of the study includes a quotation from an important work by Paul Zumthor, it is both the starting point and the thesis of the text. The thesis of the study is the judgment that songs can be called literature, provided that we clearly emphasize that they are not poetry, but oral poetry. It is a completely different entity from lyricism, it gained its own language, fully fledged in culture, it emerged from poetry, it evolved and became a new type of cultural text. The aim of the reflection is an attempt to take a closer look at this extraordinary adventure, which this evolution, and even revolution, has become, because it is the rapid expansion of rock music, the outbreak of counterculture in the second half of the 20th century, and with them – the incredible development of various types of songs. The article addresses, inter alia, the following issues: describes “helpful methodologies”, gives terminological suggestions and mentions the “technical” aspects of song studies. Selected examples of research perspectives are also given.

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