Zapach w powieściach Gabrieli Zapolskiej — próba palimpsestowej lektury
Smell in novels by Gabriela Zapolska — an attempt of a palimpsest reading

Summary/Abstract: The article is an attempt to accept a new perspective in the reception of works by Zapolska, a perspective deriving from the choice of conception of a palimpsest reading, that is, such reading in which deeper, repetitive and specially hidden sense are derived from the surface. Referring to theoretical knowledge established by M. Riffaterre and Genette, the authors try to look at the works by Zapolska in a non-linear way. Such a research attitude allows for answering a question on the role of smell in novels by a modernist writer. Apart from conclusions which prove an immersion of writings by Zapolska in a sensitising Young Poland element, a closer analysis of oilfactory descriptions allows for making a statement that smell in her novels fulfills a kind of epistemological function — helps to “order” the world. It also serves to characterise the main characters in Zapolska who is very much interested in the fate of “fallen” women. She draws the process of changes of their life condition skillfully and multidimensionally. A palimpsest reading, this “revelation” of subsequent “layers” of meanings, allows for noticing that mental and social changes are also accompanied by the change of aura. One can hypothetise that the characters in Zapolska are accompanied by a kind of smell screenplay (script?) subtly marked on the pages of different novels, the repetitiveness of which is possible to be read just thanks to a global perspective.

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