The World of Insect Metaphors in Zofia Nałkowska’s Dzienniki czasu wojny [Diaries of Wartime] Cover Image

Świat metafor owadzich w Dziennikach czasu wojny Zofii Nałkowskiej
The World of Insect Metaphors in Zofia Nałkowska’s Dzienniki czasu wojny [Diaries of Wartime]

Author(s): Piotr Krupiński
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Polish Literature, Philology
Published by: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne
Keywords: Zofia Nałkowska’s Dzienniki czasu wojny; literature and entomology; history and nature; war (atrocity) and sociobiology

Summary/Abstract: The main aim of the article is an analysis of entomological motifs in the Nałkowska’s wartime diary. The surprising frequency of these motifs gives an opportunity for a more general discussion: the key context for an explanation of insect metaphors seems to be the tendency, common for modernist authors, to place the concept of humanity in a widely un­derstood philosophy of nature. The rule would also apply for the war, or more generally, for mechanisms of human violence, which Nałkowska subjects in her diary to a peculiar darwinistic representation. Understanding the war as a “naturalistic fact” (Hanna Kirchner’s description) results in a gradual blurring of the differences between the violence of nature and the violence of history. The author of the article has identified a similar procedure in Czesław Miłosz’s work, which constitutes a specific counterpoint for Nałkowska’s wartime diary.

  • Issue Year: 2013
  • Issue No: 21
  • Page Range: 123-146
  • Page Count: 24
  • Language: Polish