Ostatnie słowa pani Latter i Franki Chomcówny oraz kilka uwag w kwestii kryzysu światopoglądu pozytywistycznego
The Last Words by Ms. Latter and Franka Chomcówna plus Some Remarks with Regard to the Crisis of a Positivistic World-View

Summary/Abstract: The year-1864 caesura is an undisputable fact in the history of Polish literature. Scholars nonetheless do not too often tend to refer Polish positivists’ literary works to a later period in which this formation’s world-view was being shaped. Using a phenomenological-sociological concept of the world experienced, I have attempted at telling the story of Ms. Latter and Franka Chomcówna, while not neglecting the consequences of the events of the years around the Insurrection. Seen in this light, the works under analysis – Bolesław Prus’s "Emancypantki" and Eliza Orzeszkowa’s "Cham" – show the Polish society as one threatened by anomie. This is expressed in, among other things, serious disturbances of intergenerational relations, as is in the crisis of the process of reconciling and acting a social role. I conclude my article with a question, left unanswered, about the sources and the reach of the crisis of a positivist world-outlook.

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