Crime and Romanticism. The case of Lukasz Orbitowski and Jarosław Urbaniuk’s Tancerz (Dancer) Cover Image

Kryminał i romantyzm. Przypadek Tancerza Łukasza Orbitowskiego i Jarosława Urbaniuka
Crime and Romanticism. The case of Lukasz Orbitowski and Jarosław Urbaniuk’s Tancerz (Dancer)

Author(s): Anna Kurska
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: intertextuality; rewriting Romanticism; crime novel; pop-cultural story

Summary/Abstract: This article describes the use of romantic elements in Orbitowski and Urbaniuk’s criminal novel, Tancerz (Dancer). It also shows how the authors of the pop-cultural story enrich the plot, language and poetry thanks by referring to Romanticism. I draw attention to the multiplicity of solutions that, on the one hand, lead to the simplification of meanings, but, on the other, encourage the reader to undertake a literary game that fosters a critical attitude towards the romantic tradition accused of symbolic violence. I show that the reader’s involvement in pop-cultural play based on intertextuality, especially the poetics of rewriting famous romantic texts and equally famous romantic roles, serves in the crime novel to echo old traditions and to undermine the stereotypical notions of Romanticism by scandalizing the portrait of Adam Mickiewicz. Using the iconoclastic tendency, Tancerz (Dancer) favors the process of freeing the reader from the language and fantasies shaped by Romanticism.

  • Issue Year: 50/2018
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 149-172
  • Page Count: 24
  • Language: Polish