Autentyczność i jej losy. Autorefleksja w twórczości Marka Bieńczyka, Doroty Masłowskiej, Andrzeja Stasiuka i Magdaleny Tulli
Authenticity and its Vicissitudes in Polish Contemporary Prose. Self-reflection in the works of Marek Bieńczyk, Dorota Masłowska, Andrzej Stasiuk and Magdalena Tulli

Author(s): Piotr Jakub Wąsowski
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Polish Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: authenticity; culture of authenticity; Marek Bieńczyk; Dorota Masłowska; Andrzej Stasiuk; Magdalena Tulli
Summary/Abstract: In the book Authenticity and its Vicissitudes in Polish Contemporary Prose. Self-reflection in the works of Marek Bieńczyk, Dorota Masłowska, Andrzej Stasiuk and Magdalena Tulli Piotr Jakub Wąsowski examines the prose of contemporary Polish writers in the context of the hypothesis of the existence of an era or culture of authenticity. No broader work on this subject has been written in Poland before. Four novels by contemporary Polish writers were analyzed (Tworki by Marek Bieńczyk, Wojna polsko-ruska pod flagą biało-czerwoną by Dorota Masłowska, Jadąc do Babadag by Andrzej Stasiuk and Dreams and Stones by Magdalena Tulli). The author set himself the goal of analysing in the works mentioned above the representation of the relationship between the individual and the public sphere and also, whether authenticity remains a vital and valid ideal or is it subjected to criticism or questioning.The author discussed the history of the concept of authenticity, placing particular emphasis on the works of John Jacques Rousseau. An element of consideration is the enumeration of the characteristics of authenticity in modern culture as well as the phenomena and mechanisms that affect it. The author combines the analysis of the manifestations of culture authenticity in particular with the concept of the sylleptic subject and post-memory. The author traces and analyzes topoi characteristic of authenticity, such as: escape from inauthenticity to the pre-modern world, the strict distinction between foreign, social and individual elements of spiritual life.The dissertation examines the form and extent of the influence of the culture of authenticity on contemporary Polish literature. The dissertation revealed that in a culture in which individuals are absorbed in their personality and its discovery, there is a growing role for, among other things, retrospection and nostalgia (1), criticism of the contradictions between action in the private and in the public sphere (2), the author's lack of distance from the work (3) and trauma (4). The author of the dissertation examines the indicated issues in the works of Andrzej Stasiuk (1), Dorota Maslowska (2), Magdalena Tulli (3) and Marek Bieńczyk (4).

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