Rzeczywistość i zmyślenie. Światy przedstawione w literaturze i kulturze XIX–XXI wieku
Reality and fiction. The presented worlds in literature and culture of the 19th-20th centuries
Author(s): Grażyna Maroszczuk
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: the presented world; fiction; “reality and fiction”
Summary/Abstract: In 2015 Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego published two related collections of essays devoted to the presented worlds in literature and culture. The first one discussed “the familiar and the remote world in Old Polish areas”, and the second one “the enlightened and Romantic worlds” (a paraphrase of the titles of both volumes). The collection which we present to the reader, by continuing the research in the reality and the fiction which is presented, covers a broad temporal spectrum from the 19th to the 21st century. It is obvious that such a wide range must be associated with the great variety of the object of research. The authors analyse works which represent various genres (a literary document, various kinds of novels, autobiographical narratives, fantasy, children’s prose, epistolography), which engage various subjects, intended for various recipients. The thing which the essays represented in this collections share is the reflection about the manner of the existence of the real world in narrative prose. All of these essays touch upon the universal problem of the relation between truth and fiction and they attempt to answer the question about the manner in which the real world is expressed in language (especially in artistic language). The book is intended for secondary school pupils, students and academic teachers.
Series: Studia literackie
- E-ISBN-13: 978-83-226-3092-1
- Print-ISBN-13: 978-83-226-3091-4
- Page Count: 206
- Publication Year: 2017
- Language: Polish
Górnośląski krajobraz industrialny w tekstach kultury od końca XVIII wieku do początków XX wieku
Górnośląski krajobraz industrialny w tekstach kultury od końca XVIII wieku do początków XX wieku
(The Upper Silesian Industrial Landscape in Texts of Culture from the End of the 18th Century to the Early 20th Century)
- Author(s):Izabela Kaczmarzyk
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
- Page Range:9-24
- No. of Pages:16
- Summary/Abstract:The article is devoted to various means of artistic conceptualisation of the transfigurations in the Upper Silesian cultural landscape that took place at the turn of the 20thcentury as a result of industrialisation. Characteristic features of literary descriptions of such a landscape are as follows: specialised vocabulary, metaphors connected to darkness, fire, billows of smoke, or staffage, which refers to traditional eschatological ideas, and emotional tone, which searches for linguistic means to “express the inexpressible.” In turn, typical features in painting are veristic technical details of buildings, and idyllic rural or night landscapes contrasted with images of manufacturing plants, which were modelled on the connotations with Pluto’s realm, visions of Final Judgement, or volcanos such as Etna or Mount Vesuvius. For the authors of literary descriptions and visual representations, an encounter with an industrial landscape constituted above all the experience of the sublime. Initially, the descriptions could be characterised by uncritical fascination with the changes, while in the second half of the 19th century, ambivalence in the evaluation of the transfigurations of the Upper Silesia began to grow.
- Price: 4.50 €
Jednostka niepełnosprawna a społeczeństwo w kontekście problemu inności w literaturze XIX i XX wieku
Jednostka niepełnosprawna a społeczeństwo w kontekście problemu inności w literaturze XIX i XX wieku
(A Disabled Person and the Society in the Context of the Issue of Otherness in the Literature of the 19th and the 20th Centuries)
- Author(s):Anna Mężyk-Mazur
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
- Page Range:25-35
- No. of Pages:11
- Summary/Abstract:The article endeavours to characterise the means of creation of the world and thefigure of a person with a disability in Polish and foreign texts from the period of YoungPoland to the contemporary times. Chosen literary works representing various tendenciesand genres from, among others, children’s literature, non‑fiction, but also fairy tales, form the ground for the author’s observations. The article reflects upon the means of hiding disabled people behind certain metaphors, as these people evoke extreme emotions, from fear to full acceptance. It focuses on the ways of representing the relations between a person and a society, oscillating around hostility and cooperation, in the context of otherness. The author also contemplates upon the notions of norm and normality, the issues connected to freedom, self‑determination, and having one’s own place in the world. Finally, remarks on the ways of domesticating otherness in literature are provided.
- Price: 4.50 €
„Czarne lądy” Wandy Melcer wobec form egzotyzacji tradycyjnej społeczności żydowskiej
„Czarne lądy” Wandy Melcer wobec form egzotyzacji tradycyjnej społeczności żydowskiej
(Wanda Melcer’s “Black Lands” and the Forms of Exoticising the Traditional Jewish Community)
- Author(s):Marzena Szugiero
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
- Page Range:37-49
- No. of Pages:13
- Summary/Abstract:Czarny Ląd. Warszawa [The Black Land. Warsaw] is a collection of reportages byWanda Melcer, institutionally and ideologically linked to Wiadomości Literackie weekly, and deeply involved in the social campaigns held under the auspices of Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński. Explicitly ideologised, these accounts of the journeys to the “black lands” – Warsaw’s district inhabited by the traditional Jewish people and nearby shtetls – aroused a number of controversies in the last years of interwar Poland. The aim of this article is to show the means of exoticising this community that are undertaken by the writer, taking into consideration the tradition and realised cultural scripts.
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Transponowanie powszedniości na niezwykłość w opowiadaniach Brunona Schulza
Transponowanie powszedniości na niezwykłość w opowiadaniach Brunona Schulza
(Transposing the Mundane to the Extraordinary in Bruno Schulz’s Stories)
- Author(s):Aleksandra Smusz
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Theory of Literature
- Page Range:51-66
- No. of Pages:16
- Summary/Abstract:The article discusses the techniques of description in Bruno Schulz’s short stories. It presents the methods of metaphorising the reality, which are expressly different from the schemes perpetuated by realism. The analyses of the excerpts from The Street of Crocodiles (Sklepy cynamonowe) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Sanatorium pod Klepsydrą) point to various rhetorical devices that result in an extraordinary character of the descriptions, combining numerous heterogeneous elements and referring to symbolic signs of culture. This text also discusses the methods of constituting boundaries in the created reality by the narrator: boundaries that separate the central part of magical Drohobych with its inhabitants from everything that resides in the peripheries of the city and is perceived as unfamiliar, unfriendly, and hostile.
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„(Od)ręczne” konstrukcje narracji w powojennej prozie nurtu wiejskiego
„(Od)ręczne” konstrukcje narracji w powojennej prozie nurtu wiejskiego
(Narrative (Hand)work in Postwar Rural Prose)
- Author(s):Iwona Wieczorek-Bartkowiak
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
- Page Range:67-80
- No. of Pages:14
- Summary/Abstract:The author of this article reflects upon the ways of creation of the world in Polishrural prose, which enforce bodily activity on the narrators and characters. What is analysed is the relation between everyday agricultural handwork – organising the plot of the pieces – and its preservation in the narration. The description includes the structures that make it possible for the writers to interlace the work of hands with the work of language when weaving the action, the events, and the story. The author also makes remarks on the axiological character of handcraft, fist fight, and the motif of a hand as inherent elements involved in the world creation that define rural prose, with a special emphasis on the works by Stanisław Czernik, Tadeusz Nowak, and Wiesław Myśliwski.
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Sposoby oswajania rzeczywistości w powieściowym cyklu fantasy Jarosława Grzędowicza
Sposoby oswajania rzeczywistości w powieściowym cyklu fantasy Jarosława Grzędowicza
(Familiarising the Reality in Jarosław Grzędowicz’s Fantasy Cycle)
- Author(s):Karolina Kowalczyk
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
- Page Range:81-90
- No. of Pages:10
- Summary/Abstract:This paper is devoted to familiarisation of the reality depicted in Jarosław Grzędowicz’s novel, entitled Pan Lodowego Ogrodu (The Lord of the Ice Garden). Particularly, it covers the means of dealing with the unknown, basing on the example of the protagonist of this cycle – Vuko Drakkainen. The first problem tackled in this paper is the way in which the aforementioned hero and narrator describes the world; precisely, it includesthe attempts to make the new and hostile reality familiar, and the consequences of such an act. The second issue is a change in the viewpoint of the protagonist throughout the saga, and its influence on his ways of defining the surrounding world. Hence, it becomes possible to track how an unaware and hostile coloniser turns into a nearly fully assimilated member of the community, which previously has been unknown to him.
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O przemianach tradycyjnej fabularności w prozie polskiej schyłku XX wieku (na przykładzie Kino‑lino Grzegorza Strumyka)
O przemianach tradycyjnej fabularności w prozie polskiej schyłku XX wieku (na przykładzie Kino‑lino Grzegorza Strumyka)
(On the Revisions of the Traditionally Understood Fictionality in the Polish Prose of the Late 20th Century (on the Example of Grzegorz Strumyk’s Kino‑Lino))
- Author(s):Anna Tryksza
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
- Page Range:91-103
- No. of Pages:13
- Summary/Abstract:The purpose of this paper is to take a closer yet temporally distant look into the issues connected with the complexity of literary communication in the Polish prose of the 90s. It covers techniques, methods, and means which aim at constructing the relations between an addresser and an addressee with regard to changing historical conditions. The paper poses as its subject matter Polish prose of the 90s, that is – works by Marek Bieńczyk, Zbigniew Kruszyński, Jerzy Pilch, Zyta Rudzka, and, especially, Grzegorz Strumyk. Moreover, it focuses on the revisions of the traditionally understood fictionality, which has always been a cornerstone of the contract with an addressee and a guarantee of readerly success. The key question raised in this paper thus becomes “What instead of a plot?,” or, in other words, “Which fictionality?” The paper therefore deals with the issues rooted in poetics and literary theory in the context of the particular literary notions concerning fiction. Furthermore, the reflections on mimesis in relation to the contemporary methods of creating a plot are presented.
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„Swojskie” i „obce” w twórczości dla dzieci Wojciecha Widłaka
„Swojskie” i „obce” w twórczości dla dzieci Wojciecha Widłaka
(The Homely and the Foreign in Wojciech Widłak’s Literature for Children)
- Author(s):Małgorzata Mieszek
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
- Page Range:105-124
- No. of Pages:20
- Summary/Abstract:The article presents the works by Wojciech Widłak – one of the most popular contemporary authors of children’s literature – in the context of the motifs of the homely andthe foreign present therein. The conducted analysis has shown that in Widłak’s pieces the motifs related to foreignness dominate in terms of both quantity and quality (as they connote more meanings). The “foreign” can function as a synonym for something unknown, dangerous, unwanted, inappropriate, distant, primordial, and instinctual. The author attempts to form the plot and action in such a way that this “foreignness,” with its negative implications, is challenged by the end of the work. As a result of such “domestication,” it becomes something known and thus homely. At times an unknown feeling or object becomes so intriguing that it encourages the characters – and readers – to explore it and to gain knowledge on the subject. The article also describes the way in which Widłak uses the so‑called defence mechanism, which makes it possible for the reader to concretise and get familiarised with the dangers, and, consequently, to domesticate them, restoring the feeling of safety. In turn, the motif of homeliness in Wojciech Widłak’s oeuvre is related to that which is desired, known, and safe. Also the literary devices utilised by the author make it easier for young readers to understand the actions of the characters and the laws in force in the depicted world, they lend colour to the narration, and they make the described reality coherent and harmonious. In such a way, the world from Wojciech Widłak’s short stories is safe and homely, while the situations in which the author places his characters activate non‑adultreaders to take various actions and gain new experiences.
- Price: 4.50 €
Genius loci ustrońskich Goji w Dzienniku Józefa Pilcha
Genius loci ustrońskich Goji w Dzienniku Józefa Pilcha
(Genius Loci of Ustroń’s Goje in Józef Pilch’s Dziennik (Diary))
- Author(s):Katarzyna Szkaradnik
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
- Page Range:125-138
- No. of Pages:14
- Summary/Abstract:In his diary kept from 1963 to his death, Józef Pilch (1913–1995) – a bibliophile and historian of the region from Ustroń – shows not only the social and artistic life of Cieszyn Silesia, and the reality of the Polish People’s Republic, but also the extraordinary image of his home in a hamlet called Goje. The article attempts to examine his writings in terms of the means of creating the “spirit” of this place, which was significant for the author as both his own private haven built not without difficulty at this picturesque site, and an anchor of the most precious values. As regards the latter, their vehicle is mainly the library, but also discussions with friends – among others from the world of culture – about Poland, books, history, and contemporariness. In this article, it is shown in what way Goje becomes in Pilch’s Dziennik not only an oasis of kindness and hospitality, but also a mythical locus amoenus, and, at the same time, the quintessence of Cieszyn Silesia and the centre of Polishness: a new Soplicowo. The author of this paper ponders upon whether it is only the idealisation that blurs the general uprooting, or the diarist remains an uncritical mythographer, but also upon the purpose of such a representation of Goje. It turns out that this Arcadia of books and nature makes it possible for the hosts and their guests to reclaim their past and to maintain the continuity despite the decline of tradition, the historical politics of the Polish People’s Republic, and the situations on the border.
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Prywatność i polityka w (auto)biografiach żon i córek mężów stanu
Prywatność i polityka w (auto)biografiach żon i córek mężów stanu
(Privacy and Politics in (Auto)biographies of the Wives and Daughters of Statesmen)
- Author(s):Małgorzata Medecka
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
- Page Range:139-149
- No. of Pages:11
- Summary/Abstract:The article is grounded upon three texts: Marzenia i tajemnice by Danuta Wałęsa, Między nami by Małgorzata Tusk, and Towarzyszka panienka by Monika Jaruzelska. It reflects upon the genre studies oriented and rhetorical character of these texts, and a sui generis referential pact – a combination of autobiographism and biographism. The author also delineates persuasive elements – that is, an aim and a type of persuasion – connected to the subject of one’s own or someone else’s biography. The final part of the paper includes the remarks on the relation between authorship / co‑authorship (written autonomously, edited by…, inspired by…) and the final form of the text.
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Osobliwe warianty realności w utworach fantastycznych Jeleny Dołgopiat i Anny Starobiniec
Osobliwe warianty realności w utworach fantastycznych Jeleny Dołgopiat i Anny Starobiniec
(Peculiar Variants of Reality in Jelena Dołgopiat’s and Anna Starobiniec’s Fantasy Works)
- Author(s):Urszula Trojanowska
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
- Page Range:139-149
- No. of Pages:11
- Summary/Abstract:The aim of this article is to compare the means of creation of fantastic worlds in the works by Jelena Dołgopiat and Anna Starobiniec. Both writers are apparently characterized by similar perceptions of the problems of a contemporary human being, which can be seen in analogical spatial‑temporal constructions of their pieces.The starting point for both Dołgopiat and Starobiniec is the reality familiar to the reader, in which, however, a certain extraordinary displacement or intrusion of foreign forces takes place. Anna Starobiniec – whose oeuvre is placed by critics on the verge of fantasy and metaphysical thriller – derives from the legacy of the 19th century fantasy, yet she adds a modern touch to it. Classifying Jelena Dołgopiat’s work causes more difficulty. The most adequate term to characterise her short stories seems to be ultra fiction; still, it does not embrace the complexity of these works.
- Price: 4.50 €
Inicjacja w dorosłość jako ponowne tworzenie świata w opowiadaniu Czyngiza Ajtmatowa Łaciaty pies biegnący brzegiem morza
Inicjacja w dorosłość jako ponowne tworzenie świata w opowiadaniu Czyngiza Ajtmatowa Łaciaty pies biegnący brzegiem morza
(Coming of Age as Creating the World Anew in Chinghiz Aitmatov’s Spotted Dog Running on Seashore)
- Author(s):Rafał Siwicki
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
- Page Range:171-184
- No. of Pages:14
- Summary/Abstract:This article analyses one of the most important short stories by the prominent Kyrgyz author, Chinghiz Aitmatov, entitled Spotted Dog Running on Seashore. The predominant issue tackled in this paper is the rite of passage of the protagonist, which covers the participation of the eleven‑year‑old boy in his first hunting at the sea, along with other huntsmen of his lineage. Adopting the definition of initiation formulated by Mircea Eliade, who has expanded Arnold van Gennep’s findings, the paper presents an internal change of the protagonist, which takes place as an outcome both of experiencing sacrum (among others, by means of witnessing death), and of knowledge gained during the dramatic events at the sea. Approaching the aforementioned issue allows one to relate Aitmatov’s short story to contemporaneity. After all, it is possible to perceive the boy’s initial attitude as the behaviour of the contemporary human being: an egoistic individual who suffers from the inability of defining his or her place in the world or the purpose of his or her life. By means of overcoming these limitations, the protagonist makes his existence mature. His mature way of being in the world might be claimed to be the sui generis universal postulate made by Aitmatov; precisely, it should be understood first and foremost as accepting the primacy of interpersonal solidarity and the value which belonging to a community – family or lineage – holds. Yet another indicator of the maturity resurfaces in the manner in which the protagonist feels his own connection with the surrounding nature, and believes in its protective power, as it is revealed at the end of the short story.
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Przeciwstawność wojny i pokoju w listach Łesi Ukrainki
Przeciwstawność wojny i pokoju w listach Łesi Ukrainki
(The Opposition of War and Peace in Lesya Ukrainka’s Letters)
- Author(s):Svitlana Bogdan
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
- Page Range:185-197
- No. of Pages:13
- Summary/Abstract:The article presents a way of using two opposing words – war and peace – in LesyaUkrainka’s letters. What is worth noting is the fact that so far there has been no linguistic research concerning this issue. It has been observed that lexemes war and peace influence the shaping of the inner world of the author of the letters. The analysed epistolary texts contain binary oppositions (including the war / peace pair), which first and foremost mirror the values held by the author, expressed in moral maxims and aphorisms.The nominative form of the word war is verbalised primarily by means of such lexemes as war, army, military, martial. What is worth noting is the personal engagement of the author in the real descriptions of the days during the war, as well as the usage of aphorisms and reflections on the subject of the war. In the letters, the stereotypical phrase go to war recurs in its figurative meaning (for instance, war as an illness). Lesya Ukrainka uses numerous words deriving from the word peace: they calmed down, she/he made peace, to reconcile, it is (not) beseeming, peacefulness, peaceful, peacefully, faithful, Myrophora. Frequently, the lexeme agree appears with the following meaning: to reach an agreement, to agree with other people’s opinion. Studying the binary pair of war – peace confirms the multidimensionality and universality of these phenomena, and the words and phrases that describe them.
- Price: 4.50 €