Pragnąć. Szkice o literaturze nowoczesnej
To Desire. Essays on Modern Literature

Author(s): Wacław Forajter
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: Bolesław Prus; Wokulski; Władysław Stanisław Reymont; Ignacy Maciejowski; Marcel Schwob; Jerzy Andrzejewski
Summary/Abstract: The articles that comprise the book focus on a description of the phenomenon ofmodernity in the context of various theories of desire, starting from the classic Freudianpsychoanalysis through to Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze’s schizoanalysis. The first section of articles entitled Szyfry pragnienia w twórczości Bolesława Prusa (Codes of Desirein Bolesław Prus’s Writings) is devoted to The Doll, and in particular, to the characters’entanglement in the sexual norms and restrictions binding in the second half of the 19thcentury. The last text about the 1890 novel concerns the as yet insufficiently discussed connections of Prus’s novel with Maxime Du Camp’s treatise Paris, ses organes, ses fonctions, sa vie, which sheds new light on the Parisian episode.The cycle Piekielny pociąg Władysława Stanisława Reymonta (Władysław StanisławReymont’s Infernal Desire) consists of two dissertations devoted to the Nobel Prize laureate’swork. The first Niebezpieczeństwa fantazji (The Dangers of Phantasies) is an attemptto interpretet The Dreamer using theoretical tools developed by Jacques Lacan. Then, thesecond text entitled Falangi infernalne (Infernal Phalanxes), is an attempt at interpretingthe selected themes in The Vampire through the lens of the Leo Taxil case resounding atthe turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.The last part Inne pragnienia (Other Desires) contains two articles. The text “Gdypopłyną miliony…” (“When Millions Begin to Flow in…”) is a comprehensive analysis ofIgnacy “Sewer” Maciejowski’s forgotten novel about a Galician petroleum boom. Its interpretation focuses on such categories as: money, affect, sexuality and work viewed fromthe context of Guattari and Deleuze’s conception. The dissertation entitled Pasje (Passions)begins with a comparison of the vision of the Middle Ages chilren’s crusade created byMarcel Schwo and Jerzy Andrzejewski, and arrives at more genralized conclusions aboutthe nature of a homosexual desire and the specificity of historical writing.

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