Series:Studia literackie

Rymkiewicz. Annotations

Rymkiewicz. Dopowiedzenia

Author(s): Dominik Chwolik / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: Rymkiewicz; Polishness; Milanówek; Jarosław Kaczyński

In the book, the author focuses on conspicuous romantic traces in the works by Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz, the traditions of which may still create an image of Polishness. Despite references to well-known writings of the poet from Milanówek — “To Jaroslaw Kaczynski”, “Blood” or the so-called Polish tetralogy, the main issue of this work concerns the shrouded in mystery history of the dead, and hence the concept of necrography (the second life of the corpse). Therefore, among the protagonists of Rymkiewicz there are Lazarus, the Primate Michał Poniatowski, Samuel Zborowski, and finally the poet himself. The book constitutes the author’s commentary, sort of annotation to the artistic output of the writer, which has been subject to continuous commentaries.

Tropes of secularization in the prose of the interwar period

Tropy sekularyzacji w prozie dwudziestolecia międzywojennego

Author(s): Ryszard Knapek / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: interwar period; prose; novel; secularization; religion; modernity

The main aim of this work is to examine the usefulness of the notion of secularization (understood both as a theory and ideology) for the reading of the Polish prose from the interwar period. Secularization is one of the fundamental categories of modernity, still an important issue in the study of literaturę, and yet, it has not been broadly applied in native literary studies so far. The context for the following discussion is the post-secular thought in its various aspects. This work consists of three chapters which constitute a whole, but can also be read as separate dissertations. Chapter one is fundamentally theoretical, with theory being immediately backed up (as a starting point and as examples) by interpretations of literary texts. Its aim is the reconstruction of the “secular theory of the novel”. Researchers such as Northrop Frye and Ian Watt demonstrate how secularization processes influenced the rise and development of the genre. In “The Rise of the Novel”, Watt puts forward a thesis that an essential determinant of the novel, a genre that originated in the 18th century, is locating justifications for the world portrayed as well as for the characters’ psychology solely in the “earthly” matters, regardless of the author’s personal convictions. An original conception is proposed by James Wood who argues that the novel transforms the modern conception of faith introducing the notion of fiction, which blasts out the religious tradition of strong faith from the inside. Chapter two is entirely devoted to a few novels classified as novels of formation (“Bildungsroman”) and set in Galicia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the plot of which is centered around school. The basis for analysis are the categories and phenomena (reading, school as an institution and studying) which allow us to follow through the changes of consciousness being the main theme of the analyzed novels. The research method in this chapter is a deepened interpretation of excerpts of the novels and the intertextual reading of literaturę through literaturę. From the analyses conducted in this way emerges a surprisingly cohesive, although diverse in details, story of the changes of adolescent consciousness against the background of the conservative community. Chapter three is a collection of various interpretations of texts, each of which is based on different categories, conceptions or languages. Together, they show a multifaceted picture of how the prose of the interwar period reflects, comments on and inspires the religious transformations of the contemporary man and society. The focus of interpretation are the four texts: Witold Gombrowicz’s “Ferdydurke”, Aleksander Wat’s “Bezrobotny Lucyfer”, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz’s “Pożegnanie jesieni” and Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz’s “Pasje błędomirskie”.

To read into the Holocaust. Post-memory practices in the Polish children’s and adolescent literature of the 21st century

W(y)czytać Zagładę. Praktyki postpamięci w polskiej literaturze XXI wieku dla dzieci i młodzieży

Author(s): Małgorzata Wójcik-Dudek / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: Holocaust; post-memory; Polish literature; children’s and adolescent literature; literature of 21st century

The book addresses the issue of the Holocaust in the most recent Polish literature for children and adolescents. In order to present the main issues concerning post-memory, the author situates the literature for the young readers in different contexts, starting from historical, through ideological to cultural. Although primarily concerned with the 21st century literature, in Jan Brzechwa’s “Akademia pana Kleksa”, published shortly after the war, the researcher sees a specific founding myth of the narration about the Holocaust. In chapter two, she argues that the author of Pan Kleks’ adventures created a monumental story of the decline of the old world and the attempts at its reconstruction. Drawing from the Kaballah, the author tries to place Brzechwa’s trilogy within the midrashic story about the loss of the Temple and efforts to restore the lost order. The next chapter is devoted to the figure of Janusz Korczak. The author analyses the publications about the pedagogue issued on the occasion of the Korczak Year. It turns out that the hero is revealed through micro-stories, in which he is in his element. These are fragments of biographic stories, Korczak’s own statements, recollections of those in his care and memories of his friends. They require extremely careful reading on the part of a biographer and a reader. The pedagogue’s profile defies classification, and he himself seems to be a tactician continuously changing methods to firstly, serve the children, and secondly, save them from the Nazis. Chapter three concerns the form of story about the Holocaust. While, in chapter two, referring to Pan Kleks’ adventures, the author points out the exhaustion of the traditional genre of fairy tale, in this part of the book she argues that the story of the Holocaust does not fit within the frames of narration so far used in children’s and adolescent literature. Therefore, it can be acknowledged that the new forms of narration about the Holocaust, including a fairy tale, a diary, and a picturebook, provide, on the one hand, a way of coping with the impossibility of describing the Holocaust, and, on the other hand, prove the powerlessness to fully describe it. The next chapters reflect on the Holocaust toposes. The researcher argues that toposes deriving from a non-adjectival literature are present in texts addressed to children and adolescents. The toposes explored particularly intensely include those of a mother, Jewish and non-Jewish child, hunger, the space of a ghetto, wall, the Aryan side, hideaway, play and book. Seeing in these pictures the borrowings from the adult literature, the author makes an attempt at their description. She arrives at the conclusion that the experiences characteristic of children boil down to affective memory, which in turn, becomes a source of recollections. Presenting the collected material, the researcher argues that the kind of practice of post-memory started in the 21st century literature for children and adolescents does not paralyse the young reader, but gives them a chance to experience an encounter with the Other.

Closeness Decoded. Fiction of Enrique Vila-Matas, Antonio Munoz Molina and Alejandro Cuevas in the Context of Polish Literature Post-1989

Odkodowana bliskość. Powieściopisarstwo Enrique Vili-Matasa, Antonia Muñoza Moliny i Alejandra Cuevasa w kontekście prozy polskiej po 1989 roku

Author(s): Katarzyna Gutkowska-Ociepa / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: comparative; Spanish contemporary literature; Enrique Vila-Matas; Alejandro Cuevas; Antonio Muñoz Molina; Polish contemporary literature

The monograph constitutes a comparative study of selected novels published after 1989 in Spain and Poland. Instead of focusing on translation or reception issues, which are generally more popular in the case of comparative literary analysis, the study consists of a structural and problem analysis of the works of five prose writers coming from two distant cultural backgrounds. The interpretative and comparative analysis is preceded by introductory remarks concerning the state of comparative studies as a discipline of modern literary and cultural studies, focusing on American, Spanish, Polish and German theories in particular. From the very first pages, the monograph reveals itself to be a site of an ongoing struggle and shifts in the scholarly focus, ranging from the work of literature itself to various contexts (gender, sociological, cultural, political, etc.) existing outside the realm of literature, as well as the return to literature understood as the center of literary comparative studies, however tautological this statement may be. In order to find her way in the multilingual tangle of statements and contradictions, the author combines several cohesive literature-centric perspectives, which allows her to create her own methodological model, which, in turn, enables her to conduct an ordered, controlled and theoretically sound comparative analysis of selected Spanish and Polish novels. The study is based on hermeneutics and intercultural literary theory proclaimed by Norbert Mecklenburg, Mieczysław Dąbrowski’s theory of comparative studies of the discourse and the discourse of comparative studies, Andrzej Hejmej’s understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of comparative studies, as well as the idea of “open comparative studies” developed by the most prominent comparative studies scholar of the 20th century, Claudio Guillén. The aforementioned concepts were created on the basis of the idea of the autotelic nature of the work of literary fiction; due to that fact, they propose a study of literature as an aesthetically autonomic form of expression which can be related to external contexts inasmuch as it contributes to a broader interpretation of the given work of literature. Another important context for the theoretical part of the monograph is genology, which points to the potential of the novel as the currently dominant genre, characterized by the greatest openness with regard to both the topics as well as structural potential. As a result, the novel-both Polish and Spanishis presented as not only a textual construct and genre framework, but also as a reflection of the postmodern hybrid culture, in which idealization remains in constant conflict with the esperpentic tendency for self-ridicule, and pompous pathos competes with everyday ordinariness, while literature, relegated to the popcultural peripheries, thanks to its constant use of metareflection, thrives and boasts one of its most creative periods since the end of the 19th century. Chapters two, three, and four constitute the interpretative and analytical part of the monograph. The research material has been ordered according to the thematic similarities between the novels, which resulted in three main axes of division: the first constitutes a literary duel with the past and tradition, the second poses a challenge to the world of art (mostly painting and photography), and the third encompasses a narrative encounter with the world of culture. The first category includes two highly intertextual novels: “Castorp” by Paweł Huelle and “París no se acaba nunca” (“Paris Has No End”) by Enrique Vila-Matas. In the case of these two authors, what is constitutive for their fiction is a particular fondness for various literary games revealing the complexity of character creation as well as multiplying the levels of autocreation, which can be seen in the overt inclusion of autobiographical or quasi-autobiographical elements into the fictional narrative. This dialogue with Nobel Prize laureates (Mann and Hemingway) in the form of a novel allows the authors to construe their creations on two levels: half-joking, half-serious. This, in turn, reflects their unique approach to the literary craft, which uses intertextuality and autothematism as a pretext for distancing oneself from taking oneself too seriously, oscillating between authenticity and mask, or even masquerade. This, in turn, allows them to add to the complexity of the fictional nature of their work and open for their readers gateways to different literary worlds created by novelists such as Fontane, Duras or Perec. Thus, both novels ultimately become a house of mirrors, in which the fictional “I” is allowed to perceive themselves from different sides and angles. Chapter three constitutes an analysis of the way famous paintings are utilized in “The Polish Rider” by Antonio Muñoz Molina and “The Last Supper” by Huelle, two novels whose construction-similarly to the previously analyzed works of literature-hinges on a dense net of intertextual references. The allusions to the traditional yet mysterious Rembrandt and provocative yet aesthetically saccharine Świeszewski are, in fact, subversive, since, even though in both cases it seems that-due to the paratextual references-the paintings become the foundation of the narrative, that assumption appears ultimately erroneous. “The Last Supper” constitutes a set of allusions to the holy books, cutting satire and ridicule of the contemporary vices of the society (mainly Polish society), as well as a manifesto of the lack of faith in contemporary art, divorced from any aesthetic aspirations and concerned primarily with the pragmatic and media aspect. Antonio Muñoz Molina, in turn, references “The Polish Rider” by Rembrandt, even though the world he creates in his novel differs significantly from that described by Huelle: it is much quieter, much more private and intimate, ruled by the digressive nature of memories. Rembrandt’s painting, then, appears to be a leitmotiv of sorts, which connects the story of the protagonist’s family with the subsequent stages of Manuel’s life in New York and Madrid, as well as brings together particular stages of Spanish history and culture, starting with the turn of the 20th century, through the 1960s, and ending with the last decade of the 20th century. Both “The Last Supper” and “The Polish Rider” constitute an expression of longing for a place of grounding in history, a verbal picture of the universal need to reconstruct the feeble link with the elusive here and now, which continues to be uncertain, changeable, and treacherous. Chapter four touches upon the comparison of two novels by younger writers: Ignacy Karpowicz (born in 1976 in Białystok) and Alejandro Cuevas (or: Alberto Escudero Fernández, born in 1973 in Valladolid). “Gestures” by Karpowicz and “Quemar las naves” (“Point of No Return”) by Cuevas constitute two surgically precise accounts of the downfall of the two protagonists: Grzegorz and Eurymedont. Cuevas and Karpowicz play with conventions and the expectations of their readers at every level of the narrative structure; due to that, the meaning of the text escapes clear-cut assessments and generalizations, exemplifying at the same time the complex nature of the relationship between a work of art and contemporary culture. On the one hand, it strives towards tradition and history (various biblical and mythological references), but on the other hand, it remains also deeply rooted in popular culture. The Polish and Spanish experience-even though alluded to from time to time in an ironic manner-is substituted in a very natural way with the universal experience, thanks to which both novels become parabolic accounts of a lost existential finish. Chapter five (“The Game of Reflections. Poland and Spain as Two Links of the Same Cultural Chain. Conclusions and Final Remarks”) serves to ground the earlier comparative analysis in the context of transculturalism-a term proposed by Wolfgang Welsch and signifying a fluid concept of contemporary cultural divisions. The heterogeneity of the European identity, the ability to adapt to outside influences, the openness and aversion to strictly imposed boundaries-as Bauman points out-further strengthen the common denominator between the compared Polish and Spanish novels. This comparison facilitates also a distinction between the approach to narrative strategies between the older and younger generations of writers: the older novelists (Vila-Matas, Munoz Molina and Huelle) often utilize the “grammar of memory” and construct a historicist cocoon around the protagonists of their novels, while the younger writers (Cuevas and Karpowicz) focus on the “I,” while treating history, politics and metaculturalism only as a background and context. The Geertzian idea of discovering cultural diversity while taking into account the contemporary progress of the world of culture calls for an observation that Spain and Poland, despite their differences-with regard to the literary and artistic aspect-function in a very similar way in the transcultural chain of the 21st century.

TechGnosis, Uchronia, Science Fiction. The Prose of Jacek Dukaj

TechGnoza, uchronia, science fiction. Proza Jacka Dukaja

Author(s): Piotr Gorliński-Kucik / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: science fiction; gnosis; transhumanism; utopia; Polish prose

The subject matter of the present monograph, entitled “TechGnosis, Uchronia, Science Fiction. The Prose of Jacek Dukaj” is the analysis and interpretation of the prose works of the author of "Ice", conducted with the adoption of selected categories, such as techgnosis, conservatism, futurology, and uchronia. The first part of the book primarily concerns the relation between the writings of Jacek Dukaj and the writings of Stanisław Lem. Piotr Gorliński-Kucik describes the creative path of the author of “Lód” [“Ice”], and next considers the possibility of applying the Harold Bloom’s “anxiety of influence” theory to the relation between these two prose-writers. In the next chapter, “Project ‘Autoevolution’,” the author attempts to situate the prose by Dukaj against posthumanism (the reflection upon the possibility of non-human subjectivity), and the evolution of man and technology, as well as to juxtapose the content of the novel by this author with the repertoire of H+ concepts specified in essays by Lem. The following chapter, “Dialogues” is devoted to polemical references to the writings of the author of “Solaris”, made by Dukaj in his short stories “Irrehaare”, “In Partibus Infidelium”, and “The Eye of the Monster”. In “The Economy of a Small Form”, the author discusses quasi-reviews (here referred to as “virtual literature”), and then continues with the description of the essays on books not yet written, which have been done by the author of Ice; one of these texts, “Who Wrote Stanisław Lem?”, has become a parody-tribute and a kind of mini-monograph on the works of the author of “Solaris”. The second part of the present work primarily concerns the key categories: techgnosis and uchronia. In the chapter “The Scorched Earth Policy”, the author suggests a typology of fictional universes constructed by Dukaj and describes the narrative model of his novels. The most extensive chapter of the work, “The Economy of Salvation. Ethics and Aesthetics of Gnosis,” has been devoted to the conservative society as portrayed in the novel by the author of “Lód” [“Ice”], and to gnostic soteriology – here, salvation is bestowed only upon narrow elite (this being the “economy of salvation”). Dukaj describes highly advanced technology by means of language that usually serves to designate the characteristics of human spirituality, which has been examined here in the context of postsecularism. Two other strategies of describing technoscience in the context of secularization have also been given some thought (in the short story by Lem and the novel by Jules Verne). In the chapter “Transhumanist Uchronia”, the category of uchronia has been further specified as “time that is not (yet).” The next subject matter that has been taken into consideration is the unstable subjectivity of the posthuman, that is, the man of virtual (post-postmodern) era, specifically with the reference to the categories of sexuality (in the discourse of post-genderism and cyber-feminism). Dukaj has then been situated in the generation of “the followers of Gombrowicz” (as opposed to the generation of “the followers of Schulz”), and therefore looked upon as operationalising the artistic language of the author of “Ferdydurke”. Also, a complex game based on a parody-tribute and pastiche (a quotation of style) played by Dukaj with the texts of Gombrowicz and Aristotle has been characterised. The chapter concludes with an attempt at interpreting “Inne pieśni” [“Other Songs”]. Two chapters have been devoted to one of the most important novels by Jacek Dukaj: “Lód” [“Ice”]. In the first one, the author has taken into account the construction of alternative history, also in the context of a historical novel. The other chapter deals with postmodern intertextuality and the problem of memory and narration, and, in addition, offers an attempt at interpreting the novel. The final chapter of the present monograph concerns the latest novel written by Dukaj, entitled “The Old Axolotl”. Its reading confirms the path of interpretation outlined in the readings of earlier works, at the same time allowing to take a look at the poetics of an e-book novel. The present monograph, “TechGnosis, Uchronia, Science Fiction. The Prose of Jacek Dukaj”, is aimed at acknowledging the intellectual and artistic value of the prose by Jacek Dukaj, and at integrating the reflection upon its nature into the domain of academic discourse.

„When women’s tears are powerful enough…”. The picture of a woman in Ina Seidel‘s prose writings

„Da die Tränen der Frauen stark genug sein werden…“. Zum Bild der Frau im Erzählwerk Ina Seidels

Author(s): Nina Nowara-Matusik / Language(s): German

Keywords: Ina Seidel; picture; woman; motherhood; Weimar Republic; prose; Bachofen; Simmel; feminism; German literature; Helene Lange; Gertrud Bäumer

The literary works of Ina Seidel, the author of one of the best-selling books in the history of German literature, the novel “Das Wunschkind”, are slowly sinking into oblivion. Called „Ernst Jünger in a skirt”, the writer did not hide her sympathies for the fascist ideology, which also echoes in her works. Not surprisingly, in previous literary studies, her writings were perceived, as a rule, through the prism of criticism of ideology and situated in the context of the literature of the Nazi Germany. // However, the starting point for our dissertation is different. Shifting the research paradigm, in the theoretical part the author sums up the gender theories existing at the time of the Weimar Republic, which was also the period when most Ina Seidel’s texts were written, texts to which the main body of this dissertaion is devoted. These theories constitute a conceptual foil for the analyses conducted in its further part. The concepts discussed are founded on the model of differentiality. The author alludes to the matriarchy theory by the Swiss anthropologist Johann Jakob Bachofen, the notions of feminity and masculinity by the German sociologist Georg Simmel and views on a woman’s role in society from leading representatives of a moderate wing of the feminist movement in Germany – Helena Lange and Gertrude Bäumer. // The analytical part of the dissertation carries an argument focused on the women characters created by Seidel. They are protagonists of both the foreground and the background, representing various types of womanhood: mothers, wives, single women, femme fatales, artists, women professionals and scholars. By way of these, Ina Seidel explores some of her central topics related to being a woman: maternity, childlessness, moral mission of a woman and her role in society. The close reading of her novels leads to the conclusion that the writer applies a specific aesthetic of a „squinting look”. The German literary critic Sigrid Weigel uses this metaphor in reference to the writings of women who, accepting the traditional patriarchal models of gender and moving within the frame of these, simultaneously search for the ways to articulate their own, specifically feminine experiences. On the one hand, Ina Seidel’s narration follows the conservative model of thinking about a woman, typical of her times, in which the superior category is motherhood. On the other hand, however, it indicates that, paradoxically, it is motherhood that can become a woman’s weapon and a starting point for her emancipation.

Familiarity and loss. Depictions of Upper Silesia in Polish and Czech literature after 1989

Swojskość i utrata. Obrazy Górnego Śląska w literaturze polskiej i czeskiej po 1989 roku

Author(s): Karolina Pospiszil - Hofmańska / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: Górny Śląsk; localism; literature; spatial turn; geopoetics; geocriticism

The aim of the book is to represent and to analyze the most important elements of literary depictions of Upper Silesia in the latest Polish and Czech literature. The author applies the methodology connected with special turn and tries to represent the fullest analysis of the representations of the region in question. She analyses a several dozens of literary texts and texts of culture (in broad understanding of this term) trying to answer, among others, the following questions: how Upper Silesia is represented in literature, why was it so late that somebody got interested in the region and whether there is any Silesian model of writing.The book consists of three parts. The first of them is devoted to spatial turn and the possibilities that it opens for literary studies. The most important trends in contemporary thinking about space are depicted, including those which had anticipated the special turn. The author concentrates mostly on those methodologies that she calls “geo-tools”, that is: geopoetics (in its specifically Polish understanding), literary geography and a few of its variants and on geocriticism. An important trend in this part of reflection upon space and its connections with culture is new regionalism. The author, while discussing this important for literature concerning Silesia phenomenon, attempts to represent the most important definitions of region and regionalism as well as to point toward a few research possibilities opened by new regionalism. The second part of the dissertation concentrates on “imagined space-time continua” of Silesia. The author depicts the borders of Silesia and its parts on the basis of several historical and geographic publications, proceeding toward the 20th-century imaginations of Silesia depicted not only on the basis of literary texts. The third part is devoted mostly to literary texts in Polish and Czech and the representations of Upper Silesia which are given in this literature. According to the author, the literary images of Upper Silesia are fragmentary and incomplete and most of them concentrates on a few central categories: home/familiarity (borderland, multiculturality, multilingualism, roots, the feeling of being at home), death/loss (language, memory, relatives, identity, “the old Silesia”, greenness (greenness in the city, parks, forests, agriculture) and blackness (industry, cities, pollution, poisoning, mourning).

Catastrophism in Polish poetry in the years 1930–1939. Literary sketches

Katastrofizm w poezji polskiej w latach 1930–1939. Szkice literackie

Author(s): Teresa Wilkoń / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: katastrofizm w poezji; Dwudziestolecie międzywojenne; grupy poetyckie Dwudziestolecia; Żagary; grupa „Wołyń”; „Kwadryga”; „Trzeci wyraz”; pokolenie 1910

Poetic catastrophism constitutes only a part of its all literary genres. Apart from it, numerous works emerged in Poland in the first half of the twentieth century that distinguished among prosaic catastrophism (e.g. in the short stories by Bruno Schulz and Jerzy Andrzejewski), dramatic catastrophism (e.g. in Szewcy [The Shoemakers], by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz), catastrophism in essay writing (also in Witkiewicz). Each of these genres of Polish literature was characterized by specific features, standards, and genesis. The poetic catastrophism, which is elaborated on in the present book, had many individual, unique features, and at the same time as many artistic initiations. It identified motifs, plots, and toposes, keeping away from fabular and action narratives. It definitely rejected the schemes of popular prose, surpassing it in terms of its artistic and semantic creativity. It can be argued that the poetic catastrophism played a similar role as catastrophism in art, namely, it was heading towards high style. Gradually, it was becoming not only a literary or artistic theme, but also an artistic movement supported by philosophy, historiosophy, ethics, as well as the theory of culture and civilization. It was also popularized by an enthusiastic response it received from publicists and journalists, from both the press and the radio. Catastrophic motifs developed, in a way, together with film, ambitious painting, and graphics. Suffice it to mention Guernica, the dramatic painting by Pablo Picasso.For a long time, historical literary studies on catastrophism had treated it merely as a theme, motif and plot, not as a philosophical and artistic phenomenon. This was the case up to the year 1930, when catastrophism spread as a movement, and up to the time when this phenomenon gained recognition not only among Vilnian poets, but also among other literary groups and independent artist communities. The periods preceding the catastrophism of the thirties included themes that contributed to the romantic pessimism, or, later, to the Decadent movement and the pessimism of Młoda Polska (“Young Poland”) formation. In the thirties, a broad and strong catastrophic movement started to develop, which heavily influenced Polish culture and philosophy. Therefore, for the author of the present study, it seemed particularly interesting to discuss at least some phenomena and motives for the development of catastrophism in Poland, which at that time was one of the most endangered countries, not only in Europe.Catastrophic, and catastrophizing, poets were acutely aware of this state of affairs. It became apparent in the works of the poets of the 1910 generation. In the first part of the literary sketches offered here, the author has focused on the phenomenon of catastrophism in poetry, and also discussed the problem of literary generation and the classification into literary groups, taking into account individual poets, not affiliated with any particular poetic formations. Also, she has made an attempt at standardizing terminology with referenceto all literary groups of the 1910 generation, and specifically to the so-called Vilnian catastrophism (the Żagary group). Another issue that has become important for the author is the problem of dispersed motifs and toposes, as well as catastrophic symbols, such as military and revolutionary catastrophes, prophetic catastrophes, catastrophes in the sphere of values, or religious catastrophes. Moreover, in this part of the book, the author has discussed the works of the poets of the “Wołyń” group (Wacław Iwaniuk, Zygmunt Jan Rumel, Zuzanna Ginczanka, Jan Śpiewak). The second part of the present sketches involves analyses and interpretations of poems written by eminent poets whose works clearly fit into the movement of catastrophic poetry, despite their belonging to different categories and poetic formations: Władysław Sebyła, Józef Czechowicz, Mieczysław Jastrun, Jerzy Zagórski, and Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński. Special emphasis has been placed upon catastrophic and philosophical motifs in the poetry of Czesław Miłosz.The works of the poets of the 1930s featured in the present work demonstrated the variation of experiences, reflections, attitudes towards the world and people, acute states of consciousness and perception. All these factors had tremendous impact on the substance and structure of poetry, and hence on the type of utterance for which visions and mobility of thinking and subconscious associations belong to the most important features of poetry.

Toward the unobvious. Miscellaneous texts

W stronę nieoczywistości. Teksty różne

Author(s): Filip Mazurkiewicz / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: Teodor Parnicki; Stefan Szymutko; Ryszard Nycz; Poetics of experience; masculinity; pornography

The volume comprises indeed twelve miscellaneous texts representing various research idioms ranging from hermeneutics through intertextuality all the way to deconstruction and poststructural reading, as well as various themes which include: two texts each, devoted to the works of Teodor Parnicki and Witold Gombrowicz, pop culture-related problems (plastic survery and pornography), cultural and political issues (the problem of Polish socialism), the dialogues of the author with his masters within the framework of literary studies (Ryszard Legutko and Stefan Szymutko), and finally the questions of19-century Polish masculinity and the considerations about the condition of the contemporary university in Poland. According to the author, the most important texts are the ones which refer to Parnicki, who is presented as a writer of existence, as a writer of reality – a reality which is always too complex and unbearable ultra vires. Another important group of texts are the ones which discuss Gombrowicz. The interpretations of one of Gombrowicz’s stories that is presented here (Zdarzenia na brygu Banbury) and the final dramatic work of the writer (Operetka) are original: Gombrowicz is placed in the space of a debate between the work andthe text, where Gombrowicz becomes the supporter of the text, thus preventing the reader from making an interpretative move, as well as a reading of Operetka as a dramatic work about some new masculinity (known as atopical masculinity) which is possible in a somehow different way, presented on the basis of references to A la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust. These two aspects heretofore were never researched. The texts which this publication contains present such modes of reading which emphasise the unobvious and the complexity of the phenomena that are described. There are also texts in which the author attempts to take a quasi oblique look into the existing state of research and the state of reflection concerning the questions which are engaged here.

Cyprian Norwid. A Poet of the Nineteenth Century

Cyprian Norwid. Poeta wieku dziewiętnastego

Author(s): Jacek Lyszczyna / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: Norwid; romanticism; poetry; Paris

The book Cyprian Norwid. A Poet of the Nineteenth Century is first and foremost devoted to Norwid’s poetic oeuvre. For the author of the monograph, a major point of contention remains treating Norwid mainly as a brilliant philosopher and theologian, which has lately become quite customary. The monograph addresses the issue of Norwid’s belonging to a particular literary period: until not so long ago, it seemed obvious to everyone that he was a Romantic, and this view has only recently been challenged. Hence the title of the book – indicating the complexity of the Norwid phenomenon, the poet whose output cannot be contained within a single artistic movement and who, therefore, needs to be studied through a prism of the “nineteenth-century-ness” concept that has been advanced in the recent years.

A dictionary of Silesian writers, vol. 5

Słownik pisarzy śląskich. T. 5

Author(s): / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: dictionary; Silesian literature; multiculturalism

The present volume of A dictionary of Silesian writers, similarly as the previous ones, contains biographical notes and discussions of the works of persons who, from the earliest times up to the present, co-created the history of Silesian literature, writing in Polish, German, Czech or Latin. In principle, the biographical notes present only deceased authors, including those whose relations with Silesia were only temporal, nevertheless still explicit and significant as far as their literary output is concerned.The work aims at demonstrating the multiculturalism and multilingualism of Silesian authors, presenting and systematizing current state of knowledge, as well as at being an indication and encouragement to further studies that would facilitate the development of methodologically up-to-date synthesis of Silesian literature.A dictionary of Silesian writers is a kind of factual and bibliographical guide for academics of various specializations, it can serve as a teaching aid for secondary school learners, facilitating the implementation of objectives connected with regional education. It is also addressed at all enthusiasts of Silesian culture.

The Other / Alien. Transnational and transgressive motives in the work of Peter Weir

Inny/Obcy. Transnarodowe i transgresyjne motywy w twórczości Petera Weira

Author(s): Magdalena Kempna-Pieniążek,Przemysław Pieniążek / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: the other; alien; Peter Weir

The book traces a change in the perception of the work of Peter Weir that has been under way in recent years, marked by a shift from interpretations focusing on spiritual themes to approaches emphasising the situation of the author immersed in the context of “Global Hollywood.” It also presents the most important aspects of wanderings undertaken by Weir’s protagonists, who search for a deeper dimension of existence that could help them define their identity and alliances in the world where “everything begins and ends at exactly the right time and place.” It expresses the conviction that the origins of both motives – transgressive and transnational – may be found in the dichotomy of the Other / Alien, conspicuously present in Weir’s films. For this reason, while focusing on the figure of the outsider, the book draws attention to the nature of transgressions that are taking place in Weir’s works. On the one hand, there is confrontation with whatever is mysterious. Exploration of different states of consciousness leads through the world of dreams and myths – a path that Weir’s protagonists travel to face their own weaknesses and limitations imposed by the oppressive system of culture. On the other hand, Weir’s films never stop mediating between the points of view of national and trans-national identity, between the genre cinema and the artistic cinema, and between creativity and convention, thereby consolidating the unique position of the film director as an Alien, both in Hollywood and in Australian cinema. The dynamics of these tensions have determined the character and the form of this book. Peter Weir’s works are not discussed here in a strictly chronological order, a more important criterion being the evolution of selected story threads and their related contexts which define the unique element in his work. Chapter One is concerned with the two most famous Australian films by Weir: Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and The Last Wave (1977), which established the range of themes he often returned to in later works. Next chapter offers interpretations of Gallipoli (1981) and The Year of Living Dangerously (1982). If the former is perceived as a realisation of the idea of Australian national cinema, the latter marks Weir’s accession to mainstream world cinema. Chapter Three is devoted to his Hollywood films. The analysis of Witness (1985), The Mosquito Coast (1986), and Fearless (1994) draws attention to the point of view of an Alien who observes America and American culture from a certain distance. This theme is then continued in Chapter Four, which focuses on the figure of the outsider – a character typical of Weir’s films, who can be seen in statu nascendi in Dead Poets Society (1989) and The Truman Show (1989). Finally, Chapter Five brings together analyses of Green Card (1990), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), and The Way Back (2010), in which the transnational motives receive more prominence than in other films by Weir.The interpretations offered in this volume provide an argument for the claim that the work of Peter Weir is a fruit of the genre cinema and the artistic cinema coming together, as well as of the interaction between Australian cinema and Hollywood (and, in the background, European cinema). In the light of most recent research, it appears as a transnational phenomenon, a result of a combination of themes borrowed from various systems, not only cinematographic but also cultural.

Downwards. On the Contemporary Poetry of Silesia and the Dąbrowa Basin

W głąb. Szkice o współczesnej poezji Śląska i Zagłębia

Author(s): Magdalena Piotrowska-Grot / Language(s): Polish

The following publication constitutes the aftermath of a research project concerned with contemporary poetry of Silesia and the Dąbrowa Basin. The author does not, however, focus on a synthetic approach, attempting to assign particular poets to distinct schools and poetic groups, since that groundwork has already been laid by previous research on the topic, resulting in interesting and exhaustive – at least for the moment – conclusions. The following monograph constitutes rather an analytical and interpretative study which concentrates upon the deep semantic strata of the discussed works, showcasing important changes which the poetry of the region is undergoing, as well as its diverse, eclectic and dynamic character. The essays concern selected poems by writers coming from the territory of Silesia and the Dąbrowa Basin. The analysis and interpretation oscillate primarily around the different ways in which space is imagined and created in the worlds created by the selected authors – Maciej Melecki, Krzysztof Siwczyk, Grzegorz Olszański, Marta Podgórnik, Marek Baczewski, Paweł Lekszycki, Paweł Sarna, Paweł Barański. Nonetheless, it should be emphasised that it is a distinctively and broadly understood space, which encompasses both real places as well as non-places (Marc Aúge), both utopian and heterotopic visions whose examples can be found in the selected poems. While speaking of nonplaces, it is important to remember about the eschatological dimension, which appears commonly in the discussed poetry, while remaining anti-metaphysical in character as the poets of the region showcase in their poetry the progressing implosion of myths and images of archetypal places. In this way, the readers of their poetry can seamlessly transition from the imagery of space to existential issues (approached from the anthropological/anthropocentric, but also post-humanist perspective).The imagination of the discussed poets, while functioning in distinctly varying ways, seems to remain informed by the postindustrial space of their quotidian experience and allows us to easily grasp the points of convergence, which constitute the poetic imagination of the selected poets. It should be, however, noted that the space, which constitutes the departure point for the subsequent analyses, functions in the poetic world not only as the backdrop but also as theco-participant of everything that transpires. The world around the people who appear in the poems is molded by their influence, but in turn, the people are also molded by their environment. This coexistence of man and space in the analysed poems, in turn, allows for interesting and surprising readings. Speaking of the peculiarity of space functioning in the poems, it is necessary to note that the subject of the particular analyses includes also the space of the text itself – its form, genological references, the particular texture of places (a term coined by Elżbieta Rybicka) created by a given text of culture, which significantly influences literary works. The following monograph contains research findings which, even though they lie within the scope of the author’s PhD dissertation, constitute an attempt at bridging the gap between the previous research project, expanding upon its findings, and at the same time aim to lay the groundwork for a new academic study.

In the circle of Dark Romanticism — inspirations, motives, interpretations

W kręgu czarnego romantyzmu. Inspiracje, motywy, interpretacje

Author(s): / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: literature; Dark Romanticism; Jung analysis

The collective volume „In the circle of Dark Romanticism. Inspirations, motives, interpretations” is a reflection on the literature of Dark Romanticism and ways of how this movement manifests in works from later periods. Therefore, the research material of the authors of the articles is diverse, and hence, the publication is of a cross-sectional character and allows observing the discussed topic across a wider spectrum. What is a merit of the book is undoubtedly the fact that there have been presented methods of analysis that were not previously employed for discussing the works of Dark Romanticism (e.g., Jung analysis in the context of „Czarne oczy” — „Black Eyes” by Ludwik Sztyrmer) and interpretations of writings that were not previously associated with Dark Romanticism (e.g. the works by Bruno Schulz or Witold Gombrowicz).

Refurnishing (in) the eternity. Visions of the underworld in contemporary Polish poetry

Przemeblowanie (w) wieczności. Wizje zaświatów w polskiej poezji współczesnej

Author(s): Magdalena Piotrowska-Grot / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: twenty- and twenty-first-century literature; Polish poetry; postsecularism; afterlife; postmodernity.

The monograph Refurnishing (in) the eternity. Visions of the underworld in contemporary Polish poetry is dedicated to the analysis and interpretation of significant poetic creation of the Other World which can be found in poetry written after 1945. However, it should be noted that the selected material represents secularised vision of the afterlife, and from the analysis were excluded poems which, after Stefan Sawicki and Maria Jasińska-Wojtkowska, can be classified as religious. In the selected materials new, extemporary beliefs and eschatological hope are formed inside the textual world, just to fight this overwhelming nothingness which attacks postmodern society. These works are a kind of projection of social thoughts, but the reader has to deal with them in individual attempts to find God, or, more generally, contact the Higher Power, or simply an attempt to soothe the fear of death which ends all — the existence deprived of opportunities for further duration. /fragment of the introduction/

„Żywoty świętych ten Apollo pieje”. Studies on mythological tradition in Old Polish literature

„Żywoty świętych ten Apollo pieje”. Studia nad tradycją mitologiczną w literaturze staropolskiej

Author(s): Marzena Walińska / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: mythology; Old Polish literature; ancient literature; preaching;ancient traditions;

The present book is a collection of selected aspects of the reception and functioning of mythological tradition in the literature of Renaissance and Baroque. In the first part, there are texts that specify the attitude towards mythology adopted by two most important Polish writers of the Renaissance period: Mikołaj Rej and Jan Kochanowski. The analysis of the nature of the mythological references presented in the article entitled Rej i mitologia [Rej and mythology] confirms the hypotheses formulated in the latest research into Rej’s writings on its medieval roots. It is evidenced by the following: the derogatory assessment of mythological tradition; the interpretation and adaptation of antique motifs in a spirit of allegoresis, euhemerism, and astrology; the sources of mythological knowledge and the place of mythologisms in the structure of a literary work. Rej did not consider mythology as an indispensable constituent of poetic language, which is demonstrated in the works that are completely devoid of it. The article entitled ”Owa prosto będziecie ze mnie mieć Chirona”. Kod mitologiczny „Fraszek” Jana Kochanowskiego [ ”Owa prosto będziecie ze mnie mieć Chirona”. The mythological code of ‘Epigrams’ by Jan Kochanowski”] advances a thesis that Kochanowski took advantage of mythological tradition intentionally and deliberately. Even in the translations of antique literature, mythologisms were not taken over automatically, but rather were subjected to the process of adaptation and selection. The juxtaposition of Epigrams with foricoena confirms the assumption that the manner of employing mythological tradition is a part of poetic strategy of Kochanowski. Moreover, it seems that, to some extent, the conclusions reached on the basis of the analysis of mythologisms in Epigrams may be related to the whole Polish-language writings of the poet. The second part is devoted to the studies on baroque religious literature represented by three separate research fields. The study Apollo u żłóbka i stajenka, która przewyższa Olimp. Antyk w staropolskich pastorałkach dramatycznych [Apollo at the manger and the stable which overtowers Olympus. Antique in Old Polish pastoral dramas] makes use of works commemorating Christmas, mostly anonymous and connected with Jesuitical drama and education. Despite the fact that mythologisms here are infrequent, their significance is not quite marginal, as they co-create the vision of the world in which everything, including the historically and ideologically alien antique tradition, is subjected to didactic aims furthered by church authorities. Pastoral dramas consistently refer to Eclogue 4, the so-called Virgil’s messianic, regarded as prophetic in Middle Ages, and here combined with biblical tradition. The next text concerns the paraphrase of the antique work written by Kasper Miaskowski („Polio polski” Kaspra Miaskowskiego: Wergiliusz odmieniony „wedle potrzeby” [“Polio polski” by Kasper Miaskowski: Virgil transformed as required]). The modifications introduced by the poet lead to a modernization and particularization of the text and its explicit contextualization in Christian reality. The article Mitologia w perswazji kaznodziejskiej [Mythology in preacher’s persuasion] focuses its attention on the field of literature that is in principle devoid of any references to antique tradition. The reading of the compilation of Sunday sermons, by, among others, Franciszek Rychłowski, Antoni Węgrzynowicz, Berard Gutowski, and Bazyli Rychlewicz, allows to identify the aspects of the functioning of mythologisms that are different than those in poetry, as well as an ambivalent attitude towards them. The third part contains texts that undertake the issue of mythology as an element shaping poetic language and love discourse. The article Słodki i okrutny. Wizerunek Kupidyna w poezji staropolskiej [Sweet and cruel. The image of Cupid in Old Polish poetry] provides a characteristics of this extremely significant mythological figure that encompasses its antique origin and poetic images in the poetry of Polish Renaissance and Baroque. An important role of Cupid is the shaping of love discourse, especially in intricate poetry of the 17th century. A separate attention is drawn by the theme initiated by Andreas Alciatus, which demonstrates a tragicomic history of accidental exchange of weapons belonging to the gods of love and death, developed by, among others, Mikołaj Rej and Wacław Potocki. The article Topika mitologiczna w poezji dawnej [Mythological topoi in old poetry] attempts to situate antique mythology within Old Polish topoi and specify its role in poetic realizations of loci communes. The revision of the state of research is done with a view to take the attitude towards various suggestions concerning the understanding of the notion of topos, and employing it in the analysis of mythologisms in old poetry, with a special emphasis placed on the topoi of Apollo. The analytical part of the work is devoted to the observation of various kinds of topoi in baroque poetry, their variability and the way they are used in poetic texts. The terms used in the article Szyfr, kod i konwencja. Staropolskie sposoby „mówienia mitologią” [Cipher, code and convention. Old-Polish ways of “talking mythology”] refer to the ways of exploiting antique mythology in Old Polish works, from concealing specific information under the layer of literal meaning, through the enhancement of a text with cultural references, to conventional usages, when a mythologism plays mainly an ornamental function. Mythological plots and characters appear in Old Polish works most frequently together with allegorical background. Some of these allegories are universal in nature (being the consequence of the search for universal truth in myths),while others, which are the manifestation of adapting antique topics to the Christian worldview, have become outdated, but they still perform an important role in understanding texts of culture.

Jewish (un)masculinities. On pre‑war writings of Adolf Rudnicki

Żydowskie (nie)męskości. O przedwojennej twórczości Adolfa Rudnickiego

Author(s): Gaweł Janik / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: Adolf Rudnicki; inter-war literary output; Jews;masculinity;

The monograph is meant as a kind of a complete guide to pre‑war writings of Adolf Rudnicki. The author has taken into consideration all literary works written by Rudnicki that were published at that time, including both books and short stories published in the press, as well as fragments of a drama which has never been published in full. The present work begins with a chapter entitled “From the history of reception”, in which the author reconstructs pre‑war literary criticism of the works written by Rudnicki that were published at that time. On the basis of almost forty reviews, a broad picture has been created that shows how the writing of Rudnicki was interpreted and evaluated in the period under consideration. The aim of the author has been to confront the opinions of the researchers who claim that Rudnicki became critics’ favourite from the very moment of his literary debut, with source texts, and thus with original critical reviews published in pre‑war press. The analysis of the reception has allowed to throw doubt on the frequently repeated thesis whereby Rudnicki enjoyed a remarkable favour of reviewers. Chapter two discusses the idea of “Jewishness” of the pre‑war works of the writer. It demonstrates a long way that the author came, starting with his early texts, in which the Jewish themes are not taken up at all, or they are not explicit on the surface of the texts, up to a symbolic return to the reality of shtetl in the novel Lato [Summer]. Also, the aim of the author has been to look upon transformations in the writer’s worldview. Initially, his attitude was clearly assimilative. Before the outbreak of the Second World War, in turn, he took the side of the critics of assimilation. It has also become necessary to reconstruct the writer’s biography with a special emphasis on the orthodox family in which he was raised. Drawing on the category offered for reflection upon the Polish‑Jewish relations in 1980s by Artur Sandauer, the author of the present study has attempted to present Rudnicki as a writer‑allosemite. The third chapter is the author’s attempt to read Rudnicki’s pre‑war prose from the perspective of research on masculinity. The specificity of Rudnicki’s works, i.e. the world of men presented in them, from which women were almost completely excluded, has not been noticed for many years, and consequently has not been properly described. What is more, masculinity in Rudnicki’s texts often turns out to be exceptionally non‑masculine, effeminate, as well as homosexual. Thus, the present work becomes an attempt to read, in German Ritz’s words, the “secret signs” present in the writer’s inter‑war literary output, which makes it possible to read it as also homosexual, and thus to include Rudnicki among such writers such as Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz or Witold Gombrowicz.

Community and Literature. Studies on Gustaw Morcinek’s Prose

Wspólnota i literatura. Studia o prozie Gustawa Morcinka

Author(s): Marek Mikołajec / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: community; literature; ideologies; nationalism; regionalism;obsessions

The main aim of this book is to analyse and interpret relations between community and literature in Morcinek’s works, for example, the ideology of implication, symbolic representations and delimitation of creative freedom. The second goal is to distinguish fantasies, traumas and obsession presented in Morcinek’s novels. Last but not least, Mikołajec describes the comparatistic project of the new community, which is based on regional universalism. The studies feature thematic arrangement. To reconsider the work of Gustaw Morcinek, the researcher engages methodologies, concepts and ideas proposed by Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, Louis Althusser, Pierre Bourdieu, Eric Hobsbawm, Jacques Lacan, Peter Sloterdijk, Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin and Carlos Paris. Thus, Mikołajec confronts Morcinek’s works with ideas that are beyond the literary criticism created by the native context of interpretation of this naïve, folk and mining-district writer. In addition to the analysis, interpretations and comments on Morcinek’s prose, Mikołajec reaches for other artists, who help us to see the discussed issues and topics in a broader context. Community and Literature. Studies in the prose of Morcinek by Marek Mikołajec corresponds with the current research trend, whose main goal is to re-read canonical writers, who are generally recognized as well-known but in fact remain undiscovered.

Modern and up-to-date. Constellations of the imagination

Nowocześni i nowoczesne. Konstelacje wyobraźni

Author(s): Paweł Majerski / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: modernity; avant-garde; imagination; Tadeusz Peiper; Tadeusz Gajcy; Tymoteusz Karpowicz

The author of the book is interested in state of „insatiability” – in the escape from creative stability, the jail of scheme, in the desire of being constantly „before”, never in the rank annihilating the individuality. In higher dimension such state means the search for the aesthetic and the ethical solution in sparring with the material world of our contemporaneity, laying paths in the hidden passageways of the imagination and creation of own, ready to ovecrome, forms of expression. Selected writers (Tytus Czyżewski, Tadeusz Peiper, Mila Elin, Stanisław Grędziński, Lech Piwowar, Tadeusz Gajcy, Tymoteusz Karpowicz, Krystyna Miłobędzka, Andrzej Falkiewicz, Józef Bujnowski) wanted to be the artists of the new epoch, who undertake, „on their own account” of course, the eternal and universal problems: asking about God, existence, limits of perception, creating surreal transcodes or generating equivalents, searching epiphanous tracks, sometimes selecting paths of ideological involvement, confronting the glimmer and uncertainty of the symbolic presence. Nowocześni i nowoczesne… is a story about imagination, choices not only aesthetic in nature, the necessity of the inception of a poem, that pulls words into a centrifuge of augmented senses, meanings, semantic battles. With confidence in the value of the experiment.

The sign and meaning. The prophecy semantics in harbingers, beliefs and folk predictions

Знак и значение. Семантика предсказаний в знамениях, повериях и приметах

Author(s): Piotr Czerwiński / Language(s): Russian

Keywords: semantics; beliefs; prophecies; folk signs and predictions; mentality; consciousness; understanding of the world

The book deals with the analysis and characteristics of the interpreting part of a sign/image shown in the prediction. The analysed material comes from the old-Ruthenian literature (The Tale of Igor's Campaign, Russian Primary Chronicle) as well as from some Russian folk predictions and prophecies. The selected aspect assumes appointing of a conceptual system which is located behind the intuitive interpreted knowledge of the world of conceptual construction. The fragments and parts of this system should be constituted by units both apprehended and unapprehended by the representatives of a given mental tradition.