C. Noica: Goethe's Ireductible
C. Noica: Ireductibilul goethean
About C. Noica's book: "Farewell to Goethe".
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About C. Noica's book: "Farewell to Goethe".
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About the monographic essay "Rebreanu dincolo de realism" (Rebreanu Across the Realism) of Ion Simut.
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About works of the poet Dinu Flamind
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In my article I focus on the category of raptularz which was not yet elaborated. It appeared in old Polish language, and it gained a great popularity in the 20th century. Using the dictionaries and recalling the examples from the area of old and new writing, the author shows diverse panorama of discourses about the raptularz. This name is often used interchangeably with the category of the sylwa, and thus, taking into account certain characteristics of poetics of the sylwa and of the raptularz, as well rhetorical mechanisms (they are particularly distinct in the raptularz) which are related of them, we can be more critical in relation to the tradition of excluding the sylwa and the raptularz from the convention and rhetoric domain.
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Re−writing is, as outlined by A. Rich, a way of both criticising the old and building a new order. As a literary technique it is one of the most significant and distinguishable elements of the feminist poetics. Famous plots, motives and traditional genres in works of such writers as A. Carter, J. Winterson, M. Atwood show their limitations. Fairy tales and myths of any culture consist believes essential to the people inhabiting it and this is the reason their new versions have an outstanding position among the other re−written stories. 1989 was a turning point for the presence of this technique in Polish prose. Polish writers, (S. Chutnik, K. Dunin, I. Filipiak, Matka Bolka, A. Nasilowska) in their re−written fairy−tales present a diverse attitude to the well−known stories (as well to a plot as to the genre itself). The writers show different kinds of opression embodied and caused by the old tales. They also transform the tarditional stories in many various ways − from stylistic to narrative alteration, from changes in the assessment of characters to acts of modification and contamination of whole plots. All this make re−written fairy tales (despite the limited number of them) a significant series of important statements about western culture and have inspired a discussion on the topic among Polish feminists
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The purpose of this article was to examine Sól ziemi as one of the novels that has participated in the interwar discussion on the crisis of European culture. This can be demonstrated by an analysis of the construction of main character of the novel − Piotr Niewiadomski, who is without a doubt the emblematic figure of the condition of contemporary humanism − and his eclectic world−view. Study shows that − as a literary amalgam of a modern human agency and a simpleton with parareligious world−outlook − he is not only a victim of modern myths (with the myth of war at the front), but also their unconscious co−author, who can only define himself as a part of a dehumanizing technocratic civilization (that has got its the end−product in the world war). By showing how the language of humanism erodes − while being used to help individual to find himself in the incoherent, “disenchanted" world − JÖzef Wittlin points out responsibility of European culture. There has been low interest in describing that context − Sól ziemi was generally understood to be pure and simple anti−civilization novel, directed straight by the experience of the First World War − so the author hopes to fill up an important gap in the reception of one of the bests polish novels of the XX century.
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Rhetorical Criticism has its roots in two traditions. The first is the tradition of téchne rhetorikéé and its beginning is in the works by Plato and Aristotle (for part of the scholars the early days of r.c. are in the time of Hellenistic period and in the work by Marc Fabius Quintillian). The second is the tradition of Herbert A. Wichelns' article The Literary Criticism of Oratory from 1925. From the time of Wichelns rhetorical criticism developed in an extremely dynamic and has become one of the most important analytical methods of all of the “products" of language not only in the public/ political oratory, and also penetrated into art criticism (in the broadest sense of the term). In this issue I will try to explain both the history and methods used in rhetorical criticism. I think that this is one of the most interesting and compelling research methods, not only the linguistic creations, but all objects of human symbolic activity. Also − one of the best ways to discover the intentions of the author and used sometimes the persuasion as a techniques of manipulation of the audience. In the issue I present the history of rhetorical criticism from the Antiquity (Plato's Ion and Aristotle's Poetic and Rhetoric) to the contemporary, and the methods used in rhetorical criticism. These methods are tree kinds: the tradition of speech communication, the tradition of rhetoric/ composition, and the different programs using at the universities in the USA. In conclusions I suppose that the rhetorical criticism is one of the most effective methods of analysis all kinds of texts, not only language texts but also works of art. This follows from the fact that rhetoric should be understood more broadly − as a science of patterns and processes of communication. I remain in keeping with ancient tradition, because Quintilian described it as follows Rhetorice est inveniendi recte et disponendi et eloquendi cum firma memoria et cum dignitate actionis scientia [Quint., V.10.54 − Rhetoric is the knowledge/ science on how to correctly find, arrange and utter words (i.e. make utterances in good language form), using good memory, and present any text with dignity It brings back the opinion of Chaim Perleman, who said in The Realm of Rhetoric: [...] rhetoric covers the vast field of nonformalized thought: we can thus speak of “realm of rhetoric". It is in this spirit that Professor Walter Jens of the University of Tübingen described as “the once and future queen of the human sciences" [alte und neue Königin des Wissenschaften]
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The article presents some critical thoughts on “critical thinking" and criticism as such. According to the author, in recent decades the very term has become so widely applied in various fields of intellectual and cultural activity that its basic meaning is now hard to establish. In general, it supports the “culture of argument" (D. Tannen) which is oriented towards confrontation and polemic, and not towards achieving consensus. The three areas in which the notions of criticism and critical thinking are being used with particular frequency are discussed: education, academic discourse and art&culture. In education, “critical thinking" is nothing more than a contemporary equivalent of traditional logical and rational argumentation, and therefore represents Western logocentrism. In academic discourse on the other hand it tends to be treated as a manifestation of an antilogocentric attitude (vide: discourse analysis and criticism, cultural criticism). Finally, such phenomena as “critical art" or “critical museum" are deeply rooted in the counter−culture movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and their political bias seriously weakens their creative potential.
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The paper discusses the genres of alternate history and uchronias, and their subversive potential as a literary aporia of politics and of the historical knowledge. The Point of Divergence as a pricipium of the genre is the primary way of criticizing history, understood as the past that has actually happened. Authors of alternate history reject the past, choosing plausible historical worlds instead, because the actual history is for them unsatisfying, traumatic and painful. Alternate histories are highly politically involved, as the choice of the POD uncovers the authors' dreams about the past, for instance by making the history of their own country or nation more successful and heroic than it actually was. It is shown, that the narration about the past in the alternate history genre depends on political and generational experiences of the authors. As an example, the editorial series „Zwrotnice historii" [“The Switching Points of History"], published by Narodowe Centrum Kultury [National Cultural Centre] in Warsaw, is analyzed. The series comprises among others: M. Parowski, Burza. Ucieczka z Warszawy 40 [The Storm. Escape from Warsaw‘40], M. Wolski, Wallenrod. These novels were written by writers who experienced the times of communism and censorship. As a result, nostalgia, essentialism, nationalism and the topos of “raising spirits" prevail there, the latter known in the Polish literature during the age of Partitions of Poland. On the other hand, Polish writers of the younger generation, such as Jacek Dukaj (Lod− “Ice"; Xavras Wyzryn) and Szczepan Twardoch (Wieczny Grunwald− “The Eternal Grunwald"), tend to disdain nationalistic myths and to criticize heroes of Polish history such as Jozef Pilsudski. It is also interesting to notice that authors originating from countries who won the WWII prefer criticizing modern society especially by inventing alternate scenarios of losing the Second World War (P. K. Dick, The Man in The High Castle; R. Harris, Fatherland], or by disavowing Christian churches and Christian religions (and sometimes other religions too) [P. Pullman, His Dark Materials; K. Amis, The Alteration; J. Inglot, Quietus]. The Glory of the Empire by Jean D'Ormesson, belonging to the uchronia genre, is an example of a general critic of the past combined with the capability of scholarly viable and credible reinventing it; D'Ormesson created a historical utopia built of archetypical, common historical plots To conclude, it is discussed if the alternate history could be a convoluted, paradoxal way to restore historical facts as foundations of the academic history. Whatever the answer, this genre, making us to see ourselves in the false mirror of alternate histories, forces us to become more critical about the past as well as the presen
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Fundamental to the construction of any apocryphal text is its reference to a canon, which could be but is not always biblical. Thus by definition, apocryphal intertextual mediatization relies on the explicit communication of a world view from the perspective of some other, canonical text, as well as the confrontation of its mediums and manners. The authors of some literary apocrypha indict the canon, discrediting it or calling it into question, while others confirm the canon. Yet, in viewing the apocrypha as a complement or a supplement, as the annotation of an established point of view, as a follow−up or a pre- −history of the canonical prototype, we can see our convictions about the canon's external attractiveness and semantic productivity but also its incompleteness and insufficiency. Thus each apocryphal text − at least those that remain related to specific texts − has a critical diversive potential. In this article, I present the results of the apocryphal “hermeneutics of suspicion" arising from a belief in the inevitably flawed nature of any canon, based as it is on an exclusion, a concealment or a marginalization of somebody or something. I have in mind the relatively stable literary canon of Western culture, represented here by literary works like The Iliad, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Les Liaisons dangereuses, Robinson Crusoe ,and Jane Eyre, and also its apocryphal problematization by Margaret Atwood, John Updike, Hella S. Haasse, Michel Tournier, John Maxwell Coetzee and Jean Rhys.
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Along with the birth of modern literery studies in the early 1900s two of its styles are formed permanently: academic and marketplace. They emerged at the same time in two schools of so-called Russian formation – the Moscow Linguistic Circle and OPOJAZ from St. Petersburg. They were the product of the same generation of cooperating researchers using similar methodologies. What unified them was the same highly critical orientation, however, they followed different values: purely scientific in case of the MLC and socio-political as far OPOJAZ. This manifested itself not only in the styles and genres of their scientific statements, but also in their biographies. Legacy of the two schools of radical cognitive anti-dogmatism is different for various reasons. The marketplace model created by OPOJAZ is settled more strongly in the literary studies, what is more, it was identified as so called formal school for nearly all twentieth century. Its historic success is due to the social demand for engaged humanities. But the evaluation of the achievements of researchers from both schools terms of innovation and significance, and even their ethical conduct is still controversial.
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The Article is Dedicated to Present an Environmentalist (Environmental, Ecological) Novel as a Critical Genre. I show its attributes in contrast with a nature novel which in turn I define as a thematic novel form being mainly educational and set in nature. Ecological novel on the other hand is an ideological variety of a novel related to social ecological movements arising after the fifties. Its plot need not take place in natural environment and the ecological value may be emphasized merely in the discursive layer. While the nature novel is dominated by an anthropocentric viewpoint the ecological novel is strictly oriented towards ecocentricism' and utilizing accomplishments of feminist and postcolonial literature. The true commitment of this genre is quite distinctive. I demonstrate it exemplifying three characteristic types of ecological novel: the philosophical treaty ( Elizabeth Costello, J.M. Coetzee), the futurological ecological dystopia (Possibility of an Island, M. Houellebecq) and the ecological novel (“Powieść środowiskowa") about ecologists ( Low−tech, M. Olszewski), simultaneously highlighting its close connections with feminism (Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych, O. Tokarczuk) as well as criticism of capitalism.
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The main goal of this paper is to reconsider an opinion about philosophical notions entrenched in literary tradition to Jan Kochanowski − with outlooks pertaining to faith and problems of eschatological nature. The thesis of the analysis is that Kochanowski in his late, mature poetry recedes from Renaissance perspective of the world as something harmonious, towards the vision of the human fate as unknown, undiscovered, mysterious. The article points that it is an attitude close to baroque creation of the world full of paradoxes, which is unpredictable, unstable, protean and it exists in the shadow of vanitas. It was also found that Jan Kochanowski articulated new, baroque tendencies and expressed them using classical language, compatible with Renaissance poetics and rhetoric.
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In the article I discuss the emancipatory potential of literary culture in the Victorian novel on the basis the only novel by Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights. First of all I emphasize the unique position of this masterpiece among the work of Victorian novels and register the controversy associated with his reception by contemporary readers. Most of the analysis is related to literary culture. I consider it as a distinctive value which demonstrate the humanity of the characters. The problem which is mentioned in the title is discussed on the example of the experience of both charatercs'generations the reader can find in the novel. At the end I recall the thesis of Stephen Greeenblatt's essay What is the History of Literature?, which my analysis confirms. I also point − with a reference to Jaroslaw Pluciennik's work − that the emancipatory potential of literary culture is one of the values of the modern novel, which Wuthering Heights are an representative example.
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The essay concentrates on the problem of the self−critical discourse of the discipline. First of all, the word crisis, introduced by R. Wellek in 1958 to describe the situation of comparative literature in the USA, is redefined to explain the immediate success of this term all over the world. Moreover, the research embraces other situations in which comparative literature is defined through negative metaphors. Their presence is discussed as a paradox of the succesful discipline which has reigned in humanistic research for more than two centuries. As it results from the research, the purpose of negative figures in self−critical discourse of comparative literature is chiefly rhetorical, but they express the necessity of development and progress, accordingly to the antique concept of crisis meaning capacity of judgement', criticism.
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In the essay Witold Wirpsza's poem is analysed with a view to investigating the notion of the return of the subject. As a problematic emblem, the Barthesian call for the death of the author and, by inference, of the subject is here approached through Wirpsza's poem which appears to be an implicit counter−argument to the poststructural pronouncement. Throughout the analysis a number of Wirpsza's theoretical postulates are brought to the fore in order to evoke the context of the poet's perception of the task inherent in poetry. As a result it is argued that the poem under consideration in particular, but Wirpsza's poetry in general, seems to put forth a new vision of the human subject; in lieu of associating the self with a Cartesian stable formation, Wirpsza sets out to delineate a self which ceaselessly seeks new ways of describing its condition. In the discourse of poetry a search is instigated for a constantly new measure of being a man.
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