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Some experimental techniques in the study of horizontal and vertical aspects of event and narrative construal

Author(s): Janusz Badio / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The present article discusses examples of experimental techniques of studying events within narratives. The theoretical basis is Cognitive Linguistics, and cognitive psychology. The terms horizontal and vertical with regard to event and narrative construal, though somewhat arbitrary, provide a framework for the discussion of the many possibilities that exist in the experimental study of this topic. The theoretical considerations that are foundational for the article are discussed in sections one and two, followed by section three on techniques in the study of a single event, and section four that deals with events as they form the whole story coherence.

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Propositional attitude predicates and ‘that’-clauses

Author(s): Giulia Felappi / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The so-called face-value theory of propositional attitude sentences, i.e. (The Face-Value Theory); (RP) Propositional attitude predicates occurring in propositional attitude sentences designate relations; (ST) ‘That’-clauses are singular terms; (P) ‘That’-clauses denote propositions, is often endorsed without even discussing the plausibility of its tenets. As Schiffer (2003: 11) holds, it is “the default theory that must be defeated if it’s not to be accepted” and in fact he himself spends but a handful of lines discussing it. Surely, it is the default theory, considering that it originated more or less two thousand years ago, and since then in philosophy it has mostly been taken for granted. But this does not make it necessarily true, and all alternative theories must be defeated if they are not to be accepted. The aim of this paper is to defeat the alternatives for what at stake with theses (RP) and (ST). As we will see, although we cannot prove that these theses are true, all the different data that need to be accounted for can be more elegantly and more easily explained if the two theses are endorsed. Thus we will conclude that there really is something face-value in the theses, and that an account that endorses them is to be preferred to the alternatives.

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Epistemic must in Japanese – the case of modals hazu and ni chigainai

Author(s): Dariusz Głuch / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The aim of this paper is to analyse semantics of two Japanese modals of epistemic necessity: hazu and ni chigainai. The analysis shows that although both are of the same type and force, their semantics differs. While hazu seems to be a modal conveying certainty based on credible premises, ni chigainai is connected with premises loosely, and tends to be used as a modal expressing strong belief. Thus I propose to treat the latter as a modal of possibility that takes a shape of necessity on the surface level.

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Referentially used descriptions in truth-conditional semantics

Author(s): Andrei Moldovan / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

My purpose in this paper is to argue that the referential-attributive distinction concerning definite descriptions is of minor relevance to truth-conditional semantics (although it is of greater semantic significance to a framework of structured propositions). The argument will go as follows: suppose that referential uses of DDs are semantically relevant, and suppose that the thesis of Referentialism (as proposed by Devitt (2007) and Reimer (1998)) is correct: then we should be able to identify the truth-conditional data that shows that Referentialism is preferable to the alternatives. I argue that such data is not readily available. The data that we do find relevant is such that the classical Russellian and Fregean theories can easily account for it.

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Deriving quotation: some Minimalist problems

Author(s): Jan Wiślicki / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The aim of this paper is to discuss whether the standard Chomskyan Minimalist framework is in a position to generate quotational expressions. Assuming the crucial elements of the Minimalist architecture, that is the PIC and NTC based derivation by phases, I show that the behaviour of quotation poses serious problems for the current Minimalist Program. The theory of phases turns out to be not fine-grained enough in order to cover a wide variety of puzzling features observed for quotational expression. I argue, then, that the effects that can hardly be accounted for within the standard Minimalism naturally follow from the layered top-down derivation proposed by Zwart.

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Miasta-światy

Author(s): Monika Rawska / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Monika Rawska’s chapter focuses on two modern movies "Equilibrium" (dir. Kurt Wimmer, USA 2002) and "Inception" (dir. Christopher Nolan, USA—Great Britain 2010) with an analysis of the city spaces depicted in these films. Progress is the basis of the analysis. Progress is the impulse pervasive in utopias and it is an important motivator for human actions presently perceived as negative—imperialism, colonialism, racism. Margaret Mead’s notion that Utopia should be seen as a historical category while revealing an essential ambivalence is well summarized in her work, “One man’s dream is another man’s nightmare”. This is also represented in select films depicting a new society with a visual representation of order. For example, in Libria and architect’s city both of which were created with a positive and beneficial premise, though over time they became a burden for the characters. Change in perception of reality is one of the significant elements in dystopian narratives, that are also present in film adaptations, in what Ludmiła Gruszewska-Blaim calls a „utopiacrime”. Libria is depicted as the only city in the world in the film, "Equilibrium". Libria is a dystopian cityfortress contrasted with the surrounding Nether and an appropriated enclave space of Offenders. It functions as a simulacrum of the past at a time before the war. The film vision of the future is an intertextual collage of conventional representations of the totalitarian organization of both space and society. Dream city is the creation of an architect couple in the film, "Inception". It is a very different space, imagined and fictional and it perfectly captures the impossibility of utopia as revealed by its very name that means non-space. Reality, which the couple created for themselves, demonstrates an interesting tension between the architectural utopia and the solitary eutopia as well as a conflict of planner vs. wanderer (as described by Michel de Certeau). In both movies the city space becomes a threat in spite of its projected function as a safe and/or familiar space. In "Equilibrium", it imposes on and disciplines its inhabitants as tools of the state. In Inception, the city is the accumulation of the protagonists’ entire world and it turns unto its own ruin, a memory maze swallowed by the sea.

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Wampir nie potrafi żyć na odludziu

Author(s): Barbara Szymczak-Maciejczyk / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The chapter by Barbara Szymczak-Maciejczyk delivers an analysis of the creation of eighteenth-century Paris and nineteenth-century New Orleans as cities that become lairs for covens of vampires. The American writer describes, in a very picturesque manner, the atmosphere and the operations of erstwhile cities while embedding monsters of an undead nature. The text addresses several issues. There is the labyrinth of the Gothic space; Rice writes of gothic features that include secret passages, abandonedcemeteries, secret rooms, dead-end towers and catacombs which are homes to the Parisian vampires. The author of the paper uses the term “labyrinth” which was coined by Agnieszka Izdebska. The article explores the solitude of an individual in a metropolis. It expounds on the culmination of that solitude with the transformation of a mortal man into the immortal vampire (e.g. kidnapping Lestat, Louis being in dangerous places, leaving Claudia by her dead mother). It also tackles the issue of mirror imagery between the mental state of the characters and the condition of the city and their location at any given moment. The author also points out that the vampires’ desire is not merely driven by hunger and bloodlust but also by a desire for the accumulation of wealth including freely participating in the exchange of money for goods and services. The paper highlights the differences in the understanding of economic issues from the perspectives of a citizen of the Old Continent and the New World. Furthermore, it aims to identify Rice’s methods of creating space with a confined and dangerous element. These literary aesthetics include crossing of barriers to a home’s threshold and a temple and multiple labyrinthine structures. Other vivid imagery includes urban landscapes, e.g., side-streets, stone walls, crumbling stairways—all used as the living, breathing sarcophagus and feeding grounds for undead creatures that hunger and thirst for human blood. The combination of these elements reveals creative and novel methods in Gothic writing and it provides a more modern adaptation for the character of the vampire.

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Subwersywny potencjał wypartego

Author(s): Aleksandra Łozińska / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

In the chapter, Aleksandra Łozińska analyses the ways in which the authors of these novels refer to the issues of contemporary cities and the marginalization that occurs within them. The fantastic worlds created in these works are marked by much different constructs. These constructs include binary divisions of cities into official parts that converge with commercial images of the cities and areas hidden from the perspective of the former. These areas are built of redundant matter, inhabited by people marginalized in their own society and governed by practices that deviate from the confines of the official city narratives. This chapter expounds on the ways that these constructs allow for the re-evaluation of marginalized groups and elements (places, objects, fragments of history). Furthermore, methods of opposing exclusionary practices are included by penning subversive practices for the use of urban areas; and—in the case of Gaiman’s and Miéville’s works—by addressing the subject of economic stratification among the inhabitants of London (where metropolitan prosperity is dependent on citizens on the fringes of the social hierarchy). All three novels include characters whose lives are set outside of the mundane culture of consumerism (the life-source of all cities. Their social status becomes an exclusionary barrier to the circle of consumers around them. Thus the author approaches these threads as a type of project in flânerie (in contrast to the common understanding of his contemporaries) while maintaining its relevant critical potential. Against all odds and hardships, the situation of the protagonists is transformed into a positive, beneficial experience by bestowing upon them certain privileges, access to places and the ability to commit practices that are unattainable to the people living within the official sphere of the metropolis / social order. This aligns with the Bell-Hook margin theory therefore it will serve as the looking glass for the analysis of this subject matter.

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Oniryczna kreacja zatopionego miasta w "Bestiarium" Tomasza Różyckiego

Author(s): Elżbieta Pietluch / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Elżbieta Pietluch’s chapter presents a reflection on the oniric creation of the sunken city in "Bestiarium"—the debut novel by Tomasz Różycki. There are various issues related to the city-theme in Różycki’s entire oeuvre that are the starting point for Elżbieta Pietluch’s further reflections. These reflections focus on the impact of postmemory on third-generation expatriate immigrants from Kresy. Postmemory is an original concept created by Marianne Hirsch. This term describes how the perception of the world depends on the traumatic stories spoken by ancestors. Intensive and traumatic memories and the perception of historical injustice incite an aversion to the city which is portrayed a culturally foreign place where the poet’s family feels out of place. The author of this chapter introduces three models for dealing with trauma. The third model reflects on a catastrophic vision of the destruction of the city presented in Różycki’s text. An opinion is presented stating that natural disaster is related to the mythological concept of the purge (Mircea Eliade) and the biblical account of Noah and the great flood. The deluge catastrophe is substanbtiated in the contemporary history of Opole (The Great Flood) and its interpretation is confirmed by the location and date of the events in the novel. Furthermore, the author introduces the category of the oneironaut who experiences lucid dreaming, hence the narrator of the story participates in the adventures interpreting situations of the absurd in a parallel world. In Paweł Huelle’s opinion the image of the city is similar to the organization of space in Bruno Schulz’s Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass. Różycki uses a surreal narrative in the construct of his plot. A city simultaneously located at the junction of the real and the imaginary and Różycki’s descriptions of a warped world filled with irony and the grotesque.

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Co narracja postapokaliptyczna może powiedzieć o społeczeństwie?

Author(s): Wojciech Lewandowski / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Periods of brinkmanship and crisis encourage the rise of apocalyptical thinking in modern society.The second half of the twentieth century witnessed the rapid development of post-apocalyptic fiction, whose authors examined the human condition in the face of extinction. The development of nuclear weapons and the subsequent dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima became of the inspiration of numerous comic book writers to exploit nuclear war anxieties of societies still reeling from the carnage of World War II. Furthermore, comic books became a forum for the presentation of social, political and philosophical discourses. The aim of Wojciech Lewandowski’s chapter is to present, accordingly, an exposition on comics, as media, are capable visionaries of complex philosophical discourses. Another vector is the graphic novel that presents a forum to communicate political ideas without being perceived as a propaganda tool. The presentation of political ideas occurs explicitly in the textual sphere. Furthermore, they can be presented in more sublte ways by the use of symbols that are presented in the visual layer. It is therefore, the capabilities of political discourse that have led me to research the graphic novel, "V for Vendetta". In "V for Vendetta", author’s Alan Moore and David Lloyd, write of a dystopian post-apocalyptic Great Britain. Through the fictional dystopian narrative of the plot one can discern its great potential as a forum of social and political discussion on the contemporary problems of the real-world.

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Gdy zabrakło bohaterów, zostali tylko stalkerzy

Author(s): Adam Orlik / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Adam Orlik’s chapter is dedicated to the analysis of the significance of the dark, stalker figure of contemporary popular culture. From literature to film to video games, the enigma of the stalker figure has taken hold. This figure has taken many roles in ourculture. In the Strugatsky brothers’ short novel, Roadside Picnik, the stalker is depictedas a type of science fiction hero. This was then followed by the 1979 film Stalkerby the famous Soviet film-maker, Andrei Tarkovsky. Stalker won a few internationalfilm awards and it brought recognition to the stalker figure in popular culture. The chapter introduces the reader to the so-called “stalkers’ universes” featuring a new andenigmatic hero—the stalker. He is a seeker, much like the trackers of the old WildWest, able to seek out and find anything any one needs in the most difficult, inaccessibleand dangerous terrains. The stalker has many facets. An adventurer, an explorer,a traveler who ventures into landscapes marred and destroyed by nuclear war andother catastrophies. In this post-apocalyptic world, the stalker is the one who goes beyondthe boundaries of the known frontier and human knowledge. It is he who fillsthe white voids on the map. This unlikely hero is also a warrior, forced into combatwith fierce creatures, mutants and other humans residing in this post-apocalypticworld. Thus, the stalker character in post-apocalyptic fiction works comes to resemblethe figure of the cowboy in westerns. The stalker is associated with uninhabited openspaces, adventure and discovery of the “New World”. However, there are inherentrisks which may either culminate in great rewards or, quite the contrary, sudden death.Above all, the stalker embodies the vision of the “stranger from unknown lands” who,more often than not, becomes the reluctant hero.

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Rycerz przyszłości czy ożywiona zbroja?

Author(s): Maciej Gaździcki / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Maciej Gaździcki’s chapter deconstructs "RoboCop"—the eponymous knightly hero of Paul Verhoeven’s original film and subsequent installments in the franchise—including the world he exists in, through a medievalist perspective. Gaździcki discerns between Robocop’s role as either a futuristic knight or merely caricaturesque animated armour. Relevant and explicit similarities are made and analyzed between Verhoeven’s crime-fighting hero and the characters from Chansons de Geste, Arthurian legends, and hagiographic stories (otherwise known as loricati). The author also includes connections to works based on medieval chivalric epics. Concluding, Gaździcki attempts at finding parallels between the latest incarnation of Robocop and the Middle Ages.

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Świat i historia – "Monastyr: Fabularna gra dark fantasy"

Author(s): Aleksandra Mochocka / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The central analysis of "Monastyr: Fabularna Gra Dark Fantasy" TRPG is on the history of gaming systems. Throughout gaming system history, role playing has served as an important backdrop for the actions of the characters.which constitute indispensable elements for the lives of the characters and their sources of power. Without knowledge and awareness of history, human beings can lose their identities or fall victims to exploitation. However, with knowledge in history, humanity can fight against deprivation and nothingness. But this knowledge is not without its contradictions— history can also be a burden, a challenge and even a source of conflict. The notable point of Aleksandra’s Mochocka chapter is that history must never be forgotten, “whitewashed” or outright erased. Whether nations or fctions of people, if any commit an atrocity against humanity, it is the historical record or even the victims’ knowledge that will never allow the perpetrators to escape the consequences of their actions. The embedded history in the framework of Monastyr evokes these feelings and perceptions for the player provoking, what Mary Flanagan coined as, “critical play” during the playing sessions. All of these elements make Monastyr an extremely unique experience in role playing gaming. Although this game was not intenteded to be a purveyor of historical knowledge, it does raise much awareness for the players as to the role of humanity throughout history as well as other potential historical and critical issues.

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Historia jako parodia. "Saga o Wiedźminie" Andrzeja Sapkowskiego

Author(s): Krzysztof Uniłowski / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

In this chapter, Krzysztof Uniłowski analyzes the function of historical allusions in Sapkowski’s pentateuch on the adventures of Geralt the Witcher and his companions. The saga is said here to allude to the Second World War, but also to the Germanic invasion of Britain in the fifth and sixth century, including the colonization of North America by Europeans. In addition, the series is viewed as featuring clear literary references to the historical novels of Henryk Sienkiewicz, Arthurian tradition, or texts based on Indian Wars. All these allusions defy Sapkowski’s allotopia and emphasize— just like the creative irony of Romanticism—the dependence of allotopian world on the writer’s creativity. At the same time, history functions like a prop room with plenty of motives, threads, and figures. From this perspective, fantasy literature confirms Fredric Jameson’s thesis that western societies have lost a sense of history. Nevertheless, in the light of peripheral character of the Polish culture, it can also mean freeing from the burden of history, or, to speak more precisely, from phantasmal imaginations. As an author, Sapkowski is conscious that we have lost the historical experience from our perceptive horizon as the most traumatogenic events of the twentieth century did not teach us anything. He further points out that what has been repressed, may always return. And it returns even in the frames of fantastic convention.

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"Ikaromenippos" – starożytny dialog o locie na Księżyc i do niebiańskiej siedziby bogów

Author(s): Dominika Budzanowska-Weglenda / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Dominika Budzanowska-Weglenda’s chapter proposes an analysis of the Ikaromenippos or Voyage in Space, which is one of dialogues of Lucian of Samosata and probably the first literary description of the human trip to the Moon. The main character takes on this journey because of his aversion to philosophy. Lucian’s Ikaromenippos is a fantastic dialogue: a philosopher, probably the cynic, and satirist Menippus of Gadara, flies here “through the stars”. He takes two wings of large birds: the wing of the vulture and the wing of the eagle, and performs an incredible feat, worthy of Icarus: he reaches the Moon (from where he looks at the people and their actions on Earth), and then flies to Heaven—to the gods, “in upper Zeus’ rooms”. The story of Menippus’journey is like a swift current of the river, full of jocular tone, with a fantastic plot. But it clearly carries a deeper message: it expresses criticism of human attitudes and actions (adulteries, murders, conspiracies, perjury, betrayals among the closest to ones, war, courtship, piracy), meanness, false and mercenary piety, especially when stigmatizing bad behavior of philosophers, without sparing the representatives of any philosophical school. According to Lucian’s narrative, philosophers are lazy, quarrelsome, bloated, angry, grotesque, tumultuous, surly, unworthy people. The author reinforces the accusations of philosophers with the deity’s words, as the goddess of the Moon, Selene, having been encountered by the traveler, complains about them as well. She believes that philosophers are impostors, leading a shameful nightlife behind the scenes: they commit adultery, steal, and commit any other evil deeds. Ikaromenippos belongs to Lucian’s satirical works featuring reflective comedy. Correspondingly, Lucian postulates the liberation from the practical cognitive pressure of the logical rules and from the philosophical logic of cognition of the universe.

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Bułhakow czy Castaneda czasów popkultury?

Author(s): Bogusław Olszewski / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Bogusław Olszewski’s chapter discusses the influence of Mikhail Bulgakov’s works and writing style on the works of the contemporary Russian author, Victor Pelevin. Even though these two authors are frequently featured in comparative studies, seeking universal sources of literary inspiration in the classics, surrealist and postmodernist prose of Pielevin only remotely reminds the oeuvre of the author of Master and Margaret. Apart from the explicit influence of the Buddhist doctrine or shamanistic vision of the world, closely associated with the use of entheogens, the specific nature of the narrative and storyworld encourages the thesis that Pielevin’s fiction is largely pervaded by magical realism, maintained in the spirit of Carlos Castaneda’s.

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Ofiara czy drapieżca? Kobieta-potwór w wybranych powieściach Aleksieja Szołochowa

Author(s): Anna N. Wilk / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Anna N. Wilk’s chapter delivers an analysis of novels by Alexei Sholokhov (Tyelo and Podval ) as an example of an updated vision of the dark side of femininity. Over the centuries, women have been accused of having magical abilities. Consequently, their physicality have been viewed as arousing both desire and fear of death, or loss of control over one’s life. Different varieties of female monsters survived in cultures aroundthe world as the antithesis of the usual “human” women, such as, for example, demonic lovers or vindictive, malicious ghosts. Despite the development of civilization and social changes leading to the empowerment of women in family, social, and professional life, the aforementioned concerns are still haunting the collective imagination. In Sholokhov’s novels, “women-monsters” focus their attacks on men, exhibiting outrageous brutality and sadism. Wilk’s analysis allows to demonstrate that the fear of the negative femininity is still an actual, timeless trope in popular culture.

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Gotyckie figuracje Innego a problem winy, przemocy i braku solidarności w powieści "Przeklęci" Joyce Carol Oates

Author(s): Magdalena Łachacz / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

In the chapter, Magdalena Łachacz proposes an in-depth analysis of the spectral characters of the child/woman and the bridegroom. These ghostly spectres make abrupt appearances at critical moments of the narrative set in the the Princeton community during the cusp year of 1905 into 1906 following traumatic and haunting events. The objectice of the introduction chapter is to place the novel within the confines of the American gothic genre with typical gothic motives. This particular genre delivers a disturbing experience with the dark and obscure aspects of American history with particular interest in the institution of slavery and its problems of racial and sexual abuse. In relation to the aesthetics of the American gothic, it is conceivable to associate the specters in Oates’ novel with the demonic protagonists of Charles Brockden Brown’s and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s fictional works—both pivotal writers of the genre. Hence there exists the possibility of looking at the spectre as the representation of the “Other” in typical American gothic oeuvres. Furthermore, one can perceive the relationship between the experiences of the “otherness” and the problem of guilt suffered by the protagonists of the privileged social class. Consequently, the scope of the analysis finds itself engrossed on the issue of the traumatic repressed experiences that may return by republication of postmodern slave narratives. Therefore, the question of language becomes imminent for the gothic-like representation of the figure of the “Other” in Oates’s novel. Nevertheless the text is permeated by cognitive pessimism. “The Accursed” seem to establish, thanks to the gothic convention, an idiosyncratic language capable of expressing the terror of the violent experiences within a community environment where there is a lack of solidarity with the victims. In effect, Oates’s novel can be approached as a step towards the aesthetic characterization of the “Other” in the recounting of the “unspoken crime” which remains the spectre that continues to haunt contemporary American culture.

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Umierająca, rozwiązła, szukająca miłości. Przygody Alicji w XXI wieku

Author(s): Anna Goworek / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Anna Goworek reflects in this chapter on the rewriting of Lewis Carroll’s novel "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland". Lewis Carroll’s novels—"Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland" as well as its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass—are both multidimensional works, considered to be the beginning of fantasy literature and classic children’s novels. They became an inspiration for many modern writers, theater and film directors and game creators. This work focuses on recounting the problem in Carroll’s dilogy in relation to literature (Andrzej Sapkowski’s "Złote popołudnie" and Patrick Senécal’s "Aliss") and television series (Nick Willing, "Alice"). I will discuss the contemporary problems of identity that Alice must confront. By creating the character of the young, stray girl, Lewis Carroll forces self-determination unto Alice. However, Alice from the twenty-first century is an adult woman, who tries to find herself in male-female relationship, tries to reconcile with her father’s departure and tries to deal with addiction. In addition, there is a modification in the creation of Wonderland and the land on the other side of the mirror. In modern remakes there are often scenes of narcotics, violence and with new technologies. Modern authors making genuine stories about a girl lost in Wonderland are usually only focusing on a few threads from novels of the English mathematician. They experiment with Alice’s character, often targeting adults with their books including the experienced reader or recipient who are familiar with Carroll’s dilogy and his biography. With every successive rework of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, there are many intertextual questions raised that are worth investigating by researchers. Perhaps this is a way for modern authors to ward off the stereotypical perception of Lewis Carroll’s novels as merely children’s literature. Despite the countless revisions of the story, contemporary interpretations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass have adapted to the trends of the reader.

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Dwa starcia z Królową Elfów w prozie Terry’ego Pratchetta

Author(s): Zofia Żółtek / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

In the last chapter, Zofia Żółtek analyses "Lords and Ladies" and "The Wee Free Man", fantasy novels from the author’s Discworld series. In both novels, elves attack the world of humans. The female protagonists must protect their land and their families. In order to do so, they need to fight the demonic Queen of Elves. The most important source of Pratchett’s inspiration mentioned in the essay is the folklore of the British Isles. The book’s portrayal of elves is based on the traditional Anglo-Saxon and Celtic imagery and beliefs. Apart from the similar characterization of elves in the book and in the folklore, the plot of both books is related to the sixteenth century Scottish ballad about Tam Lin, a young man captured by faeries and Janet, the girl who tries to save him while being pregnant with his child. The author also remarks on the changes in the culture and their influence on the plot, as viewed through comparative analysis of analogies between modern and Early Modern texts. She points out that Wee Free Man is a young adult novel, and therefore Pratchett omits the romantic and erotic plot that provides the tension in the original ballad. Terry Pratchett is known for using, transforming and parodying common cultural tropes. The author discusses the remarkable fidelity and gentleness with which he treats motifs taken from folklore. This is a result of both countercultural potential of the folklore itself, and the ideological position Pratchett takes. The English Folk Revival, as Georgina Boyes proves in her book Imagined Village, is typically connected with left wing political and social movements. The reinterpretation of Tam Lin ballad allows Pratchett to write about feminism in an original way.

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