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The research deals with folklore representations of the vampire in the Serbian literature. By reconstructing the vampire motif, we shall point out the traditional elements that appear in the representative works from the beginning of the 20th to the 21st century. Examples of the transposition of this motif in the Serbian short stories are Vampir Pantelija by Danica Marković (1992), Vampirica by Božidar Kovačević (1928) and Vampirović by Ivan Pavić (2017). By analysing the motif of vampire focusing on the origins, physical characteristics, and methods of vampire destruction, the paper indicates genre conditionality of its representation and in some places divergence from the traditional image of the vampire. At the same time, the paper points out possible perspectives of interpretation in the approach to this literary motif, and the method of the study is founded on the reconstruction of the folklore template, based on the extensive corpus of folk belief and theoretical works.
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Ce travail vise à donner l’analyse des dramatis personae comme les éléments constitutifs de drame, à l’aide des concepts dramatiques modernes. Ayant choisi la pièce Le professeur Taranne (1953) de dramaturge français Arthur Adamov, nous tenons à examiner le statut et l’identité du personnage dramatique au contexte du théâtre de l’absurde et ses tendances particulières, avec un accent mis sur la problématique de la vie aliénée / la non-vie, issue du degré zéro des relations humaines – le concept représentatif de l’œuvre d’Adamov. D’ailleurs, c’est dans cette optique et avec une approche herméneutique interprétative que nous voulons éclairer le caractère dit dramatique de la pièce d’Adamov, plus particulièrement par rapport au drame traditionnel, et dans le but d’une meilleure compréhension de l’idée d’enchaînement entre la forme et le contenu.
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This paper analyses Carlos Fuentes social engagement in The Death ofArtemio Cruz, which focuses on the birth, the development path and the death ofthe Mexican Revolution. The paper relies on the same attitudes towards the socialengagement and responsibility of the prose writer held by Jean-Paul Sartre, MichelFoucault, and postmodern theorists, since The Death of Artemio Cruz is consideredto be one of the first manifestations of budding postmodernism in Latin America.We also refer to the theoretical considerations that Fuentes expresses in his proseworks and essays. We point out that Carlos Fuentes uses the body and the actions(bribery, speculation, oppression of the Indian people) of the former revolutionary,Artemio Cruz, to bring to light the recurring political patterns of behavior, and toprove that, in accordance with Foucault s conception, the body is the mirror of thestate. Through the aforementioned elements we also analyse the manifestations of thefailure of revolutionary ideals, striving to shed light on the appeal that Fuentes makesto his readers in order to point out the necessity of (political) engagement, which isa prerequisite for the survival of the revolution itself. Therefore, it is important tohighlight that the death of Artemio Cruz does not necessarily mean the death of therevolution or the state, but the possibility of its regeneration, which can be achievedthrough the engagement of each individual.
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The paper treats the problem of so-called „consumption of identity“ (Anne-Marie Thiesse), being based on material from the National Museum „Hristo Botev“ in Kalofer. Visitors’ impressions, taken from impressions’ books of the museum from 1945 to 2017, are considered. Particular attention is paid on the problem how the political context was influential on the tourists’ mentality, and how deep was the match between ideological change and peoples’ viewpoints as reflected in the comments by them. A considerable part of visitors’ texts, left by people with various social profiles, are dedicated to reproducing the history and literary history narrative about Hristo Botev in its most canonical version. There are also notes, deliberately distanced from the canon. Most of them thematize problems like how the national hero and his attributes were exposed, whether they were displayed properly and how the exposition was matchable to ordinary peoples’ expectations, inspired by popular nationalism mainly. There are written impressions, focused on museum facilities like toilet maintenance and hygiene.The way visitors reflect the mission of the museum as education institution and how it operates on that level is also analyzed. The slowly advancing consumerism in background mode is also included with its heuristic potentials.
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The question of the authorship of the literary corpus preserved under the name of Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII. Porphyrogenitus (913-959) has preoccupied scholars for more than a century. Uncertainty in the emperor's authorship arose for the most part due to the multitude of style levels of his writings, which in recent research has resulted in a disputation of the authorship of Porphyrogenitus involving most of the works attributed to him. This paper deals with the stylistic features of those parts of the Corpus Constantineum in which, according to experts, Porphyrogenitus had his own creative share. The results show that Constantine wrote using approximately six different style levels, and that the appearance of different stylistic expressions was conditioned by the literary genre, the subject matter and the circumstances addressed by the work in question. The common stylistic features present in the segments of the emperor's writings covered in this paper point to the fact that, in this case, it is possible that they were written by the same author, one who varied his writing style.
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This article discusses Gombrowicz’s place in Polish and world literature. It seems that “Polish form” facilitated his attaining the rank of a world writer for being an artist of his kind, communicating ideas and values beyond the local. However, the issue of Gombrowicz is that Gombrowiczians quickly reached a barrier and found themselves in crisis already in the beginning phase of Gombrowicz studies in 1976. Their main weakness then is the language they use which seems to be the very language of Gombrowicz himself. And what can be done about it?
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Literature has been made of words, but also – of literature itself, by use of references to existing works and paradigms. Sometimes – just as in Gombrowicz’s case – this is what allows for originality. By referring to remarkably diversified range of literary works, traditions and paradigms, Gombrowicz evokes his subjects of interest and builds unique reality. In my essay on one of his novels I referred to this phenomenon as 'constructive parody'. Its subjects may vary from artworks such as Shakespeare's plays or the great poetry of Polish Romantics, to works in popular culture. In this respect, Gombrowicz resembles Igor Strawinski, who placed great importance on references and parodies his works consist of
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The article is a discussion of Witold Gombrowicz's comments on structuralism. The author analyzes the rhetorical strategies of the writer used in the interview I Was the First Structuralist. He also considers the possibility of interpreting Gombrowicz's texts using structural tools.
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The paper focuses on Witold Gombrowicz’s interpretation of the postcolonial discourse that was taking shape during his years in Argentina. In the Diary he unmasked the ideological foundations of this discourse. On the one hand, he criticized the very simplistic application by some of its participants of the doctrine of communism, which tends to attribute all evil in the world to Western capitalism, particularly practised by the United States, while on the other hand he voiced objections to the Latin American nativism and nationalism, both engendered, in his view, by an inferiority complex. An emphasis on the body language as an interpretational tool in defining the nature of the Latin American identity is a particularly valuable insight on Gombrowicz’s part. Ultimately, he opposed the essence-oriented approach to the question of national character and suggested instead an interpersonalist and activist view which, despite traditional forms and stereotypes, emphasizes the need for continual personal and socially oriented self-recreation.
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The aim of this article is to show the complicated attitude of Witold Gombrowicz towards religion. The writer declared himself an atheist, but numerous fragments of his Diary prove that the strong beliefs about his own disbelief were weakened in many ways. The most important for this issue are two records – from 1956, when the writer read Simone Weil, and then spent the lonely Christmas Eve in Mar del Plata, and from 1958, when he describes a walk up Calvario Hill in Tandil. The author refers to the post-secular manifesto by Jürgen Habermas from 2001, in which the philosopher revised the one-dimensional, Post-Enlightenment secularization theory and proves that Gombrowicz had already done it in his own way some decades before.
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An analysis of Gombrowicz’s attitude towards science shows that it is based on an oxymoron: science does not lead to real knowledge about the world, but “muddles” and “reduces”. Gombrowicz was very much aware of the opposition between art and science, yet he was not prepared to accept the early modernist idea of “art for art’s sake”. He perceived in this concept the same striving for “economy, purity, quintessence” that had led science astray, alienating it from reality. Especially dangerous was the demand of “objectivity”. Paradoxically this scientific postulate had been accepted by modernist art as its own “internal value”. According to Gombrowicz art should not follow the lead of science, but shake off its fetters. The author should not attempt to hide his inner self, but expose it to its utmost. Here we are confronted with a fresh paradox. Gombrowicz’s hostility to science seems, from the point of the development of social science, a misunderstanding. It could even be argued that several areas of contemporary scientific humanities were created by him. Of course, these areas are not (in Gombrowicz’s case) the objects of ordinary scientific research. They are acts of “Witold Gombrowicz”, apprehending himself.
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The article presents the mask of Gombrowicz as a “street Bourdieuian”. The two thinkers are seen as “contemporary” in their corresponding ideas in this excerpt from Jean-Pierre Salgas’s book Gombrowicz structuraliste de la rue (2011). Three moments showing how Gombrowicz understands Bourdieu while Bourdieu explains Gombrowicz are discussed. Gombrowicz’s Ferdydurke is read as the origin of sociology of literature in Poland, his Diary – as a practice of sociology “in weightlessness”, and his Against Poets – as a manifest against the literary (art) religion, an anti-Heideggerian act of anti-fascination.
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Gombrowicz persisted “no credo en la pintura!” (I don’t believe in painting!), “I don’t believe in music”. However, he wrote about music in a way he never wrote about painting: “I submerge with inhuman bliss into music”. This article discusses the evolution of Gombrowicz’s musicality, what characterized it, and what it was like.
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The text presents the long history of Gombrowicz`s dispute with painters and his permanent war against painting. In his Diary the writer wanted to present himself as an implacable enemy of both. He tried to discredit painting as not serious art and to expose painters as cunning imposters. But in his private life he had many friends who were painters. He really respected them, discussed seriously their art and admired their paintings. I’m trying to explain the true reasons of Gombrowicz`s stated aversions to painting and to answer the question if it was a provocation, typical for him, or his real belief.
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This article considers Witold Gombrowicz’s Diary in relation to his work as a playwright. The author’s unique and paradoxical relationship to theater in his lifetime is critically discussed alongside his significance as Poland’s most frequently produced playwright abroad, in particular through his play Ivona, Princess of Burgundia. The performative nature of Gombrowicz’s Diary is explored, along with the author’s creation of a persona in and around the work. The combination of Gombrowicz’s specific tragic vision in the Diary and his play The Marriage is contrasted with his embrace of lightness as a key artistic principle.
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The problem of reality seems to be central in Gombrowicz's last novel Cosmos (1965). The described reality is modeled upon the work of the abundant and the excessive. This gives ground to see some parallels with a work published exactly a hundred years before Cosmos – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). How does Gombrowicz illustrate Lewis Carroll's "much of a muchness" and what is the role of the teapot? Reality, "obsessive by its very essence," grows and swells beyond endurance, demonstrating how “the last drop [...] makes the cup overflow”. Nevertheless, it remains always partial, fragmented, fractional, fractal. Can then metafiction be pictured by a fractal and could we read Cosmos as Gombrowicz’s theory and practice of metafiction? Towards a theory of metafiction as an excess of reality the following paper presents Gombrowicz as the first theoretician of metafiction.
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