„Piękne więzienie” i „miasto przeklęte” – Berlin końca XIX wieku oczami Bolesława Prusa oraz Stanisława Przybyszewskiego

Author(s): Sylwia Karpowicz-Słowikowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2011

The Berlin of the 1880s was visited by big numbers of Poles, especially those affiliated to the world of arts. Among those who arrived and stayed there for some time was Ignacy-Jan Paderewski, Artur Rubinstein, Julian Fałat, or Wojciech Kossak. Bolesław Prus’s lived in Berlin for more than a month, while Stanisław Przybyszewski’s sojourn was several years’ long. The two authors, of different generations and world-views, were ‘united’ in their personal experience of the city’s realities, close to each other in terms of quality and language. Both of them experienced moments of enchantment with the German capital, which was followed by a phase of acquisition of adifferent, less approving perspective; at the end of this path was a desire to flee. ‘Beautiful gaol’ and a ‘cursed city’ are metaphors which aptly render both novelists. impressions from their stay in late-nineteenth-century Berlin – where fascination meets dread and dismay.

Zaduch, wonie i powietrze, czyli jak pachnie w świecie Elizy Orzeszkowej

Author(s): Magdalena Kreft / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2011

It was with her great sensitivity that Eliza Orzeszkowa felt, differentiated, named, interpreted, and valorised various scents – good fragrances and bad smells alike. In her output, olfactory impressions and associations play an important part in creation of the world depicted: they complement the characters’ portraits, contribute to the scenery’s ambience, affect the attraction or dislike relations, thus indirectly shaping a novelistic piece’s axiology. The scents emphasise this author’s and its characters’ negative attitude toward certain circles of space (city; salons), while reinforcing their ties with the space of nature. The air-related metaphors she uses are also meant to suggest a certain social-political situation as well as to indicate some perilous, to her mind, tendencies, along with ideological/ethical changes of the new time.

Ludzie i motyle w „Nad Niemnem”. Imponderabilia Elizy Orzeszkowej

Author(s): Małgorzata Okulicz-Kozaryn / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2011

The butterfly motif, discreetly evocated in Eliza Orzeszkowa’s novel "Nad Niemnem", refers the reader to the sphere of ideal, points out to a subtle question of the role and place of imponderables in the complex realities past the January Insurrection of 1863/4. In the symbolic genealogy of the Korczyński family, ‘wingedness’ assumes various forms depending on the historic circumstances. In the plot’s plan, butterflies accompany the characters gifted with a deeper spiritual sensitivity, those to whom human and civic values are close – the ones shared by Orzeszkowa herself. The novel read in this way expresses affirmation of imponderables, of their invigorating poetic beauty, unconditioned by the reasons discussed in the then-topical world-view disputes.

„Nędza bogatych”. Modernistyczne paradoksy w „Argonautach” Elizy Orzeszkowej

Author(s): Cezary Zalewski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2011

This article focuses around contradictions and dissonances the modern forms of existence are characterised by, according to the novelist. It turns out in the course of the narrative that the major characters (Alojzy Darwid, Artur Kranicki, or Marian Darwid and Emil Blauendorf) tend to create some extremely incoherent existential projects: in the domain of thirst, the state they favour is excitement – unattainable as it proves without a long-lasting marasmus and repletion; in the sphere of ethics, they advocate egoism, albeit they do cultivate an ‘unceremonious’ altruism. As for aesthetics, they advocate chaos and a blend of artistic qualities, but ultimately admit their nostalgia for a classical beauty.

Dandyzm w „Dwóch biegunach” i „Argonautach” Elizy Orzeszkowej

Author(s): Dorota Niedziałkowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2011

Are there really no dandies present in the positivist literature? Does dandyism, ideologically hostile to Eliza Orzeszkowa, imply but caricaturally and superficially outlined images of characters? What are Zdzisław Granowski and his friends in "Dwa bieguny" like? And, what are Marian Darwid, Emil Blauendorf and Artur Kranicki of "Agronauci" like? The essay’s author attempts at answering these questions, analysing aspects of the dandy figure such as: care about elegant and aesthetic environment; a passion for collecting extraordinary things; eccentricity; jobs taken idly and in a dilettantish fashion; profligate attitude to corporeal properties; a decadent philosophy (aesthetic in lieu of ethics); and, admiration for arts and beauty.

Kopiując śmierć. Patologiczne przestrzenie biura w „Kopiście Bartlebym” Hermana Melville’a i „Dziwaku” Elizy Orzeszkowej

Author(s): Szymon Ozimek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2011

This article brings forth a comparativist attempt at juxtaposing two short stories – Herman Melville’s "Bartleby, the Scrivener" and "Dziwak" by Eliza Orzeszkowa – that can be deemed to be literary testimonies to the changes in comprehending, valuing and evaluating new forms of professional activity that were taking shape upon the foundation of modern capitalism. In his willingness to show universality and supranational nature of mechanisms governing the literary thinking of clerks and their work, the author starts with presenting the profession itself, offering a comparative analysis of the appearances of the short-story characters – scriveners, descriptions of the space they function in, relationships between them and their associates. An insight is also made in these individuals personal lives and sexuality. At last, a look is taken on their strategies of escape from a pathological and adversely valuated space of office buildings. A scrivener’s work does not fit into a measurable order of production, physicality, and eroticism, as traditional for the nineteenth century; instead, it is situated in the order of reproduction, detachment from reality, and asexuality, yielding bruising consequences to individuals entangled in the system.

„Idee wieczne” i realia kształcące. Przybliżenia z poezji Marii Konopnickiej

Author(s): Bogdan Mazan / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2011

This paper aims at taking a closer look at selected poetic pieces by Konopnicka, intriguing as they are with their perception of reality and vividness of ideas. These traits are reflected in some very simple texts, as are in those intellectually or formally sophisticated ones. Detection of the addressee perspective in studies on this author, and appearance of an area of ‘the known’ and ‘the unknown’ in her life and output became a novelty several years ago. Scholars tend to be in agreement with one another as to the high value of several of Konopnicka’s folk lyrics, the collection "Italia" (1901), or fragments of poems. On the other hand, the literary scholars. reserve toward the whole content of Imagina or "Pan Balcer w Brazylii" testifies to a cautiousness about acceptance of the once-prevalent much favourable opinions promoting "Imagina" to a masterpiece and Pan Balcer to a folk epopee, worthy of being positioned beside the national epic "Pan Tadeusz" by Adam Mickiewicz.

„Dym” Marii Konopnickiej jako dziewiętnastowieczny trop „vanitas”

Author(s): Beata K. Obsulewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2011

An attempt is offered at a reading of one of the best-known short stories by Maria Konopnicka in the context of vanitative topoi. The imaging in "Dym" is rooted in the biblical tradition, ancient culture and artistic tradition (e.g. substantial transitoriness of existence, theatrum mundi, life as a dream, etc.), which in Konopnicka’s oeuvre is masterly twined, in terms of literary technique, in a sophistically simple plot. Through the proposed analysis of this imaging, a need is indicated to reflect upon the reception of the vanitas notion in the output of authors of the latter half of 19th century.

Proza Leopolda Méyeta. Część I: Nowele

Author(s): Piotr Bordzoł / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2011

This article is focused around the short-story output of a Warsaw-based attorney, editor, bibliophile, man-of-letters, collector, and philanthropist – viewed in the context of his biography. Méyet was friends with the cultural celebrities of the late 19th/early 20th century. Scholars are particularly attracted by the form that Méyet’s friendship with Eliza Orzeszkowa assumed, which can be read today through their exchanged correspondence. The theme of the short stories in question is problematisation of the notion of love – its nature, complexity, quality, and forms in which it is realised. With reference to certain formal solutions used, conforming to the nineteenth-century short-story poetics, Méyet tries to prove that there are no simple answers and that passions and sentiments or affections cannot possibly be enclosed in a mathematical algorithm. Analysed in the article, Méyet’s short-story pieces – although they did not trigger a literary revolution, if they were noticed at all – come out as a clear sign of a need to create something original emerging in a man who happened to live through achievements of the others but also, for the others.

Powieść jest kobietą

Author(s): Agnieszka Czajkowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2012

The nineteenth century saw a writing and reading activity among women, a trend that was associated with the development of the novel, taking place in that period. The genre’s literary ennoblement also meant that ‘female’ elements – a special sensitivity, specified paraphernalia, ideas, images and notions – penetrated into the confines of the fictional world. The twentieth-century criticism, particularly genderstudies-related, noticed a special relation between the Romanticist output – ‘manly’ as it was, of the ‘three Prophet-Bards’ period’ – with female or feminine aspects of the world/universe. An example of such relations was, seemingly, the literary criticism and letter-writing of Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, along with certain meta-literary pieces he has authored, those comprising reflections on the ‘art of writing.’ Depicting creative work with use of actions commonly regarded as feminine means an almost intimate relation between life and literature.

Nareszcie o nieskończoności. Rec.: Mirosław Strzyżewski, „Romantyczna nieskończoność. Studium identyfikacji pojęcia”, Toruń 2010

Author(s): Jarosław Mariusz Ławski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2012

Rec.: Jarosław Ławski, „Mickiewicz – mit – historia. Studia”, Białystok 2010

Author(s): Irena Jokiel / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2012

Rec.: Józef Bachórz, „Spotkania z «Lalką». Mendel studiów i szkiców o powieści Bolesława Prusa”, Gdańsk 2010

Author(s): Dorota Samborska-Kukuć / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2012

Rec.: Agnieszka Kuniczuk-Trzcinowicz, „Między melodramatem a egzotyką: w kręgu lektury Sienkiewicza”, Poznań–Opole 2010

Author(s): Adrianna Adamek-Świechowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2012

Litewskie wydanie listów hrabiego Jana Tyszkiewicza z podróży do Afryki. Rec.: Jan Tyszkiewicz, „Laiškai iš Zanzibaro 1891 m. – Listy z podróży do Zanzibaru 1891 r.”, sudarytojai V. Poviliūnas, I. Senulienė, Troki 2010

Author(s): Krystyna Stasiewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2012

Postawa artystyczna jako postawa etyczna. Rec.: Maria Jolanta Olszewska, „Heroizm ludzkiego istnienia. W kręgu wybranych zagadnień etycznych w literaturze polskiej II połowy wieku XIX i I połowy XX wieku. Szkice”, Warszawa 2008

Author(s): Magdalena Saganiak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2012

Rec.: Paweł Wojciechowski, „Logos, byt, harmonia. Antoniego Langego czytanie kultury”, Lublin 2010

Author(s): Anna Sobieska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2012

O carskiej cenzurze statystycznie. Rec.: Janusz Kostecki, „Trudny proces przenikania. Carska cenzura zagraniczna wobec importu publikacji w języku polskim w latach 1865–1904”, Warszawa 2011

Author(s): Kamila Budrowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2012

Irena Szypowska (1933–2012) − Moja Mama. (Wspomnienie o Irenie Szypowskiej)

Author(s): Joanna Szypowska,Dobrosława Świerczyńska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2012

Rec.: Komparatystyka między Mickiewiczem a dniem dzisiejszym, pod red. Lidii Wiśniewskiej, Bydgoszcz 2010

Author(s): Stanisław Jasionowicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2012