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Using trains has become an oft-recurring symbol in literary history and a somewhat invisible energising force in the works of authors. In Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, trains are seen as instruments of fate, the catastrophic accidents of which portend the heroine’s plot. The symbols of trains can be manifold: in literature, trains can be associated with optimism (for example, Arnold Munk’s The Little Engine That Could), but on the negative side, they are seen as instruments that ruin the landscape, exert damaging consequences on the city, and even cause social upheaval (for example, Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford).The aim of this paper is to explore the omnipresence of trains in some of Vladimir Nabokov’s works, who was known to have been infatuated with railroads and locomotives since his early childhood. Trains possess a variety of thematic functions in Nabokov’s works. In several instances, Nabokov uses trains to cast a nostalgic glance at his idyllic past and present a recollection of seemingly disjointed images in one still point in time. The concept of “cosmic synchronization” in Nabokov is always connected with moments of epiphany, during which bliss and freedom are experienced by his characters. In Glory, an early novel originally written in Russian, Nabokov reveals that trains are not simply objects of one’s youthful obsession and romantic glamour, but constitute a fundamental aspect of the hero’s life as an émigré, who must find a proper existence far from his roots. Similarly to the figure of the Wandering Jew, Nabokov also considers the train journey as an adequate locus for his emblematical migrant characters that are unable to settle down and find peace. In my analysis of “Cloud, Castle, Lake,” it will be claimed that the distance from and fleetingness with which the traveller perceives outside reality through his windows do not offer lasting contact with his surroundings. The landscape, the objects, and the people, which are left behind, remain unidentifiable and mysterious.Nabokov’s use of the trains and the metaphor of the journey are to portray how passengers are incarcerated in time despite their infinite progress through space, while trains also shed light on the alienation and dislocation of his protagonists, who are always on the move, either escaping from a force of circumstances (wars, revolutions, etc.) or embarking upon a quest for the unattainable. Whenever mention is made of trains, Nabokov subtly suffuses the whole story with the subliminal suggestion of the evanescence of life and the inevitable fate of loss and death. It will also be argued that the discovery of the landscape serves as a textual discovery, which, due to the train’s speed, can never be grasped in its entirety, and the fragmentation of the text brings no satisfaction both to the reader and the writer: memory thus becomes blurred and one’s holistic knowledge of existence eventually remains patchy. In this way, Nabokov uses trains differently from other authors less prone to highlight their importance in metaphysical ruminations and spiritual musings as Nabokov does. Throughout Nabokov’s works, the train and the railroad have become a functional and structural part of the plot and narration.
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The Book of Evidence is the self-confession of the protagonist Freddie Montgomery of the crime he has committed. Freddie, an Irish scientist, has been imprisoned for stealing a painting and murdering a young maid named Josie Bell. When Freddie sees “A Portrait of a Woman with Gloves” for the first time he is inexplicably attracted by the woman on the canvas, hypnotised by her mere presence. The picture has a strange power over him. As he himself says only he can understand “the pathos of her presence” (BE 79), only he “has come upon her in a golden room on a summer eve” (BE 79), and only he is capable of killing for her. While reading Freddie’s account of the murder we become witness of his gradual depersonalisation and loss of identity. He hesitates on the verge of reality and the fictional world, of the ordinary and the extraordinary, of art and life. He breaks the link with the ordinary world by murdering Josie Bell who is an intruder for him, the one who stands between him and his woman with gloves. The images of the two women are presented in contrast to one another. The maid is part of reality and yet the ordinary world in which Freddie feels an outsider. The woman with gloves exists in the fictional extraordinary world of art and yet she seems a living creature to Freddie. The picture stands in the centre of the narrative as an example of ekphrasis. In my article, I will analyse how Banville’s excessive use of ekphrastic descriptions in the narrative contributes to building a more complete picture of his protagonist and relating it to the loss of self and depersonalisation of character.
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In his „Dire quasi la stessa cosa. Esperienze di traduzione” (2003) Umberto Eco discusses and comments on important dynamics of translation, its strategies and gestures, using examples drawn from his own literary works rendered in different languages. Thus, the answer to the question of the reasons we translate is formulated in relation to some subjective experiences of literary translation from and into Italian exercised by the author of the essay. The category of pleasure is presented as a significative factor that prompts us to translate.
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This article addresses meta-theoretical issues. Its core concern is to find a coherent conceptual language and an integrated research perspective which would allow to describe various experimental forms of artistic expression claiming the name of “translation”. Particular attention is paid to those literary and non-literary artistic experiments which obligatorily activate the interpretive context of translation proper and therefore require translational analytical tools. The methodological framework for research is provided by the ongoing “outward turn” in western European “post-translation studies”.
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The article presents case study of a creative practice-based project in which the experimental conceptual book „Paint the Rock” by Shiv Kotecha was translated into Polish using a conceptual translation strategy. The original is an unconventional “coloring book” that invites the reader to paint American male celebrities from memory. The Polish translation, „Namaluj Popka” by Aleksandra Małecka and Piotr Marecki, remakes the original experiment, replacing these global household names with figures from the Polish local popular imaginary in a ludic localization. The authors describe the context of the original literary work, the translation process, the new context for reception in Poland, with a special focus on the role of the translator as the ambassador of new trends in literature and the creative and critical potential of conceptual writing and translation strategies.
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Summary The article discusses the motivation of Jan Goryński to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. A 16th century description (preserved until now in a 17th century manuscript) forms a memory of that journey). According to the researchers, in comparison to the other descriptions of that time (by Anzelm Polak, Jan Tarnowski and Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł “Sierotka” [“Orphan”]), it has an outstandingly memoirs-like nature, according to researchers. In the bibliography concerning the issue of Goryński, there are yet no explanations of the reasons for his decision to go on that journey which was so difficult at those times. Considering the reality of the period when the Pole went on pilgrimage, his motivation might have been: deep faith and will to follow Christ’s steps, intention of penance, thanksgiving or intercession, or increase in his social rank status by being granted the title of the Knight of the Holy Sepulchre. In the text of peregrination, the pilgrim did not directly indicate the reason why he had decided to travel. Until this day, no correspondence which could explain the reasons for realisation of his pilgrimage has been retained. \e discourse first presents biographical facts concerning Goryński, his closest relatives and environment which shaped him. An analysis of this Polish pilgrim’s biography as well as the &'th century description of peregrination may assist in determination of reasons for which he went on this pilgrimage.
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The author compares two funeral pieces by Kasper Miaskowski (Polish Kaliope to death by Wojciech Gajewski and his Epitaph) with a funeral speech preserved in a manuscript and read by Wojciech Miaskowski. It aims at praising late Wojciech Gajewski in order to verify similarities between the texts and, simultaneously, whether one may speak of a relation between them. In the article, essential similarities of inventive nature were indicated: authors used the same arguments to enhance the topos fortitudo et sapientia serving to praise the nobleman. Similarities also concern elocutions which are associated with the use of specific notions in identical contexts. qese resemblances seem to prove the poet’s oratory skills. qe author also focuses on differences in the elaboration of issues by writers, claiming that, following Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski’s opinion, the reason for this lies in different purposes of the speaker and the poet. Therefore, the differences resulted mainly from poetic generalisation which in the Renaissance period was also connected with ‘silva rerum' poetry. Moreover, an analysis of the funeral speech enables the author to gain complementary knowledge on Gajewski’s biography.
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In this paper I present Jacek Liberiusz’s sermons and his preaching about the last things (death, last judgment, heaven, hell and purgatory) and the cult of St. Mary. I juxtapose them with the Jean Delumeau’s thesis about the common fear caused by wars, plagues and church’s teaching. Tremendal elements can hardly be found in Liberiusz sermon’s. On the contrary – worldly atrocities or God’s wrath are being mitigated by the infinite mercy and goodness of Virgin Mary. She seems to be the central figure of the cult, even more important than Jesus himself which is characteristic for 17th century polish piety. Sermons by Liberiusz may be an example of more complex and diversed reactions to surrounding cruelty. These atrocities were not necessary replicated in religion, but also in the contact with God people looked for a consolation.
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The article refers to the representations of the Last Judgment in the Carmelite literature. It includes selected preaching from the collection of sermons of Serapion Kociełkowicz and Klemens from Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary from the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. The last Judgement is one of the “four final things for man”. The article takes elements of catechesis focused on considering the attitude of God during the Last Judgement, the role of fear as a mean of moralizing, concepts of God’s Mercy and Justice. It also presents individual constructions of eschatological ideas of both preachers, enriching with the original concept the schema which was a conglomeration of a generally accepted and stereotypical philosophical and religious perspective.
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The article discusses a translation of a Carol Shields’s novel Swann. A Mystery (1987) by a Polish poet Ludmiła Marjańska (Zagadka wiecznego pióra, 1998). Marjańska’s translation is not an easy one to assess: it contains some shifts as well as simple mistakes, but Polish versions of lyrics quoted in the novel as written by a mysterious, unacknowledged (and non-existing) poet Mary Swann are undeniably its strongest point. What makes them more interesting, they show close affinity to poems by Emily Dickinson translated by Marjańska – and to her own poetry
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The self-poetic statements of Daniel Leverkin were examined in this paper. It is going to be revealed that exactly this component of Rabies puts under question simple genre entry of this novel. Poetical thought in this novel has its consistency: it leads from testimony towards the story that has to put this testimony into context, in order to confirm its humanistic orientation. In this insufficiency of testimony and the need for the story, we recognise the key difference between aesthetics of testimony in Kiš, and fictionalisation of testimony in Pekić. In the second part of the paper, the motif of Leverkin's interruption of writing of his self-poetic journal and the character of Gabriel who is Leverkin's successor was analysed in the context of interruption of writing that is being thematized in Andrić's Omerpasa Latas, and Crnjanski's strive by the means of count Rjepnin's suicide (in Novel of London).
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The research of birds in the novel Dictionary of the Khazars begins with the comparison of the understanding of the bird universe in the poetry of Đorđe Marković Koder, and continues with the analysis of the symbolism and the function of 29 bird species mentioned in the novel. Bird species can be divided into two basic groups which include both positively and negatively connoted birds. The aim of the paper is to determine the origin of the bird symbolism in the novel and to attempt to typologize the ornithological universe of the novel. Birds who convey a positive meaning include: a) those thanks to which memory, reproduction, and the knowledge of language, the poetry of the original dictionary of the Khazars is preserved from oblivion (the parrot, the starling, the swallow, the albatross); b) birds which, as interpreters, aid the reading methods or symbolize divine or mystical knowledge (the jay, the kestrel, the pigeon, the heron, the eagle); c) symbols of spiritual values, healing, salvation, and resurrection (the 'ku,' the pigeon, the ostrich, the falcon, the chaffinch, the goose, the chicken, the barn owl). On the other side are the following birds: a) symbols of death (the hawk, the sparrow hawk, the cuckoo, the tit, the woodpecker, the crow); b) birds of the underworld, demonic and of the devil (the crow, the jackdaw, the partridge, the woodcock); c) birds that signify nothingness (the mallard, the duck, the swan, the collared dove, the swift).
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The article presents the perception of folk dialect in the 19th century in four perspectives. Researchinto dialects initiated by ethnographers and, continued by dialectologists are discussed in the article.The article also shows how the dialects have been used in literature. It extracts the features of folkspeech in literature. On the basis of the most important nineteenth-century dictionaries the authorindicates the relationship between dialect and general lexis. Through the analysis of registeredterritorial lexes and how it is qualified, the article aims to reconstruct the linguistic consciousnessof the 19th century dictionariy writers. On the basis of language guides the article shows the ratioof contemporary standards of correctness to folk dialect word forms.
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The main goal of the article is to shed some light on the social phenomenon known as “Miotełki” (“The Little Brooms”), which gained popularity in the 20’s and 30’s of the 19th-century Warsaw. ”Miotełki” was a term used to address songs originating from Chłop Milionowy (The Peasant as a Millionaire), an extraordinarily popular contemporary melodrama. The first performer of these songs was Jan Nowakowski, a well-liked actor of the National Theatre in Warsaw. The article shows the rising popularity of ”Miotełki” and concentrates on their role as a sociocultural phenomenon. The songs managed to transcend social class barriers – from mentions in magazines and well-educated conversations to serving as simple people’s catchy tunes. The fame of “Miotełki”’s lasted until the November Insurrection, during which they evolved from representing the everyday life slightly ironically and in an entertaining way to serving as a tool of patriotic propaganda. That very fact is considered to be what we would call today an example of fan culture. The article also focuses on the themes that appeared in in the songs, such as a deep respect for family or the affirmation of social divisions, all of which contributed to their success as being important to the inhabitants of Warsaw.
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Review: Rafał Regulski ‒ Marek Zgaiński, Podroby, Młodzieżowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1988.
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Twórczość Romana Jaworskiego doczekała się nielicznych i na ogół zdawkowych opinii, spuścizną po Stanisławie Ignacym Witkiewiczu zajmują się całe rzesze badaczy. Odkryto go, a i po części wykreowano na geniusz nad geniusze, tworząc nawet całą dziedzinę wiedzy, która – jak zwykle, kiedy do nazwiska dodaje się uogólniającą końcówkę – zamienia osobę w abstrakcję.
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Zaledwie przebrzmiały ostatnie akordy wspaniałej pieśni Schuberta, która uświetniła i unieśmiertelniła zarazem świeżo upieczonego noblistę Aleksandra Sołżenicyna, a już w czasopiśmie „Ami”, w tym samym roku (1973), jakby w pośpiechu, pojawiło się dzieło-aluzja, dzieło-symbol dokonujące alkoholowej apologii rozalkoholizowanej Rosji.
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