Butterflies and moths in poetry by Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska Cover Image

Motyle i ćmy w poezji Marii Pawlikowskiej-Jasnorzewskiej
Butterflies and moths in poetry by Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska

Author(s): Aneta Wysocka
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego

Summary/Abstract: The article concerns the images of butterflies and moths in works by Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska. Its main aim is to trace ways of using cultural connotations of the names of the creatures typical of her lyrics. The very creatures, in science belong to the category covering one another (a moth is a kind of a butterfly), in language and poetry form separate classes between whom strong conceptual relations do not exist. Poetical images of butterflies and moths are substantially in line with their linguistic images. Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska uses cultureand language-fixed images of butterflies (relations with summer, the sun, weather, flight over flowers, beauty, happiness, ephemerality, freedom, emotional coldness, masculinity) and moths (relations with darkness/night, flight to the flame, sadness, tragedy, ugliness, enslavement, femininity) making them a basis of their vision. The importance of a grammatical gender slightly surprises here — a moth is usually a metaphor of a woman, a butterfly of a man.

  • Issue Year: 2010
  • Issue No: 14
  • Page Range: 127-140
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: Polish