Stefania Chłędowska’s Short Story Triptych – a Lost Link in Polish “Bovarism?” Cover Image

Nowelistyczny tryptyk Stefanii Chłędowskiej – zagubione ogniwo polskiego „bowaryzmu”?
Stefania Chłędowska’s Short Story Triptych – a Lost Link in Polish “Bovarism?”

Author(s): Aneta Mazur
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: Stefania Chłędowska; bovarism; Alfons Daudet

Summary/Abstract: Three psychological and customary studies by Stefania Chłędowska (1850–1884), an obscure novelist, namely “Impresjonistka (Impressionist),” “Z historii nie-bohaterów (From the History of Non-heroes),” “Babie lato (Indian summer)” are original paraphrases of Flaubert’s bovarism. The references to French model are seen in the method of characters’ presentation, as well as on the fictional, stylistic and partially worldview level. Neurotic and bored heroines from upper class suffer from bovaristic hunger of sensual-psychical impressions and existential disappointment, while their adulterous affairs result in traumatic experience, and spiritual or physical destruction. The short stories’ auctorial tone includes an ironic distance from the world presented in them, pseudoromance melodrama as well as naturalistic accents (in the case of From the History of Non-heroes patterned after Alfons Daudet’s novel “Fromont jeune et Risler ainé <Fromont Junior and Risler Senior>)”.

  • Issue Year: 2012
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 27-43
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: Polish