Heckling the Catastrophe. On the Holocaust Literary Criticism Cover Image

Zagadywanie katastrofy. O literaturoznawstwie Holokaustu
Heckling the Catastrophe. On the Holocaust Literary Criticism

Author(s): Paweł Wolski
Subject(s): History, Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Polish Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne
Keywords: Holocaust studies; academic narrative; metacritics of discourse

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses a special kind of narrative about the catastrophe, treated as a specific genre of writing: the theory of literature of the Holocaust. The article presents its two most significant (although not the only ones) features: firstly, the conviction about its unusual character as compared to other genres/forms of writing, sometimes secretly described by such concepts as the uniqueness of the Holocaust (which metonymizes not only the event itself but also the narrations referring to it) and, secondly, identifies all text-producing entities (narrator, author etc.), simultaneously constituting the basic feature of the most important genre/modality of this kind of writing which is testimony. The article presents the examples of Polish and foreign scholars portraying this state of affairs.

  • Issue Year: 2015
  • Issue No: 25
  • Page Range: 21-36
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Polish