From old-time to modern Poznań in detective stories Cover Image

Od dawnego do współczesnego Poznania w kryminale
From old-time to modern Poznań in detective stories

Author(s): Marta Nowak
Subject(s): Polish Literature
Published by: Instytut Slawistyki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: detective story; literary onomastics; proper names; urbanonyms; place names; city

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses the image of Poznań in detective fiction written after 1989. The criminal stories were selected in such a way that their action takes place in different times, the purpose of the paper is to show how the choice of names affects the understanding of the novel’s content and compare the names used by the author with the real urban nomenclature with that of Poznan, both presently and in the period in which the piece is set. The main question posed is whether the time of action influences the selection of proper names and how the proper names were chosen for novels in which action takes place in earlier periods: whether the author uses historical urbanonyms, present ones or adopts a different strategy altogether. The article aims to show how the picture of Poznań is created in detective stories and how much it corresponds to reality.

  • Issue Year: 2017
  • Issue No: 09
  • Page Range: 1-12
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: Polish