Nowe oblicza romantyzmu brytyjskiego
Modern Perspectives on British Romanticism
Bicentenary Essays
Contributor(s): Małgorzata Łuczyńska-Hołdys (Editor), Monika Coghen (Editor)
Subject(s): History, Language and Literature Studies, Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, 19th Century, Philology, British Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Romantic literature; British Romanticism; Long Eighteenth Century; literary translation; William Wordsworth; Dorothy Wordsworth; Byron; Shelley; Keats; Frances Burney; Joanna Baillie; Robert Burns; Coleridge; John Clare
Summary/Abstract: The volume is a collection of essays by Polish scholars celebrating the bicentenary of British Romanticism. It explores selected works of both canonical and less often quoted writers of the times. The authors use various critical approaches (ecocriticism, posthumanism, affect theory, human-animal studies, reception studies), which reveal the relevance of Romantic literature in today’s world.
- E-ISBN-13: 978-83-235-5534-6
- Print-ISBN-13: 978-83-235-5526-1
- Page Count: 284
- Publication Year: 2022
- Language: Polish
"Preludium", czyli pół wieku samotności Williama Wordswortha
"Preludium", czyli pół wieku samotności Williama Wordswortha
("The Prelude", or Fifty Years of Solitude of William Wordsworth)
- Author(s):Eliza Borkowska
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, 19th Century, Philology, British Literature
- Page Range:21-43
- No. of Pages:23
- Keywords:William Wordsworth; Prelude; autobiography; self-creation; myth; memory
- Summary/Abstract:The article reflects on the fifty odd years of solitude of William Wordsworth (1770–1850) during the process of the composition (1798–1805) and then the revision of his distinctly Romantic autobiographical poem "The Prelude", published posthumously in 1850. The leading English Romantics (Keats, Shelley, Byron, Blake) passed away in the 1820s. In the 1830s, Wordsworth commemorated in his minor poetry the deaths of Scott, Coleridge, Lamb, Hogg. His surviving contemporaries – including his beloved wife, sister, and daughter – all moved to the future, that is, the Victorian period. Wordsworth, the poet of the remembrance of things past, remained in the time recorded in "The Prelude" :the only living Romantic among the dead.
- Price: 4.50 €
Swobodne wędrówki romantyków angielskich
Swobodne wędrówki romantyków angielskich
(The Wanderings of the English Romantic Poets)
- Author(s):Przemysław Uściński
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, 19th Century, Philology, British Literature
- Page Range:45-75
- No. of Pages:31
- Keywords:William Wordsworth; Samuel Taylor Coleridge; romantic poetry; wandering; peripatesis; experience; nature; tourism; ecocriticism
- Summary/Abstract:The article discusses the importance of walking and wandering for the English Romantic poets, chiefly Wordsworth and Coleridge. It examines how wandering as an activity and a theme often helps them outline an attitude towards nature and human existence that affirms unpredictability and openness. By walking freely and wandering aimlessly the Romantic poets rediscover nature as a source of wonder, not a realm governed by mechanistic laws. In the process, they propose a different mode of inhabiting the earth – a different mode of dwelling, as Heidegger could say – one that underscores relatedness over an instrumental attitude of a subject towards an object. This induced some scholars to examine the complex eco-poetic dimension of Romantic poetry. Acknowledging the important ecological interest in the poetry discussed, the article also examines how the theme of wandering and the practice of walking tend to relate to a broader Romantic project of, say, re-enchanting the world. In particular, Romantic wonderings/wanderings seem to value the sense of joyfulness and spontaneity that issues from deep interconnectedness, in contrast with the notions that tie freedom to calculated choice and exploitation of nature and human life.
- Price: 4.50 €
"Wędrówki Childe Harolda"
"Wędrówki Childe Harolda"
("Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage")
- Author(s):Monika Coghen
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, 19th Century, Philology, British Literature
- Page Range:77-110
- No. of Pages:34
- Keywords:George Gordon Byron; Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; Pilgrimage; transcendence; Polish romantics
- Summary/Abstract:As is generally known, "Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage" played a central part in establishing Byron’s celebrity in post-Napoleonic Europe. The poem with its numerous contradictions and the ambiguous construction of the speaker has enabled the readers to interpret the text according to their own horizons of expectations, and to create their image of the poet. It is no surprise then that it was a particular favourite with the Polish Romantics. This essay takes as its springboard the reception of Childe Harold in Poland. I suggest a reading of the poem with a focus on the concept of “pilgrimage”, as the topos of the pilgrim is central to Polish Romanticism. Although the motif of pilgrimage, present in all the four cantos, can be interpreted in parodistic terms, I believe that it also encourages a reading of Byron’s poem in terms of a quest for transcendence, and as a record of deeply personal search for the meaning of life at the beginning of the 19th century.
- Price: 4.50 €
„Wstał z chaosu, wrócił do chaosu”
„Wstał z chaosu, wrócił do chaosu”
(First out of and then back again to Chaos)
- Author(s):Marcin Leszczyński
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, 19th Century, Philology, British Literature
- Page Range:111-130
- No. of Pages:20
- Keywords:George Gordon Byron; Georges Cuvier; Kain; geologia; katastrofizm geologiczny
- Summary/Abstract:The essay explores how Byron, especially in his Cain, made use of a literary potential inherent in geology. His poetry is presented against the background of the development of geology with a special emphasis on the appeal of geology to popular imagination. Scientific narratives, based on catastrophic visions of history, sometimes presented violent changes of the Earth, which would become a source of aesthetic pleasure and geological sublime. The sensational aspect of geological stories placed them in a close proximity to novels, romances, epic poems or legends. Byron therefore not only transferred elements of scientific knowledge to literature, but also took advantage of some of scientific methods used in geology, and the ways of popularizing it. The essay presents how Byron made use of geological strategies connected with visualisation and imaginative interpretations or speculations (which were also typical of the readings of the Biblical story of Genesis due to the gaps in the narrative).
- Price: 4.50 €
Doświadczając obcego świata – groteska w poezji Johna Keatsa i Percy’ego Bysshe Shelleya
Doświadczając obcego świata – groteska w poezji Johna Keatsa i Percy’ego Bysshe Shelleya
(Experiencing an alien world – the grotesque in the poetry of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley)
- Author(s):Małgorzata Łuczyńska-Hołdys
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, 19th Century, Philology, British Literature
- Page Range:131-152
- No. of Pages:22
- Keywords:grotesque; romantic poetry; John Keats; Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Summary/Abstract:This article aims at analysing grotesque motifs and their function in selected poems by John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley. In their poetry, the grotesque appears to be not only a recurring element, but rather a key organizational principle, responsible for generating meaning. Through its incongruent, nonsensical, partly comic, partly tragic nature, grotesque imagery shocks, surprises, and facilitates reflection on the paradoxes of the world we live in. Moreover, it frequently records dissatisfaction, disquiet and disillusionment, even serving as an instrument of active critique of political and social reality at the turn of the 19th century.
- Price: 4.50 €
Religia pól
Religia pól
(Religion of the fields)
- Author(s):Jacek Wiśniewski
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, 19th Century, Philology, British Literature
- Page Range:153-183
- No. of Pages:31
- Keywords:John Clare; ecopoetry; nature; ecocriticism; romanticism
- Summary/Abstract:The essay examines John Clare’s preoccupation with nature, and his very individual approach to the inspiration which the world of nature offers to a poet who is not a city dweller. His idiom is altogether different from that of the university educated Romantic poets. A natural genius and a poor peasant living and working in the country, he managed to write about nature around him, to describe its beauty, to show the fields, the birds and the beasts, but he also managed to use the esemplastic power of imagination to say important things about belief, society and politics.
- Price: 4.50 €
Dorothy Wordsworth i zwierzęta
Dorothy Wordsworth i zwierzęta
(Dorothy Wordsworth and Animals)
- Author(s):Magdalena Ożarska
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, 19th Century, Philology, British Literature
- Page Range:185-203
- No. of Pages:19
- Keywords:Dorothy Wordsworth; Diaries; Human-Animal Studies
- Summary/Abstract:The journals of Dorothy Wordsworth (1771–1855), the only sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770–1850), written between 1798 and 1803 in the English Lake District localities of Alfoxden and Grasmere, are largely devoted to observation of nature. Much has been written on this subject since 20th-century feminist criticism focused the interest of literary scholars on the works of Dorothy Wordsworth. So far, numerous plants which she depicted have been critically examined, but the animals described by the diarist have not received a detailed discussion. In this chapter, I use the perspective of Human-Animal Studies (HAS) to look at Dorothy Wordsworth’s "Alfoxden" and "Grasmere Journals" to see what new insights may be revealed by so doing. The questions I investigate include the following: What animal species dominate in her journals? How does Dorothy portray animals when she decides to make them her journal characters? Does she adopt an anthropocentric attitude, ascribing human characteristics to animals, or not? Does the diarist read animate nature exclusively from her human perspective, or does she try to experiment with other points of view?
- Price: 4.50 €
Frances Burney – krótka historia powieściopisarki, która spóźniła się na romantyzm
Frances Burney – krótka historia powieściopisarki, która spóźniła się na romantyzm
(Frances Burney – A Short History of a Writer Who Was Late for Romanticism)
- Author(s):Anna Paluchowska-Messing
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, 19th Century, Philology, British Literature
- Page Range:205-225
- No. of Pages:21
- Keywords:Frances Burney; The Wanderer; 19th-century novel English; Romanticism; Mary Wollstonecraft; literary canon
- Summary/Abstract:The paper presents a sketch of the life and literary career of Frances Burney, the first best-selling woman writer in the history of the British novel. The main focus is Burney’s negotiations of her own public image as conducted in her literary works. While the outcome of Burney’s endeavours in this quarter was at first very much to her advantage, in time the novelist’s reputation as a writer of merit seems to have faded. To explain the reasons for such a turn of events, the paper explores the contrast between Burney’s debut, "Evelina" (1778), and her last published novel, "The Wanderer; Or Female Difficulties" (1814), scrutinising the narrative choices made in the two texts, the scope of the themes they examine, and the reception each met with on its publication. The conclusions of this analysis show that the engagement of The Wanderer in political and social debates made it a controversial text in the times following the havoc of the French Revolution. The British society of the early 19th century was not then disposed to open anew the discussions on the rights of man or woman, which had shaken Europe two decades previously. In this sense, Burney’s last novel came too late to be counted among the first Romantic texts. On the other hand, as the paper shows, new readings of the text today reveal the freshness of the multidimensional approach Burney presents to the dilemmas she sets for her characters in the novel. In this sense, while The Wanderer may have been published too late for Romanticism, it is certainly not too late to read and appreciate the novel today.
- Price: 4.50 €
Sympatia i groza w dramatach gotyckich Joanny Baillie
Sympatia i groza w dramatach gotyckich Joanny Baillie
(Sympathy and Terror in Joanna Baillie’s Gothic Dramas)
- Author(s):Jacek Mydla
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, 19th Century, Philology, British Literature
- Page Range:227-246
- No. of Pages:20
- Keywords:sympathy; terror; fear; gothic; romantic drama; feminine and male characters in literature
- Summary/Abstract:In his article, Jacek Mydla examines chosen plays by romantic playwright Joanna Baillie (1762-1851), so-called Gothic plays by romantic playwright: "De Monfort", "The Dream", "Orra", "The Family Legend". The perspective from which Mydla approaches this literary material is defined by the philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment as represented by David Hume and Adam Smith and their theory of “sentiments” and of sympathy in particular. For Baillie, the idea of sympathy (or “fellow-feeling”) was the cornerstone of her vision of both drama and the reception of theatrical performance. As such, it helped her define the basic elements of that vision: romantic plays represent “strong passions” and the spectators become involved due to the working of “sympathetic curiosity”. Mydla’s goal is to relate the idea of sympathy to the Gothic and by doing so to look closely at the dynamics of male-female relationships in Baillie’s plays.
- Price: 4.50 €
Robert Burns w kulturze globalnej
Robert Burns w kulturze globalnej
(Robert Burns in Global Culture)
- Author(s):Mirosława Modrzewska
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, 19th Century, Philology, British Literature
- Page Range:247-267
- No. of Pages:21
- Keywords:Robert Burns w tłumaczeniu; czytelnik globalny; romantyzm w odbiorze; kultura ponadnarodowa
- Summary/Abstract:The article discusses the phenomenon of the global reception of the poetry of Robert Burns (1759–1796). The writer is generally recognized as the national poet of Scotland, but research shows that despite the local setting of his works, his poetry and his legend are of interest to the modern reader, not only via subsequent translations, but also in the original language. Polish translators and critics of Burns notice a variety of reasons for his popularity worldwide: political, nationalist, musical, or lyrical and poetical. In comparison the earlier translations of Burns into Polish reveal a new type of bilingual reader, capable of reading in the original as well as in the language of translation. The modern reception of Burns reveals the transnational aspects of his works, the universal quality of his poetical expression, which depicts in seemingly simple language a human world that is painful but at the same time cheerful. In particular, the translations of Jerzy R.S. Hebda seem to be aimed at Polish immigrants to Britain who are acquiring a new cultural identity and for whom Burns, the rebellious freedom fighter and the lyric persona of many love songs, is a useful and powerful icon.
- Price: 4.50 €