Smutne dialogi Octave’a Mirbeau: satyra na mieszczaństwo w III Republice Francuskiej
Sad Dialogues" by Octave Mirbeau, a satire of the bourgeoisie during the French Third Republic

Contributor(s): Tomasz Kaczmarek (Editor)
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, French Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: Octave Mirbeau; satire; sotie; theater of protest; anarchism
Summary/Abstract: In the presented monograph, the author analyzes Sad Dialogues (Smutne dialogi), a cycle of texts that belong to the aesthetic trend of French theatre of social protest, created by politically engaged writers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. This book is devoted to the collection of dialogues under the common title Sad Dialogues by Octave Mirbeau, which has been translated into Polish for the first time. In his texts, the French writer undertakes a critique of bourgeois society, portrayed as degenerate and devoid of values, solely focused on profit. Although these works are permeated with a pessimistic vision of reality, they are dominated by political satire that goes beyond mere irony, often veering into mystification and grotesquery. By exposing the absurdities of the contemporary bourgeois society, the author not only ridicules the mechanisms of power but also deliberately and thoughtfully distorts them, revealing their inherent emptiness and hypocrisy.

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