Jednostka niepełnosprawna a społeczeństwo w kontekście problemu inności w literaturze XIX i XX wieku

Author(s): Anna Mężyk-Mazur / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The article endeavours to characterise the means of creation of the world and thefigure of a person with a disability in Polish and foreign texts from the period of YoungPoland to the contemporary times. Chosen literary works representing various tendenciesand genres from, among others, children’s literature, non‑fiction, but also fairy tales, form the ground for the author’s observations. The article reflects upon the means of hiding disabled people behind certain metaphors, as these people evoke extreme emotions, from fear to full acceptance. It focuses on the ways of representing the relations between a person and a society, oscillating around hostility and cooperation, in the context of otherness. The author also contemplates upon the notions of norm and normality, the issues connected to freedom, self‑determination, and having one’s own place in the world. Finally, remarks on the ways of domesticating otherness in literature are provided.

„Czarne lądy” Wandy Melcer wobec form egzotyzacji tradycyjnej społeczności żydowskiej

Author(s): Marzena Szugiero / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Czarny Ląd. Warszawa [The Black Land. Warsaw] is a collection of reportages byWanda Melcer, institutionally and ideologically linked to Wiadomości Literackie weekly, and deeply involved in the social campaigns held under the auspices of Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński. Explicitly ideologised, these accounts of the journeys to the “black lands” – Warsaw’s district inhabited by the traditional Jewish people and nearby shtetls – aroused a number of controversies in the last years of interwar Poland. The aim of this article is to show the means of exoticising this community that are undertaken by the writer, taking into consideration the tradition and realised cultural scripts.

Transponowanie powszedniości na niezwykłość w opowiadaniach Brunona Schulza

Author(s): Aleksandra Smusz / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The article discusses the techniques of description in Bruno Schulz’s short stories. It presents the methods of metaphorising the reality, which are expressly different from the schemes perpetuated by realism. The analyses of the excerpts from The Street of Crocodiles (Sklepy cynamonowe) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Sanatorium pod Klepsydrą) point to various rhetorical devices that result in an extraordinary character of the descriptions, combining numerous heterogeneous elements and referring to symbolic signs of culture. This text also discusses the methods of constituting boundaries in the created reality by the narrator: boundaries that separate the central part of magical Drohobych with its inhabitants from everything that resides in the peripheries of the city and is perceived as unfamiliar, unfriendly, and hostile.

„(Od)ręczne” konstrukcje narracji w powojennej prozie nurtu wiejskiego

Author(s): Iwona Wieczorek-Bartkowiak / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The author of this article reflects upon the ways of creation of the world in Polishrural prose, which enforce bodily activity on the narrators and characters. What is analysed is the relation between everyday agricultural handwork – organising the plot of the pieces – and its preservation in the narration. The description includes the structures that make it possible for the writers to interlace the work of hands with the work of language when weaving the action, the events, and the story. The author also makes remarks on the axiological character of handcraft, fist fight, and the motif of a hand as inherent elements involved in the world creation that define rural prose, with a special emphasis on the works by Stanisław Czernik, Tadeusz Nowak, and Wiesław Myśliwski.

Sposoby oswajania rzeczywistości w powieściowym cyklu fantasy Jarosława Grzędowicza

Author(s): Karolina Kowalczyk / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

This paper is devoted to familiarisation of the reality depicted in Jarosław Grzędowicz’s novel, entitled Pan Lodowego Ogrodu (The Lord of the Ice Garden). Particularly, it covers the means of dealing with the unknown, basing on the example of the protagonist of this cycle – Vuko Drakkainen. The first problem tackled in this paper is the way in which the aforementioned hero and narrator describes the world; precisely, it includesthe attempts to make the new and hostile reality familiar, and the consequences of such an act. The second issue is a change in the viewpoint of the protagonist throughout the saga, and its influence on his ways of defining the surrounding world. Hence, it becomes possible to track how an unaware and hostile coloniser turns into a nearly fully assimilated member of the community, which previously has been unknown to him.

O przemianach tradycyjnej fabularności w prozie polskiej schyłku XX wieku (na przykładzie Kino‑lino Grzegorza Strumyka)

Author(s): Anna Tryksza / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The purpose of this paper is to take a closer yet temporally distant look into the issues connected with the complexity of literary communication in the Polish prose of the 90s. It covers techniques, methods, and means which aim at constructing the relations between an addresser and an addressee with regard to changing historical conditions. The paper poses as its subject matter Polish prose of the 90s, that is – works by Marek Bieńczyk, Zbigniew Kruszyński, Jerzy Pilch, Zyta Rudzka, and, especially, Grzegorz Strumyk. Moreover, it focuses on the revisions of the traditionally understood fictionality, which has always been a cornerstone of the contract with an addressee and a guarantee of readerly success. The key question raised in this paper thus becomes “What instead of a plot?,” or, in other words, “Which fictionality?” The paper therefore deals with the issues rooted in poetics and literary theory in the context of the particular literary notions concerning fiction. Furthermore, the reflections on mimesis in relation to the contemporary methods of creating a plot are presented.

„Swojskie” i „obce” w twórczości dla dzieci Wojciecha Widłaka

Author(s): Małgorzata Mieszek / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The article presents the works by Wojciech Widłak – one of the most popular contemporary authors of children’s literature – in the context of the motifs of the homely andthe foreign present therein. The conducted analysis has shown that in Widłak’s pieces the motifs related to foreignness dominate in terms of both quantity and quality (as they connote more meanings). The “foreign” can function as a synonym for something unknown, dangerous, unwanted, inappropriate, distant, primordial, and instinctual. The author attempts to form the plot and action in such a way that this “foreignness,” with its negative implications, is challenged by the end of the work. As a result of such “domestication,” it becomes something known and thus homely. At times an unknown feeling or object becomes so intriguing that it encourages the characters – and readers – to explore it and to gain knowledge on the subject. The article also describes the way in which Widłak uses the so‑called defence mechanism, which makes it possible for the reader to concretise and get familiarised with the dangers, and, consequently, to domesticate them, restoring the feeling of safety. In turn, the motif of homeliness in Wojciech Widłak’s oeuvre is related to that which is desired, known, and safe. Also the literary devices utilised by the author make it easier for young readers to understand the actions of the characters and the laws in force in the depicted world, they lend colour to the narration, and they make the described reality coherent and harmonious. In such a way, the world from Wojciech Widłak’s short stories is safe and homely, while the situations in which the author places his characters activate non‑adultreaders to take various actions and gain new experiences.

Genius loci ustrońskich Goji w Dzienniku Józefa Pilcha

Author(s): Katarzyna Szkaradnik / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

In his diary kept from 1963 to his death, Józef Pilch (1913–1995) – a bibliophile and historian of the region from Ustroń – shows not only the social and artistic life of Cieszyn Silesia, and the reality of the Polish People’s Republic, but also the extraordinary image of his home in a hamlet called Goje. The article attempts to examine his writings in terms of the means of creating the “spirit” of this place, which was significant for the author as both his own private haven built not without difficulty at this picturesque site, and an anchor of the most precious values. As regards the latter, their vehicle is mainly the library, but also discussions with friends – among others from the world of culture – about Poland, books, history, and contemporariness. In this article, it is shown in what way Goje becomes in Pilch’s Dziennik not only an oasis of kindness and hospitality, but also a mythical locus amoenus, and, at the same time, the quintessence of Cieszyn Silesia and the centre of Polishness: a new Soplicowo. The author of this paper ponders upon whether it is only the idealisation that blurs the general uprooting, or the diarist remains an uncritical mythographer, but also upon the purpose of such a representation of Goje. It turns out that this Arcadia of books and nature makes it possible for the hosts and their guests to reclaim their past and to maintain the continuity despite the decline of tradition, the historical politics of the Polish People’s Republic, and the situations on the border.

Prywatność i polityka w (auto)biografiach żon i córek mężów stanu

Author(s): Małgorzata Medecka / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The article is grounded upon three texts: Marzenia i tajemnice by Danuta Wałęsa, Między nami by Małgorzata Tusk, and Towarzyszka panienka by Monika Jaruzelska. It reflects upon the genre studies oriented and rhetorical character of these texts, and a sui generis referential pact – a combination of autobiographism and biographism. The author also delineates persuasive elements – that is, an aim and a type of persuasion – connected to the subject of one’s own or someone else’s biography. The final part of the paper includes the remarks on the relation between authorship / co‑authorship (written autonomously, edited by…, inspired by…) and the final form of the text.

Inicjacja w dorosłość jako ponowne tworzenie świata w opowiadaniu Czyngiza Ajtmatowa Łaciaty pies biegnący brzegiem morza

Author(s): Rafał Siwicki / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

This article analyses one of the most important short stories by the prominent Kyrgyz author, Chinghiz Aitmatov, entitled Spotted Dog Running on Seashore. The predominant issue tackled in this paper is the rite of passage of the protagonist, which covers the participation of the eleven‑year‑old boy in his first hunting at the sea, along with other huntsmen of his lineage. Adopting the definition of initiation formulated by Mircea Eliade, who has expanded Arnold van Gennep’s findings, the paper presents an internal change of the protagonist, which takes place as an outcome both of experiencing sacrum (among others, by means of witnessing death), and of knowledge gained during the dramatic events at the sea. Approaching the aforementioned issue allows one to relate Aitmatov’s short story to contemporaneity. After all, it is possible to perceive the boy’s initial attitude as the behaviour of the contemporary human being: an egoistic individual who suffers from the inability of defining his or her place in the world or the purpose of his or her life. By means of overcoming these limitations, the protagonist makes his existence mature. His mature way of being in the world might be claimed to be the sui generis universal postulate made by Aitmatov; precisely, it should be understood first and foremost as accepting the primacy of interpersonal solidarity and the value which belonging to a community – family or lineage – holds. Yet another indicator of the maturity resurfaces in the manner in which the protagonist feels his own connection with the surrounding nature, and believes in its protective power, as it is revealed at the end of the short story.

Przeciwstawność wojny i pokoju w listach Łesi Ukrainki

Author(s): Svitlana Bogdan / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The article presents a way of using two opposing words – war and peace – in LesyaUkrainka’s letters. What is worth noting is the fact that so far there has been no linguistic research concerning this issue. It has been observed that lexemes war and peace influence the shaping of the inner world of the author of the letters. The analysed epistolary texts contain binary oppositions (including the war / peace pair), which first and foremost mirror the values held by the author, expressed in moral maxims and aphorisms.The nominative form of the word war is verbalised primarily by means of such lexemes as war, army, military, martial. What is worth noting is the personal engagement of the author in the real descriptions of the days during the war, as well as the usage of aphorisms and reflections on the subject of the war. In the letters, the stereotypical phrase go to war recurs in its figurative meaning (for instance, war as an illness). Lesya Ukrainka uses numerous words deriving from the word peace: they calmed down, she/he made peace, to reconcile, it is (not) beseeming, peacefulness, peaceful, peacefully, faithful, Myrophora. Frequently, the lexeme agree appears with the following meaning: to reach an agreement, to agree with other people’s opinion. Studying the binary pair of war – peace confirms the multidimensionality and universality of these phenomena, and the words and phrases that describe them.

Problem schyłku w procesie przekształceń genologicznych

Author(s): Roksana Rał-Niemeczek / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The article constitutes an attempt at analysis of the most significant changes in the realm of genology which occurred in the period since antiquity until the classical period following the reign of Stanisław II August. The author traces the phenomenon of genologicaldecadence, placing it in the sphere of ancient postulates, which, in the following periods,had been either replicated or superseded by new tendencies. The primary research material comprises of Enlightenment poetics formulated by Filip Neriusz Golański, Franciszek Ksawery Dmochowski, Ignacy Krasicki and others, which are then contrasted with genological principles of Plato or Diomede. Thus, the central problem of “lateness” or “maturity” of the antiquity as an epoch constitutive for the definition and systematization of genres relies upon the mutual permeation of influences and reconfiguring old norm with thehelp of the new ones.

Empire jako styl późny w perspektywie myśli filozoficznej Georga Wilhelma Friedricha Hegla

Author(s): Sławomir Kaczor / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The 19th century has been characterised as an extremely tumultuous period in the history of Europe. The rise of Napoleon at the turn of the century and his wide-ranging activity in numerous spheres of life, including the world of culture, had to and ultimately did find its reflection in many polemical and scholarly works, including various philosophers,such as Napoleon’s contemporary, G.W.F. Hegel. His interest in the multifaceted natureof the historical events found its reflection in, among others, Lectures on Aesthetics. Thetreatise constitutes an excellent source material concerning the changes in arts in the lateperiod of the classical era, often referred to as Empire. Hegel himself does not name thestyle explicitly, and he mentions Bonaparte by name only three times, yet the analysis ofthe work in question in the context of the entire epoch as well as Hegel’s personal attitudetowards its creator allow to accurately indicate the features which testify to the “lateness”of Empire.

Klavierstücke op. 118 Johannesa Brahmsa. Zbiór czy cykl?

Author(s): Stanisław Kosz / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The six piano pieces which comprise Klavierstücke, op. 118 by Johannes Brahms are not defined by the literature of musicology as a coherent, integral cycle. Moreover, the title of the first note edition—Klavierstücke (N. Simrock, 1893)—does not seem to suggest that either. However, an in-depth analysis of the particular parts of opus 118, as well as theirparticular arrangement and the dramatic character of the entire piece—coupled with Mieczysław Tomaszewski’s six-phase conception of the creative path of the artist—allowto assume the hypothesis that, in fact, the piece constitutes at the same time a cycle characterized by a high level of internal integration and a kind of musical “autobiography” ofthe composer, dedicated nota bene to Clara Wieck.

Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Flann O’Brien. Różne oblicza schyłkowości w procesie relatywizacji absolutu

Author(s): Dariusz Pestka / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Oscar Wilde, only nominally representing the Victorian Era, remained very much a contrarian in his artistic endeavours, not in the social and political sphere, but rather in the artistic and moral sense. As a representative of aestheticism, he remained under the idealistic theories of John Ruskin, at the same time succumbing to the impressionist visions of Walter Pater and referring to French symbolists. James Joyce, in his aesthetic credo, eschewed the idea of moral renewal in the religious sense, but at the same time heavily alluded to the aesthetic conception rooted in Thomism. Through his extensive use of experimental techniques, which constitute the very essence of modernism, and his use of parody, he presented the history of humanity focusing on the disintegration of language and its primary communication functions. Flann O’Brien, on the other hand, a writer of the late modern period, anticipated the tendencies characteristic of postmodernism and adopted a sceptical attitude towards the epistemological tradition of the Western civilisation. The ambiguity of O’Brien’s prose manifests, among others, in his use of Menippean satire, which the author utilises in order to allude to the narrative characteristic of the 20th-century anti-utopia with post-apocalyptic undertones, at the same time parodying that literary convention.

Styl późny w służbie sztuki życia. O późnej poezji Davida Herberta Lawrence’a

Author(s): Alina Mitek-Dziemba / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The point of departure for the following article is the belief that the concept of the late style, which was conceptualised primarily in the context of artistic endeavours, due to itsreflection on the nature of maturing, growing old, or the complex relationship betweensubjectivity and time, appears to share a certain affinity with the philosophy of existencemuch broader than just the art theory. Stylisation can be thus treated as an ancillary term,subordinate to the domain of existential aestheticisation (Richard Schusterman), whoseexistence is clearly inscribed into the modern philosophical project, though, in a broadersense, it has been present in philosophy from the very beginning, manifesting itself in thefigure of life understood as a work of art. Thus, the author of the article ponders the notionof the late style in the context of the aesthetics of existence, while the primary researchgoal becomes its concrete exemplification on the basis of one of the later poetic works ofD.H. Lawrence—a writer who on the one hand was taken before his time by an insidious illness, and on the other hand developed his sense of “lateness” and belatedness with reference to his contemporaries who died in the First World War. The reflections on the matter are highly influenced by the excellent late (and unfinished) book by Edward Said, On Late Style.

O kończeniu i rozpoczynaniu, czyli co się rodzi, gdy przemija postać świata

Author(s): Marcin Trzęsiok / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The article proposes a typology of articulation of the Romantic and modernist crisis of the Western Culture. The author distinguishes two primary narratives (rhetorics), inwhich the crisis is approached as a decline (twilight) or a new beginning (dawn). He alsointroduces yet another type—a rhetoric of dynamic stability, which emerges as a resultof the exhaustion of the idea of progress and guided history, in which the first two typesare deeply rooted. Moreover, the author characterises briefly each of these rhetorics andprovides examples of how each of them manifests in music. In the conclusions, the authorpoints to the potential for the emergence of a new philosophical paradigm, contained inthe premises of the rhetoric of dynamic stability.

Między „starym” a „nowym”. Kanon nie tylko lektur szkolnych — dyskusje, polemiki, propozycje

Author(s): Grażyna Lewandowicz-Nosal / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Wojna Dorosłych — Historie Dzieci. Narracje o wojnie w literaturze dla młodych odbiorców po transformacji ustrojowej (1990—2015)

Author(s): Krystyna Heska-Kwaśniewicz / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Siostrzaństwo lektury. O związkach powieści dla kobiet i dziewcząt

Author(s): Małgorzata Wójcik-Dudek / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0