Teatr Pawlikowskiego – retrospekcja, reinterpretacja

Author(s): Diana Poskuta-Włodek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 131/2016

Diana Poskuta-Włodek writes of some books on Tadeusz Pawlikowski published in 2015. Most of her attention is devoted to the collection of articles by Jan Michalik, titled Tadeusz Pawlikowski: The Legend, the Man, the Theater (Historical Museum of the City of Krakow, Krakow 2015). This book depicts Pawlikowski as a person and reinterprets the facts about the artist (Michalik debunks the myth of the artist's wealth and his ties to Reinhardt). The other publications, according to Poskuta-Włodek, only supplement this first publication. Theater Reviews and Opera Chronicles, edited by Agnieszka Wanicka, Anna Wypych-Gawrońska, and Jan Michalik (WUJ, Krakow 2015), focuses on Pawlikowski's interest in musical theater. Tadeusz Pawlikowski and His Theater, edited by Izabela Oleksiak-Wilk (Historical Museum of the City of Krakow, Krakow 2015), is a catalogue describing the objects displayed in the Hipolit House of the Historical Museum of the City of Krakow, and is an attempt to define the form of Pawlikowski's theater.

София

Author(s): Petar Dinekov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 15/2014

The text from Peter Dinekov’s diaries follows in travel notes a day spent in Sofia in 1933 – sufficient time for the author to feel the life of the city. The fragment is a panoramic puzzle representing the social life and the mentality of the citizens of the capital. We can see the political and cultural institutions with their administrative sluggishness and cliquishness. The walk encompasses the transport (Sv. Kral), as well as the commercial arteries (from “Lege” and “Targovska” to “Pirotska”) and (not)tourist destinations (from “Alexander Nevsky” to “Konyovitsa” and “Banishora”). Weekdays streets come back to life with workers and unemployed, “partisans”, students and pensioners with their topos-world: the café. The charm of the night Sofia is revealed – restaurants, dance halls and not so many theaters because of the boredom in them. Sofia is seen as a place of celebrations, of vanity, parades and party processions, of obedience and cowardice, but also of disobedience and boldness. The fragment ends with a description which resembles to the poetic images of Smirnensky – the urban darkness in which “two worlds stand up against each other.”

Фрагменти и метафори

Author(s): Savcho Savchev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 82-83/2015

Poetski obred ponovnog rađanja u "Ženskom Lazaru" Sylvije Plath

Author(s): Sandra V. Novkinić / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 2/2014

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the inviolability of „female creativity” in the works of Sylvia Plath through the symbolism of death and rebirth. „Lady Lazarus” reflects Plath’s recognition that the struggle between death and rebirth must direct every aspect of poetic structure. The woman in the poem is at the same time a victim and tormentor. She is a female Lazarus who died because of great suffering that the poet equates with the suffering of the Jews who were tortured during World War II. She is a victim of male cruelty, but also a new woman who rises from the flames. Using the myth of the resurrection of the Phoenix, Sylvia Plath shows a woman who stands up against all the men who restrain her. The allusions in the poem to the biblical, historical, political and personal take the reader into the center of a personality (of a woman).

Grzech czytania „Yogalife”. Antyhipokryzja w powieści Doroty Masłowskiej Kochanie, zabiłam nasze koty

Author(s): Piotr Jakub Wąsowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The text is an attempt to analyse the latest novel by Dorota Masłowska as a manifestation of culture of authenticity described by Charles Taylor, namely the culture in which one strives to discover one’s true “self.” The author argues that Dorota Masłowska considers the desire to be original and true to oneself as the most important human activity and condemns those who are not successful in that regard. At the same time, unlike her characters, she presents herself as a self-aware and authentic individual. Masłowska’s linguistic ingenuity has long been overshadowed her reflection on what actually the writer actually wants to communicate. This work is an attempt to fill this gap.

„Czy mogę o sobie powiedzieć: jestem Żydówką?” O Rodzinnej historii lęku Agaty Tuszyńskiej

Author(s): Natalia Żórawska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The aim of the article is to interpret Rodzinna historia lęku (Family history of anxiety) by Agata Tuszyńska from the perspective of Holocaust literature. Tuszyńska, as a post-Holocaust generation writer, addresses autobiographical themes closely related to the Holocaust. This issue is approached from the perspective of an adult woman who bears the stigma of the Holocaust. As a representative of the second generation, she did not experience the war, but she still feels its effects inherited from her mother. The author demonstrates that both in terms of form and content post-trauma is a key aspect for the interpretation of the text. The article is thus an attempt to outline the issues of women’s Holocaust prose based on Agata Tuszyńska’s book, and include it in trauma studies and contemporary literary reflection on the Holocaust.

Podmiot gatunkowo usytuowany. Sonet i bajka w twórczości poetyckiej Adama Wiedemanna

Author(s): Tomasz Dalasiński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The article addresses the issue of the genre of the speaking “I” in the poems by Adam Wiedemann. The issue is analysed in relation to traditional genre forms: both purely literary and those that are the cross between “official” and traditional (oral) literature, namely the sonnet and the Aesopian fable. The article indicates that the reorientation of genremodels of expression locate the speaking “I” in Wiedemann’s poetry in the field of dialectics: between the awareness of the need to refer to tradition and its deconstruction, between generating literary invariants and being subject to the influence of literary and cultural conventions, and finally – between approving of its own fictionality and the search for authenticity in crossing the established rules.

Gospodarowanie czasem i światem w powieści Kamień na kamieniu Wiesława Myśliwskiego

Author(s): Michał Piętniewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The article on Kamień na kamieniu is an attempt to look at the philosophical aspects of the novel by Wiesław Myśliwski through oppositions such as surface/depth or weak/strong, locating the longing of the main character of the novel on the side of the superficial and worldly, while pointing out his religious yearning for a profound aspect of his existence, which, according to the interpretation suggested in the article, is also located within the superficial. The article is intended to present Kamień na kamieniu as a novel about a good “host” in the world by demonstrating the dialectic between the brothers Szymon Pietruszka and Michał.

Przez maszynę do Boga. Transhumanistyczne koncepcje w Perfekcyjnej niedoskonałości

Author(s): Beata Atłas-Leśniewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The text analysis the school of thought called trans-humanism as represented in the novel by Jacek Dukaj Perfekcyjna niedoskonałość (Perfect Imperfection). In the first part, the author briefly describes its variations, such as bioethical abolitionism, immortalism and singularitarianism. Moving on to the substance of the novel, the author presents trans-humanist concepts present within it, starting with the anticipated changes in the social hierarchy, methods of education and family relationships, as well as changes in biological aspects of humanity, to the point where ordinary (unimproved) man is left far behind artificial intelligence. The author also points out contemporary concepts that are reflected in the fictional reality, such as post-genderism and risks associated with significant changes in society and system of government. The work concludes with a discussion on the concept of Ultimative Inclusion, which is an achievable stage of development guaranteeing a divine status in our universe.

O poszukiwaniach ponowoczesnego sposobu wyrażania tradycji romantycznej

Author(s): Anna Kurska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

In my research I concentrate on postmodern culture and its ties with the Romantic tradition: creative ways of expressing it, as well as those that are associated with the process of petrification of Romanticism (hip-hop projects referring to the patriotic and national Romanticism). I proposea synthetic approach, which enables us to demonstrate the character of references present in postmodern art, from pastiche and intertextual games with Romantic lyrics in opposition to the romantic myths that shape the image of the national community (Dorota Masłowska Wojna polsko-ruska pod flagą biało-czerwoną; Sylwia Chutnik Kieszonkowy atlas kobiet, Ignacy Karpowicz, Ości). Moreover, I discuss Romantic themes in the geopoetics of Kenneth White, who promotes a return to nature and refers to the works of Friedrich Hölderlin, Novalis, and Walt Whitman. I point out associations with Romanticism in essays and historical literature reinterpreting the nineteenth-century history (György Spiró, Messiahs; Paweł Goźliński, Jul; Jacek Dehnel, Matka Makryna). Above all, I am interested in Romantic ties with pop culture, especially concerning the renewal of the language of the narrative of the historical experience of Poles (Powstanie warszawskie by Lao Che, Noc żywych Żydów by Igor Ostachowicz, Miasto 44 by Jan Komasa). The synthetic overview of the links between contemporary culture and the Romantic tradition is accompanied with an interpretation that reveals the multifaceted references to Romanticism in postmodern art. I demonstrate how Radosław Rychcik translated Mickiewicz’s Forefathers’ Eve into the language of pop culture, and what problems are associated with this type of interpretation of an old text. The network of connections indicates the need to develop an open and dynamic attitude towards works in which one can find associations between the Romantic tradition and pop culture.

Symbolika akwatyczna w Fachowcu Wacława Berenta

Author(s): Iwona E. Rusek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

Waclaw Berent’s debut novel has usually been interpreted in the context of the categories associated with positivism and naturalism. Because of this approach, or rather method used by historians of literature, the novel has been considered on the one hand obsolete, and on the other – interpretively flat and uninteresting. Therefore, the author of this article has decided to break the hitherto existing research patterns by referring to the symbolic and mythical associations related to the element of water. In her analysis , she covers a number of phenomena and categories (tears, saliva, lake, mist) assigned to the element of water, which reveal interesting interpretive contexts of Berent’s novel. The most important of these concerns the main character, as it allows one to track, understand, and – most importantly – perceive his transformation. The mystery of liberation experienced by Kazimierz Zaliwski is the true meaning of the story he tells, and for every reader it becomes a call to work on learning his or her own self.

Wczesna twórczość prozatorska Zofii Nałkowskiej i Iryny Wilde w kontekście literatury modernistycznej

Author(s): Yaryna Yaniv / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The article presents a comparative analysis of early works by Zofia Nałkowska and Iryna Vilde due to their innovatory character in the literature of their era. The article examined the critical assessment of their works in detail and points out certain parallels in the reception of critics at the time. In the analysis,special attention has been given to similar themes in the works by both these writers, especially their focus on women’s inner world and search for new means of artistic expression.

Tadeusza Kantora „krótkie spięcia sensu między słowami”

Author(s): Magdalena Skrzypczak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The article discusses Kantor’s writing practice of crossing borders between styles and genres, which in effect produced thoroughly hybrid literary or theoretical texts. The article focuses in particular on the analysis of Kantor’s manuscripts which give evidence of a dynamically changing and evolving nature of the text production. The theories of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari are used by the author to prove that the postmodern philosophy and analysis do not capture the specific idiom of Kantor’s writing. Comparing Bruno Schulz with Kantor’s concept of literature, the author shows his specific way of forging a very personal idiom of writing and of literary expression.

Teoria (literatury) to było coś innego. Z Profesor Teresą Cieślikowską rozmawia Irena Hübner

Author(s): Irena Hübner / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

Teresa Cieślikowska, retired professor at the University of Łódź and a prominent theorist of literature talks to Irena Hübner about studying Polish Studies in Łódź and her academic career.

O Prusie można w nieskończoność?… Recenzja książki Cezarego Zalewskiego Bolesław Prus jako estetyk. Sztuki piękne w dyskursie i praktyce prozatorskiej pisarza

Author(s): Agnieszka Kuniczuk-Trzcinowicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

Reviewed of the book by Cezary Zalewski on Bolesław Prus as a aesthetician. The reviewer discusses Zalewski’s approach, locating the book on the background of previous studies on Prus. The review presents the author’s intention, composition of the book, and the material.

Tożsamościowe narracje Różewicza. Projekt (nie)dokończony

Author(s): Agata Stankowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

Wojciech Browarny’s book entitled Tadeusz Różewicz i nowoczesna tożsamość is an ingenious, reliable and intelligent attempt to interpret Różewicz’s prose as an artistic study, a testimony, or a reflection on the identity of the man the second half of the twentieth century. The author reads short stories, essays, biographical sketches and memoirs, reports, diary fragments, and selected meta-literary texts by the poet as a polyphony bound with the matrix of identity narrative, profiled both to the fate of a contemporary Pole and Różewicz’s own biography. The identity reflection is interpreted here as a record of “self-creation in culture,” synonymous with “individual proposal of understanding of the collective and the shared in the individual experience” as an expression of “interpretation of role models, a description of the relation between the old and new images of human culture, an attempt to merge personal experience with historical memory and traditions present in the modernity.”

Teksty o tekstach o tekstach Rec. Andrzej Szahaj, O interpretacji

Author(s): Patryk Szaj / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The author reviews the book by Andrzej Szahaj, On interpretation. He points out that the ideas Shahaj proposed in the 1990s anticipated Polish reception of the ethical, political and cultural turn. Moreover, he argues that Szahaj’s neopragmatic approach can also be considered hermeneutical in the broad sense, opposed to the formal-structural-semiotic paradigm of modern literary criticism. From this point of view, the author undertakes criticism of Szahaj’s criticism of hermeneutics, in an attempt to prove that “in the text there exists something rather than nothing,” noting the variety of Szahaj’s cultural prejudices that affected his view of not only hermeneutics, but also, for example, of deconstruction. The essay is, however, intended as benevolent polemic or, in other words, “a family dispute.”

Filologia doświadczalna. Rec. książki Arkadiusza Żychlińskiego Laboratorium antropofikcji. Dociekania filologiczne

Author(s): Anita Jarzyna / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The article is a comprehensive overview of the book by Arkadiusz Żychliński Laboratorium antropofikcji. Dociekania filologiczne (Warsaw 2014). Emphasised is the pioneering, especially in Polish humanities, character of reflections presented by the author, who, referring to selected research in zoology, ethology, and anthropology, considers the possibility of making philology the lens to reflect on anthropogenesis. The conceptis primarily inspired by Martin Heidegger, who was convinced of the irreducible difference between man and animal. Żychliński wants to explore this difference through fiction, introducing a broad understanding of the term, which includes narratives in literature, film, TV series and computer games. They become laboratories where experiments with different models of life, ways of being human (only human!) are carried out. The reviewer emphasises originality of the concept, resulting, inter alia, from combining humanistic studies with life sciences. She also lists a number of concerns that arise when if Żychliński’s work is read from the perspective of critical studies on animals.

„Polscy pisarze-podróżnicy” na Uniwersytecie Stendhala w Grenoble

Author(s): Marzena Karwowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The Faculty of Arts and Letters of the University of Stendhal in Grenoble undertook the organization of events promoting Polish literature in France. In autumn 2015 an international conference Polish citizen of the world. Polish writers-travelers. The conference organizers invited for this occasion researchers from the universities of France, Belgium and Poland, who presented creative silhouettes of writers such as R. Kapuścinski, A. Stasiuk, Z. Herbert, S.I. Witkiewicz, O. Tokarczuk. The conference was accompanied by meetings with writers, an exhibition entitled L’oeuvre de Jerzy Giedroyc. “Culture” et sesréalisations, the presentation of books on Polish literature issued in France.

Recepcja literatury polskiej w Belgii - ankieta

Author(s): Cécile Bocianowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

Responding to the questionnaire, the researcher discusses the reception of Polish literature in Belgium, especially in the capital. She lists initiatives aimed at popularising Polish culture undertaken by such institutions as the Polish Institute or the Free University in Brussels. She also discusses the characteristics of Polish Studies in Belgium and students’ interests in various issues, such as censorship.