„Litteraria Copernicana” 2012, nr 1 (9): Ciało w literaturze wieków dawnych, red. Paweł Bohuszewicz, Ireneusz Szczukowski

Author(s): Krzysztof Obremski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 19/2013

The 9th issue of the magazine published by the Faculty of Languages, Nicolaus Copernicus University, i.e. “Litteraria Copernicana” is the subject of this review. The issue is entitled “The body in early modern Polish literature”. The informative value of this magazine mostly lies in the fact that early modern Polish literature has begun to be read in a manner that is characteristic of the contemporary humanities which are concerned with this peculiar topic of studies, i.e. the body.

„Lubić to, czego nie ma”. Pani Barbara Niechcicowa – studium rozczarowania

Author(s): Dorota Samborska-Kukuć / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2018

The psychological conditions of the protagonist of Noce i dnie as depicted in literary criticism are in line with bovarysme. An instance of this similitude is the state of disillusionment, caused by a clash of imagery and reality, as well as fallacies and facts. Mrs Niechcic’s multifaceted frustration with her love life and with her daily grind varies in intensity. The protagonist’s unhappy love casts an irrational shadow on her (poor substitute of) marriage, while the rural milieu, acting as a barrier from “real life” is juxtaposed with the city. Barbara Niechcic is disappointed in everything, as she cannot strike a viable balance between the world of dreams and the challenges of reality; however, her life path is different from that of Flaubert’s protagonist. After a period of erring and throwing tantrums, she mellows down and appreciates the mechanisms guiding her actions; as the novel comes to an end, she is content to merely carry on with her life. The stages of her existence make for the readers’ selfreflections on the complexity of human nature.

„Lubię być tam, gdzie chcę”. Bettina von Arnim – życie i twórczość pomiędzy rzeczywistością a imaginacją

Author(s): Renata Dampc-Jarosz / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

„Ludzkie owady” i człowiek – o dalekiej bliskości życia w niedoli i wspaniałości

Author(s): Ireneusz Gielata / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2016

The author analyzes E.T.A. Hoffmann’s short story “Master Flea”, focusing mainly on the scene of the telescope duel between two biologists: Jan Swammerdam and Anton Leeuwenhoek. This scene triggers reflection on discovering the closeness between humans and insects – a closeness that became possible once man started to question the possibility of being different from animals. Even though Swammerdam equated human beings with insects, he never overcame the limitations of anatomic perception. It was only the generation of Romantics that discovered the similarity of fate between humans and insects – a similarity, as Maurice Maeterlinck called it, of “misery and greatness”. The author traces the evolution in the ways of perceiving insects and writing about them; an evolution which was initiated by Montaigne’s essay “Apology for Raymond Sebond” and later developed by E.T.A. Hoffmann, Henry David Thoreau and Maurice Maeterlinck.

„Lustro zwielokrotnione” grupy Dąb i Trzcina, czyli ilustracja dynamiczna jako sposób na adaptację literatury Jana Potockiego. Raport z projektu

Author(s): Maja Starakiewicz,Piotr Marecki / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2017

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„MALÁ SLOVA“ A JEJICH PODÍL NA STYLU MLUVENÝCH PROJEVŮ

Author(s): Jana Hoffmannová / Language(s): Czech Issue: XXVI/2017

In contrast to written language, spoken utterances evince a much higher incidence of deictics, indefinite and pseudo-demonstrative pronouns, contact particles (phatic expressions), specific conjunctions and other connectives, interjections, fillers and hesitation sounds. Corpus-based data should make it possible to attempt a new typology of such expressions (of a broad category of “discourse markers”), independent of the traditional categorization of the parts of speech. The research of spoken Czech syntax must take into account these groups of lexical means that are innate to spoken discourse, i.e. this important area where lexis and syntax meet. Such words as the Czech jako, teda, jakoe, jakoby seem to be semantically vague or empty, but they have a special effect on the connectedness and cohesion of spoken discourse. Moreover, the syntax of spoken discourse has to be investigated in terms of its dialogic and processual nature, inevitably respecting the relationships between utterances and dialogue turns; that is why special attention must be given to “small words” employed at the beginning or end of various types of turns. Their participation in the turn-taking mechanismus, as well as other functions, demonstrates that the “small words” in most cases cannot be regarded as redundant expressions, and that they contribute to the style of spoken discourse.

„Meir Ezofowicz” w cyklu ilustracji Andriollego

Author(s): Małgorzata Imperowicz-Jurczak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 12/2009

The article concentrates on the issues of the cycle of illustrations by Elwiro Michał Andriolli in Eliza Orzeszkowa’s Meir Ezofowicz as a work of art of the second half of the 19th century, an excellent inter-semiotic translation of literature into the “image rhetoric”, and an example of a turn in the artistic work style – from romanticism, preferred by the artist, to social realism. Wood engravings were made by the graphic artist with both artistry and kindliness towards the author and the subject matter of the novel. Andriolli’s thorough artistic interpretation fills in the book’s unsaid parts, highlights the meanings that the writer was not allowed to touch upon in the novel because of the censorship, e.g. he showed the centuries-old relationships between the Jews and the Polish in the context of the loss of statehood. In the cycle, the graphic artist recorded the collective portrait of the Jewish community, depicted their cultural richness and internal problems (concerning economy, religion and identity).

„Metamorfozy” Owidiusza w przekładzie Stanisława Schneidra

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

The article presents the figure of an esteemed classical philologist, historian of literature, translator and teacher at the secondary schools in Przemyśl and Lvov, Stanisław Schneider (1858–1917). His translatorial debut consisted of “excerpts from ancient poets.” He translated Homer, Horace, Ovid and Vergil. The collected works were then published in „The Report of the Headmaster of the Imperial‑Royal Secondary School in Przemyśl for the School Year 1888”. It was the third full translation of Ovid’s „Metamorphoses” into Polish (after the 17th‑century translations by Jakub Żebrowski and Walerian Otwinowski). Moreover, the article contains excerpts from Schneider’s translation of Ovid’s „Metamorphoses”.

„Między okiem a wspomnieniem”. Zbigniewa Herberta pamięć „kresowego miasta”

Author(s): Krzysztof Czajkowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 5/2013

The article is another attempt at interpreting Herbert’s family town. The poetic memory of Lwów brings to mind Słowacki rather than Mickiewicz. The image of the city, which is recorded “between the eye and the memory”, resists the cultural expansion of the arcadian myth, which was exploited in the contemporary Polish literature in the colonial figure of Kresy and the nostalgy for the “land of the childhood”. Herbert’s Lwów is different – it is both real and mythical like urbs aeterna and in that respect it reminds of other, “Herbertian” cities: it is everywhere, always and nowhere.

„Między synagogą i kosmodromem Bajkonur”. O powieści Diny Rubiny Oto idzie Mesjasz!

Author(s): Mirosława Michalska-Suchanek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 27/2017

Rubina looks at the unpredictable and difficult every-day reality of “Russian Israel” in the 90s from the perspective of Jewish tradition, culture and religion. She creates an image full of equal amounts of both comedy, irony and even grotesque and philosophical and religious thoughts. The novel develops the idea of the destiny of the Jewish people and the unity of Jews with their own land. The novel’s characters are not looking for their own identity — they know very well who they are and where they belong. The background of the novel are descriptions of the regional political and religious conflicts as well as realities (including geographical and topographical) of Israel and faithfully reproduced cultural climate.

„Miotełki” z melodramy "Chłop Milionowy" jako warszawski fenomen społeczno-kulturowy

Author(s): Łukasz Kożuchowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2018

The main goal of the article is to shed some light on the social phenomenon known as “Miotełki” (“The Little Brooms”), which gained popularity in the 20’s and 30’s of the 19th-century Warsaw. ”Miotełki” was a term used to address songs originating from Chłop Milionowy (The Peasant as a Millionaire), an extraordinarily popular contemporary melodrama. The first performer of these songs was Jan Nowakowski, a well-liked actor of the National Theatre in Warsaw. The article shows the rising popularity of ”Miotełki” and concentrates on their role as a sociocultural phenomenon. The songs managed to transcend social class barriers – from mentions in magazines and well-educated conversations to serving as simple people’s catchy tunes. The fame of “Miotełki”’s lasted until the November Insurrection, during which they evolved from representing the everyday life slightly ironically and in an entertaining way to serving as a tool of patriotic propaganda. That very fact is considered to be what we would call today an example of fan culture. The article also focuses on the themes that appeared in in the songs, such as a deep respect for family or the affirmation of social divisions, all of which contributed to their success as being important to the inhabitants of Warsaw.

„Mi‑Szoa li‑tkuma”. Polska jako antynomia Izraela

Author(s): Jagoda Budzik / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2018

The aim of the article is to present and analyse texts whose authors – members of the IsraeliThird Generation – refer in various ways to the phenomenon of pilgrimages to the memorialsites, attended by high school students for more than three decades. This phenomenon involvessuch questions as: the role of the Shoah in the Israeli collective narrative, the level of its institutionalcommemoration, relations between the act of memorialising the Holocaust and militaryactivities, and lasting confidence in the experience of pilgrimage to Poland as part of the processof the Israeli youth’s coming of age. The texts included in these reflections are used to portray themultiplicity of possible attitudes adopted by authors towards such methods of commemoratingthe Shoah – from unconditional acceptance, through the belief in their inevitability, to outrightcriticism.The aim of the article is to present and analyse texts whose authors – members of the Israeli Third Generation – refer in various ways to the phenomenon of pilgrimages to the memorial sites, attended by high school students for more than three decades. This phenomenon involves such questions as: the role of the Shoah in the Israeli collective narrative, the level of its institutional commemoration, relations between the act of memorialising the Holocaust and military activities, and lasting confidence in the experience of pilgrimage to Poland as part of the process of the Israeli youth’s coming of age. The texts included in these reflections are used to portray the multiplicity of possible attitudes adopted by authors towards such methods of commemorating the Shoah – from unconditional acceptance, through the belief in their inevitability, to outright criticism.

„Mneme” w „Dziejach” Herodota

Author(s): Krzysztof Narecki / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2018

The word mneme, “memory”, appears 16 times in the Histories of Herodotus. The author, using the philological analysis of all its occurrences, investigates not only its significance in specific contexts but also defines and names functions that the word has in its place of use. Finally, the author classifies the identified meanings of the word mneme (in combination with the accompanying verbs) and compares its functions (as defined by the context).

„Mnie zawsze fascynowały wszelkie powtarzalności”. O topice Zagłady z Janiną Abramowską rozmawia Paweł Wolski

Author(s): Janina Abramowska,Paweł Wolski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2016

„Mogę powiedzieć [...], że jednak – jestem”. Czesława Miłosza sposoby odkrywania siebie

Author(s): Marcin Telicki / Language(s): Polish Issue: 20/2012

The article discusses the plausibility of Joanna Zach’s concept described as the “poetic of confession”. “Self discovery” is, for Miłosz, related to Romantic and early-Modernist sources of creative expression, and to poetry as a specific confession of faith. This, in turn, assumes an unending tension between biography, immersed in concrete reality, and its textual representation (the truth of life is confronted with the truth of poetry). What follows is that for Miłosz the key category is experience, suspended between history and the present, and between reality and its textual transformation.

„Moment elegijny” Victora Hugo

Author(s): Magdalena Siwiec / Language(s): Polish Issue: 18/2011

This article attempts to define the place of elegiac modality in the literary output of Victor Hugo. The starting point for the discussion and at the same time appropriate interpretative tool is the definition of elegy derived from the writings of German theoreticians of Romanticism: Friedrich Schiller and Friedrich Schlegel. The thing is question is the elegiac attitude based on exposing of what is ideal and lost at the same time. The above, indeed, constitutes an answer to the questions of the experience of crisis so inherent to Romanticism. Analyses of the early poetical volumes written by the author show a particular evolution of Hugo’s conception of poetry. Politically committed The Odes, being anti-elegiac by assumption, are discussed, as well as purely poetical Eastern poems overtly promoting limitless freedom which characterizes the creative imagination. The interpretation of individual poems from these volumes proves, however, that one can discern a certain elegiac tone in them, though the tone is never dominant. The volume that distinctively enhances the elegy (thus far discredited by Hugo and from then on permanently occurring in his works) turns out to be Autumn Leaves — a collection of poems of contemplative, melancholic, visionary and self-reflective character.

„Mruży oczy noc ormiańska” – wokół metafory ikonicznego losu w poezji Jerzego Ficowskiego

Author(s): Daria Nowicka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2016

In his work, Jerzy Ficowski – the author of “Odczytanie popiołów”, “Ptak poza ptakiem”, “Demony cudzego strachu” and “Czekanie na sen psa” – concentrates on the borderland in its broad sprectrum. “Tryptyk bizantyjski” – the subject of this study – is a piece in which the author emphasises the need for memory and emphatic writing, which is especially visible in its third part, devoted to Armenian memory. Being a reminder of the tragic history of the forgotten nation, the poem is simultaneously a cry for literary presence and audibility. This cultural, historical and literary borderland, significant in Ficowski’s poetry, appears also in the gesture of rewriting an icon and in the creation of oxymoronic poetry.

„Muszę mieć maskę, wściekłą maskę”. Polemika z Marią Anną Potocką

Author(s): Stefan Okołowicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 14/2010

Polemicising with Maria A. Potocka’s view, the author reflects on the problem of mask and facial expression in the life and work of S.I. Witkiewicz. They appear here as an expression of philosophy of man, a specific feature of the personality of the author of Szewcy [The Shoemakers] whose whole life, artistic and philosophical activity was marked by “facial expression”. The article also reminds the unusually important texts of Stefan Szuman, Witkacy’s friend, who points to the essence of Witkacy’s portraits. The last question discussed in this article is the problem of ascribing to Witkacy of the authorship of most of the photographs in which he is presented (since they are a documentation of his artistic creations) while actually the authors of these photographs are a dozen or so photographer friends of Witkacy.

„Muza polska” Wacława Potockiego jako heroicum epideiktyczne

Author(s): Agnieszka Czechowicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2018

The article refers to Wacław Potocki’s poem „Muza polska na tryjumfalny wjazd Najaśniejszego Jana III [...]” (“Polish Muse for a Triumphant Entering of His Majesty John III […]”) published anonymously on the occasion of King John III Sobieski’s coronation in 1676. The piece, the content of which concentrates on the course of the 1672–1676 war waged between Poland and Turkey, is equally panegyrical and epic-historical in its character. The author of the paper focuses her attention on Potocki’s poetic creation of King John III Sobieski’s image, the most important attribute of which is temperance (Lat. temperantia) described in Plato’s “Republic” as an ability to abstain from lust due to which a man’s better part dominates over the worse one. The martial efforts undertaken by Sobieski and crowned with victories are depicted in Potocki’s poem not only as the example of regal virtues but also as an allegory of a war a man is waging against one’s own weakness and passions in order to gain control over oneself.

„Muzyka nocy tej”. Komentarz do wybranych wątków muzycznych w poezji Władysława Sebyły i diarystyce Sabiny Sebyłowej

Author(s): Bartosz Małczyński / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The article is devoted to the relationship between the Sebyła family and music. The text touches upon issues such as the value of music in their everyday life and the presence of various aspects of music in the writings of Sabina and Władysław, dating back primarily to the 1920s and 1930s, but including also the times of the German-Soviet occupation. The source material for these musings on the topic can be found in the poetry of Władysław Sebyła, particularly his Song of the Rat Catcher, as well as his wife’s biographical writings, which serve at the same time as an excellent source of insight into the history of the epoch. These issues are situated within the context of axiology, which has been recently approached by, among others, Pascal Quignard and Zbigniew Herbert, in order to formulate questions regarding the “inhuman” face of music, which emerges in times of social catastrophe.