Dialogi z chińszczyzną w piśmiennictwie polskim drugiej połowy XIX i początku XX wieku – formy obecności, sposoby absorbcji. Przybliżenia

Abstract

The aim of this introductory survey article is to present the various ways in which Chineseness is dialogued with and exposed in Polish literature of the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Another objective of this exploratory paper is to indicate the forms of presence and the ways and functions of absorbing Chinese themes, as well as to reflect on their functionality in different genres and discourses of that period. Following the findings and diagnoses of Bogdan Mazan (and other scholars focused on the second half of the 19th century), the author tries to indicate and bring closer slightly different areas of meaning than those investigated in research to date. He points to possibilities of interpreting traces of Chineseness in the literature of that period and in other texts determining important, albeit often marginal and not central, messages of the analysed works authored by Polish positivist and modernist writers.