Polish Prose Research Articles

Kilka odsłon polskiej literatury najnowszej

The presented article is a review of the book edited by Dariusz Kulesza Polish Prose at the Turn of the 20th and 21st Centuries. The authors of the individual chapters engage with contemporary Polish literature, while also revisiting classics like Stanisław Lem. The editor’s perspective encourages a closer examination of women’s prose in the context of male-authored literature. The range of topics covered and the monograph’s diversity make it an intriguing source of inspiration for further research into contemporary literature.

Problem-thematic “Crossroads” of the Novel “Perfume” by P. Süskind and Polish Prose of the 20th century (J. Andrzejewski, W. Gombrowicz)

The problematic and thematic similarities and differences between the novels “Perfume” by Süskind, “Ferdydurke” by Gombrowicz, “The Gates of Paradise” by Andrzejewski are considered. The ideological and semantic dominant of the three texts is the idea of the vulnerability of mass and individual consciousness, its susceptibility to other people manipulation. The general semantic field of the novels “Perfume” and “The Gates of Paradise” includes the problems of a charismatic hero, his influence on society, and the tragic confrontation between the crowd and an independent individual. The similarity between the novels “Perfume” and “Ferdydurke” lies in the problem of a mask that levels a person’s individuality, as well as in the study of the mechanism of deconstruction of stereotypes, norms, traditions, and rituals accepted in society, which is manifested in the symbolic image of an amorphous tangle of bodies. The main character of the novel “Perfume”, Grenouille, is an anti-hero, because, on the one hand, he behaves criminally towards nature, trying to appropriate forcibly the absolute of natural beauty, and on the other, he is a provocateur, revealing its vicious properties in human nature. In Andrzejewski’s work “The Gates of Paradise” there is no figure of an antihero, while the protagonist of “Ferdydurke” Józef Kowalski partly corresponds to the type of anti-hero, since, not being a criminal, he plays the plot role of a provocateur and deconstructor of standard situations.

A stereotype that deconstructs itself. Representations of Danes and Denmark in Joanna Chmielewska’s crime novels

The research question this article tries to answer is: how was Scandinavia “invented” in Polish prose written when the Iron Curtain still physically divided Europe? The text discusses three novels written by Joanna Chmielewska (1932–2013) and published in 1969 (Krokodyl z Kraju Karoliny [The Crocodile from Caroline’s Country]), 1973 (Lesio) and 1974 (Wszystko czerwone [All in Red]). Chmielewska, a vastly popular Polish crime novelist, especially known for the creation of the so-called “ironic crime” sub-genre, often introduced depictions of Denmark and the country’s inhabitants in her novels and used them to demonstrate amusing contrasts between them and her Polish protagonists and their reality in Poland. My goal is to show that while Westerners constructed and exoticized the East, Easterners did the very same thing to the West, only using different values and criteria in order to distinguish between “us” and “them”. We should therefore perhaps start talking about “inventing Europe” or “inventing Europes” – where the West invents the East and the East invents the West, and xenostereotypes introduce and reinforce autostereotypes. Those stereotypes can sometimes become so extreme that they are no longer sustainable and “collapse” under their own weight.

Інтерпретативні стратегії сучасної української й польської прози в контексті літературознавчої антропології

Interpretative strategies are explored as a type of textual strategies alongside narrative and receptive ones. We illustrate modern, prose‑bound interpretative strategies targeting various types of perception and aesthetic delight. The interpretative strategies of modern Ukrainian and Polish prose are affected by the author’s choice of the convention lines implemented in the story, and the types of perception the story is targeting. These parameters help implement the story’s semantic structure, which determines the way it is interpreted by the reader. The reader’s own life, emotional, and receptive experience builds a criterion for the story’s maturity. The reader’s interpretative effort is seen in the text as a game which is divided into separate milestones and requires a shift in the interpretative vector at each of them or implies the reader’s ability to perceive the virtual worlds of the rhizomatic plot that maps a modern person’s mental processes. The ability to notice in one text various interpretative strategies constitutes one of the ways for the reader to take aesthetic delight as well as building within them man‑world interaction skills, the ability to accept the world’s uncertainty, someone else’s different attitude.

“We know nothing except through style”: John Banville’s worldliness

ABSTRACT John Banville identifies style as an attribute of world literature. As a novelist, he admires authors who make wit, word play, linguistic theatricality and virtuosity literary ends in themselves. In reviews and articles, he praises Henry James, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Vladimir Nabokov, Raymond Chandler, and other writers for their highly polished prose styles. In turn, critics single out Banville’s own finely tuned style as the defining trait of his novels. Invoking world literature theory, this essay works towards a definition of literary style and more particularly Irish style, such as Banville perceives it. As an aspect of world literature, certain novels display “extensibility,” which is to say that they borrow from and build upon prior novels, not just by repurposing characters, but also by adopting premises, situations, vocabularies, and style. Banville creates extensions of Nabokov’s Lolita in The Untouchable, James’s The Portrait of a Lady in Mrs Osmond, and Chandler’s detective novels in The Black-Eyed Blonde, published under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. Through such extensions, Banville elaborates a world style that enhances literary prestige and contributes to the system of world literature.

Chaosmos

Abstract In this article, I argue that in the years 1960‒1980—roughly from Solaris (1961), through His Master's Voice (1968), to Golem XIV (1981)—Stanisław Lem carried out an anthropological experiment in which his protagonists were confronted with unknowable phenomena. The fullest expression of this experiment is the novel Solaris, in which a new function of literature—the universalization of uncertainty—is unveiled. This feature links Lem's novel with the works of other Polish writers, such as Witold Gombrowicz, Tadeusz Różewicz, Andrzej Czycz, Teodor Parnicki, and Edward Stachura. Some of their works from the 1960s and 1970s can be considered representative of the post-avant-garde in Polish prose; these works question key social beliefs (especially regarding the efficacy of cognition, the adequacy of language, and the stability of the human subject), but instead of proposing a new order, their authors indicate the need for accepting that human existence is not grounded in a higher order.

Tropika gatunkowa, fabularna, sfery bohaterów w najnowszej prozie postrealistów polskich

The monograph by Dariusz Piechota analyses some images, motifs, and types of characters that go back to Polish prose of the second half of the 19th century as well as modernism. The book deals with the global problems of civilization that have determined the consciousness of modern society. The author demonstrates that addressing specific topical issues (ecology and climate change, diseases, and destruction of personal identification under the influence of pop culture and the digital age) acquires genre characteristics in post-realist prose. Traditional genres (soap operas, family sagas, melodrama, etc.) have been enriched with features of other genres or methods of seeing the world. The author traced the features (signs) of a fairy tale, dystopia, or anti-utopia, a psychological story in the latest Polish and American stories.

ПИСЬМЕННИЦЬКА МАНЕРА ОЛЬГИ ТОКАРЧУК У СУЧАСНОМУ ПОЛЬСЬКО-УКРАЇНСЬКОМУ ЛІТЕРАТУРОЗНАВЧОМУ ДИСКУРСІ

Olga Tokarchuk’s creativity made an impression on readers and critics all over the world, which became the reason for the public’s increased interest in the personality of the Polish writer, laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature, her philosophical and literary-aesthetic views. In the article, the authors focus their attention on the creative manner of Olga Tokarchuk’s prose heritage. The author successfully realized her creative talent in various genres. In recent decades, the novels, short stories, and essays of the writer have become the object of active analysis by Polish and Ukrainian literary scholars. Among the most important studies are the works of A. Larenta, E. Poremba, P. Slyvinskyi, Y. Kleinotskyi, K. Tsymanov-Sosin, K. Kantner from the Polish side and L. Lavrynovych, L. Bregy, I. Kropyvko, M. Krupka, M. Kulish, K. Rodyka, M. Shulgun from Ukrainian. The corpus of critical works devoted to the personality and creativity of the Polish writer grows with the level of the scientific approach and in accordance with the tasks, ranging from reviews and reviews to dissertation studies and monographs. The article focuses attention on the diversity of consideration of Olga Tokarchuk’s creative work: writing style, philosophical orientation, worldview and writer’s strategies. The relevance of the topics and ideas on which the author focused her attention and their role in the Polish-Ukrainian literary discourse is noted. The authors of the study emphasize that O. Tokarchuk always tries to find meaning in meaninglessness, order in chaos, values and divinity in what is human. She is an optimist, because it seems that, from book to book, she says more and more bravely that life depends most on a person’s inner conviction, and above all on his attitude to reality. Creating his own story, he turns to archetypes, myths and symbols rooted in literature and cultural tradition. The works of Olga Tokarchuk are distinguished by their original creative manner, worthy of presenting to the world not only Polish prose, but also current issues and numerous trends inherent in the artists of modern European literature.

Обращение к группе людей – дидактический аспект

The aim of this article is to present the addressative phrase as an important element of linguistic etiquette. A method of observation has been applied, consisting in the analysis of addressatives addressed to a group of people in a specific context – the factual material includes fragments of contemporary Polish prose and its translation into Russian, as well as examples in Russian taken from an Internet corpus. The study showed that addressative phrases are not only an important component of etiquette, but also linguistic exponents of interpersonal relations, which is why special attention should be paid to them during foreign language lessons in order to properly shape learners’ communicative competence.

The Literariness of Philosophers’ Lives in Twentieth-Century Polish Prose

The following essay outlines the history of literary biography, with an emphasis on philosphy, in order to identify a corresponding tradition in twentieth-century Polish prose. By concentrating on the literary qualities of texts that combine literature with philosophy, it will highlight inherent difficulties of genre classification.

Подвійність подорожувань у художніх репортажах О. Гавроша „Стрий і старий” та В. Шабловського, І. Мейзи „Наша маленька ПНР”

The paper studies modern Ukrainian artistic reportage which synthesises the features of a travel essay and a report. The research provides a basis for drawing conclusions about genre dominants scattering in modern Ukrainian literature well-established features and modern Polish fiction story. The article aims to trace the development of artistic reportage in Ukrainian and Polish prose. The author has analysed a two-dimensional view of historic events and people’s lives in the works Stryi and the Old by Olexandr Gavrosh and Our Little Polish People’s Republic by Witold Szabłowski and Izabela Meyza. Comparative and biographical methods were used in the article. The significant combined components of both genres (a travel essay and a report) have been traced. The works include the subjectivity of the narrative, the appeal to real history, the abundance of evidence, the concision of descriptions, and emotionality. The narration in the reportages develops in parallel, focusing on the places, memory of things as well as on the reconstruction of real people’s life stories.

Matka Polka Destruktorka – dwa oblicza dysfunkcyjnego macierzyństwa (na przykładzie „Szopki” Zośki Papużanki i „Gorzko, gorzko” Joanny Bator)

The aim of the article is to present two different images of dysfunctional motherhood in contemporary fictional Polish prose on the example of the novel “Gorzko, Gorzko” by Joanna Bator and “Szopka” by Zośka Papużanka. The first of them, represented by the protagonist Violetta Serce of “Gorzko, Gorzko”, fits in the current literature trend of creating an anti-mother character, an enemy who usually perceives a child as a “problem” or is unable or does not want / cannot show him or her feelings, because motherhood it is an obstacle for her. The second is represented by the nameless mother of Zośka Papużanka’s “Szopka”, who identifies the so-called “Gastronomic mother”. The analysis shows that Polish prose of the last two decades still lacks the figure of a mother-friend, and the trauma of being born and growing up in the realities of the PRL’s and capitalism has permanently entered the minds of contemporary writers, destroying optimistic hopes for a successful family life and motherhood.

АВСТРОФОБІЯ ЗЕНОНА ФІША

The author of the article analyzes the account of the Polish prose writer Zenon Leonard Fisz (1820–1870) on a journey by steamboat from Odessa to Pest and then by rail to Vienna. Fisz is sensitive to the image of the wild civilization of the Balkans, admiring nature and the Danube from the ship. On the border of Austria, his Austrophobia is revealed. Austria and then Vienna, he identifies the Viennese with Germany, whose grotesque description is contained in Letters from a journey (Vilnius 1858, vol. 1-3). The identification of Austrian and German culture in Fisz is complete, ostentatious and charged with idiosyncrasy. Fisz’s austrophobia develops on a cultural and civilizational basis. The writer is afraid of the negative consequences of taking over elements of Western civilization by the European, Slavic East.

Im Schmelztiegel der Kulturen. Zum Band Transkulturelle Durchdringungen in der Gegenwartsliteratur Mitteleuropas

The main theme of the essay is the phenomenon of intercultural relations as revealed in contemporary literature from Central Europe. The point of reference is a monograph containing several articles on the subject. The overarching category for all texts is transculturalism (in the sense of W. Welsch), a term which, like Central Europe, is subjected to critical reflection by the author. In addition, issues of migration and border-crossing, both geographically and existentially, discrimination and the experience of alienation, problems of defining one’s own identity, are the focus of attention. In a particular way, these issues relate to border areas in habited by representatives of different nationalities, many of which can be found in Central Europe (e.g., Cieszyn Silesia), but also to specific historical moments in which cultural clashes were violent and led to trauma (World War II, the Holocaust). Among the literature cited are works by Ramona Ambs, Olga Grjasnowa, Marina Frenk, Andrzej Stasiuk, Paweł Huelle, Gustaw Morcinek, Edith Schmettan-Demel et al. A separate point of interest is literature as a medium for intercultural understanding. Not only translations and the international reception of literary works, as well as intertextual inspirations and references (e.g., the reception of Thomas Bernhard’s work in contemporary Polish prose), but also certain developmental similarities and thematic convergences in different national literatures are relevant in this context.

„Wrzesień trzydziestego dziewiątego roku zdarzył mi się po raz pierwszy”. "Opór" oraz metafory klęski i oporu w twórczości Józefa Hena

This article is devoted to Józef Hen’s novel entitled Resistance, part of the diptych Herod’s Theater, and to the metaphors of defeat and resistance in Józef Hen’s work. Polish prose narrating the 1939 September is dominated by a military perspective, which I refer to as a military-centric narrative. Hen’s novel, on the other hand, takes a different, civilian perspective – it tells the story of the fate and resistance of the civilians of one of Warsaw’s tenements in the Jewish district of Nowolipie against the German invaders during the siege. In the article, I discuss Resistance against the background of other books dealing with the tragedy and defeat of September ‘39, and reconstruct the fate of the novel, also mentioning its press and criticalliterary echoes. In the following part, however, I focus my attention on the novel’s metaphorical echoes, for it is noticeable in Hen’s work that resistance and defeat – or, more precisely, the attempt to resist and the sense of life defeat – are mutually intertwined and constitute the attitude and determine the lives of the protagonists of his several other novels from the 1970s and 1980s, later than Resistance.

"Nowy komeniusz" Jana Chrzciciela Mieroszewskiego. Jego związki z pansofią Komeńskiego

The article analyses The New Comenius, a work by a little-known 19th-century Polish writer, Jan Mieroszewski. The title itself indicates a connection with the works by John Amos Comenius due to the appellativization of the scientist’s name. The author lists multiple affinities in the content, composition and form of the Polish "Comenius" with Orbis Pictus and other works by the outstanding Czech educator, and above all, with his idea of pansophism. He mentions the illustrative method of transferring knowledge and the encyclopaedic tendency to collect and systematize it. At the same time, he proves that Comenius' concepts influenced the development of the Polish prose of the seventeenth century, which assumed the silvic formula of a collection of varieties useful in the lives of educated people. Mieroszewski's book is a continuation of this trend of writing, which combined genealogically contradictory patterns of silva rerum and the encyclopaedia. Despite its literary nature, it retains the value of a textbook or lexicon, which was intended to convey wisdom in a universal dimension, relating to the spheres of self-knowledge, the world of universal and transcendent things, as Comenius had assumed. Undoubtedly, the analysed text confirms the viability of the scholar's concept in the Polish intellectual and literary culture of the nineteenth century.

Irina Adelgejm – rosyjska tłumaczka i literaturoznawczyni

Irina Adelgejm – Russian Translator and Literary Scholar
 Not only works by Olga Tokarczuk but also translations of her books present one of the most current subjects raised by literary and translation scholars today. The main part of the article presents Irina Adelgejm ‒ a Polish teacher of Russian descent, literary scholar and translator of the highest number of works by Tokarczuk into Russian language. Scientific and literary criticism works as well as other expressions of views concerning the oeuvre of Tokarczuk (interviews, discussions) prove that her (Adelgejm) translational activity is not the effect of the Nobel prize, but they present the array of perennial academic interests focused on the phenomenon of contemporary Polish prose.

Peryferie pokazują język. O geolingwistycznych aspektach prozy ostatniej dekady

The aim of the article is to describe the relationship between rural space, emotions and language in the Polish prose between 2010 and 2021. The starting point is the question about what scenarios for crossing the culture of shame are proposed by the literature of peripheral spaces. The article concentrates on the language analysis of the novel and the functions of the gwara (patois), regional dialects, profanity and expressive speech genres. In this way, it draws attention to the flows from the vernacular, home language to the public language, and thus counteracts the marginalization of specific linguistic communities. Literature and its language are treated as a tool for dismantling social distinctions.

ЛІТЕРАТУРНА ВІЗІЯ ІСТОРІЇ У ТВОРЧОСТІ МІХАЛА ЧАЙКОВСЬКОГО

Polish prose of the “Ukrainian school” in Polish literature, which in its artistic, aesthetic and ideological content was quite a noticeable phenomenon and still remains little studied in Polish and Ukrainian literary criticism. It is also important for us that the concept of literary Ukrainianism is reflected here. This is especially true of writers on the Ukrainian-Polish borderland, many of whom idealized the common Polish-Ukrainian history and were passionate supporters of the Cossacks, as well as those who were fierce opponents of the latter. It can be argued that romantic frontier prose also impresses with all the variety of themes, motives, topos, first of all, related to Ukraine. This is what prompted to choose the object of study of the artistic and textual array of creative heritage of Mikhail Tchaikovsky. The coexistence in the works of romance of myth and history was considered obvious, because historical events were to confirm the truth of the mythical story, the myth, in turn, was to give meaning to history. Given this, this study is relevant and timely, and this approach is quite justified. Tchaikovsky is considered the father of the Polish historical novel. The writer built his works on the basis of Walterscott’s model of the historical novel: a combination of love and historical-political plots. The work is a further step towards rethinking the place and role of Tchaikovsky’s work in Polish romanticism through the prism of the features of historical prose. At the theoretical level, it is an attempt to scientifically read works in broad connection with historical, social and cultural factors. Michal Tchaikovsky’s works on Ukrainian historical themes are undoubtedly a relevant and insufficiently covered topic in Ukrainian Polish studies, so they need new approaches and interpretations. The obtained results, no doubt, can be used in an in-depth and comprehensive study of the history of Polish and Ukrainian literature of the Romantic era. Work experience is also useful in conducting special courses and special seminars, will help in writing new textbooks and manuals, enriching modern knowledge of the theory and history of the “Ukrainian school” of Polish romanticism.

From Empathy to Ethical Reflection: Polish Children’s and Young Adult Literature (19th–21st Century) in a Cultural Animal Studies Perspective – Selected Problems

The goal of this article is to analyse the changes in the depiction of animal themes in Polish children’s and young adult literature in the context of cultural animal studies (CAS). The focus is mainly on Polish prose created in the 21st century, but older texts, starting from the 19th century, are discussed with the use of animal studies tools too. The starting point of the article is the assumption that empathy towards animals, inscribed in the majority of works for children and young people, may become the basis for further ethical reflection. The author analyses texts at the centre of which are such aspects of the human-animal relation as hunting, animal treatment and protection (e.g., veterinary clinics, sanctuaries, reserves), using animals for work (mines, army), as well as ethical aspects related to meat-eating.