Katarzyna Szeremeta

Pani Dalloway Virginii Woolf, jedno z najważniejszych osiągnięć wysokiego modernizmu, zostało przeniesione do obiegu popularnego między innymi za sprawą powieści Mr. Dalloway (1999) Robina Lippincotta. Mr. Dalloway wpisuje się w trend kulturowego recyklingu oraz nurt praktyk intertekstualnych, w których udziela się głosu bądź eksponuje losy postaci fikcyjnej, której znaczenie było pierwotnie zmarginalizowane. Dotychczas badano: genologiczny status utworu pod kątem ,,rekursywności” i ,,odrzucenia Bloomowskiego lęku przez wpływem” (James Shiff, Monica Latham oraz Bret Keeling), transformacyjny potencjał utworu macierzystego (tożsamości seksualnej bohaterów Mr. Dalloway) oraz obrazy Londynu (Monika Girard). Tym samym autorka niniejszego artykułu pragnie zapełnić lukę interpretacyjną i przedstawić szczegółową analizę schematów narracyjnych i koncepcji czasu, które nie zostały do tej pory zaprezentowane przez innych badaczy.

ABSTRACT  

Mrs. Dalloway and Mr. Dalloway, Transferring High Literature Text into Popular Literature

This paper explores how Mrs. Dalloway, one of the seminal works of high modernism, has been transferred into popular literature by Robin Lippincott in his novella Mr. Dalloway (1999). The sequel can be framed within the trend of cultural recycling and intertextual practices in which formerly marginalised fictional characters are given a voice or become more exposed. Although scholars have studied generic status of the text, “recursiveness” and Bloom’s “anxiety of influence” (James Shiff, Monica Latham and Bret Keeling); transformative potential of the original text, as well as images of London (Monika Girard), there is still a paucity of scholarship on narrative patterns and the concept of time. Therefore the author of the following paper seeks to fill this void and analyse how the elitist text of high modernism is transferred into popular literature with respect to the aforementioned aspects.

     Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Its Postmodern and Neomodern Progeny

Novel-as-Mashup, Contemporary Cultural-Literary Remix. Why Zombie, Werewolves and Vampires Populate Victorian Novels?

The following article aims to expound the phenomenon of parodical genre of literary mashups (or novels-as-mashups). This recent pop-cultural trend, initiated by Seth Grahame-Smith and Quirk Classics’ series Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, has witnessed numerous followers and generated a new type of projected reader. This controversial, verging on plagiarism collaborative endeavour pairs contemporary writers and the authors of (mainly Victorian) classics. However, the latter’s participation is of posthumous nature. The following literary and cultural phenomenon has large intermedial potential, since several mashups have recently welcomed film adaptations. The main objective is to discuss the definition and typology of mashups, the origins of this pop-cultural phenomenon, its genological hybridity, commercial success, projected readers’ competences as well as ensuing nostalgic and ironic implications of literary mashups.  

The following article aims to present a study on twitterature – an intersection of literature and Twitter and a variant of twitter fi ction. The latter has become increasingly popular since the advent of Twitter at the end of the fi rst decade of this century and has dwarfed longer and traditional narratives. The subject of analysis will be Twitterature. The World’s Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less (2009) by Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin. The author of this article argues that parodic reworkings of 76 literary classics for the 21st century readers should be analysed as a variant or subgenre rather than a fully developed literary genre. Therefore the analytical tools have been appropriated from literary realm rather than new media studies. The author’s aim is not to present an outline of electronic literature or its typology, since that has been exhausted by other researchers. The main objective is rather to comment on one of the variants of electronic literature, which undertook a postmodernist dialogue with classic hypertexts (hypertexts in the Genettian sense of the word). Thus the most relevant aspects investigated here include generic boundaries, the role of the reader, inherent features as well as (Twitter) format and style respectively. 

Virginia Woolf and Her Avatars. Creating an Icon and Appropriating the Writer’s Image in Popular Culture and Literature

The act of fictionalising the lives of historical figures, which is the major motivation for this article, has become a common practice and literary phenomenon rather than a short-lived fad. The author analyses several literary works that consciously follow this practice and incorporate Virginia Woolf, an icon and a priestess of Modernism, into the cast of fictional characters. Each writer, representing various tendencies within this practice, creates different avatars – literary representations of Virginia Woolf’s figure which either (partially) correspond or defy the image of this historical figure.
Sigrid Nunez in Mitz, the Marmoset of Bloomsbury – ,,unauthorised biography” – appropriates the Woolfian invention of an animal narrator to fictionalise the Woolfs and their domestic life. Looking through the lenses of such an observer casts a different light on this historical figure as well as on the circle of family and friends who frequent the pages of Mitz. Susan Selers’s Vanessa and Virginia, likewise incorporating elements of a biography, focuses on the symbiotic bond between the Stephen sisters, highlighting their rivalry. In The Hours, Michael Cunningham’s literary endeavour and homage to Woolf’s legacy, the writer aims, through one of the three intertwined narratives, to recreate the last day of Virginia Woolf’s life. The author focuses onher daily writing regime which in turn portrays her as a neurotic figure, obsessed with death and how her work might be received. In Passing for Human and I, Vampire Jody Scott plays with the image of Virginia Woolf ad libitum, customising her vision to an image hardly affiliated to Woolf.
Generically diverse literary works presented in this study create a multifaceted fictionalised portrait of Virginia Woolf that largely corresponds with biographical facts. At the same time, as in case of Cunningham or Scott, it shows abuse and misuse of certain facts in an attempt to fictionally authenticate the life of the real-life figure