Olga Płaszczewska
Wielogłos, Numer 1 (1) 2007, 2007, s. 81 - 96
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN’S ITALY (SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE 19th CENTURY ’ITALIAN TRAVEL’)
Some records from Andersen’s journeys to Italy, included in his En Digters Bazar (A Poet’s Bazaar, 1842), are worth reading as examples of Italian travel writing set in a wider context of literature of the Romantic period (from Goethe and Madame de Staël to E.T.A. Hoffmann and Heinrich Heine). Furthermore, the text deserves attention because of the multiple literary genres used (description, anecdote, adventure story-telling, dialogue, impression, fairy tale, lyrical fragments and reportages). Its apparently chaotic form is partially explained by the title of the book, where the term „bazaar” indicates the variety and diversity of proposed plots and subjects. Within these plots and subjects there is enough place for lyrical exaltation and journalistic terseness. Finally, the schema of the Italian travel proves to be a frame which permits the narrator to create many-sided vision of Italy which is independent of conventional standards.
Olga Płaszczewska
Wielogłos, Numer 1 (3) 2008, 2008, s. 62 - 77
Beauty as Reflected in the Mirror of Beauty –Torquato Tasso in the Visions by Delacroix, Baudelaire and Norwid
The article constitutes a reflection on non-stereotyped attempts to interpret the myth of Torquato Tasso in the ecphrases of Charles Baudelaire and Cyprian Norwid. The direct source of creative inspiration here proves to be not so much the legend which had grown around the figure of the Italian poet (who is regarded almost as the embodiment of the Romantic visions of the brilliant, but rejected artist, a madman and unhappy lover), but a concrete work of art –namely the painting Le Tasse en prison (Tasso in Prison) by Eugene Delacroix as well as the studies and sketches which accompany it. A comparative analysis of the painting, drawings and Charles Baudelaire’s sonnet On “Tasso in Prison”, an epistolary commentary to Delacroix’painting (letter to Marian Sokołowski from the 9th October 1864) as well as Cyprian Norwid’s lyrical poem Wierny portret (fithful Portrait) allows one to make some worthwhile observations concerning the links between literature and painting, and in particular the Romantic conception of beauty inspired by beauty and generating beauty.
Olga Płaszczewska
Wielogłos, Numer 1-2 (7-8) 2010: Komparatystyka dziś, 2010, s. 7 - 38
FRAGMENT
Olga Płaszczewska: Dziękuję redakcji „Wielogłosu” za zaproszenie do udziału w spotkaniu, witam serdecznie przybyłych gości. Punktem wyjścia naszej rozmowy jest wydana pod redakcją doktora Tomasza Bilczewskiego antologia tekstów teoretycznych Niewspółmierność. Perspektywy nowoczesnej komparatystyki. Jest to cenna poznawczo książka, obrazuje bowiem stan komparatystyki na kontynencie amerykańskim w ciągu ostatnich dwudziestu lat.
Są to również lata nieobojętne dla komparatystyki polskiej, rozwijającej się dzięki zaistnieniu po 1989 roku koniecznych ku temu warunków „intelektualnej wolności” . Cieszy fakt, że do rozmowy o Niewspółmierności zaproszeni zostali nie tylko teoretycy literatury, ale przede wszystkim uczeni, których metakrytyczne spostrzeżenia na temat komparatystyki wiążą się z prowadzoną przez nich praktyką badań porównawczych, badacze aktywnie kształtujący obraz komparatystyki polskiej ostatnich znaczących dwudziestu lat.
Zacznijmy nieco prowokacyjnie. Wszyscy zgadzamy się, że antologia Niewspółmierność. Perspektywy nowoczesnej komparatystyki to wartościowa książka, ale czy prezentując ją w sytuacji, kiedy – jak zwraca uwagę jej redaktor – brakuje na polskim rynku innych opracowań umożliwiających orientację w tej dziedzinie, nie wypaczamy perspektywy? Czy nie podlegamy „globalizacji”? Innymi słowy, czy amerykański model komparatystyki przystaje do sytuacji polskiej?
Olga Płaszczewska
Wielogłos, Numer 1-2 (7-8) 2010: Komparatystyka dziś, 2010, s. 133 - 146
The literary salons of the 19th century Europe in the prospective of travel writing: Antoni Edward Odyniec’s Weimar and Milan
A.E. Odyniec’s Listy z podróży (Letters from Travels), set within the context of multinational testimonies from the epoch, become a pretext for a meditation on the phenomenon of the Romantic „salon” as a form of cultured life which is being enacted in the author’s private home, where an audience-instigated meeting between the writer and his admirers is taking place. The observations concerning the writers’ international contacts are also accompanied by remarks on the self-creative measures used by Odyniec as well as on the possibility of interpreting his controversial Listy… (Letters from Travels) in the context of research on the literary image of the period. The main subject of reflection is the ritual of visits to the homes of eminent artists which constituted one of the significant elements of educational trips in Europe; this is illustrated by examples of such institutions as Goethe’s Weimar and Manzoni’s Milan homes.
The literary salons of this period, which grew out of the Enlightenment tradition, turn out to be an important element of a supra-national republique des lettres, whereas the experience of a direct contact with an outstanding individual (documented among others by J.P. Eckermann, Stendhal, F.L. von Raumer and many others) have been shown in the above-mentioned account from a journey, through the angle of „I” and portrayed in the categories of personal experience.
Olga Płaszczewska
Przekładaniec, Numer 31 – Przekład na scenie, 2015, s. 275 - 283
https://doi.org/10.4467/16891864PC.15.033.4962The main purpose of the essay is a critical review of recently published monograph on the presence of Italian literature in Poland Jadwiga Miszalska’s. Miszalska’s achievement is presented against the background of previous reflections on translations of older Italian literature in Poland. Her latest book collects and updates the bibliographies and considerations on “narrative prose”, “theatrical texts and dramas” and poetry. The quotations from original Italian texts and from their translations, acting as a kind of inner anthology, are an unquestionable advantage of the book, while meticulous summaries of literary works and the brevity of philological and historical comments constitute its main drawback.