Przemysław Szczur

Bataille de Kirholm by Henri Krasiński and the transnational Polish-French historical novel in the Romantic era

The author of the article proposes an interpretation of the novel Bataille de Kirholm by Henri Krasiński through the notions of francophony, migration and transnationalism. He analyzes the authorial posture adopted by the writer, based on his migrant status, but also the poetics of his text, based on the transposition into French of Polish historical, cultural and linguistic elements. He thus intends to underline the interest of a little-known literary phenomenon, that of historical novels with Polish subject, published in the Romantic era by French-speaking Polish authors.

This paper analyses the image of Poland and gentile Poles in the texts of Jewish immigrants and their descendants in French-speaking Belgium. The centre of interest are its literary forms, as well as its historical roots. If the geographical and cultural Polish space appears alternatively as locus amoenus and locus horribilis, the inhabitants of the country are quite clearly represented as populus horribilis. Their antisemitism appears as one of their main features, although sometimes it is problematized. Jewish immigrants and their descendants distance themselves from Poland and gentile Poles. They mainly create a negative image, very different from the traditional image of Poland and Poles in Belgian literature.

* L’auteur de cette étude bénéficie d’un financement octroyé par le Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Polonais (National Science Centre, Poland, research project 2018/30/M/HS3/00153). 

From a Double Author to a Double Reader. On Poetyckie podwojenie. Marian Pankowski – polski poeta języka francuskiego / Dédoublement poétique. Marian Pankowski – poète polonais de langue française by Dorota Walczak-Delanois

This review is a discussion of the book Poetyckie podwojenie. Marian Pankowski – polski poeta języka francuskiego / Dédoublement poétique. Marian Pankowski –poète polonais de langue française, by Dorota Walczak-Delanois. The author emphasizes the value of the monograph, which is the first comprehensive discussion of Marian Pankowski’s French-language poetry. A particularly interesting aspect of the book is its bilingualism. The author of the review interprets it as an extension of Marian Pankowski’s own writing practices and draws attention to the similarities between them and the work of the author of the book. He also emphasizes the influence of the book’s structure on its reception. The work is also presented as an important contribution to the history of Polish francophony.

* L’auteur de cette étude bénéficie d’un financement octroyé par le Centre national de la recherche scientifique polonais (National Science Centre, Poland, research project 2018/30/M/HS3/00153).

Gide with Said. On a case of the (neo)paederastic Orientalism

The article offers an interpretation of André Gide "L immoraliste" novel by combining the views of the gender and gay and lesbian studies with Edward Said theory of Orientalism. The analysis opens with the summary of the cultural context of late 1800s, hostile to men and women engaging in emotional and sexual relations with people of the same sex. It then goes on to argue that a reference to the ancient paederasty presented a positive alternative to the prevailing attitude of that time towards same sex relations, regarding them as medical pathology. The interpretation of Gide novel demonstrates that the paederastic model based on polarized gender roles is transferred into the new cultural context through the Orientalist ideology. Michael (the main character) (neo)paederastic relations with Arab boys are founded on the dichotomous and hierarchical opposition between the people of the Orient and those of the West. Yet the very Orientalist ideology transforms the (neo)paederastic model into its exact opposite: an Arab boy, enclosed in his otherness, passes his own difference on to his European partner, the (neo)paederast thus beginning to resemble the homosexual who was in turn also enclosed in his alleged radical "otherness" by psychiatrists of the 19th century.

Is the Narrator a Woman? Narration and “Women’s Language” in Jacqueline Harpman’s Orlanda

The aim of the paper is to analyse Jacqueline Harpman’s Orlanda in the light of feminist linguistics and narratology. The narrator of this novel, although explicitly identified as a woman, uses linguistic and narrative strategies culturally defined as both feminine and masculine. The result is an androgynous narration that matches very well the novel’s subject of a cross-gender spirit migration.
 

«Mais qu’est-ce, au fond, qu’une pièce historique ? »: from metadrama to metahistory in Antoine Pickels’ Clinique d’un roi

In this paper, I analyse the play Clinique d’un roi by the Belgian author Antoine Pickels as a metadrama, i.e., drama about drama. I concentrate on the most important textual manifestations of its metadramatic dimension. I also read it as a form of metahistorical reflection. Clinique d’un roi can be regarded as a “negative historical drama”that questions its own claims to historicity.

* L’auteur de cette étude bénéficie d’un financement octroyé par le Centre national de la recherche scientifique polonais (National Science Centre, Poland, research project 2018/30/M/HS3/00153).