Translating slang: Lunfardo in the Polish translation of Julio Cortázar’s Rayuela and Torito

The objective of this article is to study how selected Lunfardo words and expressions in the prose of Julio Cortázar have been translated into Polish by Zofia Chądzyńska. Lunfardo is an urban slang typical of the Río de la Plata region in Argentina. The works of Cortázar analysed for the purpose of this paper are: Rayuela (Hopscotch) and Torito, a short story which contains a comparatively large number of Lunfardisms. The paper examines how Lunfardo, a sociolinguistic phenomenon closely linked to Argentina and its culture, is reflected in the translation into Polish. It also identifies the strategies and techniques chosen by the translator and examines to what extent Chądzyńska allows the Polish reader to become aware of the existence of Lunfardo. 

‘To be’ vs. ‘to appear to be’ – the relativity of innocence and guilt in plays of Pavlovsky, Diament, and Santana

The aim of this paper is to compare three dramatic works by Latin-American playwrights: Argentinians Eduardo Pavlovsky and Mario Diament, and Rodolfo Santana from Venezuela. The three dramatists belong to a fairly the same artistic generation (they were born in, respectively: 1937, 1942, and 1944). The examined works originate in approximately the same period of time (Los criminales by Santana was published in 1968, La mueca by Pavlovsky and Crónica de un secuestro by Diament in 1971). These three texts demonstrate intriguing similarities in their dramatic structure. The central dramatic devices employ antinomies between the notions of ‘being’ and ‘appearing to be’, as well as gradual ascertainment of characters’ personal experiences from a standpoint of guiltiness and innocence. The intensity of interpersonal relations between characters is marked with various kinds of violence, where victims may become oppressors, and possibly contrariwise. The confinement of characters in a limited space prompts penitence and soul-searching.

L’Âme en folie by François de Curel: In search of a new dramatic paradigm

The author of the article studies Curel’s play, which testifies to the crisis of traditional drama, announced at the turn of the 20th century. Curel seems to destroy the canonical form of “drama-in-life”, based on a dramatic progression of the action and on the character as an active agent ensuring this same progression, by proposing a new paradigm of “drama-of-life”. The latter moves away from classic prerogatives to focus on the inner life of the protagonist. Instead of focusing on episodes that inevitably lead to disaster, the French writer attempts to embrace the evolution of the characters’ souls. This is how he passes from “agonistic drama” to an “ontological” one.

The aim of this article is to demonstrate that the male protagonist of the second story of Marie NDiaye’s Three Strong Women (Trois femmes puissantes) can be viewed as a fantastic character. The protagonist’s hesitation in the face of unsettling phenomena – both the external world and the traumatic events from his past – constitutes the central pivot of his construction. The fantastic characteristics of Rudy Descas, whose voice is predominant in the text, reveal the multidimensionality of the supernatural in NDiaye’s work, as the boundaries between the notion of the “character” and the “phenomenon” are not clearly defined. The analysis is based on literary theories concerning the nineteenth century fantastic, the new fantastic and the African fantastic.

The Polish edition of the comic book adaptation of Salammbô – towards editorial and peritextual study

The author of this paper discusses the problem of peritextual and editorial issues, using the French 19th century novel Salammbô by Gustave Flaubert as an example. The following study consistsof peritextual analysis of the Polish version of Druillet’s comic book adaptation, which is the object ofthis research. The methodological approach is based on semiotic analysis. Umberto Eco’s conceptsof model reader and closed/opened texts are also applied. The aim of this paper is to define the role of editorial peritexts of literary comic book adaptations in the world of mass media.

The sacrilege of Vanni Fucci, the beast of Pistoia, in the Divine Comedy

This hermeneutic analysis presents a reflection on the complex nature of the concept of theft in the Christian world, compared to the pagan one. The author develops the idea of the desperate blasphemy of the infernal prisoner as a form of unconscious prayer. Vanni Fucci from Pistoia, the sacrilegious and blasphemous character of Dante’s Inferno, is analyzed by referring to the fundamental difference between the classical and medieval philosophical perception of metamorphosis as a symbol.

The theme of desolation in L’altra verità. Diario di una diversa, by Alda Merini

The life of Alda Merini has always been connected with abandonment, reclusion, abuse, failure of motherhood: in one word, of that kind of loneliness, suffering and inexpressibility that could be called ‘desolation’. The author analyses the construction of the subject in Merini’s L’altra verità. Diario di una diversa: a diary, a reportage, but even a metaphor of the condition of the artist. The paper aims to show that desolation (as product of suffering, loneliness and inexpressibility), is a key element for the condition of the artist (and the subject itself) in 20th century. But it might be particularly a keyword for Alda Merini, marking her way to achieve a state of grace as a writer, and as a woman.

On some methods applied to Italian grammars for Poles between the 19th and 20th centuries

The article aims to compare and analyse Italian grammars and manuals for Polish users published between the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. The purpose is to observe the general trends on the methods proposed, the changes taking place and the possible influences on teaching of Western languages as foreign languages in a historical moment when after the Third Partition Poland had ceased to exist as a sovereign state.