The animal / human dichotomy in Villain Song (1978) by Blanca Varela

The article analyzes the work of Blanca Varela, the most important Peruvian poet of all time. She highlights the dichotomy between animal and human in her collection of poems Canto villano. The paper is based, above all, on the proposal of Giorgio Agamben, who questions the opposition between animal and human to suggest that there is a continuity between both living beings. Likewise, the concept of anthropology machine is used for the analysis of Blanca Varela’s poetry.

The first part of the article proposes a general overview of the notion of “capitalist realism,” introduced by Mihai Iovănel in his History of Romanian Contemporary Literature 1990‒2020 as one of the paradigms which help to read and classify post-Communist Romanian literature taking into consideration the political, social and economic conditioning of literary production.

The second part of the paper aims to investigate the individual trajectory of Adrian Schiop (b. 1973) ‒ one of the authors classified by Iovănel as representatives of “capitalist realism,” whose literary and artistic work is defined by a high degree of social relevance. By deconstructing collective narratives and cliches, Schiop proposes a polemical point of view on post-Communist society, occupying at the same time the position of a very self-conscious agent within the Romanian literary field. 

“Imaginary texture”: opening sentences and coherence in Andrzej Stasiuk’s prose and its French translations

The basic principle ensuring the cohesion and coherence of a text is the phenomenon of grammatical and semantic linkage of each sentence with the prior context. Evidently, this rule does not apply to the opening sentences of a work or, to a lesser extent, of its chapter. The subject of the article is the analysis of such opening sentences in selected works by Andrzej Stasiuk breaking out of this exception. They create the impression of false consistency with a prior, non-existent context by using a connector that opens them. The solutions applied in French translations reveal different tendencies for the construction of coherent relations. What is more, they indicate the complex factors underlying the translators’ decisions and cause modifications in the stylistic layer of the target text.

Power of death and art of Relation: a study of Moi, Tituba sorcière… by Maryse Condé

This study of the well-known novel Moi, Tituba sorcière… Noire de Salem (1986) by Maryse Condé will focus on the role of death in the narration. We will see how two different conceptions of death will here be in action: one, where death is nothing but a moment between two lives that still connect; the other, where death is used to enhance the power of white man. The aim is to see how Tituba reacts to the oppression by building a different approach to people, a path that is the “Relation” Edouard Glissant wrote about.

The one who does not cradle: Gaston Bachelard’s concept of maternity of the elements revisited by Michel Butor

Michel Butor’s experimental spirit leads him to challenge the optimistic vision of water and earth created by the 20th century philosopher Gaston Bachelard. In his New Novel published in 1956, L’Emploi du temps, Butor becomes particularly virulent in the face of an idea postulating the maternal aspect of two elements. He methodically questions all fundamental principles of Bachelard’s vision in order to explore the darker and more violent side of aquatic and telluric forces of nature.

Grasping French vouloir-dire by Polish-speaking students: what difficulties and what facilities?

The objective of this article is to analyze the question of French vouloir-dire from the perspective of second language acquisition. We start from the principle that each language has its own “genius” (Yaguello 1988) and that mastering a language means above all letting oneself be tempted by this genius. In this perspective, we focus on the study of the facilities and difficulties experienced by Polishspeaking students learning French as a foreign language. By presenting the results of an empirical study carried out in two universities in Poland, we show that it is possible to enumerate intuitive grammatical constructions and those whose logic remains difficult for both intuition and analytical thinking throughout the process of learning French. The study also discovers that there is a need to redefine the notion of vouloir-dire while taking into consideration language contacts and the linguistic biography of speakers.

The evolution of eccentric thinking in the book The Free Shooters of Thought. On Some Romantic and Post-Romantic Figures of Mind by Agnieszka Kocik

The article discusses the book The Free Shooters of Thought. On Some Romantic and Post-Romantic Figures of Mind by Agnieszka Kocik. This publication proposes to trace the dynamics in the development of the character of an eccentric in the 19th century literature, based on an analysis of works by, among others, Balzac, Sztyrmer, Nerval, Champfleury, Verne, Howard. The author distinguishes three stages in modernisation of fiction, pointing to its sources in the evolution of scientific and parascientific theories and ideas, without forgetting the historical upheavals which inevitably brought about important socio-political, cultural and literary changes.

From error to perfection. Tomasz Niestorowicz, El aprendizaje de la oposición imperfecto/indefinido en estudiantes polacos de ELE

In his monograph, Tomasz Niestorowicz attempts to describe the development of the verbal forms of the tenses pretérito imperfecto and pretérito indefinido. The author, based on the main models used in the study of second language acquisition and concepts related to the category of tense and aspect, conducts a research on the basis of grammar tests carried out among 86 students of Polish Iberian Studies. The conclusions resulting from the analysis indicate the deviations / errors in the morphological structure of the tenses pretérito imperfecto and pretérito indefinido at different stages of acquiring the verbal paradigm and confirm whether the aspectual information contained in the verbal lexeme influences the choice between pretérito imperfecto and pretérito indefinido.

Semantic-syntactic relations in Entre el léxico y la sintaxis: las fases de los eventos by María Martínez-Atienza de Dios

The article discusses the book Entre el léxico y la sintaxis: las fases de los eventos by María Martínez-Atienza de Dios. This work, focusing on phases of verbal events, studies the semantic and syntax of some Spanish verb periphrases and the adverbial phrase de sopetón. Special attention is given to the aspectual class of verbal events called states, for which a new complex structure is proposed.