Fryderyk Chopin and George Sand in the Eyes of Polish Biographers and Literary Critics
The Polish composer Fryderyk Chopin and the French writer Aurore Dudevant (pen name George Sand) have spent several years in a close relationship, which has become the source of one of those tales about famous lovers, tales that with time acquire various interpretations and begin their own independent life. The present article offers the picture of this relationship gleaned from essays, biographies and literary works written and published in Polish from 1840 until today. The most interesting discovery of the research is a change in the image of George Sand, who had been first seen as a great writer, and only then gradually became no more than Chopin’s lover. Also, the attitude towards George Sand, in spite of numerous objective interpretations by Polish biographers, is still hostile, which distorts the complex character of their relationship.

«VII: foetorem in lecto». A Reading of I donneschi difetti by Giuseppe Passi Ravennate
This article analyses the treatise I donneschi difetti, written by the scholar Giuseppe Passi in 1599. The first part of the article presents the architecture of the treatise and the author’s way ofarguing. The second introduces a few examples of female defects related to the sexual sphere and tries to demonstrate how, under the stigmatization of these defects, the author cannot hide his attraction and fear for women. The last part tries to explain the reason for this work, which could be interpreted as a stance by the author himself against the new phenomenon which was taking place at the time in Italian culture: that is, the figure of the female writer.
 

The Desert in the Roman d’Alexandre of Alexandre de Paris (12th century)

The desert is a favourite setting for adventures in the Roman d’Alexandre composed by Alexandre de Paris, around 1188. The space of anxiety, of fear, of transgression, of initiation into the mysteries of life and death, it all belongs to one of the most important parts of the medieval imagination, fed by myths and tales of exotic travels, inherited from oriental and occidental Antiquity. There are many things going on in this area, such as quests, conquests, victories, defeats, friendships, love, hardships, death and treason.

The motif of a desert becomes a dream carrier, expressing the protagonists will of surpassing themselves, the will which could be shared with the public to whom the text was addressed. Instead of being a simple element of oriental decoration, it expresses a certain vision of the world, as it transforms itself from a simple geographic and climatic space into a mythic Le désert dans le Roman d’Alexandre d’Alexandre de Paris (XIIe sičcle) space. Its representation, connected with the omnipresence of marvels, echoes the images of the Orient, as they were perceived by the medieval Occident. The marvels of the desert, seen as projections of desires, dreams, and occidental traumatisms and nightmares, create a complex figure of a mysterious Elsewhere – dangerous, disturbing, fascinating and irresistibly attractive.

A Futurist Travel towards the Absolute. Vulcano of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

Italian futurists, eulogists of movement and velocity, avail themselves of the theme of travel, which frequently becomes a travel towards the Absolute and is based on such philosophical foundations as Bergsonism and occultism. This topic also appears a few times in Marinetti’s dramaturgy. His protagonists always begin their journey hoping that it will bring them closer to the stars, but inevitably fail to achieve their target. Marinetti’s drama Vulcano, analyzed in this paper, is both a rich source of futurist leitmotifs associated with the spiritual ascent and an interesting example of the unexpected pessimism of the founder of that bellicose movement.

The Incendiary Traveller and Vasco da Gama of Gellu Naum. Surrealist Hero in statu nascendi

The paper presents the early poetic works of Gellu Naum, leading representative of the Romanian surrealism. The point of departure for considerations becomes the theoretical background of Naum’s aesthetic premises. On that basis, surrealism is being reconsidered as a special type of sensibility reclined on an unruly imagination rather than anarchical doctrin. With a starting glimpse of Naum’s debut (The Incendiary Traveller, 1936), surrealism in Romania has earned a lot of consciousness, confirmed by several volumes (particularly Naum’s Vasco da Gama, 1940). The new lease of life brought to the movement by the Romanian group was incontestable.

The principal part of the paper is devoted exclusively to the analysis of Gellu Naum’s early masterpieces – The Incendiary Traveller (1936) and Vasco da Gama (1940). The main aim is to reconstruct Naum’s imaginary areas full of unseen things that underlie the surfaces of the quotidian and consciousness. The Romanian poet concentrates on the liberation of the subject or a person from the necessity of identity. The Surrealist hero (both Vasco da Gama and The Incendiary Traveller) has to be at the same time a textual construct, only a toy in the demonically animated inorganic things’ hands, an inert object, and, at least, the poet’s alter ego, exploratory of the irrational and marvellous, a grand voyager over the devouring sea of objects (sea of bones), a platform build on the basis of free imagination. The goal of the Gellu Naum’s textual representative is to move between worlds, to participate in a fluid series of magical changes in the permanent process of seeking for a secret identity.

Reterytorializacja Republiki Południowej Afryki. Alegoria polityczna w Mistrzu z Petersburga J.M. Coetzeego

Jednym z najważniejszych terminów w krytyce twórczości J.M. Coetzeego jest alegoria. Kontrowersje wokół prób literalnego i symbolicznego odczytania twórczości tego południowoafrykańskiego pisarza zdominowały dyskurs naukowy na temat jego twórczości, poczynając od uznania alegorii za podstawową metodę recepcji dzieła literackiego (zwłaszcza w ujęciu takich badaczy jak Dominic Head czy Teresa Dovey), a kończąc na odrzuceniu symbolicznej próby odczytania powieści noblisty (prace Dereka Attridge’a). Niniejszy artykuł dokonuje alegorycznej interpretacji powieści Mistrz z Petersburga z roku 1994, będącej fikcyjną biografią Fiodora Dostojewskiego, a jednocześnie, jak twierdzi autor, zakamuflowaną opowieścią o Republice Południowej Afryki w ostatnich latach apartheidu.

The image of house in El Obsceno Pájaro De La Noche by José Donoso

The topic of the article is the symbolism of house in El obsceno pájaro de la noche, a novel by José Donoso. There are three images of house (home of Humberto Peñaloza, Rinconada and Casa de Ejercicios Espirituales) are discussed in the article, primarily relating to the symbolic meaning of the “house” in the interpretation of Gaston Bachelard and also to opinions of the author himself, drawn from his journals developed by Pilar Donoso. The analysis of these images enables to percieve the strict relationship between the composition of space and the composition of characters. It also shows how the vision of the “house” understood as a space structure, fits into the symbolism of “imbunche” and the symbolism of the mask, both dominant in the novel. The metaphorical conception of space, typical for the “novela del lenguaje”, in “El obsceno pájaro de la noche” becomes the key to the interpretation of the represented world of the text in the sense of apocalypse. The very figure of the house with its symbolical and metaphorical contexts shows in the fullest way the progressive destruction of the main character, the deep crisis of ethical values, social system and also the crisis of the novel as a genre.

Auðunar þáttr vestfi rzka jako fi kcja paraboliczna

Średniowieczna opowieść o Auðunie z Zachodnich Fiordów to przykład staronordyckiego opowiadania z grupy þættir. Jest historią ubogiego Islandczyka, który wyrusza w podróż, w wyniku której zdobywa sławę i bogactwo. Kompozycja utworu jest skoncentrowana wokół podróży i spotkań bohatera z królami Norwegii i Danii, a motywem przewodnim jest pragnienie przekazania kosztownego daru jednemu z nich. Struktura narracyjna zbliża to opowiadanie do fi kcji parabolicznej w rozumieniu Michała Głowińskiego, otwierając możliwości interpretacji. W niniejszym artykule przedstawiam je w nowej, komunikacyjnej perspektywie, prezentując ten utwór jako przykład szczególnego rodzaju fi kcji narracyjnej.

The Principle of Inversion. Some Mynona Grotesques

Grotesque art is inconceivable without reference to the mimetic. It must always reflect a realistic template. The grotesque should be seen as the antithesis of the mimetic, and human imagination, whatever it is creating, constantly draws on familiar aspects of reality. The processes which the mimetic undergoes in grotesque art are inversion, distortion and blending. This article explores the creative work of Salomo Friedlaender/Mynona, with particular focus on inversion. Mynona’s literary oeuvre is generally considered as grotesque. To a considerable extent this is due to the fact that he described himself as a grotesque writer and his short works, for which he is known, simply as grotesques. According to Peter Fuss, inversion is a mimesis which imitates certain elements and relationships of its models but effects changes in direction and hierarchical sequence. Mynona uses the whole range of grotesque devices, including inversion. With the exception of one of the texts, the grotesques by Mynona which are analysed and interpreted here are taken from Rosa, die schone Schutzmannsfrau und andere Grotesken.

Sentimentality Today: Idyllic, Elegiac and Comic

Since the late 1980’s literary critics have noticed a renaissance of sentimental trends in Russian literature. The so-called „new sentimentality” or „new sincerity” seems to be one of the most essential phenomena in contemporary literature in Russia and at the same time one of the less investigated, as the concept of sentimentality itself is not well-defined. In this paper I attempt to present actual possibilities of conceptualizing the sentimentality beyond the framework of historical sentimentalism and develop my own idea, based on the theory of aesthetic modes: idyllic, elegiac and comic ones.

Dramma per musica of the Early 20th Century – the Theme of Music in Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov with Reference to Theodor Adorno’s Philosophy of Modern Music

The aim of the article is to present how musical themes create the artistic space in the novel Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. The question „music in literature” became a significant part of discussion in modern literary and tendencies like intertextuality and intersemiotics. With the support of above-mentioned theories and with reference to postulates proposed by representative of New Hermeneutics in music, Theodor Adorno (1903–1969), I aim at proving that music theme not only „beautifies” artistic space (what concerns especially motives of folk and national songs and dances), or co-creates and supplements the plot, but can also imply deep philosophical and historiosophical meaning. According to Adorno, art never can be independent of historical and social changes. Consequently, a quality of an art reflects a moral condition of society. In the novel Master and Margarita especially music themes vividly allude to reality which is devoid of freedom (as if reality in which Bulgakov indeed lived) and also to humankind losing morality at a critical historic moment. „Grotesque” steps, improvisation and deconstruction of time in „forbidden music” (in Soviet times the term included particularly jazz and fokstrot) are the elements of musical composition which enrich novel’s semantics. On the one hand, they correspond with perversion and chaos of new times. On the other hand, they reveal a human desire for freedom.

Apart from historical aspects, the music themes in the text appear together with the names of composers (the most significant among characters-composers are Berlioz and doctor Stravinsky), titles of works or their theme. Music is suggested by structural elements: polyphony, variation, depersonalization, dodecaphony, also by philosophical laugh, crying, gesture and shock. Due to dynamics and expressionism, an atmosphere of the end of old world is created and the lunacy of upcoming one is shown. Meanwhile, a famous new music’s chaos is closed by the revaluation and orderliness. In accordance with the main novel’s truth – „everything will be like it should be, that is how a world is constructed” – sacrum and profanum would finally find its’ place. Suggestive reflection of that truth can be found in metaphor of symphony proposed in the article.

Since the late 1980’s literary critics have noticed a renaissance of sentimental trends in Russian literature. The so-called „new sentimentality” or „new sincerity” seems to be one of the most essential phenomena in contemporary literature in Russia and at the same time one of the less investigated, as the concept of sentimentality itself is not well-defined. In this paper I attempt to present actual possibilities of conceptualizing the sentimentality beyond the framework of historical sentimentalism and develop my own idea, based on the theory of aesthetic modes: idyllic, elegiac and comic ones.