Between Multivocality and Autonomy. Surprising Alliances in the Stokfiszewski Debate

The article offers a re-reading of an influential series of critical essays and commentaries published by Igor Stokfiszewski and various authors in 2007, as part of a debate on the role and importance of zaangażowanie (roughly “political commitment”) in contemporary poetry and criticism in Poland. In reconstructing the underlying logic of the debate, it aims to emphasise certain details and complexities that were so far largely ignored by critics, in order to point out indirect and often unexpected methodological, philosophical and political implications of some of the views put forward in the course of the exchange.

* Artykuł powstał w ramach projektu badawczego „Autonomia 2.0. Nowe podejścia do autonomii we współczesnej krytyce literackiej” (nr 2021/04/N/HS2/01612) finansowanego przez Narodowe Centrum Nauki.

The article offers a re-reading of an influential series of critical essays and commentaries published by Igor Stokfiszewski and various authors in 2007, as part of a debate on the role and importance of zaangażowanie (roughly “political commitment”) in contemporary poetry and criticism in Poland. In reconstructing the underlying logic of the debate, it aims to emphasise certain details and complexities that were so far largely ignored by critics, in order to point out indirect and often unexpected methodological, philosophical and political implications of some of the views put forward in the course of the exchange.