Zmiana warty (Change of Guards) – in hindsight

Błoński’s Zmiana warty (Change of Guards), a book of critical essays published in 1961, can be read now as well as a historical document of its time, as a process of shaping individual writing style and beliefs of the future outstanding critic and professor of Polish literature. Błoński analyses few myths present in the literature of his generation: myth of autonomy, myth of misfortune, erotic myths and myth of lower class. Assessing critically the condition of the literature of his time, he sees in it the consequences of hidden crises of the whole European literature caused by experience of totalitarianism. He considers himself a kind of outcast.

 

Błoński’s Zmiana warty (Change of Guards), a book of critical essays published in 1961, can be read now as well as a historical document of its time, as a process of shaping individual writing style and beliefs of the future outstanding critic and professor of Polish literature. Błoński analyses few myths present in the literature of his generation: myth of autonomy, myth of misfortune, erotic myths and myth of lower class. Assessing critically the condition of the literature of his time, he sees in it the consequences of hidden crises of the whole European literature caused by experience of totalitarianism. He considers himself a kind of outcast.