“Prophetic Realism”: Emancipatory Poetics of George Sand’s Novels

The article recalls George Sand as a writer whose works, especially those of the 1830s and 1840s, inspired the development of a democratic European society. It shows how Sand’s involvement in the democratisation of post-revolutionary France is intertwined with the poetics of her prose. The author introduces the term “not-entirely-realistic”to describe Sand’s writing, which at the same time consciously uses and transcends the poetics of contemporary realism, introducing into the novel the idealisation of chosen characters and fabulous or idyllic motifs in the creation of the world. On the example of selected works, the article discusses common features of typical Sandian protagonists. They are at the same time idealised (noble, selfless, generous, compassionate, and helpful) and idealists themselves, who dream of a better, more equitable social world, and believe that social commitment is consistent with the true message of the Gospel. The article also demonstrates how idyllic space in Sand’s fiction becomes a utopian sphere in which people from different social strata meet and interact as equals.

* Tekst powstał w ramach projektu finansowanego ze środków Narodowego Centrum Nauki przyznanych na podstawie decyzji nr DEC-2011/B/HS2/05436.

Communicational Utopia in Action. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Language of Emancipatory Literature and Architecture

The article presents and comments on the activity of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, an American suffragette, writer, and activist for the emancipation of women. The dominant feature of the presentation is a reflection on the project of utopian communication, to which Gilman subordinated her literature and plans for the reform of domestic space. In the essay, I present the issues of language, voice, and status of women’s speech, inscribing them into the framework of the communication utopia as an ideal of a rational society

"She opened her imaginary eyes into blue nothingness.ˮ Women as Existing Nothingness in Bolesław Leśmian’s Poetry

The category of nothingness often appears in the poetry of Bolesław Leśmian. Literary representations of nothingness as a woman are an original feature of Leśmian’s poetic imagination. This article offers an ontological analysis of women who can be described as “existing nothingness.ˮThese presentations are not homogenous and some notable differences can be observed: in the opposite directions of the will, the intensity of nothingness, or in the perspective from which these characters are shown. Womannothingness can be associated with a lyrical situation or be an element of description. In Leśmian’s poetry there are also male characters who become nothingness after coming in contact with women. Presentations of women as “existing nothingnessˮand their destructive impact on men is connected with the misogynist attitude.

* Pierwotną wersję artykułu stanowi rozdział pracy licencjackiej pt. Kreacje kobiet nieobecnych oraz nieistniejących w poezji Kazimierza Przerwy-Tetmajera i Bolesława Leśmiana, napisanej na Wydziale Polonistyki UJ pod opieką Krzysztofa Fiołka i obronionej w roku 2018.

Parnicki and his Metaphors. Theology and the Borders of Modernity

This article offers an interpretation of the novel “Zabij Kleopatręˮ (1968) by Teodor Parnicki. Thanks to post-secular reflection, it is possible to situate the writer as a watchful observer of the so-called “exhaustion of modernity.ˮThis interpretation is based on a detailed analysis –through the disintegration of the generic determinants of the novel, the meta-literary level is gradually constructed to support a post-secular reading. “Zabij Kleopatręˮ can be regarded as a breakthrough novel among Parnicki’s writings.

On the Benefits of Expressing Pain Through Anger. Restored Subjectivity and the Perverse Desire to Belong in Thomas Bernhard’s Short Stories

The aim of this article is to present the relation between pain and anger in Thomas Bernhard’s autobiographical stories: Der Atem. Eine Entscheidung and Die Kälte. Eine Isolation. The Austrian writer precisely reconstructs the social context of recognising disease and the status of suffering in institutional medicine. In this article, the tension between individual experience of pain and therapeutic procedures is analysed in the context of power and domination. However, the author pays special attention to the problem of subjective transformation of pain into anger (the logic of rebellion, agon).

“Human Waste” and the Dumpsite of Capitalism in Konrad Góra’s Siła niższa (full hasiok) and Nie Poetry Books

The article discusses the issue of waste and trash in the poetic volumes Nie [Them] and Siła niższa (full hasiok) [The Lower Force (Full Trash)] by Konrad Góra. Zygmunt Bauman’s “human waste”category and present-day class inequalities are the starting point for the interpretation. In particular, the linguistic and formal shaping of the discussed volumes and the ways of representing Baumanian “human wasteˮare analysed. The language and materiality of Siła niższa are compared to a “dumpsiteˮconceived of as a space of expression of individuals excluded from global dialogue. Nie is discussed as a non-subjective representation of a catastrophe devoid of witnesses, which bears signs of the essence of all destructive phenomena of late capitalism.

Vengeful Memory. On Arkadiusz Morawiec’s Book Literatura polska wobec ludobójstwa

The article is a review of Arkadiusz Morawiec’s book Literatura polska wobec ludobójstwa [Polish Literature and Genocide], the first Polish literary study to address the acts of genocide that occurred before the Holocaust and the ethnic cleansing after World War II. The reviewer recognises the researcher’s scholarship and the ethical sensitivity with which he revises his previous theses about the uniqueness of the Holocaust. The book has been composed in a cross-sectional manner, the articles on Holocaust and Genocide Studies are accompanied by analyses informed by poetics and sociology of literature. Thus, the reader becomes acquainted not only with the historical realities of the described conflicts but also with the mechanisms of collective memory, which is shaped by both institutional activities (museums) and the reception of survivors’ testimonies.

Malady Readings. On Monica Ładoń’s Book Choroba jako literatura

This article reviews Choroba jako literatura [Illness as Literature] by Monika Ładoń. Ładoń’s essays establish malady studies in the field of Polish literature. She analyses fictions and autobiographies that cover the experience of disease. The scope of her research spans Polish and European prose of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (including Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Maria Dąbrowska, Anna Kowalska, Jerzy Pilch, Krystyna Kofta, and Grażyna Jagielska). Ładoń’s theoretical perspectives are set by Emil Cioran, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Catherine Malabou, and the duo of Julia Kristeva and Jean Vanier.