Katarzyna Szewczyk-Haake
Konteksty Kultury, Volume 17 Issue 1, 2020, pp. 28 - 43
https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.20.004.12217The article deals with the changes that have been occurring in the reception (both translational and critical) of Polish poetry in Sweden since the 1980s. It points to the break with reading Polish poetry in the historical and political contexts (that were the dominant “style of reception” for several decades) and abandoning the order of literary history for the anthropological perspective. Analysis of examples shows that since the 1990s Swedish literary criticism was clearly seeking new ways of accentuating the independence of reviewed Polish authors from the “historical” background (e.g., the case of Adam Zagajewski but also of Tadeusz Różewicz). The context into which Polish poetry is successfully and very consequently inscribed in contemporary Sweden is the feminist perspective, which is rooted in the long-time tradition of taking up “the plight of women” in Sweden (or, more broadly, in all of Scandinavia) and clearly visible also in Swedish research in literary history pertaining to Polish literature that were conducted during the last three decades. The poetry of Polish female poets is currently the subject of intense focus of Swedish critics and translators.