Paweł Matyaszewski
Romanica Cracoviensia, Volume 21, Issue 1, Volume 21 (2021), pp. 67-75
https://doi.org/10.4467/20843917RC.21.006.13674The purpose of the present article is to show the history of Polish translations of a famous epistolary novel Persian Letters written in 1721 by Montesquieu. In his work, the author neither introduces linguistic matters of the translations, nor he analyses their correctness; however, he presents strictly historical and cultural aspects of the process of translation. What is more, the article aims at presenting the intentions of Polish translators, the historical context of their work and its importance for a Polish reader. Regardless of the era when they produced their translations, starting as early as the eighteenth century, Polish translators always saw in Montesquieu’s Persian Letters something more than a simple and light epistolary novel of the Regency era.
Paweł Matyaszewski
Cahiers ERTA, Numéro 22, 2020, pp. 71-88
https://doi.org/10.4467/23538953CE.20.009.12427The article covers the analysis of the concept of space in Sylvain Maré ‐ chal's play Jugement dernier des rois [The Final Judgement over the Kings], written during the French Revolution. The action of the play takes place on an island which serves as a prison, first for the enemies of the monarchy, then for the enemies of the Revolution. The idea of the prison island, a place of punishment and evilness, breaks with an utopian concept of an island being a sanctuary and the source of happiness for a perfect society (Thomas More). It envisages the history of the XIXth century and the fortunes of Napoleon at Saint Helena as well as the story of Edmond Dantès presented in a famous novel The Count of Monte Cristo written by Dumas.