1809 saw an anonymous publication of a fragment of the poem Wanda, królowa sarmacka [Wanda, the Queen of Sarmathians]. We read that Wanda, the daughter of Krakus, wanders with her companions as an envoy to the Jazyges to ask them for help against the Germanic invaders led by Rotygar. On their way they meet a pious hermit who advises them on the value of virtue and predicts the princess’s future. During their further voyage, as they are sailing down the Danube, a storm caused by the wind god Pochwist on request of the love goddess Dzidziela destroys their barge. Wanda’s companions die while she survives and travels on, holding on to a piece of the barge. Wanda recalls the tradition of epic; the author introduces motifs typical for this genre, including the epic machinery, replacing the ancient gods with characters from the Slavic mythology, opposing the decrees of the Christian God. The work, however, has also some distinct features of a descriptive poem. Wanda is a very good indication of changes which occurred in epic poetry in early 19th century.

The author of the article recalls a forgotten Biblical drama by Krystyn Ostrowski, concentrating on two characters constituting the centre of the scenic microcosm – Mary Magdalene and Judas. Analyzing appropriate fragments of the work, she points out creative modifications of evangelic threads.
In his work, Krystyn Ostrowski broadens the Biblical perspective by aspects which had earlier been nonexistent in the tradition – for example, he shows some events from Mary Magdalene’s perspective and makes a characteristic shift: he puts the repentant woman almost in the centre of the mysteries of the Passion. Mary Magdalene is therefore shown as an apostle, a hermit, a bride of Jesus, a witness of His resurrection, as well as a woman receiving the grace of salvation. The playwright gives his characters personality traits their evangelic prototypes did not have. In his approach, Judas cannot be perceived only in connection with his betrayal. Ostrowski essentially preserves the evangelic message, frequently condensing the Biblical meanings, senses and Biblical references, as well as placing accents differently. Thus emerges a more complex, multi-dimensional picture.

The article covers small poetic works by Marcin Molski, presenting the issues of health and illness. In most of the assorted poems, the indicated motif was realized as content of name-day wishes. Another group of analyzed texts are works dedicated to doctors, showing the ailments of the poet himself or his relatives. They usually narrate the course of the used therapy and express appreciation for the work of the “disciples of Hippocrates”. The diversity of approaches to the subject matter under discussion allows for a certain verification of the previous opinions about the poet, inviting to further research of the large collection of his occasional lyric. This writing, neglected and usually ignored in scholarly studies, may become a valuable source of information about the so-called literary life of the past epoch. It also constitutes research material inspiring the present readers to extend and enrich their aesthetic reflections.

For the representatives of Victor Hugo’s Red Salon, growing up in the shade of Corneille and Racine, the most important stage of the Romanticist revolution was conquest of the stage of Comédie-Française. Until the Classicist literary forms had been overcome, Romanticism could not consider itself a victorious trend. The article is an attempt to describe the disputes between the romanticists and the classicists in the area of theater, the struggle for a new theater which was to become a tribune of new aesthetic and ideological currents

The text brings reflection on the ways to preserve higher feelings in an extreme existential experience of life in a concentration camp. The analytic material was taken from the works by Tadeusz Borowski, in particular two of them: Do narzeczonej and Wołanie do Marii. Both poems are connected by their integral lyrical situation, referencing the biography of the author himself, and the identity of the lyrical subject speaking from the middle of the camp’s reality as its participant and witness in one person. The identity of both poems at the level of the lyrical voice and at the level of the hero, as well as identity with the person of real author, is an additional advantage. The performed analyses concentrate on the structure of the poetic world and the specific character of imagery, which reveal, on one hand, the trauma of the lyrical subject, and on the other hand, an attempt to preserve the humanity, perceived in preservation of higher feelings. In the further part of the text, a comparison has been made between the feeling of the world inherent in Borowski’s works and the experiences and attitudes related to the same time and similar experience, as presented in the works by Tadeusz Różewicz, Paul Celan and Czesław Miłosz.

The text is an attempt to compare the Twenty-Second Voyage by Stanisław Lem and In partibus infidelium by Jacek Dukaj. Both stories describe the fate of the Catholic Church after the discovery of sentient races in the space and further stages of interplanetary evangelization.
A closer analysis of the texts shows that both writers use a futurological method. Lem projects a return to what already had been, ornamenting his story with medieval setting (martyrdom, crusades). Dukaj references a certain principle governing the history, according to which the future will be governed by the same laws as the past, but not necessarily resulting in exactly the same situation. History is made of successive stages, recurring cyclically with a certain difference.
Dukaj’s story also shows elements of Gnostic, evolutionist, as well as techno-Gnostic thinking, according to which the scientific and technical development becomes a determinant of progress

The article is an attempt to draw attention to the issue of kitschiness in the novel Underground River, Underground Birds by Tadeusz Konwicki, released in 1984 in the underground “second circulation”
The issue of “playing with kitsch”, which had been taken up by the author of A Minor Apocalypse before, concerns the problem of patriotic or national kitsch and is one of the main topics of this text, relatively rarely analyzed by critics. The author shows that the Underground River… not only constitutes a critical approach of the author of Bohin Manor to the literature of his time but also to the very period of decline of Communist Poland with its “kitsch potential”, and  continues Konwicki’s reflection regarding the problem of Polishness and the Polish national heritage, the beginnings of which can already be noticed in an earlier novel by this author, The Polish Complex.

The author of the essay describes the major motifs in the text of the diaries and travel notes by Józef Baran. He points out the kind of sensitivity and manners of imaging which are realized in the entire writing of the poet. He discusses the silva-rerum character of these notes, referring to the poetics of “confession” as described in the Pakt autobiograficzny by M. Czermińska, and pays attention to the issue of presence of other people in the autobiographic space.

The topic of the article is an attempt to outline an initial typology of Jewish subject matter in the works by Czesław Miłosz at various stages of his writing. The author identifies five main thematic areas: literary images of the Jewish world in the inter-war Poland and the issue of Polish anti-Semitism; Miłosz’s attitude towards the Holocaust; the poet’s relations with intellectuals and writers of Jewish origin; his fascination with religious as well as philosophical and theosophical currents originating from the tradition of the Jewish Kabbalah (Frankism, Hassidism, Manichean and Gnostic concepts); as well as translations into Polish of Biblical poetry and works by Jewish authors. The considerations included in the article are of reconnaissance nature and herald further, deeper research in the area of the indicated subject matter.

Kazimierz Orłoś is known primarily as an outstanding realist writer. The article perceives this aspect: Zimorodek is a brutal story about humiliation of a decent man in the presence of a child. However, the author also wanted to indicate other possibilities of reading Orłoś’s prose and to put emphasis on the metaphysical subject matter present in the story. In his interpretation, Zimorodek becomes a story about the evil which is present in the world and about the impossibility of theodicy. The evil, personified here in the form of three criminals, excludes the existence of a good God in a Manichean way.

Recent juvenile fiction, like the popular literature, is much more connected with everyday life of young people than appreciated literary works of the past. In her juvenile novels, M. Gutowska-Adamczyk shows in an interesting way the relations between young people and their parents and grandparents (who are often closer to them than the parents, since they introduce them to unknown family secrets and are the keepers of tradition passed from one generation to another). The family identity built in such way is a fundament of such values as: respect, nobleness, devotion, indness, and the presence of the past in the present gives young people the awareness of one’s own “rootedness”. If these novels allow young people for deeper reflection on the surrounding world, for discourse with the characters and to experience authentic emotions, they will fulfill their task.

The essay on the newest volume of poetry by Jerzy Kronhold is an attempt to indicate the most characteristic advantages of Epitafium dla Lucy and its predominant meanings. The author puts special emphasis on the approach to the topic of passing and death. She stresses the diversity of realization of the motif of memory and its metaphysical context. The poems are often a record of the reality available to the poet, his personal struggle against time. In Kronhold’s volume, an important place is also occupied by historical and geographical concrete, often as a point of departure for conclusions of existential nature. One should also notice the changes in forms of expression and poetics, distinct in comparison with the poet’s previous volumes. Of special interest is the sensuality of several poetic images, the significance of details, the role of musical motifs, as well as a visible tendency to expose the aesthetic qualities of the text.

An important phenomenon of the Polish literature on the turn of the millennia was emergence of many valuable works with religious and metaphysical subject: by Herbert, Miłosz, Różewicz, or John Paul II. It has gained a scholarly reaction in the shape of formation of the trend of research of the issues of relations between literature and religion. The present review essay discusses a number of books by middle generation scholars who are reaching their scholarly independence. The presented monographs examined poets of several periods, from Leśmian (Michał Nawrocki) to Miłosz and Różewicz (Mirosław Dzień) to Father Ihnatowicz (Alicja Ożóg-Jakubowska). The monograph by Father Jerzy Sikora – just as the previous volume – concerns the religious rhetoric, in this case – the preaching of Father Józef Tischner. The scholars, whose education and skills are not only philological but also theological and philosophic, have presented various analytic techniques and interpretation theories

The article takes up the problem of changes in the modern literacy. The author discusses two factors impacting the metamorphoses of the modern culture of writing: a tendency to iconize the messages and the influence of colloquiality on the form of a written text. A modern text functions in new cultural conditions, dominated by iconicity and colloquiality as the principles shaping its cohesion; a tendency is observed to depart from the principle of text hypotaxis towards a parataxis of senses. This leads to changes in understanding and building of a text as a whole.

The article takes up the reflection on advertising as an integral element of the modern reality, influencing the priorities of modern culture and determining mental predispositions and behaviour of its participants; moreover, through its very obviousness, it influences the perception of the past and the artistic heritage, as well as the direction of development of the modern art. With its multiple techniques of effective persuasive influence, advertising proposes various ways to shape the reality,  also in the spheres which do not seem to yield easily to the commercial challenge. The author shows that advertising creates a communication paradigm regulating the life of communities even in the least hospitable conditions (which is clearly evidenced by advertising practices used in the the Warsaw ghetto during World War II). The article also reveals the messages and cognitive benefits resulting from the analysis of advertisements, if they are considered an important social, moral and linguistic document.

The article examines the successful persuasiveness of humorous advertisements. Many psychologists and sociologists claim them to be well-liked and effective. They affect the recipient’s mind, thus increasing the perlocutionary effectiveness.
Humorous advertisements can be effective for several reasons. They entertain the recipients, putting them into a good mood, due to which the receiver is more liable to persuasion and his ability to counter-argument is limited. Decoding of funny wordplays gives a recipient intellectual satisfaction. Such message is easier to remember and more effective in drawing attention. Participation of wellknown and liked people increases the trust in the presented product.
Humorous advertisements, utilizing various mechanisms of persuasion, amuse a recipient, simultaneously persuading him in a peripheral way to purchase a given commodity.

The principle of the Greek culture is not individualism but humanism consisting in bringing up a human’s proper character, the real humanity. Such humanism determined the framework of the Greek paideia to which the point of departure is not an individual but a human being as an idea, standing beyond the autonomy of the self and beyond a human being as a member of a community. The tradition owes the bringing of the classical education to maturity and its final form to two masters – Plato and Isocrates. Plato’s education aims at upbringing of a man or a group of disciples united in the Academy, constituting an elite unavailable to the most of the community. On the other hand, according to Isocrates, the goal of education was mastering of the word and the way to express it; therefore, he would put special emphasis on the learning of rhetoric, which was closely connected with ethics. Both educators stressed the value of individual education, in their schools great emphasis was put on the master-disciple relation. However, despite this individualism in education, the common view of nurture, and therefore of the ideal, is characterized by strong elitism in case of Plato, and by egalitarianism in case of Isocrates. The tradition of Greek education, as realized by Isocrates, was continued by the Romans, which is reflected, most of all, in Cicero’s writings

“Dziennik Polski i Dziennik Żołnierza” (“The Polish Daily & Soldier’s Daily”), along the “Wiadomości” of London and the Parisian “Kultura”, was the most important periodical of the wartime independence emigration. Although very popular among emigrants, for years it had remained less known to readers in Poland. 2008 finally saw a monograph of this journal by Jolanta Chwastyk-Kowalczyk. Reading of her study Londyński „Dziennik Polski i Dziennik Żołnierza” 1944–1989. Gazeta codzienna jako środek przekazu kulturowych [London emigration’s “Dziennik Polski i Dziennik Żołnierza”, 1944–1989. A daily newspaper as a medium of cultural messages] demonstrates the culture-forming role of the journal. The Author recalls tens of names of the newspaper’s collaborators, quotes hundreds of published reviews and discussions of literary works and cultural events. In her approach, a daily newspaper  becomes a record of the intellectual life of the independence emigration. My article is not a review of the book by Jolanta Chwastyk-Kowalczyk. My goal is to complement her study with a topic which has lost much of its distinctness in an enormous number of facts recalled by the author. Namely, I have paid attention to the significance of the Polish-Jewish dialogue which had been developing for many years in the pages of the London-based journal. A person to have a crucial role was Wacław Zagórski, the editor of the “Tydzień Polski” supplement. The name of Józef Lichten, who authored several dozen articles, is not mentioned in the study by the researcher of emigration press at all, the cultural activity of other Polish Jews is not sufficiently emphasized either. The book by Jolanta Chwastyk-Kowalczyk will probably remain the most comprehensive monograph of „Dziennik Polski i Dziennik Żołnierza” for many years, therefore my proposal to researchers of the emigration literature is a kind of supplement, complementing the image of the journal.