In this article – which is an answers to questions posed in a survey – I analyse Thomas Pavel’s understanding of the history of the novel. I juxtapose his propositions with contemporary trends within literary history, emphasizing his substantial contribution to research of fictitious worlds and the literary persona. I underscore the evident intellectual affinities with the theory of Charles Taylor. Furthermore, I also examine the question of the ethics of reading from diverse standpoints (Daniel Defoe’s novel serves as an example), recognizing that if there are any affinities that we can speak of at all, in this case, then they would point to theories of Martha Nussbaum rather than to the views inspired by Derrida, Rorty, or feminist criticism. I focus on the selection criteria adopted by the scholar, who is less concerned with the twentieth-century novel – especially the self-referential kind – and concentrates less on various crises of values but is instead more inclined to explore novels grounded in common moral beliefs, that is those possessing “a literary safety system.” Consistency of the adopted research perspective allowed the researcher to approach the genre’s history in an innovative way.

The author considers the method used by Thomas Pavel in his essay. This is a method of the ethics of reading, or rather of ethical literary criticism. Literary fiction is considered to be a record of human experience, which purifies human perception. If literature is viewed as a source of moral understanding, then works of literature can be seen as arising awareness of the sorts of questions from which mature and responsible thinking arises. The author points to the fact that literary fiction might be a source of knowledge about the consciousness of the Other, as well as a space which safeguards individuality. Moreover, she claims that the understanding we acquire while reading works of literature can have moral significance, in the sense that it instils empathy and respect for otherness in the reader.

This article takes up the problem of the subversive contents in the extravaganzas of James Robinson Planché, a dramatist and creator of popular theatre in Victorian England. The female body of the extravaganzas is unlike that encountered in bodily visions imposed by the rigorous etiquette of the puritanical society of nineteenth-century England. The analysis is primarily focused on those phenomena wherein the female body is undergoing constant transformation, being contextualized and shaped in accordance with the laws of a dominant culture. It is posited that the extravaganzas created for Easter and Christmas played the role of carnival, that is a time when it was permitted to present the world in reversal, and to speak against the dominant gender discourse. In Planché’s plays the female body is constructed in a space between the audience, the actor, the word, and theatre. It is a “body-in-between,” a living space of dialogue, a playing field of the dominant discourse and the subversive consciousness. The female body is both strange to the onlooker as well as untamed by the actors, who are only partially capable of controlling the ultimate form of their body on the stage. The substance of theatre represented by the physical matter of the body, turns out to be a dynamic form emerging from the inscriptive gaze, the contents of the play, and the attributes of the theatrical space itself.

This article is a preliminary survey of the prison epistolography of political prisoners from the time of the Polish People’s Republic. By analysing published prison letters of Czesław Bielecki, Gaja and Jacek Kuroń, as well as letters addressed to Izabela Jarosińska the author elucidates the influence of censorship on the form and subject matter of prison correspondence. Stanisław Barańczak’s typology of limitations imposed on the prison letter by censorship, as well as Marta Fik’s notion of the censor as co-author, constitute a crucial reference point for the current analysis. The article also examines the frequency of prison communication, the material aspect (appearance) of the letter, its volume, and the restrictions in choosing the addressee; an attempt is also made to delimit the “safe” thematic boundaries, which the imprisoned could navigate in their epistolary writings. Finally, a characteristic is provided of the specific strategies adopted in the fight with censorship, particularly focusing on the methods of outsmarting the censor, such as coding information by means of metaphors and allusions or through the use of Aesopian language.

This article argues for the need of preparing a new, complete edition of Jan Lechoń’s (1899–1956) journal. The author describes the importance that keeping a diary had for the poet, and traces Lechoń’s own efforts to get this work published. Moreover, previous editions of the work – the exile version from 1967–1973 (ed. Mieczysław Grydzewski and Juliusz Sakowski) and the domestic one from 1992–1993 (ed. Roman Loth) – are reconsidered here, revealing the necessity of preparing a new edition. The final part of the article contains some practical solutions which might be taken into account while preparing a new edition of the journal (base text, critical apparatus, digital version).