The study aims to survey the Narcissus and Echo motif in texts of Severyanin whose heritage remained disregarded for a long time in the history of Russian poetry. Russian Futurism, stressing collectiveness through an utter primacy of ‘we’, saw an era of distinct individualism at its start, presented by Ego-Futurism. Although Futurist poetry, like Acmeism, declared itself as opposed to the teaching of the Word represented by Russian Symbolism, negating all values of the whole past of human culture, Ego-Futurism shows close connections with Mysticism typical of the Symbolist vision of poetry. Severyanin’s ideals rooted in the Symbolist aesthetics reflect a preoccupation with Mysticism and the Hermeneutics of the Myth. In a Solovyovian stance the manifesto of Ego-Futurism explicates the idea of acquisition of the Universal Soul.
The theme of Egoism in the poem The Birch Chalet, reflects a conscious approach to the Ancient Greek myth of Narcissus and Echo with regard to its poetic and philosophical implications. The floral imagery abundant in Severyanin’s texts here is converted into a symbol of transmutation, the nymph inspiring and preserving the poetic word, with the poet placed in the position of Narcissus. To intensify the significance of the motif, Severyanin exploits the echo rhyme, following Symbolist contemporaries. Futurism, focusing on the reinterpretation of an image of the world envisaged as a mirror, resembles its antecedents in Baroque literature. The semantics of voice versus text introduced to decode the process of creation and reception of a piece of literature is present in texts alluding to the motif. The same tendency manifests itself in the practice of the ‘poezoconcerts’, i. e. readings in public by Severyanin touring Russia. The scheme and practical realisation of these public readings, including the introductory words on the Futurist theory of poetry, followed by recitations and finally completed by the appearance of Severyanin chanting his poems in a special fashion are also discussed.

During the totalitarian socialist period in recent Bulgarian history many translations of Italian authors gave reasons to recognize the translators’ activity as a heroic and complicated game of deceiving the official criteria for “acceptable” foreign infiltration. The period itself is not uniform and includes various phases during which the choices, the languages and the policies in translation from Italian changed subtly. That is why the Bulgarian destiny of authors such as Salvatore Quasimodo, Gianni Rodari or Umberto Eco suffered the consequences of an intransigent publishing system. Even before this period there were significant episodes like the translation of Mario Mariani’s short stories. Each case is unique; the present contribution attempts a journey through the difficult years of activity of a brave generation and the conclusions confirm the dissident role of translators within the network of otherwise-thinking intellectuals.
 

The article discusses the problem of the object in the neo-avantgarde poetry on the example of Vujica Rešin Tucić’s volume San i kritika [Dream and Critique] from 1977. Basing on two different methodological paths – an ‘anthropological’ one, linked with Marek Krajewski’s notion of ‘unbridledness’, and a ‘formalist’ one, associated with Eco’s, Belknap’s or Pomian’s categories of catalogue, list and collection – the author reveals two different aspects of the object. Firstly, it can be seen as an autonomous and emancipated, even alive, entity which overshadows the subject to gain a new, dominant identity and a vast “living space”. Secondly, the object, or its textual equivalent, is a part of the catalogue- or list-oriented structure of the poem. Tucić’s poetics is marked with a number of two- or three-piece sequences of objects which build a particular objective paradigm, analysed as a “lifestyle of the objects” phenomenon. In conclusion, the author tries to utilise the notion of an “uncanny collection” of objects (as independent entities or as textual representatives) as a point of convergence of those two methodological approaches.

The article aims at presenting the image of Poland that emerges from reportages written by three journalists strongly influenced by the British culture: Michael Moran, Edward Enfield and Tom Fort. As many historical sources and the analysed texts confirm, from the perspective of a traveller from the Western part of Europe, Poland belongs to the group of Eastern-European countries. Moreover, the selected reportages of the aforementioned authors illustrate that, despite the significant influences of the Western culture, which may be observed in various spheres of the Polish inhabitants’ lives, the perspective of a Western traveller has remained unchanged, and to him/her, a journey to the Eastern part of Europe still constitutes a promise of a fabulous, or even unreal experience.
The most important aspect which was subjected to analysis in the presented article, and which the discussed reportages vividly depict, is the image of Poland that allows one to regard it as a country existing on the other – reverse – side of Western Europe. The theoretical studies in the field, referred to in the present study, illustrate that, while drawing on the Western philosophical thought, and attempting to imitate the political and economic development of other European countries, the Poles simultaneously cherish their memories connected with the past. This visible dichotomy impairs the image of Poland as a European country that the inhabitants of Western Europe might have created otherwise. Additionally, since some of the reportages discussed in the article are accounts of journeys of British reportage writers to Poland during the communist regime, the Western-European ideas of development and freedom inevitably find their reverse reflection in the Polish country. Simultaneously, the presented article illustrates the Poles’ participation in the process of creating the image of their country, which they tend to adjust to foreigners’ expectations, this way creating only an imitation of the Western-European country and contributing to the sustainment of the distorted image of Poland that apparently has already been formed in the Western reporters’ minds.

This article examines the correlations between aspects of J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace and André Brink’s The Rights of Desire. Apart from sharing the historical context, i.e. post-apartheid South Africa, the novels display certain thematic parallels. The plot in each novel is initiated by the intrusion of passion into the secluded and uneventful life of the protagonist. Both David Lurie and Ruben Olivier succumb to it, with far-reaching and unexpected consequences. Taking as his title the words of Coetzee’s protagonist who invokes “the rights of desire” to defend his conduct, Brink also portrays an elderly man facing the process of ageing and having to re-evaluate his actions.
 

To read and decode the meaning of classical poetic texts written in Urdu since the beginnings of the 16th century it is necessary to know the semantic key commonly used by their authors. This key is principally a range of topoi and themes, both indigenous (Indian) and borrowed (Persian and Arabic), which are deeply rooted in the Indo-Muslim cultural and social tradition, still lively present in the South Asian subcontinent. To know them and to be able to interpret or use them has been, and constantly is, an important determinant of cultural identity.
During the hundreds of years of its evolution, Urdu poetry developed a set of expressions and vocabulary items legitimated by tradition and manifesting itself in a vast array of allusions, similes, metaphors, and historical or legendary references. The whole selection of semantic tools known as taġazzul embodies such key concepts as: the tavern and drinker, wine, goblet, and a cup-bearer at the wine-party, intoxication, spiritual mentor, madness, the candle and the moth, the rose and the nightingale, the falcon and the hunted bird, the lightening striking the nest, and many more, as well as the historical or legendary figures. All these, used as catalytic agents, are arranged and employed according to a poet’s imagination and sensibility with one main aim: to describe his love and the whole range of associated feelings like sadness, loneliness, yearning, longing, desire or devotion.
The aim of this article is to present the most important literary topoi and themes prevalent in the Urdu poetry of the 16th–19th centuries in the cultural context in which they were formed.

The article focusses on the poetry of Joseph Brodsky. The researcher looks at the poet‘s interest in the seasons of the year and nature‘s transformations in different seasons. Poems featuring the intertwining motifs of “time” and “weather” are analysed in chronological order. The researcher aims at exploring in detail the characteristics of the imagery, as well as reconstructing the world of Brodsky‘s poetic self, where anthropomorphic nature plays an important artistic role.