FRAGMENT

Olga Płaszczewska: Dziękuję redakcji „Wielogłosu” za zaproszenie do udziału w spotkaniu, witam serdecznie przybyłych gości. Punktem wyjścia naszej rozmowy jest wydana pod redakcją doktora Tomasza Bilczewskiego antologia tekstów teoretycznych Niewspółmierność. Perspektywy nowoczesnej komparatystyki. Jest to cenna poznawczo książka, obrazuje bowiem stan komparatystyki na kontynencie amerykańskim w ciągu ostatnich dwudziestu lat.
Są to również lata nieobojętne dla komparatystyki polskiej, rozwijającej się dzięki zaistnieniu po 1989 roku koniecznych ku temu warunków „intelektualnej wolności” . Cieszy fakt, że do rozmowy o Niewspółmierności zaproszeni zostali nie tylko teoretycy literatury, ale przede wszystkim uczeni, których metakrytyczne spostrzeżenia na temat komparatystyki wiążą się z prowadzoną przez nich praktyką badań porównawczych, badacze aktywnie kształtujący obraz komparatystyki polskiej ostatnich znaczących dwudziestu lat.
Zacznijmy nieco prowokacyjnie. Wszyscy zgadzamy się, że antologia Niewspółmierność. Perspektywy nowoczesnej komparatystyki to wartościowa książka, ale czy prezentując ją w sytuacji, kiedy – jak zwraca uwagę jej redaktor – brakuje na polskim rynku innych opracowań umożliwiających orientację w tej dziedzinie, nie wypaczamy perspektywy? Czy nie podlegamy „globalizacji”? Innymi słowy, czy amerykański model komparatystyki przystaje do sytuacji polskiej?

The article constitutes an attempt to present in a synthetic way the main assumptions behind the fundamental trends in the comparative studies of the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as their evolution. Following the predominance of the influential model which had developed since the middle of the 19th century and focused chiefly on the genetic research of literary affiliations, and which had assumed the existence of a national literature as an organic entity, since the sixties of the 20th century, there arises a new perspective in comparative studies, where the fundamental role is played by thematic and structural categories (motif, concept, topic, genre, current etc.). The nineties of the 20th century bring yet another attempt to reformulate the methods of comparative studies and to abandon focusing on literary studies, in favor of cultural research in comparative studies, where the fundamental role is played, among others, by issues such as the concept of power, gender, race and also review and multi-, inter- and transculturalism

This essay recalls the nineteenth-century roots of comparative literary studies, particularly the consequences of the Cartesian modernization of the philosophical discourse, in order to show the search for an independent methodology proper to the beginnings of the discipline. This occurred first under the strong influence of ideas borrowed from the natural sciences, yet this practice later encountered a wave of criticism, particularly in the twentieth century. Then, comparative literary studies, partly as a result of traumatic historical events, were forced to construct their history using new principles. The increasingly autobiographical discourse that developed within the discipline and the acknowledgment of the problems posed by translation are among the traits characteristic of this period. The proposed description of both phenomena complements the image of comparative literary studies formed under the influence of nineteenth-century impulses

The paper focuses on the history and current situation of the discipline of comparative literature, particularly on the condition of comparative studies in literature and comparative cultural studies. A general discussion on comparative literature as ‘indiscipline’ (David Ferris’s concept), based on negative definitions (e.g. Hugo von Meltzl), limitations of comparison and comparability (Paul van Tieghem, René Etiemble, Gayatri Ch. Spivak, Jonathan Culler, Kenneth Reinhard), and individual projects (George Steiner, Daniel-Henri Pageaux, Armando Gnisci, Gayatri Ch. Spivak, Emily Apter, Susan Bassnett), leads to the conclusion that the ‘non-stability’ has been a crucial problem for comparative literature in the course of the last two centuries. Three metaphors are used to describe comparative literature: the Eiffel Tower (the idea of modernity), the World Trade Center (comparative literature as translatio) and the Tower of Babel (translation). In this context, the author argues that modern comparative studies can be defined not as a rigorous intellectual discipline, but rather as a discipline in statu nascendi, as a practice of reading and interpretation.

The article presents some changes in the sociology of literature and particularly the inspirational role which was played in this respect by Pierre Bourdieu’s reflexive anthropology. The classical sociology of literature used to focus on the issue of many-sided determination of a literary text. A literary work was perceived as a function (image, equivalent) of social relations which contributed to its creation. The gradual abandonment of the positivist and Marxist reductionism had led to the shift of emphasis to empirical research and an analysis of reception, which in turn had led to the development of the sociology of reception and the sociology of literary communication. The central dilemma of these disciplines (how to reconcile the idea of social determination with evaluation) could be solved only on the basis of a non-classical sociology. Pierre Bourdieu described literature as a system of communication, dependent on the field of cultural production, supporting the mechanism of distinction and functioning as a determinant of an affiliation with a privileged groupand as a criterion of exclusion. At the same time, he pointed to this aspect of literature which allows one to stage a crisis of semantic structures and present platitudes as serious problems, and in this way – reveal the assumptions and presuppositions created and reconstructed by a social game.

The article constitutes a comparative analysis of three Romantic digressive poems: Juliusz Słowacki’s Podróż do Ziemi Świętej z Neapolu and Beniowski (Journey From Naples to the Holy Land) and Alfred de Musset’s Namuna; at all of the poems are presented as an expression of the crisis of the generation of writers born around the year 1810 and often referred to as école du désenchantement. The experience of disappointment and disenchantment with reality, which is characteristic of this generation, becomes transformed here into a loss of faith in the power of one’s own poetry which is associated with the „anxiety of infl uence”. The interpretation of the texts aims at highlighting the means used by the cadet-poets which are specifi c to Romantic irony and at presenting them as a strategy for dealing with the crisis through turning it into the main topic and transforming it into the subject of poetry.

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of improvisation which is a characteristic aesthetic feature of the Romantic culture. Many nineteenth century artists regarded it as an embodiment of the issues that were of key importance for their period – among them, one finds the concept of genius or correspondence between the arts. On a few examples taken from the works of Chopin, Mickiewicz and Orłowski, the author reveals both the ways and the conditionings of the reception of the improvisory works, as well as the relations between the Romantic myth of improvisation and its artistic practice.

A.E. Odyniec’s Listy z podróży (Letters from Travels), set within the context of multinational testimonies from the epoch, become a pretext for a meditation on the phenomenon of the Romantic „salon” as a form of cultured life which is being enacted in the author’s private home, where an audience-instigated meeting between the writer and his admirers is taking place. The observations concerning the writers’ international contacts are also accompanied by remarks on the self-creative measures used by Odyniec as well as on the possibility of interpreting his controversial Listy… (Letters from Travels) in the context of research on the literary image of the period. The main subject of reflection is the ritual of visits to the homes of eminent artists which constituted one of the significant elements of educational trips in Europe; this is illustrated by examples of such institutions as Goethe’s Weimar and Manzoni’s Milan homes.
The literary salons of this period, which grew out of the Enlightenment tradition, turn out to be an important element of a supra-national republique des lettres, whereas the experience of a direct contact with an outstanding individual (documented among others by J.P. Eckermann, Stendhal, F.L. von Raumer and many others) have been shown in the above-mentioned account from a journey, through the angle of „I” and portrayed in the categories of personal experience.

The article which treats about the portraits of woman-spinners is devoted to a comparison of verbal-musical works, which are partly united by the common text (fragment of J.W. Goethe’s Faustus – and in particular the song sung by Margaret at the spinningwheel), and which in part refer to the common image – namely that of a spinning woman. In contemporary theories, the image of a spinning woman is often used as a handy symbol of creativity, and particularly female creativity. However the 19th century popularity of this motif, especially in the numerous songs, points to the fact that it has a much more primeval and broader significance. As a monotonous and typically female activity, spinning served successive composers (F. Schubert, R. Wagner, G. Verdi, S. Moniuszko) to create a more profound characteristic of woman-spinners. Reaching out to similar means of musical expression points to the fact that in spite of resorting to various texts, and in spite of the time interval dividing the analyzed works, the woman spinner from the songs has been permanently associated with onomatopoeic imitation of the sound of the spinning wheel and with the meditative nature of the performed activity which becomes a useful background for a more profound female self-reflection.

The author of this article attempts to sketch out the development of contemporary comparative literature, in which a Eurocentric orientation is being supplanted by a genuine world perspective. In doing so, the author points out that the present-day widening of the research-field to the global dimensions signifies not so much a crisis of the discipline as a reference to the ideas which appeared at the time when comparative studies first emerged as a separate discipline of knowledge. The author takes a closer look at the works of two 19th-century comparative scholars, namely Hugo Meltzl, the Transylvanian founder of the journal Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universarum, and the Irish scholar Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett, noticing in them a number of groundbreaking, though later abandoned, trends for world comparative studies. Meltzl tried to broaden the field of study to include the masterpieces of other cultures and in this way to show some appreciation for the literatures of smaller European states as well as for folk literature. Posnett, on the other hand, looked for links between the development of literature and individual societies and attacked the imperial cosmopolitism prevalent at the time, opting for a specific “global provincialism” of cultures instead.

In this article, the author takes up the issue of the so-called “crisis” of comparative literary studies (Comparative Literature), at the same time trying to outline the presentday condition of the discipline and to point to the objectives which it should attempt to attain today. Beside other detailed problems, the author analyses the threats posed by the hegemonic status of English which has become a specific ‘foundational language’ in Comparative Literature. However, in the principal part of his analysis, the author tries to go beyond the tendency towards ‘unification and totalisation of thought,’ which is present in Comparative Studies, by means of a search for ‘commensurability’ between the elements being compared,, and also beyond the equally popular strategy of ‘divisiveness’ that consists in continual emphasis on and proliferation of differences. He juxtaposes these two dominant trends with a model of conducting Comparative Literary Studies based on the concept of language of friendship or even love – an idea stemming from the philosophical thought of Lyotard and Badiou. In this approach, reading becomes an ‘event of love, which, like love, is what is without and beyond compare.

Komparatystyka w teorii i praktyce: uwagi o pierwszym polskim podręczniku dyscypliny

(Olgi Płaszczewskiej Przestrzenie komparatystyki - italianizm)

Perypatetyzm (prawie) pantoskopiczny

(Tomasza Bilczewskiego Komparatystyka i interpretacja. Nowoczesne badania porównawcze wobec translatologii)

Powrót uczuciowości

(Anny Łebkowskiej Empatia. O literackich narracjach przełomu XX i XXI wieku)

Autobiografia i aporie nowoczesności

(Przemysława Rojka Historia zamącana autobiografią. Zagadnienie tożsamości narracyjnej w odniesieniu do powojennej liryki Aleksandra Wata)

Na pograniczu sztuk

(Literatura a malarstwo – malarstwo a literatura. Panorama polskich koncepcji badawczych XX wieku pod redakcją Grażyny Królikiewicz, Olgi Płaszczewskiej, Iwony Puchalskiej i Magdaleny Siwiec)

Moje zdziwienia/My Marvellings/ is a column run by Henryk Markiewicz, retired Professor of the Jagiellonian University and one of the most outstanding Polish literary historians and theoreticians. In his essays, Professor Markiewicz presents and discusses various literary theory publications, comments on current events at the academia, argues with and questions authors of scholarly and popular articles, all the time being indefatigable in his insistence on respecting standards of academic professionalism, competence, honesty and responsibility for judgments and opinions expressed.

In the year 2010, Professor Julian Maślanka celebrated his eightieth birthday and the fifty fifth anniversary of his academic debut. His creative achievement, which is constantly being augmented, constitutes in many ways than one a bridge between the illustrious traditions and the present day of Polish humanities. He acquired knowledge and academic competence in the sphere of Polish studies, folklore, history, archeology and Slavic studies. In his chief publications, he presented his research on the links between folklore and literature as well as studies on the literary interpretations of Slavic historical myths. As an extremely versatile philologist, he made his mark in the sphere of textology and editorship (among others, editions of Mickiewicz and Norwid), resource and source studies, erudite history of literarture and interpretation of literary works of the Enlightenment and Romanticism (among others, Krasicki, Malczewski, Norwid).