The article refers to Jerzy Jarzębski’s Powieść jako autokreacja [The novel as self- creation]. In this collection of essays Bruno Schulz’s prose is both discussed together with other examples from Polish literature and presented as unique in terms of self-cre- ation. This inconsistency is justified by Schulz’s worldview: he preferred ‘mythologi- cal delusion’ to purely verbal self-creation (ex nihilo). Following this lead, the author of the article adds to Jarzębski’s intuitions a few remarks on the complicated relation- ship between mythologisation and Schulz’s more or less hidden quest for self-creation. Schulz’s approach to the biblical myth of Joseph is juxtaposed with Die Geschichten Jaakobs by Thomas Mann, who kept on creating new variants of the original myth. Through contrast, Mann’s method reveals the self-creational tendencies of Schulz, who, reaching into the depths of his own prehistory, repudiates the biblical myth. At the same time, Schulz mythologises the reality, deliberately obliterating boundaries between poiesis and mythos and thus demonstrating demiurgic aspirations, which can be considered the final attempt to reconcile not only two poetics, but also two opposing visions of the world.

The article discusses the creative process as one of the main themes of Bruno Schulz’s prose. The author considers two aspects of Schulz’s creative aesthetics: the aesthetics of matter and the aesthetics of caprice. She describes the former, referring Schulz’s thought to Rainer Maria Rilke, and the latter, considering it in the context of Gaston Bachelard’s philosophy.

Interpreting Bruno Schulz’s short story Nimrod in the context of Modernist vitalism reveals the significance and specific character of this short piece within the whole liter- ary production of the author of The Street of Crocodiles. Taking into account a variety of life philosophies, it is possible to rethink the role of childhood in Schulz’s prose. Whether a human offspring or a puppy, the condition of being a child occupies an important position in the author’s reflection upon the essence of life. In his anthro- pological thinking, in which the ‘living vs. dead’ opposition occupies a central place, the category of repetition is especially relevant. Also significant here is the context of the progress of the natural sciences at the turn of the 19th and 20th century, which was familiar to Schulz.

The article attempts to prove that the novel Opętani (Posessed) is crucial to under- standing the whole of Gombrowicz’s writings. The novel almost openly represents ho- mosexual desire and the characteristic variegation and fragmentariness of the author’s message is a strategy that was used by Gombrowicz consistently since then.

The article analyzes Witold Gombrowicz’s pre-war novel Opętani (Possesed). The novel was published under a pseudonym and Gombrowicz had professed to be its actual author just before he died. This long-term concealment provoked an argument about the nov- el’s artistic value. According to Maria Janion, the novel is a legitimate and important part of Gombrowicz’s writings, whereas Jerzy Jarzębski, the second major participant of the dispute, pointed out the flamboyant schematism of the text. The author of the article espouses Jarzębski’s viewpoint, although he believes Opętani to be a mediocre good book rather than a good bad book. The novelty of this interpretation lies in discovering an im- portant inspiration of Gombrowicz’s text: Julian Ochorowicz’s writings on mediumship. The author proves that Hińcz, one of the novel’s characters, was undoubtedly modeled on Ochorowicz. The author also states that Gombrowicz composed the plot of the novel under the influence of some accounts of Ochorowicz’s mediumistic experiments. The ar- ticle suggests that the poetics of popular fiction and gothic novel might hide some more sophisticated psychological meanings, but they are revoked by the schematism of Opętani to eventually come to the fore in Ślub (The Marriage) and Pornografia.

The article is an attempt to rethink the relationship between chance and necessity in the work of Stanisław Lem. The author of the article uses both the expository and lit- erary philosophy of the writer himself as well as Lacanian psychoanalysis (especially the topological view of the unconsciousness of desire) and Michel Foucault’s archeol- ogy of knowledge (especially the problem of the limits of representation and analogy as an alternative to dialectics). The two main theses of the article are: 1. classical philosophy (Kant, Hegel) provides Lem with such fundamental categories as critical imagination or abolition of genesis, and is treated as parallel (not secondary or supple- mentary) to biotechnological theory; 2. the writer approaches the problem of Other- ness from the anti-dualist perspective.

In the paper dedicated to prof. Jerzy Jarzębski I deal with the transformations in ex- perimental narrative in contemporary prose, especially with ways of using pronouns and gender forms. I concentrate on the interpretation of novels written by Zbigniew Kruszyński, Olga Tokarczuk and Jacek Dukaj, whose shared main feature are the relocations of grammatical forms of the text. Mixed narrative forms (pronouns “we” and “you,” reflexives, transformations of the neuter gender etc.) open new possibilities of worldview and self-identity.

The article is a review of Agnieszka Gajewska’s book Zagłada i gwiazdy. Przeszłość w prozie Stanisława Lema [Holocaust and the stars. The past in the prose of Stanisław Lem]. The author discusses Lem’s autobiographical prose, realistic fiction and science fiction as a memory text in disguise, in terms of such categories as trauma and testimony.

The paper concerns a vision of relationship between the philosophy and literature ac- cording to Izabela Szyroka and her latest book. Szyroka shows them in a close con- nection, in the context of the evolution of the genre from Montaigne and Rousseau as well as philosophical, anthropological enquires. The development of philosophical views on literature was characterized by empowerment of two ideas – the specific autobiographical subject and historicity of a human life. The paper argues that the sup- posed progress of these ideas was essential for the Western modernity but was majorly challenged. The great part of that process took place during the postmodern era, but the crisis of the autobiographical subject can be traced much earlier – in the modern literature itself.