The fantastic writers, or how the writers of fantastic prose fiction conquer Polish literature

This article discusses the transition of science fiction literature over the last twenty five years and the specificity of this literature in relation to contemporary Polish prose. It deals also with the phenomenon of certain writers leaving the ghetto of sci-fi and fantasy prose and being introduced into the mainstream literature and their influence on the condition/position of Polish literature

An introduction to the theory of the three circles of women’s science fiction in Poland:

The main purpose of this article is to present the author’s original theory of the ‘three circles’ of Polish women’s science fiction prose. Those circles are: the environmental circle, the branch circle and the main circle. In order to formulate the concept of the three circles and to conduct an analysis of critical reception of women’s science fiction prose it will be necessary to adhere to feminist literary criticism, strictly speaking the research perspective of Patrocino Schweickart. With its use the author of this article shows the status of women science fiction writers on the basis of the reception of works by Antonina Liedtke and Anna Kańtoch.

How does the contemporary Polish weird fiction scare us?

The text concerns different strategies of constructing weird fiction by contemporary Polish writers. In two anthologies published in 2013, authors of weird novels reinterpret the classic paradigm of weird fiction (associated with Lovecraft) as well as try to refer it to the present reality. Polish writers, inspired mainly by Stefan Grabiński’s work, use his best known motives, such as weird trains and desolate stations. The second source of inspiration is Poe’s dead subject (from The Facts in the Case of M. Waldemar), who acts as a living one and generates the horror. These inspirations, however, do not help contemporary writers with creating a new paradigm of weird fiction but rather close them in the circle of constant inspirations and dependence on their predecessors.

Fantastic Money. Economy in sci-fi narrations

The main goal of this text is to show why money is so wildly represented in the sci-fi narrations. The main reason for this is the obscure nature of money – its phantasmatic origin (according to Jan Sowa’s conception). The second reason is the imperative to create a logical and consistent universe in sci-fi narrations. Money, as one of the most important elements of the reality, must be included in the plot. And, last but not least, money and the whole economic and sociological system related to it, is a very useful and powerful tool for critical purposes.

In the further parts of the text the author interprets two sci-fi narrations which are emblematic for Polish sci-fi genre – the book Limes inferior by Janusz Zajdel and the movie O-bi, o-ba: Koniec cywilizacji (‘O-bi, O-ba: The End of Civilization’) directed by Piotr Szulkin. These two examples show that money can be used in sci-fi narrations not only as a world-building element, but also as an important critical tool. Because of its nature, the sci-fi genre is particularly predestined to explore the social and political mechanism which stands behind the money and economic system.

Three glosses to Tolkien

The paper is an attempt to interpret selected motives and themes in Tokien’s The Lord of the Rings with the help of some concepts taken from dialectical thinking, hermeneutics and Lacanian psychoanalysis.

A novel that was not there: on Andrzej Sapkowski’s Sezon burz

Andrzej Sapkowski’s new novel, which after almost fifteen years goes back to the world as well as the character of Geralt the witcher, possibly the most important hero in the sword and sorcery genre in Poland, has left readers with a sense of awkward unfulfillment. Reviews appreciate the smooth narrative and fast-paced action of the novel, yet they also complain about the lack of the unspecified but essential effect characteristic of the previous volumes. This paper constitutes an attempt to interpret the novel in the context of the abovementioned incompleteness: by means of the chronotopic analysis and juxtaposition of motif series, I describe the complex process of dismissing every possible consequence of the novel’s plot, which, in the long run, is rendered irrelevant. That is how the text, on the one hand, engages the reader in a game of excitement and unfulfillment, while, on the other, seems to correspond with the fantasy genre deconstruction project hitherto realized by Sapkowski, and thus enters a dialog with both the expectations of starved fans and the academic criticism directed at the author’s work.

Old women in poems

The article refers to Joanna Hobot-Marcinek’s monograph Crone and Goethe. The Experience and Transgression of Old Age (Tadeusz Różewicz, Czesław Miłosz, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz), Krakow, 2012. In her book, the author continues her research on the topos of old age in contemporary poetry. In the background, she refers to the tradition of this theme. The approaches of Różewicz and Miłosz are different, consistent with their overall philosophy and their poetic programs. Miłosz tries to approach old age by presenting images of old women. He uses, among others, the path indicated by Świrszczyńska.  Różewicz more often deconstructs old age, uses the poetics of the grotesque. Paradoxically, while achieved by different means, in both cases a trait of existential drama is present. The monograph also presents the younger generation of poets. The author looks at male and female poets, as the topos of old age is also gender sensitive. In addition to issues of poetics and literary tradition, an important element in Hobot–Marcinek’s considerations is the autobiographical nature of the examined poems.

Women and the gender of the modern city

This article is a review of the book Women on the Road. The experience of the public sphere in literature at the turn of 19th and 20th century by Agnieszka Dauksza. The book itself is an attempt at reconstructing and interpreting literary images of women’s experience of space in modern times. The most important context of the author’s analysis are transformations within the public and private spheres caused by the processes of modernization of the cities on the one hand, and emancipation of women on the other hand. The article refers to and discusses the crucial figures of female experience of the city frequently used in cultural and gender studies, namely: the figure of flâneuse, prostitute, house-wife and consumer. The review also touches upon the question of the modernist literary tradition and canon in order to point at the hidden „gender of modernity” and history of literature.