Bohumil Hrabal and Umberto Eco: Ad Usum Delphini?

• Authors: Wojciech Soliński

Abstracts

EN

This short article came about as a result of the surprising observation that two writers who differ in their backgrounds, education, professional activities, and who are generally associated with works aimed at an adult readership, at some point directed several works to a children's audience. This episodic activity of an academic lecturer and prose writer creating himself as a poet of the outcast resulted in narrative works with characteristics of fairy tales. Three "professorial" fairy tales by U. Eco are described here as modern philosophical poems on the side effects of human civilization. Two animal fables by B. Hrabal (animals speak with a human voice in them) are a bitter reverie on the attitude of humans to animals, on the situation of farmed animals (meat, skins, etc.) and the questionable future of hunting. The article closes with a list of "animal" works by the Czech writer.

Keywords

EN

fairy tale; animal fable; philosophical tale; animal studies; animal world and the civilizing mission of mankind

• Publisher: Komisja Nauk Filologicznych Polskiej Akademii Nauk, Oddział we Wrocławiu
• Journal: Academic Journal of Modern Philology
• Year: 2023
• Issue: 19
• Pages: 417-422

Dates

published

2023

Contributors

author

Wojciech Soliński

• University of Wrocław, Institute of Polish Philology

• https://orcid.org/0000000182443101

References

• Carmi, Eugenio, Umberto Eco ([1966/1992] 1994/2005) Tre racconti: La bomba e il generale; I tre cosmonauti; Gli gnomi di Gnù (1992). Milano: Fabbri Editori. Translated into Polish by Maria Pietrzycka-Giorgett (1994). Gnomy z planet Gnu. Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo Dolnoslaskie. Translated into Polish by Agnieszka Kuciak (2005). Trzy opowiesci. Poznan: Wydawnictwo Rebis.
• Collini, Stefan (1992) (ed.) Interpretation and Overinterpretation. Umberto Eco with Richard Rorty, Jonathan Culler, Christine Brooke-Rose. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Eco, Umberto ([1999] 2016) “Eugène Sue: il socialismo e la consolazione.” [In:] Il Superuomo di massa. Retorica e ideologia nel romanzo popolare (edizione digitale). Milano: La nave di Teseo.
• Gondowicz, Jan (1994) “Zapiski na bibliotecznej fiszce.” [In:] Nowe Ksiazki. Miesiecznik krytyki literackiej i naukowej, nr 12. Warszawa: Biblioteka Narodowa; 35
• Hrabal, Bohumil ([1993] 2014) [“Kopretina.” [In:] Sebrané spisy Bohumila Hrabala, svazek 4. Praha: Pražská Imaginace; 368–372]. Translated into Polish by Wojciech Solinski. Zlocienka Warszawa: Czuly Barbarzynca.
• Hrabal, Bohumil ([1978] 2008) [“Nejkrásnejší oci.” [In:] Sebrané spisy Bohumila Hrabala, svazek 8, Praha: Pražská Imaginace; 63–77]. Translated into Polish by Jan Stachowski. “Najpiekniejsze oczy.” [In:] Bohumil Hrabal [Slavnosti sneženek] Swieto przebisniegu. Warszawa: Swiat Literacki; 78–96.
• Hrabal, Bohumil Prekrasný osud skrivanku [The Precarious Fate of the Larks]. [In:] Sebrané spisy Bohumila Hrabala, svazek 15. Praha: Pražská Imaginace; 244–246.

Identifiers

DOI

10.34616/ajmp.2023.19.30

Biblioteka Nauki

27322321