Relying on a broad, anthropological and semiotic understanding of the notion of “style”, the article presents an analysis of the language of the novel with references not only to the linguistic questions such as problems of the Silesia – Great Poland border territory, Pilot’s native dialects, but also to the issues of cultural anthropology such as ethnic stereotypes presented in the novel with their system of values and views of the world.This perspective reveals the style of the novel as hybrydic and hyperbolic. As a document of the author’s attitude towards his own, peasant past and as his reflection upon the place of the peasant paradigm in the Polish culture, as well as the archive of cultural memory (various recognizable historical styles present in the novel such as the epic, romantic, and Gombrowicz-like styles), Marian Pilot’s text appears to be the effect of subjugation of both these spheres to the demands of the poetics of the modern novel. Thus, the elements of both these realms, dialectical and stylistic, have been, in an innovativemanner, modified, enhanced and parodied by the author.
Postulating the necessity of introducing translatological reflection into modem stylisti- cs, the article - bearing upon the work of Polish translators of Charles Baudelaire’s poems - demonstrates a diversity of stylistics strategies in particular translations. The texts cho- sen for the study Correspondences, De Profundis Clamavi, and Les Plaintes d’un Icare have been rendered into Polish by both older (Stanisław Korab-Brzozowski, Miriam, and Antoni Lange), and modem (Tadeusz Bocheński, Maria Leśniewska, Andrzej Nowak) translators. A comparative study of the French originals and their Polish equivalents car- ried out with the help of cognitive grammar analysis allows us to conclude that neither the very time nor the style of translation determine its value in the target language culture. This awareness becomes important particularly in the light of a discussion conceming ca- nons of French and European literatures.