The article deals with the issue of the racialization divisions of society in Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Wiry (Maelstroms), fitting, on the one hand, to a critical reflection on the category of “race”, and, on the other hand, to contemporary Polish discussions on peasantness/plebeianness. The text proves that the writer’s attitude to the issues discussed is marked by a specific dichotomy, which somewhat corresponds to the two main threads of the novel: the romance and the revolution. While in the romance thread the division into “good” – noble and “bad” – peasant instincts, blood, “race” is undermined, in the revolutionary thread an important role is played by the dehumanization of socialists and the masses, taking the form of class racism.
PL
Artykuł podejmuje problematykę urasowienia podziałów społecznych w Wirach Henryka Sienkiewicza, wpisując się z jednej strony w krytyczny namysł nad kategorią „rasy”, z drugiej we współczesne polskie dyskusje nad chłopskością/plebejskością. W tekście dowodzi się, że stosunek pisarza do omawianych kwestii naznaczony jest swoistą dychotomią, która odpowiada niejako dwóm głównym wątkom powieści: romansowemu i rewolucyjnemu. O ile bowiem w wątku romansowym podział na „dobre” – szlacheckie i „złe” – chłopskie instynkty, krew, „rasę” zostaje podważony, o tyle w wątku rewolucyjnym istotną rolę odgrywa, przybierająca formy rasizmu klasowego, dehumanizacja socjalistów oraz mas.
The text attempts to read Barbara Radziwiłłówna z Jaworzna-Szczakowej by Michał Witkowski in the context of the post-modern conviction on the exhaustion of creative capabilities of literature. To this effect, it references both theories contributing to the paradigm of postmodernism, including Francis Lyotard’s “collapse of grand narratives”, and concepts directly referencing the literary output, such as “the literature of exhaustion”, “banalism” or “spoiled literature”. The article examines how these decadent tendencies have affected the construction of individual segments of the novel; beginning from sentences, through plot and the protagonist, to the message of the work. A key aspect seems to be (in accordance with John Barth’s postulate) an attempt to “feed” on what is considered to be “burnt-out”. Witkowski deliberately emphasizes elements considered to be the most worn out. He carries ultimate forms to the extreme. By creating their negatives (e.g. a negative of plot, sentence, message), the author manages to get – at least partially – outside the thematized exhaustion.
The text attempts to read the poem Potęga smaku [The Power of Taste] by Zbigniew Herbert from the “plebeian perspective”, the “perspective of cultural exclusion”, outlined by the author of the article. Although Herbert’s work does not reference directly the issues mentioned above, the imagery the poet has used when constructing the image of communists (such as “boys with potato faces”, “very ugly girls with red hands”, “a couple of concepts like flails”) unambiguously evoke a figure of a plebeian. Potęga smaku, although this was certainly not the main intent of the author, employs one of the most oppressive oppositions in the Polish culture: the dichotomy of the “gentleman” and the “boor”. This dichotomy is the more severe that the lyrical subject situates itself on the side of “gentlemanhood”, “betterness”, cultural superiority. The goal of the article is to show the mechanism through which a literary text, making use of a specific, overt antagonism (communists–opposition), simultaneously secretly strengthens a contrast which bears signs of symbolic violence
The article concerns the image of the woman in Marcin Świetlicki’s 2013 volume of poetry entitled Jeden (One), composed of “love stories.” Femininity, for the speaker of the poems being a sort of “otherness” (understood here partly after Paul Ricoeur), presents itself as – on the one hand – a “mirror” for the “I”, and – on the other hand – its indispensable ingredient. This is because Świetlicki’s writing expresses the conviction that identity is as much a “positive” identification as (and maybe even chiefly) an identification done with regard to or through someone or something else. As a result of the constantly recurring necessity and need to distinguishing oneself, the woman seems to be both the condition and determinant of the “I” in Świetlicki’s Jeden.
PL
Artykuł dotyczy obrazu kobiety w składającym się na „historie miłosne” tomie Jeden (2013) Marcina Świetlickiego. Kobiecość, będąca dla bohatera tych wierszy swoistą „innością” (rozumianą tu częściowo za Paulem Ricoeurem), jawi się – z jednej strony – jako „lustro” dla „ja”, z drugiej jako tegoż „ja” nieodzowny składnik. W twórczości Świetlickiego można bowiem dostrzec przekonanie, że tożsamość to zarówno identyfikacja „pozytywna”, jak i (a może przede wszystkim) określenie się względem kogoś/czegoś lub poprzez kogoś/ coś. Konieczność i potrzeba – ciągle ponawianego – odróżniania się sprawia, że w Jeden to właśnie kobieta zdaje się warunkiem i determinantem „ja”.
This article discusses Henryk Sienkiewicz’s approach to the 19th-century “scientific racism” in his “letters” (press reportage) Z wystawy antropologicznej w Paryżu [From the Anthropological Exhibition in Paris] (1878). The paper proves that the writer’s attitude towards such anthropological criteria as the cephalic index, facial angle, skull volume, and hair shape was significantly influenced by Oscar Peschel’s work The Races of Man and Their Geographical Distribution (1876).
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