The article focuses on some aspects of city space in novels and tales of Polish writers (Huelle, Chwin, Kowalewski, Krajewski) debuting at the end of the 1980s. The works analyzed can be included in the typological category of so-called urban prose (proza urbanistyczna) since architectural background is strongly emphasized in their literary world in order to achieve maximum spatial realism through the detailed description of specific places. The article aims to define how the literary description of cities that have become part of the Polish state since World War II follows a broader project of historical-cultural roots and city genius reconstruction.
This paper is focused on a volume of short essays and notes by Maria Kuncewiczowa entitled Notatki włoskie. Przezrocza (Italian notes. Slides) from 1985. The first part is devoted to the evolution and the literary realizations of the Italian journey, starting from 1918, in order to offer an interpretation of the place occupied by Kuncewiczowa’s work in the panorama of contemporary Polish literature. In the second part, the author analyzes the genesis and genre of this literary text, recognizing its characteristics as a silva rerum, a traditional formal model of Polish literature which experienced renewed fortune in the second half of the twentieth century. The third part of the essay constitutes its thematic core: the author analyzes the image of Rome in all its many facets, relating it to the writer’s poetics and worldview.