Lalka is an open literary work that becomes richer as the reader is growing older and is, therefore, an “infinite” task for interpretation. My look at the masterpiece by Prus as a text based on the model of Greek tragedy refers rather to tradition and is against modernity. Repeated reading of the novel, searching for the writer’s autothematic statements and the 19th century discussions about theatre and novel allowed me to formulate a new research proposal — a palimpsest reading of Lalka. The qualities of Greek tragedy include: the construction of the hero, the narrative, the structure of the novel (episodes and „stasimons” of Rzecki) and the dramatized style. These elements allowed Prus to give his story contemporary features and inscribe it into a universal perspective.
When asked about the most important book in his life-long reading experience, Bogdan Mazan selects the Bible. When feeling blue, he chooses the collection This is the Day the Lord Has Made: 365 Daily Meditations (Dziś jest dzień Pański. Rozważania na każdy dzień, Polish translation by J. Iwaszkiewicz, Poznań 2000) by a Belgian Carmelite and Doctor of Philosophy Wilfrid Stinissen or a book by Henri Brunel, The Smile of Buddha. Zen Humor (transl. M. Pluta, Warsaw, 2004); when sad, he also reads Hašek’s Adventures of Good Soldier Svejk. In hopelessly grim situations, the author recommends to read the novel by Gottfried Burger The Adventures of Baron Münchhausen.
Recenzja: Lena Magnone, Konopnicka. Lustra i symptomy, Gdańsk 2011, wyd. słowo/obraz terytoria, 575 ss.
EN
This was the title of a review of the book Konopnicka. Lustra i symptomy (słowo/obraz terytoria, Gdańsk 2011, p. 575) by Lena Magnore. The book is an abridged and edited version of her doctoral thesis. Opinions in my review are presented in a form of notes from reading academic literature. The purpose of Magnore’s book was a discussion with the homogeneous image of Konopnicka’s life and writings and attempt to make her image consistent. In order to achieve this goal, the author used modern methodologies and selected categories of the contemporary humanities, mostly psychoanalysis and gender studies. As a result, Konopnicka appears as a woman seen through the prism of charm and fear of femininity. The book allows to look at Konopnicka’s writing in different and unorthodox manner, provides sensitive documentation of difficult and painful issues. The use of “psychoanalytical key of interpretation” makes it possible to see different mechanism of denying femininity, important “wounds of text”, motifs unknown in traditional writings about maternity, different forms of hysteria.
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