The essay is an attempt to sketch a panorama of representations of the body, corporeality and their relation to gender identity in prose written after 1989, a caesura of particular significance for corporeality. The text discusses literary images of gender identity on the basis of available studies that show the state of research in this field. The essay refers to the concept of the androgynous myth and also refers to the theories of the ‘opaque body’ and the ‘unwanted body’. The problematics contained in the text refer to the works of Olga Tokarczuk, Natasza Goerke, Izabela Filipiak and Andrzej Czcibor-Piotrowski, among others, which deal with the body-related gender identity. The study does not consider works that contain literary representations of gender identity that function in isolation from the body, but focuses on those that are central to the issues of corporeality. This stems from the assumption of the importance of the bodily experience in a literary work that should not only refer to the body, but also touch on the essence of humanity.
El artículo propone un estudio comparativo de dos novelas publicadas en fechas similares en España y Polonia: Amor, curiosidad, prozac y dudas (1997) de Lucía Etxebarria y Absolutna amnezja (1995) de Izabela Filipiak. Ambas escritoras, la española y la polaca, han centrado sus relatos en la violencia cultural, reflexionando sobre las prácticas que permiten oponerse a su ejercicio. Sus novelas coinciden en plantear con plena libertad temas tabús (la sexualidad femenina, la opresión institucional, la violencia masculina, la desmemoria, etc.) y manifestar posturas disidentes. El cuestionamiento del orden existente permite a sus protagonistas superar las normas establecidas, aunque también es cierto que repercute en una desorientación identitaria. Es de notar que, en este sentido, ambas escritoras evitan un posicionamiento social fijo y representan a las mujeres de manera heterogénea, posiblemente indeterminada. Sin lugar a dudas, las novelas citadas, con sus aproximaciones temáticas y estéticas, aportan a la literatura una visión innovadora. Al mismo tiempo, como textos testimoniales de una época de bruscos cambios sociales, adquieren un valor ético y político significativo. Su análisis comparativo permite destacar el valor universal y las particularidades culturales de cada una de las entregas.
This article presents the reception of Izabela Filipiak’s Absolutna amnezja [Absolute Amnesia]in Polish literary criticism. The author focuses on the motif of female homosexuality incorporatedin the text and outlines the findings of other researchers on this subject. She also explains why thisnovel may be regarded as an example of lesbian literature and discusses the importance of sucha lecture strategy in a broader cultural context.
W wierszach Izabeli Filipiak proces wychowania jest zawsze tym, co inicjuje, prowadzi i kończy rodzic, jest to więc proces jednostronny i narzucony, polega w istocie na „przeszkadzaniu” w dojrzewaniu do pełnej, własnej, odrębnej niż rodzicielska osobowości. W utworach przyjęta została perspektywa dziewczynki, która pragnie zbuntować się przeciwko narzuconej identyfikacji z rodzicielskimi wzorcami osobowymi – też wzorcami płci i heteroerotycznej identyfikacji. Jednak bohaterka, zamiast skupiać się na „wsłuchiwaniu” w siebie i swoje potrzeby, wsłuchuje się w potrzeby i pragnienia wychowawców. Wychowanie i dojrzewanie zamienia się w tresurę, w uwięzienie w cudzych wyobrażeniach na swój własny temat. Jeśli dziecko czuje wewnętrzny opór przed narzuconymi wzorcami, to ten aspekt dziecięcych życiorysów staje się traumą. Dojrzewanie nie przeradza się w uzyskanie pełni, ale jest raczej jak lepienie Golema czy Frankensteina, „spotwornianiem” osoby. Dziecko dojrzewa za cenę własnej (symbolicznej) śmierci, zapomnienia o swoich (pozaspołecznych) pragnieniach i potrzebach. Relacja z rodzicami jest gwałtem i przemocą, którą w opisanym układzie nazywa się „miłością”. Odrzucenie ich celów wychowawczych staje się klęską nie tylko rodziców, lecz także społecznego porządku. Ze strachu przed anarchią dziecko z rezygnacją poddaje się wychowawczej przemocy.
EN
In Izabela Filipiak’s poems, the process of education is always initiated, guided and finished by a parent, therefore it is one-sided and imposed. It “impedes” the maturation of personality that is full, self-owned and independent from the parental one. The viewpoint adopted in the poems is the perspective of a girl who wants to rebel against the imposed identification with parental patterns of personality – also sexual patterns and heteroerotic identification. However, the main character concentrates on her educators’ needs and desires instead of “listening” to herself and her own needs. In this context, education and growing-up change into training and imprisonment in someone else’s perception of the self. If a child feels internal resistance against the imposed models, then this aspect of its biography becomes traumatic. Growing up does not become achieving fullness, but rather resembles molding Golem or Frankenstein, with the “monstrosity” of a person. The child grows up at the price of her (symbolic) death, forgetting about her own (meta-social) desires and needs. The relation with the parents is violation and violence that is named “love” in the described system. The rejection of their pedagogical goals becomes not only the parental failure, but also the failure of social order. Fearing anarchy, the girl resignedly subdues herself to pedagogical violence.
The article is a reflection of how the work by Maria Komornicka (pen name Piotr Odmieniec Włast) was perceived in the past two decades on the basis of an analysis of a monograph by Edward Boniecki (1996), Izabela Filipiak (2006) and Brigitta Helbig-Mischewski (2010) in the context of changes in the interpretation of modern Polish literature. In the article, attention is drawn to three groups of issues which can only be identified on the basis of contemporary perception, incomplete as it is, due to the fact that all the works of Komornicka have not been published. The forms and meaning of broadly defined autobiographical writing has been re-defined, while Polish and regional literary modernism has been revised together with the involvement of literary researchers in the subject of their analyses. The author of the article suggests a schematic differentiation between updating, prospective and retrospective strategies in Komornicka’s work and a reflection on the indirect involvement in social and cultural discourses and discussions developed by contemporary researchers into Komornicka’s work.
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