The article attempts to argue that Tuwim’s personality and work can be explained by looking into his early childhood and writing. It is definitely the period inadequately explored by critics. The author discusses key moments in the poet’s biography and most crucial elements of his work, paying particular attention to controversies triggered by some texts and themes in his writing. The article also focuses on the analysis of conflicts that Tuwim suffered from in his life. Tuwim’s strategy of provocation is also taken under scrutiny. The article presents Tuwim’s poetry as a lasting contribution to Polish literature and as a body of work which manages to resist ideological readings.
The article is dedicated to artistic vulgarity as a form of freedom of art manifesto. The author explains that using obscene and drastic language which breaks social taboos (particularly sexual ones), has often been caused by the need for artistic freedom. This phenomenon can be observed especially in the so-called communist era (1944–1989) but most importantly in the period of political system’s transformation after 1989. By the example of literature, film, theatre and broadly defined popular culture the author analyzes this process, paying special attention to various ‘traps’ in the usage of vulgar language and artistic expressions, as well as the ultimate high art’s retreat from that strategy.
The article attempts to analyze the poetry of Katarzyna Fetlińska with the main stress laid upon her volume Sekstaśmy (Sex Tapes). The author tries to verify critical tracks and generalizations, introduced mostly by editorial and publishing descriptions which promote the collection. He exposes the importance of dramatic and surprisingly non-ironic themes chosen by the poet, who confronts herself with the most tragic aspects of human existence: loneliness and death. The main theme of the sketch is eroticism, sexuality and even pornographic character of her poetry, directed against metaphysically scandalous friability of interpersonal relations, human objectification and nothingness of being.
In the essay the author enquires into the references to popular song in the lyric poetry of the first decades of 20th century, treating the birth of the popular music as the beginning of perceiving a hit single as the integral piece meant to be shown to the public. The re-searcher asks about acceptability and, eventually, the consequences of the artistic flirt of highbrow literature with egalitarian word-music tradition. Moreover, the author shows various scenario of treating hit song impulses, beginning with total ignorance shown by Young Poland artists (Jan Kasprowicz, Bolesław Leśmian, Leopold Staff), through the separation of serious creativity from stage gainful employment, as in the case of Skamander members fearing being given the label of cabaret entertainers (Julian Tuwim, Antoni Słonimski or Marian Hemar), until the liquidation of barriers between serious and jocular muse domains, as in Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński’s lyric poetry. In this article, there are dozens of allusion, quotations, paraphrases, all invoking not only the most popular hit singles of the Interbellum, but also songs which were less known and therefore nowadays seem to be more difficult to identify. The list of the poets is extended by such personages as Bruno Jasieński, Maria Pawlikowska, and finally Czesław Miłosz.
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