The article discusses the prose poem in literary genetics perspective. The authoress begins with a presentation of research state on the hybrid 'last genre'. Though traditionally regarded as elusive, the prose poem continues to puzzle scholars. Instead of making another attempt to put it into the framework of traditional literary genetics, the authoress refers to the idea of hermeneutic space in which architextual characteristics proves to be more important than paradigmatic of forms. In prose poem, one of such architextual feature is multitude of genres, allowing not only the various literary conventions (lyrical or parody-satirical monologue, short story, symbolic poem, dramatic scene) become real, but also different kinds of speech genres. Openness for modalities previously excluded from poetry seems to be more important than prose poetization, the latter being characteristic of a number of poetical prose varieties.
This is a review of the criticism of the prose poem, a genre which has so far attracted hardly any attention in Poland. A survey of the most important contributions to that field, written in English and French within the last fifty years, reveals a fascinating and ambiguous portrait of the prose poem. Its protean, hybrid nature of an anti-genre aspiring to the status of 'the ultimate genre' eludes definition and the same time acts as a tantalizing challenge. It seems, however, that any fresh attempt to work out a model of the prose poem in the context of the established theoretical and ideological approaches runs the risk of projecting and reinforcing those discourses rather than taking us to the heart of the prose poem.
The study examines the genre classification of prose poems in general and the place of prose poems in Slovak literature during the first third of the 20th century, when several modernist poets, including Ivan Krasko (1876–1958), Vladimír Roy (1885–1936), and Martin Rázus (1888–1937), devoted themselves to this genre. The study also explores subsequent Slovak literary reflections on the prose poem. The subversive loosening and re-evaluation of poetic and prose conventions in the genre led to the emergence of a new hybrid form, which appears as a revolution in the context of modernism, representing a new form of cultural performance. Contemplativeness is identified as the fundamental poetic quality in Slovak texts. The study also highlights differences in the genre classification of individual works; for example, I. Krasko's prose poems are perceived as poems, while the texts of V. Roy and M. Rázus are classified as belonging to the epic genre. The study outlines a framework for defining and classifying the genre, utilizing a polyphonic spectrum of approaches. The study concludes that the definition of the genre through the dynamics of opposites proves to be insufficient in current research. Literary genres are extremely flexible categories whose boundaries are defined almost exclusively to be crossed and overcome. From this perspective, the genre in question also requires a new reading and research.
Three manuscripts by Štefan Krčméry (1892–1955) – Čierne husle [Black violin], Dvojramenný rebrík [Stepladder] and List škovránkovi, poslu božiemu [Letter to the lark, God's messenger] – are dated identically (23 January 1932), but differ significantly in form and content. Nevertheless, the subject matter of the texts can be related through the lyric subject. Through the interpretative use of the concepts of the open being and the conscious subject it becomes apparent that the character's self-reflection is not only a means of composing a literary statement, but it also becomes the implicit theme of the author's entire creative period in the first half of the 1930s. The self-reflection of the lyrical character unfolds from the key problems of self-realisation, overcoming existential anxiety and defining the relationship between one's own being and the world of external reality and the world of inner experience. The recurring patterns in the perception of the subject, who observes the rhythmic interpenetration of these worlds, can be interpreted as an original form of lyricising, through which Krčméry creates a hybrid genre of lyrical prose.
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