The Muffled Voice. On The Conventional Character of Literature

The Polish version of the article was published in “Roczniki Humanistyczne,” vol. 59 (2011), issue 1. In the article a reflection is proposed on literature’s inner problems concentrated around the concept of literary convention. It seems that in the postmodernist demands to give more attention to those voices in literature that up till now have been “muffled,” “passed over” and “oppressed,” the meaning of the concept of “convention” has been distorted. However, its proper understanding is as elementary for the existence and development of literature as treating a literary work as an artificially organized form, and not as the writer’s confession. The author of the article, on the basis of the definitions formulated by the formalist-structuralist school, discusses the inner, aesthetic laws of literature dictated and defined by literary convention and tradition, and he indicates that it is them – more than political, social or moral causes—that in the natural process of creation and development of literature cause that some voices, perhaps, cannot be fully heard.

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On Bruno Schulz’s Bookplates

Roczniki Humanistyczne ◽

10.18290/rh.2019.67.1-7en ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 67 (1 SELECTED PAPERS IN ENGLISH) ◽

pp. 113-126

Author(s):

Ireneusz Piekarski

Keyword(s):

Literary Work ◽

Polish Version

The Polish version of the article was published in Roczniki Humanistyczne vol. 64, issue 1 (2016). The article enters into a dialogue with the interpretation of Bruno Schulz’s bookplates made by Władysław Panas in his book Bruno od Mesjasza (Bruno of the Messiah) (Lublin 2001). An attempt to understand them in a different (less holistic) way leads the author of the article to the conclusion that in Schulz’s plates the first veiled variant of the mythical Book may be seen—of the fundamental motif of Bruno Schulz’s later literary work.

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Euzebiusz Słowacki – Writer and Literary Critic

Ruch Literacki ◽

10.1515/ruch-2017-0011 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 58 (1) ◽

pp. 1-13

Author(s):

Helena Markowska

Keyword(s):

Eighteenth Century ◽

Literary Criticism ◽

Literary Work ◽

Literary Critic ◽

Literary Practice ◽

Late Eighteenth Century ◽

Polish Version ◽

Late Eighteenth ◽

The University ◽

The Relationship

Summary This article examines the relationship between literary practice and literary criticism in Polish late Neoclassicism in the work of Euzebiusz Słowacki, who combined the roles of writer and critic in a way not untypical at that time. Born in 1773, he made his reputation as a playwright, literary critic, poet and translator, and in 1811 became Professor of Poetry and Elocution at the University of Wilno. First, the article sets out to prove that both his literary work and his criticism are greatly indebted to the late eighteenth-century doctrine of taste, of which he wrote at length himself. The second part is concerned with a comparison of his theoretical reflections about tragedy and his own tragedies. The analysis of their form shows that Euzebiusz Słowacki not only strove to scale the ultimate tragic heights but also to create a Polish version of the neoclassic tragedy. His tragedy follows the best French and ancient models - especially Racine (whom he probably translated into Polish) - but also questions them in a way which shows that Słowacki was no mere imitator.

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Fantasy or a Transcendent Experience? Study of the Painting Ascent into Heaven by Jheronimus Bosch from the Palazzo Ducale in Venice

Roczniki Humanistyczne ◽

10.18290/rh.2018.66.4-4e ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 66 (4 SELECTED PAPERS IN ENGLISH) ◽

pp. 87-120

Author(s):

Grzegorz Kubies

Keyword(s):

Visual Image ◽

Literary Work ◽

Final Conclusion ◽

Left Wing ◽

Polish Version ◽

And Function ◽

Earthly Paradise ◽

Simon Marmion ◽

Near Death Experiences

The Polish version of the article was published in “Roczniki Humanistyczne,” vol. 63 (2015), issue 4. The painting Ascent into Heaven (88.8 x 39.9 cm; dendrological dating: 1482–1490) kept in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice is one of the four eschatological panels (the other three are: Earthly Paradise, Fall of the Damned, Hell) which probably were in the collection of the Venetian Cardinal Domenico Grimani in the 1520s. The panels’ original arrangement and function are unknown. The paintings are not signed and their attribution to Jheronimus Bosch (c. 1450–1516 ) is based largely on the grounds of stylistic criteria. In the study, I put Ascent into Heaven into two fundamental contexts for the iconographic analysis of this work: eschatological literature and Netherlandish/ Flemish painting and in the context of near-death experiences (NDE) as well. The answer to the question posed in the title of the study must remain twofold. On the basis of the data gathered in the study, the content of the painting can be comprehended by references to the most frequently quoted sources of inspiration for Bosch: one painting by Dieric Bouts (left wing of the Last Judgement Altarpiece; Lille, Palais des Beaux Arts), two illuminations by Simon Marmion (Le livre des sept Ages du monde; Brussels, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, Ms. 9047, fols. IV & 12r) and a literary work Dat rike der ghelieven by Jan van Ruusbroec. Its content can be equally understood by reference to the role of the painter’s imagination (categories of inventio and fantasia), using his theological and astronomical knowledge. The above line of interpretation that emphasizes the influence of biblical logosphere, takes into account undeniable religious experience of the painter from ‘s-Hertogenbosch resulting from being a member of the Church. The factor of an epistemological importance which influences the form of the answer to the title question is hypothetical non-verifiable Bosch’s personal transcendental experience, thus it becomes impossible to evaluate the translation of what is spiritual (experience) into visual (image). Due to the elusive, not fully scientific nature of NDE this phenomenon should be excluded from the final conclusion.

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Aristotle’s Poetics versus Modern Theories of Drama

Roczniki Humanistyczne ◽

10.18290/rh.2018.66.3-2e ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 66 (3 SELECTED PAPERS IN ENGLISH) ◽

pp. 25-35

Author(s):

Robert R. Chodkowski

Keyword(s):

Literary Theory ◽

Distinctive Feature ◽

Literary Work ◽

Hypothetical Situation ◽

Polish Version ◽

The One ◽

Visual Element

The Polish version of the article was published in “Roczniki Humanistyczne,” vol. 57 (2009), issue 3. This paper seeks to prove that there are no grounds in the Poetics to ascribe to Aristotle the views identified with the literary theory of drama because he does not identify drama with a verbal work. On the contrary, the spectacular dimension of tragedy is for Aristotle one of the distinctive feature of tragedy vis-à-vis epos, which for him is only – to use our modern terms—a literary work. Thus, the visual element (ὄψις or ὄψεως κόσμος) is not only very important for Aristotle, but it is even a necessary component of tragedy. Indeed there are some remarks in the Poetics that suggest tragedy may exist without ὄψις, but this is only regarded as a hypothetical situation, analogical to the one when he argues that tragedy may exist without characters. In fact, however, both ὄψις and characters are regarded by Aristotle as necessary components of tragedy. He makes his considerations assuming both components. At the same time, he treats tragedy not as a text but a theatrical work in which mimesis can be conducted by the “acting persons” (πράττοντες). They are understood not as literary figures, but as stage embodiments of the heroes whose psychophysical ontic paradigms are actors.

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