Nie tylko o Buce. Egzemplifikacje i ewolucje motywu lęku w książkach o Muminkach Tove Jansson

The article discusses the motif of fear in nine illustrated books about the Moomins by Tove Jansson. Methodologically, the study is a qualitative analysis from the perspective of the double address, the psychological differentiation between the concepts of fear and anxiety, and the iconotextual reading. Although Moomin Valley has been traditionally perceived as a literary arcadia, the plot of the books is surprisingly often interwoven with disasters and dangers, including a volcanic eruption, a freezing winter, a comet, floods, and frequent storms. Jansson employed these motifs — evoking fear triggered by substantive causes — in the contents addressed to inexperienced recipients. She did it intentionally and was convinced that children enjoy fear as long as the story ends happily. In this context a particularly sophisticated character is the Groke, which is usually considered as the most terrifying monster in the series. She appears in four volumes — Finn Family Moomintroll (1948), The Exploits of Moominpappa (1950), Moominland Midwinter (1957), Moomin pappa at Sea (1965) — and the analysis proves that her characterization signifi cantly evolves. Her nuanced nature is from the beginning available to more experienced readers, since it is included in the visual representation, disputing the verbal. Furthermore, the Groke appears to be a hybrid character, as she evokes both fear relating to a specific object and anxiety stemming from an unknown threat — in fact, there are no rational reasons for fearing her.

Literaturoznawca w roli rodzica, rodzic w roli literaturoznawcy. Omówienia klasyki (i nie tylko)

W artykule recenzyjnym omówiono tom Po pierwsze. O literaturze dla dzieci (i nie tylko), którego współautorkami są literaturoznawczynie z Uniwersytetu Śląskiego w Katowicach: Iwona Gralewicz-Wolny i Beata Mytych-Forajter (2019). Książka jest kontynuacją publikacji tych samych badaczek zatytułowanej Uwolnić Pippi! Twórczość dla dzieci wobec przemian kultury (2013). W obu akcent jest wyraźnie położony na literaturę nordycką, czyli skandynawską i fińską, czego dowodzi zarówno dobór analizowanego materiału, jak i np. ilustracje okładkowe. Dlatego właśnie ona jest w recenzji omówiona jako pierwsza – i to w aspekcie porównawczym, ponieważ autorki powracają do tych samych książek, które już poddawały analizom w 2013 roku, głównie twórczości Astrid Lindgren i Tove Jansson. Pozostałe rozdziały tomu zostają zaprezentowane w podziale na klasykę, która zdecydowanie dominuje, oraz utwory nowsze. Artykuł kończy uwaga na temat tytułu recenzowanego tomu oraz jego ogólna ocena.

„Ale właściwie dlaczego zawsze miałoby się dziać tak, jakeśmy do tego przywykli?”. Reprezentacja zmian klimatu w serii o Muminkach Tove Jansson w perspektywie studiów nad jedzeniem

Celem artykułu jest analiza sposobu, w jaki w serii o Muminkach (1945–1970) Tove Jansson przedstawia zmiany klimatu zachodzące w fikcyjnym świecie, zarówno za pośrednictwem scen katastroficznych, jak i tych sugerujących długofalowy proces. Autor tekstu dowodzi, że motyw zmieniającej się ilości, jakości i różnorodności dostępnego jedzenia staje się „językiem”, który pozwala opowiedzieć o zjawisku spoza codziennego doświadczenia postaci. Losy rodziny zostają dzięki temu umieszczone w szerszym kontekście, a to, co niesamowite, autorka przedstawia za pomocą zwyczajów związanych z żywnością, stanowiących jedną z ważniejszych kwestii w życiu Muminków. Jansson, wykorzystując także formę sagi rodzinnej, pokazuje, w jaki sposób można stworzyć narrację o zmianach klimatu, która omawia sam proces, a nie jego skutki.

W splocie z przeszłością. Historiografia w literaturze dla dzieci i młodzieży w XXI wieku w perspektywie nowej humanistyki

Literature for children and youth is reinterpreted under the influence of the new humanities. For example, prose from the 20th century is subjected to postcolonial read-outs (In Desert and Wilderness [W pustyni i w puszczy] by Henryk Sienkiewicz, the novel cycle by Alfred Szklarski), an eco-critical reading of the works of Tove Jansson, Hugh Lofting and the Polish writers Ludwik Jerzy Kern and Dorota Terakowska is proposed. On the other hand, works based on historical issues create a thematically focused series of publications, genealogical and geanological cycles, which are also fictionalized biographies, separate works referring to the lineage of the Polish state and dynastic linagees, post-memory narratives of a so-called “second generation” about the experience of the Second World War, and works on migration issues. The examples of literary historiography for adolescents mentioned and described in the article, captured in several areas of the formal issues, can be read through the prism of many analytical and interpretative practices, overlapping and incompletemethodologies. Retentional direction of reading, with the horizon of the past inscribed in it, does not exclude a protentional-oriented towards the future and environmental change, motivated by postcolonial revisions of old works, important issues of the 21st century (migration, post-memory), and a non-anthropocentric perception of reality. Their analysis should take into account the “poetics of history”, tropology of the narrative and narrative strategies (which Hayden White wrote about). Moreover, entangling the past with the present of the child-reader (and in fact with their future), seems to be a necessary condition for its interiorization, for recognizing it as one’s own, for admitting it. It always has a multitemporal, multigenerational and multicultural character.

Tove Jansson, Nietzsche and the poetics of overcoming

This article explores the connections between Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra and Tove Jansson and the world of the Moomins. It begins with a short summary of the impact of Nietzsche in the Nordic countries and of his most important book, focusing on passages that are of particular relevance for the analyses that follow. It then proceeds to explore its meaning and significance for Jansson in three sections. The first concerns Atos Wirtanen, the writer and politician with whom she lived for ten years, and who encouraged her to publish her first book, while he himself was completing a book on Nietzsche. In the second section, the article analyzes an early semi-autobiographical literary experiment from the Jansson family archive that displays her as a passionate reader of Nietzsche long before her meeting with Wirtanen. In the third and last section, the framework of the Zarathustra narrative is used to interpret some of the figures and scenes from the Moomin books.

Manhattan Dynamite and no pancakes: Tradition and normality in the work of Tove Jansson

It is not uncommon to read the Moomin tales through existentialist lenses. Although there might be natural reasons for focusing on and privileging the nine classical Moomin books, it would, however, be a mistake to overlook Jansson’s comic strips. This is so, not only because of the quality of Jansson’s drawings and because of the way she innovatively worked with and developed that graphic medium, but certainly also because of the stories they contain. When read alongside the books, the comic strips add important aspects and nuances to Jansson’s portrayal of human existence. By allowing herself the freedom to radically change the setting and scenery of the stories, Jansson was able to explore quite different topics than was possible in the novels, and in particular to offer a somewhat different account of the role of customs, normality and tradition.