Narkopowieść latynoamerykańska: rzeczywistość z Szekspirem w tle

Latin American literature is not rich in references to the works of Shakespeare, but rather focuses on its own tradition. The premise on which this article is based, however, is that the reality of the region displays Shakespearean characteristics. The aim of this article is to present a subgenre, or a literary convention, known as a narconovel. The configuration of the represented world in this noir novel variant is determined by the drug trade with its far-reaching social and cultural implications. The narconovel is an important part of the most recent literature in Colombia, Mexico, and other countries of the region. This article addresses associations and disassociations between the narconovel and the crime fiction convention, centering on Shakespearean motifs, related in this case to the concepts of power, crime, guilt, and punishment.

Literature and Madness: Madness in the Baroque Theatre and the Theatre of Artaud

This article has been translated into English by Nancy Luxon and published with permission. Michel Foucault, La littérature et la folie [La folie dans le théâtre baroque et le théâtre d'Artaud], in Folie, langage, littéature, eds. H.-P. Fruchaud, D. Lorenzini, & J. Revel, pp. 89–109 © Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, Paris, 2019. www.vrin.fr Requests for re-use of La littéature et la folie [La folie dans le théâtre baroque et le théâtre d'Artaud] should be directed to Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, Paris. Literature and madness dominate Michel Foucault’s early writings in the 1960s, and indeed much of his career. In this text, Foucault considers the relation between madness, language, and silence; the difficult frontier between language and literary convention; and the experience of madness within language. He moves from a meditation on madness, to a rare commentary on theatre, stagecraft, and Artaud, and finishes by considering literature’s capacity for rupture. ‘Literature and Madness’ is a translation of a text written by Foucault in the 1960s, and recently published in Folie, langage, littérature, ed. Henri-Paul Fruchaud, Daniele Lorenzini and Judith Revel (Paris: Vrin, 2019, 89–109). This version includes a translator’s introduction by Nancy Luxon and was given a distinct subtitle to distinguish it from a similar lecture with the same title in that volume.

Refleksje o powieści milicyjnej (na marginesie książki Doroty Skotarczak „Otwierać, milicja! O powieści kryminalnej w PRL”)

The paper is a set of thoughts on the milicja-novel, inspired by the book Otwierać, milicja! O powieści kryminalnej w PRL by Dorota Skotarczak. This book, being a work of a historian, treats the milicja-novel as a specific historical source, transformations of which are a reflection of changes in the social and political environment of the Polish People’s Republic. The author of the paper suggests other methodological possibilities, showing via chosen examples, that using methods of literary studies, e.g. considering the category of the literary convention or the rhetorical formation of the discourse, allows one to find complete responses to many research questions. Considering the literary methods of forming the message can also prevent an oversimplified view of the milicja-novel as a historical source. As a conclusion, further research on this genre of popular literature is postulated, while the author considers an interdisciplinary approach, connecting methods of at least two sciences: history and literary studies, and additionally others (e.g. bibliology), to be the most appropriate.

Inspiration from Translation: The Golden Age of English-Language Children’s Literature and Its Impact on Polish Juvenile Fiction

The article presents a cross-sectional view of the impact of the translations of English-language juvenile literature of the Golden Age on Polish literary production for young readers. This panorama of infl uences and reception modes is presented in three comparative close-ups, dealing with characters and recipients (English ‘girls’ novels’ and their Polish equivalents), literary convention (adventure novels), and fairytale quality, imagination, and fantasy (Polish literary works inspired by English classic fantasy books). The study shows that Golden Age children’s literature transferred into Polish by means of translation brought new trends, motifs, genres and themes to Polish juvenile literature, signifi cantly contributing to its development.

Counterspaces of Resistance: Peter Carey’s Bliss

The article discusses how Peter Carey’s 1980 novel Bliss constructs and exam- ines various counterspaces both in and beyond the text. First, it shows how the plot jux- taposes the consumerist middle-class suburban model of life with an alternative lifestyle, presenting the attractions and limitations of both, yet preferring rather the latter. Secondly, at the level of literary convention, the text activates the strategies of comic social realism only to juxtapose them with elements of fantasy, fairy tale and myth, thus undermining the representational powers of the former and hinting at other possibilities of representation. Finally, the film adaptation of the novel shows how even rebellious or critical texts may become ‘domesticated’ or absorbed by the dominating logic of cultural production, thus once again demonstrating the ambivalent position of works of art in general, and this nov- el in particular. The article argues that the ambivalence engrained in the text is an intrinsic feature, not only of Australian culture or heterotopias but of most cultural products and practices inevitably entangled in the double logic of conforming and resistance.

Traces of the Other Form of Life

Candra Aditya’s short film Dewi pulang (2018) shows how Dewi’s life in Jakarta is in tension with the life of her Javanese village, to which she returns when her father dies. Understanding Jakarta and the village as Wittgensteinean ‘forms of life’, I argue that the film portrays the two as simultaneously antagonistic and mutually intertwined, as each form of life is present in the other as a trace. The film uses the Javanese literary convention of sěmu, through which subtle messages are simultaneously revealed and concealed, to suggest that the transcendence of the conflict in the final scene defies reification through language because it seems impossible. By pointing to the reality of the unthinkable, the film proposes an understanding of incompatible forms of life and social locations as connected through complex interplays of presences and absences.

Convention and Creation in Czech Language and Literature / Scientific Editing by prof. dr hab. Mieczyslaw Balowski. Poznań: Institute of Slavic Philology, PRO Publishing House, 2020. 403 p. – (Bohemica Posnaniensia, fasc. 24).

The collection of articles “Convention and Creation in Czech Language and Literature” continues the series published by the Polish Bohemians at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, edited by prof. M. Balowski. The collection is of interest not only for Slavists, but also for a wider range of linguists, literary critics and translation specialists as it offers a new look at the problem of linguistic and literary convention and creation, which go beyond the usual “traditions” and “innovation”. The authors of the articles included in the collection introduce new terminology into scientific use and offer its theoretical and practical justification based on the research of Czech literature, folklore, grammatical system, vocabulary and phraseology, translation studies and socially oriented discourse. The articles consistently suggest that the development of language, literature, and society as a whole is a continuous evolutionary process of interaction between the conventional and creative approaches.

Sex in the Cloister: Behind the Image of the “Criminal Monk” in Ming Courtroom Tales

Buddhist monks were commonly portrayed as seducers and even rapists in late sixteenth-century vernacular literature, including, most commonly, courtroom tales (gong’an 公案). Do these stories reflect a deterioration in clerical morality and behavior, or a decline in Buddhist faith and practice, as is sometimes argued? Neither explanation is credible. I argue that the image of monks in courtroom tales should be understood as a literary convention, growing out the burgeoning market for entertainment literature, rather than a window onto social reality. It also reflects an increasing male anxiety about the control of women.

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.