The Language of Fear in Children’s Literature: A Case Study of Ted Hughes’s Poems for Children

The article tackles the issue of the language of fear exploited in children’s literature, taking Ted Hughes’s Nature poems for young readers as the object of analysis. It presents a perspective of linguistic stylistics and literary semantics and as such is not meant to be a critical literary evaluation of Hughes’s poetry. Rather, it focuses on linguistic instruments of creating the aura of fear in children’s poetry and their cognitive import. The author has chosen a neuroscientific paradigm for the two closely related emotions – fear and anxiety – as propagated by American researcher Joseph LeDoux, most prominently in his work “Anxious” (2015). LeDoux maintains that the feeling of fear is not inborn but rather a cognitive construct emergent from the use of one’s native language practiced within a particular socio-cultural context. The unique atmosphere of Hughes’s poetry has been achieved by a rich lexicon of fear-related notions and a skillfully applied figuration (anthropomorphisms, similes). His poetic imagery powerfully complements the vocabulary and troping in calling to life fictional worlds, often uncanny and menacing, remote from the young readers’ experience. The author of this article perceives in the lexicon, figuration and multimodal imagery (both verbal and visual, the latter realized as illustrations in picture-books) an important didactic device that teaches children how to manage fearsome experiences. This capability will also prepare children to face anxiety, an emotion typical of adult life and related mostly to existential problems.

Panorama badań aksjologicznych we współczesnym literaturoznawstwie polskim

The article is an attempt to present the achievements of the axiological research current in Polish literary studies. Several key issues relevant to axiological research understood in general, philosophical terms were mentioned to determine whether literary studies can exist without axiology or whether axiology absolutely needs literary studies, as well as the issue of the chronological beginning of axiological research within Polish literary studies. The deliberations undertaken lead to a closer characterisation of the three schools that put forward the most important proposals of Polish literary axiological reflection: the Lublin school, the Toruń school and the Warsaw school. And it is in relation to them that the most relevant hitherto achievements of axiological research in Polish literary studies have been outlined.

Sprawy Czesława Miłosza w zapiskach osobistych Marii Dąbrowskiej i Anny Kowalskiej

One of the threads of the dailies and the correspondence of Maria Dąbrowska and Anna Kowalska published so far in excerpts is the so-called “Miłosz’s case”. The poet became the cause of a conflict between these two writers of a purely personal nature, which also influenced their evaluation of the poet’s work and life decisions. They also referred to Czesław Miłosz’s decision in 1951, when he applied for asylum in France, which was perceived by many in the literary and political circles both in Poland and abroad as an act of treason. The article shows some of the less known circumstances of the complicated “Milosz’s life affairs” from those years, seen from the perspective of both writers and their immediate environment.

Metodologia śledztwa w poszukiwaniu biografii Jerzego Siewierskiego

The history of literature, like human memory, can be as selective as it is unreliable, which means that many authors of every epoch disappear into the darkness of oblivion. A researcher’s task is to restore the memory of those whose works he or she finds valuable or interesting enough to want to study. The present text deals with Jerzy Siewierski, a largely forgotten writer of post-war Poland and a silent co-founder of the flagship magazine “Współczesność,” in an attempt to reconstruct the biography of the Warsaw-based writer. This work on restoring Siewierski is carried out using methods close to those used by readers of detective novels – after all, the writer himself became famous for them in communist Poland. Thus, we study archival traces, i.e. the traces left by the author himself as well as those that were left by him without his will. Parallel to the archival research, witnesses so people who knew Siewierski and remember him, are being “interviewed”. What emerges from these interviews is a perverse, intelligent, and interesting figure, both significant and in the shadow of the great revolutions. Interestingly, certain elements of the writer’s self-creation allow us to look for subtle connotations with the father of the detective novel, Arthur Conan DoyleThese observations are all the more interesting and valuable for literary research because no comprehensive study of Jerzy Siewierski has been written before, and most information about him comes from the Siewierski family archives, conversations with his relatives, and memorabilia left by the writer.

Kim był Bonawentura Pleciuch, autor wiersza „Prośba do Aniołów Stróżów, aby nas zachowali od gotycyzmu” (1822)?

The purpose of this paper is an attempt to determine the authorship of a poem entitled “A Plea to Guardian Angels to save us from gothicism” published in 1822 under the pseudonym of Bonawentura Pleciuch. In my analysis I propose a hypothesis that the poem’s satirical tone and the place of its publication, local periodical “Krakus”, allow us to link it with the name of Konstanty Majeranowski. I discuss Majeranowski’s literary activity, paying special attention to his feature columns entitled “A Philospohical Scrap”, all of which in high probability suggests his authorship of “A Plea to Guardian Angels…”.

Wywoływanie chorób przez czarownice – poglądy uczestnika procesów czarownic (przypadek Czarownicy powołanej)

Published in 1639, the anonymous “Czarownica powołana” is a work addressed to judges dealing with proceedings in witchcraft cases. Its author, probably a clergyman, participated in such trials. Unlike many works of this kind, it did not encourage the tracking and killing of witches. “Czarownica powołana” belongs to a different trend and in many places is similar to the treatise of the German Jesuit Friedrich Spee, who was afraid of the rash condemnation of superstitious people who had nothing to do with practicing black magic. In “Czarownica powołana” the existence of witches and sorcery is not questioned, because it is considered to be a devilish science, which leads to making a pact with the devil with the ability to act in the world. Illness or death in connection with the accusation of witchcraft had serious consequences, including establishing who and how the witch had harmed. In the era of the plague epidemic, fear of strangers led to numerous massacres, especially in German cities, where the spread of the plague was explained more often than elsewhere by poisoning the wells by Jews, who were also burdened with engaging in magic and negotiating with the devil. The author was aware that some associate every disease with witchcraft. The devil can also cheat, making a person think that what he dreamed really happened, and people deluded by fantasies are willing to share these stories also in court during a trial. The author of “Czarownica powołana” was aware of this mechanism because he was concerned with the accusation itself (“powołanie”). In this context, “Czarownica powołana” – despite the author’s conviction about the existence of witches and their ability to cause disease and elementary disasters - is a progressive work, but this is evidenced by the lawyer’s dilemmas, not the priest’s fears.

Kafkowski tryptyk interpretacyjny: opowiadanie „Przemiana”

The article presents the allegorical novella “The Metamorphosis” of Franz Kafka from a biblical perspective. The main character, Gregor Samsa, is compared to Job and Jesus, the New Adam, and his father to God. The images emerging in the text reveal their hidden meaning, which in a surprising way shows the connection with the “Holy Scriptures”, both with the “Old” and “New Testaments”, which may be surprising in the case of a Jewish writer from the Vltava River. The author uses Kafka’s other writings, including “Letter to His Father”, to demonstrate the autobiographical sources. Gregor Samsa–Franz Kafka sacrifices himself to the Father’s glory. The whole interpretation is inscribed in the philosophy of the Danish thinker – Søren Kierkegaard.

Panegiryk z epidemią w tle. Ignacego Szydłowskiego „Oda na pamiątkę urodzin doktora Jennera, wynalazcy wakcyny, obchodzoną przez Cesarskie Towarzystwo Medyczne w Wilnie d. 6 maja 1820”

The text concerns the “Ode in Memory of Doctor Jenner, the Inventor of the Vaccine, Celebrated by the Medical Association in Vilnius…” [pol. „Oda na pamiątkę urodzin doktora Jennera, wynalazcy wakcyny, obchodzoną przez Cesarskie Towarzystwo Medyczne w Wilnie…”], written in 1820 by forgotten Lithuanian poet, Ignacy Szydlowski. This poem, delivered in front of the Medical Association in Vilnius and reprinted at least fourfold, was dedicated to the memory of the English doctor and originator of vaccination against smallpox. Therefore, it belongs to the post-partition poetry devoted to works of famous personalities of the world of science. The article includes analysis and interpretation of Szydłowski’s poem in the light of Polish and European encomiastic tradition. The primary aim of this consideration is to show the real implication that panegiryc poetic have on literary image of epidemic.

The Science of Polish Verse (?). Rzecz o teorii notacji poetyckiej Sidneya Laniera w kontekście współczesnych kulturowych teorii literatury

The article presents the theoretical-literary concept developed by Sidney Lanier in the second half of the 19th century in America. The author presents the assumptions of the theory of poetic notation, primary and secondary rhythm, and the links between literature and the social landscape described by the American in “The Science of English Verse” and “The English Novel”. The considerations are included in the framework of reflection on the way of shaping contemporary cultural literary studies.

The International Potential of the Polish Nineteenth-Century Novel – a Review of Grażyna Borkowska and Lidia Wiśniewska’s (eds.) “Another Canon: The Polish Nineteenth-Century Novel in World Context”

The article is a review of “Another Canon: The Polish Nineteenth-Century Novel in World Context”, edited by Grażyna Borkowska and Lidia Wiśniewska, published in 2020 by Lit Verlag, Switzerland within the “Polonistik im Kontext” series. The first part of the monograph includes articles that provide a reinterpretation of selected novels (including Krasicki’s “The Adventures of Mr. Nickolas Wisdom”, Orzeszkowa’s “On the Niemen”, and Sienkiewicz’s “Without Dogma”) in relation to the main currents of world literature. The second part focuses on the reception of selected nineteenth-century Polish novels in Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Russia, France, Spain, the United States, and Great Britain. The publication is aimed at raising the interest of non-Polish recipients in the nineteenth-century novels during a period when twentieth and contemporary Polish literature has already gained relative popularity abroad.