The Status of Anxiety (Angst) in Bolesław Prus’s The Doll: Figures of Speech, Metaphors and Places of Inderminacy

Summary The article argues that anxiety (a form of existential Angst) is a basic mood that shapes the experiences of all the characters, including Stanisław Wokulski, in Bolesław Prus’s The Doll (1887–1889). The term occurs in the text of the novel itself both explicitly (most often as part of various phrases) and implicitly. The article focuses primarily on symbolic representations of anxiety and its suppression. This is done by means of metaphors, topoi and a system of cultural and social codes that make their appearance in the novel in a condensed form as dynamic figures (e.g. a stone, a shadow, or a mirror). They are also introduced by means of a juxtaposition between the experience of anxiety and attempts to cope with it, to enforce a ‘state of calm’, an illusory existential balance. In his reading of the novel the author of this article draws on Martin Heidegger’s concept of anxiety (Angst) and his distinction between authentic and inauthentic existence in Being and Time; he also draws on the latest developments in criticism, especially the so-called affective turn.

‘In My Opinion the Best Book on the Polish-Soviet War’: The Paris Edition of Stanisław Rembek’s In the Field

Summary This article reconstructs the publishing history of the 1958 Paris edition of Stanisław Rembek’s novel W polu (In the Field), probably the best literary portrayal of the Polish-Soviet War 1920-1921. Originally published in 1937, it could not be reissued in the communist-ruled Poland after the war. That is why Rembek decided to have it published by the Instytut Literacki in Paris. The article recounts both the history of that publication on the basis of the correspondence between the author and Jerzy Giedroyc, and the dramatic consequences it had for Rembek who lived all that time in Poland.

Wisława Szymborska’s All Feminist Readings

Summary The article analyzes the reading strategies that are inscribed into Wisława Szymborska’s reviews and feuilletons in the collection Wszystkie lektury nadobowiązkowe [All Non-Obligatory Readings] published in 2015. Drawing on the figure of an implied woman reader described and defines by Ewa Kraskowska (and earlier by Anna Bojarska), the article identifies a number of traces that reveal Szymborska’s gender-oriented sensitivity of various mechanisms excluding women from history and cultural history. However, to deconstruct the false universality of dominant order she employs not so much empathy with the excluded (not just women) as irony disguised by a mask of naiveté. In this way she conducts her critique of the grand narratives from a somewhat different perspective than second wave difference feminism, expanding her range of feminist readings to include postcolonial and posthmanist themes.

‘Hinc Habitat Regina Voluptas’: Literary Sources of Book III of Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus’ Zodiacus vitae (1536)

Summary This article explores the literary sources of Book III of Zodiacus vitae, a philosophical poem by Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus. Publish in Venice in 1536, it was banned by Inquisition and condemned to oblivion in its native Italy. The infamy of the work in Italy was in stark contrast with the popularity it enjoyed in early modern Europe, including Poland. Book III (Gemini), which contains the work’s best passages, tells the story of the poet’s journey to the Garden of Lust (Voluptas), filled with a series of allegorical figures, where he was lectured on the nature of pleasure and its uses. In this way the garden is turned into Humanist locus docendi. The article tries to explain the main philospohical sources and contexts of this learned debate.

‘To be Meat, But to Change into Light’: Disgust as a Means of Shaping the Female Character in Maria’s Morning and Other Stories by Julia Fiedorczuk

Summary This article examines the identity strategies of women depicted in Poranek Marii i inne opowia dania (Maria’s Morning and Other Stories) [2010] by Julia Fiedorczuk. Driven by disgust and shuttling between the corporeal and the spiritual, they represent a model of subjectivity rooted in a nomadic and symphonic sense of being. The article’s approach redefines the initial formula ‘to be meat, but to change into light’ and points to key moments when their stories are illuminated by a hope to overcome the crippling disgust and to adopt a new understanding of the female existence.

A Gift Traced to Heaven: Iconophilia and Iconodulism in the Poems of Joanna Pollakówna

Summary The article examines the work of Joanna Pollakówna, a poet and art historian, highly sensitive to light and images, pursuing indefatigably her quest in the universe of visible signs of the Invisible. The inspiration for this reading came from two spiritual icons which seem to have a lot in common with the two poems analyzed here: the two pairs are signs of eternity and of a tension between the tangible reality and a reality that remains inexpressible. Pollakówna’s poetic personality is defined by two traits, one, a alacritous receptiveness to the movement of images and flickering meanings, and the other, a strong belief that the effort spent on tracking these fleeting objects will brings the reward of an aesthetic experience and the satisfaction of naming them. To grasp Pollakówna’s fascination with images the article introduces a finely-nuanced pair of otherwise synonymous terms, iconophilia and iconodulia (iconodulism).

Creative Art and Psychopathology: Jerzy Krzysztoń’s Insanity

Summary This article is an attempt at reopening the discussion about the art of psychotic artists. It revisits the problem of schizophrenic art creation, which tends to be neglected or marginalized, by focusing on Jerzy Krzysztoń’s Obłęd (Insanity). The novel, treated as an example of schizophrenic narrative, a subset of trauma narratives, is examined here in two aspects, its language and the structure of its fictional world. This is an interdisciplinary, comparative study which makes use of the analytical tools of psychology, psycholinguistics and psychiatry.