The aim of this article is to show the evolution of contemporary fantastic literature in France. The article describes the reform of the genre carried out by the writers of the so-called first wave (like Alain Dorémieux, Jean-Pierre Andrevon) in the 1980s. Among their theoretical postulates, the following should be mentioned: rejection of traditional fantastic literature, banality of horror taking place in everyday life, transfers between popular genres, intermedia transfers, inspiration of contemporary philosophy and deep ecology. The article also shows the later stages of the reform continued by the second generation of fantastiqueurs (Pascal Malosse, Rémi Karnauch). Their fiction is determined by the absurd, the grotesque, and the surreal. The boundaries between the fantastic and mainstream are blurry as well.

W niniejszym artykule autorka pochyla się nad zjawiskiem transgresji wszechobecnym w twórczości Anandy Devi. Począwszy od pierwszych powieści po te ostatnie pisarka tworzy nieustannie postaci popełniające transgresję. Dotyczy to tak samo postaci kobiecych jak i męskich. Niemniej czytelnik ocenia prawdopodobnie inaczej negatywne postępowanie mężczyzn w stosunku do kobiet, które łamią ustalone reguły w ramach buntu przeciw dyktatowi patriarchatu, często z ofiary przekształcając się w kata. Celem tej analizy jest próba opisania różnych form transgresji, od tych najbardziej błahych do najcięższych. W swoim studium autorka artykułu opiera się między innymi na badaniach G. Bataille’a et M. Foucault.

The article discusses the representation of Brussels in Aux armes de Bruxelles. Flâneries urbaines (2009) by Christopher Gérard and Bruksela, zwierzęcość w mieście (2021) by Grażyna Plebanek. The author analyzes the way of representing the city, very subjective and laudatory, as well as the impact of this figuration on the generic identity of the texts. These constitute a mixture of various genres, including the tourist guide and the essay, which gives rise to a singular literary form which escapes the attempt at classification.

The power of literature has been severely tested in recent decades. During the turn of the 1980s the return of the concrete, in its various forms, was already seen in literature. The ecological crisis is a part of this concreteness, and has a direct impact on the literature, which is forced to rethink its forms of expression to regain the real effectiveness in its quest for a lost link with the living, and to face up the  climate crisis. The literature is an important part of the large field of environmental humanities and as such, it helps to enhance the environmental knowledge. In this paper three contemporary fictions are examined —Tous doivent être sauvés ou aucun by V. Bergen, Mahmoud ou la montée des eaux by A. Wauters and Partout le feu by H. Laurain. All those texts tackle environmental themes and try to find the necessary force to modify our thinking about today’s world.

Les Apparitions du château de Tarabel, ou Le Protecteur invisible [The Apparitions of Tarabel Castle, or the Invisible Protector], a novel published by Étienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon (1786–1864) in 1822, tells the story of Count Eugène de Melorenne who, in 1795, in the context of the War in the Vendée, faces not only many difficult political choices but also various complications as far as his love life is concerned. The aim of this article is to analyze the overwhelming influence of politics and history on nearly all the aspects of this novel and to examine whether or not the book fits well into the generic framework of the traditional Gothic novel.

In this essay we intend to emphasize first the subjective way of Victor Hugo in expressing his own thoughts, ideas, visual impressions and feelings within the introductory chapter of this book, entitled “The Archipelago of the Channel”. Then, we intend to show the subjective manner of the narrator in constructing Gilliatt, the main character of the proper novel. In this undertaking, the narrator seems to be objective, while, in fact, he is highly subjective, presenting the hero from an outside view point, and defining his temper and disposition by a collection of gossips and slanders on Gilliatt, from the narrow and xenophobe perspective of his fellow-citizens. The subjectivity of both the author and the narrator is disconcerting for the reader, who should not judge superficially this book, but rather try to find, between the lines, its different values and significations, which are in perfect accord with Victor Hugo’s philosophical and aesthetic conception, based upon the harmony of contraries, upon the coexistence of good and evil, sublime and grotesque, light and darkness.

The article analyzes Mémoires en vrac by Jean Ajalbert, a forgotten poet and writer at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, in the context of the functioning and creation of memory about the fin de siècle era, particularly the decade of Symbolism 1880–1890. In the process of resurrecting of the past, affective memory in Ricoeure’s approach turns out to be important, enabling the author to combine autobiography with a testimony about the era in which he was to play an important role alongside masters (Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, Mallarmé…) and (un)famous writers and artists. Thanks to the impressive nature of his writing and discontinuous style, Ajalbert composed a hybrid text in which he included fragments of letters, symbolist poems and his own works. The author’s desire to create a personal myth at the intersection of aesthetics allowed him to show non-obvious connections between symbolism and  naturalism.

The paper argues that the first and second Journaliers, a sort of diary kept by Isabelle Eberhardt (1877–1904), a Suisse writer and traveler of Russian origins, may be considered as autobiogeographical. The term autobiogeography has been coined at the beginning of the 21st century and describes the interactions between the autobiographical self and geography, or space. The autobiogeographical character of two first Journaliers is presented in three parts. The first focuses on the specificity of the text and its relationship with geography. The second talks about the links between particular cities and the Eberhardtian self. The third depicts the relationships between the self and the landscape: not only does it show how geography influences the self, but also what the impact of the self is on the way we look at the space.

Pisarstwo Colette i Louisa Pergauda różni się pod względem stylu i tematyki. Oboje pisarzy łączy jednak miłość do zwierząt i chęć opisania ich w sposób wiarygodny. Jednocześnie chcą osiągnąć wśród czytelników lepsze zrozumienie świata zwierząt. W tym celu Colette i Pergaud pokazują całą paletę ludzkich zachowań wobec zwierząt. Niektóre postaci cechuje głęboka empatia, inne nie ufają zwierzętom albo wręcz ich nienawidzą. Istotną rolę odgrywa też zazdrość. Artykuł skupia się na wszystkich tych elementach, identyfikując strategie, które służą Colette and Pergaudowi do połączenia tematyki zwierzęcej z uniwersalnymi i głęboko humanistycznymi kwestiami. Relacje między ludzkim i nie-ludzkim są, dla tych prekursorów ekowrażliwości, miarą ich wartości. Tym samym osiągają dwa cele: budzą społeczną świadomość  i rzucają nowe światło na relacje międzygatunkowe.

Francis Poictevin was a French author of decadent and symbolist inspiration. His poetic prose
is diaristic and impressionistic, and draws richly on the natural world, which finds its particular realisation in Paysages (1888). Based on the guidelines of an ecologically engaged literary text as defined by Lawrence Buell, the current research aims to present the author’s vision of the environment and to answer the question of the autonomy of the nature depicted. The human-environmental relationship, the motive of the passage of time and the changeability of the seasons, as well as the eco-sensitivity of the author are taken into account. Poictevin, by giving his work the form of a collage, presents a natural world full of active actors, weighing up the ecosystem full of dependencies.

Convaincus que l’univers matériel n’est qu’une prison, que toute évasion finit par l’échec, les héros des romans français de la fin du XIX^e siècle tombent dans le piège de l’impuissance. Envahis par le pessimisme, les protagonistes ne renoncent pas à la lutte : ils cherchent le salut dans l’art, la névrose, l’occultisme en inventant de subtils subterfuges pour tromper les sens d’agréables illusions. Dans notre étude nous essayerons de montrer comment les héros de Huysmans, Villiers de l’Isle-Adam et Gourmont relèvent ce défi, avec ou sans succès, au péril même de leur équilibre physique et mental. Par mépris d’une hostilité ambiante, les protagonistes transforment l’imagination en une force supérieure capable de dominer le réel. Contraints à cette recherche désespérée du nouveau, du rare, de l’étrange, les romanciers tentent de vaincre les chimères de l’impuissance.