The article constitutes an attempt at elaborating upon a distinguishable type of text composition appearing in the parts that conclude individual books of Jan Kochanowski’s Fraszki. What is especially emphasized by the author of the article is a peculiar, in terms of convention, way of crowning the collection by two epigraphs whose character is obviously obscene: Marcinowa powieść (III 85) and O flisie (III 86). In the light of the argumentation presented, the sense of the poets’ concept implemented therein should be sought in a much dichotomous relationship between the two said fraszkas and the preceding poem Na słup kamienny (III 84), but also in the figure of achieving a defined aim, which appears in both the fraszkas. The author of the article also considers some correspondences occurring between the fraszka O flisie and the pieces Na most warszewski (II 106–108) and the elegy III 15.

The article undertakes to interpret two poetical pieces by Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński: Pieśń o Frydruszu and Epitaphium Boleslao Audaci, Regi Poloniae, while including considerations contained in Czesław Hernas’s Barok (along with the scholar’s other synthesis, Literatura baroku). The said texts are interpreted in the context of epic tradition and those traditions that relate to Bolesław Śmiały (Szczodry; king of Poland, Bolesław II the Bold or the Generous) and also to the impact of Boethius’s thought. Another issue analysed by the author is the method of comparing Sęp Szarzyński’s works in the both mentioned syntheses by Hernas.

Precursors and forerunners, when they seek for novelty, establish some norms and frameworks which, in turn, become defining for poetical genres and currents. So, what is the right of an imitator to search for new paths? The subject of the article are meta-poetic declarations of creators, who willingly and consciously follow in the footsteps of their great predecessors. The author points to the metaphors by means of which the poets defend their “space of freedoms” or concede to their powerlessness. The cases of the following poets are considered: Józef Bartłomiej Zimorowic in relation to Szymon Szymonowicz, Albert Ines and Andrzej Kanon in relation to Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski. Especially close attention was given to problematics and contexts of Albert Ines’s words prefacing a collection of poems that are quoted and translated in the article.

Religious poetry of the Saxon times has often in the past prompted quite radical, and at the same time emotional, valuations coming from scholars. Its distinctness from the literature of the preceding periods was also frequently underscored. The present article attempts to expand upon the issue of novelty and unique features of the works by late Baroque religious poets (Stanisław Brzeżański, Franciszek Gniewisz, Karol Mikołaj Juniewicz, Hieronin Falęcki, and Józef Baka). What is assumed to have been characteristic of the said literature is the endeavour at maximal persuasive efficacy and presence of deep internal tensions between christianitas and humanitas.

The subject of considerations in the present article is the work by Bartłomiej Paprocki: Historyja żałosna o prędkości i okrutności tatarskiej […], which appeared in 1575. What can be noticed in the said work is the process of intersecting of generic features of current-novelties song (Polish pieśń nowiniarska) and the epic features, the latter being particularly those that characterise historical narrative poems, such as: verismo, events chronology, using information from contemporaneous sources, recording places and persons who participate in depicted events, moderation when it comes to utilising stylistic devises. At the same time, mainly in the dedicatory letter addressed to Anzelm Gostomski, an endeavour may be noticed to overcome the poetics of current-novelties songs – not least by creating the image of poet as a soothsayer. To the author’s mind, the work by Paprocki appeared at the dawn of Polish heroicum. The narrative poem in question came a few years prior to the poetical renderings from the times of war campaigns of Stephen Báthory, which are considered by this subject’s scholars as first attempts at creating new poetical quality – the historical narrative poem.

The present study’s main focus is the analysis of three exhortations’ structure along with the topic featured therein, which appear in Piotr Kochanowski’s translation Gofred abo Jeruzalem wyzwolona published in 1618. Those speeches are delivered by Soliman and Emiren, who represent the Saracen side, and the eponymous Goffredo, who represents Christians. The author of the article indicates some arguments (understood as rhetorical devices) referring to the knightly community, which may either be praised (“our” side) or chastised (the opponents), or referencing the leader/warlord, who may deliver a self-praise or berate the enemies’ leader. In addition, a classification of speeches is offered; and so, the following types were distinguished: the call-to-arms type speech to defend a territory, values, and family; the speech calling for outstanding bravery and manly prowess in the face of expected defeat; calling for dedication when faced with an equal opponent; and finally, calling for devotion in the course of attaining a military aim.

The article considers circumstances contributing to the readership success of the Polish translation of The Goffredo… The author advances a thesis that the narrative poem in question met the expectations of Polish audience having been previously kindled not so much by Andrzej Kochanowski’s translation of The Aeneid, but rather by Polonized versions of mediaeval chivalric romances (Historja o cesarzu Otonie, Historia o Magielonie, Historia wdzięczna […] o Meluzynie). They gave the Polish readers their first chance to acquaint themselves with high chivalric culture, adventures of valiant knights, and their love affairs. After their publications in the 1560s, it was not until a half of century later that readers had a chance to enjoy a piece of literary work with a similar theme, that is The Goffredo… The success of the latter book was partly due to the precedence of particular literary pieces.

The article is divided into two parts. The first one describes a career that ottava rima had in seventeenth-century heroic narrative poems. What the author references are the most valid opinions by scholars of the Polish verse pertaining to ottava rima, in addition to the opinions by the poets who struggled to write in this challenging stanza form. Part two of the article analyses selected stanzas (ottavas) from the narrative poem Pamiętne uprowadzenie wojska z cieśni bukowińskiej… (1745) by Stanisław Wincenty Jabłonowski. Aside from versological questions, also the most important problems are indicated that relate to editing and punctuation of the Jabłonowski’s ottava rima.

"Don't Count on a Miracle". Monika Lubińska in Conversation with Kamila Janiak

Poems (a Selection)

The aim of this article is to discuss poetic works by Kamila Janiak using categories of showiness (a formal surplus) and efficiency (understood as critical or per-formative potential). The author of the article comments upon the early reception of Janiak’s poems to point that first reviewers oftentimes intuitively indicated the totality of Janiak’s poetic gestures, and then he traces the poetess’s strategy back to Camp aesthetics.

The article is focused on the theme of anger in Kamila Janiak’s poetry – its forms, types, and understanding that transpire as she develops her poetry. A paradigm of reception assumed herein as a departure point is the category of a “piss-off” (Polish vulgar noun wkurw, a strong sensation of anger), which is synonymous with intense and politically motivated indignation. The author of the article, however, attempts to show that Janiak’s poetry has been for a long time defined by other affective registers; emotions and moods in a way supressed – restricted, unfulfilled, most of all: incapable of climaxing and of “exploding.” The said state of affairs should be connected with the structure of individual and collective subjectivity appearing in Janiak’s poetry, namely, a subject that is shattered and (also politically) dispersed, lacking any devices to develop a coherent narrative, with hardly any access to political forms of anger which frequently cannot exist without consistent narrative. Instead of being expressed by one’s indignation, the said subject resorts to “little fits of pique” (a diminutive złostki is used here by Janiak), a series of minor, yet rapidly accumulating irritations, which do not find their outlet. This state of being affectively shattered may be seen in existential categories, but also political and generational ones.

The letters from Teodor Parnicki, first sent during his years as an émigré in Mexico, and then from Poland, are a vocal testimony to the many years of friendship between the said novelist and Tadeusz Banaś and his family. Aside from recollections of Lviv (then Polish Lwów), where the two initiated their relationship while being in-volved in Sygnały magazine during interwar years, another valuable element of the correspondence in question is Parnicki’s translation of Valery Bryusov’s poem Cienie [Shadows], as well as (quoted by Parnicki entirely from his memory) a poem by Tadeusz Hollender Pochwała Parnickiego i filozofii jego (A Praise of Parnicki and His Philosophy). The collection is concluded by two letters written by Eleonora Parnicka, sent to the family Banaś after her husband’s death in 1988.

The aim of this critical essay is to analyse social and economic contexts of women’s work at the verge of 19th and 20th centuries. In the essay’s foreground are: 1) the discussion of Polish emancipatory discourses, the relation of liberal feminists to working class women; as well as 2) the characteristics of the reproductive work performed by women in the era of industrial revolution along with the impact the industrialization had on transformations of the ways genders were perceived. The article also touches upon the emancipatory role played by the factory – an attempt was made to answer the question: To what extent the commercialization of women’s work due to industrial revolutions allowed women to escape the shackles of patriarchy, and to what extent it contributed to their further entanglement in the network of dependency.

The article discussesa book by Patrycja Włodek entitled Kres niewinności. Obraz i upamiętnienie ery Eisenhowera w amerykańskich filmach i serialach – pomiędzy reprezentacją, nostalgią a krytycznym retro [The End of Innocence: The image and remembrance of the Eisenhower era in American feature films and television series – between representation, nostalgia, and critical retro style]. The author of the article positions her publication amongst other film studies research devoted to “nostalgic cinema” and enters into dialogue with concepts put forward by Włodek. The polemical pendants and glosses centre on searching for currents, titles, and readings both supporting Włodek’s considerations and transcending her interpretive framework relating to retro nostalgic (cinema of the 1980s) and retro classic (the most recent films and television series).

The article is a discussion of Patrycja Dołowy’s book which contains conver-sations with Holocaust children, the survivors of Shoah. Its main theme are relations of Jewish children with their both “biological” and “foster” mothers. The topic is a complex one, for it relates to persons confronting the Holocaust trauma, their unstable, fractured identity, and more often than not, the lack of knowledge about one’s family fates and roots. The mother in those stories eludes a unifying, common, and typical definition. The cases described in the stories of Holocaust children undermine the simplifying socio-cultural constructs relating to mothers, liquefy the binary distinctions into “biol-ogical” and “foster”, Jewish and Polish; and transform the framework of speaking about motherhood and childhood.

The article is an interpretative reading of a poem by Julian Przyboś entitled Z Tatr [From the Tatra Mountains]. What constitutes a starting point here are factual documents reporting the fatal accident which involved the sisters Marzena and Lida Skotnica dying on October 6, 1929 during their attempt to climb the south face of ZamarłaTurnia (in Polish part of the Tatra Mountains). The former of the two sisters was beloved by Przyboś, which to a significant extent explains why the poem in question may be interpreted as a dramatic “lyrical situation”.

The article presents Stadło małżeńskie by Jan Płoczywłos Mrowiński (1514–1580) as one of the inspirational sources of Kazanie przy przyjmowaniu świątości małżeństwa by Józef Wereszczyński (b. after 1531, d. 1598). In the latter work, the quotations taken from the first work on marriage in the Polish language are intertwined with excepts from Żywot człowieka poczciwego [Life of an Honest Man] by Mikołaj Rej (1505–1569). As an author of the sermon in question prepared for the occasion of Stanisław Piotrowski’s betrothal, Wereszczyński rarely utilised the excerpts from Mrowiński’s treatise mechanically. He rather tends to abbreviate the fragments of Stadło małżeńskie, translocate them, develop on their pattern, and device substitution (e.g. by replacing biblical quotes with proverbs). It has to be emphasized that the Catholic preacher shared Mrowiński’s conviction regarding the voluntariness of entering into marriage, which ought to be based on mutual love.

The article discusses philosophical poems by Stanisław Czerniak published in recent years, where a perceivably intensified motif has been the criticism of contem-porary culture more and more dependent on the Internet-based virtual worlds. The accuracy of the said criticism is pointed out, for it reveals the superficial and illusionary character of individual identity built upon those worlds. A lot of space is devoted in the article to the analysis of sophisticated “word plays”, characteristic for Czerniak’s works, imbuing it with a character that remains exceptional, distinctively individual in contemporary Polish poetry.

A Report from the Academic Conference Evaluating Literature – Criticism, Theory, and History (Doctoral Candidates Research Circle at the Faculty of Philology and the Ireneusz Opacki Institute of the Study of Polish Literature, Faculty of Philology, University of Silesia, Katowice, 8th–9th April 2019)