The aim of the study is to examine the work of classical poets of Polish modernism in the light of male studies developed by Calvin Thomas in his work Male Matters. The article brings forward the profile and work of Thomas showing that his ‘anxiety of production’ concept differs from other male studies in its distinctive usefulness in the field of literary studies. In his theory Thomas deals with the ambivalent relation between a male identity and the very act of writing which inevitably brings shameful externalisation (and even feminisation) in signs and makes the creator conditioned by his own product including its repulsive materiality. In my study I follow different ways in which modern Polish poets manage the immanent corporeality of creation, imagined as uncontrollable ejaculation, humiliating exertion or the painful process of giving birth to a poem.

Homosexuality is not the head subject of Tadeusz Różewicz’s works, but it is worth to pay attention to the unusual model of masculinity, which he presents especially in the case of gays. The author analyses two Różewicz’s poems: Zakatrupiony and Tate Gallery Shop. In these texts high culture art is situated next to the common dirt and ‘shit of the world.’ This contrast is used to present the main characters’ corporeality as problematic and depict their sexuality as stigmatic. Unexpected references to camp aesthetics are adjacent to the turpist ugliness and physiology of death. Różewicz’s interest in the social margin, due to the ‘pop’ tricks like fragment and assembly techniques typical for the fine and visual arts, alludes to the painting and film contexts of poems, as well as to the biographies of the heroes of these texts: Piero Paolo Pasolini and Francis Bacon. It effectively directs the readers’ attention to the problems of contemporary world which are important for the poet.

The article interprets the changes in works and personality of Czesław Miłosz, in accordance with Harold Blooms model of agon between the poetic ephebe and his precursor. I pick up a discussion with the ealier Bloomian takes on Miłosz, which suggest that his most important teacher was Adam Mickiewicz. A careful analysis of Miłosz’s memoirs and ideological
declarations proves that the original influence, decisive on Miłosz’s whole future evolution, came from a catechist, Rev. Leopold Chomski, white other master figures in poet’s works were just remoulding the original teacher’s image.

This essay considers the subjects of rebellion and anarchy in the work of Witold Gombrowicz from his debut to his last pieces. Both issues are related to two of the central oppositions in his work, maturity versus immaturity and superiority versus inferiority. In his considerations, Jerzy Olejniczak does not attempt to settle any issues or to advance arbitrary claims. Rather, he assumes the authorial position characteristic of the genre of the literary essay, asking questions and suggesting routes of exploration. This position allows him to essay to read passages from Gombrowicz through the prism of the present day and to submit that Gombrowicz’s “lessons” have not been thoroughly learned in Poland, owing largely but not exclusively to political and ideological machinations.

This article attempts to address the three consequences of circumcising Leptines – a protagonist of Teodor Parnicki’s two novels – with regard to physicality (or eroticism), social issues (antisemitism), and identity. At the same time, it is argued that Leptines is not only one of the first hybrid protagonist in Parnicki’s fiction; in fact, the persistence in creating corresponding heroes and the similarities they share might suggest that Leptines functions also as the author’s signature.

This article focuses on Tadeusz Breza’s (1905–1970) two texts published in 1960: Spiżowa brama, a literary reportage, and Urząd, a novel. The latter work is analysed in the context of the former in order to demonstrate that both texts might be treated as a partly concealed story of the undisclosed homosexual desire infiltrating the Catholic Church. Moreover, the writer’s attitude to communism is yet another issue encoded in Urząd.

The author refers to the image deeply rooted in the European literature (Platon, Thomas Hobbes, Giorgio Agamben) of a social group pictured as an organism, with the head representing its leadership centre, and applies an anthropological
analysis to the group of the “Silesian native population” (Marian Gerlich). A metaphor of a decapitated body seems to be a proper way to describe this group’s well consolidated pursuit of distinctiveness or even its separatist tendencies. The concept emerges from a number of tragic historical experiences, such as the death of Henry II the Pious in the Battle of Legnica (1241), the execution of Andrzej Kochcicki, the leader of the Silesian protestant nobility (1634) or a mysterious death of the leader of the 3rd Silesian Uprising, Wojciech Korfanty (1939). The research revolves around the analysis of Wojsko św. Jadwigi (St. Hedwig’s Army), a “Young Poland” drama of 1920 by Jan Nikodem Jaroń, whose main characters are Prince Henry’s closest relatives and their subsequent incarnations (the most important being the final ones – those of a Silesian insurgent family members). The concept of Upper Silesia as a Decapitated Body, which, although deprived of a leader, wants to live its separate life, or picturing this group as a monstrum (a dragon in Szczepan Twardoch’s novel Drach) can be treated as a reflection of the region’s autonomous tendencies. Such a vision of Silesia, autonomous or at least clearly distinctive from the rest of Poland – by cultural memory (Jan Assmann) if nothing else – emerges also from the results of the research conducted by modern sociologists (Marian Gerlich, Maria Szmeja).

What happens to a person who has lost those dearest to them? How does a man act when, full of joy and hopes for the future, he is deprived of the company of his beloved wife and his only daughter when he least expects it? A study of such a case is found in Tadeusz Dołega-Mostowicz’s 1936 novel Znachor [The Quack]. In her article, Sabina Kwak argues this novel is primarily an exploration of loss and mourning – of running away from oneself, the degradation of the “I,” and the attempt to bury one’s past. Kwak’s analysis of the novel’s plot focuses on the depiction of the progressive work of mourning and of the story-advancing events in Rafał Wilczur’s life, from the loss of his family and his amnesia (the annihilation of the personality) to the restoration of his memory and, through that restoration, the gift of the ability to forgive. This approach allows the author to shed new light on this most cinematic of Mostowicz’s novels, with the psychoanalytic reading uncovering a deeper layer of meaning.

The prostate cancer is one of the most widespread types of cancers among men. The disease attacks not only the male’s body, but it deeply concerns men’s social and cultural identity. As such, this type of cancer has been tabooed and its influence on men’s identity was silenced, even if Susan’s Sontag influential essay Disease as Metaphore aimed at redefining and demythologizing cancer. Literary and cultural representations of prostate cancer, identity and
awareness‑rising actions among men have created in recent years a kind of “prostatic discourse.” This moment has a particular significance for a literary scholar: the newly established discourse could be analyzed intersectionally with the use of different methodologies: critical studies on men and masculinities, age studies, and maladic studies.
On the basis of these fields of research I’m going to analyze Philip Roth novel Exit Ghost, L’ablation by Tahar Ben Jelloun, Philippe Petit’s Philosophie de la prostate.
In conclusion I argue that the “prostate discourse” establishes the prostate as an important part of men’s bodies. It leads to a further conclusion that this recognition could result in important shifts in our understanding of cultural and social conventions of masculinity.

This article aims to describe one of the fanfiction genres – hurt/comfort, which most often occurs within slash, i.e. the type of texts that focus on romantic/erotic relationships between two male characters. In hurt/comfort stories, one of the heroes is subjected to mental or physical suffering, while the other takes care of the wounded or the sick one. Pain and life‑threatening situations allow the heroes to get closer to each other, make them realize a strong attachment, and build intimacy between them. Such texts can be read as criticism of traditional concepts of masculinity related to patriarchal culture.

The dispute between the supporters of hunting and its opponents in the fall 2019 and winter of 2020 concerned the management of public goods. Its development took the shape of a kind of war maneuvers which, along with the tightening of the screw, as subsequent bans followed, could turn into a replica of a civil war. This, however, was hindered by the pandemic. Thus, the anti‑hunting movement, which was gaining more and more popularity among regular citizens for whom strolls in the forest become the first exposure to public activism, practically ceased to exist. Was the movement a foreign implant, as its adversaries implied? This essay assumes that the anti‑hunting movement was both an altruistic and educational project, based on solidarity and empathy, as well as the willingness to sacrifice one’s comfort for the benefit of others, in this case – forest animals which are shot at metonymically, instead of the citizens practicing public disobedience against whom it is still inappropriate to lead an open war.