The Distrustful Versus the Indignant: a Polemic on Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna’s Szeptem

This article discusses the literary dispute over Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna’s poetry collected in the Szeptem volume (1966). The dispute started with an ironic review by a young literary critic, Stanisław Barańczak, in the “Nurt” magazine published in Poznań. The article’s author interprets three aspects of the dispute: its legend-creating impact on Iłłakowiczówna as a literary institution, its destructive nature against Iłłakowiczówna as a canonical poet and the dispute’s status in the literary circles of the 1960s. The article provides evidence that Barańczak’s pamphlet hit the poetics and legend of Iłłakowiczówna; what is more, it triggered off a self-repair mechanism of the canon, reinforcing and sealing it from the pressure exerted by the young poets and critics in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. This mechanism, ephemeral from the point of view of the dynamics of literary circles, ultimately carved in stone the legend of Iłłakowiczówna, preventing new interpretations of her poetry and biography

Archives of women’s literature

The article concerns the relationships between terms, frequent in Polish literary criticism, such as “women’s literature”, “women’s press”, “women’s writing”, “literature written by women” and ”Feminist literature”. The author discusses three research books that have been published recently in which slightly different categories have been applied and which, at the same time, focus on the female element of cultural texts. In addition, the author points at multiple tendencies, frequently dissimilar and distinct, in the approach to the relationship between gender and the text. At the same time the author emphasizes a certain disposition manifested by researchers to employ the gender category to judge literary works. Hence, it seems to be quite justified to reopen the Jy women to show them in a new light. The same applies to the surrounding discussions on relevant titles — just as it is the case with publications by Joanna Krajewska, Jerzy Strzelczyk and Kamilla Łozowska-Marcinkowska

Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna mniej więcej znana

The article is the analysis of the place of Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna in contemporary literary discourse. The author of the article claims – using Pierre Bayard’s theory – that the poetess is known “more or less”: she is remembered as someone who got prizes and recognition but at the same time she is impossible to read nowadays. There is political ambiguity and antiquity in her texts that keep her in the past. Marzec points at four areas of literary studies, where Iłłakowiczówna is still present: 1. Poetics: Iłłakowiczówna uses an original and unusual type of the Polish tonic verse. The author of this article analyses it using tools of psychoanalysis. 2. Religious discourse: Iłłakowicz.wna is interpreted as the author of religious poetry but Marzec argues with such interpretations. 3. Post-dependence studies: Iłłakowiczówna has not been analysed in terms of post-dependence studies yet but she is mentioned in the Polish borderlines discourse. 4. Feminist literary criticism: Iłłakowiczówna used to be studied as the author of androgynous poetry, but Marzec points out other motifs such as miscarriage, infanticide or problems of the new woman, like work at government institution, contestation of vitalism and bureaucracy. The aimof this article is to show that writing of Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna needs to be read in terms of the history of literature which is devoid of evaluation and judging. Such analysis means going back in terms of modern literary studies which have undergone multiple turns that changed the tools accessible to contemporary critics.The article is the analysis of the place of Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna in contemporary literary discourse. The author of the article claims – using Pierre Bayard’s theory – that the poetess is known “more or less”: she is remembered as someone who got prizes and recognition but at the same time she is impossible to read nowadays. There is political ambiguity and antiquity in her texts that keep her in the past. Marzec points at four areas of literary studies, where Iłłakowiczówna is still present: 1. Poetics: Iłłakowiczówna uses an original and unusual type of the Polish tonic verse. The author of this article analyses it using tools of psychoanalysis. 2. Religious discourse: Iłłakowicz.wna is interpreted as the author of religious poetry but Marzec argues with such interpretations. 3. Post-dependence studies: Iłłakowiczówna has not been analysed in terms of post-dependence studies yet but she is mentioned in the Polish borderlines discourse. 4. Feminist literary criticism: Iłłakowiczówna used to be studied as the author of androgynous poetry, but Marzec points out other motifs such as miscarriage, infanticide or problems of the new woman, like work at government institution, contestation of vitalism and bureaucracy. The aimof this article is to show that writing of Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna needs to be read in terms of the history of literature which is devoid of evaluation and judging. Such analysis means going back in terms of modern literary studies which have undergone multiple turns that changed the tools accessible to contemporary critics

Litwa wyobrażona Kazimiery Iłłakowiczówny

Artykuł dowodzi, że poezja Kazimiery Iłłakowiczówny jest silnym filarem polskiego dyskursu postzależnościowego, czego jednym z dowodów jest przyznanie poetce Nagrody Literackiej Miasta Wilna oraz dyskusja wokół jej politycznego utworu „Pora się godzić” z tomu Słowik litewski z 1934 roku. Tekst rekonstruuje i analizuje polemikę litewskiego poety Liudasa Giry z wierszem Iłłakowiczówny i wskazuje na późniejsze użycia poezji Iłłakowiczówny - albo w tekstach czy wspomnieniach nostalgicznych, kiedy staje się argumentem na rzecz bolesnej oraz niesprawiedliwej utraty jedności polsko-litewskiej, albo w pracach krytykujących takie podejście – gdy jest negatywnym punktem odniesienia. Autorka przekonuje, że alegoryczna wyobraźnia kresowa Iłłakowiczówny łączy autobiograficzne i polityczne. W toku bliskiej, uważnej lektury ujawnia się znamienne dla „stałego paradygmatu” kresowej nostalgii zjawisko niemającej końca wymiany figur. Poezja Iłłakowiczówny znajduje się we władaniu „polskiej wyobraźni tanatycznej”, a poetka, przyjmując rolę „słowika litewskiego”, świadomie włączyła się w chór podtrzymujący romantyczne oraz wytwarzający modernistyczne mity o charakterze narodowościowotwórczym: jako sekretarz osobisty Marszałka Piłsudskiego była poetką patriotyczną, symbolicznie zaprzysiężoną ojczyźnie w prestiżowym urzędzie Ministerstwa Spraw Wojskowych i narodowi

Wody Zofii Nałkowskiej

The article treats the aquatic imagination of Zofia Nałkowska in her early and late works. The matter of water is in Nałkowska’s writing strongly connected with an image of women, but, as the author claims, not in the way Gaston Bachelard pointed out in his works. Nałkowska throughout her writing attemped to re-think and re-write the Ophelia complex (or the Ophelia myth), indicating cultural and social aspects of women’s choices. The more adequate theory describing women’s relation with water is the one proposed in Luce Irigaray’s essays.The article treats the aquatic imagination of Zofia Nałkowska in her early and late works. The matter of water is in Nałkowska’s writing strongly connected with an image of women, but, as the author claims, not in the way Gaston Bachelard pointed out in his works. Nałkowska throughout her writing attemped to re-think and re-write the Ophelia complex (or the Ophelia myth), indicating cultural and social aspects of women’s choices. The more adequate theory describing women’s relation with water is the one proposed in Luce Irigaray’s essays

The Polemic Over Zofia Nałkowska’s Granica

The study discusses the critical literary discourse that began to unfold, after the premiere of Zofia Nałkowska’s Granica [Boundary] (1935), among the most important literary journals and critics as well writers of interbellum Poland. The monograph begins with a broad-ranging commentary on the above and its debates through the kaleidoscope of literary life and its workings in that period, bringing to the fore ensuing interpretative questions facing its initial readers. The main theme of discussion at the time was the question of ethics, with the voices of criticism and those of polemics unveiling the galaxy of worldview tensions in the first half of the 20th century. The second part of the study constitutes a selection of the thirteen most important commentaries on Granica and a critical reflection on the part of Zofia Nałkowska together with a critical commentary.Praca powstała w ramach projektu badawczego NPRH nr 11H 16 0131 84

Waters of Zofia Nałkowska

The article treats the aquatic imagination of Zofia Nałkowska in her early and late works. The matter of water is in Nałkowska’s writing strongly connected with an image of women, but, as the author claims, not in the way Gaston Bachelard pointed out in his works. Nałkowska throughout her writing attemped to re-think and re-write the Ophelia complex (or the Ophelia myth), indicating cultural and social aspects of women’s choices. The more adequate theory describing women’s relation with water is the one proposed in Luce Irigaray’s essays

"Nie lubię poezji" - interpretacja liryku "Poezja" Kazimiery Iłłakowiczówny

“I don’t like poetry” – the interpretation of Poezja by Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna This article is an interpretation of poem Poezja by Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna from collection of poems Szeptem [1966]. The authoress claims that poetic credo of Iłłakowiczówna, that yet has been read as a contrary ironic or based on the litotes-mask of hyperbola, could be read with abject theory; this claim is af- rmed by imagery of this poem, as well as by versi cation and rhytmicity. Creating is, according to Iłłakowiczówna, negative and at the same time sensual and disturbing experience, because it undermines boundary between “inner myslef ” and “the outside world”, so it relates to “non-assimilative Otherness” of Menninghaus

PRL: po emancypacji?

Praca omawia stanowiska polskich historycznej, publicystek i pisarek (Dionizji Wawrzykowskiej-Wierciochowej, Heleny Duninówny, Alicji Dorabialskiej i Jadwigi Żylińskiej) - aktywnych w międzywojniu intelektualistek działających na rzecz emancypacji, które po latach, w okresie Polski Ludowej, wspominają czasy przedwojenne i porównują - czasem wprost, czasami pośrednio - współczesną im sytuację (prawną, obyczajową, naukową) kobiet. Z ich wspomnień wyłania się przeszłość, ale także teraźniejszość, wobec której mają ambiwalentne uczucia. Jedne z uwagą, niepokojem, niepewnością, sceptycyzmem, inne z entuzjazmem i radością przyjmują role, jakie realizują w społeczeństwie PRL kobiety