O czym milczy syrena Kraszewskiego?

The article is dedicated to a novel by Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, originally published under the title Syrena [The Mermaid] in the Warsaw paper Gazeta Codzienna [The Everyday Daily] in 1859, then as a book under the title Piękna pani [The Beautiful Lady] in Lviv in 1871. The novel was appraised negatively by literary critics, mainly due to the role played in it by a strong demonic female figure threatening the male world, which for the reviewers was difficult to accept. Taking into account the contexts of Kraszewski’s other novels (e.g. the novel Orbeka, 1867) which presented the image of the femme fatale and feminocentric mythological themes, the article proposes a reading of this work as an open, ambiguous, controversial text, and thus one creatively recorded in the history of the 19th-century literature and criticism. The mermaid’s silence mentioned in the title becomes a metaphor for what is not said directly in the novel and what is connected to the experience of femininity – an experience that is disturbing, difficult, painful – the metaphor also translating into the Polish collective experience. Artykuł dotyczy powieści Józefa Ignacego Kraszewskiego, opublikowanej pierwotnie pod tytułem Syrena w warszawskiej „Gazecie Codziennej” z 1859 roku, a następnie w wersji książkowej pod tytułem Piękna pani we Lwowie w 1871 roku. Powieść została negatywnie oceniona przez krytykę literacką, co miało związek przede wszystkim z trudną do zaakceptowania przez recenzentów rolą, jaką odgrywała w powieści silna, demoniczna postać kobieca zagrażająca światu męskiemu. Biorąc pod uwagę konteksty innych powieści Kraszewskiego (np. powieść Orbeka, 1867), prezentujących wizerunek femme fatale oraz feminocentryczne wątki mitologiczne, w artykule przedstawiono propozycję lektury tego utworu jako dzieła otwartego, wieloznacznego, wywołującego kontrowersje, a tym samym twórczo zapisanego w historii literatury i krytyki XIX wieku. Tytułowe milczenie syreny staje się metaforą tego, co w powieści nie zostało wypowiedziane wprost, a co wiąże się z doświadczeniem kobiecości – niepokojącym, trudnym, bolesnym, przekładającą się również na polskie doświadczenie zbiorowe

Allegory and passions. Page in the history of literary criticism in the 19th century

The starting point for the present essay is the controversy that arose in the 1840s between Edward Dembowski and Józef Ignacy Kraszewski. It pertained to the poetics of George Sand’s Les sept cordes de la Lyre, published in 1839 in the Parisian Revue des Deux Mondes magazine. The argument between the two Polish critics can be summarised in one question, frequently formulated straightforwardly in the contemporary critical writing of the epoch: what is the point of using allegory in the 19th century? What is more, in his article, Dembowski juxtaposed allegory and “fantasy”, essentially associated with the matter of subjectivity of a literary text, which topic was undertaken by Kraszewski. This essay aims to re-construct the Polish and French contexts, allowing us to understand both ends of the spectrum we use to evaluate the allegories in a literary work. The question about the point of using allegory by 19th-century writers is asked anew to extract from the modern historical-literary perspective themes important for understanding the 19th-century literary worldview, in which the tension between the conventionality and emotionality of the literary communication act is revealed

Kraszewski’s Armchair

The title “Kraszewski’s Armchair” refers to the name of the rock located in the ravine of the river Teteriv commemorating the writer’s stay in Zhytomyr, where Józef Ignacy Kraszewski would spend long hours seeking inspiration for literary and artistic work as well as rest. This thread serves as a starting point to reflect on the meanings offered by the theme of the river in abundant works of the writer: from the first poetic (Dumanie nad Horyniem, Szatan i kobieta) and prosaic attempts (Życie sieroty and other), through novels from the periods of Vilnius and Zhytomyr and theoretical works (on the landscape), and travel writings, to the notes created at the end of life. The core of reviewing some of the problems related to the forms of the writer’s literary imagination as well as world perception and feeling is the theme of metamorphoses and passing directly combined with the element of the river