Critics: Page 4

Structures in Sign Networks. On an Attempt to Reconstruct the (Cultural) Poetics of Poetry From the Age of Posivitism

Structures in Sign Networks. On an Attempt to Reconstruct the (Cultural) Poetics of Poetry From the Age of Posivitism

Tomasz Sobieraj

a b s t r a c t

Polish poetry written after 1864, once disregarded and considered to fall far short of the work of its great Romantic predecessors, has at long last received some absorbing exegeses in recent times, among which the most prominent is undoubtedly the monograph of Krakow scholar Tadeusz Budrewicz, which bears the modest and unassuming title Wierszobranie (druga połowa XIX wieku) [Selection of Verse (Late Nineteenth Century)]. (...)

In Praise of Philology – Paweł Mackiewicz’s Sequel. O poezji Marcina Sendeckiego (Sequel. On the Poetry of Marcin Sendecki)

In Praise of Philology – Paweł Mackiewicz’s Sequel. O poezji Marcina Sendeckiego (Sequel. On the Poetry of Marcin Sendecki)

Krzysztof Hoffmann

a b s t r a c t

In Marcin Sendecki’s book Opisy przyrody (Descriptions of Nature), published in 2002, there is a minimalistic poem called “Czynności” (Activities). The two-line poem is dedicated to “Świe” (do we dare decode this as short for Świetlicki?) and runs as follows: “Jaki świetny świat. (...)

Sandy Baldwin’s The Internet Unconscious and Theories of the Unconscious in Electronic Writing

Sandy Baldwin’s The Internet Unconscious and Theories of the Unconscious in Electronic Writing

Tomasz Mizerkiewicz

a b s t r a c t

The title of Sandy Baldwin’s book The Internet Unconscious. On the Subject of Electronic Literature,[1] published last year, suggests that reflections on writers of e-literature and hypertext or algorithmic works are in store for the reader. (...)

There Is No Salvation Outside Poetry? A Few Questions For Zofia Król

There Is No Salvation Outside Poetry? A Few Questions For Zofia Król

Joanna Krajewska

a b s t r a c t

Zofia Król, Powrót do świata. Dzieje uwagi w filozofii i literaturze w XX wieku (Return to the World. A History of Attention in Twentieth Century Philosophy and Literature), Warszawa 2013

The unhappy diagnosis of the human condition experienced in the space of history and various philosophies through numerous losses, disruptions, disenchantments and alienations, whether drawn (as in Zofia Król’s work) from the writings of George Steiner (the broken contract between word and thing) or from that of Michel Foucault (the “divorce” of words and things), can bring about and provoke diverse strategies of dealing with the world without foundations or the possibility of self-expression. (...)

The Gray Ordinariness of the Bourgeoisie

The Gray Ordinariness of the Bourgeoisie

Paweł Tomczok

a b s t r a c t

Franco Moretti, The Bourgeois. Between History and Literature, London-New York 2013.

When we think of the nineteenth-century bourgeoisie, we have two pictures to consider – the furious activity of modern entrepreneurs using every possible means in order to multiply their property, but also the quiet life of the urban middle class, its many ethical rules, its ascetic lifestyle and moral strictness. (...)

Along the Margins. Leonard F. Lisi’s Marginal Modernity

Along the Margins. Leonard F. Lisi’s Marginal Modernity

Marcin Jauksz

a b s t r a c t

Leonard F. Lisi, Marginal Modernity. The Aesthetics of Dependency from Kierkegaard to Joyce,
Fordham University Press, New York 2013

In Duino in 1913, as Rainer Maria Rilke was beginning work on his elegies and finishing The Notebooks of Male Laurids Brigge, he underwent a singular experience. (...)

Geoculture(?)

Cezary Rosiński

a b s t r a c t

Elżbieta Rybicka, Geopoetyka. Przestrzeń i miejsce we współczesnych teoriach i praktykach literackich
(Geopoetics. Space and Place in Contemporary Literary Theory and Practice), Universitas, Kraków 2014

Thanks to the work of Elżbieta Rybicka, use of the term “geopoetics” has been active in Polish literary scholarship for at least several years, chiefly because of the article “Geopoetics (On the City, Space and Place in Contemporary Literary Theory and Practice)” included in the book Kulturowa teoria literatury (Cultural Literary Theory). (...)

Poetics as Praxis of Attentive Reading

Poetics as Praxis of Attentive Reading

Elżbieta Winiecka

Dorota Korwin-Piotrowska, Poetyka. Przewodnik po świecie tekstów (Poetics. A Guide to the World of Texts),
Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Kraków 2011

A discussion on the status and future of poetics as a basic area of literary studies has been going on without interruption now for many years. (...)

A Body of Poetics

A Body of Poetics

Jerzy Madejski

Adam Dziadek, Projekt krytyki somatycznej (Plan for a Somatic Criticism),
Instytut Badań Literackich PAN, Warszawa 2014

The new book by Adam Dziadek displays all of the dilemmas and aspirations of contemporary poetics. The title Plan for a Somatic Criticism (Projekt krytyki somatycznej) has a somewhat familiar ring: in the early 1990s, Maria Janion announced her Plan for a Phantasmatic Criticism (Projekt krytyki fantazmatycznej),¹⁾M. (...)

Good Old Reading

Good Old Reading

Paweł Graf

Terry Eagleton, How to Read Litearature,
New Heaven 2013

Terry Eagleton’s book How to Read Literature could not have come out at a better time. The sense of fatigue from the ethical and cultural studies discourse that has dominated in recent years, that minimalized the value of literature itself and the art of being a good, attentive reader in favor of an emphasis on the pragmatic and social concerns of literary interpretation, called for some sort of reaction. (...)