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Światowa historia literatury polskiej: Interpretacje [World history of Polish literature: Interpretations]

2023; Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America; Volume: 68; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5406/23300841.68.4.10

2330-0841

Andrzej Karcz,

Central European Literary Studies

This coedited volume of scholarly articles on Polish literature is the result of the intellectual effort of a large group of (mostly non-Polish-born) literary historians, critics, and translators representing academic institutions from seventeen countries on four continents. They undertook the enormous task to write a new history of Polish literature in the aftermath of—as the editors explain in the introduction—the recent changes in understanding the past and the ways of presenting it. The changes include the issues of identity and complexity of cultures that cannot be confined within their own boundaries. The editors also comment on the idea of confronting the presentation of historical events from a national perspective with an exposition that is comparative and worldwide. In the volume, Polish literature is perceived as a phenomenon transcending the boundary of one language and, due to the translation process, operating in multilingual settings and interacting with foreign cultures. The local perspective, that is, viewing literature as a national and local phenomenon, is enhanced by alternative approaches and interpretations, those which have a wider international dimension. Therefore, the articles in the volume examine both Polish literature and broader issues of literary study or related fields, including translation studies, literary translation, cultural transfer, reception theory, and comparative literature.Światowa historia literatury polskiej comprises thirty-two articles or chapters (some translated into Polish from other languages), each by a different contributor, and a brief afterword. Every chapter—except the opening one devoted to the medieval anonymous poem "Bogurodzica" [Mother of God, ca. thirteenth century]—focuses on one Polish writer and one of his or her literary works. Preceded by short biographical notes, the chapters contain, outside the main text, nearly two hundred dictionary-like entries placed in tables and boxes. They provide useful additional information and set the content of each chapter in a larger cultural context. When, for example, Gustaw Herling-Grudziński's Gulag testimony Inny świat [A world apart, 1951] and its delayed French reception are discussed in one of the chapters, the boxed entries provide information on "the trial of the century" (the 1949 case of Viktor Kravchenko), the Congress for Cultural Freedom, or the Paris-based Polish monthly Kultura. Similarly, the chapter on Treny [Laments, 1580] by Jan Kochanowski contains entries on other great European poets of the Renaissance—Francesco Petrarca and Pierre de Ronsard. There are also entries on the verse form called epicedium (funeral ode), the Danse Macabre allegory, and the funeral portrait. The other chapters have such diverse entries as the Baroque rhetoric, the epistolary novel, historical Lithuania, the 1830 November Uprising, film adaptations of the novel Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz, Bruno Schulz's prose in English translation, the Solidarity movement, the theater of the absurd, and the reception of Polish literature in China.The volume's entire content is arranged chronologically, showing a broad span of Polish literature and its periods from the Middle Ages through the present. After the initial chapters on "Bogurodzica" and Kochanowski, subsequent parts introduce a selection of other writers from past epochs: Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński (Renaissance/Baroque); Ignacy Krasicki, Franciszek Karpiński, Jan Potocki, and Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz (Enlightenment); Adam Mickiewicz and Cyprian Norwid (Romanticism); Bolesław Prus and Henryk Sienkiewicz (Positivism); and Stanisław Brzozowski (Young Poland/Modernism). Writers representing the twentieth century and most recent years include: Bolesław Leśmian, Bruno Jasieński, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (aka Witkacy), Zofia Nałkowska, Bruno Schulz, Tadeusz Borowski, Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, Witold Gombrowicz, Czesław Miłosz, Stanisław Jerzy Lec, Stanisław Lem, Miron Białoszewski, Tadeusz Różewicz, Wisława Szymborska, Mariusz Wilk, Ryszard Kapuściński, Adam Zagajewski, and Olga Tokarczuk.When a writer—usually a poet or novelist—and one of his or her works are introduced, many relevant facts are presented, along with—in some cases—more extensive data about different versions of the discussed work, its foreign language editions, and its commercial success or lack thereof. Sometimes, a brief overview of critical opinions is also provided. But the most important part of each chapter—and the strongest point of the entire book—is the literary analysis and interpretation presented in it. While no single analytical method dominates the volume, the detailed examination of the form and content of literary works brings to mind the close reading technique, something the editors also point to in their introduction. This proven traditional approach produces very good results, as evidenced by the in-depth analyses of many poetic texts, such as Mickiewicz's Pan Tadeusz (1834), Norwid's "Ironia" [Irony, 1866], and Szymborska's "Pisanie życiorysu" [Writing a résumé, 1986]. But the analyses of some prose works are equally insightful, as can be seen in the readings of Niemcewicz's sentimental novel Lejbe i Siora [Levi and Sarah, 1821], Witkacy's philosophical novel Nienasycenie [Insatiability, 1930], and Nałkowska's psychological novel Granica [Boundary, 1935]. A separate place belongs to the expert analysis of the only drama in the volume—Różewicz's Białe małżeństwo [Mariage blanc, 1974].All the close readings do not exclude the literary work's external factors from consideration. To the contributors, a poem's metrical pattern or a novel's composition appear to be as important as some broad cultural contexts. They are taken into account most extensively when the contributors address the intricate—and enormous—problems of literary reception. In fact, reception is the main concept of the whole volume Światowa historia literatury polskiej. Its title might even read: "a world reception of Polish literature," rather than "a world history of Polish literature." To be sure, most chapters are devoted to the subject of a chosen literary work's reception in a foreign country. Since this concept is inextricably linked with literary translation, the analyses and interpretations begin with and revolve around these two issues. Addressing a literary work's translation into another language and studying its foreign reception help, for example, to reveal some unique artistic qualities that can be hard to detect otherwise. When in one of the chapters Marian Pankowski's translations of Leśmian's poetry into French are discussed, its untranslatability, expressionistic features of its language, or newly coined words become conspicuous thanks to this type of critical analysis. Some other debated issues concern Pankowski's overall contribution to the popularization of Leśmian's poetry outside Poland, especially in Belgium, where Pankowski lived and worked after the war. His 1967 monograph, the French language main source of information about Leśmian, presented the poet—quite originally—as a "rebel" who severed his ties with the national tradition of Polish patriotic poetry and thus became an artist whose work, concentrated on the universal issues of imagination and creativity, has been more accessible to foreign readers.Pankowski's efforts point to the role of a translator (also editor and critic) in the complicated process of literature's intercultural transfer and foreign reception. Many chapters in the volume discuss various aspects of this role. One of them relates to the concept of the literary canon. Through their choices, translators determine which works of a national writing become part of the world literature canon. This complicated process is sometimes discussed at length by the translators themselves, who contributed to the volume. They describe their own attempts to introduce a given Polish writer and his or her works to a foreign culture. Their most valuable comments are about the difficult art of literary translation, the intricacies of Polish and other languages, and the cultural differences that erect major barriers between countries. In the chapter devoted to the most important Polish novel, Lalka [The doll, 1890] by Bolesław Prus, the whole discussion centers on the Japanese translator's strenuous efforts and, especially, on all kinds of complications arising during the reception of this novel in Japan. The question posed is why Lalka, published in a Japanese translation for the first time in 2017, appears to be so difficult for Japanese readers to understand? There is no straight answer. Things that impede the reception include various features of the novel, especially its diverse language, the construction of the protagonists, the depicted world and its historical background, the unfamiliar themes and problems of late nineteenth-century Poland and Europe, and the allusions to Polish romanticism. But the reception of Lalka in Japan is also made difficult by some factors unrelated to the novel. Affecting Japan of today, they are responsible for that country's fading intellectual curiosity about foreign cultures and worrying lack of interest in the outside world. Besides, the huge differences between Polish and Japanese sensibilities and imaginations make the great Polish novel almost unreadable there.Despite all the barriers, it is always rewarding to look at a given national literature or a literary work representing it from the perspective of another culture. Such an approach defines, quite accurately, comparative studies. In the volume, there are numerous examples of this practice, and the most interesting results are achieved when some contributors draw analogies between particular Polish and foreign writers. Such is the case with the discussions of Jan Kochanowski and Francesco Petrarca, Zofia Nałkowska and Virginia Woolf, or Bruno Schulz and Joseph Roth. Similarities and differences are also shown between corresponding Polish and foreign literary programs, intellectual movements, and cultural trends (to mention only realism, futurism, the avant-garde, modernism, and feminism). The remaining and more specific issues examined within the area of comparative studies relate to, for example, the visibility of a given Polish author abroad, his or her chances to influence a foreign culture, and a given literary work's potential for new interpretations in a different cultural and historical environment. One of the last chapters in the volume sketches, among other things, the position of Polish poetry in America. The efforts of Miłosz to promote the Polish school of poetry are recalled and Zagajewski's well-known poem "Spróbuj opiewać okaleczony świat" [Try to praise the mutilated world, 2001] is analyzed in detail. Born of the Polish experience of history, the poem carries a strong existential and moral message, but after the events of 9/11 it took on even more profound meanings and has since been widely interpreted as a commemoration of those tragic events. Thus, the poem's assumed public function and growing popularity have contributed to securing the high position of Polish poetry, both in the United States and the rest of the English-speaking world.Some of the chapters of the volume also explore the works of those Polish writers who may be perceived as belonging to more than one national culture—for example, Jan Potocki, Adam Mickiewicz, or Czesław Miłosz. Their writings (and their lives) test and reshape the conventional idea of direct connection between one language, one nation, and one cultural context. They also raise the wider issue of a literary work's national identity, as well as uphold the validity of the category of world literature. Potocki's French-language novel Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse [The manuscript found in Saragossa, 1804–1814], the subject of discussion in one of the chapters, illustrates this indicated idea perhaps most vividly. As a complex literary work consisting of stories within a story and shaped by many diverse domestic and foreign influences, the novel constitutes a prime example of an intellectual construct that is hard to classify in terms of its belonging to one particular culture.While the volume Światowa historia literatury polskiej aspires to be a textbook of the history of Polish literature, doubts arise as to whether this aim has actually been achieved. On the one hand, it contains information on Polish writers, their works, and related facts, and it presents them like a history book, that is, chronologically and by covering all the literary periods. But, on the other hand, what the volume offers is also fragmentary and incomplete, and its historical material is treated selectively. Above all, it takes into consideration only a very small number of Polish writers (twenty-nine in total) and examines more closely just one literary work by each of them (with Kochanowski and Mickiewicz making a rare exception, as more—but still a fraction—of their poetic texts are taken into account). Besides, it is hard to see this volume as a textbook of the history of Polish literature due to its main focus, that is, the reception of this literature outside Poland, a valuable idea but rather extraneous to a national literary history.Nevertheless, Światowa historia literatury polskiej, with its survey of Polish writers and close readings of particular literary works, is an impressive collection that can be of great use both to the beginners in the field and to the advanced scholars of Polish literature worldwide. The fact that an almost identical English version of this volume has also been prepared—under the title The Routledge World Companion to Polish Literature (2022)—clearly indicates the international dimension of the project. This is true for both its authorship and content as well as for the intended readership.