ABSTRACT
The Routledge World Companion to Polish Literature offers an introduction to Polish literature through thirty-three case studies, covering works from the Middle Ages up to the present day. Each chapter draws on a text or body of work, examining its historical context, as well as its international reception and position within world literature.
The book presents a dual perspective on Polish literature, combining original readings of key texts with discussions of their two-way connections with other literatures across the globe. With a detailed introduction offering a narrative overview, the book is divided into six sections offering a chronological pathway through the material. Contributors from around the world examine the various cultural exchanges at play, with each chapter including:
- Definitions of key terms and brief overviews of historical and political events, literary eras, trends, movements, groups, and institutions for those new to the area
- Analysis and notes on translations, including their hidden dimensions and potential
- Textual focus on poetics, such as strategies of composition, style, and genre
- A range of historical, sociological, political, and economic contexts
From medieval song through to the contemporary novel, this book offers an interpretive history of Polish literature, while also positioning its significance within world literature. The detailed introductions make it accessible to beginners in the area, while the original analysis and focused case studies will also be of interest to researchers.
Introduction: Polish Literature and Its Worlds PART 1: OLD POLISH LITERATURE: MIDDLE AGES, RENAISSANCE, BAROQUE 1. In Search of Origins: Bogurodzica 2. World Order in a Harmonious Hymn: Jan Kochanowski’s "What Dost Thou of Us Require, Lord, for Thy Plenteous Graces?" 3. A Child’s Death, the Poet’s Immortality: Jan Kochanowski’s Laments 4. The Poetry of “Passage”: Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński’s Sonnets PART 2: SOURCES OF MODERNITY: THE ENLIGHTENMENT LEGACY 5. The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom: Reading Ignacy Krasicki with Kant 6. The “Fairytale” Magic of Speech: Franciszek Karpiński’s Lukierda’s Plaint 7. Is Jan Potocki’s The Manuscript Found in Saragossa a Polish Work? 8. The Letters of Jewish Lovers in Dutch: Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz’s Levi and Sarah PART 3: THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: ROMANTICISM AND POSITIVISM 9. The Culture of Memory: Adam Mickiewicz’s Pan Tadeusz 10. Adam Mickiewicz: Two Poems and their Brazilian Readings 11. "Being’s Fated Shade": Cyprian Kamil Norwid’s "Irony" 12. Bolesław Prus’s The Doll: Polish Historical Vistas from a Japanese Perspective 13. Toward Mass Culture: The Global Renown of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Quo Vadis PART 4: POLISH MODERNISM: FROM YOUNG POLAND TO THE INTERWAR PERIOD 14. Stanisław Brzozowski’s Flames 15. “Rebellion Against Boundaries”: Bolesław Leśmian’s The Meadow 16. The Polish Avant-Garde in Japan: Bruno Jasieński’s I Burn Paris 17. “A Man on the Brink of Disaster”: Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz’s Insatiability 18. History and Myth: Bruno Schulz’s Spring 19. Psychological Realism and Modernist Poetics: Zofia Nałkowska’s Boundary PART 5: POSTWAR LITERATURE: TRAUMA, EXILE, IDENTITY 20. Witness and Form: Tadeusz Borowski’s This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen 21. Gustaw Herling-Grudziński’s A World Apart 22. Making Sense of Trans-Atlantyk: The Reception of Witold Gombrowicz’s Exile Novel in Norway 23. Archaism as a Tool of Change: Reflections on a Poem by Czesław Miłosz 24. Stanisław Jerzy Lec’s Unkempt Thoughts 25. Stanisław Lem’s Solaris: Interpretations in the Russian-Speaking World 26. Translating Memory: The Reception of Miron Białoszewski’s A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising in North America PART 6: BEYOND IDEOLOGY: LITERATURE OF THE LAST FOUR DECADES 27. The Drama of Otherness: Tadeusz Różewicz’s White Marriage 28. Wisława Szymborska: “Writing a résumé” 29. Zbigniew Herbert and Antiquity: Poetry, Oppression, and "the Classic" 30. The Untranslatable Trope: Mariusz Wilk’s "Russian" Cycle 31. A Thicket of Hieroglyphs and Ideograms: Ryszard Kapuściński’s Travels with Herodotus 32. "Try to Praise the Mutilated World": Adam Zagajewski and the Poetry of 9/11 33. Micro-suspense and the Desire to Keep Reading: Translating Olga Tokarczuk’s The Books of Jacob AFTERWORD: A World History of Polish Literature
