Leśmian Internationally: Contextual Relations: A Comparative Study

ISBN-13: 9783631820162 / Angielski / Twarda / 2020 / 348 str.

Klara Naszkowska; Zaneta Nalewajk-Turecka

Opis

This study shows the literary legacy of Boleslaw Lesmian, the great Polish writer, as an example of inter-literary and inter-cultural transfer of aesthetics, styles, genres, motifs. The volume explores American, French, Russian, Ukraininan contexts (Poe's, Goglol's, Pushkin's, Baudelaire's, Balmont's, Gorodetsky's, Jesienin's writing) of his work.

Spis treści

Contents

I INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 10

II CONTEXT AND METHOD .............................................................. 25

PROBLEMS OF CONTEXTS AND RESEARCH METHODS IN

COMPARATIVE STUDIES ......................................................................... 27

The subject of comparative studies ........................................................... 27

Typology of contexts ................................................................................... 29

Contextual analysis as a method of historical comparative studies ..... 34

Contextual comparative analysis of literary texts against the issue

of historicity ................................................................................................. 39

Aims of contextual comparative analysis ................................................. 41

III CONTEXT RELATIONS: LESMIAN COUNTERPOSED

WITH LITERARY PREDECESSORS AND CULTURAL

TRADITIONS .......................................................................................... 45

I CROSS-LITERARY FILIATIONS ............................................................. 46

Literary Mediations (Poe - Baudelaire - Balmont - Lesmian) ............. 48

Poe via the symbolists: searching for sources of Lesmian's

inspirations ........................................................................................... 48

Baudelaire's Poe .................................................................................... 51

Balmont's Poe ....................................................................................... 57

Translative replicas (Poe - Baudelaire - Lesmian) ................................. 64

Poe's tales in Boleslaw Lesmian's translations: sources,

inspirations, replicas ............................................................................ 64

Poe versus Lesmian: outlining the problem ................................ 64

Lesmian and translators: the Genesis of Fascination

with Poe ........................................................................................... 65

Poe translated by Lesmian from Baudelaire ............................... 73

Aesthetic transformations (the aesthetics of death: Poe

- Baudelaire - Balmont - Lesmian) ......................................................... 86

Ways of representing death ................................................................ 86

Aestheticizing death ............................................................................ 86

De-specification and/or alegorization of death ............................... 98

Macabre aesthetics ............................................................................. 106

Macabresque aesthetics ..................................................................... 115

Stylistic and structural influences (symbolist style - the bylina

tradition - the early prose work of Lesmian) ........................................ 130

The Symbolist Style of Boleslaw Lesmian's Early Work

(illustrated by the case of "Basn o Rycerzu Panskim"

["Tale of the Lord's Knight"]) ........................................................... 130

The lexical layer ............................................................................ 131

The structural layer ...................................................................... 134

Creative Inspirations or Influences? .......................................... 144

II THE INTERCULTURAL HOMOLOGIES .......................................... 146

The structural reminiscences (demonic female

characters: Pushkin - Gogol - Lesmian) ............................................... 148

Not just folklore: on neglected intercultural homologies ............. 148

The function of female demons in Romantic literature, and

their transformations in Lesmian's works ...................................... 152

The anticipation of death: the horror of self-knowledge ........ 152

The victims and/or avengers: the hell of memory .................... 154

Initiation into the experience of time: the hell of nature ............. 157

The grotesque figure of the witch: from Pushkin to Gogol

and Lesmian .................................................................................. 157

The Gogol context in Lesmian's "The Witch" ........................... 160

Grotesque embarrassment .......................................................... 163

Grotesque reconstruction of the stereotype of femininity ........... 165

Grotesque disillusion and social roles ............................................ 170

Metaphorical and parodistic-apocryphal transformations (forms

of kaliki perekhozhie: Yesenin - Gorodetsky - Lesmian) ..................... 175

Common cultural traditions? .......................................................... 175

The three poets' kaliki as protagonist or collective subject .......... 178

Kaliki of Gorodetsky and Lesmian as parodist and individual

characters ............................................................................................ 184

The protagonist on the road ............................................................. 199

Pilgrimaging kaliki-kaleki? .............................................................. 206

Homologies or filiations? .................................................................. 208

Genre and structural modifications, thematic references, lexical

repetitions (Lesmian's poetry and Ukrainian culture and folklore) ... 211

Ukrainian culture and folklore in Lesmian's poetry? .................... 211

Generic and structural modifications ............................................. 213

Thematic references ........................................................................... 222

Lexical repetitions ............................................................................. 226

How many traditions and cultures? ................................................ 229

IV LITERARY FOLLOWERS OF LESMIAN'S POETIC ............. 235

FROM ALLUSION TO LITERARY STYLIZATION: LESMIAN'S

INTERTEXT IN CONTEMPORARY POLISH POETRY ..................... 237

Lesmian: Poet with No Followers? .......................................................... 237

Parodist and pastiche stylizations ........................................................... 241

Continuations of Lesmian's aesthetics of death ..................................... 247

Continuations of Lesmian's erotics ......................................................... 252

IMITATORS? FOLLOWERS? SUCCESSORS? ....................................... 255

V CONCLUSION ......................................................................................... 257

BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE ........................................................................... 277

BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................ 281

INDEX ................................................................................................................. 331

O autorze

aneta Nalewajk is a literature historian, comparativist and editor. She works at the Faculty of Polish Philology at the University of Warsaw, Poland. Her texts have been translated into English, Ukrainian, Russian, Bulgarian, Czech, Slovenian, Hungarian and Serbian. She has received several academic and editorial awards, both in Poland and abroad.