The Language of Polish Modernism

Ryszard Nycz, Tulsi Bhambry

• Publisher: Peter Lang Group
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9783631653425
• eBook ISBN: 9783653045314
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This book debunks the myth of Polish Modernist literature as rooted in rash, immediate expression. The author compares programmatic statements on language by turn-of-the-century writers such as Wac?aw Berent, Boles?aw Le?mian, Stanis?aw Brzozowski or Karol Irzykowski with notions deduced from their literary works. He demonstrates that these writers' linguistic self-consciousness informs their implicitly self-reflexive texts and sheds light on their values and characteristic qualities. The author treats Modernist literature itself as a sort of «language» – a distinct entity that emerged through systematic differentiation within the general literary discourse. The book enhances the understanding of the transformations behind this important philosophical and artistic movement.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Chapter 1: A Few Remarks on the Literary Modernist Formation
• Chapter 2: The Language of Modernism: Experiencing Alienation and Its Effects
• Chapter 3: Tropes of the ‘I’: Concepts of Subjectivity in Twentieth-Century Polish Literature
• Chapter 4: Creating (In)tangible Worlds: Stanisław Brzozowski on the Tasks of Criticism and Art
• Chapter 5: Inventing the Order: Karol Irzykowski’s Concepts of Criticism and Literature
• Chapter 6: Literaturology: Looking Back at the History of Modern Literary Theory in Poland
• Selected Bibliography
• Index of Names