Le mian Internationally: Contextual Relations

This study shows the literary legacy of Bolesaw Lemian, 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.

Auteur

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.

Texte du rabat

This book shows the literary legacy of Boles aw Le mian, the great Polish writer, as engaged in a dialogue with the tradition, and forged on the crossroads of literatures, and epochs. Exploring American, French and Russian contexts (Poe s writing, Baudelaire s oeuvre, Balmont s texts, the symbolist style, the bylinna tradition), highlighting the correspondences between Le mian and the romantics (Pushkin, Gogol) as well as the modernists (Jesienin, Gorodetsky) and connecting his work to Ukrainian culture through the evocation of old Slavic folklore, the book showcases Le mian s work as an example of interliterary and inter-cultural transfer of aesthetics, styles, genres and motifs. A crucial outcome of this research is the codifying of a contextual analysis as a method of comparative studies.

Contenu
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: LEMIAN COUNTERPOSED WITH LITERARY PREDECESSORS AND CULTURAL TRADITIONS .......................................................................................... 45 I CROSS-LITERARY FILIATIONS ............................................................. 46 Literary Mediations (Poe Baudelaire Balmont Lemian) ............. 48 Poe via the symbolists: searching for sources of Lemian's inspirations ........................................................................................... 48 Baudelaire's Poe .................................................................................... 51 Balmont's Poe ....................................................................................... 57 Translative replicas (Poe Baudelaire Lemian) ................................. 64 Poe's tales in Bolesaw Lemian's translations: sources, inspirations, replicas ............................................................................ 64 Poe versus Lemian: outlining the problem ................................ 64 Lemian and translators: the Genesis of Fascination with Poe ........................................................................................... 65 Poe translated by Lemian from Baudelaire ............................... 73 Aesthetic transformations (the aesthetics of death: Poe Baudelaire Balmont Lemian) ......................................................... 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 Lemian) ........................................ 130 The Symbolist Style of Bolesaw Lemian's Early Work (illustrated by the case of Ba o Rycerzu Paskim [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 Lemian) ............................................... 148 Not just folklore: on neglected intercultural homologies ............. 148 The function of female demons in Romantic literature, and their transformations in Lemian'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 Lemian .................................................................................. 157 The Gogol context in Lemian'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 Lemian) ..................... 175 Common cultural traditions? .......................................................... 175 The three poets' kaliki as protagonist or collective subject .......... 178 Kaliki of Gorodetsky and Lemian 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 (Lemian's poetry and Ukrainian culture and folklore) ... 211 Ukrainian culture and folklore in Lemian's poetry? .................... 211 Generic and structural modifications ............................................. 213 Thematic references ........................................................................... 222 Lexical repetitions ............................................................................. 226 How many traditions and cultures? ................................................ 229 IV LITERARY FOLLOWERS OF LEMIAN'S POETIC ............. 235 FROM ALLUSION TO LITERARY STYLIZATION: LEMIAN'S INTERTEXT IN CONTEMPORARY POLISH POETRY ..................... 237 Lemian: Poet with No Followers? .......................................................... 237 Parodist and pastiche stylizations ........................................................... 241 Continuations of Lemian's aesthetics of death ..................................... 247 Continuations of Lemian's erotics ......................................................... 25…