Papers by Sławomir Studniarz
African American Review
: This article discusses All Our Names , the 2014 novel by Dinaw Mengestu, an Ethiopian-born, Ame... more : This article discusses All Our Names , the 2014 novel by Dinaw Mengestu, an Ethiopian-born, American immigrant writer. The narrative focuses on two figures: a young Ethiopian dreamer caught in the postcolonial military struggle in Uganda who later seeks safe haven in the US, and a single white American woman in her early thirties named Helen, a social worker at Lutheran Relief Services. Such a configuration certainly suggests the relevance of the postcolonial perspective, but in the novel, issues of race and postcolonialism are intertwined with the identity crisis aggravated by the ethnically polarized world of small-town America. Yet the identity that is destabilized is not merely racial but also sexual, through the convoluted and illicit erotic relationships in which the characters are enmeshed. This article analyzes the concealments of sexual identities and the struggles of the characters, who are reluctant to disclose their selves and the true nature of their relations with each other, first in the context of cultural dislocation engendered by involuntary migration to the United States, and then in the postcolonial setting of war-torn Uganda
The Edgar Allan Poe Review, Apr 1, 2023
Edinburgh University Press eBooks, Oct 20, 2021
Springer International Publishing eBooks, 2023
Papers in Literature
The aim of the article is to re-examine the literary legacy of Edgar Allan Poe from the perspecti... more The aim of the article is to re-examine the literary legacy of Edgar Allan Poe from the perspective of the third decade of the 21st century. The starting point is a brief discussion of its complicated reception in the USA and Great Britain as well as its strikingly vivid presence in the contemporary culture. However, the main argument centres on how some of the fiction written by Poe reveals a striking convergence with the present-day environmental concerns engendered by an imminent man-wrought ecological catastrophe, and with the insights offered by zoocriticism. First, I analyse the selected stories by Poe from the perspective of ecocriticism. I wish to argue that at least some portion of his fiction could be included in “American environmentalist discourse”. I undertake to demonstrate that The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion and The Colloquy of Monos and Una carry a clear ecological message, The Domain of Arnheim features the artistic elevation of the natural world, while The ...
The Edgar Allan Poe Review
In this article I present my experience of translating Poe’s stories into Polish from a professio... more In this article I present my experience of translating Poe’s stories into Polish from a professional and personal perspective. I trace the publication history of my translations, from the first edition, which appeared in 2002, to the most recent expanded volume, dating from 2021. I also discuss the Polish reception of Poe’s tales and the inaccuracies and stylistic eccentricities of the older, established translations created in the early decades of the twentieth century by Bolesław Leśmian and Stanisław Wyrzykowski. I explain how, over the years, my appreciation of and insight into Poe’s texts had grown and how I had gained more proficiency as a translator. This had a direct bearing on the revision process I undertook for the latest edition, but the factor of even greater significance was my research on Poe’s poetry. In my study I took the phonosemantic approach, focusing on the relation between sound and meaning. I discovered that repeated sound configurations and networks of sonic...
Estudios Irlandeses, 2020
Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos, 2019
The article focuses on two novels by Paul Auster, The Book of Illusions (2002), Travels in the Sc... more The article focuses on two novels by Paul Auster, The Book of Illusions (2002), Travels in the Scriptorium (2006), in which the Southwest emerges as a mythical territory, providing a rich ground in which the American grand narratives can be explored and revised. It is the contention of the article that the choice of this particular locale affords an excellent opportunity for a critical engagement with the national imaginary, the powerful myths shaping the American imagination. Travels in the Scriptorium reinvents the Southwest as the bloody arena on which the American imperialist mission is reenacted. In the novel, the Alien Territories, representing the American Southwest in the historical expansion of the United States, figure as a site of vicious struggle and ruthless conquest. By contrast, The Book of Illusions, presents the Southwest, specifically New Mexico, as the last mainstay of the American Dream. The creation of the Blue Stone Ranch in the "wilderness" of New Mexico and its transformation encapsulate the history of the American nation in its essential stages. But more importantly, the Southwest is envisioned as a region invested with a restorative, almost sacred quality. The Book of Illusion is the story of trauma. And the recovery from trauma is a process that either originates or takes place in New Mexico. RESUMEN Este artículo se centra en dos novelas de Paul Auster, The Book of Illusions (2002) y Travels in the Scriptorium (2006) en las cuales el
Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment, 2018
The subject of the article is the 2006 novel Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster, whi... more The subject of the article is the 2006 novel Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster, which contains an embedded, alternative history of the USA. The article aims to demonstrate that Auster’s novel offers a revision of two essential myths of the American nation. The precise moment in the history of the USA that Auster’s novel reinvents is the time before the Mexican War and before taking over the Southwest and California. The Mexican War and its political consequences marked the transition of the USA from a republic upholding its libertarian and progressive ideals to an invading imperial power. The shift in the American policy toward its neighboring nations and peoples is reflected in Auster’s novel in the presentation of the westward expansion as a brutal invasion. Auster’s novel heavily revises the two formative myths of the American state, the myth of the West and the “errand in the wilderness,” with Manifest Destiny as its later incarnation justifying the imperialist mis...
The aim of the present paper is to contribute some remarks to the discussion of the generic statu... more The aim of the present paper is to contribute some remarks to the discussion of the generic status of Walt Whitman's momentous poem. The complexity of the poem itself and the vast array of conflicting critical opinions combine with the nebulous concept of the evolution of literary genres to make any attempt to resolve the issue a formidable task indeed. In order to give justice to the position that Song of Myself occupies in the literary history, we should examine not only its connections with the tradition of the great epic poetry, but also give some attention to the future developments in American poetry for which Whitman's poem seems to have provided the point of origin. The affinities between Song of Myself and the classical epics have been observed and studied by such influential American literary scholars as James Miller1 and Roy Harvey Pearce2, whose claims have provided a lasting framework3 within which Whitman's poetry, and Leaves of Grass in particular, is cons...
SOPOT Ministerstwo Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego between, pomiędzy is a series of publications... more SOPOT Ministerstwo Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego between, pomiędzy is a series of publications produced under the aegis of the Textual Studies Research Group of the University of Gdansk and the BACK 2 International Literary Conference/Festival. The series contains both themed collections of essays and monographs. Books may be in Polish or in English. Its aim is to make accessible scholarship that addresses important issues in modern and contemporary English-language literature, and also scholarship that deals with substantial theoretical issues that are of interest to specialists in other fields of literary study. Publications in the "between, pomiędzy" series are particularly focused on form, as conceived in a broad sense, but the series remains open to scholarship that approaches literature in different but complementary ways. The overall name of the series "between.pomiędzy" indicates its commitment to work that looks at texts on the borders between genres and kinds, between historical periods and movements, and between national and linguistic cultures. For further information, see: www.back2.pl The series includes the following studies: 1. Samuel Beckett. Tradycja-awangarda., ed. Tomasz Wiśniewski (in Polish, 2012). 2. Back to the Beckett Text, ed. Tomasz Wiśniewski (in English, 2012). Future publications include: 3. Poeci współcześni. Poeci przeszłości, ed. Monika Szuba and Tomasz Wisniewski (in Polish).
Tekstualia
The article explores the organization of space in two stories by William Faulkner, A Rose for Emi... more The article explores the organization of space in two stories by William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily and Barn Burning. The analysis of spatial arrangements in both texts relies on the insights into the nature of literary space provided by Jurij Lotman, Janusz Sławiński, and Garbiel Zoran. In particular, Lotman’s notion of spatial relations as a topos modeling other, non-spatial ideas, Sławiński’s concept of „added–on senses” conveyed by the fi ctional space, and Zoran’s two methods of reconstructing space in a narrative, chronotopic and topographic, have proved especially useful and effective. In A Rose for Emily spatial relations model social relations, the contrast between the traditional South and the new South, as well as personal relations, showing the position of the heroine, Emily Grierson, in the community of Jefferson. In addition, Emily’s house serves as a means of illustrating the protagonist. In Barn Burning space appears largely as a challenge for the young protagonist, ...
Journal of Beckett Studies
The premise of the article is the contention that Beckett studies have been focused too much on t... more The premise of the article is the contention that Beckett studies have been focused too much on the philosophical, cultural and psychological dimensions of his established canon, at the expense of the artistry. That research on Beckett's work is issue-driven rather than otherwise, and the slender extant body of criticism specifically on his poetic achievements bears no comparison with the massive exploration of the other facets of Beckett's artistic activity. The critical neglect of Beckett's poetry may not be commensurate with the quality of his verse. And it is in the spirit of remedying this oversight that the present article is offered, focusing on ‘Enueg I’, a representative poem from Echo's Bones, which exhibits all the salient features of Beckett's early poetry. It is argued that Beckett's early verse display the twofold influence, that of the transatlantic Modernism of Eliot and Pound, and of French poetry, specifically the visionary and experimental ...
Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos
The article is devoted to the mystical elements and allusions surfacing in Poe's-analytical,‖-ang... more The article is devoted to the mystical elements and allusions surfacing in Poe's-analytical,‖-angelic,‖ and-landscape‖ tales:-A Descent into the Maelström,‖-The Purloined Letter,‖-The Murders in the Rue Morgue,‖-The Domain of Arnheim,‖-Landor's Cottage,‖-Mesmeric Revelation,‖-The Colloquy of Monos and Una,‖-The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion,‖ and "The Power of Words.‖ It is argued that the narrative circumstances in-A Descent into the Maelström,‖‖ in which the Norwegian fisherman describes to the unnamed narrator his adventure, rework the long-established spiritual imagery. The Dupin tales, in turn, are grounded in the cult of Night and in the initiatory powers of darkness, recalling the mystical-night of the soul.‖ The two-landscape tales‖ depict the act of an artistic transcendence, performed by an artisan devoted to emulating the supernal order within the bounds of empirical reality. The article pays also due attention to the revelatory experience that results from crossing the boundary between the temporal and the eternal in Poe's-angelic‖ dialogues. RESUMEN Este artículo se centra en los elementos y alusiones místicos que afloran en los cuestos-analíticos,‖-angélicos‖ y-paisajistas‖ de Poe:-Un descenso al Maelström,‖-La carta robada,‖-Los crímenes de la
The article focuses on two novels by Paul Auster, The Book of Illusions (2002), Travels in the Sc... more The article focuses on two novels by Paul Auster, The Book of Illusions (2002), Travels in the Scriptorium (2006), in which the Southwest emerges as a mythical territory, providing a rich ground in which the American grand narratives can be explored and revised. It is the contention of the article that the choice of this particular locale affords an excellent opportunity for a critical engagement with the national imaginary, the powerful myths shaping the American imagination.
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Papers by Sławomir Studniarz
These texts display one crucial unifying thread: they are doubly-mediated fictions, fictions in parentheses, so to speak. The application of narrative framing and embedding has been commonly acknowledged and abundantly researched in various works belonging to the Western literary heritage. However, its use in the twentieth and twenty-first century fiction has not been adequately explored, perhaps with the exception of the literary creations of such giants as Vladimir Nabokov and John Barth. Despite this critical oversight, narrative frames prove to be a major resource for modern-day novelists, who adapt this literary device and very effectively put it to their own uses. The essays collected in this volume will serve to spark the revival of interest in this time-honored narrative tool, demonstrating its validity for research into more recently created novels.
Allan Poe: An Explanation of the Mechanics of His Poetic
Speech. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2016. 323 pp.
$219.95 cloth.
Reviewed by Wesley Scott McMasters, Carson-Newman University