TRANSNATIONAL and Translocal POETICS
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Edward Balcerzan Maciej Duda Sławomir Iwasiów Jahan Ramazani Verita Sriratana fall 2015 TRANSNATIONAL and translocal POETICS The translocal poetics retains cognitive obscurity of the familiar, but also preserves fascinating mystery of unexpected and successful transmissions of the familiar into other places and spaces. Literature then reveals the ability to transfer one locality into the world of another, generating confusion and excitement, misunderstandings and discoveries, by means of which a creative transnational and translocal literary and cultural community is ceaselessly being built. 2 fall 2015 Editor in Chief Prof., PhD Tomasz Mizerkiewicz introdution Editorial Board Prof., PhD Tomasz Mizerkiewicz, Prof., PhD Ewa Kraskowska, Prof., PhD Joanna Grądziel-Wójcik, PhD Agnieszka Kwiatkowska, PhD Ewa Rajewska, PhD Paweł Graf, PhD Lucyna Marzec theories PhD Wojciech Wielopolski, PhD Joanna Krajewska, MA Cezary Rosiński, MA Agata Rosochacka Publishing Editors PhD Joanna Krajewska MA Agata Rosochacka Linguistic Editors MA Cezary Rosiński – Polish version PhD Timothy WIlliams – English version Scientific Council Prof., PhD Edward Balcerzan (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland) Prof., PhD Andrea Ceccherelli (University of Bologna, Italy) Prof., PhD Adam Dziadek (University of Silesia, Poland) Prof., PhD Mary Gallagher (University College Dublin, Irealnd) Prof., PhD Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht (Stanford University, United States) Prof., PhD Inga Iwasiów (University of Szczecin, Poland) Prof., PhD Anna Łebkowska (Jagiellonian University, Poland) Prof., PhD Jahan Ramazani (University of Virginia, United States) Proofreaders: MA Justyna Knieć – Polish version Thomas Anessi – English version Assistant Editor: Gerard Ronge Cover and logos design: Patrycja Łukomska Editorial Office: 61-478 Poznań, ul. Św. Marcin 49a Editor: Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland „Forum Poetyki | Forum of Poetics” fall 2015 (2) year I © Copyright by „Forum Poetyki | Forum of Poetics”, Poznań 2015 “Forum of Poetics” is published within the project “Poetics - new perspectives”, financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education under the Research Module 1.1 of National Programme for the Development of Humanities 2013/2014. Editors do not return unused materials, reserve rights to shortening articles and changing proposed titles. [email protected] | fp.amu.edu.pl TABLE OF CONTENT 3 introdution Transnational and Translocal Poetics | p. 4 theories Edward Balcerzan, The “Nationality” of Poetics – Some Typological Dilemmas | p. 6 Maciej Duda, Dubravka Ugrešić. The Writer and Deterritorialized Literature | p. 18 Sławomir Iwasiów, (Trans)national Journeys. A Case Study Using the Example of Selected Prose Works by Andrzej Stasiuk | p. 32 practices Verita Sriratana, Transnational Modernism and the Problem of Temporal Spatialisation in Franz Kafka’s “The Great Wall of China” | p. 44 Agnieszka Kwiatkowska, Bilingualism in the Writings of Jan Kochanowski | p. 58 poetics Ewa Kraskowska, Influence | p. 70 dictionary Ewa Kraskowska, Source | p. 76 Paweł Marciniak, Transfictionality | p. 80 poetics archive Joanna Grądziel-Wójcik, Literature’s ‘Perpetuum Mobile’, or A Few Words on Self-Referentiality | p. 86 critics Marcin Jauksz, Along the Margins Leonard F. Lisi’s “Marginal Modernity” | p. 98 Cezary Rosiński, Geoculture(?) | p. 106 4 fall 2015 Transnational and Translocal Poetics has joined the discussion developing around the ideas of world literature, post-colonial interpretations and reactions to the phenomena of globalization. Ja- han Ramazani’s book A Transnational Poetics (2009) proposed a new definition of anglophone literature as the shared space belonging to many literary cultures, thereby highlighting the fascinating potential of the poetry analyzed in the book and delineating new areas of theoretical exploration. Rather than focus on recrudescent vertical tensions between literature perceived globally (cospomopolitan, easily trans- posed among diverse cultural realia) and local (convinced that rootedness constitutes a completely sufficient source of creative work, and one incomprehensible to outsid- ers), Ramazani pointed to the decisive importance of horizontal displacements. In them, the familiar retains its cognitive obscurity, while the process of unexpected and successful transmissions of the familiar into other places and spaces preserves its fascinating mystery. Literature then reveals the ability to transfer one locality into the world of another, generating confusion and excitement, misunderstandings and discoveries, by means of which a creative transnational and translocal literary and cultural community is ceaselessly being built. The articles in this issue test the usefulnessof the tools of poetics for describing such translocal displacements of literature. On the one hand, they reveal that poetics is deeply imbued with what is national, ethnic, and spatially defined (Edward Balcer- zan), on the other hand, they defend a wide spectrum of efforts to capitalize on the transnational energy of literary texts. That is true of the socially engaged work of introduction |Transnational and Translocal Poetics 5 Transnational Poetics Translocal Dubravka Ugrešić, searching for a form of transnational poetics for the texts she in- terprets (Maciej Duda), as well as in the travel writing of Andrzej Stasiuk (Sławomir Iwasiów). A conspicuous feature of modernist literature is its translocalenergy, as we see in Franz Kafka (Verita Sriratana), and in writers of the Scandinavian fin de siècle and early 20th century (Marcin Jauksz discussing Lisi’s book). Studies of early modern transnational poetics present a completely different horizon of knowl- edge, as a comparative exploration of Jan Kochanowski’s poetry written in Latin and Polish shows (Agnieszka Kwiatkowska). For that reason, the problems of translo- cal poetics can motivate us to redefine such concepts as influence and sources (Ewa Kraskowska), as well as create new terms to describe various related developments, for example transfictionality (Paweł Marciniak). We would be remiss to overlook the relationships between transnational poetics and geopoetics (Elżbieta Rybicka’s book reviewed by Cezary Rosiński). An opportunity arises to reconsider Balcerzan’s re- marks about “national poetics” when we confront the history of Polish studies in “autotematyzm,” a concept which both resists and lends itself to translation into the categories of similar terms from abroad (Joanna Wójcik). There can be no doubt that transnational and translocal poetics form only one of the possible intersections of poetics with contemporary studies of world literature, globalized literature, post-colonial literature, and so on. Perhaps in the end its most precious contribution relates to contemporary thought on spatiality in literature and scholarship on that subject. | 6 fall 2015 The “Nationality” of Poetics – Some Typological Dilemmas Edward Balcerzan 1. One reason for a change in the meaning of a literary term can be the reassessment of whether its current definition corresponds to the reality it refers to. This can be spurred on by new or newly interpreted literary trends, seasonal reconsiderations of artistic devices, the discovery of previously unseen configurations of elements in a work, and so on. We are familiar with these processes from time immemorial; it suffices to mention, for example, such storied keywords of the poetic lexicon as metaphor, mimesis, form, tragedy. The transformations of metaphor as an interpretative category speak volumes. Had the original sense of this term not undergone critical review and transfiguration over many centuries, we would have been condemned to intellectual stagnation where this area, so pivotal to our understanding of art, is concerned. Analogous discussions arise, sometimes immediately, with regard to new writerly innova- tions in terminology (Viktor Shklovsky’s ostranienie, or “making strange”; Roman Ingarden’s “places of indefinition,” Mikhail Bakhtin’s “polyphony,” and in the Polish context, Artur Sandauer’s autotematyzm or “self-referentiality”). Autotematyzm can serve here as a most in- structive example. I remember how in the 1970s, on the steps inside Staszic Palace in Warsaw, Artur Sandauer loudly inveighed against critics of his concept, his wrath aroused not so much by their polemical interventions as their “corrective” ambitions. “Tell me, by what right does an Andrzej Werner become the owner of my concept of auto- tematyzm, rearranging its meanings and vectors?” This angry question was in fact addressed mainly to Janusz Sławiński, but since Sławiński remained impenetrably silent, I, being young, untested, and impetuous, took the liberty of remarking that one argument in favor of Wer- ner’s or other similar practices could be the value of discovering what emerges from the con- frontation of a young concept with diverse literary realities… “What realities?” the author of Bez taryfy ulgowej (Full Price of Admission) replied with indigna- tion, not to say howled. “We are not living in the age of positivistic faith in objective, identically perceived realities!” theories | Edward Balcerzan, The „Nationality” of Poetics – Some Typological Dilemmas 7 At that point, I thought to myself how true it is that we encounter not naked realities but our own interpretations of literary phenomena. But if that is true, the scholar has a choice between either rejecting another scholar’s term and replacing it with his own, or partially remaking the borrowed concept