Juliusz Słowacki’s translation of “Macbeth” in the form that we know today consists of scene 1, scene 2 and a fragment (not the beginning) of scene 3. The paper is an attempt at interpreting such decisions as substitution of Witches’ magical spell with a statement about the rule of “dark angel” and a scent of a clash of light and darkness, a shift of a gray cat (“Graymalkin”) and a paddock into Satan, leaving out magical rituals a scent of clash of light and darkness, wiping out the borderline between the real world and the supernatural one. Further, the author of the article focuses on dividing two dimensions (realistic and fantastic) of Macbeth’s first line between him and Banquo to arrange them as a “a hybrid couple” that is typical of Słowacki’s pre-mystical dramas.

The paper aims at a new reading of Stanisław Wyspiański’s “Legenda” (“Legend”) as a Gothic drama. This convention allows the poet to face the Polish weaknesses and phantasms. On the fictional layer one observes a clash of historical evil with the individual one. Family history, violence, incest, crime and revenge cast a shadow over the nation’s history. Gothicity of the drama symbolically which is signalled by the figure of Wanda serves as an explanation of Polishness found in the place where two kinds of denial in our culture clash. Two spheres, one under the banner of rebellion, and the other under the banner of irrevocable fate, cannot integrate and are responsible for the dark side of our Polishness understood as national symbolic imaginarium.

Jacques Derrida’s idea of hauntology holds that all tragic events are in a way enslaved and live in space despite the passing of time, and exert pressure on the generations that follow. Reading Stanisław Wyspiański’s “Wesele” (“The Wedding”) according to this interpretive key is an incentive for understanding this unusual work of Polish literature. Transformation of a straw-wrap into a dramatic figure is a moment of ghost incarnation. The Straw-wrap is a sum total of every ghost from “The Wedding”. The contrast of life and death that the phantom holds contains every private dilemma, experience and disappointment of the work’s protagonists. Wedding guests accept the national history interpreted in the romantic spirit that idealises the ethos of armed uprisings and that distorts the truth about the Galician slaughter. The history that they know is told by a nobleman, not by a peasant. The Straw-wrap dance serves as a travesty of readiness to uprising, a parody of an awkward attempt to repeat what is now passed.

The article takes a look at eight Polish dramas from the beginning of the 20th century whose protagonist is St. Stanislaus Kostka in which he is presented as a paragon and as moral authority. The analysis of the texts describes the tools with which the solemnity of the chatelain of Rostkowo on the ethical-religious and social-patriotic ground is built. Furthermore, the paper discusses the mechanism of universalising the saint’s message to make it attractive for the youth of the beginning of the 20th century. In order to broaden the historical and social context, other occasional pieces composed on the occasion of jubilees connected with the figure of Kostka are also recalled.

The paper reconstructs a dispute that arose between Hanna Krall and Krzysztof Kieślowski over the shape of the screenplay to “Dekalog” (“Decalogue”) part eight—the picture that is presently subject of criticism for its justification of Poles’ indifference towards Jews exterminated during the World War II. Krall’s account of a Jewish girl whom a Polish couple refused christening, which jeopardised this girl, was an inspiration to compose this part of the movie cycle. In Krall’s memory, the refusal was motivated by fear from lying in the face of God, while in the film the couple belongs to a different social class and their decision is linked to life risk of members of an underground organisation Kedyw (Directorate of Sabotage). The author of the paper proves that Kieślowski intentionally disfigured Krall’s autobiographical story to develop a tragical conflict, ignoring at the same time the religious dimension of the couple’s decision, the dimension that for Krall was both terrifying and fascinating. Exploring the spiritual reasons of Holocaust witnesses’ indifference, the writer many a time returned to the dispute with Kieślowski in her report stories. In her view, the couple, nominally Christians, reflect a stance that results from a falsely conceived and slavish “fear” of God that dominated their minds and language.

The paper aims at presenting the relationship between the word and the photograph in Natalia Malek’s poetry as based on her collection “Kord” (“Cord,” 2017). Drawing a distinction between the category of poem and the category of poetry allows to present the processes that take place in her pieces, namely associating the media (within the framework of picturesqueness and narrativity), and to pay attention to the borderlines between the poem and the photograph that the poet founds. Such actions taken by the author prove meaningful not only from the perspective of artistic experiments. They enter into the logic of modern mechanisms of visual culture (picture drift, attention flow, media exchange and associations), but support the values connected with attentiveness, depth and resistance put up to spectacular and market forms of life.

The second funeral of Henryk Sienkiewcz took place in October 1924. The coffin with his mortal remains was transported from Vevey to Warsaw and interred in the crypt of St. John’s Cathedral. The associated celebration had a character of a national manifestation, the course of which was related in detail in the Polish press. It appreciated the splendour of this manifestation and reported on its solemn social atmosphere. However, it also noticed organisational shortcomings, and captured lines of diverse conflicts. The aim of this paper is to interpret the tensions and scandals described in daily newspapers on the days of the novelist’s funeral. They reveal false statements that those celebrations were free of any conflicts, and picture, in particular, a heated dispute between right- and left-wing parties concerning their attitude towards Sienkiewicz. The author of this paper presents his critical opinion on the book by Jan Czempiński, published in 1927, which documents the events during the novelist’s funeral.

The sketch presents a new artistic rendition with a commentary of a poem “Vivo sin vivir en mí” (“I Live without Living in Me”) by John of the Cross that partially opposes the translational solutions adopted by Stanisław Barańczak. Entering into polemics with some of his conceptions, Aleksandra Agaciak at the same time demonstrates the huge challenge faced by the translator of the Spanish mystic’s poetry.

Exampla and sententiae were important elements of argumentative strategies used in all types of speech (judicial: closing argument and accusatory; advisory; occasional) in the Enlightenment period. The purpose of the analysis undertaken in this article is to discuss the role of exempla and quotes in the 18th c. political commentary on the basis of advisory and showpiece parliamentary speeches delivered by Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski. The author, using rhetorical analysis, defines their place in the rhetorical argument, as well as their source structure, and function. She also emphasises their relationship with eristic techniques (communicatio, correctio, interrogatio, ethopoeia).

Despite the wide interest in Zuzanna Ginczanka’s poetry, what determines the exceptionality of her verses—their language—still remains the least researched issue. The poet consistently broadens and exceeds the limits of the Polish language, forming neologisms and exploiting the potential of grammar and text structure. The author of the paper insights into the mode in which Ginczanka gets accustomed with uncommon grammar solutions, namely comparative instrumental of manner, making out of it her regular stylistic trope. In the first part of the paper, Piątkowska analyses selected poems, identifying the artistic effects produced by comparisons based on instrumental. She devotes special attention to the specific textual meanings and suggests a pragmatic approach to the problem in question.

The paper offers an interpretation of intermedial texts; an interpretation to which Andrzej Hejmej’s comparative theories serve as a basis. Such a method of interpretation may prove beneficial in understanding songs and other polymedial works in that it vastly expands the scope of meanings included into the core medium. The article focuses on analysis of three pieces from the album Gospel, namely “Bóg zapłać” (“God Bless”), “Czarne Kowboje” (“Black Cowboys”), “Zbawiciel Diesel” (“Diesel the Saviour”), released by a music group Lao Che. The studies are special developments of Hejmej’s conception since the subject of analysis is a set of lyrics, their musical layer, the singer’s voice, as well as the visual sphere—all levels combined form an unusually original and innovative transmission mode which can be sufficiently described in the intermedial context.

Teofil Lenartowicz’s drama about Socrates published posthumously as a whole, known today as “Sędziowie ateńscy” (“The Judges of Athens)”, previously advertised and printed in fragments under various titles, was preserved in a few editions in the author’s separate fair copies. A prison scene, which witnesses the last moments of Socrates who in the cell awaits executing his sentence, has its counterparts in every copy, is each time expressed in a different language and style and, in consequence, carries dissimilar meanings. The copies contain various number of guests who pay their visits to the convict and diverse figures that make up the group of visitors, therefore the conversations they hold reveal distinct motivations and ideological messages of the scene.

The paper discusses two manuscripts, namely one no. 1448 from the Ossolineum Library and another no. 2831 from the Jagiellonian Library, prepared by Ambroży Grabowski, and referring to the trial for marriage annulment taken between Teresa Helena de domo Jabłonowska and Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński. The splitting of the couple was referred to as a divorce and speculations raised about its reason (childlessness, kinship, lack of happiness in marriage, impotence). Grabowski’s handwritings clearly point at third degree of kinship as the official cause of the nullity. This is confirmed by the Ossolineum manuscript no. 4172 that contains a transcript from the Cracow general consistory records that traced the course of the 1791–1792 trial. The documents reveal that Ossolińska filed for divorce, referring to the aforementioned canonical impediment that was not cleared with the Pope’s dispensation. The article contains an edition of Grabowski’s manuscripts in Latin and their translations into Polish.

The paper discusses the annulment of Teresa Helena de domo Jabłonowska and Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński’s marriage that lasted from 1785 to 1792. The material on which the study is prepared is manuscript 4172 from the Ossolineum Library. Apart from the copies of divorce papers, it contains seven unpublished to this day letters connected with the event. Their alleged authors are Teresa Helena Ossolińska, de domo Jabłonowska, and other figures closely related to her, namely her grandmother Teresa Ossolińska, née Lanckorońska, her mother Katarzyna Jabłonowska, Ludwika Jabłonowska (her sister), Franciszek Ksawery Jabłonowski (her brother), her future husband Ignacy Trzebiński, and the priest Wojciech Milkiewicz, a priest of the parish of Zgórsko. An analysis of the small collection of letters allows to insight into the trial from Ossolińska’s viewpoint, to sketch the chronology of the events, to insight into the emotions that accompanied Ossolińska, as well as her mental state at that time. It also allows to verify the pieces of information about the divorce present in the literature related to Ossoliński, as well as to correct biographical facts from Ossolińska’s life and with people connected with her. An edition of the letters is an integral part of the article.

The article refers to Juliusz Słowacki’s letter to Leonard Niedźwiecki dated the end of 1842. Although it was put up for auction, nothing is known about its purchaser and subsequent fate. To this day Słowacki’s three 1841 letters to his friend have been published, all of which relate to the poet’s journey to Frankfurt am Main, and to the printing of “Beniowski.” The letter in question is a testimony of Słowacki’s clearance with Klub Polski (Polish Club) when he resigned from the post of financial director. It accompanied a parcel with the Club’s shares found too late and given back by their sender—a former cashier—by the agency of Niedźwiecki. Additionally, it serves as yet another proof to provide for Słowacki’s involvement into financial matters that caused no conflict with his poetic creativity as a Romantic poet-prophet.

The text is a review of Karolina Dębska’s publication “Polskie tłumaczki literackie XIX wieku” (“Polish Female Literary Translators of the 19th Century,” 2023), which is the first on the publishing market to address the issue of the functioning of women translators in public space in such depth. The author focuses on revealing the habitus of 19th century female translators entangled in social norms, prohibitions, tendencies brought up from the family home—and shows them as factors influencing their translation decisions. Through a deep analysis topped by two lexicons: of Polish female translators of the first and second half of the 19th century, Dębska brings out of the shadows the figures so far overlooked in the pages of history or completely forgotten.

The paper offers a problem discussion of a published in 2022 volume 35 of Józef Mackiewicz’s “Dzieła” (“Works”) that includes the writer’s correspondence with various figures and unpublished to this day and hardly known journalistic texts. The author of the article points at three vital threads in the book, namely historical, literary, and philosophical. The first one is linked with the role that the writer performed in unravelling and describing the Katyn Massacre, the second refers to Mackiewicz’s artistic workshop, and the third relates to the function that the writer attributed to literature.

The paper discusses the composition and the content of Paweł Bem’s book “Dynamika wariantu. Miłosz tekstologicznie” (“Dynamics of the Variant. Miłosz Textologically,” 2017). The content matter of this monograph gains high value: the reviewer underlines a skilful connection of textology and interpretation, as well as the inspiring role that the book may play in a discussion on the art of edition.