Abstrakt: | The articles that comprise the book focus on a description of the phenomenon of
modernity in the context of various theories of desire, starting from the classic Freudian
psychoanalysis through to Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze’s schizoanalysis. The first section
of articles entitled Szyfry pragnienia w twórczości Bolesława Prusa (Codes of Desire
in Bolesław Prus’s Writings) is devoted to The Doll, and in particular, to the characters’
entanglement in the sexual norms and restrictions binding in the second half of the 19th
century. The last text about the 1890 novel concerns the as yet insufficiently discussed connections
of Prus’s novel with Maxime Du Camp’s treatise Paris, ses organes, ses fonctions,
sa vie, which sheds new light on the Parisian episode.
The cycle Piekielny pociąg Władysława Stanisława Reymonta (Władysław Stanisław
Reymont’s Infernal Desire) consists of two dissertations devoted to the Nobel Prize laureate’s
work. The first Niebezpieczeństwa fantazji (The Dangers of Phantasies) is an attempt
to interpretet The Dreamer using theoretical tools developed by Jacques Lacan. Then, the
second text entitled Falangi infernalne (Infernal Phalanxes), is an attempt at interpreting
the selected themes in The Vampire through the lens of the Leo Taxil case resounding at
the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The last part Inne pragnienia (Other Desires) contains two articles. The text “Gdy
popłyną miliony…” (“When Millions Begin to Flow in…”) is a comprehensive analysis of
Ignacy “Sewer” Maciejowski’s forgotten novel about a Galician petroleum boom. Its interpretation
focuses on such categories as: money, affect, sexuality and work viewed from
the context of Guattari and Deleuze’s conception. The dissertation entitled Pasje (Passions)
begins with a comparison of the vision of the Middle Ages chilren’s crusade created by
Marcel Schwo and Jerzy Andrzejewski, and arrives at more genralized conclusions about
the nature of a homosexual desire and the specificity of historical writing. |