Sienkiewicz dla dorosłych

Abstract

The sketch is a presentation of works by Sienkiewicz that have their own establishedplace in the school tradition. The title of the article is provocative and shows that works bythis author being the subject of familiarization in schools for decades is not the literature forteenagers, but for adult readers. The author, analysing the fragments of Sienkiewicz’s works,points to this language level that reveals violence and sensuality in characters’ experiences.Pointing to the curriculum, he notices the power of these texts deriving from the possibilityof a new reading. He proves that Sienkiewicz’s works give the possibility of re-raising manyproblems and issues within the scope of a triangle: aesthetics-ethics-existence. Among thequestions that can be asked again are such as: Who has got the right to violence? And theauthor shows how one can make a transition from this question asked as regards Sienkiewicz’scharacters to questions on the situation in the contemporary world, and translate reflectionon Sienkiewicz’s historical works into today’s issues of the war in Afghanistan, prisonsin Guantanamo, or CIA secret prisons, etc. His reflections on Sienkiewicz’s new readingat school close with pointing to two texts in a junior high school, namely Quo vadis and WithFire and Sword, and a postulate of returning to reading fragments of this author’s novels thatare problem-oriented in a grammar school.