Tropy sekularyzacji w polskiej prozie późnego dwudziestolecia

Abstract

The main goal of this work is to determine whether the term ‘secularization’ (understood as both theory and ideology) is useful while reading Polish prose of interwar period. Secularization is one of the basic categories of modernity and still is very important subject in literary studies, even though never was further used or explored in Polish studies. The context of those studies is post secular thought understood in many ways. That is why this work contains three parts – three separate essays that combined together make a whole subject study. First part is mostly theoretical, but (as a point of origin and as examples) supported by interpretations of literature. The goal of this part is to reconstruct ‘secular theory of a novel’. Scholars as Northrop Fry and Ian Watt show us how secularization process shaped the genre and the development of a novel. Watt in Narodziny powieści states that the prime determinant of a novel, a genre formed in XVIII age, is to put explanation of a world presented in a novel and characters psychology only in ‘earthly’ matters undependably to authors believes. Original idea is also shown by James Wood who states that a novel changes modern impression about the belief by introducing fiction into it (what burst the though and strong belief tradition from the inside). Second part of this work is about few novels qualified as development novel (Bildungsroman), which are set in Galicia between XIX and XX age and their subject is education. The base of my analysis are categories and phenomenon (reading, school, learning) that allow us to track changes of awareness that are the main subject of explored novels. The method I undertake in this part is deep interpretation of short samples of those novels and intertextual reading of literature through literature. Thanks to such examination I was able to show compact though various in details history of transition of a young mind in conservative society. Third part is a compilation of various interpretations where each of them is based on a different category, image or language. Together they bring one multilateral image of how midwar prose shows and comments the religious transitions of a modern human and society. The texts that I interpret are: Ferdydurke by Witold Gombrowicz, Bezrobotny Lucyfer by Alekander Watt, Pożegnanie Jesieni by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz and Pasje błędomirskie by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz.