Helena Modrzejewska - baśniopisarką

Abstract

This article presents an unknown fairy-tale, written by the great actress of two continents, called Titi, Nunu i Klembolo, czyli przygody dwóch liliowych chłopczyków i psa o sześciu nogach (Titi, Nunu and Klembolo, or adventures of two lily boys and a dog with six legs). This fairy-tale was written for her grandson Feliks in 1896. The manuscript, which was thought to have been lost 100 years earlier, was found and published for the first time in Poland in the year 2002. The author of the article discusses the fairy-tale, focusing her attention both on the plot and its morals and on the graphic design of the book, which includes photocopies of beautiful illustrations and Art Nouveau vignettes produced by Helena Modrzejewska herself. Zofia Adamczykowa analyses and interprets the fairy-tale according to the poetics of the genre, as well as to the history of literature, comparing it to a fairy-tale by Maria Konopnicka which was published exactly when Modrzejewska’s story about the lily boys was created. Adamczykowa proves that although the text in question can be considered an example of the 19th-century explicit didacticism, yet, it is clearly influenced by modernist techniques of description.