Four dilemmas. Theory-Criticism-History-Faith

This book intends to point out some statements concerning important Eest European literary problems. The aim of the first chapter is to interpret a tetralogy by Janusz Krasiński dealing with the events of contemporary history. Although the minimum of family ideals: honour and freedom are encapsulated in slogans and devalued by mockers, disappearing from literature acclaimed by most critics, such ideals can only be found on the peripheries of literature, yet always labelled as anachronic. If so, the existential experience of the older generation is clearly a historic experience. The purpose of the second chapter is to apply the categoriesc of good manners to the study of the history of literary criticism. The third chapter traces attachment to Edinburgh differed among other Polish literary figures (Stanisław Maczek, Irena Bączkowska, Jan Rostworowski, Józef Andrzej Teslar, Józef Zając, Danuta Mostowin, and others). In the last chapter, spiritual poetry is analyzed while a stereotypical and excessively simplified idea of technocratic and pragmatic present times tends to reduce transcendence down to the very minimum.