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“We are related to enjoyment as something which intimately belongs to us, to our corporal existence and inner vitality, yet is separated from and independent from us, and thus can be surprising, bewildering, burdensome, disgusting, overwhelming, terrifying, thrilling, conflicted, uncanny, uncontrollable (and sometimes even pleasurable)” – claims Aaron Schuster (2016: 44). According to the theorist, enjoyment can manifest as its opposite, especially in the context of its representations in literature. In this essay, I would like to look at avant-garde erotic poems from the interwar period that address the fascinating entanglement of the bodily and the textual. The metaphors of reading and writing, lyrical dialogue between some of the poems, metatextual reflections on the nature of erotic poetry, and the problem of embodiment are some of the strategies that Bruno Jasieński (Moja nieśmiertelność [My Immortality], Słowo o słowie [A Word about a Word], Na bis [An Encore]), Tadeusz Peiper (Naga [Naked], Ja, Ty [Me, You]), and Mila Elin (Książka [The Book], Głód [Hunger]) use to discuss the joys and challenges of trying to represent jouissance in the text. The starting point for my reflection is Alenka Zupančič’s diagnosis of a similar type of satisfaction coming from sex and talking about sex and her insights on the procedures of intellectualizing sexuality.

The only surviving manuscript of a sermon pronounced by Stefan Jaworski in Kyiv on 8 September 1693 includes a “funeral note” commemorating Łazarz Baranowicz’s death. Jaworski’s sermon and funeral note, which in the extant witness follows the sermon, have neither been published nor studied before. By providing an analysis of both, the aim of this paper is to investigate and compare the works of the two preachers and poets, and to draw some conclusions about their personalities, poetic style, and worldview. Baranowicz’s poems and Jaworski’s sermon also provide some interesting details which shed new light on the literary and cultural milieu of Kyiv and Czernihów in the last three decades of the 17th century.

For the first time, in this paper, the topic of the relationship between Polish rap music and literature, which is actually very strong, is compared. Immediately after the fall of communism (1989) poetry stopped being seen as a primary necessity good in Poland, but the role of literature (literaturocentryzm) is still very important and maintains central itself also in the frame of rap and youth (sub)cultures. There are several ways Polish rap uses literature and poetry within its tracks, the simple recall to single authors and works, whole citations of poems, the direct or indirect quote of lines or sentences, i.e. follow up. Follow up is therefore a direct or indirect reference to another work, a typical component of intertextuality of rap. The first Polish rap singers and crews, such as Kaliber 44 and Paktofonika, all coming from Silesia, insert into their texts lots of references to Polish romanticism. The number "44" from the same name of the group, e.g., comes from Mickiewicz's Dziady. After the rapper Łona in 2004 uses Żeromski's szklane domy (glass houses) from the book Przedwiośnie (1924) in order to report the loneliness of contemporary human beings, the references to literature and poetry from the 20th century become more and more frequent. In 2008-2009 there were the publications of albums (Rymy częstochowskie, Poeci) entirely made of rap versions from famous poems, and follow up becomes something natural and necessary ("No rap without follow up" sings the Polish rapper Tede in his song Follow up, 2009). The most famous Polish rappers from these last years, Taco Hemingway and Mata, also share a common inclination towards contemporary poetry and literature, Polish or beyond. Taco's songs are often compared to lyrics from the Skamander movement, in particular from Tuwim's poems, whereas Mata moves between the holy Bible and Harry Potter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the poetry of Miłosz Biedrzycki (MLB) as being built on the opposition to politically engaged authors from the 80s. In his case, defending the autonomy of literature does not lead to self-centred, private, authoritative, and confident narration. Biedrzycki’s lyrical subject is constantly in movement, unmasks his own activity, and proposes a vision of an open and modest identity which is fed by experience of the Other, and not constructed on the basis of common, heroical myths unable to recognise any failures.

In the context of 20th-century poetic Dantism, Czesław Miłosz’s oeuvre (1911- 2004) functions as an “intersectional space” among different lines of intertextual and intercultural relations, involving Polish, French, Russian, Anglo-American, and Anglo-Irish literary traditions. This study discusses the “accumulation” (a term first used by Eliot) of a threefold presence of Dante – explicit, invisible and unconscious – in Miłosz’s literary production. The study of the sites in which such connections are best revealed can be illuminating, together with the investigation of the influence on Miłoszian Dantism of translingual, expatriates, exiles or stateless writers who acted as bridges between different cultures, such as Conrad, Eliot, Pound, Brzozowski, Brodskij, Heaney, and in particular Oscar Milosz, Czesław’s distant Franco-Lithuanian relative and his first guide into the riches of the Divine Comedy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maria Ilnicka is directly associated with the Manifesto of 22nd January, 1863. As its (co-) author, she expressed her opionion on emancipation issues both in poetry and ”Bluszcz”, which she edited herself. However, contrary to the expectations resulting from the contents of the Manifesto, these are not revolutionay views. In fact, they are more conservative and in line with the convential status quo. Two poems of the same title: Do sióstr moich, clearly reflect her ideas. Ilnicka emphasises first of all: a passive attitude of women towards national matters, suggesting the model of ‘a mournful weeper’, and second of all: abandoning social activity and remaining in the shadow of patriarchy – in the role of ‘a guardian of the hearth’.