Między światami. Intertekstualność i postmodernizm w literaturze fantasy

Abstract

The book Między światami [Between the Worlds] is the author’s attempt at fulfilling a considerable gap in the Polish literary studies, i.e. a lack of reflection on intertextual aspects of fantasy literature. The essays included herein devoted to both Polish and foreign writing depict fantasy in an absolutely innovating manner for the Polish scientific deliberations, i.e. in a broad context of changes the 20th century fiction has undergone manifested, among others, by rapid development of various genres of fantasy literature. Moreover, the book attempts to analyze an intriguing and, as it appears, not so infrequent, category of anti-hero which, as far as fantasy literature is concerned, seems to be particularly embedded in a network of intertextual relations in a way that is not reflected in realist literature. A particular attention has been paid to one of the most typical forms of fantasy literature, i.e. retelling, where key texts of the world literature are subject to more or less revisionist retelling. The interpretations included in this volume have been created on the basis of the most significant and current works of contemporary theoreticians of fantasy literature – Brian Attebery, Brian Stableford and Farah Mendlesohn. Whereas considerations about the relations between fantasy literature and literary postmodernism poetics have been confronted with already classic works of Brian McHale and Linda Hutcheon as well as the most recent monographer of this phenomenon – Bran Nicol.