„Księga wielkiego epos”. Heterotopia Urbs aeterna w trylogii rzymskiej Henryka Sienkiewicza

Abstract

The author analyses the heterotopian nature of Sienkiewicz’s discourses contained in his fictional series the so-called “Roman Trilogy”, that is, Without Dogma, Children of the Soil, and Quo Vadis. The space of experiences depicted from different time perspectives: Nero’s era and contemporaneous with the writer, with its conglomeration of various sites and monuments, allows us to recognise the associated existential drama, which is the philosophical background of the worlds of the novels. Looking at the structure of meanings subordinated to heterotopia in the space of Rome in the three novels, the researcher attempts to interpret this phenomenon. The review of the topography of the major Roman spaces in the works of Sienkiewicz helped her to discuss the problems of philosophy of history, entered in the understanding by the author of By Fire and Sword of the “text”, which is Rome.