“Nothing New Under the Sun”? On (Not)New Themes in 21st-Century Polish Fiction by Women. A Preliminary Analysis

Abstract

In this article, I examine the extent to which contemporary prose by women addresses new themes and phenomena not previously described in literature. To illustrate and contrast the old with the new, I choose the prose of Tadeusz Różewicz. I also mention his poetry and dramas, which clearly demonstrate signs of modernity and being ahead of their time, both in terms of subject matter and formal and genre solutions.
     Due to the breadth of the topic, I limit myself to selected and, in my opinion, representative works from 21st-century Polish literature by women, believing that they provide sufficient quantitative and cross-sectional material for drawing final conclusions. I focus solely on the prose of women authors, and I refrain from detailed analyses of the selected examples, limiting myself to more general summaries and interpretations. A review of the cited works confirms the thesis about the limited originality of contemporary prose. It's difficult to identify works that "break away" from the themes, ideas, and aesthetic categories of previous eras. Contemporary prose can be said to draw on the ideas, themes, and aesthetic solutions of previous centuries, especially the 20th. This can be explained by the timelessness of the dilemmas plaguing humanity, reflected in literature. The novels and short stories discussed here are distinguished by their language: laconic, seemingly unemotional, often provocatively vulgar, and blunt, even when describing difficult experiences, traumas, failures, and tragedies. Instead of elaborate descriptions, brevity, metaphor, and symbolism appear. Narrative language becomes a way of describing the situation of the modern woman, a diagnosis delivered without sentiment or sentimentality, ironically and iconoclastic. Another feature of these approaches is brevity and emotional tone, noticeable, for example, in "mournful" prose (Bezmatek by M. Marcinów, Łakome by M. Lebda), which differs from the consolatory-elegiac tone in Matka odchodzi by Różewicz.