When Does a Game Become Literature? "Dzikie Pola: Rzeczpospolita w ogniu" as a Text on the Borderline of Literature

Abstract

The instruction to the RPG Dzikie Pola: Rzeczpospolita w ogniu is a text that can be placed on the border between literature and non-literature. In analyzing the literary features of this work, the author uses five theses on the nature of literature, collected by Jonathan Culler in his Theory of Literature. Dzikie Pola meets the assumptions of four of them – within the text one can notice the emphasis on language, its special integration, fictional relationship to reality, as well as intertextuality and autotelicity – however, the dominance of the informative function over the aesthetic function does not allow them to be included in the realm of literature. Giving the game manual a form similar to literature may be related to the neo-Sarmatian character of this work. Given that this trend consists in creating one’s own and collective identity through references to 17th-century Sarmatism, and that this was the goal of the creators of the discussed system, it can be assumed that bringing the form of the text closer to literature may have a greater impact on the reader than it would otherwise. this procedure, and thus: it will allow him to more easily construct his own identity based on the ideology of the nobility.