Polish Literature in the Perspective of the Republic of Many Nations

Abstract

The text is a basic analysis of the process of regaining the great context of the Republic of Two Nations’ multi-cultural character. Władysław Panas puts the question of whether, and if so, what consequences follow from this - after all necessary - phenomenon. On the one hand a possibility appears of broadening the concept of Polish literature (and in effect of Polish culture) with texts that have existed outside it up till now because, for instance, they were not written in Polish; and on the other hand, the problem of manifesting difference in various ways (linguistic, cultural, national) in the Polish literature is introduced. Panas also indicates some methodological difficulties connected with opening to this new research perspective, showing that those who investigate literature may in this case look for support in the poetics of Bakhtin’s dialogue relations backed by Buber’s philosophy of dialogue, or Levinas’ philosophy of encounter.