Literary activities and attitudes in the Stanislavian age in Poland (1764-1795) : : a social system? / / Jan IJ van der Meer.

• Superior document: Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics ; 36
• VerfasserIn: Meer, Jan IJ. van der,
• Place / Publishing House: Amsterdam, Netherlands ;, New York, New York : : Rodopi,, [2002]; ©2002
• Year of Publication: 2002
• Language: English
• Series: Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics ; 36.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (339 pages)

The present book for the first time links the thoughts of modern Western sociologists of literature with an overall description of the literary activities, attitudes, and views in late eighteenth-century Poland. Inspired by the studies of Bourdieu on literary fields and, more particular, S.J. Schmidt's study of the history of the rise and development of the social system 'literature' in Germany in the eighteenth-century (cf. Schmidt 1989), the author tries to establish whether Poland witnessed the rise of a more complex and (relatively) autonomous literary field or, as Schmidt calls it, a functionally differentiated literary system in the age of the reign of King Stanislaw August Poniatowski (1764-1795). Functionally differentiated literary systems - systems in which an increased number of literary agents and institutions produce, sell, buy, and criticize literary works according to capitalist principles - are the literary systems of today. As most scholars believe, their origins are to be found in most European nations in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Did such a modern literary system, albeit with certain limitations, rise in Poland in the years of the rule of Stanislaw A. Poniatowski? - this is the question the author of the present volume will attempt to answer. This volume is of interest to theoreticians and empirical researchers approaching literature from a sociological point of view, historians, and, of course, slavists interested in eighteenth-century literary developments in Poland.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Changes in the Literary Roles and Literary Activities. Chapter 1: The Rise of a Literary System in the Stanislavian Age in Poland -- Chapter 2: The Four Acting Roles of the Stanislavian Literary System. Chapter 3: The 'Limited' Stanislavian Literary System -- Part 2: The Literary Views and Attitudes -- Chapter 4: Usefulness and Entertainment - Entertainment - Politics and Entertainment: Literary Views in the Three Sub-Periods of the Stanislavian Age. Chapter 5: The Early Years. Chapter 6: The Middle Period. Chapter 7: The Last Years of the Age. Political Comedies and the Tradition of Play-Writing. Summary. Conclusions. Bibliography.