Structures in Sign Networks. On an Attempt to Reconstruct the (Cultural) Poetics of Poetry From the Age of Posivitism

Abstract

The subject of the review is Tadeusz Budrewicz’s monograph entitled Wierszobranie (druga połowa XIX wieku) (Verse Selection [Second Half of the Nineteenth Century], Kraków 2016), which constitutes an example of cultural interpretation of literary history, oriented toward (re)constructing the poetics of Polish late nineteenth-century poetry. Budrewicz brings together several exegetic strategies, successfully applying the statistical method and certain categories of geopoetics. Poetry here appears as a dynamic formation of artistic conventions, functioning in many external contexts and stimulated by various literary currents (including the popular current). A complex ethnocultural image emerges from Budrewicz’s book, in which the variety of conceptual threads that co-created Polish cultural consciousness in the second half of the nineteenth century become woven together.