Grafomania i inne pokusy

The book is composed of seven chapters. First of them (Graphomania and Graphomanologies) introduces theoretical issues, terms and determinants of the studied phenomena as well as the most prominent research opinions in the field. It also relates to the strategies and attitudes adopted towards graphomania by writers themselves. The second essay (Phenomenon of Graphomania That is The Third Libel on Hermenegilda Kociubińska) presents the authors’s view on the identity of graphomania, taking into account both the criteria of the literary subject’s predispositions and the text indicators. The major theme of the next chapter (Old Authors on Graphomania) centred around the views formulated by early modern Polish writers on graphomaniacs and clumsy poetry by them, in the context of the ancient tradition and opinions expressed by European men of letters. Thus, on the basis of selected literary quotations, the criteria that old writers considered the most typical of graphomania have been examined as well as the most popular, parodistic means used to discredit graphomaniac activity. The fourth chapter examines the peculiarities of Internet graphomania from the perspective of digital authorship, literary communities and the „new genres”. The conclusion is that, contrary to what one might expect, the Internet does not seem to be a friendly medium for the fulfillment of the graphomaniac passion and dreams. Chapter five (Graphomania as a Figure of Exclusion) takes a pragmatic point of view and deals with graphomania as an instrument of social stigma. The subject matter is exclusion based on the standards of the discursive community that uses this labeling tools like, for example, the notions of the sane vs the insane; the talented vs the untalenteds, professionals vs amateurs; experts vs laymen; the elite vs plebeians, etc. Chapter six (Apocrypha Attributed to Miłosz) takes into consideration two poems falsely attributed to the Nobel Prize winner Czesław Miłosz. Both of them were used in a political game during the communism era in Poland, either against the authorities or against Miłosz himself. This and some other examples are a starting point for the reflection on the study of the determinants of the contemporary apocryphal literary practice. The last study (The 20th-Century Panegyric Situation) examines the specifity of Polish panegyric poetry under authoritarian (1920s and 30s) and totalitarian (1945–1956) regimes. Accordingly, the series of works dedicated to Marshall Józef Piłsudski and President Bolesław Bierut are compiled in search of differences and commnon places on the basis of theoretically systematised determines.