Revival of the 19th century in recent popular literature

Abstract

The paper characterizes recent works belonging to popular literature from the viewpoint of 20th century literature. It turns out that realism as the cultural paradigm is still present in postmodern prose. 19th century literature provides us with a number of narrative structures and motifs which are constantly altered by contemporary writers. In this paper we focus on texts which directly refer to 'Lalka' written by Bolesław Prus (such as 'Alkaloid' by A. Głowacki and 'Córka Wokulskiego' by R. Praszyński) as well as works which indirectly refer to the Victorian era. The dilemmas of burghers living in the second half of the 19th century are still present in the literature of the 21st century. Characters existing in a period of constant change search for their own identity and – frequently – misfits 'come out' and talk about their lives from the viewpoint of an excluded person. It is fitting to add that empathy with neighbors seems to be a very important feature of both 19th century and contemporary narrations.