Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk

(Sexuality of Paskwalina or about the properties of the poem by Samuel Twardowski once again)

Year of publication: 2019
Page range: 13 (21-33)
Keywords: female sexuality, woman in Old Polish literature, identity construction, “querelle des femmes", allegory, mimesis concept, René Girard, feminism
Author: Noemi Szafrańska (Jagiellonian University in Kraków)


Abstract

The main purpose of the text is to analyze the problem of sexuality presented in the poem by Samuel Twardowskiof entitled “Nadobna Paskwalina" (“The beautiful Paskwalina"). The analysis was based on previous research: the mimetic concept of René Girard and an attempt at feminist reading of romance. The author shows the process of constructing a woman’s personality on the foundations of admiration on the part of the male sex and confronts it with the traditional model of a woman which dominated in the old ages. The next part of the text presents the relationship between the process of building and collapse of the Paskwalina’s identity according to the concept of René Girard. The heroine’s journey and the significance of the influence of her guides are being analyzed. The poem is interpreted as an extensive commentary by Samuel Twardowski on the observed realities of everyday life of the Catholics, and the finale of this romance as a girardian murder of the heroine’s sexuality, which acquires a transgressive character.

Article file >> pdf