Beata Śniecikowska – författare

The objective of this book is to continue the reflection on the innovative potential of misunderstanding in　cross-cultural encounters　which we started by publishing the first part of the book (Understanding Misunderstanding. Vol. 1: Cross-Cultural Translation, Peter Lang 2019). The main purpose of these two corresponding volumes is to embrace not only the cross-cultural adaptation of texts, ideas and discourses in distant geo-historical contexts, but also the culturally-based mechanisms of creatively transforming and re-shaping the source-text in target environments. The notions of misunderstanding and semantic transformation are seen as crucial in this process, yet still not widely acknowledged.

The monograph presents the Polish history of haiku and the forms associated with this genre – in literature and visual arts. Polish works are confronted with Japanese poetry (along with its aesthetic, philosophical and ethical contexts) and with haiku-inspired miniatures produced by poets from various European and American countries. The book also touches upon the theory of literary genres and translatological problems (translations of Japanese haiku as a touchstone of changes in Western literature). The presented discussion with haiku as the central theme allows for a unique and panoramic perspective of Polish poetry of the last hundred years. It also facilitates original analyses of the relationship between literature and visual arts – in the field of book art, painting and multimedia.

The Futurists produced most conspicuous, creative, and diverse figures of sound in the Polish avant-garde. The book is a comparative study of the Polish Futurists’ works presented against the backdrop of European literary practices of the time (Dadaism, Italian and Russian Futurism) and the Polish literary tradition (folk poetry, Young Poland). S´niecikowska examines variations on symbolist “musicality,” traces similarities between Polish Futurist word formation and Cubo-Futurist experimentation, compares Dadaist and Futurist concepts of onomatopoeia, analyses applications of Marinetti’s “words in freedom.” The study also deals with uses of glossolalia and echolalia as well as sound-semantic concepts that employ pure nonsense and parody.