American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

Contemporary Polish Theater and Drama (1956-1984) by E. J. CzerwinskiReview by: Michal KobialkaThe Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Winter, 1989), pp. 633-635Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European LanguagesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/308306 .

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Reviews 633

more recent works and those in English; given the likely audience for his book, both biases are understandable. However, a few of his decisions could still be questioned. For instance, he offers Osip Brik's "Ritm i sintaksis," listing the reprint in Two Essays on Poetic Language (Ann Arbor, 1964). However, no mention is made of "Zvukovye povtory," a much more influential article which also happens to be the other of the essays from that volume. In his earlier book Brogan provided a generous listing of Kiril Taranovsky's extremely important contributions to Russian verse theory; here, only Taranovsky's 1953 book and two articles, one of them essentially bibliographical, are to be found. There are misprints (stixotvorce for stixotvorca and Sergi for Sergei (or Sergej?) in entry 1356; Osnov for Osnovy in 1358; Narodwy for Narodowy in a couple of places), but these are generally not serious. A few more cross-references would have been preferable: Boris Romanov's article in his collection Russkij sonet (Moscow, 1983) appears in the first part under stanza forms and is not mentioned at all in the Slavic section- though Brogan, in his preface does suggest browsing, and the book is sufficiently concise to encourage perusal.

The first part, with its well-chosen entries on specific topics, and also the subsections devoted to various theories (located under "English"), will prove to be valuable reference tools even to those with some background in versification. While these portions lack the fullness and the informative annotations of the previous volume, both the selectivity and the intelligent group- ing of items (compare, for instance the treatment of stanzaic forms in the two volumes) make this work much more accessible. One quibble that applies to both parts of Verseform: particu- larly in the absence of annotations for each entry, it would have been helpful to include brief introductory notes to each section. If nothing else, singling out the handful of the most basic works on a given topic would have provided some guidance for newcomers to the study of verse theory.

Brogan also does not discuss the book's title. Apparently, "verseform" comprises an attempt to coin a term that would be more comprehensive than "versification," and yet would be limited to the more formal aspects of poetry. Only time can tell whether the word will enter into general use, but the suggestion, like the book itself, represents a nice effort.

Barry P. Scherr, Dartmouth College

E. J. Czerwinski. Contemporary Polish Theater and Drama (1956-1984). Westport, CT.: Greenwood Press, 1988. xix, 155 pp., $29.95 (cloth).

Czerwinski rightly observes that when the general English-speaking public thinks about Polish theater and drama the names which most frequently surface are those of Grotowski and Mroiek. It is probably thanks to them that the old question of King Ubu, "where is Poland?," loses its immediacy and, finally, becomes a non-sequitur in the context of recent political developments. The political situation notwithstanding, however, even today, little is known about Polish culture. Scholars such as Milosz, Karpowicz, Czerwinski, Kott, Grotowski, Gerould, to mention a few names, ever so often manage to publish a book that contributes to a slim body of literature on this subject. This is the reason why any book concerning Polish theater/drama/literature is anticipated with considerable interest and the strong desire that it be an exemplary effort.

As Czerwinski asserts, the purpose of his book "is to introduce a number of Polish dramatists who have produced a significant body of work to the general English-speaking public. Some of the names will be familiar (Mroiek, Rozewicz, Gombrowicz, and Witkacy); others may be new (Tymoteusz Karpowicz, Ireneusz Iredynski, and Jerzy Broszkiewicz). But these should not be deterrents to an understanding of a country, its people, and its literature that has always seemed to manage to go its own way, even when control seemed to be in alien hands" (xii).

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634 Slavic and East European Journal

His intent is thus to make others understand the complex phenomenon of Polish culture. The arrangement of chapters clarifies this point. Chapter I discusses the so-called roots of contemporary Polish drama. It is here that Czerwinski introduces his methodological princi- ples, i.e., the Jester-Priest metaphor, the concept of a search for universality according to which the plays, the dramaturgs, and theater practitioners are selected. Tracing the traditions that would emerge in 1956 with the Polish Theater of the Absurd, Czerwinski goes back to playwrights who introduced themes/traditions that have been absorbed by contemporary writ- ers. The names of Niemcewicz, Mickiewicz, Slowacki, Norwid, Przybyszewski, Wyspianski, Szaniawski, Kruczkowski, Gombrowicz, and Witkiewicz (Witkacy) are evoked in passing and their contributions are briefly discussed. Czerwinski mentions also in this chapter Adam Tarn and his significance as a shaping force of contemporary Polish theater. This part of the chapter is a worthwhile addition to the analysis of themes, symbols, and metaphors.

Chapter II is devoted to the Polish school of criticism and its enfants terribles, Jan Kott and Leszek Kolakowski. Chapters III through VI deal with the Polish dramaturgy. The works of what Czerwinski perceives as "significant playwrights" are described. Each chapter constitutes a composite picture which is part of a bigger whole as seen through the eyes of the author of the book. The titles of the chapters, for example, "Tadeusz Rozewicz: The Reluctant Jester," "Slawomir Mroiek: The Seeker of Absolutes," "Jerzy Broszkiewicz and Tymoteusz Karpowicz: Priests in Mufti," "Grochowiak, Iredynski, and Others: In Search of the Emperor's clothes," not only delineate the boundaries of each discourse by imposing a theme/hypothesis, but are also an elaboration on Czerwinski's methodology, as defined by him in the first chapter. The last chapter, "Directors and Their Theaters: Home for the Homeless," moves the reader away from a literary analysis of plots, characters, and thoughts about the plays in the direction of the theater practitioners, Jerzy Grotowski, Tadeusz Kantor, Jozef Szajna, and their theaters.

Even from this brief description of the methodology, arrangement of information, and objectives of the book, it becomes clear that Czerwinski has assayed Sisyphus's task. Not only does he introduce contemporary Polish playwrights and theater practitioners, he also takes the reader on a trip to the silent beginnings of Polish dramaturgy. The task is commendable; its execution, however, falls short, unless this publication is intended to serve a public already well-read in Polish history, literature, philosophy, and other arts, from the Romantics to the present. Three points will illustrate this thesis.

First, in the introductory chapter, Czerwinski mentions the name of Niemcewicz in whose work "we find themes, characters, mechanics of plot structure and particularly points of view which have sustained and nourished playwrights for almost two centuries" (1). This statement, which seems to be a very significant one, is supported by one page, half of which is taken up with a quotation from Powrot posla (The Return of the Envoy). One of the ineluctable corol- laries of such scanty treatment is a tendency to generalize and over-simplify the issues at stake. The rest of this chapter proves that, given the complexity of the subject-matter, exploring it in such a succinct manner is not satisfactory.

Second, the chapters devoted to playwrights and theater practitioners suffer from a similar problem. For example, Rozewicz's career as a playwright is discussed in fourteen pages. Because, as Czerwinski maintains in his preface, "only a small number of plays discussed in this book are available in English translation" (xiii), eleven plays are discussed/summarized on those fourteen pages. Consequently, such complex plays as Pulapka (The Trap) are given rudimentary treatment (half a page), which obfuscates rather than clarifies the concept of the "reluctant jester" or "prophet."

Third, Czerwinski's choice of playwrights representing Polish drama in the period 1956-1984 is highly subjective. He seems only interested in those playwrights who can be described as proponents of the "Theater of the Absurd," yet the Theater of the Absurd is only one of many orientations that emerged in this extremely prolific period. Why this particular orientation should be privileged by the author is never explained. Having focused on a handful of officially "recognized and celebrated" playwrights, Czerwinski gives at best a very marginal treatment of the playwrights of the 1970s and 1980s.

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Reviews 635

The general purpose of this book, to introduce Polish dramatists and their work to the general public, has unfortunately turned into a compact plot description that fits the metaphor. The orientation that is privileged enforces a methodology which brings to the fore the names of those playwrights and theater practitioners who are quite well known in the Western World. It is unfortunate that the same list of names will be evoked whenever contemporary Polish theater is mentioned.

Michal Kobialka, University of Minnesota

Gerald L. Mayer. The Definite Article in Contemporary Standard Bulgarian. Osteuropa-Institut an der freien Universitdit Berlin, Balkanologische Veriffentlichungen, 14. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1988. xv, 134 pp. DM 58,-.

Of all the morpho-syntactic features of Bulgarian, the definite article is surely among the few which hold special interest outside the narrow confines of Bulgarian linguistics per se. Unfor- tunately, descriptions of the Bulgarian definite article generally remain beyond the reach of many who could make good use of them. Most existing research-including virtually all monograph studies and lengthier, substantive reference works-is in Bulgarian, and, as Mayer continually reminds us with complete justification (e.g., 77, 88, 93, 96, 102), is largely inade- quate, theoretically and descriptively. Consequently, Mayer's "attempt to make an exhaustive linguistic analysis of the definite article in Contemporary Standard Bulgarian (CSB) in all its aspects" (xiii) is doubly welcome. The book clearly and fully presents the relevant data and critically surveys existing descriptions of the Bulgarian article within the context of general, typological studies of definiteness. Additionally it offers interesting and stimulating conclusions with respect to a number of empirical and theoretical questions.

Without doubt, the book's principal virtue is its breadth. Indeed, to a greater or lesser extent, it touches upon all aspects of the form and function of the Bulgarian definite article. Synchronic issues receive the greatest attention (1-104): the meaning of the Bulgarian definite article within the context of general, theoretical discussions of grammatical definiteness (chap. 1); the formal properties (orthographic, phonological, morphological, syntactic) of the Bulgar- ian article (chap. 2); rules governing the actual usage of the article (chap. 3). The historical development of the definite article (and possible connection to the development of analytic syntax in Bulgarian) and the question of the existence of an indefinite article in Bulgarian receive much briefer and more tentative treatment (chaps. 4 and 5, resp.).

Mayer's principal conclusions (summarized 122-24) are the following. (1) The Bulgarian definite article presents "to the hearer an object...as being identifiable whether or not the object is in fact identifiable." (2) The article "is an NP marker loosely (agglutinatively) post- poned to the left-most element of the NP, with almost no morphologically-conditioned phono- logical changes." (3) "Although in colloquial CSB the distinction between the long and short forms of the masculine definite article is facultative, in written CSB. . .and in formal spoken CSB, the long form is used in direct usages, the short form in oblique usages." (4) There is an indefinite article in Bulgarian, carrying the features: [+article, -definite, +specific], in opposi- tion to the definite article, carrying [+article, +definite, +specific]. (5) Generic statements "most often occur with the definite article. .., but non-article use is also frequent[;] the treat- ment of generic NPs in CSB is different from that of definite NPs[;] there is no clear distinction in meaning between the usage of ? article in generic constructions where this is facultative." (6) "It is impossible to disassociate the development of the definite article from the loss of the nominal case system and the resultant analytic structure of CSB."

Many of Mayer's views and conclusions are likely to be controversial, which is entirely natural given the book's ambition to be broadly synthetic and authoritative, as well as the highly polemical character of much of what has been written about the Bulgarian definite article. Here I limit myself to discussing two of the more general issues of this sort.

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