Nowelistyka Stefana Grabińskiego wobec tradycji literatury grozy

Abstract

Stefan Grabiński’s short stories and the tradition of horror fiction

Abstract

Stefan Grabiński’s short stories are a special testimony to the talent of the author who combined the tradition of horror fiction with the achievements of modern civilisation (especially in Demon ruchu [The Motion Demon]), and who resurrects conventional science fiction, re-interpreted from the point of view of accomplishments in the field of psychoanalysis. In cultural tradition, which can be treated as the point of reference for Grabiński’ short stories, a special place is occupied by the trend of romantic stories about ghosts, modernist science fiction, as well as the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Grabiński uses the penetration of the two spheres of reality – the rational and the supernatural – to expose the dual nature of the world. He seems to look for its sources in the penetration of the elements of rationalism and spiritualism. Neither nature, which is the mainstay of the supernatural powers, nor technology, whose products can be possessed by irrational beings, could protect man from the concept of “extraordinariness”, understood in its Freudian sense.