Bolesław Prus in footnotes and addenda. Case study

Abstract

Based of the examples drawn from selected compositions by Bolesław Prus, the article demonstrates a variety of problems related to preparing explanations concerning the works of the 19th century writer. Among them, there are various types and levels of details in footnotes, adjusted to the needs of a contemporary reader, or the matter of marking and rectifying the author’s mistakes (the state of knowledge at that time, deformations of quotations, anachronisms). It is also discovering non-obvious relations between the element of the world being explained and the plot, as well as marking traces of the writer’s private world preserved in a literary composition (such as recurring ideas and motifs, biographical elements, references to own or others’ texts: readings, creative notes etc.). While preparing an edition of a text by Prus (in case of both journalistic writing and belles-lettres), an editor faces the necessity to define the hierarchy of values, to make a difficult choice between informing about the reality of a given period and emphasizing the creator’s specific experiences, marking the border in using the information taken from the writer’s biography, between objective and subjective information. He or she also has to beat the temptation to overload the text with footnotes, supplementing or explaining each sentence – in order not to fall into the “paranoia of footnotes”.