Stanisław Barańczak

Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, US

"Stanisław Barańczak (b. Nov. 13, 1946, in Poznań, d. December 26, 2014, in Newtonville, MA) a poet, essayist, literary critic and lecturer; author of numerous essays and monographs on literary theory, anthropology, and translation; renowned translator of English literature, a master of language, operating with surgical precision. Barańczak made his debut as a poet and literary critic in 1965, with the poem “Przyczyny zgonu” [–Causes of death] published in the monthly Odra. Between 1964 and 1968 he was a member of a poetic group Próby [–Attempts/ trials], founded by Adam Mickiewicz University philology students, often referred to as Poznań linguists. Barańczak remained as a lecturer at UAM, where in 1973 he was awarded a doctorate for his dissertation on Miron Białoszewski’s poetic language. He took an active part in opposition against the communist government of the Polish People’s Republic; he was one of the leading poets of the New Wave and co-founded the Workers’ Defense Committee [KOR], a major anti-communist civic group of those times. As retribution for KOR, he was banned from publishing and removed from the university. At the outset of the eighties, he then migrated to the United States upon a long-standing teaching invitation from the department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University – a university he retired from eighteen years later. Professor Barańczak was published in periodicals Tygodnik Powszechny, Znak, Nurt, Odra and Literatura na Świecie. One of his most readily recognized books on literary and translation criticism is Ocalone w tłumaczeniu [Saved in Translation: Sketches on the Craft of Translating Poetry] (1992). The wealth of his poetic, critical, and translational output will not fit within the limits of a biographical note. What’s left is „Best to keep appropriate order – the front, the end – within the line’s neat border […]” – and read Stanisław Barańczak. "
Texts in the following books published by Æsh

Między tekstem a kulturą: Z zagadnień interpretacyjnych

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Articles in Æsh publications:

(2022) Rozrywki umysłowe [‒mental time-killers] [In:] P. P. Chruszczewski & A. R. Knapik (Eds.), Między tekstem a kulturą: z zagadnień interpretacyjnych (Beyond Language 7). San Diego, CA: Æ Academic.; 5-7

Kultura łatwa: w gruncie rzeczy do tego sprowadzały się zawsze rozmaite próby uściślenia pojęcia kultury masowej. Bo co znaczy właściwie „masowa”? „Masowa”, czyli odbierana przez masy, w masowym obiegu społecznym. Zgoda, natychmiast jednak pojawia się pytanie: co mianowicie powoduje, że kultura ta – w przeciwieństwie do „niemasowej”, „elitarnej”, „wysokoartystycz4nej” – może zawsze liczyć na popularność? Oczywiście – odpowiada się zwykle – jej łatwość, to, że nie zmusza ona do aktywnego wysiłku umysłowego. Nikomu z teoretyków nie przychodzi jakoś do głowy, że jest to odpowiedź niewystarczająca. Czy rzeczywiście niechęć do intelektualnego wysiłku jest tak powszechną i niezmienną cechą tzw. masowego odbiorcy? Czy istotnie szuka on zawsze najłatwiejszych wyjść? Czy nie można by znaleźć konkretnych faktów świadczących o tym, że właśnie trudności, pokonywanie przeszkód, wysiłek umysłu są nieraz w cenie wśród najszerszych rzesz odbiorców? (Piotr P. Chruszczewski)

The so-called “easy culture” appears to be what is usually referred to as “mass culture.” But what does “mass” actually stand for? One would agree that it means “received by the masses” or “in mass social circulation,” but there is always another question accompanying the previous one, namely: what causes that this type of culture – as opposed to “non-mass culture”, “elite culture,” or “high-artistic culture” – can always get its high popularity? Surely, the usual answer would be it is about its ease, since it hardly ever would require an active mental effort. None of the theorists of the issue somehow ever come to think that this is an insufficient answer. Is really the aversion to intellectual effort such a common and unchanging variable characterizing the so-called “mass audience”? Is the mass audience always looking for the easiest way out? Would it not be possible to find solid facts proving that it is precisely the difficulties, the overcoming of obstacles, the effort of the mind which are appreciated among the widest masses of the public? (Piotr P. Chruszczewski)