Reymont – double vision. Criticism and women. (Julia Kisielewska – Czesława Endelman-Rosenblat – Maria Łopuszańska – Anna Zahorska)

Abstract

The article analyses critical texts written by women which focused on female characters in the literature of 19th and early 20th century, including the heroines of the novels by Władysław Stanisław Reymont: Julia Kisielewska From Female Psychology. Types and Characters in Life and Novel (Z psychologii kobiecej. Typy i charaktery w życiu i powieści, “Ateneum” 1899), Czesława Endelman-Rosenblat The Jewish Woman in Contemporary Polish Fiction (Żydówka we współczesnej beletrystyce polskiej, “Izraelita” 1902), Maria Łopuszańska The Type of Contemporary Woman in the Latest Polish Novel (Typ kobiety współczesnej w najnowszej powieści polskiej, “Pogląd na Świat” 1902) and Anna Zahorska Types of Women in Contemporary Polish Literature (Typy kobiet w polskiej literaturze współczesnej, “Tygodnik Ilustrowany” 1911). These critics did not represent a single intellectual or social group, point of view, biographical model or literary criticism approach. Because of that in their texts about female characters in literature it was not only the way in which they wrote about Reymont’s heroines that turned out to be essential, but also what response they provided to the question about the contemporary image or the ideal of a woman and femininity, as well as its social (and sometimes even national) ‘agency’ or relevance.