S. Jaworski, Turning Points and Breakthroughs. Studies in 20th-Century Literature

The leading concern of the book are the ways in which early and late 20th-century literature (culture) reacts to certain changes (breakthroughs). Such turning points may both be expected and programmed (as in the case of the Polish Avant-garde between the two world wars), yet not all decisive moments of the history are accompanied by such changes, or at least the changes are not parallel or simultaneous. Mostly, these changes are expressed in the language of changed symbols and personality types presented. The idea of the book is to present such phenomena. A juxtaposition of studies of literary phenomena from the period between the two world wars with those from the time of the Second World War and those that followed the transformation of 1989 allows describing how the literary mechanisms operate.