Iwona Puchalska „Poetic improvisation in Polish culture of the 19th century against a background of the European tradition”.

The subject of the book is a poetic improvisation – one of the most controversial esthetic phenomenas of European culture of the 18th and 19th century.
Described as a paraliterary phenomena because of its performative character and very strong interactions with other fields of artistic creativity (such as theatre, music, art), improvisation has been shown in its three basic dimensions: as an artistic performance, as an exceptional kind of creation and as a specific form of literary creation.
The aim of the work is mainly an attempt to plant Polish way of thinking of this phenomena in the context of European tradition, including the analysis of works of the most famous Polish improvisers: Adam Mickiewicz and Jadwiga Łuszczewska, called Deotyma, as well as to show a relation between the19th century myth of improvisation and how it was put into artistic practice.

Iwona Puchalska – lecturer at the Chair of Comparative Studies of the Faculty of Polish Studies, Jagiellonian University in Cracow, where she obtained MA and PhD in Polish Studies; also studied literature and sociology at Université Stendhal, Grenoble 3, where she taught the Polish language. Research interests: intersemiotic comparative studies (especially issues of adaptation and the relationship of music and literature); sociological, cultural and historical conditions for the reception of works of literature and music.