After Totality : Theory of the Novel and Social Thought in Poland between 1956 and 1968

In this chapter, I examine how sociopolitical, ideological, and aesthetic concerns were negotiated in the theory and criticism of the novel in Poland between 1956 and 1968. Literary critics and theorists expected the novel to serve as a vehicle of social inclusion; it should provide a comprehensive representation of society and give voice to members of social classes hitherto absent from public discourse, such as workers and peasants.This concern was not only based on Marxist ideas but also on the boom of lower-class memoir writing that had been initiated by Florian Znaniecki’s sociology of the ‘human document’ during the interwar years. However, the literature actually published could not live up to the high standards formulated by literary theorists like Stefan Żółkiewski and critics like Andrzej Kijowski and Tomasz Burek. The events of 1968 marked the end of the connection between social thought and the theory of the novel in Poland.