Proper Names from the (Literary) Backstage. Onomastic Aspects of the Prose of Marek Słyk on the Basis of his Novel “In the Borsch

Proper Names from the (Literary) Backstage. Onomastic Aspects of the Prose of Marek Słyk on the Basis of his Novel “In the Borsch of Adventures”The study aims to contribute to research on the onomastic-stylistic diversity of Polish prose in the late 20th century. In focus are those onomastic properties of literature that reveal connections between names and language in the process of creating non-mimetic, literary-style fiction. These properties also point to the nature of proper names as they function in a literary work of art — that work being a post-modern intellectual-literary game. The names used in the novel (anthroponyms, toponyms, chrematonyms, also zoonyms) mainly derive from the author’s linguistic creativity: they contribute to the world-view projected through the text. That world-view is “purposefully and to tally unusual”, different from the real world.