Romanticism - spectral or vampiric? : the romantic paradigm in contemporary fiction : the case of "Wypiór" by Grzegorz Uzdański

This article discusses Grzegorz Uzdański's verse novel "Wypiór" (2021, the title is a pun on the word 'upiór', Pol. spectre) which is multifaceted commentary on the Romantic tradition and the 'Romantic paradigm, epitomized in the figure of Adam Mickiewicz transformed into a vampire. The pop-cultural frame invites the reader to pursue all kinds of links between "Wypiór" and the gallery of the living dead, ghosts and spectres in Mickiewicz's stories (conceived both as characters from the past and a metaphoric pro jections of the Romantic poet). The article compares the references and allusions in Uzdański's novel to Mickiewicz's own text as well as the text of another contemporary comic horror novel, "Ale razem z naszymi umarłymi" ("But Not Without Our Dead") by Jacek Dehnel. The analyses, which rely on a methodological toolkit inspired by Jacques Derrida's hauntology, offer a more accurate reading of "Wypiór" and highlight its place in the contemporary reception of Romanticism with its predilection for haunting, ghosts or persistent spectral presence.