Meluzyna

This paper presents the oral residuum in the gothic novels “The Koniecpolskis’ castle” (ZamekKoniecpolskich) and “Matylda and Daniło” by Anna Mostowska. The analysis of both texts hasrevealed in the narration features such as asides reminding of the narrator’s presence or interruptionsof the plot explained by exhaustion of characters. “The Koniecpolskis’ castle” and“Matylda and Daniło” display the nested story structure while also keeping resemblance to thegawęda Polish epic literary genre. The remain of the oral culture is the parallelism of the plots ofboth novels. The types of characters present in the texts (‘flat’ characters, usually equipped withone main characteristic, also the wandering characters, whose internal metamorphosis happensduring journey) are characteristic for oral stories. The pre-modern approach to the theoryof the past assumed that it is Fortune who controls a human’s fate, and Mostowska’s work reflectsthat belief. The protagonists of the two novels usually stay true to the ruling of Fate andthose who do not, face punishment. The characters’ lack of the ability to self-analyse (the case ofthe transformation of Bohdan Koniecpolski) and some logical inconsistencies (e.g. in the constructionof the character of Władysław) present in the novels may suggest that the author hasnot yet fully interiorised writing.