“The Black Goat” or Leśmian’s reinterpretation of Apuleius’s “Golden Ass”
Abstract
The present article aims to study The Black Goat by Bolesław Leśmian in view of its intertextual dialogue with the antique model of metamorphic literature: Metamorphoses, or The Golden Ass by Apuleius. Although the fairy tale was published in a volume entitled Polish Fairy Tales, it is partially based on foreign sources that the author cleverly hid behind other Polish stories. The comparison of The Black Goat with The Golden Ass shows that the Polish poet drew inspiration mainly from Apuleius’s novel, in which a man is also transformed into a stubborn animal. The symbolism of colours and light, which Leśmian modernized and adapted for the modern Polish reader, confirms this hypothesis. Comparative work on both texts helps to understand Leśmian’s reinterpretation of the concept of metamorphosis and his contribution to the reflection on this topic.
Keywords
Bolesław Leśmian; Apuleius; metamorphosis; fairy-tale; intertextuality
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Université Libre de Bruxelles Poland
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