Extra-educational Bestiary? Transformation of Animal Paradise Motif in Polish Young Adult Fantastic Literature

The article Extra-educational Bestiary? Transformation of Animal Paradise Motif in Polish Young Adult Fantastic Literature is an attempt to define a new argument for a possibility of animal immortality on the basis of fantasy literature for children and young adults. For this purpose, Ewelina Rąbkowska analyzes three examples of the theme of animal paradise in Polish animal fantasy novels for children and young adults. The main hypothesis of the article is that intuition of fantasy literature tells—in the same way as (defined in some previous papers) “poetical intuition”—stories about significant relationships between humans and non-humans, which last longer than single life. The author argues that contemporary fantasies for young adults are examples of crossing the borders of a traditional anthropocentric point of view. They show a new, post-humanist discourse about animals, change the language, narrative strategies and—what is most important—traditional didactic purposes of the text