A novel which does not want to be only a novel.” The Long Duration of the Novel in Jan Tomkowski’s Theory and Practice

Jan Tomkowski is well-known as the creator of literary historical compendia marked with an individual stigma, and also as a practitioner and theoretician of the essay. However, he devotes much attention to the novel in his literature-specialist works, essays and prose miniatures, and published his own books in this genre. In article, the authoress ponders that subjective quality of the scholar’s approach to novels as well as she considers what, according to him, is the specific of these novels which is characterized by the long duration, regardless of social transformations, changes of conventions or the market. She deliberates, what sense could have the notion of canon today, and also regards the tension between Tomkowski’s fondness for classic masterpieces and his interest in uncanonical subjects and literary strategies. Interpreting philosophically the two key themes of European novel, indicated by him, she analyses their manifestations in his own realizations of the genre as well as intertextual games among his novels, essays and miniatures. Last but not least, she puts a question after the scholar, what for to write and read (ambitious) novels and what is their future