Who is Dziwozona? : the borders of romanticism and the borders of the fantastic in the light of Michał Bałucki’s "Dwie siostry" ("Two sisters")

The aim of the paper is to show the change in function of fantastic motives at the dusk of romanticism, resulting from the discovery of the unconsciousness. Basing on Tzvetan Todorov it is assumed that psychoanalysis marks a critical point in the history of fantastic literature, as it shifts the perspective to focus on the uncanny (thus individual experience of one’s unconsciousness which may take on phantasmal shape) and belies the trust in objective reality. Discovering unconsciousness blurs the difference between rational (real) and fantastic, because uncanny becomes a common part of human self. The object of the analysis is Michal Balucki’s novella Dwie siostry (Two sisters), written in 1862. It is interpreted here as a tale about mourning and unconsciousness, where fantastic motive (dziwożona, mamuna) manifests itself as a pure signifiant, referring to protagonist’s unconsciousness. The analysis is conducted in the context of history of Polish psychological thought (mainly Wiktor Feliks Szokalski) and fantastic literature of the era (Adam Pług, Józef Dzierzkowski)