Features of the poetics of Andrzej Sapkowski\'s series of works about the witcher Geralt

The present work is a study of the genre aspect of Andrzej Sapkowski’s series of works about the witcher Geralt. A particular emphasis is made on the interconnection of the two genre sides of the series that is considered a piece of fantasy literature: the one connected to the fantasy as a literary genre and the one that refers to more commonly accepted literary genres (namely the short story, the novel and the epic, all of which are important for the fantasy tradition). The series was one of the first examples of fantasy in Poland, it played an important role in forming the local genre canon and presenting the fantasy tradition to the reader. The series of works about the witcher Geralt is understood in this work as seven books: two short story collections (‘The Last Wish‘ (1993) and ‘The Sword of Destiny‘ (1992)) and five novels (‘Blood of the Elves‘ (1994), ‘The Time of Contempt‘ (1995), ‘Baptism of Fire‘ (1996), ‘The Tower of the Swallow‘ (1997) and ‘The Lady of the Lake‘ (1998)). The series was created at the same time as its author's critical works on fantasy (notably the essay ‘Varenik, or No Gold in the Grey Mountains’ (1993) and the monograph ‘The Manuscript Found in the Dragon's Cave‘ (2001)), and Sapkowski himself was directly involved in the formation of what researchers would later call ‘Polish fantasy discourse’ as an author, reader and critic of fantasy. The series becomes a testing ground for the author’s theoretical ideas concerning the genre: it is a large metatextual statement about fantasy. This study attempts to explore the relationship between the two genre sides of the series and demonstrates how the poetics of the short story, the novel and the epic allow Sapkowski to engage with different sides of the fantasy canon. The internal dynamics of genres in the series help its author to achieve his main artistic task – to comprehend and transform fantasy as a genre – and give him the opportunity to ponder on other questions: in particular, on the question of the place of fiction in the life of the contemporary society and its relation to historical literature. The artistic characteristics of the short story, the novel and the epic allow the author to thoroughly consider various origins of fantasy, the features of fantasy characters and their images developed in the tradition, as well as to understand the principles of creating the artistic world of a fantasy work. The study uses the methods of comparative, intertextual and mythopoetic analysis; the works of M.M. Bakhtin and G.W.F. Hegel are used when dealing with the poetics of genres.