In the present article, the author attempts to solve the paradox hidden in the declaration pronounced by Bogusław Wolniewicz who referred to himself as a ‘Non-Confessional Roman Catholic.’ First, the author analyses (1) the way Wolniewicz understood the sources of religion, and then, (2) how he defined the minimum of Christianity. (3) The author investigates whether it is possible to reconcile his acceptance of euthanasia with the teaching of the Church, and finally, (4) the author focuses on his evangelical aesthetics. By way of conclusion the study traces on similarities between the tychistic rationalism and Christianity.

The author explicates the concepts of nihilism and the meaning of life as they have been presented by Ivan Turgenev in his masterpiece Fathers and Sons. She examines in detail the question whether Bazarov’s attitude, the novel’s main protagonist’s, challenges traditional ways of living and points to a deeper and more objective meaning of life, or whether his challenge is intended as an attempt to eliminate all prospect of objective meaning attributable to life, and leaves only one viable option, namely that life must be interpreted in purely subjective terms. Relying on her own analysis of Bazarov’s existential outlook, the author contrasts his qualms with the outlook of the main protagonist of the short story Rudin, which shows a man of a completely different character from Bazarov’s. These two incompatible conceptions of life adopted by entirely different characters evoke a somber image of Russian nihilism and help to illuminate ethical assumptions and practical implications of that attitude.

The author analyses problems of disease, dying, and death addressed in a play by Margaret Edson entitled Wit. Special attention is paid to the structure of meta-theatre and the function of wit in the play. The author investigates limitations of reason in the approach adopted by the doctors who take care of Vivian Bearing, and who subject her to an excruciating experiment in order to achieve a potential research success. She also discusses the protagonist’s attitude to literary works, dealing with her own disease, to other people and to God. This offers an opportunity to ruminate on the exact meaning of irretrievable loss involved in suffering. She also concentrates on the attitude of the nurse who – thanks to her emotional intelligence and empathy – accompanies Vivian on her way to death.

The study focuses on the relationship between the ethics of reading and the narrator’s unreliability in the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day. Drawing on James Phelan’s research, the authoress states that unreliability that can be attributed to the narrator of Ishiguro’s novel can be classified as either an error of being in the wrong or withholding some information consciously. Consequently, six types of unreliability can be distinguished: misreporting, misinterpreting, misevaluating, underreporting, underinterpreting, underevaluating. Employing these categories, the authoress analyses a literary text and lists different types of unreliability which are characteristic of Stevens, the main character and the narrator in Ishiguro’s novel.

Autorka zajmuje się trzema kwestiami: po pierwsze, tym, w jaki sposób Henryk Elzenberg rozumiał pracę filozofa interpretującego dzieła literackie; po drugie, jego interpretacją dramatu Williama Shakespeare’a Juliusz Cezar, zwłaszcza w kontekście oceny przyczyn klęski Marka Brutusa; po trzecie, pytaniem, czy interpretacja ta jest trafna (ujęcie Elzenberga zostaje porównane z innymi interpretacjami, m.in. Wystana H. Audena i Marthy Nussbaum).