Świat "na opak" - ironia, przestroga, rzeczywistość. Literackie wyobrażenie kobiet aspirujących do kierowania państwem

Abstract

The article is a comparative study of Lysistrata (411 B.C.) and Women in Parliament (391 B.C.) - comedies by Aristophanes, Feminine Parliament (ca. 1569) - a work by Marcin Bielski, and Gobiemo Reprezentativo y Constitucional del Bello Sexo Español - a liberal Spanish periodical from 1841. Those works present a literary vision of the participation of women in public life, as well as the feminine desire to seize power over men. The hidden main idea is criticism of the government exercised by men, and search for ways to improve it. The idea of admitting women to politics is not to be understood as a proposal to be realized in practice, but as a humoristic warning. If men do not unite to save the state, women will start to rule them, and having a meagre knowledge of politics and diplomacy, they will bring the state to a downfall. Everything will stand upside down then: women will take over men’s jobs, and men - women’s. Thus, the studied texts have two complementary implied meanings: literal and figurative. The first one reflects an irony, and the second one a caution. Women wanted to rule through the parliament elected among them. It is worth noting that the aspiration of women to take over the helm did not follow from their egoistic ambitions, but it was provoked by men’s incompetence in the face of the really catastrophic situation of the state. The ladies became indignant with that fact, and it awakened their patriotism and feeling of responsibility for the fate of the state. At the same time, they wanted to prove that they had their own efficient ways of ruling both the state and men.