Paper short abstract:

Our presentation concerns the recent literary phenomenon of the Polish "eco-fairytale" as exemplified by Agnieszka Marzęcka's "The Victory of the King of Cleanliness", a fabulous tale about ecological lifestyles and the metaphorical ecology of human lives.

Paper long abstract:

Agnieszka Marzęcka's "The Victory of the King of Cleanliness" is a fabulous tale about ecological lifestyles and the metaphorical ecology of human lives. Didactic literature's role in pro-ecological education requires some thought from the author about the young recipient of the text. I will describe (a) the main ecological subplots in this work which shape and promote the literary (symbolic) theme of a healthy lifestyle, (b) the mytho-biographies of the two key heroes, the King of Cleanliness and the Slovenly King, (c) the moral pattern of the latter's final admission of the superiority of the Cleanliness King's lifestyle's, as well as (d) the magical function of a drop of clean water. The second dimension of the eco-fairytale's performative function is the innovatory model of mythical eco-culture proposed by the authoress: that it operates upon the recipient's consciousness through its active reproduction on stage by school children.

The eco-fairytale, through the process of preparation and performance, strengthens the status of the ecological lifestyle in a listener's mind, not only as a universal value but also an ecological module of reading and creative dramatization.

The most important aim of this presentation is to draw attention to the literary factors which activate the ecological imagination of the listener, which in turn takes us from mythical literature to deepening the ecology of an individual biography.