Centrum i peryferia w twórczości Norwida

Abstract

This paper presents Norwid’s perception of the issue of the centre/periphery in his “geobiography”. Of primary importance is the fact that Norwid was the first Polish Romantic author to examine this problem, in terms other than dealing with the lost land of childhood and situating Poland in the centre. In Cyprian Norwid’s oeuvre urban themes, absent from other texts of Polish Romanticism, can be found. The paper argues that Norwid started by locating his centre (of existentional, religious and cultural nature) in Rome, and later, after many failed attempts at translocation, he found it in the sphere of his own memory.