Słowacki i spadkobiercy. Studia i szkice

Abstract

The studies and essays collected in this book were written in the years 2007–2017. For this edition, they have been expanded, corrected, and arranged so as to emphasise and highlight their mutual relations. Each subsequent section either clarifies or supplements the preceding one. Sometimes they can be treated as extensive footnotes to the neighbouring sections. The first part of the book, entitled Słowacki after the turning point, is entirely devoted to the work of Juliusz Słowacki, one of the most prominent figures of Polish Romanticism. In the opening section, the author offers an overview of the poet’s personality in the 33rd year of his life (1842/1843), which was undoubtedly one of the most important years both in his biography and in his work.The second section is devoted to Słowacki’s historical drama The Silver Dream of Salomea (1843). The author discusses some of the main symbols that recur in Słowacki's imagination and work, and in particular, the symbolism of fire, sun, and light in this play. The next two sections deal with Słowacki’s opus magnum, the poem King-Spirit. An analysis of the Byzantine Greek themes that are present in this work allows one to identify a curious idiosyncrasy in Słowacki’s creative imagination: a distinct aversion toward the Orthodox Church coexists with a fascination with Eastern Christian spirituality. The last section of the first part of the book constitutes a connecting link to its second part in that it concerns both Słowacki himself and Seweryn Goszczyński, the author of the famous novel in verse Zamek kaniowski [Kaniów Castle]. Written in the convention of Dark Romanticism, the novel appeared in 1828. The next section concerns another outstanding novel in verse from the Polish Romantic period, namely Maria (1825) by Antoni Malczewski. The author provides a detailed discussion of the role of Ukrainian folklore in the novel. Literature of the second half of the 19th century is represented in the book by Zygmunt Miłkowski, who wrote under the pseudonym of Tomasz Teodor Jeż. He showed a keen interest in the culture and history of the South Slavic people, especially the Bulgarians and Serbs. He authored a series of novels based on the history of the Balkan Slavs, who lived under the Turkish yoke for several centuries. By contrast to the Slavs, the Greeks, who were also subjugated to the Turkish rule, are seen by Miłkowski as much more willing to cooperated with the Ottoman oppressors. The depiction of the Greeks in his novels is discussed in a separate section of the book. In the next section, the author moves on to the Modernist period. He discusses the presence of laughter in Ignacy Dąbrowski’s novel Death (1893). The novel is written in the form of a diary and is intended to be a study of a terminal illness (tuberculosis) and dying. After a short interpretation of the dialogue between Faust and Mephistopheles (1894) by Jerzy Żuławski, the author leaves the 19th century to discuss the story of the friendship between two leading Polish writers of the first decade of the 20th century: Stefan Żeromski and Tadeusz Miciński. The section titled Żeromski about Miciński, Miciński about Żeromski contains a number of previously unknown facts and invites the reader to rediscover often neglected testimonies of the rough friendship between the two outstanding literary figures. The remaining sections of the book concern, in turn, Miciński's view of the Bulgarian culture and the literary and personal relations between him and Bulgarian artists (From admiration to disappointment. Bulgarian motifs in the writings of Tadeusz Micinski); the Polish-language work of Józef Albin Herbaczewski in the context of his aspirations to be seen as the ultimate judge of what is valuable and what is not in the Polish literature and culture; in the concluding section, the author reminds the reader of the life and work of Karol Jacek Malewski, a half-forgotten poet from the Young Poland period. What runs through all the papers and essays in the book is a discussion of the imagery and motifs that were first explored by the Romantic masters (Malczewski, Słowacki, Goszczyński) to later reappear in the works of their successors, especially Dąbrowski, Miciński, Żuławski, and Malewski. Among the most powerful images are nocturnal landscapes of the eastern, Ukrainian frontiers of historical Poland; one of the strongest motifs is the certainty of death.