Piękno Juliusza Słowackiego, tom II, Universum

Abstract

The present book is the second in the three-volume publication “Juliusz Słowacki’s Beauty”, prepared by the University of Białystok’s scholars in the period from 2009 to 2012. The volumes are dedicated to aesthetics and geneology of the works of the great Polish Romantic poet, Juliusz Słowacki (1809–1849). It is the result of the work done in the Chair in Comparative and Interdisciplinary Studies ‘East – West’ (integral part of the Faculty of Philology), which specializes in Romanticism as well as in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature. Between 6th and 9th of May 2009, the team organized the International Conference, “Słowacki’s Beauty”, in Białystok. So far it has been the greatest conference dedicated to Słowacki: over one hundred and thirty papers were read, and over two hundred scholars took part in conference sessions, theatre performances, concerts and sightseeing tours that accompanied the main event. Among the institutions that particularly contributed to the Conference organization were: the National Library in Warsaw, Adam Mickiewcz Literary Society, the Literary Studies Committee of Polish Academy of Sciences and Książnica Podlaska in Białystok. All the scholarly work and organization were coordinated and supervised by the Faculty of Philology at the University of Białystok. Since the whole event aimed at commemorating the two hundredth anniversary of Słowacki’s birth and the one hundred and sixtieth anniversary of his death (the year 2009, let us remember, was officially declared ‘Słowacki’s Year’ by the Polish Parliament), the Conference was held under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. A significant part of the editorial work for the Volume II and Volume III was facilitated by Książnica Podlaska (an academic library). The present volume was edited by Professor Jarosław Ławski (Head of the Chair in Comparative and Interdisciplinary Studies “East – West”), Łukasz Zabielski (PhD), a philologist and historian, and Grzegorz Kowalski (MA), a scholar from Książnica Podlaska. Volume II comprises five chapters: Chapter I, “Pictures and Reminiscences”, sketches aesthetic and historical contexts of Słowacki’s oeuvre: development of Polish literature in the regions of the present-day Ukraine (Wołodomyr Jerszow, Żytomierz) and Lithuanian context (Mieczysław Jackiewicz). In a broader perspective, the authors of the volume show Aristophanes as a legislator of Romantic irony (Janusz Skuczyński), the influence of early German Romanticism on Słowacki (Marta Kopij), and an analysis of the German translation of Słowacki’s “Beniowski” (Leszek Libera). Słowacki is seen as a modern thinker (Marcin Bajko) and a man whose work can be psychoanalyzed in a fruitful and convincing way (Marek Lubański). The chapter also introduces a touchy issue of Vatican’s unwillingness towards the November Uprising of 1830 -31 in Poland (Rev. Tadeusz Kasabuła). There are two articles focusing on the reception of Słowacki’s works: among Polish soldiers in the Middle East during WWII (Krystyna Jaworska) and, after the war, in the eyes of the poet Zbigniew Herbert (Zbigniew Chojnowski). Chapter II, “Novels and Poems”, features subtle analyses of Słowacki’s sentimental-rococo longer poem “In Switzerland” (German Ritz from Zurich, Mariusz Chołody, Krystyna Poklewska, Karolina Morawiecka-Poroszewska, Maciej Szargot). The rest of the articles revolve around: Słowacki’s and Mickiewicz’s creations of female characters (Jerzy Weinberg), the problem of genre and structure in Słowacki’s long poem “Wacław” (Emilia Borkowska), his poetic novels (Agnieszka Wnuk), his long poems (Mikołaj Sokołowski), and one narrative poem (Marek Dybizbański). Chapter III, “From Comedy to Tragedy”, shows an original pattern that informs Słowacki’s dramas, in which we observe a hybridity of the tragic, the ironic, the grotesque, the cruel and the sublime. There are four texts dedicated to the unfinished tragedy “Horsztyński”, based on a story set in late eighteenth-century Poland (Jakub M. Pawłowski, Elżbieta Dąbrowicz, Jarosław Ławski, and, to a certain extent, Irena Szczepankowska, who writes about the motif of law in Słowacki’s dramas). The scholars deal with Słowacki’s Romantic dramas: “Balladyna” (Emilia Świderska, Lidia Romaniszyn-Ziomek), “Mazepa” (Alois Woldan from the University of Vienna), “Lilla Weneda” (Iwona E. Rusek). Two articles are concerned with a strange tragic-comedy “Fantasy” that Słowacki left in a manuscript form (Maria Prussak, Włodzimierz Próchnicki). Chapter IV, “Dandy’s Nights”, analyzes different aspects of Słowacki’s dandyism: his clothes, his image, his masks (Małgorzata Burzka-Janik, Bolesław Oleksowicz), his erotic discourse expressed through aposiopesis (Tomasz Kitliński, Mateusz Skucha), elements of the aesthetics of light (Zofia Wójcicka, Magdalena Piotrowska) and the aesthetics of darkness (Pelagia Bojko), as well as the motif of tears in lyric poetry (Aneta Mazur). Wojciech Piotrowski writes about Wacław Rzewulski, an eccentric aristocrat, nicknamed “Emir”, an expert in Eastern cultures, the protagonist of numerous literary works, Słowacki’s included. Chapter V, “Celebrations and Adaptations: On Reception”, shows the reception of Słowacki’s works at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century in the eyes of Maria Konopnicka (Karolina Szymborska), in Tadeusz Miciński’s play “A Rabbi’s Night” (Helena Nielepko from Grodno, Belarus), in the quasi-Gothic, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, writings of Stefan Grabiński (Wojciech Kalinowski), among the Poles of Pomerania, who celebrated Słowacki’s centenary in 1909 (Ewa Czerniakowska). The second part of the chapter looks at newer adaptations of Słowacki’s works: for the puppet theatre (Kamil Kopania, Justyna Ziora), and for the silver screen as Maciej Nyczko’s “Seven Stops on a Way to Paradise” (Paweł Gorszewski). 2014 will bring the last volume of the publication “Juliusz Słowacki’s Beauty”.