The patriotic
enthusiasm
gave
birth to a spontaneous "Poetry of Legions," for
the most part anonymous but full of fire.
birth to a spontaneous "Poetry of Legions," for
the most part anonymous but full of fire.
Poland - 1911 - An Outline of the History of Polish Literature
39015030574043 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www.
hathitrust.
org/access_use#pd-us-google
? AN OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY
OF POLISH LITERATURE
The outward signs of the life of nations do not
consist alone in the national institutions pertain-
ing to political independence, therefore the nation
which has ceased to be politically must not entertain
a doubt of its existence: verily, if a nation has
developed its spiritual powers and its national genius
to the highest measure, and if its spiritual achieve-
ments contain the elements of and contribute to the
universal culture and civilization, that nation can
always say with hope and pride: "I create, so
I am. " <<
For the first few centuries after Poland asserted
herself, in 964, as an organized State, the low level
of culture and the rule of the sword, necessitated
by the constant warfare on the eastern frontier
and the bitter struggle against the German preda-
tory instincts in the west, created an atmosphere
in which literary propensities met with little en-
couragement. The spiritual nourishment of the
people was myth and legend, born of old; some
>> Paraphrased quotation from A. Swietochowski : "Political
Indications" (1883).
u
t/
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? 12 AN OUTLINE OF THE
of these, of great beauty, have come down the
ages and still live among us.
It is only in the twelfth century, that we meet
with more extensive works than manuscripts con-
sisting of a few leaves. The Polish language had
no existence in the writings of these times; the
chronicles of Gall (Gallus) and of Kadlubek, called
Magister Vincent, dating from the second half of
the twelfth century, were written in Latin, the lan-
guage brought in the tenth century to Poland by
the priests. In Latin also were written all the
liturgic books and official documents.
About the year 1400 the nobility began to rebel
against the predominance of the caste of priests,
who, being the only educated element, used all
their influence to direct the destinies of the country.
The current of humanism, which about that time
began to filter into Poland, broadened the minds of
the nobility, and helped them to understand the
power of knowledge as a weapon in their struggle
against the priesthood. Humanism came to them
before it reached Germany, which country in the
fifteenth century was intellectually much inferior
to Poland. The nobles began to strive for educa-
tion, and great was their enthusiasm for the Greco-
Roman culture. The 22nd of July, 1400, is the
date of the inauguration of the University of
Cracow, then the capital of Roland. This Univer-
sity had four faculties: medicine, law, philosophy
and theology--this last, the oldest, existing since
1367, gave the tone to the University. Among
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? HISTORY OF POLISH LITERATURE 13
the most eminent representatives of Polish
humanism are Celtes, Kallimach, and Gregory, of
Sanok, all of whom lived in the beginning of the
fifteenth century. One of the best writers of this
epoch was Erasmus Ciolek, called in Latin Vittelus,
or Vitelinus, Canon of Cracow and Rishop of Plock,
born 1460. In mind he approached closely to
his European confreres; a diplomatist, scientist,
and patron of the arts, he was famous for his
wit and erudition; as King Alexander's secretary
he was often sent on political missions to Italy;,
where he was well received at the Court of
Julius II, the patron of Michael Angelo. To
Ciolek, in a measure, may be ascribed the influence
which Italian culture now began to exercise upon
Polish poetry,; leonines, Latin rhymed verses
obtained an equal right of citizenship with the
usual hexameters and distichs. Latin was still the
only literary, language. Jan Dlugosz, born 1415,
the first Polish historian, as compared with others,
who were merely chroniclers, wrote his history
in Latin. Only the Rector of the Cracow Univer-
sity, Jak6b Parkosz of Z6rawica, who died in 1455,
left a Latin treatise in which he tried to
formulate a method of writing the Polish language.
The fifteenth century produced in Poland not
only great writers but also great scientists. The
coming of Mikolaj Kopernik (Nicolaus Copernicus),
the greatest astronomer and mathematician of the
age, revolutionized science. The first Polish printed
works belong to the same century, as witness the
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? 14 HISTORY OF POLISH LITERATURE
Paternoster, Ave 'Maria, and Credo to be found in
the 1475 Synodial Statutes of Konrad, Bishop of
Wroclaw (later rechristened Breslau by the Ger-
mans). Lay prose now came more and more to
the fore, and, although it may be said that the
imagination of these times did not make for re-
finement, and coarse jokes did not seem to shock
contemporary minds, it must be remembered that
England, even in the sixteenth century, was not
shocked by Shakespeare's gross humour.
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? II
The Reformation, instead of provoking long and
bloody disturbances, like the Hussite wars in the
neighbouring Bohemia, only widened1 the horizon
of the Polish mind. Its coming coincides with the
renaissance of thought in Poland, known as the
"Golden Age" of Polish art and literature. This
name is more befitting to another--later--period,
although the epoch which lasted from 1500 to 1632
is worthy of admiration, not only, for its political
splendour, but for the spontaneity of the develop-
ment of its literature, the only one in the history
of the world which sprang into being, perfect and
in full armour, like Minerva from the head of
Jupiter.
Protestantism was too deep a philosophy for
the masses to understand. A portion of the Polish
nobility, who embraced Protestantism and rejected
the morality of the Catholic Church for themselves,
still needed it for the commoners to keep them
in check; besides, they could not afford to allow
the privileges of their caste to become subject to
the principle of free investigation preached by
Protestantism. The Catholic reaction came soon,
16
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? 16 AN OUTLINE OF THE
and the great Protestant writers of the epoch too
quickly dropped into oblivion, to be rediscovered
and appreciated according to their great merits
in a much later time.
Such was the fate of Mikolaj Rej of Naglowice,
an eminent writer and wholesome philosopher
,(1505-69). The true picture of the manners and
customs of his time, with all their defects and
beauties, together with the strikingly plastic sil-
houettes of his contemporaries, seasoned with an
inimitable humour, have come down to us in his
works. His incomparable "Zwierzyniec," a col-
lection of humorous anecdotes, reflected a fashion
of the time which fostered two styles of writing
--the satire and the idyll; his "Warwas," his
dialogues of "The Cat with the Lion," his "Com-
plaint of the Republic" hold a prominent place in
Polish literature, but his masterpieces are the poem
"Postyla" and "Zywot Czlowieka Poczciwego"
'("The Life of an Honest Man"). His language
in richness and flexibility is equal to that of Orze-
chowski and Skarga.
The greatest figure of this age, however, was
Jan Kochanowski (1530-84), the contemporary and
friend of Ronsard. His early poems were all in
Latin, but he soon abandoned this tongue for Polish,
over which he obtained great mastery. He was a
true son of the Renaissance, a pagan theist, in-
different to the Church, imbued with republican
ideas, broad- and liberal-minded. His works up
to the present are considered as a model of highly
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? HISTORY OE POLISH LITERATURE 17
cultured language, which, though magnificent in
"Fraszki" (" Trifles "), only reached its zenith in
the elegies, "Treny," he wrote upon the death of!
his beloved daughter Ursula.
History also had its representative in the person
of Marcin Bielski, famous for his chronicles.
The Catholic reaction, from among the clergy
and aristocracy, brought to light oratorical geniuses,
who condemned the disintegration of morals and
preached the return to the bosom of the Church.
The year 1543 was the turning-point in the need
of the Polish population for literature. The works
of the preacher Orzechowski (1515-66) were in
enormous demand. A still more celebrated orator
was Peter Skarga (1536-1612), who succeeded the
former; he was a Jesuit, and soon became famous
by his sermons, especially those to the Sejm (Diet).
The extreme strength and purity of his language
render him comparable to the greatest orators of the
world, and in one of the fiery forecasts he unrolled
before the Diet (his third sermon) he foretold the
partition of Poland, which took place two hundred
years later.
After this Jesuitism seized upon Poland, and held
her in its grip till the middle of the eighteenth
century. The influence of the Jesuits was enor-
mous; they ruled the minds, the schools were in
their hands, and they lowered the intellectual level
so that the literary field became almost sterile,
except, perhaps, for the traditional eloquence; even
this became infected with ecclesiastical Latin, and
#*
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? 18 HISTORY, OE POLISH LITERATURE
resulted in a macaronic medley, without value either
as Latin or as Polish.
The most commendable literary production of
these times is "Recollections, 1658-1659," by Chry-
zostom Pasek, a good soldier, who wrote the his-
tory of his Danish expedition. He died in 1700,
but his memoirs were found and published only in
1836.
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? Ill
The 'depressing influence of Jesuitism in Poland
lasted till the same classicism, which in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries as humanism' and renais-
sance regenerated the literature of all nations, re-
appeared again, somewhat modified, as French
classicism, in the shape of a fully developed, ready-
made system of ideas. In Poland the influence of
the new current made itself felt as far back as
the reign of the Saxon dynasty (August III). It
found the ground prepared for its reception by the
connections between the Polish and French Courts,
but it was the ascent to the throne of King Stanislaw
August Poniatowski (1764)--himself brought up in
France--that definitely paved the way for this
classicism, which had two stages of development,
and may be divided into two periods: the period
of the reign of King Stanislaw (1764-95) and the
after-partition period (1795-1815). In the first
period the special care which the King bestowed
upon poetry favoured the development of this art.
Famous were the King's Thursday Dinners in the
small palace of Lazienki, at which the painters of
the day were welcome guests and poets had the
19
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? 20 AN OUTLINE OF THE
opportunity of reading their verses. This even gave
some of the works the character of Court poetry;
but French classicism was then a new current
full of force and vitality, it uplifted new banners,
it spread new movement and new life, and begat
legions of clever and even eminent writers.
Of undeniable literary value are the lyrics and
epics, odes, idylls and satires of the King's favourite
Naruszewicz, the songs of F. Karpinski, the
erotics and fables of F. Kniaznin, the reformatory
efforts of Konarski, the writings of the. Jesuit
Albertrandi, of the priests Bohomolec, Staszyc, and
the famous Kollataj; but the best exponent of all
the tendencies of the epoch was I. Krasicki, Bishop
of Warmia, who succeeded Naruszewicz in the
favour of the King. He was born on February 3,
1745, in the castle of Dubiecko in Ruthenia. His
first "Chats" appeared in 1765 in the Warsaw
Monitor, edited by Bohomolec, but his talent only
reached its apogee between 1773 and 1780; his
humorous epos "Myszeidos Songs X," his "Mona-
chomachia," his serious heroic epic poem "Wojna
Chocimska" (" War of Chotim "), his "Pan Pod-
stoli," his satires, fables and parables won him
homage on his arrival in Warsaw in 1782. He
it was who led French classicism to its highest
degree of development and ennobled it with his
talent. It is interesting to note that this classical
writer's translations of the "Song of Ossian" and
Percy's popular ballads were the precursors of the
future developments of Polish literature.
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? HISTORY OF POLISH LITERATURE 21
The revolutionary hurricane that swept over
France at the end of the eighteenth century, and
provoked the shattering and violent change of
religious creeds there, had its repercussion in the
Polish atmosphere, but cleansed it only and
brought to it new ideas. The younger generation
especially was in constant communication with the
best minds of France, seeking advice and moral
guidance. Rousseau gave this often, and his in-
fluence makes itself felt even in the writings of
Staszyc, though the latter clamours for the con-
solidation of the governmental power, shaken by
the institutions of the noble-republican regime and
the Liberum Veto. Voltaire had his followers:
Trembecki, Krasicki's contemporary and perhaps
his equal in talent, though of inferior moral
value, and his spiritual brother in Voltaire, Kajetan
Wegierski, the less talented of the two.
Sad was then the fate of the theatre, for scenic
art was homeless in Poland. An advantageous
change came in 1779, when, by the King's order,
began the erection of a special building in Warsaw.
In 1781 the management of this theatre was placed
in the hands of the actors, whence it passed in
1783 to Prince Marcin Lubomirski, who, after a
few months, was succeeded by W. Boguslawski,
whose merit in putting this institution on a proper
footing won for him the name of the "Father of
the Polish Theatre. " In 1814 Boguslawski ceded
the directorship to his son-in-law Ludwik Osinski,
retired to his country seat, and died in 1829.
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? 22 AN OUTLINE OF. THE
The most popular playwright of this epoch was
Zablocki, a writer of comedy and satire; his
"Zabobonnik" ("A Man of Superstition"),
"Fircyk w Zalotach" ("The Fop's Courtship"),
"Z61ta Szlafmyca" ("The Yellow Nightcap"),
"Malzonkowie pojednani przez swoje Zony"
("Husbands Reconciled by their "Wives"), in
part bear traces of German influence and in part
are modelled on Moliere; they still appear, from
time to time, on the stage, as does also the comedy
with songs, "Krakowiacy i G6rale" (" Cracovians
and Mountaineers") of Boguslawski, who was a
better theatre-manager than a playwright.
F. Xav. Dm6chowski was one of the last
writers having all the characteristics of the first
period. Apart from his own works, he is known
by his translations of Young's " Night" and Milton's
"Paradise Lost. "
Juljan Ursyn Niemcewicz, born in Lithuania in
1758, author of "Historical Songs," by the whole
weight of his literary activity belongs rather to
the second after-partition period of the reign of
classicism, although he was already known as a
poet and playwright in the time of Stanislaw
August. He introduced into poetry the neglected
historical tragedy, which was later much in favour
with the writers of the Duchy of . Warsaw epoch.
The last Partition of Roland in 1795 had for
result a complete change in the political and social
life of the country, but did not effect any radical
change in the literature, except, perhaps, for the
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? I HISTORY OE POLISH LITERATURE 23
depression caused by the religious reaction follow-
ing on the bankruptcy of the extreme tendencies
of rationalism, and for the tinge given to it by
the same national patriotic ideas which impreg-
nated the leaning towards social reforms. Classic-
ism continued its reign as the universally accepted
principle, but lost its vitality; its defects became
painfully apparent; the striving after refinement
of form which rendered verses gem-like (thanks
to the too-uncritical application of Boileau's for-
mula--" Vinfft fois sur le mitler remettez voire
ouvrage, polissez le sans cesse et le repolisseZj,
ajoutez quelquefois et souvent effacez"), led to
mechanical versification and conventionality, result-
ing in the lack of sincerity and the loss of indi-
viduality. In his essay on critics and reviewers
the immortal Mickiewicz gives an excellent account
of this epoch: "The verses of the classics," he
says, "by reason of the extraordinary similitude
of the flow of the verse, of the style, almost of the
rhyme, seem to be wrought from the same metal,
to, come from the same mint. "
Thus French classicism neared the end of its
days. Extraordinarily sterile poets laboriously
carved their rhymes; they toiled over worthless
poems for whole decades. Kajetan Kozmian wrote
his "Ziemianstwo" ("Landed Nobility") for
twenty years; Wezyk translated the "^Eneid" for.
thirteen years; and Ludwik Osinski, who made
good verses and translations of Corneille, lost
eleven years over his poem "Okolice Krakowa"
("Environs of Cracow").
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? 24 AN OUTLINE OF. THE
This epoch also produced a species of poetry
which for its character should not be overlooked.
The failure of Kosciuszko's insurrection was fol-
lowed by the emigration of great numbers of the
proscribed, and this exit of volunteers enabled
General Dabrowski, with the authorization of the
French Government, to create Polish Legions in
Lombardy with the object of combating Austria,
and the further aim of reconquering the independ-
ence of Poland.
The patriotic enthusiasm gave
birth to a spontaneous "Poetry of Legions," for
the most part anonymous but full of fire. The
chief representative of this kind of patriotic poetry
was a legionary, Cypryan Godebski. It was on
Italian soil that Wybicki composed, in 1797, the
"Mazurek of Dabrowski," set to music by Prince
Michal Oginski--the famous "Jeszcze Polska nie
zginela . . . " (" Poland is not yet Lost" >--which
Was the beloved song of the Legions, and in 1831]
was raised to the dignity of, and has since re-
mained, the Polish National Anthem.
So it was that in the time of the Duchy of
Warsaw, while externally and officially reigned
classicism, imperceptibly but steadily went on the
process of the undermining of the old decaying
order by new elements, which bore the seeds of
future change. Reaction was imminent, and it had
its forerunners in poets like Wincenty Reklewski
and Tymon Zaborowski, who were still classical,
but imbued already with the new propensities,
which began to permeate the European, and espe-
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? HISTORY OF POLISH LITERATURE 23
cially the German, literature. The most talented
of these forerunners was undoubtedly Andrzej
Brodzinski, a man of genial gentle nature, who
played the same role towards the Polish intellec-
tual revolution as Herder towards the German.
He was born in Galicia in 1791; he took part in
Napoleon's Russian campaign, and about 1820
settled in Warsaw, where his lectures at the
University on Polish literature, Shakespeare, Goethe,
Schiller, and others, were greatly appreciated. His
chef d'ceuvre is "Wieslaw," an idyllic poem in
which traces of Goethe's "Herman and Dorothea"
can be detected.
>>? *
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? IV
Transformations in literature are due to the
influence of great and powerful mental currents,
which are not confined to one nation alone, but
embrace the larger part of the civilized countries.
Poland was in such close intellectual touch with
Western Europe that in order to understand Polish
romanticism it is necessary to review its inception
in the West.
The new tendencies percolated into Poland from
Germany, which country was already, under the
English influence. It is true that German litera-t
ture in the last quarter of the eighteenth century
had followed new paths*--it was not yet romanticism,
but a movement that contained hrany of its elements.
After the theories of French classicism had been
repudiated, new aesthetic and literary principles
were created, which required that the imitation
of famous authors should be abandoned, and that
the substance and the form should be drawn from
life and reality, and be bound up with the national
spirit. This path was followed by Herder, Buerger^
Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe, all men of the epoch
of the highest flight of German poetry.
36
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? ; HISTORY OE POLISH LITERATURE 27
In France romanticism was accepted much later,
although the classic Rousseau introduced into the
literature a fresh element opposed to the dry
rationalism, namely, sentimentalism. Chateau-
briand, classic too, adopted the fantastic, and
showed symptoms of rebellion against Voltairian-
ism. The lyric poet Lamartine's activity has the
same tinge, but the first decisive break with the
old tradition dates only from the coming of Victor
Hugo, who i in 1822 and 1824 threw down the
gauntlet to classicism.
In England at a much earlier da,te had been pub-
lished collections of popular poetry; the "Song of
Ossian" (" Remains of Ancient Poetry," collected
in the Highlands of Scotland, and translated from
the Gaelic or Erse language. 1760); in 1762
appeared "Fingal," in 1763 "Temora," and a col-
lection of old English and Scotch songs and ballads
(" Reliques of Ancient English Poetry "), published
by Thomas Percy in 1765. These works opened
up the heretofore unknown worlds of popular
imagination, and of the chivalrous glory of knight-
hood, and carried with them another element of
regeneration--fantasy. They made a deep impres-
sion not only in Germany, but in the whole of
. Western Europe. Then, after Robert Rurns (1786)
and the Lake Poets, began a distinct drifting to-
wards romanticism. The watchword was--truth
and simplicity. Then appeared Wordsworth and
Coleridge; but the true romanticism came only
with Sir Walter Scott. Thomas Moore followed in
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? 28 AN OUTLINE OE THE
his footsteps, and the lyrical Percy Bysshe Shelley
added to the laurels of English poetry; but the
pillar of the romantic edifice, and the main repre-
sentative of the new poetry was George Noel
Gordon, Lord Byron, a poet of genius, endowed
with a marvellous power of fantasy and feeling,
a passionate and stormy temperament, independent
and full of noble impulses. It is scarcely neces-
sary to insist upon his extraordinary influence on
the literature of the world.
Literary epochs throughout all ages are con-
nected like the links of a chain and represent
in unbroken whole. In Poland the eighteenth
century, by raising the educational level and the
aesthetic standards lowered in the seventeenth cen-
tury, and cleansing the polluted language, gradu-
ally prepared the way for the nineteenth century,
which alone merits the name of "The Golden Age
of Polish Literature "--the age which, by the far-
reaching radiation of its influence, by the noble
character of its ideas, by the supreme value of
its creations, banishes all former epochs to the
shadow, and shines with such effulgence that it
need fear no eclipse from the suns that blaze in
other literary firmaments.
In Poland the romantic epoch lasted almost fifty
years, and may be divided into, three periods: the
stage of its initial evolution commencing in 1815
and ending with the outbreak of the November
revolution in 1830; its highest flight between that
date and 1848: its decline down to 1863.
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? HISTORY OE POLISH LITERATURE 29
If one wished to give the fundamental char-
acteristic of this new literary tendency, one would
have to say that the source from which it sprang
was the unusually powerful development of indi-
vidualism as a factor in the cultural evolution of
civilized humanity; the individual apprehends his
rights, breaks his fetters, and begins to display
his power in all fields of mental, social, and political
life; in literature individualism gives scope for
independence in creation; the works of the epoch
bear the stamp of idealism, sentimentality, and fan-
tasy sometimes carried to exaltation; poetry has
absorbed not only the folk-lore and mediaeval
legends, but everywhere has acquired a nationalist
bias.
This happened especially in Poland, where the
national misfortune, so strongly felt by the whole
nation, was bound to find its expression in the
poetry. Romanticism here did not provoke the
isolation of souls as in Germany, nor did it render
them wildly independent as in England; on the
contrary, it drew them closer together in an exalted
feeling of compatriotism. Polish romantic litera-
ture would have a much greater universal signi-
ficance were it not for the European ignorance of
the language in which it is written; yet the direct
influence of the great Polish masters may be ex-
emplified in the power of Mickiewicz over the
minds of Pushkin and Lamennais; the latter copied
Mickiewicz's "Rook of Pilgrimage" in his "Word
of a Reliever. " fiefore the national ballads in-
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? 30 AN OUTLINE OF THE
spired the greatest poet of Poland, the way was
prepared for him by the three immediate followers
of Brodzinski--by Malczewski, Zaleski, and Gosz-
czynski; these form what is called to-day the
Ukrainian group.
Antoni Malczewski was born in Wolyn in 1793,
and died when only thirty-three, unknown and un-
recognized. He was the son of a Polish general,
and, as the fashion then was, received the French
culture of his sphere. In his travels he encoun-
tered Byron in Venice. Both belonged to the same
social rank, both were melancholy and sensual,
and soon became friends. There Malczewski gave
Byron the idea for his poem "Mazeppa. " Mal-
czewski's reputation rests on one poem, "Marja,
an Ukrainian Tale," now one of the most celebrated
in Polish literature. It recalls in style Byron's early
epics, though it is considerably deeper in sentiment.
Bogdan Zaleski, born in 1802, is the next of the
same group. He sang the beauty of his beloved
steppes of the Dnieperland, and, somewhat mildly
and elegiacally, the dangerous life and solitary
death of the Kozak (Cossack). One of his best-
known poems, however, is "The Holy Family," a
slightly bloodless Christian idyll. After the col-
lapse of the revolution in 1831 he emigrated to
Paris, and, with the great Polish masters Mickie-
wicz and Slowacki, fell under the influence of
Towianski, a Polish mystic philosopher, who exer-
cised an extraordinary, power over much greater
minds than his own.
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? HISTORY OF. POLISH LITERATURE 31
The third of this group, Severyn Goszczynski,
was born in the neighbourhood of Kief in 1801.
He was endowed with great dramatic talent; his
poems, in which love takes only a secondary place,
sound like a battle-trumpet or the howling of the
tempest. His principal poem is the "Castle of
Kaniow," and treats of a sanguinary peasant revolt
at the end of the eighteenth century.
Above all other poets of the epoch stand, like
giant oaks amid saplings, Mickiewicz, Slowacki, and
Krasinski, the Polish national prophets. Of the
three Adam Mickiewicz exerted the greatest in-
fluence upon the masses. He was born on
December 24, 1798, near the town of Nowogrodek,
at Zaosie, a village inhabited by a small-holding
nobility--a frequent phenomenon in Lithuania.
While still a child he, of course, came much in
contact with the villagers, who stored his mind
with tales and legends, which, as his ballads show,
were not stifled by his education at the Dominican
monastery in Wilno, where he was sent in 1808.
A particular feature of these monastic schools was
a tendency to develop subtlety of feeling as much
as the mental powers of the pupils. Mickiewicz
studied at the Wilno University from 1815 to 1819.
He was a member of both the student societies,
Philaretans and Philomatians, the latter consisting
of only twelve members selected from the best
minds among the students. "Country, Science, and
Virtue" was the watchword of these societies.
While still at the University he published his
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? 32 AN OUTLINE OE THE
first works in the T. ygodnik Wilenski in 1818, and
already the unguis leonis reveals itself in these
youthful attempts. In 1820 and 1821 he wrote
all the ballads in which we find the reflection of
the tales he listened to in childhood: "Lilje"
(" Lilies "), "Ucieczka" (" The Fugue "), "Tukaj,"
"Switezianka" (" Lady of the Switez Lake "), and
"Romantycznosc" ("Romanticism"), noteworthy
for its expression of the tendency of the epoch,
declaring a preference for the poet's clairvoyance
as against the dry investigating mind of the
scientist. Then he wrote the "Song of the Phila-
retans," "Ode to Youth," several short poems, and
the fourth part of his "Dziady," the first poem
of betrayed love occurring in Polish literature.
After this came an innovation in the shape of
"Grazyna," a romance in verse.
Then the poet was confronted by the grim realities
of life. Against the Society of Philaretans (founded
in 1820 by Tomasz Zan) proceedings were taken
in 1823 by the senator Nicholas Novosiltzev.
Although these societies only aimed at the intel-
lectual and moral development of the students, they
could not escape the persecuting fury of the Russian
authorities; they were dissolved, and Mickiewicz,
together with the other members, was imprisoned
and exiled to Russia. He quitted for ever Wilno
and his beloved Lithuania on October 24, 1824.
After a stay in Odessa he went to Moscow, and
there wrote his "Crimean Sonnets," notable for
their, marvellous force of expression and their novel
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? HISTORY OF. POLISH LITERATURE 33
style, scintillating with all the colours of the East.
They were published in 1826. Although written in
Polish, these sonnets made a great impression in
Moscow. Poets began to gather round Mickiewicz.
At the house of N. Polevoi, editor of the Moscow
Telegrams, he met Pushkin, and a friendship sprang
up between the two young men. His growing fame
opened to him the house of Princess Zeneida
Volkonskaia. To his Russian confreres gathered
there he read fragments of "Konrad Wallenrod,"
published in Moscow in 1828, the poem in which
the sentiment of patriotism finds its best expres-
sion. It is superior to "Grazyna" chiefly owing
to the greater profoundity of sentiment, the beauty
and picturesqueness of description, and the ravish-
ing versification. In 1828 he moved to St. Peters-
burg. There he wrote two of his best ballads,
already free from any agency of the supernatural,
"Trzech Budrys6w" ("The Three Budrys") and
"Czaty" (" Ambuscade "), and one of his master-
pieces, the poem "Farys. "
In 1829 he received a passport for Europe.
Through Berlin and Dresden he arrived at Weimar,
where he made the acquaintance of the octogenarian
Goethe, the Belgian savant Quetelet, and the famous
French sculptor David d'Angers. Thence he jour-
neyed to Rome, which he left in 1831 for Paris,
where he came in contact with the colony of Polish
exiles driven thither by the collapse of the Novem-
ber revolution. Paris depressed him greatly, and
nostalgia overwhelmed him. He made a desperate
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? 34 AN OUTLINE OF THE
effort to return to her country, but permission
was refused him by the Russian Government.
1831] finds him1 in Dresden, where the third
part of "Dziady" was finished. This third
part, which in logical sequence ought to follow
the fourth, is remarkable for its lofty ideas
and its graphic representation of detail. In the
same year he returns to Paris. Here, from his
gifted pen, flow the "Books of the Nation" and
the "Books of the Polish Pilgrimage," from which
the quotation, "Inasmuch as you broaden and im-
prove your souls, so much do you improve your
rights and widen your frontiers," the best explains
its leading idea. Haunted by the memories of his
country and his longing for it, in 1833 he writes
the best poem known in the annals of literature,
the famous "Pan Tadeusz," which he himself calls
the "Poem of the Nobility," the most powerful
epopoeia of the age, a genre picture of the life of
the Lithuanian country nobility, in which the love
and passionate yearning for his country breathes
in every line and in every syllable. European
literature knows no other poetical work equal to
this; it is unrivalled as an account of the beauties
of the Polish land which "he saw and described,
for he longed for it. "
In 1839 the Chair of Latin Literatures at the
Lausanne University was offered to him. It was
in this period that George Sand, through an essay
published in the Revue des deux Mondes, comparing
him to Byron and Goethe, made him known to the
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? HISTORY OF POLISH LITERATURE 35
world. In 1840, after much pressing, he accepted
the Chair of Slavonic Literatures at the Paris Sor-
bonne, where in his lectures he proved to be the
possessor of a wonderful gift of improvisation. His
sharp criticism of the unjust French governmental
policy was rewarded by the offer of a long leave
of absence from his post, and his resignation
followed in 1844, but in 1852, in view of his great
merits and his contributions to the store of French
knowledge, he was offered the directorship of the
Arsenal Library. In 1855 he went to Constanti-
nople with the idea of forming Polish Legions to
redeem his country from servitude. He succeeded,
but his hopes were destroyed by the illness which
ended in his death on November 26, 1855. His
embalmed body was transported on January 21,
1856, to the cemetery of Montmorency, near
Paris, and on July 4, 1890, to Cracow, where
with royal honours, it was laid to rest in the
Royal Crypt of Wawel Cathedral, close to Kos-
ciuszko's tomb. The nation paid this tribute to its
greatest poet.
There is no other poetic genius of such luxuriant,
luminous, ethereally light fantasy, and yet so deeply
and charmingly melancholy withal, as Juljusz
Slowacki, no other who disposes of a wider range
of sentiment. He is the poet of great hearts, capable
not only of feeling deeply but of analysing their
feelings; in this respect he is nearer our own times
than is Mickiewicz. His imagination is volatile as
thought, flexible, darting, rich as Nature herself;
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?
? AN OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY
OF POLISH LITERATURE
The outward signs of the life of nations do not
consist alone in the national institutions pertain-
ing to political independence, therefore the nation
which has ceased to be politically must not entertain
a doubt of its existence: verily, if a nation has
developed its spiritual powers and its national genius
to the highest measure, and if its spiritual achieve-
ments contain the elements of and contribute to the
universal culture and civilization, that nation can
always say with hope and pride: "I create, so
I am. " <<
For the first few centuries after Poland asserted
herself, in 964, as an organized State, the low level
of culture and the rule of the sword, necessitated
by the constant warfare on the eastern frontier
and the bitter struggle against the German preda-
tory instincts in the west, created an atmosphere
in which literary propensities met with little en-
couragement. The spiritual nourishment of the
people was myth and legend, born of old; some
>> Paraphrased quotation from A. Swietochowski : "Political
Indications" (1883).
u
t/
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? 12 AN OUTLINE OF THE
of these, of great beauty, have come down the
ages and still live among us.
It is only in the twelfth century, that we meet
with more extensive works than manuscripts con-
sisting of a few leaves. The Polish language had
no existence in the writings of these times; the
chronicles of Gall (Gallus) and of Kadlubek, called
Magister Vincent, dating from the second half of
the twelfth century, were written in Latin, the lan-
guage brought in the tenth century to Poland by
the priests. In Latin also were written all the
liturgic books and official documents.
About the year 1400 the nobility began to rebel
against the predominance of the caste of priests,
who, being the only educated element, used all
their influence to direct the destinies of the country.
The current of humanism, which about that time
began to filter into Poland, broadened the minds of
the nobility, and helped them to understand the
power of knowledge as a weapon in their struggle
against the priesthood. Humanism came to them
before it reached Germany, which country in the
fifteenth century was intellectually much inferior
to Poland. The nobles began to strive for educa-
tion, and great was their enthusiasm for the Greco-
Roman culture. The 22nd of July, 1400, is the
date of the inauguration of the University of
Cracow, then the capital of Roland. This Univer-
sity had four faculties: medicine, law, philosophy
and theology--this last, the oldest, existing since
1367, gave the tone to the University. Among
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? HISTORY OF POLISH LITERATURE 13
the most eminent representatives of Polish
humanism are Celtes, Kallimach, and Gregory, of
Sanok, all of whom lived in the beginning of the
fifteenth century. One of the best writers of this
epoch was Erasmus Ciolek, called in Latin Vittelus,
or Vitelinus, Canon of Cracow and Rishop of Plock,
born 1460. In mind he approached closely to
his European confreres; a diplomatist, scientist,
and patron of the arts, he was famous for his
wit and erudition; as King Alexander's secretary
he was often sent on political missions to Italy;,
where he was well received at the Court of
Julius II, the patron of Michael Angelo. To
Ciolek, in a measure, may be ascribed the influence
which Italian culture now began to exercise upon
Polish poetry,; leonines, Latin rhymed verses
obtained an equal right of citizenship with the
usual hexameters and distichs. Latin was still the
only literary, language. Jan Dlugosz, born 1415,
the first Polish historian, as compared with others,
who were merely chroniclers, wrote his history
in Latin. Only the Rector of the Cracow Univer-
sity, Jak6b Parkosz of Z6rawica, who died in 1455,
left a Latin treatise in which he tried to
formulate a method of writing the Polish language.
The fifteenth century produced in Poland not
only great writers but also great scientists. The
coming of Mikolaj Kopernik (Nicolaus Copernicus),
the greatest astronomer and mathematician of the
age, revolutionized science. The first Polish printed
works belong to the same century, as witness the
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? 14 HISTORY OF POLISH LITERATURE
Paternoster, Ave 'Maria, and Credo to be found in
the 1475 Synodial Statutes of Konrad, Bishop of
Wroclaw (later rechristened Breslau by the Ger-
mans). Lay prose now came more and more to
the fore, and, although it may be said that the
imagination of these times did not make for re-
finement, and coarse jokes did not seem to shock
contemporary minds, it must be remembered that
England, even in the sixteenth century, was not
shocked by Shakespeare's gross humour.
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? II
The Reformation, instead of provoking long and
bloody disturbances, like the Hussite wars in the
neighbouring Bohemia, only widened1 the horizon
of the Polish mind. Its coming coincides with the
renaissance of thought in Poland, known as the
"Golden Age" of Polish art and literature. This
name is more befitting to another--later--period,
although the epoch which lasted from 1500 to 1632
is worthy of admiration, not only, for its political
splendour, but for the spontaneity of the develop-
ment of its literature, the only one in the history
of the world which sprang into being, perfect and
in full armour, like Minerva from the head of
Jupiter.
Protestantism was too deep a philosophy for
the masses to understand. A portion of the Polish
nobility, who embraced Protestantism and rejected
the morality of the Catholic Church for themselves,
still needed it for the commoners to keep them
in check; besides, they could not afford to allow
the privileges of their caste to become subject to
the principle of free investigation preached by
Protestantism. The Catholic reaction came soon,
16
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? 16 AN OUTLINE OF THE
and the great Protestant writers of the epoch too
quickly dropped into oblivion, to be rediscovered
and appreciated according to their great merits
in a much later time.
Such was the fate of Mikolaj Rej of Naglowice,
an eminent writer and wholesome philosopher
,(1505-69). The true picture of the manners and
customs of his time, with all their defects and
beauties, together with the strikingly plastic sil-
houettes of his contemporaries, seasoned with an
inimitable humour, have come down to us in his
works. His incomparable "Zwierzyniec," a col-
lection of humorous anecdotes, reflected a fashion
of the time which fostered two styles of writing
--the satire and the idyll; his "Warwas," his
dialogues of "The Cat with the Lion," his "Com-
plaint of the Republic" hold a prominent place in
Polish literature, but his masterpieces are the poem
"Postyla" and "Zywot Czlowieka Poczciwego"
'("The Life of an Honest Man"). His language
in richness and flexibility is equal to that of Orze-
chowski and Skarga.
The greatest figure of this age, however, was
Jan Kochanowski (1530-84), the contemporary and
friend of Ronsard. His early poems were all in
Latin, but he soon abandoned this tongue for Polish,
over which he obtained great mastery. He was a
true son of the Renaissance, a pagan theist, in-
different to the Church, imbued with republican
ideas, broad- and liberal-minded. His works up
to the present are considered as a model of highly
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? HISTORY OE POLISH LITERATURE 17
cultured language, which, though magnificent in
"Fraszki" (" Trifles "), only reached its zenith in
the elegies, "Treny," he wrote upon the death of!
his beloved daughter Ursula.
History also had its representative in the person
of Marcin Bielski, famous for his chronicles.
The Catholic reaction, from among the clergy
and aristocracy, brought to light oratorical geniuses,
who condemned the disintegration of morals and
preached the return to the bosom of the Church.
The year 1543 was the turning-point in the need
of the Polish population for literature. The works
of the preacher Orzechowski (1515-66) were in
enormous demand. A still more celebrated orator
was Peter Skarga (1536-1612), who succeeded the
former; he was a Jesuit, and soon became famous
by his sermons, especially those to the Sejm (Diet).
The extreme strength and purity of his language
render him comparable to the greatest orators of the
world, and in one of the fiery forecasts he unrolled
before the Diet (his third sermon) he foretold the
partition of Poland, which took place two hundred
years later.
After this Jesuitism seized upon Poland, and held
her in its grip till the middle of the eighteenth
century. The influence of the Jesuits was enor-
mous; they ruled the minds, the schools were in
their hands, and they lowered the intellectual level
so that the literary field became almost sterile,
except, perhaps, for the traditional eloquence; even
this became infected with ecclesiastical Latin, and
#*
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? 18 HISTORY, OE POLISH LITERATURE
resulted in a macaronic medley, without value either
as Latin or as Polish.
The most commendable literary production of
these times is "Recollections, 1658-1659," by Chry-
zostom Pasek, a good soldier, who wrote the his-
tory of his Danish expedition. He died in 1700,
but his memoirs were found and published only in
1836.
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? Ill
The 'depressing influence of Jesuitism in Poland
lasted till the same classicism, which in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries as humanism' and renais-
sance regenerated the literature of all nations, re-
appeared again, somewhat modified, as French
classicism, in the shape of a fully developed, ready-
made system of ideas. In Poland the influence of
the new current made itself felt as far back as
the reign of the Saxon dynasty (August III). It
found the ground prepared for its reception by the
connections between the Polish and French Courts,
but it was the ascent to the throne of King Stanislaw
August Poniatowski (1764)--himself brought up in
France--that definitely paved the way for this
classicism, which had two stages of development,
and may be divided into two periods: the period
of the reign of King Stanislaw (1764-95) and the
after-partition period (1795-1815). In the first
period the special care which the King bestowed
upon poetry favoured the development of this art.
Famous were the King's Thursday Dinners in the
small palace of Lazienki, at which the painters of
the day were welcome guests and poets had the
19
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? 20 AN OUTLINE OF THE
opportunity of reading their verses. This even gave
some of the works the character of Court poetry;
but French classicism was then a new current
full of force and vitality, it uplifted new banners,
it spread new movement and new life, and begat
legions of clever and even eminent writers.
Of undeniable literary value are the lyrics and
epics, odes, idylls and satires of the King's favourite
Naruszewicz, the songs of F. Karpinski, the
erotics and fables of F. Kniaznin, the reformatory
efforts of Konarski, the writings of the. Jesuit
Albertrandi, of the priests Bohomolec, Staszyc, and
the famous Kollataj; but the best exponent of all
the tendencies of the epoch was I. Krasicki, Bishop
of Warmia, who succeeded Naruszewicz in the
favour of the King. He was born on February 3,
1745, in the castle of Dubiecko in Ruthenia. His
first "Chats" appeared in 1765 in the Warsaw
Monitor, edited by Bohomolec, but his talent only
reached its apogee between 1773 and 1780; his
humorous epos "Myszeidos Songs X," his "Mona-
chomachia," his serious heroic epic poem "Wojna
Chocimska" (" War of Chotim "), his "Pan Pod-
stoli," his satires, fables and parables won him
homage on his arrival in Warsaw in 1782. He
it was who led French classicism to its highest
degree of development and ennobled it with his
talent. It is interesting to note that this classical
writer's translations of the "Song of Ossian" and
Percy's popular ballads were the precursors of the
future developments of Polish literature.
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? HISTORY OF POLISH LITERATURE 21
The revolutionary hurricane that swept over
France at the end of the eighteenth century, and
provoked the shattering and violent change of
religious creeds there, had its repercussion in the
Polish atmosphere, but cleansed it only and
brought to it new ideas. The younger generation
especially was in constant communication with the
best minds of France, seeking advice and moral
guidance. Rousseau gave this often, and his in-
fluence makes itself felt even in the writings of
Staszyc, though the latter clamours for the con-
solidation of the governmental power, shaken by
the institutions of the noble-republican regime and
the Liberum Veto. Voltaire had his followers:
Trembecki, Krasicki's contemporary and perhaps
his equal in talent, though of inferior moral
value, and his spiritual brother in Voltaire, Kajetan
Wegierski, the less talented of the two.
Sad was then the fate of the theatre, for scenic
art was homeless in Poland. An advantageous
change came in 1779, when, by the King's order,
began the erection of a special building in Warsaw.
In 1781 the management of this theatre was placed
in the hands of the actors, whence it passed in
1783 to Prince Marcin Lubomirski, who, after a
few months, was succeeded by W. Boguslawski,
whose merit in putting this institution on a proper
footing won for him the name of the "Father of
the Polish Theatre. " In 1814 Boguslawski ceded
the directorship to his son-in-law Ludwik Osinski,
retired to his country seat, and died in 1829.
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? 22 AN OUTLINE OF. THE
The most popular playwright of this epoch was
Zablocki, a writer of comedy and satire; his
"Zabobonnik" ("A Man of Superstition"),
"Fircyk w Zalotach" ("The Fop's Courtship"),
"Z61ta Szlafmyca" ("The Yellow Nightcap"),
"Malzonkowie pojednani przez swoje Zony"
("Husbands Reconciled by their "Wives"), in
part bear traces of German influence and in part
are modelled on Moliere; they still appear, from
time to time, on the stage, as does also the comedy
with songs, "Krakowiacy i G6rale" (" Cracovians
and Mountaineers") of Boguslawski, who was a
better theatre-manager than a playwright.
F. Xav. Dm6chowski was one of the last
writers having all the characteristics of the first
period. Apart from his own works, he is known
by his translations of Young's " Night" and Milton's
"Paradise Lost. "
Juljan Ursyn Niemcewicz, born in Lithuania in
1758, author of "Historical Songs," by the whole
weight of his literary activity belongs rather to
the second after-partition period of the reign of
classicism, although he was already known as a
poet and playwright in the time of Stanislaw
August. He introduced into poetry the neglected
historical tragedy, which was later much in favour
with the writers of the Duchy of . Warsaw epoch.
The last Partition of Roland in 1795 had for
result a complete change in the political and social
life of the country, but did not effect any radical
change in the literature, except, perhaps, for the
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? I HISTORY OE POLISH LITERATURE 23
depression caused by the religious reaction follow-
ing on the bankruptcy of the extreme tendencies
of rationalism, and for the tinge given to it by
the same national patriotic ideas which impreg-
nated the leaning towards social reforms. Classic-
ism continued its reign as the universally accepted
principle, but lost its vitality; its defects became
painfully apparent; the striving after refinement
of form which rendered verses gem-like (thanks
to the too-uncritical application of Boileau's for-
mula--" Vinfft fois sur le mitler remettez voire
ouvrage, polissez le sans cesse et le repolisseZj,
ajoutez quelquefois et souvent effacez"), led to
mechanical versification and conventionality, result-
ing in the lack of sincerity and the loss of indi-
viduality. In his essay on critics and reviewers
the immortal Mickiewicz gives an excellent account
of this epoch: "The verses of the classics," he
says, "by reason of the extraordinary similitude
of the flow of the verse, of the style, almost of the
rhyme, seem to be wrought from the same metal,
to, come from the same mint. "
Thus French classicism neared the end of its
days. Extraordinarily sterile poets laboriously
carved their rhymes; they toiled over worthless
poems for whole decades. Kajetan Kozmian wrote
his "Ziemianstwo" ("Landed Nobility") for
twenty years; Wezyk translated the "^Eneid" for.
thirteen years; and Ludwik Osinski, who made
good verses and translations of Corneille, lost
eleven years over his poem "Okolice Krakowa"
("Environs of Cracow").
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? 24 AN OUTLINE OF. THE
This epoch also produced a species of poetry
which for its character should not be overlooked.
The failure of Kosciuszko's insurrection was fol-
lowed by the emigration of great numbers of the
proscribed, and this exit of volunteers enabled
General Dabrowski, with the authorization of the
French Government, to create Polish Legions in
Lombardy with the object of combating Austria,
and the further aim of reconquering the independ-
ence of Poland.
The patriotic enthusiasm gave
birth to a spontaneous "Poetry of Legions," for
the most part anonymous but full of fire. The
chief representative of this kind of patriotic poetry
was a legionary, Cypryan Godebski. It was on
Italian soil that Wybicki composed, in 1797, the
"Mazurek of Dabrowski," set to music by Prince
Michal Oginski--the famous "Jeszcze Polska nie
zginela . . . " (" Poland is not yet Lost" >--which
Was the beloved song of the Legions, and in 1831]
was raised to the dignity of, and has since re-
mained, the Polish National Anthem.
So it was that in the time of the Duchy of
Warsaw, while externally and officially reigned
classicism, imperceptibly but steadily went on the
process of the undermining of the old decaying
order by new elements, which bore the seeds of
future change. Reaction was imminent, and it had
its forerunners in poets like Wincenty Reklewski
and Tymon Zaborowski, who were still classical,
but imbued already with the new propensities,
which began to permeate the European, and espe-
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? HISTORY OF POLISH LITERATURE 23
cially the German, literature. The most talented
of these forerunners was undoubtedly Andrzej
Brodzinski, a man of genial gentle nature, who
played the same role towards the Polish intellec-
tual revolution as Herder towards the German.
He was born in Galicia in 1791; he took part in
Napoleon's Russian campaign, and about 1820
settled in Warsaw, where his lectures at the
University on Polish literature, Shakespeare, Goethe,
Schiller, and others, were greatly appreciated. His
chef d'ceuvre is "Wieslaw," an idyllic poem in
which traces of Goethe's "Herman and Dorothea"
can be detected.
>>? *
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? IV
Transformations in literature are due to the
influence of great and powerful mental currents,
which are not confined to one nation alone, but
embrace the larger part of the civilized countries.
Poland was in such close intellectual touch with
Western Europe that in order to understand Polish
romanticism it is necessary to review its inception
in the West.
The new tendencies percolated into Poland from
Germany, which country was already, under the
English influence. It is true that German litera-t
ture in the last quarter of the eighteenth century
had followed new paths*--it was not yet romanticism,
but a movement that contained hrany of its elements.
After the theories of French classicism had been
repudiated, new aesthetic and literary principles
were created, which required that the imitation
of famous authors should be abandoned, and that
the substance and the form should be drawn from
life and reality, and be bound up with the national
spirit. This path was followed by Herder, Buerger^
Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe, all men of the epoch
of the highest flight of German poetry.
36
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? ; HISTORY OE POLISH LITERATURE 27
In France romanticism was accepted much later,
although the classic Rousseau introduced into the
literature a fresh element opposed to the dry
rationalism, namely, sentimentalism. Chateau-
briand, classic too, adopted the fantastic, and
showed symptoms of rebellion against Voltairian-
ism. The lyric poet Lamartine's activity has the
same tinge, but the first decisive break with the
old tradition dates only from the coming of Victor
Hugo, who i in 1822 and 1824 threw down the
gauntlet to classicism.
In England at a much earlier da,te had been pub-
lished collections of popular poetry; the "Song of
Ossian" (" Remains of Ancient Poetry," collected
in the Highlands of Scotland, and translated from
the Gaelic or Erse language. 1760); in 1762
appeared "Fingal," in 1763 "Temora," and a col-
lection of old English and Scotch songs and ballads
(" Reliques of Ancient English Poetry "), published
by Thomas Percy in 1765. These works opened
up the heretofore unknown worlds of popular
imagination, and of the chivalrous glory of knight-
hood, and carried with them another element of
regeneration--fantasy. They made a deep impres-
sion not only in Germany, but in the whole of
. Western Europe. Then, after Robert Rurns (1786)
and the Lake Poets, began a distinct drifting to-
wards romanticism. The watchword was--truth
and simplicity. Then appeared Wordsworth and
Coleridge; but the true romanticism came only
with Sir Walter Scott. Thomas Moore followed in
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? 28 AN OUTLINE OE THE
his footsteps, and the lyrical Percy Bysshe Shelley
added to the laurels of English poetry; but the
pillar of the romantic edifice, and the main repre-
sentative of the new poetry was George Noel
Gordon, Lord Byron, a poet of genius, endowed
with a marvellous power of fantasy and feeling,
a passionate and stormy temperament, independent
and full of noble impulses. It is scarcely neces-
sary to insist upon his extraordinary influence on
the literature of the world.
Literary epochs throughout all ages are con-
nected like the links of a chain and represent
in unbroken whole. In Poland the eighteenth
century, by raising the educational level and the
aesthetic standards lowered in the seventeenth cen-
tury, and cleansing the polluted language, gradu-
ally prepared the way for the nineteenth century,
which alone merits the name of "The Golden Age
of Polish Literature "--the age which, by the far-
reaching radiation of its influence, by the noble
character of its ideas, by the supreme value of
its creations, banishes all former epochs to the
shadow, and shines with such effulgence that it
need fear no eclipse from the suns that blaze in
other literary firmaments.
In Poland the romantic epoch lasted almost fifty
years, and may be divided into, three periods: the
stage of its initial evolution commencing in 1815
and ending with the outbreak of the November
revolution in 1830; its highest flight between that
date and 1848: its decline down to 1863.
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? HISTORY OE POLISH LITERATURE 29
If one wished to give the fundamental char-
acteristic of this new literary tendency, one would
have to say that the source from which it sprang
was the unusually powerful development of indi-
vidualism as a factor in the cultural evolution of
civilized humanity; the individual apprehends his
rights, breaks his fetters, and begins to display
his power in all fields of mental, social, and political
life; in literature individualism gives scope for
independence in creation; the works of the epoch
bear the stamp of idealism, sentimentality, and fan-
tasy sometimes carried to exaltation; poetry has
absorbed not only the folk-lore and mediaeval
legends, but everywhere has acquired a nationalist
bias.
This happened especially in Poland, where the
national misfortune, so strongly felt by the whole
nation, was bound to find its expression in the
poetry. Romanticism here did not provoke the
isolation of souls as in Germany, nor did it render
them wildly independent as in England; on the
contrary, it drew them closer together in an exalted
feeling of compatriotism. Polish romantic litera-
ture would have a much greater universal signi-
ficance were it not for the European ignorance of
the language in which it is written; yet the direct
influence of the great Polish masters may be ex-
emplified in the power of Mickiewicz over the
minds of Pushkin and Lamennais; the latter copied
Mickiewicz's "Rook of Pilgrimage" in his "Word
of a Reliever. " fiefore the national ballads in-
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? 30 AN OUTLINE OF THE
spired the greatest poet of Poland, the way was
prepared for him by the three immediate followers
of Brodzinski--by Malczewski, Zaleski, and Gosz-
czynski; these form what is called to-day the
Ukrainian group.
Antoni Malczewski was born in Wolyn in 1793,
and died when only thirty-three, unknown and un-
recognized. He was the son of a Polish general,
and, as the fashion then was, received the French
culture of his sphere. In his travels he encoun-
tered Byron in Venice. Both belonged to the same
social rank, both were melancholy and sensual,
and soon became friends. There Malczewski gave
Byron the idea for his poem "Mazeppa. " Mal-
czewski's reputation rests on one poem, "Marja,
an Ukrainian Tale," now one of the most celebrated
in Polish literature. It recalls in style Byron's early
epics, though it is considerably deeper in sentiment.
Bogdan Zaleski, born in 1802, is the next of the
same group. He sang the beauty of his beloved
steppes of the Dnieperland, and, somewhat mildly
and elegiacally, the dangerous life and solitary
death of the Kozak (Cossack). One of his best-
known poems, however, is "The Holy Family," a
slightly bloodless Christian idyll. After the col-
lapse of the revolution in 1831 he emigrated to
Paris, and, with the great Polish masters Mickie-
wicz and Slowacki, fell under the influence of
Towianski, a Polish mystic philosopher, who exer-
cised an extraordinary, power over much greater
minds than his own.
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? HISTORY OF. POLISH LITERATURE 31
The third of this group, Severyn Goszczynski,
was born in the neighbourhood of Kief in 1801.
He was endowed with great dramatic talent; his
poems, in which love takes only a secondary place,
sound like a battle-trumpet or the howling of the
tempest. His principal poem is the "Castle of
Kaniow," and treats of a sanguinary peasant revolt
at the end of the eighteenth century.
Above all other poets of the epoch stand, like
giant oaks amid saplings, Mickiewicz, Slowacki, and
Krasinski, the Polish national prophets. Of the
three Adam Mickiewicz exerted the greatest in-
fluence upon the masses. He was born on
December 24, 1798, near the town of Nowogrodek,
at Zaosie, a village inhabited by a small-holding
nobility--a frequent phenomenon in Lithuania.
While still a child he, of course, came much in
contact with the villagers, who stored his mind
with tales and legends, which, as his ballads show,
were not stifled by his education at the Dominican
monastery in Wilno, where he was sent in 1808.
A particular feature of these monastic schools was
a tendency to develop subtlety of feeling as much
as the mental powers of the pupils. Mickiewicz
studied at the Wilno University from 1815 to 1819.
He was a member of both the student societies,
Philaretans and Philomatians, the latter consisting
of only twelve members selected from the best
minds among the students. "Country, Science, and
Virtue" was the watchword of these societies.
While still at the University he published his
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? 32 AN OUTLINE OE THE
first works in the T. ygodnik Wilenski in 1818, and
already the unguis leonis reveals itself in these
youthful attempts. In 1820 and 1821 he wrote
all the ballads in which we find the reflection of
the tales he listened to in childhood: "Lilje"
(" Lilies "), "Ucieczka" (" The Fugue "), "Tukaj,"
"Switezianka" (" Lady of the Switez Lake "), and
"Romantycznosc" ("Romanticism"), noteworthy
for its expression of the tendency of the epoch,
declaring a preference for the poet's clairvoyance
as against the dry investigating mind of the
scientist. Then he wrote the "Song of the Phila-
retans," "Ode to Youth," several short poems, and
the fourth part of his "Dziady," the first poem
of betrayed love occurring in Polish literature.
After this came an innovation in the shape of
"Grazyna," a romance in verse.
Then the poet was confronted by the grim realities
of life. Against the Society of Philaretans (founded
in 1820 by Tomasz Zan) proceedings were taken
in 1823 by the senator Nicholas Novosiltzev.
Although these societies only aimed at the intel-
lectual and moral development of the students, they
could not escape the persecuting fury of the Russian
authorities; they were dissolved, and Mickiewicz,
together with the other members, was imprisoned
and exiled to Russia. He quitted for ever Wilno
and his beloved Lithuania on October 24, 1824.
After a stay in Odessa he went to Moscow, and
there wrote his "Crimean Sonnets," notable for
their, marvellous force of expression and their novel
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? HISTORY OF. POLISH LITERATURE 33
style, scintillating with all the colours of the East.
They were published in 1826. Although written in
Polish, these sonnets made a great impression in
Moscow. Poets began to gather round Mickiewicz.
At the house of N. Polevoi, editor of the Moscow
Telegrams, he met Pushkin, and a friendship sprang
up between the two young men. His growing fame
opened to him the house of Princess Zeneida
Volkonskaia. To his Russian confreres gathered
there he read fragments of "Konrad Wallenrod,"
published in Moscow in 1828, the poem in which
the sentiment of patriotism finds its best expres-
sion. It is superior to "Grazyna" chiefly owing
to the greater profoundity of sentiment, the beauty
and picturesqueness of description, and the ravish-
ing versification. In 1828 he moved to St. Peters-
burg. There he wrote two of his best ballads,
already free from any agency of the supernatural,
"Trzech Budrys6w" ("The Three Budrys") and
"Czaty" (" Ambuscade "), and one of his master-
pieces, the poem "Farys. "
In 1829 he received a passport for Europe.
Through Berlin and Dresden he arrived at Weimar,
where he made the acquaintance of the octogenarian
Goethe, the Belgian savant Quetelet, and the famous
French sculptor David d'Angers. Thence he jour-
neyed to Rome, which he left in 1831 for Paris,
where he came in contact with the colony of Polish
exiles driven thither by the collapse of the Novem-
ber revolution. Paris depressed him greatly, and
nostalgia overwhelmed him. He made a desperate
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? 34 AN OUTLINE OF THE
effort to return to her country, but permission
was refused him by the Russian Government.
1831] finds him1 in Dresden, where the third
part of "Dziady" was finished. This third
part, which in logical sequence ought to follow
the fourth, is remarkable for its lofty ideas
and its graphic representation of detail. In the
same year he returns to Paris. Here, from his
gifted pen, flow the "Books of the Nation" and
the "Books of the Polish Pilgrimage," from which
the quotation, "Inasmuch as you broaden and im-
prove your souls, so much do you improve your
rights and widen your frontiers," the best explains
its leading idea. Haunted by the memories of his
country and his longing for it, in 1833 he writes
the best poem known in the annals of literature,
the famous "Pan Tadeusz," which he himself calls
the "Poem of the Nobility," the most powerful
epopoeia of the age, a genre picture of the life of
the Lithuanian country nobility, in which the love
and passionate yearning for his country breathes
in every line and in every syllable. European
literature knows no other poetical work equal to
this; it is unrivalled as an account of the beauties
of the Polish land which "he saw and described,
for he longed for it. "
In 1839 the Chair of Latin Literatures at the
Lausanne University was offered to him. It was
in this period that George Sand, through an essay
published in the Revue des deux Mondes, comparing
him to Byron and Goethe, made him known to the
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? HISTORY OF POLISH LITERATURE 35
world. In 1840, after much pressing, he accepted
the Chair of Slavonic Literatures at the Paris Sor-
bonne, where in his lectures he proved to be the
possessor of a wonderful gift of improvisation. His
sharp criticism of the unjust French governmental
policy was rewarded by the offer of a long leave
of absence from his post, and his resignation
followed in 1844, but in 1852, in view of his great
merits and his contributions to the store of French
knowledge, he was offered the directorship of the
Arsenal Library. In 1855 he went to Constanti-
nople with the idea of forming Polish Legions to
redeem his country from servitude. He succeeded,
but his hopes were destroyed by the illness which
ended in his death on November 26, 1855. His
embalmed body was transported on January 21,
1856, to the cemetery of Montmorency, near
Paris, and on July 4, 1890, to Cracow, where
with royal honours, it was laid to rest in the
Royal Crypt of Wawel Cathedral, close to Kos-
ciuszko's tomb. The nation paid this tribute to its
greatest poet.
There is no other poetic genius of such luxuriant,
luminous, ethereally light fantasy, and yet so deeply
and charmingly melancholy withal, as Juljusz
Slowacki, no other who disposes of a wider range
of sentiment. He is the poet of great hearts, capable
not only of feeling deeply but of analysing their
feelings; in this respect he is nearer our own times
than is Mickiewicz. His imagination is volatile as
thought, flexible, darting, rich as Nature herself;
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?
