No More Learning

During the chilly era of positivism the mass of
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? HISTORY OF POLISH LITERATURE '49
country gentry, stranded on the pavements of the
town by the economic crisis due to the policy of
the Russian Government, were forced to change
their skins, but in the new envelope of an employe"
or an engineer still dwelt the soul of the nobleman
of yesterday, with all its wealth of instincts and'
traditions; their adoration of the past and love
for the national distinctiveness were bound to burst
the crust of self-criticism and utilitarianism. The
inevitable reaction came, and created the atmo-
sphere necessary to Henryk Sienkiewicz for the
full development of his potent individuality. The
democratic and progressive was his preferred type
in his early novels, but the moment the first pro-
test against positivism became audible, Sienkiewicz
turned towards the past and spread its treasures
magnificently before the nation. His trilogy
"Ogniem i Mieczem" ("By Fire and Sword"),
"Potop" ("The Deluge"), and "Pan Wolody-
jowski" are not books, but great deeds. The nation
was yearning for a stimulus, was panting for fuller
breath, and it received a whirlwind of memories
and enthusiastic visions. Although his heroes are
average men, not of the race of philosophers, this
incomparable artist has made them so extraordi-
narily plastic that they live to-day among the people
as indubitable historical truths. He is a master in
the art of stirring the deepest emotions, as may
be found by the readers of his short stories and
his less voluminous works, but he is too great
a plastic artist to be quite fortunate in his search
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? 50 AN OUTLINE OE THE
for ideas in the modern whirlpool of psychological
conflicts. The intrinsic value of his novels, "With-
out Dogma" and "The Family of Polanieckis," is
due alone to his immense talent, which made
"Without Dogma'" a masterpiece of descriptive
psychology, though, against his intention, it is
rather a tragedy of love than of faith, just as "The
Family of Polanieckis" is an attempted synthesis
of all the spiritual elements of the epoch, for which
he tried to discover a formula. The moment he
returned to the domain of history he created two
chefs d'ceuvre, the world-famed "Quo Vadis" and
"Cruciferi," both planned on an heroic scale, and
studded with gems of untold beauty. "Cruciferi"
is a story of love, masterfully embroidered on the
background of the ' historic struggle of Poland
against Germanism. It is very characteristic of
Sienkiewicz that, having brought the language to
the acme of vigour and purity, he uses it as a
painter uses the colours of his palette. He acts
upon the mind through the eyes; one could almost
say that he writes with as potent a brush as that
of Matejko, and his strokes are as powerful as
those of Michael Angelo's chisel. The Nobel prize
and the national gift of a piece of land in token
of admiration were but a feeble expression of the
universal appreciation of his talent.
From 1883 Warsaw was ruled by his Excellency
General Hurko and his wife Maria Andreievna.
Jankulio raged then at the head of the Board of
Censors, and Apuchtin as the Curator of the Polish
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? HISTORY OR POLISH LITERATURE 51
Educational District. Then began the extermina-
tion of all that was Polish--the bleeding of Lithu-
ania, the strangling of Podlasie. To heap up the
measure, in 1885, Rismarck, in his anti-Polish
madness, raised the cry of "Ausrotten. " This
stirred the Polish national spirit to its depths.
The country people, on whom the brunt of the
persecution fell, became an object of purely social
sympathy and care. A movement was started, and
in it Jan Kasprowicz found his inspiration, and
gave to literature the real peasant, heavy but strong,
his broad bosom filled with the love of his land, to
which he is bound by every fibre of his being.
This epoch fostered a hardy and warlike gene-
ration, straining its force to the greatness of its
task, and not choosing the task commensurate with
its strength. There is Napierski, the analyst of
his reflections; there are the youthfully fiery tem-
peramental poets, Nowicki and Andrzej Niemo-
jewski; there is Adam Szymanski, whose prose
"Sketches" have the melancholy of a song of
Siberian exiles; there is the optimistic Roleslaw
Prus (Alexander Glowacki), a powerful plastic
talent, the disciple of positivism, the bonds of which
he breaks, however, when it proves too narrow
for him, an adept in accurate science and a writer
of strong, manly sentiment. His "Placowka"
("The Sentinel") and "Powracajaca Fala" ("The
Returning Wave") are synthesis of feeling; the
same synthesis runs through the novels "Lalka"
("The Doll ") and "Faraon" (" Pharaoh "), which
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? 52 AN OUTLINE OF THE
tells of the young ruler's vain efforts to apply, his
noble ideas of justice to the accepted order of
things. In this work, which is translated into all
European languages, Prus reaches complete inward
harmony.
The eminent painter and writer, Stanislaw . Wit-
kiewicz's vigorous study, "Our Art and Criticism,"
violently polemical in tone, burst open the door
for the friends of naturalism, carrying the banners
of Stendhal, Balzac, Zola, Daudet, and Maupassant.
The ideas of naturalism attracted men of great
talent, such as Adolf Dygasinski, in whose novels
and stories the lead is taken by Nature, and who
proves to possess the brain of a scientist and the
heart of a poet. Naturalistic too is Mme. Gabryela
Zapolska in her descriptions of the neurosis of
great cities. Until the neo-romantic current carried
him with it Ant. Sygietynski's objectivism and
anatomical methods linked him to the same school,
to which belong also the resigned and melancholy
Ostoja and Z. Niedzwiedzki, a misanthropic denun-
ciator of the beast in man.
The last echoes of the war against positivism
sound, meanwhile, in the novels of T. Jeske-
Choinski, A. Krechowiecki, and Marja Rodziewicz,
and in the stories of Cecylja Walewska and W.
Kosiakiewicz, but the realism of the last-named
becomes dull and commonplace.
Naturalism had the merit of imposing upon
writers the obligation of absolute sincerity and of
a thorough knowledge of the subject treated, but
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? HISTORY OF POLISH LITERATURE 53
it was too narrow a doctrine to encompass the
heights and depths of the human souls it could
not last long in its initial stage, and from imper-
sonal objectivism in its evolution passed into im-
pressionistic subjectivism. In this form it was
adopted by the most talented masters of the craft.
Sever, in a great variety of themes and ideas,
gives a remarkably subtle feeling of the beauty
of the Polish countryside.
iW. St. Reymont, a powerfully expansive
elemental nature, feels the best the characteristic
phenomena, and loves the best the unmixed poetry
of the elements. The drawing of his intellectual
types is not always flawless, but in " Chlopi" (" The
Peasants") his forceful picturing of the souls of
the Polish peasants and their patriotism, spring-
ing from the love of their land, has something of
the grandeur and indomitableness of the elements
among which they live. This work has been trans-
lated into English, French, and German. The
present war stopped the publication of his last
creation, "The iYear of 1794," in which in glowing
words he paints the epoch of the last Partition
of Poland.
Stefan Zeromski, a gigantic talent, has absorbed
the elements both of romantic heroism and of the
strong faith of positivism. Throughout his works
vibrates the note of pain and bitter suffering of
his generation,; for his subtle yet keen feelings
evil is the substance of the universe, and Ahriman
always triumphant,; for him the instinct of duty
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? 54 AN OUTLINE OF THE
is heroism. It is difficult to imagine a better har-
monized compound of lofty ideals, volcanic tem-
perament, and close study of the epoch than is
contained in his "Popioly" ("Ashes").
1W. Sieroszewski is a man concentrated, crys-
tallized, and strong. His types are inspired with
his faith in nature and man, and have the strength
and calm of statues. His exile provided him with
rich material for those delicately carved gems, his
stories from Siberia. His "Flight from Siberia"
is translated into English. In his "Beniowski"
he emphasizes the power of human genius over
the wild forces of the Kamtchatkan nature, and the
horrors of its eighteenth-century exile settlements.
While the activity of these impressionist prose-
writers was throbbing with life, the need of new,
ideas, the longing for great art, made itself felt
in poetry. It could not be satisfied by the gifted
poets then straying through this realm. S. Ros-
sowski, Or-ot (Artur Oppman), the painter of the
vanishing world of Napoleonic worshippers, St.
? Wierzbicki, and K. Glinski, the epigons of
romanticism, and the exquisite and refined Adam
M . . . ski, possess pleasant sounding but one-
Chord ed lutes.
At the same time there now strikes as in France
for many-stringed poetic souls the hour of
decadence; they look for inspiration in every
domain of the external world instead of seeking
it within their own breasts, and become, like
Antoni Lange, virtuosos of form but lacking in
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? HISTORY OF POLISH LITERATURE 55
substance. Some writers, like Belmont, Mankowski,
and Ig. Dabrowski may be defined as men "with-
out dogma. "
Through the melancholy of the exhaustion of
the fin de siecle the outlines of a new culture
become perceptible in the propaganda of the
poet Miriam (Zenon Przesmycki), an aesthetic
thinker, a mystic monist basing his art on the
ideas of Maeterlinck and du Prel; but the most
arresting and dolorous expression of the modern
longings for unattainable happiness has been found
by Kazimierz Tetmajer, the poet of the Tatra
Mountains, who has asserted himself as a great
talent not only in poetry but also in his Tatra
stories, and has, perhaps, reached his full develop-
ment in his latest novel, "Napoleon's Epopee," in
which he throws an entirely new light on the
famous Moscow expedition.
In its turn Cracow rears a young generation
that throws down the gauntlet to the "ancients. "
Modernism is their watchword, but the substance
of the new tendency, the leading idea, is to express
with sincerity the true emotions of the moment. The
advance guard in . Warsaw of this new movement
were W. Lieder, Mme. M. Komornicka, and C.
Jellenta. The Cracow group passed from impres-
sionistic to individualistic modernism, and soon the
young band grew so numerous, and so strongly
felt the need of drawing more closely together, that
when, in 1897, Ludwik Szczepanski founded the
weekly Zycie (Life), all the modernists met under
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? 56 AN OUTLINE OF, THE
its banner. This weekly--a sort of continuation
of Miriam's Zycie, which appeared1 some ten years
previously in AVarsaw--undertook "the disinfection
of the musty literary atmosphere. " All the men of
aspirations were to be found there: Miriam, Tet-
majer, Kasprowicz, Jellenta, Komornicka, and the
still more recent Zulawski, Rydel, Wyrzykowski,
Perzynski, St. Eienkowski, Orkan, Mirandolla, and
Lada. These were soon joined by Stanislaw
Przybyszewski, till then resident in Germany,
where he won laurels and wide renown for his
writings in German.
The editorship of Zycie passed into the hands
of Sever, after whom Przybyszewski, the most
talented, the most influential, and the strongest
representative of young Poland, took the direction
of the paper. This keenly intellectual, spiritually
minded man gave precedence to the soul over the
brain. For the brain things exist in time and
in space; for the soul exist only, non-limited by
space and time, the ideas of things. It was this
soul of things he endeavoured to, reach and to
sound. The spiritual force of his works has exer-
cised a strong influence on the development of
Polish literature. This author has become silent;
over his standard Time has passed a softening
hand, slightly effacing i,ts colours, but Przyby-
szewski's influence brought to literature an element
of such depth of thought that since his time the
Ivory Gate of Poetry is closed to, intellectual
mediocrities.
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? HISTORY OE POLISH LITERATURE 57
The modernist movement in Polish' literature
coincides with the important internal social
changes. The caste of nobility lost its prestige,
and the town element, the middle-class,1 became
preponderant, consequently a genre that played a
certain role in literature--the; tale of the country
nobility, with its broad gesture and its old-style
Polish humour--became extinct. The last to cul-
tivate this genre were K. Laskowski, S. Kondra-
towicz, and Abgar Soltan. Artur Gruszecki's talent
is above the level of this group, although his world
of nobility is too, corrupt to be true to reality.
Jozef Weyssenhoff lives in an entirely, different
world--a world well born and well brought up,
a world of refined nerves and subtle aesthetic
culture. He himself is a nature of extreme refine-
ment, and his tact, incomparable artistic measure,
and apparent reserve, mask a heart pulsing strongly
with the love of the land1 and its people. In beau-
tifully chiselled language he stirs a wide range
of emotions. His novels, "Sprawa Dolegi"
("Dolega's Case") and "Pamietniki Podfilip-
1 The Polish middle-class is still in process of formation.
It is true that in Poland of old there was a class of burgesses,
but, in spite of their wealth and numbers, their influence was
strictly limited by a nobility jealous of its privileges. The
constitution of May 3, 1791, gave to the burgesses equal rights
with all classes. The later influx of dispossessed country
gentry to the towns, bringing with them refinement and
culture, gave an intellectual bias to the growing middle-class,
so that now the patent to it is given not by wealth or social
standing, but by the degree of intellectual development. The
name of the middle-class in Polish is " Intelligentsia. "
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? 58 AN OUTLINE OF THE
skiego" (" Podfilipski's Memoirs "), are genuinely
fine, but the flower of his talent blossoms fully
in one of his latest achievements, "Sob61 i Panna"
'("A Sable and a Maid"), in which, together with
the poetic side of sport, he displays his deep ad-
miration of the landscape and his wise compre-
hension of youthful feelings and the noble impulses
in human nature. Through all his works runs a
thread of gentle satire, as subtle as the author
himself. He might be compared to Anatole France,
had the latter Weyssenhoff's depth of feeling.
The influence of Przybyszewski and his band
would have been more durable had not their indi-
vidualism so completely severed art from life,
before they became aware of the asthenia result-
ing from this estrangement. The most gifted of
this group of poets, W. Perzynski, complains--
With no young faith into the world I go,
No suns of hope suffuse my soul with light,
The years have rolled--so many and so slow,
Through my dark room at night.
The decadent works of K. Lewandowski, St.
Brzozowski, and even the exquisite artificiality of
E. Leszczynski bear the same stamp; Jerzy
Zulawski alone seeks a new synthesis. About this
time Jan KasprOwicz's talent returns to earth, and,
like Antaeus, from its contact his poetic person-
ality gains in strength.
In the bitter times that followed the instinct
of self-preservation drove the Poles again to seek
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?
HISTORY OF POLISH LITERATURE 59
salvation in the national ideas. The bowing down
to foreign gods did not satisfy the poets. An
attempt was made by Lucjan Rydel to nationalize
the stage by the introduction of the Polish fable,
but his high artistic culture was not adequately
supported by a creative imagination. Tetmajer on
analyzing his soul discovered there the need of
"Polish Saints"; Zeromski, Reymont, and Kas-
prowicz had felt this intuitively, attaching them-
selves to the landscape, the people, and the
sufferings of Poland. Stanislaw Szczepanowski
having, in 1897, sacrificed his parliamentary career
and come to Cracow to better serve the national
cause, gave expression to the national feelings in
his work "The Polish Idea and Internationalism. "
His fiery appeals aroused the romanticism lying
dormant at the bottom1 of everyone's soul. Then
came Stanislaw Wyspianski, the man who was a
national revelation. He chose the stage as the
medium through which Polish neo-romantic poetry
should be heard again, and in soul-stirring tones
give voice to the deepest national emotions. The
national myth Was his substance, which, with all the
force of his genius, he incarnated in tragedy. The
synthesis of the yearning of the Polish nation for
might he gave in his "Legion," the antithesis in
"Wesele" ("The Marriage Feast"). In all re-
spects he was an exceptional phenomenon. He
came from the world of pictorial art, in which
his labours were of short duration, but his achieve-
ments testified again to the immensity of his talent.
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? 60 AN; OUTLINE OE THE
He was an artist to the marrow of his bones, a
lover of beauty, a lover of purity, and yet the
extent of his talent was such that it enabled him
to descend deep into naturalism and from thence
rise to the summit of the sublimest symbolism.
With the same force he depicts realistic scenes
and visions of the World beyond. The works
of Wyspianski are conceived in a lightning-flash of
inspiration; he chisels and elaborates, constantly
testing them with the touchstone of his high
critical standard. Death bereaved Polish litera-
ture of him all too soon, but his spirit still stands,
and will ever stand, like a pillar of fire for the
enlightenment and guidance of the nation. He
marked an epoch in Polish poetry, and inaugu-
rated the era of neo-romanticism. Under his
breath decadence melted away, the soul of the
nation became regenerated, and poetry nationalized.
From the seeds of his sowing sprang a host
of young worshippers of might: iW. Orkan, with
his songs of the foothills of Tatra; Danilowski,
with his vision of purity, goodness, and salvation;
L. Staff, with the Promethean soul; T. Micinski,
endowed with an extraordinary and original
poetical organization, is more akin to the mystics
of Spain or Belgium than to the romanticists of
Poland. Eagles are his companions, and if his
flight is lower than that of . Wyspianski, it is more
sustained, more equal.
The great moral influence of the Polish poetry
of recent years is due not to its didactics but to
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? HISTORY OE POLISH LITERATURE 61
its high artistic value. When we read such master-^
pieces as "On the King's Lake" of Tetmajer, "By
the Sea" of Przybyszewski, "Ahriman Revenges
Himself" of Zeromski, "Dies Irse" of Kasprowicz,
"Legion" of Wyspianski, "Oaks of Czarnobyle"
of Micinski, we soar to such a height that we lose
sight of all that crawls and creeps upon the face
of the earth, and we begin to discern how beau-
tiful, reposeful, and stimulative the God of Good-
ness must have intended Nature and Life to be.
But this becomes perceivable only from the height
at which our souls begin to vibrate in unison with
the symphony of the Universe.
Poland through her literature has demonstrated
to the world an inexhaustible amount of vitality.
Moreover, her spiritual achievements contribute to
the universal culture, and it is only for the universe
to avail itself of the treasures displayed before it.
Printed in GreatlBritain by
BKWIN BBOTHEBS, IJinTED, THB ORKSHAM FREES, -WOKING AND LONDON
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New Edition, with two additional Essays on Human Evolution.
? 5. RELIGION OF SOCIALISM. E. Belfort Bax.
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