Autobiograficzne tło eseistyki Konstantego Jeleńskiego
Autobiographical Background of Konstanty Jeleński’s Essay Writing

Summary/Abstract: The article shows the impact of Konstanty Jeleński’s biography and early ideological formation of his essay writing. The author describes both the traits of culture of Polish landed gentry liberal circles, namely absorbency and diversification of readers’ interest, deep memory of tradition, multilingual and cosmopolitan education, as well as postwar Jeleński’s place in Western Europe institutions, the translator’s and culture mediator’s mission. Such elements of his biography give rise to a number of features of his writing as scope and silva-like review reading, anachronising and upgrading of the Polish language, and poetics of dialogue. The article also delineates ideological dominant of Jeleński’s essay writing. His focus on the elements of naturalistic and genesis works, especially in Miłosz, is an expression of his connections with materialistic and secular tradition, while following, mainly in Gombrowicz, the phenomenon of the form attest to deep memory of landed gentry customs.

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