Nil Słowackiego
Słowacki’s Nil

Summary/Abstract: The ways of presenting the Nile, as well as its roles in the works of Słowacki are to a large extent related to types of literary entity’s creation. Sometimes the river improves the cognitive opportunities, but sometimes it limits them. At times it appears to be the axis of the world, a place from which one can see the reality with a divine eye. Sometimes, however, it narrows down the perspective, blurs one’s sensitivity and leads one to a tanatic space like the mythological Styx does. The diversity of the river’s images and functions is driven mainly by the romantic subjectivity. It is variable, sometimes growing to the size of the absolute and full of almost cosmic energy, and sometimes shrinking, escaping from the world’s din, looking for the calm in a closed, isolated land of deadly dreams. The poet never follows the traditionally-established pattern of showing the Nile as a source of life and water which provides Egypt with economic welfare. Geography, economics and politics give way to a peculiar romantic humanism in Słowacki’s works. What truly matters is discovering and establishing the relationship between man and the nature, history and transcendence.

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