The Body and the Soul in a Dispute about Poetry. Juliusz Słowacki’s “Poet and Inspiration” Cover Image

Ciało i duch w sporze o poezję. „Poeta i Natchnienie” Juliusza Słowackiego
The Body and the Soul in a Dispute about Poetry. Juliusz Słowacki’s “Poet and Inspiration”

Author(s): Magdalena Siwiec
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: Juliusz Słowacki; Słowacki’s "Poet and Inspiration"

Summary/Abstract: The article is an interpretation of Juliusz Słowacki’s "Poet and Inspiration" and attempts to present the poet’s writing conception just after so-called mystic turn. The key problem of the suggested reading is the relation between the material and the spiritual. The relation in question, reflected as love between the poem’s two characters: the Poet and his beloved – and at the same time his inspirator – ceases to rely on a simple juxtaposition of opposing categories (body–soul, past–present, paganism–christianity) but depends on their aporic combination. Reluctance to the matter does not exclude its valorisation – it is viewed as a prison and at the same time as a language the spiritual world speaks, and as the Poet’s only available mode of expression. The exchangeable identification of the lovers with their opposite poles allows to present a concept of Słowacki’s poetry as internally conflicted concept.

  • Issue Year: 2009
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 43-59
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: Polish