„W Szwajcarii” Juliusza Słowackiego – obrazowanie i symbolika
Juliusz Słowacki’s “In Switzerland”. Imagery and Symbolism

Summary/Abstract: Introduction to the article is devoted to the shaping of Słowacki’s artistic attitude: plastic education, learning about the old and contemporary painting and the papers by Western Europe theatre set designers, and his own reflection upon transferring of the realia set in his memory to the images he created. Imagery of the nature in the poem "In Switzerland" was directly influenced by the Swiss Alps landscapists but Słowacki broke their conventions since the space he created proves to be of sign character, is dominated by movement, and conveys its senses with the help of symbols taken from Mediterranean mythology, the Bible, anthropology and folklore. The images’ characteristic feature is a suggestion of the Whole Universe (the influence of German idealistic philosophy) and its spiritualizing. Słowacki juxtaposes literality with metaphor, the real space with spiritual one, and the finished with the unfinished. The nature serves as the background and a place for love episode which ends with the death of the beloved. The narrator and at the same time her melancholic partner reconstructs the past and maps his internal state onto the vision of the world. The final part of the paper looks the subject proper ahead and considers the poem "Anhelli" to formulate a conclusion that without "Anhelli" and "In Switzerland" the poem "King-Spirit" would not have reached the masterly level.

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