Dlaczego Słowacki „pisał Mickiewiczem”? O genezyjskim przesłaniu fragmentu epickiego [„Konrad Wallenrod”]
Why Was Słowacki “Writing after Mickiewicz”? About a Genesian Message of the Epic Fragment [“Konrad Wallenrod”] [“Konrad Wallenrod”]

Summary/Abstract: In his epic paraphrase of Konrad Wallenrod [Konrad Wallenrod], Słowacki did not polemise with Mickiewicz’s poem. He rather discovered and explained the genesian sense of its content. It’s hard to call this “rewriting Mickiewicz”, as it has been described by Alina Witkowska. One can rather interpret it as creating a genesian narrative using the content and style of Mickiewicz’s works. In the second half of the 1840s, the author of Dziady [Forefathers’ Eve], Konrad Wallenrod [Konrad Wallenrod], and Pan Tadeusz [Sir Thaddeus] stopped interesting Słowacki as an individual of extraordinary worldview, imagination, and talent. He became instead one of many significant, homeric voices of the “spirit of the world”, spirit of the history. However, in his genesian narrative Słowacki used not only Mickiewicz’s texts, but also those of his own. Moreover, he used works of other masters in whom he recognised signs of prophetism: Homer, Dante, Ariosto, Shakespeare, Calderon, etc. In the epic fragment [Konrad Wallenrod] [Konrad Wallenrod], he presented a collective vision of Lithuanian bards – midair knights, who foretell ground-breaking events that were to happen in Lithuania. This vision is an evidence that the prophetic song, as a revelation of secrets of God or the spirit of history, does not belong to only one singer. On the contrary, reading and explaining the revealed truths is a collective task.

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