Rysunki Słowackiego z podróży na Wschód jako portale pamięci
The Słowacki’s Drawings from His Journey to the East as Memory Portals

Author(s): Urszula Makowska
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Polish Literature, Philology
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: drawings of Juliusz Słowacki; Juliusz Słowacki’s journey to the East; notebooks of Juliusz Słowacki; identity of the sylleptic subject; poet as an artist
Summary/Abstract: Słowacki’s drawings from his journey to the East (24 August 1836 – 16 June 1837) are in two notebooks (one of them is kept in the Library of the National Ossoliński Institute in Wrocław, the second in the Russian State Library in Moscow). They are a source of information about travel (they present places not found in Słowacki’s notes and letters), but they can also be treated as an autobiographical document and as portals of the poet’s individual memory – memory of a man and a creator. They reflect the visual sensitivity of the author and the energy of his body: traces of a pencil, pen or brush correspond to the gestures of his arm and hand. In some drawings, Słowacki marked the place from which he saw the view, filling this part of the composition with disorderly, careless lines or undefined shapes. They contrast with the calm and objective registration of the object of his observation. The drawings show landscapes and monuments along the way, but also contain hidden self-portraits of the poet. They can be related to the disintegrating and reassembled identity of the sylleptic subject in his literary works written during the eastern journey. It is possible that they also played an inspiring role (as portals of memory) for Greek and Egyptian themes and motifs in Słowacki’s late works.

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