Pamięć o Marii i Antonim Malczewskim w poetyckiej refleksji Juliusza Słowackiego
Memory of Maria and Antoni Malczewski in the Poetic Reflection of Juliusz Słowacki

Author(s): Marta Białobrzeska
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Polish Literature, Philology
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Antoni Malczewski; Maria; Juliusz Słowacki; Beniowski; mythologisation of the life of Antoni Malczewski; poems dedicated to Maria and Malczewski; second bard; Orpheus myths
Summary/Abstract: Marta Białobrzeska in the article Memory of Maria and Antoni Malczewski in the poetic reflection of Juliusz Słowacki writes about the Maria and Antoni Malczewski references in the works of Juliusz Słowacki. Letter from Juliusz Słowacki to Salomea Bécu (15 VII 1833) suggest that the process of mythologisation of the life of Antoni Malczewski was developing along with the career of his poetic tale. In the we can note the indispensable elements of the mythical biography of Antoni Malczewski: romantic journeys, inspiration with the works of Lord Byron, convergence of the facts from his biography with events from the life of the author of "The Corsair", unhappy love, loneliness, underestimation by the contemporaries, and death in poverty and oblivion. In "Beniowski" the author of Maria is presented as the eulogist of Ukraine – the man of the south-eastern borderlands of the Republic of Poland. It was claimed that his work had arisen out of the very soul of the Ukrainian land, where the achievements of the ancestors were still echoing. We witness equating the existential experience of Malczewski with the vision of the world contained in "Maria". In "Beniowski" Malczewski was perceived also as the second bard – the greatest poet of his epoch next to Adam Mickiewicz. "Maria" was seen as the creation of the great national literature. Glorification of Antoni Malczewski in poetry is related to the exceptional popularity of Orpheus myths in Polish culture, both of the first and the second half of the 19th century.

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