Norwidowska „zbrodnia stanu”. Szekspir w twórczości Norwida (O Kleopatrze i Aktorze)
Norwid’s “Crime Against the State”. Shakespeare Is in the Works of Norwid (On Kleopatra and Aktor)

Author(s): Sławomir Rzepczyński
Subject(s): Theatre, Dance, Performing Arts, Cultural history, Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature, British Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Romanticism; Cyprian Kamil Norwid; Shakespeare; 19th century drama
Summary/Abstract: A lasting presence in European culture and an important inspiration for the Romantics, Shakespeare’s works were nevertheless misunderstood by his 19th-century contemporaries, argued Norwid, and Shakespeare’s message had become lost over the centuries. Norwid’s comments on Shakespeare and his own dramatic works, notably Kleopatra and Aktor, call for a fresh re-examination of Shakespeare’s significance. In his historical tragedy Kleopatra, Norwid shows the dangers of settling for a cultural status quo and getting clammed up in one’s own period. In Aktor, a contemporary “comedic drama” (komediodrama), Norwid presents a critique of the 19th century which he believed had rejected the timeless values of the past, thus posing a threat to humanity and to the future of the world (Norwid derived his ideas on humanity’s development from the Bible and the teachings of the Church on the one hand, and from the philosophy of Hegel and Giambattista Vico on the other). The Shakespearean inspiration makes itself felt in Norwid’s works in a number of ways, including themes (notably man’s condition in the historical process), traditional genres, characterisation, and literary methods (plays within plays). To Norwid, Shakespeare was one of the “teachers of humanity” whose work should be continually re-examined to bring its historical detail in line with contemporary developments and universal categories.

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