Polish Literature since 1795: An Introduction Slavonic Civilisation Artistic Movements in the Polish Lands. 5 November 1999
Artistic Movements in the Polish Lands (1750-1918)
The idea of national service in fine literature [belles lettres] entered Polish culture with Classsicism around the middle of the 18th century and was particularly associated with the reign of the last Polish king, Stanislaw August Poniatowski [1764-96]. A number of journals, e.g. Monitor, promoted classicist ideals along French lines, and writers readily disseminated the notion of civic duty in contrast to the Baroque, Sarmatian, Counter-Reformation values that had held sway since the mid-17th century. Classicism with its concepts of harmony and balance and clarity of exposition, together with its ultimately revolutionary philosophical ideas (human reason as the supreme authority), thus represented a radical shift in both literary aesthetics and political outlook, and a direct challenge to the selfish views of a highly privileged nobility. Not surprisingly, outside the capital Warsaw, its influence was minimal.
Key Classicist writers:
Key Thinkers include: Hugo Kollataj [1750-1812]: The Physical and Moral Order (1810)
Key Classicist values:
practice kept to theoretical limits and concepts set by Horace, Aristotle. Theoreticians (e.g. Dmowski) insisted that modern writers could aspire to no greater goal than IMITATION of the style and form of these perfect models in the vernacular.
Enormous emphasis on the first of these - the DIDACTIC function of literature to the detriment of the 'emotional' and 'leisure' principles. Aesthetic ideal was the exact division into three TYPES: HIGH, MIDDLE and LOW, and the appropriate circumstances in which these should be applied in a work were judged according to the dictates of DECORUM or 'propriety', perhaps the most important of the normative ideals in Classicism.
No obligation to be realistic in representing the natural world but an emphasis on 'setting a good example'. ESSENTIALIST rather than EXISTENTIALIST in outlook.
- leading humanity out of the 'dark ages' into the 'enlightenment'.
An even more rigid version of the same, being employed in addition to support the status quo, particularly during the Congress Kingdom (1816-1831). The emphasis placed upon the notion of ORDER meant that any deviation from the established conventions could have dire moral, social and political consequences. The focus of the Neo-Classicists' attack was burgeoning Romanticism, initially in the form of the softer aesthetic of SENTIMENTALISM [c.1800-1820], which, whilst retaining an essential faith in the existence of a supreme order, introduced a somewhat greater degree of emotionalism in the representation of human beings and their lives.
Key Neo-Classicists:
'Classicism is everything which is in accordance with the rules of poetry, as laid down by Boileau for the French, Dmochowski for the Poles, and Horace for all civilized nations.'
'Romanticism is a school of treason and pestilence.'
Key Sentimentalists:
Launched by shattering of old order during French Revolution, which simulataneously undermined faith in any rational interpretation of the world. Emphasis placed not on order, but on LIBERTY and REVOLT. Jettisoning of rules in art, the rationalist outlook and Classicist aesthetics. In Poland, the end of the old order was signalled by the publication of works in the spirit of the new movement, especially and above all the Ballads and Romances [1822] of Adam Mickiewicz [1798-1855]. Mickiewicz was the leader of literary Romanticism in Polish culture and the shifts in his outlook and poetic works defined the role and nature of poetry for the next forty years. The INTERNATIONAL 'model', that is, the Byronic hero, made itself felt to an extent in Mickiewicz's poetic tales, Konrad Wallenrod, published in St Petersburg in 1828, but particularly in the 'Ukrainian School', which included Antoni Malczewski [1793-1826], whose Maria[1825] is the supreme achievement in this vein. Mickiewicz generally, however, continued to exhibit Classical traits, especially in respect of the notion of literature as civic service. His great play Dziady (Forefather's Eve. Part III) [1832] initiated a sea-change in the Polish Romantic outlook, which took it away from the international model.
Polish Romanticism derived from the foreign variant four major issues:
Polish Romanticism's crucial innovation was in respect of (ii). Instead of being in opposition to his society, the Polish Romantic poet sought to speak for it, against the foreign oppressor. Polish Romanticism made the fundamental assumption that the individual cannot strive to be free whilst his society/nation is enslaved. The European notion of the poet's role is thus reversed at this point: the poet does not lead society from ignorance into liberation/knowledge, but rather goes forward with society in union, not in conflict. This becomes the standard position for the writer in Polish society over the next ninety years.
POET/SOCIETY VS. OPPRESSORS (Russia/Prussia/Austria)
Other key Romantic poets:
The movements which followed Romanticism all paid homage to its abiding social concerns, although they appeared sometimes violently to reject its outlook and methods. the first new movement was POSITIVISM with its literary equivalent REALISM, which provided a radical critique of the Romantic revolutionary ideal, particularly in the wake of the fiasco of the 1863 Uprising. According to the Positivists/Realists, the Romantic stance of outright opposition to the Partitioning powers had merely resulted in a far worse social and political position for the Poles. Consequently, they proposed a more realistic, attainable set of goals, focusing on economic self-improvement and thus postponing the issue of liberation for the foreseeable future. In literature, this led to the demise of poetry and drama in favour of prose, which was able, via a series of outstanding novels and shorter works, to provide an increasingly panoramic view of the Polish situation, in particular after 1863.
Initially, however, in line with the Positivist desire to analyse society, a series of tendentious novels emerged, designed to spark a response in the reader and, specifically, to lead him or her to change society. By around 1880, this trend gave way to a mature realism, sharing many features with European Realism of the time, as exemplified by key novellists such as Tolstoi, Balzac, George Eliot, etc.
Key figures:
Polish Literature since 1795: An Introduction ©Dr John Bates, 1999