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Lord Byron and the Metamorphoses of Polidori’s Vampyre

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Coghen M.

Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis

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2011

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vol. 6

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issue 1

PL

The aim of this article is to investigate the links between vampire stories and plays and Lord Byron in the context of his early nineteenth-century reception in Europe, and particularly in Poland. Byron is often regarded as one of the main originators of vampire stories in modern European culture and occasionally even as a model for vampiric characters. This image of Byron was mainly constructed on the basis of a passage in The Giaour and John Polidori’s tale The Vampyre, which had first been erroneously attributed to Byron. Owing to Byron’s literary fame as the greatest living British poet as well as to his scandalous reputation, The Vampyre gained great popularity both in Britain and on the Continent, which resulted in numerous theatrical adaptations, especially in France and in Germany. In Poland the French melodrama Upiór (Le Vampire) by Charles Nodier, Pierre Carmouche and Achille de Jouffroy was a great stage success and was published in a book form. Polidori’s tale allegedly originated in Byron’s idea, the record of which appears in the fragment called “Augustus Darvell”. Echoing the techniques Byron used to suggest to his readers that he himself might be identified with the protagonists of his poetic tales, Polidori similarly invites the reader to identify his eponymous vampire Lord Ruthven with Lord Byron. In Byron’s fragment one can trace only a hint of vampirism; in Polidori’s story it becomes a metaphor not only of sexual profligacy but also of “byromania”, the cult of Byron among his female readers. In popular melodrama the vampire character is conflated with Don Giovanni from Mozart’s opera, possibly because of Byron’s publication of the first two cantos of Don Juan.

2

Rewriting Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale from Dryden, through Voltaire, to Niemcewicz: Medievalism or Modernisation?

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Coghen M.

Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis

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2017

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vol. 12

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issue 3

175-185

EN

The aim of this paper is to track down the fortunes of cross-cultural transmission of The Wife of Bath’s Tale in the course of the 18th century. The continental interest in the tale was sparked off by Dryden’s adaptation in his Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700). Dryden’s version was rewritten by Voltaire as Ce qui plait aux dames (1764), which in turn was translated into Polish by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, and appeared in his collection Pisma różne wierszem i prozą (Various Writings in Verse and Prose, vol. I, 1803) as Co się damom podoba (What Pleases the Ladies). This trajectory of the Polish reception of Chaucer’s tale confirms the characteristic pattern of adaptations and translations of English literary works into Polish – from English through French into Polish, though it is not typical of Niemcewicz’s practice as a translator as he was one of the very few Polish translators translating directly from the English at the time. Thus, paradoxically to the 21st-century reader, the first, to my knowledge, Polish adaptation of The Wife of Bath’s Tale does not reveal an interest in Chaucer but rather confirms the dependence of late 18th- and early 19th-century Polish writers on French literary models. Likewise, differences in the representation of gender relationships between Chaucer’s romance and its eighteenth-century versions reveal that the agenda of the eighteenth-century adapters was rather catering to the taste of their contemporaneous readers than engaging with medieval English culture.

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Manfred 1892 na scenie Teatru Wielkiego w Warszawie

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Coghen M.

Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis

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2021

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vol. 16

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issue 4

267-291

EN

Byron claimed that Manfred had not been intended for the stage, but his dramatic poem was occasionally produced in the nineteenth-century theatre. In 1848 Robert Schumann adapted the poem for stage performance, composing the Overture and incidental music. Schumann’s version of Manfred was staged in Warsaw Teatr Wielki, with Józef Kotarbiński, a well-known actor, theatre manager and critic as the protagonist. The production was followed by a heated debate in the press. The central controversy focused on whether Byron’s “metaphysical drama” was suitable for the stage and relevant for the late nineteenth-century Polish audience. The aim of this paper is to examine central issues in this debate by scrutinizing the press reviews of the Warsaw production. As the reviews are by their very nature subjective, their examination reveals much more about their authors’ literary and theatrical preferences than about the performance itself, and provides an insight in the early stages of the development of the so-called Young Poland movement (Młoda Polska), with its emphasis on individualism and subjectivity, interest in metaphysics, and prevalence of lyricism. The 1892 Manfred in Warsaw may be seen as an attempt at introducing great Romantic poetry in the theatre, paving the way for the theatre productions of Polish Romantic drama, which Kotarbiński was to stage as the manager of Teatr Miejski in Kraków. The article also contributes to the history of Byron’s reception in Poland.

PL

Byron twierdził, że Manfred nie był przeznaczony na scenę, ale jego poemat dramatyczny był sporadycznie wystawiany w dziewiętnastowiecznym teatrze. W 1848 roku Robert Schumann zaadaptował poemat do wykonania scenicznego, skomponował uwerturę i muzykę incydentalną. Manfreda w wersji Schumanna wystawiono w warszawskim Teatrze Wielkim z Józefem Kotarbińskim, znanym aktorem, kierownikiem teatru i krytykiem, w roli głównej. Po realizacji rozgorzała gorąca debata w prasie. Główny spór dotyczył tego, czy „dramat metafizyczny” Byrona nadaje się na scenę i czy jest istotny dla polskiej publiczności końca XIX wieku. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest zbadanie głównych kwestii podejmowanych w tej debacie poprzez analizę recenzji tej realizacji w prasie warszawskiej. Ponieważ recenzje są z natury subiektywne, ich badanie ujawnia znacznie więcej preferencji literackich i teatralnych ich autorów niż informacji o samym spektaklu i daje wgląd we wczesne etapy rozwoju tzw. Młodej Polski, z naciskiem na indywidualizm i podmiotowość, zainteresowanie metafizyką i dominację liryzmu. Warszawskiego Manfreda z 1892 roku można więc uznać za próbę wprowadzenia do teatru wielkiej poezji romantycznej, torującej drogę teatralnym inscenizacjom polskiego dramatu romantycznego, który Kotarbiński miał wystawić jako dyrektor Teatru Miejskiego w Krakowie. Artykuł wpisuje się także w historię recepcji Byrona w Polsce.

4

Man and Horse in Byron’s Poetry

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Coghen M.

Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis

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2024

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vol. 19

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issue 2

93-102

PL

W swoich dziełach poetyckich i epistolografii Byron wiele razy sięga po metaforykę jazdy konnej, a konie często pojawiają się w jego utworach. Celem artykułu jest analiza ukazania jazdy konnej oraz relacji pomiędzy koniem a człowiekiem w poematach, takich jak Giaur, Mazeppa i Wędrówki Childe Harolda. Obrazowanie koni w twórczości poety może być odczytane metaforycznie jako odbicie jego rozwoju poetyckiego – od szalonego, kierowanego namiętnością galopu Giaura do harmonijnej więzi pomiędzy koniem a człowiekiem, której Mazeppa uczy się dzięki doświadczeniu swej dzikiej jazdy.

EN

In his poetry and in letters Byron occasionally writes of horses and uses the imagery of horse riding. This essay examines Byron’s representation of human-horse interactions and the ways in which the poet deploys the images of horse riding in The Giaour, Mazeppa, and Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. I would like to suggest that Byron’s representation of horses may be seen as figuratively reflective of his poetic development from the passion-spurred ride of the Giaour to the harmonious bond between horse and human that Mazeppa learns through his wild ride.

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4 Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis

4 Coghen M.

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Lord Byron and the Metamorphoses of Polidori’s Vampyre

Rewriting Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale from Dryden, through Voltaire, to Niemcewicz: Medievalism or Modernisation?

Manfred 1892 na scenie Teatru Wielkiego w Warszawie

Man and Horse in Byron’s Poetry