ROMANTIC ELEGIAC AWARENESS. KAZIMIERZ BRODZINSKI'S TREATISE 'ON ELEGY' (Romantyczna swiadomosc elegijna - rozprawa 'O elegii' Kazimierza Brodzinskiego)

• Authors: Sniedziewski Piotr
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The paper aims to present Kazimierz Brodzinski's views on the elegy. The author of 'On Classicism and Romanticism' (publ. 1818) and 'On Idyll from a Moral Point of View' (publ. 1823) is commonly regarded as a main theoretician and defender of idyll writing. Nonetheless, a careful reading of the two treatises, combined with an analysis of his thesis 'On Elegy' (publ. 1822) reveals 'other' Brodzinski who not only doubts into the idyll's life span at the beginning of 19th c. and also becomes an eulogist of elegiac sensitivity. In reference to the elegiac subject's unique emotional state (the experience of instability of the world and one's own transitoriness), the latter is defined by Brodzinski's attitude to time (connected with metaphors of vanity and melancholic consciousness of loss) and to space (which is a sensual equivalent of the subject's emotions and attests his emptiness and loneliness in the world). Brodzinski's observations were contrasted with Friedrich Schiller's treatise 'On Naive and Sentimental Poetry' (publ. 1800), which was Polish writer's important source of inspiration, and with the tradition of 'sweet melancholy' present especially in French art and literature. It might be concluded that the idyll in Brodzinski's considerations is a metaphor of vanished order and harmony whilst the elegy gives the fullest description of emotional and historical situation of the then man.

Keywords

EN

BRODZINSKI'S TREATISE 'ON ELEGY'; KAZIMIERZ BRODZINSKI

• Publisher: Instytut Badań Literackich PAN
• Journal: Pamiętnik Literacki
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 102
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 5-25
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Sniedziewski Piotr

• Piotr Sniedziewski, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

11PLAAAA09341