EN
For a long time, Norwid seemed to be more a European than a Polish poet, and the spe-cific nature of his link to Polish traditions remained an open question. Norwid’s “outlandish” and complicated long poem Quidam (1857/1863) explicitly answers to Krasiński’s epic drama Irydion (1836), as did earlier Słowacki in his tragedies Balladyna (1839) and Lilla Weneda (1840). Both Słowacki and Norwid addressed their forewords to Krasiński. Słowacki reacts to Krasiński by refining his treatment of genre, verse and style and by sharpening his Romantic tragic horror and irony. Quidam beats Irydion by a more convincing portrait of An-cient Rome, by less pathetic and more intelligent hints to 19th Century modernity, and by overcoming with superior ease both Romanticism and realism in genre and time treatment. Quidam’s modest and sober main character contains also a secretly critical answer to Słowacki’s likewise overwhelming and unbearably fantastic epic Król-Duch (1847).