The place of musie in thepoetry of Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer

• Authors: Justyna Bajda
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

PL

Young Poland poetry was dominated by artistic imaging, but its associations with music are also quite often mentioned. Many examples of its “musicality” can be found in various layers of poetic works, starting with their phonological aspect and versification, through the simple usage of lexical resources, descriptions of instruments and concerts and listeners’ impressions, up to attempts at finding appropriate means for transposing particular genres or specific musical works into poetry and even creating a poetic language modelled on music. The characteristic phenomenon of poetry challenging music can be observed during that period. The oeuvre of Fryderyk Chopin is especially important, as there are many sets of works concerned with Chopin’s music or the composer himself (about 150). Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer was one of the Young Poland poets to show an interest in this subject. The images created by Tetmajer’s specific artistic imagination were often defined by elements of a musical character. The best-known “musical” set of works by Tetmajer is the Preludes, considered to be his “calling-card”. Tetmajer used sounds in many different ways. Besides attempts at shaping this poetical cycle in the image of Chopin’s preludes, one should mention here the role of the music and songs of the highlanders, the repetitive distant chime of church bells, the various musical instruments, notes and tones reverberating in many poems, and the specific role of the music of nature. The works directly inspired by Fryderyk Chopin’s music (Mazurek Chopina [Chopin’s mazurka], Cień Chopina [Chopin’s shadow], Zamyślenia XVI [Thoughtfulness XVI]) are a good reflection of Tetmajer’s way of thinking and writing about the sounds of nature. They are part of the tum-of-the-century mood, since they use impressionistic, symbolic and pre-Raphaelite poetics. The poem Zamyślenia provides a sort of conclusion to Tetmajer’s poetical thinking about Chopin, and about music in general. The poet agrees here with the modernist vision of Chopin as a bard of the nation. Almost all the leitmotifs favoured by the poet and connected to his perception of music appear here: the effect of “listening” to sounds from afar, a soul filled with grief (reminiscent of the sad tones of the music), a mood encompassing the whole universe and moving deep layers of human sensitivity, specifically among Poles.

Keywords

PL

Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer; Fryderyk Chopin; Young Poland; poetry; music; nature; blue note; impressionist poetic; symbolic poetic; pre-Raphaelite poetic

• Publisher: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
• Journal: Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology
• Year: 2010
• Issue: 9
• Pages: 195-214

Dates

published

2018-10-17

Contributors

author

Justyna Bajda

• doctor specialising in literary studies and art history. Lecturer in the School of the History of Polish Literature of the Positivist and Young Poland periods in the Institute of Polish Philology o f the University of Wroclaw. Her academic interests are centred on the Young Poland era and European modernism, and especially the correspondance des arts. She is the author of two academic monographs: Poezja a sztuki piękne. O świadomości estetycznej i wyobraźni plastycznej Kazimierza Przerwy-Tetmajera [Poetry and the fine arts. On the aesthetic awareness and pictorial imagination of Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer] (Wroclaw, 2003) and „Poeci to są słów malarze...”. Typy relacji między słowem a obrazem w książkach poetyckich Młodej Polski [“Poets are painters in words...”. The types of relationship between word and image in Young Poland books of poetry] (in print). She has also written two academic books aimed at the general public, Na przełomie wieków [Around the turn of the century] (Wroclaw, 2002) and Młoda Polska [Young Poland] (Wroclaw, 2003), a number of entries for the Wielki leksykon literatury polskiej [Great lexicon of Polish literature] (Wroclaw, 2005) and the anthology Poezja drugiej połowy XIX wieku (pozytywizm - Młoda Polska) [Poetry of the second half o f the nineteenth century (positivism - Young Poland)] (Wroclaw, 2007), as well as numerous articles and studies devoted mainly to the relations between poetry and art.