Polish Poetry - VI. POSITIVISM AND NEOROMANTICISM


Stanislaw Baranczak


VI. POSITIVISM AND NEOROMANTICISM The 1863 defeat of the January Insurrection generated a distrust of romantic ideology and undermined the authority of romantic "bards": the ensuing epoch of positivism was a programmatically anti poetic age. In literature there was a general shift toward realistic and naturalistic fiction and drama; only a few names of relative significance emerged in the field of poetry. Adam Asnyk (1838-97) left behind a number of lyrics, postromantic in style and ranging from the erotic to the philosophic. Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910) was one of the most vocal proponents of social reform in the spirit of positivism; her poetry written in defense of the oppressed is characterized by its skillful use of folklore and its introduction of a speaker from the lower classes. In the last decade of the 19th century, the prosaic epoch of positivism gave way to another era of poetry. This new trend, variously called Young Poland, modernism, or neoromanticism, was strongly influenced by Western European symbolism and the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, but it also gave expression to specifically Polish problems. The most influential exponent of the new "decadent" mood was Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer (1865-1940), who in his lyric poems published in the 1890s set up an emotional model for the whole generation of Young Poland-a norm of sensitivity consisting of pessimism, individualism, and distrust of any dogma. Other poets of this period underwent a more complicated development Jan Kasprowicz (1860-1926), for example, started with naturalistic depictions of peasants' poverty and after intermediary stages of symbolist spleen and expressionist rebellion ended as a serene poet of reconciliation with God and the world. From the technical point of view, his late poems are an important contribution to "tonism," a system of accentual versification based on an aqual number of stresses rather than syllables. Stanislaw Wyspianski (1869-1907), best known as a prolific playwright, was perhaps the most romantic of all poets of Young Poland. His visionary, half-romantic, half-symbolist plays refer to both Polish history and contemporary events, mingling mythological or legendary figures with historical or present-day characters. Tadeusz Micinski (1873-1918), also an innovative dramatist, was the author of an important collection of poems, W mroku gwiazd (In the Darkness of Stars, 1902), in which he anticipated expressionism. Leopold Staff (1878-1957) lived long enough to participate in three consecutive literary epochs; within Young Poland, he represented a trend opposing "decadence" and favoring Classical lucidity. The greates poet of Young Poland emerged quite unexpectedly when the epoch was alredy in decline. Boleslaw Lesmian (1878-1937) published his first collection only in 1912, and his next two books appeared as late as 1920 and 1936. Nevertheless, he must be considered a belated symbolist, and only the striking originality of his language obscures this genetic link. Lesmian's poetic style is a direct consequence of his philosophy. A follower of Bergson, he saw the world as a field of incessant conflict between inert Matter and the creative force of Spirit; since this conflict cannot be resolved, the world is always in statu nascendi. The task of poetry is to convey this instability. Its rhythm should express the world's élan vital, and its imagery should reflect reality's metamorphoses. The poet himself should assume the cognitive stance of primeval man, whose act of perception creates, as it were, the world perceived. Next Page >

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