Fascynujący problem adresatki "Rozłączenia" Juliusza Słowackiego

Abstract

Among other problems concerning J. Slowacki's oeuvre, the greatest attention, alter the war, was paid to the question of who The Parting had been dedicated to. The poem was traditionally regarded as an erotic work addressed by the poet to Miss Maria Wodzińska (such is the position of the first editor of the text. Antoni Małecki, and, initially, also of Juliusz Kleiner). Kleiner, however, changed his mind, under the influence of Eugeniusz Kucharski's reasoning, and he suggested that, for the sake of a fuller, and more truthful interpretation that would be closer to the poet's intentions, we should regard the poet's mother. Mrs Salomea Becu, as the poem's addressee. This gesture was a pretext for a stormy and highly emotional discussion in the columns of the Pamiętnik Literacki, between Konrad Górski - a supporter of the traditional, erotic interpretation of the poem, on the one hand, and Wiktor Weintraub and Czesław' Zgorzelski, on the other. That polemic abounded in valuable statements, some of therm general and concerning the theory of literature, but it did not solve the dilemma of „Maria or mother”. Neither is it solved by the newest suggestion by Zbigniew Przybyła, who regards the poem's addressee as a rhetorical figure constructed out of the features of many women that were close to Slowacki's heart. The problem remains open, which makes it so fascinating lor historians of literature.