Rzeczy piekielne : wokół "Poematu Piasta Dantyszka" Juliusza Słowackiego

Abstract

Although this book is fully devoted to one of the most unusual works of Polish romanticism, it cannot be treated as a monograph of the poem. It consists of a flickering mosaic of interpretation of traces composed of smaller and self-contained elements. In the introductory part the author attempts to show the image of Juliusz Słowacki as partly romantic traveller, and partly modernist flaneur, walking down the dark labyrinth of a strange city (in this case Florence). Mariusz Jochemczyk traces symptoms of the crisis which the poet experiences at that time. It is both the crisis of personality and identity. All this is shown within the frames of rules governing the interpretation of "epistolary romance". In this way Slowacki's letters to his mother Salomea are treated. The second part of the book - continuing the Florence's line - brings easily recognisable and especially strong symptoms of the Kordian's author deep fascination with Dante. Jochemczyk attempts to show here not only the way in which Słowacki "plays" with the reader "in Dante", but also the rich background displaying consecutive stages of Slowacki's achieving - in reading, thought and literary practice - his own, personal perception of "Dante's issue" and the very character of Gibelin as he wishes to call him. The third part is a study of Polish patriotic frenzy of "love". Starting from observations made by Mickiewicz in one of his Paris lectures, the author of the book attempts to discover "logics" of that phenomenon, analysing "history of certain allegory" - images of homeland as woman-lover. The fourth part was aimed to disclose the "mechanics" governing this particular course of expression of the protagonist. There are questions about conditions enabling the birth of "alcohol discourse". The author looks for a rule organising and ordering the "linguistic actions" of the main person of the poem and finds it in repetition and attempts to show that Dantyszek functions - if it might be called like that - in limited and constantly renewed range or in the choice of linguistic abilities. Repetition functions here as a constant application of identical or equivalent spoken constructions and elements of the lexicon. The final part of the book focuses on quite different issues. Mariusz Jochemczyk attempts to show how the "essence" of poem tissue influences Słowacki and his relatives' "existence". But also in a different way - how earthly "existence" of an individual and the whole nations relates to the idea of the just beyond. In this case, the author of the book is occupied with the significant disproportion in creation of Polish and Russian part of that poetic and political Hell. Part in which earthly executioner receives less severe punishment than his victim.