Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer : zbliżenia

Abstract

The work presents, orders, and interprets the work of Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, a writer representative of and well known a hundred years ago in the period of „Young Poland”. The historical commentaries on his work were not numerous and they concentrated their attention on the records of the Modernist crisis in Tetmajer’s poetry: the feeling of emptiness, hoplessness, sadness and melancholy. Also the values of his cycle Na Skalnym Podhalu (On the Rocky Podhale) were generally agreed upon. The aim of the present work is the verification of te stereotypical opinions, interpretive schemes which have been affixed to the discourses on Tetmajer’s work. The subject of description are those aspects of the work of the author of Aniol Śmierci (The Angel of Death) about which history of literature does not remember. For this reason 1 present the weakly recognized image of the writer: jester, satirist, and arguer (Chapter IV); for this reason I write about his ignored novels (Chapter V); I also try to point out the basic textological problems of the collection of works in which the academic scholarship has been, so far, not interested (Chapter VI). First of all, however, I am trying to verify the status of the „poet of the generation” as it was this role which decided about the poet’s position in literary-historical syntheses. I present the scale and the regions of the success which, in the years of fascination with the sublimated artistry and the rejection of utilitarianism was able to efficiently promote his work, to flexibly react to the demands of the market. I also take up the problem of the Young Poland’s „sonnet-mania” and Tetmajer’s role in this phenomenon - he wrote one hundred sonnets organized in cycles. Chapter two is devoted to the ways the sonnets „speak" - not individually, but in groups. The next, thrid chapter concentrates the questions of originality, borrowings, epigonism, dialogue with tradition. All these phenomena were best revealed in the description of the Tetmajer - Słowacki relation. The six sketches which the book consists of are an attempt at drafting a new image of the poet, novelist, and playwright, but also an occasional, though not average, literary critic and publicist whose role in the literature of the break of the centuries cannot be overestimated.