"Beniowski" we krwi : o kilku wymiarach symboliki "cieczy osobliwej" w poemacie Juliusza Słowackiego

Abstract

The article focuses on the motif of blood in Beniowski by Juliusz Słowacki. The “curious liquid”, as Mephistopheles calls it in Faust, becomes an important constituent of a few types of discourse regarding the character and the narrator of a literary work. Among other things, it seems to be an element of the presented world and a significant symbol in the patriotic-religious statements of priest Marek, but most importantly, it is inseparably connected with the reflection of a romantic poet upon the sources and the essence of an artistic activity, often treated ironically in terms of the recognition of conventionality of the romantic stereotypes concerning inspired creativity. This ironic work of Słowacki, to some extent, remains faithful to the ambivalence included in the symbolics of blood, since just as blood it does not allow itself to be put into any rigid frames or categories.