Abstrakt: | Manfred Kridl’s 1925 publication Antagonism between the Poet-prophets – on
Słowacki’s Attitude to Mickiewicz, consolidates a model that considers the complicated
relationship between the two most outstanding poets of Polish Romanticism
in terms of competition and polemics, the active part of which was that of
the younger poet. The attractiveness of the metaphor proposed by Kridl seems
to result, above all, from its systematizing nature, but also from the fact that it is
based on both analysis of Słowacki’s and Mickiewicz’s output and on biographical
detail. Although the analysis conducted by Kridl is interesting and in many
aspects still accurate (despite a rapid increase in critical works devoted to texts
written by both poets), the formula of antagonism between the poet-prophets
itself does not seem broad enough to describe their complicated relationship. The
postulate, in reconsidering this issue, has been formulated by researchers several
times (especially in the context of the latter Genesis period of Słowacki’s writing,
where the rules of competition for poetic fame or even worldview polemic seem
particularly inadequate).
The book is an attempt to present the complicated relations between Słowacki
and Mickiewicz in a broader formula, derived from Harold Bloom’s ‘anxiety of
influence‘ theory. The concept of this American researcher involves noting the
complex process of working out the influence of a great precursor in the series
of references to his works. The aim of these measures is to achieve poetic maturity
and originality. The considerations made in the book concentrate on three
thematic lines: love, nation, and poetic art, while their intention is not so much
the subordination of Słowacki’s particular texts to subsequent revisionary ratios
described by Bloom, as a description of the complicated relationship between the
poets within the formula of the ‘anxiety of influence‘, the nature of which is a
creative differentiation from the precursor. The last chapter of the book follows the nature of an interpretative experiment, proposing a hypothesis to explain
the insignificant number (and nature) of Mickiewicz’s comments on the younger
poet’s output. The role of methodological inspiration was again Bloom’s theory
here.
Bloom’s concept clearly underlines not only the doubly marked attitude of
an ephebe to a master (admiration and worship combine here with fear and
necessity to oppose his dominance), but also shows the positive consequences
of the mechanism. At the same time, the nature of the relationship between the
poet-prophets may be moved from the space of ‘competition’ for fame and poetic
precedence into the sphere of creating one’s own interesting works different
from the achievements of ‘the other’ (though being tightly connected with it).
It is evident that a typical feature of Słowacki’s works is their intertextuality,
(using other texts in order to create one’s own original whole) and a complex
game with a literary tradition. Mickiewicz’s works serve not only as one of the
most important literary contexts to which the younger poet refers, but they are
also given a special place among his ‘inspirations’. Bloom’s ‘anxiety of influence‘
theory allows this specificity to be captured. |