{"id":1324,"date":"2010-12-14T22:57:57","date_gmt":"2010-12-14T22:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/?p=1324"},"modified":"2010-12-14T22:57:57","modified_gmt":"2010-12-14T22:57:57","slug":"polish-literature-literatura-polska-%e2%80%93-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/polish-literature-literatura-polska-%e2%80%93-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Polish Literature, Literatura Polska \u2013 Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last time we talked about the early history of Polish literature<\/a>. I promised we would continue, so let\u2019s start with Enlightenment and the 19th<\/sup> Century.<\/p>\n

The Enlightenment (O\u015bwiecenie<\/strong>) and particularly the reign of the last king of Poland, Stanis\u0142aw August Poniatowski<\/strong>, was an important period in the development of Polish literature.<\/p>\n

The first Polish novel, The Adventures of <\/em><\/strong>Miko\u0142aj Do\u015bwiadczy\u0144ski<\/em><\/strong> (<\/em>Miko\u0142aja Do\u015bwiadczy\u0144skiego przypadki<\/em><\/strong>), was written by Bishop Ignacy Krasicki<\/strong> (1735-1801), a moralist (moralista<\/em>) and satirical poet (poeta satyryczny<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Polish romantic poetry (poezja romantyczna<\/strong>) played an important role in keeping nationalist sentiment alive. The outstanding writers at that time, Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz S\u0142owacki<\/strong> and Zygmunt Krasi\u0144ski<\/strong>, wrote outside Poland. To this day, their work forms the canon of patriotic literature, whose jewel in the crown is Mickiewicz\u2019s Pan Tadeusz, <\/em><\/strong>which is both nostalgic evocation of the vanishing traditions of the nobility and the vision of the emergence of more modern social attitudes. Also notable at this time was the comedy writer Aleksander Fredro<\/strong>, whose works includes Revenge (Zemsta)<\/em><\/strong> and Husband and Wife (M\u0105\u017c i \u017bona).\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Another writer who holds a prominent place in the history of Polish Romantic literature is Cyprian Kamil Norwid<\/strong>, regarded at the precursor of modernism. Eliza Orzeszkowa<\/strong> (1840-1910) and Boles\u0142aw Prus <\/strong>(1847-1912) with famous Lalka<\/em><\/strong> are the principal figures in the next phase of the development of the Polish novel.<\/p>\n

Another major writer of this time was Henryk sienkiewicz<\/strong> (1846-1916), best known in Poland for his trilogy (trylogia<\/strong>) of historical novels describing events in the 17th<\/sup> century Poland\u00a0 and The Teutonic Knights (Krzy\u017cacy)<\/em><\/strong>, which is devoted to the late 14th<\/sup> and early 15th<\/sup> centuries. \"\"<\/a>Outside Poland Sienkiewicz is better known for Quo Vadis?,<\/em><\/strong> which deals with the beginnings of Christianity and for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1905. Quo Vadis was made into a movie \u2013 which I happened to be on the set of as an extra. It was a lot of fun and I spent the whole summer watching this movie being made.<\/p>\n

\u00a020th<\/sup> Century Literature<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

From 1900 onwards Young Poland (M\u0142oda Polska<\/strong>), a modern trend in Polish literature particularly associated with the artist community of Cracow, began to emerge. A key role in this was played by Stanis\u0142aw Wyspia\u0144ski<\/strong> (1869-1907), author of the Symbolist play The Wedding (Wesele)<\/em><\/strong>, which was made into a film by Andrzej Wajda<\/strong> 70 years later. Also influential in the Young Poland was a Bohemian group surrounding Stanis\u0142aw Przybyszewski<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Another Nobel laureate was W\u0142adys\u0142aw Reymont<\/strong> (1865-1925) for The Peasants (Ch\u0142opi)<\/em><\/strong>, which describes the lives of the inhabitants of a village near \u0141owicz. Between the wars, avant-garde writers such as Stanis\u0142aw Ignacy Witkiewicz<\/strong> (aka Witkacy<\/strong>, 1885-1939), Bruno Schulz<\/strong> (1893-1942) and Witold Gombrowicz<\/strong> (1904-69) came to prominence.<\/p>\n

Polish literature after World War II spawned many famous writers, several of whom wrote from abroad for political reasons. Stanis\u0142aw Lem<\/strong> wrote philosophical science fiction, which has been translated into many languages. His Solaris<\/em><\/strong> was made into a film by Andrei Tarkovsky. Tadeusz R\u00f3\u017cewicz<\/strong>, also well \u2013 known as a poet, and S\u0142awomir Mro\u017cek<\/strong> are prominent among playwrights. Hanna Krall<\/strong> and Ryszard Kapu\u015bci\u0144ski<\/strong> are renowned for their documentary writing. Andrzej Szczypiorski<\/strong>, who wrote A Mass for Arras (Msza za miasto Arras)<\/em><\/strong> and the Beginning (Pocz\u0105tek)<\/em> has also achieved international recognition. Contemporary poetry has a special place in Polish literature. Apart from Tadeusz R\u00f3\u017cewicz, its main exponents are Zbigniew Herbert, Ryszard krynicki <\/strong>and Stanis\u0142aw Bara\u0144czak<\/strong>. \"\"<\/a>The best illustration of the achievements of contemporary Polish writers is the award of two recent Nobel prizes: the 1980 prize to Czes\u0142aw Mi\u0142osz<\/strong>, and the 1996 prize, to the Cracow poetess Wis\u0142awa Szymborska<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is pretty easy to get most of the Polish books online and have them sent to USA. Of course I love to shop for them while I\u2019m in Poland, but unfortunately can not do it too often…<\/p>\n

I apologize if I didn\u2019t name your favorite authors. I tried to mention the most important ones though.<\/p>\n

Do nast\u0119pnego razu<\/strong>! (Till next time\u2026)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last time we talked about the early history of Polish literature. I promised we would continue, so let\u2019s start with Enlightenment and the 19th Century. The Enlightenment (O\u015bwiecenie) and particularly the reign of the last king of Poland, Stanis\u0142aw August Poniatowski, was an important period in the development of Polish literature. The first Polish novel…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1324","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1324"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1330,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324\/revisions\/1330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}