Shakespeare of the Polish Romantics

Authors:

• Alina Borkowska-Rychlewska

Abstract

The chapter is devoted to various ways of understanding Shakespeare’s dramaturgy in the literature and criticism of Polish Romanticism. Some poets and critics, for example, Adam Mickiewicz and Maurycy Mochnacki, analyzed the author of Hamlet in their treatises and lectures, focusing primarily on his historical and literary significance. Shakespeare was also seen as an important reference for the changes taking place in European culture, as subjectively described by Zygmunt Krasiński in his letters. Other great Polish romantics, such as Juliusz Słowacki and Cyprian Norwid, treated Shakespeare as an object of subjective delight and attempted to engage in a creative dialogue with his works, freely employing various references and ironic gestures in their art. To summarize, poets and critics representing both the first and the second generation of Polish romantics, in many different ways developed their own original philosophical and aesthetic theories inspired by Shakespeare’s views, ideas and universal formulae.