The man The life The work Słowacki’s Masks
The collection dedicated to Juliusz Słowacki contains the most precious items held in the National Library, such as the manuscript of Balladina of 1834 or Krak, an unfinished drama with corrections in the hand of Antoni Małecki.
Another notable autograph is the Odpowiedź na psalmy przyszłości(A Reply to the Psalms of the Future), known as the “Warsaw manuscript”, differing from the first edition of 1848. An interesting source of knowledge about Słowacki are also autographs of his letters to Joanna Bobrowa and Antoni Hłuszniewicz. The list of first editions of Słowacki’s works might begin with the drama Kordian: część pierwsza trilogji… (Kordian: the First Part of the Trilogy…) published in 1834 at the author’s own expense. An unknown publisher brought out the Poema Piasta Dantyszka herbu Leliwa o piekle (The Poems of Piast Dantyszek of the Leliwa Coat of Arms on Hell) in 1839. Other works were published by the Polish Book Shop and Printing House in Paris. And thus readers received: Anhelli (1838), Balladyna (1839), Trzy Poemata (Three Poems) (1839), Mazepa: tragedya w 5ciu aktach (Mazeppa: The Tragedy in 5 Acts) (1840), Lilla Weneda: tragedija w 5 aktach (Lilla Weneda: The Tragedy in 5 Acts) (1840). The CBN Polona collection comprises also the first edition of Genezis z ducha (The Genesis of the Spirit) (Warsaw, 1884), published posthumously.
An important part of this site are collective editions of Słowacki’s works. The oldest are Poezye Julisza Słowackiego (Poems of Juliusz Słowacki) (Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, 1832) published in Paris by Teofil Barrois and Hector Bossange. Also Lvov editions should be mentioned, such as Antoni Małecki’s Pisma Julisza Słowackiego (The Writings of Juliusz Słowacki) (Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4, 1880) and Henryk Biegeleisen’s Dzieła Juljusza Słowackiego (The Works of Juliusz Slowacki) (Vol.1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4, 1894). In addition the collection provides access to the Warsaw edition of The Writings of Juliusz Słowacki published in 1899 in four volumes by Gebethner and Wolff with a foreword by Piotr Chmielowski (Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4, 1899). The CBN Polona site enables its users to browse the history of literary criticism on Juliusz Słowacki. It offers direct access to the critical writings of his contemporaries or his successors, like Cyprian Kamil Norwid’s O Juliusz Słowackim w sześciu publicznych posiedzeniach…(On Juliusz Słowacki at Six Public Meetings…) (Paris, 1861), or Bronisław Chlebowski’s Słowacki i Szekspir (Słowacki and Shakespeare) (Warsaw, 1909). Users of the collection may also search for a specific motif in Słowacki’s works. About female characters in Słowacki’s pieces we shall learn through such books as Michał Bałucki’s Kobiety dramatów Słowackiego (The Heroines of Słowacki’s Dramas) (Cracow, 1867) and Piotr Chmielowski’s Kobiety Mickiewicza, Słowackiego i Krasińskiego (The Heroines of Mickiewicz, Słowacki and Krasiński) (Warsaw, 1873).
The photographs of Edward Hartwig tell a lot about how Słowacki is present in the collective memory. The author of the photographs documented performances staged among others in the Juliusz Osterwa Theatre in Lublin or the Nowy Theatre in Warsaw. In Edward Hartwig’s pictures we might see for instance famous Polish actors Emil Karewicz and Włodzimierz Bednarski in Horsztyński (photos 1 and 2) directed by Mariusz Dmochowski. Theatre lovers will find here photographs from guest performances like Lilla Weneda (photos 1-4) directed by Arnold Szyfman and staged in the Chamber Theatre in Moscow.
To display list of digital documents from this collection click "Publications list" in the menu on the left side of the screen
The collection presentation, the author’s life and panorama of his work by: Jarosław Ławski. English translation: Katarzyna Diehl
The man
Juliusz Słowacki was one of the Polish “Trinity of Poet Prophets”, next to Mickiewicz and Krasiński, and at the same time an enfant terrible of Polish Romantic literature. An untiring poet-provoker in his lifetime, he also foretold that victory would become his share “beyond the grave”. Today it is hard for us to understand why a creator of such stature, whom we recognize as a forerunner of the tradition of irony or grotesque in the 20th century literature encountered such indifference or, even more often, resentment on the part of his contemporaries. He was no scandalist, yet an attitude of a writer catering to the tastes of the reading audience was alien to him. He also did not wish to become a national comforter at the time of the partitions of Poland. There was no way he would succumb to the authority of Mickiewicz who in the eyes of the Polish emigrants set the standards of national literature and invented its new poetics and ideology replete with messiahanism. Słowacki was an ardent patriot but was able to see Polishness, Poles and Poland’s history through the eyes of a European. He was also both an ironist and a visionary. This might explain why, as a writer who refused to indulge the habits of Polish readers, as a Mickiewicz’s rival, and, last, but not least, as a creator equipped with enormous imagination and incredible erudition which he flaunted wherever possible, he was nearly totally discarded by his contemporary compatriots.
He was not known in the 19th century Europe, though he tried his skills as an author of works written in French (Le roi de Landawa, Beatrice Cenci). Neither was he readily translated in the 20th century. In fact his formally refined lyric poetry, dense with symbols and myths or an infinitely ramifying nature of his dramas posed a major challenge for a translator. He was a playwright who, ironically, was never to see any of his plays performed in the theatre (for in his lifetime only Mazeppa was staged in Budapest on December 13, 1847, translated into Hungarian from the German !)
His contemporaries spared him no criticism. The numerous opinions on Słowacki focused mainly on his egotism, his nearly narcissistic way of viewing the world. Słowacki was also perceived, not without a reason, as a man of changing moods, easily passing from tenderness, or even sentimentality, to a lofty attitude, in which irony and sarcasm intermingled with sublimity and grandiloquence. These impressions contrasted with the writer’s looks which were meaningfully described by Zygmunt Szczęsny Feliński, the later archbishop of Warsaw. In his Memoirs Feliński noted as follows: “He [Słowacki] was a man of a very uncommon carriage: a frail body build, poorly developed, with one shoulder slightly raised, with a sunken chest and emaciated arms, crowned with a shapely head with a lofty forehead beneath which his large black eyes glared so deeply and expressively that he could tell entire poems merely with his stare.”
Such positive opinions about the poet were few and far between. Słowacki was generally perceived as a sickly man of weak character and also bitter because unappreciated by his contemporaries. In addition, he was considered excessively ambitious because he aspired to rivalry in the poetic word with Mickiewicz himself. This prejudicial stereotype dwelled for a long time in the collective memory.
The truth was Słowacki made long and exhausting journeys to Italy, Greece, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon which at that time took a lot of perseverance and stamina. Also it is hard to ascribe weakness of character to a man who as the memoirist wrote could nearly kill with his ironic look: “A small, black moustache barely shadowed the narrow, but very movable lips which reflected every feeling so that in turns they trembled with tender emotion, tightened with anger, or expressed such derision that woe betide him who evoked this ironic smile: no insult would inflict so much pain as this slighting scorn. Of all our poet prophets, not excluding even Mickiewicz who at the time of afflatus transformed beyond recognition, none had such an inspired countenance in the daily life as Słowacki” (Feliński).
Słowacki was never indifferent to matters of faith or religion. And, though in his young years, as he wrote, he lost faith, the attitude of an agnostic, religious indifference or deliberate atheism were all alien to him. All his life he searched for God. The voyage to the East marked the beginning of a religious breakthrough in Słowacki’s life, which then led him to the Circle of the God’s Cause, established in 1842 in Paris by Andrzej Towiański. The circle of Towiański’s followers is defined by many as a “religious sect”. After the Towiański-inspired period Słowacki experienced another mystical or religious breakthrough which pushed him into an even greater isolation. He was viewed as a former Towiański’s adherent who kept on falling into ever graver doctrinal errors and engaged in an idle, if not insane, dispute with the Church. On the other hand, Towiański’s group maintained that he was a deserter who for the sake of self-love renounced the teachings of Master Towiański.
Słowacki suffered from tuberculosis and in 1840s his state of health deteriorated. The gradual loss of strength was accompanied by a spiritual transformation. The former ironist now became an advocate of a faith in the Spirit, in a spiritual principle of a dynamic nature, which governs the whole cosmos and evolves towards higher, extrahuman and angelic forms. The poet’s friends, such as Feliński noticed also a change in Słowacki’s behaviour: “And not only an expression of his face, but also his speech never descended from the heights of a poetic mood. At the time when I met him, i. e. few years before his death, not even once had I seen him in an ordinary mood, let alone a trivial one. One could always feel a thinker and a poet in him, preoccupied solely with matters of the spirit and eternity or the providential mission of nations.” This beautiful testimony needs to be contrasted with the accounts and opinions of persons who always considered Słowacki as an egocentric, or even an opiumist. For instance Konstanty Gaszyński wrote: “ He was then already very haggard-looking, in a state of constant fever, as it was rumoured that he used opium to evoke visions of which he often spoke. His nerves were completely shattered, and his organism broken.”
No less malicious comments on Słowacki were produced by Zygmunt Krasiński, his erstwhile friend. The friendship of Słowacki and Krasiński established in Italy in 1837 finally broke up after A Response to the Psalms of the Future, the manuscript of which was probably not intended to go to print, nonetheless became publicly known. Krasiński watched the history of Towianism with interest and he criticized this religious movement which captured the minds of Polish émigré intellectuals. He was also very critical of Słowacki’s mystical, genesic visions. In a letter to August Cieszkowski he commented with bitter satisfaction on Gaszyński’s description of a meeting with Słowacki:
“Nice, 23rd January, 1876 (??). - … The fanatism of his vanity reached the verge of madness. – An homage paid to oneself. - My Goodness! It is too bad that this wretched vanity dwarfs and ruins everything among us. – The most brilliant souls die of it! I feel sorry about Juliusz! Gaszyński splendidly described a conversation with him: ‘after I attempted to refute his dreams for quite a while, he said to me: »thus I see you consider me a madman«. I replied: «not a madman, but a devilishly blundering man«, and I added: »and you probably consider me a low fool?«. »Not a fool – he replied – but a man who cannot follow the light«.
It should, however, be firmly stated that Krasiński – next to Słowacki’s mother and Mickiewicz – was one of the three most important figures in the poet’s life. His writings, such as letters to his friends or Kilka słów o Juliuszu Słowackim (A Few Words about Juliusz Słowacki) (1841), prove that he perfectly understood the work of the author of Kordian, in which he saw a mixture of “tragicalness and comicalness”, irony and humour, and also Słowacki’s attempt to create his own, modern mythology: “Today things are different - today a single man, a poet himself must form the whole myth, and as he forms it, he knows it”. Krasiński saw such a myth in Balladyna.
Słowacki remained single all his life. The possible causes mentioned in literature might have included his difficult, introvertic character, sickliness, or even misogyny or homoerotic inclinations. He enjoyed, however, flirting with women, like Ludwika Śniadecka, Eglantyna Pattey, Maria Wodzińska, Joanna Bobrowa. There are accounts he spent a stormy night in Italy with a closer unknown “Florentine”, and in the East he was interested in Arab women. However, no testimony has been handed down - unlike in the case of Malczewski, Mickiewicz, Krasiński or Kraszewski – of Słowacki’s really passionate, sensual love, which, for that matter, makes his personality even more intriguing and mysterious.
On the other hand, he had a deep, though ambiguous, relationship with his mother, Salomea Słowacka-Bécu. Already in his young years he considered her an overbearing mother so he thought of freeing himself from her care. His wish was finally fulfilled through emigration, and later on, through a journey to the East. Throughout his entire life on emigration he sent letters to his mother signed “Your Son Juliusz”, “Jul.”, and even “Your Zośka” (Translator’s note: a dimunitive of a female name ‘Zofia’), or “Your Zofija”. He addressed his mother whom he still met only once, towards the end of his life in Wrocław in 1848, as “My Dearest Mother”, or “Sally”. The adjective “dearest” accompanied this correspondence until the very end and was not a merely conventional letter phrase. The son conducted a complicated emotional game with his mother: he overcoloured and self-created his literary achievements and social successes, ensured her constantly of his homesickness and an excellent state of health although in fact it was sometimes better and sometimes worse. In the genesic or “mystical” period he presented to his mother, quite to her dismay, a vision of the world as a “great factory of the spirit”. She even began to worry about her son’s mental health. It is undoubtedly in honour of his mother, of which he wrote in his letters, that he called the female characters of the dramas Horsztyński and Sen srebrny Salomei (The Silver Dream of Salomea) by the name of Salomea despite the fact that these characters were very equivocal and they might not have been to the liking of Madame Słowacka-Bécu. Her personality traits are also recognizable in the Mother Widow in Balladyna. On her part Madame Słowacka-Bécu constantly moderated her son, showed him her feelings and tried to influence him. We know today only one preserved letter of Salomea Słowacka to her son dated 5/17 May, 1839. On the other hand, the entire block of letters of the son to the mother represents, no doubt, a challenging masterpiece of epistolography, which intermingles the truth and fiction, history of the world and inner life, facts and self-creation, homesickness and craving for solitude. Anyway one should not forget about this while referring to any of Słowacki’s letters as a testimony of life and history, the Romantic epoch and existence.
As regards the poet’s relationship with Mickiewicz it was hardly based on mutual appreciation. Słowacki met Mickiewicz in the parlour of Salomea Słowacka-Bécu in Vilnius in 1822. Julek was then about 13 years old. The first meeting of Słowacki, who was then practically still a child, and Mickiewicz as the author of the famous poetic debut must have told on the later relationships between the two bards. Słowacki had the right to feel wronged by the slightly paternalistic attitude of Mickiewicz, who uttered a famous remark that young Słowacki’s poems were “a beautiful church, but without God inside”.
Mickiewicz himself might have disliked both the talent of Juliusz who showed a phenomenal command of the written word, and his egocentrism.
On leaving to Russia in October 1824 Mickiewicz inscribed a beautiful and significant poem in Salomea Słowacka’s diary [W imionniku S. B.] [Jaśniały chwile szczęśliwe] (In S. B.’ s Diary) (Happy Moments Beamed) (1824). This did not change the fact that many years later, under the influence of the anonymously published brochure of Joachim Lelewel Nowosilcow in Wilno (Novosiltzov in Vilnius) (1831), Mickiewicz portrayed Słowacki’s step-father, professor August Bécu, in the Third Part of the Forefather’s Eve as a traitor and a moral monster, which broke the relations between poets for many years. Mickiewicz’s resentment towards Słowacki’s family was presumably caused by an incident in their Vilnius parlour in June 1827 where a classicist Jan Śniadecki derided at Mickiewicz’s debut in the presence of the hosts: “Thus a few years before the cause of the Filarets Mickiewicz who was not personally acquainted with Śniadecki found himself in the Bécu’s parlour the moment when Śniadecki arrived. The host, unsure whether that would be pleasant to the eminent guest or not, did not introduce the young poet to him, hence the former humbled by this disrespect withdrew himself to a dark corner of the parlour and refrained from participating in the conversation. Śniadecki probably recognized Mickiewicz, but pretending that he did not know whom he had before him, began, as was his wont, to ridicule Romanticism, and its works in particular, and, to make matters worse, he did it in such an undelicate manner that Mickiewicz, all pale and trembling, left the parlour without bidding farewell to anybody. The character of a doctor in the Forefathers’ Eve was, according to Juliusz, a revenge for this scene for which the host was undeniably to blame as he had done nothing to shield his guest from the insult.”
Słowacki, in turn, had consistently written, since 1832, his ironic “Anti-Mickiewicziads” – as we might call them - in which he resourcefully used Mickiewicz’s imagery, ideas and poetics. Kordian was thus a counterpart of Forefathers’ Eve, Anhelli paralled the Books of the Polish Nation and the Polish Pilgrims, and in the famous Beniowski Słowacki summed up this dispute, this “antagonism of the poet prophets”, as it was later defined by Manfred Kridl, as a vision of “two gods on their opposing suns”. In the mystical period Słowacki already openly wrote in the Mickiewicz’s style. We should thus not be indignant that the Forefathers’ Eve, Konrad Wallenrod or Master Thaddeus are occasionally referred to as Słowacki’s works. It is true that Słowacki wrote some pieces in a similar style, pieces, for that matter, of immense beauty! There was a brief moment of reconciliation between Słowacki and Mickiewicz when they both got under the influence of Andrzej Towiański’s charisma. Also in the Circle of God’s Cause Słowacki could not give way to the authority of Mickiewicz who was clearly favoured by the Master and his wife, Karolina Towiańska. The testimony of his abandonment of Towianism and his final parting with Mickiewicz is given in Słowacki’s poems – full of fury, venom and sarcasm – such as Mój Adamito, widzisz, jak to trudno… (My Adamite, so you see how hard it is…) or Chór duchów izraelskich (The Choir of Israeli Spirits).
Słowacki was unforgiving. Still in 1845 in a sharp letter to his mother who neither understood the new genesic writings nor the spiritual metamorphosis of her son he reproached her for reminding an opinion by Mickiewicz: “Your second, worser sin is that you quoted a sentence by Adam that he, very capable of benevolent, yet profound criticism, threw fifteen years ago sensing that this gossip, being worse a hundred times than an article supported by proofs, would spread across the country – lazy people took it and accepted as a common view; for fifteen years it allegedly reflected a respect for me – not a few, taking Adam’s word, have never peeked into the empty church of my poetry – I have overcome all this, I perservered in making my way through step by step, not with newspaper articles, but with the very inside of my writings - this gossip like a black bat was flying away somewhere to a corner of the skies – and now you gave it to me with all the freshness in your letter. Then what? The word of advice that I should not hurry with printing, and that I should, having calmed down, read my piece as if it were the work of another writer. Think, my dear, how bad and false this advice is… Thus you want me to keep to an ordinary principle of this world that is to emulative jealousy and to take it as the basis and essence of my deeds – that is if I read some poem of mine and thought : ah! now Adam would burst with jealousy or Shakespeare, had he risen from his grave, would faint, should I then be content with myself?...”.
On considering the matter of mutual resentment of both poets, it should be remembered that the ailing Słowacki took part, if only episodically, in two national risings: the November Rising and the Great Poland Rising.
Mickiewicz, for reasons that have remained unclear until today, did not manage to join the insurgents. This might also explain why Mickiewicz was so uncompromising and stubborn in his views. In his lectures at the Collége de France he never talked directly about Słowacki, and, if he mentioned him while discussing the character of Father Marek Jandołowicz, then only anonymously by calling him a slanderer and a judas: “There are writers who deride at the noble idea of which this man was an apostle and a martyr, they even dare to devote poems to him to show off their praise. This type of touting is more sacrilegious than condemnation that was cast on so famous a man by his contemporaries. Such writers should beware as they might be counted as Pharisees” (course II, lecture XV). Those were the words of Mickiewicz on Słowacki as the author of the first five songs of Beniowski.
Mickiewicz was not present among the few who came to pay their respects to Słowacki at his funeral.
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The life
Juliusz was born in Krzemieniec on August 23rd, 1809 according to the Julian calendar (and on September 4th according to today’s Gregorian calendar). The poet’s father, Euzebiusz Słowacki, was a professor of literature, first at the Lycée in Krzemieniec, and then at the Vilnius University. He was also a man of letters, the author of works on poetics, as well as two tragedies (Wanda, Mendog). The bard’s mother, Salomea, née Januszewska, was a well-educated person, very well read in classicist and sentimental literature. Armenian blood flowed in her veins. Słowacki was brought up, surrounded by an intellectual, cultural atmosphere of his home. The father, whom the poet later often recalled in his letters, although he did not know him very well, died of tuberculosis in 1814 when Julek was five years old. Słowacki often referred to his father’s figure and work, but as a romanticist he did not continue the aesthetic line represented by Euzebiusz Słowacki, the follower of classicism. After her husband’s death in 1818 Salomea married dr August Bécu, a professor of medicine in Vilnius, a man of French descent. There is ample evidence that Słowacki loved Professor Bécu and his two daughthers, Aleksandra and Hersylia with whom he was brought up. The parent – child relationships, sibling relationships, and emotional complications became one of the great topics of Juliusz Słowacki’s oeuvre.
Słowacki studied law at the University of Vilnius. In August 1828 he failed to receive a diploma with distinction for his final thesis which estranged him from Vilnius and his alma mater. In early February 1829 after his departure to Warsaw, in which he placed high hopes, he took up a job as an apprentice in the Government Commission of Revenues and Treasures. It is there that he made his debut in the “Melitele” periodical with a poetic novel Hugo (April 1830) written in the wake of his reading of Mickiewicz’s Konrad Wallenrod. He began to write poems already in his childhood, however none of those early poems survived. The first known poems come from the early 1825 and 1826-1827. These are: Elegia. Tłumaczenie z Lamartina (Elegy. Translation from Lamartine), Księżyc (The Moon), Melodia przez Tomasza Moora – Pożegnanie (Melody by Thomas Moore – The Parting), Melodia Moora (Moore’s Melody), Melodia 1 (Melody 1), Melodia 2 (Melody 2), Dumka ukraińska (The Ukrainian Ballad), Nowy Rok (The New Year), Sonet (Sonnet), a poem in the diary of Ludwik Szpitznagel upon his departure to Egypt (February 1827).
In Warsaw Słowacki lived through the drama of the November Rising. He became then - just once in his lifetime - a known and valued poet as an author of poems filled with national, patriotic and religious content. These pieces included: Hymn, Oda do Wolności (The Ode to Freedom), Kulik (The Sledge Ride), Pieśń Legionu litewskiego (The Song of the Lithuanian Legion). Słowacki never experienced similar recognition as after the publishing of the Hymn in “Polak Sumienny” (“The Conscientious Pole”) on the 4th of December 1830. Thereafter the poem was reprinted about a dozen times. In January 1831 the poet took up a job in the diplomatic bureau of the Provisional, and later the National Government. On the 8th of March, at the time when the Rising clearly began to falter, Słowacki went to Paris, via Wrocław and Dresden, and then to London to deliver the dispatches of the National Government to representatives in the capitals of France and England. It was a courier, and not a diplomatic mission, as it was once believed. From London the poet returned to Paris where the news of Warsaw’s capitulation reached him.
In Paris he stayed until 1832. It is there, in April 1832, that he published two volumes of poetry, containing poetic novels, earlier written in Vilnius and Warsaw, and also his two first dramas: Mindowe and Maria Stuart. The third volume came out also in Paris in 1833 and contained, among others, Lambra, Godzina myśli (An Hour of Thought) and a block of lyrical poems written during the November Rising. In Paris, during his first stay, Słowacki met Mickiewicz at the soirée at the Platers’ home. Mickiewicz came up to Słowacki and shook his hand.
On December 26th, 1832 the poet left Paris and went to Switzerland. The official cause of his trip was connected with the issuing by the Literary and Russian Lands Society of a medal commemorating the November Rising. However, it was only one of the reasons of his departure. Perhaps Słowacki no longer felt well in Paris where the Third Part of Mickiewicz’s Forefathers’ Eve was published, followed by the Books of the Polish Nation. The poet also probably needed some kind of an unspecified change in his life. Słowacki spent the next three years of his life in Geneva and in the pension of Mrs Pattey in Veytoux situated on the southern end of the Lake of Leman. It was in Switzerland that he wrote such famous works as Kordian, Horsztyński, the poem In Switzerland, the first version of Balladyna, printed however only in 1939, and a handful of lyrical poems. Over those three years Słowacki wrote only six poems, including the famous Rozłączenie (Separation), Stokrótki (Daisies), Chmury (Clouds). Impressed by the reading of Pan Tadeusz (Master Thaddeus) he allegedly burnt the then written first version of Mazepa (Mazeppa).
The next stage in Słowacki’s life began around February 10th, 1836, when he left Switzerland for Italy. There, probably in May, he met Zygmunt Krasiński to whom he soon dedicated Balladyna and Lilla Weneda as “To the Beloved Poet of Ruins” and “To the Author of Irydion”. He visited Rome, Naples, the island of Capri. He also made a trip to the peak of Vesuvius, to Pompei and Herculanum. In Italy the decision was made to visit the East, of which he wrote to his mother as follows: “My Dear! You shall probably be surprised upon receiving this letter that I write almost on my departure. I am going to Greece, Egypt and Jerusalem – the project made for a long time and rejected several times as too frightful an endevour, has finally come to effect. I shall make a six-months’ peregrination in the company of Zenon Brzozowski and in Alexandria I shall join two other companions of this journey. Thus there shall be four of us, sailing along the Nile until the first cataract. Do not fear for me, my dear, neither be troubled about the ways of sending me anything.”
Słowacki’s eastern journey, begun in Naples on 24 August, 1836 fits perfectly the romantic fashion for this type of voyages. The first stage of the journey was Greece. Then from the island of Siros the writer went by ship to Alexandria and Cairo. From there he set out on the next stage of his trip along the Nile to the south of Egypt (he went as far as to Aswan) and then he returned to Cairo. Later on he visited the Holy Land. During the famous quarantine in El Arish he lived through a storm and listened to a tale which inspired him with the idea to write his later widely read poem Ojciec zadżumionych (The Father of the Plague-stricken). The visit by the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the soujourns in Bethlehem and by the Dead Sea, in Jericho and Sea of Galilee, in Nazareth and Damascus, in Beyrouth and an over one-month’s “rest” in an Armenian monastery in the Lebanon Mountains, where for the first time in many years the poet went to confession - all of this led to Słowacki’s profound religious metamorphosis, which began already during the trip to Egypt, and more specifically during the visit to the pyramides. The literary crop of the expedition to the East was immensely abundant and it covered Podróż do Ziemi Świętej z Neapolu (The Voyage to the Holy Land from Naples), Anhelli, letters, Ojciec zadżumionych (The Father of the Plaque-stricken), Listy poetyckie z Egiptu (Poetic Letters from Egypt). It also changed the way he viewed the world. After a 40-days’ sea trip the poet returned on 16 June, 1837 to Italy to Livorno.
In the middle of December 1838 Słowacki left Italy. This marked the beginning of his ten-years’ stay in Paris. Its first part resulted in numerous publications, such as Anhelli, Balladyna, Lilla Weneda, Mazepa, Beatrix Cenci (Beatrice Cenci), Trzy poemata (Three Poems), Poemata Piasta Dantyszka (The Poems of Piast Dantyszek), Beniowski, and then lively activity in the Polish émigré community. The illustrious event of the time was the famous feast at Januszkiewicz’s home given in honour of Mickiewicz who inaugurated on 22 December, 1840 his lectures at the Collége de France as a professor of Slavic literatures. The highlight of this feast held on 24/25 December 1840 were the memorable improvisations of Słowacki and Mickiewicz. Numerous accounts handed down on this event, intrigues and gossips of the Polish émigré community presented Mickiewicz as an emigrational and poetic authority, whereas Słowacki as a poet of lesser gifts.
Most probably already in autumn 1841 the poet became familiar with the teachings of Towiański, of which his early impressions were positive. Towiański came to Paris on 15 December 1840 to attend the ceremonies of return of Napoleon’s remains to France. He met Słowacki for the first time on 12 July, 1842. After that meeting the poet joined the Circle of the God’s Cause, and he put off his decision with a poem Tak mi, Boże, dopomóż (So Help Me God). At that time Słowacki got briefly reconciled with Mickiewicz who invited him to go mushroom picking in September 1842 while the latter stayed in his summer apartment in St. Germain. In a letter written to his mother on 24 September Słowacki broke the news of his reconciliation with “his great adversary”. Towianism not only changed Słowacki internally, but gave a new “mystical” direction to his work – Songs VI-VIII of Beniowski and the drama Father Mark were written under its influence. For some time Słowacki ardently participated in all rites of the Circle: he went through “the fasting of the new order – that is the fasting of the spirit consisting in refraining from any thoughts, conversations and intellectual works unrelated to the God’s Cause” (Słowacki’s note). The poet took part even in Towianist confessions, meetings and feasts. The first conflict broke out during the presentation of medallions with an image of Our Lady received from Towiański. Medallions were being handed out by Mickiewicz and the Towianist brothers were supposed to ask for them. Słowacki did not mean to ask, but he succumbed to the general mood described by Seweryn Goszczyński: “Breaking into tears we kissed the hands and legs of Adam”. Eventually Słowacki broke up with the Circle on 1 November, 1843, having previously lodged “a veto of the Polish spirit against the Russian aspirations” of the Towianists. At that time the poet wrote the Odezwa do braci w Kole (The Appeal to the Brothers in the Circle), send a letter to Towiański, but also completed the drama Sen srebrny Salomei (The Silver Dream of Salomea) (28 November, 1843).
Having abandoned the Circle Słowacki worked on the Polish translation of Calderon’s El principe constante, and perhaps also on Fantazy and the drama Zawisza Czarny (Zawisza the Black). At that point, more often than not, he used to leave his works unfinished or merely put down their fragments, or his literary ideas and plans. In those years Słowacki also travelled to Pornic, a seaside resort on the Atlantic coast. These stays were not only beneficial for his health, but also inspired him to write such pieces as Do Pastereczki siedzącej na druidów kamieniach w Pornic nad Oceanem (To a Shepherdess Sitting on the Stones of Druids in Pornic by the Ocean), Patrz, nad grotą (Look up, Above the Grotto), Genezis z Ducha (The Genesis of the Spirit). The poet also created numerous religious-philosophical works, an unfinished drama about the Ancient Greece Agezylausz (Agesilaos), Samuel Zborowski, and published the First Rapsode of Król-Duch (King-Spirit) of 1847.
In the night of 20-21 April 1845 Słowacki experienced the most famous of his visions – “The vision in a daydream of the immense fire above my head – the dome as it were of the entire heaven filled with fires – so that awfully terrified I was saying: God of my Fathers, have mercy upon me – and as though with the will to see Christ I pierced these flames with my stare and they divided and something like a white moon appeared above – and nothing more. God of my Fathers, be merciful to me!”.
In that period Słowacki wrote such pieces as sermons, prayers, his own version of the Credo, a draft of a calendar of national holidays. He kept an unusual Raptularz (Raptularius) where he put down his thoughts, dreams, fragments of works, expenditures, experiences, or addresses. At the same time he was getting increasingly lonely. Still in 1845 literary pieces came out that stigmatized Słowacki as a Towianist, namely Dwa akty (Two Acts) by Michał Chodźko. Final and nearly ridiculous was the way his friendship ended with Krasiński who while staying in Paris incognito pretended in the street that he did not recognize Słowacki:
“[…] while he was once sneaking along some street, he noticed, to his unfortune, Słowacki, walking straight towards him. He made a self-confident face, cocked his hat, but to no avail, the former was approaching him ever more bravely and extended his hand. Then suddently Z. dashed into some tenement house, S. ran after him and called out: Zygmunt! The latter turned his head and said in French that he did not understand. Since this adventure Słowacki had a grudge against Z.”.
Słowacki was already ill at that time. He wrote about his illness to his mother in the autumn of 1845 without disclosing any details: “[…]feeling slightly weak three weeks ago I called the beloved Hłusz[niewicz], and it is because I once – already a long time ago - saw him on his way to you for a consultation… and this memory made him dear and saint to me […] So my single-hearted Hłu[szniewicz], as the only cure, ordered me to drink the Bussang water the very name of which will tell you that it is like blood; that it is both reinforcement and refreshment . The water is quite innocent, contains some iron, it is purifying and pleasant to drink”.
The poet reacted with enthusiasm to the events of the revolutionary Spring of Nations of 1848, including the fall of the monarchy in France and the establishment of the Provisional Government. On receiving the news of the outbreak of the Rising in Poznań and the establishment of the National Committee on 20-22 March he made a decision to travel to Poznań and Wrocław. On 9 April he sets out from Paris and reaches his destination on 11 April. He takes part in a meeting of the National Committee where he delivers a speech in favour of conducting the struggle.
The final stage of Słowacki’s last trip was Wrocław where the poet arrived on 9 May, 1848. That same day the Poznań Rising capitulated. The poet’s last meeting with his mother Salomea Słowacka-Bécu took place in Wrocław, around 20 June. The mother left the city around 6 July, and soon thereafter, on 8 July Slowacki set out for Dresden and was back in Paris already on 17 July.
Słowacki stayed in Paris until the end of his life, surrounded by a small group of enthusiasts of his work, including Z. Sz. Feliński, Józef Reitzenheim and Józef Komierowski. Having learnt of the escape of the pope Pius IX from Rome he wrote a poem in December 1848 that eventually became famous after the election of Karol Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II in 1978. The poem Pośród niesnasków – Pan Bóg uderza… (Amongst Disputes – God Strikes…) predicted the seating of a Slav upon the Papal Throne. Until the end of his life Słowacki wrote among others his subsequent rapsodes of Król-Duch (King-Spirit). In February 1849 he made the final version of the testament which coincided with a major deterioration of his health. In March 1849 the increasingly weak Słowacki was visited three times by Cyprian Norwid who commemorated his last visit in Czarne kwiaty (Black Flowers). By the end of March the already physically altered Słowacki stopped leaving his Paris apartment. He wrote about his state of health in a letter (also the last one!) to Joanna Bobrowa: “If I went out several times, then in fact only like a ghost, able to only glance blankly at this sun that shall soon stop shining to my dream”.
On 2 April in his last longer letter that we know the poet asked doctor Antoni Hłuszniewicz for help. It seems that quite a reliable account of the writer’s death was passed down among others by Feliński: one day before death Słowacki dictated fragments of the second rapsode of the King-Spirit to him and arranged his literary works: “When in 1849 in early spring I arrived in Paris from Munich I found Słowacki in a far worse state of health than the last autumn. The throat consumption the germ of which he carried since long had evolved so clearly that it was hard not to predict a nearing catastrophy. We had no sooner embraced than he said to me in his serious, solemn voice: - It is good that you are here. I was very lonely and I feel that I am nearing the end in a fast pace. Find me some young, poor boy who would be willing to stay with me and take care of me in my illness, because I shall no longer manage all by myself. I suggested that the best solution would be that I moved to him myself , but he did not consent to that, mindful of my duties that I would have to neglect. So I promised to find someone else and in the meantime I spent every spare moment with him. Thus a few days passed during which he wished to arrange his literary works, and particularly to finish the second rapsode of the King-Spirit; and since he was no longer able to write, he dictated it to me from the manuscript, and I was making a fair copy. On the eve of his death he stopped dictating by saying: - All is vanity! My spirit feels that it ended its earthly job and must leave this used tool that it can no longer control. The children of my spirit will live on, but if I could I would destroy some, as they were not conceived out of the God’s spirit”.
On 3 April the poet demanded that a priest be called. The priest was Father Tomasz Praniewicz. Słowacki took communion, prayed and then he still talked with those present. Feliński relates as follows: “Suddenly the doorman came with a letter freshly brought from the post office. Glancing at the envelope the ailing Słowacki immediately recognized the hand of his mother, and not being able to read himself he asked me to read the letter aloud. Once he had listened he said to me, deeply moved: - Thank God for this last, but very dear earthly consolation. When you see my mother, tell her that if I could give my soul into her hands, I would not give it with such confidence as I am entrusting it now into the hands of my God. Several minutes later his breathing was getting harder and harder: clearly the agony was near. The head resting on my hand was getting increasingly inert, a deadly paleness covered his face, but then strange serenity brightened the face of the dying man at the moment of death, like a presage of eternal peace, and it stayed there also after his death. The hard life’s struggle ended in a triumph of truth and love”.
The great poet’s funeral was extremely modest. As Zygmunt Krasiński wrote:
“There were 30 compatriots at the funeral – nobody rose to speak, nobody uttered even one word to honour the memory of the greatest master of Polish rhymes”.
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The work
Słowacki wrote with passion, though irregularly. The periods of increased creative activity were followed by periods of stagnation when he would put off the pen. Nonetheless, he was a prolific author. His life’s work was published in the monumental edition of Dzieła wszystkie (The Collected Works) in 17 volumes edited by Juliusz Kleiner. He began writing still as a child (those pieces have not survived) and he dictated the last octaves of the King-Spirit a day before his death. Over the years and particularly in the case of exceptionally ironic and bold pieces like Horsztyński and Fantazy, or religious-philosophical works written in 1840s he would ever more frequently choose to leave his pieces unpublished.
Those texts published posthumously were then given arbitrary titles. For instance Horsztyński should rather bear the title Szczęsny, whereas Fantazy could be read as Nowa Dejanira (The New Deianira). Practically unsolvable are the problems connected with the literary work of the period referred to as Towianist, genesic or mystical. His numerous manuscriptal texts of that time unite into one Great Work, one Great Text of unclear complex nature in terms of literary genres. It was the intention of the poet himself that the works of the period from 1842-1849 went beyond the limits of the even most broadly conceived literature. They represent a testimony of his inner life, a religious breakthrough, a revelation. In the King-Spirit written until his last days the subsequent octaves sometimes have several variants in manuscript, and the individual verses and words also appear in a number of varieties. The same editorial difficulties are created by the Raptularz (Raptularius) and the poet’s loose notes.
As far as his type of imagination is concerned Słowacki may be classified as a creationist. Already in the Prologue to Kordian (1834) he juxtopposed the tendency to reproduce reality, nature and history (mimesis) with a faith in the power of imagination that is able to go deeper into the rules of the world or history than historical writing or sciences. The testimony of this “creationistic” strategy are even the names of his characters: Kordian, Fon Kostryn, Balladyna and Fantazy.
The second feature of this imagination is that it is rooted in erudition. Słowacki was referred to by some as a poet of “ivy-like” imagination. It was supposed to grow like ivy, entwining around plots, motifs, figures and symbols drawn from other writers’ texts. It is true. The poet ostentatiously displayed his sophisticated literary play with someone else’s texts. And he read and was fascinated by nearly all great names of world literature from Voltaire and Rousseau to Lamartine, Byron, George Sand, Shakespeare (who was very important for Romanticists), as well as by English and French nature scientists and scholars. He also devoured philosophical writings. All of this reading, or its elements, in an altered form, found their way to his works. His fascination with Maria by Malczewski inspired him to write a national poem on treason Jan Bielecki or Wacław, being a continuation of a story of a character from Maria. Słowacki – which needs to be emphasized with all the might – paraphrased motifs drawn from his reading, but it was never blind imitation neither plagiarism of ideas e. g. from Mickiewicz’s Dziady, Goethe’s Faust or Garczyński’s Wacława dzieje (The Story of Wacław), about which some tried to taunt the poet after the publishing of Kordian.
Another distinctive feature of his writing is the steady reference to Mickiewicz’s work which inspired Słowacki to conduct a continuing intertextual play. It most often took the form of a refined polemic involving ironic-grotesque paraphrases of Mickiewicz’s new pieces, and - in the mystical period - the creation of a kind of supplements, being counter-versions of Pan Tadeusz (Master Thaddeus) or Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve).
Słowacki should be seen as a forerunner of all those aesthetic innovations that eventually triumphed in literature only in the 20th century. First and foremost he was an ironist. For him irony was not only an element of a polemic intended to destroy his adversaries, but it was a vision of the world seen from a large distance by an absolutely self-conscious subject. It was irony and self-consciousness, and later, in the face of illness, self-confidence building faith that helped Słowacki to preserve his independence and a firm belief in the value of his work, and - after the religious breakthrough - in the meaning of his earthly mission.
Besides, Słowacki applied various strategies of ironizing. Once it was a creational irony when he deliberately resorted to intertextual play, just to mention the apparent references to Shakespeare in Balladyna. He also made use of tragic irony when he wrote Mazepa or Kordian. He ironized even irony itself (the so-called irony of irony), and also he ironized himself and his own work (self-irony). Słowacki’s aesthetic palette was immense. In fact in every larger work written until 1842 he was able to combine irony with loftiness, and humour with tragism.
Słowacki left behind a testimony of ideas of dramatic works that he eventually never wrote. Already in his youth, he planned a tragedy on Muhammad (under the influence of Voltaire’s writings) and a drama on the Greek Rising. The journey to the East resulted in Plan Ramzesa (The Plan of Ramses), an outline of an intended tragedy. Of the later period mention is due to dramas that have survived often in small fragments: Beniowski, Krak, fragments of dramas he authored and titled (sic!) Konrad Wallenrod and Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve), followed by Jan Kazimierz (John Casimir), Walter Stadion, Książę Michał Twerski (Duke Michał Twerski), Syn ziemi (The Son of the Earth).
Słowacki was also the author of two fragments of novels: a French novel Le roi de Ladawa (1837) and Pan Alfons (Mister Alfons) (1842). He also tried his skills as what we would call a columnist. Still in 1831 he wrote a political brochure that has not survived until our times. His works of this kind, containing strong polemic and religious tones, only proliferated after he abandoned the circle of Towianists. In the wake of this event he penned: Odezwa do braci w Kole (The Appeal to the Brothers in the Circle), Do Koła całego tak zwanych Towiańsczyków (To the Whole Circle of the So Called Towianists) (1845), Do Emigracji o potrzebie idei (To the Emigration on the Need of an Idea) (1845/1846) and two Letters to Duke Adam Czartoryski (1846). He also took to literary criticism as shown in such articles as Noc letnia (Summer Night) (1841), Krytyka krytyki i literatury (Criticism of Criticism and Literature) (1841), O Poezjach Bohdana Zeleskiego (On Poems of Bohdan Zeleski) (1848). He put his shoulder to the wheel as a translator – he translated fragments of Shakespeare’s Makbeth and Homer’s Iliad.
Słowacki used to write down his impressions and memories. He engaged in such attempts several times in his Pamiętnik (Diary) of the years 1817-1829 and 1832, Dziennik podróży na Wschód (The Journal of the Journey to the East), Raptularz 1843-1849 (Raptularius 1843-1849) or the so-called Dziennik (Journal) written from 1847 to 1849.
It needs to be underlined that counter to the commonplace ideas the greatest Romantic poets did not author countless lyrical poems. This applied to the trinity of poet prophets, including Słowacki. Słowacki’s poems and lyrical fragments were collected in one volume in a new edition by J. Brzozowski and Z. Przychodniak, published in Poznań in 2005: Wiersze. Nowe wydanie krytyczne (Poems. A New Critical Edition).
