Romanticism in Poland was the first modern era which created the earliest modern intellectual class calling for cultural, political, and civilizational changes, which is similar to the situation in France, Germany, and England. The rebellious spirit of Romanticism in Poland is characterized by stronger foundations and arguments of historiosophical nature. Rebellion in Romanticism was not limited to fighting for the individual freedom of men, as people also fought in the name of national and social freedom. It was a struggle that encompassed many aspects of life and imagination. Romanticism is the child of youth. The youth shaped a new worldview, rebelled against the world order in literature and art, and proposed a new definition of freedom, including not only politics, but also aesthetics, philosophy, music, science, as well as lifestyle, thus imparting on everyday life the qualities of freedom and authenticity.
The rhythm of Romanticism in Poland is ominously tapped by history, politics, various defeats, and the sense of national captivity, but the descant to this main melodic line are rhythms and melodies of everyday life and extraordinary art. Contrary to many stereotypes and clichés referring to Polish Romanticism, national martyrology and historism are not the only matter of concern for Polish authors. Tradition, customs, everydayness, social relations, existence, and art are crucial literary themes. In addition, aesthetic experiences, the musical life, the search for sacrum in the individual dimension and outside the Catholic Church are typical of Romanticism in Poland, which brings this movement closer to the European culture of that period. All essays collected in this book are dedicated to these issues from the border of art, aesthetics, and specific mysticism. Literatura polska w okresie romantyzmu rozwijała się w specyficznych warunkach historycznych i szczególnych okolicznościach kulturowych. Determinował ją aspekt polityczny. Polska nie miała wówczas swojej państwowości. Byt niepodległy jeszcze do początku XVIII wieku potężnego państwa legł u progu romantyzmu, pod koniec tegoż stulecia, w gruzach. Rosja, Prusy i Austria zajęły terytorium Polski, traktując zabrane ziemie jak podległe sobie kolonie. Rozmaite są tego przyczyny. Nie znaczy to jednak, że romantyzm polski był głuchy na nowoczesne tendencje estetyczne i nowoczesną filozofię europejską. To wątki także żywe i obecne w polskiej literaturze tego okresu, choć często zapomniane, a w refleksji badawczej nierzadko spychane na plan dalszy lub po prostu pomijane. Ta skromna książka ma przypomnieć o tym czytelnikowi anglojęzycznemu. Muzyka i nieskończoność to dwa wielkie tematy romantycznej literatury europejskiej i dwa małe tematy literatury polskiej w tym okresie. Rytm romantyzmu w Polsce wystukują złowieszczo i pospołu historia, polityka, rozmaite klęski, syberyjskie zsyłki, poczucie niewoli narodowej, ale kontrapunktem dla tej głównej linii melodycznej są rytmy i melodie zwykłego życia i niezwykłej sztuki. Nie tylko martyrologia narodowa i historyzm - wbrew stereotypom i utartym schematom myślenia o polskim romantyzmie - stanowią przedmiot zainteresowania polskich twórców. Trzeba mówić o tym głośno choćby na przekór ponownie rodzącym się upiorom nacjonalizmu. Obyczajowość, codzienność, stosunki społeczne, egzystencja, sztuka, podobnie jak w prozie Balzaca, są ważnymi tematami literackimi. Również zgłębianie estetycznych doznań, życie muzyczne, poszukiwanie sacrum w wymiarze indywidualnym poza instytucją Kościoła, charakteryzują polski romantyzm, w czym zbliża się on niejednokrotnie do kultury europejskiej tego okresu.
The book shows the heterogeneity of Polish Romanticism, which is often unfairly narrowed in its reception abroad to the issue of nationality. The authors focus on the history of Poland and Russia in the nineteenth century, but also address aesthetic problems concerning the ideas of truth and beauty, irony and mysticism, and the role of tradition.
Review: "Written to stress the crosscurrent of ideas, this cultural encyclopedia provides clearly written and authoritative articles. Thoughts, themes, people, and nations that define the Romantic Era, as well as some frequently overlooked topics, receive their first encyclopedic treatments in 850 signed articles, with bibliographies and coverage of historical antecedents and lingering influences of romanticism. Even casual browsers will discover much to enjoy here."--"The Top 20 Reference Titles of the Year," American Libraries, May 2004.
Being Poland offers a unique analysis of the cultural developments that took place in Poland after World War One, a period marked by Poland's return to independence. Conceived to address the lack of critical scholarship on Poland's cultural restoration, Being Poland illuminates the continuities, paradoxes, and contradictions of Poland's modern and contemporary cultural practices, and challenges the narrative typically prescribed to Polish literature and film. Reflecting the radical changes, rifts, and restorations that swept through Poland in this period, Polish literature and film reveal a multitude of perspectives. Addressing romantic perceptions of the Polish immigrant, the politics of post-war cinema, poetry, and mass media, Being Poland is a comprehensive reference work written with the intention of exposing an international audience to the explosion of Polish literature and film that emerged in the twentieth century.
"Cavanaugh's scholarship is distinguished by several qualities: detailed knowledge, a rare comparative awareness of adjacent disciplines, and of course, a substantial, synthetic knowledge of modern artistic developments in Western Europe and the U.S. Out Looking In will be relevant to a large and varied public."--John E. Bowlt, author of Forbidden Art: Soviet Nonconformist Art, 1956-1988 "This is an essential book for scholars of modernism who are eager, in the wake of post-structuralist and post-modernist reevaluations of the construction of modernism's history, to broaden discussions beyond a narrow French orientation. It will serve as an important stimulus for rethinking European art in general in this period."--Linda Dalrymple Henderson, University of Texas, Austin "Clearly written and well organized, [Out Looking In] will be the indispensable reference work in English on early modern Polish art. Cavanuagh's treatment, based on solid research and critical insight, is illuminating."--Vojtech Jirat-Wasiutynski, Professor of Art, Queen's University "The visual richness and comprehensiveness of Out Looking In will make it a primary resource in the West for images of early modern Polish art as well as arguing for the centrality of Polish art to the discussion of European modernism. This is revisionism at its most insightful."--Wendy Salmond, author of Arts and Crafts in Late Imperial Russia "This book goes a long way in correcting our geographically narrow understanding of European modernism. While arguing for Poland's place in the annals of artistic modernism, Cavanaugh elegantly manoeuvers between the sensitive issues determining national artistic identity and the international context of this debate."--Myroslava M. Mudrak, Ohio State University "This is one of the most important critical analyses of turn-of-the-century Polish art. Out Looking In will inspire a broad response from a wide international cricle of historians of art, literature, and artistic culture."--Wieslaw Juszczak, Art Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Letters and Art History Department, University of Warsaw
The Oxford Handbook of European Romanticism focuses on the period beginning with the French Revolution and extending to the uprisings of 1848 across Europe. It brings together leading scholars in the field to examine the intellectual, literary, philosophical, and political elements of European Romanticism. The volume begins with a series of chapters examining key texts written by major writers in languages including French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Hungarian, Greek, and Polish amongst others. Then follows a second section based on the naturally inter-disciplinary quality of Romanticism, encapsulated by the different discourses with which writers of the time, set up an internal comparative dynamic. These chapters highlight the sense a discourse gives of being written knowledgeably against other pretenders to completeness or comprehensiveness of understanding, and the Enlightenment encyclopaedic project. Discourses typically push their individual claims to resume European culture, collaborating and trying to assimilate each other in the process. The main examples featuring here are history, geography, drama, theology, language, geography, philosophy, political theory, the sciences, and the media. Each chapter offers original and individual interpretation of individual aspects of an inherently comparative world of individual writers and the discursive idioms to which they are historically subject. Together the forty-one chapters provide a comprehensive and unique overview of European Romanticism.
This study restores and enhances the philosophical aspect of early German Romanticism, offering an understanding of the movement's origins, development, aims and accomplishments.
The Handbook to Romanticism Studies is an accessible and indispensible resource providing students and scholars with a rich array of historical and up-to-date critical and theoretical contexts for the study of Romanticism. Focuses on British Romanticism while also addressing continental and transatlantic Romanticism and earlier periods Utilizes keywords such as imagination, sublime, poetics, philosophy, race, historiography, and visual culture as points of access to the study of Romanticism and the theoretical concerns and the culture of the period Explores topics central to Romanticism studies and the critical trends of the last thirty years
Abstracts of journal articles, books, essays, exhibition catalogs, dissertations, and exhibition reviews. The scope of ARTbibliographies Modern extends from artists and movements beginning with Impressionism in the late 19th century, up to the most recent works and trends in the late 20th century. Photography is covered from its invention in 1839 to the present. A particular emphasis is placed upon adding new and lesser-known artists and on the coverage of foreign-language literature. Approximately 13,000 new entries are added each year. Published with title LOMA from 1969-1971.
