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A Metaphysical Journey of the Soul of a Dead State, Aiming for Resurrection: On the 200th Anniversary of the Publication of Mickiewicz’s Forefathers
Abstract
This article argues that in his conception of Dziady (Forefather’s Eve), Adam Mickiewicz deviated from conventional norms and instead crafted a work adherijg to the structure of an epic, employing the classical homo viator topos. This approach was rooted in the specific intellectual climate of his time as a student at the University of Vilnius, where he actively participated in the Enlightenment process within the late 18th and early 19th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The channelling of his creative energy towards an ambitious, neoclassical epic work was an expression of the young poet’s patriotism. His “maturation” and its literary articulation can be traced from the Vilnius Dziady (1823) to the Dresden Dziady (1832), and subsequently to the true epic of the “Rzeczpospolita nation” found in the poem Pan Tadeusz (1834). The article adopts a polemical stance and is conceptually grounded in extensive literary criticism and primary source texts. These materials form the bibliography for a research project focused on the development of a lexicon of concepts and biographical entries titled Unia literacka (Literary Union).
Keywords:
dramatic cycle Forefathers’ Eve (Dziady), Enlightenment paradigm, epic poem, metaphysical journey, resurrection of the stateDetails
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