This article examines Słowacki’s preoccupation with eroticism in some of his works and in his correspondence. The first part focuses on his poem ‘In Switzerland’ in which the relationship between the characters is shrouded in ambiguity and the sexual theme is treated in an elliptical manner. Beatrix Cenci, a Romantic drama showing the fi lthy, predatory aspects of sexuality and eroticism, is analysed in the second part of the article. It is followed by a discussion of Słowacki’s correspondence with Leonard Niedźwiecki, conducted in French. The article examines the ways in which the choice of the French language appears to have infl uenced the poet’s articulation of his intimate experiences and desires.

This article attempts to follow the dynamic process of body communication between the characters of Juliusz Słowacki's Samuel Zborowski (1845, published 1903). An analysis of some passages at the beginning of the drama and in the penultimate act indicates that in the world of the drama the body functions as a medium and body language is at least as important as the spoken word; or, to be more precise, the two types of communication complement one another. In the encounter between Eolion and the Maiden the bodies act as repositories of spiritual memory (a key idea of Słowacki's Genesian philosophy) and can trigger the process of anamnesis, which combines elements of heterosexual eroticism and the affective touch of physical interaction. Moreover, the ensuing scene of judgment hints at a nostalgic relationship between the spirit and the body, the latter acting as a guarantor of a coherent identity, though to some extent undermined by the new model of polyphonic identity. Finally, these scenes are analyzed from the point of view of the performative-persuasive functions of the body.

This article is a critical reappraisal of Juliusz Słowacki’s translation of Calderón’s El príncipe constant (1843), which acquired a place of its own in Słowacki’s oeuvre and continued to attract a lot of interest throughout the 20th century. Its lasting appeal is due to its extraordinary unity of tone, dramatic construction and stylized language, which in effect, as some critics have said, out-Baroques Calderón’s Baroque original. This article analyzes this contention in detail and tries to answer the question what were the sources and reasons of Słowacki’s fascination with the 17-th century Spanish poet and playwright. The second part of the article deals with two of the 20th-century stage productions of the drama and the adapters’ handling of Słowacki’s text. The summary includes a brief survey of the treatment Calderón’s heirs accorded to his key trope perigrinatio vitae (‘life is pilgrimage’).

The article analizes Stanisław Pigoń’s essay ‘Some Golden Thoughts on the Chair of Polish Literature’ written to commemorate the 600th jubilee of the Jagiellonian University. Stanisław Pigoń (1885-1968), Distinguished Profesor of Polish Literature, had it published in the Cracow weekly Życie Literackie in May 1964; its expanded version was published two years later in a volume of essays Drzewiej i wczoraj [In the Old Days and Yesterday] in 1966. Both versions were published again in a a bibliophile volume in December 2018 (the manuscript and the printed versions). At the heart of Pigoń’s essay are the twin ideas of freedom and the ‘spiritual life of the nation’, borrowed from Juliusz Słowacki’s epic poem The Spirit King. The article examines Pigoń’s key theme and the manner in which, as he saw it, it shaped the lectures of the most eminent professors of Polish literature in the 19th and 20th century (Michał Wiszniewski, Karol Mecherzyński, Stanisław Tarnowski, Ignacy Chrzanowski). Pigoń’s survey ends in 1910, but, as the author of the article observes, by that time the ideas he so strongly believed in were as relevant as ever.