Polish musical criticism of 19th century is a fascinating research field for musicologists, music theorists, as well as literary scholars. They can find there a wealth of texts whose expressive style tries to emulate the homage paid to the great virtuosos of the time in poetry. While Frederick Chopin and the violinist Karol Lipiński held sway over captive audiences, there was yet another musician whose name featured prominently in reviews and poems. It was Stanisław Szczepanowski, the great guitarist, whose concerts gave rise to numerous reviews representing the romantic school of musical criticism. This paper examines some of those reviews as well as two poems dedicated to Szczepanowski, one by Teofil Lenartowicz and the other by Władysław Syrokomla.

Looking at something is considered a fundamental act of awareness. What constitutes its embodied manifestation – the gaze – can be realized as a specific axiological variant of the value of evil. The article is devoted to this particular, closed-in-the‑gaze manifestation of the value of evil in the literary work. The point of reference is identified in two famous epic works: Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann (1947) and The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell (2006). The evil gaze identifies the main characters of either novel, Adrian Leverkühn and Maximilian Aue. Whether the artistic structuring of the evil gaze is presented in the novels with the same means, or perhaps with the use of different tools of literary transmission of axiological content, is the issue lying at the center of considerations. In fact, it is not the only issue, as it is part of a broader reflection on the so-called restraining of values in a literary work in general. (Translated from Polish by Katarzyna Rogalska‑Chodecka)